Month: July 2024

IT’S ALL in your MIND…..(or…What’s on your mind, as this blank space always asks when I come to it.)

What is the first thing that you can remember? That’s my question for now. What’s your first memory? Our mind is a funny thing and they say we only use about 10% of what we have. But just humor me and try and frame a mental picture of your first memory. If you can do it that will eventually lead me to my other question.

See, the reason it interests me is that I often wonder if everyone else’s brain functions about the same as mine. Most of my childhood memories are rather fuzzy around the edges. Do you know what I mean? It’s sort of like trying to look at something right after you have just woke up, and you still have a ton of “sleep” in your eyes. Either that, or maybe it’s like trying to remember a dream which you had the night before. The dream is really clear when you first wake up, but if you EVER want to remember it, you should take the advice of dream specialists and write it down right then. If not, it’s going to be fuzzy in the morning. Fuzzy around the edges, just like those really early childhood memories. Sometimes I wonder if some of my “memories’ are not really dreams. Is that possible? I think it might be. As we go through life, and we live through so many different things, it may just be that some of our more vivid dreams get mixed up in our brain with reality. That would be a hoot wouldn’t it? I really think this is a good exercise though, because the more I have consciously thought about the past, the more memories starting bubbling to the surface like bubbles on a pound full of snapping turtles. The more I try and separate reality from fantasy, the more sure I am that it’s not always possible to do so.

Well for starters, the very first thing I remember is having to go potty really, really bad. We lived in a house back in 1953, when I was three years old that was originally a duplex that had been turned into a regular house. I remember that it confused me, because both sides of the house seemed to be the same, except the living room furniture was in one side and the bedroom furniture in the other. I remember thinking that the rooms were the same and that when I blinked my eyes, or went to sleep (especially if I got carried from one side to the other during that time) that the furniture was rearranging itself! Strange, right? But, back to pottying. I had to go really, really bad, and nobody was around to “direct” me to the correct place, so down went the pants and…..well..you can guess the rest. The part I remember the most, was getting my rear end tanned by my Pop! I never, ever did that again!

I also remember having a pair of Easter bunnies that same year. Dad brought them home in a box, and we took them out back to eat grass and they got away from us and ran up under the car. It took Daddy forever to catch them, and I didn’t know what some of the words he was using meant, but I used one of them later on when I rode my tricycle down the front steps. My Dad was secretly tickled I said it to the Dr. who was sewing up my head, but he still blamed it on my Mom. I can’t remember what happened to those damn rabbits though. I think Dad probably got tired of them making a mess and got rid of them one night while the furniture was changing itself around.

Another vivid thing during that same year I believe was during the summer we would catch “lightning bugs” (fireflies to a lot of you) We would put them in a jar and I would take them to a dark place and try to use them like a flashlight! Usually, we would let them go before going in for the night, but once we forgot and I came out the next morning, and couldn’t figure out why the bugs wouldn’t light up. I didn’t realize that after being in a closed jar with no hole all night long, they were NEVER going to light up again! My Dad told me that they were not sleeping, that they were dead forever. That was my first realization that things sometimes really cease to live.

I know that I lived the first two years of my life at my Grandparent’s house. My Dad didn’t get out of the Navy until 1952, so my Mom and I stayed with them. I have seen pictures of myself at that age, but try as I might, try so very hard, I cannot bring up any memories of any of those times before 1953 when we moved back to Trion, where I still live today. I wish I could remember those times. What would really be neat would be to be able to remember anything and everything that ever happened to you. To just be able to sit down and say, “Now I am going to remember December of 1956 when I was six years old, and what happened at Christmas that year!” That would be a miracle wouldst it? Scientists say that everything is stored right up there in that little 3 pounds of gray jelly we call our brain. That wonderful, misunderstood and not fully understood organ that runs us. I have tried everything from meditation, to “commanding” my brain to remember, to closing my eyes and straining and squinting but I still can’t make it happen! Are all of you folks like that, or is it just me!!! I would like to know, so I can claim a deficiency if I am the only one.

Memory and the brain. They really are a strange thing. I remember one time when my Grandfather was in his last year of life. He didn’t know anybody, or anything much. He was afflicted with some type of memory loss which was permanent and very severe…as a result of a stroke perhaps, or of hardening of the arteries. When we went to visit him, he would just sit around and kind of “babble” like a tape recorder randomly playing back snippets of conversation recorded over years and years of time. Nothing made much sense. He always seemed like he was glad to see us, and sad to see us go…but…things were just not perking right. My Grandma was sitting there one day and talking about one of their relatives, and Grandpa spoke up all of the sudden and said: “Cleve’s dead” (I think it was Cleve….it might have been Pierce…my memories not so good….) My Grandma answered him back telling him how crazy he was, because she had just talked to Uncle Cleve that morning. That afternoon when we took Grandma back home, she found out that Cleve had died right around the time we were all at the Nursing home. So, the brain’s funny isn’t it. I would have bet you a million dollars that Grandpa couldn’t count to ten anymore, but somehow, someway he knew his old hunting buddy had died.

