Category Archives: A Story

Jul3

How I Learned The Beautiful Game

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All across the South, daddies place a football in their sons’ cribs hoping to inculcate a desire to excel on the gridiron. By the same token, all across South America, padres place a futbol in seus filhos cribs hoping to inculcate a desire to excel on the pitch. The former is knowledge gained from personal observation; the latter Brenno told me.

Brenno was an exchange student from Rio de Janerio. He was a natural athlete and a fabulous kid to boot. The year he wrestled for me, he made the state quarterfinals having never seen a wrestling mat before he stepped onto ours. He was region champion and placed in every tournament we entered. As amazing a natural wrestler as he was, his real sport was futebol — what we Americans call soccer. In “The Beautiful Game”, he was phenomenal.

Now in most of South Carolina, soccer is ignored at best and denounced as communist at worst. Our program was five years old and had seen six coaches. This year, no one had volunteered to coach. Coach Candler stopped by my room one day and asked, “Wham, will you please take soccer this year?” Gentle readers, please note you could inscribe every jot and tittle of my soccer knowledge at that moment on the back of a postage stamp with wide margins all around, but Budge and I had just moved out so the bit of extra money would help. With a furtive nod, I began my year as a soccer coach.  Luckily, I had yet to meet Brenno.

I was sitting next to Brenno on the bus ride to a match when he asked, in the accent that assured him a gorgeous prom date, “Coach, You gonna coach futbol this year.”  He followed up with, “We gonna run a 3-3-4 or a 1-6-4 or what?” Brenno read my panicked, dumbfounded look and said, “Coach, you doan know a ting about futbol, do you?” I shook my head. He smiled and said, “Is okay, Coach, I din’ tink you looked like a futboler. How ’bout I put dem in de rat places, an’ you make dem roan? ‘K?” I suddenly felt a little better about spring.

First day of soccer practice, I met the team in the parking lot so we could walk together to the field. Brenno asked, “Dis where we gonna play, coach?” I laughed thinking he was having a joke at my expense.

He wasn’t.

We walked to the stadium and Brenno saw the field. We had a typical field for a 2A school with no budget for capital improvements; it was two pies and a barbed wire fence short of a cow pasture. I was looking over some drills I’d found on the ‘Net when one of the guys said, “Coach, something’s bad wrong with Brenno.” I walked over and he was teary-eyed, staring at the field as if he’d just discovered El Dorado. I put my arm around his shoulders — well, more like the middle of his back — and said, “What’s wrong, dude?” If I live to be ten centuries old, I’ll never forget how much I’d taken for granted all my life when he asked, “Coach, we gonna play on grass?” The last word came out reverently.

Brenno had never played on grass. The one grass field he knew of was used ONLY by “AAA League,” — a pro league. He and his friends played on a dirt field free of stones but hard as slate. He had scars on his legs from falling while playing.

He was amazed that we had FIFTEEN perfectly round leather regulation soccer balls. He was used to kicking made up balls of tape wrapped around twine or some such concoction. I asked him what would happen if he had that bag of balls in his neighborhood. He said, “Oh, Coach, I could never keep such a treasure. My friends and I would take them to the priest to keep safe and give out when we played; our children and grandchildren would play with them.”

Brenno took that bag of treasure home with him. I told Coach C. to take it out of my pay if he had to. He didn’t, but it would have been worth it to see the look on Brenno’s face when we gave the full bag to him at the end-of-the-season banquet. We’d  had the best season in the program’s history — we only lost one more game than we won. Brenno scored every goal and was co-MVP of the conference along with a Mexican exchange student at our rival school.

As much as he taught me and the others about “futbol,” his real gift was teaching us how much we have to be thankful for and just how much we take for granted. I miss him and I hope he’s okay and still playing with those balls.

Love y’all and wash the soccer field dust off your feet! 🙂

Jul1

Godspeed Little Grey Ghost

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My Two Fuzzy Angels. Thomas (L) and Loki (R) Requiescant in pace, boys.

It’s never good news when the vet calls herself instead of letting the assistants call. Those girls — in their late teens and early 20s — are spared the trauma of having to tell someone part of his soul has been ripped out and will never be replaced. Knowing this, my eyes were already brimming over when I heard our vet, Dr. Keller, on the other end of the phone Tuesday afternoon, June 29, 2010. Before she said anything, I said, attempting to project calm and failing miserably, “It was to widespread, wasn’t it?” She replied, “Yes, sir, and it wasn’t in his intestines like we thought. It had gotten his pancreas and spleen.” I managed to get out, “Have you . . .?” before my voice and composure failed me and she said, “Yes sir, I just let him go. He went with his chin and belly being rubbed, just like you asked.”

