Category Archives: Biographical

Biographical, COVID, New Word, Personal, Walmart, Weight Loss

See The Silver Lining Of The Pepperoni

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The belt in the picture tells the story of healthier eating since February 1st.

I’m officially adding two words to my vocabulary: precovid and postcovid. We will need words to divide our lives easily into instantly recognizable periods. Both ‘precovid’ and ‘postcovid’ serve that purpose. Everyone can understand their meaning without explanation. All of us recognize the truth of the two words. “Remember before?” will be one of our go-to phrases in the ‘after’ of this.

My wife bought me a new belt last year. I don’t use it because it’s rigid and lacks the comfort of my old one. It’s also wider and feels like I stole Hulk Hogan’s WWE belt. Not that anyone missed it, but I’ll take comfort any day over the options of style, fashion, or common sense.

When I started, I had no way of knowing that the pandemic would hit. Once it did, it eerily served as a replacement for the therapy rubberband that many people use for behavior modification. Looking at the underlying conditions contributing to COVID told me, “Hey you, dumbass!” And not politely.

I’ve read a bunch of commentary in the last few weeks about people increasing in weight and girth because of being isolated. My case reflects the opposite. I’m not trapped at home. My job places me right in the beast’s barrel, so to speak. Even when I’m too tired to fuss over ‘what’ I’m going to eat, I’ve so far resisted “the call of the pepperoni.” As you might guess, I love a bathtub full of chips and salsa.

Despite my previous bitching and moaning about Walmart in the precovid days and their hateful self-serve kiosks, Walmart (and Harps too), has been an unforeseen blessing. I don’t give my praise begrudgingly; they deserve it. It hasn’t been perfect. But their presence has made life drastically easier for many of us, whether we’re isolated or at liberty due to being essential.

Please throw this praise into my face once we’re past the crisis and I return to my hobby of freelance bitching and moaning.

As the particulars of the epidemic mounted, I often looked at my weight and nervously shook my head. I’ve had a dozen chances to lose enough to determine if my blood pressure would no longer require medication. I’ve lacked the wit or will to make it so. That’s on me. Pepperoni and starches are my mortal enemy. My wife and I still have 400+ assorted candy bars in a closet. I’ve eaten none of them. However, my previous failures to stop hurting myself by overeating continue to be my burden.

I haven’t eaten from the cafeteria at work since the beginning of January. Most often, my breakfast, which I tend to eat between 5 and 6 a.m., consists of a can of green beans, tomatoes, or soup. It’s the spices added that add the delight.

From there, I’ve resisted the pull of fast food. There have been exceptions, but even then, I’ve relented from filling my cavernous yaw like a dump truck.
I had Pizza Hut one night, but ordered my favorite, one which sounds terrible to sensible people: thin crust, no cheese, minimal sauce, no meats. With 10 different spices and sauces. You’ll I know I’ve lapsed into sadomasochism is you see me attempting to eat Dominos; or rather, the box it comes in. Studies have shown that Dominos pizza isn’t actually food.

I’m waiting for the enchanted umbrella of consistency to slip off my shoulders. I know myself too well.

We all see the reminders to see the good, find those who are helping and try to peer into the ether to see benefits from our inescapable calamities. Mine is this: the virus was a knock on my front door. Let’s see if the lesson is transitory or lasting in my case.

P.S. I’m not bragging. It’s dangerous, because tomorrow might bring new challenges that derail me. For example, someone might give me a truckload of potato chips, pepperoni, or pasta.

