And all the boards did shrink;

Water, water, everywhere,

Nor any drop to drink.

When English poet, Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote The Rime of the Ancient Mariner around 1797, he understood the concept of thirst. Soon, we may understand it better than we want to.

Over 70 percent of the earth is covered by water, of which 98 percent is in the oceans, making it undrinkable because of the saline. Until technology advances, the amount of energy needed to turn salt water from the ocean into drinking water is far too great. Only about 2 percent of the planet’s water is fresh and 1.6 percent of that is frozen in the polar ice caps. Rivers and lakes account for only about .036 percent of the potable water and aquifers contain .36 percent. That leaves the rest of the water in the air as clouds or in us, as we are 65 percent water.

Aquifers are in trouble and water shortages are already common in many countries. The earth moves water around naturally through evaporation and rain. We move the rest of it just to stay alive. Industry swallows water as if the supply is limitless. Agriculture sucks up massive quantities of water from one place and redistributes it to another place in the form of vegetables, meat, fruits, etc. Humans guzzle water worse than cars guzzle gas. We don’t just drink it; we flush it – over and over, without regard to the resources needed to filter that waste. Sanitation is a large part of the 400 billion gallons we use every day.

Since the oceans are undrinkable and we’ve polluted most of the rivers and lakes by various definitions, the small amount of water available for human consumption is small and has to be treated to decrease toxic pathogens. Disease from tainted water is one of the world’s leading causes of death. In the natural cycles of our biosphere, when we pollute one water source, it affects another source. Eventually, our water pollution goes into the 65 percent of water that is in us. Add naturally occurring droughts to the mix and the potential for disaster rises considerably.

The most pungent fragrance is animal manure blended with hay, diesel fuel, and one other scent I am still unsure of. I think it might be the smell of fun. Does fun have a smell? Perhaps that is what it is – the wonderfully timeless stench of fun.

All fairs smell the same, whether state or county or one of those amusements rigs thrown up overnight in a shopping center parking lot. In 1974, I added another smell to the Covington County Fair in my Alabama hometown. It was not, by any measure, the perfume of fun.

Squatting like a multi-colored crab on the midway, a vicious ride attracted me to its spinning octopusian arms like a fat man stalking a chilidog. The Scrambler, in hindsight, was perfectly named, probably by someone like me.

I took my date – whoever that might be in any particular year – to the county fair, as everyone did. It was one of the few things to do in a small town once you had seen the only movie at the local theater.

The girl ate nothing. Girls used to do that. Guys ate everything, which they still do. During the time it took to stroll past the prize-winning animals, paintings and preserves, crafts, quilts and exhibits, I devoured a hot dog, a hamburger, boiled peanuts, a candied apple, and chased it all with cotton candy and two big Cokes. This is not something I would recommend before boarding a ride like the Scrambler. But at the time, my stomach routinely overrode my intelligence. Once the grizzled, tattooed carny pushed the start button on the rusty panel, however, I got smarter with every turn of that damned machine.

A little engineering is in order here. The Scrambler of that age rotated four steel arms on an axis. Bolted to each arm were three buckets. In those buckets were bench seats, worn as smooth as church pews by years of sliding asses. Once engaged, the arms of the contraption spun faster and faster until your brain hugged one side of your skull as if trying to escape through your ear. The buckets spun independently at the end of those arms to create a perfect, swirling storm of motion sickness for anyone stupid enough to eat a hot dog, a hamburger, boiled peanuts, a candied apple, and cotton candy.

In the middle of our ride, the carny decided to take a smoke break, leaving us spinning for much longer than normal. It could have been five minutes longer, maybe ten. Astronauts and fighter pilots are likely the only people who experience this many G’s for such a sustained period. Suffice it to say we got our money’s worth.

