End of the Beginning

So here we was, hearing once again about the Great Kiva. My city faller cousin and his cute wife :):) were explaining that the Great Kiva was a more than one. Sort of like the Pa, the ghost and son up in heaven, only in this case there was several multiples of them, and somehow a building was mixed up in there along with knowing mostly things about this mobile type of mobile home living, and not things in general like them three up in heaven. And all this containing more alrighty then's than a choir of angels has got Hallelujahs.

I got to admit that Nilda and I were a mite skeptical at what we was hearing, but this city feller cousin of mine and his cute wife :):) seemed sure that the Great Kiva was the answer to all our problems. Now I guess I should backtrack a bit here and clarify a few things. First of all, we thought we was hearing my city cousin and his cute wife :):) saying Great Kiva, and somehow that just got burned into our brains to the point that it overrides any other moniker the Great Kiva goes by. Sheesh.

Just to show you that we are smarter than we appear, my city fellar cousin,  and his cute wife, :):) ), (who by the way was proving to be somewhat a distraction to my concentrating on what my city fellar cousin was saying) they was really saying Jehovah Kiva, which we thought was Great Kiva. Sheesh. Anyway, they said that Jehovah Kiva was into speaks, spakes and spokes, alternating back and forth in such a way that what was said came as from one though it came from both. :)

Then we learned that one of the greatest gatherings of these mobile, mobile homes was in our own state of Kentucky, down Louisville way, where it would be held in a big dome and the Great Kiva themself would be there. They, my city feller cousin and his cute wife, :):) that is, was going on and on about these Kiva's which is apparently some type of dome like building the injun's out west used as a place to learn things, and next they, my city feller cousin and his cute wife, :):) was spoutin' off about the Great Kiva itself, the person Kiva, as opposed to the place Kiva, that is.

We didn't know what was what, but we knew that we two needed to learn at the knee or door or whatever it was, of the Great Kiva so we two could live the life my city fellar cousin and his cute wife :):) were living. Or maybe it was, about to be livin', since all they'd done on their first day of livin' that life was to to get lost and end up talking to me and Nilda all day.

Alrighty then, it was getting late and we offered to share our supper with them two. Nilda saying that instead of eating in the former men's restroom like we normally did, we could eat in the former women's restroom since it didn't have a urinal, meaning it had more room to spread out. That was one of the disadvatages of having those rooms rent free. Pa insisted we keep all the original furnishings and fixtures in place just in case he ever got real busy and customers was looking for a place to relieve themselves other than back in the woods. :)

Now Nilda and I would never turn down a free meal, especially from a close relation like we four was, but the cute wife :):) of my city fellar cousin, grabbed his arm and insisted they just needed to be going. That's when Nilda give it her best shot, lettin' them know she was going to serve garlic garnished roast opossum since uncle Burtram had found one roadkilled when he come up the Gulch day before yesterday. It had been a hanging out by the tail for a couple of days, gettin' aged just right, and was never going to be better than it would be tonight.

She still turned us down, even though her husband, my city feller cousin that is, was all fer havin' a free feed, but that was actually okay, because Nilda really likes to really chow down anything opossum and that meant there would be more for her. It was time to say our so-longs, but just before they, my city fellar cousin and his cute wife, :):) got into those two vehicles they was driving, I once again thanked him for telling us about the Great Kiva and the mobile life in mobile homes. I told him he was so smart, he ought to be telling lots of people about what he knew.

Now after all these years, I can still remember him climbing into that truck, mumbling something about a website and making a bunch of money telling others what he had just told us for nothin'. I'm not sure whatever happened to them, because we never heard from either of 'em again. Maybe he did something with what we was talking about. I do know, but that's why I finally decided to try and write this here blog, so people could learn from our example and not do all the dumb, stupid things me and Nilda did. Sheesh.

Best thing about meeting my city fellar cousin and his cute wife :):) was knowing that there was someone else just like me out there. So even if he never got around to blogging, this here blog thing I'm a working at will give you an idea of what livin' a Vayne life is all about.

Fountain of Knowledge

 I been a little remiss in a finishin' up my story of how me and Nilda first learned of this mobile, mobile home life, so today and tomorrow I will be  a telling you the last of that tale, the one where we met my city feller cousin and his cute wife :):) on the day they got lost up on the Gulch.

