Speaking of Botany

As spring fast approaches here in Kentucky I was walking through my yard and surveying the usual sad shape of the lawn, when I came up with the idea that we as humans are really no different than plants. Here at the end of March most of us are coming out of the doldrums of winter , and our exubrance at the coming warmth and sunshine is tempered by the pallid colors of our too-fat and flabby bodies. I sensed that life ,like my lawn is full of weeds and a few flowers, along with the usual wannabees that change their stations from time to time. Take me for instance, I've always been a weed, and always will be ; but remember- not all weeds are created equal. Some weeds are reprehensible and scorned by humanity, as in the lowly crab grass ,or what gardener hasn't cursed chickweed as it grows like a cancer amongst the obedient and doting vegetables? Other weeds have grown followers and cult status as in Tobacco for its nicotine and marijuana for the obvious highs.I began to think of colleagues and fellow workers and what their plant world status might be.Take Maynard the Mighty for instance. Maynard does not have to prove himself to anyone ,yet who would have thought his start as a small brier would have grown to such a formidable businessman whose sense of acuity is a legend at the boat dock. How did such a phenomenon occur you might ask? Well Maynard married a red rose and as they twined and twined he became a force to be reckoned with , as in Jimmy Grove and Barbara Allyn. They had Olive and she came out as an azelea, fiery red in color and temperament. Just a couple of weeks ago she was breezing through Wal-mart and caught her elegant, trailing, but highly fashionable scarf in the shopping cart wheels, and had to be extricated by store personnel. True story, yet even the prettiest azalea falls to frost every once in a while. Pepper Anderson , ever the enigma and feared office manager has taken up golf! I overheard Jimmy Olson giving her a gift the other day, and low and behold it was a dozen psychedelically colored golf balls!! Talk about an alliance and friendship made in hell! Good Lord these drifting spirits have found companionship in golf- the sport invented for the weak and infirm! I have come to believe that Jimmy is still recovering from his inflamed uvula, and that Pepper is on some sort of middle-aged crusade that only women and other golfers can comprehend. For their new-found affability I must elevate them to the status of desirable plants and hereafter they shall be a cabbage and a head of lettuce. I can't quite give them a flowering status because of the golf defect, but nonetheless they can be found on the gardening trays at Leroy Boone's Hardware store. If Jimmy would just quit wearing those silly little short socks with the dangling balls. Now Lois Lane , pure and simple is without a doubt an ornamental plant and it is quite easy to ascertain what variety she is. Last year she went to some strange store and bought everyone in the sawdust Kingdom these weird plants called "Sensitive Plants". Talk about a plant with a strange habit-- just touch one of these little bushes and the leaves curled up where you touched it!! The thing just begged for you to touch it to watch it curl up in embarrassment. Maybe the thing is just bashful, but I feel it has the most chronic case of an inferiority complex in the plant kingdom. I took mine home and messed with it every time I passed by. It shrivelled up every time I forgot to water it , but miraculously sprang back up when it rained. I loved the plant so much that I left it out all winter . I fear the thing was too sensitive and expired around 15 degrees. For her love of this plant I ordain Lois lane to be A "Sensitive Plant". I married Sandy Kay because of her disposition and her cheerful personality and she is undoubtedly a cheery little pansy as it brightens up the early days of spring. Her brother ,Old Timothy A. however is an enigmatic eggplant. Why an eggplant? Because like Tim' the eggplant will never, ever tell you anything. All this foolishness comes to a culmination as to my own status as a plant. What type of weed am I going to be? After much thought and inner reflection I must admit to being Kudzu, because I,Like this invasive plant have run rampage in Eastern Kentucky for years, which isn't all bad. After all Maynard got his rose, but I stole a pretty brown-eyed pansy. Olh Hazmit got grey sweatpants. Read about him at http://hazmit.blogspot.com./

