CHOICES

1.Dogs or cats? 2.Pepsi or Coke? 3.Obama or McCain? 4. Cubs or Cardinals? 5. Lakers or Celtics?

My answers 1. A and B 2. B 3. B 4. B 5. Neither A nor B.

The correct answers? Mine, of course.

But you know what? You're not going to change anyone else's beliefs anyway. No matter how convincing your argument, no matter how many facts you present for your side, you're simply not going to change one mind.

That's what I thought when I got my McCain bumper sticker in the mail this week asking me to proudly display it on my car. I still have the sticker, but I don't think I'll share my opinion with the masses.

Oh, I'm not ashamed of McCain. Or Geo. W. Bush. I'm disappointed in the way that he and his handlers allowed the media to portray him in such a negative light. He/they had plenty of ammo to answers the salvos hurled at him, but elected to be silent instead. Nor am I ashamed of the Cardinals or my choice in diet drink, but I don't display stickers for them either. As far as animals, I guess I could slap on two stickers: "Dogs drool/ cats rule" and "Cats drool/dogs rule."

But since I'm not altering minds, and I'm not looking for trouble when I drive or park the car, I think I'll remain Mr. Unknown. Don't bother me, and I won't bother you. But if you need an opinion, well just be ready for the right answer.

Z IS FOR ZORRO, BUT WHY?

There are some things even an old guy is too young for. TV in the 50's sported a show called Zorro starring Guy Williams, pictured. I vaguely remember it.

It seems he was a cowboy who killed Bad Guys. After he had righted wrongs, his signature Z was slashed into, into..something. And how it got there, a bullwhip I think. But that's where memory fades.

Graffiti artists, and I use that term so loosely, today would have loved him. I mean I guess that's why they make bubble drawings on walls and call them art. That's their signature. To me, the drawings look very elementary. And their medium? Spray paint cans. Sorry. That's lost on me. Give me the plain, even worn wall. That appeals to me more.

To further compound things, some inner city teachers claim that it's art. They teach how to desecrate buildings in the name of art.

While Zorro was ahead of my time I think I'm in a time vacuum, because I'm definitely seeing this art (?) pass me by.

FOXES AND CROWS

Today I saw a hawk catch a crow. He enraged three others as he held the ugly creature in his talons. They squawked and squawked for their fallen comrade.

The hawk was so proud. He sat so tall that I honestly thought that he was an eagle for a split second. This hawk was in the same area that I saw a red tail hawk three years ago. I'm not as astute about the kind I saw with another today. The other had no crow, unfortunately.

Now I don't usually enjoy seeing the little guy get devoured. These foxes, for instance. We had a red fox or two in our MTV woods for several years, but I never saw a baby. I always liked the fox in our woods, even when one day he tried to coax our cat over to him. Wisely, I threw the cat, Cujo, back into the house.

But crows are so nasty. Even a little crow. I have a bad relationship with a murder, is that crazy or what--their flock is called a murder, that nest on our street. I irritate them when I go for my daily walk. They try to dive bomb me. I clap, I squeak at them in an awful screech that I'm blessed with, and I even throw rocks at them when they're out of house range. No luck. They return. So do I. By the way, I'm not the iniatiator. If they leave me alone, I'll ignore their ugly selves.

Maybe next time I'll bring a hawk or two. Or even two cute little foxes. I wonder what a flock of foxes is called?

Nevermind. I just remember. When I was in South Africa I bought our granddaughter and me shirts that proclaimed what flocks were called. A crash of rhinos, a journey of giraffes, a pride of lions, a herd of elephants, a clan of hyenas, a drift of warthogs, a paddling of ducks, a litter of wild dogs, a murder of crows, a dazzle of zebras, a chorus of frogs, a troop of baboon, a walk of snipe, a bale of turtles, a colony of matabele ants, a raft of hippo, a plague of locusts, a leap of leopards, a parliament of owls, a herd of buffalo, and a skulk of bat-eared foxes.

. NUDDER 'MORE



I haven't been to the Badlands or seen Mount Rushmore. A trip we had planned for this Summer there fell through.



But I wonder. Who should be the next four? For Rushmore Part II. I suppose Ronald Reagan. I've heard his name mentioned for being The Great Communicator and for helping uproot Communism in the USSR.



But who else? Goldwater? Kennedy? Truman? Ike? These are tough questions. I'd offer the Rev. Billy Graham. His influence is surpassed by almost no one in the last part of the 20th Century.

Who else? Martin Luther King? Certainly a person of color needs representation. Jackie Robinson perhaps. How about Rosa Parks?

And if we're rightfully having a Black, how about a woman? That's certainly in order. Who? Margaret Chase Smith? Oprah? Diana Ross?

Finally, I think a Prez, a religious beloved man, a Black, and a woman would be a cross representation that could display our people and our time.

May I have the ballots, please. The four as selected by On The QT are Ronald Reagan, the Rev. Billy Graham, Dr. Martin Luther King, and Tina Turner.

What? Tina Turner? When I asked our daughter, that was her suggestion. Her reasoning: "her hairstyle is the combination of the three men on the New Rushmore." I couldn't agree more.

The only problem I see is getting a sculptor to do his/her work without including Tina's great legs.

...PEOPLE PUT ME DOWN, 'CAUSE THAT'S THE SIDE OF TOWN...

Billy Joe Royal. A one-hit wonder as far as I remember. His song--Down in the Boondocks. I first thought about writing about Boondocks and defining the parameters of the boonies. But that hair...

Yep, I had it, too. But then I've had a lot of hair. Literally and different styles. As a young one I greased or had my mom put some kind of men's product (Wildroot? Naugh, I only got that at the barbers) to control my short yet wayward hair. It was a pretty normal Beaver Cleaver style, though I would have preferred Wally's hair at the time.

With Summer time came a flat top. Butch wax in its pink/red jar sat on my dresser when it wasn't starched into my flat top. When school started in the Fall, I'd let my hair grow again to ready myself for the long Winter. My school pictures, taken early in the year, always reveal uncontrollable sprigs of hair that might be described best as the style of 2008.

When high school and The Beatles came, well so did bangs. They served to make me look shorter and hide my zits. Only one of those was good. I never went full mop top though, because for some reason, I still kept my hair parted.

Longer in college, cut shorter for job interviews, grown longer after I secured a job. For awhile I went Bobby Goldsborough or Billy Joel Royal, which started this whole entry. Then I went part down the middle, but combed and blow dried back; hey, no more Butch wax for me.

For a brief respite I got about four perms. "Give me the Bert Convey look," I told a barber/stylist in Fort Lauderdale one Spring Break in 1977 or so. Which I kept until 1978 when my hair started to turn orange.

To my present style--straight back. No part except when it gets too long and wants to separate on its own. My wife likes for me to use some kind of clear oil and leave it mussed, but the Native American in me likes it straight as a stick. The motorcycle look. Well, what I mean is it looks like I've been riding a motorcycle and the wind has been in my face. I almost wore it oiled/mussed to church yesterday, but combed it out at the last minute. Anything to do with the current bed head style is not for me.

I'm thinking about a return to the Billy Joe style pictured. I don't need bangs to cover zits, but They'd hide the deep wrinkles in my forehead. All that extra hair would hide my scalp from UV rays. I don't live in the Boondocks, but I'm close.

Naugh. My barber would never go for it. He was hawking some new hair color for sale that dyed only the dark and left the gray, which seems to make no sense to me. But I ask him if I was a candidate for that. Nope. He said over 50 % of my hair is gray so it wouldn't work on me.

No color, no bangs, no flat top, no oil, no perms, no parts. I'm stuck in the boondocks of male hair.