Category: Commentary

Won’t You Be My Neighbor?

This sweet home in my neighborhood has been on the market for several months.   
 I’ve never been inside the home, but the woman who lived here was lovely. She moved into Tallahassee to care for her three grandchildren after their mother, her daughter, passed away. 

Wouldn’t this gazebo be a cozy spot to sit with a good book on a fall afternoon?  
 
The large, well-tended yard has a variety of beautiful mature trees.  
  
There’s even a small garden plot in back as well as a storage shed. The lake isn’t visible in this photo, but it’s beyond the trees on the left. 
 When Miss Sandy lived there the yard always boasted a profusion of flowers in hanging baskets.

  
Now there are just the flowers in the trees. I’m not sure what this one is. It’s pink. That’s the extent of my knowledge.

Finally, A Group I Identify With

  
I’m not gay, bi, trans, or even curious, but I am an ally.

I’m not Black, but I wholly support Black Lives Matter.

I’m not an immigrant, but I am for fair treatment and compassion.

Not to diminish a single one of these, but I was beginning to feel I had no group. Now I do. 

  
Well, I’m also a feminist, so there’s that. 

Peace, people!

Sad Tale

Studly Doright was out of town part of last week, so my meals were of the simple variety. Lean Cuisine and Smart Ones entrees were my go to dinners.  
^^^^My microwave and my oven. ^^^^

On my first night alone, I extracted a frozen Smart Ones vegetable lasagna from the freezer.

I preheated the oven to 375° to cook the lasagna, and set the timer for 45 minutes.

Off I went to sort laundry, play a bit of Words with Friends, and watch a Criminal Minds rerun. 

After some time passed I noted there remained five minutes of cooking time, so I poured a glass of wine and prepared a small salad.

The timer sounded and I opened the oven door to remove my entree. 

 

Nothing! I was puzzled.

Until I thought to look in the microwave.

  
Good thing I wasn’t terribly hungry.  

Peace, people.

Troublemaker

  
Troublemaker! she cried.

Now, look what you’ve done.

Who? Me?

Made me think I could dance.

Oooh, you can so dance, like a female Baryshnikov!

Told me I was hot.

Smoking, babe!

Insinuated I could carry on witty conversations with the opposite sex.

I could listen to your stories all night long, gorgeous girl.

Well, cease your troublemaking ways. I’m through with you and all you’ve wrought.

C’mon, sugar, have just one more sip.

Well, if you insist. I’m not driving, after all. 


Life Changing Invention

Forget Jonas Salk, Eli Whitney, George Washington Carver, and Thomas Alva Edison. Sure, they were great inventors, but did a single one of them think to create this?

  
  Finally, some enterprising genius has invented a poolside chair that will allow one to suntan one’s back without compromising comfort. No more deciding which side of the face is going to get sunshine while the other side is plastered sweatily against the chair. No more aching neck. No more abandoning one’s book while working on a complete tan.

I’m seriously considering plunking down the $99.99 (plus $10 shipping) for one of these ergonomic delights. Or, maybe my children would go in halvsies on one for my 60th birthday. (October 5, hint, hint)

Here’s the catalog:

 Note the 1-800 number. 

Peace, people!

A Little Life

This story was related to me yesterday. It broke my heart. I’ll do my best to retell it here just as the man told it to me.

I grew up in Miami (Florida). But keep in mind it was a very different place back then. My cousins and I had free reign. We’d get up early and grab our bikes, pedal to a row boat we’d stashed on the banks of a lake and then we’d fish all day.

Not like today, when kids are watched over constantly. I think the Adam Walsh case changed all of that, but this was back in 1959 or ’60, a long time before that. Anyway, we went everywhere. 

There was a walled neighborhood where the Blacks lived. It was walled off, separate from the other parts of the town, but sometimes my friends and I would play baseball in an area of sugar sand right behind the wall. And a lot of the kids from the black neighborhood would climb the wall and come join the game.

We had a grand time until, of course, one of the white moms would notice and call the cops to make the black kids go back to their own neighborhood. You see, it just wasn’t done, the mixing.

There was a lake behind the sugar sand, with a ring of homes around it. We loved to swim there, even though it was off limits. In the middle of the lake was a small island where ducks liked to nest. We called it Duck Egg Island.

We’d get the eggs and have duck egg fights, but to get to the lake we had to walk past the walled neighborhood where the Blacks lived and then cut through one of the yards of the homes around the lake. We did it all the time.

One day as we passed the wall a little black child sitting on top of it hollered at us. “Hey! Where y’all going?”

Someone told him we were headed to a swimming hole. Without a pause he jumped down off that wall and joined us. 

