Tuesdays with Gindy. Reforming a Drunk.

Disclaimer: Many of the stories are completely fictional.  Other stories are fictional accounts of true stories.  Other stories are completely true.  Sometimes the names have been changed to protect the innocent.

T

his particular story goes out as a shout out to my friend, the Reverend Tony Tilley.

Tony told me and others this story years ago.  Back when we were in the eleventh grade at Crescent High School, Tony would often entertain us with songs on his guitar and tell several wholesome stories.

Now, Tony is a preacher at Freedom Baptist Ministries in Anderson County, South Carolina.  I bet he is a darn good one too.

Tony told the following story, which I have changed just a little because I cannot remember all of the details the way he told it.

And so, without further eloquence, is the story of Reforming a Drunk.

The Bird family lived out in the woods.  This made hunting very convenient because all

they would have to do is step off their back porch and they would be in the woods and in a prime hunting spot.

Virgil Bird was a young adult in his early twenties or so and still lived at home.  He worked five days a week at the local cotton mill and, in the evenings and on the weekends, he did his chores like chopping firewood, mowing the grass, household repairs, and would occasionally get a side job doing something for a neighbor.

Most of the time, Virgil was a pillar of the community.  He was usually in church down to the Flint Rock Baptist Church every time the doors were open. 

Virgil had one problem.  Virgil loved to drink.  He was always sober for work and he was always sober for Sunday preachin’, but come Friday night, he would stop by the local bar and bait shop and pick up two cases of beer.  He would load them in the refrigerator when he got home Friday night and he would drink until they were gone.

Come Saturday morning, Virgil would be throwing up in the sink that was mounted on the back porch of the house.  Papa Bird had installed the sink years ago so that he and the boys could wash up from the woods before they tracked mud in the house.

Mama Bird would scold Virgil and tell him, “One of these days you are going to drink so much you are going to puke your guts out.”

One Friday night, Virgil was participating in his favorite Friday night event and the natural result occurred.  Virgil walked across the back porch to the sink and began to relieve the contents of his stomach into the back porch sink.

Virgil had not turned on the back porch light and, unbeknownst to him, his brother Sylvester had cleaned a very large deer he had killed earlier.  Sylvester was a member of the Flint Rock Rescue Squad and they got a call about the time Sylvester was finishing up with the deer.  He left without cleaning up after himself, so there was a mess in the sink.

Sylvester had left some very large deer organs in the sink when he had to leave in such a hurry.  He had every intention of cleaning them up when he got back.  The call took a little longer than he had expected.  When he got back, he had forgotten about the deer and went to bed for some well-needed sleep.

The next morning, Ma Bird walked into the kitchen and flipped on the light.  She saw Virgil sitting at the table, still recovering from his night of drinking.  This time, he had tears in his bloodshot eyes as he looked up at her.

Ma Bird sat down at the table and asked Virgil, “What’s wrong, dear?”

He replied, with tears in his voice, "You know how you always told me that one day I was going to get so drunk that I would puke my guts up?"

Ma nodded her head and said, “Yes.”

Virgil continued, “Well, last night it happened.   I puked until I couldn’t puke anymore. I turned on the light and saw my guts laying there in the bottom of the sink.  I tell you, I was scared there for a few minutes.  I had puked my guts up just like you said.  There were a lot more of them than I thought possible.  Yep, I really puked my guts up, all of them."

"But by the grace of God and a great big spoon, I got them all back down.”

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I respond to all approved comments on this blog, ideally within 24 hours.  Please check back here for a response to your comment.  Thank you!

Please be advised that all the information in this course is provided to educate, enlighten, and broaden your views in life.  The information provided is not a substitute for medical, legal, dietary, financial/accounting, or religious professionals.

Always consult a professional before you act on any of the information you find in this course.  

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Disclaimer

The opinions or advice listed in this blog or website should be used as a place to start only. It is not a substitute for the use of a professional.

Please be sure to consult your attorney, accountant, and/or other professionals with any specific questions.

There is no one right answer to any business question that will cover all circumstances.

Tuesdays with Gindy. Football Helmets and Cleats.

Robert Bruce McClendon Jr. was also known as “Bones”.  He was a scrawny, skinny teenager.  He still went out for football.

When he first made the team, there weren’t enough helmets to go around. Bones went to the equipment area and found an old helmet.  It was scuffed up and beat up and very dirty.  He asked the coach if he could wear it if he cleaned it up.  The coach told him yes.

He painted it and polished it and got it looking really good.  He wore his helmet to the next game. He was extremely proud of that helmet.  

Not long into the game, one of the starters broke his helmet. The coach made Bones give his pretty helmet to the starter.

