The Truth and Nothing but the Truth
These past few pandemic-filled months, the Pilot Lounge has banned Fox News on its big screen TV so rather than fight over Wheel of Fortune or the Fishing Channel, Jerry the bartender keeps the channel on old sports, Archival Football he calls it, meaning, reruns of long past playoff games and grainy championships back in the day. Keeps the political arguments at a slow simmer, if nothing else.
Two Toke and I like to take the edge off the morning occasionally with a pint or two. When the Flatheads, our vintage car guyz, hold their breakfast meeting at the Yacht Club, we end up becoming honorary Flatheads whether we want to or not. Two Toke drives a battered Ford 150 pickup, circa last century, so he sort of qualifies. You know, if the rust and the flaking paint and the missing tailgate weren’t factored in. Me, my days of wrenching on crappy cars is nothing more than fodder for tall tales and automotive exploits at my own expense, mental and financial. I have a ten year old Toyota truck now, neither vintage or new, just right. It doesn’t break down and as long as that holds, it’s the love of my life. Or was until the mizzus bought a Prius that lately is pulling 70 mpg. I wouldn’t be caught dead parking that hybrid next to Fairlane Fred’s ’57 T-bird or Jimmy’s Hudson or even Wally’s VW microbus with the opera windows. The Toyota Tacoma, okay, I’ll take the ribbing for the ‘bullet holes’ on the sides where my lawnmower keeps catching rocks and flinging them at high velocity when I mow the park I maintain, gives it a gnarly panache, if nothing else. I just tell them I have enemies and leave it at that. They don’t have any trouble believing that.
The nice aspect of a morning pick-me-up at the Pilot Lounge is the morning barkeep, usually Jason the new owner, is the TV is never on. Jason likes the peace and quiet and we do too. The Flatheads, they like the sound of their own V-8 engines rumbling, mufflers belching. “Hey, Jason,” Little Jimmy calls out the other morning when the entire parking lot is filled with antique rigs, “how about we catch a little Fox and Friends for once, get the pulse of the nation?” Two Toke laughed and I ordered my second pint. Jason shook his head, as always when Jimmy made the inevitable request. “The truth, Jimmy? You looking for the truth?” And as always, Two Toke, Jason and I hollered in unison, “You can’t handle the truth!!!”
And as always, the Flatheads filled the joint with their jocular ribbings and hooted catcalls. Two Toke and I pulled our table near theirs. You might as well join em…. we sure can’t beat em.
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Tags: Fox News Ban, Unfair and Unbalanced, Vintage Car