Apr30

I-85 Take Me Home To The Place I Belong!

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It all started with a simple high school baseball game.

This post is the direct result of a memory jog brought on by reading about some random high school baseball playoff. Looking at the box score of a couple of schools I’ve never heard of took me back to one of the most confusing nights of my life that also just happened to involve a high school playoff game . . . sort of.

As Kid Rock so eloquently puts it, “It was 1989 (technically, 1990), my thoughts were short, my hair was long . . . ” My alma mater, Laurens District 55 High School, was playing for the State 4A Baseball Championship against Lancaster High School. My long-time best friend, Robby, asked me to go to the first of the three game series with him and we watched the Green and Gold dismantle the Bruins at Laurens’ stadium. The second game was the next night in Lancaster and Robby asked me to go to that one as well.

At that point, Robby and I managed to maintain what was left of our grade-school spanning friendship. He hadn’t been home from his freshman year at college long  when the playoffs in question started. He’d gone off to Clemson University while I had chosen a girl over my education and stayed home — which is another story for another time — and gone to Greenville Tech. (Spoiler alert: I came to my senses and rectified that situation in the fall of ’90.) So we agreed to meet at his house the next night about 4 and make the three hour drive to Lancaster in time for the game.

Now if you look at the relative positions of Lancaster High School and our home town of Gray Court on a map of South Carolina, you’ll probably start to wonder how in the world it can take three hours to make such a seemingly short trip. The answer — as an old man once told me — is simple, you can’t get there from here. What I mean is, then as now, NO road worth driving connects Gray Court and Lancaster. What’s more, you never ACTUALLY reach a town in the course of the entire trip there. You always “head towards” a town but make a turn before you get to the town limits. For example, in the first leg of the trip, we “headed towards” Union, but turned before we got there in order to “head towards” Chester. The upshot of it all is what looks like it should take 45 minutes to an hour of hard driving takes 3 or more hours of winding country roads through one of the most desolate areas of my home state.

Our chariot for the evening's events. Robby's looked almost exactly like this one.

We made it to the game without a hitch, riding in Robby’s high school graduation present – a frost white 1989 Chevy Beretta. It was a beautiful day full of  bright spring sunshine. Once there, we watched as Laurens was handed its hind-quarters on a silver platter by a pitcher named “Pep” Harris who would eventually play for the Cleveland Indians and the California Angels. The boy was “throwing bb’s” as the baseball expression goes and he made our visiting team look sickly and anemic, which future major league pitchers often do to their high school competition. I got to shake his hand before Robby and I packed up and headed home.

Here’s where the fun began.

See, this was in my younger and less responsible days when I preferred the company of my dear uncles James Beam and Jonathan Daniels over lesser forms of entertainment. Robby shared my love of the “family”, though his preferences ran more towards Messrs. Bartles and James. In any event, we had brought along several “family members” on this particular adventure and by the time the sun went down, most of those dearly beloveds had gone on to a new place of residence. In short, we were a bit less coordinated for our trip home than we’d be on our trip out.

We did fine until we were “headed towards” Chester. Then, for reasons that aren’t completely clear even now, we went UNDER a bridge that we were supposed to go OVER. That would have been trouble enough, but what with our relative lack of thought processing compounded by a joyous rendition of the ENTIRE AC/DC discography played on one of the first in-dash CD players I’d ever seen, we did not notice our mistake for nearly an hour.

When we realized we should have long since reached Union, we started looking for road signs. We were on a two lane road in the middle of the boondocks. Road signs were at a premium. Now two 19 year old guys are not lost so long as there is gas in the tank; they are merely taking the scenic route, so we weren’t worried. The fuzzy effects of our erstwhile uncles had worn off so we were in full possession of our outstanding senses of direction. We reasoned that “home” was to our left, so the very next intersection we found, we turned left. After spending twenty minutes on that road, we figured we must not have turned far enough left so at the next crossroads, we hung another left.

We started to feel this way after midnight.

After twenty more minutes of driving through scrub pine and cotton in the desolate northern borderlands of South Carolina, we came to another crossroads. At that point, a glance at the fuel gauge told the two of us we were dangerously close to getting lost. Unfortunately, we had not the foggiest idea where we were since this was well before a future POTUS Bill Clinton opened up the GPS system for civilian use. I hate to admit it, but we resorted to flipping a coin. The coin chose “right turn” and five minutes later we were at the chain link locked gate of an abandoned cotton mill. After throwing that particular quarter over the aforementioned gate, we headed back the way we came on what amounted to a left hand turn.

About ten minutes later, our luck changed somewhat. After two and a half hours of roaming around aimlessly in the dark, we saw our first road sign. It read “Charlotte 35 miles.” Somehow, we had managed to wander to within 35 miles of the largest city in North Carolina. We were no less than 270 degrees in the wrong direction. Undeterred, we now had knowledge, somewhat anyway, of our position. We still needed to keep going left. At the next intersection, we did. Twenty minutes later, we came to an intersection with a sign pointing off to the right reading “Charlotte 45” above some other places I’d never heard of and I’ve lived in this state all my life.

Now at that point, Robby — ever the stubborn optimist — wanted to turn left again. One glance at the dash, however, told me we were now SERIOUSLY close to being lost so I said, “Temp, let’s go to Charlotte.”

