More on Thong Bikinis

When I lived in West Palm they were having a big debate about making thong bikinis illegal. This was when the hotdog girls were selling hotdogs on the corner wearing nothing but thongs and . (they may still be doing it, I have been gone for years now!)

Anyway I told my friend Carolyn that we could settle the debate in 5 minutes. "Let's go out and put on a thong and walk down the block! Thongs will be illegal before we get to the end of the street!

Of course we didn't do it and they are still legal! There is more than one way to do the world a favor, my public could be just the ticket.

Dwayne's First Trip to the Beach

I had a nephew named Dwayne. He was raised up a hollow in Boone County and had none of the advantages of life. Bobby and I used to take him and do things with him but when we moved to Florida we only saw him in the summer. We brought him to Florida one summer and we took him for his first trip to the beach. He was 12 years old.

We were having a ball with him and enjoying all the things you enjoy with a child who has never been to the beach before. He was afraid to go past the foam that the waves had strewn across the beach at first. He would tippy toe through in laughing delightedly. We played in the sand and slowly built his confidence up so that he could go into the ocean with one of us after awhile.

Bobby went to get us some snacks and while he was gone Dwayne and I were lounging on our beach blankets when I saw a man coming in the distance. As he got closer I saw it was a man of 50 or 60 years of age and he was wearing a speedo. He had a big, pot belly and in no way had any business wearing such skimpy beach attire but I didn't pay too much attention until I saw Dwayne staring quite obviously at the man. Dwayne had never been to a public pool, much less the beach, and he didn't quite know what to think about a man dressed like that in public. I whispered to him to not stare because it was not polite and I tried to distract him.

I was doing fine with my little distractions until the man walked past us. Not only was he wearing a speedo but he was wearing a THONG SPEEDO! Dwayne saw the man's big, fat, hairy buttcheeks and he lost it. He laid down on the beach roaring with laughter and pointing at the man. I moved to try to calm the child and to stop his very loud, public display of mirth at the man's choice of attire (or lack of it). THERE WAS NO STOPPING HIM. He laughed and rolled and pointed and I desperately stepped up my attempts to stop him because you just never know how somebody will react to someone so obviously (and deservedly) making fun of them.

The man walked about 100 feet past us and then he turned around and he was obviously enraged. As he stalked toward us glaring and ready to tell me and Dwayne off at the bare minimum, I could do nothing but beg Dwayne to stop laughing. It was an awful situation to be in. When he got about 20 feet from us, all of a sudden he turned around and walked away. I was so relieved. I guess he saw that he was dealing with a woman and a child and maybe, just maybe, he may have realized he deserved Dwayne's reaction to that tiny, little thong he was wearing.

Later as I tried to explain to Dwayne that you just don't react to people like that in public. He would just exclaim, "but did you see his butt, Aunt Pam!" I don't think I ever got across to him how much danger we were possibly in.

Idleing My Life Away

One time I was driving a car from Florida to West Virginia. It had some sort of mechanical problem and it wouldn't idle below 45 miles per hour. What that means is that if I wanted to go slower than 45 mph, I had to ride the brake. I was doing fine until I hit the West Virginia State line.

I ran into a snowstorm. It was not a little snowstorm. It was dumping snow down by the foot. Like a big dummy I had elected to take the back roads to my hometown of Logan. This is a good 3 hour drive when the roads are good. When it is snowing it is a 6 hour drive - not to mention that I was riding my brakes the whole way on an icy, snowy road. A recipe for disaster if there ever was one.

I was doing pretty well and I had actually reached Gilbert (about 30 miles from my hometown of Logan) and I thought that I was going to make it home without wrecking when everything happened. A car came around a curve flashing it's lights at me. (this probably saved some lives) I start to slow down (I was only going about 25 to begin with), and I round a blind curve to see 3 cars wrecked in the road in front of me. This would not have been a problem except for the fact that the people that had been in those cars were trying to cross the icy road in front of me. They were slipping and sliding and not getting anywhere!

I turned my wheel so that I wouldn't hit them which sent me into a slow motion tailspin. I was wondering which car I was going to hit (at least I wasn't going to kill anybody!) when I got control of the car and it straightened out. It was aimed perfectly between 2 of the cars, heading straight for the ditch. I coasted gently into the ditch. Nobody was hurt and I didn't hit another car. I believe that only divine intervention could have made things turn out so perfectly.

A few minutes later a tow truck came and the first thing he did was announce, "Who has cash, they go first!" (obviously he was just going to pocket the money) I volunteered $25, he pulled me out and I went on my merry way home! Riding the brake the whole way.

