Hank County Bureau-Cats!

Good evening fellow citizens,
I have been bemoaning the drudgery of watching limited cable tv. Yes, I'd like some cheese to go with my whine! Tonite, I had the choice of watching America's funniest video, a teeny-bopper soap opera, a goofy sit-com, assorted shopping networks, a spanish soap opera, a game show, an idol show or one station that just had a still picture for 3 hours and counting. How many years can you watch a show about people falling down? Dean Martin did that 40 years ago and so much better. And why do we sit on the edge of our seats to hear amateurs sing and dance and then listen to bubble-heads rate them or berate them based on their skewed biases. By golly, Ed Sullivan screened the talent before hand, so some bubble-head wouldn't have to tell you whether you should have enjoyed it or not. If that Boyles lady were not uglier than Gomer's dog, she would never have made the cut. I suppose she sings well, but methinks she is like Mel Tillis, who faked a stutter. I think she fakes her ugliness, like Phylis Diller to get attention. Game shows? Turn off the tv, call some friends and play the game yourself. Same for sports. It's like watching some one eat or have sex. Just call up some friends, about the eating, of course, and do it yourself!
Well it got so bad tonite, that I watched the Hank County board of commissioners. Did we elect these guys? The petition brought before the board was to grant zoning for a citizen to operate a lot for storing wrecked tractor trailers. Now he was just a good old boy, 6 foot- 4, wearing shorts and a sweatshirt and looking like he came in after having a few dogs and a couple beers at the little league game. He was eloquent in his own way. He used clever analogies saying to compare his lot to others did not make sense because some looked like oranges, others like pears and some like grapes. He seemed reasonable in his request and apparently had been guided by government bureaucracy to make the preceding steps that led to this request. Perhaps we should understand the word bureaucracy. This is the french spelling of the word, but I'll break it down. The first part, bureau, should read burro. The end of the word is obviously an alternate spelling for our word crazy. In spanish, they often use the transverse order in the noun adjective juxtaposition, so the word would be locco burro or crazy donkey.
Now a little word study is in order because fact is occasionally funnier than fiction. I have shortened this narrative on the word donkey.

For other uses, see Donkey (disambiguation). Well this word fascinates me, because of it's complexity, it's duplicity and mainly it's uselessness. Let's dissect it. We'll just remove the dis part. We know what dat means. I like dis song. I don't like dat one. I like to use the word ambiguous, because it describes something that defies description. So disambiguation dissects the many different facets of a subject making the whole more or less clear than opaque.

Donkey
Conservation status
Domesticated
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Mammalia Order: Perissodactyla Family: Equidae Genus: Equus Subgenus: Asinus Species: E. africanus Subspecies: E. africanus asinus
Trinomial name
Equus africanus asinus Linnaeus, 1758

Now you tell me. I'm not smart enough to make this up so you know most of it is true! I think it's laconical that the highest ranking donkey party member in this preposterous land is scientifically annotated as Equus africanus asinus! That rolls me over! No further break down is recommended.

The donkey or ass, Equus africanus asinus,^[1][2] is a domesticated member of the Equidae or horse family, and an odd-toed ungulate. Now, there's no reason to call anyone an S O B. Just call him an odd-toed ungulate! The wild ancestor of the donkey is the African Wild Ass, E. africanus. The International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature has ruled in 2003 that if the domestic species and the wild species are considered subspecies of each other, the scientific name of the wild species has priority, even when that subspecies has been described after the domestic subspecies.^[2] So how can they be sub-species of each other. That's kind of like Ray Stevens, "I'm my own Grandpaw".

A male donkey or ass is called a jack, a female a jenny. So all you Jacks and Jennys out there, start using your middle name.,

While different species of the Equidae family can interbreed, offspring are almost always sterile. Nonetheless, horse/donkey hybrids are popular for their durability and vigor. A mule is the offspring of a jack (male donkey) and a mare (female horse). The much rarer successful mating of a male horse and a female donkey produces a hiney. The original spelling was hinny, but I assumed that must be a typo. I'm surprised there are any donkeys in existence today since their offspring are usually sterile. But look at Alabama for example.

