Month: November 2019

The worst possible thing for someone who likes to sing is to lose their voice.

Since having vocal cord surgery in 1999, I face a “season” of hoarseness and loss of my voice on a regular basis, especially this time of year. You would think I would be used to it by now, but the inability to be able to even hum along with a song on the radio is frustrating. But yet…

I can see the beauty all around me. The huge moon…the glorious fall leaves.

I can touch my grandchildren gently. and pick them up and hug them.

I can smell the wonderful Brunswick stew I picked up last week when I warm it up.

I can hear amazing music at the touch of a button, and enjoy its depth and meaning.

I can walk, and move without pain.

Even with so many things which are wrong in this world, the ability to sift out enjoyment from the chaffe which is constantly being thrown at us is essential to maintaining our humanity. We can choose to give in to the frustration, or we can choose to turn in another direction towards the joys still available to us.

So I’m going to listen to some good music now and sleep. It doesn’t really matter if I can hum along or not. I will still cherish it.

I wished for peace on Earth, but I was naive and didn’t know it could never happen. I was 8 years old, and I wished for peace on Earth in 1958. A kids dream. I didn’t know then that because of the nature of man and men, it cannot happen. But still I wished.

I wished when I graduated from High School in 1968, that I could do something to change the world for the good.

I wished for health and happiness for my children when they were born.

I wished several times to win the lottery.

I wished and wished.

Some things happened, not simply because I wished, but because I cared enough to become involved in the things I wished for in order to make them happen.

“If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride….”

Finally, “Be careful what you wish for, because you might just get it”.

A long time ago, I think it was 1961….yes I’m pretty sure that was it. 1961. It wasn’t the greatest year for my Dad. The mill where he worked was on short time. You see, for quite some time…ever since World War II, the cotton mill had been working on government contracts.

They’d made thousands of yards of twill for uniforms. Uniforms for the army, navy, and marines. Maybe for the Air Force too. I’m not sure. All I remember is that the contracts ran out, and my Dad was on three and four day weeks. We’d already been forced to move from the house that my Dad had built on Simmons street back in 1954. He couldn’t make the 112 dollar a month payments. So we moved to ninth street into a lower priced home with 55 dollar a month payments.

But, things were still hard. Money was in short supply. Beans and taters with cornbread was a staple, along with salmon patties made with canned salmon….the kind out of the red can.

My Dad was a determined man. He couldn’t stand not being able to pay his bills. A man came around the house one day selling World Book encyclopedias. The book of knowledge. My Dad told this man, who was the “district manager” that he couldn’t afford to buy a set of those books, although he’d have liked to in order to help my brother and me in school. But….did the district manager need a salesman. “I’ve got experience in sales” said my Dad who’d never sold anything to anybody in his life. As a matter of fact, said the district manager, they were looking for somebody. “When can you start training”? said the manager. “How about right now”? said my Dad.

So began my Daddy’s career as an encyclopedia salesman. A career that ended up lasting a couple of years, and keeping a struggling family afloat.  I believe he made 50 dollars commission off of every set he sold, and he sold a lot of them in two years in Chattooga and Walker counties.

He received a “salesman’s” copy of the World Books, to take along as demos to potential customers.  That set had all kinds of special “stuff” with it  There were extra “ pullouts” with tons of colorful illustrations.  There were extra graphs, and lots of those cool pages with the acetate layovers, like the “human body” which had a base photo of a skeleton, with each subsequent clear acetate page that laid on top, being composed of the rest of the body. Lay the first page down, and there’s the muscles, then the circulatory system, then the internal organs, and so on…until the last page you laid on top was the skin, and the body was complete.  Those things were so neat!

After a couple of years, the work at the mill picked back up.  It was running 5 and 6 days a week and kept on running…wide open to the 7 day weeks of the denim years.

We got to keep that set of World Books, and being as how I couldn’t buy enough new Marvel comics to read constantly, I started using those encyclopedias as my reading material.  I was a voracious reader, and started with the A volume and worked my way forward.  I read in those books for the next 6 years, until I went to college.  They were one of the most helpful and educational “teachers” I ever had.

My Dad kept that set of encyclopedias around until they moved out in 2009 to the assisted living place.  I kept them after that for several years.  Daddy always told me “don’t get rid of these, there’s a lot of good information in here”  I knew there was, but I don’t think he ever cracked a volume open at all.  He actually hated selling encyclopedias, and was glad when he could stop.  Selling just wasn’t in his blood like it is in mine.  He just did it because he needed the money, and wanted a free set of encyclopedias for his boys

After the onslaught of the internet, and years of hauling that set of books around, I ended up giving them to a family with a little girl who liked to read.  I felt a tear running down my eye as they drove away with them.  Part of my childhood went with them, part of my Dad’s hard work and love.  I thought he mighta’ been pissed that I gave them away, but then I thought he would probably would have told me that I’d gotten all the good out of them I was gonna get.  He would have understood.

 

I believe we need change in this country. I don’t think it’s political or religious change which is needed necessarily, but an actual change in the philosophy of our lives.
Perhaps instead of College degrees our young ones should go in a different direction in the future. I think we need courses or degrees in self reliance, self sufficiency, and how to live off the land? That used to called making a living, or gaining experience.
I believe we need more carpenters, plumbers, electricians, beekeepers, farmers, midwifes, loggers, lumberworkers, animal husbandry experts, surveyers, builders, masons, etc., etc., and fewer people in all aspects of technology. That used to be called being an apprentice.
I believe we are at a crossroads in our country…perhaps in our world. Seven+ billion human beings are a LOT of people for this world to support. Nature tends to notice when things are terribly out of balance and acts to correct the imbalance.
Nature could accomplish this in any manner you could dream up. Whatever way things happen, our world will one day….perhaps sooner than later, be a vastly different place than it is presently.

Love

1If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a ringing gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have absolute faith so as to move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3If I give all I possess to the poor and exult in the surrender of my body,a but have not love, I gain nothing.

4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no account of wrongs.6Love takes no pleasure in evil, but rejoices in the truth. 7It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be restrained; where there is knowledge, it will be dismissed. 9For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10but when the perfect comes, the partial passes away.

11When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I set aside childish ways. 12Now we see but a dim reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

13And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love; but the greatest of these is love.