A Dickens of a Christmas Tale

And so Mr. Scrooge kept Christmas in his heart all year long. In fact he kept so much of it that one day while waddling out of Al’s Bakery & Diabetic Supplies with a double whopper chocolate éclair he clutched his chest, uttered the words “trans fats” and dropped dead on the sidewalk.

People had come to love Scrooge and when word got out of his demise the whole city turned out to mourn. Even the governor showed up and told people how good a friend Scrooge had been to the poor and disadvantaged and not to forget elections were coming up soon and the state needed a good leader such as the governor himself. He also said that he, the governor, never had five mistresses. Then he flew away on an airplane.

Bob Cratchit smiled to himself. He and Scrooge had never seen eye to eye with the handouts Scrooge was giving to the homeless and the orphans. Bob was relieved to not have the old geezer barking everyday about how they ought to be doing more for the poor.

The real money was in politics.

Bob took the company out of accounting, went into municipal renovation and became Subsidized Solutions, Inc. You took a boatload of public money, gutted old dilapidated downtowns, put in new streets, spacious sidewalks and apartments with balconies featuring hot tubs. You held parades every afternoon with elephants and clowns and colorful floats featuring cartoon and fairy tale personalities. At night there was always a fireworks display. Soon empty shops were filled with niche businesses that might sell curtains and table clothes made from snowy owl feathers or lady’s shoes made from recycled pencil erasers. It caught on and cities throughout the nation began spending millions to renovate. Riding this wave all the way to the bank was Mr. Bob Cratchit until the EPA took him to U.S. District court for using toxic asphalt traced back to Chernobyl. The streets glowed at night.

“I’m innocent.” said Bob.

The court disagreed and gave him 8 years without parole in the federal pokey.

Meanwhile Tiny Tim lost the goody two shoes image. He’d become a lumbering hulk, shaved his head and had a barb wire tattoo around his neck. He formed a band, The Broken Legs, changed his name to T&T and wrote songs like “Text U2!” and a ballad called “Swallowed Pills”. He played Holiday Inn lounges on the Gulf coast and never had a top selling hit but did appear once on the Jerry Springer show, where just before a soup commercial he physically attacked his third cousin for dating his uncle’s niece. Neither girl was hurt.

Tim slowly slid down the slope of dark depression, started sniffing powdered goose down and ended up in rehab. It was there his life turned around.
While walking to a support meeting he came upon a hydrangea bush that suddenly burst into flames and began to burn, but the bush wasn’t harmed. He heard a voice say “You’re too self-centered. It’s not always about you so drop the self-pity, kiddo, and count your blessings. Love you. Now go get a bucket of water, quick.”

So Tim took his old name back and now he works for a Christian newspaper and writes a column called “Blessings From Above”. He also had a bestselling book titled “Hey God, thanks.” He loves the holidays and spends them with his wife, son and two daughters on their ranch in Colorado. His wife, Carol, says Tim is a wonderful father, cooks a great goose and on Christmas day you can hear him humming “Silent Night” all the day long.

A guide to the greatest Christmas ever!

Some years ago we managed to get a big crowd together for Christmas. The Visigoths came and so did the Huns along with a small tribe of half-crazed savages who hunkered at the table drinking from goblets, eating meat with their bare hands, belching, whooping and then they started using catapults. We were scrapping food off the ceiling fans for weeks.

As I was hosing down the dining room in a fully sealed contamination suit I figured there had to be a better way to celebrate Christmas.

Those ladies magazines that tell you how to decorate the windows with sparrow feathers and make center pieces out of dryer lint in ten minutes---they leave out some basics and I, as a professional organizer of words and conveyor of common sense, am here to give you some pointers for a really enjoyable Christmas.

Remember, the dinner is small potatoes. Take innovation out to the woods, kill it and bury it deep—it’s not worth the stress and heartache. That pheasant flambé with Noel bouillabaisse and brandy soaked caviar soufflés---Honey babe, that’s just a recipe for disaster. Dish out some spuds, deli rolls, stir-fried veggies, lay the turkey on a platter, open a can of cranberry sauce and say grace. Use only commercially baked pies. Christmas dinner should stay traditional like Coca-Cola, the less you tamper with it the better.

The guest list can make or break Christmas dinner. Never invite people similar to yourself—intelligent, smart, considerate, moisturized, lotion scented and modest. It’s like forming a symphony where everybody plays only one note. Invite people you dread to see—a cousin who sees the Virgin Mary in his mash potatoes, a vegan that believes she’s actually a reincarnated Holstein and Uncle Max who drones on about his latest colonoscopy. You want variety.

Make everybody a ringer. You welcome each guest with a handshake and whisper in their ear “Thank goodness you came. You’re the only one here with personality and humor. Everybody else is embalmed. Yuk it up some, please. Help me make this happen.”

Next you need some staged drama. Many a Christmas comes unraveled after the turkey is eaten. Conversation dies down because the body is packed with bird parts and people get drowsy. Create some discord to prevent massive REM stage sleep. A little trick I sometimes use is to suddenly throw my napkin down and say in a trembling voice, “Nobody in this family cares about me! When you’re gifted you’re different. I’ve never been accepted.” Then sob, leap up from the table and lock yourself in the bathroom leaving everybody to stare at their plates and feel guilty.

Okay, you’ve got momentum so go for a spectacular ending. You’re out of the bathroom now and everybody’s up giving you consoling hugs and telling you they love you. “I don’t know what got into me,” you say,” Please forgive me.” And of course they do. Then Uncle Max tells everybody to look out the window, it’s snowing and the front yard is full of carolers. You hear the soft sound of “The First Noel” and see Jimmy Stewart holding hands with Cinderella. Burl Ives is standing between a little drummer boy and the Grinch. Bing Crosby, Bob Hope and Perry Como are there and all the Munchkins from Oz are singing backup. At that moment Santa makes a low pass over the yard in his sleigh, waves at you and into your hand drops a winning lottery ticket.

Can Christmas really be this great? Sure it can Lamb Chop, just follow these pointers click your heels and believe. Merry Christmas!

Sometimes you have to leave home to find yourself

I grew up on a farm in eastern North Carolina and one Friday night when I was nine years old I walked past my father sitting in his recliner and he spoke into a newspaper and said, “We’re going into hog business. Tomorrow.” My dreams of being an astronaut were put on hold.

So we built pens, shelters and a farrowing house (a hog birthing and daycare center). I learned to pour concrete and dig post holes and do it all in ninety degree heat. Once that was done and all the electric fences were constructed we filled the place up with hogs. I also learned that even if your cousin Randy dares you, never urinate on a charged electric fence— you speak in tongues and flop around on the ground like a fish. When you get back up you don’t walk right.

Now the idea of hog business is to make lots of little hogs (pigs), raise them up, sell them, complain about the low price of pork, grumble about the bank and then do it all over again. My father was constantly going to the poor house in a new truck.

I gave names to some of my favorites-- Porkchop, Oscar Mayer and one particular lady hog I named Lou.

One day Lou put on some mascara and lip gloss, lit up a cigarette and walked seductively by a group of men hogs. Most of those guys had an operation when they were young so they ignored Lou and just stood around sipping wine spritzers and discussing mutual funds. But one never had the operation, a 400 pound red Duroc boar who was propped against a fence post smoking a Pall Mall and when he saw Lou he said “Hi doll face” and they went off together to a cheap wire pen that charged by the hour and they didn’t come out until late evening. My father explained that a miracle of life would come later.

And sure enough it did. A little over three months later on a Saturday the first wet sacks of life began to appear. My father and I watched the wonder of birth.

But as it turned out Lou wasn’t the maternal type. She seemed to regard her new family with disdain. She’d just lie there staring straight ahead while ten little squealing pigs used her as a milk hose. Later I’d come by to check on her and she’d be pushing against the door with her snout. Lou wanted out of the deal. I remember when I’d check to see that the gate was locked she’d look at me with small accusing eyes as though to say “ One day, maybe a week, maybe a year, but one day I’m going to have a life. I’ll go away and leave these little Wonders for you to take care of, Boss Man. See how you like it then.” Lou was restless and wanted to leave the farm.

I knew how she felt. Almost twenty six years ago today I bolted out the gate with a packed suitcase and never looked back. Sometimes you have to leave one place in order to find yourself in the next. Ever since moving to the city I’ve come to know exactly who I am. Ich bin ien Farm Boy.

Some days I stop the car, jump a ditch and stroll through open fields and gaze at livestock. Life is good with a breeze on your face, the sun to your back and plowed earth beneath your feet….just watch out for electric fences. When I see one I laugh and walk funny.

