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The Dashing Life and Exuberant Times of Brian Harrison....And Other Rare Anecdotes

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

One Dangerous Harding University Exploit After Another

Embarrassing moments when planned are usually anything but embarrassing, quite exhilarating to say the least. -That is why this note is not about my stunt at graduation, nor about 2/3rds of my time spent in Searcy, AR. No, this was almost a very humiliating story that happened unexpectedly and probably could've gotten me into some trouble.

I spent my nights, during last weekend's visit to Searcy, at a friend of mine who lives within a brick's lob of the campus. This friend is no longer a student, but has advanced into the stratosphere of Harding faculty. He dresses in a tie, and sits at an office desk, where he watches squirrels out his office window. Monday morning, the day I was to get up, leave Searcy, and head towards southern Mississippi, I got up from his apartment floor. He was gone. He has strange things like office hours to keep.

I pick myself up out of my blankets about mid-morning, I throw on a pair of blue jeans only, and I walk outside the front door to feel the day's sunlight. Now, I can't answer why I do certain things, especially in the mornings. I'm never really thinking until about 4 hours after I wake up. So involuntarily I strut outside to stretch, I guess. I can only speculate that it's that instinct in a man, that displays itself when camping out. The first thing to do is unzip the tent, then go outside and stretch and yawn and feel the rush of the outdoor sunshine. I reckon that I sought to do the same sort of thing in Searcy this particular morning. But like I said, I wasn't really aware of what I was doing, that is...until I tried to get back in the apartment and I found that that the door was locked.

Yes, for some strange reason, my friend had the paranoid idea to keep his door where if it shut it automatically locked. So there I was, locked out of this apartment where my shirt and shoes were, and my keys and my cell phone were also. I knew no one else around. My only option was to walk that short distance to the American Studies Building, to my friend's office and get a key. For some reason, I had a hard time owning up to this only course, for I felt that it would be terribly awkward when strutting around campus in only a pair of blue jeans...in broad daylight...(At night time, without jeans, this would be called the Maybee Challenge) but in the daytime, even though only shirtless and barefooted, it was just weird.

But regardless of my embarrassment, which can, as has been done before, been hurdled over, I was all the more concerned about the embarrassment my friend would have if I were to saunter into his office, past the secretary, demanding all the while that I needed the key to his apartment. His boss worked directly next door and could see everyone coming and going out of my friend's office. An explanation from my friend to his boss would be needed.

"All I needed was a shirt." I thought to myself. "The lack of shoes is hardly noticeable...but without a shirt, with my fair skin, a local cropduster could see me shining below. But where can I get a shirt?" I thought about other friends who were of close proximity to this dire scene, but they were still much too far off. I even thought of knocking on a stranger's door and explaining to them the whole situation, and begging for them to let me borrow a shirt.

My mind shook itself when coming to the dim realization that I was about to make a farewell to Harding bare-chested. I stretched my vision down the path I would have to take in order to make any progress at leaving Arkansas. I noticed how over half the hike would be alongside girls' dorms. Then it was up into the very building where half my classes took place 2 years ago.
The entire American Studies building would be swarming with old English professors of mine, and here, I would march in, like a pale Tarzan with my jeans with the ripped hole in the knee. They would think that I was up to one of my antics, and it would be much like the little boy who cried wolf, when I would say, "No, this is for real! I really did lock everything but these pair of jeans in my friend's apartment.....who just so happens to work in this same building. Honestly! I am not semi-streaking my old MLA-documented stomping ground!" But I wouldn't be believed.

I could picture it, they would all glare at me and then one by one pronounce derogatory names upon my head. -Not ordinary words like "idiot" or "fool". No, I would receive the best scolding spewing from their ripened vocabularies. Words like "insipid infidel" (notice the alliteration) or daft damnation-inducing dudderhead" I could see Mrs. Jewel so outraged, she, the grand duchess of grammar, could only speak in sentence fragments. "I always knew you were the shame of the English department, if it wasn't falling off stage at graduation, or planting your own questions at your senior symposium,.....not wearing a shirt is pathetic!" And then she would shriek realizing that she had said an incomplete sentence.

