Thursday, May 29, 2008

Daddy Won't You Take Me Back To Muhlenberg Co.

 

While reading a review of Augusten Burrough's latest book I was taken back by the intensity of the attack against the memoir. How can anyone remember the exact words in a conversation that had taken place so many years ago? His brother came to the defense stating that Augusten suffers from some type of illness that allows this type of recall.

Others, such as his remaining family members,  claim it is fabricated.

Which made me think, aren't many of our memories from "long ago", at the least, slightly embellished?

Sometimes I will surprise myself with the intensity of a memory. For some odd reason I can recall with vivid clarity looking out a window on US 68 outside Hopkinsville while stopped for... (here comes the embellishment, because I can only surmise we were stopped for road work/traffic accident)...a delay. The day was bright, hot and the field was high yellow grass and the sound of bugs was like a symphony in the shimmering heat.

It is like a snap shot from 30 years ago.

This past week found me traveling down a thin ribbon of highway that transported me back those 30 years.

The scenery had changed drastically. Dramatically. I did not recognize much of anything. There were certain landmarks that I searched for that no longer exist. The worlds largest coal shovel sat on the southside of the Western Kentucky Parkway. A looming beast, primitive, hauling away Paradise, down by the Green River.

30 years certainly does have an extraordinary effect on the landscape. Let alone my own personal landscape.

The drive took me whizzing past a town, on one of the several new parkways in the area, that I had spent many a Saturday afternoon drinking beer in the small Tennessee town where the legal drinking age at that time was 18. It made me wonder if that small hole in the wall was still there.

On the way home, I had to look.

My memory was like this: small downtown, railroad tracks, always raining, bathroom outside the building in the back, a rotisserie that slowly cooked the meat in the window, a old wizened African American shop keeper.

My memories include a simple suggestion, "Let's go to the Keg!"

An hour later, on the champagne flight, we would have arrived. Our presence would fill the bar and I'm certain, annoy the locals. But, we loved it. The pork sandwiches, the white bean soup and corn bread. The mirror behind the bar, the small tv in the top corner, near the ceiling. Frosty beer mugs....?

The the long ride home.

I did find the Keg, but it was not the same. The name and the location remain the same. All else is changed. Not a hole in the wall, but a restaurant with a dining room, the small cramped bar area thrown out of the 19th century into the 21st.

And, I'll be damned, indoor bathrooms.

On the wall are two newspaper articles. The first announcing the retirement of the old Black owner, in 1991 at the ripe old age of 91! And a second one in 1994, when he passed at age 94.

So, I had found a tiny piece of my past, my landscape, my memories. I can close my eyes and see Wild Bill tossing back the beer with all of us cheering him on. That man could down a brew in one gulp. I remember the glazed look in his eye after a couple of demonstrations.

And that silly grin. That silly happy early 70's goofy look.

And that's not a fabrication.

Friday, May 23, 2008

Leaves of three, leave them be.

...or, It use to be a lot easier to score drugs!


For over a week I have been battling a case of poison ivy. At first I thought it was a spider bite. That should have been my first clue. I actually blamed it on the apartment outside Memphis. I just know it has spiders! I should have known.

Two days later in horror I am watching it spread! I am naturally scratching it and complaining. My brother, N., takes one look at it and says those dreaded words, "That's poison ivy."

Oh hell no!! Please, hell no! The last time I had it I had spread it into my ear and had to call in to work because my face was so disfigured!

Immediately I began to be advised on what to do.

"Pour Clorex on it, that works. No, really, it works! I swear."

I can't imagine.

Next was Joe, "Once I had it on my back...." then I hear the whole story about how he and a friend rolled around in it while playing and ....." Baa, (his grandma, really, her name was Baa) told Mama to crush up some aspirin and mix it with alcohol and rub it on my back. It worked. Mama didn't grind up the aspirin very well and I had chunks of white stuck to my back, but it worked pretty well."

This sounded like a much better option. I bought BC powder (less grinding and chunk problems) and mixed it with rubbing alcohol. Oh sweet relief!! Joe took a basting brush and helped me get to those areas on my back.

Guess what? I spread it some more. Oh but that cold alcohol sure felt good on that burning rash.

