Writing for Sanity's Sake

While my Guitar Gently Weeps….

The guitar and I go back a long way. I think I was 11 when Dad and I first went to the pawn shop in Rome and looked at guitars. I wanted a Bass (wanted to be in the band y’know) but I came away with a Kay scroll side acoustical guitar, with strings that were about ½ inch above the fret.

Now anybody who has ever played a guitar knows that the “action” of the strings, i.e. the closer they are to the frets and the neck of the guitar, the easier they are to press down and get a sound out of, and thus the easier the instrument is to play. ½ inch is a LONG way for a beginner, especially with metal strings. I found out after I had owned the guitar for several weeks that the strings could be adjusted down. By that time, I had permanent calluses on ALL the fingers on my left hand…which have never, never gone away. This is the way you can tell a real guitarist though. Let somebody pick up a guitar and plunk away on it for a half hour and then they start looking at the tops of their fingers like “damn that hurts” NEWBIE! Either that, or they would wienie out and go to a Spanish guitar with nylon strings and say “I want to be like Segovia” Well, if you want to be like Andres Segovia, you better plan on practicing 12 to 14 hours a day and have natural talent to begin with to boot. There are NOT many Segovia’s, or even Chet Atkins for that matter. Some people have it, and some people don’t. You can teach yourself, or be taught to play a guitar, but you can’t be taught to be a Segovia or an Atkins. That kind of talent has to be in the genes. But…in any case…as I was saying, the metal makes the man when it comes to guitars, and if you ain’t got the calluses, don’t whine!

I had three guitar lessons before my Dad figured out it was too much of a pain to take me all the way 6 miles down the road to Summerville, especially since I wasn’t much interested in learning how to finger pick “Red River Valley” or any other country tune from the 1940’s.

I finally ended up doing it the way I have done almost everything else in my life…I learned it on my own. I looked at a book and got the chords down pat and then just started practicing them over and over again. I watch other people who knew how to play do their thing, and picked up some things from them. Mostly I did my own thing though.

I don’t pick up any of my guitars as often as I should. I have three or four of them sitting around. (And yes, one of them is a Spanish guitar that my wife got me for a Wedding present! Thing about it is, I HAD the calluses before I got this guitar so when I play it, I don’t feel like a wienie) This past week when I was feeling like crap, I picked my guitar up off the bed and just sat down and started to play. For me, at least right now, it’s still comes easy. My brain sends those long ago learned and practiced chords and notes down through the nerve endings in my fingers and the music starts to come out of the guitar. It’s like a small miracle really. I can’t remember what I had for supper last night, but I can still play “Down Yonder” or “Wildwood Flower” like it was 1963! Over forty years and my brain still remembers! I think the day I pick up the guitar and I can’t remember the chords or the notes that I learned so long ago is going to be a VERY sad day. I really hope it never happens. There is such a bond between a player and their instrument, that if that bond is broken, it would be almost like a death of dear friend. Oh how much you would mourn that loss! I know the look in my Grandfather’s eyes back years ago when he would pick up that banjo that he had played for years and couldn’t quite get the music to come out the way it did before. It was a sad and confused look. A pitiful look. It wasn’t too long after that when Grandpa had to go to the nursing home because he really couldn’t remember anything anymore. Or anybody. I pray to the creator that I don’t go that route. One of the first songs I wrote when I took up songwriting was about Grandpa and his banjo. It’s called “Blue Ridge Mountain Symphony.” I have a good demo of the song, maybe one of these days I will get it on the site so folks can listen to it.

I really think that the fact that man decided to pick up some pieces of wood and put cat guts on it, or thump on a hollow log and call it music, was one of the things that eventually differentiated us from all the other creatures that our creator made. I can’t recall seeing any animal but a human pick up a musical instrument and play it. (ok…they train chimps to do it…but that’s different, they don’t give a hoot….or perhaps that’s an ooh..ooh…ooh…about what they are doing! Man is the only creature who has made a connection with things musical, and I think that is one of the only real connections we have with divinity. I really think God enjoys music. He digs dancing too…remember when David danced before God, and he was pleased? We sell God short sometimes I think, imagining that ALL he is, is this stern and terrible judge sitting behind a judges bench with a big gavel, ready to convict us of all our sins and send us straight to blazes.

