We Mayor or may not have tried to borrow a McDonaldland playground character. In college, in my rebellion years, a group of friends and I decided we would give Mayor McCheese a new temporary home until his newly redesigned playground was completed at the Mickey Dee’s near campus. He was obviously bored in the parking lot while he waited for his playground to be rebuilt. So, a plan was hatched to relieve his ennui while his place at McCityhall was revamped. A friend, who happened to be a PK (Preacher’s Kid), was driving his dad’s car that night. We grabbed an old quilt and threw it on top of the shiny two door caprice classic that had a like new wax job, so it was slick as glass. The four of us carefully lifted the most McHonorable sir to the roof. He obviously liked the idea, he was smiling… kind of. When I asked about tie down straps, we had obviously not thought this thing through. One said, “you guys just hang out the window on each side and hold it, just like those people do with mattresses.” So, silly us, we did. We had made it out of the parking lot and turned onto the road with a giant downhill beside campus. About one third of the way down the hill, police lights and sirens came on. My PK friend, the driver, panicked for a moment and accelerated. With the increasing speed, the newly emancipated Mayor began to slide on the “hard shell finish” of the recently Turtle Waxed roof and was about to be ousted from his motorcade. I and my passenger side human-tie-down-strap began to be pulled out our windows by the less than aerodynamic, bulged eyed, top hatted, metallic beef, bun and cheese head. The metal bolts that would normally hold his Honor in place on the ground had found their way off the quilt and onto the paint job of the pastor’s car, leaving squiggled gashes of exposed metal on the top as we attempted to keep the McCityofficial from flying off onto the campus police cruiser quickly approaching behind us. Our driver finally came to his senses, deciding that we couldn’t outrun the police, especially with our statue on top and so he found a safe place beside the road to pull over. We climbed out of our windows expecting the worst. We were all “getting our story straight” in our minds… that we were only “borrowing” it to put behind our campus apartment for a few days. I was already rehearsing what I would say to my parents, who would have to drive 3 hours to come get me out of jail. The campus police officer climbed out of his cruiser and couldn’t talk because he was laughing so hard… saying something about the look on Mr. McCheese’s face as we sped down that hill. He walked up and laugh-slapped one of my friends on the shoulder so hard he almost fell into the ditch with the words, “you boys!” We didn’t know if this was a good sign or not. He had called the other campus police to come see what “these knuckleheads” had done. Fortunately, the PK knew this particular officer and shared that we were just bored and planned to bring this impeached McPublic official back in a day or two. The officer who continued to chuckle as he talked, said, “you boys take him right back up there now, and everybody can go back to campus…and y’all find something else to do with your time tonight.” He went back to his car chuckling and shaking his head. So, we took our McDonaldland friend back to his boring spot in the parking lot. My friend had “some ‘splainin’' to do to his dad about those four divots in his roof, but we were all relieved to sleep in our own beds rather than being in the lockup for kidnapping the Mayor. We noticed our next time through the drive thru that Mayor McCheese, Ronald, the Hamburgler, and Officer Big Mac were all incarcerated, securely chained and padlocked with a temporary fence around them until the playground was completed. But Mayor McCheese never felt so liberated as that night he took a ride on the wildside. Thankfully this was back before security cameras and cell phone cameras, so there is no record of these misguided shenanigans, and I would probably deny they ever happened.
Tuesday, August 30, 2022
We Mayor or May Not Have Tried to Borrow a McDonaldland Playground Character.*
Thursday, August 18, 2022
Go Ahead And Jump! *
On a recent trip back to my hometown of Knoxville, my mind returned to the day a highschool friend said,'' let's go cliff jumping.” We hopped in my ‘67 convertible Mustang and he gave directions as we wound around country roads to the jumping place. As I walked toward the edge and looked over, I was filled with simultaneous fear and exhilaration. The fear came from both the height and a traumatic experience in a diving class as a child, in which I did a painful back flop. Finally, it was time to take the leap. I had watched the old movies of people who were escaping their enemies jumping with reckless abandon from a cliff into a river in order to survive. But there were no enemies here, just the opportunity to experience an instant of Earth’s gravity’s tremendous 9.8 meters per second squared accelerational pull on my body until hitting water. Hitting water at that speed feels like concrete on impact if you hit flat footed, which, by the way, I did on the first jump. However, something in me wanted to do it again. So I did, but made sure I pointed my toes on entry! Twice more from 40 feet up! The adrenaline rush was addicting. Then we rode home, wet hair drying quickly in the summer heat, in my top down mustang, still tingling all over from the experience. I would like to say that was the last time I jumped from a high place into water, but it wasn’t. In spite of my father’s warnings I did not turn down other opportunities to feel the whoosh of air from the exhilarating speed and the sudden splash into the water. As a physician who had seen the unfortunate accidents that can occur, my father continued to warn me. As a boy, when I would do something silly because “everyone else was doing it,” my mother used to ask, “if everyone jumps off a bridge, are you going to do it too?” I guess the answer was “yes,” because in college, my cheerleader friends asked me to go jump off the Keowee Toxaway Bridge in South Carolina. So, I did. It was just as exhilarating.