It has been a strange year so far for weddings. May though, takes the cake for the most bizarre month ever. Never mind the one that canceled and never called me, or the one that it was so hot inside the cake melted and colapsed, but out of the 6 weddings that I had...3 of the brides had a bun in the oven.
Things sure have changed.
But the best was a couple down in LaGrange where she was 7 months along and was having a hard time with her dress among other things. It was the hottest day of the year so far and they were having an outside wedding. They had a bunch of friends show up and decorated this little rec center out in the middle of no where with no shade trees for a mile.
Well I kept wondering when things were gonna start falling together since the mother of the bride was in the kitchen trying to get all of the food orgainized and I kept going in there to see if I could help in anyway. I helped move some of the stuff to the tables in the hall and got busy doing something else and then was told that the future Father in Law had forgotten the rings so he hopped into his pickup and sped back to the farm to retrieve them. I use retrieve because the lab was part of the ceremony as well but luckily did not become an intrigal part of this story.

So I go into the kitchen to tell the MOB about the rings and the Bride is standing there in all of her 7 months belly with nothing on but a bra and a g sting. Instead of going ooops and running out I said...was the bathroom out of order? Now I don't know what they had planned for their wedding night but I am pretty sure they had rehearsed it many times already.

Now she was about 4 ft 10 and small and he was about 6 ft and 400 lbs...the tux was ringing with sweat let me tell you. Anyway about 15 minutes later the rings show up and a guys in a baseball cap was leaning on my speaker outside and said "these sure do sound good do you think they will fit in my pickup?" I swear this guy was a cousin of Larry the Cable Guy cuz he had a remark for everything.

Now, I have a grading scale for redneck weddings and this was 6 on a scale of 7 watermelons, seven being the most readneck of course.

1 is if someone wears jeans to a wedding (pretty common)
2 is if that includes a wallet chain
3 if someone has on a baseball cap
4 if it is camo
5 if all of the bridesmaids have on flip flops
6 if someone on the female side of the bridal party has a tramp stamp
and last but not least...
7 if the stamp is on the mother of the bride

Needless to say, I don't have too many 7s but they do happen at least once a year.

It was also the month for international weddings with one being a Bulgarian affair and another was a African/Guatamalan wedding...I will have to blog on those next.

I know that someday I will write a book, like when boobs pop out at the bouquet toss or when the punch bowl lands on the ring bearer's head and pours red punch all over his nice white tux.

But nothing beats a good ole redneck wedding.

