Snipers and Snakes:

Let’s talk about Burmese Pythons.  Burmese Pythons are big snakes and big problems. Not as big as snipers but big anyway. In Vietnam, our soldiers got to see both Burmese Python snakes and snipers.

My neighbor has three purple hearts from Vietnam and taught at Columbia University, Emory, and Kennesaw University while starting a successful business. He was drafted into the Army out of Law School. We had ice cream with him and his wife one Sunday afternoon and  we started talking about fishing and the subject turned to snakes….and snipers. Continue reading Snipers and Snakes →

 

Superstitions

Most of us would probably not admit to having superstitions or paying any credence to any that we hear of. After all, superstitions are something out of the dark ages. Superstitions have no place in today’s enlightened society. What with Alexis and Google. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/superstition

But, even big companies have some superstitions they try to work around. The hotels and office buildings with no 13^th floors would be glaring examples of people giving in to such superstitions as the 13^th floor being cursed or unlucky. J.W. Marriott was quoted in 2007 as saying one of the first things he learned was you don’t go to 13. Not all hotels go along with the superstitions, of course.

Friday the 13^th is unlucky. Everyone knows that. They even made a famous classic movie about it. One version is Judas Iscariot was the 13^th guest on Friday the 13^th.

Ophidiophobia, the fear of snakes, is common to a lot of us including yours truly.

I have a neighbor that is very smart but insists that you come in and go out of her house the same way. Bad luck if you don’t. That applies if she comes to your house, too.

Down in Sandy Point, if a black cat crossed the road in front of the car, my grandfather, who always wore a hat, would turn his hat around backwards to offset the dangers represented by having the cat cross in front.

Itchy palms mean good luck and an itching nose meant someone was coming. And there is that one about walking under a ladder. Somehow, that one always seemed to have merit. Maybe that has to do with someone dropping a hammer on your head or paint. Superstitions? Some say the triangle created by the ladder represents life. Holding your nose for five seconds is said to counteract any ill effects.

Be sure and don’t break a mirror because that bad luck goes on for years! But finding a horseshoe, now that is good luck. Maybe it wasn’t for the horse.

Don’t open an umbrella in the house or spill salt. Knocking on wood can bring good luck. Superstitions.

Say “Bless you” when you sneeze came from the Pope requiring everyone be blessed when they sneezed in 1665. They thought the person was likely to die soon from the Black Plague.

Many athletes have certain shoes or pants or bats and gloves that they feel “bring them luck” and go through personal rituals before their contests to insure victory. We have seen the lucky rabbit’s foot from a seriously unlucky rabbit, the special coin, or the four leaf clover.

Yes, like it or not, admit or not, and deny it or not, many of us have our little superstitions that affect us and how we do things. In the song The Gambler, the singer says, “You never count your money when you are sitting at the table.” Just talking about a deal can jinx it, in the mind of some. This brings us to today, Friday April 13^th.

Are Black Cats bad luck?

Even if it’s not Friday the 13th! You need to know about such things! (We have two in 2019)

My wife came home from work one day and said that her car was making a noise. I went to look and also heard a noise. Inside the fender well of her car was a small black kitten. It had ridden the 25 miles from her office and survived. We kept that cat for over 20 years! This was a “Lucky” black cat. We named it: Black Cat!

Maybe we all have a superstition hidden away somewhere that we don’t like to talk about. Or, maybe we are too superstitious to tell anyone!

 

JC 2018©

 

 

 

Fly fishing can be a frustrating sport at times. You can see fish rising in the current to feed at or near the surface but can’t see what they are hitting. Now some people will land one and take out a little syringe and suck out the contents of the fish’s stomach to see what it has been feeding on and then  they find a fly like or close to the one the fish has been feeding on. The problem with that is: you have to catch a fish when you haven’t been catching any!

Sometimes, I’ve thrown everything in my fly boxes, which must have over 500 flies in them, and still not caught a thing. The fish then seem to just rub it in that you can’t catch them. That’s when you want to throw the rod, flies and vest into the current to put your self out of the misery that you are having while supposedly having so much fun.

But, they say, a bad day fishing beats a good day working. So I must be overly sensitive. But, at least I am fishing when this goes on.

