Day two of the "you can't go home" chronicles

Yesterday, I was lamenting about the fact that "you can't go home" and what it meant or means to me. You are going to think that I have an incredible grasp of the obvious, but here goes. Nothing stays the same. Nothing. I was made aware of the previously stated obvious in its many different forms while we traveled (Hell, I'm not even sure the previous sentence made any sense, but work with me here). Now, the large framework, that being the shapes of the states (although there is still a much debated dispute over a portion of North Georgia's state line being incorrect) has stayed the same, the mountain ranges from my youth I recognize still, the old roads still exist if you are of a mind to search them out, and even the old town squares look somewhat the same. But here's the point. People and their attitudes have changed. It was so evident in our travels. It was impossible to ignore the folks vacationing and not overhear their conversations. For the sixty and up crowd, most riding motorcycles, sporting their henna ink scratch on tattoos, their pristine biker costumes and riding their trikes and Harley look alike bikes, the themes were all the same. Health care, Obamacare and retirement...or the inability to retire.

I'm 53 and most of these folks aren't that much older than me. Ten years, tops, meaning when I was in the second grade they were graduating high school. In other words, we are close in age. So many conversations revolved around basically how to rip off the government to get by. I mean straight up deception just to survive. Now last night on the local news I heard that the amount of folks on some sort of government food assistance is staggering. The report said that over 50%, and that is half of every American you see every day, is dependent on a government welfare program to eat. That also includes the motor cycle riders I was eavesdropping on during our trip. I hate to harp on this, but so many of these people were from what I like to call waaaay North Georgia, Yankee transplants who have left home and moved south to a somewhat warmer climate. Now these were clean, well fed motor cycle riders meaning they had disposable income, least ways enough to be riding through the mountains and staying in motels. Add in eating out every meal and that places you above the poverty line. Way above it.

I'll finish by saying that these people, all in their mid sixties, are probably wanting to maintain a higher standard of living rather than upgrade from living in card board boxes. But what they were proposing was down right thievery. Hiding income and assets, divorcing their long term spouses so they could get better benefits and more social security, but continue to live together. It might very well be legal, but it damn sure don't make it right. To top it off, I overheard one woman (who agreed with the nefarious proposed activities) suggest where they might attend church while they were in town. I might sound a bit harsh here, but that dog just won't hunt. These Yankees voted our current president in office and are now realizing what a liberal spend thrift can do with an unlimited credit line and enough politicians to back him up. It was shameful to hear.

It's officially time for change. Not the bullshit "Hope and Change" kinda political promises we all were promised. Real change. I mean kick every last one of their asses to the curb change. I know it will never happen in my lifetime, but it needs to. I'm a conservative, but I'm not represented in Washington, DC. Deal making and compromise abound, pork barrel is the law of the land. Old folks are becoming liars and theives to eat. Not just to eat beans, but to eat steak and shrimp every night and ride their motorcycles on vacations. Dishonesty is the rule of the day. It's a generation reflecting the government it elected. It's the hippie generation with medical issues and lifestyles to maintain. Its an unpatriotic, anti-American, hippie generation mind set, all under the guise of a comfortable retirement. They've just kept their hair cut and covered up their tattoos.

I do know this: I still believe in the greatness if this country. It's on life support and having its life blood sucked out of it from within and without. People are mostly concerned about themselves individually and not collectively. I mean as a country collectively, not as a welfare or socialist nation.  I use the term Yankee a lot, which can be interchanged with liberal, but the new "hope and change" crowd have been hoodwinked. They've been had and now it's time to pay up. And they don't like it one bit. The days of blaming George Bush are gone, the four year moratorium has expired. Time to face the music.

We'll talk again tomorrow.

Mondays review on last week...it was a keeper!

Well, hallelujah! Monday came for me again and I'm digging the fact that Friday is out there waiting on me too. I guess I need to make one thing clear, I do indeed like Friday as much as the next guy, but the plain and simple truth is, I'm thankful for every day I get these days. I'm not in bad health according to my doctor, but the law of averages is all around us, Murphy's law must be given some sort of credence, the law of gravity, the law of diminishing returns, add in the plain old law (the kind with guns and sirens) and someday the law is going to catch up with you. Maybe a combination of laws mentioned just prior to this sentence will get you, but there will be a law that catches you in the end. Like the law that clearly states that you can't live forever. I'll say it again, enjoy the one life you've been given from on high, cause at some point, the law is gonna getcha.

