I was casting about for something to write about for this post. I want to write things y’all find interesting and make them at least a little fun to read, but this month I was coming up empty. Then last night a little while before bed, Budge was reading a story in the news to me and to be honest, it bothered me more than usual so I thought I’d write about it.

The story comes out of Tennessee where the state legislature, both houses, have passed a law allowing teachers in public schools to carry guns on campus. The governor has signed the measure into law. It isn’t binding on any district as each district is free to choose if they want to have their teachers armed or not.

I think this is a supremely bad idea. Still, let me say from the start you will be hard pressed to find a more gun supporting person than me. I own guns that I shoot regularly. I support the broadest, least restrictive interpretation of the Second Amendment. I wouldn’t call myself a stereotypical “gun nut,” but I am pretty far to the right on guns. They’ve just always been a part of my life and I think they have some tremendous uses. If you come into my home uninvited in a wrong state of mind, you will be met with a response up to and including lethal force. In this case, however, I think the State of Tennessee is making a mistake — a grave mistake. There’s a time and a place for everything and schools are no place at any time for guns in the hands of faculty and staff.

The first reason I am against this law is that it provides no guidelines for who specifically is allowed to be armed and what training these people are going to have; if they are going to have any required. Tennessee is a southern state and the gun culture is pretty strong there, but still, I imagine there’s a great spectrum of gun knowledge and gun training among the faculty of any given school. Some people may have hours of training either in civilian classes or perhaps the military, while others barely know which end of the gun the bullet comes out of. That’s a problem. Is a district that opts to arm its teachers and staff going to provide any training before they are allowed to carry guns on campus? If not, what qualifications will be in place to allow a teacher to carry his or her gun? Will there be any? That’s a lot of questions.

A second reason I think this is a bad idea is it is potentially a divisive force in a school. I am a former teacher. I taught high school for ten years and was a middle school librarian for an additional five. I can say with some authority that faculties are not monolithic blocks. A decent sized faculty is a microcosm of the community it teaches, with some interesting outliers thrown in. Everyone isn’t in step on what color the new tile in the faculty bathrooms should be, much less who is carrying a gun. For better or worse, it is a fact that some people are deeply disturbed by guns. They don’t like guns and they may even be scared of guns. Now you’re going to have gun toting teachers next to those teachers who don’t want to be around guns. That’s going to foster division in a staff and if there’s one thing schools can ill afford today it is for the staffs to be further divided.

I also thing the potential exists for tragedy to come out of this misguided attempt to guard students. Where are the guns going to be? In purses or desks? Or will they be carried in holsters? Either way, what happens when a student or group of students decides they want that gun. Think it would never happen? Much less dangerous stuff gets stolen every day in classrooms all across the nation. Students don’t hold teachers in the awe they once did either so an attack on a teacher to take a gun by a student or group of students is not as far fetched as one might hope reading this. I admit, it seems unlikely at first, but I have seen teachers attacked for no reason, and now they have a definite target to obtain? Things can happen in a split second and if someone reacts wrongly, tragedy can ensue.

This type of tragedy is my final reason I see this new law as a bad idea. A gun has one overarching purpose — to kill. You can argue about target practice all you want but what is target practice if not honing skills necessary to shoot something or someone. There is the rub. No one should be carrying a gun unless that person has settled in his or her mind that they are willing to kill someone if they draw their weapon. A gun is useless otherwise. Pull a gun without the foregone attitude you are willing to kill and that gun can very well be taken away from you and turned against you and others.

Killing is not natural to the overwhelming majority of people. It’s why soldiers must be trained to kill. Taking a human life is something you don’t get over. It stays with you in a lesser or greater degree. On top of that, who are these teachers going to be asked to kill? Who does most school shootings? Students. Present or former students. Teachers get into teaching for students. Do it for any other reason and you won’t last long. God knows it won’t be the money. Teachers assume an overwhelming responsibility for the students in their care every day. Now you are going to have that teacher choose whether or not to kill or seriously injure one of the students they have practically vowed to protect?

I realize on the surface it makes sense. I also will concede several school shootings have been stopped by a teacher with a gun produced from a car or carried surreptitiously against policy. But what happens when there’s more than one motivated teacher? Could we see shootouts in the halls of a high school? What about friendly fire incidents? I know people are trying to find a solution to school shootings, but this isn’t it. The logistics are too nebulous and the psychological burden too great.

Love y’all, and keep those feet clean!

Things got interesting around here in early March. Budge got sick. We were supposed to go to my stepmother’s birthday dinner party but Budge came home feeling under the weather. Since we didn’t know what it was, and Daddy isn’t in the best health anymore, I called my sister-in-law and let her know we wouldn’t be coming. I thought it was a late winter cold or something simple.

She didn’t get better over the weekend. She actually got worse. Budge took the day off, and I was on the phone first thing Monday morning with her doctor’s office to try to have her seen. No luck. The practice only had one doctor working and the day was completely booked up. Just as an aside, has anyone besides me noticed doctors don’t practice like the used to? If you’re sick, they don’t want you coming in, they do a telehealth visit. I’m telling you, COVID ruined the world.

Speaking of COVID, we went to a local urgent care office to find out Budge, in fact, had a nice healthy case of the new flu — COVID. The doctor gave her a cough syrup and sent her on her way since she was too late to get the new COVID medicine. That took care of the rest of the week for her from school since she couldn’t go back as long as she was contagious, not that anyone really knows what that means anymore.

As the week wore on, Budge’s COVID got better, but right exactly on the heels of it, just as she was getting over it, she developed a sinus infection. Now understand, we’ve been married nearly thirty years and Budge has had a sinus infection in February or March every year. Some years are no biggies, while others can get pretty severe. This bad boy was severe. She was blowing out green chunks from her nose and it swiftly went to her chest to join the leftovers of COVID. She was taking Sudafed, Mucinex, and Advil as much as she could to try to dry up her head and chest. It was a losing battle though. She has to have an antibiotic to beat the sinus infection every time.

Luckily, I again hit the phones bright and early on Friday morning and the one doctor had an opening. I took her to Mauldin to said doctor where she got a ten day run of Amoxicillin, a Prednisone taper, and some more cough syrup. Figured a couple of days into the antibiotic and she’d be right as rain like always. We went and ate breakfast, picked up her prescriptions at CVS, and went home. Budge took her first dose of antibiotic and we took a nap. Little did we know what was in store for us later on that Friday.

