Friday Firesmith

One of the great things about having Moody Air Force base in the area is we get a lot of wonderful volunteers to help with dog rescues. These are not men and women who show up and stand around, oh no, they are active, assertive, and incredible. During the Great Thunder and Lightning, Heat Wave Melon Sellin’, I got a guy named Brady, who was no disappointment. He helped sell melons, helped set up, and sat with me from ten in the morning until one in the afternoon.

At ten it wasn’t bad. The rain had just stopped, and Brady is a dog trainer, so we had no end of stories to tell and listen to from one another. He understands, perfectly, not all dog breeds can be homed with all people. His dog is a German Shepherd, and an active one at that. But he’s from Indiana, and this is his first South Georgia summer. By eleven, the heat is beginning to impress him. We sell a few melons, but I’m beginning to worry the heat is going to get to them, even in the shade. The asphalt parking lot begins to shimmer as the temperature starts racing towards triple digits. An hour goes by and no one stops. The sun is now blasting down pure white heat and Brady turns pink. We shake hands, know we’ll meet again at the next event, and I’m flying solo.

There’s an old adage that if you get out of the heat because you feel like you ought to, it’s already too late. I turn one of the tents over to facilitate pushing the telescopic legs in, and a skate board rolls to a stop at my feet. I’ve blocked the sidewalk, and a young guy carrying a twelve pack in a grocery bag is staring at me.

“Do you need a hand, sir?” he asks, and yeah, I could use some help.

We break down the tents, store them in my truck, sell four watermelons to the last customer, and as I’m selling the melons, the young man breaks one of the tent legs. He is distraught, and offers to pay for the tent.

I offer to give him four melons for helping, and he allows he loves melons and calls his roommate to help come get them, but he still wants to pay for the damage. I tell him if he helps with our next event, we’ll call it even. The tent is older than he is. His roommate arrives and mediates. He thinks four melons is excellent for helping me, and helping with an event ought to even things up. He offers to help, too. We trade numbers and part ways.

The local food bank is closed, and I have dying water melons. Some are already leaking, some are getting soft. A man wanders up and asks how much I’m selling them for. I tell him I’m trying to give them away at that point, and his eyes light up. All of them? Yep, all of them. He gets his cell phone out and starts making calls. A couple of guys show up and start unloading the melons.

“This one is bad, but this one is still good, hey, call Ray, tell him to get down here with the kids, tell him a guy is giving away watermelons!” People start showing up and taking home free melons. This is in the very poorest part of Valdosta and the hottest part of the day. It’s like Christmas to get something to eat for free.

Two guys pool their money and have twenty-seven dollars. They want to pay me. I tell them if they’ll dispose of the bad melons, we’ll call it a day. For the third time in about an hour, I have a handshake deal with someone.

Okay, we made less than one hundred fifty bucks on the day. I had close to seventy bucks in it myself. The weather got us, and the melons were dying. But I made a couple of friends, picked up some new volunteers, and put the excess melons to good use. All in all, despite everything that happened, I drove away feeling pretty damn good.

Take Care,

Mike

Mike writes regularly at his site:  The Hickory Head Hermit.

Opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those of the management of this site.

“Mike, you have a truck, can you go pick up some watermelons for USA Rescue Team?” the message read. 

Sure, what could possibly go wrong? 

I call the contact guy, and he tells me he’s in Adel Georgia, about thirty-five miles away, and that’s about twenty bucks worth of gas. But implicit in my instructions to fetch the melons, is that in some way, I will be helping sell the melons. Dog Rescue is like this; if you offer to help, you’re in all the way or not at all. There is also a chance I’m not helping. There is a chance this will be my event, one hundred percent. 

I’m thinking twenty-five melons, at the most, and I’m also thinking this is a charity event, so we’re going to get them free, right? 

The rescue’s next event is on a Saturday, and my plan is to go get the melons Friday afternoon, because it is not only hot, it is hellish hot, and it is going to be hotter on Saturday. Triple digit heat indices, and nothing lives long in that sort of weather. The guy with the melons tells me if I want them to come get them now. Wednesday arrives and off I go! 

