It can only happen while shopping!

As the big man is my witness, every word of this is unquestionable and void of hyperbolic incredibility. With that taken into consideration, let me tell you what happened yesterday right here in the Tri-cities on what used to be "out in the country" Garth Road.

Let me first lay a little foundation to this tale of extreme brutality and sweaty violence. I know what you are thinking. You are thinking I beat some Chuck Norris 28 year old heavily muscled criminal to the point he needed 4 paramedics... right?  Not to be and thanks for the vote of confidence. I do appreciate it. I really do.

Because I live the life of a behind the scenes self-effacing servant, I feel compelled to tell you I did not do so well. No ma'am. No sir. I have a few more bruises as evidence of my misfortune. The sad part is I now realize the reason I did so poorly against my assailant, is I just didn't see them as a tangible threat until they fully engaged me and in the most embarrassing manner I might add.

Mind you, I'm still in the foundation of this predicament mainly for clarity. Because of my background, I have always felt like I could handle about any hand to hand fighter, at least long enough to deliver the fabled "Dim mak", which is as we know, is the death touch, all seasoned fighters fear, but few can deliver. I cannot divulge whether I can or can't, as I am sworn to secrecy like those Mason fellers. To those guys, their big deal is a secret handshake. To those select few it is the Dim mak, which loosely translated is "Divine bowels". I admit, it doesn't translate well.

Now, the details. It was hot as the red handle on a cast iron skillet on the fire and as made my way toward the entrance to get a shopping cart. Did I say it was hot? Well imagine my shock when I realized I had stepped on a blob of grape bubble gum that would choke a 6 year old. I didn't realize I had stepped in it until as walking, it pulled my new pair of black high-top Chuck Taylor's off. Seeing the gum was on the bottom of both shoes, I went ten feet before falling forward as the stretched gum literally and physically and embarrassingly jerked my shoes off.

As I hit the parking lot, the only thing that kept me from grunting loudly (and other unmentioned rude noises) was the trash. I might be wrong, but I think it was a large fast food bag or two full of chicken bones and such that actually padded my fall. Being the extreme fitness buff I used to be, I attempted to do a kip after rolling on my back... without success. I slowly mounted my feet and stretched, laughing in case anyone was looking. No one saw or cared as far as I could tell and I brushed off my previous embarrassed state. I quickly tied my shoes back on and began my search for a cart.

But that is not what really set the day wrong.

The more I think about it, the stupider I think I must have been. Let me explain. I'm a big guy and I'm active. Sometimes I'm too active and I start showing out in the gym (since I'm usually the only man in a Zumba class... well you get the idea). The truth is, even at my advanced age, I look a little too sturdy to appear to be a good victim. Little did I know the person who calf-roped me (figuratively speaking - come on!) had me by a good 186 pounds. That is an estimate of weight times mass times impact. On me. Four times. Or more.

Now let me say this. I have Vietnam Veteran license plates on my Jeep and truck. Is it possible to appear more threatening to a motorist who reads that when they are behind me? No. It is not, so how is it I was beaten so soundly with no regard to this warning? Now that I think of it, they appeared after I had fallen down and didn't see my threatening plates.

The sun was so bright, I staggered to my feet and just under the overhang was a lone shopping cart. All the others were being used or out in the parking lot and so hot, you could cook food on them. Looking up I thought at first it was one of those old style dark red soda machines, but no. It was a very large person who was laughing at me, like they knew something I didn't. They want the cart! Both me and my adversary looked at the wheeled blessing and then out to the hot flaming parking lot. Then we looked at each other. I've never, ever...

To be continued.

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A Texas-Sized Adventure

Back last Memorial Day, when the city of Austin was being pounded with rain and Lake Travis rose 7 feet, we had reservations to do Texas’ longest zip-line.  We decided at the last minute that it might not be the best idea to drive up there and rescheduled. It wasn’t too many days and all that water that fell in the Hill country and the Fort Worth area began to make its way down here and then we were hit by Tropical Storm Bill.

