Day: November 23, 2017

I am Charlie Brown

I think maybe it’s because my birthday coincides with the first syndicated appearance of Charlie Brown in the newspapers back on October 21, 1950. I have always been like “good ol’ Charlie Brown” even before I knew who he was. It could be that or either just the luck of the Irish (or the Scotch-Irish in my case) but when I was young, every time the gang in our neighborhood got together to choose up sides for baseball or football, I always started to get a knawing feeling in the pit of my stomach. I just knew that no matter what happened, I would be the last one chosen for the team.

It wasn’t that I was that bad a player, because I wasn’t. There were just a lot of decisions which entered into who was chosen and who wasn’t. Rickey was chosen first because he was the fastest. Mikey was chosen early because he was small and quick and could maneuver well. Mike B. was chose early because of his HUGE size. Hiram was chosen, because he was the meanest and nobody wanted to choose the meanest guy last. Stanley was the friendliest so he got picked. So, by the time the last choice came around, it was me who was left. The last boy to be chosen.

I was mediocre at most things. In baseball, I was probably the best hitter though. I later won a lot of games for my team in Little League, although I was the last kid picked by a coach for his team. I steered away from baseball and football in High School and went with “individual” sports like golf and tennis, where I did well.

I’m not sure what the problem has always been. Maybe I don’t smile enough. I sure never kissed up to anyone just to be chosen, I considered that below my dignity. Guess it’s just part of that Scotch Irish heritage thing again, where my ancestors never bent their knees to the English. I am sure quite a few of my ancestors got a chopping or a hanging because they wouldn’t bend quickly enough.

FREEDOMMMMM…….Hmm,..guess I watched “Braveheart” one too many times.

I was big, but not the biggest, fast but not the fastest, quick but not the quickest. For sure I was never the meanest. Definitely not the friendliest. Maybe the quirkiest. Yep, for sure that.

But I guess the main thing is that it really never bothered me that much back then to BE the one chosen last. It bothered all the other guys, and if they were the last one picked they would raise all kinds of hell, and get their feelings hurt. I never did. It bothered me some, but all I really wanted to do was be a member of the team, and I always got to do that even if I was the last one, so what did it matter really? The proof of your worth comes after the choosing not during it. So, I guess that’s another reason why I was always the last one chosen. I took it calmly. I was always the mediator and rarely the instigator. It must be because I’m a Libra. That causes me to believe in a certain balance. Or maybe because I believe God made us all the same on the inside.

As I have gone on through growing up and into my adult life, it has become more difficult to be the last one chosen. I still exhibit most of the same qualities I did as a kid. I am smart, but not the smartest. Quick to learn, but not quite the quickest. I work hard, but there are probably some people out there who work harder. I am consistent in my beliefs about how people should be treated, but I am still not mean. I believe in treating other people like I want to be treated. I still don’t smile that often, and I am terrible at telling jokes. Most jokes require that you belittle someone or something, and I am just not going to do it. I don’t like talking about myself and what I have accomplished, or failed to accomplish for that matter. I just still believe in that balance. I believe in being calm and waiting for all the decisions to be made and for all the choices to be exercised.
I believe that fairness should be Universal and not just reserved for the richest, the strongest, the most advantageously placed politically, the meanest, nor due to any other quality that might be construed as giving a person the appearance of forbearance or special treatment. I despise favoritism. Fair is fair. People know what is fair and what isn’t. It is an innate quality that is placed within each of us a birth. The only difference is that some humans believe in “being” fair, and some don’t.

So, many days in many ways I still wait to be chosen. I have a good record in life, not outstanding but good, and always trying to be fair and fight injustice. Just like back in my baseball playing days I have had a good average and have always helped the teams I have been on. I would love to be chosen first sometime in life, BUT even if I am still the LAST one chosen I will continue to do my best to be above average. Even if things don’t turn out to be exactly fair in THIS life, I think that the Universal “balancer” will square things up one of these days. It may be a while yet, but it is one thing that IS inevitable.

