Category Archives: A Story

Dec21

O Come All Ye Faithful!

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https://i0.wp.com/www.industryleadersmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/BLACK-FRIDAY-shoppers-1024x593.jpgIt’s time for Christians to stop griping and moaning about the commercialization and secularization of Christmas. For years I’ve endured rants and whines about how society has “taken Christ out of Christmas” and “no one knows what the season is really about anymore.” Both those statements are a load of reindeer droppings.It’s time to face facts and get the record straight.

First of all, “church going folk” need to understand how impossible it is to take “Christ” out of “Christmas.” Christ is not a name; it is a title. Jesus of Nazareth’s last name wasn’t “Christ.” He didn’t even have a last name unless it was bar-Joseph since He was supposed to be Joseph’s son. The title “Christ” means “the one who saves” and “Christmas” is a Latin contraction of sorts roughly translating to “Celebration of the one who saves!” With that in mind, Christ is just as much a part of Christmas as ever. Christians are just incensed it’s not the Christ THEY want celebrated. A Christ is celebrated from mid-October right through December 25, which brings me to my second statement.

EVERYONE knows EXACTLY what the season is really about and they are celebrating it like it’s 1999, to quote Prince. Here in America, Christmas is about one thing — SPENDING MONEY! That’s right! The Christ being celebrated for the entire last quarter of the year is America’s Savior, the Almighty Dollar. Jesus hasn’t been dropped from the holiday; He’s just been relegated to what is deemed His proper place in our society — Church, and then only on Sunday.https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcR6HXP6BQKZzt36r4kATe8ovgcV6r56h13Pw9lcSzeXCZGCFKhL

Just look at where Christmas is celebrated. Both China and Japan have huge Christmas seasons and neither one of those countries is even remotely Christian. China is officially atheist and Japan, if they are anything, are Shintoist with a good does of Buddhists. India has held on to some of the traditions left by their former British Empirical rulers by celebrating Christmas even though the country is overwhelmingly Hindu.

Face it, Christmas hasn’t ever really been a pure Christian holiday anyway. No Scriptural evidence points to Jesus’ birth being in December (or whatever the Jews called December). A bunch of Christian missionaries decided they wanted to find a way to get more pagans to convert to their new religion and since everyone likes a holiday and parties, they co-opted several of the pagan’s holidays and put a Christian whitewash on them. Almost everything about the traditional celebration of Christmas has a pagan origin. December 25th was originally part of the Roman Feast of Saturnalia which just so happened to include gift giving and parties.

Christmas trees are as pagan as Thor’s hammer. They call back to the Druidic, Germanic,and Viking celebrations of Yule or Midwinter’s Day when the Winter Solstice finally passed and the days started getting a little longer in those cold northern climes. It’s the same with the lights and candles. They have pagan overtones, too. Oh, and long before jolly old Saint Nicholas of Turkey became famous for delivering presents around the Christmas holidays, the god Woden would visit the faithful and bless all good men. Mistletoe, the bough under which couples try to stop, is STILL the most sacred plant to those who follow the Druidic customs and religions today. Of course, I’m not suggesting we do away with Christmas like some dour, bitter old Puritan. I just think Christians need to realize we stole all those customs from the ancient pagans and now the modern pagans have taken them back. Isn’t that fair? Aren’t we supposed to be all about “fairness” these days?

I realize, however, we need to make some changes to reflect the new Christ the world — especially America — worships now at Christmas. I think the best place to start is the classic nativity scene. Sure, we can keep the nativity in Pagan Christmas. Instead of a creche representing a barn, it’ll be a miniature storefront and instead of a star on the peak it’ll be a neon sign flashing Wal-mart, Target, or Costco. We’ll take out Joseph and replace him with Warren Buffett or maybe Bill Gates. Mary can ONLY be replaced by America’s greatest current spiritual advisor — Oprah Winfrey, but if one can’t find a suitable figurine of her, just substitute Angelina Jolie since so many people look up to her. Of course, with same-sex marriage and rights being so vital to our society, one may want to skip the lady characters altogether and have Bill and Warren.

https://i0.wp.com/everydaypr.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Santa-Nativity4.jpgThe wise men will still come from the East. Some of them will ride with Deepak Chopra or Shirley Maclain, but most will arrive in traditional middle eastern garb from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Oman, and Qatar. Instead of camels, they’ll be in their oil-wealth bought luxury Mercedes and Rolls Royces. Both groups will represent oil interests with the latter being crude oil and the former being of the snake variety.

We’ll need shepherds and who are more like shepherds today than our slew of pundits and talking heads? We’ll need miniatures of Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilley, and Rush Limbaugh . . . that last one may be hard to find in “miniature.” They’ll be on one side of the creche with the rest of the Fox News clan while the other side will be balanced out by a group of poll-watchers from MSNBC. We’ll have a few angels even. Put some wings on Mariah Carey, Taylor Swift, and Miley Cyrus and let them flit around. They angelic chorus can be the Victoria’s Secret Angels since they seem to already know the part.

Finally, we’ll have to have some livestock, and I suppose that’ll be us. After all, we’re the sheep who follow these people. Like cattle we line up in front of stores Thanksgiving Night and prepare to shop til we drop instead of waiting until Black Friday like our ancestors were wont to do. It’s only when those cash registers and credit card machines start ringing and dinging that the real sounds of the season take to the air!

Now some of the quicker ones in the crowd may have noticed I left out a key figurine from the new nativity scene. Who do we put in the manger? I thought about that for awhile. At first, I thought a stack of $100 bills might be the best representation of our new savior. I pondered maybe a smartphone with several shopping apps open and promising great deals, but finally, I decided to leave the manger empty. After all, that’s what we’re really worshiping in our praise of the Almighty Dollar — emptiness. So rather than force the issue, let’s leave the manger empty, just like our hearts tend to be all throughout this new pagan Christmas season!

Love y’all . . . really. Now keep those feet clean.

