• Note on my windshield from my friend who wants to be my dentist

    About your mouth:
    I garnered a couple of shark’s teeth from the Ripley’s Aquarium in downtown Gatlinburg, soaked them in a jar of Crest glistening gel for a good thirty days, adding electrical pulses every 12 hours from a homemade defibrillator I made from 2 clothing irons, with the hope being that the Crest would replace the OH ion in the hydroxylaptite, thus making it a regenerative whitening tooth to be placed over your two rotting incisors.  I used a metal file to shave the points to a human-sized tooth and then swabbed the inside of your cheek in order to plant your own cells in the dentin to resemble pulp gum, thus tricking the tooth and your gum into joining each other (using the defibrillator).  I guess you have Tartuffe going on in your mouth or better yet, an online relationship.  Excuse my digression.  By the end of the operation you will have very good teeth that will hold up during any activity.  See you in a month.  Ski Gatlinburg.

  • The Blank Mural on Paducah’s Flood Wall

    One time, the Kentucky government decided to encourage its cities to give lumps of coal, gift-wrapped in tobacco leaves, to designated sister cities of other countries. Sister cities were a big thing in the past. For example, Paducah sistered with a German town, Niederdorfelden, and would trade recipes, local art, and calligraphed goodwill documents, and the like.
    The tobacco-wrapped coal program lasted for 2 years: 1902-1904. The abrupt ending of the “new tradition” was due to the fact that the people of Niederdorfelden took great offense at the coal.  The previous year, St. Nik had given coal to the bad children at Christmas time. In fact, a sizable lot of children had received coal. Subsequently, Paducah received a bag of manure encased in a giant orange made of marzipan.
    The confusion led to anger, guilt, anger again and then laughter. “No Hard Feelings” became the motto of the kinship and they stayed true to each other’s goodwill until about 1917.

  • A Cradle Kid

    Sonny has two things going for him. The first is his brilliant way of knowing what kind of dinner to order. Mine is always bad. And I sometimes order from the same places he does. He just seems to know which place is going to be good on the right day. Once, I got mashed potatoes from this place that Sonny always orders from and they were runny and box-tasting and had begun to swiss cheese on the sides. He got General Tso’s chicken from a place that usually gives me a headache. I swear they use MSG. But he said it was the best he’d had in a long time and I believed him. The other thing he has going for him is a cradle big enough to fit him and a lady.