Click to enlarge!

He looked at me like I had two heads and asked, “Why do you want to go to Charlotte? We need to get home.”

I replied, “I KNOW. That’s why I think we should go to Charlotte.”

He said, “Why?” I asked, “Do you know where we are?” He shook his head then said, “But what good will it do to go to Charlotte? That’s even further from home.”

Finally, exasperated, hungry, tired, and my throat sore from imitating Bon Scott and Brian Johnson, I said, “I KNOW THAT DAMMIT, BUT I ALSO KNOW THAT I KNOW HOW THE HELL TO GET HOME FROM CHARLOTTE!!!!”

We turned right and headed towards Charlotte.

Along the way, about ten minutes later, we crossed a road with a sign reading “SC 92”. Before I could say anything, Robby had already slammed on the brakes and did a half doughnut turn onto that road. Two hours and a seedy gas station stop later and we were home because Robby knew what I did . . . SC 92 dead-ends onto SC 14 and SC 14 is also Main Street of Gray Court.

So the moral of the story? Don’t hang out with your “uncles” then try to drive . . . or navigate either for that matter, but if you do and you end up on the backside of nowhere, head for Charlotte because I-85’ll take you to I-385 and I-385’ll get you to Gray Court where you can stop at Mama’s and have her call me and I’ll come and try to get you home.

Love ya’ll and keep those feet clean!

Apr15

100 Years Since “A Night to Remember”

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The last known picture of the "unsinkable" RMS Titanic as she left harbour for her rendezvous with fate.

At 2:20 AM, 100 years ago this morning, the RMS Titanic‘s keel broke in two just before she dove 2.3 miles down to the bottom of the North Atlantic Ocean carrying nearly 1,000 people to the Stygian depths with her. Around 500 more unfortunate souls were swept from her swiftly tilting decks into the sub-freezing waters of the North Atlantic to drown or die of hypothermia or shock within minutes of entering the water.

The disastrous sinking of the Titanic is the subject of thousands of articles, hundreds of websites, a multitude of full length books, and at least eight full length feature films . . . and that’s just in English. The individual triumphs and tragedies of surrounding the voyage are the stuff of legends and people like the ebullient buoyant “Unsinkable” Molly Brown, the craven coward J. Bruce Ismay, or tragically shortsighted Captain Edward J. Smith live on in our memories to this day — one century later.

Nothing I could write about the disaster hasn’t already been written and by much better writers than I. Still, this disaster is one which resonates with something deep inside my mind and fills me with dread and foreboding even here in my warm, dry, and safe office. In my mind’s eye, I can see, with little trouble, the chaotic terror washing over the decks of the doomed ship like the water which would carry her to her grave. Imagine what it had to be like in the lower decks where the Second Class and lower passengers were trapped and trampled in the mad rush toward the top of the ship. Think of the brave, doomed men of the boiler rooms who stayed at their posts shoveling coal into the boilers to keep the spark of the wireless dancing as long as possible.

Photo of the iceberg that sank Titanic taken by a crewman of RMS Carpathia as she collected survivors and bodies following the disaster.

Should this world stand long enough and the Almighty tarry in His return, we shall all die. That is a certainty which comforts some and terrorizes others, but it is a certainty nonetheless. Still it is one thing to be felled by a lightening strike, a car accident, or some dreadful disease, but how many of us are fated to watch helplessly — as the people aboard the doomed liner were — Death’s slow, inexorable approach? Could you stand to watch the water slowly, then not so slowly, rise up the deck as you held your child upon your shoulders in a vain effort to keep him from the water a second longer? Would you jump into the frigid, salty blackness and clutch Death to your bosom like a lover just to make an end?

The wreck of the Titanic is something which haunts my nightmares even though it occurred long before even my grandparents were born because nearly every race and social strata participated on the Titanic’s maiden voyage so it is a picture of the death of the world in miniature. The people aboard the liner were happy and looking ahead to a bright future one moment then marking the steady approach of Death the next. What if instead of an iceberg plowing into a ship it is an asteroid plowing into the Earth? Those on the ship had two hours to ponder . . . how long would we have?

It makes me think of the people trapped above the crash levels in the Twin Towers. That was another microcosm of total destruction. People who are going about their everyday lives all morning then without warning they are off to meet the One whom Bertrand Russell and Richard Dawkins bet their lives and souls is not there. Can you feel the bitter cold of the water? Can you feel the rush of the air sweeping by as you plunge from 110 stories up?

The bow of RMS Titanic as she sits at the bottom of the North Atlantic, slowly turning into powder like the dreams of those who perished aboard her.

The water isn’t the most terrifying aspect of that horrible night for me, however. The worst scenario my mind can imagine is to be one of those who likely made it alive 2.3 miles down. Of course people scoff at that idea. No one could have survived that descent could they? I remember when NASA went public with the revelation that the crew of the space shuttle Challenger actually survived the initial explosion and were alive for the seven minute plunge to the ocean where the force of impact killed them. What if someone or several someones were happily sealed inside one of the many watertight rooms aboard the ship? What if they made it to the bottom? How did they die in the inky blackness at the bottom of the ocean? Suffocation or starvation? It’s a horrible thought, but not impossible. The interior of the wreck has never been even halfway fully explored. When you are as claustrophobic and fearful of the dark as I am, such a possibility is too terrible to imagine, but not too awful to be ruled out.

