Category Archives: A Story

Aug9

On the Origins of a Vile Institution

Posted on by
Standard

Gloria Steinem famously quipped, “The truth will set you free . . . but first, it will piss you off.” Hopefully, this will stir some emotions in any of my former colleagues who may still read me from time to time. I’m saying what you can’t so print this out and leave where the “right people” can find it. Because, my teacher and librarian friends, TADA! It’s back to school time and that can only mean one thing — days of MEETINGS and, even worse, INSERVICES!!

Never a good sign of productivity ahead.

Probably the most hideous part of any year for a teacher is the “Read the Handbook” Meeting on the first or maybe the second day of school. If you’ve ever taught, you know exactly what I’m talking about. It’s where the principal gathers everyone together in — usually — the library and serves stale doughnuts and OJ or weak coffee. After a little small talk, he or she says, “We’ve revised some policy this summer so if you’ll open your handbooks . . .” and three hours of droning monotone, the verbal equivalent to the Chinese water torture, begins. Geological ages later when everyone is finally released to get rid of the coffee or OJ borrowed earlier, the only policy change is tennis shoes are now allowed on Fridays with “school spirit related” t-shirts — but still no jeans.

Have principals never heard of this wonderful invention called EMAIL? Anyway, no one really cares about the morning meeting because they are all headed in a mad dash to the two or three restaurants to grab a bite of lunch with their respective cliques so they can get back for a “very important and informative inservice” that will last the rest of the day and most of tomorrow.

Beginning of the year INSERVICES! You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. In my 15 years of mediocre teaching, I dreaded BOY inservices and meeting worse than a proctological exam. At least the doctor gives you a little “magic pill” to reduce the pain and degradation of the experience.

So, for the last few years since I “retired” from teaching, I’ve tried to trace the source of these instruments of the devil and I’ve finally found out enough to publish my findings. I hope you help me pass the truth along so others can be as pissed of as we are at the monumental wasting of our time.

Typical BOY meeting

First, we have to consider the birth of the inservice. I’ve concluded from my research that inservices are born out of desperation and/or greed. Some teacher struggling along somewhere puts together a unit or tries a made up classroom management system and — glory be, Jehovah — the dad-blasted thing actually works! It works so well a couple of other teachers on her hall try the idea and, OMG! It works for them as well. This is about the time someone says to the original teacher, “You know, this is SO brilliant! You should write a book or make a DVD lecture series so other teachers all over the world can share in this Red-Sea-parting level miracle of pedagogical genius.” So the teacher does just that very thing and six months to a year later, voila! A brand new educational “idea” is born and marketed as “the next great new thing.”

I was and remain cynically skeptical of any educational “new thing.” I desperately want to see these places where all this amazing teaching and learning takes place. If you dig around long enough, you find the majority of these authors have something in common — their schools aren’t anything like yours. They’ll pitch their goods to “poor” schools because their program was developed “the deep inner city.” Well, technically that’s a true statement but they leave out the part where the school is actually a magnet school or a charter school or something other than a real, live tough as nails inner city school.

Still, all these books would remain on the shelves of professional libraries everywhere for brand new teachers struggling to buy with those first meager paychecks hoping to catch lightning in a bottle if it were not for the second member of this dastardly duo — principals, ap’s, or vp’s. The school or district administration finds these programs and that’s when the trouble starts.

See, here’s the thing about administrators in the majority of schools most people don’t like to talk about — they couldn’t teach. I know of exceptions, but they are exceptions. For the most part, the average assistant principal is a former teacher who was really just not very good in the classroom. Usually, they know this fact about themselves but by the time they get it figured out, it’s four years, a mortgage, a car payment, and a kid or two down the road. They have neither the time nor the money to pursue another career which would need a totally different degree so they scrimp and sacrifice for three semesters and two summers to get their principal’s certificate.

Okay, great for them. I admire them for staying some course, but here’s the problem — once they leave the classroom, they almost immediately forget what it was like being a teacher. To make matters worse, if said AP is good enough at “butts, buses, and books,” he or she is probably going to get a school of her own to run. By this time, you have a person eight to ten years out of the classroom (where they pretty much sucked anyway) but they are making decisions affecting what every teacher in the building is doing!

I once swore I’d never use a lolcatz in my blog, but sometimes you just take what they give you!

In a worse case scenario, you have an ex-coach who’s a likeable enough guy but he majored in PE twenty years ago and will gladly talk your ear off about being the backup running back on his high school’s state championship team or about walking on to the Clemson University football program and he actually got in a game in the 4th quarter of a rout and TACKLED someone! Now this guy, who knows much more about whistles than literature, gets word from the district he has to provide X number of hours of inservice for his teachers. So he picks something based on what he saw at a conference or a seminar somewhere. The package was awesome and the presentation was slick and, after all, IT WORKED FOR THEM!! So, we’ll bring everyone in for coffee and doughnuts and drag them eye-rolling and head-shaking through HOURS of what might be an excellent program — IF our school was LIKE THEIRS!!

So there you have it in a nutshell — you have to sit through hours of BOY inservice totally irrelevant to your teaching situation while the whole time you are dying a little inside because “Meet the Teacher” night is two days away and yesterday was the first day you could get into your classroom because the waxing and painting crews from the district ran two weeks behind this summer! You have nothing run off that you need and your room is a mess, but your AP found this “great” program at HIS conference or seminar and showed it to the REST of the administration . . .

So here you are . . . miserable, tuned out, and desperately wanting to get your desk in order so you can be ready to do your JOB on Wednesday when the children (anyone remember THEM?) come back.

Folks, you have my sympathy. Know that, as always, I love y’all.

Keep those feet clean and good luck.

 

 

Jun8

Love Isn’t Just Hugs

Posted on by
Standard

2 B 1, Ask 1

I just sat down here to write after packing Budge off to Deuce’s house for the night. In the morning, the two of them along with Deuce’s mother, Connie, drive to the beach for the yearly convention of the SC Order of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, Ware Shoals Chapter. They’ll meet up with about ten other ladies for a week of laying in the sun by day and watching sappy movies by night. This is Deuce’s tenth year or so and Budge’s second.

