When I Was A Young Man....

Hi Folks,

I have been working my butt off. I am thinking that if I don't sleep much this week, then I may be able to finish all the overdue stuff at work and just settle down with the "to do immediately" stuff. Nonetheless, I wanted to say "hi" to my readers - all two of you. I also wanted to share one small thought. (Small thoughts are all I have left these days. I spent all my big ones on my last research report.)

When I was in graduate school, I always wanted to go out on a first date with a hot chick in this car:






I always figured that if you can't score in the wienermobile, then there must be something physically or mentally wrong with you...very wrong with you. One time the wienermobile came to the USC campus, and the driver was constantly talking to hot babes. Wouldn't you like to be a fly on the bun of that ride?

I actually did quite a bit of statistical programming and forecasting work as a consultant for Oscar Mayer while I was in graduate school, but I guess I was never really running with the big dogs in the company because I didn't even know where they parked this bad boy. I also wanted to get a hold of Little Oscar's costume for Halloween one year, but I was told it would be blasphemy. In the end, the only lifelong impression I took from that gig was the distinction between a wiener and a frank.

Best Wishes,
Dr. JimBob

The Snake

Hi Folks,

I haven’t posted in a while, but then again, that’s how I said it would be when I started this stupid blog. Ya’ get what you pay for.

Anyway, I want to tell you about “The Snake.” I don’t like snakes. They scare me. Not in the poop in your pants and cry for mama kind of way, but in a more rational “Is that thing close enough to bite me because if it is, I am going to shit in my pants and scream for help” way. Snakes seem to seek me out and find me. There is this bundle of neurons that fire in my head right before a snake encounter, and I get this weird, funky feeling. Really. It’s like my brain knows what is going on before I do, if that makes any sense. Maybe the snake is sending me ESP signals because it knows things might end badly. If I can’t figure out what kind of snake it is very quickly after I see it, then it usually ends up dead, and I end up at JC Penney looking for new jockey shorts. It’s not a good time for me or the snake. Now, I don’t want a bunch of OkeFenokee Joe types harassing the crap out of me through the e-mail about abusing snakes. I let the good ones live if I can tell that they are the good ones. Unfortunately, you’ve usually got to get really close to them to tell, and then, the next thing you know, you’re driving to JC Penney…

In the spring of 2007, I went turkey hunting in south Georgia with my ace turkey guide, "Bobby The Turkey Guide." We were driving along his property, and Bobby said “Hey. What have we got here?” And then I said “What” and he said “A rattlesnake”, and right then a shot of adrenaline pieced my entire chest, and I threw my neck back so hard to look as we passed it on the dirt road that I hit the roof of the truck cab with by head…Faen, that hurt. I had never seen a rattlesnake outside of a zoo display, and this was almost too much for my colon to handle. Bobby pulled over and I asked “What are you doing?” and he said “We gotta’ get it off the property. We gotta’ kill it. Do you want to do it?” Since I was the one with the shotgun, I said “Well, okay, I guess.” I got out, loaded up, and gave my 12-gauge a pump. That’s when Bobby said “Not with that. You’ll scare the birds!” I’m like, “WTF am I suppose to kill it with?” and he said “Pick up a stick or something.” At that point, I thought it was prudent to remind Bobby that a) he was the guide, b) I was the customer, and c) I was paying him cash monies to hunt for turkeys, not to hunt for a big stick. Especially not a big stick to kill some rattlesnake by the side of the road who would no doubt try to bite me and make me soil my new, ultra lightweight camo underwear. So, Bobby pulled a giant tractor tine (i.e., a big, heavy, metal pole) out of the back of the truck. He went over to the snake and poked it with the tine. It coiled up and began to rattle just like on Wild Kingdom. Bobby then took the tine and whacked the rattlesnake over the head a few times until it was unconscious. He then buried the head of the snake into the ground with the end of the tine and told me to hold the tine while he cut off its rattles. I held the tine tightly to make sure the snake did not get us while Bobby cut off its rattles. Bobby seemed happy about ridding the property of the poisonous snake. He started to laugh at me because I was holding the tine so damn hard as if the snake would rise up from the dead and bite me. We then went on with the rest of our turkey hunt. We got skunked! It was the dreaded rattlesnake curse! I’m sure of it.

