Bizarre Accidents will happen

 

On the way home from church today in Laurel, my son Nigel and I were on I-59 heading south when I noticed a car coming very fast towards me from behind. I swerved onto the shoulder, almost into the median.  The car went between me and the car next to me, and continued at a very fast pace.  I was going almost 80 mph, so the car, a silver Honda, must have been going at least 100 mph.  Soon after that, maybe 10 or 20 seconds later, I saw a cloud of dust, smoke, brake lights and debris flying towards me.  I immediately pulled onto the shoulder and came to a stop.

I told Nigel to stay in the car, and I ran towards the smoke.  When I got to the Honda, it was already on fire.  The driver was out, screaming and crying.  Although it looked like a man, it turned out to be a heavyset black woman in baggy clothes.  She was yelling and fighting with a couple other people who had also stopped to help.  Within a few moments, a couple of the passersby had her pinned to another car with her arms behind her in a double hammer lock.  She was yelling and screaming, “why didn’t I die?!?”

I walked over to the burning Honda, and started looking through the windows to see if there was anyone else in the vehicle.  The other passersby started yelling, “get back, it could explode,” but I continued to look to make certain no one was still in the car.

The Honda had hit a small Mazda, and the two cars had spun out of control onto the grassy shoulder and they rested some 20 to 50 feet off the roadway.  The Honda was engulfed in flames.  I called 911, and as I was talking to the operator, I asked other motorists for a fire extinguisher.  By the time someone found a fire extinguisher, the Honda was completely engulfed.

Inside the Mazda, a 40-something white woman was laying in the driver’s side seat with the airbag deployed.  She was in pain, but was talking to the other people who had stopped.

Within minutes the police arrived, followed by three fire trucks.  In the end, the driver of the Honda had hit three or four cars, and the police handcuffed her and put her in the back of the police car.  She was hysterical.

To make matters more confusing, about half of the witnesses still thought that the woman was a man, which totally confused the police.  They took my driver’s license information and my phone number.  To Nigel’s credit, he stayed put in the car.  He even made a friend by talking to a boy in another car.

 

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A tribute to a living legend

 

While driving from Orange Beach, Alabama to Hattiesburg, Mississippi, my wife and I were able to see a number of monuments to those that have gone before us.  There were several civil war memorials, and a beautiful tribute to 9-11 in a small town along the way.  Those are fine, and important, but what I want to recognize in my blog today is an unsung hero, a veritable living legend, a man who is dedicated to preserving a key and important part of our culture.  Yes, that is right, this blog is dedicated to Gene Morris, the greatest living spear hunter in the world.

Colonel Gene Morris, Ret. is a man dedicated to preserving spear hunting, a lost art that once was so crucial to the survival of mankind.  To preserve this art, Col. Morris has built an amazing spear hunting museum in Summerdale, Alabama.

Not only does this museum have an LED sign, it also has some of the trophies that the self-named spear chunker (he calls himself this in spite of the fact that it is actually a racial slur) has claimed using nothing but a spear. 

 

In case you don’t get a chance to go there in person, I have attached a few photos.  The museum has two artist-quality murals of the man himself.

In this mural, you can see the ferocity and the dedication of the greatest living spear hunter in the world.  If I were one of his prey, I would be stunned into submission by his leering gaze alone.

If you are lucky, you might get the spear-hunting icon to give you a demonstration from his custom-built spear hunting platform which is out back behind the museum.

For the amazingly inexpensive price of $3.00 US, you can get a self-guided tour of the museum.  For a paltry five dollars more, you can get a guided tour.  Children under 5 years of age are free, which is due to the fact that they don’t have the intellectual capacity to understand the greatness of the living legend’s abilities with a spear, nor are they capable of retaining any of the pearls of wisdom that an older person would gain from touring the museum.

Also, it is an added plus that the famed spear-hunter looks a lot like Gene Hackman.

  

    Gene Morris is happy.                     Gene Hackman is not.

