Humor?

The Devil’s House Pets

/ cigarman501 / 10 Comments

“If you don’t think a small act can make a difference, try going to sleep with a mosquito in the room.”

Julie Foudy

Source: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/167196204888780155/

I have trouble believing the story of the Great Flood and Noah’s Ark…wait, there is geological evidence of a flood in the Middle East around 2900 BCE, so the story of the flood is probably true although I doubt it was worldwide. The story first appears in the Epic of Gilgamesh, an Akkadian poem that appears around 2100 BCE.

Noah? I can be convinced there was a guy building a big boat, surrounded by friends and family, all shaking their heads and “tsk, tsking” until the rains began. You cannot convince me that Noah would have included mosquitoes and not included unicorns. Mosquitoes…the Devil’s own house pets. A simple slap would have ended much misery.

Come on Noah. Aside from man, mosquitoes kill more people worldwide than any other animal, mostly due to malaria. No fangs or claws, no venom. Less than a quarter inch long and it is only the female that kills because she is the only blood sucker. A flying killing machine with a needle for a nose. The male spends his ten days on earth happily sucking nectar and fertilizing eggs. The female? Two months of sucking blood and laying eggs.

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/memes/comments/c04zxg/mosquito_bad/

I’ve never heard of a unicorn killing anyone…oh, yeah. Scratch that thought…unicorns don’t exist, but mosquitoes do. There is no justice.

It is that time of year in my little piece of heaven in the foothills of the Blue Ridge. Not only is the Devil attempting to smother us all with heavy blankets of heat and humidity, but he also released his house pets. Forget the hounds of hell, its mosquitoes, gnats, and deer flies.

Even if I don’t contract malaria or Dengue fever, they are all just annoying. Mosquitoes buzzing around my ears…or ankles, sucking whole clouds of gnats into my sinuses, or having deer flies attack my balding pallet. Annoying! Annoying! Annoying!

Nothing is more annoying than a mosquito buzzing around your ear…especially at night when you are trying to sleep. One mosquito evades destruction…although it destroyed my sleep and I have an itchy ear.

It makes one lose one’s religion. You say things you would not say in the presence of polite society…”The little bastard got me on the f***ing ear.” See, not only can it suck three times its weight in blood, I lost my religion.

As I stood in line at a local mercantile a man in front of me set a spray can of Deep Woods Off on the counter and engaged the young woman manning the cash register. I found he had come close to losing both his own religion and his sense of humor.

Upon putting the insect repellant down the young woman asked, “Did you find everything you needed?”

The customer exhaled heavily, “I hope so, thankfully. Listen, I’m a good Christian and I know God wants us to love our neighbor and forgive others of their sins, but… f*** mosquitoes. Seriously.” No, not the language you hear in polite society…or from a Baptist minister.

The young woman smiled, “Here is your receipt. Have a better day.” She was a Southern lass and understood.

The customer, now smiling, answered, “You too…and apologies for the language.”

I’m not going to try and convince you that spiders are beneficial. Source: http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/3tza6i

There is a reason the little f@#$*rs are attracted to some people more than others. Mosquitoes are attracted to carbon dioxide released through the skin and exhaled from our lungs. They are also attracted to people who sweat a lot and who are beer drinkers. Ah, the trifecta. Why can’t they suck fat?

The fact is, the more you sweat and pant trying to shoo her away, the more attracted she is to you. “Ah the sweet smell of lactic acid,” she thinks, following our exhalations back into our face. Reminds me of a girl I dated in the early Eighties, but she wasn’t a blood sucker, but I had a hard time getting rid of her just the same.

We just had a thunderstorm come through. Lowered the temperature ten or fifteen degrees and took the humidity right out of the air, leaving behind perfect mosquito hatching weather. We can’t win. I should hang garlic around my doors and windows.

Source: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/428756827010059361/

In a lifetime long ago, on a trip to the coast, my bride and I took a side trip…another phrase for “we got lost on a pig trail.” I felt the call of nature and pulled down a dirt road into a secluded turpentine farm. Tall pine trees crowded in around the single track and blotted out the sun. As I found out, a perfect climate to breed all the mosquitoes in the world plus one.

As I finished my business, I looked down at my “man part” and found it covered in mosquitoes. To save it from Satan’s hellhounds, I zipped up too quickly and you can guess that outcome. My wife laughed and laughed until the thousands of mosquitoes that followed me into the car found her blood to be sweeter than mine. Justice.

If you enjoyed this, Don Miller’s authors page may be found at https://www.amazon.com/stores/Don-Miller/author/B018IT38GM?ref=ap_rdr&store_ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true

Blog image courtesy of Newsweek.

Weather Forecast: Fat Men in Tank Tops

/ cigarman501 / 7 Comments

“I hate dressing. I hate the heat. I hate sweaty people getting aggressively close to you when you’re walking down the street.” – Johnny Weir

The temperature is climbing and will touch ninety if the weather liars are to be believed. I don’t need the weather liars to tell me that the humidity is climbing toward ninety too. The air will feel like triple digits they say. The air is not mid-July or August heavy but if the air were a human it could stand to lose a few pounds. So could the guy in the pea green tank top.

Hot and humid weather brings them out like darkness draws cockroaches. Industrial sized men in cargo pants that reach below their knees, flip-flops, and tank tops they have not only grown into but have grown well beyond.

Anyone who knows me, or sees the way I dress, knows that I’m not a fashion snob but I do own a mirror. I sometimes wear cargo shorts that hit just below the knees, but I never wear flips or slides outside of the house. My toes are in too bad a shape to subject people to that. Looking at my toes the descriptor “gagger” comes to mind.

Tank tops? Never have I ever. Why? Again, I own a mirror. As the ravages of age have befallen me, I don’t even like to wear short sleeves. Since a 2006 heart attack, my weight has remained a somewhat constant one-eighty, down from two thirty-two the day of the event. I’d like to weigh my all-time low of one sixty-eight, but that all-time low may be a mirage.

While my weight has remained constant, my body has changed. I blame my abhorrence of strength training. My chest has fallen into ass and my arms have shriveled. Think of a potato with twigs for arms. I should rethink the mirror thing.

I wish Mr. Pea Green Tank Top had been a mirage that dissipated rapidly. Instead, he picked a table directly in line with my line of sight and began to scratch an underarm featuring underarm hair that reminded me of one of Star Trek’s Tribbles.