About a month later, I was in the deer woods in east Georgia where I hunt in the fall. I was checking on my stand. I had cut a nice path through the woods the previous year, so I could walk at a pretty good pace. There was a tiny little ditch on the way to my stand, and I thought to myself – “Self, I bet that ditch would fill up with water if it would ever rain in Georgia. And I bet that if it did fill up with water, then snakes would come around and hang out here.” No shit, that’s really what I said to myself. I wasn’t too worried because I NEVER go into the woods without my Smith and Wesson revolver which I keep loaded with three snake shot shells (they are like really tiny shotgun shells for a revolver) and three 357 magnum rounds (i.e., big ass bullets). The first three are for snakes and the last three are for wild hogs, coyotes, or hillbilly perverts like those from Deliverance or The Hills Have Eyes. Plus, it had not rained in I don’t know how long, so I thought nothing more of it. Well I continued walking to my stand. When I got to my stand, it looked fine, so I headed back. I was going to call my hunting buddy on my cell phone to see if he wanted to go into town. However, something made me think better of it, so instead of talking on the cell, I decided to watch where I was going. Imagine that. Somebody who pays attention to what they are doing instead of talking on the cell phone! I’m such a dinosaur. Faen. Well, as I was walking up to that very same ditch I crossed minutes earlier, those neurons fired in my head, and I was overwhelmed with that funky feeling. Sure enough, there was a REALLY BIG snake about 8 feet away from me sitting right on the edge of the ditch to the side of my path. I recognized its skin pattern right away. It was a timber rattlesnake just like the one Bobby and I came across weeks before. I pulled out my revolver and began to shoot. Bamm!! The snake got pissed off and coiled up. Bamm!! I saw its head wobble and then the head plopped on the ground. Taking no chances, I shot it again! Bamm!! As it turned out, only the first shot was snake shot. The last two were 357 bullets. I lucked out. Well, as I passed by the snake, I thought to myself “Damn, that snake is huge. I’ve got to get these rattles like all those other southern boys do. It’s part of my heritage. Yadda, yadda, yadda.” I looked around for a big long stick to bury its head it the dirt. I found a stick, and proceeded to pin the snake’s head into the ground. It started to wiggle. “Ahhhh. Shit, I hope it’s dead.” All of those stories about fangs from long dead snakes pricking people and making them die were now flowing through my head. I got out the Swiss army knife from my pocket, and at that moment, I realized that physics was not on my side. I could not stand and hold this 5-foot long stick while simultaneously kneeling down to cut the rattles off this giant wiggling snake who would like nothing more than to bite me before it expired. I ended up letting go of the stick just barely while instantly sliding my right hand down a little at a time. I was so spastic, that it never occurred to me to drop my knife for a minute and use two hands. Anyway, once I spazzed my way to the ground, I tried to cut the rattles. They were huge too! But the snake kept wiggling every time I tried to cut. It was really weirding me out. Finally, I was able to cut them. I took the rattles and my knife, and I leaped away leaving the stick and snake behind, knowing that it’s spirit wanted revenge. I put the rattles in my pocket and got ready to leave. Just then, I had a thought. What if I come back through later in the week, and I see this rattlesnake in my path. I will shit my pants! So I decided to move it off of my path. I picked up the stick, and slid it under the now motionless snake. I lifted the snake up into the air and began to walk it off of the path. But all of a sudden, it started wiggling again. That creeped me out, and I dropped the snake. I went back to the path to get my knife and look at my rattles only to find that the rattles had disappeared. That’s right; they were nowhere to be found. They were not in my pocket. They were not with my knife. I looked all around, but they had vanished. All of this was taking its toll on my sphincter, so I simply left. I drove hysterically to my hunting buddy’s house a mile or so away, and I begged him to come and look at the giant killer snake that almost did me in. I knew if he did not come, then nobody would believe just how big the snake was and how lucky I had been to spot it before it got me. He reluctantly agreed to return to the scene of the horrific encounter.

My friend went into the woods with me to see the granddaddy of all serpents. When we came to the ditch, I described step by step what had transpired. He looked at the snake and then laughed and said “Why did you bury its head in the dirt? You shot half of it off!” As he was laughing, he was looking for the rattles, and I’ll be darn if the ole man didn’t find them. He has eyes like an eagle. Well, maybe a really old eagle, but he found those rattles. We counted 11 rattles and a button. A rattlesnake gets a new rattle every time it sheds its skin, so this monster had been slithering around for quite a while. Anyway, I was happy to be alive and happy that I had the rattles as proof of my experience.