Nov5

Great War Wednesday: Britain’s Battle Rifle

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enfield

The Lee-Enfield MK1 SMLE

At dawn on 23 August 1914, the head of the German sledgehammer carving its bloody path through Belgium ran into the British Expeditionary Force — “The Old Contemptibles” — near the Belgian border town of Mons. The Germans outnumbered the British three to one and obviously felt secure in the knowledge they could steamroll any opposition since they made no attempt to seek cover initially nor to break marching formation. That false notion proved the death of scores of the Kaiser’s soldiers. The British opened up with rifle fire at around 1,000 yards and as the Germans came on they withered like orchids in a drought. After the battle, many German soldiers believed they had blundered into a line of British light machine guns. In fact, they had not; they had encountered instead their first combat against British riflemen and their Lee-Enfield SMLE rifles.

No discussion of British martial endeavors during the first six decades of the last century could be complete without mention of the Lee-Enfield Rifle. First introduced in 1895, the Lee-Enfield served as Britain’s standard issue infantry battle rifle until the FN FAL took its place in 1957. Even after giving way to the new semi-automatic, the Lee-Enfield continued in front line service in several capacities, including dedicated sniper rifle, into the 1990s. By contrast, in the same time period, the US army fielded the Krag-Jorgenson, the Springfield A3, the M1 Garand and carbine, the M-14, and the M-16 as standard GI equipment, six totally different rifles to old mum’s one.

https://i0.wp.com/www.valmontfirearms.co.uk/ESW/Images/303clip.JPG

This is a Lee-Enfield stripper clip aka “charger” with five rounds at the ready.

The Lee-Enfield, or LE, or “The 303” was one of the first infantry rifles to use the bolt-action. German brothers Karl and Peter-Paul Mauser perfected the bolt-action some years before and armies all over the world quickly grasped how much more effective a bolt-action rifle could be when compared to the other rifles of the day. With a bolt-action, a soldier could easily sight his target and fire in all four standards shooting positions: prone (lying flat on the ground), sitting, kneeling, or offhand (standing with no support). What’s more, the introduction of box magazines meant rifles could generate much greater firepower in a fraction of the time as those Germans at the Battle of Mons discovered to their dismay.

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This image shows the charger in place and ready for the soldier to push the rounds into the box magazine.

The advantage the L-E had over other contemporary rifles lay in its magazine capacity. All other battle rifles of major powers like the German K98 Mauser or the Russian Mosin-Nagant 91/30 had five round magazines. The SMLE could hold TEN rounds, which translates into five more shots without reloading. It’s important to note here these early rifles did not have detachable magazines like our modern weapons such as the M-16, AK-47, or Uzi. A soldier didn’t carry a bandolier of loaded magazines ready to swap out nearly instantaneously like a World War 1 version of Rambo. Instead, all of these bolt-action rifles had to be loaded one of two ways: the soldier could laboriously press one round at a time through the action and into the magazine or he could use “clips” which are also called “charger clips” or “stripper clips.” These little tabs of metal held five rounds perfectly aligned and secured so the solder could fit the bottom of the clip into a notch on the rifle and with a firm push of the thumb, seat five rounds into the magazine in a single fluid motion. Two such clips and the SMLE was loaded to the gills with ten .303 rounds. Since the British magazines held ten rounds instead of five, soldiers had to reload half as often as their enemies and on a battlefield where a second could cost a man his life, those five extra rounds could mean the difference between a muddy bed in the trench dugout or a muddy grave.

This is a 9mm detachable pistol magazine for comparison purposes.

The Germans at Mons who thought they were up against light Maxim type guns were actually facing British soldiers with state of the art rifles AND a training and firing doctrine that enabled the “Old Contemptibles” to blunt the German attack even with the staggering disadvantage in numbers. The Germans didn’t know it, but the Brits they were marching into like so many ducklings behind their mother were training to the British firing standard of “The Mad Minute.” At the dawn of the Great War, every British soldier had to complete the Annual Personal Weapons Test or APWT. This test consisted of scoring no less than 15 direct hits on a 12 inch diameter target firing offhand at 300 yards in 60 seconds. Ponder that a minute, please.

To qualify as a British infantryman, you had to be able to stand on your feet with a rifle which weighed at least ten pounds loaded, shoot at a dinner plate on a stand three FOOTBALL FIELDS AWAY, and HIT IT AT LEAST 15 TIMES! Holy bolt blisters, Batman! Remember, the rifle only held ten rounds so to complete the Mad Minute, the soldier HAD to reload at least once. Frighteningly for the Germans, 15 hits was the bare minimum. Most British soldiers could average at least 20-25 hits in the same time frame. To this day, the record for the Mad Minute is 38 hits (from three football fields away, remember that) in 60 seconds by Sergeant Alfred Snoxall. That means he had to reload AT LEAST THREE TIMES. Amazing.

With lead like that coming downrange, its little wonder the Huns thought they were facing Maxims, but no, they were just ordinary Tommies doing what they’d been trained to do by a generation of snarling sergeant instructors. As for the Battle of Mons, the Germans eventually forced the British to retreat because of overwhelming numbers, but the retreat was in good order and allowed the French to secure their flanks all because the British knew how to work a bolt-action rifle.

Love y’all and keep those feet clean.

Now you know the difference and can scream at the guy in the war movie with an M-16 “You need a magazine! Stop asking for a clip!!”

 

 

Oct30

He’s A Keeper

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Budweiser Long Neck

The Swiss Army Knife of beverage containers.

While we were fishing when we were both much younger, Daddy advised me whenever I go to a bar, ALWAYS order a Budweiser Long Neck; when I pointed out to him that I despise the taste of beer of any kind he just said, “Then have them bring it unopened, but always have one.” It’s little gems of wisdom like this one that have convinced me over the years I was sired by a genius.

Anyway, a good friend of Budge and me is getting married Saturday. Budge is arranging her flowers and I did the rehearsal dinner slide show as our wedding presents. Sometimes talent is better than money and a lot more useful. Both of us treasure this little lady a great deal. Budge tells me her beau is just as good a person as “Sylvia” is though I’ve never met him. I think I’m going to like him though. For my purposes, let’s call him “Mickey.”

