Blogabillies

The Multifunctional Pecan: The South's Nut of Choice

by T-Bone

As I type this, I am holding two of them in my right hand, squeezing them hard against each other. I'm talking about pecans.

Southerners talk about pecans in reverential tones. They fill desserts with them. They follow trends of the crop like they follow the stock market ticker or sports scores and stats. "Gonna be a good year for pecans," is said with a religious zeal reserved for old-time revivals and big-time football rivalries or ugly political fights.

Why not? Pecans are the only real food that astronauts are allowed to take into space. One small step for man, one giant pecan log for Neil Armstrong.

Britney Spears: Didn't Your Mama Raise You Any Better Than That?

by Belle

Okay, y'all. Raise your hand if your mama ever lectured you on the importance of wearing clean underwear each and every day because, God forbid, you might be in an accident and have to be rushed to the emergency room, where a bunch of interns wearing wrinkled green scrubs with stethoscopes swinging from their necks would run around yelling big medical terms they just learned to pronounce, and then before you know it, the nurses would strip you down . . . only to discover that your private parts were covered by dirty drawers with frayed elastic.

Why, if that were to happen, it would not matter if every bone in your body were broken and you needed 8 pints of blood; the most critical injury would be to your mama's pride.

The Belching Buick from Hell

  by T-Bone

Kaboom!

The preschool teachers escorting small children from  cars crouched like trained detectives in the line of fire as the echo bored through the drop-off lane and ricocheted off the bricks of the brightly painted building. The Volvo-driving and minivan-maneuvering moms who were dropping off their milk-and-cereal-stained munchkins jerked around to see what was causing the racket. One woman dropped to both white panty-hosed knees on the sidewalk, clutching her little girl to her chest.

It was that loud.

For me, though, it was an everyday occurrence. It happened whenever the brakes were applied on The Bomb, my dreadfully dented 1979 Buick Regal.

The Meanest Horse in Texas

by T-Bone

I once worked on several Western wear accounts, Justin Boots and Panhandle Slim PRCA Rodeo apparel among them. We'd shoot for weeks on Texas ranches with real, working cowboys or in rodeo arenas with rodeo cowboys. They are a tough bunch. I found out I wasn't.

One morning before the sun came up, we were on a huge ranch north of Fort Worth, shooting cowboys rounding up longhorns. Just as we got set up and ready to shoot, the entire herd got upset stomachs - a polite term for what actually happened. Hundreds of bovinae suddenly unloaded everywhere - on cue, as if their colons were on a synchronized timer. The aroma hung in the air for miles.