Travellinbaen

Entries tagged as ‘asshole runnin buddies’

Luck and Logic

June 16, 2010 · 2 Comments

Quote of the Day:

“We talked into the night. The kind of talk that seemed important until you discover girls.” –the writer, Stand By Me

The two boys laid flat on the roof and stared up at the endless black sky. They had climbed up here not to stare at the sky, nor for any particular reason other than that it was here. One was a year older than the other, and a year taller. He wore an old Cincinnati Reds cap his brother had lost interest in several years back. The C was well and proudly battle-stained from the red dirt of every ball field within bike range. The smaller boy was chewing on a long strand of grass. It was a habit he’d picked up in anticipation of one day sticking in a dip, but he wasn’t mentally there yet. After all, it would probably be a sin, which wasn’t such a big deal in itself, but it might be a little more of a sin than he was comfortable about committing just yet. At once their eyes darted reflexively across the sky, though their heads scarcely twitched.

“Did you see that?” the older boy asked.

“Yep. That was a shooting star wasn’t it!”

“Sure looked like one to me. Did you make a wish?”

The scrawny one sat up and took the grass from his teeth, not even trying to hide his excitement.  “Hell yeah, same one you did, probably.”

“Well tell me what I wished then.”

“You crazy? It won’t come true if I do.”

The big kid couldn’t argue with that logic so he let it go without debate for a change. “Good point. It’s all just superstition anyway.”

“Can’t hurt though.”

They were quiet again for a while. The little southpaw kept searching the sky for another meteor while his wizened old pal sat up and looked down at the pitcher’s mound in front of them. The season would start soon and he would dominate. He had to dominate. But there wouldn’t be any state championships at the end of the season. They’d never even made it out of District.

“I sure would like to get my name on one of those boards down there.” The big kid rolled his eyes and his optimistic friend who couldn’t see them and didn’t turn to look in the first place felt the look burn into his head and laughed. The five boards hanging on the press box façade beneath them bore the names in scripted red, white and blue of the gallant few who’d come before and who brought home state titles for not only Gibson Field but for the whole town.

“Come on, we better climb down before we get caught. Did you find anything?”

Lefty always had better eyes for picking out lost golf balls in the ditch, or finding rusty pocketknives in the weeds, or spying stranded foul balls atop the press box that could only be retrieved in the dead of night. He grinned ear to ear. “Got two, pearly white!”

“Give me one.”

“Screw you too. Finder’s keepers.”

No arguing with that logic either, so the bigger kid dug his toe into the chain link fence and headed back down to Earth.

———————————————————-

This is the first part of a story I’m working on. Hope you like it. I’d let you see the rest but I haven’t settled on the rest yet. But the story is/will be drawn from conversations I recall from ages 10-12 or so, plus some stuff I made up. And if I can ever get the 15 stories I’ve got outlined finished and refined I’m going to put it in some sort of binding and call it my book. Then maybe I can get on with my life.

Oh, ps, I haven’t named this yet. That name at the top sucks, but it is the best I can do for now.

Categories: Life · Sports
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A Bad Night

May 10, 2010 · 10 Comments

Quote of the Day:

“Most loathsome events become humorous tales with the passage of time.” –Jimmy Buffett, from “Tales From Margaritaville“

From the archives….

Six foot two, one hundred and twenty pounds, a permanent sneer, pale skinned, hair hanging down closer to his ass than his ears and one helluva beer drinker. Greekson had taken it easy for some reason that night, for reasons I’ve long since forgotten. Probably had a six-pack or so, just to have something to occupy his nervous hands while he waited on his opponent to shoot and miss so he could get back to sticking all the solids in those gently sloping, nearly worn cloth pockets that characterized the particular billiards room we frequented in those days. He was also the finest automobile operator I have ever known. Smily and me, we were drinkin’ a lot harder, so naturally, Greekson volunteered to drive. “I’m fine. Y’all get in.”

So we did. And fifteen minutes later we all saw the dizzying blue lights in the distance, the tell-tale signs of a roadblock. “Turn off Greekson,” we implored. There was a twenty minute detour we still had time to make to avoid the trouble ahead. “I’m fine,” said Greekson. “Y’all just sit still and shut up. And put those beers down.” And he was fine, least he was by our standards. But the law, well, the law sees things its own way. They took his skinny ass to jail. The cop just shrugged when I said, “you really want ME to drive the rest of the way?” They were getting their numbers, that’s all that really mattered.

