Category: lifestyle

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“This Is Going To Be A Little Uncomfortable”


The Day Of “The Procedure” Arrives

I’ve gone through three-quarters of my life not dwelling on or talking about medical conditions. Since I’ve become an old fart, well, it comes with the aging process. As a small child, I was perplexed when the older relatives sat around and compared ailments. My grandmother was the queen bee of that circle and the biggest hypochondriac that ever breathed. I’m not sure how she lived with all the terminal diseases and crippling conditions she harbored in that small body. So, here is her grandson, now 74 years old, taking the family medical Olympic torch from the old gal and not carrying it too well.

I comically wrote a few days ago about the injection procedure my spine surgeon booked for me in lieu of more surgery, which will be on down the road. Thursday night, I was wound up like a “Nickle Rat.” anticipating the 6:10 to Yuma at the surgery center. So I did what any modern male would do: I went for the drugs. 600 mg of Gabapentin, a big old Hydrocodone tablet, an 8 oz glass of Zquill, five cups of hot Ovaltine, and topped it all off with a Willie Nelson Sleep Gummy I picked up in New Mexico. Nothing…I lay in my Barcolounger and buzzed like a five-year-old after eating a full bag of Halloween candy; I was as crazed as an old Hippie at a Lynard Skynard concert and begging for merciful sleep. Any mortal human would have been in the emergency room after all that. I guess I’m more than mortal, possibly a Viking or Indian Spirit Animal.

MoMo found me in my lounger at 4 AM, slobbering and mumbling incoherently, eyes wide open. I Showered and dressed in sweats, no coffee, no water, no nothing; she slurped her delicious morning cup of Java while I had a bad case of the cotton mouth and eyes as bloodshot red as Dracula.

The kind and caring Pre-Op nurse at the surgery center got me in my hospital bed, gown on, shower cap, booties, and a warm fuzzy blanket, along with a nice little IV in my hand. I was ready. MoMo worked there for six years, so it was like the old home week for a while. Everyone was yakking and hugging and giving their secret “Nurse” handshake. I felt a bit left out, but I knew her friends would treat me better than well. Being married to a big-time Nurse has its perks.

My CRNA asked me if I had been through this procedure before, ” Nope, I’m a newbie here,” I replied.

“Well,” he says, ” these days, it’s all done by a doctor-guided robot, so there are fewer missed shots.” The term missed shots caught my attention.

” You mean the robot has made a few mistakes?” said I. I began looking for an exit door in case I needed to bolt.

” Only a few here and there, it’s no big deal; it’s usually caused by user error or a bad controller unit; the robot is very good at what he does.” The CRNA is sold on this bot.

Wide awake and scared, I’m rolled into the OR. There, standing beside the stainless table is a six-foot robot holding an enormous syringe full of white liquid in each metal hand. He is a spot-on copy of “Robby The Robot” from the 1950s movie ” The Forbidden Planet.” My doctor sits on a stool staring at a large LED screen, holding a Nintendo Game controller and drinking a Red Bull. I am rolled onto the table, face down. The CRNA says I will receive a little Propofol in my IV and will have a sweet little nap. I ask if that is the same stuff Michael Jackson took; he says yes. We all know how that turned out. The robot gives me a reassuring pat on my behind and makes a few bleeps and whirly sounds; the nurse says count to ten; I’m out by three. I see Michael Jackson riding on a golden cloud, waving at me to follow him. No way, dude. Then Elvis stops in a cherry 55 drop-top Caddie. In the backseat are Jimi Hendrix, George Harrison, Robert Johnson, Roy Orbison, and Ertha Kitt. Sitting next to Elvis is a radiant Ann Margret. I hop in and take shotgun. Ann winks at me and says, “I’m not really dead, you know, but I have a special arrangement to come and visit E a few times a month, don’t tell anyone you saw me here.” Nope, your secret is safe with me, darlin’. She hands me a bottled Coke and a peanut butter and nanna samwich.

