Old Follks at Home

Bradenton, at least my little corner of it, was a strange place to grow up in. When my parents first moved there, there weren't many kids in our neighborhood for my sister and I to play with. There was also a prevailing parenting philosophy at the time that if kids weren't doing yardwork or domestic work, they should be out doing ...something or other until dinner time. That's how my sister and I made friends with a lot of old people.

Our street was full of elderly people - I remember at least two of them referred to as "The Colonel." You'd see them out watering their yards or smoking cigars and they'd talk to you. Somehow my sister and I decided to take our old person relationship to the next level.

I definitely remember us hanging out in a lot of sun rooms, Florida rooms, and living rooms (I sort of think all of these are the same room). Sometimes our elderly neighbors would give us cookies or candy, and we'd talk about...jeez, I have no idea. School? What else could we talk about? The houses were shaded by palm trees and you could see the quartz crystals sparkling on the outside walls. The rooms were heavily air-conditioned, so much so that you could almost see your breath indoors. You could also vaguely smell the residue of decades worth of cigarette residue on the walls.

Sometimes WDUV would be on lightly in the background, making me think now that we were part of the entertainment for cocktail  hour.

Funny thing is, I don't ever remember an invitation, I just remember going up to the door, like you would with an age-appropriate friend.


I do remember a couple of the old guys telling me some pretty cool WWII stories, but I've forgotten most of them, only retaining the impression of hanging out in the cold Florida living rooms while the ceiling fans whirred above.

I don't know what the old people got out of these visits - I guess they got to hang out with some little kids for an hour or so until we all sort of mutually decided our visiting time was up.

I also remember cutting through people's yards and gardens regularly - whether on our way to the bus stop in the morning, or just deciding to play in someone's back yard other than our own. There were lots of houses with landscaping full of ferns and palms dark enough that you could pretend you were in a jungle. There was also a family of wild parrots in the neighborhood that would screech occasionally to add authenticity.

We didn't have a strong concept of property rights, and luckily this is before Florida became synonymous with shooting people, and I guess nobody really minded a pair of kids trespassing through their property at the time. If they did, they never said anything about it.

Again, I realize that this is another of those stories that makes it sound like I grew up in the '30s or something, but if you think about it, culturally, the early '80s were still really the '70s. Then you have to subtract a few years for it being Florida, then another few years for it not being Tampa or Miami, and ....uh, do a little more subtraction, and you've ended up with 1964. That seems about right.

Spanks. Spanks a Lot

I'm always astounded when what I think are simple, universal experiences are anything but. I mean, yeah, I realize that some things, like your parents hiding ancient Indian skulls in your closet or being forced to pick up mangoes as a child are fairly esoteric, but most of what I write here I just naively assume are experiences that just about everyone who grew up in roughly the same time period as I did can share and laugh at.

So yeah, I'm always a little amazed that people are shocked that I went to a high school that still spanked students.

I grew up in a time when most parents spanked their kids. Most parents don't spank anymore which is probably a good thing. All it really teaches you (or taught me, anyway) is that there is someone bigger and more powerful than you who can cause you physical pain, so it's best to sneak around and not get caught. Or that you can inflict pain on someone smaller than you, like say, a convenient younger brother or sister.

I was spanked as a kid, and I hated it. Looking back, my parents had to live with me 24/7. I'm surprised they didn't beat me more just on principle. The weird thing was, it always seemed like any adult back then had free reign to grab you and start spankin.' I remember the first time I got spanked by a teacher. I was laughing at a comment someone next to me made in my second grade class. My teacher grabbed me by the arm, lifted me out of my desk into the dark, deserted hallway and gave me two licks with a ruler. While it hurt physically, the worst part was having to go back into class and sit down while everyone knew I was bad and got spanked. Also, I was shaking and trying not to cry.

Of course, that was in Mississippi, so I was probably lucky I didn't end up on a junior chain gang.

There were always teachers you had to look out for. There was a teacher later in elementary school who was notorious for shaking the hell out of kids. I know, because it happened to me. Once again, I was laughing, this time in a line, when she came up and said, "You think that's funny? Do you think this is funny," as she shook my little fourth grade body around like a paint can. This was a public high school in Florida. No other teachers came running up saying, "Hey, crazy teacher, I think you've shaken him enough," or "Hey! You know you can't shake kids, crazy teacher! We had that big staff meeting about that!" She wasn't even my teacher, just a woman who saw a kid who needed some shaking and decided she was the one for the job.

