Category Archives: A Story

Nov17

An Emotional Sucker Punch Put Me on the Canvas

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Thursday coming will be Thanksgiving and the “official start” of the Holiday Season. Of course, nearly half the stores around here had Christmas decorations out before Halloween, so I’m not so certain about how “official” the start is anymore.

Since I love to eat and love my family, the holiday season has always been a coveted and special time of the year for me because it involves a great deal of both. The holidays have also been precious to me over the years because I was raised with an eye towards keeping sight of the real reason we celebrate Thanksgiving — to give thanks for all we have — and Christmas — the birth of our Savior. The holidays held meaning beyond turkey, trees, and tinsel ever since I can remember and as unbelievable as it may sound, I once came desperately close to chucking it all and throwing my lot in with the rest of the commercial and material world because I very nearly renounced my faith in God and Christ and became an atheist. Very, very nearly.

The event leading directly to the train wreck of faith I experienced was the death of my maternal grandfather in October 2006. I’ve written about Papa John’s death before, but I’ve never admitted in my writing just how profoundly his death crushed me on a spiritual and emotional level. Nothing else I’ve ever faced, or am likely to face — including Mama’s impending departure from this life — hit me as hard and affected me as deeply in a core area, THE core area, of my life.

I haven’t always been a Christian, but I’ve always been a believer in Christ. Mama took me to church willingly or by force until I was 12 years old and she said I could decide for myself. Granny and Papa Wham took me to church every Wednesday night and many Sunday mornings when I was young and stayed with them on the weekends from time to time. Christ, the Bible, and Church were the warp of my life and I no more doubted the inerrancy and inspiration of the Bible than I doubted the air I breathed.

Quite literally, “Mama ‘n Them” said God said it and they believed it, so I believed it as well. Completely and without question. As I got older, I read a little bit more and studied a little bit more on my own and hashed out some reasons on my own why I believed what I did.

Still, I never put in a lot of thought about my faith or what I believed in. I just took it as a matter of course. Growing up in a small Southern town didn’t really present me with a great many attacks on my beliefs and even when I was challenged by some “Godless” professors at Clemson and later USC, I just laughed them off. I was a de facto associate pastor at the church where Budge and I were married and I was the one many people called and referred others to with hard questions about theology and faith. I was happily and blissfully going along with my Christian life secure in my beliefs and certain beyond doubt God was in His Heaven and all was right with the world.

Then in October 2006, when I was 35, Papa John fell and had to go to the hospital. Seventeen days later, he was dead and when I conducted his funeral in a driving rainstorm the next day, I left my world insofar as what I believed in and the faith I had unquestioningly carried with me from childhood in a hole in the red Carolina mud with him. When I walked away from Papa’s grave, I walked away confused, in more pain than I thought I could bear, and believing in nothing anymore. I’ve mentioned before how much of a hammer blow getting fired from Woodmont and Greenville County Schools had been to me, but that entire event was an emotional scratch compared to the effect Papa’s death had on me.

Here’s where some explanation is due but you aren’t going to get all you need to understand why I reacted so badly mainly because I don’t know how to explain it to anyone but my wife, my therapist, and a tiny handful of people I still call friends. Even if I told the entire story from beginning to end, it still wouldn’t make sense to any of you and worse, you might take the opportunity to think less of and even make a disparaging comment about Papa John and if you did, I’d hate you for the rest of my life. So what broke me? Long story short, Papa John wasn’t supposed to die crippled in a coma the way he did. Oh, he was mortal. I knew that and I’m not stupid. Papa, like all of us, was destined to die, but not the way he did. I hope that’s enough, but just know that’s leaving out 99 and 44/100th% of the story.

I didn’t darken a church door for over a year. For several years before Papa’s death, cracks had been forming between me and my former church and they now became canyons and ended up being hammer blows of their own. Worst of all for my mind though, I started asking questions. I’d always tested and examined every dimension of my life in miniscule detail, but not my faith. Now I did. Once I started asking questions, the gates fell down as questions led to even more questions and the more the questions multiplied, the more the answers disappeared. The more the answers disappeared, the more the doubts grew.

For someone like me for whom faith was the same as oxygen, I was dying. I could have picked up a red hot horseshoe and it may have made a more visible scar, but it wouldn’t have been anymore painful. I couldn’t tell anyone though, because I didn’t want to drag someone down with me. During this entire time, Budge was the only one who knew how bad I was struggling. I had to stay strong for Mama, because for six months after Papa John’s death, I thought we were probably going to lose her also since she was grieving to the point of starvation.

Days dragged in to weeks and weeks turned to months and I was no better off than I’d been standing by Papa’s open grave. It was at that lowest point I figured I would be better off turning my back on everything I had believed in all my life than it was to try to force myself to hold on to what no longer made any sense to me.  At that moment, I was very nearly an atheist and that condition would last for longer than I like to admit.

Come back later and I’ll explain how I ended up still believing today.

Love y’all. Keep those feet clean.

Oct31

Monster Mashed

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Happy All Hallow’s Eve, y’all! Today is Halloween and, wee bitty becostumed bairns will be taking to the streets going from house to house like  mendicant friars, but these false faced ghouls, ghosts, and goblins are not begging alms; they seek CANDY! Enough raw sugar to make a blue whale need a tanker truck of Adderall just to swim straight.

I enjoy Halloween, but one October tradition I never embrace is the group trip to somewhere “haunted.” I’m not talking about Crybaby Bridge or Ghost Creek Road where SOMETHING paranormal and otherworldly often happens. I’m referring to corn mazes, haunted woods trails, and other variations of the haunted house.

I’ve mentioned before I have a low tolerance for fear and even less tolerance for crowds, both of which are in abundance at neighborhood spookfests. More than either, however, I detest the idea of masked people  jumping  and grabbing at me from every niche in the wall. Of course, everyone who knows me knows I hate this so theythink great fun to drag  me to any local “haunted” attraction.

