August 7, 2003
A TRIP TO THE WOODSHED
Remember the sweet week I had lined up? Fantasy. Fiction. Chasing the Dragon. Try an emergency trip to Bumfuck, Indiana on 4 hours notice. Remember a certain VP who was supposed to go to Indiana while I hung around here and played minaret? Dumped the trip on me Wednesday morning at 11:38. Catch the 3:50 to Indianapolis. Because it was an ass-kicking.
Easy to get there. Fly north to Indy, rent a car, then drive south again for 3 hours. Then sit in a conference room while 10 Japanese technocrats scream "You stop production line! No TV'S! You bad!" in a mantra worthy of the Ring Cycle. All over one little service failure. I don't think I helped my cause when I suggested changing my company's motto to "Failure is not an option! It's a way of life!"
So I packed so fast I didn't even remember my camera. Hell, I didn't even remember my toothbrush. So I can't share pictures of Mellencamp country, like not one, but two! "See Rock City" barns nestled in the hillsides. I think I read there are only like 10 left. Or the homemade billboard in Paragon that read 7 Room Mansion. 4500 Square Feet. $145,000. Or the sign that read Welcome to Freedom, Indiana. Home of Babe Pierce. Tarzan.
Now, being something of an expert on Apeman thespians, that one intrigued me. Babe Pierce?? Google? Nothing. Imdb.com? Nothing. I even found Peng Fei (Adventures of Chinese Tarzan [1940]). WAIT! James Pierce. Born in Freedom, Indiana, August 8, 1900. Starred in Tarzan and the Golden Lion [1927]). Tomorrow would have been his 103rd birthday.
And today is The Bride's, and I just got home. Better run.
UPDATE: The Bride is ill, suffering from some kind of lower GI thing. Poor girl. Won't be getting any birthday loving from me tonight. Not that THAT'S such a big deal for her. Why do you think she calls me Velociman? At any rate, looks like I'm in the Bat Cave tonight, spraying Lysol into the Oreck XL filter.
...so, um, Kim, did you have a nice trip????
Posted by: Laura at August 7, 2003 11:51 PMI spent part of yesterday in Dade County, "The Lost State of Dade", which is the Georgia County bounded by Tennessee on the North, Alabama on the West, and the Lookout Mountain Ridge on the East. Cloudland Canyon is in Dade County. They weren't even an official county until the 1940's when the Governor took the train up and presented them with a flag. The guy that I went to meet runs a radio station out of a gospel music and bookstore operating in a strip mall adjacent to the Dollar Store. He used to work for Sam Phillips at his stations in Florence, Alabama and he had some good Elvis stories. He gave me a T-Shirt with the radio station logo on the front and The Ten Commandments on the back. King James version. And it's not a gospel radio station. It's a gospel county. I can't wait to wear that to the next 40 Watt Club show I go to. Drunken college kids will shrink from me. Rural America is the best. By the way, he said he wouldn't do Lovey Howell with his dog's dork, if you're still taking a poll...
Posted by: rankin rob at August 8, 2003 3:47 PMWhat makes you think I'd LET him do Lovey? That was no poll. That was an affirmation.
Posted by: Kim at August 8, 2003 6:35 PMDid you go by the Dade County Coon Club?
Posted by: Jack Straw at August 8, 2003 7:02 PMThanks, I also passed through Freedom and saw the sign for Babe Pierce and tried to find out which Tarzan. Now when you google it, your note is there.
Posted by: Tracey at April 21, 2005 10:41 AM