Category Archives: My Opinion of Something

Jun25

I’m Not Sick, But I’m Not Healthy Either

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Dr. Lopez after my visits.

Dr. Lopez after my visits.

I recently had my summer checkup with my GP, Dr. Lopez. Even though I think the world of Doc, I don’t hate many things on Earth quite as much as I do going to see him. It’s definitely a top ten pet peeve of mine — nowhere near as loathed as Weed-Eating the yard but quite a ways above a slight paper cut. It’s not that Doc is a bad guy, because he’s not; I simply despise repetitive activity for the most part and my physicals are always extremely repetitive.

First, regardless of when my appointment time happens to be, I’m going to sit in the exam room for at least an hour. I wouldn’t mind if I was confined to the main waiting room. It’s much larger and cooler and the reading material is of a better selection. No, I have to cool my heels in the tiny, windowless exam room with the paper covered table and box of tongue depressors. I’m claustrophobic and after about ten minutes alone in there, I start hyperventilating and the walls begin moving towards me. Then, just as I am about to go bat-poop crazier that I already am, Doc comes in and wonders how my blood pressure can always be elevated no matter what hypertension meds he has me take.skeleton

I could endure the waitings, though, if the consultation wasn’t so negative. Doc always starts with the lab results from the blood I had drawn the week before. (Just as an aside, if you want to see your doctor flip completely out, instead of going in for labs fasting, eat three Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnuts and chug a pair of Mountain Dews about thirty minutes before they draw blood — they’ll send an ambulance to get you as soon as the results come back.) Now all I care about from my lab results is my A1C level and my PSA level. The A1C tells if I’m diabetic or not and the PSA lets me know all is well with Mini-Me down below. He could give me those numbers and the visit would last five minutes — tops. Instead, he starts off with my CHOLESTEROL and TRIGLYCERIDES. I take meds to reduce both and he still isn’t satisfied. Unfortunately, no matter how much I try to convince him I don’t give a tinker’s cuss what my LDL and HDL levels are, I still get The Speech.

The Speech is a variation on “you need to exercise; you need to lose weight, you need to eat healthier.” Depending on the time of year or his particular mood, one of the three will get more emphasis than the other two. The latest iteration focused on diet. Every time he starts the “getting healthier” spiel, I ask him why I need to be so concerned with cholesterol. He always says it’s so I won’t have a massive heart attack and die. That’s when I ask him the same question every time: “What is the single biggest indicator of longevity in humans?” Usually he mumbles a bit then comes out with “Family history,” at which point I say, “Okay, forget cholesterol and tell me my A1C.”

Here’s my line of thinking and it infuriates him to no end — I’m not scared of a massive heart attack. If your heart explodes, you die. Simple. Pour water on the fire and call in the dogs boys because this night’s hunt is OVER. On the other hand, I am terrified of Type II Diabetes or, as we say in the South, “The Sugar.” Diabetes doesn’t kill you — at least not outright. No, first they cut off your toes; then your feet, followed by your legs to the knee, then to the thigh. Before long, you end up looking like an extra from the 1932 Tod Browing film Freaks. Plus, the entire time leading up to your butchery, you have to stab yourself with needles two or three times a day. Needles are the main reason a Skittlesques pack of pills was my drug of choice rather than heroin or morphine when I was a young and reckless lad.

Getting back to family history, though, Granny Matt (my great-grandmother on Daddy’s side) had six sons: Uncle William, Uncle Bob, Uncle George, Papa Wham, Uncle David, and Uncle Jack. Of the six, FIVE died of massive heart attacks sometime between 72 and 76 years old. Daddy has already had one and a half heart attacks and he’s 63. On the other side of my family tree, however, diabetes and cancer, sometimes both, run roughshod through Mama’s side of my family. I’m trying to get Dr. Lopez to see I’m not fatalistic or reckless with my health, I’m just playing the averages and trying to help skew them in my favor.

Eat RightI could cut out everything I love to eat — red meat, ice cream, starches, sweets, cheese, etc — and I could exercise religiously like I see so many people doing around here, but WHY would I want to? Perfect health is simply the slowest possible rate at which you can die. In most ways, we’re dead already. Luke the Drifter said it best when he sang, “I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive.”

I go see my precious Granny every Tuesday. She can’t talk to me anymore. She can just barely feed herself and not even that some days. She can’t walk; she’s in diapers. I love her more than words can describe, but I don’t want to end up that way. Many of the inmates in the nursing home where Granny lives are the last members of their family. No one comes to see them. They are just taking their time dying in a warehouse of obsolete humanity, and there’s not a thing wrong with that, I just don’t want it to be me. Anyway, I was raised all my life to believe this live is just a dress rehearsal for what comes next. That’s where Mama is. That’s where I want to be. Right now, the only thing keeping me here is my Budge. I won’t leave her alone if I can help it.

So, see why I drive Dr. Lopez to distraction? Love y’all; keep those feet clean.

Apr29

The Last First Episode Is Coming

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Star-Wars-Episode-7-VII-LogoA long time ago at a drive-in theater long since buried under an I-85 interchange, a great adventure took place. It was the summer of 1977 and I sat on the roof of Mama’s 1973 Pontiac Grand Prix hugging a speaker and watching the huge Imperial Star Destroyer Devastator inexorably close in on the tiny, defenseless Tantive IV. Three years later, Daddy and Teresa took me to the now defunct Astro Twin on Pleasantburg Drive where I watched Luke Skywalker battle the evil Darth Vader right before the greatest plot twist surprise in cinema history. Then, as a high school freshman, Robby and I sat in the — once again, defunct — Oaks Theater in Laurens to see Luke reunited with his friends amidst a sea of dancing teddy bears.

Star Wars played a MONUMENTAL role in my childhood and the childhoods of a big chunk of my generation. To give you an idea of just what a cultural touchstone those films are to Gen-Xers everywhere, when I called one of my college roommates to tell him I was marrying a girl born in 1978, the first thought out of his mouth was not “Congratulations” or anything like it. Instead, Chris Hoppe shouted at me, “1978! Good God, Wham! She’s never seen Star Wars at the movie theater!” He was right, of course, so as soon as Budge and I left the theater in the summer of 1997 after watching the re-release of Star Wars: A New Hope, I called him up to let him know my beloved was now bona fide.