The day my barber left town

When I was young and moody any change was good but when you get on the far end of fifty it seems nothing changes for the better nor does it completely heal and so you grieve for the first leaf that falls in autumn and wince when your tennis elbow flares up. So I went to my medical specialist---together we’re putting his kids through college---- pointed to my offending elbow and he injected my arm with steroids and I thanked him. No problemo.

Having mended my wing and contributed to higher education I walked outside into a warm sunny day with clear blue skies which naturally put me the mood for a haircut.
But my barber, Jim, had left town for two weeks. I rode around the city hoping, looking, and slowing down to peer at store fronts that might contain a barber. Finally I found myself in a mall standing in front of a hair salon that said “Professional Hairstylist. Walk-ins Welcome” so I walked in.

Everything was black and white. The floor was black tile and the chairs were black too. The walls were white with big mirrors and there were posters of men and women looking insulted and anemic dressed in black leather with rows of rings in their ears and their thumbs jammed into the front pockets of their jeans. A mobile was suspended from the ceiling made of objects like a tennis ball (black), a spoon (white) and a plastic pair of scissors (black). The magazines had themes about being All Woman--- even the men’s magazines were about that.

A young lady appeared from out of nowhere wearing black leather and white ear rings with black and white streaked hair ---I realized she had been standing in front of me, camouflaged—and said her name was Star and asked me how I was doing. I said I was fine. She appeared to be eighteen but at my age half the population looks eighteen.

“Dja know whatcha want?” she asked chewing and snapping some gum.
I wanted to say “my normal” but I didn’t think Star knew “normal” so I told her just a trim and I shrugged as though this wasn’t a big deal. I’m Baptist, beauty is not what we’re about--- it’s your soul that’s important, that and stories about Hell and being humble.

“First time here?” ( Snap!) She said. I replied yes which completely satisfied her curiosity about me. She began to cut and snip. In ten minutes she removed the black and white zebra patterned smock, turned me to face the mirror and asked “Howszat?” (Snap!)

I looked and saw an aging man whose hair was chopped and spiked-- like it was reacting to low voltage. But I was raised to always be polite so I told her it was fine, thank you very much, paid her and left. If this was a trim then my rear end was a keyboard.

I walked through the mall anticipating to see women swoon and pamphlets thrust at me advertising intervention programs. I found an old NC State baseball cap in my truck and pulled it down tight on my head.

I got home angry and full of regrets about what I should have said, like the way most people get thirty minutes after something happens.

My wife was stirring a pot of spaghetti sauce when I walked in and when she saw me take off my cap she put the big spoon down and said “Well, look at you.”

“Yea?” I growled.

“Yes, you’ve got the most beautiful blue eyes. Come here sailor.”

Thanksgiving is about tradition, God help us

A pre-Thanksgiving phone call:

Adult son: But mother—

Mother: No. I want your family to be happy and do what you really want to do. If you don’t want to come over for a Thanksgiving meal, I understand---I don’t want anyone to feel they have to come on my account—

Adult son: But Mother, we thought just this once Deb would cook the turkey and you ----

Mother: I would rather spend Thanksgiving alone than with people who feel forced to sit at my table---the one your father ate at for 58 years.

Adult son: Mother, all I said was---

Mother: I heard you. I would rather sit here alone—on my couch— and eat a frozen turkey dinner than be with people who don’t want to be with me.

Adult son: Oh, Mother!

Mother: You know, I should just sell the house-- make everybody happy, give the money to the church and move into the Golden Gate retirement home then my children won’t have to take time out of their busy schedule----.

Adult son (voice catching in his throat): Now please Mother, I didn’t mean---

Mother: I’ll just go to The Home and make some real friends. You won’t be bothered by me anymore. I’ll be fine Honey. Really.

Adult son (clutching phone receiver, lying on the floor in a fetal position, sobbing): Momma----Mommy-----

Mother: When you come bring some bread. I’m out and I know you love my stuffing.

___________________________

And this is why an entire generation of young women cannot cook a turkey.


Every year new wives and daughters try to lift the burden of holiday cooking from the shoulders of our mothers and grandmothers only to be treated like a potted plant ( “Sweetheart, you just stand there in case I need something”).

Less you consider breaking with tradition you are reminded of your cousin Lindsey. She went rogue in ’98 when to her husband’ dismay she decided to bake the turkey herself. She studied books on the culinary preparation of turkey, took an on-line turkey baking course and even joined a Tuesday night support group. She prepared the turkey, set the oven to 350 degrees and let the bird cooked for two and half hours per instructions. No one knows what happened--- during it’s life maybe the bird snorted PCB’s or ate Teflon, who knows--- but it came out looking like a mummified Egyptian bird, it’s baked wings spread as though it had been terrorized at the moment of death. It would have taken the Jaws of Life to cut off a drumstick.

The mother-in-law retired to the living room while Italian music played in the background and the family took turns bowing and kissing the top of her right hand as Lindsey watched alone from a smoky kitchen. An In-law realized Lindsey was watching and quickly closed the door on this view of the family scene. Now Lindsey lives alone under a restraining order and has a very bad vermouth problem.

But still you want to contribute so you offer to bring a simple pie, but you may be walking into a mine field. The crust could come out burnt or soggy. Do you own a rolling pin? Is your marriage up to this? Suppose the filling tastes like dead hamsters?

For days you ponder the wisdom of baking a pie. You pray about this and then one night while flossing your teeth God sends you a vision of a Food Lion supermarket with its wonderful selection of pies-- in the frozen section.

You rinse your mouth and smile. Everything is going to be okay.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Draw on your ear and sing like a Viking

Recently my mind took a short vacation and went to Cancun, or Myrtle Beach or somewhere and left me sitting in Starbuck’s reading a story I had written on a napkin. The top of my ear began to itch and I absent mindedly scratched it with a ball point pen. A minute later I realized I had drawn all over my ear and cheek. A quick glance into a nearby mirror showed I had sketched a rough draft of South America---or maybe my digestive system and a parrot.

I felt my face turn red and I noticed an attractive woman walking my way. She stopped, placed a clean napkin on the table and said, “I’ve never seen anybody do that before. Never.” And she didn’t mean it as a compliment. The very next day I slipped off a curb and with arms waving in the air I over compensated and crashed backwards onto the asphalt. My first thought was that I could do that even better with a banana peel and some vaudeville music. A passing lady stopped, looked down at me and just as her mother had taught her regarding people lying in public streets she asked “Are you alright?” “Yes,” I said. “I’m okay. Thank you very much”.

And I am okay too, really. The pen and ear incident was due to inattention and so was the ungraceful fall but once winter sets in and autumn is done with all its drama, emotional upheavals and lost opportunities to lose weight before the holidays and we start wearing heavy coats and anticipate the first snow--- then we will recover our sense of balance and we’ll focus on survival instead of scribbling on ourselves and falling about.

I know people who are hoping for some more clear 70 degree Saturdays for leaf-raking but it’s not going to happen. God has moved on. Most of us have raked our yards and are pumped up about the coming snows. We’re like a chorus of Nordic villagers coming on stage in an opera at the end of Act I dressed in thick bear skin coats with a backdrop of blowing snow and Beigarth the Viking wearing a furry cap with horns has captured the beautiful Princess and with sword raised vows to make her love him, and we all sing “The cold makes us strong and brave! The winter winds strengthen our hearts and make us grateful for Beef Wellington with a light salad for we know proper diet is the secret of happiness. Hurrah!” Cue the curtain.

As a Baptist I grow suspicious of spontaneous joy and tend to favor adversity and mild depression---that’s just how I roll. Winter keeps me focused on decongestants and shoveling snow. When you’re an old guy passing through heart attack country you pick up a snow shovel with trepidation, then you take a deep breath and attack the driveway with the fatal heroism of Old Yeller. Suddenly you feel closer to God. Really close.

Meanwhile the lazy non-leaf-rakers will see their yards ruined due to fungus that grows under the leaves and secrete poisons into the soil. Their home will decrease in value and the bank will foreclose and the family will move south to work in the sugar cane fields and their cars will sit on cinder blocks and their wives will be ravished by cruel land owners who wear suspenders over dirty undershirts. Those folks will wish a thousand times they had resisted autumn’s drama and buckled down and raked their leaves like the good neighbors did.

Now, what was I talking about? Oh yea, Cancun.

One man's pornography is another man's home

I was sitting in the Milwaukee airport when I found a piece of paper in my pocket, a Bible verse from Sunday school. It was Ecclesiastes 5:12 “The sleep of a laboring man [is] sweet, whether he eat little or much: but the abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep.” which explains why over 80 million Americans get less than six hours of the required eight hours sleep. Americans are wealthy by the world’s standards and according to some statistics we each have at least 1.3 houses, two cars and cholesterol levels high enough to start a grease fire.

