Month: December 2019

As I have said before, we spent a half of a school year in 1960 at my Grandparent’s house in Blue Ridge because Mom was sick. I was enrolled in school there for almost half the year, which including the Christmas vacation for that year.

My Grandparent’s residence was a desolate place back then. It was the very last occupied house on Snake nation road at that time. A rough, ragged, rocky, muddy when it rained, and creek crossed road which took about 30 minutes to traverse from the turn off at the cemetery, to their modest gray wooded little two story house. Grandpa’s eight to ten bee hives stood like the sentinels of Stonehenge out in front of their house on top of huge flat rocks Grandpa had dragged up there on a wood sledge. I can imagine that their construction probably resembled in miniature that wonder of the English countryside, because the hill leading from the road to Grandpa’s house was extremely steep. A lot of times when it was wet and muddy my Dad had to get a strong running start from Snake nation road before he turned into Grandpa’s driveway and then as soon as he turned left, he had to gun the gas as hard as possible to try and make the curve up the hill to the tiny parking space in front of the house. Sometimes we just didn’t make it. The tires might have been a little too worn, or the mud a little too thick. We would end up having to park down below the beehives out in the high grass and grab our suitcases and trek up the hill, trying our best not to slip and fall flat on our faces.

But, this year my Mom, my brother and I were already there, and it was for Daddy alone we waited on the day before Christmas Eve. I heard his car first and went and stood out front, next to the porch. He came around the curve which was just in eyesight across the road from “Uncle Lark’s driveway. Lark Davenport’s was my Grandpa’s Uncle…his Mother’s brother and his farm sat across Long Branch creek from Grandpa’s house. The only way to get over there in a hurry was to walk the narrow little half log bridges that the two men had laid down across the fast running little creek in order to access each other’s house if the need arose. It rarely ever arose, but the logs were there just in case.

Daddy drove up the driveway and into Grandpa’s little parking space without any problems that day since it was dry…cold, but dry. It seemed like it was always cold in Blue Ridge that time of the year not matter what was happening elsewhere. We were in the “mountains” of Georgia…..the foothills of the Smokey Mountains which lay not too many miles away across the border into North Carolina.

I hugged my Dad, and my brother ran up to him and Daddy picked him up. Mom didn’t have much to say…things still very unsettled between them.

Grandma and I had been the ones to get the little Christmas tree a few days earlier. We had gone out into the woods and hiked around for quite a while, and found just a little old pine tree that looked nice. Grandma cut it down with the hatchet she had brought with her, and we took it back and Mike and I helped her decorate it. It was about the size of Charlie Brown’s little tree and Grandma had put it up on a table so that the lights could be seen…that one string of lights that she owned. There were maybe a dozen ornaments on it. It looked wonderful to me…as beautiful as any Christmas tree before or since. Grandma also hung our stocking from their mantle, on the far ends away from where the vent from the stove was. There were candy canes hanging around also, giving the old house a festive and fabulous look.

We always slept upstairs in the old house. Since the only source of heat in the house was a potbellied wood stove in the “living room” downstairs. During the cold Christmas weather we slept under 5 or six quilts upstairs. It was one of those situations where when you got warm, you didn’t move out of your “spot” If you moved over a foot, you would have to warm up that spot all over again. Most of the time you could see the fog from your breath, if you had your head out from under the covers. This was how we bedded down on Christmas Eve that year.

I never slept well on Christmas Eve. I always listened for Santa, but never quite heard him. Grandpa would always go “ho, ho ho” a couple of times, but I always knew it was him. He wasn’t fooling me. I heard the trunk of a car slam shut after we had been in bed an hour or so….then drifted off into a light sleep.

I heard Grandpa stoking up the potbelly stove about 5 am, and I waited the required 30 minutes or so until I knew the downstairs would be warm before I woke my brother up and we went running downstairs. All the grownups were already up and having coffee. Grandma already had biscuits in the oven, and we know that a delicious breakfast would soon be coming. Under the tree there were presents! In our stockings there was a plethora of oranges, apples, nuts, peppermint and other great hard candies. We could have our stockings but had to wait until after breakfast to tear into our presents.