This is why I love Texas so much

You measure distance in minutes.
• You can say “110 degrees” without fainting.
• The local news reporter actually fries an egg on the sidewalk. (I’ve actually seen this.)
• You say “Yes, ma’am” and “Yes, sir” to your own parents
• You’ve ever driven 2 hours just to eat lunch, and then driven back.
• “Spring” is the grass being green for two weeks - then it’s brown...for the rest of the year.
• Directions include "down yonder".
• The rivalry between A&M and UT results in some people’s ideas of good and evil... and don’t even bring up OU.
• There is a Dairy Queen in every town with a population of 1000 or more.
• You see more roadkill on the highway than cars.
• The speed limit on the freeway is 70 but you are stuck behind a tractor (or john deere tractor) going 15.
• You know exactly who has been down your dirt road by the tire tracks...
• You can make a U-turn ANYWHERE you want... regardless of what the signs say.
• You discover that you can get a sunburn through your car window.
• You listen to the weather forecast before picking out an outfit.
• School gets canceled for 1/2 an inch of snow, your "snowmen" are less than 2 feet tall, and a majority of it is sand and leaves.
• You have BEEN HIT by a deer, but have yet to hit one.
• You know that roadrunners don’t say Beep Beep.
• You know the best parking place is determined by shade instead of distance.
• Hot water comes out of both taps.
• You realize asphalt has a liquid state.
• You carry jumper cables in your car ... for your OWN car.
• You have known someone who has had one belt buckle bigger than your fist.
• You know what "cow tipping" and "snipe hunting" is – and you know better than to go “snipe hunting”.
• School is cancelled for Stock Show/Rodeo.
• You have 5 pairs of boots and they all serve different purposes.1) Work boots2) Rodeo boots3) Dress boots4) Casual boots5) Huntin’ boots
• You attend a formal event in your best clothes, your finest jewelry and your cowboy boots.
• You shop at HEB.
• You can wear a T-Shirt one day and the temperature drop 50 degrees with ice on the ground by the next morning.
• You can drive all day and not leave the state.
• When it rains, everyone is smiling.
• The Pastor wears boots.
• Four generations of the same family sit together in worship.
• You see more Texan flags than American flags.
• You know someone who ate the 72 oz steak and got it for free.
• You prefer Whataburger to McDonalds.
• You're disappointed when a food doesn't come in spicy flavor.
• You can tell a rock from an armadillo at 300 yards.
• You know people with black cars and/or leather seats are just asking for it.
• You know what Lone Star Beer is.
• Your idea of the perfect summer involves floating along in the sweltering hot July sun while your butt freezes in the cold Guadalupe for 8 hours straight!
• 45 minutes to work is the average... on a good day.
• Texas has two political leanings: Conservative and Austin• On any given day, there's something someone's allergic to somewhere in the air.
• You know that that plural of “y’all” is “all y’all”.
• Yes, it is possible for it to be 3 A.M., 85º and 95% humidity. And then there's Houston...
• There are days when your towels won't dry.
• We have four geographical regions; how many do you have?
• It's called a bluebonnet. Leave it alone.
• Let's get this straight; it's called a "gravel road". Your Lexus WILL get dirty.
• You drive a pickup truck because you want to.
• You know 4 seasons - summer, hot summer, scorching hot summer and Deer Season.
• You go to the gas station and there is a sign in the window that reads, “No Shoes, No Shirt, No Service!”
• You have used/heard the term “booze cruise” when bored on a Saturday night.
• So every person in every pickup waves. It's called being friendly. Try to understand the concept.
• A Mexican restaurant can be judged by its salsa.
• Yes, by "Mexican", we mean "Tex-Mex" -- the only version that counts.
• You eat what you catch...as long as it isn't out of the back pond.
• You've swam in a pond, creek, "fishin' hole", cow trough.
• You had a tree house...or two...now that you think of it there were houses in all those trees.
• You've ridden a bull.
• You've had to sit through traffic on Tuesdays and Saturdays because the sale was going on.
• You've been in the town newspaper for something other than felonies and your teachers notice. • You didn't have cable...you had channel 5,7, and a whole bunch of channels in Spanish.
• School was cancelled because, no lie, the entire school was sick.
• You have done one or more of the following with hot wire:- Peed on it to verify the myth- Grabbed hold of it- Clothes lined yourself - (For those of you who don't know what a hot wire is...hot wire = electric fence...and you're lucky if it's a pulse model and not constant current)
• Stay off the road - there are no speed limits.
• You can shoot fireworks off you back porch...as long as it's not too dry.
• The same hot wire that shocked the crap out of you will not keep the bull out of the neighbor’s pasture....that's why all the neighbor’s cows had all black claves.
• High school football is a way of life.
• You were in 4H, FFA, FCA.
• The hottest girls have the biggest trucks.
• You can find the party Saturday night by the road with the most dust kicked up.
• The homeless people have bilingual signs.
• You have bean and cheese tacos for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
• A funeral procession for one of your family members takes over half an hour.
• You can tell how many people live in a house by counting the trucks parked in the front yard.

JUST TO NOTE:It's a common misconception that everything is twice as big in Texas, really, everything is 1.965 times bigger, but we round up.

It's a common misconception that we have killer bees, fire ants, gigantic roaches and mosquitoes and other awful insects, tornadoes, hurricanes, and damaging hailstorms. We tend to think of them as a few bitty bugs and a bad hair day.It's a common misconception that everyone speaks with a Texas drawl. Y'all just don't know what y'all are talkin' about.

Finally, you are 100% Texan if you have ever heard this conversation:
“You wanna coke?”“Yeah.”“What kind?”“Dr. Pepper.”

Never wake a Sleeping Snake

Thought I would share a childhood story. Actually I was 21 but who is counting. One day my dad and I were getting ready to do fishing and my mother decided that she wanted to go out with the boys, and we looked at each other and said, "Really?"
So we were going up to the other end of the lake to do some premier bass fishing. We were doing pretty well and fishing in some of our favorite spots. Now let me just say this is not the biggest boat in the word and gets a little crowded with 3 people, especially casting.
We came to this area that we liked and I noticed this 4 ft long water snake sunning on a tree that had fallen in the water. Wanting to show my casting accuracy, I said to my mom, "Watch this!!!"
Never a good sign when said in the south. So I cast about 20 yards to where this snake was and hit him right in the head. Now, I guess he must have been having a really bad day and he wanted us to share in the misery so he started swimming towards the boat.
Let me just say that my mother doesn't like snakes and she doesn't know how to swim so she became instantly nervous. Now my dad was at the front of the boat next to the trolling motor and could easily have cranked it up and moved away, but nooooooooo, he wanted to see how this situation was going to unfold.
So as the snake is swimming a straight line for the boat, in a side winding sort of way, my mother stands up and starts to move behind me and starts getting quite nervous. I was standing in the middle and was wondering what this guy was planning on doing when he got to the boat.
About the time that he reaches the boat my mother is screaming in my ear "Get him away now" and starts pounding on my arm with her fist. My dad is in the front of the boat saying "Honey, it's just a water snake" when the guy starts to try and climb up the side of the boat.
Well at this point I'm starting to get a little concerned so I take my rod, with the same lure that I hit him with the first time and start beating him off the side of the boat. He decides to try and sneak up from behind and goes to the back of the boat and tries to come over next to the motor.
I'm laughing so hard that my eyes start to water so I can't see the snake very well, so I pick up the paddle cuz it was a much wider item than my rod and wack him right in the back as he is climbing over into the boat.
My mother continues to pound on me and at the same time is pushing me towards the snake and the snake didn't like the wack in the back at all and sort of leaped back into the water and starts to swim away. My mother starts to settle down as I start to realize the numbness in my arm and will be black and blue. After this and she decides that we need to take her back to the car.
As we headed back I would be sitting there and just burst out laughing and she just gave me that look that didn't work on me anymore. Needless to say, she never went fishing with us again.

