Mom’s

I was on another unknown road I took on my personal odyssey in the seventies. We were up in the beautiful Wasatch mountains of Utah. A beer in one hand, a doobie in the other, and my German Shorthaired Pointer Chopper with his head out the passenger window, pink tongue flapping in the wind.

I was the ultimate symbol of freedom and little did I know that a Mexican caught with alcohol and drugs in this state would not be held in too high a regard, to say the least.

I pulled into the only place that served food in this whole stretch of God’s Country.

Magnificent.

Mom’s was just how it sounds: Like you woke up, stretched, washed your face, and headed down the stairs to the kitchen for breakfast.

The smells.

Bacon frying, hash browns crisping, eggs fluffing (yes, when I’m stoned, I can hear eggs fluff), the toaster ejecting, the coffee caress.

Mom’s.

I had all of the above including orange juice which I saw her helper squeeze right before my eyes. I told her to cook four pork chops that I was going to take to my best buddy.

Mom (I honestly don’t remember her real name, but Mom is so perfect, no?) insisted I bring Chopper to the porch she had on the side of her little eatery. He ate the well-done sizable chops and off we went. Chopper with his bones and I had a little white bagful of apple fritters.

It was people like this lady that I had the privilege of meeting on my Journey that I am very thankful for.

So much color to my life.

Continuing with my book excerpts, tonight’s post contains the preface for the letter “J.”

J

          .positionJuxta I just invented this. I don’t know why it is funny; I just know it is.

          Jaded is a term I first remember being used as a descriptor for the world’s greatest rock-n-roll band, The Rolling Stones led by the ultimate Jaders—who also happen to be two of the greatest songwriters in music history—Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. 

          A little confused about this one, though. While I think it is cool to try just about everything there is to experience, I still think that there are some things that are better imagined than experienced. I still enjoy getting high, but if someone told me that I could get really high if I set off a firecracker in my butt while I took a hit, well, not even I will fall for that one again.

          I include two stories under this emotion, one story set in Sin City, and the other on a sunny Sunday morning in Greece.

          Jaded covers a lot of territory. Where on the sick continuum does jaded lie? Is it closer to deviant or maybe a little more akin to twisted? I like to think that all of my rock star heroes are jaded. Ditto that for actors and actresses, singers and songwriters. You can even extend that to painters and artists. What they do is every bit as unfathomable to me as Houdini or David Copperfield. I don’t know how many canvasses I tried painting along with Bob Ross only to discover that as a painter, I’m an OK writer. Now my athlete-heroes are another story.

          Given that the average NFL career for an elite athlete is just over three years, all I ask is that the starting running back on my favorite team can just wait to finish their playing career and then enjoy everything this planet has to offer. Seems reasonable enough. One thing that makes me wonder is that this all-too-brief career longevity is today, with all the technology and protections in place for players.

          Rules are slowly catching up and I am sure the entire NFL will breathe a little easier when the last of the bashed-in-brain-boys of the league die off, reducing the potential amount of their long-overdue awards.

          Man, it doesn’t take much to get me started, does it?

Stay well.