You may be what you smell

Modern science has written the sensory perceptions of humanity as being wrapped up in the five basic senses, or at least five senses in most people. I have known some people who have somehow evolved into creatures of even more perceptions, whether it be ESP, UFO sightings, or just being lucky at winning things like a lottery. Sandy Kay for instance has a 6th sense of when I might not be telling the truth, something like a lie-detector. Or she can immediately sense when I am about to question someone at a party about embarrassing details of a personal nature, and she will take me home, often without any warning. I guess however, after comparing notes with other male colleagues that most woman have developed this 6th sense to a perfection. This revelation brought to mind how many other differences have taken place between men and women regarding the senses. One of the few senses that I have retained is the sense of smell. Sandy has an acute sense of smell as well ,yet her recognition of odors is not as readily available as mine. She can smell dirty socks from out in her car as it pulls in the driveway, but she doesn't recognize the smell of burning brake pads, or the acrid odor of a bad catalytic converter of the old Pacer in front of us at the light. She thinks that the catalytic converter odor is someone passing gas. Women have developed this unhealthy fascination with candles, and it seems the more I question this- the more candles we have. We not only have candles , but we have little hot-plate looking things that melt the wax without flames. What for? The good smell of course. I have eavsdropped on women and heard them talk for hours about candles. Good Lord this is the age of Halogen lighting--what's with the candles? A few weeks back I walked into a bank and noticed a funny smell and I asked the teller what it was. She pointed to a burning candle and said"Sex on the beach,Baby". It suddenly dawned on me that that was the name of the candle giving off this vaguely coconut smell. Now I wasn't in a position to debate the merits of the description ,but it was not like sex on Boonesboro Beach 35 years ago, and certainly didn't stimulate some of the other senses that had been involved, but that will remain an unknown blog. I must admit that Sandy has no patience with her candles and throws them away with regularity; maybe they don't live up to her expectations,but I have been taking them out to the whirlpool spa and floating them around in the soothing waters as I bask in the warmth on cold winter nights. I can testify that they will float placidly around with a soft glow so long as I don't turn the jets or bubbles on. It took a lot of effort to clean up the water when I sank a whle fleet one night just to see what would happen. A final note to candles is that the girls should start marketing candles for men . Think about the rush to buy them if they could market candles that smelled like gunpowder or a wet birddog on the ride home from the hunt. Some guys would pay a lot of money for the smell of Harley Davidson exhaust mixed with Coors Lite and Baby powder. And what man wouldn't want a combination of Baseball Opening Day hotdogs mixed with Drunken pizza eaters? I personally can remember the smells of Homecoming 1970 as my friend's date ate all of her huge yellow pompom mum that was pinned on her left chest, somehow leaning down and gracefully nibbling until nothing remained but a green stem . The candle associated with that episode would be called Bicardi and Coke. I recently had an olfactory experience when an associate that I'll call the Soap Babe gave me some soap that her company manufactures. Now I'll admit that I was perplexed when she asked what fragrance I wanted to try. I asked for choices and finally settled on Peppermint and one called Patchouli (I think). Quite to my dismay I really liked the peppermint, but made the mistake of telling her in front of Maynard, my overly sensitive and ever- politically sensitive boss, who immediately questioned my masculinity because of my liking that scent. Now Maynard somehow sees himself as a deadly combination of Charles Bronson and The Rock, and so long as he continues placing his masculine signature on my paycheck he can fantasize about his image all he likes. I , on the other hand would like the Soap Babe to develop a peppermint smelling bar that floats like the old Ivory. Just think, I can bask in the hottub with Sandy's cast off candles and sweet smelling peppermint soap that I can always find. Now won't that be sensory overload!!

