Socially inept...

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Growing up in Newnan

There used to be this little place to eat here in Newnan that never changed. They had the same waitresses and same menu for the entire time they existed. I never saw a written menu, they would just walk up to your table and stare blankly as they recited what they had, which never changed... "We got steak, stewed beef, fried chicken, barbecue.." The people that worked there were nice and the place was a mess. We went there every now and again, I always got the same thing.. A large steak plate, sweet tea, and peach cobbler for dessert.. The brunswick stew and barbecue was pretty good too.

Whether they simply decided not to open up one day or were forced to close down by the health department I don't know.. neither would surprise me. We went there quite a bit when I was young. Like most places in town that we went to my parents would always run into someone they knew and spend a few minutes talking to them. Right after Julie and I were married we went there on Saturdays and enjoyed the food. I always got a kick out of the people that worked there. When you paid for the meal you stood next to the kitchen, which was a step or two down from the main floor. Like the waitresses, the kitchen staff never changed... The same older black women worked there for as long as I can remember, the one with the big smile and the red bandanna always said hello and asked about my parents every time I saw her.

We drove over there one Saturday to get some lunch and it was closed... A few days later some one told us they were out of business. I miss it because of the unchanging nature of the place, and they actually cooked the vegetables.. Regardless of what I'm told about the benefits of crunchy vegetables.. I like mine cooked for a long time.

Before we had any children, there was a little place within a mile of us that we would eat at called Bo's.. The place was open late so we would leave our house at odd hours and go there to get rid of the munchies, there was just nothing better at two a.m. than a Bo's steak burger with mushrooms... They closed down as well.. Every now and again I still drop by Wishbone fried chicken in town and get a box of tri-taters and sit out on the "party deck" to eat them. Wishbone and Dairy Queen are the only two places still in town from my childhood.

When we were little we would occasionally go with my mother to pick up dinner... I still recall those rides in that old station wagon. This was before you had to wear seat belts and spent the time in the car jumping from the middle seat over to the back seat that was revealed when you flipped up the floor of the storage area.. Or you would ride on the tailgate... could you imagine the calls to 911 if you road all over town with a bunch of kids sitting on a lowered tailgate these days? We would go to KFC and stare out of the back window at the huge bucket on top of the sign, imagining it full of enormous pieces of chicken... Or we would sit at the wooden picnic tables at Perry's burger basket on Temple Ave while mom got the burgers and fries, or we would watch the guy stoking the fire at Duncans barbecue at the intersection of Roscoe road and Jackson street... But I always hated to hear the dread words, "Honey.. go me a plenty burger" come from my dad... That meant a trip to the dairy bar.. I never liked the dairy bar... The onion rings were ok, but I never felt too good after a meal from there...

These places come and go... Much like everything in life. I think about how much fun it would be for me to take my kids to Kessler's to the toy department upstairs, or to try on new clothes at Temple Ave department store, or to the Alamo theater to see a movie.. I think that's part of the reason I enjoy taking the kids to Scott's bookstore on the square... Because I went there with my mother and as a kid, I always enjoyed it... Or why I like to just walk into Morgan's jewelers to look around for a bit. You simply can't beat small businesses like these for customer service.. Man.. I wish Dr. Natt was still around...

These days we meet every Saturday morning at the redneck gourmet for breakfast... This morning I was standing out front of the place looking around the square after we ate. I thought back to when I was James age and would have been irritating my dad to head over to the pawnshop, or jumping up and down at moms feet letting her know that I would surely die if we didn't hurry up and get over to Kessler's to see the toys...

Hell, we weren't much older than James back when mom would dump us out on the court square on Saturday morning and yell out of the car window that we had better be right there when the courthouse clock struck a certain time... I shudder at the thought of doing that now..

People and places drift in and out of our lives, recalled when we smell freshly mowed grass, or hear a certain laughter.. Some things you miss, some things you're glad to be rid of..

You look at your kids and think about the things they see and do.. I wonder to myself what aspects of their lives at this point that are they going to remember.. Are they going to carry anything with them the way I have... The things that are so incredibly important to me in my life and memory, they will never know. That makes me sad at times, but it also fills me with an excitement about seeing and hearing from them about the things they recall when they get older..

I was sitting on the tailgate of the kawasaki mule this evening watching James and his cousin digging in the dirt with shovels and said to Julie, as an older James, "We had this huge pile of dirt that was under these gigantic trees that we used to play in with our toys..." I flashed on the enormous slide that was at Elm street elementary school when I was in the first grade.. The one I was afraid to go down because it was like 40 forty feet high & had a hump in the middle so that you would surely be thrown off if you went over it too fast... The last time I was at that playground I marveled that the very same double slide I was so frightened of then... only comes up to my chin....

Friday night football games at Drake stadium, the lunch counter at Lee Kings, the army surplus stuff at the pawn shop, banana splits from dairy queen, the old guys playing checkers at the courthouse, the go carts in the window at Johnson's hardware, red "suckers" from Dr. Natts office, the Christmas lights strung from the top of the court house down to each corner of the square, fourth of July parades, laying coins on the train tracks at the old depot, peeking through the windows at brown steel, Earline Scott asking what book you wanted, swimming at the Elks club, playing basketball and watching church softball at the rec department, playing hide & seek & chasing lightning bugs through the neighborhood...

These were all good things...

Bugs

On my drive into work there is a place I go by called Dunaway Gardens. The road in front of the place is a bit curvy and provides no clear view of what is ahead. That's what I kept telling myself was the reason for it.

Just as I was approaching the gate for the Gardens, I saw a dog walking alongside the road, it was a German Shepard. Walking just behind this dog were three small puppies. I slowed down and moved over a bit to give them room. I'm no big fan of pets, but I still enjoy looking at them. The puppies were solid black and stocky. Taking a guess I would have to say that they were definitely sired by a rottweiler. That took me back several years to when we owned a female rottie named Niki. They are are a great breed of dog, we had a great time with Niki.

I watched the dogs little barrel bodies wobbling around following their mother in a line, they looked well fed and well taken care of and were small and fat just as puppies should be. I smiled to myself thinking back to when we brought Niki home and then went on to think about some of the things she had done. We had some people over once and one of the guys started looking for his newly opened pack of cigarettes he had placed on the floor.. We had just watched Niki eat the entire pack in two or three big bites... One of her favorite things to do when she was full grown was to wait for me to fall asleep in the recliner and get a running start in the kitchen and jump on my lap.. a speeding one hundred pound dog landing on top of you is not a fun way to wake up...

The dogs were walking by the road around a huge oak tree with dirt around the bottom and no grass... The little puppies were working their way through the root configuration with some difficulty and kicking up some dust as they went.. That sight took me back to being a kid and playing with different toys around the base of the trees in our front yard and at my grandparents house... I had built countless forts and hot wheel towns in and around the root configurations of many trees in my day.

