Rush Limbaugh vacations with the President!!
Can you imagine how shocked I was this morning when I read on a creditable news site the following?
“HONOLULU (AP) - Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh is resting comfortably in a Hawaii hospital after suffering chest pains while on vacation, his radio program says.”
Something funny was going on here and I needed to get to the bottom of it. Calling on my sources around the globe I was able to piece together the following.
Apparently the President and his family arrived on Christmas day for the holiday break, nothing unusual here. The giveaway to the earth shaking news was when my sources discovered Limbaugh had sneaked onto the island under cover of darkness the day after and had met secretly with the President on several occasions since. Limbaugh traveled incognito to and from the meetings with the President, which Limbaugh insisted be held in the back room of a Denny’s to avoid detection by the press. Each time Limbaugh was disguised as a Wise Man, in period costume from the years associated with Jesus’ birth and not uncommon to see during this Christmas season. Limbaugh had also determined the disguise would be sellable to the Christian right should he get caught.
Creditable sources now report the chest pains experienced by Limbaugh were caused by his discovering he agreed with the President on many issues. Before being admitted Limbaugh told those closest to him he was quite sure Mr. Obama was a Christian, he was born in the United States, in no any way related to Saddam Hussien, and did not like Nancy Pelosi much better than Limbaugh himself.
I wish a speedy recovery to Mr. Limbaugh and hope that upon his return he can become a part of the solution our great Country needs.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Urban Meyer: The Rest of the Story
The college football world was shocked Saturday when ESPN reported the abrupt retirement of highly successful Florida football coach Urban Meyer. Literally thousands of jock reporters and commentators hashed and rehashed this move over and over between the time it was first reported until the next day when Coach Meyer held a news conference and announced he was not really leaving, only going to take an leave of absence. This turn around really ignited the talking and writing jocks. The inside information each one claimed a day before was now worthless. The theory's either speculated on or reported as fact now made these buffoons look like what they really are, buffoons, Finebaum included.
Through a stroke of fate I have uncovered the real facts leading up to both decisions announced last weekend by the Big Gator.
The whole thing started Saturday morning in the Coach's Suite in the finest hotel New Orleans had to offer. The Meyer family had flown in Christmas Day in order to be in New Orleans before the players started reporting to the Sugar Bowl. Coach Meyer and his beautiful wife had just spread some lox and capers on their bagels when the coach took a deep breath and told Mrs. Meyer he had something to tell her. The Lady Gator stopped chasing the lone surviving caper on her plate and looked up. "I don't know how to tell you this but I have decided to resign today as the head coach at Florida," Coach Meyer begin. "The job has just been too stressful and I think it is effecting my health," the Urbanator continued. "We have accomplished everything we can here, we have plenty of money and maybe someday I will get back into coaching at a school with less stress," the coach finished talking. Shocked did not adequately describe the effect this proclamation had on the beautiful Mrs. Meyer. "I can't believe it," Mrs. Meyer was finally able to say. "Whatever you think Coach," Mrs. Meyer responded in a whisper. (Urban had always insisted she call him coach, might be just a little ego working here) The two finished their room service breakfast and Coach Meyer quickly left the suite to meet with Jeremy Foley, his A.D. to break the news to him.
Urban stayed busy pretty much the rest of the day greeting the Sugar Bowl committee while welcoming and checking on all his players as they arrived at the team's headquarters hotel. By the middle of the afternoon Jeremy had leaked the news to ESPN, which he was contractually obligated to do. The network quickly worked the announcement into slots three minutes apart over the next 24 hours as a part of 'Capital One Bowl Week on ESPN'. The news helped save a bad game on Saturday night and continued throughout the night and into the next day on the same 3 minute schedule.
Late in the day, around 9:00 p.m. the Big Gator got the following e-mail on his I-Phone, it really got his attention. The message and tone of the e-mail was the moving factor in Coach Urban Meyer's reversal on his decision. At what we have come to know as a 'hastily called' news conference, Coach Meyer called a 'time out'. He was just kidding he confusedly gushed, he never intended to quit, it had nothing to do with him having his Tebow and swagger surgically removed by Alabama in the SEC Championship, he really only meant to say he was going to take a vacation. He would be back. What could have been in the e-mail he got the night before from Mama Gator? Through some cosmic mix-up in the digital world I got a copy of the original e-mail and now I am releasing it to the world. I tried to sell it to Fox News and the National Enquirer but both were closed for Christmas and I never got an answer.
THE TURN AROUND E-MAIL:
"To: Urban Meyer
From: His wife for now
Urban,
Have you lost your frigging mind. What the hell do you know about stress. You have the best job in the world. These people pay you five million dollars ($5,000,000) a year to work maybe 9 months a year coaching a game. Not only do they pay you, they pay 30 other guys to carry out your every wish. After you finish recruiting in early February the 30 other guys will continue to recruit in addition breaking down the film of every game your team played plus the film of everyone you will play next year and will give you a full report of every play they have watched. You will be invited to spend a few hours playing golf and chumming around with a bunch of old fat men two or three times a week that will insist on giving you and the school millions of dollars just to get a picture made with you and to hear you call them by name. You will be delivered to these events in a $30,000,000 private jet which when not hauling you around to university events will be at your family's disposal. You and your family are either members or welcomed at every Country Club from Key West to Crestview Florida and it you ever wanted to go out in public you would never have to pick up a tab or pay for anything. You are furnished multiple new luxury cars twice a year and paid huge bonuses for doing the job you were hired to do.
Now if you have the sense God gave a 2X4 and you want to continue to come home to this wife, I would suggest you find you AD and tell him that whatever you told him this morning was the result of losing a bet to Nick Saban the two of you had on the Championship game and you had to let it play out for 12 hours. That you are sorry and you will help clean up the mess you caused by saying you just needed a long vacation but would be back when the time came. If you don't get out of this and get your job back, I'm gone and you can kiss my royal blindside.
p.s. You are a dumb ass.
ONE MAD MAMA GATOR"
Now you know the rest of the story. The lesson here is to never make a Mama Gator mad by being stupid.
Through a stroke of fate I have uncovered the real facts leading up to both decisions announced last weekend by the Big Gator.
The whole thing started Saturday morning in the Coach's Suite in the finest hotel New Orleans had to offer. The Meyer family had flown in Christmas Day in order to be in New Orleans before the players started reporting to the Sugar Bowl. Coach Meyer and his beautiful wife had just spread some lox and capers on their bagels when the coach took a deep breath and told Mrs. Meyer he had something to tell her. The Lady Gator stopped chasing the lone surviving caper on her plate and looked up. "I don't know how to tell you this but I have decided to resign today as the head coach at Florida," Coach Meyer begin. "The job has just been too stressful and I think it is effecting my health," the Urbanator continued. "We have accomplished everything we can here, we have plenty of money and maybe someday I will get back into coaching at a school with less stress," the coach finished talking. Shocked did not adequately describe the effect this proclamation had on the beautiful Mrs. Meyer. "I can't believe it," Mrs. Meyer was finally able to say. "Whatever you think Coach," Mrs. Meyer responded in a whisper. (Urban had always insisted she call him coach, might be just a little ego working here) The two finished their room service breakfast and Coach Meyer quickly left the suite to meet with Jeremy Foley, his A.D. to break the news to him.
Urban stayed busy pretty much the rest of the day greeting the Sugar Bowl committee while welcoming and checking on all his players as they arrived at the team's headquarters hotel. By the middle of the afternoon Jeremy had leaked the news to ESPN, which he was contractually obligated to do. The network quickly worked the announcement into slots three minutes apart over the next 24 hours as a part of 'Capital One Bowl Week on ESPN'. The news helped save a bad game on Saturday night and continued throughout the night and into the next day on the same 3 minute schedule.
Late in the day, around 9:00 p.m. the Big Gator got the following e-mail on his I-Phone, it really got his attention. The message and tone of the e-mail was the moving factor in Coach Urban Meyer's reversal on his decision. At what we have come to know as a 'hastily called' news conference, Coach Meyer called a 'time out'. He was just kidding he confusedly gushed, he never intended to quit, it had nothing to do with him having his Tebow and swagger surgically removed by Alabama in the SEC Championship, he really only meant to say he was going to take a vacation. He would be back. What could have been in the e-mail he got the night before from Mama Gator? Through some cosmic mix-up in the digital world I got a copy of the original e-mail and now I am releasing it to the world. I tried to sell it to Fox News and the National Enquirer but both were closed for Christmas and I never got an answer.
THE TURN AROUND E-MAIL:
"To: Urban Meyer
From: His wife for now
Urban,
Have you lost your frigging mind. What the hell do you know about stress. You have the best job in the world. These people pay you five million dollars ($5,000,000) a year to work maybe 9 months a year coaching a game. Not only do they pay you, they pay 30 other guys to carry out your every wish. After you finish recruiting in early February the 30 other guys will continue to recruit in addition breaking down the film of every game your team played plus the film of everyone you will play next year and will give you a full report of every play they have watched. You will be invited to spend a few hours playing golf and chumming around with a bunch of old fat men two or three times a week that will insist on giving you and the school millions of dollars just to get a picture made with you and to hear you call them by name. You will be delivered to these events in a $30,000,000 private jet which when not hauling you around to university events will be at your family's disposal. You and your family are either members or welcomed at every Country Club from Key West to Crestview Florida and it you ever wanted to go out in public you would never have to pick up a tab or pay for anything. You are furnished multiple new luxury cars twice a year and paid huge bonuses for doing the job you were hired to do.
Now if you have the sense God gave a 2X4 and you want to continue to come home to this wife, I would suggest you find you AD and tell him that whatever you told him this morning was the result of losing a bet to Nick Saban the two of you had on the Championship game and you had to let it play out for 12 hours. That you are sorry and you will help clean up the mess you caused by saying you just needed a long vacation but would be back when the time came. If you don't get out of this and get your job back, I'm gone and you can kiss my royal blindside.
p.s. You are a dumb ass.
