Dive boat diva

This time of year in Kentucky is always a depressive and dark, cold reminder that winter has a way to go. Instead of the snappy, sunny days of a cold New England with white snow, we all too often have damp, foggy ,and bone chilling times of depression.Times such as this remind me of past February days spent in the sunny Bahamas. The journey of a short distance by air is mind boggling to board in Lexington or Louisville in cold 30 degree weather to step out to brilliant sunshine and mid 70's in Nassau. It's quite startling to hear the pilot announce that we'll be arriving in Nassau in ten minutes to sunshine and temperatures in the seventies, even if we know this is normal and the way the world's climates work. As we get a ride to our inn, both Tim and I suddenly remember that the only ride in the world to equal a NYC cab ride to Mid town Manhatten is a Bus ride in the bahamas by a suicide bent native as he drives on the wrong side of the road in horn blowing glee, trying to scare his passengers to death. What is it with these drivers from hell as they blow these little shrill horns at every possible moment? It's almost a sexual thing with them as they screech around corners at sub light speeds , the engines belching noxious fumes at toxic levels. We hope they're diesels, but think they are probably gasoline. Along with the dive group from Louisville are three or four Louisville Metro Policemen, all under 30 years old, exuding testosterone, extreme agressive behavior, and delight at leaving wives and girlfriends in cold,snowy Louisville.There are a couple of babes along , one attached with her husband, the other a divorcee hairdresser from New Albany, where I guess it was just as cold as Louisville as only the Sherman Minton Bridge separates the two. The hair dresser talked on top of talk, she never shut up. On our first dive we embarked on a nice dive boat belonging to Nassau Divers, where we went out to some shallow reefs with some of the most beautiful coral in the western hemisphere. The water was so warm (mid 70s) that most of us wore just dive skins which is like Paradise when you're used to wearing bulky awkward ,wet suits. But then again we were in Paradise. The oranges were blooming on shore and the sky was an unimaginable blue, without a cloud in the sky. The tropical vines were loaded with vivid red flowers that were intoxicating in both color and fragrance . I think the Garden of Eden must have looked and smelled somewhat like Orange Hill where we stayed. Every night the cops would go to Nassau and come back drunk and rowdy, howling at the moon until nearly daylight.Every night Tim and I would take medicine for our pains and take stock of our sunscreen for the next day. Everyone else on the trip would be somewhere in-between. Perhaps the most memorable event of the trip was when we all converged on the Inn's pool to find Tracey( the married babe) sunbathing quite nonchalantly in the skimpiest thong ever beheld by civilized man. This was like Playboy mansion South.This woman would have placed in the top two in an Hawaiian Tropic Contest. Even the Bad Boys(you know the tune "Bad boy, bad boy what you gonna do?) were in a state of shock. We all stayed poolside until the sunscreen had boiled away and we became young and middle aged lobsters.Throughout it all the hairdresser kept talking, constantly telling us all and individually if our toe nails had fungus and how bad our hair cuts were. The cops ignored her and stayed signal nine on the thong babe.On our last dive on the final day of our charter, the dive master was over the dive site and was giving the dive instructions. Most everyone was paying attention, the cops were vivid red from the thong watch, and visibally hung over from Nassau's nightlife. The hair dresser however was as usual, yapping . The dive master asked her two times to be silent while he finished his instructions, and she ignored him. The dive captain just went over and picked her up, and threw her over the back of the boat. Everyone was silent with shock , then we see her come up and swim toward the swim platform . I think this is the perfect opportunity for old Tim to be a gentleman and help her on the boat. Did he try? No, he just watched as she struggled to get back on the slick platform. The bad boys looked like she had gotten what she deserved and turned their attention back to the lecturing dive captain. I realized if someone helped her it was to be me, since no one else was so minded. I went astern gave her a helping hand and helped pulled her aboard. She came up with fire in her eyes and said"At least there's one gentleman on board this damn boat!" All looked at me with some degree of malice in their eyes and we continued the dive. She spent the night with the guy who threw her overboard. Women???? Bad boys what you gonna do?

