In July 1998, Ida B. Peevish--the often dee-vorced proprietress of Ida's Salon of Beauty & Live Bait Shop (located in the little town of Rock Bottom, US of A.)--popped into my head and onto the pages of the print edition of Blue Ridge Traditions. At that time, Jeff Foxworthy and redneck humor were hot. So were advice givers--Dr. Laura, et al. Female humorous redneck advice-givers, however, were few and far between. Hence, Ida B. Peevish and "Peevish Advice" filled a gap. "Peevish Advice" now appears every other week in the Smith Mountain Eagle.



Ida B. Peevish has plenty of opinions about such diverse subjects as love, education, fashion, etiquette, religion, politics, and home décor. She is always glad to enlighten the dim ones. As Ida B. always says, "You get what you pay for, talk is cheap, and my advice is free."



Of course, if you want your advice in a published format, my book PEEVISH ADVICE (ISBN 0-7414-0729-9), a compilation of the first three years of the column, will set you back $10.95. It makes a real good gift for folks you don't like but are obligated to buy a present for anyhow. Click the cover to go to Amazon--they're running a special.



Rock Bottom is a hard place to find on a map--it's located where two folds on the map come together, so it's the first place to wear off. Not far from Rock Bottom is Slick Water Lake, which formed when farm run-off filled one of the numerous sinkholes in the region. Slick Water Lake is inhabited by yankees who thought they were getting a good deal on worn-out land that nobody wanted. Most of the other inhabitants of Rock Bottom are agrarian professionsals. Rock Bottom isn't like Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon, "where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average." In Rock Bottom, all the men are wrong, all the women are good at cooking, and the kids--bless their little hearts--try real hard, but heredity and environment can be powerful forces to overcome.



At first I made up most of the letters to Ida B. Then writer buddies of mine started to ask for advice. Lately, I only have to do about half the writing I used to do. Here's a little sampling of "Peevish Advice," most of which was either published in Blue Ridge Traditions or broadcast on Ferrum radio or both:

Education

Dear Ida B. I am an English teacher who is desperate to get her students to read the classics. All they do is open the book, say "Boooring!" and throw the book on the floor. What should I do?--Literature Lover

Dear Lit Lover: Well, first thing, you ought to be grateful they ain't throwing the book at you. Next thing, do what they did at Rock Bottom High School. Order a set of the Down-Home Dumbed-Down Classics, which are wrote in a much more interesting manner.

For instance, the opening of that book "Tale of Two Cities" is just plain boring. You'd have a dickens of a time getting into "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." What the heck does that mean? The DHDD Classics version, which is called "Between a Rock and a Hard Place," starts out: "Sidney, as I done tole you, things is bad but they gonna git better once we git the roof outta that thar tree and tack it back on the doublewide, once Paw gits outta jail and rebuilds his still what the law busted up, and once them thar nice folks from Publisher's Clearinghouse figgers out how to git across the crick whar the bridge washted out in t'last flood so they can give us a big check."

Now an opener like that can take a story somewhere!

You take how "Moby Dick" starts out: "Call me Ishmael." Now, how interesting is that? It don't tell the reader nothing. You just know everything is gonna be downhill from that opening. The DHDD Classics version, which is called, "A Big Fish Story," starts like this: "I was named for my great granddaddy, whose full name was Abraham Alphonse Irving Emmet Ishmael McGillicuddy--and don't you know we had a heckuva time getting all that on his tombstone, which explains why he has the doublewide stone--but since it looks like we're gonna be sharing this cell for a long time, you can just call me Ishmael."

See? Isn't that a whale of a lot better? You just know the story is gonna get even more interesting.

Dear Ida B. I went to a pep rally over at Rock Bottom High School, but the cheerleaders couldn't get it together. What is going on?--Sports Fan

Dear Athletic Supporter: According to Rock Bottom High School Principal Alma Motter, political correctness forced them to change the cheer from "Fight, Team, Fight! Win With All Your Might! Fight, Fight, Fight!" to something that didn't provoke violence, didn't emphasize winning, and did encourage more kids to play so everybody would feel included. So they changed the cheer to "Participate, Students, Participate! Win or Lose, Accept your Fate. Whatever You Do, We Think You're Great!" The cheerleaders are having trouble coordinating the shaking of various body parts to the words of the new cheer, but sooner or later they'll get it together.

