Month: April 2024

May is almost here, and on the 10 day weather forecast I see 80’s starting to show up. Hot weather. Where I’m not much of a fan of it now, I certainly once was.

May meant school was almost over, and a three month vacation was just around the corner.

The fishing rods and cane poles could be dusted off, and new nylon fishing line would replace the previous summers scum encrusted old stringy line. We’d cut the old rusty hooks that had been holding the line to the top of the rod off, and tie on a shiny new barbed hook and lead sinkers, or a snap leader, so we could use a shyster or a plastic black worm to entice a bass.

The Chattooga river was barely a rock throw away, and I could hear that water pouring over the dam, and feel the spray hitting me as I stood on one of those limestone rocks, casting out towards the middle…looking for a sweet spot. I can still smell it even now.

We’d get our baseball gloves out of the closet and rub a tiny bit of Vaseline into the dry leather, and then just put the glove up to our nose, and smell the scent of baseball. Visions of games with new clean uniforms, and wooden bats contacting those brand new white baseballs, perhaps even shattering the bat if you hit it too high up on the handle, well…those visions danced in the heads of us Trion boys more so than any candy cane at Christmas time ever did.

I can see Jess Emory chewing on a cigar, and hear J.W. Greenwood or Cherry Crisp calling: “strike three, you’re out” more often than I wanted to!

I took a Brillo pad and shined up my golf irons. I took a Phillips head screw driver and made sure the metal plates on all my woods were tight. Me and Dad, and Tommy and Mike Brown would go golf ball hunting to stock up for the summer. We boys would spend hours a week playing and practicing so we could be as good as Darrell Broome, or Faye Brown. We’d caddie during the times we couldn’t play for Otis Tanner, or Mr. Florence. We would get real good tips during the Trion/Ware Shoals match. I’d always try and get Donnie Davis or Mr. Munns from Ware Shoals. They paid good.

It’s funny the things you remember when the weather starts to turn. I’m glad I grew up where I did, when I did. I could write more, but the sandman calls.

Once, I was a kid, a boy, a teenager, a young man.

Once was,… quite some time. 68 years ago I was a kid. 56 years ago I was 17, and looking to graduate from High School.

I was surrounded by people who grew up during the Great Depression, many of whom then went off to World War II to fight against some of the worst evil ever perpetrated against humanity….up until that time. People who then came home and became our parents, our aunts and uncles, our mentors, our neighbors, our preachers and teachers, our coaches, our city councilmen, our mayors, and many, many other roles in our lives. I knew hundreds of these people, perhaps thousands. They were good people, no…many of them were more than good, many of them were great people. While I am sure there were a few who were “bad” I can certainly, personally vouch for the fact that most of those people were good. All of them had one quality which I remember them carrying visibly in their hearts at almost all times for other people to see.

That quality was integrity.

These were people who did things they did not have to do, just because those things were right. Because they knew they were right. Because they knew right from wrong. Because they didn’t blur the lines between right and wrong. Because they did not fool themselves into thinking that they could do wrong and call it right. Because they did not try to bend the facts.They knew nothing about “spin”. To them, right and left meant in which hand you held your pencil.

Because they had seen starvation as children, and unjustified death as young adults, and they had fought against those things, and because they had overcome those things. They had gone to War and seen and suffered unthinkable things. They had freed Jewish people from the death camps of the Nazis. They had freed prisoners of war from the death camps of the Japanese.

These were people who would give you back a quarter in change if you made a mistake and gave it to them accidentally. These were the people who would give you the extra food they grew in their garden. They were the people who would change your flat tire in order to get you off the road. These were the people who would literally give you the “shirt off of their back”

They were people who would arrive fifteen minutes early for an appointment, or to a meeting, or to church, or to take their kids to school. These were the people who tried to instill all of these values into their children.

Did they fail? How did they fail?

Integrity. They had integrity.

Somewhere, somehow over the last sixty years integrity has, for the most part, been misplaced. It’s been relocated. It’s in the closet. Up on the top shelf, where the old hats are kept. It’s hard to reach. Some people get their flashlights out and find it still. But it’s not easy to come by. It’s not convenient to use. It’s difficult to have integrity. More difficult still to maintain. I know some people who have it. I have some family and friends who have it. I’ve tried my best to have it, perhaps I’ve failed or simply have too high expectations for that old quality.

I saw integrity in action this morning over a dollar that didn’t have to be given to someone, but was because a man had integrity. A single dollar. It might never have been missed, but the old man who gave it back had that integrity. Shorten that word down and you get “grit” This man had grit. Our parents generation had true grit. Integrity.

It’s a small thing, but a big thing. I knew at that point, I had not failed totally. When I stop and think about it, I feel perhaps I have not failed. Integrity lives on perhaps. I see other examples of it in other places in which I live my life on a daily basis. I am very grateful that I see it. It is something which needs to continue to be passed on. Our politicians and leaders certainly need to find it. To many of them integrity is a dirty word.

The people in the generations who were alive when I was a kid, a little boy, a young man….they knew integrity. They held themselves accountable for doing the right thing. They didn’t have to have anyone else, or any other thing besides their conscious to guide them. They were not perfect, but their spines were straighter than many in this day and age, including our leaders in many areas. Perhaps especially those.

I’d like to simply just thank those people of the greatest generation for what they all meant to me. I’ve fallen short of their example, but I swear I’ve tried….and I will continue to do so until my last breath.

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.

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?