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Rediscovering my loves

 

This weekend I took off of work on Friday, and my beautiful wife, Rebecca, and I drove to the Gulf coast for a weekend without the kids.  It was like being newlyweds again!  What I realized, in very short order, was that while I have been working like a demon for the last several years I have forgotten some key things that I love.  In some cases, I forgot them entirely; in others, I have forgotten how much I love them.  Here are some of them:

1.  I love Rebecca.  Wildly, madly, deeply and thoroughly.  She is the coolest person on the planet, and I love spending time alone with her.  I love it when she smiles at me, when she laughs at my dumb jokes, when she has a cool new insightful thought, when she teases me, and when I catch her watching me when I am intent on something else.  Time away alone without the kids is an amazing aphrodisiac, and it is true what Rebecca says: “Physical intimacy is the reward for being an adult.”  I feel incredibly rewarded this weekend.

 

2.  I love to read.  Novels, mostly, but I love to read all kinds of books.  I think it is very cool that books over 100 years old are now free on the Kindle.  This weekend, I read an interesting Sci-Fi book, I am number four.

3. I love the ocean, especially my favorite ocean in the whole world, the Gulf of Mexico.  I love swimming in the ocean, seeing the fish, the gulls overhead, the waves, the sand on the beach, the shells, the blue-green water touching the blue sky, the lovely breeze and everything that comes with the Gulf of Mexico.

4. I love my Omega Seamaster Chronograph.

5. I love exploring new places.  I have been very fortunate in my life to have visited Argentina, Mexico, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, the Bahamas, Canada, Italy, Spain, France, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Holland, Japan and China.  I have been to 39 states.  I absolutely love to travel to new places, and to see new things.

6. I love working out.  This is one I had definitely forgotten about.  I feel charged about getting back in the habit of working out!

 

 

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Everything I ever needed to know I learned from the Dukes of Hazzard

 

When I was a kid, I loved the show, Dukes of Hazzard.  As I was driving to work today, I noticed a 6’ loading ramp at a local shop that repairs industrial equipment, and the first thought that came to mind was, “wow.  I would love to take my car at about 60 mph and go off that sweet jump!”  Then it hit me how crazy an idea it was, and I couldn’t help but wonder where it came from.  After pondering this for a few minutes, it hit me that it was that show from the 70’s that put those crazy ideas in my head that have been in there for over 30 years, but still surface from time to time. 

I then wondered how else that show has influenced me, and here are some key lessons:

1. In life, no matter how hopeless things seem, there is always a way out.  Usually it involves a dirt road, a fast car, some loyal friends and, if you are lucky, a jump over a creek.

2. Attractive people can get away with stuff normal folks like me can’t.  If you don’t believe me, ask Deputy Cletus Hogg.

3. There really are a lot of greedy, power-hungry people out there like Boss Hogg.

4. Even if you are an actor who plays a dirty, wild and crazy, red-neck mechanic named Cooter, you still probably have a future in national politics. 

5. Everybody needs an Uncle Jesse in their life to bail them out of trouble every now and then.

6. Sometimes, you really need to thing creatively to solve a problem.  Like attaching dynamite to arrows, and using a compound bow to launch them.

7. Don’t make a big deal about life’s little inconveniences, like having your doors welded shut.

8. A few colorful euphemisms can make an otherwise boring story or speech into something very entertaining.  Here are some of my favorite sayings from the narrator, Waylon Jennings:

- “They’re hotter’n a pair of blue tick hounds on their first hunt.”

-“Them two boys was fighting like the second and third monkey on the gang-plank of Noah’s Ark!”

-“They were stickin’ out like a bourbon bottle at a country revival”

-“Ever had one of those days you couldn’t hit the ground with your hat?”

-“Stood out like a watermelon in a bowl full of chickpeas”

-“He’d meet a grizzly bear if it had a wallet”

-“He could smell the ink on a dollar like a bird dog huntin’ quail”

-“He’s slicker than a bald-tired semi on a mile of wet asphalt”

-“He was mad enough to chew nails and spit horseshoes!”

