Whiskey for the Boys...Boy Scouts That Is

 My groovy 3-speed bicycle with big saddle baskets...

Inspired by Scoutmaster Phil's Columbia Cruiser bicycle...his was black, though.....

  I put my big ol’ baskets back on my bicycle.  I had taken them off because I wasn't bike commuting in Florida.  But I need them now here on the High Plains.  They’re the “saddle” kind that fit over the back wheel.  The Lady of the House got them for me a few years ago.  They come in handy these fall afternoons riding home from work, loading up all my cold weather wear that I wore in the morning when it was cold on these fall mornings.

  But when I look at my bike with those big ol’ baskets on it I always flash back to the spring of 1972.  That happens because the bike reminds me of Boy Scoutin’ days, Scoutmaster Phil’s bicycle he took on our Boy Scout troop’s big 60 mile bike-hike down the C & O Canal Towpath right along the Potomac River.

  And a bunch of us got our first taste of hard liquor.

  A bike-hike down the C & O Canal is a leisurely thing, you’re actually riding downhill all the way if you’re going from west to east like we were doing.  It’s a ride through the woods down a wide, smooth dirt path following the river all the way.

  So we loaded up Scoutmaster Phil’s converted school bus for the trip.  Phil and some of the older scouts had spent some time on this ol’ vehicle.  They had ripped out most of the seats and replaced them with bunk beds and some counters.  They painted it red, white and blue.

  The bus came equipped with a bathroom…of sorts.  There was a big ol’ funnel welded to the back corner of the bus.  A copper tube wound out of the bottom of the funnel and down through a hole in floor of the bus.  The copper tube then was welded to the end of the bus’ exhaust pipe.  The bus’ “bathroom” was for taking a leak only.

  Scoutmaster Phil warned us boys not to use the “bathroom” if there was someone following us down the highway.  One of us boys did that and started laughing.

  “What’s so funny?” I asked.

  “The guy behind us just turned on his windshield wipers!”

  “WHAT’D I TELL YOU ABOUT THAT?” yelled Scoutmaster Phil.  “NOW SIT YOUR ASS DOWN.”

  And so there we were, thundering up the interstate from Roanoke, Virginia on to Cumberland, Maryland and the western end of the C&O Canal trail, all our bikes strapped to the top of the bus, a mess of gear packed inside.

  The plan was for Phil to park the bus in Cumberland and when we were done 60 miles to the east in Hancock, Maryland he’d hitchhike back to Cumberland and bring the bus back to pick us up.

  So off we went down the dirt path to our adventure that March of 1972.

  I had a 3-speed “English” bicycle for my ride, carrying all my gear in a backpack I wore.

  I was envious of Scoutmaster Phil’s brand new Columbia Cruiser one-speed bicycle.  It was big and black… big balloon tires for a smooth ride and a big-ol’ seat for comfort too. 

  And there were those big ol’ saddle baskets in back.  And visible for all to see as he rode on down the way was a half-gallon of Canadian Club whiskey, the official drink of Troop 62, Roanoke, Virginia. 

  Oh I didn’t drink it.  It was a scoutmaster’s drink.  And as I think back here almost 50 years later it was probably enjoyed by the older scouts.  After all, I do believe one of the primary purposes of taking our troop on our monthly adventures was for the scoutmasters to get away from their wives.

  So a good time was had by all as we pedaled through the woods eastward downriver.

  Until…

  On our final stretch, just 20 or so miles from Hancock, clouds came rolling in, the wind picked up and we were caught in an Appalachian Mountain spring squall…cold wind, rain and a bit of snow.

  The whole troop was soaked.

  We rolled on in to the first campground we came to.  We got off our bikes and stood in the rain, it had slacked off some.

  Scoutmaster Phil surveyed the situation.

  “Okay,” said Phil, “Y’all set up your tents and get a couple of fires going and I’ll fix something up for y’all make you feel better.”

  So we did as Phil said.  Up went the tents.  We gathered kindling, got out our firestarters and had good ol’ campfires going in no time.

  “Y’all boys come on over here,” hollered Scoutmaster Phil from front of his tent.  He had a big roaring fire going and a big pot dangling in the flames.