I’ve noticed a lot of folks are doing the daily thanks in November for the good things in their lives. I think it’s a really good thing, and I wanted to take a chance to give thanks for the wonderful things which I have experienced in my life. I haven’t been doing it daily, so this is my “one time” thing.
I’m very thankful for my family…my wife, children, grandchildren. My Mom and Dad, my brother. (And all of my other loved ones who are connected to the ones I have just named. I could name them all, but they know who they are! ) I believe my one major goal in life, starting way back when I was a teenager, was to have a family and to do the very best I could to be a good Father. I could have chosen baseball, or golf, or music, or a career of some other sort to be my main life goal…but I had a different scenario in mind. I am thankful for being able to experience so many fulfilling things through my wonderful, supportive family.
I give thanks, or course, for all of the other things most everyone else does. Life and a chance to live it. Living in a great country, where we at least still have the freedom to come and go as we like and to do many things people in other countries can’t do. Thankful that folks can still go to Church and worship where they want, when they want. Thankful for modern medicine, it saved my life. Thankful for advances in technology, which allows me to communicate with you! Thankful for so, so many little things: running water, books, refrigeration, friends, classmates, prescriptions, underwear, automobiles, you name it, and I’m probably thankful for it.
I am thankful for music and the influence it has had on my life. I haven’t been a “commercial” success like I thought I wanted to be, but I have enjoyed the love of music just for the sake of its beauty and the satisfaction it gives me to “make” it and to listen to it. Thankful for guitars too!
I am thankful for growing up in the small town of Trion, Georgia. I am so thankful that I went to school with the people who were my classmates. That small group are like brothers and sisters to me. All of us went through so many things together. Butt whooping’s, schoolyard fights, proms, dances, football season, band, term papers, tests, Ms. Roberts, Mr. West, playing basketball in the old gym, eating at the “Y”, having plays in the old theatre, fishing in the river, sneaking out of class, loving each other, and hating each other (sometimes, but not for long) Living in a small town meant being able to walk from one side of it to the other without having to take food and water to survive. It meant spending the night at your best friend’s house so much that their parents threatened to claim you on their tax returns. It meant playing “pick up” baseball every day during the summer, and “choose up” football every day during the winter. It meant watching the river flood our beloved school to the point of uselessness. It meant the Skating rink, and the one theatre in the Country were all the places you had to go for “proper” entertainment. It meant knowing which guys had the most “bad ass” cars in town. I’m thankful I got to play baseball and then golf. I had two or three of the best coaches a boy could have in Dugan Peace, Jesse Emory, and J.W. Greenwood. J.W. taught me that it’s better to be lucky than good any day. Ha! It was good, and I am thankful for all of it.
I am thankful I got to go to college for five years, and although I didn’t finish, the knowledge I received has served me well. I went to both West Georgia College and the University of Georgia. I am thankful I met my future wife there, and very thankful she decided she wanted to spend time with me. (And still is!) I am not proud that I didn’t graduate. It’s been a thorn which I and nobody else, put in my side and has stayed there for almost 40 years now. But, I am thankful it still pricks me at times when I start something and I am tempted not to finish it. It has helped me finish a lot of things I would have not have, otherwise. It helped me to encourage all of my children to finish…which they all did pretty much on their own without much help from me at all!
I’m thankful I took Typing II in High School instead of Shop. I made a lot of money typing College papers for other people, and learned about as much from that as I did from my classes. It also helped tremendously my ability to edit for incorrect grammar and spelling. Makes it easy to write these epistles on Facebook too!
I am also thankful for some of the things which I have experienced in life, for which others may think to be a little odd. I experienced the death of my first child, and though it was heart wrenching, I am thankful for her, and the fact that she lived and she was ours…mine and Paula’s. She paved the way for our other children and a deeper appreciation of them for me, than I might have otherwise had. I looked at them many times and thought of her and was extremely thankful that I had three other chances to be a Father. (For as I have previously said…I think it’s my purpose in life) Her death prepared me at a very young age for the realities of life, that bad things happen and you must overcome them lest they overcome you. I am thankful that even after 43 years I can still sit here and have tears fill my eyes when I think of her. It proves to me I’m still human.
I am thankful I had some hard, manual labor jobs at the beginning of my working career. They made me determined to look for better ways to make a living. They (along with my wife) shook me out of a rut I was in and might have stayed in, and gave me impetus to go on to better things. I am thankful that I eventually found some very good people for whom I enjoyed working. I am thankful for the people I worked with, both good and bad. The good ones confirmed my philosophy that there ARE more good people than bad in this world, and the bad ones helped build my character to withstand and persevere against things which are wrong, and to have some ethics in life. I am thankful for the very hard and nerve wracking battles I had against unethical peers, who only cared for themselves and not others…who only cared for the numbers and not the people, and I am thankful that most of the time I won…though not always, and sometimes at a heavy cost.
I am thankful that I have had enough financial resources to live life at a “good” level, though never at a “super-secure” level. (I am not anywhere near rich…and never will be) It has taught me that envy is never a good quality. It has taught me that some of the things I coveted turned out to be unnecessary, and that the wealthiest people are not always the happiest. It has taught me that I should have paid better attention in “Economics 101” at West Georgia. It has taught me to be innovative in order to survive, and to try and help others who have even less. (And there are many, many of those out there, believe me…I feel blessed for what I have in comparison to a lot of people in this country and in this world)
Finally, I will end up by saying I am thankful that our Creator has allowed me to enjoy all these things and allows me to continue to be here and enjoy them. Thank you God.

