On my honor I will do my best
To do my duty to God and my country
and to obey the Scout Law;
To help other people at all times; 
To keep myself physically strong,
mentally awake, and morally straight.

All Boy Scouts are required to memorize and recite the above oath.  Some of the members of Troop 25 were able to memorize it…but none of us took it to heart.  In fact, we violated every single tenet of the oath in morally reprehensible (and often criminal) ways.  Let me give you an intro to the sordid history of Troop 25 from 1981-1984 by breaking down each line of the Boy Scout Oath…

On my honor I will do my best
When you think of the Boy Scouts, you probably visualize upstanding young citizens, who are eager to learn about camping and nature.  Our troop was comprised of under-achieving miscreants…many of whom did not make it past the 9^th grade.  I can’t recall a single occasion when any member of our troop showed any excitement for anything scout-related.  When we were forced to participate in activities, there was always some sort of uprising that led to one or more “scouts” being paddled and/or banished from the troop.

To do my duty to God and my country
I had never said “Goddammit” before joining the scouts.  Our scoutmaster didn’t mind us chewing tobacco or trading Hustler magazines, but he would get pretty upset when we took the Lord’s name in vain.  So naturally all you heard at our meetings was a bunch of delinquent teenagers running around saying “Goddammit” every other word.    

and to obey the Scout Law;
We didn’t even obey the real law.  For example, the whole troop was thrown in jail overnight on a beach camping trip for drinking beer in the parking lot of a grocery store.  Most of my stories about Troop 25 fall into this category.  Also, we lied and cheated to get just about every rank and merit badge that was “awarded” to us.

To help other people at all times;
If by helping people, you mean “keying” their cars and pissing on their tires…then yes, we helped people.

To keep myself physically strong,;
You had to try to be reasonably fit to protect yourself from the violent man-child rednecks that comprised our troop.  But in reality, I survived mainly due to my sense of humor, and by befriending the black guys.

mentally awake, and morally straight.
I had to be “mentally awake” to avoid having the criminal record that many of my fellow scouts carry with them to this very day.  I don’t think anyone who stayed with the troop more than 2 weeks was “morally straight”…but I never ratted anyone out, so that has to count for something.  Even in this forthcoming series of articles, I shall endeavor to protect the guilty.

The Old Rebel and crew during the 60's

Most kids of my generation remember growing up with Captain Kangaroo or Mister Rogers but if you happened to be a child in the Piedmont region of North Carolina during the 50’s, 60’s or 70’s then you had access to a very special bit of children’s programming known as The Old Rebel Show.

Aside from the fact that the host assumed the persona of a retired Confederate soldier and probable slave owner, something that surely wouldn’t fly in these more politically correct times, The Old Rebel Show was a treat for children for all races (NOTE: much like the television show in NC ethnicities only came in black and white at the time) as long as they lived within the limited range of the WFMY broadcast tower. That is to say you were pushing it if your house was further than a 20 mile radius from Greensboro.

Lucky for me, my father had a hobby of repairing television equipment. Not only did we have a TV in nearly every room but we also had a monster of a directional antennae jutting about 40 feet above our house. While my friends had to watch the Old Rebel through a snowstorm of interference, I enjoyed my kids programming with crystal clarity. Hell, the image on my 17-inch black-n-white was almost HD-like.

For nearly 30 years, the Rebel entertained audiences with a mixture of songs, skits, clowns, and cartoons.  The humor was kinda slapstick and certainly not pandering like the Barney Dinosaur dribble today’s kids are subjected to. And much like the show’s title the southern seditionist spirit carried over to the fan club theme song:

The massive antennae still towers over my childhood home.

“Some of us are rebels

And some are buckaroos

And we are very helpful

From our helmets to our shoes

And when we’re asked to lend a hand

We never do refuse.

‘Cause some of us are rebels 
and some are buckaroos.”

The Old Rebel also had a steady stream of guest appearances from just about every child in the Triad. In fact, I had my television debut on the show and got to play the “name game” with the Rebel. Though my only real memory of the filming was being annoyed at the studio crew blocking my view of the monitors showing the cartoons while we were taping. I clearly had my priorities straight.