Most of them only do it once though and the annual trip through Clemson University’s Y-Theater will show you why.

Every year, some group or other puts on a spook house in the Y-Theater. Since these are college students, several of whom are majoring in design, engineering, or construction science, with vivid imaginations and a pretty hefty budget, these horror galas are intense and well done — if you like that sort of thing. This year the theme was “Silence of the Tigers” in homage to the recent Silence of the Lambs complete with faux flayed cadavers on operating tables and other palpitation inducing tableaux. Groups of fifteen followed a “guide” and, like any good haunted house, denizens would jump out at us on cue.

One reason I hated haunted houses then is different from now. Then I was vastly more buff up than now. I was about 250 lbs and 5’10”, but the distribution was different then. I had a waist and more resembled a V shape than a cylinder. Because of my size and gallantry, girls always push me to the front then cling to me. This was the ONLY time girls clung to me, and it figures I was too occupied to notice the cutie bloodying my forearm with her manicured nails or her equally attractive friend climbing on my back during the “jumpy parts.”

Instead, I was concentrating on “walking point” through the labyrinth. The tour lasted forty-five minutes, which seems like a long time; I had jumped and startled and put up a brave front but  my nerves were shot with all the grabbing and darkness and smoke. Finally, we got to the long corridor to the exit. I was sweating and so ready for the fall air to cool me off. So everything went straight to Hell in a handbag.

Close to the exit, the ladies felt my presence in the vanguard wasn’t needed so I ended up at the back of the line. That move proved to be painful for someone. What happened next seemed to take the cliched hours of time standing still but was a few seconds. Our group got to the door and  it wouldn’t open. Just one girl turned to tell us this new development, the lights in this windowless room went out. I heard a sound and as I turned to face it, STROBE LIGHTS came on and girls started screaming.

Time to go, folks.

Nothing on this planet sounds like a Stihl chainsaw  revving to cutting speed. Nothing on this planet LOOKS like said machine in the hands of a large man in a glowing “blood” streaked white rubber mask. This bastard love child of Micheal Meyers and Leatherface walked towards us through the strobes waving and revving the saw, and things got real. I realize today, the “chainless” chainsaw is old hat, but in 1991 the chainsaw sound cut every mooring line holding my nerves to reality. Those two little walnut sized glands atop my kidneys dumped three liters of adrenaline and ye olde fight-or-flight reaction kicked in.

I WILL fight if need be and back then, “need be” was more common, but hot-tempered and willing to scrap as I was, I wasn’t going to be the idiot bringing bare fists to a chainsaw fight. I turned towards the door and in a voice later favorably compared with James Earl Jones on steroids bellowed, “Girls, MOVE” and started running.

Newton’s Second Law of Motion says Force = Mass X Acceleration. I mentioned my mass earlier. Usain Bolt with nitrous would not have touched me over the fifty feet down the corridor.  One girl later said she heard a sonic boom. Actually though, she heard my left foot contact the door, which exploding outward. I took off at about the ten foot mark and Bruce Lee would have envied the only flying side-kick I have ever done outside of a Mortal Kombat video game.

Now, why was I banned? Turns out the door was neither locked nor stuck but held shut by three average sized frat boys braced against it. One guy was using his shoulder and the other two had arms locked leaning against the door with all their weight. I hit the door at almost the exact point where “shoulder boy” braced. He ended up in the ER with a separated shoulder and a concussion from the back of his head hitting the sidewalk. Another one had a broken wrist and the last one dislocated his elbow.

And THAT, fellow feetsters, was the last time those girls asked me to a haunted house AND the last time I toured the Y-theater. The three frat boys haven’t forgiven me, but I don’t lose sleep over those things.

Love y’all and brush your teeth after all the candy then get those feet clean!

Oct27

The Little Cats are in the Barn

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I took to the sideline with a twinge of sadness this morning because it was the last game of the season for the mighty Sea Lions of the MFBC Upward Fall Soccer League and unfortunately, we were a little shorthanded today.

Right off, I missed my little cotton-topped Garrison with his front-toothless smile, but he was at a father-son camp-out weekend and I could hardly begrudge him that. Thomas and I agreed of all the bambinos, he “grew”. He was already a first class shooter and in the early games, he worried more about the score than the team, but as the season progressed, he picked up new skills, including a tremendous ability to find an open teammate with a great pass. He also calmed down considerably from the ball of energy and bounce who showed up at the first practice to hang on my legs and shoulders. He was really a fun kid to be around.

We also missed Tru today and that worried me most of all because his mom was in charge of snacks for after the game. I didn’t really care about snacks, but Tru missed the last practices following our penultimate. I missed that game also after an ER visit to get Budge’s gall bladder checked, but Thomas told me Tru had an “incident” where he beat on one of our girls during his session on the sidelines. Knowing Tru, he was showing affection, but it was unnerving to the little lady and her parents and I certainly understand. Immediately after the final horn Tru’s, mom scooped him up and hurried away; that was the last we saw him. Thomas’ reminder email went unanswered. I wish I could say Tru matured as much as the others, but he didn’t and I’m pretty sure it’s because Tru has more pressing problems on his little mind than soccer. I hope he’ll come out the other side okay. I know the road he’s on and I hope something I said sticks with him in the darkness ahead.