So, off to the health store where I searched high and low for some Jewel-weed spray or dried herbs. They had not heard of it. Or course by that time I was close to pulling my skin off and was calling it Jewel-root. Finally I located a bar of Bert's Bees Poison Ivy Soap which contained (as the very last listed ingredient) "garden balsam leaf" aka jewelweed. But first I had to endure every horror story they had to tell about poison ivy.

"I had it for three and one half months."

Sweet Lord!!

Yesterday found me in the doctors office showing off my revolting skin. I could wait no longer. At least he did not recoil like the nurse did the last time I had it.

Like I said, it use to be easier to score drugs!

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Pardon Me Boys, Is That the Chattanooga Choo-Choo?

It's been asked in which industry my Hubs works that entails such drastic transferring. Why it's the dern Rail Road. He worked for a Class I company for over 30 years when they computerized his job and he was forced to go into management! That is how we at first ended up in Cincinnati in a 'hold over" job until he was hired on in FW (the town who's name must be whispered). We were there for approximately two years. He then transferred to Louisville to be closer to family. My father was gravely ill and we were acquiring Grand children.

But, he hated the Louisville job. He worked over 60 hours a week. At times he would cover a job for someone else so that they could have a day off! At one time he worked 14+ hour days for 12 days straight. I have never seen someone so unhappy before in my life.

So, he interviewed with a much smaller Class II carrier and now runs the show in the Memphis area. He works 40 hours and has week ends off! Yea!! And he is the boss!

I love my house in the Louisville area and leaving my family, a third move in three years, is not something I am thinking about at the moment. We have leased an apartment here and will take six months to figure out what we are going to do.

One day at a time.

It looks like I will have to find a job. I certainly have enjoyed this year of not working, though I am tired of the question, "What do you do all day?" I do a lot! I know that I will take to retirement when it comes like a duck to water.

In the meantime, I need to find a job.

Yuck.

Saturday, May 3, 2008

Second Test

The Book Store

Thank heavens for MapQuest which got me to a used bookstore in a small part of mid-town known as Cooper-Young area. Nestled among ethnic restaurants, yoga store fronts, palm readers and an Irish Pub was this jewel of a book store.

As I was diving into the book cart of $1.00 bargains a yuppie enters (are they still called yuppies?) and spreads his arms and exclaims, "I've died and gone to book heaven!" That made me smile. "I'll start with photography and then on to philosophy!" he stated to the hippie looking shaggy gray haired book shepherd.

I thought he might be nuts, but I understood the emotion.

Friday, May 2, 2008

Are You Sirius?

I am a terrible blogger. In the beginning I was bubbling over with things to write about every day. I had to hold myself back! My days were spent composing entries about every single thing that happened in my day! It was preposterous! And then it all changed and I was reluctant to share. Possibly because I realized the banality of most of the blogs on the WEB, mine included. It did not feel right any longer.

Surprisingly all week I thought, "that would be good to blog about" and I proceeded to compose once again in my head! It felt good!

A lot has happened recently. The most important is that Joe has taken a job with another company. We were thrilled to move to Louisville, but the job sucked. Big time. So, he found a position with another company and that company wants him in Memphis. As in Tennessee.

Memphis Tennessee.

There are many ways to have first impressions about a new city/town. For me, as you drive into a new foreign land you first encounter their radio stations. It took several days for the "dial" to land on WUMR - Jazz Lovers.

One word, Wow. Who knew?

Now, Lexington (my adopted home town) has terrible radio that forced me to AM talk radio. At one time there was the coolest station out of a small private college in G-town tried to create a new genre called "World Radio". It lasted maybe three years until it was sold off and became a Christian Radio station. I almost cried.

Cinti has the greatest stations and I believe I wrote about them some time ago when we were living in two cities at once. They have one station that is broadcast from some tiny town close to the Sin City that sounds like it is in the basement of some house. Yet, it was wonderful!!

FW (because I learned my lesson about critising FW and dare not whisper the name) was as terrible as Lex and I had to Sirius. And then, I could not figure out how to get it installed in the car....the Company Car. So, we just listened at home. Sometimes. FW must have some sort of block, like a shield that surrounds the area that makes the satellite difficult to receive. No matter where I placed the receiver! I complained a lot, hoping to complain enough to get a refund, or a reduced rate.

Never happened.

But Memphis...that Jazz station is the greatest. And you can listen to it about 100 miles out.

I'm sirius.