Month: January 2020

As the sun goes down tonight and they are predicting snow, I can’t help but think how beautiful the morning was on this day. It was coolish…around 30 degrees, but that’s nothing to a guy who braves 25 degrees or lower to prowl flea markets hunting for junk. So I walked and had a go at some photos of familiar things. I know all of you my Facebook friends have seen these views many times, but for every day that passes there is a subtle difference. There is a tiny erosion of time in both me and the scenery. I feel different. I feel much differently about things than I did as a young boy. Things just don’t appear as bright and new as they did then.

I played and fished around this river all of my childhood. I put a hole in my shinbone on one of the limestone rocks in the river on the day Kennedy was shot, and happened to be home on that day to hear Walter Cronkite announce his death. I was trying to jump from one rock to another and didn’t quite make it with my left leg, and jammed it into one of the sharp limestone “knobs” on the rock.

It had been our lunchtime at school, I think about 11:15 a.m.,when I did it and Mr. Couey, one of my teachers had sent me home for medical attention. My Aunt Shelia Stuart was visiting us that week and I remember she and my Mom gasping at the news when it came on T.V. a little after 12:30 on that Friday afternoon. I don’t know whether my Aunt remembers it or not, but I do. So, I got this dime sized scar in my shin that I call my “Kennedy” scar.

It’s surprising that so much has changed in the years since then. I do however, look with a surprising amount of respect at that damn rock every time I go over the bridge which leads to the mill. I was allowed a glimpse of history and a long term memory because of it.

As first graders one of the first things the teachers taught us to do at recess was to “pick sides” to play games. Red rover, Tug of war, later on other team sports. We chose sides for tasks inside the classrooms. From the very beginning of our education, a hierchy was established. The same children were chosen by the “leaders” for the same sides every time. The same kids were picked last every time. We were taught to be devisive from the very start and it continued through our entire school career. After a while, it was something from which you could not break free.

Practically everything we do requires us to choose a side. Take a moment and think about it. I don’t have to name them all, you know of what I speak. Sides. Choose a side. Right or left. Red or Blue. Pro this, or pro that. “Red rover, red rover send Susie right over”

I was usually one of the last people picked for any team. I know why now. It was because I didn’t want to be on a side. I think maybe I just wanted to be an observer or maybe a referee. I never fit well on either side. I still don’t.

I think it was wrong of them to make us choose sides. Choosing teams would have been better. There is quite a difference you know.

The experience we obtain as we grow through childhood shapes our opinions for life. I have never changed my basic philosophy about things since I was a young man. I have pretended, and acted. I have conformed to rules with which I did not agree. I have assauged the feelings of many. I am none the worse for it because I know the real person who I am and I’m satisfied with my actions. On occasions I have had to choose sides. But I did not like it.

I live for the day when society does not demand we must hate one another for the side on which we have been picked, or with which we choose to affiliate. I’m afraid my frustrations or lack of patience may occasionally spill over into expression of opinions which may not be popular. For this I apologize in advance and beg you remember it’s just the way I was taught.

“Bum, bum, bum here we come blowing our bugles and beating our drums”

SAFE FROM THE STORM

by Larry Bowers

Dark clouds out on the horizon start to form.

I pay them no mind, for I am safe from the storm.

The covers I used to use, to keep myself warm.

Lie folded in fourths, for I am safe from the storm.

And all the plans I used to have,

I held so close and dear,

Are left cold and abandoned,

Like this empty vessel here.

And all the words I never said,

That I wanted to express.

Now rest with me forever,

In the stillness of my breast.

Thunder and Lightning do your best,

You can’t do me any harm.

I’m not frightened anymore,

For I am safe from the storm.

I’ve mentioned before that I used to get a small allowance as a kid. But, my Dad figured that my duty for that small amount of money would be mowing grass.

I started cutting grass when I was 9 years old. My Dad taught me the basics of grass care and lawn mower maintenance. How to carefully fill the mower with gas, check the oil after each use, how to overlap on each pass slightly as to not “miss a spot” Our yard over on Simmons Street seemed the size of Forest lawn to me and it seemed to take forever to cut it. It was boring, so I daydreamed about playing baseball. I was old Mickey Mantle in the 9th inning of the World Series getting the winning hit. In the end the grass got cut.

