Cooper goes long once again

“Mustang Sally, guess you better slow your mustang down
Mustang Sally , baby, I guess you better slow your mustang down
You been a runnin' all over town, I guess I'll better put your big feet on the ground, oh yes, I will
“All you wanna do is ride around, Sally Ride Sally ride
All you wanna do is ride around, Sally Ride Sally ride
All you wanna do is ride around, Sally Ride Sally ride
All you wanna do is ride around, Sally Ride Sally ride”
~Buddy Guy
Lyrics to Mustang Sally (1965)

It just seemed appropriate to start this column with some of the words from the song he loved so much to perform. The song will never sound the same again now that Sidney Cooper will not be performing it for us.
Sidney Cooper, as most of you are well aware, died last week, ending a battle with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) – more commonly known as “Lou Gerhig’s Disease.” He will be missed by many, especially his loved ones – his wife Becky, daughters Courtney and Cassie, sons Cory and Cameron and his mother Ann.
Sidney Cooper was a character, as we like to refer to unusual people in the South who had great character. By referring to him as a “character,” I’m trying to say he had some unusual traits – the most outstanding of which was that he had a gift that allowed him to be a friend to every person he met. And by saying he had “great character,” I’m trying to say he had special traits that made him the kind of person every person could look up to. Understand? If you do not, you didn’t know Sidney Cooper.
I can still remember when I first became aware of Sidney Cooper. My first remembrances are the tall tales – most of which were probably true – of Sidney Cooper as an athlete. He was, in his teens, Smiths Station High’s greatest athlete. He was especially adept at playing football. He held the record for the longest return of an interception in the Alabama High School Athletic Association’s North-South All-Star Game until about three years ago. Big Sid returned an interception 98 yards for a touchdown in the game. The record held for nearly 40 years.
Later, during my late teens and early 20s, I had the pleasure – or misfortune if you prefer – to play on a softball team that had to play a team that had Sidney Cooper in its line-up. I can only thank the good Lord that I played first base and that Sid liked to hit the ball out in center. I’m not real sure there are stopwatches that could have clocked how fast a Sidney-hit softball could leave a ballpark. I think I have seen comets that traveled at a slower rate of speed than some of the shots Sidney hit against the team I played for at the old Airport Fields.
I also had the opportunity, during my career with The Citizen, to write a few stories about Sidney Cooper as a softball player. I wrote a story about him being named to the Alabama Amateur Softball Association’s Hall of Fame a couple of years ago. Last year, I wrote a “Beyond the Glory Days” feature about Sid. It was by far my favorite story that I wrote about Sidney Cooper. The story was well-received by others and they made that known to me. Because it was so well-received, and because many who read the story when it was published in January 2008 have asked for it to be re-published, it appears again in the sports section of today’s newspaper.
There is also a story I found to be more difficult to write in the sports section this week as well. It is a story about his passing from this life. It was very difficult for me to contact people for comments about Sidney Cooper. It was just as difficult for the people I contacted for comment to talk about Sidney Cooper without getting emotional. But, we all made it through the interviews even through our choked voices and tears.
I suspect there was at least one person for every home run Sidney Cooper hit in his lifetime playing softball standing in line last week for a final visit with him at Lakewood Baptist Church – that would be in the thousands. Every person who stopped by to say “good-bye” counted Sidney Cooper as a personal friend, not an acquaintance. I’m sure he felt the same about those people too.I hope someday in the future that we will all be able to fill a big softball stadium in heaven to watch Sidney Cooper play the sport he loved once more. Until then, just watch the night sky for falling stars. When one falls, you can rest assured Big Sid has gone long one more time. And listen close, you may be able to hear the angels singing “Mustang Sally” along with him as he rounds the bases.

