Lewis Grizzard Wednesday: Lewis Holds A Press Conference

Leave Pulitzer Out Of This

I have called this press conference to announce I am not going to retire.

“Why not?”

I need a job.

“But there must be other reasons?”

I don’t have $46 million in the bank and I need the company health insurance are two that come to mind.

“But you have to sit around trying to think of column ideas all the time. That must really become a grind.”

Sometimes. But I don’t have to do any heavy lifting.

“But what about all the pressure?”

What pressure? If I mess up, nobody dies.

“But what if you write a lousy column? All those readers see it.”

They can always read “Dear Abby.”

“Aren’t you being a little callous here?”

Of course not. I’m just saying for 50 cents, how much insight do you expect to get? If Michael Jordan has a bad night, there’s always Scottie Pippen.

“But what about your health?”

Doctors say I can type all I want to.

“Let’s talk about burnout. You have been in the league for 16 years. “

That’s nothing. My mother taught first grade for over 30 years for a lot less than I’m making and I don’t have to convince 6-year-olds to sit down and shut up.

“But what about living in the spotlight? Your picture is in the paper. You’re a celebrity.”

So I’ll get a gun.

“You’re referring, of course, to Atlanta Falcon receiver Andre Rison, who says he carries a gun because of his celebrity status as a pro football player.”

If I were Andre Rison, I would carry two guns. He’s not only a celebrity, he also plays for the Falcons.

“But don’t people often harass you in public for what you write?”

Yo. I don’t mind that as long as they don’t challenge my manhood.

“Still, there must be other things you would like to accomplish. As they said about Michael Jordan, there’s a lot more to him than just being a great basketball player.”

Yeah, like the 46 million in the bank.

“You wouldn’t like to, say, go into teaching?”

I can’t convince my dog to sit down and shut up.

“How about television?”

Too many have already tried to out-Andy-Rooney Andy Rooney.

“What about acting? You did an episode of `Designing Women.’ “

In one scene I had to hug Delta Burke. Like I said, heavy lifting isn’t my bag.

“Some say Michael Jordan is retiring because he’s already won three league championships and several most valuable player awards. Is one of the reasons you’re not retiring the fact you’ve never won a Pulitzer?”

Winning the Pulitzer has never entered my mind.

“Oh, come on. The Pulitzer is the highest prize in journalism. Surely you must covet such a prestigious award.”

Awards are nice, but I didn’t get into the profession to win awards.

“What did you get into it for?”

To get mentioned favorably on the Rush Limbaugh radio show. That was enough for me.

“Michael Jordan retired in his prime. You’re telling us you don’t think you reached your prime yet?”

No. I just said I still need a steady job.

“That sounds like a cop out. How much more money do you need before you feel secure enough to retire?

Forty-five million and change.

“One more question. What primary goal do you hope to attain before you finally do retire?”

Outlast Beavis and Butt-Head.

“How long might that take?”

November 1996, if we’re lucky.

Lewis Grizzard Wednesday: Those Hard Times

Those Hard Times

Mama used to talk about hard times a lot. I didn’t pay much attention back then.

I had plenty to eat, a nice warm bed and a dog who came when I called him.

But I can remember. I can remember Mama watching me open my Christmas gifts as a child.

I didn’t get the air rifle or the expensive electric train I wanted one Christmas. Daddy was gone and Mama taught in a Georgia public school system in the ’50s. That’s why I didn’t get the air rifle or the expensive electric train I wanted.

I seem to remember what I got instead was a pair of skates and some underwear. I probably showed my disappointment.

Mama noticed and said, “Son, all we used to have when I was growing up was hard-candy Christmases.”

Mama grew up on a family budget that was based on what a few acres of red clay could produce. What the family didn’t eat, they sold or traded for other needs. A dozen fresh yard eggs for a bucket of syrup.

“All we got for Christmas,” Mama said, “was a few pieces of hard candy. Daddy just didn’t have the money for anything more.”

