TV Guide

For those of you who didn’t know me as a child let me give you a little background on me. I grew up in a very small town in Alabama and that’s pretty much all that you need to know about this post. Don’t get me wrong, I love Alabama. Had some of the best times of my life in Alabama and some of the greatest people in my life are either in or from Alabama. But this particular post falls right in line with the stereotype.

So I grew up in a middle class neighborhood in a small town as I mentioned. And on the surface everything was pretty normal. But peel away a layer or two and the quirkiness of some of the people in the neighborhood starts to shine through.

You see there was this one family in our neighborhood that collected something unique, TV Guides.

I remember as a kid this family had a bookcase in their hallway that was just filled with TV Guides, years and years worth of TV Guides as a matter of fact. I remember asking my friend who lived there over and over again what was up with all of the TV Guides. No other publications, just TV Guides. And over and over again I would get some brush off answer about how his dad thought that they might be worth a lot of money one day or some other lame excuse.

And then one day a second bookcase showed up in the hallway. And week by week it slowly began to fill up with more TV Guides. One day I was hanging out and started to thumb through them. And there was nothing special about them. Nothing was hidden in them, the crossword puzzle wasn’t even started, nothing.

Then one day there was a police chase that came through our neighborhood where the guy who was running from the cops lost control of his motorcycle and crashed into the family’s car, catching it and then their house on fire. It was horrible, every issue burned.

The mystery of the TV Guides will remain unanswered for ever now. After a couple of months the house was rebuilt and for some reason the TV Guide bookcase was nowhere to be found. Of course I had to ask about them and of course I got a brush off answer, this time with attitude.

Then one day a couple of months later, a bookcase appeared in the hallway again. And placed on it was this cute little pair of TV Guides. YES!!!! Glorious TV Guides! Now I have something to bug my friend about.

At this point I couldn’t have cared less about the damn magazines or why they were keeping them, I just liked to bust their chops about them. So I go up to my friend and say that I see that the TV Guides are back and ask him what’s up with that.

If you are eating or drinking anything, you might want to go ahead and swallow it before you continue reading. It’s ok, I’ll wait.

So my friend says to me in a huff, and I quote, “My dad is keeping them because he thinks that toilet paper is going to go out of style. And when they quit making it we are going to wipe our butts with the pages of TV Guide.”

I shit you not, pun intended

- Don’t get dead

Adventures of the young and stupid

I have an older brother. For those of you who don’t have an older brother, that means that I had many, many roles growing up. I was a crash test dummy, test pilot, experimentalist, test subject and so on. In other words I was Jim and my brother was Marlin Perkins from Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom. Ever notice how Jim had to do the crap jobs while Marlin never got out of the helicopter? But I digress. In other words, I was Pinky while my brother was The Brain. In other words, it sucked!

Not only is Attila older than me, he is six years older than me. So yeah, my childhood contained a lot of ducking & weaving, scraps & bruises and a lot of psychological torture. To this day I still can’t sleep with my feet uncovered *shiver*. And this adventure would be more of the same.

When I was just a wee lad of only six years of age I had a hand-me-down Tonka truck, the big yellow dump truck. And it was made of steel, like toys used to be made, so that they lasted. Just like most young boys we made ramps to jump stuff with on our bikes. Any board we could find we would make into a ramp. On this particular day we had a piece of plywood that was maybe two and a half feet by two feet, not a very big piece of wood at all. This was soon to be a launching pad.

As my luck would have it, the only thing we could find to prop up said Evil Knievel approved projectile starter kit was a pair of concrete cinder blocks that just happened to be concreted together. So with the plywood laid on these cinder blocks the ramp is at about a 75 degree angle, nothing dangerous about that right?

Now we got the ramp, we just need something to jump it with. Remember earlier I was talking about a steel Tonka truck and I was talking about my brother being older and remember how I was talking about being the crash test dummy, you doing the math yet?

It was at an early age that I realized that my brother should have a career in politics. You see like every politician, my brother can lie with the best of them. He was pretty convincing this time. He says “hey, why don’t you sit in the bed of the dump truck and I will push you over the ramp.” Yeah, even at six I knew this was a bad idea. I told him that I didn’t want to do that. That’s what I told him, what I was thinking was why don’t you go F yourself! After a few minutes of discussing it, which went something like “do it or I’ll kick your ass and you BETTER not tell Mom”, I decided to give it a try. That is with the promise of he would just push me to the top of the ramp and if I didn’t like it he would not make me jump it. Yeah, I knew what was coming too.

So I go and sit in the bed of this big yellow death trap, staring at my fate. I get the truck lined up at the base of the ramp and say to my brother “Remember you said you would not make me do it if I don’t like it”. No sooner had the words “like it” come out of my mouth and ZOOM! Houston, we are clear for take off. In some sort of freak Herculean effort my 12 year old brother flung me up the ramp launching me skyward.

Right about this time I realized that we were under a pecan tree with low limbs. Mid-flight I am trying to get as low as I can will still gaining altitude, like an airborne limbo contest. One good crack on the head by a tree limb later and I am making my final decent.

Let me paint the picture for you. I was a normal sized 6 year-old and if you remember the bed of those Tonka trucks is about a foot wide. So I am sort of sitting across the bed of this truck, or should I say WAS sitting across the bed of it. When I slammed onto the ground the momentum that my body had decided to fill any space that was available in the bed of the truck, in other words I was stuck in this truck.

Oh yeah, he thought it was hi-freaking-larious. I on the other hand, failed to see the humor in it at the time. To this day he wonders why I don’t trust him. I can’t wait until we get old, payback is going to be hell.

Don’t get dead

It is all our fault and apparently nobody is immune.

My wife’s car has one of those rear entertainment centers. We thought it would be nice to have since when we bought it we knew we would take it on family trips and the bulk of the driving with the kids.

