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Tiger's Words To Live By

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By GEOFF FOX

The Tampa Tribune

Published: August 6, 2008

DADE CITY - Judging by his attire - a bathrobe worn over a pair of jeans and a T-shirt - it seemed as though Mark "Tiger" Edmonds had embraced retirement.

Saint Leo University's answer to Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash, the English professor had disabused himself of a four-decade career in higher education May 10.

I first wrote about Edmonds in February, after the publication of his third book, "Hard Scrabble" a moving narrative about his lifelong friendship with Nancy Pacey, whose brave battle against cancer ended in 2002.

Throughout their decadeslong friendship, and even as Pacey was dying, the pair passed time playing Scrabble and exploring the complexities of life.

A month after that story was published, Edmonds' elderly father, Gail, moved from their native Flint, Mich., to rural Pasco County to be with his son. A few days later, Gail died.

During an unofficial visit with Mark a few weeks ago, he uncorked the news that he and Juanita the Tall Girl would be exchanging wedding vows in August. The three of us then enjoyed an uncommonly satisfying lunch at the La Pequena restaurant in the heart of Tommytown.

Tiger cautioned me not to tell many people about the tiny eatery. As he knows too well, once somebody finds out about somebody else's utopia, you may as well send a detailed map to everyone you never wanted to meet.

While he has been rolling with the punches and savoring the blessings life has thrown him in recent months, he also has been hard at work. Besides his three published books, there are a number of manuscripts that would be finished, if only he would stop rewriting them.

'The Curmudgeon Chronicles'

Among his work is a pile of scathing social commentary, appropriately titled "The Curmudgeon Chronicles." Every week, he reads one of these essays on an Orlando radio station, the call letters of which he doesn't recall.

That's not surprising.

Edmonds is practically Amish, except for his beloved BMW motorcycles, which he has ridden about a million miles across North America; a computer he can reluctantly use to access the "Interweb"; a refrigerator to keep his Coke cold; and any radio station that will play "outlaw country."

Living along a rural stretch between Zephyrhills and Dade City, his comfortable abode is surrounded by date palms, a large mulberry tree, live oaks, choke cherry trees, "monkey ear" trees that produce falling fruit/leaflike things that resemble - you guessed it - monkey ears, and a camphor tree.

Besides Julio, the official donkey in a past Dade City Christmas parade, he has a mare and several dogs. Four of his previous dogs - Rebel, Emma, Amtrak and Coca - are buried in his backyard.

"I used to hear panthers scream out here at night," he said, his rustling mustache and beard suggesting he was smiling.

The roar of a nearby lawnmower snapped him from the memory.

"That was 20 years ago."

"The Curmudgeon Chronicles" offers Tiger - a nickname he garnered around age 8, "just because I'm so pleasant and charming" - a vehicle to riff against most things modern.

Atop a page that introduces the essays, he explains:

"These social comments and analyses are intended as an admittedly slanted insight into portions of American culture that seldom get looked at carefully, much less critically or negatively. Most of these things have just sort of slipped up on us. Many came in the guise of convenience or the pretense of making things better somehow. Most have failed."

Many words are dedicated to discrediting the advent of the modern computer, rich people who have nature destroyed so their "McMansions" can be built, the proliferation of the "Mart Mart Store empire," his progressively ostracized status as a cigarette smoker, and suit-wearing corporate administrators at institutes of higher learning.

Tips For Today's Youth

It probably isn't a shock, then, that some of his most pointed comments are directed at the young people whose parents pay for them to attend such schools, as well as the children who will someday fill their seats in the classroom.

In one page-long missive, Edmonds offers a solution that will ultimately help children "improve their personal hygiene and make them more humble, more polite, less accommodated, less special, and more able."

Ultimately, Tiger reasons, his idea will result in a "better America," replete with a polite and proud citizenry that will restore the country to a position of "world respect and admiration."

"The answer is semi-trucks, specifically the trailers thereof," he writes. "We put a semi-trailer in the yard of every single kid in America. In the early preschool morning, someone of authority - ideally someone named "Mom" or "Dad" - tells the kid, 'Load that trailer, boy or girl.'

"They will be allowed to frolic, or watch TV, or play mindless video games, or play with even more mindless computers, or go to the mall or anywhere else, or buy anything, or eat, only after the trailer task is completed to the authority's satisfaction. I am confident this system will work. This was much of my childhood, and I came home from it so beat-down, knee-walking tired that I was unable to even think up ways to get in trouble. Sometimes I was too tired to eat.

"Years later, I asked my dad about this. He just smiled at me. Turns out he was lots smarter than I used to give him credit for."

My kids are going to meet Tiger someday. I might ask if they can stay the night.

Reporter Geoff Fox can be reached at (813) 779-4613 or gfox@tampatrib.com.

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