We
are Southern writers with a strong sense of regional heritage who laugh at
our own shortcomings and make diversity into an asset. We are proud of our
turnip greens, cornbread and rural past, but recognize football, country
music, and car racing as activities of a new South.
We would also like to go on record as the humorist group with the most
couches on the front porch and the greatest number of junk cars rusting in
the backyard.
We welcome any Southern humorist, comedy
author, funny writer, or cartoonist who creates humor of any sort,
or aspires to do so, to join our newsgroup and become a part of the comedy
organization that sponsors our official Southern Humorists website.
We welcome true southerners, former
southerners, transplanted southerners - and even danged Yankees, as long
as you know that you will be the one who talks with a funny accent and
that you're treading on our sacred Southern soil here.
Experts
tell us that when you give a child a consequence for their actions be
CERTAIN that you can follow through with what you are telling them.
For example, if you tell your child that they don't get to drive the
car for the next two weeks because they came home after 2am instead of
their curfew of 10pm then you need to follow through and not
give Bubba the car keys. Most parents would nod their heads in
agreement and feel like this is a rational thing to do.
The thing is, when we are in the heat of an
argument with our kids, all rationality goes out the door. We give
consequences that there is absolutely no follow through for. If we did
them, we'd be arrested.
I wanted to send you a letter to let you know how much I appreciate
your visiting me in my home last week. It was such a nice surprise. Thank
you for singling me out as one of your special friends, and for taking the
time away from your sick bed to come and visit me. You were barely able to
hold up your head and yet you came.
I truly enjoyed talking with you and hearing all about your illness and
suffering. The sneezing and coughing was adorable and you really looked
great with a 102 degree temperature. Fever really does become you. It
brings out your eyes, and the rash added a kind of pinkish glow to your
skin.
Elvis
was young, Kookie wouldn’t lend you his comb, and I was (almost) cool!
I was never cool. Luke-warm at best. But I was 16, and going to college in
the fall. Only a few months previously, I had been a gawky awkward kid,
weighing 135 pounds, and suddenly, I grew. In a few months, I was now a
gawky awkward kid weighing 175 pounds, and coming off the farm, it was
mostly muscle. And I was soon to have a secret I couldn’t tell anyone.
Now, almost 50 years later, I can tell you. I stole two cases of dynamite.
I will have to tell you about that sometime. Good story, and how I kept
alive, in looking back, is a pure miracle.
Day
1 – My daughter went out to the garage and came inside screaming.
"A mouse, a MOUSE! There’s a mouse in the garage. It ran right past
my feet." The garage door doesn’t fit very tight, and a tiny mouse
can squeeze though a crack the size of a pencil.
Day 2 – "I saw it again! It has three or four babies and
they all ran under the washing machine." Okay, it’s time to quit
messing around and to get down to some serious mouse catching. Soon the
traps are set and baited with cheese.
There is no doubt most guys have egos. This ego thing is something the
average male cannot control. It’s as if there is a little voice inside a
man’s head which kicks the ego into autopilot whenever an even occurs
meriting such an emotion. The hapless man is just along for the ride.
Egos, like airplanes, come in various sizes. Some are small like the
2-seater Piper Cub. Others are as large as an Airbus 380.
The ego autopilot can be triggered by a variety of circumstances. It can
initiate when one’s manhood is in question by another male, something
needs to be hammered, or cooked on the grill.
When Nancy
visited St. Simons Island between Christmas and New Year's last year, she only
wanted to do two things: play golf and meet Davis Love, III. However, the
weather, behaving badly, dumped rain and cold air all over God’s little acre.
On the other hand, New Year’s Eve was just around the corner, so we, being
grown women, focused instead on the upside of preparing party food. The
downside? My cupboard, like Mother Hubbard’s, was seriously bare.
We grabbed
raincoats and umbrellas and took off to nearby Tweeter’s. Nancy sat in the
passenger seat pouting and whining about the rain and how it had messed up her
vacation. "We have better weather in New Jersey," she hissed.