When it stopped, the girl – formerly known as my date – stumbled off to the side, looking into the sky and holding onto a creosote pole. I was not so lucky. The ride turned me into a vomiting snake, slithering out of the bucket and across the sawdust and behind a colorful trailer, leaving a snail trail of half digested hot dog, hamburger, boiled peanuts, candied apple and cotton candy behind me. Since I woke up some time later, I can only assume I passed out while lying in the damp grass next to a generator. My date probably wandered off and found a guy who wasn’t soaked in his own rainbow yawn. I did not see her again.

Even now when I go to a fair, it is difficult for me to even look at a spinning ride. But once in a while, while walking the midway, between the aroma of smoked turkey legs, burning sugar from cotton candy machine, fried Oreos and burrito-thick dill pickles, I catch a familiar whiff of 1974 all over again. It still does not smell like fun.

What got me to thinking about this was an interview with 70-year-old Robert Duvall for his new movie, Get Low, a true story about a hermit in 1930’s Tennessee who throws his own funeral party while he’s still alive. The funeral party story did not grab me like something else Duvall said: “I did The Godfather at 40.”

I’ve seen The Godfather more times than I want to admit and it never really struck me that Duvall was that old considering The Godfather was the movie most people remember first seeing him (more so than his Boo Radley in To Kill A Mockingbird). So I did a bit of Googling. The list of late bloomers is endless.

Raymond Chandler wrote his first story when he was 45. Stan Lee created Spiderman in his early 40’s. Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin at 47 and did not get the Nobel prize until 64. Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House in the Big Woods debuted when she was 65. Einstein was a middle-aged man before anyone listened to his genius. Julia Child was not famous until she turned 49. Danny Aiello did not act until he was 40. Rodney Dangerfield hit it big at 42. Charles Bukowski worked at the post office until his first book was published at 49. No one had ever really heard of Colonel Sanders until he started franchising his famous fried chicken. He was 65. Kurt Warner did not enter the NFL until 28 (ancient for that sport). Henry Miller published his first novel Tropic of Cancer at 44. While a famous actor, to be sure, Clint Eastwood, however, did not direct his first film until he was 41. It goes on and on, so much so that it is difficult to defend the genius of youth syndrome unless you are young. And when youth is gone, Robert Duvall is good fodder for a blog post about the genius of older people.

Then you have Abraham and Sarah of Biblical fame. They were over 75 years old when God spoke to them about having a baby. Considering that Jesus did not really get started until he was over 30 puts things into further perspective as well.

It goes to show there are few rules in life except exceptions. We only notice the famous ones. But as you look around, you’ll see exceptions every day. And many of them are old enough to be your parents.

Wait, before I say more, check out why there is a word like Glamping to begin with:

http://www.themartynhouse.com

I won’t go into an explanation since one click past the Accommodations link will visually convey the luxury tent idea that looks a lot like the ones in the old movies about Arabian Nights, albeit with a Southern bent.

The Martyn House Glamping experience goes for around $180 a night. Breakfast and tea is included, so this probably isn’t the place to uncork your Coleman stove.

JoAnn Antonelli and Rick Lucas wanted to offer a 5-star luxury experience on their 16-acre property about an hour north of Atlanta. Looks like they found a unique solution. As I pause at a beautiful interior shot of one of the tents between the Symbicort ad and the article about Hermann, Missouri, the whole Glamping concept intrigued me as a seriously cool idea – until my Droid busted the red triangle on me, warning of a heat advisory of 105º.  On their website I read: “All tents are heated and will keep you toasty warm.”

Today, that goes without saying. In the fall, however, Glamping looks to beat the hell out of that me-too $180 room in the hotel off I-85.

Having grown up in the Deep South, I’d be willing to bet a few river water-soaked Andrew Jacksons that most of those injuries ended up in Southern emergency rooms. I am not biased or prejudiced. I just grew up in LA (Lower Alabama) and I know what Southerners do with fireworks, beer and a bulletproof mentality fostered by a lot of SEC football wins. We all start to think we’re George W. Bush on a WaveRunner or Lyndon B. Johnson squirting lighter fluid on a lit grill or Richard Petty driving a big Merc through chocolate water too close to the cypress roots. We get dangerous real quick down here.

