The Last Laugh (Ballad of Jim Hadaway)

Jim was a joker. Like a lot of older guys that think they’re funny, most of his humor made you roll your eyes and groan. Old man humor is its own animal.

Waitress: “And how would you like your steak?”

Old man: “Cooked.”

The server laughs, and you know she just wants to lean over and hug that old man for making her day with the funniest thing she’s heard all year! Before she kills him dead right there.

Jim and I were unlikely buddies, being a full generation apart in age. We became acquainted by playing golf as part of a large group that would gather almost daily for what’s commonly called a ‘dog fight.’

One day, after our dog fight, I wound up at his house to help him split some firewood. That’s where we bonded. We both shared the love of a warm fire, so finding and splitting wood became a thing for us. And we did it all year long.

Before his stroke a couple of years ago, we’d always split enough wood for the both of us and have enough left over to sell ten to fifteen truckloads. That was Jim’s thing. The old man was old school. He’d worked all his life, made and squandered a couple of fortunes, and like to tell me about it. I always figured selling a few loads of firewood every winter kept him feeling productive as he approached his eighties.

Over the years, we perfected a system whereby we’d have whole tree trunks delivered to his back yard by the dump truck load. Such a load would require several weeks of after-golf working to split and stack.

I imagine if we’d ever sat down to figure out how much it cost to keep three chainsaws and a splitter running, we’d probably have gotten out of that little hobby. But it wasn’t just the about the wood-splitting.

It was also about happy hour.

If golf ran until 3:30 or 4 o’clock, we could get a solid hour or so of splitting in until it was time for refreshments. Jim declared it against union rules to work past 5 o’clock, so really, what choice did we have but to quit and drink?

Even as Jim gave up golf, we would time our wood-cutting sessions to end at 5 o’clock and retire to his screened-in porch for tales and toddies. Drinks poured or beers popped, Jim would launch into his stories.

He’d always start with, “Have I told you about the time…” Yes, he had told me, usually more than once, but I always said no just to hear what embellishment was going to be added with this telling.

I never really thought of his story-telling as lying. Rather, I liked to think of it as him remembering some detail he had previously omitted.

Following his first stroke, Jim’s participation in wood-cutting sessions was as foreman, shouting instructions from his porch on where to stack wood and how high, because in the 10 years we’d been doing it together, I apparently hadn’t learned that.

By the way, the proper height for stacking wood is high enough that you can discreetly take a leak, and no one driving past your house can see you. I did learn that.

Through all of the years of our B-S sessions, Jim had repeatedly promised that when he died, he’d leave me his underwear and socks. Old man humor again. I mean, isn’t promising to leave your buddy your socks and underwear hysterical?

I think my biggest fear was that he might actually do it. I had played golf with him enough to know that his underwear was the very definition of hazmat.

Two years after his first stroke, Jim had another one. I lost a friend, but he left me with plenty of warm, silly, dumb, idiotic memories and stories to last me for a while. Plus, I got his PBR.

Jim drank Pabst Blue Ribbon. Post-stroke, he required help, and his wife needed whatever participation he could offer in getting him dressed, bathed and going about the business of the day, so she tried to keep in on a two-a-day limit. Given that, a few cases would last quite a while.

Upon his passing, there were two cases of PBR that I felt needed a home. I knew his wife had better taste, so I just loaded them up and took ‘em. I do believe that upon my own passing, there will still be the better part of two cases left. If you like PBR, no offense.

I spoke at Jim’s memorial. Jim had fun with his life, and I aimed to have some fun with it, as well. I recalled how he seemed to most enjoy telling me about the things that went awry in his life: bar fights, failed marriages, bum business partners or deals, too much drink… I had heard them all always questioned what amount of truth they contained.

At his memorial, I called him out. I did. Right there in the First Methodist Church chapel, I called Jim a liar. I told the over-flowing gathering that he had promised me his underwear and socks, but that he had not delivered on that promise. Most folks there thought that was pretty funny.

It was interesting to see the faces of those gathered as I spoke. I brought as much laughter as I could tastefully invoke. But there’s always the few, the old-line few, that think a funeral or memorial is a strictly somber occasion, that it is not a time or place for happiness.

Those folks are getting left behind by those of us that choose to be grateful to have been a part of a well-lived life. Almost every memorial I’ve attended in the last decade has been generally uplifting. Sure, there are tears, but there is joy, and yes, plenty of laughter as we relive the precious – frequently amusing – memories of the life we are there to celebrate.

If I have the opportunity to plan my own exit, expect hijinks. And BBQ and beer.

At age 80, I’m convinced Jim knew he was near the end of his journey. He spoke of it frequently, though not in a weighty manner. And he planned. He had taken necessary steps to donate his body to a medical college. He had also arranged for an attorney/friend to be his executor in order to free his wife of that responsibility.

This week, the postman delivered a package to my house. It was from an address I did not recognize. Turns out, it was from the executor of Jim’s estate. In the box, underwear and socks. A tee shirt and the patriotic bandana Jim frequently wore when we split wood had also been included.

I spent the rest of the day laughing. That’s exactly how Jim would have wanted it.

I’ll keep the bandana. Probably the t-shirt, too. But the underwear, that’s one precious memory that will not linger!

Know Any Lawyer Jokes?

What happened to the law profession? Seriously.

One of my best friends for the last 45 years of my life is a lawyer. I recall us many years ago discussing then-upcoming changes that would finally allow attorneys to advertise. Being employed in radio, a medium that makes its money off advertising, I was all for it. My buddy was not. He felt like it would cheapen the profession.

Boy, did he ever get that right.

Television shows today are filled with ads featuring attorneys screaming, dancing, rapping, flipping, standing on top of vehicles, bragging about how much money they’ve won for clients and positioning themselves as courtroom badasses, all in an attempt to get you to go after ‘your share, what you are owed.’

Attorneys and law firms spend enormous amounts of money trying to convince you that if your life is inconvenienced by any little nuance, you may be entitled to a settlement.

You are the victim. You are the aggrieved. You deserve to get some money. It’s your right! Fight for your right! Sue somebody!

Forget the fact that there are ever-increasingly more bodies on this earth in ever-increasingly crowded spaces. Forget that fact that accidents happen, that we bump into one another from time to time. Nowadays, you best bump into someone else, hoss, ‘cause if you so much as look at me cross-eyed, I’m gonna call the strong man of the law, and he is going to take you downtown! He done said so on TV!

Didn’t the law profession have some dignity at one time? What went wrong? Did lawyers just wake up one day and say, “you know what? Screw dignity. There’s a 30% commission to be made. Let us go forth as sue-ers and find us some sue-ees!”

Lawyering has always been a bit of a put-upon profession. I suppose that’s because lawyers have always been involved in settling disputes. And in settling disputes, there’s usually a losing side.

Ever wondered why every single thing we buy these days has so much paperwork attached to it? Why coffee from the drive-through has warnings that it’s hot? Why Apple’s website tells you not to eat your iPod Shuffle? Why there’s a warning on the toy scooter that tells you ‘this product moves when used?’ Why the department store puts up a sign warning you not to chew gum from the urinal?

It’s the same reason your insurance premiums keep going up. Every time someone wins in court, someone else pays.

