John Pechonick was my favorite chemistry professor in college. He was a short, muscular man with bushy eyebrows. One of my friends described him as looking like a cross between Popeye and E.T. When he spoke, the words seemed to come out the side of his mouth in a sound that was almost like a …
Author Archives: elvisgumby
Chairs
Several years ago when my youngest daughter was still little, she was playing one day in our kitchen. As she walked around the kitchen table, she would assign a gender to each chair. She would say, “This is a boy chair, this is a girl chair, this is a girl chair, this is a boy …
The Pyramids of Mexico
In October of 2003, I was traveling in Mexico on business. Any other time that I had been to Mexico on business, I had traveled to a U.S. border town and crossed over for the day. For this trip, we were supposed to travel into Mexico City. I was traveling with two other Americans. One …
All In The Family
When I was in elementary school, my mother’s family seemed to get together almost every other weekend during the spring and summer. I have three male cousins that are really close to my age that would always be at these family reunions. It was also good that we had each other to keep entertained. Some …
There’s Something About Mary
Several years ago, we used a satellite service for television. When we first subscribed to this service, we were unable to get our local channels. I wasn’t interested in dealing with all of the processes that were necessary to get network feeds from New York and Los Angeles. We had no antenna and lived far …
Chucky Cheese
When I was growing up and had an opportunity to go any place where you played games to win tickets that could be redeemed for prizes, I always dreamed of having enough tickets at the end of the day to get one of the prizes on the top shelf. These included basketballs, lava lamps and …
Another Funeral Story
A few years ago, I was at a visitation at the funeral home for a family member that I didn’t know that well. There were several family members there that I know I had met in the past but I rarely ever saw them so in many ways it was like meeting them for the …
Funeral Story
When my grandfather died, I remember being at the funeral home with my family. I remember that a lot of people came to see us during the visitation time. My family and I were in the process of moving back to the West Tennessee area and we had the opportunity to see a lot of …
Bad Cinema Club
I have always enjoyed watching movies. I am a fan of the horror movies. When I started to college in 1980, it was a great time for fans of horror movies. Halloween and Friday the 13th had been recent successes and many of the film studios and independent producers tried to piggyback off of their …
Muscle Shoals Trip – Part 3
After eating, I had considered just going home but I knew that the Alabama Music Hall of Fame was just right up the road. I decided to stop off to at least see how much it was to get in and look around the lobby. There was a very nice older woman in the lobby …