tales of nashvillian encounters: volume 1-darel

it was like any other day this summer. how was i supposed to know that i would have a conversation with a man that would change my life, not to mention the entire medical community, forever?

my services were needed for the repair of a rotting deck. i had just finished replacing some deck boards and rebuilding a few sets of stairs. finding myself tired, yet feeling rewarded, i took a cup of water and left the site only to move on to my next job...... or so i'd thought.

loading my car, i viewed a man walking toward me. he inched closer to me and i began to make out the writing on his green t-shirt. it stated, "I CARRY NO CA$H." i found it interesting that the maker of the t-shirt used a dollar sign for the s in cash.

after a minute of $tudying the man, i had no doubt$ in my mind that he, indeed, carried no ca$h.

now only a few feet from me, i asked the gentleman how is day was going. drawing out every syllable, the man declared the following:

"maaaaan, people been riding my assssss alllllll daaaaay lonnnggg."

the sentence took such a long time to exit his mouth that i had to rotate my body 180 degrees just to hear him finish. he was about five feet in front of me when i asked him about his day and a good ten feet away from me when he finished his reply.

let me go ahead and say, that i will never avoid a conversation that starts off this way. in fact, i will often times seek them out. on this occasion i feel it safe to say that we both wanted it.

i told the man to "hold up" and "get back here." darel, as i would come to know him, happily obliged. i told him i needed to know the story behind his answer and he began to tell me about his morning.

it was fool of disappointments. he was trying to make a buck or two and people had been ripping him off alllll daaaaay lonnnggg. he asked me if i would give him a job. i told him i couldn't do that. we talked a while longer. i gave him my cup of water. we talked a while and became quite close. at that point i asked if i could pray for him. he said he would like that very much. so.... he hugged me.

embracing darel back, i began to pray for him. as i closed, darel gave a very heartfelt "amen." we closed our hug and darel stepped back to examine me. he looked me up and down and i could tell something was going on in that mind of his. after about 15 seconds of silent observation, darel chimed "i want to show you something."

this is going to be good, i thought to myself as darel faced his back to me. as he began to lift up the back of his shirt, i became less convinced that this was going to be 'good' and more convinced that this was going to be quite bad.

against my better judgement, i continued to look as darel lifted his shirt to display a gigantic tumor or growth or something. i have searched and searched for an adequate description of this thing and the only comparable thing i can come up with is a butt cheek.

darel had a third butt cheek directly above his left one. it literally froze me for a while. i couldn't find anything to say. darel tucked the superfluous cheek back under the shirt and turned around waiting for me to say something.

the only words i could muster were "wow, darel, that's really impressive" as if it were some type of award given out very seldomly.

he looked almost as confused as i did and said that the doctors wanted to remove it but that he couldn't be in no wheelchair. this also confused me because it wasn't like the tumor was what propelled him down the street. he did have both of his legs. i'm assuming it was a high risk procedure because of its closeness to the spine. i told him i understood nonetheless.

we closed our encounter with darel asking me again for work and me sullenly informing him that we just didn't have a way of providing him with any. he persisted and said that if we did, he was one street over, adding: "if you see a white cadillac-blue rwoof, that's me."

i asked if he lived in the white cadillac with the blue rwoof. he only answered "white cadillac-blue rwoof, that's me. i gotta go."

and with that i bid him Godspeed, and we went on our ways. i'm not quite sure what happened to him after that. but i'll tell you this. every time i see a white cadillac with a blue rwoof, a part of me, heck all of me hopes that it is darel and that people are no longer riding his ass during any part or duration of the day.

pollution

driving home this afternoon, i witnessed an old, rusted out truck spewing pollution from its tailpipe roughly equal to the annual emissions of a moderately sized industrialized nation. on both sides of the tailgate, al gore bumper stickers were proudly on display. the irony made me smile.

coming soon

i've decided to write out a few of the more interesting encounters i've had on the mean streets of nashville this summer. this will be a 4 volume set. they will be much like the tales of the marshrutka from august of 06 (feel free to look at the archives). i'm still working on a name for them. one will involve bob seger, another will include two chicken sandwiches, another will have a george forman grill/high school reunion photos and there will be one with a white cadillac with a blue roof. i hope they will bring you as much happiness as they have me.