Perhaps succumbing to the pressures of the civil rights movement in the 70’s, the show made an attempt to shed the Civil War connotation that it’s name suggests. Below is a rare video of the opening credits during the last few years the show was on the air. Notice the stock footage of African American children playing with fire hydrants in the urban streets (not within 300 miles of the broadcast area) interspersed with affluent white children raking leaves in front of their plantation-like suburban homes.

The Old Rebel Show went off the air in 1978 leaving a vacuum in local children’s programming that was quickly filled by the bizarre afternoon show Barney’s Army and it’s semi-interactive phone/video game hybrid known as TV Pow.

George Perry, who lived the role of Old Rebel for 3 decades passed away in 1980 and a large chunk of television history went with him. You can send those cardigan sweaters back to the land of make believe and put those marsupial-monikered naval officers out of service. For my money, there was nothing better than growing up watching the antics of The Old Rebel. George you are missed.

Links:

TV Party Site dedicated to The Old Rebel Show

Video interview with the Old Rebel’s Son and Co-host

Barney’s Army Site

It's all fun and games until someone loses a leg

I don’t condone violence of any sort. I’ve never been in a fight in my life and even boxing makes me a little uncomfortable, but being a high school teacher, I’ve seen my share of fights. Most of them are yelling or shoving matches that are broken up fairly quickly, but others are bloody and seem to last forever. In fifteen years I’ve had two fights in my classroom. Both happened on days when I was giving a test (perhaps they were planned).

In one of these fights, a young man got up in the middle of the test, put his pencil on his desk, calmly walked across the room and cold-cocked this other kid right in the face. He then grabbed the kid by the neck and maneuvered him into a headlock. That one was over fairly quickly. The second fight I should’ve known was going to happen. In the middle of the test, a young man took off the shirt he was wearing and put on a wife beater before he slugged the other kid. That fight got so out of hand that I had to have other teachers come in to help me.  They knocked over desks, made highlighters explode, tore pages out of dictionaries…they were going at it. I just remember trying to get all of the others students out safely (the one on crutches was the most difficult).

The best fight that I have ever witnessed was in Weldon, NC. I was sitting in the teachers’ lounge one morning, grading papers when I heard this awful screaming. When I walked out the door, I saw (and heard) the secretary screaming, “OPEN THIS DOOR RIGHT NOW! I SAID OPEN THIS DOOR!” while she was banging on it with both fists. When the door opened, I could not believe what I saw. Two girls were rolling around on the floor and the principal was crawling towards the door. I couldn’t figure out why he was on the ground until he was fully out of the way. Apparently he tried to get in-between the fighters and was knocked to the ground, but not before one of the girls yanked his prosthetic leg off of him and was using it to beat the other girl. I can still see the shoe and sock that were attached to it.

I know I should’ve helped the others who were trying to break up the girls, but I was paralyzed. I had never seen anything like that before in my life (and haven’t since then). All I could do is stand there with another teacher and laugh in disbelief. I felt horrible for laughing, but that was the last thing that I expected to see happen in a fight. The fight was stopped, the principal re-attached his leg and the day continued as normal, but that was the day that fights in school were redefined for me.

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

Rednecks know how to make their mark

I’m a nice person. Honest, I am. Ask anyone to describe me and that’s usually the first thing that comes out of his/her mouth. I never want to hurt anyone’s feelings at all, so I tend to avoid any situation that could cause me to do just that. When I lived in Roanoke Rapids, NC I met Adam at a club in Rocky Mount one night while I was out with some friends. We seemed to hit it off immediately and I was certainly looking for more friends in the area because I had just moved from Virginia and knew only a couple of people. He called me the next day and we ended up hanging out a few more times with friends, but nothing romantic was on the horizon.

One evening Adam called and wanted to know if I’d go on a “date” date with him. Just the two of us. I wasn’t interested in dating anyone at all, but decided that he was nice enough to give it a shot. If nothing else it would get me out of the house on a Friday night. He worked as a beer distributor and talked me into going to a club in Weldon (which is a stone’s throw away from Roanoke Rapids). He picked me up and we spent the evening drinking and dancing. Unfortunately, this is where it gets a little hazy for me.

