Giving Thanks

Giving Thanks

Our minister recently made a list of those things for which he was thankful and challenged the congregation to do the same.  It sounded like a good idea to me so here is my list.

1.   I am thankful for my wife; my best friend and soul mate, still bringing passion and laughter to my life after all these years.

2.   I am thankful for my children and the unique personalities that each possess.

3.   I am thankful for my son-in-law because he loves my daughter, loves baseball and took her credit card debt as his own.

4.   I am thankful for my church; beyond the spiritual aspect it is a community of wonderfully giving people always there when the need arises.

5.   I am thankful for baseball, a religion unto itself.

6.   I am thankful for all those men and women who serve our country so that we may walk this sweet earth as a people both free and equal.

7.   I am thankful to be an American with warts and all still the greatest country on earth.

8.   I am thankful that I don’t have to go through childbirth.  God knew what he was doing when he assigned that job to Woman.

9.   I am thankful for Italy; its food and wine and wonderfully warm people.  If I had to be anywhere else in the world it would be there.

10. I am thankful for Angelina Jolie – no explanation needed.

11. I am thankful to be 64 and hope I continue to get even older.

12. I am thankful for my health and also thankful I have the good     sense not to take it for granted.

13. I am thankful to be able to spend my life in the South where family traditions are still held in high esteem and winters are wonderful…. and short.

14. I am thankful for my parents who shaped what I might become and gave me the freedom to be who I am.

15. I am thankful for dogs and the unconditional love they give.

16. I am thankful my wife didn’t want cats.

17. I am thankful for the young people of the next generation.  I truly believe the world will be in good hands.

18. I am thankful for the friends I’ve had, the friends I have, and the friends yet to come.

19. I am thankful for where I grew up and those friends that I’ve known so long that I can’t even remember the first time we met.  They have just always been there.

20. I am thankful God created cheeseburgers and fires but have to wonder what He was thinking with brussel sprouts and beets.

21. I am thankful for wood fires in winter and air conditioning during South Carolina summers.

22. I am thankful for those that educate our children - even more so after substitute teaching.

23. I am thankful for being given today and hopeful for a tomorrow, not worrying about yesterday.

24. I am thankful for Roy Williams – Go Heels.

25. Finally I am thankful for that uniquely American holiday called Thanksgiving when I am sure to eat less than I want and more than I need while surrounded by those that love me the way I love them.

Okay – now make your own list

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone

As Time Goes By.

I Just Don't Get It

I Just Don’t Get It

When I was half my current age I thought when I got to this point in life I would be this wizened, wise sage that younger people would seek out to learn the mysteries of life.  Now that I am here I find that I am neither sage nor wise – just wizened.  For every answer I have to life’s mysteries there are two or more for which I have no explanation.  Here are some of the things I just don’t get and have no comprehension about that perhaps some of my readers can help explain.

The Kardashians – Years ago there was an episode of Seinfeld in which George and Jerry are pitching a TV show concept to NBC executives.  One of executive says, “What is the show about?”  George answers, “It’s a show about nothing.”  It appears that their show finally got on the air; but I admit I just don’t get it.

Tattoos – For most of my life my Uncle Hal was the only person I knew with a tattoo.  It was on his forearm; a heart with the inscription “Mother”.   Uncle Hal never talked about his tattoo.  He got it while he was in the service during World War Two.  I never asked but I am pretty sure there was alcohol involved somewhere in the story.  In most cases this would have disqualified him from joining the family but Uncle Hal was from “up north” and allowances were made for those types of people.   Nowadays it seems most everyone has some type of tattoo; even people my age who should know better.  For the life of me I don’t understand this fascination with permanently decorating your body with mediocre art.

Jersey Shore – I watched exactly one episode of this show and became embarrassed for the good people of New Jersey.  If there is a clearer sign of the decline of Western Civilization I don’t what it might be.

Body Piercing – I may not comprehend tattooing, but I am totally mystified by body piercing.  Do people really think that a heavy metal stud in your tongue is a turn on? Do people really pierce themselves in places only seen by significant others and members of the medical profession?  I have trouble turning my head and coughing once a year and can’t fathom allowing a stranger with a needle down there.  I think a man with an earring is only appropriate if he has a parrot on his shoulder and says things like “Avast Maties” and ARRGGG”” all the time.

Rap Music – I have always had a great sense of pride that I had an appreciation for any kind of music even if I did not particularly like it.  When rap first came in to vogue I sampled it, sampled it again, and again, and finally gave up on it.  I don’t get the beat and the only decipherable lyrics are the ones that belong in a porno movie.  I’m just not “gangsta.”

Sushi – Are you aware of the fact that there is an entire generation of American youth dining on fish bait?  My children, and my daughter in particular, can wax eloquent over the epicurean delights of things like California Rolls.  I’ve tried to be hip and cool in the latest haute couture but its just raw fish to me.

Couples Baby Showers – Maybe this is a local trend but there seems be a movement afoot to begin including men in the parties given for pregnant women.  I find this astounding and yet another sign of male emasculation.  I’ve had to do this a couple of times and I’d rather eat broken glass than do it again.  Ladies, we love you but for God’s sake no more of this.  There is a not a man alive that wants to ooh and aah over a diaper tree.  None of us want to know how breast pumps function and can’t imagine giving someone something like that as a gift.  I was willing to be in the delivery room.  I was willing to share the feeding duties.  I even reluctantly changed dirty diapers.  However, please, please keep baby showers segregated and we promise to put the lid back down on the toilet.