Greekson had never been to jail before, not even the drunk tank. He wasn’t drunk either, so he was fully mindful of his predicament as he handed over his shoes and belt and looked over his shoulder at the half-dozen new roommates he was about to meet. There was one cot. Upon it lay a very large man, with tattoos and muscles and scars. He was holding his package with one hand, beneath his orange jumpsuit and snoring loudly. A couple of benches lined the walls but there was no room for him so Greekson sat off to the corner in the only space available, on the floor, right next to the toilet. It smelled bad. He tried not to see it. He sized everyone up and knew there was damn little he’d be able to accomplish among them, but Greekson was a philosophical sort, so he just stared blankly but alertly around the room and considered the folly of volunteering the good deed of driving us all, now several hours ago, and wondered what we were doing.

We were still drinking and toasting Greekson’s loyalty and working on these two girls we knew and trying to find out how to get Greekson out of the drunk tank as soon as possible because that was no place for him and scrounging up the hard cash to bail him out from all our friends at five a.m. ten bucks at a time.

His thoughts were interrupted when a tray of fried bologna and egg sandwiches were shoved through a slot in the door and everybody grabbed one. Except for Greekson. He had no appetite. And the big guy. He was still snoring.

By and by the next biggest dude in the room, an athletic black guy with an unkempt, out of style afro and a probable attitude problem (if looks were any indication) got up and shuffled toward Greekson. Or maybe the toilet. In the moment, Greekson couldn’t be sure. Either way, it was not a positive development. He stood over Greekson and looked down at him menacingly. Greekson just cut his eyes upward, defiantly, inquiringly. The dude turned his head toward the man on the cot. “He gonna wake up soon.” There was a pause while that probability sunk in. “You with him, or us?”

Greekson looked over at the scars and the tattoos and the muscles, then straight ahead and then back at the inquisitor. “I’m with y’all man.” What else could he say? He would later tell us there was a part of him curious if he’d have stood by that pledge if it came down to it.

“You gonna eat yo’ bologna?”

“Nah, man, its yours.”

An hour later or so, Smily and I stepped carefully over the threshold of the Starkville jail and triumphantly slammed down our hundred and eighty-five bucks, mostly in fives and ones, with about a dozen quarters. Greekson could hear us from the tank, but he showed no emotion or any other sign of recognition to his cellmates. Our slightly overloud, partially slurred demands that he be released immediately to our custody reached his ears and in spite of himself he had a little hope that the night would soon be over. At the very least he stood to pick up a little company. Then he heard the steel grating on steel and allowed his natural sneer to replace the blank stare as the jailer motioned for him to leave.

The big man began to stir with the commotion and Greekson noted the nervous looks of the remaining allies as he strutted out the door. “So long, suckers.” He flipped the hair away from his eyes and nodded crisply at the forlorn prisoners in his wake. He took one look at us when he emerged from the back and said “I’ll drive” and nothing else until he woke up many hours later and we admired the rising sun together and I wondered idly how we’d find beer money for the next week or two.

———————————————-

Johnny Cash, telling about and singing “Starkville City Jail”

Categories: Blank Stares · Humor · Life
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Salty

March 10, 2010 · 8 Comments

Quote of the Day:

Among TB’s excuses for neglecting the TBU lately is that I am actually “working on something.” It will probably wind up being a collection of stories, except you know how in almost any book there is a disclaimer stating something to the effect that “This is a work of fiction. Any similarities to any person or event is purely coincidental.” I won’t be able to use that disclaimer. What I’ve got so far is all made up, but if you are an ARB, or if you know an ARB, you will recognize “similarities” between the characters and certain ARB’s. What follows is something I got to thinking about this morning and it may go in the collection. This is just a first draft of the first part of an idea; I hope I can make it better eventually. Please stop here if you are offended by foul language.

————–

“How’s my back look?”

“You’re good, dude.”

“Well, I’m plannin’ on sittin’ right here on top of this picnic table and drinkin’ as long as I can, so if you decide to go back and take a shower before going out tonight remind me to put some more sunscreen on when you leave.”

“I’ll be right here with you counselor. I got nobody to impress.”

“I love this fuckin’ place.”

