CHARLIE WALKER: I'm an endangered species, officially a geezer

Today Peggy is wearing a T-shirt that says, “Reward for a RC Cola and a Moon Pie.” You can take Ole Scrap Iron out of Sandy Bay, but you can’t take Sandy Bay out of Ole Scrap Iron.

This morning I’m walking on the fighting side of Peggy. She has threatened to rub my bottom with Flexall, a remedy that makes pain evaporate. But it is not recommended for certain parts of the body, the same way Epson salts are not prescribed for diarrhea.

I’m writing this down on a yellow legal pad with a pen from Farmer’s Telephone, and I’m about out of ballpoint pens. I was about to make a request to my suave, intelligent readership — which almost numbers a baker’s dozen — who provides me with pens until Peggy reminded me that if I confess I can’t do these columns without a ballpoint pen along with an imagination from the Twilight Zone, she could bake a semi-eatable biscuit before I received a pen.

I’m an endangered species. I remember when we didn’t have TV, FM radio, Wal-Mart, bikinis, Toyotas, Hondas, microwaves, Viagra, penicillin, Bing Crosby singing, “White Christmas,” and all movies were in black and white, Polaroid cameras, when Flash Gordon, the Green Hornet, Dr. I.Q. and the Guiding Light was on the radio, and I got a Buck Rogers suit for Christmas, which included a rocket pistol, which would disintegrate skyscrapers.

I don’t have an iPod, cell telephone or a computer. I’m as out of date as Brown Mule chewing tobacco and corsets. Peggy says my idea of the ultimate in communications is smoke signals. Peggy says all my columns should carry a warning label: “Be careful or you’ll wind up in my column.” I’m now officially a geezer, but I can remember when I was a stud muffin. I still have a pair of boxer shorts with the words “nice cheeks” printed on them.

Inside every older person is a younger person wondering what the heck happened. When Peggy wants my opinion, she removes the duct tape. At Sandy Bay we don’t gossip, we suffer from RLS: restless lip syndrome. I’m still young at heart and slightly older in other places. Sometime you are the pigeon, other times you are the statue.

In writing a column it takes time to be good. By then you are obsolete. I can still fall, only now I can’t get up. But I don’t remember when my wild oats turned into prunes. Now I’ve got symptoms where I use to have urges.

At my house the only computer is a very sharp pencil or a ballpoint pen. At the office, computers are calculating machines invented to replace calculating fingers. A computer saves a man a lot of guesswork. So does a bikini. The computers at Pee Dee Electric Cooperative are almost human. They went on strike because Toy Nettles wouldn’t allow them a coffee break.

There is a girl in Greeleyville who used a computer dating service. She said, “I want to meet somebody who is 6-feet 6 inches tall, strong, fears no one and who will bite me on the ear.” They introduced her to an alligator.

To all of you who don’t believe my column can’t get any worse, wait until next week. Peggy gave me a look that would freeze a forest fire. I don’t have a computer, but I do have a fly swatter.

— Charlie Walker is a local newspaper columnist. He can be reached at P.O. Box 441, Kingstree, SC 29556.