But the guy with the melons is not in Adel, no. He’s another ten miles away, and that’s more gas money. And he wants a dollar apiece for them. And he wants to sell no fewer than fifty at a time. 

Suddenly, we’re talking real money here. But I assume this is the deal the rescue made with him, and after all, I am already there. 

The guy lives out in the woods, and has, literally, thousands of melons everywhere. I tell him fifty, give him fifty bucks, and we load the truck. Suddenly, he acts like he just realizes I’m working with the rescues and gives me twenty bucks back, and gives me free melons. A lot of free melons. I know I cannot sell this many in one day, and I have no place to put them. 

I unload the melons in the shade in the woods at my place, keep them covered and water them down until Friday night. I’ve already lost half a dozen at this point due to heat. 

Forecast: Clear skies, heat, heat, more heat. 

Saturday morning.  The skies open up. It floods. Thunder, lightning, and it’s ten in the morning before I can even get out of the truck.

 But the first customer arrives. He tells me I have to leave and he doesn’t wait to hear my explanation. One minute later a cop arrives.

I make phone calls and cannot reach anyone. But the cop is an understanding soul. He doesn’t believe someone with a load of melon is going to give him a load of bull. The woman who runs our rescue finally makes contact with the guy who owns the parking lot and he just plain forgot he had given permission. We have a conference call, and he turns out to be s stellar person, and all is well. But the rain has stopped, and the sun is coming out. Heat will arrive very soon, and the day has just begun. 

(Part Two, Next Week, Skateboard Savior, and the Neighborhood Guy) 

Take Care,

Mike 

Mike writes regularly at his site:  The Hickory Head Hermit.

Opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those of the management of this site.

Years ago, I dated a woman who was originally from Florida, and we had the “meet the family” trip to see her parents and siblings. Her mother didn’t like me, but her mother didn’t like anyone Kerry brought home. Her brothers liked me, however, because both like beer, and I liked beer, too. We spent a day out on a farm, playing horseshoes and drinking, and I got along very well with Kerry’s father. One of her brothers jokingly asked, “You haven’t killed anyone, have you?”  That’s when the subject of Christopher Wilder came up. 

Wilder had been a friend of the family for a while, and Kerry’s father did some metal work for him. Wilder was charming, had an Aussie accent, so the girls loved him, and he paid a lot of attention to Kerry. She had a serious crush on him, even though she was only sixteen. As fate would have it, Wilder fled back to Australia, and from that point, the story took a gruesome turn for the surreal. 

Christopher Wilder was not only a sexual predator, but also a serial killer. 

The family would never hear from Wilder again, even after he returned to the States, but once he was on the run from the FBI, they realized they were lucky he didn’t kill one, or even both sisters. Kerry’s sister called her one day because Wilder was being chased by the cops, and there was a helicopter filming it. He was killed in a shootout with the police. 

Now, this is a family of simple, quiet, decent people. Mom worked as a receptionist, Dad did metal work, and made beautiful lawn sculptures with interwoven moving parts that I could watch for hours, as long as the wind was blowing. Both sons were hard working, and both daughters were levelheaded and had college degrees. There was not even the hint of criminal activity amongst them. 

After Kerry told me the story of Wilder, and her close encounter with death, I was stunned. But then she sighed, and said there was another story, before Wilder, about a guy her father had worked with, Mr. Smith, when they were little kids. Smith and his wife would come over, have drinks, eat dinner, hey, this sounds familiar, but one day his wife just picked up and left him. Smith told everyone she had went to live with her mother, but her mother hadn’t seen her. Months went by, and one day Smith was arrested by the police. He had killed his wife and buried her body under the front porch of their house. 

Incredibly, he only got ten years for the crime, and Kerry told me she was in the grocery store with her mom when Smith walked up and started talking to them. Kerry didn’t recognize him but her mom freaked and told Smith to get away from them. He had been released and, of course, no one knew it. 