I open my eyes, and there is MoMo, giving me her reassuring attention. My Post-Op nurse is making sure I wake up and don’t freak out. I ask her about Elvis and Ann Margret, and I want some of that sleepy stuff to take home with me. She laughs and says that’s one of the best dreams yet. I’m dressed, wheelchair to the car, MoMo helps me in the passenger side, and the nurse hands us a card from the staff and an 8×10 glossy photo of “Robert,” the medical robot. He’s standing in front of a Western building wearing a flat-brim black hat and a Mexican sarape. Two holsters hold a handful of large syringes instead of a 45 Colt. In a weird shaky signature, it reads, ” Come back and see me, pardner; I never miss a shot.”

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Baby Woodstock


Since the original festival date recently slipped by, I thought this story deserved a curtain call.

Velveteen and Zig-Zag, photo courtesy of Ken Kesey

Before Covid hit, my cousin Velveteen and her husband Zig-Zag were planning a small reincarnation of the famous Woodstock festival but delayed the event for safety reasons. They met there in 1969 and have been together since that night they spent clutching each other in the “Freak-Out tent,” both suffering from a bad reaction to the brown acid that the announcer warned everyone about.

Now in their late 70s, the couple resides in Red River, New Mexico, in a commune called the “Wavy Gravy Senior Retreat.” Zig-Zag is the entertainment director, and Velveteen is the main spiritual advisor and palm reader.

I received a letter from them a few days ago, and by golly, the “Baby Woodstock” is on for this coming July and will be held in the scenic mountains of New Mexico. They finished the school bus conversion a few weeks ago, and it’s a beautiful reproduction of Ken Kesey’s Merry Prankster school bus.

Photo by Wavy Gravy

The entertainment for the festival is going to be a bit dicey since many of the original performers are dead, in a nursing home, not playing anymore, or too out of it. Zig-Zag, bless his old pot-smoking heart, did the best he could on such short notice.

The list is: Sha-Na, the other Na has passed on; Joe Cockers’ red, white, and blue cowboy boots; Carlos Santana’s guitar and stand, David Crosby, since no one likes his grumpy ass anymore; Arlo Guthrie’s ex-wife Alice, A full-size cardboard cut-out of John Sebastian accompanied by a recording of him saying “Wow man” for twenty minutes, Melanie riding her personal scooter made from roller skates, Jimi Hendrix’s rapping cousin, little Purple Haze, Country Joe McDonald’s grandson, City Boy Dave, Joni Mitchell says she might make this one, Grace Slicks pet dog Roach, and of course, Wavy Gravy and the Hog Farm will furnish all the food and drinks. Wavy says this time, they will be serving breakfast in bed, delivered to your tent by a drone.

We plan on attending. Tickets are available through AARP, Walmart, and Medicare Part B. See you there.

Peace Out Brother

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Death By Hot Pepper


I am not a food critic or a reviewer, so forgive me if this sounds a bit over the top; true accounts usually do.

Some years back, I was tinkering around making a hot sauce or a salsa for my consumption and gastronomic distress. A buddy of mine who served in Vietnam suggested I use one of the peppers he smuggled back to the States in 1970 and has, for decades, grown them in his backyard garden. Sure thing, I would love to use them. He warned me they are the hottest peppers on earth, and a grown man would die within twenty minutes if he ate a whole pepper. He saw a chicken eat one, and the poor bird exploded into a mass of feathers and guts within a few minutes.

A few days ago, he brought me one small pepper and said it was all I would need. It was triple-wrapped in foil, double-bagged in heavy-duty Ziploc bags, and transported in a soft-walled Yeti cooler.

“Why all the elaborate precautions?” I asked.

” He looked a bit nervous as he handed me the bag and said, ” These babies are so damn hot that even breathing or smelling them will singe your lungs, destroy your sense of smell, and might make you blind.” Now I’m scared.

Written on the baggie is the name of the pepper, “Vietnamese Death Pepper.” The name alone is enough to scare the liver out of me, but being a man and not wanting to disappoint my buddy and look like a pansy-ass, I proceeded on.

