Category Archives: My Opinion of Something

Nov14

On Rest Areas

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One of my good friends currently lives downstate from me a ways and I ride down to check on her every so often. One Friday in the spring, I asked Budge if we had anything planned for the next day; she told me no, so I got up early, went down to see my bud, found her doing well, and headed on back to the house.

Footage from my last endoscopy.

I had just left the main interstate for the spur leading towards home when the problems started. From well within my innards came The Burble. The Burble is the early warning sign meaning, in this case, last night’s spicy Italian meatballs had reached the end of their sojourn in the Wilderness and were ready to cross the river into the Promised Land.

Over time, I have learned The Burble is ignored at my peril. My body is being polite to me, but he doesn’t repeat himself often. The Burble is the reason I carry a roll of shop quality paper towels in my Element at all times. Even though I was a Boy Scout for only a scant three months, their motto — “Be Prepared” — left a deep and abiding impression upon me.

In fact, a one-way conversation with The Burble on an overnight trip to Camp Old Indian led to my enlistment in the Scouts being so preternaturally short. No one told me until we arrived said camp lacked indoor plumbing. All manner of numbers 1 and 2 would be addressed in the cozy confines of the various privies and outhouses scattered throughout the grounds. I was forced, at The Burble’s insistence, to venture — flashlight in hand — to one of these shanties where I encountered a dearth of bathroom tissue and a plethora of sable-hued eight-legged denizens with bright crimson bellies. As soon as the bus wheels stopped rolling in front of Gray Court Town Hall the next morning, I turned in my uniform.

But I digress.

By some degrees of trial and error, I have discerned The Burble gives about a ten minute or ten-mile heads up. As I had already passed the last exit with nice restaurants, gas stations, and — consequently — clean facilities, I was forced against my will upon the mercy of the SC Department of Transportation. Briefly, I had to resort to a Rest Area.

Any port in a storm, eh?

I don’t like rest areas. First of all, I’ve seen too many episodes of Criminal Minds and spent too much time watching true crime stories on the Investigation Discovery Channel. Pulling off the highway at a rest stop to me, especially as I was alone at the time, seemed an engraved invitation to become the next lead story on the Channel Four WYFF News at 6. I could already hear Mike Cogsdill reading the tagline, “A fat man was found strangled, butchered, and partially eaten in an upstate rest area this afternoon — a serial killer or rabid polar bear [too much Lost] is suspected in the brutal slaying.”

Unfortunately, serial killer and wild animals or not, The Burble would not be denied or gainsaid so off the road I eased.

As luck would have it, this particular outpost of indoor facilities was remarkably clean and block glass walls and windows let in copious amounts of cheerful noonday sunshine. My optimism was short-lived, however, as soon as I made the turn into the restroom stall area and discovered waiting for me the SECOND reason I despise rest areas — a gleaming row of four “standard sized” stainless steel restroom stalls with a single “special needs” stall on the end.

For the record, so-called standard sized stalls were designed before the standard sized human bottom had expanded to its present dimensions. All over the news and internet is the cry Americans are becoming more and more overweight and larger . . . public rest room designers apparently didn’t get the memo.

Now don’t get me wrong. I am in no way laying claim to a standard sized sitter downer. In point of fact, I cannot boast of a single standard sized body part of any real consequence. As I have reiterated in this blog before, I am NOT a small man. I was born 10 pounds and 5 ounces back in the day when such super-sized offspring were vastly rarer than they are today.

It’s safe to say I haven’t shrunk in the intervening years.

So, I began the onerous task of choosing a stall. Stall 4 was disgusting. Some people don’t know what a flush handle is. Stall 3 had a water leak seeping from the back of the toilet and soaking the floor. Stall 1 was out of T.P. Process of elimination pointed to Stall 2. So, I shoehorned my double-wide rear end and equally broad shoulders into the stainless coffin, placed my cell phone within reach on the floor, and, forcibly cock-eyed on the seat by the idiotic placement of the T.P. dispenser, proceeded with, to quote Bachman-Turner Overdrive, “Taking care of business.”