The two dudes on the picnic table were still getting used to the fact they’d had their last Spring Break several years ago. But they still managed to get a few days sandwiched around a weekend at the end of April to go over to Florida and drink and chase girls and remember what it was like before. They sat at opposite ends of the table and a collection of dead soldiers was already filling the space between. The taller one with the bigger, but well-tanned beer gut sat hunched with his elbows on his knees, a Corona dangling from his fingers between his legs, the condensation occasionally dripping down and caking stray grains of sand on top of his left foot. The other one wore a sweat and salt stained Atlanta Braves cap to conceal his prematurely balding head and picked up a paper Coca-cola cup stuffed with paper towels and spit with experienced nonchalance.

“That’s disgusting dude.”

“Your mother likes it.”

The lawyer took a swig of beer and chuckled. “So what did you tell your Principal?”

“I told that bitch I get five sick days and I haven’t taken any and school’s almost out so I’d see her fat ass Tuesday or Wednesday and she shouldn’t bother with a sub ’cause those dumb shits they gave me this year wouldn’t even realize I was gone.”

“In other words, you called in sick this morning and apologized for the inconvenience.”

“Exactly. What did you tell your boss?”

“I said I needed a couple of days and did he mind. He said “you’re a professional, I don’t care when you get your work done as long as it gets done, have fun and don’t bother me with shit like this next time.”

“I shoulda went to law school.”

“You won’t be saying that come June.”

“Damn right.”

They sat in companionable silence for several minutes and nursed their beers. The lawyer finally set his bottle between them and walked away without saying a word. The Braves fan lifted his eyebrows and watched him leave and put his own empty between them on his side and picked up the Coca-cola cup and spit. Left to his own thoughts, he reconsidered quitting early so he could go back to the room and shower. He’d pretty much given up finding a decent girl for the time being, but he wouldn’t mind getting laid. Then again, their track record at places like this wasn’t too damn good, so what the hell, might as well just enjoy getting fucked up and diggin’ on the band. The lawyer returned as suddenly as he had left and handed him a beer and said “look over there in front of the Port-o-lets.”

“Day-um.”

“You took the words right out of my mouth.”

“Why don’t you go talk to her, counselor?”

“Conditions ain’t right.”

“Pussy.”

“Well then why don’t YOU go talk to her if you’re such a badass?”

“Conditions ain’t right.”

“Uh-huh. That’s what I thought.”

“I think your shoulders are starting to get red.”

“Dang. Rub some of this on me.” The sunscreen hung between them for several seconds as they stared blankly at one another.

Eventually, “Fuck you counselor. Not here. I’ll get a reputation and there won’t be a bitch on the panhandle willing to jump in the sack with me.”

“There already ain’t a bitch on the panhandle willing to jump in the sack with you, Coach. If I miss a spot and get skin cancer and die I’m coming back and hauntin’ your ass.”

“Maybe it’ll help me pick up a goth chick.”

The lawyer’s beer was already getting warm in the bottom so he slammed the rest and placed the bottle on Coach’s side with a flourish. “Your turn, make sure they get us a cold one from the bottom and make it snappy.”

The coach got up and went the long way around via the Port-o-lets and smiled to himself. “Gonna be a long night.”

Categories: Life · People · Writing
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Excuse Me, I Think There Is Something In My Eye

January 24, 2010 · 21 Comments

Quote of the Day:

“When you go to Heaven after you die, tell St. Peter you’re a Saints fan. He’ll say, ‘C’mon in, I don’t care what else you done, you suffered enough.’” –Buddy Diliberto

Over and over the Vikings put the ball on the ground and yet the Saints were unable to fall on it. It was reminiscent of the old football follies clips of the early 1970′s Saints where the fumble gets kicked fifty yards downfield while Saint upon Saint clumsily attempts to fall upon it. Late in the game Brett Favre seemingly had the Vikes in position to win. They didn’t and I thought of how same ol’ Saint-like the inexcusable error was that cost them five on a penalty. Then the ghost of the s.o.s. rose in ironic revenge as Brett, scramblin just like Archie used to threw one to the wrong team, just like Archie used to do. On top of all that a series of official replay reviews went the Saints’ way; and as anyone who roots for a perennial loser knows, the refs are always out to get them. But not tonight.