Little Nascar

Often in my everyday work schedule I will find myself on I-75 headed Southbound towards Knoxville or points that branch off in either Eastern Kentucky or Tennessee. The common thread of all the miles travelled is that one just never knows what adventure lies around the next mile marker. I always travel Old 150 to Mt. Vernon and enter the Interstate just above Renfro Valley. When I still had the black jet it was light it up and lift-off about 9 0'clock in the morning most of the times when I was heading towards points south of Knoxville. The routine never wavered---the jet would be approaching 75 mph as it merged with the usual commercial traffic of the interstate, knowing that if I averaged 80mph that I would be buying a medium coke at exit 129 in Tennessee in one hour. That was taking in account that we would slow down to 75 for the speed trap before the Livingston exit, and the army of bored troopers as they ticketed hundreds of unwary yankees as they approached the first London, Kentucky exit. There is always a calvacade of Canadians as they are either coming or going to Florida. Sometimes it seems that Eisenhower just developed the Interstate System to accomodate our Canuck neighbors to the North. Now in all sincerity some of these Canadians look old enough to have participated in the battle of Quebec when Wolf defeated Montcalm, but that's probably just the effects of a lifetime of harsh winters and too many shots of liquor after a hard day at General Motors. It is hard to foster genuine feelings of comradeship with these fellow travellers when you're nodding at them at upwards of 90 mph as you tackle Jellico Mountain with a vengeance.I have been over that mountain hundreds of times over the last 20 years and it's always the same , and yet always different as your reflexes receive a workout dodging old retirees, strung out truck drivers, and interstate alligators(huge carcasses of blown -out rubber truck tires). Everything slows down about mile marker 134 (Caryville, Tennessee) as the tan and dark brown trooper cars have a propensity to ruin the days of carefree travellers.The saddest thing about this area is that those nasty little beetles have killed all the pine trees on the side of these mountains and left gaping black holes in the sides of the forest. Over the past five years there has been a battle of morals as a church started in a metal building complex off of Exit 141 and then moved to a larger unseen building to be replaced by "ADULT World GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS". . It seems the church crowd is battling the den of iniquity with a 5 story metal cross, but it appears there are more semis parked in that old nasty gravel parking lot every time I go by. For the un-initiated Exit 141 is the place that has the fluorescent ferris wheel that flashes in day-glo orange and yellow that fireworks are to be had. I guess I could stop for Fireworks or "GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS" but I know that just 12 miles down the road is my first destination-- McDonalds and a smoky smelling restroom followed by a large coke in a plastic cup that always has something about the "Vols". How that coke can taste so good in that nasty orange cup is beyond me. As I near Knoxville traffic picks up and the chore becomes harder as I-40 and I-75 converge and cars play ping-pong with each other with regularity. There's always construction in Knoxville, and wrecks are as plentiful as the old Canadians are headed to Tampa. It seems in retrospect that the retired Canadians and the Michigan malcontents are imprinted like Canadian geese to head south every fall and north every spring. Michigan drivers are a totally different story. They are usually the old geezers that are attached close to your bumper, flashing their high beams in their impatience for you to pull over to the slow lane. I think most of them are always in such a hurry to get to Florida because they are so old that they think they are out-running the Grim Reaper. I have had them flash their highbeams at me while I have been doing over 90 mph, to pass me in a metallic flash of chrome as they have the cruise set on 105 in their lumbering Cadillac Deville or Buick Park Avenue, usually accompanied by a blue-haired female with a yapping white poodle draped over their shoulder.I often wnder if someone is dreading their arrival in Florida, or if someone in Michigan is elated that they have finally gone South for the winter.The beauty is that I'll never know all these answers as I finally hesd North out of Knoxville again, headed to the first Mt. vernon exit. The only certainty is at the Williamsburg exit is a waiting medium coke with my name on it doled out by some pimply faced Cumberland College student. I can hear the ticking metallic sounds of the jet's motor as it is cooling down from the subsonic descent down the mountain. I check the cell phone for messages, and light the motor up, the jet fires and its back to Helm Street and the inner city.

