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Another tough work day at the golf course
July 27, 2007
I’m taking off today to play golf in the MSU football program’s tournament.
The boss is paying the bill.
I plan to have a lot of fun.
It’s a tough job, but somebody has to do it.
I will also be gone Monday and Tuesday for work-related reasons.
Blog returns on Wednesday.
Read some of the old ones while I'm gone.
Be safe.
Posted by at 7:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Prevent cruelty to ducks; Get nekid
July 26, 2007I have become a big PETA fan.
If these people want to protest against Australian sheep farmers, Col. Sanders or Ringling Brothers -- I’m with them.
Just get nekid and start the protest.
I’m not sure what showing off your titties has to do with protecting baboons in a zoo, but I’m all for it.
Take it off.
Take it all off.
This month a few hundred or our PETA friends protested the famous Running of the Bulls in Pamplona, Spain.
Some stripped down to their underwear.
Many went topless.
One family -- mom, dad, two kids and a best friend -- wore their birthday suits.
And they walked down the same street where they run the bulls.
One chick work a thong with a green “N� painted on one butt cheek and a green “O� painted on the other one.
Check it out -- http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-07/06/content_345915.htm
If that doesn’t make get a membership card to PETA, nothing will.
I am not sure what getting nekid has to do with making people be nicer to the animals, but it sure gets our attention, huh?
Nekid people get lots of media coverage.
But now what can PETA do to make a splash in its protest of Michael Vick?
I have an idea.
How about having the Atlanta Falcons cheerleaders run nekid down Peachtree Street?
Or maybe all of the NFL can come together for this on great cause -- and the cheerleaders from every team strip off and parade around town.
It’s sports, boss.
I’ll cover it.
Posted by at 7:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
A fool? A fundamentalist? No, just a bit confused
July 25, 2007I believe all of the really important parts of the Bible.
I believe this world was created by God.
I believe in the virgin birth of Jesus Christ.
I believe Jesus turned water into wine; made blind men see; raises Lazarus from the dead; fed 5,000 people with two small fish and five loaves of bread and still had leftovers; walked on water and every other thing the Bible says He did in His 33 years on this earth.
I believe He lived a sinless life; died on the cross for our sins and arose from the dead.
I believe that He is right now is in a place called Heaven sitting at the right hand of God
Some people will call me a fool for believing that.
Others will call me a fundamentalist.
I think you are all wrong.
Fundamentalism is defined as believing in the “inerrancy� of the Bible.
And there are parts of the Old Testament that I have a problem with.
Did this guy Methuselah actually live to be 969 years old?
Talk about screwing up Social Security.
I really have hard time believing that in a day when there was no running water, no modern medicine, no sanitation and no faith healers like Benny Henn that any man could live that long.
But the Bible says he did.
It also said he had a son when he was 187 years old.
The Bible records five men who lived more than 900 years -- Adam, Seth, Enos, Cainan and Methuselah.
Compare that to the today.
In 1900, the life expectancy of a man in the United States was 46.3.
Guys born here in 1950 had a life expectancy of 65.6.
In 2000, that had grown to 74.3
Life expectancy goes up every year.
But we’ve got a heck of a long way to go to beat Methuselah.
Or even Moses, who only lived to be 120.
And can you imagine a guy having sex when he’s 187?
Or a woman like Abraham’s wife Sara having a baby at 90?
I’m not sure I believe all that.
Yet, again, I’m not sure I don’t believe it either.
But don't give me that "God said it. You better believe it." crap.
There are a whole lot of things that need to be cleared up.
Some day God will explain it all to me.
And He will have an eternity to do it.
Posted by at 8:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Friends are friends forever -- but no fighting!
July 23, 2007I have never cared much about family reunions.
That’s because the family that I really care about, I see more than once a year.
Uncle Derwood from down in San Angelo and Aunt Ethyl from out in Arizona were family in name only. They showed up once a year over fried chicken and potato salad and told me how much I looked like my Daddy back when he was a boy.
Once I dropped out of college and became the blackest sheep in the Gholson clan, they quit inviting me to their annual get-togethers.
Then when I became a famous sports writer, they started asking me back again.
Screw ’em.
This past Saturday, I went to a real family reunion.
Unless Daddy forgot to tell me something, I wasn’t related to anybody there.
