Of One Mind

Mike and I are sick. We’re not ill -- -- just disturbed.

I mean, we were watching the news, for Pete’s sake. Of course, it’s not like getting crazy in church, but still, a little respect should be in order.

The reporter was interviewing some guy about something. The subject really doesn’t matter. The point is that the man began his reply, uttered the first two words, then paused. It was the pause that set us off. He said, “Everybody was . . .”

In unison, as if possessed by a demon, we yelled out “Kung Fu figh-ting!”

And that’s why Mike and I are destined to be together.

If you’re really too young to remember the song, try out this link for a rendition offered by our favorite 30-minute funny show, Scrubs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yl9ZZsUX00s

p.s. Happy New Year!

Not Exactly Mission Impossible

The Memphis morning newspaper ran a recap last week of some of the more interesting local crimes of the last year. Our favorite was the guy who decided to rob a real estate agent who was holding open house at a model home in the Bartlett neighborhood.

The would-be robber entered the model home and had to look casual and hang around until everyone had left. As soon as the other visitors cleared out, he demanded money and jewelry from the agent and took off.

One problem. While he was trying to look casual, he filled out one of those information cards and wrote his correct name and address. He may have collected $200, but he didn’t pass Go. He went straight to jail.

Mike’s favorite all-time, zombie-brain Memphis criminal was the guy who robbed a local bank, but made the fatal error of writing the “give me your money” note on the back of one of his own deposit slips. Oops. Police were waiting for him when he arrived home.

Happy Hunting

A couple of weeks ago, Mike and I were driving down to see Alex, and Mike gave me a bit of a local history lesson. We were driving through Chickasaw County – named for the Chickasaw Indian Nation – and we were approaching the town of Pontotoc – named for a chief of the Chickasaw.

Chickasaw Indians were primarily hunters and farmers, but also significant warriors who ultimately dominated other neighboring tribes. They lived in towns that stretched 10-15 miles along a riverbank. Each town had a well fortified fort where the township would take refuge in times of war. They had two types of housing: one for winter, sunk a bit into the earth and constructed of mud and straw; and one for summer, built of wood and featuring a front porch and balcony.

Each township had a chief with an over-chief who ruled all the towns. Very sophisticated. It certainly resembles mayors and governor. The towns operated independently unless there was a threat to the Chickasaw Nation at which time they banded together for mutual defense – or aggression.

Three hundred-fifty Chickasaw were documented as participants in the War of 1812. The Chickasaw were still a fearsome prospect at the time of the Civil War and did, in fact, provide two full regiments for the Confederate Army. They were the last political unit of the Confederate resistance to surrender.

We’re not sure why the Chickasaw tossed aside neutrality and joined the Confederacy, but we do know that some Indian tribes were slave owners. We don’t know if the local Chickasaw were among them.

The most interesting nugget that Mike passed along was that Chief Pontotoc and his people lived in the region of Chickasaw County, but traveled up to the Memphis area as their winter hunting grounds. They believed that, although Memphis was good for hunting, it was not a fit place to live.

Let me think. Most violent city in the nation. Most obese city in the nation. There are many Memphians today who would agree with the good Chief.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year

May your holidays be memory-makers and may the new year bring you all that you wish.

From the Plunk Chronicles to you and your family.

Peace & Love

The Flip Side of Elvis

We all know the aw-shucks Elvis full of ma'am and sir and the signature "thank you very much." Well here's a bit of onstage El who's a tad unhappy. Have a listen to Elvis, behind the mask.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmLIBL4xgJ0&feature=related

Radio WEVL

We like to sample a variety of radio stations while driving and occasionally Mike turns to WEVL. Initially I thought the call letters stood for boll weevil, the tiny beetle that almost devastated southern cotton crops. Seemed like a bad choice.

But I was corrected and learned that it stood for “we volunteer.” Well, it’s a Memphis station and Tennessee is the Volunteer State, so that made sense. TN being called the Volunteer State always made me chuckle, though. Back in the War of Northern Aggression, TN was the last state to secede and then the first to re-join the Union. Looked to me like “volunteering” had a lot to do with the latest info from the odds maker.

