The recovery from our flight back to Hawaii has been tougher than any i remember. When i finally got to sleep around 1:30 a.m. Saturday morning, i was a zombie, slept for eight hours, an eternity for this old man. i was in a daze for most of Saturday, especially after LSU took over Vanderbilt’s Dudley Field in every way possible. i forced myself to accomplish the required tasks of unpacking, reading the mail, helping Maureen grocery shop, and grilling the steaks for the three of us.
Throughout the day as almost every team for whom i root took it on the nose and the evening concluded with the Padres continuing to be hitless even after they fired their manager and San Diego State came oh so close to pulling it out with a late rally against Utah State…and of course, they couldn’t pull it out.
So this morning, i resolved to be more productive. i was for a while but i faded fast. i was in the “working” section of the garage. i thought maybe music would keep me going. In a way, it has since i haven’t taken a nap yet. But i quickly degenerated into piddling: small tasks that were unessential, just enjoying myself but still getting something done. i sat down with my infernal machine and begin to check out Facebook and email, the exercise mat lying empty on the floor behind me, the three or four projects i have just started at various places in the garage untouched.
i am deep into the maximum piddling morning.
And you know what? It feels good.
i plugged my laptop into the small shelf stereo. Just before we left for Hawaii, i discovered the “genius shuffle” under controls for iTunes. i have about 4,700 songs on my iTunes. They are nearly all from my CD, LP, and 45 RPM collection. i’m still adding from that collection but probably will never get to my reel-to-reel tapes. When i select “genius shuffle,” the program basically chooses a genre and similar style music to play until you either switch the “genius shuffle” or turn off iTunes. i have already listened to rock and roll oldies and country/bluegrass being shuffled by a genius.
This morning, i eschewed watching sports, especially NFL football. It’s just too not a sport anymore, too much business, too much marketing, too much entertainment. i sat in my garage and hit the magic shuffling button and jazz came on. Not just any jazz mind you, it was comforting jazz, some just a bit on the edge.
So for the last two hours i have listened to Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, Nina Simone, Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis, Nancy Wilson, Count Basie, Chet Baker, Charlie Parker, and several others.
The music seemed to capture me and send me to other worlds. One of those worlds was weeknights at WCOR FM, 103.7 on your old dial (gone now, or in another version). i would be alone in the station. AM had closed down at sunset and everyone else had gone home. i would close it all down at 10:30 p.m. and head to Winfree’s, the restaurant we used to go for Sunday, after church dinners, morphed into the Birdwell’s diner with Stewart sandwiches, pre-fab pizza, and beer with a shuffleboard table on the west side. We called the owners “Cat” and “Birdie.”
My FM job was to play something i interpreted to be “easy listening.” i decided to be avant garde for WCOR and Lebanon, Tennessee, even though i really didn’t have a clue as to what “avant garde” really meant. So i developed a 7:00 pm to 10:30 weeknight program i called “Evening Accent,” spinning off of the station’s programming catch phrase of “accent.” I called it a potpourri of music, playing classical, jazz, pop, big band, and anything i thought might fit, giving the listener (hopefully, there was more than one) an idea of what the next particular piece was and why it was included.
It was fun. i would put one side of an LP on, study for my next day’s classes sandwiched between a commuter ride to and from Middle Tennessee with Jimmy Hatcher and i taking turns driving.
i listened to my program. This dyed-in-the-wool blues college student retread essentially introduced himself to the different genres. i discovered i liked, although i still eschewed “bubble gum” rock and roll, this stuff.
Today thus far, the genius shuffle has allowed me to listen to Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, Nina Simone, Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis, Nancy Wilson, Count Basie, Dave Brubeck, John Coltrane, Ray Charles , Chet Baker, and several others of that mode.
i found myself relaxing for over two hours absorbed in the music, just me and my music in my garage. Piddling.
This was not written that one night, although a good deal of it was put down then. It wasn’t even completed the next morning but by bits and pieces until i finally put it to bed on our way back to San Diego. I purposefully stayed away from this infernal machine except for a few catching up emails, news, and posts. It was time for a break.
No photos here.
It is difficult, if not impossible to capture magic.
You can feel it, but capturing it, especially in a photograph, is not something that is going to happen.
We, Maureen and i, at the munificence of our close friends, Pete and Nancy Toennies, are in Hawaii, Poipu Beach, Kauai, Hawaii to be more precise.
It has been a long day. Four a.m. alarm Pacific time, but of course, i woke about a half hour early, then a near six-hour flight, a lost bag, a late check-in at the condo, a power line down creating stand still traffic on one of the few highways on the island, all ameliorated by a wonderful lunch in the lanai of the Kilohana Plantation manor, now the site of Gaylord’s, a wonderful restaurant where we dine at least once a visit, if not twice, for super cuisine with a peaceful ambiance for dinner, but after lunch having to wait, wait, wait, wait until they had our two bedroom suite ready for us with the wait being hot, and well, miserable until i stumbled upon a table shuffleboard and the four of us played, yelled, and laughed for about a half-hour while getting the stink eye from the ten or so little old ladies playing bingo nearby, and then a nap, and then one of my all-time favorite places ever called Brenneke’s just down the walking-distance beach road from our time share at the Marriott Waiohai Beach Club where, long before this Marriott was here, Maureen and i snorkeled in the pool created by lava reefs where tropical fish gathered to snack on bread crumbs from the snorkeling tourists, which we did until several large groupers fell in love with Maureen and her bread sack full of crumbs and kissed her arms and legs with their large suction-like lips until she flipped the sack over dumping the crumbs into the pool while she swam to the beach to not snorkel anymore and we saw all of these tanned, muscle bound men and women in speedos and bikinis and not very attractive at all really standing around a gym of sorts, which is now a tchotchke shop where i now buy my Brenneke ball cap under the stink eye of Maureen, but then, oh back then, we spotted the restaurant upstairs, and after dressing in our shorts and tees from swim suits and tropical gear, we returned to sit in the southwest corner with the wood shutters raised and abundant tropical flowers abounding in the flower boxes hanging outside the windows open to the sea breeze with the vista past the swaying palm trees and the Asian magnolias and plumeria dropping their soft white, touched-with-pink petals on the park of grass leading to the beach and the surf and the Pacific, and we, the two of us, not yet well settled into the ways of the long married, so wonderfully romantically in love sitting there in paradise with a bottle of chardonnay and fresh fish, probably mahi mahi for me but i don’t remember, and a salad with the trade winds gently buffeting us, and driving all the way back across the island to where our condo was in the town of Kapaa, which i have since called Kapahahaha, and taking a nap, after all the groupers gave Maureen a tough morning and i, even then, took naps like my father, the champ nap taker, and we awoke, looked east at that side of the Pacific and dressed and went back to Brenneke’s for dinner, sad it was our last night on the island, our first visit, and sat in that self-same corner table with another great meal and the faddish but wonderful mai tai preceding and another chardonnay along with that meal and now, it is our go-to place and tonight, they had a band, which caused us to flinch when they began to set up because our table was next to their set up but they turned out to be almost but not quite new age with an electric mandolin and electric violin or fiddle if you will and the young lady, attractive but remindful of a thin Janice Joplin sang like Stevie Nicks or Norah Jones depending on the song and they just added to the first dinner and we were tired and walked back along the beach and looked up at the waxing gibbous, dang near full moon and Jupiter and i realized how far we had come as Venus was below the west by southwest horizon and we reached the condo and all went, dead tired, to bed but i stayed up determined to get time synched as quickly as possible but started writing this and felt the tiredness, even with the earlier nap, pour over me and gave up (and old Will Faulkner, eat your heart out, because you caused me to write long run-on sentences and paragraphs, but you really don’t have to eat your heart out because you remain the top dog, one of my two favorites in this writing thing, and your stream of consciousness, never ending sentences will never be matched; thank you).
i did not go to sleep before i sat on the patio in the magic of Hawaii night but studied the heavens with the faded knowledge and droll eye of an old navigator and wondered, as i nearly always do when i have come to the Sandwich Islands as old Twain, nee Clemens, knew them, about those first Samoans lying on their backs in the narrow, infinitesimally small craft compared to the pacific of the Pacific traveling from the opposite direction but almost the same distance in what must have been months but for us six hours somehow without sextants or charts found their way, lying on their backs in their long boats, not much more than canoes even, as the story goes, and following the stars, sighting them by some crude instruments, probably by what the Greeks called Polaris, the North Star for over 2,600 miles to these Sandwich Islands before they were even named Hawaii or Sandwich, and what a glorious place this must have been when they landed long before they had homes of grass and palm leaves and set up shop and hunted and fished and began killing each other because they thought they were different, and when it really was magic here, the non-manufactured type while i, a thousand years later, navigated from the east to the self-same islands most likely using the self-same stars to find magic.