But these guys are my people.
These guys are my life.
The idea of having an “Our Gang� picnic began a year ago at the funeral of Sam Milam.
All of us guys who grew up together -- living in the same run-down neighborhood, going to the same schools, playing for the same teams -- found out we loved each other.
It took us 60 years or more to find out that we share a bond of friendship that will we will take to the grave and maybe even beyond.
When I got my invitation to the picnic, there was just one rule.
No girls.
When I got there, I found out there was another rule.
No fighting.
Heck, those two things are the only thing some of these guys ever thought about for the first 21 years or more of their lives.
We had the Taylor brothers and the Lavender brothers together.
There was a time when that could never happen without somebody not named Taylor or Lavender getting their ass whipped.
But we are too old to really give a rat’s ass much about girls or fighting anymore.
By my unofficial count, somewhere around 75 guys showed up Saturday.
We talked.
We laughed.
We reminisced about the good old days.
We honored old Reagan Redbirds coach Dub Largin.
Several members of the undefeated state championship Coyotes of 1961 were there, including Mike Kelly.
If you never saw Mike Kelly play tailback/quarterback in the Single Wing -- well, you really missed something.
At Sam’s funeral last year, I reconnected with Hershel Coleman.
Hershel said the last time he saw me was in study hall at Wichita Falls High.
That was about 44 years ago.
But we talked and talked and talked and talked -- trying to make up for those 44 lost years.
And here we were again at this picnic, bringing back all of those good memories.
When we all got together to have a group picture taken, instead of saying “Cheese,� somebody shouted “Acuna.�
Then someone else hollered out “Tubs.�
Then I shouted “No. 8.�
Everyone in the picture had a smile on their face after that.
You had to be one of us to understand it -- but believe me, we all did.
Damn, it’s nice to have good friends.
I can’t wait until “Our Gang II�
----
I am going to take Tuesday off, so there will be no blog tomorrow.
Thank to all of you for reading.
Posted by at 8:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Don't play the race card with Michael Vick
July 20, 2007Since I am sure not many of you listen to my radio gig on Friday mornings, I wanted to share with you here what I had to say today about the Michael Vick deal.
Do you sense a bit of this “black vs. white� deal again with Michael Vick?
Is it going to be like O.J. Déjà vu all over again?
Personally, I can’t see how anybody can be pro-Michael Vick right now.
Innocent until proven guilty is only for the courtroom.
Public opinion says guilty until proven innocent.
So for me, Michael Vick is pure scum until he can prove he’s not.
Yes, this is America, where we let freedom ring.
But if there is justice, this scumbag is going down.
Feed him Puppy Chow for his final meal. Then treat him like a dog.
What will it be, Mike. Drowning. Hanging. Electrocution or being shot to death.
At least you have a choice. Those poor dogs didn’t.
If you saw our Thursday morning sports section, you couldn’t have missed the large picture of a black man at an Atlanta Braves game holding up a sign that said: “Michael Vick is innocent. Dog-gone-it.�
That made me wonder about the possible “black vs. white� opinions about Vick.
I understand how black people can be skeptical about justice for black men in this country.
The black man has been getting screwed by the courts for years.
But please, let’s not lump Michael Vick and O.J. in with “the black man.�
These are men with fame and wealth.
And men with fame and wealth can hire the best lawyers and make a mockery of our court system.
Our courts have been getting screwed by the wealthy for years.
The Vick deal is not a black vs. white issue.
If a white Tony Romo did what Vick allegedly did, I would be ready to throw him in a locked room with a hundred of the meanest pit bulls you could find.
An eye for an eye.
A tooth for a tooth.
A paw for a paw.
Posted by at 8:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Perry Goolsby, Linda Merrill my choices for naming WFISD's two new elementary schools
July 19, 2007I have never had much respect for the people who run our schools.
It is my opinion that they waste a whole lot of our tax dollars.
And I have never thought our school boards -- past or present -- had the balls to really get things done.
Like why in the world isn’t Joe Golding’s name on our nameless football stadium?
The man won four state championships, is in the Texas High School Hall of Fame and was the person mostly responsible for building what was at one time in the early ’70s the best high school football stadium in the country.
But what should be Joe Golding Memorial Stadium does not have his name because past school boards didn’t want to offend a few naysayers.