Now those who know me are well-versed in my hatred of cell phones. To me they are invasions of my privacy and solitude and a general nuisance and if it were not for possible emergencies involving my family, I would throw mine into the nearest body of water. However, I always carry one into public restrooms with me to guard against the very real possibility of my becoming hopelessly lodged in the stall . At least with a phone near to hand, I can call *HP and order up some help. Wouldn’t you love to hear such a call go out on the radio? “Car 54, we have an obese man trapped in a rest room stall in the rest area at mile marker 13, please meet the EMTs there to begin extraction with the Jaws of Life.” Sure, I’d be the laughing-stock of the aforementioned 6 O’Clock News, but at least I wouldn’t have to wait there until I starved down enough to stand on my own and walk out.

But again, I digress.

Samuel L. Jackson Toilet Paper: It’s rough and it’s tough and it don’t take any crap off anybody.

So “my business” being a fait accompli after spending the better part of a half-hour wrestling with the roll of Samuel L. Jackson T.P.,  my posterior was adequately serviced, and I found I, in fact, wasn’t stuck this time and managed to rise, adjust my clothing, and leave the stall to wash my hands, return to my car, and go on my merry way having killed two birds with one stone to wit, taking my daily constitutional AND getting in my cardio for the day. It was an unusually simple affair all the way around.

Now, some of the more astute of you will no doubt ask me why I didn’t just avail myself of the much larger “special needs” stall and save myself time, trouble, and stress. The answer lies in my fatalistic viewpoint. I know with absolute certainty the moment I ever succumb to the spacious temptation of the “special needs” stall in all its roomy glory, a bus carrying the entire U.S. Army Paralympics Team will pull into the rest area and I will emerge from the SINGLE stall available to these heroes standing on my two wholly undamaged legs to face a group of our nation’s finest seated in stoic silence in their wheelchairs. NO THANK YOU! I have enough bad karma in my life without that little scene playing out.

Love ya’ll! Restock the T.P. and keep those feet clean!

Nov4

Election ’10 is Over!

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The people of America have spoken once again! I wanted to wait to add my two cents to the rest of the pundits out there, but it seems the first wave of analysis has died down so I thought I’d kick in my views.

I know that all across the country right now some are rejoicing and all but dancing in the streets while in those same cities and towns, just down the street is weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth. I’ve heard it on the news and the godforsaken talking head shows and the even MORE godforsaken talk RADIO shows that the current election results are either a positive indication that the country is moving in the right direction OR a definite sign that the Apocalypse is finally upon us!

Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t that pretty much what was tossed around in the LAST election?

I don’t know how any of my readers feel about the election results except for Budge and she feels the same way I do which is, so what? I have better things to do than get wrapped around the axle over one group of rich politicians leaving office to make room for another group of rich politicians to move into those offices. Yes, I voted Tuesday because it is one of the duties of a citizen and I did some research before I voted. Not everyone I voted for won and not everyone I voted for lost. In the end, though, my feelings are distinctly  . . . meh, who cares? Now I know some of you who read this blog will think I should be shot for saying that it doesn’t matter who is elected, but that is exactly what I am saying and I’ll give three reasons why:

1) No elected person, office, or group “runs the country”. Bureaucrats “run the country” and they aren’t elected, they are spawned. Just remember, no matter what party is in office, the DMV is still the DMV.

2) As a general rule, the candidates taking office aren’t that different from the candidates leaving office. One wears red and one wears blue. One rides a donkey and one rides an elephant. All that means to me is one group is a bunch of asses and the other produces a huge load of . . . stuff out the back end. All politicians are generally the same. They are wealthy enough to not have to have a real job so they have time to campaign. They are passionate about what they think is right or wrong and they have families and friends and hopes and dreams just like everyone else. (Except for Dick Cheney and Nancy Pelosi. I’m pretty sure they are aliens in human disguise)

3) The newly elected all have great ideas about “what they are going to do when they get to Washington!” but reality will set in for them right after the first vote on the floor of Congress. If anyone can truly be said to be in control of the US Congress, it is not the Speaker of the House or the Vice President in the Senate. Instead it is a long dead man named Henry Martyn Robert. Yes, that Robert of Robert’s Rules of Order fame. The ghost of Henry Martyn Robert will dictate who can say what and when and provide a way to block any progress at all if someone desires it.

Look at it this way. Anyone who has completed a basic course in US Civics can tell you that ANY legislation that passes through our triumvirate of branches is going to do so at roughly the same rate that pitch balls drop from the funnel in The Thomas Parnell Pitch Drop Experiment.

