Published Oct. 14th

It took me a while, years actually, to decide who drives the news in this wonderful country and after many years of watching these folks we now call the “media” I have to say, they do. And they’re driving us crazy while they do it. My favorite media person will always be Dizzy Dean, baseball announcer for NBC’s Baseball Game of the Week back in the day. He told it like it was, even when he used incorrect grammar or was occasionally “politically incorrect”. I always thought “slud” was an appropriate way after the fact, to describe a player who had slud into a base. I suppose I still do.  Regardless of how it came out of Ol’ Dizzy’s mouth, you knew the runner had arrived safely or not and was on the ground. Ol’ Diz put you in the seats for free and in 61’ that was all right. But I digress. The networks have spent hundreds of hours reporting on Ebola in America, when we have had, as I write this, two cases in our country and one of those came in on a plane. And what person in their right mind would get on a leaving for or coming from Africa these days? Now they’re pushing, “Are we equipped to handle it?” 

Watch on and step right up! Be baited and switched in the most elaborate media scheme to hit our shores in quite a while. Find out who did what to whom and when it was done so we can get those folks lawyered up and maybe considering a book deal. “How Nurse Ratchet Destroyed My Life Because She Didn’t Know Nothing About Ebola.” Hello! Two out of three hundred million ain’t bad odds. But to hear them spew this stuff, it’s coming to a hospital near you. And so will the law suits. Why there’s not a lawyer in Dallas, Texas, right now what’s not drooling in his cocktail for a shot (excuse the pun) at representing somebody that got Ebola that shouldn’t have gotten Ebola. The television media, a shameless bunch I wouldn’t let babysit my dogs ,Megan Kelly excepted, are using this stuff to sell you and me more product, more ideology, and more of what we don’t need than the best snake oil pitchman of the 19^th century. Now, before you go all off on me about the thousands that have died in Liberia and other African countries, let me say I’m sorry and I hope the troops we have sent over there can stem the tide and help those who are suffering from this terrible virus. But the truth is this manipulation of us began several years ago when someone had the ingenious idea of letting reporters interview each other to illicit information and opinion. So now what we have are reporters reporting on news and commentating on what it is they and others have reported. We have media “experts” telling us the “why” on the what (who, what, when, where) and they expect us to swallow it because one of them is interviewing one of them and the one of them that’s being interviewed is considered an “expert” because they reported on whatever “it” was. Opinions on current American diets, winning the wars and dealing with the economy are put forth by the likes of Brit Hume of Fox News, a man who can barely say his own name without incessant garbling (he sounds like he either lost his marbles or they ended up in his mouth) and most of the time he doesn’t even understand what he’s saying himself. 

Bring in social issues by the carload from MSNBC and sometimes CNN and you’ll hear about the virtues of same sex marriage or someone “coming out” and loving it. Additionally, the idea of a talking head thinking “it” knows more than say, a General Odierno when it comes to ISIS and boots on the ground, (Oops, forgot, we don’t’ have those) makes me want to dig a large hole in my back yard). When these media “experts” are willing to put their sons and daughters up for the draft that is surely coming, then they can relate to me. Until then, keep your opinion to yourself and just give me the “blues” er news.

Published Sept. 30th

If you don’t think we’re in trouble with this ISIS terrorism threat, consider this. Terrorists are as much like the fire ant as any enemy we’ve ever had and the fire ant continues to be a terror to southern homeowners, with no solution in sight. They came across our southern border at Mobile, Al., in the late 1930s, according to my research, which I learned how to do at the Georgia Southern library while flunking out and trying to pick up coeds at the same time. It can be done. But I digress. The fire ant will kill anything it doesn’t like or understand as will the terrorist, but there are some differences. While the ISIS terrorist appears to enjoy the company of many women as wives, the fire ant’s “wife” kills him after “relations”. There may be something to this.  So with the exception of praying and the “relations” thing and who knows what those devils are doing down in their holes, the similarity is inescapable. We’re coming to the close of a twenty year war here at my homeland against these homegrown thugs and, as I’ve told my neighbors who refuse to see the threat, “The fire ant is coming to a mound, rotten log or bed of weeds near you.” 

As a means of personally preparing for the war that must continue, I’ve been taking notes from our fighting forces in Iraq and Syria lately and am hopeful some of the techniques used in those wars will serve my family well here on the home front. I like the term “degrade and destroy” but prefer “stomp, squish and slaughter” with just a wee bit of revenge for all the terror. This all has to be done of course before they go underground, hide amongst their own kind and take over the whole yard. They currently have commandeered territory the size of a hot tub and are spreading toward my northern and eastern borders, Mrs. Smith’s place and Bret Ivey’s little patch of heaven respectively. We are a coalition of three but could use a few more folks. Problem is, unless they’re being terrorized directly, the neighbors don’t see the need to spend money on defending their yards. Plus they’ve told me if we just ignore them they will probably go away. “Don’t want to make them mad” is what I heard at the last driveway summit. Truth is, they stay mad and that’s probably why they’re red. It’s probably a blood pressure issue. Dropping a few off in the neighbor’s yards might encourage them to get involved but that would be unethical and probably not politically correct. But it would only take one of those “lone wolves” to help them see the need to get on board with the coalition of three. These things can swarm on you (think Mosul, Iraq) or strike as one and get your attention right quick. The truth is the coalition does not appear to be working and so this is going to be a unilateral effort by me. I’ve thought about a “shock and awe” strategy with gasoline and a match but quickness left me years ago and I could trip and blow myself up. Pinpoint bombing with hot candle wax is fun but ineffective as they’ll just dig out somewhere else. 

Then there’s the scientific method of using the ol’ laser through the magnifying glass technique but that seems cruel and unusual. I could use a “real deal” waterboarding method where I don’t play around but actually drown the suckers (well, after all, we’re not seeking information here) but the “sympathetic six”, the neighbors who refuse to join the coalition, frown when they see me with the hose because they know I’m not watering the grass and can be doing only mean things to the ants. Besides, the little weasels are very effective floaters, riding the water until their six feet touch the ground. I’ve thought about trying to change their ideology by inserting peace loving black ants in their communities but once the black ants enter the mound they’re either converted to radical red ant ways or killed. I suppose the only answer is the federal government. I wonder what Attorney General Holder is thinking about for retirement? Naw, as bad as this place is, it ain’t Ferguson. 

Published Sept. 16th

We seem to have lost all sense of common sense as we see a huge debate raging on whether or not to practice the left hook on the wife and beat the living daylights out of the kids. Common sense would tell one that neither of those activities stands a chance of turning out well. I suggest potential victims put cameras in the home wired to a security company. If two folks are spitting and fuming on a public elevator only God knows what’s going on at the house. As for the Middle East, it’s like watching that old game show, “Who Do You Trust”. And while I was going to make a prediction on Israel vs Hamas for the Middle Eastern Championship it seems we have a winner, Israel, and a loser, Jimmy Carter. Seems the more things change, the more they stay the same. I don’t claim to have a degree in whatever one studies to be an “expert” in foreign affairs but I do know you do not mess with God’s people. As for the other issues over there, the only good news is watching the Fox News girls talk about it. “I have lusted in ma’ heart” but learned a lot about the price of oil. Well, enough of that. Let’s talk about something that affects us all, something closer to home and that would be the “floater” (s). Not what you think. A true floater is something that can wreck your confidence, your sleep, your marriage, and your sanity and I’m sure Middle Eastern folks have these things as well as seen through the burqa. 