The Great Kiva, as we learned during our later pilgrimage, is the oracle of all, the fountain of knowledge, the Supreme Being of the RV world. Now don't think that this RV World is someplace far away, like east of New York City, or on the moon. No the Great Kiva is both a place and a person, all rolled into one. :)

I can never forget that day when my city feller cousin told us about the Great Kiva, and how it is a place of more wonders of the mobile, mobile home that we could imagine. Then he really confusacated me and Nilda by saying the Great Kiva were also person, and a person like me or Nilda, no the Great Kiva were a He, She, It, They person. And you don't think that were more than me and Nilda could throw our minds around, you is probably outa your mind.

That city feller cousin talked of Motorhomes, of travel trialers, of Class A's and C's, (what with me never getting nothin' over a D in school, that was little over my head) of A-liners and Winnebagos, orphans, and Good Sam's. All of which was interspered with more alrighty then's and sheesh's than a Sunday meetin' full of holy rollers. We was so filled with facts that we were confused beyond being confused. :)

That was when they both, my city feller cousin and his cute wife, :):) got glassy eyed and started talking in tongues. Gross combination tongue weight, duromax, cummins, allison, slideouts, pumpouts, day night shades, invertors, convertors and defillibrators, or some such babbling all came pouring out of their mouths. Now we'd been to some of Brother Barretts snake handling get togethers, but even at their most frenetic, they couldn't hold a candle to my new found city fellar cousin and his cute wife :):) as they was a goin' on about the mobile lifestyle.

I thought the Preacher had the market cornered on stemwinders up here, but once those two got going they made the preacher look like a babe in the woods when it came to spoutin' words. By the time they was done, Nilda and I was ready to follow my city fellar cousin and his cute wife :):) anywhere they wanted to go, just so we could learn at their feet about this life they was livin'. Sheesh,

That's when they brought Nilda and me crashing back to earth. When he said, alrighty then this was their very first day of livin' this here nomad life in a mobile home that was mobile. At that moment we was both feelin' worse than a lifelong drunk that run out of liquor, but then my city feller cousin's cute wife :):) again mentioned the Great Kiva, and me and Nilda was all ears once again. :)

Nilda gets excited

Alrighty then, it's been a right long time since I was a writing  bout how me and Nilda got started down the rode to this here mobile, mobile home life. And what with all these daily goin's on's to report on, it  took me a might off my writtin track, with a literary detour or too in there, but I.M. a tryin' my darndest to get stopped a wanderin'. Best I can recollect, I left off telling about the pretty Palace that me and Nilda had up there on the Gulch, and I'm sure most of you spent much of the time between then and now just a wondering how we could have given up all that luxury for a life careening down America's highways from one breakdown to another. :)

In a way we was lucky, but in another we wus unlucky. Lucky because we didn't need much room, and unlucky because we didn't need much room. Seems both us men and the womenfolk are born with all kinds of internal plumbing that's got but one purpose, and that's to ensure that the house is continuously filled with little ones. :)

Unfortunately, whoever made all the connections when they put both Nilda and me together must not have been able to tell which parts went where, cause neither one of us worked right in that area. So while everyone around us was inundated with squalling, bawling little ones, Nilda and I was a working our butts off just trying to make even one of those little buggers. :)

But no matter how hard we tried, it never come to nothin', though it sure were somethin' while we was a tryin' to get beyond that nothin'.  So since there was only me and Nilda, that was how we ended up living for nothin' in the back of Pa's filling station. From those three old "restrooms", as they've taken to calling them lately, we made us a bedroom, a living room and a kitchen. And that's why when that city fellar cousin of mine started talking about living in a mobile home we wasn't interested at first, as we was already living the good life. :)

Then the more he talked, the more Nilda's ears seemed to perk up, and first thing I know she's asking him all kinds of questions. And that's when we first heard about the Great Kiva, the place to go and learn all there is about this mobile, mobile home life they also call RV'in' from this here RV know it all King thing. :)

