WEBVTT

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Last fall, I received an email
from a man in South Mississippi who wrote

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that his brother had published a book, a collection of short stories remembering his

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childhood and some of the funny circumstances
of his adult life. I read the

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first two chapters and immediately call the
man back and I told him I would

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narrate the book. I think these
stories were initially posted on social media for

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fun, but with a growing list
of readers, he was prodded to publish

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the stories. And it's my understanding
that the writer resisted for a time and

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finally gave into peer pressure and published
the book. The author's name is Beau

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Ray. The title of Bo's book
is as per y'all's requests. The book

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You Were About to Hear is available
to buy on Amazon, and the audio

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version is available on Audible. I'll
paste the links in the description. Thank

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you, Brad and Beau for allowing
me to read this and share your memories

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with this audience. It has been
one of the most enjoyable projects this amateur

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and unpolished narrator has done. This
reading is about three and a half hours

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long. It's not a monster story, it's a people's story. Mostly you

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will laugh, you will identify with
some struggles he has as an adult male,

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and you'll be moved by a tribute
to Bow's brother who he lost a

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while back. And if you were
born like me at the end of the

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boomer generation, you will remember and
now as per y'all's requests written by Beau

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Ray. Author's note, I currently
reside on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. I'm

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just an ordinary guy with ordinary but
unique memories. I've lived a charmed life

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with great parents and great brothers and
a perfect wife. I've collected and written

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these stories over the years, with
friends and family encouraging me to assemble them

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into a book, and so here
we are. The poetry comes to me

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spontaneously and without warning, and there's
nothing I can do to stop it,

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and I'm compelled to write it down. Some people have attacks of gout.

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I have poetry attacks. Mark Twain
said, I like a good story well

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told. That's the reason I'm sometimes
forced to tell them myself. So if

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you're in the market for a well
told good story, you should pick up

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a copy of the Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn, because the following is a collection

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of mediocre stories told with a fourth
grade level mastery of grammar. For years,

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people have been pestering me to put
all these stories in a book.

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Well, now look what you've done. I hope you're happy with yourselves.

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I hope you enjoy reading these stories
as much as I enjoyed living them.

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As per y'all's requests, Reader Reviews, best book I've read this year,

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Bo's mother, January two. It
was the perfect thickness to put under the

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leg of our wobbly kitchen table.
Bigger than Old Man in the Sea,

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yet smaller than War and Peace,
Bo's brother. If I could read,

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I bet he'd be really good.
Several of Bo's friends. I never thought

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he'd amount to much. Apparently I
was right, Bo's fourth grade English teacher.

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There seems to be a disproportionate number
of poop stories. Homeless guy behind

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the Exon if he spent half as
much time mowing them is writing these silly

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stories? We could find the other
El Camino in the front yard, Bow's

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wife. Did I mention the unusual
number of poop stories? Homeless guy again

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behind the Exxon? Chapter one?
Mima also and popaws. Even though we

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resided in Jackson, Mississippi, we
lived on the Gulf coast, and Jackson

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is where we went to school,
to the doctor, and to bed on

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time. The coast is where we
fished the bayous and hunted bob white quails

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and the tall pines, and guzzled
Bark's root beers by the wooden crateful.

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Life for a boy was good down
there. Many a Friday and nearly every

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holiday throughout the year, we'd load
up in Daddy's nineteen sixty two Chevy Biscayne,

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affectionately known as Choka Boom and head
for long beach off weed sputter,

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Mama, Daddy, Me and my
brothers, Brody and Brad. In boytime,

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the drive was longer than a trans
atlantic voyage, but in real time

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it was about three hours south down
Highway forty nine. The stretch from Jackson

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to Hattiesburg was nearly intolerable, mile
after mile of cow pastures and thick woods,

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with the monotony occasionally broken by the
glow of a neon oasis as we

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passed a motel, a truck stop, or a restaurant. Southward, we

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drifted down the asphalt and concrete river
in the Chocapoom. You could tell by

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the changing landscape when we were getting
close to our destination. Lying on the

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floorboard in the back seat, I
was hypnotized by the vibrations of the car,

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the rhythmic thump of the tires hitting
the expansion joints in the concrete sections

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of the highway, and the warmth
of the exhaust passing under me. Looking

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up and out the rear window,
I saw the canopy of the woods turned

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to tall pines. There was hardly
any undergrowth except for sage grass, a

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coastal pine savannah I believe the scientists
call it. The Chugga Boom rumbled south

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into the northern fringes of Gulf Port, marked by rows of tiny pink howses

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with happy little black children playing in
the dirt yards. This portion of the

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trip was especially exciting on any Christmas
morning trip, as it seemed every kid

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there had gotten a bike for Christmas, and the shiny spokes flashed like tensil

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in honor of the season in the
bright, clear morning sun. A few

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blocks further south, we whizzed by
the Coca Cola plant a few blocks more

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and the air became fragrant, scented
with the smell of salt water sea life

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and sunshine. Once you hit Highway
ninety, you were there the beach,

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heaven, Nirvana, Valhalla, or
whatever you call the good place your chosen

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deity sends you after you die.
We were at that good place Memo's House,

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Chapter two, The Magic Truck.
Mam and Daddy were originally from Long

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Beach, as were their parents and
my grandparents. My mama's parents, Ralph

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and Mary, were known by the
grandkids as Memo and Paupaul. Me ma

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A worked in the school cafeteria,
and Paupaul was a carpenter and worked for

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Roy Anderson. To hear Paupo describe
it, you'd believe he single handedly built

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every structure on the Mississippi Gulf coast
since the last Biloxi Indian crafted a tepee.

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Now, I don't know for a
fact that the Biloxis actually built tepes,

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but of course, as a kid, you just assumed all Indians lived

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in teepees. If one brick were
set atop another anywhere in Harrison County,

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Paupaul either did it or supervised it. We had no idea who this Roy

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Anderson fellow was that Paupaul worked for. We just knew he worked for him

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because his name was on the side
of Paupaul's truck. Paupaul's work truck was

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the totor of all things good.
Like most work trucks, it had a

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gun rack in the back window that
held an umbrella a level in blueprints.

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It also had a toolbox in the
bed and a ladder rack on top.

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The toolbox wasn't shiny metal like the
ones today. It was wooden with galvanized

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tin on the top and sides.
A simple wooden box covered in metal,

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very similar to the arc of the
Covenant, I imagine, only with better

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things inside. Popaul had built a
toolbox himself right after he had gotten back

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from beating the Germans on Guam.
He was a sebee in Worldorld War II

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and had been sent to Guam.
Drawing on my vast knowledge of history,

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I knew he had defeated the Germans
in World War two, and thereby deduced

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that Paupaul, having participated in the
war and having been sent to Guam,

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must have killed every German on Gwam, probably with his pocket knife. Anyway,

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I was sure that he built his
own toolbox, as well as a

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lot of other amazing things surely we
thought there must have been something much better

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than tools in that toolbox, because
he kept a padlock on it. In

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our minds, a padlock wasn't a
security device so much as it was an

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invitation, an invitation to enter at
all costs. On the rare occasions that

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it was opened in our presence,
we'd strain our eyes rapidly taking in all

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that was inside before it was snap
shut and the padlock again secured. All

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we ever saw, of course,
was tools. Why on earth would anyone

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want to keep someone us out of
their tools. It just didn't make sense

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at all. Our dad didn't lock
up his tools, though admittedly the few

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he had were rusty and spread all
over, generally because we left them outside.

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The ability to use tools is,
after all, what separates us from

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the monkeys, and since we couldn't
get to Paul Paul's tools, that left

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us right smack dab there with the
monkeys, toolless and stinky, millions of

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years of evolution rendered senseless by a
simple padlock. It makes perfect sense now,

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though, why Paul Paul didn't want
us meddling in his tools. Besides

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the fact that they were expensive and
he used them to make a living.

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Idle hands may be the devil's workshop, but busy boy hands with tools can

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become his global manufacturing facility. Welcome
to Beelzebub Co. Inc. Makers of

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Mayhem and all things unholy. A
shudder at the thought. From dawn until

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three pm Monday through Friday, that
latter rack carried pipes, ladders, and

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lumber, and on Saturday mornings before
dawn, that truck carried a fourteen foot

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aluminum john boat atop the ladder rack, a nine point five horsepower Johnson outboard,

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and three very sleepy boys to the
swamps of the Pearl River. Until

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the day he died. Papaul carried
the warranty card for his outboard and his

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wallet, even though it had expired
more than forty five years ago. You

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can never be too safe when it
comes to warranty issues. We always took

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egg sandwiches and fishing cookies with us, as well as enough Bark's root beer

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to live on for a year should
we for some reason become stranded in the

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swamp. Papaul bought Barks by the
case and we consumed it by the case.

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He believed it had medicinal purposes.
After all, it said right there

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on the carton good and wholesome.
A product may be good, or it

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may be wholesome, but a product
that is both is indeed a rarity.

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Fishing cookies were really just nut or
butter cookies, not particularly marked to anglers,

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but since we took them every time
we went fishing, from that time

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forth and forevermore, they shall be
known as fishing cookies. I mean,

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while would pack a brown paper a
and p sack full of eggs, sandwiches,

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and cookies, and pour up a
thermos of coffee for Paul Paul and

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wish us good luck as we climbed
into the truck and she climbed back into

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bed. I have no idea exactly
where we went in those swamps, because

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it was always dark when we left
the house, and it was usually still

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dark as we left the dock and
motored at terrific speeds up and down the

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foggy byues Pau. Paul wasn't a
big believer in modern fishing equipment and anything

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invented after the stick he considered modern. We used cane poles because they were

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not susceptible to the problems of mechanical
contrivances that had a higher than average failure

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rate in the hands of young boys. The cane poles were fool proof and

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easy to operate, and had no
moving parts except the butt in where it

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connected to one of us, and
that part moved plenty. I guess a

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boy could technically be considered a moving
part, but probably more accurately, could

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be considered an energy source like the
Sun or un nuclear reactor. We weren't

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fueled by hydrogen or uranium, though, but by pure sugar pumped into our

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bloodstream by root beer and cookies.
Papaul would, however, occasionally abandon his

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lyddite ways and bring his wind up
rigs, as he called them, was

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a beautiful gem like Swedish made ruby
red and Ambast five thousand, or his

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fly rod with a Martin automatic reel
on it. These were not mere fishing

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poles, no sir, but magic
wands, as far as we could tell,

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shiny and mechanical. They needed input
from the fishermen to conjure fish from

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thin air or brackish water. As
was the case, these things caught fish

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without bait. A few twinkling twirly
gizmos, the snagless sally, the jitterbug

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or the cork bodied, rubber legged
bug was all it took to pull green

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trout and bluegills from the slick black
water as vapors rose from its surface like

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a simmering cauldron in the wheat pre
dawn light. It was indeed magic.

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We heartily lusted for such things,
but were forced to make do with the

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cane poles and worms. Fetching the
worms was generally as exciting as anything,

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though they were usually purchased the day
before our outings from the apply. Named

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a worm man, he lived in
a little white house, just like all

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the other little white houses on his
street, except his had a poorly hand

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lettered sign out front that proclaimed the
availability of both red worms and nightcrawlers,

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a veritable ichthological buffet. I believe
he may have sold crickets too, but

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my Pau Paul was not a cricket
man, and on occasion when Paul Paul's

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tree had some on it, we'd
use cataba worms, but as a general

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rule we used regular old worms.
We drive into town, meaning gulf Port,

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somewhere off twenty fifth Street, and
Pau Paul would pick up a couple

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of round cardboard containers full of worms
he'd open them and poke them a bit

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with his finger to make sure they
were lively and juicy, and we'd concur

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on both of their liveliness and juiciness, and he'd pay the man make a

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little small talk, and then we'd
be on our way. The next day,

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under a warm summer sun, deep
in the swamps of the Pearl River,

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we'd catch shell crackers and bluegills in
the old green trout, and even

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a lost wayward crab until the worms
coffee or root beer gave out, and

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then we'd head for the truck with
a rusty metal comb and ice chest full

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of fish, bellies full of barks, and a lifetime full of memories.

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Chapter three, The Great White Hunters, Strange crops, and honky talk quail.

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As summer cooled into fall and fall
darkened into winter, Popaul's magic truck

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transformed yet again. It became a
hunting truck, a bob white quail hunting

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truck to be exact. This simple
transformation was accomplished easily enough by placing the

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dog box in the bed of the
truck. Now, the dog box was

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basically a wooden doghouse type of fair
that fit in the back of the truck

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and was used to transport the dog
to and from the hunting grounds. Paupaul

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always owned Britney Spaniels, although nowadays
I think they're just called Britney's. The

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two we hunted with were Buttons first, and after she died, Brent sniffed

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out our birds. We knew coail
season was fast approaching when the dog box

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was loaded into the truck. On
more than one occasion in the late fall,

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when returning from one of the last
fishing trips of the season, Papaul

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would pull to the side of the
road near any wooded pine prairie and blow

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his quail call. Now I call
mimicked the call of a female quail,

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and Old Bob White, hearing it, would reply, Bob White. I

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knew Old Bob's days were numbered.
As Paul Paul made a mental note of

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the place and we'd return several weeks
later. And one of Paul Paul's favorite

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places to hunt was the Penal Farm
of Town. Now I know it was

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land owned by one of the timber
companies that bordered the penal facility on which

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the prisoners operated a farm, But
then we had no idea what a penal

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farm was nor what grew there.
We knew a cotton field yielded cotton,

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and a cornfield produced corn, and
a cow pastured Gray's cows. Paupaul told

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us what a penal farm grew?
What else but penises? Now that was

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terribly funny to three little boys.
Heck, it's still funny. Buttons and

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later bred flush many birds from the
fields and marsh bottoms near the penal farm.

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Paupaul would often lament the fact that
there were fewer and fewer birds and

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more and more people in these woods. But we didn't understand. We would.

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Later one day, after hunting several
of our usual spots, Paupaul decided

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to try a new place. We
pulled off the road near an old,

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deserted, run down honky toll,
surrounded by encroaching woods. Paupaul was right,

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there were quail there. Before we
got out of the truck, we

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saw a covey of birds at the
rear of the dilapidated building. Paul Paul

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swears they were flying up under the
eve of the building to pluck wasp from

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a large nest hanging there. As
the diffused light of the warm late autumn

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sun waned. We sat and watched
the birds for a few minutes. I

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don't recall if we even left the
truck cab that afternoon. I don't think

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we did, as it was late
and by the time we unloaded the dog

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and loaded our shotguns it would have
been too dark to shoot. But I

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think I understood the lesson of a
honky tonk quail. Paul. Paul was

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right again. There were more and
more people in these woods. I don't

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remember hunting quail much after that season
Chapter four A lot like camelots lot,

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A boy's neighborhood was his kingdom,
and like real kingdoms, they varied in

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size and natural resources. Some contained
wooded sections and some had creeks or ditches,

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while others had schools or parks within
their borders. Now, most borders

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were determined by large thoroughfares, which, like the rivers or mountain ranges and

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real kingdoms made ideal borders. Any
advancing hordes bent on pillaging and plundering a

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nearby kingdom were generally stopped by a
four lane thoroughfare and their moms warning not

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to cross such. A boy's social
ranking in his kingdom was determined much like

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a real kingdom, again by the
dangerousness of the items he owned. Simple

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kid logic dictated that the more dangerous
an item was, the more we desired

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it. Had it been allowed,
we'd have ridden around the neighborhood with a

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twelve gauge and a half dozen hand
grenades trapped up our handlebars. But alas

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our parents were killjoys, most boys
had some sort of pocket knife. Your

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first one was usually a worn out
or broken one passed down from your daddy

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or some older male figure. Mine, as you would assume, came from

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my Paupaw. I think one of
its three blades was broken off when I

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got it. I was pretty sure
he had broken it off. Stabbing hitler

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on guam. Gradually breaking off the
remaining blades of your hand me down cutlery,

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honing your knife, throwing skills,
and stabbing pine trees and such afforded

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you the opportunity to upgrade, and
in our neighborhood, this was usually accomplished

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at the Stop and Go convenience store. They had a first rate knife display

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case. Every visit there would result
in my asking for and the accompanying parents

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denial of the purchase of the mother
of pearl handled subject of my life lust

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the slim Gem that was a fine
five dollars oriental made knife as a boy

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was likely to find anywhere. It
was perfect as it had all three of

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the qualities I was looking for.
It was big, it was shiny,

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and it was cheap. The giant
bowie knife was also always attractive, but

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the mother of pearl handle on the
slim gem really sold it. Much like

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the persistent drip of a Chinese water
torture. My begging eventually caused about a

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temporary insanity, and my mother relented. That beautiful slim gem was mine,

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my own excalibur. My supremacy within
the kingdom was then well established, as

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all the other boys gave me the
stink eye as I lorded my elegant slim

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Gem over them, till the next
week when some other kid would get a

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Samurai sword, and not just any
old sword, mind you, but his

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dad, he's real, honest to
God, took it off a jat and

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chopped his damn head off with it. Samurai sword, Now that's hard to

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compete with. Right there. Edged
weapons fell out of favor, though,

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as more powerful and lethal projectile weaponry
was acquired Archery was dabbled in by a

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few, but wasn't taken seriously because
of the difficulty of the accuracy placing shots

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and the expensive arrows which were easily
lost. We only knew one kid with

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a bow, so he was an
oddity. Even without the bow, he

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was an oddity. Most bows were
far too difficult for a boy to draw,

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owing to the fact that they generally
belonged to their dads and had to

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draw a weight greater than the kid
wielded it wide, but that didn't stop

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them from using them any more than
our dad's golf clubs, being too long

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and left handed, kept us from
hitting rocks with them. One kid,

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however, was particularly taken with archery
and persisted in the use of his dad's

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bow despite the sixty pound drawway.
Naturally, in our minds, bows had

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one purpose and one purpose only,
and that was the shooting of cowboys.

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The boy with the bow was by
default an engine, while the rest of

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us were cowboys and assorted pale faced
Western figures that needed a good killing.

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Now, we cowboys would run around
hiding behind trees and out buildings while the

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engine would launch and retrieve his lone
arrow. This was a real bow and

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a real arrow, mind you.
And this went on until one day Squanto

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connected with one of the cowboys.
Luckily he was hitting the head, so

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nothing important was damaged, and penetration
was limited due to the badly worn and

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blunted arrow and the fact that the
engine could only draw the bow a few

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inches. On TV, the arrows
would rarely actually hit the cowboys, but

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would most times lodge harmlessly in the
tree or building behind which the cowboy was

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hiding. Should you be hit,
you'd simply pluck the arrow out of your

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guts, or break it off if
it had penetrated your whole body, plug

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the hole with a filthy bandanna,
and poured some whiskey on it. And

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by next week's episode, instead of
the maggoty festering, perforated colon painfully killing

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you, you were fit as a
fiddle and shooting engines again. I surely

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had worked this way in real life, too, we wrongly surmised. I'm

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thankful to this day that none of
us was familiar with the story of William

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Tell, so archery, while both
deadly and fun, never really gained much

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of a foothold in our kingdom.
The BB guns were next up the list

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of enviable deadly weapons. Every boy
eventually had a BB gun. We were

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very respectful of the power of our
BB guns and for the most part,

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used them safely. We rarely shot
at each other and seldom caused any property

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damage to speak of. All the
kids in our neighborhood became adults with two

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functional eyes, even if they didn't
become much else. I'm sure one kid

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had a BB lodged under the skin
an inch below his eye, but as

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they say, a miss is as
good as a mile plus years later,

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it made for good theater when he
made the girl squeal when he'd moved around

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with a magnet. Bottles and birds
were our preferred targets, though, and

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we roam the neighborhood stalking the wary
sparrow with the same intensity and concentration as

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any legendary African big game hunter,
rhino or sparrow. There was little difference

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in the stalk and the shot and
the kill. Some may not agree,

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but I believe the predator instinct is
still within us, deep in the basic

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programming of our brains, leftover for
when our ancestors hunted the wooly mammoth,

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the predator instinct, like our appendix
was more necessary for our survival. I

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think the instinct is still there even
for those of us in which the appendix

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isn't. Moving up from the bb
gun was the more powerful pump up pellet

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rifle, the Benjamin pellet rifle to
be exact, or the Sheridan if you

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didn't mind a wonky communist sized five
millimeter pellets that were hard to get and

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expensive. Now, these pneumatic rifles
were just one step down from a real

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powder burning gun. It's still suitable
for suburban neighborhood usage. Any excess energy

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00:27:38.480 --> 00:27:44.640
that might have been wasted on mowing
grass or washing windows or some other type

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00:27:44.640 --> 00:27:49.440
of nonsense was expended on pumping up
one of these beasts. We all looked

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00:27:49.480 --> 00:27:56.559
like Johnny Wisemeller from pumping these things
a thousand times a day. The Benjamin

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00:27:56.720 --> 00:28:02.519
could break the strongest of bottles,
bottles that at red riders and deflicted bebies

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00:28:02.640 --> 00:28:07.519
like bullets off of Superman's chest.
It could also handily dispatch any neighborhood game,

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including the squirrel, which was the
ultimate neighborhood trophy. A kid might

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occasionally take a slow, puny,
sickly squirrel with a daisy spitting image if

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you had an incredibly lucky shot,
but the Benjamin would knock them from the

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top of the tallest pine tree deader
than disco. If you had a Benjamin,

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you may as well have had a
bazooka or a full auto Tommy gun,

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as you were the unquestioned king of
the neighborhood. Chapter five Fishing Royalty

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and Sparkly Major Awards. The rigs
we used to fool our wary saltwater prey

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were the exact same poles we used
in the rivers, but instead of a

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00:28:56.720 --> 00:29:00.279
big water worms on the hook,
we used a big water shrimp. Over

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the Labor Day weekend, in nineteen
sixty eight, Long Beach held its first

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00:29:04.839 --> 00:29:11.319
fishing rodeo and in the biggest,
most blatant disregard for the rules of boyhood.

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Whereas the older brother always got to
be first at everything, Brody went

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and won the whole shebang. He
caught a fourteen ounce speckled trout that won

330
00:29:22.640 --> 00:29:27.079
him both the Largest Fish Award and
the King Fisherman Award, not one,

331
00:29:27.119 --> 00:29:33.720
but two giant, gleaming silver trophies
with the brilliant blue annidized name plates that

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shone like sapphires at the bottom and
leaping fish atop them. They were the

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00:29:38.519 --> 00:29:44.240
most fabulous things I had ever laid
eyes on. No king had ever owned

334
00:29:44.279 --> 00:29:49.519
anything as splendid, and the treasures
of Solomon paled by comparison. I was

335
00:29:49.599 --> 00:29:53.039
certain that God had one of these
trophies on either side of his throne.

336
00:29:53.720 --> 00:29:57.480
I learned the meaning of jealousy that
day, for I was green with envy.

337
00:29:59.079 --> 00:30:03.440
Mama still has those trophies, but
now they kindle fond memories as opposed

338
00:30:03.440 --> 00:30:07.839
to a blinding jealous rage. You
see, a trophy was among the ultimate

339
00:30:07.880 --> 00:30:12.119
possessions a boy could have, next
to a pump up pellet rifle or possibly

340
00:30:12.160 --> 00:30:18.279
a shwin stingray. What you did
to win the trophy didn't really matter one

341
00:30:18.440 --> 00:30:23.400
whit as its size and reflective properties
were the most important thing. Your trophy

342
00:30:23.480 --> 00:30:27.799
could have been for fishing or baseball, or a Nobel something or another.

343
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Regarding physics or the pinewood derby,
it didn't really matter as long as you

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00:30:33.039 --> 00:30:38.920
had one or better. Yet,
several pen on metals were a weak substitute,

345
00:30:40.039 --> 00:30:42.920
and it took quite a volume of
metals a dozen or more. Something

346
00:30:42.960 --> 00:30:48.039
akin to the number and assortment on
a ten horned dictator's uniform to equal the

347
00:30:48.119 --> 00:30:53.480
shine value of even the smallest of
trophies. I would dare say that had

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there been a choice between those trophies
or a check for ten thousand dollars,

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that Brody would have taken the trophies. I know I would have, And

350
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fifty years later I occasionally fish from
that same rock piled jetty in the Long

351
00:31:08.039 --> 00:31:12.759
Beach Harbor, perhaps standing on some
of the same rocks that burned our bare

352
00:31:12.799 --> 00:31:23.000
feet in those award winning days fifty
summers past. Chapter six. The white

353
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trash at the end of the street. Our prisons are full of murderers,

354
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thieves, crooks, kidnappers, politicians, and various other forms of undesirables,

355
00:31:34.839 --> 00:31:41.680
but apparently the lowest form of human
life known to exist freely wanders are streets

356
00:31:42.559 --> 00:31:47.759
that would be white trash. According
to Mama, there was nothing lower.

357
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She never threatened bad behavior by saying, you boys better behave y'all want people

358
00:31:52.279 --> 00:31:56.839
to think y'all are politicians. No, she'd say, y'all better straighten up.

359
00:31:56.839 --> 00:32:00.440
But these people are going to think
y'all are white trash. We'd have

360
00:32:00.559 --> 00:32:06.319
rather died than been thought of as
white trash. Unfortunately, however, the

361
00:32:06.359 --> 00:32:09.759
family that lived at the end of
me Mall Street was white trash. White

362
00:32:09.759 --> 00:32:15.079
trashiness must not be a visible malady, since they all looked very much like

363
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us. They too, ran around
barefooted and shirtless from the day school let

364
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out until schools started back the day
after Labor Day. Our summer wardrobe consisted

365
00:32:25.240 --> 00:32:30.480
of cut off blue jeans and dirt. Anything else was strictly optional and left

366
00:32:30.519 --> 00:32:35.880
to the discretion of the wearer.
We would occasionally put on shoes, but

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00:32:35.920 --> 00:32:38.799
the soles of our feet were generally
much harder and blacker than the soles of

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00:32:38.839 --> 00:32:45.480
any shoe and could likely draw sparks
from concrete. There were two boys around

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our ages and an older sister that
comprised the spawn of the white trash family.

370
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I hesitate to mention their names because
those that aren't in a correctional or

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rehabilitative institute, or have it been
killed in a our fight, may seek

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retribution. I believe in hindsight that
it was the older sister that garnered them

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admission to the realm of white Trashtom, but I'm not one to start rumors.

374
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We were forbidden to play with any
of them. Play, by our

375
00:33:17.000 --> 00:33:22.279
definition, meant to engage in pleasurable
activity. Therefore, we felt free to

376
00:33:22.319 --> 00:33:27.480
merely interact with the white trash family
as long as we didn't enjoy it.

377
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The white trash boys rode their bikes
up and down me Mall Street, knowing

378
00:33:32.000 --> 00:33:36.799
I believe that we were not to
play with them. It was during one

379
00:33:36.799 --> 00:33:40.799
of these taunting rides past me Mall's
house that I decided to interact with the

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oldest boy. It was spring or
early summer, so thick tufts of wild

381
00:33:46.559 --> 00:33:52.200
onions sprouted everywhere in the yard.
If you've ever pulled one of these up,

382
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you know what. A large water
of dirt comes up with the stalks.

383
00:33:55.720 --> 00:34:00.160
When grasped by the stalks and throne, this botanical whistle flies like a

384
00:34:00.279 --> 00:34:07.279
dark dirt first stabilized by the trailing
stalks. I thought it would be very

385
00:34:07.319 --> 00:34:12.679
sporting to toss one of these onion
darts at the white trash of velocipede jockey

386
00:34:12.800 --> 00:34:17.360
as he sped past. After several
passes, he was feeling quite confident of

387
00:34:17.400 --> 00:34:21.679
his skills, and he rode by
on the near side of the street.

388
00:34:22.400 --> 00:34:28.239
An I let fly a particularly accurate
onion projectile. It was on a perfect

389
00:34:28.320 --> 00:34:32.599
trajectory for his head, and sensing
the unavoidable, he took evasive action,

390
00:34:32.880 --> 00:34:39.039
which consisted of rapidly ducking and slamming
his forehead into the handlebar stem. Now

391
00:34:39.079 --> 00:34:44.519
this would have been incredibly hilarious had
he not opened a sizeable gash on his

392
00:34:44.639 --> 00:34:49.639
head. As the blood began to
flow, he pedaled to his house and

393
00:34:49.679 --> 00:34:55.079
I ran inside Memo's house. I
felt horrible, not particularly because I'd kill

394
00:34:55.159 --> 00:34:59.599
someone with a clump of onion grass, but I really didn't want to be

395
00:34:59.639 --> 00:35:02.280
locked up for the rest of my
life, because I was only seven and

396
00:35:02.360 --> 00:35:07.199
I had lots of plans Paul.
Paul assured me that he probably was not

397
00:35:07.360 --> 00:35:12.719
dead, and I was feeling a
little better until the police car pulled up.