We had three presents a piece from Santa, and one from Grandma and Grandpa. Four presents. In this day and age that would seem skimpy, but back then it seemed like more than enough. We place so much emphasis now on the number of gifts given, instead of the number of gifts given in love. There’s a big difference. I despise the TV commercial they have on nowadays with a woman called the “Gifter” whose only goal is to out give everyone else. That tells you where our society has gone.

This was the year I got a telescope, and Mike and I both got a “friction” stagecoach which shot sparks out the back when you revved it up. I also got a plastic “pinball machine” where you shot the balls up into the machine and see whether you get them to land in the highest number “slots”. I think I played that thing pretty much all day long that day. Grandma and Grandpa gave us some clothes of some kind, and I got a couple of new comic books. It was good…no, it was great.

Later on that day, the Uncles and Aunts, and numerous cousins came for dinner. Grandma’s little house was crowded to the gills. A lot of us ate dinner sitting out in the living room or even on the front porch. My cousins and I would find something to play or do after dinner. The food was nothing grand. I don’t remember if we had Turkey or roast beef. It really didn’t matter because Grandma could make anything taste good. I think later on that winter, we got iced and snowed in for over a week or so out there at the end of that old road. Grandpa had to shoot Robins for us to eat. They were delicious. When you’re hungry, I guess anything tastes good!

The air seemed to be filled with good will, good feelings and love that year. Later on, early in the spring we moved back home to Trion.

Mom had gotten better, and our lives went back to normal…as normal as it could be in our family anyway. We continued to go to Grandma and Grandpa’s house pretty much every Christmas after that. Even after my wife and I married in 1969, we continued to make an annual Christmas trek to “the mountains” Certainly, even now when Christmas rolls around, I think of those days. The camaraderie, the food, the love that we all had for one another. Those were great Christmases, as are the ones we have now with all of our children and grandchildren. The common factor is family…and love, and remembering what Christmas is all about, not the presents, not the food or the games. It’s all about the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Merry Christmas everyone.

Chapter one

With Christmas drawing near it naturally evokes many feelings and emotions in those of us who have seen a few of them come and go. In my case, more than a few.

Christmas, I think, is lived in stages in the hearts of we humans.

We begin as children, with the mystery of Santa Claus. No matter what religious persuasion to which you belong, Santa fits. He’s the epitome of unselfish giving. The uncanny being who can somehow make it around the world in only one night in order to pass out gifts to “good little girls and boys”. His existence alone during the first few years of my life, kept me from committing many awful offenses.

I solidly believed in him. I revered Christmas. Of course, being raised Southern Baptist, I also knew the story of Jesus’s birth in every different gospel version. By the time I was eight, I knew every Christmas gym in the hymnal by heart. I memorized the entire Baptist hymnal by the time I was 12, and still don’t need a book for 99% of the songs if they do the first, second and last stanzas)

But Santa was my hero, and Christmas was my big day. I kept a handmade calendar, which I drew on notebook paper, using a ruler in order to keep the lines straight, just so I could X out the days one by one starting the day after Christmas every year. I kept a calendar even after I knew there wasn’t a Santa, just because I found it reassuring to be able to visually see the days, and be able to make notes on special occasions. For many years after I got out of school, I still had those calendars, along with my genealogy charts that I had compiled with information gleaned from my Grandparents and my Great Grandma Locklear. There was some invaluable information that was lost forever when I misplaced the big, huge notebook that contained all that hard work. I still hold out hope that I’ll be going through some long packed up box someday and find that book. They might possibly still be in the attic of the old house on ninth street if somebody hasn’t thrown them away. Wonder if they’d let me in to look?

I remember quite a few Christmas Eve nights spent at my Moms’s parents house in Blue Ridge. Cold, cold nights sleeping upstairs under piles of quilts so tall, that turning over was almost impossible. You see, Grandpa Stewart only had an old pot bellied stove back then, which was a wood burning hog. He shut the air flow down at night and there was no heat at all upstairs. By midnight you could see your breath on those frigid December mornings. By six a.m., the cold had penetrated those six quilts, and as soon as I heard grandpa’s feet hit the floor, and hear the old heater start to go swoosh with heat, I was gone! Besides, it was Christmas morning! I had heard Santa downstairs during the pitch black night going “ho, ho, ho” and I wanted to see what he’d left me.