Home life

Alrighty then, bet I left you way out on limb yesterday with all that talk of houses on wheels that actually move and all, but as we was to learn over the next months, there a whole world of them buggers out running around this here big country of ours. If I just knowed then, what I know now, I wouldn't have made a fool of myself so many times since Nilda and me pulled up stakes and joined in the full time lifestyle as we now know it is called. :)

Now you got to understand that while Nilda and me wasn't hurtin' for the basics of life, some of the finer things had escaped us on occasion. While Pa was a good man to work for, being the accountant for a filling station at the end of a road that dead ends at the top of a mountain in the heart of what some say is the greatest state in these here whole United States meant that the paychecks were a mite slim at times. :)

Nilda and me made out alright though, and remembering a few tricks the head jailer in Simpsonville taught me, :) we always had money to do what we wanted. Nilda still laughs at the first time I tried the jailer's trick of cookin' the books. Neither of us could so much as even chew off a corner of a page. Then as luck would have it, he, the jailer that is, stopped at the filling station one day when Pa was gone. Recognizing who he was, as I pumped his gas, I explained my problem to him of the uncooked, cooked books to him. Consequently, after he stopped laughing, I got a quick lesson in what that term, cookin' the books, really meant. :)

Pa didn't raise no dummy, and what with him, Pa that is, puttin' more white lightening than gasoline in those tanks, he was making out like a bandit on his fuel sales. Nilda said I shouldn't feel bad, after all a man mean enough to burden somebody with a name like he had hung on me, probably was only getting what was coming to him. I wasn't sure whether I agreed with her on that or not, but I surely knew I had at least a little something coming to me for being saddled with the name Ishbosheth Mephibosheth Vayne, even if it was straight outta Pa's bible. :)

All of which meant that, even though we lived in those three converted restrooms/outhouses in the back of Pa's filling station, there was more than enough room for me and Nilda. Plus we had more money than we needed, and a sure fire way of gettin' more if we needed it :)

Cousins

Now I know I'm boring ya ta death with all this gabbin' about this city feller and his cute wife, :):) but since he's the reason me and Nilda are where we are today, with a lot of help from the Great Kiva of course, it's important for you to know. Oh, and that feller is different from the one I was tellin' you about yesterday rentin' the boat. Leastaways I think he was a different feller.


I told you I might just a wander a little in this storytellin' which is exactly what I'm a doin'. So to get you pointed in the right direction, yesterday was about some city fellar now, but today I is goin' back to tell you about that city fellar from before, the one that got lost up on the Gluch.

Alrighty then, we knowed we was kin, him being from Kentuky and all, just as I was, but to figure all them intermarriges and extramarriges out would have taken most of the day, so we slapped each other on the back, and called each other cousin.

He shore did hit it off good with me, what with him spendin' so much time rubbin' his hand after he patted me on my back. Looked to me like he was trying to get even more of me onto himself than he already had. That's what being close relatives does to you, makes ya feel like a different person when your around them. :)

Then they did something that almost made me cry, I was so happy. :) That cute little woman gets out one of those paper hankies and starts to clean a little of me off his hand so she can get some on herself. I was so full of love for those two lost sheep because of this, that I wanted to throw my arms around them both. :)

Just as I was a reachin' for them, both their eyes got as big as saucers and they started to back up. That's when I heard Nilda's voice behind me and realized her standing there with her hair all done up in curlers and her mid-morning mud pack plastered on her face had probably been a right startling apparition, to use one of Pa's big words. Anyways, we eventually got everyone introduced, though I did notice that the cute woman :):) insisted that even though she and Nilda were cousin-in-laws at the very least, she didn't want to put Nilda out, and so the cute woman :):) wouldn't take a share of Nilda's mid-morning mud pack, even though it looked to me like Nilda had enough of that green mud on her face to make a passle of pigs happy. :)

Problem is that recollecting all that beauticating Nilda was doing to make her lovely little self even lovelier just got me off track from where I'm a supposed to be blogging. Sheesh. First thing I knowed, that fellar was going on about being a full timer and I knowed right then I wasn't in his league. I'd only had to serve part of my time before they wanted to let me out, course that was back when I first got into the cipherin' business, endin' up with the Judge's paper and my lifelong profession, all of which meant I was only a part timer. :)