Most kids who grew up in the same era have similar stories; whether they themselves were spanked or shook, or they saw or heard about classmates getting similar punishments. This is probably why when a kid was called to the office, the entire class had to go "Oooooooooooooooh."

But what really throws people is when I casually mention that I was spanked in high school. In the 1980s. That's right, while everyone else in the country was dancing around to Kajagoogoo, having their John Hughes-esque day-glo good times, students at our high school were regularly spanked by adults.

I'm not sure what you had to do to get licks. I only remember getting them for talking/laughing in class (careful readers can detect a trend here) and once for getting three tardies. I don't know if girls got spanked or that was just a punishment for the guys. I do remember the last time I went in. I was a senior, which really seems too old for someone to get spanked. The dean gave me a choice of three licks or a three day suspension. I took the licks, since my parents wouldn't have to find out.

He called in a secretary. Apparently you had to have a witness. She looked at me and said, "Oh, I don't like it when they're little like this. They remind me of my grandchildren." I remember thinking, "You have the power to stop this, lady. Stand up and say something, and we can all walk out of here."

No dice. I grabbed a desk, took out my wallet, and spread my legs. Licks were delivered via an actual wooden paddle. The first one took a while, I guess he was warming up or trying to build suspense. It wasn't too bad, but holy crap did the next two sting. Just like elementary school, I didn't cry (plus, by now I had the advantage of being almost a full-grown man), but I was pretty shaky as I left the office.

In the years since I've had a number of jobs that required me to do things I didn't necessarily want to do, so I sympathized with the dean a bit more. The guy got a degree in education, thinking he was going to mold young minds, and instead he goes home each day with a sore shoulder and cramped hand from spanking teenage boys.

Years later, in my erotic life, I met several partners who liked the occasional spank. I am above all a gentleman, so I obliged. I'll admit, it was pretty fun, even though part of me was thinking, "didn't she get enough of this in high school?" Then I realized she probably had a normal upbringing where she wasn't getting spanked by deans for being late to class three times.

 It also made me wonder if maybe I was wrong in giving that dean the benefit of the doubt.

Welcome to the Working Week

For a fundamentally lazy person, I've always gotten along fairly well in the working world. My first real job was bagging groceries, and I soon found that not only was it less work than I would be doing at home, but it was actually scheduled and I got paid for it. Granted, in those ancient times minimum wage was a couple of shiny nickles and a handful of hard candy, but that was enough to buy records and keep my car in gas.

For a relatively simple job, there seemed to be about a thousand different things to know. Was it OK to put dishwashing detergent in the same bag as sealed food? How full should I pack the bags? And I only took a few tests after the interview. Was I really qualified to start bagging so soon?

On my first day a woman had some candles that weren't priced. I had to find them and report the price to the cashier. This is called a "pricecheck" in the business. I speedwalked through the crowded store looking for the candle aisle. I never remembered seeing any candles when I went to the store with my parents. Jesus, how may aisles does this store have, anyway? You know, those candles looked like they should be about 3 bucks. Sure, let's say that. I made my way back to my cashier and confidently lied, "Three dollars," hoping she couldn't see that I was sweating.
"Three dollars? Did you find them on aisle three," she asked.
"Oh yeah. Isle three. Yep, that's where they are."
"They're 5 dollars. They're right over there in that bin," she pointed out with all the scorn a cashier can muster to a lowly bagger.
If she knew the answer, why would she let me lie to her like that? I made it a point to find another cashier to work with as soon as possible.

I also made a friend that day. Well, he made me, I guess. He was this little weaselly looking guy who kept talking to me while I was trying to concentrate on bagging and price checks and what the cashiers looked like naked.

Kids - here's a tip on the house. When you're a young adult, the first person you meet at a job, school, church group, or extracurricular activity is generally someone who has burned through everyone else and sees you as a way to start fresh. Try to stay away from them.

Not to say this guy didn't have his good qualities. Cleaning up one night he showed me his favorite trick. He took an apple from a display, took a hefty bite out of it, and returned it to the display, with the bite side on the inside.

