Shorter Daze

The daze of my youth continue with a few short but interesting real life experiences.

Continued from the daze of my youth.

Triangles

I blew a tire on the Interstate 84, west of Danbury in Connecticut. Broad daylight. I turned on my 4 ways and started setting out my reflective emergency triangles just as required by DOT regulations.

Before I got the second triangle on the road someone had already run over the first one. Before I got the third triangle on the road someone had already run over the second one. I hung the third on the trailer.

A couple of minutes later a State Trooper pulled up, saw the triangle on the back of the trailer and said, “Get that triangle off the back of that trailer before some idiot runs into both of us.”

If the Key Fits, Drive it

Years ago my Uncle Elmo wanted to borrow my Daddy’s Ford pick-up to haul some furniture to his lake house on Badin Lake. He left Daddy with his brand new Mercury Meteor and went on his way.

Upon his return they swapped vehicles again but when my uncle got back to Baden Lake he discovered he couldn’t get back inside his lake house. He still had Daddy’s keys.

Do You Work Here?

Back when Covid was in high swing I walked inside my local Food Lion grocery store, grabbed the bottle of cleaner they leave there for cleaning carts, and cleaned my cart. Then an old lady walked in, said, “Thank you” and walked away pushing my cart.

I guess I could have objected but I just let it go and started cleaning another cart.

Five more old women came in an took my carts as I cleaned them. Some of them didn’t bother to thank me.

Finally an old man came in, saw me cleaning my cart, laughed and said, “You don’t look like you work for Food Lion.”

I laughed….

The Flower Lady

I never knew the elderly lady’s name but I knew where she lived as I would see her Cadillac parked just around the corner a couple of blocks away from my house on the days when I wasn’t in school. We just called her the Flower Lady.

Folks say she drank a lot but she was known most for her excessive love of flowers. I would often spot her riding from house to house stealing flowers from yards all over the neighborhood while on my morning paper route. Often she would stop right in the middle of the road and leave her car door wide open as she walked with a flashlight and snips to steal flowers.

Most of the mothers in the neighborhood often complained about her flower stealing habits but as far as I know no one ever did any thing about it.

One morning while returning home from my morning paper route I saw her stop her Caddy in the middle of the road and walk into a neighbor’s yard carrying her snips. As it was later than usual for her she didn’t need her flashlight and instead carried a silver flask from which she took a drink then dropped flask and snips as she attempted to catch her runaway Coupé de ville.

She fell in the road then got up and watched as her Caddy veered into a yard and crashed into a car parked in a driveway. I went straight home but someone called the police and the Flower Lady was never seen driving through the neighborhood again.

My mother seemed happy that her flowers were no longer disappearing but nothing more was ever said.

Don’t Piss Off the Cook

“Would you like some pepper?” I ask as I shake the tiny black flakes onto my gravy biscuits.

“I put pepper in the gravy when I made it,” she replies.

What exactly does that mean? I wonder. I don’t dare say it aloud. Obviously it means that she put pepper in the gravy when she made it. Does it also mean she doesn’t want pepper? Why couldn’t she just say, “No, thank you.”

Does it mean I have insulted the cook by adding more pepper at the table? If yes then why does she keep a shaker filled with pepper on the table?

I don’t push the issue. I don’t expect women to say what they mean and I’m not going to fight with her over how much pepper is on my gravy. The gravy was excellent and I tell her so. I just prefer a lot of pepper. As always she complains about her own cooking telling me things are wrong with the food that I can’t detect.

The one thing her answer did not do is provide me with a direct answer to my question.

She’s in a foul mood this morning and as usual she won’t tell me what I’ve done. Somehow, just like the answer to my asking if she wanted pepper, I’m supposed to know the answer before she says it. I fear this may not be the best week.

And the longer it takes the bigger the explosion.

Talk About a Deal

No too long ago I came upon a young man who only wanted $100 for a titled and running 650 Suzuki Boulevard. I’ve never owned a thumper but have long wanted one. When I got there he showed me how the bike only ran a minute or so before cutting off. I knew it couldn’t be must and I almost bought it, but then I said, “Take the gas cap off and give it a try.”

Problem solved… well except that he didn’t want to give it up so cheaply.

I was a little bit bummed, but he was ecstatic. He really wanted to continue riding but he was newly married with tiny children and couldn’t afford another bike after beating his brains out for months trying to fix it having replaced almost everything except the gas cap.

Want Ketchup With That?

For decades there was this little bar on East Bessemer Ave here in Greensboro which shall go unnamed, but always had the coldest beer and the best hot-dogs. And its owner was well thought of by all of us who went there.

While small, it did well enough that its owner was able to raise a family and his 2 sons eventually came to work in their daddy’s bar. But unlike their daddy who everyone liked, the sons were assholes who mostly stayed drunk behind the bar while giving their customers a hard time.

It wasn’t long before business started going downhill. And how.

The two sons often got so drunk they wouldn’t remember who they had harassed, and so it was hardly a surprise to many of us when one day one of the brothers was hit square in the face with a bottle of ketchup at the local Food Lion by someone he didn’t remember having ever seen before.

Blood and ketchup all over the floor and he never even knew who knocked him out and left him lying in the floor.

And so it was, after several such incidents the old man decided his sons would never be smart enough to run the bar on their own so he simply closed up shop, sold the building, and retired.

So where are his sons today? I donno, probably drunk and cringing whenever a waitress asks, “Would you like ketchup with that?”

The Robot

When my son was 3 years old. I bought him a remote control robot with an inflatable body for Christmas. I bought it at a truckstop while on the road and hid it behind the tree on Christmas Eve.

On Christmas morning he discovered it. He thought it was for punching and hit it at the same time that I turned it on. It went running towards him. He was scared, ran and got his uncle’s BB gun and shot it dead.

It just slumped over as the air escaped from its body.

Broke my heart that it scared him and even after I patched the robot he refused to play with it.

Continued in My First Trip Across I-90.