ONE MAD MAMA GATOR"
Now you know the rest of the story. The lesson here is to never make a Mama Gator mad by being stupid.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
MOSES REPLACED by Rufus---3
Rufus was smart enough to know that a person did not cross God and live to enjoy the experience. Though he had never really been a student of the Bible, Rufus had been exposed to quite a bit of singing, preaching, testifying and foot washing. As a boy in rural Alabama during the late ‘50’s and early 60’s Rufus and been dragged to almost every small country church in southern Lawrence, northern Cullman, and the eastern part of Winston County, all around the edges of the Bankhead Forest. Back in those days the mama’s or grand mama’s only hope of keeping the children out of the same old life cycle of drinkin, carousing, and ultimately dying on a Saturday night speeding wild through the forest while chugging a cold PBR was to get them started in church. I guess the forced churching took on some of the kids but by in large the majority of these kids in those days made it to their mid twenties by the grace of God. Rufus’s grandmother had been the one to undertake the moral seasoning of little Rufus Ray Terry. On top of that after Rufus took flight to Mexico and settled down he met and married a local woman raised in the Catholic Church. From both experiences in his religious background Rufus knew better than to take this personal conversation with God lightly. Fearing he was taking much to long to respond Rufus thought he better say something or the consequences would not be to pleasant. “God”, Rufus muttered almost under his breath. “Yes”, replied the voice coming from the still burning cactus. “God, I want to do whatever you want me to”, Rufus started, “but I didn’t even finished School at Speake back in Alabama. The Sheriff back home and the lady the runs the post office here are the only government people I’ve ever talked to”. “I don’t care”, responded God. “If I had wanted somebody else I would have picked them; you’ve got the sense I gave you and that’s enough, look at the people I used throughout the Bible”. “But what if I get started and you get busy on something else and forget about me for a day or two, then what will happen to me”. “Do you remember a couple of Sundays ago when you wife read you the story of Moses leading the children of Israel out of Egypt? Remember when they got pushed up against the sea with the army of Pharaoh bearing down on them? I picked that passage for her to read to you that day for a reason. Remember what I told Moses to tell them when they began to wine and cry about the situation he had gotten them into”. “I think so”, Rufus responded, knowing that he had no memory of what Moses had said. He only remembered that the sea had eventually parted and the Jews had gotten across before it closed back up on the army of chariots and bow hunters riding in them. “What did he tell them”, God pressed Rufus and Rufus had to bluff it, “Moses said ‘wait a minute’ and the sea will open for us”. God almost laughed, not many people actually remember what the exchange had been. “Good try Rufus, but that’s not really close”, God said, “he told them to stand behind him and to watch their Lord (me if you haven’t figured it out) defeat their enemies. He told them they did not have to lift a finger, that I would protect them and as you remember, that is exactly what I did”. “O yeah, I remember now”, Rufus tried to sound convincing but he knew God knew what he remembered and what he didn’t. God continued, “not many people know that even Moses did not know what was going to happen that day on the bank of the Red Sea. Moses was just like you in the beginning, shy and afraid, he had come to know me during the time between my approaching him in the desert like I am approaching you now and the time they backed up to that sea. I directed them with my cloud and pillar of fire to be in that exact place at that exact time. Moses never questioned me about the route from Pharaoh’s city to where they ended up or my intentions when the Egyptians approached. He had learned to simply rely on his faith in me and to trust that I would be there for him and his people.” Rufus thought he was beginning to understand and he was searching his heart to find the kind of faith to would sustain him on the journey he was being asked to undertake. Choosing his words carefully, Rufus started talking to God, “Lord, I know I don’t have much choice in this, but you know about the trouble I’ve got back at home, what if I go back and they arrest me for all that stuff I ran away from. If you get me out of that mess, then how do I get anyone to even listen to me, much less the President of the United States, the leader of the free world. I’m going to be pulling up to the White House in this old pick-up, if it makes it that far, and telling the guards at the gate I want to talk to the most powerful man in the world about something God wanted me to mention to the President. When they quit laughing they are either going to shoot me or they're going to put me away in some insane hospital for the rest of my life”. God couldn’t help but remember this conversation he had with Abraham, Moses, Jonah, Peter, Paul and countless others over the years. “Rufus, I have been through this many times before and I have never failed to be with the person I have chosen for a particular task. You have got to believe me when I tell you I have a plan for what I’m asking and I will walk every step with you on this journey. This task is not going to be easy but it is blessed, you are anointed. I have watched my children, who I love so dearly, and I have decided a major change in their attitude is the only way I can save them from themselves. I will pave the way for you in every way to have them hear your message and give them every opportunity to come back to me”. God continued, “this message must come from the most humble person to be effective. Leave it to me to gain you the access you will need and to soften the hearts of those who will hear and have the power to act”. “I remember in the Bible you sent Moses’ brother to help him and support him, will someone be there to help me do all the things you want me to do”, Rufus was not wanting to appear to be doubting or unbelieving but he was quite sure he could not pull this off by himself. “Yes”, replied God, “I am sending an angel you will meet before you get to Washington that will be with you all the way. You will meet him along the way, he will seek you out and you will know he is the one I have chosen to be with you as you carry out my mission”.
to be con'd
to be con'd
Saturday, July 4, 2009
MOSES REPLACED by RUFUS 2
installment 2:
Rufus’s mind was racing, he could not remember ever having read or been told anything about things God did since those times back in Bible days. The only thing close to a direct confrontation with God since Bible days was when someone in a remote area of his adopted land, Mexico, saw a shadow on a barn door or burnt spot in a potato chip they thought looked like Jesus or his mother Mary. These things were always good for a few days but were always quickly explained or laughed off and forgotten soon after they were revealed. As for someone actually talking to God and knowing for sure it was him these things hadn’t happen for years. Rufus mind continued to spin a mile a minute. He was sure he had not had a drink in over 30 years but he did smoke one of his boys locoweed cigarettes a couple of times a week and maybe the buildup over a long period of time was effecting him.
Rufus had almost convinced himself this was some hallucination brought on by his age or the funny cigarettes he’d been sneaking around his wife to smoke. Just as he turned to get out the hell out of there the voice spoke again. “Rufus, you are not going crazy, this is not a vision caused by the dope you’ve been smoking and you better not walk away while I’m talking to you”, the Lord sounded pretty serious. “But God, I gotta be the last person in the world you would pick for this job”, Rufus was scared to death by this time. “I don’t make mistakes,” the Lord replied. “Have you ever thought about Moses, what a loser he was when I picked him”, the Lord continued. “He had done nothing but grow up a rich kid, living in a palace and never worked a day in his life. At the first little nudge of his conscious he fly's off the handle, kills a man and has to run off to the far desert and beg someone to let him go further out in the desert and to watch a bunch of sheep. He could not even talk plain and I chose him and look what he did”.
“But God, your talking about the United States of America, they sell toys glorifying war, you want me to tell them to quit what they are proudest of because I said so”, the enormity of the task was more than Rufus could get his head around. “I did not tell you to disarm them”, said God, “I only told you I wanted you to be my voice and to deliver my message, I will do the heavy work”. “In fact that is not even all I want you to tell them”, the Lord continued. Rufus was still awed by the first message God had asked him to deliver, what else could he possibly want him say. “If I do this what else do you want me to say”, Rufus was not convinced about the first part and he really wanted to know about the rest of the mission. “Well, I want you to tell the President I don’t want these weapons sold or given to any other allied country, I want them destroyed, and if he wants to talk about ‘inspect and verify’ you tell him not to worry about that, I will handle that from here. You also tell him I want the bounty of the blessed land I have set aside for America, to be used to feed the world. I'm talking about health care, energy, all of it. I use to not have to worry about these things when it came to Americans but in recent years the people have become more greedy and have hoarded the blessings I have given them for themselves and profit, they have become less attuned to the cries of my children right there in America and around the world”. “Can I sit down over here on that rock for a minute”, Rufus ask, his legs were feeling a bit unsteady. “Sure”, the Lord replied, “I know this is pretty heavy stuff, Rufus but it’s got to get done.” Rufus sat down on the rock, already pretty hot in the morning sun. The heat from the dry desert air and the hot rock he was sitting on reminded Rufus of why he should not be questioning God, but nothing could ease the sheer terror he was feeling in his head and heart. “O. K. God”, Rufus said, “don’t get mad, I know who you are and a lot of the things you have done, I have always thought I needed to know a little more about you and always meant to read your book a lot more, but I didn’t. I don’t even go to church, I never give any money to the church and I don’t even have old clothes to give to poor people, I wear mine out or give them to my boys. Why did you come all the way down here to get me in the middle of summer in a Mexican desert? Please don’t get mad for me asking”. “I don’t get mad”, God replied, “those are good questions and I should answer them for you if I’m going to disrupt your family and life the way this will. I’m picking you Rufus because you are the most unlikely person I could find in the world. I do things in my own time and my own way. There have been dozens, no hundreds, who have figured that another Moses was going to be needed and have applied for the job. Some of them have been great men representing me in the finest traditions and beliefs of the faith my son Jesus taught and lived. Others have been impostors and clowns, trying to assume the role without my blessings and direction. The impostors have used my name to acquire great wealth and power among my believers, making a mockery of everything my son and I represent. I need someone at this time that will be seen and accepted as my earthly messenger. I need someone totally unknown to the world, a person unexpected to do great works or to bear great messages, I need for the world to see it is me and I am indeed still supreme and my work is mine alone and not that of earthly powers. I must be seen once again and forever as the one true God”.
Rufus thought he understood, he was even a little disappointed and hurt because as heard it God was saying he was looking for the most insignificant person in the world and he chose him. As Rufus saw it he did not have much of a choice. He really believed this was a real ‘God’ experience and if he was right he either did what God wanted or he’d go to hell, which at Rufus’s age was not something he wanted to even think about.
(to be con’d)
Rufus’s mind was racing, he could not remember ever having read or been told anything about things God did since those times back in Bible days. The only thing close to a direct confrontation with God since Bible days was when someone in a remote area of his adopted land, Mexico, saw a shadow on a barn door or burnt spot in a potato chip they thought looked like Jesus or his mother Mary. These things were always good for a few days but were always quickly explained or laughed off and forgotten soon after they were revealed. As for someone actually talking to God and knowing for sure it was him these things hadn’t happen for years. Rufus mind continued to spin a mile a minute. He was sure he had not had a drink in over 30 years but he did smoke one of his boys locoweed cigarettes a couple of times a week and maybe the buildup over a long period of time was effecting him.
Rufus had almost convinced himself this was some hallucination brought on by his age or the funny cigarettes he’d been sneaking around his wife to smoke. Just as he turned to get out the hell out of there the voice spoke again. “Rufus, you are not going crazy, this is not a vision caused by the dope you’ve been smoking and you better not walk away while I’m talking to you”, the Lord sounded pretty serious. “But God, I gotta be the last person in the world you would pick for this job”, Rufus was scared to death by this time. “I don’t make mistakes,” the Lord replied. “Have you ever thought about Moses, what a loser he was when I picked him”, the Lord continued. “He had done nothing but grow up a rich kid, living in a palace and never worked a day in his life. At the first little nudge of his conscious he fly's off the handle, kills a man and has to run off to the far desert and beg someone to let him go further out in the desert and to watch a bunch of sheep. He could not even talk plain and I chose him and look what he did”.
“But God, your talking about the United States of America, they sell toys glorifying war, you want me to tell them to quit what they are proudest of because I said so”, the enormity of the task was more than Rufus could get his head around. “I did not tell you to disarm them”, said God, “I only told you I wanted you to be my voice and to deliver my message, I will do the heavy work”. “In fact that is not even all I want you to tell them”, the Lord continued. Rufus was still awed by the first message God had asked him to deliver, what else could he possibly want him say. “If I do this what else do you want me to say”, Rufus was not convinced about the first part and he really wanted to know about the rest of the mission. “Well, I want you to tell the President I don’t want these weapons sold or given to any other allied country, I want them destroyed, and if he wants to talk about ‘inspect and verify’ you tell him not to worry about that, I will handle that from here. You also tell him I want the bounty of the blessed land I have set aside for America, to be used to feed the world. I'm talking about health care, energy, all of it. I use to not have to worry about these things when it came to Americans but in recent years the people have become more greedy and have hoarded the blessings I have given them for themselves and profit, they have become less attuned to the cries of my children right there in America and around the world”. “Can I sit down over here on that rock for a minute”, Rufus ask, his legs were feeling a bit unsteady. “Sure”, the Lord replied, “I know this is pretty heavy stuff, Rufus but it’s got to get done.” Rufus sat down on the rock, already pretty hot in the morning sun. The heat from the dry desert air and the hot rock he was sitting on reminded Rufus of why he should not be questioning God, but nothing could ease the sheer terror he was feeling in his head and heart. “O. K. God”, Rufus said, “don’t get mad, I know who you are and a lot of the things you have done, I have always thought I needed to know a little more about you and always meant to read your book a lot more, but I didn’t. I don’t even go to church, I never give any money to the church and I don’t even have old clothes to give to poor people, I wear mine out or give them to my boys. Why did you come all the way down here to get me in the middle of summer in a Mexican desert? Please don’t get mad for me asking”. “I don’t get mad”, God replied, “those are good questions and I should answer them for you if I’m going to disrupt your family and life the way this will. I’m picking you Rufus because you are the most unlikely person I could find in the world. I do things in my own time and my own way. There have been dozens, no hundreds, who have figured that another Moses was going to be needed and have applied for the job. Some of them have been great men representing me in the finest traditions and beliefs of the faith my son Jesus taught and lived. Others have been impostors and clowns, trying to assume the role without my blessings and direction. The impostors have used my name to acquire great wealth and power among my believers, making a mockery of everything my son and I represent. I need someone at this time that will be seen and accepted as my earthly messenger. I need someone totally unknown to the world, a person unexpected to do great works or to bear great messages, I need for the world to see it is me and I am indeed still supreme and my work is mine alone and not that of earthly powers. I must be seen once again and forever as the one true God”.