Now, if George Lucas had possessed the sense to get a prenuptial agreement with his wife, the Star Wars universe would probably have remained the exclusive unsullied cultural icon for Generation X. Unfortunately, the erstwhile Mrs. Lucas took ol’ George to the cleaners financially leaving him in relatively bad straits — no small feat to nearly bankrupt a man responsible of Luke Skywalker AND Indiana Jones. So, rumors started flying around the newly-burgeoning internet about something none of us Baby Boomer Babies ever dreamed we’d live to see — George Lucas was going to MAKE THE PREQUELS!!

Whatsa pissa poopsa!

Whatsa pissa poopsa!

So it was I sat in Theater 6 of The Hollywood 20 Theater with Budge on May 19, 1999 and watched the familiar opening crawl wind its way up the screen. I was more excited about a movie than I’d ever been or ever would be . . . at least until 2001 when I waited in line for hours to get tickets to Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. I quickly lost myself in the film’s first fifteen minutes; I was a kid again on the roof of that ’73 Grand Prix. Then, out of the murky green depths of one of the many planets in the Star Wars universe, disaster overtook my beloved franchise. Jar-Jar Binks appeared on the screen. Since Jar-Jar hate is widely documented, I’m not going to waste your time adding my opinions, but let’s just say, when it comes to all the negative things said about the bumbling Gungan, “I concur and then some.” I was delighted and crushed when the movie ended — delighted it was finally over and crushed that I’d waited 22 years for such a turd to plop onto my lovely memories.

After Phantom Menace, I realized Lucas was just going for money so I didn’t bother to see Attack of the Clones or Revenge of the Sith. I figured it would be a waste of time. In all honesty, I do wish I’d seen RotS on the big screen though, just to see the climactic fight on Mustafar between Obi-Wan and Anakin, but since that’s the only part of the movie I care anything about, I’ve just learned to content myself with YouTube. As a side note, if the prequels hadn’t shown Lucas’ money-making bias, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull proved to me he had completely blown up the refrigerator.

The cast . . .

The cast . . .

Well, Lucas sold the beloved space opera franchise to the ONE entity more concerned with money than he is — Disney. Less than a year after the sale, The Mouse has announced Episodes VII, VIII, and IX are in the works with Episode VII to be released next year, probably around Christmas. Today, the official casting announcements came out. The good news is Han, Luke, and Leia are all back aboard although I wonder if Harrison Ford will live long enough to finish all three films. The bad news is JJ Abrams is directing and co-producing Episode VII. So, this movie could be absolutely amazing with incredible visual effects and only slightly less boom and bang than a Michael Bay CGI-fest OR we could end up at the end of Episode IX discovering the entire nine film series actually took place in the imagination of some homeless Earth kid playing with broken action figures someone left lying in the park. To anyone who thinks I’m being silly and overreacting I can only reply with two words: Lost finale.

Hopefully though, the number of original cast members along with the addition of Gollum will pull the final three movies in the Star Wars nonology through. At least John Williams is doing the scores!

Love y’all and keep those feet clean.

Apr18

On This Rock

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la-jument-3I grew up in a Christian home and for the first 35 years of my life, give or take a year, I didn’t question my beliefs, what I’d been taught, or the basis of Christianity in general. I probably didn’t spend the total of a single day reflecting on whether or not this was true and that false or what the true purpose of life was. The weightiest discussions I had were on the relative merits of different “flavors” of Christianity like Mama’s Fundamentalist Pentecostalism versus Granny’s Southern Baptist Sunday School lessons. Even when I was a rank heathen and behaved as such, I still had a good handle on how the world worked, Who was in charge, and what the end of all things was going to be. In due time, I made a profession of faith in Christ, and figured I’d punched my ticket to Heaven when I died. Budge and I went to the church where we’d been married and worked diligently and tirelessly to further the kingdom of God on Earth.

That all changed when my Papa John died in 2007.

When Papa died, I went into a night of the soul which left me an agnostic a breath away from hard atheism. I turned on my faith. Like a company in a hostile takeover, I fired everything and everyone I ever believed in. All my ideas had to “reapply.” It was hideous having the most basic of life’s foundations essentially blown up. EVERYTHING I had been taught, everything I held as truth, and everything  I had taken for granted evaporated immediately. It’s not over, either. Ideas I held as dogma I’ve discarded and have no intention of ever picking up again. I walked away from Fundamentalism and Pentecostalism and frost will form on the hinges of Hell before I turn back.

But, I believe in Easter.

Was the Earth created in six literal days? Don’t know; don’t care. Moses part the Red Sea? Noah’s Flood was world wide? Not the faintest idea. Were Adam and Eve real people or is the Garden story an allegory? Not a clue and it makes no difference to me either way. Is there going to be a Rapture? How about a Millennial Kingdom? Pre-Trib? Mid-Trib? Post-Trib? No Trib? I. Don’t. Care. Richard Dawkins, I don’t think you’re right, but knock yourself out.

I believe in Easter.

What I KNOW and what no one in 2000+ years has been able to disprove is the Easter story. I believe in Easter because I believe in Jesus Christ. I believe no matter how messed up I am, no matter what encyclopaedic compendium of stupid things I’ve done, no matter the “good” life I miserably failed to live . . . Jesus Christ died for me . . . THE HARD WAY. I refuse to turn my back on anyone who loves me enough to endure hematodrosis, scourging, being crowned with thorns, and finally get NAILED TO A BOARD ON A POST. My Mama loved me. My Budge still loves me. I was the apple of all my grandparents’ eyes, but I know none of them loved me that much. I don’t have a friend that close. Sure, you might have someone who SAYS he or she would take a bullet for you . . . but see where they are when the shooting starts.

