In just a few days, July will end and August will be here. On the third day of this August, Budge and I will celebrate thirty years of marriage. This is, in a life of disappointments, by far, the greatest thing I have ever done. With Budge’s help, we have navigated three decades of richer or poorer — mostly poorer –, sickness and health, mostly health, although as we both get older, sickness seems to be catching up. We’ve reached this milestone without grave and devastating arguments or fights. I know it’s a cliche but we’ve been married thirty years and we truly have never had a fight. We’ve disagreed on some stuff, but once I saw the logic of her side of the argument, things smoothed right out. Truly, it’s wonderful to be together all these years and still love each other. What’s more, we still LIKE each other, which I would argue is much more important, because you can totally love someone you can’t stand. I don’t understand how it’s possible, but I’m old enough to know that it is.

We met on October 10, 1994. It was my very first day at Woodmont High School. My first teaching job. I was talking with the teacher I would be taking over for when this adorable girl with a mushroom haircut and weepy eyes burst into the room. She ran up to Beth and hugged her then pushed back and started relaying a tale of awful woe. Being an empathetic person, I cleared my throat and she whirled around on me. I simply said, in my calmest, meekest tone, “Is there anything I can do for you?” She stared at me with a gaze cold enough to freeze birds out of the sky and said, icily, “You can LEAVE.” Realizing in the moment discretion was the better part of valor, I took her words to heart and I left.

That was that. I didn’t think any more about the meeting and I didn’t see her again for weeks after. Then, about two or three weeks out from Christmas break, she bounced — yes, bounced, like Tigger in Winnie the Pooh stories — up to me with her friend, Ginger, in tow and announced to me that the next weekend she would be able to call me by my first name. I had no clue what she was on about until she mentioned the Natural Helper’s Retreat coming up the next weekend. A couple of other first year teachers and I had been picked by the students to be part of the Natural Helpers, a group in the school students felt safe and heard talking to. Budge was a member and apparently one of the perks was during the retreat students were allowed to call teachers by their first names.

I nodded dumbly and she bounded away. Ginger looked back over her shoulder at me and shook her head gloomily. I, for my part, forgot about the whole thing. That weekend came and it happened to be on my birthday. My birthday has always been problematic and this year was no different. I had left the house before Mama woke up so I didn’t get to hear her tell me happy birthday, so I was in a bit of a downcast mood. Then we had the trip up to Awanita Valley Camp Center near the North Carolina border in a snowstorm. We didn’t know for sure we’d be able to get there, but we managed.

Well, I got my bag of stuff and disembarked the bus. Just as I got inside, I was accosted and nearly tackled to the ground by Budge! She swept me up in a big hug and said, “Happy Birthday, Shannon!” Then she hugged me again and disappeared. I want you to remember now that this girl told me to leave just a couple of months prior, but now she acted ecstatic to see me. We got settled and sat down for supper. She sat next to me in her Notre Dame sweatshirt, which is still around her somewhere. Then we had activities for trust building and icebreakers and such. Every activity found her as my partner or part of my team. She was stuck to me like glue.

The next day was more of the same. Where I went, she went. Then came the Hummer ride up the mountain. I’ve written about that ride before. Go back and find it if you like. Suffice it to say, by the time we came down from the ride, I was as interested in her as she was in me. She had a beautiful personality — bursting with life and happiness. She was very intelligent as evidenced by the fact she was in all these honor’s courses. Also, not gonna lie, she was easy to look at. We dismounted the Hummer and we had a little while before supper. I remember us walking out to the lake shore and I had to force myself to not take her hand. We sat down side by side and talked. Serious talk. She said she liked me and I said I liked her and then proceeded to give a ton of reasons a relationship between us would never work. She agreed, but I don’t think, looking back, either one of us cared.

