Butt kicking

Had a friend kick me in the butt today about my lackidasical posting schedule. I'm sure I needed it. I have been justifying it in my head that y'all mostly don't post daily either, but really, I figure that they're boring enough posts when I do have something to say. I can hardly imagine how excruciating it would be for you guys if I posted even when, as they say, I got nuthin'.

But, if someone takes the time to order up a butt kicking on me, I must at least be courteous enough to, while not exactly leap into action, at least mosey into action. Here goes.

Oh, by the way, for the record, said friend got an ear full of venting from me for their trouble. Hey, that's why friends are there.

This is true. While I do not really consider myself to be trailer trash, and yes, I will actually refer to myself that way occasionally, I have lived in a trashy trailer. In the big city of Seffner, Florida. Back when Seffner was equal parts cows, orange groves, rednecks and their dogs. And trailer parks.

So I was sitting in my lone chair in my modestly furnished, and by modest I mean nothing, trailer. I was listening to one of the following, but cannot recollect exactly which: Commander Cody, Bob Dylan, Dire Straits or The Outlaws. I loved to watch TV but at the time I could not afford one. I kept the hull of one in the living room but it did not work. If someone wanted to watch it I pretended that I disdained the "idiot box". I didn't want folks to think I was poor, but I think trashy trailer... no furniture... no heat all kinda gave me away anyhow.

So I was sitting and listening to one of said four albums when I hear Pop ... Pop Pop.... Pop. I look out of my window and there are these two stereotypical rednecks (skinny white boys, scraggly hair, shirtless, etc) running around and around a parked van popping rounds off at each other. For some reason, this neither surprised me nor concerned me, although I did move away from the window and that wall.

I went and watched them from my laundry room window, which would have been a near impossible angle to hit me from accidentally, athough there was line of sight. They continued to run and shout and fire at each other with appalling inaccuracy. Finally, tired, frustrated or both they stopped and commenced to both emptying the rest of their rounds into the poor van itself.

This was rural Hillsborough County in the 1970s. This was my life as I knew it. I didn't look at anything as danger. Everything was an adventure. This is the same trailer where I woke up one morning with a cow under my window mooing and a lumberjack stomping around on my roof. As it turns out, it was really just a peacock stomping around up there. Those are actually some pretty heavy birds. And, since I slept nude back then (several embarrassing incidents, including this one, have cured me of that) I did find myself somewhat naked in the front yard looking up at my roof and cursing a nonexistent lumberjack that fine morning. Todd's mom nodded as she drove off to work, but didn't stop to chat.

See? No mystery as to why this area is fertile ground for filming episodes of COPS.

Muttering and stuttering on out
Ramblin' Ed