Then there was the social aspect of it. "I would be treading right below a bunch of girls' dorms and then walking into a hall of study where the coolest thing is to wear a jersey just like the person next to you, blending in with the mass crowd that is the judge of everything. What you absolutely don't want to do is to stand out. And forget the jersey, walking around without a shirt was standing out. I would be that oddball crazy guy....but of course, without it being fun. (Why is it that we fear what we already are perceived to be?) And why couldn't my friend work in the theatre department where weird acts like this were accepted, even encouraged? My....my...I was just getting over my social anxiety at Harding University. During this entire visit here, I advanced to the presumption of looking the pretty girls in the eyes, without feeling that shy intimidation clinging to me. It was as though, my entire student life at Harding passed without realizing that girls will smile at you as you walk by. You have to be careful, half of them are ensnaring husbands with those smiles. But no", my mind had to stop rambling and come back to my ridiculous situation, "completely shirtless...what anxiety I'm going to be falling back into."

Such were my thoughts, as I tried one hopeless last measure after another. I tried my car doors, knowing that I had an extra shirt inside. -But those doors, too, were locked. I thought further, "Maybe I am overreacting. I mean, so what if a bunch of professors and teeny-bopper girls see my nipples?....I'm no longer a student here. I could take off these blue jeans and it would make the same difference....it would only be an assurance to what everyone already knows, 'that blonde kid is one strange cat.' I wish I had a marker I could write a bunch of Greek gibberish on my skin. Maybe highlight my nipples...make eyeballs out of them...have a phrase inscribed above my belly button saying, 'Because I'm cooler than you I can do this'."

But just as courage was coming to me to make my bare-back journey onto Harding University campus, the most sober consideration occurred. "O dear....Just from this weekend...with a previous antic of mine...a description had gone out to security describing my features." I will not say much about this antic and who else was involved....I just admit large-scale fireworks were involved the other night, where I would shoot several artillery rounds and then drive or run off with the help of an accomplice or two. I know...I shall never taste maturity. But you must realize how fun this was. These celebratory undertakings to light up the sky were cheered by bystanders, but sought after by the Harding security. We were quick to duck out of an area by the time security came running, only to strike another snap, crackle, and pop in another area. This zigzagging probably infuriated the security. And one time during an escape, my pursuers, who this time happened to be students, managed to get a good look at my features. And just how many boys do you think at Harding have my length of hair and my hair color as well? I think I had the longest hair on campus that I saw this weekend, not to mention my characteristic bright blonde hue that could be spotted a mile away. So I would imagine that security is on the look out for someone matching these descriptions. I cannot stand out at all or I could be facing some serious trouble. Not just for being shirtless, but for my other nighttime celebrations.

I pondered alternative routes, maybe going behind the American Studies building and knocking on my friend's window. But I could never really be sure which window is his from the outside. All the windows are tinted a dark color, and his office is directly next to his boss's office who also had a window. Certainly that would be the worst case scenario, to be tapping on some Harding staff, big wig's window without a shirt, creeping around like a savage in the flower bed.

I was just about to make my venture....nipples and belly button exposed, the traditional route of just walking straight into the building and into his office, when I had one last resort. It was my ability to break into places. Maybe through the windows, I could get into his apartment. I tried the first window....locked. then the 2nd, last window that was situated right above the kitchen sink. And to my amazement and relief the window slid right up. I pulled the blinds up and then ever-so-thief-like slipped head first through the small window. I got in and completely subverted the entire adventure I was dreading to take.

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

My Literary Pursuits

I first want to extend my appreciation to those of you who continue to read this blog. To me you remain something of a nebulous cloud, that occasionally reveals yourself personally to me, therefore letting me know that I still have readership. Just how many read these words but still remain silent, I guess I will never know. But it is an encouragement at church to receive a comment about something I have written. (It is an encouragement at church to know that the people there are concerned about my life outside of church.) So thank you. But I must also, relate to you my slight absence from this site the past week or two. I have been writing more recently, just not publishing what I write. Blogs and journals are nice and all, but they only detail what is affecting me. They reveal little of how I can affect a page. A writer's goal is not so much in recording everything that happens to him, a writer's goal is to bring out entire themes and meaning that is latent within his human breast. And just merely recording the measly events of my day, and their subjective interpretation is confining to me. My imagination is too rich, where my life is too poor. The unconscious...the horse of any artist, is much too powerful. There's so much within us than what happens to us or even our conscious thoughts. I get this feeling that all this time, I haven't really been writing. -Only dabbling. The supreme act of creation cannot be focused on "me". It must have air...and a sky...and perhaps, a sunset. It must have characters, other voices,...more or less it must be a story. So I have been wrestling with the creative process through writing short stories lately.

