Sometimes All We Need…

…is some time in the pool to make life a little more rosy, not to mention wet.

 

 

That is WMD#3, looking up at WMD #1 and #2 get ready to jump in the pool, while SWMBO makes like Margaret Bourke White and snaps the photo.

Quick Hits from the Cane, er, the Crutch, Day 2

Well, the numbing stuff wore off and we are back on the crutch for now.  Wraps come off for now.

All I can say is that my doc made the right call on doing one knee at a time.

I am curious-are the folks who created Percocet the same folks who created metamucil?  Because if not, they should have been. 

Trust me when I say strong drugs need good fiber.

I hope all GOP types in the 11th district are watching the NLS Gerry sucks series…looks like a great foundation for potential oppo research!

Vacation Notice…light post responding this week…

Come Tuesday Team Bwana will be heading South to visit the Mouse!

However, I am reminded of Phil Rodanakis, who last summer responded to a post and then, when I did not approve his comment quickly enough, sent a snarky reply with vague mentions of legal action.

SO…in order to avoid more Phil-type snark, please understand that for the next few days the articles that are coming down were pre-written before my departure…and I will address posted comments as time and computer availability develop-which may not be until my return from sunny climes down south.

Wild Eyed Southern Boys at Klines

Sometimes the magical combination of food and music gives you a chance to appreciate what you had and what you have…and if you catch a break, you get to share that moment…

The story really begins 30 years ago.  Like most young boys, when I got my license I was ready to drive anywhere, anytime, and on any errand for my folks.   When I got behind the wheel of the car, two things were certain…it could easily turn into a revenue enhancement opportunity for local government, and there would be Southern Rock playing for the entire trip.  My mother may have had one foot with the Beatles and one foot with Rachmaninoff, and my father liked gospel, but me…I was one with the dueling guitars. 

When I hit the road, Dickie Betts was riding shotgun and Duane Allman and the Van Zant Brothers were in the back seat.  Even as I became pals with Little Feat, Jimmy Buffett, and Thin Lizzy, my first allegiance-through stormy weather, plane crashes, and motorcycle mishaps-were the Southern Boys.

My father didn’t quite get my musical taste, and referred to the groups I liked as those “long haired Redneck Guys”

One evening while I was in college Dad and I headed out to Kline’s Drive-In for our a late evening snack of chili dogs and milkshakes.  I popped in .38 Special, and the first song out was “Wild Eyed Southern Boy”.  I don’t know if it was the music or the cover art, but something got his attention. He had me play the song again, and yet again on the way home. With windows down, warm wind blowing through the car and biting at our ball caps, the the stereo turned “up to 11″, that became our theme song for the rest of the Summer of 1981…although he just referred to it as “that blamed song”

Tempes Fugit…last Monday night my father, now 83, tripped and fell and ended up in the emergency room at PW Hospital. There wasn’t much wrong with him that rest wouldn’t fix, and I checked him out of the hospital after an overnight observation stay.

He seemed sort of wan and weak…and I made a split second diagnosis, based in my thirty+ years practicing as an unlicensed psychologist….

“Dad, there’s only one thing that is going to make you feel better. I prescribe chili dogs.”

He agreed. As we drove out, I turned on my IPod, which by good fortune was on the “Southern Rock” play list. Dad grinned, and said, “you got that blamed song on that thing?”

I did.

We got a sack of chili dogs and wolfed them down so fast we had to address a famous philosophical question: If a man burps in a car, and you don’t see a wrapper, was there ever really a chili dog there?

We headed back into Manassas, with windows down, warm wind blowing through the car and biting at our ball caps, the stereo turned “up to 11″, our once and future theme song blasting for all to hear…just a couple of Wild Eyed Southern Boys. 

For a moment, I knew if I looked up quick I would be able to catch Dicky and the Van Zants in the back seat.

Duane? He is likely be off trying to figure out why his brother married Cher…

My father is 83. He probably can see the clubhouse on a bad day, and I finished the front 9 some years ago. But for a few moments, we were both young again on a warm summer evening with a bellyful of chili and a song in our hearts.

Dickie, Donne, Ronnie, and Duane-thanks for the soundtrack. Kline’s-thank you for catering and for 38 years of teaching me the wisdom of knowing where your next pit-stop will be before eating Chili dogs because, as the late, great Lewis Grizzard once said, “those chili dogs always bark at night.”

Thanks to you all for the memories. Dad and I really appreciate it.

I Already Miss the Kline Burgers

The words hit me like a a sledge hammer, or a telegram announcing the death of a loved one.

“Klines is closing”

Then my sister sent me the newslink. I mean, if it is on the internet, it has to be true, right?