"Check it out," he said. "Tomorrow some old lady will be reaching for an apple and she'll pull out this gross looking bit one."

I had to admit that was pretty funny.

Overall it was a pretty good job - old people slipped me tips, and whenever I needed time to myself, I could go out and gather carts, watching the bank clock turn over as I counted down the hours til quitting time. I'd daydream about how in a few short years I could promote to stockboy, then a manager, and then maybe run my own chain of stores. It would probably be a short hop from grocery store magnate to President, I'd imagine.

Every month we'd have a night where we had to stay late and clean. We'd take out all the eggs and milk and spray bleach water in the display cases to clean out the grossness, mop up, and prepare the shelves and floors for a crew to come in late at night to scour the place. It was kind of fun, mostly because we weren't dealing with customers, the managers would play classic rock over the PA system, and we could sneak cookies from the bakery. There were rumors that some managers allowed workers to make huge Scooby-Doo sandwiches from the deli, but that never happened while I was around.

Every once in a while, I'll get a whiff of bleach with an undertone of sour milk and be transported back to my high school grocery career. I can hear Bad Company, Foreigner, and the Guess Who and wonder why I gave up on my dreams of becoming a grocery store magnate.

Then I'll remember how bad that sour milk in the display cases actually smelled, and how getting off at 1 a.m. really kinda sucked, and I'm kind of glad I left the world of groceries behind.

A Boy Named Sue

I was about 13 the first time I was sued.

Actually, sued is a strong word. More like threatened to be sued. But when you're not even in high school and words like attorney, legal action and collection agency are being thrown around, you tend to lose your grasp of the subtleties of the English language.

I liked making models as a kid. While my finished versions never really looked like the photos on the box, something about assembling and having a miniature tank or helicopter or whatever really appealed to me. And the end results weren't too important anyway, since I tended to blow them up with firecrackers or set them on fire, imagining the awful carnage I was inflicting on my 1/32 scale world.

Looking back, perhaps I needed some sort of therapy.

One day I saw an ad in a comic book for something called the Young Model Builder's Club. Sort of like the Columbia House Record Club, you'd pay a penny for your first model, then get a model each month that you'd either pay for or send back. I don't remember the price of the monthly models, I just remember the offer of a free model and sent in my penny.

I had previous experience with Columbia House, carefully picking out the 12 starter albums, then waiting forever until they arrived in the mail. I didn't even get to open the box when my parents intercepted and made me send it back, telling me what a scam the club was and lecturing me on fiscal responsibility. I was pissed, because I could see ZZ Top's "Eliminator" there on the top, just waiting to teach me about being a sharp dressed man.

Luckily, my parents weren't home when the model box showed up. I assembled an F-16, painted it, and then probably blew it up.

Couple weeks later, I got a car. Car models were just OK, because I could actually see those in real life and they didn't have guns or bombs on them. But it was something to assemble, and maybe it would help me learn about engines and stuff when I got older. Oh, there was also a bill enclosed. I think it was for like 8 bucks. I was going to pay, but things got away from me and I forgot all about it.

Weeks later, I got another plane, along with a letter explaining that the Young Model Builders Club really wanted their money. Problem was, I was a little short at the time, and since nobody was really looking to hire 13 year olds, I was going to have to let them slide for a while.

This went on for a while. The letters were piling up, and I'd get scared, but I'd also get another model, so I'd tear the invoices up into little tiny pieces and hide the pieces in a coffee can I stored in the back of my closet. I don't know why I had a coffee can in my closet, but it came in handy in those days before shredders.

For the most part I could put my growing bill out of my mind, but every once in a while I would get a wave of fear washing over me, especially after the more sternly worded letters arrived, but I'd focus on something else, and my fear would shrink away.

Then I got a letter from an attorney, written on actual letterhead and everything. This attorney said that if I didn't send the money immediately, there would be severe legal repercussions. I don't remember how much I owed at that point, I just remembered there was no way I could get it. And I couldn't tell my parents, especially since they had told me before that these clubs were a scam.

I remembered a little figurine in my Uncle Norwood's study: a little man with a huge nose looking disdainfully back at you with the caption "Sue the Bastards" underneath. Now I was the bastard getting sued.