Remembering Paul Lynde

I had the opportunity to watch some old television shows recently – old television game shows of my youth. The time I spent watching brought back some great memories of what my children refer to as the “ancient days” of television. I’m old. I admit that, but television is much older.
I thought I would share with you what I believed to be one of the greatest funnymen of all-time and the show that made him its star.
For 13 consecutive seasons, Paul Lynde was a regular cast member on the television game show “Hollywood Squares.” For most of those years, 1968-1979, he was the permanent player in the center square of the tic-tac-toe game that awarded prizes that would be laughed at when compared to today’s prize packages.
Lynde was a riot – the master of the one-liner, the “zinger.” He was also one of the first gay actors with a major role on television. That played a big part in his role on “Hollywood Squares.” But, I’m not writing about Lynde because he was gay. He was no Harvey Milk. Lynde was just plain funny.
He was funny enough to win two Daytime Emmy Awards for his performance on “Hollywood Squares.” He could have won many more awards for his comedy, if he had lived longer. He died in 1982 of a heart attack at age 55.
Lynde got away with some pretty racy answers in his role on “Hollywood Squares.” No one would even blink today at the answers he gave back then, but he made then funny – almost innocent, but not quite. I can remember the show’s host, Peter Marshall, losing his composure when Lynde gave his answers. Marshall, at times, laughed until he cried. I cannot believe he was able to complete filming of the show when Lynde was on a roll.
Lynde was not the only funny person to fill one of the nine squares for the games, which began as once a week events, then twice weekly and finally as a nightly program. Some of the other famously funny people to fill squares over the years included Wally Cox, Don Knotts, Jim Backus, Rose Marie, Morie Amsterdam and Cliff Arquette . . . better known for his character Charlie Weaver. They were all funny, but Lynde was the king on this show.
It was a sad day for fans of the show when Lynde decided to step down. He did come back after a year off for the final season of the original version. Without Lynde for a year, the show fell in the ratings. His return was too late to give “Hollywood Squares” the boost it needed to survive in its original form.
I thought you might like to read some of the great “zingers” Lynde used on the show. Here are a few . . .
Question: True or false: Many people sleep better in their street clothes than they do in their pajamas.
Lynde: Yes. We call them winos.

Question: Do we get heat from stars?
Lynde: You will if I have to share my dressing room again.

To the question, “In what state was Abraham Lincoln born?”
Lynde: Naked and screaming like the rest of us.

Question: Can you get an elephant drunk?
Lynde: Yes, but he still won’t go up to your apartment.

Question: When you pat a dog on its head he will usually wag his tail. What will a goose do?
Lynde: Make him bark.

Question: If you were pregnant for two years, what would you give birth to?
Lynde: Whatever it is, it would never be afraid of the dark.

Question: Who stays pregnant for a longer period of time, your wife or your elephant?
Lynde: Who told you about my elephant?

Question: Why do sheep sleep huddled together?
Lynde: Because Little Boy Blue is a weirdo.

Question: It is considered in bad taste to discuss two subjects at nudist camps. One is politics. What is the other?
Lynde: Tape measures.

If you want to see and hear Lynde dish out his zingers, go look him up on Youtube.com. But I warn you, the ones I listed above are some of the milder ones – at least for when it comes to a family newspaper.

More people leaving the gene pool

I thought it might be time to update you on the most recent nominations for the annual Darwin Awards – those wonderfully horrible tales of mishaps that sent fellow human beings into the afterlife and out of the gene pool. They seem to get more and more bizarre as the years go by. Fortunately – thank goodness – none of the tales has originated anywhere near our area.

However, I do believe we have some people in our area that could someday make the list. Why would I ever think such a thing? Well, we are Southerners . . . and when someone shouts, “Hey, y’all, look at this,” it is usually the precursor that  something bad is about to happen.

Here are some of the most recent nominees for the awards. I hope you are not kin to any of them.

Pillar of Strength 

(South Africa)

For several days Johannesburg office workers watched a demolition worker slowly chip away at a pillar supporting the concrete slab above him. One observer said, “I wondered how they would drop that section.” The walls were gone, and only the supporting pillars remained. 

Dozens of observers watched the slow and senseless demolition proceed. Finally the only possible outcome concluded this epic battle. The besieged support collapsed, crushing man and machine beneath a pile of rubble. Ishmael Makone, 52, was killed instantly inside the cab of his mini-excavator. 

“I cannot believe they did not foresee this,” said a shocked witness who did not foresee this. Observers said they had been concerned about the workers’ safety for several days. “There was no common sense.” 

Low Flying Drunk

(Canada)

Sleeping residents of Chilliwack were awakened early one morning by the sound of a small aircraft flying lower than usual. The engine noise was like a mosquito, zooming too close, too quickly and then veering away. What the bleep was going on? 

In the wee hours of the night, during a bout of heavy drinking, two future Darwin Award nominees concluded that - with neither having a pilot’s license nor flight training - they nevertheless knew enough to pilot an aircraft and decided to take a plane from the small local airport for a drunken joyride over the city. They invited two females along for the ride. Fortunately, the level-headed ladies declined. 

From idea to execution, the plan evolved quickly. One of the gentlemen worked at the airport and had access. The two men then managed to unlock a plane, get it off the ground and into the sky. They went on to buzz around in the dark, skimming above the roofs of the houses. This went on for an extended period of time. 

Eventually they decided to land. They attempted to land on the grassy median between east and west-bound lanes of the Trans Canada Highway. They almost made it under the electrical wires that cross the median.