Anyway, I digress. So the other day when I continued to play, I also started humming some familiar tunes to the chords. Peter, Paul and Mary were remembered of course, with “Jet Plane,” and “Puff the Magic Dragon” I covered Peter and Gordon with “I Go to Pieces” I stepped forward with “The Ones the Wolfs Brought Down” a song that Garth Brooks recorded which never made to the singles chart, but in my opinion certainly should have. I went through “Stepping Stone” which Paul Revere and the Raiders, and the Monkees covered. I did “Friends in Low Places” because that’s just how I felt! Then I just sat there for half an hour more making up little runs and tunes from the Blues to Rock and Roll. I found a couple of riffs I really liked and just played them over and over, hoping I might remember them if I ever get near a recorder again, and want to put down something new. I really wish I had the time. I feel like I have cheated something or somebody sometimes because I haven’t been as “creative” as I should have been. When do you have time to be creative? Seems like back in the 80’s I had a hell of a lot more time to write and create and try to do things that might be some kind of “legacy” Now I’m not so sure about legacies anyway. Who’s really going to care? Is it something my children and grandchildren would REALLY want to sit down and take time to listen to, or will they get into the same rut as I seem to be in now, which leaves you with no time to do anything but work, eat and sleep and a few minutes on the weekend to catch up with your chores. I swear to goodness, I can never remember the days being so crammed full of stuff that the only time I pick my guitar up and play it is when I am at home sick, and my chest is feeling funny and I have these strange little twinges, and I need some solace from somewhere.
How I do go on about a piece of wood with some string pulled across it, don’t I? But yet, there IS something mystical in our relationship with our instruments, just like there is in our relationships with other people. I know for a fact, I pick up guitars at stores and flea markets and stuff and strum them and they seem like “strangers” to me. The sounds that come out are not as comforting as they are from my familiar instruments, especially my 40 year old Classical guitar my wife gave me as a wedding present. The sounds I get from her are like recordings from years past of all the things, people and places which have I have experienced while I have owned her. (yes the guitar is feminine!) Those memories which are stored there could not come from some “newcomer” It’s like your family. I know we meet and enjoy new friends…especially those with common memories of things that we have experienced, but no one has the connections that your family has to you. That’s why my family is so special to me.

Well…I guess I may go pick up the guitar and plunk on it a while. I hope I haven’t bored everyone to death with my ramblings. I’ll leave you with this from the late George Harrison:
look at you all see the love there that’s sleeping

While my guitar gently weeps:

I look at the floor and I see it needs sweeping
Still my guitar gently weeps
I don’t know why nobody told you how to unfold your love
I don’t know how someone controlled you
They bought and sold you.
I look at the world and I notice it’s turning
While my guitar gently weeps
With every mistake we must surely be learning
Still my guitar gently weeps
I don’t know how you were diverted
You were perverted too
I don’t know how you were inverted
No one alerted you.
I look at you all see the love there that’s sleeping
While my guitar gently weeps
Look at you all…
Still my guitar gently weeps

For the last year of my little Doxie “Hoosiers” life, I did pretty much everything for her. I got her out of her crate in the mornings, sometimes as early as 5 am, because she was whining to go out, and carried her outside and then carried her back in and fed her. I put her up and lifted her down off the chair where she sat with my wife. We put down pads on the chair because her bladder control was so bad, and we changed them a couple of times a day. There was nothing to be done, because her kidneys were failing, and she was practically blind from cataracts on her eyes. I did this and more every day for her until one day she choked a little bit on a bite of food and it set off a spell of coughing which resulted in one small seizure and then went into a coma, and in several hours she passed away with my wife and me right by her side. She was 15 years old. Other than being incontinent and half blind during that last year, she was not in pain. Our granddaughters loved her, and loved to pet her. She died in May of 2020 and they still ask about her, even our youngest who was only 2 years old still remembers her and asks if she “went over the rainbow bridge” I never, ever would have considered abandoning her, or even putting her down, since she wasn’t hurting. I had a toy poodle before her who did have cancer and was in such pain at 12 years old that I had to have her put down. The vet asked me if I wanted to leave the room while she did the injections and I told her heck no! I would not leave her alone at that most critical time in her entire life and have her think I abandoned her. I’m sorry to be so long winded, but I just don’t believe in abandoning family members.

