Oct23

Ten Years or Another Lifetime? Most Nights, I Don’t Know.

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Read ’em and weep. I know I did.

I was on my way to being very chipper and upbeat this morning until I looked at the calendar and saw the date was October 23. I had almost forgotten . . . the key being ALMOST.

Ten years ago this afternoon, at 1:00 PM to be precise, life handed me the mother of all lemons. Actually, that’s a little too “cutesy.” The long story is ten years ago this morning I took one of the Magnificent 7, which is my euphemism for the seven events that radically changed my life for the worse. Each of the seven were hammer blows against my emotional well-being and each of the seven — in seven different ways — shattered me mentally and emotionally as easily as a cinder block dropped from a highway overpass will shatter a vehicle’s windshield and with about as much warning. Ten years ago today, following a short and slanderous hearing at 301 Camperdown Way, I was summarily and officially dismissed from my teaching post at Woodmont High School.

The short story is I was lied to and about, publicly humiliated, then fired from teaching. I’d been exiled from the one place where I’d normally felt safest, happiest, and strongest. For the first time in my life, I had been kicked out of school.

I plan to post all the documents I still have from the hearing and the aftermath. When I do, you can read them for yourselves. I don’t have the mental energy to type out that story here. I love this blog. It’s not much, but it’s mine and I’ve tried to steer clear of controversy and painful memories, but to deny the scars is to deny the events which caused them and any event that makes you seriously question whether or not you really want to go on living in a world where things like this can happen to you is much too important to be ignored.

I haven’t had many things happen to me that have affected me as much or as long as getting fired did. It was two years before I was able to get back into teaching for good and I wouldn’t have gotten a break then except my alma mater needed an English teacher and the assistant principal had been my Geometry teacher and the principal had student taught my senior class in something or other. They knew me personally so they didn’t really look at anything from “The File.”

It wasn’t the same though. For one thing, Thomas Wolfe was absolutely right when he said, “You can’t go home again.” Teaching in what had been my AP English classroom in my senior year forced me every day for 180 straight days to confront ANOTHER one of the Magnificent 7 so when a library job opened up one district over, I took it.

So, it’s been ten years and the pain is just as fresh in my mind now as it was then. I can still taste the metallic tang of pure adrenaline fueled fear in my mouth when I think about the hearing. I can still see the faces of the “witnesses.” More than anything though, I can still hear the thunderous silence of the people I had called friends and colleagues for almost nine years. I had helped these people in more ways than I can imagine. I’d tried to be there for them, but when I was strung up and dangling, none of them . . . NOT A SINGLE ONE bothered to vouch for my character.

I remember leaving the district office with Budge in tears and Mama in a rage like I hadn’t seen on her face since I was a third grader and Ray Bates’ mother (God rest her soul) grabbed me by the collar and shook me because I had finally stood up to Ray’s bullying. People have asked me if I was angry and I always tell them I was too concerned with keeping Mama and Budge from getting locked up to be angry. I just wanted to get home.

Thirty minutes after leaving the pillory, I went back to the school and to the room I’d called home for so long. It was a mess because the string of subs who had kept the class during my six weeks suspension while I awaited a hearing hadn’t been able to control my hellions or my brilliant AP History students. While I was gathering my things, the assistant principal who had been the main “detective / witch hunter” for my case came into the room and asked me “So how’d things go?” I still thank God and 300 mg of Effexor CR for not decking her in her smug little mouth right then. As it was, I snatched my posters from the wall, took a few folders from my filing cabinet, and collected my most prized belongings from my beautiful desk that my friend Brian Ashley had helped me restore five summers before , then I walked out.

I’ve never been back.

Now as a sorry excuse for a Christian, I do not believe in karma, but sometimes it is tempting when I consider this. None of the three students whose complaints against me triggered the whole debacle ever graduated from high school. The principal who threw me under the bus didn’t make it through the year herself but was dismissed in disgrace partly because parents complained to the district office about her attending home football games about “two and a half sheets to the wind” as we say in the country. The superintendent who was such a jerk over the entire thing was fired by the school board within a year, partly over allegations of misconduct with a couple of female principals and partly for just basically being an ass of the 33rd degree. Finally, the district lawyer who prosecuted my case was fired and arrested a few years later after a district computer technician found alleged child pornography on the computer in the lawyer’s office. The child porn charges were eventually dropped because no one could prove the boys were underage, but the computer crimes stuck and he may still go to jail.

Coincidence or karma? You decide.

Love y’all. Keep the faith and the feet clean.

Oct21

Eyeball to Eyeball: Fifty Years after the World-Saving Blink

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One of the photographs that started the crisis.

The two-ish week period from October 15 to October 28, 1962 has gone into history under many names. Some call it “The Thirteen Days,” some “The Brink of Brinksmanship”, but most know it simply as “The Cuban Missile Crisis.” Regardless of what name the historians call it, this stretch of days in a fall fifty years ago mark the best known time when the United States and the Soviet Union came the absolute closest to a full-scale nuclear exchange. I say best known because our country and the USSR actually came even closer to firing mushroom inducing ICBMs at one another on several occasions but these were almost always caused by equipment malfunctions or misinterpreted data. The Cuban Missile Crisis was neither of those. It was a case of “we’re being threatened by what you are doing and we’re going to kill you if you don’t stop doing it.”

The history surrounding the Cuban Missile Crisis is well-known and has been the subject of articles, books, and university classes for the past five decades. It was one of — if not THE — hottest points of the Cold War. For the only time since its inception in 1959, the US military moved the DEFCON alert readiness to DEFCON 2 prompting Strategic Air Command — again, for the only known time in history — to launch the nation’s fleet of B-52 Stratofortress bombers to their airborne orbit points in preparation for an imminent nuclear retaliatory strike against the Soviet Union.

What is not common knowledge is the crisis actually involved some live fire and one American pilot gave his life to obtain the information that would ultimately move President John F. Kennedy to put his finger firmly on the “Big Red Button” and issue the ultimatum to Soviet Premier Khrushchev to remove the missiles immediately or face World War III. What is even lesser known than THAT is the only casualty of the Cold War’s hottest moment was born and raised in Greenville, South Carolina just up the road from where I am writing this. He also graduated from my college alma mater, Clemson University. His name was US Air Force Major Rudolf Anderson and around these parts, he is a really big deal.

