The battlefield of Verdun then.

The Battle of Verdun began 21 February 1916 in the early morning hours with the largest artillery bombardment in history up to that point. Over a ten hour period, around 800 German artillery pieces – 22 of which were battleship sized 16.5 inch supercannons – fired about 1,000,000 shells into a 58.9 square mile region with the French fort complex of Verdun at the rough center.

Those numbers are too staggering to take in as they are so I’ve worked out a little math, which I hate, to provide some scale for you to consider. The covering fire works out to around 16,000+ shells per square mile, but since some folks — myself included — have trouble visualizing a square mile, so I did some conversion to acres. We Americans LOVE our version of football (which has surprisingly little to do with the feet) so most of us have seen a football field. For my soccer friends internationally, the pitch is close enough to be of no consequence for this exercise. A football field is roughly three-quarters of an acre.

The bombardment of Verdun placed 26.5 high explosive shells — many the size of a Volkswagen Beetle — onto an area slightly less than the size of a football field.

So, picture a football field in your mind. Now place 26.5 shells onto it in a roughly even pattern and ask yourself one question: “Where would I hide?”

The Verdun battlefield today, scarred and shellmarked even 100 years on.

The bombardment lasted ten hours, but halted around six hours for several minutes. This was a ruse to lure the French defenders out into the open to help the wounded or collect the dead. Once the commanders figured enough men had climbed out of the trenches to make it worthwhile, the bombardment opened up again with full intensity.

The Germans advanced following the artillery prelude in a style never seen before. Instead of a mass of feldgrau moving across the pockmarked moonscape, the Germans — eerily forecasting the common units of the Second World War — moved out as squads of “stormtroopers.” Most squads had about ten men in them. The guy out front carried what I think is the most terrifying weapon on any battlefield at any time — a flamethrower. No one had used flamethrowers to this point. Following him were troops carrying not rifles but sacks of the “potato masher” grenades. The idea was a squirt of liquid fire would roust out some hapless French survivors and the ones the flame didn’t kill would get the grenades.

The tactics worked flawlessly that first day. Thousands of French defenders died with German losses totaling a mere 600.

The Germans advanced steadily throughout the remainder of February. They took the east side of the Meuse River as well as several wooded areas. Probably the high point for the Germans came when a small detachment of around 100 men used subterfuge and a tremendous amount of luck to capture the large fortress of Douaumont.

When March rolled around, however, the German plan to bleed the French white started to go awry. The main problem the Germans ran into was they expected their unprecedented artillery bombardment would have destroyed any effective French ability to mount their own artillery attack.

They were wrong.

In fact, most of the French artillery had survived the bombardment and as soon as Generals like Petain could catch their breath long enough, the “Black Butchers” as the Germans called the numerous French 75mm field guns began to beat a bloody tattoo upon the backs of the erstwhile attackers. At that point, Verdun became simply another in the long string of bloodbaths which passed for battles in the Great War. Attack followed counterattack all through the Spring and Summer. Several places changed hands many times. One small outpost village called Fleury swapped occupiers a total of 16 times in around a month’s time.

The death knell of the Germans at Verdun came on 1 July 1916 when the British launched their huge Somme Offensive and went sweeping across the German front to the north. This, combined with the successes of the Russian Brusilov Offensive on the Eastern Front demanded a movement of significant men and materiel from the Verdun sector to these other regions to prevent massive breakthroughs elsewhere.

Falkenhayn had gambled on the French getting too attached to Verdun which would allow his artillery to chew their infantry up. Unfortunately for him, he managed to get sucked in to his own meatgrinder. Rather than simply sitting back and bleeding the French, the cycle of attack and counterattack the Germans so earnestly desired to avoid settled in and once that happened, French morale, far from broken by the early German success soared as men like General Nievelle lead from the front in some cases. It was he who, upon seeing the success the Germans had in the early stages of the battle, issued the famous order which still rings down through the ages to us, “On ne passe pas!” They shall not pass!

The battle ended on 17 December 1916 with the Germans simply pulling back. They left behind 373,882 of their own dead along with 373,231 dead Frenchmen. Wounded, captured, and missing figures would drive those numbers even higher. For his failed gamble, the Kaiser would sack Falkenhayn as the Chief of the General Staff and replace him with the twin headed snake of Paul von Hindenburg and General Erich Ludendorff, the heroes of the Eastern Front.

“The Iron Harvest” of Verdun. Shells like these continue to explode and kill after all this time.

