"Dragging the gut" has been a pastime in Small Town, America, since the 1950s. It involves cruising down a town's main drag, as was popularized in the movie "American Graffiti." It probably came about because there wasn't much to do in small towns on Friday nights and cruising through the middle of town repeatedly in cars was more entertaining than pushing over cows.
I was standing on a street corner in Walport, Oregon, with two Japanese guys who didn't know karate, trying to hitchhike out of town when we noticed the "dragging of the gut" phenomenon begin. We were merely spectators, not actually gut-draggers, seeing as how the only vehicle we had, a 1965 milk truck-camper, had broken down 80 miles south at Winchester Bay.
The two Japanese guys who didn't know karate were members of the "Hawaii Club" at Oregon State University. I had volunteered to take them on an Oregon Coast surf safari. They were dubious but I assured them there were waves in Oregon, albeit cold ones. We were heading home in the camper when the drive shaft popped loose, cracking the rear transmission housing, bringing our trip to a sudden stop. We left the truck and hitchhiked to Walport with the hopes of catching another ride to central Oregon before nightfall.
Unfortunately, night fell. And the citizens of Walport began their Friday night ritual of "dragging the gut."
These were not the most racially sensitive of times and the spectacle of two Japanese guys standing on a Walport street corner on Friday night apparently was a little too much to ignore. Two crackers in a pickup truck with a shotgun hanging on a gun rack drove by and yelled an obscenity in our direction.
One of the Japanese guys flipped the driver the bird, which had the effect of suddenly making things very tense. The truck stopped and a little obnoxious fellow came over accompanied by his extremely large and mentally impaired partner.
It's been a while, but I recall the conversation going something like this:
Me: "Look, we're just trying to get out of town."
Jethro: "F-- you. We're gonna kick your a-. Now, these guys (looking at one of the Japanese guys) might know karate and maybe they'll kick our a-es. If they do, we're going to shoot you. So we can shoot you now or we can shoot you later."
The Japanese guys simply stared at the cracker, saying nothing. Jethro clearly wasn't a worldly guy and the one thing he knew about Asian men was that they all knew karate. The more he talked, the more he began to feel that my friends were karate experts. And a certain warmness for their steely nerve began to overtake him.
Finally, the small jerk said to me: "You're a weenie. But these two guys are cool. We're going to let you go."
They drove away. My friends let out a deep breath having just survived their first real brush with ignorant racism. We decided it might be better to hitch a ride out of town in the morning and rented a cheap motel room for the night.
A week later, I drove back to Winchester Bay with a used rear transmission housing, installed it and retrieved my truck. I went on many surf trips after that but members of the "Hawaii Club" decided they had had their fill of the Oregon Coast. I couldn't blame them.
Racism had nearly gotten us killed. Racial stereotyping had strangely saved our butts. And my vision of Small Town, U.S.A., as a benign "American Graffiti" kind of place was forever shattered.
