If you could relive one day from your past, which day would it be and why?
I don’t even have to think about it. I never would have gone down to the crossroads.
Let me tell you this. It’s not some old, crazy myth or legend, although it sounds like one. It’s the straight-up truth, and for the past 20 years, my life has been the stuff of movies because of that one unforgettable, unbelievably stupid thing I did.
It’s also the main reason I blog today. I wanted a place to gather the stories from my life, so that in a few years, when I’m ready to write my memoir, it will be easier to paint the picture.
Oh, how I wish I could go back to that night. I would have kept my mouth shut and just gone to sleep.
The other night my girlfriend and I were having a conversation about old sayings that have been around for hundreds of years or so, and it made me think of one that I actually use.
“Red touch yellow, kill a fellow. Red touch black, friend of Jack.”
This is an adage that some in the U.S. use, especially in Florida. It’s one way you can tell the difference between a harmless Scarlet King Snake and America’s cobra, the deadly Coral Snake.
I’ve always loved snakes. Growing up as an outdoorsy kid in Georgia and living in Florida for many years, I’ve had many encounters, mainly because I went looking for them lol.
As a boy and young teen, my friends and I would spend countless hours in the woods looking for snakes. If anyone in my neighborhood had a snake issue, they would call me. Venomous or not, it didn’t matter. I would take care of it.
I’ve been bitten many times by harmless ones, and I’ve had some close calls handling dangerous ones. One memory I can still see clear as day in my mind.
I was around 10 years old. My friends and I had been back in the woods fishing this particular creek, and there was like a little swampy area with a trickle of a waterfall about 10 feet high. So I started climbing up it.
There was this one small ledge. As I pulled my head up over it, I came face to face with one of the largest Water Moccasins I’ve ever seen, aka the Cottonmouth. Its head was about the size of a tennis ball, and it was all coiled up, just inches from my nose.
We were staring at each other there for a second, both of us surprised. Lucky for me, it was just relaxing and sunning itself.
I slowly lowered myself back below the ledge, and that was it. End of story.
Later in the evening, after talking with my girlfriend, I still had snakes on my mind, so I decided to go on Wikipedia and read about all the documented snakebite deaths in American history. It was just fascinating.
So many people were bitten while in church and later died. How effin crazy is that? Snakes in church is a whole nother subject for another time.
One story was especially sad. The pastor of this one church was letting his young pregnant wife handle a rattlesnake, I believe it was, and she was bitten. Both she and the baby died, and he had charges brought against him.
Another story was from the 1970s. A woman in Florida was driving one evening and had to pee, so she pulled over on the side of the road and went behind some bushes. She didn’t even know she had been bitten. She thought it was a thorn bush that poked her in the butt.
She was dead the next morning.
It wasn’t a thorn. It was rattlesnake fangs.
Many of the stories are interesting. I’ll post the Wikipedia link below in case anyone wants to check it out.
So let’s get back to the Coral Snake. It’s different from America’s other deadly snakes. Its venom is a neurotoxin, which means it targets the nervous system instead of destroying tissue. There may not be much pain or swelling, but it will totally shut you down and paralyze the diaphragm. The cause of death is respiratory failure. Without proper treatment, you don’t stand much of a chance.
Coral Snakes are Elapids, the same family as cobras, mambas, kraits, sea snakes, and like the brown snake and others found in Australia.
We have 3 species of Coral Snakes here in the U.S. The Eastern Coral, Texas Coral, and Sonoran or Arizona Coral.
I’ve handled some of the Eastern ones from my years living in Florida. From my experience with them, they have been pretty chill for the most part, but not always. I have seen them bite.
At times I would hold them freely without securing the head if I felt that particular one was calm enough. Don’t ever do this yourself. It’s best to not even handle them.
Here’s 2 lil quick stories.
One evening I was sitting out on my enclosed back patio and one slithered close to my feet. I ended up handling that one freely and took it to the woods on the edge of my backyard and released it.
Another time, I was standing in my backyard one morning having coffee and out of the corner of my eye, I saw a fairly large one. I didn’t hold him loosely because he tried to open his mouth and bite a few times, and he showed me his 2 tiny needle teeth.
Elapids have different fangs from vipers or rear fanged snakes. They don’t fold back. They are just lil short, sharp, fixed, hollow needles.
I have so many stories I could tell you regarding my snake encounters, maybe some other time. I’m tired of writing now, and I want to go get some caffeine.