Budge started about 5:00 PM complaining of pain in her face. I thought she was talking about the regular pain one has anytime your sinuses are infected, but she said this was different. It was sharper than she’d ever had before. I gave her some Advil but it didn’t help. She was really hurting. She asked if we could go to the emergency room and I told her of course we could, so we set off for the new ER here in Simpsonville that Bon Secours just built.

We got to the ER about 6:00 on Friday. It was really quiet and they got us right back in to the doctor, or in this case, the Physician’s Assistant. He was great. First of all, he took Budge’s pain seriously and didn’t try to blow it off like I’ve seen some doctors do other people. He laid out his treatment plan which included a high powered pain pill right then, a prescription for more pain pills for later, and a higher dose of Prednisone than we’d gotten at the primary care doctor’s office. He wanted to do a really high dose of steroids but once he found out Budge is diabetic, he cancelled that idea since steroids play hell with sugar levels.

We left the ER about 8:00 PM, went to CVS to drop off the prescriptions, then went and got a bite to eat. I drove to CVS because Budge had the pain pill in her so she wasn’t supposed to drive. True story though, I can’t hardly see at night driving anymore. The glare messes with my vision and all, so I don’t usually drive at night. Budge switched with me at CVS and drove to Zaxby’s for supper then home. I thought we were clear and cruising.

[Morgan Freeman voice-over]: But in fact, they were NOT clear and cruising.

By the time we got home around 10:00 PM, the high powered pain pill from the ER was already wearing off. Budge said her pain went from a 5 at supper to an 8 when we got home. She took another pain pill and tried to rest. I dozed off but she woke me up a short time later screaming. She was in agony. She said the pain was a 10/10 like she’d never felt since she had her gall bladder removed! I was trying to comfort her but she was out of her head with the pain. I did the only thing I knew to do and gave her one of my 2mg Xanax pills. It didn’t phase her. She was pacing the floor pulling her hair out with both hands from the pain. She would pick up a bottle and throw it just trying to get a little relief.

I was worried — really worried, because I’d never seen her like that in all our years together. She was scream-crying and she asked me something that chilled me to the bone. She wanted to know if I thought her cutting herself would at least move the pain out of her face! I’m pretty good in situations like this where she’d concerned though so I didn’t panic. She looked at me through her tears and begged me to go back to the ER. I lost no time getting her there.

It was very quiet again for a Friday night / Saturday morning. Budge got checked in and the triage nurse made her feel better by telling her this was becoming more common with sinus infections and people were describing it as a kidney stone in the face. We got in a cube about 1:00 AM and the Xanax had started helping. It did nothing to ease the pain, but it did calm her down so she could be somewhat coherent. The doctor came in and again, took her pain completely seriously. She ordered a blood panel and a CAT scan of Budge’s face. She said she wanted to be sure no fungal balls had sprouted in Budge’s sinus cavity.

They sent the blood off to the lab and the nurse came and took Budge to the CAT scan. She came back, calm, but still in agony. About thirty minutes later, the nurse came back and said the blood and CAT scans were both clear of anything abnormal except the right side of her face where the pain was was full of infection and packed with goop.

This time, the doctor wasn’t playing with Budge’s pain. The nurse had a syringe of what she assured Budge WOULD stop her pain. She proceeded to give Budge 6mgs of pure morphine. I was sure that would fix things, but the 10/10 pain in her face dropped immediately to her stomach! The nurse told the doctor who wasn’t worried. She said it was a side effect of the morphine and gave Budge a GI cocktail that eased up her stomach. Finally, about 3:30, my precious Budge was pain free and beginning to doze off from the drugs.

About 4:00 the nurse came back in and asked Budge how her pain was now. Budge barely raised one arm and weakly held up four fingers than dropped her arm right back down. The nurse smiled at me and asked me if I wanted her to get our discharge papers. I told her it looked like we were fine. So I went and got the car while the nurse got Budge into a new swanky wheelchair. Between the two of us, we got her in the car and I started the drive home.

Now remember, I can’t see good, and Budge knows this, so she is leaning over patting me on the arm and telling me I was doing so good and she was proud of me. Then she perked up and asked me if I wanted HER to drive the rest of the way. I assured her that no, no I did not want her in her morphine haze to drive us but I was thankful for the offer. Meanwhile, I was worried about how I was going to get her in the house up the steps.

Turns out, she got in the house like a champ. We didn’t walk on the stepping stones, instead opting to walk out in the yard, but she booped up the steps like it was nothing! I got her inside and of course, she had to pee, so I got her to the toilet and back to her recliner where she sleeps. I tucked her in and she was babbling about something, and I mean literally babbling — think baby talk. I just told her she was fine now and to go on to sleep, which she did. I collapsed on the couch and was asleep in minutes.

Budge slept ALL the next day except for five minute intervals when I’d wake her up to give her her meds then she passed right back out. She finally got up very groggily at 7:30 Saturday night. It was dark, and the last thing she remembered was it being dark so she asked me how she had only slept three hours. I told her she had not slept three hours, but had actually slept fourteen, almost fifteen hours. She nodded and went back to her recliner where she stayed until 2:00 Sunday afternoon!

She didn’t hurt anymore, and she had a follow up appointment with an ENT. Soon as school’s out, she’s going to have to have sinus surgery to make sure this never happens again. She missed eight days of school which is unheard of for Budge, but she’s all better now, except for a lingering COVID cough.

Oh yeah, while all this was going on, our septic tank backed up into the house and I was working on getting someone out to pump it and clear our main sewer line in the house! I was run ragged but that’s a story for another day.

Love y’all and keep those feet clean!

It may come as a surprise, but I sometimes have a hard time coming up with ideas for my monthly post. I would even post more, but I can’t figure out what people might want to read, and I don’t want to post stuff no one wants to read, even though I fear no one wants to read what I post now. If you as a reader have something you’d like me to write on, drop me a comment in this post and I’ll see what I can do.

In any event, while casting about for a post idea, I hit upon things I have that mean a lot to me. In the interest of giving you something to read, I thought I’d list them. These are in no particular order; they are all just items I would try hardest to save in a disaster once Budge and the fur babies were all accounted for.