And now the housing market has tanked, health care costs are daunting, oil prices are rising and we wonder how long before the Chinese cut off our credit. You lie in bed at night with the covers pulled up to your chin, your eyes wide open wondering if you should learn to speak Mandarin.

Sitting beside me waiting for the boarding call was a gentleman looking at real estate ads in a newspaper. He was holding up a full page advertisement for a $12.5M home and appeared to be ogling it. Aware I was watching him he turned and said “I’m in real estate. From Chicago.” He grinned, “This is like pornography to me!” You smile and quietly move to another row of seats.

I was raised in Greenville, NC in a $20K 3BR, 1B ranch style house with one large picture window that looked directly into the picture window of the neighbors across the street. But I saw beyond that--- all the way to New York City where I imagined I use to live with my real parents, Charles and Adelle Jacquard, famous actors from France who were involved in a train accident that left them with amnesia and not knowing who I was they gave me up for adoption to a group of Baptists. I would imagine my early years in Manhattan playing in my cathedral ceiling bedroom and my sophisticated celebrity mother rushing in wearing a black formal dress, a red feather boa around her neck holding a martini glass in one hand saying “Bonjour, mon cher!”

But the Baptist family I grew up with shunned elegance. There were peanuts, small toys and loose change beneath the couch cushions and clothes scattered about the house. If the door bell rang announcing guests, we exploded off the couch, everyone picked up debris, hurled it into the bedrooms and we shoved the dog out the back door.

I lived afraid that people may realize we lacked sophistication and so I never got close to anyone. I was drawn to blues singers and gypsies, always moving about, constantly looking over my shoulder. It was a lonely life. I wished to be wealthy.
But one day I realized I no longer yearned for a $14.8 M Cape Cod mansion with 6BR, 7B, 2LR, Guest House and a scenic ocean view. Instead I was a father buying Pokémon cards and attending PTA meetings.

Now I live in a house with 1WIFE, 3BR, 2B and 1DOG.
My cell phone rings. It’s my wife and she says “Hi, miss you. What time will you be home?”

What a wonderful question.

To be missed and longed for---God’s gift to both rich and poor—like cold water or flirting.

The humble home proper—what a blessing. Without it life would be nomadic and you would be nowhere at any point in time, neither “gone” nor “returning”.

But right now I’m 30,000 feet in the air thinking about my recliner, sweet kisses and a pampered dog. I’ll be home soon. Bonjour, mon cheri!

Each and every leaf is a wonder

I am headed north on Interstate 77 crossing a bridge after having eaten grilled shrimp at a lakeside café on Lake Norman. I’m enjoying a gorgeous Indian summer day which makes an old Baptist like me nervous. We fear temptation and spontaneity. I’ve a sudden urge to abandon all obligations and live in a commune by the lake whose members worship blue skies and forbid the use of clocks.

I have a mountain of work. My city job demands 7/24 hours of my time and by some misfire of my DNA I also write a weekly newspaper column and short stories which all demands an equal amount of effort. So I don’t walk on beaches or sun bath looking up into the sky which right now is a beautiful Carolina blue. You don’t have to gaze at it long to know there is a God.

My gaze returns back to the interstate and I realize I see rear red lights that are not moving--- but I am. I apply the brakes. I am annoyed at this sudden delay.
About a hundred feet ahead of me are blue lights and one of the northbound lanes is closed. There is an eighteen wheeler lying on its side in the median and a crumpled small car, both doors open and bent, nearby.
A body lies covered in a white sheet.

Traffic crawls along and I come upon a scene of highway patrolmen in their black and grey uniforms and fire control people in bulky dark suits with bright reflector stripes on them. A small group of patrolmen move between me and the scene and the covered body is blocked from view. I see an officer talking, pointing to the ground, gathering evidence. I’m no longer annoyed but feel somehow chastened and I am careful to look straight ahead and drive slow.

A Carolina blue sky over Lake Norman and boats are pulling skiers, young women in bathing suits walk along narrow beaches, joggers are out and a kingfisher plunges into the water and arises with a small fish. Today you’ve seen sudden death and now life immediately becomes a fragile lovely thing. You roll down the windows and breathe in the fresh air blowing from the lake and realize you’ve never seen trees and leaves like you do now. Each individual leaf is a wonder.

My home is tucked away in eastern Statesville and I arrive to a house that somehow looks different from when I left this morning. I live here. That takes on a whole new meaning now.

I walk through the house and out into my fenced back yard, I just want to stand outside and appreciate everything---- God, please help me be thankful— and suddenly I’m hit from behind by eighty pounds of happy boxer. For nine years she’s greeted me almost every day wanting to play but I usually just pet her head, say a nice word and keep walking.

But today I face her and go into a crouched position. She’s momentarily shocked, she stares, her tongue lolls sideways. Her expression says “What’s this? The chubby guy never wanted to play before.”

Then she grabs an old ball and I chase her around the yard. In thirty seven seconds we both collapse gasping for breath—I’m laughing and scratch her ears and look at her grizzled old face now bleached white by age. I hug her and we both roll over in the grass.

The news said the truck drivers name was Richard. They probably called him Rick. Sorry you couldn’t be here to play, Rick. I’m so sorry you had to leave

Columnist slashes costs, maintains quality of writing

Economic uncertainties have compelled me to take a hard look at the revenue I make from this column which revealed I am actually earning a mere pittance of the $3.7 million that was projected for 2011. Horrors! Therefore to slash costs there will be a 90 percent reduction in the truth, we’ll outsource editing (China) and no more spell check. I appreciate your patience during this tranzition/transition (sp?) and apologize in advance for any confusion.

They call this economic disaster an upset which is a mild term for an event so traumatic that last Tuesday while in Charlotte it moved a man to approach me in a manner that implied he had a revolver in his pocket.

There was a time I wanted to live in Charlotte, I thought it reflected sophistication to live in a big city until I realized that finding a parking space was like meeting your ex-wife at a gun show—real iffy and stressful. The man was waiting behind the 34 inch expandable waist section as I was shopping for blue jeans at a Wal-Mart. I thought the jeans made me look paunchy. I wanted a slim look and was thinking maybe I should cut out pasta or go organic or maybe plunge into a vegan life style. But then carrots don’t agree with me. And I hate cauliflower.

Anyway, this guy with a mousy face and gray ponytail appears out of a rack of denim and says, “Mister, your column saved my marriage. Beth almost left me when they sent my job to China, the bank repossessed our house, I had a bout with gum disease and now I’m facing a prison term for icing my banker. But every Sunday we read your column and we feel better about ourselves. You’re very talented and could you hand over a ten so I can buy my little girl an ice cream cone with sprinkles?”

Suddenly I had a memory. I shot a man in Reno just to see him die. He was a mousy faced publisher with a ponytail. I had written the perfect American novel and he said if we’d glue it together it would make the perfect American paper weight. His name was Bernie and he stayed tipsy on a drink he called the Seizure, which was made of gin, whiskey and vermouth and he kept company with a dark haired floozy in a tight black dress and red lipstick named Frankie who said “Mr. Bartender” a lot. Later I found she was a big fan of my writing.

So the man appeared to be fidgeting with a gun in his pocket brooding over the raw deal life had handed him. I gave him a ten and then he---wait, did I say Charlotte? No, I was in Miami and this was a Thursday—not Tuesday, my column is due on Friday—I got confused because I was thinking of reducing my writing time---ten minutes to write this column instead of the usual four hours (no kidding).

Why was I in Miami? That’s what I really wanted to tell you about. As the column goes through a transition I’ll need rest so I sent myself to Miami for a vacation. Is that cool or what?

So then Mr. Ponytail says, “I like your stories” and shuffled away. Right then I resolved to maintain my high standards of writing—it seems to bless people. I’ve also decided to remain humble.

And that my friend is what will get us through this economic mess---a work ethic and being true to yourself. So stay fokused-phocused---focused (sp?).

Conspiracies lead to barbeque and reconciliation

One morning you finish your Danish, consider reaching for another but instead you Google around for government conspiracies that seek to block your pursuit of life, liberty and happiness.

And suddenly it dawns on you---what about Daylight Savings time? What gives the government the right to tell you when the sun comes up or down? It’s the King’s tyranny all over again.

So you join the Peoples Movement for Sunlight (PMS) – a volatile angry bunch. You go to meetings. You make banners. You begin to hang out with women who wear lots of turquoise jewelry and shapeless cotton dresses and aged men with grey hair in braided rattails and you consider learning to play the sitar. You get your fighting orders from coded weather reports aired between 7:00 and 7:09 each morning on the Billy Buck Country Legends radio show.

Before all this you were worried about your bobble-head novelty store and the declining sales of life-size bobble head figures of rock stars but that’s all gone now thanks to Obama’s handouts to big business-- your main competitor was a large corporation in Boise Idaho-- and now you’ve lost the house on Lake Norman and the chalet at Jackson Hole Wyoming.