Arkansas, Biographical, Family, Guest Post, Monroe County, Uncategorized

Pies and Such

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Like most of us, my mamma (pronounced ma’am maw) never wanted to “be a bother to anyone.” On the scale of what she didn’t like, asking someone to do something for her weighed near the bottom – hanging slightly above having her picture taken. As she got older, her reluctance to ask for anything grew.
When she simply couldn’t bring herself to ask directly, she became most creative at pointing a conversation in the direction she wanted it to go. Her hesitancy to ask and her creativeness in asking indirectly was quite endearing.
My favorite all time example occurred one Saturday afternoon when my husband and I made the quick one-hour drive to visit her. Always glad to see us, she seemed a bit preoccupied that day. As usual, we carried the bulk of the conversation, but this time, during a brief lull, she suddenly inserted, “Whada y’all find goodta eat?” Anyone from the South (or a true transplant like my Illinois-born and raised husband) understands that to mean “What do you like to eat?”
Since the conversation to that point was not even closely related to food, we were thrown for a minute. To buy some time, I asked, “What was that, Mamma?” She repeated, “Whada y’all find goodta eat?”
Still a bit confused, I asked, “Do you mean in general, or are you asking if we’re hungry now?” She replied, “In general.” Finally catching on, I told her we like all kinds of food and asked, “What do YOU like to eat?” Knowing two of her favorite snacks were pork rinds and potato chips, it was amusing to hear instead an enthusiastic “I like those McDonald’s pies!”
Now fully aware of the game we were playing, my husband asks “Mamma, would you like us to go get you a McDonald’s pie?” He almost didn’t get all the words out before she was exclaiming, “Naw!! I don’t need one, I just like’em! Unless y’all want one; y’all want one?!”
My husband and I smile and glance sideways at each other. We stand (while she continues to protest she doesn’t want one unless we do) and head out the door while she yells for us to come back and get some money.
We return with McDonald’s apple pies for all. It’s hard to say who devoured theirs first, but it was obvious no one relished that apple pie more than she did.
From that point forward, McDonald’s was our first stop when we rolled into town for a visit with Mamma. The pies were cheap, but the joy they brought was priceless, and the happy memories of shared apple pies linger on.
To this day, 20+ years later, when one of us is craving something and wanting a partner in crime, the magic question is “Whada y’all find goodta eat?”

 

Arkansas, Biographical, Humor, Technology

They Call me Tater Equis

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I didn’t think it was possible there will still websites requiring names containing 3 or more letters in violation of federal law. Especially those that are critical to maintaining both public health and patient privacy. In response, I used “XXX” as my name, while technically committing a crime by affirming my identity with it. And a porn moniker, at that.

Anyone who has seen me knows that “X” should literally be synonymous with anonymous, and not merely for a reason eponymous. (I’m proud of that sentence.)

To make matters worse, I had to choose an answer that was wrong from my credit report, one which included a name I’ve never used: Equis. For those who don’t read or speak Spanish, “Equis” is how you would spell the letter “X” if you were drinking a bottle of Dos Equis beer.

I felt a little like Ron White during his telling of “They call me tater salad.”

It’s horribly amusing that while they wouldn’t accept the simplest name possible (X, one letter), they somehow have the oral Spanish translation (“Equis”) of a name I’ve never written on anything more official than spray-painted graffiti walls. I hope they never see the art piece I did. I titled it, “Orange Paintball President.” If they have, I’ll never be able to confirm my identity again.

No doubt XXX will now magically appear on a secret government list and permanent record, one I will have to recall for no apparent reason, to confirm my identity by incorrectly confirming it.

The website is huge, doing both government and private business for millions. Heck, even the IRS named me NFN X when I had just one name, and that was years ago. “NFN” means “No First Name,” at least for the IRS. They decided that using “Arkansas Idiot” would be an obvious signal that they thought I’d lost my mind. For a while, my Arkansas state driver’s license said my legal name was “Mr. X,” because our state had barely managed to figure out that computers had to be plugged in to function.

When I got a new birth certificate, I’m inclined to think that the director of the Department of Health was tempted to stamp “Accident Report” across the top of my new Birth Certificate.

I guess this virus really did take us back several decades. I did waste several minutes attempting to navigate the website’s ‘Help,’ section. It was amusingly hidden behind an icon of a laughing troll – never a good sign. I’ll get a series of emails designed to both demoralize and belittle me, I’m sure.

I guess I deserve this.

The “X” is where you’re supposed to drop the bomb. And maps always have an “X” to show “You are here.”

I’m here.

But now I’m not sure I have a legal name.

.

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P.S. By the time I posted this, I had already received three emails from the website, two of them completely contradicting each other and the other telling me it didn’t recognize my email as being from the planet Earth.

Biographical, Health, Humor, New Word, Personal

It Was A Real Nail-Biter

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A lot of people bite their nails.

Nail biting even has a fancy-pants name: onychophagy. The existence of such a word grants the habit legitimacy. Many people don’t know that cigarette addiction also has a Latin-based word to describe it: marlboroism. Okay, that’s not true. In my defense, it took cigarette companies decades to admit they were lying about cigarettes. By lying, I mean how delicious smoke tastes and how delightful a house smells after everything is coated in a vile sheen of yellowish slime.

It’s more common in kids and teenagers, but a surprising  number of adults are nail-biters. I should know. I’ve written before that I’m one of those ignorant dolts who is guilty of doing it. My fingers sometimes resemble the talons of an angry dragon trapped in the bottom of an inescapable well. I’ve stopped sniffing glue, being comatose by a method of self-chloroforming, and narrowly avoiding the craziness of alcoholism that has ruined the lives of literally all my immediate family. But nail biting? You’ll catch me gnawing on my nails like a starving monkey, sometimes even doing the ‘typewriter,’ a word used to describe going from one nail to the next like a crazed typist after a four-hour coffee break at a Cuban coffee shop.