I do realize that the practice of law covers many areas not associated with personal injury. There are many good lawyers doing many good works (I’m told). There are lawyers that wouldn’t sue someone even if you had a legitimate case, because that’s not what they do.

What we’re addressing here are TV lawyers, attorneys that spend wads of cash to convince you that you’ve been victimized. To my mind, the practice of personal injury attorneys has entered the same space occupied by payday loaning and title pawning.

Dick, the butcher, in Shakespeare’s Henry The Sixth said, “First thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” If ol’ Dick had followed through, I’m thinkin’ television viewing would be a lot more tolerable today.

Disclaimer: if you have been offended by this article, you may be entitled to a settlement. Call 1-800-LETS SUE.

Free Money (Money For Nothing, Pt.2)

It’s an ongoing conversation with friends: will you pick up a penny? If it’s just lying there on the ground, will you pick it up?

My general policy is that I don’t leave money lying on the ground, period. Apparently, I’m pretty much alone, though, when it comes to pennies. Most folks think a penny isn’t worth it. A former co-worker put it like this, “I won’t spend the energy for a penny, but if it’s silver, I will crawl under your car for it!”

I get that. Finding a dime or quarter is winning vagabond bingo.

But on the off-chance that you, like me, think money is money – and there is no such thing as money not worth picking up – today, I channel my inner hobo and offer tips for finding free money.

Pay attention.

First of all, forget Casey Kasem. He urged his listeners to “keep reaching for the stars.” Bump that. Keep your head down at all times. There ain’t no money in the stars or in the air. It’s in the parking lot. Walk with your head down, eyes open.

The kind of parking lots matters; they are not created equally.

Parking lots at drug stores are fertile ground for loose change. Think about it. Who uses drug stores the most? Old people. Old people either don’t know they’ve dropped coins or think they may pass out if they bend over to pick them up.

I always park as far away from the front door of a drug store as possible to maximize the territory I can cover. Whatever I find will offset the cost of the fiber I’m there to buy.

Speaking of old people, you should target the parking lots of restaurants that old people enjoy. I do not mean to disparage the names of some fine eateries, but if you’ve got a Shoney’s in your town, Yahtzee!!

Denny’s, IHOP, Red Lobster… dump the kids out, and let ‘em scour the parking lot. First one to find daddy a quarter wins!

Grocery store parking lots are also very happy hunting grounds. First, there’s the sheer number of people getting in and out of their cars. Secondly, translate that number into how many hands go in and out of pockets for keys. There’s change in them there pockets.

Here’s one you might overlook: parking lots in front of buffets. Next time you’re in a buffet restaurant, pay attention to the patrons. True, most of them are older, but most of them are also large. I’m seeing people that drop coins but couldn’t reach the ground if they tried to bend over to pick them up. Bonus: lots of them have just gotten change from the cashier as they left!

Finally, one of the very best places to find coinage is the parking lot at a golf course. There are several reasons, starting with the fact that golfers frequently use loose change to spot their balls before putting. Even if they don’t, coins in their pockets get mixed in with the tees, ball markers, and other paraphernalia necessary for an outing on the course. As they clean their pockets at the end of the round, there it goes: a dime here, a nickel there…

Bonus time again: golfers drink. And after a few of beers, do you really care that you’ve dropped a penny or two? No, you don’t. So now we have not only loose change, but we have it being handled by drunks. Winner, winner, pay for dinner!

So to summarize today’s lesson, we have just covered how to take advantage of the elderly, the obese, and the social miscreants (golfers). I think our work here is done.

Next time I see you with your hands in your pockets, I hope you’re playing with loose change.

Eat Your Veggies

As we grow older, we seem to constantly be dieting.

We put on a few pounds, then a few pounds more, and eventually, we’re always paying attention to what we eat. Or at least thinking we should be paying attention.

To that end, we tend to move away from such huge portions of meat, gravitating toward what’s supposedly ‘good for us.’

That would be vegetables. At least, that’s what mama said.

So let us now ask the important question, and then we’ll examine the answer:

“What is a vegetable?”

While I like the notion that grass-fed beef is a vegetable (hey, all it ate was grass!), I seek a deeper, more thoughtful discussion.

Squash, eggplant, tomatoes, and okra are all vegetables. Okay, they are actually all fruits since they come from a flower, but we are going to use conventional thinking here and just let them be vegetables.

A lot of people – like me – do not like vegetables, including, but not limited to, the aforementioned garden foods, unless they’ve been fried or put into a casserole with lots of other yummy stuff.

However, in order to insure a more healthy diet for myself, I’ve learned to think outside the box.

The pizza box.

Yes, friends, leave off the sausage and pepperoni and what you have is a veggie mix.

Some of you will want to challenge me: “what about the cheese?”

Cheese is not meat and therefore doesn’t count.

“What about the crust?”

Again, not meat. In this case it’s simply an edible plate for your nutritious feast. Have another slice of vegetables.

Recently, I’ve had my eyes opened to vegetables in a way I never expected, and I want to share it with you.

We were at a small-town diner for lunch, and one of the menu items was a vegetable plate. You picked four veggies for their list, they added cornbread, and you were a healthy-eating machine.

Now, I usually completely ignore vegetable plates, but I was intrigued by the list. There were the usual Southern suspects: green bean, mashed potatoes, and collards.

But wait, it gets better.

-fried okra (see previous comments)

-squash casserole (see previous comments)

-mashed potatoes (yes, I know, but I forgot to tell you they were served with gravy)

The list was extensive.

And right there, right there at the end of the vegetable options…

Mac ‘n Cheese.

Mais oui, bazinga, yahtzee and of course! I am moved to poetry.

All these years

I never knew.

It’s on the list,

You know it’s true!

Tonight, I begin my diet anew, eating plenty of veggies. Say hello to the new, healthier me.

Birthdays With Zeros

I’ve just hit my 60^th birthday. Ugh.

Birthdays featuring zeros are viewed as events that make us older. Take turning forty, for instance. It’s hard to do, but then you have ten years to be a 40-something before you have to face fifty. I don’t mind being sixty, I just don’t like the number.

I also don’t like the fact that I’m now starting to see a sixty year-old man in the mirror. That probably is how everyone feels at some point. We all would like to think we don’t look as old as we really are. One day, reality sets in, and denial is futile.

I do like that I get to move up to the white tees, so I’ve got that going for me. (Note: regardless of color, they are referred to as the ‘senior’ tees. That is, until you move up to them. Then, they are referred to by their color. ‘Cause we ain’t seniors!)

My 59^th year was a good one. It was my first full year of retirement, and my wife and I roamed around a lot. Disney World, Boston, Amsterdam, New York City, Mexico… but I’ve apparently left a little hair in each place. The current version of me is getting quite thin on the dome.

My apologies to housekeeping.

How does it feel, you ask? Since I’m in good shape (not yet a fully-inflated beach ball), reasonably active (I get out of the golf cart to swing at the ball), and healthy (what triple bypass?), turning sixty feels no different than turning fifty. Or forty, for that matter. Just another day in the life.

Because I spend most of my time living my life, I rarely take time to reflect on it. But I found myself doing just that the other day.

Get the picture: we’re on the Georgia coast, and it’s a cool but sunny day. A little restaurant on the marina with a reputation for serving tasty food has brought us our lunch and bloody marys. We’re sitting beside a picture window looking at hundreds of boats of all sizes, moored to the piers, bobbing gently in the tidal waters.