Back to Hank County zoning issues. Hardly seems important any more. First of all, I don't think anyone understood what Bubba Q Citizen wanted. He apparently wanted to park wrecked trailors on this lot until someone bought them or requested them to be moved to another location. They tried to force him to construct a building because most of the other lots had buildings. They could not understand the phrase, "My office is in my home". He explained to put a building on this lot would be like feeding a personal pan pizza to a family of five. I'm sure he wanted to say that some commissioners were like sheep and some are like turkeys. They wanted tall fences and Leland cypresses and buffer zones. I promise you, someone with deep dirty political secrets owns a Leland cypress farm. Every Hank County legal proceeding I have ever witnessed, involved some kind of fine, condition or recompensation involving the planting of Leland cypresses. One high muckety-muck kept asking about the detention ponds on the other lots. I wondered if he actually planned on sentencing violators to doing time in a detention pond. Perhaps that's where they keep the Leland Cypresses. The highest muckety finally called for a vote. But instead more questions were asked. Are you sure you don't want a building on this property? More motions were made and seconded. And then they asked for a counter motion. They discussed conditions. If he had agreed to some minor condition, like installing public restrooms or a bus stop, I think they would have been happy. Finally one statesman suggested that they go look at the property instead of just pictures, so they could see the very plain industrial lots. I think he wanted to see the oranges, pears and grapes. This was motioned and seconded and all went home feeling they had fulfilled their public service and consequently entertained the multitudes!

Goodnight, loyal co-subjects, may you sleep like a baby, but without the crying and wetting.

A Tormented Soul

Hello sleepers and non-sleepers,

This message is brought to you by tick-tock. I awoke during the night with something crawling on me. It was not my wife. It was not my sister. The reason for this comment is that once, when I was about 7 years old and living in the old two story house at 948 Capitol Avenue, this happened. I was asleep in the family bedroom - what? you didn't have a family bedroom? We did. My mother, father, older sister and me, slept in one bedroom. There were burglar bars on the windows, chains on the door and my daddy put up brackets on each side of the door, so he could put a two by four across it. If anyone could get through that, he'd be facing my dad's gun. I guess that's why I had no little brother or sister! One night, as I lay there asleep, I sensed someone walking between my bed and the wall. I believed this to be a burglar. I layed there silently, even when he tried to crawl over my bed. I assumed (let the reader understand that, at that age, I didn't know the word assumed, but assume that I knew how to assume) that the burglar would not harm me if he thought I was asleep. After a moment or two, by powers of deductive reasoning, not knowing the word deductive either, I deducted that the intruder was my sister, sleepwalking. Nevertheless, I always thought of myself as brave and clever and wise. Unless you're thinking about fighting, or schoolwork or other actual challenges. So I wondered, if my intruder tonite was not my wife, not my sister, but actually something with tiny legs that tickled as it crawled on my skin, what was it? No matter, I swiped at the monster! It was not fazed. I grabbed it between my thumb and finger and carried it to the bathroom, mashing all the way. I had a sixth sense that this thing might be a tick! It looked like a tick. It wouldn't mash, like a tick won't mash! So being resourceful, I grabbed a match and burned the tick. That's the way to kill ticks and vampires, since I didn't have a tiny stake handy. This tick had tocked his last. So, next I wonder, where there are ticks, there might be what else? Other ticks. There might be other bigger, badder ticks. or worse, there might be tiny microscopic baby ticks, that I won't find for a month or two. So now I imagine there are ticks all over me. It's like when you're scared and your senses are heightened. All of your hairs, even your peach fuzz is standing on end. Every time one of those thousands of tiny hairs twitches, it might be a tick.
Once, when my dad was about my age, he thought he had bugs all over him. He saw on tv about the dust mites. They're so tiny, you can't see them, but they're there. They are eating your furniture, they're pooping in your bed, they're taking over your VERY HOME! He took me in the other room one evening. What, you didn't have an other room? We did! Every room we weren't in was an other room. He took me in there with a flashlight and turned the light out. You see, dust mites can only be discovered by scientific testing. He pulled up his shirt and shined the light and began scratching his belly. Sure enough, you could see tiny little things being stirred up! It's time to call the FBI, or Orkin or the men with the white coats! I said, Lookit,(of course at that time, I didn't know the word lookit) I can do that too. I pulled up my own shirt and scratched my belly and little things began flying around! I said, dad, that is dead skin! I sure was glad that worked. Otherwise I would have looked stupid! Of course what I didn't tell him, is that the dead skin was probably what the dust mites had been living off of.