This is Maj. Anderson’s memorial plane in Cleveland Park, Greenville, SC.

I grew up visiting Cleveland Park and the Greenville Zoo on weekends and each time we would go, Papa Wham would take me by “The Big Plane” as I called the memorial Greenville had erected to Maj. Anderson’s memory. The monument still stands today and all this year it has been undergoing extensive renovation and improvement in preparation for a rededication Saturday, October 27, 2012 to mark the 50th anniversary of Maj. Anderson’s death. The memorial’s centerpiece is an F-86 Saber jet fighter of the type and markings Maj. Anderson flew during his service in the Korean War. The Air Force donated the Saber because the U-2 type spy plane the major flew on his fatal mission was such a new plane with so many top-secret systems they could not release one.

At the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the U-2 was the best kept secret in the US. It was a sophisticated spy plane able to fly so high the pilot had to breathe pure oxygen and wear a space suit. When the U-2s first flew, the thought was the Soviets had no interceptors or anti-aircraft missiles capable of reaching the altitude necessary to bring a U-2 down. Unfortunately, the Air Force learned that if you shoot enough missiles at an aircraft, the law of averages starts to work against you and the first U-2 was shot down by the USSR on May 1, 1960.

Even though they now knew the U-2 was vulnerable, the Air Force brass still used the plane to great effect and it was the pictures taken by Maj. Anderson and his fellow pilots earlier in October 1962 that provided the photographic evidence needed to for President Kennedy to confront the Soviets. Major Anderson knew the danger he was flying towards as he took off fifty years ago, but he went anyway and his death, terrible as it was, gave the President the excuse to issue a final ultimatum to Khrushchev to remove the missiles or face annihilation.

My mother was ten years old during the events of October 1962 and she recalled daily “duck and cover” drills in school for those two weeks. I think it shows more than a little naiveté on the part of the Civil Defense people to think that a textbook and a school desk would provide adequate protection from a hydrogen bomb, but those were simpler times.

Thankfully, as I alluded to in the title, Khrushchev and the Soviets backed down and agreed to remove the nukes from Cuba. The hottest spot of the Cold War thankfully cooled down and the mushrooms never started popping up. The world could breathe a collective sigh of relief and I take a lot of pride in the fact that a South Carolina boy, in giving his life for his country, was a big part of making it possible.

Rest In Peace, Major Anderson; and well done.

Love y’all and keep those feet clean!

Oct17

Potter Penner is Pretentious Prig

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I should begin with some disclosure. I resisted the force of nature that is the Harry Potter franchise for a very long time. Then one Thanksgiving weekend, a bout of bronchitis laid me low and scouring the bookshelf for something to while away the sick hours produced nothing of interest for me. Finally, with gentle cajoling by Budge and great trepidation on my Tolkien adoring part, I began to peruse Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. Two hours after reading, “Mr and Mrs Dursley, of number four Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much,” I went straightway into Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and two hours from thence barreled headlong from, “And together they walked back through the gateway to the muggle world,” directly to “Harry Potter was a very unusual boy in many ways.”  Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, by virtue of being somewhat longer, took three hours and when I saw what a tome Harry Potter and the Goblet of Firewas, I decided to stop for the night. Of course, at that point it was 2:00 AM and I was a bit sleepy. Once I tackled Year Four at Hogwarts the next day, I had caught up with the rest of the literate world.

Not a bad body of work. It’s not The Lord of the Rings, but then, what is?

I will admit to being impressed enough by the epic saga of Harry’s struggle against Tom Riddle that I agreed to accompany Budge to the June 21, 2003 midnight release of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix at the Barnes and Noble on Haywood Road. We got in line at 7:00 PM and to my extreme dismay found ourselves directly behind the Superintendent of Greenville County Schools and the district’s school board chairperson. Normally that wouldn’t have been such a bad way to spend nearly six hours, but being as I had a nice long letter printed on impeccably tasteful cream-colored cotton paper stationery with a beautiful four-color rendition of the school district’s seal on the masthead, these two people’s signatures on the bottom, and the whys and wherefores of my termination from teaching sandwiched between, it was a skosh awkward. Good breeding and 300 mg of Effexor CR kept me out of jail and off the news that night, but once the three of us made eye contact, it is safe to say the store’s overworked A/C units became rather redundant.

Whether or not said unhappy confluence of proximity figured subconsciously in my decision to read no further in such a delectable series, I cannot say, but read no further I did. I skimmed and scanned OotP, ignored Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince entirely, and skipped directly to the culminating battle scene of Book Seven during a Scholastic Book Fair my second year as a librarian. Still, I was and remain thoroughly impressed with the series and the world Harry, Ron, and Hermione inhabit.

J.K. Rowling and the Snarky Half-Smile
“Why yes, I am filthy rich, yes you can adore me.”

However, I loathe and despise J.K. Rowling with every fiber of my being. To offer a family friendly paraphrase of one of my dear friend’s favorite expressions of contempt, I wouldn’t spit water in her mouth if her teeth were on fire.

My great acrimony towards Dame Rowling has nothing to do with her work. I think she’s a rather fine author, at least insofar as Harry’s adventures go. As a person, I think she is on par with Madame DeFarge, Annie Wilkes, and Imelda Marcos. See, Rowling is a huge success story any way you want to measure success . . . with money. She is currently holding down position #1140 on Forbes Magazine’s list of BILLIONAIRES.  Screw the whole “1% crap” the Occupy Wall Street crowd is crowing about; this chick is a member of the 0.000001%. She is currently the only billionaire author IN HISTORY. You read that right, JK Rowling has made more money off her books than Willie Shakespeare. She has more money than the entire GDP of twenty countries COMBINED. Put another way, the woman could straight up BUY Djibouti and get change.

Okay, so it’s small, but still, the woman could buy a COUNTRY.

