On the Road Again

After leaving Jacksonville, where I'd spent a few days being emmasculated (I'd taken the girl to shoot a pistol for the first time and she out-shot me; according to my army service record I'm an "expert" with a pistol), on my way to visit friends in Louisiana, I decided that I needed to reassert my machismo. For those that don't know, "machismo," in my warped mind means "glaringly, stupidly, dangerous activity." As the interstate doesn't offer much by way of opportunities for machismo (other than flicking off a fleet of Hell's Angels), I jumped at the first that presented itself. So, yes, I picked up a hitcher.

I figured that I'd hedged my bets since he looked relatively old and he had a suitcase and a folding bag. Nonetheless, as he huffed to lug his gear the hundred yards to the car, I took the Desert Eagle out of the glovebox, locked and loaded it (though kept it on safe), set it down between my seat and the door, and covered it. It turned out he was a rather affable, if aromatic, Vietnam Veteran whose job in Orlando hadn't panned out. He'd had to go there because he was struggling to find work after the factory he'd worked at had been destroyed by Katrina. At any rate, that was what he said, though I'm not sure how much I believed him.

I am proud to say though that my mission to reassert my machismo was successful beyond my wildest dreams. Apparently, I'd scared the guy so much (I did my fair share of ranting during the four hours I had him in the car), that getting a ride wasn't worth it. Though he needed to get to Louisiana, and I told him I'd take him that far, he had me drop him off at a truck stop just past the AL/FL border because he said he had to use the bathroom and didn't want to hold me up.

Caveat Emptor (Written for the Charleston Mercury)

Ladies and Gentlemen, readers of The Mercury, a word, if I may. Being Charlestonians, and thus on the vanguard of all trends for the state, it is our responsibility to lead the way for our fellow South Carolinians, and yet it appears that many of us are negligent in our duty, indeed, in a most embarrassing fashion.

In my travels around the United States and the world, courtesy of the Army, I can say with confidence that the only other Americans to show nearly as much pride in their land as we do are Texans. We both seem to carry our flags everywhere we go. While it’s a bit troubling to admit that we share some similarities with our wayward western citizens, what’s mortifying is that we oftentimes make inadvertent fools of ourselves in the process. You see, I’ve come to discover that many of us hide a shameful secret. Much as Desperate Housewives watchers can get by and even thrive in day to day life but harbor their closeted dysfunction, so too do many of us go around putting on a game, proud face, but privately have no idea what a palmetto really is.

There. I’ve said it. Many South Carolinians haven’t a clue what a palmetto is. Well, actually, they have a clue, but they haven’t the foggiest of what separates a palmetto from a palm tree. I know this because every day I see plenty of South Carolina merchandise, proudly displayed on clothing, stickers, and flags, that features a palm instead of a palmetto.

Surely, one might think, we can’t be so unobservant as not to notice our state tree (we are the Palmetto State, after all) missing from much of this merchandise. One would be wrong. Perhaps one simply thinks that it’s not an issue what tree is on the flag if they’re so similar. Yet again, one is wrong, and that’s the embarrassing part.

Texans don’t screw up the Lone Star flag. One never sees a Texan sporting that flag with an octagonal star on it. Surely, if one can allow a palm instead of a palmetto, one can allow 60% more star (the extra three points) for the Texans. Suggest that to a Texan and see what he thinks.

No, I, for one, am sure that this is not a matter of not caring about the difference between the palmetto and the palm; it must be due to ignorance. Fret not though, this isn’t an indictment of the guilty reader. Extraordinarily intelligent people commit this error all the time and in the most egregious ways. My examples: we even have the palm tree on the logo of our state university. Feel free to go to www.sc.edu. There, in the top left-hand corner, one will see plain as day, a representation of a palm tree between the fabled gates of the Horseshoe. Shoot, even our license plates feature what looks suspiciously like a palm tree (This wouldn’t be the first time that the state got a bit confused. Some argued that the old license plates in use from 1991-1998 featured a Bananaquit, a smaller, similar bird, as opposed to the state bird, the Carolina Wren.).

If our state government and educators have made this mistake it is most definitely time for a quick lesson to put us back on the right track. When I began my research into the differences between palms and palmettos, I quickly discovered, as many of the more intelligent and informed readers are no doubt aware, that the palmetto is a palm; however, a bit like a square is a rectangle, but not vice versa, a palm is not necessarily a palmetto.

Suffice it to say that my meager intellect was hardly up to the challenge of figuring out all this botany, especially when I discovered that the state tree, the Sabal palmetto, is also referred to as the cabbage palm, so I high-tailed it for help.