398
00:35:13.840 --> 00:35:16.360
It might not be possible for a
seven year old to die from heart

399
00:35:16.400 --> 00:35:22.880
failure, but I came very close. Apparently, White trash Boy had gone

400
00:35:22.880 --> 00:35:27.199
home and told his mama that I'd
thrown a brick at him. I wish

401
00:35:27.320 --> 00:35:30.679
that, at seven, I had
had the strength to throw a brick any

402
00:35:30.719 --> 00:35:35.920
appreciable distance, but alas it was
merely a wad of dirt. White trash

403
00:35:35.960 --> 00:35:40.679
Boy had lied to his mama and
sick the police on me. You just

404
00:35:40.719 --> 00:35:52.880
can't trust White Trash. Chapter seven, God Bless America and Chinese Fireworks.

405
00:35:52.840 --> 00:36:00.639
Another interaction with the White Trash family
involved fireworks. Fireworks are the kid equivalent

406
00:36:00.679 --> 00:36:04.840
to corn liquor. Nothing good ever
came from a misuse of either one of

407
00:36:04.880 --> 00:36:09.920
these products, and generally a story
rapidly deteriorates after the uttering of the words

408
00:36:10.000 --> 00:36:16.119
liquor or fireworks. As in this
story, we weren't allowed to have fireworks

409
00:36:16.199 --> 00:36:22.000
and bottle rockets and Roman candles or
any other pyrotechnic device that launched a projectile

410
00:36:22.599 --> 00:36:28.760
of This effectively ruled out most fireworks. We were stuck with the most mundane

411
00:36:28.760 --> 00:36:34.360
of all fireworks, sparklers and snakes. Snakes were the worst, because after

412
00:36:34.440 --> 00:36:37.599
lighting them, you were done.
You simply watched as a small black pellet

413
00:36:37.719 --> 00:36:43.719
became a stinky, fragile, black, twisted cylinder of ash. Now,

414
00:36:43.719 --> 00:36:46.280
this may have been a neat parlor
trick before the Civil War, but was

415
00:36:46.320 --> 00:36:52.480
hardly worthy of the moniker of fireworks. The sparklers were nearly as boring,

416
00:36:52.599 --> 00:36:57.800
but at least you could wave them
around wildly in circles, spewing hot sparks

417
00:36:57.800 --> 00:37:00.199
in every direction, and as they
spoke ut out, you were left with

418
00:37:00.239 --> 00:37:06.280
a glowing red, hot metal rod. After several boxes of snakes, the

419
00:37:06.360 --> 00:37:10.440
boredom was intolerable. The sparklers were
our only hope, but we knew their

420
00:37:10.480 --> 00:37:16.000
destructive powers were near zero, and
so we held out little hope. Being

421
00:37:16.039 --> 00:37:20.519
the oldest and the leader of our
band, I quickly sprang to action and

422
00:37:20.559 --> 00:37:24.920
devised a plan. We would use
the sparklers in the usual fashion, running

423
00:37:24.960 --> 00:37:30.199
around at full speed while twirling one
in each hand, But when they were

424
00:37:30.320 --> 00:37:34.239
just about to go out, we
would throw them into the air and watch

425
00:37:34.280 --> 00:37:38.480
as they cut a fiery trail through
the night sky like Haley's comet. Well,

426
00:37:38.519 --> 00:37:44.000
it was a brilliant plan, and
timing was everything. You didn't want

427
00:37:44.039 --> 00:37:47.079
to throw them too soon and waste
valuable sparks that you could have waved in

428
00:37:47.159 --> 00:37:52.960
wild circles, looking like a doomed
helicopter. You also didn't want to throw

429
00:37:52.000 --> 00:37:57.039
them too late, only to see
the boring, faint dog glow of a

430
00:37:57.079 --> 00:38:01.679
hot metal wire arcing through the summer
sky. Ideally, your sparkler would sizzle

431
00:38:01.760 --> 00:38:07.920
through the sky like a shooting star
and die shortly after impact. The White

432
00:38:07.920 --> 00:38:14.280
Trash down the street were apparently prouder
of our nation's independence because they had real

433
00:38:14.320 --> 00:38:19.920
firecrackers. Not to be outdone,
we inched closer and closer to the property

434
00:38:19.960 --> 00:38:23.800
line so they could see our jubulation
and national pride as we tossed our sparkler

435
00:38:23.960 --> 00:38:29.960
skyward in an attempt to make them
look fun. The White Trash had been

436
00:38:30.000 --> 00:38:34.679
celebrating for several days and had even
camped out the night before in a tent

437
00:38:34.920 --> 00:38:42.480
in their sideyard. After several minutes
of this impromptu pyrotechnic competition, night suddenly

438
00:38:42.519 --> 00:38:46.480
turned to day. One of the
White Trash kids yelled fire, and we

439
00:38:46.599 --> 00:38:53.199
all quickly realized that their tent was, as professional firefighters say, fully involved.

440
00:38:54.320 --> 00:38:58.159
By the time a hose could be
pulled from the house to the camp

441
00:38:58.239 --> 00:39:01.400
site, which was fifty feet at
the most, the tent was, again,

442
00:39:01.519 --> 00:39:07.920
as professional firefighters might say, gone, nothing but a smoldering black spot

443
00:39:08.039 --> 00:39:13.880
in the grass, surrounded by charred
ropes attached to stakes. Now this was

444
00:39:13.960 --> 00:39:17.960
before the days of government mandated fire
retardants. In fact, I believe this

445
00:39:19.039 --> 00:39:24.760
particular tint was actually manufactured by soaking
canvas in gasoline and gunpowder. At any

446
00:39:24.840 --> 00:39:29.280
rate. It was the most exciting
thing we had lit the whole night.

447
00:39:30.639 --> 00:39:34.559
I'm not trying to escape blame,
but the fact that I had thrown a

448
00:39:34.599 --> 00:39:39.280
sparkler in the general direction of the
tent right before the blaze is hardly proof

449
00:39:39.360 --> 00:39:45.039
that I in fact had destroyed their
tent. I suspect being white trash and

450
00:39:45.079 --> 00:39:51.119
all that the older sister smoked,
and that smoldering cigarette which she had left

451
00:39:51.159 --> 00:39:54.400
in the tent hours earlier, had
caused the tent to burst into flames at

452
00:39:54.400 --> 00:40:00.360
exactly the same moment I threw my
sparkler. The white trash had we already

453
00:40:00.400 --> 00:40:02.679
called a law on me twice,
so thank god. The tent blaze was

454
00:40:02.760 --> 00:40:07.079
over in a matter of twenty seconds, and the fire department wasn't needed.

455
00:40:08.000 --> 00:40:14.079
Everyone stood around, stunned and astonished
that a tent could disappear so quickly.

456
00:40:15.239 --> 00:40:20.519
After a brief period of lamenting and
finger pointing, the festivities resumed, but

457
00:40:20.559 --> 00:40:24.800
were much calmer and more subdued than
before then. The celebrations sputtered to an

458
00:40:24.800 --> 00:40:30.800
inn like a wet sparkler. The
hot summer night was thick with the smell

459
00:40:30.880 --> 00:40:37.960
of sulfur and tin smoke. As
we dragged ourselves inside and chugged one last

460
00:40:37.039 --> 00:40:43.199
root bear and fell into bed as
black and grungy and smelly as snakes.

461
00:40:45.519 --> 00:40:52.199
Chapter eight. I must go down
to the sea again. Wanderluss must be

462
00:40:52.280 --> 00:40:58.960
genetic, a natural desire to explore
and go new places. If not,

463
00:40:59.119 --> 00:41:01.360
I guess everyone would stay where they
were born, and there'd be an awful

464
00:41:01.400 --> 00:41:07.800
lot of people in just one place. As kids, we first walked everywhere

465
00:41:07.840 --> 00:41:13.320
we wanted to go. Then bicycles
expanded our range greatly, like the horse

466
00:41:13.400 --> 00:41:20.119
did for the earliest explorers. Imagine
if our prehistoric ancestors had had bicycles when

467
00:41:20.159 --> 00:41:24.079
they crossed the land bridge of the
Bearing Straits, instead of wandering around the

468
00:41:24.079 --> 00:41:30.159
frozen northern plains eating woolly mammos,
they could have gone straight to Florida and

469
00:41:30.199 --> 00:41:35.480
bought a condo and retired by passing
one hundred thousand years of human history.

470
00:41:37.119 --> 00:41:40.400
Theoretically, with a bicycle and a
boat, you could travel every square inch

471
00:41:40.440 --> 00:41:45.800
of the globe. Our family didn't
have a boat when we were real young,

472
00:41:45.880 --> 00:41:49.880
but Paul Paul did, and it
soon became apparent that a boat could

473
00:41:49.920 --> 00:41:54.760
take you places you couldn't otherwise go. We always wanted Pauppal to launch his

474
00:41:54.840 --> 00:41:59.599
boat in the Long Beach Harbor so
we could fish the waters of the Gulf

475
00:41:59.639 --> 00:42:04.440
and be on We may as well
have asked him to juggle flaming chainsaws,

476
00:42:04.800 --> 00:42:08.760
as that was probably more likely to
happen. As we got older and more

477
00:42:08.840 --> 00:42:14.360
confident and a little more independent,
it dawned on us that perhaps we could

478
00:42:14.400 --> 00:42:19.519
go fishing on our own. Pop
All seemed to be wasting a significant portion

479
00:42:19.719 --> 00:42:22.920
of his life working, and we
were sure that fish would buy it on

480
00:42:23.039 --> 00:42:30.280
other days than just Saturday. We
had nearly everything we needed, fishing poles

481
00:42:30.320 --> 00:42:34.800
and a desire to catch fish,
and Papa had a boat. The only

482
00:42:34.840 --> 00:42:38.960
thing we liked was a way to
transport the boat other than the aforementioned bicycles.

483
00:42:40.880 --> 00:42:45.599
Our planning eventually led us to the
obvious conclusion that if we intended to

484
00:42:45.679 --> 00:42:51.159
use Papol's boat, then it had
better be in a body of water nearby.

485
00:42:52.159 --> 00:42:54.639
The closest water, the Gulf of
Mexico, was, of course,

486
00:42:54.840 --> 00:43:00.679
at the south end of Jeff Davis
Avenue, and we could practically from me

487
00:43:00.800 --> 00:43:05.559
Mao's house. It was decided that
the golf would be the scene of our

488
00:43:05.639 --> 00:43:08.519
next piskine harvests, and we just
needed to put a fine point on the

489
00:43:08.599 --> 00:43:15.760
details. At this stage in our
journey through life, my friend Todd Wallace

490
00:43:15.039 --> 00:43:22.519
usually accompanied us on our adventures,
providing extra muscle and brain power. What

491
00:43:22.599 --> 00:43:25.960
we lacked in one we more than
made up for in the other, although

492
00:43:27.000 --> 00:43:31.239
the particular trait found lacking, whether
muscle or brain power, varied from task

493
00:43:31.400 --> 00:43:37.559
to task. With our plan finalized, we approached Paul Paul about dropping us

494
00:43:37.559 --> 00:43:42.000
off at the harbor early the next
morning as he left for yet another wasted

495
00:43:42.119 --> 00:43:45.360
day of laboring in the hot sun. Now this was not met with the

496
00:43:45.440 --> 00:43:52.000
level of enthusiasm we had hoped it
would be. He was pretty emphatic that

497
00:43:52.119 --> 00:43:55.679
he did not want his outboard used
in salt water, and really didn't want

498
00:43:55.760 --> 00:44:00.960
us to operate it in any water, whether salt water, from water or

499
00:44:00.239 --> 00:44:07.800
holy water. Luckily, our plans
made allowance for such inconveniences. We said

500
00:44:07.840 --> 00:44:12.599
we'd be willing to paddle if he'd
just give us a lift to the beach.

501
00:44:13.679 --> 00:44:17.960
We knew that paddling versus motoring meant
we'd probably be limited to twenty miles

502
00:44:19.079 --> 00:44:23.199
or so offshore, as opposed to
say, having lunch in Havana, but

503
00:44:23.280 --> 00:44:29.039
it was a compromise we were willing
to make. Our counter offer to paddle

504
00:44:29.280 --> 00:44:35.320
wasn't met with any more enthusiasm than
our original suggestion, and was instead rebuked

505
00:44:35.320 --> 00:44:39.559
with the seemingly impossible, sarcastic reply
of if you can get it there,

506
00:44:39.840 --> 00:44:45.119
you can use it now. I'm
sure this statement was made with the same

507
00:44:45.199 --> 00:44:50.559
intent meant by when pigs fly,
but in only the way boys can.

508
00:44:50.800 --> 00:44:57.199
We actually took this as not only
permission, but a challenge. The next

509
00:44:57.239 --> 00:45:00.519
morning, we were out in the
yard loading our stuff from the boat Paul.

510
00:45:00.559 --> 00:45:05.239
Paul had long since left, headed
out to build a new hospital or

511
00:45:05.400 --> 00:45:09.679
orphanage or some such nonsense. Me
Ma asked just what we were doing,

512
00:45:09.719 --> 00:45:15.159
and we explained that we were taking
Paupaul's boat to the harbor to go fishing.

513
00:45:15.079 --> 00:45:20.519
She expressed disbelief, but we assured
her that he did indeed say we

514
00:45:20.599 --> 00:45:25.679
could use it. The naval architects
that designed that fine fourteen foot aluminum craft

515
00:45:25.960 --> 00:45:32.239
had wisely foreseen just such as scenario
where boys would be forced by stubborn adults

516
00:45:32.280 --> 00:45:37.760
to carry their craft to the water, and they had wisely placed handles on

517
00:45:37.880 --> 00:45:42.880
the boat, two aft and one
at the bow. That's an auticle talk

518
00:45:43.000 --> 00:45:46.199
right there. There were four of
us, so we could trade off as

519
00:45:46.239 --> 00:45:52.000
we grew tired, and in short
order should be joining the golf breeze and

520
00:45:52.159 --> 00:45:59.360
productive fishing. I briefly longed for
my shepherd's coat hang Glider Sea chapter thirteen,

521
00:45:59.719 --> 00:46:02.920
to ashing a sail from old Man
in the sea style, but soon

522
00:46:02.960 --> 00:46:09.960
dismissed such tangential planning as detracting from
the current endeavor. The boat by itself

523
00:46:10.000 --> 00:46:14.719
was pretty heavy, and the paddles
and fishing gear and the root bears didn't

524
00:46:14.760 --> 00:46:17.760
do anything to make it any lighter. But we didn't have but three quarters

525
00:46:17.760 --> 00:46:22.199
of a mile or so to go, and we were eager to get going,

526
00:46:22.599 --> 00:46:27.079
so off we went. The first
ten feet or so was easy,

527
00:46:27.599 --> 00:46:30.760
got a little harder after that.
We had all day and not so much

528
00:46:30.800 --> 00:46:35.119
else to do, which was a
good thing, so we plotted on.

529
00:46:36.039 --> 00:46:37.920
Now. I believe most of the
root beers were gone by the time we

530
00:46:37.960 --> 00:46:43.760
had reached the railroad tracks just to
block away. Now. Our task was

531
00:46:43.840 --> 00:46:47.880
not made any easier by the fact
that the pavement was only slightly less hot

532
00:46:47.960 --> 00:46:53.559
than free flowing magma. We probably
ate the egg sandwiches just south of the

533
00:46:53.599 --> 00:46:58.599
tracks. It's a good thing we
brought the life jackets because the boat seats

534
00:46:58.639 --> 00:47:01.599
got hot in the sun, and
sitting in a boat on a sidewalk along

535
00:47:01.760 --> 00:47:07.400
Jeff Davis Avenue eating egg sandwiches would
have been unbearable had we not had the

536
00:47:07.440 --> 00:47:12.280
life jackets to sit on. Now
I realized that that is a run on

537
00:47:12.639 --> 00:47:16.360
sentence that ended in a preposition,
but rules aside, I think it conveyed

538
00:47:16.400 --> 00:47:22.920
the scene nicely. By about three
o'clock we had made it to Elix barber

539
00:47:22.039 --> 00:47:27.000
shop and about a third of the
way to the Gulf. We were tired

540
00:47:27.039 --> 00:47:31.800
and hungry and out of root beer. We also learned a valuable and undeniable

541
00:47:31.960 --> 00:47:37.800
truth of life, that being that
while on a road trip, at whatever

542
00:47:37.840 --> 00:47:43.840
point you decided to turn around,
you are exactly halfway done. There was

543
00:47:44.000 --> 00:47:51.280
great consternation and much brain power expended
in solving our predicament. We discussed just

544
00:47:51.320 --> 00:47:53.599
how we could get the boat in
the trunk of a car, or lay

545
00:47:53.639 --> 00:47:58.760
it on the railroad tracks and allow
passing train to push it to New Orleans.

546
00:48:00.159 --> 00:48:02.800
Just leave it there on the sidewalk
in front of Elix and Hope Paul

547
00:48:02.840 --> 00:48:08.559
Paul wouldn't notice it was gone.
Our situation was growing desperate and there was

548
00:48:08.599 --> 00:48:15.840
no resolution in sight. As we
sat there in the brawling sun, dehided

549
00:48:15.920 --> 00:48:21.559
brains of buzzing, we noticed a
familiar vehicle approaching. It was Paul Paul

550
00:48:21.679 --> 00:48:25.039
and a is Ry Anderson truck boy. Were we glad to see him?

551
00:48:25.840 --> 00:48:30.199
I only wish that I could have
said the same for him, but he

552
00:48:30.199 --> 00:48:35.440
didn't seem as happy about the whole
ordeal as we might have. Thank God,

553
00:48:35.519 --> 00:48:39.599
one of the benefits of Paul Paul's
inconvenient construction job was an early afternoon

554
00:48:39.719 --> 00:48:44.920
quitting time. We never did make
it to the gulf in Paul Paul's boat,

555
00:48:45.400 --> 00:48:47.519
and had I known how to type, I might have sent off a

556
00:48:47.519 --> 00:48:52.840
sternly worded letter to the manufacturer of
the boat, advising them of the waste

557
00:48:52.840 --> 00:48:58.880
of time and money it was putting
handles on a boat. But instead we

558
00:48:58.920 --> 00:49:07.840
went home and had a root beer
or twelve, Chapter nine, Our Narrow

559
00:49:07.119 --> 00:49:15.320
Escape from the shallow end of Davy
Jones. Locker Yachting is a leisurely pastime

560
00:49:15.480 --> 00:49:20.440
enjoyed by the wealthy, and on
the odd occasion, dangerously dabbled in by

561
00:49:20.480 --> 00:49:27.119
the underclasses. We were the occasional
dangerous dabblers, having never owned a boat

562
00:49:27.159 --> 00:49:30.880
of any size, My daddy decided
we had to make up some time.

563
00:49:30.039 --> 00:49:35.480
So we by passed the starter boats, you know, the small outboard powered,

564
00:49:35.639 --> 00:49:38.960
center console trailer boats, and we
went straight for the thirty three foot

565
00:49:39.000 --> 00:49:44.920
twin engine offshore fishing boat. Now, I'm sure in my dad's mind the

566
00:49:45.000 --> 00:49:49.280
decision went something like this, Well, it has a steering wheel, a

567
00:49:49.320 --> 00:49:52.360
couple of shifters, and a couple
of throttles. I can drive a stick.

568
00:49:52.440 --> 00:49:58.119
Plus it's cheap. How hard can
it be? Of course, that

569
00:49:58.239 --> 00:50:04.519
same question could be asked of a
Saturn five rocket minus cheap part. In

570
00:50:04.559 --> 00:50:07.119
those days, Daddy did something at
the bank. I'm still not sure to

571
00:50:07.159 --> 00:50:12.039
this day just what it was,
but it involved credit and credit cards and

572
00:50:12.079 --> 00:50:16.920
a knowledge of win. Certain things
like boats way beyond your nautical capabilities became

573
00:50:17.000 --> 00:50:22.880
available due to the lack of payment
by their original captains. Thus was acquired

574
00:50:23.079 --> 00:50:29.519
the bees Hive. It was a
thirty three foot Silverton a few years old,

575
00:50:29.639 --> 00:50:35.599
sporting twin Chrysler V eights that just
loved that in Bargo era marina gasoline

576
00:50:35.719 --> 00:50:42.039
like a hobo loves ripple. Navigating
was not really that hard, since anywhere

577
00:50:42.079 --> 00:50:45.440
you wanted to go with Southish,
and returning from wherever you went was always

578
00:50:45.639 --> 00:50:51.920
Northish. Assuming the compass work,
we could always get reasonably close to home.

579
00:50:52.559 --> 00:50:55.320
At worst, we could possibly end
up in Mobile Bay or in the

580
00:50:55.400 --> 00:51:00.800
Louisiana Marsh, but mostly we made
it back to the Long Beach. Harbor.

581
00:51:01.119 --> 00:51:06.880
Ship Island, Cat Island, Horn
Island were the only real obstacles and

582
00:51:07.000 --> 00:51:12.079
all highly visible. Also, allowing
a fourteen year old kid to plot courses

583
00:51:12.119 --> 00:51:17.159
for a day's adventuring pose little risk. There was no GPS in those days.

584
00:51:17.559 --> 00:51:22.840
You worked off a paper chart with
parallel rules and dividers. You decide

585
00:51:22.880 --> 00:51:28.320
on a heading and hammered down for
the predetermined amount of time and eventually arrived

586
00:51:28.360 --> 00:51:35.159
within about plus or minus twenty miles
of your intended destination. Nautical navigation is

587
00:51:35.280 --> 00:51:38.639
dead simple, and frankly, I'm
flummixed by how long it took to discover

588
00:51:38.719 --> 00:51:44.920
the New World. There was never
a time I remember that we went out

589
00:51:44.960 --> 00:51:49.280
without some event. Even the day
we picked the thing up was exciting.

590
00:51:50.559 --> 00:51:54.840
It was at Diamond Head Yacht Club
we all boarded for our maiden voyage out

591
00:51:54.880 --> 00:52:00.519
to the Jordan River and into the
Bay of Saint Louis, and back leaving

592
00:52:00.639 --> 00:52:05.599
was simple enough, as Dad idled
forward out of the slip and headed for

593
00:52:05.639 --> 00:52:09.519
the briny blue or in this case, the brackish Brown. Returning a few

594
00:52:09.559 --> 00:52:14.880
hours later from our maiden voyage,
found that the wind had picked up considerably

595
00:52:15.360 --> 00:52:21.119
and we were to enjoy our first
docking experience. Trying to back into a

596
00:52:21.239 --> 00:52:25.800
slip and a stout wind is a
tough thing for an experience captain and downright

597
00:52:25.840 --> 00:52:31.800
impossible for that Jackson Banker with the
new boat. After several tries and bouncing

598
00:52:31.840 --> 00:52:37.400
off numerous sail boats, Daddy finally
drove it up a small canal and grounded

599
00:52:37.440 --> 00:52:40.039
it, and one of us leapt
off the bow the boat and got the

600
00:52:40.079 --> 00:52:45.039
harbormaster. He kindly backed our boat
in for us, and I'm certain to

601
00:52:45.079 --> 00:52:51.719
this day the folks dining in the
restaurant over the harbor still remember that incident

602
00:52:51.880 --> 00:52:57.960
and that their Thanksgiving dinner conversations begin
with you remember back in nineteen seventy four

603
00:52:58.000 --> 00:53:00.159
when we were eating at the yacht
club that Saturday, and that guy and

604
00:53:00.239 --> 00:53:05.719
that silverton hit every single boat in
the harbor. I wonder if he's still

605
00:53:05.760 --> 00:53:09.320
alive. Well, Lord knows he's
lucky he still is, but it ain't

606
00:53:09.360 --> 00:53:14.280
from lack of trying to die on
the high seas and kill his whole family

607
00:53:14.320 --> 00:53:19.719
with him. God does indeed watch
over fools and children, and fools with

608
00:53:19.880 --> 00:53:27.320
children. Our talking improved with time, not so much because Daddy's abilities improved,

609
00:53:27.800 --> 00:53:31.679
but we devised a method where we'd
liso the pilings and then manhandle the

610
00:53:31.719 --> 00:53:37.639
boat into the slip with the lines. And what we liked in seamanship we

611
00:53:37.800 --> 00:53:43.480
more than made up for in rodeo
skills. One of our last trips out

612
00:53:43.639 --> 00:53:47.719
was one of the most adventurous.
My Paupa and my friend Rodney were along

613
00:53:47.800 --> 00:53:52.519
for the experience that day. Up
until the point that we thought we were

614
00:53:52.559 --> 00:53:57.400
all going to die, it had
been a fun, uneventful day, but

615
00:53:57.719 --> 00:54:04.119
as I said, they never remained
uneventful. We were somewhere between Ship Island

616
00:54:04.159 --> 00:54:07.239
and Long Beach when my dad noticed
that, even at full throttle, the

617
00:54:07.239 --> 00:54:13.519
boat just wasn't moving very fast.
The engine RPMs made it sound like we

618
00:54:13.519 --> 00:54:17.159
were really moving, but we were
barely making headway. Now, boats are

619
00:54:17.159 --> 00:54:23.199
made of mostly corrodible materials and operated
in a highly corrosive environment, and they

620
00:54:23.239 --> 00:54:30.079
require constant, meticulous maintenance. We
would have no truck with such tomfoolery.

621
00:54:30.840 --> 00:54:34.639
Our way was such that you used
things until they broke, and then you

622
00:54:34.760 --> 00:54:38.599
repaired it with whatever you had on
hand. Well, this philosophy worked fine

623
00:54:38.639 --> 00:54:44.360
with lawnmowers and bicycles and even cars, but it's less than idea when it

624
00:54:44.400 --> 00:54:47.840
comes to boats and especially airplanes.
And thank god we never got one of

625
00:54:47.840 --> 00:54:52.719
those. As in aside, and
on a somewhat related note, let me

626
00:54:52.800 --> 00:55:00.400
say that Jaguar xkes of the era
were actually manufactured defective, so in our

627
00:55:00.440 --> 00:55:04.199
defense, it wasn't really our fault
that it was constantly in the shop.

628
00:55:04.760 --> 00:55:09.599
But I digress. My Paupaul left
the flybridge to go down and have a

629
00:55:09.599 --> 00:55:15.159
look at the engine compartment. He
was a CBE in World War Two,

630
00:55:15.239 --> 00:55:20.039
and even though his specialty was construction, we reasoned that seb's were part of

631
00:55:20.039 --> 00:55:23.800
the navy. Thus he was the
most experienced sailor on board, and what

632
00:55:23.840 --> 00:55:30.159
we needed was a Navy machinist mate, but we had a first class carpenter

633
00:55:30.199 --> 00:55:35.239
and that would have to do.
Upon opening the engine hatches, he discovered

634
00:55:35.280 --> 00:55:38.599
the bilge was flooded and the motors
about half submerged, but still running,

635
00:55:39.280 --> 00:55:44.519
and Papaul suggested that Daddy point the
boat at the nearest piece of land that

636
00:55:44.599 --> 00:55:47.239
he could see, and had that
way, and then Paul Paul jumped down

637
00:55:47.320 --> 00:55:52.039
into the warm water to look for
the problem. Daddy passed the wheel to

638
00:55:52.079 --> 00:55:57.800
me and said head for the Gulf
Port Harbor, which was just a nondescript

639
00:55:57.960 --> 00:56:02.719
lighter spot on the horizon when viewed
through the atmospheric haze. I'm sure at

640
00:56:02.719 --> 00:56:07.079
this time Rodney was thinking he never
should have gotten involved with these crazy people,

641
00:56:07.599 --> 00:56:12.800
but now it was not the time
for regrets. Now. Daddy rushed

642
00:56:12.840 --> 00:56:16.320
to the radio and the salon and
frantically issued a may day, we were

643
00:56:16.400 --> 00:56:22.960
sinking. Time after time he repeated
mayday, may day, may day,

644
00:56:22.400 --> 00:56:29.360
but with no reply. It eventually
became obvious, even though Daddy had no

645
00:56:29.519 --> 00:56:35.639
formal nautical communications training, that the
microphone attached to the radio that wasn't turned

646
00:56:35.679 --> 00:56:39.840
on would not work with the radio
that was turned on. He eventually sorted

647
00:56:39.880 --> 00:56:45.639
out that problem and shortly had the
coastguard and bound, and in the meantime

648
00:56:45.719 --> 00:56:51.559
pap Paul had figured out the problem
in the bilge through the whole connection feeding

649
00:56:51.599 --> 00:56:55.440
the engine cooling water had broken.
I can't imagine why, and it was

650
00:56:55.480 --> 00:57:01.400
flooding the boat. He simply closed
the seacock and allowed the bilge pump to

651
00:57:01.480 --> 00:57:07.519
evenly remove the water from the boat
as we waved off the coastguard and limped

652
00:57:07.519 --> 00:57:12.199
home. I was glad to learn
what a seacock did, but couldn't help

653
00:57:12.280 --> 00:57:15.639
but think it'd be a cool name
for a Marina restaurant that served fish and

654
00:57:15.880 --> 00:57:22.599
chicken. They say heroes aren't made, that they are born, or perhaps

655
00:57:22.679 --> 00:57:25.480
the other way around. I don't
really know, but what I do know

656
00:57:25.719 --> 00:57:31.199
is that memories can be foggy under
situations of duress, and I suspect that

657
00:57:31.400 --> 00:57:36.920
may be why some people remember that
day differently, and some may have You

658
00:57:37.039 --> 00:57:39.960
believe that when I was passing out
life jackets, I held one back and

659
00:57:40.000 --> 00:57:45.360
secured it around my fishing poles that
I had gathered up in the frenzy of

660
00:57:45.400 --> 00:57:51.480
sinking. Whether that's a result of
the brain fabricating things under stress or the

661
00:57:51.639 --> 00:57:55.559
truth, we may never know.
The way I recall it was that I

662
00:57:55.679 --> 00:58:00.760
passed out life jackets to the women, Mama and Case, and the children

663
00:58:00.960 --> 00:58:06.079
Me Brody, bred and Rodney,
leaving the captain in the ship's carpenter,

664
00:58:06.159 --> 00:58:09.039
doomed to go down with the ship, and by down I mean eight or

665
00:58:09.119 --> 00:58:15.880
possibly ten feet. In reality,
they could have both probably remained seated on

666
00:58:15.960 --> 00:58:19.079
the fly bridge with the rest of
the boat sitting on the bottom of the

667
00:58:19.159 --> 00:58:22.360
sound, and not gotten their shoes
wet and waited on rescue in the shade

668
00:58:22.400 --> 00:58:27.880
of a beemony top while we and
my fishing poles all bobbed around in the

669
00:58:27.880 --> 00:58:32.760
boat and life jackets. We eventually
made it home, tired, sunburned and

670
00:58:32.840 --> 00:58:37.719
smelling like a chum bucket and hungry. I sure could have gone for a

671
00:58:37.840 --> 00:58:44.880
number five combo fried shrimp and a
chicken leg down at Seacock's Fish and Chicken.