“1/3 of nail biters say they have a family member who does the same,” say some studies. Which leads to the question, “Why don’t they bite each other’s nails?” It’s no surprise that the tendency to bite your nails might be genetic; that’s true of a lot of disreputable behavior, along with addictions, sneezing when exposed to sunlight, and voting for people with insanity issues. (Although I’m struggling to think of any such people in the last few years. How about you?)

If you cringed, you’re not alone. Nail biting is great for movie visuals or as a cliché, but terrible as a personal habit.

Given the hyper-focus that our unfriendly worldwide pandemic has caused, we’re working to keep our fingers out of our mouths. (Except for politicians, who are exempted, along with their feet.) Before patting yourself on the back, though, if your nails are longer than short, you’ve created a repository for everything bacterial or viral you touch. You might not touch your own face, but you’re marking your territory as you live your life.

Irrelevant note: most men are uninterested in women’s fingernails. The pandemic gives you the right to stop concerning yourself with the time and money invested in decorating your fingernails like they will be featured in Architectural Digest. If it makes you happy, please feel free. If you’re looking for an excuse, you have it.

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Some Unhelpful Tips To Stop Biting Your Nails, stolen from websites and headlines:

Amputate the tips of your fingers.

Just don’t think about it.

Dip your fingers in the dung or the blood of your enemies.

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According to science, it’s hard to distinguish the line between harmful compulsive nail biting and regular nail biting. A good rule-of-thumb, though: if you find yourself individually flavoring your nails as garlic, lemon, chocolate, pepper, and Parmesan in anticipation of devouring them, you’re probably in need of some therapy.

When I was young, I would get irritated at my mom, who delighted in punching me, slapping me, or putting her cigarette on my arm when she caught me biting my nails. I think the irony of her irritation with me failed to register for her. That I also wet the bed, was beaten like a dirty Victorian rug, or was screamed at for otherwise normal behavior, all those things seemed to overtake biting my nails as important. I forgot to mention that the rampant alcoholism and smoking seemed relevant too. I made the mistake a couple of times by saying, “I’ll stop when you put out the cigarette.” Although you would think she responded sensibly, given the track record I’ve painted of her esteemed and cultured biography, it was more reminiscent of George Foreman’s first loss to Muhammad Ali.

When I was young, I’d find myself biting my nails regardless of what I’d been doing. Disgusting as it was, it probably granted me limited immunity to a variety of illnesses. You’d be horrified to know how true this is. Since you might remember that I loved eating ashes and burned food, maybe it isn’t a shock.

I went through long phases where I conquered my impulse to bite my nails. Heroin helped me for a while. That last part’s a joke. Heroin didn’t help at all. It made me edgy as hell, not to mention unable to afford cocaine.

You’re probably going to doubt this, but I tried the bitter paint-on polish more than once. As bitter and nasty as it was, I liked the taste and aftertaste.

At more than one point, I’d decided I’d need dentures. It’s difficult to bit one’s nails with dentures. (And even harder to do so without.) I was about to buy the inserts you can put on your teeth to make it impossible to chew with my teeth. I don’t remember what stopped me. But it was probably laziness. For people who wear them, they are immensely effective.

Maybe this world-wide pandemic will grant me the motivation to figure out what techniques can help me make this habit a thing of the past. I’m sure there’s a perfect combination of timing, technique, and application. Otherwise, I’m opting for finger amputation. Is finger-stump licking a thing?

 

Love, X

Biographical, Family

Dear Darla

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Dear Darla:
I’m glad you’ve moved to Springdale. Other than being able to see me more frequently, which is always a treat for everyone, you’ll be able to see Springdale from the window without being able to go outside until 2025.

Years ago, I scanned a couple of thousand of pictures from your life. It was something that I enjoyed tremendously. It was a lot of work, too, in part because I had to pull each photo separately and clean it before scanning.

When I saw that you had a box of pictures I’d never seen before yesterday, I almost fainted. We thought I’d had a pass of all the pictures chronicling your life, not to mention Dawn & Julia.

When I came home today, I sat down and began to scan yesterday’s ‘find’ of pictures without knowing what each group, envelope, or stack might hold. Some of the pictures are simply amazing. As you know, Dawn and I often wonder if a picture exists of us back in the 80s when we dated the first time. Sadly, there wasn’t one in this discovered treasure of pictures, either.

I can’t thank you enough for the prolonged joy I’ve already experienced sitting at my desk, and placing three or four pictures at a time on the scanner, assembling a timeline and history in my head.