Now I don’t abhor the woman just because she’s rich; I abhor the woman because she has totally forgotten where she came from and here in the South a person can commit no greater transgression than this. She was dirt poor, living on the UK’s welfare system, busted-flat-in-Baton-Rouge-waitin’-on-a-train-Janice-Joplin style when she got a great idea for a series of books while — literally — waiting on a train, types out the first one on a secondhand manual TYPEWRITER in a cheap coffee shop in a rundown section of  Edinburgh, a publishing house president’s eight-year-old little girl loves the first chapter, so daddy orders the book printed and the rest, as the man said, is history. That’s GRAND!

So, does she become a philanthropist doling out large scoops of this nuveau riche cabbage to folks in the same shape as she was? No. Instead, she becomes a raging witch slapping everyone in sight with a plethora of lawsuits aimed at “protecting her brand.” She has sued everyone from bookstores that “leaked” parts or all of her novels before their official release dates to one of her biggest fans because the guy wanted to publish an exhaustive encyclopedia of all things Harry Potter. She’s worked tirelessly to shut down any “unofficial” fan websites that might draw traffic from her proprietary Mugglenet.com. I imagine if she, by some miracle, stumbles onto this little blog she’ll want to sue me. Good luck with that, sister. Two words: Blood, Turnip. In short, she became wildly successful and now seems terrified someone is going to get some milk from her cash cow! So freaking what?! Is $1.2 BILLION not enough money for you, Jo? I don’t particularly like rich people just on principle, but I reserve my greatest execration for rich people who are jerks.

Now Her Royal Knickers-In-A-Knot has decided to publish a book for ADULTS. Oh, shouldn’t we all just fall down at her feet in thankfulness? So you apparently LOVE money, you have created a universe and characters people will nearly kill to get more of, you could sell rocks if you wrote alohamora on them, but you want to abandon Harry and Company to scratch some creative itch? Let’s see how that works out for you, toots. Before you start on the second non-Harry-centric work of your career though, you might want to Google up a cat named Chris Gaines and see where “creative risks” got him.

In a roundabout way, we have J.K. Rowling to thank for this.

In the end though, I could forgive Rowling her peckishness with her adoring fans. I could even overlook her vast riches — provided I could find a ladder tall enough. What I cannot, nay WILL not forget nor absolve is the fact that — because of her phenomenal success — J.K. Rowling inspired another woman to think that she too could write engaging, creative fiction and craft beloved characters who will take their places beside Frodo and Sam, the Pevensie children, and Dorothy and Toto in the hallowed halls of masterful fantasy literature and because of that inspiration, we have Stephanie Meyer and her wooden female protagonist and those freaking sparkling vampires. That is a crime no lover of good writing could ever accept apology for.

Thanks for that, Jo. Stupid sparkling vampires. I’m sure Ron would say “Bloody hell!”

And to all of you, take care and keep your feet clean! Love always.

Oct16

Kid! Just.Stay.Down.

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They look nothing like the characters in this memory.

For some reason today, I remembered a fight I witnessed when I was a freshman in high school. It was over some real or imagined affront to one of the guys’ honor and — most likely — a girl had something to do with it somewhere because they pretty much always did. I know I heard girls complain time after time about their “hotheaded” boyfriends always wanting to fight over them. They talked like it was the most embarrassing thing in the world, but the funny thing is, the Lady Fair was always present in the rustic berfois whenever her Shining Knight was tilting in the lists. Even funnier is how often the loser in the fight would lose his girl as well. Milady doth protest too much over the bloodletting, but she isn’t likely to stay with someone incapable of defending her honor either. It’s natural selection at its finest.

But I digress.

I ended up at this fight because my ride home was going to the melee. Apparently,  the “challenge a la guerre” took place between classes or at lunch or some such. In any event, fighting on school property — while it did happen — would end in a lengthy suspension for a first offense and a recommendation for expulsion thereafter so unless someone blatantly spit in your face or proclaimed loudly and profanely that your mother was something less than pure as the driven snow and a saint among women, fights happened at “The Rocks” at 3:30 after school.

The Rocks was a sandy beach beside the Little River less than a mile from the school down Raider Road. It took its name from the shoals created by — duh — rocks and the flattened, worn boulders dotting the beach. It provided good footing, was spacious enough to accommodate a pair of pugilists or a group of warriors, and had ample viewpoints to watch the fight and watch for the local constabulary.

Close, but a few more big rocks and a little smaller stream.

These affairs were always “straight up” as well. I think my generation was the last one to settle fights solely with the weapons God gave us. I knew several boys carried knives — I myself was seldom without my stainless steel butterfly blade, even at school — and more than one — of which number I would be included during my train wreck of a senior year — carried guns in the glove box of their cars. Despite such an weaponry, no one I knew from any group in the school would have pulled a knife in a simple dispute like this. His own friends would turn on him in a second for such an egregious breach of longstanding tradition. Against a rival school or in a clearly delineated gang fight, you took your chances of getting butchered or shot, but not while “settling scores” at The Rocks after school.

In one corner was a junior I didn’t particularly care for. His face was too handsome by half and when he took his shirt over his head he revealed sculpted muscles my pasty white doughboy belly would never see. This guy could throw down though. Fighting came as naturally to him as his stylishly tousled blonde hair. He wasn’t the biggest guy in the school by a long margin, but he was big enough. I sure as hell wouldn’t have wanted to have a go at him. I don’t consider myself a coward and I have enough scars to prove it, but I also adhere strictly to the Kenny Rogers dictum that one must, “Know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em; know when to walk away and know when to run.” After all, a wise man said discretion is the better part of valor.

The other fighter was a sophomore. He had moved in to the area in his freshman year. I didn’t know his name, but I’d seen him in the halls. He was an inch or two shorter than Adonis and seemed reasonably fit. Standing with a couple of his clique, he didn’t seem too anxious to participate in this barbarism, and I figured none of this was his idea. Unfortunately, school’s like prison — you back down when someone calls you out, you set yourself up for endless bullying and torture.

At least they avoided this crap.

This wasn’t Madison Square Garden and no one standing around the circle — except me — could have told you who the Marquis de Queensbury was. To their credit, they dispensed with the usual circling shoulder to shoulder and trash talking. The kid just walked up to Adonis and tossed out a right hook that grazed the sculpted perfect chin. That was the first and last blow the kid landed. Adonis gave with the punch and came back with a straight left hand to the kid’s nose that started blood flowing and sent the kids sprawling flat onto his back.