At first, I was worried Sophie might not show because she missed practice Tuesday, which is completely unlike her. We found out today when she showed up what caused her absence. She and her parents spent a week at DisneyWorld! I now know she doesn’t like Space Mountain — too dark — but she loved Splash Mountain and Thunder River and she met Mickey and ate at Cinderella’s Castle and saw all the fireworks and stayed in a neat hotel and got mouse ears with her name on them and voted for Pooh and not Captain Hook and WHEW! . . . well, you get the idea! We learned this during the game as she related each part of the story of her dream vacation while standing next to Thomas or me as the ball was in play, but on the other end of the field and therefore of less concern in the moment than the happiest place on earth. Did I mention Sophie is a darling, intelligent ONLY CHILD? She is not doted upon, but it’s obvious who the family’s centers on. I will really miss her.

I’ll still get to see little Lauren on at least a weekly basis since she’s my co-coach’s daughter and the reason he, then I, got into this gig in the first place. She improved a lot over the season, especially in endurance. Our first practices, she spent walking instead of running, but today, she managed to play the entire game non-stop. She is a precious little lady even if TREMENDOUSLY dramatic! Her parents are in the same community group at church as Budge and me and for the first several months, she didn’t care much for me. I’d speak to her, but she’d walk away with all the haughtiness a six-year-old can muster. After the first practice, though, she started talking my ears off. When her mother asked her why, Lauren’s reply was, “Oh Mom, Mr. Shannon’s my COACH!” Apparently, that makes it all different!

Now Jonas didn’t need to build up his endurance. For the entire season, he was never still. If he was standing, he was hopping from leg to leg. Sitting in the circle during half-time devotions, he bounced on his bottom, his energy level off any scale. I mentioned to Thomas if we could bottle Jonas’ energy, we’d make a fortune. I don’t think he knows how to walk; he ran full tilt everywhere he went, on the field and off. Of all the team, he was THE most competitive. Even when we reminded him the object was to have fun, he was always keenly aware of the “score.” He was a phenomenal player and we didn’t teach him much he didn’t already know, but he was a ball of energy on the field and always got the team going, even if he was prone to take the ball from anyone on the field, including his mates!

One frequent victim of Jonas’ ball theft was little Collin. Collin is without a doubt one of the ten cutest children I know. His round little face is capable of such exquisite expression, from extreme irritation, usually after someone took the ball from him, to boundless euphoria when he infrequently scored a goal. Oh I loved being around that child. I swear he could charm an angel. I felt we didn’t have a great start because he didn’t speak to Thomas or me during the first two practices or games. He’d just look when I called his name to put him in. I asked his daddy if he was quiet and dad grinned — a mirror image of his youngest son — and said, “Oh, just wait til he decides he likes you.” he started liking us halfway through the third practice and when he started talking, he didn’t stop. I didn’t mind though because even his voice was adorable.

There’s not one of my seven little soccer kittens I wouldn’t take into my own home in a skinny minute. I told all the parents I’d be glad to take them off their hands. Of course, they know I have no children so I got more than one knowing smile and nod. Apparently, I do not know of what I speak!

I still can’t believe I spent three months coaching these itty-bitties, but it was some of the greatest fun I’ve ever had in my life. Lauren wants to play in the spring, so hopefully Coach Thomas and Coach Shannon can put together another group of amazing soccer babies!

Here’s hoping. Love y’all and clean your soccer cleats!

 

Oct23

Ten Years or Another Lifetime? Most Nights, I Don’t Know.

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Read ’em and weep. I know I did.

I was on my way to being very chipper and upbeat this morning until I looked at the calendar and saw the date was October 23. I had almost forgotten . . . the key being ALMOST.

Ten years ago this afternoon, at 1:00 PM to be precise, life handed me the mother of all lemons. Actually, that’s a little too “cutesy.” The long story is ten years ago this morning I took one of the Magnificent 7, which is my euphemism for the seven events that radically changed my life for the worse. Each of the seven were hammer blows against my emotional well-being and each of the seven — in seven different ways — shattered me mentally and emotionally as easily as a cinder block dropped from a highway overpass will shatter a vehicle’s windshield and with about as much warning. Ten years ago today, following a short and slanderous hearing at 301 Camperdown Way, I was summarily and officially dismissed from my teaching post at Woodmont High School.

The short story is I was lied to and about, publicly humiliated, then fired from teaching. I’d been exiled from the one place where I’d normally felt safest, happiest, and strongest. For the first time in my life, I had been kicked out of school.

I plan to post all the documents I still have from the hearing and the aftermath. When I do, you can read them for yourselves. I don’t have the mental energy to type out that story here. I love this blog. It’s not much, but it’s mine and I’ve tried to steer clear of controversy and painful memories, but to deny the scars is to deny the events which caused them and any event that makes you seriously question whether or not you really want to go on living in a world where things like this can happen to you is much too important to be ignored.

I haven’t had many things happen to me that have affected me as much or as long as getting fired did. It was two years before I was able to get back into teaching for good and I wouldn’t have gotten a break then except my alma mater needed an English teacher and the assistant principal had been my Geometry teacher and the principal had student taught my senior class in something or other. They knew me personally so they didn’t really look at anything from “The File.”

It wasn’t the same though. For one thing, Thomas Wolfe was absolutely right when he said, “You can’t go home again.” Teaching in what had been my AP English classroom in my senior year forced me every day for 180 straight days to confront ANOTHER one of the Magnificent 7 so when a library job opened up one district over, I took it.

So, it’s been ten years and the pain is just as fresh in my mind now as it was then. I can still taste the metallic tang of pure adrenaline fueled fear in my mouth when I think about the hearing. I can still see the faces of the “witnesses.” More than anything though, I can still hear the thunderous silence of the people I had called friends and colleagues for almost nine years. I had helped these people in more ways than I can imagine. I’d tried to be there for them, but when I was strung up and dangling, none of them . . . NOT A SINGLE ONE bothered to vouch for my character.

