I am feasting on a Beverly Hillbillies Jethro Bodine Super-sized salad bowl full of Apple Jacks, Lucky Charms and Fruity Pebbles breakfast cereal, gorging my face with my almost punch dipper sized large spoon.
The milk is just the way I like it, cold as a melty milkshake from Sonic Drive-In or McDonald’s, whenever the ice cream machine is working.
Humming and swinging my legs like a 7-year-old on a Minnie Cox Park swing, and gazing into the large bowl as if my true love was trapped deep inside the cereal.
With my child-like thoughts and judging by the size of the bowl, once I finish the cereal and do the milk drinking from the bowl ritual, not only will I have a milk mustache, but also a milk beard and matching milk sideburns.
This week’s column is another true story of courage in a time peril. Its 2010 after my younger brother Toxey and I were honored to work for wrestling legend/actor/artist/writer and WWE Hall of Famer Jerry “The King” Lawler. I moved in my brother’s two-bedroom apartment at the Raleigh apartment community.
However, upon arriving to the apartment, and while unpacking my luggage, my brother patiently turned to me and gave an ominous warning.
He said “Whatever you do, pay attention whenever outdoors and don’t throw any food outside.”
Being raised by my mom, we were taught never to throw food in the trash, instead give the waste food to God’s glorious creatures.
Toxey said that months before the entire apartment complex residents would see this lovable small kitten size raccoon and would rub and feed it.
This ritual of feeding and petting this cute critter went on for weeks, until the baby raccoon seemingly vanished.
Then one day the neighborhood pet returned, only this time with an angry posse of very large raccoons.
He told me that these vicious bad-news varmints were serious savage beasts on a rampage and at night the Raleigh apartment community was under siege. After hearing my brother’s seemingly exaggerated story, I simply laughed in his face. It would be a laugh that I lived to regret.
Later I would see my brother smoking a cigarette with trembling hands.
For those of you who are familiar with my brother Toxey, you know that his not only an ex-football player, incredibly strong and also an advisor for an amateur MMA organization in Memphis and Southaven.
After getting settled in for months my then picturesque girlfriend Ammala would come and spend every other weekend with me at the apartments. Ammala was a former restauranteur from Lao People’s Democratic Republic who specialized in gourmet dishes influenced by Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnamese cultures.
These awesomely amazing dishes brought out mass crowds to the apartment to dine every other week.
One night after a large crowd left, Ammala packed her luggage into her truck, while I washed dishes.
She kissed me on the cheek, and she promised to call as soon she got back home in Tupelo.
However, within a matter of seconds after she left I heard someone burst into the front door and slam it shut.
It’s Ammala and she’s frantically shaken, pointing toward the door and screaming “They! Those! Them! Out there!”
I quickly sprang into action, poked my chest out and grabbed a nearby baseball bat.
It was the same Louisville Slugger on display at the imaginary Museum of Courage and Bravery. With my chest poked-out and a bat in hand, I swung the door open and witnessed an eerie sight, over 10 ferocious rabid raccoons whose rage had become violent and were all over Ammala’s truck.
Both front tires had two raccoons, each looking like tire technicians changing the tires.
Two others were savagely trying to open the door and about four others were sluggishly wandering around.
I immediately yelled as loud as possible only to realize that these menacing monstrous muskrat-looking animals were unfazed by me.
Backing back into the house, and closing the door, I turned to my still frantically girlfriend and said “You’re just going to have to wait until they leave.”
Months later my brother would buy some condominiums and move into one of them, leaving the raccoons behind.
To my awesome cousin Darrel Weeks, Mrs. Tina Blunt Weeks and Sunflower County’s own Mr. Michael Clark, and the entire team at South Street Pharmacy thanks for a lifetime of support.
Hope you enjoy this