At that point, the fight could have been over. Honor was satisfied, at least to all of us. Apparently, the kid had other ideas. He slowly stood up and waded back in, launching a haymaker right that whiffed miserably. Adonis popped him with a right – left combination and the kid was down again with the beginnings of a beautiful shiner on his left eye. Again, this is over, right? No. The kid staggers to his feet again and goes right back at Adonis and receives a matching contusion over his right eye for his trouble. This time, Adonis strode over and when the kid got to his knees, Adonis anchored him flat again with a huge right and turned to walk away. The kid somehow got up again and lunged at Adonis, grabbing the older boy around the waist. Adonis spun out easily and — once again — put the kid face down with a hard punch.

Looked a lot like this . . . a WHOLE lot like this.

Now this was getting awkward. This kid wasn’t going to stay down even though he had absolutely no chance of winning or even hitting his antagonist. Any of the rest of us would have taken our ass-whipping and called it a day, thank you very much, but this guy just kept coming. Three more times he got up and three more times Adonis leveled him. It was just like the boxing scene from Cool Hand Luke except these guys weren’t wearing any gloves. I know Adonis wasn’t holding anything back, but this kid just kept getting up. He looked like, well, he looked like someone who ran into a buzz saw, but he would not quit. I saw him get plastered twice more before Scott tapped me on the shoulder and shrugged his head towards the car. A few other people left around the same time.

I heard the next day at school that Adonis finally knocked him down then knelt beside him and put his hand on the kid’s chest to keep him from rising. When the kid struggled to knock the hand away, a buddy of mine who stayed said Adonis held firm and said to the kid, “You win. Just stay there and you can tell anyone you want to that you won this fight. Please stay down because I don’t want to hit you anymore.” He said when the kid heard that, he just relaxed and passed out. By the end of the year, he was a member of Adonis’ crew.

I guess I was thinking about that fight because of all the crap that’s been hitting me lately. Sickness, bills, general troubles. We all have to go through dark places, but honestly, it feels like it’s been awhile since I’ve seen the light. Of course, the one huge difference between my current state and the kid’s that day long ago at The Rocks is life doesn’t tell you to stay down or you’ve won. Get up as many times as you want to; Life’s big right hand is going to put you flat on your back one more time until you break or die. It’s a rule. Nobody gets out of here alive; you just get to choose how disfigured you want to be.

Sorry about the bummer ending, y’all.
Just remember ol’ G.S. Feet loves each and every one of you. Stay safe and keep those feet clean.

Oct6

They’re K5, Dude; Chill Out

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The indefatigable Sea Lions returned to the win column today after a rain out last week. What made this morning’s victory especially enjoyable was our competition. For the first time all year, Coach Thomas and I finally got to play a team whose coach shares the same philosophy about Upward Soccer as we do — we’re all here to have a good time, learn a little about soccer, and enjoy some sunshine.

I wish he could get such admirable sentiments across to the rest of the coaches in the league.

I am not the smartest and certainly not the wisest of men, but I am somewhat observational and one thing I have seen at every level of sports I have ever participated in as a player, coach, or spectator is take-it-to-the-bank guaranteed — any team is a DIRECT reflection of its coaching staff, be it a staff of one or twelve. Simply put, if the coach is a jerk, most of the team will be jerks too, with the opposite being thankfully true as well.

Take our first game for instance. We were way overmatched. The opposing team had athletes, not players. Sometimes, that happens in randomly assigned teams, but what doesn’t happen is a team of K5 and 1st graders who were out for blood and victory. This bunch didn’t try anything but scoring. Each of their seven players was an athletic prodigy. I won’t be at all surprised to see any of the seven playing some sport at the pro level in ten to fifteen years. What was obvious to me by the first water break was this group’s mentality was to stomp us flat on Saturday . . . they could learn about Jesus tomorrow. Their coach was on the field (allowed and encouraged in Upward sports) berating any player who happened to lose possession of the ball to one of our little ones. We lost by a lot but there’s only one problem with that

KEEPING OPEN SCORE IS A VIOLATION OF THE SPIRIT OF UPWARD LEAGUES.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not one of these people who thinks everyone needs a trophy and life isn’t about winners and losers. I believe we need leagues where the goal IS winning so kids whom that matters to have a place to go. Upwards, however, isn’t that place. Here, everybody — by rule — gets equal playing time, everybody gets stickers after the game, and — most of all — everybody has a devotion at practice and at halftime of all the games. These leagues are supposed to foster what their name implies UPWARD focus. The games are supposed to be all about instruction in the sport and learning about Jesus.

Not many of the coaches seem to have gotten that memo even though Ms. Becky stressed the point many times at the organizational meeting before we even got our teams. Besides, I believe if your self-esteem and worth as a man depends AT ALL on the score of a 36 minute soccer game between children just barely old enough to stay up til dark during the week, you have issues they make several nice pills for.

Take our last game two weeks ago. The coach of the other team was INSANE. I’ve never been so happy to win a game. He was a Rule Nazi who didn’t know the rules. For example, he called Coach Thomas’ daughter for being offsides and took the ball away from her.  If this maniac had read his rulebook, he would know this league DOESN’T HAVE OFFSIDES!! We only play 4 on 4 at a time and the fields are the size of a big living room. Goalkeeping isn’t even allowed so how in the world can someone be offsides? Lauren was crushed — and crushed needlessly. Thankfully, Thomas is a much better man than I or the league would be short one coach.

This week was nice though. The opposite coach was a big bear of a guy recently moved down from Pennsylvania. I knew he was different immediately because of two important missing pieces of his equipment. First, he didn’t wear sunglasses and second, he didn’t have on a visor like the Second Coming of Steve Spurrier. He smiled constantly. His team lacked a few players at the very start (pretty common actually) but he insisted we play our 4 on his 3. Thankfully a fourth player showed up for him just at kickoff and his whole team was there by halftime.