Verdun remains the longest battle in military history by some estimates. The final casualty rolls totaling nearly 1 million ensure it will remain one of the bloodiest as well. To this day, large portions of the land in and around Verdun are off-limits to all but special units of the French military who each year unearth thousands of “dud” shells which still have the potential to explode and wreak death and destruction 100 years after they first fell. In many ways, death not the least, Verdun lives on.

Love y’all and keep those feel clean!

Calling Donald Trump a blowhard and an idiot is an insult to hard blowing idiots everywhere. In a similar vein, I’m sure Bernie Sanders is a very nice man and probably comes highly recommended from whatever planet he immigrated from. Both of these gentlemen (well, one of two, I guess) are causing a tremendous amount of hand-wringing among my friends because both are leading in the polls here in South Carolina and in several other places in the nation.

I’m here to tell y’all to pump your brakes and settle down.

Here’s the reality of the situation — Donald and Bernie have as much chance of being on the final Presidential ballot in November as I have of buying the land I grew up on OR if you are unfamiliar with my birthplace, a snowball has in Hell.

I don’t care that they are leading in the polls. I don’t care that they’ve won earlier primaries. I don’t care that “The Donald” can buy votes left and right with his kind of money. You heard it here first — neither one will be on the ballot come this fall. They can win every primary from here on out and they STILL won’t be on the ballot. Neither will Ted “The Canadian” Cruz and all for the same reason.

Ted Cruz, Donald Trump, and Bernie Sanders are all COMPLETELY INCAPABLE of winning a general election. They are caricatures of politicians who have enjoyed a modicum of success by exciting very narrow segments of the electorate. They would get slaughtered and I mean SLAUGHTERED in a general election because what no one seems to remember is this country is split in half. Mitt Romney wishes he’d never said it, but he was right. The race is about 5% or so of the country. The other 95% made up their minds long ago.

So why am I so certain these jacklegs won’t be on the ballot? Easy. The Republican and Democratic establishments will never LET them on the ballot. Bernie could win every primary from here on out — Hillary is going to be the Democratic nominee. Same for Trump and Cruz, no matter how great they and their respective narrow bases think they are, the Republican establishment will NEVER let them on the final ballot. The Republican candidate is going to be Marco Rubio or possibly Jeb Bush, but that is a fading chance.

But what about the conventions?

The conventions are exactly what will keep them off the ballot. In Bernie Sander’s case, he can win all 50 states worth of delegates, but the Democratic establishment has a secret weapon they’ve never had to use yet. It’s called “the Superdelegates.” These are delegates unattached to any state who cast their votes independent of any primary results. Also, no matter how many or how few Superdelegates exist, their votes will always outnumber the total of the state delegates — IF NECESSARY. They will need to invoke the superdelegate protocol if Bernie actually looks like he’s going to get nominated. The simple political math is the man can’t win an election so the powers that be in the Democratic party are NEVER going to let him run and get shellacked.

Over among the elephants, they have a similar protocol in place. I don’t know exactly what it is, but they don’t call them Superdelegates. Still, if the GOP gets to the convention and either Ted Cruz or Donald Trump looks to have the nomination locked up, some obscure rule by the party elite will activate and Rubio or maybe Bush — both establishment darlings — will end up on the ticket.

It really is that simple. The party elites are not going to field a candidate for POTUS who doesn’t have a fighting chance of winning a general election. If Trump or Cruz ran on the GOP ticket, RINOs and moderate Republicans would cross the electoral aisle and vote democratic or not vote at all and the establishment is not going to sit by and let that happen.

One day, a clown like Trump may actually get on the ballot, but it’s not coming in November. One day, an eternal college undergraduate like Bernie may get to run for President, but not this year. The folks running the show aren’t going to let them. The only way that is ever going to change is if our current two party system gets overhauled and too many powerful people have WAY too much money involved to allow something like that to happen.

PS: if Donald thinks he’s going to take his ball and run as a third party, all he is doing is making it a cakewalk for Hillary and he knows it.

I hate politics, but I love y’all. Keep away from the politicians and it’ll be a lot easier to keep your feet clean.

I originally posted this on February 28, 2012 but with Lady Gaga singing the National Anthem at the Super Bowl AND the Grammy’s just passing by, I thought I’d run it again. Oh, and BTW, everything I say about Lady Gaga could just as easily apply to Miley Skankrous and some of the other pretenders to Lady Madonna’s throne.

I sooooo miss the ’80s. I was there and it was awesome.