And so i sat there on that patio, body and mind worn out and thought of the magic.
i tried to remember just Kauai as it was the first island i visited other than Oahu and a brief stop on Kahó olawe, the small island used as a live firing range for the Navy and Marines located southwest of Maui. Maureen and i first came to Kauai in 1988. It immediately became my favorite. i felt like i was walking back into the past of these islands. i could hear Roger Whittaker singing “The Last Farewell.” i’ve been to the most visited islands but Kauai remains my favorite by far.
In 1993, we came again with Sharon and Jim Hileman, their twentieth anniversary, our tenth, and we frolicked and played golf and laughed and Jim and i found Bubba’s in Kapaa. A shack really, a kiosk, a very small building with one metal picnic table and metal umbrella out front, three or four stools by the open window and John Greco and Andrew Hart, the owners (along with Debbie Hart, Andrew’s wife) inside the very small enclosure and they took our order informing me they did not serve beer and informing us both they made burgers, their way, and Caesar salad. Period, but i could go across the street and get some beer at the market and i did and as they tossed and stirred our Caesar’s and grilled our burgers, we shared my beer and we finished and Jim asked if they had ice cream and they said no but we could get some at the drug store next door and we did and shared our ice cream and discovered the two of them were island heroes because when Iniki slammed the island the year before, they were getting started and had a lot of their wares on ice and made it all available to the islanders who had been devastated, grilling in an open field and we went back as often as we could and i will go back this trip just to honor the memory.
And sitting here on this patio, i look out past the pools and the breakers gleaming white in the night sky and the full moon and checked out Ophiuchus above the southern horizon, a man grasping a snake, Serpens, another constellation, and even though he straddles the equator i could see him almost in his entirety when back home he does not ride above the horizon from the top of our hill, this snake holder who is a remnant of the past, purportedly going all the way back to Babylonia.
And i felt old, akin to this past, and i dwelled upon it until the tiredness demanded payment, and i rose from the patio chair, slid open the door, and looked back one more time.
This is a bit of rolling around in my thoughts of a post. It began with some wonderful memories of autumn growing up in Lebanon. Then, i thought about my passion for playing football and those six wonderful years i actually got to play. And then, i started writing, and then, i realized i had written a lot about the stuff i was writing about. And then, i decided i would edit it. And then, decided i didn’t want to and didn’t. But i didn’t want to do much editing, perhaps because i’m not very good at editing. And then, i felt depressed about my not being a very good editor, which probably keeps me from being a very good writer. And then, i wondered why i was working on this book when i enjoyed redoing our trellis, replacing beams, painting, hanging sun shade screen, painting all the hardscape, hanging old lights, discovering shorts, replacing with new lights, cleaning the teak furniture, setting the lighting timer, losing about five pounds in water weight from sweating, taking a cold shower, drinking a gin and tonic, having another of Maureen’s fabulous chef quality meals with a nice couple of glasses of red wine, turning on the streaming television to watch the Padres while reading Doris Kearns Goodwin’s The Bully Pulpit, which i may never finish.
And then, i think, “What the hell? i ain’t no superlative writer. Hell, i’ve got two daughters, a brother, a sister-in-law, a niece, a nephew, and a bunch of friends who write better than me, and this is really some sort of stuff for my grandson to know what his grandfather was like, and that’s enough, so here it is rambling, piecemeal, no attempt to puff out my chest cause i was just another boy growing up in a different world in a different time, and i think we would all be a bit better off if we took the good things from the past and deleted the bad instead of throwing out the baby with the bathwater and completely refusing to learn from our past.
So:
We just rolled over into September.
This is no longer such a big deal for me since…whenever the world of reality overwhelmed my ideal of autumn.
It was a long time ago.
Now i think of the lyrics (and the song) of Jimmy Durante’s “September Song:”
Oh it’s a long, long while, from May to December But the days grow short, when you reach September. When the autumn weather, turns the leaves to flame, One hasn’t got time, for the waiting game. Oh, the days dwindle down, to a precious few. September. November.
i get a little maudlin.
So i start to write. i started this about the time we actually rolled into September this time around. i wrote about how i loved my pre-autumns in Tennessee. Then i tried to describe why and i rambled through a whole bunch of stuff i had written before. Then i couldn’t remember what i had put in and what i left out and then i became frustrated.