He was great. He helped OUR players just as much as his team. When his team scored he cheered and high-fived everyone BUT when OUR team scored a goal he ALSO high-fived and cheered them as well. Our kids noticed the difference as well, which is something EVERYONE needs to remember. Kids are the greatest judge of character in the world. They can spot a phony or a faker in a skinny minute and they WILL call you out. Any time you see players our kids’ ages hugging their coach, you know he must be doing something right. When it was time for the halftime “Sunday School lesson” he sat with his team and constantly tapped and patted to keep them quiet and attentive to the speaker. Do you have any idea how hard it is to keep SEVEN itty bitties still and quiet for a seven minute lesson? He did it though.

So if you lead children, remember — they are children, not little adults. Let them have fun and go easy on the pressure and nit-picking. The “real world” will be slapping them in the face soon enough so allow them some joy while they can enjoy it!

Love y’all and keep those feet clean . . . and warm! Fall is here!

Sep22

For Such a Time as This?

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My little buddy’s biography!

The mighty Sea Lions came away with a hard-won victory today in our Upward Soccer match. Our scrappy little bunch played hard even though we were short-handed. Turns out my little home-schooled “right fielder” decided soccer just wasn’t for her so she’s done for the year. {Just a note, if you don’t know what a “right fielder” is when used as a yard stick for an athlete’s skill, you never played t-ball or coach’s pitch; if you must have some other analogy, the proper football one would be a kid who is “end, guard, and tackle.”}

But I digress.

In addition to my little star-gazer, we also missed Tru this morning. His mom sent Coach Thomas an email earlier in the week letting us know they had a family vacation planned and wouldn’t be at the game today, but I still missed him, mostly because of last week. I felt like he and I bonded during our trouncing by the vicious Otters.

To really understand this story, first, you have to know this — Tru HATES soccer. I think he’d rather slide down a jagged envelope and put the resulting paper cut into a vat of vinegar rather than play. All you have to know is his mom had to CARRY him from the car to the field for the first game. He’s done a little better since then, but he still has pretty much zero interest in the game. In our first game, we could barely keep him on the field because he kept wanting to go sit in his mom’s lap. Even when he’s on the field, he’s not crazy about sticking his leg into the cleated, shin-guarded blender that is the scrum for the ball in this level of soccer. Most of the time, he’ll be at the opposite end of the field from the action picking dandelions or looking at the clouds. If you’ve ever read the marvelous children’s book Ferdinand the Bull by Munro Leaf, you have a COMPLETELY accurate picture of my little Tru.

Last week though, he seemed more Ferdinandesque than usual. He seemed downright sad. When it was his turn to sit out a segment, I sat down next to him on the tarp / bench. He was picking at a scab on his knee just as any little boy would, but I could tell something was serious so I leaned in to him and said, “Tru, dude, what’s wrong with you today?”

I guess this is how we looked to everyone else.

Now I was expecting a typical “Tru” answer along the lines of “I hate being out here” or “Can I go sit with my grandparents?” Instead, I got a blurting, sprawling answer that hit me like a Chuck Norris roundhouse kick. Tru said, “I just don’t feel right, Coach Shannon. I feel weird.” Not surprisingly, Tru didn’t know the word he was hunting was “depressed.” How could a little boy know such a huge word?

He continued, “I just moved up here from a place called Lexington. My mommy and daddy aren’t living together anymore and now I’ve got a new daddy and he’s okay, but he’s not my real daddy and all my friends are back there and I want mommy and daddy to get back together and I want my old room back but mommy says that’s never going to happen so I just want to go back to Grammy’s and sit in my room and play with my toys ’cause I don’t want to be around anyone but daddy is going to come get me this afternoon and Mommy seems sad about that.” He never cried. Never broke. Never even whined. Just stated the facts with all the emotion and vocabulary at his 5.5 year old disposal.

But this is pretty much how it felt.

For a long few seconds, I didn’t say anything. I didn’t trust my voice because as I sat on that paint-smeared blue tarp with a gorgeous blue sky overhead and a fresh breeze in my face, I went back. I literally saw the years melt away in some parody of a Hollywood flashback sequence. The decades fell away until it was no longer a 5.5 year old little boy and a 41 year old coach sitting side by side; it was a 5.5 year old little boy and a just barely turned 6 little boy who reached out and put a hand on Tru’s shoulder. The six-year-old was once again watching a spray painted sky blue Chevy pickup truck with two bags of clothes in the bed pulled out of the gravel driveway of a little single-wide trailer as HIS daddy drove away and began the upheaval that would define the next 30+ years of that little boy’s life.

Then just as quickly as it happened, it was over and I was “there” again. I looked at Tru and dared my voice to crack as I talked to him. I said, “Buddy, if anyone on this field right now knows what you mean, I do.”

He looked up at me and he looked so small, “My mommy and daddy split apart when I was just a tiny bit older than you. It was awful and I cried and cried for days.” He looked even sadder, “Tru, it’s never going to be ‘okay’ again. I can’t lie to you and you are way to little to understand what all I wish I could tell you, but I can tell you this . . . your mommy loves you, your daddy STILL loves you and your second daddy loves you as well and that is ALL that matters. Right now you are sad and hurting because the world has fallen apart and no one bothered to ask you what you think about any of it, they just dragged you along ’cause they’re bigger than you.”

At that, Tru looked up at me an nodded knowingly, “But Tru, even though it’ll never be ‘okay’ you will be okay. You’ll get through this. It feels like the end of the world and it’s probably the worst thing you will ever go through for a long, long time, but it will get better. It’ll never make sense until you are too old for it to matter anymore. In fact, it’ll probably NEVER make sense, but IT WILL GET EASIER. Just hang on. Love your mommy and keep loving your daddy. It’ll be okay.”

By that time, the game was over and everyone was shaking hands and giving out “effort stars” so I didn’t get to say much more to the little fellow and to be honest, I’m not sure he’ll come back to soccer anymore — he hates it that badly. Still, for those ten minutes, for the first time and the only time in the last 36 years, all the agony, all the anger, and all the pent-up angst FINALLY seemed to have a purpose. I have no idea why I would have to endure all I’ve endured since Mama and Daddy divorced so long ago. It seems as though any chance at being happy drove away in that sky blue truck.

Hang tough, little bro, hang tough.