After a while the kids got used to the DVDs we had in the car and if they were good we told them that we would get them a new DVD. They really thought they were top dogs when they got a new DVD, so we started to use that as a reward system. Then one day I was noticing that the kids would laugh during the DVD when it sounded like nothing was happening. Then it hit me, we never actually watched the DVDs. For all we knew it could be some of the most graphic and vulgar things known to man as the video with a nice kids show audio track and we would not have known the difference.

So I have decided that maybe I should start to pay a little more attention to the things my kids watch, and most definitely the programming that I put on for them.

Take tonight for example. I was doing some work while my children where up in the play room and they where watching the ever popular kids show “Dora the Explorer”. I thought to myself “this is this is on Noggin, it’s part of the Nickelodeon family of channels, it’s got to be safe”, but I was wrong. It was filled with all kinds of insane things that seemed cute and maybe even harmless on the surface.

For those of you who don’t know, Dora is this little Hispanic girl with a football shaped head. And that’s about the most sane thing about this show. Dora has a talking monkey that wears shoes as her friend. In the episode tonight, Dora was talking with her grandmother and her grandmother was telling her about making some chocolate treat. And she told Dora that the chocolate grew on a tree and that this tree was her friend and that the tree gave her hugs when she was sad. WTF?!?! And this tree sings with her, yeah the tree sings.

So Dora decides that she is going to go find said singing tree, but she has to check her map to find out how to get there. But for some reason she can’t check the map, you have to check the map and tell her how to get there. Oh and the map talks. Anyone else think that the creators of this show are constantly on an acid trip? Well the map says that to get to this magical chocolate tree that you need to go through the jungle and then to a cave. Say what?!?!

While un-chaperoned laces out and her talking monkey are in the jungle she comes up to a toucan who tells her that there are snapping turtles, snakes and a crocodile in the jungle and that these animals wont let her pass unless she feeds them cookies. Let’s think about this shall we, teaching kids to hand feed wild and dangerous animals. Yeah, I can see why this show is wildly popular.

So maybe feeding turtles isn’t a big deal. And the snakes, while not a bright idea still could be done with some distance and you might be safe. But a fucking crocodile!! Come on.

Then after jungle it’s off to the cave, but not just any cave, oh no no no, it’s a fucking bear cave. Sure, let’s teach our children to go to bear caves. Makes perfect sense to me! The monkey asked what happens if they meet the bear and Dora advised him that they “would have to be very careful”, ya think? Then the monkey and ole football head meet up with a talking iguana, sure it happens all the time. But the iguana tells them that they just have to sing to the bear to put it to sleep. I know that is what they tell you to do in wilderness survival school, to sing and to do so loudly! You know, draw lots of attention to yourself. And they where wondering where the bear was when they got to its cave, almost like they were disappointed because the bear wasn’t there. Of course the bear comes while they are at the cave and they sing it to sleep… yeah.

One of the other episodes had a water skiing bull. In the same show the talking map sent extra point head along with the pronouncing primate to “Pirate Island” where they had to sing and dance for trees so that the trees would let them by. Who sends a kid, even with a monkey to any place called “Pirate Island”?

Oh and don’t forget about the talking backpack and the stealing (and talking, apparently everything talks in this show) fox.

No wonder that the younger generations are fucking stupid. Look at what is (was in our case) entertaining them. Just remember that these are the people who are going to be taking care of us when we get old. You know, WE ARE SCREWED!

Don’t get dead

Looking back – Chapter 14

Earlier at my office we were talking about the change of season and what we enjoy about it. Allergies for some, pretty leaf colors for others and so on. Then I got to thinking about it and for me, it is lower electric bills. So we were talking about how it is nice to have the windows open and so on, which of course sparked a memory from my childhood. For any of you who don’t know, I grew up in a very small town in the south and I feel that may be a contributing factor to my skewed views on things.

So for a little back ground on this memory, as a child/young adult (hell to this date if I am in my home town) I had a friend whose family insisted that I visited them (his parents and both sets of grandparents) during both Thanksgiving and Christmas. So to say we were close is a given. And since we lived in a small town we all saw each other a lot. Back in those days it wasn’t any big deal for people to watch the children of friends, and since my buddy’s grandmother was retired she did just that when we were over.

Also important in this memory is that it was a warm summer day and, as most people in my home town were/are, my buddy’s grandparents where a bit frugal. So when the weather permitted his grandmother would open the back door of her house which leads to a screened in patio with a humongous fan, like a huge warehouse fan. And she would use the fan to blow air through the house to cool it as opposed to using the window unit air conditioners. If you were to walk into her backdoor you would be in a small storage room where she kept dry goods and a deep freezer, from there you would walk into her kitchen, this comes into the story in just a bit.

Now my friend’s grandmother was in her late 60’s early 70’s at this time, her hearing was not the best and she moved a bit slower than she once did but she was a super great woman.

So there my friend and I are in his grandmother’s backyard playing. I am sure at some point we were playing war, I would guess that playing cars occurred at some point and many other things that boys do to entertain themselves. At some point we worked our way over to grandma’s vegetable garden. She had a lovely garden with a ton of tomato plants in her garden. My friend and I thought it would be funny to throw some tomatoes into the fan to watch it chop them up so we gathered as many tomatoes as we could in our shirts and made our way over to the fan, probably about 15 feet or so away. Now we were expecting to see this thing blow tomato chunks everywhere, but that’s not what happened. My buddy chucked the first one into the fan and it disappeared. We thought he had his timing just perfect and must have missed one of the blades so I heaved one into the fan and the same thing. So we devised a plan that we would BOTH throw tomatoes into the fan at the same time because there was no way that we could both time it just right. So tomato after tomato we launched them into this fan and … NOTHING.

About this time my buddy’s mom pulls up to the grandmother’s house and lets herself in. What she saw was her mother slumped over the sink with all of this red stuff all over her back and the back of her head and this red liquid dripping off of her. Thinking that her mother had been shot, his mom let out a blood curdling scream and we hauled ass inside to see what was going on.