The cute little Vietnamese Death Pepper

I gingerly removed the foil-wrapped pepper from the baggies, took it to the back patio, positioned myself upwind, and unwrapped the foil cacoon. There it lay, a small, harmless-looking red pepper about the size of my pinky toe. It was quite beautiful in its own way. My buddy said to wear gloves when handling the little demon and to use only a tiny sliver in your recipe, or you might die in agony. I put on leather gloves, a scuba mask, and a triple filter breathing device, shaved a tiny sliver into a Tupperware container, then wrapped the pepper up and stored it in the bottom drawer of my fridge. I figure to use this in my salsa or hot sauce that’s cooking on the range.

Even with Jalapenos, hot cajun onions, and ghost peppers, my hot pepper sauce is too mild, so I put the sliver into the boiling mix, letting the brew steep for a few hours, and I shuffled off to watch cooking videos.

I bottled the mix into a clean Jameson Irish Whiskey bottle and corked it shut. Then completed my salsa and added one drop of the hot sauce to the mix. My wife, MoMo, stood on our patio while I Facetimed her the procedure. It’s now or never. I dipped a sacrificed corn chip into the salsa, raised it to my quivering lips, and popped it into my mouth. Dang, now that’s some good stuff. About two minutes later, my guts churned, my belly swelled like a dead whale, I had trouble breathing, and my vision blurred; then my legs gave out, and I went down for the count. MoMo rushed in and began resuscitation; she was sure I was a goner. I saw visions and was going to the light, but the ghost of Chef Anthony Bourdain told me to go back and “not use so much of that little pepper,” he also called me a moron as he floated back to his personal cloud. I spent the next three days in the bathroom or confined to my bed, but I made a full recovery and never felt better. My gut is cleaned out, my vision is better, I can smell a fly’s fart, and my skin rash has healed, and my teeth are gleaming white. This stuff might be a miracle elixir. I cooked a new brew and used a minuscule dot of the killer pepper. The new batch turned out perfect; just enough heat and flavor, but none of the life-threatening side effects.

I’m working on a label, and the name of my new hot pepper sauce is “Davey Crockett’s Ass Cannon.” A nod to my buddies over at “The Sons of The Alamo” lodge, of which I am a member. It’s guaranteed to blow out your colon, incinerate those pesky hemorrhoids, make the lame walk, the mute talk, turn your hair from gray to its natural color, and remove wrinkles. Pictured above is what’s left of my second batch of salsa using my hot pepper sauce.

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Mountain Air Will Set You Free


Picture, courtesy of Fred Flintstone

After a week in the mountains of New Mexico, it’s good to be back home, I guess, but I would rather be back in Ruidoso’s cool, thin mountain air.

Mrs. MoMo and I have been, for years, regular visitors to the village of Ruidoso, New Mexico. If not for Texans, we believe the town would be a service station, a post office with one red light, and a herd of wild horses if Texans stopped coming. I’ve yet to meet a local that wasn’t a former resident of Texas.

We are used to seeing and swerving our car to avoid hitting, feeding, and gawking at the Deer, the ornery Elk, and the pesky herds of Wild Horses, and now we have seen the handy work of the local dumpster-diving Black Bears. These aren’t your usual Bears; they are “smarter than the average Bear.” The dumpsters have a bolted stop-gap, and the Einstien Bears have figured out how to open the lids. The big one wore a pork pie hat and a necktie; the little sidekick sported a bowtie and whined a lot. The lady next door captured them with her iPhone camera.

We awoke, carried our coffee mugs onto the front deck, and were greeted with a trail of white plastic trash bags torn and strewn half a block down the street. A kind lady in the house across the street helped us clean it up. I had thrown away an empty bottle of Irish Whiskey and found the top cork pulled out and slobbery evidence that a Bear had stuck his tongue in the bottle, trying to get the last drop of hooch. They also enjoyed the last bite of the Frito Bean Dip we tossed and some stale corn chips and chicken scraps. If I had known the critters were that hungry, I would have sat out a “Pic-a-Nic Basket” for them.