It was tough watching Budge drive out of our yard tonight. I checked and rechecked the Santa Fe. She knows how to change a tire and she has a cell phone that could call the Moon if necessary. Still, with Mama being in such poor health, I project onto Budge a lot of my anxiety about impending death. It’s a morbid fact, but every time we part from our loved ones, we have no guarantee we’ll ever see each other again. That’s one reason why I’ve never left Mama without making sure she knew how much I loved her.

To try making myself feel better, I let my mind drift and it landed on the first time I ever made a long trip alone. That trip showed me a lot about the girl I went to see, but it showed me even more about how much my daddy loved me, even if he never was great at showing it.

It was the summer after I turned 16. I had my ’79 Mustang I’ve mentioned in other posts and I was off to Winterville, Georgia to see the then-love-of-my-life at her mother’s house where she’d gone to spend the summer. I was going to surprise her, but that got turned around a bit. Anyway, Mama wasn’t crazy about me going, but she reluctantly gave her permission because she knew I was at that god-awful hardheaded stage where I’d just have gone anyway. What surprised me most though, was how Daddy took the news I was going to drive 300 miles alone.

Now in my teenage years, Daddy and I would go months without seeing each other. I was still incredibly bitter about the divorce even after ten years. Also, Daddy and I are basically the same person twenty years apart. Budge thinks it’s almost scary how much we look alike, talk alike, move alike, and think alike. She’s said before that my little brother Nick LOOKS as much like Daddy as I do, but I don’t stop there. I AM Daddy . . . just 20 years younger. Those two issues made mine and Daddy’s relationship pretty rocky for much too long. Two males too full of pride to meet each other halfway. It wasn’t pretty. At times, I wondered if Daddy even loved me, although the roads and phone lines ran two ways and I didn’t use them any more than he did.

Anyway, I stopped by Daddy and Teresa’s the day before I left to tell him I was going. He nodded then helped me look over the car to make sure everything was capable of getting me to Georgia and back. We talked for a while then I got ready to go. Daddy told me to be careful then he handed me a twenty-dollar bill. It’s what he did next that flabbergasted me and has stuck with me for nearly 30 years. He took off his Masonic ring and handed it to me. He said, “Don’t put it on, because you haven’t earned it. Wear it on your chain, but if you run into trouble of any kind, you find a man — black or white — wearing one of those rings and you show him my ring and he’ll help you any way he can.”

That simple act might not sound or seem like much but it spoke into me crystally clear just how much my daddy loved me. Whams are not huggers, we don’t tend to be overly emotional at all, especially the men. For instance, my Papa Wham was the kindest, sweetest and most loving man I ever knew, but he didn’t hug me or kiss me on the cheek more than a handful of times in our life together. It didn’t change the love I felt from and for him. Daddy was the same way, but when I was young and bitter and angry, I didn’t cut him the kind of slack I did other men. To this day, I can count the number of times Daddy and I have hugged on one hand with fingers left over.

Wham men ARE Masons however. Papa passed away with his Masonic ring on his hand and his paid up lodge dues receipt in his wallet. Daddy is a Mason to this day as well, even though he doesn’t attend meeting much. I grew up in awe of the Masons and for the longest time I’d planned to become one . . . I still might before it’s all over. Daddy’s Mason’s ring was part of his hand to me. I’d never seen him take it off and here he was taking it off and handing it to me.

I realized even then this was “a big freaking deal” and as I’ve gotten older, I understand more just how and why it was. Daddy knew he couldn’t go with me. He also knew we weren’t on the best terms. Still, he wanted to take care of me as best he could, even though I’d be on my own and miles away. If you don’t know anything about Masons, you might not understand the gravity of him giving me his ring. If you DO know about the Masonic Order, then I don’t have to explain it to you.

From that day to this one, I’ve fought with Daddy. We’ve stood toe to toe and screamed at each other. Once or twice I was sure we were going to come to blows, but thank God that’s never happened. But no matter how much we’ve fought or disagreed, from the moment Daddy handed me that ring to this present one, I’ve never doubted Daddy loved me and cared about me.

I gave him the ring back as soon as I got back into town. The trip didn’t go as planned. Turns out I was the one surprised, but that’s another story for another time. What was important is the fact my Daddy showed me he’d do whatever I’d allow him to do to keep me safe and that’s stuck with me all these years.

May4

Chloe is MUCH Improved!

Posted on by
Standard

Two years ago, I told y’all about my niece Chloe who had been born with the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck. The doctor panicked and in his mad fury to snatch her from the birth canal, dislocated and twisted her left arm. She also had major problems with her stomach and spent the first eighteen months of her life being fed through a tube implanted in her stomach.

If you’ll look at the picture, I think you’ll agree with me that she’s doing a whole lot better!

So far, her recovery has passed all expectations. The doctors left the feeding tube in her stomach for six months after she began eating — devouring really — solid foods because they didn’t want something to go wrong and have to have another surgery to reinstall it. She had the tube out for good in February and without it making her a bit awkward on her feet, she’s toddling right along now.

Her physical therapist suggested shoes might help steady her on her feet so Travis and Danielle took her shoe shopping. Apparently, we have a diva-in-training on our hands because she showed her dislike of the first pair offered to her by tossing them across the room. She adored the second pair her mommy presented to her and promptly fell down onto her back and stuck both feet into the air to signal that “Yes, I will take these and wear them home.” Her walking is still a bit unsteady and she gets down to crawl in really large rooms, but the fact she’s walking at all is a joy to us all.

Her left arm, which was so badly twisted during her birth, is developing at the same size as her right. Doctors were afraid initially that the trauma the limb endured might cause it to be withered, but she is steadily gaining strength and coordination with her left hand and is even showing signs of being left-handed. The work of her team of physical therapists has paid off, as have the multitude of prayers for her recovery from family, friends, and strangers.