One, Papa John’s Guitar. I know I said these weren’t in any order, but I would try a little harder to save papa’s guitar than most anything else. It’s really all I have of Papa John, except for some documents. It’s a 1950s Sears Silvertone electric guitar, red and white with papa’s initials in sticky letters on the pick guard, which is cracked. The amp still works and the guitar plays just like it did when papa played it all those years ago, except I can’t play it. I have plugged it in and strummed it just to hear the sound. Papa used to play in our little white church when I was growing up. He know all the old gospel songs, and he loved to play them. He was self-taught, couldn’t read music or anything. He loved that guitar. When he died, the guitar was still at the church, and Mama went down to get it. It sat in her room for a few years until she too passed away and I went to her house and picked it up to bring home. It’s been here in my office ever since. Every time I pick it up, I feel closer to Papa John.

Two, Papa Wham’s .380 Pistol. Papa Wham was in World War II in Europe with the First Infantry Division — The Big Red One. He fought all over the continent. His DD-214 looks like a list of every major battle from Africa to Italy to Normandy. Once after a battle, Papa Wham captured an Italian army officer. The officer was carrying a Baretta M1935 9mm Kurtz (that’s .380 to us in the US) and Papa took a shine to it. He relieved the officer of the sidearm and had it shipped back home where it lived in his handkerchief drawer of his chest of drawers unless Papa took it on vacation with the family to stave off unexpected events. I discovered it one day when I was looking around places I shouldn’t have been. I thought it was the coolest thing I’d ever seen, so I took it and started carrying it in the glove box of my ’69 Chevelle, also to stave off unexpected events. I didn’t tell Papa Wham I had done this because I knew he wouldn’t have let me take it. He found out though and appeared at my work and smiled that smile I remember so well and said, “Now you wouldn’t know where my pistol is would you?” It wasn’t a question. I nodded and went to my car and got it for him. That was the last I saw of it. Papa passed away and I forgot about his pistol until one day I was at Daddy’s and he out of the blue said, “I’ve got something for you.” He went in the house and came back with a cloth wrapped package. It contained Papa’s pistol. Daddy said, “You keep it now.” It lives next to my bed in a place of honor and will until I pass on when it will become my nephew’s charge to keep.

Three, Dad’s Colt 1911 .45 Pistol. A theme is not developing, I promise, but it just so happens two of my most treasured possessions happen to be guns once carried by two of my very favorite people. In this case, the gun is Budge’s Dad’s 1911 .45. Dad inherited it from his dad many, many years ago and he didn’t know where Grandpa got it except he knew it predated World War II. A friend of a friend who runs a gun store looked at a set of pictures I sent him and he said he wouldn’t be surprised if it was a Great War bring back. It lived under the driver’s seat of Dad’s work truck until he retired, then it moved into the house to live under the mattress in his bedroom. I always assumed Dad’s son Richard would inherit it after Dad died, but Dad didn’t see things that way and told Budge he wanted me to have it. I was pretty shocked, but when Dad passed, I found it right where he said I would and it’s lived next to Papa Wham’s pistol ever since. Dad had many stories where the .45 was the star. He would tell me some of them — often more than once a day when his dementia worsened — when we worked together during the summers and after I got fired. Every time I hold it, I see Dad’s face. I haven’t made up my mind what will become of it when I’m gone. I’ll either have it sent to Florida to Dad’s niece, or I’ll pass it on to the son I never had, Carlos. Or I may do something else. Hopefully I’ve got a while to figure it out.

Four, Mama’s Sweetheart Ring. Mama’s sweetheart ring is precious to me because it is one of the very few mementoes I have to remember Mama by. I don’t have many pictures of her because she hated being photographed with a passion. She sold her diamond engagement from Daddy after they divorced because she needed to make a trailer payment. She never would part with her sweetheart ring though. It’s a sterling silver band with two entwined hearts on it coated with “diamond dust” that’s how small the diamonds are. Daddy gave it to Mama when she was 14 and they started “going steady” as the boomers would put it. I asked her on more than one occasion if I could borrow it to give to a girlfriend, but until Budge, she never let me. Budge was different though. Mama knew we were going to stay together. She loved that ring though. It was one of the only things — maybe even the ONLY thing — she had to remind her of Daddy. She told Budge where she kept it and when we went back to the house after Mama’s funeral, Budge got it and brought it home with us. Now it lives in Budge’s jewelry box on her dresser. I guess it’s more of a prized possession for Budge than me, but I’m not splitting hairs here.

Five, Mama’s White Bible. Of the handful of things I have of Mama’s, none makes me think of her more than her little white Bible. Mr. Dozier Brooks gave it to her after she became a Christian when I was three years old. I don’t know who he was, but he thought a lot of Mama. She read that Bible day after day sitting in her rocking chair, until the day her eyes got too weak to read the small print. That’s when I bought her the Bible she died with — a giant print version. She carried it to our little white church faithfully every Sunday for as long as she could read it. After she died, I unzipped its cover and she had index cards with prayers written on them for me. It lives on our bookshelf now next to Papa Wham’s Bible and one of Granny Wham’s Bibles as well as the family bible Granny and Papa Wham gave Mama and Daddy when they married.

I could list more. I could talk about my baseball cards or my comic books. Then I have the Dake Bible Budge gave me right after we got married that I used to preach out of. I’ve got very precious items from my teaching career like a blue clay cube one of my favorite students made for me in Art class. She’s gone now but I still think about her whenever I see that cube. I’ve got other things precious to me, but this post is getting a bit long as it is so I think I’ll close it down now.

Hope you are all well and happy. Love y’all and keep those feet clean.

I recently passed my 53rd birthday. I’ve thus spent three years in my fifth decade and I’ve noticed in these last few years some changes have entered my life. Things aren’t what they used to be. Some of the changes I saw coming as they had begun in some stage in my 40’s; others I’ve seen more recently. Anyway, being 50 isn’t what I’d thought or hoped it would be, but it has been interesting.