Perhaps it was the weather. For the past week, the Southwest corner has felt more like August in Tennessee. You know: 95 degrees, 95% humidity. This was after a summer of highs below 80 and the usual low humidity. Coastal high desert weather driven by the Japanese current. So the impact of two-a-day practice weather in pre-season football was smacking me in the head, along with memories of digging graves in such weather in Cedar Grove. But mostly, it made me think of the discomfort (and that’s putting it mildly) necessary to get to the wonderful memories of Tennessee autumn.
i wrote:
From my six to twelve years of living, the beginning of September only meant to me my summer was pretty much over. i could no longer spend every waking moment, usually barefooted wearing shorts only, in our yard or the Padgett’s vacant lot between our house and theirs playing football, baseball, cowboys and Indians (which is what i thought was a rather noble tag but is now considered politically incorrect) and pretty much any thing Beverly and Roberta Padgett, Martha, Bill Cowan, Bill Simpson, eventually Joe, and i could make up, not forgetting our cousins, Nancy and Johnny Orr and our games while they visited on many weekends from Chattanooga back when it was US 41 through Jasper and Monteagle and down the switchbacks to roll through Manchester, touching the edges of Tullahoma on what was then about a four-hour drive and finishing off with Murfreesboro before Cedar Grove Cemetery and Wilson County Memorial Gardens wiped out the scores in the counting cows game, both sides.
In 1956, the semester at the second year of Lebanon Junior High began on September 4. My world changed and September took on a glorious song for me for six incredible years.
Front: Billy Jennings, James Manning, Jim Jewell, Tommy Wood, Jimmy Gamble, Tommy Palmer, Buddy Boyd, Reed Oliver, Middle: Henry Harding, Townley Johnson, Frank Moody, Mike Dixon, Frank Newbell, Eddie Taylor, Earl Majors, Eddie Sellars, LeRoy Dowdy; Back: Mike Gannaway, Paul Thomas, Jimmy McDowell, Ronnie Wooden, David Hall, Jimmy Howell, Jimmy Hatcher, Steve Organ.
My introduction to organized football as a seventh grader did not start illustriously.
The dust and dirt field used for recess kickball, softball, dodgeball, and many other shenanigans of which i cannot tell was converted to the Lebanon Junior High Colts (Coach Jimmy Allen changed the name from Blue Devils); the next year we wore red and white disconnecting us even more from where i dreamed of being a star fullback like Clifton Tribble, not yet willing to accept my parents would send me to Castle Heights, not the place for my dream of stardom.
You see, i wanted to go to Castle Heights and be a post-graduate football hero as well because each fall i could hear the band play their march songs and hear the crowd roar from the field not a block away across West Main, and Harold Greer was my second choice to follow after his and my LHS Blue Devil careers. It was not so outlandish a dream in that i was sure i would grow to six feet, two inches tall, weighing in at 180 pounds, something i have attained and now wince at on the scales every morning because i remain vertically challenged at five-six and trust me, 180 doesn’t go well with five-six.
But the maroon and gold Tigers were not in my immediate plans for the future. i first had to don an ill-fitting uniform with high top shoes that were way too big and a helmet that could stay fix in one direction if i rotated my head real fast.
This feat, not intended in September on that dusty old field in 95 degree temps with 95 percent humidity, was something that benefitted me over a quarter of a century later when JD Waits and i held an Okinawa wardroom party in our Coronado Cays condo, and to entertain our guests put Dennis O’Connor’s title song from Walt Disney’s “Johnny Appleseed” 78 rpm album on the stereo, and to the delight of our guests, danced before them and twirled with cast iron frying pans on our heads that also, like that helmet, did not move, gaining awe from our guests. This was the party created when the wives of the ship’s officers had a party just for them. JD and i pointed out this was discriminatory and invited the ladies to a “wardroom wives” party hosted by the two single officers…only the guys showed up too.
So i pushed around those blocking dummies in the heat and sweated and my feet flopped in the shoes and my vision was constantly blocked by the non-rotating helmet, and i learned “gee 46” and “haw 35” and cut into the line so Earl Major or Jimmy McDowell could slam me into the dust turned to muddy dirt in my sweat with my helmet going every which way except with my head, and i woke up the next morning hurting like i had never hurt before and lay on our living room rug hoping to die but crawled back up, went to school, got through the classes to don that not yet quite dry uniform and the same ill-fitting helmet and shoes to do it all over again for about a week that felt about two days short of eternity.
