I originally wrote this in November 2017. I did toss those lights at the end of the year and the end of the next year tossed some more. Budge and I haven’t managed to put up a tree the last two years but I do have three new boxes of lights ready to go so maybe next year will be the year!

I love Christmas lights. I remember when I was little, Papa and Granny Wham would take me out riding every Christmas season to look at lights in Fountain Inn. We’d always ride out to a place called Stewart’s Lake. Now today, places like Stewart’s Lake are everywhere, but back then it was the only game in town. The entire yard was lit up like, well . . . a Christmas tree! They had elves and Santas and three or four Nativity scenes, just lights everywhere. It was breathtaking to my single digit eyes. I remember even then asking Papa Wham who put all those lights up every year. He said he didn’t know and I was amazed because Papa Wham knew everything.

I used to “help” Papa put the lights on their Christmas tree every chance I got. I would always be put out when he would put the lights on without me while I wasn’t there. I realize now I was as much help to him then as my big fuzzy Keaudie dog is to me as I try to accomplish the same task!

Papa and Granny had those big lights on their tree. If you didn’t clip them on right and they lay against the artificial tree, they’d melt the plastic “needles” to the bulb. Granny always worried it would start a fire. As for me, I blistered my finger more than once touching one of the bulbs while it was lit. You can’t buy those kinds of bulbs anymore; I don’t think the safety gurus would let them get by.

Now, I am responsible for stringing lights on my own tree and I appreciate Papa’s toil more and more as the years go by. For the last two years, Budge and I have been so proud of getting the lights on the tree that we dispensed with putting ornaments on afterwards. Actually, what happened was we were so tired and frustrated at finally wrestling the lights onto the tree, we stopped to take a break and go eat dinner and just never made it back. So we had a 500 light green lamp in one corner of the room for the past two Christmas seasons. This year we swore would be different.

This year, Budge and I had a plan. Now as anyone knows, a plan – no matter how well thought out and put together – never survives the first contact with the enemy. In this case, the enemy happened to be three 600 bulb strands of lights. These lights were troopers. We’ve had them for five years, which honestly is about a hundred years in Christmas light years, and, with a little tweaking each year, they answered the bell and looked great on the tree. Still, they were part of the plan.

Now our grand decorating plan called for me to get the lights out the Monday before Thanksgiving to inspect them and make sure they were ready to roll onto the tree the day following Turkey Day. For some reason, I put it off until Tuesday. Then I gently removed all three strings of lights from their cozy year long slumber lying perfectly flat and undisturbed on top of the Christmas tree box. I’m serious, I’ve treated these lights better than some people treat their children.

When the lights last made their appearance, every bulb shone brightly. All three strands worked beautifully. They should have because I spent three hours last year cannibalizing a fourth strand of its bulbs in order to make sure three strands would work. Given all the effort I had put into tuning the lights and carefully storing them, I felt confident I would have no problems this year. I’d simply plug in the lights, replace a wayward bulb or two and all would be well. Budge and I would put the tree up on Black Friday and the lights would just spiral right onto the branches.

Nope. My optimism was sorely unrewarded.

I took all three strands into the hall so I could lay them out straight one by one. I rolled out the first strand and plugged it in. Half the strand lit up. Now I don’t know why I did this, but I unplugged the strand, waited a few seconds and plugged it back in. I can only assume it was an instinct from my time working on computers and I was hoping to reboot them or something. Instead, the other half of the strand lit up and the first half went dark. So it was going to be that kind of a year, eh?

I have this tool. It’s called a Light Saver or something like that and it’s designed to “fix” strands of burnt out lights. I read about how it supposedly sends a “pulse” down the strand and “rewelds” the contacts or something. I used it to get all the lights going last year and I’m convinced the thing uses some sort of dark magic, but it works. So I get out the Light Saver and plug it into the strand of half lit lights. I give it a few clicks and — like a miracle — the strand lights up . . . for ten seconds, then it all goes dark. I tried the tool again and this time the strand lay there dark, unlit, and mocking me.