Almost.

Where these wires were concerned, fate intervened. Instead of making a soft landing on the grassy verge, the tail clipped the wires, sending the aircraft diving nose-first into the ground and killing both occupants. Only then were the sleepy Chilliwack residents able to return to their REM sleep.

A Cushioned Blow

(Germany)

Smoking kills . . . if you try hard enough. A 42-year-old man was badly injured by his air mattress one morning. The previous night he had inflated the punctured mattress with a tire repair spray, which like all solvent-based aerosols, is flammable. Furthermore, he did this while keeping his windows tightly closed in his loft apartment. The next morning, this airhead lit a cigarette before he opened the valve to deflate the air mattress. The resulting explosion wrecked most of the furnishings, part of the roof and blew a window from the wall. The damage was so severe that a structural engineer condemned the flat. Narrowly missing a “full-blown” Darwin Award, our hero was taken to a burn care unit and managed to survive this incident.

Yes, I understand the last story did not involve the not-so-intelligent human departing from the gene pool. It was just too funny not to share. It is one of the stories on the Darwin Awards Web site that did not earn a nomination for the annual award. It was just an honorable mention. However, I see nothing honorable about making this annual list. I hope none of you are ever one of its finalists.

We murdered two days

If you listen to “John Boy and Billy” on local radio in the morning, you can understand when I say I was ready to go a little “Mad Max” while serving on jury duty last week at the federal courthouse in Opelika. They should have convicted the jury, the attorneys for both sides and the judge for murder because we definitely killed two days.

For two days, I, along with 12 other people not smart enough to get out of jury duty, were pounded with numbers in a case that was entitled “The United States versus ---.” (Columnist’s Note: I seriously doubt the entire United States of America knew anything about this case or even cared for that matter when there are real criminal cases waiting to be tried.) It got to the point where the attorneys for the United States of America were as boring as my third-grade math teacher teaching us to memorize the times table. But, I can now tell you the formula used by the Lanett Housing Authority to determine the amount of rent charged to people who qualify for public housing. Let me say here that algebra formulas are much simpler to work.

The lawyers representing the United States of America pounded us - the jury - over and over and over and over again with the numbers. We must have listened to the same formula 20 times when the first witness for the prosecution gave testimony. Then we heard the numbers again when the next witness took the stand.

After two witnesses – and half a day wasted with testimony that could have been completed in 10 minutes or less – we took a lunch break. The lunch break was quite entertaining. I joined five other jurors at a deep-fried food establishment near the courthouse. We ordered deep-fried chicken in various forms and with various sauces. That is not what made the hour-long break entertaining. The entertainment came when the lady next to me cried out, “Oh, Lord, look at that.” I looked. I saw. I laughed.

“That” was a mouse sitting in one of the booths watching the customers – hoping for a dropped crumb or two. The lady next to me said it was a rat. To hear her describe it, it was at least six-feet tall with three-feet long fangs. It was much smaller than that – the mouse’s body was maybe five or six inches long and its tail another five or six inches. It had beautiful, healthy looking fur.

We, the jurors present, notified the people in the adjoining booth of the creature. You would have thought we had yelled “shark” or even “fire.” The two people left the booth in a hurry. They demanded their money back and left. I, and those people with me, just laughed. The mouse wasn’t really bothering anyone. Some people just have a problem with rodents. I don’t. I own a guinea pig and four gerbils. The mouse was smaller than any of the rodents I own.

Maybe I should have been more concerned about the fact that a rodent was in the restaurant and the fact that it was healthy. It must have been eating well somewhere – presumably this restaurant in particular. But, I wasn’t. The restaurant was near the courthouse, which meant I had more time to relax before going back to the jury box for the afternoon session. And, rodents do not bother me – roaches do. I saw no roaches.

The second half of the day, back in the box, was more of the same. More numbers were pounded into our brains. Okay, I got it. Someone was abusing the system. I got it after the first set of numbers. It wasn’t enough for the attorneys to show us the numbers on the electronic screens around the courtroom; they had to also write them down on a gigantic paper pad on an easel for us to see. They – the attorneys – seemed to enjoy doing this. It was like they had just figured out how to work the formula and wanted to show us how smart they were. They weren’t that smart.

If they had been smart, they would have stopped after showing us the formula worked the first time. Then, I would not have thought that the biggest rats I saw for two days were in the courtroom representing me instead of in the restaurant. And I would not have felt as if the United States of America had wasted two days of the lives of 13 of its citizens. 

If I am ever selected again for jury duty, “Find a more significant case to be tried, don’t presume I am a complete idiot when it comes to math and quit trying to ruin my life. Have a nice day.”