Those were the younger years, the magical years before I knew the “secret” of Santa, and became a part of Santa myself. Those were the years of the Lionel train set when I was 8….one of the few years we didn’t go to Blue Ridge, and the only year I can remember as a child when my Mom woke me up to say “look out the window, there’s snow”. There was. Those were the years before Mom got sick, before the mental illness which would haunt her the rest of her life, embedded it’s claws into her.

The years before that one had been wonderful Christmases too. I remember the set of Hoppalong Cassidy cap guns, and his replica outfits. I remember the red Radio flyer wagon, which I hauled rocks, dirt, dogs and toys in until it literally rusted through. I remember marbles in drawstring bags, matchbox cars, and tootsie toy trucks. I remember a bow and arrow set with rubber stoppers on the ends of the arrows. Then there were the comic books….usually Superman and Uncle Scrooge. I was a lucky little boy those first eight magical years.

After the first nervous breakdown Mom had when I was a fourth grader, Christmases were fraught for a few years. By the time “normality” returned, I was twelve years old. I looked at a photo of myself the other day from the sixth grade. I was on the end of one row, and had a sad, hollow look in my eyes. As I moved on through the next couple of years, and across the street to the High School, Christmas took on new meaning and understanding.

I had left behind the mysterys of Santa Claus by the time I was an eighth grader. I knew years before that about the secret. Santa Claus only existed as the spirit of Christmas. He was the joy of children, provided by the largess of the familie’s grown ups. I don’t remember exactly what day, or the exact hour I stopped believing that Santa Claus was a real person. I just remember it being a sad day. A day of disappointment. A day of numbness. How could such a thing actually be true?

I think during my High School years I actually became more affectionate of the holidays, and of Christmas. After I got over my initial disappointment at there being no “real” Santa, I began to realize that those of us who knew Santa’s secret actually became Santa ourselves, for those who still did believe. I remember thinking how I would never want to disappointment a child who still believed.

When I grew up and married, and had kids of my own, I wanted to always make sure that Christmas was a most special time of the year for them. I tried every year to make them happy, and to make my wife happy. Perhaps I went overboard on the gift giving at some points, but I didn’t care. My philosophy has always been to make the ones you love happy while you can, because you’ll never know when the day comes that you won’t have that chance.

As the Kathy Mattea song says:

… “Time passes by, people pass on

At the drop of a tear, they’re gone

Let’s do what we dare, do what we like

And love while we’re here before time passes by…”

Its never more important than it is right now, today, this year….to let people know how you feel. Let the child in you who once believed in Santa Claus take over. Approach life one more time with that innocence and awe, which made you believe in Magic

The magic is still there in most of us….I can’t say all, because I believe the joy of life and love are absent for some people, and that’s beyond sad. Some vessels are empty, and some are corrupted . I feel sadness for those people, I hope they are not beyond redemption.

For this year, this year 2018…I wish all of you my friends and family, a very Merry and Magical Christmas.

Chapter 2

…”but Jacob,” said Scrooge “you were always a good businessman.”

“Mankind was my business!” Said Marley.

And so it remains. Mankind is the business we should all be worrying about. Who doesn’t have enough to eat, or four walls to surround them? Who is down and out, and needs help? Who is hurting, either physically or mentally….financially or spiritually?

As my son reminded me once a few years ago, I only gave a single dollar to a well dressed man in downtown Chattanooga who said he was homeless. But, he did turn down my offer to buy him a meal at the Maple Street biscuit company….said he’d already eaten. And those biscuits are ‘spensive. I did, however, wish him “Merry Christmas” as I handed him that dollar. He put it in his suit pocket and said “thank you” Then I went out the next day and gave 20 dollar tips to the three young ladies who have taken turns waiting on us at Jim’s over the past year.