Maybe not being able to recall everything that has ever happened to us is a blessing. We might NOT be able to be selective and just remember the good things. We might also HAVE to remember the bad things too. There are a LOT of those things that I would rather keep shoved back into the tiny recesses and crevasses of my mind. Yes, my mind. When all is said and done, our mind IS what we are isn’t it? Even when Grandpa’s was taken mostly away, he was given a gift of sorts to replace what had been taken from him. I guess our spirit sort of resides there. I suppose the part of us which is our personality and which makes us us resides there. It’s about the only part of us they can’t replace with a transplant still! Shoot, you can have a ticker transplant and go right on being yourself, but a diving accident can turn you into something you would rather not think about! It makes you wonder about all those people who do have that kind of damage. Have their souls, what made them who they were, already fled the premises and just left the empty shell behind? I suppose there are many who doubt there is a soul…but I still believe in it. I still believe that “spark” of creation is still there.

Well, there’s the challenge for those of you who want to think about it. Can you remember everything? What was your first memory? Would you like to be able to have total recall? When our old brain is gone, like Grandpa’s was, are we still us? I think so….what do you think? Most of all I would like to know…how are your memories…are they as clear as a wonderfully taken photograph, or as gray around the edges as an out of focus picture?

Oh by the way. Does anybody remember a Science Fiction thriller from the 50’s named “Donavan’s Brain?” It was about this guy whose brain was taken out of him while he was still alive, and put into this thing that looked all the world like a ten gallon fish aquarium! They had all kind of wires hooked up to it, and had it connected to a computer looking thing. Ol’ Donovan’s Brain could still “communicate” and eventually took over some folks, if I remember right, making ‘em do things they wouldn’t ordinarily do. It was a hoot! I hope to heck they NEVER learn to do that. I personally hope they never learn to “store” our minds on computers either. Never able to “download” the electrical impulses from our brains onto some kind of infernal storage unit, to be put into a program so we can still communicate with the living. I don’t wanna’ be a machine.

I know for sure a lot of really rich people are planning on something happening. Walt Disney is on “ice” as is Ted Williams and quite a few other folks with the dollars who thing there’s a chance for a human resurrection one of these days.

When it’s time for me to go, I want to go. I wonder, what will my LAST thought will be? Whatever it is, I won’t be able to share it with any of you guys that are left behind, so I guess I better concentrate on sharing what I want to now, while I still can!! Love and Peace to you all.

Going down this winding road since October 1950, I’ve seen many things and done plenty more.

My opinions on life have stayed pretty much the same all along, at least in my deep down, secret heart of hearts.

I think on some days perhaps I should evolve, and try a different philosophy, but then after some additional thought I say the hell with that. I am who and what I am, and that’s pretty much it.

Where I used to be a gripey young man, now I’m a gripey old man.

Where I used to be a collector, now I’m a junker ( some say I’ve reached hoarder status, but I don’t think I’m there yet).

Where I used to barely scrape by, now I scrape lower.

Where I used to respect a lot of people, now I respect fewer. (A lot of good ones have died).

Where I used to be religious, I am now spiritually independent.

Things I used to be super afraid of, don’t scare me much anymore.

Where I used to love music, I now need it to survive.

Where I used to be insecure, I still am…..

I could go on, but I won’t. This self examination is over for now.

I think it’s worthwhile for everyone to look at themselves and be honest with themselves about their status as a human being. As you can see, I’m certainly no saint. Not even close to a Nobel peace prize. But, I do still love.

I love my family, my friends, those who used to call me friend but now don’t. I love life, nature, fresh air, good food, little kids, play dough, “The Secret Life of Pets” baking with my wife, going to the beach, ice cream….and so much more.

In spite of my failings and foibles, I love this life.

I hope all of you do too.

I sometimes think, I do not believe in a creator. Yet I feel I must. I cannot help myself. I must believe that each of us has a living spirit inside, which is uniquely ours and which was given to us and us alone. Nobody else possesses this tiny piece of creation.

It is ours.

I’m not sure of all the technicalities of this life we live. I feel like nobody truly knows the whole story. I don’t believe Creator wants us to know the whole story. We have our many religions and beliefs, and I won’t express any opinions about any of them. You believe what you want to, and I’ll do the same.

In the movie Forrest Gump, Forrest came to this conclusion:

“I don’t know if we each have a destiny, or if we’re all just floating around accidental-like on a breeze. But I think maybe it’s both. Maybe both are happening at the same time.”

I wonder if that’s true? I wonder too about our time here in this physical world. I’m almost 74, and so far that is my time. It is my entire life up until now in this body. When my time is up, I wonder….where will that tiny piece of creation that keeps this body animated, moving and interacting go?

In September of 1970, my wife gave birth to our daughter Karrie Lynn. She only lived for two days. She was perfect when she was born, but got sick and died. The entirety of her life on the earth was two days, although my wife carried her inside for nine months. Her spirit was just the same in size and scope as mine, she just didn’t get as much time here. Does that fact decrease the importance of her life? Was it her destiny to only live for two days?

I think about it a lot, but I’m not sure of the answer.