Tuesday night, Mickey had Sylvia get dressed up and took her to their favorite little sushi spot for a romantic final date before marriage. Now, just as an aside from this 20 year man, NEVER stop dating even once you’re married, but I digress. So the two of them ventured out to a cute little sushi place in downtown Greenville for the $2.00 Tuesday Sushi Special. As another aside, I don’t know that I would eat any raw fish, much less DISCOUNT raw fish, but again, I digress.

The two of them had settled into their comfy corner booth and begun the process of peering lovingly into each others’ eyes as only two people destined for each other can do when the quiet romantic magic of the evening shattered with the arrival at a nearby table of another couple. For my purposes, let’s call them “Thug-boy” and “Debbie” (as in “Debbie Does .  .  .  ., well, you know). Debbie wore a stunningly short skirt complemented by a scoop-neck blouse which amply advertised some local plastic surgeon’s skill with a scalpel. Thug-boy chose a tastefully put together ensemble of wifebeater, sateen basketball shorts worn fashionably low slung to show off his Underoos, and ridiculously expensive athletic shoes in a dazzling color scheme. He also chose to accessorize his outfit with the ubiquitous bane of our civilization — a large cell phone, into which he was talking . . . non-stop . . . and obnoxiously loudly.

Rude table neighbors are de rigueur these days so just the talking probably wouldn’t have triggered any response from anyone just because it’s so expected. Unfortunately, Thug-boy did not possess the gift of a large and varied vocabulary and the bulk of his stentorian conversation with persons unknown primarily consisted of repeated violations of the Third Commandment and crass colloquial commentary on coital habits of someone and a female parent. Now this is still the South and even though some things have changed a great deal, loudly cussing — especially using those two particularly vulgar epithets — in public and in front of ladies is still generally frowned upon and poor Debbie noticed most of her fellow patrons were frowning.

Once Debbie realized her beloved’s behavior wasn’t just embarrassing her to the point of wanting to slide under the table, but was also causing tremendous discomfort throughout the establishment, she made the chivalrous but ultimately doomed decision to attempt to curb her “boo’thang’s” conversation. In the meek way common to women who accompany boys like Thug-boy, she asked him if he could please tone down the outbursts. Apparently, the young man took umbrage with his hollaback girl and proceeded to announce to her and everyone else in a ten-mile radius his intention to talk and cuss as loudly as he wished because, “I got twice as much money as these **f-bomb deleted** people do.”

At that point, Mickey, who has a sharp wit replied in a normal tone, “But apparently not nearly enough to buy class.” Debbie apparently overheard Mickey’s remark because she turned to Sylvia and tearfully apologized for Thug-boy’s unconscionable behavior. Sylvia graciously replied, as only a real Southern girl can, “Honey, don’t feel sorry for me. I feel sorry for you. You have to put up with him.” It seems this remark managed to penetrate Thug-boy’s egocentric haze because he took his phone down from his ear, stood up abruptly, turned to Mickey and in a tone and diction straight out of some misogynistic gangsta rap song said, “Dude, you best check dat fat, moufy’, ugly, **expletive comparison to female dog deleted ** ‘fore somepin’ bad happen!”

Folks, Sylvia is precious, that’s the only word I can use to describe her that does her justice and every Southern soul out there knows just what I mean. In all honesty she has fought the Battle of the Bulge most of her life and while, to quote Meghan Trainor, “it’s pretty clear [she] ain’t no size two” she has been victorious, is quite shapely, very fit and healthy, and, to further draw from Miss Meghan Sylvia can “still shake it, shake it like [she’s] supposed to do.” Well, Thug-boy’s words obviously hurt and that’s where the night turned from awkward to surreal.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Mickey is not a violent man. He’s not a particularly large man either. He watches football; he plays a little golf on the weekends. What he IS, however, is a MAN and more specifically, a SOUTHERN GENTLEMAN and folks, ain’t NO self-respecting son of the south gonna let so heinous an insult towards his soon-to-be bride pass unchallenged. Faster than thought, faster than he later admitted he thought possible, Mickey levitated from his seat and shoved Thug-boy’s table into the jerk’s stomach. At that point, Debbie tearfully vanished out the door and from our story.

Say it again! I DARE you! I double DARE you!!

Say it again! I DARE you! I double DARE you!!

Now let’s pause just a moment. You remember Daddy’s advice to me about the long neck Bud bottle? Well, apparently, Mickey’s daddy gave him the SAME advice, and here’s why — the neck of a long neck beer bottle fits very comfortably into one’s hand and gives a really good grip on the bottle which enables one to swing said bottle with a great deal of velocity and force into the face of or, alternately, upside the head of various jerks, boors, and, in this case, assholes. Also, REAL beer bottles — as opposed to the ones in movies — don’t shatter easily and when they do it’s simply time to switch from blunt force trauma to slicing and dicing.

Getting back to the action, Mickey stood up shoving the table with his left hand while his right hand brought up the bottle level with Thug-boy’s nose (which Mickey later recalled made his arm slant upward more than he’d liked) and announced in a voice and tirade worthy of Jules Winnefield, “Say another word! Say one more thing to my girl, **noun version of f-bomb deleted**, and I WILL COMPLETELY **verb form of f-bomb once again deleted** YOU UP!!!” As I said, Mickey is a gentle, caring man, but Thug-boy ignored Rule of the Jungle #2: “NEVER come between a male and his mate!” (FYI, Rule of the Jungle #1, for those who don’t know, is, of course, NEVER get between a momma and her babies.”

In the end, Thug-boy backed down and slunk away, apparently noting the fire in Mickey’s eyes and Mickey’s absolute commitment to use that bottle for the second purpose for which God Almighty intended (the first being to hold Budweiser, of course), proving that, just like ALL bullies, Thug-boy couldn’t take being stood up to! “Sylvia” obviously has her a keeper and I’m looking forward to shaking his hand at the dinner!

Love y’all, and keep those feet clean!

