Remember when folks who lived in the country called people from the city “city slickers” and the city slickers called the people on farms and in small towns “country bumpkins”? Stereotypes contain some kernel of truth, which makes it harder to make sense of what is happening in America today.
Honesty and the Egg Robbers
When was the last time you went shopping for groceries, went to checkout only to discover you’d forgotten your wallet or purse — you have no plastic or cash — and the clerk says, “No problem. Just pay me when you can. We only take cash”?
It happens in the country where “a man’s word is his bond.” Yes, means ‘yes’ and No means ‘no’. Honesty is expected. Country folks don’t take kindly to snake oil salesmen all gussied-up in fancy Sacks Fifth Avenue suits, custom-made white shirts, silk ties, gold Gucci watches, and highly polished black Louis Vuitton Manhattan Richelieu Men’s Shoes. The city slickers don’t usually wear tractor hats or track in manure from the fields and barn on their boots.
Driving on a country road where the Trump campaign flag has replaced the American flag on a home’s front yard flagpole, I wonder what’s happening. The folks who expect honesty are following a city slicker — not just any city slicker — a really slick city slicker. The house with the flagpole is as down-to-earth as Trump Tower is uppity. Rusted-out pick-up trucks litter the yard amid the weeds. The “lawn” is worlds away from manicured fairways of Mar-a-Largo. I scratch my head, wondering how it happens that someone whose bond is his word hoists a slicker’s flag.
Mr. Slicker and the Egg Robbers — 1930 AND 2023
Looking back to Floyd Gottfredson’s Great Depression comic strip “Mr. Slicker and the Egg Robbers,” I wonder whether the Trump supporters in 2019 have noticed that someone’s been stealing the eggs from the old fashioned honor code roadside stand his children replenish every morning.
“Mr. Slicker and the Egg Robbers” was set in Mouston, where Mickey Mouse opens up a miniature golf course on his farm. Soon a very tall mouse, Mr. Slicker, wows the citizens of Mouston, tries to woo Minnie away from Mickey, steals Minnie’s family’s farm eggs, and comes to Marcus Mouse’s (Minnie’s father) rescue when a draught and the egg thefts leave him unable to pay the mortgage. Mr. Slicker offers to pay off the family’s debt, but only if Minnie will marry him. When Mickey comes to the rescue with savings from his miniature golf course, a stange thing happens. The Mouston Bank is robbed. Mr. Slick goes to the police to pin the robbery on Mickey.
Long story short — if you want the full story, click THIS LINK — Mickey, surmising that Mr. Slicker is behind the egg thefts and the bank robbery, convinces Slicker’s right hand man that Mr. Slicker has no intention of cutting the robbers in on the heist. Slicker and the robbers are arrested, and Minnie throws a dinner party for Mickey, her hero!
REDEEMING THE COIN OF THE REALM
It’s an old story from 1930 but it still brings a smile to those who are not fooled by slickers in high places who seem never to have learned what most country folks have always known but now seem to have forgotten: honesty is the coin of the realm. Please, take Slicker down from the flagpole where the American flag once waved.
- Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, June 27, 2019.
Views from the Edge 