Having to vote three times on a bond proposal shows that I am not the only person skeptical of anything the WFISD does.
So I don’t expect it to do the right thing when it comes to naming our two new elementary schools.
I have heard some of the suggestions and disagree with all of them.
When possible, I think our schools should be named after exceptional educators who have worked in the WFISD.
My vote right now is for Perry Goolsby and Linda Merrill.
When I mentioned Goolsby’s name around the newsroom, most of my comrades responded:
“Who’s he?�
Well, all Goolsby did was serve 44 years in the WFISD.
As an assistant football coach under Golding, he helped the Coyotes win three state titles.
As head basketball coach during that time, he took a Wichita Falls team to the state tournament for the first time.
He was later the first principal at Rider High School (1961-1972) and then assistant superintendent for the WFISD.
And after that, he became one of the best mayors our town has ever had.
As for Linda Merrill, well, the timing is just right.
One of the most popular teachers Wichita Falls High has ever had, Linda died last month.
I know a lot of teachers touch a lot of young lives, but Linda was just one of those really special people.
She loved every kid that walked those halls.
She loved Wichita Falls High.
She loved everyone.
And everyone loved her.
I just used the word “love� four times in four sentences.
Is there anything more I can say about one person than she loved and was loved?
How can anybody argue with naming a school after a lady like Linda?
I know there are people who want one or both of these schools named for a black person.
My first choice there would be Ervin Garnett.
He did a lot for our schools and was helped make integration a much smoother process than it could have been.
The fact is we have a chance to honor a lot of wonderful people.
Why do we have to continue with Texas history in naming our elementary schools?
Change Alamo, Crockett, Sam Houston, Lamar, Ben Milam to honor or own.
The gyms in each of our three high schools have no name. Why not honor someone that way?
And then step back and reconsider Joe Golding Memorial Stadium -- if you have the balls.
Posted by at 8:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Enjoy your Soup, Hooterville; It's homemade
July 18, 2007BOWLING FOR SOUP
COMING HOME
That was the big headline on the front page of our paper today.
The story about the local band from Wichita Falls coming back home to play FallsFest took up half the page -- and then jumped.
Is this big news?
I had heard of Bowling for Dollars -- a game show hosted by Verne Lundquist in Dallas back in the ’70s.
But not Bowling for Soup.
It seems that the group got its name from an old Steve Martin skit “Bowling for Shit� on his comedy album “Wild and Crazy Guy.� His skit mocks Bowling for Dollars.
To my knowledge, I have never heard one song by Bowling for Soup.
That’s no fault of theirs. It is just when you get old like me, you lose touch with the music scene.
I’ve been a rock and roll fan all of my life, so I just might like Bowling for Soup.
I know I am going to buy a couple of CDs and listen to them.
I had already planned to go see Grand Funk Railroad at FallsFest, so now I will get the chance to see Soup in concert the same night.
Their have been labeled “a comedy influenced pop punk� band.
Not sure what all that means.
The term “punk� will usually turn an old guy off, but I’m not your typical old guy.
I am open to new stuff.
Their album titles are cool.
Drunk Enough To Dance.
A Hangover you Don’t Deserve.�
The Great Burrito Extortion Case.
One of the early ones -- “Rock On Honorable Ones� certainly has Hooterville Falls link.
ROHO.
A lot of people around here apparently got pissed off over the lyrics -- “Witchita Falls wants us back (But we're never going back)� -- from the song “Come Back to Texas.�
But it’s always better to be pissed off than to be pissed on.
Get over it.
Hooterville Falls can’t lay claim to being the home of many rock groups who make it big.
The only thing that came close in my lifetime was Rick and the Keens. This group was a one-hit wonder with a 1961 song called “Peanuts.�
Some people said Trini Lopez once lived here, but I have never seen any proof of that.
Bowling for Soup has been nominated for a Grammy.
They have toured the USA and the UK. And are headed back on the Get Happy Tour 2 right after FallsFest.
So Hooterville Falls -- make their homecoming a good one.
Posted by at 8:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Old men, keep your clothes on; Let the girls strip
July 17, 2007I have never been to Brattleboro, Vermont.
But if my buddies and I had known about it when we were kids, we would have found a way to get there.
If we had known there was a place where women walk around nekid, we boys would have headed in that direction.