Janet, tired of your sudden outbursts of sobbing, took the kids to Chicago and you moved into a studio apartment downtown so now you have plenty of time to write scathing letters to the editor and attend PMS rallies and go to the shooting range with your AK-47 to practice for the pending revolution.

You use to be a church going Republican, a Rotarian, a card carrying Food Lion shopper, an easy going laid back kind of guy but no more. You’ve been roused from a deep mental slumber after a lifetime of apathy which, now you know, was induced by food coloring approved by the US Dept. of Agriculture designed to make you lethargic and docile and so now you eat only organic vegetables ordered on-line from Peru. Now you are alert and aware of other social issues and you can remember birthdays and anniversaries.

Your awareness compels you to be active in other causes and you start wearing sandals. You’re now against the forty hour work week, fluoride, internet pop-ups and the Charlotte Observer.

You don’t necessarily agree with the right wing Sunlighters that believe there should be strict rules based on scripture as to when the sun comes up or with the left wingers that believe the government uses airport body scans to lower melatonin levels in your body. It doesn’t matter. These differences disappear within the united effort of battling a Washington that attempts to regulate even the sun and is indifferent to the needs of bobble-head shop owners.

Then “The View” TV talk show does a story on the PMS movement (Whoopi Goldberg endorsed it) and so does NBC news. All the Sunlighters except you are delighted. Sarah Palin jumps in and says she’s been there, done that, got the T-shirt and claims we should put the sun back into the hands of God. Chairmen of both the Republican and Democrat parties begin to meet with PMS leaders for breakfast where they order $57 muffins.

You realize the movement has now tilted and is leaning towards Politics as Usual (PU). It’s sad.

You must choose---remain on the front lines and be a pawn or take that job you were offered cooking pork barbeque down at the Proud Pig diner. Call you crazy---but you chose the Pig.

Now you chop pork, joke with the customers and Janet called during lunch---she misses you and she wants to talk.

A day alone does not go as planned

Friday evening, my wife leaves town and suddenly I had the house to myself for the weekend. I ordered pizza and made big plans but plans do not always go the way we hope.

Saturday morning I awoke at my usual 5:30 a.m. but decided to sleep late. I changed position five times and looked at the clock-- it was 5:34 a.m. I got up.

I showered with the bathroom door open and sang “Heartbreak Hotel” Elvis style, toweled off and shimmied, nude and glossy white, to the bedroom. The dog was coming down the hall, saw me and tried to hurl herself out of a nearby window.

For breakfast I decided to cook a coronary occlusion—four eggs (count’em-- four fried in grease), eight pieces of bacon and three slices of white toast buried under a mound of grape jelly. The coffee was so strong it I wanted to wear a tuxedo and sing tenor like Pavarotti did.

The house needed cleaning so I loaded some cd’s, turned up the volume and danced to “Jenny Jenny” while pushing the old upright Hoover. Later the kitchen broom handle served as a stage microphone and I sang into it while I accompanied Neil Diamond in “Sweet Caroline”. We got a standing ovation from thousands of dust motes and so Neil and I did “Forever in Blue Jeans” complete with choreographed gyrations with my hips.

I declared an end to house work and lay down on the couch to read. I had just gotten comfortable, words were blurring-- a nap was in the making when suddenly the doorbell rang. It was a pair of Jehovah Witness. I was polite, they left and I went back to the couch. I was getting pretty comfortable again when the phone rang. My mother was calling to see if I was relaxing?

Lunch was cheese with a glass of home-made wine given to me by a friend. I sat out on our deck and watched cardinals and finches. I took a tentative sip---the wine tasted like cod-liver oil with grease solvent.

Later back inside I heard the boxer scratching to come in and so I opened the door. Apparently she had been standing in some mud and before I could stop her there were brown paw prints on the just-mopped kitchen floor and then there were a billion paw prints on the living room carpet. With a sigh I got out the Hoover and mop but no Neil Diamond.

By mid-afternoon I was finished with cleaning and decided to go for a ride in the country on my motorcycle. BMW (Beemer) motorcycles are very dependable but today mine refused to start. This has never happened before. Where to look?

Two hours later a dirty terminal connection was found suspect. I used some of the wine to clean the grease off the terminal. The Beemer cranked right up but now it was too late for a ride. I put the jar of wine on a shelf in the shop.

For dinner I had bought the ingredients for a recipe I wanted to try and with Pachelbel’s Canon in D Major playing in the background I made Moroccan Shrimp with Tomato Relish. It was good--I did Emeril Lagasse proud-- and ate downstairs while watching CNN. Afterwards I cued up “Band of Brothers” on the DVD but fell asleep and awoke hours later just as Easy Company was told World War II was over.

Some days things just don’t go as planned but there are upsides. If you need some grease cleaner call me—I have a whole jar of it in the shop.

The world needs more Southern Gentlemen

Some people have an uncontrollable need to be first and manners usually get trampled in the process as demonstrated by a stocky black haired lady in the Milwaukee airport recently who cut in front of me at the boarding gate. She was a practiced Line Cutter, real smooth as she planted her left foot in front of my right foot, lunged forward and without any apology whatsoever cut me off. I had to stop suddenly which caused the gentleman behind me to accidently nuzzle the back of my neck. Awkward.

And there was no prize at all for being first.

Like a salmon leaping upstream she maneuvered and jostled around people who got in her way all to sit on an airplane for three hours in a very small seat--- and from the size of her rear dorsal fin it was going to be a very tight squeeze.

There was a time when I would have wanted to punch her in the nose, pull her hair out and give her a lecture on manners, but not now. Those days are long gone. You can step on my blue suede shoes Big Momma just don’t hack into my computer, steal my iPad or hurt my babies.

I was raised in the south by Buddy and Doris Hudson, two people who believed in the Bible, fried food and good manners. Being a Democrat was optional but highly encouraged.

Mother created a desire for politeness by using a Belk-Tyler yard stick for spankings. The woman was like a magician--- the stick would suddenly appear out of thin air whenever a “polite manner” was temporarily forgotten. We used “Thank you”, “yes m‘am” and “no m‘am” like shields.

In the south bad manners are considered boorish. We are taught to hold the door open for those behind us. We give the nod to a stranger if it’s a tie for who arrived first at the counter in the auto parts store.

Sometimes we may get very enthusiastic about manners. You open the door and let someone else be the first to step out on the ice covered sidewalk. Now flat on their back looking up surprised, you assist them to their feet while repeating the southern mantra, “Bless your heart”. Again, it’s about being polite.

The world needs more southern gentlemen. Without us who will help get your car off the cinder blocks, be governor of Mississippi or sustain the demand for chrome?

Who’s going to take care of old dogs with rheumy eyes and motor oil on the tops of their heads, repair long orange drop cords with black electrical tape and draw the line at canned biscuits? I’m just asking.

Southern men pay taxes, fly airplanes, build large buildings, fight in wars, change tires, write songs, tithe at church, honor our parents, send email, give blood, author books and we’ll even help dig post holes.

Southern gentlemen are not ashamed of God or to teach their children manners and we don’t apologize for it.

But it’s painful to see others inch ahead of you in a promotion, receive a windfall inheritance, or always get their deer the first day of every season. And yet First Place is not always the best seat in the house. Our heavenly Father says the race is not always to the swift or the battle to the strong.

First Place can be elusive, even fickle, and it’s not always satisfactory when you get there so let the lady jump ahead. You be polite, Sugar Cakes, and allow grace, faith, hope and love to find you the perfect seat.

For succes, read a newspaper

I was sitting in Starbucks on Broad Street and observed that young people lack the style and finesse for success---they look as if they were all stamped out of sheet metal. They sit slump shouldered and zombie-like staring at lap-top screens--- held captive for hours by websites like YouTube, Twitter and other Places of the Bored. A young man sits glassy eyed staring at a video of a chipmunk doing the Electric Slide.

Such a pity. No one has ever taken the time to show them that proper use of a newspaper is a one very important key to success. Forget dribble about the importance of the printed page in history---a newspaper, my children, is a statement of sophistication and style. A must have accessory.

You can lean against the corner of a building with it or sit with your Rainbow sandals resting on your desk – a newspaper allows you to demonstrate your attitude on life---it implies Control.

You open a newspaper with a flourish (such confidence!) while a quick snap of the wrists forces the journal upright and straight. You are in command, captain of your ship and now others know it. Your eyes take in the news of the world with all it’s calamities and joys. Later you finish, fold the paper in half, tuck it under your arm and arise. You have assessed the world, you will now saunter forth and engage in profitable industry. Women just love that sort of thing.

