Sunday Afternoon Revelation - © Kent Fletcher
April 6, 2008
This morning I awoke to a potentially beautiful day. And it has been a beautiful day. Yesterday I had loaded the bed of my pickup with broken, dried-out limbs from the pine trees, and some other assorted limbs, with the intention of taking it all out to Leona's to throw on the future burn pile. Then, about 10, Leona just happened to call, talking about some sycamore wood from a tree in her front yard she needed hauled around to the same burn pile. I told her Belle and I would be out in about 30 minutes.
So Belle and I loaded up and ankled out to Leona's. Leona is still in the process of cleaning out/cleaning up her abode. When I walked in the house, she was cleaning out her pantry, which I built for her a couple of years ago. We yakked for a few minutes while Belle and Priss played, and Biddy growled. In a bit I drove on out in the field and dumped my load. I came back to the house and helped her load her own truck with the sycamore limbs and hauled them out to the burn pile as well. I left Belle in Leona's care and returned to the house to pick up a couple of garbage cans full of thorny vines and returned to her house.
While still in the field, I stopped by my old Volvo with the intent of breaking loose that second bolt on the starter. I was able to get the socket on the bolt along with the wobbly and the extensions and the breaker bar. But alas, I don't have the physical strength to turn the bolt. Disgruntled, I gave it up and went back out of the field, returning to the house. I helped Leona move the future firewood logs to the side of the house, then went inside with her, returning to her kitchen.
She was cleaning off her kitchen counters of jars of canned foods, of which I came home with a dozen or so, anything from blueberry jam to peanut butter to spicy mustard, and a couple of yams, to boot. Then we sat in the living room while she rested, and Belle fell asleep on my lap, while we were just talking about this, that, and the other.
I guess I finally left around 2, driving Belle and myself back to our own digs. Leaving Belle at home (the heat index was up at the time, and she's a young pup), I took the frontage road up to Burleson, about 10 miles north. I had a hankering for beer and wine. So for the first time in about 1½ years, I whipped into Albertson's and bought a six-pack of Coors and a bottle of Liebfraumilch. On the way back, I stopped in the Smoke Shack for my weekly of seegars, and began the trek back to the abode, again on the frontage road. Interesting things one can see on a frontage road, that are otherwise passed by in quick succession of but a blur when on the interstate.
Got home about 4:30, grabbed that first brew, and ankled out in the yard, with Belle on my heels. Man, what a nice day, today. The yard thermometer was reading about 82F, and all was good. I called several people, one in McKinney, another in Dallas, a friend in Madison, MS, and my niece in Jackson, MS.
Finishing off that first brew, I proceeded to the 2nd one. Mistake in the making. I knew when I bought the brew that I'd sit and drink the stuff like water. And I did. Should have bought Red Dog, a lot cheaper, but palatable. After all, the content doesn't really matter, it's the taste in the long run, for in the end the brew is just pithed away. I like that term, "pithed," cause I can get away with it on rhyme alone.
Coming up on 5ish, and the cats were gathering, I dropped a couple of cans of food in warm water in the sink in the kitchen. About 15 minutes later, I began to ring the cat dinner bell, which is a stainless steel bowl with rings on the side. They come running when they hear it. All in the kitchen, of course, with a little meowing going on from a select few. Sometimes I mix a little dry in with the stuff, to give it some substance, if nothing else. Then I have to forge my way through a herd of cats to the outside picnic table where their bowls and saucers are. Must be around a dozen or so, some are everyday cats, others are just happened-by types. Some I don't really like - toms mostly - but all are welcome to the tidbits if they can get to it all. Just no fighting allowed.
The cats are fed, now, coming up on 6 p.m., and even Belle has had her morsel of her own food, I think. She loves cat food, as does any dog I've ever run across. Keeping a close eye on her and attempting to feed the cats alone is a chore in itself. If I turn my back for a moment, I know without looking where she is, already.
And I'm working on my third brew already. Gentle Reader, you may be asking what the Sunday Afternoon Revelation is, by now. Well, it's this: I don't need beer on a regular schedule. Heck, I'd dare say, I don't need it at all. When I quit the stuff before Christmas, maybe Thanksgiving, 2006, I was going through a case in four or less days. Talk about pithing my money away, what an understatement. But beer, good beer sure does go down smoothly and serenely. It's the after-effects that I really don't like, and frankly, until today, I'd forgotten all about. One more reason I don't imbibe like I usta. Pithing my money away. I suppose I could get the non-alcoholic Coors, or some other brand, but why?
And while I'm typing this, I'm somewhat inebriated on just shy of three beers. Think I'd better get some food in my gut before the next one. I'm a cheap drunk, huh? Better yet, I can freely admit it!
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Friday, April 4, 2008
40 Years
40 Years - © Kent Fletcher
April 4, 2008
And what were YOU doing on this anniversary date? Were you in school? Were you working? Were you enjoying the fruits of your labor? Or were you grossly entrenched in your own sorry, pitiful self?
