The following is from my masons journal , it was written just after the PTN
confrence the best way to enjoy iit is to print and read at your leisure
Travels with Peanut
My two and one half year old, Mary, blew off the babysitter
and said she wanted to spend the day with Da -Da .
Such decisions have a ripple effect in the trickle down economy of day care
negoation and are not to be taken lightly.
I positioned my cigar and with arms folded took a defensive stand behind
my best rock face and screwed it into a puss. .
Nutt-ing doing ;
she reads me like a book ,
When I look into those baby blues... I am toast.
I don't know what it is,
I hold my own at board meetings , leveled teamsters on the take
and backed down rough necks on drilling rigs;
but bargaining with the "Peanut" and those baby blues..
.is treachery.,chicanory and piracy on the high seas of kids with winners
take all..
With the market down and my portfolio in shambles;
I punt to the winds of sanity and give in to the therapy
of road trip with Mary; sometimes known as Peanut..
Playing hooky from my worldly responsibility and how important I am is a
necessary elixir to my financial depression. I let it ride and take a ride.
.
I packed peanut and Louise ;my hunting dog ,
up in the old open air pick up, and under buttermilk skys take the cruise
at 45 mph the back country roads
. letting the air and the smells of the coutryside permeate the ol GMC as
we ramble down sunken roads of hardwood and pine
where moo cows nod howdy and the hay is in second cutting...
Louise , the Airedale ,rides shotgun and sticks her scruffy head out the
window and acts the bearded dowager as the scratchy A.M receiver lets
Peanut and I sing country Western off key.
Its 97 deg out but we don't care ,
"Peanut" sports a tiny N.Y Fire dept tank top ; cheap sun glasses is
barefoot with a diaper that has Minnie Mouse on it.
As the C&W plays , Mary bouces along caterwalling and
takes turns putting her sunglasses on Louise who lets the glasses fit
lopside and finds it old hat, .
We tend to like to visit the little tie rail, cross roads , of fried green
tomatoe cafes.and two pump filling stations that dot these dirt roads.
We only stop at places where Mary knows the waitresses and she knows alot of
waitreses;
They make a fuss over her and it usually gets da-da a free cuppa and a piece
of pie, which does nothing for the waistline,
They ply her with suckers and gummy scooby doos which I confiscate with
complicated flim flams .
as she diaper dances past old jukeboxes and patrons frozen in time..
Deep woods Mississippi suffers from the benefit of No 50's modernization ,.
60's renovation, 70's restoration , or 80's preservation .Dotted among vast
timber tracts are ;
Little outposts of turn of century store fronts
Windblown vernacular oddesseys of "last picture show" emporiums where the
screen door with the tin sign slams your butt and encapsulates you,
helpless in depression era wonders of stacked canned goods alongside chill
boxes with bottled Dr. Pepper .
You pay at the manual cash register hung with assorted moon pies that are
decorated from above with fly paper ribbon from a tin ceiling .
.
Dogs sleep all over the porch; and you can curl up with "The News of the
World " or "The Enquirer " on some cane chairs provided you lean back on them.
If these are Twilight zones l'll take em .
The East Village has retro ; this is real deal.
Here you can still find 50's floral patterns on the shoulders of country
girls who prove to you they are more comfortable without shoes ; (or bras)
as they sweet drawl you over tail gate produce in dazziling displays of
sweet melons, garlands of peppers, "mate-rrs, "and white and golden corn
that can melt in your mouth. ..
As Mary inspects kitchens with young silver haired Grandmas who push cookies
I get caught up on local sports and gossip with men in white shirts and
suspenders who chaw in rocking chairs and use the red dirt road out front as
a cuspidor.
They love to talk story and pontificate the finer points about the . Braves
(and their working mules) both who seem indcernable to me this late in
the season.
They complain good naturally about the next cross roads down the road as
"Ticky" or strange. .
Humanity always amazes me ; no matter how poor one place is another is
always worse.
I must say down the road is unusual.
Mary and I like to go there because because the people are just a little
more "different"or
"Diverse" as I like to kid my wife , Belinda
Geologists like it because it was an impact zone ,for a meteor about the time
of the dinosaurs.
This leads to speculations that the in habitants are "walk ins"
(exterteresstial visitors) trying to act normal but out of sync
with their bee hive hair dos; make shift clothing
and 40's small town
quirky simplicity of Barney Fifes and red neck geniuses
settled around a town square that time has forgot.
We make the town square after a 15 min drive through corn fields.
To pass muster with the extreterrestials -Da-da poses as the country
rube with an old upturned "yeller"straw with Jap shades that sit crooked
on my nose then let Mary run interference as we thump mellons and meander
through bric -a -brac of old tail gates full of farm tools and pictures of
Jesus.
No UFO's here
A gaggle of Mennonite Women in white caps and identical house dresses in
red checkered cloth eye Mary as if she needs a bath....she dosen't
but I get the picture
Old farmers with cracked and weathered faces and necks red from the sun sit
by pens of rabbits and squawking fowl talking story and spitting chaw into
the red earth.
We pet baby goats and tug on homemade ice lollys
and listen to their banter on how the miners who were buried alive ;
requested "chaw"
to be sent down the rescue pipe.
Smiles all around followed by more spitting.
Just then tow head Country children run barefoot through mud and mowed grass
followed by yapping puppies..
.Mary trys to follow and I catch her by tables of farm women with broad
worn work hands who sell homemade jams and jellys and dried flowers .
They laugh at the "Chillun" running and crow with drawls so thick you
need an interpeter to make sense of it..
We move along after getting jam on our faces near where
a gospel station plays out of the chrome dash of one old pick-up that sits
in front of a revival tent
Mary picks up tempo and bounces on those little legs mimicking
the tinny old gospel
......."Victory for Jesus ...My savior... fur ever" ....
With the cheap shades on and dancing while holding Louise with a
clothesline leash...
Im not sure she fits the image of being saved
...
."He (jesus) lifted me and saved me "....blares the radio
.
Worse yet
Im not sure I want to know the pint sized Lolita ;
as she is bouncing her "booty" in front of the church ladys
who close in to .... "save "her
" He lifted me and saved me with his sacred blood"...Oh Victory fur Jesus"...
Push comes to shove, Finally I come to my senses and I "Save " her.
..managing to just escape the impending revival..tent .by a reverend with a
beard that could double for Mr. Natural ..
'Have you been saved brother?" he asks
"Are dogs allowed ?" I respond
"why No..
"Then I guess I will stay with the unwashed ...... perhaps next time" ..
Getting saved in Mississippi is not the same as say when your wife saves you
at a cocktail party...
.the ramifications are much more complicated .;
for one you have to give up cocktail partys
not an option as my therapist won't allow it
Too bad; as there are folks here who get saved every week
Besides It looks like fun getting dunked in the river ;
then going off and falling in sin ( getting drunk) ,or worse.....
only to get dunked ..
.and saved again
Up North its different
you get hosed once a week at the collection box;
and once you make communion you are perpetually saved
its more expensive that way ,
but at least you can still share beverages with your friends . .. .... .
and forgo the pond water once a week
No walk ins today......it must be mid week...but no telling what we would of
found in the revival tent.
Besides its time for Marys nap
By afternoon we make a job site and Mary lays down with Louise in the truck
under the shade of a grove of peach trees while I hob nob with the masons
and contemplate
the little things .
Michael .
--
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