Born to Run (off at the mouth)

   For most of us Buzzard Beakians the farthest we travel is to the grocery store which is about 45 miles away.  There and back constitutes a pretty good day’s work because there’s also a Walmart handy.  So, when the opportunity presented itself  for me and Jackie Faye to go to Austin to see The Boss, we just went off the beam.

   What to wear? The faded jeans? The starched jeans? The holey jeans? And my God, the T-shirt choices were just mind boggling. Most of us here have dress T-shirts and everyday T-shirts. If you move beyond T-shirts and jeans here in Buzzard Beak, like if you put a suit or a dress on … it’s a sure bet there’s a funeral underway somewhere.

   There was talk for weeks that we were making this trip. Twinkie, the Porch Sitter sisters’ brother, pulled out all his old CD’s and played ‘em right there on the porch to get everyone in the spirit of the adventure. Being the town’s music afficienado, Twinkie prides himself on knowing what’s up in the music world. He keeps all his issues of Rolling Stone locked up in his gun cabinet.

   So off we went. Now you might think that the traffic got the better of us in downtown Austin at the pre-concert hour. Well you just think again. If we don’t know anything else here in Buzzard Beak, we know the “honk and go”. It’s just a second nature kinda thing. Most of the street signs and all of the stop signs here in Buzzard Beak have been absconded with, so the honk-and-go is our favorite dance.

   We parked in the section of a garage designated “heaven”, checked our mace, and started trekkin’. Rounding the bend to the Erwin Center was like coming up on a bunch of ants on a donut. And, let me just share with you that we shouldn’ta spent all that time worrying about our t-shirts, if you get my drift.

   Finally we’re IN! Parched and windblown, Jackie Faye says, “Let’s get us a beer”. We checked out the little stands as we slid by, absolutely KNOWING that somebody had made a horrible mistake.  I’m gonna tell you now that here in Buzzard Beak you can get a beer and side of beef for what these folks were peddlin’ in a paper cup! So, we find our seats and sit down, ready to do some serious screaming. First rattle outta the box, this old guy’s telling me we got the wrong seats…we’re in his chair. I’m gonna just share with you that we had re-entered “heaven” with these seats we had, so what was going on in his mind is just a big ol’ mystery. Anyway, me and Jackie Faye might not have gotten our beer, but we had two Tanqueray and Tonics before we got there, so you know…   Poor old guy.

   The Boss put on a great show and I, for one, know what it took out of him to do it because we’re pretty much the same age.  As we were making the trek back to our car, Jackie Faye looks at me and, serious as you please, says, “I’ve gone deaf”. I say, “WHAT?” She says, “I can’t HEAR!”   It was a pretty quiet ride back to Buzzard Beak.

   Next morning, everybody was waiting at the coffee shop to hear about our night. Me and Jackie Faye just sat down and grabbed the morning paper. We didn’t find one single word about any old guy being thrown from “heaven” onto the stage, so we relaxed a bit and started tellin’ our tale.

Ya’ll come back now, y’hear!

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