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A Cold Can
Thanks to Jack Neely for his scholarly analysis [Nov. 11] of Knoxville lingua-idiomisms. Maybe he could assist in breaking a language barrier I ran into down at the Pilot on Sevier Avenue.
While enjoying a peaceful Sunday brunch fuel-up (a Mountain Dew, Slim Jim, and regular unleaded) sitting curbside, leaning against the bag ice bin, a Toby Keith look-alike scuffles by and stumbles over my foot. Recovering, he yells at me, “Move your doggoned ice!”
I figured he mistook me for an employee so, to be helpful, I handed him a bag out of the bin with a friendly, “Okie-dokie. Sorry, chief.” More agitated, he snorts, “I’m gonna bust yore ice!” I replied, “It’s already broke up in the bag, buddy.”
He then gives me this mean pig-eyed stare and says, “You don’t know yore ice from a hole in the ground.” At this point, I’m mystified. I said, “I don’t work here, but this here is all they got.”
Dumbstruck, he stalks off. A minute later, he tore out in a Ford F150 pickup sporting a big orange “T” decal and a Bush/Cheney bumper sticker, hollering back at me, “Ice hole! Ice hole!”
What in the tarnation was that all about? Please decipher. And what the hell does tarnation mean, anyhow? I greatly appreciate your help.
Joe (Don Tom Bob) Acree
Knoxville
Pocket Lining
Bush won, and so the rising tide of liberalism is stemmed, but only temporarily. Democrats/liberals can rest assured that the future belongs to them, because most of the people whose cause they champion are breeding like flies. The Welfare State will grow larger and larger, taxes will increase and thus remove the incentive to work, and government will reign supreme without private enterprise, creativity, and initiative.
Just like the USSR, the United States will grind to a halt, although our greater natural resources may allow us to stumble along for quite a while. I am 58 and childless, so it won’t affect me. I used to wish I could become young again, but not now.
Jefferson said it best: “The end of the country will come when people realize they can’t vote themselves money.”
John R. Snyder
Knoxville
Trauma-Sharing?
In his 1657-word litany of praise for the president, Clifton Fox [Nov. 18 Incoming] concludes that Bush “bet that voters who had shared a traumatic terrorist attack...would stand by him.” Mr. Fox ignores the fact that the electorate in New York City overwhelmingly voted to oust Bush.
Out of a total 2,213, 571 votes cast for the presidency in New York City (Source: CNN.com) Bush won 547,479 of them, or 25 percent of the total vote. Kerry won 74 percent. That translates into a difference of 1,118,613 votes in Kerry’s favor, compared to some 3 million votes nationwide in Bush’s favor—hardly a mandate from those who not just ‘shared’ the 9/11 attack, but endured it on the ground.
Michael Kaplan
Knoxville
Blue Who?
I am writing regarding the Nov. 18 article about Buzz Peterson, the men’s head basketball coach at UT. As a native Ashevillian and a UNC basketball fan since before I could talk (quite literally—we take our basketball as seriously as you take your football), I was shocked to read your slip in which you referred to coach Roy Williams as being the coach at the University of Kansas.
Any Tarheel devotee will tell you that Dean Smith’s protégé is now at UNC. Not a big deal to some, but to those who hope Smith’s winning legacy can continue through Williams, it was a significant error.
Heather Stone
Knoxville
December 2, 2004 • Vol. 14, No. 49
© 2004 Metro Pulse
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