Lonesone, On'ry and Mean

Thanks, Waylon, you pretty much nailed how we feel about the state of things in general, and Dog Days in particular.

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Last Wednesday passing through the island guard gate the temperature read 100. The heat index hovered at 109.

The ‘guards’ moved like zombies in a humidity-induced stupor. I don’t know where the day found you, but one thing I’m sure of: there’s not enough freon to go around. Welcome to Dog Days in Dixie

The heat does something to people. Brains liquify and folks find it hard to form sentences. Intelligent dialogue is pretty much summed up like this encounter with the gate guard:

Me: “Hot, huh.”

Guard: “Uh?....” Beginning and end of sentence.

Heat and humidity are no respecter of people or places. Over in Arkansas the index hit 119 degrees. Things haven’t been this hot in Arkansas since Bill got tangled up with Jennifer and Paula while Hillary was shooting the rapids of Whitewater. If Gary Hart had come up the river with his Monkey Business yacht, the state would have erupted in flames.

Down in Clarksdale, Mississippi things were no better. The steam index hit 121 degrees. People got so lonesome they rocked, resurrected and listened to old Jerry Clower videos. The last time things were this hot in Mississippi was when Marcel got tangled up with a she bob cat instead of a coon in the top of a magnolia tree.

When things got heated for Marcel hanging in the top of that tree, he hollered, “Shoot up here amongst us, Jerry, one of us needs relief.”

This lament is still preached as gospel in every rural church in Mississippi. It’s brought salvation to more folks than Jimmy Swaggart, who cried and sweated his way off TV in Louisiana a few years ago. There’s no vacuum in nature or religion. TV ‘love’ offerings are finding their way to the PO Box of a grinning ‘Profit’ in Texas named Joel.

Pockets of long-smoldering ashes are spontaneously flaring up. Some blame climate change. Too many cows, too much methane, they say. People are pledging their first-born for reprieve. Relief only comes with a huge ransom.

Someone’s always to blame. All evidence points to the state utility monopolies. Utility executives luxuriate in air-conditioned comfort in penthouse offices in Atlanta. They lunch scrumptiously off revenue from bloated power bills. They smoke big cigars and watch their customers writhe below like worms on beds of hot asphalt. It’s making folks mighty ornery.

But then, things are heating up everywhere. We’re having nightmares wondering which political party to believe. It’s making folks downright mean. The quaint concept of loving your neighbor is fuel for the incinerator. Vicious innuendo and promises, insane promises without meaning, roar from flaming tongues of 2020 candidates and set on fire the course of nature. Relief in nowhere in sight.

Nationally, a caldron is boiling. We wake up with night sweats. We must choose what sort of ‘supremist’ we are. Diversity, gender and reparations are old news. What are the choices, we ask? The best advice is to avoid the color chart and check the Neanderthal box.

The Global slowdown gets deeper. Fires everywhere. The glory of permanent riches fades. Capitalism smolders, socialism for all-things-free fires up. Stocks and bonds melt like wilted flowers. Recession looms. Farm crops rot in the fields as the last Chinese buyer bolts for the door. Only kudzu, the Southern Cannibal, survives Dog Days unscathed.

But enough bad news. Is there any good news out there? Yes. Donald is going to buy Greenland.

Don’t boil over. Imagine the possibilities. Greenland is melting, America is boiling. We’d do ourselves and them a favor to divert all that ice water back into the Gulf Stream. Imagine, no more hurricanes and having to watch Jim Cantore blowing in the breeze.

Remember Seward? Poor fellow. He bought Alaska from Russia for 2 cents an acre, a bargain. His reward? History hung him with the infamous distinction of ‘Seward’s folly.’ Until gold was discovered. Gold changes things. Maybe Donald knows something we don’t. If so, he’s not tweeting. Gold T’s everywhere.

Closer to home, the police report Walmart is still the pilferer’s preference, and arguments over women and alcohol continue unabated on L Street. Pretty normal for Dog Days in Brunswick.

Lonesome, On’ry and Mean…kick back and embrace the feeling. The party’s just started.


Bud Hearn
August 19, 2019