The US Government is woefully inefficient. A Southern Baptist church congregation can decide to change service times or musical styles faster than big, earthshaking legislation that will really affect our daily lives can pass Congress. For example, it took 79 YEARS (from 1789 to 1868) and a freaking WAR  for black people in the US to be declared citizens and even after that it took another 100 years for them to be guaranteed BASIC CIVIL RIGHTS.

It took 131 YEARS for WOMEN to be allowed to vote and they make up HALF the FREAKING POPULATION!!

Nothing gets done fast in Washington. If the Founding Fathers saw to anything, they saw to that and they had very good reason. They lived in a time when what we call dictators today were called kings and in a lot of places one man, just because of his position of birth, could have your head cut off with a single pronouncement. They knew what tyranny REALLY was and I imagine they are rolling over in their graves at the thought of a whining bunch of coddled children fussing that their government doesn’t work. Those men made sure it WOULDN’T work, except when it does.

So take a Xanax folks and be happy that we live somewhere that government change doesn’t mean riots, juntas, or widespread killings. Sure, your candidate may not have won, but I promise the Brownshirts are emphatically NOT coming for you any time soon.

For now, people, no matter WHAT any of the party pundits may say, we live in the land of the free and the home of the brave. Stop griping and enjoy it while we still can. Remember, the Greek democracies didn’t last forever; the Roman Republic didn’t last forever . . . neither will we, but til then, it’s still the greatest country — warts and all — on the planet.

Love y’all and get those feet cleaned!

Oct30

Me and Freddy

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Tomorrow is the celebration of the ancient Celtic feast of Samhain. For the less pagan among us, it’s All Hallow’s Eve. Most of us folks around here just call it Halloween and it’s a time to dress up in a silly costume and eat way too much candy (if you’re a kid), dress up in a silly to slutty costume and drink way too much alcohol (if you’re a typical college student), or dress in the most comfortable things you own to walk / drive all over town so your little goblins and their friends can load up on carbohydrate laden loot (if you’re a parent).

One time-honored tradition for Halloweiners of all ages, though, is the Fright Fest Movie Marathon. That’s when normal, sane folks cut the lights out and cut the DVD player on to watch the craziest, goriest, and scariest movies available to modern man. What results is everyone trying to scare everyone else and lots of jumping and general mayhem. Most people think it’s a terrific way to spend an evening.

I am most emphatically NOT one of those people. When it comes to cinematic terror, I am the most lily-liver coward in the room. You could launch aircraft from the yellow streak down my back. I simply don’t go to or watch horror / thriller / scary / suspenseful movies unless I am tricked or forced (and by forced, I mean you’d better bring the BIG boys) into watching them. My reason is simple — I have bad nerves, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, and an overactive imagination.

In other words, I’m jumpier than a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs at the BEST of times. I don’t need any more terror in my life. This seems quite strange, I know, coming from someone who grew up with Michael, Jason, and Freddy. In some ways, my tween and teen years were the golden age of slasher flicks. All my friends ate them up.

Not me.

The focus of this particular fiasco is the time I got tricked into going to the first “Nightmare on Elm Street” at the old Oaks Twin Theater in Laurens when I was around 13 or so. Now the Oaks, like a lot of theaters back then, had heavy velvet-like floor to ceiling that hung about a foot or so from the cement block walls of the building’s outside. That space was just wide enough for the theater employees to slip into and go up and down the side aisles unnoticed.

This provided ample opportunity for mischief.

Well, most everyone knows about Freddy Kruger and that stupid bladed glove of his — NOW.

We didn’t THEN.

I’m sitting with three other guys two rows down from the mom who brought us and I’m hunkered down as much as my tubby little frame would let me, watching the movie through my fingers and it’s barely past the opening credits. Then, as if my nerves weren’t already shot, random screams started erupting from up and down both sides of the theater. We were down front, so all the screams were behind us. I had no idea what was going on and I was scared poop-less.

I was stuck next to the wall; this turned out to be unfortunate.

At a terrifying moment where Freddy jumps out from nowhere, the curtain next to me parts and a bladed glove come slashing down towards me, followed by an arm in a stripped sweater and a grotesque, hat topped face and head. I screamed like a little girl. Thankfully for my pride, so did my compatriots.