“It ain’t funny ‘til somebody gets hurt,” says people who don’t mean it literally. “Maybe just a little hurt,” they add when pressed for clarification. “Not killed or nothing like that.”

10,00 people were not laughing on July 6th.

If the 4^th of July festivities involve a 911 call and an ambulance, somebody has turned dumb and gotten reckless and probably near a car sitting on blocks. Then comes bandages and maybe Vicodin for the pain later that night. Unfortunately, the Vicodin is often followed by more beer and fireworks – later that night. It is like an aerial bomb strapped to an F-150’s gas tank. Remember the old Southernism, “What are the last words a redneck will ever say? ‘Hey y’all, watch this!’ ” I have both watched it and said it, and that’s why I’m writing this.

I still have a few Black Cats and bottle rockets left. I can smell the gunpowder already. Now if you will excuse me, I have to go outside with a lighter and yell, “Hey y’all, watch this!”

The recipes in these books are less Emeril than Aunt Emma. From making your own preserves to butchering your own meat to homemade everything, just like great-grandma used to do, these books tell the how’s and why’s of the forgotten skills of cooking. By the way, that’s one of the new book titles out there, “The Forgotten Skills of Cooking. The Time-Honored Ways Are Best: Over 700 Recipes Show You Why.” That’s a mouthful on the cover alone. It was enough words to get a review in the New York Times.

This $40 how-to-and-why textbook from Darina Allen tells how to kill and dress a chicken or made sausage – both skills I skills I practiced during my youth in Alabama, but not from overt chef-ery; we just needed to eat.

In this month’s issue of Oxford American, John T. Edge wrote about Southern community cookbooks.  He focuses on a particular tome called “When People Were Nice and Things Were Pretty – A Culinary History of Merigold, A Mississippi Delta Town.” Damn, another title that would gorge a tribe of hungry librarians.

In the Merigold book, Paula Deen calls cooking a chicken impaled on a beer can: “Beer in the rear.” Edge says the book skews a little white and doesn’t really acknowledge the contribution of African Americans and Native Americans in Southern Cuisine. And in my opinion, there would be no Southern Cuisine without those two groups.

Mr. Edge goes on to say that Africans brought us deep frying, honed the art of sweet potatoes and I’m pretty sure that greens and everything else I like to eat was not concocted by white women slaving in their kitchens, but by black women literally slaving in white people’s kitchens.

After reading about antique cooking methods, eating in the South is pretty simple: take away Soul Food and all you have left is empty cast iron skillets.

Now comes Floyd Landis, a past teammate and friend who alleges all of the above and more – and admits to doing it all himself as well. The difference between those same old yearly allegations and the ones Landis is hurling now is the heat that accompanies legal attention by the FDA’s criminal division. Landis is cooperating with the Feds in an investigation headed by Jeff Novitzy who ran the BALCO case.

Novitzy has chased athletes like Marion Jones, Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens. Steroid allegations stuck to Bonds and Clemens. Jones went to jail for bank fraud. Novitzy, playing the role of a Elliot Ness, wants to know if controlled substances were paid for by the $10 million or so doled out to the United States Postal Service sponsorship of Armstrong’s cycling team (which was owned by Armstrong and Tailwind Sports).

In a text message to a friend, Landis said flat out: “Big Tex is going to jail.” I would think it is safe to say that Armstrong has un-friended Landis on Facebook.

Stories like this are why I love sports. It provides so much more than the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. Sports combines more back-stabbing high drama, comedy, thievery, cheating, sex scandals, drug dealing, injuries and murder than anything on prime time, or DVD or in movie theaters. It gives us heroes and villains, saints and assholes, all practicing good, evil and every smelly, sordid nasty bit in between. Sports shows us at our best as human beings and at our worst as scum of the earth, all at the same time and sometimes in the same game. And, there’s $10 hotdogs, $9 beer and big screens as big at my house.