All in all, I am grateful for the tick. He gave me something to write about. Since we only have basic cable , I sometimes go to bed earlier that usual, which usually does not work out well. Last night was such a night. I don't like shows about gory, gruesome, hateful things. I like comedy, romance, mild adventure. So, I'm reduced to watching shows on PBS, about old shows. Last night it was about Carol Burnette.
There are two kinds of people:
Those who like Elvis or those who like the Beatles.
Those who like Lucy or those who like Carol.
Those who sleep or those who don't.
Those who say shopping cart or those who say buggie.
Actually there must be many kinds of people.
Anyhow, Phylis Diller, if you don't know Phylis Diller, there is another whole world back there waiting for you. Anyway, Phylis Diller, by the way, it's a perfect name for her. she said, comedy is born out of tragedy or pain. I have always heard that comedy is always at someone's expense, and I believe that is true. It's sad to think that the people who make us laugh the most and feel good the most, must have been through such horrible pain. I think the trick is to somehow exaggerate the pain. But, the real trick is to spell exaggerate without wikopedia. But apparently I did, and twice in a row. So once again I have overcome my poor education. I must reach back into the horrible place in my life and dredge up happiness for others, even though I be tormented and vexed. Bytheway, do you know the difference. Being vexed is having a tick bite in the nite. Being tormented is the horrible reciprocating dreams that will not stop until you become insane!! Like I had last night! It's like when Lucy pulls away the football and Charlie Brown falls on his backfield. AAUUGGHH!!! These dreams are so detailed and filled with adventure and great fear. The difference in me and Spielberg is that he can put his dreams on film. And he is rich and famous. And he has a Jewish sounding name. Other than that, my dreams are even better than his. I dreamed I was in this huge, I mean HUGE arena. The seating was like a mountainside and the seats were abstractly molded into stone, crudely shaped into erratic forms where you could perch, but none too comfortably. They were steeply arranged. I have recurring dreamscapes where I climb to a point that I can not return from. Has that ever happened to you? You get to a place and can not negotiate a safe way to get back from it. Kind of like jumping into a hole - easy enough - but then you can't jump back out. Only, in my case, every direction you move brings great risk of falling. I don't really have a fear of heights. I have a very realistic fear of falling from heights. In this particular dream, I keep jockeying - I'm sorry but I don't understand that word. I have to look this up. I wanted a really good definition, so I went to Merriam-Webster. One of my original goals was to educate and inform my readers. Then I noticed it is Merriam hyphen Webster. I always thought Merriam was one of the Websters. Merriam was Charles and George Merriam, who bought rights to the Websters stuff, so Merriam - Webster. The first definition was to do with underwear. Now I should think a jockey would wear briefs for reasons I won't explain here - or anywhere else! The word makes perfect sense though, because a jockey must pick, choose and aim for his position among the other horses, if he is to finagle his way to the front. I'm not speaking with any reference to shorts. I jockeyed for the best position until I had reached a perch that I was not able to extricate myself from. This tormented me greatly. I don't know how I managed to vacate that position, but I then chose a position closer to the coming attraction. Now this mountainside arena was at the edge of a great sea and the attraction was a colossal stone ship. An enormous (I don't like the word ginormous. It just sounds foopid to me!) ship carved from stone appeared to be suspended under water, before our eyes. Villainous villains were aboard, making vile threats to the horrified audience. They grabbed one young woman, who screamed, panic-strickened for her life. I tried to believe she was a plant, but in my heart, did not. This was tormenting!
On the other hand, sometimes I dream things that make me laugh out loud. My wife usually does not think these are funny. And I usually forget them. I have dreamed whole songs, which I have no conscious knowledge of. Brian Wilson, and I'm sure other songwriter/composers do this. When he awakes from a dream, he writes it down, sometimes resulting in a hit song. I am convinced that if I can somehow harness my dreams, I can live much larger than ever before. If your dreams are more amazing than your life, why not live your dreams and just dream your life. Huh??