Sep22

Adventures in Lawn Care

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Argiope aurantia, Yellow Garden Spider aka: Daughter of Rodan

Lately, I have been remiss in my duty to the grass. This lackadaisical approach along with some recent showers resulted in a stunning greensward behind our home.  Mama, God rest her precious soul, would have called it “snaky” for fear of encountering Mr. No Shoulders. I realized something had to be done before the situation got completely out of hand, so — having finished the ritual Monday “Home Blessing Hour” — I went to cut grass.

First, I reanimated “Frankie,” short for “The Bride of Frankenstein,” my ancient and trustworthy riding mower. She looks a sight. No cowling; no seat cover, and no wires because I cut every wire I could after I got fed up restarting the engine every time I tripped a kill switch. Frankie now cuts forward, backward, and upside down whether I’m on the seat or not. I know because I’ve rolled her twice and both times, the engine kept on trucking until the gravity feed carburetor ran dry.

With Frankie rolling, I started cutting the back yard. Something nagged at the back of my mind, but try as I might, it just wouldn’t come to the surface so I could remember it. I only knew it was important. Then, I rounded the pool — aka, “The Bane of My Existence” — and the day got interesting.

I don’t know how many of you have ever seen a Yellow Garden Spider. Here, folks call them “Writing Spiders” because they often have crazy designs in their extremely elaborate webs which might be seen as writing. The tale goes if you see your name in a Writing Spider’s web, you’re going to die soon. I’ve never given that particular lore much credence since EVERY wives tale in the South ends with “that means you’ll die soon!”

I’d seen this gal last time I cut grass but, I started cutting the other way round that day and saw her large web with a great deal of warning. I gave her the wide berth she deserved that time. Yellow Garden Spiders are large arachnids, typically about the size of a saucer. She was bigger, about the size of Granny Wham’s turkey platter. Well today, Frankie’s front bumper twanged Daughter of Rodan’s web and things headed downhill.

The contact with the bumper caused her web to oscillate, near to me then far from me. Faster than I could see, she scuttled to the center of her web where the amplitude of the web-wave was greatest. I didn’t know spiders understood physics, so I guessed her devious spider mind a split second too late. Just as the web reached its apogee, she hurled herself towards me. Time stopped; she hung suspended in midflight. For a moment, we were eyeball to eyeball to eyeball to eyeball to eyeball to eyeball to eyeball to eyeball to eyeball. Time restarted. She did NOT land on my face, neck, or chest. Otherwise, why the fat man on the lawnmower had a massive coronary would be a mystery.

She landed on Frankie’s steering wheel and looked right at me.

Now, beloved, I am a gentle man. I don’t kill anything but roaches, mosquitoes and fire ants and only if they bother me. If I see a spider in the house, I trap it and set it outside. If I had to butcher my own meat, I would die of starvation. I’m not a treehugger or anything. I’ve just lived long enough to recognize all God’s creatures are just trying to get by as best they can like the rest of us.

Brethren, in addition to being a gentle man, I am also a generous man.  I would happily give a stranger the shirt off my back. If Budge didn’t watch over me, I’d have given the house away by now. When I stand before the Judgement Seat of Christ, I will have a plethora of thingsto answer for, but neither greed nor lack of charity will be among them. Since charity is in my heart and I possess a giving spirit, I could tell in an instant that spider needed Frankie’s services more than I did. So, I left her with it.

Folks will tell you a 350 lbs 5’10” man can’t possibly do a backflip off a riding lawnmower from a seated position. Folks are wrong; I even stuck the landing. Then, Frankie started backing up towards me. Right then, cutting the kill switch wires seemed a bit premature. Of course, this eight legged refugee from a B-movie probably weighed enough to keep the switch closed. I thought, “She’s coming to finish the job!” Now how’s that for gratitude? Let the spider have the lawnmower and she tries to run me down.

Folks will tell you a 350 lbs 5’10” man can’t possibly vault a six-foot tall chain link fence from a flat-footed position. Folks are wrong. With enough motivation, it is not only possible, it is quite easy and a spider the size of a dinner platter riding backwards on a lawnmower happens to be enough motivation. Unfortunately, I didn’t stick that landing. I landed flat of my back, knocking all the breath out of me. When I recovered — with some helpful face licks from Bozo, the neighbor’s beagle —  I looked between my feet to see Frankie straining to push through the fence I had just jumped. Daughter of Rodan was gone.

Replaying the events later, I realized I’d probably knocked the mower into reverse in my haste to give over operation to the Daughter of Rodan. I say “probably” because I saw her eyes. She might have decided to take me out and spend the rest of her days bragging about catching “the big one” down at the Spider Club while playing eight handed bridge and munching on candied flies as my stuffed head looked on.

We’ll never know.

Love y’all, and keep those feet clean!

 

 

 

Sep6

Of Blind Hogs and Acorns

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https://i0.wp.com/www.boommybusiness.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Blind_Hog-200x300.jpgIt’s been six years since I left my career in education and I have a confession to make — even though I loved my students and did the best I could by them, I pretty much sucked at being a teacher and I wasn’t much better as a school librarian. It wasn’t for lack of trying or preparation; I joined NCTE and read English Journal faithfully the entire time I was an English teacher. When I was a librarian, I payed for School Library Journal out of my own pocket instead of using the school’s funds. I tried to help my kids and my fellow teachers, but I just didn’t have the gravity and ability so many of my colleagues did. My students never gave me any trouble and I always had one of the lowest discipline incident records each year, but I’ve never managed to shake the nagging feeling in the back of my mind — even after all this time — that I was subjecting students to a type of slow torture by force-feeding them Beowulf and Macbeth or short stories and poetry.

I wanted to get them writing, so I tried some writing workshop tactics without anywhere near the success Nancy Atwell promised me I would have in In the Middle. I just wanted them to find their own voices. Teaching research papers wasn’t much better. After I worked and worked with them on finding information and warned them about plagiarism, I still got at least one paper each time containing “see illustration on pg 103” somewhere in the middle of uncited sentences containing words I knew my young ones couldn’t define with a dictionary and a scientist to help them out.