I can remember her talking with the other adults about the Great Depression, an Excedrin recession.

“Times were hard, but I guess we were lucky,” Mama would say. “We didn’t have any money, but we had some chickens and a cow, and Daddy was still able to grow a few things. At least we didn’t go hungry like a lot of other folks.”

Hard times. They come and they go. These are really the hardest times most of the people alive in this country today have ever known. My generation, the baby boomers, haven’t known any hard times before. I was able to pay for some of my college, but Mama saved shoe boxes full of ones and fives to help me get started.

Opportunities abounded when I graduated. I went to work for The Atlanta Journal for $150 a week in 1968, when I was 21. My mother made $120 a month teaching first grade in Senoia, Ga., in 1953.

Since I was 15, I’ve never been out of work, except when I chose to be out of work. I decided to devote all my energy to my tennis game back in 1974, so I quit my job at the Journal. No problem. I’d saved a few shekels and my wife worked for the apartment complex in which we lived. We got free rent. My forehand volley improved dramatically.

When I decided I’d never wind up on center court at Forest Hills, I went back to work. I had no problem finding another job. I got one at the Chicago Sun-Times in 1975, making $28,000 a year.

And I’m still one of the lucky ones. I’ve still got a job today. A lot of other people don’t, of course. Unemployment rates are up, to be sure, but we still can’t compare these hard times to those of our parents and grandparents.

We’re in a hole, but not nearly as deep a one as the country and its citizens have been in before.

What I’m wondering is, are we as strong and determined as our forebears were? They held up and held on and went through hell to get out of the deep well they were in.

Can we stick it out and remove ourselves from a comparative pothole?

Perhaps it’s easy for me to ask such questions. General Motors hasn’t laid me off. My employer hasn’t gone out of business.

But all of us have an example that was set by those who gave us life and reared us.

They blamed the politicians just like we’re doing. Damn Hoover. Do- nothing Bush.

They hurt. They cried. They despaired.

But they survived. And we can too.

It’s in our blood.

Lewis Grizzard Wednesday: A man, his dog and his truck

A Man, His Dog, And His Truck

A few years ago I went out and bought myself one of those sexy convertible imports. Maybe it was a crisis of middle life.

Maybe I thought owning such an automobile would take away notice of the creeping years. A guy driving a sexy convertible import – a flashy red one – is conquering hills in a metallic blur, not going over them into the land of arthritis and prunes on the other side.

The trouble was the car never quite fit me. Perfume on a hog, that sort of thing.

I looked and felt out of place in it. People would see me in it and look at me as if to say, “Look at that old man driving his kid’s car.”

Or they would say, “Look at that person having a middle-age crisis. Why doesn’t he get a Lincoln and join the AARP?”

I was terribly fastidious about the car as well. I wouldn’t even allow my dog Catfish, the black Lab, to ride in it.

I was afraid he would drool on the expensive leather seats or leave a hair. He would look at me as if to say, “You love that stupid car more than you do me.”

One morning I went out and found a flat tire on my sexy convertible import. It looked like something had gnawed the air out of it.
Coming to my senses
The good news here is I no longer have that car. I traded it. I did what very few people have ever done.

I traded my flashy red, sexy convertible import for a truck.

I think it was a sign I am over any crisis of middle age and that I am aging gracefully and that I am a mature individual.

I had a truck once before. The speedometer went out when it had 120,000 on it. I drove it another two years before it finally rolled over on its back one day and passed away.

I didn’t worry about Catfish drooling or getting hair in that truck. That’s what trucks are for.

But instead of getting another truck, I went for the import, and it has taken me this long to come to my senses.

The guy made me a pretty good deal. I did find out that 14 minutes after you purchase a sexy convertible import, it loses about 60 percent of its value.

“This is all this car is worth now?” I asked when told what it would bring. “My dog never set foot in it.”

The guy showed me the book that lists what cars are worth.