I had slowed down to a crawl as I watched the dogs doing the frolic walk behind their mom seemingly without a care in the world.. I began to turn the car into the oncoming curve that would take me to the bridge over the creek that is the boundary for Dunaway, feeling comfortable with the thought that I would be bathing in memories of my childhood for the remainder of the drive. I pressed the gas pedal and began to take the curve when I looked in the rear view mirror for a last glimpse of the puppies that had brought me to my memories..

I watched in amazement as they stepped out into the road and were plowed over by a truck traveling far over the posted speed limit.

I was treated to the horrible vision of the dogs last few seconds of life as I slowed my car down to begin the death stare with the amorphous asshole driving the truck. He was obviously in a big hurry, as he tailgated me through the next couple of curves in the road and over the bridge. We had cleared the bridge and started up the long straight shot to the next curve when he attempted to pass me. As his truck drew even with my car I matched his speed, not allowing him to pass me. He went faster and I went faster staying up with him. When we reached the next curve he began to slow down and fall behind me. I slowed my car down to take the curve and saw the store I was headed to so I could fill up with gas. I was sure to slow my speed down to about fifteen as I made my way to the turn off for the store and kept my stare up with the guy driving the truck, hoping he was going to stop at the store as well. He continued on through the next curve as I made a right turn into the parking lot of Roscoe General Store... But he showed how tough he was and I was forced to bow down to his superior wit and obvious ability to beat my ass... Yes .. he flipped me off as he drove away...

I filled my gas tank in silence and said nothing to the lady inside as I paid for the gas. I drove the remainder of the commute in silence. I parked the car at work and went inside to go about my daily duties... This day much the same as each day around it... I thought neither of the dogs or of the memories of my childhood for the rest of the day. Instead of heading home in that direction I found myself taking the alternate route through Whitesburge to get home. The only thing that had filled my mind was the look on the guys face as he flipped me off.

I thought about that guy most of the night and I began to ponder his mindset. I'm quite sure he went about his day not bothered by what he had done, somehow justifying his actions to himself. There was no other traffic, and the dogs were plainly visible, I'm sure he could have done exactly as I had and avoided them. True.. there is a leash law in place and the dogs shouldn't have been loose... but come on... I believe this selfish way of thinking and living has now become the norm. You can twist and distort reality to fit any version you desire and then tell people this until you yourself believe it... This is a sad way to live, and the victims that are left in it's wake did nothing to deserve what has been wrought on the forge of selfishness you have built... What a sad thing to be forced to deal with. People truly have no grasp of what they do.....

July 4th 2009.... FREEDOM

Today is the day that our Independence is celebrated...

The one word you wont hear much today is freedom.

The country was founded on the premise that we should all be free. Of course at the time freedom was best left reserved for property holding , older white gentlemen... Yet I have always felt that some sort of providence was at work in the wording of our founding documents.

I hold close to me the thought that where human beings are concerned freedom is an inevitability...

It is a horrific process, full of violence and blood.. Insurrection is the order of the day. Indeed, when our own freedom was won from England, only one third of the people here in the colonies wanted it.. One third fought against it and the last third didn't give a damn either way...

Freedom is a long sought for and seldom won thing. Societies have been destroyed in seeking it out because the other inevitability when it comes to humans being involved in anything, is the "cluster fuck factor".. There is always going to be someone who follows the mindset of money and power is the way to go for themselves and be damned what others want or need.

Micro analysis of the process we went through in gaining our freedom will reveal many flaws and backward moments that arm chair hindsight will cause many to shake their heads at. Which is of course true with any situation...

Freedom is a simple thing to possess and amazingly difficult to hold on to. We wantonly vote our freedoms away in many names... "Security", "Peace", "for the children"... there are many labels which are used yet we forget the most important thing that keeps freedom in place.. failure.. Failure and the ability to pick yourself up and try again until you succeed.. That is the basis of basic freedom..

The desire to keep freedom with us coupled with the agreement to die for it is a powerful tool indeed... There aren't many situations in which "taking to the streets" actually helps... When you see something that you think must be changed the most effective way to do it is by working from within that system... the only thing you really get from protesting in public is a traffic jam and if pushed too hard, dead people... neither of which really pushes your cause too far along the ladder toward completion.. When an entire society is oppressed there comes a time when armed insurrection is the only way.. but those times are few and far between and, as is shown throughout the third world, only really ever sets up warlords...

The cynics look at this day as "closet patriotism" when most people are looking to dust off flags and wave them at parades while awaiting the fireworks... To me.. I don't care.. Even if it's one day a year, I still enjoy the sight of many flags waving and being worn.

I think about the number of people who gave everything for freedom, from property to their very lives... To me it's like voting... Cynics will say "the lesser of two evils" or "your vote doesn't really count" yet I feel I have to vote... I think of people like Alice Paul and know that I can not stay away from the voting booth simply in honor of sacrifices like the ones she made for that right.

I place myself in a field standing alongside other people who's homes were being destroyed, families murdered, livestock butchered, and money taken away in the form of unfair taxation. I imagine staring at a group of people who were ordered to kill me because I want to be free. I smell the cordite, blood and fear of that day. I see them approach and I imagine the abject terror of looking at 50 caliber rifles aimed at me, and I still stand firm. I think of the lyrics to the Scottish tune that will forever haunt me:

Lay me down in the cold cold ground
Where before many more have gone
Lay me down in the cold cold ground
Where before many more have gone

When they come I will stand my ground
Stand my ground
I’ll not be afraid
Thoughts of home take away my fear
Sweat and blood hide my veil of tears

Once a year say a prayer for me
Close your eyes and remember me
Never more shall I see the sun
For I fell to a Germans gun

Lay me down in the cold cold ground
Where before many more have gone
Lay me down in the cold cold ground
Where before many more have gone
Where before many more have gone

Am I a romantic simpleton who cries when I think of these things and hears this song? You bet your ass I am...

So embedded cynicism aside, I will proudly wave my flag today and watch my small hometown's cheesy little parade.. And when the soldiers come by I will cheer and scream for them as loud as I can.. Am I willing to die for my freedom? Absolutely... As much as I am ready to die for my family and my friends...

Enjoy this day, think of why we celebrate it... pay no attention to the cynics.. let them laugh at you, let them speak the terms and phrases of the clever cynics who know better, let them suffer smugness...

Me? I shall enjoy the pride I feel today, I shall taste that freedom and relish it's exquisite flavor as I watch my children play in a land that was bled on by men and women who never had any idea that we would live, yet were willing to lay their lives down so that we could live in freedom...

Nightfall in Georgia

The sounds of darkness draw me from the porch toward edge of the woods. A myriad of voices hold me to that spot for mere moments, and I plunge in.

Walking in the forest at this hour holds fear, assurance, calmness, and apprehension with equal fervor. Promises of discovery and adventure lay just within my grasp, yet sadly move away seconds before I can reach them. Creating within me the usual longing for a childhood long since past when the bridge between myself and adventure was one I could cross with relative ease and little thought. To experience the complete joy brought about by an evening of hide and seek with the passion born of that age once more would truly be as close to God as I could hope to get. The only way one can surely begin to feel this wonder again is to see it in the eyes of a child caught within its spell.

