Roy Exum: My Garden In May

  • Sunday, May 1, 2016
  • Roy Exum
Roy Exum
Roy Exum

Back when we were kids this day’s battle cry was, “Hooray, hooray for the First of May! Outdoor swimming starts today! With temperatures in the high 80s and we dive in to a new month, our monthly walk in a garden heavy with spring time pollen looks promising …

AN ORCHID for the movie “Rocky” on its 40th anniversary: “Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place and I don’t care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna’ hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard you hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward.”

AN ONION to the beer company in Alabama for its new peach beer, “Unimpeachable Pale Ale” that features a likeness on its label of disgraced Gov. Robert Bentley.

AN ORCHID to San Francisco Giants pitcher Madison Bumgarner who takes his horses with him to spring training. Sports writer Andrew Baggarly asked him how many horses he takes and the pitcher told him, “One to 10.” What are their names? “One to 10.”

AN ONION to the Criminal Appeals court in Oklahoma that just ruled oral sex is not rape if the victim is completely unconscious. That’s got to be this year’s biggest mistake thus far.

AN ORCHID to Emerson Russell who was just named “Manager of the Year” by the Chamber of Commerce. He’ll be honored at a luncheon on June 8.

AN ONION to the Chattanooga City Council for allowing Kevin Muhammad of the Nation of Islam to give “The People’s State of the City” address that will interrupt the weekly meeting. Let him speak at a mosque or hire a hall but to give in to his desire for publicity and exposure is idiotic. And his voice, despite what he thinks, carries no weight with the overwhelming majority. This is wrong.

AN ORCHID to Hamilton County School Superintendent Kirk Kelly for adding Jill Levine to his staff. It is not only the first good news to come from HCDE this year, the woman’s enthusiasm and zest for children is stunning. Hopefully it is the first of many changes.

AN ONION for the fact the United States edged out Serbia (!) for “Highest Opioid Use In The World.” In 2014 we gobbled down 259 million of the highly-addictive pain killers (oxycodone and hydrocodone). While the overall death rates are down in the U.S., those “white middle-aged Americans” are rising due to the fact there is a 9-percent increase in opioid deaths.

AN ORCHID for famed Mike Trout of the Los Angeles Angels, who just moved out of his mother’s house in New Jersey. Trout, who is endorsing $15 million in pay stubs this summer, said he just loved living at home but, don’t worry, his new 200-acre farm is next door to his mother’s house.

AN ONION for the revelation the first Coca-Cola poured into a glass was green.

AN ORCHID to the guy who finally and quite scientifically reached the conclusion it is impossible to lick your eyebrows or kiss the back of your elbow. (I can actually do the second one but, remember, I have no elbow joint.)

AN ONION to all the tree-huggers who are protesting the killing of an 800-pound alligator in Okeechobee, Fla. The 15-foot-long beast was in a huge pond on a farm that raises cattle and, after the cows began to turn up missing, it was learned what was happening. Bingo --- the law of the gun.

AN ORCHID to the wonderful career of Reginald Cousin, a master leather-smith who has repaired shoes, handbags “and anything else” for decades at Kenton’s Shoe Repair. His building has been sold and he has decided to retire. What a great guy and real friend.

AN ONION to the state of Tennessee Department of Education for the continuing nightmare over mandated testing for our children. “Common Core” then “TNReady.” Please. We didn’t have this nonsense when we were growing up and seems to me like everybody’s doing okay … let’s put “common sense” back in the equation and stifle this “government over-reach” that our principals, teachers, parents, children and all other things living despise. These repeated failures on our state level are totally ridiculous and increasingly embarrassing.

AN ORCHID for the life of Frederick Stanley Mockfort who, back in 1923, was a senior radio operator at Croydon airport in London. It was he who was tasked to come up with a word that would indicate a vessel could announce it was in harm’s way and, equally important, could be understood all over the world. Since most of air traffic back then was just between London and Paris, he offered a French word, “m’aider,” a shortened version of “venez m’aider” that means “come help me.” Because few spoke French, “Mayday” morphed and was adopted as the universal distress call by the International Radiotelegraph Convention in 1927, replacing the Morse Code tap of S-O-S. 

AN ONION for the fact that right now, in the time of microwaves and gig bytes, the world hurries faster and faster. Every minute of the day there is an average of 61,000 in flight in the United States. And as a gauge of your age, when you read “Tom Sawyer” long ago, Mark Twain used a typewriter to make it the first book ever written on a machine. Incidentally, his Quirty keyboard has never changed!

AN ORCHID for the great trick you can play on your child as he plays with his iPhone: “Does that thing have a computer on it? Okay, multiple 111,111,111 by 111,111,111 (Note, you are actually saying, “One hundred million, and one hundred and eleven thousand, and one hundred and eleven ….” The patter is what gets him. Then write this number down and hand it to him; he’ll think you are Einstein … 12,345,678,987,654,321.

AN ONION for anyone, anywhere on the globe, who uses “Mayday! Mayday!” as a joke or a prank. Just so you’ll know it is a federal crime that can get you six years in jail, a fine up to $250K and total restitution for all the Coast Guard vessels that answer the call. You ever paid the fuel bill for a Coast Guard cutter?

Happy May Day.

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