Rufus thought he understood, he was even a little disappointed and hurt because as heard it God was saying he was looking for the most insignificant person in the world and he chose him. As Rufus saw it he did not have much of a choice. He really believed this was a real ‘God’ experience and if he was right he either did what God wanted or he’d go to hell, which at Rufus’s age was not something he wanted to even think about.
(to be con’d)
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
MOSES REPLACED BY 'RUFUS'
For a number of reasons I have had a lot of exposure to the book of Exodus this year. It has taken my Bible study group over a year to cover just the first 30 Chapters at our snail like pace. In addition this quarter's international series of Sunday School lessons has started off on what many historians call the big move and it just seems like everywhere I look someone is talking about the Jews escape. The entire story is really interesting, but I can't help but wonder how these events would be viewed and reported today. It is pretty easy to look back thousands of years through history and wonder about the actions and reactions of Moses, Aaron, Pharaoh and the other cast of characters but what would it be like today if the same things happened.
Let's say some guy named Rufus who had been in trouble with the law 40 or 50 years ago, showed up one day with a message for the President of the U.S.A. from God. Rufus had been living in Mexico for all those years hiding from the Sheriff in Lawrence County, Al because of a stack of DUI tickets he amassed years before. While in Mexico Rufus had been working for a Chinese company that made 'handmade authentic Mexican artifacts & souvenirs' that were to be sold to tourist in Cancun. Rufus's life had been simple for all these years, the Lawrence County sheriff had no intention of chasing Rufus and besides that was ten sheriffs ago and the records were long ago lost when the county clerk switched everything to computers. Rufus's folks were just as glad he was gone because of his propensity to drink and just generally act a fool. Rufus had married a Mexican lady and they raised a couple of kids who were about as smart as Rufus and were now working with him making treasures for the tourist.
One day on the way to work Rufus attention was drawn to a cactus near the small dirt road he traveled each day. Rufus pulled his '73 Ford F-100 over and walked to the cactus that seemed to be on fire but was not burning up as one would expect. As Rufus approached, constantly looking over his shoulder for someone to approach the cactus with him, he was shocked by the same message Moses had heard so long ago. "Take your shoes off Rufus, you are on my ground" blag, blag, etc and etc. Rufus remembered he had not had a drink in years because the condition he drank himself into earlier in his life. He knew something of the experience Moses encountered so long ago from the Bible readings his Mexican wife made him endure every Sunday morning in lieu of attending the local Catholic church. In what would have come as a total shock to anyone in Alabama that ever knew Rufus, it did not take long for Rufus to get the message the voice in the cactus was giving him and for the shoes to come off, dirty socks and all.
"You know who I am", the voice first said, "yes, I think so", said Rufus. "Then you know I've got something for you to do", the voice continued. "Aw God, I can't do anything big, I'm just now learning to speak Mexican and I've been here forty years", Rufus knew from the book it was not going to do any good to argue with God. "You don't have to speak Mexican for this", God said, "I'm gonna need you to speak English". "I don't speak that too good either", was all Rufus could say. Rufus knew it was not going to do any good fight'en God on this. "I'm not stupid, what do you want me to do"? Rufus said weakly. "Here's the deal", the Lord said, "I want you to go back to the United States and tell the President I want him to dismantle the whole military of the United States, I want him to destroy all the weapons, nuclear included, and send all the soldiers home, immediately". "You can't be serious", Rufus said after regaining some degree of presence and preparing to duck. "I know you are God, and you know what your doing, but this ain't Egypt and I will not be talking to some Pharaoh that inherited the job from his old man", Rufus did not want to challenge God but he was not sure God's mind was everything it used to be.
(to be cont'd)
Let's say some guy named Rufus who had been in trouble with the law 40 or 50 years ago, showed up one day with a message for the President of the U.S.A. from God. Rufus had been living in Mexico for all those years hiding from the Sheriff in Lawrence County, Al because of a stack of DUI tickets he amassed years before. While in Mexico Rufus had been working for a Chinese company that made 'handmade authentic Mexican artifacts & souvenirs' that were to be sold to tourist in Cancun. Rufus's life had been simple for all these years, the Lawrence County sheriff had no intention of chasing Rufus and besides that was ten sheriffs ago and the records were long ago lost when the county clerk switched everything to computers. Rufus's folks were just as glad he was gone because of his propensity to drink and just generally act a fool. Rufus had married a Mexican lady and they raised a couple of kids who were about as smart as Rufus and were now working with him making treasures for the tourist.
One day on the way to work Rufus attention was drawn to a cactus near the small dirt road he traveled each day. Rufus pulled his '73 Ford F-100 over and walked to the cactus that seemed to be on fire but was not burning up as one would expect. As Rufus approached, constantly looking over his shoulder for someone to approach the cactus with him, he was shocked by the same message Moses had heard so long ago. "Take your shoes off Rufus, you are on my ground" blag, blag, etc and etc. Rufus remembered he had not had a drink in years because the condition he drank himself into earlier in his life. He knew something of the experience Moses encountered so long ago from the Bible readings his Mexican wife made him endure every Sunday morning in lieu of attending the local Catholic church. In what would have come as a total shock to anyone in Alabama that ever knew Rufus, it did not take long for Rufus to get the message the voice in the cactus was giving him and for the shoes to come off, dirty socks and all.
"You know who I am", the voice first said, "yes, I think so", said Rufus. "Then you know I've got something for you to do", the voice continued. "Aw God, I can't do anything big, I'm just now learning to speak Mexican and I've been here forty years", Rufus knew from the book it was not going to do any good to argue with God. "You don't have to speak Mexican for this", God said, "I'm gonna need you to speak English". "I don't speak that too good either", was all Rufus could say. Rufus knew it was not going to do any good fight'en God on this. "I'm not stupid, what do you want me to do"? Rufus said weakly. "Here's the deal", the Lord said, "I want you to go back to the United States and tell the President I want him to dismantle the whole military of the United States, I want him to destroy all the weapons, nuclear included, and send all the soldiers home, immediately". "You can't be serious", Rufus said after regaining some degree of presence and preparing to duck. "I know you are God, and you know what your doing, but this ain't Egypt and I will not be talking to some Pharaoh that inherited the job from his old man", Rufus did not want to challenge God but he was not sure God's mind was everything it used to be.
(to be cont'd)
Monday, March 23, 2009
AIG OUTRAGE
I am part of the populist outrage over the bonuses paid to the AIG people and I think I have figured out why we can't get a handle on the financial problems facing our country. Our government is suffering from the effects of 200 years of inbreeding our political leaders. Most of us here in the South know that you can't continue to inbreed any line of stock and not have troubles. What we've done in Washington is to inbreed our political leaders for so long that no one in government today knows how to work with companies that are broke. All of our leaders both in the Executive Branch and Congress are rich and have been for generations. Now Obama may be different, being black and poor in Kansas probably taught him a little about working from behind, though he's never had to tell a group of employees they no longer had a job, or explain to a bank they are not going to be repaid on a loan. You see good people who go broke know something about the real way things work in hard times. For example, take the AIG thing everyone is mad about now, the bonuses. A person whose has ridden a losing company down would be much better suited to deal with AIG's problems than Timothy Geithner, former Chairman of the New York Federal Reserve. A man with experience in broke companies would have known how to deal with all those contracts AIG wrote, insuring the trillions of dollars of mortgage back securities. The first thing he would have done would be to call the insured customers in and tell them how AIG's lawyers were putting the finishing touches on a bankruptcy petition in the next room and if they wanted anything they had better take the $.30 on the $1.00 you were fortunate enough to be offering right now or they would not get anything. Bill Glasscock and old trailer man would have settled everything AIG owed around the world for little more that $.50 on the dollar. Not the government, they are paying everybody 100%, regardless of what they knew they were asking AIG to insure.
The next thing would have been to call a staff meeting in every office the company had and use one of those new teleconferencing machines to put on a dog and pony show for all those rich employees waiting to be paid the $170,000,000.00 bonuses. On stage with the AIG officers and directors you would have the Senior Partner of the biggest bankruptcy law firm in the world. The CEO would have introduced him to all the employees, had him explain how he needed to get this done quickly since the Bankruptcy Court Clerk closed at 5:00 p.m. and he needed to get there soon if the employees did not agree to forgo their bonuses this year. He would assure everyone gathered they should agree to forgo the bonus this year in order for them to avoid the long arm of the Trustee in Bankruptcy taking the money they had already received from last year. He would promise them a note from the company for this years money to be paid at such time as the company had sufficient cash in retained earnings to pay the amount they were supposed to get this year without any additional interest. The employees would have started a stampede to sign up for the deferred money just to have the peace of mine that comes from keeping the money from last year they had already spent.
Our problem is people who have never been broke don't think like everyday people. These people charged with getting us out of this mess think they have got to make everybody 100% whole. The government does need to pay 100% of everything it owes, that is key to our continued position in a global economy. AIG and the other private companies are different. The people they owe are due to take a haircut just like the poor Joe's out of work because of the recession. AIG doesn't have the money. Why are AIG's creditors any more entitled to full payment than Sam's Hardware creditors that lost money when Sam's went belly up in the heartland? Bring Lee Iacocca out of retirement, Bill Glasscock is dead.
Give me a smart bankruptcy trustee like Phil Geddes and I could save the government enough to pay for at least one more war and give everybody a mule and forty acres
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Conspiricy Against Catfish
As anyone who regularly reads this space knows, not much gets by the trained eye of this writer. I have pieced together what I believe to be a new threat on our nation by foreign interest, probably the Taliban. Like most good investigative reporters I did not come to this conclusion from one source and one source only. The first hint was not even recognized by this trained eye the first time I heard about the occurrence that now fits so well into the conspiracy. A few weeks ago on a normal late winter, early spring Saturday night a truck crashed into the kitchen area of Libby’s Restaurant out on Highway 67 in Priceville. Until today that crash just seemed like a simple misfortune that caused my friend Libby to lose several weeks of business and 40 or 50 of my friends to lose a breakfast and early morning coffee shop. Libby’s is an institution in this area, but having a truck run through the kitchen on Saturday night was just something that might happen in Priceville, and did not raise too many red flags.
Toward the end of last week another seemingly innocent clue was imbedded deep in the Decatur Daily and probably did not draw much attention from untrained readers. The article to most readers would seem harmless and would be considered by most to be filler since there is usually not much to report around here. To a trained eye like your writer’s it was much more. The article reported catfish farmers in Mississippi and Alabama were being recruited to transform their catfish farms from raising catfish to growing algae. Algae, the same slimy green gook that hangs to a fishing line and clogs boat motors. Now the article reported how some company from up North was going to use this slime to make a new bio-fuel to use in our cars and trucks. Now anybody with half a brain should see that this was a scheme, either the Yankees were trying to destroy our economy (i.e. reconstruction) or there was some greater plan in play that reeked of Bin Laden or his group. Convince us to wipe out a prime food source and substitute thousands of acres of slime; this thinking could only come from our most deadly enemies.
The last piece of the puzzle came this morning while getting a haircut from my faithful and smart barber Vic. Now Vic and I don’t see eye to eye on many things political, but I do put a great deal of stock in his ability to size up a problem. Vic was on a rage about the Omnibus Spending Bill passed last night by the Congress. Now since I am a Democrat and Vic is just to the right of John Birch we don’t agree on many thing but when he mentioned the Spending Bill contained some provision to protect us from the genocide of catfish the lights went off in my head. These dogs are beginning the implementation of their plan to destroy the catfish industry in this country. The government knows about it and is trying to fund some agency to stop them but has not told us about what is going on.
I figure there are sleeper cells all across the South putting their plans into motion. These people have been living among us for years, just waiting for this day. Quietly they are renting mini-vans to violently crash into catfish joints across Alabama, Mississippi and Arkansas. With any planning at all they know that if they strike at the heart of the industry in these states the other states will quickly capitulate. Tennessee, Florida and the Carolina’s have absorbed too many Yankees over the years and are not as dependent on catfish to supplement bar-b-q joints income and would not be so vulnerable to the loss of revenue generated by catfish. Yankees have never been able to overcome the thought of catfish swimming around the sewer lines that feed into their water supplies. They have never minded drinking the water these sewers feed into but heaven forbid eating the fish. As a result they have never really developed the taste for the whiskered fish we southerners have.
