Whats left on my Bucket list
1) write my name in the moondust
2) wrestle a Panda
3) shout "its only a musical!" at a crowd watching a building burn.
4) hire a mime troupe to cater a party
5) go to Africa for one of those 'canned' hunts. My choice of species? Gorilla Poacher.
6) finally meeting my Nigerian Princess!
7) to win, one time, one lousy time, at Poker.
8) pick the next Google/Amazon/Facebook
9) be introduced as Greg Cobb, the poet
10) hear the coroner say "this one's still alive!"

My very earliest memory is of climbing up on a chair that was sitting next to an ironing board in our apartment in Falls Church, Virginia. The iron itself, all mirror-pretty and shiny, was sitting up on its side like a begging dog. Naturally, I reached out to rub the smooth surface, and cried when my fingers got burned. Mom rushed over and, seeing what had happened, immediately found the butter dish, cut off a pat, and rubbed it on my sore fingers. "This will take the pain away and make it all better", she said soothingly. Well, no, it didn't, on either count, and I hated the greasy feel on top of the pain.

Lessons learned-   

1) Keep the chairs away from the ironing board
2) Moms lie

I was playing in the sandbox with a friend, and for some reason we were naked. Dad got out the Brownie Hawkeye camera, and took a shot of us standing in the sandbox looking at the camera and smiling, our boyhoods proudly waving in the breeze. Naturally, every chance they got, the folks would pull that photo out and embarass me in front of guests.

Lessons learned-   

1) Parents are cruel
2) Nowadays, that photo would get Dad jail-time
3) Sand will find its way into everything, everywhere

We were living in Oklahoma City while my Dad attended classes at the FAA Training Center. I was 5. One Saturday morning, I was watching cartoons with a friend while Dad and my friend's father got ready to go fishing. They were readying the tackle box on a table next to the TV, and on the screen was a cartoon bird pulling a reluctant cartoon worm out of a hole in a cartoon tree. Seeing what I was watching, and conveniently having a plastic worm in his hand, Dad hid the worm in his fist, and reached over to the TV screen. He then pretended to pull the worm out of the TV screen and held it up, shaking his hand to make the lure appear alive. "How did you do that, Dad?", I asked. "Magic, son", and he and his friend laughed.  Though I was suspicious about the laughter, I believed Dad had pulled that worm out of the cartoon for the rest of that summer, and remember trying at least once  to repeat the act and slapping the screen in frustration.

Lessons learned -   

1) Dads know magic and
2) they will take advantage of a son's trust for their own amusement
3) You can't de-rail a train by putting a cardboard box on the track, But that is a different Oklahoma City Story

After six months in temporary housing, we got permanent housing in Oceanview, an FAA enclave on the northwest coast of Guam, where we lived for two years in the early sixties. Shortly after the move, we got a dog, whom I named Patty. Patty was splotched brown and white, and very much a mutt. Our last dog had been part Collie, like Lassie, and I wanted Patty's heritage to be at least as well-defined. To assuage my curiousity, Dad told me that Patty was part Marianas Beagle(Guam is the largest of the Marianas Islands), and part Guamanian Hound. Dads are so smart, I thought, and I was glad that Patty was not just a mongrel. She had two breeds in her. I told kids at school what dad had told me, I wrote about it in class, I shared the knowledge with Lonnie, my best friend.

An indeterminate number of months later, we had company for dinner. Some woman, the wife of a co-worker of dad's, complimented me on my pretty dog. "She's part Marianas Beagle, and part Guamaniam Hound", I declared proudly. The woman's puzzled glance at my father, and his shrug of the shoulders in return, made me realize I had been conned. I never listened uncritically to anything Dad said after that.

Lesson learned -   

1) Parents will say anything to get a kid to stop asking questions
2) Mixed-breeds are the best dogs ever

Still on Guam, one evening we were watching TV in the living room. I was on the floor, my attention divided between Hennesey and a catalog of novelty toys. One item, a box of magnets caught my eye. One hundred  1/4" X 1/4" square magnets. The picture showed a delighted kid stacking them up, but the perspective was skewed, making the stack look almost as tall as the boy himself. "Wow, Mom!" These magnets would be neat to have. Can I get them for my birthday?" Mom reached into her purse, and pulled out a box, which she handed to me. It was the same magnets featured in the ad. I was speechless. Parents really can do magic.  "How d__ how..?"I sputtered, looking from one the other. Before I could look in the catalog for more instantaneous gratification, Mom explained that she had bought these for me for Xmas, but was disappointed by their tiny size, and never wrapped them. They sat in her purse until providence intervened with a chance to get a quick laugh from my shock. I did not mind the diminuitiveness of the magnets, and played with them all summer.