These thoughts carry me forward as I traverse paths taken so often that little thought needs to be given to direction or footing. Years of moving through undergrowth with the need of stealth has brought about a natural ability to move in complete silence. Rich aromas of honeysuckle and wet earth tell me my exact location, as I look ahead toward my destination.

Finding this spot is done with as sure a familiarity as a mother's ability to recognize the call of her own child. I dare not glance before me in fear of ruination of the evenings reason for being here.

The spot is bare, dry, and ready to join me in a symphony of past and present.

Before taking my seat I stand and breathe deeply of the aroma that is home... eyes closed, mind fixed, and soul just right... It is time. I sit with my back to an oak tree that has seen more than I can hope to witness in many lifetimes. I take one last deep taste of the nights humid air and open my eyes as the flavors of this hollow swill around my senses and release images of lives past and present.

I look down from the edge of the hollow into the creeks flowing side by side until they join and flow through the hardwoods to fill the lake just beyond the distant hill. My personal amphitheater is now alive with thousands of fireflies dancing from the base of the trees; swimming effortlessly to the tops that are only a few feet from my vantage point. In a stunning silence they light the very ground of this hollow as they dance in lives never touched or holding any concern for me or my fellow men. No performance ever conceived by a human can come close to the beauty displayed in front of me... I am honored and awestruck to be its only witness.

The journey starts as my mind finds a peace that I left here as a child and the welcomed images come. There is no order to this waltz, it happens all at once. Everything is simultaneous, imagery from lives gone and lives newly arrived wash over me. I hear the voices of my grandparents calling to everyone, the laughter of my father, the weeping of my mother over his loss, the catcalls of my peers at play, the cries and joy of my children in full throws of discovery, and the music of my youth wrapped in the din of my siblings hearts as they work a magic that can be known only within a family.

Aunts, uncles, cousins, and people loved for years shift before me in a dance with the yellow lights I watch. I smell and taste a small kitchen full of family during the holidays, the tears for the arrival of my sons, and experience the love of my wife anew... I feel that those who went before me now hold a secret knowledge that they know I will share in time, and their patience is palpable to me.

The sounds of laughter and joy during times of great happiness in my life are as sure and new as the moments they first occurred.. The poetry, eroticism, love, and passion for life from every moment of each night I have lived is alive at one moment in time... This surely is what magic is made of...

The time I spend there is never measured yet lasts eons in my soul. Many lives are witnessed and many battles thought through. Situations are lost and honesty fills the spaces that dwell within me, pushing out the demons that have moved in during the day. Serenity arrives, a long remembered companion, welcomed as surely as it was a cousin coming to let me know all is well with him.

A sly smile creeps across my face as the owls arrive with cries and calls letting me know I have been here long enough and am needed elsewhere. I listen to their calls mixing with the rhythmic patterns now rising from the lake as frogs and crickets wake to begin their lives over again in the new night around them. I almost feel guilty that most people don't get to experience a dance such as this... But then the peace I feel and surety I have gained again with this renewal remind me that this place and these moments are my own...

The Bamboo Stand

We were young... maybe twelve or thirteen at the most. My cousin Patrick lived not too far from here, he's the guy that my son is named after. We played in the woods all the time, and this Saturday was no different.

We had gotten a ride over to their house with my parents and were hanging out in the yard when all the other kids from the neighborhood began showing up. There was the usual discussion of what we were going to do, votes swung from a rock fight to playing army... Playing army won out... Given that the last rock fight ended with my brother getting a sizable wound on the top of his head and me getting into sizable trouble. Yes.. we actually chose sides and threw real rocks at one another... Hey, he raised his head and I took a shot...

Problem was, nothing we did ever turned out quite the way we intended.. Somebody always got hurt too bad, or came near enough to death to scare us into sitting in the den with innocent looks on our faces waiting for the phone to ring. My dad always looked at us constantly at these times with that, "Oh damn... how much is this going to cost me" expression on his face, waiting for the other shoe to drop. In his defense he had good reason.. I mean WE thought the arrow attachment to the slingshot was a good idea... All of us watched in awe as that arrow flew high, arched over and began its rapid descent... Straight toward Kevin's dad as he was on the riding mower... The arrow hit the ground about three feet behind him as he passed the edge of his garden, the thud accompanied by the collective, "Holy shit" of relief we all said.... Patrick took off as fast as he could and plucked the arrow out of the ground, in a slide straight into the garden, before Kevin's dad made the turn on the mower to come back.. He took cover in the vegetation and laid still until the mower passed, then ran back, Kevin's dad never knew a thing... So.. no harm done...

When it was decided what we were going to do, the usual flexing of the testosterone began when it came time to choose sides for the impending battle to the death. That day it ended up being me and Patrick against everybody else. Each team went their own way to begin strategy discussions, consultations of maps, and to gear up. We took our war gaming seriously...

Patrick had several stashes of supplies we raided and we made notes of where other caches of back up material were kept throughout the woods surrounding the neighborhood. So we were good to go. The game that day was to capture each team until all members were dealt with. The winners would be the survivors, thus ensuring our control of the known universe by midnight. So we set to work.

We applied the best tricks we had learned from all the war movies we had watched and all the stories we had managed to wrangle from relatives that had served in Vietnam the sixties and seventies, Korea in the fifties and Europe during World War two. The art of camouflage is indeed a learned skill. The day progressed and one by one the enemy fell. With each capture we would tie their hands and walk them back to an area we had selected among a stand of bamboo, we took turns - one holding on to the captive while the other ran point. There wasn't much undergrowth there and it made it easy to tie them to the small pine trees in a circle so they could look at each other in their humiliation and try to escape as we made our way out for the next victim. We knew that David would be the hardest to catch, and he was... Yet, like all who went against us that day, he too fell... Once we had him back at "base camp" we were all talking about the day's adventure when we heard distant shouts through the trees...

It was difficult to make out what was being yelled, the voice traveled on the wind and we were pretty far back in the woods, but the words "my property" were clearly heard... Then with no warning we heard a gunshot... then another... and another... Then the ground began exploding all around us... Damn.. we were actually under fire...

Patrick and I looked at one another, then without a thought given to our prisoners we took off at a dead run... It still amazes me that we never thought to untie anyone... As we ran, the bullets zipped by us and hit trees near us.. The conversation we had still sticks in my head as Patrick yelled out, "If we hit this trail up here we can circle around and come at him from a flank, we'll split up and hit from both sides!!!" He was still in game mode... My response was a simple one, "Bull shit!.. He's using a real gun and all we have are daisy BB guns..." A tree exploded just to my right as I yelled that out and Patrick retorted with "Point taken!!"