He was like watching a train wreck you could not avert your eyes from. A pie shaped, very florid face with thin hair above, sweat plastered to his forehead. His triple chin sat atop a tank top stretched to a breaking point and a chest that should have featured his wife’s bra.

For a moment I mentally applauded his fashion confidence…just not his fashion sense. This was a man comfortable with his considerable heft and was displaying it proudly. I’m sure had he known what I was thinking, he would have exclaimed, “Kiss my porcine ass cheeks, I’ll wear what I want. If you don’t like it eat somewhere else.”  

He would be correct in his thinking. It is none of my business how others dress but I found that my appetite for a fish taco had waned. For some reason, the fish didn’t taste as good. Maybe I am a fashion snob.

I was also reminded of an industrial sized friend who asked a young lady out on a date. The object of his desire asked, “Why should I go out with you?” His answer was, “I don’t sweat much for a fat guy.” She liked his sense of humor, went out with him and they have been happily married for several decades.

If I have offended anyone, let me reiterate. I am not fat or health shaming him. I am questioning his fashion choice…I am also questioning an eating establishment that doesn’t feature a tank top banning to go with “No shirt, no shoes, no service.”

Don Miller’s author’s page may be found at https://www.amazon.com/stores/Don-Miller/author/B018IT38GM?ref=ap_rdr&store_ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true

Why Are the Scientific Instruments Searching for Intelligent Life Pointed Away from Earth?

/ cigarman501 / 5 Comments

“He had just about enough intelligence to open his mouth when he wanted to eat, but certainly no more.” ― P.G. Wodehouse

Did someone really try to eat the box? This must be a message to all the Stoners with a powerful hankering from the munchies. I was already worried about humanity, but I now am terrified.

Stupid people winning stupid prizes is not something new. What is new is social media never letting people live down their stupidity…if they manage to survive their stupidity.

When a redneck says, “Hey y’all watch this,” it is best to have 911 keyed up and ready. It is often the last words out of their mouths as they audition for a Darwin Award.

The two good old boys who, on a hunting trip got drunk, and decided to see who was the best shot with a crossbow by William Telling beer cans…off each other’s heads. One lost an ear but managed to avoid the “Fickle Finger of Fate.”

My best friend tried to emulate Roy Rogers jumping onto a horse from a balcony. We had no balconies on our farm and decided to use the hayloft of the barn. We didn’t have a horse either, but we did have a bicycle. Thankfully, he went first while I held the bicycle…he also went last.

Also from my childhood, the fella whose gas gauge had quit working. Needing to check the level in his gas tank one night, he decided to use his Zippo to get a better look. Singed his eyebrows it did and destroyed a perfectly good ’51 Plymouth. He seems to not be the only one who decided to check their fuel level with an open flame. See the warning label below for a jet sky.

No one lost a life in these examples and leads credence to the old French saying, “God always helps fools, lovers, and drunkards” Sometimes.

One must remember that for every warning label there is at least one person who has done something dumb and then sued someone for their own stupidity. Remember the McDonald’s lawsuit? Coffee cups now carry the warning, “Do not spill coffee on your crotch” label. Actually, the warning is “Caution: Contents Hot.” We also got cardboard sleeves and “sippy cup” like lids from that lawsuit. Technology as needed for the survival of the species.

As a science teacher there were sometimes unintended consequences to some of the experiments and demonstrations I did. I don’t know who it reflected more poorly upon, the students or me. The good news is no one lost an eye.

I really should never have given out the instructions on “How to build a potato gun” after demonstrating one in class. One of our nearby communities faced a series of “spud” attacks and a picture window was knocked out. I was young and stupid, like my students. Enterprising young people, “There are dozens of internet sites that will tell you how to build one. Go out and do your worst.” Now I’m old and stupid.

Spud guns will raise a knot if mishandled.

A demonstration of the reaction of potassium and water went off the rails when several Senior lab assistants decided to recreate it. I used a lab sink half filled with water and a BB sized amount of potassium, a soft metal that will react with the oxygen in the air and violently with the oxygen in water, creating enough heat to ignite the hydrogen that is released in the reaction. The small sample sparked and smoked on the surface of the water drawing oohs and aahs. The lab assistants? About two inches of water and a golf ball sized piece of potassium. After all, if a little is great, a lot is monumental.

Knowing they were in the wrong when the department head walked into the storage room used to hide their activity, they compounded their folly by attempting to dispose of the evidence by pulling the drain plug and allowing it to drain.

Do not try this at home!!!!

As soon as the potassium hit the trap there was an explosion shattering several of the connected glass traps used in laboratory settings. No one was hurt but several students were drenched in yucky water at their lab stations as pressure caused water to flow in the wrong direction. I received the dreaded intercom message from the principal’s office, “Mister Miller, come to my office immediately, please.”

For my next trick, I will make a dill pickle light up in the dark…I’ll save that one till later…no I won’t.

Before you rry this, it takes 120 volts which will make you light up if handled incorrectly.

Really smart people do stupid things too. Ben Franklin’s kite experiment comes to mind, but he survived his foolishness. Sir Francis Bacon didn’t.

On a freezing day in April 1626, the philosopher-scientist, Francis Bacon, had the idea that freezing might preserve food and decided to gut, pluck, and stuff with snow, a chicken. Neither the chicken nor Bacon survived. Bacon developed pneumonia before the experiment could be proven and died.

If you are unfamiliar with the Darwin Awards, they are a tongue-in-cheek honor that originated in Usenet newsgroup discussions around 1985. They recognize individuals who have contributed to human evolution by selecting themselves out of the gene pool by dying or becoming sterilized via their own actions. Sir Fransis Bacon would be the only possible Darwin Award winner from my examples.

Note: I wrote this before the loss of the Titan submersible with five people on board and considered whether I should share it or not. Obviously, I made my decision.

I have seen much debate about the wealth of these individuals and the intelligence of these individuals. While this terrible event proves wealth and intelligence will not shield you from your fate, there is nothing remotely humorous as the memes and jokes I have seen might have you believe. Shame on some of us as humans.

Don Miller’s Authors Site may be found at https://www.amazon.com/stores/DonMiller/author/B018IT38GM?