What really happened was my buddy’s grandmother went into the storage room to get some stuff to make for lunch and apparently as she was walking out and doing stuff in the kitchen we where just covering her with tomato puree, which is why they tomatoes just disappeared into the fan. And the reason that she was slumped over the sink is because she was peeling potatoes.

I am not 100% sure, but I think that I am still on restriction and I know my ass was sore for a long time.

Don’t get dead

I need a vacation

Yep, I need a place to get away, a place to escape it all, a place to relax, a place to leave my worries behind. Somewhere that is stress free, somewhere that all you have to do is be there, somewhere where everyone is smiling and having fun. A vacation that regenerates, a vacation that puts a smile on ones face, a vacation that you would cherish for the rest of your life.

But we all know that shit aint going to happen.

I tell people that we don’t have vacations, we have adventures. And there is always a story to tell.

Just like this one trip to Panama City Beach. It was the usual crew of us headed down to the Redneck Rivera for a week of fun in the sun, some sub-tropical nightlife, a little relaxation and a whole lot of being …what is the word I am looking for … mischief!

Let me lay the ground work on this trip. Our sole purpose on this trip was to get hammered, past that we had not thought it out. We knew that we needed clean underwear and beer, everything else was a luxury. We had secured a room at one of the miracle strips finest establishments, but only because someone in our party knew someone or something. I don’t remember exactly what floor we were on but it was once of the upper floors, oh and this hotel was shaped like on open parenthesis “(“. This part plays an important role later on.

On the day we leave we all met at one of the groups’ house. From there we all loaded up the convoy of vehicles that where about to make the trip south and we headed out. About an hour and a half later we were there and ready to get this party started. We check in, get the keys and start to “relax”. And most of this trip was great, except for one night.

On this particular night as the sun was beginning to set we were hanging out on the balcony of the room and just being social with other people in the hotel. Shortly pretty much everyone in the hotel was on their balcony. There were a bunch of guys getting this girl across the way to flash everyone and some people a couple of floors down from us had a funnel/beer bong made out of three garden hoses and they were passing it around from rooms to rooms. It was huge. They made it from three 25 foot hoses, two of which where at the top connected to the bottom hose with one of those Y shaped hose connectors. The top two hoses had these big funnels attached to the hoses and the bottom hose had this shut off valve, it was pretty cool. So yeah, there was a bit of drinking going on. Then everyone’s attention turned to the pool, there was this guy who would get everyone really loud and then he would run and do a flip into the pool. Then he would get out drink some more, get everyone loud again, run and do a flip into the pool. This went on for a while and then you see patio chairs flying into the pool. Not to worry, it’s not getting out of hand or anything, just those chairs needed washing. And apparently a lot of other people thought that their chairs needed washing too because they tossed their chairs in too. Then for some reason people started to throw food into the pool. That was weird. We saw eggs and hotdogs and all kinds of crap come flying off of various balconies.

My guess is that at this point the management of the hotel was not very happy. A few members of the hotel staff came out to the pool area and tried to get everyone to calm down to no avail. I will give them credit, they tried.

After the hotel staff left a rousing cheer came from all of the balconies as if we had defeated some huge force. When in fact it was 500 drunk kids trying to be calmed by 6 people. At that point the odds weren’t in the staff’s favor. Back to just general rowdiness and chest thumping!!

After a few minutes local law enforcement showed up. We knew something was up by the way that the people on the first two floors balconies shoot into their rooms at light speed. Four or five sheriffs’ deputies are in the pool area sort of half-heartedly trying to get us to calm down which really did very little. They had a little pow-wow on the pool deck and then it looked like they just split up and walked around with one arm up in the air each and then… well they just left.

Again a rousing cheer comes from the group. But then, as if it was choreographed, floor by floor people were ducking into their rooms.

Remember the part about the hotel being shaped like ( <- that? And that this hotel was on the beach? Well the wind blows from the water to the beach and it would blow right up the hotel. So if someone say, sprayed something it would carry UP the hotel. So yeah, they mace’d us. Floor by floor you see people ducking into their rooms and shutting the doors. When it hit us it wasn’t as bad as it could be but it was enough to make us cough and our eyes and nose burn. But, but, but, but there were more of us than there was of them, how did this happen? Damn physics!

Don’t get dead.

www.ItAintEasyBeingSweezey.com

Looking back (Chapter 13)

Christmas and New Years have come and gone. Other than some snow, everyone is pretty much looking forward to warmer weather. I think the first sign of warm weather has got to be spring break.

Ah yes, gobs of young people pouring just as much alcohol down their stupid throats as they possibly can, getting into fights, destroying property that is not theirs, having sex with anything that they can have it with (consciousness is probably optional), and just general rowdiness and civil disobedience. They should probably change the name to wholesome family break or something like that.

Years ago I would have been right in the middle of it.

The spring break of my (I guess it was) sophomore year of high school was no different. Myself and three of my friends roll down to Panama City Beach in one of my buddies cars with the tinted windows, rims, and stereo that everyone in the county could hear … at the same time … regardless of where you where in the county … whether you wanted to hear it or not. And my heap.

I remember being so pumped up about it that I think that I smoked a whole pack of cigarettes on the just over an hour drive down. There we are four guys, two cars, about 8 ½ cases of beer, a change of clothes or two each, a couple of hundred bucks in cash each, headed south for the weekend.

We get to the Redneck Rivera, find our hotel, get checked in, and crack open a few. You ever have that feeling that you may want to take things easy because the possibility of an ugly turn is imminent? That feeling came over me like the tide coming in over the sand. Fifteen minutes into being in the room and they are each about four beers down and showing no signs of slowing down and I just knew something, something bad, was on the horizon. I will be dammed if I wasn't right too.