This is just a sampling of my current bewilderment…

As Time Goes By.

Here's To The Help

My wife and I went to see The Help last weekend.  She had read the book and wanted to see how true the movie was to the book.  She assured me I would love it and, as usual, she was correct.  I laughed, felt tears and, most of all, it got me to thinking again, a dangerous thing as I have mentioned before.  Itgot me thinking about my childhood days in North Carolina and all “The Help” I remembered from those days.  So below are some of those people who served my family and myself with patience and quiet dignity in that watershed time just as the storm of Civil Rights was breaking across the South.

Here’s to Rosa Lee Scales.  I previously wrote about Rosa Lee in my blog titled At the Movies.  Rosa Lee was my babysitter during those preschool formative years.  Yet she was more than just a babysitter.  She taught me my ABC’s, how to count to a hundred, and the difference between red, green, blue; all the basic colors.  My parents trusted this teenage “colored girl” with their only child, day in and day out, but she could not be trusted to buy a box of popcorn from the Whites Only concession stand at the theater lest she contaminate the whole community.

Here’s to Pearl Lowe.  Pearl cooked and cleaned for my Mother and to invoke her name reawakens in my olfactory the smell of fried rabbit, gravy and scrambled eggs on crisp, cool Saturday mornings.  My daddy kept a rabbit gum (trap) in the woods just behind our house and when he caught one, he broke its neck and gave it to Pearl.  She would clean it, cook it, and serve it up.  My family had a cottage at Carolina Beach where we always went for vacation.  My mother complained enough on one occasion about it being no vacation for her because she had to do all the cooking and cleaning so that daddy gave permission for Pearl to accompany us.  I can vividly recall that Pearl cooked every meal we ate for a week including fried flounder and hush puppies that would bring tears to your eyes.  I also recall that she ate every one of her meals standing at the kitchen sink, not allowed to sit at anytime at the table where the family ate.  I also remember that the closest she came to the beach was to stand on the front porch.  No way a “colored woman” could step on the same sand as “white folks.”

Here’s to Reverend Ollie Tatum.  Ollie was the most respected person in the entire African-American community; respected by blacks and whites alike.  He preached on Sunday but made a living cleaning the downtown businesses after they closed for the day.  Ollie probably had a key to every store in town including the local bank.  It was a local joke at the time that when you saw someone with a big key ring on his belt you’d say, “Lord he’s got more keys than Ollie Tatum.’  Ollie was trusted alone with all those goods in all those stores for all those years and yet could not contaminate the local public water fountain by drinking from it.

Here’s to Lucille whose last name, regrettably, I cannot recall.  Lucille cleaned once a week for my grandmother.  Once, in the middle of the turbulent Civil Rights period in the early 1960’s my grandmother asked Lucille what she thought of Martin Luther King.  Lucille replied, as I recall, that, “that man is just stirring up a lot of trouble for his own people.  He ought to leave well enough alone.”  My Grandmother quoted these words over and over again to her friends as an example of how most of the “good coloreds” didn’t care for King.  Sometime after this, when I had my brand spanking new drivers license, I had to go pick up Lucille and bring her to my grandmother’s house.  She wasn’t quite ready and as I waited in her tiny living room I noticed a framed picture of Martin Luther King in the center of her mantle, with a picture of Jesus on the right and a family photo on the left.  When Lucille came in to the room she saw me looking at the mantle, walked over and turned the picture of King face down.  She murmured, “Don’t know how that got there”.

Here’s to Johnny Golden who, along with my great aunt were the original Driving Miss Daisy couple; sort of.  Johnny was a handsome man with a love for strong drink and pretty women.  He and his wife must have separated and gotten back together a dozen times and my great aunt probably posted bail that often when Johnny got arrested for fighting or public drunkenness.  I remember he had a prominent gold tooth that gave him a rakish look and that he wore a do-rag when he did manual labor.  My great aunt could be counted on to do two things each year; one was to buy a new Cadillac and the other was to take a trip to Nags Head on the North Carolina Outer Banks.  That is where the “Driving Miss Daisy” part comes in.  Johnny always chauffeured her on these trips.  He was trusted to be alone with a white woman in a car, not just any car, but trusted with a brand new Cadillac.  Yet when they got to Nags Head and unloaded my great aunt’s bags at the hotel, Johnny was on his own to find lodging for surely no one, not even Johnny, could imagine a “colored” staying at a white hotel.

Finally here’s to Kathryn Stockett for writing The Help and showing how silly we “white folks” were back then, how unknowingly cruel we were back then, and most importantly what The Help, who we saw as background wallpaper, were really thinking and saying back then.

Sometimes I Just Wonder

Sometimes I Just Wonder

Sometimes I wonder about things.  Sometimes I wonder about the strangest things.  I say strange because when I try discussing my wonders with other people they look at me funny; except for my wife she just looks at me scornfully.

It’s hard to be a wonderer these days; what with Google and all these other search engines.  Usually one of this younger generation whips out their iwhatever and has the answer before I get in to real pondering mode.  What a shame;  quick answers to the great mysteries of life.