The next time I went turkey hunting with Bobby down in south Georgia, we went to a Bar-B-Q joint in the nearest town for lunch on the first day. There was a farmer in there telling us that he killed a rattlesnake that was huge. He said it had 11 rattles, and if it would have bit him, it would have broken his leg! Bobby nudged me and said “Tell him about the snake you killed.” I said “Mine had 11 rattles too, and if I hadn’t have seen it when I did, it would have bit me, robbed me of my keys and stolen my truck.” The farmer said “Bullshiiiiiaaaat. You city boys would shit in your pants if you ever came across a snake like that.” I just looked at him and asked “And your point is?”.

I felt compelled to tell you this story today because, last week, I killed another rattlesnake about a mile from where I had my encounter with the giant demon snake from hell in the aforementioned story. This one was lying out on a dirt road in an astronomy village where I spend a lot of time. That’s right, I said astronomy village….one with observatories, and telescopes, and geeks, and stuff. They don’t let you use any white light at night there because they don’t want to “ruin” their night vision. So I spend most of my evenings there fumbling around trying to find stuff or trying not to pee on my shoes. I just knew that if I let that snake go, then it would not be long before somebody met up with it one night. So, I got out of my truck, and shot it three times. Again the first shot just made it mad, whereas the remaining shots did it in more or less. Just to be sure though, I ran it over with my truck three or four times. It still looked pissed off! So I went to a nearby shed to get a heavy steel rake and a shovel. I whacked it in the head with the steel rake and pierced its snake skull. It put one fang out just hoping that somehow I might spaz out and fall on it, and poison myself to death. Every time I touched its tail with the shovel, it would wiggle, but I still managed to cut off its wiggling rattles with the shovel. There were 7 rattles and a button. All of the astronomers came out of their cabins and homes because it’s against the rules to shoot a gun on the property. I yelled out my apology to the entire community, and I told them that I shot a rattlesnake. They were like “A rattlesnake? No problem. No problem. Did you cut off its head?” I’m like “No, I cut off its rattles. I’m not going near its head.” They suggested that I go back and shoot it some more and then cut off its head. Yeah, right.

Well, I haven’t written in a long time, but I made up for it today. Remember, there are good snakes out there, so don’t go crazy with all this new information I have given you. And don’t go putting any rubber snakes in my mailbox, or in my car, or on my front porch, or other stupid crap like that. I am running low on jockey shorts

Best Wishes,
Dr. JimBob

Rabbits Don’t Like Bermuda Turf

Hi Folks. I’m back! I am almost as good as new, but unfortunately, I am not cool anymore.

When Dr. NanBob and I bought our house, we tried to save a few bucks by having the builder seed the backyard rather than sod it. Little did we know that Georgia would be plagued by a subsequent drought, and that the drought would last more than 15 months. Last month, our backyard looked really ugly with scant amounts of grass, crab grass, weeds and a lot of clay. The only living thing that found this yard appealing was a giant rabbit that came each evening to eat the crab grass. This thing was HUGE. If it would have had antlers, then it would score at least a 180 on the Pope and Young deer scale.



Anyway, the yard was looking pretty bad, so I decided to mow it. I thought that making the grass, crab grass and weeds the same short, flat height would improve the looks of the yard. I guess I skipped school the day kids were taught to avoid mowing clay in a drought. It was like a clay bomb went off. You know those pictures of the dust bowl you see in history books? It was much worse than that. The neighborhood looked like an enormous orange duster when I got through. There was an orange cloud of dust that followed me around. It covered our house and cars and those of our neighbors. We were not cherished members of the community when I was finished. It was then that Dr. NanBob and I decided to bite the bullet, bust the bank account, and have our backyard sodded.

As I said, we have a drought going on here where I live. Well, if you put in new landscaping in my county, then, and only then, you can water it a little bit every other day for 10 weeks, but you must first pass a landscape watering test. Talk about test anxiety….Faen. The thought of having to tell Dr. NanBob we couldn’t have sod because I flunked the sod watering test was pretty scary. The exam is preceded by a typical education component in which examinees (i.e., testes) watch a PowerPoint presentation filled with landscape watering facts. For all my former students who think statistics class is boring, well let me tell you, some things are worse; things like sod watering school. The training component is followed by a multiple choice test. I was bummed because I didn’t ace the test….I missed one out of twenty questions. You may think this is simply the neurotic rant of an overachiever here. No, it’s not. I had the damn PowerPoint slides printed out right there in front of me while I was taking the test….Only a moron would not be able to get 100%. Oh well, I guess I was dozing. The heat does funny things to your sleep cycle. In any event, I passed the test, and we got a permit to water our sod. I won, I won! I wanted to frame my sod watering school completion certificate and hang up it in the den. Dr. NanBob was not impressed with my accomplishment nor my decorating idea.