Anyway, I was wrong on that, too. WEVL is an all-volunteer radio station – a great idea. A variety of announcers have time slots and they choose their own play lists. You can almost always count on non-traditional fare. Some of it is great stuff that you won’t hear anyplace else. Some of it is just stuff you won’t hear anyplace else and thank goodness.

For instance, we had the pleasure of hearing “I’m Gonna Get Back at Elvis’ Sergeant,” a ditty that apparently did not hit the charts when El was drafted. We also heard “She Pays for The Loving,” which seemed to be the gigolos’ anthem.

I think our favorite, however, was “Fujiama Mama” by Wanda Jackson, one of the few female rockabilly stars back in the 50s. Surprisingly, “Mama” was a big hit in Japan -- #1 for six months. She was inducted into the Rockabilly Hall of Fame, still tours and is quite popular in Europe. You’re just hankerin’ for some of those lyrics, aren’t you?

I've been to Nagasaki Hiroshima too
The same I did to them baby I can do to you.Cause I'm a Fujiyama mama and I'm just about to blow my top.Fujiyama-yama FujiyamaAnd when I start erupting ain't nobody gonna make me stopI drink a quart of sakey, smoke dynamite.I chase it with tobaccy and then shoot out the light.Cause I'm a Fujiyama mama...[ guitar ]Well you can talk about me, say that I'm mean.I'll blow your head off baby with nitroglycerine.Cause I'm a Fujiyama mama...

I think you’ll probably agree that there’s just nothing left to say.

Card Night

When Mike and I were married back in the olden days, we used to play a board game called Aggravation. Depending on a tiny bit of skill and a roll of the dice, you could do all manner of game-busting things to your opponent’s token. It was . . . well, aggravating. It also entailed a good bit of whooping and hollering – mostly on my part – and a couple of beers.

Well, a few weeks ago I was ordering some stuff I needed from a website with low-vision products and I spotted big print playing cards. I added them to my order, and Mike’s been teaching me to play Crazy 8s. He chose that game because he's the self-proclaimed world champion Crazy 8 player. Of course, we’re much more grown up now so game nights are a little different. Yes, there’s still the whooping and hollering, but now we drink red wine. And we’re equally competitive.

Saturday night we decided to play some cards. The first game lasted only five minutes, and Mike slaughtered me. He was ahead three games to my one when we started our last game. It lasted nearly two hours. I think I finally got the hang of it.

I suggested more than once that he just let me have the card I needed so we could quit playing, but neither of us was willing to give in. If he hadn’t spotted Jack Black coming on to host Saturday Night Live, I think we’d still be going through the deck playing that last game. Perseverance isn’t always a good trait, I guess.

Too Cool for School

Sometimes a person sits at her/his computer writing this or that for a blog and thinks that, mostly, it just evaporates into the ethersphere. And then, there was today.

Mike called me from the office and said that he'd gone onto Guitar God James Burton's website. There, under News and Updates, was most of the article -- verbatim -- that I wrote for Plunk Chronicles about Burton guest-staring with Mike's band on New Year's Eve. I guess he must have liked it. How cool is that!

http://www.james-burton.net/

Southaven Anniversary

A year and a week ago, Mike and I (and kitty Scarlett) arrived at our new home and new life here in Southaven. In early November, Cousin Bill and I had flown here with Mother and Alex to get them settled in their new homes. Mike and his son, James, had already driven a U-Haul containing his office equipment and Mother’s furniture from CA to MS. That left Mike and I to finish getting the CA house ready for the movers and to make the realtor swear to sell the place as quickly as possible.

A few days after Thanksgiving, Mike, Scarlett and I loaded into the car for the 1,700-mile trip. Mostly everything went well. We got stopped in Texas by a snowstorm that closed the freeway for a day, but we took that in stride. Miss Scarlett, being a mature kitty and very ladylike, is an excellent traveler – but she’d rather not. Upon arriving at a motel, her prime goal was to sneak under the bed, out of reach so she wouldn’t have to go back into her travel cage. To forestall that, we had to do room prep each night before freeing her from confinement. Room prep entailed stuffing extra pillows, chair cushions, luggage and whatever else we could grab all around the bed to prevent access. Most of the time it worked, although we did have to employ coaxing and threats one morning when she found a breach in the fortress.