  We all ambled over to Phil’s tent site and stood around the fire.

  Phil took out a big package of grape Kool-Aid mix and poured it into the pot.  He stirred it up.

  “Y’all go get your cups,” said Phil.

  “Warm Kool-Aid Phil?” asked one of the guys.

  “You’ll see,” said Phil.

  We went back to our tents and got our Official Boy Scouts of America cups, or whatever we had and went back to Phil’s campsite to see him pouring a copious amount of Canadian Club whiskey into the pot.

  Hoots and hollers went up from the assembled troop.

  “Now don’t y’all get all excited, this is just a little tonic,” said Phil.  “Good for what ails ya.  Warm ya up inside.  Grape Kool-Aid Hot Toddy.”

  Phil put down his bottle of Canadian Club and stirred the pot.  Then he started ladling out the Hot Toddy.

  “There ain’t gonna be no seconds, so don’t ask,” said Phil.

  We stood around the campfire sipping on our Grape Kool-Aid Hot Toddies as night came on, the clouds from the squall clearing out.

  One thing was for sure, Scoutmaster Phil was a good mixmaster, I hardly noticed there was really anything different about the Kool-Aid except it was warm and warmed me up inside.

  And so our bike-hike came to an end.  We rode our bikes into the little hamlet of Hancock, nothing more than a country store with a few houses standing around it.

  Scoutmaster Phil leaned his big ol’ Columbia Cruiser up against a tree.

  “Y’all just hang around here,” said Phil, “I’m gonna go get the bus.”

  Phil started walking up the road to the country store when a car came up behind him.  He turned around, stuck out his thumb and got picked up for a ride right away.

  I walked over to Phil’s bicycle and stared at it, looking at the big fat tires, the black sheen, the huge baskets.  I put my hand on a handgrip and thought, “I’m gonna have a bike like this someday.

  And so I do.

EPILOGUE

  I don’t remember all of the details but not long after we got back to Roanoke from our epic bike-hike Scoutmaster Phil stopped coming to our weekly troop meetings.

  It turns out one of the itty-bitty new Scouts went home and told his momma that he had enjoyed whiskey while we were on our big adventure.  Unbeknownst to many of us until sometime later Phil had been asked to remove himself from the troop.

  I told this story one time to a Scout leader here in the future and he was aghast.

  “That man would be brought up on charges today,” he stammered, not finding any humor in the story.

  I sighed and smiled.

  “Well, I reckon Phil shoulda been glad it happened in 1972,” I said.  “Things were different then.”

-30-

Appalachian Tales: The County Sheriff and Me

   I got a letter in the mail from the folks back home the other day:  They’re all fine, harvest is going on…and down near the bottom Mom wrote, “I suppose you heard Sheriff Bob’s ‘gone on to Glory.’”

  Well, no letter came in the mail from the folks back home the other day. I was just taking what some might call “literary license”…distorting the truth…just a tad.

  For one thing Mom wouldn’t’ve cared that the harvest was going on, she and dad weren’t farmers.  And for another, Mom lived some 150 miles from Sheriff Bob’s territory, she wouldn’t’ve known who he was.

  It all sounded nice though, to think Mom might send a letter in the mail.  It harkened back to another time, long before the Internet and cell phones and long before Mom “went on to Glory” herself.

 No, just like in a previous chapter when I found out “Big Deal” Thompson was dead…I was mindlessly surfing the Internet and typed in Sheriff Bob’s name to see what he was up to.

  Well, just like “Big Deal,” he was dead too.

  I’d say ol’ Sheriff Bob had had a good life, he was about 90 when he died.

  I liked Sheriff Bob.

  Sheriff Bob was the first sheriff I ever got to know up close and personal.  He was sheriff when I had a radio job back in the coal mining country of Appalachia.  I played Country music from sign-on in the morning until 10 in the morning then I’d go out and gather news.

  It was getting to talk to Sheriff Bob that I formed my opinion on how a county sheriff ought to be:  A county sheriff should know his people and by knowing his people, well, that helped him in dealing with what needed to be done…de-escalating things like a row between a husband and wife, taking a kid who had discovered liquor back home to have his parents dish out discipline and of course the more serious things a county sheriff would run into…burglaries, robberies and murder.