If somehow after I die, I can interact with the spirit that was my daughter, I certainly want to do so. I don’t know how that interaction will manifest itself. It doesn’t much matter to me, as long as t does. I don’t think it will be as a father-daughter type meeting, but more of a spiritual reunification. I personally don’t think we will retain this “earthly” identity of what we were here. It would be kind of strange if we did. We won’t be human, and we won’t have a body.

Again, this is just my feelings on the subject. You can feel differently if you want to, it won’t hurt my feelings.

I also think that people who have lost children before they are born because of other things which may have happened, will have that same spiritual recognition. I think we will have that reunification with any and all people we have loved here, or have touched in some meaningful way.

A lot of people believe in heaven, but I’m not sure exactly the nature of that situation. Maybe it varies. I have no answer for that. I admire people who have the inscrutable and ironclad faith that there will actually be a physical residence somewhere where everyone who qualifies will gain entrance. I once believed it. But that’s not my belief anymore. Please don’t hate me, or pity me because of it. I’m not belittling your belief. I just don’t think that way anymore.

I do believe there will be more, but I think the total details will not be revealed until we breathe our last breath here.

I still cannot agree with Jean-Paul Sartre though, and his existentialist view of man:

“at first, he is nothing. Only afterward will he be something, and he himself will have made what he will be. Thus, there is no human nature, since there is no God to conceive it. Not only is man what he conceives himself to be, but he is also what he wills himself to be.”

I believe we are something. I believe we are all very much something special and unique. That we are given that tiny piece of creation, and we are given the time in which to live it, no matter if that time is great…like my Granny Stewart, who lived to be 100, and who told me that the years were like days to her as she aged….or like my daughter, whose two days may have seemed like a full lifetime….. because after all, it was.

I don’t know how many miles I have driven in an automobile over my working years. Starting back in 1978 up until 2011, a period of thirty three years, I have worked “out of town” from where I lived in good ol’ Trion, Georgia. I have worked and commuted to Rome, Calhoun, Dalton, LaFayette, and all over Northwest Georgia for five years during the 1980’s as a Sales Rep for a Medical/First Aid company. I have logged a lot of miles in a vehicle. I may try and figure out just how many one of these days when I have a lot more time to work it out.

During the 80’s while I was driving, I listened to WSB radio out of Atlanta most of the time. At least I had it on anyway. I laughed and cried at Ludlow Porch many days. I cussed Neal Boortz and agree with him…about 75-25…you can figure out in which direction. A lot of times I just rode with the radio turned off. I sang the lead to most of the Broadway musical records I had listened to so often as a kid. My “Impossible Dream” rendition from the “Man of La Mancha” is still ringing loudly somewhere in the hills near Jasper, Georgia. I went through every song I every knew and then started writing my own. Back then there was no way to record anything while you were driving, so if I got a good melody in my head I would have to hum it all day long until I got home to my guitar and cassette tape recorder. I know I lost a lot of hit songs due to the fact that I had to get out of the car and work in between bouts of creativity.

I preached many a great sermon back in those days…quoting from every bible verse I had every learned…which was a lot of them. None of them ever saw print or the light of day, but some of them were pretty good.

I taught classes on history and anthropology while I was driving. I had conversations with myself about the meaning of life. I never solved that one.

I imagined myself winning the World series with a last minute home run, or dropping a putt on the 18th of the Masters to win the tournament.

But many times I would just ride along looking at the mountain scenery and think. Just think about things.

I guess I was just a poor man’s Walter Mitty, really.

I once won an all expense paid trip to Athens Greece for Paula and I on a radio contest based on one of the many “question and answer” games that were going around in the early 80’s. I heard the question while I was driving down the road: “Who was Ms. Hungary in 1957” We had just played the game the night before, and I knew the answer was Zsa-Zsa Gabor, so I hurriedly pulled into a service station which had a pay phone (yes there were pay phones back then) and called into WSB. I got through, was the correct caller, and they put my name in the “pot” for the grand prize drawing the next week. As I was driving home the day of the drawing, I had WSB tuned in and when they actually called my name, I just about ran off the road. I had been kidding Paula about where we should go when we won (it was one of ten cities in Europe) so when I pulled into ANOTHER pay phone and called her, she thought I was being goofy. It took a lot of convincing, but she finally believed me. We chose Greece. It was our second choice to Vienna, Austria…but we couldn’t go there because the only time we had to go was in October, and everything there was booked up for Octoberfest. We had a great time in Greece though…

And so I drove on……through the 80’s and into the 90’s. Paula and I got a job at the same place, and for almost ten years we rode out and back together to Calhoun. It was a great era. We took our lunch breaks at the same hour and ate out in Calhoun at all the fast food joints there, many multiple times. We worked with a lot of cool, friendly and iconic people…and a few asses. We got paid decent, and the benefits were super.

We had an hour’s drive home in the afternoons to “cool down” from the day’s work. We did a lot of talking, and it kept us close. Thinking back now, the place we were working was a great place.

They were bought out by a bigger company in 1999, and I had to start commuting to a different place again. So, there was 12 more years of driving out and back. First to Rome again….then to Dalton, Lafayette and Calhoun in that order.

