Category Archives: A Story

Feb12

An Early Religious Misconception

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Nota Bene: The events and discussion in this post refer to my youth when I was younger and more foolish. I have realized that some notions I held as a much younger man were wrong at best and asinine at worst and, like most of my screwups “worst” was pretty much de rigeur.”

It has been long accepted among those who know me that I was born sans the mental “tact” filter normally present between a person’s brain and mouth. While this lack of parts has proven to be of small consequence to my general intelligence, it has been somewhat deleterious to my ability to form or maintain solid interpersonal relationships. I feel this issue to be largely because the majority of people who ask, “How are you?,” don’t really wish to know and those who ask, “What do you think?,” could generally care less. Normal people realize this disparity and speak accordingly.

I do not.

In what F. Scott Fitzgerald called “my younger and more vulnerable years,” this predisposition towards speaking my entire mind on matters in a plain, unvarnished and unrepentant manner was nowhere more apparent than my conversations with friends, family, acquaintances, and even perfect strangers on the subject of religion.

Now as a boy, my catechismical education was split by expedience borne of necessity between my beloved mother, who was a moderate Pentecostal, and my nearly equally beloved Granny Wham, who was a staunchly conservative Southern Baptist for whom the Martha Wham Bible Class at Beulah Baptist Church remains named for to this day. In strictly moral matters, Mama’s Pentecostalism was functionally equivalent to Granny’s Southern Baptistism. Doctrinally and theologically, however, their lessons with me often met at jarring perpendiculars rather than running in smoothly harmonious parallels.

One day, it is possible that I may endeavor to explore the differences between the faiths of Mama and Granny Wham that caused me no end of anguish in my formative years, but that will not be today. At present, though, I would rather concentrate on one of the few facets of their instruction that was practically identical. This rare accord extended to the dubious claim that Catholics had to salvation.

Please try to understand that growing up in Upstate South Carolina in the 1970s and 80s, I was but slightly less likely to have a meaningful conversation with a Martian than speak to a practicing Catholic. This region of the state was settled by several strains of Protestants who rode north centuries ago to escape the Catholic and Episcopalian domination of Charleston and the rest of the Lowcountry. Simply put, Catholics were as rare as screen doors on submarines. Until I went to college, I knew a grand total of ONE Catholic personally. It would be fair to say I knew more about flying a jet airplane than about the workings and doctrines of Holy Mother Church.

What I DID know, having been taught by Granny Wham and Mama, was that Catholics probably were not going to

That chalice does NOT contain Welch's grape juice!

Heaven because they didn’t pray to Jesus, they prayed to the Virgin Mary; they didn’t confess to God but to a priest; their forebears had burned our forebears at the stake; and, obviously most heinously of all, Catholics drank  ACTUAL WINE during what we called The Lord’s Supper but they referred to as Communion. Please understand that this final point had nothing to do with the fine points of Transubstantiation versus Consubstantiation. It was VASTLY more simple. Catholics drank REAL HONEST-TO-GOD ALCOHOL IN CHURCH. In my part of the South, where to be Christian is to be a teetotaler, full blood libel could have been overlooked easier than drinking.

In any event, neither Mama nor Granny would ever state unequivocally that Catholics were damned. Both had room in their theology for the forgiveness of even the most mortal sin of wine-bibbing in the House of God.  Had I confined my religious education to their lessons, I probably would have spared myself a slice of embarrassment. Unfortunately,  I was also influenced by a few radio preachers I listened to on occasion late at night when I couldn’t sleep. These men were my first encounter with Fundamentalism and at that tender and impressionable age, I sopped up their neat, accurate determinations of black and white as if it were the best milk gravy Granny Hughes could make. One point these men agreed upon — if they agreed upon little else — was that Catholics were well and truly and eternally headed for Hell, apparently on the express train. These firebrands would have been quite at home in Henry VIII’s court handing down execution and confiscation orders on the heads of Catholics.

I listened and internalized what I should not have, to my embarrassing harm.

It was sometime around my eleventh summer when I was visiting some member of the family in the hospital with Granny and Papa Wham. My memory is vague on the specifics because of what happened during the visit. This particular day, we were not at the local Hillcrest Hospital nor even at the monolithic Greenville Memorial Hospital. We were downtown at St. Francis Hospital. That would be St. Francis as in St. Francis of Assisi, patron saint of the poor. That would be patron saint as in CATHOLIC. St. Francis Hospital was, at that time, run by the Sisters of the Poor. Also, at that time, the Sisters had not abandoned the traditional penguinesque habits I was familiar with.

In any event, we were all crowded into this hospital room waiting to see our ailing relative off to surgery for an ingrown toenail or some other equally life endangering procedure. Suddenly, two of the Sisters of the Poor appeared in the doorway with a gurney to pick up our family member. They asked the occupant of the bed if they might pray for him before they left the room. I remember he gave his assent and it was then that I had one of those unfiltered moments I referred to at the beginning.

I said, “Hold on a minute! You can’t pray for him.” The two sisters turned to me. As I said, I was 11. They were ancient. I supposed they were 30 if they were a day. One of them spoke, “and why not young man?” Recalling both my formal Sunday School lessons at Granny and Mama’s knees AND, more importantly, what I’d heard on the late night airwaves from Brother Jim-Bob’s House of Glory Holy Tabernacle of Fire and Brimstone, I stated bluntly, “Well, aren’t you two nuns?” The spokeswoman nodded her agreement so I continued, “and that means you’re Catholic, right?” Again, affirmation followed and Granny Wham finally guessed what was coming but couldn’t reach me in time. Instead she heard me say with all the righteous confidence of an 11 year old Pauline scholar, “Well, it won’t do you no good to pray; you’ll rub your Catholic damnation off on him because everybody knows ALL CATHOLICS ARE GOING TO SPLIT HELL WIDE OPEN AND ROAST ON THE DEVIL’S PITCHFORK! ”

Gentle readers, I won’t describe the ensuing pandemonium. Suffice it to say that for one of the only times in my life, Granny Wham grabbed my arm in anger and pushed me towards Papa Wham, who incidentally seemed desperate to keep a grin off his face, to have me removed from the room but not before both of the sisters managed to let it be known in no uncertain terms what they thought of my ideas AND upbringing.

The incomparable Mark Twain wrote, “A man who picks a cat up by the tail gains knowledge he could get no other way.”

With that in mind, ladies and gentlemen, the moral of the story is this — should you ever have the opportunity to tell a nun either directly or by implication that she is going to split Hell wide open and roast on the Devil’s pitchfork, take my advice and no matter how tempting it may be,  just let the moment pass!

Love all of y’all, my Catholic brothers and sisters especially!

Keep those feet clean!

 

Feb8

Epiphany of a Vine Tester

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I was in Mr. Sublett’s AP US History class on a winter Friday, second period, junior year, halfway listening to The Sub expound on the role states’ rights played in the War Between the States and halfway to Daydream Believer Land when it hit me what a bunch of low-down, four-flushing, underhanded rat-finks my buddies were when we were in the late single digits and very early double-digit years of our lives. The epiphany was nothing short of shocking. I let half the class in on my astonishment by suddenly sitting up straight in my desk and muttering loudly, “What a bunch of sorry . . . ” Well, we won’t go into exactly what sort of sorry they were. This is mostly a family blog.