My Throbbing Opposable Thumb

/ cigarman501 / 20 Comments

“Dinosaurs are extinct today because they lacked opposable thumbs and the brainpower to build a space program.” — Neil deGrasse Tyson

Like most people, opposable thumbs are not something I tend to think much about…until yesterday. Yesterday I took a dive, forehead planting just outside my home. Luckily, I chose a large patch of un-mowed clover to crash into. I’d like to blame my puppies, but it is due more to an overactive clumsiness gene.

What does my clumsiness and painful neck and shoulders have to do with my opposable thumb? Somewhere in my dive I jammed the thumb on my left hand into the ground before falling on top of it. It pained me yesterday but this morning…. As a friend once wrote, “The pain is exquisite.”

Overnight my thumb became swollen and blue reminding me somewhat of a Louisiana Boudin Sausage when I viewed it in the morning light. When I sucked on it, it reminded me of nothing like sausage. The pain is manageable if I don’t move it…or anything else. I’m right-handed and thought, “no big deal it’s my left hand.” A bit of ice will do the trick. Wrong. I can’t even open the baggie to put the ice in without using my teeth.

Problems manifested as soon as I attempted to squeeze toothpaste onto my toothbrush to rid myself of my morning breath. I am a left-handed squeezer and even more clumsy reversing the process, attempting to hold my toothbrush in my left hand like a baby holding a spoon. I’m not ambidextrous unless that means “equally clumsy with both hands.”

Have you tried to unzip and unbutton your pants to answer a dire morning call to nature? Damn near impossible without using both hands and both thumbs. Damn near but I did avoid a catastrophe. Unfortunately, I now must sew a button on to my pants. That won’t happen for a while.

Simple acts become impossible. Holding a cup of coffee in one hand and a breakfast burrito in the other. I had to change into my third pair of shorts having dumped my burrito into my lap and onto the floor. Manna from heaven for the puppies. I just triggered another question, “Why do we call it a ‘pair’ of shorts rather than just one short?” Inquiring minds must find out.

Tearing the top off a food packet like the shredded cheese I wanted to put into the grits I’m now eating because of the dropped burrito was challenging. After a failed attempt using my teeth, I accomplished the feat with scissors and a left elbow trapping the package against the center kitchen island with a bit of body contortion. Tried to stir the cheese into the grits by trapping the bowl against my chest…that required a tee shirt change…which is also hard to accomplish.

Geez, I sure hope I don’t have to unscrew a bottle top.

At some point I will have to put on shoes and am questioning whether I’ll be able to tie the shoestrings. Simple things a right-handed person doesn’t realize you need a left thumb to accomplish. I’m sure my list will continue to grow as the day goes on, but I’m quitting now. I’m having trouble hitting the space bar with my left thumb.

***

To answer my question about shorts…or pants, the phrase “pair of pants” harkens back to the days when what constituted pants consisted of two separate items, one for each leg. They were put on one at a time and then secured around the waist.

The term “pair of pants” is derived from French, where the word originally meant two separate garments that were worn together. At that time, the pants were separated by leg coverings, which made it logical to call them “pairs”.

The word pants? Pants derives from the word pantaloons, which has several differing spellings.

Don Miller writes about subjects other than opposable thumbs and pairs of pants. His works may be found at https://www.amazon.com/stores/Don-Miller/author/B018IT38GM?ref=ap_rdr&store_ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true

Spam…balaya, Crawfish Pie, Filé Gumbo….

/ cigarman501 / 7 Comments

“100% True Fact: Spam means; Sizzle, Pork and Mmmm. Someone tell me I’m wrong…”― Skylar Blue

SPAM actually stands for spiced ham according to its producer Hormel.

A pig trail ran through shredded Spam and scrambled eggs, twisted to lettuce, tomato, and Spam sammies, switched back to Spam and fried potatoes, to a now dead college chum and his recipe for Spambalaya. Johnny Bolt, you little bald-headed demon, I miss you, I do.

Miracle Meat not Mystery Meat

If you are newer to this earth, Spam is tech lingo for unwanted, unsolicited mass communications. While the term is most associated with email, it can also be used to refer to spam comments on blogs and social media, physical junk mail, robocalls, and more.

The newer description is an assault on a once proud delicacy created by Hormel in 1937 to sell more pork shoulder, the weakest selling part of the pig at the time. For those not in the know, pork butts are not butts but pork shoulder. Back in the day, they were shipped in what were known as butts (barrels), after being butchered in New England or Boston. That’s how they got their name, Boston Butts, but more importantly, they are the star ingredient in pulled pork barbeque…and Spam.

According to Wikipedia, Spam is sold in forty-one countries, trademarked in one hundred, and sold on six continents. It tends to freeze too easily in Antarctica I reckon. In the U.S., Hawaii is the state with the highest per capita consumption of Spam, which has become a major ingredient in Hawaiian cuisine.

Muriel Miura’s Hawaiian Spam Cookbook

Why did it become such a seller? During World War II, the U.S. government sent Spam to the troops because it was easier to deliver than fresh meat. It came precooked in a can, so it didn’t need to be refrigerated or cooked to consume, necessities under battlefield conditions.

By mid-war, Hormel was producing fifteen million cans of Spam for the troops each week. Hormel was buying 1.6 million hogs each year, and 90 percent of the canned goods were going to the military. After the war, soldiers returned home with either a taste or disdain for this odd product, and Spam has adorned grocery store shelves ever since.

We also supplied it to our allies including England and the Soviet Union. Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev wrote in his autobiography, “Without Spam, we wouldn’t have been able to feed our army.” Before she became the English Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, a teen at the time called it, “a war-time delicacy.” “Spam the food that won the war!!!”

Spamville somewhere in the Pacific during WW 2

My father was a World War II vet, and he brought home a taste for the salty processed canned pork made primarily from pork shoulder and ham…with a bunch of nastier ingredients like fat, sodium, and preservatives. People were not deterred by its high fat and sodium content. Austin, Texas even celebrates it with their annual “Spamarama.”

During my childhood, we ate it a lot along with bologna, deviled ham, and Vienna sausages. We considered Spam to be a higher quality meat. Bologna, deviled ham, and Viennas were lunch selections, what we call dinner here in the South. Spam was reserved for a simple supper, the evening meal.