The last couple of years, the drives were late at night, ending at home after midnight most of the time. Mom and Dad were sick in those two years…dying. I remember the night before Daddy died I was at work in Calhoun and he called me. He was bad sick. I couldn’t get off early because the third shift supervisor wouldn’t come in to let me go. He was an ass. When I did get off, I drove the back road from Calhoun to LaFayette at 80 to 90 miles an hour. Dad was resting by then, and weak. He knew I was tired, so he told me to go home and rest. I stayed there until nearly 2 a.m., but then I relented and went home. My Dad was a tough old man. Many times in his life he had stared death down and come through it still breathing, all the way from World War II, through two heart attacks, heart bypass surgery, botched appendix surgery which left an infection which would have killed many people. So many times he had toughed it out. But I got a call about 7 a.m. the next morning from my Dad. He told me his chest was hurting and to come quickly. Then the phone fell out of his hand and hit the floor.

Of all the miles I had driven over the years, all the many thousands of mundane miles, the near miss days, the three coffee afternoons to stay awake…out of all of these miles, the twelve miles from my house to Lafayette were the longest I had ever driven. I went fast…but even then, I didn’t make it in time. My tough old man had left sometime while I was in transit. The top of his head was still warm when I touched him and said goodbye.

No matter how many times I go back over that drive…the hurried one the night before and the more hurried one the next morning, I can find no solace in anything I did. Guilt haunts and haunts, and keeps on haunting some more. People can tell you that you couldn’t have done anything more, but you’ll never believe them. I never do and never will.

Shoulda, coulda and woulda….you put them in the furnace just like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abendego…and they just won’t burn….they’ll always come out right back at ya’.

I drove more miles after that. Seven more month’s worth of thirty miles over and thirty miles back, after midnight. My Mom faded away early in December that same year, but we were all at least there and surrounding her at the last. The anxiety, and the years of bad eating, and no exercise, and bad genetics caught up with me near Christmas of 2010 and my years of rolling up mileage came to a halt for a while. They cut me from Adam’s apple to belly button and put four new vessels in while a machine was pumping my blood. At one point in the first few days, I hurt so badly I thought about just letting go. But…my youngest son was in the room with me right then, and I didn’t want him to be a witness to it, so I decided I’d live.

I have made a come back over the past few years though. With Eli and Rue to care for, I moved back into the main stream of life a few steps at a time. Those babies and Paula brought me through the next year after my heart surgery, although my memory is sure spotty. They helped keep me busy and moving. It was a really good thing.

Now, for the last year or so, I’ve been riding up to Woodstation and picking up baby Evie and bringing her back down. I started to listen to NPR again, and many times playing tunes that Evie likes. And I think. I think a lot. Sort of like Forrest Gump did when he was running. But, unlike Forrest, I’ve started walking and doing a lot of thinking, instead of running. While I’m walking…and driving I notice the beauty around me.

The sunrises and sunsets, the animals, the kids and grandchildren, all sorts of buildings, and beaches, clouds and rocks….pretty much everything.

If you’ve seen my posts, you have seen the pictures! I take them to freeze that one moment in time for eternity. For others to see the things I consider beautiful and worthwhile. I write of things I hope will inspire, and I am trying oh so hard to steer clear of turmoil….although nobody’s perfect.

I’ve made a physical, and mostly emotional return to living.

I appreciate my life. Do you appreciate yours?

I know one day my walking….and driving days will be over, and while I have some regrets, the joys I have, and have had far outweigh the sorrows. The people I share my life with, who I call my family, give me purpose and love.

I am one of the lucky ones. Very lucky.

Call me blessed if you wish….I don’t care.

Reminiscing…

I have always loved music. Whether it be listening to music, playing my guitar, singing, writing songs, or just humming a tune. Music makes me happy, even when it makes me sad. I cry at the first few notes of some songs. One of them I heard on a rerun of AGT tonight was “Bridge Over Troubled Waters” written by Paul Simon. He gave an autistic young man who’s on the program permission to perform it, which is unusual, as he usually keeps performances of that song pretty limited.

I heard the song first on the radio early in early 1970, before I knew Paula was pregnant with our first child. It continued on to top the charts early that year, and while I liked it very much, it bore no major significance to me until much later on in the year.

We realized we were expecting a child sometime in February that year, while still living in Carrollton. It was a bleak, gray and cold, nasty Winter. We’d moved off campus into a little rental house, but we could never get our things totally straightened out, because Paula was beset with very bad morning sickness. It was the terrible, awful kind. I was so sorry for her, but I couldn’t help. The anti nausea pills would come back up whole. It was debilitating. I know she was upset. We knew without a doubt when it had happened. Unplanned, but not unwanted. I know being so sick was a miserable thing.