So, my lovely bride and I completed our four day trip in an attempt to visit various and sundry places from our separate youths. It was kind of a theme vacation if you will, visiting small (or formerly small) hamlets throughout the north Georgia mountains, the Tennessee mountains, and last but not least, the North Carolina mountains where I will eventually have a combination of laws catch up with me and I'll get chucked in the clay. I think the way ole Curtis Lowe got buried is the best way to describe meeting your end. He must have been from my beloved South, cause Lynyrd Skynyrd didn't sing "the ole preacher said some words and they chucked him in the dirt". He said clay, and not because it rhymed. If you've never had your ass whipped by one of your parents for ruining a new article of clothing for playin, wrasslin', or fighting in the red clay, then you ain't from around here.

The red clay of my home state of Georgia, and the south has put many a rambunctious young man under the strap. It's the kind of stain that Tide detergent and Clorox Bleach combined won't get out. Those two products are so southern, they were sponsors of two separate NASCAR teams for as long as I watched the event. I'm guessing that neither product is painted down the sides of a race car anymore because it costs too stinkin much to advertise that way. it gotten to where mere seconds in front of any camera equals adverstising dollars spent. I guess Yankees got involved in the sport and up and ruined it. Girl drivers, Restrictor plates...heck, the first time I heard that term I figured it was a dish that wouldn't allow you to put a lot of food on it. Next thing you know, Kotex will have a pink car bringing up the rear as a sign of diversity.

I'll swerve back into vacation land now, just to tell you this one undeniable truth. You can't go back home. We visited my future hometown of Murphy, North Carolina on the first leg of our trip. It is still a cool little town that can be reached from Atlanta, via 285, then 75 North, 575 North that turns into Georgia 515 limited access (meaning no over head bridges), then left on Georgia 60 and right at Mineral Bluff to the road that runs into Murphy. Two and one half hours of of exceptionally nice driving. I still remember, as a kid, seeing the skyline of Atlanta disappearing on the horizon and anticipating seeing the foothills of the Appalachian mountains, affectionately called the "Smokies" for the misty fog the mountains produce sometimes all day, but primarily in the mornings. You'd think there were large campfires burning all over every mountain the smoke is so thick at times. It was beautiful to me as a kid as it rose up on the horizon. And it still is to a man over fifty.

What it meant to me was I was getting closer to my grandma's house. The place where I could do no wrong, every body was happy to see each other, we ate like kings (no restrictor plate eating there, ever), there was a creek, a giant barn full of fresh hay to jump in, mountains letting off smoke as far as the eye could see... If John Denver could have spent some time there, he'd have re written "Almost Heaven, West Virginia", and thrown North Carolina in the mix. I guess that was his Murphy. We all have one, or at least I hope you do. Everyone should have one. It's the one place I go and still get excited to be. I call it my full exhale spot, the place where I fully unclench.

We'll talk about it some more tomorrow.

Happy Monday!

It's Friday, and I'm pondering Monday's bum rap.

Friday. The most celebrated day of the week. I've said before (not here) that Friday gets more credit than it deserves, day if the week wise. Yes, it's the day before the traditional week-end, and most everyone rejoices when the day finally arrives. This year, the Fourth of July fell on Thursday meaning a lot of folks are in the second day of their long weekend. Most folk, unless they are retired, are loving these days but know that dreaded Monday is out there, waiting, looming like some dreaded event. Like a colonoscopy or Tabasco enema. I say this about Monday...hallelujah!  I say that for a few reasons I'll ramble through right now.

If you don't get a Monday, then next Friday ain't coming.

One seventh of your life is spent on Monday. If you live to be 70 years old, that means you spent seven years of your life pissed on 1/7th of it. Fourteen years if you spend all day Sunday pissed over Monday coming, and that is just plain old Jethro Bodine ignorant. You sleep through 1/3 of the seventy years, equaling twenty-three years and three and a half months. That doesn't leave a lot of time to be happy when you start whittling away working, being young and stupid, watching TV, thinking about sex (if you're a dude, that's a lot of time), eating, figuring stuff out...you catching my meaning here?