I remember leaving the district office with Budge in tears and Mama in a rage like I hadn’t seen on her face since I was a third grader and Ray Bates’ mother (God rest her soul) grabbed me by the collar and shook me because I had finally stood up to Ray’s bullying. People have asked me if I was angry and I always tell them I was too concerned with keeping Mama and Budge from getting locked up to be angry. I just wanted to get home.

Thirty minutes after leaving the pillory, I went back to the school and to the room I’d called home for so long. It was a mess because the string of subs who had kept the class during my six weeks suspension while I awaited a hearing hadn’t been able to control my hellions or my brilliant AP History students. While I was gathering my things, the assistant principal who had been the main “detective / witch hunter” for my case came into the room and asked me “So how’d things go?” I still thank God and 300 mg of Effexor CR for not decking her in her smug little mouth right then. As it was, I snatched my posters from the wall, took a few folders from my filing cabinet, and collected my most prized belongings from my beautiful desk that my friend Brian Ashley had helped me restore five summers before , then I walked out.

I’ve never been back.

Now as a sorry excuse for a Christian, I do not believe in karma, but sometimes it is tempting when I consider this. None of the three students whose complaints against me triggered the whole debacle ever graduated from high school. The principal who threw me under the bus didn’t make it through the year herself but was dismissed in disgrace partly because parents complained to the district office about her attending home football games about “two and a half sheets to the wind” as we say in the country. The superintendent who was such a jerk over the entire thing was fired by the school board within a year, partly over allegations of misconduct with a couple of female principals and partly for just basically being an ass of the 33rd degree. Finally, the district lawyer who prosecuted my case was fired and arrested a few years later after a district computer technician found alleged child pornography on the computer in the lawyer’s office. The child porn charges were eventually dropped because no one could prove the boys were underage, but the computer crimes stuck and he may still go to jail.

Coincidence or karma? You decide.

Love y’all. Keep the faith and the feet clean.

Oct21

Eyeball to Eyeball: Fifty Years after the World-Saving Blink

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One of the photographs that started the crisis.

The two-ish week period from October 15 to October 28, 1962 has gone into history under many names. Some call it “The Thirteen Days,” some “The Brink of Brinksmanship”, but most know it simply as “The Cuban Missile Crisis.” Regardless of what name the historians call it, this stretch of days in a fall fifty years ago mark the best known time when the United States and the Soviet Union came the absolute closest to a full-scale nuclear exchange. I say best known because our country and the USSR actually came even closer to firing mushroom inducing ICBMs at one another on several occasions but these were almost always caused by equipment malfunctions or misinterpreted data. The Cuban Missile Crisis was neither of those. It was a case of “we’re being threatened by what you are doing and we’re going to kill you if you don’t stop doing it.”

The history surrounding the Cuban Missile Crisis is well-known and has been the subject of articles, books, and university classes for the past five decades. It was one of — if not THE — hottest points of the Cold War. For the only time since its inception in 1959, the US military moved the DEFCON alert readiness to DEFCON 2 prompting Strategic Air Command — again, for the only known time in history — to launch the nation’s fleet of B-52 Stratofortress bombers to their airborne orbit points in preparation for an imminent nuclear retaliatory strike against the Soviet Union.

What is not common knowledge is the crisis actually involved some live fire and one American pilot gave his life to obtain the information that would ultimately move President John F. Kennedy to put his finger firmly on the “Big Red Button” and issue the ultimatum to Soviet Premier Khrushchev to remove the missiles immediately or face World War III. What is even lesser known than THAT is the only casualty of the Cold War’s hottest moment was born and raised in Greenville, South Carolina just up the road from where I am writing this. He also graduated from my college alma mater, Clemson University. His name was US Air Force Major Rudolf Anderson and around these parts, he is a really big deal.

This is Maj. Anderson’s memorial plane in Cleveland Park, Greenville, SC.

I grew up visiting Cleveland Park and the Greenville Zoo on weekends and each time we would go, Papa Wham would take me by “The Big Plane” as I called the memorial Greenville had erected to Maj. Anderson’s memory. The monument still stands today and all this year it has been undergoing extensive renovation and improvement in preparation for a rededication Saturday, October 27, 2012 to mark the 50th anniversary of Maj. Anderson’s death. The memorial’s centerpiece is an F-86 Saber jet fighter of the type and markings Maj. Anderson flew during his service in the Korean War. The Air Force donated the Saber because the U-2 type spy plane the major flew on his fatal mission was such a new plane with so many top-secret systems they could not release one.

At the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the U-2 was the best kept secret in the US. It was a sophisticated spy plane able to fly so high the pilot had to breathe pure oxygen and wear a space suit. When the U-2s first flew, the thought was the Soviets had no interceptors or anti-aircraft missiles capable of reaching the altitude necessary to bring a U-2 down. Unfortunately, the Air Force learned that if you shoot enough missiles at an aircraft, the law of averages starts to work against you and the first U-2 was shot down by the USSR on May 1, 1960.

Even though they now knew the U-2 was vulnerable, the Air Force brass still used the plane to great effect and it was the pictures taken by Maj. Anderson and his fellow pilots earlier in October 1962 that provided the photographic evidence needed to for President Kennedy to confront the Soviets. Major Anderson knew the danger he was flying towards as he took off fifty years ago, but he went anyway and his death, terrible as it was, gave the President the excuse to issue a final ultimatum to Khrushchev to remove the missiles or face annihilation.

My mother was ten years old during the events of October 1962 and she recalled daily “duck and cover” drills in school for those two weeks. I think it shows more than a little naiveté on the part of the Civil Defense people to think that a textbook and a school desk would provide adequate protection from a hydrogen bomb, but those were simpler times.

Thankfully, as I alluded to in the title, Khrushchev and the Soviets backed down and agreed to remove the nukes from Cuba. The hottest spot of the Cold War thankfully cooled down and the mushrooms never started popping up. The world could breathe a collective sigh of relief and I take a lot of pride in the fact that a South Carolina boy, in giving his life for his country, was a big part of making it possible.