I consider mankind my business, oh so much more than most. And not just at Christmas either. I take Charles Dicken’s lesson to heart. Oh, I’m far, far from perfect, and I will never be mistaken for a philanthropist. I’ll muddle through by doing what little I can for my family, my friends, and those whose lives intersect with mine. I want to thank all of my family and friends, and the people around me for all the kind things they do for me. It’s mutual, and it’s a balance.

Merry Christmas if I fail to see you, or if I forget to say it again in the next few days. Merry Christmas and a Happy New year.

Chapter three – the longest night

I had a walk yesterday and timed it to end at 6:03 p.m., which is/was sunset for the day. I wanted to do this because I had read where scientists said that yesterday was going to be one of the longest nights in the entire history of the planet. Yep, that’s right. At first they were saying it was going to be THE longest night ever, but then they decided that it was sometime back in 1912 in which that happened. But last night was a very long, dark span. I slept deeply and much longer than usual. I had unusual and vivid dreams. Perhaps it was because my legs were like lead weights as I walked yesterday, or maybe it was just my imagination. That aspect of my personality doe run wild every now and then.

In some respects it was really kind of eerie. It was as silent as I can remember with the exception of a few dogs barking off in the distance. I closed my eyes as I walked down the long straight away next to the railroad track, almost an entire quarter of a mile, and tried to imagine how our distant ancestors must have felt in this season of the year. Sitting in a cave or at a rock overhang, with a tiny fire as the only heat and light. Straw as a bed, and perhaps a fur or two as cover. Hungry from not having enough to eat that day. Howls and growls of animals drifting in through the opening of their abode. A lot of them who would have considered us as prey. It’s amazing to me that our species is so tough. It’s remarkable to me that humans made it through that primitive phase.

We have survived all of that to get to this point. Now we are divided by religion and politics, along with race and class. These are the most divisive issues in our world today. Maybe there are some other “minor” issues, but these are the ones which continue to rear their ugly head. These are the ones which people are warring and dying over by the thousands every day. These are the issues fueled by the two “children” beneath the robe of the “Ghost of Christmas Present” in Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” He tells Ebenezer Scrooge:

“They are your children! They are the children of all who walk the earth unseen! Their boy’s name is Ignorance and the girl is Want! Beware of them! For upon their brow is written the word “doom!” They spell the downfall of you and all who deny their existence! But most of all beware this boy“

Ignorance and want combined with all of the divisive issues, but most of all ignorance.

We no longer sit in the dark in the caves and fear that we will become the prey of fierce animals. We ARE the fierce animals and we now prey on each other.

As we head into the Christmas Season after one of the longest nights in the history of the Earth, I wish some type of unknowable magic could be worked in the middle of one of these long Winter sleeps, and we would wake up at dawn as creatures of total love and peace….Peace on Earth, and true Goodwill to all men and women.

For some reason today I thought about the line from Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory where Gene Wilder as Willie Wonka tells his group of guests in his factory about the Oompa Loompas and their country and how they came to his factory: “Oh, well, then you know all about it and what a terrible country it is. Nothing but desolate wastes and fierce beasts. And the poor little Oompa Loompas were so small and helpless, they would get gobbled up right and left. A Wangdoodle would eat ten of them for breakfast and think nothing of it. And so, I said, “Come and live with me in peace and safety, away from all the Wangdoodles, and Hornswogglers, and Snozzwangers, and rotten, Vermicious Knids.”

I sometimes wish that a place like the Chocolate Factory existed, and that those of us who wanted to, could go there. “Well there’s Heaven” some people will say: “It’s a lot better than a Chocolate Factory” Well I’m not ready to go there quite yet. As the country song says: “Everybody Wants to go to Heaven, but Nobody Wants to Die” That’s how I feel about it. (ok, that’s my limit for clichés and quotes for the day!)

The kind of place I am thinking about doesn’t exist anymore, if it ever did. As the days grow more and more dangerous during this age and in this time, there is very little a person can do to get away from the world that want’s to harm them, unless you want to move to one of the islands that the “Survivors” have abandoned, and start using their stuff and living like them.

