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 |  My 5th house in Blogville, located at the corner of Humor and Human Interest |
"Invalid Item"  started 2005 ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** "Invalid Item" started 2006"Invalid Item" started 2008"Invalid Item" started 2012Above are links to four other blogs I've done over the years here at WDC. ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** My reason for being. My one true love. My universe. Me and my bride, Melinda McClain Welcome to my fifth home here in Blogville. Over the past two years I have gone through some changes. Widowhood, stroke, depression....all life stages of life I experienced. This is my attempt to move on, to get over it, to.....live again. So now I have a new blog house here in my beloved cyber-city of Blogville and the intersection of Humor and Human Interest. Come by for a visit anytime you like, friends are always welcome. We'll sit a spell and talk. I want this new Blog home to be light and airy so the topics I write about will reflect what passes for humor for me...most of the time. I will also write about a subject near and dear to me: Animals. All sorts of animals...great and small. That is not to say I won't get serious at times, I will, but one thing I won't do (hopefully) is write about politics. As Val Kilmer said in Tombstone: "My hypocrisy only goes so far." |
| Small Town Saturday Night… When we reach a certain age checking the obits in the paper and online becomes second nature. All too often, when we check these lists we are saddened to discover the names of friends and peers displayed there. As we age this happens with more and more frequency until it is no longer a surprise when a familiar name appears there. We all have expiration dates and, as we grow older, we bear sad witness to those whose dates are earlier than our own. So it was when, yesterday, I found out that a dear, close friend from my high school days had passed away from a sudden and massive stroke. His expiration date reach, he stepped quietly into the next world. I was sad of course, but no longer surprised. His name was Jimmy Holden and I had the great good fortune to call him “Friend”. He was one of four guys who were my constant companions and accomplices in all the adventures and misdeeds both high and low throughout my checkered high school experience. News of Jimmy’s death hit me hard. After almost fifty years of not seeing one another, we had recently reconnected via Face Book and it was amazing that, after all those years, we were able to fall right back into that comfortable “friend zone” of laughing, joking, and sharing stories as if it had only been days since we were together and not decades. After receiving the details of his death from his son, Jay on Face Book I spent some quality time remembering our gang’s time together. Most of all I remember those magical, Summer, Saturday nights, when we thought we were ten feet tall and bullet proof and undisputed masters of our domain. The world had not yet proven us wrong. On those Saturday nights, after we finished our different jobs…we weren’t hedge-fund babies, when school was out we all had jobs…we would go home and clean up then gather at some prearranged spot,usually the local drive-in, load into one car, and begin our Saturday ritual….cruising the small town we called home. We were not alone on those nights. Living in a small town, our choices of entertainment was sorely limited. We had one Movie theater and if you were not in the mood for ten year old John Wayne movies, you rode around seeing and being seen all night. Half the kids our age opted for cruising the roads, the other half of course had dates and were at the movie with dates in that cool, dark movie house, ignoring John Wayne and getting some hot, heavy petting on. I can still remember the various routes we took on these nights. Leaving the drive-in, headed North on 59 through downtown and turning onto a branching street leading up Cemetery Hill. Then at the top of the hill, taking a left onto a dirt road and picking up speed to clear Thrill Hill. In truth, Thrill Hill was little more than a sharp rise in the dirt road but if you drove over it at 40 or 50mph your car would catch air…at least a little. Thus the name. Then onward to 146, turn left, return to downtown and do it again. While driving this route we filled the time talking and God how we talked about anything and everything. A sleep over of a large group of prepubescent girls had nothing on us. Each Saturday night this scene was repeated by a dozen or so carloads of kids in our town. In the hot air, under starry skies, we paraded over roads, waved to friends, jeered and hooted at the jerks we didn’t like. Everybody in every car doing the same thing. Warm nights, good friends, star filled skies…I can not remember another time when I felt so carefree and happy. Rest in peace Jimmy, my dear friend. Maybe, one day, the gang can get together again and cruise the streets of Heaven. |
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