When I was a teenager, one of my favorite recreations was fishing on the local farm ponds around my hometown. A buddy of mine named Scott had unfettered access to a nice fourteen foot jon boat and we had permission from several farmers to get in their ponds whenever we wanted. Mostly, we fished at night for three reasons. First, this is the Southland in the summertime. Fish have sense even if people don’t and they lie deep and don’t bite much, if at all in the heat of a July day. Second, I am about half a gene from being an albino. Sunshine is not my friend. Finally, if you ever once hear a five pound bass explode through the surface to take a Heddon’s Hula Popper on a still night under the stars, you can say you’ve lived a good life whatever may come from then on.

This particular Wednesday night, Scott and I were joined by another of our buddies, Wishbone. We got on the pond just as twilight was turning into full dark. I was seated in back of the boat because I cast right handed side armed. Wishbone was in the front seat because he also cast exclusively side armed. Scott took the middle because he was a lefty and could cast very well with a traditional overhand motion. The arrangement worked quite well and we spent an hour catching and releasing small, strong bass and an odd bream or two with more guts than sense.

We’d worked our way around the edge pond and had reached the “neck” where the stream that fed the pond flowed in. Several large water oaks and a willow or two hung out over the water and at times we passed underneath these outstretched limbs to cast to the undercut banks that were home to the real lunker bass in the lake. All had gone nicely when I heard a distinct “thump” in the boat between Wishbone and Scott.  Scott whipped around and shot me a desperate look in the light of the gibbous moon. I nodded wordlessly that I’d heard it as well just about the time the thing we’d dreaded most came upon us; Wishbone wailed out plaintively, “What just hit the boat?” Now Scott and I knew quite well what had made the noise. It was most likely a brown or “yellow bellied” water snake that had dropped out of the overhanging tree into the boat. They are big eyed nocturnal serpents and about as harmless as cold blooded, scaly kittens.

At this point, I need to tell you three things of great importance. One, we were in ten or twelve feet of water. Two, I’m five feet ten inches tall on a good day and I can’t swim a LICK. Some of you may have heard an old wives’ tale about how us fat people “float well.” Now I can’t speak for anyone else, but personally, I float like a ’54 Studebaker Conestoga station wagon. Third, Wishbone was mortally, morbidly, and totally terrified — nay, freaked completely out beyond all rational thought — by snakes. Any snakes. At this point, the night got quite interesting.

Wishbone guessed the noise had been a snake and he snatched what must have been a WWII antiaircraft spotlight from his tackle box and ,before we could stop him, cut it on and began searching for Zeros and Val bombers in the bottom of the boat. The ten million candlepower flashlight had the very real effect of blinding the three of us instantly, which sent Wishbone straight to fifth gear of panic. Poor Wish. He only knew two things at that moment: all he could see was red and yellow splotches AND he was in a fourteen foot aluminum jon boat with — to his tortured mind anyway — a Titanaboa. He lost all control. Still, IF the very bright flashlight had been the ONLY non-fishing item in Wishbone’s tackle box, we might have made it out okay.

It wasn’t and we didn’t.

My vision cleared just in time to see Wishbone stand up, pull a Charter Arms Bulldog five shot .44 Special double action revolver from his tackle box and point it at the bottom of the boat where he figured the anaconda had taken refuge. I managed to squeak “NOOOOO!” in a rather pathetic way before the calm night erupted in a thunderclap not once, but five times. The boy emptied the gun into the bottom of the boat. How none of us fell out of the boat in the midst of the confusion, I’ll never know, but what I do know is this — .44 Specials make BIG ‘OL HOLES in aluminum.

I guess the report of the gun cleared Wish’s head because he plopped down into his seat with a sheepish look on his face and watched the five .44 caliber geysers jetting up from the bottom of the boat. Scott calmly reached over and took the gun from Wish and said, “Well, Wish, now the boat is going to sink and we’ll be in the water with REAL dangerous snakes like water moccasins and cottonmouths.” At this point, I chimed in, “Remember fellas? I can’t swim. AT ALL.” What Scott and Wish said next, I won’t print but it would have made Samuel L. Jackson proud.

