At least the shirt was clean...

People rarely ask me for advice, and I'm okay with that. As a result, however, sometimes I kindly offer advice, even though it has not been sought. Here's my advice to you: Don't put an open tube of Super Glue in your mouth. You're welcome. No charge.

Understand that this advice comes from someone who hit himself in the head with a baseball bat when just a mere boy, who walked into a stop sign and split his head open resulting in profuse bleeding for which I was unaware until the lady at the dry cleaners screamed, and who was struck on the head by lightning shortly after being married.

Head issues. I'll admit it.

The reason I advise against placing an open tube of Super Glue in one's mouth is born out of experience. A few days ago I was gluing a chair spindle into the place it was supposed to be. So I placed the Super Glue in the hole in the chair and some more on the spindle Then I replaced the spindle in the proper place, but that took two hands; one to hold the chair and one to push the spindle.

What to do with the Super Glue? I figured I could gently hold the tube in my mouth, and I could. Still, some oozed out onto the roof of my mouth, which I worked with for the nest few days, making funny faces for which people held me accountable.

My younger daughter asked me why I didn't hold it with the opening outside my mouth, and I told her, "I didn't want to get any on my shirt."

At that, she began laughing much harder and longer than I thought necessary, without explanation.

Anyway, as the Animals warned in their hit single, "The House of the Rising Sun," just be sure you " . . . don't do what I have done."

You're welcome.

Carenen Cottage Red

I am not an oenologist, nor have I ever been a sommelier, and never will be. Wine is not my passion, but it is my delight. I have tried several hundred over the decades, ranging from a delightful Boone's Farm Strawberry, vintage last week, to a bottle of Merlot that cost over five ($5) dollars! And now I have settled on what I call "The Carenen Cottage Red," a modestly-priced but wonderful full, red wine that we enjoy with everything, even fried possum road kill.

Let me share the label with you by means of explaining my affection for this particular liquid pleasure. What follows is mostly word-for-word from the back of the bottle itself.

'This is a pleasurable, comfortable wine, reflecting the comforts of home. It is a wine for everyday life. It is made from grapes grown in a perfect climate, grapes kissed by soft winds bearing the scent of Zephirine Drouhin roses. To truly appreciate this wine, please withhold judgement until after the sixth glass. And kindly remember that consumption of this beverage might impair your judgment, so you should not operate heavy equipment, automobiles, or trucks if you can't, using both hands, find your derriere. If you are pregnant, don't drink this wine until after the baby is delivered. Then have all you want, behavior which may lead to becoming pregnant again. But that's your problem.

A lack of this wine may cause health problems, surliness, and generally crummy behavior, so drink up!'

If you are interested in acquiring this wine for yourselves, I will give you a hint. It's from California. Cheers!

First Friday Fun

No television, no radio, no music, no video games. Just conversation. What!? Every First Friday of each month at the Carenen Cottage in northern Greenville, my long-suffering wife and I host an informal gathering of people beginning at 6:30 PM and lasting until the National Guard moves in and make us disperse. We provide beer and wine and pizza and maybe brownies, and people show up and sometimes bring snacks and hang out and have conversations in the cottage, around the firepit, on the front porch and, when it gets warmer, we'll probably find folks on the deck in back. It is a beautiful setting, especially now with blossoms all over the place. Crabapple, azaleas, dogwood, tulip trees, hyacinths, and many others adorn our little spot up against Paris Mountain. And what do people do there? Converse. That's it. Oh, we occasionally burn a heretic after dark, but there is no other entertainment. Just people talking.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines conversation as "a talk, especially an informal one, between two or more people, in which news and ideas are exchanged." We are informal for sure. And we talk and laugh and tell stories and lies and converse about politics, religion, sports, cat-choking, and a general love of dogs.

No television. No radio. No video games. Conversation. Imagine that.

Neighbors being Neighborly

A few days ago there was a fierce midnight wind storm where our "country cottage" is located. It was a Tuesday night, and we weren't there, but the next day two neighbors called to say that big trees were down on our property, and there had been a fire.

I immediately took off cross-town to take a look, praying the Lord had spared our cottage. Two giant trees on our property and a neighbor's big cypress had been snapped off and were leaning down our driveway, suspended about eight feet from the ground by thick power cables. A small grass fire had erupted but was quickly put out by the fire department - called by our neighbors. The cottage was untouched; a direct answer to prayer.

The next day I found the trees sawn into chunks and the power restored. AND, a woman I had never met cleaning up the debris from OUR driveway. And she did it again the next day, working hard, wearing heavy gloves, and stacking the debris to the side of the driveway in bundles according to size. When I thanked her and told her we would take care of it, that it wasn't her problem, this woman, a grandmother, who weighs about 90 pounds, said she enjoyed the exercise.

It gets still better. The lady doesn't even live in South Carolina. She is an Asian-American, native Hawaiian who only comes to the mainland once a year to check on the house she owns! It was her cypress tree that had fallen onto our driveway and she felt responsible.

Good neighbor? You bet! Beyond numerous, heartfelt "Thank you's" there wasn't much else we could do. She would have been offended by payment and, besides, she said she liked the exercise.

The next night Lisa baked bread and we took it over to her as a small token of appreciation. She flies back to Honolulu tomorrow morning. I'll be she's a good neighbor there, too.