Month: January 2018

When I was in the 2nd grade we had this really great music teacher.  She was a hoot.  She was an older lady who wore her greying hair back in a neat bun, and always had a skirt and sweater on.  She would warm us up to sing for the “glee” club by doing musical scales, and by doing the “mi,mi,mi,” exercises.  It was great fun.  I think I enjoyed that year of school just about more than any I can remember.

The problem in the modern world is that the sound of music has turned into the sound of selfishness.

Way too many times over the past few years I have met people so shallow, I could just about see through ’em if there was a good light coming in from behind.  When they talk to you, you can tell there ain’t but one thing they are interested in, and that’s what you can do for them!  The almighty “ME”  Heck, Toby Keith even had a hit song making fun of those type of people with his “I Wanna’ Talk About ME!”  You know it:  “I wanna’ talk about me, wanna’ talk about I, wanna’ talk about #1, Oh my Me my!!”  Is that the kind of society we produced?  Now, it may be a generational thing, I don’t know.  I am not trying to be prejudiced here, but I do meet more people who are under 40 in this category than I do people who are over 40!  Not ALL!..don’t get your dandruff up young ‘uns.  NOT all of you are worthless Me, me’s!! Matter of fact, MOST of you aren’t!

I’d like to turn the ship around and head it in the other direction.  But, what do we do?  Is some of it my generations fault?  Probably.  Did some of us unintentionally demonstrate by example that the almight “ME” was the most important thing?  Maybe.  But what’s the solution?

One thing that I do every chance I get is to correct these people when I can.  Most of the time I just tell them, “Hey, how about thinking about something other than yourself, poophead?”  That usually gets their attention right off the bat, and then once they are focused, you can go further into the lesson.  Ask if they have a family at home.  Ask if they have a hobby.   Ask if they EVER think about anything but work.  I mean, c’mon how important is a rug to go into somebody’s bathroom going to be 100 years from now?  (Can you tell I work for a rug producing company??)  Maybe it’s going to be MORE important that you teach your children to preserve what little in the way of natural resources we haven’t squandered yet.  Or teach them to TALK TO other people when they have problems to solve, not just talk AT them.  There’s a world of difference there!

Some of them are too driven even for common sense or practical talk though.

If I have to, I resort to the ultimate option for the Me me’s.  I tell them that their Mom was right when they were little, and if they don’t stop with the MENTAL diddling around they are performing on themselves, they might just eventually go blind to the fact that there is a GOOD and lovely world out there with a LOT of worthwhile people, places and things that deserve the intellectual processes they are wasting on themselves, so that their progeny might one day still have a world to play in, and love in, and appreciate…. (God I love long sentences!)

Next time you meet a “me” person, tell them Toby Keith was just kidding…ok?

My wife got me a little “freestanding” Satellite radio for my birthday, and I tuned it in today as I was driving home to a Alternative Station…looking for songs by “Three Doors Down” (Hah) and heard Nirvana singing this song, and it made me long for the “good old” days of the 80’s.  Now, it’s pretty bad when the 80’s become the good old days, ain’t it!

My youngest son had/has (they have hung together even after 8 years out of High School) a group of about 6 guys that were all the “group” that hung around my house.  Ate my leftovers, drank my soft drinks, played D&D, and loud music.  I didn’t mind it at all.  As a matter of fact, I kinda liked it.  I got to where I liked the music too.  Those are some great kids, as kids go.  They never really got in to too much trouble, and never

I spend too much time in the past, I know that.  I try to stay in the here and now, but it’s just impossible for me.  The waves of nostalgia just wash over me like a relentless tide, and I am taken back time and time again, to pleasant memories.

I want to do something, and anyone can participate if they want.  I am the “hour wizard” and for a short time, I can grant you back five separate hours of your life to live over again.  Now is the hard part.  YOU must sit and think, and choose those hours.  Choose wisely, I won’t give you a second chance.  Here are mine, not necessarily in order of importance or opportunity:

1.  Hour one.  Simple one here.  The hour that I made love for the first time.  It was between 8 and 9 o’clock on June 14, 1969. The person who was there with me, is still with me…and always will be no matter what happens.

2.  Hour two.  The early 1970’s.  I drive our little Green Ford ‘Pinto’ station wagon down  the old dirt “Snake Nation” Road towards my Grandma and Grandpa Stewart’s house.  It’s an old two story clapboard house with wooden shingles on the roof.  There are still a few bee hives sitting around the house.  Grandpa has been a beekeeper and honey gatherer all his life.  He is in his early 80’s, but still fairly fit.  Grandma is in her 70’s, and can still walk further up and down the mountain roads than I can.  She probably could walk 20 miles if she needed to.   I am bringing my first child, their Great granddaughter, to spend the night.   I see Grandma waiting out on the front porch.  She always hears the cars coming, always.