“Don’t knock it till you’ve fried it” was once a catch phrase for Spam. I honestly haven’t seen a Spam commercial since…well…since the last time I ate it which has run into decades ago. I don’t know why.

It is not a healthy meat choice, but I would say I wasn’t eating it well before I turned my lifestyle around after a 2006 heart attack. I’m not inclined to run out and grab a tin, but if I do, I might try Johnny Bolt’s recipe.

Johnny passed over a decade ago. Our lives first tangled in college the fall of 1968. He was a cocky little fellow, mostly bald by age eighteen. By the time his hair fell out, he had quit growing upward, topping off at about five-five.

When it came to playing the saxophone, he had an ego the size of a sperm whale. I was the only member of the saxophone section of our jazz ensemble that wasn’t a music major and played like it. Johnny was at the other end of the spectrum, and I guess I was a bit jealous. What is it they say? “It ain’t braggin’ if you can do it?” Johnny could do it.

We both became teachers; he was band director, and I became a science and history teaching football and baseball coach. It was inevitable we would run across each other when our schools faced off, but in the early Nineties, we found ourselves teaching at the same school.

It was at Riverside High School that the powers that were decided we should publish a “Cookbook” as a fund raiser. Johnny’s submission was “Spambalya so good it will make you want to slap your momma.” Before you ask, I did “Chicken Cooked in the Ground,” one of the only things I learned in the Boy Scouts.

As it turns out Johnny’s recipe for Spambalaya came directly from a Spam cookbook from the Fifties. Teachers are adept at stealing good lesson plans, why not a recipe? I did add some spices to “kick” it up a bit.

“Spambalya so Good it Will Make You Want to Slap Your Momma!”

Ingredients

1 (12 ounce) can spam luncheon meat, cubed (It called for lite, but I’d use regular. Why bother.)

1 tablespoon of vegetable oil

1 cup chopped onion.

2⁄3 cup chopped green bell pepper.

1⁄2 cup chopped celery.

A tablespoon of chopped garlic

1 (14 1/2 ounce) can diced tomatoes (use liquid from tomatoes)

1 (10 3/4 ounce) low sodium chicken broth (I use regular)

1⁄2 teaspoon dried thyme

1 1⁄2 – 2 teaspoons hot sauce (recipe read 6 to 8 drops)

1 bay leaf

1 cup long grain rice

1 tablespoon chopped parsley.

If you wish to add shrimp or chicken, please do.

Cajun spice mix, if you desire, and I would.

Directions

In a large non-stick skillet over medium heat, sauté spam until browned.

Add vegetable oil, onion, green pepper, celery, and garlic. Cook until all vegetables are tender.

Except for rice and parsley, add remaining ingredients.

Bring to a boil and add rice.

Cover, reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes or until rice is done.

Remove bay leaf, and sprinkle with parsley.

Best served with an ice-cold pilsner beer. Put on some Zydeco and laissez les bons temps rouler.

***

I could not find a live version of Jambalaya On the Bayou. This will have to do.

Don Miller writes in various genres and on various subjects. His author’s page is found at https://www.amazon.com/stores/Don-Miller/author/B018IT38GM?ref=ap_rdr&store_ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true

Peacocks in Synthetic Polyester

/ cigarman501 / 4 Comments

“Breakfast cereals that come in the same colors as polyester leisure suits make oversleeping a virtue.” -Fran Lebowitz

Memories of men dressed in colorful synthetics, strutting like peacocks. Instead of spreading their tail feathers they wore paisley or geometric patterns, platform shoes, and flare-legged trousers with large plaids in mismatched colors. You shouldn’t wear plaids with stripes? Welcome to the Seventies where everything went together if it was accessorized with a white belt.

My guess is there is a white belt and two-toned platform shoes not shown.

I entered the 1970s at age nineteen and exited it a lifetime later it seems. It is as if I slept walked through most of the decade or just locked certain memories away to maintain my sanity. There was much to like about the Seventies I suppose. I just don’t remember what. There were good movies and good television, but the music was dubious, and fashion? Read on my children.

It is easier for me to hate the Seventies than love those years. Politically Viet Nam, Nixon, Watergate, and Disco. Economically, the Gas Embargo and Disco. Personally, a marriage, a divorce, clinical depression, and Disco…by now you probably get the idea I’m not a fan of Disco. I had a challenging time mastering the basic moves of the “Twist” in the Sixties, no way I was going to try Disco. Thank goodness for the “Bump” and KC and the Sunshine Band singing, ”Get Down Tonight….”

I don’t know if I should be proud or embarrassed to say this. I’ve never seen “Saturday Night Fever,” ever. Oh, I’ve seen clips on YouTube or dare I admit it, MTV. “Stayin’ Alive, Stayin’ Alive”, but I’ve never seen the movie in its entirety. I listened to the music; “Disco Inferno” is still on my exercise play list.

Okay, I’ll admit it. I just went to YouTube and watched clips of John Travolta dancing. Simply research mind you.

I had beltless flared pants or white belted flared pants and a long-collared shirt or two, but never did I ever wear a leisure suit or a solid white three piece. The white belt for pants with belt loops? Forgive me Fashion Father, I did. Thirty Hail Travoltas in front of a Disco ball as penance.

Travolta could dance…I couldn’t, and he looked better in his flared polyester. Tall, slender, and athletic as opposed to short, chunky, and challenged. Liked him better with Debra Winger in “Urban Cowboy” wearing denim but I’ve never owned two toned cowboy boots or a big cowboy hat with a feathered hat band. I have tried the Texas Two-Step and even rode a mechanical bull. Tequila brings out the worst in me.

John Travolta and a Disco Ball

In addition to the Disco dance craze, there was the fashion revolution. Some fashion statements were quite appealing…especially if it was on the female form. Minis and Middies, grannie dresses, patterned hose or without, bell bottom jeans, halter tops and halter jumpsuits, peasant blouses and I must admit the female fashions from the Disco age were quite appealing. Ethereal fabrics swirling around spinning hips…yes quite appealing. Just thought about Charlie’s Angels and a promotional picture of Wonder Woman, Lynda Carter, in a halter dress. Sorry ladies, I didn’t know what objectifying was in the 1970s.

Original Angels ready for the Disco objectification.

Men…what were we thinking. Lime green leisure suits featuring long collared “catch me, f*** me” shirts unbuttoned to show off our chest hair accessorized with gold chains. All above two-toned platform shoes. Fish belly white kids running around with blown out Afros added to the insanity.