To make things worse, I could not find a part time job there to make money to pay a doctor, or to save any money for the coming expenses. Winter of 1970 in Carrollton, Georgia. Without our parents to help…I guess we’d have starved. I decided to transfer to UGA in the spring, because I’d heard part time jobs might be available there. I found a part time job at Sears in the Alps road shopping center almost as soon as we hit town. We found a little house to rent, Paula’s morning sickness improved, and things were looking better. Often, as I drove the car around Athens, Georgia I’d hear Simon and Garfunkel on the radio. The DJ there still liked “Bridge” and it began to take on a meaning to me. Sailing through those troubled waters was something we were doing. Maybe we’d hit some calm. I knew nothing.

We found a doctor for Paula, and although she had a really bad kidney infection that summer, which put her in the hospital, she gave birth to our daughter Karrie Lynn, on September 2nd. She was beautiful. Dark hair…dark brown eyes. The pediatrician checked her out and give her a clean bill of health the first day. I went home with Paula’s Mom to get some rest. I was a happy guy. I’d bought a box of cigars with pink bands to hand out.

When we came back the next day, the baby was sick. The pediatrician thought at first it was some kind of congenital heart defect. Then, she thought pneumonia. My Dad and Mom had gotten there, and we were all very concerned. Paula had held her once, the day before…but they hadn’t been able to bring her back again, because she was so sick. We were trying to get her transferred to Emory on September 4th, when the Doctors came out to tell us she had died.

Now at 19 years old…a little over a month away from being 20, I had become a father…my wife had become a mother..but we had lost that beautiful brown eyed baby in just two days. I never even got to touch her. Paula had to stay in the hospital still that night, and for several more nights. We were devastated, heart broken. I barely remember the next few days, with the funeral, the grieving. Paula’s Mom and I had to come to Trion to bury Karrie Lynn by ourselves while Paula was still in Athens. As we left Athens that day for Trion I had the radio on and I remember the DJ said someone had requested “Bridge Over Troubled Waters”. I don’t know who it was…it doesn’t matter, but I knew the song was for me. I wept bitterly…driving down the highway, wondering why, why this had happened to us. I got no answer to that question that day, and haven’t any day since then. Maybe there are no answers to such questions.

Paula and I recouped…slowly. We fostered a little boy named Ronnie for several months in 1971, after moving from the little house to a duplex on Edgewood drive. We built up the courage to try and have another child, and Kirsten was born in August 1972. (Sorry Kisi….revealed your age) Then after we moved to Trion, there was Ted and then Matt. We have been blessed beyond measure with them, with our grandchildren. Our love was deepened by our loss, but the loss was never forgotten.

But, as with all things which concern the heart….the hard wounds never heal, they just scar over and are opened by the memories which trigger the hurt. I would often go to the old Trion cemetery where my daughter is buried, and spend time alone there, talking and singing. Sometimes I would sing that Simon and Garfunkel song. Sometimes just think about things. So tonight, when I heard the first few notes, I had to suck in a deep breath, and start repairing that very old scar again. It’s hard to get the words out still, even after all these years. It’s just as fresh in that moment as it was almost half a century ago.

TRADE DAYS

Back in the early 70’s I moved back to Trion. It was 1974 to be exact. Kirsten was only two years old. Ted was still a couple of years on down the line and Matt wasn’t even thought about yet. I worked in the mill as a supervisor back then and those were the high water days of denim. We were working 7 days a week with only Christmas day off. It was grueling.

One of the things the denizens of the mill liked to do back then was trade knives. Yep, you heard me right. While we were watching the denim run through the sanforizers we would dicker and argue over knives, whose was the best, and if we would get a dollar or two boot for the one we wanted. Case was the big name maker, and the bone handled ones were the most sought after. I collected quite a few knives in my four years there.

Somewhere along about the late 70’s some guys got the idea to start congregating down at the Triangle shopping center to trade knives and some other stuff, and Trade Day in Chattooga country was born. It lasted there for a year or two and then when they didn’t want it there anymore, it moved down to it’s current spot halfway between Trion and Summerville. Jane owned it and then later on it was Jane and Larry.

Since those humble beginnings of “knife swapping” Trade Days and Flea markets have proliferated throughout America for the last nearly forty years. People in this country buy lots of stuff and then they end up having a lot of stuff they don’t need. You could also find some good bargains back in the “day” A lot of folks starting “specializing” in different kinds of things: knives, coins, jewelry, military, clothes, books, china, pottery, etc. and would have the “best of the best” in those areas of collection. You would learn who would have what, and would make a trip to see them every week on Tuesdays and Saturdays (around here, other places had/have theirs on different days) There was some good collectibles back then. I collected everything I think. Starting with the knives which I held onto for many years, then to baseball cards, and comic books, and hot wheels, marbles, and jewelry. I did a lot of trading and buying and some selling. I have met so many wonderful people over the years at Trade Day and other flea markets. I’ve become good friends with so many of them. It’s been a great hobby and pastime. I’ve had a very patient and wonderful wife, who has put up with a lot of “junk” coming and going over the years.

Over the past 5 years or so, the Trade Day and other flea markets have changed. The atmosphere is just not the same anymore….at least for me.