-“He was itchier than a hound dog at a flea circus”

-“When you have to sell pigs to buy pig feed, you ain't apt to be in the pig business very long.”

-“Tanglin’ with Daisy is like tryin’ to put socks on a rooster.”

-“As nervous as an alligator in a hand bag factory.”

-“Havin' more trouble than two stray hefers in a pasture full of bulls.”

-“Now from where I sit this whole thing smells like its downwind from a cow barn on a hot June day.”

-“Just about as rare as a buck-toothed rooster.:

9. At the end of the day, it’s important to be able to sit down with your sworn enemy to drink a cold one together in the boar’s nest, listening to a band play that Roscoe P. Coltrain caught in a speed trap.

 

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Customer Service

I will do my best to focus in this particular post, because in America, the level of customer service at most locations is very discouraging.  Finding someone to help you at Walmart, Lowes or Home Depot to help you find something you need to buy is more difficult than finding someone with a full set of teeth at a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert.  I could write books about bad customer service experiences, but I will try to stick with just one.

Although the customer service is pretty poor at most drive thru fast-food joints, I had a particularly frustrating experience this evening with my two older boys at a national fast food chain that will remain anonymous.

We were returning from a birthday party and the boys wanted root beer floats, and I wanted a Diet Coke (to help me sleep.)  At the menu board, I noticed that they had root beer and ice cream cones on the menu, so I asked for two root beer floats.

“We don’t have root beer floats”, the voice stated in a very matter-of-fact tone of voice.

“Are you out of root beer or ice cream?” I asked.

“No.” came the reply.

“So can you make me a root beer float?  It is just root beer and ice cream.”

“I can’t” came the reply.

Then my sarcastic side kicked in.

“Well, I can explain it to you.  You take a cup, put some root beer in it and leave some room at the top.  Then you put in some ice cream.”  I said, in a slow, deliberate tone.

“I’m sorry sir, but I can’t do that,” came the voice.

“Are you disabled?  Maybe someone else there has the necessary motor skills to do it for you.”

“Sir, are you going to order, or what?”

So, I ordered two cups of root beer, no ice, two ice cream cones, and my large Diet Coke and I pulled around to the window.

As the cashier took my money, Nigel, my 8-year old son said, “Excuse me, sir.”

The cashier stopped and looked at him.

“I can show you how to make a root beer float.  It is easy.  You just mix the ice cream with the root beer.  If you want it creamy, you can blend it, but you don’t have to.”  Nigel said in a sincere, helpful tone and with a smile.  The kid at the window looked like he was maybe 18, and he just stared at him.

“Of course I know how to make a root beer float,” he said.  “I am not allowed to.”

The look on Nigel’s face was priceless.  He couldn’t fathom why someone would not be allowed to mix ice cream and root beer.

I took the ice cream cones, and the cups of root beer one at a time.  They added ice in spite of my request to not put ice, so I had to fish the ice out, and then I dumped the ice cream from the cone in the root beer, and drove off.

Apparently finding someone who really cares about the customer in a fast food restaurant drive thru is harder than finding someone at a Star-Trek convention who doesn’t have acne.

Are there snakes in Mississippi?

My wife is terrified of snakes.  Absolutely, completely and irrationally terrified.

Before we moved to Southern Mississippi, my wife had a traumatic experience with a non-venomous snake that bitten off more than it could chew in our driveway in Kentucky.  One bright, warm morning my wife walked out to the car to do her errands when she noticed a small snake in the process of swallowing a toad.  When the snake saw her, he (or she) slithered backwards into a crack in our driveway, disappearing until only the head with the legs of the toad still protruding was visible.  My wife was never the same since.  That night when I returned home, my lovely wife recounted the horror of that experience.  It was then that I casually told her, “Don’t worry, Love.  We are moving to Mississippi where there are no snakes.”  In her emotionally fragile state, she believed me.

