Dew has a lot of creative juices running through his grey matter - not just wall art or abstract wooden things. He's often composing music (although the only chord he knows on the guitar is E minor) and writing short stories.
Lately, he's been itching to create a cartoon series. I vetoed the first idea that sprang forth - it was entitled "Dumpster Babies". He's probably still drawing it out, but as long as I refuse to publish anything about it I can effectively put the ki-bash on that horrific idea.
Last night he began working on the outline and characters for his new idea - a Super-Hero who defeats criminals and bad-guys with a fishing pole and a ninja star. He was belly laughing as he drew out the first panels. Since this new idea has nothing to do with cartoon babies living in dumpsters, I think we can have some fun with it.
So, allow me to introduce Bud Parker. Bud hails from Dalton, GA. His parents are Josephine Parker (Ihop Waffle Chef and Beauty Consultant) and Reuben Parker (an inmate at a minimum security prison just outside of Gainesville, GA).
We'll start out with the back-story. And no, we were not drinking heavily when these characters came to life.
By day, Bud Parker is employed as a rest stop urinal cake and coffee machine inspector. His territory is the I-85 corridor from Atlanta, GA to Charlotte, NC. Bud loves his job, and the people he meets in his travels and knows all the best fishing holes in 3 southern states. When he retires, he plans to publish a photo book of the most unique people he has met at his rest stops, and all those fishing holes.
At 50, he is a single man, never married - no children. He lives in a pull-behind that he takes to work with him, and frequents KOA's and Denny's parking lots. As a boy growing up in Dalton, GA he cultivated his two passions - fishing and the marital arts. If he wasn't sparring at the gym, he was fishing in one of his many favorite honey-spots in North Georgia.
Bud once loved a girl. Her name was Darla, and she was a different kind of honey-spot for Bud. He loved that girl like there was no tomorrow and intended on marrying her right after graduation.
Alas, the love of his life left Dalton, GA right after high school graduation and became a swimsuit model. She told Bud that she just didn't see her self married to someone with no ambitions past winning the state Jujitsu championship and chasing down speckled trout.
Shew ound up in New York City, and married a real-estate mogul (after a scandalous and well televised affair resulting in the end of said real-estate mogul's long-term marriage). Fidelity apparently not being her thing, she found herself divorced and penniless a few years later after being caught rolling around in the sand with a life-guard a few years later. (But that's another story, for another day)
Bud's mother, Josephine Parker, never did forgive that girl for breaking her only son's heart and blames her for the solitary life on the road he chose. She wanted him to stay in Dalton and be the first Mother-Son beauty consulting team in the county. Nor did she forgive that girl for dishing on the telly that the best thing she ever did was hire a beauty consultant from Alpharetta (Joesphine's pill-head cousin) to kick-start her modeling career an allowing her to gain access to the circles that landed her a Go-Zillionaire for a husband.
Josephine (called Jose by her friends) has led a tragically complicated life. She is currently an IHop waffle chef, and on the side she makes claims (via a sign on her truck) that she is a hair-do designer and beauty consultant. No one has ever actually seen her consult on beauty, and no one in the county has ever had their hair did by Jose. Just goes to show, if you've got a shingle and a sign you can be anything or anyone you imagine.
Her 52 year marriage to Reuben Parker is marked with troubles - money troubles, weight troubles, conception troubles, troubles with with neighbors, troubles with dogs and, of course, trouble with the drink.
Most recently legal troubles have strained the seams of their marriage, what with Rebuen having been sentenced last month to 45 years for the theft of a music groups tour bus, kidnapping and drug trafficking. But never did Jose have any troubles from her only child, Bud. He was, and is, the brightest star in her life and her greatest accomplishment.
Reuben Parker, Bud's daddy, led a more tragically complicated life than his wife. His own Daddy, Bud's grand-daddy (God Rest His Soul) always said Reuben never did have a lick of sense. Said things just started going down-hill after poor Reuby was kicked in the head by a Guernsey cow when he was just 3 years old.
Reuben (called Reuby by his friends), as it turns out, never did get a lick of sense and never did amount to much. He had Jose, and knew that was the best he could do. After years and years of trying, he was blessed with a son. They named him Bud, after their favorite drink.
He held a job at Dalton's premier (and only) auto repair shop rotating, mounting, and balancing tires for more than 50 years. He didn't have many skills, but when he was sober there was not a better tire installer in town. When he'd been hitting the drink, though, your tires were like as not to fall off before you got home. This got him into more than a few pickles (being pickled, that is).
But Reuby's biggest trouble came one morning, when he woke up just outside of Charlotte in the driver's seat of a bus. He didn't remember how he got into the bus, or why he was in the drivers seat. He woke up because of all the screaming.
Someone was screaming that he was surrounded, and that he should free the hostages and come out of the bus with his hands up. He didn't know anything about any hostages - he barely knew he was in a bus. But he did have enough sense to go ahead and get out of it with his hands up.
Turns out it was the cops (about 30 of them) screaming at him, with about 50 weapons trained right on him. He later learned that he would be charged with stealing the bus of a popular alternative rock band, kidnapping 3 teen-agers and taking them across state lines and possession with the intent to sell just over a kilo of cocaine. He was tried and convicted and sentenced to 45 years in the state prison.
Now that was a pickle. Everybody knew that Reuby was a dolt head, but no one could believe that he could put on a big enough drunk to turn that criminal and do such dastardly things in just one night.
Especially Bud, and he vowed to his father that he would get to the bottom of things and bring home the proof that was needed to exonerate Reuben once and for all. Bud vowed to himself and his mother that he would not die in prison.
And it's about at this point in the story that Jose was about to learn alot about her darling Bud that she didn't know before.
Tune in next time to see what surprises are in store in the sleepy little town of Dalton, GA
PL&BB -
Penni
