Go Back to Your Woods

Throughout history and literature the "woods" have been a symbol of places dark and foreboding. Grimm tales, Salem witchcraft, the legend of Sleepy Hollow, the Boogie man, Bigfoot & Sasquatch sightings- all of these stories are burned into our human psyche prompting us to be fearful of what lies beyond the darkened tree line.

I have heard that many of the Grimm fairy tales served a protective purpose by instilling a healthy fear of the woods into young children who may be tempted to wander. Their parents were not afraid that scary monsters would kidnap their children, rather they were fearful that their children would be killed by the real creatures that inhabited the woods-wolves, bears, etc. So, stories of the boogie man and witches were used as a tactic to keep children from venturing too far into the deep, dark woods. Like in the movie The Village.

I spent a lot of my childhood playing in the woods that surrounded our neighborhood. Before my teenage diet consisted of MTV, Atari and General Hospital, my friends and I would romp through the woods. Those days were filled with hot, sticky Florida fun that involved playing Charlie's Angels or acting out other adventure type scenarios that we gained through movies like the Goonies and Indiana Jones. I don't think my parents were ever concerned about us playing in the woods, either.

But dangers really did lurk in those woods. Usually it was pretty harmless fun out there. Most of the woods backed up to the Florida canal system that links the swamps to the intercoastal, and eventually to the Altlantic ocean. So there were potential dangers in the form of alligators and water moccasins, but I don't recall ever seeing any. I do recall a little boy drowning in one of those canals, but I don't think it was the one we frequented in our backwoods adventures. I remember listening to the radio station the day they were searching for his body. One of the boy's older brothers had called into the radion station to request a song. They played "He's Not Heavy, He's My Brother" and it was pretty sad and poignant moment in my childhood.

I also recall the hunter my friend and I came across in our roaming too. He was just kind of standing there in camouflague with his rifle propped up next to him. Just standing there. It kind of freaked me out as we came upon him. I was always a chicken shit when it came to strangers.

My parents really instilled that stranger danger into me, almost to the point of me being kind of freakish about it. Any guy with a beard and long hair was scary to me, (especially when you throw beer cans out the window of your car when I'm walking home from school.) Seeing that part of my childhood spanned the 1970s the odds that I would see a man with long hair were pretty grand so I spent a lot of time avoiding them.

Anyway, my first instinct when we happened upon this hunter was flight, so I abruptly retreated from the situation. I couldn't believe that my friend decided to strike up a conversation with the hunter. She had nerves of steel, I tell you. Fortunately he was not hunting humans, nor was he a escaped psychotic waiting to kill young girls strolling through the woods.

The other really scary moment was when we encountered another man in the woods. This guy was pretty normal looking, about 40ish and wearing what could be described as business casual clothes-which was very odd. He was also carrying a paper sack. My freak-o-meter was beeping and buzzing at the sight of this man, so again my instinct was to get as far the hell away from him as I could.

The man then reached into the paper sack he was carrying and pulled out what looked like a gun. He didn't point it at us, and thankfully he didn't shoot us. In fact her really didn't look at us or acknowledge our presence. Nonetheless, we had no idea why a normal dressed man was in the woods carrying a paper bag and pulling out guns on innocent unsuspecting children scaring them silly. At the time I remember we had some theories, but the most likely conclusion we settled on was that he was growing weed out there and the gun was his protection against renegades and thieves. We never found any evidence to fully support this theory, but it was the best we could come up.

The woods, for me, were a magical and adventurous place where the neighborhood kids got a chance to act out their fantasies in a harmless and active way. This was way before Grand Theft Auto. But despite the fantasy world we thought we created, there was still that element of danger lurking out there. It's quite a paradox for me. The woods represent a peaceful and therapeutic place where I find my troubles and worries slip away. Sitting by a campfire looking up at the trees and the stars is where I find peace and healing. Woodland fairies and nymphs are the supernatural creatures of the woods that I like to think about instead of boogie men and skunk apes.

But that's not to say that I'm not terrified that a homicidal maniac wielding a chainsaw is going to cut me up into little pieces inside my tent when I go camping.

Wonderings and Musings

I wonder why it smells like falafels in my office today.

I wonder why anyone would want to eat Dominos new Oreo pizza. I love Oreos and I love pizza, but the commercial for this concotion has totally turned me off to the idea of merging these two elements. I can only picture how the younger actor got his bad teenage Oreo mustache and the older actor got his full Oreo beard. Ewww!

I wonder why it has become acceptable for a politician running for office to openly sanction murder -and I quote the commerical: "My opponent wants to see terrorists in the courtroom, I want to see them in the cemetery." To me this totally contradicts the foundation of our supposedly just and democratic society that believes a man is presumed innocent until proven guilty. Who has decided that this hypothetical person even is a terrorist?

I wonder why my dog is suddenly terrified of the ceiling fan and barks at the pumpkin I brought home.

I wonder why the priest Foley has accused of molesting him doesn't think there's anything wrong with giving naked massages in the sauna to teenage altar boys.

I wonder if Keith Richards and John Mayer are good in bed. Something about the way they play the guitar.

I wonder who killed Danny Bodaduce on CSI. Did they ever resolve that mystery?

I wonder why I waste time wondering about this stuff. I should have better things to do.

The Sixth Sense

Some vigilant and concerned parents possess an evolutionary trait that I like to call the sixth sense. And no, this does not mean that these keen parents can see dead people, although in a round about way that description could be applied. No, really what I'm referring to is that sixth sense that enables parents to know intuitively when their kids are up to no good.

