Funk in the 80s means something different

As we have previously discussed, my Daddy is a very generous person.  He would give you his last nickel.  And by you, I mean just that.  You, me, anybody.  Familial connection is not a pre-requisite for this generosity.  Of course, unlimited generosity has its downside.  Recently, he told me that the button had come of a pair of his jeans.  Or whatever you call that metal fastener thing.  It doesn't have an interesting name like aglet (the tip of a shoelace).

                He told me, by way of instructions for disposal, to donate them to “them poor people at the Goodwill.”  My response, “Haven’t they suffered enough?” was met with shock, which I still don’t understand.  Did he really think that anyone would want to own a pair of jeans that have been assaulted with malice aforethought and essentially rendered inoperable? 

                Now, I could tell you that I was simply thinking that Rustler jeans are not a quality garment when they are new, I swear you get a pair free with a Big & Tall underwear purchase at Wal-Mart, but what I was truly thinking was if those pants could talk they would either weep, throw up or beg to be sent to wherever socks hide when they escape from your dryer and disappear.  Someone told me they go to be with Jesus and as I don’t really know that it’s not true, we’ll just let it lay there like other statements that make us unsure whether to laugh or pray for the speaker or in this case, the writer.

                I know I have discussed the fragrance of my father more than is necessary, or so I’ve been told by my boss, but I just don’t understand why there has been little success in that particular department.  I have curbed his natural tendency to judge others aloud and have forced him kicking and screaming into a 60 pound weight loss without any exercise, but I simply cannot make headway in the olfactory department.  And although his new recliner is leather, which does not retain smells like his previous velour one did, I find that I am forced to walk throughout my house every other day, with a Febreze bottle continuously spraying over my shoulder like a dragon fruit scented mosquito truck, ever-vigilant in the fight for a house that “smells pretty”.

                But, it’s the price you pay, I suppose, for housing the elderly, as I have discovered discussing my Dad with others, like ½ of the set of twins who were my best friends 7-10^th grades in Texas (Hi, Juliann!).  We were madly in 'like' (also known as 'going together') for somewhere in the neighborhood of 3-4 weeks in 8^th grade but as young love does it went out of style right around the time Panama Jack t-shirts came to prominence.  For those who don’t know or remember, Panama Jack was an overpriced t-shirt that was never owned by yours truly, he said with only a trace of bitterness.  We met for dinner on my recent trip to Dallas and in the midst of our laughter, gossip and story-telling, we somehow found ourselves in the territory of older men’s hygiene habits in the absence of their wives.  Old men are simply old men and they have an odd fragrance if you will.  I always assumed my father's particular odor was a combination of bologna, grease and onions with a dash of ornery and a smidgen of righteous indignation at my insistence that he "smells...odd". 

                I assumed that his particular hygiene practices were learned on the turn row, modified in the wilds of Vietnam and subdued throughout my childhood by the sheer force of my mother's will.  That explains why she always seemed wore out at the end of the day.  That has to be it, right?  It couldn't have been her children.  I don't speak for my siblings, but I can assure you, based on my recollections, I was quite simply a joy throughout my youth and remain so to this day.  What?  My Daddy says it's not bragging if it's a fact.

                I did, however, assume that people who are a tinch fancier would have habits that are more in line with what you would imagine.  And as her father is in a much higher tax bracket, I naively felt he wouldn't be gross, to use 80s parlance.  She informed me, over two different kinds of queso, that old men are old men.  As an aside, I love Tex-Mex so much I did inquire about the opportunity to marry it.  When I asked the waiter if he knew to whom I could talk, I was told we "ain't quite there yet, son.  No get on out of here before I commence to shootin'" Aah, the humor of the Texans.

             Apparently it is not directly linked to income, education level or any other arbitrary categories and that is a sad statement indeed.  I thought the great equalizer was Wal-Mart' apparently, for old men, it's butt and feet.  I wonder what age you start to smell?  Is it just old men or is it all men?  I asked my sister, after the two-queso maxi-meal, and her response was “All men, besides you, are gross.”  Well said, sister of mine.  Well said indeed.

Would you give fake sugar to the Dowager Countess?

                Having just survived the holidays and trying to decide if MLK is enough of a reason to break out the haystacks once more, I realized that sugar is all around us and is an integral part of what makes a Southerner Southern as opposed to merely from the South.  Our tea is sweet, our belles are sweet (at least as far as you know) and our desserts are diabetes-inducingly sweet.  We even coat our criticisms with a sugary, ‘Bless their hearts’ when we meant what we said but needed the recipient to still feel as if the Junior League wasn’t suddenly out of reach.

                The reason I bring this up is I have been fake sugaring all sorts of things of late and today, I am loath to admit, I sugared my chili.  Now, before you get all judgmental, bear with me.  I merely added 3 individual Splenda packets to a pot of chili that contained 2.5 pounds of hamburger.  It’s not like I was trying to make a red meat soufflé; I was simply trying to recreate this amazing chili I had as an appetizer at dinner last night.  It was some of the best I’ve had (Willow Pizza in San Jose, check it out) and had a slight sweetness that was just divine.