Yet still I wonder what tornados sounded like before freight trains were invented.  You know what I’m talking about.  “ I was sitting on the toilet having my daily constitutional, reading the Sear’s catalogue when I heard this terrible noise.  It sounded just like a freight train passing overhead.  When I come out, the roof was blowed plumb off my house and was laying in Joe Bob’s chicken pen quarter mile down the road. Yep, sounded just like a freight train.”  Now in 1790 how would this man describe the sound of a tornado?  “Well it sounded just like a regiment of Continental soldiers after eatin’ a pot of beans?”  Nah, not the same and I don’t know the answer, I just wonder.

Lately I’ve been thinking about the cellist Yo Yo Ma.  I wonder what his parents were thinking when they named their child Yo Yo, Did they hope he would turn out to be a spinning top world champion? Okay they are Chinese; I get that, but he grew up in France and it had to be tough in school when the other little boys were Pierre and Francois.  I wonder if the street expression “Yo Ma” was due to him or did his parents hear it and like the sound of it?  I just wonder sometimes.  I wonder if his parents had named him Bubba would he still have been a famous cellist or would he have been drinking beer, driving a truck and watching NASCAR?  I wonder if Pablo wouldn’t have been a better name but then that Casales guy already had that one.

I’m sure some of the young folk have already “thumbed” their way to the real answer as to why that name.  I wonder whatever happened to senses of humor.

I wonder why you need an appointment to see a psychic.  Don’t they already know when you’re coming? 

I wonder why we can keep Cuban cigars out of the country but not cocaine. 

Finally, I wonder if a tree falls in the woods and there is no one around will the wife still say it’s her husband’s fault?

I wonder,,,As Time Goes By.

PS:  I’m off to do some hiking in the mountains but I promise I’ll be ion touch again soon. –ATGB

Big Boys Don’t Cry – Or Do They?

Big Boys Don’t Cry – Or Do They?

One of the great things about being a man in my sixties is that I can now cry whenever I want without feeling embarrassed about it.  As you may or may not be aware, we men are programmed at an early age to internalize all those mushy feelings and “be a man”, “don’t be baby”, don’t be a sissy”, “and don’t be a cry baby”, “don’t cry”, “don’t cry”, “don’t cry”.

I have had a problem with this all my life.  I have always had this emotional gene, inherited, I believe, from my Mother’s side of the family.  All of the women on that side were great criers and in demand for funerals even for people they didn’t know that well, if at all.  At any rate all my life I have struggled with being true to my emotions versus this notion of “be a man.”  At long last I have reached a point in life where I don’t really give a rat’s patooty what people think and, so, when the emotion wells up I let her go.

However, It is somewhat odd to me what brings these emotions to the fore; a song, the flag, the passing of a friend sometimes long forgotten, the mention of a name, the old video of John-John saluting the casket as it passes by.  Lots of things can bring tears to my eyes these days.  I’m sure a gerontologist can explain this to me as something to with hormones out of whack and the aging process but I prefer to think I am at long last exposing my true nature.

This past Sunday 9-11 I cried a lot.  It wasn’t the flag or the music or the obligatory words of all the politicians.  It wasn’t the stories of bravery or the horror of reliving the dreadful events of that day.  It was the children; the children who stood in the shadow of the memory of those towers and read the names of their parent or parents who died that day.  Three thousand children, three thousand lives, growing older not knowing their mother or their father or both.

Billy Dillon lived just down the hill from me.  When we were seven or maybe eight, I can’t remember exactly, Billy’s mother, Mildred, died suddenly in her sleep.  No warning, no symptoms, died, as I recall, with congenital heart failure.  Just one day she was calling Billy and his brother in from playing with me, and the next day she was gone.  Her death was probably the first of anyone I really knew.  I remember the pall that fell over the neighborhood, even most of our entire small North Carolina community and, today, I try to multiply that shock and grief by three thousand.

Though the entire community of Man can sympathize and even empathize with you, the grief is yours alone to carry.  Many of us know that from the loss of our own parents.  Yet only the Billy Dillons of this world can truly understand how these three thousand young people must cope as the years go by.

I wept on Sunday for balls not pitched, proms not shared, boyfriends, yet to be found,  drivers licenses yet to be obtained, aisles not walked down, graduations missed, grandchildren unseen.  I wept not only for the children but as well for the parents gone, cheated of life’s small miracles and pleasures.

I cried most of the day.  I probably will again and I don’t give a rat’s patooty what you think.

As Time Goes By.

Note: For those of you who have kept asking when I was going to write again (both of you), here it is.   I promise to be more regular in the future and my thanks to you for asking because I probably would not have started back without your prodding.

It's Valentine's Day

It’s Valentines Day!

If you are fortunate in life, or maybe just lucky, you will one day find true love.  I am convinced that true love is bestowed on you only once in your time.  Of course there will be many people you care about and you may even love them truly, but when you find your real true love the impact is so unique, so overwhelming that you will have no doubt about what it is.  The Italians have an expression, “Colpo di fulmine,” which loosely translated means “thunderbolt”.  I’ve always thought that expressed the feeling as well as anything I ever heard.

I was extremely fortunate beyond my wildest imaginings to find my true love after waiting only 30 years.  She is my lover, my best friend, as well as my harshest, truest critic.  I met her the last weekend in July of 1977 and, for me; it was “Colpo di fulmine,” at once.   I knew from that first time that this was the woman with whom I wanted to spend the rest of my life and fortunately, for me, she felt the same.

