Some well-deserved Redneck bragging (Way to go, Gus!)

2011 was a year of real accomplishment for me. Like many other people, whenever I do some things worthy of note and acclamation, I like to point them out to my friends; that is, I enjoy bragging whenever the opportunity comes along.

Unlike our current U.S. president, I was unable to cause the oceans to lower, the sun's fierce heat to relent, or the value of the dollar to double or triple. All the same, I pulled off some good ones during the preceding 12 months - and mostly on my own, too. (No need to share any of the well-earned glory, right?)

Well, that may not be the 100% honest-to-goodness truth, for two of the wonderful awards I received are the ones signified by two nifty badges I found today in a jumbled box in the top drawer of my dresser. There they were, all mixed in with some old shirt buttons that had popped off earlier, several tarnished paper clips, and several dried-ink ball point pens that had seen better days. Those will be the first awards to be shown to you here, for they speak to the many years I had to work on things before they were passed along to me. Showing these to you right now should assure you that I am not so selfish as to hog all the bestowed high honors. These two I share with you and thousands of others - you, meaning the folks who paid for them, and the thousands of others being "grunts" like me who sweat for them.

Everyone likes it when the boss hands out those "Employee of the Month" awards. It is a great honor to be able to parade around the place showing off the fact that your big leader thinks that well of you - like "That Gus guy is really my main man this time around..." or something on that order. There can be a small problem with that sort of thing when the employee of the month is also the employer as well. Then there seems to be no way for the person to get one of those "Employee of the Month" deals. That was a problem until I happened to come upon a "badge maker" machine over in the Salvation Army Thrift Store. It was not much of a machine, but it came with some supplies and a little booklet that told how it was to be used. I used it.

Between my bride and me, we spend a ton of money with our pet hound's veterinarian folks. If it is not spent for flea and heartworm preventive meds, it is to work on the dog's ears. He seems to not hear well at all. I'm not a veterinarian, but I can tell that his lack of hearing must be pathological. The more I holler at him for his constant misdeeds, the less he seems to hear. When I bought some ear cleaner stuff, believing that his hearing problem might be due to accumulation of wax and dog food lodged in his ear canals, I tried cleaning his ears. He bit me for my trouble.

Now then, dog bites are serious affairs, particularly here in South Texas wherein rabies is endemic. Coyotes (relatives of our dog), bats, and, of course, hound dogs carry the rabies bug. When they bite into you, those bugs can give you rabies. When that happens, you tend to stiffen up, foam at the mouth a lot, and then up and die. So, this time I went to the animal hospital and partook of a rabies shot. I did not want to stiffen up any more than I already am, foam at the mouth any more than I already do, and die any quicker than I have to. I got the rabies shot and a little badge to wear showing that I am not a danger to anyone or any critter in my surroundings.

Being a real Redneck, I am relatively clumsy of limb - meaning that when I walk around the place, my feet tend to make overly loud contact with floors unless they are well covered with thick, sound-absorbing rugs. This obtains whether or not I am wearing shoes. Even before I grew heavier as I progressed into physical adulthood, those who lived with me, for example my college roommates, my kids while they still lived at home, and presently, my sharp-eared bride, all call me "big foot." I guess it is unpleasant to be awakened out of a restful sleep by some "big foot" stomping around in the middle of the night as he heads for the refrigerator and that one final snack before hitting the hay himself. The bunch of them gave me a "Big Foot" award in the form of a small penknife, the knife thing probably being to help me remember to "cut it out" with all of the stomping around and waking everyone up the way I was doing.

There came a small plaque. It came in the mail. What it was for I do not know. There are some nicely inscribed words on the back of the thing. The problem is that I cannot read those words. They are written in Japanese characters. Despite the look of the front of the plaque, however, the back panel's inscription may well be laudatory, as it well should be. The spelling of my name was done properly on the envelope in which it had been packed, so I am relatively certain that the plaque's inscription would be equally proper - even some sort of oriental compliment. This is despite the fact that the face on the front of the thing is downright ornery. You can judge for yourself.

Closing out the many awards I received for my 2011 accomplishments is the one I cherish perhaps most of all. I tells the world that my advanced age is of no great moment - that I am still a great physical specimen (going along with my mental prowess, of course), and that I heed the wisdom spewed upon all of us by the many overpaid medics as to staying active physically so as to keep muscles and minds limber. Its image has been saved for last. Smile as you gaze at it. When you get to my age, you'll get one just as good, but only if you keep after things and never let up.