So far, her cognitive development seems about average. At her age it’s somewhat hard to tell. Verbally, she’s got “mama” and “dada” down to a science and she babbles incessantly. Some words we recognize and some are in the language of angels the Apostle Paul spoke of. Time will tell, I suppose, what effects, if any, she will have from the cord wrapped nightmare of her birth.

One thing is certain; she is growing at a phenomenal rate. She managed to hold her own as long as she was getting formula and nourishment through her feeding tube, but once she got the green light to eat what she wished, she has started to pack on the weight and height.

She has a very developed personality as well. A big part of that personality is a profound dislike of her four month old baby brother — Stoney Allen Lowe. She is not very fond of this new creature who takes up precious “daddy-time” and horns in on her lap space with mama. Hopefully, she’ll grow to love the little tyke, but for now, we have to keep a close watch on her because I think she’s scheming to become an only child again if possible!

Thank you all for asking about her and praying for her all this time and I apologize for not doing a better job of updating you on her status. Love y’all and keep those feet clean!

Apr30

I-85 Take Me Home To The Place I Belong!

Posted on by
Standard

It all started with a simple high school baseball game.

This post is the direct result of a memory jog brought on by reading about some random high school baseball playoff. Looking at the box score of a couple of schools I’ve never heard of took me back to one of the most confusing nights of my life that also just happened to involve a high school playoff game . . . sort of.

As Kid Rock so eloquently puts it, “It was 1989 (technically, 1990), my thoughts were short, my hair was long . . . ” My alma mater, Laurens District 55 High School, was playing for the State 4A Baseball Championship against Lancaster High School. My long-time best friend, Robby, asked me to go to the first of the three game series with him and we watched the Green and Gold dismantle the Bruins at Laurens’ stadium. The second game was the next night in Lancaster and Robby asked me to go to that one as well.

At that point, Robby and I managed to maintain what was left of our grade-school spanning friendship. He hadn’t been home from his freshman year at college long  when the playoffs in question started. He’d gone off to Clemson University while I had chosen a girl over my education and stayed home — which is another story for another time — and gone to Greenville Tech. (Spoiler alert: I came to my senses and rectified that situation in the fall of ’90.) So we agreed to meet at his house the next night about 4 and make the three hour drive to Lancaster in time for the game.

Now if you look at the relative positions of Lancaster High School and our home town of Gray Court on a map of South Carolina, you’ll probably start to wonder how in the world it can take three hours to make such a seemingly short trip. The answer — as an old man once told me — is simple, you can’t get there from here. What I mean is, then as now, NO road worth driving connects Gray Court and Lancaster. What’s more, you never ACTUALLY reach a town in the course of the entire trip there. You always “head towards” a town but make a turn before you get to the town limits. For example, in the first leg of the trip, we “headed towards” Union, but turned before we got there in order to “head towards” Chester. The upshot of it all is what looks like it should take 45 minutes to an hour of hard driving takes 3 or more hours of winding country roads through one of the most desolate areas of my home state.

Our chariot for the evening's events. Robby's looked almost exactly like this one.

We made it to the game without a hitch, riding in Robby’s high school graduation present – a frost white 1989 Chevy Beretta. It was a beautiful day full of  bright spring sunshine. Once there, we watched as Laurens was handed its hind-quarters on a silver platter by a pitcher named “Pep” Harris who would eventually play for the Cleveland Indians and the California Angels. The boy was “throwing bb’s” as the baseball expression goes and he made our visiting team look sickly and anemic, which future major league pitchers often do to their high school competition. I got to shake his hand before Robby and I packed up and headed home.

Here’s where the fun began.

See, this was in my younger and less responsible days when I preferred the company of my dear uncles James Beam and Jonathan Daniels over lesser forms of entertainment. Robby shared my love of the “family”, though his preferences ran more towards Messrs. Bartles and James. In any event, we had brought along several “family members” on this particular adventure and by the time the sun went down, most of those dearly beloveds had gone on to a new place of residence. In short, we were a bit less coordinated for our trip home than we’d be on our trip out.

We did fine until we were “headed towards” Chester. Then, for reasons that aren’t completely clear even now, we went UNDER a bridge that we were supposed to go OVER. That would have been trouble enough, but what with our relative lack of thought processing compounded by a joyous rendition of the ENTIRE AC/DC discography played on one of the first in-dash CD players I’d ever seen, we did not notice our mistake for nearly an hour.

When we realized we should have long since reached Union, we started looking for road signs. We were on a two lane road in the middle of the boondocks. Road signs were at a premium. Now two 19 year old guys are not lost so long as there is gas in the tank; they are merely taking the scenic route, so we weren’t worried. The fuzzy effects of our erstwhile uncles had worn off so we were in full possession of our outstanding senses of direction. We reasoned that “home” was to our left, so the very next intersection we found, we turned left. After spending twenty minutes on that road, we figured we must not have turned far enough left so at the next crossroads, we hung another left.

We started to feel this way after midnight.

After twenty more minutes of driving through scrub pine and cotton in the desolate northern borderlands of South Carolina, we came to another crossroads. At that point, a glance at the fuel gauge told the two of us we were dangerously close to getting lost. Unfortunately, we had not the foggiest idea where we were since this was well before a future POTUS Bill Clinton opened up the GPS system for civilian use. I hate to admit it, but we resorted to flipping a coin. The coin chose “right turn” and five minutes later we were at the chain link locked gate of an abandoned cotton mill. After throwing that particular quarter over the aforementioned gate, we headed back the way we came on what amounted to a left hand turn.

About ten minutes later, our luck changed somewhat. After two and a half hours of roaming around aimlessly in the dark, we saw our first road sign. It read “Charlotte 35 miles.” Somehow, we had managed to wander to within 35 miles of the largest city in North Carolina. We were no less than 270 degrees in the wrong direction. Undeterred, we now had knowledge, somewhat anyway, of our position. We still needed to keep going left. At the next intersection, we did. Twenty minutes later, we came to an intersection with a sign pointing off to the right reading “Charlotte 45” above some other places I’d never heard of and I’ve lived in this state all my life.

