A Busy Place Indeed

Well, friend Dave won his race for magistrate here in Lincoln County, and he and his partner Big John try to operate a business here in the middle of Stanford, Kentucky. I say try because it seems their office has become the hot spot for all the movers and shakers to congregate. Before the election friend and foe would meet there under often ,uneasy truce to get election news. Now that the election is over these people are still coming by and making use of the facilities. What's more, there is an ever growing legion of malcontents that drop by to gossip. Dave seems to draw these citizens like honey attracts flies. I have seen the past mayor there more often than Dave. He seems to grow scarce as the doughnuts decline. I was trying to give Dave advice for his election ,and quite frankly that was met with limited, or no success. Dave never wanted to tell the public about the short comings of his opponents;quite the opposite, he wanted to be nice to them. Trying to guide any facet of Dave's life is akin to keeping blacksnakes in a shallow bowl. Dave even wrote a nice letter in the paper praising his vanquished opponents. He needs to read "The Prince" by Machiavelli , but Lord help him, it would need to have illustrations to keep his attention.The crew has gone to NYC with Dave several times ,and he is constantly making exciting things happen. There was the time in the Port Authority that Dave got into an impromptu Doo-Wop concert with a toothless panhandler wanting money. He and Dave sang a song and the Port Authority people nearly ran us all off.Woody, being the tight wad, was singing in the background because he felt the panhandler would ask him for money. Woody is famous as the only person to view the Radio City Christmas show completely covered in sugar from white doughnuts. Back to Dave he bonded with Mr. Lee ,a doubledecker tour bus driver who seemed to have dents in improbable places on his bright red bus.Dave also felt obligated to tell about Tim and Rita eating weird things in China Town, something I have observed on occasion myself. I saw Timmy eat Conch fritters, conch burgers , conch chowder, and conch pasta while in the Bahamas. I didn't see them eating those gross ducks that you see hanging naked in China Town , you know the ones with the gangly neck three feet long , proudly on display behind the dirty plate glass windows. While in New york Dave does not like to walk, and needs frequent rest, something about chaffing and the need for Gold Bond. Once in NYC we all passed within touching distance of Slick Willy Clinton . Dave was beside himself as Clinton has to be his true political icon. He is the only mature adult in his right mind that confessed, and even bragged about going to Arkansas with the express purpose of visiting the Clinton Library. Dave also talks a lot to everyone and buys Chapstick by the case. We have a photo of him applying the slimy balm to his little blue lips ,the Statue of Liberty standing proudly behind him.Dave in all fairness is almost like family as we have been partners on real estate , and have known each other a long time. When we would work on a shared lake cabin, Dave would don a sweat band and curse me because I would get paint or caulk on the tools. He would then disappear for 3 hours on the guise of cleaning the tools. While he was gone I would finish the job. Now do you see why he is a successful politician?He is a idea man , something that evidentally goes back to his days with IBM. Last summer he mentioned that his tractor hadn't been started for nearly a year. I told him I could start it and he said I couldn't. Well I did in about half an hour and he said it was a freak thing and I was "lucky". You know the blind pig and nubbin of corn syndrone. I think Dave is going to do a good job as magistrate because he was previously a school board member. I bought a calf at a school fall festival in an effort to help Dave. It worked because he won. I guess that in the world of politics there have to be politicians and their strategists.Trouble is Dave doesn't listen to advice. Crawdad won in Clay County and my friend won in Lincoln. As William Tecumseh Sherman once said"War is hell!"

