Author: thegraymaniac

When you travel through many years as a “denizen” of the Trade Days, flea markets and yard sales of the South, you get to know many people. Some of them are home towners who you have grown up with and who you have known all your life. Some of them are friends who you only meet and see at Trade day, or other “trading” places.

I found out today that one of my friends, who I’ve known for quite a number of years….I’d say at least 10 or 12….maybe more, died of a sudden heart attack about three weeks ago. He was 57 years old.

I knew his first name was Jerry, but otherwise I knew him as “the military guy” He had served thirty years in the military and was from Alabama. He and his friend came to Trade day on Tuesdays every week that it wasn’t raining. He was young looking to me…I’d had not guessed he was 57. He wasn’t overweight, was tanned and fit looking, had a neat black mustache. He knew more about military memorabilia than any man I ever met. If I had something which I wasn’t sure about in the military realm I could ask him about it, and he would probably know. He collected military items, but would never “rip me off” on anything. He bought quite a few things from me.

If it was something good, he would tell me “you need to do a little more research on this before you ask that price on it” which indicated my price was too low. He could have bought it, and I’d have never known, but he didn’t. He had integrity, which is getting to be a rare quality to find these days.

I’m glad his friend came by and told me about him today. He said that Jerry had never had any symptoms of heart trouble. It was quite sudden. I recall what Dr. Ware told me years ago that the first symptom some people have of heart disease is sudden death. I was lucky, I had pain.

It’s happened quite a bit over the years, that somebody just doesn’t show up anymore….and you always wonder what happened to them. You can ask around and sometimes find out what happened, but many times you never know. They just kind of fade away. I’m glad that in this case, at least I know.

As for the “military guy”, my friend, my deepest condolences to his family and friends. He was a good man, and they are hard to find.

Godspeed.

Did you see Jesus today?

Was he the person in line in front of you at Wal-Mart who had to put some items back because they were short on money? Was he the person with the sign at the intersection which said “will work for food” who really just needed a couple of bucks? Was he the prisoner down at the jail who needed a visitor to bring him a Bible?

Was he the sick person at the ER with no insurance who was having a heart attack, or the kid at home waiting on that Summer sack lunch because their stomach was growling.

Did you see him in the Hispanic people wanting to learn English with nobody to teach them? Did you see him in the Meth addict with the rotten teeth who just doesn’t know how to get off the stuff, or in the waitress at the local breakfast joint who you just left two dollars when you could have left four.

Did you see him in the mirror? It’s easy to see Jesus on Sunday in a Church full of other Christians, and give your 10% and be done with it, but maybe just a little harder on the other days of the week.

I know I need to open my eyes a LOT more, because Jesus said however I treat them is the way he’s gonna treat me…..

Enjoy your time, live your life. Don’t be so concerned over what other people think, or what kind of philosophical differences you have with them. Where does it say that just because you disagree with someone that you must hate them? What kind of society have we become when “hate” becomes the buzzword on every days news? When hateful conversation is the norm on “Social” media. Not very social, eh?

We have become a culture of information overload, which has desensitized us to each other’s humanity. How human can a photo in the upper right hand corner of an electronic “page” be? When is the last time anyone in here wrote a letter to someone? I know some lovely people who still write, who still use language to communicate, and who still use touch to love others. How short of a time will it be before that all goes away?

Technology may be great, it is great, really. Some nights I just miss some of the humanity we have had to relinquish in order to move forward. I’m a dinosaur, and we all know what happened to them.

We had a birthday party for Rue today at Kirsten’s house. It was a super nice little get together. I sit and look at the family, and I’m proud of who they are and how they act. I’m happy to be with them.

I will continue to take life one day at a time as long as I can get it. My life goals at this point are very few. Simple things become immense pleasures, and small kindnesses become extreme treasures.

I’ll take a super comfortable pair of socks. A good casserole (or some Au gratin potatoes).

A beautiful sunrise or sunset…is so appreciated, and I’ll be super excited if I get to see the total eclipse on August 21st this year. It’s supposed to be very, very good here.

The birds at the feeder, and the pesky squirrels. “Alexa” playing “Superstition” or “Stompy the Bear”

A good home grown tomato for a sandwich. (Thanks Guy Clark for that song)

Oh, there are things I need…but most can hopefully soon be taken care of. Some new glasses. A new tooth to replace the one I broke. Some pain relief. But I’ll get there on these few things, and a couple of other things over the next few months.

Tidy some things up. Get rid of some more useless stuff I don’t need that perhaps someone else does.

Climb down off soapboxes.

Get ready for Fall, but just one day at a time. One day and one week. Not too much further out. Not wishing any time away, no matter what that time may bring.

For whatever the future holds, it hasn’t gotten here yet. So I’ll try and patiently wait on it.

Have a good Sunday friends.

I went through my early childhood thinking about what I wanted to be when I grew up. I alternately went through several “stages” of wanting to be different things.

At twelve, I wanted to be a baseball player. That was the year after Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris battled it out for the home run title in ’61, with Maris winning and setting a “non steroid” record of 61 home runs in one season. I ate, slept and dreamed of baseball. I was a pretty decent ballplayer. I had the best hitting average in my one year in little leagure and my three years in pony league (you can look it up in the “Facts” sports page if you wanna’) Then…I hurt my knee and couldn’t play baseball for several weeks. My doctor wanted me to walk as part of my recuperation, so my Dad bought me an old set of left handed golf clubs. I fell in love with golf.

That was in 1964, and for the next four years golf was my sport. i read Arnold Palmer’s book….and he was my hero. I imitated his super fast and over dramatic swing. I wanted to be a pro golfer! I did pretty good at golf, winning some medals in High School at some of the matches, although I was very inconsistent. (one week, a round of 73, the next week a round of 90) I almost won a 27 hole Jaycee tournament my senior year with a great score….but got beat by Andy Bean.

At the same time in school, I got really interested in writing and journalism. I loved to write. Poetry, stories, news articles…you name it. I decided it would be better for me if I became a journalist when I grew up, instead of a golfer or a baseball player. My parents didn’t really care what I did…as long as I went to college and got a “good education” as my Dad always said.

My childhood and growing up years were troubled. My Mom had mental health issues. Most of those years were far from what one would consider a “normal” Leave it to Beaver type family setting. (although I want to say that my folks became very different once they became Grandparents, and more deeply loving. and they had always cared for us as children as much as they could…some things that happened just couldn’t be helped back then)

Deep in my heart, very deeply within my soul I felt that I needed to proceed differently if and when I became a Father and a family man. I made a decision somewhere along the line that one of my main goals in life, if not my only main goal in life would be to have a family and try and give them love and as much security as possible.

I watched yesterday afternoon and last night as all the family was gathered together for the fourth of July, with the exception of two of my grandchildren, but gathered together nonetheless. I watched them interact with each other. We didn’t have any major fights or arguments. There wasn’t any shouting, except the little grandchildrent “whooping” it up. We had friends of the family over…boyfriends…good friends from church. We had a good time, as far as good times can be had.

I finally figured out last night, as I have always really already known from the time I walked out of my parents house at 17 years of age to go to college, and got married shortly before my 19th birthday…I figured out what I wanted to be when I grow up. Not a baseball player, or a golfer. Not a journalist or a novelist. Not a businessman..which I certainly am not, and never will be! Not really a super succesful textile and carpet supervisor and manager either. Just middlin…

I just wanted to be a Dad, and a Papa. I’m like one of the old Cajun guys on that show “Swamp People” who called his children “Dad” and his grandchildren “Pa” because that’s what he wanted to hear them say to him. That’s what I wanted to be, and to hear when I grew up. That, and a halfway decent husband.

Now, I’m not writing this to elicit any responses from anyone. That’s not the purpose. This is written strictly for my cathartic need. It is written singly for my purpose of getting it out of my brain and onto a “piece of paper” so that it can be said, and so that I know that’s what I wanted for myself. I don’t really know how it’s all turned out…how it will all really turn out in the long run. It seems ok to me, though. That’s what I wanted to grow up to be….

