Author: thegraymaniac

I’ll never be what I could have been, but that’s not really important because I am what I want to be.

You never figure life out. Why it flows the way it does. Why certain things happen at certain times…both the bad and the good. Why we end up being, what we end up being.

I wanted to be somebody. After all the years of wanting, I finally figured out I am.

I’m somebody’s husband, father, grandfather, brother, uncle…I’m somebody’s friend, somebody’s confidant.

That’s all I got to be. All I really want to be. All the other stuff is just superficial. Everything else is not as important.

So I’ll keep on being me and the people who matter will understand.

There were a lot of tiny neighborhoods in our small town when I was growing up. Mind you, the town itself was never above 2500 people by much at any given time between the years of 1953, when my Daddy got out of the Navy and moved us to Trion, and June of 1969…when I got married, and embarked on my “adult” life.

Sixteen years. In those neighborhoods.

Frog town, Hottown, Happytop, Pennville, Mountain view, Dry valley, and quite a few more. Maybe all not technically within the city limits of Trion, but all within the influence of the two main factors in the north part of Chattooga county….the cotton mill, and the Trion City Schools.

In that sixteen year period, many of the residents in our county depended on Riegel textile for a living, and on the city schools for an education for their children.

The houses in our city were mostly converted mill houses. Originally built and owned by the mill for their workers, they were gradually sold to people as personal residences. People took those old mill houses and turned them into cozy homes. They tidied them up, painted them, renovated them, added on rooms, planted grass and vegetable gardens….and took pride in the ability to own a little piece of land of their own.

They kept the yards up nicely for the most part, and the town even gave out “yard of the month” awards for the best looking and most highly manicured yards. People took pride in their properties.

Kids played in the yards and streets. Nobody thought much about letting their children go and do things on their own. I remember walking three or four blocks from our house on Simmons street when I was eight years old, down to the old movie theatre, for Saturday matinees. Lots of cowboy movies, and a few science fiction thrillers were the object of our little kid desires back in those days. We also played outside….a lot. If I stayed in the house and tried to read comic books for too long, my Mom would shoo me out the back door with a “you need some sun, son”. And…that would be where I’d stay. I think I developed my love for all things outside from being “shooe’d out” so much.

I realize that things have to change, but as I drove through my “old” home town today, I looked around and through the visor of nostalgia felt sadness and just a tiny touch of pain.

I do realize however, to those that I saw today…and to the kids who are living in those neighborhoods today, they are going through their sixteen years just as I went through mine, and they will remember them just as fondly as I do.

For you see, it’s all a matter of perspective.

I know without a doubt that our lives here are akin to that of a caterpillar. We move along through life..taking from it what we need, what we want sometimes irrespective of what really is needed to nourish us for our future.

At some point…different times for each of us, we spin our chysillis and for all intents and purposes we are “dead” to the world, to our families, to all others. And there we remain, undergoing our metamorphosis. And one day when that change is complete we will, we most certainly will, break forth from our cocoons…and we will spread our wings and fly…fly to places we never knew existed, fly with our loves…perhaps even with those we did not know, or with those who hated us or derided us before both we and they were changed.

We will have a new body, a new vision of love, a new purpose….and it will be something we never imagined in our wildest dreams, something with a magnificent and mysterious purpose. That…is my dream and my hope for all of mankind.

I know I sometimes must appear a bizarre sight, walking all over town with my stick in my hand and occasionally stopping and using my phone to snap off a photo. People ride by and stare, and kids sometimes snicker. I really don’t mind.

I suppose they would really think me insane if they knew of the conversations going on in my mind as I amble along. I talk to my Dad. I’ve been known to say hello to the huge oak tree which sits in the yard of the house where I lived as a child. It’s been there my entire life and shows no sign of moving.

The hawk that flew overhead today with his “scree, scree, scree” got a wave out of me.

….and the wind whistled a bright tune on the rim of my hat”

And I just had to chuckle out loud as I recalled Eli tearing down the church aisles today, racing to the bathroom oblivious to the palm Sunday special music. God probably got a laugh out of that one too.

Life is to live, and not always walk in the shadow of our impending mortality. Forget about it for a while on days like today. Too soon you will have to consider it seriously enough, because Lordy how time does fly! Seems the only time it slows down is when I take that magic walking stick in my hand….

