Sunday seems to be the day for travel curiosities in hero Union County, at least for me. A few Sundays ago on my way home from church I saw a man standing at the intersection of Ailor Gap Road and Maynardville Highway (aka Highway 33, State Route 33, Main Street, Maynardville Highway). This man was holding a sign, and as the light was green I didn’t get to read it well, but it did make reference to the Bible.
Interesting, I thought. I’ve lived in Maynardville all my life, and I don’t recall ever seeing anything that resembled a street corner preacher on Sunday or any other day.
When I got about a half mile from my house, I looked over into a yard. There was a table that had a few ladies standing behind it, facing the road. The table(s) was covered with bright, party-like cloth, but the word that caught my sight was “SEX”. As I was making my usual somewhat unlawful amount of speed, I did not get to read the full text of the sign, but that one word was bigger than the rest and did stand out.
Well, I thought, in the span of less than five minutes I have seen on opposite ends of my hometown both extremes, it seems, and on the Lord’s Day, to beat all.
I suppose this experience has made me more susceptible to oddities in the natural world. Yesterday, which was Father’s Day Sunday, I was driving on Main Street (aka “The Old Road”), again on my way from church. I saw a man doing pushups in full eighty-six degree sunlight on the sidewalk in front of the Brownstone Apartments. I was impressed enough to notice that he had fine form in his exercise. His legs were straight, and I’d say he could have held his own under any PE teacher or drill sergeant.
My awareness of what people say has also heightened lately, it seems. The other day, I was driving down the road with my wife. She looked at me and said, “I’m glad God put me in your life.” I did not reply, and she said, “This would be a good time for you to say you’re glad, too.”
I replied, “I’m trying to figure out exactly what you just said. Wouldn’t it have been better if you had said, ‘I’m glad God put you in my life’?” She said she thought the same thing right after she spoke, but was afraid she would mess it up worse by trying to fix it.
This reminded me of an incident in study hall, which was held in what is now the Horace Maynard Middle School auditorium. There was this poor little eighth grade girl who was “sweet” on none other than my friend Chip Brown. This girl was always writing him notes. He shared one of them with me and our friend Randy Gaut. The girl wrote to Chip, “You’re the first boy I never really loved.” Did that mean she loved all of us boys except Chip? Randy seemed to especially get a kick out of the note, as the poor girl had misspelled practically every word in her declaration of love. He called the girl Chip’s “illiterate girlfriend”.
It’s a matter of perspective, Faithful Reader. Take, for example, the saying on the coffee mug I saw on Marketplace a short while ago—“I Wish You Lived Next Door”. This would perhaps be very sweet for a friend to give to another (most likely female, as males would probably never give their “buds” a mug with such a friendly, personal saying). I don’t think I would want to be within throwing distance if I slipped up and gave my wife a mug that said, “I Wish You Lived Next Door”, especially if it were, say, a Christmas gift, and I gave her sister a mug that said, “You Are the Only Woman I Ever Really Loved”.
In closing, I’ll share with you a story my Great (and she was, for sure!) Aunt Lidia Mincey used to tell me. There was this little boy who was bad to “break wind” at the table. There are other more crude words to explain what “breaking wind” means—a five cent term to describe the boy would be “flatulent”. On Sunday the new preacher was coming home with the family after church to eat dinner. His mother told the little boy, “Don’t you break wind at the table while the preacher’s here. Just let it ‘slip out’.” In the middle of the meal the little boy started fidgeting “something fierce” in his chair, and his mother shot him a dirty look. Finally the little boy soiled his pants. In frustration he revealed his breach of etiquette in a most visual manner, saying emphatically to his mother: “There, you see what your (blank) slip-outs did!”
Until we meet again via the printed word, consider these two things that will make you smarter.

There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar.

February 1865 (the month of Lincoln’s birth)
is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon.