He Said It Was Too Hot to Fish, and That Was Just for Starters
July 31, 2011 by admin
Filed under Choosing Lingerie
A crew from “The Colbert Report” had traveled from New York to a dirt road here in Georgia to sit on the front porch and talk to Mr. Kirk, the old man in camouflage overalls who has become an unlikely savant of country wisdom.
And it is all because of one simple observation: It’s too hot to fish.
Mr. Kirk, 76, had caught a 40-pound catfish days before, so he knows a little something about when it is and when it isn’t too hot to fish. Over a steamy 90-degree weekend, he shared his Forrest Gump-like observation with a local newspaper reporter looking for a story. “It was no good this morning,” Mr. Kirk grumbled. “I never got a bite. I reckon it was too hot.”
Then, as it does in this digital age, the swirl of fame began. The article got sent around on Twitter and picked up in other local newspapers. A CBS radio affiliate in Atlanta, about an hour west of here, called for an interview, as did the crew from Comedy Central. There was talk of T-shirts and ball caps. A large urban newspaper took interest.
Why was the cultural landscape ripe for the rise of Bobby Kirk, a man with straight-up opinions — “air-conditioning has ruined everyone” — and an unremarkable country life?
It may be that he managed, in a simple sentence, to say what for much of a scorching July weather forecasters, journalists and the co-worker in the next cubicle have struggled to articulate.
Or it could be that he offers a diversion during a summer consumed by the national obsession with the Casey Anthony trial, a heart-wrenching terrorist attack in Norway and the numbing grind of the debt ceiling debate.
“People can identify with what Bobby was saying,” said Wayne Ford, the veteran staff reporter for The Athens Banner-Herald who found himself at Mr. Kirk’s house when another story fell through that day. “He’s just a plain-spoken, average guy. I think it’s just time for the average guy’s opinion to come out.”
Gordon Lamb, an Athens resident who follows a fake Facebook page someone established in Mr. Kirk’s name, said he was “emblematic of a South that has disappeared entirely from the Atlanta area.”
“I’m sure some people like him out of a sense of absurdity or irony,” he added, “but I think he’s great. And besides, he was right. It was too hot to fish.”
On the Bobby Kirk Facebook page, someone pretending to be Mr. Kirk answers questions and posts thoughts along the lines of “Got a hankerin’ for some pork. I think I’ll head up the road to Hot Thomas’ for a spell.” (Mr. Kirk has no computer, has no idea what Facebook is and watches a television so old that one is surprised to see that the picture is in color.)
Other things to know about Mr. Kirk: He cannot remember if he completed the sixth or seventh grade. He does not go to the grocery store much, eating mostly game and fish and the vegetables from his prolific garden.
“If I had a million dollars,” he said, “I would still want butterbeans and tomatoes and okra.”
He was raised nearby in a family so poor that his mother made his coveralls out of fertilizer sacks. Even so, there were not many stores nearby when he was a boy.
“If you had a pocketful of money, you couldn’t buy a dime’s worth of nothing,” he said.
Mr. Kirk has had four marriages, only two of which were legal. Three of his wives died (leukemia, complications from alcoholism and a car accident). The fourth? “I had to run her off,” he said. Her children were stealing his deer meat.
He has two children. A daughter has been missing since 1982. His son, Bobby Kirk Jr., lives down the road and says his father was strict with them as children but has always been friendly.
“He’s a card,” he said. “In the grocery store, he will start talking to anybody.”
Mr. Kirk said he once went to jail, in the early 1980s, for growing marijuana in the Georgia woods for a friend.
“I made mistakes,” he said, “but I never did make the same mistake.”
He knows how to make brandy from peaches and corncobs, but he himself does not drink anymore. He keeps an empty soup can in his pocket to spit tobacco when he is in a restaurant or a reporter’s car.
In addition to fishing, he raises beagles to hunt rabbits. “I gave a pair of dogs to get that roof put on,” he said.
Diet tips are among the plentiful advice he is more than willing to share. Put pickled pepper juice on pork chops to cut the fat. Do not drink more than a cup of coffee a day. “It’s like liquor,” he said. “If you just keep pouring it in you, it’ll work against you.”
Jud Smith, the sheriff of Barrow County, does not dispute that fish will not bite when it is too hot. He trusts Mr. Kirk, whom he has known for years.
“We have quite a few characters around here, and it pays to listen to them,” Sheriff Smith said.
A waitress at a local Golden Corral restaurant, like several other people Mr. Kirk talked to as he worked the buffet line, was delighted with his jokes and advice.
“He doesn’t have a care in the world,” said the waitress, Barbara Brown. “You just don’t see many people like that. We need a little bit of that humor, a little bit of that lightness.”
Mr. Kirk asked the waitress to get him some ice cream, because he was famous.
“You’re precious,” she said.
Does it bother him that he is getting famous in part because people might be making fun of him?
He answered with all the smarts of a savvy country boy.
“No,” he said. “They can make a monkey out of me as long as I get some money.”