John Wayne, Clark Gable, Gregory Peck, all the Class Acts used the newspaper to show command and charisma. Sipping a latte while looking at the Facebook profile of Debbie from Indiana, 28, (“Through sorrow we find joy”) and her parakeet Mr. Feathers is not an image of success.

But a reader holding a newspaper is an executive, a decision maker, a soon-to-be-billionaire. The newspaper gives depth to your identity, like holding a trumpet did for Louis Armstrong.

Follow these simple rules and prepare to embrace success:
1.Procrastinate the opening of a newspaper. Do not rush it. Scrutinize the fresh unread pages and headlines as you would a Picasso or your phone bill. Remember you’re the one holding knowledge---- everybody else is reading what their friends had for breakfast.

2.For an international image enter the coffee shop with at least three newspapers tucked under your arm---act a bit hurried. You’ll be noticed by the herd. They’ll prick up their ears and twitch their noses. Now you’re the one with the big pair of antlers. A young man with three newspapers is probably a dot com billionaire and a fiftyish person in mismatched clothing and dark glasses may be a movie star (they can’t read enough about themselves).

3.Once you begin to read, never look up or become distracted--- you be the one in control— let others jump at imagined noises.

4.Take your pen out and circle something with exaggerated effort. This creates mystery— women nearby fretting with their mocha frappuccinos may swoon.

5.When you’re through reading close the paper loudly and toss it aside in an arrogant motion of dismissal. Now you have knowledge—your stead awaits, seize the day m’ Lord.

You should be out and back on the street in 30 minutes---tops.
The internet will consume your life and rob you of sunshine and ideas. Now you have enough free time to write a book or start that chain of bobble-head shops or do the big one---Have a Life.

By reading a newspaper you have acquired time and knowledge, Sugar Plum, now it’s up to you.

The Story of the Midnight Eater

A new study on health food diets has finally blown over. You may not have seen it because the Feds buried it in their new tax revisions (when you buy a senator you have to get a receipt unless it’s a cash transaction). So now a lot of my friends have gone back to frying marsh mellows, eating éclairs and generally feeling good about their childhood.

The study said that third cousins who eat cheese burgers topped with bacon and pancakes are no more at risk than third cousins that eat avocados. Sure its welcomed news but the government probably paid millions for it. Meanwhile male hair loss remains a mystery, like Stonehenge or Lewis and Clark’s sleeping arrangements and eczema causes heartbreak for thousands of nudists and my urinary track is an accident just waiting to happen. Where are our priorities?

I take medicine to keep my plumbing up to code but it makes me talk in my sleep. My wife says I talk about leveraging commercial buy-outs and she’s very impressed.
But at midnight I binge eat in my sleep. I started to keep this to myself but there are probably others out there with the same problem. People don’t like to talk about it.

I woke up one morning after a full moon to discover my hand clutching an empty peanut butter jar and there were anchovies and Oreo cookie crumbs all over the bed, an empty container of Blue Bell ice cream by my pillow and I realized I needed help. I also felt there might be a deal for a reality show here.

Sometimes it would be cashews. Other times sauerkraut. Sardines. Black olives. One time I ate three dozen Dunkin’ Donuts, assorted packs. Candy sprinkles and glazed sugar flakes were all over the bed. The car keys were on the nightstand and a trail of half eaten doughnut nuggets on the floor led from the bedroom all the way downstairs through the kitchen and out to the garage. The car door was still open.

I went on FaceBook and found a page for Binge Eating Disorders (BED) which had 8,576,321 members with 2, 475 on Chat at that very moment. It was a wonderful page, a place you didn’t feel like a creep just because you consumed an entire box of cute little animal crackers while in REM sleep.

My BED group was led by a retired priest. You were given a lapel pin about the size of a dime that said “People see you but not the real you so you must believe in yourself and through this realization the beauty of your inner being will manifest itself into a life style of success.”

They met in a high school gym, sad looking people sitting around in folding chairs. They took turns sobbing, clutching tissue paper and comforting each other. I was about to speak ‘’ Hi, my name is Joe and I scarf while I snooze.” but then I realized this was the wrong group. It was actually a support group for people who have had to wait more than thirty minutes in a doctor’s office. Dreamers. So I said as much to them and they called me Uncaring and now I don’t think we’ll ever be close. The priest wanted my pin back.

But I wasn’t uncaring; I was a guy with an eating disorder who is now in recovery. I am working to solve my habit the old fashion way---I faced up to the truth, Sweet Pea, and work hard at keeping my mouth closed as much as possible. That usually helps most anything.

Confessions of a Consumer--I'm off bottled water

So long, so sad, too bad -- goodbye Aqafina, goodbye Dasani , goodbye Voss and even future brands of bottled water —Johnny Tsunami, Rikki Lake, River Phoenix, Oceans 11, Sea of Love--- I am stopping the insane practice of buying bottled water. I have perfectly good water coming out of my kitchen tap. Even my toilet bowl has drinking water—our dog will be glad to show you.

Relationships run their course and so, Bottled Water, I am through with you. Goodbye, au revoir, sayonara, hit the road Jack, cease and decease. No more designer water for me. I’ll take it wet and cool-- if you want flavor toss in a lemon. Oxygenated? Insert a straw, take a breath and blow.

I was raised on a tobacco farm and when you work all day in a hot sandy field without an iPod, cable TV, laptop, cell phones and without access to PC’s, Facebook, Twitter or YouTube, you are forced to listen to your father-- for hours.

My father invented cheapo conservatism (though he was a Democrat by religion) and would claim my decision deserves no applause— “What took you so long, Beaucephus?” he would have commented. He spent his life resisting the temptations that corporations tried to force on him--- things he didn’t want or need. He would no more buy Rocky Mountain air than he would French soil. We plowed with a mule until they had a fire sale on Farmall tractors—used.

The CEO’s of Perrier and Acqua di Cristallo made millions off those of us, you and me that wanted to rise above the unwashed masses. We convinced ourselves we could be healthy, liberal and progressive and so in restaurants people paid for a bottle of Perrier as though it were an aged Merlot. We felt it lent sophistication to our grilled cheese sandwich.

So what other useless things in my life should go? Recently at a gathering a woman pinched my cheek and informed me “You’re beginning to get jowls. You know face tucks are not very expensive.” Oh Sweet Momma! A man lives to hear that—you sure don’t want to be walking around with your face looking like melted candle wax. Thanks for the heads up, Princess. Anything else? I can’t pronounce the capital of Tibet either. Please, do go on, improve me.

I gave up watching TV years ago when I realized I’d forgotten how nice an evening walk could be and realized I missed the sound of lawn sprinklers and water slapping on the hydrangeas. I now refuse to buy an iPod and put wires in my ears because I like to hear people talk.

Take it from a jowled rehabilitated consumer---reform is good. You pull back on the throttle just in time to clear a line of trees and see clear blue sky and life is much sweeter. So likewise I choose to stop buying bottled water. I’m back in control.

There is much in the universe we do not understand---Christmas tree lights for example. You pack them away neatly; close the lid and a year later open the box to find they’ve become entangled, practically grown together—why is that? Stephen Hawking, the famous wheel chair bound physicist probably doesn’t have a clue. But everyone can understand the foolishness of buying bottled water.

If a country boy can understand the need to stop buying something we don’t need in order to reduce spending, shouldn’t Washington be able to figure out the same thing? There comes a time to cut back. We’ve drank bottled water long enough, Honey Bunch. Deal with it.

Pradise lost or burnt or whateverrrrr

Jim was from Arizona. As we stood ankle deep in the ocean surf with water whirling around our ankles I realized that it is possible this day and age to fly 6 hours due east (Jim did it), land on a strip of land surrounded by water and still enjoy the protection of the U.S. Stars and Stripes which is a most amazing thing when you think about it. It’s paradise in fact but right then Jim was more interested in telling me about his taxidermy business.

Later you sit comfortably with your wife in your white linen beach shirt enjoying a king crab salad under a palm tree and realize the problem with Paradise is that it is temporary--- you really don’t want to stay too long. Your resort neighbors are not the kind of people you want to share a property line with and so paradise is heaven until about mid-week.

You’re in a town that remodeled itself for tourism and when you look at the malls, the souvenir shops, pastel colored restaurants and the freshly paved black asphalt main highway you realize nothing here predates 1990. The plastic pirate statues look like they were dressed by a fifteenth century Tommy Hilfiger.

The people around you are in different degrees of relaxation but we know that people are at their best when they are engaged in a quest for something---love, happiness, excellence in golf, Broadway and Park Place, the perfect sandwich—but once accomplished they change. We were originally hunters and once we’ve taken the woolly mammoth down and gnawed his bones suddenly we become lazy and stupid. We throw down our spears, collapse in lounge chairs and forget sunscreen.

