Month: September 2018

It’s not what you think…

I was a pretty good baseball player. I led the Pony league in batting average for two of the three years I played. Hit some good home runs although if my memory is correct, Tom Brewster, Junior as we knew him then, had more home runs(we were both lefties, and he could pull the ball into the tennis courts better than me. Mine were mostly to center field and had to be “run out” since there were no fences. Several of mine ended up in the Elementary School yard though) Thing is, as good as we were, we didn’t get any trophies. They didn’t give them out back then just for participation. You had to win the league, or the All stars, so….no baseball trophies on my shelf. I didn’t have anything from those wonderful days…at least I didn’t think I did.

I had been cleaning up in my folks house last year before we sold it. I thought I had everything and was making a last sweep of the place. I looked back in the far corner of the closet in the “dark room” and saw the outline of a ball bat. I retrieved it and was taken aback. It was my #34 Orlando Cepeda bat! A bat I had used in many games to hit those low screaming line drives down the first base line. The bat I used to hit a scorching line drive to center field that rolled all the way to that old black pipe water fountain at the Grammar school. I took it outside and swung it for 10 minutes, feeling the balance, and heft of that old bat.

I hadn’t known Dad had saved it. Maybe it was his weapon of last resort for intruders. But, it hadn’t been under the bed…it had been in the corner of the closet. Dad had carried that bat through three moves and had kept it. I wandered back in my mind, remembering how he had been at all my games cheering me on, just as he had later attended all my brother’s football games. Could it be that he had actually been that proud of his crazy acting lefty son? Maybe so, I thought as I took my trophy out and laid it in the seat of my car.

Today I was able to see and speak with each of my children. I was able to kiss my three youngest grandchildren, and tell them I loved them. I had supper with my wife of 46 years, and took the dogs out for a walk. I then took a 40 minute walk around town myself.

Sometimes I gripe about the way things are going in this country, and in this world, but I am so…so very lucky. If I make it one more day, or 30 more years, I am so very lucky.

I am not rich in terms of dollars and cents. As a matter of fact I live from month to month. But I have plenty to eat, and my barky dog located home is paid for. And if that’s all I have to endure, I am so very lucky.

I am not a refugee from war. I don’t live in a terribly repressive country, though some would make it that way if they could. I do my best to not let them because I am lucky enough to live where I am able to do so. I can still get in my car and drive pretty much anywhere I want without being bothered, unless I break a law.

I could, if I wanted to, go to any house of worship in this country and I would not be kept out.

I am so lucky to have been born where I was born. Yes, sometimes I gripe about the way things are going, because I want my grandchildren to feel lucky too when they grow up.

Now, I don’t have all the answers, but neither do any of you other people out there. Together we might be able to put something out there that’s gonna last. Together. With compromise, and compassion, and conversation….other than all this name calling stuff. It serves no purpose.

I am so lucky, and if you are reading this now, so are most of you.

Let’s try a little love. Start with your family tomorrow like I did with mine today. Work your way out from there and mean it!

If you are a Christian, remember Jesus said to love your neighbor….but he also said to love your enemy. The common word is love.

As the season changes, we all hope for some cooler weather, some rain. We all hope for peaceful evenings and beautiful sunrises and sunsets. For the most part, all human beings like these things.

Most of us love good food and drink, and we love our families. We like warm blankets when it’s cold, and ice cream cones in the summer. We like hugs from our loved ones.

Some love to read books, some like movies. Lotsa people like wine, or a good beer. A college football game.

To snuggle with our lovers, or our babies.

We love a breath of fresh cool air in the mornings, a good cup of coffee.

All humans enjoy some of these things…..so

I cannot understand it that when humans have so many things in common that they like,….they are able to hate each other so much….over their skin color, or their beliefs in some God, or if they are female, or speak another language, or if they don’t dispose of their toe nail cuttings in a sacred place.