Taking away our catfish here in the south would be like cutting Samson’s hair. As a people our culture thrives when we consistently fill every catfish joint within 20 miles of our homes on Friday and Saturday nights just to eat catfish fillets or whole fish, cole slaw and a slab of onion. Thousands would be forced out of work in the joints and at the French fry and tartar sauce factories that have sprung up all across our land. Ice tea consumption would be cut and the manufacturers of the little pink and blue and yellow sweeteners would have no choice but to lay off thousands of workers.
These people know what they are doing. You read it here first-----‘it’s the little things that will get us”.
Toward the end of last week another seemingly innocent clue was imbedded deep in the Decatur Daily and probably did not draw much attention from untrained readers. The article to most readers would seem harmless and would be considered by most to be filler since there is usually not much to report around here. To a trained eye like your writer’s it was much more. The article reported catfish farmers in Mississippi and Alabama were being recruited to transform their catfish farms from raising catfish to growing algae. Algae, the same slimy green gook that hangs to a fishing line and clogs boat motors. Now the article reported how some company from up North was going to use this slime to make a new bio-fuel to use in our cars and trucks. Now anybody with half a brain should see that this was a scheme, either the Yankees were trying to destroy our economy (i.e. reconstruction) or there was some greater plan in play that reeked of Bin Laden or his group. Convince us to wipe out a prime food source and substitute thousands of acres of slime; this thinking could only come from our most deadly enemies.
The last piece of the puzzle came this morning while getting a haircut from my faithful and smart barber Vic. Now Vic and I don’t see eye to eye on many things political, but I do put a great deal of stock in his ability to size up a problem. Vic was on a rage about the Omnibus Spending Bill passed last night by the Congress. Now since I am a Democrat and Vic is just to the right of John Birch we don’t agree on many thing but when he mentioned the Spending Bill contained some provision to protect us from the genocide of catfish the lights went off in my head. These dogs are beginning the implementation of their plan to destroy the catfish industry in this country. The government knows about it and is trying to fund some agency to stop them but has not told us about what is going on.
I figure there are sleeper cells all across the South putting their plans into motion. These people have been living among us for years, just waiting for this day. Quietly they are renting mini-vans to violently crash into catfish joints across Alabama, Mississippi and Arkansas. With any planning at all they know that if they strike at the heart of the industry in these states the other states will quickly capitulate. Tennessee, Florida and the Carolina’s have absorbed too many Yankees over the years and are not as dependent on catfish to supplement bar-b-q joints income and would not be so vulnerable to the loss of revenue generated by catfish. Yankees have never been able to overcome the thought of catfish swimming around the sewer lines that feed into their water supplies. They have never minded drinking the water these sewers feed into but heaven forbid eating the fish. As a result they have never really developed the taste for the whiskered fish we southerners have.
Taking away our catfish here in the south would be like cutting Samson’s hair. As a people our culture thrives when we consistently fill every catfish joint within 20 miles of our homes on Friday and Saturday nights just to eat catfish fillets or whole fish, cole slaw and a slab of onion. Thousands would be forced out of work in the joints and at the French fry and tartar sauce factories that have sprung up all across our land. Ice tea consumption would be cut and the manufacturers of the little pink and blue and yellow sweeteners would have no choice but to lay off thousands of workers.
These people know what they are doing. You read it here first-----‘it’s the little things that will get us”.
Monday, March 2, 2009
JINDAL NOT READY FOR PRIMETIME
I don’t know much about this Gov. Bobby Jindal from down in Louisiana but he has got a lot to learn about politics. First off he must realize he cannot win again because he looks like one of the stars from ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ and gets to reply to the President’s speech. From looking at him he will need to get his birth certificate checked. It doesn’t bother me, heck I am a Democrat and I voted for Obama but Jindal is a Republican and they get pretty touchy about these things. If he wants to run for President in the next election I would want him let Sen. Richard Shelby check his birth certificate. He just don’t look American to me. Sen. Shelby is the one who checks all this stuff about birth certificates and such, judging from comments about his not having checked President Obama’s. Louisiana does not require that you even be a citizen of the United States to be governor, it has something to do with the Napoleonic Code they continue to operate under.
Another thing he will need to learn is to lie better. This week in his speech he made from under that staircase in the governor’s mansion he told about some conversation he overheard during the Katrina mess. Supposedly some Sheriff was on the phone when little Bobby got to the rescue station and was talking on the phone with one of the geniuses from Emergency Management Agency. This Sheriff was telling the EMA to let the local BASS club launch their boats to start picking citizens off their roofs and the EMA was insisting on the boat owners showing proof of insurance before they took off. According to Jindal the Sheriff told them they were going to have to pry the oars and steering wheels of these boats out of the operators cold dead hands to stop them. When the Sheriff looked up and saw little Bobby standing there he added they would also have to pry Bobby’s hands off the oars to. Turns out none of that really happened but Jindal thought it made a good story and he had no intention of letting a few facts get in the way. I don’t blame him at all. Now here is where he has trouble being a politician. You have got to make it bigger, remember George W. talking about his valiant service during Viet Nam in the Air Guard. The truth about him playing ‘tonk’ at the officers club at Maxwell Air Force base during the 60 days he was on active duty was never heard. Hell, at least 70% of everyone that voted for Reagan believed he really played for Notre Dame went by the nickname ‘Gipper’. And how many of us will ever forget Al Gore’s claim to have invented the Internet. I‘ve got relatives now that believe Al invented it and the Morse Code.
Now if it was me or anyone else from Winston Co. and we had gotten in front of some T.V. cameras and were given the chance to boost our image, the story would have been a little different. To start, with the image of all that water still fresh in the minds of those listening, I would have had to be soaking wet and near death freezing. Something like “I have been in the water since first light, swimming from house to house to simply assure the people clinging to live by hanging onto their chimneys help was on the way”. Notice how much more you are drawn into the story and have already begun to feel sorry for me. Next I would have gotten some mileage out of the shock I suffered and the steps I took when I heard the Sheriff pleading for help. My story would have continued, “the minute I heard the Sheriff arguing with lazy no good bureaucrats on the other end of that line I jerked the phone from his hands and through teeth almost chattering out of my mouth from cold, I screamed to the useless pantywaist on the other end of the line that I was Bobby Jindal and unless he wanted to see me in his face in ten seconds he better launch the boats”. Then the story would have gotten even better. I would have continued, now that I was on a roll, explaining how with my aides and family begging me to dry off and to at least get some clean and dry clothes I said, “leave me alone, those are my people out there clinging to life. If I don’t save them they won’t be saved. They elected me and I won’t let them down”. With that I would have told how I jumped in the first boat to leave the dock and how we worked for 42 straight hours pulling my people to safety. Now that’s a story a boy like Jindal could make some hay with.
Was he in ‘Slumdog’ or not?
Another thing he will need to learn is to lie better. This week in his speech he made from under that staircase in the governor’s mansion he told about some conversation he overheard during the Katrina mess. Supposedly some Sheriff was on the phone when little Bobby got to the rescue station and was talking on the phone with one of the geniuses from Emergency Management Agency. This Sheriff was telling the EMA to let the local BASS club launch their boats to start picking citizens off their roofs and the EMA was insisting on the boat owners showing proof of insurance before they took off. According to Jindal the Sheriff told them they were going to have to pry the oars and steering wheels of these boats out of the operators cold dead hands to stop them. When the Sheriff looked up and saw little Bobby standing there he added they would also have to pry Bobby’s hands off the oars to. Turns out none of that really happened but Jindal thought it made a good story and he had no intention of letting a few facts get in the way. I don’t blame him at all. Now here is where he has trouble being a politician. You have got to make it bigger, remember George W. talking about his valiant service during Viet Nam in the Air Guard. The truth about him playing ‘tonk’ at the officers club at Maxwell Air Force base during the 60 days he was on active duty was never heard. Hell, at least 70% of everyone that voted for Reagan believed he really played for Notre Dame went by the nickname ‘Gipper’. And how many of us will ever forget Al Gore’s claim to have invented the Internet. I‘ve got relatives now that believe Al invented it and the Morse Code.
Now if it was me or anyone else from Winston Co. and we had gotten in front of some T.V. cameras and were given the chance to boost our image, the story would have been a little different. To start, with the image of all that water still fresh in the minds of those listening, I would have had to be soaking wet and near death freezing. Something like “I have been in the water since first light, swimming from house to house to simply assure the people clinging to live by hanging onto their chimneys help was on the way”. Notice how much more you are drawn into the story and have already begun to feel sorry for me. Next I would have gotten some mileage out of the shock I suffered and the steps I took when I heard the Sheriff pleading for help. My story would have continued, “the minute I heard the Sheriff arguing with lazy no good bureaucrats on the other end of that line I jerked the phone from his hands and through teeth almost chattering out of my mouth from cold, I screamed to the useless pantywaist on the other end of the line that I was Bobby Jindal and unless he wanted to see me in his face in ten seconds he better launch the boats”. Then the story would have gotten even better. I would have continued, now that I was on a roll, explaining how with my aides and family begging me to dry off and to at least get some clean and dry clothes I said, “leave me alone, those are my people out there clinging to life. If I don’t save them they won’t be saved. They elected me and I won’t let them down”. With that I would have told how I jumped in the first boat to leave the dock and how we worked for 42 straight hours pulling my people to safety. Now that’s a story a boy like Jindal could make some hay with.
Was he in ‘Slumdog’ or not?
Friday, February 27, 2009
Cheat'en & Family Pride
I have not posted for a few days due to the increasing pressure the Obama administration keeps putting on me to come up with something to end these wars and to get the economy straightened out. I finally told the guy that keeps calling from the White House to back off and give me some time to think. During this ‘down time’ from the pressures of the world I went to an All-Star 8 and under basketball tournament that my super gifted and good looking grandson Jackson was participating in. Now Jackson played in a league in Huntsville that actually required proof of age by a birth certificate before playing. His little group of 8 and under buddies played other kids that were 8 and under throughout the winter and Jackson’s group did quite well. They won all of their league games and lost a couple to teams from other leagues in exhibition games early on. At the end of the regular season Jackson and six other kids that looked 8 and under were chosen to an All Star team that would play in a District Tournament in Hartselle. Well we went to the tournament last night and believe me there has not been a beat’in put on one team by another since Samson took the jaw bone of an ass to all those Philistines a long time ago.
I am not about to accuse the team from Meridianville of using kids that were 8 and above, they may just grow big in the north end of Madison County, but I do know that we did not have one kid that shaved or drove a car to the game in Hartselle. The final score was 30 something to 6 and most of our points came on free throws. Half way through the fourth quarter the coach from Meridianville took his first team out and three of them left for work. Our little band of seven fought to the end. These kids were determined even if out manned. My Jackson is a pretty good size 8 year old and built exactly like his other grandfather, Billy Neighbors, who happen to win both the Jacobs and Outland Trophies in his All American days at the University of Alabama under Coach Bryant. In most circles Jackson is considered pretty big for his age. Last night Jackson looked like the little brother to Meridianville’s point guard.
I guess we are lucky that kids don’t take stuff as seriously as we adults. Our kids played their hearts out and never quit. Even Jackson who does not take losing at anything lightly was still disappointed but over it by the time he got back to Huntsville. Only us parents and grandparents are still carrying this injustice into today and writing about it as a form of release. My son, Bubba, even tried to explain to me that the smaller towns like Meridianville do not have enough kids to spread them out like Huntsville and that since they only fielded one team made up of the best in the area while Huntsville was bla-bla-bla and bla. Makes no difference to me. When a kid playing in an 8 and under tournament is hairy legged and drives I don’t like it one bit. Years ago in Haleyville we would have locked them in their dressing room or cut the tires on their bus if something like this happened. Spending the night in a dressing room, or trying to find someone in Haleyville to change a tire after 7:00 pm after a ballgame would make you think twice about cheating next time. I guess in a town like Hartselle where they have all night service stations and even the kids have a cell phone those remedies would not work, but we would have figured out something to break them dogs from sucking eggs.