Now, I knew deep down in my psyche that this was a theatrical stunt because things like Freddy didn’t exist, but at the time, the part of the brain tasked with relaying that information to the rest of my mind was on lunch break or something so the message didn’t get out and the more “primitive” sections of the old gray matter took over.

Now folks, I learned early on in life that white boys can’t jump and fat kids can’t run. Whenever my “fight or flight” reflex kicked in, I knew it was root hog or die. Running just meant I’d still get the wedgie and I’d be tired and sweaty in the bargain.

So this arm is coming at me and I’m screaming and my buds are screaming and the folks in the rows in front and back of us are screaming and I’ve got no where to go and nothing to do and I’m terrified and trapped.  Just so you know, a terrified fat kid backed into the corner of a movie seat is a dangerous and unpredictable thing.

I wasn’t sure if the wetness on my pants was from a sudden loss of bladder control or sudden loss of 48 ounce Big Burper slushie control. (It was the slurpee I discovered later) All I was certain of was I was going to die and I determined not to go out like the chumps on the movie screen so when the blades brushed my cheek, I reached up, latched on with both hands, and proceeded to chomp down amidships of that sweater clad arm like a mule eating corn. I swear I felt my jaws lock and my teeth touch bone. I was like Ricki-Ticki-Tavi fighting Nag the Cobra; if I was going to die, at least let me be found with my teeth sunk into my adversary.

At that point, the arm started to shake violently and another whole set of shrieks got added to the surrounding cacophony which just caused me to bite down even harder. Suddenly, the grimace on the masked face was real, actual pain. That’s when my buds started banging me on the back and trying to get me to let go because they’d realized that it was all a stunt. I guess that’s when the message relaying part of my brain decided to return from the potty and I understood what was going on. The poor guy who’d been going up and down behind the curtains scaring people was holding his arm and cussing a blue streak. We didn’t see the rest of the movie.

Just so you know, if they cut the lights on in a movie theater and the show isn’t over, that’s not a “good thing.”

That’s just one of many incidents of my bad reactions to a horror movie. Later on, maybe I’ll tell you about why I was banned (much to my relief) from the campus haunted house in college or perhaps about the time I dislocated my then-girlfriend’s shoulder during Pet Semetary.

Til then, though, Trick or Treat; love y’all and keep those feet clean!

 

Oct25

A Toy Never Played With . . .

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I was looking through the weekly sales ads yesterday afternoon and making out my shopping plan for the coming week when I stopped at the Toys ‘R Us spread. Right on the front was one of the most elusive creatures I’ve ever encountered . . . a for real Play-Doh Playset.

I, like so many of my generation, love Play-Doh for its comprehensive sensory buffet. It feels wonderful squishing between our fingers. The colors (except the baby poo yellow) are vibrant and alive. Of course, most of all, is the SMELL. Nothing on the planet smells like Play-Doh. It is one of the most distinctive smells known. In one of those polls “they” always talk about but no one ever really sees, Play-Doh was supposedly the most recognizable smell among Westerners. Okay, I’ll go with it.

Now, I can’t verify any of this information. Everything I know about the wonder toy that is Play-Doh has been gathered third and fourth hand over many years of ardent and tiresome research. The reason I lack any empirical evidence on the toy of the gods is quite simple — I, nor any of my friends, have ever managed to hold a ball of Play-Doh long enough to form any lasting opinions.

As a child, I craved the Play-Doh sets I saw on Saturday morning cartoons. The Holy Grail for me was that dude that you stuffed the Play-Doh in his bottom and pushed a lever and strings of the stuff came out of his head as “hair” and you could cut it!! Unlike my cousin Josie’s Barbie dolls, apparently this “hair” could “grow” back after I scalped the plastic skull with a plastic razor. Alas, I was never to find out.

My mother is a saint. Growing up, she doted on me like a chosen lamb. She did, however, have one fault that threatened to slip a wedge into our relationship. She adamantly refused to allow me to have or receive as a gift ANY Play-Doh. In this stance, she was not alone. NONE of the mothers of my circle of friends would even think of entertaining the thought of allowing this dreaded substance into their houses.

No amount of reasoning could sway them. The stuff was non-toxic and biodegradable. Didn’t matter.

It provided hours of creative fun. Didn’t care.

No, Play-Doh was banned from my childhood for one simple reason.

