Welcome to Chapters 1 thru 6 Page!!!
Hey Fellow Foodies & Webbers, Welcome to my place.
Well a little about me!!!!! I am an avid fisherman, I have fished in tournaments for about 8 years. I played softball for 12 years and my team won the Sunshine State games. The name of our team was TBSS Tampa Bay Stud Service, but the teams that we played thought we were the secret service, they gave us no lip. That was a comedy after we found out from one of the other players that's what they thought. That was a big thing for me and I will always remember the great team we had. Right now I am healing from a bunch of things that happened in my life. I hope someday to be back at 100%, but it takes a long time to heal. I have done many things in my 42 years on this planet. In my younger days I rode a 10 speed bike all around Florida. Went up to Pensacola, then into Alabama, crossed into Georgia, then back down to Tampa. The people we (went with 5 buddies ) met along the way were just great. If I could do it again I would. I would like to share this adventure with you. So here are the facts of my trip: Day 1 we leave Tampa, it's a beautiful day, bright sun, no clouds. Well that did not last long, got to a town called Inverness, started raining in buckets. We headed to a local strip mall to wait out storm, as the storm let up we started out again and one of my buddies ran into the back of my bike, breaking my aixle. Called Tampa and my brother brought a spare rear tire and we put in on, little did we know that the wheel was for a 26" bike and mine was a 27". We made up our camp in a school yard and the sheriff came by and told us we were trespassing ( on public property no less ), we told him that we could not leave until we fixed the broken bike. He was a real country cop. We lasted the night and moved on early the next morning.
2 days later we were in Tallahassee, now this was on an inch shorter tire, spokes popping like popcorn. I went to a bike shop and they charged me $45.00 to replace spokes. Then we went down the road in front of the capital, very steep hill, I got a speeding ticket for doing 42 mph in a 30 mph zone. Another nice country cop (haha). We left Tallahassee and headed west, got to Panama City spent the day on the miracle mile. One of our group got hit by car, but no major damage. Spent night on beach. We next arrived in Apalachicola and ate at a restaurant thats claim to fame was the invention of the ice cube. Since there was a cop eating there, we asked him where we could put up our tents and spend the night, he then directed us to a ballfield and told us it was ok to stay there. During the night the local hoods drove around our tents throwing beer cans. Needless to say we did not get much rest. We left early, and headed towards Pensacola, just outside of the city, my spokes went again. As i was walking my bike, I saw a small sign that said "BIKE REPAIRS". I headed down this long dirt road and came to a huge barn, rang a cow bell and this young kid came out of the house and fixed my spokes for $5.00. He was shocked that we were from Tampa, he gave us each a reflector for our bikes and we headed into town. This guy was a real lifesaver. We stay at a KOA camp ground and I only have one thing to say, don't ever get Ben Gay on your testicles, it burns like hell and is hard to wash off. LOL. Spent the next day just resting. Now we are heading north to Alabama, get to a rest area and play stick-ball and just hang-out. We now cross over into Georgia and start heading south, we come to a small town on thursday and go up to the only restaurant in town and guess what? It's closed on Thursdays. We ate bologna sandwiches for dinner. We stayed right outside of town and went back to the restaurant for breakfast. When we started to order, the waitress said," we ain't got no bacon, no sausage, no ham". We all had pancakes for breakfast.