Maybe that’s something we can have in common besides a love of rocketry and explosives.  The floater can appear at any time but prefers a little light with a little black background. When conditions are right, the floater can appear as a spider, ant, Uncle Bob, or Aunt Jesse. It can drift across the eyeball at a most inopportune time and disappear somewhere in the corner of the eye only to reappear when least expected. Floaters can appear as gnats or mosquitoes when you’re playing golf and about to drain the big one for a dollar. I once watched a reputable three handicapper swat a floater and miss a three foot putt in one of those fundraising golf tournaments.  He asked for a “do-over” on the putt and was handed a can of bug spray. But seriously, it cost him a dollar. The after bedtime floater can appear as a mouse on the venetian blinds or a large spider on the pillow. I’ve been sleeping with the same person for thirty-four years off and on with the floater only recently entering our boudoir, a place reserved for those special nights that one cannot remember without hypnosis. We generally sleep soundly after “Words with Friends” which we play against each other (she likes to keep four games going at the same time so she can beat me “really good”), separated by a pillow and whichever dog decides he/she can claim the middle of the bed. Sleep eventually comes and the floater enters my side of the bed around one or two in the morning, and hangs in the air above the wife and dog.

 I don’t have any idea how long this thing is hanging there before I sit up, drugged with sleep aids, but he’s large, agile, threatening and his web seems to extend to D.C. where I’m sure they have their share of illusions. I seem to be the only person/pet in the room that can see this thing and so I grab the wife and scream some incoherent nonsense while holding her down for protection (mine). If the thing is going to get anyone it’s going to be her and I don’t want her going anywhere. She then treats me like the fool I am for thinking there could possibly be a large spider hanging over the bed and asks if I’ve had a Tylenol PM or what! She knows when I take a couple of those on a full supper pre-bedtime, all bets are off. Throw in a glass of wine or three and Katy-bar-the door! Getting up to relieve the old prostate is a day at the beach compared to fighting the floaters on sleep aids.

Published August 5th

There is no doubt that sports dominates our culture right now. Tiger’s injured back, Farve’s jersey retirement, some NFL guy knocking out his wife. These things we Americans will definitely pay close attention to. It’s the first thing we click on when going to the internet while world affairs seem to take a back seat. So how do we get folks, particulary young ones, to become more interested in international goings on? Why just turn the goings on into sporting events! Something on which one can place a bet, make a predition, shed a tear when a loss comes or wreck some cars and break some shop windows when a team wins! It could go like this.  I was going to make a prediction on this year’s Israel vs. Hamas Middle Eastern Championship but it looks like it’s going to end in another dreadful tie, (think soccer), a winner never  decided. I honestly thought we had a chance of winning it all this year but as I write this today it looks like another losing season or at best batting 250. One could lose money for the next hundred years placing wagers on this thing. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I would love to vent an opinion about Israeli versus Hamas but I live in Georgia, USA and have never scouted either team. I do like the Israelis and in fact have a cousin who used to play on the Israeli team. She told me they begin training early for the championship and are required to do two years minimum on a local farm club (every town has one) to get ready for it. She’s retired now, raising three children, trying to make ends meet with her husband, who is a Presbyterian or something or other and doesn’t play. She said the Israeli teams of the past have been mostly defence oriented with self-defense, civil defense, CPR, and First Aid as the hallmarks of the coaching philosophy. This year’s team seems to be more offensive although I believe they’re about to pull their team off the field, as hard as that is to believe. Shoot, I thought for once we were going to actually see a winner over there. I think she’s enjoying not being on the team anymore, content to raise a family in a safer, less competitive environment. She still follows the team though and says she wishes there were more reliable scouting reports coming from Washington. That would make sense to me also. Seems like if we’re going to sponsor that team we need to be honestly informed as to our chances of fielding a winner. We’ve been through so many general managers since 47’ it’s hard to keep up. Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy just to name a few. And as far as the coaching saff over there goes, I wish we could keep one for more than a few years. We’ve had twelve since 48’ with a few getting fired and rehired several times. No way to develop a winning franchise if you ask me. The Israeli team is beginning to bore a lot of assistant GM’s also and the Hollywood crowd is frankly ready to sell. I suppose you can’t blame them, with the cost of fielding the team going up every year and failure to produce a real winner since 1967. One has to admit that we’ve provided the team with the best equipment possible in the last few years, resulting in most other teams leaving our Isreli team alone. Probably a smart move on their part. When you’re the champ, sponsors are easy to come by and the money just rolls in. And you can’t beat that New York media.  I am concerned about the bickering that’s been going on between Coach Netanyahu and assistance GM Kerry. Kerry getting smacked around by the entire Israeli coaching staff doesn’t look good to potential draftees in 2015. Heads need to roll but where does one start? Let’s face it, it’s all about wining tradition and with Israel versus Hamas we have one of the best in history.  So let’s stop settling for ties in the game and do what we need to do to bring home a winner!

August 19th Published

I’m writing this from a safe, comfortable porch, surrounded by glass with a view of a calm neighborhood near the beautiful Gulf of Mexico and if I could, I would get down on my knees (they’re worn out) and thank God for a safe, calm place in which to work. I would thank Him for two parents who had opportunity and instilled in me the will/ability to become educated, think for myself, lead more than follow, guide others in thought, work with wonderful people and enjoy family. I could no more let someone with a bullhorn tell me what to do than spit across the Gulf. But it’s amazing to me how many of us are forced to do just that. I have a moral compass, instilled in me by a father who worked long hours as a policeman and still found the time to let me know I was loved and watched talked to and laughed with and watched again. And, if I listen carefully, which sometimes I do not, the compass he gave me will keep me on a true north path. He was the most ethical non-church goer I’ve ever known and the “still small voice” I hear comes as much from him as it does from God, which is important to know. But I digress. What we see in Ferguson, is a missed opportunity by people with no leadership. They are disenfranchised, leaderless, disillusioned, confused and very frustrated people with no hope. They get up every morning of every day in the same state of hopelessness and when something like the Brown shooting gives them the ability to be heard, they take it. They know that when all is said and done, when the police leave, when the trial is over (if there is one) when the positive remarks of Captain Johnson of the State Police are no longer there to be heard they will once again be in the same economic and educational state they were in before it all began.  Their lives are filled with fear of what tomorrow will bring, an uncertainty about their future and that of their children, a “heat” that only living in their environment can bring in August and constant worry about loved ones unprotected. They follow anyone with a bullhorn, anyone with an idea for a way out, temporary though that may be, it is a respite from what tomorrow must bring. The knowing that tomorrow will be as today is, filled with despair. They look for identity, a way to be different among the crowd they secretly cannot trust but must live within for there is no way out. A tattoo, a symbol, a way of dressing, anything to set them apart to say, this is who I am, I am different and not the way you see me. The mothers weep for their children, worry, anguish fills their lives as they see that generation after generation has seen no way out. Leadership comes but it’s not enough. Churches are filled but somehow the message is missed and what is that message?  Self-reliance is preached but somehow there is no help from an absent father who is seeking his own respite. And so it goes until the next incident when there is opportunity to once again say, “Here we are, we need help but from where will it come?” There is no MLK and there does not appear to be one on the horizon, only opportunists.  And so, in mass, they are confronted with police who have no choice but to follow orders to restore order and so-called leaders who feed them to the wolves for ratings and personal gain. The shooting of Michael Brown, justified or not, was an opportunity for voices to be heard, not sirens, fears to be assuaged, not increased,  hate to be starved, not fed , grievances to be addressed not addresses looted. The slogan, “No justice no peace” is as much a cry for attention for the young black male’s plight as anything else. It says, “You leave us no choice, no way out and we want to be heard.”  The most important single element in the life of a young male, black or white is the father. We thought we were smart when we said, “It’s not the quantity of time we spend with our sons, it’s the quality”. Remember that little tidbit of B.S.? Do not be deceived. A son needs to know dad is somewhere in the house every time he comes home, regardless of the hour, to put that still small voice in a young man who is unaware that, as President Obama told the Iraq’s, “The wolf is at the door.” Perhaps he should have saved that analogy for Ferguson.

