May
5
Cinco de Mayo
Springtime is always dangerous in Atlanta. The pollen attack usually weakens your immune system allowing opportunistic viruses and such to jump on the gravy train. If you have kids who are in school –especially young kids — then you can expect them to serve as vectors by bringing home a veritable cornucopia of illnesses to share with you. And so it was that I picked up a strange bug about a month ago. It’s trying to kill me right now. But, I am not alone. Nearly everywhere I go I can hear coughs that sound just like mine. Like yawning, once one person coughs, everyone similarly afflicted starts coughing as well. My kids have come down with it too, though it doesn’t seem to be more than a minor inconvenience for them. This morning, the coughing was so bad that I actually pulled a muscle under my arm. I figure broken ribs must be next. I went to a doctor and he suggested I go to church more often….because other than praying, there’s not much you can do for this miserable scourge. And before anyone suggests one of those Netty Pot contraptions, know that I would sooner be slid off a board into the ocean than stick one of those things up my nose!
Were I feeling better today, I might enjoy celebrating Cinco de Mayo, but not for the obvious reasons. It was about 18 years ago that I temporarily lost my World Champion dog “Gilbert” who was riding in the back of my camper-top-covered pick up truck with another World Champion named “Whirlin WIzard.” We were on our way home from doing a half-time show at a sporting event in North Carolina. The horrifically bumpy road somehow jarred the door of the camper top open and Gilbert, who was sitting on top of a suitcase, tumbled out the back onto the interstate at 70 miles per hour. Another car caught up to us a few miles later and told us what happened. A frantic 2-hour search ensued and by some miracle I found him hiding in the weeds in the median of the busy expressway. It was nearly dark and raining. Gilbert popped his head up when I yelled his name from the top of an overpass. When I got to him I was expecting him to be badly injured. But, aside from a few minor scrapes, he was fine and as elated to see me as I was him. He was back to his normal self by the time we made it home to Atlanta.
Nowadays, no responsible pet owner would consider letting a dog ride in the back of a pickup (albeit with a camper top) as we did that day. But back then, there weren’t really any seatbelt devices for dogs and Gilbert was absolutely terrified of riding in his travel kennel, especially when the roads were bumpy. Needless to say, I never let Gilbert ride in the back of that truck again!
While Cinco de Mayo may mean beer and margaritas for everyone else, it has a more profound meaning for me.
