July 4, 1980 (Give or Take a Year)

When we left Camden Park it was still too early to head back to Martin. Sara suggested we go dancing at Huntington's one and only gay bar. The rest of us were much less enthusiastic about the idea.

Steve was a bit of a player and often went to Huntington on the weekends we weren't together. He didn't have money, a job, or a car and lived with his parents. I suppose he depended on the kindness of strangers. Gorgeous was about all he had going for him. It was enough for me. Apparently it was also enough for another half dozen guys in as many states.

Anyway, Sara was the only member of our little foursome excited about going to the gay bar. As a straight man Ronnie had his concerns. Steve and I, each for our own reasons, worried about who we would run into and what it might mean.

I don't remember the name of the gay bar in Huntington. It was out in the middle of nowhere in a nondescript concrete-block structure surrounded by a gravel parking lot. You couldn't just walk in. You knocked and a little door at eye-level would open. If you looked OK, they let you in.

Inside there was a dance floor, a couple of bars, a DJ booth, and a stage for drag shows. Huntington had some of the best drag performers I've seen, before or since. The drag queens would do a few numbers then the DJ would play music for dancing.

Going to a gay bar affects people different ways. Straight women tend to let their hair down, kick off their heels and dance with wild and reckless abandon. Straight men cling to their date all night and look uncomfortable on or off the dance floor. You can tell they have suddenly realized what we've always known: straight guys can't dance.

Some make-out with their woman on the dance floor so everyone will know they are a real man and not one of the gay boys. Making out on the dance floor wasn't going to do it for Ronnie. Nope. He wanted to bump uglies with Sara in a stall in the men's room.

Sara was drunk enough to give it a shot. But between her size, the space available in the stall, the skin-tight jeans they and everybody else wore at the time, and Ronnie's inability to manage all of the above it wasn't going to happen.

Ronnie, however, was drunk and determined to accomplish his goal. Sara went along until she got an ugly scrape on her back from the toilet paper holder and called it quits. When Ronnie wouldn't take no for an answer, Sara kneed him in his man-parts and returned to the dance floor.

Ronnie and Sara fought all the way back to Martin. Steve and I sat in the back seat and tried to mind our own business. It got ugly a few times. We pretended like we were asleep and prayed they wouldn't wreck the car.

It was a weekend I will never forget. Over time Ronnie got more and more violent. Sara eventually kicked him out of the double-wide, divorced him, and became a lesbian. I wonder where she is now...

More April Flowers

The middle of April is beautiful in Athens. Most days it's sunny, and warm enough for shorts, t-shirts and flip-flops but not so hot you need to close the windows and turn on the A/C. The flowering trees and shrubs--especially the azaleas--are spectacular.

Many locals consider planting the lowly azalea to be a waste of valuable garden space. Not me. I think azaleas are the most gorgeous shrub on the planet and add a few more every year. In this picture are four different varieties in bloom with candytuft--a shrubby, white-flowering groundcover. As always, click on any picture for a larger version.

If azaleas are the most beautiful shrub in town, then clematis is the queen of the climbing vines. I started out with six named varieties years ago, and was amazed when they produced seedlings all over the garden. Here several different varieties climb a dogwood trunk behind a large grouping of bright pink Rutherford azaleas.

Another favorite shrub, Kolkwitzia amabilis (Beauty Bush) is covered with fragrant pink bell-shaped flowers. The Knock-out roses next to it are just starting to bloom. I added some red verbena a few weeks ago. You can see the Rutherford azaleas in the distant background.

I planted California Poppies in the garden several years ago. They must like cold winters because this year they came up everywhere. They're just starting to bloom and a tad hard to photograph since the flowers only open on sunny days.

And that's what's happening in my garden this week. Enjoy!

Camden Park

This story picks up where Trauma Car: The Legend Continues left off.
The tailpipe was still dragging on my pumpkin-orange 1978 Ford Fiesta (aka Trauma Car). I needed the car for the 125 miles back to Lexington and didn't want to drive it to Huntington. Steve didn't have a car. We decided to drop by to see Sara, his (married) best friend from high school.

Sara and Ronnie rented a double-wide in a trailer park between Prestonsburg and Martin. Sara was a cheerleader/wild child in high school. Ronnie was the high school bad boy--hot, a little rough and just a tad scary. Sara and Ronnie had no plans and a full tank of gas. Within the hour we were loaded up and on the way to Camden Park.

Thirty years ago Camden Park resembled a traveling carnival or county fair more than an amusement park. There was a small roller coaster and maybe a log plume but the rest of the rides were portable. The park was packed because of great weather, the holiday, and the promise of a big-name entertainer.