“Best I can do,” he said, jingling the change in his pocket. When a car dealer starts jingling the change in his pocket, he knows he’s got you.
A contented Catfish
But it’s a pretty truck. I got red again. It’s got everything on it but a CD player, which I didn’t want anyway because I don’t own any CDs and, even if I did, the CD player probably would break or my CDs would become the first in history to rot.

But I’ve got a tape deck, a radio, air conditioning, power windows and locks and there’s a luggage rack on top. Catfish gnaws one tire on my new truck and he rides up there.

I went on my first drive. For the first time in years, I felt comfortable on the road again. I felt like an adult, not some 24-year-old with the top down, the wind blowing through his flowing locks as he cruises for girls who pop their gum and use “goes” in place of “says.”

My new truck is American-made, too. I feel a lot better about that. And it will save on gas, which will help me pay my fair share of taxes after getting so filthy rich during the Reagan and Bush years.

I took Catfish on my first ride in the new truck. He sat right up there in the front seat and drooled and shed happily away.

But we were a team again. A man, a dog, and a truck. All is right with my world.

Nobody can tax that. Can they?

Lewis Grizzard Wednesday

It’s unwise to try to stand between a true southerner and his beef. Lewis was no fan of activist seeking to substitute other products for beef. One can only wonder what kind of gems he’d have for the PETA crowd today…

Here’s The Beef

In protest for what I consider to be recent unfair attacks on beef, one of my favorite meats, I went out and had myself a thick, juicy T-bone at Long Horn Steaks the other night.

It was great, as usual. I would have eaten two if my stomach would have held another because we beefeaters need to do all we can to tell the wimps and weenies who have put themselves in charge of our lifestyles to go eat a bucket of worms (a.k.a. sushi).

It’s cow meat they’re after now. One group says we’re being cruel by killing cows and chopping them into steaks.

There’s a book out about the evils, both social and physical, of eating beef as well. I refuse to name it here and give it any publicity.

And then, I read a story in the papers about a report from the American Chemical Society saying the natural substance that gives beef its meaty taste has been synthesized in the laboratory and may be used to turn tofu into a substitute for beef.

Do what?

I asked a health nut to tell me what tofu is. It sounds to me like a ballet dance step.

“It’s soybean-based,” she explained.

So let me see if I have this straight.

Some scientist has come up with something in his lab to put in something made out of soybeans, and I’m supposed to eat that instead of beef?

The magic ingredient is BMP. Said the article, “BMP could be used to make imitation beef with little or no saturated fat similar to the way fake crab meat is made.”

Fake crab meat? What’s going on here?

In the first place, I once ate a soybean burger. Another friend of mine, also a health nut, said, “Try this, you might like it.”

Somebody once said the same thing to me about marriage.

The soybean burger was awful, so I went to Wendy’s and got myself a double with cheese to get the taste out of my mouth.

In the second place, when are those self-appointed jerks going to stop jacking us around about our food?

Remember when you were growing up how important it was to eat eggs? “Eat the rest of those eggs, young man,” my mother would say, “so you’ll grow up big and strong.”

Not anymore. Now they say eggs cause diphtheria, not to mention shortness and weakness, so somebody has come out with a fake egg.

I bet a chicken could tell the difference.

Pork has been put down as unhealthy. Some chickens have tumors in them and fish have mercury, and I never knew there was such a thing as fake crab meat until now.

So what’s left to eat? Nothing much. If what we read and hear is true, we’d all be better off if we didn’t eat anything at all, never had sex, abstained from drinking, smoking and gambling, and died on the operating table instead of getting a blood transfusion that could give us AIDS.

Life used to be fun. Now, it’s just one big Don’t.

But I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to continue to eat beef and everything else I like. I will never walk into a Long Horn and say, “I’ll have the tofu T-bone, please.”

If doing such a thing kills me, it’ll just have to kill me.

I think I’d rather go suddenly from a beef overdose than live long enough to get really sick and wind up croaking in a hospital bed where they’ve been keeping me alive by feeding me through a tube.

