The Dreaded Annual Xmas Letter

December 1997

The Dreaded Annual Xmas Letter
By Bob Coskrey


Dear Norma,

I enjoyed your Xmas card and letter. I know how proud you must be of little Ashley being accepted to Duke at the tender age of fifteen. I had no idea that David Duke had a whole university named after him. Boy, am I stupid.

Oh, coincidentally, while we’re on that subject, my eldest daughter, Busty Betsy, was just selected Miss Daisy Duke 1998 by the local Transmission Workers Union.

I am so proud of her, I could burst and so should she, for that matter. She also made the cheerleading squad, although I overheard one of the neighbors’ boys saying she had made the football and men’s basketball teams, too, but I must have misunderstood him. I really think my hearing is going.

So your Biffer is in his senior year at Harvard. Terrific.

Our little Billy Joe took advantage of his recent incarceration to study condom machine repair. And, the Lord works in mysterious ways, when the judge learned that one of those girl scouts was 18, Billy Joe’s sentence was reduced from 6 years to 2.

We’re really catching “you know what” from the rest of the trailer park since we purchased the double-wide. They all us social climbers. Of course, it is sad that they feel that way, however, as you know yourself, one must move forward. But you know us, we’ll always be the salt of the earth (is it salt or scum?), even if we have 3 pickups and go to Myrtle Beach every month.

I got myself one of those celebrity hairdos. I got a “Paula Jones,” you know, long and teased, with a cute little poofy thing in the front. I wore a mini-skirt and some white Barbara Mandrell boots when we took Grandma Gaskins to the monster truck rally and one of those groovy pit crew boys told me I made his transmission shift into gear. I guess I’ve still got what it takes.
Eddie took me out to a move for our 25th anniversary. I wanted to see a Steven Seagall one because I think trying to figure out their intricate plots provides good brain food, but we finally decided on one of the “Smokey and the Bandit” movies instead (III, I think). Boy, that Bert Reynolds always turns me on, the way he chews his gum.

Give Parkhurst a kiss on the cheek for me for getting that big promotion to CEO.

Eddie says he got some very interesting pictures of his boos and someone named Tina Tetons at the American Legion convention. He expects to be getting promotion, not to mention a bonus, very soon—or else, if you get my drift. Ha, ha, ha! Whatever it takes, I always say.

Well, I got to be going. Y’all have a fantastic time on your trip to Paris.

Eddie and I will be doing something very similar when we go to Dollywood for “French Day” next month. The way it works is that any time you hear somebody speaking French or eating French Toast you are suppose to thumb your nose at them. The smug, frog-eating, little foreigners. I think they must have given Dolly a hard time or something.

Happy Holidays to you and yours!

Love,
Tanya Faye

Essence of Innocence

In the 40s, when we stayed at my grandmother’s house on Sullivan’s Island each summer, we went crabbing at least every other week. “We” consisted of my mother, her sister Gert, sometimes her son Jimmy, who was 10 years my senior, and various assorted friends of the family. I was totally involved in this family pastime from the age of 4 through approximate 12, or more specifically, until Tsunami-sized waves of hormones swept me in a less wholesome direction.

We would always go to the same spot, the back beach near Brach Inlet (Sullivan’s Island side), a place now dominated by monstrous mansions and rampaging jet skiers. We would take a large galvanized metal tub to carry the unfortunate creatures back home, crab lines, sinkers, nets, chicken necks and backs, a large cooler filled with adult beverages, plus a few RC Colas for me, and some sandwiches, potato chips, and chocolate-covered graham crackers, my favorite sweet, till an afternoon of gormandizing an entire bag by myself the edge of nausea, caused me to avoid them for about five years.

A crab line consisted of a 30- or 40-foot length of heavy twine with the sinker (a lead weight to keep the bait from floating) and the chicken part tied to one end, and the whole thing being wrapped around a sturdy stick. To get started, you simply unraveled some line, tossed it about 20 feet out into the water, then jammed the stick firmly into the ground to keep the crab from pulling everything away. Then, all you had to do was occasionally check the line for nibbles. If you pulled the line taut—or the crab did—you could feel the clueless crustacean tugging on it. At that point, you would begin pulling the line slowly toward you, the word being “slowly,” since an rapid movement would frighten the crab away.

I became an expert immediately—at least, according to my overindulgent mother and aunt. Actually, thought I was thankfully unaware of it at the time, this, I’m afraid, was to be my first and only area of expertise, unless you count my beer-guzzling feats of the early and mid-60s.

Eventually I was promoted to “scooper,” the person who, using a net attached to a 5- or 6-foot pole, scooped up the crab sinker, bait and all, out of the water. This task required you to stand very still next to the spot where the puller would draw in the crab, then place your net beneath him (the crab) while the puller lifted him closer to the surface. If the water was too shallow, then the job was a bit more difficult, beacuase you had to quicly—in one stroke—place your net directly behind the crab this time, and with a sweeping motion., flip the crab from the bottom of the ocean into the net.