This guy haunted my nightmares.

I had saved a little money by this time, and I thought that if I mailed what that, maybe they'd go easy on me. The problem was, I wasn't sure how to send it. My parents told me never to mail cash, and I didn't really want to ask them to write me a check.

So I waited.

A lot of kids were frightened of nuclear war in the '80s. This is why we grew up to become slackers and grunge musicians. I was probably the only kid in the '80s worried about getting sued before the Russians pushed the button. I would be eating dinner or watching TV and feel the waves of heat cascading through my body while my stomach tightened and gurgled. I was going to jail, or debtor's prison or the stocks, or whatever images I could conjure up from TV or half-remembered history classes.

This seemed to go on for months. Eventually I was able to put the bill out of my mind for the most part. Finally I noticed that I hadn't gotten any letters for a while. In fact, the last one was from the attorney's office and that was a long time ago. I didn't want to jinx anything, but I was pretty sure I was in the clear.

After a few months had passed with no more legal threats, I realized I had learned two important lessons. One, never start a business where your profits are dependent upon middle schoolers mailing payment.  And more importantly, if something is bothering you, the best thing to do is ignore it and hope it goes away. This lesson has come in handy many times since.

 Oh yeah - the other time I got sued. I was in a car accident in Atlanta and I got served papers at 6 AM months later. Once they found out that I was making approximately nothing, that case went out the window also, somehow reinforcing my lesson.

Agony of Defeet

I had this thing against wearing shoes when I was a teenager. I don't know where it came from, and as with most things from that time period, it seems pretty ridiculous in retrospect.

I'd drive down to the store to pick up a Coke or whatever, gripping the gas pedal with my toes like a chimp, then walk over the hot, disgusting cigarette butt and spit-encrusted parking lot to go inside the store. I also didn't carry a wallet, so I'd pull out a wad of crumpled bills, Spicoli-style to pay the cashier.

I have no idea why I did this. Maybe I was trying to reinforce Florida stereotypes. Maybe I thought shoes and wallets were for chumps who were brainwashed by society into conforming to what The Man thought was acceptable.

The soles of my feet must have been tough enough to walk on hot coals.

One night I was with some friends from my community college newspaper. The newspaper class was in the late afternoon, and a group of us would hang out in the newspaper office late into the night. Sometimes we were working on the paper, usually we were just wasting time.

I wore shoes at school, so I have no idea why I was barefoot at the time, but there I was, barefoot as Fred Flintstone. We were hungry, so we ended up at Denny's.

As we walked in, the server pointed to the "No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service" sign, which I had ignored in my hunger for a Superbird.

"You can't come in here without shoes," she said.

 "What? Who made that rule? Mussolini? This is totally bogus," I thought, or possibly said. 

We walked back to my car in defeat. Hey! I had a solution! I was going to get my Superbird after all.

I had a brown marker in the car. Why did I have a brown marker and not a pair of shoes in my car? That is a question I can't answer.

The paper's art director helped me decorate my feet into a pair of brown shoes. They didn't look half bad. Sure, you could see my toes, and the brown wasn't really evenly applied, but they looked good enough to pass. I think she might have even Sharpie'd some shoelaces on there.

I was totally ahead of the curve on this one.

You know you're getting older when you start to identify with the authority figures in the movies when you once supported the free-spirited kids. I mean, jeez, just shut up and do your detention, stupid Breakfast Clubbers. Don't you think the Dean has other things to do with his Saturday?

Poor Dean Wormer just wanted the parade to go off without a hitch.

I was promptly and rightfully kicked out of Denny's. I never got my Superbird. When I recall that night, I don't think of a free-thinking kid challenging a stupid rule and causing some squares to question their assumptions about their regimented life, I think of the poor server who was working the 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. shift and had to put up with a smartass who really should know better.

I'd like to think I learned something that night, and started wearing shoes like a normal person, but I know for a fact that wasn't true, since my last night in Bradenton I got a ticket for operating a vehicle without shoes. I didn't even know that was a law.

I'd also like to think the experience of walking around shoeless added to my distaste of men walking around in sandals or flip-flops. Seriously. Nobody wants to see that stuff. It's almost as bad as marker shoes.

