Month: April 2020

In 1950 I was born. It’s also the year that most scientists believe a new Geological era, the Anthropocene era, began:

From the Guardian:

Humanity’s impact on the Earth is now so profound that a new geological epoch – the Anthropocene – needs to be declared, according to an official expert group who presented the recommendation to the International Geological Congress in Cape Town on Monday.

The new epoch should begin about 1950, the experts said, and was likely to be defined by the radioactive elements dispersed across the planet by nuclear bomb tests, although an array of other signals, including plastic pollution, soot from power stations, concrete, and even the bones left by the global proliferation of the domestic chicken were now under consideration.

The current epoch, the Holocene, is the 12,000 years of stable climate since the last ice age during which all human civilisation developed. But the striking acceleration since the mid-20th century of carbon dioxide emissions and sea level rise, the global mass extinction of species, and the transformation of land by deforestation and development mark the end of that slice of geological time, the experts argue. The Earth is so profoundly changed that the Holocene must give way to the Anthropocene.

“The significance of the Anthropocene is that it sets a different trajectory for the Earth system, of which we of course are part,” said Prof Jan Zalasiewicz, a geologist at the University of Leicester and chair of the Working Group on the Anthropocene (WGA), which started work in 2009.

“If our recommendation is accepted, the Anthropocene will have started just a little before I was born,” he said. “We have lived most of our lives in something called the Anthropocene and are just realising the scale and permanence of the change.”

Prof Colin Waters, principal geologist at the British Geological Survey and WGA secretary, said: “Being able to pinpoint an interval of time is saying something about how we have had an incredible impact on the environment of our planet. The concept of the Anthropocene manages to pull all these ideas of environmental change together.”

So there it is. We have very little time left to save our planet…at least in a form that will comfortably support life I.e., people don’t spend 24 hours a day, seven days a week trying to just survive. I understand it’s hard to wake up every morning and realize in the course of our everyday lives that the changes taking place in our environment are grave. After all, there’s jobs to go to, TV to watch, politics to argue over and social media to put it all down on. It’s important that the governments of our world begin to cooperate immediately to save life on Earth as we know it.

I write my Congressman and two Senators on a bi-weekly basis about this. I’m getting ready to become much more seriously involved in getting information out there…to us, to you, about this situation.

If someone were trying to burn down your home, how would you react? The Earth is the home of all life that we are aware of in the Universe, and it’s being “burned down”. If we don’t pay attention now, our children and grandchildren will be right to condemn us for our inaction.

I have two little dachshunds who sleep in their crates, their beds, in our bedroom. Every night when it’s bedtime I tell them “go to bed” and I break one of the little “snap” treats in half to give them.

These little wafers rarely ever break evenly, and I’ve always told them “first dog in bed gets the biggest piece” That’s always Hoosie, the smallest and oldest. Always most obedient, in this case anyway.

Daisy, the black and white piebald, always hangs back. I thought she was just less obedient, but I noticed the reason she hangs back is because she is waiting on my wife….her “Mommy”

So, there’s the conundrum. Should I be rewarding obedience, or loyalty? Obedience might one day save their life if the situation ever arose where they really needed to obey. Loyalty might do the same, or perhaps even go a step further and the stubborn loyalty might protect the “leader of the pack”

Both of these are qualities which we humans also exhibit. Which is the better in us? Should we be obedient, and if so, to who and under what circumstances?? Should we be unquestionably loyal, and if so how long, and to whom?

I decided with the dogs that I would just alternate nights of giving them the biggest piece. As long as both are being rewarded for what they perceive is their best quality then I don’t think they care who gets the biggest piece. After all, they are dogs and it really doesn’t matter to them. The only thing that would bother them would be getting no reward.

As for we people, I wish decisions which we must make could be so easily discerned. Nothing is ever that simple for us though. Too many nuances and careful considerations must enter into deciding who gets the biggest piece. A lot of times we still get bit on the hand too.

Time for me to close up my “crate” and get some sleep.

All the Masters I have won.

Sitting there watching Sergio Garcia finally win the Masters on Sunday, I like to remember back to my High School years and all of the times which I won that tournament. It was many times, as I remember….