The big draw for Ruidoso is the quarter horse races at the Downs. I don’t bet anymore (I’m a cheap ass), but MoMo has it down to a science, and she wins money. If the horse is cute and frisky, and she likes his racing colors and the color of the jockey’s silks, and the horse takes a big poop while parading before the race, she slaps some cash down. She also considers the name of the pony, like; Blue Byou, Lewie Lewie We Gotta Go, Take The Money And Run, Trailer Park Queen, Beach Blanket Bingo, Mama’s Money Bag, and so on. Do the owners ask the horse if they like their name? Probably not. Imagine a stately racehorse with a ridiculous name.

Since the pot is now legal in New Mexico, we saw small groups of aged Hippies wandering the sidewalk in the Mid-Town shopping district. It seems the Woodstock generation has moved to New Mexico for the fresh mountain air breathed through a bong.

Velvetine and Woodstock. Photo by Timothy Leary
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World Breaking News From The Cactus Patch..No kidding.


Breaking News from The Dead South News Service

Mrs. Mister, 1958. Photo by Mr. Mister

Flash – London, England. A genomic study out of Britain found that natural Blonde women will be extinct by 2223. The last natural blonde woman will be born in Finland in 2220. Genome scientists are working frantically to find a new genetic cure. It’s believed that the overabundance of “bottle blondes” in our society has mysteriously affected the natural gene in the world’s women, causing it to rebel and destroy itself. The Geno team also said that Fox News and CNN will be SOL in finding a news host if they are still around.

Get off my grass, or I’ll sick my T-Rex on you!

The same Geno team has recently discovered from a sample taken from a Neanderthal skull found in a downtown park in France that the Neanderthal’s died off because they carried a gene that caused them to resist change, wanting to keep things like they were “in the good old days.” It’s said that around 70 percent of modern men and women carry the gene, and it becomes awake and active around the age of seventy. That explains everything.

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The Cactus Patch Has Had Enough Of Texas…For A While


Hitch up the wagons, load the party bus, and roll em out…

I’m kidding of sorts, we don’t own a wagon or a bus anymore, but the Honda CRV is a good substitute, and it has air conditioning and practically drives itself. It’s been over a hundred degrees here for a month. I’m not talking about a mere pansy-assed 100 degrees; we’re talking real temperatures, like, 105-110, and that’s without a heat index thrown in that makes it feel like a visit to Hell On Wheels Texas in Satan’s un-airconditioned tour bus. MoMo and I are escaping and going to Ruidoso, New Mexico, this week. The land of enchantment, cool air, majestic mountains, and high rental rates. Hoping to see Deer, Elk, Bear, and Aliens if we stop in Roswell. Since the pot is legal in New Mexico, and Ruidoso has a large collection of cute little shops selling the evil weed, we will likely see many old hippie-type folks stumbling around town or cleaning out the Hostess cupcake aisle at “The Walmart.” The last time we were there, MoMo purchased some gummies made in the shape of Willi Nelson’s head, and they messed up my head badly. They were supposed to relax you and let you sleep like a baby.. naturally. At least that’s what the cute little Pot-a-rista told us. All I heard for two days was ” On The Road Again” and “Red-Headed Stranger,” and that was in my head, no music playing. I’m taking ample Irish Whiskey this time. At least if I stumble and fall from the whiskey, I won’t think it’s a revelation or a sign from above and say, “Wow, that was far-out; let’s do it again.”

Aliens eating Egg-A-Muffins and happy meals…

On the last trip to Ruidoso, we stopped in Roswell, New Mexico, UFO, and Alien Central. Having breakfast in the local Mcdonald’s downtown, a short walk to the Alien Museum, was a treat. The place’s interior is all UFO design with a play area shaped like a saucer. There was no shortage of strange people in the place. One homeless alien was taking a sink bath in the men’s restroom, and another ratty alien was begging for money in the parking lot. As we left, MoMo got excited because she spotted a little alien walking with some Earth Pod People. We stopped to gawk and realized It was a five-year-old big-headed kid in spider man pajamas walking with his parental units. She was bummed out. I told her not to worry keep believing because they will be here soon. Turns out, they are here and have been for quite a while now. She’s scared.