It’s taken awhile for me to weigh in on this matter, but with the Super Bowl and then the Grammys right after, I’ve kept my silence long enough. It’s time to set the record straight and if no one else is going to do it, then I am. Lady Gaga is NOT as cool as Madonna. Lady Gaga is not the new generation’s Madonna. Lady Gaga is NOT Madonna’s heir.

I like Lady Gaga, but to paraphrase the infamous debate exchange between Lloyd Benson and Dan Quayle, “I watched Madonna come on the scene. I saw her take MTV by storm. Madonna was my teenage lust-crush and, Lady Gaga, you are NO Madonna.”

Let’s look at the facts. Lady Gaga wears outrageous costumes and has certain risque’ choreography in her videos and acts. Madonna made cone bras and lingerie-as-outerwear fashionable. How many young girls do you see walking down the street wearing a dress made of steak? Right. Now if you had been alive in the ’80s (aka the most awesome decade EVER) you would see girls from 8 to 80 rocking bustiers and fishnets without even standing on the corner. Fashion icon point? Madonna.

Maximum weirdness.

Lady Gaga is the stage name for Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta. Madonna’s stage name is . . . well, Madonna. You don’t get cool points for giving yourself a nickname. Nicknames are bestowed; they are earned through hard work and memorableness. Put out an awesome song that cements your place in music history and you get a nickname. Lady Gaga’s well-earned nickname is? Right, she doesn’t have one. Madonna? “The Material Girl,” a name she earned after channeling Marilyn’s turn in “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes”  in the video for the eponymous song. Nickname coolness? Madonna.

That’s 2-0 if you’re keeping score.

Next up is — for lack of a better word — groundbreakingness. Lady Gaga? What’s she done that’s never been done before? Matter of fact, what has she done that Madonna didn’t do before her? The word you are searching for is nada. What taboo walls did Madonna knock down, or more accurately, explode in a blinding flash of flame, fame, and diamonds? Let’s see. First, she writhed around in a pure white wedding dress for “Like a Virgin.” Then there was the “Borderline” blasphemous video for “Like a Prayer” where the erstwhile Catholic schoolgirl danced in next to nothing before a background of burning crosses.

Can you say “Went over like a fart in church?” 

If Skinhead O’Connor hadn’t torn up that picture of Pope John Paul II on Saturday Night Live, Madonna still would be persona non gratia at the Vatican. Oh, and how did she follow that up? She only put out the first video to get an X-rating in its initial release when “Justify My Love” was banned from being shown before midnight on MTV. I still remember being in a cramped and crowded dorm room on E-Hall in the Johnstone Dorms of Clemson University to watch that first showing. Then Madonna went on to release a book and a movie called Sex.

Then, just to show she still had the power to rock an audience with the unexpected, THE Material Girl frenched Christina AND Brittney (back when they were at peak hotness) while wearing a Marlene Deitrich suit just to pass the torch on to the next generation of hot women singers. Taboo destruction points? Madonna.

Still crazy after all these years.

So that’s 3-0 and game, set, and shutout to Madonna. Now with 7 Grammys and 13 MTV awards, Lady Gaga is off to a good start for sure, but she’s still got a ways to go to get 10 Grammys out of 28 nominations and turn 68 MTV nominations into 20 awards INCLUDING “Lifetime Achievement Award.” Lady Gaga is doing well for herself after five years, but can she sustain the flow and keep rocking into a third DECADE like Madonna? Only time will tell.

Of course, as much as I still love Madonna, I respect the fact that she too isn’t completely original.

That honor, of course, would have to go to . . . who else?

Left 2011, right 1992. Not exactly identical, but not bad for a 62-year-old.

CHER!

The Ex-Mrs. Bono is past Social Security age, still rocking, and still pretty hot — thanks to the miracle of modern plastic surgery and despite the stress of having Chas as a daughter/son. Keep it up, girl!

And the rest of you rock on and keep those feet clean.

Love y’all!

Erich von Falkenhayn, the man behind the Battle of Verdun.

The winter of 1915-1916 was a grim time for all the combatants of the Great War. Serbia, the little nation that could, fell to the Central Powers. Austria-Hungary hung on by a thread. Huge costly battles at Ypres, Artois, and Champagne taught the commanders of both sides the futility of sending frail, if brave, men of flesh against walls of lead and steel. Having no other strategy, however, both sides continued doing just that.