I switched from baseball to golf after I had a knee injury while playing baseball. Old Doc Clemens wanted me to walk…even while I still had a cast on my injured left knee. My Dad liked golf, so he bought me a set of “Kroyden” golf clubs from one of the supervisors he knew at the mill. It was minus a 3 iron…which had gotten wrapped around a tree. Thinking back, I guess that’s why he got them so cheaply. The guy was giving up the sport. I still have the nine iron from that set. I used it for years and years around the greens. I chipped a lot of balls in the hole with that club. I won the Masters a couple of times with it.
I had a hole in one on number four at the Trion golf course once. It was, however, a two. I was playing with old friend of mine Steve Hammonds. I lined up that five iron and took a mighty first swing…..and…whiffed the ball. Totally missed it. I tried to play it off as a practice swing, but Hammond wouldn’t let me. I changed clubs to a four iron and swung a little more gently and the ball took one hop and bounced right into the hole. “Hole in one” I yelled. “No, said Steve…it’s a two” Ah well, at least it was a birdie. The only hole in one in all my years of playing and it would have to be a two!

Being a solitary soul, I played many rounds alone. Those were the “majors” for me. I can’t tell you all the amazing shots which I made, all of the commentary from the announcers. (I didn’t know who they were back then…but they later turned into the voices of Pat Summerall and Ken Venturi) I made up all the acceptance speeches, held all of the “loving” cups with my name engraved into them. I won the “grand slam” many times over.

The golf course was my home away from home. I worked at the “pro shop” for a couple of years and learned a lot of neat new words from all of the older golfers, as the shop was just off of the first tee at Trion…with the river running right next to the fairway on the right. My friend Michael Brown and I dove into that muddy mess after a lot of tournaments and felt in the “gunk” with our hands, often coming up with dozens of balls which had found their way into the “wet” I mowed around the roughs and sloughs. (Lamar would NEVER trust me to mow the fairways or the greens) I caddied for the guys from Ware Shoals S.C., when they came down for their yearly match with the Trion supervisors. They paid better, especially as a caddy AND a player, I knew the course well.

My best tournament I ever played (with the exceptions of those imaginary ones) was in my Senior year at Trion High. There was a Fall tournament…a “Jaycees” tournament for the youth of the community. It was divided by age and I was in the “fourteen and over” group. I played excellent and consistent during this 27 hole day long affair. I had three 37’s for 111. Three over par. Some of the best golf I have ever played. The air was crisp and leaves were already starting to turn. The sun was gorgeous and temperature just loomed in the 70’s. The golf course was in immaculate condition. As I walked up onto the old clubhouse steps after my last round I just knew that I was going to finally get that trophy I wanted do badly. It would make up for losing the Region tournament low medalist by hitting my ball inside a 55 gallon trash can. I knew I could beat all the kids around town with my score. I hadn’t counted on an outsider from Savannah coming up and playing and shooting a final round 33 to post a 108 and win our age group. His Daddy Tommy had been pro at the Trion golf course some years back. Kid’s name was Andy Bean. He did go on to win a lot of money on the PGA tour…but that wasn’t any consolation to me at the time.

I haven’t played a round of golf since about 2004 or 2005. I think about playing from time to time but just don’t get out there and do it. Perhaps I’ll go play a round by myself someday soon just to get back into the “swing” of it. I can hear Pat Summerall’s voice now….”and Bowers chips the ball into the hole on the 18th, winning the 1975 Masters” Ahh the memories..both real and imagined.

I thought about a lot of things today, I thought about how we are…our memories. Each of us a unique being with many shared experiences “remembered” differently.

Many days I’m flooded by those memories that belong to me, and I’m out of control and over emotional with the feel of them. Some days, they trickle in, and I am in better control of myself. Is anybody else like that? There are times I begin to write about times gone by, and I cannot finish. My train runs off of the track because tears….either of sorrow or of joy, blind me.

It becomes a bit messy and embarrassing sometimes.

As I rummaged through some old things today, and found some old writings of mine from school, I marveled at how far we have come since those days in the sixties.

I think about our old High School, and the fact that me and the people in my class were able to go to school in what was essentially a museum. We sat in old hardwood desks which still had the holes in the top where inkwells used to sit, so that the students could fill their pens from them. I’ve had some of those old ink jars over the years.

The old wooden floors in that school would creak and groan, as the bulk of students went out and back during classes. The old, huge windows had mechanisms inside them which assisted letting them up and down. Even the tile floors in the “new” wings of the school was the thick rubber vinyl stuff, which had to be coated in wax periodically, and buffed out in order to maintain them. I used to love that smell. I used to love the smell of the sanforized cloth that drifted across the Chattooga river from the mill and in through those big old windows. I used to love the clanking and banging of those old radiators during the cold winter months, as the steam poured into them.