But it was worth it. With very little playing time for the second stringers, you know, the seventh graders, the 1956 Lebanon Junior High Colts went undefeated. The entire team, seventh and eight graders; first, second, and third stringers; managers, and coaches have remained close friends.
The next year was my highlight in football notoriety. i was co-captain with Jimmy Gamble. i was at my dream position, fullback, but it was dicey. The junior high powers that were had limited junior high backs to 125 pounds. i was on the edge. i was at 124 at weigh-in but added a pound or two during the season. We didn’t weigh me again. The season produced my only touchdown, according to The Lebanon Democrat sports story, i ran a punt back against Shelbyville four hundred and forty seven typos of yards for my score. i still feel bad my father was on a business trip to Atlanta and missed it.
Jimmy Gamble, Jennifer Brewington the homecoming queen, and the goofy guy, 1957.
And then we lost to McMinnville. It was close but we lost the first and only game of our junior high football. Several of us cried all the way on the short ride from the field to our locker room. i was devastated. But it did not cloud my love of the game.
In 1958, i reported reluctantly to Castle Heights and went out for freshman football, not reluctantly. The uniform fit a bit better than my seventh grade outfit, but not by much. It was a mixed season. Wayne Pelham and i alternated at tailback in the single wing and were co-captains. More importantly, i began to develop a love for defensive linebacker. The highlight of my season may have been at practice when Wayne ran through a hole in the center of the line and i met him about a yard past the line of scrimmage. We were both at full speed, we both lowered our heads and probably looked like a bad version of competing rams, meeting head on. It knocked both of us out for a moment. Back then, you kept playing.
In 1959, Castle Heights classes began on September 1. The varsity began early practice two weeks before. i was invited, and thrilled. Of course, there was a possibility (i denied it was possible) i could be cut and required to play on the JV team. At five-six still and weighing in at a whopping 128 pounds, i was assigned to blocking back on offense and linebacker on defense. i’m still not too sure why. It really didn’t matter. Castle Heights, a member of the prep school “Mid South” conference allowed a post graduate year. Single wing blocking backs were a force, a guard in the backfield essentially. It was pretty evident i was not cut out for the position. But my role would be a running back on offense, the “T” team fodder for the first stringers. Yet it was a victory. i had made the varsity.
Then in practice as the diminutive linebacker in the tried but true 6-2 defense, the fodder faced a fullback off tackle. But it was no ordinary single wing fullback. It was Snooky Hughes from Carthage, the post graduate who was six feet and 200 pounds of red hair, ruddy complexion, more like a steam roller than a running back, who breathed like a steam engine, and when he got hot, which one can do in Tennessee early practice and September, his face would turn white hot, and the forehead scar from a childhood run in with a barbed wire fence and the scar from the slipped baseball bat whipped around the backstop and caught him on the chin would turn dark red. He looked like the Apocalypse coming in maroon and gold. Even worse (or better for me) he could get about three feet off the ground at full speed, a cannon ball. Except the little guy could get down to two feet off the ground, just enough to get under the fire and brimstone and tackle Snooky by knocking him from under his feet. It was enough to earn me a spot on the travel team which traveled 300 miles to South Alabama to play Marion Institute’s junior college team. It was brutal, the 6-4, 230 pound tight end went to Bear Bryant’s Tide the next year. Down by a large number, someone decided i should get a shot, so they sent me in…128 pounds of linebacker. The quarterback noting my size or lack of it, called an audible, tight end, yeh, that tight end, crossing across the middle. i had him covered, but there was no way i could stop him from making the catch. Then i had to try and tackle this Sherman tank. i, thinking i was cool and macho, although i don’t know how the hell a 5-6, 128# bozo could possibly think he was either, followed the manly fad and had rolled my jersey sleeves up above the elbow. i reached out to grab the behemoth and stuck his free arm out like a straight arm, so i grabbed his arm. He flicked said arm and the bozo attached to it, sort of like a sling shot. i went sliding across that Georgia clay and sand field like mister behemoth had flicked a fly off his sleeve and my bare forearms skidded across the Alabama mix of clay and sand and became raw from elbow to wrist ensuring my sleeves would not be rolled up for the rest of my football career.
In 1960, September 6 started what was a a good junior year when i played a bit more, but still second string. Ronnie Naar cut through the line; i went low; Ronnie jumped; and kicked my shoulder, dislocating it. Still, i produced the only action photo (by JB Leftwich, of course) of me in action in a football game, Carson-Newman’s B team.
The goofy guy is #30 in front of the ref. i made the tackle. Two-yard gain.