Down the road a few years later when I was 12, if I wanted money I had to work for it. At the beginning of the Summer in 1962, my Dad said “Go out and get you a few yards to mow.” So I went out and asked. I got Mr and Mrs Smith’s yard in the two story white house across from the mill. Mr and Mrs Cohran’ s house beside them, and the Smith’s two adult daughters who lived behind them on fifth street. I had a couple of them up on eighth street too, The William’s house and old Mr Crawford’s house. Mr Crawford was a character. He had been in WWI, and had been gassed with Mustard gas. Even though that had given him lung problems he still worked very hard at the Mill as a sweeper. He was quite a talker and I learned a lot from listening to him.

I got so many yards to mow, that I was super busy! The first couple of weeks were not so bad, but then there was ball practice….extra ones even, due to the fact that our coach really wanted to win first place. My client’s yards started getting long and Dad ended up “helping me out” so I could keep my yards and get my money. Dad didn’t complain. That’s just the way he was.

We won first place in little league that year, and I know Dad was proud. Tired from having to help me mow yards, but proud nonetheless. I continued to mow these same yards for years after that because Dad had “saved me” that year. I think my brother Mike Bowers kept on mowing them after I went off to West Georgia. Dad continued to help me if I needed it, and he would always check to make sure I hadn’t missed a spot. He did the same thing when I washed the car too!

I’ve tried to live the same philosophy. Let people work when they can, help when they need it, and tell them when they have “missed a spot”

There are stuffed animals lined up in the hall. Three Teddy bears being taught by a monkey in a green plastic chair. I know this because that is what my three year old Rue told me. She showed me a page with super hero stickers all lined up in a row and told me it was her “lesson plan” I’m sure the monkey can handle it.

Outside next to my storage building is a little pile of rocks of different sizes, shapes and colors. This is Eli’s collection from our hike across the old apartments lot on Park Avenue yesterday. I let him out of the stroller and he picked and chose, throwing the ones he didn’t like as far as his little arm could chunk them.

Paula and I have been keeping these two for over 3 years now, since they are both closer to 4 than 3. When we started, I was still a very sick man. I struggled with heart and chest pains. I was on the verge of diabetes and had very little energy. As these two progressed from helplessness to walking, to running, to talking and thinking….to becoming little humans, I realized that I would like to be around with them a little while longer. I didn’t do much about it at the time though. When I found out last year that Matt and Courtney were finally having a baby, I decided to become more active.

So I started walking. I went to the gym because Paula was doing rehab, and I have kept on going.

I got one of those fitbit things for my birthday back in October and as of today I am nearing a million steps on it. I still am not “healthy” as a normal person by any means, but I think having these youngsters and now a new baby have kept me from going downhill. Instead I have come uphill a bit. I still go to sleep all the time. Rue was poking me this morning while she was sitting in my lap in my chair saying “Wake up Papa…wake up”

I have beautiful teenage granddaughters I want to see graduate from high school, and a young adult granddaughter I want to see get a good start on life. I’m trying to teach Auttie a little guitar too. She’s doing really good.

Not even to mention my three children who are my friends and my dear wife. We have a fiftieth wedding anniversary coming up in a few years, and I got to make plans to be here for that. I think we are going to Disney world.

Yet…my goals are all attainable short range deals. One day at a time, and stack them up like bricks at a kiln.

So, I’ll leave the stuffed animals where they are for now, and the rock pile too. They will remind me of the two who put them there and how much I love them….and how much I love them all.

I walked around town in the mist and drizzle yesterday. It was one of my better walks in a long while, despite the weather. I felt strong and the lungs and heart were good, so I did almost five miles.

I always long to be outside. I started out yesterday going down towards the river, but then reversed my course and went down the sidewalk on Park Avenue. (It’s always better to walk with the wind at your back!) That old sidewalk along Park avenue is the same one which has been there all of my life. It is a bedrock of memories for me. I remember walking to school down that concrete path when I was as young as eight years old. I continued to walk that way until we moved in 1962 up to eigth street and then I walked from there to school. There was very little danger in a young kid walking to school back in 1958. We didn’t think a thing about it.