Shoplifters of the World

I used to shoplift when I was a kid. This shouldn't surprise anyone, since I think I've documented my adolescent (and pre and post) crapulence fairly well.

Occasionally, I'll look back on my younger exploits and wonder if there was any sort of deep psychological thing behind them, but I don't really think there was. Being bad was exciting and fun, even if I did spend most of my middle and high school years in constant trouble due to the consequences of my antics. In the case of shoplifting, stores had things I wanted, I didn't have money, so I shoplifted. Pretty simple, really.

I can't remember when I started, but I do remember that I soon perfected a technique. I would get an empty bag, then load up what I wanted when nobody was looking. This seemed to work better than the usual "jam a bunch of stuff in your pockets or under your shirt" technique employed by others. When taken to the grocery store by my parents, I'd get a bag, load it up with bakery cookies, Archie Comics, and whatever else appealed to me. I must have told them I had saved my money or something if they asked how I was buying things. Sure, it was risky, but later that night eating chocolate chip cookies in my bed catching up on Jughead's latest hijinx, it all seemed worth it.

From there I graduated to the mall. A friend and I would ride our bikes there and I'd get a bag from a store, then load up on records and dirty magazines.

We never got caught, which is pretty remarkable, considering that we would be conspicuously unconspicuously hanging around the magazine stand on the other side of the naked lady magazines, waiting to slip them into our bag.

Maybe I felt my luck was up, or guilt got the better of me, because I stopped. I'm not sure for how long, but I stayed on the straight and narrow for a while.

Until a toy store moved in to the spot by Eckerds. This was within biking distance, and I used to go up there to buy models. They also had a big display of Star Wars figures. This was after Return of the Jedi, when I felt I was too old for what were, in my eyes, children's toys. Today, of course, I know many professionals who buy Star Wars figures, but back then we didn't have those sort of role models.

So I figured it was OK to steal them. I'd wait til the teenaged clerk wasn't paying attention (which didn't take long), take them out of the box (I know! I was destroying the resale value!), and slip them in my pockets.

Looking at pictures of the figures on the internet, it looks like I ended up getting most of them. Again, I don't see how I got away with it.

Then came the end of my shoplifting career.

I went to the grocery store with my parents,  got an empty bag and walked over to the toy section of Walgreens. I had seen this pretty boss looking little vehicle earlier, and it was gonna be mine. These were vehicles that weren't really in the movies, they were just cash grabs, so I felt I was sort of justified in stealing it.

Admit it, that's a pretty cool toy.

I had it in my hands with the open bag on the floor. I was subtly glancing around to make sure nobody was watching. As soon as I slipped it in my bag, an old lady and her granddaughter appeared at the end of the aisle.

"Don't do that," she said.

"What?"

"Don't."

I felt my stomach drop. Then they left. She was already talking to the manager up front. Holy crap, I thought. I'm finally going to get busted. My parents are just over in Publix and are going to have to come over and get me, minutes after they let me go. I am in such trouble.

They were obviously talking about me, and had seen me carrying the bag, so I thought my best course of action was to see if I can casually walk out the door. OK. Let's give it a shot.

"Can I see your bag?"

Oh crap.

"Oh yeah, sure," I said,  my insides churning like a cement mixer.

The mustached manager gave me a suspicious look and said, "Maybe we should staple this up for you."

And he did.

"YeahOKsure"

Seconds later I was out the door. I saw him talking to the lady, but by some fluke I was free. Free! I wanted to kiss the sidewalk.

I was scared straight. I didn't shoplift again. Now I am pillar of the community and a few months ago even mailed a 20 dollar bill to a restaurant when I thought I had stiffed the waitress. I'm sure whoever opened the mail spent it on drugs or a neck tattoo, but at least I sort of balanced the scales a bit.

You're One of Them Little Fancy Lads, Aren't Ya?

You know what was cool about growing up as a skateboarding punk rocker in the '80s? Being able to look at old pictures without cringing. No neon Spuds McKenzie shirts or acid washed jeans for me, no sir. Just jeans or old man shorts and a T shirt, Chuck Taylors or Vans on my feet, and possibly a flannel. Yep, even though we were weirdos, the basic outfit is a basic classic American look.

