This is a real blog post about a fake singer-songwriter (Jimmy Bland, pictured above) and, you may not believe it, but he thinks he’s the first person to cover Alleluia.
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For hours, we’d watch as the ants struggled toward the top of the hill with a huge boulder in their jaws, only to lose their footing (often thanks to a bump from a colleague) and tumble hundreds of ant-stories down to the rocky bottom of the container.
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Take hair. If you think God doesn’t have a sense of humor, take a look at the cruel joke that is hair redistribution for many men as we age. Yes, “tall,” “dark” and ”handsome” made the podium for desirable male traits, but “a great head of hair” missed a medal by… well, by a hair.
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Perhaps I have lost time, days, maybe months or even years, choosing to sit here and enjoy this one life, but… we had a joke when the kids were kids, shouting “IT’S NOT A COMPETITION!” It really isn’t a competition. There isn’t some ideal life that I should have had if only I’d have lived perfectly and virtuously and according to the recommended guidelines.
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Stacy and I knocked an item off my Bucket List (and her Leap List) a couple years ago when we saw a Very Famous Music Star in concert. I’m about to poke some gentle fun at this musician’s audience (including us) and I don’t want to offend, so let’s just say the Very Famous Music Star was Ryle Rovett and His Rarge Rand.
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And when the black cloak drags upon the ground
I'll be ready to surrender, and remember
Well we're all in this together.
If I live the life I'm given, I won't be scared to die.
- The Avett Brothers
The name caught my eye: Stinky’s Bait Shack - and what I thought was a sign advertising food. At the front door, I had to make my way past two Tom Sawyer / Huck Finn-looking kids with poles, tackle boxes and bait balanced on their bikes, chirping about where they’d fish first. Inside, I saw this sign and knew I’d come to the right place.
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It is amazing how much stuff is floating in the air in Florida, at least during the winter. In the beam of my headlamp, the atmosphere was thick with little flying floating flickering things - it looked like the footage you see from deep-sea submersibles. Through the swirling currents of air, the bathroom emerged out of the murky darkness like the wreckage of the Titanic. I wondered how much of that floaty stuff I was breathing in, but then decided I should obsess on something a little more controllable instead.
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Some of you might be thinking: was Chuck really working on his work days, or was he “working”? First of all, I never “work.” I might “diet,” and I might “listen,” and I might “care,” but I never “work.” I WORK. It’s one of my things.
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Imagine trying to assemble poles that Ringling Bros. passed on because making the elephants carry them would have surpassed even their standards of animal cruelty, THEN finding the canvas loops to stick the poles through, THEN getting all them connected across the top of the massive canvas rectangle… THEN somehow raising the entire structure up to its full 9-foot height, using the same physics employed when lifting yourself off the ground by your shoestrings, and dad running around driving stakes into the hard dirt while mom and the kids screamed about how we can’t hold the poles up any longer. Imagine the fun of this exercise on a July afternoon with temps in the low 100s and humidity a click above that.
If you’re from Richmond, you’ll understand this: Rosemary Beach is like West Broad Village on steroids and then some more steroids.
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I stood outside (across the street) for a long time, staring at the bar then referring to the Google review. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
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Florida’s Forgotten Coast is #blessed with so much beach front property that even the churches have great views. Seems to me, Heaven is a harder sell when this is your current location: First United Methodist Church, Port Saint Joe, Florida. I don’t know who St. Joe is but he must have some juice.
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Then I saw the raccoons on a branch over my campsite. I checked in with my outdoorsman brother-in-law Lee, who theorized the raccoons were after my wine. My wine? It was settled then. Tonight I would die. Now I knew how Davy Crockett felt at the Alamo.
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Sure, they wake up wet and slimy too, but they don’t seem to care.
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There is a rumor… I don’t know if it’s true… that there is a lot of extracurricular sex going on in RV campgrounds. I will not disclose who I heard this from, but let’s just say it’s a reliable enough source that I feel comfortable including the rumor in a blog post that is constrained by no significant legal or ethical standards of accuracy.
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One of my challenges on a road trip is the constant sense of FOMOOBR, or “fear of missing out on back roads.” Every intersection presents me with impossible choices – do I follow the route laid out by Google Maps (which already avoids highways) or to I take this next turn for a slightly longer, but potentially more interesting, route?
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I knew coyotes would steer clear of me, but I wondered whether the black bears had gotten the memo. I retrieved the bear spray from the Pilot and set it next to my chair. I also grabbed a headlamp and a book and sat back down. As the imaginary bears drew closer, every crack, snap, grunt and yip yanked me from my reading as I nervously raked the tree line with my headlamp. I was tearing through Meditations by Marcus Aurelius three words at a time, distracted every 0.7 seconds by the sound of a charging bear.
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These days the main product of the town is “charm.” Blue Ridge is where charm goes to reproduce, like trout swimming up an Appalachian Mountain stream to spawn. You can’t swing a dead Oncorhynchus mykiss (assuming you can hold on to it) without hitting a charming restaurant, a charming boutique or a charming scenic rail route choo-choo train.
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Before I set out on a trip, I always look forward to taking the back roads. But then, when I’m in the car, I find myself fighting the urge to JUST GET THERE. On back roads I feel guilty for “wasting” time by taking the scenic route, and on the interstate I feel guilty for not stopping to smell the Rose’s Discount Stores that inhabit so many little towns’ historic districts.
That’s the beauty of guilt: it folds up nice and compact, fits in your pocket or at least in your head, and goes everywhere. EVERYwhere.