Then I find out he's talking about something entirely different. That mansion he's pulling behind that wimpy little truck of his, is their home. You could have knocked me over with a feather. I remembered that Luther Bigelow's youngest girl had married some fellar that worked construction somewheres out west and Luther was a tellin' tales about how they lived out of a mobile home that was actually mobile. Now I ain't never see'd a mobile home what had tires on it, but this looked something like which Luther had been a telling about, only this thing looked much bigger as best I could recall Luther's description of a mobile, mobile home. :)

Lost strangers

Alrighty then, just as I was a recalling how I got this here RV-Dreamers bug,  I got interrupted again. The fellar parked next door come over for a spell and afore I knowed it, it was to late to blog any more, so I just posted what I'd got done earlier in the day, even if that was a few days ago. :)

In a way, that life back up on the Gulch had its good points. Like when you always knowed which day of the month everybody was a coming in to get their gas. We tried to keep it down to one customer a day, but sometimes someone forgot, or the Preacher would stop by, or some other unusual event happened, but that just made for a little excitement. :)

So here I was, confronted by this house, heck, it were a mansion on wheels, and this city fellar gets out, hair all so perfect it almost looked like he'd shaved it off, dark glasses on and lawdy, lawdy, the gawd awfullest looking pair of knee high britches I ever seed in my life. Geesh.  :)

He's a lookin' at a map, which by the way weren't going to do him one bit of good, mostly because it was a map of Stonemason County, which was two county's over, but from the looks of him, he weren't gonna let the likes of me tell him anything, so I just kept my mouth shut, figuring he'd open his when the time come. :)

He and the cute woman :):) was a talkin' and a pointin', all of which was taking time, but gittin' nuthin' done. I was puzzled as to why they just didn't use those little phone things they was both holdin' on to, to call and ask Pricilla Anne at the phone company to send over one of the local kids to lead them out.

When my curiosity couldn't be contained no more, I asked them why they didn't do just that. All of which got the man to jest laughing and laughing, saying , "It's not a telephone, it's a walky talky. Sheesh." That had me puzzled cause while them two was certainly a talking, they sure didn't look like they were about to start walkin' anywhere. :) Turns out they was a using those talk and walk things to "communicate" while they was driving down the road.

Speakin' a little out of line, I busted out with something about that being a right smart thing to do, and with one thing leading to another, that's how I found out that he'd also once been into workin' with numbers, and he'd also gotten one of those fancy certificates to hang on the wall, sorta like the Judge gave me those many years back. :)

Gettin' the RV Dreamers bug

Back in that first blog post, boy but I sure didn't know much about this blogging thing back then, I said I'd started life with gleam and a dream, and those were things I'd always had. Well, the dream was always there, but before Tomato Blossom :):):) came into my life, that gleam thing was just a laying there, not being used for its intended purpose. :(

Alrighty then, it looks like I am a wandering instead of blogging about this RV thing again, but maybe that's just what Dreamers do. They wander around until they stumble upon what ever it was they didn't know they had been lookin' for. :) And that was exactly what I was not a lookin' for when the RV Dreamers bug bit me.

It was a Saturday morning in April, right about 10:22 on the morning of the 23rd, close as I can recall. There I was, a sittin' in my office at Pa's filling station when I heard the gawd awfullest racket you could ever imagine. It was a wheezing and a carrying on about like a bull that'd just went through a whole field of heifers all by his lonesome. Geesh. Now we ain't stupid up here, since on occasion one of those down river boys in their big fancied up pick'em up trucks will wander in here more lost than a tick in an anthill. :)

This here truck weren't near as tricked up those, in fact it was about to the place where if it had anything else a hanging on it it probably would a died on the spot. Covered with dirt the way it was, I couldn't even tell it was actually some ugly brown color, worse than the dirt a coverin' it, until it got closer, and that was when I see's why it was a huffin' and a puffin'. :)

Behind it was the biggest gall darnd house I, or most anybody in the these parts had seen in ages. It went up, up up in the front, till it towered over the tops of Granny Garfields lilac bushes. And let me tell you, she grew the prize winner lilacs every year at the Squattersville Combined Squirrel Cookoff and Flower Show. It had windows and doors all over the place, and a leaky roof. I couldn't believe how many patches they had up top, some of them holes must have been right sizeable cause there was a big old chunk of metal sticking up in the air and a covering them. :)

