A Man and His Underwear, Part 1: Undies To Go

I won’t lie, I was bragging. Having just completed a two-week trip packing only a carry-on, I was detailing the contents. Mentioning that I had packed only three pairs of underwear, it took no time at all for someone to ask the obvious question:

Do whut? (Tranlated from Southernese, that’s ‘do what?’ It means, ‘what the heck did you just say?’)

Obviously, this person wanted to question my personal hygiene. At first blush, three pairs of drawers for a fourteen day trip seems an indicator that a person might think they poop sunshine and roses. I get it.

Allow me to explain.

First of all, I am the prime minister of packing. Not only did I pack clothes, the same suitcase contained my wife’s cosmetics, a CPAP machine, and since we would be visiting a country where wine is dominant, I packed a bottle of good bourbon.

There are tricks to packing. Let’s start with the bourbon. Glass is dead weight and breakable. A plastic flask is light and flexible. I take the additional step of wrapping the flask in a gallon-sized baggie in case there’s leakage.

I will confirm that with this amount of liquid, a carry-on cannot be carried on an airplane. It becomes checked luggage.

So if you’re going to check it, why not pack a full-sized suitcase, then? This trip would have many stops, and I didn’t want to lug around any more baggage than necessary. Plus, being an international flight, the bag was checked for free.

You’re asking the right questions, though.

Having been involved in the 4-H program for many years, my wife learned – and taught me - how to ‘pack for camp’ (roll clothes instead of folding). You can fit a lot of tightly-rolled clothes in a suitcase. In fact, I didn’t wear all the clothes I took. I still over-packed!

Helpful hint: you can always pack less. I re-learn that every time we travel.

But back to the underwear thing.

I am an underwearist. An expert in the subject. The original Captain Underpants. In my underwear is how I spend most of my time. I suspect that’s also the cause of several failed relationships, but that’s getting off the point.

I quit college because they didn’t offer an undie-ology degree. So I set out seeking knowledge on my own.

For the uninitiated, there is truly such a thing as travel underwear. They are made of fabric designed to dry quickly and, in some cases, actually wick moisture away from the body. (Leakage, for now, is confined to the flask. Assume that moisture is sweat.)

Two brands I can recommend and own myself: ExOfficio and Magellan. They are two different kinds of fabric, but both wear well. The Magellan brand is a micro-fiber. A traveling companion on this trip complained about his micro-fiber undies. I didn’t get it. They are oh-so-soft and offer good support for… uh… the, uh, things that might need supporting.

(Side note: if you wear regular boxers, stop. Yeah, you may look cooler sitting around the house than you would in briefs, but hear me on this: gravity isn’t just for women. Consider yourself warned.)

While traveling, every couple of days, grab your underwear from the day before and, perhaps still wearing the pair you wore today, hop into the shower. Soap or shampoo does a nice job of cleaning clothes, when required. Hang them up and the next day, you’re starting all over, fresh for the next few days.

Note that it is important to get all the soap out. Failure to do so, along with air-drying them, will lead to owning undergarments you can use as a night stand.

That’s it for now. Keep ‘em clean, smelling sweet, and happy travels, everyone!

Full disclosure: I wrote this while sitting in my underwear.

Tabloids: Exposing the Truth

DUCK HUNTER ACCIDENTALLY KILLS ANGEL!!*

It was that headline many years ago that started my love affair with tabloids. I don’t buy them, mind you, but they make standing in line at the grocery store more tolerable. I mean, am I the only one that wonders if ducks and angels look alike when they’re just flying around?

(Quick side note, Jennifer Aniston is pregnant. US Weekly said so back in 2013. If she doesn’t have that baby soon, man, that’s gonna be a really painful birth!)

A friend recently posted a story about how a 200-year old letter predicting World War III has surfaced, also predicting it will be a war against Islam. My friend posted it, all sarcasm intended, giving his social media followers a heads-up that the story was out there and to expect conspiracy theorists to share it.

What I noticed, though, was that it was from a British source called the Express. Knowing that the Brits are famous for their tabloids, I decided to see what else might be news according to Express. So I logged on.

The top story that day – or week, maybe: a sink hole developing in a yard in Berkshirehamptonshireworchestershire… some ‘shire’ place is all I remember. Regardless, a family had discovered the sink hole and in it were steps leading down. I think we all know what that means: Lucifer is using the yards of ordinary British citizens to go back and forth while doing his dirty work on Earth. That’s what that means.

However, I was more taken by the other major headline of the day. It seems a news reader (we’d say ‘news anchor’) in Albania was showing off a little of herself during her news programs, and there were allegations her newscasts were enhanced. Literally.

