Archive for category Me, Myself, and I
Lady in Black
Posted by Jefferson Davis in Me, Myself, and I on Friday, January 8, 2010
I have for years been terrified of getting involved with a woman that my father has had relations with in the past. In fact, I have asked women in the past if they knew of my father. He’s a great man and all, but…ahem…to say he’s a ladies man would be putting it lightly. 
Last night, I was at a wake for my grandaunt. She was a great lady and will be missed by me and the rest of the family. But, we know that she’s in a better place. While at the reception of sorts last eve, a gorgeous dark-haired woman walked into the vestibule. She was wearing a netted at the top black blouse, a short black skirt, black stockings, and black knee high boots.
I was standing with two Uncle’s and a cousin discussing something that I could have cared less about. I couldn’t keep my eyes off the woman. She stood in the doorway and stared back at me for what must have been ten minutes. I turned away and started a conversation with another cousin, not wanting to be obvious or weird. She walked to where I was, looked me up and down, but never uttered a word.
She walked over to my grandmother and talked to her for a few minutes. Her dark eyes and black dress stood out from the crowd and she knew it. I didn’t figure it right to introduce myself and flirt at a wake, so when she left, I started asking around trying to get a grasp on who she was. She could’ve been the devil for all I knew.
Later on last night, I discovered who she was but that was just the beginning of the story. Have you ever seen someone from across a room and knew that there was something there and that you had to speak to that person and find out more about them? It has happened to me on a few occasions, last night being one of them.
The internment was this afternoon, so I was hoping to catch up with her today. She didn’t show up but I figured I’d find out more from my cousin who she knew.
After the service, I called my father and told him about the lady in black. I described her perfectly. He paused for a minute and started telling me that he knew her. To make an x-rated story short, he told me that he used to know her very well. My pops has since straightened his life out and is living the way he should.
Uncle Elathon stopped by my house earlier. He laughed when I told him the story, and said, “It’d be your luck to fall in love with a woman with a son or daughter and to find out that the kid would be your brother or sister”.
I laughed, and said, “My greatest fear is to fall in love with a woman and find out that she’s my half sister or something”!
Almost spilling his coffee with laughter, he asked, “Is that why you go to Ireland so you don’t have your father to compete with?”.
“Shut up and drink yer coffee auld fella.”
I don’t go to Ireland or anywhere else looking for women. The usually find me. 
Otus asio
Posted by Jefferson Davis in Me, Myself, and I on Friday, December 4, 2009
A couple of days ago, I was having an arduous day at work. I was in the back doing inventory, when I heard one of my fellow employee’s call me to the front. I went to him and asked what the problem was, and he said, “Two more fuckin’ Mexican’s just came in – you help them”.
I work with a bunch of xenophobes. I do not like the fact that a large percentage of Mexican’s do come into this country illegally, but I’m not going to hold it against them. They are just trying to provide for their families. It’s far easier to say that an entire group of people are bad, rather than to realise that there is good and bad in all of us. No one, certainly no ethnicity, is pure or without sin. Some of us are more educated than others but that certainly does not make us perfect.
Researching my own family history has taught me more about myself than anything else. I became humbled, as I went through the records and realising what my ancestors had to overcome. Most were either running away from oppression or starvation. Still, others were ran off their land that they had resided on for a millennia.
All of this being said, I do not treat others like third class citizens because of where they were born. So, I approached the man and woman discovering that they were not Mexican’s at all.
“O si yo (hello)” I said whilst smiling and approaching the couple.
The man adorning a tan leather jacket and denims, smiled, as he leaned in whispering to the lady wearing a black dress and an enormous smile. She was short with jet black hair draping across her back and dark mystical eyes. He was tall and hefty having similar long jet black hair and dark mystical eyes.
“How did you know?” He asked whilst smiling and laughing.
“The Screech Owl pendant was a dead giveaway”, I answered, as I leaned in to shake their hands.
“You’re Cherokee?” The man asked with earnest intrigue and disbelief.
“My grandfather was half Cherokee”, I replied.
“Well, you’d never know it with the freckles and light hair”, he said whilst laughing.
“You might say I’m a bit watered down…There’s more Irish in the bucket of paint than anything else”, I laughingly replied.
“No way, my great-grandfather was Irish”, he yelled whilst patting me on the back.
We continued talking about the Cherokee Nation and our grandfathers. We also discussed our fiery tempers and which group of our ancestors we could blame for that. It was good to reminisce about all things Cherokee and mother earth. Native American’s are thrown to the wayside far too often. I’m still waiting for a Native American President!
When I finished talking with them, I walked to the back to finish inventory. The lad walked to the back, and asked, “What did the Mexican’s want?”.
“They were not Mexican’s, my brother, they are Cherokee, Native Americans.”
He smirked, and said, “Same difference”.
I jumped up from my kneeling position, looked him up and down, and walked away. I felt like decking him right then and there, but that wouldn’t solve anything. Nor would it be worth my time to explain it because you can’t educate those that don’t want to be educated.
I am very proud of my ancestry and am not ashamed of being from the Southern United States.
