Feeling Haggard

From the Free Dictionary: haggard adj. 1. careworn or gaunt, as from lack of sleep, anxiety, or starvation.

I was thinking of Merle Haggard, or more specifically the song "Okie From Muskogee," because I recently finished reading the book "The Wordy Shipmates" by Sarah Vowell. A book about Puritans in Massachusetts and Rhode Island would not make me think about Merle Haggard or his most famous song but the fact that Sarah Vowell is from Muskogee, Oklahoma does.

I don't know if Sarah Vowell would call herself an Okie, much less claim pride in being one. My understanding is that "Okie" is an offensive term. But she may indeed feel pride in her birthplace. Don't know. Never communicated with her, so I haven't asked any questions of her. I also don't know if she smoked marijuana or not, in Muskogee or elsewhere.



The thing about a well written country song is that it can shamelessly pull at your heartstrings and do that in a fairly simple and quick sort of way. A good country song is direct and tells a story without a whole lot of filler. It takes you to a place and introduces the characters and away you go. Or maybe it just makes suckers out of people born to be suckers. But that's a pretty cynical, non-country way of looking at things.