A lot of people have tried to create their own “safe haven” Jim Jones, and his followers. David Koresh tried. A lot of people try to start their own Valhalla, and somehow it always seems to fail. I wonder why? Is humanity and human nature so geared to be combative and hateful to other humans who don’t “fit in” that no matter what we do here on this earth, we are doomed to fail when it comes to loving and protecting those who are different? You would like to think that wasn’t so, but tell me a time and a place where there has ever been a “Chocolate Factory” for the Oompa Loompas?

Sadly, I can’t think of any. I know that all religions promise us a place like that of one kind or another. Heaven, Nirvana, you name it. We have been promised it from them all. But that’s ONLY due to us after we die. I sometimes wonder about the theory some “preachers” espouse that people are living their “hell” while they are here on earth. Some people do I think,… of their own accord.

I know there are many, many joyful things that we have while we are here. Most of the time, we don’t really see them or appreciate them while we are experiencing them, and it’s only through the glasses of “nostalgia” and memory that we look back and think about what we should have done, or might have done to make things better, or to enjoy things more. That’s probably why I reach back into the past so much through my writing. Maybe I didn’t get it right the first time! Damn I wish I had another chance sometimes!

But sometimes when really bad and horrific things happen to good people you HAVE to wonder why. Senseless murders, children molested, wars and killings of innocents. Good people having to suffer with horrible, painful diseases. Where was THEIR safe haven? Life just never ceases to puzzle me when it comes to things like that. Why do these things happen? What can the purpose of this possibly be?

I guess it’s all in what you seek while you are here. I think none of us, from the Pope to the Dali Llama really knows, with absolute certainty what is waiting for us.

I kind of hope I open my eyes and I am walking into this big Chocolate Factory where everything is made of candy and………………

Peace and Joy!

The Baby Boomers

I think that my generation, our so called “baby boomer” generation has been awarded the privilege and had the luck to grow up during the last, best America which will ever exist.

I don’t say this as a matter of contention with other generations either before or after the boomer generation, but it’s just my considered opinion.

We were the first television generation. Except instead of CSA and Bones, we had Ed Sullivan and Bonanza. We played outside in the sun and rain. We ran and ran, playing hide and seek, freedom, pick up baseball with paper tape balls and broomsticks, tackle football with no pads, and any other active game we could conjure up, including a lot of “cowboy and Indians” (please pardon me my native American friends)

Our Moms and Dads wore us out for lying, bad homework, cussing and back talking. Most of us don’t resent it, or feel like we were abused. There was rarely a parent who didn’t know when to stop. Some abuse existed, but I don’t believe it was as bad as today’s society. We had a lot more newspapers and a lot fewer news channels. A lot more reporters, and a whole lot fewer pundits.

Elvis was alive and singing, and you got his music on something you could hold, and not something you “download” Rock and roll was born, and songs had lyrics you could understand and melodies that stuck in your head. Think about “Unchained Melody” right now and then see how long it takes you to get it out of your head. There’s a reason they still use those songs in movies.

You could go off for a day and not lock your doors. You helped your neighbor with his garden and he helped you with yours, and people shared the excess with others. You could pull your car up on the curb and do most of the work on it yourself, but if you needed a mechanic you got somebody with a pouch of tools and not a computer.

People were not afraid of sweating during the Summer, or wearing a few more clothes to keep warm during the Winter. The clothes we had also had to last us an entire school year. There were no “designer” clothes unless you considered “Levi-Strauss” to be one.

Our parents didn’t like us to waste food because “children in India” were starving. They would have been welcome to a lot of the stuff that Mom tried to make me eat, mainly the foods that fell into the “green” food group.

Most of all, we were all primarily happy. We weren’t afraid to walk to the movies or to school by ourselves. We were embarrassed to think about even kissing or holding hands with a member of the opposite sex. We knew all the cops and postmen by their first name. We weren’t afraid to roll in the dirt and get filthy, dirty and sweaty.

We dreamed of doing big things, and some of those things got done. Some of the impetus to do them got lost in the late 60’s and never got reclaimed. Its still not too late through. There is still time left for we fifties babies to do a lot of good if we will just remember that it was our purpose in life to make the world a better place for children, dogs and all other living things. Peace.

Seven years have passed and nothing has changed…….

Every time I scroll Facebook now I see another photo of one of the poor little children who were so senselessly murdered. It doesn’t get any easier not to cry..not to care.