Right now I’m watching some people around a pool below my balcony. Old codgers and their codgerrettes look frazzled amidst a squealing mob of grandchildren—exhausted from never ending questions ( Grandma, what are we doing tomorrow, huh? Can we rent a movie, huh? Can we go to the water slide, huh?) and they long for a quiet sit in a deck chair with about three Long Island ice teas. The grandpas with their huge flabby chests sit like walrus’s, surveying their territory and digesting their krill.

A long white yacht glides by close to the water front and stirs up a memory. Some years ago I was a guest aboard one as it plowed through the coastal waters on a cloudless hot day. There is no boredom like the boredom of a boat. You sit under a small canopy watching the owner steer with one hand, the other hand clutches a small bucket of gin and he natters about how clever he is and how much he enjoys his boat. Real conversation ended hours ago, you’ve been holding the same can of diet cola for over an hour, the sun has baked your brain into a marinara sauce and you long to get back to land—you begin to identify with hostages.

Yet when you were growing up you imagined the thrill and pride of owning just such a boat. Thank God it never happened. You could be just another drunk with too much to say.

And such is paradise about mid-week. The serpent of boredom has entered the garden.

Tomorrow we will pack our bags and depart from this coastal Shangri-La. For the last three days I’ve stayed mostly in air conditioning or sprinted from one spot of shade to another. I’ve been whimpering a lot too and if you touch me I shriek. Take a tip, Sweet Cakes, never come to Paradise and forget to use sunscreen the very first day. Never.

Mortality, it's tricky

Here’s a tip—stay out of the obituaries as long as you can.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy a well written obit as well as the next guy and what with people my age showing up in there (say what!!??), that whole section of the newspaper is beginning to resemble my high school yearbook. But you never know what they are going to write about you.

Not long ago I thought I might be writing one for my oldest sister. She fell while going to her mailbox—she broke her arm, hit her head on a rock, was knocked unconscious and taken to the emergency room. So I passed the time jotting down some notes about the more interesting parts of her life---her volatile on-off relationship with Elvis Presley, the invention of cosmetics, her hobby of buying up small islands around the world---but she came to and suddenly remembered all the words to the song “ American Pie” so for me the pressure is off.

Obituaries avoid speaking ill of the dead and lean towards comfort and glossing over the rough spots of life. However the real purpose of an obituary is to summarize a life and remind us of our mortality. One day the world we leave behind will take a cold academic look at our lives and attempt to record our contribution to the overall good of mankind (“He was well behaved and his Sunday column was always submitted before the deadline with very few spelling errors. His editor mourned the loss stating “ The little guy would always spring for lunch”.) Hey, it is what it is.

I”ve arrived at that place in life that makes me shudder when the message blinks on my cell phone screen and warns “You have been disconnected.” I cringe when the sensual husky voice of the English lady in my GPS unit says “ You have reached your final destination”. And when the airline attendance tells me that “You’ll be on the ground shortly” well, I just want to cry. Is that anyway to talk to someone like me? The attendant seems to imply that shortly I will be lying prostrate with emergency personnel tearing open my shirt, applying paddles to my chest and screaming “Clear!” then a high pitched whine and ZZZT!

It gives me pause when I see an old gray faced cat wander through our front yard on a wonderful summer evening when everything else seems so full of life. At twelve years of age he moves slowly, this is probably his last summer. I want to write something poetic about this moment but I used up all my despair over death by the time I was 22. I was a writer then though no one knew it —that was one of my best kept secrets and still is. I roamed the college campus with the rest of the writer wannabees listening to Janis Joplin and Jimmie Hendrix and writing volumes about death and mortality. Then we went out for pizza and beer.

I don’t want to wait for emergency service personnel to tell me to lie quietly, that everything will be just fine. I want to stomp into a dark biker bar, order a drink that comes in a used oil can, light up a fat cigar, shoulder my way up to the meanest looking guy in there, blow thick blue smoke in his bearded scarred face and announce to the room “Which one of you ladies think they can take a 58-year-old newspaper columnist?”

So live boldly, light a candle in the darkness, make a difference…but don’t go crazy.

Why I don't Kitchenaid anymore

The wonder of gourmet cooking and fine dining has left me. I knew this the moment I was sitting in a five-star Italian restaurant and realized I wanted a hot dog and fries. Not gourmet hot dogs imported from Greece mind you, but the wieners you find on sale at Food Lion and the frozen crinkle cut fries from Oreida. I wanted the kind you used to get at a corner drug store:



Hot Dog Recipe
One hot dog bun
One cheapo hot dog, cooked
Ketchup and mustard
Onions, chopped
Eat while reading the latest spin-off of The DaVinci Code

We have dozens of cookbooks in our kitchen---James Beard, Graham Kerr, First Baptist Church Cookbook of Favorite Recipes----all leftovers from the early 90’s when men grew bored with space exploration and elephant hunting and realized you could dominate another man by using graters, recipes and Kitchenaid mixers.

In those days men compiled stock portfolios, smoked imported cigars and they became cultured and were ultimately drawn to pastels. Everyone began writing a book or interpreting art so in the natural course of things they discovered bouillabaisse and saffron.

I had a Peterbilt food processor and carried a Smith & Wesson nine millimeter diesel driven nutmeg grater in a kangaroo leather holster (you had to have a concealed permit for it). I spent hours in the kitchen throwing together marmalades and andoullie sausage vinaigrettes infused with 5W-30 motor oil all tossed using ratchet wrenches ----Voila! --- women swooned. Most men could not boil an egg and there I was, Master of Julienne Cuts, pouring cabernet sauvignons and blathering about poached quail eggs while careful to leave the toilet seat the way I found it. A man that could poach and understood bathroom etiquette! Women slipped me their phone numbers on napkins.

In those days I shopped only at Williams-Sonoma and kept 37 types of paprika and stored a small amount of specially produced bay leaves from Uganda in my gun safe. I was intense and would brook no insinuations about the virginity of my olive oils---I’d back it up with a fistfight or a shotgun. I once scoffed at a man’s untidy arugula salad (his parmigiano shavings were too thick) and he broke into tears and came at me with a melon baller. Now we’re best buds and ride motorcycles together.

And then there was the time in Laredo I spied a young cowboy wrapped up in white linen, wrapped in white linen as cold as the clay. He’d accused a man of using thyme in a spaghetti sauce, but he was wrong. Dead wrong. Alas poor Yorick, I knew him.

Then one day it ended. I served 10 dinner guests Chilean sea bass with a chocolate risotto and they claimed they’d never eaten anything so wonderful in all their lives and wept, they were delirious with joy. I realized I’d reached the pinnacle of cooking. I no longer needed to make the best crème d’spam or peanut butter gazpacho. I dropped my plutonium whisks and left the building. That part of my life was over. I don’t talk about it anymore.

Now at Thanksgiving I serve processed turkey with mash potatoes, yams and cranberries that all comes in a waxed box that you microwave. Dessert is Twinkies right out of the package—chased with cold Red Bull.

Our Lord said that He came that our joy might be full. He meant we should enjoy life and He did not obsess about soufflés.

It’s not about food, it’s about life. So get out there Honey Bunch, enjoy the sunshine and buy a friend a hot dog.

Comfort, thy name is Recliner

I was flying from Raleigh to Charlotte in one of those little prop planes that forces you into a personal relationship with your seatmate. Mine was a slim gentleman, a German with dark rimmed utilitarian glasses. His name was Hartwin.

He had interviewed with the University of London and was now scheduled to interview for a position at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He asked about the people of Charlotte. I said they were the salt of the earth, full of kindness and decency, no pretense, they don’t live to show off, what you see is what you get, they’re as sweet as candy, the sky is blue--I was getting rhapsodic. Myself, I would never consider moving to Charlotte.

I saw him later in the airport, he’d found some associates and was looking relaxed—he had the world by the tail. I realized that a man choosing between London and Charlotte has a wide range of options. I waved from across the lobby.

I am a very domesticated creature myself, enamored with routine, resistant to change or moves. I like my mornings to begin at the manor estate under blankets in the master’s bed, then progress to blue jeans, next the local newspaper on the front steps, my favorite stained coffee cup, the dog scratching at the door, a blue car in the garage, the bent basketball hoop over the door to the shop, the Williams family next door—it’s all nice. There is a bit of drama when I choose between a white or blue shirt—I gave up patterns and stripes years ago. And though it’s now embarrassing to be considered monolingual, I choose English, every morning. It’s a good language to horse around in and my editor prefers it. The day ends in my old recliner, it has a place wallowed out just the size of my butt. I fit nicely.

The recliner came from a store across town and I insisted on hauling it home in my pick-up truck to avoid delivery fees. I chose to leave the tailgate down after loading the chair because I could place the heavy recliner closer to the back edge and not have so far to pull it out again. The furniture guy questioned this. Amazing how gifted and talented people such as me always seem to be at odds with experts.