What if liberals all got together and abolished Monday. Then folks would be dreading Tuesdays, and the cycle would continue. Most folk would then dread 1/6th of their lives. Then the coalition to abolish Tuesdays and restore Mondays would rise up and chaos would ensue. Civil rights would be violated and new give away programs started over the post traumatic stress induced over abolishing Mondays. Hell, I've noticed that if you hand out free one hundred dollar bills, some people will bitch about the denominations being too large. Monday? Bring em on. I love my Mondays. I'm gonna be as happy as a fat dude at a free steak and ice cream buffet with all the days I've got left. You should too. You only ride this train once.

I write from a small hamlet in North Carolina. We have decided to hang in Maggie Valley for a day or so, and enjoy the quiet of the mountains for  a few more days. We had planned to meet a few of our friends in Alabama, but inclement weather quashed that plan with the potential for floods and every fireworks display in the southeast being cancelled. We left Kingston, Tennessee headed towards Chattanooga, but hung a left after it was raining so bad we had to pull over to the side of the road and wait it out. At the rate we were traveling it might have taken us a month to get there. We rode through Pidgeon Forge and Gatlinburg Tennessee, two of the biggest tourist stops in the south. It was so congested with visitors, even with the crappy weather, that my bride and I took the bypass and the Blue Ridge Parkway to get around it all. There are roads every man must drive in his life at least once and I've been on two of them many times. The Dragons tail at Deals Gap. The Blue Ridge Parkway, just for the incredible high mountain vistas, the Pacific Coast highway, just to name a few. It's a memorable way to spend your allotted days, and ones that make memories.

I'm going to wrap it up. My bride is still snoozing, unusual for her. She needed a break from the office and I'm allowing her all the time she needs to catch up. This is our transition trip. Just us, no kids, no stress, no "are we there yet?"...no nothing.

All us right with the world. And Monday is only three days away. YES!

God Bless America, my home sweet home!

It's the Fourth of July in blog land and all across the United States of America. I'm visiting with my cousin James and his sweet wife. We have enjoyed all day conversation on various and sundry topics, most of which I've forgotten, but all cherished. There have been many things we've shared over the years at family reunions, phone conversations and instant messaging via Facebook. I am blessed to have some very intelligent philosophical cousins, all sporting a terrific sense of humor and irony that would make most seasoned comedians say "do you mind if I use that in my act?" Add in the fact I have three first cousins all 6'4" and weighing in over three hundred pounds, and you've got the makings of the four horsemen. It would require Clydesdales, the big beer type horses, to haul us four around before any serious "apocalypse-ing" could get done.

We are some well-fed big-ole, southern-boy, steak eating dudes.

It's day three of our vacation and so far it's been filled with driving through rain storms that would make Noah (of Noah's Ark fame) start eyeballing a lumber pile for floating wood. Frog strangler, gully washer, boat sinker, nut floater, you get it. It has been doing some biblical flood type raining while we've been traveling. We drove over to Kingston Tennessee yesterday to visit said cousin James, son of my dad's sister, my first cousin. In my family, that means something. He's a loyal patriot and as upset with the direction the current government and the liberal press have taken this great country of ours in. It seems that patriotism to most young folks extends about as far as how much they can squeeze out of the government tit. And not much further. Not all are that way. Thousands of young men who've gone to war and sacrificed all fully understand it. They deserve as much or more than this country is willing to give.

In my opinion, when a soldier gives his or her limbs, most of their mind, and the majority of his life in battle, he deserves a free home, the best health care, free gasoline, food...you get it. These men and women deserve our best. They've given there's to us. You'll hear these liberal bed wetters say that our troops are dying for oil and if you boiled it down, their might be some truth in that. But they are preserving our way of life. Let a liberal run out of free stuff from this government hell bent on creating entitlement driven zombies, and I'll show you protests not seen since the hippie sixties. I do admire the "Greatest Generation", but damn, they parented the hippie generation and those bastards are the ones killing this great country from the inside out.