                So I bought the ingredients for chili and was trying to figure out how to make it sweet.  I add grape jelly to my baked beans and they are loved by all and sundry.  But I thought that wouldn’t be quite the flavor profile I was seeking. 

                It is a known fact that Clara Herrington of Tylertown, MS makes the best tuna salad in all the land.  And I’m not kidding.  As someone who used to weigh 422 pounds, I know great food.  As someone who lost 220 of those pounds (yes, I’m bragging) you should trust my tastes.  Why, you ask?  Well, I’ll tell you.  I have great taste in clothes; as I write this I am wearing fuchsia chinos and a navy cardigan with navy suede wingtips and a matching belt, and my most recent fortune cookie fortune stated, “You are admired for your impeccable tastes”.  So there you go.

                Now, I have never been known for violent tendencies other than scathing remarks about tacky people, but I can assure you that if you were to stand betwixt me and Ms. Clara’s tuna salad, fisticuffs would ensue.  I am not proud of that reality; I am simply being honest.

                A couple of years ago, I was visiting Mississippi on a tiny book tour (buy my book A Gone Pecan online) and had an offering to stay at the Herrington Clan’s house on the Bogue Chitto River.  As I was taught to do, I politely declined at first (we are very British) but when they upped the ante to include, not only Ms. Clara’s tuna salad, but Ms. Clara herself, I would have been a fool not to accept.  I love me some Herringtons, do you hear me?

                Now, I realize that having just admitted to spending the night alone with Ms. Clara is tantamount to a scandal is the not-otherwise-occupied minds of Tylertownians, unless you think about it for, I don’t know, say, 4 or 5 seconds and you realize the players in the story are Ms. Clara and me.  I think Andy Griffith’s Aunt Bea was more scandalous than the sainted Ms. Clara.  Well, sainted if Baptists had saints, whose designations I assume would be somehow tied to popularity of casserole recipes or number of prayer circles started.

                I said all that to say this, her secret ingredient is sugar.  I apologize if that was meant to be a secret, but Sharon told me at the river one time so it’s her fault, Miss Clara.

                Now I know that sugar is bad for you.  We all know that it will one day take my Daddy’s feet.  Fear not, however, as I have been using fake sugar for quite some time. Sweet ‘n’ Low (the pink one) is the first I tried and used to be the only one.  It reminds me of old ladies and/or Tab.  I switched to Equal (the blue one) when Cher started advertising it in the 90s, I think.  My Daddy and I had been using that for our morning coffee until recently.  A friend, who is a nurse, told me some story about Equal having the same effect on your organs as formaldehyde or somesuch.  I don’t know if this is an urban myth but I switched to Splenda (the yellow one) as I was told by this same friend that at least Splenda was real sugar that had been altered to be bereft of, well, sugar.  I assume it was some chemical engineering process but I like to think it was magic like in Harry Potter.

                And speaking of Harry Potter, my Daddy and I have been enjoying Downton Abbey, which he calls Down Town Abbey, then wonders aloud (each week) why they’re in the country, not the city.  He can’t remember who is who so there’s a lot of questioning throughout the show, which requires the use of close captioning.  Not so much for him, but for me. 

I am adept at understanding English accents, idioms and slang, being an unabashed Anglophile.  He, on the other hand, being a citizen of Ala-Miss-La-Tex, doesn’t even understand me half of the time, much less someone British.  Watching with him is not unlike sitting beside a child with ADD and no Ritalin.  Who’s that?  Why’s she wearing that?  Boy, that one sure is ugly.  She’d make a haint take a thorn thicket!  Why’d they pick an ugly girl?  Why do you need a house that big?  Would you like a house that big?  I wouldn’t.  I like log cabins.  I want a Harley.  Why don’t you let me eat candy bars?  Did you bring me a Coke Zero from town?  You know I lost 2 more pounds.  Why’re you lookin’ at me like that? 

                We were watching TV this past weekend as I do only when he complains I don’t spend time with him as his activities consist of sleeping, eating and crocheting while watching TV.  I had found a Harry Potter movie and we were both enjoying it when he suddenly said, “Hey!  There’s that old lady from Downtown Abbey!”

                I responded that it was, in fact, the Dowager Countess and although she is a two-time Oscar winner (1969 Best Actress for the Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and 1978 Best Supporting Actress for California Suite in which she played an Oscar nominee on her way to the ceremony) she is best known to the Millenials, which apparently includes 71 year-old rednecks, as Professor McGonagall.

                This set him off on another tangent:  Boy she looks terrible, don’t she?  What year was that movie made?  Can you look it up on your little computer?  I wonder how old she is?  How old is Ziva from NCIS?  I know Abbie is older than she looks.  You know she’s from Loozeeana? You find out the year yet?  What’s takin’ you so long?  How old is Abbie?  Who’s that old man?  Can I grow my beard and tie a ribbon in it?  Why d’ya always make that face?  Is it time to eat yet?  I’m hungry.  I sure would like a chocolate shake this big.  Where you goin’?