So, in a way these parents do see dead people, because when they catch their kids involved in mischief it may sometimes lead to their kid's untimely death-and I mean figuratively of course. I'm in no way condoning the murder of children. But if you're a firm, stern, authoritative parent your child will wish they were dead instead of being dealt your brand of swift and cruel punishment for their misdeeds. Or it may signify the death of their child's social life. For example, when that kid has been invited to go boating on the intercoastal with some really gnarly dudes but can't because she is grounded for missing curfew the weekend before. Alas, missed opportunity-which is a tragic fate in the life of a 17 year old, trust me!

As a parent I can't say that I have this quality, at least not in a truly developed fashion. I was a little bit of an amateur and knew when my daughter was really young that when she was quiet she was probably up to no good. And nine times of ten when I subscribed to that belief it usually paid off in narrowly averted poisonings, chokings, and fallen furniture. But whether it's the eyes in the back of the head or the nose that can detect the first whiff of trouble that your child is going screw up, these are skills that I will have to continue to hone. I fortunately do have a role model though, someone who has perfected this sixth sense and has carried out countless punishments and who has thwarted many a childhood prank.

My father in law is case in point that some parents possess the sixth sense. I know first hand because in my early days of dating my soon to be husband we could never pull anything past my father in law. For example, when we attended family functions-weddings, parties, and/or picnics-there was a small group of cousins and brothers in law that would escape the function to partake in recreational activites that promised to make the function a little more comical and entertaining. No matter how we tried to slip away or sneak off it always seemed like my father in law was there with that watchful eye. He never did try to stop us at that point because we were adults, technically, but it did not deter him from making his presence known. Like he needed us to know that we were not fooling him, no matter what we thought.

My husband relayed a childhood memory this past weekend that served as inspiration for this post. When he was ten his parents took him on a cross country family vacation to the Grand Canyon. Along the way, my husband and his ten year old boy persona took delight in the dirty poems and musings he read off the bathroom walls in the rest stops, gas stations, and campgrounds of America. At one of their stops at a KOA campground, my husband thought it would be funny to share some of those limericks with future campground bathroom visitors. His plan was seemless. It was the last day of their stay there, so he would lift a magic marker from the campstore and adorn the bathroom walls with a poem similar to this:

Here I sit so broken hearted
Tried to shit, but only farted.

The Dukes of Hazzard were in full swing, so there might have been a confederate flag or two drawn on the walls too.

Anyway, my husband's fool proof plan was that he would lock the stall door and crawl underneath. It was doubtful that his Dad or anyone else that could incriminate his involvement in the graffiti would witness his scrawlings if the stall remained locked until their departure. But unfortunately his plan was not successful, because my father in law, exercising his sixth sense, foiled the plan and proceeded to make my husband clean the bathroom walls. My husband has no idea how his father found out about the graffiti, but it was pretty easy for him to detect my husband's involvement in it.

Because I've sworn off reading my daughter's diary I am going to have to rely on some supernatural ability in order to keep her out of severe trouble. I can only hope that my sixth sense will improve over time. I'm almost sure I'm going to need it.

The Eyes Have It

Last night I came home to pour myself a glass of one of my favorite beverages-Coca Cola.

Now, I'm going to digress and rehash an old observation that stand up comics have probably already covered in a much funnier fashion circa early 1990's, but why the hell did Coca Cola ever come out with New Coke only to revert back to Coca Cola Classic?? The guy that came up with that idea was hopefully fired, or at least demoted- if he had a family to support. I'm not heartless, you know. The Pepsi vs. Coke debate will rage on until the end of time or at least until our stomachs have rotted, but I have found that you either like Coca Cola for its crisp, carbonated flavor or you like Pepsi for it sugary, flat taste. It's not like Coca Cola needed to recruit drinkers over to their side, because you drink Coke because it's not Pepsi. It's like the Outback deciding to serve Burger King whoppers. So yes, I was quite upset when New Coke was introduced, only to be elated when Coca-Cola Classic was revived.

Anyway, back to the regularly scheduled post. I went to pour my drink (i.e. and by that I mean I went to drink straight out of the bottle) and I noticed that the Coca Cola label had been removed from the bottle. I asked my husband about this and he said it had to be removed because the label contained something of a highly offensive nature. I couldn't figure out what it could be and then I was reminded of the menancing eyes that were on the label when I bought it. I just figured it was in spirit of Halloween. But no, you see, the Coca Cola label was actually depicting the eyes of a wolf. And not just any wolf, but the wolf as in the NC State Wolfpack.

Only a true college football fan would understand my husband's seemingly juvenile reaction. Ask a Sooner what what they would do if a cornhusker was on the label of their pop. Okay maybe not the best example. So maybe you could ask the Crimson tide what they would do if the eyes of gator appeared on their label of sodey. (By the way, we would have a big problem with that one too, as would the Vols, the Bulldogs, the Gamecocks , etc.) As I have mentioned before my husband and I are graduates of FSU and thereby avid fans of Florida State football. And while in our day that affiliation was worn as a badge of pride, these days...well how can I say this...not so much so. I can go on and on about the reasons we think the Seminoles suck these days, but I will refrain. *cough cough Jeff cough cough*

Nonetheless I now have a label-less Coca Cola two liter because my husband ripped off the label and threw it in the most appropriate place, the trash. Now we'll just have to see if the trash talk can continue tomorrow.