In any event, the loss of 1,514 people in the black icy water of the North Atlantic 100 years ago is a tragedy almost too great to imagine, if for no other reason it was so completely avoidable at so many points, but none of that matters anymore. To this day, it is the 8th greatest loss of life in a non-military maritime disaster in recorded history. So when you think of the Titanic or, God forbid, go see the hideous 3-D adaptation of the already hideous 1997 James Cameron movie, remember the words to an old hymn and say a prayer for those await the day when the sea shall give up her dead.

Eternal Father, strong to save,
Whose arm hath bound the restless wave,
Who bidd’st the mighty ocean deep
Its own appointed limits keep;
Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee,
For those in peril on the sea!

Love y’all and keep those feet clean.

A rare postscript

I feel this particular picture did not fit with the tone of the rest of this post, but I must include it in any discussion where that abominable 1997 movie might come up . . .

This highlighted frame capture shows the piece of flotsam CLEARLY has enough room for Rose AND Jack if only the selfish cow had possessed the common decency to SIT UP or SKOOCH OVER!

Apr7

Easter 2012

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He said to them, "I am the Resurrection and the Life and whoever believes on Me, even if he dies, he shall live."

This is one of my posts that my atheist friends would probably just as soon skip. Having issued that caveat, Happy Easter everyone! I realize most of you are probably reading this after an Easter lunch that may or may not have included a follow-up Easter Egg Hunt because Easter Sunday means one thing all over — you are going to church!

Easter draws us to church like the Moon draws the oceans to make the tides. It’s the one Sunday of the year when anyone who has ever professed some sort of attachment to Christianity at some point in their lives knows that this Sunday he cannot get up and play golf (unless he is in the final round of The Masters) and she cannot lay in late to get extra beauty sleep.

Easter is the Sunday of beautiful new dresses, patent leather shoes, and really big, ornate hats. It is the Sunday of shirts with collars too tight and suits smelling of mothballs. Easter is the one Sunday out of the year when pastors, priests, and parishioners alike know and have known for years what the sermon or homily will be this morning. Some will sit in the pew or upon the folding chairs and wonder to themselves as they do each year, “Is any of what this person is saying real?”

My answer to that question is simple; “If — somewhere deep within you — you don’t believe any of this, then why are you here on this beautiful spring morning and not at the lake?” Christmas may have been overwhelmed by the culture to the point that only the most devout hold on to its true meaning, but not Easter. All the cute little bunnies and brightly colored eggs in the world can’t erase the real meaning of this day. People like Richard “The God Delusion” Dawkins may mock it, David Letterman may laugh at it, and many in the pews may question it, but EVERYONE knows that behind Easter is one simple, incomprehensible fact . . .

Jesus Christ rose from the dead.

For over 2000 years, skeptics have tried to tear down the Resurrection. They have advanced theory after theory about how Jesus didn’t really die on the cross or Jesus didn’t really exist at all or the Apostle Paul made the whole thing up. So far, they haven’t done a very good job because the Resurrection continues to resurrect lost lives.

I will be plainly honest with everyone. For the last several years, I’ve been plagued by doubts about nearly every aspect of my own personal faith. I’ve tossed out all my beliefs and rebuilt them. I’ve teetered on the edge of the chasm of atheism myself all because of several personal struggles that I’ve endured in recent years. Many times I’ve wondered if there’s really anything to any of it. Every time though, when my belief has reached its lowest ebb and my faith is in tatters and I wonder who really is right, one thing and only one thing burns in my mind as the one “doubt” that keeps me going. What is it?

Where’s the body?

Romans and Jews in the ancient world and a slew of modern cults and scientists have EVERYTHING to gain if Jesus really stayed dead. Think about it, Christianity destroyed the Roman Empire. You thought the barbarians did that, didn’t you? Well, guess what? The barbarians that sacked Rome were Christians. They were Arianist and had a few things off in their Christology, but they were Christians.

Where’s the body?

When the disciples started running around screaming about “He is risen, etc, etc”, Pilate and Caiaphas could have simply gone to the tomb with their escorts of guards, opened the tomb, put Jesus’ still dead body on a cart and wheeled it through the streets of Jerusalem. It would have been game, set, and match for this infant religion. When Peter caused such an uproar with his sermon on the Day of Pentecost, the authorities just had to go to the tomb and drag out the body. You put Jesus’ body on display in or around 33 AD and the last 2000 years look a whole lot different.

But they’ve never been able to do it.

People have asked me before how someone so intelligent as I supposedly am in so many other facets of knowledge can be so terribly  backward and ignorant about “Zombie Jesus?” I always say the same thing, “Habeas Corpus” which is Latin for “bring forth the body.” I don’t have the certainty I had as a child about how God works. I’m not clear on a lot of theological issues anymore. Still, at the end of the day, there’s the Resurrection and that means there is hope.

Hope that all the suffering that’s gone on down here isn’t for nothing. Hope that I’ll get to see my Papas and Grannies again. Hope that putting Mama in the grave won’t be the end of it all. Hope for something I’ve always felt around the edges but never have been able to put my finger on.