It Only Takes One

Yes, we turned five guys loose whose sole mission in life is to kill us. We’re going to trust Qatar for one year as to where they are and what they are doing. But, not to worry, if they’re doing something John Kerry deems inappropriate he will simply have them eliminated. I’m fine with the last part of the deal but I wonder what we’re thinking turning these five loose in the first place. Will you explain to me what it is they do for a living? Will they go back to being plumbers, electricians, cab drivers or perhaps a teacher in a college classroom somewhere? What was it they did in the years before they were discovered plotting and in some cases carrying out crimes against humanity? How does one go from being a killer to once again fixing faucets? It seems as though the latter would be very boring after the former. Did they learn to love us while spending time at Gitmo? After all, they had dentists, doctors, nutritionists and others looking after their every need for ten plus years. Perhaps they changed their minds about us. 

Maybe they want to explore capitalism, democracy or some other American way. Is it possible that, after additional rehabilitation, a writing career or the lecture circuit is in the cards? Our retired politicians and those wanting to get ahead use this approach all the time. Maybe a stint as a political reporter or being a panelist on a news program would fill their desire to be more involved politically. Sometimes people such as these just want to be loved. Who knows…conversion to the Catholic faith, the missionary fields? How about working at the Carter Center? With a clean slate and the forgiveness available through the protestant church, building houses for Habitat for Humanity would put their carpentry skills to work not to mention their expertise with explosives when land needed to be cleared. No, the truth is they will have none of this because their mission, what really rings their bells and makes their day complete is the killing of innocents, and the controlling of every aspect of other peoples’ lives. Now that is something in which they can get excited. So when someone tells us that they will be good boys, going home and becoming productive members of society, I just cannot swallow it.  And if only one in three re-enter the world of terrorism, which one of those five will it be? Who will be the innocent victim of the “one”? Will it be the couple at the outdoor café, the innocent little girl walking home from a day at the market, or a party of wedding goers celebrating after the ceremony?

 Remember, one of these guys will not turn and relishes the thought of once again bringing his brand of “justice” to those who will have none of it. It’s that one, the one for whom rehabilitation was just time spent eating more good food, the one who thinks he can change the world by blowing it up. He’s the one I worry about… 

The one who doesn’t understand the awesomeness of a sunset seen with family, three dogs whose love is unconditional and a grandson who enjoyed his little red wagon yesterday.  He’s the one, and it only takes one. But we all know he’s not the only one.  Yes, Mr. Kerry believes all but one of those sent to Qatar will retire to lives filled with love and humanitarian efforts on behalf of the world. His view is simply foolish and he fails to see that they know nothing but mayhem and carnage in a world we should be out of as soon as possible. I failed to mention that a cooking show might be an option for one of the four but…naw, wouldn’t work out. What could they possibly have on the menu?

What is Wrong Here?

Let’s be clear. I didn’t purchase a single one of the dogs we now have living at the house. They were brought here by the woman I live with and her daughter. One came from a breeder, one from a pet store and one from the pound. The breeder and pet store dog barked from birth, and then taught the pound dog how to bark. Now, having perfected the skill, she’s taken it to the “next level” (how I hate that term) and out-barks the other two. Bottom line, they all bark for love and attention. One of our family tenets is to be as supportive as we can and encourage self-expression, self-esteem, and selflessness, while discouraging self-indulgence, the mother of all ails, according to a monk I once saw on television while watching “Robin Hood”. So the barking, as a means of self-expression, is allowed except when the child is asleep. Once the dogs understand this, peace will, once again, reign at home. If this sounds too strict allow me to continue by saying, the woman and her daughter can and do, bark just about any time they feel like it. When they bark at me I bark back and at any given time we can all be found barking with the dogs looking up as if to say, 

“What in the world is wrong with you people?” 

If the doorbell rings while we are barking, we all shut up at the same time. Amazing and yes, we allow that look to be used, but only by the dogs. In the meantime we have other things to worry about .The pound dog, already loaded with security issues, running from the broom, the vacuum cleaner and rain, became even more insecure when the other two (the dogs, not the people) decided they preferred segregation (even though all are the same color and the pound dog is probably the smartest) and wanted to be in their own room and alone. This I discouraged, feeling that they needed to learn how to live with one another in peace and harmony and not bark when the small child is sitting in the floor facing away from the television. He cannot, under any circumstances, be allowed to face the television as this would surely cause him to become obsessed with The Kardashians at an age when, well, his mother wants him to be able to feed and clothe himself eventually. Plus, the guy who used to be Bruce Jenner scares all of us. I’ve asked the dogs not to watch that show either, as it tends to disrupt the house training whenever the male feels compelled to “mark” Kanye on the Sanyo. This eliminates a major form of entertainment. 

It also requires one of us, the adults, to become the entertainment and once I get past babbling and gurgling that about does it. Next year we start tennis, golf or something with a ball involved. But I digress. I often wonder what caused the pound dog to be so insecure and afraid and I must conclude that she was indeed, abused. The interesting thing is that, of the three, she has taken to “Little Harmon” the best. Arriving on the scene the moment she hears a stressful cry or whimper, curling up by his bed, and doing other things to let us know she is a protector of something small and helpless. Something she was not privy to as a puppy. Well, you might say, “So goes the dynamics of the dysfunctional family.” But, sometimes, when watching our congress in in-action with all the barking, “marking” and crying I think, you know, these folks are not too different from us after all. I guess we’re all just looking for a little love and attention.

Duck Dynasty Controversy

Phil Robertson said some things a little differently than I might have said them but the First Amendment said he could say them any way he chose and so it’s done. The comments about gay folks, in particular were mighty graphic, but isn’t that considered an “alternative” lifestyle?  Phil thinks they’re all going to hell anyway but he thinks straight folks will too unless we follow the tenets of the New Testament. I’ve got enough trouble judging me most days and if there’s a judgment coming down the only one I’m really and I mean really concerned about…is mine. But, I do keep my sexual stuff where it belongs, in the twilight zone. I wish I had some sexual stuff to write about but if you’re looking for titillation you’re reading in the wrong place. I will say I enjoy the ladies on FOX NEWS but there are those who find Wolf Blitzer attractive. But I digress.  