Maybe they shouldn't

This weekend besides being chilly, nasty , and depressing was made even more miserable because KET was having a fund raiser, and was featuring rock music of the 60's with a lot of the original stars singing their hits. I wish to go on record that I love KET and music is one of the greatest pasttimes in my life, but watching your college age idols as they attempt to sing their greatest hits is not a pretty sight! I watched with amazement as a group of fat , bald or balding men tried to sound like The Grass Roots, The Birds , And even Steppenwulf! What mockery was this, and who had the audacity to sing the Sacred songs like this decrepit aging bunch of old men!? Then the awesome truth befell me that this was a gathering of the real artists that I had listened to and worshiped as a wet-behind -the ears college freshman at old EKU. It didn't help that the cheering audience was an overweight, aging group of men and women that were swaying and dancing in stiff arthritic movements like they would have done back at Specks on Water Street in 1968. Could this group of glassy- eyed, post- menopausal females be the same group of babes that set my heart ablaze over 35 years ago?? Good Lord!!! 35 years ago?? My own mortality settled on my shoulders as I realized that this pitiful audience was ME! What happened to the star struck lad from Mckinney that travelled to Richmond for an education. To become the first person on either side of his family to obtain a college degree was my goal. Success is in the eyes of the beholder as Maynard tells me he knows "fools who graduated from Eastern."Maynard himself measures success as "Marrying the first girl down the street whose daddy owned a Ford Dealership."I can't argue with his yardstick for success but that's a different story. As I started college during the "Summer Of Love" I was stunned with new ideas , people, and life. South Fork didn't have sorority babes and a long legged blond gymnastic star that talked like an angel. I became tongue-tied and awkward every time she smiled with those deep dimples and crinkled those brown eyes. Mckinney High didn't have gymnastics, and this 6 foot tall goddess of svelteness and muscletone like a cheetah troubled my mind like nothing had ever done before. The same emotional overload had only previously been felt when screaming Baptist preachers had screamed about the fires of hell and coming damnation on those hot summer nights as heat lightning had played across the black country skies. I just knew the devil was reaching up to snatch me away as the katydids screamed outside. With this tall girl /goddess from Columbus I had the same intense emotional overloads to my little mind. She troubled me like the Baptist preacher but she offered no redemption. The same heat lightning flashed across the hot autumn skies and she had her own intensity and heat that scared and fascinated me , even today not totally understood. I would go to class and parade around the parking lot in Uncle Sam's green ROTC uniform with 2000 other unwilling cadets that Eastern said had to attend for four semesters. This was the year of Kent State,as we put a whole bottle of Vitalis and slicked down our hair to fit newly grown, but forbidden locks of hair under the ugly little, flat army caps. We shared 1-S deferrments, bottles of Vitalis and Brasso , and the gathering storm clouds of Southeast Asia . I would walk to class filled with dread of Corp Period Day and Sergeant Gregory as he encouraged us to sign up for Advanced ROTC , my only hope that some of the upper class babes who were Sponsors would be out there strutting with their tight little mini-skirts, shiny black high heels, and green ROTC blouses. If they weren't there I would think of the gymnast and helping her with chemistry at the John Grant Crabbe Library until 3 o'clock in the morning. That always helped with cursings from the ROTSIE lifers about unpolished brass and long hair. They hated for us to call it ROTSIE and we hated everything about them. We listened to the Temptations and the Four Tops, ROTC listened to the Star Spangled Banner. I liked a blonde tall goddess ,and they liked the idea of killing Cong. I watched Earth Day 1968 down at the Ravine and heard "Hell no ! We won't go! " for the first time. I watched Bobby Kennedy gunned down on tv, and observed both cheering and tears when Martin Luther was killed in Memphis, all the time listening to the music that later came to be called the "Sixties". Some went to Vietnam, and all came home , either in body bags or changed forever. I was a pallbearer for a friend I started first grade with, graduated high school with , and 1 year of college with. He went to Vietnam , returned in one piece, and I saw him at the drive in movie, full of plans to go back to Eastern the next semester on the GI Bill. He was killed in a car wreck the next weekend at Ft. Dix, New Jersey; not a victim of Uncle Sam's war but his own wild ways. He'll always be 21 years old. I hope he's somewhere good , and laughing at me and those aging rock stars down here as we take anti-cholestrol medicine and watch our blood pressure. I watched KET's segment on the Carpenters and renewed my bond with Karen Carpenter, the greatest female singer ever to perform,but I wish I hadn't seen those Fat Boys with pony tails and those audience grandparents making fools of themselves. I wonder what my heat lightning gymnast turned into, but not really. I wish Karen would sing "A Song For You" for her and Frankie.

