If you stall your car twice in 10 minutes do they impound your vehicle immediately and make you walk back to your office after lunch? No. I know this because if they did I would still be hoofin' it back to my desktop. The first time was all me. I was waiting to make some deposits at the bank and my left leg just decided that trying to keep the clutch down wasn't fun anymore so it just stopped. I swear I was about to fall asleep from the basking through the sunroof until the whole car bucked and I whirled around trying to figure out who kicked me. The second one was not entirely my fault as I was again waiting in the drive through at Burger King and looked over at another drive through to see a young man and his female life partner pulling up in their minivan. The fellow at the wheel had on a black t shirt and had pink hair much like a radioactive porcupine. No, it was more like he was a baby flamingo who was molting and just coming into his new set of feathers for the winter. At the sights of those locks I stopped the mindless rocking I was doing with the clutch (yes I know it wears out the clutch) and just stalled. Doo doo doo. Nobody saw that. But, come on, he was molting pink!

Last night we went to the library and didn't touch a single book. Jeremy found a good book on tape that is by the same author of my Lonesome Dove book I was reading. (I finished it, by the way. Almost everyone dies. I cried. Excellent book.) I found 6 cd's. I had forgotten all about this great feature of the library. I used to get cd's from the library when I was a young teenager because I didn't have money to buy them. I was stunned and pleased to find out that the Virginia Beach library limits you to 20 (!) cd's that you can check out at once. I had to restrain myself to not get the allocated 20, noting that it was 5 minutes before they closed. My bounty for this trip included Kingston Trio, Squirrel Nut Zippers, Terri Clark, two Lyle Lovett cd's and a Burl Ives greatest hits. I didn't even touch the rock and roll section (pats self on back).

The inside of the Burl Ives cd jacket talked about his long history as a musician. They said that his voice is one of the most distinctive in America. Most of you probably remember him as the guy who sang "Frosty the Snowman" and "Have a Holly-Jolly Christmas" on television for all those specials. He actually sang lots of other things too, though.

Burl Ives died in 1995 at the age of 85. The cd jacket writer said he had the chance to interview him the year before he died and asked him how he felt about having a voice that may transcend generations. Ives just smiled and said, "That sounds nice. It makes me think that I haven't lived my life in vain."

I would hope to be able to say the same thing when I'm 85.

"I got a hot rod Chevy with a twin carburetor. And I know a gal that's a real sharp tomater." - Burl Ives