There should be the basic right to live free from as much worry as possible. But how can you, when not a day passes that we aren’t told what’s the latest thing that’s bad for us?

Eat, drink and be merry, I say, for tomorrow you may choke on a big piece of broccoli.

Lewis Grizzard Wednesday: Spring Training

For Georgians, the week doesn’t get much better than this all year long. Thursday is both the opening round of The Masters and for the Braves, as they begin a season that’ll likely end with a disappointment of some sort.

We’ve posted this one before, but what better time to recount Lewis’ reflections on Spring Training?

My Father Would Have Liked Spring Training 
    
    
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – I wish my father had lived long enough that I could have taken him to a few spring training baseball games. 

He would have enjoyed sitting in the glorious south Florida warmth. He would have worn that big straw hat of his, and he would have filled the park with his booming voice, a voice perfect for singing gospel music and berating umpires. 

One of the best things a man can do for his son is pass along a love for baseball. My father did that for me. 

Those summers I spent with him as a child, we roamed about, looking for whatever it was he was looking for, and if there was a ball game to see during one of our stops, we saw it. 

We sat swatting mosquitoes on hot South Georgia nights watching Class D. It was Waycross against Tifton, but an 8-year-old at a ball game with his dad doesn’t care that Class D is a million miles from Yankee Stadium. They still hit the ball and run and the hot dogs taste just as good. 

We were in a hotel one night in Nashville, Tenn., and the Little Rock Travelers were there, too, for a Southern Association series with the Nashville Vols. 

My father walked up to the Little Rock manager in the lobby and asked for a signed baseball for his son. The manager located the equipment man and I had my ball. I still have it.  
 

The annual pilgrimage 
 

I have promised myself I will make this annual pilgrimage to spring training as long as I am able, financially and otherwise. 

The other afternoon, I saw the inaugural game at the Houston Astros’ new training complex in Kissimmee. Houston beat the Yankees and an usher made Yankees owner George Steinbrenner show him his ticket. 

Later, I went to Tinker Field in Orlando and caught a Twins game. At Tinker Field you can walk down to the visitors bullpen and stand a few feet behind the catcher and see firsthand what a batter sees when he faces major league pitching. 

In Fort Lauderdale I watched my team, the Braves, shut out the Yankees. I hate the Yankees, but their spring park is nice. There are murals of Babe Ruth on the walls and they must import the vendors from New York for these games. 

Cry the vendors with their trays filled with Pepsis, “Soduh, heuh.”  
 

Dissecting the game 
 

After the games I pass the time with friends, others who refuse to grow up as long as they hold to their passion for baseball. 

We talk the game. We dissect the game. We talk of our memories of the game. Women make marvelous companions, but I’ve yet to meet one who remembers Larry Sherry of the Dodgers was the 1959 World Series Most Valuable Player. 

I am certain I never thanked my father for introducing baseball into my life. We had far too little time together for such. 

But when I’m here, in the ballpark, I draw closer to his memory than at any other time. 

Nothing could be more valuable than that.

 

Lewis Grizzard Wednesday

We’re dealing with record pollen levels here in the Empire State of the South, and colds and congestion are likely soon to follow. Lewis weighs in on cures for the common cold.

Curing The Common Cold

The medical community has been excited recently over the discovery that a drug called Interferon may be the long-awaited cure for the common cold.
I think it is only fitting, however, we remember some of the methods that were used to battle colds in the past.

There have been some marvelous remedies – even if most of them didn’t work – handed down through the years.

My mother once told me that when she got a cold, her mother put a lot of stuff that smelled bad into a sack and then tied the sack around her neck.

They did the same thing, incidentally, to captured prisoners in World War I to make them talk.

I, too, have developed remedies for bad colds that I have had. And just in case Interferon falls on its runny nose, I thought I would mention a few of them here in case others may want to give my remedies a try .

GINGER ALE: I am convinced ginger ale can heal the sick and raise the dead. There is something about its bubbliness and sweet taste that always seems to soothe my scratchy throat and achy head.

