Man Up

Eleven miles southeast of Noxapater, MS, the town where my mother grew up, as you make a gentle left-hand turn on Mississippi Highway 393, a grass covered Choctaw “platform mound” called Nanih Waiya rises, suddenly and quietly and alone, amid the surrounding pine forests. I think the first time I went there was when my grandmother Cleo – we always called her Cleo, not grandma or granny – took me and maybe my brother plus some childhood friends from Noxapater to see it. It was kind of eerie and cool. I was probably eight or nine or ten years old.

On two sides of the mound were a couple of narrow paths leading up to the top, where there was nothing much of anything but a grassy surface to walk around on. On our way down one side of the mound, one of my friends, Webb Boswell Jr. (“Webb Junior”), suddenly pushed me down the side of the mound. I guess I fell and tumbled to a stop at the bottom – I honestly don’t remember. I wasn’t physically hurt, but I was surprised, and it seemed a bit uncalled for. I was a little mad, so I punched Webb Junior in the face. It wasn’t much of a punch – I was never very strong – but it surprised both of us.

I’ve never hit anybody before or since (okay maybe my brother in an irrational and immature older brother rage that I’d like to think was “normal” but for which I am sorry), so this one time sticks out in my memory. Where did that come from? At the time I remember thinking something like “cool, I threw a punch, just like on [fill in any one of our favorite cowboy TV shows – Roy Rogers, the Rifleman, Gunsmoke, Rawhide, too many to name here]”.  

Despite all the TV shows and movies, and growing up in a culture of hunting and fishing, general carousing, and doing doughnuts with your car, I never really internalized all the “manly men” “man’s man” stuff. Like me, my father was more in his head, socially awkward, a bit of a misfit. He wasn’t into hunting and fishing (I do remember going on one single fishing trip with him and a couple of friends, but that was it), he didn’t have a shop where he asserted his dominance over the physical world by cutting and drilling and clamping and sanding and nailing and screwing together, and he didn’t play any sports. Maybe with him as a role model I was destined to follow a different path from the one prescribed by my cultural milieu (apologies for the grandiloquence – oops did it again – sorry).

A lot has been said in recent years about toxic masculinity, reverse sexism, and gender bias. Then there’s the appeal of the “bad boy”, the celebration of the alpha male, and the current popularity of the “tough guy” approach to resolving disagreements. A lot of the debate ends up couched in terms of a men vs women zero sum game, where gains for women are seen as requiring concomitant losses for men.

Although I think we should always be thoughtful and empathetic and avoid kneejerk conclusions, I find most of this tiresome and oversimplified. I think each of us and all of us “contain multitudes”, and we should express them freely and openly as long as we are celebrating difference and not harming others. Yes, I know that this is a simplistic and naïve point of view. Deal with it.

Click on the image to listen:

And in closing, I say this: Be aggressive, be passive, be tough, be fragile, be a leader, be a follower. And, as always, be listening.

Stories from Storytown Episode 8 is coming, with some amazing guests, on Tuesday February 10, at a new venue for us. Save the date and watch this space for more details. I say with confidence that you won’t want to miss this one.