Sad and disappointed, Bones went back to the equipment room the next chance he got and found another helmet and fixed it up.  He got to keep this one. It wasn’t too long before he was a starter

Years later, Bones and his brother Carl were on the same football team. 

During one game, Carl was in and two large opponents decided to try to take Carl out.  They kept hammering at him and hammering at him.

After a few plays, Bones went to the coach and said “Put me in, coach.” He did this even though it would have him playing, “The opposite side of the ball”.

The coach got an evil grin and sent Bones in to play.

On the first down after Bones went in, he looked across to the opposing line and said to the bigger of the two offenders, “Get well soon”.

The ball was snapped and he made contact with the first of the two offenders.

He hit him so hard that the opponent could not get up.  They found his helmet on the other side of the field, split in half.  It was a very hard hit. The opponent just laid there in agony.  

Being the polite Southern boy he was, Bones decided that stomping on him with his football cleats would aid the guy in getting up.  Back in those days, football cleats had sharp, metal spikes.

Bones stomped on the first boy’s arms and legs with those cleats and did so much damage they had to load the boy in an ambulance.  No penalty was called.

Second down.  Bones crouched and looked across the line at the second boy and said, “There is room for both of you in that ambulance”.

 

Bones #56 Car Behind

The ball was snapped and Bones made hard contact.  Down went the second of the two offenders.  Bones began his celebratory dance on the offender, stomping hard on his arms and legs.  The ambulance was called back.

Bones yelled across the line, “This is my brother Carl.  When you mess with him, I mess with you.”  He went back to the bench and sat down.  No one, not even his teammates, touched Carl the rest of the game. 

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I respond to all approved comments on this blog, ideally within 24 hours.  Please check back here for a response to your comment.  Thank you!

Please be advised that all the information in this course is provided to educate, enlighten, and broaden your views in life.  The information provided is not a substitute for medical, legal, dietary, financial/accounting, or religious professionals.

Always consult a professional before you act on any of the information you find in this course.  

Do you have a frugal recipe?  Please e-mail it to me.


Help us reach 1,000 YouTube subscribers. Please watch some of our videos. If you like them, please subscribe. Also, please share our YouTube information with your friends.  We thank you so much for all your help. 

Disclaimer

The opinions or advice listed in this blog or website should be used as a place to start only. It is not a substitute for the use of a professional.

Please be sure to consult your attorney, accountant, and/or other professionals with any specific questions.

There is no one right answer to any business question that will cover all circumstances.

Tuesdays with Gindy. Driving Mrs. Crazy

There are some people in this world who do not make good passengers.  My mother is one of them. No, I do not really think my mother is crazy.  I just thought that the title was a good play on the title Driving Miss Daisy.

When my sister went off to college and I was still in high school, it was normal that my mother and I would drive down and move my sister into her dorm at the beginning of a semester.  When the semester was over, we would move her out.

A side note here is that no one in my family has ever helped me move anywhere.  When I moved in to my trailer in Spartanburg, South Carolina, my friend Phil Brown helped me move in.

My dog, Abby, and I moved all by ourselves from the trailer to the house on Burnett Street in Spartanburg.  My girlfriend and now child-bride Suzanne, along with our friends Roger and Debbie, helped me move out of the Spartanburg house.

At the beginning of one semester, I drove the truck from Iva to Columbia to move my

sister into her dorm at the University of South Carolina.  All along the way, my mother had comments about my driving.  “You are following too close.”  Or, “You are braking too hard.”  Finally, I stopped the truck in the middle of the road and asked my mother, “Do you want to drive?”  She responded, “No, you are doing just fine.”

We spent a couple of hours unloading the truck and carrying the crates, refrigerator, television, etc., up the elevator at my sister’s dorm.  Of course, all of this entailed enduring snippy comments from her suitemates and other residents of her floor.  I don’t make a great presentation when I am hot, sweaty, and forced to endure stupid and rude.

My mother and I climbed back in the truck and proceeded to go to my Grandmother Ruby’s house in Johnston, South Carolina.  We were going to move some of her stuff back to our place in Iva because my Grandmother Ruby was moving there.

My mother has a way of making work much harder than it has to be.  Rather than letting a person proceed in a way that makes sense, she attacks it all at one time. 

She started taking things apart and hauling them to the front porch. I had to work around all this clutter to load the truck with the larger, heavier stuff on the bottom.

I finally got the truck loaded with the stuff and everything tied down.  I gave my Grandma Ruby a goodbye hug and off my mother and I went for the longest 76 mile drive ever taken.

The posted speed limit along most of the route was 55 miles per hour.  Every time I would get the truck above 35 miles per hour, my mother would get on to me about driving so fast.

Every time I would try to move the truck away from the center line of the road, my mother would tell me I was getting way too close to the edge of the road and that I was going to run off in the ditch.

Due to the slow speed, cars were piling up behind us.  Sometimes one would pass, but not often.  About halfway home, our ever-increasing line of cars was joined by the most welcomed man of the hour, Super Trooper.

Super Trooper lit me up.  That is the rolling blue lights came on and I was pulled over.

Super Trooper had me step out of the truck and to the back of it.  He asked me how much I had to drink that night.  I told him I had not touched a drop, but I would be happy to go to jail for DUI if he would just get me out of there.

Super Trooper then asked if there was something wrong with the truck.  I told him, “Mechanically, the truck is running perfectly.”  He asked me why I was driving so slowly.  I told him that every time I approached 35 miles per hour my mother would yell at me to slow down.

Super Trooper then asked if I was having trouble with the steering.  I told him that the truck had this problem that every time I moved away from the center of the road, this alarm would go off to tell me I was getting too close to the edge of the road and that I was going to run us in the ditch. 

Super Trooper said, “I guess that alarm is your mother?”  I told him yes.  I told him I was fully capable of driving the truck home without any intervention from my mother and that the last half hour of the journey had just about driven me crazy.

Super Trooper went to my mother’s door and asked her to step to the rear of the truck.  He told her he was issuing her a warning.  He told her that she was not to tell me to slow down, speed up, or otherwise tell me how to drive.

He further told her that he was going to follow us to the county line to make sure his orders were followed.  He also indicated he would radio ahead to make sure the troopers between where we were and our house were alerted to the situation.

We climbed back in the truck and my mother said, “I’m sorry.”  In fact, she repeated that every time we crossed a county line.  Every time we passed a county line, there was a trooper or deputy somewhere just past it.

We made it home.  We did not lose one single item.  To this day, I have never lost anything off the back of a truck.  It is a source of pride for me. And, to this day, I will not let my mother forget about this little adventure.

What about you?  Do you have a driving story you would like to share with us?

If you would like for me to pray for you, please drop me an e-mail by clicking prayer.


Please Visit My Child Bride Suzanne's Blog

I respond to all approved comments on this blog, ideally within 24 hours.  Please check back here for a response to your comment.  Thank you!

Please be advised that all the information in this course is provided to educate, enlighten, and broaden your views in life.  The information provided is not a substitute for medical, legal, dietary, financial/accounting, or religious professionals.

Always consult a professional before you act on any of the information you find in this course.  

Do you have a frugal recipe?  Please e-mail it to me.

Help us reach 1,000 YouTube subscribers. Please watch some of our videos. If you like them, please subscribe. Also, please share our YouTube information with your friends.  We thank you so much for all your help. 

Disclaimer

The opinions or advice listed in this blog or website should be used as a place to start only. It is not a substitute for the use of a professional.

Please be sure to consult your attorney, accountant, and/or other professionals with any specific questions.

There is no one right answer to any business question that will cover all circumstances.

Tuesdays with Gindy. Discount Dentures

Disclaimer: Many of the stories are completely fictional.  Other stories are fictional accounts of true stories.  Other stories are completely true.  Sometimes the names have been changed to protect the innocent.

My father was always a little bit of a devil.  He also loved to tell a little yarn and see who would believe it. He was generally surprised to learn that people really did believe him.

One day Mrs. Fitzgerald was in my father’s store.  She was telling my father about how she needed to get a new set of dentures and how they were way too expensive for her.

My father, playing around, told her “Why don’t you do what I do?”  He said that he went down to the local funeral home and bought his dentures.

We had two large reputable funeral homes in our area and several smaller ones.

He told Mrs. Fitzgerald that, as you know, they don’t bury people with their dentures in.  He told her they don’t throw these teeth away; they save them.

He said that what you do is you go up to the funeral home and you tell them you would like to buy some dentures. He said when you first go they will tell you that they don’t do that. He said that you have to tell them you know they do.

He went on to tell her that you have to insist you know they do and they will repeat that they don’t do this.  He told her that, after a while, you have to tell them that you know they do because Bruce McClendon in Iva told you that they do.

He went on to describe how the whole procedure works. He said they take you in a room and give you two baskets.  They bring you in a basket of uppers (don’t worry, they have been washed and sterilized).

One of the empty baskets is to put the uppers in that don’t work and the other is where you put the ones that might work out for you.  You keep trying uppers until you find a pair that is comfortable and you are satisfied.

Once you have your uppers, they bring you two more empty baskets and a basket of lowers to try on.  He said once you have found the best fitting uppers and lowers you can find, then you can make arrangements for payments.

The sad thing is that Mrs. Fitzgerald believed him. She put all of her fears and pride aside and went up to the funeral home. She began to insist that she wanted to try on a pair of teeth and that she knew they did it.