I recalled today the Falcons and how they made the term “Big Ben” famous by using it to beat the Saints. I thought about how Tampa Bay got its first victory against New Orleans, how the new Cleveland Browns got their first, on a Hail Mary no less. I thought of Nolan Cromwell of the Rams keeping Archie’s best team out of the playoffs in ’79 on a punt return. In just two years they were wearing bags over their heads in shame in the Dome. I remember the Saints drafting Russell Erxleben in the first round, trading away an entire draft for Ricky Williams another year. The Saints have been futility personified for my whole life. Until now, that is; even if they lose the big one, and I’m sure they will–not that I won’t be watching in case I’m wrong understand.

TB was near speechless after calling out to no one that “he made it!” I watched and listened. I wanted to be on the field, on Bourbon, at Sweet’s at least with all my asshole runnin buddies. Instead I just sat and thought about how the phrase “same ol’ Saints” must now be relegated to history. The Saints may never go to the Super Bowl again, but they are going this once. And so maybe we’ll complain that they are playing like the old time Saints, but this championship season forevermore will remain a bright dividing line between the same ol’ Saints and any future failures.

I imagine that somewhere Hap and Buddy D are hearing it from the squirrels. Lord how I wish they were here to put it all in perspective and to remind me of all the black and gold disasters that have merged and faded with the passing of years. Just thinking of the ones I recall off hand sort of overwhelms me. Um, excuse me, I think there’s something in my eye. I better stop now and go wash my face.

Bonus QOTD

“If the Saints ever go to the Super Bowl I’ll march down Bourbon Street in a dress.” Buddy D; as I understand it, Bobby Hebert will keep Buddy D’s promise, in memoriam

Categories: Sports
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Ghosts of Christmas Past

December 24, 2009 · 10 Comments

Quote of the Day:

“Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childish days; that can recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth; that can transport the sailor and the traveller, thousands of miles away, back to his own fire-side and his quiet home! ” ~Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers, 1836

TB’s enjoying a moment of holiday solitude and reflection before the fire and thinking about the 38 Christmases I’ve known. The best gifts ever, as judged by how readily they leap to mind, were the train set around 1979 and the Atari 2600 in 1982. The train was something I’d never considered. I probably had seen pictures of them in the Sears Catalogue we used each year to mark our wish lists and discounted one as a present. After all, something that large would definitely cost too much by my logic of the era. A lot of fun was had with that train even though my left-handed Dad and I (with no excuse but ineptitude) outright butchered most of the model buildings we built. The 2600 though was the biggest surprise. My Mom insisted time and again through the late fall that the 2600 was both a budget buster and that video games were an inadvisable use of time. One late December day as our by now familiar debate heated up once again my Dad finally weighed in with his “no and that’s final” edict. In tone and expression, I knew he meant it and surrendered unconditionally all hopes of Space Invader Yuletide bliss. Never before or since has he employed said tactic and failed to enforce it. To this day I do not know whether he was overruled by Moma or was going nuclear on the deception. If I had to bet I’d say it was the former.

As much as I treasure the memory of the unearned annual bounty that typified my childhood Christmas morns, my recollections immediately fly to the loot hauled in by my asshole runnin buddies.  It was the same way back in the old days. No sooner had I finished my last sweep under the tree to find one last passed over hidden gem, I’d get on the phone and call BR. We’d conspire to rid ourselves of family obligations as soon as possible and bring our best portable pieces to a central location to show off and share. I recall his bikes and his Broncos gear, but mostly I think we’d dump within minutes whatever we got that morning in favor of a tried and true basketball or football, and we’d get right back to the classic sporting confrontations we always waged. But he wearing his new bright Bronco orange and me with the equally new, but eminently more tasteful orange of the Dolphins.

For Smily I didn’t have to call. He and his brother were the kings of Christmas on our street. First automated preschool motorcycles, later go-carts and three wheelers, those boys would zoom back and forth on their cutting edge gifts for hours while BR and I silently wondered at our sad plight. Our parents would never measure up to such a level of cool. An even more vivid memory regarding Smily is one of our earliest and typically inane arguments. Smily, you see, lived in a home without benefit of a chimney. He insisted Santa simply came in the back door to leave his gifts, but the logic of this assertion completely mystified me. If he could do this, why bother with chimneys at other houses? Some fact was missing. Either Smily was lying or misinformed or…..well, the alternative was unthinkable.

It is cliché, but to see through the eyes of a child is to truly appreciate Christmas to its fullest. I guess the best way to do that is to bring back all those old memories. Here’s to your own treasure trove within.