Rest In Peace, Major Anderson; and well done.

Love y’all and keep those feet clean!

Oct16

Kid! Just.Stay.Down.

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They look nothing like the characters in this memory.

For some reason today, I remembered a fight I witnessed when I was a freshman in high school. It was over some real or imagined affront to one of the guys’ honor and — most likely — a girl had something to do with it somewhere because they pretty much always did. I know I heard girls complain time after time about their “hotheaded” boyfriends always wanting to fight over them. They talked like it was the most embarrassing thing in the world, but the funny thing is, the Lady Fair was always present in the rustic berfois whenever her Shining Knight was tilting in the lists. Even funnier is how often the loser in the fight would lose his girl as well. Milady doth protest too much over the bloodletting, but she isn’t likely to stay with someone incapable of defending her honor either. It’s natural selection at its finest.

But I digress.

I ended up at this fight because my ride home was going to the melee. Apparently,  the “challenge a la guerre” took place between classes or at lunch or some such. In any event, fighting on school property — while it did happen — would end in a lengthy suspension for a first offense and a recommendation for expulsion thereafter so unless someone blatantly spit in your face or proclaimed loudly and profanely that your mother was something less than pure as the driven snow and a saint among women, fights happened at “The Rocks” at 3:30 after school.

The Rocks was a sandy beach beside the Little River less than a mile from the school down Raider Road. It took its name from the shoals created by — duh — rocks and the flattened, worn boulders dotting the beach. It provided good footing, was spacious enough to accommodate a pair of pugilists or a group of warriors, and had ample viewpoints to watch the fight and watch for the local constabulary.

Close, but a few more big rocks and a little smaller stream.

These affairs were always “straight up” as well. I think my generation was the last one to settle fights solely with the weapons God gave us. I knew several boys carried knives — I myself was seldom without my stainless steel butterfly blade, even at school — and more than one — of which number I would be included during my train wreck of a senior year — carried guns in the glove box of their cars. Despite such an weaponry, no one I knew from any group in the school would have pulled a knife in a simple dispute like this. His own friends would turn on him in a second for such an egregious breach of longstanding tradition. Against a rival school or in a clearly delineated gang fight, you took your chances of getting butchered or shot, but not while “settling scores” at The Rocks after school.

In one corner was a junior I didn’t particularly care for. His face was too handsome by half and when he took his shirt over his head he revealed sculpted muscles my pasty white doughboy belly would never see. This guy could throw down though. Fighting came as naturally to him as his stylishly tousled blonde hair. He wasn’t the biggest guy in the school by a long margin, but he was big enough. I sure as hell wouldn’t have wanted to have a go at him. I don’t consider myself a coward and I have enough scars to prove it, but I also adhere strictly to the Kenny Rogers dictum that one must, “Know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em; know when to walk away and know when to run.” After all, a wise man said discretion is the better part of valor.

The other fighter was a sophomore. He had moved in to the area in his freshman year. I didn’t know his name, but I’d seen him in the halls. He was an inch or two shorter than Adonis and seemed reasonably fit. Standing with a couple of his clique, he didn’t seem too anxious to participate in this barbarism, and I figured none of this was his idea. Unfortunately, school’s like prison — you back down when someone calls you out, you set yourself up for endless bullying and torture.

At least they avoided this crap.

This wasn’t Madison Square Garden and no one standing around the circle — except me — could have told you who the Marquis de Queensbury was. To their credit, they dispensed with the usual circling shoulder to shoulder and trash talking. The kid just walked up to Adonis and tossed out a right hook that grazed the sculpted perfect chin. That was the first and last blow the kid landed. Adonis gave with the punch and came back with a straight left hand to the kid’s nose that started blood flowing and sent the kids sprawling flat onto his back.

At that point, the fight could have been over. Honor was satisfied, at least to all of us. Apparently, the kid had other ideas. He slowly stood up and waded back in, launching a haymaker right that whiffed miserably. Adonis popped him with a right – left combination and the kid was down again with the beginnings of a beautiful shiner on his left eye. Again, this is over, right? No. The kid staggers to his feet again and goes right back at Adonis and receives a matching contusion over his right eye for his trouble. This time, Adonis strode over and when the kid got to his knees, Adonis anchored him flat again with a huge right and turned to walk away. The kid somehow got up again and lunged at Adonis, grabbing the older boy around the waist. Adonis spun out easily and — once again — put the kid face down with a hard punch.

Looked a lot like this . . . a WHOLE lot like this.

Now this was getting awkward. This kid wasn’t going to stay down even though he had absolutely no chance of winning or even hitting his antagonist. Any of the rest of us would have taken our ass-whipping and called it a day, thank you very much, but this guy just kept coming. Three more times he got up and three more times Adonis leveled him. It was just like the boxing scene from Cool Hand Luke except these guys weren’t wearing any gloves. I know Adonis wasn’t holding anything back, but this kid just kept getting up. He looked like, well, he looked like someone who ran into a buzz saw, but he would not quit. I saw him get plastered twice more before Scott tapped me on the shoulder and shrugged his head towards the car. A few other people left around the same time.

I heard the next day at school that Adonis finally knocked him down then knelt beside him and put his hand on the kid’s chest to keep him from rising. When the kid struggled to knock the hand away, a buddy of mine who stayed said Adonis held firm and said to the kid, “You win. Just stay there and you can tell anyone you want to that you won this fight. Please stay down because I don’t want to hit you anymore.” He said when the kid heard that, he just relaxed and passed out. By the end of the year, he was a member of Adonis’ crew.