When was the last time you saw someone shave a logo into their chest hair, paint themselves a team color and act like an escapee from a mental institution, and pay $375 for a plastic seat to do it on national TV? You can see it every damned night. Sports started a long time ago in Greece and never ends. It’s 24-7, 8 days a week, with skimpily-dressed girls, feeble, rich owners, thick-necked pontificators and has-been commentators. These announcers invent more words and butcher the English language worse than I do. And we love every minute of it.

After reading about Lance Armstrong and these recent allegations, all I could think of was how I loved to ride my bike as a kid. I rode that cheap chunk of Sears metal 9 hours a day in the summer, rain or shine and until I froze to the handlebars in winter. I could jump ramps and do tricks and pop wheelies and snap a 360º on the front tire with my ass in the wind like a sail. I loved riding that bike. And no one paid me one nickel to do it. I did it for free. That’s where I was stupid.

If I could have gotten some blood transfusions and drugs to help me ride harder, faster and longer, perhaps I could have had twice the fun and become a millionaire. But at the end of the day, we’re talking about guys who ride bicycles, for god’s sake. Bicycles!

I’m not saying Lance Armstrong took drugs or sucked his own blood. I have no idea. He has been Superman for years and I would hate to think that he is really more like Iron Man instead – flying with a little help from his friends. But if you have to cheat to win a damned bicycle race, you best be getting into NASCAR and at least have 800 horsepower under the pedal to jack up your competition.

You can refuse to let them check out your nasty parts, but that decision puts you into the fondling line where they frisk you.

From the images I’ve seen, it should be no problem to see a weapon strapped to somebody’s rump. You can see a lot more than their rump. In fact, you can tell what size bra the woman flying to Portland is wearing or if she has a nipple ring. Not sure a nipple ring is a security breech, but the guys ogling the machine can take home a wallet-sized print to study for later.

The story went own to reminisce about the fresh ingredients and chef-type bartenders and artesian concoctions made with care and from hard to master mixtures. But not everyone could afford $22 glasses filled with handmade alcoholic niceties in the downfall of the economy. Some had to muddle through with six packs of PBR bought on sale at Costco.

I’m not arguing with the evidence of a crummy 10-year meltdown, but how much could the decade suck if you had the dough to lubricate your conversation with a drink that cost two ten-spots? What did you chase it with, a $12 craft beer?

So what will the next decade bring?

I guess that’s up to you. Your tab is still open, by the way.

I usually wait until the end of the day to read it, just to see how incorrect it is. Often it is vague. It could anyone’s future, especially by the end of the day, when it is, essentially, the past. About three months ago, I started reading it in the morning. Different wad of lint altogether. I am no closer to believing in such things, but I have discovered something just as interesting: the horoscope writer hates Sags.

Day after day I have been reading:

“You will fail.”

“Not a good day to go anywhere.”

“You should find another occupation.

“Something bad is going to happen.”

“Someone is screwing with you.”

“Hey dude, can’t you take a hint? Your life sucks.”

Okay, the last one is just my interpretation of a continued string of gloom and damn. Ah, yeah, because the horoscope writer is screwing with me and every other Tradgittarian. It is like I am being stalked by a palm reader with an axe to grind – or a keyboard to plant in my back. Some Sag somewhere pissed off this horo-writer, guaranteed, and it is Zodiac payback every day.

Here is the strange thing: Sagittarian horoscopes are different in every daily source. One is cheerful, on is surly. How the hell can that be if it is supposed to be the fate of everyone under that sign for that day?

I have decided to start reading several horoscopes and just pick the one I like. If I have a choice between:

“You will experience great pain today.”

Or

“Your CPA made a mistake and you will get back all of the taxes you’ve ever paid. The check will be there Friday.”

Not too hard to figure out which Sag I want to be that day.