Absense Makes the Heart Grow....ummm, we'll see

Yes, I know...so it's been a while...a very long while since my last post.  You see, there was this terrible accident, both hands broken, multiple surgeries to repair, fingers rendered unable to masterfully stroke the computer keyboard to submit posts for these last few months.  I'd like to thank the physical therapist who tortured me through countless sessions of rehab, re-teaching me what Miss Trindle couldn't teach me the first time in typing class...so I could resume my passion for barfing out my strange thoughts onto a computer screen. I hope there's still someone left here to read my ramblings...knock, knock, knock..PENNY!!

Or...the dog ate my laptop.

OK, maybe I'm just a slacker.  I really have no excuse for not bringing illuminating insight to the world via the Freaking Genius.  Life gets crazy, more job responsibilities call for greater attention, and sometimes being a slug when the day is over seems more attractive than getting back onto a computer and trying to think.

The absence has certainly not been because of a lack of things to rant...errrr....write about.  Political issues abound, celebrity meltdowns continue, stupid drivers still park in the passing lane, crazy people still drive without their headlights in the rain...the material is always right there in front of my face, screaming for commentary.  As I was sitting down on the couch with a cup of coffee (duh) on this quiet Saturday morning watching "The Shakiest Gun in the West" (don't judge, it's a great culturally classic movie!!), I realized I really had no excuse to not blow the dust off of my trusty laptop and sit down to write.

I think the last idea that was running through my mind was something I was going to call Politishaming.  For the life of me, I'm really not sure where I was going with that. I think it may have had something to do with politics.....and perhaps shaming....but beyond that, I really don't have a clue. I'm sure right now I look a little like Winnie the Pooh, tapping my head, "Think...think...think".  I'm confident it'll come back to me sometime around 3AM only to be lost again in the morning.

All I can think about right now, beside the fact I need more coffee, is that the first time I saw "Shakiest Gun" was when Dad took the family to the K42 drive-in to see it a...ummm...few years ago.  Mom would pop enough popcorn to fill a dump truck, scoop it into the huge Blairs IGA grocery sacks, mix up a 55 gallon drum of Kool-Aid, and other various snacks and load them up into our tank of a puke green Pontiac.  By golly, Dad was NOT going to spend money at that expensive concession stand.  Such ungodly prices!  Who in their right mind is going to spend 50 cents for a hamburger and another quarter for fries and the Lord only knows how much for a drink and candy when you can bring enough popcorn from home to cover and repave the whole parking area for FREE??!!

I'm not even sure I watched the whole movie the first time.  You see, when we had the vehicle parked on that berm to push back into the seat at the optimum angle to see the full screen, had the big ol' 12 by 12 inch wired speaker hooked over the drivers window so the premium blown speaker sound could be streaming into the car, the Kool-Aid was poured, spilled at least once and re-poured, when the 50 pound sacks of popcorn were settled between the boys who were otherwise engaged in a slap fight, and about the time the dancing cartoon hot dogs were taunting  you from the screen begging you to go to the forbidden concession stand...that's when it happened.  Every kid's attention was drawn to what was visible just under the screen.

It was a glorious sight that drew kids out of their parent's cars like zombies smelling fresh humans, and leaving the smiling parents alone in the car to...do whatever.  Yep....the playground.  I don't even remember now what playground equipment was there.  Apparently our parents sucked.  There was absolutely no adult supervision, the chains and bolts were rusty, the paint was peeling (lead based, I'm sure), splinters protruded from the teeter totter plank, and a dirt and rock surface lay underneath it all.  What were they thinking???  How did we ever survive our childhood??  I'm quite sure that half of the time when we went to the drive-in, they shoved us out of the car, locking the doors behind us and telling us we WERE going to the play area.  I'm pretty sure that today, that place would be viewed as some sort of medieval torture ground with crime scene tape surrounding it, into which only military veterans would be allowed.

I guess most of us didn't eat paint chips back then because all of that didn't seem like a big deal.  Minus a few splinters in the butt and mild concussions, we all mostly survived.  To us, it was a little spot of heaven where we could let loose, flirt with the cute girls, bow up to the inevitable playground wannabe bully, and make friends with total strangers.  The grainy images of Don Knotts were flashing above us illuminating us, and the muffled soundtrack from the flick were oozing out of windows of our parent's oversized, V8 equipped, leaded gas operated vehicles which weren't equipped with seatbelts.  I'm pretty sure I didn't see most of the movie, but we had a wonderful time risking our lives, unsupervised.

I didn't get to watch it again today, because it seemed to be a little more important to me to get back to y'all, and hopefully get back into a routine of writing regularly.  They say that absence makes the heart grow fonder??  We'll see.  Good to be back!  FG




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