Peckerwood
One of my father’s favorite conversational nicknames is “peckerwood.” He peppers it through his stories. He uses it in jokes. He probably bestows that ignominious title on half of his Old Man Coffee Club that takes over the Florence Starbucks at least once a day. The barista who gives him fifty cent refills under the table? Also a peckerwood.
That old peckerwood gave me a refill for fifty cents. I bet that peckerwood charged YOU full price, Andra. ‘Cause you ain’t me.
No, Dad. I’m not a broken down old man who threatens these Starbucks employees with moving the Old Man Coffee Club to another location if you can’t get refills for fifty cents.
Yep. We went to the Krispy Kreme, but them peckerwoods wanted to charge us $1.50 for a refill. That’s highway robbery!!! (Pounds round plywood Starbucks table with his fist. You know the one.) Broken down old man……….I’m good lookin’, ain’t I? Huh?
For much of my life, I’ve heard my father refer to countless people as “peckerwood,” but I never really knew what it meant. (Neither does he. He isn’t prone to swearing or slurring.) According to Wikipedia, “peckerwood” is a slur primarily used in the Southeastern United States to describe poor rural whites. Synonyms include “redneck” and “white trash.”
The true meaning of “peckerwood” made a certain weekend experience more, um, colorful for me. The Valley Ho pool is a place to glue a lounge chair to my butt and refuse to move until the call of nature threatens to embarrass me in public. I don’t like to lay out on the beach, and I go mad doing the pool thing anywhere else. But there, I can actually relax and enjoy it. It is an honor that they let me in the gate – at least a decade older than everyone else, the opposite of tan, no cool tattoos. I am the antithesis of hip.
It’s great for people watching and eavesdropping accidentally overhearing drunken proclamations like this one.
I’m really glad I got this tattoo under my boob right here – SEE? – because when I’m old, and my boob sags, it will disappear without having to get it removed.
The young man who set up next to me smiled and wandered past the Girl With the Boob Tattoo, headed to the bar. Watching his retreating back, I almost detached my butt from my chair and levitated. There, on his finely sculpted back, perfectly aligned between his shoulder blades, set off by his awesome tan, was one word.
PECKERWOOD.
In all caps and everything. Why does a person go get a tattoo and pick THAT one? I drove myself crazy for much of the rest of the afternoon, imagining possible scenarios.
And, a new series was born.
A new word in my vocabulary, and a song in my heart as I wait or this series, Andra. Remember this? http://snltranscripts.jt.org/75/75ginterview.phtml
I looked and looked for that skit on video, Kate, and couldn’t find it anywhere. If anyone else can find Chevy Chase/Richard Pryor video from Saturday Night Live, please post it. The transcript is dang funny, and I know I’ve seen the skit.
I never go wrong posting Dad things. He is getting quite a fan club.
Life is wonderfully weird! I thought it may have been an old soap opera Andra.
Or a Western of some sort, Jim. Though a soap opera does have hilarious connotations………
Joan Collins wold have featured…..
Absolutely.
It is a brilliant word!
LOL. I thought it was the meaning for a town
Why on earth would he do such thing to a beautiful back?
Lori down below is right, Darcie. I should’ve asked him. But, making things up can be so much more fun……….
Hahaha! it really can!
Your dad is in pretty interesting company…
“Peckerwood” was also the favorite – and most printable descriptive language – used by a crusty old lady named “Pancho” Barnes. She owned a run-down, now-infamous bar called the “Happy Bottom Riding Club”.
It was next to what today is Edwards Air Force Base. Back then it was the Muroc Air Station when it was little more than a dirt patch on a dry lake bed in the Mojave Desert. It was where the pilots with “the right stuff” first congregated. It was where Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier for the first time in 1947.
Barnes’s place is where test pilots like Yeager gathered to drink and swap stories about drinkin’ and drivin’ and about pilots who died because they lacked skill. It was made known in the Tom Wolf novel “The Right Stuff”.
Barnes was a pilot herself who had set speed records. She immortalized every unsung test pilot who had died testing new aircraft at Muroc by posting pictures of them on her wall behind the bar. There were a lot of pictures.
Barnes was known for her colorful language and gruff manner. She could put sailors to shame.
To Barnes, everyone was a “peckerwood” until they proved themselves.
I love this story!! It is always great to throw out a word and see what it conjures for different readers. Apparently, that word was at its height during the mid-twentieth century, and California became a big place for its use.
Can’t let this one by without a classic” peckerwood”.
I need to master Woody Woodpecker’s evil look. I forgot how awesome it is.