Just because you've got on a cape don't mean you can fly.

Anyway, this is what hit me. When we boys were young and rip-romping around the woods behind our houses, we had two favorite past-times: splashing in the creek looking for “spring lizards” and swinging on vines over the various ravines and gullies that pockmarked the tree choked hills. As I’ve mentioned many times here before, I am not now and never have been a lightweight. I’ve always been fat to the point of being big around as I have been tall. That made my rip-romping a little more difficult than my lithe and agile blood-brethren. As a result of the large disparity between my ability to cover ground and my lighter buddies’, I often lagged behind the gang . . . far behind at times. On good days, I could stay within earshot; on bad days — if I didn’t know the woods intimately — I’d get hopelessly lost.

Luckily, and here’s where my epiphany kicked in, the boys always waited for me at every vine swing or log crossing. Now all my buddies were raised to be kind and mannerly — just like I was. All of our parents and grandparents had been friends and sometimes even kin. So for nearly ten years, I thought the guys were looking out for me. They knew that I was slow AND (I hate to admit this) they knew I was terrified of getting lost in the woods and eaten by a grizzly bear or worse. It didn’t matter to me that no wild grizzly bear had lived east of the Mississippi River — much less Upstate South Carolina — in over a century. I was just an easily scared little boy. (Who, incidentally, grew up into an easily scared man).

But I digress.

Without fail, I’d always find the group waiting for me at the aforementioned log crossing or vine swing and, without fail, they always let me go first. I figured it was their way of keeping me close enough to hear my death screams as Gentle Ben was having me for lunch. That day in Sub’s class though, the harsh ugly truth hit me. Altruism wasn’t anywhere in their equations.

I was the vine tester.

Quite simply, I was always the first to cross the logs over the creeks or gullies. I was always first to swing across the logless gullies on a vine — Tarzan style. What I had mistaken for kindness was cold, calculating self-preservation. I easily outweighed the next heaviest member of our circle by a good fifty pounds. At some point, they all got together and realized if they sent me across first, whatever material was in question would definitely hold them!

They used me and my fat to keep themselves from cuts, sprains, and wet jeans. I was so certain of their tender motives that I never questioned them. After all, I was a very poor vine-swinger so they would always give me a boost up and a good push to make sure I got across. Once or twice, I didn’t. I would have shoes full of muck and poison ivy all over my legs, but they would be safe.

Why sure, guys! I'll go first. Hold my drink will ya'?

I would have gone on to my grave in blissful innocence of my “friends'” duplicity had it not been for night hunting. That was what turned my mind to those halcyon days as I sat in that AP History class. Some of my friends from those bygone days had taken up the quintessential Southern “sport” of coon hunting.

Briefly, coon hunting consists of moving rapidly through woods, fields, and creek bottoms in pursuit of a pack of demented dogs — coon hounds — who are themselves in pursuit of a raccoon. To up the degree of difficulty into the stratosphere, this is all done at night. Usually WAY at night. Oh, yes, and the season is also in the dead of winter.

I had joined these acquaintances on a few of these moonlit excursions and, just as in days of yore, I was always invited to cross the fallen log first. Ten years on, I was still “the vine / log tester!”

Thanks to that second period awakening, however, my tenure as quality control for creek crossings was at an end. We had scheduled a hunt for that very night. I went along as I always did and, we came to a fallen log, as we always did. One of the guys called out, “Wham, you head on across so you don’t get so far behind”, just as they always did.

For the first time, however, I spoke up at the crossing.

“Fellas, it’s taken me a long time, but I’ve finally figured out this game. Y’all gonna send my fat . . . butt across that log so if it don’t break with me you’ll know it’s safe. Now don’t deny it, I’ve come to this conclusion, but I’ve got one thing to say. I’ve worked over this here shotgun of mine and she’s got a nice easy trigger pull. It’s gonna be a shame if a log breaks tonight or any other night from here on out because I’m pretty sure if I fall, this shotgun is going to go off. Furthermore, despite all our training with guns and such, I’m almost CERTAIN this shotgun will be fall out of my hand in such a way as to be pointed in all y’all’s directions. Just thought I’d let you know. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll cross this log.”

It was the last log I ever “tested”.

Now keep those feet clean and remember how much G.S. Feet loves y’all!

Feb1

Being a Bad Parent — continued

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People don't always notice signs.

I’ve had some people ask me about my last post. They want to know what set me off. Was it something specific or was I just railing against the general inability of some people to parent. Well, my post about poor parents actually DOES have its roots in a specific local family dynamic. Now I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings by naming names, so let’s call them, oh, I don’t know — my next door neighbors. The ones on the right hand side as one looks at our home. The ones with the blue car with the duct tape and plastic tarp side window. And the pile of trash on the back porch. And the yard strewn with debris. You get the idea.

These people do not look after their kids! Gentle readers, I don’t live in DisneyWorld. This is a lower middle class / upper working class “mobile home subdivision”, basically a trailer park but we have to take the tongues and wheels off the trailers and we don’t rent the spaces. Kids NEED to be watched after around here.

What makes matters worse is this is a particularly FERTILE couple. Is it just me or has anyone else noticed how the lower down on the intellectual level one goes in the animal kingdom the more offspring a given pair of animals produces? For instance, dolphins are super smart. Dolphins have ONE pup at a time. Two is a rarity. Frogs, though? Frogs will NEVER top anyone’s list of Einsteinesque fauna and they have THOUSANDS of offspring at once. The reason is obvious — the dumber the animal, the more offspring that are needed to ensure the species survives.

They are working on that principle right next door.

Happens WAY too much.

This woman has FOUR kids. The oldest two are both in the FIRST GRADE. They are only 10 months apart in age, and get this — they have different daddies! Let THAT math keep you up at night. These kids are 6 almost 7, barely 6, four, and two years old. The oldest is a girl and the rest are carbon copy boys.

Do these people not know what a TELEVISION is?

Anyway, they have this slew of kids. The dad lost his job in the downturn two years ago so he’s been working about six part-time jobs. I’m not sure if he works so much for the money or if he just wants to stay away from home. I know which one I’D pick. The mom stays at home with the brood until dad gets home at which point she takes the car to her job at McDonalds. I’d be worried about them financially, but when she was big as a barrel with the two-year-old she told Budge and me they were in good shape because of WIC, food stamps, and about six other government programs.

Now up to this point, you might think I’m just cracking on some poor white trash in an attempt to get blog hits. You couldn’t be more wrong. First of all, I hesitate to call anyone white trash. Too many members of my family have been branded with that particular moniker over the years for me to toss such a label around lightly. More than that though is the fact that I’ve seen other families in similar states be adoring and careful parents and raise some amazing kids.

No, I’m cracking on this bunch because of the UPS truck.

I was straightening up the house about a week ago when I heard a LARGE vehicle LOCK DOWN on the brakes. I looked up to see the four-year old staring at the grille of the Big Brown Truck. I know this UPS driver and he’s not an excessive speed demon. If he’d been traveling two miles an hour faster, that kid would have been road kill.