We hang out in the hotel room for a while when two of them, Red and Jay, decided that they want to go rambling. Mark, the other guy who drove and never lets anyone drive his car, didn't want to go so Red and Jay are stuck with using their Jerusalem cruisers to get around. They take off and Mark and I are hanging out in the hotel and talking about what we were going to do over the weekend. After a while I notice the slurred speech which is prelude to an event filled afternoon. Homeboy is about half a case in and feeling no pain when he announces that he needs to use the facilities or as he put it "need to piss". Let me give you the layout of the room, it is a rectangle with two queen beds and a square bathroom that looked to be put in after the fact which was right by the front door, typical cheap beach hotel room. Mark makes his way to the restroom does his business and makes his way back to the main room when he proclaims that he hates the hiccups which he now has a case of. He keeps asking me what can he do to get rid of them and I guess he thought that if he asked me 1,001 times that I may get some sort of revelation and change my answer from "I don't know" to something else. But alas, he was wrong.

It is about this time that Mark is good and hammered and proclaims his hatred for bugs. Okay… not sure what that has to do with anything but good for you homeboy. I was about to find out why he was informing me of this displeasure of bugs existence. He thought he saw one so he balls up his fist and punches the wall and what he "thought" was a bug on the wall. What he actually saw in his drunken stupor was the shadow being cast by the sunlight hitting a nail that was left in the wall and painted over. Ever be around a drunk who has just hurt himself? You would rather have a colonoscopy, which has to be less painful than having to deal with all of the bitching and moaning. Now I have a drunken dude running around the room bleeding all over the place and griping about hiccups and the phone rings. Who in the hell could that be? It is Red and Jay wanting me to come pick them up from a local shop because they are tired. Yeah, I will get right on that. But I get to feeling sorry for them and decide that I would see how drunk Mark was. When he said it was okay if I took his car to go pick them up I knew he was plowed. Mark goes to get me his keys and slips in some of the blood he spilled on the floor and bangs his head on the floor. So now I know that I have to find some way of restraining him so that he doesn't hurt himself. I had to get both of the flat sheets off of the bed, tie them together and use them to tie Mark to the bed. Once I feel that is he not going to be a danger to himself I get the keys and head out the door. When I get to where the gruesome twosome tells me they are going to be waiting for me, they are gone. I go in and ask the clerk if he had seen them and he tells me that they split about 20 minutes ago. Assholes! So back to the hotel I go. When I get there I find Mark passed out, thank god!

I am just hanging out in the hotel room for a while when the phone rings again and it is Jay and Red again, wanting me to come get them none the less. I tell them to stay put and I will go get them but it will be a little while because of the traffic on the strip. By the time I get to where they say they are again they are gone, well F them. No more feeling sorry for them. But I was getting a bit hungry and I did spy a Mickey D's nearby. So I roll over to it where I notice my cousin's car. I find a place to park and go in to talk to my cousin. After talking to him for a while I got some food to go and for whatever dumb-ass reason I wanted a chocolate milkshake. As I make my way to the car I put my milkshake on the roof of the car so that I can get the keys out of my pocket, unlock the door, toss the bag of food in the car, get in and make my way through the parking lot. At this particular location there is a wide shoulder on the road that local law enforcement uses when traffic is heavy on the strip, this is about to come into play in this story. There I am making my way through the parking lot and I notice that a lot of people are looking at the car, I just thought that it was because of the car. So I am just about to pull out into the street when a cop comes hauling down the shoulder and I slam on the breaks so that I don't get in his way. This is when, unbeknown to me, the milkshake that I accidentally left on the roof of the car falls over and spills onto the windshield of the car. Not realizing what it was I said "what the hell kind of bird was that?!" Then I see the cup rolling on the ground. Oh great, I am an idiot. Now I got to find a car wash. Which I did, and now I am on a mission to have this stupid milkshake. I make my way back to McDonalds and take advantage of the drive-thru so that I don't make the same mistake. Now I am happy, have my milkshake, inside the car, and actually made my way back onto the strip. But traffic is heavy so it may take me a while to get back to the hotel, oh well guess I will have to enjoy cruising and cranking up some pirate radio for a while.

During this particular spring break there were cops everywhere, like every eighth mile or so. Really cracking down I guess. So I see one near me, turn down the stereo and try to act cool. He sees me drinking and ask me what was in my cup. To which I replied a milkshake and asked him why he was asking. He said they are looking for people drinking and driving and asked if I would mind if he checked my drink. No, I don't mind and hand him my cup. He opens the lid, looks into it, takes a sniff and thanks me and hands it back to me. Okay, no big deal. So I get a little farther down the road and I see another cop, but this guy doesn't use the same approach. He looks at me and says "What's in the cup boy" to which my pompous ass thought "boy?!" but the part of me that didn't want to get harassed by the cops stepped in and said just shut up and be nice. So I tell him it's a milkshake and that his buddy just checked it. He asked "Do you mind?" and motioned for me to hand him the cup. Which I did and he TOOK A DAMN SIP OF MY DRINK! I couldn't believe it. What an a-hole. Then he hands it back to me. Yeah, like I am going to drink it now. Out of involuntary actions I hold the cup out of the window and the cop tells me that it is a $150 fine for littering. This milkshake deal was not meant to be so I had to let that one go.

I make my way back to the hotel, park the car, and go to the room. But I can't open the door all of the way, like something was behind it. What the hell. Oh god, it is Mark's drunk ass passed out in the doorframe of the bathroom blocking me from opening the door to the room. So I get him up and into the room where I can see that he has started drinking again, pretty heavily I might add. So I get him to sit on the bed and try to clean up when he says "number 7" and trots off back to the bathroom. Number 7?, what does that mean? He says it's the number of times that he has thrown up and lets me know that the substance that I am cleaning up with the towels is barf… damn, thanks dude.