The sad news-Kline’s Drive-In on Nokesville Road south of Manassas will close its doors on Wednesday, November 21, 2007. Lynn Kline, son of the late Paul Kline, is selling the land so a bank can be built on it and he can step back from the grueling restaurant business.

Those who have not encountered this establishment likely are saying, “So what? Restaurants close every day.”

This is true-but when that closing takes a piece of your life with it, it hurts.

I grew up with the Kline family as members of the Manassas Church of the Brethren. When I was a kid my family went out to Yorkshire to get ice cream at the original Kline’s Freeze. That place, like Carl’s down in Fredericksburg, had no indoor eating area. So they built another store south of manassas in 1969. No one thought the business would last. You had to drive over the RR tracks at Wellington Road, out past the Church of the Brethren and IBM, and past at least three farms to get there.

But it did last. In fact, it flourished.

Kline’s was like the fictional Cheers, a place where “every body knew your name.”

During the summers of my youth Dad would load us up and trawl out there for ice cream. When Dad picked me up at Boy Scout meetings and the pick up was early enough, it was out to Kline’s for foot logn chili dogs. Each of my sons have enjoyed the rite of passage of trying to eat a chocolate fudge sundae at the age of two without getting sauce on your shirt.

I am pushing fifty, and I still have not pulled that one off.

Even now, at 83, my father has been known to call me to come down, rescue him from assisted living, and commence a horizontal assault on Kline’s. We brave the horrendous traffic on southbound Va. 28 and order the usual.

Yes, the chilidog gas comes at him a lot faster now than it used to, but there are somethings that you simply should not deny yourself…like a meal of a footlong chili dog, fries, and a milkshake. It fills you up and keep the cardiologists employed, so it is kind of like multi-tasking.

When I was a child, I didn’t know restaurants or business’s closed. I thought there would always be a Dam-Side restaurant, Cooke’s Pharmacy, General Office Supply, Giacomo’s Pizza, Sloper’s Sports, Rohr’s 5 and Dime, Manassas Lumber, Commonwealth Savings and Loan, and others.

None remain. All have gone, and live on only in memory.

Soon Kline’s, with all the memories it holds for me, will also vanish.

It has been said that growing old stinks. But even worse is to see the building blocks of your memories fall beneath your eyes.  The fact that it is an inevitable part of life and progress does not make it easier.

My hometown has changed over the years, and it no longer resembles the town where I grew up.  But there are bright spots of memory that remind one of the old days…and there will be one less come late Wednesday evening.

Late Wednesday evening, I will likely shed a tear…and unfortunately it probably won’t be caused by the onions on a Kline’s Chili Dog or a Kline Burger.

I guess they are wrong…it doesn’t stink to grow old

But it really sucks.

In Minnesota, NFL=No Family League

Minnesota Vikings safety Troy Williamson lost his grandmother last week, and missed three days of practice and a game to attend her funeral.

Now it is announced that the Minnesota Vikings, who may have missed the message from the league office that the NFL was supposed to be family entertainment, have fined Williamson $25,588.24 of his $435,000 base salary.

When asked his take on the situation, that towering, cowering pile of jello Coach Brad Childress replied “”It’s really kind of out of my realm”.  Then, showing he knows on which side his bread is buttered, Childress came up with the decision is based on an organizational “business principle” .

I can see how the financially strapped Minnesota franchise wants to save money, I understand the need for organizational discipline, and I imagine the Minnesota franchise is determined to react more strictly to certain behaviors after the sexboat scandal of a couple of years ago, then the ticket shenanigans of former coach Mike Tice.

But this is ridiculous.  This is about the principle, not the money…because he still has the other 400K+ to fall back on.

Apparently the grandmother did die, apparently he did attend the funeral and was with his family. He told them he was going, they knew he would be missing practice and a game and they knew why-and they still fined him….and Vikes fans wonder why they are not considered one of the class organizations in the league.

You have a league riddled with players who beat their women, literally engage in murderous activities, drug abuse, steroid abuse, and often act as if they are above the law. They get to keep playing with nary a slap on the wrist. Let’s face it, Michael Vick and the PacMan are attempts by the league to get right with the public.

Then you have a player who does the right thing, the same thing most of us would do instintively, and the team fines him $25K? They should have found him a plane to fly him home and bring him back instead of fining him.

What kind of example does they expect to set? Did the Vikings think if they let Williamson go, other players would encourag their family members to die so they could cut practice?

Jerry Glanville said the NFL stood for “Not For Long” when castigating a ref. Some call it the “No Fun Leage” when it banned overexubrant TD celebrations.

I suggest that in Minnesota, at least, NFL stands for the “No Family League”, because any league that would fine a man for attending the funeral of a family member has no claim, no claim at all, on being family entertainment.

What Would You Say If You Knew You Were Dying?