BUT, for ten minutes, all that misery allowed me to DIRECTLY connect with a little boy who is just setting out on the path I’ve walked for as long as I have clear memories. It is a lonely path and a dark path and when I started my journey, I didn’t know of anyone walking ahead or behind. Maybe THIS little act; this ten minutes of absolute understanding of another human being. Maybe I went through it all for just such a time. I didn’t have a guide, but at least for Tru I could call back across the years to say, “It’s hard, but you can make it. It’s a sad time, but it’ll get better, kid, you just have to keep walking. Keep on walking.”

For such a time as this.

Sorry for such a long piece. I try to keep them under 1000 words, but I got carried away on this one. Love y’all and keep those feet clean.

Sep16

Another of the Good Ones Dies Young

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I apologize for anyone who’s expecting another installment of my soccer stories. Unfortunately, something terrible has come up.

Seventeen years ago I started my first teaching career at Woodmont High School with two classes of English IV and four classes of English II. One of the students in one of those sophomore classes was a little slip of a girl. She was blonde and blue eyed and cute as a button. She didn’t have much to say on the first day, and to be truthful about it, she wasn’t very talkative the entire time I knew her. Her name was April Pruitt and because of a quirk in scheduling, she and many of her classmates from that first sophomore class would be in my English III class the next year and would finish up with me in English IV the year after that. I guess about a third to a half of the WHS class of 1998 had me for English as sophomores, juniors, and seniors. They were the first of my favorite students and quiet, short, but smiling April stood tall among the ones nearest and dearest to my heart.

April wasn’t college bound. She graduated and went into the workforce. From all I’ve been able to ascertain, she held down her job well. Like many of my former students who stayed in this area, I would run in to her at the grocery store or WalMart from time to time. When Facebook came out, she was one of the first of my former students to “friend” me and using that wonderful network of Mr. Zuckerberg’s, we kept in touch over the last few years. Like a great many of her classmates at Woodmont, she never married, but she did have a devoted boyfriend and two beautiful little boys who looked remarkably like their mother.

I never heard anything from or about April these last seventeen odd years to worry me like I had to worry about so many of my former students. She steered clear of drugs as far as I can tell. The picture at the left was taken in April and her face shows none of the ravages an addiction would create. She wasn’t a heavy drinker or a wild party girl.  I don’t even know if she smoked cigarettes or not. Every picture in her Facebook album shows her happy and laughing with friends or, even more often, with her two boys who were obviously the apples of her two eyes. I was more than a little proud of her because she was successful in the quiet, steady way that is so typical of a Southern woman. She was 32 and doing well for herself and her boys.

Until a week ago Friday when she had her accident. From what I can gather through Facebook and other channels, she and her boyfriend were riding his four-wheeler — sans helmets, of course and unfortunately — when they lost control of the ATV while going at a pretty fast rate. Apparently, her boyfriend was able to hang on to the machine and let it bear the brunt of the crash, but April was thrown from the back and flew some distance through the air before landing hard on her head and neck. She was rushed unconscious to the hospital where she spent the last week in a coma with swelling on her brain. I planned to go to see her in the hospital every day last week, but something constantly seemed to come up. Now, I won’t get the chance. April passed away early this (Sunday) morning. She fought hard, but she never regained consciousness.

For several years, I kept a list written on an Olive Garden napkin of all the students and former students I had lost over the years. It was on such a medium because several of my former colleagues and I were at Olive Garden on the last day of school discussing the “Woodmont Curse” which seemed to take at least one or more of our students each year. In just the shortntime I was at WHS, I put nearly 20 names on the list. By the time the napkin disappeared, it held over thirty-five. If I still had it, the total would be somewhere around 42. Forty-two lives cut tragically short by disease, accidents, suicide, and several other reasons.  I knew each one personally and very few of them were nearer and as special to me as April.

I wish her family, especially her boys, able to find peace. I don’t pretend to have anything wise and transcendent to say. I don’t have the answers I once thought I had. All I know is one more little sliver of my heart will join many others in graves, tombs, and even at sea in places far and near and the world will be all the poorer for having lost such a lovely and smiling light.

In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti, Resquiescat In Pace, April. Coach Wham will miss you.

Sep15

Onward and Upward: The Joy of Herding Cats

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Back about the middle of July, my buddy Thomas texted me with a proposition. His middle child and youngest daughter, Lauren, was going to play soccer. He planned to coach and wanted to know if I would agree to help him as his co-coach. I have no idea what compelled him to choose me out of all the people he knows. I am certain it was not for my vast experience as an award winning soccer coach since my entire knowledge of soccer comes from one season as a high school head coach of necessity — which I’ve already discussed — and a few viewings of various FIFA World Cups over the years. Furthermore, I have no children of my own of any age so the little ones are a mystery to me, albeit an adorable one.  Whatever his reasons, I found my fingers texting back “Sure thing; it’ll be fun.”

Looking back, I’m relatively certain I figured Thomas would find someone better suited OR Lauren would decided to stick with horseback riding OR the Mayan Apocalypse would be several months early. I don’t think I seriously considered actually being a children’s soccer coach until a month later when I was actually sitting next to Thomas at the intro meeting for the MFBC Upward Soccer League. By then, my pride wouldn’t let me run away screaming; although it might have actually been less embarrassing if I had.

Too late for that, though. I was an Upward Soccer Coach.

Here I should tell you a few important details about this particular league. Upward Soccer is a Christian outreach program. Each practice and game include a time for a short devotion. It’s a way to learn about Jesus and play a little soccer. At least, that’s the theory.

One other important thing I need to mention. Our team? Three kindergarteners and four first graders. What experience I do have with children has always been with the middle school or older crowd. Now, I was expected to teach the “itty-bittys” about “The Beautiful Game.” If you are already laughing, stay tuned. It gets better.

In Upward, we play on a quarter sized field with four players per side. We don’t have goalies because no one wants a K5er getting kicked in the mouth going for a save. The goals are tiny as well — six feet wide by three feet high. Other than that, most of the rules are just like regular soccer.

Our team is Lauren, Addy, Sofia, Garrison, Jonas, Collin, and True. We are the Sea Lions, but secretly I like to refer to us as The Magnificent Seven. Officially, it’s called Upward Soccer, but a more accurate name for it would be Amoeba Ball. Keep in mind, K5 and 1st graders — eight on a field at a time. Basically, it’s a #3 sized soccer ball amidst sixteen whirling, stabbing, jabbing, and flailing lower limbs. Wherever the ball moves, the cloud of dust and children follow. Position play is a distant dream. If the ball squirts out of the scrum and a team-mate kicks it next instead of an opponent, we call it a “pass” and are deliriously happy.