It’s just my opinion, but I believe that each of us lives within our own “Universe” inside this beautiful mind that we have at our instantaneous beck and call. We are all simultaneously on a journey with those around us, while we are also on our own very personal and very unique trip. We should be respectful and tolerant of everyone’s individual journey here on Earth.

Condemnation of each other for our individual beliefs is not what we need. If another person is not on the same “wave” which you are on, move on and let them alone. You can always find balance if you seek it.

I walked around the neighborhood again yesterday for a little while. Our little town is a small mill town, population about 1600 or so. Used to be, back in the fifties when I grew up around here, most of the houses were owned by white families whose owners worked in the local cotton mills. They kept the houses up pretty well. The black people had their own part of town which was over on the west side side of town, on the left hand side of the road headed out of town. The school is up that way now. They had their own cemetary also, up behind the black church. There’s some kind of business in that place now.

As I was walking, I guess it was around noon, the only people I passed were Guatemalan’s. There was two Guatemalan Mothers out walking with baby carriages with their kids in them. That was over by the Town hall as I was walking down to the river. I passed a Guatemalan lady and her little child coming down the hill on the sidewalk as I was walking by the tennis courts. As I went up the hill going up towards West pine street, I walked pass a couple of Hispanic men in a work van, getting out to do some work on one of the very numerous rental houses in our town. They had a sign on the back of their van, said “handyman services” They nodded and said “hello” as I went past them. I’m thinking that probably more than 50% of the houses in my little town are now rental houses. A lot of them are owned by the same people. There’s some people here in town that make a good bit of money buying up the old mill houses that the white families used to live in, and renting them out to the Hispanic people who work in the mill here and in the mills over in Dalton and other places. I see a lot of them getting in their cars about 6 am for the hours ride to Dalton. I’d say most of the rental houses in this tiny town are now rented by Hispanics. When I go to the school to pick up my four year old pre-k kids I see a lot of little Hispanic children going to school there. Quite a few.

I came back home and I thought about it. How’d it get this way? It’s super complicated I believe.

I remembered back in the late eighties and early nineties, I had to go to Laredo, Texas a couple of times a year because the company I worked for had a warehouse there and I was in charge or Quality, and we had to audit that warehouse. We’d go across the border into Mexico and I remember seeing signs there advertising for people to go to work in Dalton, Georgia in the carpet factories. All the way in Nuevo Laredo…imagine my surprise. There were phone numbers on the signs too! A lot of the Mexicans took the big industries up on their offer and came to work over here. The Hispanics came from other countries also. They came here because they were “invited” to begin with. A lot of them lived in squalor and poverty and military supression and war in their countries, and they wanted a better life for their children and themselves. America seemed to offer that life. I remember back in the ensuing years as they worked in the factories, I would see them going to the Post offices every week and sending money back home to relatives who were left behind. I talked with a lot of them who worked for me who were saving up money to go back home and live. I had this one Guatemalan guy who had already bought a home back in Guatemala city and was fixing it up. “I got a big kitchen with a stove and refrigerator already” he said.

So, it’s a lot different walking around here, than it would have been back in the fifties and sixties when the white middle class was still building and growing, and Pete the truck driver was the only Hispanic I even knew who lived in this area. Things change. Our economic system was raped and pillaged by politicians and billionaire who didn’t care about middle class Americans. They destroyed our status quo and rearranged it to be as it is now. We mostly stood by clueless as to what they were doing until it was too late. Our parents and us got to where we were making too much money, and the profit margins for the super rich wasn’t high enough, so they decided that fact must change! They invented “voodoo” economics. They brought in workers who they could pay less than they could us. They started sending jobs out to other countries in order to make more profit. They closed factories in America, and opened them in China and Mexico. I know for sure that’s what they did. I was a witness to it. The place I worked at in the 1990’s started sending our Purchasing agent to China on a regular basis. Next thing I knew, we were getting goods from there. Quilts, blankets, throws. From Mexico too. That’s why I had to go to Laredo to check the quality of the goods which were coming in from Mexico. “We are making a hell of a lot more money on that stuff, than if we had to pay to get it made here” said our purchasing agent. Yep, there were. But, we started to lay people off back home. Many of our looms were shut off. We “downsized” Yes, that was the phrase back then to describe a company who was farming out their goods to another country, “downsizing”

So, I don’t buy the bullshit about the Hispanics coming over here to America and “taking our jobs away” I know better. I was there, and I saw what was happening.

