I love backpacking.  If I could, I would embrace backpacking and give it a giant hickey.

There is something about the freedom of the wooded trail that beckons me.  It could be the total lack of office cubicles.

However, I am not exactly your normal backpacker.  I tend to bring things with me that normal backpackers do not.

For example:

A normal trail scout will scour outdoor outfitters like a hungry dieter searches for an M and M under the couch cushion, for just the right light-weight ready to eat meal packet.

Me?  I trek in a generator and small food-filled refrigerator that are securely attached to my wife’s back.

A real trailblazer will have on his or her person a small titanium alloy gizmo that will, when used by a professional, chop down a fir tree and construct a temporary log cabin.

Me?  I pack in a contractor.

Actual experienced backpackers are much like ninjas.  Every molecule they pack into the woods, they are honor-bound to pack out.  Like Rain man, they will count sub atomic particles in their quest for leaving a pristine campsite.  (“Cookie crumbs…yeah. one million four hundred thousand and forty-two … one million four hundred thousand forty-three…twelve minutes to Wapner.”)

I hate to admit it here, in front of my backpacking friends, but I have actually left a Snickers wrapper by a quiet brook in North Carolina.  Please do not shun me.  I pay penance by devouring any Snickers bars that cross my path.

But like my native state’s frontier hero, Daniel Boone, I have trail savvy when it comes to critters one may meet along the trail.

Simply by examining animal scat and paw prints with my experienced naked eye, I can determine the precise time and direction to run screaming out of the forest like a little girl on Halloween.

Not that I am a coward when it comes to facing down a black bear but I can verify that members of the poultry family CAN fly into trees when chased.

As for snakes, I know there are good snakes and bad snakes.  I am not one to make snap judgments about them based solely on stereotypical pre-conceptions and anecdotal evidence. I actually attempt to determine the genus and phylum of any snake I encounter as I scamper at maximum warp from the immediate area of the snake without asking for its proper I. D.

But, I love the trail life.  The camaraderie of fellow explorers and lovers of nature as we sit around a camp fire and attempt to sing songs to which we have forgotten the words is something I would never feel in a conference room full of fellow co-workers who are out to attach your skin to their respective cubicle walls as a trophy to their upward mobility.

No. I ask you. How can one have the shared experience of singing out in public, in front of God, nature and fellow travelers who have had twelve too many beers, “Hang down your head Tom Dooley…Hang down your head an’ cry…Hang down your head Tom Dooley…something, something, something, something, something?”

See you on the trail.

It had been a long hot day fixing carwashes.  The first one had been a greasy mess.  When I came into the shop after the repair, the dispatcher called me a “greaser”.

The last one was an electrical problem.  It was one you pull your hair out about and here lately, I don’t have as much of that to lose.  But finally, it was fixed.

I got into my van and began to pull out of the lot.  That is when I noticed an old pick-up truck and a raggedy trailer.  The hood was up and there was (I swear I am not making this up) an ICEBAG on the motor!

The sight made me stop.  The man was long-haired and goateed.  His New York license plates told me he was a Yankee.  He had some kind of Jewish necklace and the prettiest set of ear rings I’d seen on a boy.

I say all this to let you see that normally, being tired, Southern, still fighting the Civil War and vehemently ear ring proof, I would not have stopped to help.

But I just hate it when that little voice inside says, “Do unto others, son…and he is definitely an other.

So, I stopped and pointed to the ice bag and said, “Your truck got a headache?”

“No.  I’m trying to cool it off.”  He replied.  If this Yankee had known of Bill Engvall, he’d have had the sense to say “Here’s your sign.”

“A margarita might work.”

He looked at me funny.  “Anything I can do?”

“Well, I’m on my way to Florida but my truck gets hot and starts sputtering and then quits.  It has a radiator leak and I keep stopping ever few truck stops and put water in it.  A mechanic down the road said it might be the converter clogged up.”

“I’ve got a drill and we can poke a hole in the exhaust pipe just before the converter.  If it is that, it will relieve the pressure.”

As we worked on his truck, he proceeded to tell me how if this was the Bible belt, where were all the Christians?  Nobody would help him.  He said it was because he was Jewish.

“I said,” You don’t look Jewish.”  I was kidding.

“I am.  I study paleo-Hebrew.”

So, you study old Jews?”  I quipped.  “By the way, the folks whose water you are using here at the convenience store are Hindu.  I am a Christian and I am helping you.”

We seem to be getting along ok.”

“So, maybe you can tell me why Christians hate Jews.  I don’t like Christians.”  He said disgustedly.

I replied, “I don’t care much for them either.”

“But… but… but… YOU ARE one.”