In the first typing class I took, we all had the old “manual” typewriters, mainly Royals and Underwoods. Many, many times we would cross up, and hang up the keys during our exercises, and have to stop and untangle our mess. In my second year typing class we actually had a few new electric typewriters that plugged into the wall. Only the best students got to use those. I’m really thankful that Gary “Chocks” Clark talked me into taking that second year. It has been a gift through my entire life to have learned that skill. Many times I know I would not have “written” anything without that ability to “fly” over the keyboard. I’m sure a lot of people might wish I had taken shop instead.

We had the most unique and unusual gym in the state of Georgia in our town. It had an inside heated pool, a snack bar where you could get cooked little burgers and fries, and the best cokes. There was an upstairs basketball stadium…albeit quite small by today’s standards. We had a pool room, weight room, locker rooms, and various other sundry alcoves and inclusions. It had a movie theatre, and a staged theatre on one end also, although they closed those down very early along. I remember having our fifth year class reunion in that old gym in 1973, not long before they demolished it. What a wonderful place it was.

The most important and beautiful thing about those years, 1964 through 1968, were the people. Of course, I’m not going to sit here and say I loved everybody. That’d be a lie. However, for the most part, the people…my classmates and the “upper and underclass” students, were the lifeblood of the school in our little mill town. I wish I had time to go through and name each and every person with whom I remember going to school. I could do it if I had the time, or took the time, and could tell you a lot about some, but at least a little about most. Most of it would be good. Most of it would be joyful, some filled with a little regret….but, that’s the way of life itself, isn’t it?

I remember the ringing bells, the scurry of changing classes, the daily whispers….who’s dating who, who wants to go steady, who broke up today.

I remember the good teachers, the great teachers, and the ones….the very, very few…who didn’t like what they did, or who weren’t meant to be trying to do what they were doing. Those folks didn’t stay long, because our little school mainly attracted teachers who knew a good thing when they found it, and made a career in our school. I won’t try to name them all. Get out your annuals, and you’ll see their pictures. Mrs. Wingfield, Miss Bankey, Mrs. Myers, Mr. Jug Hayes, Mr. McCain, J.W. Greenwood, so many more. You’ll see yours too, my Facebook friends, because many of you were there. Many of you lived it with me. Many of you share these memories and those times. Most of us are still here, but some are gone.

It was pretty good, wasn’t it? Almost everything since then has also been good. As a whole, life’s been good to me.

Love you all.

If we cannot help the weakest among us, then what kind of nation are we, really?

Feed the hungry. Children and Elderly.

Minister to the sick and dying.

Who needs a thirty million dollar house, really?

All the base and denigrating political talk at all levels disgusts me:

Close the hospitals, but make damn sure that highway gets paved for the second time in five years.

Take the money from the fight against Ebola and just use part of that to try and stop Zika. Microencephaly is a sure way to decrease the human population, but increase human suffering. And Ebola…heck that’s a non issue now. Except for where it isn’t.

Who removed the definition of logic from the dictionary, and when was it done? Does anyone even own a physical copy of Webster’s anymore, and if so is there an inch thick layer of dust on it…same as with most Bible s?

And…..

It’s not beyond the scope of possibilities, with our technology, for the super, ultra rich elite to have it in the back of their controlling and devious minds that their billions, and the power it can buy might one day in the not too distant future also buy them eternal human life. Remember “Freejack”? They do. Cheney’s favorite movie!

But, I rave on and rage on, and nobody cares a bit for the lunacy of one old man.

It’s good for me that I write on “virtual” paper now, cause I know what would happen if I wrote on real paper.

We are the gatherers of our experiences, no matter if we initiate them or if they are initiated by others, and through us, I believe God is able to experience all of that sum of those experiences. We believe in a creator who is all knowing, all seeing and all powerful…but that is not to say that our creator has experienced all things. If you are the author of a fictional novel, it is much different than if you are the author of a biography.

It’s been a few days since I have walked around town, but I hope to go in the morning.

I need the fresh air to fill my lungs and reinvigorate my blood. I need the sunrise to refresh my spirit as it’s first rays peep over the crest of the ridge.

I need the solitude in order for my brain to reset itself.

More and more time is a blur, similar to standing next to the road very closely while a huge long bus passes by so very close….you can feel the whoosh of the air and brace yourself against the vacuum it creates as it tries to pull you into the road, under it’s wheels.

You feel like you are at fate’s carnival, watching the grim reaper throw darts at the balloons on the big backboard of life, trying to hit somebody’s brightly coloured existence and end it. He broke one of my high school classmates earlier this week. It got my brain to spinning thinking about that loss.

