In a message dated 12/2/99 5:08:28 PM Eastern Standard Time, [log in to unmask]
writes:

> That, sir, was no lady.

I took the comment in good spirit but did manage not to purchase the Frank J.
Dobie book I had been eyeing.

I have to say, though, that a few Texans seem a bit edgy about redneck jokes.
My brother, an electrician, was wiring up his front lawn with Xmas lights
while his former neighbor, Billie, was visiting. The last time I met Billie
he was third degree drunk on pisswater and said he would shoot my Yankee ....
if not for the fact that he thought my brother a pretty decent import to the
Republic. My brother, in Houston, says Billie is from West Texas and they are
different out there. My one visit to that parched and inhospitable Western
region was as a longhaired hitchhiker in the 70's, enough said.

Anyways, we are talking about the load on the wires for the lights and the
possibility of popping a breaker and I say, "I guess you have to take it easy
on the popcorn poppers out on the front lawn." Billie takes offense and tells
me to cut the redneck jokes. I then felt compelled to correct the
stereocoptic vision of NY by explaining that we have our own rednecks up
North and that Billie will feel just as much at home visiting my yard, so I
stretch the truth a bit, as sipping ICE beer in my brother's front yard,
right about then.

Last thing on my mind was slurring the South, I was thinking how when we run
the microwave & the popcorn popper at home on LI it blows a breaker, wham
bang. Upshot of the Texas adventure is that I've decided to do a lawn
decoration for the Holiday season consisting of an aluminum lawn chair frame
traced with little Xmas lights, sort of like those lawn deer you see sold in
the garden shops, to be suspended say about 30' up in the air. Since we live
on a corner lot with three empty corners and a dead streetlamp I think the
effect of the decoration will comprise a compelling addition to the suburbs.
A proper Theocratic Anarchist celebration.

Back to work.

][<en