Let’s look at an important issue Phil raised, that of the black “experience”, something I know nothing about because I’m white and have to look at it through white eyes. My white eyes saw the signs, the raggedy clothes, the walking on the side of the road for lack of a car, the looks of despair, confusion hate and envy, of the blacks in the sixties. Also the look that asked, “Why us?”  And I know that people my age remember and do grieve for those people, now mostly gone. But I cannot get inside those heads. Those that made do as humans but were seen as less than. Since then we have seen progress. A person would be a fool to not admit to that. The questions we need to ask now are “What do we want from each other, where do we go from here and how can we play together on team human?”  I think we want more than anything to be accepted and respected for who we are as humans.

Assuming I am right, we must get along. I don’t take exception to Robertson’s comments about his experience with blacks in dirt poor Louisiana, in the sixties. He wasn’t going home to television after a day in the fields…seeing riots in L.A., Chicago and Memphis. From what I read, he was as poor as the blacks with whom he worked. If one wants to judge the man with regard to race relations find out what he’s been doing since he got a television set.  And no, he probably didn’t have a newspaper either. He saw blacks through his personal prism. The media is putting way too much importance into what Phil Robertson said in the GQ interview but we’re smart enough to see that stuff sells.

Those of us who live in the south, blacks and whites, have come a long way, overcome a lot of “stuff” and we’re still at it. Still trying to like each other enough to give and take where it counts.  Still trying to get beyond the rhetoric of the race baiters and find a way to make our collective experiences work. Education as I’ve said before is the key to getting along with and respecting others. I’ve seen it.

I see it in a basketball coach name James Lundsford who takes young men (black and white) at GMC and insists they be on time, make good grades, respect each other, even referees (difficult task) and extols the virtues that will lead to success in life. This man’s “successes” are everywhere! I see it in Burt Williams, who takes college football players and students from all walks of life, and molds them into a unit capable of playing in a national championship football game. Their successes are based on a common team goal.

As we sit here on Christmas day with a new year approaching, my wish for each of us is to become part of a larger team, team human. When we do we will go a lot farther toward the goal of solving our many societal problems, the least of which is skin color.  

Birds

I met a nice lady at a tennis function over at Reynolds Plantation the other day. She said, “Hey, you’re the guy that writes about dogs!” Some folks don’t like dogs but the older I get the more I enjoy the company of a dog or watching birds. Most folks are too busy for that I suppose; After all, the fantasy world of TV and internet is very alluring. But, if you like feeling missed when you leave home for a while a dog is your best bet. Not many folks will look for you like a dog with its nose to the floor, checking out every corner of the house. Plus, when’s the last time your wife wagged her tail and barked when you came home? Well, some will bark I suppose but a dog’s bark is different. Also, it takes a lot to rile a dog up when he’s just hanging out or resting. I believe they ponder the worth of getting upset over little things and decide it’s just not worth the trouble. 

On the subject of birds, a lot of them mate for life, something humans don’t do much of anymore. Of course most of our birds’ lives are not very long with a mating season dependent upon weather and food supply Now I don’t know if two male birds mate for life or two females, but isn’t that interesting? Yes, we can learn a lot from dogs and birds.. My mother and I were sitting on the porch one day watching some mocking birds flying around a bird bath. She said, “Could you imagine a world with no birds?” I couldn’t. But, as I’ve said before, animals were blessed in the Garden so there must be something special about them and it was a dove used by Noah that found dry land. Here’s a true story about a bird I came across at the beach one day. 

“I walked passed a large rock and there he was, hanging with wings askew, watching his family and friends as they chased bread tossed by screaming children further down the beach. He was a big one, wings spanning a foot but obviously worn out from his lifelong struggle to touch the clouds and provide for his family. As he lay there, his head began to droop, making it difficult to see the sky and he would throw it back occasionally for what might be the last time he ever saw a cloud. I’m sure he was hoping people would simply walk on by and not gawk but let him pass away in peace. Usually they go off somewhere to do that but it was a long fly across the jetty and probably too much for the old bird. From the look of him he’d been flying the waters of the bay for years and no doubt missed those days. I suppose he felt at home there on the rock above the sand but I had this feeling he was wishing he could have soared on high one last time, feeling the wind lift and turn his tired old body as he watched from a safe distance those below playing on the beach. As I got closer, I noticed him cock his head to the side to get a better look. I paid little attention, not wanting to embarrass the old fellow but I think I caught a nod, maybe a wink as he seemed to say, “You too will see a day such as this my human friend.” 

What else may he have been thinking? Memories of catching a piece of bread while flying three to forty feet off the ground or diving into the water, catching a fish only he could see and then flying out? Perhaps the families he had raised? They don’t abandon their young you know. Yes, we can learn a lot from birds. So he laid there, hours to go, wings splayed about, hanging off a rock. He was after all, just a seagull”

 Stories of abused animals and birds are seen frequently these days and you wonder why. Could it be we’re seeing the best of us in most of them?    

Last week I found myself in a room full of strangers at what I believe was my fifty some odd high school disunion. The most dysfunctional function I’ve ever attended. I wandered in around 6:15, the buffet had started at 5:30 but I wasn’t in much of a hurry. I knew that a huge dose of reality was waiting for me, the reality I see in the mirror through that pupil behind the bag I’ve noticed when prying my eyes open to shave at 6:30. I’ve considered a face lift but am afraid I’d end up looking like you know who (insert any name you please), without his wife’s money. 

The menu wasn’t much, roast beef or baked chicken, some salad, potatoes and rolls. Things we would find easy to spear so as not to get any dribbles on our clothes. No gravy, thank goodness. It was old folks’ food designed to keep us healthy until the next major event in our lives, which could come at any time. We used to eat fried chicken. Not anymore. And the “menu” of life seems to be missing several other “items”, but we’re not going there. The conversation around the tables was health care and who needed what and when the surgery was taking place. I felt healthy when I walked in but as the evening progressed my swagger became a stagger as I realized I looked pretty much like everyone else.

And I was fairly sure who I was but had no idea about who the others were because the names on the tags were too small to see, even with my trusty Dollar Store 2.5 reading glasses. Picture a hundred or so seniors, still able to get around, trying to get close enough to one another to see a darn name tag and you get the idea. Thank goodness pomade went out last year. I found myself sitting with an accountant, (who found himself to be the most interesting person he had ever known), and his wife, who looked like she had heard every story he’d ever told and was thankful he still went to work every day because he had become the most boring person she had ever known.  He was a guest so I was relieved in knowing I didn’t have to know him. But, he’s convinced that I’m convinced he is someone with whom a schmuck like me should appreciate spending time, so he keeps on talking about numbers and figures and whatever else it is they do. I got the feeling he drank a lot. “My wife and I are excellent skeet shooters!” He said. And I’m thinking; you’d better be “Sport”, from the looks she’s giving you she’s going to swing that barrel too far to the left one day and bingo, you’ve shot your last skeet.”  He got up to get a drink and I threw some roast beef on a roll and escaped to wander and wonder if there might be one living soul in that room I could recognize or anyone who could recognize me. 

I found “Bubba”, the one person who actually looked somewhat as he had in school (he still had hair) and like a drowning man reaching for a life buoy, I latched on to this poor fellow. “Bubba, it’s me, Sonny!” He gave me the same look I give myself in the morning mirror like, “what happened to you”?  Then he asked, “Seen anyone else from our class?” I had no idea. We exchanged niceties but I got the feeling we wouldn’t be “teeing it up” anytime soon. So, I wandered about a room full of fat bald “uncles” and women who looked like “aunts”. There was also the thought that remembering me might not be such a good thing, for if they did, would it be a good memory or one they had tried to forget until jarred by this encounter with a stranger. 