1,738.22 miles?
No sweat.
A 27-hour drive?
I know a guy with a ‘57 Chevy.
You see, when I was growing up back in the Dark Ages, it was just about every boy’s dream to see as many nekid women as possible in his lifetime.
The magazines down at the drug store only had girls in swim suits.
Thompson’s Novelty Shop downtown had some nekid women magazines, but they were kept locked behind glass. And we boys were never allowed to peek inside one.
All of us boys would have given Mr. Thompson our movie and popcorn money just to look through one of those magazines, but he couldn’t be bought off.
I was 13 before I ever saw a real live nekid girl.
And I had to give her most of my Halloween candy to show me.
I’m just glad she didn’t ask for my lunch money for the rest of my life or the keys to my daddy’s car.
Then in high school, I never saw anything higher than a knee cap.
So when the weekend came, all of us guys would go to the old Scottic drive in theater to get our kicks. They showed nudist camp documentaries.
OK, it wasn’t exactly “Deep Throat,� but for a 15 or 16-year-old boy, it was nekid women and you take what you can get.
So all of us boys who grew up on Travis or Austin or Burnett streets -- and those streets in between -- would have loved to visit Brattleboro, Vermont.
With no state laws or city ordinances banning public nudity, people can just walk around in their birthday suits.
And some of those people are women.
But now the good people of Brattleboro are thinking putting clothes on everyone.
No longer will little boys be able to watch the desperate housewife next door mow her lawn topless.
A damn shame, I tell you.
What is this country coming to when you can’t go grocery shopping in your birthday suit?
That’s what happens when 60-year-old men decide they have the right to walk around nekid.
I’m a 60-year-old man, so I am an authority on this.
Nobody -- and I mean NOBODY -- wants to see 60-year-old men nekid.
But some bozo 68-year-old guy from Arizona read about Brattleboro on the Internet and decided to go there, strip off and wear nothing but a fanny pack.
And he decided to do it during one of the town’s big whoopdedoos.
The first Friday of every month, this arts-mind town has what they call Gallery Walk.
Its where galleries and artists and art organizations open their door to everyone to show off their latest works.
Well, back on July 6, the old guy from Arizona decided to show off something of his that has probably quit working.
It was such an awful sight that the town may change its ways.
No more nekid women.
And like I said before, that’s a damn shame.
Posted by at 8:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Seeing the Beatles in my scrambled eggs
July 16, 2007A 60-year-old woman in Colorado swears she sees Elvis’ head in a rock.
She plans to sell the rock on EBay.
Well, we didn’t have EBay back in 1969.
If we had, right now I just might be a millionaire rather than a hundredaire.
On a Saturday afternoon that year, I took a little trip with Dr. Timothy Leary.
Come early Sunday morning our trip had taken us to Jolly, Texas for breakfast at the Jolly Truck Stop.
I ordered scrambled eggs and toast.
A few minutes later, they showed up.
The waitress brought my food and there they were right there on my plate.
The Beatles were in my scrambled eggs.
John, Paul, George and Ringo were smiling up at me.
“I am the eggman.
They are the eggmen.
I am the walrus,
Goo goo g’joob.�
I looked at my buddy across the booth and told him that the Beatles were in my scrambled eggs.
But I think he was too busy looking at Jim Morrison in his oatmeal.
Then when I looked back at my plate, John, Paul, George and Ringo were no longer playing Jolly.
The eggs were slowly moving to the other side of the plate. . .
And then there he was.
Hendrix.
Move over rover and let Jimi take over.
Jimi Hendrix looked up at me and smiled.
“Purple haze all in my brain,
Lately things just dont seem the same.
Actin funny, but I dont know why
scuse me while I kiss the sky.�
Before I could say “Hendrix is in my scrambled eggs,� Jimi had left Jolly.
But the Beatles were back.
“Lucy in the sky with diamonds.
Lucy in the sky with diamonds.�
I also once saw my dead mother in a Beatles poster, but that’a a whole other story and too long to get into today.
But the only strange sightings I have had in the past 35 years is the time I thought I saw the Virgin Mary in a loaded baked potato. Turned out to be just some stringy cheese.
But reading the story in our paper about Elvis in a rock, I just had to see it for myself.
It’s Elvis.
