All my life. But I never minded *too* much. A big part of it was an adventure,...and even when it was a pain in the azz it provided the satisfaction of knowing that I could do it if I had too.
Makes ya drank a little bit every now and then, however. But that's just the working class, white man's burden.
The alternative was nothing but tight puzzy, loose shoes, and a warm place to schitt. All of those things have their place, but it's not enough for a Caucasian man to form his life around.
My old man pretty much ran me off. Not literally,...but just by making my life so unfulfilling that early on I decided to choose "plan B".
It was a very short step from Root Hog or Leave to Root hog or Die.
So I really didn't notice it all that much. I was too busy celebrating that I was turned loose on the world at age 19.
,...could have been much worse. I *could* have been born three years earlier and learned to Root Hog or Die in Vietnam. But I got to miss that, thank goodness.
"Root hog or die" is a common American catch-phrase dating at least to the early 1800s. Coming from the early colonial practice of turning pigs loose in the woods to fend for themselves, the term is an idiomatic expression for self-reliance.
There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self. -Ernest Hemingway The man who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything.-- Edward John Phelps
In the mid-1950s I discovered the phrase in A Treasury of Western Folklore, a 1951 book edited by B. A. Botkin. (It has been republished several times). The book includes 60 pages of Western folk songs and ballads. Many of the words and melodies nwere transcribed from sound recordings collected on site during the Great Depression. The song titled "Root, Hog, or Die" was recorded in 1936 in Springfield, Missouri. The Library of Congress has cataloged the recording and made it available online.
It takes a couple of listening to figure out the accent. Here's the first of seven verses:
Oh, I went to Cal-i-forn-y in the spring of Sev-en-ty-six, Oh, when I land-ed there I wuz in a tur-ri-ble fix. I did-n't have no mon--ey my vic-tuals for to buy, And the on-ly thing for me was to root, hog, __ or die.
Here's a different song with the same title by June Carter
"Root hog or die" is a common American catch-phrase dating at least to the early 1800s. Coming from the early colonial practice of turning pigs loose in the woods to fend for themselves, the term is an idiomatic expression for self-reliance.
My mother would tell me this when she didn't cook and I asked her "what's for dinner ?" Root hog or die means ... your on your own !!!
"Root hog or die" is a common American catch-phrase dating at least to the early 1800s. Coming from the early colonial practice of turning pigs loose in the woods to fend for themselves, the term is an idiomatic expression for self-reliance.
My mother would tell me this when she didn't cook and I asked her "what's for dinner ?" Root hog or die means ... your on your own !!!
I grew up in suburbia with a mother who grew up on an Appalachian farm. I have heard plenty country humor.
There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self. -Ernest Hemingway The man who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything.-- Edward John Phelps