Real love

Being a poor person all of the past 55 years has often been an eye-opening experience, sometimes good and sometimes bad. Along with the constant companionship of poverty has been the unique experience of having a job of which most of my clientele are multimillionaires. Talk about extremes in lifestyles! I may be riding around with characters in Bentleys as we go to lunch and discuss their mansion interiors, or we may go down the Ohio River on a custom mega-yacht that needs several truck loads of rich mahogany for the lavish ocean- going interior. Nearly all of my clients have Gulf Streams, Lears, or at the least a couple of King Airs. Most of the houses that I work on are at least 35,000 square feet and larger, often with as many as three or four kitchens. All these houses have granite floors , bath rooms , and wonderful libraries. The stables for their automobiles are only the finest in the world. Mercedes is the norm and quite mundane, as one elderly couple had a 911 Porsche with a whale tail that they only used for Sunday afternoon ventures down Kingston Pike for Baskin and Robbins icecream . Most of the time the steel blue shark sat in an airconditioned garage on carpet, wall to wall ,no less. Can you imagine an automobile capable of 190 mph sitting year round except for Sunday drives observing the dogwoods?What a waste!The reason I'm telling this background is to explain that even though I'm poor I'm not braindead. I leave these wealthy star walkers with never a tinge of envy except at times a certain part of my mind lingers on their automobiles, and the sheer euphoria that a fine machine can induce on most men. I really don't care much for the Mercedes, and the average BMW won't turn my head, but let it have 911 written on its rear and I'm rapt with attention. The old 928 was a truly awesome machine, that when running , would make the wildest roller coaster seem boring. Tuned dual exhausts have the same effect as Angelina Jolie's whispering dirty promises in my ears. The only brush with automotive ecstasy that I have ever had was an old 1966 Jaguar XKE 2+2. It was red with some rust and the leather was a little ragged on the drivers seat. The thing was typically British in the fact that the electrical system was totally undependable with constant things not working today but being perfect tomorrow . The thing had a bonnet(hood) that was a mile long and tilted forward to expose this 4.2 liter in-line 6 cylinder. Three carbuerators drank 104 octane gasoline and only ran well on cold, damp mornings. It was the only time in my life that I could wake up , look out the window, and rejoice if it was a cold,dismal, foggy day. All of the above heralded" a turn the Jag loose on the world day". I think that the Hound of the Baskervilles must have had the same engine as he prowled the moors on those cold nights. Arthur Conan Doyle would have had Holmes in a Series 1 with glassed in headlights, much like mine. You could smell the leather as I would fall down into the cockpit, looking at the no-nonsense instruments about to come alive if the gods of 12 volt were smiling this day. I would turn the small key on , flip the fuel pump button and, Thunk thunk thunk , I'd hear the 104 octane coming up front to the Strombergs, ready for the next step- hitting the starter button. What happens next is only understood by someone who has owned a Brutal XKE. All hell would break loose as the engine came to life with an almost sexual thud as the fine tuned engine roared out the glasspacked up-turned dual exhaust. The engine would sit at stop lights with a snarl and a promise that it would take on any Detroit ass and chew it up, at least on a long road. The book said that any speeds over 180 mph should call for extra venting on the brakes. Man, who wanted to stop?! Jan and Dean sang about a Stingray and an XKE in Deadman's Curve, a gory song of speed and death. Well I sold the Jag because I needed money and it needed rehab. I can still hear it in my dreams nearly redlineing in 2nd as I went by the old IGA grocery. I can see it sitting in my driveway, looking like it was going 120 just sitting still. I hope someone fixed her up and in its own mechanical way, I hope it misses me every once in a while. I wish it aviation fuel and cold, damp days, and I hope it doesn't have to transport senile people for icecream on Sunday afternoons.