A New Attitude about Death?

I’m afraid of heights. I also don’t like flying. I don’t
like big crowds and speaking in front of a group of people terrifies me. Funny how things that are
simple and basic to some people make other
peoples knees turn to jelly.

I don’t know where a lot of these fears came from.
Some of them have just developed over the years.
Some fears we have always harbored. I have always been afraid of death. I never even wanted to think about it until the last few years. It’s a subject that most of us definitely want to avoid. I think sometimes we feel like if we talk about it, it might jinx us and we will end up on the “mortar board” at some funeral home before the days out. Also, it’s a pretty depressing subject to broach. Nobody wants to be depressed, so nobody talks about it. I can’t remember the first time I thought about it, and was scared. I think it was when I was about four years old. Really, it’s true. As a little kid when I should have been thinking about playing cowboys and Indians, I was mulling over the great unknown. It’s been a bummer over the years.

Lately, I have come to the conclusion that by
talking about death maybe we can make it less
scary. I am not as afraid of it as I used to be. It’s not the little kid fear of going to hell and burning up in a blazing fire type fear anymore. It’s more of just an apprehension of something unknown.

It’s a disappointment that I might not be around to see my loved ones complete most of their journey that they have started. It’s the conversations and contact with my family that I don’t want to give up.

The touches and looks of people you love, and who love you. Most of all, it turns out that it’s a selfish thing. Imagine that. I have so many selfish reasons for living that I don’t want to die and give them all up.

I don’t want to give up the beautiful sunny days like the one we had today. The walk I had out back with Ellie…watering dead flowers, drawing chalk on the patio, and her “helping me” fill the bird feeders. I want to Eli play ball again, and Rue turn cartwheels across her yard, and have Evie teach me “Minecraft”.

I want to see Jessy, Auttie, Livy and Chelsea move forward in life too with their families…Livy with school.

I don’t want to give up reading good books. I really don’t. I don’t want to give up watching movies with Paula, and laughing with her….

But, it’s not what we want that we get is it?
There are so many theories and theological thesis
about what happens to us after we die. It’s hard to
pin one down and stick with it. One thing that I can assure you though is that it will be different from any of those ideas we have. I don’t think that man has been given the knowledge, through any type of religion or science of what really happens. What really happened. I have some really different spiritual beliefs and I know most people are not the same as me. I’m really ok with what anyone believes….as long..as we don’t hurt each other with those beliefs!

It may be that we just have peace.

Peace would be nice;

I’ve seen a lot of people going through
unbelievable suffering, or who no longer know who or what they are who would take peace too. There was once a little old lady who was “rooming” next to my Mother a nursing home who was there one day and gone the next. She was in bad shape. She was ready for a rest, and she got it. I think if you could have broken through the wall of her senility she would have told you she was. A lot of times people outlive the desire to live, and when they do that, they are ready for peace. I am sure she wasn’t scared of it. Maybe welcomed it.

As long as we have the desire, then we should
“keep on truckin'” as we used to say back in the
70’s. It’s when we lose the desire, due to things
that are happening to us physically, that it becomes a hardship to keep on keeping on.

So, I guess as my perspective has changed from
that little shivering four year old kid, who shouldn’t have even known what death was, to the more knowledgeable but equally unknowing 75 year old that I am now am. I still have my desire to live and hope that I keep it for a long, long time to come. I hope all of you do also. But, when we are ready for peace, I hope we find it and that it turns out to be better than we ever imagined.