I’m thinking, ‘man, you can’t beat this life,’ when a man appears on the boardwalk, nicely dressed and walking to his boat. The way he is dressed and the fact that there is a golf bag hanging from his shoulder leave little doubt as to where he is going.

When I go golfing, I throw my clubs in the back of my pick-up truck. Not this guy. He’s got a yacht.

Curses. I’ve just been one-upped.

Kissin' Cousins (and other kin)

My wife is saying goodbye to her family. She kisses her father, then, she kisses her mother. Next, both sisters. The problem: she kisses them all on the lips.

Gross.

I’m sorry (not), y’all, but I think kissin’ your kinfolk on the lips is nasty. Good on you, if that’s what you do, but leave me out. In fact, give me enough warning so I don’t have to watch.

I don’t kiss my own mom on the lips. We do cheeks. Go ahead and say it. “One day, your mama’s not going to be around, and you’re gonna wish you had kissed her lips a little more!”

No, I’m not.

I may wish I had gone for one more visit or stayed on the phone a little longer, but I’m not going to wish I had kissed her lips more. That seems odd for a grown guy to do.

Since I’m not opposed to a quick kiss on the lips from some people, I am forced to examine my criteria for who can and who cannot. Let’s start by eliminating immediate family. That will include mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers. My sister gave me a peck on the lips twenty years ago, and I’m still not over it.

We should eliminate in-laws, too. Unless they’re really hot.

I like air kissing. You know, like Europeans do, where you just kiss the air on each side of the face. Except let’s just do it on one side. And don’t ever expect me to do it with another guy.

I think kissing on the lips can be acceptable in the once-removed category. For instance, cousins are probably OK. But not aunts or uncles. That’s too close to mom or dad territory.

Girls seem to be good with casually kissing other girls. They are the more nurturing gender, so I’m OK with that if…. they aren’t kin. But guys should not kiss other guys as a simple gesture of friendship. That weirds me out.

One other category should be mentioned: dog kissers. If you let your dog lick you on the lips, don’t ask me to.

Yuck.

I’m going away now. Feel free to just wave.

Walkin' Down a Country Road (Reminiscing)

The harvest is almost done. It’s that time of year.

I am walking with my wife along the edge of a cotton field that has been picked, its stalks cut and waiting to be tilled back into the soil. And I feel really good.

I am very fortunate to have grown up in a time and place where I got a little taste of pre-modern life. My family spent a fair amount of time at both of my great-grand parents’ houses in Dallas, Georgia.

In the 1960s, Dallas was hillbilly country. Now, it’s basically just more Atlanta.

Both places had an old-fashion well where you cranked a bucket on a rope down into the hole, let the bucket fill up, then cranked ‘er back up. A ladle hung on the well post for dipping and sipping that cool water you had just pulled up from the ground. As a young boy, I didn’t think of it as old-fashioned, I thought of it as being pretty cool.

Not everything there was pretty cool, however.

At both places, there was an outhouse, and we used them. Even as they got indoor plumbing, the kids - that meant me - still had to use the outhouse. Yes, there was a Sears & Roebuck catalog in there. And yes, you tore off pages to clean your business.

What I also remember about one of the outhouse was that yellow jackets tended to congregate around whatever deposits had been made.

It might be useful to know that the back portion of the old outhouses were open – at least a foot or so off the ground – to allow them to be shoveled out from time to time. Any manner of critters had easy access.

I never had to shovel one out, but I did have to put my bare bottom and other associated parts onto a hole in a wooden plank that was situated about two feet above where some bees were buzzing. I saw that as a threat to my manhood. Or little boyhood.

Whatever. It was always a bit unnerving.

One of my great-grandfathers had a chicken house. It was a single house, but he was raising chickens commercially, even if on a small scale. It was always fun when he got a fresh load of baby chicks in. We kids would go into the chicken house and play with them.

These days, going into a chicken house is almost a hazmat operation where you have to wear special gear and get hosed down with some cleaning solution. Looking back now, though, “I played with your foo-ood! I played wid jo foo-ood!”

If I’m being honest, I have to admit I never got the hang of milking a cow. My great-grandmother tried to teach me a couple of times. I was afraid I was hurting the cow. With that little stream of snuff juice oozing from the corner of her mouth, I’m right certain hurting the cow as of no concern to Grandmama.

The point of this little waltz down memory lane is that I have some connection to the farm. At least occasionally I was amongst the chicks, the cows, the pigs, the donkeys…

And they all smelled better than that dang outhouse.

The very first summer job I had was hoeing nutgrass out of peanut fields. I spent another miserable summer working for an entomologist who had me collecting and counting stinkbug eggs from soybean plots.

My wife has even more exposure to the farm. She spent one summer cropping tobacco. That set her on a career path of “anything but that!” Her chosen career as an entomologist, though, wound up keeping her close to farms and farmers.

There are things you pick up from the farm - from the country - that never leave you. The smell of freshly-cut hay, the smell of freshly dug peanuts.

They fill your senses so strongly that when you get the chance to experience them again, they bring you closer to earth, closer to the dirt that sustains you.

I love the city I live in, and my farming experience now is limited to a lone tomato or pepper plant in a pot out on the deck. So walking with my wife on this sandy dirt road, alongside this abandoned railroad track, past this cotton field, past this over-grown pond, through this tall stand of pine trees, I feel something.

I’m not really sure where it’s taking me back to, but it has a hold on me.

Feels a lot like home.

Real Man Food

It’s no great revelation that our tastes change as we, uh… mature.

Think about the first wine you drank. Pink right? Or peach or strawberry or whatever Boone’s Farm blend you could get your hand on. 

White zinfandel, which is pink, is still popular with novices. In fairness to white zin, it’s still popular with girls and gay guys, too. No offense intended; I have girl friends and gay guy friends. I know what they like.

My own wine experience started with sauterne, which is a dessert wine. I recall drinking it over pizza with a girlfriend. It’s really sweet and a terrible choice with pizza, but it’s where your taste buds are. Or were.  

These days, I prefer syrahs, zins (not white), and cabernets: rich, hardy, almost heavy wines with lots of big tannins and a warm alcohol feel.

Coffee is another good example of changing tastes. It’s pretty common to start drinking it with lots of milk and sugar which, except for it being hot, makes it more like a coffee milk shake. I’m a late-in-life coffee drinker, but I only want it one way: black and strong.

Chocolate: I will eat creamy milk chocolate if you offer it, but I would marry a Hershey’s Special Dark bar if the law allowed and it could say “I do”.

Syrup: Aunt Jemima is for sissies. Give me a buttered biscuit and some blackstrap molasses - or sorghum, and get out of my way!

Anchovies: Like most folks, I grew up thinking they were yucky. Now, I routinely use anchovy paste in certain dishes. Sardines? Nothing but big anchovies. Open a can and let’s eat.

Spices and herbs: more, more, more! Pepper, cumin, and cilantro. Garlic could duke it out with dark chocolate for my deepest affections.

But you see the trend, yes?  Bigger, bolder, richer... words already used.  Here’s another word that applies: stinkier.  I want my cheese to stink. Bleu, gorgonzola… give me any cheese with mold in it. That seems odd to even say.