I was on my way to the metropolis of Oakdale, Louisiana, taking a baby in a casket for burial there. I had just passed through the loop at Monroe, Louisiana, heading south on US 165 when I heard the news that Martin Luther King had been assassinated on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. "Oh, my God," thought I, as I kept moving on down the road. At the moment I was more concerned about my own safety than I was for the rest of the world, the black and the white communities, specifically.
I could do nothing but continue my journey to Oakdale with my cargo. I was the ripe young age of a mere 21 years, the product of a middle-class white family, and working in a family business - a funeral home. Thinking back now, but probably not then, the business also provided an ambulance service to the communities surrounding Cleveland, Mississippi, and either our business or our competitor's business was called at all hours of the days and nights for "emergencies" of many kinds, anything from a stubbed toe to a catastrophic wreck somewhere within a 20- to 30-mile radius. I can remember some very specific wrecks I was called out on, involving drunks, idiots, and in general ne'er-do-wells, resulting in grievous, bloody injuries to the "innocent" folks who were minding their own business.
I remember one wreck specifically that happened on State Highway 448 just west of Shaw, Mississippi, around 10 p.m. An older black man and his wife were heading home from somewhere and were hit head-on by a white man in another truck. The white man was profusely drunk and relatively unscathed in the incident. Other than his drunken stupor and wild ranting and raving about "the niggas on the road," in his way, he needed no attention whatsoever. I doubt seriously I would have carried him anywhere, anyway, as his attitude toward some colored folks was abysmal in my eye. The colored folks were simply in the wrong place, at the wrong time, but I don't think anything could have changed that.
This black man and his wife, however, were in much worse shape, as they were stone-cold sober at the time of the incident. I seem to remember they were driving an old Chevy pickup which had a hard, steel dashboard, no padding. The old lady had "kissed" that dashboard with her face, specifically her lower jaw. In addition to her mouth, there was another gaping hole just above her gum line that looked like another mouth, except the bleeding was profuse, the tissue looking like hamburger meat. I went to the old man and offered him and his wife a ride back to the hospital in Cleveland for her injuries to be taken care of.
The old man accepted my offer, we loaded up his wife, and as he was closing the door to the back of the ambulance, he hesitated, then called out, "Hey, nigga, you takes care of my stuff, be back in a while!" Of course, I cannot really write what he said, but it was in that vernacular. I don't think our business even billed that call out, as there was really no sense in it. But I did feel good about it, that I actually helped someone less fortunate out in a time of need.
Back to the story. For some five or ten miles north of Oakdale, at that time, there was nothing, absolutely nothing in the way of civilization along that highway: No small towns, no street lamps, no nothing other than a state forest. On this particular night there was also no moon and a very clear sky. I was literally within sight of the town of Oakdale when I had a blowout. I'm here to tell you it was dark on that road, very dark. There was no jack in the station wagon, either. I had no choice but to flag down a passer-by, ask him/her to stop at the first gas station along the way, send help.
I must have stood out there for some 10 minutes before I saw an approaching somethingoranother. I was in a dark suit with a white shirt, frantically waving a white handkerchief in the wind as the 18-wheeler lumbered past. The driver was able to stop within a very short distance, and I was trotting along after him. I arrived at the side of the tractor about the time the driver rolled down the window and looked out. From his elevated position he appeared to be one of the biggest black men I had ever seen. I made my case very quickly and short, saying I had a baby's body in the car, I was trying to get to the town we could both see in the distance, I couldn't just leave my cargo and walk into town, would he please stop at the first gas station he came to, and ask someone to send help. No problem, says he, and off he goes. I wish, now, I had gotten his name, for I would have written him, thanking him for his assistance. Really, I would!
In about 15 or 20 minutes, someone came out and changed the spare for me. I drove on into town, paid off the service station, and proceeded to the funeral home with my cargo. As was the norm, I called home, and my Mother insisted I stay in Oakdale for the night. She said events in Memphis were unfolding fast and furious, and no telling with the "niggas" were going to do now, that I could be in mortal danger if I was "on the road." So I slept on a couch that night.
The drive back home the next day was completely uneventful. Could it have been that the populace was aware but not extremely prejudiced about the assassination? Could it have been the news had not arrived in that sleepy little section of the country? Who knows, and after 40 years, does it really matter? I had a once-in-a-lifetime experience, I was on the edge of history in the making, and I was alive and well, that's what counted the most. Wow!
Footnote: The only "consolation" for a lot of folks about MLK being killed is that he was not killed within the borders of Mississippi. I tend to agree, although not as a consolation, but as a fortunate thing for my home state. Memphis was close enough. Can you imagine what that great movie of a couple of years ago would be like had he been killed IN Mississippi? Mississippi Burning would never have come about, because Mississippi would not even be among the living, now.