On a much lighter note I have got to mention the smarter side of my family. I had an aunt, Martha Whitt Hoover, who went off to Kentucky and raised a family of really smart people. Her children, which make them my cousins, are all pretty special and the rest of use them on our resumes and any other time we need to shore up our creditability. Her oldest, Greg, is a graduate of West Point and retired after a career in the Army and teaches in Franklin, Tenn. The service warped him to some extent making him a dye-hard, orange blazer wearing Tennessee fan but actually a pretty good sort of fellow. Her third, Meg is a beautiful and talented mother and businesswoman that ended up in San Antonio, Texas with three boys (real boys). The second son is a doctor in Nashville.
Now this entire family is and will be the subject of several of these offerings in the future but I have got to mention something about Brad, the doctor today. Brad was just chosen Dr. of the Year, by his peers and hospital staff in Nashville. Now my uncle Billy made it to the top of Alabama Power Co. and my uncle James was the mayor of Haleyville when 911 was birthed and we claim he invented it, and his son-in-law Ken is now the mayor of Haleyville, but in my opinion Dr. of the Year in a town like Nashville is about as high and any of us descendants W.W. and Maggie ever got. Way to go Brad, you da’ man!
I am not about to accuse the team from Meridianville of using kids that were 8 and above, they may just grow big in the north end of Madison County, but I do know that we did not have one kid that shaved or drove a car to the game in Hartselle. The final score was 30 something to 6 and most of our points came on free throws. Half way through the fourth quarter the coach from Meridianville took his first team out and three of them left for work. Our little band of seven fought to the end. These kids were determined even if out manned. My Jackson is a pretty good size 8 year old and built exactly like his other grandfather, Billy Neighbors, who happen to win both the Jacobs and Outland Trophies in his All American days at the University of Alabama under Coach Bryant. In most circles Jackson is considered pretty big for his age. Last night Jackson looked like the little brother to Meridianville’s point guard.
I guess we are lucky that kids don’t take stuff as seriously as we adults. Our kids played their hearts out and never quit. Even Jackson who does not take losing at anything lightly was still disappointed but over it by the time he got back to Huntsville. Only us parents and grandparents are still carrying this injustice into today and writing about it as a form of release. My son, Bubba, even tried to explain to me that the smaller towns like Meridianville do not have enough kids to spread them out like Huntsville and that since they only fielded one team made up of the best in the area while Huntsville was bla-bla-bla and bla. Makes no difference to me. When a kid playing in an 8 and under tournament is hairy legged and drives I don’t like it one bit. Years ago in Haleyville we would have locked them in their dressing room or cut the tires on their bus if something like this happened. Spending the night in a dressing room, or trying to find someone in Haleyville to change a tire after 7:00 pm after a ballgame would make you think twice about cheating next time. I guess in a town like Hartselle where they have all night service stations and even the kids have a cell phone those remedies would not work, but we would have figured out something to break them dogs from sucking eggs.
On a much lighter note I have got to mention the smarter side of my family. I had an aunt, Martha Whitt Hoover, who went off to Kentucky and raised a family of really smart people. Her children, which make them my cousins, are all pretty special and the rest of use them on our resumes and any other time we need to shore up our creditability. Her oldest, Greg, is a graduate of West Point and retired after a career in the Army and teaches in Franklin, Tenn. The service warped him to some extent making him a dye-hard, orange blazer wearing Tennessee fan but actually a pretty good sort of fellow. Her third, Meg is a beautiful and talented mother and businesswoman that ended up in San Antonio, Texas with three boys (real boys). The second son is a doctor in Nashville.
Now this entire family is and will be the subject of several of these offerings in the future but I have got to mention something about Brad, the doctor today. Brad was just chosen Dr. of the Year, by his peers and hospital staff in Nashville. Now my uncle Billy made it to the top of Alabama Power Co. and my uncle James was the mayor of Haleyville when 911 was birthed and we claim he invented it, and his son-in-law Ken is now the mayor of Haleyville, but in my opinion Dr. of the Year in a town like Nashville is about as high and any of us descendants W.W. and Maggie ever got. Way to go Brad, you da’ man!
Friday, February 13, 2009
The Science Of Romance: Brains Have A Love Circuit
The Science Of Romance: Brains Have A Love Circuit
“In humans, there are four tiny areas of the brain that some researchers say form a circuit of love. Acevedo, who works at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, is part of a team that has isolated those regions with the unromantic names of ventral tegmental area (VTA), the nucleus accumbens, the ventral pallidum and raphe nucleus.”
I ran across this vitally important information while taking my morning jog through the Huffington Post website. I try to go their daily just long enough to glean something extremely liberal to use in irritating my two boys who believe Bill O’Reily and Rush Limbaugh are the direct descendants of Paul the Apostle and John the beloved disciple. What with Valentine Day just two days away and me being totally broke and unable to shower my wife with anything other apologies and promises of better times the article caught my attention.
“THE SCIENCE OF ROMANCE”, most of us would be hooked by such a line after being bombarded with Hallmark advertising over the last couple of weeks. I really have to admit that after reading it all I was somewhat disappointed. I was looking for the magic lines that Tim McGraw used on his first few dates with Faith Hill or something I could use to make Patsy forget about diamonds or other shiny stuff. Instead I got a continuing education on Mrs. Martha Taylor’s biology class. There won’t be much I can do about ventral tegmental area, the nucleus accumbens, the ventral pallidum and the raphe nucleus. I did not know these places existed before I read the article, would not know how the use them or even where to find them if I tried.
This is the kind of thing I imagine the tax stimulus money is going to fund research on. This is not the ‘science of romance’ as it was billed because romance is something that happens between two ordinary people. Use to be that it was always between a man and a woman; today it apparently can be between two of anything that has breath, shape and form. In any event I don’t think when romancing gets started that a lot of thought goes into kicking up the ventral tegmental area, the nucleus accumbens, the ventral pallidum and the raphe nucleus.
I do think the scientist that have moved us this far in the study of romance could tell us what effect some of the old standard pick-up lines have on these newly discovered areas. For instance, does it affect the ventral tegmental area, when a woman hears “get in the truck” or is the nucleus accumbens stimulated when just seconds later the same woman hears, “get in the truck now, damnit”? What part of the brain turns to mush when a lady hears, “Is there an airport nearby or is that just my heart taking off”? or “What time do you have to be back in heaven”? Real research a man can use is needed here. There are enough science books that set out body parts and organs; we need information we can use.
“In humans, there are four tiny areas of the brain that some researchers say form a circuit of love. Acevedo, who works at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, is part of a team that has isolated those regions with the unromantic names of ventral tegmental area (VTA), the nucleus accumbens, the ventral pallidum and raphe nucleus.”
I ran across this vitally important information while taking my morning jog through the Huffington Post website. I try to go their daily just long enough to glean something extremely liberal to use in irritating my two boys who believe Bill O’Reily and Rush Limbaugh are the direct descendants of Paul the Apostle and John the beloved disciple. What with Valentine Day just two days away and me being totally broke and unable to shower my wife with anything other apologies and promises of better times the article caught my attention.
“THE SCIENCE OF ROMANCE”, most of us would be hooked by such a line after being bombarded with Hallmark advertising over the last couple of weeks. I really have to admit that after reading it all I was somewhat disappointed. I was looking for the magic lines that Tim McGraw used on his first few dates with Faith Hill or something I could use to make Patsy forget about diamonds or other shiny stuff. Instead I got a continuing education on Mrs. Martha Taylor’s biology class. There won’t be much I can do about ventral tegmental area, the nucleus accumbens, the ventral pallidum and the raphe nucleus. I did not know these places existed before I read the article, would not know how the use them or even where to find them if I tried.
This is the kind of thing I imagine the tax stimulus money is going to fund research on. This is not the ‘science of romance’ as it was billed because romance is something that happens between two ordinary people. Use to be that it was always between a man and a woman; today it apparently can be between two of anything that has breath, shape and form. In any event I don’t think when romancing gets started that a lot of thought goes into kicking up the ventral tegmental area, the nucleus accumbens, the ventral pallidum and the raphe nucleus.
I do think the scientist that have moved us this far in the study of romance could tell us what effect some of the old standard pick-up lines have on these newly discovered areas. For instance, does it affect the ventral tegmental area, when a woman hears “get in the truck” or is the nucleus accumbens stimulated when just seconds later the same woman hears, “get in the truck now, damnit”? What part of the brain turns to mush when a lady hears, “Is there an airport nearby or is that just my heart taking off”? or “What time do you have to be back in heaven”? Real research a man can use is needed here. There are enough science books that set out body parts and organs; we need information we can use.
Saturday, February 7, 2009
What Happened to Nicknames?
Nicknames
Did anybody except me ever wonder what happened to nicknames? I live right here in the Heart of Dixie, home to the great tradition of nicknames and hardly ever hear a good or even bad nickname any more. When I was a kid living in the Free State of Winston a politician would not get very far without a good nickname. James “Big Jim” Folsom, Jack “C.C.” Owens, Ben “Uncle Ben” Dodd, “Cotton Tom” Heflin and many more ran successful campaigns in large part because they were just good ole boys the people could trust. Ty ‘the Georgia Peach’ Cobb, “Slingin Sammy” Baugh, Wilt “the Stilt” Chamberlain, Walt “Sweetness” Peyton and many others ruled the world of sports.
There is just something you like about someone with a nickname. In my world I can remember the boys and men having great nicknames, certainly ones that were commonly used in the community. We had some for a few girls but you wouldn’t say them in front of your mother so I don’t consider them legitimate nicknames. Nicknames were not always shorter than the proper name. Tab Partain was known to most as ‘Tabulator’. Many of my dad’s buddies passed on using his real name, Jack, and called him ‘no-buttons’, a handle derived from the fact he ran a laundry and some of their shirts were sometimes returned sans buttons. In that, the greatest generation, in our small town alone there was ‘Slick’ Long, ‘Spike’ Dobbs, ‘Cotton’ McCellan, ‘Son’ Drake, ‘Top’ Dobbs, ‘Bubba’ Scott (who my son is named after) and ‘Rut’ Rutledge just to name a few. There was nothing demeaning or ugly meant by using a man’s nickname it was just a way of life. In thinking I have come to consider it as another sign of closeness and familiarity we have lost in this generation. People that did not know you called you by your proper name and only those who really knew you used the nickname.
My generation had not reached the degree of complication and separation we have today so we just naturally picked up on what our fathers started. In my small high school with the staggering number of 57 in my senior class we had a wealth of names. Jim ‘Monk’ Roberts, whose nickname I never knew the origin of even though we were close. Ray Joe ‘Pano’ Cagle whose name came from someone’s determination that a shirt he wore at least one day was made from the same material panties were fashioned from. Bobby ‘SOB’ Masdon, who because he grew up with two older brothers and a sister, in a neighborhood where most all the kids were older than him and continually kept him at the point of tears in his early life that he was dubbed ‘SOB’ as short for sobbing. We were almost out of high school before be even realized what the initials stood for to a lot of people. We had Teddy ‘Screw’ Driver and James ‘Cotton’ Postell. We had Larry ‘Big Daddy’ Barron, Jerry ‘Chigger’ Wilson and Jimmy ‘Chinck’ Wilson. The Wilson boys you could not use their nicknames to their face because it would shorten your life but alone in a watermelon patch without them around you would utter their nicknames to make you feel a little braver. Although I neither have the time or space to include all in my generation I would feel bad if I did not remember Wayne ‘Beef’ Crumpton, Robert ‘Stud’ Blake and Stanley ‘Stretch’ Thornton. I must also include some of my closest friends with multiple nicknames. James Cecil Long was ‘Geese’ or ‘Goose’ until the early part of Junior High when he lost a lot of weight and really slimmed up to then become known as ‘Skinny’. Jimmy Kent Israel who grew up with two brothers and a slightly older uncle also had two nicknames during this time. Jimmy Kent is still known to me as ‘Kibo’ or ‘Nat’. I think his Uncle Dicky had a lot to do with this confusion.