It truly is like herding cats; especially given how all the kittens don’t always want to play at the same time.

Take Addy for instance. She is a precious child. At our first practice, I was trying to get her and her teammates to line up in two lines. How hard can it be, right? Let me put it this way; I used to laugh at the colored tiles on the floor at Budge’s school after she told me they used them to teach the children where to line up correctly. If I could have, I would have tiled the entire soccer field just to have colored squares. In little Addy’s case, however, it wouldn’t have helped. She was having a terrible time figuring out how to line up so I knelt down next to her and said, “Baby, it’s like getting in line to go to the gym or the lunchroom at school or maybe lining up to go out to recess.” She looked at me so very sweetly with her little pink bow and her cute glasses making her eyes even bigger and brighter and said in a completely guileless, precious voice,

“Mr Shannon, I’m homeschooled.” So much for THAT analogy.

Another tendency of these little ones I’m learning is how whatever enters their minds must exit through their mouths IMMEDIATELY lest it be forgotten, which would be a terrible tragedy. For example, here’s an exchange during our first devotion midway through the initial practice:

Thomas: “Can anyone tell me who Jesus is?”
Garrison: “I’m firsty; can I get a dwink of water?”
Jonas: “Does he go to school around here?”
Lauren: “Daddy, we learned about Jesus at Camp Grace.”
True: “I’ve got new cleats! See them?” (Holds up foot with new cleat on it)

That’s just the beginning of the tales. I have a ton more to say about our little team and since the season runs through October, expect more posts about this adventure. Right now though, I have to go do some research. Sofia is DYING to play Sharks and Minnows at the next practice and I have NO idea what she means!

Love y’all and keep those feet (and new cleats) clean!

Sep11

It’s 11 Years Since the WTC Attacks; Do You Know Where Your Constitutional Rights Are?

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This Patriots Day, I’m not going to look back at the terrible events of 9-11-2001. We all know the horror, the intense loss, and the overwhelming fear which billowed up and gripped our nation by the throat 11 years ago today. I want to spend a minute looking at the results of the fear because I’m afraid ever since that dark day, we’ve become accustomed to the dark in this country. Specifically, I’d like to draw your attention to the fact our Constitution and its Bill of Rights — cornerstone and keystone — of our nation have been largely discarded in the name of state security.

First, look at the PATRIOT Act. This single piece of legislation has destroyed the liberty and freedom of more Americans than any law this nation has ever passed. It is a law any dictator would be proud to have on his books. It is a law which has completely eviscerated our Constitution.

Broadly defined, the PATRIOT Act has:

expanded authority to regulate financial transactions . . .  and broadened the discretion of law enforcement and immigration authorities . . . . The act also expanded the definition of terrorism . . . thus enlarging the number of activities to which the . . . .  Act’s expanded law enforcement powers can be applied.

When (and why) did our police start looking like our military?

So terrorism is now whatever our government says it is and anyone our government denounces as a terrorist IS one. In the name of state security, our federal government — and by extension state and many local governments as well — can wiretap your phones, monitor your cell phone usage, track your internet browsing, and, with the provision that brought out the fight in librarians all over the country, walk in to your local library, flash a FBI badge and ask to see your library records. What makes this so insidious is this can all be done without your knowledge and in many cases without a warrant. Please read the following and compare what it says to the PATRIOT Act:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

If it sounds familiar, it’s because you remember the text of the Fourth Amendment from a civics class somewhere in your past. Many “unreasonable searches” and more than a few “seizures” have taken place in the last ten years, but where is the required “probable cause?” Probable Cause is no longer a legal definition; it’s whatever the FBI and other law enforcement agencies SAY it is.

Next, how many of you have heard of a guy named Anwar al-Awlaki? He was an odious little man who, as a high-ranking member of al-Qaeda, spewed venom and hatred against the US from his platform as a Muslim imam in Yemen. You don’t have to worry about him anymore though because he was killed about a year ago in a Predator drone strike carried out in Yemen on President Obama’s orders. This probably won’t make anyone lose sleep and I’m not saying it should except for one little detail about Awlaki. He was born in New Mexico in 1971.

According to US Law, anyone born on American soil, regardless of the nationality or citizenship of his or her parents is an AMERICAN CITIZEN. Anwar al-Awlaki was just as much a citizen of this country as George W. Bush is and Awlaki was assassinated on foreign soil by US armed forces. Our President ordered a citizen of this country summarily executed.

Time for another civics review.

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

That’d be the Sixth Amendment. Our Founding Fathers wanted to see to it American citizens didn’t just “disappear” like so many French citizens did during their Revolution. One of our most precious rights is the right to a trial. It’s one of the things which makes us who we are as Americans. “THEY” stand people up against walls and shoot them. WE don’t do that! Or we didn’t. Now we do; and let me ask you a question — how long do you think it will be before American citizens on OUR own soil deemed to dangerous to live and to potentially hazardous to arrest and prosecute in the courts end up missing? When that happens, you may want to start looking up.

America has NEVER violated the rights of its lawful citizens in a time of war.

Of course, by the end of this year if you look up, and you live in an urban area, chances are good you’ll see a Predator or a Globe Hawk or maybe even a Reaper drone flying around above your city looking harmless. Right now, the military has 64 drone bases operational on American soil. Not all of them are for training. Maybe the government won’t use the ever-growing drone fleet to spy on us . . . maybe.

Finally, a word about The Global War on Terror. Ever since 9-11-01, many people believe we have been at war with terrorism. Here’s the problem with that. You cannot WIN a GLOBAL war on TERRORISM unless you control the WHOLE WORLD. What you can do though, is keep a lot of people scared of boogie men in Arab robes around every corner. The whole premise of TGWOT is ludicrous, unless you want to keep the country ACTING like we are at war. See, I listened to Granny Wham tell stories about how things were on the home front in WWII. You couldn’t do things you could do before Pearl Harbor. Police could do things they formerly couldn’t do because the country was AT WAR and when you are AT WAR, you have to draft WARTIME LEGISLATION. Unfortunately, we can’t win this war because “Terrorism” isn’t a country we can invade and wipe out. For every terrorist cell we find and take down, three more will pop up.