Just a matter of time?

If that was a one time deal, I wouldn’t be going to the trouble of writing this, but that kind of thing is the RULE in their house, not the exception. The three oldest kids stay outside from the time school lets out until dark. They have NO IDEA what it means to look before crossing a road. To date, besides the UPS truck, two school buses, the Charter guy, the water meter guy, and at least six cars that I have seen have nearly wrung the brake pads off the front of their cars trying to keep from turning one of these chaps into a human speed bump. They NEVER look where they are going. I’ve told Budge that it is just a matter of time before someone can’t make a last second stop and that’s going to be terrible.

I used to never lock my gates. Now I do because these kids have no concept of “that’s not yours.” It’s nothing for them to go across my yard — which I really DON’T mind — and get out toys belonging to my OTHER neighbors’ GOOD child and start playing with them even if no one there is home! I can’t imagine how long I’d have been stuck inside if my mama had caught me doing such!

Let me be clear though — it’s NOT THE KIDS’ FAULT.

Too late to watch over them now.

If a six, five, or four-year old child doesn’t know how to behave, it is not his fault. It is the PARENTS’ fault. Children are just that — children. By definition they are ignorant of most dangers, evils, and pitfalls and thank God they are. The horrible state of the world will catch up to them soon enough. Until then, though, it is up to MAMA and DADDY to RAISE them and that requires a little something called WORK.

Now I’ve seen a child run out in front of a car before, but every other time it was because he wasn’t listening to THE ADULT STANDING RIGHT NEXT TO HIM. The adult is attempting to provide a safe transit from store to car and the child isn’t listening. Most of the times I’ve seen this happen, Mama or Daddy will reinforce the lesson of the near tragedy by a vigorous application of the Board of Education to the Seat of Understanding just as soon as everyone reaches the car.

Not this family.

No one is watching these kids. We live on the busiest street in our neighborhood and Mom is nowhere to be found unless she happens out onto the porch to smoke. Granny wouldn’t let me play in the FRONT YARD of her and Papa’s house and they lived on a street full of nothing but old people in the quietest neighborhood in Fountain Inn. If I GOT ran over it would be due to Mrs. Johnson losing control of her power scooter and tearing through the wisteria bordering the back yard. Otherwise, I was safer than the gold in Fort Knox. Plus, this was in the pre-Adam Walsh days when we kids didn’t know strangers would kill us. Someone in a van could pull up, offer these kids next door candy, snatch them into the vehicle and be gone and it would be suppertime before Mom even noticed they were gone. That’s insane!

I don't want this scene in front of my home. Children deserve better caretakers.

If anyone is looking out for these kids, it’s ONE little girl who is about ten and seems to be the natural “mothering type”.

You haven’t seen irony until you see a ten-year-old berating a four-year old at top volume like R. Lee Ermey on crack because the kid didn’t look before crossing the street. If it wasn’t for though, these kids would be as rudderless as a capsized canoe in a whitewater whirlpool. I for one think the child deserves a medal.

BUT IT’S NOT. HER. PLACE. TO. WATCH. THESE. KIDS.

I am at a loss to know what to do. As a final thought, if one of the kids DOES get hurt, I’LL have to call 911 because THEY don’t have a phone. Correction, they have a cell phone, but instead of leaving it at home in case — I don’t know — the two-year old swallowed something and needed an ambulance, Daddy takes it with him on his “rounds.”

Talk about priorities?!

Any thoughts on this comedy of errors? I’m open to suggestions!

Take care, y’all and keep those feet clean.

Jan31

Perils of Playing House

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Consider yourself warned.

In this country, anyone wanting to operate a car, truck or motorcycle must pass a test and be licensed. If you don’t have a license, you are not legally allowed to drive. You may spend years in schools obtaining a medical or legal degree, but if you don’t pass the tests for the bar or for the medical specialty of your choice, you cannot call yourself a doctor or a lawyer and if you are caught trying to deceive people into believing you ARE a doctor or a lawyer, you will go directly to jail neither passing GO nor collecting $200.

BUT, any one man and one woman can pair up and, as long as they possess the correct anatomical and God-supplied equipment, make a baby and bring that baby into the world. In doing so, they often deceive people into believing they are, in fact, PARENTS. They are not. They are a sperm donor and a very sophisticated incubator. Making and / or birthing a baby doesn’t make you a parent any more than putting on a lab coat or a powdered wig (in England at least) makes you a doctor or a lawyer.

Therein lies the source of a huge amount of the problems facing the country today. Too many people are running around PRETENDING to be parents when all they are really doing is playing a cruel version of “house” just like kindergartners.

Why yes, I would like to get her started in her mama's footsteps as soon as possible!

If you want to know whether or not I am talking to you or if you should be giving me multiple loud “amen, preach it, my brother” outbursts is simple for me to ascertain with ONE question. Have you ever worried that you were not being a good parent or actually thought you were being a poor parent? If you have dwelt at any length on those statements, you are NOT a bad parent or — at the very least — you are trying. Just the fact that you CARE if you are a good parent or not says volumes.

Two of my favorite former students married, in due time, produced a gorgeous little tow-headed, blue-eyed girl just as pretty as her mama and as much of a smartass as her daddy. Her daddy has gone from being a favorite student to being a dear friend and he has said to me on more than one occasion, usually with tears in his voice, “Coach, I just don’t know if I’m being a good daddy to Lisa.” I tell him every time what I just told y’all, “Mike, the fact that you CARE whether or not you are a good daddy means you are trying really hard to be a good daddy and that is all any man can do.”

Entirely too many incubators and sperm donors today seem –by their actions at least — to view their offspring as accessories like a watch or a chihuahua, or maybe the next logical step in some middle class fantasy plan. Others actually see their children as INCOME producers and keep having them until the government says they won’t pay for any more. Worst of all, however, are those poor fools who see their children as “friends” and not “children.”

Here is a story I have told often and it still flabbergasts me more than ten years later. It illustrates the perils of poor parenting.

My second year as a teacher, I was in on a meeting with a 16-year-old tee-tiny white girl, her mama, the AP, the guidance counselor, and a few other assorted teachers. We were trying to explain to mama that baby-doll wasn’t doing so hot in the academic realm. When it came time for the mama to respond, she didn’t get three sentences out before her daughter spun around and unleashed a torrent at her that turned the air of the conference room a Smurfy shade of blue. This 16-year-old slip of a girl called her mama every name in the book and actually worked herself into such a rage that she had to be restrained and taken from the room.

Mama’s reaction? She put her head in her hands and started moaning about, “I just don’t know what to do with her. I’ve tried so hard to be her friend and get her to like me.”

