You have to start somewhere

The inaugural White Trash Tale, as with many of the other stories you will read here revolves around our lost friend Gary. You see, after he met Tonia he dropped out of sight. As is often the case with a new relationship, he didn’t have time to hang with the boys. We were amazed, however, with the speed and precision that Tonia employed in extricating Gary from our group. After only one blow-j behind the air conditioning unit at her mother’s house Gary was lost to us forever. It should be noted that, up until a few weeks ago, any Alamance County resident could receive similar treatment from Tonia for a mere $40.

Because Gary was totally off the radar we had to rely on 3^rd parties to feed us knowledge of his whereabouts. One day Bobby received a call from one of Gary’s ex-girlfriends. She had stayed close with Gary’s family long after the break-up and they had been telling her things about Tonia’s actions that she found disturbing. So she called Bobby to try and prompt an intervention.

The story she told was this: Tonia had been inviting men over to their trailer while Gary was at work. Seeing as how the trailer occupied the same land as Gary’s parent’s house and as such was in full view of said house, it probably wasn’t the most discreet thing she could be doing.

Rather than tell Gary what the love of his life was up to, his mother decided to confront Tonia directly. This altercation ended with Tonia smacking her future mother in law across the face and advising her to mind her own damn business. When Bud (of Jar Tree fame) caught wind of Tonia slapping his wife, he marched down to the trailer, kicked the door off it’s hinges, grabbed Tonia by the throat, and told her that if she ever lay hands on his wife again he would hit her so hard that it would forever ruin her only means of income (I am paraphrasing here).

Gary, upon learning of Tonia’s infidelity and mother abuse took the same stance that he would use for the great many other horrifying incidents he would endure with Tonia. That is to say that he did absolutely nothing.

After hearing this story, Bobby called me immediately to fill me in on the news. He then made me promise not to tell the rest of our group because he wanted to tell the story himself. He knew that we were all getting together for dinner later that night and it would be the perfect venue for story telling.

We all gathered at the Lone Star steak house in Burlington. It was a charming establishment where they serve roasted peanuts as an appetizer and the customers are encouraged to cast the shells onto the floor.  High class indeed for Burlington.

I was dying to tell the story after having sat on it all day but I knew I had to respect Bob’s wish to tell it himself. But Bobby, per usual, was late. And after sitting through the entire meal about ready to burst, I decided that rather than impart the story through oration I would use a story board instead. This would not be a violation of my promise to not “tell” the story.  Hey showing isn’t telling right?

Turning over my steak-stained placemat, I had the waitress supply me with a packet of crayons and I went about the task of drawing the following comic strip. (Click on the image to enlarge)

Click to enlarge

And so WTT was born. This placemat has adorned the side of Trey’s refrigerator for the past 11 years. It serves as a constant reminder that we have an obligation to you dear readers. This might have been the first White Trash Tale but there are still many more to be told.

Links:

Other stories of Gary and Tonia

I vividly recall once ordering a gyro at a local restaurant, pronouncing the food correctly as “yee-ro”. The too-smart-for-his-own-good Elon kid taking my order felt the need to correct me before smugly walking away.  “Sir, it is pronounced jire row”, he said with the utter confidence of an imbecile.  Well deserved was the beating that I promptly administered to him in my mind.

Over the years the school has grown. The alumni must be doing well indeed because they kicked in the funds to pay for a slew of new buildings and maintenance for well-manicured lawns. Somewhere along the line they even managed to up their quota enough to change the name to Elon University. Fancy indeed.

As time heals all wounds and distance makes the heart grow fonder, I thought perhaps my disdain for the institution was no longer founded. And upon seeing a sign on Interstate 40 proclaiming that Elon has one of the top 10 MBA programs in the state/top 20 in the nation, I brushed aside the desire to make fun of any school that spends money on roadside advertising and decided that it was time to give credit where credit is due. Elon was all growns up and it deserved my respect.

That is until I saw video of the 2009 commencement ceremony.

Rather than provide an uplifting message about social responsibility or how to put their education to best use in these trying economic times, the guest speaker instead decided to take it easy on the outgoing students. He took it back to basics and made sure that each and every kid, before receiving their degree, knew the fundamental elements of the English language. Yes, he asked them to recite their ABC’s. And just to make it more fun (or to increase accuracy in their recall) he had them sing the alphabet song.

Let me just say that when the sum total of your 4 years at a privately funded ivy-league-wannabe school hinges on remembering 26 individual letters you can bet that mommy and daddy spent their money well.  Thank goodness that they all got it right. Though I am pretty sure that kid on the forth row wasn’t singing along.  Probably was an Economics major.