That night, we had a huge bonfire and I didn’t notice it happening but little by little I was left alone with several of the older husbands of the teachers. Budge and my closeness had not gone unnoticed. I learned stuff about Budge from those men that I should have learned about from her, but didn’t get the chance. Mostly, I learned her mother had died swiftly less than two full years earlier. I was warned against getting too attached to a student and basically read the riot act about how I would destroy my career if I pursued Budge romantically. I found out later on Budge was getting the same talk from the older women on the trip up in the lodge.

So, the weekend ended. On the way down the mountain, I took her class ring and wouldn’t give it back to her until she was about to pass out from anxiety. It was HER birthday, and that’s when I found out we had something else in common. Out birthdays were one day apart. Mine is January 6th and hers is January 8th. We parted without ceremony when we got back to the parking lot at school and that’s the way things stood for two weeks. Then I got a call one night. It was Budge and she was talking like words were money and she was trying to make a mint. What I finally understood once she slowed down a bit was she wanted us to go out on Martin Luther King Day. I said sure, figured out where to meet her, and waited for our first date. I vaguely remember feeling this might be a bad idea, but I was certain I didn’t care.

The day came and we met up and went to Greenville, the nearest place of any size. We were going to see a movie until we walked in the theater and half of Woodmont was there in line. We ducked out immediately, unseen, and realized our mistake at coming to the town everyone in school came to for entertainment. So, we went across town for ice cream and I took her back to her car. That was our first, ill advised, date.

If I told you all the details of our years together before Budge graduated, it would take more time than you are willing to sit here. Suffice it to say, we eventually were the WORST kept secret in Greenville County School District. The only person I realized didn’t know was our hated principal. Oh yeah, and Budge’s dad didn’t know about us for a year, but that’s more of those details I’m glossing over. I remember the day the president of the school PTA took me aside in front of the school and told me in low tones, “Shannon, the entire community knows about you and Budge. No one cares. We think you are good for her and are treating her well. We’ll run interference for you as much as we possibly can. Don’t worry about anything.”

We dated the rest of Budge’s junior year, all summer, then all of her senior year. She started coming to my church, and once Mama found out she was going home to an empty house on Friday nights until 4:00 and 5:00, well, Mama wasn’t having that so for Budge’s entire senior year, she packed a bag and came to my house on Friday night after the game and stayed until Sunday night or Monday morning. It was around that time she finally told her dad about us and that went better than expected.

She graduated in May, our engagement announcement came out first week of June, and we got married August 3, 1996. We went to Disney World on our honeymoon. We’ve been together ever since. We’ve been through some really tough things together. I lost all my grandparents and Mama in the first half of our marriage and she stayed right beside me. More recently, Dad, Budge’s dad, was diagnosed with dementia. He held out for four years. The last two he was in a VA hospital with a dementia wing and I went to see him two or three times a week for Budge so she would worry. He passed away two years ago.

It’s been an adventure. I’ve been with her half my life. Over half my life. I ask her all the time if she had and regrets about not going to a traditional college experience or getting married at eighteen years old. She always smiles and shakes her head. She says the same thing every time, “I asked for you. You’re my person.”

That’s enough. I, for my part, cannot fathom life without her.

So, y’all know I love you. Be good and keep those feet clean!

This post originally ran ten years ago in July. Hope you like it.

My junior AP History teacher, Mr. Tommy Sublett, was the first aficionado of the late War of Northern Aggression I ever met in person and got to talk to at length. I never knew why he loved the Civil War so much because he was from Kentucky and those Kentuckians — bless their little bluegrass hearts — were citizens of a border state. Being a border state meant they, along with their three brethren states, had legal slavery but they were too chicken-livered (or prescient, if you think about it) to join the Confederacy in defending States’ Rights from the encroachment of the soulless Yankees.

Kentucky Colonel or no, “Sub” loved to teach us about the Civil War. We spent four weeks on everything from Jamestown to Fort Sumter and from the second week in September until February on the War of Southern Independence. Then Sub realized this was an AP class (we were his first) and we were going to have to take a big test the first week in May and he hadn’t covered a few important items from our nation’s history . . . like the entire 20th Century. Even though the War Between the States was important, most of us figured that test would have at least one or two questions on WWII and maybe even a question on the Soviet Union. So from February through the AP test, we covered a chapter in our book every two days. I made Fs on the tests, but I made a 5 on the US AP History Exam.