I also remember going that way on Saturdays down to the old theatre to sit all afternoon watching some Cowboy movie, or a rare Science fiction fare. Dad always told me to just stay on that path and not wander off, and I would be fine. I always was.

I remember going towards school that way one terrible morning when my Mom had her first nervous breakdown, and how she ran after me that day…scared that something was going to happen to her. So much sorrow yet to come, and as that day unfolded and I had not the least idea of how to handle what was taking place. I had no idea that I would soon be staying with my Grandparents for a few months while Mom was in the State hospital. How I wish we had the treatments available back then that we have today.

But I love the outdoors, in all places, but especially familiar places.

I remember my friend who lived on that street who passed away much too young. I remember that he wanted to be outside as he was dying. He sat in his front yard, bundled up in coats and blankets looking at the wonderful world around him. The sky and the clouds. The rain and the sun. I know he did not wish to leave it, and my heart broke for him.

If I had a choice, which I know that few of us do, I would choose to die outside under the full moon and a sky quilted with billions of stars, on warm summer’s night…..gazing up into the Universe beyond where we exist and wondering what lies ahead.

I remember very well when I lost the majority of my voice. It was in 1982, and I was working for Zee Medical Service selling first aid supplies. It was July, and the company was having an “event” in Atlanta at a hotel. I got an unusual sore throat which quickly developed into the worst pain I had ever had in the throat. Felt like I was being stabbed in the vocal cords with a needle. I got hoarse and then totally lost my voice. The pain lasted a couple of weeks, but the hoarseness in my voice lasted months. I didn’t think it would ever get back to normal. I could talk, but if I tried to sing it was terrible. No higher register, and cracking all the time.

I couldn’t sing, so I started writing songs. I worked out a melody on the guitar and recorded it on a little cassette player so I would not forget them. Words once written are in stone, but melodies are as elusive as butterflies on the wing. So I “netted” them and once the song was finished I kept the hope in my heart that I could find someone to sing them on a demo for me. My daughter was really coming along on her singing and I had an idea that she could do it.

One day early in 1985, I was riding down the road singing along with the radio, and I was able to carry a tune again. Gradually I regained part of my voice. I was able to sing again and went on to sing on some of the demos I occasionally post here. What you hear is about half of what I once could do.

I finally went to a specialist in 1999 when my voice started bothering me again. He found a big lump on one vocal cord, and was pretty sure it might be cancerous. I had surgery, and he found that it was a big lump of scar tissue. Having messed with it again caused me almost another year of being unable to sing, but I eventually got my singing voice back…but again further diminished. I am convinced that whatever I had in 1982 caused that scar.

Nowadays, if I talk a lot or sing a lot it’s somewhat painful and it takes several days to make a comeback. Back when I was going to Church they always wanted me in the choir, and I would sometimes go…but I guess nobody realized the problem I had even though I made it known. I have some days or weeks now when the old singing voice is ok, and some weeks when it is weak.

Much as I wanted to be a singer and still love it, I just couldn’t take the strain of a run at “America’s Got Talent” even assuming I was good enough. Quite honestly I give thanks for the ability to sing along with old Bing Crosby, or Keith Whitley from time to time. That’s still a pleasure and I’m danged happy with that as things stand.

I wonder if anyone has people from their childhood whom they hold in high regard? People who were not your parents or other kinfolk.

Were there people in the background of your childhood who you would hold up as examples of respectible citizens to your children or grandchildren?

What was it about them that led you to respect them?

Did they holler and scream profanities? Did they tell you to hate other people, or that other people should be hated because they were different in some way from you? Did they let you get away with doing that to other people?

Instead, did they share things with you? Did they counsel you in a calm way about the way life should be lived? Did they live their lives as examples of humanity which you wanted to follow, and want to emulate?

Did you love them and respect them for their kindness, their morality, their stalwartness in the face of stubborn problems, and life’s bumps in the road? Did you admire them for the way they could solve problems between others without getting all “red in the face” or threatening to go get a gun and shoot somebody? Did they cook you a meal when you were hungry? Did any of them come by your house with hand me down clothing that their kids had outgrown because they knew your family could use them?

