When the umpteenth variation of “Dead of the Living Night” comes on television, it’s tempting to deride the caliber of entertainment available today. And I do, but as human beings we’ve always had something of a spotty track record when it comes to spectacle. Imagine a huge tent filled with people waiting for somebody to be shot out of a cannon. Not long ago, that was entertainment. Before that, it was bear-baiting and feeding people to wild animals. Maybe we’ve come further than we think.
Big Shot
By Jimmy Johnson
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402 responses to “Big Shot”
Ghost, I hope all goes well with your mom. I suspect she is about my age which is 70. If the mass is not growing, that is good news but I know I have had to learn an awful lot about lungs awfully fast.
You are a sweet and good son and I hope your mama appreciates you.
Love, Jackie
Yep, Jackie, that’s an excellent description of a good place to get ribs and such. Some of the best ribs I ever had were at the original Leatha’s BBQ Inn, just west of Columbia Mississippi, headed toward Foxworth. Not only did it not have a sign, it was located in an old house at the end of an unmarked dirt road beside the Pearl River. Fortunately for me, “Yeah, Leatha’s” was the answer to my question to a local, “Is there a good place around here for lunch?” And that the answer came with directions.
There’s just something about sitting on a screened-in back porch shaded by big oaks; sipping honest-to-goodness Southern sweet iced tea; and watching the sun-lit Pearl drift by though a light haze of sweet, fragrant hickory wood smoke while waiting for your order.
We are road warriors who have spent a lot of windshield time. In normal times I can find great places in almost any little town. I was in Mississippi off the Trace somewhere driving my mama and cousin Eula to Nashville. Eula wanted to go to Opryland, mama just wanted to go for a ride. We didn’t see Opryland, mama had me drive around the freeways in Nashville and said we’d seen it all!
Anyway, I found a fantastic downtown eatery in some little town, no sign, nothing. Eula could not figure out how I knew? I told her I counted Lincoln towncars, Mercury Gran Marquis’ and police cars with a point system and looked for people going in somewhere. It usually wasn’t prayer meeting!
Love, Jackie
Jackie and Ghost, try this blog site: http://marieletseat.com/
Ghost, my prayers are with both you and your mom. I’m glad they kept her overnight after she developed the pneumothorax. Get a good night’s sleep and things will be better in the morning.
Jackie, is this what you had in mind for a bbq place?
http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/archibalds-bar-b-que-northport#xwO3N2pkv7kzrUct7szjrw
Absolutely, Mark! Notice my rating system in the parking lot with the Lincoln towncars and similar parked out in the dirt lot! I knew that was Alabama when I saw the Northport! It meets every criteria for me.
Some of the best barbeque I have ever eaten, especially ribs, has been in Alabama.
A couple years ago I borrowed a professional competition smoker from my cousin who borrowed it from the guy he gave all their oilfield welding business to. It cost $10,000 and was over 12 feet long and came welded to it’s own deluxe trailer. It had all the bells and whistles and then some.
Pulled that thing with my pickup from Louisiana to Oklahoma being chased down on every back road I was on. If I stopped to get a Coke or bathroom, someone pulled in alongside and asked permission to get on trailer and look. “Where did I cook? What competition was I going to?”
Some just pulled alongside and yelled at me on the road through the windows. Interesting trip both directions.
Love, Jackie
I’m afraid I’d have a call for a minor point deduction, due to the facts that both the door and window at Archibald BBQ seem to fit their frames, the Formica on the visible portion of the bar appears to have no visible chips, and at least two of the bar stools match each other. And of course, there’s the matter of the professionally painted sign.
G’night all. Have one for me, Lily. If I did, I probably won’t make it up in time tomorrow morning.
Jackie,
Best ribs I ever had were at Bob’s Barbeque in Ada, OK. Ate there with my dad and older sister back around 1982. At that time, they just kept bringing pork ribs as long as you were eating. I ate mine dry, with just the rub and any sauce applied during cooking. As I recall, there was a pretty good sized pile of bones in front of me… probably the equivalent of at least four full racks of spareribs. I was, at the time, a bottom-less 18-year-old young man. I was playing football and basketball, so calories weren’t an issue.