About this time the sun is starting to go down and the social life is starting to heat up. I am sure that Mark is somewhat more sober at this point but still not Red and Jay. As luck would have it, they called the room again, wanting to be picked up again. I let them know that I will get right on it and tell Mark what they wanted. F them was his reply, sounds good to me. But he is hungry now and way to drunk and scared of cops to drive so I have to chauffeur him around. We find a burger joint that he wanted to go to but he insisted that we go in. So there we are standing in line to get our food to go *eye roll* when I notice that the guy working the counter in the line that we were in was handicapped and that Mark "weirds out" about things like that. But we are so close to the register and there is no way that I am going to get in the back of another line to buy food that I am not going to enjoy. No sooner had I realized what was going on when I see Mark get the big eyes and looks over at me. In an effort to keep him from making an ass out of himself and embarrassing me at the same time I tell him "just be cool, just be cool" to which he replied with "don't let him touch my food Sweezey, don't let him touch my food" I reassured him that he wouldn't and that the people in the back are cooking the food and that he was just taking our money for it. We get his food and head back to the car. Drunky Drunkenheimer sitting in the passenger seat of his car with the door open, takes one bite out of his food and then dumps it out in the parking lot stating "dude, he touched my food, I can taste it" What ever, let's just go back to the hotel.

We get back to the hotel and head towards our room when I realize, hey someone is having a party… in our freaking room!!!! I walk into the room where some slack-jaw greets me and tells me to help myself to a beer and points to a cooler, my damn cooler with my damn beer in it. Everyone in the room was drinking my beer. GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY ROOM!!! People got pissed when I kicked them out, until I told them that I had called the cops, at which they all thought it was a good time to take off, hmm, wonder why? Just goes to prove that drunk kids are stupid, like I would call the cops to report underage drinking in my room because they were drinking my beer, while I was 16, morons.

Ozarkizms

As we are in full swing of the holiday season and Christmas cards from loved ones start to roll in I take this opportunity to reflect back on the holidays. Which often leads me to thinking about family, in turn I begin to think about home.

Ozark is kind of like the TV show Cheers, on acid. Where everyone knows pretty much everyone else, even if they don't acknowledge each other. So after telling some of my stories I have a lot of people who want to go and visit the Land of Oz, I think simply in disbelief. But that is a different story. What I am doing here is a simple reference of Ozarkizms. Think of this as one of those Forbes travel books. These are sayings or phrases that may be heard while in Ozark.

Let's start with some of the social gathering locations.

"The Stop Sign" - Yes, we have more than one traffic control device in town, but there is one particular stop sign that is a bit more famous than the others. Pretty much anyone who grew up in Ozark can tell you how to get to "The Stop Sign" with their eyes closed. This is the location of MANY underage social gathers. Probably has been more beer/liquor consumed here than any bar that is or was ever in Ozark.

"The Old Barn" – Again famous underage drinking hang out. Much like "The Stop Sign" only it's a barn, and down the street.

"The Old House" – Does this really even need a description? Located conveniently between the historic "Stop Sign" and 'The Old Barn".

"The Clay Pits" – An area of town that is owned by the highway department where they would dig clay to be used for road construction. Want to venture a guess as to what we did here?

"Hollywood" – No, not the one in California, not even the one in Florida, this is a field out in the middle of nowhere Ozark.

"San Quentin" - I would love to know who named a place where minors would gather to gather to get wrecked out of their minds after a PRISON. Makes perfect sense to me.

Ok, so you now that you have the layout of some of the social gathering location of the land, we will now move on to other commonly heard phases and sayings.

"Krazo" – Most commonly used nick-name of Ozark, which is simply Ozark spelled backwards. We are a cleaver group that way.

"Man" – This is not a reference to ones gender. This is most often used to start pretty much every damn sentence. "Man, I am tired. Man, I could go for a pizza right about now. Man, where is the party at?" At times this is interchangeable with "Dude".

"The Mall" – Ozark does not have a mall, but there is a shopping center that has been adopted as a mall. This is pretty much a vacant property where local youth hang out and cruise on weekends.

"Martindale 500" – This is a weekly event where the car owning youth and some old losers drive around the parking lot of "The Mall" in a circular fashion much like a NASCAR event.

"Oh Hell No!" – This saying is usually uttered in disbelief of an action that has just happened. For example "Oh Hell No! You didn't just drink my last beer!"

"I'ma have ta f*$k you up!" - A shorten version of "I am going to have to f*k you up. This phrase is typically the predecessor to an "Oh Hell No!" phrase. This phrase is used to express the need for discipline for a previous unpleasant action. Also known as a can of whoop ass.

"Get the hell off of my property" – This saying loosely translated means that the person saying it is advising the recipient of the phrase to vacate the immediate area which is owned by the expresser. Most often used with an unpleasant tone. Often heard in the front lawn/front porch/driveway.

"You mess with me, you mess with my whole family!" – A declaration that I am not alone and if this matter were to turn to an unsettling fashion I will be forced to retaliate with members both in and out of my nuclear family. Most often stated in trailer parks and High School parking lots. Oh who am I kidding, it's the redneck battle cry.

"I'ma have ta call the law!" – Shortened version of "I am going to call the police". Most often used as a means to intimidate one in a manor that there could be pending legal actions taken if you do not correct your current behavior/remove yourself from this area.

"Where is the party at?" – Loosely translated, this means where are people gathering to consume massive amounts of alcohol for no other reason than it is Friday/Saturday night.

"The Beach" – Although there are thousands of miles of costal property, in Ozark there is only one beach, Panama City Beach. All other costal destinations shall be known by the name of the city. For example: Destin, Fort Walton, Miami, Daytona, Long Beach, San Diego and so on.

"The Law" – This can be interpreted as any form of law enforcement, not specifically any one agency. This has nothing to do with the written codes by which citizens must obey.

"Party" – Anywhere that there are more than two people who are drinking.

"Hangin Out" – One or more people, who are drinking.