The kids didn’t drive me out of the classroom and the library though. That was my own lack of political ability and tact. I never was a “good little solider” able to do what someone told me without comment. So, I butted heads with authority time after time after time and inevitably, I ended up allowing my battleship mouth to run over my rowboat butt. So I finally hung it up after being shown the door six years ago in my last position.

I’ve lived daily with the feeling of failure. I had every intention of staying in one room at one school and retiring after teaching grandchildren of former students or when they condemned the building around me, whichever came first and it just didn’t happen. Still, even a blind hog finds a nice juicy acorn every now and then and when I was feeling particularly low yesterday, a former student of mine replied to a post I’d made on Facebook about the ten most influential books in my life. Once I read it for the tenth or twelfth time I got to thinking maybe I wasn’t quite as horrible as I thought I was.

Here is what one of my boys — who I remember as a chunky little freshman with a complete inability to sit still very long at all — wrote on my Facebook wall. As you read it, keep in mind I had no idea he was fighting some of the battles he was waging and though I remember him well, I can’t recall giving him the book no matter how hard I try but he sure does.

Coach, I figured out why back in school I hated to read and you were the only teacher to actually take the time and say I have a book you might like to read and it was J D Salingers Catcher in the rye. Think thats how you spell it. After all these years and quite a few books and audio books cause i still struggle with reading. That book always sticks out in my mind. Oh the reason was im Add and Dyslexic. My favorite author now is Dean Koontz. I have alot of his books and alot of his audio books. I think if it wasnt for you showing me that book and how interesting books can be that I wouldnt read or listen to books now. You opened my eyes and encouraged me to read and open myself up and let my imagination make the words come alive and paint a picture of what I was reading. I have a 13 yr old son who is ADD and Dyslexic and he is the same way I was. He’s in the 8th grade now and i think next yr im going going to get that book and let him read it because it was the 9th grade when you gave me that book to read. I saw this post and figured i would comment. Thanks coach hope all is going well with you and your family…https://i0.wp.com/www.planetthoughts.org/userfiles/image/2011/Aug/starfish.jpg

You really don’t know . . . you really just never know. Maybe I’ve been a little hard on myself. Maybe never having a “Teacher of the Year” plaque on my wall isn’t as important as I thought. I still think I pretty much sucked as a teacher, but looks like I managed to get one starfish back in the water. Funny how the biggest boosts sometimes come along at the lowest ebbs.

Love y’all, and keep those feet clean!

Sep2

Metamorphosis of Matronly Mean Girls

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As I’ve told here before,https://i0.wp.com/static01.nyt.com/images/2008/09/29/timestopics/topics_nursinghomes_395.jpg on Tuesdays I ride down to Clinton to visit my sole remaining grandparent, Mama’s mama, my Granny Ima. When I arrive, the residents of Granny’s wing are in a rough circle overlooking the activity room. One or more non-vocal clients, like Granny, will often be over to the side, which I admit annoys me sometimes, but I’ll save that for later. I’ll make my rounds and speak to the ladies and dispense pats and hugs where they are welcomed and try to avoid some of the more “exuberant” ones before I sit down to give Granny the weekly update. It’s during these interludes I made my observations on how mobility, lucidity, and family may replace popularity, desirability, and money, but mean girls are still mean girls even in a nursing home and the hierarchy among these elderly ladies is every bit as rigid as any pecking order one would find in a high school or middle school cafeteria.

First, I’m sure you’ve noticed I mention “ladies” exclusively. That is not without purpose. The only creature less common in a nursing home than any gender of Hispanic is a male. At Granny’s, the ratio of men to women is – from my rough and unscientific observations – about fifteen women to each man. In the five years of Granny’s residence, I’ve also only seen one male nurse. It’s a safe bet the wings of NHC are fairly awash with estrogen, or would be if most of these ladies were not past the days of estrogen production.

What few men are around circulate in an entirely different manner than the women. The three I know the best — Mr. Joe, Mr. Jack, and Mr. Ralph — generally keep to themselves off to one side. During activities, they will line up wheel to wheel together on one side of the room looking for all the world like junior high boys at a sock hop earnestly hoping to not be asked to dance. Mostly, the women leave the men alone. I can’t say with certainty exactly why, but I suspect, given the lengths of the marriages I’ve heard bandied about among the ladies, they’ve just had enough to do with men to last a lifetime.

The ladies do have a pretty clear caste system among themselves, however, and the first criteria is mobility. Only two of them are able to walk unassisted for any distance and it’s obvious they are objects of envy. I can only imagine how sweet it would be to those who are Depends clad and wheelchair bound to be able to rise at any moment and tend to nature’s call alone and removed from the tyranny and interference of some whippersnapper CNA. Unfortunately, just because only two ladies are ABLE to walk unassisted, it does not mean others ATTEMPT to walk unassisted, often having forgotten the atrophy of their legs or — in some cases — the complete lack thereof. I don’t pass a day with Granny without hearing a “personal chair alarm” go off at least once as someone — usually Mother Gault — forgets she is no longer able to stand unaided but still wishes to give walking the old college try.

That brings up a second criteria in the nursing home pecking order because sound legs do not always undergird a sound mine. For instance, one precious lady — Ms. Stoddard I think she’s called — is one of the “easy walkers” and can stroll anywhere she wishes; unfortunately, she usually sits silent and pensive and a casual observer would wonder why until he or she heard her ask — often for the tenth or twelfth time that hour — “Where am I?” She, like almost all of the ladies lucid enough to realize their situation, usually wants to know the same thing when a nurse tells her, “Honey, you’re at NHC in Clinton,” and that is, inevitably, “Well, when do I go home?” Whenever I hear her or any other lady ask that plaintive question, my composure always suffers and once again I feel shot through with guilt that I have to drive to visit Granny instead of simply walking down the hall to her room.

