Sep10

Life is a Circle, but not like Disney

Posted on by
Standard

Nothing prepared me to be bitten multiple times by my grandmother.

kelloggwomanWhen I entered this world, I had four living grandparents AND four living great-grandparents. Granny Matt (short for Mattie) and Papa Hurley passed before I developed memories of them, but family members have told me both loved me tremendously. It’s not good to grow up with six doting grandparents; it’s not so much the danger of being spoiled rotten — which I was — so much as such excess love doesn’t prepare a person for what a terrible place the world is.

Papa Wham passed in 1995 — the first person so close to me to die. I was attending a wake for a student who’d been killed in a car wreck when my brand new cell phone rang. The first cell phone call I ever received was to let me know Papa Wham was gone.

Little Papa Hughes, my maternal great-grandfather, died on New Year’s Day 1997. He was a tiny man with a heart entirely too large for his slight frame. He was also a bit of “a character” and I have stories on top of stories about him.

Big Granny Hughes, whom Mama (and pretty much everyone) called Maggie-Valmer went Home in February 2001. I call it a testament to her life that it took three preachers — including me — to do her life justice.

After losing those three wells of my adoration, the next few years were quiet. Then Papa John died October 17, 2006. I didn’t grieve Papa’s death for 18 months because Mama was in such a terrible state I wasn’t sure if I was going to lose her as well. I can say from personal, painful experience it is dangerous to one’s mental health to suppress a terrible grief because once Mama came somewhat out of the fog, I had the nervous breakdown that ultimately cost me my job, my second career, and almost my sanity.

I came out of my breakdown just in time to lose Granny Wham on February 5, 2008. As much as I adored Granny Wham and as much as I know she loved me, her passing was easier to take. After Papa died and she became unable to care for herself or be left alone, we had no choice but to place her in a facility. My Aunt Cathy wore ruts in I-385 between Fountain Inn and Laurens going to see her mama; Uncle Larry stopped by on his way to and from the Roadway terminal in Columbia every time he had a trip; and I tried to see her at least once a week, but she missed being home tending her family. Still, miserable though she was, she soldiered on three years at Martha Franks Retirement Home.  A week before she passed I went to see her; she told me, “Mama {her mama} came to see me last night.” I knew it wouldn’t be long. Now Granny Wham is waiting on the other side of those Gates of Pearl (with Papa Wham nearby and most likely seated on a golden bench talking baseball with St. Peter).

So Granny Ima (for Imogene) is all I have left. She’s under hospice care at NHC nursing home in Clinton. I go to see her at 10:00 AM every Tuesday, and I leave a sliver of my heart each time I turn from her bed to come home. Ima has dementia. She knows who I am, who Rob is, and who my Aunt Pearl is, but she can’t say our names. All she can say clearly is “yep” and “nope.” I took Mama to see her twice a week as long as she was able, then once a week, then once every two weeks . . . then I took her when she could rally the strength, but one thing never changed — Granny always said, “My baby girl’ whenever Mama asked her who she (Mama) was. I haven’t told Ima that Mama is gone. I tell her the truth — Wannie (her name for Mama) can’t get up anymore to see her, but she loves her very much. Every time I tell her, Granny nods.

Unfortunately, though, Granny’s mind is riddled with holes and she’s lost control of her emotions (especially her temper) just as she’s lost her language. She can’t stand being poked and prodded and she seems to see everything as being poked and prodded. She has a hissy fit whenever she gets a bath — or what passes for a bath when you’re bedridden. I gave my signed permission today for the nursing staff to stop sticking her fingers twice a day for blood sugar samples to control her diabetes. Dr. Blackstone told me years ago diabetes wasn’t what was going to kill Granny. I told the head of nursing today, there are worse ways to die than diabetic coma.

Granny saves a special rage for anyone who tries to clean her hands and especially her fingernails. She cannot abide having her hands or nails messed with, which wouldn’t be so bad, but Granny’s mind wanders now and she will not stop digging in her disposable briefs. Maybe she itches, maybe it’s something else, but whatever the cause, she can’t tell us. I’m not going to be graphic, but you can draw your conclusions as to the state of her nails. Mama cried every time she saw Granny’s nails, but the staff can only do so much because Granny is “combative” which is nicely saying she gets pissed off when you touch her too much.

However, as family, I am not bound by the facility’s rules against restraints, and her nails and hands were so hideous today that I held my precious grandmother while two nurses cleaned and trimmed her nails. I linked my fingers in hers like we used to do crossing the street. She fought but her strength was no match for mine, just as mine was no match for hers long ago when I had to have childhood shots. As I cupped her arthritic fingers gently as I could so as to not hurt her, the tears ran down my face just as they ran down hers long ago. Then I knew with perfect clarity what a parent means when he says, “This is hurting me more than it hurts you.” At one point, she managed to get my hand near her mouth so she bit me. It seemed to make her feel better, so I just left my arm where she could gnaw on it at will — a small bruise or two (she has no teeth) are a small price to pay for her hands to be clean. After we finished, a nurse brought her a strawberry nutrition shake and the nurses were forgiven . . . her look told me I was not, even though next Tuesday she won’t remember a thing. I sat with her a while longer, then kissed her cheek, placed today’s sliver on her pillow, and turned to come home.

The old proverb, “Once a man; twice a child” is painful to see in someone you love.Freshly pressed

Love y’all; keep those feet clean.

Sep2

World of Nursery-craft

Posted on by
Standard

Man-Holding-Crying-BI am an exceedingly odd duck — and not for the reason most longtime readers of my work are thinking of right now.  I am a male nursery worker whose wife doesn’t work in the nursery with him.  To my knowledge, and the knowledge of everyone I’ve discussed this with, I am the only member of my kind.  I serve in the Snails class at our church.  This class is the pre-Sunday School of Sunday School and encompassed ages from “walking steadily without help” down to “mama finally has the courage to leave her bundle with a semi-stranger.”  I serve because I enjoy babies — spit up, dirty diapers, and all.  I should note, however, that my church has a policy forbidding males to change any baby’s diaper.

