My Life As A Hobby

You really couldn’t call it a stuffed animal. The best way to describe it was a teddy bear head attached to a tiny pink poodle skirt.    It didn't even have a body.   But it did have a couple of little arms, one of which had to be resewn because it was mauled by a dog. Its nose was almost chewed off because my granddaughter Rilynne bit it so many times.   But it was her pride and joy - and it had been since the day she was born. I think her first words were “Bear Bear”, and so it had its name.   They were inseparable.   Anywhere that Rilynne went, Bear Bear had to go. There was no peace in my house unless Bear Bear was in her hand.   On more than one evening, I had to go back to her Mommy’s house to get Bear Bear, or no one would get any sleep.   We even bought an exact duplicate of this animal (appropriately named Spare Bear) to use in case of emergencies, but it would not do. Rilynne always knew the difference. When she was a...

I just got out of bed and I’m sore.  Not regular 66 year old sore.  I’ve just about learned to accept that when I get up my lower back, shoulder, and feet are going to hurt. But this is different. This feels like a dozen Little Leaguers took turns beating me with an aluminum bat.  But I’m not complaining, because I knew this was going to happen. It’s because I chose to roller skate at at my granddaughter’s birthday  party.   I used to be a pretty good skater. I could skate frontwards and backwards, hit the curves with right foot over left, go really fast.  But that was when the music they played over the speakers was The Beach Boys and not Doctor Dre. Rap at a skating rink?  What’s next, in-line skates?  Oh, wow, they had those too.   Before I put on the skates, I was bragging - I was telling Rilynne I was going to be the best skater on the rink. I think I should’ve said I was going to be the best 66 year  on the ...

He was mad.   There was no doubt about it. He walked straight to my table in the restaurant with an angry look on his face. I believe if there had been a steak knife on the table, he might’ve used it on me. He sat down across from me and said, “You are a jerk!” (or, something like that).   I certainly didn’t think this was the way for two best friends to greet one another, but after he told me how everything went down, I think he might’ve had a point. Or, maybe my judgement just was clouded because I was laughing so hard. I’ll be honest, I’m not always looking to play practical jokes on people, but when I see an opportunity, I usually won’t pass it up.   And in this instance, it looked like a pretty good opportunity. The victim was my best friend Gene. For over half a century we’ve done everything together.   At this time in our lives, we were even employed by the same company.   Work made it necessary both of us to attend a trade show in Mobi...

It is hard to imagine a time in the history of the United States of America when eating a Whopper hamburger was a big deal.  Now there are more fast food places than Democratic Presidential candidates, but not back then.  However, such a time existed,  and I happened  to be around when it did.  In the mid-60s Birmingham, Alabama had no Burger Kings, so when one opened,  it was quite the novelty.  People would line up to have a flame broiled burger made their way.   Even our family was caught up in the craze. Every Friday night in the summertime  I would play nine holes of golf with my Mom and Dad, then we would go to Burger King and pick up Whoppers.  But there was a recurring problem - Burger King was not living up to their slogan. They weren’t letting me have it my way.  At the time, I hated mayonnaise and tomatoes.  For a month,  Dad asked them to hold the mayonnaise and tomatoes on my sandwich.  For a month ...

If it had happened today, it would have been a major sports story - no, a major news story.   There would have been iPhone videos on the nightly news, and commentary on ESPN. Paul Finebaum’s callers would have been obsessed with it.   Coaches would have been fired, and lawsuits filed. Someone may have even been publicly flogged.   But none of that happened in 1968.   It went unnoticed, unless you were one of the players on the football field when it happened. They remember it the same way people remember where they were when Kennedy was shot. It was spring of my freshman year at Huffman High.   The school was brand new, so new, it didn’t have juniors and seniors. Just a freshman and a sophomore class. That meant when we had spring training for football, it was a small, inexperienced group that was participating.    And for whatever reason, we thought it was supposed to be fun.   It was a game, right?   Weren’t games played for fun? ...

I doubt seriously that this blog will be funny.  Because you see, the topic  I have chosen concerns the worst feeling you can possibly imagine.  Think of the most humiliating thing you’ve ever done, and multiply it a hundred times.  Your knees wobble, sweat starts flowing, and you probably have a knot in your stomach that feels like you just swallowed a watermelon. Your voice cracks, while your  self confidence is slammed like a 2 x 4 to the head.  This feeling happens because a group of people are totally rejecting you,  one collective body is telling you that you suck.   Comedically speaking, I’m talking about the B Word: that one word that comics fear as much as golfers do the shank.  I’m talking about bombing. Unfortunately for comedians or wanna be comedians, bombing is a necessary part of learning the job.  I don’t have to tell you that most novice comedians are really bad.  And the only way to get better is to practice in f...

My memory lapses never fail to depress me.  I can’t remember birthdays, wedding anniversaries,  or most major holidays.  Sometimes it takes me months before I connect a name to a face.  Numbers?  Forget about it.  And if I don’t have a to-do list, all day long I will float around as aimlessly as a rubber duck in a hot tub.  But there is one event I can clearly recall:  it happened on  May 19, 1988.  I remember almost every moment; what I said, how I felt, even what I wore.   Because a comedian may forget a lot of things, but they never, never forget the first time they set foot on stage.   My appetite for comedy had been whetted by a business trip to Los Angeles.  While I was there I visited my first comedy club, taking in an  “Open Mic Night” at the famous Comedy Store.  It was a two hour show with some big time comics like Richard Lewis and Louie Anderson.   But the 8 people that preceded the p...

“Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless."  - Mother Teresa                                                                                           Jefferson County jail flanks the north side of downtown Birmingham. It’s not a nice place, even as jails go. It’s overcrowded - some of the cells designed to sleep two people sleep twice that many.  There’s no outside exercise area. The food is substandard.  So, men are stacked inside like firewood, until a spark causes a flame.  Attorneys say that a month in County is like 6 months in a regular jail.  When my son Matt had his charges changed from State to Federal, he was moved out of the Jefferson County jail into a facility in Cullman County...