Two more categories I only have time to touch on are important. The nicknames you had for teachers and other adults that could only be used in secret and certainly not in front of these centers of influence. We had F.A. ‘FA’ Harvey, a principle from the early days of our education. We had Ted ‘Willy Dogan’ Logan, a much beloved assistant coach. The afore mentioned H. L. ‘Bubba’ Scott who for some reason we named ‘Hand Jive’ or simply ‘Jive’ in the darker days of preseason practice. Bill ‘Skin’ Hyde another coach who went on to an outstanding career and the unforgettable ‘Flab’ Babcock a band director that allowed me into our marching band while I was in the third grade and unable to play a note, simply because even at that age I was big enough to wear a uniform. My mother let me march in the band but I couldn’t play an instrument or ride the bus to events, which really hurt my pride.
I think if I ever run for office I will run as Jack ‘The Ripper’ Norman. Pretty catching.
Did anybody except me ever wonder what happened to nicknames? I live right here in the Heart of Dixie, home to the great tradition of nicknames and hardly ever hear a good or even bad nickname any more. When I was a kid living in the Free State of Winston a politician would not get very far without a good nickname. James “Big Jim” Folsom, Jack “C.C.” Owens, Ben “Uncle Ben” Dodd, “Cotton Tom” Heflin and many more ran successful campaigns in large part because they were just good ole boys the people could trust. Ty ‘the Georgia Peach’ Cobb, “Slingin Sammy” Baugh, Wilt “the Stilt” Chamberlain, Walt “Sweetness” Peyton and many others ruled the world of sports.
There is just something you like about someone with a nickname. In my world I can remember the boys and men having great nicknames, certainly ones that were commonly used in the community. We had some for a few girls but you wouldn’t say them in front of your mother so I don’t consider them legitimate nicknames. Nicknames were not always shorter than the proper name. Tab Partain was known to most as ‘Tabulator’. Many of my dad’s buddies passed on using his real name, Jack, and called him ‘no-buttons’, a handle derived from the fact he ran a laundry and some of their shirts were sometimes returned sans buttons. In that, the greatest generation, in our small town alone there was ‘Slick’ Long, ‘Spike’ Dobbs, ‘Cotton’ McCellan, ‘Son’ Drake, ‘Top’ Dobbs, ‘Bubba’ Scott (who my son is named after) and ‘Rut’ Rutledge just to name a few. There was nothing demeaning or ugly meant by using a man’s nickname it was just a way of life. In thinking I have come to consider it as another sign of closeness and familiarity we have lost in this generation. People that did not know you called you by your proper name and only those who really knew you used the nickname.
My generation had not reached the degree of complication and separation we have today so we just naturally picked up on what our fathers started. In my small high school with the staggering number of 57 in my senior class we had a wealth of names. Jim ‘Monk’ Roberts, whose nickname I never knew the origin of even though we were close. Ray Joe ‘Pano’ Cagle whose name came from someone’s determination that a shirt he wore at least one day was made from the same material panties were fashioned from. Bobby ‘SOB’ Masdon, who because he grew up with two older brothers and a sister, in a neighborhood where most all the kids were older than him and continually kept him at the point of tears in his early life that he was dubbed ‘SOB’ as short for sobbing. We were almost out of high school before be even realized what the initials stood for to a lot of people. We had Teddy ‘Screw’ Driver and James ‘Cotton’ Postell. We had Larry ‘Big Daddy’ Barron, Jerry ‘Chigger’ Wilson and Jimmy ‘Chinck’ Wilson. The Wilson boys you could not use their nicknames to their face because it would shorten your life but alone in a watermelon patch without them around you would utter their nicknames to make you feel a little braver. Although I neither have the time or space to include all in my generation I would feel bad if I did not remember Wayne ‘Beef’ Crumpton, Robert ‘Stud’ Blake and Stanley ‘Stretch’ Thornton. I must also include some of my closest friends with multiple nicknames. James Cecil Long was ‘Geese’ or ‘Goose’ until the early part of Junior High when he lost a lot of weight and really slimmed up to then become known as ‘Skinny’. Jimmy Kent Israel who grew up with two brothers and a slightly older uncle also had two nicknames during this time. Jimmy Kent is still known to me as ‘Kibo’ or ‘Nat’. I think his Uncle Dicky had a lot to do with this confusion.
Two more categories I only have time to touch on are important. The nicknames you had for teachers and other adults that could only be used in secret and certainly not in front of these centers of influence. We had F.A. ‘FA’ Harvey, a principle from the early days of our education. We had Ted ‘Willy Dogan’ Logan, a much beloved assistant coach. The afore mentioned H. L. ‘Bubba’ Scott who for some reason we named ‘Hand Jive’ or simply ‘Jive’ in the darker days of preseason practice. Bill ‘Skin’ Hyde another coach who went on to an outstanding career and the unforgettable ‘Flab’ Babcock a band director that allowed me into our marching band while I was in the third grade and unable to play a note, simply because even at that age I was big enough to wear a uniform. My mother let me march in the band but I couldn’t play an instrument or ride the bus to events, which really hurt my pride.
I think if I ever run for office I will run as Jack ‘The Ripper’ Norman. Pretty catching.
Friday, February 6, 2009
Brain Drain or You Got to be Kidding
Brain Drain Blues
In debating the President’s economic recovery package, specifically the limit on compensation for executives, the Repubs are getting a little touchy. Sen. Claire McCaskill said the financial executives just don’t get it. “It’s like they are kicking sand in the face of the American people,” said Sen. McCaskill when referring to the continued extravagance in the boardrooms of the ‘big money’ recipients of the previous TARP funds and the hat in hand beggars now soliciting more ‘Bail Out’ money from the government.
Just a day after the President suggested a paltry $500,000.00 per year cap on the executives of companies taking our money to get their companies out of hock, the ‘trickle down’ boys began to squeal like stuck pigs. I’m sure the faxes, e-mails and lobbying buddies were covering the old money politicians like one of those new ‘Snugglies’ we see daily advertised on T.V. Most every imaginable excuse is now being made to avoid such common sense legislation. I think the dumbest is the one made by the former President of Merrill, Lynch, the guy whose reason for spending $1,250,000.00 to redecorate his office, while his company lost 20 Billion dollars in the last quarter of last year, was because he just didn’t feel like he could work in the old place. This genius actually told a live reporter on a network show he felt he had to pay the year end bonuses for his company, which amounted to over a billion dollars, because if he did not he was going to lose his good people. Good people! What part of losing 20 billion dollars does this fool not understand? Right this minute, I can get in my car and drive across town to the sale barn and put together a group of Mexican farm workers, not the farm owners but the illegal’s that can not speak English, and live twelve to a two bedroom trailer and together we can’t lose 20 BILLION DOLLARS in a year, much less a quarter. If I could gather the actual farmers and throw in my barber Vic, we could maybe make at least a couple of percentage points or at least make more than we making now and have a little left over for the investors.
One insider that agreed with the President on the limitations suggested that big time executives might even be required to qualify for their pay in the same manner that unemployment compensation recipients do. That is they must prove that they are working a minimum of 40 hours per week on the job. They could not count the time they spent reading the Wall Street Journal or commuting in company cars with paid drivers or flying in company air craft. That each company should be required to charge for meals in executive dining rooms and that outside executive meals be limited to a set per diem as is the case for other government employees until all government money is repaid. He noted that full control over the affairs of the company be returned to its Board and Executives as soon as all the government money is repaid and the company is operating on it own. The response to this has been strong. It is unheard of, the panic mentality abounds that we would be risking the loss of the geniuses of the financial world. "It's a leap, because the executive at the bank is a free agent who can leave the bank and go to work someplace else," said Sen. Bob Bennett (R-UT) of the welfare comparison. "You run the risk of having a brain drain at the bank of their top talent." Lord forbid us having a brain drain in our financial world. Where are they going? I can just hear a potential employer now asking during the interview portion of the hiring process, “why’d you leave your last job Mr. member of the brain drain”? “Oh, I lost the company 20 Billion last quarter and they wanted to cut my pay to a mere $500,000.00 next year and I just can’t live on that,” Brain Drain would reply. We’ve already lost the genius of George W. in the White House, Donald Rumsfield in the Pentagon. If this happen the only thing holding this nation together would be Bill O’Rielly and Rush Limbaugh and it is doubtful the the two of them could prevail against hords of common citizens that would like to see this nation work the way it was designed to work. For the people and by the people.
God save our nation from the great brain drain of smart people that have governed our country and its markets for the last eight years.
In debating the President’s economic recovery package, specifically the limit on compensation for executives, the Repubs are getting a little touchy. Sen. Claire McCaskill said the financial executives just don’t get it. “It’s like they are kicking sand in the face of the American people,” said Sen. McCaskill when referring to the continued extravagance in the boardrooms of the ‘big money’ recipients of the previous TARP funds and the hat in hand beggars now soliciting more ‘Bail Out’ money from the government.
Just a day after the President suggested a paltry $500,000.00 per year cap on the executives of companies taking our money to get their companies out of hock, the ‘trickle down’ boys began to squeal like stuck pigs. I’m sure the faxes, e-mails and lobbying buddies were covering the old money politicians like one of those new ‘Snugglies’ we see daily advertised on T.V. Most every imaginable excuse is now being made to avoid such common sense legislation. I think the dumbest is the one made by the former President of Merrill, Lynch, the guy whose reason for spending $1,250,000.00 to redecorate his office, while his company lost 20 Billion dollars in the last quarter of last year, was because he just didn’t feel like he could work in the old place. This genius actually told a live reporter on a network show he felt he had to pay the year end bonuses for his company, which amounted to over a billion dollars, because if he did not he was going to lose his good people. Good people! What part of losing 20 billion dollars does this fool not understand? Right this minute, I can get in my car and drive across town to the sale barn and put together a group of Mexican farm workers, not the farm owners but the illegal’s that can not speak English, and live twelve to a two bedroom trailer and together we can’t lose 20 BILLION DOLLARS in a year, much less a quarter. If I could gather the actual farmers and throw in my barber Vic, we could maybe make at least a couple of percentage points or at least make more than we making now and have a little left over for the investors.
One insider that agreed with the President on the limitations suggested that big time executives might even be required to qualify for their pay in the same manner that unemployment compensation recipients do. That is they must prove that they are working a minimum of 40 hours per week on the job. They could not count the time they spent reading the Wall Street Journal or commuting in company cars with paid drivers or flying in company air craft. That each company should be required to charge for meals in executive dining rooms and that outside executive meals be limited to a set per diem as is the case for other government employees until all government money is repaid. He noted that full control over the affairs of the company be returned to its Board and Executives as soon as all the government money is repaid and the company is operating on it own. The response to this has been strong. It is unheard of, the panic mentality abounds that we would be risking the loss of the geniuses of the financial world. "It's a leap, because the executive at the bank is a free agent who can leave the bank and go to work someplace else," said Sen. Bob Bennett (R-UT) of the welfare comparison. "You run the risk of having a brain drain at the bank of their top talent." Lord forbid us having a brain drain in our financial world. Where are they going? I can just hear a potential employer now asking during the interview portion of the hiring process, “why’d you leave your last job Mr. member of the brain drain”? “Oh, I lost the company 20 Billion last quarter and they wanted to cut my pay to a mere $500,000.00 next year and I just can’t live on that,” Brain Drain would reply. We’ve already lost the genius of George W. in the White House, Donald Rumsfield in the Pentagon. If this happen the only thing holding this nation together would be Bill O’Rielly and Rush Limbaugh and it is doubtful the the two of them could prevail against hords of common citizens that would like to see this nation work the way it was designed to work. For the people and by the people.
God save our nation from the great brain drain of smart people that have governed our country and its markets for the last eight years.
Monday, February 2, 2009
KNOCKED OUT THE PITCHER!!!