It’s one of those particular rules which runs its fingernails down the chalkboard of my anti-authoritarianism because I resent the implication implicit in the policy, but I make it a point of honor to tell my co-servers I am forbidden by statute, not a weak stomach, from changing diapers.  After all, I am a veteran of three Samples children from my former church nursery.  Those little tykes — who are now in high school and middle school — were fearsome in what they could pack in a Pamper. Their mom didn’t bring Wet Wipes, she packed Bounty paper towels and a shop-vac.  On more than one occasion, I have held a Samples child beneath a running faucet to expedite the removal of “material” from his back and it is not unknown for a nursery worker to resort to shampooing hair to complete a full diaper change. After Logan, Riley, and Emily, nothing in a Huggies can deter me. Stun me for a moment, maybe, but not deter.

But I digress.

This past Sunday morn, I was on the schedule to serve with the Salon twins.  They have never served with me before and when they arrived and I was already in the room, I got the usual “well, he’s going to be useless” look.  Most of the time, I take women by surprise because of having Shannon for a first name.  I love and miss Mama, but regardless of the fact she swore to her dying day it’s a unisex name, I never got to have a bicycle tag or a book bag tag because all the Shannon’s were pink and not blue. But I’m not bitter. Anyway, these two are in college and are six-year veterans of nursery work and babysitting and I could tell they figured on carrying me for the day. crying-baby-cartoon

Oh thee of little faith.

When the first song of the service started, we had three charges: Jackie, who is the chunkiest little boy you’d ever want to meet and adorable besides; Madeline, a darling little girl who isn’t long for Snails since she is up on two legs and motoring well; and Oakes, another little girl but she is a tee-tiny newborn and her mom was leaving her in the nursery for the first time. Three babies; three workers.  Easy-Peasey, right? No.

To understand what happened next, you have to understand a little about church.  Service starts at 9:15 AM.  That means the first song cranks up then.  Most people seem to live in some other time zone, though, because THEIR 9:15 is much closer to OUR 9:25 — 9:30.  It never amazes me how the same parents who can get multiple children out the door to school and day care so they can get to WORK on time have such an awful record of getting those same children to CHURCH on time.

Same goes for those scheduled to serve — a man or woman who may have a seven-year running record of perfect attendance at his or her employment doesn’t think twice about calling the staffing coach to say they “just can’t make it today.”  Now that it’s football season, it’ll get exponentially worse.  A guy can stay out until midnight on Monday or Thursday at the sports club watching football and still manage to get to work on time or even a little early, but for some reason he just can’t get up the day after tailgating and watching a NOON game at the ol’ alma mater forty-five minutes away.

Anyway, having three bambinos at 9:15 means nothing.

By 9:30, we had EIGHT.  Madeline was our best walker, Jackie our fastest crawler, and Oakes had another member of the “car carrier club” situated next to her in the teensy person of Lyndsey.  Our other four were Osteen, Mae, Benjie, and Sidney. Only Maddie was fully mobile so it looked like we were off to a good start . . . for five whole minutes.  Then, for some reason we never did determine, Mae decided to see if she could hit E flat over Middle C.  For those of you who’ve never worked with babies en masse, it’s the funniest thing — when ONE of them goes ballistic, they ALL go ballistic! By 9:45, we had an eight piece choir making a not-so-joyful noise.  The three of us looked at each other with a gaze that must have been reminiscent of the look the troopers of the 7th Calvary gave Custer when all those Sioux and Cheyenne rose up out of the grass at the Little Bighorn.

We petted and rocked and patted and replaced binkies which were promptly spit right back out.  I know a lot of you are wondering why we didn’t just cork the kids with a nice warm bottle? No such luck. The majority of women at our church are nursers and while I am capable and willing to do a lot of things traditionally considered “woman’s work,” breast-feeding is something God in His infinite wisdom thankfully did not equip me to do.  We were swimming upstream against an Amazonian current.  At one point, I had a baby on each thigh hugging and rocking them while simultaneously rocking Lyndsey’s car carrier with my foot.  The twins, veterans that they were, had two and sometimes three little ones, walking them around the room, trying to interest them in a ball or a rattle or something.  Then we had to make sure Jackie and Madeline — our two mobile mites — didn’t get into something dangerous. It was nothing short of pandemonium.

Just in time for Mom and Dad to pick up and take home.

Just in time for Mom and Dad to pick up and take home.

Now we have a system for paging parents to come get their children if we can’t get them settled, so why didn’t we?  Well, that’s the heart and soul of nursery work.  For a lot of these moms, this is baby number two or three . . . and sometimes four.  These are really busy women and even though they would be down at the nursery seconds after seeing their child’s number flash on the pager, all most of us who serve in the nursery realize this hour is the only time many of these moms have a chance to THINK.  We hold out as long as we possibly can, then hang on just a bit longer so the moms can have some time to themselves to worship and thank God for the precious little baby who is even now screaming his head off a mere twenty feet beneath her seat!

It’s not pride. It’s service and that why I do it and why most of the ladies I serve with do to.  As for this past Sunday, mercifully the whole group began to nod off into sound slumber — literally “sleeping like babies” — a whole five minutes before the first parent came down to pick up at the end of the service!  Nothing like having service end right at morning nap time! Oh, and the girls know I can hold my own in the nursery now!

Love y’all, keep those feet clean!

Aug24

Five Months On

Posted on by
Standard

Mama’s buried next to Papa up on that hill.

Today is five months since Mama left this world. To give you an update, I’m making it better than I thought I would, but I can’t tell you why really. I also can’t tell you with any certainty which stage Kübler-Ross’s grief model I’m in right now because it varies among anger, depression, and acceptance on a daily basis. Notice I left out two — bargaining and denial; I did so on purpose because I checked those off the night I watched Mama die. I was in the room holding her right hand when she stopped the hideous “guppy breathing” and went on to what I fervently hope (and on my best days, believe) was the Beulah Land she longed for and a reunion with Papa she had dreamed about.