Foot high mohawks? Yeah, there were a few of those, but they were generally worn by posers - people who worshiped English bands like GBH or the Exploited and wore leather jackets in Florida's 90 degree heat and humidity. And how the hell could you skate with all that hairspray and extra clothing?

Or maybe my friends made fun of those guys because we had jobs and parents who wouldn't let us get funny haircuts.

So yeah, no reason to be embarrassed by my fashion choices at all. Other than gaining a few pounds since high school, I could totally rock an outfit from the '80s and still ...oh wait. I'm forgetting about the blazers.

My friend Curt and I were at a track meet. As distance runners we had hours to kill until we were needed or missed. We'd pass the time by wandering around whichever school or city we were in, walking to 7-11 to get something to eat, stealing road signs, looking for record stores, whatever.

Today we found a garage sale. We were probably going to buy something anyway, just to show up to the track meet with some crazy stuff to further cement our reputation as the team weirdos. But then we saw a rack full of suit jackets.

I don't remember which one of us actually expressed the idea, but we decided that we needed to buy a jacket apiece. We would start a new punk fashion statement.

"We'll be like the Buzzcocks or the Jam," I remember one of us saying. "All those old bands dressed up and they looked cool."

And we had just the occasion to wear them.

The Buzzcocks, before punk became synonymous with bum.

The Replacements were playing that weekend in Tampa on my birthday. We had never actually heard them, but we understood them to be more rock and roll than the stuff we usually listened to. This would be an excellent time for us to debut our new suit jackets. Soon after, all of Tampa and St.Pete would be dressing like us. Maybe even those Replacement guys would start wearing suits. "It all started in Tampa," one of them would say. "We saw these guys wearing the crap out of some suit jackets and it just all made sense."

I can't speak for Curt, but I definitely felt a little self-conscious that night. Not only were we younger than most of the concert-goers, but we were dressed differently. Of course, years later, this would be the official dress of rich guys - blazer, jeans and a T-shirt, but at the time, we were young fashion pioneers, lost in a sea of T-shirts. It didn't help that some drunk guy kept asking me, "Hey, you're in that one band, right? The drummer? That's you, right?" I couldn't tell if the guy was legitimately confused or messing with me.

But no matter, the real test would come Monday. We were both going to wear our new jackets to school.

But if regular old guy jackets were cool at the punk show, we had to do a bit more at school to shock the squares. I spent most of Sunday night decorating mine - safety pins (I still don't really understand what safety pins have to do with punk), buttons, painted slogans, anything I could attach to the jacket, I did. I even made up a card that said 'Property of Funeral Home' in spooky Gothic script. The lame conformists of Manatee High were gonna have their minds blown when they saw my radically reworked suit jacket! And you know, maybe it would open some minds, get some people thinking about the conformity we were pushed into. Maybe, just maybe, the youth would feel my message. It would be like one of those 7 Seconds songs about unity.

I got to school early and waited for Curt. It was already sort of warm. People were definitely looking at me. Hey, this thing is really hot. Uh...yeah, people are definitely looking at me. I mean, yeah, that's totally what I want - to show that I don't follow their stupid fashion rules and ...man, this thing is really hot. Yep, everyone is staring at me, all right. Hey, isn't there a law that says schools have to provide air conditioning?

I can't remember if Curt didn't go to school that day or did go and didn't wear his jacket. I do know that two guys in suit jackets was a lot cooler than a single guy in a modified suit jacket, no matter how bravely I tried to pull it off. I also know that the jacket only lasted past homeroom when it was stashed in my locker for the rest of the day.

I have since learned that if you want to wear something different, like an old hat or, I dunno, a pocket watch or a cane with a wolf head, you have to own that stuff - act like it's the most natural thing in the world. Your self-confidence will make it work, sort of like that Emperor in that story about the awesome suit. I can't exactly remember what happened in the end, but I recall the whole town thought he looked dope in his new clothes.

Of course, that was way more than my fragile high school self-esteem could handle. And if I'm being honest, probably more than I could handle now. No wonder I've worn the same stuff basic outfit for decades.