Now at that point, Robby — ever the stubborn optimist — wanted to turn left again. One glance at the dash, however, told me we were now SERIOUSLY close to being lost so I said, “Temp, let’s go to Charlotte.”

Click to enlarge!

He looked at me like I had two heads and asked, “Why do you want to go to Charlotte? We need to get home.”

I replied, “I KNOW. That’s why I think we should go to Charlotte.”

He said, “Why?” I asked, “Do you know where we are?” He shook his head then said, “But what good will it do to go to Charlotte? That’s even further from home.”

Finally, exasperated, hungry, tired, and my throat sore from imitating Bon Scott and Brian Johnson, I said, “I KNOW THAT DAMMIT, BUT I ALSO KNOW THAT I KNOW HOW THE HELL TO GET HOME FROM CHARLOTTE!!!!”

We turned right and headed towards Charlotte.

Along the way, about ten minutes later, we crossed a road with a sign reading “SC 92”. Before I could say anything, Robby had already slammed on the brakes and did a half doughnut turn onto that road. Two hours and a seedy gas station stop later and we were home because Robby knew what I did . . . SC 92 dead-ends onto SC 14 and SC 14 is also Main Street of Gray Court.

So the moral of the story? Don’t hang out with your “uncles” then try to drive . . . or navigate either for that matter, but if you do and you end up on the backside of nowhere, head for Charlotte because I-85’ll take you to I-385 and I-385’ll get you to Gray Court where you can stop at Mama’s and have her call me and I’ll come and try to get you home.

Love ya’ll and keep those feet clean!

Mar27

War of the Mouses

Posted on by
Standard

My beloved Budge is going to stroke out when she reads this post because she is certain we will be labeled nasty people in the eyes of the world. Let me assure you we are certainly NOT nasty people. I am descended from grandmothers who ironed towels and sheets. My precious Papa Wham vacuumed the entire house EVERY Saturday morning including window sills, drapes, baseboards and any other surface his Electrolux canister vacuum wouldn’t suck up. Until COPD brought my sweet Mama low, I would not have hesitated to drink a cup of water from the toilet in my Mama’s home because she kept house THAT spotlessly. I don’t keep a nasty house.

Mus Musculum aka Bane of My Existence.

Now I told you all that to tell you this . . .

For three months, we’ve been finding mouse poo in our drawers and cabinets. This put Budge into 100% flip-out mode. Me? Not so much. I’m a very easy-going guy. I really don’t like to kill anything I don’t absolutely have to including spiders, snakes, and mice. We’re all just trying to get on with our lives. They got little mouths to feed just like we do. I’m big on live and let live, even in the animal world. I just made sure to clean a little harder and keep as much mouse offal out of Budge’s sight as possible. That was my plan and it was working well until yesterday.

Yesterday I opened the silverware drawer to get a fork for my two Buttermilk Eggo Waffles when I spied a puddle of mouse pee in the fork slot. Okay, like I said, I’m an easy-going, even-tempered man. I don’t wish any ill will on God’s creatures, great or small. Mice got to have a life just like we do. HOWEVER, I don’t go all up in their nests and pee all over their kitchen utensils and I really would appreciate the courtesy being returned. I will tolerate a great deal. I will even do some extra cleaning just to keep the peace and balance of nature, but let all rodents hear this and tremble: Put mouse pee in my drawers? It is ON like Donkey Kong.

I didn’t want to kill the little boogers though. I just can’t bear the sight of their little broken bodies in spring traps or the way their dead eyes stare at me from glue traps. I didn’t want anyone dead; I just wanted them to pack up the little Mouse U-Haul rented from the little Mouse Exxon Station and head next door or something. Like the Supersonic song says, “You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here!”

Yeah, Boi! We fixin' ta kick it old school 8-bit style!

So, I went to Lowes and stood gaping at the myriad ways man has devised to kill his small furry neighbors. First I picked up three sonic rodent-runner-outer devices. At this point, I probably should have left, but I saw this spray “Designed to Repel ALL Rodents and Unwanted Animals. Triggers the Animal’s Flight Instinct.” I figured, cool, I’ll take one of these as well and put it around the spots I think they are using to get into the house. Once I got home, Operation Mouse Eviction began in earnest.

First, I plugged the sonic doo-dads into the outlets nearest the biggest problem areas. Then . . . I started to use the spray. I spritzed a big ol’ glob of it at the back of the pantry when — sweet mother of mayhem — the smell hit me. I now realized WHY Repel-ALL  “Triggers the Animal’s Flight Instinct.” I’ve smelled some stuff in my day, but this was hideous! No wonder a mouse wouldn’t come near it! I doubt a BUZZARD would come near it. This concoction would gag a maggot down off a gut wagon.

I read the REST of the label — specifically the part where it said “IMPORTANT: For Outdoor Use Only!” In the warnings it said “May trigger mild nausea.” Sure, if projectile vomiting like you’ve got a fatal case of Mekong Delta Stomach Flu is considered “mild nausea” this stuff will do the trick. It was so bad, the four cats RAN out of the kitchen like they had stolen something and jumped up on the back of the couch. Then they just stood and stared wide-eyed at me with this look that said, “Daddy, we love you, but you have really screwed the pooch this time.” All I could do was cover my nose and get out the Pine-Sol and air freshener.

Oh crap, honey! Did you inhale some of that stuff?

By the time Budge got home, the stench had greatly abated. Actually, she complained that the Brazilian Carnaval Febreze Air Freshener  I used to mask the smell was worse than the lingering undertones of the Repel-ALL. (Just so you know, Brazilian Carnaval Febreze ALSO reeks, just in a different, sickeningly sweet “whorehouse in Rio perfumey” way) I just looked at her and said, “You don’t like the smell of the air freshener? Take a whiff of the straight stuff from the spray bottle!” Of course, when she moved to actually pick up the bottle and squirt a bit, I grabbed her hand and said, “Whoa, Budge, you remember the vertigo baked spaghetti?” She turned pale. I said, “Worse.” The bottle stayed where it was.

