I woke up on this frosty December morning feelin’ puny, as the old saying goes. It didn’t help that the temp outside the door was 20°F, and that both dogs demanded multiple business trips before Deb left for work.
I poured a second cup of coffee, flopped into my chair and thumbed the wwWeb for Country music. That’s often my tonic.
After a little surfing, I landed on a couple of songs written (or co-written) by the incomparable Bob McDill, who penned an astonishing 31 #1 hits over his career. The first was “All That Glitters Is Not Gold,” sung by the late Dan Seals. It’s one of my favorites.
Sometimes I’ll bring up a video of the song just to watch the left-handed Seals play a conventionally strung right-handed 12-string guitar — upside-down and backwards.
The other Bob McDill tune I chose was the classic “Good Ole Boys Like Me.” Yes, I listened to the familiar Don Williams version, as well as a number of covers and an interview with McDill himself about what inspired the song.
Turns out it was something of a protest. He’d heard Waylon Jennings croon the theme to “The Dukes of Hazzard” TV series, singing every week about “good ol’ boys” who’d “been in trouble with the law since the day they was born.”
McDill — a Southerner, a good ol’ boy himself — took offense to that. Actually, it pissed him off.
The way he saw it, the Dukes didn’t represent all of what it meant to be a good ol’ boy, or Southern, or redneck. He aimed his song squarely at folks who preferred the TV stereotype to the real-life archetype, essentially saying, “Well, look at me. Now what?”
That explains a lot, including why the song resonates so deeply with me.
Honestly, I wasn’t feeling any better after the musical interlude. I’m committed to being productive, however, regardless, so I geared up against the chill and walked outdoors.
I did a little work in the cabin, then loaded the bed of the Ranger with trash and did a fair-sized burn in the barrel. The warmth cheered me.
And then I got to thinking about last winter, remembering that we’d made small adjustments to our freeze-proofing scheme when conditions turned more severe. I thought I’d accounted for most of that already, but this morning I spotted a couple of things I missed.
The camper’s sewer hose (aka, “stinky slinky”) had developed a couple of bellies since last spring. While that’s no big deal during the warmer months, this time of year waste water can collect in those low spots and, before long, form an ice plug that blocks the hose entirely.
I grabbed two concrete blocks from our surplus and slid them underneath the bellies, evening-out the downhill run to the septic tank. Done.
Overnight temperatures dove below zero for a stretch last January, as they’re known to do here a time or two every winter. Arguably the most vulnerable line in our fresh-water system is the hose that crosses the driveway through the speed bump. Though we run a heated conductor next to the hose, a little more insulation couldn’t hurt.
So just like last winter, I laid an old RV patio mat over the speed bump and secured the ends with steel stakes. This mat is the same one that traveled around the country with us in the motorhome — we hung onto it, just in case we needed it for something later.
It makes a difference and costs us nothing.
We were ready before. Now we’re readier.
Take care of yourselves, Patriots. Stay calm. Stay sharp. Stay free.
#WiseUp #LibertyOrDeath #Ungovernable
#LetsGoBrandon #FJB