Now novels are wonderful. But they are so long. It is hard enough for me to complete a short story, so that is what I am focusing on, currently. Surely, every day I attempt at writing something...which is a new phenomenon to me. Discipline never came easy (a statement that tackles itself.)....and usually I do not write until after midnight. But it is surprising to me what is completed, if only a little bit a day I sit down to write. A story will actually progress and will actually end sometimes. I have written short stories before but it was always a very difficult project, think book reports in the 3rd grade. Though fun, always laborious. And I have come to find out that I really really enjoy dreaming about things to write about than actually writing them. Who knows how many more blog entries I would have written, if to dream up were to write? I did one time when 19 attempt a novel. I think I got as far as page 5 or 6, then I quickly gave it up.

I have tons of ideas for stories, probably more than blog entries, I've just always pushed them off into the la-la land of tomorrow. And I never gave all these characters voices or these plots setting. There in that floating world of possibilities and half-dreams...they sit like bored shadows. (Already another story idea just popped up.) So I am striving to chain myself to some sort of desk and scribble down something each night. Most of these stories will probably be bad. That is...probably incongruous from the different moods that I sat down to write them in, or as I have come to find out, swamped in cheesiness. But the ideas are always fun. The turn of events and the characters are always shifting. It really is an entire different game, than writing down actual events. The way our publishing world works, I doubt publication, which is always a block as to why to actually write. But I guess I must get off my wicked lazy servants' butt, grab that shovel, and dig up that half-buried talent....before...before it is too late.

Saturday, August 11, 2007

On Growing Old

I just don’t know why we don’t number our years backwards from that golden age when we will sit around in dressing gowns, drinking V8s, and watching wheel of fortune on slow days, but up and bridge-clubbing it and square-dancing on fast days. Instead, we count the years as they pass and that leaves us quite aware of that ever-growing, irreconcilable distance between the year of our pink-skied dawn of a beginning, and our ever drifting, gray and envious present age. Therefore, since last Thursday, I announce to my entire readership that I am the still tender age of –37. Thirty seven more years of the clamor upstream; 37 more years of boundless opportunities…of horizon chasing. There’s a lot of life in 37 years. It takes half that amount for a newborn to become an individual; I have double that amount to actualize the dreams that were placed within me. And after 37 years what then?…it’s the garden hammock and the sigh of repose, the thankful prayer in between sips of sweet tea, the ability to wear and say anything and it be funny or wise….and snowbirding it in Jamaica, RVs, and the laughter of grandchildren.

Inappropriately and altogether unwise, we count the years from which we first sailed from the port, not from when we hope to stand on the deck below twilight, being content with our voyage. In every possible facet we should be looking ahead not backwards. Counting the limitless possibilities, not the unchangeable stone-set past.

It also seems as though we are trying, as we step further and further into maturity, to grasp more and more of our youth. Age is a funny thing. It is the irony of the rattler and the walking stick. We spend all our childhood wishing we were adults. We spend all our adulthood wishing we were children again. No era in history is quite like ours. We are the most advanced and self-reliant in our knowledgeable maturity, but it is the whims of the child that governs the styles, the economy, the entertainment, the face of the earth with the dreams of the heavens.

The more we advance from the cradle, the more we long to hear its nursery song again. Its twinkling and turning have all got us mesmerized. The dusk-like shadows fall across the living room floor, we pause before the nonnegotiable Night, hoping to hear one last tune of that nursery song.

And in that song and in that tune, before us stretches the inner workings of our leisure and joy which is with us during the opening and closing of our one day. –For these are our joys and our happiness. The intellectual elite sits upright in hard chairs and hears it in Mozart; the common crowd hears it in the clashing of football helmets; the popular reader hears it in the bustle of a Hogswarts school; the classical reader hears it in the ocean’ roar as it flicks Odysseus through the world. The nature lover hears it in the wild winds and streams; the metropolitan in the heartbeat of the city on an ecstatic night. An old man hears it in the creaking of boards as his grandchildren dance about the room; a young man hears it in his friends’ boisterous laughter of rollicking good times. An old woman hears it in the murmur of songbirds; the young woman in the chiming of wedding bells. The lovers hear it best, and for a brief moment tunes all other sounds out. The solitary man hears it and carries it with him wherever he goes. Again and again, the fugue, the tempo, and melody charm our days and nights and we forgot that we had once heard it in our cradles. Our lives could be of perpetual bliss if we could just remember.