Some years back, after the last child was gone and we were once again a couple, I watched her busily cross stitching away in her den chair as I sat across from her with a book; a boring picture at age 25, but a comfortable one at 55.  For some reason I was struck by the moment and I guess, as it does from time to time, the muse came upon me and I wrote the poem below.

There are many who see this day as a Hallmark invention and maybe they are correct.  However, maybe we need a day, just one day to close out the worries of life and the dangers of the world, take a deep breath, look at the person across the room and simply say, “I love you.”

Sonnet for Nancy

 Sitting there quietly sewing as you are wont to do,

I watch the candle flicker off your alabaster skin.

In a rush I am reminded of the love I have for you,

And how once a flame was kindled that still burns within

Us both.  I am remiss to say the words as often as I should,

And through this time got from your heart more than you received.

Now tonight as I watch, you unaware, remembering all the good

We’ve shared.  Tapestry of life and lives together we weave.

First two, then four and five.  Babies, children, growing, grown.

Baseball, soccer, dance recitals, schedules frantic beyond relief.

First needing all our love and, now wanting just to be alone.

Our one life has seen it all you know, great joy and deepest grief.

Such love is one for all the ages, of that there is no doubt.

So roll me in your arms love and blow the candle out.

Happy Valentine’s Day to all who have found true love and all those who seek it still.

On A Mother's Passing

On A Mother’s Passing

On bleak, grey, wintry days my thoughts oft turn to you, whose warming flame flickered out some twenty years ago.

And love, above all else, love.

Hot chocolate, marshmellows, and icy snow cream that froze the brain and brought smiles to chilly souls.

And love, above all else, love.

Meat loaf and creamed potatoes rising like smooth vanilla mountains and baking bread that warmed inside as well as out.

And love, above all else, love.

Mischievous smiles and flashing eyes that charmed a gentler, safer world so different from my own.

And love, above all else, love.

That party spirit like some benign host infecting all you knew with a joy for life; now missed, now missed.

And love, above all else, love.

And love, above all else, love.

Unquestioned love.

Unqualified love.

Unconditional love.

I see you there, frozen as the day, for eternity; hands on hip, head cocked not buying one bit of my well-worn bull.

And love, above all else, love.

Though I am now so far away you are ever near; the smile and spirit and essence that was you.

And love, above all else, love.

I see you on an icebound hill, flush with the ebullience of your youth.

I see you in a kitchen warmed by the magic of your love and touch.

I see you close beside my bed and bend and kiss, “All’s well, all’s well”.

Time has healed the open wound but the scar of your passing still remains.

Time has dulled my memory but the aching void you left behind still remains.

Time has moved on but you wait in a long passed frozen moment that still remains.

Time has eroded the details of the day, stripping them away till all that still remains is the

Love, above all else, love. 

Where Have All the Flowers Gone?

Harry Truman Satterfield is 21 today.  He was 21 yesterday and he will be 21 tomorrow and for all eternity.

I went to high school with Harry Truman Satterfield. He was one of those quiet, unassuming farm boys that rarely spoke in class, or at all for that matter.  Never ran around with a rowdy crowd, never made waves of any sort.  He wasn’t a loner and was nice enough when you got to know him, but it would have been possible to have gone to school with Harry for the entire 12 years and not ever notice he was there. 

I probably would never have known Harry Truman Satterfield except for the fact that I graduated with a class small enough that everyone knew everyone, at least by name and, secondly, because Harry and I both played football.  I played center and Harry played guard right beside me.  Whatever kept him in check in class, or elsewhere in life, disappeared when he strapped on the pads.  Playing football long before weight training bulked young bodies in to behemoths, we were a scrawny bunch, even on the line.  Harry was small even for those days probably not weighing 150 pounds soaking wet.  Yet in drills he was the guy I never wanted hitting me and he had a fearsome body block that he threw without regard for himself that would crush larger opponents.  As good as I remember him as a football player, he was an even better wrestler and that sport was his true passion.  For those whose only exposure to wrestling is the WWF or whatever they call it today, believe me you have not seen “wrestling” until you have watched high school or college athletes in action.  Although I probably outweighed Harry by a good 25 pounds, he could tie me in knots so quick it could make your head swim, and mine often did.

When high school was finished in 1965, a good number of us packed up that fall for college.  I don’t know what Harry did.  I suppose he went back home and started on a career as a farmer, going to church each Sunday, thinking there was girl around somewhere he would eventually meet and marry and together they would build a family and quietly spend a life together.

In 1966 when the letter came (“Greetings from the President of the United States”), I doubt seriously if a single thought passed through Harry Truman Satterfield’s mind other than it was his time to serve.  On February 28,1967, just four months past his 21^st birthday; a time when young men should be celebrating their coming of age by legally getting drunk, chasing skirts, and generally raising hell in the great celebration of life, PFC Harry Truman Satterfield, B CO, 1ST BN, 16TH INFANTRY, 1ST INF DIV, in Tay Ninh, Republic of South Vietnam, died as a result of hostile ground fire, grenade.

Harry lies in a grave near his hometown of Madison, North Carolina, USA, still 21 years old after all these years.  He will never know the pain of aging, the joy of children, the warm feel of a loving woman sleeping by his side.  He has missed the extraordinary events of the last 40 plus years.  His was a life incomplete, unfulfilled.