Even then I was not known for having either volumes of tact or great reserves of self-control so while everyone else in the room (the older, more experienced ones) sat staring at the table, I got up and sat next to the poor woman. I put my hand on her shoulder and she looked up at me with red-rimmed eyes and I told her, “Ma’am, my mama is my best friend in this world. I love her like I love no other. She is 5’2 and weighs 110 pounds in a full winter suit of clothes, heavy boots, and soaked in a swimming pool. She has bad lungs from smoking for years and working in cotton mills. She is a bit past her physical prime. I am 5’10, 250 pounds (I was then anyway) have wrestled, coached wrestling, and fought in full contact karate tournaments. I’m in the prime of my life, but if I — TODAY — let alone when I was 16, said HALF of the words your daughter just said to you to MY MAMA, I know EXACTLY what she would do. She would walk over, pick up that nice heavy metal stool and proceed to disfigure the metal of the stool seat with the bone of my head. Once she had beat me unconscious, she would call Bull Street in Columbia and tell them to come get her son because he had OBVIOUSLY lost his mind. Ma’am, your daughter doesn’t need another FRIEND. She needs a MAMA.”

Well, she got all pissed off and I got another letter in my file, but I stand by what I said to this day. My mama has said many things to and about me and we’ve had our disagreements over the years but at NO TIME has my mama EVER uttered the phrases “I can’t do anything with him” or “I just want him to like me.” Mama never gave one tiny tinker’s damn if I LIKED her or if she was my FRIEND or not, but let me assure you she ALWAYS knew SOMETHING to do with me and it was the thoughts of what she COULD do that kept me on the straight and narrow most of the time.

This doesn't REALLY say "Juicy." It REALLY says "Mom and Dad don't care that perverted old men are going to stare at my butt."

Remember this — You are a PARENT. You RAISE the child. Teachers, pastors, day care centers, and TV stars don’t RAISE your kids. It’s not their job; it’s YOUR job and if you didn’t want it, you should have given little Johnny or Jill or LaKwisha or Jaquan up for adoption to one of the thousands of infertile couples like me and Budge who would love to have a child to raise but can’t. EVEN BETTER, if you didn’t WANT the responsibility of being a parent because it might CRAMP your style, you should have stayed off your back or out of that hotel room or out of the back seat of that car. As I have told more than one young person over the years when they were facing choices about sex, drugs, or rock ‘n roll, “If you don’t want to go to Atlanta, don’t get on I-85 South!” Stay on that interstate long enough and eventually you WILL end up in Fulton County, Georgia. Guaranteed.

Hope I didn’t terribly offend anyone, but I’ve just seen some stuff this weekend that has made me question how our species has made it this far! Unfortunately, the ones who need to read this the most will never see it! ***sigh***

Love y’all anyway and keep those feet clean!

Jan24

Being Unemployed Isn’t for the Fainthearted

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It’s just twenty minutes until tomorrow so I’ll start calling Monday yesterday, as in — yesterday, I spent a little over four HOURS at the unemployment office. I filed my paperwork for the final extended benefits plan. If I get approved, I’ll have fourteen more weeks of unemployment insurance checks then I’ll become a “Ninety-niner” that some people are talking about. Ninety-nine weeks unemployed.

It’s hard to believe just how clueless some people are about being unemployed. I was reading the comment section of an article in the local newspaper on the stagnant job market and some of the commentators were HORRIBLE. I didn’t know I was such a lazy, useless bum who is attempting to be a parasite on the backsides of hardworking people.

I’ll tell them what they can do as far as backsides are concerned.

The unemployment office was packed today and I saw all shapes and kinds of misery AND con-artists. I know out of the room of about 500 people, more than one really has no intention of ever finding a job for longer than it takes to accrue more unemployment. Any system is going to have people who take advantage of it. Mostly what I saw today though was people hurting. One lady broke my heart. Her company abruptly shut down last week and when I say abrupt I’m talking “note on the door” style. She was about my age and she was just in tears because she had no idea what came next.

I’ve seen that several times when I’ve gone to file this or that paperwork. Mixed in with the lip ring wearing, saggy pants, hats on backwards crowd who’ve never worked an honest day in their lives are seriously decent folks who have ALWAYS worked and now they find themselves in their fifties and, in too many cases, sixties with no job, no insurance, and — increasingly — no hope.

You get to talk A LOT to a great many people in four hours of sitting and standing in line. I heard several common refrains like “overqualified,” “no experience in X field,” and the ubiquitous “it just looks like no jobs are out there.” In the comments I mentioned earlier, one self-righteous gentleman said with great pride that he’d “NEVER been out of work and if he ever found himself unemployed he DAMN SURE wouldn’t take 99 weeks to find another job.”

Oh really? My mama taught me a long time ago, NEVER say what you’ll NEVER do. You just might be surprised.

People not in the situation LOVE to say things like, “Go get a job at McDonalds or WalMart — they are always hiring.” Um, no, their not. It is an employer’s market right now. Businesses can pick and chose because they know how desperate people have become. The worst thing is, education used to be a bulwark against unemployment, but now, it’s a hindrance to finding another job. For example, I have a Masters Degreee AND all my recent work experience is in education. Someone takes one look at my resume’ and realizes I’m a teacher. Well, they aren’t stupid; they know that I’ll be looking for another teaching job and as soon as I find one — hasta la vista, Baby.

I’ve actually had an HR interviewer tell me that I’m almost unemployable outside of my field because no one wants to invest time or effort training someone who has an established career. I could LIE and say I have no intention of looking for another job in the schools, but I’ve found lying is a pretty low percentage game most of the time. The fact is, yes, if I’m a sales clerk at Target and a principal calls me and says, “come be our librarian,” I am GONE. As Lynyrd Skynyrd put it so eloquently, “Call me the breeze.”\

Unfortunately, the longer I’m out of the library, the rustier and rustier my skills get. I’d love to still be able to look through VOYA and SLJ, but my budget didn’t have room for $120 subscriptions. I sat down the other day and pulled up some the YA section on Amazon. I didn’t recognize much. When you aren’t talking with other librarians and students and teachers about books and computers and research and stuff . . . well, the edge starts to go.

So. What’s the answer? No clue. I’ve got a final fourteen weeks to figure it out before I become one of those people who help artificially inflate the “unemployment recovery rate” by falling off the job seeking roles. If you aren’t getting money anymore, you aren’t counted as unemployed. Go figure.

In any event, keep me in your thoughts and prayers. I’m not panicking because that won’t do anyone any good — especially me. Sorry about the short rambling post — it’s been a trying day and I wanted to vent a bit.

Love y’all and keep those feet clean!

Jan20

Food Fight

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This is a pretty long post, but stick with it, thanks!

Yesterday was Budge’s first day on her medically supervised six-week weight loss plan. This isn’t the first time she’s attempted to lose weight, but it is the first time she’s gone to this careful extent. My job is to fix the shakes and provide moral support and encouragement. I plan to eat a bigger lunch and forgo supper to avoid cooking and eating in front of her and hopefully that will make this easier on her. I don’t trust diets like this, but she is under an excellent doctor’s care AND — more importantly — she’s promised me this is for HER not ME or anyone else. She’s my Budge no matter what she weighs and that’s all that matters, but her mama fought the battle of the bulge her entire life before dying at 46 of complications from pancreatitis and a final stroke. With 46 looming large in life’s windshield, Budge told me she didn’t want to go out that way so I told her do what she had to do and I’d have her back.

Needless to say, I’m insanely, stupefyingly proud of her.

With Budge starting this diet, many people are pressuring on me to join her and want to know why I’m so resistant to adopting “the healthy lifestyle.” As I’ve mentioned before, I am not a small man. I am slightly south of six feet tall and slightly north of 350 pounds. I believe the medical term is “morbidly obese.” I prefer the much cuter sounding euphemism of “as big around as I am tall.”

