Just to clear things up in case there are still people laboring under the misapprehension I think I know what I’m doing, I do not.
I do know if anyone tells you they know what they’re doing or what you ought to be doing, you might want to get a second opinion.
If there is a moral to this story, I think it might be this: Not only do I not know as much as I think I should, I also do not play cornhole, or corn hole, however it spells itself.
I do not play it sober or under the influence, or at Chamber fundraisers.
Nor have I ever gotten into belly bumping fights over scoring and have it videotaped and go viral, like the brawl that occurred at some recent chamber event in Douglas County. That is worth a watch, by the way.
Naturally, that means I also am not in any cornhole (or corn hole) leagues, professional or amateur or semi-pro.
This is partly because I do not imbibe enough beer these days to find the idea of trying to throw a bean bag at a hole in plywood much fun, and I don’t care if it has a Georgia sticker on it or not.
It’s also because I am not cool. It’s also because I have few friends.
But it’s mostly because, well, the name of the game seems a bit odd.
Cornhole? Corn hole?
Those of you a certain age probably remember Beavis and Butthead cartoons, and the times Beavis got all sugared up and started calling himself the Great Cornholio, and, well, it got weirder from there .
If there is one thing to be said for the game’s practitioners, however, it’s probably this: They presumably know what it is they’re doing, unlike me. Corn hole (or cornhole) lovers have never seemed to lack a sense of self purpose.
Q: “What are you doing?”
A: “I’m playing cornhole (I will stick to that spelling from now on). What does it look like I’m doing? Say bubba, you feeling froggy or something? You want to fight?”
Driving fun: I am not sure when Highway 144 work will commence for real, but I’m not looking forward to it.
Especially if it’s anything at all like the mess on I-95 whenever road crews roll out the barrels in the middle of the night and go to town. Case in point, it took me and 3 million other motorists an extra half hour to go from I-16 to Pooler Tuesday night, thanks to tax dollars at work.
Now, we all know driving in Pooler is already one of the most miserable experiences known to man, topped only occasionally by a spin around Richmond Hill at rush hour in mid summer with no AC, but this trip took miserable to another level. For starters, the 10 p.m. rush hour was going full speed ahead. And then a sign suddenly proclaimed the two right-hand lanes would shut down, so sane traffic started shifting right, only to find out that all three lanes were open until the last 10 feet.
That meant half a billion Floridians and other northerners, seeing lanes starting to back up in the two-left-hand lanes, showed they know what they are all about by staying in the right lane and passing the rest of us who had got over in that misbegotten stretch of what used to be Georgia.
One observation: There was enough bird shooting going on in that 100 yards or so of interstate real estate to host a couple Republican fundraisers. I’m surprised I didn’t see Rep. Buddy Carter around talking tax cuts, but maybe he was stuck in traffic just like me. That thought cheers me up somehow. Gridlock in Washington? Meet gridlock in your hometown.
A suggestion to the folks at Georgia DOT, who I don’t blame for this mess since it’s awfully hard to fix something people are driving all over:
When you contract out this sort of work to these road construction companies, how about require them to do more than just put up orange barrels and electronic signs that say road work ahead, then leave everybody to fend for themselves? For one thing, nobody reads the signs. For another, nobody obeys them even if they do read them. It’s like the speed limit.
Instead, think about requiring some sort of real traffic control. Granted, sticking a flagman out in the middle of I-95 and expecting him to direct traffic and live very long in the process isn’t going to work, but there’s got to be an alternative. One might be some sort of ramp, a special ejector-seat type road that you put down on wherever you’re doing road work. All you need then is a guy who can press a button to spring the ejector road and flip cars off into the marsh if they try to pass people in a lane that’s about to close.
That would be a win-win, except maybe for the marsh. But I know ’d pay to see it, and so would others. You could charge admission and maybe not even need a TSPLOST.
Another might simply be to stop creating so much traffic but that’s apparently too hard to figure out.
Whitten is managing editor of the Bryan County News and Coastal Courier until he is replaced by a drone.