But ‘stinky’ seems like a good place to stop and begin to address the elephant in the room. And that is how all of this affects us. More importantly, how it affects the people around us. Or we could just ignore it. 

Either way, COULD SOMEBODY PLEASE OPEN A WINDOW AND GET SOME FRESH AIR IN HERE!?!?

Where No Man Has Gone Before

The late Lewis Grizzard used to differentiate between being naked and being nekkid. Naked, he said, meant you had no clothes on. Being nekkid meant you had no clothes on and were up to something.

It made for a cute saying, but it ain’t true. You can be naked anywhere, but if you live in the South, and you are not wearing clothes, you’re nekkid. It’s just the way most of us say that word.

So here I am. Nekkid. And for some reason, my doctor has chosen this moment to expound on his son’s college education. Being naked in a doctor’s office means one thing: my annual physical.

So here is a soft-in-the-middle, slowly-balding, pasty white guy just standing there with no clothes on, trying to pretend I’m not uncomfortable while he talks about the cost of education, housing, etc.

I can’t get dressed. There are a couple of things left for him to do that require my nakedness. I once suggested that he let my wife administer the testicular cancer exam. He didn’t go for that.

Frankly, my wife didn’t care for that idea, either.

My physical is otherwise going well. I’m a healthy dude. Sort of. When something goes wrong, I tend to go big: colon cancer, heart disease. Otherwise, my numbers are typically quite good: cholesterol, sugars, heart rate, blood pressure. This visit is no exception.

The doctor is pleased, though he casts a skeptical eye my way as he tells me my liver numbers are perfect. It’s almost as though he suspects I slipped somebody else’s blood in for the screening. Score one for drinking the good stuff, I say.

I am starting to get a little anxious. There’s only one procedure left, and it’s the part I dread the most. In fact, I went so far as to tell my doctor that insurance no longer covers it.

He is unfazed. “Then this will be pro bono,” he says as he puts on the rubber gloves.

I used to complain about this part of the exam when I got home. Apparently, women have their own challenges when it comes to being examined. “Cry me a river,” she said. Believe me, if I thought it would get me out of this, I would.

There’s a lot of science I don’t understand. Simply by saying the right words, I can ask my cell phone the time, date, stock prices, kickoff time for my favorite team, and what started World War II. Why can’t it tell me how my prostate is?

I ask my doctor that. He agrees it would be helpful but suggests that’s probably not a place I want my cell phone to be.

That’s a really good point.

Facing The Music

There’s something about musicians. We treat them differently. The sins of musicians seem exempt from the scorn and contempt that is heaped upon every day folk, and especially, politicians.

Consider the case of Jared Fogle, the seemingly wholesome (former) Subway pitchman. Jared and his boyish face became an advertising fixture with his claim that he lost gobs of weight eating Subway sandwiches. One day, we wake up to hear that ol’ Jared has some issues.

Subway has fired him, and some rather serious federal charges are still pending.

Those charges – including - possession of inappropriate material involving children – seem to merit his dismissal, but I can’t help thinking, would it be different if he was a musician?

There seems to be compelling evidence that Michael Jackson had at least one inappropriate relationship with a child. Yet, we still play his songs on the radio. Marching bands perform grand choreography while playing his songs at halftime. Indeed, there is still demand for his tunes in advertisements. Michael Jackson is revered as one of the greatest of a generation. Why do we choose not to hold his past against him?

Gary Glitter, same thing. Gary Glitter’s song, “Rock and Roll Part 2” is alive and well at sporting arenas across the U.S. and Canada. You may know it as the song where you shout “Hey!” every so often. Bands love to play it, and loudspeakers blare it to keep the crowds amped up.

Gary Glitter has been convicted and served time for sex crimes. And there are additional similar charges against him even now. Yet, even my beloved University of Georgia still pumps out that song he co-wrote back in the 70s. Billboard magazine estimates that the song still earns around $250,000 a year in royalties, almost all of it from sports venues.

Every problem involving a musician is not pedophilia, of course. And granted, all crimes are not equal. Paul McCartney was arrested in 1980 for bringing weed into Japan. He spent eight nights in jail for that. These days, most of us don’t think marijuana possession should be a crime, so that seems pretty easy to blow off.

George Michael. Arrested for both drugs and “engaging in a lewd act” (albeit with an adult). The drug was pot, and he claims the other charge was the result of being lured in by an undercover police sting. Do we care? Nah. He may not really be our “Father Figure”, but we know all the words to the song.

James Brown. Arrested several times: theft, drugs, assaulting a cop, resisting arrest. Spent time in jail at least twice. We have no problem playing his classic songs. His arrests are viewed now as just part of his persona.

‘Musicians that have been arrested’ is an interesting Google search to kill some time. Justin Bieber, Merle Haggard, Rick James, Ozzy Osborne, David Crosby, Lil’ Kim, Peter Yarrow, Bobby Brown, Kid Rock, Rick James, Phil Spector… the charges run from peeing in public to murder.

Jim Morrison, front man for The Doors, was arrested five times. At least one of the charges was for dropping the F-bomb on stage. That right there is public obscenity, my friends. Or at least that was the charge. I’m trying to imagine a rock concert now without the F-bomb.

Dying appears to help your cause. James Brown, yeah, he had some issues but, man, could he sing. And bust a move! Jim Morrison was a drunk. In death, he is a rock god.

How about Rick James? Forget the draft dodging, kidnapping, and crack-piping. He’s the king of punk funk, dude. Somebody put on “Super Freak” and let’s turn this place out!

So poor ol’ Jared will live in our memories as a guy who rose to stardom for eating fresh and losing weight, then crashing and burning in the shame of the charges he now faces. Can’t help but wonder if it would be different if he had a few hits songs under his belt.

My Press Conference (I Did Not Inhale!)

Thanks for coming to this debriefing on my west coast trip. Some of you are not real journalists, so I’ll start by calling only on credible reporters. Brian?

Brian Williams: Is this your first west coast trip?

Me: No.

Brian Williams: What was different this time?

Me: Weed is legal up and down the west coast. That’s two questions from you. Next?

Dan Rather: Cannabis is only legal in California for medicinal purposes, you know.

Me: True. But from what I observed, 98% of the state’s population suffers from glaucoma.

Maury Povich: Do you have any past relationship with cannabis?

Me: To quote a great American, Lamar Odum, “there’s a lot I don’t remember.” You with the double-wide, you have a question?

Kim Kardashian: Why are the Doobie Brothers called the Doobie Brothers? They aren’t brothers and none of them are named Doobie.

Me: Umm, are there no other ‘real’ journalists here? Go ahead, mustache…

Geraldo Rivera: Since recreational pot is legal in Washington and Oregon, did you buy any?

Me: To paraphrase a great American, Bill Clinton, I went into the store, but I did not buy.

Hillary Clinton: My husband is a liar!

Me: That’s not a question. You, with the cool hair…

Snoop Dogg: I once whizzled on a tizzle in a drizzle.

Me: Fo’ rizzle?

Snoop: Fo’ shizzle, my pizzle.

Me: Next? You back there playing with your tongue…

Miley Cyrus: Back, like, when I was, like, a little girl, my daddy, Billy Ray – did you know my daddy was Billy Ray? Anyway, like, Billy Ray would sing this song to me called, like, Puff The Magic Dragon, and like, it was all cute and whatever. But I got to thinking about it a few years ago, and like, I’m wondering if I should tell him it’s not really, like, a kid’s song or whatever.