I am not sure why most women have an abhorrence for legless reptiles.  Perhaps it is related to the first encounter humankind had with a snake.

In any case, my wife now realizes the folly of believing someone so prone to leg-pulling such as myself, even if she really wanted it to be true.  Recently our next door neighbors found a nest of small snakes living under their driveway, which has my wife in an veritable panic.

I tried to calm her fears by explaining that she was far more likely to get attacked by a rabid raccoon than bitten by a venomous snake.  Although Mississippi is home to 40 species of snake, only nine are venomous, and being bitten by venomous snake is rare with death even rarer In fact, about 8,000 people a year in the US are bitten by venomous snakes, with only 12 fatalities.  This means that your chance of dying by venomous is about one in 200,000.  You are three times more likely to die being struck by lightening than by a venomous snake.

You are roughly 1,000 times more likely to die in a car accident than by a snake, which is why I am really thankful that my wife didn’t see this:

Yes, that is a LIVE SNAKE riding with that guy.  A moment earlier, the snake was sticking its head outside the window, enjoying the breeze and the warm sun.  My wife would have gone into hysterics if she had seen this.  I know that Dogs love trucks, but I didn’t realize that Snakes did too.

 

Technorati Tags: Snake,Mississippi,Ophidiophobia,Causes of Death,Americana

Toilet Paper – A million and one uses

 

There are things here in America that we often take for granted: Freedom of speech, a reasonably stable economy, Baseball, Apple Pie, our Interstate Highway System, the Bachelorette Reality TV Series and even toilet paper.  Why toilet paper?  Well, I have lived or worked in 14 different countries, and have traveled to another 5 or 6 and have to confess

that the American backside has it good.

When living in Argentina in the early 90’s, the expatriates living there referred to the local toilet paper as “60 grit” (a reference to a coarse grade of sandpaper).  When available, the toilet paper there was waxy and coarse.  At times, due in part to periods of hyperinflation, it was more comfortable to use 100 Austral bills in a public restroom than the toilet paper provided.

Since its first use in the sixth century AD, many improvements have been made to toilet paper.  Here in the good old US of A, we have two-ply, three-ply, quilted, scented, and even colorfast.  You can get hypoallergenic and dermatologist approved tissue, or even tissue infused with lotion, or aloe vera extracts.

On a side note, one distinct benefit to living in Argentina, however was the prevalence in bidets.  If you haven’t used a bidet, I highly recommend that you try one out.  No, they are not used to clean your shoes as was referenced in the first Crocodile Dundee movie.  One word of advice from personal experience: Thoroughly familiarize yourself with the operation prior to using the bidet, especially the controls for hot and cold water and the height of the spray.  Failure to do so could cause a burned back.

In addition to the obvious, there is another ingenious use for toilet paper in America: Rolling houses.

Basically you take the toilet paper and after starting to unwind the roll, you toss it high into trees with a spin.  The paper gets caught in the trees, and unravels as it falls to the ground.  It is amazingly difficult to clean up due to the fact that it is perforated.  Pulling on it simply causes it to break off high into the tree. 

Having had to clean up a lot of toilet paper in my yard during my high school years, I have learned an invaluable technique to getting it out of the trees: Light it on fire.  The fire burns from one end up to the top of the tree, and goes out at the peak.

Growing up, my father used to ration the toilet paper in the house.  In order to reduce expenses, he also limited the number of our friends that could come in to use the bathroom.  He was convinced that our friends were using more than the maximum “Four Squares Per Wipe” allowed, and that was why the toilet paper was being consumed at such a high rate.  Truth is, my youngest sister was secretly pilfering and hoarding a roll at a time in order to go out at night with her girlfriends to decorate other people’s yards.

In the end, we Americans are getting blamed for damaging the economy through our need to take care of our backsides.  Soft tissue paper apparently isn’t so soft on the environment.  Is it eco-awareness on the part of the British, or is it Toilet paper envy?

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