My Life As A Hobby

“It’s exciting!  We’re going to be modern day Huck Finns!” That’s what our friends Nancy and Bill said when they invited us to participate in The Great Alabama River Raft Race.  Carol and I were immediately interested. The premise was quite simple: hundreds of people would build rafts and float down the Alabama River for several miles, until someone was declared a winner, or everyone had alcohol poisoning.  It sounded like great fun. We readily agreed, and soon plans were in place to come to Montgomery.  We arrived the night before the race, and almost immediately Bill and I began building our raft.  Using metal drums and pallets held together by bands, we constructed a 12 x 8 floating fortress.  Strength was important because it was going to hold  7 people, a barbecue grill, towels, suntan lotion, a small cooler of snacks, a large cooler of Milwaukee’s finest, and a partridge in a pear tree.  We even added a sail since no one was going to be r...

When I was working in my home office the other day, I looked up and saw it hanging on the wall.  It always makes me smile.  It’s just a small frame with a check stub under the glass.  It’s not that unusual because lots of people frame things that are important to them: college degrees,  GED‘s, even completion certificates from transmission schools.  Like them, this check stub is important to me.  The amount is not significant, but the note on the left-hand side is. It says, “Writers  Services -Comedy Material Jay Leno”.  This little piece of paper is the first hard evidence that proves to everyone (including the IRS, who keeps asking about my office deduction) I am a professional comedy writer.  Joke writing was a natural by-product of me doing stand-up. For about 18 months after my first open mic night,  I had been honing my writing and delivery skills at the Comedy Club in Birmingham Alabama. I slurped up information about comedy the w...

Congratulations,  Brookside, Alabama - you have made the big time.  Just keep in mind that when a town of 1,200 people gets their name splashed over every news show in America, you can be pretty sure it ain’t good news.  And it ain’t.  In case you don’t know, Brookside is a big time speed trap. This tiny town has elevated ripping off motorists to an art form. That’s why 49% of the town’s entire budget comes from revenue obtained from traffic violations. Who says government doesn’t know how to do anything right?   But you don’t have to choke money out of motorists one citation at a time to be effective. Sometimes there’s a more efficient way to shake down people - like the one Trussville, Alabama used on me and a bunch of other kids when I was 17 years old.  I haven’t forgotten, even though it happened a long time ago.  In fact, I can almost forgive them now.   The Alabama summer of 1971 was typical.  Hot, sticky, and unbearable.   Kind o...

I saw my long time friend Mickey the other day, and as usual for a couple of nearly old farts, our conversation  gravitated to stories about some of the ridiculous things we did in our younger days.  Mickey’s take was dead on the money;  a lot of us are lucky to be alive.   It’s hard to disagree.  Starting with a broken leg at the age 6, and going into my mid 30’s, I did enough stupid, dangerous things to kill me a hundred times over.   I’m not talking about the common growing up stuff that most of us experienced, like falling from the low branch of a hickory tree, losing your grip on the monkey bars, or having a bike wreck in the driveway. Not even  BB gun and bottle rocket wars. No.  Some of the things I did back then make me shake my head in disbelief right now.  For example, why would I decide to take a skateboard down the longest, steepest, most dangerous road in my neighborhood?   It was Glynn Drive.  This street was so formid...

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 Richard. 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 ...