Dear Ida B. I understand that Rock Bottom High School didn't have a good football season this year. What happened?--Out-of-Towner

Dear Outie: Somebody cut down the goalposts for kindling again, so the team couldn't tell if they scored or not. Finally the Rock Bottom athletic supporters replaced the goalposts with a couple of deer stands. Since a lot of the games occurred during deer season, members of the Rock Bottom Road Hunters Association, most of which are major athletic supporters, decided that they could sit in the stands and help keep score while keeping their eyes peeled for any deer in the nearby woods. This was a win-win situation for just about everybody except the team who never got the ball anywhere near the stands without it getting shot up.

Dear Ida B. Some guy named Francis Bacon said something like, "Some books are to be tasted; others swallowed; and some to be chewed and digested." I know you wrote a book. What category does it fall into?--Bookworm

Dear Wormy: Folks in Rock Bottom generally know better than to chow down on books. However, a few folks have told me that "Peevish Advice" ought to be coughed up and spit out. I don't know this Bacon feller, but anybody named after hog meat probably ain't qualified to discuss books. As for my book, it is in a category all by itself--and ain't nobody ever gnawed on it, either!

Family Problems

Dear Ida B. I don't know what to do with my kids. They keep going in and out all day long and letting flies in. They complain they're bored. They keep after me to get them some interactive toys, like those computer games where the object is to see how many aliens you can kill. I think them games waste electricity. And I think them kids need to get some exercise. What do you think? What should I do? --At the End of my Rope

Dear Hanging On: You can solve your problem cheaply and easily. Buy each kid his or her own fly swatter. They can get exercise swatting the flies they let in. They can compete to see who kills the most. If that don't keep them entertained, I don't know what will. Plus it will save electricity on account you don't need to plug the fly-swatters in.

Dear Ida B. I hear folks talk about using duct tape and plastic sheets for security purposes. Can you give me an example? --Into Security

Dearr Insecure: Sure. Let's say you got to take your rambunctious toddler to town and your hubby has got the transmission out of your car again and you have to use his truck what ain't got a kiddie safety seat in it. All you got to do is take a dozen or so winds of duct tape around the kid and the truck seat, and that kid is securely restrained until you get where you are going. Secure the plastic sheet under the kid in case you can't get him cut loose in time, especially if he's the type kid who waits until the last minute to tell you he has to go.

Dear Ida B. My husband recently retired, and now that he is around the house all day, he is running me crazy with his demands. What should I do with the old coot?--Desperate

Dear Desperate: The best thing to do is run your vacuum cleaner as long as it takes to run him out of the house. Most men cannot take being vacuumed around for more than a few minutes. If he demands you get him a beer or make him a sandwich, just say "As soon as I finish vacuuming." The trick is, don't finish. Eventually he'll get the idea and quite asking. If he approaches you with a gleam in his eye, I have it on good authority (from O. L. Buzzard of Buzzard's Taxidermy & Day Care who was complaining about this very situation the other day) that nothing turns a man off like turning a vacuum cleaner on. Not only will you run off the old coot, you'll have a cleaner house, too. But just in case the vacuuming don't work--for instance if he is hard of hearing, you need to get out of the house yourself, so come on down to Ida's Salon of Beauty & Live Bait Shop and take advantage of our Get That Man Right Outta Your Hair special.

Dear Ida B. My husband has gotten real inattentive lately when it comes to basic rules I have set down for him. How can I get him to wipe his feet, pick up his dirty clothes, take out the garbage, not leave the refrigerator door open for extended periods, change his underwear on a regular basis, let the dawg out, and put the lid down?--Desperate

Dear Desperate: We here at Ida's Salon of Beauty & Live Bait shop have worked out a system that we call CARP, although it don't have nothing to do with fishing. What it means is that your nagging has to be Continuous, Assertive, Repetitive, and Proactive. If you spend the next week or so CARPing at your husband--while continuously running your vacuum, you should either see improvement or he will give up and leave. (If he leaves, change the locks.) At any rate, by that time you will have a clean house but be worn to a frazzle, so come on down to Ida's Salon of Beauty and& Live Bait Shop to cheer yourself up by getting your hair fixed.

Dear Ida B. How does that old saying go about giving a man a fish? I can't remember it. --Forgetful

Dear Senile: You must be thinking about "Give a man a fish and he'll forget to put it in the refrigerator until it has stunk up the doublewide; teach a man to fish and he'll have a good reason to come into Ida's Salon of Beauty & Live Bait Shop and spend lots of money on bait. Plus, he'll need to buy a boat, all sorts of rods and reels and other fishing doo-dads, a set of waders, a trailer to pull the boat with, a lake-front cottage, etc. Teach a man to fish and you will go a long way toward improving the economy."

And More Peevish Advice is now available!

To be continued. This page is still in progress.