"This is for Jenny"

    The above was said by the lead singer of Sniff n the Tears to introduce "Driver's Seat" as their encore when they opened for the Doobie Brothers in the late autumn of 1978. The lovely girl seated next to me, on my first date ever, was in fact named Jennifer, though I don't know if she heard him, nor if anyone ever called her Jenny. I just thought, and still think, it was the ultimate cheesy introduction to a big hit single. If he's still living and if they're still playing, no doubt he still says the same.
    I probably am not the only person who made his first date via pay phone. I don't know why it was extra hard to make that phone call from the parental manse. But for whatever reason, Evans and I went to Main Street to use the pay phones there. (It would be a semi-double-date, as Evans took out Jennifer's best friend and a sometime tennis partner of his. But we, that is, the two couples, arrived separately.) Much to my shock, she said yes.
    The passage of years thins the memories. I remember that we had a new silver '78 Impala one of the doors of which I had just dented, of course on her side. I remember what she wore (red and blue stripy blouse, memorable blue trousers) and that on the way to the show I asked her what kind of music she liked and she said Styx. Perhaps it was more than a coincidence that they were the next band playing at the Coliseum.
    I remember making a fool of myself singing along to "Black Water." I remember not having the nerve to ask for a good night kiss, nor the grace to walk her to her front door. I remember being a nuisance to her for the next year, and never getting another date with her, especially not to see Styx. (I went with brother William.) I remember bringing a small bottle of Joy (the perfume, not the dishwashing liquid) back from France for her. She was pleased, but did not noticeably fall in love with me. The whole fiasco ended finally when Ms. Wingard, who will not be further named as she, too, is married to somebody else these days, fell for me hard.
    I ran into Jennifer years later, and have seen her on Facebook more recently. She grew up to be an elementary school teacher and a wholly admirable person. And apparently, her Dorian Gray trick is going even better than my own. And what have we learned? Apparently, the best way for a lady to get and hold my attention is pretty straightforward: look Irish. Oh, and Jenny was sweet.

    [It has come to my attention that there is a high probability that "Driver's Seat" didn't exist in 1978. This triggered the memory that the band that in fact opened for the Doobie Brothers was Ambrosia. The probability is that Sniff 'n' the Tears opened for Kansas when I saw them a year later with Ms. Wingard on an actual double date, and the "This is for Jenny" line just struck me as ironic because she wasn't there, though this isn't to say I was in any way dissatisfied with my current company. So the piece becomes a discourse on the limitations of memory. Hell the whole blog is going that way.:)]

Lost John Road and Memory Lane

    On the way out to Congaree National Park, off of Old Bluff Road is a short road called Lost John Road. Except for the whole having-to-drive-20-miles-to-get-groceries thing, I'd love to live there. It's not that I feel so lost; I just think it's inherently funny. Also, MAN would it be cool to live that close to the park. Also also I have a dream of opening a B&B handy to the park. While Lost John Road probably isn't close enough to be workable, it certainly would make for a cool mailing address. At the very least, it would be a kickass title for a novel.
    Speaking of street names, when Alice and I lived in Oak Grove, there was an unpaved road not far from us called Memory Lane. At least in SC, in rural areas with the advent of 9-1-1, nearly every driveway is a named street now. Some homeowners are creative with it and some are not. There are untold numbers of Pit Bull Drives and Rattlesnake Ways and the like, and about as many just named after the homeowner. I think Memory Lane is one of the good ones. I still can't decide whether "Memory Lane is unpaved" works as a zen koan or not. But I think it's cool.

Waterline

    I always said that if I could describe the high water mark on the baldcypresses at dusk in Congaree National Park, then I'd call myself a writer. It's just... hypnotic. Almost ghostly. You see the same mark on every tree, as far as you can see. It's nothing and everything; it's so beautiful and yet-- not unnoticeable, but easy not to notice.
    See? Can't do it a bit. I'll never make a writer. I'll always be a dilettante with good syntax. But I'll be amused about it.
    And yes, I could post pictures. I know how, and it isn't hard. But hard as the vista might be to describe, it's harder to photograph. Impossible, really. I've tried time and time again. You'll just have to go and see.