But yeah, snakes are so cool to me. Heck, ya know what? All living creatures are cool. And it’s funny how this story slithered into my mind from a conversation with someone who is the coolest of cool, my favorite living creature, my amazing girlfriend. ❤️🔥🐍❤️🔥
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Cool Snake Pics
A harmless Scarlet King SnakeEastern CoralBaby EasternTexas Coral, I think or maybe EasternSonoran or Arizona CoralFlorida Cottonmouth
I was working, driving an 18 wheeler, driving my life away, mile after mile, day after day, watching yellow and white painted lines fly by, gone for good, and dodging current wrong decisions.
I had just gotten married two months before. My first time.
It wasn’t a typical newlywed situation. More like a dirt road train with no rails and vanishing confetti dreams.
Just months earlier, I was living the good life in a little house right on the beach with my friend Nathan. He and I met in a Christian drug rehab 6 years earlier. He was younger than me. Like a little brother.
It was an 18 month program, and all us guys lived together and were around each other 24/7. On Sundays, we traveled around to different churches all over Florida as guest speakers. We would stand in front of the congregations and tell our stories. Our testimony.
I learned a lot about Nathan in those days, as he would take the mic and stare out at the people in the pews, out at a new way, with the old things having passed away and all things being made new. He would speak of how it used to be for him. How the drugs had him prisoner. How nothing inside was worth anything. How he didn’t care anymore.
Nathan had just lost his only brother to that life, the same one we were all so desperately trying to let go of, and he was determined to turn himself around and not end up like so many we knew.
His story was incredible. He had miraculously come through situations that should have killed him. He survived two separate car accidents where the others didn’t make it. He was in a bad motorcycle crash. He had overdosed several times, among other things.
There’s a historical drama TV series called Vikings and one of the characters is Bjorn Ironside. It was well known throughout the land that Bjorn couldn’t be killed because he was protected by the gods, haha. Well, it was like this for Nathan, but it wasn’t the gods, it was the God, the same one that had just miraculously showed up beside me and led me untouched out of a murder plot. Even though we had a 12 year age gap between us, I could relate to Nate, the addiction, the pain, the nothingness, constantly losing in the face of life controlling problems but always getting back up.
A few years went by and we did much life together and became great friends. We prayed together, We cried without tears, we forgot our pangs and sufferings and practiced putting our brothers first, we went to church together, worshipped with raised hands and hearts, side by side, helping in the community, sharing a new life so different from the bound one of an addict.
We became such good buddies that I would spend time with his family on holidays and special occasions. All my people were in another state and I didn’t get to see them often. So times like Christmas, it was nice to not be alone. Him and I moved in together and lived in a small beach cottage right on the water. It was an amazing time in our lives. So many memories from the two years we spent there, hanging out with our girlfriends and friends, having people over on the weekends. Living the famous SaltLife that Floridian beach residents were known for.
As I’m writing, I’m smiling and remembering much, like the only time I ever went skinny dipping. It was him and me and our girlfriends and some of their friends, and Nate talked everyone into getting naked and going swimming at night, in the ocean. Haha, crazy times, man.
He was a paramedic and worked a grueling schedule. I was also working long hours, driving locally, picking up 40 ton orange juice concentrate tankers from the port that were arriving from Brazil and taking them to production plants all over the state. We didn’t see each other much those last few months because of our jobs, but occasionally we’d have a few moments here and there on the weekends and we’d talk, reflect back on our lives, and how great things are today, how we never wanted to go back to the way things were. How blessed and fortunate we were to have made it out alive from a past that had hooks.
As I hammered down the road that day, my phone started ringing. On the caller ID was my best friend and new brother in law, Jimmy. He said he had bad news, in that one particular tone people use when it’s the worst. I felt a deep pause inside, like breath and blood ceasing, then I listened.
He said it was Nathan. Something terrible has happened. He was in the hospital, brain dead and being kept alive by machines. His family has decided to let him go and will be turning everything off soon. They wanted to give all his friends time to come by, see him, and say goodbye.
After I hung up the phone, the memories drove through me and passed like mile markers, and every exit sign suddenly meant something.
Oh Nate, why did you go back.
A few days later, Jimmy and I went to see Nathan one last time. As I stepped off the elevator and walked toward his room, my heart did that thing. His door was open, the curtains as well, and the room was so bright and warm from the sun. I saw him laying there from a good ways down the hall, and everything went into slow motion as I walked that last little bit.
I stood beside him. I sat beside him. All the tearless crying from days past was about to be gone. I held his hand the way a man would and talked to him for a while.
Something amazing began to happen, he started responding. He knew I was there, and he was saying goodbye too. It was the most beautiful thing. I could feel God. I could feel Nathan. I could feel everything.