  For instance there was the time I was at Sheriff Bob’s office mulling over the reports from the previous few days and saw that Sheriff Bob had single-handedly caught Junior Whittel who had escaped a prison camp over in the flatland part of the state.  Junior had made a name for himself a couple of years earlier by stealing a car, shooting up his neighbors houses and taking a few shots at deputies who came to stop him.  Here in the future he’d probably’ve been charged with threats to national security and buried under the state prison for 20 or 40 years, but 35 years ago the judge realized Junior was drunk and having a bad day so he sent him off to prison for 3 years.

  Junior was a year into his sentence when I reckon he’d had enough of prison work camp life and escaped.

  Sheriff Bob was standing nearby going over some paperwork.  He was a big, tall fellow, just a bit taller than me and I’m 6-foot-3.  Handlebar mustache, full head of hair, no sign he was going bald even though he was over 50.  If he was in The Old West they probably would’ve written a song about him, describing him as a mountain of a man.

  “How’d you do it, Sheriff?” I asked.

  Sheriff Bob looked over the top of his reading glasses.

  “Do what, son?”

  “How did you single-handedly capture Junior Whittel?”

  Sheriff Bob chuckled, took off his reading glasses and leaned on the counter.

  “Well,” he said, “the prison camp is over in the flatlands, about 200 mile.  Now Junior ain’t that bad, he’s just stupid, and I ain’t sayin’ that as a mean thing, I’m just sayin’ it as a statement of fact.  I figured all Junior wanted was to come home.  You put a hillbilly like Junior down in the flatlands he’s gonna get homesick.”

  “He escaped on a Sunday so I drove over to Skinner’s Valley Thursday around lunch time,” Sheriff Bob went on, “I drove over to his momma’s place.  I figured a determined mountain man could make 200 mile in 4 days, walkin’, hitchhikin’.”

  “So I knock on the door and Junior’s momma opens up,” said Sheriff Bob.  “Howdy Mrs. Whittel.  How are you doin’?”

  “We’re doin’ alright, Sheriff.  Pulled in a good tobacco crop this year.  Sure could’ve used Junior’s help.”

  “’Well,’ I say to Mrs. Whittel,” said Sheriff Bob, “’I suppose you know why I’m here.’ And Mrs. Whittel looks down at the ground and says, ‘Yeah Sheriff, he calt me the other day from the flatlands said he was on his way home.  Come on in and I’ll make you some coffee.’”

  “So,” said Sheriff Bob, “There we are sittin’ and talkin’ and havin’ coffee, just us two.  Talking about The President, and The Statler Brothers TV music show and things…we’d been there about an hour when I look up out the window and I see a man way off in the distance across Mrs. Whittel’s field at the treeline.”

  “The man walks into the field and then starts running toward the house and about halfway across he stops.   It’s Junior,” said Sheriff Bob.  “ And I know he’s stopped because he’s seen my car.  Then his shoulders slump and he ain’t runnin’ no more, he’s walking toward the house.”

  “I get up and go stand on the front porch,” said Sheriff Bob, “And soon Junior is within talkin’ distance.”

  “’Hi there, sheriff,’ says Junior.  ‘Can I spent some time with my momma before you haul me back in?’”

  “’Sure,’ I say to Junior, ’20, 30 minutes.  Why don’t we sit down and have some coffee.’”

  “And so we did,” said Sheriff Bob. “Junior’s momma warmed up some biscuits for him and he talked about prison life and it was about to drive him crazy and he missed his momma’s cookin’, things like that.  And then he and I rode back to town.  And THAT’S how Sheriff Bob singlehandedly captured the desperado Junior Whittel.”

  Sheriff Bob laughed a bit, put his glasses back on and went back to his paperwork.

  It would be years later that I came to know that Sheriff Bob was a weaver of tall tales much like me and most storytellers.  Sheriff Bob did not have a “sixth sense” of when Junior would arrive at his momma’s house.  The morning of that day that Sheriff Bob drove out to Mrs. Whittel’s someone had “dropped a dime” on Junior, calling Sheriff Bob and telling him that the night before Junior was at his favorite beer joint over in Bluefield hittin’ up old friends for drinks.  Sheriff Bob knew Junior’s next stop would be his momma’s.