Up until the Great War, battles involved maneuver and strategic combat. Armies jockeyed for position until one reached a superior and unassailable position; the other side would realize the hopelessness of continued resistance and the battle, and by extension, the war would end. The object was to MOVE and take ground to hold until you had so much of the enemy’s territory he had no choice but suing for peace. Unfortunately, World War One did not behave in such a fashion. After eighteen months the war had ground down to trenches.

Most commanders looked at the vast line of trenches from Switzerland to the North Sea and saw only despair and hopelessness. It seemed no arm of flesh could break the stalemate which was war on the Western Front. One man, however, looked at that heartbreaking line of trenches and saw not despair, but opportunity. That man was German Chief of Staff Erich Georg Anton von Falkenhayn. He saw the Western Front for what it was — a meat grinder for men instead of beef or pork. With such clear eyed vision, he came upon a new plan for warfare.

Falkenhayn’s plan was both simple and diabolical. Since this war seemed to be only about killing men instead of capturing territory, he would simply design a perfect meat grinder. In his own words, he planned to “bleed France white.” He would pick a point along the line which he KNEW France would defend to the last man and launch a continuous attack against it. France would be forced to keep bringing more men to defend the position and German machine guns and artillery would kill them faster and faster until no more “meat” was left for the “grinder.” He was proposing a dedicated war of attrition. The object was never to actually TAKE the position chosen as bait, but to make France defend it until the last man. Then, with France bled dry, the U-Boats would starve England’s island home out of the war.

For his bait, Falkenhayn chose the picturesque fortress town of Verdun.

It is impossible for anyone not French to understand the importance of Verdun to the French people except by analogy. Verdun is to the French what The Alamo is to Texans, Jerusalem is to the Israelis, and Mecca is to the Moslem. Verdun is more than a piece of ground . . . it is sacred. From the Fourth Century, men first known as Franks under Charlemagne had defended a fortress at Verdun. Under Napoleon, the fortress at Verdun withstood repeated attacks by the Coalition, but it was during the disastrous Franco-Prussian war of 1870 when Verdun took on its most holy shroud.

The Franco-Prussian War was an unabashed and unmitigated disaster for the French.  The Prussians — ancestor state to the German nation — ran roughshod over France. The French lost battle after battle. Things were so bad the government actually changed from the Second Empire under Napoleon III to the democratic Third Republic. It didn’t help. Whole French armies were surrounded and surrendered completely. Paris fell under siege. The entire country lay under the Prussian heel — except for the mighty fortress at Verdun. Here the French flag flew until the last. Verdun held under a siege which lasted almost the entire 18 month long war. She never fell, but surrendered when ordered to by the capitulating French government.

Falkenhayn knew all this. He knew Verdun was a symbol to France, the place where she had once withstood the might of Germany and the ONE place she would NEVER surrender. Imagine if the Mexican army had invaded Texas during the Mexican War in the 1850s. Volunteers would have poured into the Alamo to defend it rather than let such a cherished shrine of Texas might fall to anyone. So it was with Verdun. The trap now had its bait. All that remained was for Falkenhayn to crank up his meat grinder and see how many Frenchmen he could kill before France cried, “Oncle!”

He would push the start button on that diabolical machine 21 February 1916 and France would indeed bleed profusely.

Look for more about the Battle of Verdun in the next week or so, but until then, Love y’all and keep those feet clean!

I first published this post on June 22, 2012 when Adele was burning up the airwaves the first go round. Since “Hello” is on every five minutes now, I thought I’d run it again.

Budge loves Adele. If I try to talk to her when “Set Fire to the Rain” is playing, I get a look that’ll curdle milk and a shush that would make Nancy Pearl blush with pride. Since I don’t like getting snapped at by my beloved, I usually sit quietly and listen to the song. It was during one such session that I decided Adele is the latest artist to add music to the long and storied list of stalker songs.

Now, everybody knows what a stalker song is, right? You know, one of the songs your ex dedicates to you on the late night radio romance show that sends you scurrying in a mad dash down to the police station at the butt crack of dawn the next morning to file the restraining order? Stalker songs!

Some of the more popular stalker songs masquerade as being romantic ballads. Take U2’s “I Will Follow” as an example. On the surface, the jerk finally realizes he should have paid attention to the chick when she was sending him the “come get me” signals. Now though, she’s moved on. What does he do? He lets her know right up front, “If you walkaway, walkaway I walkaway, walkaway…I will follow …” Not a healthy response to rejection.