A lot of people don’t understand me when I try to explain the discovery and wonder I feel when I get to live in reverse through other people’s pictures. I’ve probably scanned 50,000 pictures manually in my lifetime; I’ve never done a project that didn’t enrich me in some way.

These pictures were hidden from me for an extra decade. I hope we find more – and more memories to share.

“A picture in a box is worthless without human eyes and emotion to experience it.” – X

Thank you, Darla.

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Biographical, Food, Humor, Jimmy

A Gargle of Lemon Juice, A Poof of Tang

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My cousin Jimmy had everything good to eat. No matter what he wanted to eat, his mom bought it for him. His cereal cabinet might as well have been made of gold. At home, I was lucky to avoid eating a can of hominy instead of cereal. He had Pop-Tarts, Fruity Pebbles, Count Chocula, Captain Crunch, Lucky Charms, and anything else he requested. While I loved corn flakes, I’ll admit the exotic flavors of Jimmy’s cereal cabinet were a sight to behold. He also had really good milk, the kind I’ve despised most of my life since. I’d rather drink the urine of an infected goat than finish a glass of milk – especially whole milk. When I worked in a dairy in high school, my distaste intensified.

Jimmy was three years younger than me. He loved challenging me to exotic dares. I had two things working in my favor: I didn’t expect to live long and I was an idiot. Jimmy maximized his arguments to appeal to those attributes. He seldom had to fear any repercussions for his antics, even if arson or dismemberment were involved. For my Aunt and Uncle, they were mainly only interested if it was their son’s arm or leg which had been detached; beyond that, they growled and barked but otherwise gave him carte blanche to do as he wished.

As was the case with cereal, Jimmy also had the awesome drinks of childhood: clean water devoid of sewage residue, unlimited whole milk, orange juice, chocolate milk, hot cocoa with real marshmallows, and the entire range of available sodas. He also had Tang.

Because of my aberrant taste in food, I loved stealing or a spoonful of Tang powder and eating it. It was luxurious and overwhelming. At times, I’d up-end the jar and pour it into my mouth directly. I had been unknowingly training for years to ingest a large amount of Tang on a dare.

One Sunday morning, Jimmy ate two different kinds of sugary cereal. Afterward, he jokingly challenged me to drink a big spoon of lemon juice. My Aunt Ardith always had a large jar of it in her cabinet near the stove. I don’t remember what we bet. Jimmy went first. He poured the spoonful in his mouth. Immediately, he spewed it back out. It splattered across the counter and in the direction of the sink. “Yuk!” His eyes turned red. I took a spoonful of lemon juice and poured it into my mouth. Just to rub it in, I gargled it and then swallowed it. It was beyond sour, of course, but tasted good to me. Lemon juice was an exotic food in my house. Mom would no more buy lemon juice than cut off an ear lobe with a steak knife. I took another spoonful and swallowed it. “Yum!” I said, just to irritate Jimmy.

“You bastard! How’d you do that,” he demanded. I laughed at him as he got a glass of water and swished his mouth out.

I said, “How about a REAL challenge, Jimmy?” I turned and took out the bottle of Tang powder.

“Yeah, okay, but you’re going to go first. NO tricks.” Jimmy watched me carefully as I got out the biggest spoon that would fit into the jar.

I dumped it into my mouth and held it, letting it dissolve and mix in my mouth. As I mentioned, it was sublime and delicious. After a moment, I showed Jimmy the inside of my mouth.

Keep in mind, this was in the 70s, long before the cinnamon challenge. We were just two idiots trying to outdo each other.

Jimmy took another spoon out and took a smaller lump of powder from the jar. Luckily, he put the jar back on the counter next to the stove.

He put the spoon into his mouth between his teeth and spilled it into his mouth.

While I’m not sure, I think he must have inhaled a good portion of the Tang dust as it dispersed into his mouth – and throat.

He gagged. A big plume of orange dust billowed out of his mouth as he turned to gag and retch into the sink. He used one hand to cup water into his mouth, even as he tried to get the powder out of his mouth and lungs. This continued for at least a minute.

“What in the hell are you two doing in here?” Aunt Ardith had walked up to the counter between the table and the kitchen, one hand holding her Tareyton cigarette and the other pointing at us. She looked at us like we’d been setting her curtains on fire with a cigarette lighter.

Jimmy and I froze like statues momentarily.

Even though Jimmy was stuttering and coughing, he managed to say, “Having breakfast, what does it look like?”
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*P.S. The picture is of my cousin Jimmy. I loved this picture because I used it to tease him that he was too dumb to use his grill outdoors. In reality, he had just bought a house and was assembling the grill. Whether he actually used it in the living room depends on whether he overcame our genetic predisposition to outright stupidity that day.

