So…

Last time on Thoughts of A Southpaw–

Oooh, dramatic. Are you gonna put up some flashing lights, too? Maybe a fog machine?

No. Enough with the dramatics.

Vacation has been a thrill; in fact, one of the biggest thrills came out of a single gas station on the border of Kansas and Colorado–or somewhere around there. This gas station was no big place; hell, man, it was just a gas station…no big deal. But the bathroom…

The bathroom was filthy, but it was also darkly comedic. Allow me to clarify. Within the small stall, there was your typical baby changing station, however, instead of the word changing being complete, the “c” had been scratched off, leaving it to read as Baby hanging Station. Dark, I know, and I wished I had taken my phone with me, but it was still in our Winnebago.

Did I mention that? We’re driving all across the South in a seventies Winnebago, with classic shag carpeting, shiny plastic decals, and annoying seventies cabinets that always seem to break if you mess up one step in their opening and closure; that, and the bathroom is a pain whenever my dad takes a sharp turn on the interstate and makes me almost dive head-first into a dirty toilet bowl. Yeah, ewww, no thanks.

Another cool event at the gas station–can you guess? Bzzz. Wrong. We did not get to sit on Ronald McDonald’s lap, ’cause that’s McDonald’s, dummies. We–I should say my mom–met a famous blues guitarist by the name of Elvin Bishop.

Heard of him? We hadn’t either, until he told my mother that his band made the song “Fooled Around and Fell In Love;” in fact, Mr. Bishop wrote the darn thing! He had started the conversation by asking my mom about our Winnebago, which, he confessed, his band had used back in the good ol’ days–then, of course, it was less fun when they ended up with a tour bus, but hey, what can a seventies band do?

I admit…I did listen to that song after we climbed back into the Winnebago.

If you’re reading this, Mr. Bishop–I highly doubt it–then I must say you have musical finesse. That song was a nice turn from your regular blues, and it seemed to have worked out well for your band.

Our first campsite, too, had its perks and its oddities. We sat on a peninsula, just surrounded by this gleaming lake–really quite beautiful. My family members and I went down to the lake, swam around, pretended to shoot each other with finger guns that we splashed in the water as we pulled the triggers–yes, we also fell backwards in the water when we were shot, created a more visceral experience and all that.

There were these boats, tons of boats, and there was beer, tons of beer. Everyone with a sail or an engine was sipping on cans of Bud Lite–and I am assuming it was nice and cold, even though I have never drank a single drop of beer. Heh-Heh. Wink. Wink.

Even without drinking the beer, I felt like I had a hangover…’cause of the sunburn all across my back–and, excuse my tangent, but I’m getting really freaked out because right now there’s a giant lizard sitting in its cage and staring at me…and a cricket chirped, and he looked away…phew…oh wait, he’s still there.

Yep. Cold-blooded killer, I tell ya. What, oh, I was talking about the lizard.

Heh.

Think daily, 

A Southpaw