Old Mcdonald Had A Zoo

I was recently coming through Somerset from Monticello,and like any normal day I was ready for a convenient stop at the Golden Arches for the unbreakable cycle of all road warriors for restroom followed by a large chalice of caffeine on the rocks. Being on the road for the past 27 years has imprinted many things in my brain, but perhaps the daily consumption of Mcdonalds large cokes is my most cherished ritual. Large cokes are $1.38, and mediums are$1.06 through most of Kentucky, but Manchester is higher. I quit cigarettes 15 years ago ,but I would die before quitting caffeine. I could write a Fodor's sort of book on the Mcdonalds of Kentucky and Tennessee ,and I personally know a man who owns 14 of the things. He told me just last week that he has 900 employees. Now this man has my respect far more than that wimpy,feminine Donald Trump, or even Rick Pitino. I can tell you which Mcdonalds are new ,which are sleazy, and even what the clientele are like. I can tell you which ones are progressive and hire handicapped workers, and which are in the midst of remodelling. All of this information is to establish my qualifications as a professional Mcdonalds expert and user, and to relay this story of indescrible misery and terror. As I entered the South 27 Mcdonalds in Somerset I was nearly knocked backwards by the wall of noise and screeches that assaulted me. I thought that I had mistakenly entered the primate wing of the Louisville zoo , the noise was that bad! Then I remembered the Yellow buses in the parking lot. There were two or three 66 passenger public school busses parked outside. I had unwittingly entered some sort of reward day hell!! These were not just any public school students, but what looked like 1st or 2nd graders, all in motion from caffeine and sugar induced frenzies, all screaming and combative from excitement. Now in all my years of marriage we never had children, something I can honestly say I've not missed.But in my own defense I can truly say I believe I love most children, but in managable numbers. I looked for the teachers but for the most part they looked to be in shell shock and as miserable as I was myself . What were these educated women thinking? On the one hand they hand out copious doses of rittalin(sp.?) and then take the little apes out to overindulge on sugar and caffeine. What planet are these leaders of our youth from that they haven't heard of how many grams of fat a Big Mac has, or how many calories a large order of fries has?As I cautiously waded through the screaming masses to the men's restroom, I opened the door to another hell. God only knows what mischief 6 or 7 boys were up to in there as they looked up from the water fight they were in at me with suspicion in their eyes. The absence of male teachers had given this little primate gang their own private kingdom to wage havoc on normal customers. One of them had his watch lying on the vanity top, for what reason I don't know. It's been nearly 50 years since I was that young, how would I remember what one thought about in the First grade? This whole scene reminded me of Dante's Inferno as I hastily retreated to the quiet and calmness of the parking lot and my 4x4.m I reflected on how these little monsters will be become sweet, adorable children when they are separated from their peers, but as a group they become a surly, loud , obnoxious mass, uncontrollable by their brainless teachers. Leave the students at school where they can learn.Do not let them loose like an uncontrollable amoeba on the unsuspecting public.Unpopular as my views certainly are, I don't care. Schools need to educate,not entertain.