Still, U2’s little ditty is mild compared to some of the masters of shade watching. I remember Def Leppard coming out with “Two Steps Behind” when I was in high school and thinking, “Wow! What a cool love song!” Once I realized though that the “shadow” he sings about — “you can run, but you can never hide / From the shadow that’s creepin’ up beside you,” — is actually HIM, the song took on a newer, more sinister slant.

Now,  I realize guy stalkers are the ones who garner the most press, but they aren’t the only ones who put out stalker songs. The fairer sex has its share of scorned lovers who want to get even. I mean, look at how the girl in Carly Simon’s hit song takes catching the object of her affection with someone else: “You belong to me / Can it be, honey, that you’re not sure / You belong to me?” Guys, if a girlfriend says that song tells exactly how she feels about you, it MIGHT be time to pull the trigger on that move to Europe you’ve been contemplating. Of course, if your ex takes her cues from Blondie, moving overseas won’t matter because “One way or another [she’s] gonna find ya / [she’s] gonna getcha getcha getcha getcha!”

Dude, if she dedicated “Someone Like You” to you last night on Delilah’s show, you MIGHT want to leave the lid on that pot!

What trips me out the most though is seeing how long and flourishing the history of stereo stalkers has been. For example, if you get past the funky organ and funny name, “96 Tears”, which I always thought was an upbeat little tune, turns really dark. How would YOU interpret the stanza:

Since you left me you’re always laughin’ way down at me
But watch out now I’m gonna get there
We’ll be together for just a little while
And then I’m gonna put you way down here
And you’ll start cryin’ Ninety-six tears

I don’t know about you, but that sounds like a lead in for a Criminal Minds episode if ever one existed! I can see the voice over and pull-away shot of the girl struggling, chained to the wall of a dark basement right now.  Of course, one might expect stalkerish or otherwise odd behavior from a guy who legally changed his name to a piece of punctuation.

What concerns me most, however, are the people who don’t realize a stalker song when they hear it. NO SONG illustrates this more clearly than that wedding standard, that classic “ode to eternal love”, that promise of constancy. Yep, I’m talking about the one, the only “Every Breath You Take” by the Police. I have attended two weddings (against my wishes, mind you) where this was the song played at the altar for the lovely couple.

Did no one in the wedding planning stages ever think to LISTEN TO THE LYRICS? This isn’t a song about a happy relationship blossoming into ripe old age with grandchildren around the rocking chairs on the front porch! This is a ballad to insanity and obsession! I can’t believe it wasn’t the theme song to the all-time scariest stalker movie ever — Fatal Attraction. Just look what the guy says in the first stanza:

Every breath you take
And every move you make
Every bond you break, every step you take
I’ll be watching you

He ends EVERY stanza with “I’ll be watching you!” Who is this guy? Santa Claus? If I go to a wedding and see “EBYT” on the program, I’m praying they include that part about speak now or forever hold your peace, because I’m standing up on the pew and screaming “Dude, you are marrying a Glenn Close clone! Fly you fool! Fly!” Notice I said, “Dude” because even though the song is about a guy watching a girl, no guy gets to pick out the music at his wedding so the bride has to be the mental case.

Gentlemen, we have found him, now we just have to bring him in.

So, after all that explanation, I’m back to Adele. I don’t know WHO screwed this girl over, but I can tell you she isn’t happy about it. I can’t say for certain because I haven’t listened to all of her music, but all the songs I have heard have, “stalker chick revenge” written all over them. I mean, if a girl was singing to me, “For me, it isn’t over . . . ” in a smooth calm voice after she has “turned up out of the blue uninvited” because she “couldn’t stay away [she] couldn’t fight it” I am on the first thing smoking bound for Tristan de Cunha and I’m not looking back.

First though, I’m gonna swing by the house and pick up my bunny rabbit. Know what i mean?

Love y’all and keep those feet clean!

Buckley, Christopher T. The Relic Master. New York.
Simon and Schuster. 2015. 380 pgs.

As I begin this review, I have to confess a slight bias. This novel is historical fiction, which happens to be one of my favorite genres AND it is set right at the beginning of the Reformation in Europe, which just happens to be one of my favorite historical periods to read about and study. If author Christopher Buckley wanted to write a book just for me, The Relic Master would do quite nicely.

Dismas is a former Swiss mercenary now earning his bread as a relic finder. His occupation in life is to procure holy relics — items like the bones and other body parts of saints e.g. the jawbone of St. John the Baptist OR something intimately associated with a saint or holy figure such as a piece of the True Cross — for clients among the clergy, nobility, and merchant classes who desire to have something extra holy around the house to shorten their souls’ church-mandated stay in Purgatory.