“Yes, but I don’t like myself sometimes.  And about that thing about Christians hating Jews, it may be true.  After all, you killed our God, when we left yours alone.  Some of us haven’t learned that we are supposed to forgive y’all for that.”

His jaw dropped like a tank out the back of a C-130.

I could see by the look on his face as we drilled the pipe on the truck that he was wondering what planet upon which I was born.

He obviously had never heard of Planet Dixie.

When his truck fired up and purred like a cat with a live mouse just after feline recess, I shook his hand and wished him well.

“Why did you help me?”  He asked.

“It is the Christian and Jewish and Hindu thing to do and I ALWAYS help Yankees when they are heading in any direction that takes them away from North Carolina.”  I smiled and said, “Shalom y’all!”

My friend David Meyers has gotten me interested in new fangled golf technology.  He is a purveyor of things unique for the golfer who is in maniacal search of a golf score that is made up of negative numbers.

In my never-ending quest for golfing nirvana, I have tried many different golf-training aids.  With the use of a scientific calculator with full graphing functions, I calculated the number of shots each product claimed it would remove from my game.  I currently should be shooting a negative 22. 

I guess I should just start on the second tee instead of the first to even it up with my competitors.

My first device was a Medicus swing trainer.  It is a driver with an articulated shaft.  The object of the Medicus is to make your swing smooth.  You do this by swinging it in such a manner that the joint does not break during the full movement of the swing.

When I used the Medicus, I conked myself repeatedly in the head with it. After the first three conks, the amnesia takes over and you forget that you've conked yourself between conks. This definitely lowers your score because you also forget how many strokes you made during the round.

I tried a high tech swing trainer the other day. It was one of those trainers that looked like a giant double hula-hoop.  The hoops are oriented vertically at the precise angle so as to allow one’s club to wrap around one’s neck in a handy double square knot.  When the rescue squad got me out of it with the jaws-of -life, the management of the course banned me from ever using it on the property again.

There was the one that uses a Bungee cord type contraption to force one’s stroke into the perfect arc used to make a hangman’s noose out of the bungee cords.

I feel a bit safer with the putting trainers.  One of them has a laser sight that is used to line up the ball to the hole.  It also has a laser level to maintain the perfect height of the putter in relation to the eyeballs of the other golfers on the green.  I have found this a useful device that helps me win matches by removing the ability to see, determine color and depth perception of any competitors foolish enough to get within the range of my lasers.

Yes! Technology is indeed a wonderful thing!

I have tried a hip pivot trainer that looks like a set of boat bumpers.  You know, boat bumpers are those big plastic foam contraptions that look like giant cold capsules.  They are used to keep fancy boats from hitting the dock.

These bumpers were devised, by some famous doctors, to bounce your hips at the precise moment in the swing so that the course orthopedic surgeon can pay for his new condominium with your hip replacement surgery.

I am personally looking for new investor type loons… I mean persons… to become silent partners in my latest golf trainer invention:

The TEE Ball TEE PRO!

It works on much the same principle as the baseball tees used by little leaguers all over the world.  The little ballplayer places the baseball on the tee, which stands at about eyeball level.  He steps up and swings with all his might… eyes closed… teeth gritted in a grimace that reminds you of the grim reaper.  He smacks the ball four feet short of the pitcher’s mound.  For many of us, this would be a significant improvement on our distance.

I envision the same kind of trainer but with golf balls and drivers.

I think it will catch on because:

1. You won’t have to bend over to tee up.  This is a big marketing plus because that is golf’s most embarrassing moment.  Buy one of these babies and those nerve -cracking” moments are history.

2. A trained professional ergonomically designs the TEE Ball TEE PRO, so that one can hit the golf ball like a baseball.  This is good because most of us duffers hit like that anyway.  It is more natural and is the way God intended for us to swing…and finally:

3. When the rescue squad comes to use the Jaws of Life to remove you from its clutches, they will find that it is made of soft and pliable rubber that can be untied rather that cut away from one’s jugular.

The recent success of Space ship one, the first privately funded space mission, has me pondering new vistas of entrepreneurship.

I mean, I do not want to get into space just to sit at a corner of an asteroid and sell pencils.

No, I have studied the demographics and business models.  I have shifted my paradigms and focused on my mission statements.  I have gone where no buzz-word has gone before!

I want the McDonald’s franchise for space!

I figure that now is the time…the iron is hot…a bird in the hand is worth all the clichés I can dream up.

The price should be right because NO ONE has thought of it.

See?  I’d be RICH…RICH, I tell you! 

The sky is the limit.  Opportunity is knocking on the space lock. 