I was accelerating up a steep hill, it was about 8:00 at night, on a Friday, when I realize the chair that had been blocking my rear view had slid out--- it was gone. I pulled over and spotted the recliner straddling both lanes--it was just sitting there, reclined.

I dashed through a gap in the traffic and raced towards the chair. Brakes screeched, somewhere a woman screamed, a car swerved and horns started blowing. A truck whooshed by and I got to experience the Doppler Effect and suddenly I remembered all the words to “Ghost Riders in the Sky”. A car’s headlights suddenly bore down on me as if I was a raccoon, I shrieked and scurried on.

I made it to the chair and with the help of a Good Samaritan wrestled it back onto my truck. I arrived home and my wife asked “How’d it go?” I looked sideways, focused on a picture on the far wall and said “No problemo.”

When I finish writing this column I will go downstairs and sit in my old worn recliner. After having risked life and limb, why would I ever consider leaving it for London or another city? It’s comfortable, I have a TV remote and I fit, oh so nicely.

I call freedom by cell phone

Hot summer nights in July, darkness descends and the fragrance of grilled hamburgers and fresh cut grass wafts in the air, night creatures chatter and chirp and children come and go while we stand on our front porch occasionally rattling the ice cubes in a near empty glass of ice tea. In Washington D.C. our elected lawmakers debate the national budget while millions of people await the outcome, their lives on hold. But we all know what’s really crucial---our cell phones.

Cell phones are more important than the budget as I recently learned when my phone went missing-- a small bit of technology which I found in the washing machine. I immediately adopted our government’s strategy of finances by ignoring lack of funds and decided it must be replaced immediately. Until then my life really was on hold.

Cell phones are crucial and used so much that it’s illegal in North Carolina to drive while text-messaging. Trying to type out a message on a tiny keyboard while traveling at 65 m.p.h. is dangerous (“I’m hurrying home dear. I’ll be there in 15 min---NO NO NO aieeeeeeee!”) but it’s okay to call and talk on a cell phone at 65 m.p.h. I have to scroll down to find a number so I steer with my knees and call my mother which she thinks is a marvel since she is 76 and remembers when phones hung on walls, had cords and you talked standing in one place. “But honey, is this safe?” she asks.

Well, no, it’s not but then nothing in life is completely safe. Cholesterol, gamma rays, cigarette smoke, a tsunami just as you walk out on the beach, your housekeeper seduces you and has your baby and years later you have to secretly buy her a $100,000 house---it’s a jungle out there.

Back in the day the highway was a place of freedom without fear. We worshiped cars. I loved to run errands for my mother that involved driving to the city which was 21 miles from our farm. Why? There was a perfectly straight stretch of lawless road, highway 43, that ran through lonely tobacco fields and towering pine forests on which I maintained my 1971 Pontiac Firebird at 105 m.p.h. ( no seatbelt, mind you) for 13 miles of that trip. I weighed the chances of a farmer slowly pulling his old pick-up truck onto the highway and our two lives becoming tangled together but I raced anyway, and when I got to the city limits I changed back into a nice Christian boy helping his poor mother.

A little bureaucrat inside me wants to crack down on speeding and cell phone users but a young boy in me wants the free open highway. We all want contradictory things. You can go to the theater and experience a musical and leave feeling uplifted and enlightened but then hear Willie Nelson sing “On the Road Again” and feel just as enlightened and happy. And a sweet child singing “Jesus Wants me for Sunbeam” can tear your heart apart like all get out
.
So let us be smart and drive carefully and let our leaders work through their political tangles and squabbles. They are working with our contradictions—we are a people that want much but we have not the means. We need reforms yet we are leery of reform and those fears cluster like seagulls gathered in the K-Mart parking lot. But they will rise as a cloud when we drive through them and we’ll motor down the road with our cell phones, call our families and life will go on

Wahoo! It's a heat wave in the south!

It’s hot, stifling hot in our beloved city, more like Dante’s Inferno than Statesville. If the heat keeps up much longer I’ll be writing stories about people sitting around in their underwear fanning themselves with wooden sticks that have funeral home advertisements stapled to them as they sip mint juleps and lament the loss of the old plantation, Bellpork, where the cotton fields were hoed and everybody danced and clapped and played the banjo while they sat under huge magnolia trees.

When it’s this hot in the south crazy things can happen like maybe the deputy shoots the sheriff over a game of croquet and an hour before Bob Luke goes to the gallows he finds out his wife was actually his half-sister and remembers he left a bag of groceries ( with milk) in the car. You might even see snakes in church.

I go to a large southern Baptist church in the city and we shun snake handling, end-of-world-visions and ladies with big hats and wide hips who sway and clap in the aisles--- but five degrees hotter and things could change.

This past Sunday was a scorcher but the sermon was excellent ( be vigilant, don’t drift away from obedience) but deep down I wanted our pastor to come down to the congregation, whip out a western Colt 45 pistol and say “ Look, numbheads! Git right or git out—don’t make me say it again!”

I know pistols aren’t allowed in churches in the south but nothing says “I’m serious about my theology” like a loaded gun. Shucks, if Pastor Cartin suddenly fired a shot into the ceiling right after the announcements and just before prayer I think we’d all be more focused, possibly enlightened--- maybe even speak in tongues.

This morning my air conditioner went out, 15 degrees higher and 10 minutes later I was overcome with a desire to play my banjo. I was banging out chords to “Suwannee River” when a whole passel of liberal Democrat demons came out of my body-- I saw a likeness of Obama in the carpet and my eczema cleared up. Poof! Just like that.

The heat is driving elected officials crazy—er.

The Representative Anthony Weiner (Democrat/married) couldn’t take it anymore, came out of his clothes and showed a very personal side of himself on the internet and had to ‘fess up that he was having online affairs (canoodlin’) with several young ladies. Odd to think about it but a massive electrical grid failure might have saved the man’s marriage.

Republican governors Schwarzenegger and Mark Sanford have illegitimate kids and mistresses and you have to wonder what were these guys thinking? It’s the day of the internet and news travels faster than corn through a goose and there’s nothing like wandering chickens coming home to roost to make you wish you’d kept your coop zipped up tight.

I intend to push on despite all the heat and bad behavior and keep raising my chickens in the spare bedroom, paint scripture verses on the roof of my house and sell cantaloupes off the front porch. We’ll have to just pray the serial killers don’t start marrying flag burners and the place gets over run with criminals and other congressional incumbents.

In the meantime we southern boys thrive on heat and there’s nothing hotter than a barefoot momma. So fix some cool sassafras tea, sugah pie, and come sit by my side if you love me. We’ll read Garden & Gun together, cook some possum and then go shoot some RC cola cans.

I’m motorcycling out of Fathers Day

Father’s Day is here and therefore I am gone. I have taken the weekend off and I’m not even going to cut the yard. I feel my roots calling me back to the sea, the beautiful sea and all I need is a ship with good sails, a barrel of hard tack biscuits and the bright northern star to steer by.

But I’m in Statesville, North Carolina about four hours from the coast.

So I’ll climb on my black BMW motorcycle and head for the Smokey Mountains due west and pick up some county road and ride for a couple hundred miles. I’ll throttle up that 1100cc engine and let it run free like a wild stallion until I finally come to some small country gas station where the parking lot is hard packed dirt and they play music by Waylon and Willie and the boys. Don’t call me because I don’t have my cell phone with me, just chewing tobaccy, Mr. Samuel Colt, a thick roll of twenties, spurs that jingle and a dog named Yeller. Well, actually I have mainly my health insurance card and allergy meds.

Robert Louis Stevenson once said, “For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.” Now folks, that’s Man Talk.

Father’s day has been bought and purchased just like Christmas and I’ve decided I’m not buying into it. I’ve got enough cologne to make even Congress smell good and I have enough neckties---I only need about two-- for making arm slings or tourniquets for snake bites. So it’s just me, the motorcycle and the open road.

You see things on a motorcycle unlike anything viewed from a car. In a car you sit in a compartment and even though you don’t realize it you see everything as though it was on TV. The scenes are all framed with no smell and no real sense of dimension while you sit still watching images go by. It’s like trying to watch life on an old 35 mm movie film.

But on a motorcycle you are part of the scene. The asphalt whizzing by six inches below your boot is what you were walking on five minutes earlier and it’s now so blurred you can’t focus on the small rocks and cracks that make up the road—yet you could put your foot down and touch it at any moment.

When you ride a motorcycle you converse only with your thoughts and hour after hour a man has plenty of time to ponder his sins and decide which ones to repent of and which ones might need a little more time to bake before they’re done. You women do not need to do this because you are better than us men. Men know this.

As a father I’ve hit plenty of fouls and few homeruns. Mothers have the best batting score.

