A Little Dab’ll Do Ya

Kennesaw

I couldn’t, for the life of me, remember what a dab of, or what that dab would do for ya. It only took a little research to find out. I cannot say that my life or mental stability has benefited from this information. The company stated that this product, which amounted to axle grease and perfume, would cause girls to pursue you so they could run their fingers through your hair.

Let me get this straight, greasy hair is disgusting, but it’s ok if you add the grease on purpose. I believe that running your hand through someone’s hair and finding it slimy is akin to finding cat poop with your bare toes. Once that cat poop squeezed up between them, you will never be comfortable going bare foot again. I think this product and others like it were what amounted to birth control in the fifties.

I can’t believe I ate the whole thing. Am I the only person who never doubted he ate it? Furthermore, I believed he had lunch with his girlfriend first. He had an enormous salad, trying to convince her he was on a diet. After she returned to work, he stopped by an Italian restaurant, ordered and ate the whole thing, then had two canollies afterward. He was already overweight and balding, poor guy. Apparently after he died from eating too much of the whole thing, this company resorted to plop, plop, fizz, fizz, oh what a relief it is.

Am I the only one who has noticed that heartburn and queasy stomach remedies make you sick? If my stomach is upset, the last thing I need is some pasty chalky slime, slithering down my throat. It matters little if it’s pink, minty green or white. If I’m about the throw up, the pink stuff will push me over the edge every time. If I have acid reflux or heartburn, the last thing I need is to chase a pill with a full glass of water or mix something with water which tastes like lemons and gasoline.

If yesterday’s two chili dogs are down there planning their escape, all they need is some slimy stuff, gasoline or a whopping glass of water to arrive and point out an alternative escape route.

Am I the only one who remembers where they learned to spell Bologna or that it had a first and last name? I never wished I was any kind of wiener. Why did I turn out to be one?

Don’t get me started on cigarettes. Blank taste good like a dog’s behind should. This song was sung for years by Fred Flintstone. I’d walk a mile for a blank, if I could do it without coughing up a lung. John Wayne was the poster child for this brand, but has gone on to enjoy a much longer stint as the poster child for lung cancer. I’d rather fight than switch, featured people with black eyes; I’m not sure, were those commercials about cigarettes or statements made by Nicole Simpson. What do Fred Flintstone, Dean Martin, Ron White and Kennesaw Taylor have in common? They are all prehistoric men who smoke too much.

How many frogs, horses, bears and beautiful women does it take to convince us that beer tastes great? Archaeologists found a 4000 year old Mesopotamian stone tablet, which turned out to be the oldest recipe in the world. Wouldn’t you know it is a recipe for beer?  It took some serious advertising talent to promote a thing which tastes like kerosene, drain cleaner and well, quite frankly cat urine, combined. Think about this, what does beer look like?

 Just how cold does this combination need to be to make it palatable? People say they drink it for the taste. I challenge any of you to say you didn’t gag the first time you tried it. If the first three are cold enough and you drink them fast enough, you simply don’t care what it looks or tastes like. That retching thing you get from drinking beer and straight liquor is simply your body saying. What da Hell?

I guess I’m just trying to point out what has caused so many of our current problems. Many of our social ills and general dissatisfaction with life, stems from one type of campaign or the other. Throughout history wars have been referred to as campaigns. We are assaulted on a daily basis with Ad campaigns designed to cram useless stuff down our throats. The next few months will be a never ending campaign, designed to force useless information and more importantly useless politicians, down our throats.

Warfare, political and advertising campaigns, are sleight of hand tactics, which serve to keep our eyes busy as their hands are busy liberating our money. It’s probably just my imagination, raise your hand, say Heil Mein Fuhrer and then get back in line.

What da Hell

Kennesaw's website

What da Hell! I’m from Georgia and am used to hearing this exclamation. It’s something the country boy next door might say when he discovers his Pit Bull has been impregnated by the neighbors Chihuahua. Just try to shake that image, I dare ya. He might also utter such a statement after catching his favorite girl in a compromising situation with his cousin Earl’s brother’s daddy. Maybe after killing a deer and finding it has a tattoo?