                I just realized that it is almost 6 pm and time for Downton Abbey out here on the West Coast.  I will bid you adieu and head to the TV viewing room.  I must prepare myself to read my new favorite TV show because Daddy is wide awake and while over-medicating a crazy old man isn’t actually illegal, it borders on rude and being British, I’d rather someone think I were poor than rude.

                Happy New Year, y’all!

Your name is what?

               So, it’s Christmas morning and now that I have put the big one down for a nap, I am completing the pantry cleanse by taking everything that is fattening or sugar-filled and creating desserts to share with co-workers tomorrow.  It’s for our own good.  The Dad is diabetic and I am determined to remain “not fat”, so yay for the hospital staff; they’ll think I am selfless and thinking of others.  ‘Tis the season, y’all.

 

                My absolute favorite holiday candy is haystacks.  I use my mother’s recipe and use potato sticks instead of chow mein noodles.  They are buttery goodness and taste ridiculously yummy.  Of course, the specific ingredients list necessitated a trip to Little Guatemala as no other store had even heard of potato sticks.  I like the fact that Wal-Mart does not change their inventory dependent upon geography with the notable exception of TJ Blackburn syrup and Snapple. It has been my experience that you can’t find Blackburn Syrup, the only decent pancake syrup on the market, outside of the South and you cannot find Snapple inside of the South. 

                When I was spooning the haystacks onto the tin foil (because I’m Southern, he said in response to the query of the reason he said tin instead of aluminum), I thought about who named these and other candies and how important it is, apparently, that a cook not only be creative in the kitchen but in the naming of said desserts. Haystacks look persactly like little haystacks.  It’s a perfect name.  Now, I’m not sure if they were named that by the creator (little c – I’ve not speaking of Jesus at this particular junction) or if there was a clever family member that said, “Ooh, those look like little haystacks” and the name was born.

                I have to think that those sorts of things cannot be left up to chance; names are important.  If it was left up to many cooks, we’d have an entire section of the cookbook called “tiny nom-noms or hunks of gooey goodness”.  And while I don’t necessarily think that the first First Lady actually invented her namesake treat, I like the regal nature of a Martha Washington.  And divinity fudge calls to mind religious intercession as the sugar content is enough to cause Type II diabetes from simply walking slowly past the decorative candy dish on the dessert table at your Grandmother’s house.  In fact, one of my back teeth just turned black from typing that sentence.

                And speaking of names, mi padre asked me, just this morning, if I thought Terryll  was a typical Southern name.  For those who just read that sentence, Terryll is pronounced like Errol.  As in Errol Flynn, for those over 50.  For those under 40, go on IMDB and educate yourselves.  My response was, “Number one, I don’t think there is such a thing as a typical southern name and, number two, if there is, it is most assuredly not Terryll.”

                And what is a typical southern name?  My best friend from high school (Hey, Paige!) sometimes sends me our hometown newspaper so I can see the interesting names of the populace of the bustling metropolis of Tylertown, MS.  Tykevius, Jakevius, Idaya, Todrick, Antisha, Catavious, Zaman, Traquarius, Latavius, Dartavian, Amari, Arkale and Kendrioun; and those are all boys.  It sounds like roll call in the Roman Senate.

                And you don’t even have to leave my family for some of those people with resoundingly Southern labels.  We have the men:  Hubert, Searcy, Sherman, Thurman, Thornton, the aforementioned Terryll, Odis, Lynch and the James-doubles (James Allen, James Oscar, James Melvin).  There are also quite a few with names that are initials which don’t stand for anything like RC, AV and JD.  On the women’s side we have those with individual monikers Waynette, Perrilyn, Arilla and Ercel and the doubly good Myrna Rae, Jimmie Sue, Lucy Jane, Rhoda Lee and Billie Evelyn.  And that’s not counting nicknames.  There are Uncles (Doup, Fats, T, Jun) and Aunts (Lise, Cel, Waynie, Rilla) as well as friends and acquaintances Catfish, Cooter, Johnny Boy, Tater, Dirty Red and Squeaky.  I also know both a male and a female JoJo, but we are not related; a fate which saddens me a little bit, although more color in my family tree I do not need, n’est ce pas?

                If you’ve read my book (A Gone Pecan, available through AuthorHouse.com or Amazon) you are familiar with interestingly named people such as Marcetta, Deltrenda, Crespo and Billie Shannon.  Now that you know more about my background, it’s easier to see that these names are that big of a stretch.

                Would a name have to be doubled like Bobby Merle or Willie Nell to be considered Southern?  Mind you, those sound like supporting players on Andy Griffith.  Thelma Lou, anyone?  At least Southerners aren't as bad as some celebrities with children named Pilot, Apple, Moses, Moon, Inspektor and Kal-el. Of course, it depends on your point of view whether those are preferable to Hilma Fay, Spur or Shadynasty (pronounced Sha-dynasty).  At least little Apple will have a big bank account. 

