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.