Oh well, I have probably kept you from many important things, like relining the waste basket or deflating the couch cushions. I hope my torment has brought you some happiness

Good night, may the angels watch over you while you are sleeping.

THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX..

Dear Thinking Ones,
The trouble with people today is they don't even think inside the box, much less outside the box I can relate a little to the saying since I work in a cubicle, much like a box, except there is no lid and it has a little doorway. Other than that, I'm thinking the only time I might be in a box is if it's a casket. Guess I'd better get a handle on things! Only the smart ones will get that.If you didn't get it, don't worry. You're probably good at something else like interpreting clouds. Or watching paint dry. I was on a 10 hour shift. The building where I work was nearly deserted. I ventured out of my cube to retrieve my Coke Zero out of the freezer. You know what that means. I had created a time bomb. So I thought it was time to defuse the bomb and avoid disaster. This small business owner, translate, man who waxes floors, told me that the floor was wet. With the yellow signs and the fan and the floor waxer machine, I had imagined that the floor was wet, only he didn't know how little I cared. How long could it take for a floor to dry? 10 minutes? I waited 15 minutes to be sure. Then I went to check again. This floor licker, uh, waxer man was sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall and talking on his cell phone. His resume must say multi-tasker. He didn't look up when I approached the break room, but he had all this stuff lined up across the entryway, like he was sitting in the sheepgate. I suppose his itemized bill would include 1 hour for watching the floor dry.
As the world thinks, I don't have enough insurance. I think I do. I have a rental house. It was worth about 105 grand. Now it may be worth 50 grand. The county taxes me for 90 grand and the insurance company says it would cost 155 grand to rebuild, if it burnt to the ground. I'm thinking if it burned to the ground and no one was home, it would not be a bad thing. There is no loan on the house, so I collect 155 grand. Do I have to rebuild the house? I should think not. I once had 5 cars and before you start, tht total value of all 5 put together would barely be enough for a trip to six flags. But we only had four drivers. So, I asked a stupid question. By the way, there are no stupid questions, just stupid people. Are we insuring the cars or the drivers, cause if it's the drivers, there are only four, but we're being charged for five and we can't drive but 1 car at a time, per person. There were times when there were four drivers and three cars. Did they just charge for the three cars. No, they charged us for all of the drivers.
I think the government should create insurance insurance. That way if you can't pay your insurance, the insurance pays for it. Then we don't need all of the government programs. It should start at birth. If you can't afford insurance, then it should be free. Then we could do away with all of the other government programs.
Rapture insurance. You've heard about the rapture. That's when all of the Christians will be caught up to heaven and everybody else will be left behind to face the tribulation. The very best thing is to go ahead and confess that you're a sinner (everyone already knows it anyway) and except the free gift that God has provided for you, eternal life. Heaven is a perfect place and we being sinners can not go there with our sin. And God being fair and all, can't just look the other way. You can not enter heaven, which only leaves that other place. But Jesus, being God's Son, and loving all of the people God made, took the punishment for all of our sins, when he willingly died on the cross. All you have to do is believe.
You don't need rapture insurance! But maybe you know someone who is stubborn and will not believe. You could buy a policy that guarantees that your friend who was left behind will have someone to remind him continually to repent and accept Christ. Yes, it's too late to be raptured, but they can still be saved.
I planted tomatoes. I hope the deer and rabbits don't eat them. If so, I guess I'll just have to have a rabbit sandwich. Guess I need tomato insurance.

So long, I'm tired.

Okeedontknowfenokee Swamp!