We sit out on the front porch that evening in the rough hewn swing and rock out and back.  The chains make sort of a musical “Squeak” in rhythym with the “Katy-dids” as they rub their legs together calling out to each other in the night.  Grandma had fixed us dinner the first thing as soon as we got there.  There is no turning her down when it comes to that.  If you come to her house, you get a meal.  I still smell the fried chicken sizzling on the stove and the fresh hand rolled biscuits cooking in the oven.  Grandma made everything perfectly, and never, ever owned a measuring cup or spoon.  She just would pour out whatever she was adding into her hand and put in in the pot.   All of this takes place in the first hour after we get there.  As I turn to Granda to give her a hug….she fades away.  My hour is gone.

3.  Hour three:  St. Mary’s Hospital, Athens Georgia.  September 2, 1970.  My first daughter is born.  My wife has had a very difficult pregnancy, and this is the culmination.  At 7:14 p.m., the Dr. comes out and tells me “It’s a Girl”  I excitedly run to the pay phones down stairs and call my parents.  My Mother in law is there with us.  My father in law is in California, and she gives him a call.  The pediatrician, a stoic looking Chinese born Dr., comes out and tells us that the baby is in perfect condition and will be brought out to the nursery in a few minutes.  I pace nervously and have a cigarrette.  “I really need to quit this,” I think.  It will be hard on the baby.  About fifteen minutes later they bring her out to the nursery.  What a beauty she is, with mounds and loads of dark black hair and eyes so dark, they are like the night sky when there are no stars.  I put my face up next to the nursery window and puff on it.  She is right under me, and I stand there and watch her blink, and stuff her tiny fist in her mouth.  I think of all the things that we are going to do, she is the first grandaugher on both sides, and will be spoiled to death….I turn to talk to my Mother in law and she starts to fade away….my hour is gone.  On September 4th, in the wee hours of the morning, my baby Kari Lynn Bowers dies.  They could never figure out what went wrong.  I only wish that they had been as liberal back the about nursery policies as they are today….I never got to hold her, or touch her…and my heart still breaks.

Hour 4:  1962, early Summer.  I had waited until my last year of eligibility to play little league ball.  I was big for my age, and all the other kid’s teased me about my size.  “Man, you gotta be at leas 16” they would say.  The opposing team parents would “naa-naa” too, but I had my birth certificate!  I had started off hot in practices, losing all the coaches baseballs by knocking them over the fence into the river.  I had some power during practices.  But,..I had a case of nerves when it came to real games.  I was in a slump, a really bad slump through the first three games I didn’t have a hit.

It was the ninth inning against the “Yankees”  Old Russel Fox was pitching and we were behind 7-4.  The bases were loaded, and I was up.  I felt that tightening in my stomach that I always got…almost sick to the point of throwing up.  I came up to bat and the ump called the first one:  “Strike one”  right down the middle.  Russell grinned at me, and everyone jeered.  The next pitch was too far in, and hit my HARD on the elbow.  I wasn’t then and never have been one to show emotion, so I didn’t let anyone know how bad it hurt.  But I was seeing RED.  I was so pissed I could have killed him, because I knew he did it on purpose.  He wound up for the next pitch, and threw his fast ball straight down the middle.  I put it so far over the right field fence, that it is still floating down the Chattooga River!  As I trot around the bases with the world’s biggest and silliest grin on my face…the baseline fades away..my hour is up.  I hit 10 more home runs that year after the ice was broken.

Hour 5:  It’s Christmas day 1958.  I had never seen a White Christmas.  After all this IS Georgia and Mr. Heat Miser has sway down here!  I went to bed that night with all the visions of a new baseball bat, and glove in my mind.  Maybe some new comic books.  It’s seven o’clock the next morning and Mom says:  “Larry, wake up and come and look outside”  I go look out our big old picture window at the black cherry tree in the front yard.  It has snowed!  It has snowed on Christmas morning!!  I can’t go out in it until we open our presents though, so I start to tear into them.