Agreed, the sign bothered me too but the dirt and smoke on the chimney seemed to make up for any degree of cleanliness.
We used to eat a lot at an unmarked steak house outside College Station, TX where the entire building leaned and there were cracks around bottom of walls wide enough for a possum to get thru, forget the rats. You could see dirt thru the floor cracks too.
Steaks hung over sides of plates and the full chicken fried came on two plates. One time there were over a dozen agricultural meat inspectors at next table to us.
Oldest daughter was in hotel/restaurant school at time and a cleanliness freak. We said no one was to mention said place to her or she’d turn them in. Mike said it would do no good, the health inspectors probably ate there too!
Love, Jackie
Good night, all. YOu can have my share of the nasty BBQ. I am drunk agin, as usual 😛
Lily, as one who has had pancreatitis for a LONG. long time, along with three bouts with hepatitis, please keep your blood tested for liver damage. I know you may not care now but some day you might. I suspect there are indeed those who love you and care about you and I know I probably sound like your mom nagging you.
Does the drinking help you sleep at night? Keep the monsters at bay?
Sometimes I just turn the lights on, it banishes them, as does daylight. I know you scoff at zombies but night terrors are like zombies and were wolfs and the living dead, they can’t live in the light of day.
Love, Jackie
Good morning Villagers…..
Do not, I repeat, do not read the third comment on the Dark Side, what a moron.
GR 😉 Read up on the pneumothorax….I pray you’re able to take your Mother home this morning.
I’m still battling this pleurisy, I’m going to call my doctor this morning. It’s getting somewhat better, if she’ can’t get me in, she’ll phone in a ‘script for what they call a Zpak. I get it at least twice a year, and working in a hen house does not help.
Lilly, Jackie is offering some very good advice. I had Hep C. Cured, but I still watch my liver enzymes. And I do like my beer, but moderation in all areas. 61 years old next Saturday, and I would like to stay around for a little longer.
and it’s PAYDAY 🙂
=^..^=
Notice the details in this pic….and I do believe if one zeroes in on the teacher, there may be a little cleavage there…..GR 🙂
https://i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/8279899648/h9BB05765/
Not nagging, just a personal observation. During the latter stages of the hellish 8 months my sister was dying, I began having two or three doubles at night before bedtime. (For the bartenderery-imparied, that is six to nine ounces of, in my case, bourbon.) That was the only time in my life I ever used alcohol because I was sad. I stopped doing so when I realized that sad plus numb does not equal happy. And that numb does not actually solve anything.
Thanks for the “cat photo”, Debbe. That teacher is kind of cute. I wonder if she offers night classes? 😉
She actually looks a lot like one of my “fellow” managers. The one I like to dance with. Can you guess why?
Mike and I used to have a hairdresser who looked like that sorta.
He said she always tickled his ears when she cut his hair. I never noticed that on mine?
Now he goes to my “evil twin” who is also called Jackie. She drives the rest of us crazy, so I switched to her old partner/owned the salon after she moved AGAIN. So, why would he subject himself to that voluntarily?
He has not grown any hair much yet, so I doubt he’ll be needing a hairdresser anytime soon.
He says the exercise personal trainers are older than me!
Love, Jackie
Going out and cleaning weeds from more flower pots before it heats up today. Gardening helper got sugar snap and oriental peas and about eight kinds of pole beans planted on two beds worth of trellis yesterday. Put inoculate and presprouted the seed, dug them trenches and used organic and peat down in trench to keep them cooler. I forgot to tell her to water them after planting!
Last night I got beet seed and beta vulgaris chard seeds presoaked.Today I have to teach her how to sift wood ashes to add to rows to get potassium for the beets.
A neighbor/friend brought me a bushel of tomatoes from her garden, so I need to go buy some quart jars to can them. That is far easier than searching for where husband threw my old ones, if he packed them?
Boy, does Jimmy have my number! The arc on gardening is me all over except husband is out of picture this year for any help.