After we ate we moved on and came to a produce stand in the middle of nowhere. There was not a soul around, the stand was on the honor system, the coffee can was overflowing with money. This was amazing to us so we bought a watermelon and headed off down the road, we came across a spring fed lake and jumped in. Man was that water cold, so we put our watermelon in the water to cool, then we chowwed down like a beaver on a piece of wood. Now we are traveling on back country roads when possible, because we wanted to see the true side of our home state. Day 9 now we find a mom & pop grocery, right before dark. We bring up our loaf of bread and bologna,jar of mayo, etc. to the cash register, the old man asks," is that your dinner?" We reply yes, and he screams out to his wife
"ma, we have company for dinner, kill a couple more chickens". That was the best chicken I have ever eaten. This lady put on a feed, that's for sure. They would not let us pay them for the meal and they let us use their showers. I was impressed with their generosity. The next morning we headed out and got to Crystal River, one of the guys had an uncle that owned a cabin on a lake and we had made prior arrangements to stay there 1 night. We fished and cooked them for dinner, played stickball, and just rested for the whole day. When we left the cabin we knew we could get home in one day, if we left early, so off we go. We decide to head down US Hwy 19, a major road south, as we are riding a car passes us within inches and the driver is asleep at the wheel, very close call. This road is pretty straight and he went out of view, we figured that he would be in the woods on the first curve, but we never did see him, so we assumed he woke up. Got stopped by the Highway Patrol for riding two abreast, evidently this is against the law. This patrolman stood on the hood of his car and preached to us for 20 minutes. ( what a jerk ). Now we can smell the home air,so we pedal faster, arrive home just before dark. We traveled 1,200 miles in 11 days, muscles sore, sunburned, but smiling because we were home. This is a long story I know but this adventure will be a memorable one for the rest of my life. I hope you enjoyed it, and I wish you all could have been there. There are some really good people out there, you just have to find them. Thanks for visiting my page and I hope to have another chapter soon.
Chapter 2
In the beginning, God created.......Geeez that's too far back!! When I graduated from high school, most of my friends were a year younger than me, so they were not in the mood to party, so I went to work on my graduation night. When their's came a year later, now that's where the adventure will begin. Before I start, I would like to let everybody know that while I was present at this event, I did not participate in most of these activities. I will let you know which ones during the story. After the presentation of their diplomas, kisses from family members, we all met at the Blue Sinks. Now the blue sinks are a series of sinkholes about two hundred years old. They are lined with hugh granddaddy oak trees and the water is so clear and deep, it's like a steel blue color. The water is cold and during the summer, the combination of the shade of those big beautiful oak trees and the water, made it the place to be!!! It was a local spot, found by some kids, only a few people knew about it. We arrived there with 2 cases of tall boys and commenced to getting buzzed. Two of the guys had souped up cars, so they/we decided to go to the Drive-In Restaurant and stage fight.
Now, drive-in Restaurants are what you see in old movies, where you park your car and buzz for food, then a girl dressed in a replica cheer leading costume brings your food. Kinda like a drive thru today, except you park!!!! The speakers have not improved over the years either.
Ok, now stage fighting is when you fake fight with/against each other. One car parks across from the other, then you start mouthing off about the other guys car. Well this leads to a fight. People gather around and it's all staged, thats supposed to be the beauty of this whole ordeal. I still wonder to this day, who thought this up. So we have our fun, and off we go, staying in contact by CB radios. Now, someone knows where a really cranky, bitchy, read your book, total butthead teacher lives, so THEY decided to pay a visit with some rocks, so they stop at a construction site and pick up some bricks, which they break in half. They pull up to this house ( i watched from backseat of car ) and they threw half bricks through the windows, jump back in cars and hall butt. We drive through this neighborhood and someone spots a school bus, so THEY (not me) stopped and started to break the windows out of the bus, then I yelled HEY, thats not a school bus, it says IDLEWILD BAPTIST CHURCH on it. One of the guys with us went to that church. Talk about drunk. So, with heads hung low, but spirits still high, we move on. Just as you come out of this neighborhood, there was an old XXX movie house called The Springs on the corner, it had closed earlier, so THEY (not me) tore the box office off the front of the building. For what reason, I don't remember. Now, we leave and head to the airport, again reason unknown. On the way there, we were going down a semi-major road. I was in the back seat of the second car, watching the car ahead, because the guy in the front seat of our car was throwing beer cans at them. We come upon a guy on a bicycle. Now, as i'm watching the first car pass the bike, I see an arm reach out and push the guy on the bike, he wobbles against the curb, arms and legs bouncing around like they were made of rubber, he goes for about 25 feet like this and finally falls in a grassy spot. He was not hurt!!
