Jeffrey Alan Payne - Doczine

a walking wet dream in legwarmers. I could see that Jim was already on the samewavelength with me.“How soon can they be here?” he looked at Greg, “How long you got.”Greg shrugged again. In a laid back southern drawl, he said, “Whatever. You guys gota sodie pop machine?” Jim ran him over to buy him a can of pop and to buy time.I called my cute little blond cousin, who lived about six blocks away, “Alison, it’s Rick.Yeah, yeah, I mean Dick. Yeah, Yankee Dick. I was wondering you and some of yourfriends might be available right now to be in our newspaper ad?”I immediately pulled the phone away from my ear, so as not to absorb the full impact ofher shriek directly into my eardrum. Jim walked in about that time, and looked at mecuriously.I was just wrapping up the conversation, “Say maybe about four girls, and if it’s okay,can you guys all bring bikinis? Yeah, that would be perfect. What time? Beautiful, okaywe’ll see you then.” Immediately I pulled the phone away from my ear again. The shriekwas audible across the room.As I hung up, Jim said, “So I guess she wants to do it?”“I don’t care man. She’s not your cousin. Feel free to ‘do it’ all you want. Tell me how itwas afterwards.” I smiled at him; he had quickly become my very best friend.He grinned back at me, “How long before they get here?”I burst into laughter, “Fifteen minutes.” We both howled. Yes, I do believe it’s safe tosay that they all wanted to do it. I could picture them doing their hair and makeup in therearview mirror, while speeding like NASCAR drivers toward Main Street.Sunday morning, the Tri-Cities Tribune featured a full page ad in the TV Guide, placedright next to the Sunday afternoon schedule. It was football season, and we knew thatmany of our down home, beer drinking, football loving audience would be turning to thatpage. The ad showed Jim and I with our feet propped up in the studio, getting ourshoulders rubbed and receiving foot massages from four remarkably beautiful youngbikini-clad southern belles. The tagline read: “Starting Monday, you can get Dick everymorning….(and Jimbo too)”. Then in smaller font, “Yankee Dick and Jimbo. 6am to10am on 96 FM - The Rock.”It was brilliant ad placement. Football was referred to as a religion in East Tennessee.What we forgot, during our brief brainstorming was that Sunday was also regarded foranother event. It was also the Lord’s day, and we were right in the middle of one of thedensest Southern Baptist churchgoing populations in the world.My phone rang at 9:10am. It was Ron, “Rick, this is Ron.”37