Still, I do go to see her every Tuesday and my beloved Aunt Pearl goes every Wednesday. Having two regular family visitors assures Granny’s place in the hierarchy of the home and keeps her safe from drifting to the bottom. I can’t tell you how many of the ladies I have come to cherish as if they were aunts or elderly cousins sit day by day waiting for a family member who never comes. In some cases, I realize a family is unable to provide for the care needs some of the ladies present and some, like 102 year old Grandma Cleo — Granny’s roommate — have, by process of attrition, outlived any family who could come to visit. Still, in too many cases, these loved ones are more “inconvenient” than “invalid” and as sad as it is to say, our society doesn’t place a very high priority on its elders anymore.

Lest my brush seem too broad, though, not all of the ladies could be called mean girls.  Each week, I receive a fairly detailed report from two of the brightest ladies about Granny’s activity each week and they keep me up to date on how she is being treated by the staff and the other ladies and for that, I am grateful beyond description. For every former cheerleader who sneers at a fellow patient’s inability to move a wheelchair unaided is another kind heart who will wheel over to tuck a blanket around a sleeping comrade. The criteria may change, but just as high school was its on special kind of Hell and winnowing ground, so to is the nursing home a crucible of sorts where under the heat those whose spirits are most golden shine through.

Love y’all, and keep those feet clean!

Aug23

My Advice to the College Bound

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college or bustAll around the country a great odyssey is in progress. Students are finally getting their wishes and leaving home to head off to colleges and universities everywhere. In some places, classes are already starting and so this advice may be coming entirely too late as it is, but I feel compelled to try anyway. I do not have any children of my own and so will never be in the position to take someone to school, help him or her unpack the car, and get all the luggage and accoutrements into the dorm. Even so, I’m calling on my own experience in a huge public university back when dinosaurs roamed the earth and we took notes on a slate instead of an iSlate. Pass it on as you will. It comes from the heart.

Here goes, in no certain order of importance:

1. CHOOSE YOUR ROOMMATE CAREFULLY. Do not, under ANY circumstances, pick your BFF as your roommate as a freshman. No better method for destroying a friendship exists in the annals of civilization than trying to co-habitate the same space as a person you have known and ostensibly loved for a big chunk of your life at a time in both those lives when everything about the two of you is in flux. You are better off taking the luck of the draw than trying to keep the friendship alive by rooming together.

2. BE RESPONSIBLE. You have been screaming at your parents and the rest of the world just how responsible and grown up you are. Well, now is your chance to ACT LIKE IT. Don’t talk about being responsible — do it. Set an alarm and go to class on time, even the 8:00 AM ones you were insane enough to sign up for. Go to bed on time. Study as much as you need to.

3. DO NOT TRUST ANYONE YOU DO NOT KNOW until he or she gives you ample reason to do so. You are in the “real world” now and that world is full of predators. I’m not trying to scare you, but this isn’t a stupid horror movie. If you get in with the wrong person, you could end up in big trouble. You CANNOT tell a book by its cover. Ted Bundy was movie star handsome, brilliant enough to run for office, and executed for murdering at least 30 COLLEGE GIRLS. Watch yourself. Eventually, you will make friends who will go to the wall for you and when you do, look out for each other.

4. REMEMBER WHO YOU ARE. College is a time of challenges — to your beliefs, your ideals, and your character. You’ll be pressured to “change” in some way or another. Ignore the hype. If you love Jesus, don’t become a militant atheist just because a professor says so. Don’t dabble in Wicca just because the cute boy down the hall claims to be a high priest. Don’t change who you are just for the sake of changing. After all, being who you are got you this far, right? Of course, if you’re an asshole, by all means change. No one likes an asshole.

5. GET A PLAN. I’m where I am right now because I am the poster child for goal-less wandering. I wouldn’t trade my years in teaching for anything, but to be honest, I backed into education as a major. I NEVER sat down with myself or anyone else and figured out where I wanted to head in life and what I needed to do to get there. I just floated along and now I’m paying for it. Set goals, do research, decide what needs to be done and go do it. Alternatively, just go with the flow, but if you do, don’t be surprised when you are 43 and wondering, “How in the Hell did I get here?”

6. WATCH YOUR MONEY. Once again, I’m speaking from painful, personal experience. Unless you or your parents are exceptional planners, you’re already looking at student loan debt. Don’t add credit cards and other money suckers to that mountain as well. When I was in college, we didn’t get pre-approval credit card forms. Back then, they sent us a real live credit card and all you had to do was call and activate it and start burning plastic. I never turned one down and that’s why I live in a single-wide trailer instead of having a log cabin on the Bitterroot River in Montana like one of my buddies from high school and college.

7. AVOID STUPIDITY. Don’t make stupid choices, don’t hang out with stupid people, and don’t do stupid things. This is the era of social media. Any stupid move you make will be worldwide before you get back to your dorm room. The night I passed out on the steps of Tillman Hall stumbling back from the Esso Club, I didn’t have to worry about anything but security guards and rain. Try that nowadays and you’ll be on someone’s Facebook page in a skinny minute. Get drunk and strip on a table at a frat party? Hello, viral YouTube; goodbye future promotion opportunity. Ignorance is fine; it can be cured with education, but — to quote Ron White, “You can’t fix stupid.”

8. DON’T BLOW YOUR FUTURE TO HAVE FUN TODAY. You will be faced with a dictionary of choices in your freshman year. You can choose to party or study; go to the game or to the library; drink that one more drink or switch to water; have sex with that person or not. Binary choices. Yes or no; this or that. Choose wrong and you actually could screw up your entire future. Of course, that could never happen to you, but I watched it happen to people I knew and cared about. It only takes one bad decision and you could end up in jail, with a disease, with an unexpected baby, with a ticket out of college, or even with a headstone if it’s bad enough. Trust me on this one and don’t insist on finding out for yourself.

9. ACT LIKE YOU’VE GOT SOME SENSE. Your generation didn’t invent sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll so don’t act like you’re a rock star. For example, if you are at a party, do not, under any circumstances, drink ANYTHING offered to you unless YOU break the seal or YOU pour the drink. Once you set a drink down, consider it gone. Why waste a good drink? See #3 above. If you are tanking in a class, act like you’ve got some sense, swallow your pride, and go get help. Pride is a piss poor excuse for failing out of college. You will usually know what the right thing is to do whether you want to or not– do it. That is what acting like you’ve got some sense means.