We were brightly clothed for a change…peacocks in synthetic polyester.

Please understand, this is not the breathable, water wicking athletic wear of today. No, no. This was like wearing plastic food wrap. It trapped every bit of perspiration between your body and your colorful, polyester nylon, paisley print shirt and your synthetic bold plaid trousers. Your platform shoes? They became a vessel for the perspiration that poured south of your underwear. I sloshed walking off the dance floor.

A bit of bold plaid, beltless and flared

I remember taking a young lady to The Cellar in Charlotte, a dance venue transitioning from Beach Music to “Do the Hustle.” After dancing the night away, I led her back to my car, opening the door for her like the Southern gentleman I am. Returning to the driver’s side I slid across the Naugahyde seat with my still damp synthetic polyester trousers. Do you know the sound wet polyester makes sliding across fake leather seats? Remember the campfire scene from “Blazing Saddles” or the sounds made a few hours after eating tacos with a side of refried beans. Embarrassing.

Saying I hate Seventies polyester is not strong enough. Hot and stinky in the summertime and offering zero protection from the elements in the winter. Nope, nope, nope.

Seventies polyester was also a fire hazard. It had to do with the fact they were wrinkle free, a major selling point…until you accidentally dried them on high. Your colorful nylon long-collared shirt turned into a colorful wad of plastic. If you happened to be close to an open flame, it didn’t flare up, it melted…into you.

My tastes may have changed. That doesn’t look terrible…nah.

A female friend of mine pointed out that this was the beginning of the polyester pant suits as professional wear for women too. Still, I’m sure it looked better on you even if it was brown “earth toned” plaid and wrinkle free.

I’m a natural fiber guy or at the very least a blend kind of guy. I know cotton doesn’t wick moisture away like the “new” unnatural fibers but then I’m not running marathons anymore. Cotton gets heavy with perspiration, but I don’t care. Cotton, linen, or bamboo…yes bamboo, I have several bamboo fiber shirts. Can’t tell them from linen or cotton…or hemp. Don’t try to smoke your clothes Cheech and Chong.

To be honest, since my retirement, I’ve become a blue jean, cotton tee shirt wearing hippie in my seventies…not from the Seventies. I still listen to The Eagles and Linda Ronstadt more than Cool and the Gang and KC and the Sunshine Band…but I don’t turn them off when they come up.

I have a dress suit for funerals…someone else’s…not mine. The suit is a polyester blend…of course it is. I will not wear my suit as I make my heavenly transition. I will leave this world the way I came into it. I hope that visual doesn’t stay in your mind for too long…but it still beats synthetic polyester.

Enjoy a little blast from the Seventies, a dance mashup. Can you name all the programs or movies?

***

Note: I do realize that polyester fabric is synthetic. Saying synthetic polyester is redundant. I just like the way synthetic polyester rolled off my tongue.

***

Blog image from Peacock Blues – © Xanda O’Peagrim

***

“Pig Trails and Rabbit Holes” The best things in life are friends, family, Jack Daniels, and a good cigar. Maybe a good yarn or two with pulled pork BBQ or ribs. Humorous nonfiction from Don Miller https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09GQSNYL2  

Possum! Um, Um, Good

/ cigarman501 / 4 Comments

“Reagan promised everyone a seven-course dinner. Ours turned out to be a possum and a six-pack.”  -Jim Hightower

I am not sure about what got me thinking about possums. It could be the three flattened bodies I saw between the mile and a quarter drive from Highway 25 to my driveway. It seems like they commit mass suicide every so often. I thought of another quote, “Why did the chicken cross the road? To prove to the possum that it could be done.”  S. Truett Cathy said it, but I’m not sure the possums were paying attention.

I’ve had a love hate relationship with possums. I loved the little one on the side of my running path, its heart shaped head glowing in the reflection of my running lamp. I thought it was some unknown flower bloom until I saw its eyes blink. Little one must have fallen out of momma’s pouch. Never fear, momma was close by and when I returned the little joey was absent. Joey is what baby possums are called. Cute name but the adult versions are anything but cute. Only a face a Momma could love.

I remember another trying to escape my chain link fence with a corn cob in its mouth. He couldn’t quite figure out how to get the cob through the chain link. Eventually he turned toward me and grinned like a possum eating persimmons before scurrying over the fence. I tossed the cob after him. I hope he appreciated it.

Yawning Baby possum playing in flowerbed showing all his teeth.

Don’t get me wrong. Possums get a bad rap. Rarely do they get the rabies they are accused of carrying and they are quite beneficial, scavenging for rotting fruit and vegetables, eating ticks and other icky insects.

Despite their mouths full of misshapen teeth, they are very docile. They may show you their teeth and hiss, but it is a ruse. If threatened, they play dead…no, they really do. They don’t have a choice; it is an involuntary physiological response to danger. Think of it as a fainting spell due to seeing a mouse sort of reaction. That is where my hate relationship with possums comes in.

I have a couple of persimmon trees in my yard and possums love overripe persimmons. I also have Blue Heelers puppy dogs. Persimmons, possums, and puppy dogs are a bad mix. During persimmon season, when I let my pups out for their pre-dawn constitutional, many mornings they would intercept Mrs. Possum coming down from the persimmon tree, catching the marsupial on the ground.

Proud of themselves, Maddie or Tilly would bring their prize indoors and stand over the possum waiting for their “Good Dog” treat. Many mornings I came out of my bathroom to find a possum playing dead…and then suddenly it would resurrect, and I would find myself chasing a wild animal around the house trying to capture it in a pasteboard box before my puppies turned it into a bloody mess. The present two heelers, Quigley and Cora, have yet to discover possums…chipmunks are a different subject.

Note: I’m guessing that Maddie and Tilly caught the same possum several times.

I love them more than I hate them, but I don’t love them enough to want to eat them. Oh, the thought. While they have a rat like tail, they are not rodents, but I can’t get the vision of eating a rat out of my head. Squirrels you say. Well don’t that beat all. Squirrels are rodents. Might need to rethink those squirrel dumplins’.