Hello friendly friends!
One of the things I like to do is eat. Another is travel. So I decided to combine the two. Once I tried traveling without eating and it didn't work so well. So now I eat and travel. Sometimes I eat and travail! This time my dear wife invited me along for one of her business trips, to Albany, pronounced All-Benny. I asked her what was there in Albany, that I might like to see and she said nothing. No, I don't mean she didn't say anything. I mean she said 'nothing'. So, I said, I'll go. I've never seen a town with nothing, so it should be fun! She also wanted to get a GPS. I agreed that might be fine for her, but I had my pipes rodded last year! She assured me it was not that kind of GPS. This one would holler out directions as you drive down the road. You know how I have this thing about turning over parts of my life. Well now this British Veronica, person is telling me where to go! Once or twice, I wanted to tell her where... She tells me when I am approaching a turn. She says 70 ft, 60 ft, 50 ft, 40 ft, 30 ft, ..WALTER!! You missed the turn! For that I'm sending you around the block - the hard way! I know it's hard work, sitting there in her cubicle, telling stupid people directions, but have a little patience! Please! Now I want the good ole boy version when it comes out. Ok bubba, rite there where that red truck is, is where you gonna hang a left. Awe, you missed it, but thats awrite, jist turn around and we'll try her agin. I quickly found out that Veronica is not always right. She took me to the Redneck Ritts. I think she listens to your voice and then decides where you should go. The Ritts is nice. It has a pawn shop off from the lobby, so if you can't pay the bill, just pawn something. Every suite has indoor plumbing. It's quite simple. The inhouse-outhouses have a hole in the floor in the middle of the #1#2 room where you apply simple math. It's quite ingenious. Of course the suites on the bottom floor are not sweet suites. No chocolate truffles here. they just put a Ritts cracker with some peanut butter or jelly on it, on top of your pillow. Don't forget and lay your head down there, or you'll wake up with a cat licking you rear. Excuse me, that should be 'your ear'! There is a free cat with every room. Their job is to eat the mice. They're union cats, so better let them, do it. The showers are very planet friendly. Because you have to plan it whenever the tenant on the top floor takes his/her shower. There's a open-top retention tank on top of the building. Reminds me of when Billie-Jo, Bobbie-Jo and Betty-Jo went swimming in the water tower at Petticoat Junction. If you know which is which, you are a triple-nerd from way back! Anyhow baths are free in the rainy season. The shower floors are perforated, so when the person in the penthouse takes his/her shower. the people directly underneath, may take their showers also. Kind of like being a downstream neighbor. The opposite applies for the inhouse/outhouse. Make sure no one is matriculating on the floors above. We had cat food for breakfast and I'm not talking about food for cats. I'm talking about cats for food! I know because one of them was a calico.
Anyway, that was Albany. It was a great trip! I can honestly tell you that each experience was better than the next! The three of us, Cheryl, Veronica and me moved on to the next venue. Oh, by the way, if you get one of these things, leave it in the car. It's bad enough having Veronica direct your every move in the car, but in the motel room it was just insane. Well jist never you mind about that. About 40 miles down the road we approach this town called Ty Ty.
Strange but Absolutely True: I got this from a government website and copied and pasted it. Here is where the name of this town originated. The county's courthouse was constructed in 1912. TyTy was named for the trees lining the banks of a nearby creek: the Ironwood (white titi) and Buckwheat (black titi) trees. Don't ask me how to pronounce it. I would guess tie-tie. The website is: http://tiftcounty.georgia.gov/03/home/0,2230,8616906,00.html. Honest Injun! It's an interesting town for all of the business there. Let's see, The Ty Ty Thai Cuisine, the Ty Ty Tie One On Bar and Grill, the Ty Ty High Tri Hi Y,Ty Ty HiFi Buys and Mary Ty Ty Tyler Moore's Beauty School. Could you imagine calling Ty Ty Tylers Toyota? Hello, this is "Ty Ty Tylers Toyota". "You heard me! I don't ststststutter!! We stopped at the Exxon station and got a Ty Ty Tiger in our ta-ta- tank!
I don't have Ty Ty Tyme, Whoa! Slap me! I don't have time to tell about the Okeedontknowfenokee Swamp. It's an interesting story about the Okee Injuns and the Fenokee Injuns. You see, Injuns was all over Georgia back in the 1600's when I was a little shaver. They learned us how to hunt and fish and grow stuff and have wild parties. They actually started UGA, only they jist called it UG. Once we learnt everthang we could from them, we started running them off, further and further south. They eventually ended up in the swamp. They figgered no one would want that land and they could stay there forever. Only problem wuz thar wuz two tribes, the Okees and the Fenokees and they didn't cotton to one another at all. Now that swamp wuz full of alligators, snakes, bobcats, bears and all manner of insects. But these injuns weren't about to be outdone. They sloshed thru the swamp with hatchets and knives cutting the heads of anything that bites! The Okees became great hunters and tanners. They made alligator furs. Yep, you don't see them anymore, 'cause they all got kilt. They made purses with fur on the inside and leather on the outside. The Fenokees became great masters of Injun Cuisine. They made Turtle Soup, Alligator Steaks, Bear-Cat Stew, Otter Tots and my favorite Snake-Dogs. But they were stubborn. Neither tribe would except the other. The Okees would smear Otter dung on their skin to repel insects which also repelled the Fenokees. The Fenokees would part their hair on the left which made them appear to be right brained sissies which the Okees couldn't stand. Arbitrators would try to settle the differences, but with arms folded they would proclaim Okee don't know Fenokee. Finally winter set in and they realized that half were hungry and half were naked. So they got together and ate a feast and put on clothes or the other way around. From then on they lived as one. only some called them selves Okee-Fenokee and some say Fenokee-Okee. After many years of counseling they finally learned to say that they were all Okie-dokie! Of course white man inevitably caught on to the swamp charm and ran them off from there too! Does anyone ever say evitably, or is it always inevitably. It's kind of like irregardless. Regardless, means without regard, so irregardless means, not without regard. You could simply say with regard to etc. I guess you could say someone is not unattractive, when you can't quite bring yourself to actually say she is attractive. Which just goes to show, "It's not what you say, it's "What You Don't Say" from the once popular TV game show. Anyway, I beleive they migrated to Pittsburgh. Probably no one would want to dispossess the Okee Dokees from there! W. C. Fields once said "When I die, I'll probably go to hell or Pittsburgh, makes little difference!' By the way, some of the New York Injuns moved there from Buffaloe and Syracuse with their nasal accent and started calling them donkees, which eventually became the democratic party, which is still a little wild!

So much for the history lesson. Perhaps next time I'll fill you in on the modern day goings on in swamp land!

Ty Ty for now..suite dreams!

One is as one does - Waldo