For three years, Jesus Christ went around tending the sick and poor and they KILLED HIM FOR IT. He actually WAS a good man and they stuck a spear in His side. NO. I won’t turn my back on that. I don’t know about all the details and doctrines anymore, if I ever did. All I know is my life is ROYALLY screwed up thanks to choices I made and choices others made for me, but Jesus didn’t care. He let them kill Him anyway just to cover all my screw ups. There was just one catch . . . He didn’t STAY dead.

If you want to make me an atheist, just show me Jesus’ body. That’s all Pilate and the Sanhedrin needed to do. When people started screaming about “He is risen!!” They could have just trundled the body out into the streets of Jerusalem and said, “Nope. Here he is and he’s still DEAD.” But they didn’t, because they couldn’t because after he died, HE GOT BACK UP.

Mohammed didn’t do that. He said if you do enough good and avoid enough evil, you get to go to Paradise. Siddhartha Gautama the Buddha didn’t do that. He said if you get your mind right, you’ll become one with the Universe and go to Nirvana. No atheist did that. They just say we’re here by chance — dumb luck — in which case I’ve got a list of people who need their luck to run out.

But Jesus said, “I’ll fix YOUR mess. I’ll take care of what YOU screwed up. I’ll let you KILL ME so YOU can live.”

I’m not turning my back on that. I may suck at being a Christian, but it’s what I am and not because Papa and Mama said so anymore. Not because I live in the South and supposedly “all y’all” are Christians. Not because “the preacher said so” or even because “the Bible said so.” I’m a Christian because He didn’t turn His back on me and I’m not going to turn my back on Him. I still believe in Easter and some days, it’s ALL I believe in, but it’s enough to get me out of bed and keep me from putting a bullet in my brain.

Love y’all, keep those feet clean, and Happy Easter.

 

 

Mar15

Tommy John Is Not a Doctor!

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Dr. Frank Jobe 1925-2014 The Surgeon

Dr. Frank Jobe
1925-2014
The Surgeon

I was reading through the sports pages on MSN today and amidst all the bracketology talk and bubble predictions about the upcoming NCAA tournament, I saw an article stating Frank Wilson Jobe had passed away March 6th at the age of 88. I figure only the most diehard baseball fans would know that name, but Frank Jobe, in my opinion, should go into the Baseball Hall of Fame on a special ballot even though he never played baseball at any level, never threw a pitch, or fielded a grounder. Instead, DOCTOR Frank Jobe developed a procedure which altered the way injured pitchers looked at their futures and to date has saved the careers of some of baseball’s most noted pitchers including players like Chris Carpenter, John Smoltz, Ben Sheets, and quite recently Stephen Strasbourg. The procedure is properly termed “ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction” but baseball fans everywhere refer to it by the name of its first recipient — then Los Angeles Dodgers left-handed pitcher Tommy John.

Tommy John was a pitching star in the Dodger organization when he blew his elbow out in 1974. At that time, John’s injury was considered career ending. In fact, the fantastic career of another Dodger – legendary Sandy Koufax – had been truncated in 1966 by the same injury John was facing. Tommy John, however, refused to accept such a bleak diagnosis and approached the team’s orthopedist, Dr. Jobe, about ANY possible fixes. Dr. Jobe had a colleague who had used ligament harvesting to treat polio patients’ paralysis and the two doctors mulled over the idea of using a similar technique to replace the ruined ligaments in John’s throwing elbow. From the start, Dr. Jobe was bluntly honest with Tommy John. In an interview I heard on ESPN radio Tommy John recalled, “I asked Dr. Jobe what would happen if I didn’t have the surgery and he said, ‘You’ll never pitch major league baseball again.’ So I asked him what would happen if I did have the surgery and he said, ‘You’ll PROBABLY never pitch major league baseball again.'”

The Guinea Pig Tommy John in 1975, his rehab year.

The Guinea Pig
Tommy John in 1975,
his rehab year.

But the surgery was a success beyond anything Dr. Jobe could have hoped for. After a complete year of rehabilitation – a practice still followed today — Tommy John returned for the 1976 season and went 10 – 10, which was considered completely miraculous at the time. He also showcased the durability of the reconstruction by pitching fourteen more seasons before he finally retired in 1989. Today, estimates vary, but most hover at around one-third of all major league pitchers have (or will have) some degree of Tommy John Surgery. Thanks to a pitcher who wasn’t ready to throw in the towel and a doctor who was willing to try something entirely untested to put him back on the mound, a blown out pitching elbow no longer means an end to a career, but for many pitchers – the original recipient among them – it signals the beginning of even better performance.

Hopefully, Cooperstown will think the same way I do and eventually, Dr. Frank Jobe will have a bronze bust in the special wing of the Hall of Fame to honor the man whose procedure saved the careers of nearly 100 major league pitching stars even if the non-baseball public continues to think Tommy John was the surgeon and not the patient!

Love y’all and keep those feet clean.

Feb25

Cauliflowers to Canteloupes

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Michael-Sam-Jason-CollinsTwo days ago, Jason Collins became the first openly gay player to participate in an NBA basketball game. Michael Sams, a linebacker from the University of Missouri, stands to become the first openly gay player to be drafted by an NFL team at some point during the upcoming Draft. Both of these men are obviously making waves in their respective sports and driving conversation throughout the country about civil rights, inclusion, and tolerance in locker rooms and beyond. Collins’ and Sams’ sagas are a mirror of the current state of American society. Seventeen states have already legalized same-sex marriage and others have legislation pending. No doubt the times they are a changin’ to quote Dylan.

That’s great. I don’t have a problem with same-sex marriages or gay players in pro sports (or college, high school, rec leagues, and intramural), or two guys holding hands or two girls kissing. Live your life as you want to live it. I take flack from some devout Christian friends, but I’m okay with that. My religious views and views on civil rights do not interfere with each other. In many ways, I have a “wall of separation” between my religion and my politics.  Having said all that, I do have one serious problem with the rash of Sam and Collins supporters — especially sportswriters and sports announcers who should know better — I’m tired of hearing these two guys compared to Jackie Robinson. Let me be clear, what Sam and Collins are doing is vitally important, but THEY ARE NOT JACKIE ROBINSON and putting them with Jackie is comparing cauliflowers with cantaloupes.