The sod installer was a good ole’ boy from Georgia that I knew, and when he came over, we did what all of us good ole’ boys do here. We talked about the heat, passing out from the heat, the drought, deer and snakes….especially snakes. (Note to self: If you pass out in your yard in the heat of the day, snakes will come and attack you.) During the animal conversation, I mentioned the giant rabbit that visited our yard during the evenings. I told the installer that if the rabbit eats our new sod then he would soon become a "Revereware Rabbit". The installer told me that “nawww, rabbits don’t like Bermuda turf.” Well, a few days went by, and I did not see the rabbit. I was out in the yard a lot trying to put every drop of water I could on that lawn, but I never saw the rabbit. (There may have even been some occasional “ninja watering” when the lawn did not look so good, but I have no memory for such events Sheriff, nor do I remember seeing the rabbit.) The rabbit was nowhere to be found. Wheew! The lawn was safe, at least from the giant rabbit.

Well after about a week, I started noticing all this animal crap over the new lawn. It looked kind of familiar, but I wanted to identify it on the internet to confirm my suspicion. (There are literally all kinds of crap on the internet.) Damn if it wasn’t rabbit crap. Moreover, there was a lot of it too. Remember how I said this was a giant rabbit? Need I say more? There was so much of it that both Dr. NanBob and I felt compelled to remove it with shovels before it killed off some of the new lawn. As it turns out, this mutant rabbit was eating tons of stuff at our neighbors’ houses, and then coming over to our place to relieve itself. I thought back to what the installer said… “rabbits don’t like Bermuda turf.” He was right. They don’t like to eat it. But they do find it useful nonetheless. This rabbit lives by the old Italian adage “Don’t shit where you eat.” It must be a giant, mutant, Italian rabbit. I will buy some really big Revereware, some pasta and a nice bottle of Italian wine later today. You defiled the wrong lawn signore big bunny.

Best Wishes,
Dr. JimBob

P.S. Yes, having a rabbit crap on your large investment is pretty frightening, but so is our horror presentation sensation “Homie Horror: The Beginning.” If you are on Facebook, then you can watch it here:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=15632178343

Please join our Facebook group too because it helps us to promote the “movie”. If you are not on Facebook, then you can still watch it here:

http://www.roberjam.acceleron.net/Behindthescenes.htm

Don’t watch it alone or with any giant rabbits!!! Especially if either you or the rabbit have just eaten.

Bad News

Hi folks,

I am a friend of Dr. JimBob's. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but Dr. JimBob had an accident. I am attaching a headline from today's edition of "Ivory Tower" explaining everything. (If you click on the article, you can read it better.) I know you all will join me in wishing Dr. JimBob a speedy recovery.

Yours Very Truly,

Washoe Jr.
xxxxx

My Wife Got A Booty Call

Really. Dr. NanBob was talking on her cell phone yesterday, and everything went on the fritz. The phone was just doing stuff on its own, and making all these strange beeps, chirps and whistles, and the screen was full of garbage text, and most of the buttons refused to do what they were suppose to do. She went to the cell phone store where we bought it, and of course, the phone acted fine after she stood in line for 30 minutes. Well, anyway, tonight Dr. NanBob came home and told me that she had a weird text message on her phone and that the screen said “BOOTY.” Neither my wife nor I are that big into the world of texting, but I know a little bit about that technology, so I found the suspect message in her Inbox and displayed it. There was a phone number, the word “BOOTY”, and a naked ass on the screen. Yes, a naked butt right there on the screen!!! I thought it was very funny. Dr. NanBob did not. I lol’ed. Dr. NanBob did not. She called the number that left the message, but there was no answer. She thought her phone’s wacky behavior was related to this booty call, so she also called the phone company. The phone company guy lol’ed too when she described her butt message predicament. However, during her conversation with the phone company guy, the booty caller called her back. My wife put the phone company guy on hold and began asking the booty caller a lot of questions like “Noooo, who is this?” “Did you send me a picture of somebody’s butt?” “Do you have kids?” “Do you have a butt?” “Do your kids have butts?” “Do you send all your friends pictures of your butt?” Etc…. In short, my wife got a booty call from a real butt head, and now her phone is messed up. She has a messed up porno-phone. It is kind of scary that a picture of a naked butt can whack your phone, but hey, she has the evidence.

