It Has Been a While...
When I was in middle school, my cousin and I camped out in the woods behind his house. We had plans of spending most of the night eating food unfit for the Marines and looking at Playboy magazines. The latter was complicated a bit the next morning when I woke up to see his two dogs introducing their private parts to each other. How vivid I remember things like that.
I think what was intriguing to me was that it was a mother-son mating ritual. To carry that a step further, a few months later, they sold the puppies as AKC registered. Utterly awesome if you ask me. Of course they were all toothless and played banjos, but what the hell...right?
I'm trying to make a commitment to spend some time on this website. I want to write a lot more than I do and somehow, I need to make it interesting. Not only that, but it needs to be worthy of posting to sites like Facebook and well, Facebook. I know Patty used to read this, when I get a compliment from him, I know I'm writing like I want to.
Since my last posting in February, after my uncle died, not a whole lot has happened. With the exception of our yearly trek to the mountains and weekend trips to the beach. What I enjoyed the most about the mountains were the friends we spent time with and running into situations in typical fashion. Like for instance...
Mayfield Ice Cream
Let's just say that the Mayfield rep in the north Georgia mountains is doing his job well. If we went by one Mayfield Ice Cream retailer, we went by an effing thousand. This guy is making bank. Hell, on top of the tallest peak in Georgia, Brasstown Bald, in a regular refrigerator/freezer, you could buy Mayfield Ice Cream. It is probably okay, nothing to write home about. Seriously though, I haven't seen obvious market competitive advantage like that in a long time. Maybe never.
Cousin Eddie's Trout Farm
I successfully used my fly rod to nab two very, very small trout from the Tallulah River. My wife patiently let me fish for roughly four hours one afternoon. When I couldn't buy a bite, she wanted to catch one. Of course, on a day when you couldn't catch a dead one, she really wanted to land a trout. At the entrance to said river, she noticed a sign that said Trout Farm. We weren't passing it on the way out without stopping. Boy, we couldn't have bargained for what we got.
First, we were greeted from the porch of a log cabin style double wide, by Mrs. Tennessee Volunteer 1976 herself. She probably was something then. Not so much now. I swear she had one of the old style cordless phones with a six foot telescoping antenna. I asked if the farm was closed for the day, hoping that it was, she said, "Naw, dad is in the bait shop." As she left, my wife told me she was wearing a pink pair of jersey shorts that read Baby Gap across the buttocks. Red Flag #1. I knew we were in for it. The bait shop was a metal warehouse where I could only imagine animals; maybe trout, and probably humans were disfigured and sold to the black market or on late night infomercials. It was a scene that even the talent pool at National Lampoon's couldn't dream up.
"Dad," sat at an executive desk. My guess: Stolen from an office building that had gone out of business. It didn't seem like anyone else had decided that stopping there was a good idea. I know this because if they would have, he would have had reason to lower the temperature on the cokes that we got from his cooler. They were hotter than it was outside. If that is possible. My wife did most of the talking because as I told her repeatedly, this was her idea. She asked if fishing were possible, which we were told was always possible and that the trout were $5 per pound. He said he even had three ponds. I asked how far away were they and if we needed to drive to get there. "They right out is here winder." Literally, all I saw were woods. Red flag #2.
I looked out the makeshift window to see...well, to see something like this:
Would have been welcome. What I saw were three holes dug by the smallest bucket that would fit on the dirtiest backhoe in existence. Mind you, there were three of them. All supposedly full of trout. They were there, I did see some of them. The decor around the "ponds" were bright, empty cans of Natural Ice beer. You know, the FANCY stuff. I'd say someone has a drinking problem. And for that matter, a problem with trash cans.
Fast forward a bit. We were treated to stories that made us smile and laugh and cry because they were true. Did you know that to keep your heart healthy, you need to eat an entire can of sardines a day. Sans crackers. Oh yeah, drink the juice too. He told us he had his cardiologist up to fish there and he told him that very story. Didn't make a whole lot of sense to us. Why have a cardiologist if you don't need one?" My wife caught three trout that made my two look like midgets. That was all I could stomach paying for. I was awarded with the option of having them dressed and put on ice. Something I didn't really want, but felt like if I didn't pay him something, I might have to fight to get out of his yard. At this point, I'd really like to dip tobacco for some reason.
After the fate of the fish had been determined, I walked around the front of the bait shop to get my wallet out of the car. From the ponds I hear, "Do ya want the heads on or off." As weird as my wife thought that sounded, some recipes call for the entire fish to be cooked. I said, "Off please." Mainly, because I'm classy. And so it was done. But what happened next, made the entire trip. As I am walking back to the ponds, I witness him open, shotgun, crush and discard a Natural Ice beer. It seemed like only a moment elapsed as this took place. Oh yeah, did I mention he threw it down in the yard. That solved the mystery of why he hated garbage cans. He gave up on them. He then belched, and proclaimed, "That's what I'm talkin' bout." The only thing that would have topped that would have been the slogan from the Old Milwaukee commercials, It Just Doesn't Get Any Better Than This. Pure, unadulterated, awesomeness. Effing awesomeness.