But I digress.

One of the things Sub taught us was the Confederacy was pretty much doomed from the start because the Yankees outnumbered us (I’m Southern born and bred. My ancestors did some stupid stuff, but you have to love them, so it’s US for me) about 5:1 or so, give or take. The war only lasted as long as it did because it took Honest Abe four years to find two men — Gens. Grant and Sherman — brutal enough to exploit the overwhelming numerical superiority. Once Grant started sending the Yankee equivalent of “human wave” attacks at our ragged boys in grey, the gig was up. All the wonderful officers and doughty farm boys in the world ain’t gonna save you when you’ve got a gun that fires 3 shots a minute at most and ten men come at you across 30 seconds of ground. The public — North and South — called those two “butchers” and accused them of slaughtering their own men, but in the end it worked and — as The Band and  Joan Baez put it so eloquently — they “drove ol’ Dixie down.”

But once again, I digress.

Even though Sub taught us about the disparity in numbers, he never addressed how we ended up with such a skewed ratio of troops. I mean, our women are far prettier than Yankee women and if you don’t believe it watch The Real Housewives of Atlanta back to back with The Real Housewives of New Jersey then tell me those “Jersey girls” can match our Belles! So if our genetic stock was (and is) so vastly superior to our erstwhile foes, WHY didn’t we have at least equal numbers of people?

Then, a few days ago, in the midst of a third consecutive day with 100 degree heat with a 115 degree “real feel”, the answer came to me — the Southern climate doomed our boys.

We have two seasons in the South — January and summer. Short, mild winters coupled with ungodly hot and humid summers put our side at a disadvantage because we only had about a 2 or 3 month window each year when it was cool enough to . . . well, . . . PROCREATE.

We’re all adults here, do I have to draw you a picture?

Our Yankee foes, on the other hand, had the exact OPPOSITE issue. Minnesota? They have two seasons as well: July and winter. It’s that way all across the North. It gets COLD up there and cold is conducive to baby-making. Couple of quilts and some body heat and you end up warm, toasty, and “expectant.” Then just about the time THAT little bundle of joy gets weaned, it’s sub-zero again and the cycle starts all over.

Imagine this scenario, and before we get started, just so you know, this is the regular old yeoman farmers. This ain’t the big, high-falutin’ 100 Slave Working Coastal PLANTATION. This is a dirt poor Georgia / Mississippi, no-slave-owning upland family growing jes’ enuff cot’n ta’ git by. Mama, Daddy, a mess of kids that pick cotton too, and MAYBE — if last year’s cotton crop was awesome — a hired hand to help get the cotton in before the rain ruined it. Anyway, woman’s been up since before dawn cooking breakfast and packing food to take to the fields. She worked all day in the sun, heat, and humidity wearing more clothes than most women today wear in the dead of winter. Got home about two hours before everybody else to get supper ready and do some laundry. Fed everybody, cleaned up, gathered eggs and fed the chickens then washed her face and collapsed into bed .

In comes hubby. He’s worked all day as well. He hasn’t washed his face and hands. This was NOT a hygienic age in America. He hasn’t washed ANYTHING since last Saturday. So he slides into the straw ticking bed in his union suit and eases his hand over to just gently touch his loving wife and offer her a proposition:

“Hey, honey-bun, how’s about a little lovin’ tonight?”

Now, remember, it’s a July night when hot enough to make the Devil sigh with air thick as day old red-eye gravy. She’s sweating buckets in her coolest cotton nightgown and trying to get to sleep so she can get up in a few hours and do it all over again. She gently puts his hand back over on his side of the bed and offers him a counter-proposition:

“Hey, sugar bug, how about you keep that hand on your side til first frost and you’ll have two hands to pick cotton with tomorrow instead of one.” What’s more, not a jury in the county would convict her.