  A couple of years later I was in a bit of trouble myself.

  Oh not the criminal kind, it was a civil matter that wound up in court.  It was my first time in a courtroom in a legal proceeding, first time I ran up against a man in a suit…the opposing party’s lawyer….dressed up in a suit, pointing at me and saying things about me that just flat-out weren’t true.

  I lost my temper and started yelling at the fellow.

  The judge pounded her gavel, told me to sit down, only speak when spoken to and the next time I did such a thing she’d find me in contempt of court and put me in the county jailhouse for a few days.

  A couple of days later it was a nice, cool fall day, blue skies, white puffy clouds, one of my favorite kind of days. 

  I sat down on a bench in front of the county courthouse, feeling the sun on my face, breathing the cool fall air, Old Glory fluttering in the breeze, a statue to the Confederate dead nearby.

  Sheriff Bob came walking up.

  “Well, well, well, here’s the badass Grant McGee,” said Sheriff Bob with a chuckle.

  “Oh, you heard about that,” I said with a smile, looking off across the street, not looking the sheriff in the eyes.

  “Whole courthouse was talkin’ about it,” he said.  “Our very own laid-back country DJ and newsman loses his cool.  Well, you know, I don’t much like that attorney fellow either.  Ty Johnstone, he’s from Richmond.  I don’t know why he moved out this way.  Born with a silver spoon in his mouth.”

  “You know sheriff, that judge got me to thinkin’,” I said.  “What’s it like being in jail?”

  Sheriff Bob sat down beside me on the bench.

  “I like to think I run a pretty decent jail,” he said.  “Most fellows mind their p’s and q’s in there.  A country jail is a lot different than jail, say, in Richmond, Knoxville, places like that.  You type?”

  “Yes sir,” I said.

  “Well, I’d probably put you in the office, put you right to work typing up reports,” he said.  “Probably make you a trustee right away so’s you could be outside doing chores like sweeping and washing county cars.”

  “Hmm,” I said, raising my eyebrows, “I reckon that beats the hell out of laying around a cell doing nothing all day.”

  “Devil makes work for idle hands,” said Sheriff Bob patting me on the back. “Son, I’m going to give you some advice about being in a courtroom…keep your cool.  Listen to your lawyer.  Remember what the judge said, speak when spoken to.  Answer only what they ask.  It’s part of the other lawyer’s job to get you upset, to throw you off balance, to get you to react emotionally. Keep your cool.  Let your lawyer do his job.”

  “Thanks, Sheriff Bob."  I meant it, it was good advice.

  Sheriff Bob stood up, I did too and shook his hand.

  It was the last time I saw Sheriff Bob, but I’ve remembered him, his demeanor, his advice all these years.

  So long, Sheriff Bob.

                                                -30-

Tales From the Edge of the Earth: That Time I Got Fired

In the radio business if you say you're "on the beach" 

it means you've been fired and you have no job.

  The Lady of the House and I sat on the beach at Perdido Key looking out over the Gulf of Mexico as the October sun was getting ready to set.

  We were having a picnic, we were diggin’ our box of fried chicken.

  A couple about our age came strolling along hand-in-hand in the Florida sand.

  “Good day,” I said, giving them a slight wave with one hand while my other hand held a chicken breast.

  “Hello,” said the man.  The woman smiled and nodded.

  “Where y’all from?” I asked.

  “Atlanta,” said the man.

  “Big city,” I said.

  “Having a picnic,” said the man.

  “Yup,” I said.  “We’re celebrating.  I just got fired.”

  The man and woman stopped in their tracks.

  “You just got fired and you’re celebrating?” he asked.

  “Sure,” I said.  “It didn’t work out.  Good Lord don’t close one door what that he opens another, all that.  It’s on to my next adventure.  I just have to find that door.”

  “Well you certainly have a good attitude about it.”

  “It didn’t kill me, I’m sure I learned some lessons and maybe I got to teach some lessons to some fellow travelers too,” I said and had another bite of fried chicken.

  The Lady of the House and I came to Pensacola, Florida with open hearts and open minds.