We did nervous pacing at the edge of their yard after we got back until one by one the other team emerged from the woods. We could hear the shouts, the gunfire and the limbs crashing as they made their way back. David had gotten loose first then assisted everyone else. The haggard expressions on their faces told the tale of their trip from the bamboo stand, yet each one had to give us an earful for leaving them.. all they got in return was an awkward shrug... Hey.. war is hell...

I thought about that afternoon today as I watched James running around our front yard geared up with his goggles, guns, canteen, and hat... I had stepped out onto the porch to make sure he was still in the yard. The rule is that he can't go up the driveway or beyond the boundaries of the trees at the edges of the yard, or behind the house, although he did get caught three times doing just that... That was alright though, he used his "inside time outs" to refuel... I must tell him that when he starts taking prisoners to be sure to untie them before he runs off when the real bullets start flying... But knowing him he will take a page from Patrick and seek out the offender to exact his revenge... Damn I miss being a kid...

Afternoon tea at Sprayberry's

Being that life all too often tosses you a class A style pig f**king when you are least expecting it, it seems appropriate that my Saturday pigbuggery should end up with a pleasant experience at a barbecue joint.

The day began with the typical randomness of any given weekend.. Everybody headed in different directions... Julie was off to throw a baby shower for a coworker and Patrick was excited about the prospect of seeing the movie Watchmen with the nerd patrol from school... I hadn't put any real thought into what I wanted to do, so I tried to call my brother to see if he would be up for lunch... As usual, he didn't answer.. so I decided to opt for a nice nap then finishing up a couple of walking sticks I have been working on.

I may have been asleep for about an hour when Patrick woke me with excited noises about his mom... delivered in his usual Napoleon Dynamite tones... "Dad, dad, dad, dad.... Mom left to go to the shower and took James with her and they are up at Matt's house 'cause the tire on the car went flat and she didn't do anything to it, it just went flat and she doesn't know what to do and she needs our help because she is supposed to be at the shower already and she needs your help.. Dad, dad, dad, dad, dad..."

Always a great way to be awakened... My first thought was who in the shit is "Matt"? As my head cleared a bit I began to remember who Matt is, and where he lives. Then I began to wonder what happened to the tire as the set on the car is only about six or seven months old... so off I went on the Kawasaki mule, bed hair and all, to see what had transpired.. Matt is the guy married to Sissy, David's little sister.. they live just up the road in case you didn't know...

When I arrived on the scene, Matt's kids were trying to put air in the front drivers side tire on the car and it wasn't holding any at all.. Being a slovenly excuse for a real man, I didn't even know whether or not I had a jack in the car... I knew I had a spare, under the car on the back... Yet I had no idea how to go about getting it out... But Matt pulled up and began dismantling everything in sight with the sure hand of a pit crew foreman.. He looked at the tire, once off the car and determined that it wasn't repairable. The tire was gouged on the inside side wall, by the shape of the rip I knew what had caused it.. There is a jagged piece of metal on an exposed portion of pipe in our driveway that mysteriously matches the shape and size of the damaged area... I guess that mental note I've been making to fix it is a bit useless at this point.. Chalk another one up for the useless handy man...

After the spare was put on and the offending tire was placed in the back of the car I headed toward home to attempt to find a place that was both open and had that size tire in stock. Julie had been picked up and was at the party... Several phone calls later... the only place in town that fit both needs was .. oh dear god.. walmart.. home of the demons...

I called Julie at the shower and told her where I was headed to, being that she knows my fear of the place she offered to take it up there after the party... "No, I must do this... I have the power to beat the walmart..."

So I showered, and headed out... The closer I got to the dread retail chasm of horrors the more desperate I became. I had never been to the auto center and wasn't really sure what to do. I made my way around the building a few times and scoped it all out. Looked simple enough... So I parked... and went inside... sweet Jesus... You must never break protocol with the walmart, it throws a mind f**k on the employees and the entire machine grinds to a halt as they reach for the speaker phone to summon another demon with more knowledge of the ways, means and machinations of the evil overlords hidden behind the mirrors and cameras, not to mention the glares of hatred you receive from the polyester covered patrons that know the place better than their own showers...

As usual, the moment I stepped through the door all the air in my lungs was sucked right out and the demons began popping up from behind all the merchandise with gleeful stares... "Ha! I told you that you would return... infidel... your soul belongs to us..." I took a few deep breaths and waited my turn at the counter, behind the guy that was arguing with the clerk about a warranty issue on his car work... After he had finally become aware that the walmart never loses it was my turn... I stepped to the counter and uncorked my voice at the clerk, it's a hard thing to do... talking within the walmart... there is just no air in the place to breathe in... "icalledaboutatireearlier andnowiamheretohavesaid tireputonmycarplease"... There, I had gotten it out... Whew.. and all in one sacred breath...

Then the most feared thing that one can hear within the belly of the beast was tossed back at me... "Huh, what wasat?" Dammit all to hell... So I took a deep breath and spat it all out again... She managed to get it that time and then asked me what size tire and called the little guy in from the service area to help me.. as we walked around to the car I became aware that every available working station within the auto care center was full of automobiles. So I cocked an eye toward the little guy with the clip board.. "How long do you think this might take?" He scratched his head, looked around at all the cars in the prone position and then at the ones behind them waiting their turns then glanced over to the two employees that were looking at naked milf pictures on a cell phone in the corner of the shop and threw back, "Two and half - three hours" Mother of god.. "Can I just buy the tire and escape.. I mean leave?" "Yeah... if yont to..." So I took the tire, paid the money and ran like hell... The demons were gathered at the windows as usual, watching my departure... With each yard farther away from the place I got, my heart unclenched a bit more and breathing returned to normal... those places are the harbinger of doom to every community they take seed in.. one day we shall arise and slay them, taking back our souls and returning small town America to normalcy...

Now I was faced with finding a place to put the tire on. I slowed down and thought about it and decided to try Parker's BP station on Jackson street. I knew they were open on Saturdays so I figured why not... I pulled into the place and was greeted as I exited my car by the guys that work there, they were nice and polite and extremely helpful, small business, that's where all the BS about customer service has been hiding... They took the car and began to replace the spare with the new tire, all without attitude or excuses as to why it couldn't be done, crazy.

While waiting on the car my nose was being filled with the smells of barbecue, floating in from across the street at Sprayberry's... The longer I stood there the more it bothered me and the hungrier I got... I had been texting a friend of mine during the tire ordeal and sent him a msg that he should meet me and have a bbq sandwich... He had already eaten but said that he could meet me and drink a sweet tea...

I paid the guy at Parker's for the work, drove over to Sprayberry's and walked inside without thinking about it at all, I had of course, been there many times in my life, but it had been a long time.. Once inside I was transported back to the days of being little and going there with my dad so he could grab a pork sandwich and bowl of stew. The place opened in 1926 and is still going strong today, when we were kids my parents often stopped in there, or the place across the street, Duncan's, to pick up dinner... Duncan's barbecue closed down many years ago.. The pure bullshit of the day washed away as I was waited on by extremely nice people and looked over the menu.. The other guy arrived and I offered to get him a sandwich, but he's watching his diet.... (read, chasing a new woman) He ordered a sweet tea as my sandwich and stew arrived.. then we set about talking... We sat there for a long while and discussed all the latest goings on and scuttlebutt that was deemed to be newsworthy...