I ended up dipping cotton balls in the noxious brew and dropping them down the holes next to the drain pipes where the critters were getting in and immediately plugged those holes with Brillo Scented Steel Wool Soap Pads. I don’t know if it’s the soap powder or what, but it keeps the fumes out of the cabinets. Most importantly, when I checked all the little mouse haunts this morning pee nor poo was anywhere to be found, so apparently the stuff works as advertised. I’m calling it a win anyway. Budge ordered me to get the mice out of the house. The mice are out of the house. Case closed. War won.

Love y’all and keep those feet clean because you don’t want them smelling like Repel-ALL!

 

Mar21

Today is Down’s Syndrome Awareness Day

Posted on by
Standard

I’m not at all a politically correct person . . . just ask Budge or spend ten minutes around me, but I am so glad that the term “retard” is now a sure-fire ticket to a PC beat down by anyone around with an iota of sense. One of the things I miss most about being in education is the chance to interact daily with the “special students.”I’m no fool or naive and I know these children can be difficult to deal with at times, but more often than not, they are the sweetest and kindest group of children in any school. At my last position as librarian here in the Upstate, I was blessed to have met Drew. Drew was born with Down’s Syndrome, which is medically called Trisomy 21, which further means he has THREE copies of his 21st chromosome instead of the required TWO. As a result of his genetic condition, Drew has easily recognizable features including a slightly webbed neck and a mildly enlarged, slightly protruding tongue.

Without fail, Drew would come in to the library with the rest of his class after lunch. More often than not, he was sporting a smurfy tongue and blue Kool-aid smile from nose to chin thanks to his predilection for blue raspberry slurpees from the cafeteria. The dark blue of the slurpee stains were a complement to Drew’s sparkling blue eyes behind the glasses that were forever slipping down and teetering on the end of his button nose. Instead of sliding them up his face with a knuckle to the bridge, he would grasp one of the lens and place them back on a more useful part of his face. As a result, his glasses stayed a greasy, smeary mess and I often wondered how he could see out of them at all.

Having me clean his glasses after lunch became a favorite routine of his and if anyone else tried to help him out by clearing away a layer or two of grime, Drew would stop them and say, “Mr. Wham. He clean them in a minute.” Of course, “a minute” was anywhere from immediately to the end of the day, but it didn’t matter. I cleaned his eyewear once at the beginning of the year and that was it . . . I was the windex man.

Meet my buddy, Drew. If this precious expression can't put a smile on your face, you might not be breathing.

Now somewhere along the line, Drew had come to equate affection with sitting in one’s lap. While I’m sure this was cute and easily accomplished when he was a young fry, by the time I met him, he was about 4’6″ tall and about . . . well, 4’6″ around. He was pudgy, almost always happy, and determined to sit on my lap. Aside from being inappropriate, my poor knees wouldn’t hold him. So, after a lot of wrangling and “no Drews” and even a tear or two, we came to a compromise. He would sit cheek by jowl with me on the couch by the reading center and lean his head on my shoulder while I cleaned his glasses. It was inevitably the highlight of my day.

I miss Drew and the rest of his class. They are all in high school now. Laura works in the library there and she keeps me posted on how he and the rest are doing. So far, he’s not had many bumps in the road, but people tend to forget that he’s a boy in his late teens, Down’s Syndrome or no, and that means hormones are raging. He loves the ladies, and that’s been a matter of work this year, but he seems to be adjusting. I’m glad he’s happy because he always managed to put a smile on my face.

So today is Down’s Syndrome Awareness Day. It’s 3 – 21 – 12, which mirrors the fact that Downs causes 3 copies of chromosome 21. If you know one of these precious children, give him or her a hug for me and help them keep their feet clean.

Love y’all.

Mar11

Of Blind Squirrels and Acorns

Posted on by
Standard

Every so often, I manage to get it right.

When Budge and I moved to our home thirteen years ago, we noticed one serious flaw — apparently, our front steps were designed and built by a hobbit with a grudge. Three steps led up to the front porch and they were six inches wide at best. The narrow treads were compounded by the angle of the steps that felt more like climbing a ladder than walking stairs.

My mom almost tripped up them the day we moved in. My beloved Budge (whose Indian name is “princess-trips-over-sunshine”) fell on them twice within the first week we lived here. I can’t number how many work days started off horribly for her with a spill down the steps. Twice, she turned her ankle during a fall badly enough to go to the ER. Last January during an icy spell, I had my feet go out from under me and hung suspended above the demon-possessed hunks of wood long enough and high enough to think about just how badly it was going to hurt once I hit.

Our steps were a comical, if deadly, conversation starter as everyone who came to our home for the first time noticed how ill-designed they were. One of our friends — young woman who is very tall and statuesque with feet of proportionate size — literally had to ascend and descend the steps sideways because enough of her foot wouldn’t fit on the tread perpendicularly to walk up or down safely. Several visitors mentioned we walk upon a death trap every day.

I was pretty much forced to agree and within a month here and falling twice, I had vowed I would rip out those horrid timbers and replace them with properly proportioned pedestrian pathways.

Then last Tuesday morning, after thirteen years of cheating death, I got a wild hair and decided RIGHT NOW was the time to fix the steps. Here is where things get intriguing. See, I’m one of those sad males who never learned the basics of carpentry from my father or my grandfathers. As a result, I never approach a project like this without anxious trepidation and the knowledge that severe personal injury is always a possibility when I handle power tools.

Now, anyone who knows carpentry can look at my work and tell which side I started on because I learn from my mistakes “on-the-fly” and tend to get better as I go. For instance, the left handrail took me three hours to do correctly. The right one took forty minutes.