Denial. I’m not going to sit around and say, “Oh, she’s not dead.” No lie is as pernicious and detrimental as the one we tell ourselves. That’s one reason I refused to have a traditional “Southern funeral” viewing. Mama didn’t want it and I’ll be damned if I was going to stand next to her corpse and listen to people who hadn’t darkened her door in all the years she’d been sick blather on about “how good she looks” and “she seems to be sleeping.” No she doesn’t you lunatic, she SEEMS to be dead. Nope, wasn’t having it. When I walked out of that hospital room at midnight between March 25 and 26, I wasn’t in denial. Mama was dead. To make CERTAIN I don’t slip into denial, I tell myself every morning first thing when I wake up, “Mama is dead; she’s buried at Cannon’s; you did her funeral.” Then I get out of bed. Denial is a river in Egypt as far as I’m concerned.

As for bargaining, I’m not the best Christian in the world and some days one could make the case I’m not a Christian at all, but whatever I am, I know enough to God doesn’t bargain and God’s the only one who could change this particular situation. I don’t have anything to bargain with since it’s all His anyway and I’ve already given up the vices most people use as bargaining chips due to age, infirmity, or fear of Budge’s wrath. If God wanted her alive, she’d still be alive — it really is just that simple. If I heard Mama say it once, I heard her say it a thousand times, quoting Hebrews 9:27, “for it is appointed unto men once to die and after this, the Judgement.” God has the advantage of house rules and the Golden Rule; He owns the house so he makes the rules AND He has all the gold, so He makes those rules as well. I’m glad He does, personally, because if I were in charge, I’d mess this place up something awful.

So that leaves anger, depression, and acceptance. All I can say is it depends on the day. Some days are ruled by anger and those are the days I’m the biggest pain in everyone’s collective ass. I’m angry at Mama for leaving me in this foreign country by myself (inside joke between her and me), I’m angry at God for not healing her or keeping her from dying, and if I get through that package of rage by lunchtime, I’ll spend the rest of the day completely pissed off at myself for being such a big, blubbering baby about the whole thing and acting like I’m the only person in the world who’s ever lost a close loved one. On those days, I basically have what a friend of mine used to call “a bad case of red-ass at the world.” Of course, it doesn’t do a lick of good, but I can’t help it sometimes.

I prefer anger to depression though. Depression sucks rocks. I know lots of people, including my former denomination, don’t really thing depression is a “real thing.” It’s something we should just be able to get over or get through and if you can’t, then you aren’t praying hard enough or you secretly enjoy the depression and attention. Yep, that’s me. I just love feeling like I’m going to die for no physical reason; I simply long to sit on the floor and rock in the dark when it is a gloriously beautiful day outside. I have some pretty bad days and I’d hate to think how bad those days would get if I didn’t have my meds. Here’s an idea for anyone who doesn’t think depression and emotional disorders are real — I’ll go off my meds for about two weeks and have Budge drop me off at your house and stay for a month. Then we’ll see who needs meds.

On the best days though, I dwell in acceptance of the fact Mama is gone and not coming back. It’s not the best kind of acceptance where I can say I’ve truly found peace with Mama’s death. It’s more of the realization I’ve been thrust into a new stage of life whether or not I felt ready. It’s not in the Bible, but I’ve heard it repeated all my life that God will never put more on you than you can bear. All I can say to that is sometimes I think He has a much higher opinion of my carrying capacity than I have of myself. For me, the acceptance is more like a quote from the excellent and underrated Western, Barbarosa which has Willie Nelson as the title character speak what I’ve taken as my philosophy of coping with losing Mama:

what cannot be remedied must be endured

Love y’all, say a prayer for me, and keep those feet clean.

 

Aug18

Why I’m Not An Engineer

Posted on by
Standard
When it came to my engineering career, the handwriting was literally on the wall.

When it came to my engineering career, the handwriting was literally on the wall.

Several young people I know are starting college during the upcoming week and all the preparations got me in a nostalgic mood and turned my thoughts towards my own sojourn into “higher education.”

I went to college planning to get into a career where I could make a lot of money. This mindset sprang from my daddy’s measuring stick for success, which is wealth. I had three possible lucrative careers in mind. First, I could go the “doctor” route. I knew that would be a mistake though because of a tour of the Gross Anatomy Lab at MUSC in Charleston. I’m not the most squeamish person, but someone left a partially dissected hand out from under a sheet and that sight combined with a hot dog lunch and the smell of Clorox and chloroform made my innards rebel. I spent a good part of the bus ride home face down in a plastic bag.

My second thought was “lawyer,” but Mama threatened to disown me if I stooped so low regardless of the money involved. With those two doors shut, I set off to registration intending to become an engineer. Fewer ventures which started so innocuously have ended so completely in the toilet.

Since Engineers do a lot of math I figured I’d best get started so first I registered for calculus. At this point, I feel I should disclose something, I take to math like a cat takes to water. To me, math is akin to witchcraft and its practitioners should be burned at the stake. Still, if I was going to make that mass of Benjamins everyone expected, I was going to have to conquer math.

Here’s where things got ugly. As a senior in high school, against my better judgement, I took AP Calculus, BUT — as I’ve written before — I was gifted with a math teacher who was second to none. Because of Mr. Brady’s skill as a teacher and my seat next to Greg Hindman, I took the AP exam and made a 3 of 5. That was a mistake. The guy signing me up for math at Clemson looked at my test score and determined I would skip THREE SEMESTERS of Calculus. My first semester at university I was in Calculus 208. I didn’t know it, but I was a dead man walking.

Calculus 208 was an eight o’clock morning class in a lecture hall just smaller than a C-5 Galaxy cargo plane hanger. Moreover, I hadn’t seen a crowd like that since the last Laurens / Clinton football game. Half a mile away in the front of the room hung a projector screen larger than the main screen at the Oaks Theater movie house. Binoculars would not have been out of place. Strangely, I seemed to smell hot dogs and chloroform and my stomach began to ache just a bit.