  Days after our arrival it was obvious that we had moved into something that was different than our life in Clovis, New Mexico.  We had gone from living in a small town to existing in a place teeming with people:  Ma and Pa Kettle come to the big city.

  I got a job as a car salesman at the local Toyunda dealership.

  Obviously that’s a made-up car name I use to cover my ass because if it’s one thing I learned about Pensacola people like to sue each other there…you should see all the billboards, TV ads, signs on the sides of buses advertising lawyers.

  Folks who know me know me as a storyteller.  I had been paid for years to be a storyteller on the radio I thought I’d just up the ante in Pensacola by storytelling and selling cars at the same time.

  I had tried selling cars 22 years earlier in Phoenix and failed miserably selling a half-car one month and another half-car the next.  What that means is I couldn’t close the deal, the sales manager had to come in and close it for me.

  Why I thought things would be any different in 2015 Pensacola, I don’t know.  But like I said I came to Pensacola with an open mind and an open heart and the dude who interviewed me at the Toyunda place said I had what it took to  make $100,000 a year.

  Once again in life I fell for the sales pitch of a recruiter who was just looking for warm bodies to fill the floor of the dealership.

  But hey, a hundred-grand a year?  That sounded like good money to me!

  So after watching all the training films about the Toyunda and what a damn fine line of vehicles they were and on and on, after learning the rules of the lot, they threw me out on the car lot to go sell.

  And there I was.

  At any given time there were 20 of us on the lot.  Sometimes 3 of us at a time would head out toward a car that just pulled in.  In a few short seconds we worked out who’s “up” it was.  “Up” was the snazzy term for the customer.

  The managers made it very clear to each of us new salespeople that the owner of the dealership had basically invested $600 for every customer who drove on his lot…$600 in advertising, research and stuff.  And no customer could leave the lot without talking to a manager.

“So are we supposed to take their keys?” I asked.

  This was greeted with a furrowed-brow stare from the manager.

  “No,” said the manager.  “We don’t keep their keys from them.  It’s up to you to control the up.  If they buy, the last person they see on the deal is a manager.  If they don’t buy, the last person they see before they leave is a manager.  If you can’t control the customer you have no business being here.”

So lo and behold, the first two weeks on the lot I sold 5 cars…one brand spanking new Toyunda and four used cars.

  The next month began with a sales meeting with new goals.

  “You all know the rules,” said the sales manager, “You have to sell 10 cars minimum every month just to keep your job.  This month, you have to sell 5 cars by the 15^th to keep your job.

  I sold one car the first week of the month.

  And then the well ran dry.

  On the 14^th the sales manager’s second-in-command came walking briskly toward me as I stood on the sales floor.

  “Walk with me, Grant,” he said.

  We went into an office and he shut the door.  We sat.

  “We’re letting you go,” he said.  “You just don’t seem to connect with customers.”

  For just a few seconds I stared at him eye-to-eye.  Thoughts ran through my head.  No point in saying lame stuff like “give me a couple of more days,” or “what the hell do you mean ‘I don’t connect with customers’” or “Talk straight, dorkbutt, you’re firing my ass because I haven’t made goal and ‘last hired is first fired’?”

  I reached across the table and shook the man’s hand.

  “Well, tell the boss I give sincere thanks for the opportunity,” I said.

  I went home.

  It's not like I didn't see it coming. It's like the one sales manager who didn't mind throwing me "under the bus" a couple of times so succinctly said, "In this business you can go from hero to zero."

  So as I sat on the beach with my sweetheart eating fried chicken I pondered:  I had no complaint.

  The dude who was making $100,000 a year was not married and was at the dealership from open to close six days a week.  He lived and breathed Toyundas.  Sure, he ate at Pensacola’s finest restaurants, drove a top of the line Toyunda and oozed success, but that wasn’t my trip.  I value time with The Lady of the House, I value leisure time and The Lady of the House has a list of home chores she wants me to do.

  I was at that dealership to learn something or to share something enlightening with someone.  Only The Universe knows.

  Was it to finally learn that car sales wasn’t for me?  Was it to learn what I really wanted out of this life wasn’t to be like my brother who’s made a tidy living for himself in the financial world?