I guess I was thinking about that fight because of all the crap that’s been hitting me lately. Sickness, bills, general troubles. We all have to go through dark places, but honestly, it feels like it’s been awhile since I’ve seen the light. Of course, the one huge difference between my current state and the kid’s that day long ago at The Rocks is life doesn’t tell you to stay down or you’ve won. Get up as many times as you want to; Life’s big right hand is going to put you flat on your back one more time until you break or die. It’s a rule. Nobody gets out of here alive; you just get to choose how disfigured you want to be.

Sorry about the bummer ending, y’all.
Just remember ol’ G.S. Feet loves each and every one of you. Stay safe and keep those feet clean.

Sep22

For Such a Time as This?

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My little buddy’s biography!

The mighty Sea Lions came away with a hard-won victory today in our Upward Soccer match. Our scrappy little bunch played hard even though we were short-handed. Turns out my little home-schooled “right fielder” decided soccer just wasn’t for her so she’s done for the year. {Just a note, if you don’t know what a “right fielder” is when used as a yard stick for an athlete’s skill, you never played t-ball or coach’s pitch; if you must have some other analogy, the proper football one would be a kid who is “end, guard, and tackle.”}

But I digress.

In addition to my little star-gazer, we also missed Tru this morning. His mom sent Coach Thomas an email earlier in the week letting us know they had a family vacation planned and wouldn’t be at the game today, but I still missed him, mostly because of last week. I felt like he and I bonded during our trouncing by the vicious Otters.

To really understand this story, first, you have to know this — Tru HATES soccer. I think he’d rather slide down a jagged envelope and put the resulting paper cut into a vat of vinegar rather than play. All you have to know is his mom had to CARRY him from the car to the field for the first game. He’s done a little better since then, but he still has pretty much zero interest in the game. In our first game, we could barely keep him on the field because he kept wanting to go sit in his mom’s lap. Even when he’s on the field, he’s not crazy about sticking his leg into the cleated, shin-guarded blender that is the scrum for the ball in this level of soccer. Most of the time, he’ll be at the opposite end of the field from the action picking dandelions or looking at the clouds. If you’ve ever read the marvelous children’s book Ferdinand the Bull by Munro Leaf, you have a COMPLETELY accurate picture of my little Tru.

Last week though, he seemed more Ferdinandesque than usual. He seemed downright sad. When it was his turn to sit out a segment, I sat down next to him on the tarp / bench. He was picking at a scab on his knee just as any little boy would, but I could tell something was serious so I leaned in to him and said, “Tru, dude, what’s wrong with you today?”

I guess this is how we looked to everyone else.

Now I was expecting a typical “Tru” answer along the lines of “I hate being out here” or “Can I go sit with my grandparents?” Instead, I got a blurting, sprawling answer that hit me like a Chuck Norris roundhouse kick. Tru said, “I just don’t feel right, Coach Shannon. I feel weird.” Not surprisingly, Tru didn’t know the word he was hunting was “depressed.” How could a little boy know such a huge word?

He continued, “I just moved up here from a place called Lexington. My mommy and daddy aren’t living together anymore and now I’ve got a new daddy and he’s okay, but he’s not my real daddy and all my friends are back there and I want mommy and daddy to get back together and I want my old room back but mommy says that’s never going to happen so I just want to go back to Grammy’s and sit in my room and play with my toys ’cause I don’t want to be around anyone but daddy is going to come get me this afternoon and Mommy seems sad about that.” He never cried. Never broke. Never even whined. Just stated the facts with all the emotion and vocabulary at his 5.5 year old disposal.

But this is pretty much how it felt.

For a long few seconds, I didn’t say anything. I didn’t trust my voice because as I sat on that paint-smeared blue tarp with a gorgeous blue sky overhead and a fresh breeze in my face, I went back. I literally saw the years melt away in some parody of a Hollywood flashback sequence. The decades fell away until it was no longer a 5.5 year old little boy and a 41 year old coach sitting side by side; it was a 5.5 year old little boy and a just barely turned 6 little boy who reached out and put a hand on Tru’s shoulder. The six-year-old was once again watching a spray painted sky blue Chevy pickup truck with two bags of clothes in the bed pulled out of the gravel driveway of a little single-wide trailer as HIS daddy drove away and began the upheaval that would define the next 30+ years of that little boy’s life.

Then just as quickly as it happened, it was over and I was “there” again. I looked at Tru and dared my voice to crack as I talked to him. I said, “Buddy, if anyone on this field right now knows what you mean, I do.”

He looked up at me and he looked so small, “My mommy and daddy split apart when I was just a tiny bit older than you. It was awful and I cried and cried for days.” He looked even sadder, “Tru, it’s never going to be ‘okay’ again. I can’t lie to you and you are way to little to understand what all I wish I could tell you, but I can tell you this . . . your mommy loves you, your daddy STILL loves you and your second daddy loves you as well and that is ALL that matters. Right now you are sad and hurting because the world has fallen apart and no one bothered to ask you what you think about any of it, they just dragged you along ’cause they’re bigger than you.”

At that, Tru looked up at me an nodded knowingly, “But Tru, even though it’ll never be ‘okay’ you will be okay. You’ll get through this. It feels like the end of the world and it’s probably the worst thing you will ever go through for a long, long time, but it will get better. It’ll never make sense until you are too old for it to matter anymore. In fact, it’ll probably NEVER make sense, but IT WILL GET EASIER. Just hang on. Love your mommy and keep loving your daddy. It’ll be okay.”

By that time, the game was over and everyone was shaking hands and giving out “effort stars” so I didn’t get to say much more to the little fellow and to be honest, I’m not sure he’ll come back to soccer anymore — he hates it that badly. Still, for those ten minutes, for the first time and the only time in the last 36 years, all the agony, all the anger, and all the pent-up angst FINALLY seemed to have a purpose. I have no idea why I would have to endure all I’ve endured since Mama and Daddy divorced so long ago. It seems as though any chance at being happy drove away in that sky blue truck.