Jacob Carroll is 20 years old today.  He was 20 yesterday and he will be 20 tomorrow, and for all eternity. 

I know less about Jacob Carroll than I do about Harry Truman Satterfield.  I know he lived in North Carolina, played football in high school, and loved restoring a vintage car with his uncle.  He came from a family who had a history of military service, both his father and his grandfather having done so with honor.  Jake received no greetings from the President of the United States but upon completing high school he volunteered for the army “because”, he said, “it was his duty.”  He did not just volunteer for the army, he volunteered for the Airborne; a sure guarantee that you would be sent in harm’s way.

On November 13, 2009 Specialist Jacob C. Carroll, Company B, 2^nd BN, 502 Infantry Regiment, 2^nd Brigade Combat Team, died in Kandahar, Afghanistan as the result of an insurgent suicide bomber.  Like my Friend Harry Truman Satterfield his was another incomplete, unfulfilled life.

The only reason I know about Specialist Jacob C. Carroll is that he was the son of my wife’s first cousin and we attended his funeral in North Carolina.  Funerals are always emotional, but there is something about the death of a young person that tears at the humanity in us all.  His minister, friends, army representatives, and family said many fine things about Jake on that day; but the words that stuck most clearly in my mind were those of his Mother.  As she gripped the church pulpit so tightly her knuckles whitened, in a voice choked with grief and emotion she said, “He was my Life.  He was my Life.”

Harry Truman Satterfield was someone’s Life way back when.  He was someone’s son; someone’s brother and I hope that he did not leave this fair earth without being the love of some young girl’s life.

It is not my intent in writing this to take a stand on the right or wrong of War.  I am not that wise.  It does seem that we are the only species on the planet that engages in the practice and as long as one man anywhere is willing to be covetous there will be other men to challenge him.  I don’t know if we should have invaded Iran and Afghanistan.  I leave that in the hands of the people I have entrusted to lead me.  I do know that when old people make such decisions, young people die, and with each death, like Harry and Jake, a life goes uncompleted, unfulfilled and other lives are irrevocably changed.  “He was my Life.  He was my Life”, echoes through the ages.

I guess my point in all this is to say that when you see or hear that five soldiers died in a roadside bombing or that the two thousandth American Soldier was killed today; please, please understand that they are not a number like five or two thousand.  Each of them is Harry or Jake.  They are young lives that will never grow old.  They are someone’s life, someone’s heart, and they should be remembered by someone somewhere for not only who they were but also who they might have been.

Okay Harry.  I've been carrying this around for damn near forty years and here it is.

“Where Have all The Soldiers Gone?

Gone to graveyards everyone.

When will they ever learn, oh when will they ever learn?”

As Time Goes By.

Snowy Thoughts

Snowy Thoughts

No, this isn’t a discussion on my waning mental capacity; although my wife would probably argue that it is apropos.

I have lived in South Carolina continuously since 1986, off and on since 1969, and in that time I don’t ever recall school here being cancelled for an entire week because of snow as it was last week.  It has now been eight days since the onset of the great storm of ’11 as we will call it when our teeth are gone.  With the rain last night the roads are finally totally clear, and only a vestige of the 10 inches of white stuff remains in shadowy spots here and there.  I’ve had a lot of indoor time in this last week, which got me to thinking; always a dangerous circumstance.

Who ever started this bread and milk thing?  It has to be only a southern custom because all of my Yankee friends, (excuse my political incorrectness, those not from around here) get a real charge out of this mad rush to the grocery at the first hint of bad weather.  I have to admit that it doesn’t make a lot of sense.  Even with this large storm we were home bound less than 72 hours.  Yet my mother did it, my grandmother did it and it is so imbued even I, with enough food in the freezer to get through the apocalypse, have a Pavlovian response to the prediction of winter weather – “Bread and milk, must get bread and milk”.

My son, who works for a large corporation here struggled in to work on Monday and opened an email that said, “due to inclement weather we ask all employees to use good judgment in deciding whether or not to come in today.  Your safety is our main concern.”  Unfortunately, that bit of wisdom was sent on the company’s internal system that could only be accessed from the office.  Go figure.

I had the great, good fortune to grow up in the Piedmont area of North Carolina where two, maybe three good snows a year were pretty common.  When I was a young person there, snow meant freedom.  I reveled in those days, as did we all, where school was cancelled.  I had visions of my teachers sitting home chagrined that they could not torture me with pop tests or boring lectures.  It was only after I got to know teachers as an adult that I made the startling discovery that they got just as excited as the kids about a break in the routine.  Nowadays those missed days are made up on teacher planning days, which normally come on Friday. We made up our days, all of them, on Saturdays and that, to coin a phrase, sucked.

Some of my warmest memories of those snowy events in North Carolina center on the hill that ran in front of our house.  For the rest of the year it was just an elevated paved road that connected our neighborhood to the highway at the bottom; but on snow days it became one of the two or three major spots in town where people gathered to sled.  I had a Flexible Flyer, which is a type of sled and not a gymnastic flight attendant.  It consisted of a flat wooden deck with two connected handles at the front used to guide; push up on the right handle and pull down on the left to go left and vice versa.  This arrangement was mounted above two metal rails that ran the length of either side of the deck.  At the first sure sign that a storm was imminent and not some yellow weather journalism that would lead to dashed hopes, I would wax and wax those metal runners in order to improve my speed going down the hill.

