Flu shots? Can�t get your flu shots? I�ve never had a flu shot in my life.

It would counteract my carefully orchestrated program of medication via Coors Lite.

I�m gonna take the company box truck down to the free clinic, load it up with flu shot seeking senior citizens and carry every one of them to the Watering Hole for a beer. At $2 a dose, I�ll bet I can fund flu prevention for at least a dozen of them. Keeping the government out of medicinal research is just a bonus.

I�d love to hear the mainstream media fallout over this.

If you can�t get excited about the baseball championships going on right now, well, you just ain�t my kinda guy.

Particularly the Red Sox. They�re the only baseball team that I even attempt to follow during the long summer season. I�ve always been a sort of closet Red Sox fan. I didn�t grow up there, have no special love for the northeast, or yankees in general (you can�t appreciate the irony of the whole yankee in Boston vs. NY Yankee until you�ve spent two hours at a bar down here in God�s country, btw).

But I always have a sympathetic eye for the underdog. And the Red Sox Nation defines underdog, and trying. I watched the last couple of games with a special interest for looking at the Boston fans, standing as one in the cold and putting on the brave face as their boys came within inches of losing, and going home for the winter. They�re still standing. God I love to see the joy that erupts when they pull out another game at the last possible instant.

I�m enough of a realist to concede the series to the Yankees. They�re up 3 games to 2 at this stage, and going home to NY for the next two. But geez. Wouldn�t it be something. And isn�t it nice to believe in something like impossibility overcome.

I touched on this in my previous entry, but I�m thinking that there�s no way to emphasize it enough.

I don�t know when it became fashionable to have a slate of millionaires for candidates to the highest office in the land, but I surely don�t care for it much.

I strongly suspect that if Bush had Kerry�s kind of money, he�d burn what he has. Not that he�s hurting. And I don�t know what they pay for this job nowadays, what is it, $300k a year or something? Just what exactly does the President do with it? If you were leader of the free world and somebody handed you a paycheck, would you be the one in the drive-thru at First Federal at 5:30 on a Friday afternoon with a deposit slip and a raging thirst?

I mean, I wonder how long it�s been since a President had a wallet full of cash and a weekend to spend it on. These guys are catered to much like any king might have been in medieval times. Hunger, mortgages, credit cards, traffic jams. Unknown to them. I don�t think out of touch even begins to scratch this itch.

If you ever gave pause to wonder why things that happen in DC seems peculiarly out of touch, try to imagine your President having to decide between Olive Garden and Ruby Tuesdays.

Or Ford and Chevy, for that matter.

And finally . . . .a not so current event. Isn�t even an event, I suppose. Let�s call it a defining moment.

I used to work in an office for a family firm. We made much woodwork, much fine and costly woodwork for the commercial sector. It was a father and son affair, a good business and I would submit that the only reason I don�t work there to this day is because I wasn�t the son. Family businesses being what they are and all.

Pops and the boy were old time residents of this area, they had whole sub-classes of friends and relatives and hangers on. They weren�t poor. They played golf, much fine and costly golf did they play. Aside from the business, it was surely their passion.

Once a year, they took the February pilgrimage. Myrtle Beach, home to golf courses and hooter joints and pancake houses. They�d rent a 40 foot RV and invite a half dozen of the fellas and go on a journey of epic debauchery. Poker and whiskey in the RV all the way down. Surf and turf, followed by a night at the Crazy Horse, followed by a morning at the golf course. It was hundred dollar bills in a gold money clip and rented Cadillacs, it was palm trees and tanned boobies and the camaraderie of having enough money to get out of any sort of trouble that might inconvenience you.

They�d stay for four days at a time, and play as many courses as possible. See as much nightlife as possible, drink and eat and holler. They were eight on a mission of white upper middle class bad boys, and spent and behaved accordingly.

And one of the standouts was Pop�s neighbor, Dick Wilson.

Dick Wilson was an engineer who lived on the estate adjoining Pops. He was a boisterous sort of lad, funny and endearing at times, a little overwhelming at others. Brash, confident and loaded for bear was our Dick. He happened to work across the street at a major automobile plant and would skip over to take Pops to lunch or out for a martini once in a while, so I saw a fair amount of him.

There was a fair amount of him to see. Like many of us (yeah, I�m being inclusive here), he didn�t exercise much outside of the whole golf thing, he ate like every meal was his last and his alcohol consumption was impressive indeed. Dick had a beer gut you could throw a plate on.

Dick loved the Myrtle Beach experience. It fell to him to plan the whole thing every year, the itinerary, the lodging, the restaurants. A consummate host, he would go so far as to call the various businesses for weeks and have exhausting conversations with bored clerks to verify that yes, they were indeed coming, all eight of them, and merriment would be had when they did.

And it fell on the final day of their stay that they disembarked at the pancake joint for breakfast, a roadhouse run with an iron fist by one Fran, the waitress who had seen it all.

Fran faced a thousand Dick Wilson�s a year. She had apparently been there before Myrtle even had a Beach, let alone golf courses and a nightlife. Fran was breakfast, stolidly whipping golfers through her door and out to the links with grim efficiency.

The boys were in rare form that morning, having laid waste to untold quarts of blended bourbon the night before, and were slogging through their eggs amidst a slew of off color humor and farting and the like. Dick, in particular, was at the top of his game.

�I�m telling ye, women love me! They love my honesty, they do! I can walk up to any woman in here and whip out a hundred and they know just where I stand. Dick Wilson can charm �em off the trees! It�s all about Dick, I say!�

Now Fran happened to be bussing the table at the time, clattering dishes in the vain hope of speeding this mob along just a little. The boys were roaring with laughter at the comedy provided by their portly chum.

�Take this lovely wench right here�, Dick continued. �She�s obviously a woman of taste. Tell me dear, you�d be able to overlook my middle-age and my pregnancy for a whirlwind night of fun with ol� Dick, would you not?�

Fran demurred quietly, saying something about dating the customers, to the delight of the boys. �Hey Dick, I don�t think she�s falling for it.�

But Dick was not to be denied. �She�s falling for me, I can see it. She can appreciate an honest man with a pocket full of cash. Seriously now, can you see us together, Franny? How�s about we chuck this joint and run out back for a quickie?�

Fran stopped dead in her size ten tracks and locked eyes with Dick as the table shouted laughter. Lips pursed, arms crossed.

�You say your name is Dick Wilson, is it? Well stand up there Dick. Let�s have a look at you.�

Dick rose to the cheers of his team and spread his arms, beaming, as Fran took a speculative gander.

�Now Fran, you�ve got to admit, this is a whole lotta man here�, said Dick. �And I�m pretty sure that you�ve always been curious about how a big man like me might be in the sack, ain�t that right.� More howls from the inebriated.

�A big man like you, yeah I see that.� Fran was nodding. �You know, it�s funny that your name is Dick, isn�t it. You remind me more of a Dick-Do than a Dick.�

Dick guffawed a little uncertainly, and the table grinned in expectation. �A Dick-Do? You�re asking about my Dick-Do there, Franny?�

She paused and bent to pick up a plate. �Nope. Not asking. Telling. �Cause yer belly sticks out farther than your Dick-Do.�

And for all the boyish fun, and all the vows of �What happens in Myrtle stays in Myrtle� and all the hundred of empty beer bottles that rolled out of the RV the next day as it pulled into port, one thing became clear.

That the tale of the Dick-Do would be told, and re-told, in lavish detail until the end of days. Or until the liquor ran out, whichever. I don�t think Dick ever quite got over it.

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