See for yourself. Then tell me what you think
http://www.1010wins.com/pages/685262.php?contentType=4&contentId=692348
Posted by at 8:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Friday the 13th? Don't tell me it's not unlucky
July 13, 2007This is a rerun of a blog I wrote on Friday, April 13 of this year.
After writing it, my son Tommy told me he had never heard the whole story before. And he’s 31.
Well, here it is again.
For most of you, Friday the 13th will come and go and you’ll never even know it was here.
But for me, I have a souvenir from a Friday the 13th gone by that always makes me stop and think about this supposedly unluckiest of days.
My right hand still has the mark from a 1967 skin graft. Technology back then left a person looking like something left over from a Frankenstein movie. My hand is living proof.
There are also a few scars on my right arm to remind me of Friday the 13th of October, 1967.
There are people who have known me most of my life who don’t know what happened to my hand and arm. Most are too polite to ask.
But every once in awhile, I’ll be in a grocery store line and some little kid will shout out:
“Hey, mister, what happened to your hand?�
Mom will quickly slap him or shake him, tell him to shut up and then start apologizing for the honesty of a child.
For years, I tried to hide the scars.
But after awhile, you just say “to hell with it.�
Although I can still type around 90 words a minute and still do all the things I could do before Oct. 13, 1967, there are still limitations on the use of my right hand. I still can’t bend my fingers enough to make a fist and there are some missing tendons in my wrist that cause some problems.
If it weren’t for this, I am sure that Tiger Woods would now be only the No. 2 golfer in the world.
But the reason I am blogging about this today is to tell you how it all happened.
It was a nice sunny Friday afternoon in October and a good friend of mine asked me to go to Arlington with him to see the Coyotes play a high school football game. He was a senior at Wichita Falls High at the time and had just bought his first new car. I was going to Midwestern.
He brought along two other high school friends whom I didn’t know.
He drove. Those two rode in the back. And I rode shotgun.
We took the Jacksboro Highway, and I remember going through Jacksboro.
But just south of Jacksboro -- where the road went back and forth for two-lane to four-lane -- my friend somehow got stuck on the gravel shoulder with an 18-wheeler to his left.
He sped up to get around the truck and lost control of the car in the gravel.
All of a sudden we were in the northbound lane going south.
I had been relaxing with my arm outside the window and my right hand resting on top of the car.
When I saw us about to go head-on with a northbound car, I went into shock and froze.
My friend swerved the steering wheel quickly to the right to avoid the head-on collision.
So instead, we go straight at a bar ditch at about 90 mph. The car hits the ditch and flips about four times.
They say in a car crash, your life flashes before your eyes in only a few seconds.
That happened to me. I also remember thinking of my Mama, who had died in a car crash four years earlier. Now I was going to die just like her.
When the car came to a stop, it was upside down.
And my arm was under it.
The scene of the accident was officially Joplin, Texas. Several cars had stopped and people rushed to help push the car off my arm.
It was one bloody mess. But I was alive.
Amazingly, none of the other three guys were hurt.
An ambulance came and rushed me to the Jacksboro hospital.
My Daddy said the doctor there had told him that they might have to amputate my right arm. But Dr. Edwin Bebb here in Wichita Falls told him to clean it as best as he could and put me in an ambulance and send me home.
Sometime Saturday afternoon -- close to 24 hours after the accident -- I woke up in a bed at the General Hospital with several people staring down at me.
Dr. Bebb performed the surgery a few days later, and I spent 24 days in the hospital.
So, as Paul Harvey would say, now you know the rest of the story.
And you can understand why I always stop and think about Friday the 13th.
Posted by at 8:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Whatever happened to the Soup Nazi?
July 12, 2007I’m a Seinfeld fan.
If you’re not, you are missing out on TV greatness.
The 50s had Lucy.
The 60s had Andy.
The 70s had Archie.
The 80s had Cheers.
The 90s had Seinfeld.
So what are Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer up to these days?
Well, all have been in the news.
Kosmo Kramer (Michael Richards) is now “seeking spiritual healing� in Cambodia.
He and his fiancée’ went on a tour sponsored by the Nithayananda Foundation, a sect that adheres to the teachings of Hindu monk Nithayananda -- “an avowed enlightened Master and modern mystic who is referred to by his followers as “Swami G.�
Sounds just like Kramer, huh?