"Going to the river Sundee" – Typically this could be a question "Going to the river Sunday?" or an answer "What are you doing this weekend? So and so is having a party Saturdee (Saturday) and going to the river Sundee (Sunday)." This even usually involves either owning or knowing someone who owns a four wheel drive truck and driving under bridges on various county and state highways where groups gather to stand in ankle deep water and drink beer.

"River Rat" – One who is "Going to the river Sundee". A regular participant of such events.

"The Block" – A place that you don't want to be, even in the daytime. Often referred to as Compton of the south.

"Yankee queer" – This lovely phrase is aimed at anyone who can be identified as not from Ozark and who has done something to upset a local.

... sigh

Things that I miss

As I am sitting here bored, I was just thinking of a list of things that I miss. This may only make sense to Ozark people.

- I miss the way that Y&T's "Summer Time Girls" used to be an anthem for warm weather.
- I miss having summers off.
- I miss the audience participation part of "Mony Mony" at La Vela.
- I miss figuring out what I was doing on Friday and Saturday nights being my biggest concern.
- I miss "rocking out" (LOL) to The Cars/Cheap Trick/The Who.
- I miss wondering which character in "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" that I would be.
- I miss cranking up the Ozzy with the T-Tops off. (Redneck or not, I am going to bring T-Tops back)
- I miss side of the road parties out in the country (The stop sign, the barn, the old house, Hollywood, San Quentin (who the hell named that one?) or the clay pit)
- I miss staying out until the sun comes up and then sleeping all day.
- I miss $5 keg parties with a band.
- I miss the most beautiful beaches in the world being just over an hour away and taking off for them when I wanted.
- I miss Panama City Beach being this little town supported by locals and snowbirds.
- I miss "Fins UP!"
- I miss when one of my friends would put out the call "Regulators, Mount Up!" when we would head out to a party.
- I kind of miss the Martindale 500.
- I miss the days when 15 friends would pile into one hotel room at the beach.
- I miss being excited about spring break (AEA).
- I miss Cross Roads Jam.
- I miss staying up all night with friends laughing until your face hurts every weekend.
- I miss when MTV actually had music videos on it.
- I miss concerts at arcades.
- I miss pulling brodys on country roads.
- I miss hanging out at the river on Sundays.
- I miss "Night Flight" and "Radio 1990".
- I miss the most important thing about a car being that it ran.
- I miss the second most important thing about a car being stereo/rims/window tint.
- I miss being more worried about my parents finding out than I was about the cops finding out.
- I miss being excited about the new Van Halen/Motley Crue/Ratt/Guns N' Roses/Dokken/Tesla/Ozzy album coming out.
- I miss bonfire parties out in the country.
- I miss hearing "We're not going to need this any more" as the top of a fifth of bourbon flys out the cab of a truck window on a Friday/Saturday night.
- I miss when preparing for a beach trip meant getting some cash & packing a toothbrush and a change of clothes.
- I miss senior skip day.

I hate growing old!!!!

Looking back, chapter 7

A buddy of mine’s grandfather is an old horse trader from way back. I don’t think he ever paid money for anything, just traded stuff for it. One time he was talking to someone about who knows what and the guy, knowing that the old man would take something in trade for it, tells him “I’ll give you a chicken for it”. Apparently it was around lunch time and the grandfather must have thought he was talking about food, like KFC or something. But what the guy was talking about is a real live fighting rooster that someone had given to him.

So my buddy and I go to his house after school and see this truck tool box. I ask my buddy what’s up with the truck box and he says that he doesn’t know. We begin to walk over to the box and we can hear something moving around in it. As we open it to see what is in it, this chicken jumps out and takes off down the driveway a bit. We just stand there and watch it for a minute when just wondering why there was a live chicken in a truck box in his driveway. Then something strange happens, my buddy says “I guess we need to get it back in the box” and squats down and begins to call the chicken. Mind you, we have no idea that this is a fighting rooster. So he calls the rooster and it turns and begins to run at him. It starts flapping its wings and looks like it might be flying a couple of inches off of the ground.

Nervously my buddy stands up wondering what this chicken is doing. And the chicken doesn’t break it’s stride. This chicken is running right at him. Then without slowing down, it, for the lack of a better word, climbs up my buddy and then down his back. Instantly my buddy doubles over. Then he slowly stands back up and I see all of these red specs showing up on his shirt and then I notice all of these little holes all over his shirt. Then he tells me “Sweezey, get that damn chicken!” I said “Holy shit dude, that chicken just kicked your ass. It literally it’s way up and down your ass!”

This really ticks my buddy off. He walks into his house and says that he will be right back. So I am just hanging out waiting for him and watching this chicken explore the area . My buddy comes back out with this aluminum baseball bat. Here is the scene, this guy is standing the in the driveway like Robin Ventura waiting on that Nolan Ryan fastball, then he starts calling the chicken again. “Here chick, chick, chick. Here chick, chick, chick.” Well it is the same song, but the second verse. Here comes this chicken, coming right at him again. My buddy swings for the fences and knocks this bird back about fifteen feet or so and the chicken SHAKES IT OFF.

Yeah, that’s right, he shook it off. The chicken gets back to his feet and shakes his head back and forth a few times and comes right back at us. This is when I decided that I am not going to mess with Robo-Chicken. So we both make a run for my car. As we are sitting in my car Superchicken jumps up on the hood.

Do you have any idea how stupid you feel sitting in your car so that a chicken wont “get you”?

Looking back, chapter 6

Remember getting a hotel room when you were in school and wanted to party but nobody was having one? And there were too many cops out? Oh like I am only one!