Brooding Mare
Posted by Jefferson Davis in Me, Myself, and I on Tuesday, November 24, 2009
A few days ago, Dr. Don and myself went over to my mothers ranch to clean out horse stalls. We spent two days hauling truckloads of horse manure and soiled sawdust out of the stalls and barn. We replaced it all with fresh and clean sawdust.
On the second day, we finished the arduous job and I proceeded to wrangle the horses back to the field that leads to the barn. I grabbed a scoop of my mothers specially mixed equine feed and walked out into the muddy field where I had them secured.
I walked close to the six of them, including one gelding and five mares. I whistled for them to follow and shook the feed bucket. They happily came running thinking that it was feeding time. At the same time, Dr. Don was watching from a safe distance. He’s afraid of horses!
Before I knew it, I was surrounded by them with nowhere to go. As I laid the bucket down and started shooing Sunny, one of the mares, back, the gelding decided he wanted the entire bucket for himself. Docxy, the eldest mare and my favourite out of the bunch, side kicked him in the arse coming within centimetres of me.
Remembering my father getting kicked and almost killed, I turned to Dr. Don with an ashen face and eyes as big as feed buckets and waited for him to say something.
He’s always insightful.
He walked up with a blank countenance, put one leg up on the rustic fencing, spit his beloved chewing tobacco, and said, “Yep………..I told you women are cruel, and you didn’t believe me”.
I couldn’t do anything except laugh. The gelding is fine except for his pride. I guess he’ll stay out of the head bitches feed bucket from now on.
Me?
Life is grander than it has been in a long while and only getting better. I’ve been out chasing after mares every night since. The two legged kind.
P.S.: The song, I’m Alive, is by Kenny Chesney and Dave Mathews. I had to add something a wee bit country western to any post that speaks of horses and manure.
Davis’
Posted by Jefferson Davis in Me, Myself, and I on Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Tuesday evening, I decided to go up to my grandfathers house up in the mountains. I hadn’t been up there since he died back in 1998. I honestly didn’t think I could find the place, but I went anyway for the adventure and brief jaunt down memory lane.
I remember that it was 117 fence post to the south to the church and 95 fence post to the north to a girls house that I had a crush on for years. Gramps and myself would set out around sunset and watch the cows and horses graze on the lush lucerne and fescue covering the mountainside. I learned a lot about life from observing those animals. Grandpa Davis wasn’t a talker, he was a doer.
He walked softly and carried a big stick. I never saw the man get angry except for maybe one or two times in the 26 years I knew him. His hair was as white as the cotton he picked as a child, and he was as tall and slender as the cotton mill smoke stacks that he worked in most of his adult life. He was the very essence of the phrase, Facta Non Verba.
Everyone knew and loved him far and wide. He retired not long after I was born. The earliest memory I have is of him almost getting mauled by my dog, a huge German shepherd named Zack. I was five or six and he was playfully chasing me around on Christmas morning. He started tickling me, I started screaming and laughing, and gramps almost lost his arm due to a very overly protective dog. Grandpa and the Zack didn’t get along well after that.
Anyhow, let’s go back to Tuesday evening, shall we?
I turned onto the street that he lived as the sun filtered through the coloured leaves setting atop a vast hillside that runs along with the curvature of the road. I was shocked at how so little had changed, as I pulled up the gravel driveway. The enormous oak tree in the front yard that gramps planted, when he and my granny moved in the house over fifty years ago, had grown a little but not much with the passage of time. The roses and hedges looked almost the same.
I was shocked yet again, when I finally arrived at the back of the house. There were people and cars parked in his driveway. As it turns out, the house is rented to some folks. I called me pops to verify that it was indeed being rented. I don’t have a problem with him renting it, I just thought it had been empty for a bit. Anyway, I turned around and continued down the long country road.
A few minutes later my mother called, so I had to pull into a strangers driveway, a long and narrow drive. After I hung up with her, I tried to do a three point turn but the road was too narrow. Pulling onto someone’s land up in the mountains is a very dangerous proposition. Mountain folk don’t like strangers.
I ended up having to drive all the way down the road that ended at an log cabin. There were cars parked in the garage, so I turned around. Pops called me back and I told him I’d call back due to my whereabouts. He told me to just say that I’m a Davis and they’d leave me alone. I didn’t believe that for a moment.
Just as I was about to pull off, an auld grey haired fella in overalls and what looked like a twenty year-old baseball cap came running out with a shotgun demanding, “What are ye doin’ ‘ere boy”?
I nervously rolled down the drivers side window, put my hands out, and answered, “I’m just turning around, sir”.
“Ye ain’t got no business ‘ere boy.” He exclaimed, as he walked closer to the truck.
The sweet smell of freshly baked apple pie passed my nostrils, as his wife, still wearing a cooking apron, peered through the screen door.
“I’m sorry sir, I just got lost…I was down the road visiting my grandfathers old place”, I mumbled, as the man approached with his gun by his side.
“….Now don’t let me catch ya back down ‘ere…aga…Who was yer grandpa?”
“D*** Davis, sir.”
“Yer L**** Davis’ boy?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well I declare, Ester, get out ‘ere. This is D*** Davis’ grandson.”, he hollered as the lady of the house came running out.