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Baseball, Balloon Tires and Cap Pistols


I first met Billy Roy on a Monday morning in September of 1957 when Mrs. Edwards, our third-grade teacher, introduced him to our class. He stood next to her, arms crossed with a sour-ball look on his face.

I knew this kid was trouble. He hadn’t done a thing to anyone yet, but he had that weaselly look about him; beady eyes, no chin, partially bucked front teeth, and a bad haircut giving him the appearance of a hillbilly.

Our teacher says he is from Hamburg, Germany, and his father is an officer out at Carswell Air Force Base. Billy Roy, she says, is a German and an American citizen but doesn’t speak good English quite yet. So then, what is he, an all-American boy or a Nazi transplant? We, kids, knew all about those guys, watching World War II movies on channel 11 and playing war with our BB guns. We always whopped the Nazis and the Jap’s. We also took care of the Mexican army when we defended the Alamo.

As luck would have it, Billy Roy now lives in my neighborhood, three houses down from my best buddy, Skipper, so after school, the gang calls an emergency meeting to figure out how to deal with this infiltrator.

It’s decided to give the “new kid” a chance to prove his salt; he would be allowed to hang with us until deemed worthy or fell flat on his face.

Our parents got word of our secret plan and told us, “We had better be nice to Billy Roy, or we would wind up at the “Dope Farm.” Someone ratted us out; most likely, it was Georgie; he’s afraid of everything and can’t keep a secret. He is also a known titty-baby.

“The Dope Farm” is a juvenile detention institution that our parents use as a threat when we act up. It keeps us in line. The stories about the place give us nightmares; it’s Sing-Sing for children. One of my older cousins spent some time there, and later when he was supposedly rehabilitated, he robbed a Piggly Wiggly dressed as a woman.

Saturday came our day to ride our bikes to Forest Park diamonds for pick-up baseball games. Our group of eight departed from Skipper’s house at 8:30 am. Billy Roy is standing on the sidewalk as we approach his house.

Skipper stops and asks Billy Roy if he has a bike and a glove; in broken English, he states he has neither of those items.

Georgie, the titty-baby, then says in a snarky tone, “if you don’t have a bike and don’t play baseball, you can’t be part of our gang.” The word’s spoken, the gauntlet laid. It looks as if Billy Roy might be out. Everyone gives him “the look” as they ride by. I feel a little bad for the kid.

Billy Roy keeps to himself during the next school week, eating his sack lunch alone and staying inside during recess. We can care less. He can’t tote his salt.

Saturday morning, 8:30 am, the same scenario. We leave Skippers’ house on bikes, heading for the ball diamonds. As we approach Billy Roys’s house, he comes flying out of his garage on a brand-spanking-new Schwinn Hornet bike. A chrome headlight and taillight adorn the bright red and white bike—the sun’s reflection off the chrome fenders that cover the white sidewall balloon tires is blinding. Hanging on the handlebars is a new double-stitched  “Plug Redman” Rawlings baseball glove, and sitting on his little head is a genuine New York Yankees ball cap.

Skipper skids to a stop, and the rest of our bunch almost wrecks our bikes, trying to miss him. What is going on here?

The gang is in awe and more than a tad envious. This kid’s been here two weeks, doesn’t play baseball, can’t speak English, is likely a German spy, and here he is riding the Cadillac of bikes and now sports new ball equipment. Some snot-nose in our neighborhood is as rich as King Faruk, and it isn’t us.

Skipper, the wise leader of our bunch, surveys the scene, then tells Billy Roy that he can come along with us to the baseball diamonds since he now has the required items. So he rides at the end of our pack and struggles to control his expensive bike. He crashes a few times but catches up. Unfortunately for our intern, things don’t go well at the ballpark.

After educating Billy Roy on holding and swinging a bat, he’s bonked square in the forehead with a 40-mile-per-hour hardball. He’s out like a corpse.

The umpire, some kid’s father, drags him over to the bleachers and pours a cup of cold water on his head. Billy Roy wakes up, staggers for a minute, and acts like nothing happened. We are impressed; he’s tougher than we thought.

Around the fourth inning, Billy Roy tells us that he is going home. He’s a bit dizzy and wobbly after his bonk and can’t participate in the rest of the game. We get it. He departs, driving his fancy bike from curb to curb like a blind drunk.