The decor inside the place is exactly the same as it was when I was a child and the longer I stayed there the more relaxed I became. After a while of gossip and pure BS'ing we headed out to the parking lot and stood around for a while longer, looking, talking and pointing at things the way guys do.

As I drove away I thought about the day and wondered where it all went sideways... When we decided that its better to spend our time running to and fro doing all sorts of nothing and began to shun the pure enjoyment of conversation and porch settin'... Thanks to the folks at Sprayberry's and Parker's for reminding me that small town people still exist, and to Rob for passing a couple of hours with me this afternoon, sometimes it's good to just be normal and enjoy the long dead art of face to face communication...

It was just a dream...

Rarely do I remember dreams... When I do it's generally just snippets that make no sense. I have little interest in dream interpretation, and when you begin to discuss dreams, that always seems to be the direction that is taken.

Last night I had a dream of flying. It started in the backyard of my mother's house. There was a pulley configuration set into the gutter that runs the length of the back of the house. A long cable ran from the pulley to me. I was standing in the yard and began to run back and forth, all to the tune of ben taylor. When I had made several passes through the yard I began to take the same path in the air, it was a joyous thing. I felt like a kid on a ride at at a theme park. It was dark and there wasn't a cloud in the sky, the stars were ridiculously bright as I continued to hold onto the cable and ride the pulley back and forth across the yard. I began to slowly turn flips and hold on, laughing and enjoying the experience. As I rode the pathway, gaining altitude, I decided to let go and head out over the trees.

There was nothing more gracious, I soared above the trees and stayed just even with tops. I went for several miles and saw nothing but trees and night sky as I turned over and over, first looking through the trees, then staring up at the sky as I would flip over. The air was wet with the coming Spring and smelled heavily of honeysuckle.

Some time passed and I continued to explore, enjoying the sight of familiar places from a different vantage point. No people on the ground seemed to notice me as I made my way around town. Once through town I made my way back north thinking of looking around Atlanta, when I spotted a fire in the middle of nowhere. Surrounded by black trees, there was a clearing that had a huge fire set in its center and several people gathered around it, I decided to investigate.

As I closed in I began to see who these people were. Everyone from my past that has passed away. They seemed to be sitting silently waiting for me to approach them. The air turned cold as I landed just outside the light of the fire and they were all bundled against the frigid temperatures. They shot me glances as I walked into the group and took what was obviously a seat left vacant for me.

I had the overwhelming feeling that what was about to take place would be very similar to an elementary school visit to the principals office. Once I was in place a cousin near my age stood and began to explain what this was.

"Tonight we have come to you during a time preset for discussion of things that have left a feeling of anger and exhaustion in their wake." To say the least I felt intrigued, yet at the same time I felt slightly worried. He had a look about him of a tired traveler, wrapped against the bite of cold weather. Indeed, as I looked around the group of familiar faces they all looked very serious and rather careworn. He stoked the fire a bit and searched the other peoples eyes before walking toward me and sitting on a bench that was suddenly there. He adjusted his clothing after he sat down and stared into my eyes, Leaning forward, he continued.

"There were times in the past when I came to you to ask advice on matters I deemed important. It is time for me to return the favor... Over the years you have watched as those around you have moved through life losing and gaining in their kind. The core of this moment in your existence finds matters relating to these same thoughts weighing heavy on your mind. I am here to let you know that these things have a direction and course that must be followed and is designed to achieve outcomes that are important for each in turn." There were murmurs moving through those gathered at these words, they seemed to be voicing agreement as if it was the simplest and safest way forward.

My voice sounded strangely distant as I said, "The tribulations and designs of those around me mean little to my existence, their problems are their own to deal with"
"Exactly my point." He stood and walked around the bench to the fire and warmed his hands.. Looking suddenly amused he cut his eyes toward me and said, "Do you think that your opinion in these matters is important enough to give them time?"
"No."
"Well my friend, you are wrong."
"How so?"
"Give them time, ponder the situations, yet let them have no hold on you."
"If they are to have no hold on me, why give them time? So that I may learn from them? What do I have to learn from situations such as this?"

He laughed out loud, carrying me back through time to places and days long past, when forts and explosions were the order of the day. Summer sweat and noise were the things important to me then... not much else. I sat lost in memories from my childhood, his laughter intertwined with the visions and morphed into the soundtrack of my life. I saw all the things laid out before me that I had done, thought and witnessed. Then I began to worry....

"Have no fear.. you aren't going to die." His voice was amused as he read the thought in my mind. "What you have to learn from this is what not to do..."

"No shit."

The laughter rang out from all around the fire and changed over to the sound of the crackling of the wood as the flames licked the way through their hidden pathways in the logs. I felt a bit uncomfortable and adjusted myself, waiting on some sort of admonishment for my actions. That moment never came.

"Everything is simple." He continued... "Nothing is or has to be complicated, machinations always show themselves for what they are, a waste of time... people that give themselves over to anger, jealously and pettiness live that way and eventually die that way. There exists for them a constant battle and weariness in their lives. They label themselves victims while not seeing the complete bullshit they bring about. For them life is pain, yet they don't know why. Life is actually very simple and there is no reason not to enjoy it. It's all music."

"What do I do about it?"
"Just live.. don't talk about it, never discuss what it is that you want to do, just simply act on it. You don't have a long time here, enjoy what is while you can."
"Exactly how long do I have here?"
"As long as you do."
"Smartass..."

He laughed again.. "There is very little that actually changes with time."

Many things were Then said as I listened.

I sat for a moment and pondered what I had heard.. Then decided that I should be on my way. I walked back to the edge of the clearing. When I passed close by him I couldn't resist.. I leaned in and said, "What happens when you die?"

He smirked a little and said, "Nothing."

When I awoke this morning I felt profoundly moved. I wrote this out and couldn't decide whether or not I wanted to post it. Obviously I did.. Seventeen hours after I wrote it... several more things were heard around that fire, but this was the only portion of the exchange that I shall ever repeat.

Googlers.... God bless 'em...

In checking the stats on this blog I have come to enjoy the search phrases entered into google that lead people here... It never ceases to amuse... Here are some of my favorites:

carving wooden wood
getting sex in Savannah ga.
bloody tampon
ways to kill stephen fowler
wizard head
dexters moms butt
dexters moms email
child in distress
things that are fun and legal
savage gash
coffee is from satan
christmas is gay
fema is killing u.s. peoples
when is jesus coming

and my personal favorite...

why am i so dumb?


you get the idea...