 

I feel sure that most children in the next generation will be named Bella or Jacob (Lord help us all), but don’t some of the newest names sounds like they are from specific TV channels like Soap Network (Fallon, Channing) or Nat Geo (Savannah, Dakota).  There are an alarming number of female Kendalls and Kinleys these days and more than a handful of Dylans and Brandons.  I blame 90210 for those last two.  There are also those amongst us that have delved into the categories of special characters and random capitalizations like De’Quan, She’Angelique, RaShad and LaMiracle.  If your child requires assistance to spell their name upon entering fifth grade, you might have gone too far out of your way to be unique. 

 

So, you tell me, what is the typical Southern name?  I would continue our discussion but I am, in the words of my dear sainted mother, “…too ashamed to look at you because I have done nothing but lay around and eat the live long day” and I am tired, y’all.  And with that I’ll bid you a Merry Christmas.  I’d offer to send you some haystacks but somebody ate them all.  Daddy doesn’t like them, so I don’t know who the culprit might be.  Maybe Lulu got opposable thumbs for Christmas.  Yes, that sounds reasonable. 

 

  And that is all I'm saying.

Two Girls, a Dance and a Ham

Recently I assisted a friend who is a teacher (Hi, Alisa!) by helping her chaperone a middle school Winter Formal at a private school in San Jose.  I haven’t spent much time around kids in this age bracket (5^th -8^th grades) since I was a junior high boys’ Sunday School teacher before I fled Mississippi for Alaska in 2002.  However, I looked forward to this experience as I am always curious about whether kids these days are much different than those in my day, due to the many differences in society and technology that currently exist.  I am so glad I am not a teenager in this decade, which I have been told is referred to as the Aughts.  There is far too much access to nasty, trashy stuff of which I was unaware in the veritable Mayberry where I grew up.  You can accidentally come upon something nekkid in any number of places these days, including TV shows.  Not in junior high, but toward the end of high school, we knew where the nekkid wa (behind the counter at the truck stop) but we were unable to access it.  And for that I am thankful.

I arrived early as has been my routine since the infamous band picture debacle of 1986.  I was late to the group photo and because they had already arranged the trumpets on the first row, as trumpets are the coolest people in band besides the drummers, I, a trumpet player, had to go on the back row with the flutes and other instruments no one can hear during the performance.  All apologies to Stacy and the other flautists I’ve known, but a flute in a marching band is almost pointless unless there is some random Revolutionary War theme and there usually isn't. 

As I was early, I was able to watch most of the kids arrive in their dress clothes, if that is really the term to use.  It was an odd assortment of jeans with un-tucked dress shirts and clip-on ties for the boys and party dresses with Chuck Taylor sneakers for the girls.  Is that a thing now?  At least some of the sneakers were sequined.  Since the clothes had changed I wondered if the social hierarchies were in place in California in 2012 as have been in place for decades in other locales like Mississippi and cable TV.  I paid specific attention to those who seemed to be armed with posses, or whatever the plural of posse might be. 

There was one pony-tailed young lady who seemed to have declared herself head decorator as she held very strong opinions about balloon placement and voiced promised repercussions for improper balloon handling etiquette.  Balloon Girl, as I named her, seemed to be the Queen Bee until the arrival of another girl, who I named Sparkly Skirt.  She was wearing what I can only assume were her mother’s clothes and shoes.  Otherwise, she’s not being raised right, y’all. 

Balloon Girl and Sparkly Skirt eyed each other from across the room.  Apparently it was ‘ON’.  Color me intrigued; it was like a reality show, except not skanky or stupid.  Sparkly Skirt started the dancing once Johnny Moustache (he of the overly-styled, barely visible (count them) 7 upper lip hair follicles) broke out his laptop.  After one too many renditions of the weirdly popular Korean dance song ‘Gangnam Style’ (which everyone including some of the more aggressive teacher spouses seem to know the apparent required choreography), Johnny Moustache was replaced by Aggressive Girl in High Tops with her trusty iPod.  I am not ashamed to admit, she and I shared a number of dance favorites.  Okay, I’m a little ashamed.  But the music was only the background for the drama unfolding.  Feeling the power had shifted upon Sparkly Skirt’s entrance, Balloon Girl started dancing while playing slow motion volleyball with the balloons.  Never has power shifted this quickly outside of a South American country as all the children followed suit.  

As far as I was concerned, it was going along pretty well and I was introduced to the teachers, not realizing my appearance as the ‘friend’ of the single teacher was the juiciest thing that had happened there in quite some time.  Feeling as if all eyes were on me, I texted my sister, also a teacher, who confirmed that I was not being paranoid and that at that very moment each and every one of the whispered conversations were in fact about me; specifically the level of my relationship with the single teacher that would have enticed me to accompany her to such an event.

The announcement of the voting for the Winter Formal Court caused a ruckus that refocused everyone’s attention to Sister Boogie Shoes and Mr. Bow Tie, the Art and Science teachers respectively.  Never in my life have I felt relief not to be the center of attention.  And speaking of me, I found my tiny doppelganger.  Wearing the same gap-approved uniform as his classmates, he seemed to be the only boy with any semblance of rhythm.  He would dance with abandon as if no one was watching; however, he was most definitely aware of everyone’s placement as he halted his moves if no one was looking and traveled nearest whichever Queen Bee the crowd was surrounding and start dancing again, to ensure the largest audience.  Oh sit down, Dusty, Jr., I laughed to myself. 

