Commentary on James McMurty’s song “Choctaw Bingo” about an atypical Ulster-American Family Reunion
 
Strap them kids in
Give 'em a little bit of vodka in a cherry coke
 
Am I giving out chld-rearing advice here.  No indeed.  Count me as being very much against giving children sugary sodas.  That leads to obesity and hyperactivity.
 
Instead, what we have here are the first two lines of the James McMurtry song “Choctaw Bingo”.  And the rest of the first stanza explains the story.
 
We're going to Oklahoma to the family reunion for the first time in years
It's up at Uncle Slayton's cause he's getting on in years
You know he no longer travels but he's still pretty spry
He's not much on talking and he's just too mean to die
And they'll be comin' down from Kansas
and from west Arkansas
It'll be one great big old party like you never saw
 
Kansas, Arkansas (and it turns out that Uncle Slayton is from Texas)... boy, this is hitting home for yours truly, let me tell you, although we never had a family reunion like this one.  What kind of party are we talking about?  Well let's skip ahead a bit and examine the celebratory contributions of this family's most notably successful member-- Bob, who's coached AA champion football teams the last two years:
 
... he stopped off in Tushka at that "Pop's Knife and Gun" place
Bought a SKS rifle and a couple a full cases of that steel core ammo
With the berdan primers from some East bloc nation that no longer needs 'em
And a Desert Eagle that's one great big ol' pistol
I mean .50 caliber made by badass Hebrews
And some surplus tracers for that old BAR of Slayton's
Soon as it gets dark we're gonna have us a time
We're gonna have us a time...
 
Hey, shooting tracers after dark-- that does sound like fun.  Still, I can't help but wonder what kind of country we've made if we have a use for weaponry that they don't need in the East bloc anymore.  And this stanza also illuminates part of what's behind the pro-Israel stance of so many Southerners, especially Fundamentalists, in such sharp contrast to decades of fairly blatant & pervasive anti-Semitism.  We like those "badass Hebrews".  They don't care what the rest of the world thinks of them, either.  And, they're the heroes of our favorite parts of the Bible.
 
I mentioned that Bob is the most successful member of this family, but I meant that in a more "establishment" use of the term successful.  Uncle Slayton probably has more money:
 
He's cut that corner pasture into acre lots`
He sells 'em owner financed
Strictly to them that's got no kind of credit 'Cause he knows they're slackers
When they miss that payment
Then he takes it back
 
Uncle Slayton would be happy to sell you some moonshine, too.  But customers for that have dwindled, so he also makes crystal meth.
 
But this family reunion isn't all about weaponry and drugs.  There's also Ruth Ann and Lynn, who came down from Baxter Springs, Kansas:
 
Ruth Ann and Lynn they wear them cut off britches and those skinny little halters
And they're second cousins to me
Man I don't care I want to get between 'em
With a great big ol' hard on like a old bois d' arc fencepost
You could hang a pipe rail gate from
Do some twisted sisters 'til the cows come home
And we'd be havin' us a time...
 
Weaponry, meth, sex-- now you're talking one great family reunion.  
 
 
 
 
Sunday, July 16, 2006