  Was it to rub elbows with the co-worker who was friends with the guy at the radio station in town that eventually lead to me getting a job back on the air?

  Was I there to say the words to that young man?  He was the young fellow who was trying to emulate the most successful salesman on the lot, spending time away from his new baby and wife.  That on the grand scale of life time with them was more important than chasing after a buck.

  It was the first time in my life I’d ever been fired.  A friend on the social media said that if that was the first time in my life I’d been canned he didn’t know if he could trust me.  I didn’t understand.

  So if you ever get canned, fired, let go…don’t cry, moan, tear at your clothes and skin and gnash your teeth…breathe deep, allow yourself ONE DAY to mourn the loss of your gig…take some time, have a beer…or two…or three or so.  Or have a party, or go on a picnic.  But the next day get up, update your resume’, get out there and like the old song says, “pick yourself up, dust yourself off and start all over again.”

Tales of the Southwest: The Wind, The Heat, The Weather

            “So I bet you didn’t have wind like this when you were in Florida,” said a message from a Facebook friend the other day.

            A front was coming in from the north, winds were up around 35 miles per hour.

            I reckon my pal kinda-sorta forgot I’ve only been gone from the High Plains for two years.

            “I actually missed winds like this,” I wrote back.  “Love the dynamic, love it even better when it’s at my back when I’m riding a bicycle.”

            In eastern New Mexico and west Texas in the spring and fall the winds come.  I like to call them “light, refreshing breezes”….35 to 40 miles per hour carrying dust, debris, toupees, small animals and itty bitty young’uns off to parts unknown.  

            That’s the way it is here on the High Plains, a place of weather extremes:  windy periods or periods of hot air with no movement; drought or day after day of afternoon thunderstorms; the dry line to our west, the dry line to our east.

            You probably ought to admit, though, the weather extremes aren’t as bad as they are in some other places.

            Take the wind, for instance.

            I’ve heard folks who’ve come here from other parts of the country (usually in relation to the air base) speak of how the winds of eastern New Mexico drive them crazy.

            Friend, have you ever lived in Amarillo?

            When I first arrived in Amarillo in the fall of 1992 I noticed all the trees were bent to the northeast.  I supposed the winds blew from the southwest during the spring while the trees were growing.

            I was wrong.

            The wind blew all the damn time in Amarillo, mostly from the southwest.  My commuter vehicle was a Honda 150 scooter.  When I rode around on it in Roswell I got about 70 miles to the gallon.  In Amarillo, because I was riding into strong winds, I got only 50 miles to the gallon.  When I left the panhandle in the summer of ’93, I’m telling you, I had this weird buzzing in my head from the constant wind.

            After I left Amarillo and its wind behind, I saw an article in “USA Today” about the windiest places in America.  First place went to Dodge City, Kansas.  Second went to a weather station atop the Berkshires in western Massachusetts.

            Amarillo was rated as the third windiest place in the U. S.

            Does the High Plains summer heat bother you?

            Have you ever been to Phoenix?  

            Summer in Phoenix, Arizona is like living in a convection oven.  

            The great writer, Hunter S. Thompson, once said his idea of hell is "A viciously overcrowded version of Phoenix in the summer."

            Phoenix owes its size as a metropolitan area to air conditioning.  Without it, the area might’ve been as big as Las Cruces.  If you’re not acclimated to the summer heat of southern Arizona, when you leave a Southwest Airlines flight then head out the doors of Sky Harbor International Airport, it will take your breath away, suck it and all moisture right out of your lungs, you curl up and lay on the ground like a human raisin.  Okay, maybe it’s an exaggeration, but it will still stun you.

            I lived in Mesa, a suburb, and made a daily commute on my mighty scooter to downtown Phoenix.  Late fall, winter and early spring aren’t too bad in The Valley of the Sun.  By early May the daytime highs hit 100 and by August it could be 110, 114, 118 even 120.  Another astounding thing about Phoenix is to walk out of your place on a summer night at midnight and find the temperature is 100 degrees.  100 degrees at midnight, no sun!

            Forget this “but it’s a dry heat” stuff.

            It’s hot.