Comic book or prophecy?
You decide.

That’s okay with the government though because being AT WAR makes it okay to do almost anything, like put Japanese-American CITIZENS in concentration camps, or detain people at Gitmo for 11 years without a trial or spy on our own citizens. As long as the public is running scared and we are theoretically “At War” the government can do whatever it wants to do and cover it up or spin it and it’ll all be okay because it’s all done in the name of national security. Do yourself a favor and get a copy of Alan Moore’s graphic novel V for Vendetta. Read the book instead of watching the movie. The movie is an action thriller; the book will make you think. Just replace the book’s nuclear war with The Global War on Terror and see where it leads.

Let a great American from another era end this posting with his thought on “security.”

Take it away, Ben.

Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and in the end will lose both.

Sep1

So Much for THAT Idea

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Tool #1 for writing the great American novel.

People have been asking me when I was going to write a book ever since I was in junior high school. Some of them claim I have a way with words perfectly suited to a novel while others who have heard me tell stories throughout the years say I need to get them written down.

Well, for various reasons, I haven’t spit out the Great American Novel yet. I primarily blame the fact that I no longer drink liquor to excess as the main cause of my creative dearth. As anyone who has studied American Literature — AFTER the Puritans, of course — can attest, to be a famous American author, one should be consistently somewhere between two sheets in the wind and completely knee-walking drunk to do any work of substantial literary merit. Myriads of American Novelists from Edgar Allan “the Raven” Poe all the way to Mr. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas himself, Hunter S. Thompson all sought their inspiration in the cups or other, even more potent doorways to alternate realities. Faulkner to Fitzgerald, Kerouac to Capote, with Tennessee Williams, Raymond Chandler, and my fellow South Carolina boy Pat Conroy thrown in for good measure — all red nosed lushes of the highest order and more than one dead of complications from alcohol well before their creative genius was fully spent. Yes, alcohol and drugs it seems are the keys to unlock creativity in American men of letters, and who am I to gainsay arguably the most famously alcoholic American novelist, Papa Hemingway, who gave the sagacious advice, “Write drunk; edit sober.”

and Tool 2 for writing the great American novel.

However, since I prefer a happy marriage to fame and fortune and walking upright hangover free to lying on the bathroom floor with an ice pack, a glass of ginger ale, and a heart full of the-morning-after regret, I have been a teetotaler for nearly twenty years. Understand please, I have no quarrel with the fruit of the vine, the clear nectar of the potato and agave, or the golden honey of the oaken barrels; in fact, once upon another lifetime, I made good acquaintance with Messrs. Jim Beam, Jose’ Cuervo, and the Lynchburg Legend himself, Jack Daniels. I’m afraid, however, that we all got along far too well and the good gentlemen simply didn’t know when to leave and I hadn’t the heart to throw them out. We have long since parted company, however and since I’ve no desire to tempt fate or further trash my liver, I willingly choose to forgo the traditional lubricant of the creative gears of the American novelist.

Of course, the other — and more reasonable reason — I have yet to grace the Amazon hot 100 (or some such list currently topped by the pornographic 50 Shades trilogy) is much simpler. Writing a book is hard — extremely hard. It takes great focus and discipline and I am woefully lacking in both. Still, riding down the road last week, a great idea for a novel struck me hard. I’d just watched the “Spear of Destiny” episode of Brad Meltzer’s Decoded the night before on the History Channel and the Lance of Longinus had been poking my mind ever since.

He’s the guy with the spear.

For those who don’t know, the nickel tour of the legend of Longinus goes something like this. According to church tradition, Longinus was the name of the Roman soldier who stabbed Christ in the side with a lance while Jesus was hanging on the Cross. From there, further traditions variously have Longinus’ blinded eye being healed by a drop of Christ’s blood or his being cursed by Christ to walk the earth (a la the Wandering Jew) until the Second Coming.

I adore history from all periods and I’m not picky. I enjoy social and political history just as much as military history. So I thought, “why not write a novel about the adventures of Longius after his contact with Christ on the Cross.” I would take the tradition of him being doomed to wander the world and walk him through time on a series of adventures. I even figured I could make a series out of the idea and have Longinus — usually going by some pseudonym — participate in wars and events from 33 AD all the way to the present day. I tell you truthfully, I was excited and pumped up about this project. It seemed like just the thing to keep my mind off the present difficulties I’m having in multiple areas and maybe, if someone besides Budge, liked the initial book enough, I could contribute a little more to the family income.

I was all ready to get the first novel going. I was going to have Longinus as a soldier in Iraq or Afghanistan. He’d get what would be a mortal wound on any other man, but since he’s cursed, he’d recover in the body bag and cut his way out, terrifying the poor morgue worker in the process. Then Longinus would befriend the worker and start telling his story.

I was READY TO GO!

Then I sat down to do some research. With one Google search on Longinus, my entire project collapsed like an over-risen cake in a 7.5 earthquake. The very first entry on the search results page just wadded my whole idea up and tossed it in the wastebasket as if it were a piece of junk mail or a late credit card payment notice. Someone else had the same flash of insight I did and started a series called Casca: The Eternal Mercenary. In 1979. It’s up to 37 books now. So who, pray tell, was the author who crushed my dreams? This guy

Well, crap.

Yep, Mr. “100 men we’ll test today, Ballad of the Green Berets” himself — Staff Sergeant Barry Sadler, Green Beret, Vietnam War hero, songwriter, top 40 artist, and — apparently — author of the first 22 books of the series I had just planned to write. I knew about SSgt. Sadler. His Ballad of the Green Berets is one of my favorite songs from the ’60s. I just had no idea he’d written a book — or 22 — about the character I wanted to bring to life. The series has continued, written by other authors chosen by his estate, since Sadler’s untimely and suspicious death in 1988. It’s up to 37 now. Number 38 is coming out in 2013.

Wellup, so much for THAT idea!

Love y’all and keep those feet clean.