Greg Says He’s Still Alive

I called my buddy Greg White last night, and assuming you can believe him, he is still alive. I think it’s probably true, I can’t think of any reason why Greg would lie to me about that. Now, that thing about him and Annette Funicello making out in the backseat of his dad’s Rambler station wagon at the Starlite Drive-in is a bit far-fetched, and no way am I believing his claim that Chumlee from the TV show Pawn Stars is the love child that resulted from a drunken weekend he spent with Phyllis Diller in Paducah, but I think he’s probably telling the truth about being alive.

I have been getting a lot of emails from fans of Greg’s daily Our RV Adventures blog asking if he and his wife Jan are okay, since his blog’s been missing in action for over two weeks now. Yes, they are fine, just very frustrated that the dweebs at Go Daddy keep messing up his blog. Sometimes it will go live for a few minutes, maybe as much as half an hour or so, then it disappears again for who knows how long. And yesterday someone contacted me to say that he had heard that Greg had passed away, which was why the blog stopped. Nope, not according to Greg. He said he doesn’t remember dying, and he’s got a pretty good memory, so I think he would know if it were true or not.

Sometimes I wonder where people come up with this weird stuff, but then I remember that not once, but three times in my life the same thing has happened with me. The first was when I was in the newspaper business back in Arizona’s White Mountains. There was a cinder pit where everybody used to go to do some informal target shooting, and one terrible Sunday afternoon a man accidentally shot and killed his best friend while they were out plinking. The next day I went into our bank to make a deposit, and when the teller, who I knew well, looked up from her window to see me standing there, she turned pale and started shaking. I asked her what was wrong and she said, “You’re alive!” Just to be sure, I checked my pulse before agreeing with her that yes, I was alive. As it turned out, I had been at that same cinder pit target shooting earlier in the day, before the tragedy happened, and some fool who heard about the shooting decided it was me and started telling people I was dead.

The second time it happened was shortly after Miss Terry and I were married. I was driving a step van loaded with newsprint, which comes in huge rolls that weigh about 1800 pounds, back to my newspaper office from the paper mill. Somebody ran a red light and I had to slam on the brakes to avoid a collision. The people at the mill had not chocked the load down properly and it came loose, crushing me between the metal seat of the van and the steering wheel. I somehow managed to turn the key off, then extricated myself and fell out into the street. I guess I passed out, because the next thing I knew, paramedics were working on me. One of them was holding a blanket over me while they cut my clothes off to see what injuries I might have. Apparently a passerby decided I was dead because he called Terry at her business and told her I had been killed and that he had seen them covering up my body. He told her she needed to come to the hospital to identify my remains.

It was a small town where everybody knew everybody, and when Terry frantically called my office to see what was going on, my secretary could only tell her that the police scanner said there had been an accident and my name was mentioned. The poor woman rushed to hospital, thinking she was going to identify my body, only to find me bruised and battered, but very much alive. Somebody, we assume the same person, called the postmaster, who was a very good friend of mine, and told him the same story. We never did find out who that was, but that near brush with death was the reason we decided to chuck it all and follow our dream to become fulltime RVers.

The third time I “died” Terry was a victim with me. Back in the days before everybody had cell phones and Wi-Fi hotspots, we were on the road in our old MCI bus conversion and stopped for a few days at a Corps of Engineers campground in Fort Smith, Arkansas. At that time we had one of the huge old Hughes rooftop satellite dishes to get online, but our campsite was under a lot of trees and we could not get a signal. Which meant I did not post the blog for the time we were there. We left and arrived at our new location, where we were able to get online and were shocked to find out that we were dead. Apparently somebody had seen or heard of a bus accident somewhere in Oklahoma with two fatalities, and since there was no blog they decided we were those unfortunate souls.

Why do people do things like this? I have no idea. I guess when someone asks you, “Hey what happened to so-and-so?” and you don’t know the answer, the best thing to do is declare them dead. I mean, think about it, if you live long enough and say the same person is dead often enough, someday they might have the courtesy to die and make you right. But I’m just not that accommodating, and apparently neither is Greg. At least that’s what he told me. Until I get notice of his funeral service, I’m going to believe he is being truthful.

It’s Thursday, so it’s time for a new Free Drawing. This week’s prize is an audiobook of Big Lake Honeymoon, the seventh book in my Big Lake mystery series. To enter, click on this Free Drawing link or the tab at the top of this page and enter your name (first and last) in the comments section at the bottom of that page (not this one). Only one entry per person per drawing please, and you must enter with your real name. To prevent spam or multiple entries, the names of cartoon or movie characters are not allowed. The winner will be drawn Sunday evening.

Thought For The Day – Never let a fool kiss you, or a kiss fool you.