We grabbed our fish, and tried not to sprint to the car. As we left, I kept looking in the rear view mirror, fully expecting him to chase us down. It never happened and as it turns, he was just a nice guy...that hated trash cans.
I think what was intriguing to me was that it was a mother-son mating ritual. To carry that a step further, a few months later, they sold the puppies as AKC registered. Utterly awesome if you ask me. Of course they were all toothless and played banjos, but what the hell...right?
I'm trying to make a commitment to spend some time on this website. I want to write a lot more than I do and somehow, I need to make it interesting. Not only that, but it needs to be worthy of posting to sites like Facebook and well, Facebook. I know Patty used to read this, when I get a compliment from him, I know I'm writing like I want to.
Since my last posting in February, after my uncle died, not a whole lot has happened. With the exception of our yearly trek to the mountains and weekend trips to the beach. What I enjoyed the most about the mountains were the friends we spent time with and running into situations in typical fashion. Like for instance...
Let's just say that the Mayfield rep in the north Georgia mountains is doing his job well. If we went by one Mayfield Ice Cream retailer, we went by an effing thousand. This guy is making bank. Hell, on top of the tallest peak in Georgia, Brasstown Bald, in a regular refrigerator/freezer, you could buy Mayfield Ice Cream. It is probably okay, nothing to write home about. Seriously though, I haven't seen obvious market competitive advantage like that in a long time. Maybe never.
Cousin Eddie's Trout Farm
I successfully used my fly rod to nab two very, very small trout from the Tallulah River. My wife patiently let me fish for roughly four hours one afternoon. When I couldn't buy a bite, she wanted to catch one. Of course, on a day when you couldn't catch a dead one, she really wanted to land a trout. At the entrance to said river, she noticed a sign that said Trout Farm. We weren't passing it on the way out without stopping. Boy, we couldn't have bargained for what we got.
First, we were greeted from the porch of a log cabin style double wide, by Mrs. Tennessee Volunteer 1976 herself. She probably was something then. Not so much now. I swear she had one of the old style cordless phones with a six foot telescoping antenna. I asked if the farm was closed for the day, hoping that it was, she said, "Naw, dad is in the bait shop." As she left, my wife told me she was wearing a pink pair of jersey shorts that read Baby Gap across the buttocks. Red Flag #1. I knew we were in for it. The bait shop was a metal warehouse where I could only imagine animals; maybe trout, and probably humans were disfigured and sold to the black market or on late night infomercials. It was a scene that even the talent pool at National Lampoon's couldn't dream up.
"Dad," sat at an executive desk. My guess: Stolen from an office building that had gone out of business. It didn't seem like anyone else had decided that stopping there was a good idea. I know this because if they would have, he would have had reason to lower the temperature on the cokes that we got from his cooler. They were hotter than it was outside. If that is possible. My wife did most of the talking because as I told her repeatedly, this was her idea. She asked if fishing were possible, which we were told was always possible and that the trout were $5 per pound. He said he even had three ponds. I asked how far away were they and if we needed to drive to get there. "They right out is here winder." Literally, all I saw were woods. Red flag #2.
I looked out the makeshift window to see...well, to see something like this:
Fast forward a bit. We were treated to stories that made us smile and laugh and cry because they were true. Did you know that to keep your heart healthy, you need to eat an entire can of sardines a day. Sans crackers. Oh yeah, drink the juice too. He told us he had his cardiologist up to fish there and he told him that very story. Didn't make a whole lot of sense to us. Why have a cardiologist if you don't need one?" My wife caught three trout that made my two look like midgets. That was all I could stomach paying for. I was awarded with the option of having them dressed and put on ice. Something I didn't really want, but felt like if I didn't pay him something, I might have to fight to get out of his yard. At this point, I'd really like to dip tobacco for some reason.
After the fate of the fish had been determined, I walked around the front of the bait shop to get my wallet out of the car. From the ponds I hear, "Do ya want the heads on or off." As weird as my wife thought that sounded, some recipes call for the entire fish to be cooked. I said, "Off please." Mainly, because I'm classy. And so it was done. But what happened next, made the entire trip. As I am walking back to the ponds, I witness him open, shotgun, crush and discard a Natural Ice beer. It seemed like only a moment elapsed as this took place. Oh yeah, did I mention he threw it down in the yard. That solved the mystery of why he hated garbage cans. He gave up on them. He then belched, and proclaimed, "That's what I'm talkin' bout." The only thing that would have topped that would have been the slogan from the Old Milwaukee commercials, It Just Doesn't Get Any Better Than This. Pure, unadulterated, awesomeness. Effing awesomeness.
We grabbed our fish, and tried not to sprint to the car. As we left, I kept looking in the rear view mirror, fully expecting him to chase us down. It never happened and as it turns, he was just a nice guy...that hated trash cans.
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