I found a seat about halfway to the front next to a huge, good-natured country boy named Joel from Stone Mountain, Georgia. He and I exchanged some typical Southern small talk and then the professor walked in talking like an auctioneer with a truckload of cotton bales to get sold and precious little time to do it. He introduced himself as something like Dr. Rafsanjani or such then turned to a whiteboard under the projector. He wrote and spoke five solid minutes and I may have caught every third word, but when he finally put his marker down and looked at us, I understood every thickly accented word he said,”Class, I vill not beat around bush. De equations on board should be familiar to you from earlier Calculus. If you can not integrate, derive, and further manipulate each WITH EASE, it is veddy unlikely you shall pass dis course. I have teaching since you were children and know vhat I speak. If you do not recognize how to work dese equations, it vill be advisable for you to drop dis class now. I have drop add slips. Raise hands if you need one. Dere is no shame in knowing one’s limitations.” I looked at what he’d written. ONE equation looked somewhat familiar. The rest could have been Arabic or Sanskrit for all the sense they made to me. I looked at Joel; he looked at me, and we both slowly turned and raised our hands to get a drop slip.

We ate breakfast after we dropped the slips off. Joel planned to drop back to beginning Calculus 106 and start over. I knew better than to try. People mistakenly call me smart. I am not smart, I have a good memory and blossom under good teachers. MATH people are smart. Bill Gates is smart. Mr. Brady wasn’t here; Greg wasn’t sitting next to me and I had no idea how to begin studying the arcana Prof. Raj had scratched on the board. I dropped back ten and punted.

My engineering career derailed, I went back to my room and pored over the major catalog trying to find something I could succeed in. It didn’t take long to figure out ANYTHING remotely science or technically related went through Calculus 208 — or worse. By lunchtime, I’d made the only choice I could. I was going to go into education and be a teacher. Even then I had to settle for being an English teacher instead of the science teacher I’d wanted to be because all the science education majors required that godforsaken Calculus.

So there you have it. I’m not an engineer raking in the big bucks for one simple reason — I can’t do the math. Of course, I guess it’s better to know that now than to find out after a bridge I designed fell into a river and killed a lot of people. Things have a way of working out whether we want them to or not.

Love y’all. Have a good school year, and keep those feet clean.

Jul12

Some Lessons Are Painful

Posted on by
Standard
Who would have though a car could be a classroom?

Who would have though a car could be a classroom?

I spent some time recently looking back over my life and I realized I’ve learned a lot in my 42 years. I learned a great deal in grade school, a little in college, some at the various jobs I’ve had, etc., but the vast majority of the lessons burned in my memory I learned by simply experiencing life. I’ve noticed these really important lessons tend to come in groups. For example, one of my best buddies and I learned the following lessons in one weekend when we were in high school.

Lesson #1) Common American Wasps can make an extremely large nest fit neatly in the channel of the metal post of a “Curve Ahead” road sign.

Lesson #2) You can remove just about any road sign in America – including ones that say “Curve Ahead” — from the post it is bolted to if you have a pair of ½” box end wrenches.

Lesson #3) It takes a surprising amount of jostling and noise to wake up an extremely large nest of wasps.

Lesson #4) The act of removing a road sign from the metal post it is bolted to then tossing it into the front of a 1982 Pontiac Phoenix creates just the needed amount of jostling and noise to awaken extremely large wasp nests, especially if said wasp nest is attached to said road sign.

Lesson #5) Contrary to some old wives’ tales, wasps have no problem stinging anything at any time, even in the darkness of a 1982 Pontiac Phoenix front seat.

Lesson #6) Unlike the Common Honeybee, the Common American Wasp can sting multiple times without injuring itself in the slightest.

Lesson #7) A standard “Curve Ahead” road sign will not fit through the window of a 1982 Pontiac Phoenix even once the window has been rolled down.

Lesson #8) A 4 cylinder powered 1982 Pontiac Phoenix rolling on 4 bald tires can go from 70 mph to a complete stop in a much shorter distance than GM’s best engineers ever envisioned if 200+ pounds is applied vertically on the brake pedal.

Lesson #9) Driving 80 mph with the windows down and A/C on high in the middle of a humid late spring Southern night creates some type of vortex action that will suck the majority of the occupants of even an oversized wasp nest out of the vehicle.

Lesson #10) Any wasps not sucked out of the aforementioned vehicle will go into a safe-to-handle torpor state so long as the A/C is maintained at maximum output for a minimum of two hours.

Lesson #11) Wasps in a state of torpor can survive without food or water in a 1982 Pontiac Phoenix for at least 48 hours or from late Saturday night to early Monday morning.

Lesson #12)  Hungry and thirsty wasps emerge from a torpor state extremely pissed off.

Lesson #13) A healthy 17 year old white male of average build en route to high school can endure multiple stings from the Common American Wasp without perishing or developing super powers.

Lesson #14) South Carolina Highway Patrolmen will not arrest young men dancing around a 1982 Pontiac Phoenix on a main state highway in nothing but their tightie-whities, but they WILL laugh so long and hard they will nearly choke.

Now, don’t you feel edified?

Love y’all. Stay dry, and keep those feet clean.

"Anybody ELSE wanna limp?" Eddie Murphy 48 Hours

“Anybody ELSE wanna limp?”
Eddie Murphy 48 Hours

Jul7

Papa and the Braves

Posted on by
Standard

Papa Wham’s Atlanta Braves cap hangs right where he left it, 15 18 over 20 baseball seasons ago.

Today would have been my beloved Papa Wham’s birthday, so I’m re-running this post from a few years ago in his honor.

I take my love of baseball in general and the Atlanta Braves in particular from my Papa Wham. In 1978, Granny surprised Papa with a special present when she signed their house up to be the first “Cablevision Equipped” residence on Weathers Circle. Now Papa could watch the Braves on the new Turner Broadcasting Channel out of Atlanta right from the comfort of his favorite couch instead of having to go sit in the car and listen to the games on the car radio.

From that first season until I was old enough to stay by myself several years later, Papa and I didn’t miss a game through the week and I’d often make Mama take me to Granny and Papa’s on Saturday or Sunday or both so he and I could watch the weekend games together.