Double Names

 I have found myself highly perplexed the last year or two over something I had never considered as even being a problem before.  The issue: double names. That is, people who have double names and the burden that they carry around because of it.

Silly, you say. Well, I would have agreed with you before I ran into a double named lady up in Vinings one Saturday. It was then that I realized that some people have been branded for life with  a double or hyphenated name and that this labels them a certain way. At least it did in the mind of the lady I am referring to. And, this can cause a lot of explaining to be necessary when introducing one’s self to someone else. Nonsense, you say.

Well, when I met this lady I asked her what her name was and she hesitated. “You may laugh when I tell you my name,” she said. “I have double name. I am from South Georgia.”

That response, in itself, required more conversation as I needed to know what she called “South Georgia”.  Having grown up in and around Macon, Central Georgia, I knew that people are not always precise in referring to North Georgia and South Georgia. When she said Hazlehurst and added, “you probably never heard of it,” I knew she was, indeed, from South Georgia.  Anywhere below the gnat line qualifies in my book.

I replied to her that double names were not new to me, at all. I grew up in Georgia and had friends and relatives and acquaintances with double names and I had never given it a second thought.Until now, that is. My granddaughter, Mary Claire, has no idea of the problems she faces.

Mary Lou, Lilly Belle, Mattie Clyde,Georgia Belle, Norma Jo, Lida Jo, Mary Anne, Minnie Lee, Mary Margaret, MaryCatherine, Betty June, Ida Mae, Betty Jo, Emma Lou, Billie Jean, and Betty Lynnare just a few of the names that I grew up around. No doubt I am forgetting at least that many more. So, I never saw double names as unusual or problematic.At least, not until I met the double name lady down in Vinings, who, by all accounts seemed otherwise very normal and certainly a very nice person.

I can see some problems. Take Marianne. Now that sounds like a double name but is actually only one. So,Marianne’s everywhere are probably having to say, “My name is Marianne and that is one word. Not Mary Ann.”  The same with Imogene. Not Emma Jean. Then there is the situation with hyphens. “My name is Marla-Deen, with a hyphen.” More stress to deal with.

So, why am I bringing this up now? Good question.

I had about put this drama behind me until I picked up a June/July issue of Garden & Gun magazine. A one named writer, who has never had to deal with the double name stuff, named Julia Reed has an article called The Name Game. There she goes into Southern names and dares to use the word proclivity in discussing double names. Now, that is a brazen approach!

Imagine you are in New York and trying to impress the haughty tautey folks as to your sophisticated nature and back ground. Maybe trying to make them think you are from Atlanta or the Buckhead area and not Cordele. Then they ask your name and you say Mary Lou and they go “Aha! We knew it! You are from South Georgia!”

All this stuff came rushing back a to me and I will now lie awake nights worrying about my granddaughter having to go through life with a double name. And, one that sounds a lot like a magazine.And worrying about all the other Southern women afflicted in this manner.Although Betty June was born in Pennsylvania. One of my grandsons is named John Patrick and his mother thought he would be called that double name although I warned her that he would likely be “J.P.” That will never happen, she thought. But, J.P. it is.

But, you could be a boy named Sue.Or, Heaven forbid, Jerome. How about Bubba, Buddy-Ro, or Cuz. All of  those are not a double names or a hyphenated one but fraught with possible problems.

But my grandfather used to say, “In the end, all you have is your good name.” He could have added, “even if it is a double name.”

© 2018 JC

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ATV : A Tiger by The Tail

It seems every body has an ATV now. It wasn’t always that way.
We were sitting around one day talking about hunting and how nice it would be if we had a vehicle to use in the woods. There weren’t too many choices for an ATV back in those days like there are now. Why, you can buy an ATV on about every street corner today. In 1969, that wasn’t the case. In 1969 we did a lot of hunting together and after over 40 years, they are still at it. Me, not so much, anymore. I gravitated more to the fishing thing. Continue reading Tiger By The Tail →

Bent Nails

A while back my neighbor, who is near my age, stopped me on my walk. He was outside looking over some work being done on his house and had something in his hand. He had several bent nails that he had picked up off the ground.

He came over and held out his hand to show me what he was holding and asked if I knew what I was supposed to do with the items. I told him I did and he was surprised. Continue reading Bent Nails →