Back from the Ozarks

I took a full week of vacation last week, hoping to recharge my batteries while anticipating next week's trek to New Orleans.
***
Before I start, I'd like to point out that I hate it when people say "recharge my batteries." It's a sickening cliche that should not be allowed to be printed or published. So, instead of simply going back, deleting "recharge my batteries," and typing in something else, I wanted to point out this mental hiccup (another fairly stupid cliche) so the average reader could understand the thought process of one who is self-editing.

Therefore ...
***
I took a full week of vacation last week, hoping to pump fresh life juice into my weary digits, limbs, torso, and skull while anticipating next week's trek to New Orleans.

Last Monday (June 30), I traveled to my cousin's house in Marshall for the first time since his family had moved across town. I arrived at 1:30 p.m. I departed at 3:45 a.m. That's what happens when my cousin and I have a day to ourselves with Nintendo and Super Nintendo at our disposal.

He received a small contraption that plays eight-bit and 16-bit games, which are the formats used by the original NES and Super NES, for his birthday. We played original Tecmo Bowl and RBI Baseball, along with the NES's Bases Loaded II and the original NCAA Basketball for SNES.

Finally we settled on Tecmo Super NBA Basketball, which uses the roster from the 1991-92 season. Boston being his favorite team, we started an 82-game season with the Celtics. Unlike the current version, I'm a fan of the old-school Celts. Our starting lineup is Dee Brown, Reggie Lewis, Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, and Robert Parish, with Kevin Gamble, Ed Pinckney, and Joe Kleine coming off the bench.

I know. It's scary.

We jumped out to a 6-0 start, and shall commence our season the next time we can coordinate an off day and secure the TV for a full 12 hours.

Tuesday I watched some 7-on-7 football and saw Carthage beat Elysian Fields and Marshall. The ole alma mater is playing in this weekend's 7-on-7 state championship tournament for Class A, 2A, and 3A schools.

*Side note: Although I am an objective sports writer specializing in the coverage of East Texas high school athletics, I'm really looking forward to seeing Carthage play in the new Bulldog Stadium. Carthage opens the new stadium on Friday, Sept. 5 against arch rival Henderson. Great way to open the new stadium. Love scheduling your No. 1 historic rival for your stadium opener. (No, I'm not being sarcastic. It's glorious. Unfortunately, I'll be watching Pine Tree at Paris. No comment.)

Wednesday, my family and I left for Missouri. We traveled north to Texarkana, on to Little Rock, and up through the small burgs of North-Central Arkansas: Greenbrier, Damascus (as my dad says, "A little piece ... of the Middle East"), Clinton, Marshall, Harrison, etc., deep into the Ozarks.

We arrived in Springfield, Mo. - the city in which I entered this earthly realm and one of two significant metropolitan areas in the Ozarks - just before 9 p.m. As soon as we checked in, I rode with my parents to Hong Kong Inn for another edition of the Brooks Boys' favorite Springfield tradition - cashew chicken.

Before you judge, I want you to know this cashew chicken is better than any other Chinese food I've ever had. And although cashew chicken is more of a Chi-merican concoction, it's delightful if it comes from Hong Kong Inn. Vietnam War-era immigrants from Laos and Cambodia deluged the Springfield area, resulting in the present-day existence of more than 100 Chinese food outlets in greater Springfield.

And if you're visiting Springfield, you better find a good Chinese spot. That's about the only good food you'll find in Greene County. Also check Max Orient in Battlefield Mall for some decent Asian dish. Good fried rice.

With a two-bed motel room, I refuse to sleep in the same bed as my 16-year-old brother. It's not happening. So after much trial and tribulation, a roll-away bed was procured from motel staff. I spent the night reliving the nightmare Elaine Benes experienced while visiting Jerry's parents in Del Boca Vista, Fla. The bed had a thick, iron bar running horizontally across the mid-back region, a few inches below my shoulder blades.

Wednesday night's sleeping - or lack thereof - gave way to Thursday morning's disaster. We drove a block to McDonald's for breakfast. I ordered two "Southern-style chicken biscuits," and soon regretted it. I ate a biscuit and a half, and then felt like crap for the next four or five hours. I never threw up, but I came close. I took a quarter of a tablet of Phenergan. For those of you unaware of the power of the world's choice for preventing motion sickness and nausea, Phenergan comes in tiny tablets.

For good reason.

Phenergan is powerful. I took a quarter of a tablet, which is equal to half a Bacon Bit, and after my stomach sickness subsided, I felt like someone had caned me for half an hour. Not only was I drowsy, but I couldn't feel my extremities either.

It sounds cool. But it's not. It's awful, especially when you're wading through Yankee outdoorsmen at the Bass Pro Shops headquarters in Springfield.

Somehow, I survived, and we then went to Battlefield Mall, where I couldn't partake of my usual Max Orient fried rice because of the McDonald's/Phenergan/Bass Pro fiasco. After that, we went to El Chico. Don't get me started. I like El Chico. I grew up on it. But you're telling me that we travel 500 miles to eat at a bland, tasteless, Yankee version of a Mexican restaurant when we can drive to Marshall and get the actual stuff?

The woman sitting behind us with her two children was unbelievable. Typical you're-serving-me-so-you-better-please-me Midwestern hag. She ordered the fancy guacamole that that waitress has to prepare table-side, allowing the customer to dictate how much of what goes into it. After eating it for 30 minutes, she determined it was too spicy. The waitress warned her not to order the chimichanga if she didn't enjoy spicy foods, but she said she could handle it and ordered it anyway.

Olga sent that back after eating half of it. I have nothing left to say except that none of us at our table could taste the hot sauce, so we figured the guacamole and chimichanga probably didn't have any heat either.