Yeah, those were good times. I can remember one time where this high class road side motel actually had a magic fingers bed. For some reason one of the guys with us REALLY wanted to lay on the bed while the magic fingers where on. I mean he was really adamant about it. So he drops a quarter in the box and nothing happens. He puts in another quarter and again nothing happens. Time to investigate why it is not working. Everyone knows that drinking and electricity mix oh so well. So here are eight to ten guys standing around a hotel room, drinking, with the lights and television on. Magic-fingers man finds the problem, the wires were cut and taped back together but has come apart again. So magic-fingers guy stands up and says "here is the problem" removes the tape and goes to reconnect the wires. It is at this time that there is this bright flash of light and a loud pop and everything in the room goes dark. From where I was standing I could see the silhouette of magic-fingers man. He says "oh shit" and hits the deck like we are being shot at. So this place is pitch black and we all start laughing and ask magic-fingers man why he dropped to the floor. A few minutes later the hotel manager knocks on the door and ask if everything is ok. Since we couldn't see the beer we weren't able to hide it. We tell him we are ok and he goes off to flip the breaker or something I guess. A couple of minutes later he comes back and ask us who all was staying in the room and so on. Then he asked us what happened. We told him that we wanted to see the magic fingers work then we noticed that the wires weren't connected. So he is going to fix it, apparently magic-fingers man had the wires crossed. The manager fixes it and the bed begins to work. He leaves and magic-fingers man gets his wish. So he is laying there and well, it got boring pretty quickly. But the bed just keeps going and going and going. It kept going so long that we got annoyed by it so we went to unplug it, but the plug was hot, real hot. Like to hot to touch hot. So we decided to just leave it alone. Magic-fingers man sits up and starts to rock back and forth like he is riding a mechanical bull. It is at this point that the bed breaks loose from the wall and begins to move around floor a bit. Kind of like the old electronic football games. Now this could be fun. A bunch of teenage boys drinking and riding a magic fingers bed around a hotel room. Oh man, that sounds real bad. Anyway we are all piled on the bed and shaking around a bit when it seems to be moving more than it has before. We are headed right for the TV. Haha, we are going to slowly crash into the TV. Hey, what is that burning smell? Oh shit! smoke is coming out from under the bed and the plastic on the plug cover is melting. Thankfully someone kicked the wires apart where they were taped together.

Looks like check out time is right about now!

Looking back chapter 5

The other day I got a sales paper in the mail that already had Halloween stuff in it. Which got me to thinking about making a trip out to Thrillvania (www.thrillvania.com). If you are ever in east Texas around Halloween, and like haunted houses, check it out. You will not be disappointed.

But this blog isn't about Thrillvania, it is about a haunted house that some friends and I went to while I lived in Tampa. You see, I have a friend named George who has this love/hate relationship with haunted houses. He loves going to them but he can't help freaking out while in them. You may hear more laughing than screaming when George is in a haunted house.

Any way, back to the story. We go to this haunted house that has the usual cast of characters: Dracula; Frankenstein; The Mummy; Wolfman; Freddy Kruger; Jason Voorhees; Leatherface; and so on. So you walk up to this haunted house and there is a guy dressed as Dracula laying in a coffin with the creepy organ music playing and a creepy guy giving a eulogy of sorts. After his little speech we are ushered past the coffin where I suspected the guy in the coffin to reach out or something. But nope, he just laid there. But what they did have was a guy dressed like Dracula hiding behind the coffin who jumped out at the crowd. You know, if they were smart, they would have sold new underwear in this place, they would have made a killing.

So the crowd scurries out of the room … except for George. George stands there like he is at attention leaning forward a bit screaming at the top of his lungs like he is trying to knock the guy over with his voice, frozen in fear.

We go through a couple more rooms and it is the usual stuff. Then we get to Frankenstein's Monster. You got the monster on this tilted table, pretty much with his feet on the floor, a Jacob's ladder is in the corner and the mad scientist in a white lab coat is running around behind this little half wall. Shortly after everyone is in the room this strobe light goes off and a smoke machine goes off and so on. Then the monster goes haywire and breaks through the half wall and the crowd runs down the hall. Except for George and I, George is crouched down hiding behind me and here comes good ole Frank. George and Frank are … well, basically dancing, around me like the keystone cops or something. Frankenstein reaches for George on one side, George ducks to the other side. Frank walks around the left side of me, George darts out to the right side of me. This kind of thing goes on for several seconds. The whole time George is screaming at the top of his lungs. I mean blood curdling, full of fear screaming. I, on the other hand, am laughing my ass off. Finally George sees his escape route, the door to the hallway, and makes a break for it. The guy playing Frankenstein shakes his head and cracks a grin. I give him a high five and go down the hall to catch the rest of the group.

I catch up to them and go through a few more rooms then we get to this bloody "crime scene" room, but there are no characters to be found. It would be at this point that everyone can hear George proclaim "Man this aint cool, this aint cool at all". Right after that you hear a chainsaw crank up and a guy dressed as Leatherface jumps out from behind a curtain and comes right at George. And George punches him. Yeah, right in the face. Fortunately the punch didn't connect very well and the guy was ok. So I rush George out of the room and give Leatherface a quick "sorry" and we catch back up to the rest of the group. I pull George aside and tell him that he has got to calm down and that they are not going to hurt him and he tells me he will try.
Then we get to the Wolfman. He is in a cage, thank god! Looks like all we have to do is walk along this path that goes on three sides of the cage. Worst thing that would happen is that he would reach out through the bars right? Wrong, as we soon found out some of the bars are made of rubber. So wolfie bends the bars like he is going to break out, this is when George decided that he was going to bend the bars back. It's just that the Wolfman's head, right shoulder and arm were already through the bars. George, true to form, is screaming at the top of his lungs and so in the Wolfman. The Wolfman is screaming "HEY, HEY, HEY! Let go of the bars kid! Let go!" Fortunately we were able to get George to let go and go through the doors which lead out of the house where the manager, owner, and some of the staff were waiting for us. Lovely. We hear "Hey you, come over here" Yeah this don't look good. George gets a little questioning, tells them that he was just scared. George gets a little lecture and we are on our way back to our car. George gets embarrassed when we tell it, but it is one hell of a story.