So the case is cracked. We lost the war because we were low on men and we were low on men because none of those good Southern folks had A/C in their bedrooms and it was just TOO HOT this time of year for all that foolishness.

Love y’all and keep those feet cool, dry and clean!

I’ve been lucky in the majority of my life to not have many regrets. I haven’t lived a perfect life by any means, nor even a particularly pious one either. I’ve muddled along doing the best I could and trying as much as possible to not cause undue hurt or complications to anyone. I’ve failed quite miserably at that task and have hurt some I meant no harm to and complicated what should have been a simple situation. I do have a few things I wish I’d done differently. Now I do have some missed opportunities in my life that others would call a regret, but I just look at it as having taken a different, sometimes worse, road. So here’s a few of the things in my life I wish I’d have done differently or had a chance at.

One regret I have is a silly one to most people I’m sure. I regret having never played in a real, continuing, and expertly run Dungeons and Dragons campaign. I have been fascinated with the role playing game since I watched a group of guys a year older than me in middle school play some rounds when I was in sixth grade. I bought the beginner set and read everything I could get my hands on about the game. I was only lacking one thing – a group to play with. I had easily the broadest imagination of all my friends and I thought the fantasy world would be a great escape and world to explore. Well, they didn’t. I got two friends to play a few rounds of a campaign I made up, but it went nowhere and they pretty much hated every moment. Most of my friends were the outdoor type and D and D doesn’t really lend itself to that kind of mindset.

A second regret I have is a little more serious. I wish I’d been in the armed services. When I was eighteen and working at Advance Auto Parts, I had a coworker who was a medically discharged Marine. I ate up his stories. I’ve also got a history of service in my family. Daddy served in Vietnam. Papa Wham served in World War II, and my great-grandfather – Papa Wham’s dad – served at the tail end of World War I. So I had an itch to join up and be apart of their brotherhood. I let Moose, my Marine coworker, drive me to the recruiting office where two of his former unit partners were the recruiters. I took the ASVAB and scored the highest score ever in that office. They were really excited and told me I could do anything in the Corps I wanted to based on my score. Then, I went to processing. That was where you get inspected and judged fit or unfit for the service. Here’s where I had a problem. I’d had a car wreck in my sophomore year and a wooden spike went through my left leg. The wound was pretty gnarly but it healed up, mostly. I still had a ragged scar in that part of my leg. Problem was, I couldn’t stand that scar to be touched. It pained me a lot. Well, the last station in the inspection I went to, one away from taking the oath and starting on the way to Parris Island, the doctor in charge looked at that scar and shoved three fingers right into it. I almost vomited and I went to my knees. That failed me because, as the doctor said, the first thing an enemy who captured me and wanted me to talk would do would be to attack that scar, and there was no place in the Corps for men with built-in torture points. I went home in shame. The recruiters would barely look at me when I picked up my diploma I’d sent in. So, I ended up going to college. I guess it worked out right though, because if I hadn’t gone to college and followed that path, I wouldn’t have met some of the most important people in my life, not least of whom would be Budge.

College produced another regret I carried along. I wish I’d tried harder to carry on in Calculus and maybe have become an engineer and made some real money in my life and provided a better future for my family. Instead, I got scared the very first day of class and dropped out of the program altogether. What made it so hard was any science based degree I looked at required at least one, if not more, semesters of Calculus, and I had it in my head I couldn’t do it. No confidence, even though I’d done pretty well in Calculus in high school. I just didn’t think I could make it without Mr. Brady teaching me and some of my friends tutoring me. That’s how I ended up in education and became an English teacher. The money hopes went out the window, and in the end, my teaching career turned out to implode (I talk about that elsewhere if you can find it) so in the very end, I sit here on Social Security Disability and wonder what’s going to happen in the future. Again, though, if I hadn’t become an English teacher, I never would have ended up at Woodmont High School and I never would have met Budge and we wouldn’t be nearing thirty years married together, so I guess that’s what was supposed to happen.

