Moccasin Gap - January 2011

Happy New Year from Moccasin Gap, where the men don’t wear makeup, the women don’t wear jockstraps and the children get spanked when they do wrong.

So, how many New Year’s resolutions have you made yet? How many have you broken? How many were on your list last year? That’s my Aunt Estelle. Every year she vows to give up smoking. Well, this year she has finally given it up. She died of lung cancer three months ago. If you have made a resolution to stop smoking, please, stick to it. I really miss Aunt Estelle. She had a pet monkey that she would wear around her neck like a scarf. People loved it. They would say, “It looks so real.” And then they would pet it and the monkey would bite their hand. Never trust a monkey, Happy New Year Aunt Estelle, wherever you are.

January is a time when everything turns white, the ground from snow and husbands from holiday bills. To me, 2011 seems to be a lot like 2010.
There is still a lot of unemployment, the government is still getting bigger, and paychecks, if you’re still getting one, are getting smaller, politicians are still lying their a**es off and getting away with murder. Here in North Carolina, the former governor screwed the people miserably and he got off with a $1000 fine. Someone needs to send that judge to prison. The punishment just doesn’t fit the crime.

Oh, and Willie Nelson got busted for pot again. Read my lips, leave Willie the hell alone. Willie wasn’t driving the bus. Willie is no threat to anyone.

Whoever thought we would go into 2011 with a trillion dollar deficit? Here is a shocking statistic for you: If we spent a dollar a day toward the debt, it would take, get this, 425,000 years to pay it off. There won’t even be an earth 425,000 years from now.

Most people are probably still writing 2010 on their checks. I’m writing 2012 on mine since I’m paying everything with next year’s money. Mark my words, 2011 will be much better than 2010. Hell, it has to. I can’t go through another year like 2010, nor can I go through another president like the Messiah Obama. Did you know that about 90% of the people who voted for Obama don’t even know who the vice president is? And, really, don’t; you think it’s time to stop blaming Bush for everything. He is no longer in charge. Yes, my friends, it’s time to face the facts; there are idiots all around us.

All I can say is I had a great year. Unfortunately 2010 wasn’t it. I will give you a little New Year’s advice. Don’t drink and drive on New Year’s Eve. Driving isn’t that important. And please don’t say anything drunk that you wouldn’t say sober. I learned that last year when I told my boss his wife had a nice butt – and it was so soft. Now, I’m going into 2011 unemployed. Hope your New Year is better than mine.

If you have a job, be happy. If you don’t owe anybody anything, be happy, if haven’t lost everything, be happy.

Thank God we still have professional wrestling. It’s the only thing you can believe anymore.

Until next time, ya’ll come see now, you hear. And please, bring food. We have a lot of hungry people here in Moccasin Gap. And as for my New Year’s resolutions, I hereby vow to stop making New Year’s resolutions.

Life in Moccasin Gap at Christmas

Greetings from Moccasin Gap where the men are manly, the women are proper, for the most part, and the children think they know everything. And everybody has an opinion.

It’s December again here in Moccasin Gap. Actually, it’s December everywhere - except China. There I believe it’s the year of the rat, the big fat rat that keeps loaning us money to keep us deep in debt, but I don’t care, it’s Saturday, the parade is about to start and I’m happy little white boy.

Every year the parade begins with the Mayberry police car with an Otis look-a-like in the back seat. Only thing is, the Otis in the TV show wasn’t actually drunk. The guy in the parade is. Behind the car is a float carrying Uncle Clyde’s moonshine still with Uncle Clyde on the float passing out sample jugs of pure “white” to anxious spectators. Life is good in Moccasin Gap.

The high school “band” is always in the parade. It’s called a band but actually it’s just one guy; Otis Perkins’ boy, Ellis - he never was right, bless his heart. Yes, we actually have a one-man marching band. Life is weird in Moccasin Gap.

The high school queen is always in the parade. This year, I believe its Lance Wilkins. He actually looks pretty cute in a dress from a distance, but not that cute, if you catch my drift. Life is pathetic in Moccasin Gap.

The Sons of the Confederacy are always in the parade. Some people believe they’re just the rebirth of another racist hate group, but actually they’re good ol’ folks who lost relatives in the Civil War on the Confederate side, and they have every right to form a group to celebrate those people. I lost a great- great-great granddaddy in the Civil War. He fought for what he believed in. We moved on. Enough said. Life is proud in Moccasin Gap.

The Christmas decorations are simply gorgeous; empty beer cans with lights inside; nothing prettier than a row of lit beer cans on Main Street and a bunch of lip people staggering in the streets below. Uncle Thurman gets lit on Christmas Eve and makes it last right on through New Year’s Day. The cat is 91-years old and shows no signs of letting up. When he dies they won’t need to embalm him. He’ll already be pickled. Life is a party in Moccasin Gap.