After the game, which we won, we gathered our stuff left in the dugout.

Stevie says he can’t find his Cub Scout knife. Freckled Face Bean can’t find his Roy Rogers watch, and Skippers’ decoder ring is missing. My almost new pack of Juicy Fruit is also gone. Good Lord! There’s a thief amongst us. Georgie, the titty-baby, is the likely culprit; but he says he can’t find his dental retainer, so he’s cleared. That makes Billy “the Nazi” Roy, the perpetrator. There is an ass-whoopin’ brewing. With retribution in our hearts, we haul ass to Billy’s house.

Mrs. Roy answers their door. We demand to see Billy, so she brings him to face us. He stands behind the screen door for protection. But, of course, he denies it all until Skipper tells him to step onto the porch so he can whoop him. Billy steps onto the porch, but before Skipper can get a lick in, Billy pulls a switchblade knife from his pocket. He pops the blade and waves it at Skipper. Yikes! Not only is the little Nazi a thief, but he’s also a West Side Story hoodlum. We leave the porch and the guilty Billy Roy to his young life of crime.

After the incident, Billy Roy, to us kids, is a fart in the wind.

Having ruined his reputation in our neighborhood, he starts hanging with some older hoodlum boys from across the railroad tracks; we call them “The Hard Guys.” We are sure they will wind up at “The Dope Farm” sooner or later, and now young Billy will join them.

Billy Roy has been missing from school for almost a week, a few days before Christmas vacation. We figure he has the bird flu or polio.

The next day, a rumor around the neighborhood, and now our school, is that Billy Roy and two of the “Hard Guys” were pinched for holding up our small neighborhood grocery store with a Mattel Fanner 50 cap pistol.

We all agreed that the bonk from the baseball injured his kid’s brain and turned him into a criminal. Last we heard, Billy and the two “hard guys” were off to the “Dope Farm.”

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Breaking News From The Cactus Patch


White House First Dog Bites 6 Secret Service Agents

” It’s Cocaine Dog”

The Secret Service, after being bitten six times by the new First Dog, confirms the dog found another baggie of the white powder on the front lawn. It appears the First Dog ingested a large quantity of the drugs before going on a biting spree through the president’s private residence. Agent 86 confirms the dog has been spending a lot of his off time with first son, Hunter.

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The Summer I Became A Feral Child


It was the summer of my seventh year, 1957.

It was too hot to play pick-up baseball games unless my buddies and I got to the Forest Park Ball Diamonds before 8 am, and the city pool was closed because of the Polio scare; my mother kept a picture of an iron lung taped to the icebox to remind me what would happen if I disobeyed her orders. Boredom set upon us, we had too much free time on our grimy little hands, so the six of us that comprised our neighborhood coterie did what any gang of young boys would do; we went feral. It was two full months of constant butt-whoopings, loss of cartoon time, and other parental vs child warfare. My buddies and I agreed it was our best summer so far.

Mr. and Mrs. Mister, our next-door neighbors and mentors, attempted to reel us in, which worked for a short while. Mrs. Mister, a wonderful mom substitute who resembled the movie starlet Jane Mansfield, would let us sit under their backyard Mimosa tree. At the same time, she served chocolate chip cookies and Grape Kool-Aid to control our restless young spirits. Fred and Ginger, her twin white Poodles, would join us and beg for cookies. Mr. Mister, when his wife wasn’t looking, would let us have a sip or two of his ice-cold Pearl beer. We were bad assed and nation-wide.

This was the summer we declared war on our school tormenters, the older boys across the tracks known as “the hard guys.” And thanks to Mr. Mister and his military and engineering experience, we successfully implemented a detailed plan and defeated our nemesis. Sidewalk biscuits with implanted cherry bombs and a small Roman Catapult designed by Mr. Mister played a role in the defeat. Instead of feeling remorse for injuring our schoolmates, the battle made us insufferable and meaner, fueling our summer of feral behavior.