Another regret, more of one of those “missed opportunities” I talked about, came up not long after Budge and I married. I am an ordained minister. Not many people know that. I’ve preached fill in services and the odd revival here and there. One person who always gave me plenty of chances to preach was my Great-uncle Claude Hurley. He pastored a church in Florence, SC for fifty years. In my middle twenties, I went down and preached revivals for him. He liked my style and the way I interacted with people, and his congregation loved Budge and me. So he called me one day and told me he wanted to talk to me. I met him at Aunt Pearl’s and he told me he was stepping down from pastoring his church. He wanted me to take over for him. I’d have inherited a fully paid for church building, a thriving congregation, and a good salary. It was every minister’s dream come true. I turned it down. Again, I was scared of leaving what I knew. I was in my third year of teaching and Budge had just started a job she later came to hate, but we didn’t know that at the time. Uncle Claude was disappointed, but he understood. He found another minister to take his place, and I kept on keeping on. I don’t know what would have happened if I’d taken his church and tried to be a good minister. I might have done a fantastic job. Budge might have excelled as a pastor’s wife. It could have been amazing, but I’ll never know. All because I was scared. I still look back sometimes and wonder “what if” about that.

As you can tell, fear is a big reason for most of my regrets – the ones I mention here and others through my life. Fear is hard to overcome. Inertia is a powerful force in a person’s life like mine. I’ve never been a risktaker or a maverick of any kind. I’ve always stuck to the know paths, the “safe” paths. It hasn’t helped me much, to be honest. I’ve missed out on a great many things that could have been excellent things for me to do. But, I was scared.

Writing this blog doesn’t scare me though. Even if I doubt more that a handful of people ever read it. It’s one of the few things of any legacy I have. That’s why when I feel like not making any more posts, I push on through. Maybe it’ll mean something to someone, somewhere, someday.

Love ya’ll, and keep your feet clean!

It’s that time of year again. Time for families to gather and eat turkeys and pass out in food comas in front of the tv watching football games. Thanksgiving is a family time. Unfortunately, not everyone has a joyous time at Thanksgiving because they either don’t have any family left, or maybe they are estranged from their family they do have. One of my friends is going the be alone this Thanksgiving for the first time in seven years because he and his long time girlfriend split up back in March. He’s picking up a shift at the security job where he works since he doesn’t have any dinners to go to.

I don’t know which is worse, to not be able to be around your family for one reason or another — some legitimate, some petty as hell — or to simply have no family to gather with anymore. Budge and I fall into the latter group. I grew up having great Thanksgivings. In fact, one of the only things I found somewhat beneficial about having divorced parents was the fact I got to eat TWO Thanksgiving meals.

For the first few years of my life, starting once I was big enough to follow along, I went hunting with Daddy and some friends and family on Thanksgiving morning. Thanksgiving has traditionally been the opening day for rabbit season in South Carolina, and Daddy had a pack of beagles he loved to hear run rabbits. He would pick me up early in the morning from Mama’s, if I hadn’t spent the night at his house, then we would hunt for a few hours, and he would take me back to Mama’s so I could wash up and we could go to wherever we were having Thanksgiving lunch. We had choices depending on which great-aunts were cooking that year, but they all could cook better than anyone else I knew.

After lunch, Mama and I would go to Fountain Inn where Mama would drop me off with Papa and Granny Wham. Papa, Uncle Larry, and I would watch football together in the den. Lots of years, I didn’t get to see much playing time because I would fall into a turkey induced deep sleep for a couple of hours. I’d wake up once Daddy and Teresa, my stepmother, got there though. Then it would be time for Thanksgiving Meal Round Two. Granny laid out quite a spread for Thanksgiving supper. I had no problem eating that second meal though.