I have no idea what the odds are that one man, Kerry’s father, could live such a benign life, and still have known two murderers in his lifetime, or even one serial killer. 

Take Care,

Mike

Mike writes regularly at his site:  The Hickory Head Hermit.

Opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those of the management of this site.

I am now aquatic. I bought a kayak, and even though I’ve only had a chance to use it once, I’m really going to like this watercraft. This is a two part Friday Firesmith with more questions than answers, and as we float along, you’ll understand where we’re headed in this. 

My kayak is the  Weber 132, and as I will be doing a lot of solo paddling, it’s a little on the heavy side, but I got a great deal on it. All I want is a boat that is sturdy, stable, and had a place for a small cooler, which this one does on all counts. Part One! If you have a kayak, what kind and why do you love it? I have named her, “The Nerodia Express” 

Nerodia, pronounced Ne-Ro-dia, not Nero-dia, like I pronounced it before I heard someone say it correctly, covers all the water snakes around this part of the world. Invariably, anyone who sees a snake in the water starts screaming, “MOCCASIN!” so I’ll be out in the swamps and lakes taking photos of trees, sunrises, and water snakes. And Cottonmouths, too, yes. 

Which brings us to the question of cell phones with cameras. Part Two! What kind do you have, and it is worth what you paid for it? Waterproof, it has to be waterproof. 

So while we’re talking watercraft, and cameras, my first few trips will be local lakes, and rivers, if there’s enough water. Banks Lake, in Lakeland Georgia, is going to be my first stop early next week, barring taking Mom to the doctor or something like that. The cypress trees reflecting in the water are beautiful. I hope to get in early enough so the fisher folk won’t make too much noise, and it will be warm enough for snakes to be sunning themselves. Then to Grassy Pond, a small lake in Lowndes County. Then off to one of the river landings for a short trip or two. After I get my fins under me, I will be hitting the Okefenokee Swamp. Several blue springs in Florida are close enough to be a good day trip, or overnight on a weekday. 

After all that, who knows? 

It would be nice to travel a bit, go to some different lakes around the states, and see the world a little. I’m open to suggestions as to place to paddle, and if you have one, sing it out! 

I like being on the water. I like the way floating feels, and how the wind shifts me around ever so slightly. A turtle came up to investigate me on Sunday, my first trip in, and he seemed amazed at what he was seeing. I was. 

Take Care,

Mike

Mike writes regularly at his site:  The Hickory Head Hermit.

Opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those of the management of this site.

Mom needed to go get an ultrasound today at SGMC and getting there half an hour early seemed like a good idea. The entrance has a drop off point wide enough for two vehicles, but an ambulance is parked on the outside lane, and a car is parked behind the ambulance. This restricts traffic to one drop off lane. 

I’m not sure what’s going on with the ambulance, but whoever is in there is having a worse Monday than me or even Mom, but Mom can’t stand for long periods of time, she doesn’t walk well at all, and so I have to drop her off close to the door, get one of their wheelchairs, and wheel her in. 

The issue is the car ahead of me. They pull up close to the door, and nothing happens. Two minutes go by, more cars are pulling up behind me, and finally a woman gets out of the car, goes to the trunk and gets a walker, opens the passenger side door, and a man gets out. 

Then they talk for a couple of minutes while he’s standing there, she’s still got the walker, and finally he gets the walker, goes in, she goes in behind him, and they’re both gone. Another couple of minutes pass, and the line behind us is wicked long. People are unloading behind us, and the elderly are beginning to migrate. I pull up as close behind the abandoned car and let Mom out, I go get a wheel chair, get her seated in line, and go back to the truck. I can’t move it. The line behind is now too long to see the end. The ambulance hasn’t moved, and the woman who was driving the abandoned car, well, isn’t there. 

The ambulance driver gets out and looks at the car. The woman behind the ambulance looks at the car. I look at the car. Nothing can be done. I start to go back inside and the woman comes out, gets into the car, and just sits there, texting. 