I don't mean to be unkind but this was one homely bunch of people. Everyone in the park wore blue jeans and too-tight white or black t-shirts featuring a Harley Davidson logo, liquor, a rebel flag, or some rock or country band. Many were the nearly transparent three-for-ten-dollar variety.

Out of nowhere the sky opened up. Rain came down in solid sheets for a good ten or fifteen minutes. There was no shelter anywhere. Getting soaked to the skin rarely improves one's appearance. Once-white t-shirts turned transparent. The images still haunt me.

We headed to the amphitheater to catch the big-name entertainer. We had great seats, close enough to reach out and touch anyone on stage. The excitement was palpable. Suddenly he was standing right in front of us. We were just yards away from big-name entertainer...Freddie Fender.

It was the saddest performance I've ever seen. The first thing he did was turn around and shake his middle-aged booty. We gave up our front-row seats after the first song and returned to the park.

We opted not to stay for the fireworks and left. After all, we were in the big city. The night was still young, and so were we.

To be continued...

Trauma Car...The Legend Continues

I dated a guy from Eastern Kentucky when I had Trauma Car. Steve moved back home for financial reasons a couple of months after we met, to Martin, KY (population 800). Given the state of our finances and the 125 miles between Lexington and Martin, we decided to call it quits.

We did stay in touch--by phone--before unlimited long distance plans or e-mail. I was in love, or so I thought. Steve was lonely, bored and without a car. Trauma Car was mostly intact and running on all four cylinders. I offered to drive to Martin. Took 2 1/2 hours, a tank of gas, and $1.20 for the tolls. That was the first of many, many trips to Eastern Kentucky.

There wasn't much to do in Martin. Mostly we drove around--to Prestonsburg, around the lake at Jenny Wiley State Park, or maybe to Paintsville, Pikeville or even Huntington. When you got where you were going you went someplace else.

Late one Friday night I headed to Martin after work. We planned to go to Camden Park in Huntington the next day for the Fourth of July festivities. Camden Park always had a "big-name" entertainer on holidays and the best fireworks in the area.

Trauma Car didn't cooperate. The exhaust system fell off before I even got out of Lexington. I got second degree burns on one hand holding the tailpipe up so I could wire it back in place with a coat hanger. Brilliant!

Feeling quite proud of my ingenuity and more than a little festive, I picked up a 12-pack and continued to Martin. The tailpipe slipped loose before the first toll. Too late to turn back now. Might as well have another beer.

Dragging that tailpipe from Lexington did not improve engine efficiency or gas mileage. It did, however, provide a nonstop fireworks display in the rear-view mirror from the sparks as the tailpipe bounced off the pavement. By the time I got to Salyersville I was almost out of gas and more than a little buzzed.

Stopping for gas landed me in the Magoffin County jail. I used my one phone call at 3 a.m. to call Steve. His dad answered and said Steve had gone out earlier and wasn't home. Huh? Any message, he asked? Oh yeah--I had several messages for him but just said, "sure, when he gets home tell him I'm in the Magoffin County jail." He laughed.

Steve got me out of jail early the next morning. We got Trauma Car back and headed for a Fourth of July picnic with his large extended family. As the last to arrive we parked in the back of the field and headed toward the family, already enjoying fried chicken on picnic tables set up all over the yard. I was touched when upon seeing us, they all waved. I smiled and waved back. They got up from their seats to welcome us. Those mountain people sure are friendly!

Then I noticed several of them were waving with both arms. Note to self: next time your tail pipe is dragging, don't park in dry grass. As the waving became frantic I finally heard what they were yelling: The grass under your car is on fire!!!

Talk about making an entrance. We put the fire out and moved the car. I got cleaned up and ate enough down-home country cooking for three people. Then we headed to Huntington.

To be continued...

Remembering Trauma Car

I am not a car person. Never have been. Nothing illustrates this more clearly than Trauma Car--a pumpkin-orange 1978 Ford Fiesta with a brown scorpion decal across the top and on the hood. That's right--a scorpion, positioned to sting anyone who dared sit in the drivers seat.

I should have known better. My friends never let me forget I traded a 1974 Cutlass Supreme for Trauma Car. Why? Better fuel efficiency.

The dealer added A/C at my request when I bought the car. Months later I finally had an occasion to open the hood. Just below the windshield where you couldn't miss it was a large sign: Not Equipped to Handle Air Conditioning. Ooops.