Not so, she says. All of her parts are real.

I have a tiny bit of reporter instinct and a whole lot of manly curiosity about all of this, not to mention I also know a little about Albania from having watched a 1993 episode of “Cheers.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-F_tT-q8EF0

The reporter part of me wants to know why a newscaster flashes any personal skin during her nightly news. OK, if I were being 100% honest, I’d admit I also wondered what she/they looked like, but let’s keep this professional.

Turns out, this is a local station with some huge audience numbers for its news, thanks largely (I’m guessing) to the fact that the reporters are all attractive females and deliver the news with their blouses completely unbuttoned.

That do get your attention.

The news reader singled out of this Express story was above average in that region just below the chin, and there were allegations that what she presented (other than the news) wasn’t real. That this was making the news indicates a pretty slow day in tabloidism.

But wait, there’s more (to the story)!

This station in Albania was the center of major British tabloid attention last fall after they fired a presenter who went on to pose for Playboy. The irony of that story was that the fired anchor was, herself, the very reason this station presents news as they do.

Enki Bracaj was fresh out of college and trying to (ahem) stand out during auditions for the news job at the station, so she unbuttoned her shirt and started reading. Her name may have the word ‘bra’ in it, but her shirt did not.

The bosses were impressed, and she was hired on the spot.

In fact, claiming they were looking for a new approach to interest viewers, they decided to use that look for all of their news presenters. No bra, shirt open. Oh, and yes, all women. And to make sure viewers understood the nobility of their reasoning, they claimed it would give viewers, “the naked truth” as it pertained to news.

As I said before, the concept has been a hit.

So what happened? Why was the original news reader fired?

I don’t know.

I’ll guess that the station thought her posing completely nude compromised her integrity as a partially-nude news anchor, but I don’t know. My research lead me to stories with pictures of the reporters, and I sort of got distracted.

The end.

Probably why I never got a job with a major news network.

Probably.

*I recognize that Mitch Albom has a book with a similar title. I’ve never read it, but I’m sure it’s not the true story I read over 25 years ago waiting in line at the Piggly Wiggly.

Stuff, Part 1: Collectibles vs. Stuff

Almost everybody collects something. It starts early, and I’m still waiting to see how it ends. Pause here for a moment, and let your memory fill in the blank:

“As a kid, I collected_____.”

Baseball cards, dolls (perhaps a specific kind of doll), coins, books, stamps, rocks, Beanie Babies… action figures, perhaps?

Later, we leave this childishness behind and move on to more grown-up toys: dishes, cars, spouses, vintage jewelry, pewter, pottery… anybody else ever collect matchbooks?

Hard to find matchbooks these days. I suppose that’s because of the perception that they promote smoking. Forget the fact that you light candles, incense, fireplaces and have an old recliner in the yard that needs burning. If you have a book of matches, you are going to go straight to the store to buy cigarettes, and we ain’t having none of that.

I’ll use our matchbook collection to get us to where we’re going by asking, where is your collection now?

Our matchbooks are in a large jar in the basement. The. Basement. That’s where we keep things like mattresses and broken chairs and doors. Doors?

As a kid, I collected coins. My collection is pretty small, and I doubt there’s much of value in it. Lots of pennies and nickels. I keep it in a vintage suitcase that has broken hinges and will not lock, and it’s… somewhere… in a room, under a bed, under a chest, in a closet. Maybe in the basement. No, probably in the basement.

Do I get it out occasionally? No. Do I have any hankering to actually check and see if I at one point stumbled onto a truly valuable coin? No. Do I share its contents with anyone? No.

Hey, I can’t even tell you where it is!

So I submit to you that at some point, depending on how you treat your collectibles, they just become stuff. And stuff tends to become clutter. And clutter is useless.

I was going brew my own beer, so I started collecting flippies. Flip-top bottles. That was 20 years ago. Still got the bottles. They hang out… say it together…”in the basement!”

We have two collections of dishes. My wife collected Jewel Tea, and I collected Currier and Ives. Neither is terribly valuable nor hard to find. Do we use them? No. Display them? Nope. Any plans to do either of those things? Nay.

So recently, we decided to (using our word) dejunkify. If these collectibles had crossed over to just “stuff” territory, let’s shed ourselves of some of it.

Let’s start with the dishes. No, forget the dishes. Her collection connects her to her grandma that collected Jewel Tea. My dishes are the dishes I grew up eating on, so let’s keep those. Besides, if we free up all that shelf space, what’s gonna go there? Can’t just have empty shelf space, right?

But, hey now, those flippies. Yeah, I can get rid of those. In fact, the journey has begun. They are now in the garage. I know because I’ve seen them everyday for the last eight months since I moved them there. So, I’m doing my part.

