I probably saw something shiny.

Lately I've decided that I arrived on earth about 100 years later than I should have.

On Sunday I got to my parents house to find my mom was watching a documentary on the history of hillbillies. The program talked about how they were kind of the cast-outs from Scotland or something, then eventually moved to Ireland where they weren't treated well, and they made their way to America where they settled in the Appalachians and worked in the mines and stuff in the 1800's. They were hard workers, had no care for social propriety, and lived and spoke as they pleased.

All of a sudden in the middle of a segment about how hillbillies were the first ones to race cars around a track, my mother turns to me and says, "See what a proud heritage you have?"

"Huh?"

"Those are your people. That's where the Greers are originally from... the Kentucky and Tennessee area. These are the people that you come from."

At first I rolled my eyes in the certainty that the hundreds of years that passed between their lives and mine had filtered any amount of hillbilly-ness out of who I am. Besides, I despise anything to do with NASCAR and... um... moonshine.

But then I thought more. I thought about my at-times-tactless ways ("honesty", I call it). And my aversion to formality ("down-to-earth", that's me). And my tendency to want to do things my own way ("independence" is all that really is).

And my ever-so-slight overbite. (...)

And then I had to accept it. Whether or not I cared to admit it, there's hillbilly blood coursing through these veins.

But then I thought about the things I've come to value. Hard work, determination, sacrifice, independence, looking out for other people... those are hillbilly traits as well to some degree. And they all seem to be the things that most of the world doesn't give a flying flip about these days.

So that's when I came to this conclusion: I was meant to be born in 1881, not 1981.

What probably happened is while I was waiting in line for my turn to be born to some coal-mining Greer family in Kentucky, I got distracted, wandered off to talk to someone, and lost my place in line to be a Greer (which, I'm certain, is quite a lengthy one).

Which is a shame, because I would have been quite the catch to a coal-miner. What's that honey? Gonna be gone for 7 months up in the hills? Oh, and you want our log cabin to be finished before you get back? Warm meal waiting for you upon return? No resources but the land around us, an axe, and a shotgun?

...Bring it on.