I've not much more to say here. I'm enjoying my brides company. She's loosened up about sleeping under someone else's roof. The hospitality we've been shown by my family is the kind written about in books. Cousin James is a fantastic cook, and probably could have himself a cooking show after Paula Deen got railroaded by the sorry assed afore mentioned liberal press. Anyone with a half a brain (obviously excluding Obamas mindless zombie followers) knows its how they operate. He admitted to me though, he's sure he's used the "N" word in the last month, so he's happily relegated himself to his home kitchen. Let me tell you, that dude can cook. I'm grateful to have loyal patriots whose blood and lineage I share.

I've done a great deal of rambling this morning, but I've only got one finger and a lot to get down on paper. It's my blog, so you can start your own if you don't like mine.

God Bless America, the land I love.

Second day, post successful launch.

So, we launched. I hit the scrub button on the dishwasher and we hit the highway. We decided we'd drive from our town just outside of Atlanta to the place of our retirement, Murphy, North Carolina. The kicker is this: we utilize only back roads when we take our trips. That way, we can catch all the small town nuances, shops, mom and pop stores and home cooking restaurants. The Eisenhower interstate system means there are considerably easier ways of getting to and fro. We have decided to step back in time, travel wise, and meander our way to our future home.

We instituted a second proviso and its this. We do not use any device to help us get to our location. That means no GPS, no phone directions, no old timey maps...nothing but our instincts. Now my bride will tell you that her sense of direction is atrocious. I don't argue with that truth. The way she finds most everything is if I am chauffeuring her around. I guess you get the picture.  I like the adventure of the trips we take, it forces me to utilize every ounce of what little Boy Scout wisdom I accumulated in the very short time I was involved. I did three months when I was ten years old and I absorbed the basics, like making fire, using a compass, what plants to eat and even what plant to avoid wiping your ass with to avoid ring-sting from poison ivy or sumac. The best thing I learned was how to use the sun to determine what direction you are heading in. That skill really comes into play when you are driving.

This particular trip took us an extra hour to complete. It usually takes us three hours to make the trip. We purposely turned down a few roads just to see where they might lead. We wound up in the small hamlet of Talking Rock, in Notth Georgia. It's a really cool little town off the beaten path. I mean its so small it's has "Welcome to Talking Rock" written on both sides of the same sign. It has four antique shops, one mom and pop restaurant (closed when we went by) a park with an awesome trout stream running right thru it. Six churches and a convenience store that sold RC Cola in the bottle and all three flavors of Moon-Pies. That includes the single stack chocolate, the double stack chocolate, vanilla on both single and double, plus the rarely found banana double stack. That might not mean much, but I'm a moon-pie efficianato. These were so fresh you'd a though they made them in the back of the store. I bought two of each in case we got stranded and I needed to build a fire and survive for a day or so.  I'm not a full blown survivalist, but I keep provisions under the back seat just in case.

Tomorrow we'll set out for Knoxville Tennessee, home to the most loyal football fans in the United States of America, the University of Tennessee Volunteers. My now 27 year old son was/is a Vols fan. I'm convinced he became a Vols fan when he was still in diapers. I dropped him on his head and he was never the same. I've decided I'll go thru Tellico Plains on the Chullahua parkway, which also includes the ubiquitous "Dragons tail" section, 1.5 million hair-pin turns packed into eleven miles of asphalt, (OK, 1.5 million is a stretch, but its a buttload), but you are guarenteed to see more rice-rocket riders with a death wish risk the one life they've been allotted, just to see if they can wear the knees off their fancy racing leathers. I've seen more crashes and road rashed morons than I can say grace over. It's cool as hell.

Just past the Dragon, you'll hear distant banjo music playing and "Rocky Top" on every radio station. Tennessee fans will have it no other way. My cousin who lives in Knoxville and we are going to visit, is one of those legendary Vols fan. And nobody dropped him on his head. It's written in his genetic code. And I love it.

By the way, this entire post was done with my right finger on my iPhone. Again.

The adventure continues...

Failure to Launch...