I can’t imagine those parents, those families…. what they are being forced to endure through no fault of their own. No words exist which could ever fully comfort them. No amount of money or wordly goods will bring back their lost joy.

Don’t we owe it to them to at least try…at the very least try as a country to do better? To be better? It is time for us as a country to quit pointing fingers…but instead to join hands and dream some solutions into reality..so that as we continue to look at the photos of those babies over the coming years we don’t get a whispered question from them….”why haven’t you done something yet?”

Is the blood of children not enough to move us to act? If it’s not…then perhaps we really are beyond help.

I’ve walked over 5000 miles, probably closer to 6000, according to this “Fitbit “ I wear since I started this daily ritual over three and a half years ago. I don’t know if it’ll extend my years any though.

I can’t remember back far enough in my childhood to remember when my Grandpa Jervis was any active man of any sorts. I remember having to live with my Grandparents for half a year when I was 10 years old, and Grandpa mostly just sat around in his chair and listened to his radio, and sang songs out of his songbooks, and smoked his pipe. Occasionally during that long snowy winter, he would drag himself, bad knees and all, out of his chair and go down to the woodshed and haul a wheelbarrow of wood or two up in front of the porch and toss it piece by piece over the porch rail onto the porch right next to the door. Bad knees, but nothing wrong with those strong arms.

That was 1960, and Grandpa was born in 1893, so…that woulda made him…67. Just like I am today.

I don’t smoke a pipe, and the radio is long gone. I love music, but don’t have any song books except Grandpa’s old ones that I salvaged. I don’t sit around all day anymore though. I hope I never have to.

Seven years ago on this day, I didn’t know it fully quite yet, but I was entering into the hardest two weeks, and then the hardest year of my life. Four bypasses are a tough haul. It’s certainly something my Grandpa never had to go through, and he lived to be 98, albeit the last several years, he was not “himself”. I don’t expect my body will carry me that far, but I’m certainly going to keep on walking, and hope I can get there.

I’ve still got a lot I want to do, grandchildren to watch grow, and junk I’ve collected that will take at least 20 years to get rid of. I have love I want to give, and stars in the sky which I haven’t yet seen.

I want to better understand this Universe in which we live, so that perhaps when I leave this little speck on which I live, I can enter into whatever comes afterwards in joy and not sadness.

The three richest men in America are worth more than the bottom 50 % of the rest of the country. That’s approximately 165 million people who’s combined wealth does not equal the approximate 2.67 trillion combined worth of Gates, Bezos, and Buffet.

Mr Buffet says his secretary pays more in taxes then he does. Bezos famously paid no taxes last year. Gates says he’s paid 10 billion in taxes over “the years,” but should have paid more.

Certainly Gates and his wife have engaged in philanthropic acts, as has Buffett. They get to pick and choose who and where to put their money. Bezos is inquiring on Twitter about good places to “be philanthropic”

The middle class in America is almost gone. It started going on the early 80’s with Reaganomics, which reduced the tax rate on the super rich from 70% to 28%. He assured us that the resulting “trickle down” affect from the wealth which pooled at the top, would benefit all Americans. Reagan’s Vice President George H.W. Bush, derisively called it “voodoo” economics. Trickle down economics obviously hadn’t work. If you think it has, go back and read the first paragraph. Go listen to Joe Burrow’s Heisman Trophy speech. What a guy he is!

As long as our leaders continue to cater to the rich and super rich in this country, we will never see a strong middle class again. I don’t like taxes. I paid 28% most of my working career though. I paid the same percentage of income taxes as people making millions and millions of dollars more than me. I never got those nice deductions they go either. I did what most people in my position did back in those days…..bought on credit. And that, my friends, is how they keep us in check. That’s how they keep us enslaved. Who’s not paying back money on cars, houses, student loans, credit cards, etc.? How many people take their paychecks directly to those “payday” loan companies every week and get back about 50% of what they earned, pay 50% in interest, and then renew their loans for the next week, because otherwise they don’t have enough to live.