Finally, the director had to call my father and get him to convince Mrs. Fitzgerald that he was only playing.  Mrs. Fitzgerald's son came to our store with the intention of whipping my father’s tail for such a stunt.

I have included this story as an example of what NOT to do in retailing.

Notice: The story you have just read was told to me by my father as if it were true.  There is no way to know for sure whether it is really true or not.  My father liked to tell stories with real people names even though they never really happened to him.  I cannot confirm or deny this story. All names, other than my father’s, are fictitious. 

If you would like for me to pray for you, please drop me an e-mail by clicking prayer.



Please Visit My Child Bride Suzanne's Blog

I respond to all approved comments on this blog, ideally within 24 hours.  Please check back here for a response to your comment.  Thank you!

Please be advised that all the information in this course is provided to educate, enlighten, and broaden your views in life.  The information provided is not a substitute for medical, legal, dietary, financial/accounting, or religious professionals.

Always consult a professional before you act on any of the information you find in this course.  

Do you have a frugal recipe?  Please e-mail it to me.


Help us reach 1,000 YouTube subscribers. Please watch some of our videos. If you like them, please subscribe. Also, please share our YouTube information with your friends.  We thank you so much for all your help. 

Disclaimer

The opinions or advice listed in this blog or website should be used as a place to start only. It is not a substitute for the use of a professional.

Please be sure to consult your attorney, accountant, and/or other professionals with any specific questions.

There is no one right answer to any business question that will cover all circumstances.

Tuesdays with Gindy. Derrick Family Firefighters

Disclaimer: Many of the stories are completely fictional.  Other stories are fictional accounts of true stories.  Other stories are completely true.  Sometimes the names have been changed to protect the innocent.

Not many people remember this, but years ago in the town of Iva, South Carolina, the Iva School Board voted to join with the school in Starr, South Carolina, and form School District 3.

The plan was to build a new high school and continue using the schools in the two towns as elementary schools.  The all-black school, New Deal, would become the Middle School.

While they were building the new high school, a fire broke out in the old Iva School which was soon to be Iva Elementary School.  The town all gathered around the old school watching it burn.

The Iva Volunteer Fire Department bravely fought the fire.  The Starr Volunteer Fire Department was on the way to give a hand. Still, the on lookers thought there was little hope to save the school.

Way off in the distance the crowd could hear a loud horn honk and Papa

Derrick yelling “Git out de way”.  The whole Derrick family had climbed on the old farm truck and was a comin’ fast and furious.

The truck turned the corner onto the street where the school was burning.  U. J. was blowin’ the horn and yelling at people as they drove by.

Papa Derrick was standing up in the front seat waving his arms and yelling at everyone to, “Git out de way.”

The crowd parted and the whole town watched in horror as U. J. Derrick drove the family truck right up into the open front doors of the burning school.

The crowd was amazed when Mama Derrick jumped off the truck and started stomping out the flames.  Papa Derrick jumped out from the front seat and started stompin’ flames on his side of the truck.

The crowd could hear Mama Derrick holler at her son, “There’s one over thur, U. J. Git it out.”  And to her daughter, “Anne, thurs one right behind you; git it.”

Derricks were stompin' everywhere.  Finally, after a great deal of serous stompin’, the Derrick family managed to stomp the fire completely out.  The family saved most of the school.  All that was lost was the principal’s office and the library.

No significant loss since the library only had two books and both of them had already had all the pages colored in. The principal was never in his office anyway.

Mayor Hewell took up a collection among the bystanders to thank the Derrick Family.  The mayor presented the $200 that the crowd managed to put together.  A reporter from the Iva Journal asked Papa Derrick what his family was going to do with all that money.

Papa Derrick smiled and said, “Thur’s a lot we kin do with that heap of

money.  However, I think the first thing we should do is git the brakes fixed on the truck.”

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I respond to all approved comments on this blog, ideally within 24 hours.  Please check back here for a response to your comment.  Thank you!

Please be advised that all the information in this course is provided to educate, enlighten, and broaden your views in life.  The information provided is not a substitute for medical, legal, dietary, financial/accounting, or religious professionals.

Always consult a professional before you act on any of the information you find in this course.  

Do you have a frugal recipe?  Please e-mail it to me.

Help us reach 1,000 YouTube subscribers. Please watch some of our videos. If you like them, please subscribe. Also, please share our YouTube information with your friends.  We thank you so much for all your help. 

Disclaimer

The opinions or advice listed in this blog or website should be used as a place to start only. It is not a substitute for the use of a professional.

Please be sure to consult your attorney, accountant, and/or other professionals with any specific questions.

There is no one right answer to any business question that will cover all circumstances.