I walked out of that hospital room that afternoon with my shoulders raised—strong inside, healed, and at peace. I was ready to face my own life and recent wrong decisions. It was time to stop mourning and start living.
Nathan just had his 29th birthday 2 months before his passing.
What’s the best local dish you’ve ever eaten while traveling?
A collection of food I’ve enjoyed during my travels and some of my home cooking. 🍴
Traditional Boodle Fight meal, Sagbayan,Bohol 🇵🇭Chicken intestines and hearts on a freakin stick 🇵🇭Swordfish, Prawns, some kind of rice wrapped in leaves and the chicken intestines and hearts Tempura, Street food, Sagbayan, Bohol 🇵🇭Korean restaurant in Cebu City, Philippines… mmm Kimchi Pork Belly, you cook it yourself
Below is the view from inside the restaurant on Panglao Island, Bohol, Philippines 🇵🇭
Singapore 🇸🇬 Singapore Restaurant menu in Singapore 🇸🇬 Buenos Aires, Argentina 🇦🇷 Argentina 🇦🇷
My Cooking 🇺🇲
Pork Tenderloin – Turkey Tenderloin🦬 Ground Bison🦬 🦬 Skirt Steak marinadingRibeyeHomemade Taco SaladJamaican Jerk Chicken 🇯🇲My yummy Creole soft boiled eggsOrganic Plain Greek yogurt, granola, banana, dried blueberries and cranberries… my goto breakfast many mornings My famous spaghetti, my mom’s recipeChick-fil-A I forget exactly but it’s a pickled dish from Pakistan 🇵🇰
In the early 90s, there was a small little place on the north side of Atlanta called Triclops Sound Studios. Most of us locals had no idea what was happening there until years later.
From December of 1992 through March of 1993, Billy Corgan and The Smashing Pumpkins were there recording what would become the Siamese Dream record.
March of 1993 was also when the great blizzard hit the eastern United States. The band ended up snowed in at the studio for days as Atlanta pretty much shut down.
I drove by that studio many times and never had a clue what was happening inside. Honestly, I didn’t even know the place existed.
Courtney Love and Hole also recorded their Live Through This record there, and during that same time, Kurt Cobain was doing secret sessions at the studio. Other bands like Kansas and Matchbox 20 also made records at Triclops.
Today, the building is just an office space and a memory, but the music that was created there still lives on.
Here are two songs from the Siamese Dream record… “Today” and “Mayonaise.”
These are just practice recordings. This is the first time I’ve played “Today” since around 1998 or 1999 and “Mayonaise” is a special song to me. It’s beautiful and one of my all-time favorites.
From 2oO0 to 2oO6, when I was with “The Pond,” I performed it often. But I haven’t played either of these songs in years. So I was just having fun with them, revisiting some old favorites, and experimenting.
What’s a song lyric that has stuck with you forever?
Umm… all of them? 🤷♂️
Being a musician that has specialized in covers from many different genres for almost 40 years now, it’s hard for me to give you just one. Most days I wake up with a different song on my lips and in my heart. Throughout the day, more lyrics come to me. I’m like a human jukebox with thousands of songs memorized.
I’m the same way with books, poems, and literature. I’ve memorized so much over the years. For example, when I first read Julius Caesar by Shakespeare as a teenager, I memorized the parts I really liked. In 7th grade, I auditioned for All-State Chorus and had to sing a solo. I chose the song version of Thomas Ford’s poem, There Is a Lady Sweet and Kind.
The Bible is no different for me. I have many chapters memorized in several translations. Psalm 91, for example, I know in three different translations and recite almost every day.
The reason I mention all this is because, to me, songs and lyrics are just like reading a book. You often hear writers and others talk about how important reading is. Well, I think songs are the same. They tell stories, they make you feel, they paint pictures with words, and I believe they can even help you become a better writer.
I’m constantly walking through lyrics, poems, Scripture, and literature in my mind. It’s always changing, always flowing. I’ve always been like this.
But I don’t want to send you away empty handed, so here’s some lyrics I’ve been thinking about some today… Jackson Browne, In the Shape of a Heart. I’ll probably cover this one soon.
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People speak of love, don’t know what they’re thinking of Wait around for the one who fits just like a glove Speak in terms of belief and belonging Try to fit some word/name to their longing
People speak of love, don’t know what they’re thinking of Reach out to each other through the push and shove Speak in terms of a life and the learning Try to think of a word for the burning
People speak of love, don’t know what they’re thinking of Wait around for the one who fits just like a glove Speak in terms of a life and the living Try to find the word for forgiving
Heart of Loia `'.,°~ 