4/22/2008 Final-Lee

This is the moment you have been waiting for since you first read of my wacky neighbor Lee.

That's right;

a portrait of Lee with his creation: The Lee-Z-Rider



I am sure you are in a state of shock after finally having an image to match with the lore; PLUS you are forced to confront the reality that Lee is a real man that I did NOT invent. It takes very little creativity to make Lee oriented blogs interesting, in fact they practically write themselves.

Last weekend my brother and our friend Brad visited us here in Knoxville. Brad always reads my blog and comments on them and has expressed his excitement about meeting Lee. Saturday night Brad's mind got blown, Lee style.

Lee approached our house on his usual, spiraling path and joined us on our front porch. After presenting me with a promotional CD with a huge "FREE" sticker on the top, he helped himself to a beer from the cooler.

He and Brad acquainted themselves with each other and before I knew it Lee was addressing Brad as "Clyde" which I have deciphered is a term of endearment Lee uses. He described to Brad the conditions which led to his piloting career in the air force at age 15, how he rode on the outside of a jet airplane into the earth's atmosphere till he was covered in ice, and how he possessed the power to dance a special dance and become invisible.

Brad remained engaged in conversation with Lee and I watched his face during the particularly wild statements: -his Cherokee name is Dances With Wolves, he's worth 8 million, he's going to buy his butler a Corvette, etc.... He was on the verge of a laugh explosion, and I was beginning to suspect that I hadn't explained "Lee" enough to my brother, who doesn't read my weblog and might not have really understood the extremity of his stories. They were asking lots of questions about times, ages and situations and as Lee explained himself his responses became louder and louder. I tried giving them the "hush" eye before they were unleashed upon, but luckily the conversation shifted and Lee went back home to get his peace pipe. I used this intermission to brief Kelly about Lee's ramblings, and recommended that he not ask too many questions, and try thinking about something tragic like hurricane Katrina to avoid bursting out into laughter.

He came back with a rock with a hole bored out of it and the tube from a ballpoint pen shoved into it. Lee told us that it was a ceremonial medicine pipe and he wanted us to smoke it and receive a blessing from him that we never have nightmares. We asked what he intended to put into the pipe, and he said it was herbs mixed with tobacco; "there ain't no PCP or powder or nothin in there if that's what your thinkin". Frankly, I didn't see any way to NOT smoke the pipe. I was praying that everyone else would smoke it too and we would all avoid actually inhaling the smoke.

We smoked with Lee and then got out the instruments and started playing. Between each break in music Lee urged us to listen to the CD he had brought over which was playing in the house because he sang in tracks 4, 12 and 14. "Listen!" He commanded, "That's me singing that low note!" It was so weird! We didn't want to piss him off bit it was barely audible on the front porch, and no one really wanted to go in the house to listen to some random CD.

A truck pulled up and it was our friend, Randal being dropped off by his activist friends after going to a meeting. For a minute I was afraid the hippie girls would exit the truck and want to talk and become alarmed when confronted with Lee's jive. They ended up just yelling something from the truck and going on their way, and Randy went to bed.

That's when Lee departed for the evening.

I took these pictures yesterday after Fox saw Lee out the window and yelled "LEEEEEE-EEEEEEEE!, LEEEEE-EEEEEEEE!" over and over about 40 times. We walked over to Lee's yard where he was chatting with our other neighbor, Karen. Native American flute music blared from his open door. Fox really likes Lee. The Lee-Z-Rider was constructed with a chainsaw motor and a mini keg as a gas tank. He insists it is safe enough for the 10 year old who he is going to give it to, explaining; "my friend's son is autistic and other kids make fun of 'em callin him Harry Potter n stuff; but after he gets this thing those kids wont say NOTHIN".

That I agree with.