My wife is not.

She tried. At one point in her career an entomologist, she has an odd collection of vintage sprayers. Yeah, bug sprayers, garden sprayers. They’re shiny, made of metal. But they are in a storage room taking up space and of no use to us. Nor the rest of mankind.

But you can’t just trash them. I mean, getting rid of them from the house is one thing, but you just can’t get rid of them! They’re antiques.

Aren’t they? Maybe?

Let’s just hold on to them for now until we can find someone who wants them. Perhaps one day we’ll be in a mall somewhere, and a gentleman will just walk up to us and ask, “Hey, by any chance, do you guys have some old bugs sprayers?”

One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. Now, if we can just find that man…

The Last Laugh (Ballad of Jim Hadaway)

Jim was a joker. Like a lot of older guys that think they’re funny, most of his humor made you roll your eyes and groan. Old man humor is its own animal.

Waitress: “And how would you like your steak?”

Old man: “Cooked.”

The server laughs, and you know she just wants to lean over and hug that old man for making her day with the funniest thing she’s heard all year! Before she kills him dead right there.

Jim and I were unlikely buddies, being a full generation apart in age. We became acquainted by playing golf as part of a large group that would gather almost daily for what’s commonly called a ‘dog fight.’

One day, after our dog fight, I wound up at his house one day to help him split some firewood. That’s where we bonded. We both shared the love of a warm fire, so finding and splitting wood became a thing for us. And we did it all year long.

Before his stroke a couple of years ago, we’d always split enough wood for the both of us and have enough left over to sell ten to fifteen truckloads. That was Jim’s thing. The old man was old school. He’d worked all his life, made and squandered a couple of fortunes, and like to tell me about it. I always figured selling a few loads of firewood every winter kept him feeling productive as he approached his eighties.

Over the years, we perfected a system whereby we’d have whole tree trunks delivered to his back yard by the dump truck load. Such a load would require several weeks of after-golf working to split and stack.

I imagine if we’d ever sat down to figure out how much it cost to keep three chainsaws and a splitter running, we’d probably have gotten out of that little hobby. But it wasn’t just the about the wood-splitting.

It was also about happy hour.

If golf ran until 3:30 or 4 o’clock, we could get a solid hour or so of splitting in until it was time for refreshments. Jim declared it against union rules to work past 5 o’clock, so really, what choice did we have but to quit and drink?

Even as Jim gave up golf, we would time our wood-cutting sessions to end at 5 o’clock and retire to his screened-in porch for tales and toddies. Drinks poured or beers popped, Jim would launch into his stories.

He’d always start with, “Have I told you about the time…” Yes, he had told me, usually more than once, but I always said no just to hear what embellishment was going to be added with this telling.

I never really thought of his story-telling as lying. Rather, I liked to think of it as him remembering some detail he had previously omitted.

Following his first stroke, Jim’s participation in wood-cutting sessions was as foreman, shouting instructions from his porch on where to stack wood and how high, because in the 10 years we’d been doing it together, I apparently hadn’t learned that.

By the way, the proper height for stacking wood is high enough that you can discreetly take a leak and no one driving past your house can see you. I did learn that.

Through all of the years of our B-S sessions, Jim had repeatedly promised that when he died, he’d leave me his underwear and socks. Old man humor again. I mean, isn’t promising to leave your buddy your socks and underwear hysterical?

I think my biggest fear was that he might actually do it. I had played golf with him enough to know that his underwear was the very definition of hazmat.

Two years after his first stroke, Jim had another one. I lost a friend, but he left me with plenty of warm, silly, dumb, idiotic memories and stories to last me for a while. Plus, I got his PBR.

Jim drank Pabst Blue Ribbon. Post-stroke, he required help, and his wife needed whatever participation he could offer in getting him dressed, bathed and going about the business of the day, so she tried to keep in on a two-a-day limit. Given that, a few cases would last quite a while.

Upon his passing, there were two cases of PBR that I felt needed a home. I knew his wife had better taste, so I just loaded them up and took ‘em. I do believe that upon my own passing, there will still be the better part of two cases left. If you like PBR, no offense.

I spoke at Jim’s memorial. Jim had fun with his life, and I aimed to have some fun with it, as well. I recalled how he seemed to most enjoy telling me about the things that went awry in his life: bar fights, failed marriages, bum business partners or deals, too much drink… I had heard them all always questioned what amount of truth they contained.

At his memorial, I called him out. I did. Right there in the First Methodist Church chapel, I called Jim a liar. I told the over-flowing gathering that he had promised me his underwear and socks, but that he had not delivered on that promise. Most folks there thought that was pretty funny.