I had similar results with the other two strands of lights. What was leading me to question my sanity and the laws of physics is WHY!? I took these lights off the tree last year. I laid them out and carefully made sure each bulb was lighting up as designed. All three strands were perfect! Six hundred little bulbs all winked their beautiful soft yellowish white light at me. Then I ever so gently rolled each strand up on a reel specifically designed for the job, put them away atop the tree box, and they lay there undisturbed for a year.

Now, nothing. One strand which had been the brightest last year didn’t light a single bulb this year. The Light Saver’s magic would not avail me this season. I was looking at another marathon session of robbing from one strand to try making three strands into two. I teared up a little at the thought of sore thumbs and frustration from swapping bulb after bulb. Christmas wasn’t looking so bright anymore.

On a hunch, Budge and I went to Walmart after supper that fateful night. I was shocked to see 600 lights going for $20 dollars! Now I’m not one to throw stuff away, but I snatched up two 300 light boxes as fast as I could, paid, and hit the door to show Budge my find. Forget this whole cannibalization crap.

So, Saturday evening, we put the tree up. It’s our venerable but still serviceable 18 year old artificial we bought when we first moved out from Mama’s. It takes a little longer to put up now because I have to peer at the end of the branch for a few seconds to determine what color the single fleck of paint left on the wire is. Anyway, the tree went up without a hitch. Then came the lights. Oh the joy! I plugged the new strands in and they all lit up gloriously!

The lights went on the tree super easily too, because they were packaged in a zig-zag pattern that just perfectly matched the way Budge likes to see lights on the tree. It was amazing. Instead of schlepping a huge light reel around the tree and handing it off to each other, we just passed around a little handful of lights. What usually took the better part of an hour took us barely fifteen minutes this year. Budge was pleased, which was all I needed.

Now the tree is up and lit. All we have left to do is put the ornaments on her, but we ran out of steam Saturday night before getting the totes with the ornaments in them out to the living room from storage so it remains to be seen if we will have ornaments this year, but regardless, we have a well lit tree and I’ve already decided at the end of the season I’m taking these lights off, bundling them into a ball and taking them to Goodwill. I can swing $20 a year if it keeps my sanity intact!

Love y’all, keep those feet clean, and Merry Christmas!

It’s that time of year again. As distant as it looked in the bygone days of summer, Thanksgiving is here. Thanksgiving is a day with a lot of memories for me.

Growing up with divorced parents did have one advantage, if you can call it that — every holiday was doubled. When I was little, Thanksgiving day meant the opening day of rabbit season. Daddy would come to mama’s to get me early in the morning with the beagles already loaded in the truck and barking up a storm. Then we’d go meet whichever cousins were going to hunt with us that day.

It wasn’t easy going. Rabbits don’t live out in the open and getting to their houses almost always means dealing with briars. My fat little legs in their blue jeans didn’t do much to bust through briars like daddy’s special overalls with the tough canvas on the legs, so I usually stayed to the outside of the patched and walked in the clear spots. According to daddy, it didn’t really matter if we got any rabbits as long as the dogs got to run.

We’d hunt till around 11:00 and daddy would take me back to mama’s where I’d get cleaned up, change clothes, and we’d go to whichever relative invited us for Thanksgiving lunch. We’d get home and I’d take a nap until daddy picked me up again at 6:00 and we’d go to Granny Wham’s for supper. Granny always made a little pan of dressing with no onions in it because I didn’t like onions and she spoiled me.

Things went on that way for years, until I became a teenager and the boys were getting older. Then I had a girlfriend and she wanted to eat with her family and bring me along. I still went hunting and most of the time they would have Thanksgiving lunch so we’d eat there at lunchtime and at Granny’s that evening. This didn’t sit well with me because it left mama out.

What eventually evolved is Granny moved her Thanksgiving dinner to the Sunday after. Mama started cooking a small lunch and if I had a girlfriend at the time we go there for supper. Daddy and Teresa and Nick would go to Teresa’s mother’s Thanksgiving day and Cathy and her family would go to Uncle Larry’s sister’s house then we’d all meet at Granny’s on Sunday.

Then people started dying. Mama is gone now these eight years and I miss Thanksgiving day with her, especially after Budge and I married and we spent the days with her getting ready for our guests. Granny had been gone longer than Mama, but now Teresa hosts the Sunday after and everybody brings something to help out. This year Budge is making deviled eggs which is weird because she has never made them and doesn’t eat them.