If you call yourself a Braves fan, I have one question for you? Who are Chris Chambliss, Glenn Hubbard, Rafael Ramirez, Bob Horner, and Bruce Benedict? If you don’t know those names, you are not a Braves fan, you are a BANDWAGON jumper who attached yourself to Papa’s beloved team AFTER their meteoric rise from worst to first and the subsequent instant classic that was the 1991 World Series. Those names are the starting infielders from the 1981 Braves team that finished a miserable 15 games back of the NL WEST leaders and eventual World Series Champion Los Angeles Dodgers. Papa and I watched them all. I lay on the floor next to his couch and listened as Papa told Bobby Cox how to manage a game through the television.

Papa and I claimed we would pay any price for tickets if Atlanta ever went to the World Series. For all the years we watched WTBS, however; the Braves making the post-season, much less the Fall Classic, seemed about as likely as country ham and cheese grits as the breakfast special of a kosher diner. Still, we watched faithfully. Dale Murphy was a bright spot and when he won the MVP in 1982, we two were deliriously happy. I got my license a couple of years later and stayed by myself at night while Mama worked, but come summer, at least twice a week and one weekend day I’d pull in to the driveway and run in just in time to watch some new hotshot throw the first pitch of the game.

I went off to Clemson in the fall of 1990. The Braves were on their way to a fantastic finish a mere 26 games out of first. Papa and I groused about that season all winter. Then came 1991. All summer, I’d cut grass, wash cars, and ride up to Granny and Papa’s to see the Braves play. It LOOKED like they’d finally put an awesome team together, but 15 years of utter futility had taught us not to be optimistic. Still, they kept winning and by the time I went back to school, the woe-begotten Braves were making a run at the NL West pennant.

I can remember this next part just as easily as if it were yesterday. I was standing in front of a big screen TV in The Tiger Town Tavern. It was after midnight; the Braves were playing the Pirates in the National League Championship Series. The winner of THIS ONE GAME, unbelievably, would go to the WORLD FREAKING SERIES. A new kid named John Smoltz pitched a complete game and shut out the vaunted Pirate batting line up — including a young (and much smaller pre-steroid Barry Bonds). The Braves were going to the Series!

I almost got in a fist fight pushing my way to the front of the pay phone line (this was way before everyone had a cell phone) and called Papa. Granny answered the phone and just as I asked her if Papa was up to see the game winning run, I heard him call from the den, “World Series, Shannon; we’re going to the World Series!” Granny just laughed and took him the phone where we replayed every crucial at bat during the entire game.

Unfortunately, Papa took sick later that week. I’d scraped up enough to get us tickets to at least one game, but he was under the weather and Granny said “NO.” So that was that. I ended up watching three of the seven games of the Series against the Twins with him and we were on the phone talking as we watched Gene Larkin break our hearts with the winning hit in that unbelievable game seven.

Papa and I never did get to see the Braves play in any of the World Series of that awesome 15 year run when it seemed the Braves couldn’t be beaten anymore. He was on oxygen by the time little Francisco Cabrera’s pinch hit and Sid Bream’s slide sent us to the 1992 World Series, but I sat with him and together we watched Joe “Touch ‘Em All” Carter and the Toronto Blue Jays beat us. A baseball team from CANADA. The shame was too great to bear.

Papa was gone by the time the Braves made the series again in 1995. He died of a heart attack in Daddy’s arms right after the All-Star break. His beloved Atlanta baseball cap hung on the top peg of the hat rack in the kitchen right where he’d put it the week before . . . the last time he’d worn it before he became bed-ridden. I wanted to bury it with him, but Aunt Cathy couldn’t stand the idea of parting with it, so we didn’t. I’m glad now. It’s still right where he hung it. In two decades, it’s never been moved. Cathy will gently dust it off every now and again, but it’s waiting for him.

I sat alone in tears and watched the Braves beat the Indians in game 6 of the 1995 World Series to win the only World Series they would win during their streak. The next day, I cut the box score out of the local paper, had it laminated, wrapped it in a plastic bag and buried it under the gravel in the corner of Papa’s plot. The Braves haven’t won another series since. I guess all the magic of their greatest fan just petered out once he was gone. I miss him terribly and to this day, fifteen eighteen over twenty years on, I can’t watch a Braves game without thinking of him.

So to all you fathers and grandfathers out there, take in a game and make some time for each other. I love you, Papa; and happy birthday.

And I love y’all!

Keep your feet clean now!

Jul3

The Losing of the Lost Cause

Posted on by
Standard

In the painting “With Flags Flying” by Mort Kunstler, Brig. General Lew Armistead leads his men up Cemetery Ridge with his hat atop his sword during the ill fated Pickett’s Charge.

Today we mark the end of what is variously called The War Between the States, The War of Northern Aggression, The War of Southern Independence, Abe Lincoln’s War, or — most neutrally — The American Civil War. Now, I know enough history to know the war ended in toto on April 12, 1865  at Appomattox Courthouse, but for all intents, the Confederacy lost the war July 3, 1863; it just took two more years to realize it, but in military terms, the South lost the war at the Battle of Gettysburg, which ended 150 years ago today.

Since it is impossible to duck slavery when the Civil War is the topic, I’ll say anyone who says the issue of slavery was the sole cause of the war is ignorant of history; while anyone who says the issue of slavery had nothing to do with the  war is an unmitigated fool. The Civil War had many roots and slavery was the largest, but men also fought for other reasons. This war also shares one tragic trait with all wars , it was started by the rich men and fought by the poor ones.

Regardless of origins, the three-day Battle of Gettysburg made clear what anyone then or now knew all along — the Confederacy was doomed. People — especially my fellow Southerners — like to blather on about how losing the war came down to blockades or lack of allies and other such drivel. They seem to think, as did my sainted great-grandmother Mattie Gray, “If we’d had just one more corn crop we’d have whipped the Yankees.” Nothing is farther from the truth. Truthfully, the South had a snowball’s chance in Columbia, SC of winning the war the moment the battery in Charleston opened fire on Fort Sumter.