———————————

For those of you new to the TBU and from some place other than South Mississippi or Louisiana, I give you “The Cajun Night Before Christmas”. I hope somebody posts a better version to You Tube before next year, but for now this will have to do.

Categories: Christmas · Life
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TB Ain’t Predictin It or Nuthin, But What If the Saints Go to the Super Bowl?

December 16, 2009 · 11 Comments

Joke of the Day:

After he was dead, Boudreaux discovered himself in Hell. He looked around awhile, then went right to work shoveling brimstone. The devil came up to him and said, “How you like it here, my friend? It’s hard work and it’s hot, yeah?”

Boudreaux just smiled and answered, “It ain’t so bad. The work is steady. I got no problem with steady work. And it ain’t so hot. You think dis is hot? Man, I’m from south Lousiana — It hot there, my fren! Dis here ain’t nothin.” He just laughed and went back to work singing and having a high old time.

Satan, being a former Texan, did not like Cajuns. He said to himself, “I’ll get him. So he don’t mind the hot, huh?” Satan waved a hand and the whole place was suddenly ice and snow, solid. And he said, “That’ll fix dat fool!”

When he went back to check on Boudreaux, he found him jumping up and yelling and laughing and clapping and dancing. So Satan said, “Man, what’s wrong with you?!”

Boudreaux smiled big and replied, “Dem Saints done won da Super Bowl!

Super Bowl XLIV will be played in Miami, Florida, on February 7, 2010. The New Orleans Saints have a pretty good chance of playing in it, good enough at least to start planning a (fully refundable) trip. It is with such thoughts in mind that I recalled a day back around 1983 or 1984 and the famed living room on Del Norte Circle which served as the center of the sporting and culinary universe for my old asshole runnin buddies. Back in the day Zeek’s folks, Mary B and Buddha used to have a running wager with Sweet’s parents, Waldo and Mamoo. Whoever lost the Ole Miss-Tulane football game always hosted a day of gridiron and gumbo, beer and (once the ladies left) bourbon.

It so happened that year that Waldo was hosting and a young, impressionable TB was in attendance, learning quietly from Sweet the ins and outs of point spreads, the juice and teaser odds. Perhaps it is because these were the early days of my semi-residence at Del Norte that Waldo has never acknowledged my presence or perhaps it was the beer or more likely still the bourbon that has distorted his recollection. Whatever the case, the fact of my presence has become more important than ever in this year of 13-0 Saints because of what Waldo has no choice but to acknowledge: a solemn oath was made, inscribed upon a roux-stained cocktail napkin, that if and when the New Orleans Saints ever played in the Super Bowl, he would take everybody present at that moment to the game. And so I was curious about where we might travel come February. I hear Miami is nice that time of year.

The cost for Waldo? Well there’s Sweet, Zeek and Greeg which he doesn’t dispute and me, who I feel sure he will no longer deny. Maybe Rusty? A few others probably. All told we can get in the game for about $3500 apiece according to one travel site I consulted. We get three nights in a nice hotel, a ticket, a program and a ride to and from the stadium. Hmmm. I don’t think Waldo’s gonna be able to keep that vow. And I’m a reasonable man–when the oath was given tickets were probably around $75 bucks a pop. Inflation he could’ve reasonably expected but this is ridiculous. So I’ll tell you what Waldo–actually I guess Sweet will relay this to you since you aren’t hip to the web–let’s make a deal. Get with Greeg and put together a prime batch of home brew, fuel up your car–better yet let’s rent a camper–grab a random stack of your old scorecards for settling arguments and let’s all go for the weekend. We can even bring the rest of the ARB’s old and young alike. Screw the game, we’ll watch on TV and we’ll roam the streets and tan our guts and tell old lies and if we see Morten Anderson we’ll whip his ass like we should have back in ’86, and when its almost over we’ll break out the bourbon to keep it going a little bit longer.

On second thought, let’s skip the bourbon. People do stupid things when they get on the dark stuff.

And if the Saints don’t make it this year the deal’s off. I take great pleasure in hoarding that future ticket in my hip pocket.