There’s some new “Scrooge McDuck” comics.  Darn stingy old Scrooge is my favorite.  There’s a box of tinker toys, and a wooden puzzle of the United States.  But…that’s all.  I am a little disappointed, and then from the dining room I hear a “hoot, HOOT”  I go running in there, and there sit’s my Dad with a TRAIN going around the tracks.  A real Lionel with smoke belching out the top!  He already has the track together and is sitting there laughing as hard as I am, because he is enjoying it just as much as me!  I sit down on the floor and play with the train for a while..then I remember the snow.  I want to make a snowman, and NOW!  Mom wraps me up in my coat, puts on gloves, and as I start out the the door…..the snow starts to fade away….my hour is up.

I am not going to put this on a bulletin board.  It’s really too personal I guess, but I would like to hear back from my friends.  What hours to you want back….remember choose wisely!

Peace and Love!

I remember the days when “going out to eat” for us meant taking the 59 Chevy with the big fins and driving down to the local A&W drive in. It used to be situated somewhere close to where the Credit Union now sits. There wasn’t any “Longhorns” or “Red Lobster” and…we couldn’t have gone there even if there had been. Mill wages were low in those days…the late 50’s and very early 60’s. Luxuries were few. I got 50 cents a week for doing my part of the chores. I washed and dried dishes and raked leaves. I did various other “as per” tasks too. If Daddy thought of anything else that needed doing which I was capable of doing, then “per” Daddy…I’d better do it if I wanted my two quarters. I wanted them badly. Those two quarters bought me some cokes, some candy bars and three comics. Comics started out at a dime when I first started reading them. When they went up to 12 cents sometime in the sixties, I was so mad I coulda’ bit nails in two. I asked for a raise in my allowance, and much to my surprise my Dad starting giving me three quarters a week! I figure my Dad must have known about inflation and such.

Anyway, we went to the A&W once every couple of weeks. I loved those slaw dogs and a frosty mug of root beer. If I was on death row right now and they asked me what I wanted for my final meal I would tell them if they could find an old fashioned A&W, I would take two foot long slaw dogs with mustard and a large mug of root beer in a frosted mug. I would.

The little waitress (not a server back then) would come out with her brown paper pad, and ask for our order. She jotted it down, and within minutes would be toting that big old window tray with the hooks on the side back to the car with all the goodies on it. Of course we all had a mug of root beer. What in the world good would it have been to go to A&W and order a coke to drink? Their tater tots were delicious too, and I often had them to go along with the hot dog. I believe that once or twice Dad bought one of the mugs from them. I think a lot of people liked them…and probably quite a few drove off with them. The A&W people knew though…and when they came back again they’d get charged for those mugs! They finally got smart at some point in the future and started selling those little “souvenir” small mugs.

All of this from watching a football game being played in subzero weather and seeing a guy actually drinking an ice covered beverage of some kind….

A very old man was taking a walk down a secluded beach in South Florida.  It was very early in the morning, and there was nobody else out yet.  So, the old man had the beach to himself.

It had been a very stormy night, but the sun was breaking bright and brilliant over the Eastern horizon on this following morning.  So, the old man was happy.  He was lost in his musings about the past, his past, and was humming quietly to himself as he ambled along scuffing his feet across the sand.  He thought back to all the dreams of his youth, and how they hadn’t quite worked out. Still, things had been pretty good.

He looked down towards the beach where the surf was coming in and in the breaking, foamy water spied a large dark looking box.   Curious, he shuffled down towards it, taking his small little old man steps.  It appeared to be some type of chest.  The wood was dark and worn smooth, apparently from being in the water so long.  Sort of like driftwood.  It had bright golden bands of some type of metal around it, and the lid of it was slightly cracked as if it was about to pop open.  Excited now, the old man pulled it in further away from the water.

“This is really something” he thought

Sitting down next to the little chest, which was about the size of a loaf of bread, he pulled as hard as he could on the top.  The little crack became larger and the lid popped open, making him fall back into the soft sand.  Peering inside, hoping to see gold or silver he instead saw what appeared to him to be a snow globe.  “Well, if that don’t beat all” he thought “It is close to Christmas though” he muttered.

He reached in and grabbed the little globe and realized suddenly that it was very heavy for its size.  “Dang” he swore.   He hefted it out and held it in both hands, and peered down at it.  A close examination revealed that what he at first thought was a snow globe actually now looked more like quartz, a smoky white type of stone of some kind set into a beautiful piece of wood like none he had ever seen before.

As he looked into the crystal, the smoky color begin to become clearer and clearer until it was like glass.  The weight of the ball now seemed so heavy he could no longer hold it, and it was becoming quite hot.  He sat it down into the sand and peered closely into it.  Suddenly the old man was jolted like he had been hit by lightning.  Images began to appear inside the crystal.  They were familiar places, but didn’t look exactly right to him.

