June 26, 2008 Issue

I was sitting on a neighbor’s front porch in Red Bay last week.
 
“I’ve lived too long,” my friend said as he took a drag off of a Chesterfield. “I feel like that old guy who went to sleep and when he woke up everything had changed.”
 
“You mean Rip Van Winkle?” I asked.
 
“Yeah, except I ain’t hardly had a nap,” he said. “And today they make it official. Same sex marriage is what they’re callin’ it. When what it is, is man on man sex. Geez! Woman on woman ain’t so bad. But two men together, dang. I’ve lived too long.”
 
He put his cigarette out in an ashtray.
 
“They’re gonna outlaw me smoking a cigarette on my own porch pretty soon. And now we have one man marrying another man. Hell, it’s more fashionable for two men to have sex than it is to smoke a cigarette. Sheeesh. I’ve lived too long.
 
“It wasn’t long ago that it was the hippies with the long hair and the drugs,” he said. “Now it’s us rednecks with the long hair and the dope. Only these local boys ain’t just smoking the stuff, they’re growin’ it.
 
“But that’s probably a good thing cause most of the folks up here is too lazy to work at anything, so at least the dope growers are puttin’ some agricultural skills to work,” he said.
 
“These young kids up here are fat, uneducated and lazy. That’s a poor combination. All they do is watch television or play video games. They’re gonna evolve into diabetic, big headed, fat creatures with one huge eye in their forehead.
 
“An education ain’t worth a flip anymore, anyway,” he said as he drank his iced tea. “The Republicans have ruined just about everything around here. Taxes and insurance and the cost of living is ridiculous. Hell, we don’t make anything in this country anymore, anyway. The only thing we export is our damn military and it’s in shambles. Who would have guessed that the best dang economies in the world are in Korea, Viet Nam, China, India and Russia. How’d that happen?
 
“Those damn dot heads from India are about to run this country. If you don’t believe me, next time you call a service desk for something, you’ll be talkin’ to somebody somewhere in India. Go up the road to the convenience store, and you’ll be dealing with somebody from India. And if you want to spend the night in one a them flea bag motels around here, you’ll be dealing with another dang person from India and his name is gonna be Mr. Patel.” He leaned back in his rocking chair and closed his eyes. “Hell, I’ve lived too long.
 
“I went to the store this morning. I don’t see real good and I thought I bought some shampoo. Well, look at this,” he said, handing me a colorful bottle. “Pomegranate body oil. I don’t want pomegranate or oil on me. It was probably meant for some of them homosexuals.
 
“I saw the ladies shopping around at the store,” he said. “Walkin’ around with fancy bottles of water that come from a garden hose somewhere that cost more than gasoline. And the ones without water were carrying cups of coffee that cost five dollars. No wonder everybody’s broke.
 
“Hell, I like gas station coffee. But yesterday they had a thing on the news that said coffee was bad for causin’ hypertension. Today they’re saying it’s good for you and can even cure some kinda cancer I ain’t never heard of. But the way they cure you is to shoot that coffee up your ass like some kinda enema,” he winced. “Dang, I’ve lived too long.
 
“Now if you wanted to book some bets a couple of years ago that we were going to have a black man as President of the United States, you’d a been busy bookin’ bets. And here we are. He ain’t really black, he’s more paper-sack brown, but still. On top of that he’s got a name that I don’t feel comfortable pronouncing. And on top of all that, I’m gonna be standing in line to vote for him.
 
“I’ve lived long enough.”

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