We then traveled 45 minutes east to the town of Mansfield, where my mom's parents live. Waiting for us was ham. I'll eat anything pork-related, chicken biscuits and El Chico be damned. The ham was just the beginning of a stay at the grandparents' house that featured bacon, eggs, sausage, and biscuits and gravy for breakfast, along with fried chicken, barbecue chicken, and chicken and dumplings for various suppers.

I now weigh 532 pounds.

But seriously, it was good. I think Nanny decided to fix more Southern-oriented fare since I was there.

A visit to my uncle's country house filled Friday, along with a trip to Springfield landmark Steak 'N Shake. For the record, I hate Steak 'N Shake. A bad experience in Arlington before a Rangers game has forced me to ban Steak 'N Shake forever, so I sat there, drinking water while my family ate.

My brother got really mad at my dad and me, as did my mom throughout the trip, for making fun of the locals constantly.

When our waitress walked up to take our order, she asked my dad what he wanted on his double steakburger. The following exchange was absolute hilarity. Apparently, these things come plain. Since nobody has ever encountered a place that serves its hamburgers plain to start with instead of loaded, we were dumbfounded.

After the awkwardness of my family ordering, the waitress came around to me. I said, "I don't need anything. I'm good."

She looked at me as if I had just stated that I enjoy throwing kittens into wood chippers. Apparently nobody, especially with my accent, had ever set foot in Steak 'N Shake and not wanted any of their horrific food. Thankfully, I couldn't spot anyone eating the establishment's trademark spaghetti dish that is COVERED IN CHILI AND A POUND OF SHREDDED CHEDDAR CHEESE. You read that right. Apparently ground steak-cheese-bean pasta is to Midwestern Yankees what fried chicken is to Southerners.

Saturday saw a return trip to Springfield. We went to the mall, I bought some shorts and a pair of jeans, we ate at the food court. I made the mistake of trying Pan Pacific Grill instead of the usual Max Orient. Bad move. As we left the food court for the parking left, a very comely blonde standing about six feet tall with makeup on - that's a big deal for girls up there - open-toe shoes, nice jeans, and a fedora stood in line at Max Orient waiting to order. I knew that was a sign that I should have stuck with my guns.

The girl brings me to another point: The male-female courting dynamic in mid-size metro Midwest is quite different from that in the South. At home, I'm painfully non-aggressive, making eye contact repeatedly only to draw the conclusion that the girl probably has something wrong with her medically or psychologically, or that I'd just be wasting my time. Men make eye contact, maintain eye contact, and commence to follow their female targets visually as they walk by and traverse the next 30 yards.

Up north, I'm The Big Bad Wolf. Men don't look at women up there, and if they do, it's out of the corner of their eyes. So there I was, resembling a character from O Brother Where Art Thou, and looking at every attractive girl I encountered. The look I received several times was, "How dare you have the audacity to look at me in that manner?!"

I know it's hard to believe, but I was intimidating.

I was relentless.

I was myself.

Apparently geographic location has a lot to do with your role in the male-female courting dynamic. Simply put, I'd be unstoppable up north. It's all in my gait and my accent. It's science.

After the sociological study, we went to watch Hancock at a local theater. The tickets were $5 apiece. It made me feel like I was watching a bootleg in Latvia. The girl tearing the ticket made me momentarily drop my ticket stub, causing her to grab it, which caused her to cup my left hand with both of her hands ever so gently. She giggled, saying, "Oh, I'm sorry." I looked up and said, "Naw, that's all right. You're fine."

She melted. Either this cute brown-haired, brown-eyed young lady thought I was so pathetically clumsy I couldn't hold on to a ticket stub, or the essence of my Southern charisma was so potent her limbs didn't work properly.

I'm going with the ladder.

I knew she had melted because as we left, I made long eye contact with her again, and she held it - much different from other Springfield women. She had nowhere to go. I was on top of my game, which was to have no game, but to simply be from the South, have an accent, and be a fleeting novelty of a human encounter in another random Saturday at her job.

Sunday, we departed from Mansfield a couple of bills richer thanks to my Papa. He's awesome, but not just because he gives us money. He's 80 and he still runs an AC/heating business. His Southern Kentucky/Cumberland Mountain upbringing has served him well.

We traveled south a different route, through the other significant metro area in the Ozarks: Bentonville-Rogers-Springdale-Fayetteville, and later Fort Smith. In other words, Hog Heaven.

Knowing we'd be passing through the heart of Razorback country, I wore my T-shirt that has "LSU" on the front and "GEAUX TIGERS" on the back the entire day. We stopped in Fort Smith for lunch. I stepped out of the car, proud of my clothing choice for the day, and rubbed purple-and-gold glory all over the south side of Fort Smith.

To my surprise, the Ozarks extend much further south than I realized. We didn't get out of the mountains until somewhere between Mena and DeQueen. Like every return trip from Missouri - by the way, this was my first trip back to the Ozarks since Christmas of 2004 - when you see that Texarkana city limits sign, you feel a comforting sense of home.

We stopped in Jefferson for gas, then shortly arrived in Carthage, road weary but with a satisfying trip under the belt.

Next up for me is New Orleans. I'll be going next week for a four-night stay. I could possibly eat myself into a coma.

The Big Easy will be a different story on the male-female front. There, I'll be a young fawn, innocent to the questionable thoughts and practices of attractive women. Maybe instead of the aw-shucks Southern boy, I can play the aw-shucks-I'm-too-nice-a-guy card on this trip.

Wait, that's not a card. That's actually me. Bummer. Or not. I don't know.

Once I return from New Orleans, I'm sure I won't want to return to work. I'll need some rest, although I won't get it, to recharge those batteries again.

I mean, pump fresh life juice back into my cells and their mitochondria.