Love, Jackie
Good morning, Villagers. Jackie, my liver functions were fine last November. Yeah, liquor keeps the monsters away. Turning on the lights just makes me feel stupid and alone. I used to go get into the bed of The Boss Of My Life, but that just made me feel like a kid, though a secure kid. I would instead go downstairs and slug a mouthful of vodka and go back to sleep. That worked great, and was fun, anyway. Haven’t had to do that for a month or so, now. Anyway, I am as usual bright and merry this morning. We have a light office today, and may get to go home early!
It would be nice if it was payday, but that’s not for another week.
Around here we have a really god BBQ place called Smokin’ Gold. It’s in a renovated gas station, and the back is lined with Big Green Egg smokers. The pulled pork is great, but what surprised me was how good the brisket is. My usual opinion is that barbeque is pig, and sometimes chicken, but never beef. Now I will eat brisket from Smokin’ Gold, and is it ever good!
The best place, though, is in Athens, home of the University of Georgia Dawgs. Woof Woof. (And no, I’m not an alumna. My family are Georgia Tech grads.) The Butt Hut is one of those falling down places with formica tables and rolls of paper towels on every table. Not only is the pulled pork to die for, but their mac-and-cheese and fried okra are great, too. And the sweet tea is just like my grandmother made, so I would go there just for that!
At least Arlo and Janis have a garden and are getting some tomatoes. This year between back surgery and knee issues I never got my gardens planted, and boy do I miss them! I’m already making plans for next year.
Debbe, seems that the comment you mentioned got flagged and removed. shucks. I was looking forward to seeing what kind of stupidity was out there this morning.
Ghost, 🙂
Lily, I get insomnia sometimes and the monsters won’t leave. I get up and go in office and read or write. Sometimes that works enough I can go back to sleep but I don’t have a real job anymore like you do to have to perform.
Everyone, don’t laugh but I talk to mine. Tell them to leave, go away, I don’t have time for them. Sometimes they go, sometimes they stay, sometimes I turn the lights on to banish them. Or worse yet, I leave the room to them.
The night terrors have definitely diminished and don’t hit often like they did. There is thought that some of the accounts in the Bible are just such visitors. Since I have sleep disorders it can be part of that but also post traumatic stress disorder like Lily and I probably both have.
Alcohol as a long range numbing agent is addictive and takes more and more to work I suspect. Allergy medicine like Benadryl works pretty well, believe it or not, and I have to take it anyway.
This is not medical advice, just personal observation as Ghost says. I already couldn’t drink by the time I might have needed to!
Love you, Lily,
Jackie Monies
Trapper Jean, we lost spring garden to with cancer, so I am going for a fall garden. I told helper this morning, it is hell to have to hire someone to do your hobby for you. I am trying to teach her some more about gardening I guess.
Today she is out planting my spring potatoes that are still valiantly trying to make plants in their sacks. I ordered them in September, they shipped while we were in throes of cancer, I stuck boxes in office, sunroom and potting shed. They are still alive!
I have her out with my soil sifter straining the trash out of the wood ashes to add to soil for the root crops for potassium.
We’re adding beets, turnips, kohlrabi, carrots, radishes, swiss chard, spinach on either side of potatoes in rows.
Love, Jackie
But anyway…Yay, Lily! Yay, Jackie!
I’m proud of both of you ladies, and I’d certainly be the last one to tell anyone how they should live their life.
Jean dear, it was pretty stupid, alright. (Debbe madest me look.) Only two words, one obscene and the other a racial slur. Someone commented that the same person had posted the same thing on another comic’s comment section. It may be all over gocomics.com.
Ghost, something got moderated there, so I didn’t see it, I guess. The rest were more or less predictable comments about the dumb “Fertility Ritual.” Note to Janis, my garden does fine and I don’t need any stupid rituals. Except when it rains in the summer months, I do go out and dance in it. 😀
Jackie, I don’t talk to mine, they are too scary. I’d rather drown them in vodka. I hate Benadryl as a anxietolytic cause it makes me logy the next day, which is a sure tipoff to my friends and co-workers that I had a bad night. I’d rather take a slug of vodka and use Listerine the next morning. As mentioned, I stopped being afraid of death a long time ago. Anybody who has prayed for it like I did doesn’t, I suspect.
Love you too, Jackie