Our protagonist makes a comfortable living obtaining relics for his various clients but by far his two wealthiest patrons are Fredrick the Wise, Elector of Saxony and his nemesis Albrect, Archbishop of Brandenburg . . . among other purchased titles. Dismas has a good life and he prides himself on always dealing in strictly authentic relics and avoiding fakes and forgeries regardless of how lucrative the payoff or how clever the subterfuge. As long as Dismas adheres to this rigid code of ethical business dealings, his life moves along languidly and mostly uncomplicated. Unfortunately, a personal disaster seems to necessitate a foray into the putrid world of relic forgery and once Dismas steps across his hitherto sacrosanct line, his languid pace of life turns highly complicated.

Just as a read, I enjoyed the novel. It is accurate in the areas it purports to be accurate and for me nothing is worse than slipshod historical references in a supposedly historical novel. Buckley obviously did his research. His writing is expressive, but sparse which actually lends a nicer historical touch to the work. The characters, both historical personages and those purely fictional, are presented as three dimensional and possessing agendas of their own rather than one or two main characters surrounded by a supporting cast of flat, wooden page fillers. Indeed, some of the more minor characters are the most intriguing.

The novel gives a good look at the seedy world of the late medieval Church machinations just before Martin Luther so explosively turned the One True and Holy Church into the Roman Catholic Church on one side and a thousand Protestant denominations on the other. It is briskly paced and engrossing.

On the other hand, the sparse prose leaves little space for description. Settings have to be guessed at just from place names. No real effort goes into showing the medieval countryside, but I may notice that only because I’m interested in seeing the medieval countryside. All told, however, The Relic Master is well worth the short time it will take to read it.

Love y’all and keep those feet clean.

I was a freshman at Laurens District 55 High School on a bright, bitterly cold day in 1986. My third period class, just before lunch, was Honors English I with Dr. King. She told us anyone who wanted to could go get their lunches and bring them back to eat in her classroom. She’d gotten a TV from the library and had it all set up to watch the Space Shuttle Challenger carry a civilian — a TEACHER — into space.

I remember the line I picked was more crowded than usual so I was later getting my lunch tray than some of my classmates. When I walked back into Dr. King’s classroom, all behind schedule, she was sitting at her desk with tears creeping down her cheeks and the handful of my friends who’d gotten there on time sat in stunned silence staring at the television set.

I walked closer and got to an angle where I could see the screen and close enough to hear the announcer. That’s when I saw the now infamous smoke plumes hanging in the azure Florida sky. The man on the news keep repeating something like, “It seems a serious malfunction has occurred with Challenger. We don’t know what has become of the crew.”

I remember the room being quieter than the grave . . . more silent than I thought I would ever hear a high school classroom become in my life. Unfortunately, I was wrong on that count because 15 years later, I was the one weeping silently on a day in early September as my normally rowdy first block English II class sat in stony and complete silence watching another pair of explosions play over and over again on a much newer television.

As a young teenager, I had no idea how to process the Challenger disaster. We didn’t know at the time, it would be later in the day when the crew cabin was located, that the entire crew was dead. I didn’t know what to do with such public death. To be honest, I hadn’t been exposed to much death at that age. All my grandparents were very much alive, as were a slew of beloved great-aunts and great-uncles and other extended family galore. I certainly couldn’t understand the magnitude of an event like this.

I remember the rest of the day being subdued, which was always unusual in our public high school. I finished classes and wrestling practice then went Granny and Papa Wham’s house where a newfangled television network called CNN played footage of the explosion over and over. The three of us ate supper and both Granny and Papa talked about other times such a huge event had happened in their lives like the bombing of Pearl Harbor or the day FDR died. On the ride to Fountain Inn earlier in the afternoon, Mama told me she remembered exactly where she was (the gym at Gray Court Owings School) and what she was doing (playing four square) when the principal announced JFK had been assassinated.

Now I could join the adults. I had a touchstone event in my life, a “where were you when” moment. I wish that moment hadn’t come at the expense of seven lives. I remember that night watching President Reagan as he gave his speech and said,

The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honoured us by the manner in which they lived their lives. We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for the journey and waved goodbye and ‘slipped the surly bonds of earth’ to ‘touch the face of God.’