Now my friends and I were like fish. We swam every day. We never considered that a kid our age couldn’t swim. 

The lake was fairly shallow until you got about 10 yards out, then it dropped dramatically. When we got to Duck Egg Island someone noticed the black kid wasn’t with us.

We swam back and one of us, I don’t remember who, dove under, but he couldn’t get to the child. We all tried. Again and again. He was too deep.

Now, we should have gone for help right away, but we knew we weren’t supposed to be swimming in that lake. And we knew we weren’t supposed to be playing with black kids. Finally someone ran to a nearby house and an ambulance was called. But of course it was way too late. 

Not a day goes by that I don’t think about that kid. 

The storyteller bowed his head and cried at this admission. I cried, too. 

 

Whew

I’d been dreading a doctor’s appointment for the past couple of months. Apparently my blood work from a recent physical indicated that I might be hosting a debilitating illness in my aging body, and my physician referred me to a specialist.

Of course I’m a bit of a hypochondriac, so my mind went to all the dark places: Rabies, Parvo virus, Heartworm. And then I remembered that I’m neither a dog nor a cat. But still, the mind kept straying to thoughts better left unexamined.

I also worried that the specialist would be eager to prescribe all sorts of medications that would just make me feel like an old broad. An injection here, a pill there, and soon I’d be wrestling a list of side effects longer than Kareem Abdul Jabar’s right arm. It happens.

Today I met with the specialist. He was a lovely man who visited first with me about the book I was reading before leaping into the medical stuff. The man knew how to woo me. 

After a thorough exam he asked, “How old are you again?”

“Nearly 60,” I said.

“Whatever you’re doing, keep doing it. You’re just fine.”

“Well, I drink a lot of wine,” I said.

“Increase the dose,” he replied.

I might’ve made up that last line.

Peace, and good health people!

Quirky Places

 
I dig quirky places. If Studly Doright ever gets to retire I’m going to insist on a leisurely tour of offbeat destinations.

On our way home from Texas early this month we stopped at a gem of a place just this side of Pensacola. It wasn’t my first stop there, but Studly had never experienced the Oasis Travel Center before. It’s part convenience store, part gift shop, part fast food kiosks, and part diner.

The VW bus pictured above serves as the establishment’s front entryway. Then once inside one’s senses are assailed by all manner of funky fun: yard art, a pirate ship, unique tshirts, and college fan gear.

  
   
The diner, though, is the grooviest.   

  
Dubbed the “Derailed Diner,” it’s designed to look as if a train has come barreling through the side of the building, complete with the resulting rubble.

This entrance opens directly into the diner, and every now and again the signal crossing activates with light and sound.

  
The inside of the diner is an eclectic mix of kooky memorabilia.

One can dine at the Derailed Diner lunch counter:

  
Some of the stools are a bit on the wild side. There’s a John Deere tractor seat and a saddle,

  
a pair of airplane seats, 

  
and a motorcycle passenger’s seat, complete with fender and saddlebags.

 Away from the counter are regular tables, but there were also tailgates with small TV sets in the spirit of drive-in movies.   
 The train motif continued inside, as well,
  
Many tables are decorated to represent various states. We sat at the Kansas table where Dorothy’s ruby red slippers served as salt and pepper shakers, while a Wizard of Oz game under glass added to the theme.

 Everywhere one looked there was something to spark the imagination. 
I was curious about the origin of this certifiably quirky place, and one of the waitresses directed me to this sign:

  
If you ever find yourself on Interstate 10 between Pensacola and Tallahassee, look for the Oasis Travel Center. The restrooms are clean, the food is good, and the people are friendly.

Peace, people!

Making Stuff

When I get bored I start thinking about making something. Unfortunately, I’m not very adept at making anything other than a mess.

For example a couple of summers ago I decided that I could paint. These resulted from my delusions:

   

I call the first one “A Brace of Fairies” while the second one is called “Pinterest Fail.”

  
I do have them on display at Doright Manor. There’s no charge for viewing them. By that I mean I won’t pay you for your waste of time should you happen to stop by.

One summer I found a jewelry making kit at a yard sale, and for six weeks I made the ugliest jewelry imaginable: Earrings that didn’t dangle evenly, anemic looking bracelets, necklaces that appeared capable of attracting the evil eye.

Another summer, at the urging of our daughter, I decided to create family scrapbooks. After several weeks of sorting through stacks and stacks of pictures I created one page. At least one batch of photos got organized for a brief time as a result.

Yesterday I told Studly I was thinking of creating something artistic. He told the cats to hide and he’s secluded himself in a guest bedroom. I think he might have heard me say I was going to attempt nude drawings next. Good thing he didn’t notice my fresh stash of glitter. 

   
  
Peace, people!