So I’m taking me and my sins and heading west. I’ll join up with other fathers camping by a creek bank and sit by a crackling fire at night and share stories. It will be good to be with people that know the same songs I do such as “Me and Bobby McGee” and “I’ll Fly Away” and “Big Rock Candy Mountain”. We’ll sing about being lonesome and about rivers gone dry. Come morning we’ll pack up and ride through small towns without stopping and pass people in their cars, people sitting on their porches and I’ll see the envy on their faces. The journey is its own reward--- revel in the freedom.

I’ll be back on Monday. I have a dental appointment.

Spring time is excellent for writing, so do it

Spring is a wonderful time of year as we tend to become one people, leaning a lot more towards unum than pluribus. The dogwood trees explode with reds and whites and suddenly we feel magnanimous and artistic and have a desire to bask in the glow of photosynthesis and gather our family together, smile, hold hands and run uphill to a huge green meadow and twirl around and around with our arms outstretched and sing “The hills are alive, with the sound of muuusic!”

Or something like that.

Here in the south spring comes after Mothers day and southern boys throw tackle gear in the back of the pickup truck and take their mothers fishing. You both sit on the creek bank passing around a plug of black chewing tobacco, your mother takes a big bite and begins to talk about the years when she was a show girl in Vegas before she met your father, about fantastic men she met in their tuxedos driving fancy Stutz Bearcats, how they carried swollen rolls of fifties and loved to spend them and how she met Mel Torme and while they were at dinner one night she said she loved Christmas and chestnuts roasting on an open fire.

Suddenly Mel looked like he had been hit in the head with a ball-peen hammer, said something about a great line for a song and ran out of the restaurant hollering for a piano and left your mother holding a tab for $63.78.

Yes, I admit it is quite a shock to hear about your mother’s wild and rascally years--- but then everyone has had them. Life isn’t just for men, so get over it buddy boy.

This time of year everyone becomes a bit dizzy with an urge to change their lives. I, for example, am tempted to grow a goatee, wear a red beret and change my name to Jacque L’Hudson but I probably won’t do it-- I’m just saying.

In spring a person’s thoughts naturally turn to what you would rather be doing with your life other than what you are doing now and according to my email everybody wants to be a Writer or an Artist. Winning the lottery is a dim hope, becoming a reality TV star is a wispy fantasy but the desire to write novels seems to be on the mind of about seventy percent of the people and the others want to write poetry.

And you thought you were the only one? Ha! You are just one in a million. The reason the economy is tanking is because no one wants to pick cotton, tote a barge or lift a bale. We’d rather be moody and self-absorbed in an intellectual way.

Your mailman wants to be a writer ( I dropped the stamps, took her in my arms and from out of nowhere her Doberman bit my….) and this does not improve postal service.

Your plumber wants to be artistic and tap dance so he does a Buffalo shuffle up your driveway, spins and hands you an invitation to his recital and says “toilet clogged again?” So you go to his recital and try to avoid saying stupid things like “That number flowed nicely!” or “So, you clog too?”

I really did go fishing with my mother one time. She reads my column and no doubt will take exception to my artistic license about her chewing tobacco, Mel Torme and Vegas (I love fiction). She may write a rebuttal or put it in a poem but that’s okay, it’s spring—she can get in line and write with the rest of us.

If you're a celebrity, what the heck?

If you travel through enough airports at some time you will see famous people and experience a catch in your throat when you turn a corner and realize you’ve come face to face with Neil Diamond, Ric Flair, Tom Brokaw or a big heavy set bald man waiting in line for his baggage who you think use to be a national weatherman for a network morning show—and what do you say? You desperately rummage through your bag of knowledge for a hammer and nails and attempt to build some sort of compliment--- which is hard to do when you’re blinded by the light.

As a birthday present my youngest sister arranged for me to have a private meeting with Garrison Keillor, author of books and a radio show called “A Prairie Home Companion”. He was performing at East Carolina University and I was taken backstage after the show, introduced and left to stand in the presence of a celebrity. I tried not to babble.

Garrison ( he insisted ) and I talked about his work with Meryl Streep, how I got the nick name ‘Joe’ ( he laughed ) and then discussed ( no kidding) the tip of a Bic ball point pen. Later his assistant led me away and my feet never touched the ground. I felt I had just received 10 commandments. Joe Moses.

The American people are simply awed by celebrities--- which works nicely if you’re Kyle Busch a NASCAR celebrity who makes his living going in circles. You can blow through a residential area at three times the posted speed limit and instead of being thrown to the ground, handcuffed and led away, you’re simply asked to go home and do some community lectures, please. Tell kids about the danger of driving at high rates of speed even though you yourself make millions of dollars doing it.

You and I would might have gotten matching handcuffs.

Such is the practice of law and government now---some are allowed to stand in the sun and breath fresh air while the rest of us galley slaves chained below deck continue to row the boat by the rules. Double standards exist because as a colleague told me, “That’s just the way it is now.”

And that in a nutshell is why we ultimately have corruption. We accept it. What the heck?

If you work in public administration long enough you will meet some wonderful people. You’ll also occasionally smell putrid whiffs of narcissism and feel the bully whip of discrimination flay the skin off your back as you try to row faster. It happens—but what the heck, as long as it’s not you, right?

Oddly instead of outrage this all brings on a deep sense of sadness.

When authority has double standards and plays favorites, whether to leniency or to discriminate, there is a slow tearing of the fabric of society. We’re all connected and our actions affect each other. Government that rules by preference and whims rather than by law and professional process infects the community with apathy and complacency.

Somewhere a history teacher prefers to skip the American Revolutionary war and says, “What the heck?” A minister somewhere prefers to stop preaching about the sanctity of marriage and says, “What the heck?” You excuse someone due to their political connections and a surgeon somewhere says “This guy’s a nobody and his heart is 69 years old, why fix it? I’ll just sew him back up-- what the heck?”

And maybe one day a NASCAR driver decides to take a 128 m.p.h. ride—through your child’s neighborhood. Oh, what the heck.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have Bluebirds!

Years ago I bought an eastern bluebird house, mounted it on a pole in the backyard and aligned it with the stars, moon, planets and the noon day sun exactly as instructed. I put special bluebird food in my feeders, thought about putting up little red white and blue banners all around the yard that said “Welcome Bluebirds. We are blue for you!’’, maybe have an open house tour complete with hors d’oeurves of white grub dip and some meal worm pâté.

I waited and waited—and waited. But for years all I got was wretched dull colored wrens that knew a good deal when they saw it. They would move in, trash the place and slip away come fall.

So I thought about flying in a decorator from Paris for the bluebird house—do everything in pastels, install granite countertops, build a sauna, have parquet floors, maybe add a sun porch and an upstairs studio , new plumbing—even a home theater system. I’d offer exemption from zoning laws (I know people) and provide pole side garbage pick-up. But time passed and no bluebirds ever came. I felt shunned.

I went into an emotional spiral. I spent a lot of time in the house with the curtains drawn closed, an unshaven man sitting in a dim corner of the room thumbing through a Duncraft bird supply catalogue and lingering over pictures of happy bluebirds coming in and out of houses made of recycled material. Some pictures were an entire page and the man that owned the bluebird house would be standing beside it, an arm draped over it as if the house was a close friend and he would be smiling into the camera-- a Great. Big. Giant. Smile. His pose seemed to say ‘I shave twice a day and my golf handicap is 2. I’m not a loser.”

I would hurl the catalogue across the room and go into deep mournful sobs and reach for a box of tissues I kept beside my chair. My nose stayed red and my eyes swollen. I felt rejection and low self-esteem-- it was high school all over again.

Then one day while taking a load of empty tissue boxes out to the garbage container I happen to see a flash of blue. Two bluebirds had just swooped into the yard and landed on my bluebird house! The female went in ---then came back out. She glanced at the male. You could tell he wasn’t sure. He kept looking at a nearby oak tree as if he didn’t like it.

I was thinking two thoughts: 1. I hoped the tree wasn’t a deal breaker and 2. I wondered if they would like some housefly pâté?

The female bobbed towards the male who looked resigned, like he could use a cigarette. Later that day I observed them moving in—at last! Woo Hoo! I could just imagine their little bluebird suitcases and bluebird furniture with little bluebird knick-knacks--souvenirs from Florida and Busch Gardens.

That night I dreamed of a great hall where they give awards to people who have bluebirds. The president of the Audubon society was there, the Mayor, dignitaries from around the world all gathered in tuxedoes and formal dresses. I stood behind the podium and told how I was once bluebird challenged but achieved success through the use of quality worms and prejudice based on bird color--- I got two standing ovations.

After my speech everyone was turning to go when I leaned into the microphone, beamed at the audience and said, “Before you leave, I made pâté!”