The first major difference my 50’s brought into my life is a change in the way I get up in the morning. Gone are the days of the alarm going off and hopping out of bed. Oh no. Try that now and the floor is my final destination. No, it takes a bit of warming up and a roll call to get up these days. I have to inventory everyone involved in the getting up process. Feet? Y’all ready down there? How about you, Legs; any issues this morning? I now y’all was shooting some random pains a time or two last night. Think y’all can deal with getting up today? Cerebellum, you taking care of balance alright today? I don’t need you taking the day off and me eating this wall face first before hitting the floor.

If everyone checks in, then I can continue with the getting up process. Just because my feet touch the ground, however, does not mean I can go ahead and stand. This is around a three step deal these days. I have to stretch down to my toes with my arms to loosed up everything that is going to be holding me up. Otherwise, I’ll get up stiff and for some reason, that stiffness is bound to last all day. Once that light stretch is over, I can get on up, which is complicated somewhat by two of my cats swirling around my legs reminding me it’s time for food.

Besides getting up, another big change is in the way I act in a crowd. In my younger years, I wanted to be the center of attention. I tried to be the life of every party. I was the loudest; I drank the most; I generally was the chief hell-raiser of the bunch. I started getting away from some of that when I quit drinking when I was 25, but I was still an attention whore. These days though, I look for the dog or cat and I find a seat in the corner of the couch and try to get said animal to get near enough to pet or preferably in my lap, and that’s where I’ll stay for the length of the soiree or until Budge comes and gets me and tells me it’s time to go home.

The going home part in a whole other story. My bedtime is around 9:30 to 10:00 PM. I remember, vaguely, I’m afraid, not going OUT until 10:00 PM. The only place I’m headed after 10:00 PM today would be to the hospital, and it better be something serious; otherwise, it can jolly well wait until the morning. Sometimes Budge will get to reading a book and be really into it and 10:00 turns into 11:00, or God forbid, midnight. I’ll stay up long as I can and keep myself occupied, but at some point, I’m probably going to find myself on the couch under a blanket waiting for her to wake me up to go to bed.

I have to get in bed at such a somewhat early hour because I’ll be getting up pretty soon afterwards. Gone are the days of laying my head on the pillow and being in the same position when the alarm sounds in the morning. Those were wonderful, halcyon days of waking up feeling rested and ready to storm the beaches of the new day. Now, insomnia takes over. First time I’ll get up will be around 1:00 AM. I’ll hit the bathroom, then get a sip of water, then pet the cat who eats in the middle of the night before trying to go back to bed so I can get up at 3:30 AM because I’ve been laying in the wrong position and now my back hurts. This time I have to get up and sit on the couch under a blanket and try to go back to sleep, which of course, is impossible at first so I’ll check my phone for fifteen minutes then doze off only to wake up with a better back but a stiff neck from sitting up and head back to bed about 5:00 AM to be awakened by the alarm at 6:01 to start the day.

Being tired all the time from lack of sleep means I’ve also stopped being smart since around turning 50. I no longer have to be the smartest person in the room. Growing up, I was told entirely too early and entirely too often that I was very smart and unfortunately, I performed so well in school that it convinced me everyone was right. My perceived intelligence became one cornerstone of my identity. I had to be able to answer whatever question anyone posed. I always had to be ready to chime in on whatever subject was extant at the moment and hold forth some soliloquy that showcased just how brilliant I was.

Looking back, I now realize I hung out with some nice people. Most of my friends were kind enough to indulge me when I would hold forth, and some of them would even try to get me started on something just to hear me blather on. It was cute when I was in elementary school, but I can only imagine how tedious it had to be as I got older. Of course, after Budge came along, things improved because she began to regulate how much I was allowed to talk. If I appeared to be gathering a head of steam for a long discussion — usually one-sided, of course — a well placed kick to the shin under the table or a church pinch on the hangy-down part of my arm was all it would take to remind me to curb my enthusiasm.

Realizing I wasn’t as smart as I thought I was took a lot longer than it should have, but once it sunk in, I realized something else. No one cares about what anyone else has for an opinion so debating is a waste of breath. This was especially a trait of my exercise of my Christian faith. I would debate, argue really, for hours online with atheists and agnostics in online chat rooms, and all I was doing was getting my already high blood pressure ratcheted up. It was pointless because I wasn’t going to change their minds and they weren’t going to change mine.

Politics are now treated the same way in my mind. I don’t air my politics in public because more often than not in this neck of the woods its just going to cause a big argument that I don’t care to have anymore. Used to I would trade thoughts with people of other political beliefs than mine, but I know I never changed any of their minds. What we are is pretty well ossified into our personality in our 30’s or so and if you haven’t changed by then, no amount of debate on really any subject is going to change that so I’ve adopted the motto of agree to disagree, if that’s allowed in today’s climate, and keep a friend. The old saying, “you can be right or you can be happy” applies to a lot more than just marriage if you think about it.

One reason I don’t care to debate stuff anymore is time. It takes time I don’t have. Since my 50th birthday, I’ve been a lot more attuned to the passing of time. I have to be honest; I never imagined I’d reach 50 when I was in my teens and early 20’s. I lived such a reckless life running from undiagnosed depression and anxiety, I fully expected to have been long dead in a fiery car crash or letting the darkness consume me and committing suicide by now. I never planned past twenty-five.

Now, though, I am acutely aware of the inexorable march of time towards my final destination. Like I mentioned earlier, my body isn’t what it once was, and I watch as Budge faces the same issues. We are aging together, just like I’d hoped we would, but in the back of my mind, I always hold the thought that someday, one of us will be alone as the other will have gone on. It always shakes me to the core to think I may leave my Budge behind to fend for herself in this awful world and at the same time I shiver to think about facing long strings of endless nights without her to comfort me. It’s such a weight on my mind that I’ve wanted to gather all the cats up and get Budge in the car and drive to Caesar’s Head mountain and just go off a cliff so we all go at the same time and no one is left alone. Alone is such a sad state to contemplate after all these years together.

I am a Christian though, even if not a very good one, and my God frowns upon suicide. How much He frowns upon it, I don’t know, but that’s one of those arguments I don’t get into anymore. I believe this life isn’t the end of our existence. I fully expect to meet Mama and all my grandparents in a place we refer to as Heaven one day. It’s okay with me if you don’t believe that. Once upon a time, I couldn’t have said that and we’d have a comment war online or a shouting match in public, but I don’t feel I have to save anyone anymore. I can’t save anyone anyway. In my older years I have embraced Calvinism and its teachings on God’s Sovereignty so I’m of the opinion these days that whoever is going to Heaven is going and whoever is not isn’t. I don’t know; I may not make it even though I hope to. I guess I’ll find out one day.