Ginger ale will work even better if you can get somebody else to bring it to you while you are in the bed. If they will talk baby talk to you while they are serving you the ginger ale, this is even better.

“Does my little tiger want some ginger ale for his coldy-woldy?” is the type phraseology I have in mind.

SYMPATHY: I don’t care what anybody says, the more sympathy you get when you’ve got a cold, the faster you will recover.

It probably won’t do you any good to call any of your friends looking for sympathy, so the best place to find it is to call your mother.

If she says something like: “Does my little tiger have a coldy- wold?” you can expect to be up and around in no time.

MOANING AND WHINING: These have long been two of my favorite co- remedies. What you do is get into the fetal position and moan or whine.

A moan and a whine are different. When you moan you make low grunting sounds like “Oooooooh, my God.” When you whine, you make sounds like a poodle dog yapping for its dinner. I don’t know how to spell what a poodle dog sounds like when it is yapping for its dinner, but you get the idea.

Even if nobody is around to hearing you moaning or whining, it will still help your cold. If somebody is there to hear, however, that’s a lot better.

OLD BLACK & WHITE MOVIES: Nothing helps a cold more than lying in bed, drinking ginger ale, getting sympathy from somebody, while you are moaning or whining, and watching an old black and white movie on television.

If Jimmy Stewart, Barbara Stanwyck, Alan Ladd, Victor Mature or Yvvone DeCarlo is in the movie you probablywill be well by the next morning. If Ronald Reagan is in the movie, however, you can be flat on your back for weeks.

CHICKEN SOUP: This, of course, is the all-time homemade remedy for the common cold.

I really don’t know if chicken soup works on a cold, but in the immortal words of my mother, who was kind enough to feed me chicken soup when I had a cold rather than tying smelly bags around my neck, “Have you ever heard a hen sneeze?”

Think about it.

Lewis Grizzard Wednesday: The Dawg Story

What would Auburn week be without the epic tale of Bubba N Earl going to the Auburn game?

That Dog’ll Bite You

“Got to tell the dog story. There’s somebody left who hasn’t heard the dog story.

We are playing Auburn. Sanford Stadium. National Television. Winner wins the Southeastern Conference; goes to the Sugar Bowl.

85,000 people jammed into Sanford Stadium. National television audience. This game is on the Armed Service Network. People in Switzerland are seeing this ballgame. Going everywhere.

The band cranks up “Glory, Glory to Ole Georgia” and our team comes running out. 85,000 stand as one.

We are led by our gallant mascot, UGA-U-G-A. What a dog! What a gorgeous dog. What a symbol of ferocity. But UGA ain’t real smart. UGA did not realize he was at a football game. Nor did he realize he was on national television, and was going into living rooms the width and breadth of this great nation.

And there, in front of all them people, he began to lick himself where dogs occasionally want to lick themselves, ok?

We don’t have to get any more graphic than that.

Bubba an’ Earl sittin’ on the fifty.

Bubba sees the dog, punches earl and said, ‘Earl, look at that dog. Dadgum, I wish I could do that.’

Earl said, ‘ Bubba, that dog’ll bite you!’”

Happy Birthday, Lewis….oh and bout Khadafy…

Maybe it’s fitting that on today, what would have been Lewis’ 65th birthday, one of his favorite targets, Khadafy – Qadafi – Qhadafi (seriously, the guy has more names that Auburn has mascots) is killed.

Today is one of many events of which we at the TGT miss Lewis, as we all wonder what kind of thoughts he’d have on Qadafi’s death.

Colonel Khadafy — The No. 1 El Freako

Throughout history there always has been at least one nut case loose who is trying to play havoc with the rest of the world.
There was Attila the Hun, of course. Great guy when you got to know him, said his best friend, Leroy the Hun, but he was bad to sack cities and rape and pillage.