It happened about this time of year 46 years ago and I still get nightmares about one of the top three bad events in my life. I was a junior in high school and totally secure in my little world of Haleyville, Alabama, the greatest place to grow up in during the 60’s. During the winter I’d been named a captain of the next year’s football team, I was making pretty good grades and dating the drum majorette of the band. In Haleyville during that time high school football players were the kings of the town year round and could do no wrong. Spring sports were played for pure enjoyment and to give us kids an excuse from working during that time of year. The coaches that coached football in the fall and for a few weeks in the spring coached our baseball and track teams and got us to and from the other small towns in the area for games.
Since I was the biggest and was by far the slowest kid on our baseball team I naturally got the call to catch. I was a decent catcher for our time and size of school but mostly I was the only one that would fit the chest protector that had been bought years before when the school had a real catcher. I stopped a high percentage of the balls thrown at me and on occasion, if I had a base runner as slow as I was, I could get the ball to James Cecil Long who usually covered second for a put out. On offense I often hit the ball but was so slow I have been known to suffer a put out at first from a ball hit to left field. Fortunately for me we did not have anybody else that could wear the chest protector so I got to play on a regular basis.
Another big downer for baseball in our little hometown, and most of our area, was the lack of decent facilities to play on. In Haleyville we played in a field out near the Armory that I guess the American Legion had built many years before. The backstop was made of some old power poles (I’m sure Alabama Power found missing on some inventory) covered with chicken wire that had been salvaged from farms when the chicken industry moved from yards to chicken houses. The dugouts were only benches set fairly close to the first and third base lines due to the fact roadways separated by huge ditches ran immediately behind them. Not much chance to make a play on a foul ball since the player making the play was in danger of falling into a 4 to 8 foot ditch if he got outside the benches.
We did have from time to time some pretty good baseball players. Bob Masdon, a lifelong friend was probably the best I ever played with. When Bob was 15 he hitched a ride with some older kids to Winfield where the Cincinnati Reds were holding tryouts. Bob lied about his age when he registered that morning and he did so well in the tryout that the guys running them tried to offer him a contract. He had to confess his true age and go home empty handed. The victim of my misadventures was a pitcher named Talmadge Goodwin. Talmadge was a pitcher unequaled during our time as high school baseball wannabes. Talmadge was the real thing, the first guy who could really throw a ball through a car wash and have it come out dry, that is if we had car washes during that time. He had every pitch and heat to burn, but unfortunately I was his catcher and because of me he never made it past playing for the Pete Miller All-Stars, on Sunday afternoon in Winston and Walker County against the likes of Nauvoo and Carbon Hill.
To showcase Talmadge and Bob and some other fairly good players our coach scheduled a game in Florence against Coffee High School that fateful day in the spring of 1962. The entire team crammed into three old army surplus cars the booster club had bought for the athletic department and headed for Florence and our shot at the big time. As we unloaded we could just a well been at Wrigley Field or Yankee Stadium, as I remember it today it was beautiful. A field with grass on the infield, smooth, rock less red clay base paths and hitters boxes, on deck circles on both sides of the plate and most important a fence completely surrounding the park with yardage signs down both power alleys and in straightaway center. It could not have been more beautiful. In contrast most of us didn’t even have matching pants and jerseys.
Uniformed umpires met at home plate with both coaches and after the normal warm-ups the game began. I don’t remember exactly, but I do know that we had a base runner or two in that first inning but failed to score any runs. Scouts from several colleges and a few professional scouts had come primarily to see this kid, Talmadge Goodwin from Haleyville throw and check out all the rumors making the rounds in those days. I was catching this star and was in total awe of the whole thing, maybe too much in awe. Talmadge warmed up from the mound to start the bottom half of the first inning. He had his best stuff for this big day. His fastball was literally knocking my mitt off my hand and all the breaking stuff was moving like a roller coaster car on a fast track. Every scout had his eye on this phenom and Haleyville was about to make its mark on the baseball world, except for one small problem. Talmadge signaled me that the warm up was complete and to ‘throw-it-down’, the last ritual before bringing the batter to the plate. As Talmadge threw the last pitch a hopping curve ball, he turned his back to the plate and bent over to pickup a rosin bag lying next to the pitching rubber. I caught the ball and with my best move jumped from my squat and fired the ball to James Cecil at second. I fired just as Talmadge raised up from his bent over position.
I never saw the ball come down. I did see it hit Talmadge in the back of his head and I saw it careen skyward, I promise I never saw it come down. Our hero was fallen, not in combat but from my very own friendly fire. The hauled him off on a stretcher and we picked up him at the hospital in the army surplus car on the way home. Talmadge signed a football scholarship later that spring to Alabama but never played a down. I have always wondered what would have happened if I had now knocked him out of not only his but our whole teams biggest game.
Talmadge is dead now (not from my throw) and he never held my throw against me, but I will never forget it. That throw would have been perfect if he had just stayed down and left it alone.
Since I was the biggest and was by far the slowest kid on our baseball team I naturally got the call to catch. I was a decent catcher for our time and size of school but mostly I was the only one that would fit the chest protector that had been bought years before when the school had a real catcher. I stopped a high percentage of the balls thrown at me and on occasion, if I had a base runner as slow as I was, I could get the ball to James Cecil Long who usually covered second for a put out. On offense I often hit the ball but was so slow I have been known to suffer a put out at first from a ball hit to left field. Fortunately for me we did not have anybody else that could wear the chest protector so I got to play on a regular basis.
Another big downer for baseball in our little hometown, and most of our area, was the lack of decent facilities to play on. In Haleyville we played in a field out near the Armory that I guess the American Legion had built many years before. The backstop was made of some old power poles (I’m sure Alabama Power found missing on some inventory) covered with chicken wire that had been salvaged from farms when the chicken industry moved from yards to chicken houses. The dugouts were only benches set fairly close to the first and third base lines due to the fact roadways separated by huge ditches ran immediately behind them. Not much chance to make a play on a foul ball since the player making the play was in danger of falling into a 4 to 8 foot ditch if he got outside the benches.
We did have from time to time some pretty good baseball players. Bob Masdon, a lifelong friend was probably the best I ever played with. When Bob was 15 he hitched a ride with some older kids to Winfield where the Cincinnati Reds were holding tryouts. Bob lied about his age when he registered that morning and he did so well in the tryout that the guys running them tried to offer him a contract. He had to confess his true age and go home empty handed. The victim of my misadventures was a pitcher named Talmadge Goodwin. Talmadge was a pitcher unequaled during our time as high school baseball wannabes. Talmadge was the real thing, the first guy who could really throw a ball through a car wash and have it come out dry, that is if we had car washes during that time. He had every pitch and heat to burn, but unfortunately I was his catcher and because of me he never made it past playing for the Pete Miller All-Stars, on Sunday afternoon in Winston and Walker County against the likes of Nauvoo and Carbon Hill.
To showcase Talmadge and Bob and some other fairly good players our coach scheduled a game in Florence against Coffee High School that fateful day in the spring of 1962. The entire team crammed into three old army surplus cars the booster club had bought for the athletic department and headed for Florence and our shot at the big time. As we unloaded we could just a well been at Wrigley Field or Yankee Stadium, as I remember it today it was beautiful. A field with grass on the infield, smooth, rock less red clay base paths and hitters boxes, on deck circles on both sides of the plate and most important a fence completely surrounding the park with yardage signs down both power alleys and in straightaway center. It could not have been more beautiful. In contrast most of us didn’t even have matching pants and jerseys.
Uniformed umpires met at home plate with both coaches and after the normal warm-ups the game began. I don’t remember exactly, but I do know that we had a base runner or two in that first inning but failed to score any runs. Scouts from several colleges and a few professional scouts had come primarily to see this kid, Talmadge Goodwin from Haleyville throw and check out all the rumors making the rounds in those days. I was catching this star and was in total awe of the whole thing, maybe too much in awe. Talmadge warmed up from the mound to start the bottom half of the first inning. He had his best stuff for this big day. His fastball was literally knocking my mitt off my hand and all the breaking stuff was moving like a roller coaster car on a fast track. Every scout had his eye on this phenom and Haleyville was about to make its mark on the baseball world, except for one small problem. Talmadge signaled me that the warm up was complete and to ‘throw-it-down’, the last ritual before bringing the batter to the plate. As Talmadge threw the last pitch a hopping curve ball, he turned his back to the plate and bent over to pickup a rosin bag lying next to the pitching rubber. I caught the ball and with my best move jumped from my squat and fired the ball to James Cecil at second. I fired just as Talmadge raised up from his bent over position.
I never saw the ball come down. I did see it hit Talmadge in the back of his head and I saw it careen skyward, I promise I never saw it come down. Our hero was fallen, not in combat but from my very own friendly fire. The hauled him off on a stretcher and we picked up him at the hospital in the army surplus car on the way home. Talmadge signed a football scholarship later that spring to Alabama but never played a down. I have always wondered what would have happened if I had now knocked him out of not only his but our whole teams biggest game.
Talmadge is dead now (not from my throw) and he never held my throw against me, but I will never forget it. That throw would have been perfect if he had just stayed down and left it alone.
WHO IS GOING TO D-BONE THE CHICKEN IN OBAMA’S NEW WORLD?
I want to preface anything I say here with the acknowledgement that I think President Obama is the best thing to happen to our country in a long time. I think he has the intelligence and insights to not only see but to understand where divisive and bipartisan politics have taken us over the years since we were truly united for a long period of time. I have been a fan of this dynamic young leader since his appearance at the Democratic convention four years ago and my admiration has done nothing but grow since that night over four years ago. I have watch his campaign over the last two years and intently followed his evolution to the oval office and I firmly believe he is definitely the man for the job he now holds.
My question today is not whether the plans and policies in the inaugural address can become a reality, my question is will we be able to find people willing to fill the stimulus jobs the President proposes. I do not think it will be hard to reach a consensus among Republicans and Democrats on designing or funding such stimulus programs. The majority by now realizes that cash must begin to flow to the middle and lower portions of our economic structure. Somebody has got to have the money to buy a new mattress or big-screen T.V. Fixing the car companies is a total waste of money if there is not going to be someone to buy the new cars they produce. The problem I see is that it is going to be hard to get someone to take one of those stimulus jobs if he can make “livin money” doing nothing and drawing food stamps and other “government money”. Granted the stimulus wages would probably be higher but so is the wage for cooking at McDonalds and working for landscaping companies which only the Hispanic members of our society will take now. Poultry plants across the south are almost 100% staffed by Hispanics who are the only applicants for the jobs. What is going to be the motivation to get this vast wave of Americans to take a job working on ‘shovel ready’ highway project in the middle of winter or heat of summer when they will not d-bone a chicken for $9.00 an hour in an air-conditioned building.
There is a large number of high-end unemployed that have lost their jobs and life savings due to the current crisis with a very good work ethic and desire to become re-employed. These people are the baby boomers who have a strong appreciation of work and the ability to provide for their families. They have a pride that will not allow them to ‘live off the government” and they want to work, the problem with them is that they have reached an age where physical labor is no longer practical. Repairing the infrastructure and ‘greening’ or nation is going to require hard grueling work these people could not do because of physical limitations.
I know President Obama is smart and God only knows he is going to need to be. We do not need to create more jobs for our Hispanic neighbors to man while sending their income home to Mexico and other South American countries. I am in full agreement that Public Work jobs similar to those of Roosevelt in the Great Depression are one way to get cash into the economy. It has worked before and will work again; the trick is to see to it that this great entitlement society recognizes that work is a precedent to being entitled to anything. This is going to be hard. There will not be any marching bands or celebrity galas going on while the tough stuff gets done. Everyone talks about readjusting our economy, which is not going to be hard to do. Readjusting our sense of entitlement is going to be the real bitch in this thing.
I think my man Obama can do it!!