 

Biographical, Food, Humor

From Quinine To Asinine

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Unrelated to anything current, I recently did a double-take when I looked closely at my 1-liter bottle of Canada Dry diet Tonic Water. Recently, I began to crave this stuff again. I’ve periodically binged on it through the years.

Before you come away with the mistaken idea I mix this with anything, I don’t. I drink it unmixed and straight. If you’ve ever accidentally bitten into a AA battery, you’re on track to getting a good idea of how pungent this is.

Really poor quality tonic water tastes very similar to sewage. If you’ve been an avid reader of my anecdotes, you know that “Yes,” I do in fact know what sewage water might taste like. (And not just because I’ve eaten at Buffalo Wild Wings, either.) A couple of weeks ago, I bought another brand of said tonic water at Harps Foods. When I tried it, I told my wife it was one of the worst things I’d ever tasted. Naturally, I loved it and drank the entire bottle, even as my contorted looked like someone shoved an ice pick into my kidneys by way of my urethra.

This week, I happened to note that my bottle of Canada Dry diet tonic water had real quinine in it. I noted it after I drank the whole liter. Quinine gives a good tonic water its bitter taste. It’s also a significantly powerful medicine. Even though modern tonic waters don’t usually contain a great deal of quinine, it’s inadvisable to drink much of it at a time, unless you’re bored with Russian Roulette or skydiving.

Did I mention I’d been drinking a liter of this stuff at a time?

It reminds of the time I’d eaten 60+ pieces of exotic real black licorice. I turned the package over to find the following health warning: due to cardiac issues, please enjoy no more than 6 pieces of our delicious and authentic black licorice at a time.

Obviously, I didn’t suffer serious effects from my ignorance.

But I did pick a bad week to stop sniffing glue.

Biographical, Sports

I Could (Run) My Mouth With The Fastest of Them

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I had a story published in “Young Author” magazine while in high school. It was titled “The Race,” and I based it on a run on a Wednesday afternoon at Southwest Junior High. When I wrote it, it was too short and I thought nothing of it. Surprisingly, the teacher told me to submit it.

The premise? It’s the finish that matters, not how you got there.

This isn’t the story that was published. This is what gave me the idea. I apologize if it sounds like I’m bragging about anything. I didn’t have a clue about what the heck I was doing in life. It was at times unbearable for me to be around some of the great people I went to school with. They might as well have been aliens. Mouthy, as I call him in this story, probably would have run faster than I had he took me seriously.
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After I started running each day in 9th grade, I learned that I enjoyed running barefoot, like a savage. I looked like a savage sometimes; running in cutoff shorts or jeans, barely able to breathe as I struggled to run. It cost me more than one puncture. My feet, already accustomed to hard running and walking on all manner of surfaces, acquired yet another layer of almost impenetrable thickness. The first few years I ran, I was capable of running fast. In my later years, I just couldn’t do it, even when I still ran often. Every once and a while, I made my way over to Southwest Junior high. It still had an older surface. I loved the feel of the grit on my feet. My problem was that after running, I would have to walk from the track over to my cousin Jimmy’s house.

In my sophomore year, one of the runners for track tried to intimidate me. He overheard me telling someone in the band that I loved running. He told me I was full of it and if I could run so well, I would be in track with him. I didn’t have the energy to tell him that my home life wouldn’t have permitted my participation or that I would have caught hell from the coaches on staff.

“Yeah, right. You’re full of it.” He insisted I couldn’t run a mile.

“Just a mile?” I asked him, which made him irritated. “Any idiot can run a mile, whether it’s through soft grass or on a nice track.” I figured I’d turn the argument around on him.

“I can run a mile faster than you!” he said.

“Oh, it is the speed that matters? I normally only run fast when chased, so I’m not fast.” I was certain he could outrun me, but probably not outdistance me.

In short, I was demonstrably stupid.

And that’s the conversation that led me to be at the track at Southwest on a Wednesday. I had to walk there from the high school.

The track runner, who I’ll call Mouthy, met me there. Someone drove him over to the track. We went in through the narrow gate. Mouthy was looking at me strangely. I was wearing the same shoes I wore to school. I only owned one pair.

“You’re going to outrun me in those?” Mouthy asked.

Partly from bravado and in part from defiance, I said, “No, I’m going to run barefoot.” I sat on the edge of the bleachers near the track and began taking my Kmart shoes and socks off.

“There’s no way, man. It’s going to kill your feet.”

