1/2 Century Old and Counting

Today I hit the magic “50” years in age. It is a number I never expected to reach with the many tumultuous events that have waylaid my life along the way. What is ironic is if the economy plummets into a depression, I am sure I will be contemplating a way to take my life or become the most prolific cannibal that has ever lived and write a best selling cook book on “200 - 20 Minute Quick and Delicious Ways to Cook Humans and Their Parts.” Life for me has been similar to walking a four inch wide ledge on a 25 story building with 30-40 MPH shearing crosswinds gusting. It is precarious at best but NEVER boring. One never knows when one will slip and fall into the maw of all the negative and painful and endless permutations of situations that life has to offer.

I was raised on a farm in a community that is a slice right out of Norman Rockwell’s perception of what life was once like with the exception of the people involved in his paintings are tall and excessive thin with huge noses. He could not perceive a time when everyone in the US would be overweight as well as a significant part of it being obese. I have contemplated updating Rockwell’s paintings to reflect this current anomaly but the subject matter will no longer fit within the constraints of a canvas or I would have to use very large canvases to do so. There were some people I happened to grow up with that did resemble the young man in the movie “Deliverance” and they could NOT play a Banjo as adeptly much to their detriment. Their idea of a good time on Saturday night was cow tipping which was a health hazard to cows if this occurred upon a hill. Ker plop! MOOOOO!, Roll, Roll, MOOOO!! IRK!

The people I lived around were good hearted people and took care of business. People have a misconception that all bad asses live in the confines of cities. They have never met irate farmers whose crops are being destroyed or stolen. I will not mention a farmer that has had a pig or chicken pilfered and lay traps to catch culprits. We actually had a stock located in the center of what was named ‘Greene” in which I lived. It did not get much use because people did not like to waste good produce or fruit throwing it at the incarcerated person. They preferred “pressing” to the stocks since it inflicted more pain and it provided their dogs plenty of salt to lick from the perpetrator's sweat.

I remember one time we formed a volunteer fire dept. and actually was subsidized by the county to purchase a fire engine. Well it was a nice horse drawn fire pumper from the early 1900s and look great in the chief’s yard when used as a planter for flowers. We kind of over looked that a horse was needed to pull the damn thing so it just sat and all the brass deteriorated. We attempted at one time to use dogs in a sled like fashion to pull the carriage but they were just more interested in smelling each other's butts.

I remember at one time walking into a bar named “Ajax's” that catered to rednecks and truckers. I had my hair just over my ear at the time. When I entered the bar to attain a case of beer, everyone was staring at me since I was considered a hippie. The bartender essentially threw the case of beer at me and then picked up a shotgun from behind the bar and ordered my “hippie“ ass out! Needless to say I never did that again. I would coerce my brother into getting our beer and of course to this day he has night terrors of farmers and truckers placing him on a t bar of wood and using him as a scarecrow. This was a standard costume at Halloween and it was sad to see a shell shocked brother run screaming from a 4 year old dressed as one, embarrassing as well.

I actually left that wonderful place when I was 18 and headed to California. This is when my interest in psychology piqued. I would go to dinner in downtown San Jose and observe people walking in circles and staring at themselves in the windows. I was particularly fond of the woman that barked at and chased buses as they drove by and I thought optimistically “By God, someday she will catch one!”

I was always interested in the psychological working of the mind so much so that it has been a passion of mine for years. I love viewing action/reaction with people. Why we have this propensity to revert back to being a child when in an altercation with someone is beyond me. I think this is why adult depends are so popular. Just in case we revert a little too far, we can evacuate our bowels and no one is the wiser and we can then go to our safe place and suck on our thumbs.

I have lived in the big city for over 30 years. A plethora of aberrant psychological behavior runs rampant and I love it. I postulated a sort of theory which through empirical observation does stand true. It is the 90% Lunatic Fringe theory. People like to believe that a small portion of the general population is what is perceived as crazy when in actuality it is 90% plus that shows diverse adherent behavior. This 90% now becomes the norm and the less then 10% which is normal is now deemed the abnormal. This accounts for why the vast majority of people that wear spandex should know shame but do not. It is one of the great affronts to God and man not to mention 400 pound plus people wearing butt floss underwear.

I will resign myself today to receiving all kinds of comments on how old I am. That is ok since I am really am an incubus and many people that make these comments will pay for them!