I’ve been called a fool for believing in Zombie Jesus, but considering all the foolish things I’ve done in my life, that’s the least of my worries. 2000 years ago, a bunch of scared women ran into a gathering of scared men and said angels had told them Jesus was risen. A little while later, The Man Himself appeared to them all and said, more or less, “I told you I would only be gone a little while.”

In the 20 centuries since then, a lot of people have given up a lot of things, including their own lives just to hold on to that hope. If it was good enough for all of them, I see no reason to let go of all my hope now. When all else is a big ball of confusion, the Empty Tomb still echos with the words, “He is not here; He is risen, just as He said.”

That’s good enough for me.

Love y’all and have a blessed Easter.

 

Mar27

War of the Mouses

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My beloved Budge is going to stroke out when she reads this post because she is certain we will be labeled nasty people in the eyes of the world. Let me assure you we are certainly NOT nasty people. I am descended from grandmothers who ironed towels and sheets. My precious Papa Wham vacuumed the entire house EVERY Saturday morning including window sills, drapes, baseboards and any other surface his Electrolux canister vacuum wouldn’t suck up. Until COPD brought my sweet Mama low, I would not have hesitated to drink a cup of water from the toilet in my Mama’s home because she kept house THAT spotlessly. I don’t keep a nasty house.

Mus Musculum aka Bane of My Existence.

Now I told you all that to tell you this . . .

For three months, we’ve been finding mouse poo in our drawers and cabinets. This put Budge into 100% flip-out mode. Me? Not so much. I’m a very easy-going guy. I really don’t like to kill anything I don’t absolutely have to including spiders, snakes, and mice. We’re all just trying to get on with our lives. They got little mouths to feed just like we do. I’m big on live and let live, even in the animal world. I just made sure to clean a little harder and keep as much mouse offal out of Budge’s sight as possible. That was my plan and it was working well until yesterday.

Yesterday I opened the silverware drawer to get a fork for my two Buttermilk Eggo Waffles when I spied a puddle of mouse pee in the fork slot. Okay, like I said, I’m an easy-going, even-tempered man. I don’t wish any ill will on God’s creatures, great or small. Mice got to have a life just like we do. HOWEVER, I don’t go all up in their nests and pee all over their kitchen utensils and I really would appreciate the courtesy being returned. I will tolerate a great deal. I will even do some extra cleaning just to keep the peace and balance of nature, but let all rodents hear this and tremble: Put mouse pee in my drawers? It is ON like Donkey Kong.

I didn’t want to kill the little boogers though. I just can’t bear the sight of their little broken bodies in spring traps or the way their dead eyes stare at me from glue traps. I didn’t want anyone dead; I just wanted them to pack up the little Mouse U-Haul rented from the little Mouse Exxon Station and head next door or something. Like the Supersonic song says, “You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here!”

Yeah, Boi! We fixin' ta kick it old school 8-bit style!

So, I went to Lowes and stood gaping at the myriad ways man has devised to kill his small furry neighbors. First I picked up three sonic rodent-runner-outer devices. At this point, I probably should have left, but I saw this spray “Designed to Repel ALL Rodents and Unwanted Animals. Triggers the Animal’s Flight Instinct.” I figured, cool, I’ll take one of these as well and put it around the spots I think they are using to get into the house. Once I got home, Operation Mouse Eviction began in earnest.

First, I plugged the sonic doo-dads into the outlets nearest the biggest problem areas. Then . . . I started to use the spray. I spritzed a big ol’ glob of it at the back of the pantry when — sweet mother of mayhem — the smell hit me. I now realized WHY Repel-ALL  “Triggers the Animal’s Flight Instinct.” I’ve smelled some stuff in my day, but this was hideous! No wonder a mouse wouldn’t come near it! I doubt a BUZZARD would come near it. This concoction would gag a maggot down off a gut wagon.

I read the REST of the label — specifically the part where it said “IMPORTANT: For Outdoor Use Only!” In the warnings it said “May trigger mild nausea.” Sure, if projectile vomiting like you’ve got a fatal case of Mekong Delta Stomach Flu is considered “mild nausea” this stuff will do the trick. It was so bad, the four cats RAN out of the kitchen like they had stolen something and jumped up on the back of the couch. Then they just stood and stared wide-eyed at me with this look that said, “Daddy, we love you, but you have really screwed the pooch this time.” All I could do was cover my nose and get out the Pine-Sol and air freshener.

Oh crap, honey! Did you inhale some of that stuff?

By the time Budge got home, the stench had greatly abated. Actually, she complained that the Brazilian Carnaval Febreze Air Freshener  I used to mask the smell was worse than the lingering undertones of the Repel-ALL. (Just so you know, Brazilian Carnaval Febreze ALSO reeks, just in a different, sickeningly sweet “whorehouse in Rio perfumey” way) I just looked at her and said, “You don’t like the smell of the air freshener? Take a whiff of the straight stuff from the spray bottle!” Of course, when she moved to actually pick up the bottle and squirt a bit, I grabbed her hand and said, “Whoa, Budge, you remember the vertigo baked spaghetti?” She turned pale. I said, “Worse.” The bottle stayed where it was.