Categories: Life · People · Sports
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The Old Neighborhood

December 15, 2009 · 20 Comments

Quote of the Day:

“Anybody who has to step on the grass before we get to the bridge is a sissy.” –Smily, as we walked barefoot down the black asphalt of Woodhaven Street on countless summer days between 1978-1984

Not too long ago, TB had occasion to go home for a brief visit. Home. I don’t know if its the case for everyone, but for me, when I say home I mean foremost the home of my childhood. This is not to diminish in any way my current home, the one I expect my daughter will always think of first. But home, as in my parents’ home, is different. Its a place of refuge and certainty, the ultimate safety net, whereas my own home is not only those things but also a place of debt and chores, and a worriesome foundation.

I can still move through the house in Pascagoula blindfolded. I automatically avoid where the floor creaks, I intuitively push the door behind me with the exact force needed so that it closes firmly but without slamming, and I unconsciously kick the little block that holds one of the bedroom doors open thinking nothing of the winds that blew the old house slightly off its foundation. In my old bedroom the pennants have been long removed from the walls. Family wedding pictures have replaced old trophies and certificates of achievement. The paint and carpet are different. But its still my room. I think it recalls.

My little girl wanted to go outside so I took her first to the back yard where I could still see the dirt circle where I stood to hit stringball. You wouldn’t see it though. The grass grows much thicker there now and I annually congratulate my Dad on the lack of dead spots. Haven’t been any for awhile, I realize, as there aren’t any ballgames back there these days. Still, as I walked around the yard I  sensed that the grass (once a playing field) and the fig tree (formerly first base) remembered the old days.

We left the yard and walked down the street. For years that’s all my parents knew of my whereabouts. I was “down the street” and that was good enough for them. I knew if I went “across the bridge” I’d better tell them I planned to lest they have trouble finding me; but in retrospect, I don’t recall them ever looking. We walked past Smily’s house and I thought how the beautiful landscaping the new owners had put in had ruined one of our neighborhood’s better football fields. Then between Mr. Still’s and Mr. Lowell’s house, God rest their souls, and I instinctively glanced over to be sure “Duke”, God rest his enormous canine soul, wasn’t loose and ready to give chase. Past Tim and Todd’s where I learned how to play baseball, Goula-style, past Charlie Frew’s house where the dreaded coffin corner yucca bush used to be, the Gray’s whose house I helped gut after the fire and finally to Jeff’s where I had a crab claw pried out of my heel in the house laid out identically to my own. I wanted to cross the bridge even though I’d not claimed that prerogative, but they tore it down and walled off the woods it led through long ago. So home again.

All I could think of on the return trip was how quiet the old neighborhood was, outwardly. All of the sidewalks were perfectly edged, each house sported thick, green lawns, no cars were being worked on in the driveways and no bikes were lying about and no kids to ride them. The old neighborhood has grown old. Yet the sounds of the street of the 1970′s and 80′s echoed palpably about me, though you wouldn’t have heard them, the arguments, the bouncing balls and even the muted murmur of exchanged confidences and plots. The old neighborhood, I became certain, remembers us boys.

Just before we got home a guy drove by us and waved, did a double take, then waved again, still not certain who he’d seen. He got the same reaction from me. “Was that Todd?”, I asked aloud to no one, half expecting the neighborhood to respond. The guy parked next to Todd’s Dad’s house and got out. He looked back up the street toward us and I started to wave but I waited a heartbeat longer than socially expected and so he looked away before I could. Didn’t matter, I thought, “dude’s like 40 something–way too old to be him.” I think the old neighborhood just grinned.

Categories: Life · Mississippi
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Party Planning For Third Week

November 17, 2009 · 8 Comments

Quote of the Day:

“I never did like to work and I don’t deny it. I’d rather read, tell stories, crack jokes, talk, laugh–anything but work.” –Abraham Lincoln

TB hears all the time, “TB, I love Third Week. I’m spreading the word and most everyone wants to participate. But how does one celebrate this new holiday? After all, Christmas has the tree, Thanksgiving has the turkey, Festivus has its pole….what the hell does 3W have?” I’m glad you asked.

