I've reached a milestone of sorts. This is my fiftieth blog post and I'm doing it one fingered on my I-phone, ironically, as my computer picked up a virus and I'm having to do a system wide scan to make sure the old box will live another day. Its a good thing a human can find online software to search out the numerous illnesses a computer can contract, otherwise this laptop wouldn't serve as a decent doorstop. It's a "Nuthin Special" special, a five year old HP that works great, types OK, that is if you keep the cookie crumbs cleaned out when the grandsons come to visit. It will access the Internet with the best of 'em...sometimes. Sometimes, it's access is akin to beating drums Congo style, or sending up smoke signals at times but it gets me where I want to go when I need to. And, when I don't want to booger finger type like I am right now, which amounts to every time I post up. My old laptop is like an old car, the kind we used to drive back in high school, the kind without computers, with points and leaded gas, smoke belching tanks destroying the ecosystem at the turn of a key. Sorta.
When I started up this whole blog thing, I thought I might share my political views, being a conservative and all. But I realized a few years back that politics is exactly like World Championship Wrasslin' (not wrestling like in the Olympics, I mean Wrasslin), the fake stuff. My wise father once called it "The Poor man's Passion Play" and for good reason. Wrasslin, like Politics, is as classic a good versus evil scenario as it gets, except you can't tell the "good guys" from the evil ones, in politics I mean...they all wear the same suits and talk the same BS. Trust me, I've been to a full fledged wrasslin extravaganza, and you could tell the bad guys as soon as they cleared the ropes in the "Squared circle" as Gordon Soley, the voice of Pro Wrasslin used to describe it. He was the announcer back in my day, and he did his duties on the Super Station, channel 17, Ted Turners first foray into world wide TV domination. I will confess I have been to the Omni, on Thanksgiving evening, with Rick Flair fighting Dusty Rhoades as the headline match. I will also confess that I loved it, being a confessed people watcher, and that my people watching, as a hobby, was elevated to a much higher plateau that night. Seeing everyone from the old ladies to kids, dads and moms (both with chaws of tobacco in cheek) spitting mad and drunk throwing popcorn and drinks at the wrestlers as they made their way to the stage. It was a lesson I never forgot. Some folks need Opera to prove they are cultured, and some need World Championship Wrestling...I mean Wrasslin". I guess for my entertainment dollar, I'll go with the latter. For people watchers and psychologists, the admission should be doubled for the entertainment factor alone.
I'm not trying to sort out the problems of the world, I'm just trying to lighten up the day, share a laugh or two. It has been enjoyable and, to be transparent, harder than I expected. It hangs a writer (if I can go that far) out in the open, reveals ones lack of grasp as it pertains to the old "native tongue". I'm fifty three right now, and my grip on it isn't any better than it was in high school or college, but I'm not attempting to write a manifesto for future generations to sing "Kum-by-yah" to or hum prayers over. I'm just trying to give a perspective on life from a dude that has done a lot of stuff. Stupid stuff, good stuff, not so good stuff, exceptionally dumb stuff, stuff that I thought was good, then thought was bad, then knew (looking back on it), wasn't so bad after all. And that's a good thing. Get it?
Most of you probably know more about me now than I ever dreamed I'd reveal. When I write a lot if this down, then let it rest for a day, I'm reluctant to post it in fear of maybe giving some innocent child of yours a few ideas concerning mischief that they might not otherwise attempt if it weren't written down somewhere. I know I did. If not for Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, I might not have been the kid who struck out on his Schwinn Orange Krate bike with his thirty-five cent weekly allowance, forth grade education and a can-do attitude and head out, alone, to the mountains and valleys that was the city of Atlanta. I'd head up Avon Avenue, never crossing it and breaking my Moms strictest rule concerning crossing the street, staying on my side of the road the three miles till it hit Lee Street. I'd hang a left, and when I was in the Pilgreen's parking lot, I could see the skyline looming like the Appalachians or the Sierra Nevada's, screaming out to me like the Harlot in Proverbs, attempting to steal the wisdom from the weak minded. And I never technically crossed Avon Avenue...technically. She never specifically said anything about venturing out as long as it was on my side of the road. I knew I was venturing into certain ass-whippin' territory, but when she'd ask, I could honestly say I didn't. I mean, the city of Atlanta was on my side of the road...again, technically speaking of course. Now I could tell a stretcher (as Mark Twain put it) with the best of 'em, but in this case I was clean. Of course, God might mention it on my day of reckoning, but I was a kid back then and the Bible says he has mercy on fools and kids. I thought I might bring that up when my time comes.
Atlanta was my Mississippi River and my bike was my raft.
I would make my trek ever so slowly, cautiously, adding a mile or two each day, sorting out the roads laid out in square grids, the old fashioned way. That was back when two wrongs never made a right (now called miss-spoke by the liberal media), but three rights could always make a left. I eventually got to where I'd ride all over the city, right down Peachtree Street, North Avenue, Piedmont and Ponce DeLeon, the Zoo and the Cyclorama, eating lunch at the Varsity back when a hot dog was ten cents and a coke was five cents. Some days I'd go to Piedmont Park and watch the hippies, occasionally catching a liberated woman who thought going topless was the "it" fashion of the day. I didn't object much but also didn't care much either. I was still in "girls are gross" mode back then, so it just didn't register. I know now that a few of those women are now in politics, running this country into the proverbial ground. I never really knew what boobs were until my friend Dickey McGrew pulled out one of his dad's Playboy Magazines and pointed them out to us all. I told them on the spot where they might see them in the flesh, as it were, and it would only cost them that weeks allowance for the keys to the kingdom. My flesh peddling days, although short lived, ended. It, along with my days of "Lone Ranger-ing" it into the city, officially ended too. When I'd make my ride, I'd always have at least three to six young men riding along with me. Seems like boobies do that to kids and men.
These days, my kids always maintain I am impervious to getting lost and I guess that's true to some degree, at least where Atlanta is concerned. They've been lost in the city a time or two and would call me, regardless of where they were, and I'd say "just read me the street sign where you are sitting" and have them out of a jamb in a jiffy. All from riding the tires off that Orange bike, the one I traded Keith Pruitt, even-steven, for a box of Hot-Wheels way back in the day. That style of bike was the Cadillac of kid-dom back in my day, and one I still own. I still drive my old route on occasion, with my bride by my side, and it'd like going back in time. Funny how that happens. Look up "Ethos Doctrine" and you'll get what I mean. I still feel it when I pull up to the Varsity and order my three chili-cheese dogs with Pimento, two Onion rings and a big Coke with extra shaved ice. It reminds me that life is good and sometimes the most simple things are the greatest. I'll stop here with all that, don't want you getting all "verklempt" on me.
This writing thing is like that kid on the Schwinn, looking at the city off in the distance, wondering if he goes too far will he make it back home. The difference is now I have a college education and that same can-do attitude, so lets see where this ole bike will take us. It's got a banana seat and a sissy bar, room enough for at least one more, so hop on and let's roll!
See you Monday!
No comments:
Post a Comment