The northern army outnumbered us in every way that matters in a war: they had more men, more guns, more bullets, more ships, more artillery, more food, and when I say more, I don’t mean a LITTLE more, I mean a crap-load more! We were outnumbered nearly three to one in soldiers alone. Southerners don’t like to hear this, but the only reason we did so well in the first two years of the war was the unbroken string of idiots and morons commanding the Army of the Potomac. Immediately following Gettysburg, President Lincoln called Grant and Sherman east and the gig was up. Those two men realized this wasn’t a garden party and war — by definition — meant a LOT of people die. Though casualties stayed the largely the same in the South while doubling in the North under the new generals’ command, they had way more men to lose than us.

Strangely, the very hopelessness of the War Between the States contributes to its romantic status — at least in the South. The David versus Goliath aspect brings misty tears to wild-eyed Southern boys, and nowhere is this love of the hopeless more apparent than in the concluding action of Gettysburg — one of the bravest, most gallant, most needless, and most useless mass discardings of life in the history of this continent — Pickett’s Charge.

Since books have been written about Pickett’s Charge, I’ll dispense with the details other than this event is known as the “High Watermark of the Confederacy.” For two days, Blue and Grey had pounded one another and it seemed General Lee’s invaders were getting the best of General Meade’s defenders, but they couldn’t break the lines and force an end to the battle. What they needed was a knockout punch and what Lee dreamed up — some believe in the throes of a minor heart attack — was Pickett’s Charge. In a nutshell, 13,000 Southerners under the command of General George Pickett would charge across the ground between the two armies, shatter the Union center, and secure victory for the Army of Northern Virginia.

That didn’t happen.

Instead, the long Confederate artillery barrage mostly sailed long and landed harmlessly behind the Union position. Also, Lee  underestimated the damage his army had done in the first two days. Finally, the ground between the positions was smooth, grassy, and devoid of any cover for the attacking Southerners. The result was 13,000 boys in grey marched out against one of the most heavily dug in positions the Union achieved during the war. Cannons firing canister shot (picture huge shotgun blasts) blew hole after hole in the Confederate line and time and again, the Southerners closed ranks around their dead and dying and continued in good order across the killing field. With Southern grit and gallantry, they broke the Union line at the top of the hill . . . only to find Union reinforcements no one knew of.

The fresh bluebellies plugged the gap leaving spent Southerners nowhere to go except back across the open field. Casualties were enormous. Barely an hour after the charge began, over 50% of the attacking force lay dead or dying on the green fields of Gettysburg. General Pickett summed up the scene in his simple, heartbreaking answer to Lee’s order to reform his division in preparation for a counter charge by the Union troops saying, “General, I HAVE no division.” From the High-water Mark of the Confederacy, the Southern troops receded slowly, brokenly, tortuously, but inexorably back into Virginia and on towards Appomattox.

I first heard of the place Pickett’s Charge occupies in Southern legend and myth when my  AP US History teacher, Mr. Sublett, quoted quintessential Southern writer, William Faulkner’s words from Intruder in the Dust:

For every Southern boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it’s still not yet two o’clock on that July afternoon in 1863, the brigades are in position behind the rail fence, the guns are laid and ready in the woods and the furled flags are already loosened to break out . . . waiting for Longstreet to give the word

I hope everyone has a tremendous Independence Day feast; be careful with the fireworks, remember I love you all and keep your feet clean!

 

 

 

 

Jun30

Behind Every Great Fortune . . .

Posted on by
Standard

logo@2xHonore de Balzac once remarked, “Behind every great fortune lies a great crime.” I would like to appropriate his comment in a paraphrase to state “Behind at least one growing fortune likes a great hypocrisy.” Anyone who knows me for long will discover at some point in our relationship I hate three things above all others — cabbage, the New York Yankees, and hypocrisy. I would rather deal with a pathological liar than a hypocrite because at least with a liar, you know what you’ve got. I realize I’ve often been cited as having no filter for my opinions, but I prefer to look at it as letting everyone know where I stand. The reason for this particular rant against hypocrisy has its roots in a “direct sales” party Budge attended just before school was out.

I love direct sales parties. Where else can you make rent money by guilting your friends and your friends’ friends into buying overpriced stuff they will never use while they are under the sway of a glass or two of Bi-Lo wine and surfeit of those little cream filled chocolate eclair poofs from Costco? Personally, I’m a Pampered Chef junkie. I have the ice cream scoop, apple corer, a set of utensils, and a sweet, lime green santoku knife. With direct sales, you know you’re getting huckstered, but that’s okay because you’re going to do the same thing to this same group of people at your next “party.”

Still, I cannot abide hypocrisy and to me the worst form of hypocrisy is that which strives to make money or any other form of gain through the use of reference to the Bible, Jesus, God, or any other type of religious iconography. The company which has attracted my ire most recently for this egregious profiteering is Thirty-One.  Oh, let the hue and cry begin. How can I come down on such a wholesome group? Why, the very name “Thirty-One” is a reference to Proverbs 31; a Bible passage which outlines the graces and superlatives of the ideal woman. However, as the son of a real Proverbs 31 woman and the husband of another, I take offense at Thirty-One’s hypocrisy that appears on the little tags inside every piece of Thirty-One merchandise  which say “Made In China.”

Here is the email I sent the customer service department of Thirty-One after discovering all of the items Budge had bought said Made In China:

Dear Thirty-One:

My wife brought home her recently purchased order of Thirty-One product today and as I was looking over her goods, I found to my great dismay that each item was labeled “Made in China.” I hope an organization like yours, which purports to be founded on “Christian ideals and principles” and mentions the name of God several times in your material would have a legitimate reason for purchasing your products wholesale from the greatest persecutor of Christians since Domitian ruled Rome. Child labor, slave labor, human rights violations by the score AND unyielding persecution and outright murder of Christians are daily facts of life in China yet you do business with them. Please, I beg you, spare me the tired saw of “well, it’s the only way we can AFFORD to sell at the price we do,” because the minute you say that, you are out of the realm of God and into the realm of Mammon.

I don’t have an issue with your company if you want to make money. Making money in all throughout the Scriptures and is a linchpin in the passage of Proverbs the company is named for, but I have serious issues with your company if you are using God like so many politicians today — as a marketing tool — all the while filling the coffers of an avowedly atheistic regime, I don’t mind entrepreneurship but I detest hypocrisy in all it’s forms. Dealing with China is as much a deal with the devil as the nefarious bargain Faust struck himself in Goethe’s masterwork.