What you used to see years ago were local people coming down in their cars with their excess stuff in the trunk with maybe one table and just being there to get rid of things they didn’t want, or maybe the stuff that belonged to their folks or grandfolks that they didn’t need or want anymore. Nowadays pretty much all you see are the “pros” These are the dealers who come there every week, week after week, with pretty much either the same items, or the same items with a few new things thrown in. They have their five or six tables, their trucks and trailers. They have banners and flyers. Some of them travel the country, or at least regionally selling the same items.

Then you have the “storage wars” folks. These are the people who buy out storage buildings that the people who bought too much stuff back in the seventies and eighties have put it in, and then couldn’t pay their rent, or didn’t want to pay their rent. They bring big truckloads of everything imaginable in cardboard boxes, and lay it out on the ground and people go through it, hold something up and say “how much is this?” The guy who owns it shouts out a price and you either buy it, or put it back. Most of time I totally skip these guys as most of the “good” stuff has been pulled out by them before they come to the market and they sell “the good stuff” to high dollar collectors or scrap the gold and silver jewelry for cash. I just don’t like digging through those boxes. I’ve seen people’s entire lives, including their personal belongings, their family photos, their clothes and possessions, including their i.d., sold out down at Trade day. It’s sad.

Also, now there are the new “grocery wars” guys who buy the slightly out of date, or nearly out of date stuff, the excess stuff, and the returned stuff and bring huge truckloads of it to the market to sell out. I’ll admit, I get my coffee and some other stuff from these guys. Whey pay full retail, when you can get the stuff for pennies on the dollar? This is the place where I see a lot of retirees and people who work for minimum wage at the local burger joints or for Walmart. One of the ways these folks live is by “shopping” at the flea markets and Trade days…as they have evolved into something of a “super variety” store for the poor. (Along with the big Salvation Army Stores, and the Goodwill stores…which is where I buy most of my clothes and other things I really need for daily use)

All that being said, I still go on Tuesdays and Saturdays. I’ve picked up so much junk over the years that I need to get rid of that I got to! I’ll probably keep going until I can’t go anymore because it just sort of gets in the blood. It’s not the same as it used to be, but….what is?

A lot of times I still find myself picking up a pen and paper and write things down on them before I transcribe it to the cyber world.

To me, writing something down on a page, especially if you are trying to create something gives me a warmer more responsive feeling, as opposed to the cold, clinical, sterile feeling of creating something on a screen that sits up in front of you, like a monolithic all seeing eye, daring you to put your fingers against the keyboard and interact with it in some kind of weird pseudo sexual dance. A dance that it always seems to win. I still participate in that particular dance more often than I would like. In this day and age we have very little choice if we are to interact with the world at large. However, my deeper feelings are still recorded with pen and paper. Just an old habit that’s hard to break.

In my life time I have seen humans being gradually sucked into the black arms of technology, gradually a few steps at a time. I have gone along too, I will have to admit. Sometimes reluctantly, fighting against it tooth and nail, but more often like everyone else accepting the change as just another step to make life easier and more convenient for us.

Wood cook stoves have changed to electric and gas and then to microwaves. Dinner used to run around on two feet and your Grandmother would grab it, and it would be extremely fresh that night for supper. Now, we grab it out of the freezer from a box.

People used to walk places. Miles and miles to places. It wasn’t unusual for my Mother to walk 6 or 7 miles into “town” when she was a child, and then the same distance back after she had conducted whatever business she was doing. It took all day. You were tired after that and had no problems sleeping. Adults didn’t have any problems with sleep either. They worked all day in the fields, or in the barns or at the house. There was very little idle time. Maybe a little bit in the evenings before the sun went down to read a little in their tattered old Bibles before going to bed, exhausted. No problems sleeping. No sleeping pills needed due to having sat around all day and pecked on a computer keyboard and not gotten up and walked more than a few steps. No sleeping pills needed due to worrying about deadlines for unimportant things which seem critical. Just tired bones and muscles needing a full nights sleep before getting up at first light the next day to start over again.

Miles of walking. Now, I sometimes drive the single mile to the local Wal-Mart Superstore 5 or 6 times a day to pick something up. I am the one that worries about the critical things which are not critical and has to have the pill to sleep well. I don’t have to build a fire in a wood stove to stay warm, just turn up the gas or the electric heater. I wonder if I am better off.

Oh, and on those trips to Wal-Mart ( I really don’t particularly like Wally World, but…I would have to drive 20 miles to go to another store that has what they have, SO I conform…what’s a person to do?) most of the time I used to end up buying some pre-packaged stuff to fix for supper. I used to pop a Freshetta Pizza out of the box, and pop it into the oven. I used to NEVER look at the labels. I was afraid of reading them. I didn’t want to know what it took to preserve what I was eating. I’ve changed that by a long ways now…trying to pay attention to all the stuff that I have been consuming over the years which has been slowly killing me. Will it work or not…time will tell.

I know that Grandma used to cook stuff in Pure Lard. For a long time the Drs. said that was really bad for you, all that animal fat and stuff. I don’t know about that though. There is some contradictory report on the TV news every day now about what’s good for you and what isn’t. It’s enough to boggle your mind. If you try and keep up with it, and do what they say you have to change the way you eat and drink about every other week because some study shows this or that. I quit keeping up with that too, and just eat what I think is right for me. A lot of veggies and stuff. I guess if it’s bad for me one day, and good for me the next I figure things are balancing each other out over the long run. Right?