Me: I wouldn’t. It would break his achy hea…

Miley: Stop! Like, don’t even! Like, I hate that ******* song!

Me: I miss Hannah Montana. She didn’t have a potty mouth.

Miley: Hey, I offered to keep doing the show, like, if they would let me, like, evolve as a character. Like, changing my name to Hannah Colorado or whatever. That way, I could, like, do grown-up stuff and whatever.

Me: And move in with John Denver.

Miley: Who’s that?

Me: You know, Rocky Mountain High?

Miley: Exactly! Duh!

Kim Kardashian: Can I ask another question? My mom used to listen to this Paul Simon song about when he stepped outside and smoked himself a ‘j’. Does that mean he smoked with Jay Leno? Because Ray J wasn’t alive then, I don’t think.

Me: Anyone else?  You, homeless guy in the back…

Willie Nelson: My tour bus is outside. What say we get outta here and go for a ride.

Me: Got Doritos?

Willie: Bags.

Kim Kardashian: Hey, wait! Before you go, let ask you something. When Kanye says he’s going to roll a fatty, where’s he rolling me to?

Me: Thanks for coming, everybody!

Enjoy Your Flight!

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome aboard. We know you could have flown on any other airline, but that would have cost you fifty cents more, so thanks for choosing us.

And before you blame us for today’s miserable flying experience, isn’t getting there as cheaply as you can the game you play when you spend all those hours on Orbitz and Kayak and Travelocity? We’re simply helping you win that game!

A special shout out to those of you that paid extra money for comfort class. Oh sure, there’s still not enough space to get up and go potty without everyone else on your  aisle getting up too, but there’s room enough for your knees! Think of those poor chumps in the back that will be sitting catty-cornered for the next 5 hours!

Also, a special welcome to those of you that are First Class, Second Class, Gold Plated, Free World, Unified, Dignified or Petrified Club members. And if you’re a Medallion flyer, be sure and upgrade to our Swinging Medallion Club status. That ensures you’ll get a seat on the plane where the headphone jack actually works, and you can listen to music!

Get it? Swinging Medallion… music…? No?

By the way, coming soon is a new class of service called R&R. The first ‘r’ is for ‘rest’, and the second ‘r’ is for ‘room’. Ahhhh, some of you have already guessed it, it’s restroom seating. Scoff if you wish, but it will offer way more seating room than you have right now.

For those of you that aren’t already members of our frequent flyer program, we encourage you to sign up. Every time you fly, you’ll get points you can redeem for stuff. Sometimes. Not always. I mean, you always get points; that’s our way of thanking you for your loyalty. It’s that we don’t just let you use them. Think of it as our “thank you” but with strings attached.

How many points, you ask? It’s difficult to say. Corporate likes to change the rules when it looks like you may actually be getting some benefit from them. But it’s always to your advantage!

For example, we used to offer one point for every mile flown. So if you flew from Atlanta to LA, for example, you would get around 2000 points. But now, we offer you one point for every dollar spent. So if you bought your ATL – LA ticket for $800, you’ll get 800 points. That cheap Priceline-ing rascal next to you that only spent $350 will get only 350 points. See? The more you spend, the more you benefit! You win again!

We do encourage you to buy as many tickets as possible as quickly as possible, as we’re changing our rewards program again next week so that you will only get points for the minutes you spend online booking your flight. But - pssst! - here’s an industry insider secret: type your information in s-l-o-w-l-y. That way, it will take you ten minutes – earning ten points – instead of just five minutes, earning only five points.

Don’t let me catch you sharing that on TripAdvisor!

We will be offering cabin service today. If you’d like a drink , we have those little bottles you pay $1.50 for at the liquor store. We’re selling them for $8. If you’d like food, we’ll sell you a 1-oz. bag of potato chips. Water and napkins are free. We don’t give you extra napkins if you eat the first one.

But hey, whatever you do, please don’t fuss at your flight attendant. You think this is any fun for us? Working those 6-inch wide aisles, pushing that cart saying, “watch your elbows, watch your shoulders, watch your knees” with every step?

Cramped for you cramps us, too. That’s our unofficial slogan.

Besides, they’ve cut our pensions and extended our hours. We’re here to serve you only because McDonald’s isn’t hiring this week.

Hey, but enough about us! This is about you and your experience with us. To help you enjoy that experience, we remind you this is a no smoking flight. Oh sure, there are some ashtrays onboard, but that’s just an indicator of how old this plane really is! Seriously, who remembers when you could smoke on a plane?

While this bird may be old, though, she has been retro-fitted with new seats! As a means of helping get more people to more places and spending less money to do it, we’ve installed narrower seats and added more of them. Now, this will leave those of you with aisle seats tending to lean out into the aisle as a means of grasping for enough space to be comfortable.

Don’t do that. There are people walking sideways trying to get to the bathroom.

Instead, overlap your shoulders with the person sitting next to you. Heck, you’re practically sitting in their lap already. Go ahead and get intimate! Sure, it squeezes you a little but takes the squeeze off our bottom line! Ha ha! A little corporate humor there!

Speaking of corporate humor, a special welcome to those of you that once owned stock in our airline. You know, before we went bankrupt, declared your stock worthless and issued new stock. In a few minutes, our CEO will appear on the screen to tell you how much you mean to us and how much we care.

Enjoy your flight.

A Friend Indeed

Recently, I was recognized for my too-many years on the radio. It’s an annual affair that honors a handful of folk that were incapable of holding down a real job, and therefore, opted to settle for a low-wage gig that made us feel important.

From a post on social media, I learned that Kim was coming.

Kim and I worked together for a few years, but that was probably twenty years ago. During those years, we were decent friends. Not terribly close, but I recall sharing a beer together a couple of times, and we always got along well.

As Kim left the radio station and moved away for a career in something more meaningful, she pretty much slipped off my radar. That happens a lot in radio; people move in and out of the business, often, in pretty short order. Some of those you remember, some you don’t. I wouldn’t forget Kim, but we didn’t stay in touch. We just weren’t that close.

Still, because Kim took a job with a large charitable organization, and my radio work sometimes partnered with her charity, we would bump into one another occasionally. Kim’s smile is 10-feet wide, so it was always nice to see her. We’d hug big, I’d ask how she was doing, she’d ask how I was doing, we’d ask how each other’s spouses were doing, and that would be it for the next five or ten years.

As social media became a gathering place for former cronies to come together, I would occasionally see a post from Kim. They usually involved her dog, but I tend to zone out on dog/cat/hamster/wolverine posts, so I didn’t pay much attention.

But now we have this upcoming event, and Kim was coming. Since she is no longer in radio, I couldn’t imagine why she would be attending, but it made me happy. It would be nice to see her again, and it meant there would be someone to pal around with at this event where I would not know many people.

My wife and I greeted Kim and her husband as they took their seats next to us in the auditorium. I was anxious to know why she was there.

“What’s your affiliation with this event?” I asked.

“You,” she said. “You’re being honored and we wanted to be here for it.”

Hm. Wasn’t at all expecting that.