It’s just Budge and me on Thanksgiving day now that mama is gone. The last several years we went down to Laura’s house and ate lunch with her and her family. We were like family too I suppose. COVID killed that meal last year and since I haven’t heard anything from Laura, I guess we aren’t gathering there again this year.

So, this year Budge and I are going to get up and watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, which is about her favorite thing about the day. Once Santa rides past Macy’s, we’re going to eat turkey at Cracker Barrel. Then we’re going on a ride while listening to Alice’s Restaurant on WROQ 101.1. They play the twenty minute long song every Thanksgiving at noon and it’s become a tradition to listen to it. We used to listen to it on the way to Laura’s. After our ride we’ll head home for a nap then we’re going to see Ghostbusters at 6:30. If we’re hungry, we’ll eat supper at the new Waffle House just up the road and we’ll call it a day.

I like Thanksgiving, don’t get me wrong. I like eating and it’s by far the best time to eat, but it’s also the time of year that highlights all the empty chairs at the tables now. I miss the dinners of my childhood. I miss Mama, Ima and Papa John, and Granny and Papa Wham. I’m thankful though and blessed that I still have my Budge through the holidays. She means the world to me.

So happy Thanksgiving! Hope it’s a great day for all of you. Love y’all, and keep your feet clean!

Published this back a few years ago. Been a rough few weeks so it seemed like a good time for a reprint.

I have been enduring one of the worst stretches of anxiety and depression since I was in high school. Lately I couldn’t cast Expecto Patronus if my life depended on it. The dementors would just have to take me. Budge assures me it is not, in fact, THE worst since I haven’t been hospitalized but I think I probably could have been sent to the psych ward two or three times in the last seven weeks were it not for the fact I refuse to ever voluntarily give up my freedom to a doctor’s whim again. If I am ever hospitalized again, it will be with a warrant, a straitjacket, and several large orderlies. It may help some people, but it just terrified me. So, I’ve been thinking — analyzing my condition and rather than just a single side of my mental health coin showing up, the last seven weeks have been categorized by mental “coin flips” and it seems the coin is always in the air and I have no idea or control over how it lands. I can only hope for it to land on the thin edge because that edge is where normal, calm, relatively happy days exist.

In the process of analyzing my current situation, I realize just how isolating these conditions are. I don’t think people are monsters. They want to help me, but they have absolutely no idea how. It leads to a lonely existence, especially when I’m alone most of the time anyway. Another thing I’ve noticed is how interchangeable in some people’s minds the concepts of anxiety and depression are. While the two are intertwined in many subtle ways, they do have their distinctions and, as the old adage goes, the devil is in the details.

Depression targets motivation and self-worth. When I’m depressed, and I don’t mean just in a bit of a funk, but really manifesting clinical depression, I have a hard time standing up. The first thing I have to do every morning is make the decision to get out of bed. I literally have to urge myself to stand up, cut the light on, and start the day. Depression becomes the “why bother” disease. For instance, take laundry, which we all agree is a task everyone has to deal with unless he is a nudist. A rational thinking person will look at a pile of laundry and she may think, “damn, I don’t want to do this laundry!” However, her motivation kicks in and she begins to think of all the reasons why this needs to get done now as opposed to later. Depression looks at laundry differently.

When I’m depressed, I see a pile of laundry as an insurmountable challenge. I think, “there’s no possible way to get all this sorted, washed, dried, folded, and put away.” Then the “why bother” kicks in, as in, “why bother doing laundry at all? As soon as I get one load done, two more will take its place. It’s not like I go out anyway, so how dirty can these clothes be? I just want to go back to bed.” Then, depression’s second insidious attack begins — self-worth. The laundry sits there in a pile and you can hear a voice in your head saying, “you’re pathetic! If you’d just man up and do this shit when you get a load together instead of waiting so long you wouldn’t have this problem! You know what? You’re right, go back to bed, you don’t deserve clean clothes anyway. People who DO stuff deserve clean clothes. Losers can wear the same things again.”