Rocky Times

They say that truth is stranger than fiction, and this weekend certainly proved that statement. Our little town/hamlet will celebrate its 230th birthday this year, as Long-hunters camped at the little spring that still supplies our water in times of drought, in 1775. Being the second oldest town in Kentucky is not nearly as prestigious as might be surmised. Times have often been lean as Stanford has only about 3400 people, and our surrounding neighboring towns have thrived as we merely survived. With this setting in mind I would offer the fact that our little village often has the idyllic characteristics that endear it to some citizens, and yet draws scorn from others. One constant trait prevails in that we as a community are small enough to know each others business ,and we thrive on any news that might break the cycle of the mundane everyday carryings -on. This particular weekend was shattered with the news that a citizen had gotten "THE ROCK". Not just any rock but "THE ROCK". Stanford, like any old maiden aunt has more artifacts and historical momentos than many museums. The aforementioned Rock has been a part of Mainstreet Stanford for perhaps the last 150 years. Just what is this modern day Kaaba? Did it truly have Supernatural beginnings? Was it somehow Divinely placed on mainstreet? Well no......Actually the rock is a piece of hewed limestone that is about 6 feet long by about 2 feet wide by about 16 inches high, and it sat for years on the sidewalk on the corner of South Depot Street and Main. Its purpose? Well tradition has it that in slower(did I say slower?) days genteel ladies and gentlemen would light from their horse drawn buggies and use the monolith as a stepping stone to the sidewalk. Can you imagine the gleams in the lads' eyes as they hung around the rock for forbidden glimpses of Victorian ankles as the lasses descended from regal carriages? Much like Pamela Anderson as she walks down Rodeo Drive. This past Saturday the serenity of our Shangri-La was shattered forever when a rapscallion had agents under his hire to rudely drive backhoes up to the corner and plucked our symbol of a kinder time from its sacred home, and took the 400 pound monolith down to his own kingdom on East Main. That this knave was recently seated and sworn in to Stanford City Council only exasperated the crises. The transgressor weakly defended himself by saying he had bought the rock for the previous owner of the building behind the rock. Could the Wily Bill Clinton sell the Washington Monument?I daresay not!!. Even as emergency meetings were called by the citizenry and forces became mobilized, the knave repeatedly said he would keep the rock. Finally after more scheduled meetings he agreed to return the Rock to it's sacred site on the corner. That was Sunday afternoon, and as I drove down mainstreet on Sunday afternoon he was out on his drive in a cold snowstorm washing his new rock with a brush and bucket of water. Not the picture of a man about to give up a prized possession. Where I come from you don't wash something in the freezing winter and give it back. I think the rock is in for a war. As I watched this unfold I asked myself what would cause a normally sane citizen to become infatuated with a chunk of limestone? Good gracious, I can understand lust and gluttony and all sorts of avarice . But over a Rock?Could this be an unknown ,previously undocumented case of middle-aged craziness? Could this be Hormonal imbalance? Only time will tell but I do know that I'd rather be in a brawl in Marlow Tackett's bar than be confronted by the Lincoln County Historical Society and the Minions of Rightousness that they will summon to antagonize the knave! Good Lord, its not a pretty picture as clouds of Avon and shades of rouge descend upon this miscreant!You know the only positive image that I can claim from this deed is that Paul Simon's LOVES ME LIKE A ROCK suddenly makes sense to me.All of this leads to the inescapable conclusion that a new legend has been created.How it plays out cannot be foretold, but I'm betting the Rock goes home and the Avon warriors win.

Pimp my Ride?

