| Straight
from the holler.
by "Buck" August 17, 2006 My apologies everybody for my brief hiatus from columns here at the WVSR. I think I’m experiencing what’s called “writer’s block.” In reality, there’s very little interesting to my life right now. At least nothing, you all would find interesting. Oh, I’m plenty content with the state of things. I get up and go to work, things are busy but fairly mundane there, and then I get home and take a nap. I get up, eat, watch TV, and go to bed and the whole cycle starts all over again. It’s a pattern that works for me—but not if you’re penning a weekly column that is supposed to bring tears of laughter and milk shooting out the nose of your readers. Reality sets in every day when I attempt to cobble together something that I think you might enjoy. I don’t think I’ve had an original thought since the Carter Administration—and he left office when I was in 6th grade. Oh, I was a great thinker of our time in middle school let me tell you….but now, I’m reduced to reading others’ material and being reminded of the time that I experienced a similar phenomenon. I hate that, because I hate people who steal ideas from others and try to make them bigger and better. On the rare occasion I come up with something original—I detest those that use my material again. I never say anything about it—because hell, it’s all out there for public consumption—but it agitates me nonetheless. My mind is filled with plenty of memories—that when properly told are humorous, but I can’t form them into that proper form until after I’m REMINDED of them. The best way to describe my brain is like a well organized filing cabinet—except that the directory just got deleted from the hard drive. Now and then, I’ll stumble across something filed away when somebody reminds me it’s stuffed back there in the corner. Therefore, I’ll try to dust off a memory or two for you today. Somebody on a blog I saw jarred a memory about magnets. A buddy of mine has an employee who quit his job to sell “Rare Earth Magnets” on the internet. The two of us were mystified as to the attraction of magnets and what in God’s name they’re used for. Occasionally we would use one on the farm to remove a tool stuck in an odd place. I know farmers often place a magnet in a cow’s stomach to grab any metal they may swallow before it passes through the plumbing and rips things open. They’re also a reasonable way to pass time my moving metal objects from a distance. However, what possible use could the general public have for such objects? I’m still waiting on the answer for that, but the guy gave my buddy a couple of them that had gotten stuck together and couldn’t be sold because they were inseparable. These aren’t your run of the mill refrigerator magnets—they are EXTREMELY powerful. That’s where the story gets very weird. My buddy took them to his dad and said, “Here, you may have a use for these if you can get them apart”. A day later, he returned and his father had a bandage on his hand. What the hell? Apparently, his dad had walked into the shop carrying the magnets and was immediately struck in the hand when a hammer came FLYING OFF THE WALL, across the room and stuck to the magnet. The impact cut his hand. He laid the magnet on the workbench and tools were flying from all over the place. My buddy said he walked in and found a mass of tools, wire, and various other metal implements all glommed together and coated with a thick layer of shavings from a nearby grinder. Somehow they managed to clean the mess off with some effort and used a crowbar to finally pry the two magnets apart. My buddy gave one of them to his cousin—but told him to be careful. He put it in his pocket and was walking to his truck when his jacket was suddenly sucked up against the bumper—with him in it and sealed to the vehicle. They finally got it off—again with effort—and he took it home. The finale of this weird story comes about two weeks later when my buddy saw his cousin and asked him if he’d done anything with the magnet. “Fuck that magnet,” came the reply in standard West Virginia English. It turns out, he walked into his living room, placed the magnet on his coffee table and went to the kitchen. Moments later there was a loud “BANG” from the living room. He walked in to see the magnet stuck to the ceiling. It had literally jumped from the table to adhere itself to a steel piece of the house’s framework situated just above the sheetrock. Short of using a saw to literally cut away the ceiling, the magnet could not be removed. It’s now stuck to the ceiling and is a rare conversation piece when company comes. These magnets are sold over the internet and come from China. They are shipped in lead lined boxes. It almost sounds like a Magpie—you know seems innocent at first, but then turns your whole life upside down. Crazy man, simply crazy. Well, that’s the best I can do today. If you’d like to shake loose something in my brain, I’m at Moonshinebuck@yahoo.com Buck Out |