It was interesting to see the faces of those gathered as I spoke. I brought as much laughter as I could tastefully invoke. But there’s always the few, the old-line few, that think a funeral or memorial is a strictly somber occasion, that it is not a time or place for happiness.

Those folks are getting left behind by those of us that choose to be grateful to have been a part of a well-lived life. Almost every memorial I’ve attended in the last decade has been generally uplifting. Sure, there are tears, but there is joy, and yes, plenty of laughter as we relive the precious – frequently amusing – memories of the life we are there to celebrate.

If I have the opportunity to plan my own exit, expect hijinks. And BBQ and beer.

At age 80, I’m convinced Jim knew he was near the end of his journey. He spoke of it frequently, though not in a weighty manner. And he planned. He had taken necessary steps to donate his body to a medical college. He had also arranged for an attorney/friend to be his executor in order to free his wife of that responsibility.

This week, the postman delivered a package to my house. It was from an address I did not recognize. Turns out, it was from the executor of Jim’s estate. In the box, underwear and socks. A tee shirt and the patriotic bandana Jim frequently wore when we split wood had also been included.

I spent the rest of the day laughing. That’s exactly how Jim would have wanted it.

I’ll keep the bandana. Probably the t-shirt, too. But the underwear, that’s one precious memory that will not linger!

Know Any Lawyer Jokes?

What happened to the law profession? Seriously.

One of my best friends for the last 45 years of my life is a lawyer. I recall us many years ago discussing then-upcoming changes that would finally allow attorneys to advertise. Being employed in radio, a medium that makes its money off advertising, I was all for it. My buddy was not. He felt like it would cheapen the profession.

Boy, did he ever get that right.

Television shows today are filled with ads featuring attorneys screaming, dancing, rapping, flipping, standing on top of vehicles, bragging about how much money they’ve won for clients and positioning themselves as courtroom badasses, all in an attempt to get you to go after ‘your share, what you are owed.’

Attorneys and law firms spend enormous amounts of money trying to convince you that if your life is inconvenienced by any little nuance, you may be entitled to a settlement.

You are the victim. You are the aggrieved. You deserve to get some money. It’s your right! Fight for your right! Sue somebody!

Forget the fact that there are ever-increasingly more bodies on this earth in ever-increasingly crowded spaces. Forget that fact that accidents happen, that we bump into one another from time to time. Nowadays, you best bump into someone else, hoss, ‘cause if you so much as look at me cross-eyed, I’m gonna call the strong man of the law, and he is going to take you downtown! He done said so on TV!

Didn’t the law profession have some dignity at one time? What went wrong? Did lawyers just wake up one day and say, “you know what? Screw dignity. There’s a 30% commission to be made. Let us go forth as sue-ers and find us some sue-ees!”

Lawyering has always been a bit of a put-upon profession. I suppose that’s because lawyers have always been involved in settling disputes. And in settling disputes, there’s usually a losing side.

Ever wondered why every single thing we buy these days has so much paperwork attached to it? Why coffee from the drive-through has warnings that it’s hot? Why Apple’s website tells you not to eat your iPod Shuffle? Why there’s a warning on the toy scooter that tells you ‘this product moves when used?’ Why the department store puts up a sign warning you not to chew gum from the urinal?

It’s the same reason your insurance premiums keep going up. Every time someone wins in court, someone else pays.

I do realize that the practice of law covers many areas not associated with personal injury. There are many good lawyers doing many good works (I’m told). There are lawyers that wouldn’t sue someone even if you had a legitimate case, because that’s not what they do.

What we’re addressing here are TV lawyers, attorneys that spend wads of cash to convince you that you’ve been victimized. To my mind, the practice of personal injury attorneys has entered the same space occupied by payday loaning and title pawning.

Dick, the butcher, in Shakespeare’s Henry The Sixth said, “First thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” If ol’ Dick had followed through, I’m thinkin’ television viewing would be a lot more tolerable today.

Disclaimer: if you have been offended by this article, you may be entitled to a settlement. Call 1-800-LETS SUE.

Free Money (Money For Nothing, Pt.2)

It’s an ongoing conversation with friends: will you pick up a penny? If it’s just lying there on the ground, will you pick it up?

My general policy is that I don’t leave money lying on the ground, period. Apparently, I’m pretty much alone, though, when it comes to pennies. Most folks think a penny isn’t worth it. A former co-worker put it like this, “I won’t spend the energy for a penny, but if it’s silver, I will crawl under your car for it!”

I get that. Finding a dime or quarter is winning vagabond bingo.