I took my pants off. I was wearing my one pair of shorts I could run in. My other running shorts were cutoffs that were too big around the waist. I ignored him and walked barefoot out to the marker. Mouthy had a stopwatch. “For real?” he asked me, still not sure I was going to try to outrun him.

He shrugged. “I’m going to start this and put it down. I’ll yell ‘go’ when ready, okay?” I nodded.

Mouthy pressed the stopwatch button and then set it on the edge of the track. He stood up, leaned over and then yelled “Go.”

He ran away from me. I felt like the Wile E. Coyote in the cartoons. I ran, letting Mouthy pull away. I knew I couldn’t beat him. A weird thing happened, though. I watched him as he arced away from me. His expensive shoes were simply mesmerizing to watch as he ran. I got angry. Not at Mouthy, but at my Dad. I thought of all the evenings in the last year when I went out to Piazza Road in Tontitown to run. My Dad ridiculed me. I know I looked strange: a fat, wobbly kid running in the middle of nowhere. As the weight fell off me that summer, I could see that my Dad hated it. He needed me to be fat. A lot of dads are that way, to the detriment of their sons. Little did he know that “The Eye of The Tiger” played in my head like a prayer on most of those runs.

Not many people know that the only reason I believe I made All-State band in the 10th grade was because I had started running unimaginable distances. (That, and the band director Pat Ellison told me I was going to do it. Whether she believed it or not was irrelevant. When she said I would, I believed it, because she seemed genuine in her belief. I always envy kids who had parents who emulated her example.)

I put my Dad out of my mind and instead imagined I was doing the last mile on Piazza Road in Tontitown. The last 100 yards near home were on a slightly sloping downward hill. There were times I ran the last half-mile with such intensity that I would see stars. The pavement ended past the hill. If I felt exuberant after the mad dash, I’d run to the end of the dirt road where the 4K dairy barn was. It didn’t take me long to realize that the best way to run longer distances was to fail to turn around where Fletcher intersected with Barrington.

By the first lap, Mouthy was far ahead of me. He seemed to be slowing though. I think he overestimated his ability to run at that pace. My bare feet began to feel like they were connected to the sky as I ran deliberately as fast as I could. By the end of the second lap, I was ten yards behind Mouthy. He kept looking back more and more often. By the end of lap 3, I was about 10 feet in front of him. “I’m going to catch you,” Mouthy shouted. He should have saved his breath. I decided that I was going to beat him so badly he’d never doubt me. I said it in my head as much to him as the idea of my Dad. Despite my bad form, I grunted and ran with everything I had. I sensed that Mouthy had noticed I was giving the race every iota of effort I had. I could hear him grunt. As I finished my fourth lap, I was only 5 feet ahead of Mouthy. I beat him, though.

I slowed to a walk and went into the grass. The grass felt like a luxurious carpet to my toes.

“Well, you won! I wouldn’t have believed it! What do your feet look like?” Mouthy seemed like he’d already accepted that I beat him. He was being a good loser.

I showed him the bottom of my left foot. It was a bit red from one of the inside curves, but not scatched or cut. “I think I only beat you because you started off too fast, didn’t you? Also, I was really, really mad. I felt like Clubber Lane on that last stretch.” Mouthy laughed. “Yeah, I was overconfident. I know better than that.”

We ran two more miles together that afternoon, both considerably slower. Mouthy told me I needed to consider track. So I told him an abridged version of what my home life was like. “Keep running, either way.” He didn’t know what to say when I told him I only had one pair of shoes, not counting my band shoes. His mom drove me to my cousin Jimmy’s house.

Later, my friend Mike invited me to run with him. I’ll share that story another time. I ended up eating a bit of dirt and mud on that run, vainly trying to keep pace with him. It was that day I discovered that he was not human. It’s likely that the terminator in the sequel to the original movie was based on Mike.

When I worked at the nursing home on Gutensohn, I worked at night. There were several times I went and ran barefoot on the junior high track. Some of my best runs happened under the stars. I can’t imagine the youth I possessed to allow me to work, run, and take advantage of such a simple pleasure.

All of us, if we’re lucky, have the joy of looking back on our own surprises.
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P.S. That road in Tontitown looks almost the same as it did when I ran on it in 1983.

Biographical, Nostalgia, Springdale, Story

It All Started at Taco Tico

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“It all started at Taco Tico,” is perhaps the best opening line for a personal story that’s ever been written.

When I was younger, I was a band geek. It probably saved my life – and not just in the sense it gave me relief from an otherwise certain depression and the ability to get away from my house.
On one occasion, it helped me avoid a beating.

Because my parents were negligent to a degree almost unequalled, I walked more than the average student. Until near the end of 9th grade, you would have undoubtedly failed to believe this, as I was fat, and not in the humorous Weird Al way.