Course nowadays that I gots my own RV, I know what those things are, what for letting the smoke out from the stove and airing the outhouse, but back then I didn't. Geesh. But them two things wasn't all, cause ahind them comes this part car, part something else, driven by the cutest little dab of a woman, this side of Coal Creek. :):)

Since we weren't busy at the station, it was the first Saturday of the month after all and Barney Billingsley only ever gets his usual three gallons of gasoline on the second Saturday of the month, not the first Saturday, I figured I had time if, whoever they was, they decided they wanted to chew the fat for a mite. :)

Gettin' my Degree

Sorry I got off the track yesterday about getting the job that eventually allowed Nilda and me to live the RV Dreamers life. Alrighty then, once the jailer came back and see'd how good with numbers I was, he just took me under his wing, and before I knew it, I was learning things that I wasn't sure I would ever have any use for. By the time my time was up, they didn't want me to leave so I just stayed on for a while longer, helping everyone at the courthouse out with their number problems. Seems somebody down in Frankfort was making noise about county corruption, and the wanted to make sure all the books were in order.

At last I finally had to go back up to the Gulch. Ma was expecting for the 19th time, and what with Pa's wart on his little toe a bothering him again, he couldn't do no more than lay abed himself. What surprised me was how all choked up everybody around the courthouse got when I told them how Ma and Pa was suffering, each in their own way. Sheesh. :)

Alrighty then, before I was allowed to leave, the Judge, who was that man who gave me the chance to get my degree those many months ago, he ups and has a big get together, of which it turned out I was the guest of honor. I sure wished Pa could of been there for that, I'll bet it would have made up for that day when he screamed at me and Tomato Blossom that I had brought great dishonor and pain to the name of Vayne.

I was a smiling so hard at what the Judge was saying, plus with Tammy Jo, all 400 pounds of her, between me and the Judge and her wheezing and all, it was hard to hear exactly what the Judge said. But folks said even though the Judge was all blubbery, it was something about the fact that it was hereby certified and noted that all the public thereabouts should know that I.M. Vayne, and not only that, but that they should know that the Judge considered the same I.M. Vayne to be the best darned accountant in all of the County.

When the Judge finished, Tammy Jo throwed her arms around me, then just as the Judge handed me a piece of paper with his proclamation all printed out on it, Tammy Jo began bawling like a calf that had lost its mama. First thing I know all them tears from Tammy Jo is causing the the ink to run on the most important paper I had ever gotten in my life, and to this day the only words anyone can make out are: --- awarded this day  ---  certified -- Public  -- accountant   -- I.M. Vayne  ---  signed --- official of ---  Kentucky.

Me and Tammy Jo

Alrighty then, it was Tammy Jo Jamison that really got me to get my degree, not that Tammy Jo was anybody special. But what she did have was a older brother, Jimmy Jack Jamison, who had gotten a degree, and that was the only reason why I was always trying to get her to dance with me at the church socials and such. Which wasn't really all that hard, all the boys being just a bit shy whenever Tammy Jo was around. I figured if I could sweet talked Tammy Jo enough, she just might tell me how Jimmy Jack got his degree. :)

Turned out that to get a degree you had go far down below the Gulch, even past Coon Hollow, then travel the Tartliffe Road till it came out near Simpsonville, which was the county seat. It was there, in Simpsonville, that you could get a degree. Once I learned all this, I waited till the time was right and lit out for the big city of Simpsonville. :)

It was dark by the time I got to Simpsonville, but by trying to do just exactly what Tammy Jo had told me Jimmy Jack had told her to tell me to do, I ended up standing before a very official looking man the next morning. I tried to explain to him what Tammy Jo had told me Jimmy Jack had told her to tell me about getting a degree, but he wasn't having any of it. Sheesh. 