Carpet.

My mother was convinced that any Play-Doh she allowed past her picket line into the house would inevitably be slurped into the powder blue shag (it was the ’70s, get off me) she was so proud of. Mama LOVED her carpet, even after I took a tube of bright orange lipstick . . . well, let’s leave that story for another time. Mama loved her carpet. Therefore, I was not allowed to play with Play-Doh. Every one of my friends got the same story, “you can’t have Play-Doh because it’ll get all in the carpet!!” My childhood passed never getting to enjoy the sweet fragrance of petroleum distillates on my hands all because of carpet.

I was not alone in my misery, however, as Budge related to me her trials and tribulations upon getting a nice 4-pack of Play-Doh for a birthday. Her mother relented and let her play with it . . . provided she sat at the table, which was over a linoleum floor and covered by three layers of newspaper. NEWSPAPER! Has anyone ever seen what happens to Play-Doh that comes in contact with newsprint? It’s not pretty.

It seems nothing has changed over the decades either. I was tending my next door neighbor’s house last week while they were all on vacation. The only child of the family is a wildly intelligent little boy who loves to play with blocks and trains and everything else. When I was scooping out some dog feed, however, I noticed — high on a shelf in the utility room — a Play-Doh Play Factory. It had a sticky note on it from the little fella’s mom to his dad that said,

“Don’t let Carson have this because he’ll get it on the carpet!”

Some things never change 😦

What about any of my two readers out there? What were your experiences with Play-Doh? Did you get to make the little hamburgers with the slice of cheese on top and the molded bun? Let me know in the comments if you got to have “hours of educational creative fun!”

Til then, love y’all and wash those feet!

Oct17

On Outdoor Nuptuals

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Yesterday, my exquisitely multi-talented wife reached back for one of her former professions and created two beautiful bouquets for one of her fellow teachers who was getting married. Budge attended the wedding; I did not. I have told Budge — and anyone else who would listen — that it was all I could do to endure my OWN wedding, 35 minute marathon that it was, much less sit through someone else’s ceremony. Don’t misunderstand me, my wife planned a gorgeous wedding for us in a very short time on a even shorter budget, but the fact remains that am not a wedding fan. Of course, that is one of the few areas I am like many other males. I’m not certain I’ve ever heard anyone in possession of  an unsullied Y-chromosome say, “Oh wow! My buddy Glenlivet is getting married!! I’m not in it, but PLEASE let’s go!!”

That is not to say we of The Brotherhood of Men will not, on occasion, be dragged kicking and screaming from our spot on the sofa in front of The Game to be shoehorned into our most uncomfortable set of clothes, forcibly shod with shoes designed as medieval torture devices first and footwear second, then marched, nearly at bayonet point, to some relative or friend’s wedding.

But we don’t have to like it!

Yesterday, though, I was excused from the ceremony. I will say, however, that for someone having an outside wedding as this couple was, yesterday’s weather was hard to beat. The sky was a radiant azure with nary a cloud to mar the canvas of heaven and the temperature was quite mild, even if the ladies were obliged to leave off the shawls originally planned for the occasion. It was verily the perfect day for an intimate backyard hitching up.

This meteorological perfection stands in rank contrast to the only OTHER outdoor wedding I attended, and that against my will. That marriage ceremony, early in Budge and mine’s own tenure of wedded bliss, provided the single, solitary time in — to date — fourteen years of marriage when the two of us very nearly had “words.” It is also the only one of a veritable plethora of  incidents of my being an ass for which I have steadfastly refused to apologize ONLY because I STILL maintain that I was in the right.

Allow me to present my case and ye may judge.

First of all, I barely knew the bride as one of Budge’s college classmates and I had nary a clue as to the groom’s identity. Next, the wedding was scheduled for 3:00 PM on a Saturday. The hours of 2:00 to 4:00 PM on Saturdays have been marked out on my calendar as dedicated time for studying the backs of my eyelids for structural imperfections at least since I was in college. I was being dragged to a wedding when I was supposed to be sleeping.

Then was the matter of the time of YEAR for this debacle. Yesterday’s wedding was in the relatively mild weather of an Upstate October. The wedding to which I refer was in AUGUST. For those of you who may live in other parts of the world than the Blessed Land of Dixie, allow me to explain — AUGUST in South Carolina has two temperatures: blast furnace and Hellish. Sane people do not leave the safety of air conditioned houses in “The Burning Month” except to go to an air conditioned car and drive to another air conditioned location.