But I digress….I have quite a ways to go, I feel not a lick older. A bit more foolish, possibly, but a pinch more secure in that foolishness. And still young, and free. I’m still carded the few times I order a drink. And I still have much, much to do before I can be content with my life. If there was a way to work one’s way out of the habit of laziness. I would....

Saturday, August 04, 2007

Confessions of a Lead Foot

“Just the good ole boys, never meanin’ no harm, beats all you’ve ever saw, been in trouble with the law, since the day they were born.
Straightnin’ the curves, roundin’ the hills, someday the mountain might keep ‘em, but the law never will.” ---Waylon Jennings

My heavy, heavy lead foot, my rush hither and thither with no particular emergency on my back, and oftentimes, with no particular place to go, and my zeal for that green blur that trees become when darting passed them in a road-hungry havoc, all these, have lead me into trouble after trouble with the law. Yes, I am admitting my guilt, confessing my misdeeds as the years have rolled by, and as I have rolled by, a bit too hastily, which has brought me into the pugnacious riff with the boys in blue.


Who has not, felt the surge of the highway? All the music flashing about you and in the speed and rush, you feel the blending in off everything. In the quixotic moment, in the same tempo of the song, you feel as if to breathe is life and to see is to catch a hold of that ecstasy. The road leaps and dips and turns in front of you, For in those moments, everything is sublime, everything is bliss, and your foot digs deeper towards the ground of this earth that you love so much, accept it hits the pedal and you go all but faster…and your crazed zeal and transcendent emotion lifts you to the dancing hymn and scene -And that quaking in your chest, for once is both free and captured, racing and filled with music and light and nature as you pass it by. And then a cop pulls you over…and that sublime moment and blissful mood is ruined.


When I was a boy, I remember a cartoon that Disney had made, a clever cartoon, in which the cars were to blame for the dramatic transformation of man, (or as Disney had it, a man that looked like Goofy) whenever he stepped into an automobile, everything was altered. The calm, peaceable citizen became a gravel-demon full of aggression and wildness. Little did I know that that cartoon was me. And so here I will relate my stories running many years back, of what those awful cars have done to me, whenever I step into them. The round steering wheel in front of me becomes a sort of full moon, and I sprout fangs and claws, and yellow eyes and wild hair, I howl and prowl the highway, devouring and feasting on the victim horizon, as I rush about the face of the earth.

2 years ago, I had my license suspended from me for an entire summer. Too many speeding tickets in one year. Well, it seems that I have not learned my lesson for once again I am on the verge of having it suspended for a second time. Which is catastrophic for if I cannot drive, I cannot work, for my job requires wheels more than anything.
Yes, yes, yes, call me stupid and reckless, but a month ago I received 3 tickets in 1 week. Sounds pathetic, but two of those tickets were given at the same time, one for speeding and another for not being able to find my proof of insurance, which I had on me, but my car’s a mess, and I couldn’t find that ridiculous little slip of paper in enough time. The thing that ticked me off was that I was barely going 15 over the speed limit, which is quite normal. After I got those two tickets, I was so miffed that I crumpled them both up, and told myself that I refused to pay them, as I threw them in the bottom of my floor board. But after I cooled off, I uncrumpled and had second, more sagacious thoughts on the matter. Wouldn’t it be ironic that after straightening them out, they both wind up being lost? I can’t find them at all. Luckily, I have copies that the beloved Court mailed to me.
The area where I was pulled over is a speed trap. Be warned. If ever you are traveling I-20 towards Birmingham from Atlanta, right before you really get to where you feel like you are in a city, the speed limit drops to 60 mph, and they are sitting there waiting like carnivorous boars to gore you with their speed guns. A Birmingham officer was the one who stopped me and treated me oh so unkind. A week later, I am traveling in that same exact spot. Just a bit faster. Near 90, when this time a notorious Alabama state trooper pulls me over. He was, believe it or not, kinder than the other guy. Allowing me to sit in his passenger seat while he wrote me my ticket, and while I tried to talk him out of it. Because he was unmoved of my pleadings of how 25 above the speed limit is not really THAT fast and how he could just let me go without all that scrupulous paper work of filling me out a ticket, and because he had a cold, cold heart, I owe the Court of Jefferson County the ridiculous fine of $313 for that one ticket alone.

Now, this is only in the past month and only within the city of Birmingham, Alabama. Down the years, and across the nation I have very similar stories.