I can barely remember back before there was a TV in the house. Just vaguely. I remember listening to records and radio programs on the Philco combination Radio/Phonograph that my folks owned. There were some great singers. Sinatra, Dean Martin, Rosemary Clooney. There some funny radio shows. All of those are fuzzy memories though. I don’t think we used that radio more than a few times after the first little Black and White TV came into the house. After that, it was ‘I Love Lucy’, ‘The Honeymooner’s” and Baseball games during the week. And then on Saturday mornings, it was the BEST of all. There were Western’s with Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, and Hoppalong Cassidy. You name them, they were there. The cartoons were great too. Bugs Bunny and Popeye the Sailor man. The “Officer Don” show, with the puppets and the cartoons and clowns, not to speak of “Howdy Doody” and old Buffalo Bob. Who could resist that over listening to the radio? We sure didn’t realize we were being suckered into a new life style though. It just seemed like entertainment back then, and not a shady plot to take over our lives. But boy we were wrong, weren’t we?

Now, there are 4 or 5 TV’s in more every house. Every resident usually has one of their own. There are 2 or 3 computers, there are enough Nintendo game systems, and Microsoft game systems out there now to fill up the Superdome if you could stand up at the top and chunk them all in, prior to setting them all on fire in order to save mankind. I am afraid it’s a little to late though. And I will even have to admit that at my house there are two TV’s, and three or four computers. I sigh while I am sitting here thinking about it, but there’s no use in trying to deny the fact that I also have been caught up in the technology trap.

I have seriously thought sometimes about trying to simplify things, but I don’t think I know how anymore. I watched that movie “Lost” with Tom Hanks a few weeks ago, and I don’t think I want to live like that. You know the one where he is trapped on a deserted Island for so long that he starts talking to a soccer ball? Ohh…the lack of a dentist would kill me, but ol’ Tom survived it.

I guess there’s no turning back the hands of time. I wonder how many of us would go back even if we had the chance. I probably wouldn’t.

I wonder if there is anybody out there who has a list of the technological items that have come along since 1950. I have thought about trying to come up with one, but it would take more time then I have now to even think about starting. If there is one out there on the web that anyone knows about, make sure and let me know. Surely there is somebody out there who had all the spare time that all this wonderful technology has created for us to do such a list. That was the point in starting to invent all of it wasn’t it? To make life less complicated and less hard for we humans, and to give less time toiling away at menial tasks, like growing our own food, and raising our families, and more time to do the IMPORTANT things we want to do, like watching more TV, playing more video games, text messaging our friends on our Cell phones, going to one of the 9 billion fast food places in the country to eat our supper, pay our bills online, order our Christmas presents online, read our newspapers online, go to war with people we don’t like with smart bombs, and laser guns, because we have found out we hate each other more because we know more about each other, and what we know we have found we don’t like, and to drive our mega trillion automobiles around 1 mile to Wal-Mart 10 times a day putting so much Carbon Monoxide in the air that our planet is starting to warm up (so they say on TV anyway)

We take out other people’s body parts and put them in people to save their lives. They can transplant just about anything nowadays. I heard a few years ago they are working on a head transplant, so that’s why they got Old Ted William’s head frozen away out there somewhere in California waiting til’ they perfect that surgery. There are pacemakers, and stints. There are Dialysis machines and heart lung machines, and Cat Scans, and MRI’s…….

….and so on and so forth. Whew…we have come a long way baby, to get to where we are today.

I could go on, but there’s no use. You get the point by now.

Of course there is good connected with all of these things. Certainly, there is. I’m still alive because of some of this technology. I would never have gotten to do some of the amazing things I have done because of it. I have friends I would have never “spoken” to without this technology. I can keep in touch with my family, and that’s the most important thing I have gotten out of it. I guess it’s best to live with it, take the good and try to change the bad if you can. We were all created with a built in conscious (at least
Most of us were) so we know good from bad, and it’s up to us to try and change the things about our ‘New’ society that are bad.

We can write our Congressmen and Senators about the things that are wrong with our government, and how we feel about the Economy, and such. (Those would be some very long letters, but…it’s what we should do) If you see a program you don’t like on T.V., turn the channel. That’s the fastest way to get something done there. Recommend to your friends that they do the same thing. Vote next time there’s an election. Even in a GOOD voting year, most of the time fewer than 50% of registered voters vote! If they are not listening to the cards and letters…vote them out!

Quit making so many trips to Wal-Mart (That will be a hard one around my house) Cut down on the computer time, cut off the lights when you are not using them, read some instead of watching TV all the time. Spend time with your family….real time in person, not time “on line”

Question anything you aren’t sure about when it comes to technology:

Just because some Dr. wants to do something to you, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the right or correct thing to do. I don’t really want them doing too much to me to tell you the truth, but I haven’t gotten on the stick and even written a living will, or a real will yet. Yes, that’s something I need to do, how about you?