I have other thoughts and changes my fifth decade have brought to my life, but if I start writing them all, this post is going to be longer than most people would care to read these days, so just remember I love you all, and keep those feet clean.

So, another Christmas is in the books. This last post of the year, however, will be about something that happened LAST Christmas. It has to do with Budge and her cooking skills. See, I didn’t marry my lovely wife for her cooking skills. I’ve made that abundantly clear to her over these last many years of our marriage. Still, every now and then, she shows a strong desire to engage in the domestic arts. We have stories of burned out mixer motors and a concoction known as “Breakdown Spaghetti” to remind us of how those endeavors tend to wrap up. Still, hope springs eternal.

Which brings us to last year. We were going to be all alone on Christmas last year. Dad was in the nursing home under COVID protocols so we wouldn’t be seeing him and Sandy. Our friends we hand out with on some holidays were spending their alternating Christmas in Mississippi with family, and we didn’t really have anyone else. It looked like a cold cereal breakfast and a Waffle House supper.

Then, Budge made a pronouncement. She said she was going to get us a turkey. Now when I heard that, I threw up in my mouth a little bit. I have a tremendous amount of faith in my wife, but cooking a full size turkey is grandmother cooking skill levels and not even all grandmas can actually pull off a full bird and have it taste right. Now my Budge was planning on cooking a turkey. I smiled and told her I was looking forward to it.

I then set to mental work trying to figure out how I could keep the house from burning down while still letting my wife experience the home economics dream she had set for herself. The first thing I settled on was size. One of the great challenges of cooking a whole turkey is the sheer size to be dealing with. Turkeys can go twenty pounds. Now I had no idea what we were going to do with twenty pounds of turkey meat, especially when neither of us particularly cares for dark meat. It seemed a bit wasteful to me. So I waited a couple of days and broached the subject of the turkey again. I mentioned to Budge that since it was just the two of us, maybe a turkey breast with all white meat would suffice for our needs. She gave me a funny look, but then seemed to mull it over and tell me that was a good idea. We’d have a turkey breast.

I did a little internal dance at the prospect of not having to find something to do with twenty pounds of what was probably going to be a horrible attempt at turkey cooking. We wouldn’t be confronted with something like out of Christmas Vacation, and at the same time we didn’t risk pounds of raw turkey if Budge did the cooking calculations wrong. This was good. So I figured, why stop? I could take the entire turkey cooking process off site maybe. I again mentioned to Budge that our local Honeybaked Ham Store offered fully cooked turkey breasts for sale and she wouldn’t have to worry about thawing anything out or getting the temperature right or anything like that. She gave me another funny stare, and then nodded. I thought I might have overplayed my hand and upset her so I just changed the subject to something banal.

Still, I had hit on something in my mind and I just couldn’t let it go. I had glimpsed a way to totally keep a turkey debacle from occurring in our home. Again, I had all the confidence in the world Budge would prove a worthy adversary to the turkey, but I also knew this was the same Budge who incinerated a pan of fried okra which I then dutifully ate early in our marriage. With that in mind, I threw caution to the wind and broached my master plan which I had been intending to spring all along. I mentioned to her that I was certain she would do a tremendous job of cooking a turkey, but we didn’t need much so why didn’t we just get a good-sized package of pre-sliced turkey breast from Honeybaked Ham, and pair it with some fancy Pepperidge Farms bread of some kind and have us some nice turkey sandwiches for Christmas lunch and we could still do Waffle House for supper.

Budge got quiet. Now over our marriage, quiet has been a dangerous state for Budge to be in, but this time she seemed more contemplative than angry. I have to admit I was a bit put off my game not knowing what this would mean. Then, a big smile broke across her face and she turned full on to me and said, “Oh, honey love of mine, did you think I meant I was going to go to the store and pick out a turkey and cook it like Granny Wham or Ima would have?”

That is exactly what I thought was going to happen so I rather stupidly said, “Uh huh, and I am a little afraid you might burn the kitchen down with the best of intentions, but I have faith in you and if you want to try, I’ll support you any way I can.”

Then my Budge laughed, and not many sounds are as sweet or reassuring as my Budge laughing. She shook her head and said, “Silly! I had no intention of trying to cook a whole turkey or even a turkey breast. That’s why I looked at you funny when you mentioned it. I thought you were being a smartass since we both know my prowess in the culinary arts!”

I was taken aback so I said, “Well, what were you planning to do?”

She laughed again and said, “I always intended to get a sliced turkey breast from Honeybaked Ham and have us pick up some good bread and a gallon of tea for Christmas lunch. No way in the world would I try cooking a whole turkey, but I’m so glad you had such high expectations of my gumption and such faith in my ability!”

We picked up our sliced turkey on Christmas Eve and those were some of the best Christmas sandwiches for lunch I’ve ever had. We even had the required leftovers to eat the next day!

I hope y’all have a Happy New Year! Love y’all and keep those feet clean.

It’s come round again; that special time of year we take time to remember what we are thankful for in our lives. Now I could fill pages with the little things I’m thankful for but take for granted like breathing easily, running water, walking on my own two feet relatively painlessly, lights, computers, etc. I have a multitude of items and experiences I appreciate very much, but today, I’d like to give thanks for five things I am especially thankful for on this Thanksgiving Day.

• One, I’m thankful for ten precious years spent with my buddy Keaudie. He was the most loyal, most companionable, most loving canine I have ever had. He knew when I was sad and tried his best to make me happy. He would even bring me his beloved Kong ball and place it in my lap to try and make me smile. We had to send him across the Rainbow Bridge unexpectedly in June after his legs suddenly stopped working, and I have missed him mightily every day since then. I honestly don’t know if my heart will ever let me get another dog; that’s how special he was.

• Two, I am thankful for twenty-six wonderful years with my father-in-law, Buck Sims. Budge’s dad was a really special individual. He was easy-going to a fault. He always supported Budge and I in whatever we did. I remember fondly riding around in his work van, sitting on a bucket, talking about everything and nothing as we made service calls for his telecommunications business. Even when Alzheimer’s Disease began to rob him of memories, he never lost his wonderful sense of humor. He just laughed at himself even as he got weaker. We lost him in May this year and he has left quite a hole.