Lately, my glib put-off has been “I’m going for the heart attack before the diabetes has a chance to get me.” That statement is anchored in a grain of truth. The men on Daddy’s side of the family die of massive coronaries. Granny Matt had ten children who lived and that included six sons. Of the six, five died at 78 or slightly before of the aforementioned coronary. Uncle Jack was the lone dissenter, but that’s another story for another time. Daddy had HIS first heart attack about nine or ten years ago. Many of Daddy’s male blood related first cousins have already had one or more heart attacks or have perished from the sudden squeezing of the chest.

On the other side of my family tree lurk diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease. More of Mama’s kin than I can count have fallen victim to “The Sugar” and the lucky ones died quickly. The unlucky ones left the world a piece at a time. Many dodged diabetes only to succumb to Alzheimer’s and left the world not knowing themselves or their closest loved ones. I have no intention of going out like that if at all possible. Given the choice between slow piecemeal death and quick heart exploding death, my decision is clear.

As I said, that is my somewhat humorous glib smart-ass answer. The pure and simple truth is, to paraphrase Oscar Wilde, not so pure and definitely not simple. Fact is, obesity and I are old and bitter foes and after many bloody engagements fraught with pain, sadness, and disappointment, I have bowed to the stronger will and chosen not to fight my weight anymore.

See the oh-so-pinchable legs?

I was BORN fat. I weighed 10 lbs and 5 ozs the day I came into the world and I was born hungry. The story is I slurped down an 8 oz bottle in two minutes and started crying for more. After 8 more ounces, I was still hungry so the nurse asked Mama what she wanted done and Mama, probably glimpsing the future, told her to go ahead and get me full. I was over 14 lbs by the time I came home from the hospital with rolls of fat on my thighs that my beloved great-Aunt Pearl delighted in lovingly pinching and patting.

I never looked back.

I think I topped 100 pounds by fifth grade. I may be off a year, but I do know that all my clothes came with the “HUSKY” label. I suppose that was the clothier’s way of trying to salvage the self-esteem of  a fat pre-teen. From almost the start, the family was worried about my weight. I was placed on a few diets by Dr. Monroe, our long-time family physician, but they all required keeping track of calories and such. I wasn’t clear on the concept of “serving size” or “portion control” so I figured a bowl of cereal was “one serving” of “180 calories” when a true serving size was 3/4 of a cup of cereal meaning my punch bowl of Cocoa Crisps with whole milk actually contained about SIX servings.

One of the greatest ironies of my saga with obesity lies in how Granny Wham tried to help me lose weight. She was THE most concerned of all my family, Mama included, when it came to my being — in her words — “a little too heavy.” She would constantly admonish me about eating too much at supper or cutting myself too big a slice of pound cake (Granny Wham made the greatest pound cake this side of paradise), but at the same time, SHE was the one asking me if I’d had enough to eat and did I want more chicken or rice with gravy or roast beef or whatever delicious dish she or Papa had prepared that night. It was like living in rehab with a drug pusher!

God bless her precious heart, it was confusing as all get out when I was a child, but looking back, I understand a little better. Granny couldn’t stand to see me fat but she couldn’t stand to see me sad either and not getting enough of that wonderful food would always make me sad so the doting grandmother in her usually won out over the concerned for my health responsible adult and I’d get another piece of pound cake . . . with ice cream on top . . . and Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup . . . and Cool Whip. You get the idea.

All through elementary school and junior high, I just got bigger. Of course I got picked on and bullied because of being

Mama LOVED to dress me in horizontal stripes. Michelin Man anyone?

fat. I was called “fatty,” “lard-butt,” “two-ton,” and — my all time favorite — “The Great White Marshmallow.” I tried to shrug off the barbs as much as I could. I was dealing with other stuff. Unfortunately, one of my earliest and most cherished coping mechanisms was “escapism eating.” I’d get to Granny and Papa’s after a day at school enduring the shark tank of junior high, grab a book and a bag of Oreo cookies and go hide in the yard until supper. That kind of emotional eating did wonders for my waistline.

That’s the way things rocked on pretty much until my first year of high school. I was a nonathletic 225 pound blob when I went out for wrestling to try to get a date with Kim Robertson. The date never materialized, but I fell in love with wrestling, even if I was getting creamed twice a week at heavyweight. Funny thing is, the more I wrestled, the smaller I got. Who knew?

Then, right after wrestling season, I got braces to fix my crazy teeth. Now, I didn’t get the cute little “invisible brackets” glued to my teeth. I got the full monty of railroad track bands all over my mouth. My head, jaws, and mouth hurt so much that I couldn’t eat. I did good if I could sip some Cream of Chicken soup through a straw. I endured that pain for two months and when summer came and my teeth had finally moved enough for the agony to ease up some a funny thing happened. I looked in the mirror and a skinny kid was staring out at me.

Junior year of HS. This was the best it ever got. Skinny AND hair.

For 24 blessed months — a brief, shining moment — I was svelte. I dropped from 225 to 160. I could shop in the regular men’s section for the first time in my life. My inseam was actually longer than my waistline was round. My acne cleared about the same time and another odd thing happened. Without all the lard in the way, girls began to notice my crystal blue eyes and thick strong blond hair. Oh, and the straight white teeth — shout out to what made it all possible! It seemed like overnight I was being favorably compared to guys like Rick Mathews, our class’s resident Adonis, who played football and wrestled the weight class right above me. I was actually kind of a big deal.

Of course it went straight to my head and turned me into the exact kind of insufferable douche I’d always hated. Not to worry though. As Pony Boy is fond of reciting, “Nothing gold can stay.” Senior year came. My foibles and mistakes caught up with me. My head started filling up with thoughts and voices I couldn’t fight back. I was entering the worst depression I’d ever encountered and starting what was to become a desperate lifelong battle with my mind and emotions — but I didn’t know it. I had no idea what the hell was going on.

The final straw came when wrestling season started and the weight classes had changed. The 167 class was gone. I was now in Adonis’ weight class and Adonis was a better wrestler than I had a prayer of being.  When our 154 pounder went down early in the season with a blown out knee, everyone looked at me to cut the 15 pounds, take that spot, and make us an even greater team. I took a shot at it. God knows I tried, but the more water I drank and the harder I exercised, the bigger I got. It seemed I gained instead of losing. So I became a senior riding the bench when I should have been a captain. I gave up the fight.

I went into a headlong spiral and started drinking whenever I could, but mostly, I started eating whatever I wanted to again. It’s not like I had to keep my weight down anymore anyway. I was a three-year letter-man in wrestling. The only year I didn’t letter was my senior year.

But I’m not still bitter or anything. I’m just saying.

In college, I skipped the freshman fifteen and traded it for the freshman 50. I went from a 34 waist as a high school sophomore to a 40 waist as a college sophomore. I’d look in the mirror in disgust and I’d go on the fat wagon for a week. I’d work out every day down in Fike Hall gym. I took up tae-kwan-do. It helped a little, but in the end, the weight always won.