Another funny think about me and building stuff is I use screws even though nails are much cheaper. See, I can squeeze the trigger of a drill and put a three-inch long deck screw where I want it, but I can’t hit a nail on the head twice in a row with a hammer if someone had a gun to my head. If my soul’s salvation depended on me hammering a nail home without bending it, I would split Hell wide open. I watch in open-mouthed awe as my daddy and others easily drive nails home with three hammer blows while my nails look like the twisty blacksmith’s toys in Cracker Barrel stores.

Just hit my finger . . . ouch.

I also use screws for everyone’s safety, but I’m not talking about holding power or “up to code” stuff. I’m talking about unreasonably violent pain reactions. If I slip with a drill and bang my hand, when I give a primal scream and chunk the drill from my hand, it’s only going as far as the cord length. However, if I crush my fingernail with a hammer, I turn into a reasonable facsimile of Thor: God of Thunder and hurl my clawed version of Mjolnir with all my pain-assisted, adrenaline-rushed might in whatever direction I happen to be facing and endanger windows, cars, children, pets and low-flying aircraft. I figure I’m better off with screws.

With all this in mind, by sundown Tuesday, I had developed my stair plans from several WikiHow articles and a handful of YouTube videos. I had a solid plan of attack and went to Lowe’s and bought the materials with the last vestiges of our surprise tax refund.

Starting early Wednesday morning — and with a lot of digging and demolition — I managed had the “landing” level and the up and down stringers attached by lunchtime. Of course, I did have to take one stringer down and redo it after I realized I’d put it four inches too far over. Once upon a time in my life I’d have just left it and moved on thinking “good enough is good enough” but I really wanted this done right. Besides, once I realized what I’d done wrong, I’d already hung the four stringers once so redoing one wasn’t a big deal. By the time Budge got home, I had just screwed down the final tread. You cannot imagine how shocked I was when my measurements actually WORKED CORRECTLY. The top tread is smooth and level with the porch. Like the title says, even a blind squirrel can find a nut every now and then.

I didn’t want to push my luck so I knocked off for the day and started anew Thursday morning. My plan was to be finished by lunch. I managed to do that — if I were eating lunch in the Hawaiian Time Zone. I had some “design issues” with the hand rails. I couldn’t figure out how I wanted to attach them for the most strength and security. By the time I installed the first upright, I’d been sitting on the top step holding a 2×4 and sporting a dazed look for about an hour.

Still, I had the steps completed when Budge got home. I didn’t lose much blood or skin, but my back hasn’t let me forget I’m not in my 20s anymore. Ever critical of myself, I told Budge the steps looked like a complete amateur built them. She reminded me “Professionals built the Titanic; amateurs built the Ark.” She even put up a picture of them on Facebook she was so proud of me. I love my Budge.

So, if you need any steps built, please don’t call me, but remember I love y’all and keep those feet clean!

Feb22

I Hope That Was A Great Hamburger, Mr. Magoo!!

Posted on by
Standard

This car has similar crash damage to the Impala Mama was driving. If the car hadn't been so big . . .

Car wrecks loom large in my family history. I told y’all the story of how my beautiful first car was destroyed in a wreck, and that was far from the worst wreck to touch my loved ones. When Mama was 17, she was in a head on collision that very nearly killed her, which means I wouldn’t be here either. All she remembers about the wreck is pulling out of the gas station in Gray Court. The next thing she remembers is waking up in Hillcrest Hospital some two days later. Her left leg was shattered and her right arm was broken in several places in addition to various other cuts and bruises. Looking at pictures of the car, I don’t see how she survived, especially given she wasn’t wearing a seat belt and this was way before air bags in cars.

She had to be torched out of the car. One note that is a little funny now, but was gruesome back then involved Mama’s head. See, in her younger years, Mama wore a lot of wigs. Given the jaw dropping beauty of Mama’s naturally long blonde hair, I have no idea why she’d ever want to cover it up with fake nylon hair, but apparently it was “the style.” In any event, she was wearing a particularly realistic looking wig on the day of her wreck and the force of the impact threw her head backwards and the wig fell off in the back seat. Her cousin, who was a rookie SC Highway Patrolman at the time, was the first to arrive on the scene and the first thing he saw was that wig lying on the floor of the car’s back seat. It was covered in blood and from the angle, he couldn’t see Mama in the front seat so he surmised she had been decapitated. Unfortunately, he’d just eaten lunch at the Ranch Road Steakhouse.

Just ignore the fat kid with the stupid grinny smile, but see what I mean about Mama's hair? Why would you cover that up?

The double chili Ranch Burger didn’t stay down.

So, I told you all that to tell you about today. This morning just about saw the end of one GS Feet and Mama Feet as well. We had been to NHC in Clinton to visit with Granny and make sure she was being treated to suit Mama, which she wasn’t, but that’s a story for another time. Since Mama needed to stop by the vet’s office to pick up some flea medicine for Bitsy and Rocky, I drove us through Laurens instead of taking the highway like we normally do. That almost became the last detour I ever took.

Driving anywhere with Mama is an adventure. Ever since “the wreck” as we call it, she has been terrified of cars. Of course, if I’d nearly died, been in a coma for a few days, and then had to spend the next year in a body cast and the year after that learning how to walk again, I might be a little nervous about motor vehicles myself, so I’ve gotten used to Mama’s quirks in the passenger’s seat. She stays tensed up and she stomps her foot on an imaginary brake pedal whenever she thinks we need to stop — which is a lot more than I think we need to stop.

So, we were be-bopping along the main drag through Laurens and Mama had already stomped a hollow in the Element’s right front floor mat. I slowed down just a bit and asked Mama if she’d like a drink from the McDonald’s up ahead. Even though she said no, that moment of reducing speed — and a healthy dose of Divine Intervention — probably saved our lives because just as we neared the restaurant’s entrance, the Buick in front of us in the left lane decided he needed a Big Mac or some fries RIGHT NOW and simply turned in to the parking lot FROM THE LEFT LANE!

Hope your food was cold you stupid bag of monkey boogers!! Where'd you learn to drive? Clown school?