• Three, I’m thankful for the 2009 Honda Accord the church gifted us. We had been getting by with just my car and it could use a few hundred dollars of work to get it back where it needs to be, but Budge’s car gave up the ghost so we didn’t have any other choice. We certainly couldn’t afford to replace it at the prices even used cars are commanding theses days. Then one Sunday, our Group Life pastor called us in his office and told us a couple had donated a car to the church and he wanted to pass it along to us. It’s been a true Godsend. It drives well and with any luck, we’ll get ten or more years out of it

• Four, I’m thankful for my three college buddies: Cook, Hoppe, and Brent, who keep in touch as often as they can. We’ve had some great times together when we were younger and even though we don’t get to see each other as much as we did in school, they are the types of friends you can count on to be there even when the years between gatherings grown. In fact, Cook and Hoppe are the reason I’m typing this on a keyboard instead of trying to do two finger texting on my phone so I’ll get done in an hour instead of a week.

• Five, I’m thankful for my buddy Carlos. He’s a former student of mine and truth be told, he’s pretty much the son I never managed to have. He calls me every day but Sunday to check on me and make sure Budge and I are doing well. He’s cut my grass before and done other things around the house to be extremely helpful. He never asks for anything in return. He’s as loyal of a friend as I could as for even if he’s nearly 20 years younger than me. Just an all around great guy.

So that’s this year’s list. Like I said before, I could list a ton of things I take for granted and shouldn’t but those five are special things I want to highlight this year. I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving Day, I love y’all, and keep those feet clean.

I sat down to write a totally different post about a completely different subject. When I pulled up WordPress, however, today’s writing topic really caught my eye and struck home with me. It asked “what historical events do you remember?” I grew up with Mama talking about being in gym class when President Kennedy was assassinated and how scared she was during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Granny Wham always talked about hearing on the radio about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. So, I got to thinking about it and realized I actually remember quite a few historical events. I may not remember all the details, but I remember the gist of things. Here’s a few.

The first event I remember clearly is the Jonestown Massacre in Guyana. I was sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of Granny and Papa Wham’s old console TV when the news came on that night and they showed the now famous aerial picture of the compound with all the bodies radiating out from the various stations where I assume the barrels of Kool-Aide were. I don’t remember having any definite feelings about it because I wasn’t really aware of death that much since it hadn’t touched my life yet.

I remember being at my babysitter’s house in the living room watching afternoon cartoons when the news interrupted with breaking news. The announcer said John Lennon had just been shot and killed outside his apartment building in New York City. I was nine, I think, and I didn’t know who he was. All I know is Mama was really upset about it when she picked me up that night.

I’m sure I’ll miss something major as sure as the world, but the next thing that really stands out was my freshman year of high school. We had all gotten our lunch and brought it back to our English class to watch the Space Shuttle take a teacher into space. Everyone knows what happened next. We were eating square pizza when the Challenger exploded right after takeoff. I remember it being so quiet in a room of thirty freshmen who were never quiet. I watched the news that night and saw President Reagan give his speech where he said they touched the face of God.

I don’t remember all the details, but I remember watching the news during the protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989. So many people were packed into the square. I remember Papa Wham saying something about the Chinese government wouldn’t allow this to continue. Sure enough ,after allowing the protest to go on longer than I ever imagined the army came in and killed so many people. I was privileged enough to see the original footage of Tank Man when he came out of nowhere and took his stand in front of the tank column to block them from continuing to the square. To this day, I think that unknown man is one of the bravest people I’ve ever seen.

Once again, I was lying in the floor in Granny and Papa Wham’s living room watching tv with Papa when the news broke in with urgent news from West Germany. It was November 9, 1989. I had come by to eat supper with Papa and Granny and ended up watching the Berlin Wall fall. It was crazy! Growing up waiting to be turned into a mushroom cloud by nuclear war, I never dreamed anything like this would happen, but I watched as East Berliners crossed over to West Berlin as the soldiers stood by with their guns on their shoulders watching. That was a glorious time.

I know I’m missing something big. I saw so much now that I start thinking about it. I watched as the Soviet flag came down from the Kremlin as the Soviet Union collapsed. Not long after that a bunch of us sat in my dorm room watching the beginning of the Desert Storm attacks and the First Gulf War. I saw the riots after the Rodney King verdict when parts of LA burned and the news showed people being dragged out of cars and beaten in the streets. I remember seeing news footage of the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993. A few years later, I was at school and on my planning period I stopped by the library and several teachers were clustered around watching footage from the Oklahoma City Bombing. The announcer was talking about the nursery that had been full and how it was destroyed.

Then, there was the big one. I guess this is my generation’s “where were you” moment. I was teaching first period when Pat Harvey, the school secretary came to my door and motioned for me to come over. She said someone had just flown a plane into the World Trade Center tower. It was all over the news. I had a TV in my room so I turned it on just in time to catch the second plane hitting the tower. That’s when we knew it wasn’t an accident. The kids were silent. They couldn’t process what was happening. I was a so-called adult and I couldn’t really process it. That was all we did the rest of the day as parents rushed to the school to pick up their children just to hold them close.

Then, of course, the War on Terrorism started and drug on for twenty years. Since then, I’ve seen the first Black man elected President of the United States. I’ve seen the WoT end abruptly. I’ve lived through a global pandemic and just when I thought I’d seen everything, on my 50th birthday I saw the rioting crowds attack the Capitol Building!

So I guess I have seen a swath of history. Some of it was a pleasure to watch. Most of it involved blood. Seems like so much of history involved shedding blood. What about y’all? What do y’all remember happening? Let me know.

Love y’all and keep those feet clean!

One of the greatest ironies of my life and my marriage with Budge is the fact that we have never had children despite both being teachers for years and working with children in our churches for just as long. As of our last anniversary, we have been married 27 years. I’m 52; Budge is 45, so it’s quite unlikely we’ll be having children now. If we did find out we were pregnant, I’m pretty sure neither one of us would survive the news. I know I’d have a heart attack and I’m not even the one who would have to carry the baby.