Hang tough, little bro, hang tough.

BUT, for ten minutes, all that misery allowed me to DIRECTLY connect with a little boy who is just setting out on the path I’ve walked for as long as I have clear memories. It is a lonely path and a dark path and when I started my journey, I didn’t know of anyone walking ahead or behind. Maybe THIS little act; this ten minutes of absolute understanding of another human being. Maybe I went through it all for just such a time. I didn’t have a guide, but at least for Tru I could call back across the years to say, “It’s hard, but you can make it. It’s a sad time, but it’ll get better, kid, you just have to keep walking. Keep on walking.”

For such a time as this.

Sorry for such a long piece. I try to keep them under 1000 words, but I got carried away on this one. Love y’all and keep those feet clean.

Sep16

Another of the Good Ones Dies Young

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I apologize for anyone who’s expecting another installment of my soccer stories. Unfortunately, something terrible has come up.

Seventeen years ago I started my first teaching career at Woodmont High School with two classes of English IV and four classes of English II. One of the students in one of those sophomore classes was a little slip of a girl. She was blonde and blue eyed and cute as a button. She didn’t have much to say on the first day, and to be truthful about it, she wasn’t very talkative the entire time I knew her. Her name was April Pruitt and because of a quirk in scheduling, she and many of her classmates from that first sophomore class would be in my English III class the next year and would finish up with me in English IV the year after that. I guess about a third to a half of the WHS class of 1998 had me for English as sophomores, juniors, and seniors. They were the first of my favorite students and quiet, short, but smiling April stood tall among the ones nearest and dearest to my heart.

April wasn’t college bound. She graduated and went into the workforce. From all I’ve been able to ascertain, she held down her job well. Like many of my former students who stayed in this area, I would run in to her at the grocery store or WalMart from time to time. When Facebook came out, she was one of the first of my former students to “friend” me and using that wonderful network of Mr. Zuckerberg’s, we kept in touch over the last few years. Like a great many of her classmates at Woodmont, she never married, but she did have a devoted boyfriend and two beautiful little boys who looked remarkably like their mother.

I never heard anything from or about April these last seventeen odd years to worry me like I had to worry about so many of my former students. She steered clear of drugs as far as I can tell. The picture at the left was taken in April and her face shows none of the ravages an addiction would create. She wasn’t a heavy drinker or a wild party girl.  I don’t even know if she smoked cigarettes or not. Every picture in her Facebook album shows her happy and laughing with friends or, even more often, with her two boys who were obviously the apples of her two eyes. I was more than a little proud of her because she was successful in the quiet, steady way that is so typical of a Southern woman. She was 32 and doing well for herself and her boys.

Until a week ago Friday when she had her accident. From what I can gather through Facebook and other channels, she and her boyfriend were riding his four-wheeler — sans helmets, of course and unfortunately — when they lost control of the ATV while going at a pretty fast rate. Apparently, her boyfriend was able to hang on to the machine and let it bear the brunt of the crash, but April was thrown from the back and flew some distance through the air before landing hard on her head and neck. She was rushed unconscious to the hospital where she spent the last week in a coma with swelling on her brain. I planned to go to see her in the hospital every day last week, but something constantly seemed to come up. Now, I won’t get the chance. April passed away early this (Sunday) morning. She fought hard, but she never regained consciousness.

For several years, I kept a list written on an Olive Garden napkin of all the students and former students I had lost over the years. It was on such a medium because several of my former colleagues and I were at Olive Garden on the last day of school discussing the “Woodmont Curse” which seemed to take at least one or more of our students each year. In just the shortntime I was at WHS, I put nearly 20 names on the list. By the time the napkin disappeared, it held over thirty-five. If I still had it, the total would be somewhere around 42. Forty-two lives cut tragically short by disease, accidents, suicide, and several other reasons.  I knew each one personally and very few of them were nearer and as special to me as April.

I wish her family, especially her boys, able to find peace. I don’t pretend to have anything wise and transcendent to say. I don’t have the answers I once thought I had. All I know is one more little sliver of my heart will join many others in graves, tombs, and even at sea in places far and near and the world will be all the poorer for having lost such a lovely and smiling light.

In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti, Resquiescat In Pace, April. Coach Wham will miss you.

Sep15

Onward and Upward: The Joy of Herding Cats

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Back about the middle of July, my buddy Thomas texted me with a proposition. His middle child and youngest daughter, Lauren, was going to play soccer. He planned to coach and wanted to know if I would agree to help him as his co-coach. I have no idea what compelled him to choose me out of all the people he knows. I am certain it was not for my vast experience as an award winning soccer coach since my entire knowledge of soccer comes from one season as a high school head coach of necessity — which I’ve already discussed — and a few viewings of various FIFA World Cups over the years. Furthermore, I have no children of my own of any age so the little ones are a mystery to me, albeit an adorable one.  Whatever his reasons, I found my fingers texting back “Sure thing; it’ll be fun.”

Looking back, I’m relatively certain I figured Thomas would find someone better suited OR Lauren would decided to stick with horseback riding OR the Mayan Apocalypse would be several months early. I don’t think I seriously considered actually being a children’s soccer coach until a month later when I was actually sitting next to Thomas at the intro meeting for the MFBC Upward Soccer League. By then, my pride wouldn’t let me run away screaming; although it might have actually been less embarrassing if I had.

Too late for that, though. I was an Upward Soccer Coach.

Here I should tell you a few important details about this particular league. Upward Soccer is a Christian outreach program. Each practice and game include a time for a short devotion. It’s a way to learn about Jesus and play a little soccer. At least, that’s the theory.