As one could hardly expect a Carpenter to write something in The Mercury without referencing other Carpenters, I contacted my uncle, Dr. David H. Carpenter Jr, a recently retired professor from the University of South Carolina and a botanist of no small renown, to see if I could get an expert to weigh in on this (minor) controversy. Fortunately, he was able to shed some light.

“Our Palmetto tree is a palm. The Palm family (Arecaceae) has hundreds of kinds of palms world- wide in the tropics; however there are only three (native) kinds in the southeastern US. Two species of palmettos in the Genus Sabal -- Sabal palmetto (our state tree) and Sabal minor (a small shrub like palm in the pine land swamps in coastal regions of SC south). The other is ‘saw palmetto’ Serenoa repens which grows in the same basic habitat as Sabal minor. Commonly, the palms are divided into the feather palms and the fan palms. All of ours are fan palms.”

The last two sentences helped me greatly because, shy of minutiae regarding growth rates and trunk length, the main thing that separates the imposter palms of our state merchandise from the real deal palmettos are the fronds. So, for you, the readers of The Mercury, whom I know shall lead the charge to rectify our collective mistake, I offer to you the following easy-to-use guide:

Please. Use it. Tell a friend. Spend wisely on the proper merchandise. After all, our state pride is at stake; we’ve got to fix this before the Texans find out.

Ajax Carpenter, a Charleston native and graduate of the University of South Carolina, is an unabashed nitpicker with too much time on his hands.

On Second Thought

Yesterday evening, as I was nearing my fourteenth mile of the day (the 94 degree heat is no joke), I had an epiphany. I stopped at the next pay phone and had cousin Elizabeth pick me up. At five days and fifty miles (just short of Holly Hill on hwy 176) I'd gotten what I wanted to out of the hike.

Suffice it to say that I'm a bit embarrassed to say that I've stopped after so short a time, but, simply put, it would have been stupid for me to continue on. I've been so concentrated on getting this trip going that it didn't dawn on me that what I wanted to get out of it (learning how to push myself), I'd already accomplished in the past four years (and particularly last year). Instead of taking another year in exile and missing out on the various important events that occurred with friends and family, I'm ready to settle in to my life again. I don't need a year on the road to be sure of that.

P.S. To those who inquired as to the availability of the pistol should some misfortune befall me: As that isn't the only time that I'm going to go on a hike or have an adventure, I'm sure that there's still a reasonable shot that I can get eaten by a bear sometime in the future.

P.P.S. Plus I really, really, really wanted to booze it up at the USC vs Troy football game this weekend.

Good Night and Good luck

Tomorrow I begin my walk. The plan is to put one foot in the Atlantic and walk until I put one in the Pacific. Of course, plans change and I could get sick and tired of lugging around a backpack and sleeping in a tent after three days. Who knows? At any rate, I send this out with the assumption that I will be gone for the 4-10 months it may take me to ramble along the entire distance.

Please continue to email me if and when you think of me. I'll be stopping at public libraries and other establishments to check email when I have the opportunity so please be patient if it takes me a few days to reply.

To end on a dour, morbid note, of course there's always the possibility that this endeavor of mine could prove fatal (though I certainly don't believe it will, especially not with my taking along my trusty .50 Cal Desert Eagle, seven foot Macedonian spear/walking stick, and hunting knife), so, on the off-chance I get mauled by a bear or starve to death in the woods, thanks for your parts y'all've played in my life and be well.

P.S. but then, like I said, I could quit after a few days

American Obscenity

First and foremost, I'm an idealist. Well, not in the generally accepted usage of that word. Really, I'm more into the idea of something over the reality of it, especially if I find it funny. Because of this characteristic, I will do many a strange thing (eg. Act like a gun-wielding psychopathic self-help instructor/kidnapper to an adolescent boy; break out the Vanilla Ice Super-dance in a crowded bar or, better yet, debutante party; walk across the country; join the Army; etc.). Seeing as how I've already been on this marble for twenty-six years, I doubt that this is going to change.

While I'd had my latest humdinger of an idea stuck in my head for quite some time, when I was in Iraq I finally promised myself that I was going to do it when I got back . Today I finally followed through and did it. I bought into the "American Dream".

Now, when I say the "American Dream" I don't mean to say the ideal of the Norman Rockwell/John Steinbeck American Dream but, rather, the 21 ^stcentury reality of it. Thus, I'm not talking of the farm out in the countryside. I mean the American Dream in all of its amazing excess and unnecessity. I mean the American Dream in all it's blazing garishness. I mean the American Dream in all it's, frankly, obscenity.