672
00:58:45.239 --> 00:58:53.159
But alas, some dreams are not
to be Chapter ten, The Ghosts

673
00:58:53.360 --> 00:58:59.920
of Christmas' Past. Even though I
was only in my second year my former

674
00:59:00.320 --> 00:59:05.000
education, I was pretty sure there
were twelve months in the year, or

675
00:59:05.079 --> 00:59:10.760
such was the government propaganda being spewed
at Iola Tapley Wilkins Elementary School in Jackson,

676
00:59:10.760 --> 00:59:16.440
Mississippi in nineteen sixty nine. We
could recite the months in order and

677
00:59:16.519 --> 00:59:23.920
even spell most of them except February. February the second month. It didn't

678
00:59:23.920 --> 00:59:28.960
matter that the year had twelve months, since kids really only cared about June,

679
00:59:29.280 --> 00:59:35.519
July, August and December, summer
and its blissful ignorance free from organized

680
00:59:35.599 --> 00:59:39.480
learning, and Christmas. All those
other months were just filler put on the

681
00:59:39.519 --> 00:59:45.280
calendar by some monks to make the
time between summer and Christmas some type of

682
00:59:45.400 --> 00:59:50.760
character building experience. If it wasn't
fun, it was always said to build

683
00:59:50.920 --> 00:59:54.519
character, put hair on your chest
or make your bone strong. Lord,

684
00:59:54.800 --> 01:00:00.000
we should have all been calcified,
Harry pillars of virtue. Any other time

685
01:00:00.159 --> 01:00:06.280
that wasn't actually Christmas Day or summer
break was merely time spent waiting for them

686
01:00:07.039 --> 01:00:14.320
post Christmas awaiting summer, or post
summer awaiting Christmas. We weren't completely oblivious

687
01:00:14.360 --> 01:00:17.400
to the passage of time, and
would have agreed with Einstein if we had

688
01:00:17.440 --> 01:00:22.639
known who he was, that the
speed of time can indeed very since recess

689
01:00:22.760 --> 01:00:29.119
went much faster than did math.
The first memories I have of the marking

690
01:00:29.280 --> 01:00:34.719
of the passage of time, other
than the large molasses fill malfunctioning clocks that

691
01:00:34.840 --> 01:00:39.159
hung over the blackboards, was noticing
the changing covers on the Ladies' magazines by

692
01:00:39.239 --> 01:00:45.880
checkout stands at the local grocery store
in July. As you hung on the

693
01:00:45.920 --> 01:00:51.159
outside of the Liberty Supermarket buggy filled
with snacks of sugar, packets of kool

694
01:00:51.199 --> 01:00:54.280
aid, and pounds of maloney and
weenies, you didn't care too hoots about

695
01:00:54.320 --> 01:01:00.960
how today's modern housewife hosted a backyard
summer gathering. Heck, we were living

696
01:01:00.000 --> 01:01:07.760
it eventually, though, those publications
featured covers filled with yellow leaves and orange

697
01:01:07.800 --> 01:01:14.840
pumpkins and brown pie crusts. The
turkeys they sliced next month on the covers

698
01:01:14.880 --> 01:01:17.800
were always juicy, and if it
took extra long for Wanda to ring up

699
01:01:17.840 --> 01:01:23.000
your mama's grocery purchase, retrieve her
Virginia slims from the rack behind the register,

700
01:01:23.599 --> 01:01:28.920
and dispense the S and H green
stamps, and then relate her weekly

701
01:01:29.039 --> 01:01:34.679
trials, you could actually begin to
smell that turkey from memory. The absolute

702
01:01:34.800 --> 01:01:38.920
best covers, of course, were
the upcoming Christmas specials. They touched every

703
01:01:39.000 --> 01:01:44.760
soul, greens and reds, and
silvers and gold and tensil and lights,

704
01:01:44.800 --> 01:01:52.400
and every imaginable tasty treat. Those
particular magazine covers and ads within were captivating.

705
01:01:52.039 --> 01:01:57.400
Just close your eyes and you can
see them too. A late winter

706
01:01:57.599 --> 01:02:02.119
sun sets behind a claborate country church, offering just the faintest smudge of pink

707
01:02:02.159 --> 01:02:07.079
through the dark woods. In the
distance, stars already filled the darkest part

708
01:02:07.119 --> 01:02:13.400
of the sky, and snow blankets
everything. A pair of cardinals snuggle on

709
01:02:13.440 --> 01:02:17.280
a frosty limb in the foreground,
as one horse, open sleeve filled with

710
01:02:17.440 --> 01:02:22.639
presents, makes its way down a
narrow lane toward the warm glow issuing forth

711
01:02:22.679 --> 01:02:29.199
from the church windows. The quintessential
image of Christmas, all neatly wrapped up

712
01:02:29.239 --> 01:02:34.519
in one image, inviting you to
sample the smoothness and the flavor of America's

713
01:02:34.559 --> 01:02:39.480
favorite cigarette or Kentucky Bourbon. These
ads were so beautiful and powerful that,

714
01:02:39.599 --> 01:02:44.760
even though I was only eight,
I thought of asking Sanna for a fifth

715
01:02:44.760 --> 01:02:49.239
of Old Granddad and a carton of
pall Mall's, you know, for their

716
01:02:49.239 --> 01:02:54.320
flavor and smoothness. To this day, there is but one Christmas magazine cover

717
01:02:54.519 --> 01:03:00.280
memory that haunts me, not in
a Jacob Marley type way, but in

718
01:03:00.599 --> 01:03:07.079
what a bunch of line bastards type
way. I remember being particularly enthralled by

719
01:03:07.079 --> 01:03:13.559
a cover photo of stained glass cookies. They were just simple sugar cookies with

720
01:03:13.639 --> 01:03:19.440
openings cut in them, and were
filled with crushed life savers that supposedly melted

721
01:03:19.519 --> 01:03:24.840
to fill the opening with beautiful transparent
colors, producing cookies that rivaled the windows

722
01:03:24.960 --> 01:03:30.079
in the cathedrals of France. Or
so the blurb on the cover said.

723
01:03:30.960 --> 01:03:38.480
Exceedingly accurate timing was necessary to produce
these cookies, accuracy apparently achievable nowhere else

724
01:03:38.519 --> 01:03:45.599
on Earth except the Betty Crocker NASA
Atomic Time Keeping Cookie Production Facility, located

725
01:03:45.639 --> 01:03:50.000
deep underground in one of the Rocky
Mountain States. Try as she might,

726
01:03:50.360 --> 01:03:54.239
Mama could never coordinate the melting of
the life savers to coincide with the cookie

727
01:03:54.320 --> 01:04:01.039
part being the perfect dunness. One
or the other was all overdone or underdone.

728
01:04:01.639 --> 01:04:05.760
You either had perfect cookies with bumpy
glass in which some of the letters

729
01:04:05.760 --> 01:04:10.880
from life savers could still be read, or if you got them hot enough,

730
01:04:10.920 --> 01:04:15.880
the life savers would flow nicely filling
the opening of your now black cookies.

731
01:04:15.760 --> 01:04:20.119
And as far as I'm concerned,
there should be no statute of limitations

732
01:04:20.159 --> 01:04:30.159
for prosecuting cookie fraud. Chapter eleven
the Wish Book. You'd think the stained

733
01:04:30.159 --> 01:04:36.079
glass window cookie debacle would have soured
a youth on the commercialization of the entire

734
01:04:36.159 --> 01:04:42.760
Christmas experience. But you'd be wrong. There was, in fact a printed

735
01:04:42.920 --> 01:04:48.599
assemblage that embodied the entire Christmas experience
neatly and holy within its shiny, soul

736
01:04:48.840 --> 01:04:54.800
altering pages. To this day,
I can remember its arrival in the mail,

737
01:04:55.480 --> 01:04:59.920
the way it smelled, the way
its newly sheared pages and static attraction

738
01:05:00.079 --> 01:05:05.079
and offered slight resistance upon first opening
it. Oh the things it contained.

739
01:05:05.559 --> 01:05:12.320
And I'm speaking, of course,
of the Seers Wish Book. It usually

740
01:05:12.480 --> 01:05:16.000
arrived in a timely manner, in
keeping with the season, and as best

741
01:05:16.039 --> 01:05:20.400
as I can recall, it wasn't
delivered with the Labor Day half off all

742
01:05:20.480 --> 01:05:28.159
barbecue grill circulars like today's first holiday
advertisements. At the time, my daddy

743
01:05:28.280 --> 01:05:32.199
actually worked for Seers, which,
with the popularity of the Wishbook, you'd

744
01:05:32.199 --> 01:05:36.880
have thought was tantam out to working
for Santa Claus himself. Besaus was not

745
01:05:38.079 --> 01:05:42.360
the case, and he had very
little to do, nothing at all really

746
01:05:42.400 --> 01:05:45.360
with the Wishbook, unless, of
course, you'd like to set your purchases

747
01:05:45.480 --> 01:05:50.440
up on a ninety day easy payment
plan. You see he was an account

748
01:05:50.559 --> 01:05:58.719
executive in the finance department and calculated
interest payments on Missus Lewis's new avocado green

749
01:05:58.800 --> 01:06:04.639
Ken Moore refrigeration. On our frequent
trips to Sears in downtown Jackson, we

750
01:06:04.760 --> 01:06:10.599
learned a lot. I don't actually
recall seeing exactly where my dad conducted his

751
01:06:10.760 --> 01:06:15.119
daily tolls, but I do know
it wasn't at the popcorn machine, at

752
01:06:15.119 --> 01:06:18.800
the candy counter that filled the store
with the aroma a fresh popped corn,

753
01:06:19.159 --> 01:06:24.639
or even in the automotive department where
men changed tires on loud, hissing,

754
01:06:24.800 --> 01:06:29.760
clanking machines that a boy could watch
for hours. He didn't even work in

755
01:06:29.760 --> 01:06:33.440
the basement that could function as a
fallout shelter should brash Nev get a little

756
01:06:33.480 --> 01:06:38.239
deep in the vodka and grow bored
with just looking at the big red button,

757
01:06:39.159 --> 01:06:44.639
the very same basement that was transformed
yearly into a Christmas toy wonderland.

758
01:06:45.760 --> 01:06:49.199
I'm not sure what Daddy had done
to deserve such a poor job as credit

759
01:06:49.280 --> 01:06:54.880
manager, as opposed to running the
popcorn machine, or changing tires, or

760
01:06:54.920 --> 01:06:58.719
even helping set up the toy land, but he managed to keep us in

761
01:06:58.800 --> 01:07:04.119
kool aid, weening and space food
sticks the day the mailman left the wishbook

762
01:07:04.159 --> 01:07:11.400
in our mailbox until we actually unwrapped
the presence selected from within its pages were

763
01:07:11.480 --> 01:07:15.639
heady times. Indeed, Brody,
Brad and I would each select a unique

764
01:07:15.639 --> 01:07:21.599
color of crayon to circle the particular
booty we desired from the wishbook. We

765
01:07:21.599 --> 01:07:27.400
were usually relegated to colors such as
burnt sienna, raw umber, and the

766
01:07:27.679 --> 01:07:30.480
like, since all the real colors
had long since been used up or broken

767
01:07:30.519 --> 01:07:36.599
into pieces too small to even use. Even brick red was unusable, having

768
01:07:36.639 --> 01:07:42.840
been just weeks ago used to nub
in a Thanksgiving drawing which depicted a large

769
01:07:43.000 --> 01:07:47.920
number of semi nude Indians. Some
items had multiple circles, while some had

770
01:07:48.000 --> 01:07:54.480
single circles, and there were even
portions of the Wishbook that remained a pristine

771
01:07:55.559 --> 01:08:00.639
Now you'd see these silly sections as
you flip past them heading to the toyes

772
01:08:00.000 --> 01:08:06.480
and wonder just why on earth anyone
would have any interest whatsoever in receiving underwear,

773
01:08:08.000 --> 01:08:12.840
a hand carved Meershan pipe, or
a vacuum cleaner with twice a suction

774
01:08:13.079 --> 01:08:15.720
of the next best selling model,
or, for that matter, a pair

775
01:08:15.760 --> 01:08:21.119
of tusskin jeans are. We poured
over our copy of the wishbook for hours,

776
01:08:21.239 --> 01:08:28.279
like scholars studying the Dead Sea scrolls, only with more intensity. We'd

777
01:08:28.279 --> 01:08:33.039
work ourselves into a frenzy with anticipation, sometimes even to the point of sickness.

778
01:08:34.079 --> 01:08:41.079
Our cardboard fireplace roared with imitation flames, and the fake aerosaw snow piled

779
01:08:41.159 --> 01:08:46.159
up in the quarters of the windows
as we daily circled more toys. Thumbtacked

780
01:08:46.239 --> 01:08:50.800
and tape to our front door was
the full size image of Sanna holding the

781
01:08:50.840 --> 01:08:56.720
door wide open and showing off all
the goodies under the tree. Within the

782
01:08:56.800 --> 01:09:00.479
tensil twinkled on our tree, and
the pieces that got to the giant multicolored

783
01:09:00.520 --> 01:09:05.479
bulbs wrinkled in the heat, the
same bulbs that threatened to burn the whole

784
01:09:05.520 --> 01:09:11.279
season to the ground, but for
just one more degree caused the Scotch pine

785
01:09:11.319 --> 01:09:15.920
to release it's heavenly scent. It
is a shame that today's kids have no

786
01:09:16.079 --> 01:09:21.159
idea what a wishbook is, and
an iTunes gift card is a far cry

787
01:09:21.279 --> 01:09:29.600
from weeks of joy circling creepy crawlers, evil knieval daredevil figures, incredible edibles,

788
01:09:29.840 --> 01:09:35.279
and verty birds and Strange changed machines
and hot wheels, supercharger sprint sets.

789
01:09:40.199 --> 01:09:45.520
Chapter twelve, The Christmas we all
became criminals. I'm not sure what

790
01:09:45.600 --> 01:09:51.079
the statute of limitations is for pillaging
government property, but I'm betting it's not

791
01:09:51.279 --> 01:09:59.119
forty five years. Hence the burden
lifting confession and telling of this tale.

792
01:09:59.279 --> 01:10:01.359
Back in the seven in ease,
my family and I were quite skiers.

793
01:10:01.880 --> 01:10:08.279
I know it's difficult to imagine snow
skiers from Mississippi, but such was indeed

794
01:10:08.319 --> 01:10:12.800
the case. In fact, though, I became so proficient that one year

795
01:10:12.960 --> 01:10:18.159
I placed third in a Saint Patrick's
Day slalom competition against bonafide, long haired,

796
01:10:18.239 --> 01:10:25.600
rocky mountain bred fogelbird listening hippie kids. I fancied myself the hillbilly version

797
01:10:25.760 --> 01:10:30.920
of Jean Claude Kelly, a Dixie
land of Franz Clumber. I was to

798
01:10:30.000 --> 01:10:35.159
skiing what Jamaican's were of Bob's letting. It was indeed a glorious day for

799
01:10:35.279 --> 01:10:42.520
the Confederate ski team. One year, we decided to spend Christmas vacation in

800
01:10:42.600 --> 01:10:46.920
Breckenridge, Colorado, and my brothers
and I eagerly agreed to forego any Christmas

801
01:10:46.960 --> 01:10:53.760
presents in exchange for the trip.
As Christmas Day approached and began to register

802
01:10:53.880 --> 01:10:58.159
with us that there would be no
tree, no presents, no prey lanes,

803
01:10:58.560 --> 01:11:03.039
and no Christmas curls at my aunt
Martha's church on Christmas Seed, This

804
01:11:03.159 --> 01:11:06.840
Christmas was shaping up to be just
like any other of the three hundred and

805
01:11:06.880 --> 01:11:13.720
sixty four days that weren't Christmas Day. It became obvious what we needed to

806
01:11:13.800 --> 01:11:17.239
do. We needed a tree,
and that's where the pillaging comes in.

807
01:11:18.640 --> 01:11:23.880
It was two days before Christmas,
so any trees remaining at the grocery store,

808
01:11:24.239 --> 01:11:28.039
a grocery store that had never even
heard of grits, by the way,

809
01:11:28.319 --> 01:11:32.520
were just broken, twisted sappy sticks
with most of the limbs gone.

810
01:11:32.600 --> 01:11:38.720
And as luck would have it,
Breckinridge is located in the Arapahoe National Forest,

811
01:11:39.880 --> 01:11:44.399
there are literally millions and millions of
Christmas card perfect trees just there for

812
01:11:44.520 --> 01:11:47.680
the knifing. We were staying in
a condo that was very well equipped with

813
01:11:47.760 --> 01:11:53.920
everything necessary for a ski vacation,
but with hardly anything at all suitable for

814
01:11:54.000 --> 01:12:00.439
lumberjackerie. Our quest for a chainsaw
or axe was fruitless, finding only half

815
01:12:00.479 --> 01:12:04.640
a bottle of peppermint snops, a
fair of fawcet poster and an Ozark Mountain

816
01:12:04.720 --> 01:12:10.319
Daredevil's eight track tape in the closet. The best we could do was a

817
01:12:10.399 --> 01:12:14.279
large butcher knife from the kitchen drawer, and that would have to do.

818
01:12:15.920 --> 01:12:20.199
We all loaded up in our nineteen
seventy two International travel All, a metallic

819
01:12:20.359 --> 01:12:27.920
moss green marvel of modern mechanization with
the imitation wood side paneling, and cranked

820
01:12:28.000 --> 01:12:33.199
up Jackie Blue and headed to the
forest. Since Breckinridge is wholly located within

821
01:12:33.239 --> 01:12:38.239
the forest, we didn't have far
to go. The best I recall,

822
01:12:38.359 --> 01:12:42.640
we went about two blocks off the
main street and basically just chose the tree

823
01:12:42.760 --> 01:12:46.000
closest to the street. They were
all so perfect it was hard to go

824
01:12:46.039 --> 01:12:50.479
wrong. Really, I just couldn't
believe everybody wasn't out harvesting a tree with

825
01:12:50.560 --> 01:12:56.560
their own butcher knife or corkscrew or
garlic press. I wanted to shout,

826
01:12:56.760 --> 01:13:00.680
do y'all not see all these perfect
Christmas trees? What on on earth is

827
01:13:00.720 --> 01:13:03.920
the matter with you? People?
Don't buy those gooey sticks at the grocery

828
01:13:03.960 --> 01:13:10.039
store with no grits. But they
had trouble with my southern accent, and

829
01:13:10.079 --> 01:13:14.439
they wouldn't have understood me anyway.
Besides, that just left more trees for

830
01:13:14.600 --> 01:13:19.760
us. We made no particular effort
at stealth when acquiring our tree, all

831
01:13:19.880 --> 01:13:25.720
dancing about in brightly colored ski wear
and throwing snowballs while Daddy beat the tree

832
01:13:25.760 --> 01:13:30.560
down with a dull knife. We
dragged our freshly butchered tree back to the

833
01:13:30.640 --> 01:13:34.439
vehicle and tied it to the top
with all the pride and revelry required for

834
01:13:34.479 --> 01:13:41.560
such an occasion. It was an
exquisite tree. Several years later we learned

835
01:13:41.560 --> 01:13:45.039
that it is illegal to just will
and illy shank a Christmas tree in the

836
01:13:45.159 --> 01:13:49.920
national forest. But I'm almost sure
nobody missed that particular tree. And eventually

837
01:13:50.039 --> 01:13:56.079
the grocery store started selling grits.
So really everything turned out good in the

838
01:13:56.199 --> 01:14:00.319
end. Y'all keep this under your
hats, though, if the g men

839
01:14:00.359 --> 01:14:05.520
come snooping around, I'll deny everything. Tree coppers will never take me alive.

840
01:14:10.800 --> 01:14:16.000
Chapter thirteen, Angels we have heard
on high and my plans to soar

841
01:14:16.199 --> 01:14:21.960
amongst them. In December of nineteen
sixty seven, on the stage of a

842
01:14:23.039 --> 01:14:28.640
small elementary school somewhere in Little Rock, Arkansas, a Christmas play was taking

843
01:14:28.720 --> 01:14:32.560
place. I was a shepherd in
that play, and my lines were as

844
01:14:32.680 --> 01:14:36.960
Luke related. And Lo, the
Angel of the Lord came upon them,

845
01:14:38.359 --> 01:14:43.319
and the glory of the Lord shown
around them, and they were sore afraid.

846
01:14:44.640 --> 01:14:49.079
As I spewed forth my memorized scripture
and nearly two my breakfast. I

847
01:14:49.159 --> 01:14:56.319
truly doubt that anyone, shepherd or
not had ever seen any soreer afraid than

848
01:14:56.399 --> 01:15:00.720
I was at that moment. I'm
sure I was quite the dash shepherd.

849
01:15:00.840 --> 01:15:05.439
Since Mama had made my shepherd's garb. My costume was not very elaborate and

850
01:15:05.600 --> 01:15:12.079
consisted of a drab brown and orange
rectangular piece of heavy course upholstery type cloth

851
01:15:12.359 --> 01:15:15.840
that was secured around my neck with
a headband and hung low to about my

852
01:15:16.000 --> 01:15:21.399
knees in the back. If ancient
shepherds had shopped at the same fabric store

853
01:15:21.399 --> 01:15:27.039
as Mama, they likely would have
picked this very same fabric, perhaps even

854
01:15:27.159 --> 01:15:30.560
altering scripture. And Lo, the
Angel of the Lord came upon them,

855
01:15:30.600 --> 01:15:36.800
And the Angel confusedeth greatly, saying, verily I asketh ye, do ye

856
01:15:36.880 --> 01:15:44.199
wear it upon thy heads? The
coverings from the cushions of thine davenport The

857
01:15:44.239 --> 01:15:47.720
rest of my costume was just what
I'd have normally worn a school, probably

858
01:15:47.840 --> 01:15:53.399
blue plaid pants and a blue twill
shirt. I think this is what I

859
01:15:53.439 --> 01:15:57.079
wore every day for about three years, without the head dress, of course,

860
01:15:57.520 --> 01:16:00.640
because every picture we had from that
era sh me sporting the same trendy

861
01:16:00.680 --> 01:16:05.960
plaid pants and blue shirt, and
this ensemble did little to boast her belief

862
01:16:05.960 --> 01:16:13.399
in my sheep herting abilities. For
several years after my theatrical debut, we

863
01:16:13.560 --> 01:16:17.479
always had that very large piece of
coarse fabric in the hall closet. It

864
01:16:17.520 --> 01:16:21.960
really wasn't good for anything, but
was too good to throw away, and

865
01:16:23.000 --> 01:16:26.840
then one day, like a bolt
from the blue, I had a brainstorm

866
01:16:27.000 --> 01:16:30.880
or perhaps an aneurysm. This piece
of cloth was big enough to allow some

867
01:16:31.039 --> 01:16:35.079
type of flight, and it was
large enough for a small parachute, even

868
01:16:35.119 --> 01:16:42.319
though small isn't necessarily a desirable quality
in parachutes. But with a parachute you

869
01:16:42.359 --> 01:16:45.840
still had to get up into the
wild blue yonder, and I didn't know

870
01:16:45.920 --> 01:16:49.880
anyone with an airplane, so that
pretty much ruled out a parachute. That

871
01:16:49.960 --> 01:16:56.479
really only left one option as far
as flight was concerned, a hang glider.

872
01:16:57.399 --> 01:17:01.079
Now, I had seen them on
TV in their construction seemed ridiculously simple.

873
01:17:01.880 --> 01:17:06.359
So I decided a hang glidder it
would be, and my plan practically

874
01:17:06.399 --> 01:17:12.800
formed itself. I had the covering
and some material for the frame. I'd

875
01:17:12.880 --> 01:17:16.920
have this knocked out by lunch and
be airborne by early afternoon. Centers of

876
01:17:16.960 --> 01:17:21.960
gravity in Bernoli's principles of flight be
damned. They meant little to me at

877
01:17:23.000 --> 01:17:27.239
this point, as I could not
be bothered by such technicalities. I had

878
01:17:27.239 --> 01:17:30.840
a flying machine to build, and
building the frame was just as easy as

879
01:17:30.880 --> 01:17:35.640
I thought it would be. I
formed a giant V by nailing together two

880
01:17:35.680 --> 01:17:41.279
eight foot long pieces of leftover one
by two molding, and this formed the

881
01:17:41.319 --> 01:17:45.279
outline of my machine. Now I
needed a good comfortable handle to hang from

882
01:17:45.560 --> 01:17:49.039
and to steer with, so I
cut the head off a hole and nailed

883
01:17:49.039 --> 01:17:54.439
it to the handle across my frame. And I used extra nails here for

884
01:17:54.520 --> 01:17:59.079
safety reasons. I'm just guessing,
but I bet this is where the saying

885
01:17:59.319 --> 01:18:03.640
fly off the handle originated. What
other twelve year old glider builders probably have

886
01:18:03.920 --> 01:18:11.159
used too few nails. At this
point I was practically finished. All that

887
01:18:11.319 --> 01:18:14.800
was left was to cover the frame
with the shepherd's cloth, and I was

888
01:18:14.840 --> 01:18:19.039
ready for takeoff. I stretched the
cloth tightly over the frame and tacked it

889
01:18:19.079 --> 01:18:25.199
into place every few inches, with
roofing nails done, and man, did

890
01:18:25.239 --> 01:18:29.600
it look good. I couldn't believe
how easy it was to construct a first

891
01:18:29.680 --> 01:18:33.640
rate flying machine. And why didn't
everyone else have one of these? Oh

892
01:18:33.640 --> 01:18:38.479
well, it was their loss,
And besides, that left more room in

893
01:18:38.520 --> 01:18:44.640
the skies for me. Seeing how
quickly this was coming together, I already

894
01:18:44.680 --> 01:18:49.000
loosely formulated a plan for launching my
machine, and launching off of the house

895
01:18:49.039 --> 01:18:54.000
would only allow for a very limited
flying time, so I had to locate

896
01:18:54.079 --> 01:19:00.680
somewhere much higher. On TV,
the glider pilots launched from cliffs overlooking the

897
01:19:00.720 --> 01:19:04.760
Pacific Ocean. The closest thing to
a cliff in our neighborhood was located on

898
01:19:04.800 --> 01:19:12.119
the grounds of Wingfield High School.
The campus was comprised of three terraced levels,

899
01:19:12.600 --> 01:19:15.960
the faces of which sloped at about
thirty degrees, and from ground level

900
01:19:16.119 --> 01:19:20.399
to the second level was about fifteen
feet, and about the same between the

901
01:19:20.439 --> 01:19:25.840
second and the third levels. There
was a place there, however, that

902
01:19:26.039 --> 01:19:30.159
went from the first level to the
third, a thirty foot cliff with a

903
01:19:30.199 --> 01:19:35.199
thirty degree face, just perfect for
glider launching. Why this place wasn't covered

904
01:19:35.279 --> 01:19:41.279
up with glider enthusiasts was beyond me, but I viewed it as merely my

905
01:19:41.359 --> 01:19:45.640
good fortune. Wingfield was about a
quarter mile from my house, and I

906
01:19:45.720 --> 01:19:49.880
decided to walk there with my glider
instead of trying to carry my machine on

907
01:19:49.920 --> 01:19:54.560
my bike, which would have been
very difficult given the size of my flying

908
01:19:54.640 --> 01:19:59.399
machine. It also would have meant
another trip back to the school to retrieve

909
01:19:59.479 --> 01:20:04.199
my bike once I had flown home. Walking that far while carrying my glider

910
01:20:04.279 --> 01:20:09.880
gave me plenty of time to plan
my flight. I figured I'd first circle

911
01:20:09.960 --> 01:20:14.039
the school a couple of times to
get a feel for operating my glider,

912
01:20:14.439 --> 01:20:17.000
and then I'd set out over the
neighborhoods and over the houses of a few

913
01:20:17.079 --> 01:20:25.039
friends, finally landing at my house. I was both excited and proud as

914
01:20:25.119 --> 01:20:30.920
I walked along Scanlon Drive, carrying
my machine and dreaming of places to visit.