In the end, we found out the boat’s “solid” seats were packed with styrofoam or some such floatant and, with a combination of bailing like mad and some Olympic class rowing, we made it to the take out point with two whole inches of gunwale still above water. All three of us were soaked to the bone but we’d saved the boat, saved the tackle, and, most important to my mind anyway, saved my fat rear end. Apparently, our reptilian interloper had made good his escape sometime between the shooting and the paddling. In any event, we never saw it. Once we got everything loaded up, Scott walked over and patted Wishbone on the back and said, “Wish, I love you like a brother, but frost will form on the Hinges of Hell before you EVER go fishing in a boat with me again.”

Now, that story is one of my favorites ever, but I didn’t tell it to get a laugh. I told it to point out a real problem in school, homes, and society in general today. Lots of people have a mentality of “That’s not my Problem” or “Why should I worry about her situation.” Well, the fact is, we’re all in the same boat. Wish put five holes in the boat on his end, but I came within a hundred yards of drowning. Wish panicked, but Scott got just as wet. When there’s a hole in the boat, it doesn’t matter what end the hole’s on; everyone is going to get wet and if the water’s deep enough or cold enough, everybody is going to be in a world of hurt. Remember this, the Titanic hit the iceberg with her bow, but the people all the way back at the fantail drowned too. A teacher’s problem is YOUR problem. A kid’s problem is YOUR problem. If you are a Republican, a Democrat’s problem is YOUR problem and vice versa. WE ARE ALL IN THE BOAT TOGETHER.

Try to keep that in mind, y’all, before you decide what you are going to ignore.

Keep those feet dry and clean, y’all.

Love y’all and see you soon 🙂

I get really saddened when I read about lack of funding for schools and especially lack of funding for libraries.

We have money to send our children off to fight and die in foreign countries, but we don’t have the money to educate them in modern fashion. We’ve chosen between guns and butter to our detriment.

That’s not what saddens me most, though. What bothers me most of all is the emphasis schools place on grades and test scores. We expect our students to come to school ready to learn and be all attentive when, in fact, a whole lot of them don’t know where their next meal is coming from or where they will lay their heads tonight. I remember getting to school at 6:45 AM and sneak kids into the library against school policy because they had been running the streets all night. Some do it by choice and others by necessity but in any case, they aren’t ready to learn.

The problems children face today are beyond anything most of us older folks ever saw. All the baggage, all the issues that they carry to school with them in their lunch boxes and book bags take up too much space on their desks and in their minds to allow the knowledge and skills we are supposed to teach them to seep in. I submit as proof that the world has tilted from its axis this story from a Dallas suburb about a FOURTH GRADER who committed suicide by hanging himself in the school restroom.

What have we come to as a society when a nine year old child no longer can find a reason to go on living? We are worried about test scores in the face of this blasphemy? Yes, I said blasphemy because the suicide of such an innocent can be described accurately by no other word that I know.

If a story like that cannot move the politicians, what about the “diligent mother” in Georgia who insisted her son do better on his report card and reinforced the lesson by having him bludgeon his beloved pet hamster to death with a hammer. Some neighbors are claiming the boy made the whole thing up because he has “emotional problems.” Well, if he didn’t, you can bet your sweet bottom he does now. I have long maintained that it is ludicrous in the extreme that one must pass a battery of test just to earn the right to drive a car but any two fools with active gametes can conceive a baby.

I don’t have any easy answers. To be honest, I don’t even know if our broken educational system and our wrecked social system can BE fixed. We may find out that nothing short of a revolution will change what needs changing in our country. If that were to happen, let me ask you: would you be stood against the wall or would you be one holding the gun? It may be a far fetched idea, but I don’t think it’s any secret that something, somewhere, somehow is going to have to give. God only knows where it will be.

Until we take to the streets in bare feet, my lovelies, keep those tootsies clean and remember that GS Feet loves y’all and just wants everyone to “do right.”

Take care, y’all.

I have a question for the masses, which means the four or five of you that check to see if I’ve written anything lately. Feel free to email me your idea or post it in the comments.

Is it ironic for a father to tell his son he loves him directly before AND immediately after calling him a “fat, lazy a$$ed self-pitying m*****f*****?”

Just wondering if I’m using the correct term or if I’m just being overly sensitive.

Keep those feet washed, y’all.

Love each of you.

My guitar cake and I on my third birthday, January 6, 1974.

Okay, so I’m 39 today. As birthdays go, it’s been a pretty dull one. I pretty much stayed at home sending out the usual daily resume’ that will go unanswered and cleaning house. I did take a birthday trip to McDonalds and treated myself to $12.50 worth of heart attack on a bun just because I could. I mean, it’s my birthday, right?