First, you plan your Third Week Party meal–Third Pound Burger and 3 Bean Chili are the traditional main courses and for desert, Neopolitan ice cream, of course. Then you pretty much lay around on the couch watching movies and DVD’s instead of working–movies like “Return of the Jedi, Godfather 3, and 3 Days of the Condor. It’s also a good time for opening that old 3′s Company box set gathering dust in your attic. You should have the traditional beverages of Third Week available for your meal and sofa time–one bourbon, one Scotch and one beer. After about three servings of that you should be ready to do some Third Week caroling. At some point during 3W you must give someone a blank stare, say something damn dubious, and retell an old story with or about an asshole runnin buddy. Often these can be done at the same time. After all that eating and laying around and drinking and singing and staring it’ll be time for the final stage in 3W festivities. This is when you return to your couch, turn out the lights and put in your DVD of “Saturday Night Live–the forgotten classics you never saw in the first place because they were relegated to airing in the final half-hour.” These are all those skits that started out with a decent idea, but they never really got traction. Really, the funniest part of them was that they just kept going on and on and on….and on…. You will be asleep before long and by the time you wake up it will be Thanksgiving week, the beginning of the holidays for all those beholden to the man. At some point between 3W Monday and Thanksgiving Day, as tradition dictates, MD will officially close the season with a comment broadcast exclusively here to all denizens of the Travellinbaen Universe.

H3W to all and to all, just keep shuffling paper for a few more days.

Categories: Humor
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Cookie Monster, Revisited

October 28, 2009 · 19 Comments

Quote of the Day:

“Confess and be hanged.” –Christopher Marlowe

This morning TB left home a little earlier than usual. I had a long drive and needed some extra time. There was a chocolate chip cookie left over from last night in the microwave. It wasn’t mine but I took it. I figured I could just make more tonight if anyone missed it. As I walked out the door I started to take a bite but stopped myself. “I’ll save it for after breakfast so I can savor it,” I told myself. Before I got in the car it was gone. The act was completely involuntary. I was powerless to stop it.

That cookie was dang good too. So good in fact that I rerouted in order to get breakfast at Fresh Market on the way out of town. At Fresh Market I picked up three more chocolate chip cookies, one to savor after breakfast as originally planned and two for lunch. It was going to be a long drive after all.

There is nothing like a long drive for reflecting on one’s life. Complex political issues, the origins of the universe, awesome blog topics…in the car all alone eternal questions like these get within a hair’s breadth of resolution, the threads of logic interrupted only by an overwhelming urge to self examine one’s own life and come to profound realizations. And so it was, as I devoured a stray crumb rescued from the crease in my shirt, that I thought of my childhood friend Cookie Monster and the great controversy that has always stood between us.

In 1979, Citizens National Bank fielded one of the greatest T-ball teams in the history of Pascagoula, probably the world. Our centerfielder was a heavy hitter, the only kid on the team bigger than me. After running roughshod over the eleven opponents available to us and winning every title we competed for, we convened for the final time at Beach Park for a team party. I don’t recall much about the party except that everyone got a game ball from the season and I happened to get stuck with a crummy one from a blowout of one of the worst teams, probably Toulme Tire or some such, if you were wondering. Undoubtedly there were hot dogs and chips and of course there were cookies.

I honestly have no recollection of what happened that day. What I know for sure is that my friend was accused by the coaches of pilfering the cookies, not only before they were to be served, but in numbers so great he left the plate near empty. He was immediately convicted in the court of public opinion and christened the Cookie Monster, a name that has stuck with him for all his years.

Cookie Monster and I went our separate ways after that season and it was several years before I saw him again. I happily greeted my old CNB comrade and eagerly raised the topic of our 8 year old greatness. To my shock and confusion Cookie Monster did not want to rehash the good ol’ days. Instead he wanted something I could not provide–evidence of his innocence in the cookie stealing matter, moreover, an alibi. The issue was so settled in my mind that I did not even consider his accusation of me as the guilty party plausible, much less credible. I laughed off the incident while CM seethed. As we passed through our teens and entered our twenties I saw CM regularly. Never, not once, did he fail to accost me about the matter of the cookies and never did he fail to demand my confession. The man would not release the grudge. I always laughed.

Then today I ate cookies until I was almost ill. I love cookies. I love the buy 5 get one free at the mall. Did you know if you buy ten they give you two? It’s a sweet deal. As I drove, my subconscious mind worked over the old faded memories of childhood, turning over every shred of the summer of ’79 it could find. A definitive memory of the incident just doesn’t exist. But how can a dude hold a grudge about something he’s guilty of against another who is innocent for thirty years if he doesn’t truly believe he is expressing the truth? How do I explain my inability to keep the cookie I stole from my child out of my mouth for even thirty seconds? When the juxtaposition of my undeniable cookie love and CM’s enduring recriminations against me is considered, what does it prove? The case is circumstantial for sure, but it feels right. It is a burden lifted off my shoulders, a renewal of my spirit, a cleansing of the soul. I will never recapture the memory in my mind, but in my–in my taste buds–the knowledge is true. You’ve gotta be right Cookie Monster. You were wrongly convicted. It had to have been me.