While we waited for the votes to be counted, we were again distracted by a drama that unfolded  just outside the entrance when Johnny Moustache was apprehended trying to sneak off with his girlfriend who, only after I caught sight of her, was summarily nicknamed Invisi-Justice as she had somehow escaped my notice while wearing a hot pink and black floral dress from the tween clothier I loathe.  How do I know?  Well, let's just say they've been selling that very dress for about quite some time since I bought it for my niece Payton in 2006 or so.  Mr. Moustache, when he was denied entree to whatever nefarious activity he had planned, was furious and refused to re-enter the gym, believing to the very depths of his almost-teenage soul that we did not have his best interests at heart.

This brings me to another male with whom I have recently come into contact, who does not believe that I have his best interests at heart.  He feels that I purposefully keep some of his wishes unfulfilled.  Regular readers and rabid followers are familiar with my father’s work.  Over the past few weeks he has asked me to find what he calls his favorite “lunch meat”.  I have tried to explain to him that they don’t have that type of meat product anywhere outside of a 6 ft. radius of Bethany, Louisiana (population 1,100 if you count individual cans of beer at the quickie mart), but he will not take no for an answer, even when said with considerable disdain.  I have actually looked for what he described but I feel as if he is accidentally combining the traits of several of his favorite foods, vile though they may be.  The description was something akin to a thinly sliced potted meat/Spam hybrid.  As my friend Dawn from Memphis would say, “ooh to the wee”. 

I had attempted to provide him actual deli ham, thinking I was splurging on something he would prefer to this luncheon loaf.  I was wrong.  He told me that he would, “eat it, I reckon, but I don’t like it that much.”  Assuming that he would just give up and find another item over which to hyper-focus, I was surprised to see that he apparently ventured out of the yard for a solo jaunt, for the first time in about 5 months.  Never underestimate a redneck on a mission.  I returned from my recent trip to DC to find that he had braved imminent death to cross the street to the Super Mercado y Tacqueria to ensure that no stone had been left unturned in the search for the favored protein of the proletariat, as it were.  I found his butcher-papered bounty was labeled ‘Jamon’.  When I asked what he was eating, he haughtily replied, “I found my lunch meat at the messican groshry store.  And you said they didn’t have it.” 

I smiled and said, “You realize that jamon is Spanish for ham, right?”  I believe the correct spelling of his reaction is, “Hmpf!” followed by the dismissive smacking of lips and judgmental clicking of false teeth.

And I don’t really know what else to say about that.

Isn't over-sharing the point of a blog?

                This past week I had the opportunity to visit Stanford University’s campus for a lecture series.  As they are located about 2 miles from my office, it is a convenient way to learn new things without signing up for an actual class, which I will only do if Condoleeza Rice is the instructor.  This particular speaker was going to discuss Emotional Intelligence and I am all about self-betterment through knowledge.

                So I head there straight from work and I have surmised, based on the number of people who knew the location of the School of Education that the next great generation of teachers is matriculating elsewhere.

                Before I took my seat, I had to take a rest, so I found a room specifically designed for such activities.  When I finished my business and was washing my hands I noticed the gentleman at the next sink was cleansing his hands with the dedication of a surgeon about to operate.  Having worked in healthcare for the last 15 years, I practice proper hand hygiene and was drying my hands with a towel and kept it for use as a protector when I opened the door to exit.  This gentleman, instead, grabbed the door handle with his bare hands and held it open for me.  Then he smiled this maniacally happy smile and I thought, “Good Lord, I hope that’s not the speaker” and chuckled to myself.

                Not surprisingly, I entered the auditorium and there sits Mr. Nasty Hands in a lotus position in a chair with his shoes and socks removed grinning like some deranged cell phone salesperson waiting to fill our minds with glitter hugs dipped in rainbows, I imagine.  But, as I am not one to judge, I decided to see what he had to say.  After all he is an executive with an internationally known and respected company.  I won’t say which one, but it rhymes with Google.

                He starts to talk and mentions he is a Buddhist, which was unexpected as he spent the first 10 minutes or so talking about how awesome he is and based on my limited information about Buddhism didn’t think arrogance was one of the basic tenets.  Although based on the activities of the Dalai Lama, celebrity stalking might be.  However, he made a statement that got my attention.  He shared that he was listening to a Buddhist Nun and in the instant that she said a particular phrase, he became a Buddhist.  This must be some phrase, I thought.  It was ‘the answers are all inside you’.  Yes, you read that correctly.  Glitter hugs indeed.