Here’s someone I’ve seen maybe three times in the last two decades, buying tickets (that weren’t cheap!), driving in from another city, all just to be there to show support.

Hm.

It was a fun night. Besides catching up with Kim, it turns out there were several people there I knew, and we made a few new friends.

I was grateful to be nominated for recognition by the Georgia Radio Hall of Fame. It’s nice to be honored for your work, even if it probably is just because you were able to stay with it for so many years. But the highlight of the night was getting absolutely schooled in what it means to be a friend.

I hope that lesson sticks with me.

There She Is, Miss America!

On the title song of her recent album, Pageant Material, Kacey Musgraves sings about being a southern girl who won’t compete in beauty pageants.

And it ain't that I don't care about world peace
But I don't see how I can fix it in a swimsuit on a stage

It’s a light-hearted song that echoes the sentiment of 99.9% of the female population that feels like they couldn’t win a beauty pageant if they tried. So they joke about them. Heck, we all joke about them.

Some of the ridicule heaped on beauty pageants is deserved. The reality show, Toddlers & Tiaras, was a joke. Oh, the pageants are real, but I’m guessing Honey Boo Boo will have a standing date with a therapist for years to come.

We were channel surfing we when happened up on last weekend’s Miss America pageant. In our twenty-five years of marriage, we’ve never watched a single minute of this parade, yet here we were. Seeing the pageant was down to its final half-hour, we settled in for the finale.

Bonus: Contestants from Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Louisiana were all finalists. It seemed a good bet that the new Miss America would be a Southern girl.

Double-bonus: Miss Georgia Betty Cantrell was a former 4-H’er. As I’ve written before, my wife is a former director of Georgia’s Cooperative Extension Program that oversees 4-H and, she remains passionate about its mission. For that reason alone, Betty Cantrell had to win. She must represent!  

You likely know by now that she did. But let’s double-back to the lighter side of pageants.

“It’s not a beauty pageant, it’s a scholarship pageant.” Many years ago, that line became the pillar and the defense of the Miss America pageant. “This isn’t just about parading beautiful girls across the stage, it’s a display of talent and knowledge, as well.”

Give the contestants their due. Indeed, it takes a fairly well-rounded young woman to compete on the national level. Much work and prep goes into getting your face on national TV. And the stakes are high. As the new Miss America, Betty Cantrell won a $50,000 scholarship.

But while pageant contestants may be the subjects of songs, sitcoms and silly movies, it’s the pageant – the show itself - that’s the real joke.

This year’s Miss America pageant officially apologized to former title-holder Vanessa Williams for stripping her of her crown over thirty years ago after some nude photos of her were published. Good for her that she went about her life, becoming an enormously successful entertainer (with her clothes on), but why the apology? I suspect if similar photos of the new Miss America were to surface, they would again snatch away the crown.

I also suspect that the reason they apologized to Vanessa, gave her a new crown and made her lead judge for this year’s pageant is because she won, anyway. They took away her crown, but she grabbed the brass ring. She succeeded despite the scandal. She became bigger than Miss America or ‘former Miss America’ and the pageant felt it could benefit from her star power.

Questions from the judging panel were off-the-chart odd.

To Miss Georgia: did Tom Brady cheat?

Huh? Does Miss America need to have an opinion on Deflate-gate? I don’t even have an opinion on that, other than, of course, he cheated.

To Miss South Carolina: do you support a ban on military assault weapons?

If I’m Miss South Carolina, I’m thinking, “Whoa. I’m about to lose the Miss America title because I do - or do not - support someone’s right to own an assault rifle.” That’s pretty heady stuff for 20-year old college students.

But hey, it’s not a beauty pageant, it’s a scholarship pageant. One that big chicks cannot win no matter how smart they are or what instrument they play. One that assumes you need scholarship money because that really cute bikini you wore on stage didn’t come from Macy’s, honey!

I like that Miss Colorado thought Ellen Degeneres should be the face on the $10 bill. I like Ellen. In fact, I could support any Ellen: Degeneres, Pompeo, Page, Barkin. If you’re named Ellen, you’re pretty, apparently. Though I realize it’s not a beauty contest.

Damn Yankees!

From somewhere behind us, a golf ball came sailing past as we waited for the green ahead of us to clear. We were on a part of the golf course where you always need to ride up and take a look before hitting your next shot.

“What the hell are you doing?” Pete bellowed to the offending golfer as he approached.

“Sorry, I thought you had moved on,” he responded.

That wasn’t the way Pete saw it. “No, you didn’t! You’ve been pushing us all afternoon. Can you not see that we are waiting on golfers ahead of us?”

The older gentleman who hit into us was playing alone and indeed seemed to want us to let him through, but there was simply no place for him to go. Several holes earlier, he had pulled up to us while we were teeing off, something most golfers do not appreciate. Pete had warned me that if it happened again, he was going to ask the guy to leave.

I suggested to Pete that if it happened again, he should let me handle it. He knew why. He knows he’s a bit ‘direct’ in such situations.

This is not a story about golf. It’s a story about Yankees.

It’s about people who have migrated to the South, yet retained their northern mannerisms: curt, terse, blunt. Because Pete knows he’s a little of all that, he laughed when I tried to call him off. He knew I would handle it more passively.

So why didn’t he let me? Because he’s a Yankee!

Southerners, in general, like to avoid conflict. Sure, you’ve got your factions of fighters, like drunken rednecks. But even they tend to soften up when they sober up.

Northerners, by contrast, almost seem to enjoy being combative. It’s like their way of life is to snipe at one another.

If you are born and raised in the South, identifying someone from this country’s unloved-by-God regions is simple. Just a few words from their mouth, and you’re thinking, ‘you ain’t from around here.’

And manners? Fuhgeddaboudit!

As an example, another golf story (my group has a lot of migrants). Chuck hits an exceptionally good tee shot. “Great shot!” I shout to him. He says nothing as he reaches down for his tee, so I follow-up with some gentle instructions.

“Chuck, this is the South. When someone compliments you, you say ‘thank you.’”

Chuck responded, “Why should I have to thank you for stating the obvious?”

I took out my 9-iron with the intent on teaching Tiger Woods yet another lesson but was held back by others in the group.

The word we’re missing here is ‘genteel.’ It’s a general term for being polite, respectful, graceful, refined.

Know any genteel Yankees?

It’s all about your upbringing. Just as a Southerner can thank his or her mama for raisin’ them properly - with manners, Yankees can blame their mamas for raising them to be social misfits in any place south of Virginia.

That attitude would probably lead some to think us’ns in the South are a clique, but I would argue that we are in fact different, that our interaction with others is handled in a gentler, more respectful way.

I do think Chuck learned a lesson that day: that disrespecting someone who is being nice to you can cause you to have a flat tire. Or two.

Being raised in the north almost seems to somehow corrupt the mind. It’s like they were never taught to play nice. And that never leaves them, no matter how long they live in the South. It’s ingrained.

I have a friend who has lived in Georgia for well over fifty years. He claims that after that length of time, he should no longer be considered a Yankee. Spend five minutes with him, though, and… ‘he ain’t from ‘round here.’

Wesley Snipes’ character in “White Men Can’t Jump” pretty much nailed it: "You can put a cat in an oven, but that don't make it a biscuit."