In rural Georgia misappropriation of funds means, the only store open near the fishing hole at five a.m. is out of Budweiser and you must spend your last cash on Schlitz or Pabst Blue Ribbon. Wait, wait, wait, your last cash always goes for Vienna sausages. What da Hell?

These are not the words you expect to hear from the mayor of Miami when surplus city vehicles are brought up during an interview.

Turns out the City had up to 1200 surplus vehicles stored in a parking garage downtown since 2006. The number, as they often are in such situations, is unclear, but it appears it has now dwindled to 157. I wonder does this number now imply a shortage of surplus.

“Sir, are you aware that the city has 157 surplus vehicles, most of them Priuses, stored in a parking garage downtown?”

“What da Hell?

Hold it, try to say Priuses three times. The Prius boasts 50 m.p.g., but apparently that is not good enough for the city of Miami. Their Prius’s mileage may, in fact, be infinite. Somewhere in the city of Miami there is a magical place where Priuses live in the lap of luxury. Every two months their batteries are reconnected. They are then driven around to make them feel better. After a wash and a little petting, the batteries are disconnected, and they are once again placed in Cryogenic Suspension.

The city claims there are no long term side effects to their inactivity, but as the aged population in South Florida will attest, if you don’t use it, you lose it. Of course, they will attest to this with a Michigan or New Jersey accent. I love it when this happens, but the last time I checked Detroit was not in Florida. I’m moving down to Miami next week. I’m not sure I’ll fit in seeing as I have a Georgia accent, but I’ll try.

How do I get a job, petting Priuses for the city? It has to be a gravy job. All one need do is show up for work each day and convincingly say, What da Hell, while drinking coffee. Being named Forrest Gump might help too. I’m his cousin’s brother’s uncle twice removed. Does that count, wait no one said anything about counting? I’m out.

I have already learned many things about Miami and I look forward to making fun of them. I know there are at least 157 little annoying Scooter driving, Vegans who could be driving a Prius. What da Hell? 

A Porta-John by any other name.

What’s Up With John

Kennesaw

What in the world is up with John? Who did he make mad? I mean, who would want to go through life having every outhouse and more importantly Porta-John named after them?

Why is he the one who receives all break up letters? Some John, somewhere, must have truly made some women, mad.

Have Johns throughout history been more prone to patronizing women who work at the oldest profession in the world? Certainly, for this name to have become synonymous with the customers of such women, it must be so. Maybe this explains the Dear John letter thing. Women are so disgusted with Johns; they undoubtedly are forever in search of new and degrading ways to use the name.

Okay I found some of the answers, but they may be more disturbing than the questions. The toilet was invented in 1596, but not by Thomas Crapper as most believe. It was invented by a Godson to Queen Elizabeth I, Sir John Harington. This was where the name started, however it was further solidified during the time of Robin Hood.  After a long absence, King Richard the Lion Heart returned to find his kingdom in shambles. For his Brother Prince John’s, inept dealing with Robin Hood and his Merry Men, he decreed that the toilet and his brothers name be forever tied together.

Harington only produced two toilets before his death. The first was installed in his castle and the second in Queen Elizabeth’s. That one was only ordered because he was her Godson. I guess leaves, and the cold night air remained in fashion for centuries to come. Go ahead just try not to imagine the Queen with poison ivy on her backside.

Thomas Crapper was a plumber who would do much to bring the toilet in from the outdoors. While he did not invent it, he figured out a way to turn the John into a money making apparatus. Most people were concerned with the delivery of food to one end of the process; Thomas made his fortune taking care of the other.

Dear John and wait, there are Dear Jane letters too, seemed to have originated during World War II. At that time, John was the most common name in America. Also, all letters sent to servicemen overseas were always started with the names used between love ones. Dear Johnny, Davie, Sammy, when the one sent to end a relationship was addressed it changed to a curt form of the given name. Therefore, Johnny became John and so on. The popularity of the name John would also go on to create other uses for it in our culture. For example, John smith as an alias, and John or Jane Doe for unidentified bodies. The letters sent home to inform the family of the death of a loved one during World War II became known as John Doe letters. The last contributor to the forming of a Dear John letter was a popular Soap Opera which ran in America, on the radio from 1933 to 1944.

