Wild Hawg

I guess it's just trying to stay relevant in a world changing quickly and in some way or perhaps it's just one way a guy advancing in age can relive his youth and rebellion in a small way.

Sunday night, with my long 4th of July weekend rapidly closing, my wife and I didn't want to mess up the kitchen nor felt like standing in line at some restaurant pretentiously advertising fine dining. She called Abdul at the Lebanese restaurant and ordered a chicken shawarma plate to go. Firing up Boudreau, I rode up to Prairieville to fetch dinner, wheeled into the parking lot and hit the kill switch next to a Jeep Cherokee.

After I came out, I placed the dinner packet in the rear bag, threw my leg over the seat and hit the starter. When it fired, I heard some kind of horn or chirp noise. I wondered if I had inadvertently armed my motorcycle's burglar alarm but thinking about it, somehow it just didn't seem like the same sound. I rolled the throttle back again and made the engine rev a short bark and heard the chirping again. Each time I revved it, the chirp would sound so I soon discovered that it was coming from the Jeep. My Harley doesn't have straight pipes but it isn't a quiet contraption either so I wondered what would happen if say a very loud noise were produced. I rolled the throttle grip way back and wooohaaaa......Boudreau let out a blast and the Jeep began to "wonk-wonk-wonk-wonk" loudly.

I calmly slipped my bike into first gear, leaned sharply toward the road and grinned broadly as the Jeep continued to bellow. It felt good to feel as if I could still be a nuisance to society even if it was just in a shopping center parking lot in front of Albasha's Lebanese Restaurant.

Wanna know what drives me crazy?

Walking into Applebee's, the maitre de of sorts looks up with a toothy grin and asks, "How many?" "How many what?", I 'm thinking but knowing there's not a soul withing a quarter mile coming in behind me, I look back over my shoulder for a second and look back at her, raising one eyebrow and respond, "Just me !" Maybe she was expecting a bus load to drop out of the sky. For some reason, that just drives me insane.

Oh, and drive in fast food joints. Invariably, you order a double possum burger with no cheese and tomatoes with two orders of fries and oleander dipping sauce, they'll charge you for it and won't be in the bag. So, beckon the kid through the hole in the wall trying getting her to retrieve the last items while holding up what looks like a Mardi Gras parade behind you. The oleander sauce turns out to be catnip but you want to get out of there so bad you drive off with it and decide it wasn't worth the hassle to drive through again.

Something else gets my goat too. There was some kind of company man in the Publix Grocery Store greeting people as they came into the store. He chirps up and says condescendingly, "Good morning, young man!" Good grief, I'm 65 years old and a one eyed monkey would know I wasn't a "young" man.

What's up with the waitresses at Denny's for crying out loud? It makes you think you're in a truck stop. "Hello, Sweety", "More tea, Hon?", "Anything else, Darlin'?" Should I leave a tip or buy a dozen roses?

Although they may be curmudgeons, Andy Rooney and W. C. Fields are looking more and more like sages to me lately.

Peanuts, traveling and the Reunion

What's the deal with me and peanuts? I've been flying so much, every time I get near an airport, I get an almost uncontrollable craving for peanuts. At this posting, Delta Airlines still serve Fisher's Peanuts, so I guess that's where that comes from. I will just have to get over that.

Anyway, I'm headed home for another lightening round of travel to the family reunion on my Mama's side. They'll all coming swarming in from Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas and Florida (that would be me). I may or may not post pictures since many of them may look like me (Lord, help us) and might be the target for litigation or a visit from over zealous cops that have a collection of photos from the post office. I've missed it two years running so I felt like this year I'd keep from embarrassing Mama again.

It's 250 miles north of Baton Rouge, so I'll be driving up with my wife Friday afternoon/evening. We'll hug necks, eat each other's food then all load up and make our way back home. When we get there, we'll upload the digital pictures, look them over carefully and remark how old our cousins are looking while shaking our heads and wondering where the years have gone.

Monday morning will find me craving peanuts once again.

Shuttle Launch

Saturday, I drove south on A1A from St Augustine, hoping to see the shuttle launch. Last year, I walked out on the beach near my office when that one went up but being 65-70 miles away, I barely saw the contrail after someone with binoculars identified it for me.

Not wanting to be right under the thing, I stopped about 30 miles north of the launch site at Bethune Beach instead of going all the way to Cape Canaveral. Actually, I didn't have much choice because the road ended just south of there in a state park. Anyway, I arrived around 2:30 with the launch scheduled for 5:00 PM so I drove around a bit then had fajitas at Mi Mexico, a Mexican Restaurant a block off the beach.

I had my Pentax DSLR camera ready with 300mm lens ready to go but when the shuttle launched, I couldn't make the thing focus and had to manually manipulate it. I managed to squeeze off a couple of marginal pictures as the fireball rose in the sky. It's tiime to be looking for a new zoom lens. Right on schedule, I heard a cheer rise and saw the rocket flame and smoke plume but not the actual shuttle.

By 5:05 PM, all the whoops and whistles had subsided and I found myself in a crowd of people headed back to our cars. I then added seeing a shuttle launch to my "been there-done that" list of things to do and made my way back to St Aug.