            I would take a spray bottle to work.  In the afternoon, before I went home, I’d spray myself down and get all wet.  The wet clothes helped keep me cool as I flew along on my scooter.  I was completely dry within 10 minutes.

            The heat was so maddening I got off work one afternoon and drove to the mountain town of Jerome, near Flagstaff.  I had to have a decent summer breeze, not one that peeled the skin off my arms and forehead.

            Some folks complain about the dust of Curry and Roosevelt counties.  Our dust pales in comparison to the dust blows of Roswell, Chaves county and the Pecos Valley.

            There’s humidity in the American South, snows that don’t melt until spring is well underway in the north central states, hurricanes on the east and Gulf coasts and the twisters of America’s “Tornado Alley.”

            Now think about it, is the weather really all that bad around here?

                                                             -30-

Appalachian Tales: The Murder Trial

  I was watching a movie the other night about a notorious murder trial in Louisiana in which the family of the victim paid to have a prominent big-city attorney assist the prosecutor in the proceedings.

  “I’ve actually seen that done,” I said to The Lady of the House.

  “Shhhh,” she said, “Tell me when the movie’s over.”

  It was almost forty years ago back in the hills and hollows of Appalachian coal country.  I was the full-time newsman and morning announcer at a radio station in a little town I won’t name.  I’ll also change the names in the story…to protect me.

  The Thompson family had the new car dealership in town and they did quite well at it.  You rarely saw Tommy Sr. at the lot, his son Tommy Jr. ran things even though he had gone off to Vanderbilt and studied to be a lawyer.

  And then there was Teddy Thompson.

  No one seemed to know if Teddy had a job or not.  Teddy spent his time “bon-vivanting” around town, raising hell, driving any one of the sportier new cars off the lot from the family dealership.

  And Teddy was a bully.

  The community grapevine was always alive with tales of Teddy kicking somebody’s butt at a bar in Bristol or Teddy sweet-talking his way out of a speeding ticket or Teddy beating up anyone who dared to look at his girlfriend-of-the-week.

  So while tragic, it was no surprise when the grapevine crackled alive one morning with the news that Teddy had been airlifted to a big city almost 200 miles away…two bullets in him, one in his head.

  Teddy lay in a coma for two weeks with a shattered skull…the bullet had entered right between his eyes.

  Then he died.

  Details began to emerge.

  Teddy had been harassing a guy who was dating Bessie, his sister.  While Bessie enjoyed the company of her new gentleman caller the Thompson family thought the boy wasn’t good enough for their Bessie.

  Word was that every time Teddy saw Bessie’s beau around town he’d turn his car around and follow the guy, tailgating him, blowing the horn and yelling crap at him.

  On that fateful day Teddy spied Bessie’s beau in traffic.  Teddy spun around in his car and started the usual hassling of the guy.  Teddy followed him to the guy’s apartment where the boy got out of his car and started walking to his place, all the while ignoring what Teddy was saying about him, about his mother, about his ancestry, etcetera.

  Then Teddy went and picked up a big rock, one he needed to carry with two hands.  Teddy hefted the big stone over his head.

  In court, Bessie’s beau testified that Teddy yelled, “YOU SEE THIS ROCK, MOTHER#$%KER?  I’M A-GONNA TAKE THIS AND BASH YOUR #$%KING HEAD IN YOU DUMBASS!”

  Bessie’s beau went into his apartment, got out his .38 caliber H & R revolver, walked out the door of his apartment and stood at the top of the stairs.

  There was Teddy walking up, the big rock still hefted over his head.

  “WHAT ARE YOU GONNA DO, P#@SY?  SHOOT ME?” Teddy yelled.

  Bessie’s beau pulled the trigger.

  The bullet hit Teddy in the shoulder.  The stone fell.

  “YOU SHOT ME, YOU SHOT ME!” Teddy yelled, according to testimony.

  Teddy turned and ran out to the parking lot.

  Bessie’s beau followed, pistol in hand.

  Bessie’s beau told the court how Teddy hit the ground and went crawling under this car and that.

“I looked for Teddy,” Bessie’s beau told the court, “And when I finally saw him under a pickup truck I shot him again.”

  The bullet hit Teddy right between the eyes.

  "I shot him again because I knew if he had the chance he'd kill me," Bessie's beau told the court.