Categories: Humor · Life
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The Unvarnished Truth About How I (not TB) Got Famous One Time

October 22, 2009 · 19 Comments

Quote of the Day:

“Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever.” –Napoleon Bonaparte

From the age of 6 up through 16, this guy …..

….was a pretty dang good baseball player. After that, well, lets just say I needed my education. But that’s not the point.

Like any former athlete, be they a Hall of Famer or simply a neighborhood menace, TB loves to relive the glory days. Hell, I even like to relive my asshole runnin’ buddies’ glory days; we have to like each others’ old tales of courage and heroism because no one else really wants to hear them. And what’s a story without the tellin’?

And so it happened that one night a long, long time ago that TB, BR, Smily, Rob and maybe somebody else were out ridin’ around with the windows down one summer night. We were talking about how good Perk’s Juco baseball team was that several of my ARB’s, including BR and Rob, were playing for. At some point in the conversation somebody decided to make ol’ TB feel good and said something of my childhood exploits on the diamond, comparing me favorably to some other really good ballplayers who were still on the ascending side of “the hill”. I was pretty much sittin’ back by the cooler with a grin on my mug thinkin ’bout how much I loved these guys, especially when pretty much all of them chimed in sincerely with something good. Of course, there was a small undercurrent of discomfiture because as anyone knows ARB’s don’t make a habit out of saying nice things about one another. We’d come all the way down Beach Boulevard, turned around at the Point and were heading back up Market when I decided to join in, cut things off and agree that, you know, they were right. I’d been damn good back in the day.

At the precise moment I spoke a car passed us on Market and as luck would have it their windows were down too. Must’ve been a nice night. We all heard, clear as day, one of them call out “You’re DAMNNNNNNNNNNNN RIGHT!” Of course, the dude wasn’t talking to us, probably didn’t even notice us. TB, to lighten the mood and to get everyone to laugh off the emotional awkwardness of such a heartfelt ARB conversation, said, “Did you hear that? I AM Famous. That guy just said “there goes BENNNNNNNNNNNN WHITE!” Well, that lightened the mood alright. Everybody “thought” (I’ll never be sure if they really did/do or not) that I really believed this stranger said “Ben White” instead of “Damn Right”. After a good quarter hour of TB love, my ARB’s made up for it by laughing and mocking me unfairly and mercilessly for the next hour over my poor hearing and inflated ego. So be it, it was worth it to hear all those nice things. And that was the end of it.

Except that was not the end of it. When I next came home from college for a night out with the boys I was introduced to one of their buddies from some other town on the Coast. His eyes lit up when we met. “You’re BEN DAMN WHITE!” I was confused. Everybody else was laughing their ass off. As we moved around that night from bar to bar I got the same reaction. Then I started hearing people across the room who’d not even known I was there saying it. At the pool table somebody asked their opponent if they wanted to bet a beer on the next game. “You’re Ben Damn White,” came the reply. A dude asked a girl if she wanted to go out to the car to look for something he left and she said “you’rebendamnwhite.” On and on it went. My friends, lifelong pals, bosom buddies, ARB’s, had turned our moment of genuine male bonding into a catchphrase that had taken hold over a radius of two hundred miles outward from Perkinston, Mississippi. For years I heard “you’rebendamnwhite” all across the coast and north to Hattiesburg, from people who had no idea why they were saying it, still do occasionally, all because I tried to be a stand up guy and get everyone to move on by injecting a little reverse self deprecating humor. In fact, that’s what inspired me to tell the tale, I got a “Bendamnwhite” on Facebook today. And you’ve been wondering, I bet, why I call them my asshole runnin buddies. I hate those dudes.

But they could all play some dang good ball, I ain’t gonna lie.

Bonus QOTD

“When you are young you get blamed for crimes you never committed and when you get old you get credit for virtues you never possessed. It evens itself out.” Casey Stengel

Categories: Humor · Life
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