Am I Lucky or What?

One of my favorite shows growing up was Hee Haw. The chicken-fried variety show featured Buck Owens and Roy Clark (one of them was Pickin' and the other Grinnin' but I don't remember which one was which). They would play country music, have skits poking fun of all things country and backwoods, say "Yee-Haw" a lot and show country girls in pigtails and lots of skin-baring outfits, which, come to think of it, might have been the real reason why I watched Hee Haw.

Everybody probably remembers ol' Junior Samples and his telephone number: BR-549. Try to call it, he still answers.

Another memorable part of the show is the song "Gloom, Despair and Agony On Me." Each week, Roy Clark, Grandpa Jones, Archie Campbell and Duke the bloodhound would get together and sing that lovely, spirit-lifting ditty. The group would sing along, take a pull from a jug of moonshine and lament the sorrows of growing up in the land of Hee and Haw.

"Gloom, despair, and agony on me. Deep, dark depression, excessive misery. If it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all. Gloom, despair, and agony on me."

The song, written by Roy and Buck, was very catchy.

The song was written as a joke, but I'm afraid too many people took the words to that song a little too seriously. If I had a trillion dollars for each time I've heard somebody say, "If it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all," then I would probably have enough money to pay off the national debt and have a little left over to take my family out for a nice dinner at Pancho's Mexican Buffet — and I'm mean a REALLY nice dinner. A lot of people think that they are magnets for bad stuff. Woe is them.

I'm a magnet for good stuff. I'm one of the luckiest country boys this side of Dustin, Oklahoma.

Let me give you a recent example.

Good luck: Recently, my wife and I decided to take a little trip to East Texas. We haven't been out there in a while, so we gathered up a bottle of water, a couple of corn dogs and hit the back roads to nowhere in particular.

Bad luck: We were almost in Greenville, when a light flashed on the dash of my car indicating I had a low tire. The light is usually yellow but this one was definitely not yellow. It was as red as Satan's tiny tail. I knew I needed to pull over but I decided I could probably make it to Greenville.

In town I looked in vain for a place to put a little air in the tire. I left town and was on my way to the Interstate to find a little spot, when the tire went completely flat. Ugh.

Good luck: No problem, I thought, I'll just change it. In the trunk, I found the spare, the jack, and the little tire nut undoing thingy (Note from editor: It's called a lug wrench). After a little effort, I loosened the tire nuts (Note: lug nuts), put the jack under the car and started lifting it up.

More good luck: As I worked, two different people stopped and offered to help. How lucky of me. Of course, I was in complete control of the tire nut undoing thingy, so I thanked them and sent them on their way.

Bad luck: When I put the spare tire on I realized I had a real problem on my hands: it too was completely flat.

Good luck: Thankfully a nearby tire shop was kind enough to send a truck a mile or so out of town to pick me up and take me back to the shop to fix my tire.

Bad luck: My tire was beyond repair. Plus, my tires are not a really popular size.

Good luck: They had one used tire to replace my tire.

Bad luck: As I replaced the tire, I stripped one of the tire nuts and couldn’t use it.

Good luck: I got four of the five and enough to get me back into town.

Bad luck: The tire shop didn't have a tire nut thingy.

Good luck: They knew of another store that might carry the tire nut thingys.

Bad luck: It was several blocks away and what were the chances really.

Good luck: They did have it in stock. I put the tire nut thingy on my car, tightened it down and was back in business.

Bad luck: I couldn't find a decent barbecue place in Greenville.

Good luck: There was a great restaurant just ten miles down the road in Farmersville.

Things just seem to work out for me and I’m not complaining at all. It’s probably my outlook on life. I don’t look at the gloom, despair and agony on me. I remind myself I’m a magnet for the good stuff. And that’s the way I prefer it.

Does anybody know of a good place to get barbecue within walking distance of my house?