You know what I'm talking about. Trust me, you do. It's the American Dream that made John Walker Lindh go scruffy and Afghani. It's theAmerican Dream that sends well-meaning kids off to European universities (or ones in California ) where they bitch about the way the country used to be. But you see, I'm not taking the traditional stance AGAINST this real American Dream. Oh, no. I'm mocking it by embracing it.

"How did Andre buy in?" one might ask. Well, I had to find the perfect example, first of all. What exemplifies the real American Dream, then? The King-sized value meal with a half-pound of French-fries, half-gallon of syrup, and chemical concoction masquerading as a sandwich? The two and a half ton behemoth Sport Utility Vehicle driven by the bored housewife so that she can fit in the groceries, the kids, platoon of Infantry, and still run over hapless commuters while talking on her cell phone and never once straying from asphalt?

Nope, I bought a Desert Eagle. That's a Desert Eagle .50. That's a Desert Eagle .50 hand gun. I mean, really, is there any greater symbol of America than a handgun? The Desert Eagle is so monstrous and impractical it can't help but be perfect (.50 means that the bullet is half of an inch in diameter). The fact that it's made by Isrealis is icing on the cake. The ultimate American Dream, delivered by foreigners.

How can I be sure that it's the ultimate symbol of American Obscenity? Easy. Look at movies. When a director needs to make sure that he's being cutting edge in films, everyone is blithely spitting lead from a Desert Eagle. The best part is, it's not even just the American movies. For example, the British gangster film Snatch (not a blue movie despite the title) prominently features a Desert Eagle and the awe that it inspires. The baddies from The Matrix? They're blazing away with them too. I could go on, but just trust me. When movies want to be ultra- Americanly extravagant, they do one of two things. Either, they destroy unbelievably expensive things (Notre Dame's Rose Window in Van Helsing, Paris and New York in Armageddon, a dozen Lamborghinis and Ferraris in Bad Boys 2 ) or they shoot Desert Eagle .50s.

I'd done all the research necessary for such a momentous purchase on the internet. Yes, the money it takes to buy a used car was a bit daunting to let go of, but I'd promised myself and thus was willing to jump in. After ascertaining which shop had my beauty I made a bolt for it, dragging cousin Elizabeth along in tow.

We got there and there were three different models of the Desert Eagle. Now, one might think that, in order to achieve my little joke, I would have bought the chrome or the golden tiger-striped titanium model, but that would be wrong. The American Dream isn't simply tacky. It's tacky masquerading as indispensable. Thus, I got the matte-black, "refined" finish.

Now, for those that haven't handled one, the gun is damn huge. Besides weighing in at well over four pounds, empty, the grip is big around as a redwood sapling. I've got large hands and it still felt like I was squeezing hold of a paint can. Also, it doesn't come in a nice, little gun-case. It came in a foam lined briefcase. Undaunted, I purchased it on plastic (When I go ultra-American, I go all out), along with twenty rounds of ammo. All told, I paid $1350.

We went next door to the firing range after I'd gotten my other pistol out of the car for Elizabeth to try out. After putting on the ear plugs, head phones, and clear glasses, we got on the indoor range. I set up the target and sent it out five yards. I gave Elizabeth a hand-gun firing 101 and she let rip with three shots from the 9mm. The target, I'm sorry to say, lost both kidneys and at least one testicle.

Then she stood aside and I unsheathed my new symbol of phallic inadequacy. I took the bullets and gingerly tried to load them into the magazine. That didn't work, so I huffed and puffed and banged and contorted and managed to get all seven of the rounds in there five minutes, and several bruised fingers, later. I then set my feet and pulled the slide back to chamber the first round. Actually, that's what I tried to do, but the slide was so hard to draw back that I had to do some crazy looking maneuver that looked an awful lot like trying to pull Odysseus' bow string. At any rate, I managed to get a round chambered.

I took sight and BOOOOOOOOM! I missed the silhouette by two inches off to the left. BOOOOOOOOOOOM! I hit the same spot. I readjusted my stance. BOOOOOOOOM! BOOOOOOOOM! BOOOOOOOOM! BOOOOOOOOM! BOOOOOOOOM! I'd coated his heart with $6 of good ole lead.

Firing the pistol wasn't nearly as difficult as I'd thought it would be. The kick wasn't hard to deal with. In fact, it felt like catching a high-schooler's fastball with a catcher's mitt. After setting the gun down, I turned to look at Elizabeth. She was bleach- white and there was a trickle of blood on her thumb where she'd squeezed herself so tightly with fright. "It was so loud! I thought it was a cannon! And the worst part was the flame that shot out of it!"

