FOLIO OLIO: ADVENTURER’S LOG: EARTH CYCLE 26

PONTOTOC, MISSISSIPPISSIPEE

It's just south of Ecru, a off-used crossword answer.

We jumped on a tiny road this morning, but as you can see, save for the telephone poles, there wasn't shit to tag...

The reason we were on the road to start with is that it led to the only fucking bridge within a hundred miles. On the map below, Memphis is just out of the picture to the north and we were damned if we were going to drive through a big city on an interstate.
We drove down to the next bridge across the Mississippi River and note there ain't another one for miles and miles...

I finally spotted a wooden post at a railroad crossing...

Decided to tag the back since what with all the cars stopped at the crossing it would just be too obvious on the front...

Wanted a picture of the bridge so we pulled into a drive way leading to some commercial establishment...

As soon as we pulled off we were faced with this sign...

We had no idea what it meant. My wife's best guess was to remind people to drive on the right side of the road...like anyone in their right mind would need reminding. I deduced that it was a moral imperative...like a rule to live one's life by. So, I tagged it.

Around lunch time, Garmin told us of PeDee's. I couldn't wait, but when we got there old PeDee had moved on...

Found another fish place and had a picnic, but because of the heat we ate in the truck...

Let's revisit fish...I have a habit of getting my mind set on eating one thing or another and I can't be satisfied until I eat that thing. Today I was so looking forward to fried fish that I would have driven far more than the five miles we drove out of our way.

For days I have been looking for an old shack or barn to tag. I found quite a few, but they all had houses next to them or across the street and I didn't feel like explaining to anyone what it was I was doing.
Came across this but there were people and cars in the parking lot.
Check out the paint job...

First you buy the paint....say, red. Then you buy the applicator...say roller handle. Your wife says, "You think we need a handle for this thing?" And you say, "No, darling, you don't know anything about painting, now shut the fuck up."

Under those circumstances, that man would not...COULD NOT...go back to the store to buy the handle that would enable him to paint the upper half of the wall.
Simple deductive reasoning on my part.
Later I spotted the perfect shack. It was never-painted clapboard, rusted tin roof and porch atilt. As I was turning into the drive-way I discovered that there were people living there....WHITE PEOPLE!

The most dreaded three words in back road travel...

But the detour was a great drive...

Last night we ate in a BBQ place. The black dots on the floor are dead flies. It was right next to our table. We were the only patrons.

So when I saw this gigantic, commercial grade bug zapper directly outside our motel room, I did what I do...

All day my wife has been talking baby talk to the nice lady inside the Garmin. I'm not sure that it's possible to rate talking baby talk to a machine on the scale of irritating things humans do to one another. Several times she would thank the machine in that high pitched prattle for taking us to the correct turn, even though that is the only thing it was designed for, then she would hold it up against my lips and demand that I thank her.

This has not been easy on me, folks. I just take it one day at a time.

The problem of being half deaf: When I was ordering my fish today, the woman asked, "Cocktail or tartar sauce?" and I said, "Do you have a restroom?" Both her and my wife laughed at me like I had done a clever trick to amuse them.

I take my driving very, very seriously. It's called situational awareness and I am somewhat of an expert. There are times, however, that I need a spotter....say, when you pull up at an angle and can't see very well if there is a car coming from my right. I have taught my crews...all of them...to say clearly and loudly, "Clear right, clear right" when the road is clear. My wife however doesn't seem to understand the gravity of her responsibility. She used to say "Go," until I explained that 'go' sounds a whole bunch like 'no' and with the possibility of me pulling out in front of a 70mph semi, it was not the time for misunderstandings. I finally got her to at least say "Good, good, good"....until today. Today she spelled it..."G-O-O-D". I lost it. I retraced my training and the importance of one of us not killing the other. I made sure that there could be no misunderstanding in how important it was that I not be permitted to pull out in the path of certain death.
And she just shrugged and said, "I thought you could spell."

Now that my wife has calmed down over her navigation error yesterday, I have been given permission to discuss it with you fine folk.
The Garmin is a marvelous machine. It does it's job almost flawlessly getting you to your destination. The weak link in the chain is the human operator. You see, if the operator puts in the wrong town, then that Garmin is more or less useless, or more precisely, counter productive.
Well, yesterday, my wife did not drop the ball. She dropped the whole fucking moving van filled with all the athletic equipment...girl's and boy's...all sports. And that's all I have to say about that.

I've been getting some real good comments on my blog. I'd just like to apologize for not having time to answer them all. We get off the road, I nap, eat supper and by then it's almost time for bed. Stay patient.

I want to ask you art minded people something.
What's the difference between this street art and those railroad cars I showed you the other day?

I suggest that the one above is, at least, an attempt at making art and the other is playing follow the leader with a style that has been so worn out that it's now laughably naive.
I have tried very hard to avoid following fads and resisting peer pressure. I think that people who act alike, smell alike, act alike, dress alike soon start to think alike...I call that Groupthink and it is not a good thing. When we have Groupthink we have Nazis, witch trials and the KKK.
Anyway, I'm trying to rant here. Stop interrupting me with facts and reason.

I'm a so-so pool player. I start at..say...a 7, then every beer I drink I get better and better...

Until that one swallow. Then I plummet to a 2 in a matter of seconds.

There was a time when people traveled all over the world collecting souvenirs from all the countries. Now they could just go to China and get all the same shit...like one stop shopping.

PARANOIA: You only have to be right once to make it all worthwhile.

Does anybody else's wife drape toilet paper over their husband's penis and pretend it's a ghost?

Once my grandmother threatened to kill herself with a banana. I ignored her. But when my mother got back she got very angry at me for not taking the situation seriously enough.