(The term “rape” I am familiar with, but I’ve never quite known what you do when you sack a city or pillage whatever it is you pillage. I slept through most of the ancient history courses I had in high school.)

In more modern times we have had Hitler, Idi Amin and the Duvalier boys from Haiti.

But the No. 1 el freako in the world today has to be Col. Moammar Khadafy of Libya, who is so nutty he spells his last name six or seven different ways.

I’m not certain what it is Col. Khadafy wants. Attila the Hun wanted to rape, sack and pillage. Hitler wanted to rule the world.

Col. Khadafy apparently wants to be a large pain in the world’s behind. (I’m not certain where the world’s behind is, but Libya certainly would be one of my first guesses. New Jersey wouldn’t come until much later.)

If that is what Col. Nutso wants, he is doing a very good job of getting it. He’s in the papers most days, he’s on the tube most every night, and he has gotten so much attention as the world’s bad boy, he has become a household word. Like “toilet.”

I have observations about how we should handle the Colonel and the Libyan situation.

First, I think we should launch an investigation into the fact that Col. Khadafy looks very much like the baseball pitcher, Joaquin Andujar. We all know after watching the World Series last year in which Andujar, then with the St. Louis Cardinals, set a World Series record for throwing temper tantrums a la Khadafy, not to mention beanballs.

Could it be that Joaquin Andujar and Col. Khadafy are the same person? Have you ever seen them photographed together? If they are the same person, then all we have to do is get a few Marines to hide in the opposing team’s dugout one night and when Andujar-Khadafy walks in, the Marines could beat him with fungo bats until he promises to go back to Libya and hush.

Also, we could send him a year’s supply of Tylenol, or spread a rumor he has AIDS. We could send Frank Borman to run his personal finances, or we could get Dr. Jan Kemp to sue him.

I heard former Sen. Howard Baker of Tennessee, who might even become our next president, make a speech recently. He told a joke that isn’t a bad idea of how to handle Khadafy, either.

“One morning,” Baker began, “President Reagan called his aides and wanted them to bring John Hinckley Jr., who tried to assassinate him, to the Oval Office.

“When Hinckley arrived, the president said he had forgiven him and would order his release.

“Hinckley was overwhelmed. He said, `Thank you, Mr. President. Is there anything I could do to repay you for your kindness?’

“The president said, `Well, there is this one little thing.’ He took a folder out of his desk and pulled out a picture of Col. Khadafy.

“He said to Hinckley, `See this guy? He’s dating Jodie Foster . . .’ “

Lewis Grizzard Wednesday: McDonald’s

It may not be gourmet, but McDonald’s gives you food fast. Lewis was a customer of the Golden Arches from time to time…

McDonald’s, Are You Listening?

For some years, I have wanted to discuss some harsh feelings that I have concerning McDonald’s, but I was always afraid nobody would agree with me. These people have sold zillions of hamburgers, so they must be doing something right.
But along comes nutritional expert/relief pitcher Goose Gossage, who works for the San Diego Padres baseball team, which is owned by the widow of Ray Kroc, the genius behind McDonald’s.

Gossage recently fell at odds with the Padres’ ownership and said not only did his bosses know absolutely nothing about baseball, but they – McDonald’s – also were “poisoning the world with their hamburgers.”

I don’t think McDonald’s is out to poison anybody. You might get a little heartburn every now and then from a greasy Quarter Pounder, but you can get that in any fast food joint. Several points to ponder

There are, however, several things that bug me about McDonald’s, and now that the Goose has had his say, I feel a bit more relaxed about discussing them. Consider these points:

Ever notice how every kid who works in McDonald’s looks the same? They wear those silly looking uniforms and those silly looking hats and they have those knowing smiles and you’ve got to figure they’re all going to grow up to be either chiropractors, automobile dealers or lawyers. Just what we need. More chiropractors, more automobile dealers and more lawyers.

McDonald’s foods all look like they were spit out of a computer somewhere.

I tried the new McDonald’s Garden Salad the other day. It came in a little plastic box with a little plastic top and there was a little plastic fork to use to eat the salad.