First off, neither is the talent Robinson was. Collins is an eight-team journeyman player who had been out of basketball nearly a year before the also-ran Brooklyn Nets signed him to a ten-day contract. Sam is an unknown commodity yet to play in the NFL, but it’s not like he set the world on fire at Mizzou. Jackie Robinson was a six-time All-Star. He was the Major League Rookie of the Year in 1947. He won the 1949 batting title and was twice the stolen bases champion. Doesn’t matter that he broke the color barrier as well — he had the goods on the field too.  Jackie broke the color barrier, not because he was a black player, but because he was the BEST black player. He might have been many things, but Jackie Robinson wasn’t a gimmick. I may be proven wrong, but neither Collins nor Sam is likely to have their jersey number retired by an entire league.

Secondly, neither Sam nor Collins have had to endure ANYTHING approaching the abuse Robinson faced in his early MLB career and they NEVER will. It’s a different country now and people would go to jail for Federal hate crimes if they talked the way crowds spoke to Robinson. When Sam takes the field for whatever team drafts him, no one — especially an opposing manager — is going to yell out “Faggot! Get back to the gay clubs,” but a Philadelphia Phillie manager screamed at Jackie to “get [his] nigger ass back to the cotton fields!” Any team Sam or Collins plays for will not have to choose between sleeping in a hotel without them or sleeping as a team on the bus with them the way the Brooklyn Dodgers sometimes had to choose on their road trips. Perhaps people’s feelings about those who are different from them haven’t changed, but today’s bigots can’t hide behind badges and laws  . . . at least in America — in Uganda or Saudi Arabia, you’ll have to take your chances.

Also, a rabid bigot may see gays and lesbians everywhere, but demographic experts put the HIGHEST number of gays at 10% of the American population while a reputable Gay and Lesbian think tank put the numbers between 5% to 8%. By contrast, 15% of Americans are Black and that doesn’t include the further people the census say identify as “other race.” Sam and Collins are representing a sometimes vocal community, but Jackie Robinson had the hopes of an entire PEOPLE on his broad shoulders, and those people were in constant danger just for being themselves. According to the Tuskegee Law Institute, 3445 black men were lynched —  murdered without trial — in the United States from 1882-1968. 240px-JrobinsonSure, gay people have endured violence, but nowhere near the scale black people faced. A black child could be murdered WITHOUT PENALTY in parts of the US as late as the 1950s just for “talking fresh” to a white woman. Don’t think so? Google Emmitt Till. That is the kind of vitriol Jackie Robinson faced when he was out on the playing field.

Finally, and this won’t be popular, but all Sam and Collins had to do to live quiet normal lives was simply to keep their mouths shut. They chose to come out; no one twisted their arms. I realize no one should have to hide being gay to play his chosen sport much less live a regular life. I agree, I understand the argument, and sooner or later it’s not going to be that way, but the fact remains, a gay person can hide being gay, but a black person has ZERO chance of hiding being black. People are arguing both ways about homosexuality — is it birth or is it choice? The jury may be out on what makes people gay, but no one is debating what makes a person black. White people are born white; black people are born BLACK. You have more chance of hiding a golf ball in a glass of spring water than being a “closeted black man.”

So, Michael Sam and Jason Collins are definitely moving the conversation on equality of sexuality in this country forward, but to put them into the same mold of Number 42 is a poor comparison at best and cauliflowers to cantaloupes at worst.

Hope I didn’t make anyone too mad, but if I did, it’s like a bridge . . . you’ll get over it. In any event, love y’all and keep those feet clean.

Feb11

Missionary Position

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boys fightingOnce upon a time, I was a new Christian determined to win the world for Jesus. I thought everyone should go to Heaven and I was the one to show them the way. I had ALL the answers to anything anyone could ever ask me about faith. Then, eight years ago, Papa John died and I didn’t have answers for MY questions, and when I finally had those pieces of life somewhat reorganized, Mama died and dumped my apple cart again. I went to a seriously dark place emotionally and mentally and almost gave up on everything.

A year later, I’m still recovering, but I’m a different person. I still believe Jesus is our savior, sacrifice, lord and the ONLY means of salvation and eternal life. (Wonder how many followers THAT lost me?) I still want to go to Heaven . . . especially if it means I’ll see Mama again. I’m still “on the firing line” as the old gospel song says, but . . . BUT, I understand a few things differently now. For instance, everyone doesn’t WANT to go to Heaven. Lots of people could care less about Heaven or Jesus too for that matter. I know there’s a difference between civil rights and religious teachings. I’m different and I’m scarred now, and because of that, I have a better missionary position than before.

I’ve developed my position around three critical ideas: a perceived interest, a perceived need, and/or an established relationship. First, I have a willingness to discuss the story of my faith in Christ and what He’s done for me with anyone who shows even the remotest interest. I believe all Christians should be willing and able to do the same because we are admonished to “always be ready to give a defense or reason for the hope we have in us.” I also think it’s important to pay attention to the person I’m talking to. If I see the reptilian haze begin to fuzz over their eyes or they seem to bristle at the name of Jesus, then it’s time to talk about the weather or football or — God forbid — politics.

Second, I’m willing to start a conversation about Christ and faith with anyone (even a stranger) who seems to be in a state of physical or emotional turmoil or pain. Some people might see that approach as intrusive or offensive, but I see such a conversation in the same light as a compassionate nurse or doctor checking on someone he saw take a tumble or having a little trouble breathing. I like to help people; I want everyone to go to Heaven, and I have the skill set for such a conversation. If they seem open, I go as far as inviting them to church one Saturday night or Sunday morning; if I sense pushback, fine – it’s a perfectly legitimate choice on their part and we’ll just leave it at that. It never hurts to care about people, though.Finally, I’ll initiate faith discussions – often intense ones – with non-believers I have an established relationship with. The key is ESTABLISHED. I’m not going to ask a person if he’s a Christian on our first meeting unless he brings it up. Football is much safer for a conversation starter. I’m talking about people I’ve known and interacted with over a lengthy period of time. It could be a friend, but I’ve also had these faith discussions with my regular waitress at restaurants I frequent. These are people who know a decent amount about me. Hopefully, they can tell I’m a Christian before I even bring it up; if they can’t, I’ve got a bigger problem because my life isn’t a reflection of Whom I serve.