I really don’t care for Franklin Graham. I personally think he’s a sycophant who’s piggybacked off of his Father’s fame and fortune.

This past Christmas season he preached what was a sickening sermon at the pentagon categorizing God as a God of Hate and War.

Graham states:

Graham’s holiday sermon was built on two passages from the Hebrew Bible, Exodus 17 and 1 Samuel 15. The first passage has become a well-known Sunday School story: Israel will triumph over their enemies on the battlefield as long as Moses keeps his hands up in the air. After a while, Moses’ hands grow tired, but with a little help from Aaron and Hur, Moses keeps up his hands and his people prevail. Afterwards, God commands Moses to write about the victory, and promises he’ll one day “utterly blot out the memory of Amalek from under Heaven.” 

The second passage, 1 Samuel 15, shows God making good on that promise, Graham said. The story starts with the prophet Samuel commanding a newly anointed King Saul to destroy the Amalekites—including children, infants, and animals. Well, for whatever reason, Saul doesn’t totally obey and lets Agag, the king of the Amalekites, live. He also decides to spare the best of the animals. As we might expect, God reveals to Samuel that King Saul didn’t follow his instructions, so Samuel confronts him, strips him of his royalty, and kills Agag himself. God finally gets his way.

Graham told his audience that while these stories might sound harsh, they depict God as he really is. “That’s not the God I believe in. Well, you’d better believe in him.”

Why?

I’m not even sure God believes in that God. Nor am I sure that Samuel knows this God as well as he thinks. For instance, during his scolding of Saul, Samuel says that God neither lies nor regrets. But the chapter concludes by telling readers that God “regretted that he had made Saul king over Israel.” So, it seems that Samuel has gotten God wrong. And if he’s wrong about God’s ability to regret, what else is he wrong about?

However, if Jesus is also God himself come down to earth, his philosophy was greatly different. Just go read the beatitudes:

He said:

³ “Blessed are the poor in spirit,
    for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
⁴ Blessed are those who mourn,
    for they will be comforted.
⁵ Blessed are the meek,
    for they will inherit the earth.
⁶ Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
    for they will be filled.
⁷ Blessed are the merciful,
    for they will be shown mercy.
⁸ Blessed are the pure in heart,
    for they will see God.
⁹ Blessed are the peacemakers,
    for they will be called children of God.
¹⁰ Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
    for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

¹¹ “Blessed are you when people insult you,persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. ¹² Rejoice and be glad,because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

He said:

“the two greatest commandments that uphold all law and prophecy are to love God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and to love your neighbor as yourself. These commandments summarize the core of Christian belief, emphasizing total devotion to God and selfless love for others”.

I didn’t see anything about war or hate in any of those words.

He said:

“Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matt 5:44) and instructed followers to “turn the other cheek,” promoting a life of non-violence.

When a disciple drew a sword to defend him, Jesus commanded, “Put your sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will die by the sword” (Matt 26:52), suggesting a rejection of violent conflict.

Jesus stated that his kingdom was not of this world; otherwise, his servants would fight to prevent his arrest, distinguishing his mission from political warfare (John 18:36).

In Matthew 24:6, Jesus mentioned that conflict is inevitable before the end times but told his followers not to be alarmed.

Pete Hegseth has been pushing “holy war” all along. Pushing Christian nationalism and “warrior ethos” and today Trump said that he was making war on Iran “because God wants it”. He wants to destroy “an entire civilization”.

My personal opinion is that he is wrong about that. Franklin Graham is wrong. Paula White is wrong. Pete Hegseth is wrong. If he indeed exists, God does not want innocent men, women and children murdered. He does not condone things which are unjust. Donald Trump is threatening an entire civilization. He must think he is a God.

In my opinion, his actions are sacrilege and are an anathema to God. I believe he is one of the most vile of men to have ever existed. His demented actions will be paid for by the entire world for decades to come.