What in the name of creation is wrong with our species! Where did the flaw in our evolution or the wrinkle in our culture occur which makes us such killers of people who other people care so deeply about.

It makes no sense….it makes no sense…

Talk, talk, talk, talk….humans do a lot of it! Politicians, religious leaders, professors, newscasters, plain old man and woman on the street, etc., etc. You name them, they talk. I talk…a lot.

Quotes about talking are numerous: “talk is cheap” “If people listened to themselves more often, they would talk less” “The less you talk, the more you’re listened to.” Those who know do not talk; those who talk do not know.” One must talk little and listen much”

My theory about humanity is that we would be a much kinder, gentler species if we had evolved without a voice box. Only missing that one part of our body…nothing else. Same brain, same senses, everything but….a voice.

Think about humanity as a whole having to go through our own history signing to each other instead of talking. How much different do you think we would be? There are a lot of things we do with our voice, but would we miss them if we had never known them?

How much closer attention would we have had to pay to each other? Would we be a more personable and culturally interwoven species without all the different languages having developed? Would touch have played a more important part in our development? Our eyes convey so much of our inner soul even as we are, just think about what they would convey if we had no voice. How much more acute would our other senses have become without the “easy way out” of talking?

Would we have had less war?

Maybe this will give you something to think about……if I see you out and about, we’ll talk about it.

Rarely since my Dad died in 2010, have I dreamt of him. Maybe twice. I don’t know why, because I really loved that man.

Last night I dreamed about him, and I gotta get this down before it starts to fade with the daylight.

We were playing in a golf tournament, as we often did, and we were on the schedule to tee off, and I kept forgetting things. I forgot my shoes and was going to play barefooted. I forgot my clubs and he went and got them. I forgot golf balls, and he gave me some of his. Finally, when I didn’t have tees he said, : “damn son, one of these days you’re going to have to start taking responsibility for your stuff on your own!”

Then I hit a great drive down the fairway and he said: “Nice drive son, now let’s move forward!” I was the happiest I can remember in such a long time! He said: “Let’s move forward”.

It was a super round of golf. Me, Dad, Ted and Matt.

You can’t ever go back to the past, all you can do is hit your best drive, and move forward. I’m ready now to move forward, and although I’ll cherish all my past memories, I’m going to be happy making new ones.

Thanks for helping me again Dad. You were always there for me when I needed you.

I got out and walked the “hills of Somerset” this morning. It was so very foggy. I though of going down the road to Woodstation and walking, but dreaded driving in the thick pea soup. So I walked the hills and thought.

I thought about all the years I have lived, and all of the joy I have experienced with my family and friends, bittersweet with the absence of so many who I have loved so dearly..

I thought about the condition of humanity, and how, although there is very little I personally can do about it, I will do as much as I can.

I thought about the passing of the seasons, and how autumn is almost upon us, although you can’t tell right now, but soon it will be here. The pumpkins and cornstalks and hay bales will be out in people’s yards. The pumpkin farms will be full of little kids taking hay rides and picking them out a great big orange one to take home to carve into a Jack O’ lantern.

I thought about how my granddaughter is getting married this weekend. The very first of my grandchildren to take this step. I wish I could be there, but she knows how I love her and wish her the very best.

I saw baby Evie, now 2 3/4 years old, heading out for nursery school. How much she has changed in such a short period of time.

I love to walk, because it does give me time to think, and to reflect on things. I think that even though our country and our world is in such a big mess, there is still love to be had, and memories to be made, and people to make happy. There are people who need help, who we need to help.

As the ghost of Jacob Marley told Ebenezer Scrooge when Scrooge told him he was a good man of business: “Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, benevolence, were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!”

Mankind is our business, whether it’s our beloved families or perfect strangers who are in need. Get out and walk today if you can and think about all these things.

