Don't Shit Where You Sleep

It’s been muttered, “Tatters is a little strange.” Like snowflakes, everyone is different and like poker, everyone is dealt a certain hand. Keeping this in mind, I am back in my hometown; the place where I learned to be a man and cry like a woman.

There are a few things that people may not understand about where I’ve grown up and these things should probably be known before I begin my tale of adventure of what I’ve been doing for the past two weeks.

My hometown has about 20,000 people; and the average age of those people is about 75. There are a select group of people I know that have moved back to Hermitage and a select group of people that had never left. And once you leave, it’s very difficult to smeld back into this society; and these are simple folk. I remind my dad of this on a daily basis. I have to remind him everyday because, well, he’s a simple man.

I dunno when this town turned into what it is now, but rest assured, it was never this bad when I was growing up, or maybe I just didn’t notice. Wal-Mart is a fantastic place to really get an appreciation for this town. As many of you know, I rocked the ‘stache on my way out east and it was embraced with open arms when I got here. The typical man in public is we’ll say 55 years old, mustache, a plaid twill jacket, and usually has a NASCAR hat on and its about 50 pounds overweight. Typical woman is about 45 years old, mustache, pregnant, NASCAR T-Shirt on (yes in the winter) and usually has a few bruises scattered randomly over her body. They’ll jump into their pick up truck, GMC twin cab, covered in rust, and 9 times outta 10, Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes will be pissing on something. This ranges from Ford to Cleveland Brown logos. It’s really interesting that there are 3 Volkswagens in town and I know who drives all three of them.

So those are the people. Simple folk that love country music and southern rock. I’d take pictures of these people but if they say my camera they would probably burn me on a stake accusing me of witchcraft.

Moving on to entertainment…We got TONS!

One of the first things you can do, and this is appreciated nationwide, is to indulge yourself in the local drinkery for a few well deserved libations (see Figure 1). On this particular night we saw a buddy of mine play some music at a place called the Clark House. We sampled a few Old Milwaukees and topped it off with a shot of “Creature”, known to the rest of the world as Black Velvet, aka paint remover, aka jewery cleaner.

Another thing could can do if the bowling alley locks you out is drink in a parking lot (see Figure 2) as the manager of the bowling alley suggested. It takes a certain town when the manager of a bowling alley not only allows but SUGGESTS you drink in his parking lot. An opportunity like this may come around once or twice in a lifetime so me and my buddy took full advantage and drank until we couldn’t feel our toes because of the cold. So then we went to his house and drank some more.

Another popular activity is to hang out with Lord Licorice (see Figure 3). I assure you, the Lord, although gallant and wise is not a regular in Hermitage. No Sir. He is a part of Easter Bunny lane (see Figure 4) which is at Kraynak’s. Kraynak’s….there’s no easy way to describe it. It’s really…uh…random. They have a lot of trains there. If you take anything out of this, I hope it’s “if you ever wonder what the right thing to do is, just ask yourself ‘What would Lord Licorice do?’”

Mom mother is sort of a cat lady, she only has four but we’ve had a pretty solid rotation of cats since I’ve been alive. We actually had 4 other cats when I was growing up which make a wonderful segway into another fun activity, which is: Watch the Cats. It’s really better than television. Take Abby for instance (See Figure 5). It was in that position for long enough for me to decide whether or not to take the picture, grab my phone, then take the picture. Remarkable.

I know some of us were Eagle Scouts so another thing to do is pay homage to the boy scouts by putting up robotic moving puppets dressed as creepy ass boy scouts (see Figure 6). Good luck sleeping tonight.

The last things and the most common thing to do is bowl and this dude abides. Had a pretty good game (see Figure 7). Since I’ve been home I’ve went bowling 3 times and drank in the parking lot once…well, actually twice but I don’t count the second time. I’ve also had on average about 6 Stroh’s each time I’ve gone bowling.

You gotta love the place though.