The Kindness of Strangers

originally posted on 8/8/06....during a visit to the mountains of Alabama)

When you're growing up, your mom always tells you to never talk to strangers.It's a survival tactic passed on from parent to child and it is good practice. But I guess I have some of Blanche DuBois in me when it comes to meeting people.

One of my favorite things to do in the whole world is exactly that- talk to strangers when I travel. It is the best way to get to know the places where you are and to remember them when you return. Time passes, but the conversations and memories will always be with you.

Which brings me back to Mentone, Alabama, home to some really nice people and good places to chow down on real home cooking in between shopping for bargains at the world's longest yard sale.

I got lost wandering around the top of the mountain while searching for our cabin and I was alone since the rest of my party was driving in from South Carolina. I'm a buckeye girl, born and raised in Ohio and presently living in the Queen City, Cincinnati. So I had to ask for help and that meant driving onto private property and interrupting people I saw and asking them to guide me to where I needed to be.

I met a short round woman who reflected my similar build and who was famous in the area for making jewelry and a man who had moved to the area less than a year ago. They lived pretty far apart and may not have known each other although they were neighbors, sort of. They lived off the same state route 89.

The tall thin man with no local accent, was grilling steaks on his deck. I interrupted him, but he was very cool, scratched his head after reading the directions I was attempting to decipher, apologized for never having heard of the place I was looking for and sent me back the way I'd come. He didn't offer up any steak. I wasn't hungry and wouldn't have said so anyway. I was hearing my mother in my head with that other parental admonition-"don't take candy/food from anyone who isn't family."

I finally found the cabin with the help of a couple on a harley davidson motorcycle who stopped for the stop sign near where I parked attempting to read the directions again. They would've been my neighbors having rented a nearby cabin, but their vacation was over so they were headed home to Huntsville.

Bikers sometimes look intimidating because of what they wear, but past experience has taught me, they usually give great directions. So I asked her on the back of the bike and he answered from the front. All the time I was trying not to ogle the dragon tattoo that started at his throat and disappeared down the front of his vest. They got me where I needed to be.

Success!

Now to find my sister and some sustenance. Tiring work being lost and temporarily homeless.

Isaac, Bernie, John and Cullen

I’ve been busy vacationing, which means I haven’t looked at a computer screen, paid attention to my cell phone, or written a word in a few days. I believe in totally unplugging when I take time off. This time I was hanging out with my sisters and family. My parents celebrated their 58th wedding anniversary. I’m the first product of a two parent, albeit dysfunctional American family. Still together and still crazy after all these years.

As I’ve written in the past this is the time of the world’s longest yard sale that stretches from Defiance Ohio to Gadsden Alabama along Route 127. My sister and I have set a goal of seeing every inch of it before we die and we’re making progress...slow, easy, happy progress, in coming days I will write about it, but not yet.

Life has a way of intruding when you least expect it. Bernie Mac, and Isaac Hayes died this weekend. Bernie was one of those guys who could make me pay to go see a movie these days. I’m a movie fanatic who stood in line to see Christopher Reeve as Superman at 8:30 in the morning in Los Angeles with my sister and brother in law. I was in the first audience to see Alien, the movie that made it okay to be a strong woman and kick some alien butt in the process. I saw Star Wars and Raiders when they first came out. I even saw Too Wong Foo from the first row surrounded by some of my more flamboyant friends, to the consternation of the other staid Cincinnati movie goers...

But I stopped going to theaters weekly as the price went up and the quality of movies went down. I go now only when I want to see someone whom I admire. Bernie Mac was one of those people. He made me laugh and laugh and laugh. I can’t remember half the movies I saw him in, but I can remember each and every line he uttered. I knew he suffered from a chronic illness. I just didn’t expect it to take him so soon. I’m one of those “beige MF’s” (his words) who’s going to miss him.

Isaac Hayes was the conductor of the orchestra that plays the soundtrack to my life. Hot Buttered Soul....Black Moses.....Shaft.....By the Time I Get to Phoenix....

He was the grandfather of grown up rap...What he said between the music was as important as the music itself. I still play the vinyl rather than the CD, because I can, and because I like looking at his very creative album covers..the original ones...not the re issues...Hayes was unique as an entertainer.
I don’t know what killed him, but he, too, went too soon.

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I went back through my commentaries to see what I’d written about John Edwards and the first thing I found was that I compared him to Dan Quayle, late last year, except I said he was much, much smarter. I take that back. Edwards is the dumbest rock in the box if he thinks that I and the rest of this world believes his version of his baby mama drama. Mr. Perfect’s been caught with his pants unzipped. He really is a politician and is as arrogant as the current resident of the White House. Hear what I say, pay no attention to what I do. Another defender of the sanctity of heterosexual marriage busted...Please!

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Cullen....Cullen....Cullen...Cullen Jones...Gold medalist...Yeah! Like your smile, bro and the way you stroke. May you find success in getting the little ones into the pool...