Red Mud

Today I had to go to Somerset with Lois Lane to lay out a teller line in this new bank we're doing. Now normally a tellers line is pretty simple and fits like a rectangle between two walls, but this line is semi-circular in the front and arcs out toward the lobby. The boys who are building the bank have a corresponding soffit overhead that must match the counter below, hence the CAD produced lifesized pattern. Lois Lane is our secret weapon in that she is a computer whiz, and you have to be able to type to use CAD. CAD by the way is computer assisted drafting. Over the years I have drawn enough plans by hand for the lead tracks to maybe reach the moon, but not much anymore since it is increasingly difficult to buy the proper tools and supplies. It appears that like the dinosaur my mediocre talents are fast becoming extinct and unnecessary. To enter the bank we had to go through a sea of slimy red Pulaski County mud that defies removing from my shoes. In the ensuing layout on the sub floor plywood I also ended up with the red clay on the knees of my slacks, but not to worry, this does not bother me. What would have bothered me would have been dirt on my shirt. Most of the time I am not particular about my shoes or slacks , but I worship 100% cotton shirts laundered professionally with heavy, heavy starch. I want my long-sleeved , button collared oxford cloth shirts to crackle if someone accidentally bumps into me. Don't ever try to talk me into a cotton blend no iron affair. It's not a real shirt. Polo has become my favored brand, but the ones with the little pony generally don't have a pocket, which leaves me no choice but to put cell-phone, pens , money ,etc. in my pants pockets.The one advantage is that no chest pocket means no leaked ink in the starched pocket of a $75 shirt. I want to be able to take off my shirt and it will stand on the floor from the starch. Anything less is unacceptable. Did you ever see those dorky guys selling insurance wearing polyester JC Penny short sleeved dress shirts with a polyester ugly necktie? Most of these guys will have a plastic pocket protector. Engineers are bad about this. Some engineers will have 3 or 4 pens and pencils in their pocket protectors. Nerds. Speaking of pens I am also fanatically inclined to use my Montblanc LeGrand no. 162 rollerball. That's the big one. If I have to explain you wouldn't understand. It reminds me of Marc Cohn singing about his dad, the man with the plan and the pocket comb. Does anybody still carry combs? I have grown infatuated with Thomas Pink shirts, made in Ireland. They just seem wonderful to me, but most are cut too tight and fitted for my rapidly growing stomach. They have the most beautiful fabrics and patterns. They also cost upwards of $300 only at the better stores. I'm trying to temper my infatuation with the things. I'm still undecided about french cuffs, which many of the better shirts have. Somehow it seems inappropriate to be scooting across a muddy construction site in Brooks Brothers or Burberry. It also helps if your shoes are shined, something impossible to retain plodding through drywall dust and fresh mortar. Sandy is always on me about unshined shoes. Well by now the red clay has hardened to concrete firmness on my Sketchers, but my shirts are unscathed. I will mention that at times a 2 or 3 hour car trip to customers or sites will entail at least half or more on the cell phone. Talk about dangerous. I've found the most reliable way to retain new phone numbers is to write it on your hand. I have also found that Montblanc Document blue ink will not come easily off of old wrinkled hands. It is embarrassing to go into a construction meeting with numbers written all over your lower arms. The participants of the meeting question whether the man with the dirty shoes is autistic. They at least think someone dresses him in stiff,crackly shirts. I hate it when my pocket rings, but that is another story. Sometimes like Icarus, I get excited and fly too close to the sun.