Well, he has a lot of free time these days.
He can’t find work.
The NAACP held a funeral and buried the “N� word.
And his most famous act was shouting out racial slurs at hecklers during a stand-up comedy club routine,
“I’m taking time off to feel myself out,� he said.
George Castanza is more fun.
George (Jason Alexander) has been playing the World Series of Poker’s main event in Vegas.
On Sunday night, ESPN kept sending a camera man to his table, waiting for the hand where he busted out. But he won three straight hands without showing his cars and ended the nigh with $41,000 in chips.
He lasted until Wednesday where he was put out of the tournament along with pros Allen Cunningham and Phil Gordon.
“To me, this is like, if you jog at all, it's a kick to be at the New York Marathon when it starts off. You know you're not going to win, but you're there. It's pretty cool,� he said.
Elaine Benes really doesn’t need work.
In case you didn’t know, Julia Louis-Dreyus is an heir to more money than Paris Hilton.
Her daddy was a French billionaire.
But she won an Emmy last year for her starring role in the funny sitcom “The New Adventures of the Old Christine.�
She was also the commencement speaker at her alma mater, Northwestern University, last month and went from there to sing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game� during the seventh-inning stretch of a Cubs game at Wrigley Field.
Seinfeld is still doing stand-up.
My son caught his show last month in Oklahoma City.
He will play Caesars Palace in Vegas on Aug. 3-4.
He has also written the script for “Bee Movie,� an animated film that will be released in November.
Seinfeld is the voice of the main character Barry Bee Benson.
Ever wonder what ever happened to the Soup Nazi?
Well that actor -- Larry Thomas -- guest started in Arrested Development last year. He played a Saddam Hussein look-alike.
Come to think about it, he did look a lot like Saddam, didn’t he?
Posted by at 8:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Omar marries Jane with no paparazzi. no Osama
July 11, 2007Anytime somebody named bin Laden gets married, it’s big news.
Maybe not Tony Parker-Eva Longoria type big news, but you have to wonder:
What kind of nut would marry a guy named bin Laden?
I guess though when you’re 51 years old, have multiple sclerosis and are already a five-time loser at this marriage thing --- what the hell?
It’s not exactly like guys were lining up outside the door of Jane Felix-Browne bin Laden.
The British woman said she was riding a horse near the Great Pyramid when she met bin Laden.
Was he hitchhiking?
Was he standing on a street corner hawking copies of the daily Al Jeel?
Maybe he was just in the neighborhood shopping for a Father’s Day gift.
What do you buy your Daddy when he is the most wanted terrorist on the planet?
An electric razor?
A tie that says “I love New York?�
A Coleman lantern to light up his cave?
Old Spice?
Sorry, but I just had to digress a bit.
Back to Omar and Jane.
Jane was 24 years old when Osama and Najawa bin Laden gave birth to little Omar.
And since Osama and Najawa are first cousins -- there’s a good chance that Omar is not right in the head.
But like I said, this old British broad can’t be too picky about who she’s going to marry.
Any 27-year-old guy would be a step up for Jane -- even if he is an SOT (son of a terrorist).
The couple reportedly held Islamic marriage ceremonies in both Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
Daddy dearest didn’t show up at either one, but maybe later he will send best wishes to the happy couple with a message on Al Jazeera.
And after all, when you have had five wives and fathered somewhere between a dozen and two dozen kids, you just can’t make every wedding.
But if Omar and Jane are registered a Target, maybe Osama could send them a nice shower curtain.
Now get this.
Jane says he hopes to arrange a visa for her new husband so he can visit Britain.
Yeah, right.
Can he bring along Daddy and maybe two or three of his al-Qaeda buddies?
Omar, one of 11 children by Osama and cousin Najawa, reportedly hasn’t seen daddy dearest since 2000 when they were both in Afghanistan.
He was only 19 and training to be a solider at the time and didn’t feel it was right to fight or be in an army.
Sorry, Jane, but I ain’t buying anything your hubby is selling.
Just can’t trust anybody named bin Laden.
Posted by at 8:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Girls for goats? What would Monty Hall do?
July 10, 2007Just finished reading an interesting story in our paper about a man in Afghanistan who traded his 16-year-old daughter for nine sheep.
Makes me wonder -- what could I get for three ex-wives?