She stopped dead in her tracks, when I stepped out of the truck.
“Dear Jesus, you look just like yer dad, she yelled as the auld fella patted me on the back.
They told me stories about my dad and grandad, and ironically about myself, when I was knee high to a grasshopper. All in all, it was a good visit down memory lane.
Moral of story:
Sometimes trips down memory lane can be a bit dangerous yet entertaining and informative at the same time.
Video is “Have you ever seen the rain?", by CCR. It doesn’t fit, but it was playing on the radio when I met Mr. Shotgun.
HealthCare in America
Posted by Jefferson Davis in Me, Myself, and I on Friday, August 21, 2009
Grannymar wrote an outstanding post Thursday on the healthcare debate going on in the states. I found her story to be refreshingly honest, a quality so rare in people these days. I am sick to death of reading articles where within two paragraphs I know which side the author is pulling for. Journalist need to go back to school and learn about a wee thing called independent news reporting.
In order to properly ascertain my perspective of the American Healthcare system, I’ll give you all a little background about myself.
In early 1972, I was born a healthy screaming baby boy in a maternity ward at Saint Francis hospital. Twenty-four hours after I was brought onto this earth, I contracted spinal meningitis from someone on the same floor as the maternity ward. Common sense would tell you not to put sick people in the same ventilated area as babies. Sigh…
For several weeks I teetered back and forth between life and death. In fact, nurses told my mother on several occasions to go ahead and start making funeral arrangements because I would not make it. My mother refused to give up on me. I spent three months in the hospital gaining my strength, while my mother worked two jobs and father worked three just to pay for my hospitalisation.
The constant high fevers did irrefutable damage to my young anatomy. My parents were told that I was deaf and blind and should be sent to a home for disabled children where I could be properly cared for. They took me home and dealt with nightly seizures along with a myriad of other complications. But, the doctors were wrong about me being deaf. I could hear just fine!
The bills kept climbing as I grew older. The sometimes nightly visits to the emergency room grew tiring on an already weary couple, but friends and family stepped in and helped all that they could.
In 1977 a fresh out of med school doctor saw me in the ER and subsequently diagnosed me as having hypoglycaemia which caused the horrific seizures. I was very small for my age, so he sent me to a specialist that specialised in all sorts of childrens growth disorders.
That doctor diagnosed me with having hypopituitarism and hypothyroidism in 1979. To put it into laymens terms, your pituitary gland controls almost every aspect of the body, from growth to how much food your body can turn into energy. Studies have shown that it is our internal clock. Mine was severely damaged and was barely secreting the hormones needed for life, much less growth.
By this time my parents had health insurance. I started taking HGH in the backside with a one and a quarter inch needle every other day that year. The folks had to pay additional fees for the injections but were doing financially very well. I started growing like a weed but always failed to catch up with my classmates.
I saw my doctors regularly and grew into a short yet vibrant lad. In 1990, I was kicked off my families business healthcare group policy due to a cost risk assessment. We tried to get healthcare elsewhere but was rejected at every turn. I didn’t worry about it at the time and went off my costly medications. It was a dreadful mistake, but I won’t go into that at this juncture.
In 1998, I found myself in the hospital due to an asthma attack that almost killed me. I had been sick with the flue trying to wait it out, when my asthma kicked in and sent me to the hospital in the middle of the night. At this point, I had no insurance due to pre existing conditions, not stupidity or desire. I spent two weeks in the hospital. The bill was in the tens of thousands of dollars. Mother had full power of attorney over me, so she told the financial consultant of my plight in life. My bill was paid in full by an anonymous person. For that I am eternally grateful!
About seven years ago, I was finally approved in a group policy. I am a very large liability for the insurance company. They come up with new and inventive ways every so often to drop me, but to no avail thus far. I have signed enough papers and read enough laws to not be an easy target. I now know the ins, outs, and backdoors of the system.
With insurance, I pay around $500 US a month in healthcare cost, without insurance, I’d pay around $2,000 US. A stark difference, if you ask me. One medication is $1,400 a month without insurance. That’s effing ridiculous! If they are ever able to drop me, I’ll be screwed! But, there are programmes and help already provided by the government. By nature, Americans don’t like handouts. We tend to think that we’re going to have to give up something, if we’re going to take something. For the most part this is very true.
I am very nervous about this entire fiasco going on in Washington D.C. and all over the states. There is no doubt that there needs to be oversight over the insurance companies. They should not be able to drop someone because he or she may be susceptible to cancer because of family history or declined because of pre existing conditions. You have to take the good with the bad.
However, let me also state that I don’t trust the government to implement a new and extremely large national healthcare service. They can’t fiscally run the mail service. Do you really think they can properly watch over 307 million people? Besides, we already owe China more money than this generation can ever repay!
There are good and bad points to having a NHS. I won’t go into that today. I need to study on it some more.
P.S.: All remarks will be appreciated but try to keep the left and right wing rhetoric to a minimum. I could give a fuck what the left and right wing nuts on TV and radio are saying! I make informed decisions on raw data. I’m not easily influenced by smooth talking politicians!
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