Monday, February 17, 2014

Meeting "Pegleg"

Yup, the guy in the song.

a freshly found geocache.

The little French lady(LFL) and I decided to do some geocaching yesterday.  The temperature was just right for it.  Not too hot, not too cold.  We had some errands to run in the south end of Myrtle Beach, so we thought we might as well find a few caches in the area.  

Our first stop was the Myrtle Beach flea market.  We dropped off a bunch of books at Dan's book booth and picked up a few new ones while we were there.  We have brought so many books there that we actually have a credit balance.  It works for Dan and it works for us.  

We checked one of our geocache, located at  the flea market.  The cache is called "One man's treasure", an appropriate name.  It was in excellent condition.  

Then we headed further south to Surfside Beach to find the caches we had noted on our index cards. We found four caches.  For one of them, I crawled under some boardwalk stairs for about fifteen minutes, looking for it.  I was to the point of exhaustion and I was almost wedged underneath when my wife, the above mentioned little French lady, hollered "I found it."  Not anywhere near me.

I told her to sign the log and call 911 to get me out of this spot.  I finally slithered out from the boardwalk.

The next cache we found, we met a nice French Canadian couple.  My wife and the couple chatted for twenty minutes.  I contributed to the conversation by saying all the French I could remember.  In this case it was "pate chinois" which is Shepherd's Pie.   I kept repeating that.  The husband kept calling me "Tony".  He thought all americans were called "Tony".

After that I needed a nap, so the little French lady drove me home.

This morning we had to go to the mall; since Chapin Park was on our route, we decided to find a new cache which had been placed there just a few hours earlier.

When we arrived at the spot of the cache there was a homeless man with an artificial leg standing very close to the spot where the cache should be. Uh..oh!  We will ignore him, if we can.

We ignored him but he didn't ignore us.  "Whatcha lookin for?" he asked.
"A geocache.", the LFL replied.  "What's that?"  We explained what geocaching was and he helped us look for the cache.  The LFL found it after a long search.  The homeless guy was happy for us.

We introduced ourselves to him.  He introduced himself as Mike, but told us everyone calls him "Pegleg Mike".
He had his leg blown off in Vietnam.  He lost two buddies and a leg that day.  He came home to Charlotte, North Carolina and a few years later his wife was killed in a car accident.  He became homeless shortly after that.

He told us he had a song written about him called "Pegleg Mike" by Owen Poteat.  I checked it out. It's true. I like the song.  We both enjoyed talking to "Pegleg" very much.  He is an interesting guy who had some unfortunate circumstances in his life.
guess which one is "Pegleg"?

We have met some interesting people on our little excursions.  If we had ignored Mike,  we would never have met such an interesting person.
He looks like Willie Nelson a bit.  His name is Michael Johnson.  We will be seeing him again, hopefully.

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

The dream

Or was it a nightmare?



It wasn't my usual dream.  The lost car thing. The dream I have mentioned to my sweetie many times.
The car dream: 
I park my little sports car on a street and I commence to doing some errands.  When it is time to leave, I can't find the car.  
I have been searching for the darn car since 1973.  
The recollection is now vague.  I don't even remember  where I parked it, or what kind of car it was, or what color?
I go to bed every night hoping I will find my missing vehicle.
  
I worry.
When I find it, will it have 41 years worth of parking tickets?  Will some towing company be preparing to tow it away?  Will the hub caps be missing?  Did it have hubcaps?
Perhaps I should put this whole episode behind me.  I have another dream that is taking up my sleep time.

The Dick Clark dream.

Weird….I have a dreaming session and I wake up from my dream into another dream.  I am standing beside Dick Clark.  He is young.  I am old. Dick turns to me and says, "Hold on a second, I have to introduce The Duprees."  They start singing "You belong to me".  I quickly realize that I am in the Philadelphia studio where American Bandstand was televised.
Justine and…..bob.


I see Bob Clayton and Justine Carelli dancing.  Damn!!! I wanted to dance with her.  Maybe Arlene Sullivan is available.  Nope, she is dancing with Kenny Rossi. Oh well!

After the song ends, Dick tells me I will be on the rate-a-record panel.  You can rate a record between
35 and 98. The premise for those numbers is nothing's perfect or totally bad.

The song selected for today was "That'll be the day" by a group called the Crickets.  Hmmm…catchy name!!!….a group named after a bug.  What will they think of next?  The Roaches, The Fireflies,  The Dungbeatles?
The song was easy to dance to and everyone seemed to enjoy it.  I rated it a 98.  I think it will be a hit. The lead singer is weird looking.  Big glasses but bigger talent.  I told everyone not to get to attached to the lead singer.  His career will be going upwards.  The sky is the limit with him.
Dick Clark and Bobby Rydell.  I think I see Justine.

The show ends and I invite Dick to Starbucks.
"Starbucks?" he queried.
"A coffee shop. You know, like Horner and Hardhats."
"Oh…You mean Horn and Hardarts"
"Yeah, that place. I still think Starbucks is a wonderful name for a coffee shop."
Dick interjects, " I always liked the name Subway for a coffee shop."  I had to admit it did have a nice sound to it.

We arrive at H&H.  We sip our coffees and talk about music.  I ask him if there is any chance of me dancing with Justine Corelli.  He says, "You told me 10 minutes ago that women laugh hysterically when you dance and besides you are over 70 years old!"
"Oh yeah, There's that…but…"
"Forget it, Hemlock….F..o..r..g..e..t….i..t!!!!
Dick put 30 cents on the table.  I was appalled.  I was thinking how cheap he was.
"Dick,  I can't pay for our coffee.  I'm still in my pajamas.  I didn't bring my wallet."
 Dick shook his head. "Man..Where have you been?  Coffee is only 10 cents a cup.  I left a generous tip."
We walked back to the studio parking lot.   As we arrived I spotted the car that I had misplaced in 1973.  Dick walked to it and got in and turned to me and said, "Do you need a lift anywhere?"
"That's my car.  I lost it in 1973."
Dick seemed confuzzled about the current kerfuffle.
"The year is 1959, Hemlock!!!"
"Huh????  I guess I need a ride to the future.  How far is the future?"
At the stroke of midnight, Dick smiles and keels over.
I awake.
I must get a street map of Philly.  I know where my car is.