I became the most enthusiastic crabber in the group, possibly because I was the youngest, not to mention most sober, running back and forth to check each line, to scooping while someone else pulled. Sometimes, at the pinnacle of my skills, I would do both, no doubt causing my mother to pray that one day there might be an Olympic crabbing event so I could represent the U.S.

While I focused on the chores of crabbing, the adults spent—what I thought then—was an inordinate amount of time availing themselves of liquid refreshments, which mainly consisted of Bourbon with Coke or ginger ale. In those days, my parents and their friends had a special method of consuming alcoholic beverages: It was called “drinking shooters,” which meant you first swigged down the contents of the shot glass—usually two ounces—then “chased” it down with your mix. It afforded very little gratification for your taste buds, but guaranteed a nearly instantaneous buzz, sometimes followed by a trip to the “DisOrient Express.”

Sometimes, my Aunt Adele, who was a lesbian, and a “friend” would come along. I, of course, was unaware of her situation, as were many adults for that matter (after all the was the 40s) however, I was keenly aware of her unusually short haircut (for a woman), severe mannish clothes, and orthopedic-looking shoes, which, at the time, made me a little embarrassed, especially in front of my friends. I would always try to explain her unorthodox appearance by telling them that she worked for the Secret Service in Washington, DC, (which she did) and that she was working undercover as a man. She was actually a secretary for that agency, so I was at least half truthful. Well, that’s more than a politician can say. At times, people on the beach would stare at her, but that didn’t seem to bother Adele one bit, who I noticed tossed back her “shooters” faster than anybody, despite her 4 feet 11 inch, 80 pound frame. Prior to hitting the beach, we would always stop at Mr. Magwood’s store, which was right there nestled in the undisturbed dunes bordering the inlet. It was sort of a very small general store that sold fishing and crabbing supplies, groceries, hats, beer, and cigarettes. We would pick up some extra lines, and inevitably at some point during the day, I would be sent back to buy someone a pack of (un)Lucky Strikes, an event which always prompted the same remark from Mr. Magwood: “Why, Bobby, I thought you smoked Chesterfields.”

We would all grease up with suntan lotion on the first trip of the summer, but never use it after then, once we all had acquired our pre-carcinogenic hues.

Once the tub got about half filled, or one or more of the grownups got so red—sun or alcohol induced, they began to get woozy—we packed up and went home.

Then the fun really started: :Live crab boiling. The rub would be placed on the kitchen’s linoleum floor, and one of the family members would begin lifting the crabs, with tongs, one by one out of the tub and dropping them into a huge pot of boiling water, which sat on the gas stove. The poor crab, one hitting the water, would struggle to swim briefly, then suddenly freeze—though that certainly seems like the wrong verb—and turn a bright orange in a matter of seconds. It was a gruesome yet morbidly fascinating sight, especially for a kid who exulted in shooting the neighbor’s annoying children with a sawed-off Red Rider BB gun, filled with sand, flame-torching roaches, and blowing up ants and roaches with cherry bombs. I was allowed to play the part of lord high executioner myself, a role which was not perfected without numerous mishaps, mainly the dramatic escapes of many of the barnacled brethren, as they managed to struggle free of the “Terrible Tongs of Doom” and scuttled to freedom, some of whom were found days later, with the involuntary assistance of olfactory systems.

Fortunately for myself, my family, and the rest of the family and contrary to recent psychological studies, these evil inclinations proved only to be temporary, and, in fact, I don’t even like to crab at all any more, much less boil the poor devils in the “Cauldron of Agony” because I no longer want to be part of such an inhumane process. However, this will not prevent me from enjoying the crab in all its delectable dining manifestations.

I think this makes me a Wimpocrit, an undesirable category somewhere between a wimp and a hypocrite. But after waking up in the middle of the night over the past few days with an ever increasing urge to retrieve my still sand-loaded BB gun from the attic for use as a road rage equalizer, I’m starting to feel that there are even more important reasons why I should not be returning to any of my borderline sadistic childhood activities, the betterment of mankind being the main one. By the way, did you know that Jeffrey Dahmer, in his youth, was an avid crabber too?

Weather or Not

Perhaps my timing is bad from some perspectives, but I think the local TV stations ought to consider making the weather reports one minute in length. Well, okay, if there’s a hurricane involved, make it one and a half minutes. They give us entirely too much information. All I need to know, unless there’s a hurricane or a tornado, is what the temperature is and whether there’s going to be any precipitation or not. And in fact, if I wanted to, I could simply stick my head out the window and give the report as accurately as some of these people. That could well be the method they use to forecast, for all I know, and the fact that many weathermen have tans only on their faces and necks may be all the proof we need.