Star Market

I remember running to the store several times a day when I was a kid. Star Market was about a 100 yards from the house and my dad would send us a couple of times a day for his Lucky Strikes (cigarettes). My mom would send us for whatever it was she needed to keep the house running.

I wasn't running fast enough unless my very long hair was blowing in the wind behind me. I loved the feeling of freedom it gave me and the power I felt in my body as I speeded up even more to make it happen. I was scared to death if I had to go in the evening after dark because there was a spooky, abandoned garage across the road in one spot. That was another reason I would run so fast.

Even greater fun was the nickel we got every time we went to the store. Back then the store was full of wonders for a nickel. Penny candy was a penny so you could get five pieces. Candy cigarettes were a nickel. I used to love the cloud of sugar smoke that came with the first puff off one of those cigarettes. Razzles were a nickel and I bet I composed a 100 jingles for the contest on the back of the pack and never mailed even the first one off. I NEVER considered saving those nickels so I could get a candy bar which was 10 cents or a bottle of pop which was 15 cents.

There was a toy section. We kept it drained of kite string and wiffle balls. You see the same kind of toys at Dollar Tree today. We got jump ropes and jacks. The magnetic man sheets were awesome. I could spend hours moving those magnet shavings around his 1001 faces. The little clicker puzzles where you moved the squares to form a picture were good to pass the time too.

I was a bookworm. I think they kept the books stocked just for me. God knows I bought enough of them. My dad loved the Enquirer. Back then it was full of ghost stories and psychic readings and crazy stories about monkeys shooting off into outer space. He liked the scarey comic books too, so we got to read all of those. He would break down and let us get the Archie comics for ourselves too.

I had the greatest baseball collection on earth. I had the all the Reds baseball team cards from the mid 70's. I had rookie cards for Johnny Bench, Joe Morgan and Pete Rose and well as most of the rest of the team. I had the team group cards. I HAD THEM ALL. When I got into high school I decided people were crazy about them being worth money someday and I threw them all away. I need to be kicked in the head for that little move.

Life was good.

One For My Ghost Hunting Friends

You have heard my Fruth ghost stories. I have a new one ... or do I?

About 5 minutes before the robbery my cellphone started to ring. I was busy with a customer and I couldn't answer it. The phone was still lit up when I went to check it to see who had called. It was on the message screen but there was nothing on it. I thought this was odd because my phone is not set up to ring for messages so I went to check my received calls to see who had called me.

The last call listed was one I had picked up the day before. I went to the message screen. The last message I received was the standard message I get from safelink at the first of every month. There was no record on my phone (I even checked the dialed calls) of a call coming in.

At the time I thought, "how weird," but that was the extent of it. Now I wonder...

WOWK TV REPORT

Pharmacy Robbery Suspects in Custody
Posted Saturday, January 23, 2010 ; 05:22 PM | View Comments | Post Comment
Updated Sunday, January 24, 2010; 11:06 AM

Mark Sexton and Marjorie Mullins Photo Credit: WVRJA According to police, Mark Sexton and Marjorie Mullins robbed Fruth Pharmacy on Oakwood Road at gunpoint Saturday. CHARLESTON -- A Kanawha County man and woman are accused of robbing a Charleston pharmacy at gunpoint. Police say Mark Sexton of Sissonville and Marjorie Mullins of Charleston entered Fruth Pharmacy, showed a gun and demanded oxycontin. They got away with an undisclosed amount of the drug. Fruth Pharmacy is located on Oakwood Road in Charleston. A witness saw them get into vehicle and drive off from the scene of the crime. After the robbery occurred, police chased them on foot, according to Metro 911. The foot pursuit ended near the Quarrier Street Bridge in Charleston. Related Links: - Pharmacy Robbery Suspect Facing More Charges

UPDATE: Fruth Pharmacy Robbed at Gunpoint, Suspects in Custody

Link

these are the people who robbed us.

the woman was also arrested for robbing a local bank on Saturday.

GOOD NEWS: EDDIE SPENT THE EVENING MAKING ME LAUGH. I FEEL A LITTLE BETTER. THERE HAVE BEEN SEVERAL PEOPLE WHO LIVE IN THE BUILDING WHOM I HAVE HELPED IN THE PAST WHO HAVE OFFERED TO DO WHAT THEY CAN TO MAKE ME FEEL BETTER. MAYBE THIS PLACE ISN'T SO BAD AFTERALL.

We all have PTSD

I went to Fruth today. I can't imagine why I forgot to buy catsup last night! (haha) The employees that were there last night are all dealing with a little trauma today. Poor Tina (the cashier who actually had the gun in her face!) is a basketcase. She called in sick as did another employee. We all understand of course.