After some event after school, my mom and aunt failed to materialize to pick me up. They were probably worshipping on Budweiser’s altar. I had two choices: invent Uber or start walking. On the way across the practice field, I found someone’s trumpet mouthpiece and put it in my pocket. For those souls denied exposure to band, such a mouthpiece is made of solid metal and a few inches long. I put it in my pocket so I could try to return it to the owner the next day. Unlike me, trumpeters had to pay for their own mouthpieces and instruments.

I walked up to highway 68 (now 412) and westward. By some miracle, I had two dollars in my pocket. I  went to Taco Tico, a restaurant that once was legendary among some of us in the community. The building is across from Susan’s restaurant. Everyone in Northwest Arkansas has stories about events and food at Taco Tico. I could get 4 rice tacos for a dollar. I sat and ate the tacos. This sort of thing was a luxury for me. I left to walk the rest of the way to my cousin’s house on Ann Street.

As I crossed in front of Taco Tico, something whizzed past my head and hit the pavement with a thud. I turned to see some sports car (they were all the same to me) go past, with an arm and upraised middle finger for my inspection. By the time I was crossing Carley Road across from K-Mart and in the area where Walgreens now stands, I heard someone revving an engine loudly. The corner was a gas station for years, a cracker crust pizza place, and a gaming business that seemed to be in trouble constantly.

The same reddish-colored sports car that had greeted me earlier was in the parking lot. Two idiots sat in the front with the windows down, both shouting clever insults at me. Both of them were upperclassmen. I didn’t know their names, but both were football players for Springdale.

It was obvious they weren’t on their way to a Mensa meeting. They looked like a happy couple.
I walked as close to the edge of the lot as I could. The driver gunned his engine and rolled ahead of me to block me. As I started to walk around, the driver jumped out and called me a f*g. If I were in that place and time again, I would undoubtedly tell him it was more likely he and his passenger were, given they drove around randomly at all hours, and that they looked like a happy couple. When I didn’t answer him, he took a couple of steps and punched me in the stomach and then shoved me as hard as he could. I fell backward and to the ground. I had learned through my Dad’s violence that sometimes faking a more severe reaction might save me a punch or twenty. The driver spit in my direction and headed back to his car. Not that it was important at the time, but I wondered why so many males thought that spitting added any machismo to their personality.
I started to grab a rock but instead remembered the mouthpiece in my pocket. I took it out and threw it as hard as I could manage. My terrible aim somehow disappeared in that split second as the mouthpiece left my hand and arced with incredible speed toward the car. It thunked against the small rear passenger window. The glass immediately splintered. Admittedly, I threw the mouthpiece with the intent of hitting the bully driver directly in the face.

The driver froze, and his mouth fell open. “What the…,” he started to say. Without thinking and without hesitation, I ran directly toward him. It surprised him, and as he reached out to grab me, I ducked sideways and darted around the front of the car and kept running. The driver ran after me instead of jumping into the car. I could hear the passenger yelling. Within a few seconds, I was outpacing the football player by a huge distance. I turned, running backward, and told him he should run his legs more and his mouth less.  I knew the area well and ran directly to the barbed wire fence and hurled myself over it.. I turned to see that the driver had abandoned his pursuit. He had to run back to the car before he could pursue me. I ran through the field, angling away from Carley road. It took me quite a while to run back to my aunt’s house, as I couldn’t be sure that the two idiots weren’t going to follow the roads and find me.

Despite me fearing for my life the next day at school, I had no options. Bullies were a big part of school life for students. It was pointless to tell anyone. Football players were mostly untouchable. I’d made the mistake a couple of times in junior high and then during high school of trying to “tell on” football players for some fairly dangerous behavior. It didn’t go well for me. It is part of the reason I don’t hold any of the coaches in high esteem, even those with huge scoreboards or statues with their names emblazoned on them. I don’t care that everyone seems to have other, higher opinions about the people we shared in common.
At the end of the year, the driver of the car pretended to lunge at me in the hallway. Although I flinched, I immediately and regrettably said, “I’m not your type,” as I dodged away. He wasn’t amused. The other droolers with him looked at him in almost shock. I walked away,  certain I was going to be tackled in the hallway.

Biographical, Humor, Jimmy, Springdale, Uncategorized

On The Tip Of Your Tongue, You Said?

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Although modern vehicles still retain the round 12-v holes in which to plug in adapters for power, people of a certain age all recall the magic of the spring-loaded cigarette lighters of yesteryear. Back in the day, everyone smoked, even people using oxygen, priests, the doctor who delivered you (while delivering you, no less), and the irritated waitress bringing you overcooked hash browns at the Waffle Hut. (There were no food returns, only “Get the hell out!” requests if you complained about your food, or ashes in your grits.)

