I grew up a redneck – a redneck minus the accent. Dawsonville, Georgia, a sleepy, Walmart-for-entertainment, runs-on-moonshine, smells-like-chicken kind of town is where I call home. I grew up in a Northern household. My mom and most of my family lives in upstate New York, around the Buffalo area. As a kid, I never heard of grits, turned my nose up to collards and didn't taste the sweet nectar of the gods that is sweet tea until I was out of high school. But despite my learned Northern culture, I grew up a redneck, and I settled into the South.

I lived on 20 acres -- a farm without animals. My favorite childhood activities were climbing trees, hacking at green-briers with a machete and shooting at glass bottles of IBC root beer with my ancient, pump-action BB gun. I have to imagine that, solely because of the good fortune of my parents' choice of real estate, I've worn shoes for less than half of my life, and I've learned to appreciate what the outdoors have to offer.

I've built structures to grow fresh veggies out of only bamboo, chicken wire and duct tape. I spent my free time hacking away at trees I couldn't fit my arms around, and when they fell, I spent more free time hacking them up to build my next gargantuan bonfire. My closest neighbor lived a quarter mile away, and somehow, his guinea hens still found their way to our yard to pick away at the bugs under our bird feeder trees. I celebrated the birth of baby chicks from the stray chickens that would wander up and roost under our shed and lamented when those babies grew into hens and a few were stolen by coyotes at night.

I adopted pets, nursed wild animals, caught and released others, befriended neighbors' cows and searched for crawdad in the creek. I practiced my archery on hay bales, my riflery on whatever might be fun to shoot and hiked deep into the woods to find the farthest border of our property. My brother and I were called to dinner by an old, rusted bell-triangle.

The town I grew up in and the mother I was blessed with taught me how to build, mend, plant, sow, nurture, stop and smell the roses, play, appreciate and be a gentleman. I might be living in the city. I might be looking for a white-collar job. I might not sound how you'd expect, but I grew up a hick in a hick-town. I will never regret growing up a redneck, and I owe my life to Dawsonville.