You've Got Grit

"Alice" was a popular TV show back in the '70s and '80s. From what I can recall (hey, this ain't IMDB), Alice, the star of the show, moved from ...somewhere. She moved from the rat race, I suppose, to start a new life out west with her teenaged son. Once there, she took a job as a waitress in a diner where she learned many important lessons about life and love and the importance of following your dreams. I guess. I haven't watched the show since I was a kid.

Actually, they show reruns here in Jacksonville on one of those channels you only get if you don't have cable. A friend of mine saw it for the first time and was telling me how depressing he found it, which I found strange since the show was a comedy.

"No, it's terrible," he claimed. "She's got this kid and they live in this crappy little apartment and she works this shitty job with a screaming boss and weirdo customers. There is no way that show is funny. Maybe in Russia or something."

Keep smiling and they won't notice how depressed we are.

I had never considered how time alters our perceptions. Sort of like when I noticed a Dave Dudley 'best of' comp at work a few years ago. He was a country star back in the '50s and '60s, probably best known for "Six Days on the Road," a song about a trucker driving around 'taking little white pills' and racing home after a delivery. Dudley also had some drinking songs, like "Two Six Packs Away," a funny song about the troubles a drinking man can find himself in.

Of course, that's how it played back then, when America had a much lighter view of substance abuse and drunk driving. Listening to it now with 21st century ears, you think, "That poor man. He's causing himself so much trouble. He really needs to stop drinking."

Damn, country singers looked a lot cooler back then.

But back to "Alice." Alice worked with another waitress named Flo. Flo was sassy. When their boss said something Flo disagreed with, Flo would answer back with her catchphrase, "Kiss my grits."

This phrase would absolutely slay the studio audience, and was featured all over the place back then; T-shirts, bumper stickers, whatever wasn't already plastered with "Who Shot J.R."

This was all very confusing to a young me.

I mean, I got the gist of what she was saying, but it still didn't make sense. I knew what grits looked like, and they didn't look like any part of the body. If her phrase was "kiss my melons," or "kiss a hot dog" I would  have understood, but grits? I had sneaked enough peeks at Playboy to know there was nothing naked ladies had that could be confused with grits. And I certainly didn't have anything like that. So what was she talking about?

I knew it was somewhat dirty, so I couldn't ask my parents. And because it was dirty, I couldn't ask my friends. You couldn't just mess up your rep as a sophisticated elementary schooler by asking your friends what Flo was talking about. As with other dirty jokes I didn't really understand, I had to just laugh and pretend I got it.

 I kept that silent confusion up for many years. In fact, if I'm being honest, I still don't exactly know what she was talking about, other than using grits as an acceptable way to say "kiss my ass" on TV.

These are the problems that faced a generation of children back in the '70s and '80s. Some call us the Greatest Generation. I am inclined to believe them.

Stuck in the Middle

When I think of all the space in my brain filled with useless knowledge that could have been filled with math or physics or some way to make money, I blame TV and movies. And my friends.

Like everyone else, I get songs stuck in my head. I'll also get words or phrases stuck in there, some of which make their way into this blog. So when you read a rambling, nonsensical epic here that doesn't so much end as just run out of steam at the end, there's a very good chance I was compelled to construct a story around a phrase or sentence that kept bouncing around inside my head.

"Too Close for Comfort" was a TV show that ran in the '80s. Ted Knight was a cartoonist who...I think he had two daughters that he, I don't know, got all crazy if they dated or something. There was also a guy Monroe who lived with them. I don't really remember watching that show.

Anyway, whenever the name "Monroe" came up in conversation in college, my friend Todd would give this exaggerated Ted Knight-esque "Monroooooooooooe" impression. Now, just about every time I see a Monroe Street (and every city has one), I have to do the same thing. Doesn't matter if I'm with someone in the car or not, if I see a Monroe Street or Monroe Avenue, I'll have to bust out with a "Monroooooooooooe."

I didn't really watch the show, but I'd imagine he's about a second away from saying "Monrooooe."

Same thing with Martin. If I see a Martin Street, or Martin's Drycleaners or whatever, I'll immediately get the theme from "Martin" on a loop in my head.

Hey, that's not as bad as I remembered. Go ahead and click on it and have it stick in your head the next time you hear the name Martin.

I have an Aunt Frances. I don't think she's an actual blood relative, but she's a great lady who acts like a relative. Still, every time I hear her name (or any Francis or Frances), my mind immediately fills in, "Why, just this morning Francis...FRANCIS!"