The super rich effectively has bought the country since the 1980’s with political contributions, and even exponentially increased their hold after the Citizens United Supreme Court decision in 2010. The Koch brothers, Sheldon Adelman, George Soros….and yes, the three men mentioned in the first paragraph, can pretty much buy politicians…and have. We even know now here in Georgia how much it costs to buy yourself a seat in the Senate.

Will Americans look at things one day with clear eyes, unfettered from the propaganda of one side or the other, and choose to select people to represent and govern us who will act in our self interests? I doubt very seriously I’ll ever live to see it.

I was talking to a friend today about Christmas,and life in general. We were both amazed at the differences. He remembers when he lived at home and there was no running water, and his folks owned two cows because he loved to drink milk so much. His Dad was a WWII vet, who spent the first 7 years back from the War mainly at the VA hospital and was never in good shape after he got out. They never had much, but his Dad steadfastly refused to take “charity” even in the form of Christmas gifts for his children. He remembered one year that a man offered some Christmas presents but his Dad refused. His Mom drove them to the man’s house and they put the presents in the trunk. After they already had them, and had them opened on Christmas morning, his Dad’s anger quelled somewhat at the site of them playing with the toys.

It was that way with a lot of our Dads from that generation.

I was a happy boy every Christmas at my Grandparents, where we usually spent Christmas, to receive my one “big” present and one little present. I also got a few more comic books to add to my burgeoning collection. Most of the time we got a few more things than that, especially after I hit my teen years and Dad’s job and pay got better. But, the joy of the younger years lingered and perhaps even outshone the later years. Having to decide what you really wanted the most…it was a story similar to Ralphie’s obsession with the “Red Ryder” BB gun.

The other thing which was exciting and which we looked forward to, was the big “brown paper bag” of goodies from the local church. There were apples, oranges, nuts, and candy. More candy than I would see at any other time of the year with the exception of Halloween. The Halloween candy was long gone, and my favorite candy of all time, the “orange slice” was in that brown bag. I was able to trade with some of the other kids at the church, and ended up with as many orange slice candy as possible. Grandpa would buy those soft peppermint sticks by the box too, and they disappeared quickly if he didn’t hide them.

….and so my friend and I talked about old times. Once a season pig killings, hunting hen eggs, eating squirrel and rabbits and churning butter. Catching fish, and going to the “little shack out back” with the Sears and Roebuck catalog sitting there waiting on us. Things most folks wouldn’t know how to do, or want to do nowadays even if they had too.

Well, I gotta go now and get on Amazon and see if they can ship that last Christmas present I need for someone special and get it here for Christmas.

From 2013

Sometimes I wonder, where do I stand….

Not on any kind of Issues.

I am what I am, and I will be what I will be until the day I die. I am difficult. I am complex. I’m too quick to anger, and too slow to forgive.

Is there anybody else out there like this?

It really doesn’t matter because I am only a quickly aging, very insignificant old man.

Honestly, what I think and how I feel mean very little to anyone outside my immediate circle. The largest majority of the human race are this way.

We should really try harder to stand with each other, together. Revel in the warmth. Help others if they need help no matter which side of the political fence they stand. I know….it’s hard. If it was easy, the world would be at peace.

The nicest moment of the day today was when my two five year old grandchildren ran up and hugged me as I arrived to celebrate my oldest son’s birthday.

I knew I was not standing alone.

One day we all will have to stand alone. I don’t want to look back then and regret wasting time on things I cannot control, or which are not as important as I think they are.

So, I’m going to try harder. It’s the only thing I can do right now.

My son has the 1948 model Philco combination radio/record player sitting in his house now. It’s the the one I spent countless hours sitting in front of during the first 8 years of my life.

There were radio shows on a lot. I first remember hearing people like Sid Caesar, and Red Skeleton on the radio. I remember listening to the Lone Ranger. Then there were the local radio shows. There was lots of preaching. Here locally we had “AA Tanner” and some others who I remember preaching on the radio a lot. I was a Baptist before I ever went to the first grade and just didn’t know it. A lot of my views have altered since those early years, but I still remember the musical cadence of many of those preachers…waxing and waning, I could see them swaying out and back in my mind and jumping up into the air when the spirit moved them.