I ended up dipping cotton balls in the noxious brew and dropping them down the holes next to the drain pipes where the critters were getting in and immediately plugged those holes with Brillo Scented Steel Wool Soap Pads. I don’t know if it’s the soap powder or what, but it keeps the fumes out of the cabinets. Most importantly, when I checked all the little mouse haunts this morning pee nor poo was anywhere to be found, so apparently the stuff works as advertised. I’m calling it a win anyway. Budge ordered me to get the mice out of the house. The mice are out of the house. Case closed. War won.

Love y’all and keep those feet clean because you don’t want them smelling like Repel-ALL!

 

Mar21

Today is Down’s Syndrome Awareness Day

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I’m not at all a politically correct person . . . just ask Budge or spend ten minutes around me, but I am so glad that the term “retard” is now a sure-fire ticket to a PC beat down by anyone around with an iota of sense. One of the things I miss most about being in education is the chance to interact daily with the “special students.”I’m no fool or naive and I know these children can be difficult to deal with at times, but more often than not, they are the sweetest and kindest group of children in any school. At my last position as librarian here in the Upstate, I was blessed to have met Drew. Drew was born with Down’s Syndrome, which is medically called Trisomy 21, which further means he has THREE copies of his 21st chromosome instead of the required TWO. As a result of his genetic condition, Drew has easily recognizable features including a slightly webbed neck and a mildly enlarged, slightly protruding tongue.

Without fail, Drew would come in to the library with the rest of his class after lunch. More often than not, he was sporting a smurfy tongue and blue Kool-aid smile from nose to chin thanks to his predilection for blue raspberry slurpees from the cafeteria. The dark blue of the slurpee stains were a complement to Drew’s sparkling blue eyes behind the glasses that were forever slipping down and teetering on the end of his button nose. Instead of sliding them up his face with a knuckle to the bridge, he would grasp one of the lens and place them back on a more useful part of his face. As a result, his glasses stayed a greasy, smeary mess and I often wondered how he could see out of them at all.

Having me clean his glasses after lunch became a favorite routine of his and if anyone else tried to help him out by clearing away a layer or two of grime, Drew would stop them and say, “Mr. Wham. He clean them in a minute.” Of course, “a minute” was anywhere from immediately to the end of the day, but it didn’t matter. I cleaned his eyewear once at the beginning of the year and that was it . . . I was the windex man.

Meet my buddy, Drew. If this precious expression can't put a smile on your face, you might not be breathing.

Now somewhere along the line, Drew had come to equate affection with sitting in one’s lap. While I’m sure this was cute and easily accomplished when he was a young fry, by the time I met him, he was about 4’6″ tall and about . . . well, 4’6″ around. He was pudgy, almost always happy, and determined to sit on my lap. Aside from being inappropriate, my poor knees wouldn’t hold him. So, after a lot of wrangling and “no Drews” and even a tear or two, we came to a compromise. He would sit cheek by jowl with me on the couch by the reading center and lean his head on my shoulder while I cleaned his glasses. It was inevitably the highlight of my day.

I miss Drew and the rest of his class. They are all in high school now. Laura works in the library there and she keeps me posted on how he and the rest are doing. So far, he’s not had many bumps in the road, but people tend to forget that he’s a boy in his late teens, Down’s Syndrome or no, and that means hormones are raging. He loves the ladies, and that’s been a matter of work this year, but he seems to be adjusting. I’m glad he’s happy because he always managed to put a smile on my face.

So today is Down’s Syndrome Awareness Day. It’s 3 – 21 – 12, which mirrors the fact that Downs causes 3 copies of chromosome 21. If you know one of these precious children, give him or her a hug for me and help them keep their feet clean.

Love y’all.

Mar13

John Carter is a Fun Flick

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Before a curious hacker took a red pill; before a xenomorph wiped out a bunch of Colonial Marines; before a farm boy, a crazy Corellian smuggler (who shot first), and a walking carpet saved a Rebellion; before NCC-1701’s five-year mission; before a deposed duke tamed his first sandworm; even before the 3 Laws of Robotics were graven into a Foundation; a disillusioned  and haunted Confederate war hero went looking for gold and ended up on Mars.

Watching Disney’s John Carter in a cool, dark theater is a good, exciting, and not terribly educational (not that that’s a bad thing) way to spend a cloudy afternoon with someone you love. That is precisely how my beloved Budge and I spent yesterday afternoon. In the end, she liked the movie more than I did, although I did like it a great deal. It is pure escapism at its finest and the cinematography isn’t too shabby either.

I must admit when I saw the first posters announcing John Carter’s pending arrival back at the end of summer last year, I had absolutely no idea who the character was, who created him, or what the whole mess was all about. None of that proved the slightest impediment to my enjoyment of the film.

For those who have not checked out Wikipedia for themselves, John Carter is the creation of Edgar Rice Burroughs — yes, THAT Edgar Rice Burroughs — the guy whose OTHER major character made Johnny Weismueller famous. Carter is the central character of Burroughs’ Barsoom novels, which give the history not only of John Carter, but also of Mars — known to the natives of the books as “Barsoom.” Their publication in 1912, first in serial form and later as pulp novels stands as a seminal moment in the entire genre of science fiction. Fittingly, the movie came out on the same date as the first book.