I've heard that having songs or phrases stuck in your head is a sign of schizophrenia, and I'd look that up, but I really don't want to know. I'm just sort of enjoying the ride right now and hoping all that stuff isn't true. I mean, I have enough to worry about right now, you know?

White Christmas

When I was a kid, Christmas Day was mostly a relief after the ordeal of Christmas Eve. I was so excited to see my presents the next morning, but terrified that I hadn't been good enough to deserve any that I would end up throwing up out of anxiety by early evening.

As I grew older, I didn't get as excited about Christmas, possibly in an effort to save my stomach lining. But I would still get flashes of Christmas Spirit, even when I was a teenaged punk rocker and opposed to everything that normal people might like or take comfort in.

Christmas Eve 1989 was cold. Around midnight I was with my friends Curt and Jennifer at her mom's house. I remember driving down Riverside Avenue earlier to pick up Curt and getting caught in a slow-moving trail of cars looking at luminaria and Christmas lights. I was 19 at the time, so this boring old person wagon train was a personal affront to my mission that night, which was to speed as fast as possible down Riverside's twists and turns to pick up my friend. Now, of course, I'll watch the hell out of some luminaria and Christmas lights.

Curt and Jennifer were both home on Christmas break. I was still in Bradenton, making my way through community college. It was a strange time. My friends had moved away and I was working part time and making awesome grades, the first time since about elementary school, probably because I was actually trying for once. But I felt like my friends were out there growing and experiencing stuff while I was spinning my wheels back in my home town.

In those primitive days, contact was pretty much limited to letters, occasional phone calls, and the reliable passenger pigeon, so the few times a year we could get together meant a lot. They would tell me about Gainesville and Tallahassee and how I needed to get up there, fast. That's what we ended up talking about that night. I remember Jennifer had given me a copy of the No Idea zine, with the Mutley Chix/Crimprshine split 7", and like all punk rockers at the time, we were talking about Fugazi.* Jennifer had an advance copy of what would be "Repeater" and we played it over and over again.

"There's a whole world out there where people are creating and doing stuff," I thought. "And I've got to be a part of it."

But I was also genuinely happy to be with my friends. A little later I was driving home through the deserted streets after dropping Curt off. I was thinking how grateful I was to have such good friends and was pondering the future and sort of wondering what and where my place was.

My thoughts were interrupted by waves of pollen from the palm trees falling on my windshield. "Stupid pollen," I thought. "I'm probably going to be all stopped up tomorrow."

Wait a minute, that wasn't pollen at all. It was...it was snow!

I hadn't seen snow in years, not since I was a kid in Mississippi. And it was snowing on Christmas Eve! I stopped the car and let the snow (really little more than frozen rain) fall on my face and hands.

Driving the rest of the way home, I finally got it. The Christmas spirit. Like the best Christmas songs and entertainment, I was feeling happy and excited, but just a little melancholy and thankful at the same time. I hadn't felt that way in a while.

And then I realized why I hadn't really felt Christmasy the last few years. I was waiting for that pure rush of excitement I got opening presents as a kid. But adult Christmas wasn't just about excitement and happiness, it was the whole mixture, with a little bit of sadness and hope and thankfulness.

Christmas is Charlie Brown loving a crappy Christmas tree. It's Jimmy Stewart hugging the shit out of his family. It's the insanely sad lyrics to "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" or Shane McGowan slurring, "I could have been someone." It's Scrooge getting the miserliness scared out of him.

And it's also Dean Martin slurring though "Silver Bells" and dogs at a bandstand happily barking their way through "Jingle Bells," but that's a whole other story.

In the following years, there would always be a time, sometimes only a  brief moment when I could catch that feeling again. Joy, contentment, chemical compounds rushing out to fight seasonal depression, who knows what it actually was. But each year there would come a time when I'd be alone, feeling an incredible mix of contentment and happiness, mixed with just a tinge of sadness to make it all the more sweet.

Whatever your holiday traditions are, I hope you get to experience some of that, at least for a little while this year.











* In the late '80s/early '90s, every conversation between punk rockers would eventually come around to Ian MacKaye and/or GG Allin.