My wife told me she wanted new kitchen counter tops. I told her I wasn’t taking her for granite.

Replacement of the Buzzy’s Country Store counter top began several weeks ago when JW Raley and Eric Brotherthon made a trip to a Charles County lumber store to select the wood for the new top. JW wanted to try and match the wood that he had used when he constructed and installed the bar top several years ago.

Since then, JW has been working on the counter top in his shop and advised me just yesterday that he wanted to begin demo’ing the old one so he could do his final cuts on the new one prior to installing it. JW, being the perfectionist that he is, wants to miter and scribe and bevel and do who knows what else to ensure that the new counter top fits exactly as it should.

While I wasn’t really planning on doing any demo work on a Sunday afternoon in Buzzy’s with a roomful of folks sitting around relaxing, drinking and watching the Nascar race at Talladega, next thing I knew, JW and Bob Wright were disassembling and removing the old counter top. Here is a photo of JW plotting his next move as he surveyed the counter base that he had put formica over back in the 80’s.

This will be the “new” counter top for a couple days while JW puts the finishing touches on the new one to be placed on top of this base. Drop in and sign your name on it, so years from now when it too gets demo’d you’ll be remembered.

The other day we did a Buzzy round in memory of Dickie Betts. Since I had some younger folks in the Store at the time, I advised them to do some Youtubing to check out the man who I think WAS the Allman Brothers even if he wasn’t an Allman. Duane and Greg may have gotten most of the acclaim, credit and women, but for my money, it was Dickie who did the heavy lifting and made ABB as great as they were.

His Jessica always makes me feel better whenever listening to it. In this live performance, Dickie of course nails it, but also check out Dave Goldflies performance on bass along with Chuch Leavell’s great piano solo (2:15 mark:)

Some rock and roll trivia for you: prior to joining ABB, Dickie was in a group named The Jokers. They were the inspiration for the lyric in Johnny Winter’s “Rock n Roll Hoochie Koo” that went “There was a group named The Jokers they were laying it down.”

And since I started with a lame counter themed joke, for good measure (see how I full circled that reference?) I will conclude with another one: A mathematician walks into a bar and now there are two counters. Warned you it was lame.