Discussions like these, however, are YEARS forming and they are not without hazards – I’ve lost touch with a couple of people I considered good friends over tension between our beliefs, but such is the risk anyone who wants to point people towards God’s Kingdom must be willing to take. It doesn’t feel great and it certainly doesn’t make me some sort of martyr to lose a friend over my faith, but if you put yourself out there, it’s likely to happen at some point. In the end, all I can do is show the way; I can’t walk the path for them. My grandmother-in-law had a saying I think of often: “We must let people go to Hell in their own way.”

Now just as I have three key ideas I live by for sharing my faith, I also have three things I avoid. For one, I will NOT “debate” religion in a comments section of a website or in posts on Facebook. Text is a poor way to debate ideas because so much communication and meaning relies on non-verbal cues. It is extremely difficult to gauge someone’s state of mind or read his intent on a message board. I see online religious “discussions” as THE fastest way to obtain proof of Godwin’s Law, Poe’s Law, and – most profoundly – John Gabriel’s Greater Internet Theory, often all in a single comment or post. Remember, don’t feed the trolls.

The second thing I will not do is participate in any sort of mass “direct evangelism.” For those who didn’t grow up in the South, direct evangelism is going door to door in neighborhoods, trailer parks, and shopping malls to ask random people to sit down and discuss their salvation. This kind of missionary position is not the exclusive domain of Jehovah’s Witnesses or Mormons, but they’ve made it famous; however, I know of several “regular” churches where one night per week is “visitation night” or “outreach night.” I know this human faith wave has produced fruit, but I also know it’s created more bad press for Christians than good. No one wants to deal with telemarketers, even if the product is salvation, and knocking on the wrong doors these days is a quick way to meet Jesus in person via a 9 mm slug to the head.

My final taboo is “Christian merchandising.” My cars do not sport chrome fish or any other Christian device. I do not own a Christian t-shirt. I don’t carry a reference or study bible with me wherever I go. None of this is due to my shame at being a Christian; it’s the polar opposite. Before chrome fish, we didn’t have chrome fish with feet, chrome fish eating chrome fish with feet or vice versa, or chrome flying spaghetti monsters. Also, I know how I drive and ESPECIALLY how my Budge drives. I don’t want to embarrass Christ with our road rage. I can’t think of a worse witness for Jesus than cutting someone off with a huge chrome fish on your bumper THEN giving them the finger when they blow their horns at you.

So, that’s my take on sharing my faith. I want everyone to go to Heaven, but I’m not naïve enough to believe everyone will make it in. Hell, some days (LOTS of days) I have serious doubts about myself! Love y’all; keep those feet clean.

Jan30

Those Who Can, Do; Those Who CARE, Teach

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Atlanta school snow“Teachers get paid entirely too much!”

“Teachers only work half as much as everyone else!”

“It must be nice having summers off!”

“Teachers couldn’t handle a REAL job!”

“Education students couldn’t handle a REAL major!”

I spent fifteen years in public education as a high school teacher and a middle school librarian; my wife is currently in her 11th year as a fourth grade teacher, and statements like these are just some of the hurtful barbs I’ve had hurled at us over the years. Public school teachers make wonderful policy whipping boys. Regardless of what is wrong with the country, be it a stale economy, high crime, unemployment, or any other issue — regardless of how tangentially the connection may be — blaming education and teachers is a sure fire way for a talking head to get some applause.

It doesn’t matter what the problem is. It doesn’t matter many decisions by people who last saw a classroom when Ancient History was Current Events. The song remains the same — if it’s broken, blame the teachers. The Left takes potshots at us as being too conservative and teaching “ignorance” like Intelligent Design, even though WE didn’t elect the people who passed the law. The Right blasts us for being in the pockets of the “radical ____ agenda” and filling their children’s heads with all kinds of socialist, communist drivel. You can put whatever you want in that blank as well. I’ve heard “anti-family,” “pro-abortion,” “homosexual” and others I can’t put in here even if Mama isn’t around to read my blog anymore.

But we teachers are still here and we’re still teaching (well, not me anymore, but anyway.)

When Winter Storm Leon (one quick tangent — whose the idiot who thought naming winter storms like we do hurricanes was thing? And they say TEACHERS waste taxpayer dollars!) slammed into Atlanta — totally by surprise OR after many unheeded warnings, depending on who you want to believe, nothing short of chaos ensued. All over the city, people stranded in cars took off hiking home. Some sheltered in the stores of compassionate managers and owners. Many, many teachers were not among those. They had work to do.

Once it became obvious the storm was getting worse and the traffic was hopeless, principals and teachers realized many of their pupils wouldn’t be getting home that day. With no prior preparation, schools all over Atlanta became de facto Hotel 6’s as educators prepared to take care of “their” children for the night. Many of these teachers had children of their own who needed attended to, but duty was calling louder than even motherly (and fatherly) instincts. A storm was raging and Atlanta’s educators rose to meet the monster with gym mats and cafeteria food, stage curtain blankets and bedtime stories from principals.

Just for a moment, please put yourself in the shoes of a child in K4 and yes, we do send them to school THAT little these days. Mommy put you on the bus this morning like she always did and told you she’d see you at home in the evening. You’ve never spent a night away from home; you haven’t had a sleepover yet that didn’t involve grandparents. Now, it’s getting dark. The bus you got on you thought was going to take you home has taken you back to school and you are just about to go into K4 meltdown mode.

Then, you see her — it’s Mizziz Smif’. This woman and her steadfast aide beside her have watched over you for the last 100 days as if you were their own. You are still terrified and most likely hungry, but you feel a little better. The lady from the office who usually terrifies you takes you out of a line of your classmates and puts a phone in your hand. Mommy is on the line. “Sweetheart,” she says, “You are staying at school tonight! Won’t that be fun?” Well, you don’t know about “fun” but now you know two things: 1) Mommy knows where you are and that’s a BIG HONKING DEAL to a four-year old and 2) you are somewhere the people know you and have done everything but swear oaths to take care of you. This may be scary, but you think it may turn out alright.

