I meant this to be the opening post when I started at Substack, but it took me a bit to deal with their policy that you can’t post anything unless you have subscribers. Eventually a couple of friends helped me out, and I got started.
There’s more to me than just those two characteristics, but it’s a place to start.
Yes, I am on the autism spectrum, although I have not had a formal diagnosis. In 2005 my son found out about Asperger’s Syndrome, and passed the material on to me. It was like the lights coming on for much of my life, not only when I was growing up, but even my work life as an adult. Since then the psychological/medical establishment in the US has merged Asperger’s into the broader thing they now call the Autism Spectrum. I am fortunate to be on the high-functioning end. In the years since I first found out about it, my grandchildren have been getting diagnosed. My daughter was diagnosed last year.
I was always good at school. One reason for that seems to be that I have a lot of one autistic trait called “hyper-focus.” I can get really absorbed in some subjects. But I was not necessarily typical even for an autistic. Growing up, I was better than most at science and math—but even better still at history and languages.
But I also fit the Redneck profile to some extent. I have Appalachian stock on both sides of the family. My father’s ancestors came to southwestern Ohio in 1793. They settled first in Anderson Township, east of Cincinnati. My great-great-grandfather moved to Clermont County around 1833. That area is turning into suburbs of Cincinnati now, but historically it is the western edge of Appalachia in Ohio. My father was born in the little town of New Richmond, on the Ohio River, in 1919. My mother was a coal miner’s daughter, born at a mining camp outside Hazard, KY. And while “Hawkins” is regarded as an English name, I have Scots-Irish ancestry through both my father and mother. What I do not seem to have is any German or other non-British ancestry. From what I have been able to find out, no one in my line of the family married anyone with a German last name until I got married in 1970.
And while I was good at school and got a college education, I spent most of my adult life working with my hands. I think the last time I had an office job was around 1971. The work I finally landed in, and retired from recently, was construction and home repair—mostly I did remodeling, but some new construction. As a home builder would see it, I did ten different trades; and there are a couple more I can do but would rather not. In remodeling, that’s an advantage—you don’t have to shut the job down while you wait for somebody else to show up.
Besides the way I supported myself, I have done most of my own car repairs over the years, including rebuilding a couple of engines. I have been through hard times—at one point we had six cars in our driveway, and the only one that ran was a pickup loaned to me by a carpenter friend. It was actually the worst-looking one of the lot; holes in the pickup bed, driver’s door held shut with a bungee cord because the door latch didn’t work anymore, and the seatbelts didn’t work. But it did run, and we used it until I could get one of my own cars fixed. I still have my last work truck—beat-up, rusty, but still running.
And while I did not mention it in the title, I am a Christian. I grew up in churches, went to a Bible college and studied for the ministry (salutatorian of my graduating class in 1972), and preached regularly for about seven years. After I left preaching, I was still in churches, small groups, Christian homeschooling, and more. At this time in my life I am what some call a “free-range” Christian, not part of any organized church. But I still live by my faith. At some point I will probably write about that choice here.
I blogged for years at Postmodern Redneck on Blogspot.com. When I started the term “postmodern” was new and not that well defined yet. This year I changed the name to “Autistic Redneck” to match with where my life is now. There may be some things there that I will write about again here on Substack.