I was to be skinny and handsome one final time in my life. It would come after college and brought about a similar “senior year type” downward spiral with nearly identically disastrous personal results. A sordid, sad tale — for another time.

I’d started gaining back my weight from that episode when I met Budge. She married me fluffy and has stayed with me fat. I can’t thank her enough for that. These days, from time to time, I’ll contemplate hitting the fat wagon again and trying to get healthier. I don’t keep chips and dip or things of that nature in the house — fleeing temptation and all — but I watch too much Paula Deen and cook like her too much as well.

I gave up pill popping, driving fast cars, hanging out with my Five Favorite Uncles, and chasing crazy women. I started taking meds to try to quiet the cacophony in my head. All of that draws heavily from my well of willpower. For Budge and Mama’s sake, I have to concentrate my energy on what’s going to make me the most endurable. Losing weight, no matter how important I know it is, would take reserves I don’t have.

Fairly recent picture with a good view of the booth-busting belly.

Don’t get me wrong — it’s not like I revel in being fat. I haven’t bought clothes in over two years because I can’t stand the disappointment of the fitting room. I’m reminded of what, to quote from Full Metal Jacket, “a disgusting, flabtastic piece of fatbody filth” I am every time I try to sit in a restaurant booth and have to ask for a table because of my size. It isn’t like this is a high-ho bunch of fun because it ain’t. I just have to pick my battles and this is one I know the outcome of all too well.

Dr. Lopez — my primary care physician — stays on me about losing. He WANTS me to lose down to 200 lbs. I haven’t seen 200 lbs since my junior year of high school. That’s a little over 150 lbs. THAT IS A PERSON! THE MAN WANTS ME TO LOSE A PERSON. He can’t understand how a former wrestler and wrestling coach who knows so much about nutrition and exercise can be so blase’ about dropping the 10% body fat that produces measurable health benefits. Unfortunately, he also doesn’t understand something else — nothing good has ever come of me being skinny.

Sorry for the book length post.   Keep those feet clean, okay?

Love y’all.

Jan11

Southern Snowstorm 2011

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My Element in the elements

Okay, it’s cold around here. For everyone who doesn’t have access to a weather outlet, a huge cold system dumped anywhere from six to twelve inches of snow on us here in Upstate SC from Sunday night through Monday morning. Then, starting late yesterday afternoon, a soft misting drizzle coated the fluffy snow in a clear crystalline crust with the result being we won’t thaw out here for another week at least.

Budge’s district was out yesterday and by noon yesterday, their administration as well as every other district in this corner of the Heavenly Triangle that is South Carolina, agreed to phone it in again today. At the rate this stuff is not melting, tomorrow is very likely a wash and Thursday will be at least a two hour delay so the bus drivers have a fighting chance to spot the black ice slicks BEFORE the big yellow banana goes into the ditch. Of course, with this district extending all the way into the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, some parts of the county STILL won’t be passable and my Budge may not go back to school this week.

The unfortunate issue in all the preparation for and fighting of the snow is it actually makes things a bit worse in the short run. Our state and county DOTs have been doing a masterful job of clearing the interstates and main artery state roads, BUT, while the plows clear the snow away quite effectively, they cannot help but leave a thin sheet of water on the now-exposed asphalt. This sheet of water becomes a sheet of ice just as soon as the sun goes down. So in a sense, all those plows out on the roads now are acting as giant yellow Zambonis creating a veritable plethora of ice rinks up and down the roads. This results in many drivers, especially those who have more horsepower than brains, pulling a Paul Simon and “slip sliding away.”

Slick, frozen hills like this are what will keep schools closed for a good while.

Skidding off the road isn’t so bad in most places in the main roads because about the worst you can do is slide into the median or onto the shoulder, but once you make a turn or two and get back here into the sticks a bit, flying of the road via a sheet of black ice can be fatal. I’m thinking of one spot less than two miles from here where a long curve over an old bridge meets a long, steady, SHADED uphill incline. Now I know as surely as I know I’ll never own a Porsche that stretch of road is going to be slicker than snot on a doorknob until Saturday at the very least. Remember the bridge and the curve I mentioned? Well, the bridge has nice concrete guard rails, of course, and a set of metal guard rails extends from both ends and both sides of the bridge for another ten feet or so and stops right where the curve begins. That means anyone sliding down that hill — forwards or backwards — has a straight shot past the guard rail and down a 50 foot embankment into the Reedy River below the bridge. That water is deep and cold and I’ve seen more than one car winched out of there followed by four rescue workers struggling up the hill with a human sized black plastic zipper bag held between them.

To paraphrase CCR "Dut, dut, dut, lookin' out my front door."

Still, people don’t learn. People get all broke out in dumb when the white stuff is on the ground. The worst offenders are Yankee expatriates and guys who have jacked up four-wheel drive trucks. The Yankees scoff at us poor benighted hillbillies who can’t drive on snow. I hear it all the time, “Why this is a dusting compared to what we get every day up in X part of Yankee-land, I simply can’t fathom why you people can’t drive on it!” Well, Goober, the reason we can’t drive on it — and you can’t either, by the way — is it’s NOT SNOW. Anyone CAN drive on snow. Snow is easy. Once the roads clear a tiny bit OR once they get nice and compacted, it’s not snow anymore though. It’s ICE and NO ONE can drive on ice. Even James Freaking Bond can’t drive on ice! Watch Die Another Day if you don’t believe me.

The other goofuses (goofi?) with the four-wheel drives are just obnoxious and have no knowledge of physics. They reside in a safe and strange little world where the phrase “I’ll put ‘er four-wheel drive!” makes Mother Nature soil her gauzy shift in terror. In reality, the phrase, “I’ll put ‘er in four-wheel drive” is usually followed by the phrase, “any y’all got a winch or know a good tow company?” Once again, the culprit is ICE. The only difference between a four wheel drive vehicle and a two-wheel drive vehicle on ice is the number of wheels spinning helplessly as the car or truck slides inexorably towards the Ravine of Doom.

So, if you’re reading this around these parts, hunker down, make up some snow cream, drink a cuppa, and take a nice nap. Those of you up and out where this stuff is normal, be careful, and those of you in warmer, snow free clime — keep your obnoxiously sunny and cheerful opinions to yourselves.

Love y’all, and keep those feet clean!

Jan7

Signs, Signs, Lots of Purple Signs

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Crude approximation of the first sign we saw that made me think Budge was off in the head.

 

Today marks 16 years since my Budge and I went on that fateful Hummer ride up the mountain at Camp Awanita. We’ve been together SIXTEEN years! That’s only four years less than half my life!

Wow.

We married the NEXT August, so God willing, this August will be our 15th anniversary. We almost didn’t make it past the honeymoon, however, because by the time we reached our destination, I was certain I had married a lunatic.

To understand the humor, irony, etc of this story, you need to know that Budge and her family were very well traveled. They took vacations all over the country. Most importantly, they went to Walt Disney World at LEAST once a year from the time she could walk until she was in the ninth grade. She and her dad went together the year her mom passed then they skipped a year, then she and I went there on our honeymoon. Walt Disney World is my beloved’s most happy place. I cannot stress enough how much she loves the place. It is VERY germane to the story.