Nothing less, nothing more.

Immortality in a Moment….or Maybe it was the Heat? From 2007

It’s the graveyard shift. You know. The middle of the night. 3:30 in the morning, and not a soul in sight, like it says in the Garth Brook’s song “The Thunder rolls.” Except…there are lots of souls in sight here. Lot’s of other Zombie like creatures crawling around over and under steaming a puffing machines, like human maggots, gnawing on food they can’t digest.

I tell you, this strange little work place sometimes seems like a depiction of Hell itself. I was standing at the top of a stairway that leads to another part of the building, and looked out over all these infernal machines, these machines of man. There were puffs of steam and water vapor coming from a thousand different places. Places that they are and are not supposed to be coming from. All of this fills the air with an eerie sense of unreality, and of dread.

All of the people look small and insignificant from this viewpoint, sort of like automatons, sentenced to do this hard work in this hot and desolate place forever, and forever. The top of the steps was about 160 degrees, since it’s near the ceiling where all of the hot air rises. I felt faint, like I was in a Stephen King nightmarescape and couldn’t get out. It was like that horrible dream we all have where you know you are awake and you want to move, but you can’t. You try to make a sound to wake yourself up from the terrible state, but you scream and it only comes out as a whimper.

Terrible.

More and more I am coming to believe that we are living our Hells here on Earth. I am often not sure of what comes hereafter. I wish I could say I was 100% sure. God, I wish it. How many people can say that? Those of you that can congratulations. I envy your faith. I just can’t say that yet. Does that mean I am not saved? What is saved?

I believe in all of what Jesus taught. I believe that existence is a product of creation….therefore I believe in a “creator”.

It’s just so hard in this current state to say I totally know what’s going to happen today or tomorrow, if I find myself no longer here.

I often wonder about some of the things the faithful believe. People who have had near death experiences tell about going to meet friends and family as they move “towards the light” I wonder though, is there any sense of time after we die? If, when we die we morph to immortality, then there would be no time, right? So therefore, our loved ones who are waiting there “beyond the light” for us in the great beyond would feel like they no more had even got there and had time to turn around when BOOM, there stands everyone else they ever loved following right along behind them. It blows my mind.

No sense of time in the hereafter so BANG, there everyone is! In the meantime, back here on Earth, we go on living the laws of Physics to the utmost, which means time passes normally for us. Gosh, it really makes me wonder about things when I think about stuff like that. My head starts to swim and clog up like a sewer. I can’t comprehend it at all.

I wish I could have a vision which would make all these things clear. After all, it’s predicted that young men will dream dreams, and old men will see visions about the things which are going to happen. I haven’t had my vision yet though. I am still waiting on it. I am waiting on it here tonight at 3:30 a.m. COME ON VISION!….well…that didn’t work well. Perhaps if I get up there in that 160 degree heat for a while longer? Nah….not going to happen.

Maybe tomorrow night, or perhaps tomorrow during the day when I am trying to sleep it will come. While the sun is shining it will all come to me in a flash, and I will understand the nature of the Universe!

I am NOT holding my breath though.

I’ve never been good at keeping New Years resolutions, up until this year. Paula got me an Apple Watch for Christmas. I’ve been wearing a Fitbit for several years (and I still do…people ask why I wear two fitness watches. I tell them they do different things). Anyway….

For New Years I resolved to walk my 10,500 steps a day for a year. That’s just over 5 Miles a day. So far, through six months I’ve kept that resolution. (Knock on wood) Those of you friends who follow me have seen my photos. Woodstation road, Ringgold Nature Trail, round and round the neighborhood. On days I can’t get outside, I walk in the house…run in place, or walk room to room. At the beach, I used the gym some, but preferred to walk the two miles down to the state park and back. The last day I didn’t reach my goal was December 30th.