Speaking of scary, go check out the new “horror presentation sensation” that my students and I made. It’s called “Homie Horror: The Beginning …” and it is located at:

http://www.drjimbob.com/Behindthescenes.htm

Stay safe, and DON’T ANSWER THE PHONE!!!

Best Wishes,
Dr. JimBob

Goatees are Evil

Back in the day, when I was a kid, when Tinkerbelle was a Walt Disney character, and E.D. stood for “Editor”, I used to watch a lot of television. Television shows were still in black and white back then, and the only types of shows that I remember were news shows and children’s shows. I avoided the former and lived for the latter. One of my favorites was "Captain Kangaroo", a nationally syndicated masterpiece with a captain, a moose, a rabbit, a farmhand, a dancing bear, a smiling clock and a ton of ping pong balls. What more do you need for unbridled television success than a moose, a rabbit, and lots of ping pong balls? That show was over the top man. I loved it! We also had lots of cool local TV shows for kids like “The Jolly Jim Show” and “The Cactus Quave Show” (a.k.a. “Bar Q Ranch”), and later, “The Romper Room Show”, “The Mr. Knozit Show” and “The Stanley the Clown Show.” I loved watching these television shows. Moreover, they were all produced and broadcast in my hometown. It seemed to me like Columbia, SC was the Mecca of children’s programming. As I recall, there was no PBS back then. Besides, Cactus Quave could beat the crap out of that stupid Big Bird any day of the week! No contest.

One of the great things about having local children’s programming is that most of these shows would let kids be on the program as members of the studio audience. I was a very outgoing kid, and I begged my ma to let me go to all of these shows between the time I was 4-10 years old. Another wonderful thing about these shows was they were broadcast LIVE….What was said and done on the front side of the camera went out the back side and into the living rooms of millions, well, maybe hundreds of families in the local viewing area. The first show I recall attending was the Jolly Jim Show or maybe it was the Cactus Quave show… but that’s beside the point as you will see. The Jolly Jim Show had three main characters, Jolly Jim, Chief Silly Horse, and the notoriously evil J. P. Sidewinder. All I remember about Jolly Jim was that he was jolly. Chief Silly Horse was a funny guy dressed as an indian with a large feathered headdress and cool tassels on his sleeves. J.P. Sidewinder was a demon from hell in the silent movie tradition. J.P. was dressed in black (and this was before the Europeans made it trendy to wear black), and he wore a matching black cape and hat. He had a handlebar mustache that he would twirl while he let out an evil laugh, and a goatee, also in black, which made him look curiously similar to THE DEVIL. One reason my memory is fuzzy about my first TV appearance is because J.P. Sidewinder use to moonlight as the villain on the Cactus Quave Show too. Columbia had a lot of kids’ shows, but there were only so many villains to go around. Regardless, J.P. Sidewinder was evil and scary enough to appear in dozens of shows if needed. He was like a combination of Jason Voorhees, Jaws, Freddy Krueger, and Snidely Whiplash stuffed into a pair of black pants. His goatee gave me the willies.

Well, like a miracle from heaven, my ma took me and my older brother to the Jolly Jim Show where we got to be in the studio audience. How cool was that! At some point during the show, J.P. Sidewinder showed up and explained horrifically that he was going to kidnap a member of the audience, and then take that poor child back to his EVIL CAVE. Yes, you heard me right. To make himself just that much scarier, that much more of a badass, this incubus had an evil cave; and sure as shit, he would steal kids and take them there! That guy always made me nervous, even on TV, but now I was right there within a few feet of him, and the circumstances had me pretty worried. As fate would have it, J.P. saw the fear in my eyes, and he decided to snatch ME. He picked me up, and held me in his mighty arms, and that was all it took to initiate the fight or flight instincts that lay dormant deep in my psyche.

I immediately began screaming for my ma, kicking as hard as I could and trying to beat the chest of this archangel of doom to the point where he would release me, but he just wouldn’t let go. He began taking me back to his evil cave, and I was kicking and screaming the whole way. At that point, I think I may have been crying pretty loudly, and I remember the cameraman looking a bit anxious about the situation. Why shouldn’t he be? He was witnessing a kidnapping! As I was being kidnapped by this fiend, I recall seeing my older brother smiling from his seat in the studio audience and looking very satisfied with the way things had turned out. I was sure that Jolly Jim and Chief Silly Horse would come to rescue me at any moment if I just cried loud enough, but they turned out to be a bunch of pussies. What a hard lesson for a kid to learn in a pinch - don’t stake your future on a bunch of pussies.