915
01:20:30.720 --> 01:20:36.199
I can only imagine what passing motorists
and earthbound homeowners thought as I walked

916
01:20:36.199 --> 01:20:42.880
past with my glorious flying machine.
So great was there envy that their mechanical

917
01:20:42.960 --> 01:20:49.119
laughter was probably the only way they
could express jealousy of that magnitude. Arriving

918
01:20:49.319 --> 01:20:54.680
at my departure site, I made
ready for flight, which was not an

919
01:20:54.760 --> 01:21:00.560
involved procedure. I firmly grasped the
hoe handle about to way away from the

920
01:21:00.680 --> 01:21:02.720
edge of the hill a few feet
to allow for a running take off.

921
01:21:03.279 --> 01:21:06.520
I took a deep breath and tightened
my grip and ran as fast as I

922
01:21:06.520 --> 01:21:12.319
could over the edge of the drop
off. And it worked. I was

923
01:21:12.399 --> 01:21:15.840
flying, not as far or as
high as I had hoped, but I

924
01:21:15.920 --> 01:21:21.239
was flying nonetheless. Actually, I
flew no higher or no further than I

925
01:21:21.279 --> 01:21:27.039
would have had I not had a
flying machine. Truthfully, I guess I

926
01:21:27.119 --> 01:21:30.159
was just falling through space with a
whole handle, molding, nails, and

927
01:21:30.239 --> 01:21:38.000
several yards of fabric, temporarily buoyed
by dreams and ignorance. The ghosts of

928
01:21:38.079 --> 01:21:42.680
two great thinkers were relieved that day. Their laws held hard and fast,

929
01:21:42.840 --> 01:21:48.079
undeniable, unwavering, and unforgiving.
Bernoli's laws of flight would not be challenged,

930
01:21:48.119 --> 01:21:54.720
and Galileo's laws governing falling bodies proved
true. Yet once again, I

931
01:21:54.720 --> 01:21:59.520
didn't bother to carry my creation back
home, since it had somehow become heavier

932
01:21:59.760 --> 01:22:11.039
after testing Chapter fourteen six mini bikes
and a micro bus. With apologies to

933
01:22:11.159 --> 01:22:17.680
Beck, my memory of Christmas past
is the warm, intoxicating elixir that sues

934
01:22:17.760 --> 01:22:25.159
the spastic seizures of any current Christmas
season. With the revelry of Christmas present

935
01:22:25.279 --> 01:22:30.039
comes visits to Christmas's past. The
selection of the family tree was always a

936
01:22:30.039 --> 01:22:34.560
special occasion. Now I'm sure everybody
all over the world has a memory of

937
01:22:34.720 --> 01:22:40.680
just where they bought their trees.
As a South Jackson boy, anything we

938
01:22:40.840 --> 01:22:45.560
bought, if it didn't come from
Sears downtown, was bought from some merchant

939
01:22:45.600 --> 01:22:50.000
on Ellis Avenue between Highway eighty and
Westland Plaza, And so it was with

940
01:22:50.079 --> 01:22:57.520
our Christmas trees. At the northwest
corner of the intersection of Highway eighty and

941
01:22:57.640 --> 01:23:02.640
Ellis Avenue stood Gibson's Department Store,
and every year in their parking lot appeared

942
01:23:02.640 --> 01:23:10.079
a Christmas tree huckster right after Thanksgiving. I vividly remember one particular outing to

943
01:23:10.119 --> 01:23:14.239
buy our tree. It was some
year in the early seventies, as we

944
01:23:14.319 --> 01:23:18.600
all loaded up into our nineteen sixty
eight VW van and headed to the Christmas

945
01:23:18.640 --> 01:23:24.960
tree lot. The van was an
acquisition from the prior Christmas, when my

946
01:23:25.079 --> 01:23:30.359
Daddy came home with it loaded with
six mini bikes. We didn't ask questions.

947
01:23:30.000 --> 01:23:33.840
He was a wheeler dealer and it
wasn't unusual to come home and find

948
01:23:33.880 --> 01:23:39.720
new things a boat, a motor
home, a Jaguar, the car not

949
01:23:39.800 --> 01:23:44.039
the animal, although alive jaguar would
have not been all that surprising, either

950
01:23:44.600 --> 01:23:47.159
a pile of rifles, or,
in this case, a micro bus jam

951
01:23:47.239 --> 01:23:53.399
full of mini bikes. The little
bus had been a boring white, but

952
01:23:53.479 --> 01:23:57.439
at some point Daddy took it and
had the van painted a bright yellow.

953
01:23:58.039 --> 01:24:03.199
It was fantastic, like a rolling
Beatles album, and since we hauled all

954
01:24:03.239 --> 01:24:10.359
the tiny motorcycles in it, the
bus smelled perpetually like gasoline. The previous

955
01:24:10.399 --> 01:24:15.159
owner had glued turquoise colored carpet to
the floor and walls, making for a

956
01:24:15.199 --> 01:24:20.239
garish color combination, and we loved
it. We always had a Scotch Pine,

957
01:24:20.520 --> 01:24:25.479
so like the ten or so years
before, my dad bought another Scotch

958
01:24:25.560 --> 01:24:29.840
Pine. But this year we also
bought a wreath with a red bow that

959
01:24:29.920 --> 01:24:33.479
fit perfectly around the VW logo on
the front of the little German bus,

960
01:24:33.880 --> 01:24:39.000
and with our Scotch Pine tied atop
the van and the wreath on the front.

961
01:24:39.359 --> 01:24:44.199
It was a bell bottom scene straight
out of psychedelic hippie versions of Norman

962
01:24:44.319 --> 01:24:49.760
Rockwell paintings. Here half a century
later, when I passed a Christmas tree

963
01:24:49.840 --> 01:24:55.640
lot anywhere, I think back to
that Christmas with the little yellow micro bus

964
01:24:55.920 --> 01:25:00.600
outfitted with its wreath for the season, and I can smell the lingering fragrances

965
01:25:00.640 --> 01:25:06.439
from that Christmas. Most folks remember
the sense of evergreen, gingerbread and peppermint.

966
01:25:08.159 --> 01:25:16.960
I remember evergreen and gasoline. Chapter
fifteen, the dance of the sugar

967
01:25:17.119 --> 01:25:24.960
alternative plum Fairy. We've all seen
the bumper stickers lose weight. Ask me

968
01:25:25.159 --> 01:25:30.640
how well it's really no secret.
Calories in must be less than calories out.

969
01:25:31.000 --> 01:25:38.079
It's a very simple mathematical equation.
Calories in must be less than calories

970
01:25:38.119 --> 01:25:43.920
out, or for the dyslexic,
calories out is greater than calories in.

971
01:25:45.199 --> 01:25:49.720
With the existence of Little Debbie's Christmas
tree snackcakes around at yule Tide, that

972
01:25:49.880 --> 01:25:56.680
simple formula isn't as simple as it
appears. But take heart, as there

973
01:25:56.800 --> 01:26:03.199
is another holiday treat that can help. Did the claws cleanse while sitting around

974
01:26:03.199 --> 01:26:09.159
the outside fireplace. One evening near
Christmas, I was lamenting, that's a

975
01:26:09.159 --> 01:26:13.359
better sounding way to say, whining
that I sure missed having a big old

976
01:26:13.439 --> 01:26:17.079
mug of hot chocolate and that there
ought to be a Keto low carb version.

977
01:26:18.319 --> 01:26:21.880
Jennifer, being the good wife she
is, knuck off to the kitchen

978
01:26:23.000 --> 01:26:29.000
to make my wishes come true.
She mixed vanilla almond milk cream and cocoa

979
01:26:29.000 --> 01:26:32.399
powder and a saucepan and brought it
to a boil, and to sweeten it,

980
01:26:32.520 --> 01:26:36.560
she added several of the sugar alternatives
we use, along with a new

981
01:26:36.600 --> 01:26:42.520
one we're trying. And oh my, it was delicious, so delicious,

982
01:26:42.560 --> 01:26:46.119
in fact, that I had two
very large mugs of it. About thirty

983
01:26:46.119 --> 01:26:51.960
minutes after it was invented, the
Claws cleans was named. That's common knowledge

984
01:26:53.000 --> 01:26:58.159
that some of the artificial sweeteners can
have a laxative effect. Well guess what.

985
01:26:58.920 --> 01:27:02.920
That newest sweet we tried didn't just
have a laxative effect. It bordered

986
01:27:03.000 --> 01:27:09.119
on what I call propulsive. This
was not a passing thing either, at

987
01:27:09.199 --> 01:27:14.840
least not in one sense. For
about twelve hours, my enters sounded like

988
01:27:14.960 --> 01:27:19.760
you'd put billiard balls in the clothes
dryer. During my ensuing hours in the

989
01:27:19.800 --> 01:27:24.279
bathroom, I had plenty of time
to work on my marketing plan for the

990
01:27:24.399 --> 01:27:30.520
Claw's Cleans. Water is approximately eight
pounds per gallon, and with conservatively five

991
01:27:30.600 --> 01:27:36.279
gallons of ejective produced, I ciphered
that I had easily lost at least forty

992
01:27:36.279 --> 01:27:41.720
pounds in one night. Now I'm
thinking that the marketing sales pitch for the

993
01:27:41.760 --> 01:27:46.600
Claw's Cleans would cause a consumer to
forgive the process considering the amazing results.

994
01:27:47.159 --> 01:27:53.960
And I'm thinking a festive, glossy
brochure with maybe some gold full highlights or

995
01:27:54.079 --> 01:27:58.760
glitter of some sort, and then
some catchy prose. How does this sound?

996
01:28:00.119 --> 01:28:03.720
Enjoy our rich, hot, delicious
holiday Claws Cleans, and after a

997
01:28:03.800 --> 01:28:09.479
short, pleasant, seven hour bathrooms
day, you'll be a new forty pounds

998
01:28:09.560 --> 01:28:14.680
lighter U, just in time for
the holiday office party. Maybe have a

999
01:28:14.720 --> 01:28:18.479
photo of a skinny model in a
slinky party dress sipping cocktails at the bottom

1000
01:28:18.520 --> 01:28:24.399
of the brochure, or cousin Eddie
with a moose glass full of Claws cleans,

1001
01:28:24.439 --> 01:28:30.680
exclaiming it's the gift that keeps on
giving Clark. There will of course

1002
01:28:30.760 --> 01:28:35.199
be assorted small print disclaimers at the
bottom, warning not to drink Claws cleans

1003
01:28:35.439 --> 01:28:42.000
before doing strenuous exercise, to wear
an extra large adult diaper for twelve hours

1004
01:28:42.239 --> 01:28:46.760
after consuming product, and that we
are not responsible for repainting your house should

1005
01:28:46.760 --> 01:28:53.840
you sneeze. You know, just
the typical legal stuff. If anybody would

1006
01:28:53.920 --> 01:28:57.479
like to try some, I can
provide free samples. If you'd like to

1007
01:28:57.479 --> 01:29:00.920
be able to squeeze into that sequin
to party dress, or if you'd just

1008
01:29:01.079 --> 01:29:05.039
like to make room for a few
boxes of Little Debbies Christmas tree caches.

1009
01:29:05.840 --> 01:29:15.720
The results are guaranteed. Chapter sixteen, The Gods of Rock. At one

1010
01:29:15.760 --> 01:29:18.840
point in my life I thought I
needed to know how to play a guitar.

1011
01:29:19.720 --> 01:29:24.680
A few guys that I knew that
could play were considered cool, and

1012
01:29:24.800 --> 01:29:30.039
Hendrix and Page and Townshend seemed to
be doing okay, too well. Actually

1013
01:29:30.199 --> 01:29:32.880
Hendrix was dead, but other than
that he seemed to be doing okay.

1014
01:29:34.119 --> 01:29:39.199
Brody decided that he'd like to play
too, so off we went to Worland's

1015
01:29:39.359 --> 01:29:44.640
Music, where we bought a couple
of Japanese made les Paul copies. Mine

1016
01:29:44.760 --> 01:29:48.000
was black and his was sunburst,
and we bought a small peevy amp.

1017
01:29:48.880 --> 01:29:53.800
We had all we needed to conquer
the rock world, except the ability to

1018
01:29:53.880 --> 01:29:59.000
play. We solved that little problem, too sweet by signing up for six

1019
01:29:59.159 --> 01:30:02.600
lessons. I figured the last three
lessons would be just a waste of time

1020
01:30:03.000 --> 01:30:08.079
since the first three would be all
we'd really need. Plus we'd probably be

1021
01:30:08.199 --> 01:30:12.840
out on the road somewhere touring with
the band. The first lesson was a

1022
01:30:12.880 --> 01:30:16.359
real eye opener. We showed up
with our new axes, ready to rock.

1023
01:30:17.279 --> 01:30:23.039
We were led to a tiny little
soundproof room where we were instructed to

1024
01:30:23.079 --> 01:30:28.760
take our guitars from their cases.
We nailed that first step. I figured

1025
01:30:28.800 --> 01:30:32.640
we were well on our way to
start them so easily mastering our first instructions.

1026
01:30:33.760 --> 01:30:36.600
Now, I was skeptical of our
teacher, what with her being a

1027
01:30:36.720 --> 01:30:41.680
lady and all. But if Anne
and Nancy Wilson could do it, I

1028
01:30:41.760 --> 01:30:45.279
figured maybe she could too. My
hopes, however, were dashed when she

1029
01:30:45.359 --> 01:30:49.600
pulled out something she called a tuning. For Law was baffled, thinking,

1030
01:30:49.920 --> 01:30:54.319
what the heck is she trying to
pull? I want to play guitars,

1031
01:30:54.359 --> 01:30:57.399
not work on them. I mean, I had just spent three hundred and

1032
01:30:57.479 --> 01:31:00.880
fifty dollars on a brand new guitar, he's telling me it isn't even tuned.

1033
01:31:01.600 --> 01:31:05.640
Furthermore, she went on, it
would have to be tuned periodically for

1034
01:31:05.680 --> 01:31:11.159
the rest of its life. Well, I was a little dismayed but humored

1035
01:31:11.199 --> 01:31:16.239
by her following her instructions in tuning
my guitar. This took nearly half the

1036
01:31:16.319 --> 01:31:20.600
lesson time, and I was beginning
to have doubts about this lady. But

1037
01:31:20.680 --> 01:31:28.439
after the excruciating, extended tuning session, I was certain my guitar was ready

1038
01:31:28.479 --> 01:31:33.560
to gently weep, as if to
intentionally delay my ascent to rock stardom.

1039
01:31:33.720 --> 01:31:40.000
She next launches into a lecture on
notes and chords and measures and such.

1040
01:31:41.039 --> 01:31:45.720
While every good boy may indeed do
fine, it seemed a bit tangential to

1041
01:31:45.760 --> 01:31:48.359
what I was seeking, like with
learning golf and having to use all those

1042
01:31:48.399 --> 01:31:53.199
other clubs in the bag as opposed
to just hitting the ball in the hole

1043
01:31:53.279 --> 01:31:59.279
off the tee. Perhaps she had
misunderstood exactly what type of lessons we wanted.

1044
01:32:00.199 --> 01:32:03.520
I didn't want lessons on how to
teach classical guitar. I was looking

1045
01:32:03.560 --> 01:32:08.199
to learn how to play songs,
you know, smoke on the water and

1046
01:32:08.279 --> 01:32:13.119
walk this way, assorted Van Halen
tunes, or even Johnny B. Good

1047
01:32:13.159 --> 01:32:17.760
in some Freebird or Stairway to Heaven
for the slow dance sections. It was

1048
01:32:17.800 --> 01:32:23.279
inevitable that I had to ask,
just to prove her abilities, can you

1049
01:32:23.359 --> 01:32:27.439
even play Stairway to Heaven? Well, sure, she said, and she

1050
01:32:27.520 --> 01:32:32.560
took my guitar and launched into the
Zeppelin classic. Great her bona fides assured.

1051
01:32:33.000 --> 01:32:38.319
Now we could get down to business. I'm thinking, surely, the

1052
01:32:38.359 --> 01:32:43.600
next thing she'd have us do is
practice our star spangled banner Hendrick style with

1053
01:32:43.720 --> 01:32:48.279
our teeth, or at least some
Pete Townshend style wind milling exercises clockwise or

1054
01:32:48.399 --> 01:32:54.119
counter clockwise, it didn't matter.
But nope, not even some old school

1055
01:32:54.199 --> 01:32:59.119
chuck Berry duck walking or lighting.
Even the tiniest amount of lighter fluid squirted

1056
01:32:59.159 --> 01:33:02.560
on our new guitar yours. This
was turning out to be a nightmare.

1057
01:33:04.159 --> 01:33:10.920
Eventually this torture ended and we were
sent off to practice scales or chords or

1058
01:33:11.000 --> 01:33:16.000
some such nonsense until our next lesson. I don't remember going back, so

1059
01:33:16.119 --> 01:33:20.359
let this be a lesson to all
you guitar teachers. When a teenage boy

1060
01:33:20.479 --> 01:33:25.479
shows up with an electric guitar,
the first thing you do is show him

1061
01:33:25.520 --> 01:33:29.520
how to plug it in and turn
it up to eleven, and then slide

1062
01:33:29.560 --> 01:33:32.760
the pick up and down the strings
while working that whammy bar like a chimpanzee

1063
01:33:32.920 --> 01:33:39.279
freebasing red bull. And if he's
agreeable, I'm sure he will be light

1064
01:33:39.359 --> 01:33:44.319
it on fire and swing that new
Chinese strat over your head like a sledgehammer

1065
01:33:44.560 --> 01:33:48.119
and smash the heck out of his
tiny little amp. If the amp should

1066
01:33:48.199 --> 01:33:54.399
spew sparks and catch on fire too, then so much the better. He'll

1067
01:33:54.439 --> 01:33:59.920
be back next week, I guarantee
you. As for me, I quick

1068
01:34:00.119 --> 01:34:03.880
league grew bored of tuning and trying
to make chords and all the other tomfoolery,

1069
01:34:04.159 --> 01:34:08.760
and I sold my guitar and put
the money towards something that didn't require

1070
01:34:08.800 --> 01:34:13.880
all that silly musical knowledge. I
bought a giant set of drums. You

1071
01:34:13.920 --> 01:34:17.439
don't have to read music. There
are no chords, and tuning is optional.

1072
01:34:18.279 --> 01:34:21.279
All you need to know is how
to hit things and count, and

1073
01:34:21.439 --> 01:34:27.600
usually only to four. The only
things simpler is a kazoo rock. On

1074
01:34:30.520 --> 01:34:40.039
chapter seventeen, verily doth thy smoketh
thy swine. Barbecue joints are about as

1075
01:34:40.119 --> 01:34:45.159
ubiquitous throughout the South, as are
cracker barrels, yet each is a unique

1076
01:34:45.319 --> 01:34:48.880
entity in its own right, the
barbecue joints. That is, because the

1077
01:34:48.880 --> 01:34:55.560
cracker barrels country fried steak is the
same in Tuscaloosa as it is in Tallapoosa.

1078
01:34:56.640 --> 01:35:00.800
There's nothing wrong with consistency, and
cracker barrel has that down pat But

1079
01:35:00.880 --> 01:35:08.680
barbecue joints, true barbecue joints,
are the very essence of uniqueness. About

1080
01:35:08.720 --> 01:35:14.199
the only thing they have in common
other than delicious smoke assorted barnyard animals is

1081
01:35:14.239 --> 01:35:17.800
their name. And even that topic
is particularly ornery, what with all the

1082
01:35:17.840 --> 01:35:26.800
barbecue versus barbecue versus barbecue, on
and on. One common trait most good

1083
01:35:26.880 --> 01:35:30.479
barbecue joints have is that at one
time they've all been burned down. The

1084
01:35:30.560 --> 01:35:35.560
really good ones have burned down several
times. Most all of them are just

1085
01:35:35.760 --> 01:35:42.159
ramshackle, wobbly wooden structures, built
of light or not pine and infused with

1086
01:35:42.359 --> 01:35:46.359
years and years of pork fat smoke. Honestly, I'd be more surprised if

1087
01:35:46.399 --> 01:35:53.399
they didn't burn down. The combination
of fire and wood and grease just has

1088
01:35:53.520 --> 01:35:59.479
the structure is fully involved written all
over it. Heck, the first chickens

1089
01:35:59.520 --> 01:36:02.119
to come out of a newly rebuilt
joint, or probably cooked with the charred

1090
01:36:02.159 --> 01:36:09.000
remains of the previous building. A
tasty bird smoked for hours over the charcoal

1091
01:36:09.079 --> 01:36:14.319
made by the fire of the last
structure is a delicious Southern phoenix of sorts.

1092
01:36:15.640 --> 01:36:20.279
Barbecue is a very personal thing too, like religion. Some like sweet

1093
01:36:20.319 --> 01:36:27.319
barbecue and prefer the King James version
of the Holy Word, while other blasphemers

1094
01:36:27.439 --> 01:36:32.960
prefer Carolina style barbecue and the trendy
NSV or some other hippie perversion of the

1095
01:36:33.000 --> 01:36:40.159
Good Book. But the truth be
told, all barbecue is good. Unfortunately,

1096
01:36:40.520 --> 01:36:45.359
most of the heathen or heathen,
as my memo said, non Christian

1097
01:36:45.560 --> 01:36:50.279
religions like Judaism and Islam. For
example, consider a pulled pork sandwich was

1098
01:36:50.479 --> 01:36:57.279
law on top on one way ticket
to Shoal in succulent sliced brisket with a

1099
01:36:57.359 --> 01:37:01.920
perfect pink smoke ring and a side
of beans insureds reincarnation as a dong beetle.

1100
01:37:02.119 --> 01:37:08.720
For the Hindus, the Buddhists are
a little more culinarily tolerant. But

1101
01:37:08.800 --> 01:37:14.439
have you ever seen real Chinese food? About half of it should technically go

1102
01:37:14.520 --> 01:37:18.680
to the gut pile. I'm sure
all these other religions have their beloved delicacies,

1103
01:37:19.000 --> 01:37:24.840
but I'm sticking with Jesus in a
pork but cooked fourteen hours over pecan

1104
01:37:24.920 --> 01:37:34.960
wood. Hallelujah. Chapter eighteen,
A Briefer History of Time. Time has

1105
01:37:35.000 --> 01:37:41.680
always fascinated me. It really only
has importance to mortal beings. We only

1106
01:37:41.720 --> 01:37:45.960
measure it because we have limited quantity
of it. Next to a creator who

1107
01:37:46.000 --> 01:37:53.399
inexplicably loves us. It is the
most precious thing in our lives. In

1108
01:37:53.439 --> 01:37:57.600
the hereafter, a clock will have
as much use as a blind man has

1109
01:37:57.600 --> 01:38:01.079
for the really big boxes of crayons, the one with the sharpener on the

1110
01:38:01.119 --> 01:38:06.600
back, and all the good colors
like Rasmataz silver and gold and Coarellian blue.

1111
01:38:08.560 --> 01:38:13.119
So, to borrow a partial title
from Stephen Hawking, Here's a briefer

1112
01:38:13.399 --> 01:38:18.880
history of time. I find it
amusing that TV producers have seemingly settled on

1113
01:38:19.039 --> 01:38:25.680
twenty years as being the threshold for
nostalgia. Take Happy Days, for instance.

1114
01:38:26.359 --> 01:38:30.079
It came out in the seventies,
and it was about life twenty years

1115
01:38:30.159 --> 01:38:33.680
prior. In the fifties, as
a fifth grader, I was enthralled by

1116
01:38:33.680 --> 01:38:40.039
the antics and rituals in everyday life
of these most ancient of peoples, and

1117
01:38:40.079 --> 01:38:44.159
as far as I'm concerned, the
nineteen fifties, in the eighteen sixties,

1118
01:38:44.439 --> 01:38:48.800
and the Jurazic era were all relatively
about the same place on the timeline,

1119
01:38:49.159 --> 01:38:55.000
and I doubt I'd have even questioned
it had Phonsie ridden up on a triceratops

1120
01:38:55.159 --> 01:39:00.439
as opposed to a motorbike. I
was also totally oblivious to the fact that

1121
01:39:00.479 --> 01:39:04.600
I was watching a show about my
parents' teenage years, as I envisioned them

1122
01:39:04.680 --> 01:39:12.319
as possible Civil War participants. What
I viewed as ancient history were there yesterdays.

1123
01:39:13.399 --> 01:39:16.640
There was, however, a huge
difference between nineteen fifty five and nineteen

1124
01:39:16.800 --> 01:39:24.279
seventy five, far different than between
two thousand and twenty and twenty. Between

1125
01:39:24.399 --> 01:39:29.960
nineteen fifty five and nineteen seventy five, we went from straight leg Levi's to

1126
01:39:30.159 --> 01:39:35.079
elephant bell bottoms, from hot rods
to oil embargoes, from white T shirts

1127
01:39:35.079 --> 01:39:41.720
to Paisley's psychedelics, and from chastity
and Purity to the Summer of Love,

1128
01:39:41.920 --> 01:39:47.199
and from Sobriety to LSD, from
Spotnick to Beatnicks, and from the Cleavers

1129
01:39:47.239 --> 01:39:54.039
May Feel to the Moon there was
indeed a vast difference in those two times.

1130
01:39:54.359 --> 01:39:58.319
Now about the only thing to change
in the last twenty years is that

1131
01:39:58.439 --> 01:40:02.079
all electronics now have more memory,
and the world has gotten smaller, while

1132
01:40:02.199 --> 01:40:08.319
cell phones have gotten larger, and
China now manufactures everything on the planet,

1133
01:40:08.760 --> 01:40:13.920
and there are a few more fast
and furious movies. I think, in

1134
01:40:14.039 --> 01:40:18.560
keeping with the twenty year nostalgia theory, each decade since the advent of TV

1135
01:40:19.000 --> 01:40:25.319
has had its tribute twenty years later. As we've already covered, the fifties

1136
01:40:25.359 --> 01:40:29.680
were honored in the seventies, and
the sixties were relived in the eighties by

1137
01:40:29.680 --> 01:40:34.479
the best show ever to oscillate across
the airwaves, the Wonder Years. The

1138
01:40:34.520 --> 01:40:42.119
seventies were a flashback in the nineties
on the imaginatively named That Seventies Show.

1139
01:40:43.199 --> 01:40:47.000
There was even a short lived spinoff
of That Seventies Show about the eighties called

1140
01:40:47.000 --> 01:40:54.680
Astoundingly That Eighties Show. As the
decades since have all become so similar,

1141
01:40:54.800 --> 01:40:59.000
the twenty year theory looks to be
less and less like a hard fast rule

1142
01:40:59.279 --> 01:41:04.640
and maybe just a chronological anomaly applicable
to the late twentieth century, and as

1143
01:41:04.680 --> 01:41:10.520
a current resident of the timeline near
the dot mark twenty twenty two, I

1144
01:41:10.560 --> 01:41:14.239
can't, for the life of me
think of anything appealing about the turn of

1145
01:41:14.279 --> 01:41:18.439
the century, other than being relieved
to mark that milestone, Remembering that as

1146
01:41:18.479 --> 01:41:24.520
an eighteen year old in nineteen seventy
nine, I noted I'd be a decrepit

1147
01:41:24.640 --> 01:41:29.399
thirty nine years old at the stroke
of two thousand, and I wondered if

1148
01:41:29.439 --> 01:41:32.600
I'd still be able to choose solid
food or walk, or if I'd like

1149
01:41:32.720 --> 01:41:38.640
my new nursing home. But other
than the fact that Princess Song nineteen ninety

1150
01:41:38.720 --> 01:41:43.960
nine finally had a use, and
that the number two thousand made cool eyeglasses

1151
01:41:44.000 --> 01:41:47.359
for New Year's Eve, what with
the two o's as eye holes, I've

1152
01:41:47.439 --> 01:41:54.199
essentially become stagnant as a species.
I think we truly peaked in the fifties

1153
01:41:54.199 --> 01:42:01.520
and sixties, and I'm truly glad
to have lived it. Chapter nineteen,

1154
01:42:02.079 --> 01:42:09.239
the probe ning there are certain things
we do as humans that occur seemingly simple.