My great grandfather ate possum. I know this because periodically my grandmother would capture one for him. He’d say, “Addie, I have a hankerin’ for some possum.” Being a dutiful daughter, she would set up a rabbit gum under the persimmon tree in her yard and check it every morning until she caught one. She might catch a rabbit or two before she caught the possum…or maybe a raccoon. She’d put the possum in a cage to fatten it on corn for a couple of weeks and then take it to her mother to turn into possum stew…which might have been eatable had you left out the possum.

I made the mistake of researching possum recipes. One I loved, one I hated…see, love hate relationship.

This one is from the 1941 New American Cookbook. Nothing says America like roast possum. Try not to gag.

Plunge a 2–3-pound possum into very hot but not boiling water for 2 minutes. Pull out or scrape off hair without damaging skin. Slit belly from throat to hind legs. Remove entrails, feet, eyes, and brains. Do not remove the head or tail. Wash thoroughly. If possible, freeze for 3 or 4 days. That would be a hard NO! Are we leaving the head on so that we know it isn’t a dog?

When ready to cook, wipe the possum with a cold, damp cloth. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Put in roasting pan. Add 1 cup water and juice of 1 lemon. Bake in hot oven (400°F) for 15 minutes, turning once. Cover. Reduce heat and bake in moderate oven (350°F) for 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 hours. Enjoy.

The second recipe is much better.

 Southern Possum Pie. Recipe from https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/218440/southern-possum-pie/

Ingredients

2 (3 ounce) packages cream cheese, softened

¾ cup confectioners’ sugar

1 (9 inch) prepared graham cracker crust

¼ cup chopped pecans

⅓ cup instant chocolate pudding mix

¼ cup instant vanilla pudding mix

2 cups cold milk

¾ teaspoon vanilla extract

½ cup heavy cream, whipped

30 pecan halves

Directions

Beat softened cream cheese and confectioners’ sugar together in a large bowl with an electric mixer until smooth. Spread mixture into the bottom of prepared graham cracker crust. Sprinkle chopped pecans over mixture.

Stir chocolate and vanilla pudding mixes together in a separate large bowl; pour in milk and vanilla extract. Beat on low speed for 2 minutes, spoon into the pie pan.

Cover the pie and refrigerate for at least 2 hours. Top with prepared whipped cream and pecan halves.

I do love any possum recipe that doesn’t include possum!

***

Don Miller writes in various genres. His author’s page may be found at https://www.amazon.com/stores/Don-Miller/author/B018IT38GM?ref=ap_rdr&store_ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true

Grillin’ Season is Upon Me

/ cigarman501 / 4 Comments

“Everybody says, ‘I have problems overcooking steak on the grill. Just take it off earlier!” – Bobby Flay

I know Bobby. Grilling isn’t rocket science but there seems to be a fine line between slightly under cooked and incinerated.

Not to belabor a point that I have made before, and despite what your favorite dictionary might tell you, barbeque is a noun not a verb…or an adverb…or adjective…maybe. My English teachers are looking down from heaven shaking their heads.

Okay, after much thought, it is okay to say you ate barbequed pork or chicken. That denotes it is a type of chicken or barbeque, not an action. I am belaboring a point, but one prepares barbeque. One eats barbeque. One does not say “I’m going to a barbeque for chicken or steaks in the backyard.” That is grillin’.

Moving along, my subject is grillin’. My subject is not serving succulent meat slowly cooked over wood coals for most of the day before the meat succumbs to gravity and falls off the bones. That is barbeque, usually pork in my part of the world. I didn’t move along far, did I?

My subject matter today is the rapid roasting of meat, hamburgers, or hotdogs…or in my case chicken. I do try to feed my obsession with food in a healthy manner…not really. I also like to prepare it slowly over indirect heat out of regard for my Southern, slow-cookin’ roots. Indirect heat allows me a margin of error.

I rarely grill beef. A man must know his limitations. I can’t seem to get it right. Goldilocks I could never be because nothing is “just right.” Beef requires perfect grill marks on the outside and a pink juicy middle. I blame my grandmother and mother. To them steak wasn’t done until it was crisp. Honestly, I never ate steak anyway other than crisp until I was out of college.

To defend my mother and grandmother, I grew up in an age when round worms could still be found in beef and pork. Yuck. Round worms cause trichinellosis, a parasitic disease that is muy malo. Don’t hear of it much in the United States because we have standards…FDA standards. We also didn’t cook many “premium” cuts of meat. Cubed steak, Chicken fried steak, or hamburgers were about the best we could expect.

Hamburgers on a griddle I can do but the grilled ones end up over cooked and dry, hotdogs that are exactly right suddenly become crispy critters as I look for my misplaced tongs to remove them from the grill. Do I have to give up my “man card?” Laud help me if I decide to grill expensive cuts of beef. Have you eaten filet de ash covered splinter?

For some reason, chicken seems to be more forgiving. Maybe because I didn’t ring the poor creature’s neck myself. Fact is, chicken should be served over done rather than underdone…that is a salmonella fact. So how do you keep it from drying out and becoming tough? Brine it, marinade it, pound it with a mallet, use dry rubs, or cook it over indirect heat…or all.

I find the perfect way to prepare grilled chicken is whole, roasted over the indirect heat provided by my thirty-year-old Weber Kettle grill. The grill is really that old. The legs rusted off a decade ago and I built a stand for it. I’ve contemplated a new one but decided to wait until the bottom rusts out of the old one.

Here is my favorite recipe for whole chicken. Note, you may brine it, use your favorite marinade, or dry rub. You can’t pound it. You must use indirect heat.

Don’s Beer Butt Chicken- File under grillin’ and I didn’t create the recipe, I just perfected it.

Ingredients

1 cup butter, divided (I guess you could use vegetable oil, but I’ve never tried.)

2 tablespoons of your favorite rubbing spices, divided

2 tablespoons of paprika, divided

salt and pepper to taste

1 (12 fluid ounce) can of beer

1 (4 pound) whole, washed and patted dry chicken

Put on your favorite grillin’ apron. Mine says “I like my butt rubbed and my pork pulled” but then this is about chicken not pork.

I am a traditionalist or a “charcoalist” I use charcoal. I don’t use starter fluid and start it with a tower. There are no unwanted chemicals affecting the taste of the chicken. I set the heat vents on both the top and bottom to barely open. You may use a propane grill, just heat on one side, and cook on the other. You may have to adjust the time.