It’s my birthday. I don’t know how many of y’all listen to the rock group Nickelback, but they have a song that pretty much sums up my thoughts on having reached 39. It goes, “I’m tired of standing in line at clubs I’ll never get in. It’s like the bottom of the ninth and I’m never gonna win. This life hasn’t turned out quite the way I thought it would be.” Nope. It sure hasn’t.

By the time Alexander was 30, he had conquered the known world. Augustus was first emperor of Rome by my age. Jesus had already come the first time, preached three years, redeemed the world, and gone back to Heaven by 33. I could go on. Believe me, I could go on and on. It’s never good to be a history buff and suffer from borderline personality disorder at the same time. You find all kinds of people to compare yourself to who make your paltry accomplishments look ever more sadder than you already know them to be.

No. Things haven’t gone according to plan — any plan, A, B, or Q — at all. Didn’t get in the Naval Academy. Didn’t go to an Ivy League school (BUT I did get accepted). I’m not even a teacher anymore and that was pretty much all I had going for me. I don’t care much about not having as much money as other people just because I’ve never used money to keep score. I’ve got a roof over my head and food on my table, thanks to The Reason I Get Up In The Morning, and that is enough as far as material possessions go. I was just hoping I would have accomplished a little more.

In any event, this is my last birthday. I went batcrap crazy into a serious depressive funk when I turned 30. I have no intentions of doing the same next year. So, since I can’t stop time, I intend to begin celebrating anniversaries next year. Therefore, next January 6th, I will mark the first anniversary of my 39th Birthday. It’s semantics I know, but when you’re fighting a black dog, you do what you can.

So, for all the members of the Class of ’89 at LDHS who voted me “Most Likely to Succeed,” I apologize. I pretty much let y’all down, but don’t worry, I let myself down even more. I hope you’ll all pardon the maudlin self-pity party. I try to limit myself to publishing only one per year . . . usually on my birthday. I appreciate all y’all bearing with me.

Love y’all.

Don’t forget to wash your feet.

Me and Mama when I was in 5th Grade.

Today is Mama’s birthday. For years, I’d take whatever money I got for Christmas and beg a ride to the store from someone, until I could drive myself, and get Mama a birthday present and a card. One year when I didn’t get any money, I sold my collection of Harbinger comics to buy her a CD organizer and case. Today, per her wishes, I had to bake her a homemade New York cheesecake to go with the card. No card and I could get her a Cadillac and it wouldn’t matter. She’s always been a card fanatic.

I won’t go into her age because even though she doesn’t read my blog because she doesn’t fool with computers much, she would sense through the Mama Force that I had posted her age online where God and everyone else could see it. She would not be pleased. I’m sure y’all know about the Mama Force. It is the supernatural ability to tell just where your child is, who they are with, and what they are doing. It is especially strong and accurate when they are somewhere they are not supposed to be, with someone they are forbidden to see, and doing something they’ve no business doing. The Mama Force is a fearsome thing and it kept me more or less in line.

Not wanting to worry Mama picked up where the Mama Force left off. As long as I can remember, Mama worked hard, crappy jobs to put a roof over my head and food on the table. As you can tell by this picture, Mama was an extraordinarily beautiful woman in her prime. That prime was spent largely raising me. Mama had me at 18 and she and Daddy divorced when Mama was 26.

She had a lot of offers from other men over the years, but once she made it perfectly clear that I was an unquestionable part of the deal, they all pretty much hit the road. It’s because of all the lonely years Mama spent taking care of me when she could have been out having her own fun that I have no patience with young mothers, single or otherwise, who pawn their children off on grandparents or relatives so they can “do their own thing.” I hear them say, “I’m young, I shouldn’t have to settle down.” To which I’ve always wanted to reply, and actually have on more than one occasion, “You should have thought about that while you were on your back with your legs spread.” Mama always told me I hadn’t asked to be brought into this world and since she had drug me here, she has a responsibility.

Mama and me when she finished eye school.

Mama always took care of me, watched over me, looked out for me. She was always there for me. These days, she doesn’t get around as easily as she used to. She’s not elderly by any stretch, but a lifetime of hard work, heartbreak, and hard times has taken it’s toll. The once shiny blonde hair is a respectable iron-grey now, for the most part. It pains me to admit it, but I put more than one of those grey hairs in that head. Truth be told, I put most all of those grey hairs in that head.

