July 30, 2021

Yesteryear
One year ago today: July 30, 2020, early lumber infaltion.
Five years ago today: July 30, 2016, I like canned peas.
Nine years ago today: July 30, 2012, on records abuse.
Random years ago today: July 30, 2014, remember the clubhouse?

           It’s a glorious Alabama morning, I slept like baby, seven hours. Rather than stick around Tuscaloosa, I found a side road through the foothills to wind up in Fayette, Alabama. Get your road atlas, it is smack in the middle of nowhere. Talk about Trump country, folks, this is the type of place that old Joe is going to push just a little too far. It was mainly tree-lined two lanes via rolling hills and the temperature was climbing to some sort of record. Taking these motorcycle paths meanz I often arrive into the old parts of town, as opposed to the sterile freeway settlements.Here’s the van in your classic small town setting. A restored wall mural of some forgotten product. These were already gone when I was growing up but I’ve always seen them as quaint Americana. Nearby, I found Charles Cafeteria. You can keep your fancy-pants falootin’ spots, I had pancades and sausge at Charles in Fayette. Served by local waitresses, fer-sure, fer-sure Items on the menu like the “Log Trucker’s Jamboree”, yep, I say again—Trump Country. You don’t work, you don’t eat.

           I lefe Fayette an hour after sunup with no definite plan. The area is cattle country, heavily wooded, it must have been the settler’s paradise except for the heavy forest cover. Watch for logging trucks. Other than the satellite dishes, this area is right out of the 1960s. They still stare some of them, at a stranger in town. Here’s that picture of the Yak menu, it was the burger of the day. All real food, Trent replied that he had once eaten sea cucumber. He mentioned also rattlesnake. But nobody would dare, in the Atlantic northeast, put New Jersey burger on the menu.

           Once more I clicked off the built-for-AOLs GPS and followed my compass in a general northerly direction. That was some countryside, I was steering mostly toward Muscle Shoals. Because there was a band called that name when I was a teen, and I thought it was Mussel Shoals or something. Thinking to stop long enough to snap some “blues album” shots, I gave up trying to find sign or historic district. Maybe I did have the wrong town. The nearest city was Tuscumbia, which I bypassed and headed for Decatur. Once again, I never saw Decatur, the highway must be miles out of town.

           The radio was not much help, so I was listening to audiotapes. Avoid “Beautiful You”, it is an extended fantasy about some guy who invents the ultimate in female pleasure products and chooses some mousy 30-ish woman for a test subject. It’s like going through a medical text and then being lectured that, due to all this complexity, a third of women never “achieve” the big O. Just the context of “achieve” tells you right away they are not right in the head. But so many of them? Anyway, the story says these products and lotions are about to make men obsolete. It does not add up but you are supposed to buy the angle that too much pleasure can kill a woman.
           There’s a subtle message the author has missed, but would be pretty darn obvious to any man hearing this story. Women are never satisfied. Our dumpy broad gets flown to Marseilles, caviar and shopping, private jets, hob-knobbing, and satin sheets. But after a month, she wishes there was “more romance”. I’m half-way through and he has already dumped her ad she is laying plans to sue him for $50 million. Makes you want to move to Alabama and eat yak burgers.

Picture of the day.
I’ve seen that forest!
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.
           Tuscaloosa is nice but small enough to leave you bored unless you connect right away. Toying with the idea of staying there a couple days, I decided the priority is fixing the van A/C. Not knowing what lies ahead, don’t rule out people living in their vehicles once the lates teviction moratorium ends on Sunday. Is this shed the destiny for Americans who thought they could ignore the socialist takeover? This is actually just an old outbuilding I thought looked neat because of the moss. But it’s true, in America you cannot every totally let down your guard. This is a free country, so those who conspire to grab your goods also have a right to organize.

           By noon, I stopped for a Milo (brand of iced tea) near Athens on the Alabama-Tennessee border After that, it is freeway into Nashville, so I put on the car radio. Lot’s of country twang but I find the newer tunes too complicated, too many instruments. I arrived and went straight to nap-time. Three days on the road, you still get a bit drained. I met the newest family addition, a bruiser of a dog, now nicknamed “Chookie”.
           At 75 pounds, he’s a chore. The poor thing is not an alpha dog, but he had been raised chained up to be mean, then adopted by some guy who knew zilch about doggie personalities. Chookies is slow to change, so until then, I’m company, not companionship. But he loves to go walking and does not strain on the leash. We’ll be old pals ina bit. For now, he won’t eat when I set out the food. The Reb had a fundraiser, so she didn’t get back until after dark. I don’t like her walking the dogs alone, so we went for the late stroll. I see I missed firefly season. This is your lucky day, here is the first photo I have of Chookies. Rate him as 95% indifferent to me. Could be the yak on my breath. He is not a lively dog, he would probably return the observation.

           Next, it is shopping time. All the neat stuff I brought home last time around is used up. Good thing I always bring my own coffee fixin’s. I’m not a vegetarian type, but did you know we don’t have to segregate the fridge. It’s quite easy. If it is expensive and tastes good, that’s me. If it is nutritious and good for you, let’s just say very few items on the American market make those kind of grades. That’s sounds wrong, I didn’t mean tastes good as in flavor. I live grits and some people cannot taste them without piling on condiments. But I find squash more than once every other week to be plenty. Meanwhile, help yourself but I advise you wait for later. I doubt there has been any chicken in this house since I was last here.
           That reminds me, the Kaiser should be back in town. He was out in Seattle for a month, maybe he’s playing nearby. Get back to me, maybe we’ll go see the show. For now, even my backup tins of Carnation are used up, what, did they have a coffee-fest soon as I left town. Plus the COVID talk is more in evidence over the small towns where people who talk such nonsense are treated like lepers. I wish the nedia would quite reporting it, but I understand they need to create some sort of major distraction over what is happening in Arizona. Trump won, and they know it. So the COVID numbers keep going up because they keep raising them up to make headlines The problem is, they’ve long exceeded the bounds of belieivability.
           That is, more peopla re aware of vaccine deaths than COVID deaths. Plus America can’t stop the amount of information flowing in from overseas about protests and police brutality. We saw those Australian cop-thugs kicking protesters who fell down and the world saw what the police in Paris were doing to people. When governments go looking for trouble, they are going to find it.

ADDENDUM
           I went over my diet with the expert, and I may be doomed to vegetables for a long time. The list of no-nos includes grits and rice. What are folks supposed to live on? I’m willing to try anything. The Reb reports my body chemistry has changed again, changes which I think are never good. I tend to forget how big the back yard is here, time to get to work. What are you doing sitting around reading other people’s blogs? Time to get productive.

Last Laugh