I, on the other hand, have only left the state of South Carolina a bare handful of times. We just didn’t travel much due to lack of money, lack of time, or both. Then, and pretty much now still, I hadn’t been many places. I had been to Disney World with the National Junior Honor Society from GCO when I was in the seventh grade, but by 1996, that’d been a while.

So, we get married, clean the goop off the car, go to Mama’s, pack some last minute stuff, eat supper, and spend the night in the Greenville Hilton. The next day, we got up, ate with Dana’s dad, brother, and my dear niece Kayla. Then we headed for Orlando and “The Happiest Place on Earth.” I drove the whole way. This was before I learned not to CARE what other people think about a man having his wife drive him around. It was also before I learned that Budge is a MUCH better driver than I am. She has a lead foot and needs a 3 painted on the side of any car she drives, but she is a fantastic driver.

But I digress.

We got to Orlando / Kissimmee after dark and went to the Holiday Inn Express to check in. This was when we discovered that Kissimmee was home to about 1,500 HIEs and ours was the absolute most remote from all humanity. We drove another hour to find it, wrestled the bags up the pee-stained elevator to our room . . . and crashed.

The next day, at the butt-crack of dawn, Budge gets me up. It was time to go to Disney World! We ate breakfast, piled in the car, and joined the rest of the United Nations in driving to the Magic Kingdom. Now please realize that back then, I was MUCH more intense than I am now. I was in the middle of the biggest crowd of traffic since Moses led the Exodus AND I had no idea where I was going. I was piano-wire tight.

By following another “Just Married” SUV, I managed to find the entrance to the park. Still, the traffic was stacked up on either side of me. I was sweating in the August Florida heat and was beginning to feel like a complete failure as a husband only three days into a marriage when it happened. My wife LOST HER FREAKING MIND.

I’m listening to her talk and am intently concentrating on the bumper of the balding guy in his midlife crisis Corvette when my sweet, quiet, and meek little wife ERUPTS beside me with a high pitched elephantine bellow of “I SEE PURPLE SIGNS, I SEE PURPLE SIGNS, I SEE PURPLE SIGNS, I SEE PURPLE SIGNS, I SEE PURPLE SIGNS!!!!”

 

Another Crude Representation.

I snapped my head up so fast I felt the vertebrae pop, banged my head on the ceiling, bit my jaw, and whipped around incredulously to find Budge bouncing up and down in her seat pointing to a purple sign with Mickey Mouse’s hands on top of it. I thought the girl had gone around the bend.

 

It was then that she chose to point out “THE PURPLE SIGNS” evenly spaced along the road. Each one revealed a bit more of the famous rodent while letting all we lemmings know how far it was to the parking lot. The final sign showed Mickey’s smiling face, ears, and clapping hands and announced “You’re Here!” The look on my new wife’s face was one of complete rapture. We pulled in to Sleepy lot A, row 6, I think, and made our way to the shuttle.

As I took her little hand (she has THE daintiest hands), I realized then — after I had a moment to recover — that I had not, in fact, married a lunatic. I had married a precious young woman with a child-like, but not childish, spirit who could enjoy three days of purple signs as much as some would have enjoyed a three week cruise. We had a wonderful honeymoon in “The Happiest Place on Earth” and it saddens me to no end that we’ve never gotten to go back. Hope springs eternal however and I hope we’ll get to return to the land of purple signs soon.

Until then, know that I love y’all and keep those feet clean for this newly old man!

Jan6

A Pirate GETS to 40

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My First Baby Picture, I think. I was there, but I don't seem to remember.

Aaaaannnnndddd . . . BOOM!

This is set to post at 6:19 in the Eastern USA time zone. That’s Greenwich -5 for the international set out there and for my military friends, Zulu -5.

Either way, if it works like it’s supposed to, I’m now 40 years old.

How did it come to this? Well, one day at a time, I suppose. Keep getting up in the mornings and sooner or later, you get here. It’s just seriously hard to believe. I haven’t DONE enough to be forty. When Daddy turned 40, he’d already been to Vietnam, then Germany. He’d married, divorced, and remarried. I was 20 and Nick was 8. He’d been at Laurens Glass Plant for 20 years, bought 3 homes, and put in a pool.

I haven’t done anything like that.

When Mama turned 40, I was a junior at Clemson. We’d long since completed our “Years of Wandering” and were back where we started. She’d raised me and just as she was done taking care of me she had to start taking care of Papa John, who had just had his most debilitating stroke. I don’t have anywhere near that kind of courage and strength of will. I guess what I’m trying to say is I’m not half the person at forty that either one of my parents were. They have me whipped in every category. They always have.

My Senior picture. Lord, if I just knew then, etc, etc. Really, I'd settle for the hair.

I suppose I have a modest list of accomplishments. I graduated close to the top of my high school class. I made it through Tiger Town in just four years. I got my Masters of Library Science degree. I taught for nearly ten wonderful years (didn’t realize it at the time) at Woodmont High School back when it was still a small country school. I sent eight classes of seniors across the stage at the Palmetto Expo Center towards a new life.

I must have made an impact of some kind on at least a few of them because I married three sets of them and several still track me down from time to time. One happens to be one of the better friends I’ve had in a long time.

I taught a year at my high school alma mater and before the year was up, I remembered vividly why I’d sworn the night I graduated that I’d never set foot in the place again.

I lived one of my greatest dreams for four magnificent years as a librarian at a middle school in a tiny Southern town.

Every place I ever went to teach or educate, I always told myself “This is where I’m going to grow old and retire. They’ll name a building after me!” Unfortunately, my mouth eventually would write a check my rear end couldn’t cash and it’d be time to move on.

Now, I’m unemployed. I’m not sure where to move on to from here.

One lucky man; one insane young woman. August 3, 1996

I gave six diamond rings to six (well, four — you other two know who you are) very nice, kind, and pretty ladies. I made a wonderful mess of five of those six relationships and the sixth one paid me back — with compound interest — on behalf of the other five. Karma really sucks sometimes.

I must have burned off all the bad relationship karma, though, because I ended up marrying WAY above myself. Tomorrow will be sixteen years since Budge and I went on a Hummer ride through the woods at Camp Awanita in northern Greenville County. By the end of that weekend, we loved each other. The rest is history. Why that girl stays with me, I’ll never know, but the Lord above knows my heart that I’m mighty glad she does stay.

I have no children . . . at least none who have come knocking on my door yet. A handful of nights in my undergraduate years are a mite hazy, but so far, so good.

Budge and I tried for awhile, were unsuccessful and eventually resigned ourselves to childlessness. I don’t really want to pass on my crazy gene to some innocent baby anyway. As long as I have my Budge, it’s enough.

I would like to state for the record that I know for certain that I didn’t get to 40 on my own. Much as I like to act the part of the rugged, needs-no-one individualist, I know I’d never made it without a lot of really special people. Budge and Mama have taken the lion’s share of my issues. I was blessed and I DO mean blessed, with four AMAZING grandparents. Three of them have gone to a well deserved reward and one doesn’t remember she’s a grandmother anymore, but I still love her. No child / teen / young man was EVER loved as much as I was. I’ve had a lot of problems, but being loved wasn’t one of them.