Moon Pie

It was a year ago today that my father died. Delmos Perry was a man that loved his family with a heart that bore care, concern, frivolity and enjoyment of company. He was as comfortable speaking to kings as he was making nonsensical noises to a child in his lap, just before giving them coffee and pot liquor from collard greens by the spoonful…

There are some people that you meet in life that can hold an audience of one to ten thousand enraptured when they speak, he was such a man. Imagine somewhat of a mix of Justin Wilson, James Earl Jones, Jerry Clower, and Sam Clemens. Oh, with a dose of Judge Roy Bean tossed in…

He was a proud Southerner who wore his love for this region on his sleeve with a fierce protectiveness and passion that you just don’t find much of anymore. A gentleman in every sense of the word.

The day of his funeral we walked down to my uncle’s house (the place where they grew up, inherited by him after my grandmother passed away) to take him some of the food that shows up by the truck load on such occasions. This was Donald, my Dad’s brother, who went on to follow my Dad not long after that day… While we were sitting there he began to speak of my Dad.. His voice was full of laughter, love and yearning for a time long past… This is what he said, as close as I can recall…

“Delmos was a mean SOB..” sly belly laughs… “He would just as soon shoot you as look at you when we were comin’ up” Donald adjusted himself in his chair, picked up a Styrofoam cup with tissue packed inside and spit tobacco juice in it… “This one time we worked out a plan when we were cookin’ out for something in the front yard out there. I don’t remember what it was, somebody’s birthday or something, but everybody was there. He had this old starter pistol he kept around, and we went inside and got it, he tucked it in his pants and he told me what he wanted to do… Hell.. I thought it was funny so I went along…”

“We got out there in the yard and Delmos started yellin’ like he was all pissed off at me and then we went to fightin’ to beat all, right in front of everybody. Mama started yellin’ for us to stop it and sent somebody after daddy.. Then Delmos give me the signal and I started backin’ up yellin’ ‘Don’t do it Delmos! Don’t do it!’ and I turned and started running up the driveway like I was tryin’ to get away… He yanked that starter pistol out of his belt and started shootin’ at me like he was tryin’ to kill me, I fell on the ground…” Donald was laughing at this point, smacking his leg with tears running down his cheeks…

“Mama dropped down to her knees like she was havin’ a heart attack and daddy came runnin’ around the side of the house, everybody was yellin’ and screamin’ ‘He killed Donald! He killed Donald!’”

“Well Daddy knew better than that, he saw right off what we were doing.. Man… let me tell you, neither me nor your daddy was able to sit down for a week after that…. “ He took a few minutes to stop laughing and wipe his face.. “But that was your daddy. Always into something, had keep things going all the time… Lord, I thought mama was gonna skin us alive ….”

Everybody that knew him has a story about him, a time spent with him that they will never forget, this is mine…

I was probably nine or ten years old, we were working in the yard, off to the side of the driveway. Dad had cut some trees down with the chainsaw and sliced them up for firewood. There were several people there early on but after the wood was all loaded and taken back to the shed and stacked, it was just the two of us left.

“Drag all those limbs up and pile them over there across the road” he said as he wiped the sweat off his face.. It was summertime and as hot as you could get in Georgia, I kept looking back toward the house with a longing for the air-conditioned comfort… Yet I knew there was no stopping until he said so. I spent the next couple of hours along side of him pulling limbs across the road, building a pile about ten feet or so high. Then we started raking the pine straw and wood chips up. When all this was done I was about to drop from the heat.. Covered in sweat and dirt I was hoping beyond hope that we were done..

“Get that gas can and put it on the back of the truck…” I ran over and grabbed the can and sat it near the tailgate. He then called for me to hop in and we took off.. He said we needed more gas and something cold to drink.. We made our way over to the store in Sargent. It was a small place, cinder block and painted white. I stood inside in front of the big black fan that was running while he talked to the guy that was behind the counter about people I had never heard of.

Dad had a thing about getting snacks that nobody but him would eat, barbecued corn nuts that would break your teeth if you tried to eat them, or “diablo hot salted peanuts” that no human could stand to put in their mouth, or boiled peanuts.. 'slime in a bag' is what I called them… I went outside to wait for him by the truck, he came out with a bag of horrible snacks and a couple of drinks, RC cola.. he handed me a moon pie and a drink. On the way back home he talked about growing up around there and the things that he did while I ate the moon pie and downed the icy beverage. I always laughed when he talked about his adventures as a child. As we pulled back into the driveway he told me to get the gas off the truck and my heart sank… I couldn’t begin to imagine what type of tortuous manual labor I was about to have to do. He reached behind the truck seat and pulled out a mason jar.

I watched as he poured gas into the jar all the way to the top. He went across the street and doused the limb pile with gas and set it on fire. The flames were high and ungodly hot as we tended it and watched it burn until it began to get dark. All the while he talked about working in my grandfathers garden and growing up just down the road. My grandfather came up there as evening set in and we all sat there by the huge fire and I listened as they talked about things they used to do and the trouble my dad got into. When it had grown to full darkness my dad went across the road to the truck and came back. I was watching the fire and heard my grandfather yell out “Now Delmos, don’t you do that!” I then saw a full mason jar of gas flying through the air and ran backward away from what I knew was coming…

That was the first ever mushroom cloud I had seen in my life. The explosion was tremendous and limbs blew out several feet in all directions. I stood in awe as I watched the fireball rise slowly up, I could see the huge grin on my dad’s face as my grandfather admonished him for his actions. For a few brief seconds I was afforded a glimpse back in time to see my dad as a child getting in trouble…

That was a good day….

I miss my Dad today more than others and think I will cap off this evening by having myself an ice-cold RC cola and a moon pie.

Romance, chocolate, beads, carving and buckshot

Every now and again Julie and I toss all caution to the wind and leave Patrick to keep an eye on James. We take off for town, enjoy a meal, and do a bit of running around without the kids.

Today was such a day.

We started off by going to olive garden for lunch, which was pretty good. Then it was on to fuzziwigs for some dark chocolate almond bark. A trip to Michaels was on tap to grab some beading supplies for Julie, then a few stores later.. coffee.

Patrick only called us once, and that was to ask if he could go over to a friends house tonight to play video games... all was well at home and they were still alive, so we took our time and enjoyed the good weather and each others company.

I decided that I was going to take the opportunity to finish a walking stick I have been working on, after we got home. So I finished it off and noticed an "extra" piece of cedar I had cut off a previous walking stick, and decided to do a little carving on it. I know the wizard's hat looks like an ice cream cone, but hey.. I'm not finished with it yet.

With the weather better than it has been for a while, 60 degrees and sunny for the past couple of days, we had the door open and were listening to some random music from the satellite channels.

Now living out in the woods as we do, it isn't uncommon to hear the occasional volley of gunfire. There are people all around us that shoot for fun, which is no problem.. unless..... You seem to forget that way back off the road in the woods there is a little tiny trailer where a group of hermit like hippies live in solitude with their kids and dogs... It seems that today someone forgot about that... I was out on the porch working on the wizard's head when the unmistakable report of a twelve gauge shotgun blasted off to my left, a bit closer than normal.