When J. P. Sidewinder got me back to his evil cave, I was still kicking, but it did no good. If J.P. would have lowered me about a foot or so, I would have found out if he wore a protective cup under those black pants, but this was not my lucky day. By this time, I was crying so hard, I was close to passing out and/or peeing in my pants. It’s kind of a hazy memory for me now due to the lack of oxygen produced by my sobbing, but I think they took an unscheduled commercial break, and let my ma come and get me out of the evil cave. It appears J.P had enough of me after all. The river of tears and snot that flowed endlessly out of my head was, no doubt, screwing up J.P’s wardrobe, so the producer decided to call it quits with me. It’s a good thing too, because I was getting heavy, and J.P. had lowered me just about enough to attempt one last kick to the groin before I went limp from terror. My ma took me back to the parents waiting area where I had to sit in shame while my brother got to participate in the rest of the show.

Over the last decade or so, goatees have become very popular. Nonetheless, black goatees send chills down my spine till this day. Whenever I walk past a guy with a black goatee who is dressed in mostly dark attire, I get this overwhelming urge to kick him in the nuts and run away. This is something I hope to eventually deal with in therapy. I suppose my ma should have sued the TV station for inducing a lifelong trauma in an innocent kid, but people didn’t run around suing each other back then. It was the good ole’ days. Besides, we were only familiar with one lawyer, Perry Mason, and he had bigger fish to fry.

Best Wishes,
Dr. JimBob

Can I Get a Gobble Kind Sir?

One of the reasons that I am able to blog so much this week is because I am on a little vacation at a campsite I have in the country. I am turkey hunting in the mornings, working on this and that in the afternoons, and stargazing in the evenings if it is not too cloudy. Anyway, turkey season ends Thursday (tomorrow), and this week is the first opportunity I have had to hunt turkeys all season.

I started turkey hunting about three years ago. I have yet to bag that first turkey, but tomorrow may be the day I make personal history. As with all of my hobbies, turkey hunting has a lot of associated accoutrements that one must obtain. Turkey hunting skills are also useful, but in my opinion, they are optional. It’s the garb and gadgets that are fun. My wife, Dr. NanBob, thinks I am OCD when it comes to acquiring stuff for my hobbies. She tells me “That’s all you ever talk about,” and I am thinking to myself “… and your point is?” Anyway, she is right. I do get obsessed with my hobbies, and for me, hobbies mean acquiring the associated stuff. All the other skill related behaviors are just gravy.

If you want to turkey hunt, you first need a shotgun. I prefer a 12-gauge with #5 “Nitro Turkey Load.” With those shells, somebody’s ass will be blown away when you pull the trigger; the turkey’s ass, your ass, or both. The second thing you will need down here where I hunt is a good pair of camouflaged snake boots. You may be thinking “Naa, I will simply shoot the snakes,” but if they are near your feet, it is not a good idea. Trust Dr. JimBob on this one.

The next stuff you will need is some camouflage, including a turkey hunting vest to store all of your acquired stuff. I like the Mossy Oak New Breakup pattern. I work with a student who likes to wear camo to school. She is cool. She would like my turkey hunting outfit I bet. It is mesh-like material, and lets your body breath in the heat of the day. It also has lots of pockets to store your other stuff. That’s a big plus. Turkeys are said to have the best pair of eyes in the woods, so you NEED this camo to stay hidden. Gloves, hat, facemask, the works! It’s a must. Once you are dressed up, you can scare your spouse when he/she comes home from work, or you can be a catalog model for Cabela’s. There are so many options AFTER you get the stuff. Getting the stuff is crucial.

Once you are appropriately dressed, you need to focus on acquiring the correct types of turkey calls. You see, you have to get a turkey to come to you before you can blow its head off. I am talking between 30-50 yards here. You do this by calling to it. Here where I live, you can only shoot a male turkey, preferably an older male, which is often referred to as a “gobbler” because they will sometimes gobble. The first thing you want to do is make a gobbler gobble so that you know approximately where it is at in the woods. The turkey woods are immense….no gobble, no turkey. You do this with things called locator calls. Turkeys hear these calls and they will sometimes gobble back at the caller. They do this instinctively. It’s kind of like somebody yelling “screw you” out of a passing vehicle, and you instinctively flip them off….Yes, it’s like that. Anyway, there are different kinds of locator calls. Calls of the first type make owl noises, and they are good at provoking early morning gobbles. They are usually tubes that you blow into, and they make a hooting sound. I have trouble using these calls, because in order to make it sound authentic, you must roll your tongue at the end of the cadence. I can’t roll my tongue. I have tried and tried, and people have tried to show me how, but I can’t do it. I think I read on Google that the ability to roll one’s tongue was a genetic gift. If so, then I don’t have that gene. Good thing that I am not Hispanic, or I would be a social outcast. Fortunately, there are other types of locator calls like crow or hawk calls. They are like kazoos. You just blow into them, and I can manage that.

