Day: July 19, 2024

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…