VICTORIAN HYSTERIA

I can still remember my Health Class back at LD Bell. It was taught by Coach Downs, a strong Christian man perfectly suited for being a Coach, or maybe a History teacher, but for whatever reason he was relegated to teach Health.And I guess he was OK at it, and pleased to do it. We covered diet, nutrition, and exercise, (his forte), I suppose we probably talked about Diseases and First Aid. Coach Downs was extremely comfortable and eloquent on those subjects.But then came the day (or week) when we had to talk about sexual matters. Things like Gonorrhea, crab lice, the importance of abstaining from sex until marriage (which few of us saw as anything remotely close to being an option, in fact, the driving force behind most of my endeavors was to get laid, and failing that, at least to do a lot of making out, which Coach Downs seemed to be dead set against), what a condom was and how it was used, male and female "genaltia"....I'll never forget the big *GULP* that Coach Downs would make before he said words like genaltia, syphilis, and vagina. Normally a slow talker with a West Texas accent, every time he had to say "Vagina" he would look at the ceiling, clear his throat, fidget from one foot to the next and spit it out so quick it sounded like one syllable.

"VGYNA"....maybe he was part Russian. I think poor Coach Downs would rather go winless an entire season than to have to be up there, talking Sex to us kids, mumbling out the horrid words:
"The (cough) penis goes in the (fidget) vgyna and we call (turning away from the class) that intercourse."
If we really wanted to torture him, all we had to do was start asking questions.
"The penis goes in what, Coach?"
So, to my idiot homophobic Facebook friends, when you are so concerned about a Safe School Czar that is going to, as the articles you cite suggest, include fisting for teens, male to male blowjobs for fifth graders, the art of lesbian love and how to go down on your Den Mother for third graders, the upside of Pedophilia and the Man/Boy relationship as part of the curricula of our Public Schools, I think it’s a bit of a stretch, dude.
Who are you going to get to teach all that?

THE LORDS TRUMP

The loudest place in the world...
Was the burned out trailer I lived in out in the middle of nowhere. You might think that out in the middle of nowhere would have been peaceful and quiet, but you might be wrong.
The one neighbor had three German Shepherds and a Chow, and all it took was a cat crossing the road 100 yards down the way to set them to barkin' and howlin' like it was the End of the World.
Then, right across the Railroad tracks there was a concrete plant. In the morning trucks would line up to get their fill and between the low rumble of the motors, you could hear the sledging slurping sound of concrete spilling down from a hopper and into the spinning back of the truck. Later that day the plant would go into production, and gravel would be crushed in some giant machine. It was like the sound of marbles being dropped on a tin roof and amplified enough to make you ears bleed.
So when the dogs got to barking, and the gravel got to crushing, you really couldn't quite hear the train that was coming down the tracks till it was almost on you. But as the burned out trailer began to shake from the vibration of 100 cars filled with coal gliding down the Double-E of the tracks, if I timed it just right I could holler out "There goes that son-of-a-Bitch" at the top of my lungs, only you wouldn't be able to hear the word "Bitch" because the engineer had commenced to blowing his whistle.
It was loud, but when timed right, it was beautiful!
But that's not all.
Since this place was "out in the middle of nowhere" it made it the perfect place for someone to put up a Dynamite plant a half mile away. And at various times of the day, starting at 6:00 in the morning, they would test the dynamite and there would be a big boom go off and the shock wave (which could snuff out a candle) would rattle your windows and of course, set three German Shepherds and a Chow to barking their fool heads off. A friend of mine, Demetrious, the only black person of Greek descent I have ever known, came to see me one day. We were standing by his car when someone torched off a stick off Dynamite. You could hear and even feel the shock wave, and poor Demetrious hit the dirt, just as he was trained to do 40 years ago in the 'Nam.
He never came back to see me.
But that's not all.
There was one thing that could drown out the dogs, the concrete, the train and the dynamite. On Friday and Saturday nights, one, or all three racetracks in Kennedale would start their engines. I was stuck right between all three and you couldn't hear a thing.
When those racetracks started up, I might have missed Gabriel blow the Lords Trump.


I almost forgot...
THE OTHER NEIGHBORS

BLESSED ARE THE PEACEKEEPERS

For three years running, every morning in the Main Kitchen at the Hyatt, Maybelline the Employee Cafeteria lady would limp up to Panola, the Salad lady and say
'Could you get me some lettuce, please, Panola?"
and Panola would say
"Cain't you get it yo'self?"
and Maybelline would say
"My back is kinda hurtin' me this mo'nin' and I cain't bend over"
and Panola, exasperated, would go in the Walk-in and fill Maybelline's little Lexan with some cut lettuce and hand it back to her.
And as Maybelline limped back down to the Employee's Cafeteria, Panola would announce to the entire Kitchen staff:
"I CAIN"T STANDS NO-BODY THAT'S SORRRRRRY"
Every day.
Three years.
But never once did Panola refuse Maybelline.
And never once did Maybelline fire back in any manner at all.
I don't know which of those ladies I loved the most.