He’s relentless and random, that Father time. Doesn’t care a whit for any of us, rich or poor, low or high.

So I hope to go walk tomorrow and feel the wind on my face, and smell the grass people were out cutting today. I hope to see a hawk or a woodpecker, and smell bacon cooking. I know I’ll hear the local dogs barking but I won’t care. I’ll be busy living life and loving it.
‘

Today would have been my Daddy’s 92 birthday if he’d been lucky and lived a bit longer. All of you who know me know how much I loved him. I talk about the things he tried to teach me quite often. I’ve compiled a few stories that I’ve written over time to say “Happy Birthday” I know we will meet again someday on way or another. I love you.

The Golfer- from 2018

Sitting here and watching the Masters golf tourney this Sunday afternoon, and thinking about how much my Dad used to like to watch this tournament. My Daddy was a sports fan, and golf was probably his favorite sport in which to participate.

He bought my first set of clubs for me when I was 13, an old set of second handed, left handed Kroydons. I got to where I loved that old set of clubs. It’s the only set of clubs I owned all the way through High School. No telling how many rounds of golf I got out of that 30 dollar set of clubs. I can’t count the good memories that came out of that old set of clubs. Great memories. I guess I probably played more rounds of golf with my Dad than with anybody else I know. Walked many a mile with those clubs slung over my shoulder at the golf course in Trion.

I can’t remember if I told him “thank you” for those old clubs, but he knew I was grateful. He couldn’t help but know, every time I hit a good shot, or made a putt…I could hear those “attaboys”

Tomorrow the “old man” would have been ninety, and even though it’s been almost eight years since he passed, I can still hear the echoes of those “attaboys” when I think about those rounds of golf we played.

From 2016

My Dad’s birthday is tomorrow, but as it is a Saturday, I walked to the old Trion cemetery today. He would have been 88 if he were still here, but will have been gone for 6 years come May the 22nd.

There isn’t a day that goes by in which I don’t hear him telling me something. As a matter of fact, when my phone alarm went off this morning I was dreaming about being in a meeting at the mill with Dad, Harold Peek, Herbert Bethune, and Mr Whittington…and I hadn’t come prepared! After I woke up, I was glad the alarm went off when it did cause I wasn’t looking forward to “splaining” whatever it was that they were unhappy about.

Fact is, I was in some meetings with those men for a very short period of time in the seventies. It’s really weird how your mind will turn your dreams in a certain direction at times. I wouldn’t mind being in a meeting with those men now…cause they are all gone, but I wouldn’t even mind being in hot water just so’s I could talk with them all again. They were all a pretty straight up bunch of men.

So I guess I will try and do something this weekend that’s constructive, and I won’t say I can’t cause my Daddy would tell me “Can’t never did do nothing”. (What is that…a triple negative…quadruple maybe?)

Miss you Dad.

Some Treasures are Memories

I usually go to Trade day on Tuesdays. If it’s a nice day, I have junk I need to sell. If it’s an “iffy” day like today, then I go around and look for “bargains” It’s kind of a fun thing. Like a treasure hunt.

Yesterday morning I thought it was going to be rainy, so I just went “treasure hunting”

The biggest treasure I found though, was in the form of an 88 year old man. His name is Mr. Sizemore and he used to be a loom fixer in the mill back in “the old days” He’s one of the few left. One of the few men who can personally tell you about fixing a “Dobbie” loom, or an “X1” One of the many men who worked there who I can remember as a child. One of the hard working men. The white t shirt and sweat soaked men you could see leaving that mill at 4 pm every day.

Mr. John talked with me over 20 minutes about my Dad and how he had worked for him when Dad was a supervisor in the mill.

He told me of a particular incident which he remembered when my Dad had asked him to fix a loom which wasn’t on his “upkeep” because he was the only man who could do it. Mr. John said he got it fixed and Dad told him how “super” of a fixer he was. That was my Dad’s big talent. Being able to get folks to do the things they were best at, even if it wasn’t their “upkeep” I’ve had a lot of people talk to me about how much they liked working for him. I know there were some who didn’t. Some who didn’t like him. There’s always that, no matter what you do.

That 20 minutes of talk with John Sizemore was the treasure I found yesterday.

If my Dad had lived, tomorrow would have been his 88th birthday. Same age as Mr. Sizemore.

Dad wasn’t much for Trade day, but I bet he would have been up for some fishing if were here. I know he would have been.