“What the hell is this?” he asked to himself, suddenly becoming alarmed.

 

A voice inside his head answered, “It’s the future”  “I give the gift of sight into the future.”

It was a soft feminine voice, like the type one would ascribe to coming from an Angel.

“What are you” he said

“I am the future” the voice whispered “If you wish to see; you have only to say so.”

“Well sure.” The old man answered “I’m not gonna be around much longer anyhow I want to see what happens”

“Are you sure?”  The sweet voice echoed back.

“Yes, please show me.” He said

The inside of the crystal began to swim before the old man’s eyes, and images started to flow into the ball, scenes from which he could not turn away.  “Definitely not a snow globe.” He thought.  The images started flowing by, at first like a lazy little creek, but soon coming in a torrent like a raging river.  The old man could not turn away.

He wanted to run, but he couldn’t move.  He wanted to yell, and then to scream but he couldn’t even whisper.  “So this is really what is going to happen?”  He thought with horror and excitement mingled together all at once.  His mind could barely comprehend what he was witnessing.

“Yes” said the voice, which had changed to the hoarse croak of an ancient crone….

It took all of the old man’s strength to pick up the crystal ball and place it back into the little chest.  It seemed to burn him like the coldest ice and the hottest flame at the same time.  As he shoved it back into the chest and slammed the little lid shut, he felt a fluttering deep in his chest.

“Oh no.” he said

He gently sunk down into the sand, as his heart slowed to a stop and quit beating.  He didn’t feel any pain, just a sense of longing.

As the tide continued to come in, the water moved under the little chest like a finger and swirled under the sand until the chest started to move, and then float.  It floated out of the old man’s already cold fingers and washed back out into the ocean.

It rode back out onto the waves almost ready to ride on the ocean currents, until a small child, scarcely over the age of five ambled down towards the surf. The chest changed direction and started floating slowly towards the child.

Perhaps someone younger could bear to see the mysteries seething inside.  Perhaps not.

 

 

 

 

“When you’re weary, feeling small….when tears are in your eyes, I’ll dry them all.” “I’m on your side…”

It’s important to remember, who’s on your side. Because in this life you must choose a side.

Bridge Over Troubled Waters, by Simon and Garfunkel was the first song I heard on the radio back in 1970 as I was driving home from the hospital after my daughter died. It has both haunted and encouraged me for well over forty years now, most especially that one line: “when you need a friend, I’m sailing right behind,”

…. and I have these days when I have done nothing to be a friend, or very little, but in some odd coincidence I hear this song on the radio driving home from dropping off a very wonderful little baby, and I’m encouraged that tomorrow will be a good day.

Remember I’m on your side, and I’m sailing right behind.

Don’t underestimate the gift of the light with which we were created.

It can be bright enough to totally illuminate our lives, and the lives of others with whom we come in touch, if we allow it to shine.

It is the most powerful tool against the darkness which attempts to repress our happiness and balance.

It is the one thing which connects not only humanity, but all life.

We are all star dust, combined intricately with….

The light of love.

The first cup of coffee in the morning is a wonder. I may have one more during the day…but the aroma, the warmth, the taste of that first cup, is marvelous. Such a simple thing.

On days when the Grandbabies run in and down our long hallway, hollering “papa..nana” my heart soars with my love for them, for all my family. For my friends. Such a simple thing.

I love reading a good book, watching a good movie. I like cornbread, beans, and taters which I cook myself, better than 99% of restaurant food. I like clothes made out of cotton. Simple things.

I like looking at the bright stars on a dark, dark night. Sometimes I go to the local cemetery when there is a meteor shower, cause it’s the darkest place in town and the people there don’t ever ask for a thing but respect.

I love all kinds music, and when I’m not playing it I have my own radio “in my head” I can’t ever remember a time when there was no music. I cut my teeth on Patsy Cline and Hank Williams. Simple stuff

I love a walk in the spring and the fall around my tiny little town. The familiar houses, the streets..they are comforting. It’s home, even with it’s warts and scars I still love it…I love the smell of the cloth being finished at the cotton mill, and the grassy, oniony smell from the first spring cutting off the little league fields. The same ones I played on are still there, the old dam and the spillway still the same. I miss the old school, and how I used to go around the grammar school during the school year with a pocket full of change and hide it in the trees, and under rocks, and in the bushes where the little first through third graders would find it.

I love sunsets and sunrises and funny shaped clouds. All simple things, all mostly free things as the majority of good things are in life. I guess what I’m trying to say, is simply…I love life. I hope you do too.