But on the off-chance that you, like me, think money is money – and there is no such thing as money not worth picking up – today, I channel my inner hobo and offer tips for finding free money.

Pay attention.

First of all, forget Casey Kasem. He urged his listeners to “keep reaching for the stars.” Bump that. Keep your head down at all times. There ain’t no money in the stars or in the air. It’s in the parking lot. Walk with your head down, eyes open.

The kind of parking lots matters; they are not created equally.

Parking lots at drug stores are fertile ground for loose change. Think about it. Who uses drug stores the most? Old people. Old people either don’t know they’ve dropped coins or think they may pass out if they bend over to pick them up.

I always park as far away from the front door of a drug store as possible to maximize the territory I can cover. Whatever I find will offset the cost of the fiber I’m there to buy.

Speaking of old people, you should target the parking lots of restaurants that old people enjoy. I do not mean to disparage the names of some fine eateries, but if you’ve got a Shoney’s in your town, Yahtzee!!

Denny’s, IHOP, Red Lobster… dump the kids out, and let ‘em scour the parking lot. First one to find daddy a quarter wins!

Grocery store parking lots are also very happy hunting grounds. First, there’s the sheer number of people getting in and out of their cars. Secondly, translate that number into how many hands go in and out of pockets for keys. There’s change in them there pockets.

Here’s one you might overlook: parking lots in front of buffets. Next time you’re in a buffet restaurant, pay attention to the patrons. True, most of them are older, but most of them are also large. I’m seeing people that drop coins but couldn’t reach the ground if they tried to bend over to pick them up. Bonus: lots of them have just gotten change from the cashier as they left!

Finally, one of the very best places to find coinage is the parking lot at a golf course. There are several reasons, starting with the fact that golfers frequently use loose change to spot their balls before putting. Even if they don’t, coins in their pockets get mixed in with the tees, ball markers, and other paraphernalia necessary for an outing on the course. As they clean their pockets at the end of the round, there it goes: a dime here, a nickel there…

Bonus time again: golfers drink. And after a few of beers, do you really care that you’ve dropped a penny or two? No, you don’t. So now we have not only loose change, but we have it being handled by drunks. Winner, winner, pay for dinner!

So to summarize today’s lesson, we have just covered how to take advantage of the elderly, the obese, and the social miscreants (golfers). I think our work here is done.

Next time I see you with your hands in your pockets, I hope you’re playing with loose change.

Eat Your Veggies

As we grow older, we seem to constantly be dieting.

We put on a few pounds, then a few pounds more, and eventually, we’re always paying attention to what we eat. Or at least thinking we should be paying attention.

To that end, we tend to move away from such huge portions of meat, gravitating toward what’s supposedly ‘good for us.’

That would be vegetables. At least, that’s what mama said.

So let us now ask the important question, and then we’ll examine the answer:

“What is a vegetable?”

While I like the notion that grass-fed beef is a vegetable (hey, all it ate was grass!), I seek a deeper, more thoughtful discussion.

Squash, eggplant, tomatoes, and okra are all vegetables. Okay, they are actually all fruits since they come from a flower, but we are going to use conventional thinking here and just let them be vegetables.

A lot of people – like me – do not like vegetables, including, but not limited to, the aforementioned garden foods, unless they’ve been fried or put into a casserole with lots of other yummy stuff.

However, in order to insure a more healthy diet for myself, I’ve learned to think outside the box.

The pizza box.

Yes, friends, leave off the sausage and pepperoni and what you have is a veggie mix.

Some of you will want to challenge me: “what about the cheese?”

Cheese is not meat and therefore doesn’t count.

“What about the crust?”

Again, not meat. In this case it’s simply an edible plate for your nutritious feast. Have another slice of vegetables.

Recently, I’ve had my eyes opened to vegetables in a way I never expected, and I want to share it with you.

We were at a small-town diner for lunch, and one of the menu items was a vegetable plate. You picked four veggies for their list, they added cornbread, and you were a healthy-eating machine.

Now, I usually completely ignore vegetable plates, but I was intrigued by the list. There were the usual Southern suspects: green bean, mashed potatoes, and collards.

But wait, it gets better.

-fried okra (see previous comments)

-squash casserole (see previous comments)

-mashed potatoes (yes, I know, but I forgot to tell you they were served with gravy)

The list was extensive.

And right there, right there at the end of the vegetable options…

Mac ‘n Cheese.

Mais oui, bazinga, yahtzee and of course! I am moved to poetry.

All these years

I never knew.

It’s on the list,

You know it’s true!

Tonight, I begin my diet anew, eating plenty of veggies. Say hello to the new, healthier me.