July 28, 2011

Football game #2

Originally published September 25, 2004

Quinton's team played again tonight.

I went to watch and arrived early enough that I could tell my boy what I thought of his debut performance. I told him that I didn't like it. I told him that football was NOT like soccer. I told him that you don't play football with a smile on your face. I told him that you have to be FIRED UP and ANGRY to play football.

I told him that he needed to HIT SOMEBODY, anybody, every chance he got. I told him to pretend that he was playing against me and Jack and Steven and the Beecher boys when he was on the field. If he hit those guys in the red jerseys on the other team the way he hit US, he would be a real football player. I banged on his helmet and shoulder pads with my fists. "Get FIRED UP!" I demanded.

"Daddy, I AM fired up! I'm gonna HIT somebody!" he responded.

And that little boy, the smallest player on the field, DID. He made two individual tackles and was involved seriously in a couple of gang-tackles, one of which made someone in the stands say, "Look at that little #30. He sure likes to mix it up, doesn't he?" My heart soared like a hawk.

There is one funny thing about tonight. His mama wasn't there. She's off on another high-octane business trip to parts unknown, so "Granny" brought Quinton to the game tonight. And my boy played his ass off.

I KNEW he had it in him.

July 21, 2011

I am shocked

Originally published September 26, 2003

For once in my life, I find myself in total agreement with Sugarmama. I don't like Sam's Club.

I shop at the Super Wal-Mart in Rincon all the time. The place is nice and clean, it has almost everything I want and the "associates" are very friendly. Plus, if I go there often enough, I'll eventually meet everyone I know in Effingham County, sooner or later. EVERYBODY shops at Wal-Mart where I live.

But a Sam's Club can kiss my Cracker ass for several reasons. First of all, I agree with Groucho. I don't want to join any "club" that would have ME as a member. Why the hell does anyone in their right mind PAY for the right to shop in a retail store, anyway? That's just a bumfuck idea as far as I am concerned. They should pay ME to go there, or at least offer some free Ronco products or a set of Ginsu knives to lure me in.

Second, I don't like that Greyhound Bus Station Bathroom ambiance that all Sam's stores offer. I fear that I might catch an incurable venereal disease by handling anything I touch in the place. Therefore, when I am dragged there by crazy friends, I never touch anything, and I take a long, hot shower as soon as I get back home.

Third, I have more teeth than any five random customers combined that you'll find in a typical Sam's Club. When I first moved to Effingham County, we had Dumpster Farms instead of the shitty garbage pickup we have now. You hauled you own damn trash to the farm and hand-tossed it into a dumpster.

But you had to be careful doing that. You might throw a bag of semi-rotten crab-parts right on top of some idiot digging for aluminium cans in the bottom of the trash bin. I called them "Dumpster Divers" back then. When the county hauled the dumpsters off and provided weekly trash pickup, all the divers went to Sam's Club to hang together and talk about the Good Old Days.

Going to Sam's is nothing more than PAYING to go Dumpster Diving.

July 14, 2011

I did these things

Originally published September 26, 2003

* I spent the night sleeping in a tree more than once.

* I saw a Fourth of July fireworks show at Memorial Stadium in Savannah while stoned out of my mind on mushroom tea. It was spectacular.

* I saw every University of Georgia home football game from "The Tracks" the entire time I attended as a student. I never saw the inside of Sanford Stadium until years later.

* I once woke up around noon in a room full of nekkid people and couldn't remember where I left my guitar. I didn't even think about my car at the time. Once I found I guitar, I realized that I had no idea where my car was.

* I once worked 32 hours straight at the plant and logged my hours on a timesheet. I was told by my boss NEVER to do that again. He didn't mean "don't work 32 straight hours." He meant don't ever put those hours on a timesheet again. I was expected to do it, but I also was expected to lie about doing it.

* I am NOT a good liar.

* I DID see the sun rise over the Atlantic Ocean and watch it set over the Gulf of Mexico in the same day. That ain't difficult to do in Key West, Florida.

* I was with TWO wimmen in a gay bar in Key West. They dared me to take my clothes off and let them dress me in a sarong. I walked out of there wearing TWO sarongs, both tastefully tied, with one of the wimmen carrying my pants. I looked like the King of Siam. (If a certain South Carolina woman makes it to the blogger-meet, she can verify that story. She tied the top sarong.)

* As I said before: I am NOT a good liar.

* Hell, I don't have to be a good liar. I tend to have adventures other people don't.

* I've been shot at and not hit. I was minding my own business, taking a piss behind some guy's truck on River Street, and he saw me. The drunken bastard thought I was breaking into his vehicle, so he came charging up the ramp firing some pissant gun that he probably couldn't hit a #3 washtub with from point-blank range when he was sober. I didn't know what was going on until he ran up, still clicking the trigger on an empty gun. I asked, "WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU, MAN?" as I stuffed Roscoe back in my pants and prepared to kick that fuckhead in the nuts and beat the living shit out of him if he tried to reload. "Duh... I dunno..." He tried to give me $20 after that, and I told him to go fuck himself and buy a better gun.

* I once did my best imitation of a mystic Native American dance around a campfire one night high, and I DO MEAN HIGH, in the mountains with a bowie knife in my hand. My friends became worried about me. But I didn't fall in the fire or stab myself, so they went to sleep while I was still dancing.

* I am making notes to put all of the shit I've done into a novel. I have the beginning and the middle down pat.

I'm still working on the end.

July 07, 2011

a good saturday

Originally published September 27, 2004

I took the boys to Wal-Mart this morning and bought them some really monster-infested game for the Playstation II. They were bored with it in ten minutes, so I played football in the yard with them until they got bored with that, too, and they went back inside to play the video game again. They have the attention span of sand gnats.

While they were slaying fake monsters, I cut my grass. I may not have to do that again until next spring because we're supposed to get some really crisp fall weather beginning Monday. I am ready for it. I am weary of sweating my Cracker ass off every day and never taking a piss at work because my SKIN does the pissing for me. This summer wasn't as hot as some I can recall, but it's been a miserable bitch just the same.

Jack sat on my favorite pair of reading glasses and broke them. That's my fault for leaving them within reach of his careless ass. I could give that boy an anvil to play with and he would find a way to break it.

I boiled a half-bushel of green peanuts today. I paid an outrageous price for them, but the season is running out and I want boiled peanuts in my freezer for Super Bowl Sunday. Quinton, Jack and I mowed down on a passel of them, just to make sure they were fit to eat, and we agreed that they were excellent. I boiled them outside on my propane cooker and had half the neighborhood drop by to smell them. Fresh green peanuts give off a VERY pleasant aroma when they are boiling.

I'm going to let the peanuts that we didn't eat soak over night, so that they absorb a maximum amount of salty water, and I'll bag them up tomorrow. Hell, I'll probably have some for breakfast.

I also bought God's Own Flashlight at Wal-Mart today. That sucker takes FOUR D-cell batteries and has an adjustable lens that goes from laser-beam to full moon. It's big and heavy enough that you could shine the light on an enemy and use the light to stove in his head. I like that sucker.

So do the boys. They are out running the woods in the dark with it as I write. I just hope that Jack doesn't find a way to break it.

That was my Saturday.