Let's retitle this blog entry

This has been much my most visited blog entry, almost certainly because "Mema" is a bad word in some other language. I certainly don't mean to mislead anyone, so all these years later, I'm retitling it. The old title comes right after this colon:
 "Let's get Mema a puppy"
    It makes me crazy when writers use unfamiliar names or nicknames without explaining the pronunciation first, so let me start by saying that "Mema" is a nickname some Southerners use for their grandmothers or great-grandmothers, and it's pronounced as if it were spelled Mee-maw.
    When my mother was still able to talk and think, she always wanted to go out to the two big flea markets out Augusta Highway (US 1). I always felt bad that I never took her, especially of course when she could no longer think or talk. Later when Alice and I lived out there (a large, unincorporated community called Oak Grove), we decided to go. Of the two flea markets, the Barnyard Flea Market was more convenient to us so we gave it a try. It's the smaller of the two, less popular and so less busy, farther from Columbia but closer to Lexington. I remember there was a wide variety of items on sale. I don't remember being too captivated by anything. I don't recall either of us feeling too tempted to buy.
    What I do remember was the pet store. Maybe it wasn't an outlet for a puppy mill. Maybe they had a good reason for locating in a flea market other than being an outlet for a puppy mill. But what I remember most was walking back to our car, passing a family going slowly. They had bought a puppy for Mema. Mema was in a wheelchair. OK, it's the thought that counts. OK, maybe Mema lived with them and somebody else would take care of the actual bringing-up-the-puppy part of bringing up the puppy. Still, it seemed like a fairly odd gift for somebody in a wheelchair. I felt saddened and a little distressed for the puppy. And I never went back.

An almost infinite number of monkeys

Note: I'm completely ripping this off from the great Bob Newhart. Only with product placement.
    To be or not to boo
    Out out, brief Kindle
    Neither a borrower nor a Lender's bagel
    Fair is foul and fowl is chicken
    What fools these morays be!
    O Romeo, Romeo, what the hell does "wherefore" mean, Romeo?
    The first thing we do, let's kill Lancelot Link, secret chimp
    Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your oars
    Alas, poor Yorick, I knew him--Say, what is this? CSI Elsinore? He's a frickin' skull!

Amelia the cat reveals her true self

    "Look, I know I'm cute and fluffy and everything, but I am in fact the reincarnation of Albert Einstein, and when I bat the little foam-rubber soccer balls around, I am trying to convey to you my perfected Unified Field Theory, you simp. Christ on a bike, this is worse than the Patent Office. I'm gonna go lick myself."
    Really, I go back and forth whether she is the reincarnation of Gandhi, or of my mom. If Project Pet was correct about her age, the latter is just about possible. And it would explain why she always has to keep an eye on me.
    (Really really, I don't believe in reincarnation, but it's a good story.)
    Meanwhile, in non-Monkey-related news, the mockingbird who has been making sleep difficult hereabouts seems to have gotten a new alarm clock. I may be able to sleep without a radio on. Yaaay!

Why I probably won't be writing any more hiking books

    Or rather, why I'm not an ideal choice as a hiking book author. Reason 1: I'm not terribly discriminating. If it's a path through the woods, I like it. If there's pinestraw on the ground, I love it. Something about the smell, I think. Anyway, I just really like walking through the woods regardless of terrain, weather or scenic beauty, and tend to give five of five stars to every trail I've ever been on that didn't actually involve quicksand or fording a river.
    Reason 2: My chief goal in life is getting lost. Ideally, I want to get lost somewhere I don't speak the language and the populace is hostile. I remember trying to get lost in Moscow. In the middle of winter. At the height of the Reagan phase of the Cold War. Without a word of Russian. In a green American parka that looked REALLY out of place. I couldn't do it. It's not that I have a great sense of direction; I have a terrible one. But I'm really good at remembering landmarks. And I don't panic, ever. And if I'm honest, I have better common sense than to go anywhere I can't find my way back from. I guess the last two are the reasons I am a good choice as a hiking book writer.