A couple of billy goats?
A short tour of a poppy field?
OK, so they are a bit old.
Forget the poppy field tour.
I have known guys who had a crush on sheep, but just never was my thing.
However, there were times when my daughter was 16 that I would have traded her for something of equal value.
Like a cheese whopper, large fries and a large Coke.
No deal?
OK, make it a medium Coke.
Just kidding, Christy.
You know I would never have traded you.
Sold you -- maybe.
But never traded.
Well, unless someone had offered a Nolan Ryan rookie card.
By now I am sure that all the women’s rights bra-burners are ready to thong lash me to death.
But if there had been girls-for-goats -- or even better girls-for-baseball cards -- in this country back in the early 1960’s, I could have at least got a date for the senior dance.
“Sir, I don’t want to buy your daughter -- just rent her for a couple of hours. Here’s a 1962 Topps Mickey Mantle in mint condition.�
The story also said that Afghan girls are also sometimes used to settle crimes -- even murder.
So far, 404 American military personnel have been killed and 1,361 others have been injured since our country got involved in Afghanistan six years ago.
Don’t think there are enough sheep -- or girls -- in Kabul to pay off that debt.
Posted by at 8:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Deuce & Bar-L two Hooterville Falls traditions
July 6, 2007I noticed that after his brush with death, Joe Brown has decided to experience some of the really good things in life.
Like P-2.
In a front page “Brownie� this week, Joe -- back from work after a quadruple bypass -- said he stopped into the “Deuce� this week to have a steak on garlic.
Throw in a red draw or 10 -- and that really is one of the good things in life.
The “Deuce� and the Bar-L have both endured for six decades and are true landmarks here in Hooterville Falls.
And I grew up in the neighborhood.
The beer drinkers and barmaids simply knew me as “Earl’s Boy� because my Daddy was a customer at both places.
When it came time to sell those kid baseball or midget football buttons, the Deuce and the Bar-L were my territory. Every beer drinker and bar maid in the house bought buttons from “Earl’s Boy.�
I couldn’t have been but 10 or 11 when my Daddy first sent me to the Deuce to get burgers and fries.
I remember looking up at the sign over the door and wondering what in the heck is a “Stag Bar.�
Could this be a place where they keep deer?
I finally learned it was a place where old men stood around a bar and said things you would never hear over at the 10th and Broad Church of Christ.
I loved it.
I also loved beer smell in that dark Stag Bar.
But what really intrigued me were those beer signs.
Schlitz,
Falstaff.
Hamms from the land of sky blue waters.
My first beer was a Pearl that Keith Lavender and I took out of his mother’s ice box.
If you’ve never had a Pearl, then you have never tasted horse piss.
I am amazed that I’m a beer drinker after losing my cherry on a can of Pearl.
The most intriguing thing about the Bar-L was the slang the barmaids and carhops used when placing an order
Slide on a pair of blonde pigs and educate them in the bushes.
That’s a Schlitz (slide); two Millers (blonde); two Hamms (pig); a Budweiser (educate) and a Bush (bush).
I still go to Bar-L a couple of times and nothing much has changed.
I am sure those bar stools are the same ones by Daddy used to fall off of.
The customers are just a new generation of drunks.
I am sure Joe probably ran into the same thing at the Deuce.
Same guys drinking beer at the same Bat time and same Bat place.
The Deuce and the Bar-L are Hooterville Falls traditions -- and I love it.
Posted by at 9:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
'THIS JOB BIT' not real creative
July 3, 2007There was a special message on the wall to greet all of us newspapers employees when we came to work.
Written -- nicely I might say -- in big red letters on the side of our building is:
THIS JOB BIT.
The writer signed -- in a Zorro-type fashion -- signed his work.
S
It was a wider S, but this keyboard can’t duplicate that.
It is doubtful that this person still works here, but here are the current suspects inside the building.
Stacy, Stephen M., Scott R., Stephanie, Stephen S., Sam L., Sherry, Shelby, Shelly, Sandra, Sam, Scott G., Sofia and Steven.
Or if the S is a last name, we have Shiplet, Short, Stegner, Salan, Sanders, Stegal, Stennett, Sexton, Sheen, Sisk, (B) Smith, (S) Smith, and Sweeten-Shults.
Sweeten-Shults?