Before I go any farther, let me caution anyone sucked in by the “Disney” nameplate. The movie is PG and with good reason. Limbs are hacked off, creatures are branded with hot iron, and copious amounts of blood — blue though it may be — splashes across the screen. In fact I was nearly certain the adorable little six-legged dog/lizard creature  was going to get killed and I was fully prepared to storm out of the theater as soon as that happened. Thankfully, to ease the minds of the other animal lovers in the house, the little  fellow survives the entire movie and plays the hero on one or two occasions.

The movie plays true to most of the source material, from what I can gather anyway. However, even if you know nothing about the background works — I certainly didn’t — the movie is still fun to watch. Much like Dorothy steps from black and white into Technicolor in The Wizard of Oz, we get cued in that John isn’t in Kansas anymore when the picture goes starkly desaturated. Most of the blue tint comes out and what is left is a light, slightly yellowish haze that captures fairly accurately the look of the Martian landscape sent back to us by  the Mars Viking probe and its 21st century descendents.

One knock some people have made against the film is its abuse of scientific knowledge. First of all, it IS a science FICTION film so a little suspension of disbelief is necessary — just as it requires a huge dose of disbelief in traction to think that every alien race in the cosmos is not only bipedal and at least passingly humanoid, but also that every one of those aliens speaks the Queen’s English better than my former students did. However, if one realizes that the science of the film FITS FAIRLY WELL with the science of the times of the novels, it becomes much easier to give the directors a pass.

The movie is worth seeing and it does have all the elements required of a great action flick. The damsel is in distress and fleeing an arranged marriage, the evil general turns out to be merely the puppet of an even viler overlord, and the little (if 12′ tall can be considered little) green men end up saving the day. There’s even a slight twist at the end that those with more knowledge of the source material than me might have seen coming.

Taken as a whole, John Carter wasn’t the very best sci-fi movie I’ve seen, but it is far superior to many of the worse ones I’ve endured. It is worth seeing and I give it three and a half of five stars.

Mar11

Of Blind Squirrels and Acorns

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Every so often, I manage to get it right.

When Budge and I moved to our home thirteen years ago, we noticed one serious flaw — apparently, our front steps were designed and built by a hobbit with a grudge. Three steps led up to the front porch and they were six inches wide at best. The narrow treads were compounded by the angle of the steps that felt more like climbing a ladder than walking stairs.

My mom almost tripped up them the day we moved in. My beloved Budge (whose Indian name is “princess-trips-over-sunshine”) fell on them twice within the first week we lived here. I can’t number how many work days started off horribly for her with a spill down the steps. Twice, she turned her ankle during a fall badly enough to go to the ER. Last January during an icy spell, I had my feet go out from under me and hung suspended above the demon-possessed hunks of wood long enough and high enough to think about just how badly it was going to hurt once I hit.

Our steps were a comical, if deadly, conversation starter as everyone who came to our home for the first time noticed how ill-designed they were. One of our friends — young woman who is very tall and statuesque with feet of proportionate size — literally had to ascend and descend the steps sideways because enough of her foot wouldn’t fit on the tread perpendicularly to walk up or down safely. Several visitors mentioned we walk upon a death trap every day.

I was pretty much forced to agree and within a month here and falling twice, I had vowed I would rip out those horrid timbers and replace them with properly proportioned pedestrian pathways.

Then last Tuesday morning, after thirteen years of cheating death, I got a wild hair and decided RIGHT NOW was the time to fix the steps. Here is where things get intriguing. See, I’m one of those sad males who never learned the basics of carpentry from my father or my grandfathers. As a result, I never approach a project like this without anxious trepidation and the knowledge that severe personal injury is always a possibility when I handle power tools.

Now, anyone who knows carpentry can look at my work and tell which side I started on because I learn from my mistakes “on-the-fly” and tend to get better as I go. For instance, the left handrail took me three hours to do correctly. The right one took forty minutes.

Another funny think about me and building stuff is I use screws even though nails are much cheaper. See, I can squeeze the trigger of a drill and put a three-inch long deck screw where I want it, but I can’t hit a nail on the head twice in a row with a hammer if someone had a gun to my head. If my soul’s salvation depended on me hammering a nail home without bending it, I would split Hell wide open. I watch in open-mouthed awe as my daddy and others easily drive nails home with three hammer blows while my nails look like the twisty blacksmith’s toys in Cracker Barrel stores.

Just hit my finger . . . ouch.

I also use screws for everyone’s safety, but I’m not talking about holding power or “up to code” stuff. I’m talking about unreasonably violent pain reactions. If I slip with a drill and bang my hand, when I give a primal scream and chunk the drill from my hand, it’s only going as far as the cord length. However, if I crush my fingernail with a hammer, I turn into a reasonable facsimile of Thor: God of Thunder and hurl my clawed version of Mjolnir with all my pain-assisted, adrenaline-rushed might in whatever direction I happen to be facing and endanger windows, cars, children, pets and low-flying aircraft. I figure I’m better off with screws.

With all this in mind, by sundown Tuesday, I had developed my stair plans from several WikiHow articles and a handful of YouTube videos. I had a solid plan of attack and went to Lowe’s and bought the materials with the last vestiges of our surprise tax refund.