The proximity of the blast made me look up in the direction it came from. I judged the distant and direction of the sound and knew who it was..... then.... there was a rain of buckshot falling on me, the cars, and the trailer... "Now that's not a good thing" was the thought that went through my mind. I walked over to the edge of the porch and listened. I heard people talking and carrying on and hoped that it was just a fluke.. Then a few seconds later... BLAM... the second blast erupted... a couple of seconds later... plinkplinkplinkplink... plink... for the love of....

I shouted, "Careful where you are aiming guys!" and was met with silence... Buckshot from that distance isn't a threat, but what if there was a high powered rifle waiting in line to be fired... there is a two hundred and fifty gallon propane tank out back that would just love to be smacked by a speeding bullet from a nice 308 or something... not to mention that trailer walls aren't very bullet proof... I know it's demanding and all, asking neighbors to watch their gunfire, but getting shot twice in one day can tend to make one slightly edgy...

So all in all it has been a well rounded day of family fun..

Where else can you make the claim that you went on a date, did some serious kissing, ate some Italian food, drooled over chocolate bark, bought beads, picked through Vera Bradley purses and bags, had a damn fine cup of coffee, played with the kids and dogs, listened to the grateful dead, carved a face on a walking stick, and got shot twice...

Welcome to winter in Georgia!

Looking back

Picking up some old pictures from my mother resulted, of course, in a retrospective meandering of time and paths traveled. We've all had the daydream that starts with "If I could go back in time, knowing what I know now..." It started out that way, but quickly morphed into a simple walk around in memories. That led to the inevitable slide show, the quick flash sequence of snapshots of things that I have done, said, and seen...

I seem to remember getting hurt a lot when I was a young kid, as pictured here... There were fights and wrestling sessions... that will happen when you have two older brothers ten years your senior... It's hard to notice in the picture, with all the dirt, scratches and spots... but I'm sporting a bright scratch right on the end of my nose. When I looked at the picture It all seemed so clear. "As if it were yesterday" so to speak... We were living in town, and my brothers had a group of friends over playing basketball on the patio just out the back door. We were ordered to remain on the back porch and entertain ourselves with fisher price people, we had the boat and the barn that made the mooing noise of the cow when you opened or shut the door... the plane was always at hand as well...


We were naturally not paying any attention to the toys and were hanging on the rail of the of porch watching the basketball game proceed in a rush of sweat, cussing and barbs thrown from person to person. Finally, not being able to take the sidelines any more, I ran right out into the middle of the game and was rewarded by running into one the guys as he was in mid air, falling back to the ground after making a shot. The decent little cut on the nose was my reward for breaking the rules set down by my brothers.

Memories are funny things. They lead you in directions and you have no choice but to follow. My childhood was a pleasant farce of bee stings, sweat, sunburn, hide and seek, honeysuckle, cookouts, woods, Christmas, BB guns, Gilligan's island, starwars, licoln logs, and fireworks. There were Sunday diners at my Grandfather's place. The entire family showed up every Sunday... Aunts, Uncles, cousins.. the complete family. There were fourth of July barbecues, week long events, again surrounded by the entire family. Stories by fireside of my dad's adventures with his brothers.. One of my favorites being when they were made to get out of the front yard by a nervous grandmother who had "visions", only to have a train derail across the street a little while later and a huge boxcar slide right into the spot they were playing... it was loaded with Ovaltine and they, along with everybody else in the area, were fully stocked for some time to come...

Those days I miss... youth... of course I miss being a child, yet, more than that - I miss the closeness of the family. I am as much to blame for this as anyone, yet when I step out onto my porch and think about the smells, sounds and family that once permeated this area. I feel a bit sad. There is something so "defeated" and forlorn about looking at the spot where the barbecue shed my grandfather built stood.... To look at the spot in their back yard and think of the people, laughter, food and simple joy that once surrounded that place.. to see it now will surely make those that recall it in its prime weep for a time long gone by.

Where have all the people gone that formulated these groups which comprised the backgrounds for these events in time? Many have passed away, little did I know that these were the people that really held us all together. That, it seems, is my biggest regret... not holding on to that spirit when I had the chance.

Moving down the counter

The South's answer to the local pub is the waffle house... The appropriate time to visit is, of course between midnight and four thirty a.m., usually after some sort of hectic event, be it drinking, working, or just spending a ridiculous amount of time in the car.

It is a place where harsh fluorescent lighting washes the cobwebs out of your head, or simply forces you into a stupor of glazed apathy.. I haven't figured out which...

On the first few trips you don't seem to pay much attention to the customers inside, as you are generally with a group of drunken people celebrating new found freedom from parental units. You make noise, give the waitresses a hard time, and find joy in doing things to the salt and sugar. There is the absolute amazement associated with discovering that there are actual "waffle house" theme songs on the jukebox... "we have one and eleven"... So you must play them each time you go in for at least half a dozen trips.

As you get older you begin to notice that the seating arrangement for these hours is very pronounced. The younger crowd fills the booths in drunken revelry, while the the older you get the farther around the place you move until you wind up alone at the end of the counter and know all the waitresses by name and number of children...

The only saving grace is that you get to have some interesting experiences and conversations along the way. Nights of dead silence with no other customers in the place except for you. Then there are times when you can't seem to get in the door. They may be over run with teen prom victims, tired bar victims, over the road truck drivers, or that obnoxiously loud family from somewhere's else...

We like waffle house for what it is.. unchanging... Regardless of staff turnovers, season, geopolitical standings, weather, state of sobriety, etc... the place is always the same.. You have to love that. In a lifetime of patronage you can witness everything from divorce, to fighting, to death, to marriage, to birth... all at a waffle house. You can do so while enjoying your pick of fine culinary experiences to keep you company, the ultimate voyeuristic station. Each time you walk through that door, you know that you will be met with, "Good morning", from the staff, and that grease - tinged with burnt powder sugar smell that permeates every fiber of cloth in the place.

The food is awful, the coffee bland, the cooking ridiculous, the waitresses.. well.. you just have to experience them... They seem to work their way into many places... I love the story of a cousin who had a husband that spent way too much time at a local waffle house and was subsequently followed... The evening ended up in a bloody ass beating, on the side of the road, when she pulled the girl out of his car and proceeded to teach her why you don't, "Mess with nobody's man"... what happened to him, I'm not sure, but where else can you go from that scene but upwards, right? "Yes sir officer, that's my wife... Yes sir, she beat up that woman... Yes sir, she's wearing a waffle house uniform"... at that point even the police are laughing at you...

I stopped in there a while back, it had been a long time since I had visited. I was on the way back from a one day trip to Savannah that didn't begin until late afternoon and included no time for stopping for food. Everything was exactly the same as the last time I was there. It was a Friday night/Saturday morning, about two thirty and I was hungry... Not the "hmmm, what do I feel like having" hungry, but the "I need to feed like a great white" hungry... Steak and eggs with hasbrowns all the way will get rid of that feeling in short order.

