Just a good ol' boy

Second choice for a title to this post: “I was Luke Duke”

The year was 1979; I was 13 years old. The hottest show on television was the Dukes of Hazzard. I thought that the Dukes was the greatest thing to ever hit the television screen. Who wouldn't love car chases, country living, dirt roads, and cool country guys and gals? Everyone had their favorite character from the show. Most people favored Bo Duke (John Shneider) and he certainly was the most famous of the Dukes, well… maybe except for Daisy. The character I liked the most was Luke Duke.

Luke was always the smart one. He came up with all of the best schemes and he usually bailed Bo out of fights. But coolest of all, during the opening credits of the show, he would slide across the top of the General Lee. I remember trying to do that across the hood of my dad’s ’69 Galaxie 500, it didn’t turn out quite as good as Luke’s slide.

One time, my mom told me that I resembled Luke Duke. I took that comment to heart and began trying to BE Luke Duke. For my school clothes that year, I chose only long sleeved, western style shirts with snaps instead of buttons. I bought a western type belt with a big ol belt buckle, and would only wear cowboy boots. I also wouldn’t dare get a haircut because I wanted my hair to have that bushy, curly look that Luke’s did. I tried to talk like him, walk like him, and act like him. The show’s producers could have used me for a young Luke Duke stand-in for the show.

I eventually grew out of my Luke Duke phase, just as I had all of my previous stages, (Greg Brady and Fonzie comes to mind), but I’ll save those for a later post. It was around this time that my buddies and I formed a quartet and started singing together. We stayed pretty busy with that and I forgot about the Dukes.

Later on in life, I heard the news that Luke Duke (Tom Wopat) had run afoul with the law. This time, it wasn’t with ol’ Roscoe or Enos, it was with a Rinwood, NJ policeman! It was sad reading about my childhood hero doing things that were inappropriate, but people make mistakes. Just because someone might play a “good ol’ boy” on television, doesn’t necessarily mean that they are one in real life.

Moral of the story? Always be yourself and put your faith in God and not men. Oh, and don’t try to slide across the hood of your dad’s car either…it hurts.