When a lot of folks retire they are sometimes uncertain as to what the future holds or at least what they plan to do with all the extra time on their hands. Some folks even have to un-retire and then re-retire just to get it right.

It turns out one of our local fellows, who is about to get the hang of this retirement thing, is on the verge of launching a second career.

The Orpheum Theatre in Memphis, billed thusly; "Where Broadway Meets Beale," played host to the Tony Award-winning musical comedy, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee recently. As it turns out, one of our local fellows used the appearance of the one-act play to reveal his previously unknown, or at least well-hidden, thespianesque skills.

This fellow, who shall remain nameless to protect the guilty and not embarrass those teaching associates in his former profession, or his neighbors the Caldwells, nor his wife Sue, went from sitting in the audience to a cast member in just a few short minutes.

According to one local couple that viewed the play a day prior to our local actor's emergence, a part of the performance includes audience participation. On this night the "volunteer" cast members include some local celebs, including Memphis radio personality, Tom Prestigiacomo.

We should report that our local guy played to rave reviews. We should note, however, that when called upon to spell the word, "Mexicans" he misspelled it. Given his former "vocation" you now know why I have "technical"ly not named this guy. In the interest of journalistic ethics, I should tell you there are those who say he was told to misspell the word by leaving off an "s," but we don't know that for certain.

He was also called on to do a little dancing during his time on stage and gave a good account of himself there as well. Acting, dancing, all this guy is waiting for is one of those reality shows looking for America's next top actor. He's a cinch to win the competition. If all the people who took the time to tell me about his stage debut in Memphis were to call he would win in a landslide.

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How?

I was reading the local Rotary Club's newsletter from a couple of weeks ago and one blurb caused me to scratch my head in wonder.

The newsletter's editor, Carl Williams, reported on an incident that left one of the club's members bruised and battered.

Randy Morgan showed up for the 6:30 a.m. (that's not a misprint this bunch gets going early) sporting a black eye.

Details were a little sketchy, but from what I gleaned of the written account Randy and a snake got into a confrontation that resulted in Randy getting a black eye. The only other information in the article was that a "length of PVC pipe" was involved.

Bet you're scratching your own head about now.

Randy seems like a pretty smart fellow -- anyone that can fly helicopters into combat knows a few things. How in the world did Randy let that snake get close enough to hit him with a PVC pipe? I can understand how a snake would sneak up on a person, but if the thing was carrying a piece of PVC pipe you'd think Randy would have seen him coming.

I know snakes can move fast, but that PVC pipe should have slowed him down enough for Randy to move out of the way. Of course, old boxers will tell you the legs are the first things to go.

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Ringtones

How did we live before cell phones? Some of us will admit to life being a lot more peaceful, but the convenience is hard to beat. And for the younger generation a landline is almost unheard of unless it's for an Internet connection and even those are going wireless. Cell phones have a lot of neat gadgets, bells and whistles that make them even more interesting to the younger set.

For instance, a conversation took place at a meeting of the Downtown Quarterback Club (now meeting at Captain Tony's) about "ringtones" or ring tone for us older folk. A "ringtone" is just what it says it is. It's the ring a phone makes whenever there's an incoming call.

A cellphone ringtone, however, can be unique and distinctive. And, there can be more than one ringtone on any particular cell phone.

And that's what the discussion was about at lunch. Actually the discussion was a little muted, because the guy that got us talking about ringtones had a bad case of laryngitis and could barely speak. As it turns out, Jack and his daugher, Stephanie, had been in a discussion the day before about ringtones. Several ringtones, in fact.

Apparently Stephanie has more than one ringtone on her phone. According to her dad I think she's got about 15. The younger generation likes to assign each of their friends and frequent callers with a personalized ringtone. Dad just has one ringtone on his phone and can't seem to understand why Stephanie needs more than one herself.

Did I mention the ringtones cost money? Now you know why Dad was interested in the number of ringtones on his daughter's phone.

We don't know for sure the discussion caused Jack to lose his voice, but it seemed plausible to those of us sitting at the table.

I think everything got worked out between dad and daughter. Someone even suggested Stephanie now has 16 ringtones on her phone. Dad has his own personal ringtone, probably something along the lines of Peggy Lee's "Hey Big Spender."

Bud Hunt is the publisher of the Daily Dunklin Democrat.