Also, it is indeed a strange thing to have to ask someone if they remember you, or being ask by others if you remember them. You hear and say, “Yes” but looks on faces tell a different story. We are not always remembered by someone whom we had placed at the top of our list and that just might be a good thing. 

I got a call from an old friend the other day. He said, “wanna go referee some old guys basketball games?” I thought, sure, I’m an old guy, how hard can it be to watch other old guys stumble around a bit while we make a little money? So I asked, “are we gonna have to do any running?” He said, “naw, just stand and watch em stumble around, make a few calls and pick up the check.” “Great, I said, count me in!”

So last Saturday morning we showed up at the Bloomingdale Recreation Department gym to watch old guys stumble around while we made a little money. It turned out to be one of those learning experiences as I learned something about passion and the fountain of youth. These old guys came from all over the southeast and brought with them gym bags, ointment, knee braces, ibuprofen and a passion for the game they loved, some for sixty years. They played three on three, half court from nine in the morning until two in the afternoon with the “older” guys (those over seventy) at one end of the court and the “younger” ones (fifty to sixty nine) at the other ; then actually walked out of the gym with no help. The morning started with the team captains’ meeting where I met someone I hadn’t seen in forty years, Georgia’s All SEC point guard from the sixties, Allan Johnson.

“Hi, I’m Allen Johnson” he said and all I could think of was, “Hi, uh, I can’t remember my name but may I have your autograph and please don’t foul cause I don’t think I can call a foul on you and weren’t you the point guard for the Bulldogs back in the 60’s like All-SEC and all that?”(Well, that’s what I was thinking anyway.) And my ability to make a “call” got worse as we met players who had played for Rupp at Kentucky and others who came from out west (S.F. State) and played for other coaches I had heard of in years past. Players, who could still move, shoot and pass, maybe not with the speed of days long gone, but with an attitude that said, I want to get this right just one more time! A passion for excellence that, I’m sure, contributed to most of them becoming successful retirees.

During half-time breaks you would see them still working on the skills they had learned a half-century before. As I watched them play I couldn’t help but think, so this is where one finds the fountain of youth…this love of something that continues throughout a lifetime, keeping them interested in life. In this case it was basketball but I could see the importance love of the game and the passion for still wanting to play kept them young and competitive. And competitive they were as an occasional elbow or hard block was thrown to gain position on each other. “Aw common ref, that was just a tap!” I’d hear from the one who gave it of course; while the receiver would complain about being taken advantage of.

In the end they always shook hands and nodded their heads at one another as if to say, “Thanks for letting me play this game I love one more day.” They even thanked the referees which meant a lot to me, knowing I’d done more watching than officiating. After the last game I watched as Allan Johnson walked out of the gym as a basketball player, maybe for the last time. He’s up for partial knee replacement next week. I sure hope it goes well; the guys would miss that sparkle in his eye when he throws up that hook shot or makes one of those great passes. No, come to think of it, what we’ll all miss is the passion, and the love he brought to the game; the fountain of youth each of us must find to be truly successful.

Two questions seem to find their way into the news these days with regard to our children.  Why are they obese and why are they not able to read? To begin to solve the mystery step into a typical American home on Saturday morning and have breakfast. Sitting across from you, one hand on the remote, the other clutching a Little Smoky Sausage, you’ll find our obese four year- old engrossed in a television set filled with cartoons. In front of him sit a bowl of Captain Crunch and Little Debbie Cakes. Welcome to the Twinkie Zone. 

The schedule in the Twinkie Zone is five days of work followed by one day of sleep and goes something like this. Mom worked all week and Saturday is her “day off” while Saturday for our Little Johnny means getting up at the usual pre-dawn time. However, there will be no day care today. Sure, he’s wired and ready for another big day but today is Saturday and he’s in the Twinkie Zone and that means trouble for mom. Enter the idiot box, the perfect baby sitter for our little guy.  Getting him there and keeping him there will be tired mom’s morning mission and she does it with a series of carefully thought out enticements. First there’s cartoons… created by geniuses with the four year old brain in mind.  Cartoons with characters from Sponge Bob to some super “zero” entertaining our guy for as long as it takes. And how long it takes depends on how long mom needs to get a few extra winks in on her well deserved “day off”.   Our four year old is perfectly capable of eating cereal and Smokies (finger food of course) by his lonesome because they combine the best of both worlds…sugar and salt. Throw in the Debbie Cakes and we may be looking at going to the next level in the zone. A few years down the road decisions will have to be made regarding our guy’s teeth, as the Captain Crunch sticks to them like a barnacle on a Bayliner boat, but in the Twinkie Zone those decisions can be put off. After all, he’s going to get some more teeth in seven years or so, why waste money on these?  Now the advantage to the little smoky is in its handling. Less than an inch long and slender, it lends itself to two bites at most and as our guy matures into a major player at the table, one bite will do it. Crunch comes in large boxes so it will always be there as long as the milk holds out and Dad’s mission (which he most always accepts) is to make darn sure there’s enough milk to last through this Saturday morning ritual. Failure to secure milk by Friday evening can lead to a confrontation with mom and then everyone ends up eating eggs, toast and smokies with our little guy in front of the TV. Mom gains weight and dad pouts because he knows he must soon begin the yo-yoing that comes with dieting with mom. It all started with the milk or lack there-of. 

 

Meanwhile, as our little guy has turned into a big guy he’s discovered the Twinkie Zone is not only found at home but in any room with a television. He’s graduated from cartoons (well some of them) to sporting events but has retained his fondness for sweet and salt. Keeping his fondness for Crunch he’s broadened his eating skills to include Jimmy Dean sausage and waffles at the local waffle house. An occasional steak with his eggs rounds out that big boy breakfast he’s been trained to eat since he was four. Oh, did I mention he’s still eating with his fingers? Well, why not? The Jimmy Dean rolled up fits nicely into something that resembles that thing he was so fond of years ago on Saturday mornings. Never used a fork then, why start now? He’s also into gaming because it reminds him of his breakfast friend so why read? His imagination is being fed by some geniuses with the twenty year old brain in mind. The last book he read was something about a Cat In A Hat and that was read to him. Since then he hasn’t had to read so he doesn’t read. Mention reading and he’ll rip off a good text message to prove he’s a “reader”, plus there’s that roach like thing hanging from his ear. Why read?

One of those ancient Greek philosophers once said “Time is the most valuable thing a man can spendʺ (Theophrastus) but around my house no one knows what time it is so we have no way of knowing how much or how little we’ve spent. This is because most of the clocks either don’t keep the correct time or have been dead longer than Theophrastus himself. And while I've never been a stickler for being on time (it’s usually only a problem when someone else is late) having ten different clocks telling ten different times is confusing. Take the one in the bedroom for instance. He sits on the TV and runs a consistent five minutes late. The one in the bathroom is five minutes fast, (I set that one to get people out of there so I can get in) so I suppose if you average the two you have a good idea of the exact time. I had a wristwatch but left it in a locker room somewhere and that’s like giving it to a charity. You can get the time off the TV but you’d better be watching at a certain time and we do have an alarm clock by the bed but don’t care to look at it because it represents getting up time and that’s something we’d rather not do. The clock above the big screen TV is late four minutes so I’m usually not on time for Charlie Sheen’s antics and I heard he might be doing time anyway so it may be a minute point.