Which brings me to my next point. This wedding was not only outside on an August afternoon that would have melted car tires on green grass, it was in the middle of a church lawn. NO SHADE. NONE. NOUGHT. NADA. NO TREES. Not even a canopy. The heat was only broken by the breeze generated when one of the BLACK TUXEDO clad groomsmen fell out from sunstroke and made the air move by his descent. Finally, the wedding lasted nearly AN HOUR and these people were NOT Catholic. No Mass or other sermon was involved.

So, allow me to sum up. For over an hour, I was standing in slip-on toe-pincers with WOOL socks under a pair of navy pants topped by a royal blue polo in the middle of a forty acre pasture on the hottest day since the Earth cooled from it’s fiery formation watching someone I didn’t particularly know or like get married. For those who don’t know, I am NOT a small man. I am large. I am fat, nay I AM OBESE! Fat men were never meant to endure those types of conditions. Within five minutes of leaving the comfort of the car’s excellent A/C, I had an Amazon Rivulet of perspiration running from my bald spot, through my hair, down my back, cascading in a cataract of sweat around my nether regions thence to trickle down into my toe-pincers and form two puddles of lukewarm misery.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I was HOT as the HINGES of HADES and my body was literally rendering into lard as I stood there watching this slip of a girl in her WHITE, SLEEVELESS, BACKLESS wedding dress get married.

Then we had the reception, which, thanks be to God the Father of All Things, was indoors. Of course, the A/C was having all it could do to pull down the temperature from somewhere near boiling since, as I think I’ve mentioned before, it was the HOTTEST FRICKING DAY OF THE YEAR and 400+ people were packed into the space somewhat smaller than the Apollo command capsule. Didn’t matter to me, though. A stroll through the depths of Mauna Kea in Hawaii at full eruption would have been cooler than outside.

It was at that point that the final straw was applied to this dromedary’s spine. A caterer waitress set a plate of GRILLED EGGPLANT down in front of me. Turns out the bride was a VEGAN.

I am not a vegan.

I was hot, I was hungry, and I had missed my nap. This was not going to end well.

It was at that point that I looked — just looked — at my lovely wife and something on my face made her run to the ladies’ room, friends in tow, to cry about how mean I was and folks, at that point and for the only time in our marriage, I really DIDN’T CARE!!

We laugh about that day now, as much for the reactions of our friends who were with us as anything else, BUT that also remains the LAST outdoor wedding I ever went to with Budge.

Now, as you go to wash your feet I ask you, “WAS I WRONG OR NOT!!!???”

Love y’all!

Oct12

Written Up for Murder

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This is an actual blank discipline referral from an actual school district in this state.

 

In the Michael Keaton / Jack Nicholson version of Batman: The Movie, Nicholson’s Joker wonders aloud at one point, “What kind of a world do we live in where a man dressed as a bat steals all my press?” A valid question.

Here’s mine: What kind of a world do we live in where our schools’ disciplinary documents contain spaces for offenses like “forced sexual offense,” “drug trafficking”, and — most shockingly — “HOMICIDE.”

Let that one sink in for a minute. HOMICIDE. Murder. Right between “Hall Pass Violation” and “ID Violation” sits the blank for Homicide. I don’t know which is more surreal and disturbing, the fact that the line marked Homicide exists at all, or that administrators today face the very real possibility of having to check that blank.

I realize some policy item likely dictated that Homicide be included on the referral form. After all, these forms are vetted by lawyers and we ALL know what happens when someone lets a lawyer make changes to any document. Thomas Jefferson was a farmer; therefore, the Declaration of Independence is one large sheet of parchment in length and all the lines are legible. Had a modern lawyer written the DOI, it would have been the size of War and Peace by Tolstoy and that would be on Bible paper in microscopic font.

Still, it’s a sobering thought that one evening over the TV dinners, a parent could turn to little Johnny and as, “So, son, what happened in school today?” only to get the reply, “Oh, Chris stabbed Mikey to death with a pen. He got written up for Homicide so I don’t think he can come over tomorrow to play.”

