THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, August 14, 1996 TAG: 9608140022
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: LAWRENCE MADDRY
LENGTH: 81 lines
GRAVE DIGGER PICKS BONE. The ink on last Wednesday's column was barely dry when Bettye Lee, an employee of Grave Digger in Currituck County, N.C., phoned to pick a bone with it.
I wrote that Grandy, N.C., was a sleepy community whose only tourist attraction, prior to the opening of Mel's Diner, had been the town's only stoplight.
``You forgot the Grave Digger,'' she said. That's a tourist attraction about five miles north of Grandy.
She's right; I did forget it. That's because I close my eyes whenever I pass the Grave Digger showroom on the way to Nags Head. The thing gives me the creeps.
The Grave Digger is a vehicle with the body of a 1950 Chevy panel truck and a 12,000-horsepower engine. It roars over roadways on tractor tires and weighs 10,000 pounds. It is a mass of rolling thunder, a car-crushing monster truck with a fog-shrouded cemetery painted on the body.
There are five Grave Diggers at the tourist attraction, and customers pay to ride around in one. There's also a gift shop where customers can purchase Grave Digger T-shirts and such.
The attraction's owner is Dennis Anderson, who has 11 of the vehicles. He and his truck-racing team use them in
competitions, launching from a ramp to jump over a dozen cars.
Peeved, Bettye says I also erred in calling Mel's Diner Currituck County's No. 1 tourist attraction.
``We had 100,000 customers ride Grave Digger last year,'' she said.
That's swell, Bettye. But it's time for the Grave Digger and Mel's to forget their differences and stop arguing over who is No. 1. They should concentrate on what they can do together for the betterment of their community.
What I have in mind is a really blockbuster event guaranteed to really put Currituck County on the map:
THE LEAP OVER MEL'S DINER!
Move over Evel Knievel. Yep, why not blast that Grave Digger over the roof of the diner and sell tickets?! Mel's could cater the event. Talk about drawing crowds. . . . It'd be so popular they'd have to put on extra ferries just to handle the traffic from Ocracoke.
HAMPTON ROADS GETS KINKY. Kinky Friedman, the cigar-smoking detective-fiction writer and guitar gaucho from the hill country of south-central Texas, is coming to Hampton Roads in 1997, according to the Virginia Beach Forum, which has engaged him as a speaker.
Friedman is a former musician with the Texas Jewboys who lives in a house trailer on a ranch in Medina, Texas. He is the author of the song hit ``They Ain't Making Jews Like Jesus Anymore.'' His ballad ``Get Your Biscuits in the Oven and Your Buns in the Bed'' won him the award as ``Male Chauvinist Pig of the Year'' in 1974.
Since then he has been cranking out detective novels in which he is the hero. His books have won critical praise despite his idiosyncratic style described as ``a combination of Raymond Chandler and Damon Runyon . . . written under the influence of hallucinatory drugs.''
Kinky's latest work, ``The Love Song of J. Edgar Hoover,'' is considered his most mature work to date.
While in England promoting his book, the Kinkster presented a British interviewer with his card, which read:
``Kinky Friedman is allowed to walk on the grounds unattended. If found elsewhere contact: Echo Hill Ranch, Medina, Texas. 78055.''
MOUTH OF THE SOUTH DEPT. My friend Bob Stiffler, the gardening author and columnist, recently mailed me some entertaining definitions that, he says, were gleaned from a United Airlines newsletter translating Dixie-speech:
Bard - verb. Past tense of the infinitive ``to borrow.'' Usage: ``My brother bard my pickup truck.''
Jawjuh - noun. A highly flammable state just north of Florida. Usage: ``My brother from Jawjah bard my pickup truck.''
Munts - noun. A calendar division. Usage: ``My brother from Jawjuh bard my pickup truck, and I ain't heard from him in munts.''
Heavy Dew - phrase. A request for action. Usage: ``Kin I heavy dew me a favor?''
Haze - a contraction. Usage: ``Is Bubba smart?'' ``Nah, haze ignert.''
Rats - noun. Entitled power or privilege. Usage: ``We Southerners are willing to fight for our rats.''
Gummit - noun. A bureaucratic institution. Usage: ``Great . . . another gummit shutdown!''
Farn - adjective. Not local. Usage: ``I couldn't unnerstand a wurd he sed . by CNB