No matter how much I had eaten at lunch, I always had room for Granny Wham’s bone dry turkey and my own pan of dressing. Yes, I got my own small pan of dressing cooked for me at Thanksgiving and Christmas because I didn’t like onions, so Granny Wham made me my own little pan without onions. Drove Daddy crazy, but Granny didn’t want to hear it. Aunt Cathy was always first in line to fix her plate. That was because she had to be the first to pick which yeast roll or biscuit she wanted. That’s just the way it was. Drove Daddy crazy, but Granny didn’t want to hear it.

When I became a teenager and started dating, things got a little complicated as I now had a girlfriend who wanted to eat with her family and mine. So, for a couple of years, I ate THREE and every once FOUR Thanksgiving meals on Thanksgiving Day. That did strain my belt loops and I had to learn to pace myself. Granny noticed and made a unilateral decision. She moved our Thanksgiving meal to the Sunday after Thanksgiving. For the rest of my teenage years and into my twenties, that’s when we ate Thanksgiving.

Then came 1995. Granny Wham had a stroke in July and Papa Wham died three days later from the shock. Teresa took over the family meals. I’ll say this about my stepmother, she can cook. She can cook up a storm. I waddled away from her table many times in my life. We still had Thanksgiving on Sunday after Thanksgiving. It did make things easier. I got to eat with Mama, and then go eat with my girlfriend.

Sometime along the way, Mama started cooking Thanksgiving at her house. Mama could cook, too. (Does anyone see why I was such a fat kid growing up?) When Budge and I got married, we would eat lunch or supper with her Dad and Sandy and Sandy’s family, then eat with Mama for the other time slot. At least that’s what we did until we stopped eating Thanksgiving with Dad and Sandy for some years, but that’s a story for another time, and it’s really Budge’s story to tell, not mine, so you’ll probably never see it here.

Then, Mama’s health started failing and she no longer felt up to cooking a full Thanksgiving meal and doing all the prep work and clean up it required, even with Budge and I helping. That’s when we started eating Thanksgiving lunch at Ryan’s Steakhouse. It was a buffet more than a steakhouse and they were open on Thanksgiving Day at 10:00 am. We’d get there about 10:30 am and eat plenty and not have to clean up anything. It was great.

Then, faster than I could process it, Granny Wham was gone. She hadn’t cooked the meal in several years by that time, but she was there, and she was the heart of the family after Papa Wham died, then she was gone. Then, not long enough later, Mama was gone, too. Thanksgiving just wasn’t the same anymore. It didn’t help that Teresa decided to combine Thanksgiving and Christmas meals into one date because all of us were grown and had our own families and it was nearly impossible for everyone to get together twice in such a short period as Thanksgiving to Christmas.

With Mama gone and us not really associating with Dad and Sandy, that left Budge and I to our own devices on Thanksgiving. For a number of years, we ate Thanksgiving lunch at our friend Laura’s house with her family, but COVID did that in, among other things. So it was down to just Budge and me. These years, Budge has taken over and we have our own Thanksgiving tradition to celebrate. We get up and watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade until all the Broadway shows have done their part. Then, we go to Cracker Barrel about 11:00 am and eat their Thanksgiving special. It’s not Granny Wham, Mama, or Teresa, but it’s not terrible.

After we eat, we ride around in the car and, at noon, we listen to “Alice’s Restaurant” on WROQ 101.1. If you don’t know the song, it’s twenty minutes long, it’s a story, and it takes place around Thanksgiving. I love it and introduced Budge to it some years ago. After “Alice” goes off, we head home for naps. I’ll get up and watch some football while Budge piddles on her phone. Then, after dark, around 7:00 or 7:30, we’ll go to the Waffle House for Thanksgiving supper.

I really appreciate all Budge has done these last few years to create something for us to look forward to on Thanksgiving. I always get depressed badly this time of year because almost all my family is gone. Now, Budge’s Dad is gone, too, so it really is the two of us. She does a great job of giving our little family of two our own traditions to enjoy and, again, I appreciate all the work she does to make the day go well.

So, that’s this year’s Thanksgiving post. Hope you all have a great Thanksgiving wherever you are. Love y’all, and keep your feet clean.