Right from the start, I was trouble. She almost died bringing me into the world because her idiotic doctor let her stay in labor for 36 hours before it finally dawned on the doofus that there was no way in Hell a 5’2″ 89 lbs woman was going to bring a 10 lbs baby into the world without some help. The scar she carries from that Cesarean Section has always reminded me of what I cost her. She nearly died having me then gave up her life to raise me.  As a result, Mama has always been perfect in my eyes — the eyes of a child. Even older and wiser as I am now, I cut Mama more slack than anyone else on the planet, including myself. She’s my hero in a lot of different ways and if you haven’t guessed by now, I am 100% a Mama’s Boy. I take little to nothing from Mama in looks or personality. In both respects, I am a close clone of Daddy and the good Lord knows I love him too, but Mama has always been here when everyone else has been gone. Children, even grown children, don’t forget things like that.

Happy Birthday, Mama. I love you.

These things had a LOT of decals!

Christmas Eve has been a favorite day of mine for a long, long time. When I was a child, it meant getting up early and driving to Granny Hughes and her jerk second husband’s house in Columbia for a day of food and presents. That was as far as we ever went when I was a kid and driving with Mama for an hour seemed like an adventure.

I remember one time, we were coming back in a driving rainstorm and Mama couldn’t see plus she was dead tired and nodding off. I kept putting my hand out the window to collect rainwater and rub on her face to keep her awake. Good times. Good times.

By the time I was a car driving teenager, we didn’t have to go to Columbia anymore because Granny had moved in with us. Instead, I’d go hang out with my Aunt Cathy and Uncle Larry and their two sons, Zach and Blake. This particular Christmas Eve, Zach was maybe six years old. Blake was a toddler. The must have toy for that year was the DinoRider Action Figure collection. Zach was in love with all things DinoRider, so Cathy, like any good mother, had gone out and purchased a tandem axle dump-truck load of DinoRider Action Figures for her tow headed eldest boy.

I got to her house about ten on this particular Christmas Eve and the boys were asleep, finally. That was the cue for Cathy, Uncle Larry, and I to put together the “Santa Tableau”.  Most of the toys went together easily enough as I recall, but around midnight, we got to the DinoRiders. The box said “some assembly required.” Yeah, right.

The figures were all put together, BUT none of them had the correct decals stuck on yet. Those were in a sheet PER BOX about the size of the Webster’s Third Edition International Unabridged Dictionary. I started sticking decals on. To make matters worse, the figures had a molded place EXACTLY where the decals were supposed to go, so if you were the tiniest bit out of line, it stuck out like a sore thumb. I didn’t know I had OCD at that time. I just knew I had to get the stickers on perfectly or it would drive me crazy. If you made a mislick and put a sticker in the wrong place, God help you. I’m convinced that had the Titanic been wrapped with DinoRider decals, she would have split the iceberg and made New York in record time. Those things would stick your eyeballs together just looking at them.

Midnight became 2 A.M. which turned into 4 A.M. Finally, at around 5:45 AM, the three of us got the last of the toys ready and set up properly for maximum “Wow Factor” when the boys came in to see them. I stumbled into Zach’s room and collapsed in the bottom bunk of his bunk beds and promptly passed out from exhaustion. I slept like the dead until around 6:15 A.M. when, with the barest hint of dawn just breaking in the window, I was awakened by two pudgy little hands beating me about the head and shoulders with cries of “Shannon, come see! Come see! Santa came!”

Somehow, I managed to stumble into the living room as Zach ran into the midst of half the stockpile of Toys R’ Us arrayed underneath the well decorated tree. Cathy was snapping still pictures and Larry was filming the event with one of the first practical VHS self contained camcorders. Zach, joined a few minutes later by Blake, was so happy and so bouncy that I felt less and less tired. I may even have drank a cup of coffee even though I hated the stuff.

It never ceases to amaze me how time gets away from us. That was twenty years ago at least now. Zach is a grown man and the associate pastor of a church in Gainesville, Florida, but he just posted on FaceBook that he’s home safe. I’ll see him tomorrow at Daddy’s house for Christmas supper and I’m thinking it won’t be long until I have to put together a second generation of toys. You see, the little pudgy, tow headed boy of all those years ago gave one of the most beautiful diamond rings I’ve ever seen to one of the sweetest girls I’ve ever met just this past Thanksgiving. Just yesterday, he was beating me awake to come see him play with his toys. This coming Easter, I get to see him marry the girl of his dreams.

Don’t forget to wash your feet, y’all, and most of all Merry Christmas!

Love y’all a lot!