I remember him being too drunk to drive me home, but the club had a van that would take people home who had overindulged. The van was called “The Watermelon Crawl” and it was full of, well, drunk people. We finally made it to my apartment and I realized that Adam couldn’t drive home because he was too drunk to drive and he had left his truck at the club anyway. So I let him spend the night. I was only being polite when I offered him my bed (thinking that no gentleman would allow a female to sleep on the floor in her own place…wrong!) and I ended up sleeping on the floor.

We woke up the next morning and I drove him back to the club to get his truck. He went back to Rocky Mount and I headed back home to nurse my aching head. The thought of him being in my bed drunk and drooling grossed me out a little, so I decided that I needed to change the sheets on the bed. When I pulled back the blanket to start stripping the bed I couldn’t believe what greeted me! Adam had left the souvenir to top all souvenirs: a skid mark was on my sheet that was at least 18 inches long. Granted, I didn’t measure it, but it was the biggest racing stripe that I’d ever seen! Not that I have seen anything like that before, but you get the idea. I didn’t even bother trying to wash that shit out, I tossed the sheets immediately.

If only he had worn a diaper

Later that day, Adam called me and left a message. I didn’t know what to say to him. Obviously I couldn’t ever see him again. At least not with a straight face. He called again the next day. And the day after that as well. The last time he left a message, he asked why I wasn’t returning his calls. I knew why, but I couldn’t find it within myself to call him back and let him know the real reason we couldn’t hang out anymore.

So Adam, if you’re out there reading this, please understand. You’re a great guy and I enjoyed the time that we spent together; however, I really prefer guys who use toilet paper.

No hitchhiking allowed

Though the construction company was actually quite pleased with the roadside art, even requesting that Carnevale build them another one, the local police were not as amused. Not only did they dismantle the creation and arrest the boy but they are also investigating other instances of street art displayed on Carnevale’s website.

So far hundreds of people have spoken out on Joseph’s behalf. All of them asking that the charges be dropped.

We at WTT are strong advocates of The Arts particularly when they are portrayed in such a menacing fashion as to frighten motorists. We wish you luck with your legal troubles Joseph and look forward to your next project involving police barricades and donut boxes.

Links:

MSNBC article about the barrel monster

A nice place to visit but you wouldn't want to go there.

Looks like Tonia “Babydoll” Pennington has as much trouble keeping her mouth closed as she does her legs. After being arrested at her place of work, the Paradise Strip Club, my friend’s ex-wife was charged with 14 counts of violating a local ordinance/adult entertainers; eight counts of a clothing violation; seven counts of sexually explicit behavior; five counts of violating a local ordinance by an owner/operator; two counts of conspiracy to sell and deliver cocaine; two counts of selling and delivering cocaine; possession with the intent to sell and deliver cocaine; and two counts of possession of drug paraphernalia (whew that was a mouthful).

She has now gone on record about her exploits with an official publicly posted affidavit that can be read in its entirety here: Download PDF Baby Doll’s Affidavit

It reads like a slutty syllogism so I will sum up the highlights for those of you with short attention spans and a lack of Adobe Acrobat.

Ms. Tonia Pennington

1. I am a resident of Alamance County, NC.
2. For the last eleven years, I have worked periodically as a bartender at the Paradise Club.
3. Ronald Lee Davis is the owner of the Paradise Club.
4. Ronald has a reputation for engaging in sexual activities with the dancers in exchange for money at the property.
5. On several occasions, I have engaged in sexual intercourse with Ronald Davis that the property in exchange for money.
6. On several occasions, I have danced nude in front of Ronald Davis while he masturbated at the property in exchange for money.
7. Each time I engaged in a sexual act with Ronald Davis at the property, he ejaculated (editor’s note: a 100% completion rate is something to brag about.)
8. On one occasion, Ronald Davis paid me $100.00 to engage in a sexual act with him at the property.
9. I have seen cocaine sold on the property.
10. I have seen dancers fighting inside the Paradise Club (editor’s note: that must have been awesome to watch.)
11. Further your affiant saith not (editor’s note: that is fancy talk for she finally shut up.)

It should be noted that the other two affidavits accompanying hers were much less forthcoming. You have to hand it to the girl, she tells it like it is. We will keep you posted as the story develops.