Wonder what timely thoughts Theo would have about him? The clocks that no longer care to give you the time simply stare back as if to say, “I know I’m supposed to be doing something but forgot what it was because you either didn’t wind me up or insisted on using rechargeable batteries which run down faster than the falls at Niagara. The Grandfather clock (which cost $300.00 thirty years ago) is one of those. He hasn’t chimed a note since gas was under a dollar fifty and the last clock “expert” we had showed up late and recommended leveling the house to allow for “dangling of the old pendulum”. People that live here spend a good deal of time asking each other “what time is it” hoping someone has seen the weather channel recently or has a cell phone handy.

There are those among us, gifted people actually, who really don’t care if they’re late or not as long as the sun comes up each morning and the car starts. I call these people “gifted” because they have managed to relieve themselves of the headache common to the type A personality, that of worrying about being on time. You can find them coming to a pew near you. Ever been to church and had to stand up while someone who was late shuffles down your pew? Just when the warmth of the cherry wood begins to creep into your soul and you get that relaxed, here comes the sermon sure to send me into a mid-morning snooze mode with visions of roast beef and mashed potatoes, some “scuse me, I couldn’t make it to the church on time” fellow parishioner, comes sidestepping his way down the pew. Now you’ve got to stand up, get the stare treatment from the brothers and sisters and lose that roast beef vision as your pants which have found their way into the recesses of your behind, give you an additional “wake up call”.

Whenever I’m late I can usually find one of three things waiting ahead … A senior citizen in a Cadillac, a red light or a school bus. It’s then I try to convince myself, I’m not spending time, I’m making memories, as I chew the leather off the covered steering wheel.

Recently my doctor suggested a checkup that involved a procedure with a “tiny” camera. He said I needed to be “on empty” when the procedure was performed and informed me that a “cocktail” was waiting at the pharmacy. He said “drink this and find a comfortable place to hang out.” This “cocktail” is an insidious mixture of mineral oil, saline, and some other stuff that makes you feel like a lab rat. You can hear the medical staff saying, “let’s give this to him and see what happens!” After several glasses of this drink from Hades the porcelain “god” began calling my name. Alone in my “castle”, (wife and daughter were mercifully out of town); I gave homage to it every ten minutes and after an exhausting evening I reported to the medical center.

The receptionist recognized me right away. “Sir, she said, the bathroom is just down the hall.” I gave a silent nod and shuffled off for another “sacrifice”. Upon my return I was ushered into a room, crossed my legs and answered questions about myself. Actually, all I was interested in was how long it would take me to get from that room to the “throne” room with the porcelain god, the all-consuming identity with which I had replaced anything else of meaning in my life. Soon I met Dr. “Anal” in another room. He seemed excited that I had made it, non-stop. “TAKE OFF YOUR CLOTHES AND PUT THIS ON…BACKWARDS.” “This cannot be effectively tied in the back, does not resemble anything I have ever worn, and I am an expose’ as I walk into the examination room.

A room with people whose mission in life is to make me feel at home... a daunting task with at least twice as much of “me” hanging out that thing than hanging in. LAY ON THIS COLD TABLE” “What are you going to do with that?” I asked. “YOU MIGHT FEEL SOME PRESSURE” And then, there I was…on TV! “RELAX”. Relax… as though I was about to do some cross-stitching. What else could I do…they had my clothes. The audience oohed and ahhd as each turn of the “tiny” camera exposed hidden treasures of nothing because everything had “left the building” hours ago.

“NOW GET DRESSED AND GO DOWN THE HALL.” “PUT THIS ON” said the attendant. “LIE DOWN ON THIS COLD TABLE”. “RELAX”. “What are you going to do with that” I asked. “YOU MIGHT FEEL SOME PRESSURE” I heard, from behind a screen. Dr. “Anal” has left his prize patient in the hands of an evil scientist, I thought. “TURN OVER” I made the mistake of turning left and there I am…on TV! This time filled with “concrete” expanded with air and asked to do yoga while he picks his fingers behind the screen. “WE ARE NOW GOING TO STAND YOU UP”. There I am, with my rear exposed, of course, hoping the attendant gets whatever he’s doing right the first time. “OOPS” NEED MORE AIR”. Well, I know I am the perfect source for air. “HOLD IT.”

He has obviously forgotten the plug he placed in me several minutes ago. I couldn’t pass a B.B. “WE ARE NOW GOING TO LAY YOU DOWN”. I’m making a vow at this point to never allow another piece of solid food to cross my lips. Suddenly I am somewhere else, and warm salty water is coursing over my body as a group of concerned Californians tries to drag me back into the deep. Once in a while they show beached whales on the Discovery Channel. I never paid any mind to it before but recently I found myself in a trance, writing a check to “save the whales”. “I’M GOING TO UNPLUG YOU”. Suddenly I’m off the beach, and frantically trying to hold my “flippers” together. “CAN YOU MAKE IT TO THE THRONE ROOM?"I did make it and after leaving I almost jumped for joy, realizing that wouldn’t be prudent. The good news is I had more than my fifteen minutes of fame on TV and lost a few pounds.

Someone once said, “Vacations are a microcosm of life”. We’re taking one next week, matters not where we’re going, I or my wife, will soon be lost and Anastasia, the GPS woman who can make you feel like a rat in a maze, will no doubt self destruct, leaving us at the mercy of someone purchasing pork skins or pigs feet in a 7-11 from hell.

Whenever I get lost I take only left turns figuring, if that’s not the right way, I’ll go in a circle and at least, find my way back to where I was. In addition, and unlike most men, I’m not afraid of asking for help. This is where things tend to unravel and the microcosm thing kicks in because the people I find when I’m lost are usually lost themselves or don’t know where I’m going. I f you want to know what some well meaning southern folk are really like, get lost…then ask for directions. And, if you’re more than three blocks away from where you want to be, better hope for divine intervention because that’s what it’s going to take for them to help you find your way. Most will over-educate you to the point where you not only don’t know where you are but also where you were before you got lost. The first words out of their mouths are usually, “Now, see that road over there? That’s yer road, the one yer on now. Go out a here and take…” When you hear those words, you are about to lose your way. .. again. But I digress. After, “ go out a here and take” you’re going to hear a series of stops and turns that will have your eyes crossed and your brain looking like a Waffle House omelet. You now have no idea where you are and you’re wondering how this person finds their own way home.

It’s about now that you stop listening all-together and simply stare and nod your head as though in a trance with some Middle Age monk sending you on a Holy Grail mission. The last thing you want that ol’ boy to think is that you think he may also be lost and how dumb you must have been to ask him for directions. Then you realize the monk has missing teeth, speaks a foreign tongue and you may not see “Kansas” again. I can’t stop nodding, you think to yourself as the absurd idea of writing this stuff down on a grocery bag drifts through your mind. If I stop nodding, he’ll know I’m not listening anymore. You come out of the cross-eyed trance just in time to hear a most important question from your mission minded friend. “Now, ya got that!?” He says, with the fervor of televangelist intent on showing you the way. “Yes, yes!” You say, praying he doesn’t ask you to repeat them. Out of nowhere comes, “Sebastian, you could tell him the back way!” “Naw, says the monk, he’d get lost fer sure then.”