In the end it still turned out okay, and even though I didn't get the degree I wanted, the one I ended up with was just as good. Besides that, it took only 30 days to get the degree I got rather than the two years it took Tammy Jo's brother, Jimmy Jack, to get his. :)

I will admit I was heartbroken when the man first said it was just going to be 30 days for me because I'd only gotten a 3rd degree misdemeanor rather than a second degree felony like Tammy Jo's bother got. Turned out however, to be the best thing that ever happened to me, since the head jailer took sick, and his assistant couldn't keep track of how many days anybody had left to serve. :)

I'd always been good with numbers and that was why I got the job of second assistant, jailed jailer. The Sheriff was joking about it being an inside job. Sheesh. But I thought I'd earned it. Course it didn't hurt that most all of Tammy Jo's male relatives had stayed there at one time or another, and through them she'd put in a word or two for me. :)

Gettin' ahead in life

Alrighty then, bout a month ago Nilda and me was down at the Hopkinson Family Reunion, her being a Hopkinson by way of her sixth oldest sister's second husband's step mother. Anyway, some  of the boys was wondering where Nilda and I had been since we had missed the Worthington reunion a few weeks back, me being a Worthington, through someone on great grandma Featheringham's side of the family.  :)

Were they ever surprised to learn that we had been traipsin' around the country enjoying the retirement life cause of the fruits of my labors due to my degree I had got years ago. Most of them boys don't have a clue about how to get ahead in life and make some real money. Maybe this is a good time to tell you what I told them about how I got ahead in life. :)

First I ever heard about these "degrees" and how they could get you ahead in life was when my sister Maybelle, that's my younger sister Maybelle, not my older sister Mabel, brought her friend, Tomato Blossom Parks  :):):) back with her at Christmas many years ago. It turned out that Tomato Blossom's :):):) parents where some sort of hippies, and since Tomato Blossom :):):) wasn't following the path they had set out for her in life, she was going to be all alone come the Holidays, so Maybelle brung her along to the Gulch.

It was from Tomato Blossom :):):) that I learned about degrees and that people can actually get paid for reading and writing a bunch of "whereas's" and "parties of the first parts", and on and on. I also learned that not everyone can add numbers and make them come out like they are supposed to. Sheesh. Or at least have them come out like the feller paying the bill wants them to come out.

Alrighty then, it was a real eye opener for me, discovering that people can get paid for just putting words and numbers down on paper, rather that actually having to do anything. I decided right then and there that I was going to get me one of those degrees Tomato Blossom :):):) was talking about and live a life of ease.

Before Tomato Blossom :):):) went back to the big city, she also got around to teaching me a few other things that I wasn't quite up to speed on, though lord only knows why not. Alrighty then, Tomato Blossom :):):) was a leading me through my lessons, urging me on, when I guess I got a might too into what was going on and started a bellarin' and a carryin' on. Course it didn't help that at the same time, Tomato Blossom  :):):) was a puffing and a gruntin' like a steam engine going up Henderson Mountain.

Let's just say that by the time things calmed back down, Maybelle was banned from bringing any more of her big city friends back with her, :(:(:( and something other than a degree was on my mind every time I got close to a girl for a long time after that. Sheesh.  :)

Mobile life frustrations

In case there is anyone reading this here blog, I just upgraded the FAQ section, which can be found under IMPORTANT STUFF on the left hand side of the page. Don't ask me why its that way, I didn't design this blogger thingy I'm using to write this blog.

Still, it looks like this here blogging thing is going to be a snap, which was just what Martha Jane's former boss's wife's niece told my wife, Nilda. Martha Jane being Nilda's former co-worker at Bentley's Best Beads where both of them worked for a week or so a few Christmas's back. :)

Anyway, Martha Jane's former boss's wife's niece, I think her name was Rebecca Sue, she had a girl that went up to the big city and got hitched to a feller that was into computers. One thing led to another and today I sit here at this keyboard pouring my life story and all the wonderful experiences we had on the road from Gompers Gulch, Kentucky to out here in the middle of nowhere, which is where our 5th wheel is currently located, broke down, again. :(

I'm gonna get all mixed up in telling you these stories, cause what come first didn't always lead to what came second, or even third for that matter. Hope you don't matter a little if I jump around a mite, but maybe when it's all said and done it will make sense. Like uncle Zeke always said, "I.M., you got a heap of sense rattling around in that head of yours, you got containers and cabinets full of mighty interesting stuff in there, its just a shame they never put the cabinet doors on." :)

Alrighty then, this mobile life is pretty nice, at least during the times when the mobile part is really mobile and not broke down. :) Back when I was a kid you had orphanages for orphans. A place they could go and get what they needed to live a normal life. Sheesh.

