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.

Naming Names

When I was young, I bragged about being able to drive half way across the state without ever touching a paved road, those days are gone. Now, one can go to Atlanta, and once they get on Martin Luther King Boulevard, they can travel across several states without getting off of it. There are 777 streets and everything else you can imagine, named after him.
There are so many things named after American Presidents that the internet provides this disclaimer with any information supplied on the subject. Sorry this question cannot be answered effectively and is constantly being updated. If you have any information, please contribute. I did find out that more things are named for Woodrow Wilson than for any other president. Why?
Okay, I do understand these; I’m not quite as thick as a brick. But while researching this, I did come across a few I don’t understand. How about Bubba Gump, Lane, Walk This, Way, Not A, Street or The Long And Winding, Road? On that last one, the streets of the entire neighborhood are named after Beetles songs. There is an entire community in Spain where the streets are named for the characters from the Mario Brothers video game.
I hate to get on this one, but a dummy cannot write a story this dumb without mentioning it. There are 71 streets in Atlanta named Peachtree. All or none of them may or may not end up at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens after being lost for four hours. I learned this one the hard way, I eventually stupided myself to my destination, five minutes after it closed. Warning, do not put Peachtree into that little black box on your dash, smoke will come from it. Do not try to figure it out on an old fashioned, out of date map, smoke will come from that little black box between your ears. Do not ask the average person, on the sidewalk of Atlanta, for directions to Peachtree. I got, you’re on it, from at least a dozen and I don’t know, from fifty who were on various forms of it. If your destination is on Peachtree, you’re better off taking a right on 285 and just keep driving until you reach the end or run out of gas.
If you’re headed somewhere to have tests which will determine how long you have to live, it’s best to stop by the Varsity and have a few dogs instead. At least you’ll enjoy the last six months of your life instead of dying while lost on Peachtree. I’ve decided Atlanta designed Peachtree to keep the idiots from the rest of the state busy while in town. This keeps them from bothering state officials, who are too busy not making progress, to be bothered with us. Half the idiots in Georgia are constantly circling Atlanta on 285, those who escape it, end up circling inside Atlanta on Peachtree. If you doubt this, you’ve never driven on either.
How about these, Psycho, Path, Just A, Road, Nameless, Road, Chain Gang Creek, Road and Labor in Vain, Road, there are millions. Here, is a fascinating question for you. What is the most popular street name in America? Second Street, what is that about? Second Street is in first place, and First Street is in second place. I have given up on understanding what people are thinking. I understood all I needed to understand by the time I was in third grade. That’s when little boys notice that there is something different and intriguing about the little boy sitting next to them with the pig tails and pink dress. It’s pretty much all downhill from there. Of course, this is also when little girls notice there is something different, and revolting about the girl sitting next to them, with the cowlick and worn out jeans.
Most of us learn all we need to know by the third grade, future politicians go on to learn that the rest of us are dummies in the fourth grade and lobbyists go on to learn politicians are dummies in the fifth.
This story was inspired during a conversation with Mike and Judy Boyce at the Cobb County Library Foundations, Wild West Festival. Mike is attempting to become the Cobb County Chairman. I found his humor to be refreshing, and his determination to be inspiring. We joked about why the loop in Marietta is called the loop and not the snake and about why places and highways are named after people. Both of us fear our expansive notoriety may ensure that a public restroom is named for us in the future. Judy was delightful and displayed the consummate wit and charm one would expect from a true Southern Lady.
While Mike may go on to have many things named for him, I expect an old fallen down outhouse in Milledgeville might be as close as I come.

Dust Bunnies and the Elephant Upstairs

A Naval vessel is constantly cleaned. Most Sailors believe they are simply being kept busy, and to an extent, this is true. However, it serves another more vital purpose. When you are at battle stations and other states of readiness, you are confined to exceedingly small airtight spaces for many hours. When the guns fire on such a craft any dirt or dust, is shaken loose and spreads through the air. You must not only breathe it, but try to see through it as you perform your duties.

Surely you know what dust bunnies are. They are little gray clumps of undetermined materials that appear under your bed and defy all cleaning efforts. In the Navy, they are called ghost turds. No matter how much you clean and scrub, they will appear and dust will fill the air, every time a gun fires or the ship smacks into a wave with immense force. Back to this momentarily.

Why would a person live in an apartment without a gun being held to their head to make them? I’m living in one, and although Mary Carmen did not hold me at gun point, she may have held me at lip point. It’s astounding what a man will do for the lips he chooses to kiss, forever.

Apartments are not man’s natural habitat. Well, they are natural for the man who owns them and has a burgeoning bank account to prove it. They are sometimes akin to dog kennels and often look like them. You can not own a car without door dings, and you must attend all your neighbor’s parties as you try to sleep in your bed. The gate works at times, but most times the only people it keeps out are the actual residents of such places.