Every year I get the same thing, draws and socks. I have more draws and socks than anybody in town. I’m ready for an accident every day of the week. Mama always told me to wear clean underwear in case I was in an accident. Of course, if you have an accident they won’t be clean anymore, will they? She also told me she’s slap me silly which obviously worked.
I hate Christmas shopping. My wife loves to shop. She’s a professional shopper. She can sniff out a deal like a blood hound in a swamp. She can go into a department store with five-dollars and come out with two shirts, a dress, three purses, two samples of new cologne, a bracelet, and a backscratcher/shoehorn. Give her twenty dollars and she can wipe out a Wal-Mart is thirty minutes. I don’t know how she does it. And that’s just one of her amazing qualities.

‘round here they believe the Three Good Ol’ Boys; Waylon, Willie and Johnny Cash followed a Lone Star Beer truck to a honky tonk in Alabama bearing gifts of moonshine, snuff and mushrooms. They brought wine too, but drank it on the way while eating the mushrooms and gettin’ crazy on “shine.” They showed up at the honky tonk bearing nothing but their souls which they gladly sold to the lady in the blue-jean shorts who was standing at the gold-painted door. Life is sad in Moccasin Gap.

I don’t remember if I mentioned this before or not, but I had forgotten how much fun Christmas was until I had my two boys. Now I see Christmas through their eyes, and now I know how my dad felt. This is just too cool.
I remember when I was nine-years-old I woke up on Christmas morning, looked out the back door and there was a tangerine laying in the backyard. My dad said Santa’s bag split open and it fell out. For the next week I ran all over town telling everybody I saw that Santa’s bag split open in my yard. That story made my Christmas. And this year I’m going to do it to my boys. Life is full of great stories in Moccasin Gap, stories you can share with others, and that’s why I’m glad I’m here.

All I care about this time of year is that my two boys are happy. They still believe in Santa Clause, and the Tooth Fairy and they still think pulling my finger is fun. Life is nostalgic in Moccasin Gap.

And ‘round here we still say Merry Christmas, even to the towel heads. That’s just the way we are here in the country. Take it or leave it, it’s that simple here in Moccasin Gap. Ya’ll come see us now, you hear? We’re about half mile from the state line in North Carolina, right in the middle of nowhere. If you can’t find us you didn’t need to be here in the first place, plain and simple.

Moccasin Gap/Cousin Jasper

I was watching TV with cousin Jasper the other night. Cousin Jasper, bless his heart, is so not right he was actually born bearing a helmet. He once peed on an electric fence because Uncle Eugene told him it was a great way to create your own electricity. Of course, all it created was a lot of pain for Jasper. It must have knocked him back about twenty feet. According to Cousin Jasper, your testicles really stink when they’re smoking. So we were watching TV; wrestling, or as Jasper calls it rasslin’. I call it the Blue Collar Ballet. Now, here is a little known fact about me; I used to be the ring announcer for the NWA. This, of course, was before Ted Turner bought it and ruined it. I know it’s fake. I was in on it. But Jasper thinks it’s real. Again, bless his heart. He screams at the TV, he jumps up and down in the living room floor; he hits the pillows the goes crazy. I remind him that its TV, they can’t hear you, and again, it’s not real. They’re supposed to do that, but he just won’t listen. And no, they’re not like that in real life. If they were they would all be in prison. And no, that’s not their real names. That’s two questions I got asked all the time when I was ring announcer. Is Undertaker his real name? Is Steve the Dream his real name? Yes, it is. His mother had a sense of humor. And, by the way, BC isn’t my real name. It’s Dino Fart. My Mom had a sense of humor also. One night Jasper said, if I were there I would jump in the ring and beat that bad guy silly. Yeah, that’s what the world needs, a scrawny little one hundred pound redneck who adds new meaning to the word silly beating a two-hundred-fifty pound professional wrestler silly. I suppose he would also get in the ring with Muhammad Ali, if he were there at ringside. “For a \million bucks I’d do it” That’s what Jasper said. I figure, “Yeah, for a million bucks you can afford the best hospital care. For a million bucks you can have caviar fed to you through that tube running down your throat,” To show you how not right Cousin Jasper is, we were watching Scooby Doo one afternoon, and he looked at me and actually said with a dead serious look on his face, “You know, dogs really can’t talk.” And this is the gene pool I come from. I’m so fortunate. We’re all here in Moccasin Gap. Ya’ll come see us now, you hear?