In the thirty years since that fateful January moment as a freshman in high school, I’ve been witness to other monumentally historic events. I lay in the floor, again at Granny and Papa’s, and watched the Berlin Wall fall. I saw the horrific events of 9-11-2001. Worse, I sat with eerie feelings of deja vu in 2003 watching the coverage of the Columbia shuttle disaster, but nothing hit me quite as hard as watching Challenger explode on tv seemingly thousands of times. I guess because it happened when I was young enough to still believe the world was a bright and good place and the shock of seeing that it wasn’t stuck with me the longest.

So, help me remember those seven brave men and women now thirty years gone and also remember I love y’all, and keep those feet clean.

Budge and I undertook one of the longest and wildest trips ever outside our comfort zones this past weekend. Some friends of ours wished to attend a retreat for our church leaders in Asheville, NC. Unfortunately for them, they don’t have any extended family living nearby to take care of babysitting duties. I was feeling particularly magnanimous so I offered our services to watch their children at their home while they attended the two day retreat. Although stunned and somewhat skeptical at first, they eventually realized we were sincere and we made final plans to look after the children from Thursday afternoon until Saturday afternoon.

All FIVE of them, ages 10, 8, 6, 4, and 2. Three older girls followed by two boys.

As I’ve mentioned before, Budge and I have no children. It’s not that we never wanted any because we discussed having children before we married and as several of the new couples in our circle of friends at the time began having families, we waited for the little dot to turn into a plus sign for us as well, but it never did. We agreed once it looked like we wouldn’t be having children naturally that we didn’t want to pursue fertility routes and we had a couple of reasons.

First of all, fertility treatment is ungodly expensive in both money and effort. At the time, Budge was in college and I was teaching  high school so we had neither the money nor the time to put in and as we grew older and both were teaching, it was apparent that even with a double teacher salary, we’d still be strapped to afford the cost of anything other than just the most basic treatments and we both knew given our medical history of weirdness, the likelihood of a simple fix was on par with the likelihood of Switzerland starting the next world war.

Our second reason was based on observation. We’d seen other infertile couples go the route of medical intervention and not only end up nearly bankrupt, but also at one another’s throats. We saw infertility split up two couples, but what happened to a third couple was even worse. They finally got the natural child of their dreams and promptly made her the center of their universe. No child deserves that level of pressure. The girl is a tween today and she is, predictably, a holy terror — spoiled, arrogant, selfish, and able to wring whatever she wants from doting parents who remember how hard it was to get her.

We decided neither one of us wanted that.

We thought about adoption, but at first it was a serious money issue as well. Then, by the time we got the money part sorted, we realized through some preliminary research it would be a waste of time to apply with my load of mental health issues and Budge’s physical health troubles. So, we have happily resigned ourselves to being fuzzy baby parents and one of us dying alone in a nursing home forgotten and unloved.

But, I digress.

We got to our duty station around five on Thursday and left around five on Saturday afternoon. In the interim, we learned a tremendous amount about just exactly we’d missed out on for years. The first thing I noticed is five children consume more food in a shorter time than a plague of locusts. Mom left a roasted pork loin which seemed to have belonged to some prehistoric piggus giganticus extremlius for the main course and a small produce department’s worth of roasted veggies for sides. One look at the spread and I thought we would eat off such a massive amount of food for our entire time sitting.

It lasted one meal and everyone would gladly have eaten more. You can’t fill these kids up! Every day at ten and two they had a snack scheduled. Among the five of them, they ate more for a snack than some small countries produce in all agricultural endeavors and NONE of them is the tiniest bit obese. I nearly hit the floor when Mom and Dad told us an average food bill for a month once they got back on Saturday. Their FOOD BILL is more than our MORTGAGE and Mom is an amazingly frugal shopper!

Budge learned, to her dismay, children do not understand the concept of “sleeping in.” I had to go home each night because Keaudee has to go out at midnight and again at six in the morning so Budge caught the first light duty alone.

My wife is a wonderful human being, but saying she is not a morning person is a bit like saying a hurricane is not a normal wind. It doesn’t do the reality justice. She has to EASE into the day. I call her five times at seven minute intervals to gently get her up and ready for school. She was not prepared for mornings at this home.

The children are trained that they may not leave their rooms until seven AM regardless of what time they wake up. An alarm actually sounds when they can leave their beds. If you have ever been to a greyhound track you have a good general idea of the first fifteen minutes of morning at this home. The seven o’clock alarm bell sounds and five doors swing open in unison as ten pattering feet scramble down two flights of steps to the kitchen where everyone starts putting in breakfast orders all at once. Only after a forty acre field of cereal grains and a tanker truckload of milk disappears down five precious gullets does anything start to move in order.