Finally, she cranks up the car, moves forward, and stops. There’s a parking space with a car about to back out of it in the parking lot and she wants to wait for it. I blow my horn and she moves. I move. The line moves. 

I park the truck in another area code and walk back. The ambulance is still there, the car behind the ambulance is still there, but the line is moving now. More and more people are coming in. 

I find Mom next in line, in the wheelchair, waiting to be checked in. The man in front of her, no, not the same guy that arrived with Blockage Betty, is confused about where he’s supposed to be. There is one receptionist. She’s trying to figure out where this guy belongs, if he has an appointment somewhere, and no one on earth seems to know who he is or why he’s in the building at all. He can’t remember what doctor sent him here. 

The thirty minutes early has evaporated, and we haven’t said good morning to anyone yet. 

Meanwhile, I see Blockage Betty, but not the man she was with. Then I spot him, walking across the room, without his walker, without help, as if there isn’t anything wrong with him at all. He stands there and talks to her and another man. His walker is right there, alone and abandoned. 

We get checked in, wait, get checked into the ultrasound place, wait, they wheel mom into the ultrasound room, and in less than twenty minutes after going into the ultrasound, we’re heading out again. 

Blockage Betty and her man aren’t to be found. But as I wait to get close enough to load mom into the truck, I see a woman sitting in a wheelchair near the curb. A van pulls up, people get out, open the door, and unload someone directly in front of this woman, so she has to back up. Five feet in one direction or another, and there would have been no conflict. 

I’m not sure when our society became so myopic that it’s everyone for themselves, even when it comes to a woman in a wheelchair.

Take Care,

Mike

Mike writes regularly at his site:  The Hickory Head Hermit.

Opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those of the management of this site.

To begin with, what happened, and how it happened, was totally my fault, or at least the part that involved what happened to me. For years, every time I’ve gotten on an airplane, arrived early, checked in online, and done all the things that were asked, and then sat and waited for an hour while other passengers arrived just as boarding was starting. So about an hour early, maybe a little less, I arrive and was told another flight, much later in the day, would be my only choice. 

I’m a writer. There is never any dead time, unless my laptop dies, and even then, there’s notebooks. I settled in for a long write session, and the hours did their thing. 

What I did not know was the airline had oversold the seats, they had sent out texts to some passengers that lived closer to the airport asking them to take the later flight, but as soon as enough people to fill the plane went through the gate, they closed the door on the rest of us. 

This epiphany arrive via a conversation with my eventual seatmate on the flight, and other people who overheard this joined in. A good half dozen people, at least, were left stranded by the airline, and wound up sitting in the airport for eight hours. 

It was not pretty. 

Let’s go back to when The Delayed were finally within an hour of getting off the ground. One of Delayed was angry and decided to take it out on the people running the boarding gate. First, he demanded to be boarded ahead of everyone else. I understood that. Then he demanded to be boarded RIGHT &%$#@*& NOW and the issue there was the plane had not arrived. Looking out of the windows, which are very large, and quite clean, there was no airplane. He could see this, we all could, but there he was, berating the boarding crew, and one of them said, “Sir, sit down. If you do not we will call security.” And that is when he started taking photos of the gate crew with his cell, close up photos, and guess what happened next? 

The TSA arrives. There are six of them. Not one of them looks as if they understand the man’s anger and will surely take his side in the argument. Nay, not one. Handcuffs were issued, and a free ride in a cart was offered.

I can swear this next part is true, but it seems like they delayed the plane getting to the gate because of this. It was nearly an hour later before we boarded, which meant those of us with connecting flights were screwed. 

But none of this is the fault of the TSA, even though most of the passengers were grumbling about how the TSA handled the guy. I think they did what they had to do. I did not want that person on a plane with me.  

Because a large population of The Delayed were also on my connecting flight, that one was pushed back an hour, and my seatmate and myself became friends. And thirteen hours after my journey began, it ended, and vacation albeit late, was commenced. 

Take Care,

Mike

Mike writes regularly at his site:  The Hickory Head Hermit.

Opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those of the management of this site.