Once I found ole Buck sitting under a shade tree beside his house holding an old battered guitar. He was turning the tuning screws and listening to the sound it made when he plucked the strings.
I asked ole Buck, “do you know how to play the guitar?”
He said, “No, but then again with his guitar I don’t have to know. It looks so bad that everyone will blame my wrong notes on it and not me.”
I asked, “Buck, do you know how to tune your guitar?”
Lately I’ve been thinking about how many of history’s conflicts could have been resolved if we had only gotten the opposing parties to a North Louisiana-style fish fry. You know, a good one, with catfish fillets breaded in salt and corn meal and bounced in a grocery sack so that they are patiently poised to play their part for world peace.
Ever since God gave us the trot line and blood bait, there’s been nothing more effective than the rural ritual of
catch-em-and- clean-em- cook-em-and- eat-em to bring out the best in your fellow man.
I first met Lena when she shared a nursing home dining table with my mother-in-law.
Though she was in Dallas to receive care and be near family, her heart remained in the place of her carefree youth, Llano, a picturesque little town up Highway 71 West in the beautiful Texas Hill Country. You’d like it there too.
To her delight, I called her Lena from Llano.
She was an endearing little lady of 97 years who lit up the table with her oft repeated quips, witticisms and childhood stories. Indeed, she was a living antidote for an infectiously somber mood.
With gasoline prices at an all time high, it is certainly understandable why everyone is concerned about alternate fuels. It does seem, however, that every time a new source of fuel is discovered or suggested, at least one that is an alternate to petroleum based products, it is introduced to the world and promptly ends up either being put on the back burner, or rejected altogether. The latter usually occurs as a result of lobbying pressure.
There is one source, however, that has proven not only to be an alternate fuel, but one that is inexpensive. Reliability may leave something to be desired as proven recently in West Virginia.
I got up when he did to get his breakfast and he left for the day. It was a Tuesday morning, like any other week day and I was expecting him back for dinner.
You see, he has me trained and I do obey his wishes, he gets whatever he wants to eat and I pride myself on that. Anything to keep him happy.
Very few people know that when he gets "unhappy" that he strikes out at me, sometimes I have scratches and blood drips from my wounds, but I always forgive him. I just try harder to please him.
I guess that is why I was so shocked that he never came back. I had his supper ready and I walked the floor for hours when he didn't return.
Experts
tell us that when you give a child a consequence for their actions be
CERTAIN that you can follow through with what you are telling them.
For example, if you tell your child that they don't get to drive the
car for the next two weeks because they came home after 2am instead of
their curfew of 10pm then you need to follow through and not
give Bubba the car keys. Most parents would nod their heads in
agreement and feel like this is a rational thing to do.
Elvis
was young, Kookie wouldn’t lend you his comb, and I was (almost) cool!
Day
1 – My daughter went out to the garage and came inside screaming.
"A mouse, a MOUSE! There’s a mouse in the garage. It ran right past
my feet." The garage door doesn’t fit very tight, and a tiny mouse
can squeeze though a crack the size of a pencil.
There is no doubt most guys have egos. This ego thing is something the
average male cannot control. It’s as if there is a little voice inside a
man’s head which kicks the ego into autopilot whenever an even occurs
meriting such an emotion. The hapless man is just along for the ride.
When Nancy
visited St. Simons Island between Christmas and New Year's last year, she only
wanted to do two things: play golf and meet Davis Love, III. However, the
weather, behaving badly, dumped rain and cold air all over God’s little acre.
On the other hand, New Year’s Eve was just around the corner, so we, being
grown women, focused instead on the upside of preparing party food. The
downside? My cupboard, like Mother Hubbard’s, was seriously bare.
I first met Lena when she shared a nursing home dining table with my mother-in-law.
I got up when he did to get his breakfast and he left for the day. It was a Tuesday morning, like any other week day and I was expecting him back for dinner. 