I hope this helps some. Love y’all. Keep those feet clean.

Aug14

An Anniversary that Won’t Be

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EmptyClassroomBudge started back to school Tuesday. She’s got a week of meetings, preparation, and parents before the new crop of fourth graders arrive. I’ve helped her get her room ready for six years now, so she and I went up to her school a couple of days last week to get stuff on the walls and set the desks in order. As much as I enjoy my time with Budge, I always get a little melancholy when I’m helping set up though because the only reason I’ve been able to help her is I don’t have my own room or library to get ready anymore.

If my life had worked out differently, I’d be starting my 20th year in education. I was a late hire taking over for a woman whose part-time job had worked its way into a full-time job at double the pay she made as a teacher. I’d pretty much given up on ever getting a teaching position by then. I’d been out of college for eighteen months and spent a mint on stamps and nice paper sending out my resume’ all over the state without so much as a nibble at a job.

Luckily, one of the boys I’d grown up with had a father who worked in the personnel department of Greenville County Schools. He dropped my name when that late position opened up and the principal called me in for an interview. When I got the call, I was at my job in a local textile plant soaked in an indigo dye. She wanted to see me RIGHT THEN. I asked her if I might go home and change first, but she was adamant I come STRAIGHT OVER. So I did — dyed skin, work boots, and all. I looked like a giant mutant Smurf, but after that seriously awkward interview, I was a teacher at Woodmont High School near Piedmont, SC.

I spent nine and a quarter years at WHS as an English teacher teaching mostly sophomores and seniors with a smattering of freshmen and juniors every now and then. At that time WHS was a pretty small school — about 625 students in 9-12 — so I taught several students more than once. In fact, I had three runs of students while I was there whom I taught 10th, 11th, and 12th grade English. At one point I started asking them for their Social Security numbers telling them, “I’ve been with you so long, I figured I might as well claim you on my taxes!”

I coached wrestling, a little football, and even a year of soccer. To this day, I have the best single season record at WHS in soccer — of course, they haven’t had another player like Bruno the Brazilian since my one season either. It was a good time and I enjoyed it. Then, some bad things happened. I let my mouth, pride, and ego write a check my ass, resources, and connections couldn’t cash. A six-week suspension and one school board hearing later, and I was doing time on the unemployment line.

I figured my teaching career was over. I’d never heard of anyone getting hired after being fired from another position. Providence had other plans for me though. My high school alma mater needed an English teacher on short notice and the principal and two assistant principals had been my teachers back in my glory days. They hired me without references and a week later, I was teaching English again in the same room where I was a senior in AP English . . . the job was welcomed but the memories were not.

I had an awkward year that year. Among other things, I discovered several teachers I’d thought were raging assholes when I was a student actually WERE raging assholes no matter which side of the desk I was on. If I’d had sense, I’d have stayed at LD55HS for at least a few more years to repair my resume, but I’d just finished my MLIS degree at USC and I wanted to be a librarian — the career I’d dreamed about as a child. So, when Laurens 56 posted a middle school librarian’s position, I leapt on it and got hired because the then-principal knew me . . . and, I found out later, I was the only applicant.

I worked five good years at Bell Street MS. Turns out later other people didn’t think they were so good. I revamped the collection, overhauled the computer lab, and got the parent calling system to work when the IT department couldn’t. I worked with the IT department every summer without pay to help them get caught up. I had a wonderful assistant named Chris, a terrific office, and a mural on my library wall I loved. Oh, and I broke my back for my teachers and administrators. Unfortunately, I didn’t know my broken back was also acting as a sheath for a couple of knives.

The simple story is the district shut a school and gave the librarian my job since — in the grand tradition of the union-less South — I was the last hired so the first to be let go. The IT department head offered me a job as a computer technician at a fraction of my teacher’s pay scale. Again, if I’d had sense, I’d have taken it, kept my mouth shut, and waited for better times. By then though, I was too far gone mentally and emotionally. Papa John hadn’t long died, I’d had my first trip to the mental hospital, and Mama was starting to decline as well. In the heat of emotions, I said some impolitic things to my principal, an assistant principal, AND the superintendent of the district. By impolitic, at least in the case of the superintendent, I mean, “You know what you can do with that f%&*ing iPad and I’ll be glad to help you!”

It did not end well. I finished the year on suspension, again, and that was all she wrote for my career in education. After six months of trying, I faced the fact that I was a broken man with way too many emotional issues. I applied for my SS Disability and I qualified. So that’s where I am now. The very last students I ever had any contact with are graduating this year. I knew them as 6th graders at Bell Street where some of them were my library helpers. As sad as it makes me, I know in my heart, I have no real chance of ever teaching or being a librarian again. My certificate expired June 2013.

Anyway, love y’all and keep those feet clean!

Jul4

My July 4th Memory – “The Rick Camp” Game

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My Rick Camp 1978 Topps baseball card.

My Rick Camp 1978 Topps baseball card.

Independence Day isn’t grilling burgers or franks, shooting off loads of fireworks, or fun in the Sun on the water; it’s baseball. One game in particular recalls everything which makes baseball the greatest of games — a game where anything can happen on any given pitch and any player from any position can change the history of the game. I watched my game of all Independence Day games with my beloved Papa Wham on Thursday to Friday, July 4 – 5, 1985.

That night, the Atlanta Braves and New York Mets sent their aces — Dwight Gooden for the Mets, Rick Mahler for the Braves — to the mound. Instead of the advertised pitcher’s duel, they were both chased by the fourth inning. Fifteen MORE innings, THREE long rain delays, and a BUNCH of pitchers later, the game would become known in baseball lore as “The Rick Camp” Game.

By the time the final rain delay was over, the game was in the bottom of the 8th with the Braves losing 7-4, which was pretty typical for the 1980s Braves. Finally, however, the Braves’ bats came alive; they scored four times to take an 8-7 lead.

Then things started to get weird.