John: An anonymous, obscure or unknown person. We all know that men would never lie. I say this as I dodge rotten lettuce and tomatoes. The practice of calling prostitutes customers John which is used by prostitutes and Law Enforcement personnel, alike, originated because so many men introduced themselves as John regardless of their real names. Imagine that. John has now become generic for man.

If we are to discuss this further, we must investigate those Joneses. My grandmother was a Jones, and while she was the proud owner of not one, but three outhouses at the same time, she was not particularly wealthy. In fact, most of her family could have been kept up with, using only a broken down wagon or a bicycle with loose spokes.

Turns out the Joneses were one of the wealthiest families in New York at the turn of the century.  The Astors, Vanderbilts and many others, built their wealth simply by trying to catch up with the Joneses. There was also a popular comic strip, which was started in 1913 by Pop Momand, it ran for 26 years and eventually became popularized in books, radio and movies. In it, the Joneses were never actually seen, but were annoying, pretentious neighbors of the comic strips heroes.

It appears the use of the word Jonesing: craving or strong desire is directly related to the act of keeping up with the Jones. However, it became associated with heroin addiction during the sixties, it and a similar word tripping have now become part of our everyday speech.

I think I should close with two additional definitions.

Idiomatic expression:  an expression whose meanings cannot be inferred from the meanings of the words that make it up.

Idiotic Expression:  any word or phrase, written or verbally communicated by Kennesaw Taylor.

KT Phone Home

I just missed the telephone being invented, or I feel like it sometimes. Still, I remember the rotary phone and party lines. Do you? Remember picking one up and finding Mrs. Brown down the street talking to Mrs. Avery up the street. You might walk away and find any number of things to do, but your next twenty attempts would find them exactly where you had left them. They were still complaining about every old woman in the neighborhood, and every member of their families.

Many times, while on the phone, you knew someone was listening in. Probably the same old women. I never listened to others, afraid I would actually hear someone die of old age while talking about Mrs. Border’s bloomers showing while she was working in the garden. It was during the party line days, I first suspected the phone to be a plot our government created to destroy the Russians. A plot which backfired and went terribly wrong.

Remember when we had phone booths? Inside, you would find walls covered with numbers and the mindless doodling of those who had come before you. Chewing gum dating back to the invention of the phone would be plastered throughout. These booths contained the same smells found in the back seats of Taxi Cabs and Greyhound buses. One was never sure what the smells were, but spent much of the time, on the phone, trying to hold their breath. I’m pretty sure some horrible disease can be traced back to pay phones.

When I became old enough to own my first phone they were touch tone, but were still tied to the earth by a cord. I made sure the cord was long enough to reach into the closet. If I needed it, I got it out, otherwise it was in the closet where it belonged. Then they became cordless, it was at that time I understood where the phone was headed, it came to me in a nightmare. That nightmare has come to pass. Then came the car phone, remember those? When you got a call the horn blew, as phones evolved they became more aggravating. Remember the first semblance of a cell phone; it was akin to walking around with a shoe box on the side of your head. Those who could afford them were talking about stupid stuff you didn’t want to know about. I guess some things never change, because now everyone is talking about that same stuff.

There is an old saying; the emptiest jar makes the most noise. It is so true, the stupidest people talk on the phone everywhere they go. I don’t want to talk on the phone, but must be subjected to conversations that are either a string of curse words threaded together with total idiocy or a string of like this and like that’s strung together with curse words. Funerals, wedding, church services, business meeting and movies are interrupted be ever increasing numbers of annoying ring tones. To include passing gas, things said by Captain Kirk or Mister Spock, country songs I’d rather not hear and rap music complete with offensive words.