                But it was what he said next that sealed my exit from his presence.  He said, “In that moment, I understood EVERYthing.”  And he wasn’t kidding.  Well, that was more than I could take, so I quietly left the auditorium and headed to Starbucks to get my Venti Black Iced Tea with 3 Splenda and no water and ponder this preening donkey’s statement.  He knew everything, huh?  Well, you don’t know proper hand hygiene.  Of this I am certain.  You don’t know the proper footwear for public speaking.  You don’t know how goofy you sound.  And that’s just off the top of my head.

                But that got me thinking.  Would I even want to know everything?  Cate Blanchett, at the end of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, learned everything from that big ol’ alien whatever and all it got her was an exploded head.  No thanks. 

                Now I know lots of things, most of which don’t matter to anyone, which is why I am so good at trivia.  However, I do know lots of things that I wish I didn't so I decided to compile a list and I will share it forthwith.

                I wish I didn’t know:

1.       How an old man’s popcorn-greased hand feels on your head when they are on the row above you in the movie theatre and use you to catch themselves at the end of ‘Silver Linings Playbook’ when they lose their balance trying to talk to their wife and fish the cigarettes out of their jean jacket.

2.       What a coke tastes like with cigarette ashes in it.  Thanks Daddy in 1978.

3.       What it feels like to haul hay.

4.       How a pickled pig lip tastes.

5.       That there is a 24 hour nightclub in Birmingham, AL.

6.       Acid-washed jeans don’t always support, and sometimes reveal, your buttocks.

7.       What shrimp salad from a vending machine will do to your digestive tract.

8.       That drinking water in San Diego has the same outcome as #7.

9.       What it feels like to ride a bike from Fisherman’s Wharf to Sausalito (see August 5^th blog).

10.   How to involuntarily cliff dive on a trip to Canada.  Full disclosure: involuntarily means they pushed me.  I am still ticked and it was in 1993.

11.   What it feels like to, even at age 42, avoid walking past storm drains at night because the movie ‘It’ messed me up, y’all.

12.   What it feels like to be forced to watch overweight middle-aged hippies make out to progressive art rock songs that last 25 minutes each while waiting for Yes to play their one hit song…and then they don’t.

13.   That liver somehow gets bigger when you chew it.

14.   What it feels like to be bucked off a horse you didn’t want to be on in the first place.

15.   What it feels like to get kicked in the stomach by that same horse just because it’s evil and had nothing to with the fact that you were in the pen trying to kill it with your mind.

16.   What it feels like when your calf is the only competitor in its category at the county fair and it still comes in third place.

17.   What it feels like to know Dick Cheney continues to go unpunished.

18.   What it feels like to go tubing for 8 hours with no sunscreen and end up with burns so bad you miss all but 1 of your senior parties.

19.   What it feels like to watch the third Twilight movie.

20.   What it feels like to play football against your will in junior high (see YouTube video “Dustin Thompson VA”).

21.   What it feels like to get a haircut so bad that you have to be physically restrained from harming the stylist and causes you to forever hate the word ‘Bubble’.

22.   What it feels like to be judged for your musical tastes when your friends think you’ve switched iPods with a 16 year-old girl.

23.  That the dimmer switch on a '77 Volare is on the floor by your left foot.

 

24.  What it feels like to have to hitchike, after you hit a dear on New Year's Eve, and catch a ride with a man in a Ford Pinto station wagon with the passenger door roped shut through a hole in the roof who ends up being the uncle of your cousin's boyfriend.

25.   What it feels like to not know how to end a blog post.

The Perks of Knowing a Good Ol' Boy

Throughout the time I have shared with you the ins and outs of living with my Daddy, I haven’t done a whole lot of reminiscing about the more interesting perks of having a good ol’ boy for a Daddy. 

I recently spent a week in Hawaii with my family, which now includes my niece’s boyfriend who is saddled with the unfortunate nickname ‘Rica’.  

This very nice young man’s parents named him Chad.  My sister started calling him Chad-rica, for reasons known only to her.  And as she is prone to do, she shortened it to simply Rica and refers to him by that moniker in all our conversations.  So, I have started calling him Rica in my head; for example, when I was making my Christmas list I actually wrote “shirt for Rica”.  My Daddy even calls him Rica and thought he was Hispanic, which made for an odd conversation when they arrived at my house this June and in walked a blonde boy.

My Daddy ever so eloquently stated, “I ain’t never seen a blonde-headed messican.  Are you sure that’s Rica?”  When I attempted to make light of the situation (due to the reddening face of Rica himself) by stating that Castilian Spaniards can be blonde, my Daddy flagged down that train with his usual bluster, “Casteeya-whatayasay?  There ain’t no such thing as a blonde-headed messican.” 

And I shared all that to say this – I returned from my trip on Wednesday night, Thanksgiving Eve, if you will, and reminded my Daddy that he had promised to eat dinner at a co-workers home the following day.  Well, you would’ve thought I had asked him to wear a tutu or volunteer at a nursing home considering the look he gave me.  He says he doesn’t like “old people”.

You see my Daddy is not a social person, which comes as a bit of a shock to some of you.  Granted he can turn on the charm when he wants to and if you can get past the shockingly un-PC statements he is prone to make, he will make you laugh, albeit sometimes nervously and always looking around to see who heard you laugh as it was probably slightly vulgar.  He can “act right” in front of company when he wants to.  Unfortunately for me, I am not considered company.