I hope I can make it through the next six months. If I can, it will be the first time I have been able to keep a resolution for a year. I’m somewhat a creature of habit, and my schedule is at a point where I might just be able to…

I almost got derailed last week by a creature just larger than a pin head. I went to take a shower on Thursday, and found a tick embedded in my upper thigh. Normally, I would have been able to feel the little “sucker” but that part of my leg is numb because of a back injury. He was already embedded deeply and I had a big red infected spot on the leg. I took a set of fine tweezers and did like the google results said: “grasp as close to the head as possible, and put slow steady pressure on while pulling, so the head does not get left embedded in the skin”. Well…it did. It’s neck stretched and “pop” it went.  Ecch….

That necessitated a call and trip to my doctors office, where they dug the ticks head out…leaving a nice size hole. They left a nice size hole because they only had some regular tweezers with which they were first trying to get the rest of the little critter out.  I finally suggested using a suture needle…and the doctor agreed that would probably be a better idea.  I should have brought my own tweezers…anyway….

That night, I did not feel like finishing 5000 steps…but I did. They weren’t fun or easy, but I got them done.

Who woulda’ known that a tiny little creature like that biting you could make you feel so bad? I hadn’t had a tick bite in 30 years, so I didn’t remember….plus I was a lot younger 30 years ago (weren’t you?) I got a spray bottle of deep woods OFF sitting next to the back door now, and I spray up good with that stuff now if I’m going to be outside for any length of time.

I think about this thing with the exercise and I wonder how different my life would have been if I had shown such resolve in a lot of other things in my life. I think I have done pretty good with most of my familial relationships, but there were a lot of things I could have done better if I’d have done them with the same “resolve”  I have set about doing my New Year’s resolution.  I could have done better with grades.  I probably could have done better with some jobs.  I have learned later in life than I probably should have that a person has to have a certain amount of stubbornness in order to do certain things.  I imagine that people who are champions in any sort of area learn that quality….or perhaps innately have that quality, a lot earlier in life.

As for me, I’m going to keep on walking until I cannot do it anymore.  I’m going to take photos of my mini adventures, because it’s so easy to do.  I’ve been doing it regularly for almost five years now, and I think it’s helped me physically.  I know for sure it’s helped me mentally, as a walk is as good a therapy for things which are bothering a body as anything I have ever found.

 

 

When I was in school I took a pencil and paper with me every day. Right up until the day I graduated High School, and even my last year in college in 1974 it was pencil and paper or pen and paper. I never imagined any other way.

When the electronic age started, I was a Manager in a bedspread and blanket factory. I think I got my first computer in ’87 or ’88. Spreadsheets soon followed, along with emails and memo’s via the internet. I adapted to these things and I kept up. I had to, or have someone else take my job.

Back when I was still using pencil and paper in classes…often boring repetitive classes, I doodled. It was fun and it made the teacher think you were furiously taking notes. I did some great doodles that I wish I had kept. Some epic doodles. Most often I liked starting with a simply pattern and making it more and more complex as the doodle developed. I found patterns interesting, I found them fascinating. I began to believe there was something more to patterns than I knew, something more than I could even imagine.

I was never a good math student. I’ll admit I had a lot of trouble with Algebra. I really like Geometry however, and actually made B’s in that area. It seemed more pattern oriented to me. I took a course at Georgia in “Philosophy and Logic” which continued to focus my interest and belief in patterns. It was one of the most difficult courses I ever took. Try an advanced course in Logic sometime if you don’t believe me.

The more I look at our world, the more I see that patterns are in everything, from the macro photos of plants and insects that one of my Facebook friends so beautifully takes, to the posts which show galaxy after gorgeous galaxy. The more I study, the more I see repeated patterns. Similar patterns in nature. Similar patterns in all things, from the cells in our body, to our Universe.

There is a pattern.

There are patterns which were used to create all things.

There will be patterns which affect the future of all things.

Perhaps everything started off with a doodle somewhere by our creator.

Since patterns are repeated, perhaps at some point in the huge pool of time our existence will be repeated.