1155
01:42:09.560 --> 01:42:14.600
For completing so many trips around the
sun, complete thirteen trips, and

1156
01:42:14.680 --> 01:42:17.560
if you're a Jewish boy, you
break in the booty at your bar mitzvah,

1157
01:42:18.119 --> 01:42:23.920
make sixteen round trips and you can
operate an automobile. And after fifty

1158
01:42:24.000 --> 01:42:30.359
round trips, the medical establishment tells
us that we need a colonoscopy. Now.

1159
01:42:30.399 --> 01:42:35.439
Colonoscopy is a word derived from the
Greek terms colon meaning poop tube and

1160
01:42:35.560 --> 01:42:43.840
scapi means look up, hence the
modern medical term colonoscopy, literally meaning look

1161
01:42:43.920 --> 01:42:46.479
up your poop tube. Now,
my Greek is limited, so I may

1162
01:42:46.520 --> 01:42:53.560
be a little off base, but
not much as lost in the translation at

1163
01:42:53.600 --> 01:42:57.680
fifty two. I'd dodge the button
bullet for two years, but I'd given

1164
01:42:57.760 --> 01:43:01.479
into the pressure of conventional wisdom,
and I've grown weary of waiting on the

1165
01:43:01.520 --> 01:43:06.680
aliens. Honestly, I was hoping
for an alien abduction by now, and

1166
01:43:06.800 --> 01:43:12.399
since by most all accounts, a
thorough probing is part of the standard alien

1167
01:43:12.439 --> 01:43:17.800
abduction exam, considering their advanced knowledge
and tools, that the alien procedure would

1168
01:43:17.840 --> 01:43:23.279
be more pleasant and they would be
kind enough to just leave a notarized written

1169
01:43:23.399 --> 01:43:29.199
document with the test results for an
inclusion in my medical record and any insurance

1170
01:43:29.279 --> 01:43:34.880
reimbursements. I'd also imagine that should
they find any anomalies in my bowels,

1171
01:43:35.239 --> 01:43:41.439
they'd have the technology to instantly cure
any maladies, and I'd be deposited back

1172
01:43:41.479 --> 01:43:45.079
in my bed, none the worse
for wear, and with a good story

1173
01:43:45.079 --> 01:43:49.199
to boot. It does seem odd, though, that any civilization that has

1174
01:43:49.359 --> 01:43:56.880
mastered interstellar travel would do so simply
for the opportunity to look up the backside

1175
01:43:57.079 --> 01:44:01.520
of any new life forms they discovered. Who knows, maybe we did that

1176
01:44:01.560 --> 01:44:09.199
to aliens we found at Roswell and
this is just payback. Imagine Kirk traveling

1177
01:44:09.239 --> 01:44:14.479
the galaxy only to peer into the
nether regions of triples and then zooming off

1178
01:44:14.520 --> 01:44:19.279
at warp speed in the USS endoscope
to probe the Gorn. Knowing what we

1179
01:44:19.439 --> 01:44:24.600
know now, I'm sure mister Sulhu
would have been a proponent, but I'm

1180
01:44:24.600 --> 01:44:30.039
not sure about the rest of the
crew. I'm not real versed in interplanetary

1181
01:44:30.079 --> 01:44:34.119
species interactions, so maybe, unlike
just sniffing each other's butts like dogs,

1182
01:44:34.479 --> 01:44:40.399
the standard protocol throughout the universe involves
a good probing. Now, I don't

1183
01:44:40.439 --> 01:44:45.319
know Stephen Hawking can figure all that
out anyhow. The aliens let me down,

1184
01:44:45.560 --> 01:44:49.840
so I'm left to be probed by
mere human doctors. Luckily, the

1185
01:44:49.920 --> 01:44:54.640
doctor doing my procedure is older and
has done quite a few of these,

1186
01:44:55.000 --> 01:44:59.279
and I would dare say that he's
been up more backsides than the village people

1187
01:44:59.479 --> 01:45:03.600
and Fredick Mercury combined. But like
Captain Kirk, he's going where no man

1188
01:45:03.680 --> 01:45:10.640
has gone before. Actually, since
you're unconscious for the procedure, you really

1189
01:45:10.680 --> 01:45:15.840
don't expect any discomfort. And frankly, they could just insert a twelve foot

1190
01:45:15.880 --> 01:45:19.680
long section of three foot covert and
crawl in like coal miners with pickaxes and

1191
01:45:19.760 --> 01:45:26.159
carbide lanterns on their hard hats,
and you'd be none the wiser. The

1192
01:45:26.239 --> 01:45:30.359
catch, and there's always a catch, is what they euphemistically called the prep.

1193
01:45:31.800 --> 01:45:36.399
Prep is a common word short for
preparation, and we all know it

1194
01:45:36.439 --> 01:45:42.920
means to make ready for an event. Prep can involve everything from simply making

1195
01:45:42.960 --> 01:45:46.920
a phone call to reserving a seat
for dinner, to years of organizing a

1196
01:45:47.039 --> 01:45:51.479
program to send a man to the
moon like the Apollo missions. The prep

1197
01:45:51.520 --> 01:45:58.239
for dinner is obviously less involved than
sending a rocket into space. Prep is

1198
01:45:58.279 --> 01:46:04.039
relative and its intensity equal to the
task being undertaken. In this particular instance,

1199
01:46:04.279 --> 01:46:09.840
where you are prepping for a flanking
mission, prep means that your entire

1200
01:46:09.960 --> 01:46:15.560
eleimitary canal from your wisdom teeth down
to your exit sphincter must be as clean

1201
01:46:15.640 --> 01:46:20.880
as the day you first drew breath, squeaky clean. Actually, my examples

1202
01:46:20.920 --> 01:46:27.720
of prep involving dinner reservations in space
travel is more illustrative than I thought in

1203
01:46:27.760 --> 01:46:32.640
this situation, since it involves ingesting
something and then expelling it like a Saturn

1204
01:46:32.720 --> 01:46:38.840
V rocket. To give you a
visual, not that you ask for one

1205
01:46:38.920 --> 01:46:44.239
nor want one, let's enlist the
help of the amazing Guido, the sword

1206
01:46:44.359 --> 01:46:49.159
swallower at the local carnival. Imagine
Guido goes to the local pay and spray

1207
01:46:49.239 --> 01:46:55.000
car wash. He inserts his one
dollar and twenty five cents into the slot

1208
01:46:55.439 --> 01:47:00.479
and he chooses hot foamy soap from
the selection dial. Goes into his act,

1209
01:47:00.840 --> 01:47:06.039
his sequined robes sparkling in the sunlight. He inserts the wine fully down

1210
01:47:06.079 --> 01:47:13.079
his gozle and pulls the trigger.
A three thousand psi burst of foul foamy

1211
01:47:13.159 --> 01:47:18.760
fluid flows freely from the flamboyant freaks, flapping floodgates like flatulence through a flashy

1212
01:47:19.000 --> 01:47:26.399
flugelhorn. And while it bordered on
being Sussian, you've got to admit that

1213
01:47:26.560 --> 01:47:32.479
was some first rate alliteration right there. Guido's demonstration and my eighth grade English

1214
01:47:32.520 --> 01:47:39.079
experiment give you some idea of the
prep. Movie Prep is the brand name

1215
01:47:39.239 --> 01:47:44.000
of the heinous witches brew responsible for
the cleansing, and I'm sure that the

1216
01:47:44.000 --> 01:47:47.880
makes of movie Prep are allied with
Satan, because only through the dark arts

1217
01:47:47.920 --> 01:47:54.239
and sorcery can one lid of liquid
be magically converted within the confines of the

1218
01:47:54.319 --> 01:48:00.960
human gut into twenty gallons of the
violess substance. Only demons can now they

1219
01:48:01.000 --> 01:48:04.399
sure missed the boat. However,
when it came to naming the product,

1220
01:48:05.119 --> 01:48:10.920
most products have a name that somewhat
describes what they do. Hamburger Helper,

1221
01:48:11.279 --> 01:48:16.880
Mister Clean, and Ultra Bright toothpaste
are all good examples. I suggest Movie

1222
01:48:16.960 --> 01:48:25.920
Preps seriously reconsider naming their product something
like Mount Vesuvius Intestinal polish or General Will

1223
01:48:26.039 --> 01:48:32.800
m t. Sherman's Cleansing Elixir.
The catchy advertising copy practically writes itself the

1224
01:48:32.920 --> 01:48:42.560
suvious the power to destroy civilizations,
or Pintubo feel the pyroclastic flow of cleanliness,

1225
01:48:43.239 --> 01:48:47.920
or the General's Elixir. We go
through you like Sherman through Atlanta.

1226
01:48:47.960 --> 01:48:53.600
But enough of that they can write
their own copy. I'm given to understand

1227
01:48:53.640 --> 01:48:58.920
that the current medical dogma says that
one should have a colonoscopy every ten years.

1228
01:48:59.439 --> 01:49:02.039
Assuming that that doesn't change in the
next few years, my math puts

1229
01:49:02.079 --> 01:49:08.720
the next violation occurring in the year
twenty twenty four. Surely, within the

1230
01:49:08.760 --> 01:49:13.199
span of a decade, the aliens
will step up their game and maybe partner

1231
01:49:13.279 --> 01:49:17.960
with Google or Apple and offer their
eyegut services or Google Probe free with the

1232
01:49:18.000 --> 01:49:24.920
purchase of the iPhone twenty seven,
unless socialized medicine puts the aliens out of

1233
01:49:25.000 --> 01:49:30.800
work too, in which case we're
all doomed to an existence of polypy colons

1234
01:49:30.840 --> 01:49:38.760
and solid bowel movements. I'm pulling
for the aliens. PS postop nine thirty

1235
01:49:38.880 --> 01:49:45.680
am Wednesday. All went as scheduled, and I have a colon and an

1236
01:49:45.920 --> 01:49:51.239
esophagus as clean as a polished alabasterer. I'm still under the effects of the

1237
01:49:51.439 --> 01:49:56.800
drugs and I was told I'd be
gassy, but no such luck. And

1238
01:49:57.319 --> 01:50:02.279
after I'd practiced farting freebird for the
last few days off for nothing. It

1239
01:50:02.399 --> 01:50:08.920
was a holy enjoyable experience, except
for the prep. So if you're over

1240
01:50:09.079 --> 01:50:14.239
fifty, you get your wrinkly old
butt out there and schedule your own rectal

1241
01:50:14.359 --> 01:50:24.600
violation. The proper fall alone is
worth it. Chapter twenty Monkey Shines.

1242
01:50:26.439 --> 01:50:30.960
Hurricane Katrina left us both homeless and
officeless, So after a few years of

1243
01:50:31.039 --> 01:50:36.000
renting, it came time to build
my wife a new dental office. As

1244
01:50:36.039 --> 01:50:41.680
the male spouse, it fell upon
me to organize and oversee the construction of

1245
01:50:41.720 --> 01:50:45.800
a modern, efficient medical facility.
It's not that I'd ever done anything like

1246
01:50:45.880 --> 01:50:49.720
that before, but it seemed a
manly thing to do, and Jennifer was

1247
01:50:49.720 --> 01:50:55.199
too busy doing dentistry, and the
autumn flounder run was all but over.

1248
01:50:56.079 --> 01:50:59.760
I figured I was way in over
my head, and I reckon that commercial

1249
01:50:59.800 --> 01:51:05.000
could instruction would be akin to rocket
scigns. Being the perceptive sage I am,

1250
01:51:05.319 --> 01:51:10.399
it didn't take me long to come
to the conclusion that most construction workers

1251
01:51:10.479 --> 01:51:16.399
are illiterate cretans with rusty out of
pond tools and severe substance abuse problems.

1252
01:51:17.279 --> 01:51:20.920
I surmised it wouldn't take more than
a few days to train monkeys to do

1253
01:51:21.000 --> 01:51:27.079
most of their jobs. After calling
all the local pet stores, it became

1254
01:51:27.239 --> 01:51:31.199
obvious that the fatal flaw in my
plan was the actual acquisition of the needed

1255
01:51:31.399 --> 01:51:36.359
semion laborers. A few stores had
some of the smaller varieties, but what

1256
01:51:36.479 --> 01:51:42.199
I really needed was about a couple
of dozen of hearty chimpanzees, not a

1257
01:51:42.239 --> 01:51:46.239
handful of pygmy marmosets that could barely
pick up a hammer and let alone well

1258
01:51:46.319 --> 01:51:51.520
to red iron. They'd probably just
grow tired and lazy after a few wells

1259
01:51:51.560 --> 01:51:56.680
and start throwing poop at one another, just like the human welders. But

1260
01:51:56.760 --> 01:52:01.399
at least I could shoot the monkeys. Plan really started to unrival when I

1261
01:52:01.479 --> 01:52:05.560
learned the cost of monkeys. Since
no one had the number or type of

1262
01:52:05.600 --> 01:52:11.119
monkeys I required in stock, I
was left to import them or get the

1263
01:52:11.199 --> 01:52:15.960
leftovers from the medical testing labs.
The lab monkeys were mostly sick or dying

1264
01:52:16.079 --> 01:52:20.199
or had three arms, which should
have been an advantage, but alas,

1265
01:52:20.359 --> 01:52:26.119
instead of hammering with the extra arm, they merely flung twice the poop.

1266
01:52:27.439 --> 01:52:31.039
I had a really great follow up
plan to offset the initial purchase price of

1267
01:52:31.079 --> 01:52:36.640
my labor force by having a big
fundraising barbecue at the conclusion of construction.

1268
01:52:38.439 --> 01:52:43.439
A feeding monkeys pulled port wouldn't have
really netted me a return on my outlay.

1269
01:52:43.840 --> 01:52:47.359
So my ingenious plan was to barbecue
the monkeys and sell the sandwiches to

1270
01:52:47.399 --> 01:52:53.319
the folks in the area. Monkey
sandwiches may not sound appetizing, but I

1271
01:52:53.439 --> 01:52:58.479
planned to sell them for only two
dollars, undercutting my competition and making it

1272
01:52:58.600 --> 01:53:02.680
up in volume. The whole monkey
business sort of fell apart before it got

1273
01:53:02.720 --> 01:53:08.399
started, so I was left to
deal with the only other animal sporting opposable

1274
01:53:08.479 --> 01:53:13.840
thumbs, or, in some cases, due to drunken circular saw fights,

1275
01:53:13.960 --> 01:53:16.920
just a single thumb. Now,
I'm not going to go so far as

1276
01:53:16.920 --> 01:53:21.800
to say all criminals are manual laborers, but I can say with some certainty

1277
01:53:21.840 --> 01:53:29.560
that all manual laborers are criminals.
In Mississippi, contractors must be licensed,

1278
01:53:29.920 --> 01:53:33.359
and I suspect it's for the same
reason sex offenders are required to register.

1279
01:53:34.000 --> 01:53:41.279
They need to know where the criminals
are. The requirements to obtain a contractor's

1280
01:53:41.319 --> 01:53:45.640
license are pretty stringent. One must
have a truck, preferably twelve years old

1281
01:53:45.720 --> 01:53:50.720
or older, and a magnetic sign
attached to the door displaying your business name

1282
01:53:51.159 --> 01:53:57.760
and the disconnected cell phone number of
your last girlfriend. The truck is the

1283
01:53:57.840 --> 01:54:02.479
workman's best friend, like the cowboy
trusty paint, and unfortunately, most workers

1284
01:54:02.560 --> 01:54:09.239
trucks are far less reliable than the
cowboys mount The monkeys would have lived on

1285
01:54:09.439 --> 01:54:15.840
site and totally done away with the
transportation problem. But I digress. Most

1286
01:54:15.880 --> 01:54:20.680
workers trucks operate only intermittently. On
cold, rainy, wet days when work

1287
01:54:20.800 --> 01:54:25.680
is called off, I'd see them
motor by the job site with their deer

1288
01:54:25.760 --> 01:54:30.479
rifles in their window racks and ice
chests full of malted aiming fluid bouncing in

1289
01:54:30.560 --> 01:54:34.880
the beds of their trucks. Of
course, on the next sunny, temperate

1290
01:54:34.960 --> 01:54:40.239
day, the farthest they can coax
Old Blue is to the corner tavern,

1291
01:54:40.560 --> 01:54:45.520
where they go in and discuss for
the next twelve hours what could potentially be

1292
01:54:45.680 --> 01:54:50.279
wrong with their trucks. Despite all
the setbacks, our nine month long project

1293
01:54:50.520 --> 01:54:56.279
was done well ahead of schedule,
taking a mere fourteen months and going over

1294
01:54:56.399 --> 01:55:03.319
budget of paltry thirty five Percent's office
turned out beautifully and has worked flawlessly for

1295
01:55:03.439 --> 01:55:09.000
her. She, her staff,
and her patients love the new office.

1296
01:55:09.720 --> 01:55:15.920
Plus I learned a few very important
things about commercial construction when importing monkeys,

1297
01:55:15.079 --> 01:55:21.640
always poke holes in the shipping container
and never lend a drywall hangar twenty dollars

1298
01:55:21.800 --> 01:55:32.119
for beer, Chapter twenty one.
God save the Queen's fine china. There

1299
01:55:32.159 --> 01:55:36.960
are some things that seem to endure
well past their usefulness. Heck, that

1300
01:55:38.079 --> 01:55:43.720
might even be the definition of tradition. One of those useless traditions was,

1301
01:55:44.119 --> 01:55:46.960
and I'm not sure if it still
exists, but it did thirty plus years

1302
01:55:46.960 --> 01:55:54.800
ago when I got married, the
buying of fine dinnerware. My mama obviously

1303
01:55:54.840 --> 01:55:59.720
skipped that tradition, though, because
as a child most of our glassware originally

1304
01:55:59.800 --> 01:56:05.239
held jelly and was made by Bama
or Gorum. Most every other prospective bride,

1305
01:56:05.239 --> 01:56:11.359
though from Eve up through those in
the nineteen nineties, mine included beat

1306
01:56:11.399 --> 01:56:16.039
the trail to the local department stores
either Gafers or McRae's to pick out a

1307
01:56:16.079 --> 01:56:21.239
fine china pattern and sterling, as
well as their everyday plates and forks.

1308
01:56:23.680 --> 01:56:29.520
The fine china was meant to be
enduring and added to or pieces replaced throughout

1309
01:56:29.520 --> 01:56:34.279
a lifetime of entertaining, visiting potentates
and such. You'd never know when you

1310
01:56:34.359 --> 01:56:39.399
might be mowing the yard and the
Queen of England stops by for a spot

1311
01:56:39.439 --> 01:56:44.000
of tea, and you'd better have
a full lead crystal Lady Anne iced tea

1312
01:56:44.039 --> 01:56:49.399
glass at the ready, her Highness
could eat her scones whatever those are off

1313
01:56:49.439 --> 01:56:56.319
the wedgewood, strawberry and vine pattern
scone plate. I'm just assuming they make

1314
01:56:56.359 --> 01:57:00.640
a royal scone plate, since there
is apparently a specialized pea for nearly everything

1315
01:57:00.760 --> 01:57:06.399
else. I mean, what kind
of barbarian would serve the queen some sweet

1316
01:57:06.680 --> 01:57:11.960
iced tea from a gravy boat and
offer up fresh scones from a soup to

1317
01:57:12.079 --> 01:57:17.119
reen? You can never be too
prepared, hence the enduring tradition of owning

1318
01:57:17.159 --> 01:57:23.600
a compotier. Should the Queen also
request compote with her scones. Although I'm

1319
01:57:23.640 --> 01:57:27.720
not one hundred percent sure what either
of those two things are or whether they

1320
01:57:27.760 --> 01:57:32.920
would ever even possibly be served together, that doesn't preclude one from owning such

1321
01:57:33.000 --> 01:57:38.880
pieces, though as similarly, I
own a giant wrench big enough to twist

1322
01:57:38.880 --> 01:57:44.600
the lugnots off a locomotive, although
like an accent salad plate, I suspect

1323
01:57:44.600 --> 01:57:48.399
I'll never really need it, and
no wonder one needs a butler. The

1324
01:57:48.439 --> 01:57:54.720
sterling can be mighty complicated, should
the Queen wish to put butter on her

1325
01:57:54.800 --> 01:57:59.399
scones, and again, not knowing
what that is, that may make as

1326
01:57:59.479 --> 01:58:03.159
much sinse is her buttering her hat. She could choose from about eight different

1327
01:58:03.199 --> 01:58:09.720
butter knives. Don't mistake the master
butter knife with the individual use knives,

1328
01:58:09.840 --> 01:58:15.359
lest the queen think you a ghost. Some of the less used pieces include

1329
01:58:15.359 --> 01:58:19.199
the lemon forks, the sardine spoon, and cracker spoon. But there is

1330
01:58:19.239 --> 01:58:26.560
the possibility, however, slim,
that a Norwegian print suffering with scurvy could

1331
01:58:26.680 --> 01:58:30.000
have a flat in front of your
place, and it would be kind of

1332
01:58:30.039 --> 01:58:34.399
you to offer him a lemon and
some sardines and crackers. The larger of

1333
01:58:34.439 --> 01:58:40.680
the two tomatoes servers, in addition
to serving tomatoes in grand fashion, does

1334
01:58:40.880 --> 01:58:45.439
just as good a job serving tiny
little pancakes or getting the last pickle out

1335
01:58:45.439 --> 01:58:48.680
of the jar, assuming your butler
doesn't have time to find your pickle fork.

1336
01:58:49.800 --> 01:58:55.600
I suspect the single time butter pick
was just made of leftover parts as

1337
01:58:55.640 --> 01:58:59.960
a joke, and some southerns soon
to be bride just had to have one.

1338
01:59:00.560 --> 01:59:05.039
I finally got curious enough to google
scone. Well, it turns out

1339
01:59:05.079 --> 01:59:10.279
it's just a biscuit. You can
throw a handful of blueberries into the mix

1340
01:59:10.319 --> 01:59:14.439
too, if you like. And
I'm sure there is a dedicated sterling silver

1341
01:59:14.600 --> 01:59:19.920
blueberry biscuit making fork somewhere in your
pantry. Ask your butler, and if

1342
01:59:19.960 --> 01:59:25.960
the Queen does drop by, just
call your biscuits scones. She'll be impressed.

1343
01:59:26.479 --> 01:59:33.840
I know I would be Chapter twenty
two something odd in the punch Bowl.

1344
01:59:35.520 --> 01:59:41.720
It started innocently enough, as most
disasters do, with a simple conversation,

1345
01:59:42.920 --> 01:59:46.520
like when JFK said, Jackie,
I'm thinking about visiting Dallas, or

1346
01:59:46.560 --> 01:59:50.399
when Lincoln told his wife that he
had tickets to a new play over at

1347
01:59:50.399 --> 01:59:57.239
Ford's Theater. My ensuing escapades didn't
get me shot in the head, but

1348
01:59:57.359 --> 02:00:00.319
there was a moment where I wish
it had. You see, my wife

1349
02:00:00.399 --> 02:00:05.520
had several of Robert Saint John's cookbooks, and I enjoyed reading his pieces in

1350
02:00:05.560 --> 02:00:12.039
the newspaper. So when my sweet
mama got when that mister Saint John was

1351
02:00:12.119 --> 02:00:16.319
going to appear at the Great Southern
Club, she called and surprised us with

1352
02:00:16.439 --> 02:00:20.960
the gift of a couple of tickets. That's where it all started going wrong.

1353
02:00:23.439 --> 02:00:27.640
It was a typical weekend night in
downtown Gulf Port. There was no

1354
02:00:27.680 --> 02:00:30.960
one about except at the eating and
drinking establishments, so we were lucky to

1355
02:00:31.039 --> 02:00:35.319
park up front since we were running
a bit late. We spoke to the

1356
02:00:35.399 --> 02:00:41.279
security guard and took the elevator to
the top floor, and we were greeted

1357
02:00:41.319 --> 02:00:44.479
at the door of the club,
and we told a nice lady that we

1358
02:00:44.479 --> 02:00:47.600
were there for the Robert Saint John's
event, and she ushered us to a

1359
02:00:47.640 --> 02:00:53.920
private dining room. We were met
there by a couple of very prim ladies

1360
02:00:53.960 --> 02:00:59.640
attired in eveningwear and sporting gloves.
No less, I didn't know mister Saint

1361
02:00:59.720 --> 02:01:03.119
John at that point, and I
still don't, but I assume he must

1362
02:01:03.119 --> 02:01:08.920
be one classy guy if he has
women of his caliber working the door and

1363
02:01:08.960 --> 02:01:14.039
collecting his loot. I was sure, if the commercials were correct, that

1364
02:01:14.119 --> 02:01:19.199
he enjoyed gray poupon at every meal. The elegant ladies looked us up and

1365
02:01:19.239 --> 02:01:24.279
down in a quizzical manner, but
I just assumed they were admiring my red

1366
02:01:24.319 --> 02:01:29.119
and white, vertically striped polo shirt
and a fairly fresh pair of deck shoes.

1367
02:01:30.680 --> 02:01:33.880
Now, we've all heard of the
fight or flight reaction when placed in

1368
02:01:33.920 --> 02:01:40.279
a stressful situation. Although I'm not
sure it's ever been tested in this exact

1369
02:01:40.359 --> 02:01:45.279
situation. That situation being that we've
now entered a dining room filled with people

1370
02:01:45.439 --> 02:01:50.520
in formal attire. Jennifer looked at
me, and I looked at her,

1371
02:01:50.920 --> 02:01:55.840
and I think she had already made
the flight decision, but I, for

1372
02:01:55.880 --> 02:02:01.119
some explicable reason, had decided to
fight abed her hand and assess the situation,

1373
02:02:01.319 --> 02:02:04.640
and chose the table in the middle
of the room. We walked over,

1374
02:02:04.760 --> 02:02:09.319
and I pulled out a couple of
chairs and proclaimed, the good evening

1375
02:02:09.439 --> 02:02:14.279
ladies and gentlemen, would you all
mind if we joined you. Remember,

1376
02:02:14.319 --> 02:02:16.960
these fine folks are in evening wear, and I'm in that shirt that I

1377
02:02:17.039 --> 02:02:23.560
described earlier. It looked for all
the world like a war's waldo goes to

1378
02:02:23.640 --> 02:02:28.760
the Penguin hatchery image, or possibly
a clown in a mob funeral. And

1379
02:02:28.800 --> 02:02:31.800
I admitted that we were apparently under
dressed, but that I had no idea

1380
02:02:31.840 --> 02:02:38.520
that mister Saint John commanded such hyebrow
audiences. One of the kind of elegant

1381
02:02:38.600 --> 02:02:44.279
ladies at our table explained that this
was the annual formal event for their private

1382
02:02:44.359 --> 02:02:47.720
supper club, and I'm sure in
her mind she was wondering just how Waldo

1383
02:02:47.880 --> 02:02:53.600
and his plus one were able to
get tickets. Honestly, I was wondering

1384
02:02:53.640 --> 02:02:59.199
the same thing at that time.
About this time, a very fortuitous break

1385
02:02:59.239 --> 02:03:03.119
in the unpleasant and presented itself in
the standing and pledging of allegiance to the

1386
02:03:03.199 --> 02:03:08.439
flag. Heck, I looked half
like a flag myself, so maybe that's

1387
02:03:08.479 --> 02:03:12.680
why many of them were looking at
me. I don't know. One lady

1388
02:03:12.760 --> 02:03:17.920
remained conspicuously seated, however, and
this was long before the whole Colin Capernick

1389
02:03:18.039 --> 02:03:24.239
thing, so I didn't figure she
was protesting anything. One of the other

1390
02:03:24.319 --> 02:03:29.359
ladies at our table, who had
apparently arrived early so as to extract maximum

1391
02:03:29.359 --> 02:03:33.119
benefit from the open bar, loudly
proclaimed, well, I see someone doesn't

1392
02:03:33.159 --> 02:03:39.680
know how to respect the flag.
The seated woman then stood up and spat

1393
02:03:39.800 --> 02:03:44.920
back in an obvious British accent.
I'm a British subject and I don't pledge

1394
02:03:44.920 --> 02:03:48.720
to your flag. Now this is
getting fun, I think, hoping that

1395
02:03:48.720 --> 02:03:54.279
the limey chick would break out a
cricket bat or a spotted dick, whatever

1396
02:03:54.319 --> 02:03:59.119
that is, and things would get
real. But such wasn't the case,

1397
02:03:59.159 --> 02:04:03.520
and we return to our civil chit
chat. Eventually, mister Saint John did

1398
02:04:03.560 --> 02:04:08.640
take the podium, and it turned
out to be a pleasant, enjoyable evening

1399
02:04:08.720 --> 02:04:14.479
after all, complete with an invitation
to join their club and directions to several

1400
02:04:14.600 --> 02:04:19.439
formal wear providers. I replied,
with the same enthusiasm I use on the

1401
02:04:19.520 --> 02:04:26.359
Jehovah's witnesses, that I'd be thrilled
to join their ranks. Should mister Saint

1402
02:04:26.439 --> 02:04:30.159
John ever be in your neck of
the woods, I could highly recommend that

1403
02:04:30.239 --> 02:04:33.520
you see him, but I'd enquire
about the dress code just to be sure.

