Tears and Laughter: Let’s not mess with Alabama swamp people

At some point this attraction, or jealousy, The Daily Show has toward the state of Alabama is necessarily going to have to be addressed. I don’t know if it’s healthy anymore.

I think they want to be more like us. We seem to know how to have more fun than they do. We are happy and content and comfortable with Jesus while they are stuck up in New York City polishing their big apples and wishing they were down in Dixieland.

Like most Alabamians, I don’t typically watch The Daily Show. The fact that Alabamians don’t watch the show is what made them to decide to produce this whole “Alabama Week” series in the first place. They claim they want to get to know us better, but that’s not it. They were just put off because we would rather watch sharp dressed men squawking for ducks on Duck Dynasty than The Daily Show with Trevor Noah.

Maybe Trevor Noah should host the show from a duck blind. It might help ratings. Then again, people in Alabama tend to value their 10 o’clock time slot, so it would need to be seriously entertaining to compete.

I have followed the first two nights of the “Alabama Week” series and have been neither impressed nor repelled. It is difficult for correspondents unfamiliar with Alabama to accurately portray our culture, the issues we find important, or who we are as people. It’s as if they are coming in wanting to dislike us, but once here they are realizing they don’t hate us after all.

At the end of the first or the four-part series, correspondent Desi Lydic offered a half-ass prayer asking God to help her with her struggle to believe in Alabama. She admitted she had held a lot of preconceived notions about people here. She thought we were all real “swamp people.”

I take it that correlation refers back again to the ratings between Duck Dynasty and The Daily Show, but what’s wrong with swamp people? Come to Alabama. Conduct your interviews. As far as politics go, hey – there are no holds barred. It’s pretty much the same with religion, because we know God has got us. But…don’t make light of Alabama swamp people. They are some of the best of us.

Those overpriced, ridiculous jeans at Nordstrom’s designed to look muddy are probably trying to emulate swamp people. If things turn stormy, if the situation suddenly shifts and reality gets really real – if the power goes and cell batteries die and no one can post prayer requests on Facebook. If destruction surrounds and strength and perseverance are required to start again, it will be swamp people who rise like a phoenix out of the wetlands. Swamp people are survivors. They know how to live off the land and water, and most of them tell better stories than The Daily Show.

The Mobile-Tensaw River Delta consists of almost 260,000 acres of swampland making it second in size only to the Mississippi River Delta. The Daily Show crew should go have supper with some of these characters of the swamp. Catch a sunset. Listen to the hush between day surrendering to night. Chirping birds and daytime buzzing subside to silence before a cadence of frogs and crickets play against a damp breeze, drowning out all but nature.

Alabama has its problems. Our swamp people aren’t one of them.

Amanda Walker is a blogger and contributor with AL.com, The Thomasville Times, West Alabama Watchman, and Wilcox Progressive Era. Contact her at walkerworld77@msn.com or at https://www.facebook.com/AmandaWalker.Columnist