We’re still on the party line now, except the government can hear what we’re saying while we still can’t understand half of what they are saying. Everywhere we turn, we are subjected to mindless conversations about idiotic subjects. DWT, driving while texting, has become the new DUI, driving under ignorance. I remember when there were multiple forms of idiocy, which might afflict those drivers among us who could not drive. Now if erratic behavior is spotted on the highway, you will pull alongside the vehicle and find its driver texting. I recently played touch and go with a woman, all the way to Atlanta, some fifty miles. I was on cruise control and I would pass her, in the right lane and then she would re pass me. She was texting the entire time as she endangered everyone around her. All the while cruising in the fast lane. She was also endangering her three innocent children as she hurled through space and time in a five thousand pound tank of an SUV.

I will admit it, I hate phones. Remember when the thing to do, was to hit signs with Coke bottles? The year following my divorce, I hit two different signs with two different phones. I heard the blam, wonder what they heard on the other end. I’ve said it before, stupid people should not drive. Stupid people should not drink either and doing both at the same time is stupidity squared. Now I believe that stupid people should not be allowed to own phones. Wait why not invent mute buttons for stupid people. Okay that might utterly put an end to presidential elections, sorry. Remember when they said, don’t call us, we’ll call you? Yeah what they said.

The One True Chicken Slayer

Why is there always that one chicken? You know the one, the one who is faster than all the others and the one who gives fast food its name. I was the oldest grandchild, so it was that when grandmaw wanted chicken for supper, and I was there, it fell to me to catch and kill the chicken of the day. However, there was always a crowd of younger children helping me decide which chickens lived and which one would be reduced to those mouth watering drumsticks we’d be fighting over at the dinner table.
Standing there looking into the pen, I had many things to consider while making my selection. Roosters were off limits, I swear I wasn’t a sexist that was the number one rule. I simply picked a strong, healthy hen. Somewhere in my ten year old mind I believed, it was better if I executed one who’d led a long, full life. Then I’d squeezed through the gate into the pen trying to keep the chickens from squeezing out of it at the same time. My small, inadequate mind having picked the best candidate, I would commence to chasing said chicken around the pen. A gaggle of siblings and cousins would stand outside the pen cheering for their favorite contestant.
Some wanted me to win; they enjoyed seeing the chicken die. Cats, dogs as well as chickens would forever be leery of those cousins, later women would be too. Others would cry and root for the chicken. Once the deed was done they would pout and tell me how horrible I was. They would threaten to never speak to me again. By the time dinner was done they’d have forgotten about it and fight along with the rest for those two coveted drumsticks.
Anyway around and around the pen we’d go. Chickens squawking and flipping and flopping acting like someone was trying to kill them, which was exactly what I was trying to do. Feathers would be flyin as the chickens tried to avoid their turn at fryin. I’d be running full blast through chicken mash and all the other things which litter the floor of a chicken coup.
Two things come to me about those times. It wasn’t the mash and kernels of corn between my young bare toes that bothered me; it was the stuff that held all that together that grossed me out. Where there is chicken feed, chicken poop is not far behind. The other thing, this was before we knew there were Civil Rights or more importantly that we had any. I can’t imagine saying to my grandmaw or trying later to explain to my grandpaw. Here’s what the vegetarian would say. “I just ain’t a gonna kill no chicken grandmaw,” Here’s what the vegan would say. “What ifn that chicken were to decide to kill you grandmaw? That thar chicken gots more right to live than you do.” I’d have picked my own switch, and she’d have beaten my behind until one of us figured out what a vegan or vegetarian was and why anyone would want to be either. The last one has nothing to do with chickens. By this time, who cares? Just after she said, “boy fetch me a switch,” imagine saying, “ grandmaw let me ask you a hypothetical question.”
So, back to the chicken kickin part of the story. If you picked the wrong chicken, and several times I did. You would run in circles until you were tuckered out. The rest of the kids would then jump into the pen, to help, and there would be children, chickens, chicken feed, chicken poop and chicken feathers swirling in a circle so viciously they might create a chicken poop tornado. That’s a concept for those who grew up in New York City to try and get a grip on.
After what seemed like a week and after the poop tornado had spun off and destroyed chicken houses and trailer parks for miles, the chosen, illusive chicken would be standing on the other side of the pen blinking at me innocently. In an attempt to save face in front of all those cousins standing around looking at me with little pieces of poop and feathers in their hair, I would pick a chicken whom had not qualified for the Olympics and triumphantly deliver it to be sacrificed. I chased the same chicken a dozen times and never caught it. Other cousins gave it a try and failed too. Then one day my grandpaw simply picked it out, walked into the pen, picked it up and rung its neck. My cousins and I gained much respect for the old man that day, and while he may have accomplished many more noteworthy things in his life, in our eyes he will always be the one true chicken slayer.

Grandmaw, Thelmer and Mer Lou's Kids

As a child, I had two options. I could be a Taylor, or a Jones. My dad was a Taylor, but was never around, so I was raised by my mother’s family. As Americans or Georgians, we have many choices. Here’s what I mean. You can be from this country, you can be from another country, like my wife, or you can be from the country. My family is from the country.

Last weekend I had the absolute privilege of attending a birthday party for my ain’t Thelmer in Greensboro, Georgia. See, another set of choices. She could be my aunt, or my auntie, but in my family, she is my ain’t and everyone in the family calls her Thelmer instead of Thelma. It was her ninety-sixth birthday, but there was an ongoing, argument between her and the rest of the family all day. Most said she was ninety-six and had math to back it up. She said ninety-four and had ninety-something years to back her up. I agree with my cousin Danny, an old fashioned country preacher who said grace over the food.

“I reckon a woman her age has lived long enough to be whatever age she wants to be.” Amen.

My grandmaw and her sister Mary Lou, the family called her Mer Lou, were Jones and were born in Lula, Georgia. If you were born in Lula, you might be from the country. If you pronounce it Luler, and they did, that’s all the proof you’ll ever need.

Here, is another one of those choices. She could be my grandmother or grandma, but she was grandmaw. I spent my entire childhood, going to family functions and being the kid with the strange accent. I love to visit the Jones. They remind me of my grandmaw, and she’s the single thing I don’t mind being reminded of on a daily basis. The words she used and the way she used them, will forever be as honey to my ears.

At some time before I was born my grandmaw left North Georgia, the home of the chicken industry, for Middle Georgia, the home of the textile industry. Did you know that Gainesville, Georgia is what amounts to chicken Hades? More chickens die each day in Gainesville than in the rest of the world combined.

Anyway our family became separated into the Northern and Southern clans of the Joneses. Others followed until there was about as many of one as the other. Then one of my cousins, Carolyn, one of Mer Lou’s girls and Danny’s sister, moved out to Washington State and began a clan of her own. I guess she would be the matriarch of the far Western clan. She came to visit last year and was to stay with the Northern clan for the first week and then with the Southern clan for the second. As I lived in the middle, it was decided my house would be the exchange spot.

I was excited as I had never met her. My wife Mary Carmen and I had just met, and she is the only one of us who can say she is from another country, being born in Lima, Peru. She came by to meet some of my family. The Northern, Southern and Western clans clashed in Athens, Georgia and for over an hour, every one of them spoke excitedly and at the same time. It was perfectly normal to all of us.

My wife speaks Spanish and English and can even waltz her way around a little French and Italian. She stood and listened to my family for an hour, acting as the perfect hostess, offering drinks, snacks and even her seat. As the last one exited the house, she reached out and grasped my arm. Slowly she sunk into a kitchen chair, her smile fading as she did so.

I could see the distress as her perfect golden color drained from her face.

“Are you okay sweetie?” She likes it when I call her sweetie and so do I.

She held my arm in a death grip, and I was genuinely concerned.

“My head hurts, my stomach is upset, and my knees are shaking. I was afraid they were going to ask me a question. What language were they speaking?”

It took everything I had to keep from laughing.

“That was Mountain American, sweetie.”

In less than an hour, the Southern, Northern and far Western bands of ain’t Mer Lou’s family gave Mary Carmen a crash course on a new language. She has adjusted well. In less than a year, she can almost understand it, but I haven’t heard it try to speak it yet. When she does, like everything she does, her words will be sweet and probably pretty funny. I can’t help but wonder what my grandmaw would have thought of her. I regret I’ll never know.