Lessons learned-  

1) Parents have no idea what kids will enjoy playing with, but
2) They do their best

CAN WE EVEN MEND THIS BROKEN LAND?

I remember, back in the day, when trying to make a life
For one's family was easy enough to do
Keep your time card punched in, work 9-5, an hour for lunch then

What the heck's happened to this land?
Our parents' safety net has fallen down
No way to retire on this joke of a pension,
Our structures are all unsound
The body politic is floundering
How did those losers ever win?
So tell me then, my homeless friend, when did your COBRA end?

I can still recall the ease with I purchased DVD's
Or any grown-up toy that caught my eye
Our church took up a collection, just so we could afford to pay attention

WTF happened to the middle class?
The American dream has been outsourced
Why does a car cost more than internal organs?
When we were safer on a horse
How can we mend this broken land?
Get up and running once again?
I'd like to help out, but right now it's time for CSI once again.

Fool Somebody

There's a lie
A certain kind of lie
That will never appeal to me
That wouldn't fool a blind donkey
But it fools you

Must be the way that liars say
Things so fantastically untrue
garbage a goat would refuse
But it fools you, m'gawd does it ever fool you, babe!

What the hell does it take.
tell me how can this spell I break?
You believe a right-winger
who crosses his fingers
When he talks to you

I don't care
If my opinion you won't share
Just please tell me where
you learned that telling lies is fair
That the truth is a game, where
You get to pick the facts
that fit your story
Life ain't that way, I'm sorry
All the facts you have to use, you cannot be choosy

It's not enough to sound right
If you can't tell heat from light
research and study
don't trust anybody
Go now, seek the truth

You know you wouldn't buy
A used car from that guy
He's only using you
He's a galoot, bullshit stuffed in a suit
He doesn't believe himself, why do you?
Under his hairdo,
Nothing is there, boo
His words should scare you

Does anybody here know what happened to Martin?
Who steered young Bieber wrong?
The last I heard he was high up in an airplane
Puking into his bong

Has evr'rybody heard about Toronto?
And Mayor Ford 's seeming lack of shame
He says he only gorged on beer, booze, and vino
To wash down his pills and cocaine

Has anybody heard much from Lindsey Lohan?
her star power is on the fade
That's a given , she's been in more prisons
Than flicks that she ever made.

Has anybody here spotted Miley lately?
which pole is she writhing upon?
I saw her last week, riding nude on a Harley
through the local Bed Bath, & Beyond

Has anybody here made a legal boo-boo
Yet avoided both judge and court?
Unless you're famous, it won't happen for you
Because you're not Bieber, Lohan, or Ford

I forgot to put this, my favorite pic from the Boston trip, in my post last year. better late than never

Sally deeply regretted quitting a secure job for the lure of the stage. Her jokes fell flat, her beloved English ballads were not greeted warmly by the crowd, who snickered derisively at her ill-fitting green shoes and and jester's hat. Yes, she was definitely going through a difficult minstrel period

  SHARK FISHING IN AMERICA

presented without interruption by Mel Famy of Xanga

"We were ready for our first day hunting the Predator of the Sea, the Scourge of Seven Oceans, Inspiration of many Deadly Cliches, the shark. The crew was scurrying about on deck, doing technical shark-catching things. "Sharkfin Don" was manning the helm, scanning the water ahead for God-knows-what, since we had a raytheon 5500 Shark Detector scanning the depths, where, you know, the sharks are.  Frank "Jaws" Massey was adding a 20-foot wire leader to his line, while swapping lies with "Cartilage"(don't ask), who was loading the chum cannon.We were pumped for this expedition, and I had just opened my 3rd beer when....."

Say what?!? A chum cannon? There's such a thing? How incredibly cool! Does Dave Barry know about this? Oh, he's retired, and only writes occasionally now, and only about his late-in-life kids, or his memory. This is right up his alley, no one covers stupid stories quite like him.  

Always shoot downwind, Like Jessie here

Yes, Virginia, there is a chum cannon. Kentucky, Ohio, time for bed!