This junior year was when Mike Dixon, The Cavalier sports editor dubbed me “Mighty Mouse” and gained the quote from assistant coach Jimmy Allen, “If he weighed 200 pounds (i topped at 148), they would have to make a law prohibiting him from playing football.” It was also the season of a great story told earlier about our game against Baylor School.
In 1961, September 5 was the first day of practice, and although i had yet to admit it, my last autumn of football. i had a great pre-season, and in our first game against Ferrum, the fourth ranked junior college in the country, i began alternating with Harper Ruff, a PG, at linebacker. Ruff was hurt toward the end of the first quarter. Amazingly, i made 16 tackles to which i contribute my being so small, the behemoth Ferrum linemen didn’t see me. Ferrum won, 6-0. We fumbled on their six-yard line to keep us from scoring, and they recovered our fumble deep in their territory and they scored, missing the PAT.
i hurt my knee in practice the next week and only played a couple of rounds
Coach Gwynn sent the film of that game to the coach at Centre College in Kentucky. The coach wanted me to play there, but Centre didn’t award athletic scholarships. They offered me a $2000 academic scholarship, but it could not match the NROTC scholarship to Vandy, which i took. Sadly, the film of that game has disappeared. i’ve always wanted to see if i really did make 16 tackles.
The Castle Heights Tigers went 6-2 that year, beat Baylor for the first time in two decades, and won the “mythical” Mid-South Conference championship.
i still love autumn in Tennessee, but i miss playing football, always have.
Several days ago, i stumbled upon a link to a “Dawg Sports” article entitled “Why I Hate Vanderbilt” written by “DawgOutWest,” an obvious alias (or whatever they call them nowadays) to keep the author from revealing who he really is. i think…no, i hope he was trying to be funny. He wasn’t. His article was ignorant, and mean. i guess that is required to be a fan of a particular college football team. i mean who would want anyone to know their name if what they were writing reads like they are an idiot.
i kept thinking i should respond but also kept putting it off.
i root for all SEC football teams because that is where i’m from and i grew up on that football. i root for Tennessee every game except when they play Vanderbilt because i grew up idolizing triple threat tailback Johnny “The Drum”Major and fullback Tom Bronson, and later the Canale brothers, George, Frank, and Whit in the early 60’s. Of course, Vanderbilt is my hope, not only because i went there, but because i think they are trying to be competitive and win the right way, or as the late and very special Vanderbilt Vice Chancellor for Athletics said, “The Vandy Way.”
i don’t demean other schools or their fans except, of course, when i run into someone going over the top in stupid.
i’m just sad that such yahoos as DawgOutWest feel it’s a good thing to be irresponsibly negative about other schools, apparently believing this makes him a good fan of his (or her) college football team.
Then this morning as usual i read Sean Dietrich’s post. i share it here primarily because it is funny . His anecdote about the Georgia and Auburn football fans sparked me to finally make my response to DawgOutWest’s article.
Evelyn Drummond is one of my favorite people. She worked with Maureen as “account executives” at Parron Hall Office Interiors.
Evelyn is a blonde. A natural blonde. She loves blonde jokes.
Carl works at the pro shop at North Island’s Sea ‘n Air golf course. He is a great guy.
After our round on Friday while, per tradition, the curmudgeons sat on the patio with our traditional pitcher of beer, Carl approached us and told us a joke.
It was a great blonde joke…unless of course, you are one of those people who are super sensitive to words, phrases, and jokes you consider offensive and politically incorrect.
i read in the newspaper this morning, a new semi-pro baseball team in the Adirondacks is changing its nickname from “River Pigs” because some local folks, who are apparently super sensitive and politically correct to the point of stupid objected: “River Pigs” was the term used for loggers who were expert at breaking up logjams on the rivers, a very impressive and dangerous kind or work, and they took pride in their work and liked the moniker of “River Pigs.” But not those over sensitive folks in the Adirondacks. Oh no.
But when i heard Carl’s joke, i knew i had to retell it to Evelyn. i imagined her laughing that great laugh:
There is the blonde who walks into a library and comes up to the receptionist’s counter.
The blonde loudly explains, “I WANT A BIG MAC, AN ORDER OF FRIES, AND A LARGE COKE.”
The astounded and alarmed librarian quietly asks, “Can’t you see this is a library?”
The blonde looks around to see the shelves of books, pauses, and whispers, “i want a big mac, an order of fries, and a large coke.”