It’s a devastating one-two punch. First, you have to fight just to get up the momentum to take care of a task only to have your mind screaming at you just how worthless you are for not getting the task done already. It can be about ANYTHING, too. Right now I can name off a twenty-five item list of things that need to be done around the house. Just looking at the list in my head makes me tired which triggers the idea of “why bother?” After all, nothing you need to do will actually be done because grass grows and bushes grow and oil in cars wears out so no matter what you do, you’re going to be stuck. See, a rational person sees these tasks as a part of life; a depressed person sees them as almost punishments and of course you have the peanut gallery in your head screaming, “You bloody loser! You have the worst looking yard in the neighborhood and you deserve it! Losers don’t get clean yards OR clean oil! Just sit there and cry like a baby . . . it’s what you deserve!”

Another characteristic of depression, at least for me, is a seething, roiling, barely contained anger bordering on rage. I don’t know where I heard it but someone said “Depression is anger turned inward.” Whoever they were, they knew what they were talking about. I’ll just sit sometimes and think about throwing my phone through the wall or something along those lines. At times like that I feel like I am a single giant exposed nerve with no skin and the environment is scrubbing me with sandpaper. I’m never mad at anyone but myself though because I always think I should do better, or should have done better. I was a bit of a cutter when I was in high school and it actually was quite soothing, but the world is hard enough on teenagers who self-harm, it’s down right ferocious on middle aged men who cut themselves. We’re supposed to know better.

Anxiety works in an entirely different way. Anxiety is the “What If” disease. A rational person knows if he wants to eat he has to go to the grocery store, but a person dealing with anxiety sees the trip as nothing less dangerous than a trip to the headwaters of the Amazon. What if you have a panic attack? Remember, you had one last time and had to hurry out of the store! Anxiety is usually much more talkative than depression. It’s a constant chatter of “why hasn’t anyone called you? Is it because they hate you? Did you offend someone without knowing?” Sometimes it’s all about the future, “Oh dear, you know what could happen if we do X! We can’t do that! It’s too much risk.”

That’s another difference between my depression and my anxiety. I can only speak for myself, but depression is much more past focused and backward looking while anxiety is almost exclusively future oriented. One way I’ve analogized them is two huge, dark oceans, the Ocean of the Past and the Ocean of the Future and they swirl together in a maelstrom until they crest and break with unendurable force on the Beach of Now. Anything on that beach is going to get crushed: plans, hopes, dreams, normalcy itself, all drowned in a tide of voices.

Depression looks towards the past. Sometimes it can look almost telescopically into the past. It’s not unusual at all for me to agonize over things that happened to me as a child or bad experiences I had in high school. Most of all, depression expertly hunts out mistakes. If you screwed up, no matter how big or how small, a bout of depression WILL find it and like bamboo under fingernails push on the soft, tender spots of your psyche until it bleeds, and it’s accompanied the entire time by the chorus of “you idiot! How could you do something so undeniably stupid! No wonder you’re in such a sad state; you’ve never made a right choice in your life! Just look at all the people you hurt; look at all the damage you caused! IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT!!”

Anxiety, on the other hand, peers into the future and it never, ever likes what it sees. Anxiety also like to do its talking at night. You’ll just be lying in bed planning to go to sleep when you think, “Wonder why my arm has been hurting so much lately? Is that related to why my hand is shaking? Have I got Parkinson’s Disease? Am I going to die? What happens if I die? Who will take care of Budge?! Budge . . . did she check her sugar enough today? Did you make sure she didn’t eat gluten? What if she dies? You’ll be all alone! You’re going to DIE ALONE!”

Sometimes, they team up with depression dredging up some awful pain from the past and tossing it like a downfield pass to anxiety who says, “Ah yes! Remember this bit of idiocy on your part? What’s going to keep you from doing it again? You know every time you open your mouth something stupid comes out? This is just proof. I’m just going to have to make sure we don’t go anywhere or do anything that might cause a repeat of this mistake.” Of course, depression piles on with “That’s right! Stay home! Stay in the bed! You don’t deserve to go and do because you’ll just screw it up!”