Facetious? For now maybe. School murders are a reality in the worst parts of the inner cities now. How long will it take to migrate to the ‘burbs and on out into the country? Things are bad in education these days, but for most of us, we only need to look at a referral with a spot for “Homicide” to realize matters stand to get much worse and for all those who think to themselves, “That’s bull. Stuff like that won’t ever happen here,” remember how many times that phrase has been given the lie throughout history. It not only “could happen here,” but the Law of Averages pretty much guarantees it will at some point. Let’s hope we’re all gone before then, though. PASS testing is bad enough.

Love y’all and don’t forget to wash your feet.

Sep11

A Bit of Comparative Theology

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Every year around this time, people come down on the terrorists who attacked America 9-11-01, but when it’s all said and done and the politicians stop making speeches and the religious leaders calm down a bit, everyone smiles, pats one another on the back and says, “Well, when you get right down to it, Islam and Christianity aren’t all that different. They are both ‘legitimate ways to God.'”

Sure. Poodles and Pit Bulls are both legitimate breeds of dogs to. The problem lies in the way people judge the merits of various religions — by the behavior of the average adherents.

Radical Fundamentalist Christian

Sitting in an average Southern Baptist church at 11:00 AM on a typical Sunday morning isn’t going to show anyone much in the way of incredible devotion to Christ. That’s pretty much the story at most Methodist, Presbyterian, Episcopalian, and even Catholic services. These are the faithful Christians sittings in Grandma and Grandpa’s pew just like their mamas and daddies before them.

Most adherents of Islam are much the same way. The worshipers at afternoon prayers and Friday evening services at the vast majority of mosques are good, decent people who are worshiping Allah the way their daddies and mamas taught them growing up.

Radical Fundamentalist Muslim

Standing in the back of these mainstream, typical worship centers, a person would be tempted to wonder what all the fuss between Christians and Muslims is all about; however, NEVER judge the merits of a religion by the behavior of the typical and the mainstream. If you really want to know about the ins and outs of a faith, check out the lunatic fringe, the zealots, THE FUNDAMENTALISTS. This is where the differences between Christianity and Islam become wildly obvious.

In the simplest language possible, Christian Fundamentalists don’t fly fully loaded (fuel, cargo, and passengers) jumbo jets into some of a country’s most iconic buildings and kill three times the population of my hometown — Islamic Fundamentalists do. Yes, nuts like Eric Rudolph blow up abortion clinics and kill people, but the body count remains in the single digits. Some people will say death isn’t a “relative statistic.” Okay, ask 10,000 people in the world who Eric Rudolph is then ask the SAME 10,000 people anywhere in the world who Osama Bin Laden is. Compare numbers. Repeat ad nausem. I’ll bet the farm Binny will come out a long way ahead of Rudy.

Result of Radical Fundamentalist Christianity

Long before September 11th became a day of infamy, I once worked in a textile plant with an awesome Pakistani man named Javeid who was a devout, but not Fundamentalist, Muslim. He and I would have amicable debates about our beliefs. Even though he was harmless as a mouse himself, he’d grown up in the mean sections of Karachi. He knew Radical Islam up close and personal and he made a point with me that all these years later rings just as clearly as ever. He said, “Shannon, one day, Islam will conquer and destroy Christianity for one simple reason. Crazy Christians handle snakes and drink poison, but there aren’t many of them in the world. Crazy Muslims wear dynamite belts and carry AK-47s, and there are entire countries full of them.”

Result of Radical Islamic Fundamentalism

I don’t hate Muslims and I don’t turn a blind eye to the problems of Fundy Christians, but at the end of the day, I’d a lot rather have a member of the Tabernacle of Christ the King Church of God with Signs Following pissed off at me than be on the bad side of a member of a Wahhabi Mosque.

Something to think about while you wash you feet and remember the dead.

Love y’all.

Sep9

Always Right? Really?

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Were you BORN a jackass or did you have to take a class?

Recently, I was at Home Depot at the butt-crack of dawn so I wouldn’t have to deal with a lot of people. In and out in less than ten was the plan. All I needed was a small bag of mulch and soil to replenish Zelda’s habitat. I guess I didn’t come early enough.