You know you are dying.  You even have an estimated time of departure.

What would you want to tell folks?  What message would you leave?

I don’t know…but Randy Pausch does:

Another video showing diffferent portions of his presentation and his background can be found here.

I don’t know that I quite agree with his advice abotu children painting their room walls, but if it he can guarantee it will lead to them getting a PhD, I might think about it.

If you want to see the entire 90 minute lecture, go here, and look under resources.

I found it inspirational, and I hope you do, too.

Questions You Love to Hear

Tonight my precocious and musically inclined eight year old looked me in the eye and asked, “Dad, did God invent Rock and Roll, or did Elvis Presley?”

An inquisitive mind, and already thinking outside the box.

You have got to love it!

Big Weekend-Get outside

This is a big weekend…College football starts, and my beloved D3 Bridgewater College Eagles start their campaign to regain the ODAC crown by taking on McDaniels, while SWMBO’s alma mater the James Madison University Dukes (home of the Marching Royal Dukes) will whack the Tar Heels this PM.

Non spotlight sports also have their time in the sun-the Vuelta a Espana ( the Spanish version of the Tour de France) kicks off today.  Anyone who thinks cyclists are sissy’s in their tight outfits should think about what it takes to ride a bike up and down the Pyrenees.

But more important, the weather is supposed to be phenominal-at least here in NoVa-and that means get out of the house!  Do something outside!  Enjoy the last days before school starts!  Grill some steaks…oh, and grab the last of the summer squash, slice it up, souse with olive oil and pepper, and toss that on the grill, too!

You may ask, “Bwana, if it is so great to get outside, why are you blogging?”

Answer-because when I go outside I will be pulling weeds, so I am putting that off as long as I can.

Enjoy the Weekend!

Life’s A Beach!

As noted earlier, yesterday we got home from our vacation.  First came a day at Kings Dominion late last week… and then on to North Myrtle Beach for a week with the in-laws, their children, and the grandchildren. Fourteen (14) of us in a beach house…yep, it was a rocking time!

We saw some interesting things.  In Ashland, we saw a black Ford 150 pickup truck with tags that read “got ink” and had what appeared to be a set of plastic testicles handing from the trailor hitch.  Somewhere in NC, we bestowed the “I am Pretentious” award on an old style Saab with tags “Phd Phd”.  There is a McDonalds in Dunn, NC that has video screens to entertain customers in the drive up outside and fireplaces to warm customers inside.  Dolly Parton’s brother Randy has just opened a theater at Exit 171 on I-95 in Roanoke Rapids, NC.  It is visible from the interstate, and is quite the building!

Life at North Myrtle Beach, shag (the dance, not the, uh, verb) capital of the world, often seems like it is in a time warp.  Giorgio’s still sells it by the slice or the pie, they still shag the night away at Fat Harold’s, and the OD Pavillion is the home for music, food, and fun to young and old, pale or tanned.

Others change…the old five story concrete looking motel I used to stay at back in the day has been replaced by a fifteen story condo center (complete with lazy river), the horseshoe outside the Spanish Galleon is not quite as insame as it once was, and Crazy Zack’s is long gone…shoot, where can a young fellow get a beer at 0500 in NMB these days?

Maybe it was best summed up at the no name barber shop on NMB’s main street.  I went in for a long overdue haircut, and heard one of the regulars go on about some kid loitering at his store.  When asked when it started, he said, “I am not sure…the days sort of run together.”  Another regular replied, “Yep, that’s old age for you.  When you are young, the night’s blend together.  When you get old, the days run together.”

The beaches were less crowded than usual, as SC started school back in on 8.20.2007. The weather was hot, and the water was quite warm-none of this walk in slow and acclimate stuff!

Even so, there is plenty of fun to be had…and some highlights I can recommend:
-Go to Ella’s in Calabash, NC, to get some great seafood…and some might attractive t-shirts!
-If you want a great breakfast, head here in Cherry Grove, but be aware with a store name like that you might go light on the t-shirts. The food is great, the pancakes heavenly, the patrons racially diverse. Check the link, and then ponder what would happen if you opened a restaurant with that name (despite the heavy Uncle Remus focus) in NoVA…
-Want authentic Mexican? Head to Fiesta Mexicana in Myrtle Beach. Food is great, service is slow, so allow plenty of time for some great food.

We also got to play a round of miniature golf…and not just at any course, but at the home of the USPMG tour masters, the Hawaiian Rumble course. Nope, I kid you not…they even have shirt that mimics the lesser Masters golf event in August, GA.

It was a rollicking good time, replete with maximum sun and minimal sunburn…and now it is back to the grind stone, and fielding emails from folks who are irate I did not have internet connectivity while away.

Funny to think we came home from fun in the surf to weather a thunder and hail storm last night!