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Someone told me the other day I should write something funny.

Haven’t they heard?

Funny ain’t cool no more.

Because funny usually involves poking fun at someone, sometimes oneself, it has gone out of fashion. People have become really offensive these days. Haven’t you looked at any Facebook comments recently?

It is good to hear that Sammy Kershaw will open up the summer concert series in the Davie Community Park on June 3.

Or is it?

Sammy Kershaw almost got me lynched.

Seriously.

I used to think I was funny. I wrote a lot of things I thought were funny in a column in this newspaper many years ago. Things were going pretty good, I thought, with positive comments and people encouraging me to write more.

Jeff Foxworthy was at his peak, Lewis Grizzard was on the way out, and I was struggling somewhere in between.

Then, on my drive to work one morning, I saw the sign. In great big letters high above Wilkesboro Street, it plainly stated: “Fire Mike Barnhardt.”

I turned the car around to see if it was true. It was.

But what had I done?

I had quoted Sammy Kershaw. I thought it was funny.

Kershaw’s song, “Queen of My Double Wide Trailer” had become a hit. I saw it as a good opportunity to spread my knowledge about the redneck culture. And believe me, I know plenty. I used to be one. Some say I still am.

That “Fire Mike Barnhardt” sign was erected by a local mobile home salesman. He misunderstood. I failed miserably in trying to be funny – at least to this one guy. Actually, I was on his side; but he didn’t realize it. And he wouldn’t back down. The song was fine, my words weren’t, he said. And he was a big ole’ boy, so I was worried.

To be honest, Sammy Kershaw made more fun of the redneck lifestyle in that one song than I did because I wrote about real experiences. I think Sammy’s song was made up, with the chorus:

So I made her the queen of my double wide trailer

With the polyester curtains and the red wood deck

Now she’s run off and I’ve got to trail her

Dang her black heart and her pretty red neck.

C’mon, Sammy. That ain’t funny. I used to dream of owning my own double wide.

My column, however, was funny.

I talked about living in a single-wide mobile home. At the time, it was a step up in my lifestyle. I had lived in Benson’s ghetto (Yes, Benson had a ghetto, or atleast I called it that. There were major railroad tracks in the back, and the busiest north/south US highway three steps from the front door. Only poor people like myself lived there, most of them rednecks or redneck wannabes). I talked about my dog’s tail hitting both sides of the wall in that trailer as he walked down the hall. I talked about that same dog’s tail swiping away the half full liquor and beer bottles on the coffee table. I talked about how Jersey girls, for some unknown reasons, gravitated towards us with redneck pedigrees. Not only was it funny, it was true.

My sign: “Fire people who are too sensitive to take a joke.”

– Mike Barnhardt