Those Friendly Golden Arches

It seems that my entire life is involved in some manner with McDonalds, as my whole social world and interaction centers under the golden Arches. Yesterday for instance I was watching the 6 o'clock news on a Lexington TV station and the opening teaser was about violence and gunshots being fired at a central Kentucky McDonalds. Guess where it happened?? Right. Here at the only McDonalds in Stanford. Right where I drive through every morning for my large coke. $1.58 if you please. Every morning my friendly face at the window takes my $1.58 and calls me "baby".I ask her if she has found a man and she always says"I've got me a man."Then I move on with a clear mind and a destination down the road, usually to Virginia or maybe Eastern Kentucky. Well yesterday these three teenage hellions were trying to check out or checkin a Red Box movie and were blocking the drive up lane, a definite faux pas. The older guy behind them evidentally voiced his displeasure and testosterone induced words followed. The punks moved on , seemingly to leave the premises. As the older guy was paying for his food , said punks came back for chapter 2 of the Red Box confrontation. Punk leader got out with a metal bar and hit the older guy in the leg with the tool. Older guy pulls out a pistol and fires three quick rounds into the rear tire of the punk mobile . Police came and took all to jail , but they all posted bond and were released, to meet another day in court , if not sooner. Man, talk about crazy ways to die!! What if one of those shots had glanced off the blacktop or automobile into a waiting car??Our county has way too many incidents of trashy people meeting under volatile circumstances. Usually there will be young families at the Red Box looking for movies. Who would have thought the trashy gang wannabees would incite a gun battle over a $1 movie? Is this what we have to look for in the future? Now I can't truly fault the older guy, because he had already been hit with a steel bar on the leg, with the possibility of a serious beating from three punks. I actually think he showed some restraint by shooting their tires. I guess I'll just start packing heat when I go for my coke in the mornings. I was thinking of all this as I cruised through at about 7:45 this morning, listening to Kid Rock . What kind of movie do you think the three idiots were returning? There is no way of knowing ,but I'm betting it wasn't a Disney classic. After I left I was listening to the radio talking heads and some of the men were talking about Michelle Obama's Inauguration dress and her Inaugural ball dress. Come on guys!! Men don't talk about what the new first lady was wearing. That is supposed to be for the gay guys on ET. Is this banter about womens'dresses a smoke screen and denial about the more important issues at hand; i.e. a major recession, unemployment, and people losing jobs and homes? For the last couple of months I have been reading the local Topix on the internet and yesterday I finally realized that enough is enough. Holy Hell!! Is there nothing that trashy people won't say about themselves and each other!! They have invented some type of written language that even apes would find ignorant. It seems every grade school dropout has gotten a computer and is weighing in on the local hotties and who has what disease. Then the elementary children are writing in"Who is the hottest 6th grader at the middle school?". Hottest 6th grader?? These are kids ! Where are the parents that are letting these kids write this trash? When I was in the 6th grade I was a kid with normal kid issues.Maybe the 6th grade would-be hottie's parents are out gunfighting at McDonalds. That makes more sense.I think listening to Kid Rock could seriously cause middle aged men to brawl at local fast food restaurants, or maybe it is an overload of two all beef patties, special sauce,etc.The other morning, Tuesday I think, I pulled into work and the temperature reading on my mirror read -1 degree. Somebody forgot to tell Mother Nature that this is Central Kentucky, the Upper South.It was actually warmer that day in Fairbanks , Alaska than here in Stanford. Where is Al Gore and his Global Warming when we need him?? The positive thing is that we are going to Florida for the month of February and hopefully a little warmer climate. I don't think Sandy trusts me with all that time on my hands. I told her that I was going to get a day job at Wal Mart as a Greeter and she just laughed and said I was not intellectually or personality gifted enough to be a greeter.Say what?? She said I was too ill natured and grumpy to be a greeter.Talk about body slamming my self esteem!!So we've got tickets to Daytona and then we're going up to the Panhandle to do some Scuba Diving. I can't wait to get to The Blue Grotto and drop down to about 115 feet of the clearest water in the United States. I have a few concerns about my polartec dive skin . Maybe Sandy can put some stretch panels in the belly area where three hour trips to job sites have added a few pounds. One great thing is that every state to Florida has reciprocal concealed carry laws that lets me legally have the Sig P29 in my possession. That at least makes some things more even. I have to quit this Kid Rock thing.Also on a positive note I have gotten a Florida bound haircut, one of the two yearly that I partake of.Good luck to our new President , and may he help our country do well again, and God Bless Sonny's Barbecue because I'll be seeing a lot of those in the next month.If its not smokin its not Sonnys.I hope my dive computer doesn't realize that I've gotten fatter and penalizes me on bottom time.Maybe I'll just leave the thing at home.Maybe I should start listening to Michael Buble and quit packing heat. Probably the reason I'm going to fail as a greeter. I think the eyebrows are throwing Sandy off. The hirsute curmudgeon syndrone.