I had at least three ancestors serving in this battle. My Great Grandfather Bowers was in the North Carolina 39th Regiment which helped drive Rosecrans from the field on the 19th of September during the battle. My Great-great Grandfather Garner Davenport was in the 65th Georgia Volunteers from Fannin County Georgia. My Great Grandfather Jeptha Locklear was in the Georgia 47th Infantry at this battle and was later taken Prisoner of war at the Battle of Atlanta. My other Great Grandfather Hulan Berg Davenport was in the 11th Georgia regiment which was part of Longstreet’s Division. He fought at Gettysburg, but I am not sure if the 11th was part of the Battle of Chickamauga. Can’t find anywhere where it says they were. Longstreet was at Chickamauga and had troops with him, however. My Great great Uncle Lt. Larkin German was also in the Georgia 65th, and had an article where he killed a sniper who had shot one of his Davenport cousins who was standing next to him at the Battle of Chattanooga. I knew as I child, whenever I went through this park, which was hundreds of times I had a feeling of awe I could not shake. The number of men who fought and died here….staggering in it’s scope and yet never knew that some of my ancestors were here, and thank God…survived the madness and death.

The baby whisper wind that blew through the early morning air at Trade day this morning reminded me that fall is coming. One more time, fall is coming. Change is in the air.

People were bringing in Halloween doodads to sell. Pumpkins and scarecrows, fall leaves and the horn of plenty. Everything had a hue of orange and yellow mixed with a little brown. Fall colors. It’s not too early to use them, because those holidays get here and pass by as fast as a New York subway headed to Harlem in a New York minute.

Halloween screams by you, then Thanksgiving flies through like a Turkey, almost ignored in the anticipation of “Black Friday” and what I now call “the spending season” known to some as Christmas. (And Hanukah, and Kwanza too!) Then slipping right on in behind those quickly passing holidays, on tip toes in new cotton socks comes New Years. 2015 this go round.

The birthday fairy comes for me in October, and I will be seeing my 64th fall. Although I can’t remember the first few, since I have been able to remember, I have found it’s my favorite season and the most beautiful time of the year. I’ve had the privilege of living through some amazing autumns. I’ve had the luck of living in the best of times.

The first frosts will probably fall in October. That’s usually the case here in Georgia. I can’t wait for that first heavy one, and to be able to go outside and take deep breaths of that apple crispy air. Can’t wait for someone to fire up their fireplace somewhere nearby so I can smell the wood fire burning. The mosquitoes and ants will go bye-bye, the snakes will hibernate, and I can take a walk out in the woods somewhere without slathering myself in bug gunk and being scared of stepping on a rattlesnake. I’d really like to walk a little on that Pinhoti trail this year.

A person never knows when one of these glorious Autumn days will roll around and others will be enjoying it, but you won’t. The uncertainty of life being ever present, tempers our anticipation of seasons to come. So, the best thing we do is to enjoy the baby whisper breezes as they come. And so I’ll leave you with the lyrics to my favorite Fall song by the great Johnny Mercer:

The falling leaves

Drift by my window

The autumn leaves

Of red and gold

I see your lips

The summer kisses

The sunburned hands

I used to hold

Since you went away

The days grow long

And soon I’ll hear

Old winter’s song

But I miss you most of all

My darling

When autumn leaves

Start to fall

My Grandmother Laura (Locklear) Bowers, never had a sunburn in all of her life. At least that is what she told me. I have no reason to doubt her word either. I remember as a child seeing Granny in the summertime turn a dark, dark brown. “It’s the Indian blood” she would say.

She told me of her childhood, and how she had been put out into the cotton fields as a child with a burlap sack and told to pick cotton. And so she did, all the day long. It was not something which was out of the ordinary in the early 1900’s for a child to work those long days in the sun. In the aftermath of the Civil war, “The Reconstruction” had left the South broken and divided. Families had to “do the best they could do” said Granny, in order to get by.