One thing has led to another and we finally called and set last Monday as our high-flying date at Lake Travis Zipline Adventures, in Volente, Texas.  They call it of all things, a 3 hour tour and it takes that amount of time to complete and fortunately you are not stranded on an island with a couple sailors, a farmer’s daughter, a millionaire… well, lets just say you are not stranded.

My Bride is fearless.

My bride has an adventurer’s spirit and at 56 she can pretty much keep up with the folks in their 20’s.  I can too, but I may show up a bit later.  Like Chuck Norris once said, “I can still run 5 miles; it just takes me a bit longer.”  She also has a bucket list.  I just have a list of geocaches I want to find.  It turns out there are geocaches at Enchanted Rock State Park and we arrived a day early.  The tricky part is each one of them is a hike or a climb, or in one case, crawling 50 feet up a crevasse in the dark.

On top of Enchanted Rock

Now we have become gym-rats and exercise with giddy abandon, so walking to the top of Enchanted Rock was nothing more than accelerated breathing for the 2 of us, but the view?  Oh my goodness.  No wonder Native Americans felt like this was hallowed ground. The air is so clean and with the low humidity you can see for miles. The big plus was there are no skyscrapers or businesses on the horizon.

One geocache in particular was on my list and it is called, “To Boldly Go.....GC1BNMP”.  It had the highest difficulty rating and a near-highest terrain rating and we crawled over car sized boulders and trails for about 4 miles or so before finding an ingress trail – of sorts.  We were nearly out of water and the sun was taking a toll on us, but up, up, up we went until my bride simply sat down.

Now this is where things can get out of hand – but didn’t.  If you’ve seen movies where hikers chew their arm off, this is the kind of place it happens. We had a communication error due to us both being tired and me assuming she understood my intentions.  I told her to just sit there until she was ready and then come up and I pointed.  I meant for her to wait up there for my return and as soon as I crossed the granite summit, I headed off 1400 feet away toward ground zero.

Would you crawl under this crack?

It was steep and dangerous and I walked with great care, finally arriving at a sheer cliff face with narrow cracks running both vertical and horizontal.  I have a phobia about suffocating and it appears it is getting worse as I age and I got down on my hands and knees and peered up into the darkness in a couple of places hoping I could simply reach in and find what I knew to be an ammo can.  Looking at the notes, the cache owner plainly states that you can only get to within 20 feet of the container.  I walked along the wall until I was 20 feet away, but there was no crevasse.

It was 30 feet away behind me.  “That’s 50 feet under the rocks, Bert,” I said aloud and noticed I was sweating.  I went back to the crack and crawled in on my belly into the dark.  Never mind that neither my bride or I had brought our cell phones, or that she didn’t know where I was and was screaming my name in near panic.  I didn’t or couldn’t hear her.

The geocache was 50 feet into the rocks.
The light is back where I came in.

Never mind that rattlesnakes love places like this or that I have a claustrophobic fear of being buried alive. I wasn’t about to be denied after coming all this way and in the darkness I used my camera’s infrared light to look around and after going the 50 feet, I found the container and signed the log book.  Needless to say, my bride scolded me for 30 minutes when I returned.  That was enough adventure for the day, but we still had about an hour of strenuous hiking to go to get back to the Jeep. We crawled over boulders on that trail the size of Honda Civics.

To shorten up this tale, the next day we did all 5 “zip-lines” they had to offer and the first 2 are short and sweet and break you in to the idea of gliding by wire. Number 3 is a “Leap of faith” and takes you 1800 feet across the water to a deck.  Everyone seemed to mark this as their favorite.  Number 4 was 1600 feet and all of us went off backwards. The final is named double barrel shotgun and there are two zip lines side by side and it is 2800 feet long and also crosses water.  Our group was of 12 and intimate enough that everyone chatted. Our 2 guides Lizzy and Chris were a giant bonus and we tipped them both.

Baytown Bert screaming like a ninny!

You see, you don’t have to go to Cancun or Maui to have fun.  You can do it right here in good old Texas, but for goodness sake, don’t be stupid like I was.