If you can locate a turkey by tricking it into gobbling at you, then you must set up on it (i.e., hide yourself in the woods) and call it to your position. You accomplish this using a variety of calls like box calls, friction calls, or mouth (diaphragm) calls. The former is the easiest to master whereas the latter is hardest. Basically you are trying to make the gobbler think you are a HOT hen who is looking for her big boy to make some sweet, sweet love. You can make a whole lot of different sounds including a yelp, a cluck, or a purr. An interested gobbler will find them all sexy. I like friction calls the best, but I have been trying to use a mouth call this past year. It is basically a thin reed in a thin rubber case that you shove into the roof of your mouth. The first time I tried it, I almost puked. A few weeks later, I tried again, and I almost choked on it. That would be my luck to see a turkey, and get so excited that I choked on my mouth call. Anyway, I have practiced some more, and now I can at least make some sounds without gagging. My mouth calling does not sound too turkey-like, but I can perform recognizable Christmas tunes like “Frosty the Snowman” and “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”

Anyway, if you can lure the turkey in with your sexy sounds, then you blow its head off. Enough training … Now you just need to get some of this stuff, and you too can be a turkey hunter like Dr. JimBob.

I was excited about turkey hunting this week. I took a paper turkey target to the rifle range and made sure my gun and marksmanship were both okay. Perfecto. I then took my turkey calls to school, and I had my graduate students come outside to the parking lot to study them. I then proceeded to show them all my calls and teach them how to use each one. I want them to have a broad education. Graduate school can be much too focused today. Anyway, a male student heard one of their calls, and he gobbled at them. No joke! I encouraged them to call him in, but they didn’t want to do it. Their interest began to wane quickly, so I gave them my turkey target from the morning’s practice as a souvenir.

For the last couple of days, I have been getting up early, and riding my ATV deep into the turkey woods. When I get there, I start out on foot. I walk and walk, and call and call for miles and miles, about 3 miles per day. This is good exercise. I haven’t heard a single gobble though. Faen. I did, however, inspire a horny, love-sick goose to follow me around for about a half-mile yesterday. My calling must be improving.

I have seen a few other animals this week like a deer, a rabbit, a squirrel, two turtles, fire ants and gnats. Oh, and I also saw a baby snake about 4 inches long scurrying across the road. I mentioned snake boots before, right? Anyway, I am not fond of snakes. That’s a story for another day. Suffice it to say that turtles remind me of snakes, and when I see a turtle, the bundle of fibers that fire in my brain must be close to those that signal “SNAKE” because I always sense that there must also be snakes around. Good thing for those boots.

Well, tomorrow is the last day of the season. At this point, I am turkeyless, but who knows what tomorrow will bring. Tonight, I will sit at my campsite, and practice some of my calls. I am thinking of adding “Have a Holly Jolly Christmas” to my mouth call repertoire.

Best Wishes,
Dr. JimBob

Getting Older Gracefully or Not

As I approach my 50^th birthday this year, I find myself thinking more and more about age, specifically mine. It’s not the birthday that bothers me so much as it is this person who is there in the mirror when I brush my teeth. IT”S NOT ME! I know me better than anybody, and I can tell you that old guy is not me. My sense of self, that stream of consciousness that sits between my eyes and ears, knows exactly who he is….He is 5’9’’ with long brown hair, a brown mustache, brown eyes, fine build and big smile; not Fabio, but not a bad catch after a lady has had a few drinks. My self just cannot understand who the hell is the pot-bellied old fart with the thinning white hair, and what is he doing in front of the sink when I floss. It is kind of distressing. If you told anybody that you were being followed by a senior citizen who only let’s himself be seen in bathrooms, then they would have you locked up. So, I will just vent here rather than report this stalking to the authorities. I am not scared. He is old and flabby….I can take him.