Stories have come in from all over Atlanta of teachers reading bedtime stories to children, of principals organizing early morning snowball fights to take the children’s minds off the gravity of the situation, of cafeteria workers staying to make sure the children had hot food to eat.

In. Loco. Parentis. Yes, it’s a legal term dripping with all the crap an army of lawyers can hang on it, but at the heart it means exactly what it says — “In the place of a parent.” It’s what every teacher worthy of the title holds closest to his or her heart whenever he looks at the young lives in his or her charge. For the 8 to 10 hours a day these children are with their teachers, their teachers ARE their parents and most of the time consequences be damned. People who think teaching is about 7 to 3 with summers off have no clue. The teachers in Atlanta who did not sleep so their children could weren’t thinking about the summer vacation. Teaching is more than that.

Happily, the debacle in Atlanta has passed with no children harmed . . . except maybe from a snowball to the nose, but teachers everywhere have stood in the place of parents and given the last full measure of devotion with no worry about what was to come.

Victoria Soto wasn’t worried about Common Core when she put her own body between a madman and her precious Sandy Hook first graders — taking bullets meant for them. Professor Liviu Librescu wasn’t thinking about his tenure hearing as he held the door of his Virginia Tech classroom shut even as the deranged gunman fired shot after shot through the door and into the Holocaust survivor’s body. The Sisters of Charity who taught at St. Mary’s Orphanage in Galveston, TX were not champing at the bit to get home on that dark September day in 1900 when all ten perished — each with her portion of the 90 children in her charge tied to their waists with clothesline as The Great Galveston Hurricane drowned the island.

All teachers. In loco parentis.

Love y’all and keep those feet clean.

 

Jan10

First You Say It, Then You Do It

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wheels-falling-offI almost died Christmas Eve, and I’m told it would have put a damper on the holidays.

Christmas Eve fell on a Tuesday so, like every Tuesday, I went to Clinton to National Health Care to check on Granny Ima and see if she would let me clean and polish her nails. Now Mama and I used to go to Columbia to spend every Christmas Eve with Granny when I was a child so in some ways, I found the whole trip ironic. Granny was happy and she smiled and said a few words, which was the best Christmas present she could give me, but she didn’t want her nails messed with, so I sat and talked to her until her CNA came to get her for lunch. Then, I kissed her goodbye, got in my truck, and headed home to get ready to go to Rob’s for Christmas Eve supper.

I bought my 1994 Ford F-150 with a little of Mama’s insurance money so it’s extremely special to me.  Anyway, as I was leaving Clinton on State 308, I called my great-Aunt Pearl (Ima’s oldest sister) to apprise her of Granny’s condition and state of mind. We were talking as I merged onto I-385 and when I gave the old girl some gas, I felt a pronounced thump. I told Aunt Pearl I’d have to call her back, hung up and concentrated on the sound.

It was an intermittent noise, which is aggravating to diagnose, and I’m not an accomplished mechanic, but I was pretty convinced it was a universal joint needing replacing or maybe an exhaust hanger had popped loose when a woman in a PT Cruiser had tapped me in the rear end in downtown Clinton that morning. I sped up to 85 mph and the noise went away. I gently applied the brakes and the noise didn’t come back. So I turned the radio back up, passed a few slow-moving cars, and continued on my way.

When I went under the State Road 92 bridge, the thump became a clunk. I had tons of ideas running through my head and all of them centered on how I was going to pay to fix whatever u-joint or exhaust hanger needed attention. I also considered the motor might be going and just about cried. I call her “Mama’s Final Gift” and I’ve become seriously attached, but all the gauges read okay so I kept on and the sound stopped eventually.

I exited I-385 and turned left onto State Highway 418 about 23 miles later and when I hit 60 mph, the noise came back. I was almost home though, so I just started the “c’mon, baby, hold together” Han Solo talk. Then, quite literally, the wheels fell off the apple cart. I slowed down to a crawl to turn right onto the road to home and saw a tire and wheel pass me. My brain had just enough time to register the thought of “that’s strange; someone’s wheel is rolling down the road,” before the left front end of the truck slammed into the pavement and the truck jolted up and down with enough force to knock my head smartly on the roof of the cab. Then an awful grinding noise filled the air and I realized the wheel in question was mine. I drove on the brake rotor about ten yards until my brain finally got the message to my foot that it was still pressing the gas instead of the brake and I stopped. Then, it hit me.

My wheel fell off my truck!

I just lost my freaking wheel!

I followed my first instinct when something crazy like that happens to me and started to call Mama, realizing just in time my long distance plan wasn’t quite that good. So I switched gears and called Budge six times and she didn’t answer the phone. It didn’t bother me though; I think I was still in shock because, you know — wheel fell off and all. In fact, some primitive part of my brain still functioning correctly posed a very good question: what was Budge supposed to do if I DID talk to her? Raise the truck with telekinesis? Realizing I had not, in fact, married Carrie White, I called Rob, my stepdad, just as he was pulling into the yard from work. I explained my predicament and he said to sit tight, he’d get Baby Huey (my 6’6″, 375 lbs “baby” stepbrother Travis) and he’d be right on.

By then, Budge had finished her shower and called me back. I think all she heard was “wheel fell off.” Ten minutes later she found me sitting on the lowered tailgate of my truck having spoken to a few friends I’d called just to pass the time. It was while sitting there calmly drinking a bottle of water the reality and gravity of the situation. The noise I’d heard coming out of Clinton was the wheel wobbling as one or more lug nuts decided to take a vacation. The second noise was the exodus of even more of these vital little hunks of metal. The terrible vibration I felt on the off ramp and 418 was the wheel wobbling on the studs devoid of attachments.