Then, there were little packages of bacon bits and croutons and the salad dressing came in what resembled a tube of toothpaste.

I felt like I was eating food I had ordered by mail.

Not only do McDonald’s personnel wear silly uniforms and hats, but Ronald McDonald is a disgrace to the clowning industry. He couldn’t hold Clarabell’s Seltzer bottle.

The thing I dislike most about McDonald’s is the suggestive selling technique of all those future chiropractors, automobile dealers and lawyers. Cup of coffee not enough

Ever go through the drive-in line at a McDonald’s and tell that faceless machine you want a cup of coffee?

The machine will inevitably respond by asking, “How would you like a Danish to go with your coffee?”

If I had wanted a Danish, I would have asked for a Danish.

McDonald’s will also try to push their french fries off on you.

“I’ll have the Quarter Pounder with cheese and a medium Coke.”

“How ’bout some fries with that?”

“How ’bout sticking an Egg McMuffin up. . .” Well, you see how pushy these little brats can be.

Despite all these complaints, however, I will still go into a McDonald’s occasionally just like everybody else. McDonald’s is efficient. McDonald’s is fast. McDonald’s is ingenious in developing new food products.

There were the Chicken McNuggets. Look for the Cooked McGoose any day.

Lewis Grizzard Wednesday: The Difference Between Garbage and Trash

Wednesday morning is a critical juncture at the Lugnut Dawg house – I have to remember to roll the trash can out to the street for it to be picked up. Lewis had thoughts on trash pick-up as well.

Difference Between Garbage And Trash

Did you know there was a difference between trash and garbage?
I’m nearly 40 years old, and I didn’t know that. I always figured trash and garbage were the same thing, a bunch of stuff you wanted to throw away.

You live, you learn.

The other morning, I walked outside my house and I noticed the can in which I dump my refuse (a highbrow word for a bunch of stuff you want to throw away), was still full from the previous day.

There was a little note stuck to the can. It said, in essence, that my refuse hadn’t been picked up because – and I quote – “trash and garbage had been mixed.” What’s the difference

I hate making mistakes like that. Once I didn’t close the cover on a book of matches before striking. It was weeks before I got over the guilt.

I called Georgia Waste Systems, where I have my trash/garbage account, to apologize. They were very nice and said a lot of people make the same mistake I did and they were not planning a lawsuit.

As long as I had somebody on the phone who could explain, I asked, “What is the difference between trash and garbage?”

“Garbage,” said a spokesindividual, “are things that come from the bathroom or kitchen.” A quick education in trash

“You mean like bread you leave out for a couple of months and green things start growing on it?” I asked.

“Precisely,” she said.

“Trash,” she continued, “is basically anything else. We do not pick up leaves, for instance, or old furniture, or boxes of materials that were collected when somebody cleaned out their attic.”

The lady said it was up to the individual garbage collectors to decide if there is, in fact, trash and garbage mixed on their appointed rounds.

Somehow, I can’t visualize two guys on a garbage truck really spending that much time trying to figure out which is which.

“What is it you have there, Leonard? Is it trash or garbage?” one guy says to the other.

“I can’t be absolutely certain, Elvin, but it has green things growing on it.” Isn’t life complex enough?

I will, of course, comply with the waste company’s dictum against mixing my trash and my garbage, but don’t we have enough complexities in our lives as it is?

Don’t we have to deal with international terrorism and the women’s movement? Don’t we have to battle traffic, computer involvement in our lives, and airplanes that never take off on time?

Isn’t it enough of a burden that we have to decide what to do about Central America, which long-distance telephone company we want to serve us and which cereal has the most fiber?

Oh, for a simpler time, when the good guys always won, a girl could still cook and still would, and trash and garbage were the same, both delicacies as far as a goat was concerned.

It is a wonder that more of us don’t tie a Glad Bag around our heads and tell modern living to go stick its head in the nearest dumpster.