The Texas Outlaw

Once upon a time in Texas, I was driving somebody else’s car in a caravan somewhere between Amarillo and Lubbock and I was going the exact speed of those in the caravan. But for some reason I was singled out to get the ticket. And after the cop approached, he pointed out that my car had improper registration. I responded that this wasn’t my car, he responded that I and the owner would have to go to court a certain date. Now, in the car with me were 3 girls (the best way to travel) but none of these were the owner. The owner was miles ahead riding with someone else. So this couldn’t be handled there. The court date was a few months ahead when I was planning to be living in Russia. Somehow, after I moved to Moscow, with the help of my mother, I finally managed to get the court to realize that I actually was living in a foreign country. They dropped the court date, but I still had to pay a fine. A year passed, and I completely forgot about the entire incident. So it was a great surprise to me when in the mail to my house in Alabama was an announcement that there was going to be a warrant for my arrest in the state of Texas. Again my mother had to make several calls, one to my uncle who is a detective in Texas, and she handled the whole situation. Or at least, I hope it’s handled, who knows, if I ever get stopped in Texas, I may being visiting their jail cell.


The Entire City of Opp and their K9 Unit VS Me

One winter, I was on my way to my grandparents for Christmas, down in south Alabama, and wouldn’t it be a potential place to get stopped but in a small town called Opp. The streets were all nearly empty it being 9 pm and all. I cut this fat U-turn, looking for a store and who so happened to see my frantic turn but a proud member of the Opp Police Squad. And a squadron it was. They pulled me over in the only civilization that was still shaking, the Dairy Queen parking lot. I must of set off several terrorist alarms, for in 5 minutes the entire city police force was in the Dairy Queen parking lot as well, and they weren’t there because Dairy Queen got new donut-blizzards either. My long hair, the plaid coat, the fact that I was blaring Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, all pointed to one indisputable fact to them, that I was an Alabama drug lord. It wouldn’t be long, they thought, before they would find my goods, or at least a bong or two. How dismayed they were when I turned up sober. They shined the light in my eyes, blinding me severely and then while police car after police car entered the parking lot, they asked if they could search my vehicle. At the time, I didn’t know that you could legally say no. But, thinking that such a refusal only propagated their suspicions more, I said, “yes”, confident that they would not find a thing. However, I didn’t realize how drawn out a process this was going to be. From a distance a police officer on a mega phone, announced to me something, inaudible, but seeing how the megaphone was probably from the 1970’s, it made sense. I just stood there. “What!?” I cried out. He repeated on his ridiculous megaphone very firmly, “Do not move…if you try to run or escape…the K9, here, will attack you. I repeat he is trained to do so, so if you run he will attack!” I yelled back, “Okay.” The German Shepherd strutted up so importantly. A search ensued. And the officers kept repeating that they would be easier on me if I just admitted that I had drugs. I told them I was clean. They didn’t believe me as they played with the white rubber search gloves making the tops slap against their wrists. Then…one of the officers took me aside frisked me diligently and told me that the dog scented something on a pair of jeans in my car. Again, the advice to come forth and admit to them what drugs I had on me…that they would go lighter on me than if they actually do find something. Which he made it sound like they would. To their entire Opp police department, I was a big disappointment for they, of course, found not a thing. They angrily wrote me a traffic citation for turning the wrong way. They actually believed that I had out-smarted them at hiding my stash..for the glare they gave me, were all kinds of hostilities and we’re-gonna-get-you-yet looks. When I got to my grandparents’ house that same Texan uncle was there who told me that I could’ve avoided the whole ordeal and that if the K-9 had really scented something, it would have jumped in the car and started probing around.


The Race Down from Canada

Once I drove all the way up to Canada. I even took the round about way visiting friends along the way. It took me 3 days to get there. And not one ticket. (Accept that old car I had nearly fell part in Pennsylvania). But the ride down was a different matter. I received one ticket in New York for going not too fast. During that point in my life, I figured that ticket karma usually only struck every 3 months or so and seeing how I had already paid my speeding dues for those 3 months, the next day I was good. After stopping for the night in Ohio, I go flying down some highway that looked nearly empty through Kentucky. –And it was empty…..except for that one officer hiding in the bushes. I was going (gulp) 97mph in a 65 zone. That trip cost me $400 alone in citation expenses.