Chum is defined as, and I quote :

"n. -- Bait usually consisting of oily fish ground up and scattered on the water." American Heritage Dictionary.  From the same source, we get the definition of  cannon:

 " n.---a mounted gun for firing fish guts". 

Put the two together and you have something better than wedgies, food fights, and cow-tipping combined. 

I guess it is important to spread offal far and wide in order to keep the gulls away from the boat, for obvious reasons ("We've got to chum over there, so they won't slime us over here") . Beyond the chum cannon's use in overfishing our near-offshore waters, however, think about the possibilities. The mirthful, messy, and possibly illegal in Delaware possibilities. Drive-by chumming is less deadly than using Glocks or Tek-9's, but just as effective in disrupting a rival gang's street-level drug dealing. Who wants to buy their addictive substances from a slinger with fish guts on his do-rag? Dried scales on  his Nike P-Rod 2 Colorways™? Not me! The police might find it useful in crowd control situations. Constitution aside, it would certainly inhibit freedom of assembly. Food fights would escalate to the degree that the UN would get involved.

I am sure that a shoulder-mounted version is in the works. This is the logical successor to PaintBall fights. Safe as milk, and it is actual blood and guts! No argument over whether you missed or not. In close games, one could count the flies on each other. And on Halloween? I don't need to spell it out, do I? Invest in extra candy this year, is my advice.

".....So, our trip cut short after Cartilage's terrible accident with the chum-grinder, we started  back to port, knowing in our hearts that we had enough beer to make the.."

What, they have chum-grinders?  Cool! I guess it can double as a martini mixer, I bet the Sopranos would want one for Tony's boat....
 
 

Greenboy here likes to relax on the side of my stucco-walled house to catch rays.

I spend a lot of time in the backyard with my homies....

Mr. Sourpuss here would not even acknowledge my presence

You talkin' to me?

Anything you can do, i can do better...

No you can't...

Yes, I Can!

Not every applicant is accepted as a citizen in my bailiwick. These guys are undergoing the screening process...

I'm molting, do you mind...?

Mama tried to raise some chicks in nest built in these reeds, but a blackbird raided the nest and destroyed the eggs

NO SECOND ACTS

Characters:

Ben Hoyle- Unsucessful playwright, but one who never gives up

Dan Boyle- Unsuccessful playwright, who has just about decided to pack it in, and go to work in his dad's advertising firm.
-------------------------------------------

The curtain opens on a deli , a window overlooks Broadway. At a table by the window, two men are in the middle of a heated discussion.....

Boyle: You're crazy! Who would pay to see a one-minute play?

Hoyle: No one, of course. But Boyle, what if 30 or 40 one-minute plays were presented in one night? Think of it! With set and costume changes, it would take two hours, a little more. With the attention span of the average American getting shorter by the year, no one would get bored. If one or two plays suck, so what? We replace 'em, or do a rewrite.

Boyle (warming up to the idea a little): Rotate the actors, so they have time to change clothes.

Hoyle: And we all make some quick easy money!

Boyle:  Yes!(excited, jumps up on the table, and begins to sing)

I will do it! I will do it!

I will write a one-act play that takes one minute to get through it

Hoyle: Let's get to it, let's get down to it

Boyle: Convince our writer buddies they should be a party to it

Together:

we will make use of all of our skills in
composing brief pieces that are thrillin',
and chillin', and will bring the crowds in
and make ourselves a killing,  yes let's ...DO-OOOooOOO IT!

(Exeunt to the sound of furious typing)

....North Florida, that is. And I checked out a couple of them on my way back north after visiting with family

The Econfina River, near Perry, Florida, runs a mere 44 miles before draining into Appalachee Bay

The Chipola River is the largest tributary of the Appalachicola River, and sports 63 springs along its course

The Suwannee River, subject of song and lore....

Another shot of the Suwannee

The largest of these three would not cover a shirt button

These are tiny puffballs on a pine log

Back to the theme now, this is the Econfina Creek, north of Panama City. Econfina means 'Earth bridge' in the Creek Indian language. There is still a natural bridge over the river.

Mountain Laurel, now at the peak of its flowering

April is Mountain Laurel Month in north Bay Bounty. The bushes along the Econfina Creek are putting on a showy display, as the Wild Azalea and Mountain Laurel are blooming simultaneously

These Black Vultures thought I looked downright tasty....

The rains of late have swollen the creek

Saw the Azalea first..

The one flower just couldn't stay awake

I should have more pics this weekend, when the bloom is at it peak.