Anna and I talked through everything. (we were up front during the robbery together) She is worse off than I am. I am having natural stress reactions today which is worse in a way than last night was. I was having to deal with my heart and breathing problems last night. I'm an old pro at that by now.

The police and corporate are pleased with all our reactions to the robbery. No one confronted the robber. We took in as much information as we could and tried to get customers to safety.

One of the new girls, Karen, was surprised that the pharmacist just handed over the pills. I told her nothing in the store is worth your life. Cooperate, give them what they want and they will hopefully leave - which is what happened. They were in the store for probably less than a minute from start to finish.

No one is hurt (physically). We are blessed. It is just going to take a few days for it it sink in.

to: fairnessaskenb

I was raised as a little princess of very rich parents. I was kicked out of the house when I was 18 after a fight with my brother in which he threatened to kill me. My dad got mad when I went to my parents about it and told me I was only trying to cause trouble and kicked me out.

Thus the rebellious stage. The "Oscar" phase happened about 2 months later. About 2 months after the story I wrote about in the previous blog Oscar, James and I were all arrested for breaking in a store (I have blogged about that already somewhere in this blog). Oscar and James went to prison for about a year and a half.

Because of my family's clout I was given community service. It was not a slap on the wrist. I did 20 hours a week for about 6 month. I did such a good job that the community action agency, P.R.I.D.E. in Logan County, Inc., hired me for the other 3 days per week and then my community service was reduced to 16 hours per week. I then became Director of the Child Care Food Program where I wored until I left the job to go to Beauty School.

James and Oscar were out of prison about a year and a half after the robbery. They both have spent their lives in and out of jail. I have spent my life working and trying to make a difference (lots of blogs about what I have done). I partied too much but I always had good jobs that paid well until my divorce. Now I am disabled with heart failure. I still work part time.

That is the answer to your question in a nutshell. Hard to make a whole life fit in a nutshell.

When I was young and dumb

I had a crazy, reject boyfriend who was the lowest of the low. (I was in my rebellious, I can save the world stage) One night he put a knife to my throat. I really don't remember the reason why, but of course there is really no reason something like that should happen. As I stared into his eyes with all the hate and fight in me. (there was no fear - I wouldn't allow it) I told him, "to either use it or put it down." He looked into my eyes and after long seconds put the knife down. Which was a relief but there was no way I was going to let him know how scared I was.

We started to argue. I was ending the relationship on the spot. The arguement spilled into the street (nothing physical) with an audience of all our friends. Then a man says, "there's the cops!" Oscar took off running. We all scattered. I jumped into my car with James and picked up Oscar about 2 blocks away. I drove off like a maniac (which is how I used to handle stress). We were also drinking maddog 20/20 which probably caused the whole situation to begin with.

I drove from Logan to Man in 8 minutes. This is usually a 20 to 30 minute drive on a road that is barely there on the side of a cliff in WV. To wreck would have meant I would have plunged several hundred feet to land on a railroad track in the valley. So if I would have survived such a wreck (nobody ever has) then a train would come along and finish me off. I remember going around some of those "kiss your ass" curves sideways.

When we got to Man, Oscar got out of the car. We fought the whole way. I tried to run over him. He dove over an embankment and I stopped short of wrecking my car. Things settled down and he got back in the car and I drove back to Logan. I was taking him home to drop him off and never see him again. We were sitting at a red light.

Suddenly my car door was flung open and standing beside me was a policeman with his gun drawn in my face. There were also 2 more policeman dragging Oscar and James out of the passenger side of the car. The policeman told me to just sit there and they would keep me out of things. (I had a rich, powerful daddy)

They searched my car and found the bottle of maddog 20/20. They assumed it was Oscar's, which was fine with me. Then they told me they were arresting him for armed robbery. That he had robbed a man at gunpoint about an hour before they stopped us. I knew this was wrong because we had been fighting for hours and had not been apart.

This brought out the crusader in me. They took Oscar to jail. I started to rally evidence that he was innocent. I got statements from all the people who had been around our fight which covered the entire afternoon and evening. I accounted for all his time. After three days they had to release him because of the evidence I had collected.

Unfortunately this also meant that little, ole 18 year old me who was fighting for the underdog forgot about breaking up with this worthless, human being and all of a sudden I was in love with my jailhouse boyfriend. If I could have just dropped him off at his house that night I would have avoided a rather predictable downturn in my life after that. Instead we reunited as young lovers who have fought the system and won will do.

Maybe I'll write about the rest of it later.