Donned in at least a ton of coats, sweaters, toboggans, rubber boots that had snaps for closures, and anything else my Mother could possibly get on my body, I would waddle, literally, up the snow and ice covered hill to its summit pulling my sled behind me with a rope my Father had attached to the front for convenience.  Once at the top, with sled in hand I would get a running start, holding the Flyer against my chest; this was the tricky part for you weren’t alone and you would be ridiculed by your peers if you slipped and fell while running at full tilt, throw myself prone on top of the sled and blast down the hill at breakneck speed.  Later, as I got older and bigger, I mounted sitting up and guiding with my feet.  You got your start here by someone giving you a push.  This method also allowed for “doubling” whereby someone, hopefully the object of your current affection, would mount behind and wrap their arms around you to hold on.  At age 12 this was thrilling; especially if the hill was more packed ice than snow and you ran the risk of going all the way to the end of the road and blindly rocketing out onto U.S 311.  However, don’t ever recall any fatalities in all those years.

The top of the hill was a place for a lot of socializing.  Invariably, someone would build a roaring bonfire.  Hot dogs and marshmallows and chili and coat hangers for roasting the dogs and mallows would magically appear.  You have never really had a cold Coke until you’ve drunk one that has been chilled all day in a snow bank.  Upon reflection I suspect that the adults secreted more potent brews around and about, but I have no definitive proof of such.  As the night grew long and the older crowd got louder, I would go for one more run, this time guiding myself off the hill in to my front yard. I would stumble home, tired, happy, cold, and often smelling of gasoline and burned rubber; for if the bonfire ran out of wood someone always seemed to have an old tire to throw on the flames, igniting it with petrol.  Today my hand shakes just at the memory.

Alas, my poor, deprived children, raised here in South Carolina, never owned a Flexible Flyer, never went sledding, never smelled of burnt rubber.  It hardly ever snowed here and even if it did the hills are few and far between.  When my youngest was about five, we were having a summer hailstorm.  As the pebble sized stones accumulated on the lawn he came to me and asked, “Dad, is that snow?”

Ah, the pity of it all.

As time goes by.

Song for a Winter's Day

Song for a Winter’s Day

Snow.  SNOW.   SNOW!  With glass in hand and blazing fire to warm my back, I watch the snow transfer this winter world from dormant browns to dazzling realms of purest white.

Snow.  SNOW.  SNOW! It falls until the landscape lies pristine, and there is only snow on snow. The world fills with cathedral quiet that only the snow can bring; so unlike its brash cousin, the rain, that comes with rolls of kettledrums and trumpet flares. The snow creeps upon us like a quiet whisper in the night.

Snow.  SNOW.  SNOW!   In the solitude it brings, I hear the snows of yesterday; children’s squeals of laughter as sleds whip down ice crusted hilly streets, lovers walking hand-in-hand red nosed and oblivious to the blowing cold, families in one accord causing snow giants to erupt from the earth or creating angel wings.

Snow.  SNOW.  SNOW!   Perhaps because this winter wonderland so rarely comes to call, it evokes in me mellow thoughts, romantic mood and memories framed in muted gold.  Yet each snow that falls is in the now, not what was or will be.  Yesterdays will forever stay unchanged and tomorrows only a hope of what might be.  This snow is for today.  Yesterday it was but a hope, and, with tomorrow’s blazing sun, will be gone and soon forgotten with no trace.

Snow.  SNOW.  SNOW! Is not our love, like the shining snow, ever in the now; blanketing our lives, reborn each day to fill us once again? Pasts are carved in stone and the future has no guarantee.  We are here and now, not what has been, or will be.

Snow.  SNOW.  SNOW!  So let us revel in the day and walk with hands as tightly entwined as are our very lives.  Let’s taste the now, all red-nosed and oblivious to the cold.  At last, as day gives way to evening shadows, we’ll sit and watch the slowly ebbing, glowing embers, lost in yesterdays, dreaming of tomorrows, still savoring the beauty of the now.  As silent as the falling snow, I’ll wrap you in my loving arms, and we'll together

Watch as time goes by. 

At The Movies

AT THE MOVIES

I had the great fortune to grow up in a small town in North Carolina in the 1950’s and early ‘60’s.  Whenever I get back there, which is less frequent as the years grow longer, I find myself missing those icons of my youth that have vanished: the original Fuzzie’s BBQ, where I probably put 10 thousand miles on Daddy’s car just circling the place during my high hormonal period, McFall Drug where earlier I learned the basics of matchbook football and drank copious amounts of Cherry Coke, the local Drive-In where, if you’re old enough to remember drive-in movies you know why they are so dear to my heart, and, most sacred of all, the PATOVI Movie theater where I developed my life-long passion for films.

Now the old PATOVI was unusual in a couple of aspects.  In the first place there was the name itself.  The PATOVI’s original owners were: Dr. Paul Setzer, Tom Taylor, and Vic Idol, a prominent insurance man in the town at that time. They were searching around for a name in the ‘20’s when they were building the structure, and my Mother’s cousin Toby Moore suggested taking the first two letters from each of their first names and  the PATOVI was born. 

However, the most unusual feature of the PATOVI was that it was “backwards”.  That is to say, as you entered the theater area the screen was behind you instead of in front.  I’m sure at one time the entrance had been from the other side of the theater and my guess is the entrance was reversed because the street on the other side was the one that ran through the main part of town.  However, I always liked my Mother’s explanation better.  She said it was that way because folks in town were so nosy that they wanted to be able to sit there and see who was coming in, and with whom.