My beautiful, two-door, red Cutlass had a V-8 engine, bench seats and an 8-track player with speakers in the back. Nice. Trauma car boasted 4-cylinders and a factory AM/FM radio with one tinny speaker. It quit picking anything up after the antenna broke at the base in a car wash a few weeks after I got it. Damn.

Trauma Car was designed for a battery with side terminals. Someone installed a battery with terminals on the top. It wasn't me, I swear. Drive over a bump fast enough for the battery to bounce and the posts would come in contact with the hood, shorting out the entire electrical system. Sounds obvious, but it was years before a wise mechanic figured out the cause of the problem.

Consequently, Trauma Car just died in traffic all the time. To make matters worse, once the engine had warmed up enough to trip the cooling fan, it wouldn't restart with the key until it cooled off enough to avoid tripping the fan. Depending on the weather, this could take anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour.

Fortunately, Trauma Car had a stick shift. Stick your foot out the door, get the car rolling, pop the clutch and you were on your way. Great, until opening the car door became a challenge. When the inside handles broke off, I rolled down the window and used the outside handles. Then they broke off, too, along with the handles to roll down the windows. Finally the only way in and out of the car was through the hatchback. Convenient.

My roommate, Linda, and I took my mother and my godmother out for drinks one evening. Several hours and too many cocktails later, we were on our way home when I hit a bump and Trauma Car died. Linda had a cast up to her knee and was unable to pop the clutch. The matrons, snickering and giggling in the back seat, were too trashed to get out to help. Linda finally hobbled out to push so I could pop the clutch.

One hot summer afternoon I was driving through the campus of the University of Kentucky. As I turned left from Euclid Avenue onto Rose Street, the battery arced out yet again smack dab in the middle of the intersection in 5:00 traffic. Honking started immediately.

As I prepared to lunge over the seat to the hatchback, a group of shirtless, sweaty University of Kentucky football players came running by. I hollered as loud as I could through the little tilt-out vent window. "Excuse me! Could you boys give me a push?" They did. I popped the clutch and drove off, yelling "Thank you!" through the little vent window hoping they could hear me.

I could write a book about my adventures in Trauma Car. Just thinking about them makes me laugh. More than a few are not fit for public consumption. Perhaps when I have nothing to lose in the telling, I'll write about them, too. But until then, I will remain...

The Crotchety Old Man

April Flowers

Forgive me for yet another garden post. Right now everything is growing so fast you can see a difference from one day to the next. Things will slow down soon enough and I'll write about something else.

Until then you might get sick of reading about the garden. Especially the first few weeks of the season, each and every variety in bloom is a favorite. Later it takes more to get my attention.

No garden is complete without the "bulb of the week", Ipheion uniflorum, better known as spring starflowers (below). Several clumps drifted over from the neighbor's yard. They do well in dry shade where little else will grow. [Click on any pic to make it bigger.)

Dicentra spectabilis (aka bleeding hearts) is one of my most favorite plants and the "flower of the week". Beautiful heart-shaped flowers dangle from long stems for many weeks this time of year. Mine are just starting to bloom and will likely show up here again when they reach full bloom in a few weeks.

I use a lot of annuals. Since you need new ones every year anyway, they make it easy to change things up. This weekend the front edge of this border welcomed several flats of pink begonias and red dianthus (below). I'm on a red binge this year for some reason.

Now we need some April showers. If not, reckon I'll be watering. A yard full of dead flowers for the Derby Party would turn anyone into...

The Crotchety Old Man

That Time of Year...Again

Our third annual Derby Party is just four weeks away. I'll be fine once the party starts. Between now and then I will very likely have a meltdown or two and stay in a steady state of panic wondering how we'll ever get everything done.

We will. We always do. But until then, I'll worry. I could just re-post my post from this time last year, but what's the fun in that?

This year, just to keep it interesting, we also set a goal to complete a hefty number of room makeovers before the party. Motivated by Clean House, each room makeover has included a massive purge. We're trying to get the house ready to sell.

Four of the five rooms have been painted a lovely shade of white. The fifth room is piled high with purged items from the other four rooms. The pile now extends into the living room and clearly wants to hook-up with the pile in our garage.

The mountains of crap have to go before the party. Don't want our friends thinking we're hoarders. What would Niecy and the gang from Clean House do? They'd have a garage sale.

And so shall we. Next Saturday. Sure could use the Clean House gang around here this week to help us get ready.

This is also the last weekend to plant. If I wait, new arrivals look like they were planted the day before the party. I hit the garden center circuit earlier today and filled my car up with stuff I need to plant this weekend.

We'll get it done. We will. It's the kind of thing that makes me...

The Crotchety Old Man