“Real Country (and Walking the Straight and Narrow… Sideways)”By Mark Morgan

Markmorganbooks.com

Back when hard work started before daylight and ended whenever the last tool got put back—usually somewhere it didn’t belong—we lived what folks these days like to call “real country.”

We didn’t talk about being country.We just were.

We read the Good Book when we could, and we tried to walk the straight and narrow… but Lord knows we walked it sideways, tripped over it twice, and sometimes backed right over it in a pickup with mud tires. And yeah, we tried to go to church every Sunday—but some weeks our only worship was praying the truck would start on the third crank.

Most days began with the kind of chores kids today would report to HR. We didn’t have apps—we had tasks: feed the dog, feed the cows, feed ourselves if there was time. Our blue jeans weren’t designer; they were “whatever still fit after last summer’s growth spurt and didn’t get caught on a barbed-wire fence.”

A real country ladder shakes like it’s arguing with gravity, and every hammer blow is a gamble on whether you’ll hit the nail or your own thumb first. You didn’t complain either—not unless you wanted someone to say, “Oh, bless your heart, want me to call the governor for ya?”

A 40-hour workweek was a rumor city folks believed in. We put in 40 by Wednesday and spent the rest of the week trying to keep the lights on, the roof patched, and the truck running long enough to make it to Sonic.

When something broke, we fixed it with duct tape, baling wire, or whatever we had within arm’s reach. If that didn’t work, we adjusted expectations. Most of our tools weren’t “tools” so much as “things that could pry, twist, or threaten something into behaving.”

Come Friday or Saturday night, we’d paint the town—mostly with dust from the backroads. You’ve never felt alive till you’re bouncing down a dirt road in a lifted truck tall enough to give you altitude sickness. School rings flashing, blue jeans just dirty enough to prove a point, and chicken wings piled up on the dash like an offering to the country gods.

We said what we felt and felt what we said. No filters. No hesitation. No “read receipts.” Just real-deal folks who meant what they told you… even if they delivered it with a laugh, a wink, or an old saying that confused you till you grew up enough to understand it.

Looking back, being “real country” wasn’t something we practiced—it was something we breathed in like dust on a July afternoon. It was honest, gritty, sideways living. The good stuff. The true stuff.

Moral of the Story:Life doesn’t have to be pretty to be good.Just keep working hard, walking honest, and living country—even if you walk the straight and narrow… sideways.