Barking Spiders and Stepping on Ducks

The conversation turned to flatulence. Let me rephrase… the conversation turned to the subject of flatulence. That’s better.

About fifteen or so fully-developed humans had gathered to celebrate the clock’s journey to 5 p.m., and someone had seen a recent episode of “The Doctors” that discussed the “embarrassment of flatulence.” The doctors opined that everyone has it, it’s a very natural process of digestion, and there’s nothing wrong with it.

Oh, yes, there is.

Before I lay out my case, let me confess to being very – yea, extremely – knowledgeable about this subject. In fact, if there were a kingdom of methane makers, I would be their ruler. Erect a totem pole of the top violators in the world, and you’d need a ladder to see my face.

I blame my short colon, but mostly because I can. A little dance with colon cancer in my 30s claimed about a foot of my digestive tract. I figure that leaves me with less time for the final product to manifest itself. Not so, I’m told by my cousin, Dan. He says it’s a family trait.

That’s comforting to know. At least, I’m not alone. It’s also an excuse not to hang around my family too much.

So, then, let’s assume that some of you that are reading this might consider yourselves challengers to the throne. While this is not really a contest, in fact, as with sin, we are all guilty.

We all learn ways to hide it. Personally, if you ever see me in the grocery store aisle that sells bleach and detergents, yeah, I don’t buy bleach and detergents. That’s an aisle where there aren’t a lot of people.

Company at the house for something off the grill? “Let me go check on the coals.” I don’t really need to do that. The way I prepare charcoal takes 45 minutes. All I really need to do is look at the clock.

Riding down the road with someone else in the car? “Wonder what the temperature is like?” Roll down the window, stick my hand out for a few seconds. Then, pretend they don’t know what I just did by announcing, “Yep, still hot.” Or, “Hey, I think it’s getting cooler.”

So, if it’s something that everyone does, what’s the problem? I’ll tell you what the problem is.

WHO JUST DID THAT???

It may well be that everyone does it, that it’s just natural, that it’s part of the digestive process, but somebody just committed a crime on the entire universe of all mankind and they must be called out!!

“What is wrong with you?!?!”

Fortunately, for me, no one ever knows. During several of the years I was on the radio, I had two female partners that sat together on the other side of the desk. One year, for Christmas they gave me a charcoal filter cushion. They giggled about it a bunch, but I think it was just because I have a boney butt, and they knew I needed some padding.

My brother-in-law has literally fallen out of the golf cart when riding with me, but I think he has balance issues.

Yes, friends, we all suffer, but we do our best to suffer silently. Silence is golden. Silence is also deadly.

Good luck.

Money for Nothin' (That Ain't Workin')

“Man, you work hard!” my neighbor yelled out as he passed by.

Immediately, two thoughts struck me. First: wow, what a compliment. Second: wow, what an idiot.

OK, maybe idiot is too strong, but come on, man. You know me! I don’t know what I was doing at the time – maybe pulling nails from a board or something, but working hard, I was not. I do not do. 

Not ever.

I made a career out of doing radio. Maybe, had it been talk radio, where you should at least know what you’re talking about, you could accuse me of ‘working’. But I spent my time at music stations. Play a few tunes, say something stupid, play a few more songs, repeat.

Here’s how hard it was: when I started in radio, we played records. Records became CDs, CDs became digital bytes. By the time I finished my career, music was simply a computer file. Touch it with your finger and it would play. Further, when it finished playing, it automatically triggered the next file (song) to play. It was - and still is - a process that would continue running itself until it was time for me to interrupt the flow and say something stupid again. I got paid for that.

That job required getting up early in the morning, but hard work? Hard-ly.

If you want a hard worker, I’ll introduce you to my workaholic wife.  She will not sit still and constantly has projects going. Drive me nuts.

Before her retirement, she oversaw the Georgia 4-H program in which thousands of kids gather at camps and do things that kids do.  Some of it is stupid, some of it inappropriate, but mostly, it’s just kids being kids, trying to have fun and learning the ropes.

But times being what they are, nowadays, when kids go off course, parents must be notified, counselors and administrators work overtime, and in some cases, cops must be called. Societal changes dictate that. 

She also was in charge of staffing county extension (county agent) offices during a period when state legislators were slashing budgets. She dealt with deep budget cuts. That meant deciding which counties would have agents, which could go without, and which could share agents. Egos were being bruised.

I won’t forget the evening a legislator approached her, asking when his county would be getting a new agent.

“You keep cutting my budget,” she said. “I don’t have enough money.”

“You’ll have even less if I don’t get a county agent soon,” was his response.

Feel free to take a moment, and consider that logic.

That stuff kept her up at night. Even as we both have retired, remembering that stuff is the reason I still roll over in bed and put an arm around her. Sometimes I toss a leg over her, too. Then, a kiss on the neck. Then, she throws me out of bed, thinkin’ I wanna be starting something, got to be starting something…

That I give up so easily means I won’t even work hard for that.

I think, though, I’m going to hold on to this. This one time someone accused me of working hard. In fact, I’m going to own it. When the day finally comes that I stand before my Maker, and he asks how I would define my life, I’m going to say, “I worked hard.”

Then, I’m going to hope he has a pretty good sense of humor.

Change of Seasons? Who Cares?

Two of my neighbors have just upgraded their TV service to HD, high definition. A third is on the verge. Big-screens are reasonably cheap, but that 55-incher you got ain’t no good if you can’t read the numbers on the shirts or see the ball in the air.

Welcome to football season.

If you’re on Facebook, your feed is likely filled with posts of mascots, flags, jerseys, and all manner of animals and emblems. Sports-talk shows have been giddy with their picks and prognostications for what’s going to happen over the next few months.

And as usual, I’m sitting here in my underwear, trying to figure out what it all means. And it does mean something. For one, it’s fall, by golly.

We could probably toss a coin over whether we love fall for the football or football because it happens in the fall. Glance around and see that the sumacs, dogwoods, and sourwoods – maybe even your maples – are signaling a change of seasons. Especially in the South, by the time kick-off comes around, we’ve had an evening or two where a cool breeze has dropped hints that this year’s hell-hot days are almost behind us.

Football season also makes us more social. If you go to the games, you may have met up with friends prior to the game for some food, toddies, and maybe a silly lawn game. Some of these friends are not friends any other time of year except at tailgate time. You likely sit with friends at the game. Even for those of us that simply watch the games on TV, it’s almost always with a gathering of friends.

Our usual bunch is mostly a Southeastern Conference crowd: Georgia, Tennessee and Auburn are represented. We try not to gloat when someone’s team loses, especially when they lose to our team. We all feel especially blessed that we have no one in our crowd rooting for Alabama or Florida, because then things might get really ugly.

And with the social aspect of pigskin season, there is food. Special food. Garbage food. Stuff you don’t normally eat because, really, isn’t your butt already large enough? But it’s football food! Gotta have it.

Finally, this time of year is about hope. World peace, financial market meltdowns, even your day-to-day struggles to pay the bills be damned! This is the year my team is going to win the national championship!

Not. Probably not. But maybe?

 The friends, then. The food. The color in the leaves, the change in the temperature, and especially the lower humidity that make being outside a pleasure all happen in tandem with our alma maters getting down to the business of what matters most: kicking somebody’s tail into next year!

Blow that whistle, ref! ‘Tis the season.