One other important thing I need to mention. Our team? Three kindergarteners and four first graders. What experience I do have with children has always been with the middle school or older crowd. Now, I was expected to teach the “itty-bittys” about “The Beautiful Game.” If you are already laughing, stay tuned. It gets better.

In Upward, we play on a quarter sized field with four players per side. We don’t have goalies because no one wants a K5er getting kicked in the mouth going for a save. The goals are tiny as well — six feet wide by three feet high. Other than that, most of the rules are just like regular soccer.

Our team is Lauren, Addy, Sofia, Garrison, Jonas, Collin, and True. We are the Sea Lions, but secretly I like to refer to us as The Magnificent Seven. Officially, it’s called Upward Soccer, but a more accurate name for it would be Amoeba Ball. Keep in mind, K5 and 1st graders — eight on a field at a time. Basically, it’s a #3 sized soccer ball amidst sixteen whirling, stabbing, jabbing, and flailing lower limbs. Wherever the ball moves, the cloud of dust and children follow. Position play is a distant dream. If the ball squirts out of the scrum and a team-mate kicks it next instead of an opponent, we call it a “pass” and are deliriously happy.

It truly is like herding cats; especially given how all the kittens don’t always want to play at the same time.

Take Addy for instance. She is a precious child. At our first practice, I was trying to get her and her teammates to line up in two lines. How hard can it be, right? Let me put it this way; I used to laugh at the colored tiles on the floor at Budge’s school after she told me they used them to teach the children where to line up correctly. If I could have, I would have tiled the entire soccer field just to have colored squares. In little Addy’s case, however, it wouldn’t have helped. She was having a terrible time figuring out how to line up so I knelt down next to her and said, “Baby, it’s like getting in line to go to the gym or the lunchroom at school or maybe lining up to go out to recess.” She looked at me so very sweetly with her little pink bow and her cute glasses making her eyes even bigger and brighter and said in a completely guileless, precious voice,

“Mr Shannon, I’m homeschooled.” So much for THAT analogy.

Another tendency of these little ones I’m learning is how whatever enters their minds must exit through their mouths IMMEDIATELY lest it be forgotten, which would be a terrible tragedy. For example, here’s an exchange during our first devotion midway through the initial practice:

Thomas: “Can anyone tell me who Jesus is?”
Garrison: “I’m firsty; can I get a dwink of water?”
Jonas: “Does he go to school around here?”
Lauren: “Daddy, we learned about Jesus at Camp Grace.”
True: “I’ve got new cleats! See them?” (Holds up foot with new cleat on it)

That’s just the beginning of the tales. I have a ton more to say about our little team and since the season runs through October, expect more posts about this adventure. Right now though, I have to go do some research. Sofia is DYING to play Sharks and Minnows at the next practice and I have NO idea what she means!

Love y’all and keep those feet (and new cleats) clean!

Aug24

Friday Night Lights Shine on the Friday Night Blues

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In the five years since my last teaching contract renewed and I left education, I have endure a crippling wave of sadness during the first week of “back to school.” That sadness is never more acute and I never have to struggle harder to keep bullets out of my head, poison out of my system, or my car at the top of cliffs rather than the bottom than at six o’clock on the first full schedule Friday of high school football.

If you’ve never taught in a high school, I can’t adequately describe for you how important Friday nights are, especially here in the Southland. Any school with a football team is a beehive all day on Friday as the guys (and a girl or two) walk the halls in their jerseys and the cheerleaders wear their non-dress-code-conforming uniforms to school. The day is spent making plans for who is riding with whom to where and who is bringing the illicit substances to the bonfire or house party after the game.

I used to eat up every moment of it. Every Friday for the fifteen years I taught, I was young again for ten Fridays in the fall and as long as my school’s team managed to stay in the playoffs. The kids used to take me back to the Friday nights when my friends and I were the ones planning. From my freshman year through my junior year, I went to more games than I missed. I even went to a game or two my senior year even though the taste of bile and ashes had replaced the once-sweet euphoria by then, but that’s another story.

Several of my friends of those days were football players and one of my lasting regrets is never having tried to get on the team. I was acquainted with many of the cheerleaders and wrote essays for more than one of them so they could keep good enough grades to stay on the squad. My best buddy at the time, Robby, was first trumpet in the band, so I always sat as close to the band as possible. Another regret is never trying to get in the band. I guess I can chalk up my lack of participation to a few things. Some are gifted with athletic prowess and some with musical talent. My gift was, and is, memory. Some call it a gift; I lean more towards curse and agree with the Absurdist playwright Samuel Beckett when he says

“Memories are killing things. So you must not think of certain things, of those that are dear to you, or rather you must think of them, for if you don’t there is the danger of finding them, in your mind, little by little.”

God knows I don’t miss much about high school, but I do miss Friday nights. For those aforementioned years in education, I got those Friday nights back, especially the few years when my schools were desperate enough for warm bodies to ask me to be an assistant football coach. I have a painfully entertaining story of my first game as a JV football coach which involves me, an away game, and a whistle. Maybe I’ll tell the entire story sometime, but for now suffice it to say we lost the game and the night in general was a cascade of fiascoes one atop another. Actually, that phrase pretty much describes my whole football coaching career. Still, it was a lot of fun.

Now though, I’m a civilian. Here it is 6:30 on the first big football Friday. Oh, I know I could go to a local game anyway, but it’s not the same. Something about plunking down your teacher id and walking in the gate for free just adds a special sweetness to the night. The greatest reward, though, is the smiles on the faces of the boys on the field when they catch sight of you on the track or in the stands. Little Johnny may have been the bane of your existence in second block all year, but come Monday, when you tell him how awesome his one tackle of the night was, you’ll have him in your back pocket. Trust me on that one . . . I know from experience.

Go out and pull for your favorite teams and take care everyone.

Love y’all and keep those feet clean.