Published on on Sat Aug 19, 2006 12:16 pm
So as a surprise to my child who will be breaking his bond with me, leaving home on Monday, and forging a new life for 4 hours a day in pre-school; I decided to take him to the movies.
We've seen practically everything out there, so it was down to Snakes on the plane or Talladega nights. I suddenly realized I might be an absolutely horrible parent if I took him to an R rated movie with Samuel L. Jackson using the "F" word ever other second. That and the fact my son love cars.
But we wanted to do something different, something authentic. Why not go to the virtual birthplace of NASCAR, and go see Talladega Nights? Why not go to Asheboro? Yes I know... Daytona.... fooie. Asheboro is more redneck, more interesting and more Nascar then any bit of that little peninsula of over-price senior citizen homes.
Asheboro is about as stereotypically backwoods as you can get. The city which is nicknamed "Zoo City" because of the North Carolina Zoo just outside of town. It's an odd place, adorned with 2 types of people. Super fundamental religious, and Mexicans. Drive down SR-64 and practically every business will either have a cross, the word blessed, or holy.... or... be written in Spanish. What absolutely ironic about the whole situation is the white people don't like all the Mexicans, and the Mexicans don't consider the religious people religious because most of them are catholic, and they don't consider baptist or any other denomination part of their religion.
Ground zero for the 1 percent of people that don't fall into these categories is the Randolph Mall. Sure you still find some raised up 4x4s and some El Camino low riders in the parking lot, but the mall seems to an oasis for the middle American suburbia generation caught in this twilight zone of Randolph county.
But upon walking into the mall, I couldn't help but notice everyone was staring at me and my child. It was like some bad horror movie, where the patrons of Chick-Fila are some zombified brain dead mutants that want to tie my child to a cross with barbed wire and light him on fire to perform a ritual cleansing of the demons within.
To make a long story even longer, we get into the movie and sit down. They have a wonderful cinema there at the mall, but they keep the volume so low its hard to enjoy the movie. Unlike the Koger cinema over off Wendover which is awesome at it's ear bleeding 1000 Decibels of movie excitement. So the movie starts, and I realize we had a lively audience, one that would laugh. I love going to movies when there is an audience that participate and laughs at the movie. But then Will Ferrell did some comedy that referred to the topic of being gay, which includes a scene where he even kisses his male co-star, I thought the Asheborians where going to all get up and leave. I thought it was laugh-out-loud hilarious, and didn't hold back when the punchline was delivered. It was at this moment, the disgusted audience members sat quiet or mumbled how blatantly horrid homosexuality is.... and I was laughing. Of course when I realized everyone turned around to look at me, my laughter trailed off... I sank down in my seat.... and clutched my child's hand. Asheboro is a scary, scary place.... and next time you want to test your life with your own hands, grab a Harry Potter book, a couple of gay men, and drive your pink Volkswagen down to to Zoo City, where Nascar, Rednecks, & religion are alive and well.
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By Beth 