Here I Am

Well here we are on the 20th of February , 2007 and again I find myself laboriously pounding away one-fingeredly on this self-centered tale of boredom and disallusionment. At this moment Tubby and his Cats are getting pounded by LSU at Rupp. They may somehow still pull it out, but who cares at this stage. They are earnestly trying to lose four in a row, this time to a mediocre team without "Big Baby". I guess Randolph Morris "can't get his head into the game"again. Somehow Big Blue losing 4 in a row in the SEC is like baking a cake and leaving out the three whole eggs. I went to Sparta , Tennessee today andfled across Wolf Ceeek Dam again as they keep dropping the level in fear of breakage. As we speak the level of Cumberland Lake is 680 feet above sea level. THe Corps of Engineers says it will keep it at this level until September when it will consider whether to drop it further. Normal summer pool is 723 feet above sea level. The lake is 43 feet lower than tourists and boaters like. Nearly all the ramps are above the lake and new ones are hurriedly being poured, too late I fear. Coupled with $4 a gallon dock gas and the greatly diminished lake surface, these next 7 years promises to be catastrophic to central Kentucky's tourist dollars. Already touted as the houseboat capital of the worlde Somerset, Monticello , and Russell Springs had better have better markets for these floating mansions than Lake Cumberland. I . in a weaker moment once agreed with Sandy to get into the Houseboat business and we purchased one. Now this boat was hardly in the category of these modern floating palaces, but it perhaps matched what we were used to at home. It was a 54 foot Sumerset of 1978 vintage and was about as worn out and dilapidated as the rest of our possessions. We just kept it at the dock where we found it, which to our delight and relief was as trashy and worn out as our beloved neighborhood at Helm Street, or simply the "hood". Our comfort level has to descend so low as to feel threatened as I have previously explained. No sir!! No green zone for us . I knew I was home when the little German dock owner started shooting the ducks because they were nibbling at the styrofoam docks. Every once in a while towards dusk you would hear shotgun blasts over by the launch ramp as he killed the nocturnal copperheads as they came down to bask on the warm blacktop. Yes ,I really knew I was home. Or the constant smell of burning trash and wood as he set the garbage on fire and saved dumpster bills. As the thick, acrid smoke would settle on the water It tould take on a touristy atmosphere. Every so often the boys and girls would drink too much and pass out on the dock, or in one case a red-neck girl made it to the blacktop and feel on her face, nose first. In hindsight her fall may have been broken by copperhead serpents, their heads newly blown off by Willy. One time he told me you could tell the poisonous serpents as they swam in the water from their none -poisonous cousins by the fact that the poison boys swam with only their heads out of the water. Non -poison varities swam with their entire bodies floating in a wiggly motion. That was great news to me! Like a great deal of Cumberland Lake, most of the older boats at the dock( and they were all old boats)did not have holding tanks and flushed their toilets directly into the harbor, chopped up into soup by the macerators in the toilets.I christened the harbor into Turd Harbor and would often swim in it. My main salvation was that the current was carrying the feces soup down stream to the green zone of Burnside. I honestly feared the snakes and accidental shooting far more than fecal matter. The fat bluegill that I caught had A certain brownisn tint, but that could have been from when Tim and I accidentally spilled some stuff in the water.As in all things , nothing lasts forever. We sold the yacht year before laST AND BOUGHT SOME MORE REAL ESTATE HERE IN THE SLUMS. wE BOUGHT THE HOUSE NEXT DOOR FROM A GAY GUY AND HE HUGGED ME AT THE CLOSING DOWN AT THE BANK . sANDY DIDN'T GET HUGGED. i FELT i WAS TOO OLD FOR THE QUEER ONE, BUT MAYBE HE LIKED GREY HAIRED SLUM LORDS. aS THEY SAY, THE HAPPIEST DAY IN YOUR LIFE IS WHEN YOU BUY A BOAT, AND THE SECOND WHEN YOU SELL IT. i CAN VERIFY THIS TO BE THE TRUTH. hOLY HELL somehow I hit the caps lock and it appears I am Shouting. If anyone reads this I'm sorry, but get over it! I'm not stating this drivel over again.I also must be on alert as I will interchange commaS WITH APOSTROPHES. tHEY LOOK ALIKE TO ME. What am I hitting to do that?I am 57 years old and typing totally frustrates me and mystifies me. Hello to all my friends in the green zone.

What's Normal?