Memories of Dad- from 2014

Tomorrow is April 9th. My Daddy would have been 86 years old if he
was still here. It’s hard to believe it will have been 4 years this May since he has been gone.
We all have Daddys. Some of us have great relationships with them, some don’t. My relationship with my Dad was a good one. He taught me a lot. He was not a perfect man by any means, but neither are any of us.
Daddy taught me an important lesson back when I was about 10 years old. We went fishing down in Gore. I was trying to catch bream, and Daddy was “bass fishing” He was using some kind of “shyster” plug….with three big hooks on it. I was just down the bank from him a little bit and I caught a little old bream. I went running down to show him, but didn’t holler or even say “hey” Dad was in the middle of a cast and as I ran up behind him he drew the rod back to where I was standing, and one of those hooks caught me in the right ear. Went plumb through my earlobe. If I had known he was gonna do that, and knowing what I do now I would have just asked him to drive me to the jewelry store and let me get a gold stud. It would have been kinda’ weird for 1960 though.
As it was, once Daddy knew he had hooked me, he hollered quite loud at me and then dropped the rod and grabbed me to access the damage. We ended up going to see old Dr. Clemens who cut the hook with a pair of wire cutters and pulled it out. “Boy, you gonna’ need a tetanus shot” he said. I hadn’t cried a lick the whole time with a shyster in my ear, but the dang tetanus shot hurt like mad and I cried like a baby.
Dad felt bad about hooking me…though it wasn’t his fault at all. I was the one that had snuck up behind him. I did learn to stay out of the way of a man casting a line with a baited hook on it that day. I also learned that parents can be scared too, especially when they accidentally hurt one of their kids. Dad reacted in the moment by hollering, and then by hugging. I’ve done the same thing over the years with my children. The initial scare…..and the startled reaction of hurting someone you love, and then the empathetic reaction of seeing they are hurt….but ok.
Dad took me fishing many more times after that, but I always got the exhortation at the start of our trip “Stay out from behind me when I’m casting son!” he said. “I will Daddy, I will….”

So, another year is quickly passing. Next month Daddy will have been gone for a decade. A lot of things have happened in that 10 years. New great grandchildren he would have loved to have known. A heart bypass for me that he could have told me about from first hand experience. Politics On which he would have had some of his own unique opinions. Now, this pandemic.

I have dreamed of him and Mom and my grandparents a lot lately, and I am always comforted by those dreams. It’s like they are all telling me things will be ok. That really helps especially coming from them. See you all again sometime.

Today is the day which is really the central core of Christianity. I know that tomorrow is the day on which Christ came back to life. But on this day, he lay dead in the grave and like any other human being he experienced “death” itself. Jesus did not rise in his same body, or form. He arose from the dead in a new body, a transfigured body. He showed us that although we die it is possible through him to do the same thing which he did. He told us, that whosoever believed in him, should not perish but have eternal life. It took some time for the people who knew him the best to recognize him, just as it takes time for us to recognize what really being a follower of Christ is all about. When the dawn breaks in the morning, I hope to see it. I hope to smile and say thank you to our Creator for another day. I will want to tell everyone,…everyone that I love them and that God loves them, no matter where they are or what they are doing. Tell everyone to forgive me for anything I have ever done to cause them sorrow. Give forgiveness which is not asked for nor sought after. Christ’s love is unconditional, and it does transfigure a person to something which they cannot be on their own. How can my love be less unconditional? If we followed Christ’s guidelines which he laid out for us during his last three years of life, we would have peace on Earth and love for each other. Jesus loved us, and he proved it. He loved ALL of humanity, and he proved it. Can we do any less and still call ourselves Christians?

From 2015:

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God.

In this world, in this day and age…how many peacemakers do you suppose there are as opposed to “agitators”

In the sixties we would make the peace sign, and we meant it. We wore the peace symbol and we meant it. We pictured the dove of peace in a world of war. We pictured an end to nuclear weapons. We decried the warlike status of our country.

Now we are called “old hippies” or worse. We are scoffed at as irrelevant. We are blamed for the way the returning vets from Nam were treated. Nothing could be further from the truth. I know, because I was there…then..and now. The same entity, the American government was responsible for forgetting our vets then, and they are responsible for “creeping” us back into war again now…

I for one want no more wars. They do not solve any problems. They only always perpetuate them. I see a new presidential election on the horizon and I see myself voting for someone who is against starting new wars. We need a peacemaker, after all they shall be called the children of God, and that’s not a bad endorsement.