Tell Me You're Kidding.

I saw an on-line advertisement for RENTING designer handbags. They've gotten so expensive, I guess a lot of people can't afford to buy them. So now you can rent them...return one and get another one. I've heard of some stupid things, but this is super stupid. Most of the handbags are ugly...so I guess that's how people know they are authentic. .

Billy Graham's Getting Nervous

In the summer I live in the mountains of N.C., not far from where Billy Graham lives. My wife loves Billy and when he is on TV, she always wants me to watch with her. Not too long ago, he was being interviewed on a talk program. The host said, "You are getting up in years. It won't be long until you are in Heaven, sitting and talking with God." I was shocked that Billy Graham answered, "I'm not sure that I have earned the right to sit with God." My wife and I both gasped. I turned to her and said, "If Billy doesn't think he has the right to go to Heaven, we are in deep shit, honey." She said, "Speak for yourself. I'll be there. I've earned my right. I clean brass at church once a month." And I said, "Yes, and that's what you will be doing in Heaven...except I am sure they have a lot more brass than St. Luke's does." She said that Billy was getting nervous because he used to play golf with Richard Nixon and pal around with him. I don't really think that's enough to keep him out of Heaven. But I'm hoping he's not thinking he'll be able to play golf with Nixon up there because I'm sure Nixon's in Hell playing with the Devil.

"Are you Oral Roberts?" She Asked.

I used to go visit my mother-in-law in the nursing home...I'd go and give her a whirl in her wheelchair around the place...or take her for a drive in the country. We would sing songs as we drove along since nobody could hear us. Once when I had her out and took her back to park her in the main room, I put her near the big TV set. There was an old woman there with her hand raised in the air repeatedly saying, "Help me. Help me." Poor thing. I took her hand and said, "Do you want me to help you?" She said, "Yes. Are you Oral Roberts." I thought for a moment and then said, "Yes. How did you recognize me?" She said she had seen me on TV. She was in a wheelchair and her foot was crooked. I had read a book about "faith healing"...the laying on of the hands. So I was looking for a chance to try my new skills. I asked her what seemed to be the matter. She pointed toward her legs and said, "My foot." I got down on my knees between her legs and I lightly touched her foot. She SCREAMED. I was so sure the nurse would come and find me down on my knees with my head between the old lady's legs. But fortunately, the nurse was snoozing as usual. I said to the woman, "Did I hurt you?" She said no. I asked her if she really believed because that's one of the essentials of faith healing...you've got to believe that you can cure them; they have to believe that you can. It takes two to faith heal as well as to tango. She said she believed. So I said, "Well, let me try again. I'll put my hands on your legs and I'm sure you will be able to walk again." She said, "I don't want to walk again. My foot has gone to sleep and I just want you to wake it up." I jumped up and yelled, "My God, woman! You think Oral Roberts goes around waking up old feet??" I'm a Faith Healer. I can make you walk again! "Please," she begged, "Just wake my foot up." I yelled, "Yee of little faith. Wake your own damn foot up. I'm out of here."

The Christian Right; The Christian WRONG.

I think they should rename the Christian Right...call it The Christian WRONG. They are getting so crazed lately. It's one thing if they want to tote the Bible every place they go, but now they have taken to shaking it at you if you do or say anything they don't like. It's scary! These are the people who elected President Bush. They should be shaking their Bibles at him.

Keeping an Open Mind

I always thought it was good to keep an open mind...it showed you were open to other people's opinions. But the trouble is, as you get older and you have an open mind, stuff starts spilling out. I've always been the kind who put my foot in my mouth all too often. But now that I'm really old, I'm shocked at the things that come out of my mind when it's open. And if I am shocked, think how shocked listeners are likely to be.

Chewing the Fat

Where in the world did an expression like "chewing the fat" come from? When I was a kid in the South, my Mother would cook "Fat Back" every morning. She cooked it and saved the grease in a can so she could flavor her green beans and other vegetables with the taste of the fat. We would have the fried Fat Back pieces on biscuits for breakfast. The fried fat is very, very tasty. From time to time in Southern cafes you'll find it on the buffet or the main menu as an "entre". It was easy to chew the fat. What wasn't easy was to chew the sliver of pig hide that the fat back was attached too. In fact, we used to see how long we could chew it...sometimes I could chew it all the way to school which was a two mile walk before it disintegrated...or before I spit it out. In Frederick, Maryland, a friend and I used to love to go to a cafe called, CHAT AND CHEW. My friend loved it more than I did, and he definetly loved the name. In the little town of Bluffton, S.C., they have a place called the SQUAT AND GOBBLE. I keep trying to get my Maryland friend to come down so I can take him to lunch there. I know he would like to chew the fat at the Squat and Gobble.

The Fish Are Biting

I live on a mountain lake in the summer. And the fish are biting. Not biting the worm, but biting ME. Everytime I try to go in the lake to swim, if I slow down at all the fish start trying to bite moles off my legs and back. These moles don't look like worms, but they apparently look very appetizing to catfish, mountain trout and big-mouthed bass. It's not that their bites hurt all that much, it's just that it scares me. It could be the Loch Ness Monster, you know.

Dragging Main

It always amazes me what THE NEW YORK TIMES puts into its Style Section. Mostly crap from Hollywood. But recently they had an article on "Dragging Main" in Asheville, N.C. For those who don't know what Dragging Main involves, it's an old Southern custom (which I am personally surprised is still alive) in small towns all over the South. On Saturday nights, boys gas up their cars and go to town...the girls go to town, but they walk down Main Street. Strool actually. The boys slowly drive by checking out the parade of young women....making appropriate and inappropriate remarks to them trying to lure them into their cars. It's sort of a pre-marital mating game. I'm surprised that guys can still drag Main with the price of gas hovering around $3 a gallon. I'm sure there are some Southern towns where Main Street is on a hill so they can coast down without having to turn on the motor. I used to go with my cousin Howard to drag main when I was a teenager. Howard drove because (a) I was too young to drive and (b) I didn't have a car. My job was to sit in the seat by the driver, roll down the window, hang out the window and say cute things to the passing parade of young women. Some of them wouldn't even look our way. (I didn't take this personally because I figured it was the CAR they were rejecting, not me.) But most of them would look my way, smile and giggle. Our objective of course was to lure them over to the car for some serious conversation. The girls always walked in twos...and the boys drove in twos. Howard would feed me "lines" that I was to say. His lines were corny, but they usually worked because he was an old hand at dragging Main. He wasn't looking to net two young women...he was going for a special type who wasn't just going along for the ride, so to speak. When we captured a couple, we would usually take them to a hamburger joint on the outside of town...and then to the Drive-In Movie. He always carried two folding chairs in the car and he would make me and the ugliest girl sit outside to watch the movie. I'm not sure what he and the other one did, but they never knew anything about the movie we had seen. I don't think anybody drags Main Street in the town where I used to live. All the stores are closed now...Main Street is dead. But I may go over next Saturday night and just double check.