Today is the 18th of February which to some people means more car bombs went off in Iraq, or that Barack Obama is meeting with liberals across New England, or Brittany shaved her head, or Anna Nicole is still dead, or in the largest sense Nascar held the Pagan ritual of DAYTONA. I had been looking for some kind of relief from Politicians( Who cares if Hillary wears pantsuits?), from Simon and American Idol, and from the incessant ramblings and obsession about Anna Nicole.Soldiers are dying every day and they're just numbers on a growing tally. I went to Washington last fall and Sandy and I visited "The Wall", a poignant reminder of our war. Somehow it is underwhelming to stand for nearly 53,000 lives of my generation. Washington and the whole Mall, which should be our pride and joy is shabby and nasty. The blacktop walkways have cracks and weeds growing up through them . The Lincoln Memorial looks dirty and fading. It seems the National Park Service doesn't have the budget necessary to keep the national monuments the way they should.The Vietnam Memorial is vastly undersized as to what I had a mental image of . The only things I was proud of in Washington were the New WW II Memorial and Arlington. I saw the Eternal Flame and the Changing of the Guard at the Tomb of The Unknown Soldier. Somehow the dignity of this event holds everyone spellbound and proud to be an American. I think perhaps that the press and media are vastly overestimating American sentiments and taking themseves, like professional athletes far too seriously. I respect Katie Couric about as much as I do Tim Hardaway and his Homophobic paranoia.In like manner I don't care for the blatant gay people who wear their sexuality like a mantle of righteousness. Spare me any more Rosie O'Donnell and The Donald.A hard day of manuel labor would kill either one of these self-centered flakes. I guess what I'm saying is that most Americans, like me, are somewhere in the middle of red and blue. I'm between O'Reilley and Letterman, although Letterman has gotten totally self-absorbed and lost what made him entertaining. I find myself going over to Leno ,who at least is not cruel in his criticism. I can't get too bent out of shape about global warming , as 5 Billion Chinese and the South Americans have a huge impact on our world. Africans and starving masses somehow do not worry about depleting polar ice caps. Al Gore has never known hunger and Al FRanken has never had to worry about genocide.Yes Most Americans still have the same worries as always, as in why Mitch Barnhart and Tubby Smith receive huge salaries for, at best, mediocre performances and results. Probably enrollment at UK will drop another 10% or so due to Dr. Lee Todd's rising tuition. Top twenty my ass!! It's not going to have students. And this year's basketball team?I think we'll have to become Gator Fans or even Vols if we want any kind of gratification. Americans , like me , worry about work, rising insurance costs, and the huge cost of everyday living. I now dread the monthly arrival of my heating bill nearly as much as I dread the results of my blood work. A new Tahoe costs around $42,000. How can people pay that?? I've been listening to The Eagles Live in Melborne dvd ,and it has helped pass several long and boring winter nights. ,I became acutely aware that they have just gotten better in the 40 years of music making. Don Henley says in the extra features that they had been criticized for not dancing around, and one critic said they "Loitered" on stage during the performances. He went on to admit that they were nearly 60 years old and had to "Loiter". Wouldn't we all be so lucky as to have their talent, dignity, and success??I realized even at my fastest speed I'm Loitering.I also am amazed at the ways that Sandy Kay and I differ in our perception of Groups like the Eagles. She doesn't care for Joe Walsh , say, as he slices his way through "Walk Away", or" Rocky Mountain Way." She likes Glen Frey on "No more Cloudy Days" . She will walk away from anything Van Morrison or Bob Dylan sings. Figure that. I only can testify that the little voice in the alarm control panel stats saying "GLASS BREAKAGE " when I crank up the surround sound . Rod Stewart gets her really talking when he and Ronnie Woods swing into Maggie and Gasoline Alley. Rod Stewart At Albert Hall is the best money you'll spend. Go ahead and do without one meal eating out and spend 30 bucks on the dvd. If you're like me it's been a long winter and your fat ass will appreciate the lack of complex carbohydrates(my mother-in-law's phrase. I still don't know what in the hell she's talking about). They say Brittany is worth about$100 million, so if she wants to shave her head ,so what?From the looks of postings on the internet it's not the first thing she's shaved.I can only say that if she and her little old trashy buddies lived in Stanford they certainly would have been wearing their drawers this past few frigid weeks. And please quit talking about "Wind Chill".