To ensure that he remained in a reasonably interactive mood, I plied him with breakfast at our favorite diner, Jason’s, and let him get in a nap before we left for Greg and Louise’s.  One of the only reasons my father agreed to attend is that Greg is one of his favorite people seeing as how he looks like a biker and actually owns a Harley.  I think he likes Greg more than he likes me.  Scratch that; I KNOW he likes Greg more than me as, and I quote, “Greg is macho”.  Shockingly, I am not considered macho which is a term used exclusively by my father and the Village People.

When we got to Greg’s, I distracted Daddy with football on the big screen and Ruffles with onion dip until dinner was served.  Thank goodness they had a Honeybaked Ham, my Daddy’s favorite holiday protein.  After we ate, he sat back down with Greg and watched football and told lies about Vietnam (the country with the fighting back then) and Germany (the women back then) and other standard après dinner conversation topics.

After a couple of hours, which was very much surprising, he said we needed to go as his a-double-s was starting to hurt.  On the way to the door someone asked why my Daddy calls Adam (my management trainee) George.  I tried to explain the nicknames my family doles out and the odd names my father loves to give to the various animals that have had the joy of being members of our household.  Dogs named Missy, Goober, Digger, Licker, Snoopy, Satan, Sophie, Pepper, Hot Dog and Lulu.  And I just adore my Lulu.  I just wish that her name was not the same as a now-deceased, overweight, reformed stripper who became a Christian and sang on Hee-Haw.    Since my Daddy has claimed I have “stole” his dog (which is accurate), I have tried to get her to answer to Paisley but she will have none of it.  You can take the dog out of the patch…

The conversation then turned to the odd assortment of other animals that we have owned such as horses, cows, sheep, guinea pigs and parrots.  One parrot in particular was named Seymour.  Christmas 1981, we drove the 13 hours from Oklahoma to my grandparent’s farm in Alsatia, Louisiana, population 27, not counting goats or horses.  My mother was driving.  I, my sister, brother, 626 Christmas gifts and our poodle (Pepper) were in the backseat and my Daddy riding shotgun with Seymour on his shoulder.  Yes, you read that correctly.  As he was slumped in the front seat sleeping, some random but soon to be unfortunate heathens mistakenly thought my mother was the only adult in the car. 

Somehow finding enough confidence to terrorize a family while driving a Ford Pinto, these ruffians proceeded to pass us and then pull over in front of us and slow down to 20 miles an hour.  As I inherited my lead foot from my mother and because back then Oklahoma highways had no posted speed limit, my Mother easily passed them, making great time on our sojourn toward the farming community of her youth.  After several episodes of the passing and subsequent slowing down with these hooligans, my Daddy woke up and asked her what was going on. 

When she explained the situation, it poked the proverbial bear, and he asked me if I had brought my early Christmas present, a knife.  My sister wondered aloud what good a pocket knife would do, having apparently forgotten that my father somehow mis-interpreted my Christmas wish list to include “Bowie knife with 8” blade and snakeskin handle” when what I had actually asked for was “Electronic Battleship”.

I grabbed the knife and we had a mid-air swap as he threw the parrot into the back seat and proceeded to hang his upper torso out of the window and wave the knife asking the “M-Fers” to politely join him in a discussion of the merits of leaving us alone.  For some unknown reason, assumingly alcohol, the threat of a large bearded fellow waving a Bowie knife was not enough to distract these wayward souls from their intended mission of, I am guessing, “harassing people” because they repeated the pass and slow down routine several more times.

Having more than enough of the situation that he cared to endure, my Daddy asked my mother ever so politely if she was finished with her (glass bottle of) Tab.  When she indicated that she was, in fact, no longer in need of the diet refreshment, he asked her to pull alongside the Pinto.

When he could see the whites of the driver’s eyes, like General Washington taught us, he proceeded to introduce the half-full bottle to the area in and around the driver’s ears, nose and throat, causing an abrupt departure of the Pinto from the pavement.  And with that, he turned to my mother and said, “Solved that problem, Mama.  Let’s get on to Alsatia.”

Lesson learned?  Actions do speak louder than words. 

And that is all I’m saying.

If we pawned America, how much would we get?

I was out to dinner with a friend (hey Terri!) Friday night.  As per usual, I texted my Daddy and reminded him of my plans as he gets irritated if he doesn’t know where I am.  As per usual, he ignored my text.  Had he bothered to open his flip phone, he would have known it was not the morning when he awoke at 6.  Since I wasn’t there to inform him of his error, he thought Friday evening was Saturday morning and proceeded to make coffee and eat his oatmeal.  He also took his morning meds, one of which is a diuretic. 

When I got home about 9:00 pm he was confused as to where I had been and why I was carrying a box of leftovers.  However, he was not confused about his desire to eat the contents of my doggie bag and he happily munched on half a turkey burger with black bean and corn salsa, while I asked to what I owed the pleasure of piping hot coffee an hour before bedtime. 