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Like Peas and Carrots

As a good hard-working American citizen, concerned about the future of Texas and our country, I swaggered down to the Polls, virtual spurs dragging in the dust of the Cedar Bayou Jr. School floor, took off my ten-gallon hat and cast my vote for the candidate of my choice. I exhibit no squeamishness or apologies when I say I voted for John McCain. Note to reader: Is this column about the ten thousand virtues of John McCain and am I going to whine, cajole, pressure and try and convince you, the intelligent reader, who to vote for? Nope. I am not. You will have to do your own homework, just like I did.

What I do want to talk about is who would be a good match-up as Vee-Pee for the front-runners and by the time this goes to press, one of the Democrats may be dust blowing in the wind, so please bear with my prophetic suppositions and possibly insightful meanderings. The prospective Vice Presidents have to mate up perfectly with our current candidates to be a winning combination and like the brilliant sage Forrest Gump said, they must be like "peas and carrots".

Let's start with the current object of affection, Barack Obama, the front-running Democratic savior of the American downtrodden universe (it appears to me). I've been watching this fellow from Illinois (pronounced Ill-An-Noy incidentally) for a while and I've come to the conclusion that this is the nicest man I've ever seen in politics; kind of like Jimmy Carter, but without Billy. Mr. Obama is a people pleaser (33rd degree compromiser/diplomat) and needs a running mate who can match his polished delivery and eloquence.

After seven years of Americans listening to George Bush butcher the American-English language, I admit, Mr. Obama has panache. Anyone sharing his platform has to be just as good or he or she'll look stupid, like Dan Quayle, Jessica Simpson or Ernest P. Worrell – know what I mean, Vern?

Mr. Obama needs a running mate who will never ever offend anyone with his flowery speech, but be able to bring home the bacon when the time is right. Like Mr. Obama, they must be able to promise the moon and stars without actually offering advice on how to make it happen. They have to be a feel good people person.

The candidate should be natty in appearance and if possible, have a semi-behaved, but basically quiet trophy wife. If this dapper fellow of prominence has the ability to talk folks out of their hard-earned bucks, so much the better, so without further ado, I've found our candidate: Joel Osteen. He's a perfect match for a Presidential winning combo! Peas and carrots…

Hillary Clinton might as well grab up Oprah Winfrey if she's still available in the unlikely event Mr. Obama gets defeated. The female candidate political taboo rule doesn't apply to Mrs. Clinton for obvious reasons and no I won't go there. Oprah Winfrey is the consummate vote getter, especially the white female vote (If she had endorsed John Edwards, this thing would already be over). She daily hands out instructions on what to do, read and how millions of American white women should think (and there are oodles of them out there in voter land mind you), so Mrs. Clinton would be really missing an opportunity to win, by passing up Oprah and in the event that President Clinton could no longer administer the Oval Office, Ms. Winfrey could take over by simply incorporating the Presidency into her daily show. Peas and carrots…

That leaves us with John McCain and there is only one man who could stand comfortably in the shadow of Mr. McCain with confidence. He's held in awe by all real men and desired by women, feared by our Country's numerous enemies and if there is one man who could swing the youth–student vote away from Barack Obama, it's this man – Chuck Norris!

Chuck is fair, looks like a Texan, honest, kind, thrifty, brave, vigilant, and real handsome and wouldn't hesitate to hammer-fist/triple side-kick a bad guy (or whole country) into submission. Mr. McCain is quite frankly no spring chicken and neither is Mr. Norris, but between the two them, they can still open up a can whoop-you-know-what if the need arises. Besides, John McCain has a notorious bad temper when crossed and Chuck is basically a nice guy and due to his extensive combat training, only beats up people who actually need beating up. Its yin and yang – balance. Peas and carrots…again!

In my search for the ultimate Presidential sidekick, I did deep research on the Internet to see what exactly Mr. Norris is capable of and surprise of all surprises, it turns out he is good at every thing! John McCain and Chuck Norris: our next Presidential team and that my friends, is what they call in the news/food industry - a wrap.