There is no reason your textile based products cannot be made in America. Certainly the costs would triple, if not more, but again, I must ask whom do you serve? God or Mammon? I will also grant you this nation of ours is fallen far, far from the “Light Upon A Hill” some of our Puritan forebears wished it to be — if indeed it ever really was — but so far, our government does not openly or covertly execute Christians as “enemies of the state” and that is an extremely important distinction.

Perhaps you buy your items from a wholeseller and didn’t know of the origin of the goods, in which case I would think you are poor businesspeople, but at least not hypocrites. Now you know where the textiles originate so the question remains — what are you going to do about it? Are you going to keep treating with a godless and atheistic nation that persecutes people just for naming the name of Christ — whom you claim to serve — or will you buy your goods from somewhere Christians are free to worship as they choose. It doesn’t even have to be the USA, but it certainly mustn’t be the People’s Republic of China.

For the record, I am not a particularly enthusiastic Bible thumper. I am a political liberal, so don’t get the wrong idea, please.

I hope to hear from you soon.
Sincerely,
Shannon Wham

I sent this email June 1st. I haven’t written anything about it because I wanted the company to have time to explain itself. So far, a month later, all I have received is the following email:

Hello Shannon,

Thank you for contacting Thirty-One Gifts’ Consultant Support! We appreciate your concern about our products. I have forwarded your concerns onto our management department, and they will be reviewing them as soon as they can. Thank you again!

Please contact us again if you have any further questions.

Thank you for giving us the opportunity to help you,

Alycia
Thirty-One Gifts
Consultant Support Representative

I don’t have an axe to grind with Thirty-One. They are trying to make money and let other people have a piece of the pie too. What I have a problem with is they passing themselves off as a wonderfully Christian organization while at the same time buying their goods from China.

Folks, I said what I had to say in the email, but not to put too fine a point on it by way of summary they KILL CHRISTIANS IN CHINA! The government has a very sanitized state run church and its members are generally viewed with suspicion, but to be a member of an underground house church is a death sentence. Knowing this, how can a “Christian Company” with a name taken directly from the Bible have dealings with these people?

Maybe you can answer me in the comments.

Until then, love y’all and keep those feet clean.

Jun25

Don’t Do Number 2 During World War Z

Posted on by
Standard
Very good book that is NOT transferred to the big screen totally.

Very good book that is NOT transferred to the big screen totally.

World War Z is a suspenseful action movie pitting Brad Pitt as a smart ex-UN operative against a planet killing zombie apocalypse. Oh, and these aren’t your parents’ shuffling, slow, and dim-witted undead. These are leaner, meaner, and — most frightening — faster zombies who “turn” within seconds of being “infected,”  run in groups, which turn in to packs, which grow in to hordes, which are basically city-spanning swirling fuzzballs of toothy, decaying death drawn to anything living and seemingly tasked with ONE major function — eating people’s faces off.

Now, let me tell you what happened to me when I saw World War Z yesterday afternoon.

Budge and I went to see WWZ  with Deuce, Cam, and Jake after a big Mexican meal at El Tejanos. Three fourths into the movie, the salsa and nacho cheese demanded my immediate attention. So, I did the “Cornholio walk” from theater 13 to the opposite end of the multiplex where the little boy’s room resides at The Simpsonville Regal 14. Sitting pondering the lack of interesting graffiti to read, I suddenly noticed the silence.  JUST like in the movie before a zombie ate someone’s face off.

I found the stillness unnerving. Anyone acquainted with me can tell I am extremely high-strung and jumpy. I make coffee nervous. Put me on a bomb squad; we all die. Mama used to wake me by throwing things at me to avoid my blind flailing. If I hadn’t been so enamored with the World War Z novel, I wouldn’t even be in the same building as a zombie flick. I don’t do suspense or horror movies. They tear my stomach up, and my fits are dangerous to bystanders.

Also very good, but in another way entirely.

Also very good, but in another way entirely.

I sat freaking myself out when I heard the water slowly dripping. JUST like in the movie before a zombie ate someone’s face off. Now I shift into turbo-hypermatic nervous mode. I managed to finish the business at hand, rearranged my attire and headed for the door, BUT like a good little boy, I stopped to wash my hands because you never know if something from the toilet will mutate into a pathogen which will spark the zombie apocalypse. So I’m trying to wash my hands, but they are shaking so badly the water kept missing them. Finally, les mains passably clean, I looked up at which point shtuff got real!

A wall to wall mirror adorns the wall in front of the sinks in the men’s room of the Regal. Now, I’m already on uber hair-trigger when I glance up and this random guy just APPEARS in the doorway. JUST like in the movie before a zombie ate someone’s face off. One second I’m in a terrified state trying my darndest to get clean and get out; the next, I’m face to face with someone about to eat my face off.

I like to think of myself as a warrior. I have guns. I’ve shot at people . . . in video games, but still. I believe I’ll be a man of action if the proverbial “S” ever “HTF.” Since I carry myself like such a badass at all times, I whirled to face this threat and — just as ancient martial arts texts teach — screamed like an eleven year old girl at a One Direction concert. I caught myself before hurling the only weapon I had — my Galaxy S3 — at dude’s head. Incidents like this are one reason Budge is foursquare against me ever getting my concealed carry permit.

I think the poor guy soiled himself.

I pulled myself together sufficiently for a quick “bro-ish” nod before squeaking, “World War Z, Man. Zombies. Thought you were going to eat my face off.” He treated me like we teach children to treat people driving nondescript white vans and offering free candy to “just come inside.” Fully deserving “The Cone of Shame,” I stumbled out of the men’s room and back to my seat just in time for the last of the movie with my face (if not my dignity) intact.

On the plus side, I can still go to that movie theater.