No turn signal. Not even a brake light tap. Nothing. One minute Mama and I are riding along talking and the next minute my life is flashing before my eyes as the Element’s anti-lock brakes went to work stopping us on a dime. All I could see was a windshield full of green four-door. I stood on the brakes and shot out my right arm to hold Mama back, just like she has done to me on countless occasions over the years. Truthfully, I didn’t think I’d get us stopped in time because it all happened in an instant.

We managed to avoid the collision though and I was so stunned I didn’t even think to lay down on the horn. Mama was quiet for about two seconds before she started screaming at the driver of the Buick — now in the drive thru lane — and beating her right hand on the door in an attempt to get out of the still moving Element and rip the offending driver a brand new rear orifice. Mama, as a rule, doesn’t swear, but in this particular instance, she was so angry she was stuttering trying to think of a church approved word to call the driver. I was just happy we made it.

So all’s well that ends well. The driver was an idiot, of course, but that’s how fast your life can end. Mama has a nice bruise on her hand from pounding the door (all the Prednisone she must take makes it easy for her to bruise) and it took the rest of the ride home for her to calm down enough to breathe as well as she could . . . which ain’t real good. Upon reflection, if that had been the time for my ticket to get punched, I could think of worse ways to go than a car wreck next to Mama, but that certainly would leave Budge in a mess so I’m glad everything worked out!

So be careful on the roads, folks. Hug each other before you drive off and never leave one another if you’re angry. You never know if it could be the last time you see one another alive!

Love y’all and keep those feet clean so you’ll look nice if you have a wreck!

Feb6

Another One Who Left Us Too Soon, Happy Birthday Bob-mon!

Posted on by
Standard

"One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain."

Had he not died waaaayyyy too young in 1981, Robert Nesta “Bob” Marley would be 67 years old today. Now, I can’t say anything about Bob Marley and the Wailer’s music that hasn’t already been said by much better wordsmiths than I. Anyone who knows music knows that dreadlocks, reggae, and Rastafarianism would be pretty much unknown outside of Ethiopia and Jamaica if Bob Marley hadn’t started recording.

I don’t know about other college campuses, but when I was at Clemson University in the early 90’s, you couldn’t open a frat boy’s dorm room and not find a well-worn copy of Legend, the 1984 compilation of Marley’s greatest hits, lying around amidst a lighter or two, some Job 1.5 papers, and an empty plastic baggie or twelve.

In the decades since its release, Legend has been Certified Platinum TEN times. In America, that has earned it Diamond certification.  Just to put that into perspective, only 106 albums in the history of the RIAA have been Diamond Certified.

It’s easy to try to pass Marley off as “just a good reggae” singer, but that is damning him with very faint praise. Bob Marley was a good man and the fact that he probably consumed his weight several times over in some of Jamaica’s finest export does not tarnish that fact. He was bright, articulate, and most of all, one of the most peaceful men to ever walk the earth.

I firmly believe that if we really want to achieve lasting peace in the Middle East between the numerous warring factions, we need to stop investing in diplomacy and high tech weaponry. All that’s doing is getting people killed in droves. What we need to invest in are some HUGE SPEAKERS. We need some gigawatts of power to some major league woofers and tweeters and once we’ve got everything in place, put on “Three Little Birds” and — to quote the boys from Spinal Tap — crank it up to eleven. Peace would break out spontaneously as the gentle strains of that ultimately peaceful anthem started to roll across the battlefields and deserts.

If, and this might be taking it too far, the little birds didn’t sufficiently pacify the masses, then we would have to break out the nuclear peace bomb and drop nothing less than “One Love, One Life” on everyone. It is an undisputed fact people CANNOT act violently when Bob Marley music is playing. Even his version of the oft covered standard “I Shot the Sheriff”  isn’t at its core a glorification of violence. Sure, Sheriff John Brown ended up getting shot down, but not that blasted deputy!

I think one of the most telling aspects of Bob Marley’s character is the fact that he was father to 13 children. Notice I didn’t say he “fathered” 13 children. The difference is extremely important. At least two of the children he acknowledged as his own and whom he supported and his estate still supports today were the products of adulterous relationships by his wife. Now regardless of the fact that several other of his progeny were born to other ladies outside the bounds of wedlock, a man who would claim another man’s child as his own instead of killing said man AND cheating wife is a man of peace.

Bob Marley left us too soon. Stolen by melanoma that spread throughout his body. Even as the cancer consumed his life, it could not touch his gentle soul. Though he was a mulitmillionaire at his death, he never forgot his humble beginnings in a ramshackle record shop on a dirt street in the ghetto village of St Anne Parish in Jamaica. His final words were to his son, Ziggy: “Rememba’ Son, money can’t buy life.” Bob Marley made money. Money didn’t make him.

I think a glimpse of his gentleness is best seen from his own perspective. In an interview during the racially charged times of the Sixties and Seventies, Marley was asked about racial superiority and who he supported and what he thought of the prejudices so common then. With the wisdom of a Rastfarian sage he replied:

I don’t have prejudice against meself. My father was a white and my mother was black. Them call me half-caste or whatever. Me don’t dip on nobody’s side. Me don’t dip on the black man’s side nor the white man’s side. Me dip on God’s side, the one who create me and cause me to come from black and white.

Irie, Irie, Mr. Marley. Irie, Irie Rastaman!

 

Jan25

Dear Lord The Pain, The Horror, The String!

Posted on by
Standard

A nice, plush, well-appointed torture chamber.

I had to go to the dentist today. I’ve been putting this visit off because prior to Budge signing us up for State Dental Plus insurance, cleanings alone were almost $100 out of pocket. Now I’d like pretty, pearly whites as much as the next person, but from a purely economic standpoint, dirty teeth bite and chew just as well as sparklingly pristine ones.

Aside from the money, though, I also am a wimp when it comes to CHOOSING to undergo infliction of large amounts of pain. If I get hurt, I’ll deal with it, but I don’t go looking to feel something unpleasant. I knew I was in for a world of agony too because my long-time favorite dental hygienist left the practice I patronize to start a restaurant with her husband. Now Patty was a jewel. She was sweet and kind and tender. She dealt lovingly with my poor neglected mouth. I knew that her replacement — sight unseen — was bound to be much harsher.