The Arkansas Sidewinder

Still, yet, another time, I was in Arkansas in this little town called Kinsett. Not far from Searcy; I was probably on my way to see the infamous Zonkee or Zedonk, and to explore some back roads, (a hobby of mine) when the truck in front of me was going much too slow, in impatience I gunned around him on the side of the road. Well, being the Einstein I am, I didn’t see the kingly Kinsett sheriff sitting right in that gas station beside the road. He pulled me over. I was so hot and fuming, I tore off my seat belt. And as he could see my rage in the mirror, he was afraid to come close. He eased out of his patrol car ever keeping his hand ready on his gun. As he carefully paced over like Barney Fife, he told me to keep my hands up, slowly, slowly and hang them out the window. I did so. And seeing that I was harmless…he wrote me a little municipal souvenir from the city of Kinsett.


Well, it’s not fair to complain and state all the times I’ve been penalized, and as much as I hate to admit it, I am very fortunate for all the times that I have been pulled over and managed to get out of it.


The Dothan Playboy

Once, about half a year ago, in my hometown of Dothan, I rounded a turn a bit too sharply, a bit too rapidly, and a bit too wildly. A cop saw this and pulled me over. Lo and behold what did appear before my spotlighted eyes, but when the officer turned out to be a she. And she was young, black, and cute. And she was probably the nicest officer I’ve ever met…stating the concern of my wild turn. She asked me so sweetly if she could search my car. I couldn’t turn her down….being innocent and seeing how she was so polite. But she wanted me to get out of my car, and then her search of me, personally, commenced. I tell you, as you can see, I have felt frisks before. They are always a quick pat to the buttocks. No lingering hand back there. But with this female, it was different. It was soft, more of a delicate groping, like a massage. And its not as though I’ve never felt this before…that’s just it, I’ve felt such a thing before…just never in a police search you see. I think I even blushed. And then she asked me to sit down while she searched my car. She commented on all the IBC root beer bottles (they look like beer bottles and they were all opened containers) in my floor board and said that she liked to drink IBC root beer as well. Then we talked a little bit. And I drove off without a ticket. I still wonder from time to time, to this day, what if I would’ve asked her out right then and there, that she could drive me around in her car (the front seat; not the back) and we could drink IBC root beer together and make prank calls on her CB to nearby rentacops.


The Cowboy Rides Again

A year and a half ago, I was in the western musical, Oklahoma, in this little community theatre in Tennessee. I was only one of the backup cowboys in the play, who sang and danced and fought, wearing this big fat cowboy hat the whole time. I had plenty of time during scenes between the main characters to run to the nearby gas station. Well, one night, I rushed over to one of the main corners of this small town in Tennessee and the gas station ended up being closed, so again like a real cowboy would do with his horse, I wheeled around the highway pulling a Uieee. A patrolman saw this move and pulled over this wild west hero and knowing that a ticket was about to be shot at me, I decided on a course of action. Being a quick draw, I threw on my large cowboy hat, seeing how I was already dressed the part, and when the cop walked up to me, I told him that I was in a big hurry that my part on the stage was about to occur. Then I rambled on how I know this a stupid excuse, but that any moment know I had to go on, a crowd of people awaited me. This being a small town and this theatre being the only means of entertainment around, it drew up much respect and prestige from all the inhabitants. He smiled at me and then let me go. My heart jumped a big “Yeehaw!”. I ran full speed towards the stage back door. When I got inside, I realized that I had a full 10-15 minutes until my actual stage time. Oh well, my mistake. I reclined back in the lounge room on a couch with my cowboy boots over the couch arm and my hat pulled down over my eyes.

The Church Boy Approach

Believe it or not, as much as I hate to cheapen the idea of God’s gifts, I’ve actually for awhile, used to be in the practice of praying whenever I was pulled over. I would pray the dumbest sentence before the Living Creator , “Lord, I know I deserve this, but could you please let me off the hook this time? Thank you.” And isn’t it neat, that every time I prayed that prayer with faith, I never received a ticket. There was a period of time that I got stopped 5 or 6 times that I prayed this and there were 5 or 6 times that I was let off the hook. You may ask, how come I don’t still pray this prayer anymore. Well, every time I get pulled over now, I fell as though I deserve what’s coming to me, and that God doesn’t wanna hear me weasel out of something that I put myself in. My faith has shrunk in these matters.


As of now, there is a frightening rumor going around that all during the month of August, cops are going to start stopping people for going only 1 mile above the speed limit here in Alabama. And I have already seem them lurking on the main highways here. I drive slow. As slow as can be. I cannot deal with another ticket. It’s a battle. We are like worms, wiggling among the roads and intersections, and the State Troopers in their silver chrome cars are like large basses just sitting, waiting to catch one of us. So I hope I won’t have to write about getting a ticket for a long long time.