Flying With a Falcon

Hi Folks,

It’s been a while since I blogged. Did you notice? If so, then sorry. If not, then WTF or is it FTW? Anyway, I have been as busy as a hooker on a Navy base, so I only have time for a quickie. I was just thinking of something that you all have probably had thoughts about every once in a while – your first car. My first car was a 1963 (I think) Ford Falcon Futura. It was actually my Ma’s car. She bought it used and drove it for several years until she got another one. Then, I think she let my brother use it, but when he left home, I got to buy it from her for $100! My Ma believed that kids should work for their toys, so I got a job at a grocery store when I was 14, and then bought the car shortly thereafter when I turned 15. This was one cool car. I think I was able to make the tires squeal exactly two times as I “burned rubber”. On the second time, I got a flat tire. This did not impress the chicks.

The fastest I ever drove my car was 92 mph going down a steep hill with a wind to my back. I wanted to break 100 so badly that I made my friends roll up the windows to reduce the wind resistance. I’ll never forget how the steering column started shaking up and down when we hit about 60 mph. My friends were kind of scared. Unfortunately, it was not meant to be….We only made it to 92 mph. I sure liked that car though. It was a nice beige color with a tan interior, at least in those places that still had an interior. The upholstery on the driver side was a bit worn and had some holes in it, but I didn’t care. My ass covered them up anyway, so, in theory, it was still possible to look cool. My friend Corky had a light blue Rambler that he inherited from his folks after they drove it into oblivion. It was a fine ride for a 15 year old too, but it was light blue for god sakes. How are you going to impress chicks driving around in Little Boy Blue’s car? It was also a station wagon. Need I say more? My Falcon, on the other hand, was a lovemobile. Well, not exactly, but at least I knew it had the potential to be a lovemobile under the right circumstances.

Corky’s car and my car were both much better than some of the others that kids in my blue collar neighborhood drove. We knew this guy Chuck who lived down the street. Chuck had this old car dry rotting in his backyard for a while. His parents had thought about just pushing it into the empty swimming pool in their yard, but never had the motivation to expend the effort. So one day after school, Chuck got the keys to this tank and we went out joy riding. We were all surprised that it even cranked. Not long after we started cruising, Chuck yelled out “Open the doors and drag your feet on the road! We don’t have breaks!” At first, we all thought he was kidding, but he wasn’t. So all of us did exactly what Chuck suggested, and we managed to stop the car before we encountered an upcoming intersection. As it turned out, the car was sitting in the yard because it was old and IT HAD NO BREAKS. But Chuck thought we could always stop it if he didn’t go too fast, so he decided not to mention the break issue to us for fear that we would not accompany him on this adventure. We cruised around another hour or so until our feet got sore. We also attracted a lot of feminine attention from the babes in the neighborhood that afternoon, and thus, we were stoked. In hindsight, it was probably not the best kind of attention. I don’t think the neighborhood chicks found our terrified screaming at every intersection too sexy.

One day my Falcon just quit running. It sat in my front yard for a couple of months after it died. Every now and then, I would charge the battery and try to start it, but it never would crank. That was pretty much the extent of my auto mechanics knowledge….”Dude, charge the battery.” I mentioned my car dilemma to a guy at work who had a brother-in-law with a tow truck and $50. I sold my Falcon to his brother-in-law the next day. I felt pretty good getting $50 for that old clunker, but then two days later, I heard that the guy had it purring like a kitten. Oh well, one man’s loss is another man’s gain.

I got another car a few months later. It was much nicer and easily broke 100 mph regardless of wind direction, but you never forget your first ride. See ya’ later &

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.