1404
02:04:38.479 --> 02:04:45.039
Chapter twenty three He sent Quail.
Two thousand and eight was a year

1405
02:04:45.199 --> 02:04:49.840
of leaving. In February, Brody
left us suddenly, and seven months later

1406
02:04:49.960 --> 02:04:55.880
Paul Paul left to go see him. Jennifer and I moved into our little

1407
02:04:55.880 --> 02:05:00.119
house on the Bay that October.
Not long after that, maybe with a

1408
02:05:00.359 --> 02:05:04.640
year, I heard a pleasantly familiar
but wholly unexpected sound, the call of

1409
02:05:04.680 --> 02:05:10.760
a Bob White Quail. This call
was followed by another, but from a

1410
02:05:10.760 --> 02:05:16.319
slightly different location. There were two
Bob White's calling, and memories came flooding

1411
02:05:16.359 --> 02:05:20.239
back from years before, when Paupaul, Brody, Brad and Eye hunted the

1412
02:05:20.279 --> 02:05:26.000
tall pine forests just north of the
smell of salt air, where the rivers

1413
02:05:26.039 --> 02:05:30.239
turned sweet. Wild quail were hard
to find forty five years ago, and

1414
02:05:30.359 --> 02:05:34.600
even harder to find now, which
was why it was so surprising to hear

1415
02:05:34.760 --> 02:05:41.720
their familiar call so far from their
usual haunts. I call my quail,

1416
02:05:41.840 --> 02:05:45.800
Brody and Paul Paul, and after
five years, they are still here.

1417
02:05:45.960 --> 02:05:49.359
Early one morning, when I went
down to the pier, the toss'es ara

1418
02:05:49.520 --> 02:05:54.800
spook about to see if any trout
were interested. I heard them call.

1419
02:05:55.680 --> 02:05:59.560
Anyone else hearing them would hear the
same, Bob White, But I hear

1420
02:05:59.680 --> 02:06:04.079
more. I hear We're here,
and all is well. Some people may

1421
02:06:04.119 --> 02:06:09.760
think it sacrilegious or bordering on the
occult, to think that wild animals may

1422
02:06:09.800 --> 02:06:15.520
bring comfort from beyond, But I'm
not so sure. God used birds many

1423
02:06:15.600 --> 02:06:19.359
times to bring comfort. Noah sent
out a raven, and then the dove

1424
02:06:19.520 --> 02:06:26.199
that returned with the olive leaf.
God directed the ravens to feed Elijah,

1425
02:06:26.279 --> 02:06:30.359
and when the Israelites were fleeing Egypt, they asked and he brought them quail.

1426
02:06:31.399 --> 02:06:36.520
I asked for comfort, and I
too was brought quail. I've enjoyed

1427
02:06:36.520 --> 02:06:41.279
my quail for the last five years, and I've not mentioned them to anyone.

1428
02:06:41.479 --> 02:06:45.079
So when I received this text from
Brad, I laughed out loud as

1429
02:06:45.079 --> 02:06:48.359
I read it. Haven't heard a
real Bob White call outside in years.

1430
02:06:48.760 --> 02:06:54.119
I just heard one outside Mama's house, and he gave me goosebumps. It

1431
02:06:54.199 --> 02:06:58.359
made me think of Paupaul. I
called and told him of my out of

1432
02:06:58.439 --> 02:07:01.399
place quail too, and we both
agreed. It was indeed odd to hear

1433
02:07:01.439 --> 02:07:06.640
the Bob whitecall within the suburban environment
a stone's throw from the Gulf, but

1434
02:07:06.720 --> 02:07:13.239
for both of us it stirred memories
of happy times, and people passed and

1435
02:07:13.399 --> 02:07:20.960
joy at the thought of the visit. Chapter twenty four. The summer of

1436
02:07:21.119 --> 02:07:30.319
sixty nine nineteen sixty nine was only
fifteen years distance when Brian Adams waxed nostalgic

1437
02:07:30.359 --> 02:07:34.119
about it. Fifteen years is nothing. I have socks older than that,

1438
02:07:34.960 --> 02:07:41.439
really, But the summer of nineteen
sixty nine, currently fifty years distance,

1439
02:07:41.600 --> 02:07:45.079
did indeed have some sort of magic
about it. It was a summer of

1440
02:07:45.159 --> 02:07:50.199
deeply embossed memories. I was only
eight, so the summer of sixty nine

1441
02:07:50.359 --> 02:07:56.359
really didn't mean to me on Catalina
Circle in South Jackson, Mississippi. What

1442
02:07:56.520 --> 02:08:01.600
it meant to the doped up hippies
in the height Asbery neghborhood in San Francisco,

1443
02:08:01.840 --> 02:08:05.600
or for the kids on Max Gasker's
farm. It wasn't the Summer of

1444
02:08:05.720 --> 02:08:11.600
love that was nineteen sixty seven,
but it was summer and I loved it,

1445
02:08:11.880 --> 02:08:16.560
so that was close enough. I
wasn't totally removed from the hippie scene,

1446
02:08:16.640 --> 02:08:20.479
though, since my mama and Daddy
were, although ancient, seemingly only

1447
02:08:20.479 --> 02:08:24.479
in their twenties, and when we
weren't listening to an old miss football game

1448
02:08:24.520 --> 02:08:30.439
on the radio, we listened to
Jimmy Hendrix, The Rolling Stones, Big

1449
02:08:30.479 --> 02:08:33.840
Brother and the Holding Company, Blood, Sweat and Tears, and occasionally a

1450
02:08:33.880 --> 02:08:39.760
little Johnny Cash on a brown plastic
eight track player. The fashions and wild

1451
02:08:39.880 --> 02:08:45.239
colors of the era were particularly appealing
to me, as I remember, on

1452
02:08:45.319 --> 02:08:50.319
occasion dressing like my mama had shopped
for me at a second hand discount clown

1453
02:08:50.479 --> 02:08:56.680
clothing store. Stripes worn with plaids
of totally contrasting palettes were completely acceptable.

1454
02:08:58.840 --> 02:09:03.880
My absolute favorite thing of the hippie
era, however, was, bizarrely enough,

1455
02:09:03.079 --> 02:09:09.600
the psychedelic pencils with which I scribbled
my way through the third grade.

1456
02:09:09.640 --> 02:09:13.199
I smile when I think about those
pencils. I love those pencils. I

1457
02:09:13.279 --> 02:09:18.279
still do. I vividly remember writing
with them while sitting at my desk in

1458
02:09:18.359 --> 02:09:26.520
an unair conditioned portable classroom outside of
a OLDA Tapeley Wilkins Elementary School. The

1459
02:09:26.560 --> 02:09:31.600
smell of the freshly mimograph tests,
still damp from the reproduction process, was

1460
02:09:31.680 --> 02:09:37.319
intoxicating, while the sweltering heat of
September and the muffled, hypnotic droning of

1461
02:09:37.359 --> 02:09:43.880
a large fan dulled our senses.
The trance was occasionally broken, though,

1462
02:09:43.159 --> 02:09:48.800
when a kid would vomit after lunch
and the fan would disperse the fragrance of

1463
02:09:48.880 --> 02:09:54.079
milk, Salisbury steak and green peas
and sheet cake throughout the hot classroom,

1464
02:09:54.199 --> 02:09:58.960
leading to a few other kids wasting
their thirty five cent lunch too, until

1465
02:09:58.039 --> 02:10:03.239
the waves of st and the janiture
arrived with his bucket. But the swirls

1466
02:10:03.279 --> 02:10:07.680
of colors on the floor paled by
comparison to the colors on my pencils,

1467
02:10:09.039 --> 02:10:15.520
which thrilled my soul as I vainly
struggled with numerators and denominators and the smell

1468
02:10:15.680 --> 02:10:22.000
of vomit. The pinnacle of mankind's
technological achievements occurred in nineteen sixty nine.

1469
02:10:22.079 --> 02:10:28.520
Two. That was, of course, the July twentieth moonlanding. One small

1470
02:10:28.600 --> 02:10:33.119
step and all that, it is
difficult to accept the fact that in the

1471
02:10:33.159 --> 02:10:39.239
following half century weave as a species
have done nothing even remotely as amazing.

1472
02:10:39.720 --> 02:10:46.439
We've rested on our lunar laurels and
failed. The social experiments have been all

1473
02:10:46.520 --> 02:10:50.079
the rage for the last fifty years, and only the invention of the wheel

1474
02:10:50.159 --> 02:10:54.479
could weakly compare to the moon landing. And I suppose that taking the wheel

1475
02:10:54.520 --> 02:11:00.199
with us to the moon on Apollo
fifteen was the best of both achievements.

1476
02:11:01.199 --> 02:11:05.039
I fear America's best days are behind
her, as the pride we felt when

1477
02:11:05.079 --> 02:11:11.199
our flag was planted in the lunar
dust has now been replaced with hatred of

1478
02:11:11.279 --> 02:11:16.479
anything American, the worship of mediocrity, and the normalizing of evil. And

1479
02:11:16.560 --> 02:11:22.279
I'm glad to have lived through the
best of our existence as American men rode

1480
02:11:22.359 --> 02:11:28.960
rockets to the moon. On returning
to Iola Tapeley Wilkins Elementary School in the

1481
02:11:28.960 --> 02:11:33.319
fall of nineteen seventy there was a
new plaque on the wall outside the principal's

1482
02:11:33.359 --> 02:11:37.760
office commemorating the moon landing. I'd
like to think it is still there,

1483
02:11:37.800 --> 02:11:41.920
and would one day like to look
at it again. Given the current trend

1484
02:11:41.960 --> 02:11:46.359
of destroying history. As such,
I'd not be surprised to see it having

1485
02:11:46.439 --> 02:11:50.880
been removed. There is no way
to mention nineteen sixty nine and not mention

1486
02:11:52.000 --> 02:11:56.560
the muscle cars of the day,
just like space travel, cars reached their

1487
02:11:56.680 --> 02:12:03.600
zenith in nineteen sixty nine, had
Mustangs and Terrenos, and GM had Camaros,

1488
02:12:03.680 --> 02:12:09.520
and Corvettes and GTOs and Firebirds.
Mopar had their Kudahs and Roadrunners and

1489
02:12:09.600 --> 02:12:13.880
super bees. Muscle cars ruled the
earth. They were everywhere, and they

1490
02:12:13.880 --> 02:12:20.119
were fairly cheap too. Imagine pulling
up to school in a nineteen sixty nine

1491
02:12:20.239 --> 02:12:24.479
Boss three O two Mustang in Grabber
blue, or a four to twenty seven

1492
02:12:24.600 --> 02:12:30.199
Corvette convertible, although as a two
seater a couple of us kids would have

1493
02:12:30.279 --> 02:12:33.359
to ride on the luggage track on
the trunk, not that that would have

1494
02:12:33.359 --> 02:12:39.319
been any big deal as the school
was fairly close, but alas we had

1495
02:12:39.359 --> 02:12:45.159
a nineteen sixty two Chevy Biscayne with
holy floorboards, and in nineteen sixty eight

1496
02:12:45.239 --> 02:12:50.159
Olds ninety eight. Now sure of
the Olds had a super plush navy blue

1497
02:12:50.239 --> 02:12:54.680
velure interior and lighters and ash trays
and all four doors, but we rarely

1498
02:12:54.760 --> 02:12:58.399
had a reason to smoke a cigar
on the way to school, so such

1499
02:12:58.399 --> 02:13:03.760
a luxury were lost on us.
The closest we got to a muscle anything

1500
02:13:03.920 --> 02:13:11.239
was a Seers Screamer bicycle or a
handful of hot Wheels cars. We eventually

1501
02:13:11.279 --> 02:13:15.680
did step up our automobile game,
but in nineteen sixty nine, in the

1502
02:13:15.760 --> 02:13:20.479
lap of luxury as opposed to on
the luggage rack, it seemed that the

1503
02:13:20.479 --> 02:13:24.520
most enduring memories of nineteen sixty nine
all took place over a twenty nine day

1504
02:13:24.640 --> 02:13:30.359
span, just a few short weeks
after the moon landing, as the hippies

1505
02:13:30.399 --> 02:13:35.239
were gathering at Woodstock, the clouds
were gathering in the golf as Hurricane Camille

1506
02:13:35.239 --> 02:13:41.600
began to form. While Hendrix the
Who and Jefferson Airplane rocked Woodstock, Camille

1507
02:13:41.680 --> 02:13:48.039
rocked the Mississippi Gulf coast. I
recall returning to the coast with Memo and

1508
02:13:48.079 --> 02:13:52.840
Paul Paul to the surreal world after
Camille, a side i'd see again as

1509
02:13:52.880 --> 02:13:58.000
an adult after Hurricane Katrina. As
a child, the devastation was fascinating.

1510
02:13:58.479 --> 02:14:03.319
You knew nothing thing of insurance and
rebuilding and lives lost. You just thought

1511
02:14:03.399 --> 02:14:07.600
it was cool that there was a
ship in the highway. Years later,

1512
02:14:07.960 --> 02:14:13.399
I'd get to experience total devastation through
the eyes of an adult, and I

1513
02:14:13.439 --> 02:14:16.600
can honestly say the view through the
eyes of a child is far less red

1514
02:14:16.640 --> 02:14:22.479
and blurry. But we lived through
both storms and came out changed and probably

1515
02:14:22.560 --> 02:14:28.359
for the better. As God's plan
is confusing at times, yet always perfect,

1516
02:14:28.199 --> 02:14:33.439
the summer of sixty nine was indeed
special, eventful, and memorable,

1517
02:14:33.680 --> 02:14:37.720
although I'm sure I'm the only one
who will sum it up as the summer

1518
02:14:37.800 --> 02:14:48.319
of pencils, spacemen, and devastation. Chapter twenty five tep grave, H

1519
02:14:48.399 --> 02:14:56.960
two, HDL extras and cold fusion
two out of three ain't bad. After

1520
02:14:56.039 --> 02:15:01.680
observing the phenomenon for years, I
finally decided to postulate a theory. It's

1521
02:15:01.720 --> 02:15:07.800
what I call the theory of enhanced
personal gravity. You may call it tep

1522
02:15:07.880 --> 02:15:11.640
graph from here on out, since
it sounds cool and if I'm to be

1523
02:15:11.720 --> 02:15:16.760
known for something, the father of
tep graph sounds especially cool. My theory

1524
02:15:16.840 --> 02:15:26.199
states that an individual's personal gravity increases
proportionately with regards to the specificity and uniqueness

1525
02:15:26.239 --> 02:15:31.359
of said individual's quest to make a
retail purchase, and such increase is inversely

1526
02:15:31.439 --> 02:15:37.960
proportional to the size of the establishment
and the number of other individuals within the

1527
02:15:37.000 --> 02:15:43.920
structure. For example, I go
to the world's largest Walmart in search of

1528
02:15:43.039 --> 02:15:50.439
synthetic chartreuse left handed helical ball bearing
oil. It is three o'clock in the

1529
02:15:50.479 --> 02:15:54.439
morning, and there are only two
other shoppers in the establishment. My theory

1530
02:15:54.560 --> 02:16:00.600
says that my personal gravity will increase
to a level of irresistible force, and

1531
02:16:00.640 --> 02:16:03.880
the two other shoppers will immediately be
drawn to the exact same spot in the

1532
02:16:03.960 --> 02:16:09.479
store where I'm standing, right in
front of the synthetic shar truce left handed

1533
02:16:09.600 --> 02:16:15.319
helical ball bearing oil. Of yet
to work out the specifics, but just

1534
02:16:15.479 --> 02:16:18.840
like cold fusion, something is going
on and I intend to get to the

1535
02:16:18.880 --> 02:16:24.920
bottom of it. Another phenomenon I've
observed, and one that is very similar

1536
02:16:26.000 --> 02:16:31.159
to the tep graph theory, is
known as the hank Hill Home depot Low's

1537
02:16:31.199 --> 02:16:37.680
theorem or H two HDL. That
theory suggests that the likelihood of finding a

1538
02:16:37.760 --> 02:16:46.440
knowledgeable and helpful employee diminishes with the
specificity and technical complexity of the item sought.

1539
02:16:46.280 --> 02:16:50.879
For instance, if you come in
just looking for something general like hardware

1540
02:16:52.079 --> 02:16:56.239
or lumber, then the helpful female
clerk with the six inch nails who doesn't

1541
02:16:56.280 --> 02:17:01.639
know an Edison based light bulb from
a survalve can point in a vague direction

1542
02:17:01.920 --> 02:17:07.159
and mumble some indistinguishable aisle number and
gets you close enough that you can wander

1543
02:17:07.200 --> 02:17:13.239
around until you find the empty peg
upon which what you came for generally hangs.

1544
02:17:13.120 --> 02:17:16.639
If, on the other hand,
your request is for a particular item,

1545
02:17:18.079 --> 02:17:22.360
like the theorem's namesake quest for some
WD forty and a tap and die,

1546
02:17:22.840 --> 02:17:28.120
then the likelihood of your being directed
to a location within the store,

1547
02:17:28.200 --> 02:17:33.399
even remotely near the item you see, falls to practically zero. At that

1548
02:17:33.479 --> 02:17:39.680
point, the helpful, well trained
professional usually deploys the often concurrent reaction known

1549
02:17:39.760 --> 02:17:48.520
in scientific circles as the extra task
revelation an alternate solutions maneuver extras, whereby

1550
02:17:48.600 --> 02:17:54.360
the helpful professional, who has no
idea what you're asking for, queries you

1551
02:17:54.559 --> 02:17:58.079
on the task that you are trying
to accomplish. And then directs you to

1552
02:17:58.159 --> 02:18:01.559
the products he used to solve the
problem. For instance, if you have

1553
02:18:01.600 --> 02:18:07.680
a titanium joint that needs welding,
and you ask for argone shielding gas and

1554
02:18:07.680 --> 02:18:13.719
some one sixteenth two percent serrated tungsten
electrodes, the helpful professional has no idea

1555
02:18:13.760 --> 02:18:18.360
what you asked for, so he
quizzes you, what are you trying to

1556
02:18:18.440 --> 02:18:22.600
do? You reply, well,
I'm trying to weld titanium. The helpful

1557
02:18:22.719 --> 02:18:28.959
professional immediately initiates the extras maneuver and
says, with all certainty, Oh,

1558
02:18:30.040 --> 02:18:33.600
you don't need all that stuff.
You just need some JB WELLD and some

1559
02:18:33.799 --> 02:18:39.520
duct tape. It'll work just as
good. The extras maneuver is rarely successful,

1560
02:18:39.639 --> 02:18:43.760
and the proper response to the usual
query of what are you trying to

1561
02:18:43.799 --> 02:18:48.319
do is I'm trying to get out
of here? Where's the exit? The

1562
02:18:48.319 --> 02:18:54.799
helpful professional then points you down an
aisle blocked by a beeping perpetually in reverse

1563
02:18:54.879 --> 02:19:00.639
forklift, surrounded by seven people with
flags and exquisite nails, and, as

1564
02:19:00.719 --> 02:19:03.600
luck would have it, as you
wander around the store looking for a way

1565
02:19:03.600 --> 02:19:11.319
out, you find an entire pallett
of synthetic shartrus left handed helocal ball bearing

1566
02:19:11.399 --> 02:19:22.479
ole for fifty percent off Chapter twenty
six, Operation Holy Turkey. Mission prep

1567
02:19:22.559 --> 02:19:28.520
is critical to mission success, and
I'm sure somebody famously said that, but

1568
02:19:28.600 --> 02:19:33.159
I don't know who, so we'll
just go with Abraham Lincoln or JFK for

1569
02:19:33.280 --> 02:19:37.760
now. My mission to buy six
turkeys for our churches Boys and Girls Club

1570
02:19:37.840 --> 02:19:45.319
Thanksgiving dinner was thwarted yesterday badly.
I went to two different Walmarts, one

1571
02:19:45.360 --> 02:19:50.840
of them twice and to win Dixie. My first Walmart trip was nearly successful,

1572
02:19:50.879 --> 02:19:54.280
as they had the required number of
turkeys, but I did a poor

1573
02:19:54.360 --> 02:20:00.040
job of acquisition. As I was
loading said turkeys into my buggy, a

1574
02:20:00.120 --> 02:20:05.360
large man who looked just like mister
T walked between me and my buggy as

1575
02:20:05.399 --> 02:20:09.520
if I weren't even there, and
snatched up the last turkey as I was

1576
02:20:09.600 --> 02:20:15.399
reaching for it. I kid you
not, As these were essentially holy turkeys

1577
02:20:15.680 --> 02:20:20.079
meant for a church function, I
felt it was inappropriate to go upside his

1578
02:20:20.159 --> 02:20:24.159
head with a twenty pound frozen turkey. Plus he was really big, so

1579
02:20:24.200 --> 02:20:28.120
I bent my tongue and I left
turkeylus. Next, I went to one

1580
02:20:28.120 --> 02:20:33.719
of the little neighborhood Walmarts, thinking
i'd fare better, but such was not

1581
02:20:33.920 --> 02:20:37.319
the case. While they had the
required number of turkeys, they were somehow

1582
02:20:37.520 --> 02:20:41.600
different and were twice the price,
And since I was buying more than one

1583
02:20:41.680 --> 02:20:48.639
hundred pounds of gobbler, that was
a substantial difference price wise, sixty eight

1584
02:20:48.719 --> 02:20:52.280
cents per pound is one thing,
A buck seventy eight is another thing.

1585
02:20:54.440 --> 02:20:58.319
Now, I'm not trying to cheap
out on these underprivileged kids, but I

1586
02:20:58.399 --> 02:21:03.719
et sixty eight cents per pound turkey
and I enjoy it. Thus Plan B

1587
02:21:03.920 --> 02:21:09.559
fails miserably, and on to Plan
C. I was within spitting distance of

1588
02:21:09.600 --> 02:21:13.079
when Dixie, so I decided,
what the heck, I'll just take a

1589
02:21:13.120 --> 02:21:18.760
look, see and evaluate the situation. Bingo, plenty of turkeys in just

1590
02:21:18.879 --> 02:21:24.000
ninety eight cents per pound with the
card. I briskly loaded the bountiful,

1591
02:21:24.040 --> 02:21:28.159
big beautiful butter balls and the buggy. I love alliteration, and I made

1592
02:21:28.200 --> 02:21:33.639
my way to the checkout stand.
That's where the mission met resistance. Well,

1593
02:21:33.680 --> 02:21:37.719
I'm sorry, sir, but you
can only buy one turkey with a

1594
02:21:37.760 --> 02:21:43.079
card. Drafts foiled again. I
consider just leaving them there in the checkout

1595
02:21:43.159 --> 02:21:48.520
line, But remember these are holy
birds, so I politely returned them from

1596
02:21:48.520 --> 02:21:54.159
whence they came. So far I
had loaded and unloaded eleven twenty pound birds

1597
02:21:54.479 --> 02:22:00.440
and it wasn't even arm day.
I don't really have body parts days.

1598
02:22:00.559 --> 02:22:05.920
It just sounded good. But now
on to Plan D. At the rate

1599
02:22:05.959 --> 02:22:09.520
I was using up plan letters,
I feared running out of them by the

1600
02:22:09.639 --> 02:22:13.399
end of the day, but I
realized, like the hurricane namers, I

1601
02:22:13.440 --> 02:22:18.559
could resort to the Greek alphabet should
the need arise. I felt better about

1602
02:22:18.600 --> 02:22:22.159
the mission naming plan, but not
so much about the actual mission. Okay,

1603
02:22:22.319 --> 02:22:26.559
I'll just go back to the big
Walmart and have the courteous associates retrieve

1604
02:22:26.680 --> 02:22:33.360
me the required turkeys from the back
wherever. That is sure enough. I

1605
02:22:33.399 --> 02:22:37.239
saw a man near the turkey freezer
who was unable to avoid making eye contact

1606
02:22:37.280 --> 02:22:43.399
with me and quickly sprint away as
they usually do, so I asked about

1607
02:22:43.479 --> 02:22:48.760
obtaining six turkeys from the back.
He said the turkeys were in the freezer

1608
02:22:48.799 --> 02:22:54.040
truck outside and that he couldn't access
that particular area. I pointed out that

1609
02:22:54.200 --> 02:22:58.680
it was a mere ten days until
Thanksgiving and their turkey cooler was completely empty,

1610
02:22:58.840 --> 02:23:01.399
and that probably was a good thing. But he assured me that in

1611
02:23:01.559 --> 02:23:07.760
just sixteen short hours the next day, at seven am, they would indeed

1612
02:23:07.959 --> 02:23:11.959
move numerous turkeys from where they were
currently located on the property to the turkey

1613
02:23:13.040 --> 02:23:16.360
cooler. Now, I no Sam
Walton, but if I had folks wanting

1614
02:23:16.399 --> 02:23:22.600
to buy turkeys, and the turkeys
were actually there on the property and Thanksgiving

1615
02:23:22.719 --> 02:23:26.760
was just days away, I'd have
someone doing nothing but moving turkeys from the

1616
02:23:26.840 --> 02:23:33.280
back to the cooler where folks could
actually buy them. On to plan Epsilon,

1617
02:23:33.639 --> 02:23:39.520
I mean e As I said,
mission prep is critical to mission success.

1618
02:23:39.680 --> 02:23:43.639
So I girded my loins, saggy
as they were, and hopped in

1619
02:23:43.760 --> 02:23:46.479
my truck early the next day and
I headed to Walmart, hoping to find

1620
02:23:46.520 --> 02:23:52.079
turkeys stacked to the ceiling. To
put me in the proper mood, I

1621
02:23:52.239 --> 02:23:56.360
listened to mercy mees I can only
imagine, and this boosted my spirits and

1622
02:23:56.440 --> 02:24:01.360
made me confident of success. The
closer I got to Walmart, however,

1623
02:24:01.520 --> 02:24:07.079
the less confident I became in success. Mercy Me just wasn't cutting it.

1624
02:24:07.079 --> 02:24:11.479
It was time to take the gloves
off. Kids were counting on me.

1625
02:24:11.239 --> 02:24:16.479
Nothing would do but five finger death
punches bad company. I turned it up

1626
02:24:16.559 --> 02:24:22.360
to about thirty two maybe thirty five, and I rolled into the parking lot

1627
02:24:22.879 --> 02:24:26.559
and victory was mine. I threw
my truck into park and I jumped out

1628
02:24:26.559 --> 02:24:31.479
while yelling cover me. I wasn't
talking to anyone in particular, and there

1629
02:24:31.559 --> 02:24:35.239
was virtually nobody else in the walmart
to hear me, but it just kind

1630
02:24:35.239 --> 02:24:43.680
of spontaneously came out. After listening
to five FDP, I donned my useless

1631
02:24:43.760 --> 02:24:48.239
paper mask, I grabbed the sun
sanitized COVID freeze, square wheeled buggy from

1632
02:24:48.280 --> 02:24:54.079
the parking lot, and I strode
in, singing Bad Company under my breath,

1633
02:24:54.559 --> 02:24:58.680
just like you just did. Yeah, I heard you. I was

1634
02:24:58.719 --> 02:25:05.239
pleasu surprised to find a very helpful
young man replenishing the turkey freezer, and

1635
02:25:05.319 --> 02:25:07.600
I told him what I wanted,
and he even helped me place six of

1636
02:25:07.639 --> 02:25:13.319
the largest birds he had in my
buggy. It's possible he heard me singing

1637
02:25:13.399 --> 02:25:18.959
Bad Company and didn't want any part
of that, but who really knows.

1638
02:25:18.840 --> 02:25:24.799
Anyhow, the mission was now complete, at least the acquisition part. The

1639
02:25:24.840 --> 02:25:30.000
cooking part comes next Sunday, so
stay tuned for perhaps another exciting mission.

1640
02:25:30.760 --> 02:25:39.680
I'm thinking Oreo's riding the storm out
might be useful. Chapter twenty seven,

1641
02:25:39.200 --> 02:25:46.040
A Puka lips well I experienced the
first recently, I changed my first dirty

1642
02:25:46.120 --> 02:25:50.239
diaper, and by mind, I
don't actually mean I was wearing a diaper,

1643
02:25:50.440 --> 02:25:56.399
but that I changed my little nephew, Dalton's diaper. Jennifer and her

1644
02:25:56.440 --> 02:26:00.440
mama left to run an erin and
they warned me that he may make poopy,

1645
02:26:00.840 --> 02:26:03.079
and that should he do so,
I could just wait for them to

1646
02:26:03.200 --> 02:26:07.159
return, and they changed him when
they got back. Well, they had

1647
02:26:07.200 --> 02:26:11.680
been gone for all of forty three
seconds, and he decided to blow.

1648
02:26:11.520 --> 02:26:15.840
There was no way I could stay
in the same room with that vile odor

1649
02:26:15.959 --> 02:26:20.559
emanating from Junior's huggies. I knew
that I was in for an event,

1650
02:26:20.840 --> 02:26:24.200
so I got creative and decided to
change him in the bathtub. That way,

1651
02:26:24.319 --> 02:26:31.000
any errant duty could just be hosed
down the drain. Dalton didn't understand

1652
02:26:31.040 --> 02:26:35.719
my plan and refused to cooperate,
so a conventional changing was in order.