Calling all Women

I was in Huntsville Alabama at a home show a few weeks ago and there was this guy standing in front of my booth for the longest time. Watch the seat of his pants.
I call it...."The Alabama Mating Call".

Just like a Southerner

Avery and I were sitting in the living room watching fishing on TV (she loves it) when she cleared her throat for a really long time.
I said, "Avery, you working up a Lougee?"
Matter of factly she said, "Umm, Yeah!"
What a girl!!!

Roll Over Beethoven

As I entered the bathroom in church on Sunday to do my standup routine, a voice from the water closet says "Hello"?
I responded "Hello" and could tell from the voice that it was this young boy of about 10 that never has a dull moment.
He shouted "Who is that?"
Feeling a bit uncomfortable I said "It's Brother Parker!"
In a moment of strain like he was having a movement Beethoven would be proud of he said,
"Hi Brooooother Parkerrrrr, it's (insert name here)." ugh ugh ugh.
Needless to say I did not respond for a moment because I was cracking up inside. I decided that it was better for him that I didn't or he might have popped a vein.

Is There A Doctor on This Plane?

Flew to New Orleans today and had the luck of sitting in the exit row. Unfortunately there was this couple in front of me in their 40s I guess and halfway thru the flight she starts digging in his ear...how gross is that. She had these long fingernails and kept looking under them to see if she had hit the jackpot. Then she starts going at his face like his nose or mouth...I couldn't really tell since they were in front of me.
She happens to look back at me and sees this puzzled look on my face, and sort of chuckles and I say...'Let me know when the rectal exam starts so I can close my eyes'.
She laughed thankfully...but I swear he was going to turn his head and cough any second.

I Missed the Memo

Haven't been to church at home in 3 weeks and you usually miss something like a new bishopric or some new quirky thing in the ward that you were unaware of. So there we are sitting and this new convert gets up to say the opening prayer and before I even had my eyes closed for the prayer it was over. He said help us get through the day. I didn't realize it was so tough to be there.
Looked at my wife and shrugged my shoulders. Then the person gets up to say the closing prayer and it too is short...like 10 seconds. I picked up the program to see if had been declared "short prayer day".
Sunday school the same thing...Sue said that she needed to remember that, in case she was asked in RS.
Well, as fate would have it...this brother who is a former Episcopal rector was asked to say the closing prayer who is known for his unique prayers and I said to myself...ah this will break the trend and save the day. NO!!!
"We thank the for revelation and give us more...In the name..." That was it. So we kept the tradition the rest of the day by just using prayer numbers...like prayer for food #44. Family prayer #37...Amen.

Smoked em on the Water

Well I have decided that 2 weeks on vacation is too long. You spend the first week trying to relax and the second worrying about what has gone wrong in your absence. Anyway, I don't know why I have this blog since the only ones that read it are my children.

Being able to spend time with my brother has been great and the fishing for the most part has been the best. As of today we have 166 crappie in the freezer (332 fillets) and 3 kitties (catfish).

We decided that last Friday was the best catch of crappie that we had ever experienced. 10 fish over 2 pounds and only 2 under a pound. That is what we call barn door crappie.

I have had the opportunity to say "bounce" many times because that is what Dad used to say when something went wrong. I told Reed Franklin that and he cracked up. I told him that I can only remember once that my Dad used a cuss word and Reed said that he never heard him cuss.

He used "bounce" instead. Get hung up on a tree "bounce"...the boat motor wouldn't start, "bounce"...you get the picture. Speaking of pictures, here are a few. Read em and weep!!!