This Cadillac driving old fart went in one door and I went in the other, but I ended up behind him in line. He had a folding ladder on a cart and LAST WEEK’S flyer in his hand. The young lady gave him the total at which point he flew into a rage, slammed the aforementioned flyer down on her counter, and began gesticulating wildly at a picture of a ladder similar to the one on his cart while screaming that the ladder was HALF that price!  I felt a familiar feeling creeping up my spine to the part of the brain that evolved when man had to kill big ol’ mammoths to survive. This guy was beginning to look awfully woolly to me.

The cashier tried to reason with the jerk by pointing out the flyer was for the TWO DAY sale that had ended days earlier and the ladder on his cart was NOT the ladder in the flyer anyway. Instead of acknowledging his mistake, Goober screams at her that he knows the flyer is outdated and the ladder isn’t the one advertised but he couldn’t come in during the sale because he was at the beach and now all the ladders in the flyer were gone  so he wanted the more expensive ladder TODAY  for the price in the flyer and he was the customer so he wanted it NOW.

I was just about to tap him on the shoulder and tell him people in Hell want ice water, and offer him a binkie so he’d leave and I could get my turtle’s mulch. Fortunately, a manager had heard the “debate” and asked the whining,  spray-tanned Baby Boomer to come  to the service desk. I paid for my $3.00 mulch, thanked the girl for being so incredibly patient with an obviously mentally deficient person and went on my way.

Driving home, the whole fiasco reminded me of an episode several years ago when I was on a date with Budge, at a eatery in Spartanburg. Our waitress was working the section alone because the other two girls called in “sick” and it was her FIRST night solo after a week of training. I told her to stay calm and not worry about us. Everything’d be alright.

The other patrons had some differences of opinion. One couple was on an early-in-the-relationship date and oblivious to time passing because they had so entranced each other. A family with two children in diapers got up and left without eating once the little ones began a full-scale meltdown. The three other tables didn’t say much.

That left one particular old fart who berated that poor waitress every chance he got. He sent his food back twice and his wife’s back once. His glass was never full enough. On and on and on for nearly two hours. Finally, he and his wife took their bill straight to the manager and began relating a tale of woe. I only caught snatches of the conversation, but the gist was the waitress was incompetent and an idiot to boot and he demanded a complementary meal or he’d “call corporate.”

The manager folded like a cheap lawn chair when a fat man sits in it, comes back to the section and starts apologizing and fussing over everyone and offering free desserts and all sorts of what not. Then she goes in the back where the waitress has just disappeared when the girl returned, she was trying hard to keep from bursting into tears. The manager reappeared and came over to our table and started her spiel about how sorry she was for the poor service, etc, etc.

I put my hand up and said, “Ma’am, sit down please. I need to explain something to you.” She looked funny at me but she complied and I told her what I’ve told several other jackasses in restaurants since then. I said,

“Ma’am, I’m sitting at a nice table with my beloved. In a little bit, that little girl is going to BRING food to me that’ll be hot, delicious, AND four times more than enough for one meal. We just sit her and wait. On the other hand, my daddy ate twenty year old C-Rations unheated and covered with flies and mosquitoes because it’s what he had in Vietnam. Right now, a gang of little boys and girls are scrounging a massive garbage dump outside Guatemala City for rotten fruit, moldy bread, and maybe a few bones with a scrap of green meat on them to eat. Finally, I could take you in my car not ten miles from here to a group under a bridge trying to fix a bit of stew that will be all they’ll eat tonight and most of tomorrow. I don’t want free dessert, I don’t want a complementary meal, and I surely don’t care what that ignorant jackass who just left said. That girl has worked like a galley slave doing the best she could and I guarantee that jerk didn’t even leave her a quarter for a tip. Thankfully, Mama and Granny raised me to be grateful and generous so I’ll make up for his lack of manners.”

You're not the King or Queen of England. Be nice to each other.

I had a lot more money then AND I’d just gotten my paycheck for the month so I laid a $100 bill on the table, told the waitress to keep the change, took Budge by the hand and walked our happy asses to the car.

I’m nothing special, but I do know one thing. Just because someone is serving you in some capacity, you do not have the right to make their life a little piece of Hell. Stick your thumb in your mouth, suck it up, be thankful for what you’ve got, and act like you’ve got some raising. We are all in this together. Some of us are just more blessed or just plain luckier than others.

Keep that in mind this weekend and make sure to keep those feet clean.

Love y’all.

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! 🙂