Now, trying to catch the words before they slip between your lips and knowing you have forgotten the front way, sure nuff, you ask for the “back way”, figuring you will never be any more lost than you are right now. This is a huge mistake as the “back way” sounds a lot like the front way with one or two more turns, and you’re hearing phrases like, “take a right at the church, left at Burger King, cross the creek and if you see the mill… you’ve gone too far.” So as we take our microcosm on the road next week, the mission will be to see how long we can stay found and if that’s not to be, to find that person with a full set of teeth who knows where he is and where we’re going... barring that, no fighting in the car.                                                                                                                                

Do you ever find yourself talking to yourself? It usually happens in the car with most folks. You can see their lips moving as they drive. You wonder what it is they’re saying and if they’re listening. Sometimes I catch myself doing it and some people call it “self talk”. I’ve learned to only say good things to me, realizing I may not hear much good stuff from folks I run into. So I try not to “beat myself up”, as they say. The problem was, during one particular self-talk session all I could think about was Charlie Sheen. A man so wrapped up in himself, he can think of no others. He claims to be ‘winning” whatever he’s about and I thought, if this guy is actually “winning”, I must have hit the
Megabucks jackpot.

I dropped ol’ Charlie off at the nearest curb and began playing the trading places game where I think of a person, could be a celeb, athlete, a celeb/athlete (very common these days), politician, billionaire or anyone really, (of course they must be alive) and ask myself if I would trade places with that person. I can honestly say I have yet to find the person with whom I would trade places, for if I did there would no longer be a me as I know myself and hopefully, I would be missed. If you think about it, you’ll probably come to the same conclusion. When all else fails, we have our uniqueness to fall back on and we are all one of a kind. It’s disheartening to see many of our young folks idolizing a picture, a person they see on TV or sports “hero”. I wonder when that practice began. I wonder how many would be willing to trade places with a particular celebrity. We never referred to Ted Williams as a hero and he flew fighters in two different wars. We called him the “Splendid Splinter”. That seemed to be enough for “Teddy Ballgame”. We just never used the word “hero” back in the day. They were referred to with nicknames like, “The Mick” or “Yogi” “Junior” or “Mudcat”.

I’m wondering if anyone out there sees Charlie Sheen as a hero. He is rich and famous, which seems to be the only criteria we use anymore. I don’t begrudge Charlie his money but what’s wrong with us that we put millions of dollars into a TV celebrity and create a foolish person in the process? I suppose one would say Prince William could be a hero. He’s rich and becoming more famous each day. Maybe we need to be more selective when we use that word hero and think of people who are really deserving of the title. When I looked the word up I found not one reference to sports or movies except as the lead male character in a play. It was all about qualities, deeds and courage. While I admire one’s ability to hit a fastball, sink a twenty foot jump shot or serve a tennis ball 150 mph, these folks may not deserve the title. Most of our heroes today are thousands of miles away, living in tents and eating K-rations, although we have many here at Georgia Military College. They go about their day quietly, seldom mention their years of service and continue to serve in their own ways. I spoke to a young marine (one of our students) the other day who will be shipping out this summer for Afghanistan. Something about him, his eyes, his demeanor, and carriage told me he just might be a hero one day soon. He’s a unique individual, one of a kind, just like the rest of us. I hope he comes home whole and to a hero’s welcome. Something tells me Charlie Sheen might not fit in here. 

Teeth and hair are what we equate with youthfulness and hanging on to them for as long as possible can become an obsession. Most dogs aren’t like that and my old Yorkie, Deuce is no exception but the last time I took him to the vet she looked into his mouth and said, “where’d his teeth go?” I said, “Well, I dun no Doc, they were there the last time I got close enough to smell his breath”. And then she said, “Well, this dog needs dental care!” Deuce has been without “dental care” his entire life and if his “dental care” costs anything like mine has lately, I’m either buying soft dog food or he’s going to lose a few pounds. “Dental care” could be anything from teeth cleaning to extractions and filling cavities, not to mention teaching them how to gargle and spit. Besides, he hasn’t said anything about his teeth hurting and he’s too short to see in the mirror, so I’ll wait until he starts complaining and then just have him “put to sleep”. Come to think of it, maybe that’s why he hasn’t complained. I wonder if we get all our teeth back when we go to heaven. Of course I wouldn’t have him really “put to sleep” he does enough of that around the house. It’s gotten so we spend most of our time checking to see if he’s still breathing and the only way he’ll walk is if you take him far enough away from the bed that he knows he’s got just enough time to get back if he wants to squeeze in a nap before supper.
 

The truth is, I’ve been places recently where there is no “dental care” and those folks seem to get along fine. Saw a nice looking young couple coming out of the Dollar Store over in Alabama, just last week. He looked at her, she looked at him and they smiled that young folks’ smile. I could see the love but neither head projected nary a tooth. They were giving each other that, “I’m gonna gum you all over look” as they reached for each other’s hand. It looked sort of, well, natural if you will and I started to think, why couldn’t we all be like that? After all, we all lose our teeth eventually; it’s a fact of life, like going gray or buying a convertible. And while we’re on the subject of gray, can’t we be sensible and realize that everybody knows we’re gray headed even with a head of hair as black as a crow’s wing, when our face looks like a road map? I saw one of those TV preachers the other day with a head of dark blue hair, a hedgerow of gray eyebrows and a face that looked like “forty miles of bad road”. I wonder if his television ministry would still be around if he showed up toothless with a head of gray hair? Of course he could see an “increase” as they say when people saw his lack of “dental care” but I’ve heard toothless preachers are hard to understand. I contend if we could accept the inevitable we might be happier and have more friends our own age. The other side of that coin is a bad toupee. I used to play badminton with a fellow who wore one. You could always beat him with a good drop shot because he didn’t want to bend over far enough to hit the birdie back.

It’s not my intention to mislead here because there are disadvantages to not having teeth and one would have to be the increased potential for mispronouncing words. As you may or may not be aware, the proper pronunciation of words requires at least the central and lateral incisors, the ones in front used for eating corn. Without them you are subject to being misunderstood, which could be dangerous in today’s society, not being able to use the “th” and “f” sounds. And while I don’t claim to be a speech expert, I do know one plus I haven’t heard Deuce say "thank you” in months. We don’t feed him corn because it’s fiber. Think about it.

 

It’s basketball season again…the time of year when we see the best and worst from parents, students and coaches in pursuit of athletic excellence and the “dream”. That old line from "On the Waterfront” when Marlon Brando’s character, Terry Malloy says to his brother, “I could a had class. I could a been a contender. I could a been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am”, comes to mind as I watch as a basketball official, gifted athletes running up and down the hardwood in pursuit of their “dream”.

You remember; Terry thought his brother should have taken better care of him when he was young and pursuing a career as a prizefighter. You have to wonder when you see these kids of today, so athletically gifted, so polite during a pre-game conference and yet sometimes, so neglected…who’s taking care of their dream? Who’s ensuring that they have a chance at being a ‘contender”, a “somebody”? Our high school coaches are many times in the roll of Terry’s brother. They are either helping a student pursue the “dream” of becoming an athlete with a scholarship to look forward to or stepping in as a “parent” when none exists at home. Some are better at this than others, putting the student first and realizing sports for these kids must be a means to an end or they will end up like so many others on the chain link nets of the playground.