The Doldrums

Here we are heading towards the middle of January and another Alberta Clipper. The TV weather guys seem to be in ectasy over the approaching sub-zero temperatures. I certainly wish I could be as excited as they are . Obviously their houses must be warmer than ours, or else someone is paying their heating bills.I had the joy of crawling under the little slum house the last couple of days and placing pink, scratchy insulation under the floors of the last two rooms remaining to be insulated. The technique involves crawling on aging bellies over a century of mud , spiders, and nasty debris to the appointed areas , then turning over on your back and pushing scratchy,itchy fiberglass up into nasty spaces between joists, all the while lying with your head in mud and who knows what else. You only have a few inches between your nose and the bottom of the insulation, all the while breathing in big lung-fulls of really bad things floating in the air.The only lining at the end of the clouds is that maybe the house will be a little warmer and cheaper to heat. Rich people don't seem to have these worries. I guess the closest thing to remind me of the tight , uncomfortable quarters under the house is to descend down 30 feet or so under Lake Cumberland, looking for something someone has dropped in the water. Even on a hot sunny day in July , the water starts changing from green to brown to pitch black at only thirty feet. The only sense you have in those conditions are of blackness and cold. You settle on the bottom and feel your wetsuit sink into cold, slimy mud. The first thing you notice is that the only sound is of your breathing and the bubbles as they come out of your regulator. You start reaching out with your hands across the slimy, cold mud to try and feel for the objects you are seaching for. That's when the real fun starts. There's all manner of junk scattered on the bottom of Lake Cumberland. Sometimes you can tell right away if its a can or bottle. Sometimes you grab a handful of slimy , sticky tree branches, as they seem to reach out and catch your sleeves. The real terror of divers in darkness is becoming entangled in nylon fishing line with rusty, sharp fish hooks waiting to entangle you, which is why smart divers carry blunt tipped medical scissors to cut themselves free. Occasionally you reach out and feel something alive and wondering just who the hell you are, fumbling down there in its muddy home. Most of the creatures in Cumberland get out of your way. Once in a while you're lucky and find what you're looking for, but most of the time you don't. As you start ascending toward the top the water first starts getting lighter and then warmer. Soon you're popping your head out of the water in warm, 85 degree temperatures, your ears hissing off pressure as they acclimate themselves from being down an atmosphere. My ears sound like a tire leaking air. Nobody cares as they just want to know what I found. They always ask,"Did you see any big catfish down there?" They wouldn't understand the slimy blackness. What I'm having difficulty is finding something to watch on TV. How much HGTV can American females watch?? I am so tired of how this makes the room "POP". THe only thing that is popping is my brain. Dancing shows, singing contests, or talking heads. Do you realize they're still talking about the election?Let's move on. They had some award show on on Sunday night and the next day the web sites were full of pretty women in hideous dresses. Do they not have any tastes?? Who watches this crap??Barack had better get his little game plan going because the honeymoon will soon be over.This recession looks worse every day, and everyone on TV wants to weigh in on the problem. Look us poor boys know of what the problem is, what we want to know is what are you talking heads going to do to solve the problem. The radio said that Mr. Tim Couch himself was thinking about running for the Senate of Kentucky.Why would he even think about that?I guess he's still young but too old for football.He came out of Cleveland with several million dollars and a Playboy Bunny, so life isn't all bad.I don't know that Hyden and Leslie County will ever hold any glamor for him again. I'm having somewhat of a hard time with this Ann Coulter woman.Now supposedly she is a conservative (like me) , but she is almost scary. I keep seeing her opening those big jaws like a snake and consuming little Wolf Blitzer or maybe Katie Couric. I wonder how Katie is faring these days?I never watch her. She's got nice legs but a wild look in her eyes. When I was younger I learned that a woman with eyes like Katie's was to be avoided . We would all have run from Ann Coulter because there are just some things that men instinctively avoid. On the other hand Bald Headed Brittany would have been fun . I guarantee there are at least 2 Brittanys in every trailor park in Stanford, and I have personally had numerous painful experiences with the Gretchen Wilsons of my younger days.As I was coming down Hwy 25 this afternoon I passed the little country road where I once let an enraged racoon out that I had trapped in my backyard. THe demon was eating my little goldfish out of this nasty little pool I had constructed.I hauled his enraged little gray ass almost all the way to Livingston and turned his mean, snarling , vicious little carcass out.Turning once and hissing at he , he bounded into the woods. I noticed they had a new green sign on that dusty little road. The sign proudly proclaimed"Racoon Road". Damn . Talk about making a difference . That little mean coon sure has made an impression on Rockcastle County. Sometimes we contribute to history in spontaneous ways. I bet that mean-assed little coon really made things "POP" in Rockcastle.Take that HGTV!