Hate and War are wrong in the eyes of any righteous God who would exist. How can God have “Thou shalt not kill” as one of his holy commandments, but condone the murder of innocent human beings? I’m so confused by people who have been anguished and have beat their chests and wept for decades over abortion, but are ok with this war, and the killing of innocents. I saw very few to none that I know personally who even said a word about the hundreds of schoolchildren who were killed on the first day of the war. Such hypocrisy!

That hypocrisy is almost as bad as Trump and White comparing him to Jesus Christ on Easter morning: “During a 2026 White House Easter event, Donald Trump and his spiritual adviser, Paula White-Cain, drew comparisons between Trump and Jesus Christ, drawing backlash and accusations of blasphemy. Trump noted, “They call me king now,” regarding his supporters. White-Cain likened his political struggles to the persecution of Jesus”. Trump compared himself to Jesus by referencing Palm Sunday and noting that he is now referred to as a “king” by his followers. Spiritual adviser Paula White-Cain compared Trump’s political and legal challenges, including being “betrayed and arrested and falsely accused,” to the suffering of Jesus.

In closing, I can only say that a God who condones the kind of hatred and war that is being perpetrated right now by the U.S. and Israel, is a God I would not follow. Also, if Trump is like Jesus Christ, then Christ was a whole lot different than what I know about him.

I wish I could find the worlds to say, which would bring the world together. I have thought about what they might be:

“Love others as you love yourself”

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”

Are those one and the same? I think not. Loving is not doing.

Humans do terrible things to other humans every day. Just this past week, mass murders have been in the news every….single…day.

Children are being mistreated. Woman are being abused. People who are of different races, creeds, sexual persuasion, and religions are being despised and damned.

“Do unto others………”

I try to think of the words to say which would bring the world together, but it is hard. We are one species of creatures “homo sapiens sapiens” How did we get to the place where there are so many “divisions”. Who decides where the “borders” of a country are? Why are there borders?

Who decides who’s religion is the “right” one? Many a war has been fought over that contentious question….but we still don’t have agreement. Why do people of one ethnic group hate people from a different group? When they born as tiny babies, did they already hate each other? If you place a white and a black toddler in the same playroom, would they call each other names?

“Love others as you would love yourself”

No matter what you are celebrating tomorrow, or if you are not…try to think of the words to say to make the world a better place. Start at home, and teach your children differently then you were taught, unless you are a truly enlightened person. There’s not many of those around.

My confession, my sorrow……

For me, this coming of the electronic age has been somewhat of a downfall. It’s been my fault, because I let myself succumb to it. It started in the mid to late 90’s and has sucked so many precious hours, days, month and years away from me that when I look back on it, it saddens me so much.

I looked at one online game that I have played quite a bit over the past decade. It keeps up with your time played. It said I had played 883 hours. That’s a total of 36 days. Over a month. Of course that’s not consecutively staying on, but an aggregate of time periods of from half an hour to 5 or 6 hours. That’s bad enough, but it’s not even the online game which I have played the most. I’ve played Ultima Online, World of Warcraft, Guild Wars, Skyrim, Diablo, and a few others. I conservatively estimate, I’ve wasted up to 16 months or more of my life playing these games. I could have been reading. I could have been writing music, or working outside in the sunshine, golfing, fishing, anything. I was sucked into these games, just like I found myself sucked into social media. There’s also no telling how much time I have spent on Facebook and other forms of “not so social media”

I thought it was really great at first, but the last two or three years have been difficult. What started out as a connecting with old friends has become a mess. It’s become politics, it’s become partisan, it’s become fake, it’s become people taking advantage of other people. It’s become, for the most part, with the exception of being able to see the connections with my family through this medium, useless to me as something positive in which to participate. The information they glean from us is sold to unscrupulous people who take and use it for nefarious reasons. Period. If it were not for the relationship aspect on social media with my family, I’d get off in a heartbeat.

I’m hoping to go back to some of my pre mid 90’s habits of reading books, and relaxing more at night before trying to sleep. I have no doubt that using these electronic devices for all things all hours of the day and night have not been beneficial healthwise…at least for me. I wish I could change what has been, but I can’t. I can’t get all that time back that I have wasted.