I believe when I first became conscious of being an individual human being, and of having a responsibility to become “something” to the world….something of consequence, I was very afraid.  I was not even a teenager when I first had these thoughts.  “What will I be?” “What will I do?”

I wasn’t obsessive about it, just concerned.

I dabbled around with music.  I have played guitar and sang.  I sang at schools and churches.  I sang and played at functions, at skating rinks and at dances.  But, I never became a “singer” for a living, or a writer.  I tried, but I couldn’t quite get it done.  I couldn’t drive the nail into the center of the board.  I couldn’t quite close the deal.  I wasn’t in the right place at the right time.  Lord, I wish there had been a “Voice” or an “American Idol” show around in the seventies, or even the early eighties.  I’d have sure tried to get on.  I’m not sure if I would have gotten in, but I’d have tried.

I thought about sports too.  Baseball mostly.  I had some talent there, and just didn’t pursue it past my teenage years.  I became enamored of golf, and although I never was nearly as “good” at that game as I had been at baseball, it suited my goofball nature better than baseball.

I thought about these things this morning while I was sitting on the couch, drinking a cup of coffee and looking over my “Ancestry.com” account.  If you have ever dabbled with that site, I don’t have to explain what it’s all about.  It’s a place where you can plug your name and some dates into a spreadsheet of sorts and from there you plunge headlong into your ancestral past.  I’ve been playing with it for a long time now.  I’ve traced ancestors from my Dad and Mom all the way back to nearly the Middle Ages.  It’s amazing how the information has evolved over the years since I first started meddling with it.  I have found everything from Civil war soldiers to ancestors who were on the Mayflower, to Kings of England.  Most of my ancestors are more mundane, however.  Farmers, mill workers, lumberjacks and jacks of all trades.  I was working on some clues for one of my ancestors who was born in 1840 and died in 1907, when it  hit me.  That’s the same exact number of years I have been on this earth.  Then the rush of time hit me hard in the face, like a tractor trailer going seventy five.  The lifetime of that particular ancestor of mine is my lifetime.  My years.  My current number.

I wondered what their dreams were when they were 12, or 15 or 18.  I wondered what their goals for their life had been.  I wondered if they had achieved them.  I cried in my coffee because all this time I have been looking at these ancestors, it has been from a cold, impersonal and technical way.  It’s been purely from an informational standpoint, and never from a human relations one.  They were not, and are not just a name and some numbers on a page.  They were people.  People who lived and died, loved and cried, built and tore down, sang and danced, worked and played.  People who did everything I have done, and will do.  Just in a different setting and a different format.

I wonder if someday there will be a man or a woman sitting around and looking at the research which I have done on this site and thinking:  “What the hell was he thinking?”

I hope perhaps instead, that the memories I have tried to instill in those loved ones around me will be remembered, as my Grandma used to say, “until I pass out of memory”  Once that happens, I’ll be just like my dear relative who lived 67 years, during the Civil War and much strife and pain in this country…..I’ll be just a name and a number on a page somewhere, or on a stone perhaps.