Others use the student to reach their own personal dream, that of a State Championship. Academics are negotiated, grades are given and the chain link nets tinkle with anticipation as another player comes their way. Many parents also fall into the chain link trap, thinking basketball skills will eventually pay the bills. They blink as their child brings home grades he/she cannot be capable of making in the tenth grade. But this has gone on so long it’s routine now and there’s no turning back. It’s the dream or nothing for their athlete/student. The next time a nice day rolls around in Macon, Savannah or Atlanta head for a local park and watch as these former gifted high school athletes play basketball on the chain link nets.

Some are unemployed, some coming out of rehab, wondering where that next child support payment will come from, others doing well and there for a good game of basketball or just a little exercise. Others are burning off the frustration of a week spent looking for work that doesn’t exist because many times they were pursuing a “dream” that never materialized at the expense of preparing for a life outside the sports arena. We’re doing these kids a tremendous disservice when we let them fall into the trap of “the dream” without insisting they pursue excellence in academics as well. Visit a coaches “chalk” session and watch as the players give him/her their undivided attention for as long as it takes to understand the game plan to be used against an opponent that week. You won’t see any sleeping in that “class”. I’ve often thought that if we as parents don’t give our children a vision of what they can become they will be given a vision by someone else. A vision we may not care for or one that may not be in the best interest of our child.

After all, who knows them better than us? It’s so easy to fall into the “chain link trap”, the one calling these young men from the recreation centers around the country into high school and then a life of constantly wondering what happened…what happened to the “dream”. I write this in memory of so many great guys I remember playing basketball with on those chain link nets. The New Yorkers with those great dribbling and ball handling skills, the guys from Philly who could pass and stressed teamwork on the court and the west coast pretty boys who could do it all. A wonderful bunch of characters who deserved better than they got.  

Memories Found in the Roomba

I’ll bet I’m the only man who can make the house phone ring by pulling into my driveway. Every time I come home, my wife is on the phone and I’m getting these hand signals that make me feel like a pilot trying to land on an aircraft carrier. Actually, all I’m trying to do is land somewhere near the couch but I keep getting “waved off” by this “noncom” in the kitchen. Of course the dogs are glad to see me but we all end up out in the yard till she’s off the phone. This all started with the purchase of something called a Roomba. It’s this thing that crawls around the house like a swimming pool vacuum terrorizing the dogs and sucking up everything but dirt. If something is missing, chances are you’ll find it in the Roomba. It found a driver’s license of mine that was so old I had hair. The other day I found a note in the Roomba from my 6^th grade teacher Mrs. Harvey from Cherry Street School. The note read, “Leonard (that’s what she called me when my deportment was askew) needs to stop talking in class”. She sat us according to our 9-week average and I spent the entire year on the last row. Talking was the only way I could regain some of that self-esteem everyone worries about. One particular day, Mrs. Harvey, who was determined to improve my vocabulary even though she never let me speak, taught us the word, “procrastinate” and I figured if I found a way to use it at home it might defuse the grade/deportment situations, sixth grade boys were very creative. A normal day would find us practicing newly discovered “words” and smoking Cool cigarettes in the bathroom. On this day, an “enlightened” sixth grade boy named Ben Foots brought the word “prostitute” to the bathroom. Oh, were we excited to hear that one! It was a large word that was also a “dirty” word and Ben was just the kind of guy who would have the word correct. He was a “stickler” for proper spelling and pronunciation of these types of words, even though he was on his second sixth grade “trip”. We all appreciated Ben’s maturity in these matters and in fact, considered him “gifted.”

In 60’ they would let us take our report cards home from school, an interesting concept by today’s standards. It meant we were entrusted with the information. Mom was cooking and dad was standing around waiting to eat, as usual. I came in with my note from Mrs. Harvey along with an assortment of D’s in my academic subjects. It looked like another 9-weeks in “la la land” on the last row as I dejectedly held my report card out for inspection. Suddenly I remembered, THE “P’ WORD, my “ace in the hole”, surely it would impress both of them! Thank you Mrs. Harvey”! All I had to do was figure out a way to slip the word in and they would be so impressed, a pass on the grades was a possibility. Mom presented the perfect opportunity when she said, “all right you all, I’m not ready for supper, go find something to do.” Bingo! Nine weeks of abject failure, loafing and a load of D’s were about to become history. I jumped at the chance and said, “Mom, don’t prostitute, we’re hungry.”

Now, even though it was a large word, there was no way I was going to get a pass on this one. So there they were, two slack jawed people staring at a twelve-year-old boy who was trying to become invisible. My mother’s ears wouldn’t even process the word and in her state of denial, she just looked at dad and said, “Harmon, we’ve got to get that boy some glasses, he obviously can’t see the blackboard!”  I soon got my first pair of glasses and to this day I carry a pocket dictionary. Oh, Ben Foots? His mastery of the English language served him well. He became a politician.

Seems the older I get the more foolish I get and my latest foolishness involved volunteering to be in a twenty-four hour play. I know nothing about these things so they made me a director and gave me a guy about my age with a memory about as long as an ingrown toenail to direct. We also had two young students working with us who were obviously “star struck” and in awe of the old actor and older director’s ability to remember nothing but their present location and names. I should have directed them out of the building because trying to memorize ten pages of script in twelve hours can lead to a huge headache and multiple trips to the bathroom. At first I thought this might be like one of those old movies you see (Gene Kelly, Donald O’Conner and some starlet) where it’s all about getting ready for some big production on Broadway.

You know, the lights go up and everyone knows their lines and dances like Fred Astaire? I was wrong. Four people who may have been water-boarded, had met the night before to write five plays about whatever their deranged minds could come up with after negative sleep. Some of it was pretty good, I must admit, but when we got hold of our particular script and began trying to memorize, I realized that whenever the lights went up in the theatre, no one on our “team” would be home. Still we proceeded to give it the old “college why” and began the process during breakfast, taking what they had written and, while eating sausage/cheese biscuits, putting it into some form resembling a play. We were to use cheap props (no problem there) and bring the “Greatest Show on Earth” to the Goldstein Center for the Performing Arts by eight PM that evening. Thus, the twenty-four hour play!

Sausage-cheese biscuits always bring out the primitive man in me and as I thought about how I was going to control what was sure to happen in a confined area I thought, ʺwhat would Hitchcock do? I heard he kept a dog around most of the time, but that would not have been prudent in this case. Our play involved a redneck named Bubba (played by the aging “actor”), who wanted to have his grandpa’s forty year old “cell phone” fixed.

He had a son named Skeeter (played by one of the students) who was fairly simple minded and spent a little too much time with his hands in weird places, poking around in the cell phone displays. Simple plot (you would have thought) but not when we got hold of it. I could see our Bubba was having a problem remembering his lines so I said, “If you can’t think of anything to say, just holler at ol’ Skeeter.” “Ok, he said, no problem.” It reminded me of the many times my wife had caught me doing something outside the realm of normalcy at home and I would be at a loss for words. Why I’d just holler at ol’ “Skeeter”, who would most likely be one of the dogs, she’d forget what it was she had caught me doing in the first place and we’d go on like nothing had happened.

We must have gone over that script fifty times by “show time” with Bubba hollering at Skeeter most of the day. But, as they say, “The show must go on.” The curtain opened and I’m back stage following the script. Two pages go by, no problem, three, still no problem. I’m thinking, “This guy is actually going to pull it off!” Then I hear, “SKEETER!” After that you could call it improvisation because when ol Bubba panicked the others did too and no one remembered anything!