Arriving at the airport we drive to the pick-up, drop-off point, because you did not have to pay. Well, the security guard told us we could not park there, so as we were leaving, one of the guys in the first car, threw a brick through a sheet glass window, this sucker was huge, approx, 8 feet wide by 25 feet high. It looked like a movie. Needless to say we hauled butt out of there. We are going back to our safe haven, the Blue Sinks, but on the way a car pulls up next to us and asks us to drag race. Winner gets $50.00. So he tells the other car by radio and they find a good place to drag. He also tells him to pick the right lane because there is a car parked in the left lane. Zoom, off we go, he's leading, we pull even, i hear these words" I'm just playing with him, GOOD-BYE, the car jerks forward and the next thing we hear, as we pass the parked car is is screeching of brakes. We win!!!! When the other car catches up at the finish, the driver refuses to pay, but he did not know that there was another car full of drunk good ole boys. Well, they ended up getting more than $50.00, and off we went again. Where you turn to go back to our haven, there was a gas station, we stopped to use the bathroom. Gas stations used to leave the bathroom doors open, even when closed, and there was always toilet paper. We had pulled around the back and we heard a couple of cop cars pull in and start talking. They were getting a description of our cars over their radios. We got real quiet, so close to getting away, it wasn't even funny, but blocked by two police cars and them not knowing we were right there. You could hear a pin drop, even the crickets quit rubbing their legs and tried to listen. We stayed this way for about a half hour, then the cops got a call and we dashed for freedom. The Blue Sinks never looked so good, as they did that night. We stayed all night and woke-up the next morning with a group headache. Most did not remember much. This story, long as it seems, occured over a few hours. Although this is not a bright spot in my past, it is the truth. This is what happens when you drink too much. Please don't drink and Drive!!! Be safe until we meet again!!!
Chapter 3
In my trick or treating days, things were so different. You were actually invited into peoples homes to enjoy holiday goodies. In the neighborhood I lived in, the people really got into the halloween spirit. Some people made mini haunted houses, some had a goodie buffet table, complete with cookies, cupcakes, apples, oranges, (Florida thing? ) and of course a basket full of candy. Most of our costumes were of our own creations. We never bought any of our costumes. The most memorable house that we visited was put together by a couple of old ladies, that had no children. The haunted house that they built every year was so fun even adults would go through it. They had these little boxes that were labeled with weird items. like: Eyeballs, Maggots, Worms, Brains etc. The eyeballs were peeled grapes, maggots were cooked rice, worms was spaghetti, brains was, well we never knew that one, and I still don't have a clue. But, these ladies transformed themselves to the ugliest witches you would ever want to see. It scared many a small child. I think they recruited friends to help with the haunting. If your heart wasn't pounding when you left there, then you must have been dead. It was great fun. But there was one house that no-one went to: The Murphy's, a prune faced, always cranky lady, with a very whipped husband. ( Chapter 4 will explain ). We went to so many houses that we were dog tired at the end of the night. Best of all, we had all our candy left, because of all the cookies and goodies we ate at peoples homes. Talk about a sugar rush!!!!!! Wouldn't it be great if we could go back to the time when you didn't have to lock you doors and bolt your windows, and you could trust your fellow man. You could go out on this scariest of nights without parents. Well, I know that most people are generally good. But today, the world seems so large, that we lose sight of the people that mean the most to us. The web is a great way to meet new friends, let's keep up our family, because it takes us all to help it grow. "Be safe until we meet again".