For a possible answer as to why, and for a different view of Peckerwood, type the words Peckerwood lyrics into your google search. You will come up with The House of Pain. They were an Irish-American Rap group. Everlast will also show up. He was their leader before he went out on his own. As I know you try to run a profanity free site…
these were the only lyrics I could grab…
“I’m a wood peckin’ peckerwood
Take me out, ya never could
Act up in my neighbourhood
You better not, my aim is good
The house of pain is not a gang
Just a funky irish name
A celtic savage makin’ cabbage
With corn beef on the side
Irish pride is what I got…”
That’s finger lickin’, Robert.
Why is it when I saw the title of your blog this morning my immediate response was, “I’m your huckleberry?” Hmmmm. After you had run through all those scenarios in your head, why didn’t you go and ask him? Inquiring minds and all that….
I should ask people these questions rather than make up stories. I might get a better story that way.
Sounds like another interesting series is brewing, Andra, and your readers are already providing their usual interesting conversation. Asleader’s comment has me wanting to read The Right Stuff. I’ve seen the movie a dozen times, but, never read Wolf’s book. If only someone hadn’t stolen a few hours from my days. Sigh.
I’m trying to read more, too, Penny, and it’s hard. I love reading, but I just don’t know where all my time goes. If you get the book, let me know, and I’ll read it with you.
I haven’t heard the word ‘peckerwood’ in… I don’t know how long.
I would think a writer of your… hmmm… abilities, would have chased that dude down and found out why he chose that tat. Go back to Valley Ho and find out… and while there, take a photo of ‘girl with tattoo under boob’.
See, I don’t ever force those conversations to happen. If I get into a conversation with someone like that, I might indirectly steer them to talk about it, but I don’t just go up to people and ask them questions like that outright. It puts them on guard.
Now Andra, all you had to do was get in front of him, and he would be so taken with your allure, he would be spilling his life story in seconds…
No, I would’ve blinded him with my not-tannedness, and he would’ve been speechless.
I don’t know his story, but in Maricopa county jails, the Peckerwoods are a white pride (prison) gang. They’re also called Woods for short.
MTM postulated that it had something to do with gangs. So, this is very interesting.
Oh I cannot WAIT. I have seen Redneck tats before, so…. I dunno. Too bad for him he didn’t get it under his boob.
He did have impressive Man Boobs, I mean muscles, up front.
Hmmm … I always used “peckerwood” as a synonym for “d***head”. Glad to know my mouth isn’t as dirty as I thought!
Actually, that is an alternate meaning for peckerwood – someone who is a dick.
I grew up hearing the word now and then, and it was, of course, pejorative, but haven’t heard it in years! I cannot imagine having such a word on my body! LOL! I can only imagine how your imagination whirled…you may say that you aren’t hip, but we all agree you are creative!
D
I saw lots of tattoos over the weekend, but peckerwood won the prize. I’ll certainly never forget it.
I need to start using that phrase. I admire your dad so much, that when you and I go to lunch from now on I shall insist on calling all the serving folk “peckerwood”s! Of course Lou, James, and Kenneth are already peckerwoods, but you know that.
Is that peckerwood of a husband home from work yet? Wait, where is that nice young peckerwood you brought up to lunch up BBQ? Is he still around? I got a story for him!
You may offend certain people if you use it, Carnell, but be my guest. It has always mystified me how Dad can say things, and everyone just cracks up, and if I tried to say them, they would not be amusing.
Your Dad is such a character. Somehow he’s been elevated in my mind to a male version of ‘Ouiser.
Do the best novelists mine their families for characters? I sometimes feel like, if I tried, I could get several books out of my father alone. There’s just so much material, and he’s over the MOON about being featured on my blog. He LOVES it.
Never heard of peckerwood…my brother used to be fond of calling peeps peckers though…hmm, same animal?
(as an aside (and you may know this) you should give your dad a Starbucks giftcard and register it online.. all his refills would be free if he is hanging out for a spell at the store.)
I should do that, Angela. I didn’t realize the refills were free. Looking into it now……thank you.
Wow, that is a colorful pool area! And I thought NYC was full of weird.
One can find weird anywhere they are.
There is a chance this kid was not just gang related, but also Aryan nation related. Peckerwood and woody woodpeck tattoos are common particularly in prison, for Aryan nation and white supremacist members.
Glad I didn’t ask him outright what it meant…….
Now I have just discovered yet another reason to attach my butt to the sofa laptop on my lap, I am still laughing at this guy with the PECKERWOOD tattoo and look forward to more version of what a not usually nice word can turn into