When I was a young man, in my twenties and I thought of long term things which needed to be accomplished I always thought “Well, I have plenty of time to get that done…” Turns out, I didn’t. I didn’t take the time to do the things I needed to do to get some of those things done. I could sit here and regret it….and in a way I do. I’m sad about it in some ways. But…if wishes were horses…

We human beings have become captivated during my lifetime by technology. We have, in a sense, become captive by it. All of our lives have become structured around the computer driven world around us. Much of it was good, but now much of it brings danger and sorrow for us. Not a day goes by that you don’t hear of “hackings” of large companies, stealing the private information of people. Chances are if you have a credit card, or credit cards then you have been compromised. If you have been on Equifax, you have been compromised. We have probably been compromised in so many ways that we have no idea how bad it really is. It’s pandemic. It’s probably unstoppable at this point.

Another thing technology has brought us that we did not need is 24 hour “news” Ted Turner brought that to us even before the computer age with CNN, and things have gone down hill from there. Now there is channel after channel of 24 hour news “indoctrination” coming to us with a “slant” courtesy of whoever owns the stations, or whoever has influence over them. We are being constantly bombarded by propaganda to the point where we do not know right from wrong, or up from down. We are being manipulated by these 24 hour a day “talking heads” to the point where our world is much worse than the program Max Headroom ever imagined it to be.

Can we go back and fix any of this. No. Can we do things going forward to mitigate the damage which has been done to us? Perhaps. It won’t be me doing it though, because I’m 67 1/2 years old. It’ll take a lot longer than the years I have left to change humanity to a more enlightened state.

As for me, I’m going to do my utmost best to stop being a victim of my own obsessions. I’m really going to try. I’m going to fail some, but I’m damn sure going to try. How about any of you, my friends? Am I wrong? Am I crazy? Mayhaps I am.

To all of you, Godspeed, and God bless. Don’t expect a whole lot out of me….but I’ll be around with photos and such.

…suppose all of the women who were ever burned at the stake as witches, or for heresy, were to rise in anger from their graves and seek revenge on the descendants of those who murdered them or caused them to be killed?

…or all of the ghosts of the Shamans and Elders, and the Chiefs of all the first people who lived in the Americas were to magically become zombies, like the ones in “the Walking Dead” and seek retribution for the diseases which decimated them, or the soldiers who cut down their woman and children left alone in their villages.

…imagine the fear which would reign if the spirits of all the lynched Negros, all of the abused and tortured slaves, could haunt the dreams of the offspring of those who caused their terrible and awful abuse.

..what if the Earth itself is silently plotting our demise because of all that we have done to harm her? The scars we have permanently left upon the land, and the species which no longer exist…many simply because they got in our way, or because we could easily exploit and manipulate them. Many died due to our greed.

why are we like this? At what point in human history did we decide that treating other humans as animals was ok, and that treating animals like dirt was our “right”, and that treating our home like it is disposable is even remotely wise? Why do those of us who do not want these things to be so, give power to those who have no soul?

I believe that people who care about not letting the terrible things which have plagued our history happen again, should exercise our right to treat those who would do them as criminals and outcasts not as leaders. We don’t need destroyers as leaders, we need builders of consensus and cooperation. We need people of compassion and love.

Can we find them soon enough?

I look to the future generations and hope. I look to the babies who are crawling and toddling for wisdom. I dream of technology which is yet to come for assistance.

Banjo Man

Sometimes the most beautiful things in the world are never heard or seen by other humans. There are rare times, when you stumble across them accidentally and they are so fleeting and unique that they can never be replicated.

I have written many times about my Grandfather, and how as a child I used to sit on the porch of his old house and watch and listen as he played his banjo. It’s one of my best memories.

The other day, one day this week, I was walking my regular route through town. It takes me past one of the town’s unusual resident’s house. He’s a man a little older than me who lives up on the hill behind the ballpark. He’s different. I was rounding the curve in the hill when I heard it…the banjo playing. But it was not just ANY old banjo playing. This was the Flat and Scruggs kind of banjo playing. This was blue grass roots. This was great playing. This playing made the leaves swirl in little circles in the air, and the needles of the pines lean in closer to hear.