Americans today are perhaps (no, they are) the most envied people on the face of the earth. Every society wants to emulate us for our clothes, our movies , and our cars. Our whole society is built around the mystique of the automobile , and we as a country spend more on cars than on any other big ticket item other than our homes, and sometimes our automobiles even exceed our dwellings. Just go to Casey County if you don't believe that. A new Tahoe costs a good deal more than a worn -out trailer. In my youth we always stood back in awe as Leroy Wilson cruised around town in his pale yellow Coupe Deville, and who can forget Lewis Coleman's 58 Chevrolet Impala , lowered 2 inches above the black top, lake pipes half opened and that 348 roaring with the threat of bad things for anyone bold enough to test him over on Short Pike. Uncle Johnny started out with an old 50 Chevy that met a tragic end when it ran into the back of a rusty , smelly manure spreader. Who would guess that only a few short years later he would be cruising around Jerrys in Bad assed Corvettes, looking up at the world from down in that leather cockpit, secure that Mr. General Motors had given him 375 horsepower spitting out its disdain through factory sidepipes . Nevermind that those sidepipes burned your date's legs with 3rd degree burns everytime she crawled up from the well where Corvette riders rode. Lord it was worth following the Vette just to see those girls get out. Couple a Vette, a pretty girl ,and a 1968 mini skirt and you had a lethal combination. Put Creedance Clearwater on the 8 track and John Fogerty took care of business. Proud Mary and 105 octane spelled the end of innocence for a lot of boys and girls. There was always the conflict of the Ford Boys against the General Motors Crowd, and then Mopar snuck in the scene. Cudas, Chargers , and Super Bees slinked in the parking lots , hemis roaring, and that old whiny Chrysler starter drawing laughs of disdain from Boss 302 drivers. Every once in a while fresh blood would roll in from out of town and cruise around the joints, maybe a Cobra, or maybe a Z-28 with Hooker headers nearly dragging the ground. They would always have a sex goddess riding shotgun, but she was just window dressing. That Cobra driver would consider her as just part of the package. Girls were plentiful, but Mickey Thompson series 50 tires were hard to come by. Most of the time differences were settled out on a quarter mile straight stretch. I saw victories and I witnessed defeats, as over-revved hot cammed engines would hurl flywheels and pressure plates up through the center consoles at super sonic speeds. All too often the racing shrapnel would maim or kill before Uncle Sam's killing machine in Southeast Asia . It was a simpler time,but it was a time of dread and anticipation as the Draft lay over the horizon for everyone. I'd come home from college on the weekends and stop down at my mentor, Danny Coffman as he ran a garage catering to just about any mechanical device. I would listen to George Jones as he whined out of Jack Mcwhorters 64 Galaxy's am radio. Even then I was wanting to listen to Steppenwulf and that Magic Carpet Ride but that was not to happen at Danny's place. Bugs King would cruise by in a big old Oldsmobile with white walls and chrome curbfeelers, Conway Twitty speaking of Little Darlin out of the audiovox 8 track. I was caught in country music hell. The haircuts were whitewalls with Vitalis. The boys wanted to know what college was like. It was difficult to tell them . My hair was growing longer every visit home, and our worlds grew further apart . Danny would ask me if I was smokin that old LSMFT, and I truthfully said no. Every once in a while I'd hear that 375 horsepower 67 Stingray rumbling down the road and I knew redemption was at hand . Uncle Johnny (he's my same age) would pull in, fillup with 105 octane and I'd jump in , both of us on our way to Danville and miniskirted damsels smelling like coconut butter.We'd wave goodbye to Danny and depart with the burnout and roar that only a brutal 375 fuel injected Stingray could produce, most of the time with Wake Up Maggie drifting out the windows , loud enough to compete with the burning rubber. The Vette opened the doors of even the most reluctant maidens ,and it truly was unfair the advantage the car had over the lads driving Dad's Buick. The only other thing that was a certainty was that if wev picked up new girls that were just visiting , then my name was Danny Coffman and Johnny was usually Charley Coleman. Strangely enough certain songs or perfume smells will evoke long forgotten deeds and times. If I hear American Woman I always remember how badly Danny Coffman acted one night with that nurse in her new pale yellow beetle, and who can forget the night Charley Coleman cursed the girl down at Somerset who jumped wetly in the Vette after the Midnight skinny dip in Cumberland Lake. I hope Danny and Charley had as good their surrogates.

There's tires on my house

As I travel over the Southeastern United States I have become increasingly aware of the number of mobile homes that will sprout up overnight, much like a crop of aluminum and rubber mushrooms. Statistics show that Florida as a state has more of the homes , and South Carolina has the second highest honor. All of this was a surprise to me as I felt Kentucky would rank as a top contender. If my memory serves me right we are number 8 on the list , but this writing makes no pretense to be anywhere near accurate. I do know that Eastern Kentucky and Tennessee have groups of Jugornauts who go out and place these tin creations in impossible to imagine locations. As a matter of fact one of the sales lots in Booneville, Kentucky is on such a mountain top that if you stepped out the back doors you would fall 80 or 90 feet straight down.People have bulldozers to push flat spots on the steep slopes and then--Voila! Instant home. Nowadays these things are very nice and are huge , especially the doublewides. I just can't warm up to the traps myself as I feel that they were invented for meteriologists to measure wind severity by.Watch the news after a series of tornadoes and where are all the newsteams broadcasting live from?Right where the Shady Grove trailer park used to be. As I grew up it became somewhat of a ritual of adulthood for my peers to have children, get married, and buy a mobile home as quickly as they could buy a lot to stand for a downpayment. I believe that the young man would wake up some morning with a pounding in his head and a voice screaming"MOBILE HOME !MOBILE HOME!". Only after he purchased the home would the pounding ease up. Just as the children would be entering the middle school would he wake up with an even worse splitting headache. This time the voice would be saying"DOUBLE WIDE! DOUBLE WIDE!" and the instant solution is obvious. Now I'm not too good to live in a mobile home; I'm just too scared. Have you ever met a trailer salesman?Well let me introduce him to you . He wears polyester pants held up with a leather belt that has a brass nameplate on it , most of the time his own. He never wears socks and plays a lot of bad golf. He has been known to drink a little too much , and his last two wives will tell you. He goes to Tennessee and the factory pretty regular and calls all women Darlin. He used to look like Conway Twitty but now he looks like Dale Senior.I used to love girls who lived in trailers because they just made me feel like they liked me. The same with preachers daughters and girls who drove pale yellow VW Beetles. All these things leave me with warm feelings inside. The only problem is that I have been hearing voices ,and having headaches. You know you can take a boy out of the country but you can't take the country out of the boy. I don't know how I'm going to break the news to Sandy. Maybe I'll start out with a little camper.

