My nemesis, Verti, has got to go! I’m tired of her magical spell. She’s not nice. In fact, she’s downright cruel. She keeps things stirred up and puts her own twisted spin on everything. She’s really mixed up!!
It started with a headache for a couple of days, which in and of itself is unusual for me. But then it turned into light headedness. I guess it’s obvious I may be light in the head …. but this isn’t a ditz light-headed … it’s a someone is playing spin the bottle in my brain light-headed!
I was at work walking in the plant and some sneaky rascal started moving the concrete floor! The world was spinning like a county fair Tilt-A-Whirl!
“Come camp with us on my father-in-law’s 800 acre island on the Gulf Coast bay, Dad”, my oldest son, Blake, told me.
“The island’s great! He runs cows on it and it has several fresh water ponds, and salt water canals surround the island. I’m taking my boat and there are ducks, dove, quail, wild hogs, gators and coons galore. We’ll catch flounder, reds, trout, drum, maybe even a shark or two. Come on! It’ll be fun!”
They drove down together that morning, and like a moth to the flame, I made the two-hour drive right after work.
I should’ve thought. I should’ve asked. I should’ve brought my own gear regardless of what they told me.
Jury duty is always a welcome relief. Maybe if I was on trial that wouldn’t be the case, but since it was some other poor slob, then all seems fair in love and war. The trouble with jury duty though is if you get selected, then the next few days you’re sitting and taking in facts you probably didn’t know, and in many cases, didn’t care to know.
So when I was number 72 in the jury pool, it didn’t seem much to fret over other than to sit for the selection and voir dire.
When I sat down in assigned seat number 72, number 73 greeted me. He was, and I mean no disrespect at all, an old burned out hippie. His mostly gray hair was pulled back in a short ponytail, not a long flowing horse tail ponytail, but like a dog that had its tail bobbed but still acted like its tail was its best feature ponytail.
At church, a boy about seven years old was baptized. As is custom before a baptism at our church, the media team shows a video of each person talking about their life, why they chose to believe, and why they want to be baptized.
In the boy’s video, he spoke sincerely, and his contagious smile was memorable because he had lost both front teeth. He said several times in the video that he wanted to be “babatized” and talked about how he wanted someone special from out-of-town to “babatize” him.
Turns out, the special person was the boy’s godfather, a young man in his late twenties who could easily pass for a military soldier. Where we go to church, immersion is the mode of baptism, which means going completely under water from head to toe, or maybe if you’re seven years old, getting dunked. Continue reading The Best Babatism Ever→
While pushing a grocery buggy with a squeaky, lop-sided wheel through the store, a happy dance suddenly rises from the marrow of my bones. Blue Bell’s on sale!
Feeling tears of joy well up in my eyes, I stand hopelessly in front of the double glass doors completely mesmerized by the gold and brown rim half gallons of ice cream. Salivating like Pavlov’s dog, I narrow in on Southern Blackberry Cobbler, but just before I reach for it, I see Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough out of my peripheral vision, and there’s Moo-Llennium Crunch above that!
Those made me second guess myself, and fight, and I mean fight, to walk away from it all like a good boy should. But like a fly caught in a spider’s web, both feet stick to the floor as people pass me on both sides of the aisle. Continue reading Blue Bell Blues→
We had a financial audit at work. Ronnie must have been worried. He dressed up. He even wore a tie for the auditor. That’s how it started. In a business where Sunday best is casual Friday attire to most, a tie is an anomaly.
He picked up on my sarcasm, grinned, and ignored me carrying on about how good he looked and how he brought up the class of the whole joint! He dismissed me with an amused smile and talked about how he used to wear a tie every day to work, 25 years ago, in another job. And after all, he was the company Accountant!
I droned on and on about how professional and competent he looked wearing a tie while the rest of us, the other 194 ragged, wretched employees, wore boots, old jeans and Carhart shirts. When I suggested he wear a tie the next Tuesday also, he pursed his lips and looked away, like he was deeply considering it. And why shouldn’t he? He was the Accountant and had garnered more attention from co-workers while wearing a tie for a day than he had the whole last year. Continue reading Tie Tuesday→
A car skid to a stand-still on the dirt road in front of my house some years back. Through the woods, I could see and hear three young men.
It wasn’t ordinary, and they were interested in something on the edge of my land. I armed myself, told my oldest three sons to wait where they were, fired up the truck and drove to where they were.
There were three college guys looking up a tree on the edge of the barbed wire fence on the property line. Way up at the top of a large pine tree was a huge mama raccoon looking down at the guys. About ten feet up, four baby coons were sitting on a tree limb. Continue reading Baby Coon Precious→
I’m not even sure how it started, but once it did, it became a friendly free for all. It was insults, from the Bible, no less.
I got to work one morning and found a yellow sticky note stuck on my computer screen from a co-worker which had both an insult, and a Bible verse that went with it. It said – They shall not make baldness upon their head, neither shall they shave off the corner of their beard… Leviticus 21:5 “You shave the sides of your beard having your little goatee AND you’re bald! You’re a double sinner!!”
The rumble of a Harley pulled up on the other side of me at the gas station pump. I was watching the money side spin a lot faster than the gallons, and glanced across the gas pump at the biker. He wore overalls, which were unbuttoned on the sides, boots, a black sleeveless Harley t-shirt, sunglasses and a skull cap.
For whatever reason, a gallon or so later I looked back at his motorcycle and noticed the trailer he was pulling. It was literally a LOL moment!
His motorcycle trailer was made out of a full-sized casket! It was meticulously welded to a trailer frame, and both the casket trailer and his motorcycle were color coordinated in matching blue paint!
I complimented the uniqueness of his trailer and he beamed a satisfied smile. When I asked if I could take a picture though, he came alive! (No pun intended.) Continue reading You Can’t Take It With You→
Stories about family, faith, friends and funnies. Pull up a chair. Grab a cup of coffee and laugh, cry, ponder and inspire about ordinary events of this wonderful, ever changing, bubbling pot that we call "every day life".
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