Adults, however, could not be without a cigarette lighter for over ten minutes. Before we removed the clause from the Declaration of Independence, all adults were required to smoke at least a pack of cigarettes a day. My mom, for example, showed her patriotism by sometimes smoking a literal carton a day. It seems impossible. She often rose from the bed with a lit cigarette, bathed with a cigarette, and smoked all day as she sat in the operator’s chair for Southwestern Bell. There were times when our house on wheels looked like the polluted skies over an industrial factory. If we were in the car, the windshield seemed opaque from all the smoke. Having the windows down was a bit of a relief, but we all remember the clotted gasp of discovering that a butt thrown out the window had reentered to find itself in our mouths and throats. My mom didn’t believe that throwing a lit cigarette out of the car was a problem. If Smokey The Bear had been standing beside the road, she would have flicked it directly into the pocket of his shirt in an attempt to catch him on fire.

Adults who smoked treated the car cigarette lighter as if it were a religious relic, one to be admired, worshipped, and never touched by the undeserving hands of a child. (Unless we were told to light the cigarette for the adult, who undoubtedly was struggling already to pop the beer can open, the one cradled in the cheap koozie used to hold it.)

Unrelated to the story: the word ‘koozie’ is one of the ugliest words in the English language.

I don’t know how old I was for certain. My cousin Jimmy and I were in one of my dad’s and his cousin Tom’s jalopies for sale. Jimmy was spoiled, but sometimes lit up with mischief and humor. We sat in the front seat of some aged old car, honking the horn and ducking below the dash to avoid being seen. I’d get a beating if caught. Jimmy would have received a smile. Jimmy kept pressing the cigarette lighter in, waiting for it to startle him as it popped out, its insides glowing red. He acted like he was going to touch it with the tip of one of his fingers. “Don’t!” I yelled, despite my extensive Shakespearean training in the vocal arts. Jimmy laughed.

“Oh, it won’t hurt so bad.” He seemed sure. I was 100% certain he was wrong, having been stupid enough to do it myself. More than once and probably fifty times up to that point. I noted that my burned fingertips didn’t smell like pepperoni, either.

“I’ll give you 5 bucks if you touch it to the tip of your tongue,” he told me, smiling. 5 bucks was the equivalent of a fortune for me.

I considered it. I pulled the lighter from the sheath and watched it as it glowed red and hot. When I got it closer to my mouth, I could of course feel the heat radiating off it it.

“Get it hot again,” Jimmy insisted, so I popped it back in the ashtray that contained the plug in.

In a few moments, it popped back out. Jimmy grabbed it and handed it to me.

I unwisely brought it up to my face and stuck out the tip of my tongue. The heat was too much. At that precise moment, Jimmy slapped my left hand unexpectedly and the hot coil hit the tip of my tongue. Luckily, it came away immediately as I reacted and pulled it away. A bit of my skin came away with it. I could smell it burn and hear a slight hiss and sizzle as it cooked my disconnected skin.

I didn’t scream, but I did whimper as I coiled my tongue into my cheek. I could feel it burning. I think it was saying “Idiot” to me in the only way it knew how. Jimmy was doubled over and laughing. His eyes were teary as he peeked to look at the horrified expression on my face.

Because I was poor and my mom refused to let us use the excellent insurance she had through her work, my concern was the possibility of needing medical care. Dad would have opted to slice off the tip of my tongue with one of his hunting knives, or push me into an open septic tank.

Sidenote: the house I lived in, one off of Powell and near Hatfield Street, and opposite the old City View trailer park, had a secret. There was a round garage on the property that Dad used for his mechanic business. The property had a well and a septic tank instead of city water and sewer. We had been bathing in – and drinking – water contaminated with sewer waste from a faulty septic tank for over a year. We kept complaining that everything tasted like sh*t. We weren’t wrong.

This is a true story.

Without going into the details, it’s why to this day I have to concentrate to take the first bite of ramen noodles.

Jimmy finally stopped laughing. My eyes cleared up enough for me to tell Jimmy I was going to sneak up on him while he was sleeping in his waterbed and put a snake under the covers with him. The idea of snakes on him while sleeping terrified him. He begged and pleaded for forgiveness.

My tongue hurt for several days. I had to play the French Horn. Each time my tongue punctuated a note against my lips or the mouthpiece, I’d cringe a little. I felt like a little poodle on the verge of wetting myself.

I never put a snake in the bed with Jimmy. But I thought about it. A million times.