After I fired off a few more rounds, we packed up and headed off. I was so thoroughly pleased with my success that I had to share it with someone. I called a friend and delightedly told him all about it. As I was waxing orgasmically, Elizabeth mocked me by telling me to make sure that I told him that "it's so macho, when you fire it, your chest hair grows."

So, there. I've accomplished the first part of what I must. To finish my personal little joke I merely need get a concealed weapon permit for it. God Bless America.

The Keys

My brother, Wyman, and I have what I like to consider a complicated relationship; complicated by the small happenstance that we have virtually nothing in common (not even mothers). Indeed, I often posit that the only way for us to be any more different would be for one of us to be blue. All that aside, we do have some things in common; the most blatant of which would be the ability to drive each other to the brink of irritation-fueled insanity. Nonetheless, we are brothers, and so the getting on each others nerves and bringing out the worst in each other is perfectly normal. I mean, haven't any of you ever loved some one so much you'd just like to beat the living hell out of them? (Hands down, Ike Turner)

When I was in Iraq, in one of my weaker moments, I told Wyman that we were going on a vacation when I came back. It was one of those things you do in a war zone: making plans for a future that at the time seems more conjectural than inevitable. Time dragged so slow that I didn't realize that it catches up in one hell of a hurry. And so, after cavorting around Peru, lounging around the mountains, bumming around the Inner Banks, shooting down to Savannah, making a brief appearance in Beaufort, going to a funeral in Columbia, and taking an adolescent cousin on a 3500 mile road trip, I found that there almost wasn't time for a trip with Wyman this summer, particularly since I'm preparing to begin my walk next month.

So, the Carpenter boys were going on a road trip. The adventure was only moderately delayed by a few days of Wyman getting ready and my thirty minutes of cleaning out the car and putting my one bag of clothes in the trunk. We also were delayed a day to wait for our fellow traveler, the inestimable cousin Elizabeth, who'd forgiven me for (moderately, mind you) beating a semblance of sense into her boy. With all of that accomplished we crammed ourselves in the car and headed South.

The plan, if it can be called such a thing, was to go to the Florida Keys. The Florida Keys in August. Brilliant, I know, but I figured that it sure wasn't going to be any hotter than SC, of which one enlightened soul once said, "In the summer, the only thing separating South Carolina and Hell is a screen door."

The first day was nothing to write home about, so I didn't. We drove a long damn way and ended up just north of Boca Raton. At a cheesy restaurant we ate deep fried alligator tails, which thus tasted like everything else that is deep fried, with the exception that they were chewy.

The next day we drove through Miami, taking the time to drive down the A1A Beach Front Avenue of Vanilla Ice fame (for you ancients, V.I. was an horrific one-hit-wonder in '91 with his masterpiece, "Ice, Ice, Baby!"). South Beach, just like everywhere you expect to see scantily clad, hard-bodied babes, was really filled with plump women (that's being kind) shoe-horned into string bikinis fooling themselves that a location could somehow make being fifty pounds overweight in a thong not only acceptable but attractive.

We slid into Key Largo ("Key Largo, Montego, baby why don't we go…"- Beach Boys) just around sunset and found a cheapo motel. After watching the remnants of the sun's daily death and sipping on ludicrously expensive, but ludicrously smooth, rum we'd bought in Miami, we headed off to get something to eat, and, to be frank, to get trashed. I am happy to report that we accomplished both objectives with startling celerity as we merely went to a dive bar 200 yards from the motel.

I'm not quite able to say what went on at the dive bar since a) for the first time since my 21 ^st birthday I can't remember portions of the night and b) what I've been told I don't want to remember and particularly don't want to pass on. Nonetheless, I can relay that the night finished with me being hoisted back to the motel and then spending some quality face-to-bowl time before I stayed down for the night.

The next day, Sunday, I can quite honestly say was the worst hangover I've had in memory. Maybe there were worse before, but I've thankfully forgotten them. It was just horrible. Hung over and in a diner for breakfast seemed like a good idea at the time. Then the sunlight from car windshields, smell of pig-flesh cooking, everyone talking with bullhorns thing kinda got to me and I went to worship the porcelain god again.

Finally, after a visit to the Dolphin Research Center (their dolphins were "Flipper") we made it to Key West and I collapsed in the room while Elizabeth and Wyman went traipsing (ie. Boozing) along the famed Duval Street. Eventually, I woke up and, after they called to tell me where they were, made my way to meet them.