While my charcoal is catching fire, I combine half of my spices, salt and pepper, and paprika while drinking half a can of my favorite beer in a can. Set the remaining beer aside for later.

I rub down my washed and dried chicken with half of the butter and then sprinkle half of my spices over the chicken, on all sides and inside, and pat them down into the butter.

By now the coals should be caught and I divide the coals leaving the middle of the grill clear of charcoal. If you want to add wood chips, now is the time. I would suggest pecan or apple wood.

In a small sauce pan I melt the remaining butter and when melted mix in the remaining spices. When combined, I CAREFULLY add it to the beer can with the remaining beer. BE CAREFUL, the beer will foam.

On a grill pan, I place the chicken with the beer can stuffed up its butt forming a tripod with the chicken’s legs. Carefully place the chicken on the grill pan, in the middle of the grill and cover with the grill lid. Note, there is a stand that you can purchase to hold the chicken and beer can in place but as I said, I’m a traditionalist.

I cover the grill and then walk away for forty-five minutes, about two to three beers in time. Don’t peek, that just allows the heat to escape.

After forty-five minutes, using a meat thermometer, I check the breast, which should be 165 degrees F. and the thigh which should be 170 degrees F. If not at the correct temperature, drink another beer and check again. If chicken has reached the correct temperature, remove it from grill and wrap in aluminum foil and let rest for ten minutes. Drink another beer if you want but remember you might not want to pass out before eating your chicken.

Read more at https://www.amazon.com/stores/Don-Miller/author/B018IT38GM?ref=ap_rdr&store_ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true

Southern Fried Schoolin’

/ cigarman501 / 6 Comments

“True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.”
― Kurt Vonnegut

For some reason, a memory of a manure spreader hooked to the back of a pickup truck as they waited in the school’s carpool line wandered through my mind. A smelly, just used manure spreader at that. It is just a normal day in the rural South. A manure spreader one day, a hay bailer the next…just another day in the sunny South. Why am I thinking about manure spreaders? I don’t know but I’m sure the thought was triggered by something one of our politicians said.

This is the tenth-year anniversary of my last year teaching full time. Time flies and I’m amazed at the changes that have occurred in public education in the decade since I retired. Changes that I saw on the horizon ten years ago. I was fortunate to escape the ‘looney bin’ that has become public education. I was lucky they didn’t lock the doors until after I escaped.

As I look back on my career, memories allow me to smile. As I look to the future I realize, if faced with the same two choices of careers when I graduated from college, I would pick the other. There doesn’t seem to be much joy in teaching these days and that is a shame. It is better to focus on warm memories than the cold future of education. Hopefully, you will smile too.  

Just like politics, there are differences between schoolin’ in an urban setting and a rural setting…and even more so, in a Southern rural setting. I received my “schoolin’” in a Southern rural school and was lucky to teach in a couple of small rural middle and high schools over my forty plus years.

In a Southern rural school, one sees and hears things you do not see anywhere else. I am somewhat of an authority having taught both in urban, inner-city schools, affluent suburban schools, and Southern rural schools, one tucked so far back into the sticks the only air pollution was the tart smell of a nearby moonshine still or the woodsmoke from the fire cookin’ the corn liquor.

During my high school days, I took agriculture classes as electives and was an active participant in the FFA. I was a member of the cattle judging and soil judging teams…soil judging? I judge you to be dirty. I can honestly say, “I’ve never used what I learned about cows or soil in my everyday life.” I do try to grow tomatoes, so I guess soil judging paid off.

Frequently the agriculture class would travel to local farms in the springtime to assist in the castration of bull calves. Always a fun time to be had by all except the calves we wrestled to the ground. Holding on to a rear leg for dear life, the scared animal decided to spray us with solid waste. I doubt an urban school would have an entire class dismissed because they were covered in cow poop.

Later, during my teaching career, I found myself tardy for an interview because of a small wagon being pulled by a team of burros on a narrow and curvy country road. Passing was impossible and the gentleman handling the rig was in no mood to pull over. I found out it was just the local drunk who had lost his driver’s license and was on his way to pick up his daily allotment of MD 2020 or Boones Farm. I guess if you are sober enough to hitch up a team of burros, you are sober enough to drive them.

One of my teaching stops celebrated “ride your horse to school day” in the early Fall and another “drive your tractor to school day” in the late Spring. They weren’t school sanctioned, just something that happened. In between there were rodeos and turkey shoots that many of the students from both schools participated in.

One Spring Fling, held on the baseball field, required an outfield cleanup before we could play again after the “cow patty drop” fund raiser. The outfield was gridded and numbered; each grid sold for five dollars. Ole Betty the cow was led out and turned loose. Whichever grid Betty first pooped in won some lucky soul half the pot, the other half was donated to the athletic department. Anything to make a dollar and it could have been worse, “cow patty toss?”

One school might as well have called off school on the first day of deer hunting season as our attendance went down by at least a third. Most days there was someone dressed in camo with an orange or yellow vest sitting in class who had been in the woods very, very early. I’m sure there were shotguns hidden behind the seats of many pickups in the student parking lot so their owners could get a jump on an evening spent in a deer stand.

I once told my classes that I didn’t care if they ate snacks if they did it quietly and shared with the rest of the class…and their teacher. I’ve never understood keeping growing teenagers from eating despite school rules to the contrary. One student brought a large tub of boiled peanuts and a fresh roll of paper towels for us all to eat on. Another provided me with homemade deer jerky on a weekly basis during deer season. Boiled peanuts and homemade deer jerky were acceptable as classroom snacks or party appetizers and were some of the best Christmas presents, I ever received. You can keep your shiny red apple or fruit cake.

At the urban schools where I taught, I never paused baseball practice to watch a deer sprint across the outfield before escaping by jumping the left centerfield fence or stopped practice when a parent brought by the five-hundred-pound boar hog he had killed. We were the only folks around to show off for I guess, and we stood around the truck bed and expressed our awe to the proud hunter. We ate slow cooked Boar BBQ two days later. Being nice does pay off.

While I’m on pigs, being late to school because “the pigs got out” was an acceptable reason to be tardy…or goats, cows, chickens, and horses.

A teaching peer once asked me, “What was the difference between teaching at the affluent, suburban (so and so) High School and the poorer, rural (the other) High School?”

