Loudon License Plates

My grandson Owen is visiting this week and today we took him and two other little ones out to lunch. We picked a spot in Fishers, Indiana called Loon Lake Lodge. The reason I bring all that up is I pulled into a parking space right beside a car with Loudon license plates, and as usual when I see Loudon plates I start to wonder if I knew who they were.

At times like this I don't give Loudon enough credit. I sometimes forget that I am only familiar with a portion of the county so odds are pretty good that I would not know who it was, but hey, it's fun to play the game.

It was a black Jag so I thought it was most likely from around Tellico, but there again I'm probably selling Loudon short. Inside the restaurant I looked around and thought the most likely people to be driving it were the ones at the table behind us and I looked the "Grandma and Grandpa" over pretty good, but they didn't look that familiar to me. They looked to be about our age, give or take a few years.

They left just before us and I was right, they got in the Jag, and while I'm sure I did not know them, it was fun for awhile thinking that I might.

Rides

Larry Lankford had a VW. A few times he would come by the house and pick up Allen, Wayne and me and give us a ride to school. One day he had some others with him. We had 7 or 8 guys in the car that morning. Things were a little crowded but we made it. One of the reasons I remember it was the radio was playing the theme from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, which was a good driving song. Do you remember there were some songs that sounded better when you were driving around?

Senior year Allen and Wayne had a brand new Duster. It was supposed to be shared between the two of them but Allen ended up driving it more. There were a few nervous rides in that car too. One in particular I remember was down river road. They both had a way of making the road feel a lot more narrow that it was.

One day after class Freddy Lindsey asked us if we wanted to ride to Knoxville with him. I was only one who said yes. I remember that trip because it was the one and only time I had to be corrected while living with the McNabbs. All their Mom said was I wasn't supposed to go anywhere without asking first.

One day I ended up riding around Lenoir City with Bobby Oody. I don't remember anything else about it except there was one other person in the car with us. What I do remember is coming down the hill toward Highway 11 so fast that at one point we were airborne when we hit the bump a cross street made.

Then a time or two we got beer from the little beer joint south of Philadelphia and took the back roads over toward Corinth and Piney. After one of those rides I got the "sniff test" when I got home. You know, when your Mom leans close to you and says something like, "Have you been drinkin' beer?", to which you're usually foolish enough to say no when it's fairly obvious you have been.

Ah, the teen years. They were great.

Clyde and the Frogman

Did you know Clyde and the Frogman? That's what I called Clyde Wagner and Frog Williams, the two custodians at the school. They were there everyday but were almost invisible most of the time. I had the pleasure of working with them after school and on weekends for two school years.

I had nothing but respect for Clyde who was almost an anachronism with his flat top haircut. He taught me to get there early, do it right the first time, and take responsibility for what I did whether it was right or wrong.

Frog worked hard too, but in some ways he was just the opposite of Clyde. He didn't mind us clowining around as long as we got the job done. He usually pretended to be gruff and mean but he really wasn't. He made things fun most of the time.

They were just as much a part of my high school life as you guys were.

Another Step Toward Old-Manhood

Today I was shocked to take another step toward old-manhood, and I didn't even see it coming. I was working at my desk and I absentmindedly reached up to scratch one of those little insignificant itches... you know, one of the thousands you get that aren't associated with anything except maybe your skin drying out or something. Anyway, it was just below my neck, about even with my collar bone and dead center of the open collar of my shirt. I lightly scratched at it no more than twice and kept doing what I was doing.

A few minutes later I felt something else and looked down and I was bleeding like a stuck pig and it took forever to get it stopped. I kept holding Kleenex against it and it finally stopped after my trash can was half full of red spotted tissues. I put a band-aid on it for an hour or so but it didn't start up again, and I sat there feeling like Les Nessman with a band aid in such an odd place.

Weird.

Another New Feature on the Sidebar

Songs that take me back... to Loudon or to High School or because it reminds me of one of you. It will end up being everything from country to Glenn Miller.... gospel to Pink Floyd... but no rap. :)

I hope you enjoy them as much as I do, and I'd be curious to find out which ones we all agree on. Are there songs out there that take us all back?

Any requests? If you do let me know, and if I can find it I'll put it on here.

Did You Vote?

I won't be rude and ask who you voted for.  My family has a habit of irritating the pollsters.  They called several times before the election and wanted to know who we were voting for.... we told them that was our business. That's the way we were raised.  When I was a kid nobody would tell you who they voted for.

Anyway, this was my youngest son's first chance at voting and I have to admit I was proud of him  He really looked at how each candidate stacked up against his own believes and convictions and put a lot of thought into it.

Do you remember your first?  I do.  In 1972 I voted for George McGovern more as a vote against Richard Nixon than a vote for McGovern   Either way I lost.  Did you think your vote would change the world?  I did.  Ah, to be a young idealist again.