  Who knows why the Thompson family paid to have a prominent attorney from the county seat assist the prosecution of Bessie’s beau…was it because they had no faith in the Commonwealth’s Attorney?  Was it because they wanted to assure a conviction?

  I don’t know how courts work but the court would only allow the jury to consider one charge:  First degree murder.  It would be first degree murder, nothing else.  Not second degree murder, not manslaughter.  If the jury didn’t find the guy guilty of first degree murder he would walk free.

  The jury was out for two days…

  …and returned with a verdict of “not guilty.”

  The jury knew wrong had been done, but not enough wrong for a first degree murder conviction.

  Tommy Jr., who had been there day after day, who would occasionally turn to me or the reporters from the area papers and say, “Be sure you report that,” when something he thought was important was brought up in court, Tommy Jr. stood up and hollered at Bessie’s beau, “YOU BETTER RUN, BOY.”  To which the judge pounded his gavel and threatened Tommy Jr. with contempt of court.

  And Bessie’s beau left the area.

  I’ve forgotten his name.

  I often wonder what happened to him.

Tales of the Southwest: J'arrivee a Albuquerque...Chapter 1: Destination New Mexico

  Portrait of the author not long after his arrival in New Mexico

  Long ago and far away I trainwrecked my life.

  Is 28 years a long time?

  Is the East Coast far away from The Great American Southwest?

  I’m telling you I trainwrecked my life because that’s how I ended up in Albuquerque 28 years ago this weekend…at the height of the 18^th Annual Balloon Fiesta.

  You know what a train wreck is…rail car after rail car piled on top of each other in a twisted mass of metal…a mess that takes a long time to clean up.

  As I sat in Florida in 1989 I sat in the figurative wreckage  like ol’ Job in The Good Book.

  I decided it was time to find a new place to start life all over again.

  I believed that if I could just have a new beginning that I could take what I learned from the trainwreck and come back stronger, shinier, newer.

  I researched, looked for great places to live.  There was this thing called “Places Rated Almanac,” a book that took things like cost of living, crime statistics and stuff to come up with rankings of great cities to live in America.  I thumbed through its pages looking for the perfect place to restart my life.

  I considered Ithaca, New York…what seemed to be an open minded town but too cold in the winter.  I pondered Oxford, Mississippi…an academic utopia, it seemed, but I imagined the sweltering summers.

  I thought about Los Angeles, but I had read too many Charles Bukowski books about the seedy side of L.A.  And there was the potential for earthquakes.  Denver crossed my mind but I thought if I lived in the Mile High City I might as well live in Aspen or Telluride but the cost of living in those places was stupid.

  As I perused the pages of the “Places Rated Almanac” some real candidates for new home towns emerged:  San Francisco, New Orleans and Albuquerque.

  All three had good job market stats there in 1989 America.  All three had significant crime problems but I reasoned if you kept your eyes open and watched who you hung out with you’d probably be okay. 

  San Francisco had a lively art and literary scene...it was the epicenter of the hippie movement once upon a time.  New Orleans seemed like a party town, and it was home to some of my favorite music.  And Albuquerque?  Albuquerque was in The West, the southern Rockies…and I’d always wanted to see the Rocky Mountains.  Albuquerque was south of Santa Fe and Taos, places I’d also wanted to see.  I also had a thing for Mexican food and Linda Ronstadt.

  But just like L.A., the chance of an earthquake also loomed over San Francisco.  And I had already spent a big chunk of time living on the Gulf Coast with it’s heat, humidity and flat land…I figured New Orleans wouldn’t be much different.

  So Albuquerque became my destination.

  I sent away for chamber of commerce stuff from The Duke City.  Imagine my hippie soul excitement to read the line:  “Albuquerque, where three ethnic groups live and work together in harmony.”

  If THAT wasn’t Utopia I didn’t know what was.  Of course it would be years before I would understand there is a difference between reality and sunny, peppy, feel-good chamber of commerce BS.

  The day came I bade farewell to the Florida Gulf Coast and headed west in my 1975 station wagon, all my worldly possessions crammed inside.

  I headed west for Albuquerque and a new life.

                                                                                                -30-