Just because some salesperson at the computer store wants to sell you the “latest and greatest” PC doesn’t mean you really need it.

Do you really need that flat screen or HDTV? ( I decided I did…arrghhh.)

When you get your next car can you make sure it’s not a gas guzzler, or maybe even try and get a hybrid.

Ah well, I have rambled on long enough.

By the way, I wrote this directly onto the screen, instead of using a pen and paper. It would have taken too long otherwise.

Dang me. Dang me….outta’ take a rope and hang me…

When I was a young man my beliefs were different, mainly because my knowledge was self limited. Even a college if something an instructor said didn’t match what I had in my head as being “right” I just never let it sink in.

I was a know it all, who had ingrained dogma pumped into me. My values were shaped by the low number of years I’d lived. I was not “sticking up for what was right”. I was play acting life as I knew it.

I credit my wife for beginning my change. She taught me that women should be respected, and that their opinions counted. She quickly let me know that marriage is a shared endeavor, not a case of “this is the woman’s job, and this is the mans. By the time my first son arrived, we’d been through a good “practice run” with my daughter and were pretty much out of the bad fighting stage. Over the years I have taken on a big part of her love for animals, and have relied on her to tell me when I’m generally totally wrong about things.

I went on in my working career to be a supervisor in QA, which was pretty much populated by women….except of course by the supervisor. I always treated everyone of them with respect, and deferred to their knowledge in many cases. For over twenty years I had women working for me in various jobs and never, ever had a complaint of a harassing nature. There are a couple of FB friends on here who worked with me during that time, who can back me up on that point. I treated women thee same as I did the occasional man who worked for me. I very much regret not trying to go above and beyond to get a higher wage for them, but I just went with the flow of what the company paid. Wages weren’t bad, but the men were paid more per hour in the areas in which they worked. I always made sure that they each got good Christmas presents from me, and I always made them free copies of the song demos I recorded.

There was one lady who was an inspector for me, who really liked country music. I had given her a full CD of songs while we were working together. I got a call from a man about five years after that business had been sold out to a large carpet company. “I’m ——-‘s husband,” He said “She had a stroke two years ago and can’t speak well. She wore out the CD you gave her and desperately wants another copy. I tracked you down through another old worker from the plant”.

I made another copy, and took it too her house in Armuchee. I spoke with her as best I could for an hour while I was there, about good old times at the plant, how hard the work was. She was almost paralyzed totally, but she thanked me very much for the CD. “You were the best boss we ever had” she said.

I wept as I drove home. The truth is, she’d been one of my least favorite workers. Always griping, but getting her work done. But she had liked me more than I had liked her. I never knew. I had always treated her the same, so she never knew either.

I never had much use for gay people when I was young. I thought they were all just perverts. That’s because I had never known one. When Paula and I moved back home, I started buying plants for our yard from these two guys who owned a nursery. I thought they were just business partners, but over the months I found they were also partners. This was still back in the mid seventies, so their relationship was still very frowned upon as a general thing. They didn’t have any friends, so we started inviting them over to our house for meals and card games. They loved playing with our daughter and our dog. They were intelligent, well spoken and well educated. They were out to bother nobody else, they just wanted to live their lives. We had the over for quite a few years, and we always had good times. One year, I noticed their relationship starting to crumble. Pressure was being applied by one of the guys family to quit the relationship. He gave in to his family, and the other partner moved back to Chattanooga. The one who stayed behind is an “old bachelor”

I never considered gay people to be abnormal or abominations anymore after that. I purposely opened myself up to knowing more gay and lesbian people, and the more of them I knew, the more I understood that they were as they were because it’s the way they were made. Many people still won’t agree with me. I don’t really care though. I do not see how we cannot be a society which is compassionate enough to just “live and let live”

Now we come to today.

Over the past several years I have had a Facebook friend who is transgender. I know that for sure now, although I have long suspected it. Over the past several months I have witnessed the hell he is having to go through….yes he, now she has had to go through to do something that could not help but be done. It was not a choice, but an imperative that had to be done in order that this individual could be complete. In order that she could be who she was born to be. I read as relationships crumbled, as extreme loss was suffered in those relationships. I cried as I thought, how I had been born with a brain wired to match my body, but that’s not always the case. That’s not always the case.

There was a man on America’s Got Talent who sang today. He was born in a female body, but always identified as a boy. He was tormented, bullied, beaten and abused. But I watched as he sang beautifully today on that show as a fully transitioned man and I openly wept. Oh, the things he has had to go through that I never had to. The things that my gay friends have suffered from family and peers that I’ve never had to experience. The travails of being a woman in a man’s world I have gotten a pass on because of my luck in chromosome placement.

Some will read this long piece, and think I’m dead wrong and disagree. Some will read, and as usual just won’t comment. Some will give it a like, some will just scroll on by as soon as they realize the subject matter. I don’t care, this is my opinion and mine alone. This the chronicle of my needed change, which didn’t come as soon as it should have. My shame along with a tiny bit of retribution. Take it however you want, or not at all.

After that song today, which my seven month old granddaughter stood and watched in rapt attention without so much as a twitch, it had to be written. It just had to.