Our parents and Mrs. Mister were shocked and bewildered. Fifty or so butt-whoopings with everything from a belt, switch, and a Tupperware pan, didn’t phase me or my gang. The three girls in our neighborhood, our classmates, were all tomboys, and they said we were now “too mean” for them to associate with. Cheryl, our center fielder, the only girl we would allow to play on our team, called us “mean little shits.” Those are pretty sophisticated words from a seven-year-old gal, although we knew some of the good ones we heard from our fathers.

Skipper, or resident math wiz and duly elected gang leader, had the “Hubba-hubba’s” for Cheryl and gave her his tiny Mattel Derringer cap pistol as a sign of affection. He found it on his front porch one morning with a note from her mother that read, ” stay away from my daughter, you mean little shit.” Now we know where her scoffing comments came from. He was crushed, of course, but he was young and felt much better after he blew up Mr. Rogers’s mailbox with a cherry bomb. Firecrackers and high-powered fireworks secretly supplied by Mr. Mister played a big role in our feralivious behavior. The two neighborhood garages that caught fire were blamed on us, and Georgie, with his love of matches and lighter fluid, may have had something to do with those fires, but he wouldn’t admit to it.

My parents started taking Miltowns, an early pill similar to Xanex, and most other parents began drinking more than normal. Mr. Mister was called in to negotiate a truce, but secretly, he was on our side. He felt boys should have the right to cut loose and show their young oats, even though we didn’t have raging hormones, underarms, or pubic hair, which we anxiously awaited.

Our parents had enough of our feral behavior, and one Saturday evening, there was a hot dog party in our backyard. All my gang was there, as were their parents. Ice cream and a cake were served along with burnt wieners, and the Misters were there with Fred and Ginger. It was a downright ambush, the predecessor to the popular “intervention.” Our parents let us know that the next stop for us was “The Dope Farm,” an institution where malcontents and little hoodlums were sent to do time. We knew the stories about the place. It was out of a horror movie, and Father Flannigan wouldn’t be there to save us. It was time to clean up or be locked up doing hard labor and eating maggot-infested gruel. No more baseball, cartoons, or Mrs. Mister’s cookies and Kool-Aid. We huddled, agreed amongst ourselves, and promised our parents we would walk the righteous path of the good child. We did for the most part, but we hid our stash of cherry bombs for the next summer.

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Making The Best Of A “Bud Situation”


Mrs MoMo was driving me to Fort Worth a few days ago for some reason I can’t remember now. When passing through Whiskey Flats, a small strip of Liquor stores along Highway 377, I saw my old buddy Mooch loading his pickup with cases of beer. He and a young man were rolling out cases of hooch from the liquor store called “The Beer Church.”

I implored MoMo to turn around and take me back to the “Beer Church.” She spun her mighty white Honda around, and we did a Dukes of Hazzard side-slide into the gravel parking lot. As I approached Mooch, I could see that his pickup bed was full of cases of Bud Light with that transgender mutt on the can.

I asked Mooch why he was buying that beer and did he understand that he was about to lose all his buddies in his “Plowboys” militia, and me, to boot.

He hung his head, shuffled his feet a few times, and said, ” I couldn’t help it, lil buddy, they are selling me this Fairy Piss for two bucks a case just to get it out of their store, but I have a plan. First, I will put on real dark sun-glasses so I can’t see the can too good, then I will spray all the cans with black paint, then put them in some cardboard Home Depot moving boxes and stack them in my garage. No one will know it’s a Busch beer. Then, I will take my Lone Star long necks and a funnel, mix the two beers together, put a new cap on the bottle, and store them in my ice-box in the garage. Since Lone Star is a real mans Texas beer, it won’t be Bud Light Fairy Piss anymore; it’ll be one of those new Texas crafty beers. Then it’s safe to drink it without the risk becoming a transgender mutt or getting my ass kicked, and I’m saving a butt-load of money.”

I must admit, there was nothing wrong with his plan. Sound reasoning and economics and it will probably be a drinkable craft beer.

As MoMo pulled our car out of the lot, I told her, ” Mooch is bringing me a few cases of Lone Star Craft Beer on Saturday.”