At first I thought it was a professional recording, but then realized it was coming from the little white house on the hill with the name “Earp” on the mailbox. It was somebody playing live. Probably…most probably it was V.W. Earp, that different little man who lives there alone. I stopped there and eavesdropped on this playing. I don’t know what song it was. It didn’t matter. It was heavenly. Complicated, fast. The type of playing you wish you could do if you were a pro. I moved on reluctantly after five minutes, finishing my walk. I shook my head in wonder at the savant like talent of this man.

I had seen some of the other things he had done in the past. My good trade day friend, one of the Webb twins, (I can’t remember if it was Ronald or Donald) showed me a design that V.W. had drawn. It was a complicated and quite logical drawing of how to stop the flooding on the Chattooga River. I guess V.W. had given this to him some time back. It looked like something that Leonardo da Vinci might have done. It was a crude, but at the same time a simple and brilliant plan. Of course, nobody took it seriously. I wonder if it would have worked.

I think the Webb boys have a weekly “shack picking and playing” session somewhere, (don’t know for sure…never been invited to come!) I hope V.W. shows up there sometimes. It would be a shame for nobody else to ever hear that gorgeous music. I wonder if he has many friends. I see him out and about his house with his little white dog following him and I throw up my hand and say “hey” I’ve run into him at the local grocery store and talked with him for a few minutes at a time. Conversations which are strange and disjointed, but at the same time very interesting.

I marvel at people like this. I knew Mr. Earp was an unusual man. I grew up around him and his brother and I knew his father, but I can’t begin to comprehend this person. This outlandish “character” who on the outside is so incomprehensible to “normal” people, but who on the inside is such a talent and has such a tremendous intellect. A person who because of his eccentricities has a problem finding outlets for his talents, which will fit nicely into our societal norms. If you act a little different no matter if you cannot help it, it’s hard for people to take you seriously sometimes. There’s no doubt about it. Nowadays in schools perhaps things would develop differently. Back in our day in school… There just weren’t things available.

I’m glad I know this man and I’m glad I took that five minutes to listen to his music. I will always remember it.

Spring Memories….a short story

I wonder if Spring is around the corner. As the calendar starts to near the end of March, I always start to look for it, start to feel it in my bones. Maybe it’s because the days start getting a little longer and maybe a little warmer. Maybe it’s because they start talking about the Baseball trades that are happening on the sports reports. Spring training’s just a few weeks away!

I tell you, spring and summer were the best back in the 50’s and 60s’. None of that year round school for us old timers! May 31 rolled around, and it’s see ya’ later to the teachers until the first week of September….Yahooo!!

I would go to the old wooden toy box back in my room, and starting digging down to the bottom, looking for my old worn out, smelly leather baseball glove with “Pee Wee” Reece’s name engraved in it. I don’t know how I ended up with Pee Wee, as I never played a lick of ball in the infield. I was always an outfielder.

I tried out for third base once, but after I had stopped the first four hard bouncer’s that came my way with my face instead of my glove, the coach thought it might be safer to put me in left field. I agree with his decision.

I liked left field. It was one of those positions where you could kind of day dream a little. Most everything that came out that way was either an easy pop fly, or a one bouncer. I was a cinch at catching those. None of that “hot corner” stuff for me.

I once was standing out in left field during a game and looking down at the ground trying to spot any four leaf clovers that might be growing there. I heard the loud crack of the bat, and looked up to see the baseball headed over my head. Way over my head. I didn’t want to look completely stupid, so I turned around and stuck my old glove out and ran as fast as I could towards the fence. The ball dropped right into the webbing of my glove. I never saw it until it did. I heard a cheer go up from the stands, and when we came in, I got more pats on the back, and attaboys then I had ever gotten before. I just said “I had it all the way” I could never bring myself to disappoint all those people by telling them it was just pure luck.