Now we got one of them orphans, which is what they call our 5th wheel, which as we have found out, is one of the least mobile of mobile homes. I know we was blinded by its beauty, it price, and its availability the moment we saw it, but just like them sea fellars got a albatross around the neck and ended up at the bottom of the ocean, we got our 5th wheel which is a weighing us down to the point where I'm seriously considering shooting it and starting over. :)

Only problem is that Nilda is so attached to her modern kitchen and indoor privy, that she'd probably rip the gun out of my hands and shoot me before the smoke could clear. Guess that's really what this blogging thing is for, to let me pour out my frustrations (another of Pa's big words) so's that Nilda and me can live peaceable even when our mobile life style is more immobile than mobile. :)

First Blog Post

My first day at this blogging thing, so I thought I'd start with what I know best and just talk about me. :)  Some might say yesterday was my first day. Sheesh. But , it weren't no real blogger writing, just me puttin' a few thoughts down to help kick start the words a flowing. Guess it's like Grandpappy always said, "Ain't nothin' like a good kick in the pants to get that gleamy eyed dreamer to do something useful for a change."

Alrighty then, In case you're wondering just who it is that's leading you down The Highway to Travel Heaven, I had a Pa that was big into reading the bible, even if he didn't ever get past third grade. He just loved them big words and would roll them off his tongue for hours. That's how I got named Ishbosheth Mephibosheth Vayne. :)

Now before you laugh, :) at least I got a name that no one else in the family has, what with three cousin's named Billy Bob and about a half dozen Sallie Mae's thrown in for good measure. Like Grandpap always said, "Boy, when you was named, they through the book away."

Didn't take long for Pa to figure out the he'd made a mite of a mistake in the naming business, but since I was his first born, he weren't a gonna change my handle no how, no way. Ma wanted to call me Ishy, but Pa wouldn't have none of it cause to him it sounded sissified. :)

Finally he come up with what I been known as all my life, or as he liked to say, "A name that's got two good strong pillars to build a life on.", I.M.. So that's what I've been known as all these years, just my initials, "I.M.". Pa may have had a little problem in the beginning, but that change made my life a lot better. Sheesh.  I could have been Ishbosheth Mephibosheth Vayne, :( or should Ma have gotten her way, Ishy Vayne, :( instead I'm just old, plain and simple, I.M. Vayne. :)

In the Beginning

Every RV-Dreamer has a beginning, and I remember the beginning of my life, well maybe I don't remember from first hand experience exactly, but Pa sure did like to tell everybody how it come about. :) Seems he had been out checking his opossum trap on a day when the snow was thigh deep and the weather was nastier than sittin' in a two holer in a blizzard with the door open.

Anyways, Pa says he comes traipsing back, stomping and a flailing around on the porch, and when he throws the door open, there sits Ma afore the fire. Seems Pa was a blowin' on his hands tryin' ta warm 'em up when he takes a real gander at ma, or at least at what ma was doing. Seems she had some holes in her clothes where holes weren't supposed to be, :) and she was fixin' to do something about them.

This was where Pa, rest his sorry soul if by some chance ya got it up there Lord, anyways here Pa always let out the biggest laugh he could. And then Ma, rest her poor Soul Lord, cause I know you got it up there, would turn every shade of red a female woman could, and some shades most females couldn't . :) Seems like her longjohns had been letting in more than a mere mite of air, and all at a place where air wasn't supposed to be enterin'.

That's the point where Pa always said he got the gleam, and Ma says what went on after that was akin to a dream. Everybody up on the mountain has heard the rest of what went on that night so many times, that I don't need to repeat it, cause there's no way I could ever tell it as good as Pa, especially whenever he would get to the part about more than just air entering in that spot. :)

Alrighty then, so my life began with a gleam and a dream, and for most of my days I was cussed out for dreamin' of a gleamin' when I should'a been a doing other things, but now, to quote that great Kentukian, two score and seven years ago I was brought forth, and by gum, I'm a gonna live that dream and if you follow along, so might you too. :)