Soon, I’d have locations all over the solar system, the galaxy and beyond!

If I could get the franchise rights to space, imagine the potential burger sales.

Hungry astronauts would park in orbit beside my empty booster fuel tank with the nifty yellow arches.  They would radio into the clown’s nose then space suited teenaged mutant space cadets would prepare my food with the care of an orangutan caring for a spent banana peel.

Zitron of Nerd:  Would you like to galacta-size that?  It’s only 5 space credits more.

Astronaut:  Yeah, and lemmee have a squeeze bottle chocolate shake and an Otis Spacelmeyer’s cookie.

Zitron:  You can get a number 7 gazillion happy meal for just a Buck Rogers more.

Astronaut:  Nope. Gotta make a re-entry in an hour and my stomach couldn’t handle the extra special offer gummy creatures from the movie Galacticon Wars XXXVI, The escape of the Jedi from the Home.

Good Evening ladies and gentlemen.  My name is Freemont Slimslinger and I am your host of tonight’s drawing for PowerPOTUS.

Get your Power POTUS tickets ready and in a few short minutes, we will know who will be President of the United States for the next four years.

While you are getting those tickets out, let us review the history and the rules.

Who could believe that a Korean Immigrant and naturalized citizen named Namkcoc Nosrac would come up with a plan that caused a new revolution in the Election process in the world’s biggest superpower democracy?  However, that is just what he did five years ago.  His keen insight into the wants and desires of the nation caused tremendous changes for the good of America, when he thought, “Hell! We could pick a President out of thin air and get a better one than what we’ve been offered!”  The National referendum that followed his appearance on The David Letterman Show confirmed that was EXACTLY what EVERYONE was thinking.

Every one of us owes a debt of gratitude to his patriotic genius.

What he did was this:

Instead of the usual two party system with occasion forays into three parties, he developed the most fair and practical system yet known to Man. POWERPOTUS is a lottery based in principle on the rules of the old POWER BALL lotteries.  Citizens who are eligible to vote and who register may purchase tickets for the PowerPOTUS drawing held every four years.  These tickets cost you two dollars. You are purchasing a chance to become the leader of the free world.  What a bargain!  You may add a chance for the Vice-Presidency for an extra dollar!  If you wish to be a senator or a congressman or governor, you may wish to participate in our other PICK THREE and PICK FOUR lotteries.

All monies collected in the POWERPOTUS lottery will be used to fund the salary and protection provided for the President to be.  Any funds left over will be used to pay off the National Debt.  Of course, the President-elect will be provided the usual $400,000 US dollars for life and the protection of the secret service.  He will also not have to pay taxes and have the same social security and Medicare as senators and congressmen do.

Namkoc’s process provides true democracy by giving fair odds to ordinary citizens.  No more back room deals to special interest lobbyists. This is true government of the people, by the people and for the people.  A president may still be impeached for having sex in the oval office, if congress can define the word.  The same checks and balances of the Judiciary and Legislative branches still are in place.  However, every position in the government is filled by lottery.  A winner may only serve one term, so term limits keep the damage any one person can do to a minimum.  If a crooked person wins the lottery, at least he was elected honestly.  It beats the lies and promises of the old system and does not insult our intelligence.  We might just get a real grassroots kind of good leader.  The odds favor those who purchase tickets, so folks can purchase up to 100 tickets, but no more.

No more standing in line at the polls in the rain.  No more irritating poll workers stuffing  fists with vote for (fill in the blank) printed on them.

Look at the success of the new system.  True!  There were many skeptics when the first PowerPOTUS winner was announced.  Fred Fleemster of Puscatooka, Alabama won first place and Sylvester “Sly” Frazier won the Vice-president position.  Moreover, four years later, the War on terrorism is over, employment is at an all-time high and the Carolina Panthers have won five consecutive Super Bowls.  What are the odds of THAT?

The Cable TV and broadcast owners have lost the fourth estate powers that the people did not really want them to have.  No more Gallup polls telling you who is ahead so that you can vote for whomever they want to win.  No more inane predictions.  No more silly nominations at conventions.  No more platforms that leave out the little guy or gal!

You could be the next President of the United States!

Here we go!  Tonight’s’ first number is …

(thwock)  Three!

The second number is …

(thwock)  Seven!

The third number is …

(thwock) Twenty-two!

The next number is…

(thwock) five

And tonight’s’ last POWERPOTUS winning number is…

(thwock) two!

The next President of the United States will have the winning numbers:

Three!  Seven!  Twenty-two!  Five!  And Two!

Join us Saturday night when the Senators from South Carolina and New York will be chosen.  Good Evening and thank you for playing PowerPOTUS!