Starting early Wednesday morning — and with a lot of digging and demolition — I managed had the “landing” level and the up and down stringers attached by lunchtime. Of course, I did have to take one stringer down and redo it after I realized I’d put it four inches too far over. Once upon a time in my life I’d have just left it and moved on thinking “good enough is good enough” but I really wanted this done right. Besides, once I realized what I’d done wrong, I’d already hung the four stringers once so redoing one wasn’t a big deal. By the time Budge got home, I had just screwed down the final tread. You cannot imagine how shocked I was when my measurements actually WORKED CORRECTLY. The top tread is smooth and level with the porch. Like the title says, even a blind squirrel can find a nut every now and then.

I didn’t want to push my luck so I knocked off for the day and started anew Thursday morning. My plan was to be finished by lunch. I managed to do that — if I were eating lunch in the Hawaiian Time Zone. I had some “design issues” with the hand rails. I couldn’t figure out how I wanted to attach them for the most strength and security. By the time I installed the first upright, I’d been sitting on the top step holding a 2×4 and sporting a dazed look for about an hour.

Still, I had the steps completed when Budge got home. I didn’t lose much blood or skin, but my back hasn’t let me forget I’m not in my 20s anymore. Ever critical of myself, I told Budge the steps looked like a complete amateur built them. She reminded me “Professionals built the Titanic; amateurs built the Ark.” She even put up a picture of them on Facebook she was so proud of me. I love my Budge.

So, if you need any steps built, please don’t call me, but remember I love y’all and keep those feet clean!

Feb28

Let’s Get the Facts Straight, Shall We?

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

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

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

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

Maximum weirdness.

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

That’s 2-0 if you’re keeping score.

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

Can you say "Went over like a fart in church?"

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

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

Still crazy after all these years.

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

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

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

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

CHER!

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

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

Love y’all!

Feb22

I Hope That Was A Great Hamburger, Mr. Magoo!!

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This car has similar crash damage to the Impala Mama was driving. If the car hadn't been so big . . .

Car wrecks loom large in my family history. I told y’all the story of how my beautiful first car was destroyed in a wreck, and that was far from the worst wreck to touch my loved ones. When Mama was 17, she was in a head on collision that very nearly killed her, which means I wouldn’t be here either. All she remembers about the wreck is pulling out of the gas station in Gray Court. The next thing she remembers is waking up in Hillcrest Hospital some two days later. Her left leg was shattered and her right arm was broken in several places in addition to various other cuts and bruises. Looking at pictures of the car, I don’t see how she survived, especially given she wasn’t wearing a seat belt and this was way before air bags in cars.

She had to be torched out of the car. One note that is a little funny now, but was gruesome back then involved Mama’s head. See, in her younger years, Mama wore a lot of wigs. Given the jaw dropping beauty of Mama’s naturally long blonde hair, I have no idea why she’d ever want to cover it up with fake nylon hair, but apparently it was “the style.” In any event, she was wearing a particularly realistic looking wig on the day of her wreck and the force of the impact threw her head backwards and the wig fell off in the back seat. Her cousin, who was a rookie SC Highway Patrolman at the time, was the first to arrive on the scene and the first thing he saw was that wig lying on the floor of the car’s back seat. It was covered in blood and from the angle, he couldn’t see Mama in the front seat so he surmised she had been decapitated. Unfortunately, he’d just eaten lunch at the Ranch Road Steakhouse.

Just ignore the fat kid with the stupid grinny smile, but see what I mean about Mama's hair? Why would you cover that up?

The double chili Ranch Burger didn’t stay down.

So, I told you all that to tell you about today. This morning just about saw the end of one GS Feet and Mama Feet as well. We had been to NHC in Clinton to visit with Granny and make sure she was being treated to suit Mama, which she wasn’t, but that’s a story for another time. Since Mama needed to stop by the vet’s office to pick up some flea medicine for Bitsy and Rocky, I drove us through Laurens instead of taking the highway like we normally do. That almost became the last detour I ever took.

Driving anywhere with Mama is an adventure. Ever since “the wreck” as we call it, she has been terrified of cars. Of course, if I’d nearly died, been in a coma for a few days, and then had to spend the next year in a body cast and the year after that learning how to walk again, I might be a little nervous about motor vehicles myself, so I’ve gotten used to Mama’s quirks in the passenger’s seat. She stays tensed up and she stomps her foot on an imaginary brake pedal whenever she thinks we need to stop — which is a lot more than I think we need to stop.

So, we were be-bopping along the main drag through Laurens and Mama had already stomped a hollow in the Element’s right front floor mat. I slowed down just a bit and asked Mama if she’d like a drink from the McDonald’s up ahead. Even though she said no, that moment of reducing speed — and a healthy dose of Divine Intervention — probably saved our lives because just as we neared the restaurant’s entrance, the Buick in front of us in the left lane decided he needed a Big Mac or some fries RIGHT NOW and simply turned in to the parking lot FROM THE LEFT LANE!

Hope your food was cold you stupid bag of monkey boogers!! Where'd you learn to drive? Clown school?