Barely two years after losing my beloved Thomas O’Malley to the rainbow bridge, our Loki, our little grey ghost, was gone.

He was a little grey ball of fuzz when Budge brought him home April Fool’s Day eleven years ago. We didn’t name him right off, but watched to see what his personality would be. Thomas walked over and sniffed him, then promptly bopped him on the head and proceeded to pin him to the ground and groom him to our household’s standards. Pecking order thus established, he then allowed the newcomer to roam the house at will. When the grey ball of energy finished turning over what could be turned over and getting into what could be gotten into, I dubbed him Loki, after the Norse god of mischief.

For the next eleven years he was a constant companion to Budge and me. He would move from lap to lap, occupying whichever space Thomas had not claimed. If no laps were available, he’d find a beam of sunshine and fit himself into it for as long as he could. If someone was in bed, Loki was with him or her. He loved sleep. For the first several years, he would curl into an arc atop Budge’s head and sleep all night, but when Budge went to Hawaii for two weeks a few years back, he abandoned his usual spot and until his last night with us, he slept at our feet. He was an absolutely amazingly extraordinary cat and we loved him dearly. When Thomas died, Loki could tell how sad I was and he spent hours in my lap trying to comfort me. He is currently the only cat I’ve ever personally known who was delighted to have his belly rubbed.

Then he started getting skinny for no good reason.

Then we went to the vet and had x-rays.

The ugly dark area was plain as day.

Dr. Keller scheduled surgery.

Budge and I took him in at 7:30 that morning.

Dr. Keller called at 2:00.

He was gone.

I do not handle death well. I was alone in the house so I did what anyone who just felt his heart torn in two would do, I curled up in the fetal position on the floor and squalled like a baby with colic. In between waves of unbearable anguish, I managed to call Budge and tell her, call Mama and tell her, and text message two of Loki’s favorite people — our buddy, Laura, and our niece, Kayla. Then I gave myself over to grief.

Budge found me in the floor clutching the shirt I’d worn that morning when we took him in. It still had bits of his fur stuck to it. Gradually, eventually, I subsided into quiet sobbing and then I dried my eyes. We talked about the wonderful times we’d had as a family of two humans and fuzzy babies. We had no doubt we made the right choice. Doing nothing would have sentenced our beautiful sweet boy to wasting and pain in just a few more weeks. As it was, we can remember him bright eyed and precious. In a few days, I’ll pick up his ashes and place them, along with his picture, next to Thomas’ remains and, at least, I’ll know where he is at all times.

Part of me, the part that abhors agony and emotional outburst, sometimes wishes I didn’t have to deal with the loss of such a dear friend, but the other side of me knows Loki won’t be the last. If the world should stand long enough, Beau, Jack, Milo, and Ares will follow Thomas and Loki over the rainbow bridge. I know if I should make it to Heaven I will find them there and if any armchair theologian should question my belief, I’ll tell him the same thing a cat loving pastor told me once: “Of course our pets will be in Heaven . . . without them, it won’t BE Heaven.”

So, as bad as it hurts, I know in my heart that I couldn’t trade the pain of losing them for a life without having had them in it. Dr. Seuss, that precious and beloved writer for children said it best:

“Don’t weep and frown because it’s over; laugh and smile because it happened.”

Love you, my fuzzy angels.

Love y’all, too.

Keep those feet clean now. 🙂

Jun16

KeeKee Goes Postal in The Walmart

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"Your day is about to get a whole lot worse!"

KeeKee, my beloved sister-in-law on Budge’s side has been under a wee bit of stress lately. Her job as a substitute organ donation coordinator is stressful in the best of times. She travels around the southeast filling in for coordinators on vacation or maternity leave. Her job consists of going into a waiting room in a hospital and ask a family if she can harvest their brain dead loved one’s organs. That’s a tough job. Very important and rewarding, but seriously difficult. The travel schedule doesn’t help much either and she has a rather interesting traveling companion — my 18 month old nephew. To top it all off, her God-I-hope-soon-to-be-ex-husband, my wife’s older brother, is a rotating SOB. (he’s an SOB any way you look at him.)

Well all this week, KeeKee has been subbing at a big hospital in Jacksonville, FLA. She’s also been staying with some of her friends who have twins Ry-Ry’s age so they help by babysitting. Oh yeah, she’s been on call for seven straight days and coming home to a two bedroom house with seven people in it. KeeKee is just about at the end of her rope. So, last night, she and one of the girls take Ry-Ry to “The WalMart” just to combat cabin fever.