The other great thing about warm weather was spring lizard and craw dad hunting at Grandpa’s and Grandma’s house. When warm weather hit, we would go up there a lot more often. It was difficult during the winter time, because there were only two bedrooms downstairs at their house, which meant the remainder of the guests, had to sleep upstairs. During the winter time, sleeping upstairs was just like sleeping outside. There was NO heat. I spent many a winter night with 10 quilts piled on top of me, unable to turn over, but desperately trying to conserve what little body heat was emanating from me in order to be alive the next morning. I always managed to do it somehow.

So, besides at Christmas, I didn’t like Winter time visiting at the old folk’s house!

But with spring and warm weather coming, there was the promise of fishing, and in order to fish there had to be bait. This meant my favorite activities of digging in the dirt for worms, and turning over the rocks down in the little fast running creek in front of the folk’s house for Spring lizards and Crawdads.

The only draw back to trying to catch a bucket full of these water dwelling creatures was that they were also favorites of the snakes that prowled the banks of that same creek. I was never really too afraid of snakes when I was a kid until after my Grandpa’s Uncle “Lark” Davenport killed a rattlesnake one day that he stretched across the old dirt road leading up to Grandpa’s house. He stuck its head end in the bank on one side, and its tail end in the dirt bank on the other side. Now, that little old road was narrow, but I estimate it was at least 7 feet across, so my respect for the snakes in those parts increased tremendously after that. I asked Uncle “Lark” how he killed it, and told me he cut its head off with a hoe while he was out in his corn crib. Apparently the rattler was stocking up on some of the rats that always frequented that place. “If he hadn’t been a rattler I’d have let him be,” said Uncle Lark. I’d have let him be anyway, I think. He would have owned the corn crib after that. Rats and all.

Some of those spring lizards that we used to catch back then were as big as small snakes. Imagine turning over a big old rock, and seeing something black wiggling around that’s about a foot long. Would you stick your hand down in there and grab it? I sure did, and laughed about it the whole time. “If the bass don’t bite that,” I thought “then it might bite the bass!” Either way, we get the fish.

The crawdads were harder to catch then the spring lizards. Have you ever seen one of those little boogers take off? They are like a backwards rocket! I don’t know how they do it, but when they get scared they shoot water out their rear ends, start flapping their tails and away they go. You had to be good at estimating where they were GOING to be, not where they had been, in order to catch them. I never had the least idea that humans ate those things when I was a kid. The first time I went to Louisiana as an adult, and someone tried to serve me a dish made with Crawdads, I got kind of nauseated. After I tasted it though, it wasn’t half bad. I kind of like Etouffe’ now.

Yep, that’s how I felt today since there was a little warmth in the air. That little old creek is still there, but I don’t know what the new owners of the land would think about an old man tromping down the middle of their creek with a Styrofoam bucket and yelling yahoo every time he came up with a lizard. I wonder if there are even any left.

Giving 100 million dollars more than what they paid to the Russians for a shell of a warehouse that has no water, no facilities, no nothing…in a town without the ability to furnish water, electricity, etc. to it? Wow….wish I had just a fraction of that wad of money.

Here’s some information on who they bought it from:

PNK S1, LLC is a subsidiary of PNK Group, an international industrial real estate developer.

Based on reports regarding a 2026 real estate transaction in Social Circle, Georgia, PNK Group is described as a Russia-based company founded and owned by Andrey Sharkov.

Key details regarding PNK S1, LLC:
Property Transaction: PNK S1, LLC purchased a 1.2-million-square-foot warehouse at 1365 East Hightower Trail in Social Circle, Georgia, in 2024 for approximately $29 million.
Sale to US Government: On February 3, 2026, PNK S1, LLC sold the property to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (ICE) for $128.5 million, to be converted into an immigrant detention facility.

Ownership Background: PNK Group is a developer that utilizes industrial construction techniques, with projects in the United States, including Georgia and Pennsylvania.

Note: The information regarding the ownership and the transaction is based on reports from February 2026.