Of all my friends down the years, Robby T, Duane C, and Brian C got me through some of the roughest patches  They faced shotguns, knives, bottles, razor blades, drunken rages and more and managed to keep me going when I didn’t know what was wrong with me but I was lashing out at everything — including myself. I’ll write a post soon about each of them. They each deserve it.

I had more wonderful teachers and professors in my life than I could ever list. I’d leave someone out because my memory isn’t as good as it once was and I wouldn’t hurt any feelings for the world. I do know, however, that had it not been for the DIRECT intervention of Mr. Mills and Mr. Linville at LDHS 55 in 1989 during my senior year, I’d have been expelled and probably had my life ruined.

Forty years old and I can honestly say I'm twice the man I once was. Of course that's in girth, but why quibble?

If I could go back, I’m just like everyone else — I’d do a lot of things differently. I’d have been a real big brother to Nick instead of some stranger who showed up at odd times for odd lengths of stay. I think of all I missed out on when he was growing up, and I could go out and hang myself. In a similar vein, I’d have forged a better relationship with Daddy if it killed both of us (which it likely would have). I’d have tried harder in school — all my schools. I wouldn’t have bought six rings and made five messes with them. I wouldn’t have worried Mama so much. I’d have tried to get help for my Issues sooner. I’d have built bridges towards people instead of putting up walls and fake facades to keep them out. I’d have tried harder to help my beloved niece by marriage have a stable life and if it pissed people off, oh well.

Yessir, I’d have done A LOT of things differently. All the computer screens in all the world don’t have enough pixels to list all the changes I’d make.

But I can’t. We only get ONE shot at this life, Shirley Maclaine’s beliefs notwithstanding.

So if you’re reading this and you’ve been the victim of one of my rages or idiotic faux pas, please accept my apology and know that I probably beat myself up over it more than you could possibly imagine. On the other hand, if you’re one of the multitude of people who’ve given me a hand or a smile or a kind word over the years, thank you. You may not know it, but more than once a smile from a stranger or unexpected call from a friend was the only thing that kept my head on my shoulders instead of being sprayed all over a wall somewhere from a gunshot. You helped, even if you didn’t know it.

So, I’m forty. I’m going to eat chick pea chicken tonight and go out celebrating my birthday AND Budge’s Saturday birthday tomorrow night. I’m going to take it easy for a few days and see if I can make some kind of plan for the next half of my life. We’ll just have to see what happens.

Love y’all and, as always, wash those feet!

Jan5

A Pirate Looks at 40 – part deux

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Anyone doing any self-reflection must eventually follow Bunyan’s hearty Christian into the Slough of Despond and face his regrets in life. For my personal regrets, I am in the same class with Ol’ Blue Eyes and The King who sang, “Regrets, I’ve had a few, but then again too few to mention.” Well, that’s half right I suppose. I’ve got a few more than a few, but only a few are still keeping me up at night. Most are the garden variety “woulda, shoulda, couldas” that I think everyone faces at sometime or another unless he’s very lucky or just doesn’t care about his legacy at all.

 

For me, though, one of the biggest of my regrets is having never enlisted in any branch of the military. My love affair with the military began with Top Gun. Remember back in ’86? Back when Tom Cruise was normal and Val Kilmer was thin?

THIS is what happens when you leave your wingman.

I walked out of the movie theater after watching it twice back to back and walked straight to the recruitment office and told the sergeant behind the desk I wanted to enlist and fly jets. He smiled at me and said, “Just saw Top Gun, son?” I nodded vigorously. Then he pointed out I needed to finish college to be a pilot and it would be a lot easier to finish college if I started, then graduated, high school.

That was one jacked up piece of Ronnie Ray-gun era propaganda and I sopped it up with a biscuit! To this day, I maintain that men may weep at only three movie scenes: 1) when Ol’ Yeller dies in his movie, 2) when Old Dan and Little Anne die in the equally brutal tearjerker Where the Red Fern Grows, and 3) when Goose dies after the crash in Top Gun. If a man doesn’t tear up at those three scenes, he has no emotions at all and no woman should consider him as a suitable match!

Then, when I was a junior in high school, I fell in love with the US Naval Academy and I went balls to the wall trying to get in. I had the grades, and I’m pretty sure I could’ve passed the physical (that was a LONG time ago). Unfortunately, I didn’t have an appointment. For those who don’t know, unless you have a parent win the Medal of Honor, a member of your Congressional delegation has to appoint you to the Academy. Other than Strom the Undying, I didn’t even know a member of my delegation. So that was a dream that went by the wayside. Looking back, I think that huge disappointment was what set the stage for my Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Senior Year. It sure didn’t help matters any.

After the Academy fell through, I was going to enlist in the US Marine Corp and be one of “The Few and the Proud”.

I think I'd have looked devastatingly handsome in a set of dress blues.

A car wreck took care of that. I have a mushy puckered divot in the outside of my left thigh from where a Jeep bumper took out a chunk of me. When I went to Fort Jackson for my military physical, the first thing the examining doctor did was shove his fingers right into the middle of that divot. I had just enough presence of mind not to take a swing at him as I crumpled to the floor. It’s not pain so much as it’s a weird creepy reaction but I can’t deal with having it touched. I get violently nauseous. Capt. Doc dismissed me right then by saying, “Assuming you pass Basic, you won’t pass the POW training. When you get ‘captured,’ that’ll be the point they start on. Sorry, kid, I’m just saving you a lot of trouble.”

So that’s how I ended up watching some deadly fireworks through night vision on CNN from a musty old couch in my dorm room the night GW’s daddy, GHW, started bombing Saddam the first time in ’91. Something has never felt complete about me because of that. Papa Wham was a soldier in The Big Red One. The First Infantry Division. His DD-214 reads like an atlas of the European Theater of WWII: Tunisia, Anzio, Sicily, Rome, Normandy, the Rhineland. My great-grandfather was a member of the American Expeditionary Force in WWI. I had relatives on both sides of the War Between the States. The men in my family have always been soldiers.

Daddy, as I’ve said before, went to Vietnam, and that’s the main reason I wanted to be in the military, and not just to sit around. I wanted to go to a combat zone and fight hard. I guess part of me hoped I’d either get killed in some gallant action and Daddy would be insanely proud of his medal winning son, or the experience of having people try to kill you

Every one of those flags covers someone who DID SOMETHING with his or her life.

just because of your uniform would’ve put me on level footing with him. I just have a feeling he’d think I was more of a man if I’d been shot at on the battlefield like so many of my forefathers.

Even today, if I thought I could manage it, I’d take my 12 gauge Winchester pump shotgun and head for Afghanistan tohunt Bin-Laden. It might seem a little crazy, but then again, I AM a little crazy. I don’t know if I’d find the old boy, but never underestimate the ability of a crazy, wild-eyed Southern boy. Oh my, and if I did find him . . . I haven’t ever killed anyone, but they tell me there’s a first time for everything.

It sure would make hitting 40 a lot easier to take. I’d at least feel like I accomplished something with my four decades!

More on regrets tomorrow. Man, it’s getting close.

Love y’all. Keep those feet clean and take care of each other.