My earliest memories of going to the movies predate my formal education so I guess I went to the PATOVI my first time around 1952.  I was, of course, too young to go alone, so if I didn’t go with my parents, my babysitter, Rosa Lee Scales, usually took me.  Of course Rosa Lee, who was African-American, had to take me in by way of the side alley that ran between the theater and the adjacent bank. In the alley was a side entrance that led into a balcony that was reserved strictly for blacks who were never allowed in the main lower theater.  I never understood the reasoning that said it was unsafe to all mankind for a black 16 year old to sit in the lower theater but it was perfectly safe for a white 5 year old to sit in an all black-balcony area.  But that was the times.

When I got old enough to go to there by myself, which was probably when I was 8 or 9, the PATOVI became Mother’s favorite babysitter on Saturday afternoon.  It seems like the first price of admission I remember was a dime and that went up to fifteen cents at around age twelve.  I can remember Mama letting me off in front of the theater and my walking up to the ticket booth which was just outside the entry way.  Miss Annie Goolsby sat in the booth and sold the tickets.  I believe her last name was Goolsby but I’m not sure because as long as I was going to the PATOVI I never called, or heard her called, anything but Miss Annie.

Once swapping your dime for a ticket, you entered the concession area where your senses were jolted by that irresistible smell of theater popcorn and a blast of frigid air-conditioning.  In the early ‘50’s air-conditioning was still pretty much of a novelty and the PATOVI one of the few totally cooled buildings in town.

After the concession area you walked through the double doors in to the theater proper.  As you entered you got your ticket torn in half by the one and only usher whom I firmly believed, at that time, had the best job in America.  In fact until I was ten, to my parent’s embarrassment, I would often respond to the “what do you want to be when you grow up” question with “The usher at the PATOVI.”  I’m still not too sure that wasn’t a pretty good idea. 

As I mentioned before once in the theater you were facing the audience with the screen at your back.  Now, understand the PATOVI was the only theater I knew so I never thought this arrangement strange.  The first time I went to a movie elsewhere I thought it odd that the screen was in front.  I mean, how would your friends know you had come in?

Passing through those doors was more than just moving from one room to another.  Rather, it was to enter multiple worlds of enchantment.  I rode with Lash LaRue, flew with Commando Cody, laughed at Larry, Moe, Shep, and later Curly Joe.  I remember sitting in the aisle to see The Lone Ranger because all the seats were taken, and again for Elvis in Love Me Tender.  Smiley Burnette, Gene Autry’s sidekick, made a personal appearance there in about 1953 or so and I had my picture made with him; a photo I have to this day. 

As I reached those terribly awkward “tweens”, that period before you could take your parent’s car and circle Fuzzie’s, and after the time you bit your lip to keep from crying when Bambi’s mother was killed, the PATOVI was about the only place in 3town you could realistically meet your girlfriend.  Of course a girl’s reputation could be sallied if she came alone with a boy, so usually the girls came in groups, the boys came in groups, and we would pair off in the theater.  The ritual rules here were complicated and strictly enforced.  If I “liked” a girl I had to know who her best friends were, and which ones already had a boyfriend.  I next had to seek out the boyfriend, tell him my feelings, and he would relay to his girlfriend, who would relay my feelings on to the girl in which I had an interest.  She would then respond by the same communication system and if the message came back “she likes you too” we entered the next phase.  This step involved my going to the PATOVI with the boyfriend who met the girlfriend who, yes, brought along the object of my affection.  This led us to the ritual seating arrangement in which the boyfriend and girlfriend sat together; I sat on the outside of the boyfriend and my heartthrob sat likewise beside the girlfriend.  If interest continued beyond this first meeting the ritual was repeated at another time with the seating arrangement becoming the two girls sitting together with the boys on the outside or vice versa. 

The first time I ever held hands with a girl was in the PATOVI.  She was a little blonde and my heart beat fast just at the sound of her name.  I remember that moment of truth when I reached out and prayed to Sandra Dee she wouldn’t jerk her hand away.  She didn’t and I had made it to “first base”.  A single to right would be as far as I would get at the PATOVI.

Time and life moves on.  With the advent of driving a car my world expanded and slowly my trips to the PATOVI waned.  I left my hometown for college in 1965 and never moved back.  In 1989 the PATOVI, in its second life as The Amber Theater, finally became a victim of television and the nearby city multiplexes that were so easily accessed with the proliferation of teenage drivers and improved roads.  I understand now there is parking lot where the PATOVI used to be.  Progress, I suppose.  Maybe those days were not as sweet and wonderful as I remember.  Yet, somehow, it seems sad to me that generations after mine will never ride with Lash or sit on Smiley’s lap or have that dark, cool magic place to rest and shyly, haltingly, hold a little blonde girl’s hand.

As Time Goes By

Trash, Treasures, and Toys in the Attic

Why should you read something about cleaning out an attic?  Unless you enjoy all those Facebook posts people make about their trips to Wal-Mart and cleaning their ovens, there probably is no reason to read on.  However, if you can bear with me there is some degree of payback at the end.

I don’t know what possessed me to allow my wife to talk me in to cleaning out the attic.  I really love her very much but jeez we been putting stuff up there nonstop since 1987.  However after a couple of glasses of Montepulciano I nodded or mumbled or at least did not protest the suggestion (so she says).

