My nightmare

I'm not sure which part of this I hate more. I've said here before I can't stand for someone to talk over me while I'm still talking and I would not tolerate being touched by someone in this scenario. Bad on Romney. Bad on Perry. Newt is obviously the smartest man in the room and did not have to stoop to any of this.

Now, here's my personal problems with this picture. To start, did your parents not tell you it was extremely poor manners to interrupt someone when they are speaking? There is nothing more rude. What you are saying is that what I have to say is more important than what you have to say and so I'm not even going to show you the courtesy of listening. That is immature and rude and shows your lack of debate skills.

The second issue is just my phobia with having someone touch me. Now you have to understand, this phobia is only in certain settings. I am very touchy, huggy friendly at church or with my family. I like to just stand with my arm around my mom or sister or even nephews. It's not gender-specific for me. My problem is if I were in Perry's position, I would have to remove his hand because in the back of my mind I know that a left hand on the shoulder comes just before the right hand uppercut. I know, I know, it's just my phobia. Maybe I grew up with the wrong friends. Maybe I didn't get enough hugs from strangers or maybe I got too many. Who knows? Just don't interrupt me and none of you freaks reading this better touch me either. So...run, Newt, run!

Baby Jessica

It has come to my attention that we just passed the anniversary of an event that we have forgotten about but we all remember. On October 14, 1987, Jessica McClure fell down an 8-inch pipe and was stuck there for 2 days. Anyone old enough remembers the saga of workers trying to get down 22 feet to rescue her. The scene gained world-wide attention.

I did not know that there was a trust fund set up for Baby Jessica (I understand most folks still call her that) paid for by anonymous well-wishers from across the globe. People wanted to help and so, completely unsolicited, money came pouring in for months afterward. The trust fund was set to mature on her 25th birthday which was March 26, 2011 and on that day she received an estimated nearly one million dollars.

That says a lot about the goodness of people. It says that there is an innate will inside people to want to help. It also tells me that if you have a small baby...and a pipe..."C'mon baby, walk over this way. Walk toward your college fund!"

Storytime

I told you earlier I would tell you this story about "The Incident" on the golf course, so here goes. In high school I was on the golf team. Everybody on the golf team, including me, was horrible but we had a good time. It's no wonder we were horrible since the best advice I ever got from our coach was, "Hey, Keebler, hit it straighter and farther."

We often had two-day tournaments where if you made it into the finals the first day you got to come back the next day to play for trophies or ribbons or whatever. None of us ever made it to the finals so all we ever really had were 1-day tournaments. In these tournaments you played with 3 students from other teams so usually nobody in the foursome knew each other.

We were playing at Mountain Valley down by Joshua. It's a beautiful course with a country club full of rich people who don't believe they are rednecks, but I digress. The day was beautiful but windy and a bit brisk. On this first day of the tournament all four of us were playing poorly which made me feel better since I played poorly on my best day. We played a couple of holes with all of us all over the course, taking forever to find our golf balls in the woods, and dropping balls this side of the water hazard that ate the previous shot.

After two or three holes like this one of the other guys jokingly suggested we should all just drop one shot after each hole just so we could save face at the end. We all laughed and agreed, purely joking, of course. The next hole was especially brutal for all of us again and as we got to the end and started to say our scores we all just looked at each other. "I'm in." "So am I." "Why not?", I said. What's it gonna matter anyway?

So, we did that. After each hole from then on we just subtracted one from our score and played the remaining 13 or 14 holes that way. "What's it gonna matter anyway?", right? Well, I'll tell you what it's gonna matter. Evidently, everybody else played pretty poorly and my "adjusted" score was good enough to get me into the finals the next day.

I don't know what happened to the rest of my foursome. I never saw them again because the next day I was playing with three other students, all of whom deserved to be there. This day was a Saturday and it was a big deal at the Mountain Valley Golf Course. Parents were there. (Not mine, I didn't tell them. They probably still don't know this.) There was even some local media there with cameras rolling for the evening news. I wish I was kidding.

I hit last out of my group. The others hit right into the fairway where golf balls are supposed to go. As I got settled in to hit I could almost feel people breathing on me. The excitement was high. The "Silence" sticks were held up by the judges. I planted my feet, wiggled my hips a little and swung for all I was worth. And for about one second that ball was soaring beautifully straight and high. Then it sliced so far right it looked like it must have stuck into an airplane.

I didn't bother wasting my time looking for it. I just calmly teed up another one and let the big dog eat. And then teed up another one...and another one. I seriously teed up four balls and then on the last one I just popped it onto the fairway with a light tap just so I could get off the tee box and out of the way.

I'll save you the play-by-play but what happened after that was even uglier. I have never played so bad in my life. In fact, I've never heard of anyone playing that bad. Long story a little shorter, I lost every one of my golf balls, either in the woods or the water. I was never so glad to lose all my balls because now I could just go home. Except now I had to walk through the rest of the course back to where I started with everybody asking me what happened.

Finally I saw the parking lot and the school bus waiting on me there. Yes, Coach Straighter Farther drove just me to the course on a full size school bus and when he saw me walking toward him after only a few minutes of playing time he bust out in a well deserved laugh and continued it all the way home.

Now, some would say that the moral of "The Incident" would be, "Don't cheat." Me? I'm pretty sure my luck would have been better if I had a gold plated divot tool, but who knows?

If I gain any more weight you could make me into a cannon ball.

http://www.wtsp.com/news/topstories/article/213247/250/Company-will-load-loved-ones-ashes-into-ammunition