I remember a lot of people like that around here. Teachers, coaches, millworkers, neighbors, store owners…lot’s of others. I could start naming names, but those of you who grew up around here know the ones I’m talking about. They were here both male and female. They were Christian and non Christian. They were black and white.

I have to wonder, when we have those people to admire and to revere, and to hold up to high esteem because of their character…..why would we want people of lesser quality to “represent” us as leaders in our country? I cannot figure it out.

A million old memories run around inside my brain. Picking a particular one out often requires a lot of searching. Sometimes my memories are incomplete. They are like your satellite signal during a heavy rain. They go and come, and kind of get all fuzzy and blurred.

I see people I know I know, but I can’t place. Names often escape me, especially when it’s been a while since an interaction.

I think it’s just a lack of concentration at times. I remember things I don’t need to remember, and forget what I went to Walmart to get. I make lists but forget to take them. My mind is on more serious issues like the Federal Deficit.

My most often used defense is “I don’t remember”

I know I have lived a wonderful life. I definitely remember that. I have loved and been loved. I’ve seen the beauties of nature, and eaten great barbeque and awesome seafood. I have swam in the ocean. I’ve read great books, and have known unique individuals. I have a great group of humans who I call my family who help me fill in the spaces that need filling. So I’ll just keep putting one foot in front of the other and making grocery lists.

I have been watching screens for the majority of my life. Television came of age when I was a very small child and my life, most of all our lives in Western society at any point, became intricately intertwined with the things which were being broadcast upon that little screen.

Even at first, although the “programming” was mostly innocuous, it was influential. How I tied a towel around my neck and pretended to be “Superman” and jumped off my porch and sprained my ankle terrible, because no matter what I had seen, I could not fly. I could not…fly…

I had my cowboy guns like Hoppalong Cassidy and Roy Rogers, and I went outside and put caps in my guns (my ammo) and shot the bad guys. All of us little kids did the same thing. It was our right to have our guns and imitate our heroes, wasn’t it? And so we did.

And the screens progressed. They got bigger. They went from black and white to living color. The “programming” became more complex. The news became an integral part of the screen.

I spent more time playing outside than a lot of kids. I spent a lot of time by myself playing, thinking, and formulating ideas. I read voraciously. The televisions screen was mostly a nighttime thing. My Dad limited our time watching it. It was a “privilege” and a lot of times that privilege was taken away as punishment for misbehaving. We weren’t allowed unlimited access. It was probably a good thing.

Throughout the years these information screens, whether you call them a television, a computer, a pad, a phone, whatever you might want to call them…these screens have come to do more and more of our thinking for us. They tell use what is “right or wrong”. They sway our opinions of other people and other things. This “social” media which has been created to play itself out in the virtual “over the screen” world, has come to be so influential, that “comments” and “posts” made using it, can make enemies of friend and family who we have known and loved all of our lives, while at the same time making us “friends” with people we have never known. Never has it been more apparent about this negative/positive media, then over the past year.

As I can continue to see hate and division spill across this screen, the TV screen, the phone screen, and any other type of screen that I look at, I begin to feel very tainted by it all. I want to divest myself totally from all of it….but continue to get pulled into the fray almost every time I look at a screen. It’s a powerful, almost irresistible pull.

I’m trying very hard, trying very hard. I’m devoting some time every day to reading, to thinking, to meditating, to praying. I hope to increase that time, and decrease this time. I hope to go back to mostly “family” kind of things like pictures and prayers, and sharing memories online. I hope I can do a “flip flop” and I also hope I can keep my attention away from the things which are divisive that are being posted by many, many people.

I may probably start tomorrow by keeping all my screens turned off, or at least keeping the sound turned down.

I have jumped off of the high porch again, and have found that I cannot fly…..I cannot fly…and I have hurt myself terribly…..

I leave you with the words of Paul Simon:

“and the people bowed and prayed

To the neon god they made

And the sign flashed out its warning,

In the words that it was forming

And the signs said,

“The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls

And tenement halls

And whisper’d in the sounds of silence”