The Mets tied the game up in the top of the ninth by rocking famous Braves closer Gene Garber for a run. The home team failed to push anyone across in the bottom half of the frame and the free baseball began. It looked like things would be decided in “typical” extra innings when the Mets scored twice in the top of the 13th, but the Braves managed to knot the game up again when Terry Harper jacked a two run homer. Harper came to the plate TEN times in the game and managed five hits. That’s something not many baseball players can boast about.

The game went back to deadlock for the next five innings and then the Braves ran out of position players as pinch hitters. With nobody left on the bench to hit for him, and behind by a run, the Braves sent right-handed PITCHER Rick Camp, a lifetime .060 hitter, to the plate. With Camp behind in the count 0-2 — just as pitchers are supposed to be — Mets reliever Tom Gorman grooved a fastball “right down Peachtree Street” and Rick Camp sent it over the left field fence and into baseball history, tying the game.

What most people, including me, tend to forget after such a huge event is the Braves ended up LOSING the game in the next inning when the Mets got five runs in the top of the 19th. The Braves would get two back in the bottom of the inning, but Rick Camp couldn’t make the lightning strike twice and struck out to — finally, mercifully — end the game. It was 3:55 AM, July 5, six hours and ten minutes after it began.

The box score from the game took almost an entire column in the paper. Both teams used seven pitchers and combined for 46 hits. In a terrible bit of irony, Rick Camp proved a worse pitcher than hitter that fateful night, working three innings giving up 5 earned runs and going down as the losing pitcher.

The handful of remaining fans got to see the July 4th Fireworks Show start at 4:01am. Papa and I watched the entire thing; we both slept late the next morning.

Hope y’all had a great July 4th!

Love y’all; Keep those feet clean.

 

 

 

Jun6

Papa’s Day plus 70 years

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Papa wham

Frank B. Wham, Sr. circa 1944

Today more than any day of the year, I think of Papa Wham. More than his birthday (July 7), more than Christmas or Thanksgiving, more than Father’s Day, more than the anniversary of his passing (July 17), the anniversary of the D-Day invasion is my memory of Papa. This year is the 70th anniversary of the Operation Overlord invasion that finally opened up the second front in Europe the Soviet Union had been so adamantly insisting upon for years. Seventy years since the beginning of the end for Hitler and his 1000 year Reich. For Papa Wham and thousands of young men like him, it was another day away from home and the people they loved. I’ve seen the news coverage of the ceremonies in the Normandy cemeteries and I’ve marveled at the large number of veterans of that day who made the trip back to those stormy cliffs to remember. None of them are younger than their late 80s, but every single one of them stands as straight as age and appliances will allow as the colors troop past and the national anthems play. These are not young men and for many of them, this will be their last tour of the battlefields of their youth. It’s nearly a cliché now, but this is the flower of America’s Greatest Generation and those flowers are quickly fading.

If Papa were still with us, he’d be 97. This year will mark twenty years since his passing. It’s been two decades since I’ve seen his gentle smile and heard his sweet voice. To have known my papa when I did and as I did — as my beloved grandfather and one of the two greatest men I’ve ever known — was not to picture a warrior primed for battle. Papa ran a service station then an auto parts store. He vacuumed the house for Granny Wham on Saturday mornings and dozed off sometimes in church on Sunday mornings when Preacher Jeff wasn’t holding his attention. He loved baseball — especially his Atlanta Braves. He loved me and each of his three other grandsons (though I’m pretty sure I was the favorite.) I just never viewed my precious Papa Wham as anything other than my papa.

As I’ve gotten older, though, I’ve often wondered what Papa thought about “his” war. I never asked him for any details. I was too young to know how to gently and politely ask an older man about his service and Papa never volunteered his thoughts on anything but the most innocuous incidents, the funniest stories. I wonder about things now though. Papa was in his middle 20s when he went to fight the Nazis. He was a small town South Carolina boy riding to war on the Queen Mary ocean liner. What was he thinking 70 years ago today as his LCI splashed towards the narrow strip of sand? If I’ve heard correctly, Papa was in the third wave of the invasion, which meant the beach was still “hot” in terms of enemy action. Was he scared? I can’t imagine Papa Wham being scared any more than I can imagine Daddy being scared, but having watched the invasion scene of Saving Private Ryan time after time, I can’t see anyone in one of those boats not being terrified.

I know from his service record that D-Day wasn’t Papa’s first rodeo. He’d landed in North Africa during Operation Torch. He had been at Anzio and had taken part in the Sicily campaign. Still, this was attacking Hitler’s Atlantic Wall of Fortress Europe. I wonder how many friends he’d made in the two years of serving with the First Infantry Division, “The Big Red One.” I wonder how many he had seen maimed or killed in terrible ways. Had he ever killed anyone? I simply can’t see Papa as a killer, but it was a war and a terrible, bloody war at that. I know he could shoot because I’d seen him do it, but did he ever shoot a man? If he did, I never knew and I was brought up to well to ask.

What did he do in England during the build up for the invasion? What about during the days on the road in France when every American soldier was a liberator and a hero? Papa was dashingly handsome; especially in his uniform. Did he turn the head and catch the eye of a pretty English shop girl? Did he spend a quiet hour with some lovely French maid? To me, it’ll always be “Papa and Granny” but Papa wasn’t married to Granny yet and he was a long way from home with the possibility of being killed dogging his every step. I know it would seem scandalous to some — especially my Aunt Cathy — but I would hardly think less of my precious Papa Wham if he’d spent an evening with a European girl. He was kind and sweet and if Granny Wham loved him, why couldn’t a red-headed Scottish lass have been taken with him as well? I think entirely too much of Papa and his steadfast integrity to even entertain the idea I may have some kin on the other side of the Pond I don’t know about. That’s just not the kind of man Papa was . . . but if it did turn out I had a Belgian relative or two, I certainly wouldn’t think any less of Papa. It was a war.

A war he fought 70 years ago thousands of miles from home. Oh the questions I wish I had asked.

Rest in Peace, Papa, and Rest in Peace to all the brave fallen of that terrible war.

Love you all and keep those feet clean!