I was absolutely right, but more on that later.

I started off my visit being lulled into a false sense of safety and comfort by the little dental hygienist’s assistant. She did the x-rays with the thing you bite down on as it slices the roof of your mouth. Then she polished my teeth. Maybe some of you like that freshly polished feeling, but to me the polisher head sounds too much like that godawful drill they use. Added to the unpleasant aural experience is the wonderful sensation of nails on a chalkboard you get from the feel of the pumice paste touching your teeth. I’ve tried many times to explain that I don’t want my teeth polished, but it is to no avail.

Before going on too far, I have to relate how the whole polishing experience was preceded by a wonderfully refreshing awkward turtle moment. Now, for those who are new to the site and me, I was born without a filter between my brain and my mouth. You never have to wonder about what I’m thinking because if you’ll just give me a few minutes, I’ll tell you. Added to that lack of filter is a wonderfully complex OCD disorder (which really should be CDO to be correct) that makes me want to “fix” whatever is off in my environment and we have the makings of a really nice train wreck.

See, what had happened was while I was getting my x-rays done, the little assistant hygienist was in very close proximity to me. It was during my left upper x-ray that I noticed she had a large stray string somehow caught perfectly in the extreme upper part of her cleavage. This is where the OCD kicks in. (Don’t worry, I’m a little off in the noggin but I’m not a big enough fool to go fishing for an item like that myself.) Now Budge has always told me I am honor bound to tell her if anything she is wearing makes her look foolish, fat, etc. Thanks to my lack of a filter, this has never been a problem. Using Budge’s admonishment as my base, I surmised that no woman would want to go around with a stray string caught in her cleavage. Unfortunately, I couldn’t figure out a delicate way to advise her of the situation. Now most people would have just leaned back and let it go but remember — no filter and OCD.

So, I tried subtlety. I said, “Hon, if you were wearing a long string of pearls, they would have a string caught in them.” She looked at me like she’d just watched me beam down from a spaceship. Well, I tried subtlety and, as usual, it didn’t work so I just used the direct approach with, “Okay, there’s no delicate way to put this and we are both about to turn beet red, but you have a rather sizable string stuck in the upper reaches of your cleavage. I noticed it during the x-rays.” Upon quick examination, she realized I wasn’t just making this up. Of course, the beige string stood out prominantly against the bright red flush now enveloping her (and my) face and neck. Luckily, she is not only a good sport, but we’ve known each other many years now. I even warned her during my last visit when she told me she was moving her boyfriend in with her that she was making a big mistake — you know, free milk and cows and such. Turns out, I was right, but that’s another story.

Nothing on this chart looks very pleasant, does it?

Anyway, she finished up her portion of my cleaning with a maroon glow and I saw her motion in the hygienist. So this was my beloved Patty’s replacement? She was about five foot nothing and just as slightly built as she could be. I felt a wave of relief. After all, how bad could such a delicate creature hurt me?

Turns out, pretty damn bad.

Let me put it this way, had I been a POW subjected to what this little terror did to me, she would be on trial for violations of the Geneva Convention at the War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague. Instead, I had to pay for the whole ordeal with blood and money.

Her name was Maria, but I swear it should have been Ilsa or Helga or something more befitting her powers of pain brokering. I was at the mercy of a miniature Tomas de Torquemada in baby blue scrubs. She poked. She scraped. She sawed. At one point, I swear she had both tiny hands in my mouth and it felt like she was trying to extract my poor uvula through my sinuses. What she was actually trying to do was dislodge a particularly stubborn piece of plaque from a back molar. When the offending bit finally gave way, it sailed out of my mouth and landed right in my left eye. I’ve seen meteorites smaller than the rock she got out of me.

After she’d finished with the “light stuff,” this modern day Brunhilda informed me that I needed the “special treatment.” Turns out this treatment is a machine that pressurizes water into a needle-fine jet that exits a vibrating tip. Supposedly, it makes plaque removal a breeze. I have no idea if it actually does what it’s designed for, but I can vouch that it puts out enough liquid to make you feel like you’re being waterboarded at Gitmo by Darth Vader. When I told her, eyes filling with tears, that I would give her the location of the secret Rebel base, she laughed and said, “Oh you big baby, it’s just water.” Of course it’s just water . . . water . . . the same stuff that cuts steel in some modern fabricating plants oh yeah and carved out that big hole in the Arizona desert called The Grand Canyon.

That’s when she started to get cutesy with me. She said, “You know, some people look forward to coming to have their teeth cleaned!” I quickly replied, “Yes, and those same people probably have a homemade BDSM dungeon in their basement and think being hung upside down is fun, too.” She laughed. Manically. Then she reached for the roll of razor wire she was passing off as dental floss and finished up my cleaning. Once she was satisfied that I was bleeding freely enough from every spot of exposed gum tissue, the Marquess de Sade told me to relax while she got Dr. Leigh.

My favorite dentist ever, Dr. Leigh Ledford!

Finally, salvation.

Dr. Leigh is as gentle as her hygienists are brutal. She just pats you on the cheek with a nice reassuringly cool hand and rubs your jaws. I’ve always told her if she ever wanted to give up dentistry, she could make a mint as a masseuse. She completed her evaluation and pronounced me in fine shape. Then she told me not to wait two years next time and her trained torturer wouldn’t have to treat me so horribly.

Don’t have to tell me twice; I go back in six months!

So, if y’all need a good dentist in Upstate South Cackalacky, make sure you check out Hillcrest Family Dentistry. Yes, the hygienists are dangerous, but they do an excellent job and having your face rubbed by Dr. Leigh is worth the price of admission all by itself. Just tell’em I sent you. Oh, and tell “String” I said hello.

Til next time, love y’all and keep your feet clean.

Oh yeah, and FLOSS!