It didn't happen. We failed to launch. We had the house spic and span and I had checked all the locks and had even pushed the dishwasher button that said "Scrub"...and like clockwork my brides phone rang. I'm not sure who it was or what it was about, but it locked our launch down like a five year old eating a block of Velvetta cheese. I assume it was work related, because she had to grab my 19 year old daughter and rush into her bosses closed office while he was away enjoying whatever sea side comfort my wife could hear in the background. Apparently he has to cut his trip short and wanted to see patients on Friday, and, as his operation is run to a fair-thee-well by my lovely bride only, she felt obligated. I was cool with it, and she charged him double time. It's a fair trade off.

We had to re-clean our house this morning, and I am about to hit the scrub button again.

Vacationing in the land of the flogged blog

It's Monday here in the land of the flogged blog. We are going on a short, four day "vacation" this week. The thing about vacations around our Ponderosa is this: we have to work our collective asses off before we leave. My lovely bride wants the house to be cleaned top to bottom, base boards scrubbed, rooms repainted (this year that actually happened), yard manicured, demons exercised, atoms split (without making a mess)...you get the picture. Three days prior to liftoff you are assigned one fork, spoon, bowl, plate and glass to use so as not to cause any further negative impact on our otherwise sanitary environment prior to departure. The last meal before our well planned exit ends with everyone's eating utensils being dropped into the dishwasher on the way out the door. That's after we've "enjoyed" a breakfast of every spoil-able item left in our refrigerator. That means pop-tarts with left over gravy, celery with eggs, yogurt in the flavors no one will eat, meatloaf (good at any meal) and a glass of milk whose expiration date will hit while we are away. The last thing to happen inside our spotless home is to push the "scrub" cycle on the dishwasher and hit the "GO" button. It's done by me, so I can shoulder the blame if something goes wrong while we are away. I'm also in charge of locking all the doors. For some reason, I don't want to risk a kid handling something so important. My prayer is that the water line running to the dishwasher doesn't bust as soon as we hit the bottom of the driveway, but I hit the button anyway knowing my wife will be unsettled the entire time away if the dishes aren't clean before she gets home.

My bride just likes the house to be clean before she leaves and I can appreciate that. The explanation for this behavior revolves around one undeniable truth. She is depressed when she is vacated out, knowing it might be a year before she sees the beach or the mountain lake again and coming home to a spotless house somehow makes it better. Never mind the hell we all endured to get it that way, and the three days of expensive vacation sleep it will take us all to recover from getting ready to go. Recovery from the pre-vacation activities is expensive and tiring.

Vacations have always made me stop and ponder. You take all your "stuff", as George Carlin put it, and haul that stuff to a remote location of your choosing, and spend a week in a place that cost more than it costs to run your household for a month, all under the guise of fun. I guess the only person who really worries about the cost of it all is Daddio. That is up until Wednesday or Thursday of the trip, then the "what the hell" gene surfaces and dad kicks the spending machine into high gear, just to the point that mom asks "can we afford all of this?". Of course, the answer is no. But ya do it anyway.

I'm about to hit the button on the dishwasher as I exit. It's the first trip my lovely bride of thirty years and I will take with none of our kids in tow. They've all grown up and are convinced they are all individually and collectively smarter than the two of us combined. For the first time she isn't feeling guilty about us doing something together, just the two of us, and that is refreshing. That's quite a milestone for her. I've been warning her for the past 27 years that these days would soon come. I guess "warning" isn't correct, I used to remind her that someday it would be just us two again to somehow make the reality of raising three kids a little easier back when it was indeed tough. Later it became more of a warning, as a means of preparing her for the days when it would be just us two again. Twenty seven years. That's how long it's been since our first child was born, and the long promised days of "just us" have finally arrived. This year, the house was easier to clean. There are less occupants messing it up and that was a good thing.

This trip is totally off the cuff. Nothing planned other than the direction we are headed, and that is North. Not so north that you'll not a see a "Fergit Hell" tag on the front of an occasional rusty old pick-up truck, a reminder of the Civil War loss the South endured a hundred and thirty-five or so plus years back, but North just the same. I'm using this trip to hopefully remind my sweetheart that it is OK to just go "that-a-way" and we'll find us a room to stay in. We've got each other for company and that's enough.

We're in the South, the land of my birth, and we'll work it out. We always have. We'll keep it this side of the Mason-Dixon just in case.