I started to shake a little. As slow as I was going as I turned onto the road, the wheel leaving still caused a bad jolt. Now, imagine for a moment: What would have happened if that same wheel had flown off while I was on I-385? wheel

I KNOW what would have happened because I’ve seen it happen during NASCAR races. The rotor would have dug into the asphalt, Newton’s First Law of Motion would have taken over and I’d have started either flipping end over end or doing some sweet barrel rolls down the highway. Since I wasn’t wearing my seat belt (they are under the seat cover) I’d have been ejected through the shattered windshield or the shattered side window, the truck would have hit me or the care behind would have run me over, I would have died on Christmas Eve 2013 and that would have sucked.

I don’t know why the wheel stayed on until I was going slow enough to survive the results. I know a lot of people would call it a neat coincidence. I don’t. See, as I was putting the wheel back on the truck, I asked myself why the lug holes in the rim were threaded while the studs were smooth. That’s when I realized the rim had ridden on the studs long enough to smooth them out while cutting threads into the rim. That’s not all; when I borrowed a lug nut from the other wheels, I discovered every lug nut was loose. Y’all skeptics think what you want and call me whatever you please, but I think Jesus and Mama were watching out for me one more time and I’m certainly thankful they were.

Love y’all and hope the new year is off to a great start! Keep those feet clean!

Nov22

Why I Believe the Warren Report

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I concur, but I wish I didn't.

I concur, but I wish I didn’t.

President John F. Kennedy was assassinated fifty years ago today as he wrote in a convertible limousine through Dealy Plaza in Dallas, Texas. The imagery of that fateful fall day are forever etched in the minds of Americans of that generation. Several times as I was growing up, Mama told me the story of being eleven years old in gym class at Gray Court – Owings School when the principal came over the PA system and asked teachers to get their classes seated and quiet for a very important announcement. She said several of the teachers cried and many of the older students did as well. Mama always said she didn’t think about the President much, but she was very concerned for “Mrs. Jackie” and her well-being.

Ten months and 889 pages after the events in Dallas turned America upside down, The President’s Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy told the public Lee Harvey Oswald had acted alone in killing Kennedy and Jack Ruby had acted alone in killing Oswald. Never in the course of human events has such a document caused so much furor. The Warren Report has been vilified and vindicated; it has been pooh-poohed and propped up, but it has never ceased being controversial.

For better or worse, a significant portion of Americans, and the world at large as well, believe the Warren Committee got it wrong. My generation grew up hearing conspiracy theories abound implicating everyone from LBJ to aliens in killing the President and framing Oswald. Try to read all the books, articles, and web pages on the assassination and you will never finish. As far as I’m concerned, however, the committee was correct, but my opinion doesn’t give me much comfort. In fact, I think Oswald acting alone is much scarier than any grand conspiracy.

Lee Harvey Oswald was a complete nobody with strange political ideals and odd habits. He wasn’t on any FBI or CIA radar because he was just a nobody . . . but with three shots from a cheap Italian rifle, he changed the world. THAT is scary. See, a big conspiracy would be comforting for me. Smart people run conspiracies and dangerous organizations. The world has agencies who can protect us from a group of boogeymen; sooner or later, someone will talk to the wrong person and the group will be broken up and we’ll all be safe again.

Locating and limiting a loner loser like Lee, however, takes nothing less than lots of luck. That is terrifying.

“Lone wolfs” are the most dangerous of all terrorists and criminals. They report to no one; they are in league with no one; they are, quite simply, alone with their thoughts of murder and mayhem, and that makes them supremely dangerous. As a people, we don’t like the thought of such dangerous people walking around among us. It’s unsettling to realize that one person — a “shadow person” at that — can rip the fabric of a nation into tatters and change the way we live in our day to day world. It’s better, safer at least, to believe only big organizations with heads and resources and charts and data can pull off something like a Presidential assassination. Big particles get caught in a sieve quickly, but the tiny singletons pass right through.

Oswald wasn’t the first person to act alone and change the world and he hasn’t been the last. Look at Charles Whitman, the University of Texas Sniper. Nothing about him suggested he was anything other than a mild, hard working veteran, student and husband . . . until the day he murdered his mother and wife then climbed into the clock tower on the UT campus in Austin and shot fifty people, killing seventeen.

With just a minimum of help from a couple of friends, Timothy McVeigh carried out the deadliest act of domestic terrorism in the country’s history when he blew up the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City and killed 168 men, women, and children. During his trial, McVeigh made a statement I think sums up what I’m trying to get across. People speculated McVeigh had co-conspirators and pressured him to name them before he exploded saying

You can’t handle the truth! Because the truth is, I blew up the Murrah Building and isn’t it kind of scary that one man could wreak this kind of hell?

Isn’t it scary indeed? Time and again in our history, one person with an attitude, a vendetta, or just a chip on his shoulder has carried out an act so heinous it has altered the way we conduct our lives. Thanks to Oswald, Presidents are vastly less accessible than they once were. No one ever heard of crime in Norway, much less mass murder, but one violent true believer in “antizionism” changed that when Anders Behring Breivik bombed several government buildings in Oslo before donning a police uniform and traveling to an island full of teenagers at summer camp and shot and killed 69 of them. Mehmet Ali Agca swore allegiance to no particular group but still decided to shoot and very nearly kill Pope John Paul II. That act gave the world The Popemobile, but imagine if Agca’s bullet had pierced the pontiff’s heart.

Finally, do any of you parents feel as safe sending your children to school as you felt when you were going to school? Lone, disturbed, and disaffected people have made school a terrifying place. From the Columbine Massacre to the latest mass murder at Sandy Hook Elementary almost a year ago now, we have to worry that some person with a beef and a gun is going to break into our schools and kill our children.

I understand people want to see conspiracies, but in Kennedy’s case, I think Oswald acted alone, like so many others before and since, which proves to me no well thought and planned conspiracy is nearly as terrifying as the twisted human nature of a lone killer.

Love y’all, and keep those feet clean.

Nov10

This is NOT a Movie

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enders_game_ver12Budge and I went to see Ender’s Game Saturday afternoon. I read the book eons ago and Budge knew enough that we both expected the “twist” at the end. I sat through the movie, which was beautifully shot and orchestrated, but after it ended, Budge and I walked back to the car in depressed silence.