The Bahama Mama

Sometimes I think of THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER and think that was what inspired me to take up scuba diving, but deep in my heart I know that is not true. The simple truth is that I was bored one summer and took up the sport on a whim.In the last several years Brother-in-law Tim and I have been on several adventures that range from the swims amongst reef sharks to Stingray City to furtive glances at scantily clad damsels on diesel clouded dive boats. Get on a dive boat with 20 other divers and everybody starts sizing each other up. You can tell the rookies by their bright colored dive skins,bcds ,and even their fins and masks. Everything matches in hot pinks, lime greens or vivid yellows. Old Tim has all different colors(he has difficulty matching things), and mine are mainly black. I felt that black gear meant serious diving. Another fact of diving that is inescapable is that regardless of how attractive a man or woman is, that when they climb back on board the swim platform and hand their fins to the deck hand there will be a strand of clear snot hanging from their nose to the fiberglass deck. If you go down a couple of atmospheres you will surface slinging clear snot . It happens-get over it! One of our memorable trips happened in Aruba . We had gone out to a shipwreck and we were getting the briefing from the dive boat captain which includes conditions, depths, and bottom times. This morning there happened to be on board a little lady from Boston, Mass. who was only too happy to tell you her life story, even while the Captain was trying to go over the dive. She told me , like everyone else, that she was from up north and had just completed her open water certification, and immediately had gotten on a plane and headed south to apply her newly acquired skills. You know the "Delta is ready when you are " syndrone. She also said "You can call me THE BAHAMA MAMA". Now I would have suggested that we were on Aruba ,a long ways south of the Bahamas , but I realized Aruba doesn't rhyme with Mama. I also began to think that this little matronly, short ,school teacherish woman was probably 65 years old , 50 pounds overweight, and knew nothing about diving. I did catch the final warnings of the Captain who said there was fire coral in profusion on the wreck and to watch for it. We all took our giant strides and descended into beautiful, gloriously clear water. Down below I could see the first divers already exploring the deck of the scuttled ship as Tim and I tried to clear our ears. Tim couldn't clear and signalled he was going back to the dive boat. Smart divers dive with a buddy , but since the water was so clear I immediately descended to attach myself with the group 90 feet below. On the way down who should I happen upon but the Bahama Mama entangled in an old rail of the deck. She couldn't see where her Octopus(spare air line and Regulator) was ensnared behind her. She was also dragging her exposed skin through a healthy patch of fire coral. I helped her get out of the entanglement, but not before she dragged me into the stuff. The reason it's called fire coral is that any contact with flesh causes excruciating pain and large red lesions on the exposed skin . As soon as I helped free her she took off like a waterborne banshee to careen off all the other divers like a mad waterbug, or a soggy pinball as it tried to rack all the points on the machine. I'm trusting that the dive master has her under his watchful eye, yet I see something above me and , guess who? You got it. The Bahama Mama is completely upside down , struggling, and her air tank is totally out of its straps and velcro secondary bindings. I grab her and pull her down and reattach her tank. Thank goodness the dive is over as we head up the anchor line. Once aboard the Bahama Mama streams the mandatory discharge out of her nose and immediately starts telling everyone what a lovely dive she had just had. She didn't seem to notice that her legs were painfully red from fire coral.I certainly felt it across my shoulders, but Tim the drug guru gave me ibuprofen out of his gear bag and told me to be a man and suck it up. We ate our orange slices and pineapple wedges as the Captain fired up the roaring diesels, and cranked up the Bob Marley. I think the Bahama Mama was singing "I shot the Sheriff" as we roared to the next dive sight.