I loved the book, and I really enjoyed the movie — at least what I saw through the fingers I was constantly throwing in front of my face whenever someone was about to get his face eaten off. If you’ve read the book, you do need to understand one important thing: they DID NOT bring the book to life on the big screen. The book is a well done faux non-fictional account of “The Zombie War” told in a series of interviews with various survivors. The MOVIE is about what was going on BEFORE anyone had time to worry about interviews because they were too occupied with keeping their faces from being eaten off. This is one instance of a book appearing on film where I really feel no comparison for good or bad need be made. Each is an enjoyable escapism fodder in its own right. If you read Pat Conroy’s The Prince of Tides then saw the Nick Nolte and Barbara Streisand movie made from the book, you’ll know what I’m talking about.

The bottom line is, if you liked the book, the movie is different but enjoyable fun; just don’t go looking to see an exact transfer from one medium to another. Besides, if you stop to think about it, a movie of a guy doing interview after interview would eventually get boring. I liked the movie and I typically avoid any HINT of “horror” like a tax audit.

Love y’all, and keep those feet clean.

Jun22

TLDR

Posted on by
Standard

clenched-fistThis beach trip recollection wasn’t supposed to take this long to finish, but it is what it is. I’m cutting to the chase to tell the story I wanted to tell all along and you’ll see why my senior beach trip caused a sea change in my life that rolls like mighty waters to this day.

A clumsy stumbling woke me up on Thursday morning. I had a hangover stabbing pain in my neck resulting from an earring I barely remembered getting. At least it wasn’t a missing tooth or tribal facial tattoo. Then the day went to hell and pushed me a little farther down a road I had no idea I was on.

I had crashed on the couch; apparently it was as far as I could make it under a rare heavy load of Jack Daniels. Two other members of our entourage had stayed at their girlfriends’ much nicer digs. That meant the last guy sharing our room had the place to himself. Let me call him Adonis for the sake of anonymity. Just know he’s in this picture. He was pretty much perfect in every way that matters to a high school teen. I am firmly in the hetero camp and have always and forever batted from one side of the plate, but he was a gorgeous guy — tall, flowing hair, built like Michelangelo’s David but twice as cold and half as smart. He also came from money, drove an AMAZING car, and was captain of the football team and the wrestling team our senior year. His sculpted jaw line and dazzling physique cast my own self-esteem into such eclipse I told my first great love while we were still dating if she ever left me for Adonis, I would understand and wish her well to which she replied, “That’s great you feel that way ’cause if he ever asks me, I’m gone.”

Yeah, him. Pretty close likeness.

Yeah, him. Pretty close likeness.

Adonis could have whomever he wanted but he always wanted someone other than who he was currently with. Worse, he was like a grim, cruel Polynesian god who demanded a special kind of sacrifice — young virgins. He came down to the beach for a hunt with one quarry: a sophomore, sweet, naive, drop-dead gorgeous, and — like so many other girls — very into Adonis. I’m clear on this last point because she was a pretty good friend of mine then and Adonis was a frequent topic of conversation. Let’s call her Melpomene.  Adonis wanted little Melpomene in an extremely Zeus-like way. To his sorrow, however, she was a member of the “Christian promise ring wearers.” The beach can change things though. In this case, yesternight, Adonis happened upon her at a spirited gathering in another hotel room, which I too happened to attend. It’s germane to note though Mel claimed Christianity often and adamantly, like many of Southern extraction, Melpomene was a “buffet believer,” and though fornication was of the devil, the Almighty tended to wink at a little drunkenness.

Since all but the most obtuse of you see what’s coming, I need to be VERY clear about something, Adonis did nothing illegal nor strictly “wrong.” He DID NOT ply Melpomene with drink. Her cheerleader “friends” took care of that long before he showed up. Furthermore, he DID NOT “force himself” upon her. She was smitten with him and was playing an intense game of tonsil hockey by the time I took my leave of the soiree and — apparently — kept a date with a piercing parlor. Yes, Melpomene was drunk, but I’d have to say she was competent, if veeerrrryy uninhibited.

BoromirStarkStill, Eddard Stark had nothing on the idealistic boy I once was, and though crisp blacks and whites have blurred into greys on the monochromatic palette of grimdark reality, I cling to a few unshakable beliefs, and one is an honorable man sees no difference between a girl “drunk enough to say yes” and one “too drunk to say no.” Regardless after I left, the freshly minted pair went to our fleabag suite of rooms where Adonis put another v-card notch on his lipstick case. Melpomene stumbling from the room wrapped in a sheet to use our facilities woke me to my previously mentioned hangover. Our eyes met; she smiled a sheepish smile then turned away. Back then, I didn’t know what “The Walk of Shame” was.

I took the opportunity to slip into the bedroom and change clothes. The beds were pushed together and Tywin would have been satisfied had Tyrion and Sansa’s chamber been so accoutred following their wedding night. I changed clothes and pointedly ignored Adonis. While getting fresh clothes, I slid something from the bottom of my bag into my pocket. Emotion roiled my guts in a way I hadn’t felt it since I was a child when waves of impotent rage overtook me when someone bullied me, which was often.

In case you didn't know what a balisong is.

In case you didn’t know what a balisong is.

Out on the porch where the rest of the guys gathered, I sat down on the steps and tried to focus on a crack in the sidewalk. By-the-by, Adonis and Mel appeared, attired for the beach. When they reached the bottom step, I stood and drew the balisong from my pocket. I was spared a knowledge of prison life when, just as I stood up, a guy I’ll call “Big Bob” put his hand on my shoulder to gently but firmly press me back down onto the top step. He looked at me, shook his head and — as scalding rage tears wound down my blistered cheeks — quietly said, “I know, but it’s not worth the cost.”

Instead of riding back Saturday with Robby, I packed, met up with two guys from a town near home who were going back that afternoon, passed out from emotional exhaustion in the back seat by the time they left Horry County, and slept until they woke me up in front of The Little Barn. Mama saw the earring soon as I walked in, put her right index fingernail (she had such beautiful long nails) into the pyrite-plated hoop, and snatched it out with the words, “I prayed for a boy; not a girl.”

I’ve wanted to tell that story for a long time. I don’t know why.

Love y’all and keep those feet clean.