1653
02:26:37.520 --> 02:26:41.840
Once that first velcrow tab is loosen, it's on and there's no going back.

1654
02:26:43.760 --> 02:26:48.680
I was convinced the apocalypse had happened. In Junior's drawers. It was

1655
02:26:48.840 --> 02:26:56.239
full bore ww F style, no
holds barred mud wrestling extravaganza. I would

1656
02:26:56.239 --> 02:27:01.479
have guessed the infant's entire elementary canal
could maybe half a cup, but apparently

1657
02:27:01.520 --> 02:27:07.000
they're just descending colon holds enough to
fill a milk pail. When someone says

1658
02:27:07.040 --> 02:27:11.840
they have a twenty pound baby,
I now know what they really mean is

1659
02:27:11.840 --> 02:27:16.600
that they have a five pound baby
and fifteen pounds of poorly digested, strained

1660
02:27:16.639 --> 02:27:20.920
turkey. I had not seen anything
that disgusting since the dump hose on our

1661
02:27:22.000 --> 02:27:26.719
FEMA trailer busted loose when Jennifer was
emptying it. Now, that was funny,

1662
02:27:26.840 --> 02:27:30.680
but karma has a way of getting
you back. It was traumatic for

1663
02:27:30.760 --> 02:27:33.840
both me and Dalt, and he
cried and I gaged, and it was

1664
02:27:33.879 --> 02:27:39.280
truly an event to behold. I
now have to ask who the heck designed

1665
02:27:39.280 --> 02:27:43.159
the baby wipes. They should not
be six by eight. They should be

1666
02:27:43.200 --> 02:27:48.799
at least the size of a standard
bathtowel. It was like trying to clean

1667
02:27:48.879 --> 02:27:52.840
up the Exon Valdez spilled with a
water Burger napkin. And as first go

1668
02:27:54.280 --> 02:27:58.239
I'd have to rank this one weigh
down on the scale. I don't think

1669
02:27:58.319 --> 02:28:03.399
I'll be doing that again without a
respirator and salad tongs and an incinerator.

1670
02:28:03.319 --> 02:28:09.079
I think the stinct molecules actually sended
my old factory nerves since it took several

1671
02:28:09.120 --> 02:28:13.760
hours for the smell to leave me. And it's been a while now and

1672
02:28:13.840 --> 02:28:20.920
I'm almost back to normal. But
thanks for asking. Chapter twenty eight,

1673
02:28:22.479 --> 02:28:28.319
Hunter Gatherers. There are two vastly
different schools of thought in the Ray household

1674
02:28:28.399 --> 02:28:33.760
with regards to grocery shopping. The
first method, which we'll call Method A

1675
02:28:35.399 --> 02:28:39.319
or the Right Way, and Method
B, which we'll call the crazy Lady

1676
02:28:39.399 --> 02:28:46.040
way. Method A involves keeping a
running list of needed items on your shopping

1677
02:28:46.079 --> 02:28:52.879
app on your smartphone and systematically and
with economy of motion, gathering those items

1678
02:28:52.920 --> 02:28:56.520
and then getting the heck out of
Walmart. One of the biggest problems with

1679
02:28:56.639 --> 02:29:01.760
Walmart is that they'll just let any
in there. I'm a big proponent of

1680
02:29:01.879 --> 02:29:07.760
Method A. I get my multi
meal Captain Crunch knock off cereal, a

1681
02:29:07.799 --> 02:29:11.559
gallon of fat free milk, a
case of bottled water, and the biggest

1682
02:29:11.559 --> 02:29:16.840
sized package of megastuff Oreos they have, and maybe pick up a rotisserie chicken

1683
02:29:16.000 --> 02:29:20.879
at the register, and then I
blow that pop stand A Jennifer is a

1684
02:29:20.920 --> 02:29:28.760
practitioner of Method B or the Crazy
Lady way. A Method B involves gathering

1685
02:29:28.799 --> 02:29:33.680
a seemingly random assemblage of items procured
on multiple trips down the same aisles over

1686
02:29:33.840 --> 02:29:41.079
and over again. It usually takes
a minimum of three circuits through the grocery

1687
02:29:41.120 --> 02:29:46.079
side of the store, with occasional
forays into hard goods and pharmacy side of

1688
02:29:46.120 --> 02:29:50.559
the store. I call these three
trips the initial random pass, the filling

1689
02:29:50.760 --> 02:29:56.040
pass, and the clean up loop. Magellan went around the world in less

1690
02:29:56.040 --> 02:30:03.239
time than it takes to make a
Method B trip through w The initial random

1691
02:30:03.319 --> 02:30:07.959
pass is just what it sounds like. Imagine if you were standing at the

1692
02:30:07.000 --> 02:30:11.079
front of the store and let loose
a double alt load of buckshot. The

1693
02:30:11.200 --> 02:30:16.479
nine random items that were struck by
the blast or put into the buggy with

1694
02:30:16.559 --> 02:30:20.159
no thought whatsoever as to why you
need them or how you intend to use

1695
02:30:20.239 --> 02:30:28.040
them. Now you understand the initial
random pass. An example of items picked

1696
02:30:28.120 --> 02:30:33.399
up in the initial random pass could
be tofu, baloney, bananas, cocktail,

1697
02:30:33.760 --> 02:30:37.959
toothpicks shape like little swords, a
hammer, charcoal, a twenty four

1698
02:30:39.040 --> 02:30:41.879
pack of Glow in the Dark condoms, a yellow cake mix, and a

1699
02:30:41.920 --> 02:30:48.000
file. You'll notice that none of
these ingredients combine to make anything useful unless

1700
02:30:48.040 --> 02:30:54.479
you're providing the ord'euvs for the horny
society of vegetarians with no sense of taste

1701
02:30:56.159 --> 02:31:03.479
HSOVSOT or foraging horseshoe user planning a
prison break. This is where the fill

1702
02:31:03.520 --> 02:31:07.360
in pass becomes necessary. Now you
make your own way back to the rear

1703
02:31:07.399 --> 02:31:11.879
of the store and you start over, and this time you try to pair

1704
02:31:11.000 --> 02:31:16.399
things with the assortment of things already
in the buggy that can be combined to

1705
02:31:16.440 --> 02:31:20.559
make a meal, and maybe some
bread to go with the tofu baloney or

1706
02:31:20.600 --> 02:31:24.559
with the bananas if you like,
an Elvis style treat, a few hamburger

1707
02:31:24.559 --> 02:31:28.440
patties to make use of the charcoal, and a couple of containers of icing,

1708
02:31:28.799 --> 02:31:31.799
one for the cake and the other
to eat while waiting for the cake

1709
02:31:31.840 --> 02:31:37.079
to bake. The fill in passes
a little less nonsensical than doctor Zeus on

1710
02:31:37.360 --> 02:31:43.799
meth, but just barely. The
cleanup loop is really just a method a

1711
02:31:45.120 --> 02:31:48.920
with an appetizer of chaos. Again, it involves going back to the rear

1712
02:31:48.920 --> 02:31:52.799
of the store, only this time
to gather a handful of items you truly

1713
02:31:52.920 --> 02:31:58.799
need to complete the meal you've planned
for the guests that are probably already at

1714
02:31:58.840 --> 02:32:03.319
your house. The clean up loop
often includes stopping at wind Dixie, since

1715
02:32:03.360 --> 02:32:07.399
you have to pass it on the
way home anyway, to pick up a

1716
02:32:07.440 --> 02:32:13.319
crucial yet forgotten ingredient for an integral
part of the planned meal, for instance,

1717
02:32:13.360 --> 02:32:18.440
the green beans for the green bean
casserole. If all goes well,

1718
02:32:18.639 --> 02:32:22.719
then when you arrive home you were
still married, plus you have five hundred

1719
02:32:22.799 --> 02:32:28.399
cool little plastic swords. Stay tuned
for the upcoming treatise entitled The Kitchens Sink,

1720
02:32:28.879 --> 02:32:39.840
Indoor compost Pile, or Impromptu Sterile
Home. Surgical Sight Chapter twenty nine,

1721
02:32:39.440 --> 02:32:46.840
Target Sighted bombs Away. Nothing would
do except that we attend the grand

1722
02:32:46.879 --> 02:32:52.680
opening of the new Target store,
and thus begins the hilarity. I hate

1723
02:32:52.719 --> 02:32:56.760
crowds and would have sooner gouch my
eyes out with a spoon, then go

1724
02:32:56.879 --> 02:33:01.520
to the opening of the newest purveyor
of Chinese Jump. Jennifer was insistent,

1725
02:33:01.680 --> 02:33:05.559
so I put the spoon away and
got in the car. We blended into

1726
02:33:05.559 --> 02:33:09.799
the river of people flooding into the
store, and the automatic door slid open

1727
02:33:11.239 --> 02:33:16.280
to reveal the brand spanking new target, sporting that new store smell. That

1728
02:33:16.440 --> 02:33:22.120
was where the pleasantry of our outing
ended. Unseen to Jennifer was a trail

1729
02:33:22.239 --> 02:33:26.399
of poo stretching from the threshold of
the door all the way to the display

1730
02:33:26.440 --> 02:33:31.319
of roasted nuts thirty feet into the
store. The length and breadth of this

1731
02:33:31.440 --> 02:33:37.479
bile hazard was quite impressive, and
the sheer quantity ruled out an infant or

1732
02:33:37.559 --> 02:33:41.840
any service animal smaller than a service
elephant. Jennifer did, in fact have

1733
02:33:41.920 --> 02:33:48.200
an encounter with the offensive leavings.
She didn't really step in it, but

1734
02:33:48.280 --> 02:33:52.399
sort of kicked it in midstride as
she flowed with the masses into the store.

1735
02:33:52.360 --> 02:33:56.760
Horrified, she panicked, and not
knowing what to do, she froze

1736
02:33:56.799 --> 02:34:01.399
like a deer in the headlights.
There she and the entrance of the new

1737
02:34:01.440 --> 02:34:05.239
target, surrounded by hundreds of people
flooding into the new store, seemingly stuck

1738
02:34:05.319 --> 02:34:09.440
to the floor with pooh glue.
While the mind layer was somewhere ahead of

1739
02:34:09.520 --> 02:34:16.440
us, headed to the depenzile.
No doubt, she quickly evaluated her options.

1740
02:34:16.920 --> 02:34:20.120
Option one was that she would continue
into the store as if nothing happened,

1741
02:34:20.639 --> 02:34:24.440
or Option two was that she should
just leave the store, or Option

1742
02:34:24.639 --> 02:34:28.840
three was that she should create some
sort of diversion by pointing at the Aunt

1743
02:34:28.879 --> 02:34:33.440
Jemima look alike in the Moo mooo
on the writing grocery buggy and loudly say

1744
02:34:33.840 --> 02:34:39.520
ooh, and then run into the
stores. Everybody was looking at Jemima.

1745
02:34:39.040 --> 02:34:43.920
Personally, I'd have chosen the Aunt
Jemima option, but that's just me.

1746
02:34:45.680 --> 02:34:50.719
Others entered the store and began to
become aware of the hazard and went around

1747
02:34:50.760 --> 02:34:56.440
the shah Nola like Johnson around Earnhardt. She chose option one. We quickly

1748
02:34:56.559 --> 02:35:01.399
merged with the other shoppers streaming into
the store and beat a hasty trail deep

1749
02:35:01.479 --> 02:35:05.719
within the bowels of the store,
putting as much distance between us and the

1750
02:35:05.799 --> 02:35:11.399
front door fecal festival as possible.
I'm pleased to get to use the word

1751
02:35:11.440 --> 02:35:16.319
bowels in this story, but I
digress. Once clear of the scene,

1752
02:35:16.440 --> 02:35:20.479
Jennifer was still faced with what to
do with the stinker on her toe,

1753
02:35:20.920 --> 02:35:24.639
still attached and looking very much like
a little dec dipped comb on the tip

1754
02:35:24.680 --> 02:35:30.840
of her brand new spears. Not
wanting to spread the joy, she walked

1755
02:35:30.879 --> 02:35:33.479
like a peg legged pirate with the
leg held stiff and the toe of her

1756
02:35:33.520 --> 02:35:39.680
shoe elevated. It looked to me
like an uncomfortable way to walk, But

1757
02:35:39.760 --> 02:35:43.120
then I've never had a turn stuck
to my toe and Target, so I

1758
02:35:43.159 --> 02:35:48.319
can't really speak from a position of
experience. Our minds frantically sought a plan

1759
02:35:48.520 --> 02:35:52.239
as to where to drop the offending
hitchhiker. I mean, what kind of

1760
02:35:52.280 --> 02:35:58.879
department store doesn't have a carpet somewhere
in the store. Our options were growing

1761
02:35:58.000 --> 02:36:03.959
fewer as we go further into the
store, dropping a pineapple on her foot,

1762
02:36:03.000 --> 02:36:07.079
and the produce department was starting to
look good, except we ran into

1763
02:36:07.120 --> 02:36:11.920
some friends just as we approached the
grocery section, so the pineapple wipe was

1764
02:36:13.000 --> 02:36:18.600
foiled. Just stepping out of her
shoes and abandoning them in midile was an

1765
02:36:18.600 --> 02:36:22.399
option, but they were brand new
sperries and appeared to be salvageable well.

1766
02:36:22.440 --> 02:36:28.840
She eventually just resigned herself to continue
the pirate walk until she could hobble outside

1767
02:36:28.879 --> 02:36:31.959
to the grass, all the while
shopping as if she were wearing two perfectly

1768
02:36:33.000 --> 02:36:37.360
good shoes. While our first trip
to Target was certainly eventful, I think

1769
02:36:37.399 --> 02:36:48.799
I preferred the traditional greeterer at Walmart
Chapter thirty oh la lah. Some things

1770
02:36:48.840 --> 02:36:54.479
can be learned by trial and error. Others can be learned by experience.

1771
02:36:54.280 --> 02:36:58.360
When the lesson is uncomfortable, it's
always best to learn by the experience of

1772
02:36:58.399 --> 02:37:03.440
others. I suspect this tale will
only benefit but a few souls, but

1773
02:37:03.479 --> 02:37:09.200
then so be it. It's a
tale that must be told. I recently

1774
02:37:09.280 --> 02:37:15.120
installed a bidet in our bathroom.
As I recall from my high school French

1775
02:37:15.200 --> 02:37:22.200
bidey pronounced beiday is French for butt
washer. Actually I took Latin in high

1776
02:37:22.239 --> 02:37:24.840
school, but the Lattish people didn't
have a word for butt washer, and

1777
02:37:24.920 --> 02:37:31.319
apparently they weren't big on personal hygiene
tersus foreman is the best I can do

1778
02:37:31.399 --> 02:37:37.959
in lightin But that isn't a very
pleasant name for a bathroom appliance. The

1779
02:37:37.000 --> 02:37:43.360
bidet is probably the only decent contribution
the French have made to modern society,

1780
02:37:43.399 --> 02:37:48.559
excepting French fries and French bread.
But how far can two side dishes really

1781
02:37:48.600 --> 02:37:54.040
take a civilization? The bidet is
the crowning achievement of the French. Anyhow,

1782
02:37:54.079 --> 02:37:58.239
back to the lesson. Since our
house is elevated, the plumbing is

1783
02:37:58.319 --> 02:38:05.280
exposed to the elements underneath, and
the incoming water temperature fluctuates accordingly. It

1784
02:38:05.360 --> 02:38:09.920
is December, so cold weather is
to be expected by this time. You've

1785
02:38:09.959 --> 02:38:15.000
probably put two and two together,
and so as to not offend the sensibilities

1786
02:38:15.040 --> 02:38:18.200
of some, allow me to just
say that a blast of thirty two point

1787
02:38:18.319 --> 02:38:24.600
three degree water to the nether regions
could be described as brisk. It'll probably

1788
02:38:24.680 --> 02:38:30.719
be years before the long jump from
a seated position becomes an Olympic event,

1789
02:38:31.280 --> 02:38:35.879
but until such time I can safely
assume I currently hold the world record.

1790
02:38:35.879 --> 02:38:41.200
So in summary, as if you
really needed telling, when you go to

1791
02:38:41.239 --> 02:38:46.079
buy your bidet, be sure to
spring for the warm water model. That's

1792
02:38:46.120 --> 02:38:54.840
all for today's lesson, Chapter thirty
one. Grinnin like a muse eating briars.

1793
02:38:56.559 --> 02:39:00.920
Everyone has a meuse, you know, that thing that drives you to

1794
02:39:01.000 --> 02:39:05.520
create something. To some is the
traditional Greek goddess. To the people in

1795
02:39:05.559 --> 02:39:11.799
the caves of Lascal, it was
the reindeer and mammos they hunted. I

1796
02:39:11.879 --> 02:39:16.319
discovered today that my muse is a
forty two inch craftsman writing lawnmower. I

1797
02:39:16.360 --> 02:39:20.559
suppose that a forty eight inch or
even a fifty two inch might work too,

1798
02:39:20.600 --> 02:39:26.399
But why mess was something proven I
have a theory as to why certain

1799
02:39:26.440 --> 02:39:30.520
things come to me on my mower. I suspect that some part of my

1800
02:39:30.680 --> 02:39:35.440
brain is otherwise occupied, leaving the
other parts wholly unsupervised, thus free to

1801
02:39:35.559 --> 02:39:41.520
wander around in unfamiliar places. Now, I'm sure there have been detailed psychological

1802
02:39:41.559 --> 02:39:46.159
studies on such things, and if
not, there should be. So whether

1803
02:39:46.280 --> 02:39:50.680
your muse urges you to blow paint
on your hand in a dark cave,

1804
02:39:52.399 --> 02:39:56.319
or string words together as you slaughter
weeds, you just go where she leads.

1805
02:39:58.440 --> 02:40:01.680
So while the artists can create an
image with pigments, it's possible to

1806
02:40:01.719 --> 02:40:07.680
do the same with words. Writing, however, is much cheaper than painting,

1807
02:40:07.840 --> 02:40:11.159
as you don't need all those brushes
and chemists and paint and whatnot.

1808
02:40:13.120 --> 02:40:16.000
All you need is possibly a dictionary, and maybe not even that. If

1809
02:40:16.040 --> 02:40:20.360
you're bothered to remember a whole mess
of words, they don't even have to

1810
02:40:20.399 --> 02:40:26.399
be real words. I mean,
look at doctor Zeus Gredunza. Indeed,

1811
02:40:26.680 --> 02:40:31.120
Zeus does prove though that you need
just a touch of crazy to string words

1812
02:40:31.159 --> 02:40:37.159
together in a manner others find pleasing. Not too eccentric. Minds you,

1813
02:40:37.559 --> 02:40:41.280
lest people start labeling your assemblages as
to catch her in the riyosh or a

1814
02:40:41.360 --> 02:40:46.719
manifesto of some sort or other.
That's not to say that you need to

1815
02:40:46.760 --> 02:40:52.079
hack off one of your ears while
dying from an untreated case of syphilis,

1816
02:40:52.639 --> 02:40:58.760
but it is hard to argue with
the brilliance of story night to little eccentricity,

1817
02:40:58.840 --> 02:41:03.159
however, and you'd do as well
write an assembly manual or a cookbook,

1818
02:41:03.479 --> 02:41:05.879
which, if you think about it, cookbooks are really just food assembly

1819
02:41:05.959 --> 02:41:11.399
manuals. Nope, the trick is
to find that perfect amount of derangement not

1820
02:41:11.559 --> 02:41:18.040
to my uncomfish, no hacking off
of appendages, but also not writing cookbooks

1821
02:41:18.200 --> 02:41:24.719
or Ikia manuals either. It's a
very fine line, really, So follow

1822
02:41:24.760 --> 02:41:28.200
your muse unless she says she knew
vincent, and then wash your hands really

1823
02:41:28.200 --> 02:41:33.799
good first, and then go get
a writing more. I recommend the Red

1824
02:41:33.879 --> 02:41:43.559
forty two inch model, Chapter thirty
two, The Scent of Blessings. When

1825
02:41:43.600 --> 02:41:46.440
I ride my bike, it always
gives me a chance to think and ponder

1826
02:41:46.600 --> 02:41:54.159
and admire, sort of a rolling
worship service. This evening's ride started pretty

1827
02:41:54.159 --> 02:42:00.559
blandly, with overcast guys and weak
failing light peeking between the dull colorless clouds,

1828
02:42:01.280 --> 02:42:05.399
not much of a sunset at all, with not much to look at

1829
02:42:05.479 --> 02:42:09.680
in the pale twilight, another sense
took over, and oddly enough, it

1830
02:42:09.799 --> 02:42:15.040
was smell. One neighbor was just
finishing up his yard and the scent of

1831
02:42:15.120 --> 02:42:20.520
freshly mode grass filled the thick,
hot air. It is said that smells

1832
02:42:20.559 --> 02:42:24.680
can trigger memories more vividly than any
other sense, and in this case it

1833
02:42:24.760 --> 02:42:30.600
did indeed, And for a moment, it was nineteen sixty nine and I

1834
02:42:30.680 --> 02:42:35.760
was in the third grade again at
Iola Tapley Wilkins Elementary School, staring out

1835
02:42:35.760 --> 02:42:41.559
the open windows at the men pushing
lawnmowers around the school as the teacher paused

1836
02:42:41.559 --> 02:42:46.920
her lesson while they passed. The
roar of the mowers died as they continued

1837
02:42:46.959 --> 02:42:50.680
around the building, and the earthly
scent of wet grass filled the classroom and

1838
02:42:50.799 --> 02:42:58.639
mingled with the other sense of chalk
dust and floor wax. The lesson resumed,

1839
02:42:58.879 --> 02:43:01.760
but we were all in talksated on
the vapors of fresh cut grass,

1840
02:43:03.200 --> 02:43:09.040
dreaming of summer and baseball and swimming
in anything but math. Around the corner,

1841
02:43:09.159 --> 02:43:15.200
another neighbor was apparently boiling shrimp or
crabs. The sharp smell of a

1842
02:43:15.239 --> 02:43:18.239
shrimp bowl that will take your breath
away also means that there will soon be

1843
02:43:18.319 --> 02:43:24.319
a feast, for shrimp aren't really
bowled as a snack. It is an

1844
02:43:24.319 --> 02:43:28.000
event, and there is always a
gathering of some import when the boiling pot

1845
02:43:28.079 --> 02:43:35.680
hits the fire. Birthday's, mother's
day, Father's day, graduations, marriages,

1846
02:43:35.879 --> 02:43:39.680
deaths. The pot is not fired
up for just any trivial occasion.

1847
02:43:41.799 --> 02:43:46.399
Family is almost always integral to a
shrimp bowl, as are corn taters,

1848
02:43:46.799 --> 02:43:52.479
sausage, and just like Shakespeare's witches
brew, there is power in that building

1849
02:43:52.559 --> 02:43:58.799
cauldron, the power to conjure many
things in stirfine memories and south the pain.

1850
02:44:01.600 --> 02:44:05.399
Saturday is obviously one of my neighbour's
laundry nights too. As I rode

1851
02:44:05.479 --> 02:44:11.000
past, I smelled the flowery fragrance
of drying laundry and was again transported to

1852
02:44:11.079 --> 02:44:16.719
my youth, where I slept under
crispy clothesline dried sheets that, while they

1853
02:44:16.719 --> 02:44:20.600
didn't smell like my neighbor's perfumed laundry, had a feel in fragrance all their

1854
02:44:20.639 --> 02:44:24.440
own. And it was a cocktail
of sense, mixing the smells of my

1855
02:44:24.559 --> 02:44:30.799
MEMA's house with the scents of nature
and ivory, soap and salt air.

1856
02:44:31.200 --> 02:44:35.600
My mema was a very old lady
before she ever got a machine to dry

1857
02:44:35.680 --> 02:44:41.920
her clothes, and her sheets may
have thereafter been softer, but they certainly

1858
02:44:41.040 --> 02:44:48.000
weren't as memorable. As I pondered
these smells, it occurred to me that

1859
02:44:48.079 --> 02:44:52.040
what I was smelling was the sense
of blessings. These scents of shrimp,

1860
02:44:52.600 --> 02:44:58.479
laundry, and grass represented the blessings
of food, clothing, and shelter,

1861
02:44:58.600 --> 02:45:03.719
three basic blessings that we probably all
take for granted. So to mix the

1862
02:45:03.760 --> 02:45:09.639
axioms of counting your blessings and stopping
to smell the roses, I was able

1863
02:45:09.680 --> 02:45:18.520
to roll by and smell the blessings. May we all be grateful. Chapter

1864
02:45:18.600 --> 02:45:24.639
thirty three, Deep Fried Parrot and
Dolphin kebabs in a garlic IOLI. I

1865
02:45:24.639 --> 02:45:28.639
think anybody that knows me can agree
that there are lots of people smarter than

1866
02:45:28.680 --> 02:45:35.200
me. Or I I'm not sure. See lots of people are smarter than

1867
02:45:35.239 --> 02:45:39.760
me. However, I have yet
to be brainly tested by anything in the

1868
02:45:39.799 --> 02:45:45.120
animal or plant kingdom. The tic
tac toe Playing chicken doesn't count, as

1869
02:45:45.159 --> 02:45:48.639
I was not at the top of
my game and I suspect the chicken was

1870
02:45:48.760 --> 02:45:52.840
cheating. That happened in Mexico,
and I didn't speak Spanish, and the

1871
02:45:52.959 --> 02:46:00.440
chicken didn't oblow much ingless, so
there was a communication problem. Other than

1872
02:46:00.479 --> 02:46:03.760
that chicken, though, which we've
all agreed doesn't count. I'm certain I

1873
02:46:03.799 --> 02:46:09.799
could mentally best anything else in the
plant or animal kingdom, except maybe for

1874
02:46:09.079 --> 02:46:13.879
some of the great apes or the
more cunning monkeys. They might come close

1875
02:46:13.959 --> 02:46:18.879
in a Sudoku tournament, but I'm
sure I could take them in an arm

1876
02:46:18.920 --> 02:46:24.680
wrestling contest. The cunning monkeys,
not the great apes. Those things are

1877
02:46:24.719 --> 02:46:28.799
strong. Also, minor birds and
parrots, although they are no chicken,

1878
02:46:30.120 --> 02:46:33.840
might put up a good showing,
but a little crisco and flour, and

1879
02:46:33.079 --> 02:46:39.920
just like the chicken, the competition
is eliminated. So I think we've established

1880
02:46:39.000 --> 02:46:45.000
that there may be a few non
delicious, crispy fried and mental competitors in

1881
02:46:45.040 --> 02:46:50.600
the animal kingdom, but very few. Just an FYI, pulled chimpanzee is

1882
02:46:50.719 --> 02:46:58.000
nowhere near as good as pulled port. I can, however, state emphatically

1883
02:46:58.120 --> 02:47:01.000
that there is nothing in the plant
king them that can fool me, except

1884
02:47:01.000 --> 02:47:05.920
maybe that vine that has the thorns. The gallons of round up mixed with

1885
02:47:05.000 --> 02:47:11.120
gasoline and then let on fire can't
even kill. I suspect there are some

1886
02:47:11.239 --> 02:47:16.079
of these vines growing in the core
of the Fukushima reactor and that's what caused

1887
02:47:16.120 --> 02:47:20.920
it to fail. So other than
this vine and possibly kudzu, I'm certain

1888
02:47:20.959 --> 02:47:26.159
I'm smarter than most plants, except
maybe the venus fly trap. But at

1889
02:47:26.239 --> 02:47:31.079
each disgusting house flies on purpose,
I just eat them if I'm asleep in

1890
02:47:31.120 --> 02:47:35.079
the hammock with my mouth wide open, and even then I don't really enjoy

1891
02:47:35.159 --> 02:47:41.079
them much. A grass is stupid, though, why just this morning I

1892
02:47:41.120 --> 02:47:45.280
outwitted it handily, and try as
I might, I just can't get it

1893
02:47:45.319 --> 02:47:48.319
to grow where I want it.
However, it thrives in my flower beds,

1894
02:47:50.479 --> 02:47:54.239
being marginally smarter than grass. It
dawned on me that if I were

1895
02:47:54.239 --> 02:47:58.799
to cover the bear areas in my
yard with mulch and then an ounce so

1896
02:47:58.840 --> 02:48:01.600
that the grass might hear me that
I was putting in a new bed,

1897
02:48:03.040 --> 02:48:09.719
than grass would practically spring forth overnight. Mosilic grass now chuckle at my slightly

1898
02:48:09.840 --> 02:48:16.319
higher cunning than a capuchin monkey.
Dolphins, dang, I forgot dolphins.

