Spring Back, TV News and Drinking of the Green

The Grand-brat is in trouble and all I have to say is it isn’t my fault. In fact, I intend to not only deny all responsibility, I intend to blame television.

The stories in this column are true. Averett lives a dull life in rural Southside Virginia with his wife Management, two children and a rotating assortment of goats, dogs, cats, snakes and other local fauna.

The other day he smiled at one of the ladies in the office and said, “I’ll cut you with a knife.” Now the only person I’ve ever cut was myself and it was never planned. I don’t threaten to cut people and so far I’ve never been in a situation where I needed to or wanted to cut someone. Besides that, if I was going to threaten someone I’d say something like, “I’ll just cut you once but it’s going to be four kinds of bad. It’s going to be long, deep, wide and continuous.”

It turns out I was correct. It was a quote from the evening news on television. Years ago when his mother was just a few years older than he is now a teacher assigned them to watch a television program for homework. The daughter attempted to explain that we didn’t have a television and was not believed.

The daughter then said they were not allowed to watch R-rated television which included the news because she said, “Reality is rated R.” I thought that was pretty profound for a 6-year-old.

I just got my bride Management a shamrock for Saint Patty’s day. She’s been a Leprechaun longer than she has been Management and a Leprechaun should get something for Saint Patty’s. Actually I was surprised. I’d always thought shamrocks were an Irish version of the four-leaf clover. As it happens I may have been wrong. Shamrocks have three leaves and for some reason I’ve always thought they had four. Still, in order to maintain my claim of general accuracy I intend to maintain (correctly I might add) shamrocks are the same as four-leaf clovers except the leaves are shaped differently and they are missing a leaf. That’s a fact you can’t argue with.

This morning there was ice all over my little truck and the rest of my world for that matter. I’d have a problem with it if it wasn’t already spring. I know the official first day of spring is March 20 but as far as I am concerned once the maple trees are budding and the bees are collecting pollen from them then spring has arrived.

So, I looked out at all of the ice and decided to wait for Mother Nature to clean off the truck. An hour later she still hadn’t done it so I had to do it myself. I hope this isn’t going to be a trend. I depend on Mother Nature to wash my truck, clean the deck and at least a dozen other chores I’d rather not do. If she is going to go on strike I think she should have notified me.

Last night I went to Farmville for the Charlie’s Waterfront Café’s annual Saint Patrick’s day dying the Appomattox River green. You just have to admire anyone who takes on a project like that. It’s sort of like taking Mother Nature on in a wrestling match.

You even have to admit the Charlie’s folks won. Their Kelly green is much more attractive than Mother N’s dirty green. I was even offered a green beer to celebrate.

Way back in another life I seem to remember some folks drinking beer and turning green but never any green beer. In fact, there was even some sort of purple drink that turned people green also. Last night I avoided the green beer but had a nice supper nevertheless.

Suddenly, there is a memory tickling the back of my mind. Some sort of little green bottles of beer. They cost a quarter each. (That tells you how long it’s been since I bought a beer.) Actually, it’s coming back a little. One of the 25 cent beers was a “chug a mug” with a foil cap. The other was a little green bottle—-Rhinegold or Rolling Rock or something.

But let’s get away from the cheap beer. That’s probably good advice to anyone of any age-in any place-at any time. Back to Saint Patrick’s Day.

There were even a couple of pipers piping. Not the ones in the 12 days of Christmas but actual bag pipers.

And a good time was had by all. That is unless some of them turned green later in the evening.