Family Archives - Joel Rieves

Thanksgiving is the Best Holiday of the Year

All right, Halloween and the election are over and there’s nothing left to get in the way of the holidays. But that doesn’t mean all you Christmas cluckers can start with all your “Tis the season” crap. I mean ,seriously, Christmas is two months away and if you start this twaddle now, by the time […]

Family Matters

It’s been a while since I posted anything here, mostly because I’ve been busy with school. Also, I’ve been writing for a friend’s site (The Betafiles. You should check it out.) But, I’ve come to realize I shouldn’t neglect my own little corner of the web, so I’m going to begin sharing the things I […]

Family Reunion

Donnie sat on the edge of the bed in nothing but his underwear and bright, white t-shirt. He held a pair of socks, his shoes on the floor between his feet. The pants his mother had picked out lay on the bed beside him, while a shirt hung on the door of his closet. Normally, […]

It’s That Time of Year Again: The Annual “What I’m Thankful For” Post

Well, beloved, today is Thanksgiving and you know what that means: It’s time for my annual semi-snarky “What I’m Thankful for” post. This tradition started before the “gratitude challenge” became a thing, but being a dedicated curmudgeon, “What I’m Thankful For” quickly turned into a vehicle for skewering American’s penchant for jumping on a bandwagon […]

An Open Letter About My LGBT Kid

Lately, I’ve seen a few straight progressive bloggers write about parenting children who are LGBT. It might be speculation about how the author would react to the news that one of their kids is gay. Or, it could be an open letter telling parents what they should say to their LGBT kid. As the parent of […]

Trans-parenting

Wednesday evening, my son Parker and I spoke to some of the members of our church family about our experiences with transgender issues; he, as a trans man and me as the father of a person who is transgender. This is the video of that talk. If you can’t watch it, what follows is a […]

The Annual “What I’m Thankful For” Post

Faithful readers of The Progressive Redneck know that I’m great at starting new features or series, even if the features or series themselves aren’t all that good. They also know that I suck at following through on them. There are a couple of reasons for that; some of them were kind of shitty (Christian Dick […]

I’m Still Not Ashamed Of My Heritage?

Race is a funny thing in the South. Most of the time, it’s confusing and hard to navigate. If you’re a (sort of) progressive, white man, even more so. Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been digging into my family history and found that I was a little off base about my background (and […]

Being A Southerner

I had originally thought about titling this post “Living In The Southland”, but, I have another piece in the works that already carries that name, so… Besides, one can live in the Southland their entire life and never truly be a “southerner”; it’s as much a state of mind as it a locale. So, I thought […]

The Obligatory “What I’m Thankful For” Post 2014 Edition

Well, it’s Thanksgiving and you know what that means: it’s time for one of the few lasting traditions here at The Progressive Redneck: “The Obligatory “What I’m Thankful For” Post, a collection of the more trivial things that I happen to be thankful for each year. Normally, I write this the day before Thanksgiving but, […]