My High School Friend Elton Skelton Talks About Our Hometown

I was back in my hometown last summer visiting with my old high school friend Elton Skelton at the annual 4-H barbecue. We were both eating a thick barbecue sandwich, corn on the cob, and homemade potato salad when I started telling him about New Jersey. He thought it was the strangest place in the world. He kept saying, "Well, Chrissy boy (He always calls me "Chrissy boy"), I don't know how you live out there in a place like that!" I then asked him if he were to try to explain to someone from New Jersey what Mount Vernon is like, what would he say? Well, he had plenty to say and I've tried to summarize his rather lengthy response below.

“What’s it like in Mt. Vernon, Chrissy boy?  Well, first, I'd tell 'em: Let’s get this straight—it is nowhere close to Chicago! Okay! Try 280 miles SOUTH of Chicago! Chicago gets most of our tax money and wastes it on bribes and other such corruption. You think it is an accident that Blagojevich and Obama are from Chicago? Down in Southern Illinois, we hate Chicago. We are in Southern Illinois, not northern. Have you heard of St. Louis, Missouri, Chrissy boy? Gateway to the West? That’s our city. We might also go to Evansville, Indiana, but not very often. Too many stoplights.

Now that we have that out of the way, what's it like in Mt. Vernon? It's a small town of about 17,000. The population has held steady for about, ah, I don't know, fifty years? People really don't move here from other places unless they're moving from smaller Southern Illinois towns to the “King City” as some call it around here because this is a big town by our standards. Most people stay in Mount Vernon because that's where their kin live. If you growed up in Mount Vernon, college is optional for you. You know all this, Chrissy boy, I feel like I'm preaching to the choir. But if you put this in that blog thing you do, maybe this'll help them old city slickers out by you. The good thing here is our kids don't grow up burdened by the pressures of them college entrance tests like them kids in those highfalutin’ suburbs out by you. Besides, those who do go to college and find out what the rest of the world is like typically don't come back, right Chrissy boy? You done flew the coop a long time ago. So we don't encourage college much. I wish you'd stayed around here buddy cause it's hard to find someone to go duck huntin' with.

In Mount Vernon, I guess we're mostly farmers, fast food and factory workers and such. There is a rich legacy from our farmin' roots too. Actually, truth is there's only about five people here are real farmers. But everyone has a garden. We still eat like farmers with hearty appetites because farmin' is demandin'. That's why we like all-you-can-eat buffets over orderin' fancy foods with parsley sprigs on a square plate that is green like an avocado. Besides, ordering off a menu takes too much talkin'. We are not that big on talkin' around here. We are descendants of farmers, who go out in the field all day by themselves. Talkin' is best when kept to a minimum, despite this little display I'm givin' you right now. We also have an independent mindset here. We're true rugged individualists who fix our own equipment and do our own chores by ourselves. That is how we want to eat, too. Just give me a clean, round white plate and I will go up, get my own food at the buffet, and bring it back to my table. And please don't put a white tablecloth on my dinner table. Just wipe the table off with a sponge and leave a fresh bottle of ketchup on the table and we're all set. You know what I'm talkin' about, Chrissy boy! We are not a white tablecloth bunch here.

And we ain't green (he held the syllable on green for a full second) here in Southern Illinois either. There is so much land is it necessary to worry about recyclin'? Oh, I smash my beer cans sometimes and take 'em in when I need a little money, but it like we're gonna run out of land anytime soon. Why can’t we just burn our trash and our leaves and throw our old tires out in the woods? We are farmers, for God’s sake, Chrissy boy! We got this. You take care of your garbage and we'll take care of ours.

(Elton took a couple of bites of his barbecue sandwich then started in again.) With this attitude, you can see that there aren't too many famous people from Mount Vernon. We had a guy who played in the NBA in the early '70s named Nate Hawthorne. I didn't think you'd ever heard of him. And there was Jeanne Kirkpatrick, a 1944 graduate of the high school, who was the United Nations ambassador in the '80s in the Reagan administration. Never heard of her either? Well, that' about it for our famous people.

The center of life in Mount Vernon is Wal-Mart. We have a 24/7 Supertemple. I'm sorry, Chrissy boy, did I say Supertemple? I meant Super-center. Everyone goes to Wal-Mart at least once a week. It is almost like a religion for us. I'll bet if Wal-Mart could find a way to sell religion, they would. Anyway, most of us feel like if you cain't find what you're looking for at Wal-Mart, you probably don't need it.

We have a city park, but not too many people use it. It's actually for poor people to use. If you're not poor, you probably have plenty of land and can put your own playground equipment in the yard. This keeps you from having your children mix it up with them, let me say undesirable children in the city. Just tellin' it like it is, right Chrissy boy? You know what I mean.

People in Mount Vernon are bigger than people in New York City, at least from what I've seen on Real Housewives of New York City, because people in Mount Vernon don't walk anywhere. And we eat them all-you-can-eat buffets. I guess we're the people they're talkin' about on Fox News when they say our country has an obesity problem. My grandma used to say we are a “pleasingly plump” people. How's that for bein' poetic, Chrissy boy? Besides, we eat a lot to support the American farmer. Becoming fat is our way of showing we're patriotic. Ain't I tellin' the truth, Chrissy boy? You know I am.

Like most people in our country, folks in Mount Vernon don't have many kids. That is why the population isn't growin'. When it comes right down to it, most of us would rather eat at the all-you-can-eat buffet than have sex. Or we'd rather go to Wal-Mart than have sex. Can you imagine that, Chrissy boy? Only in Mount Vernon. You did good to get out of here.

The big festival of the year in Mount Vernon is the Sweetcorn and Watermelon Festival. It's held in August of each year. I told you we were farmers and an ear of corn represents what farmin' is all about, you know, the harvest. People love the festival because it's only in Mount Vernon and there's nothin' like it. Not too many people actually go to the festival because it's too dang hot. You been there, right Chrissy boy? You know, can you imagine eatin' an ear of corn with butter and salt dripping off it in 95-degree weather while your sweatin' a river off you? (Elton remembered the ear of corn on his plate, grabbed it and took a bite out of it. He continued while chomping on the corn . . .) But the festival's always been in August, so we won't change it. We don't like change round here.

You remember Mount Vernon's got an Art Museum don't ya Chrissy boy—Mitchell Museum. When you live in Mount Vernon, you never think of goin' to the Art Museum. I mean, who has time for that when you need to do chores, cut the grass, change the oil, and fix the leaky roof? You get your work done, and then you have time to relax. But before you relax, you probably need somethin' from Wal-Mart. Art is for city people, Chrissy boy. We just ain't city people 'round here. We'd never think of havin' an art museum in Mount Vernon because we think art is stupid and a waste of time. I think somebody who used to live in New York started the art museum.

You probably remember this too, Chrissy boy, but I'd tell 'em in Mount Vernon we are white and black. If you're black, we'd prefer that you stay in the south part of the town. If you're white, it's okay to spread out. If you're from another country, please don't come to Mount Vernon. Please stay in your country. We are Americans here. If you live in another country, you're obviously not American. Duh? So why would you come here? It's hard enough keeping our own employed. We just can't take responsibility for you too.

Well, Chrissy boy, I hope I gave you some good information that you can use to help them people in New Jersey understand what it's like around here. It hasn't changed much since you left. Sounds like you'd forgot quite a bit. If you'd come back more often I'm sure it'd all come back to you. Good seein' you buddy. Guess where I gotta go now? You know it, gotta pick up my wife at Wal-Mart.”