There was one twilight zone experience in Little Rock which requires a flashback. When Mike and I were rekindling our relationship and catching each other up on our lives, I naturally mentioned the five years I’d spent in Little Rock. Mike responded by telling me that, for a good while during that period, he played with a band that pretty regularly worked a week at a time at a club on the southwest side of the city. “Really? I worked in that part of town,” I replied. He went on to say that they stayed at a Red Roof Inn and generally ate lunch at the Waffle House next door. “REALLY? Just on the other side of our building’s parking lot was a Red Roof Inn and there was a Waffle House on the other side of that.”

Yep. We put it all together and Mike, in fact, was staying right next door to where I worked. I frequently walked across the motel parking lot to pick up lunch at the Waffle House. Amazing that we never bumped into each other. It’s like a movie where characters miss each other by mere seconds. But it wasn’t meant to be at that time.

So – fast-forward – we drove into Little Rock late on the last night of the trip in search of a place to sleep so we could get an early start for the short drive into Memphis the next day. Mike noted a motel sign and, as we exited the freeway, I thought that the street name was familiar. You guessed it. The motel name had changed, but there we were in the place where we had not crossed paths so many years ago. And we had breakfast at the Waffle House for old time’s sake.

Camping Out “In”

We were pretty excited to arrive at our new home the next day. One little hitch. Because the snowstorm had cost us a day, we arrived on Saturday instead of Friday. That’s not a big deal, except that you can’t get the water company to initiate service on a Saturday. We could easily buy beverages. We could even stand each other without showers for a couple of days. We had Purell for hand cleansing. But there’s another household “appliance” that requires water, so Mike went out to buy gallons of water for flushing. Yuck.

The moving van didn’t show up for about three days, so we were furniture-less as well. We anticipated having some time before furniture (and unpacking), so I’d packed a pretty good go-bag. There were towels, washcloths and hand soap – although we couldn’t use them yet. I had instant coffee and fixin’s plus a small pot to heat water. We had toilet paper. I don’t want to think about that part. And I’d packed pillows and blankets to make a pallet for floor-sleeping. We were on a camping trip inside our lovely new home.

I don’t mind sleeping on the floor on a rare occasion, but then the temperature dropped. Almost immediately. Down to 13 degrees. Despite having adequate heat, the floor gets really, really cold. Mike got up the first night and draped his coat over me for extra cover. My CA-thinned blood was not serving me well. We went to his sister’s the next day and begged for more cover. I survived only slightly frostbitten.

The furniture arrived undamaged. Mike set about the daily challenge of getting his office, furniture, computers, etc. organized for the January start of tax season. At the same time, I was unpacking the home place like crazy. With the Christmas clock ticking, we had to get three rooms painted -- living room, kitchen and dining room in top order – select and have delivered new dining room furniture – shop for Christmas gifts – and pick up Alex for a C’mas visit. And on C’mas Day, we served a formal, holiday feast for six of us.

Whew

This December is so much more leisurely that we may even go out of town for a few days before Christmas. A wonderful man I once worked for used to tell me: “Everything works out. Sometimes it’s just not as we planned.” I think he was talking about December ’06.

Speaking of Musicians . . .

Back when Mike was playing with Tony Joe White (Rainy Night in Georgia, Polk Salad Annie, etc.), they toured with Creedence Clearwater Revival, and Mike hung out with John Fogerty. Since there was generally an extra seat on CCR’s Lear Jet, Fogerty would take Mike along on their ride. He had a pretty good time.

Mike told me that, back in the day, most people thought CCR was from Louisiana like Tony Joe because of their Southern sound in songs like Born on the Bayou and Proud Mary. The last thing anyone would have thought was that their homeplace was actually Berkely, CA.

So in the 90s, when Fogerty was preparing for a new album, he decided that he needed to really experience the Delta itself and Delta blues. He wanted to travel the famous highway up through the flat Delta land, feel the heavy, humid air, and see the juke joints where the blues was born. He hopped a plane from CA to New Orleans, rented a car and started driving north.

A disappointed Fogerty arrived in Memphis saying, “Where the hell is the Delta? I didn’t see any of that stuff.”

Oops He drove up highway 51 which goes up the center of Mississippi. The Delta – well, that would be over by that big river that runs along highway 61. He took the wrong road. If he’d had a woman in the car, he would have asked directions.