I just grinned when I heard the salutation and found my way to a seat after the perfunctory restroom visit.. same floors, same smell, same graffiti on the walls in the bathroom... I ordered my food and found myself in a discussion with the few other people sitting around about the prospects of our newly elected leader being in office, when the relative quiet of the place was interrupted by a group of twenty somethings newly introduced to alcohol. They came floundering in, laughing and jumping about the place as drunken youngsters do. The meal passed in personal solitude as the younger folk made a ruckus and kept the waitress busy with inane requests and attempts at humor, laced with sexual innuendo... She played right along.. Indeed, I noticed that none of the other people inside seemed to mind the noise they were subjected to, we had all slipped into some sort of dream sequence, reveling in days gone by. It was then that I noticed my place at the counter... only four or five seats from the last one, which was occupied by a rather tired or drunk looking guy who was positive that obama was the answer to all the evils that have befallen our great nation... I was frightened and paid the bill quickly, gulping my last few swallows of burnt coffee...

As I headed for the door in seeming fear for the end of my days, realizing that I had almost made my way completely around the building seating wise, I couldn't help but laugh at myself and snap back to reality when the waffle house theme song number one kicked up on the jukebox and the younger people inside began to dance about the place and laugh hysterically, there was just something comforting about it.

I was only sixteen

James picked up my wallet a few minutes ago and started going through it. It's interesting to hear how the world appears to a four year old. We had a nice long discussion about my drivers license, he wanted to know if I remembered the day I got it. I told him that I did. Then he asked me if it was on a Monday, I told him that I didn't remember what day of the week it was so he decided it must have been a Friday.

That took me back to the first time I drove my car alone. It was a 1981 Chevrolet Malibu classic. That's not it in the picture, but it is the only picture I could find on the Internet that is closest to the one I had... It was a company car that had been my dad's. I had gotten my license earlier that day and was nervous about driving alone, but wanted to see what would happen. I didn't know my way around as well as I thought I did, so I had to keep track of the many turns I had been making.

I drove for a while, radio on, windows down, enjoying the new found freedom that I had, yet nervous about getting lost. After I had made several turns I was, of course, completely lost. I tried to hide my fear and just enjoy the sights, but it was getting difficult to remain calm. I was a new driver and had no earthly idea where it was that I was at. I wound up on a long straight back road and decided to just see where it came out at, after what seemed hours, I came to the end of the road. Being lost, I just went with it and followed the flow of traffic that was fairly heavy on the road that the one I was on spilled onto to. Everyone else seemed to know where they were going, so I played along.

The nervous feelings grew, and I began to get down right paranoid, as the area I was entering was fairly populated and full of all sorts of people. I recognized nothing, yet had plenty of gas so I just continued on my merry way. The next thing I noticed was that the buildings were getting taller and more frequent. The people were definitely getting scummy looking and the foot traffic had increased. To add to the nervous feelings of impending doom, it started to get dark.

I topped a hill and looked down at a scene straight from a movie. Bars, strip joints, people walking all over, and a huge skyline of city. I had no idea where I was. About half way down the hill I decided to pull into an A & P grocery store and just ask someone where it was I was at, and how to get home. I pulled into the parking lot and noted an enormous amount of traffic, so I just pulled up behind the last car and sat, to wait my turn to find a parking space. I waited for three songs to play through before I moved at all. Then decided that I needed to find a different place for directions, at this pace I would never get home. I pulled out of line and meandered through the parking lot searching for an exit, it was then that I noticed that the line I was in was for people to talk to a group of women standing at the edge of the parking lot... Oh good... As I drove by the line and the group of women, offers for things I had never even heard of were tossed toward me, I still had my windows down... Hey, I was only sixteen. I did, however make mental notes to find out what some of these things were...

I turned into a hotel parking lot. Deciding to ask someone in the office for directions, you had to drive through an archway to get into the parking lot. Once through the arch I was in a smallish lot with rooms all around the perimeter. Most of the room doors were open and women were standing all around, scary looking huge guys were sitting all over the place smoking all sorts of funny smelling things and music was blaring from everywhere. They all looked at me as if I had landed in a ufo. As I did an emergency scan to find a place to turn around, several people approached the car and began to offer me all sorts of things I had never heard of. I was near panic as I made a forty point turn in the middle of the lot with many a "No thank you" flying out the window...

A bit farther down I saw an entrance ramp to the interstate and knew that it would be the best way for me to get back where I belonged, but I still had no idea where I was at. Making a turn in the wrong direction at this point would have been disastrous... So, just under the over pass I made a rash decision and pulled into the first parking lot I came to, a hard left and into the lot. It was a smallish cinder block building with a group of people of various nationalities standing around the door.. I decided to find someone inside that didn't look as if they would cut my throat to ask for directions. I steeled myself and walked through the group and into the building. Inside, I knew that I had made what was surely a fatal mistake. There was a little room, black in color, that you entered into, with a window just to your right. A group of people were standing around talking to a woman inside the window, so naturally I side stepped the group and walked through the doors...

What met me there was a huge room, with head throbbing music, lights, and vast amounts of naked women. I couldn't move... a mixture of fear and interest held me still. After just a couple of seconds, or it could have been a few hours, a huge man ushered me back through the doors, shouting all sorts of things at me, the woman in the window, and the guys around the door. In the parking lot, after he was finished telling me what he thought of me, I understood very little of what he said and was more concerned that my arm would never work again, he let me go and asked what I thought I was doing.. peppered with, "How old are you boy?" I told him that I was looking for directions and that I was sixteen. The blood drained from his face.. Eventually he calmed down, took a few deep breaths and asked where it was I was trying to get to. I told him where I lived and he immediately told me to get on the interstate, head south and I would find the exit for the town I was from. I thanked him, and couldn't help but ask him if I could use the restroom before I left. He laughed and said, "piss by the car kid" and walked off chuckling to himself... Hey, I had to try...

I drove off and found my way onto the interstate, headed in the right direction and enjoyed my first harrowing experience of heavy, fast paced traffic. Yet the panic didn't materialize, I just went with it, my mind racing with the visions it had been opened to for the last few hours. I found the exit for Newnan and went down the ramp. Sitting there waiting on my turn to get on Bullsboro Drive I decided that after all this mess I needed to visit the Waffle house for a comforting bowl of Bert's chili. I spent the next hour sitting there, lost in a meandering haze of naked women, hookers, various smells and strange looking people. I got home and my dad asked me where I had been, it was a bit after midnight. I simply said, "Driving around".. he laughed...

It took some time before all the things I had seen and heard that night were defined for me.. Sitting here now I think about that night and it frightens me.. all the things I saw and did, and how easy it would have been for me to just vanish... I shudder at the thought that Patrick is only two years away from the same age I was then....