Cornbread's Shenanigans

If I ever write a book or my memoirs, I will have a full chapter solely about my dad. It will be entitled “Cornbread’s Shenanigans.” He keeps me laughing. He is one of the biggest hicks that you will ever have the pleasure of meeting. To give you some visual aide…he is the man that will bust up in church on Easter Sunday in a pair of worn out overalls. Why, you ask? Because Easter is the Sunday when everyone dresses fancy, and he doesn’t feel that you have to be super dressed up to go to church…no matter what the occasion. After years of arguing with him about this issue, I’ve finally given up the ghost, and just accepted it. Now that I am out of the “my parents embarrass me” teenage stage, I have to say that I kind of agree with him. He is the kind of guy that will tell you exactly what he thinks, and will let you know exactly where he stands on issues. While I find these good qualities, I have to say…some of the crap that he says will just utterly astound you.

Let me tell y’all a few tales.

One of dad’s most memorable sayings was the day that I got my first flat tire. (As a side note, I was 16 and utterly stupid when it came to the maintenance of my car. When I finally did realize what was happening, I thought that someone had slashed my tire because it was all cut up and smoking. Apparently I had driven on the flat quite a ways…oops) After my uncle finally came and fixed my tire, and I went home…dad sat me down and gave me a lecture. He said, “Aleta, if you didn’t have that d*** radio up so loud, maybe you wouldn’t have gotten that flat tire.” To this day, my sister and I are still trying to connect the two. Apparently the higher the radio goes, the less air you will have in your tires. So take heed to this. Or maybe this just makes sense to my dad.

Something also that I might mention about my dad is the fact that he doesn’t get in a hurry while driving. It doesn’t matter if he’s got to be there at a certain time, he will still drive 25 mph…everywhere. I’ve heard tales from kids (that go to our church) about their parents cussing my dad b/c they got behind him on the way to church :) Well, this past year when the gas prices rose to an all-time high, dad was convinced that he knew the solution to the gas crisis. His idea was that if they lowered the speed limits, the gas prices would fall. Once again, we had to raise our eyebrows.

Around Labor Day, the Hancheys asked my family to come over and have dinner with them before Brett left for training. We were eating dinner, talking amongst ourselves, when my dad bursts out “Yep, I think they need to just legalize marijuana. It’s not like I do it or anything, but were losing this ‘war on drugs.’ All we’re doing is losing money.” Thinking back on it, again, I still have no idea what brought this up. But after he said this…he went off on a tangent on how Willie Nelson would make a great President.

Last year, dad contracted Lyme’s Disease…well, depending if you asked one of the few doctors that saw him. One night, we had to call the ambulance b/c he was shaking with chills really bad. The stupid (Newbie) Ambulance girls showed up to find my dad in his purple sweat pants sitting on our front porch. After doing an EKG, and fighting over who got to shave a smiley face on his chest hair, they got him inside the ambulance where they were going to take blood samples and go on their way. I had to go inside the house for something, (BTW, we had other family members in our yard by that point…they had seen the ambulance lights and had gotten curious) as I stepped back into the yard I hear my dad screaming a long list of obscenities at the EMS girls from inside the ambulance. My uncle is laughing in the yard. And then I hear my dad say “Do you even know what you’re doing?” Apparently, they had missed the vein in trying to get blood. While you may be thinking my dad to be a bit of a wimp…I’ll tell you, he’s given over 12 gallons of blood in his life and not had many problems with this. Needless to say though, from dad’s account, they didn’t drive over 45 mph the entire way to Gainesville and they didn’t even turn on the lights. I think they might have been mad. (My aunts that were in Cedar Key beat the Ambulance to the hospital).

Something that my dad recently said that had us all laughing was the night that he told my mom “Cindi, I need you to pick me up some earplugs at the Walmart. You know, the kind that go in your ears.”

My dad has a great love for the RFDTV, much to my dismay. I deem it the “Aleta-is-going-to-find-a-rusty-butterknife-and-slit-her-wrists-channel.” I have come to the conclusion that he watches it sometimes to just drive me nuts. For instance, the many times that we’ve had to watch Big Joe’s Polka Show b/c there is nothing good on (btw, those old people can move). Speaking of that…he watches a very select group of shows. These consist of: Andy Griffith, Sanford & Son, Animal Planet, and RFD TV. We literally watch Andy Griffith EVERY night. We have seen every episode that has ever been made. And yet, every night, dad says “There is just nothing on this tv. We pay way too much for all of these channels that we don’t even watch. All we ever see is re-runs.” Other night, after I had had my fill of listening to his grumbles, I finally spouted off, “Dad, we only ever see re-runs b/c you refuse to watch anything else. We’ve seen every Andy Griffith Show ever made. The reason they’re always re-runs is because they stopped filming the show 30 years ago!!!!”

Whew! I love the man, but I have to say that sometimes he makes a person want to drive to the nearest ABC Liquor Store (and Fine Wine) and get something a little stronger than a sweet tea. :) Joking. But he does make me laugh. –More stories on my crazy family later on. They give me a lot to write about.