My question today is not whether the plans and policies in the inaugural address can become a reality, my question is will we be able to find people willing to fill the stimulus jobs the President proposes. I do not think it will be hard to reach a consensus among Republicans and Democrats on designing or funding such stimulus programs. The majority by now realizes that cash must begin to flow to the middle and lower portions of our economic structure. Somebody has got to have the money to buy a new mattress or big-screen T.V. Fixing the car companies is a total waste of money if there is not going to be someone to buy the new cars they produce. The problem I see is that it is going to be hard to get someone to take one of those stimulus jobs if he can make “livin money” doing nothing and drawing food stamps and other “government money”. Granted the stimulus wages would probably be higher but so is the wage for cooking at McDonalds and working for landscaping companies which only the Hispanic members of our society will take now. Poultry plants across the south are almost 100% staffed by Hispanics who are the only applicants for the jobs. What is going to be the motivation to get this vast wave of Americans to take a job working on ‘shovel ready’ highway project in the middle of winter or heat of summer when they will not d-bone a chicken for $9.00 an hour in an air-conditioned building.
There is a large number of high-end unemployed that have lost their jobs and life savings due to the current crisis with a very good work ethic and desire to become re-employed. These people are the baby boomers who have a strong appreciation of work and the ability to provide for their families. They have a pride that will not allow them to ‘live off the government” and they want to work, the problem with them is that they have reached an age where physical labor is no longer practical. Repairing the infrastructure and ‘greening’ or nation is going to require hard grueling work these people could not do because of physical limitations.
I know President Obama is smart and God only knows he is going to need to be. We do not need to create more jobs for our Hispanic neighbors to man while sending their income home to Mexico and other South American countries. I am in full agreement that Public Work jobs similar to those of Roosevelt in the Great Depression are one way to get cash into the economy. It has worked before and will work again; the trick is to see to it that this great entitlement society recognizes that work is a precedent to being entitled to anything. This is going to be hard. There will not be any marching bands or celebrity galas going on while the tough stuff gets done. Everyone talks about readjusting our economy, which is not going to be hard to do. Readjusting our sense of entitlement is going to be the real bitch in this thing.
I think my man Obama can do it!!
Smart People
I hate to be one of those guys who is always pointing out a problem but never offers any solutions. My last entry pointed out what we should not be looking for in this season of 'bailout and stimulus' but did little to shed any light on what we should be looking for this year. I know I said we had better get someone smarter than me anybody I ever knew but failed to give any examples. After giving this some thought over the last two days I have a few suggestions for the type of person that should be considered.
The first example I thought of was the person who invented ‘spell-check’. Now this man or woman is smart, double barrel smart. Not only did they have a tremendous vocabulary, they know how to spell all the words correctly and even invented a process that identifies your mistake instantly and gives you options about what you are trying to say. When you think about what this invention saves just in onionskin copies and eraser rubber alone it is phenomenal. Millions and millions of trees have been saved and secretaries all over the world are spending more time at home and with their kids than can be imagined.
My next candidate would be the man or woman who invented the pull-top drink can opener that stays on the can and does not pull off to become either litter or a small weapon for self-mutilation. During the 60’s and 70’s when the first generation of pull tops were first introduced many strange and sometimes dangerous practices were adopted for disposing of the shiny little rings. A lot of our neighbors from north of Kentucky (Yankees) found themselves collecting these little baubles and stringing them together for home interior decorations. Strings of thousands were used to decorate family rooms, man caves and neighborhood bars. Now this practice certainly was a big help in keeping the Great Lakes litter free from the vast amounts of aluminum left around their shores by beer drinkers but really did nothing for the home décor of the area. Here in the South we also became pretty good at stringing the little aluminum flaps together but we used them mostly for body and automobile decorations and cheap jewelry. A lot of our women still carry the scars of being slightly lacerated around the neck and arms from necklaces and bracelets given them by their boyfriends after a day at the lake, fishing and supposedly drinking beer. We also used the little chains for decorating of our cars during that time. Nothing said ‘I’m a man’, like a string of beer can tabs artfully draped around our sun visors, rear view mirrors and back windows. Of course to our mothers they were from Coke cans but to those who mattered they were always from the vast amount of beer we could handle.
My last nomination must go to the inventor of the greatest invention in history. I think the feeling is almost unanimous that the person who invented the ‘Thermos’ bottle was the world’s greatest inventor and probably smart enough to lead this country for four years. I know it started with as a joke but who among us after hearing that old joke is not still thinking about the truth contained in the humor. You take an inanimate object like a ‘Thermos’ bottle and pour something hot into it early in the morning and it is still hot late in the afternoon. You take something cold and pour it into the same bottle early in the morning and then in the late afternoon it is still cold, and the question still baffles us as to how it knows just what we expect it to do. Now all of us snicker when we hear this old joke, but we really don’t know and we always leave pondering that last question,
“How do it know”.
Smart people come few and far between.
The first example I thought of was the person who invented ‘spell-check’. Now this man or woman is smart, double barrel smart. Not only did they have a tremendous vocabulary, they know how to spell all the words correctly and even invented a process that identifies your mistake instantly and gives you options about what you are trying to say. When you think about what this invention saves just in onionskin copies and eraser rubber alone it is phenomenal. Millions and millions of trees have been saved and secretaries all over the world are spending more time at home and with their kids than can be imagined.
My next candidate would be the man or woman who invented the pull-top drink can opener that stays on the can and does not pull off to become either litter or a small weapon for self-mutilation. During the 60’s and 70’s when the first generation of pull tops were first introduced many strange and sometimes dangerous practices were adopted for disposing of the shiny little rings. A lot of our neighbors from north of Kentucky (Yankees) found themselves collecting these little baubles and stringing them together for home interior decorations. Strings of thousands were used to decorate family rooms, man caves and neighborhood bars. Now this practice certainly was a big help in keeping the Great Lakes litter free from the vast amounts of aluminum left around their shores by beer drinkers but really did nothing for the home décor of the area. Here in the South we also became pretty good at stringing the little aluminum flaps together but we used them mostly for body and automobile decorations and cheap jewelry. A lot of our women still carry the scars of being slightly lacerated around the neck and arms from necklaces and bracelets given them by their boyfriends after a day at the lake, fishing and supposedly drinking beer. We also used the little chains for decorating of our cars during that time. Nothing said ‘I’m a man’, like a string of beer can tabs artfully draped around our sun visors, rear view mirrors and back windows. Of course to our mothers they were from Coke cans but to those who mattered they were always from the vast amount of beer we could handle.
My last nomination must go to the inventor of the greatest invention in history. I think the feeling is almost unanimous that the person who invented the ‘Thermos’ bottle was the world’s greatest inventor and probably smart enough to lead this country for four years. I know it started with as a joke but who among us after hearing that old joke is not still thinking about the truth contained in the humor. You take an inanimate object like a ‘Thermos’ bottle and pour something hot into it early in the morning and it is still hot late in the afternoon. You take something cold and pour it into the same bottle early in the morning and then in the late afternoon it is still cold, and the question still baffles us as to how it knows just what we expect it to do. Now all of us snicker when we hear this old joke, but we really don’t know and we always leave pondering that last question,
“How do it know”.
Smart people come few and far between.
"In God we Trust"
I got one of those e-mails today that threatened me with total separation from the human family if I failed to pass it on to everybody in my contact list. I am ashamed to admit it but those things nearly always get my attention. The only ones that I feel safe in ignoring are the ones with pictures of either puppies or clouds over quotes from some dead person about inner peace or knowing one’s self. The rest, that include pictures of soldiers, flags, little kids or God, I feel compelled to pass along to selected contacts that I don’t mind embarrassing myself with. You easily decide which ones go to your perverted friends and which ones you send to the people in your Sunday school class.
One came today I quickly closed deciding it posed no real threat to my future well-being and would not cause any bad consequences if I simply deleted it right then and there. As the day went on I kept thinking about the ideas that e-mail contained and its message made more and more sense to me the longer I thought about it. The jest of the message was that if the anti Christians wanted to insist in taking “In God we Trust” off anything related to the government, then the rest of us should simply start using the phrase on any and everything we do. The more I thought about this idea the more sense it seemed to make.
I have never agreed with the Roy Moore thinking that it was the government’s place to spread my religious beliefs to our fellow citizens. I think that is akin to expecting the government to raise our children, care for our old folks and to enforce a system of morality and religion we want to believe in but don’t want the responsibility of perpetuating. That is not the government’s job and Christ taught us that lesson while he was here.
The idea in the e-mail today was for Christians around the world to tag ourselves as believers by using the ‘In God we Trust’ thought in everything we do. To include the phrase in our signature lines on all our correspondence, on our business cards, in our literature and in way we communicate with others. The more I thought about the impact of this simple effort the more I liked it. Every person that has contact with a person following this discipline would be witnessed to, hopefully many times every day. In doing this a person is not saying he or she is better than anyone else, more saintly or better than the next guy. They are simply letting everyone he or she knows and deals with daily know they have a God in whom they trust. How many more times would God’s name of be brought to the attention of countless millions of people a day if we all started including this simple statement on everything we did.
The phrase is not offensive. It promotes no church or denomination, it is adaptable and relevant to all religions in the world today, it simply identifies one as a person who trusts God. To those who have no use or need for a God it means no more than a person saying ‘I’m a man’ or ‘I’m an American’. To those who do believe or are searching it can be an affirmation of their own belief or an encouragement in that there are others who do believe and are not afraid to proclaim that belief. This movement has the potential to witness to countless people every day and bring them together as believers.
It is past the time for us to depend on government to perpetuate the spirit of our faith. I would have no problem offending anyone this simple statement would offend. If I’m living my faith as I think I should I might even cause someone else to become a little bolder in his or her own spiritual walk.
I’ve already deleted the message I got this morning. It really made much more sense than these ramblings I tried to write here, but I hope at least one person more gets the message I’m trying to send. If you think I’m a religious nut or if I may offend anyone I would simply say: ‘take a ticket and get on to the back of the line’. You’ve got to trust someone and I’ll take the one I choose everyday.
‘In God I Trust’
One came today I quickly closed deciding it posed no real threat to my future well-being and would not cause any bad consequences if I simply deleted it right then and there. As the day went on I kept thinking about the ideas that e-mail contained and its message made more and more sense to me the longer I thought about it. The jest of the message was that if the anti Christians wanted to insist in taking “In God we Trust” off anything related to the government, then the rest of us should simply start using the phrase on any and everything we do. The more I thought about this idea the more sense it seemed to make.
I have never agreed with the Roy Moore thinking that it was the government’s place to spread my religious beliefs to our fellow citizens. I think that is akin to expecting the government to raise our children, care for our old folks and to enforce a system of morality and religion we want to believe in but don’t want the responsibility of perpetuating. That is not the government’s job and Christ taught us that lesson while he was here.
The idea in the e-mail today was for Christians around the world to tag ourselves as believers by using the ‘In God we Trust’ thought in everything we do. To include the phrase in our signature lines on all our correspondence, on our business cards, in our literature and in way we communicate with others. The more I thought about the impact of this simple effort the more I liked it. Every person that has contact with a person following this discipline would be witnessed to, hopefully many times every day. In doing this a person is not saying he or she is better than anyone else, more saintly or better than the next guy. They are simply letting everyone he or she knows and deals with daily know they have a God in whom they trust. How many more times would God’s name of be brought to the attention of countless millions of people a day if we all started including this simple statement on everything we did.
The phrase is not offensive. It promotes no church or denomination, it is adaptable and relevant to all religions in the world today, it simply identifies one as a person who trusts God. To those who have no use or need for a God it means no more than a person saying ‘I’m a man’ or ‘I’m an American’. To those who do believe or are searching it can be an affirmation of their own belief or an encouragement in that there are others who do believe and are not afraid to proclaim that belief. This movement has the potential to witness to countless people every day and bring them together as believers.
It is past the time for us to depend on government to perpetuate the spirit of our faith. I would have no problem offending anyone this simple statement would offend. If I’m living my faith as I think I should I might even cause someone else to become a little bolder in his or her own spiritual walk.
I’ve already deleted the message I got this morning. It really made much more sense than these ramblings I tried to write here, but I hope at least one person more gets the message I’m trying to send. If you think I’m a religious nut or if I may offend anyone I would simply say: ‘take a ticket and get on to the back of the line’. You’ve got to trust someone and I’ll take the one I choose everyday.
‘In God I Trust’
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