So from that childhood of hard work in the field, and “never getting a sunburn” she went to an early marriage to a man who was old enough to be her Father. A man who was actually a friend of her Father’s. There was only three years difference in my Grandfather Bowers and my Great Grandfather Locklear. My Grandmother was 23 years younger.

She married young and had a lot of children.

My Grandfather had lost most of his first family and obviously was a man who believed in having children. Granny had 19 children. Many of them died in childbirth or as infants. Eight of them lived to see adulthood. Those years were in the deep center of the Great Depression. My Dad was born in 1928. Dirt poor in a mill town. All the kids started to work as children in the mill. All the money was needed to buy food and a few clothes. “Living hand to mouth” I remember Granny saying.

I don’t remember my Grandpa Bowers, as he died in 1952 and I was only two years old. I had been living with my Mother’s family for those first two years in Blue Ridge and probably didn’t have much time with my Grandfather. I have never seen a photo of my Grandfather and me at the same time. I don’t know if one exists or not. I have a number of them with my Granny and me in the same photo. In a lot of them, there was some kind of work going on. Cooking, washing clothes, hanging clothes, gardening. Work to be done, and not much time for play.

Granny married again sometime in the late 50’s. A Kansas man named Arthur Knox. I remember much more of him than I can go into right now. He was good to Grandma. He died in 1964 and she was alone again. Much of her life after that revolved around where she was going to stay, which child she was going to live with, where to go. She went from place to place, staying for the longest time with my oldest Aunt, Addie.

She always seemed to be there for all the important things. High School graduations, weddings, funerals. She lived a hard life and died at age 92 back in 1988. I had been married for almost 20 years by then and had three children. My wife and I were busy raising our little ones.

I know I speak often and tenderly of my other Grandparents. My Mom’s folks. But Granny Bowers played a big part in my childhood. I was out at the old Trion cemetery the other day and thought about her, and her favorite meal of pinto beans, taters and cornbread. I think I must have inherited her tastes because it’s also my favorite. You can’t beat simplicity. I believe Granny lived that philosophy.

The newscaster made the comment this week about a “world in crisis” with all the wars, disease, killings and just generally depressing things going on around the earth. Some are looking for the second coming, while others are stockpiling for the coming breakdown of society, and the anarchy which will follow.

The things which are happening on a global scale, I have no power to change. The only change I can accomplish is on a one to one basis. I do what I can for those whom I can do for. I don’t post it on Facebook, unless it involves having to use that medium to accomplish what needs to be done. I have given more this year than any year in my life. I hope to do more next year. In most cases the things are small in and of themselves, but bring hope to another human being. That is, in my opinion, the only way we can change the world.

Politicians can’t do it. They all lie like dogs. They put on political ads with other people’s money trying to see which one can top the other for the biggest misleading spot of the campaign. We can’t depend on hardly any of them.

The super rich people, the billionaires, they aren’t going to do it. Most of them want to keep every red cent they can get their hands on, and even the ones who do give away a lot of money have their own “pet” causes they support. If a hungry man wrote them a letter asking for money for groceries, chances are they’d never see it. Some aide, or assistant would waylay it.

Most Churches ain’t going to do it. Got a letter today saying as to how a church needed a LARGE amount of money to renovate the building. It was an amount that’s big enough to buy many a homeless person a meal, or an old person their medicine. I’ll send these folks some money though.

Most of this stuff doesn’t give people hope. Seeing that another person cares about you as a human being is what will do it. Treating the least of your fellow humans as equals will do it. Ask them to do the same when they are able, and most will.

I’ve got to believe that the coming generation of humans are going to be able to find a way to live together in peace. One day in the not too distant future they will figure out that killing each other for the petty, insignificant things we are doing it for now is not productive. They are going to wonder why their forefathers ever argued over if they should care for the old and sick, or whether or not to feed and house needy people. It’s a no brainer really. The coming generation is going to be a lot smarter than we are now.

That’s my hope, and if you are at all human, it should be your hope too.