Cut to the clothing section about twenty minutes later. Ry-Ry is in his buggy seat and KeeKee gets just a tiny bit too close to a table of t-shirts. Ry-Ry, being the curious and exploratory tyke that he is, reached out and grabbed a t-shirt and yanked.  It happened to be the BOTTOM t-shirt. That particular stack promptly ended up in “The Walmart” floor. Now KeeKee is a very conscientious and neat person. Not wanting to cause any undue work for the sales clerk folding clothes two tables away, she bends down, picks up the pile o’ shirts and starts to refold them. That would have been the end of it, but she happened to glance at the clerk to give a little smile . . . and saw the clerk look at Ry-Ry and ROLL HER EYES. Time for Mama Bear to make an appearance.

KeeKee walked up to the clerk and calmly said, “I’m sorry my son pulled the shirts off. He’s just a little boy and didn’t know better.” At this point, the clerk COULD have just smiled and nodded and that would have been the end. Nope. This lady must have had some sort of death wish because she turned slowly towards KeeKee and ROLLED HER EYES AND SUCKED HER TEETH!! Something deep in KeeKee that had been brewing for weeks on end snapped just then. She locked eyes with Mrs. Death Wish and calmly said, “You’re having a bad day, aren’t you?” Without waiting for any response, she continued, “Well, sister, it’s just about to get worse!” With that, KeeKee returned to the t-shirt table, stuck her arm under one end of the shirts and with one graceful movement, swept the entire table of shirts into the floor.

Then, shaking with a mixture of emotions, she marched to the front of the building and asked to speak to the manager in charge. “Mister,” she began, “you have me on video pushing a table of shirts into the floor. I did it because YOUR CLERK is rude and ROLLED HER EYES AT ME!! I’ve got a good mind to go BACK over there and TAKE MY LITTLE BOY OUT OF HIS SEAT SO SHE CAN SEE WHAT HE CAN REALLY DO!!”  The manager stood there obviously stifling a nervous titter and assured KeeKee he’d take care of it, at which KeeKee said, “WELL SEE THAT YOU DO AND I’LL BE BACK TOMORROW NIGHT TO CHECK!!!” Then she spun on her heel and swept regally out the door and to the car to break down in a deluge of nervous and angry tears.

The take home point of this story? Don’t mess with a Mama Bear on the edge!

Love y’all. Keep those feet clean!

Jun14

Good Directions

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Turn off the paved road . . .

If the US Navy should, for whatever reason, wish to deposit a Tomahawk cruise missile on my front door a la the First Gulf War, they will be, as the teens say, S.O.L. because Tomahawks are guided by GPS navigation and GPS will not get you to my house. The crazy thing is, I don’t even live up in Montana or North Dakota where they go ahead and TELL you GPS won’t work. I live in South Cackalacky, BUT I live in The Sticks, The Boonies, BF Egypt, etc. Yep, GPS is pretty useless out here.

Well, I guess I should say that “civilian” GPS is useless out here. Main reason? Two words: road names. Two More? Turning directions. See, to give directions to my home place, you must have at least a passing knowledge of the history of my particular dot on the map. For example, if you don’t know where the Old Williams’ Place that burned down once stood, you’re going to get lost when told by one of my erstwhile neighbors that you need to “turn by the Old Williams’ Place that burned down a while back.”

Likewise, if you aren’t sure which of the seemingly endless monolithic boulders dotting the pastures around my rural homestead is “Dove Blind Rock,” the knowledge that you have to turn left two miles past “Dove Blind Rock” isn’t going to be much use to you. Also, as I alluded to earlier, most of the roads around my house don’t have “official” names and the “unofficial” names can vary slightly depending on which generation of folk is giving you the directions.

Finally, sheer distance will defeat all but the most intrepid adventurers who seek Wham land. The citified term “block” as in “go two blocks” has no meaning at all around my stomping grounds. Our addresses don’t change at the whim of a side road. Mama’s house address (or 911 address, since she gets her mail at the post office) is 526 Darby Circle. Meanwhile, my grandmother and great-aunt’s childhood home, which is Mama’s closest related building is 498 Darby Circle. No houses lie between. Out here, the addresses tell the distance in feet from the nearest intersection.

One person who followed me home from the school where I taught told me, upon getting out of his car that I, “lived in another Twilight Time Zone!” Despite having made believers of some, most people laugh when I tell them, turn off State Highway 14 and drive until you are CERTAIN you have gotten completely lost and at that point you’ll go about another two miles and turn right by Dove Blind Rock onto Old Hog Pen Road.

They’re the ones who just laugh and say, “I’ll just punch your address into my Tom-Tom.”

Yeah, good luck with that one, Goober.

Love y’all! Stay cool and keep your feet clean!