We had maybe only half a dozen 33 rpm records. A lot of Perry Como, Martin and Lewis, Doris Day, and Bing Crosby. We had classical. We had some country…actually we had Hank Williams. There was a spot on the floor in front of the radio where my Mom put a throw rug. One of those round, braided really colorful ones. This was my spot. I wasn’t a very hard child to take care of. I could just be planted in front of the radio and left there. I knew how to change the records before I was potty trained really well. I imagine that caused a few “crisis moments” but really don’t remember. I had the radio, my comic books, and a little later on an old cracked baseball that the High School coach had given me, and a couple of worn out baseballs. I would get my exercise by going outside on nice afternoons and throwing those balls up into the air and them whacking them off into the distance before they hit the ground. I got really good at it.

I learned all of the songs on all of those records by heart. I thought I was a real hot shot singer. My Dad bought an Elvis 45 sometime in the mid 50’s. It was “Hound dog” and “Don’t be Cruel” I personally liked Don’t be Cruel the best. I learned those two by heart and on the night Elvis was on Ed Sullivan in 1957 he sang “Don’t be Cruel” We hadn’t had a TV very long, and when I saw “my song” being sung I jumped up and started doing my best Elvis right there in the little back closed in porch which Daddy had converted into a “den” I thought I was something…but then my Mom laughed at me….

I’m not sure if it was because she thought I was funny, or if I was doing a good job. But it embarrassed me. I’m not really sure why. Being the boy I was though…I never sang again in front of anyone for a long, long time. I would make sure nobody was around, maybe like when I was outside hitting the baseball. Maybe in the bathroom in the evenings while the water was running. Perhaps really low under the covers at night. I didn’t want to be laughed at again. I never talked to Mom or Dad about it, and they never thought anything about it, I guess. They just thought I had turned to baseball and sports.

I got talked into joining the “glee club” in the 8th grade. I think it was because I liked one of the little girls who was singing…I’m not certain. I still liked to sing, and I thought for sure that being surrounded by 15 or so other people singing would keep me from being heard. The guy who was over the glee club was Mr. John Carruth, who was also the Band director at the time. We were preparing music for Christmas, and I noticed Mr. Carruth kept leaning over and listening in my direction. He stopped the rehearsal and said “hey Bowers…sing the next verse by yourself” and I did…and so ended up doing my first solo ever of “White Christmas” at our school musical program that year.

Mr. Carruth had me sing a couple more times before he left Trion to move on to better things. I have to really thank him for giving me the boost of confidence I needed to realize that people would not laugh at me for singing by myself.

I ended up singing quite a bit in High School. We had quite a musical group of students at that time. It was the 60’s and folk bands, rock bands, and hippies were coming of age. I remember Mack Myers, and Agnew Myers, Susan Cavin and a couple more folks had a little “folk” band. They sang some Peter, Paul and Mary on stage at school. I really enjoyed it. We had a really good piano player…Ronald Whitley I believe it was. He was really great. My old buddy Dale Rosser was a good singer, and beat me out one year for soloist at Literary meet, although me and Agnew, and Johnny Brimer, and I think Randy Orr were the “barbershop” quartet and did a pretty fair job. Agnew’s Mom Ms. Sarah Myers was our “coach”…or mentor I guess you’d say. A really wonderful woman.

We had Larry Maddux and company playing country and rock and roll…I remember singing “Your Cheating Heart” with them one time at some program we were having…and from then on that dang Johnny Suits would call me “Hank” every time he saw me. Still did it when I went to work with him in 1988 at Crown Crafts. Binky Dawson and Wayne Greene were great musicians. Several went on to become Band directors like Bill Locklear.

Yes, we had great bands, great musicians, and great individualists back then. I can’t name them all because there are so many, many more. I’m not sure if it was the times, or if there was something in the Trion water. I know that several of the above named beautiful people are gone now. I don’t know all the stories…I’m just kind of on the “edge” of things when it comes to keeping up with people. It’s a shame we have lost them, because when a musical person dies, some of the music of the world dies with them, and in this day and age, unlike the day and age we grew up in, that’s something we just can’t afford much more of…..

…..and by the way Mom…I know I took that laugh the wrong way….