Links:

Our previous story on Baby Doll featuring video of her spectacular arrest

DigTriad news article about the Paradise Club closure

Paradise Lost

Long has this cinder block shack been the bane of Alamance County. My father even admitted to being in attendance at least once back in the 70’s when it went by the more artistic title “The Green Door”.  The Paradise Club was now a member’s only den of inequity for gentlemen that enjoy thrusting dollars at the bottomless skanks too wretched to make it in the comparatively higher-class strip joints of the greater Greensboro area.

Catching wind of the bust, my mother pulled up the article on the Daily Times News website and asked me to read it aloud to the family. I was more than happy to engage in this perverse version of children’s story time even though I was disappointed by the paucity of appropriate pictures to accompany with the words.

Baby Doll and her cohorts offer their services to a deputy before being hauled to jail

What started out as a fairly straight piece of factual reporting: 703 charges levied against 12 people, 50 sheriff’s deputies with 3 search warrants, $40 for a blow job $100 for around the world; quickly turned into the gossipy type of journalism that one can only find in the small town press. The reporter saw fit to include every aspect of the day’s events. Including remarks about how the deputies had banned him from using his cell phone and pager (just in case the raid bent the space/time continuum backwards to the 80’s) as well as seemingly irrelevant observations such as the following:

“Shortly after the sheriff’s department arrived on scene, several dancers were taken into custody. One, known as “Baby Doll” was pulled out of a trailer by Maj. Tim Britt, placed on the ground on her belly and handcuffed. While on the ground crying, a dog on the property riled up by the activity defecated beside her.”

Pulitzer worthy reporting to be sure. It was at this point I remembered that my friend Gary’s ex-wife  Tonia had at one time worked as a stripper in that part of the county and I thought that there was a high possibility that she might have indeed been an employee of the illustrious Paradise Club.  It wasn’t, however, until later that night did I find out that Tonia Marie Pennington not only worked at the Paradise but she also went by the name Baby Doll!

Yes, Gary’s long time lover and mother of his 3 children was THE Baby Doll that had the misfortune of being dragged from her brothel/trailer, hand-cuffed, placed face down in the dirt of the Paradise Club parking lot, and shat upon by an incontinent pooch that was overly excited at the prospect of perhaps playing fetch with a bevy of police deputies.

To add entertainment to injury, the Daily Times News posted video of the entire proceedings placing particular emphasis upon Baby Doll’s malodorous adventures.

Original Video: Baby Doll Busted

I would like to say that the news saddened me is some way but I really can’t. Long  have I told friends tales of my time spent growing up in rural North Carolina. Often they were so outlandish that I was dismissed for exaggerating. It was a great relief to have been vindicated by the above video. It was all true fellas. Every word of it.

We at WTT have so many stories of Gary and his poorly chosen partner that it will literally take years to recount them all. But it seems fitting to inaugurate this site with the latest tale of Tonia’s woe.  We promise to keep you all up to date as the news of her arrest/trial/and possible imprisonment unfold.

Links:

Burlington Daily Times News Article on “Trouble in Paradise”

Video of Baby Doll’s Bust

Over the past few years the western region of North Carolina has been working hard to become known as the Sonoma of the South.  Wineries have been springing up all over the Blue Ridge foothills and, for the most part, they actually produce some very good wines.  So I wasn’t as concerned about the “d’Vine” portion of the evening as I was the “Arts”.

You see the Piedmont has never been known as a hotbed of artistic talent. For years Jessie Helms did his best to suppress our creative urges replacing them instead with steady nicotine infusion to satisfy our souls. But I must say that in this post-Helms era the arts are flourishing and I think it is safe to say that the people of Kernersville are leading the charge. Gone are the coon jiggers of the past. No longer are lawn jockeys considered appropriate. Why you can even engage in lofty conversation while sipping tea and eating finger sandwiches at the local Pegg House Tea Room.

Yes art has come a long way in North Carolina and there is no better evidence of this than the image below.

The high water mark for southern art

I found this while walking down Main Street in Kernersville. It called to me begging for purchase. Had I not been unemployed and 3000 miles from my home I might have answered the call.  Alas this solemn midget straddling a magnificent yet miniscule equine remains on the market.  I can only hope that we will find each other again one day as there could be no more perfect pairing of art and owner.

Thank you Kernersville for awakening my love for art and fortifying it with enough free booze to almost make me part with my mortgage money.  I will most certainly visit you again.