BR> Chapter 4
Wow, what a clan. The whole thing started when my father got re-married. My mother died when I was 2 years old, so my father was raising 4 kids alone. When they got back from their honeymoon, my stepmother was going to plant some wild plum trees along the fence line between us and the Murphy's. Mrs. Murphy (hereafter called prune face) came out of her house and told my new mom that she could not plant them there. After that day our neighbors became the neighbors from hell. Prune face had a son, Mike. Mike raised snakes and one day there was a baby chick in our garden. He was feeding the snakes the baby chicks, so we kept this one and it grew to be a fine rooster. Prune face called the sheriff because the rooster crowed every morning. The sheriff said there was nothing he could do about it. So about a week later, the rooster was dead, poisoned. We knew who did it, but could not prove it. When we were playing baseball, football, or any sport that involved balls, if the ball went into her yard, she would dash out of her house and take-it. She had quite a collection. So, one year for Christmas, we sent her some rubber balls as a present from the neighborhood. One time when she came out, I was close enough to give her the old hip move and I knocked her down. The sheriff was there in 5 minutes. She wanted me arrested. Things only got worse from this point on. One time my brother was cutting the grass and he stopped to pick up some branches from the side of the house and an arrow hit the house just over his body. Mike was shooting his bow at my brother. Then, mysterious balls of ground beef showed up in our back yard with pieces of broken glass inserted in them. Again we could prove nothing. One day our neighbor came over and told us that our dog (buster) was dead. It looked at first that he was hit by a car, but my dad had an autopsy done and they found out that the dog was shot, right through the heart. So, a neighbor said that they saw Mike carrying a gun on the morning of the shooting. He was arrested, but after a polygraph was released. The polygraph showed he did not do it. Guess who did? You got it, prune face herself shot our dog. This is where the story gets interesting. I moved out and the house remained vacant for about 3 years, so my dad told me if I wanted I could move back in. Since i had lived in an apartment for those years , I was itching to get back to the old neighborhood. It was full of good people and I wanted my kids to grow up there also. Prune face took to my kids from the very first day. She acted as if nothing had happened in the past. She offered us vegetables from her garden and gave my son some of the balls she had taken from us when we were kids. It was as if she had forgotten everything. She liked my kids so much, she even decorated her house at halloween and asked the kids over to trick-or treat. We took no chances and threw away the candy. It's kinda funny how people change. Her son Mike, I later found out had molested my sister. He is serving a life term in prison. There is no moral to this story. I wonder where they are today, dancing with the devil maybe? Who cares. As in all my stories, these accounts are true. Please be safe until we meet again.
Chapter 5
Well, when I look back at the close
calls, I guess that I should be happy to be
alive. It starts when I was 5. My neighbor across the street had a swimming pool. I was playing
around the pool and I tried to get a float that
was just out of my reach. I lost my balance and
fell in, then sank like a rock. The next thing I
remember is coughng up water and the sounds of
sirens. The paramedics took me to the hospital
and I was checked out and released the same day.
As you can see, I survived and I did learn to swim. Vicki saved my life, and I am forever grateful. The next close call came when I was 9. My grandparents were going on
a trip to see relatives around the country. We
have relatives in Colorado, Kansas and Missouri. It was late morning and riding in a car for hours is boring, especially when all you have seen for
the last 3 hours is rows and rows of corn. I have never seen so much corn in my life. I was in the
back seat, sitting in the middle, elbows resting
on the front seat. I saw a truck going from right to left. It seemed miles away. I laid down in the back seat and in what seemed like just a few
minutes, I was slammed into the back of the front seat. We had gone under the back of a flatbed
tractor trailer. The roof of the car was peeled
back, like opening a can of sardines. My
grandmother's head struck the bottom of the truck and there was blood everywhere. All I could see
was her skull. We were trapped in the car. There
was no way out. I kicked at the doors, without
any luck. It was deathly quiet. It seemed like
hours before I heard a voice. The first car to
come along was a kleenx salesman. He crawled
under the truck, looked in and saw my grandma and rushed to his car and got a boxful of the travel
packs of kleenx. He could only put in about 2
packs at a time, so he pushed them in the car and I opened them up and applied them to her head.
They would turn red as soon as I put them on. He
kept telling me to hold them against her head,
but everytime I put on a new one, it soaked up
blood, so I kept at it until I had about 10 packs against her head. It took 3 hours to lift the
truck off of us. My grandpa was just coming to as they were lifting the back of the truck. They
rushed my grandma to the hospital, my grandpa
went in the next ambulance to show up. I was
bruised from head to toe, but otherwise ok. Did
my Guardian Angel tell me to lay down? Was it
fate? I guess I will never know, but something
made me lay down at that precise moment. If I had not, I would not be here telling the story. My
Grandparents were in the hospital for 30 days. I
stayed with a family that had a girl my age. Her
name was Robin. Her parents treated me as if they were my parents. They were so kind, they took me
to the hospital everyday to see my grandparents,
bought me ice cream, fed me, bought me clothes,
and gave me a place to sleep. Again, I am forever grateful. Now the third close call, is what I'm
still healing from after 2 years. I was on the
interstate between 2 tractor trailers ( I hate
trucks ), when the truck in front of me comes to
a stop. I stop, but the truck behind me does not, it plows into me forcing me into the truck in
front of me. When the crushing sound stops, I am
nose to back of truck. I can feel the heat of the other truck on the back of my neck. I pick up my
mobile phone and call 911. My legs are crushed,
I'm pinned in again, not able to move. When the
paramedics arrive, the first one runs up to the
car and screams,"he's alive". The jaws of life
were put into use and when they released the
pressure, I passed out. I woke up being wheeled
into surgery, the doctor telling me that they had thought they lost me. I had been declared dead
twice. They split me like a fish. The artery
going to my legs had been severed in many places, so they put in an artifical one. All my internal
organs were injured in some way. I spent 10 days
in ICU. That ICU insurance I bought paid off. I
am still healing since the accident. I have had 6 operations since then. I have 1 more to go. I
hope it's the last, but you never know. I live in alot of pain, but I try to manage without drugs
(hahaha). Well I'm still alive and I am so
grateful for my internet friends. It has opened
up a brand new world. As always my good friends:
Be Safe Until We Meet Again!!!!