Budge was standing stunned in the kitchen by the time I got there at eight both mornings.

I could go on about the amazing amount of energy in a house with five children and how routines and lists and chores were all that saved us from curling up in the fetal position and sucking our thumbs in gibbering madness, but you get the general idea. I have to say it was an amazing time though.

Through our babysitting challenge I learned somethings about myself. I learned I take silence for granted. I spend most of my day most of my days alone and unless I talk to myself, it is silent. Budge and I sit in silence each evening reading or watching DVRed television. In a home with five children, silence is non-existent even during mandatory “quiet time!” Someone is always talking or singing or snoring, but it’s never quiet.

I also learned I’m more selfish than I thought I was. I love these five kids. They really are GREAT kids who have been raised with a great amount of intentionality by two very dedicated parents, but they ALWAYS need SOMETHING. One needs homework help, another needs help finding a shoe, and yet another needs a diaper changed. I was in constant “helping mode” and I have a new respect for parents because when you become a parent, your idea of “me time” changes drastically. Budge and I just caught up with everything we wanted to tell each other YESTERDAY afternoon because when you are acting as ringmaster for a five child circus, you barely have time for a quick, “Hi, sweetie!” Much less any real communication.

Still, in the end I wouldn’t have missed the experience for anything. We managed to successfully keep all the house walls standing and no one lost any blood, so we were hailed as a rousingly successful pair by the Mom and Dad. Now part of me can’t wait to do it again, but another part of me is chasing that first part down with a hatchet and I think violence may occur . . . not unlike being in a house with five children!

Love y’all and keep those feet clean.

Benjamin Franklin once said the only sure things in this world are death and taxes. Ol’ Ben was right except before death comes sickness and along with sickness comes medical bills. So, I guess this day and time the only things sure are being taxed to death while owing medical bills all the way to the grave.

I’m in such a queue right now.

Last year was one of the worst years Budge and I have endured medically. It seems everyone got sick. Budge found out about a severe iron deficiency she has which has to be treated by iron infusions twice yearly and believe you me, the center doing the infusions is EXTREMELY proud of their product. Then, I had my carpal tunnel surgery and while I am pain free and feeling like a champ since my wrists don’t seize up on me anymore causing my hands to open so that I just drop whatever I’m holding, bilateral carpal tunnel syndrome abatement it turns out ain’t cheap. Even the fuzzy babies haven’t been immune. We even lost my beloved Suki to cancer just last month.

It’s been a tough year and we’ve got a couple of thousand dollars in medical bills and vet bills stacked up against us. I’m extremely thankful we do have medical insurance, but while I was under the impression medical co-pays and medical bills were going to get LESS expensive under the banner of Obamacare, it seems the exact opposite has occurred.It really sucks.

THEN, there’s the taxes. Now I don’t know what genius in the government (is that a mutually exclusive statement?) decided having property taxes due in January was a capital idea! Let’s see, we just got through the holidays, income taxes will be due any time now, so how else can we mess with the citizens’ heads? Oh, oh, oh! I know! Let’s have a couple of hundred dollars of property taxes due RIGHT AFTER all the end of the year financial outlay!

So here’s the deal, amigos. I’m casting about for ways to make up a deficit in our household budget and unlike my government, I can’t just print more money and pay everyone off. I also don’t have anyone or anytwo or anythree for that matter whom I would dare approach and ask for a couple thousand dollars to tackle that deficit.

However, I’ve been thinking and while I don’t know anyone with the resources to help me out individually, I’ve got over 2,000 followers for this blog, such as it is. So, I’m bringing my case to y’all. According to my math 1 x $2,000 = 2,000 x $1. I’ve got a tip jar up and running to a PayPal account and while I hate asking anyone for anything, when the ox gets in a ditch, some of us have to take a big ol’ bite out of our pride and ego and let the need be known.

So what I’m asking is, any of you who don’t mind or who think I’m worth it or whom I may have made laugh or think sometime in the last eight years, could you be bothered to drop a digital buck into my tip jar? I appreciate anything and honestly, if I don’t get a dime, I’ll still feel the same way about all y’all. You’re my audience — my congregation if you will — and I’m going to pass my hat around and hope for the best.

Thanks, everyone. I hope your 2016 is off to a great start. Love y’all! Keep those feet clean.