The pool and other facilities are usually so full with non residents that you can only stand at a distance and wonder what’s it’s like to have a pool. You must jump through hoops to prove you are suitable to be a resident, but then watch as the parking lot fills with derelict vehicles possibly belonging to those who are not. You get to stand around in parking lots and discuss the latest car break-ins with your neighbors as they walk their dogs, which are against the rules. If you own a grill, you may store it on your deck, but must never use it. It’s not like you don’t pay dearly each month for the right to char grill a steak.

You must be privy to your neighbor’s arguments and their choices of television shows. The apartment above us has had three sets of residents since we moved in. Once, as we sat outside on our deck enjoying a glass of wine, the neighbors upstairs broke into a fight. It spilled out onto the deck above our heads. Then is developed into a loud, amorous encounter which caused me to blush and it’s hard to make an old sailor blush. I was embarrassed the next time I ran into them in the breezeway. The next occupants had kids, but we never heard a peep or step they made.

Last weekend new residents moved in up there. Immediately their pet elephants started running through the apartment. They start long before dawn and thunder across the apartment until late in the night. The apartment shudders and shakes and any dust that has escaped Mary Carmen and trust me that’s a hard thing to do, falls and fills the air. I love to be reminded of my days in the Navy, but this is a memory best left unremembered. I was beginning to think they had installed a wrestling ring up there.

With great anticipation, I struggled to catch a glimpse of the four hundred pounds Samoans who had moved in upstairs. I kept watching the parking lot as I have never watched someone walk a pet Elephant. I was curious about how they would accomplish it or what the leash looked like. Okay I was more curious to see what the pooper scooper looked like.

I was beginning to believe they were wrestling Samoans, with pet elephants who used a transporter, they never came and went. I never saw them move in, and I’m here most of the time. I was wondering if they were a tribe of Swahili’s complete with drums. This does kind of sound like a Star Trek or Twilight Zone episode, hummmm maybe they’re blue.

Then yesterday I saw them for the first time. Two young girls who if balled up and thrown on a scale would scarcely weigh a hundred twenty pounds combined. This revelation created more questions than the answers I needed. I guess they could be practicing for the Olympics or preparing for their roles in an upcoming Kung Fu movie. Sadly I’ll never know, but knowing might confuse me more.

A Freddie in the Flowers

Once upon a time I owned a store. Anyone who has ever owned a store, knows, the store owned me. I planted a flower garden behind it which was my excuse to escape the store as often as possible.
Anyone who has ever owned such a thing will agree. As time passes you do everything imaginable in the store, seeing as you practically live in it. You will eat, sleep, drink, play games, build a carburetor and yes Virginia you might have sex in it too.
This particular day was hot, and I knew I needed to be careful, but better to fall out outside than go crazy inside. I was weeding and doing other mindless things, trying to relax. Suddenly I heard a young girl say “Hey Freddie.” Now I have many names, but Freddie ain’t one of them and it never has been.
It was broad daylight, and I hadn’t been out long enough to be loopy. That’s not to say that I’m not naturally loopy, but this seemed out of place, it sent chills down my back and ran the willies up my arms. I wanted to look around to see if there were someone standing behind me. It seemed too much like someone looking under a bed in a horror movie.
Slowly I scanned the yard and saw exactly what I expected, I was alone. A little rat scurried away on my left toward the store. I caught a glimpse, it was green. Standing, I moved toward the store peering into the wild flowers, it moved again, there was another flash of green. I scanned my surrounding to make sure no one else was witnessing my trip to the funny farm.
After everything quieted down I squatted and went back to work. I was pulling weeds and singing when a burst of curse words ripped the air. They were so strong they embarrassed me, and I can throw together colorful words with the best of them. Looking around the second time was akin to going into that basement, you know the one.
I don’t know about you, but I decided long ago. If I ever find myself in a horror movie with a bunch of teenagers, and freaky music starts playing. I’m not looking under beds, going into basements or attics, opening doors, and I’m not using the outhouse, if there is one. I’ll let the others run through the woods, get chased by the mad man and see all the horrible stuff that needs seeing before you die. I’m gonna sit in the living room, eat boiled peanuts and drink Budweiser and make the killer come to me. Maybe he’ll be worn out from chasing teen age girls with wet Tee Shirts on and won’t have the energy to kill me when he finds me. Maybe the horror movie will end with him and I sharing a beer.
Anyway the curse words were uttered with a course, crude voice, so I stood as I searched the yard for their source. I had no idea if I was going to fight or run, but I could do neither on my knees. Another scan verified I was alone. I decided it was time to go inside as the broad daylight was scaring the bajebies out of me.
Then the cursing started again, followed by the sweetest little girl voice saying, “Hey Freddie.” I saw it again, a green bird broke from the cover of the wildflowers and started toward the store, it was scurrying like a green streak through the underbrush. I started toward the store at breakneck speed trying to keep my eyes on it as it appeared now and again through the flowers. When I reached the store, which was made of brick, I was so focused on Freddie I didn’t see the store coming at me. I hit it head first at full speed.
Waking up in the hospital twelve hours later, I had a few stitches and a concussion. I found myself in a battle of wits with a Physiatrist. It took me another twelve hours to convince him that the cursing bird I had been ranting about while I was out, was caused by the heat and not an indication of my mental state. I played the game and made him believe that I didn’t believe, but I did.
As soon as I got home I headed to the garden to prove, if to no one but me, that I wasn’t crazy. It took an hour, but I eventually corralled Freddie in a corner and took him in the house. This proved my sanity to a worried wife. Freddie was a little green Parrot, with a broken wing, with the vocabulary of a drunken Sailor. He spent the next ten years in our house offending visitors and teaching another generation the intricacies of colorful language.

