Do Not Be Alarmed!

These words are typed by me, not in a hospital but, in the comfort of my own back porch. I am alive and well...full of vim and vigor...rejuvenated by yet another failed attempt on my life by Satan's hand puppet.

Screwtape there is a young'n...he'll be black as lump charcoal in a few years...won't be any more full of venom though. He's already wired for sound. I stepped right over him looking for a golf ball. I heard the unmistakable sound of a snake moving over dried leaves right behind me...right behind me. Like at my heel.

F*&%$ER!!!

Long time readers, of this and the various blogs, will know this is not the first time the Devil has sent his dirty workers after me; however, this is the first time I've been tracked out of state. This attempt came in Georgia...Lake Park, Georgia.

Do not be alarmed...I survived the attempted attack...and sent him slithering back to his boss with a message...

Co'cola not Coke a Co-lahhhh

My Daddy's been up for the last week or so...always a pleasure. Last weekend him and Martha were out trimmin' the bushes (I was napping) when Daddy got tore up by some wasps. By that evening his hand was swolled up pretty bad. There was only one thing to be done for it...he'd have to go see my sister and milk some anti-venom from her fangs.

In exchange, she kept him there two nights...drastic circumstances call for drastic measures but, I'm not sure I would have been willing to pay that price.

He did come back with this clip though...



For those of you not in the U.S....try this Buford Calloway.

If you were humorless, there are some problems here...chief among them being the old Yankee adage that a man's not a man unless the snow falls on his back...but, we are not humorless here. This s*** is hilarious...and fairly accurate! We don't do snow and the best place for you to be in a dusting is at home...with the doors locked. We fear snow like a Lancastrian fears the Sun.

The Georgian shot at South Carolina was a nice touch.

One thing though...it's Co'cola...not coke a co-lahhhh. :)

Cairo (Kay-Row)

Like the sign says...there, between Banbridge and Cairo, Georgia, in Whigham County, on the last Saturday of January...Rattlesnake Round Up. It's not a play on words....it's a mess of rattle snakes that have been rounded up in the area. You can watch them pop balloons and watch idiots be idiots with rattle snakes (I recently saw a man on tv put a bunch of them in his mouth in front of a small crowd for an even smaller fee...he got bit). They demonstrate how the venom is milked for anti-venom and you can eat 'em. I did...breaded and fried. Taste like squirrel...which kinda taste like gator...which really just taste like chicken. That must have been more than 30 years ago now.

They're still rounding them up though. In that part of Georgia and Florida you'll see signs up offering so much money per snake...not enough.



Tuscaloosa, Alabama...there are many things to love about Tuscaloosa...this is one of them. I don't even know what it was there for...car lot maybe...diner. Who knows. It sits behind a gas station now, near a ledge that separates it from the parking lot of Chinese buffet. It's not a very pleasant block and probably everything on it should be condemned but, I would imagine he persists there because no one wants to claim responsibility for tearing him down.




Madison Florida...probably the very edge of the cities jurisdiction. There was a bbq and juke there...maybe a hotel. I've been going to Madison all my life...41 years and it's been burnt down, and in that state, at least since then. If they ever do clear that lot I'll cry.



Somewhere along I-10 in North Florida.



Is there any place more beautiful in the cosmos than a fireworks stand...No!



Like you're author...North Florida Crackers.

Mississippi Kid

Alright then...that was Louisiana this week. Actually the place I stayed in Alexandria wasn't nearly so nice as that. Is there anyone here who doubts my slobbering devotion to Dixie? Well, even I have trouble making something romantic out of north Louisiana (as opposed to south Louisiana which is one of my favorite places on the part of the map that matters) I'm pretty sure those arrows are pointing east toward Mississippi...though given Byzantine layout of Alexandria (bypasses, three way stops off of frontage roads, loops to nowhere...loops...to nowhere) could probably just pick a spot on the compass and you wouldn't be wrong.

For me the arrows are pointing east-southeast through Alabama and Georgia into North Florida. I'm heading out, in the morning, to spend a few days with my Daddy...playing golf and drinking coffee. A decades old winning formula.

Provisions for the trip have been gathered...



Instead of the usual route that would take me down through Mobile, Alabama and along the Panhandle of Florida, I'm going first to Birmingham...then I'll wind my way down through Montgomery into the Wiregrass, with a swing through Georgia...just because.

I have my reasons, other than the fact that I've been making that same ride through Mobile for 25 years...namely Full Moon BBQ and the Birmingham Museum of Art. I had been under the impression that they had a collection of works by Jonathan Lasker...that was why I had originally made plans to go that way. I don't think his work is there anymore but...they have just reopened the African art collection (in the grand reopening was today)...so my plans are the same.

For the curious, Jonathan Lasker and African masks and shields have as much to do with my paintings as tractor trailers and firework stands. Which is to say, a great deal.