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Military spouses get hip clip tips from ‘Extreme Couponing’ show
July 30, 2011 by admin
Filed under Choosing Lingerie
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YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan — Armed with two binders bulging with neatly clipped coupons every time she enters the commissary, Air Force wife Aprille Caesar shops for groceries like she’s on a mission.
The objective: Save as much as possible.
Caesar has honed a military-like discipline for using coupons since tuning in to the reality TV show “Extreme Couponing,” which debuted this spring on the TLC network. It features shoppers maximizing savings by using several coupons for items already on sale, then buying in bulk and walking away with hundreds of products for pennies on the dollar.
“If I don’t have a coupon for something now, I usually don’t buy it unless it’s something I really need,” said Caesar, 32, who over the past few months has cut her biweekly grocery bill by 30 percent, to about $100. She usually pays full price only for meat, vegetables and dairy products, for which coupons are typically scarce.
The stay-at-home mother of two had clipped coupons regularly in the past but began “taking it seriously” after seeing the show. That meant buying a coupon binder (a necessity to most avid “couponers”) and creating a system based on her family’s needs. She now pre-shops for upcoming sales to maximize coupon savings and sacrifices brand loyalty to make it work.
She claimed her greatest victory yet in July when she took home $337 worth of groceries from the Yokota commissary for about $25.
“I did it,” Caesar exclaimed as she walked out of the store beaming. “It’s not like the crazy savings you see on ‘Extreme Couponing,’ but I’m proud of myself.”
Her husband, an Air Force technical sergeant, was proud, too. He briefly stopped in during that checkout to congratulate his wife on her accomplishment.
Although the Defense Commissary Agency hasn’t seen a spike in coupon redemption since the show began airing in March, according to DECA spokeswoman Nancy O’Nell, blogs and social networking sites devoted to military spouses have been buzzing with traffic related to “Extreme Couponing.”
Shoppers like Caesar praise the show for spurring their newfound sense of savings during tough economic times, but others have criticized it for encouraging unnecessary and obnoxious practices — such as buying out a store’s entire stock of a particular item — and giving “couponers” a reputation for hoarding.
On a new Facebook group set up for military wives titled “Not so Extreme Couponing,” one woman bemoaned the bad attitude she received from a commissary cashier.
“The cashier tried to tell me that I couldn’t have that many coupons and then asked me ‘I mean, do you even need all of this stuff?’ Seriously!?” she wrote.
“That is what the show Extreme Couponing has done,” replied one commenter.
Caesar said the backlash is understandable, considering similar experiences she’s had with cashiers in the past few months.
“But they all know me now,” she chuckled. “I’m the coupon lady.”
Caesar said she is diligent, not fanatic. She does it to put extra money in the pocket of her one-income family.
However, she noted, there is such as thing as “coupon etiquette.”
“Most people who coupon know you shouldn’t clear shelves. That’s the biggest thing I make sure not to do,” said Caesar, who instead will pre-order items she anticipates buying in bulk.
U.S. retailers and supermarket chains have recently been adopting new coupon policies and other rules in response to the TLC show and the subsequent onslaught of shoppers it apparently has inspired.
DECA, the Army and Air Force Exchange Service and the Navy Exchange Service have policies that already prohibit many of the practices featured on “Extreme Couponing.”
DECA, for example, does not allow customers to use more than one coupon per item but still ranks among the top 10 coupon-redeeming retailers in the U.S. alongside Walmart and Target, according to NCH Marketing Services Inc.
However, DECA permits shoppers to profit when a coupon is worth more than the item is listed for in the store. So, if you have a $5 off coupon for antacid and the antacid costs only $3.50, you get the item for free plus the $1.50 difference.
“That’s the goal right there,” Caesar said. “Why would you pay for something when you can get paid instead?”
And those stationed abroad, like Caesar, get the added bonus of being able to use coupons up to six months after they expire. The policy was created to help make up for the limited amount of U.S. coupons overseas. Many bases distribute stockpiles of expired coupons sent from stateside volunteers and coupon enthusiasts and most commissaries have a “coupon corner.”
But while DECA, AAFES and NEX have not followed suit with civilian retailers’ backlash to the show, officials said they continue to monitor trends and reserve the right to adjust their policies in the future.
Stay tuned.
reedc@pstripes.osd.mil
COUPON TIPS
Aprille Caesar, a wife and mother of two, has reduced her grocery bills by 30 percent since she began cutting coupons a few months ago. Here are a few of her best tips:
- Stay organized with a coupon binder.
- Break your family from brand loyalty.
- Redeem coupons on sale items to maximize on overages.
- Stock up on oft-used items to reduce shopping trips.
- Don’t clear the shelves. Pre-order items you want to buy in bulk ahead of time.
- Read the fine print on the coupon and know your store’s coupon policy.
- Stand your ground with a cashier when you know your coupon should be accepted.
- Connect with other couponers and retailers online for tips on how to save and where and when to find the latest deals.