We didn’t set out to not have children. We even spent many hours of in depth conversations about how we would raise children, what our expectations would be, and what our respective parenting styles would look like. It was all theoretical, of course, but we had the conversations. We thought we were ready. Daddy, only half jokingly, told us we needed to wait ten years before we had kids. That would have put me at 35 and Budge at 28, which seemed pretty good. So ten years came and went and we thought the time was right.

The children never came. We never really said we were trying to have kids just like I never technically asked Budge to marry me, we just didn’t try not having them. As I got near to 40, we realized there was a good chance we weren’t having children naturally. We briefly considered IVF, but we looked into prices and realized no way could we afford it. Insurance wouldn’t cover it and we certainly couldn’t pay the thousands out of pocket it would have cost.

We had another reason for not wanting to go that route. We didn’t feel we HAD to have children. It would be nice, but we loved each other and we were happy together. We’d seen what happened when people started working with fertility issues. Things were fine at first, then nerves started fraying, then fingers started pointing. In some cases, couples split up over trying to have children. We didn’t feel like going through that. Even worse, we saw two very good friend have an IVF baby after many thousands of dollars and several failed attempts. The baby boy instantly became the Sun to their universe. Everything they were and did became wrapped up into that child. The boy is in high school now and he’s ruined. Spoiled, entitled, and the be all and end all of his parents’ marriage. It’s not healthy in any way possible. We didn’t want that.

So now we are looking at a childless future and we’re okay with that. I do worry about one of the two of us dying alone. It’s just the two of us really. We aren’t very close to any of our family that haven’t died already. Inevitably one of us will pass away and the other will be left alone. That makes me sad. Budge doesn’t think about it much because that’s the way she deals with things.

Still, having children doesn’t guarantee you won’t die alone. I know parents who had two or three or more children and raised them as best as they knew how. They loved them, provided for them, took care of them, and the children still abandoned them in their old age. I saw it with my own eyes when I visited Ima at the nursing home. Families that never came. I think that would be worse than just not having children in the first place.

Some people may wonder about our perspectives on adoption. We were fine with adopting. We had no qualms about it at all. Then we looked into the process. Both of us have some health problems and most adoption agencies aren’t going to place a child with unhealthy individuals. If that wasn’t enough, as anyone who has read this blog long knows, I have issues with mental health. An agency that might allow a less than healthy adoption would never put a child with someone with mental health. So, that pretty much shoots adoption in the foot.

So there you have it. My thoughts on us not having children. It could be worse. I just wish we’d have some way to not be alone in the world after one of us is gone. But that’s just the way it is.

Love y’all. Keep those feet clean.

Okay, I don’t delve into politics much. Anyone who has followed this blog for over ten years knows that. I think I’ve written two posts, or maybe three that could be considered political in that stretch of time. So why am I breaking habit and writing about Washington’s doings now? One simple reason: I’m a little scared about what’s going on.

We’ve got an election coming up next year. It’s all we’ll hear about for the foreseeable future, just like every other election year. Endless ads on television and radio. Signs all over the place. The usual. This one is different to me though, and the reason is simple, the candidates.

In this corner, we have Joe Biden, current President. Joe is taking a lot of heat for many of his policies. So of it I can understand; some of it seems undeserved. But that’s just the nature of the job. That’s being President. Half the country is going to hate you at any given time. What worries me is Joe seems really fragile these days. He falls in public more than Gerald Ford famously did. He seems addled sometimes. Not to put to fine a point on it, the man is old.

I just watched my father-in-law pass away from Alzheimer’s Disease and to be completely honest, his early symptoms were not much different than the behaviors Joe is exhibiting right now. He wouldn’t be the first President with dementia in office. It’s pretty clear now that Reagan was in the early stages of dementia when he was in his last term and look at some of the train wrecks he caused in the second half of that second term. Biden may be the second. Still, as I said before, the man is old.

If Joe runs again, which seems inevitable, he will be almost 90 if he survives his entire term. He’s just too old for the rigors of the Presidency. He doesn’t have the physical strength to bear up under the tremendous burden of the office. His mental faculties seem to be fading, and that is dangerous in a man who controls nukes. It’s why we worry about Putin.

Despite all this, the Democrats seem hell bent on running Joe again. No one has seriously mentioned any sort of challenge. So that makes the candidate for Vice-President crucial since he or she is most likely going to be taking over when Joe keels over in office. Hopefully it won’t be Kamala Harris. She just hasn’t shown much leadership as Vice, and it would be dark days if she had to take over. Hopefully, the Democrats will replace her with someone more suitable, because so much depends on it, mostly because of the second reason I’m scared.

I’ll cut to the chase — my heart cannot take another four years of Trump. The man is singularly unfit to be the POTUS. He is a criminal. He’s under indictment in four separate cases, all stemming from his time in office and his handling of top secret documents. Let me say it again — the man is a criminal. Despite that, however, he holds a two digit lead in all the relevant polls over the rest of the Republican field. It seems like a miracle would have to occur for him to not win the nomination.

Why? Why has the great majority of the Republican Party sold their souls to Trump? What did he do in his first term besides getting us on the bad side of almost all our allies and starting a trade war with China. His base is happy he’s “tough” on things other Presidents just ignore. They ignore them for a reason. That reason is global stability. We have enough crazy leaders in charge of nations as it is without adding another of our own to the mix.

Why can’t all the rabid Trumpites see just how delusional the man is? He started a riot over losing the election. Who does that? 200+ years of elections in this country and some of them really close and painful for the loser, but we’ve never had a riot of people storming the Capitol Building to stop Congress from certifying the election. Trump did that. Three years later and he’s still spouting the Big Lie that the election was stolen from him. He lost. Why can’t he accept that? Al Gore did and his margins were much closer than Trump’s. Anybody remember hanging chads?

The group that disappoints me the most in their support of Trump is Christians, especially so called Evangelical Christians. The man has been married enough times to give Elizabeth Taylor a run for her money. He is unbelievably profane and he worships no one but himself, yet because he is anti-abortion, so many Christians are ready to support anything he does. As a Christian, it doesn’t make me angry; it truly makes me sad.

Still, unless the legal problems entangle Trump and make him ineligible to run for President next year, which he’s fighting tooth and nail, he’s going to be the Republican candidate and as we’ve seen already, enough people are enamored with him that he can win the White House and then what will we do? Some people will be giddy, I’m certain, but I for one tremble at the thought of four more years of the man.

