Plantin' Another One...

Well... Just got through plantin' another friend in the ground. I must be a good farmer.

Rex was a helluva guy. He was quite a bit older than I was, fact is, he's just a year younger than my mom, but he was an easy guy to like, and I did.

I first really knew of him when I was back in grade school and he started driving a school bus. He wasn't on our route, but man... everyone wanted Rex to be their driver. Funny, hard of hearing, and he let anything short of homicide slide. Yeah... he was Otto the bus driver 20 years before the Simpsons hit the airwaves. All the kids loved him.

Eventually, I aged and got to ride with Rex on the athletic trips. Oh yeah... he was the standard bus driver for all athletic events. The reason? Well... he knew his way around an engine and ripped the governor off of his bus and turned a few screws up too. That bus got up and moved and we'd make "good time" getting to and from the games. It was an awesome time of life. But Rex cut a few other corners, like not coming to a complete stop at some railroad tracks and opening the door, and somebody ratted him out. That was the end of Rex as a bus driver.

As you can tell... Rex was a free spirit. Harley rider, smoker in his early days, and he knew what the golden elixir tasted like. So after his sudden departure at the bus depot, he went to work for a paving company.

By this time, he was damn near deaf, so they put him on the crusher. Nobody else could stand it because of the noise, but he got along just fine.

I was talking with another friend one day and he asked what Rex was doing now. I told him that I thought he was still working at the paving company. "Oh no," he said, "He lost that job." "How come?" I replied. My buddy looks at me an says, "They found a little blood in his drug system."

I could tell you stories about Rex for days, for every time I was around him it was always a laugh riot. As some of you may know, I'm usually a jovial fellow, and so was he, at least around me. He'd make me bust up, and I'd do my best to return the favor. Good times.

Rex gave me one last full throttle experience today too. I've never been to a funeral where they played rock music in the background until today. From the Blues Brother's opening before the prayer, to That Old Time Rock and Roll as they rolled him out, with a little If You're Gonna Go to Heaven, You've got to Raise and Little Hell in between...

So in closing... I could palaver about this or that... I could come up with some quote from some deep thinker or philosopher... yeah. I could do that, but the picture on the back of the funeral program probably said it best.




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Today's mystery lyric: (Remember the rules folks, no online searching of the lyrics, if you don't know it, you don't have the answer!) In honor of Rex, I'll pull one out of the ol' high school memory section.

Well it's 40 below,
and I don't give a f*ck
got a heater in my truck
and I'm off to the rodeo!

Answer to last lyric: Knockin' at Your Back Door by Deep Purple. Way to go Doc!

And One For Tink...

Even though our little Tinkerbell has left the blogosphere (seems to be happening a lot lately), I've decided to go ahead and tell the tale about the little "shoplifting" experience. Who knows... maybe we'll even get her out of hiding to read it. ;)

It was waaay back in my first year of univerzity stoodies. Jes... that was when I wasn't quite at the bastard level that I had achieved by the time I was a seeenior, but I was working on it.

Anyway, my roommate and I were downtown for some reason or other, and I decided I needed another pack of Extra sugar free cinnamon gum, one of my college staples. A few years later, another friend of mine told me a story about gum that's absolutely classic, but I'll save that for another time.

So we pulled into the supermarket so that I could score some of the good stuff. My roomie didn't have anything to buy, and I only wanted gum, so it was a quick in and out procedure. I asked if he was planning on waiting in the car and he said, nah... he'd come in, so off we both went.

As with most supermarkets, the gum was right up next to the checkout counter and so we walked in... walked up behind the checkout counter, grabbed the pack of gum, and took that one last step to the checker.

I shouldn't have to describe a checkout line to any of you, should I? If I do... well... you've led a sheltered life and you need to check out just once for the experience. But I digress...

I was in front, and my roomie in line behind me with both hands in his pocket waiting for me to flip the buck up there and get change. We were the only two in line. So I give the checker the pack of gum, she tells me "That'll be eighty three cents." and I give her a buck and look back at my roomie while she's counting change. He's just standing there, hands in his pockets, gawking off into space. It was one of those moments when you're just not there at all. But he should have been, cause when I looked back at him, I knew immediately what I had to do...

The checker handed me my change and wished me a nice day, so I took one step forward and then looked back as my roommate started to follow. I sprung into action immediately. I looked right at my roommate with the most serious face I could muster and said...

"Hey, aren't you going to pay for that?"

Simultaneously the checker's head snapped around and my roomie froze with his eyes as big as saucers and his mouth completely open in shocked disbelief. The only sound he could muster was a weak... "Wha?"

At this point I can assure you he was completely present and in the moment. He, however, doesn't know what to do. Does he pull his hands out of his pockets in a show of innocence? Does he leave his hands in there and face the x-ray vision of the checker? Does he run? Does he pay for something he doesn't even have?

I let him dangle there for a few seconds that didn't seem a day over a decade to him and then busted up laughing. I looked at the checker and said, "He doesn't have anything... I just couldn't pass that up." She's still giving him the skunk eye though, and he finds his voice and says... "Yeah. I don't have anything!" and holds his hands up.

So we walk out and he looks up at me (he was a bit shorter than I) and says, "You asshole." and started laughing.

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The mystery lyric's back!!!

Today's mystery lyric: (Remember the rules folks, no online searching of the lyrics, if you don't know it, you don't have the answer!)

Sweet Lucy was a dancer
But none of us would chance her
Because she was a samurai.
She made electric shadows
Beyond our fingertips
And none of us could reach that high

I can't deny it
With that smile on her face, ohhhhh
It's not the kill
It's the thrill of the chase.

Answer to last lyric: Dead Memories by Slipknot. Not even a guess. *sigh*

New Post, Old Subject... Unfortunately.

Well... here we are again.

My best friend from HS called me the other day. He was in tears, and told me that his older brother's son had just been killed in a car wreck.

He was 19 and had just gotten through serving his first year in the Coast Guard. Turns out, he had a sweetie and they were looking at rings and although he hadn't popped the question, they felt like they were engaged to boot.

He and his dad had just stopped down here for a short visit over Thanksgiving, and now he's gone. He was always a good kid to me, and his death is hitting the family pretty hard, especially coming this time of the year.

Not the best subject to post about, but alas...

R.I.P. Ethan.

Not a good post for lyrics, so back with the Lyrics soon...