Now That I Am An Author, You Want Me To, WHAT?
I am in a hotel room in Clarksville Tennessee. It’s 2:00 o’clock in the afternoon and I just arrived from Los Angeles. I flew to Nashville and was taken to a Macaroni Grill where I found everything on the menu except Macaroni. After lunch I was driven to a tiny hotel in Clarksville. I don’t really have to be in Clarksville until 8:00 AM the following morning, but with the plane schedules and such, I now have some time to kill before I get picked up in the morning to begin a week of visiting elementary schools.
I decide to take a walk. There seems to be two places to visit in this part of Clarksville. A Boot Barn, which is right next to the hotel and a Walmart Superstore across the street. The Boot Barn was having a going out of business sale and I thought it might be the perfect opportunity to buy a pair of cowboy boots at half price. I felt like Cinderella, jamming my feet in to any boot that looked at all like something I would wear. There wasn’t a pair of boots in the entire Boot Barn that fit! Wonder why they’re going out of business?
The next stop on my afternoon tour was the Walmart Super Store. It was as great as any museum I had ever been to. Never having entered a Walmart, let alone a Walmart Superstore, I might as well have been wearing a floppy hat and had a camera and a pair of binoculars hanging from my neck. I was a tourist and I could tell there was some serious site seeing to do at Walmartland. Do you know that you can buy ammunitionand cottage cheese all under one roof? (Not to mention all sorts of firearms so your ammo doesn’t go to waste) I’m not sure what the occasion might be where you would need both cottage cheese and ammunition, but it didn’t matter, the fact that you could buy both in the same store was truly a wonder to me.
I opted for the cottage cheese and passed on the ammunition. I did, however, buy a box of crackers. Having spent two hours wandering through the Walmart Superstore, I went back to the hotel and started clicking through channels while enjoying my edible souvenirs on the bed. (Yes, my dear wife, I removed the bedspread first!)
I settled on the Biography channel and found myself fascinated with the Carny Willson story. I was actually her camp counselor when she was four or five. (I kept sending home notes pleading with her parents to send Carny with tennis shoes because it was rather hard for her to run like the other children since dear little Carny came to camp wearing flip flops every day) Here I was, lounging on a bed, eating crackers with cottage cheese and learning that Ms. Wilson had her stomach stapled. (Always a fun subject when stuffing one’s face with cottage cheese and crackers) Thinking back, it now occurs to me that had Carny been able to run around more as a child, she might not have needed this painful procedure, but I’m losing the point of this story. So, I’m watching this gripping program when suddenly I noticed a message scrolling across the bottom of the TV screen. “TORNADO WATCH AND FLASH FLOOD WARNING”.
I opened the door of my room and see that it’s pouring rain. We’re talking Monsoon pouring. I’ve seen heavy rain, but this Tennessee rain was coming down furious and flying sideways. This was a day of firsts. Cottage cheese and ammo and now sideways rain. I look back at the TV and there's that lovely message still zipping along the bottom of the screen; “TORNADO WATCH AND FLASH FLOOD WARNING”.
I have an old friend, Adie who lives in Nashville so I called and asked her what to do if there actually is a Tornado, given that there didn’t appear to be a basement at the hotel, and my only real life experience of what to do in case of a Tornado, comes from being tormented by the annual viewing of the Wizard of Oz on TV and we all know that the trick at a time like this is to hide in the basement. The only reason I said, ‘tormented’ is that the flying monkeys scared me, every year. “Take a blanket off the bed,” Adie instructed me, “And lay down in the bathtub and cover yourself with the blanket”. Note to self, next time I visit a Walmart Superstore buy a helmet and a rowboat)
I stared at the TV screen and asked myself, “HOW DID I GET HERE?”