The Big Chicken

I was in Marietta, Georgia yesterday for a local writer’s expo. There ain’t much more disturbing a thing, than to be cooped up in a room with 24 other writers. You will hear more stories than you can rightfully digest in such a time. The invitation did not state that a shovel was a necessary piece of equipment, but I should have figured. At times, it got so deep, I was might near swimmin.
There were old writers, young writers and others who were doing a fair impression of being dead writers. Well, until someone spoke to em and then they would pipe up and sing their own praises until folks moved on or they run out of steam and passed out again. There were big writers, little writers, writers of children’s books and writers of conspiracy. There were mystery writers, history writers and folks just sellin thing, dressed as writers.
Then there was me. On some days, I’m called a writer, most days I’m called thing I can’t say. I’m pretty sure if you know my ex-wife she might give you a few names that’ll make your face red and your ears burn. Mary Carmen might give you a few you can’t understand. Others might give a few unsuitable for new brides, children and grandmothers, to hear. I had fun and met some cool people, but next time, I’m takin a shovel, a bottle of toilet water and a set of hip waders. Just cause you’re full of it, don’t mean you got to smell like it.
So afterward we were to meet my publisher at the Marietta Diner. Did I mention for a free dinner? If someone says free food, my ears are comin off and going with them, with or without me. They are probably takin my mouth too and seein as a writer can’t exist without a mouth, the rest of my body might as well go along. Come to think of it, if my ears had went off and left me yesterday, I’d have been better off.
I learned how to sell books, listen to books on Cd’s, cover books and Lord I learned how to talk about books. It seems I learned everything about books except how to write em and sell em. Maybe I should have dropped my ears and eyes at Kennesaw State; they got more girls than the Florida Gators have on their football team. Maybe I should have dropped my brain at brain daycare; I didn’t need it where I was.
Anyway I remember going to Marietta when I was younger. At that time when you asked for directions, they would give them to you based on the most prominent focal point in the small city at the time. That bein Elmo Tolson’s farm, which was the exact location of his moonshine still. So the directions might go like this.
“Well if in you go as far as you can see down that away, you’ll see some new fangled cows in a field to your right. Turn left thereabouts, then be lookin for Rutherford Cuth’s old dog, it’s been dead for three days. Don’t mistake the brown one you’ll come across first, it ain’t from around her, shot it myself yesterday. Anyhow after you pass Rutherfords dog you’ll come to Elmo Tolson’s place, turn right and Johnny Mae Wilkinson’s place is the third on the right. Look for all them big ole tractor tires painted white and full of flowers, you can miss it.”
Ah, the good old days. Anyway when I asked about the diner, I got the following directions.
“Just go to the big chicken and turn right.”
“Do what?”
“Lord son, ain’t you ever heard of the big chicken? It’s a Georgia icon, people come from all over the world to see it, it’s right near where Elmo Tolson’s farm used to be. You ain’t from around here, are you boy?”
I ain’t, but I hit myself in the head with a hammer, twice to appear like I was. Sure enough, after a mile or so there was this chicken the size of Ole Ted Turner’s head, just sittin there, pretty as you please. I got to tell you, eatin anything beside an egg that comes from, the southern end of a chicken is a little disturbing. What do I know? I tried, hard, to keep going, but had to stop and take a few pictures; maybe I am from around there after all. Paris has the Eiffel Tower, Pisa has the leaning tower of pizza, Rome has the Sistine Chapel and Marietta has the big chicken.
Alright get your panties out of a bunch; I’m just poking a little fun. I had a fabulous time and met some outstanding folks. And that free meal, the Marietta Diner has some of the best food in the south. Thanks to the Cobb County Library.