What color is your collar???

Let's talk collars.

Growing up, my dad's occupation alone qualified mine as white. At times, the people my parents knew, the places they went, and things they did changed the color from simply white to something that looked as though it had been soaked in bleach...twice.

As much as I respect and appreciate both of my parents for the life they gave me, I have to admit that I never quite fit into the image that they had created for our family. While they were oohing and aahing over luxury cars and fancy restaurants, I was drooling over the local boys in our small town who drove down the road in big, loud pickup trucks. Of course, the longer their hair the better because, it was, after all, the 80's. Throw in a cigarette dangling from their lips and a tattoo or two, and he may as well have had, 'Lauren's Prince Charming' stamped on his forehead. Actually, I say, 'farhead', but that's a story for another blog.

My parents have always been completely confused as to how one of their offspring could be so different from them. My sister looks more like my mom every time I see her, but I don't look much like either one of them...so I guess there is a possibility that I could've been switched at birth. Someone else could've accidentally taken home Baby Girl Buckner. Who knows, maybe there's a family out there in Kentucky with a daughter who refuses to hunt with the gun her parents bought her because it doesn't have a 14-carat gold trigger. Don't laugh...it's remotely possible.

It wasn't until I was out on my own and married that I realized the differences white and blue collar. My first husband was a truck driver. I got more of an education during the eight months we spent on the road together, then I got between Kindergarten and my college graduation.

Why?

Because the education I got out on the road was in LIFE. How did I learn that people looked at truck drivers as if they were no cleaner or more respectible than a common criminal? One of the customers my ex-husband was delivering furniture to actually put their foot in the door and refused to let me in their house to use their bathroom because I had arrived at their home in an 18-wheeler. I felt like saying, "Before you show your prejudice against people in professions you wouldn't choose for yourself, perhaps you ought to think about the fact that if you wear it, eat it, drive it, live in it, dry your hair with it, write with it, on it, or in it, chances are that IT was delivered by a truck driver!"

But, of course, ignorant people don't think like that. They just assume that the construction foreman clicked his heels together three times and all the necessary materials needed to build their house just magically appeared on the empty lot. They think their Manolo Blahniks and Jimmy Chu's were born in Bergdorf's, and that the cups they sip their Starbuck's coffee from were actually picked up at the coffee cup factory by Mr. or Mrs. Starbuck themselves.

Wrong. It wasn't a pencil pusher or rocket scientist who delivered all those goods to where they needed to go...it was a truck driver. And if not for that trucker, those people would be homeless, barefoot, and drinking coffee out of the palm of their hand.

And while we're on the subject of hands, allow me to mention one who works with them...

I married one almost ten years ago. And you know what? Our home is filled with furniture that he crafted with his own two hands. We go downstairs and shoot pool in the basement he turned into a pub--complete with a handmade bar. When we want to go out for a cruise, we get into the '69 SS Chevelle that he restored from the ground up, bolt by bolt. Soon, I'll be putting my dishes away in the kitchen cabinets he's been building out in our barn.

Over the years, I've learned the only thing that really matters is whether or not you're happy. I'm happy with who I am. And I'm proud of what I am. This is me...warts and all. It doesn't matter whether or not my family approves of my lifestyle, because they probably don't understand it. That's okay, though, because truthfully, sometimes I don't understand them, either.

I won't lie and say that I don't enjoy dining out at nice restaurants, because I do. But that can't touch the tranquility of spending a quiet evening out back by the fire. Expensive cars might look pretty, but while you waste your money hiring someone to haul away the trash that doesn't fit into the trunk of your Jaguar or BMW, I can simply toss it into the eight-foot bed in my pickup truck and easily haul it away myself.

My place was forever solidified in the blue collar world a long time ago.

All I have to say about that is, home sweet home.

http://www.LaurenSharman.com