He said, “It’s almost nine in the morning, boy, what chu talkin’ bout bedtime?”  When I pointed out that it wouldn’t be pitch black outside at nine in the morning, even if there was a storm a-brewin’, he looked at me as if I had stolen the last bite of the burger.  It never occurred to him why I would have a turkey burger for breakfast.  “Food’s food,” was his reply accompanied by the burp one would expect from one as couth as he.

Once he realized that it was, in fact, not Saturday morning he spent the next hour berating himself and wondering aloud how someone could be so stupid.  I told him that it happens to everyone, although usually when one is doped up on cold medicine or hung over from too much partying.  Since he is fairly well doped at night as I save all his “may cause dizziness” medications (and there are several) for right before bedtime, it would have been understandable.  And due to his current physical condition, partying like a rock star would include things like heading to The Wal-Mart without his scooter or walking outside to check the mail more than once a day.

I thought it was funny that he had made an error but I very quickly swallowed that giggle when he threw a look my way that I haven’t seen since my Southern Baptist mother found out I voted pro-choice back in college.  When I reminded him that the time was going to change again on Saturday night, he asked me, “You like messin’ with me?”  When I assured him it was not a ruse to confuse him, he told me, “If you don’t mind, I’ll ask somebody who didn’t eat hippie hamburger what time it is tomorrow.”

He awoke Sunday morning at a bright and early 4:00 AM.  Even though I had changed all the clocks in the house, he was using his watch which he had refused to allow me to change.  His clippity-clopping on his way to the kitchen to make the coffee was bad enough but he decided to fry, yes fry, a steak for breakfast and the ensuing noise was enough to wake the dead, myself included. 

We have discussed before how I cannot keep up with his swirling vortex of filth and funk.  In order to keep some semblance of cleanliness in my home without losing my sanity, I hired a service to come in every other weekend to clean.  And while they are the nicest people, I feel odd sitting there whilst they are there so I decided that we would venture to the outlet mall as they were having a clearance sale at my favorite shop (Robert Talbott) and Daddy was lured by the promise of lunch at Hometown Buffet.

When I got into his truck, which we were forced to take because he refuses to get into my car which he says is too fancy.  It’s a Hyundai Sonata.  And while I think it looks much more expensive than it is, it is still a Hyundai Sonata.  When I asked him to define fancy, he said, “It’s too nice to fart in.”  I would like to think that I am too nice to fart near, but when I posited that question, I was met with a resounding “No”.  Well I’m assuming it was a no; there wasn’t actually a word offered.

So, we pile into the grapes of wrath truck and head toward Gilroy, Garlic Capital of the World.   When I got in I noticed there was a grape tomato on the floorboard of the driver’s side.  As my Daddy had driven himself to his doctor’s appointments on Wednesday, he had stopped by the farmer’s market on campus.  Apparently he had purchased tommy-toes, as he pronounces them, and left one behind.  I laughed and put it in the drink holder of the console, intending to throw it in the trash once we reached our destination.

When we arrived and got out of the truck, I noticed him chewing something.  When I asked what it was he said, “My tommy-toe.  Why?”  Being used to things like that at this point, I just said “alright” and continued on my quest for discounted designer ties.  Inside the store, I searched for fabulous things while he wandered around, loudly excoriating any company that would charge so much for “somethin’ that’s not even clothes”, laying down on their couch, using their Employees Only restroom and making an un-PC reference to people of Hispanic origin having used my trouser seat as a domicile when explaining to the salespeople why I chose to not purchase the chinos I had tried on.  I think the deep discounts they offered were to hasten our exit especially when I told them I thought the loud older gentleman might be homeless and I couldn’t figure out why he was following me around.

After an interesting lunch at the buffet, which he informed me was less-than-enjoyable due to the large number of people also there, including thousands of children.  Okay, maybe not thousands, but when you get a dining room with a maximum capacity of 150 and a full 100 of those are children hopped up on orange ice cream and cotton candy, it can seem like you are trapped on Bourbon Street at midnight on New Year’s.  Not that I would know anything about that. 

I concurred with his discomfort and understood when he was only able to polish off 3 plates (including one of just ham that he pronounced "I've had better") before he was forced, FORCED, to flee to the confines of his truck.  Well, flee in the sense that he walked as fast as he could on feet that work correctly only about every third step.

When we were driving home he asked who I was voting for on Tuesday.  As I voted by mail two weeks ago, I told him that I wasn’t sure, just to avoid that discussion, but wondered who he would vote for, were he registered to vote in California, which he is not.  When he told me that he would pick either Charles Bronson (who is dead) or Rick from “Pawn Stars”, I felt somewhat happy he isn’t going to cast his vote.  Although, a lot of pro-Romney people say we need a businessman in charge and if making a living running a pawn shop isn’t a sign of a business-minded person, I don’t know what is.  So, if you don’t like Obama but aren’t really jazzed about Romney either, you could just choose ‘Pawn Stars’ for President!

Would it really be any worse?  And that is all I’m saying.