Being Thrifty

My wife’s addiction, I’m trying to understand it. Trying to figure out what fuels it. What started innocently enough as a fun way to spend time with ‘the girls’ has now consumed her.

She is addicted to thrift stores.

Let me be honest: we’re DINKs. Double-Income-No-Kids. DINKs are not necessarily rich, but with both spouses working and no kids to suck money from their pockets, DINKs are not your typical thrift store customers. Oh, they can be spotted there, for sure, but it would usually be because they were donating to that store, not shopping.

Through the years, we’ve made a hundred donations to thrift stores. Dishes, clothes, beds… you name it. Most thrift stores support charitable organizations, and it’s a wonderful way to help those groups while uncluttering your home of no longer needed or wanted items.

One man’s trash is another man’s treasure, that’s true. But constantly taking trash and calling it treasure is a sickness. And it needs a cure.

This tale of woe began in the hills of North Georgia. We have a little cabin and spend a fair amount of our free time there. There are other cabins, and some are owned by couples very close to our age. It’s made for a tight-knit group.

The ‘boys’ have always been able to burn their days with useful projects: building sheds, burning sticks from the yard, all day grillings, or bourbon-tastings. The girls have had a more difficult time finding such interesting things to do.

Until now.

Nowadays, when the girls are together, day one is spent plotting which stores in which cities will be hit on all the subsequent days they are together.

I thought this was good. All the husbands did. If the girls were off doing their thing, our thing became anything we wanted our thing to be. This was especially useful if there were televised sporting events to be watched or golf to be played. Everybody had something they wanted to do. Life in the hills was good, easy.

But this is just how this disease develops. It starts as a small adventure, a simple thrill to see if you can find that ‘treasure.’ But just hitting one store isn’t enough. Good lord, there are thrift stores everywhere! They must all be hit! What if we miss the big bargain?

That’s today’s issue. Thrift store visits have become junkin’ journeys, and my wife has become a junk collector. So have her friends. Knick-knacks and doo-dads that other people have discarded - because it’s junk! – have now become ‘discoveries’.

Well, you can give it any name you want; what it is, is crap. Furthermore, it’s crappy crap.

Let me ask you this: how many colanders do you have? Probably, one. Every household needs a colander. But all you need is one. You don’t also need a cute little red one, a rubber one, a collapsible one. One size fits all, and just one will do.

Further, the rubber colander she brought home won’t stand up by itself. Best I can tell, the only way to make it work it to put it inside a sturdier colander. OK, in that case, it makes sense to have two colanders, maybe. “Well, this rubber one doesn’t work on its own so I had to have another colander to put it in.” Pretzel logic, but let’s go with it.

On a recent outing, she brings home a rocking chair. I love rocking chairs, and this one she’s bought (“you won’t believe what I paid for it!”) is a good one. Quite comfortable. The problem? We already have seven rocking chairs in this house! What in the world are we supposed to do with #8?

She buys things, not out of necessity, but simply because it’s ‘a bargain’. Lamps, candle-holders, pots… the collection of unnecessary or duplicate… stuff… just grows.

I’ve tried intervention. Upon returning from a junkin’ outing, I sat her down and asked very calmly, “Honey, how may snuff glasses do you need?”

She has a sentimental fondness for those leaded glasses that used to be sold full of snuff. She remembers drinking juice from them at her grandma’s house. As a lot of us grew up, jelly jars became our juice glasses, so I get it. But here’s the number ‘8’ again. We now have eight snuff glasses – at the cabin! We don’t have eight friends at the cabin.

I’ve hatched a plan. I’m going to join her subtle little game. You see, in most cases, she doesn’t show me her ‘finds’, they just appear. One day you open the drawer and there’s a whole set of knives you never seen before.

That’s how it works.

So like a magician, I’m going to quietly start making some things disappear. Like a stealth magician. A stealthy ninja magician. My work will be invisible to the naked eye, under the radar. Only the worthless, crappy garbage I deem worthy of keeping will remain.

You like my plan? Oh, yeah. Game on!

Meanwhile, stay tuned. Pretty soon, I can give you some good advice on where to find a great buy on colanders.

French Fried and Vilified

On the road, I popped into Mickey D’s for a quick bite. The snack wraps looked like the right amount of food, so I ordered two grilled chicken wraps for my wife and two fried chicken wraps for me.

“OK,” says the dude at the counter, “so that’s two grilled and two crispy.”

Oh, yeah. I forgot. We don’t say ‘fried’ anymore. So, yeah, ‘crispy’ works as long as the reason they’re crispy is because YOU FRIED THEM!!

I don’t blame McDonalds, honestly. I blame Kentucky Fried Chicken. I think they started all of this when they decided to change their name to KFC.

“Sh-h-h... Let’s not use the f-word anymore.”

I’m a Southern boy. Not only do I use the f-word, if you could f-f (French fry) my dirty socks, I’m sure I would eat them. With ketchup.

But fried has become evil. Actually, it’s not frying that’s evil, it’s the word itself. We still fry food – a lot. But we do everything we can think of to disguise the fact that it’s fried.

We use olive oil. We call our food by cute names like ‘crisps’ or ‘chips.’ You can go into a place that serves fried pickles, and they might refer to them as pickle chips. The menu might even say they are “the dill pickle taste you love, battered and lightly cooked in oil.”

Fried, fried, and fried.

By the way, ‘crisps’ and ‘chips’ should only be used under certain circumstances. Here’s my personal guide for the world to use:

-crisps: baked
-chips: fried, no batter
-fried: fried with batter, or just fried with no excuses

If you think about it, we fry some interesting things. I mean, who was the first person to say, “I simply cannot wait for this tomato to ripen. I think I’ll pick it now, batter and fry it.”  Who gets that credit?

Do the French really get credit for deciding to fry bread? “Gosh, Pierre, we have spent all our money on wine and, all we have in our kitchen is this loaf of bread and a bottle of oil. Que pouvons nous faire? (What can we do?)” Ta da! French toast.

About the only sociable use for ‘fried’ seems to be for novelty food. I was in a restaurant in Boston that offered fried mac and cheese. I jumped in with both feet on that one.

At fairs across the county, it’s a contest to see who can successfully fry something odd. Jelly beans, ice cream, fried Coca-Cola, fried Oreos… the list is endless. But the stuff God intended us to fry, like chicken? Please use KFC. Or crispy. It’s just healthier if we don’t say that word.

By the way, ‘sauteed’ is also fried. The picture you see is one I took in Mexico recently. We didn’t order them but were served them anyway. The menu called them grasshoppers, but I know a cricket when I see one.

Again, the question: did Jose, one day, just up and say, “Dang, I want to eat these things, but they don’t taste good?” Did his wife respond by saying, “Here, let me stir them in hot butter. Then they will be delicioso.”

If that’s what happened, she was right. Because they were.

Here’s the problem with fried grasshoppers. When you eat anything, let’s stay on subject and say fried chicken, you wind up with crumbs on your lips. With grasshoppers, you also wind up with crumbs, but they are a piece of leg or wing or its head. You can lick your lips to clean it all up, but you know darn well what you’ve just taken in your mouth.

And expect repercussions. Best I can recall my wife has never refused to kiss me after eating fried chicken. Mexico was two months ago. I’m still waiting.