On New Year’s Eve (which should tell you what an exciting couple we have become) with some trepidation, I pulled down the disappearing stairway and climbed literally in to the dark at the top of the stairs.  We are very fortunate in that when we built the house we completely floored the attic so at least I did not have to worry about balancing my 63-year-old body on beams and worrying about sticking my leg through the second floor ceiling.  In fact that act of “breaking through had determined where I would put a ceiling fan in a house we owned in North Carolina years ago.

We climbed in to this upper abyss, cut on the overhead light and my wife said, “OMG”, only without the abbreviations.  My thought was: “I’m glad North Carolina played last night because I can kiss the other bowl games goodbye.”  What lay before us was 24 years of accumulation with no rhyme or reason as to what was what.  I hoped my wife would see that this was an impossible task but in her orderly mind it was only one more challenge to bring order out of chaos.  In this area I have been her lifelong project.

As we waded through boxes, bags and footlockers it soon came apparent that one man’s treasure was another woman’s junk.  Consider the following conversation:

WIFE: “What in the world is this?” holding up a beleaguered, hole riddled faded blue tee shirt.

ME: “Why, that is an Ehringhaus A intramural jersey I wore in numerous intramural wars while I was at UNC.”

WIFE: “Okay, so trash it right?”

ME: “Trash! Trash! Woman, have you lost your mind?  That jersey represents my glory days as an amateur athlete and defined me as a man.”

WIFE: “Well, in my opinion, you are twice the man now that you were then.”

ME (swelling with pride): “So I am still a stud in your eyes even after all these years.”

WIFE (Staring contemptuously at my belly): “No I mean you are about double the size you were then.”

ME: “Right, trash it.”

It soon became apparent that anything pre-wife was trash and anything that had touched or come close to coming in contact with our children was sacrosanct.  As irreverent as I may appear to be about the whole project, I have to admit we both enjoyed reliving our children’s younger days through Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Barbie Dolls, and Transformers; sports trophies, academic trophies, and music awards.  It reminded both of us of how lucky in life we had been with the precious memories of three wonderful children that are now grown, responsible adults.  I think parenting is the hardest job in the world but one that I miss horribly.  I sometimes think I know how Peter Pan felt once Wendy and the Lost Boys had flown back home.  Our children have grown in to our best friends but at certain times like Christmas, birthdays and baseball season, I really miss the child in our children.  If you are a young parent, count each of these precious days and be forewarned that the door to childhood slams shut with no prior notice.  One day they are playing with dolls and superheroes and literally the next day it is gone as if it never happened.

Well, as to the payoff for reading this tripe.  In the midst organizing all this chaos, Nancy, my wife, was going through an old cardboard box.  I heard her say, “What’s this?”  She held up a small 3 X 5 sheet of paper and handed it to me.  I looked at the sheet and was blown away because on it was a note that had been written to me when I was in San Francisco, by a girl from San Jose State University…..in 1968.

And that my friends is a story for another day,

As Time Goes By

P.S.  January 3 and I’m still working in the attic.

As Time Goes By

As Time Goes BY

I have endeavored as one of my 2011 resolutions to try and do some writing during the year.  I know from experience that writing, like any other exercise, takes preparation, discipline and conditioning.  Thus before I begin work on the next great American novel or biography or whatever I felt the need to come here for some of the aforementioned exercises.

As Time Goes By refers to my being closer to 64 to 63 and,  I continue to plunge headlong through my sixties.  At least I hope I continue the plunge.  I’m not to the point where I’m scared to purchase green bananas or lining up my six closest friends, but no matter what kind of arithmetic you use my age is closer to the end than the beginning.  However this blog is not about wringing my hands about my eventual demise but is rather a place to make some observations about life as I have seen it and how it has changed as time has gone by.

Please do not confuse these musings with wisdom.  When I was a young man I thought when I reached this point in time I would be very wise.  Well, to my surprise as I sat to begin this piece I realized I’m not wise at all.  I don’t have wisdom – just experience.  Therefore if anyone disagrees with anything I say, that is if anyone actually finds this and reads it, his or her disagreement is welcome.  Actually being human I doubt if I really would welcome it but I would be accepting of it.

A year or so ago a very bright young lady from the Governor’s School here wanted to interview me about my life and she asked me if I thought my life had been interesting.  Pretty darn insightful question for a 16 year old, but it is the Governor's School after all.  It sort of took me aback.  After all I have already told you I don’t have wisdom.  I have neither fame nor notoriety.  I certainly have not accumulated a fortune.  However, as the human brain can so amazingly do, in an instant I clicked through much of what I had seen and done since 1947.  I smiled at the young lady and said, “Yes, I have in fact led a very fascinating life.”  I stand by that statement today and I believe whoever you are and whatever age you are, unless you very young, your life has also been with fascination and wonder.

Well, that is pretty much what this is all about.   A little bit of reflection here, a few memories there, and a smattering of my own opinions upon occasion  Some may say, “much ado about nothing”, and they would not be necessarily wrong.  These are just thoughts flowing free from an unknown voice in the woods, neither trying to be Hemingway nor Fitzgerald or even Alfred E. Newman (a truly wise creation).  Just a guy sitting here watching and observing

As Time Goes By.

See you soon.