AHHHH! COUCH!

while traveling down the interstate sunday afternoon, i had an unfriendly encounter with some furniture. i found myself behind a pickup truck which just happened to be carrying some furniture. this furniture was not tied down to its fullest potential.

in fact, i approached the truck cautiously from behind and thought to myself: "that stuff doesn't look like it was tied down to its fullest potential." at about the time i finished that sentance the couch began to shimmy. i then said "it looks like that couch is about to fly out of the truck, possibly killing me."

not soon after i said that, the couch began to fly out of the truck, possibly killing me. the whole thing was quite prophetic on my part. i would say something and then it would happen.

the couch began to work itself off of the back of the truck and came after me like a ninja-vigilante. as it started its attack my first defense was to yell: "AHHHHH! COUCH!"

the screaming did nothing to deter the rogue couch. it continued its advance upon my ranks, adding to its forces by recruiting a few cushions and what appeared to be some type of chair or an ottoman.

it was me and the furniture now, soaring down the interstate at 70+ miles an hour.

i acted on instinct, weaving through the first wave of attackers. freedom was only a couch away. this was my great and worthy enemy. i dug deep and remembered the advice of emilio estevez from the mighty ducks.

looking over to my passenger seat, i swear i could see gordon bombay instructing me on how to perform a triple deak. he walked me through the steps and a few swift moves later i was past the spinning death the couch was ready to deliver.

safe and unharmed, i looked behind me only to see the couch find its way to the side of the road as my fellow road warriors passed safely. but as i looked upon the couch one last time in the rear view, i swear i saw it mouth these words:

"i will get you."

from now on, i will live in fear. somewhere out there, a couch longs for my demise.

opryland

without a doubt, one of the greatest travesties to befall not only middle tennessee, but possibly the world was the closing of opryland, u.s.a.

during the reconstruct camp week, teams are given wednesday night off and are sent off into nashville to do whatever their collective little heart desires. there is always a group or groups that venture out to opry mills, a shopping mall built upon the broken utopia that was our theme park.

instead of the hangman, we now have bass pro shops.
instead of chaos, we have glow golf.
instead of the screamin delta demon, we have the rain forrest cafe.
instead of fun for the whole family, we have various outlet stores.

it saddens me.

i know people will tell me that it was a necessary financial move, that the park was profitable and that a mall would bring in more people. to those people i say: you have no heart and are probably dead on the inside. we could have found a way. it just happened so fast. i didn't even get to say goodbye.

this is a strange post.

i really miss opryland.

beths

jan, jillian, karyn

danger isn't any of my names

the other day, i witnessed gunfire from about 30 feet away. i have produced some drawings to help convey the drama.

i was atop a roof in nashville off of trinity lane. as you look upon the drawing you most certainly will find a blue dot labeled "Tim." for those of you who didn't know already, my name is tim. it is nice to meet you.

as i diligently worked on house A, i noticed a navy blue navigator (the blue square) creeping up the road in my direction. it moved slower and slower as it approached.

as he drove past the house, i noticed the man lower the window and raise a handgun. i then witnessed him pull back the top of the gun, making it ready to fire. (this happened on the x in front of house B).

when the driver reached the space just between houses A & X, he reached his gun out of the window and fired into the air. the gun let off a little smoke. it almost sounded like a cap gun. but it was definitely a real gun.

afterwords, i realized what had happened and began fighting crime. i leaped from the roof, chased down the car and gave the would-be assassins a firm talking to.

i told them of the dangers of firearms using the episode of beverly hills 90210 when david's friend that wore the cowboy hat accidentally shot himself in his father's office. he told me he loved 90210 and remembered the episode well. i asked him how he felt about the direction the series took over its lengthy run. he said that he missed the innocence of the first few seasons when brandon and brenda were just a couple of minnesotans trying to fit in the fast-moving world that was, and is, beverly hills.....90210. i concurred.

i told him to be more careful in the future and to think of his mother. he gave me a hearty hand shake and went about his business assuring me that he was going to pawn his gun and buy multiple bibles (he wanted various translations).

job well done, life saved and tragedy averted.

actually, i just went back to working all the while thinking: "someone almost shot me."

flight of the conchords

it had me at the rhymenoceros. i've been wanting to see this show for a while now and just got done watching my first episode.

i very much look forward to developing a fondness for it.