Those “voices!” Now when I say “voices” please understand I’m not “hearing voices” in the classical schizophrenic sense. I’m just anthropomorphizing my thoughts. I will say sometimes though it can feel like the voices actually are screaming. It happens at my lowest and when they start pounding on me and I’m in tears and near the fetal position, I have entertained the one way to shut them up entirely . . . but so far I’ve always managed to claw out of such darkness. Honestly though? I never come back from the edge for myself. If it was just me, I’d have punched my ticket a long time ago. Someone’s always needing taking care of though . . . Mama, Granny, Budge – of course. I always come back.

The amazing thing about dealing with anxiety and depression is the amount of expertise you encounter. For example, one of my favorites is have someone say, “You know, there’s nothing really wrong with you? It’s all in your head.” Awesome! Thank you random person or perhaps family member. I have a board certified psychiatrist and a board certified psychologist who would disagree with you, but thank you for letting me know a mental illness is, in fact all in my head. I do hope the irony is not lost.

Another great healing balm is “You just need to get out more and face the world! Face your problems head on!” Again, I appreciate the sentiment and as soon as I uncurl myself from the fetal position and cut the lights on so I can put some unstained clothes on, I’ll get right on that!

The worst, however, is to be a Christian and suffer from depression and anxiety. You get a whole different batch of advice and well meaning helpful hints. Let me just list some of the things other Christians have said to me over the years when I’ve been stupid enough to talk about my depression and anxiety in front of them:

• If you prayed enough you wouldn’t feel this way.
• You can’t possibly be a REAL Christian because REAL Christians don’t have mental illnesses . . . . they’re of the devil!
• If you just focus on Jesus instead of yourself you’ll be fine and it’ll all go away.
• You don’t need all those medicines; prayer is the answer.
• You must not be very close to God. He wouldn’t let you suffer like this! (When I get this one I always want to say, ever read Job, asshole?)
• Real Christians don’t think about suicide because suicide is an unforgivable sin!

That’s just some of the more common pieces of wisdom I’ve had sent my way by well-intentioned believers over the years. It’s not as bad now that I’m in a different church but, no offense, growing up Pentecostal with a mental illness, it’s a wonder I made it out alive.

So that’s it. That’s what I’ve been dealing with the last several weeks. Hopefully you got some information out of it that will help you connect with someone you know who’s struggling with depression or anxiety. Maybe you are one of the brotherhood / sisterhood yourself and you came across this post at a low point. I hope you know you aren’t alone and let me leave you with two pieces of advice that have sustained me through many long dark nights of the soul:

• Suicide, no matter HOW tempting it can be at times, is ALWAYS a permanent solution to a temporary problem.
• It’s ALWAYS a temporary problem because you’ll get past the hump or you’ll eventually die and it’ll be over then, but be sure to follow Item 1.

Love y’all, I mean that, it’s not something I just use as a tag line. Not enough people love each other so when I close with “Love y’all” I’m not just talking to hear my brains rattle. Anyway.

Love y’all and keep those feet clean.

I was talking to my therapist today and the subject of me traveling came up. I hadn’t thought about it for awhile but we got to talking and I realized I am not what one would call a well traveled man. With just a few exceptions, I’ve not really left South Carolina. To list it all out, North Carolina has been my most frequent out of state destination. I’ve been there many times; mostly I went to Maggie Valley and Cherokee when I was little with Granny and Papa Wham, but I’ve been to Asheville several times to Biltmore and I went to Greensboro once for a prom in high school and out to Wilmington on the coast to see a girl. Now we go to the apple orchard a time or two a year, so yeah, I’ve been a pretty regular visitor to our northern neighbor.

Next in frequency would probably be Tennessee. I went to Knoxville in sixth grade for the World’s Fair in 1982. Other than that, I’ve been to Gatlingburg and Pigeon Forge a handful of times for day trips, but that’s about it. Then there would be Georgia. I’ve been there once to a Braves game in the middle of July for a day game. I don’t recommend that particular trip. I went to see a girl one summer in tenth grade. That was the first time I ever drove that far. Then I’ve been to the Aquarium in Atlanta twice. Other than that, I went to Elberton a handful of times when I drove a truck for awhile for my cousin delivering stuff.