No turn signal. Not even a brake light tap. Nothing. One minute Mama and I are riding along talking and the next minute my life is flashing before my eyes as the Element’s anti-lock brakes went to work stopping us on a dime. All I could see was a windshield full of green four-door. I stood on the brakes and shot out my right arm to hold Mama back, just like she has done to me on countless occasions over the years. Truthfully, I didn’t think I’d get us stopped in time because it all happened in an instant.

We managed to avoid the collision though and I was so stunned I didn’t even think to lay down on the horn. Mama was quiet for about two seconds before she started screaming at the driver of the Buick — now in the drive thru lane — and beating her right hand on the door in an attempt to get out of the still moving Element and rip the offending driver a brand new rear orifice. Mama, as a rule, doesn’t swear, but in this particular instance, she was so angry she was stuttering trying to think of a church approved word to call the driver. I was just happy we made it.

So all’s well that ends well. The driver was an idiot, of course, but that’s how fast your life can end. Mama has a nice bruise on her hand from pounding the door (all the Prednisone she must take makes it easy for her to bruise) and it took the rest of the ride home for her to calm down enough to breathe as well as she could . . . which ain’t real good. Upon reflection, if that had been the time for my ticket to get punched, I could think of worse ways to go than a car wreck next to Mama, but that certainly would leave Budge in a mess so I’m glad everything worked out!

So be careful on the roads, folks. Hug each other before you drive off and never leave one another if you’re angry. You never know if it could be the last time you see one another alive!

Love y’all and keep those feet clean so you’ll look nice if you have a wreck!

Feb6

Another One Who Left Us Too Soon, Happy Birthday Bob-mon!

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"One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain."

Had he not died waaaayyyy too young in 1981, Robert Nesta “Bob” Marley would be 67 years old today. Now, I can’t say anything about Bob Marley and the Wailer’s music that hasn’t already been said by much better wordsmiths than I. Anyone who knows music knows that dreadlocks, reggae, and Rastafarianism would be pretty much unknown outside of Ethiopia and Jamaica if Bob Marley hadn’t started recording.

I don’t know about other college campuses, but when I was at Clemson University in the early 90’s, you couldn’t open a frat boy’s dorm room and not find a well-worn copy of Legend, the 1984 compilation of Marley’s greatest hits, lying around amidst a lighter or two, some Job 1.5 papers, and an empty plastic baggie or twelve.

In the decades since its release, Legend has been Certified Platinum TEN times. In America, that has earned it Diamond certification.  Just to put that into perspective, only 106 albums in the history of the RIAA have been Diamond Certified.

It’s easy to try to pass Marley off as “just a good reggae” singer, but that is damning him with very faint praise. Bob Marley was a good man and the fact that he probably consumed his weight several times over in some of Jamaica’s finest export does not tarnish that fact. He was bright, articulate, and most of all, one of the most peaceful men to ever walk the earth.

I firmly believe that if we really want to achieve lasting peace in the Middle East between the numerous warring factions, we need to stop investing in diplomacy and high tech weaponry. All that’s doing is getting people killed in droves. What we need to invest in are some HUGE SPEAKERS. We need some gigawatts of power to some major league woofers and tweeters and once we’ve got everything in place, put on “Three Little Birds” and — to quote the boys from Spinal Tap — crank it up to eleven. Peace would break out spontaneously as the gentle strains of that ultimately peaceful anthem started to roll across the battlefields and deserts.

If, and this might be taking it too far, the little birds didn’t sufficiently pacify the masses, then we would have to break out the nuclear peace bomb and drop nothing less than “One Love, One Life” on everyone. It is an undisputed fact people CANNOT act violently when Bob Marley music is playing. Even his version of the oft covered standard “I Shot the Sheriff”  isn’t at its core a glorification of violence. Sure, Sheriff John Brown ended up getting shot down, but not that blasted deputy!

I think one of the most telling aspects of Bob Marley’s character is the fact that he was father to 13 children. Notice I didn’t say he “fathered” 13 children. The difference is extremely important. At least two of the children he acknowledged as his own and whom he supported and his estate still supports today were the products of adulterous relationships by his wife. Now regardless of the fact that several other of his progeny were born to other ladies outside the bounds of wedlock, a man who would claim another man’s child as his own instead of killing said man AND cheating wife is a man of peace.

Bob Marley left us too soon. Stolen by melanoma that spread throughout his body. Even as the cancer consumed his life, it could not touch his gentle soul. Though he was a mulitmillionaire at his death, he never forgot his humble beginnings in a ramshackle record shop on a dirt street in the ghetto village of St Anne Parish in Jamaica. His final words were to his son, Ziggy: “Rememba’ Son, money can’t buy life.” Bob Marley made money. Money didn’t make him.

I think a glimpse of his gentleness is best seen from his own perspective. In an interview during the racially charged times of the Sixties and Seventies, Marley was asked about racial superiority and who he supported and what he thought of the prejudices so common then. With the wisdom of a Rastfarian sage he replied:

I don’t have prejudice against meself. My father was a white and my mother was black. Them call me half-caste or whatever. Me don’t dip on nobody’s side. Me don’t dip on the black man’s side nor the white man’s side. Me dip on God’s side, the one who create me and cause me to come from black and white.

Irie, Irie, Mr. Marley. Irie, Irie Rastaman!