This movie is not — let me repeat that to be clear — NOT a faithful representation of the source material in Orson Scott Card’s novel. What it is, and in spades I’ll add, is a blatant and scathing indictment of America’s actions towards foreign countries over the last two Presidential administrations.

It doesn’t bother me that the movie could have been a Michael Moore rag; what bothers me is how spot on it was in its satire in places AND how simple it was for me and Budge (who abhors politics) to pick out the director’s theme.

I don’t usually put spoilers in my movie posts, but I’m making an exception in this one, so if you’re planning to see it 1) don’t say I didn’t warn you and 2) don’t read any further down this post.

In the BOOK, Earth is attacked TWICE by “Buggers” who show every intention of returning again, which establishes a pretty good case for some type of preemptive action on the three NATIONS of the Earth. The BOOK has two important sub-plots that involve Ender Wiggins’ psychopathic brother Peter and his beloved sister Valentine. In the BOOK, we look like a species trying to defend ourselves from another eminent attack from space.

In the MOVIE, we look like bullying, Nazi-esque douchebags.

Our planet is attacked one time. The “Buggers” show no sign of coming back, propaganda to the contrary, and the globe is depicted as a single New World Order type unified one-nation entity, thereby discarding the three warring “mega-nations” that gave purpose and tension to the novel. The book is subtle in it’s Cold War political message; the movie isn’t subtle at all. Instead, the movie invokes the old saw that, “If the only tool in your box is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” Children are taken from their homes at ridiculously tender ages and sent to “Battle School” where they are pitted against each other in a series of Darwinian tasks that make The Hunger Games look like an afternoon of croquet.

The book has those elements as well, BUT in the movie, everything is stripped down. NO allowance is made for the fact THESE ARE CHILDREN, and in the end, one of those children — the eponymous main character — becomes the architect and executor of a genocide Hitler, Stalin, and Mao couldn’t have imagined in their collectively most coked out acid trips. In the movie, our wonderfully united species spends 50 years building a space-faring fleet with one purpose in mind — eradicating the “Buggers.” We don’t try to communicate with them because the bodies we discovered after the “invasion” show no vocal cords so naturally a species capable of interstellar flight couldn’t POSSIBLY have some other way of communication than spoken words.

Nope, they are different from us, they apparently don’t like us — but we don’t bother to ask them, so obviously, we have to kill every single one of them in order for our world to be safe. Does any of this sound the slightest bit familiar? If it doesn’t, turn off Rush Limburger and Sean Hennessy and think about it for a minute. If you do, you’ll see it’s a perfect picture of American foreign policy for the last 12 years.

The USA was attacked on 9-11-2001 by elements of Al-Qaeda under the influence and command of Osama Bin Laden. Quite predictably — and I think appropriately — we flipped our collective lids and beat our pruning hooks into swords overnight. All of our intelligence, indeed all of the WORLD’S intelligence, pointed to Bin Laden hiding out in the mountainous border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan. So, with revenge on our minds, we gear up for a massive beat-down such as the world has never seen. We load up the transports and carriers with men and weapons and we head across the waters to kick the everloving sh . . . I mean poop out of — wait for it — IRAQ!?

W.T.F? Bin Laden and the Al-Qaeda people are in Afghanistan / Pakistan. Why are we invading Iraq? Bin Laden is not in Iraq. Bin Laden is in Afghanistan / Pakistan somewhere. Yet for reasons NO ONE can adequately explain, we roll in to a sovereign nation, shoot the place up, destabilize the entire region, and ultimately kill Bin Laden? NO. BECAUSE BIN LADEN ISN’T IN IRAQ!! No, we kill Saddam Hussein, who, yes, is a raging asshole who killed his own people (with a lot of weapons he got from us in America) and turned the country from something resembling a nation into a festering bed of warring sects who hate each other AND, incidentally, HATE US TOO.

Only after we tidy up the loose ends that Dubya’s daddy left hanging in the family closet do we go flounder around in the deserts and badlands of Afghanistan for ten years and finally manage to kill the ONE GUY we’ve been looking for as he was kicked back and relaxing in our supposed “ally’s” backyard.

The 9/11 attacks changed everything. I know that. I sat and bawled like a baby for six hours watching the news after I got home from teaching classes that day. Unfortunately, they destroyed our country and no one seems to mind. The best estimate I can find is 2,996 people died in the attacks. In the Iraq War that followed — tell me why did that happen again — 4,486 American soldiers died. That doesn’t include the 100,000 Iraqi civilians killed because when everyone looks the same and there is no real front line, you kill them all and let God and Allah fight it out.

Despite all those casualties, the worst face of the Iraq War / “Global War on Terror” is the face of the soldiers who are coming home. It’s bad enough for our regular forces to have to face combat, but so many of the troops who’ve fought this war AREN’T regular forces. They’re National Guard troops who signed up for some extra money and to help fill sandbags during floods or look for missing people during a hurricane. They were never trained to go to a foreign country, meet interesting people, and kill them.

Now they are back and they are broken inside and from what I can see, no one gives a really good damn about it. THAT is what saddens me most about what our country has become and that is what’s brought to the fore so painfully in this mockery of Ender’s Game: the movie. One line in the movie says it best of all. The psych officer is confronting the main training colonel about his harsh training tactics and the line she delivers is one for the ages:

“You are turning these children into KILLERS and when it’s over and they finally get to come home you want ME to try to fix them. Well, they can’t BE FIXED!”

I lost my daddy in Vietnam . . . another war eerily similar to the Iraq War. Oh, he’s alive and probably sitting in his recliner watching westerns on tv as I’m writing this, but he went to Vietnam a 19 year old kid from Fountain Inn, SC who’d never been on a plane and he came back 13 months later and 100 years older. I never got the chance to know the man my mama and Granny Wham talked about.

And now, it’s happening again.

Love y’all. Keep your feet clean and I’m sorry I don’t know the answers or what else to say.