Now there is a double S worth investigating.
Same with Sherry Shiplet and Shelby Stegner and Stephen Smith.
Do any of you have an alibi for where you were between midnight and 6 a.m.?
Probably this was a pissed off EX-employee.
That would be a very long list, so we have to narrow it down to the last few months.
Carroll Wilson?
Could it have been our now unemployed ex-editor?
Nah, the words are too high up on the building. No midget could reach that high.
Plus, knowing, Carroll, he would have written it in both English and Spanish.
In fact, I don’t think “S� worked in the editorial department.
“THIS JOB BIT� is just not creative enough for us.
A creative writer would have come up with something much more descriptive -- like
EAT DO DO AND DIE!
Or
DEBBIE’S A BITCH!
But “BIT?�
Who would use a stupid word like that?
Can’t you spell SUCK?
I would never use “bit� in this context, but the dictionary does link it with “stunk� and “sucked.�
“To be objectionable or extremely bad in quality.�
My hunch is the “S� once worked in circulation.
But my employee directory shows no “S� -- first name or last name -- working in circulation.
Unless it was a former carrier.
Finding the person that ran into the side of our building a couple of week ago was easy.
He was sitting in the pickup.
But graffiti people get away like a thief in the night.
We still haven’t found out who spray painted DANA SUCKS on our back door.
“THIS JOB BIT� by “S� will probably also be an unsolved crime.
I’ll keep you posted.
Posted by at 8:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Heather & her 2 mommies are still living in the Hooterville Falls library with daddy his roommate
July 2, 2007So, does Heather still have two mommies?
And is daddy and his roommate still a couple?
It has been more than nine years now since Robert Jeffress put up such a fuss over two library books.
A member of First Baptist church had taken copies of the two books -- “Heather Has Two Mommies� and “Daddy’s Roommate� -- to their preacher. He asked our library to ban them and then later “decided not to return the books to the library.�
All that put Hooterville Falls in the national news.
“I could never have imagined the firestorm that ignited as a result of that message,� Jeffress wrote. “Media outlets including the New York Times, Associated Press, NBC Television, ABC radio, and Rush Limbaugh carried the story. PBS sent a crew to Wichita Falls and filmed a documentary on the furor that divided our city. “
Up until then and ever since then, the only thing that ever put Hooterville Falls on the big national stage was our crappy weather.
An agreement was reached with the City Council to get the books moved from the children’s section of the library to the adult section, but the ACLU stepped in and filed and lawsuit and that never happened.
Then things got quiet for the next nine years.
Well, I admit I once thought about writing a book of my own titled:
“The Copy Desk Has Two Heathers.�
But both left before I got the chance.
Author Leslea Newman never came up with the sequel “Heather has Three Mommies.�
But she has written several collections of short stories -- including “She loves me, She loves me not.�
This has stories about:
Butch buddies become more than buddies.
A lesbian couple in which one wants a kid and the other doesn’t.
A college student who has never been with a woman being seduced by her female English professor.
I’d look at the pictures or the DVD -- but this ain’t my kind of reading.
Michael Willhoite -- the author of “Daddy’s Roommate� -- has written several other books -- including “Daddy’s Wedding.�
Ironically, Newman wrote a children’s book about a boy and his two lesbian parents -- “Belinda’s Bouquet� -- and Willhoite did the illustrations.
(Wonder if Jeffress was sent an autographed copy of that one.�
There are currently two copies of “Heather Has Two Mommies� -- the original and the 10th anniversary edition -- and one copy of “Daddy’s Roommate� on the shelves of the Hooterville Falls library.
“Daddy’s Roommate� is listed No. 2 on the American Library Association’s “100 most frequently challenged books of 1990-2000.�
“Heather� is No. 11.
Just in case you might want to know, “Scary Stories,� a three-book series of “the scariest stories, urban myths, psychic tales and macabre songs you’ve ever heard� is No. 1 on the list.
Mark Twain’s “Huckleberry Finn� is 5.
Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men� is 6.
“To Kill a Mockingbird� is No. 41.
Nick Gholson’s “Hail to Our Colors� did not make the list.
I knew I should have had more stories about lesbian cheerleaders or what football players do in those showers.
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To all of you who sent me comments last Friday -- thanks, I needed that.
Posted by at 8:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
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