Key West, we had been told, is big with gays. I mean, BIG. As I already find that I've a bit of a problem being hit on by gay men, I did my best to just walk (not sashay) down the street and not look anyone in the eye. Some things just aren't fair though. I mean, how the hell are you not supposed to look when there's a 6'7" drag queen with hoo-hoos the size of basketballs talking to a six foot drag queen with arms like Lou Ferigno (TV's Hulk)? I thought I hadn't been spotted gawking, but apparently my jaw scraping the ground as I walked by was a big clue that I wasn't a local. The giant exclaimed as I went by, "Those are fifteens, aren't they?" Startled, I mumbled, "sure" and skidaddled. I didn't, and still don't, want to know how the hell he/she/it could nail my shoe size on the stroll.

Other than that, Key West was mostly just eating food, drinking moderately, and sleeping in. Until last night, that is. Apparently, I'm an idiot (I know that's been apparent to y'all for the duration of knowing me). I told myself that I wasn't going to go hard at it again, and I moderately believed myself since it had taken two days for me to consider putting more than a beer down my gullet, but as it was our last night, Elizabeth said she was buying. In halves, I'm Irish and French and quarters I'm English and German too. I'm damn near designed to have a drink, and I'm definitely designed to if it's free to do so. Thus, I got a bit inebriated. Fortunately, I can remember my exploits and I'm proud of them.

Once I'd been properly fueled, I hit the dance floor with Elizabeth. Dancing to rock and roll is, or should be, impossible, but we were cutting a rug to the band's cover of Van Halen's "Jump". Somehow, I decided that since no one else was out there with us, other than a monumentally goofy dude on the fringe of the dance floor, that it was time to pull out the cartwheels. So I did. Lord knows I try to be bashful (stop snickering), but I have to say, that to that point, that was obviously the coolest thing anyone in that bar had ever seen. I mean, I didn't even fling a flip-flop. I was SO the party star. As the song finished, I attempted to one-up myself and flung myself on the ground to do "the worm."

Ow! Doing a face-plant on a tile dance floor hurts. I caught myself, so it wasn't a proper face-plant, but I jammed the bejesus out of both of my wrists (I knew that if I could feel pain in that state, I was in trouble) and just laid there stunned for a split second. Then I just had an epileptic seizure. Well, I'm sure that's what it looked like at least since I quickly discovered that the worm is damn hard to pull off. I took a second to readjust, flopped on the ground like a fish out of water, dusted myself off, and booked it back to our table. Elizabeth and I sat down for a second or two with Wyman, downed another drink, and then hit the floor again. I tell you, SO the party star.

Then it happened. My moment had arrived. The second I heard the drummer tapping on the symbols and the lead singer mumble, "Yo VIP! Let's kick it!", I told Elizabeth to stay put and I booked out to the empty dance floor. In the annals of history, there are few performances that can hold a candle to my lip-synching, highly choreographed rendition of "Ice, Ice, Baby!" To say that people were stunned that the drunk dude with the filthy shirt and swollen wrists could rock that hard is an understatement. I tore the roof off that mutha solo for most of the song, but then a freaky red-head came out to share the magic and I rocked her world too. I waddled off the floor at the end of the song to cat-calls from the women and nods of silent approbation from the men.

The two couples at the table next to us offered to buy me whatever the hell I wanted, but I couldn't, in good conscience, lead the ladies along like that, as they were obviously anxious to ditch the schmoes they were with. I smiled at them (making them swoon in the process…thank you Vanilla Ice), told them, "my job here is done," and walked out with my right arm triumphantly in the air, my index finger thrust out to let every one know that I was, indeed, a bad mamma-jamma.

Counterpoint: Cousin Shay's Version

"Andre is a fun-sucking, un-loving, horrible person to be around. With him around, the most perfect day of your life can seem like ----. If you think spending 2 days even 3, god forbid you don't, try spending a whole week with him!!!! The one thing that I never got though is how his brother, Wyman, can be around him so long without going terribly mad, I mean ever since he got back from the Army all he says is suck it up when you complain and think before you speak, gosh, oh and he thinks his hair looks sexy, yeah right, not even in his dreams!!!! If you do not believe me, ask my mom; in my opinion, I think he spends too much time around my mom sometimes it gets a little annoying, and if you need any proof of child abuse he made me put my hands up on a roller coaster even though he knew that would make my back hurt for about 2 weeks!!!! Once Andre reads this I know he will want to beat me up but I'll be ready, and if that does not work I'll pull Uncle Sam on his butt, I bet that will be embarrassing!!!!! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! I will probably be laughing so hard my gut will explode!!!!! Ha ha ha ha ha !!!!!!!!!!!! Or even worse......... His own father!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Now I know that will be even more embarrassing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"