1899
02:48:16.879 --> 02:48:22.520
They are smart and cute and athletic
jumping through those rings is not at all

1900
02:48:22.559 --> 02:48:26.239
as easy as they make it look. Plus all the questions you have to

1901
02:48:26.280 --> 02:48:33.040
answer afterwards in the legal fees hardly
make it worth trying. On an unrelated

1902
02:48:33.120 --> 02:48:41.040
note, dolphin kebabs aren't too bad. They taste like Mexican chicken. Chapter

1903
02:48:41.079 --> 02:48:46.639
thirty four. It's springtime and love
is in the air, literally, and

1904
02:48:46.719 --> 02:48:52.920
it's disgusting. Well, I just
mowed my yard for the first time this

1905
02:48:52.079 --> 02:48:58.520
spring. Notice I said mowed my
yard as opposed to I mowed my grass,

1906
02:48:58.799 --> 02:49:03.840
because frankly, very little grass was
involved in the venture. The mowing

1907
02:49:03.879 --> 02:49:07.079
did nothing to improve the quality of
my yard. But I do now have

1908
02:49:07.159 --> 02:49:11.879
a broad assortment of weeds, all
nearly the same height. It's sort of

1909
02:49:11.959 --> 02:49:16.440
like stacking empty beer cans in a
neat pyramid as opposed to just leaving them

1910
02:49:16.479 --> 02:49:22.799
on the table or in the aquarium. It really serves no purpose but looks

1911
02:49:22.840 --> 02:49:28.719
marginally better. So it is with
mowing weeds. While I was mowing,

1912
02:49:28.799 --> 02:49:33.000
I noticed huge amounts of pollen in
the air, which got me to thinking

1913
02:49:33.079 --> 02:49:37.280
about what pollen really is. It's
the reproductive matter of plants, and it's

1914
02:49:37.440 --> 02:49:43.559
everywhere which is kind of disgusting.
It's in our eyes, it's in our

1915
02:49:43.680 --> 02:49:48.399
hair, We're practically covered in it. Just going outside is like using Hugh

1916
02:49:48.440 --> 02:49:54.479
Hefner's hot tub after a particularly randy
party where the guests list included an assortment

1917
02:49:54.520 --> 02:50:00.840
of Kardashians. It's a veritable botanical
orgy, what with the live folks getting

1918
02:50:00.879 --> 02:50:03.600
lively down by the water, and
the crept myrtles are doing the nasty and

1919
02:50:03.719 --> 02:50:09.040
the flower beds and there's a pine
tree three way going in the neighbor's yard.

1920
02:50:09.799 --> 02:50:15.600
Imagine it's nineteen seventy three and you've
stumbled on to the set of a

1921
02:50:15.719 --> 02:50:22.159
drug fueled three day long art movie
shoot in a condo outside Malibu. But

1922
02:50:22.360 --> 02:50:28.040
just replace the humans with various types
of plants, and it's just non stop

1923
02:50:28.120 --> 02:50:33.440
tree on tree action until at least
May. Ugh. I now have a

1924
02:50:33.479 --> 02:50:39.440
headache and Anita shower. Another bad
thing about spring, besides the mowing and

1925
02:50:39.479 --> 02:50:45.120
the continual tree sex more an autumn
person myself, is that the gnats come

1926
02:50:45.159 --> 02:50:50.959
out in full force. If you've
ever experienced the torment of the Salt Marsh

1927
02:50:50.040 --> 02:50:56.360
gnat, just imagine millions of hungry, tiny little ghost vampires nearly invisible to

1928
02:50:56.440 --> 02:51:00.600
the naked eye, yet each able
to drink a full pie of blood.

1929
02:51:01.719 --> 02:51:05.280
If they were twice as big as
they are, they'd kill you. And

1930
02:51:05.360 --> 02:51:09.799
frankly, I think the Egyptians got
off easy with the locusts and the frogs.

1931
02:51:09.399 --> 02:51:13.879
If God had really wanted to punish
them, he'd have sent the gnats.

1932
02:51:15.079 --> 02:51:18.799
Pharaoh would have had the Israelites packed
up by nightfall, and four Baptist

1933
02:51:18.920 --> 02:51:24.159
churches would have opened the next day, and the new Moses Land theme park

1934
02:51:24.159 --> 02:51:28.200
would be adding a red Sea flowme
ride such as the Power of the Gnat.

1935
02:51:28.959 --> 02:51:33.639
Now I've got a headache and I
need to close the blinds. The

1936
02:51:33.680 --> 02:51:41.680
Indian hawthorns are up to page thirty
seven in the Kamasutra, chapter thirty five

1937
02:51:43.520 --> 02:51:50.280
and miles to mow before I sleep. When driving down Highway ninety along the

1938
02:51:50.319 --> 02:51:54.440
beach, the traveler just passing through
might think that Hurricane Katrina was but a

1939
02:51:54.479 --> 02:52:00.719
distant memory, since the mostly healed
scars that are left along the wall are

1940
02:52:00.760 --> 02:52:05.559
obscured by the flashing neon of casinos, gas stations, and fast food joints.

1941
02:52:07.360 --> 02:52:11.200
However, there are thousands and thousands
of vacant lots just north of the

1942
02:52:11.280 --> 02:52:18.559
sparkling Gulf waters all the way from
the Pearl River to the Alabama state line.

1943
02:52:18.600 --> 02:52:22.719
Of these vacant lots represent the dreams
and lives of many families. Christmases

1944
02:52:22.799 --> 02:52:28.719
celebrated and birthdays accumulated, weddings performed, and Easter eggs hunted, and deaths

1945
02:52:28.840 --> 02:52:35.239
mourned. Entire lives lived in that
one hundred foot by one hundred and forty

1946
02:52:35.280 --> 02:52:39.360
foot piece of dirt, and bent
and twisted remains of chain link fences marked

1947
02:52:39.360 --> 02:52:46.280
the borders that contain these dreams.
Not only trees were torn up by their

1948
02:52:46.360 --> 02:52:50.799
roots, but people too, just
the same force. The people that lived

1949
02:52:50.840 --> 02:52:56.079
on these parcels have since created new
lives, some nearby and others distant,

1950
02:52:56.159 --> 02:53:01.879
but their connection to their grassy plots
cannot be severed. Most folks would drive

1951
02:53:01.000 --> 02:53:05.040
by the old man on the mower
and not think twice about it. But

1952
02:53:05.159 --> 02:53:11.399
it causes me wonderment. Manys the
time I've passed a pickup truck on the

1953
02:53:11.440 --> 02:53:15.319
side of a barren road and seen
an old man on the mower while his

1954
02:53:15.440 --> 02:53:20.840
wife swelters in the truck waiting with
cold drinks. These are the people that

1955
02:53:20.000 --> 02:53:24.319
used to live on that plot.
Of ground, and although they no longer

1956
02:53:24.360 --> 02:53:28.840
have a home there, they seem
oddly drawn to maintain an overgrown, vacant

1957
02:53:28.879 --> 02:53:33.120
lot. In the dog days of
summer, they'll mow knee high parched grass,

1958
02:53:33.559 --> 02:53:37.120
as if to pronounce, Hey,
this is still mine, and I

1959
02:53:37.200 --> 02:53:43.639
will not surrender. They tend it
as the living tend to grave, and

1960
02:53:43.719 --> 02:53:48.719
they defiantly proclaim their attachment to that
dirt. They mow where their kids played

1961
02:53:48.760 --> 02:53:52.360
with a new puppy, and they
mow over the place where they buried the

1962
02:53:52.399 --> 02:53:56.520
same dog as a member of the
family fifteen years later, while the kids

1963
02:53:56.520 --> 02:54:01.440
were off at college, and they
mow under the tree their grandfather planted seventy

1964
02:54:01.479 --> 02:54:07.520
five years ago and still yields pe
cons that they pick up from the dead

1965
02:54:07.559 --> 02:54:11.120
brown grass every autumn and use to
make pies for their Sunday school class.

1966
02:54:13.120 --> 02:54:16.840
They mow around the concrete piers that
once supported the porch where they sat and

1967
02:54:16.959 --> 02:54:22.239
cried when they learned that their son
wasn't coming back from some jungle in a

1968
02:54:22.319 --> 02:54:26.959
place they'd never even heard of.
And they mow over the broken concrete of

1969
02:54:26.040 --> 02:54:31.879
the driveway lost to time in the
creeping Saint Augustine, and they can still

1970
02:54:31.959 --> 02:54:37.399
see in their mind's eye the brand
new nineteen sixty nine Osmobile ninety eight gleaming

1971
02:54:37.600 --> 02:54:43.840
in the sun, a treat for
the years of hard work and sacrifice.

1972
02:54:43.920 --> 02:54:48.959
They don't mow to make the grass
shorter, They mow to make the memories

1973
02:54:48.239 --> 02:55:00.639
longer. Chapter thirty six. Lasts
in the blink of an eye have a

1974
02:55:00.680 --> 02:55:05.680
sinister yet compassionate habit of sneaking up
on you. It's for the best,

1975
02:55:05.719 --> 02:55:09.799
though, because if they didn't creep
in covertly, you'd never forever be stuck

1976
02:55:09.840 --> 02:55:15.680
in a place on a timeline,
last, come ephemerally with nary a hint

1977
02:55:15.719 --> 02:55:20.319
of their presence, and passing Only
much later do you even realize what they

1978
02:55:20.360 --> 02:55:24.239
really were. Had you known that
it was the last time your child would

1979
02:55:24.239 --> 02:55:28.399
reach for your hand in a crowded
parking lot, you'd have stood there in

1980
02:55:28.440 --> 02:55:33.680
the cold for hours holding his hand. Had you known she'd never ask you

1981
02:55:33.760 --> 02:55:37.799
to read about the Red Fish and
the Bluefish ever again, you'd have made

1982
02:55:37.879 --> 02:55:43.680
that story last as long as war
and peace. Had you known your spouse

1983
02:55:43.719 --> 02:55:48.520
would never again return home, you'd
have kissed her twice when she left.

1984
02:55:48.399 --> 02:55:52.079
If you'd known that it was the
last fishing trip you would take with your

1985
02:55:52.120 --> 02:55:58.319
brother, you would have cast well
past dusk into the night, and had

1986
02:55:58.360 --> 02:56:03.159
you known it was your last dinner
together before they moved miles and miles away,

1987
02:56:03.719 --> 02:56:07.360
you'd have insisted that your friends have
another piece of dessert. Had you

1988
02:56:07.440 --> 02:56:11.959
known it'd been the last time you
pass through a town, you'd have driven

1989
02:56:11.079 --> 02:56:16.440
more slowly and waved at the old
couple on the porch swing, perhaps experiencing

1990
02:56:16.479 --> 02:56:22.399
a last of their own that they'd
only learned of the next morning when only

1991
02:56:22.479 --> 02:56:28.920
one of them awakened. I suppose
that lasts often lead to first and the

1992
02:56:28.000 --> 02:56:35.319
excitement of the first salvesdy aches of
the lasts. Being human means that lasts

1993
02:56:35.319 --> 02:56:39.559
you're cumulative, and eventually everything will
become a last, up until the two

1994
02:56:39.760 --> 02:56:46.520
ultimate lasts, your last breath and
your last heartbeat. So take lots of

1995
02:56:46.639 --> 02:56:52.440
pictures and cherish every single moment,
because you never know which of those moments

1996
02:56:52.840 --> 02:57:03.639
might be a last. In disguise. On the Anniversary of Desolation, written

1997
02:57:03.840 --> 02:57:11.760
on the tenth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the sun shone strong on the sparkling

1998
02:57:11.840 --> 02:57:16.959
waters and tanned the faces of Southern
daughters who enjoyed their lives under the live

1999
02:57:18.000 --> 02:57:24.000
oak trees, whose branches swayed in
a salty breeze. Their children ran down

2000
02:57:24.239 --> 02:57:28.840
a long sandbar, scratching in the
sand their names and stars, as generations

2001
02:57:28.920 --> 02:57:33.600
before had done the same, until
the wind blew and the water came.

2002
02:57:35.479 --> 02:57:41.760
The stately homes watching over the sound
had witnessed much amid their grounds. Christmases

2003
02:57:41.920 --> 02:57:48.040
passed, colored eggs hid for hunting, fireworks and picnics with rails hung in

2004
02:57:48.120 --> 02:57:54.600
the bunting hot golden turkeys and sweet
pecan pies, and even a rare flake

2005
02:57:54.719 --> 02:58:01.239
from steel winter skies. The old
cypress swing creek on orange rusty chains,

2006
02:58:01.000 --> 02:58:07.639
until the wind blew and the water
came. With sun baked skin and broken

2007
02:58:07.760 --> 02:58:13.440
backs. Men trawl, shrimp and
fill oyster sacks, just like their pawpalls

2008
02:58:13.440 --> 02:58:18.440
and their uncles and fathers. They
wrestle a living from these bountiful waters.

2009
02:58:20.280 --> 02:58:24.200
Old wooden boats made by men long
since gone, work hard through the night,

2010
02:58:24.600 --> 02:58:30.200
and then bring their crews home.
For decades prior, men have done

2011
02:58:30.399 --> 02:58:37.479
just the same until the wind blew
and the water came. Blackwater rivers creep

2012
02:58:37.559 --> 02:58:43.639
down to the bays where sleepy gaiters
bask, and warming rays where the egret

2013
02:58:43.719 --> 02:58:48.040
hunts, and the mullet jumps,
and turtles lounge on cypress stumps. The

2014
02:58:48.159 --> 02:58:54.200
lazy bayous wind through the trees,
and snails ride the grass that blows in

2015
02:58:54.280 --> 02:59:00.920
the breeze serenely flowed the rivers known
by Indian names, until the wind blew

2016
02:59:01.440 --> 02:59:07.120
and the water came. She rowed
ashore on her wicked broom, a whirling

2017
02:59:07.280 --> 02:59:11.520
mass, this gray typhoon. She
waved her wind and cast her spells,

2018
02:59:11.920 --> 02:59:18.399
unleashing demons from beneath the swells.
Both sinners and saints suffered in this mix.

2019
02:59:18.959 --> 02:59:24.719
When poker chips floated with the crucifix
in the darkened, churning witches brew

2020
02:59:26.440 --> 02:59:37.680
When the water came and the wind
blew. Time, our most precious gift

2021
02:59:37.760 --> 02:59:41.600
cannot be measured by balance, vessel, or rule. But with a mechanical

2022
02:59:41.639 --> 02:59:48.239
device we measure our lives. It
ticks constant, cold, and cruel.

2023
02:59:52.280 --> 03:00:00.479
Luna Venus and Soul. Venus chased
Luna across the sky, a celestial race

2024
03:00:00.520 --> 03:00:05.399
in the heavens high and al.
The Baron followed closely by, while in

2025
03:00:05.559 --> 03:00:11.280
awe in silence, there said I
Soul came to see such game. Then

2026
03:00:11.399 --> 03:00:16.319
Venus blinked and lost her flame.
Luna continued her steady pace, her luster

2027
03:00:16.639 --> 03:00:26.639
dulled by soul's bright face. Sanity. The veil of sanity has but only

2028
03:00:26.719 --> 03:00:33.280
one side. So sheer is the
shelter where within we hide. For beyond

2029
03:00:33.319 --> 03:00:39.559
its boundary lived the nightmares and dreams
of hobgoblins and devils and all wicked things.

2030
03:00:39.239 --> 03:00:43.120
Should the veil be moved aside by
a lilting breeze, allowing you to

2031
03:00:43.159 --> 03:00:48.159
glimpse all of these, dare not
to linger in o terry too long,

2032
03:00:48.760 --> 03:00:54.200
lest they entice you to stay with
the sirens song. They dispense a random

2033
03:00:54.319 --> 03:01:00.799
concoction of pleasure or pain. It's
a toss of the coin when going insane,

2034
03:01:00.959 --> 03:01:05.120
six of one or a half a
dozen of the other, an injection

2035
03:01:05.280 --> 03:01:09.440
of one tincture of another. What
you will get is far from certain.

2036
03:01:09.559 --> 03:01:20.000
Should you ever wander outside the curtain, dog days in the delta and dusty

2037
03:01:20.040 --> 03:01:26.120
porch chairs, delta painters rock,
where the august heat slows even the clock

2038
03:01:26.079 --> 03:01:31.479
ochre talk covers everything, and at
night the frog and the locusts sing,

2039
03:01:31.959 --> 03:01:37.120
and lesser stars than Sirius let loose
of the sky and fall toward us in

2040
03:01:37.200 --> 03:01:43.159
vast green oceans reaching out of sight, are desolate and depressing, though filled

2041
03:01:43.159 --> 03:01:46.959
with life. When the dog star
rises, it brings such as these,

2042
03:01:48.440 --> 03:01:56.399
the hope of the harvest and the
autumn breeze. Just the other day,

2043
03:01:56.760 --> 03:02:01.479
Twas just the other day, I
said, When I was just beginning to

2044
03:02:01.559 --> 03:02:05.760
walk, I skinned my knee and
bumped my head, and shortly after learn

2045
03:02:05.799 --> 03:02:09.639
to talk. Off to school,
I went to learn reading Dick and Jane

2046
03:02:09.639 --> 03:02:16.879
and ciphering math, a questioning spirit
with time to burn, exploring Frost's less

2047
03:02:16.920 --> 03:02:24.680
travel path. Then the child morphed
into a man unlike Darwin's monkeys can I

2048
03:02:24.799 --> 03:02:28.920
learned Poe and Twain, and of
pioneers headed west, and the traits of

2049
03:02:30.040 --> 03:02:35.360
moving bodies and those that are at
rest. Some things made sense and others

2050
03:02:35.479 --> 03:02:41.200
not. But miles of roads still
lay ahead, and scarcely looked up to

2051
03:02:41.280 --> 03:02:46.760
the clock, for we can sleep
when we are dead. Now sign posts

2052
03:02:46.760 --> 03:02:50.040
appear along the way sooner than I
would fear reading. But just the other

2053
03:02:50.200 --> 03:02:56.479
day, when the truth is,
it's been so many years, life is

2054
03:02:56.520 --> 03:03:01.479
nothing more than memories. As we
rush headlong toward the grave, Some discarded

2055
03:03:01.600 --> 03:03:05.760
instantly, and others bound and saved. And as the end drawls, still

2056
03:03:05.879 --> 03:03:11.280
nearer, will all be heard to
say, For at that point our time

2057
03:03:11.399 --> 03:03:18.799
is dearer. Seems all my life
was just the other day. The cow

2058
03:03:20.399 --> 03:03:24.040
I pull one tee, then the
other, because one's for milk, and

2059
03:03:24.040 --> 03:03:30.000
one's for butter, one's for cream, and one's for cheese. I wish

2060
03:03:30.040 --> 03:03:39.239
my cow had more of these.
A fisherman's view of life. A lone

2061
03:03:39.399 --> 03:03:45.959
gull cries, a mullet flies,
A pelican sits and watches with an intent

2062
03:03:46.079 --> 03:03:50.840
gaze, and a crash in the
waves. A hapless fish he catches as

2063
03:03:50.840 --> 03:03:54.920
an old man fishes. He sits
and wishes for days that are long since

2064
03:03:56.120 --> 03:04:00.559
pasted. A second look at an
empty hook, and he makes another cast.

2065
03:04:01.000 --> 03:04:05.159
The tide rolls in and then out
again, as it has for untold

2066
03:04:05.280 --> 03:04:11.719
ages. Our lives are just books, and time is a crook that slowly

2067
03:04:11.840 --> 03:04:18.079
steals our pages. The ebbing tide
makes small crabs hide among the drying rocks,

2068
03:04:18.639 --> 03:04:24.159
while shrimping men over diesels den make
deals along the docks. The sun

2069
03:04:24.239 --> 03:04:28.600
sinks slow, and the wind it
blows. Another day is pasted. It's

2070
03:04:28.680 --> 03:04:37.639
almost night, but in the pale
moonlight there's time for one more cast an

2071
03:04:37.680 --> 03:04:43.799
ode to Poe. In the deepest
part of the night, when the clock

2072
03:04:43.920 --> 03:04:50.360
runs slow, comes a velvet cloaked
visitor who goes by Poe dread in fear,

2073
03:04:50.639 --> 03:04:54.200
phillis clutch hoping joy are gone.
As such, there's no way back

2074
03:04:54.200 --> 03:05:00.040
from the sooty hell, my rapid
heart. The tale it tells. He

2075
03:05:00.120 --> 03:05:03.959
is easily heard above the clock's two
bells as the master prepares to cast his

2076
03:05:05.120 --> 03:05:11.079
spells an unwanted guest, though I
feel strangely obliged to tolerate his visit from

2077
03:05:11.120 --> 03:05:16.799
the other side, the executioner of
peace, the bringer of woe, this

2078
03:05:18.000 --> 03:05:24.520
tormented man, this man named Poe. The way is dark and rife with

2079
03:05:24.680 --> 03:05:30.639
crags. As the specter opens and
unloads his bags, squeaky brass, latches

2080
03:05:30.719 --> 03:05:35.120
in creaking leather, and a palette
hand withdraws one black feather from the carcass

2081
03:05:35.159 --> 03:05:39.000
of the raven, though I know
not whether he is dead or alive,

2082
03:05:39.680 --> 03:05:43.920
as the scent of death would be
masked by the heather from the vapors of

2083
03:05:43.959 --> 03:05:48.879
an earlier team made in the corner
of the weather. Wicked, vile,

2084
03:05:50.040 --> 03:05:56.000
simmering potions, sickening salves, unduans, and lotions stirred and twirled, and

2085
03:05:56.079 --> 03:06:03.719
nauseating motions concocted of species from across
seven black oceans. The sorcerer worked his

2086
03:06:03.920 --> 03:06:09.440
recipes slow this evil cook, this
man named Poe, in hopes of avoiding

2087
03:06:09.479 --> 03:06:16.959
the fortunes of Fortunado, an expert
vnor in wine aficionado. When pride drove

2088
03:06:16.040 --> 03:06:22.639
his quest for the Amantillado, I
summoned up a whiff of false bravado.

2089
03:06:22.799 --> 03:06:26.799
Fearing the trial and mortar board,
he wielded with weak, shaky breath.

2090
03:06:26.879 --> 03:06:33.000
My voice box yielded, and then
asked my tormentor, shall I see dawn

2091
03:06:33.120 --> 03:06:37.280
upon my door? And then came
his answer, So dread an answer,

2092
03:06:37.840 --> 03:06:46.840
no, never more, never more. Here and now and there and then.

2093
03:06:50.239 --> 03:06:54.319
There are only two places we all
have been. That's here and now

2094
03:06:54.399 --> 03:06:58.760
and there and then. While here
and now are the present tents, there

2095
03:06:58.799 --> 03:07:03.600
and then can be passed her hens
then lives in our memories is known as

2096
03:07:03.639 --> 03:07:09.440
the past, but it's also the
future, and the die yet cast the

2097
03:07:09.440 --> 03:07:13.840
then in there that are yet to
be, or shaped by the here and

2098
03:07:13.879 --> 03:07:18.159
now You see the then and there's
wise and hows are determined by your hear

2099
03:07:18.239 --> 03:07:24.239
and now spend them wisely do what's
right, so that then in there you'll

2100
03:07:24.239 --> 03:07:28.520
sleep at night. Here and now
is your chance to mend. And then

2101
03:07:28.559 --> 03:07:37.879
in there, at the very end, the preacher and the teacher. When

2102
03:07:37.920 --> 03:07:41.639
the teacher is done, she is
said to have taught. But when the

2103
03:07:41.680 --> 03:07:46.559
preacher is done, has he not
brought? Of course he hasn't. We

2104
03:07:46.639 --> 03:07:56.159
all know he's preached. So pray
tell why the teacher hasn't teached? Autumn,

2105
03:07:58.479 --> 03:08:01.479
As your sky is filled with the
orange butterflies, and narrow a cloud

2106
03:08:01.520 --> 03:08:07.520
is seen, A cooling breeze rustles
the leaves that turn to gold from green.

2107
03:08:11.520 --> 03:08:18.120
A midnight haunting. The mind works
differently in the dead of night,

2108
03:08:18.760 --> 03:08:24.360
slower the pleasantries fast as the fright. Once awakened, long before first light,

2109
03:08:24.600 --> 03:08:28.680
my mind torments me throughout the night, when fast my brain should be

2110
03:08:28.719 --> 03:08:35.159
asleep. Ghosts wonder its crevices,
dark and deep, things long since passed

2111
03:08:35.239 --> 03:08:39.760
and deeply stored, or torn from
their moorings. When the mind is bored,

2112
03:08:41.959 --> 03:08:46.799
while half awake yet half a slumber, the ghosts in my mind soon

2113
03:08:46.920 --> 03:08:50.920
grow in number. Though a twisted
dream, they begin they're traveling a tapestry

2114
03:08:50.959 --> 03:08:58.319
of memories. They're soon unraveling.
They open hidden boxes and spread all around

2115
03:08:58.840 --> 03:09:05.280
things that were never in tended,
unbound. Fond memories tortured now are haunting.

2116
03:09:05.840 --> 03:09:11.799
The past is longed for, the
future is daunting, an aching sadness

2117
03:09:11.799 --> 03:09:18.079
for things long gone yet waiting for
no man. Time marches on outside my

2118
03:09:18.200 --> 03:09:22.959
windows. A wind chime rings,
a random tune on a night's winds wings

2119
03:09:22.760 --> 03:09:28.239
away in the distance. A train
whistles, moaning keeps ghosts in my mind

2120
03:09:28.360 --> 03:09:33.760
from roaming anymore on the sleepless night. As dawn approaches with welcomed light.

2121
03:09:37.600 --> 03:09:43.719
The artist and the poet. What
the artist does is pigment. The poet

2122
03:09:43.760 --> 03:09:48.200
does with a pen. The artist
makes us sea without, and the poet

2123
03:09:48.319 --> 03:10:00.719
see within dead reckoning over jagged waves. Are ships with captain think our course

2124
03:10:00.760 --> 03:10:05.479
alone. We steer, not decided
by us. Our courses they happen,

2125
03:10:05.000 --> 03:10:11.280
yet not by chance. New ports
draw near. We're only passengers, though

2126
03:10:11.360 --> 03:10:16.520
at the wheel, pretending control,
we order hoist all her sheets full speed

2127
03:10:16.520 --> 03:10:22.399
ahead, goes brass, wood and
steel, our luminous weight, changing the

2128
03:10:22.440 --> 03:10:26.399
courses of those we meet, just
as ours was altered by the others.

2129
03:10:26.440 --> 03:10:33.239
We passed under billowing sail and creaking
masts, each ship moves the other to

2130
03:10:33.360 --> 03:10:37.639
alternate ends, directing their course much
more than the winds. The altering of

2131
03:10:37.799 --> 03:10:43.440
plot by just one tiny degree then
brought our ship eventually alongside of me.

2132
03:10:46.280 --> 03:10:50.040
We think it is us who steer
by the stars, when in truth it

2133
03:10:50.079 --> 03:10:54.760
is the maker of those very same
stars who makes the winds blow that drive

2134
03:10:54.840 --> 03:11:00.280
us along. While in the rigging
whistles a familiar song, an old time

2135
03:11:00.399 --> 03:11:05.559
hymn, and clanging ship's bell says
to us that all is well, Yes,

2136
03:11:05.280 --> 03:11:15.280
all is well the purpose of life. I'm just passing through, though

2137
03:11:15.799 --> 03:11:18.840
I know not why. I breathe, love, live, and die.

2138
03:11:20.079 --> 03:11:22.479
For my purpose, I beg a
glue to lead a nation, as some

2139
03:11:22.600 --> 03:11:30.159
men do, or silently pass my
task unknown and sleep anonymously under a yet

2140
03:11:30.280 --> 03:11:35.440
quarried stone. Perhaps my task is
a cumulative thing, not to strum the

2141
03:11:35.520 --> 03:11:41.280
heart, but merely pluck one string
and then another in no recognized tone,

2142
03:11:41.319 --> 03:11:46.719
seemingly out of sync with the comic
metronome, never hearing the sound of the

2143
03:11:46.799 --> 03:11:54.680
symphony complete but a few single notes
without sustain. Fading fleet, Should the

2144
03:11:54.719 --> 03:11:58.680
smallest cog missing inside the clock then
render its heart a tick with no talk?

2145
03:12:00.719 --> 03:12:05.479
The entire mechanism would then be of
no avail other than to mark the

2146
03:12:05.520 --> 03:12:09.760
time that the small cog failed.
The parts of the machine must exist in

2147
03:12:09.840 --> 03:12:16.559
the hole if we are to hear
the chimes and the hours told. A

2148
03:12:16.680 --> 03:12:20.760
night's bright armor is but one rivet, shy of deciding whether the warrior might

2149
03:12:20.840 --> 03:12:26.840
live or die. So, whether
cogg or rivet or vibrating string, we

2150
03:12:26.959 --> 03:12:31.239
all have our part in this mystical
thing called life, where nothing is certain

2151
03:12:31.760 --> 03:12:37.799
except its end and the unknown links
of the paths we wind. To believe

2152
03:12:39.040 --> 03:12:43.280
you've a purpose, yet know it
not. Is to deny yourself and acknowledge

2153
03:12:43.479 --> 03:12:52.559
your God. This has been as
per y'all's requests, written by Beau Ray,

2154
03:12:54.280 --> 03:13:03.600
read to you by Cameron Buckner.
People for t