ADVENTURER’S LOG: EARTH CYCLE 27 - FRIDAY #1712

RAINBOW CITY, ALABAMA

The gayest city in America.

NOTE: Don't let the interstate sign fool you. We only had to get on it for two miles to get to our motel.

We took 278 all the way across Alabama...good road.
Right off the bat I spotted this old sign and stopped immediately...

Sign was gone, but it still had the hooks...

AND KISMET SMILED

This sign required a fork and a spoon and I wanted two of the same design. That was a tough standard, since I only have nine utensils left. That's were the kismet came in. I pulled out all the forks and spoons and of the nine there was only two left with the same design. Then I wondered if I had two consecutively numbered brass tags. And with only five left, that was a very tall order, indeed. But then I found, though Lady Kismet, 145 and 146.


Very bright sun, very high mount, couldn't see screen, so very hard to see numbers. This is 145...

This is fork number 146...

Grandma died. The relatives picked through her belongs, but not even the neediest of these survivors wanted her cheap, mismatched eating utensils. These they gave to charity, one taking a tax deduction for the donation. There they sat until a week or so ago when an old artist rummaged through and selected twenty of them. These he attached across America, documenting his last road trip.

Now look back at the two utensils above. They are no longer a spoon and a fork. They are "Spoon #145" and "Fork #146". And they will forever be so even if they are removed. Who knows, Grandma's discards may lodge in a generation of minds...and maybe two.

Wife and I got in a conversation about Crape Myrtle trees. We have them all over our back yard. If you cut the lower limbs as it grows, it reaches 30 feet and is an excellent canopy for shade. I like the sinewy (?) trunks that look like deer legs. 
Some people insist on cutting them back every year to make them mere bushes....we call them "Crape Murders".
Then I spotted a copse of them done right and...

An old friend, Libby, sent me a post of a wooden post and asked me to repost for no reason.

So, Libby, I offer you a Spoonerized post to repost...

I like the tarnish on that spoon and wish they had all been that way, but only one more was.

When it rains it pours.

Found this old house and have been wanted to tag one for a long time...

This is a very beautiful old spoon. I almost took it home with me to use with my cereal...but no....

PEAK EXPERIENCES.

During a persons life, they have events that are burned into their memory...some good, some bad. These are called "Peak Experiences". When I was directing children in the painting of murals in their school, I knew it would be a peak experience. I have many, many full grown adults come up to me and tell me that I helped them paint a mural....25 years prior.

Anyway, Cullman, Alabama is the location for one of my peak experiences as a child. I went to spend a week at a farm that was owned by my best friend's grandparents. I have many memories about that, but my favorite was the old woman sending me and Donny out to pick a basketful of blackberries. Be brought them back and within an hour was called back into the house for the most delicious blackberry cobbler I have ever eaten....the standard by which I will always judge desert.

Then I spotted this...

I had used my last brass tag, but lucky for my admiring fans, I had picked through all the games at a thrift store looking for anything I could drill holes in and use to secure the utensils. I thought I was going to have to settle for checkers, when I came upon some bastardized rummy game with numbered tiles.....perfect! I drilled holes in them and now I'm back in business...

The cashier at the thrift store told me that it was her favorite game and that "The tiles sit in those little racks and are especially good for older people who have trouble holding cards." Then she looked at me sympathetically.

You have to remember, we are traveling through Alabama. I get out and walk through knee deep weeds fearing a snake bite with every step just to Utensilize things. Just another reason to drink beer...

You may have noticed that I have stopped wearing a hat. I started wearing hats many years ago when my skin doctor told me to, since I was painting so many murals outdoors. Well, I don't paint murals any more.

I've also stopped combing my hair. One morning I had the brush in my hand, poised above my head and I thought, "Why, exactly, are you doing this?" I couldn't come up with a good reason, so I've quit with the hair grooming.

Once in the truck, my wife reached over and used her hand to smooth down some errant hairs. I shooed her away and she said, "Do you know what you look like?"

I said, "Well, do I look like I give a shit?"

She said, "No. It looks like you don't give a shit."

I said. "Good. I nailed it!"

RANDOM OBSERVATIONS FROM THE ROAD
The BP gas card is also a Visa, like most of them now. BP gives you a small rebate every time you use their card, and on this trip we have used it a lot. The rebate comes in the form of discounted gas. You put your card in the pump and it asked things like, "Would you like 16 cents off each gallon of gas?"
Well, there are no BP stations where we have traveled. We saw one in Mississippi, but we didn't need gas. I asked my wife how much she thought our discount was up to and she said 35 cents. I told her that 35 cents was the over/under bet and asked if she wanted over or under. She said under, I took over. Then she asked what the bet was. I said, "Loser performs oral sex." Without missing a beat she said, "Whose dick do I have to suck?"

Bought Krispy Kreme Donuts this morning in a gas station. They were packaged nine to a box....nine...?????

Did you know that every town over 1000 people all have a sign that proclaims "Historic Downtown"? I guess when you think about it, a pile of dog shit has a history...such as it is.

There may come a day when I don't repost this post, but that day is not this day...

There is someone out there that can explain this to me. The ball is in your court...

I didn't know this...

Automatic citizenship may have been a good idea when we desperately needed people, but that time is long past.

Free Syrian Army troops during time away from battle...

Had a Golden Retriever once. Motherfucker never found a bit of gold......I'd of been better off with a metal detector.

When I was dating, I didn't check out her boobs or ass. I looked at her face and imagined how hot she would look when she's pissed off, cause that's what would really happen.

The other day I mentioned being flabbergasted that anyone would rent someone a motorcycle? Case in point...

If McDonald's were to double the salaries and benefits of all of its employees, from the CEO down to the minimum wage cashiers, it would still only cost an extra 68 cents for a Big Mac

(Quintillion = 1 billion multiplied by 1 billion)

The article said that some scientists think that photons my have mass, but so small that current instruments can't measure it.

They don't work, they live off the public dole and just pump out children...

The Oldest Song In The World, c. 1400 B.C.

Children who were breastfed for more of their infancy scored higher on language and intelligence tests at three and seven years old, in a new study.

Researchers found that for each extra month women reported breastfeeding, their children performed slightly better on those exams - though not on tests of motor skills and memory.

The downside to breastfeeding...

A happily married man is one who understands every word that his wife didn't say.

If violence is caused by video games, please let me know what video games people played in the Middle Ages. They weren't sitting in their cottages playing Grand Theft Caravan.
(There are a whole bunch of people who think the Middle Ages never happened. It was...somehow...forged into history.)

What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public.

You know that feeling you get when battle music plays in a game, but you can't find the enemy? Yeah, me neither.