Play that funky music White Boy

As I watched the demise 0f 2004 and the birth of the New Year on the past Friday night, I ,like everyone else thought of the past and the coming year. As the city of New york was celebrating the event from Times Square for the 100th year in a row, Dick Clark was missing the event for the first time in a century. His replacement was that wimpy little Regis Philbin. What venue does not have that monkey face of his staring out at you? I could put up with Richard Simmons as well as Regis, but that's another story. While most Americans think of resolutions and grow introspective about losing weight, getting out of debt, or growing healthier, I think of the past and peruse some of the paths that I've taken that maybe might not have been the better of the selections offered. You know like Robert Frost's poem.When I was a child growing up in Lincoln County we virtually lived and played along a little creek that is a tributary of Green River. Green River has its humble beginnings not far from my boyhood home as a little spring in the community of appropriately enough, Green River. As we played, hunted, and fought along, and in the creek we always knew that in the fall the dreaded "Dog Days" would appear. This was the dry season and the little creek would evaporate to muddy little pools, and then into foul smelling troughs where all the fish and aquatic life would die.My grandmother always cautioned us that cuts and scrapes would not heal during dog days and tried in vain to keep us from capturing the normally elusive fish as they floundered around in the foul muddy pools. As with all seasons we realized with the coming of late fall and early winter good clean rain would revitalize our creek and once again the sparkling waters would sweetly flow , and we would see the flashing bodies of the minnows and sunfish as they teased us with their underwater freedom. We never did figure out where mother nature replenished the fish from , but the important fact was their reassuring existence. I bring all of this past experience up because I have come to realize that in my own personal life my creeks have gone dry. I have worked at the same job for nearly 27 years, I've lived in the same house for 32 years, and I've been married to the same woman for over three decades. Everything I own or have bought in those past years has been old and worn out by previous owners. My principle address was roughly built in 1869 and every year shows. I think I suffer from Adult Deficit Disorder, and I'm definitely past middle age crazy as I don't have the money for younger women or sports cars. I've come to believe that men my age look dorky as they cruise around in little two seater convertibles, their bald spots shining or dyed hair ablaze in the sunlight. I've gotten too stiff in my knees to even crawl up out of a roadster.People come up to Sandy and give her condolences as they meet her for the very first time. My wife even led me out of a Christmas party a couple of weeks ago on the weak pretense that I was heckling and baiting some of the other revelers at the event. Heck, I just thought I was adding to the social scene. Sandy didn't tell me about her holiday company party until a week after it was over.I had been reading quotes and reviewing proper etiquette in hopes of redeeming myself from my earlier faux pas, but that was not to be. I admit that I do say some minor things to THE OLD GIRLS, i.e. Sandy's friends, but sometimes I don't think they are as mad or embarrassed as they act. I have to say that part of my problems started in college as the women were of the Hippy persuasion and thought that my cynical ways and sarcasm were ok. In hindsight maybe they were a little drunk or under the influence of marijuana ,but none the less I didn't have the degree of controversy with women as I have now. I think most of my attraction from females died about the time that Jerry Garcia checked out. By now any one can tell that I'm quite a piece of work. Unlike the Dog Days of mother earth , I see no winter rains in my own existence. My creeks have dried up and all of my pools are filled with ragged looking carp as they they float around in slimy green algae. I don't see any rain clouds on the distant horizon so I think those old carp have some rough days ahead. The hippy girls have all grown up and only fly Southwest to San Francisco, and they never,never ,ever wear flowers in their hair. Sandy detests Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, and likes The Irish Tenors. What can I say ? She's the only element in my life that's not old and worn out, and she has put up with more than a few antics in life from me.The only thing to say is "Play that funky music , White Boy".