April 4, 2008
And what were YOU doing on this anniversary date? Were you in school? Were you working? Were you enjoying the fruits of your labor? Or were you grossly entrenched in your own sorry, pitiful self?
I was on my way to the metropolis of Oakdale, Louisiana, taking a baby in a casket for burial there. I had just passed through the loop at Monroe, Louisiana, heading south on US 165 when I heard the news that Martin Luther King had been assassinated on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. "Oh, my God," thought I, as I kept moving on down the road. At the moment I was more concerned about my own safety than I was for the rest of the world, the black and the white communities, specifically.
I could do nothing but continue my journey to Oakdale with my cargo. I was the ripe young age of a mere 21 years, the product of a middle-class white family, and working in a family business - a funeral home. Thinking back now, but probably not then, the business also provided an ambulance service to the communities surrounding Cleveland, Mississippi, and either our business or our competitor's business was called at all hours of the days and nights for "emergencies" of many kinds, anything from a stubbed toe to a catastrophic wreck somewhere within a 20- to 30-mile radius. I can remember some very specific wrecks I was called out on, involving drunks, idiots, and in general ne'er-do-wells, resulting in grievous, bloody injuries to the "innocent" folks who were minding their own business.
I remember one wreck specifically that happened on State Highway 448 just west of Shaw, Mississippi, around 10 p.m. An older black man and his wife were heading home from somewhere and were hit head-on by a white man in another truck. The white man was profusely drunk and relatively unscathed in the incident. Other than his drunken stupor and wild ranting and raving about "the niggas on the road," in his way, he needed no attention whatsoever. I doubt seriously I would have carried him anywhere, anyway, as his attitude toward some colored folks was abysmal in my eye. The colored folks were simply in the wrong place, at the wrong time, but I don't think anything could have changed that.
This black man and his wife, however, were in much worse shape, as they were stone-cold sober at the time of the incident. I seem to remember they were driving an old Chevy pickup which had a hard, steel dashboard, no padding. The old lady had "kissed" that dashboard with her face, specifically her lower jaw. In addition to her mouth, there was another gaping hole just above her gum line that looked like another mouth, except the bleeding was profuse, the tissue looking like hamburger meat. I went to the old man and offered him and his wife a ride back to the hospital in Cleveland for her injuries to be taken care of.
The old man accepted my offer, we loaded up his wife, and as he was closing the door to the back of the ambulance, he hesitated, then called out, "Hey, nigga, you takes care of my stuff, be back in a while!" Of course, I cannot really write what he said, but it was in that vernacular. I don't think our business even billed that call out, as there was really no sense in it. But I did feel good about it, that I actually helped someone less fortunate out in a time of need.
Back to the story. For some five or ten miles north of Oakdale, at that time, there was nothing, absolutely nothing in the way of civilization along that highway: No small towns, no street lamps, no nothing other than a state forest. On this particular night there was also no moon and a very clear sky. I was literally within sight of the town of Oakdale when I had a blowout. I'm here to tell you it was dark on that road, very dark. There was no jack in the station wagon, either. I had no choice but to flag down a passer-by, ask him/her to stop at the first gas station along the way, send help.
I must have stood out there for some 10 minutes before I saw an approaching somethingoranother. I was in a dark suit with a white shirt, frantically waving a white handkerchief in the wind as the 18-wheeler lumbered past. The driver was able to stop within a very short distance, and I was trotting along after him. I arrived at the side of the tractor about the time the driver rolled down the window and looked out. From his elevated position he appeared to be one of the biggest black men I had ever seen. I made my case very quickly and short, saying I had a baby's body in the car, I was trying to get to the town we could both see in the distance, I couldn't just leave my cargo and walk into town, would he please stop at the first gas station he came to, and ask someone to send help. No problem, says he, and off he goes. I wish, now, I had gotten his name, for I would have written him, thanking him for his assistance. Really, I would!
In about 15 or 20 minutes, someone came out and changed the spare for me. I drove on into town, paid off the service station, and proceeded to the funeral home with my cargo. As was the norm, I called home, and my Mother insisted I stay in Oakdale for the night. She said events in Memphis were unfolding fast and furious, and no telling with the "niggas" were going to do now, that I could be in mortal danger if I was "on the road." So I slept on a couch that night.
The drive back home the next day was completely uneventful. Could it have been that the populace was aware but not extremely prejudiced about the assassination? Could it have been the news had not arrived in that sleepy little section of the country? Who knows, and after 40 years, does it really matter? I had a once-in-a-lifetime experience, I was on the edge of history in the making, and I was alive and well, that's what counted the most. Wow!
Footnote: The only "consolation" for a lot of folks about MLK being killed is that he was not killed within the borders of Mississippi. I tend to agree, although not as a consolation, but as a fortunate thing for my home state. Memphis was close enough. Can you imagine what that great movie of a couple of years ago would be like had he been killed IN Mississippi? Mississippi Burning would never have come about, because Mississippi would not even be among the living, now.
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