I smiled, “At (so and so) High School if the conversation included ‘I shot’ it was about golf. At (the other) High School, it was about hunting.”

If you enjoyed this, you might enjoy one of Don Miller’s nonfiction works. His latest nonfiction is “Pig Trails and Rabbit Holes” and may be purchase in paper back or downloaded through Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/Pig-Trails-Rabbit-Holes-Southerner/dp/B09GQSNYL2/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3QCP1VFAVULJY&keywords=Pig+Trails+and+Rabbit+Holes&qid=1679679089&sprefix=pig+trails+and+rabbit+holes%2Caps%2C213&sr=8-1

There is no Spring in my Spring Forward

/ cigarman501 / 4 Comments

“I don’t mind going back to daylight saving time. With inflation, the hour will be the only thing I’ve saved all year.” — Victor Borge

There are many perks to retiring. A huge one being, I am not held captive by the clock…except when I have a doctor’s appointment. Doctor’s appointments are one of the non-rewards of retirement because to retire, one must get old. I don’t wear a watch anymore. If I could figure out how to get rid of a calendar, I would. But then when would I know we were getting ready to change to Daylight Saving Time and back again? Note: I have trouble knowing which day of the week it is since I retired…don’t care, either.

When I was a child, I didn’t remember much about Daylight Saving Time except when Mr. Gordon walked into our church service with a bewildered look on his face as we stood and began to sing the benediction. Mr. Gordon, like my family, tended to get up with the crowing of a rooster and went to bed when the chickens came home to roost. Unlike us he had missed the news flash about the then April change in time.

I remember asking my parents why we were changing the time. They stared off into space and no explanation was forthcoming. There still is no explanation but the difference is, I just don’t care.

My lack of care today was not the case when I toiled in the then hallowed halls of education. Working people and students will wake up on Monday morning and spend the day yawning because in springing forward, they will lose an hour of sleep. Nowhere is this more evident than in a high school teaching environment. Teens are notorious for finding ways to stay awake well past their bedtimes and Sunday night, March 12th will be no different, except it will be worse. On March 13, Little Johnny and Juanita will sleepwalk through the halls of learning even more stupefied than normal. So will their teachers.

No one has been able to give me a good reason as to why we need Daylight Saving Time and Dave Berry agrees, “You will never find anybody who can give you a clear and compelling reason why we observe daylight saving time.” Another quote attributed to “a wise old Indian” states, “Only the government would believe that you could cut a foot off the top of a blanket, sew it to the bottom, and have a longer blanket.” I see nothing faulty about his logic.

So, why do we have it?

According to a CBS Boston article, “Daylight Saving Time has its roots in train schedules, but it was put into practice in Europe and the United States to save fuel and power during World War I, according to the US Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics.” Train schedules? Must be of German origin. Don’t their trains always run on time?

While in Paris, Ben Franklin proposed the time shift change in 1784. In a satirical letter to a Parisian newspaper, Franklin suggested that waking up earlier in the summer would economize on candle usage; and calculated considerable savings. This makes no more sense than train schedules. I’m trying to decide if this is contrary to his Poor Richard’s quote, “Early to bed, early to rise….”

To continue, “The US kept Daylight Saving Time permanent during most of World War II. The idea was put in place to conserve fuel and keep things standard. As the war came to a close in 1945, Gallup asked respondents how we should tell time. Only 17% wanted to keep what was then called “war time” all year.”

“During the energy crisis of the 1970s, we tried permanent Daylight Saving Time again in the winter of 1973-1974. The idea was to conserve fuel. It was a popular move at the time when President Richard Nixon signed the law in January 1974. But by the end of the month, Florida’s governor had called for the law’s repeal after eight schoolchildren were hit by cars in the dark. Schools across the country delayed start times until the sun came up.”

I remember 73-74 well. Waiting in gas lines only to have them run out as you finally got to the pumps. It was my first-year teaching and I remember gym duty before school. We corralled our little charges in one place, so they didn’t get lost in the darkness outside. Seven hundred of the devil’s minions in a gym.

“By summer, public approval had plummeted, and in early October Congress voted to switch back to standard time.”

So why do we need Daylight Saving Time? In two words, we don’t…unless you are going to utilize that extra hour of daylight after work or school. It is geared toward industry or those with typical “9 to 5” jobs. An extra hour of sunlight to drink another martini on the veranda in the glow of the sun.

My biggest argument against it? Daylight Saving will kill you. It seems to do damage to the human psyche and our health. Studies over the last 25 years have shown the one-hour change disrupts body rhythms tuned to Earth’s rotation. We have more car accidents when people lose an extra hour of sleep. We also know that people suffer more heart attacks at the start of Daylight Saving Time.

But for every argument there may be a counter argument. People seem happier with the extra hour of afternoon daylight, heart attacks be damned, and robberies decrease. Robberies decrease? Candles aside, the biggest argument for it is for saving energy but studies have shown there is little energy saved. And yet we continue to spring forward and fall back.

Arguments to keep it come from the recreational sport world, think driving ranges that want golfers to stop by after work, an extra hour for fisherman to go out and hook a monster, or the Little League world. Arguments against come from farmers who have a harder time getting their dairy products and vegetables to market, usually done in the early morning. Farmers and ranchers are governed by the sun and not a time piece.

So, your feelings about Daylight Saving depends on who you are and what you do. I’m retired. I go to sleep when I’m sleepy and get up when I’m not…well, my puppies have replaced my childhood roosters. I’m sure my puppy dogs wild dictate when I get up. They may not be able to tell the time, but they know when it is mealtime.

Note: 2022 poll by Monmouth University found 61 percent of respondents want to stop switching, while only 35 percent want to keep things the way they are. But those who want to end the madness are divided: 44 percent said they want permanent Daylight Saving Time and 13 percent want permanent Standard Time. With the political madness on display every day why would I guess otherwise?

***

Don Miller’s last nonfiction was “Pig Trails and Rabbit Holes” and may be purchased or downloaded at https://www.amazon.com/Pig-Trails-Rabbit-Holes-Southerner/dp/B09GQSNYL2/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3K12GNSMDT7T0&keywords=Pig+Trails+and+Rabbit+Holes+Don+Miller&qid=1678534404&sprefix=pig+trails+and+rabbit+holes+don+miller%2Caps%2C186&sr=8-1