I’ve been down to Florida I think six times. I went to Disneyworld in 7th grade with the National Junior Honors Society. I’ve been to the Gator Bowl twice, once in I think it was 1985 to see Clemson beat Stanford and again in was it 2002 when Micheal Vick and Virginia Tech dismantled Clemson in the Gator Bowl? So that’s three times. Then Budge and I went to Disneyworld in 1996 for our honeymoon. I don’t really recommend central Florida in August any more than Atlanta in mid-July, but we did have fun. Then we went to meet Budge’s extended family in Fort Myers after we’d been married a couple of years. That’s all the Florida trips I remember so I guess it was only five times I’ve visited the Sunshine State.

Now getting outside those three states, I’ve only traveled three other places. I went to Washington, DC twice. The first time I went was in 8th grade on the annual National Junior Honor Society trip. If you’re keeping up, Mr. Marler, our principal at Gray Court-Owings in my youth had us alternate field trips by year. Every other year we went to Disneyworld. The years we didn’t go to Disney, we went to Washington, DC. Like I said in the Florida entry, 7th grade was my year for Disney. The next year was DC. That was the first time I’d been that far north and been to a city that big. It was culture shock for my little 13 year old small town Southern self. For one thing, I didn’t know stuff was so expensive in other places. It was also the first time I saw a homeless person. That made me think. The second time I went to Washington, I was teaching at Woodmont and was chosen as a Blecher Scholar to represent South Carolina at the annual Belcher conference held at the US Holocaust Museum. My meals and hotel room were paid for by the Belcher Center and we got extensive tours of the Museum during and after hours. We also got to attend lectures by Holocaust experts from all over the world. Budge got to go with me and we made a mini vacation out of it. We had once free day and she and I did a self paced, self designed walking tour of DC. We saw as much as we could possibly see from 8 AM to 10 PM and we walked every step of the way. I’d die if I tried that now. As it was, my feet hurt for days afterwards.

So, that’s almost the extent of my travels in my entire life. I’ve never crossed the Mississippi River, by a long ways. Never been anywhere really, except once. I have had one Bilbo Baggins-like adventure in traveling. I have been out of the country! Yep, once upon a time, I FLEW to Toronto, Canada. I was teaching at Woodmont and we were going to become an IB school (google it). I was picked to be one of the first teachers to be trained and the training was in Toronto (if you didn’t bother to google, the I in IB stands for International). We flew out of Greenville to connect in Charlotte. We were in one of those little prop planes. I remember the end of the runway getting closer and we weren’t in the air yet. The engines were straining like they were about to fall off. I was sure we were going headfirst into the trees, but finally the plane lifted off and we had an uneventful ride to the Queen City.

We left Charlotte in a big jet. Here my troubles began. First, they sat me over the wing because they said I wouldn’t seesaw as much and it would be easier on me. What they didn’t tell me is how airplane wings work. We took off, which was scary; then we were just cruising along and I looked out the window at the wing. It looked like a perfectly normal wing until it split apart in the back and all these wires and tubes appeared. I was certain the wing was falling to bits in front of me. I grabbed a passing flight attendant to show her we were all going to die and she laughed and explained what “flaps” were and how they worked. That was one tragedy averted. Another thing no one told me about was how much airplane wings flex in flight. The same kind flight attendant assured me the wings always did that and we were not all about to die.

About halfway into the flight, things got interesting. We hit turbulence. The plane dropped like a stone. My stomach dropped with it. We bucked and bounced like a bronco at a rodeo. I caught a glimpse of the kind flight attendant and she was white as milk. I found out later this was much worse turbulence than usually encountered. Lucky me. Since I could expect no help from my knight in shining blue uniform, I turned to the Almighty and I cut a deal with God. I prayed, “Lord, I’ve got to get home and they want me to use an airplane to do that, but if you’ll get me to Toronto and back to Greenville, I’ll be done with airplanes!” Apparently the deal was acceptable because in a bit the turbulence cleared and we made it to our destination with no further incidents. I barely refrained from kissing the ground when we got out of the plane.

