Update 24:

I wish that I had my camera with me a couple times in the last few weeks. Put five relatively big guys (for perspective only one other guy weighs less than my 215lbs) in the cab of a pickup. Make sure that these guys have been out in the field all day with no one to talk to, that they have been subject to a deficiency of females for months on end. I know this already sounds like a great combination. But let’s back up a bit.

It would not be a stretch to easily classify theses fellas in the conservative, country lifestyle loving variety who actually on a daily basis check John Deere’s website for the possible unveiling of a new product. So just in case you haven’t yet formed a good picture of these “dudes.” Think 280, 260 and 230 lbs of unharnessed and unrestrained umm… excess.

Think old man worn out cowboy boots with the jeans not tucked in, but not outside the boot either, of wife beaters (by wife beater I mean the type of shirt, since only one guy actually has a wife, let alone a significant other) that haven’t been washed in weeks, shoes that have actually been worn through not only the sides and laces but the soles as well. Add this to a day spent in the fields of dust and dirt and their maybe they did, maybe they didn’t, put deodorant on this morning. Well, hopefully this is enough illumination.

Lets get back to the pickup; it’s midnight or close to it. We’re in a 2009 Dodge ¾ ton crew cab (the smallest cab of the big 3). The guy up front changes the satellite radio to one of the retro stations. To the extreme I rock a mike like a vandal, light up a stage and wax a chump like a candle… Yes. That is correct; Vanilla Ice’s Ice Ice Baby is pumping through the speakers. Now back to the “dudes”, these four guys with ages of 54, 36, 29, 28 & 22 all start immaculately rapping the verses. You just can’t paint a picture with this much contrast.

Two days later, today, driving back home early, same guys but in a much more sombre mood, maybe the same radio station but that’s not relevant; 1st batter up: Billy Joel’s Piano Man. Two of the guys start singing, hounding the rest of us to get our “A” game on. Three of us are not “feeling it”; 2nd batter up: Marc Cohn’s Walking in Memphis, 4 out of 5 are bringing our “A” game. I’m not feeling the vibe. The radio station is feeling that I’m not feeling and pulls out I’m as serious as cancer when I say that Rhythm is a Dancer. Snap is the deal closer. Once again all 5 overweight, partial (if not full) rednecks are pretending not to be as white as we are in the safety of full privacy tinted windows. Yeah, my future is so bright I HAVE to wear shades.