GOOD MORNING, FRIENDS

A REMEMBERAMBLE OCTOBER 10, 2025

Yes, good morning our friends, we hope it is a very good one for each of you. It is Friday, and for those working, many will get the weekend off. Of course, many working folks have to work weekends. I am out of work right now, but will have to go back to work after my eye surgery in a few months. For most of my life I worked all or part of most weekends, but in recent years, I need a full two day weekend to rest up for the next work week. Time and mileage adds up on old bodies, exponentially. I was cogitating on something that we have all dealt with, but is rarely mentioned, and that is, pathological or compulsive liars.

Growing up in Swainsboro, there were a few of them, and a couple of them were very well known, and generated many funny tales that were attributed to them. Some of them seemed to enjoy the notoriety, while others seemed to believe their lies, would deny and defend them to the death. Most tell lies about themselves and are harmless, but a few tell lies about others, and those are harmful folks that should be avoided. If you meet one and are not aware they are a compulsive liar, and learn that all they have told you were lies, it makes you wary of ever dealing with them again.

One that I knew years ago, ran a small business that never proved very prosperous for him, but he kept at it, and they got by on it. He would tell you that most folks did not realize how well off he was, he would tell me he had "the limit" in every bank in Swainsboro and Augusta. He would brag on his son and daughter, telling me he did not deserve the angelic younguns he had. The boy was in jail and the daughter, aged sixteen was having a baby "by herself," fathered by just about the sorriest fellow in the county. I always agreed that he was blessed. I never saw humor nor laughed at his lies.

He was a quiet and humble man who was kind to everyone, and no harm in him at all. I felt so sorry for him. I worked with compulsive liar years ago, and he too, was a sad case. He lived in another county where I was driving out of then for the same outfit, and he was harmless, but lived in a dream world of his own creation where the wealthiest businessmen, best known office holders, and other influential people sought him out for advice or wanting his support, or offering him ginormous amounts of money to go to work for them. He was a bit sad and was harmless. The last one that I dealt with was just four or five years ago.

He lived in Swainsboro and drove a truck, and was an active member of our group. He kept begging me to make him an administrator, but I did not want to, even though I had not learned that he was the worst pathological liar of all time. When I learned that everything he had ever told me were lies, lies about others and about himself, dissing them and aggrandizing himself. I notified him that I had removed and blocked him from this group and my others, as well as on Facebook and Messenger. I told him why, that he was a liar, and a dangerous one at that. I told him to not waste my time denying it because I argue with no man.

I made sure he understood to never contact me again in this life, in any way. That was it, and I can happily avow that I have not been bothered with him since. This was not a happy topic this morning, but if you have been dropping by for very long, you know it is different from day to day. A thought popped into my head while ago, that went a bit like this, "most of us have a junk drawer, but some folks' life is a junk drawer." I've been there, and done that, but no more. Praise God. Since yesterday, when I got a cash app as requested, I have received a $25.00 gift, and a $50.00 gift, totaling $75.00.

Thank you both, it is a blessing to have folks of such kindness in my life. Never think I do not thank God for y'all. Okay, gimme a minute, I need to close with something funny. Okay, this will have to suffice on short notice. Maybe thirty five or so years ago, I was driving my truck in Florida, near Lakeland. I was empty and headed to pick up a load for home. It was clear daylight with great road conditions. I came up on an s-curve with a reduced speed limit of forty-five miles per hour. I was running about sixty mph. I dropped a cigarette. I reached down to pick it up from the floor and it had rolled near my shoe of my right foot on the accelerator.

I took my eyes off of the road to locate it, and of course, I ran off the road in the sharp curve. I pulled it back onto the road and did not cross the center line by maybe a couple of feet, no big deal, right? HUHUHUH. Well, the Florida Highway Patrol Trooper in the yellow and black sporty Mustang that I was meeting, felt that I had gone too far into his lane, and he left the highway. Yep. He left the highway, and spun around and around, in the shallow ditch and, for some idiotic reason he had his window down and his big ole bear hat went out the window, and he ran over it while making his final spin around.

Of course, no one had to tell me to pull over. He got out to get his hat, even as he was running down the road to give me hell, because buddy, he was mad. He grabbed it from the mud, and was looking to see if it was wearable, and it wasn't, he did an ace job of frisbeeing it the maybe seventy-five feet through the open window of his car, and resumed his full frontal assault on me. Let's pause right here, now let me ask you if you think that anyone in the world could leave there without that trooper writing them at least one ticket? Well, "just hold ya tater," as mama would say.

He ran up to my door and yelled, "what the hell is wrong with you?" I replied calmly, "I can't drive worth a sh*t." It stopped him dead still, in mid-yell, and he asked me, "what do you mean, you can't drive worth a sh*t?" I replied, "well, I was running sixty in a forty-five mph curve and ran a state trooper in the ditch, and tried to kill you, and I think that about proves me right, when I say I can't drive worth a sh*t." He did not respond immediately because he was set fer a fight, and I disarmed him with me docility.

Then using my advantage of having him almost speechless, I asked, "okay, now that we have established that I can't drive worth a sh*t, and that I tried to kill you, could I ask you a favor?" He did not even answer me for a moment, he just looked like he was dealing with a Martian. Then he asked, "what can I do for you, my buddy," he was getting into a bit of sarcasm himself. I replied, "well, since I got my drivers license in 1974, I have never had a ticket of any kind, in my whole life, not in a car, pickup truck or tractor trailer, and I was wondering if you could just give me a warning this time.

He looked at me for a minute and said, We can't mess up a record like that now, can we?" And then, "oh, of course, we are buddies, and I can't write my buddy a ticket now can I?" I answered ,"no sir, I wouldn't think so." He started laughing and walked back to his car. The whole thing was plumb heart-warming. I never saw him again, but a couple of years later, I was watching television with friends, and it was a true cop show of some kind, suddenly right there on the TV, was my buddy, FHP Trooper Hennedy, he was Florida's Trooper of the Year!

He was considered one of the toughest, no-nonsense officers in the state with more drug arrests than any other trooper in Florida. I yelled, "look, look, it's my buddy, he is Trooper of the Year!" I could'a cried, I was so proud of him. Okay, another true but outlandish story from my life. We love y'all. Thank you for your faithfulness here.

..... Numbers 6: 24-26 KJV

..... we boyz three, babee conway, lil merle, & me