Risky Behavior

Over the course of my lifetime I have often been a party to events that Sandy Kay often describes as dangerous behavior. She feels that there is a thin line between thrill seeking and utter stupidity, and is often confounded when I apparently cannot differentiate between the two. I cannot pass any opportunity to buy rides on Helicopters, and I will drive for miles out of my way to jump in a Bell Jet Ranger for the thrill of having my entire body vibrated for whatever the length of the ride.Sandy Kay only asks for the keys because she seems to have a vision of the whirly bird crashing and burning into a hillside with her husband melted into the fusilage, along with whoever else was foolhardy enough to fly. It doesn't help the cause that one of my favorite pilots crashed and burned , and was horribly disfigured. As long as she has the keys she knows she can drive home and continue with her life. I tried to get her to go para-sailing with me down at Panama City and she just held out her hands for the keys and said"Go for it!". There's something indescribable about floating 300 feet above the beach and hearing only the wind as you glide out over the Gulf of Mexico on a beautiful cloudless day. A few days later a parasailing mother and daughter were blown into a billboard as the parasail was caught in a freak burst of wind. Sandy watched the rescue squad take them away and only shook her head. A lot of people are afraid of sharks and are terrified that the boat will dip them into the waters of the Gulf right atop a hungry great white. Tim and I , on the other hand have dived with Caribbean Reef Sharks doing figure eights all around us thinking we will feed them. Now these are certainly not great whites but there were 5 or 6 of them in the school and they were 5 or 6 feet long, and have no fear of two middle aged out-of-shape men. As they glided by within a foot of us their black cat looking eyes would be turning at us and sizing us up as to our potential as a snack. It seemed as if their big toothy grins were saying,"You silly boys should have listened to Sandy Kay who's up on the bank clutching your wallets and the room keys!"Then there was the time when we elected to pay money and dived Sting Ray City in the Caymans with a gozillion Stingrays looking for squid handouts. These big monsters hear the boat engines and come flopping their black fins toward you much like birds of prey swimming under water. They are often four feet across their backs and will settle on your head like some obscene overstuffed hat that Aunt Ruby wore at Easter in the fifties. You can see their mouths on the white belly as they are sucking the squid that you have been given to keep them on site . A curious fact is that the mouths have been designed by nature to vacuum shellfish and food out of the sandy bottom , and these creatures have far more suction than David Orick ever dreamed of in his life time. The boat captain warned us of Sting Ray Hickeys and fortunately we survived. The only near danger we had was this monster barracuda somehow attached itself to Tim, often looking straight into his mask.I personally think that this multi-toothed creature sensed that Tim was the pharmacy guru and needed some recreational drug therapy. I could have told him(her?) that big old ugly fish wouldn't be given anything but ibuprofen or a rap on it's ugly killing snout by Dr. Tim.I might add that the bellies of stingrays feel like sleek white marshmellows under water as they glide across your exposed flesh, a fact that makes Sandy shudder when I tell her. I almost thought that she was going to swim with the manatees at Crystal River in Florida , but she rode on the boat and watched from above as old Tim and I snorkled out and swam amongst these gentle creatures . Nothing prepares you for how huge these things are as they graze underwater on aquatic plant life, often with a young baby at their sides. Being mammals , the manatees must surface for air often ito the props of overhead boats. Most of these creatures have horrible scars on their backs with collisions from boats. It is truly amazing that these animals can weigh 1000 pounds and are as graceful as dolphins . I was really proud of Sandy as she leaned over the edge of the boat , watching us swim with the mammals, our billfolds and keys carefully tucked in her purse. I have to admit that I'm not to squimish about danger, as I always drive too fast and like thrills, but the sight of a baby coming toward me picking his nose will cause me to overload. I cannot stand nose-picking children and I have a phobia about them rubbing Buggers on me. Sandy , on the other hand doesn't seem to have this phobia, mainly because the little devils always seem to come toward me. I also cannot bear the mechanics of diaper changing either, so I guess Sandy and I are a good team. Whenever Nose-picking kids come around I hold out my hands and she gives me the keys to guard. I can dive down in utter blackness to a lake bottom and grope around in 12 inches of slimy, cold mud, but you let a two year old bugger picker within a mile of me and I'll generally panic . It takes all kinds. "You got fins to the left and fins to the right and you're the only bait in town"