So as voters it looks like we are faced with a choice between the devil and the witch. I don’t think either outcome is going to be good for the country, but then again, what do I know? I just keep hoping for the best.

Love y’all and keep your feet clean!

Earlier this month, Budge and I took a trip to south Florida. That’s right, I traveled. I who have not ventured away from home in the last ten years went on a trip. It was a simple thing really. I haven’t travelled because I didn’t trust anyone to take care of my boy. I wasn’t worried about the cats since as long as they have enough food and water left for the number of days we’ll be gone, they’ll be just fine. Heck, they probably didn’t notice we were even gone except their litter box wasn’t kept as clean as they like it. My Keaudie was another story. He had to go out and pee and poop and be walked and all and for ten years, I didn’t travel because of him. Unfortunately, and sadly, he’s gone now so I no longer have that excuse.

Budge’s aunt came down for Dad’s funeral back in May and she and Budge planned this trip. Originally I was going to have Budge fly since I didn’t want her driving twelve hours by herself, but with my buddy passing away, I decided to go with her and we drove. Well, first we did $1800 worth of work to the car. That included four new tires and let me tell you, one thing I never realized when I was a kid and just took for granted is how much TIRES cost! So we got the car repaired where it needed it and set out on the road.

Now it is a LONG way to Cape Coral, Florida from here in the Upstate of South Carolina. It gets longer when you hit Atlanta at 9:00 AM. Stop and go for an hour getting through Georgia’s capital. Just as an aside, and I hope I don’t offend anyone too much, but I hate Georgia. I have deep, personal reasons for hating Georgia, but just suffice it to say if I owned a mansion in Georgia and a shack in Hell, I’d rent out the mansion and live in the shack.

In any event, we slogged through Atlanta and managed to start making good time. About lunch time, I was getting hungry and I asked Budge about where she thought we’d stop for a break and food. She said she had a surprise for me. The surprise appeared about an hour later. It was Buc-ee’s.

If you’ve never been to a Buc-ee’s like myself at the time, you have missed out in life and need to add it to your bucket list immediately. If you know what Buc-ee’s is, you can just go on and surf some more and find something else to interest you. If you don’t, let me describe it to you. Buc-ee’s is what you’d get if a Super WalMart and a Cracker Barrel had some sort of demented love child.

First of all, it’s a massive gas station. I saw like fifty to seventy-five two sided pumps as we pulled up and every one of them was full — many with RVs that looked like mansions on wheels. Then, you make your way inside past the plethora of people taking selfies or family photos with the six foot tall bronze statue of Buc-ee the Beaver, the franchise’s mascot. Once you swim through the sea of people and actually get inside, you are assaulted by a direct frontal attack on every sense you have. Hearing? Noisy as a jetport on Thanksgiving Eve. Smell? Some stuff that would make your mouth water. Taste? Actually getting some of that stuff to eat. Touch? Playing pinball through the store with 10,000 of your closest friends. Finally, Sight? You’d have to see it to believe it.

You can get things at Buc-ee’s you never knew you needed. Want a tie-dyed t-shirt with a cartoon beaver on the front? Got you covered. How about a king sized bag of Beaver Nuggets? Got it. Also, I don’t know what’s actually IN Beaver Nuggets, but they are addictive and I may or may not have eaten a bag in a single sitting and jacked my blood sugar to the ionosphere. The back wall of the store has a floor to ceiling display of every kind of jerky you can imagine and some that only exist in cows’ nightmares. If you can’t find what you want pre-packaged, no problem, you can go to the custom jerky counter and order even wilder varieties of leather meat.

The bathrooms are a sight to behold in and of themselves. Two banks of 25 toilet stalls each on the left of the restroom and as many urinals on the right with a line of sinks a mile long right down the middle. Budge said the womens’ room was the same way minus the urinals. It doesn’t take long to get through and get some relief from traveling if you’re a man or a woman, that’s for sure.

The center of the store has a meat cutting station where you can pick up a jumbo brisket sandwich that it will take you two hands and an inordinately long amount of time to eat. You can get chopped brisket or sliced brisket and the sandwiches go FAST. I almost had to smack a woman who jumped in front of me after I’d already had four sandwiches taken practically out of my grasp. They also have chicken sandwiches and a few other kinds of hot sandwiches. You know more brisket is ready because the meat cutters announce LOUDLY whenever a new brisket to be chopped makes it’s way onto the cutting board.

A bay of drink stations is right behind the meat counter and a large drink from Buc-ee’s will float a good sized yacht. Think way bigger than a Big Gulp from 7-Eleven or a Route 44 from Sonic. You finish off one of these drinks and that nice big bathroom sure will come in handy. If you don’t like fountain drinks, that’s not a problem either. They have a wall of refrigerators in a corner of the store with drinks I’ve never heard of that apparently originate from Buc-ee’s home state of Texas.

Once you gather up as much food and other stuff as you can carry, don’t plan on standing in line long to check out. The cashiers run like a machine getting people out. All you have to do is pay attention when one calls “Next guest down here!” You can check out at three of the four sides of the store too. Big banks of cashiers ready to take your money.

We finally made it back to the car with a brisket sandwich for me and one or more bags of Beaver Nuggets as well as some other sundry food items to make the drive a little smoother. We didn’t need gas then, thankfully, because you took your life in your own hands if you tried to get to a gas pump.

It was an experience. We stopped by four days later on our way back so I could get more Beaver Nuggets and Budge could get these cookies she absolutely loves. I got another brisket sandwich and this time I took my shirt off to eat it so I didn’t get BBQ sauce on yet another of my favorite shirts.

I also found out from Budge that we have a Buc-ee’s in South Carolina down in Florence on I-95. I made here promise me once the beginning of the year settles down at school we can get up early on Saturday and ride down there and get some more Beaver Nuggets and brisket sandwiches. It wasn’t too hard to convince here since she likes those cookies so much.

If you have a chance to stop a Buc-ee’s, by all means take the time to do so. You won’t regret it. All my Yankee friends though will have to come south to visit though. Buc-ee’s hasn’t made it north yet!

Love y’all and keep those feet clean.