Memorial Day (USA) 2007

I am tired of hearing people say they support the troops but then say we should run from conflicts.

Just because you profess that we should not be involved, doesn't not mean you have the right to profess treason.

Just because YOU are cowards, does not mean you should project your own gutlessness upon men and women who have decided otherwise.

Our troops deserve a united country, when they go into battle to defend us.  They go to defend every one of us, even the cowards.

It is THEY who deserve the patriotism.  It is THEY who deserve all our efforts to fund them.  It is THEY who deserve to have a little backbone in the citizenry for which they fight.

Some of you feel that because you believe Bush lied, we are all terrorists for invading Iraq and we are just big bullies on the world stage that you have the right to undermine our leaders.  You are not supporting anyone or anything except your own selfish ends.

Your means will never justify those ends.

Whether you agree with the premise that there is great and gathering evil in this world that will require all of us great sacrifices in the very near future or not, THESE soldiers are heroically doing what their predecessors have done in ages past.

They are defending what is our way of life.  I suggest that if you do not wish our way of life to continue, you should move.

I suggest to Iran. 

See how long you last there, buckos.

I am tired of the whining in the name of freedom of speech.  I am tired of the cowardice in the name of peace.

Whining never secured free speech and cowardice never held an inch of ground in the establishment of peace.

The heroic blood of our troops and the COURAGE and DETERMINATION of our population has.

Get your hands off the video games and face reality.

Stop taking the little happy pills the "doctor" gives you and face the future of this country and the world like the brave generation of our history.

Find the intestinal fortitude, perseverance and will to sacrifice that our fathers and grandfathers had.  It is still there.  It is genetic.

Stop acting like YOU are the only one who knows the answer and that that answer involves cutting and running.

Some of us...A lot of us want us to survive.  That CAN'T happen in a United Arab Republic of America.

If the media lies to you, for God's sake and your own, quit listening to them.  They obviously have an agenda.  It is not for you.  It is against you.

If one political party or both do not represent your will, vote for someone else.

If your will involves leaving this difficult war and our troops out there hanging in the wind.  I suggest you leave this country.  You are not really an American.  That's right.  You are not.

You stopped saying the pledge of allegiance a long time ago.

If you do say it; you don't mean it.

Some of us are tired enough of your actions to tell you.

Quit being a coward!

Our troops deserve better.

Veterans Day 2006

By Carson Cockman

I usually take this day to thank all you military-type folks who serve the people of this country by fighting evil and defending those who would be or remain free.

I normally say things like, "You are all Super-heroes," and sappy emotional stuff like that.

In the past, I have been like that...patriotic and stuff.

My eyes tear up and my heart gets stuck in my throat when I remember fallen heroes and see the stars and stripes go by.

I get all emotional and pledge my undying support.  After all, it is the "least" I can do, since you serve by enduring boredom away from home and family, lose limbs, watch your buddies buy the farm or even make the ultimate sacrifice.

But this year, I won't do that.  I have seen the light.  This year, the people have spoken and I have heard their words.

No, the "least" we all did this November is to vote in people that want to make a mockery of your patriotism.

We voted in people who want to make the lives lost in a tough job, vain losses.

In the name of re-deployment, they will get you home at any cost.

Even though, we knew that it would take courage and long-suffering intestinal fortitude to bring some stability to those far-flung parts of the world where you can be free only at the edge of a sword, we did it.

I say we, but apparently it is only YOU who are doing it.

WE became cowards.

So, this year, I say, "WE don't deserve you."

Go ahead.  When they try to send you home, even though the job is not done, don't re-enlist.  Come on home.

Though your honor is being tainted by the votes of people who don't even have the guts to put a mark on a piece of paper, in support of you, come on home.

Though WE have lived in PEACE here because you fight an enemy that will surely be emboldened to take the fight to our own streets now, come on home.

Come on home and when those fanatic terrorists execute their plans to kill us in our own streets by executing those self-same voters who brought you home, do not pick up your weapons.

Why defend the traitors who let you down?

Why not let our country become a beacon to Islam or Communism or the Despotism d'jour, instead of Freedom?

Just because it will be your family that has to reject what they believe in or face beheading; just because the nation's heartland will be ripped out weakened but still beating by Jihadists who have claimed they will fertilize our waves of grain with our own blood; that is no reason to fling yourselves headlong into battle with the reckless abandon of American Patriots as so many of you have done in the past.

Do not defend our purple mountain majesties.

No!

The People have spoken.

The cowards have had their day.

Is that Freedom I hear ringing...

Or emptiness?

God Bless America!  God bless our troops!