Looking back, part deux

A couple of weeks ago the circus was in town and my kids were pumped! They love the circus. They love it so much that their grandmother bought front row seats for everyone. It was sick, we were actually part of the show and everything. Crazy experience.

But that is not what I am writing about today, well not being in that circus. My wife jokingly made the statement that I was in a circus once so I had to tell the story.

One year when I was a young child, some crappy half ass circus came to my home town. My parents took my brother and I to go see it, which was great of them to do that but it just sparked a memory that still gives me nightmares. You see I am several years younger than my brother so I was more or less his entertainment until I was a little older.

After we got home from this festival of freaks my brother thought it was a good idea to play circus. What part of the circus you ask? No, not the lion tamers, although that would have been funny. Nope, not the high wire walkers. Not even the clowns. He wanted to be the acrobats. Yeah, the flying Sweezey brothers, or should I say brother, as in singular, as in one, as in me!

So acrobats fly through the air, and they need something to “launch” them. What do they use? They use a see saw. So we are of to make a see saw, against my will. Sadly all we can find is a 10 foot 2x12 and a cinder block. Oh darn, can’t make the see saw right? WRONG! We used the damn cinder block and 2x12. A CINDER BLOCK! As in a square! As in flat on four sides! As in this is going to hurt.

So the plan is I am going to stand on the board and he is going to jump on the other end propelling me skyward where I am instructed to do a back flip and land on my feet. You’re kidding me right? He was far from kidding. I ask him how come I have to be the one to do the back-flip. Wanna guess what the answer was? Yeah, “because I said so”.

So we set up what I like to call the cardiac arrest starter kit. Fortunately for me, the end I was not standing on was way too high in the air for my oh so loving brother to jump on. Dang, well we tried, right? Wrong. Now we are on a mission to find some sort of a platform for him to jump from. This is not looking good for the home team at all at this point.

So I hear him call for me and he says he has found something. Please god, let it be a bucket or something like that. Well it was something like that, sort of. He found a 55 gallon drum that my grandmother had. Do I at least get a final request?

So he rolls the barrel over to the area where the future caulk outline will be. And it is way taller than the end of the board, plenty of room for him to hit terminal velocity before I am hurled towards the clouds.

In a last ditch effort to try to keep all of my body parts as they should be I tell him that we are way to close to the concrete and that we should probably at least move the set up. He tells me that if I do it right I wont even come close to the concrete. No pressure there.

The zero hour has arrived and the Governor didn’t call with my stay of execution so I guess I have to face the music. There I am standing on this board which is laying over a cinder block with my older brother standing on the other end atop a 55 gallon drum ready to put my ass into orbit. I must have looked like Greg Louganis but I just remember seeing his feet leap off of the drum and then I just remember having a really bad head ache and my brother telling me “You didn’t do it right, get up and lets do it again”. I beleve that was the first time I ever told someone FUCK YOU!

Looking back…

You know, I was telling some stories with some friends the other night and I got to realizing that it really is amazing that I turned out as well as I did and that I am still alive for that matter. Not that I lived in a war zone or anything like that, that would be understandable. I am just talking about the dumb shit me and my friends have done through the years.

We go to talking about things that we did as children that we would never let our children do and I had so many stories that I started to write them down. I don’t know how many of them I will get to tonight but there could be a series of stories to follow.

One of the first dumb things I can remember is making the slip and slide almighty. We, like just about every kid, had a slip and slide growing up. But we had a pretty good sized yard and we lived on a hill. It did not take long to realize that this store bought slip and slide was not going to cut it. Being either adventurous, or creative, or maybe we were just fucking stupid, my brother and I remembered seeing a large roll of plastic sheeting that my father had in the basement for god only knows what reason. Slip and slide is a sheet of plastic, we got a whole roll of that stuff, lets make a better one! Yeah, first mistake. So we roll this plastic sheeting just about the length of the front yard, get out the water hose and let the good times roll. After several runs it soon came to our attention that this was no where near fast enough. When it hit me, I remember washing the car with some laundry detergent, it is really slippery. Mistake numero dos. At that age I had know idea what the words “use sparingly” meant. Hell, I am pretty sure I didn’t know “sparingly” was a word. So we COVERED the plastic with powered tide laundry detergent. Crash Test Dummy #1 is up and will be at full speed in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Here we go! Oh man this is much better. Oh hell, that fence is coming up fas… BAM! Shit, that hurt. We need to move the slip and slide back. Only problem is that we cut the plastic sheeting to length and if we move it back, it will go over the driveway that splits the front yard. Well, it’s not like we are going to land on the drive way we will simply be sliding OVER it. Ewww, strike three. We strategically place the slip and slide of death in the middle of the yard. Equal running and stopping room. Seems that we have drawn a crowd of neighborhood kids by this time. Never letting an audience get in the way of progress my brother decided that we have worked enough of the kinks out and he wanted to see if he could hit mach 1 himself. He starts to haul ass down the hill and just about the time he is going to dive on the slip and slide one of the neighbor kids start to try to jump over it. Public Safety Announcement, if you are running at full speed onto a piece of wet, soapy sheet of plastic, don’t try to stop. Once you have committed to the act, just follow it through to the end no matter what. In an effort to avoid doing his best impression of Cornelius Bennett hitting Steve Beuerlein, my brother tried to stop. Remember that part about sliding over the drive way? Yeah, that didn’t even come close to happening. He started to slide, tried to stop, ended up off the slip and slide, onto the drive way and catching traction and breaking his ankle. The funny part of the story is, he told me not to tell mom. Like she’s not going to thing something is up when you are crawling around the house with your ankle looking like a purple and black watermelon? Pretty sure she wont have to be Columbo to figure that one out. But what in the hell were we thinking? This isn’t dangerous enough! We need more trips to the ER. Nothing says summer like plaster of paris.

More stories to follow.