You may note that I am referring only to the male prognosticators. Blatant sexism? Not really. But the male of the species—Meteorosaurus Rex—seems to want to dominate the media, while most females appear to be less aggressive and just content to do innocuous map-pointing. I like to see people who are really enthusiastic about their jobs, like Chris Matthews, Paul Shaffer, and even those two strange little twin brother antique experts (Duncan and Phyfe? Henry and Don? Broy and Hill? Whatever.) on the “Antique Road Show,” but these weather guys take it a bit too far. I have no doubt that each of them sees the weather as his life, business and personal. And I wouldn’t doubt that it’s been a life-long obsession. When 13-year-old Bill Walsh or Rob Fowler’s mothers frantically ransacked their rooms, looking for salacious clues to explain their never leaving them, they didn’t unearth a veritable pornographic time capsule, as Pee Wee Herman’s traumatized mother undoubtedly did, but rather a pile of weather maps, quite possibly stuck together, a battery operated anemometer, and autographed pictures of Karen McGinnis and Willard Scott.

Of course, hurricane season only heightens the rapture for this group, as each wave off the coast of Africa seems to have a Viagric effect, enabling them to prolong their reports and endless updates for days, even weeks. Terms like isobar, ridge, funnel cloud, vorticity, and trough are spewed forth with orgasmic abandon, but when an actual hurricane is created, TV viewers may as well read a book—and some still can, you know—because there will be nonstop interruptions of programs or at least little maps in the corner of your screen ensuring that you are aware of the storm’s exat location at all times. At some point, when it appears there may be a chance the storm may be heading our way, then ti’s time for the “Rainbow Rambos” to break out the big guns. Citizens need not be afraid because these guys have got “Super Doppler 5000’s” and “Live Vipers” and they’re casting out “Hurricane Nets” and hunkering down, “loaded for bear” in their “Storm Centers.” And apparently, once this meteorological mobilization starts, there’s no stopping it, even if the forecast is, God forbid, erroneous and the storm misses us. Fearless reporters are sent forth with orders to give the totally helpless viewers live coverage of the horrible devastation and pathos. More often than not, this results in some permanently humiliated new employee at the station watching 9 inch waves roar ashore at a local beach or another guy observing the 5 o’clock traffic rush, and remarking with an air of faux solemnity that the street is wet. Although I will admit I recently witnessed a display of stultifying honesty during tropical storm Gaston recently when a reporter executed a calamitous career move by stating that “It really doesn’t look too bad out here.”

Perhaps, sensing that the station is struggling to make a macroburst out of a microburst, or either just wanting to be part of the big “story,” audience members frequently call in: 1. “The pine trees in my yard are swaying” (Big deal, that could be caused by a flatulent St. Bernard); 2. “My joggling board is soaked”; 3. “It blowed the flames detailing off my damned Camaro”; 4. “My wind chimes were making a death rattle sound”; 5. “Well, maybe those damned Yankees will stop moving down here now.”

But certainly, if a weatherman wants to show dramatic and complete destruction to his audience, there’s always one horse he can bet on, one unnatural phenomenon that’s even more predictable than “Old Faithful” or a Neocon with a service deferment: The trailer park. I really don’t understand it. Why are there some people who live along the coast or in Tornado Alley who insist on living in a trailer? Of course, I understand that some people may not have the money to buy a house, a situation I was in at one point in my life, but we took our $80 and instead of renting a prefabricated rectangle on wheels, we rented an apartment that was in a building fastened to the earth with pylons, steel and concrete. Don’t you people watch the news or look at the newspaper? Well, let me give you one final tip. What’s another name for a trailer? That’s right—mobile home. Mobile, move. Get it?! You have a Mobile Home; a home that can move. A big wind comes along, and that’s what your home does—it moves. Oh, sometimes it may take a while because it does it piece by piece, but you get the point. And no, surrounding it with cars on cinderblocks won’t help.

See, if the weathermen were public service oriented, they would have lectured the mobile home owners as I did, instead of inundating us with hurricane preparedness pamphlets, boring our school children to the point of committing violence with their mind-numbing presentations. “Well children, Jim Carrey had to cancel his appearance today, but that’s okay because we’ve got somebody else just as entertaining—the guy who wasn’t afraid of mean old Mr. Hugo, the hardest working meteorologist in town—actually the only one…Rob Fowler.”

However, I do recall during some of the 45mph gusts of Gaston, when I surely felt that all was lost, after not being able to try out my home colostomy kit due to a power outage, that it was one of our local weathermen on my battery-operated radio that yanked me out of the abyss of despair with these simple, but inspiring words, “I am on the air and I’ll be here as long as I’m needed.” Visions of Alexander Haig’s courageous utterance after President Reagan’s assassination attempt, “I am in control here at the White House,” floated through my tired brain as I peacefully dozed off, knowing that despite the climatological turmoil about me, my weatherman was still there.

Sure, Rob and Bill, and the other guy whose name can’t recall, sometimes you’re all annoying, self-important, ridiculous meteorological megalomaniacs, but you’re always there when we need you—or even otherwise.

Thanks.