Our stay in Toronto was pleasant as any trip to Toronto in winter could be, especially since we were all from the South. I almost froze three or four times. We went to a comedy club, which was something new to me; I enjoyed it. Everywhere we went snow drifts were piled higher than my head and when an inch of snow shuts down where you’re from, that was a sight to behold. I also though Canadian gas was really cheap until I figured out Canada was on the metric system and the low prices I was seen were per liter, not gallon. Multiplied by four and the prices eclipsed those at home by a dollar or more. Overall it was a fun trip. I learned a lot and didn’t make any cultural faux pas in our four days.

The trip home was very smooth. We took a small jet to Pittsburgh and an even smaller jet home to Greenville. It was nighttime so I didn’t worry myself since I couldn’t see the wings. We landed in Greenville at 1:00 in the morning. Budge picked me up and just like that, Bilbo was back at Bag End. That’s the full extent of my lifetime travels. Not too much, but at least one big trip. I wish Budge and i could travel more but it’s hard to find someone to watch the fur babies. We won’t leave them with just anyone. Also, I’m bigger now than when I went to Toronto so I’m not sure how well I’d fit on a plane, plus there’s that deal I made and I try to be a man of my word!

Love y’all and keep those feet clean!

This originally ran on March 31, 2010.

It’s (sniff) springtime (sniff) and so (sniff) time to (sniff) begin my (sniff) love / hate (honk, blow, hack) relationship (sniff) with that (sniff) lovely stuff (sniff, honk) POLLEN (wipe, sniff)!!

All kidding aside, I do love springtime. Daffodils are one of my favorite flowers of all and a square foot of the delicious yellow blossoms still bloom every spring about this time next to the stone steps at Papa and Granny’s (now Aunt Cathy’s) just where Papa and I planted them some thirty years ago. The sky is blue as the bluest eye and the Final Four have been announced. It is spring!

Of course, that means it is hay fever season for me. I do not have allergies. That would be too easy. No, I have demon possessed nasal passages that twinge with the slightest micron of plant matter on the air. To put it simply, if it is green or has a bloom, I’m probably allergic to it. Violently, sickeningly, head-splittingly allergic to it.

From now until the first cold snap in October, my days will consist of bleary eyes and a runny nose. If you want some sound financial advice, invest in facial tissue. I predict a spike in the price of the good stuff as soon as I can get to the store. Budge mowed the yard tonight for the first time this year and I was picking up fallen limbs and other vegetable detritus of winter. We were outside probably ninety minutes at the absolute most. That was about three hours ago and one shower, two Claritin, and four Sudafed (the REAL meth-making stuff; not that knock off crap) later and I can finally sit still long enough to type a blog post. Of course, I have hypertension and Sudafed and Claritin do wonders for raising blood pressure so I’ll have a nice little raging headache for the next few weeks until my body adjusts its chemical soup for the change in seasons.

Of course, I am wildly overjoyed at the wonderful array of pharmaceuticals available to me and my fellow sufferers today. As a child, I had no such balm in my particular Gilead. Nothing then existed to blunt the misery of the spring, summer, and fall allergy season. The only medicine of any effectiveness was Benadryl. Now that is some wonderful stuff, but I had a choice — take Benadryl and spend summer in a coma, or take nothing and let my eyes swell shut and my nose become so raw it would literally ulcerate in some places. I tried to play outside with the other kids, but to be totally honest, I don’t do misery well, so I spent a lot of time indoors or in a Benadryl haze.

My horrible allergies deserve the most credit for all my academic achievements and the most blame for all my athletic failures. I’ve always been told I had a football player’s build, but it’s hard to block someone when your eyes are running rivers and you have to sneeze every fifteen seconds. (Just as an aside, you ever sneeze in a football helmet, you won’t forget it) On the contrary, I’m strangely not allergic to dust (mold is another story) so the dusty stacks of the local library branch were a respite from the yellow swirling air outside. The library was air conditioned as well, which was a nice bonus for a fat kid like me.

So, thanks to hay fever, I graduated second in my class in high school having never been able to play a game of football or baseball in my life. I love baseball. ***sigh***

Well, I’ve got to go blow my nose . . . again. So, y’all keep those feet clean and those pollen masks on and remember I love y’all and we’ll talk at you later.