Chapter 6
Maybe the Lord spared me to do some good things for other people. I have helped a few people and these are my stories. The first real drama occured when I was about 19. My first job was as a busboy. I started working at the Red Carpet Restaurant when I was 14. There was a black chef, named James, and he taught me to cook, in his spare time. I was very interested in cooking, so he took me under his wing. Well, I finally got his job, when he moved out of state. I was the chef that got to slice the meat at our buffet. On this night, this one fellow asked for the rarest roastbeef that I had. These were 25 pound roasts, so I cut it in half. Gave him a big helping of rare roastbeef. Shortly after, a waitress came running into the kitchen screaming to call an ambulance. I went out into the dining room and this same guy was on the floor, choking and turning blue. I tilted his head back and looked in his mouth and all I could see was roastbeef. I pulled at the blob of meat and when I pulled it out, it sounded like a gasp of air. He got his color back, got up, and said, thanks and continued eating. The waitress said he left a lousy tip. The second time was at my office. I worked in the front office. It opened up to the outside. The road we were on was a busy highway, so there was alot of accidents. On this day, I heard a tremendous crash, I leapt up and out the door. Right at the corner, a white mustang convertable had rear ended another car. The girl driving had cut an artery in her neck, blood was shooting out. I first removed the beer from between her legs, turned off the engine and used my shirt to put pressure on her wound. The paramedics showed up and one of them told me:" You did good, if you would have watched like everyone else, she would have died. I was covered in blood, so I went in washed up and put on clean clothes and went back to work. Never heard from her again. The next drama was at three in the morning. I get up real early to fish in tournaments, so on this morning, we were on our way to a fishing tournament. I saw a car, upside down, wheels spinning. My partner was not going to stop, I told him to stop or else. We went back and I ran over to see what I could do. This old lady was in the drivers seat. I pulled her out, carried her up to the truck and the car exploded
into flames. Her name was Thelma Watson. She was alive, but barely. The sheriff showed up and he took her straight to the hospital. He said that it would take 30 minutes for paramedics to show up and she did not have that long. We left, got to the tournament, a little late. We came in first place. The hospital was on our way home, so I convinced my partner to stop and see how she was doing. She was still unconscious. The nurse asked my name, I left it, then we drove home. About 6 years later, I recieved a letter from a lawyer in Tulsa. Thelma had died and left me 3 million dollars in her will. Her late husband was into oil wells. Her children contested the will, and I recieved nothing. Oh well, I still have the lottery. This last one occured on my way to play cards. I was driving to the Indian Reservation to play some poker. I saw a policeman fighting with a big huge guy. He was outmatched, so I turned around, just as the guy broke loose from the cop and ran across the road. I followed him with my truck and saw him run into some bushes. The cop came running around the corner and he passed right by where the guy was hiding, I yelled, "he's in the bushes". The cop draws his gun and shouts to come out. The guy fires off a round, then surrenders. As he cuffs him and starts to go back around the corner, I also turn around to see if he's ok. As I enter the parking lot, a bunch of other cops show up ( just like in the movies )
I stop to ask the cop if he is ok, and this other cop asks me, "what are you doing here, do you want to be arrested too." The cop I helped told him, that I had saved his life. That was a stretch, but I did help. I drove off in a huff, because of the attitude of the police. By the way, the guy I fished with, is no longer a friend. I could never be friends with such a cold hearted person. As always, Be Safe Until We Meet Again!!
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