I am one that does not believe in an end to things. Call me crazy, a lot of people do, but that’s just the way I see it.

I traveled to New York City a couple of years back, and got very acquainted with the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, the World Trade Tower site, and all that area thereabouts.  We were staying close by, within walking distance, and we took long walks to all of these places and more.

I was reminded of the trip I took to NYC back in 1974, back when the World Trade Towers were new..just operational enough for 4 adventurous budding Professional District Scout Executives who were visiting for the weekend to take the elevator up as far as it would go.  What a ride, and what a site.  And then…when I looked at it last year all gone except for the foundation and nearly 3000 innocent people dead, it was hard to bear.

Then there was the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.  On Ellis Island were the records of thousands of people who had immigrated into our country.  Sometimes waiting for weeks, or even months in the harshests of conditions to get into this wonderful country they had heard so much about.  All of them, waiting their turn, waiting patiently and going through all the pangs of being a new immigrant coming into the land of opportunity.  Irish, German, Polish, Italian, you name it…they all came and they waited their turn and they filled out their papers and they came into this new world legally.  Under the system of law, like they were supposed to do.  “Give me your tired your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shores, give these, the homeless tempess tossed to me” that’s what Lady Liberty stood for.  And for all the people who have built a life in this country through hard work, respect for the LAW of the Land, and respect for others.  There are so many of them, and the great city of New York embodies it all! 

Now the rule of law seems to be thrown out the door.  The sacredness of the Lady of Liberty is trashed by those who would break the law, and by those who support them.  What good is it to live in a country where we are supposed to be bound by the rule of law, when many look the other way EVERY DAY so that their profits may soar, their pockets may fill, all to the detriment and loss of those whose families came in through Ellis Island those years ago…legally, and worked so hard to make a life in this country.  How easy it seems now to some, when they can ride the streets in brand new cars and trucks within days or weeks of gracing our shores.  They can band together and rent huge houses and take the money they earn and buy luxuries with it.  Send it back home you say?  Maybe, but what good does that do our country?

I know that many ARE here to try and better their lives.  There are not just the gold diggers.  But, when the law of the land is broken so blatantly with such impunity even by those whose intentions are good, does that make it right?  Does that make it legal, just because their need is great?  There are many who crossed Ellis Island whose need was just as great…perhaps greater.  How many Irishmen starved to death back in Ireland during the famine waiting THEIR turn to get into America?  And how many would have bristled had you told them you were going to smuggle them in illegally, as criminals?

Sometimes, somedays I look at the pictures of the Statue of Liberty which I took in New York, and remember looking at that hole in the ground where all those Americans diied, and I just wonder when we are going to wake up and find that the invasion that is going to finish us off didn’t come from Al Quaeda, but from a bit further South.

Well…when at first you don’t succeed getting something posted try two more times….but it’s worth trying again:

I noticed that Mrs. Nellie McWhorter has died. Besides my Mom and Dad she is the person in Trion of whom I have the longest memories. I remember her from when we lived up on sixth street back in the early 1950’s. She was always so nice to the little crazy boy next door. She let me hunt lightning bugs in her back yard, and even gave me a jar to put them in. She told me “Make sure and let them out in the morning, so they don’t die” I had fun with those little bugs that night. Bet I had a hundred of them in that jar! She also would let me play in their driveway with my little old “tootsie” toy cars. The neighbors ALWAYS had a better driveway to play in! She never had a cross word that I can remember. I know that her husband passed away fairly early and left her a widow. I remember seeing her out and about back in the 1970’s after we moved back to Trion, and was surprised she know my name…Back 10 or more years ago she started driving her little blue Ford sedan down to Trade Day and selling knick knacks and fried pies to make a little money to make it through the month on. A lot of elderly people did and are doing that. I got to renew my friendship with her, because I loved the pies and I hate I didn’t know who to ask what had happened to her. I have been missing her, and now know we will continue to miss her. It happens quite often with that group of older folks, one of whom I am fast becoming, who come down to set up and make a few little dollars. RIP Mrs. Nellie…you will be missed.