BETTER CRIMINALS AND BETTER VICTIMS

...whut..?

BETTER CRIMINALS AND BETTER VICTIMS

In case you haven’t noticed or been paying attention, I live in a small town.  Not just a small town but a small town in Georgia.  Now that in itself probably brings up some mental images depending on where you live or the books and movies you’ve seen.  To set the record straight, I haven’t always lived in small town Georgia.  I’ve lived in San Francisco, Honolulu, Los Angeles, Miami, and the Washington, DC area several times. I don’t even count the other garden spots the Army has sent me. Leesville, Louisiana, Killeen, Texas, Fayetteville, NC, Anniston, Alabama and Columbus, Georgia, also several times.

This brings me to the point of this blog. It’s not a travelogue, but an observation on living in a small town.  We have a weekly newspaper because we don’t have enough news to publish one every day.  I really…really love the newspaper.  We’ve got a great columnist and the publisher and I play poker occasionally, but the thing I enjoy most is the police reports.

The paper breaks down the crimes in the county by those handled by the city police and the sheriff’s office.  This ain’t Chicago but we do have our share of crimes and criminals.  For instance, this week the city police handled 376 calls.  Those calls resulted in 74 major crimes.  Major, you say.  Everything is relative. Somebody actually had less than an ounce of marijuana. Somebody else was driving without a tag and another person changed lanes without using his signal…or his arm depending on the age of the car and the driver. Now to the serious stuff.  We had 13 speeders, eight “hands free” law violations. Were they driving Teslas?  Maybe they were trying to drive with their knees…”Hey, y’all hold my beer and watch this.”  And my favorite that I’m still trying to figure out…”one laying drag.” Now we’re a small town and I suppose there may be one or two in the county, but where would you…never mind. Let’s move on to the Sheriff’s report.

A man was going 85 in a 55 zone.  Sheriff lit him up and he took off finally turning into a driveway.  Report said he was “extremely intoxicated”, claimed he was in his own driveway and if the deputy would just let him or help him into his house, he’d forget the entire episode.  The deputy had no sense of humor and the man spent the night as guest of the county.

Sheriff was called to the home of two brothers who evidently had been to the same place as the above gentleman and had consumed far too many adult beverages were doing batting practice on each other with baseball bats.

Then there was the lady who threatened a deputy and told him he was a worthless piece of humanity for attempting to arrest her for destroying her boyfriend’s tractor.

We get a lot of loose cattle, dogs chasing chickens and occasionally someone dispatching a dog to that great doghouse in the sky for said crime. People really take that one personal. 

As a writer the report is the equivalent of a gold mine for me.  I can’t make some of this up even at 3 AM when the crazies come to call. 

WHEN FUNNY AIN’T 

I was watching television recently and after running through all 6, 427 channels available and not finding anything that I really wanted to watch, I settled on a comedy special. The last one I saw was Jeff Dunham and it was one of the funniest hours I have spent in a long time.  If you haven’t seen him, you owe it to yourself to do so. He is probably the best ventriloquist ever, with all due respect to Edgar Bergan and that other guy whose name I can’t remember right now but I probably will by the time I finish writing this.

But this is not about ventriloquists. It’s about comedy or what passes for comedy now.  I don’t remember the name of the comedian I was watching and it’s probably a good thing.  I know I’m showing my age but ten minutes into the act I felt like I was in the men’s room at a gas station on a country road.  After twenty six years in the Army…in the Infantry…I thought I had heard every form of profanity every devised by man and a few women.  Boy, was I wrong.  I have been known to peel the wallpaper with my language on occasion. I have always tried to watch it around my wife and my daughters and especially my mother who kept a switch on top of the refrigerator and would have had no problem using it if she heard me.

I did a little searching on the Internet and came up with some old comedy routines that were popular “back in the day.”  If you have ever heard it, I think you may agree that the Abbott and Costello “Who’s on First” routine has stood the test of time and may still be the funniest of all times.

Back in the early day of television and radio prior to that every show had to be “G” rated because you never knew who would be watching or listening.  Radio transitioned to television and the only difference was that Grandma was watching and not listening and you didn’t want to embarrass her. 

As an example, and with apologies to one of the pioneers of radio and television comedy, Red Skelton I found one of his routines.  Take a look and see if it works today as it did…back then.

RED SKELTON’S RECIPE FOR THE PERFECT MARRIAGE

1. Two times a week we go to a nice restaurant, have a little beverage, good food and

companionship. She goes on Tuesdays, I go on Fridays.

2. We also sleep in separate beds. Hers is in California and mine is in Texas.

3. I take my wife everywhere, but she keeps finding her way back.

4. I asked my wife where she wanted to go for our anniversary. “Somewhere I haven’t been in a long time,” she said. So I suggested the kitchen.

5. We always hold hands. If I let go, she shops.

6. She has an electric blender, electric toaster and electric bread maker. She said, “There are too many gadgets, and no place to sit down.” So I bought her an electric chair.

7. My wife told me the car wasn’t running well because there was water in the carburetor. I asked where the car was. She told me, “In the lake.”

8. She got a mud pack and looked great for two days. Then the mud fell off.

9. She ran after the garbage truck, yelling, “Am I too late for the garbage?” The driver said, “No,

jump in!”

10. Remember: Marriage is the number one cause of divorce.

11. I married Miss Right. I just didn’t know her first name was “Always”.

12. I haven’t spoken to my wife in 18 months. I don’t like to interrupt her.

13. The last fight was my fault though. My wife asked, “What’s on the TV??”

I said, “Dust!”.

With my apologies to all the wives who read this….especially mine.

It just hit me….Paul Winchell and Jerry Mahoney.