Seriously, I know I am aging, but for some reason, I have not incorporated the new me into my self image. Every now and then, I get a reality check. For example, when I moved three years ago, I had to get a new driver’s license. I checked off all the pertinent identifying information – 5’9’’, brown hair, brown eyes…. The lady at the counter looked at my application, looked at me, and then scratched out “brown hair” and put down “grey”. Faen. (I am told that Faen is a Norwegian word that means Satan, but can be substituted in context for pretty much any 4-letter word you would prefer. What the faen!)

Another reality check is when others confuse or categorize me with people who are definitely over the hill. This happened to me just last month. I boarded a plane from Baltimore, and I got the isle seat. There were three seats on my row, and also a row of two seats on the other side of the plane. Anyway, there was an old man sitting in the window seat on my row. I proceeded to put my stuff in the overhead compartment and sat with my computer in my lap while waiting for the person in the middle seat to arrive. I knew that as soon as I took my computer out of the case, the person would show up, so I was thinking ahead. What old person thinks ahead? So this black lady approaches my row and says “I am in the middle.” I stood up to let her in, and then proceeded to whip out my computer. Well, once she got comfortable in her seat, this lady called somebody on her cell phone. She said “Hi, I’m on the plane.” There was a moment of silence, and then she whispered very quietly “Can you hear me?” Then even more quietly still, she said “Two old men.” My ears perked up even more, and then she said “White.” At that point, I knew without a doubt that she was referring to me and that old fart by the window. Geezz. But, to make things just that much worse, she then whispered the killer word into her cell phone

“Stinky.”

I had to bite my tongue. I may be getting old, but I bathe regularly, and I resented the “stinky” remark. Anyway, the plane did not fill up, and the row of two seats to my right was empty. She asked to get by me, and then she went to sit in the window seat in that row. As fate would have it, some other white guy from a middle seat somewhere else on the plane plopped himself on her other side. He might not have been so old, but I think he was stinky, at least half way through the flight. Serves her right! As an aside, the old dude by the window in my row had his shoes off. Maybe he WAS stinky. Don’t know…. Just sayin’.

The coup de grace was when I was at my ma’s house this past weekend for Mother’s Day. At some point, the subject of hair color came up. My ma told me that “White hair looks distinguished on a man.” You know, people say that all the time, but it is really bullshit. A big wad of cash in one’s wallet; now that’s distinguished. Winning a Nobel Prize, writing a best selling novel, winning an academy award for best horror movie make-up and special effects are all distinguished. Having white, thinning hair…..nada. At some point, my ma asked me “Why don’t you grow your hair out….it’s so short.” I told her that there isn’t that much left to grow, and she replied “I told you not to wear that baseball cap so much.” Maybe she was right! When I was in college, I used to wear this dark navy ball cap wherever I went. My ma used to always tell me that “If you keep wearing that stupid hat, your hair is going to fall out.” She was right. Faen. Look at Cal Ripken Jr. for more evidence. Faen. If there are any college students reading this stupid blog, then take my advice. Listen to your parents or your hair will fall out.

People always use the phrase “grow old gracefully.” I’ve used it, and you probably have too. I am not sure I ever really knew what it meant though. I think it means to accept aging and the changes and limitations that come with it and make the best out of your life. I intend to do exactly that. My body may be changing, and I may not remember things as well as I used to, but I am not going to let that interfere with leading a full, healthy life. I am, however, going to beat the shit out of that old man if he follows me into the bathroom one more time.

Best Wishes,
Dr. JimBob

Welcome to My Blog

Hi Folks,

Dr. JimBob here. Welcome to my blog. If you came here by mistake, and you intend to click the back arrow, then go ahead loser. If you plan on staying, then please make yourself at home.

This blog is about me spouting my crap. I find that spouting my crap makes me feel better, so I will spout it here. This is my spouting place.

I am not a writer, a good speller, or even a reasonable typist. So if you are looking for good grammar and feel that typographical errors are a sin, then this is not the right place for you. In that case, hit your back arrow now (loser).

I decided to have a blog because I recently began reading other blogs. (My favorite is Annie Choi’s www.annietown.com.) While reading these blogs, I noticed that other people who read them and posted their comments also had their own blogs. It seems that everybody has a blog these days, so I must have a blog too. Here is mine. I hope you will come back often. I don’t plan on updating it on a regular basis, but you never can tell when I might have the urge to spout more crap. So stick around and let me know that you are out there.

Best Wishes,
Dr. JimBob