They sold our “medium” sized business to one of the mega huge carpet companies in 1999 and I was laid off in another one of those “downsizing” events.

But, back to walking around. I started wondering about “internment” camps.

If we “round up” all of the illegal immigrants who are here in America now and send them back “to Mexico” and build that big huge wall, we are definitely going to have to have interment camps to hold them in until we can work out how we are going to get them back to wherever it is that they came from. Maybe Nuevo Laredo. I know that people have been fretting about our current president building “internment” camps for his entire presidency. They have been worrying about a lot of stuff he was going to do. I’m including a link about all that stuff.

You can let me know next year after the elections, when Donald Trump may become President, because everyone is “angry” how many of the things on the conspiracy list have come true. I still have my guns…do you still have yours?

I wrote a post yesterday about Donald Trump, but deleted it because frankly, I don’t like to make other people uncomfortable. I heard a speech online yesterday by John Kennedy, which I had never hear before and there was a quote which he referenced by the Greek lawmaker Solon which decreed it a crime for any citizen to shrink from controversy. Ostensibly, this particular speech by Kennedy is often cited by conspiracy theorists as being the one which got him assassinated. I listened to it, and it could be.

http://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Research-Aids/JFK-Speeches/American-Newspaper-Publishers-Association_19610427.aspx

In any case, Trump continues to gain power and become more and more the despot, and we have to ask ourselves if we want a despot for a leader. He rails on and on about this and that, but never really says anything much in any of his speeches. He simply incites people. He now threatens there will be rioting in the streets if he is not the Republican nominee. Blood in the streets!

I’ll probably go for a walk again today. I’m going to continue to go, no matter who passes me by on the street as I go, whether it’s a white person, or a black person, or a hispanic person. I know that things change. Life changes. There is very little that we as single individuals can do about it. Only when we band together in logical protest against the systems which have been instituted to destroy our society, especially our middle class, only then can we start to improve things. If we continue to let the demagogues (and you know who they are) incite us to hate other peoples, other groups, different thinkers,…if we continue to let them make us hate and want to murder, and want to harm, then…we are lost. Our country will disintegrate into anarchy.

Just my opinions though folks, formulated while walking around town….

I am finding more and more solace in the fresh air every day, and the continued ability to be in this world and be a part of it.

My faith in a creator is being renewed within my heart.

I see with crystal clarity how I personally should believe.

It’s encouraging to find a spark which I thought had gone out, has not been extinguished.

Perhaps it was just hiding and biding it’s time waiting for me to rediscover it, and by gently fanning it, bring back its glow and it’s warmth.

Some days I feel like a hypocrite without a purpose.

A rebel at a peace conference. A teacher in an empty room.

A wanna be spirit without a womb.

An idea without a purpose. A dissatisfied customer of the happy store.

An unwanted stranger outside tomorrow’s door.

Tick tock goes the clock…..

I have laid my watch down in my driveway several times when I have gone for a walk. It has always been there when I got back. It’s never chased me around the block. All that has ever happened to that watch has been a change in the “hands” on the inside. They move. They measure time. And they always run forward.

For almost four years now Paula and I have been babysitters for Eli and Rue. Any of you who are my friends have seen their pictures. Tiny little tots they were when they first came to us….changing magically into toddlers and budding students.

I looked over at Rue today as she was sitting in Paula’s lap taking her nap. She has always sought solace in Nana’s lap for her naps. She’s being “weaned” off of “sassy” gradually, and she can only have it at nap time. So she’s laying there with her sassy in her mouth sound asleep and I suddenly am struck by the realization that there won’t be many more naps like this one.

Both of them are going to Pre-K next year, so they won’t be here during the day. School is out in May this year, so days of Rue napping in Nana’s lap are dwindling. The days of Eli and me going over to the church parking lot and kicking around his little red rubber ball are dwindling.

Those two have fought like brother and sister, but love each other like brother and sister.

And the hands on my watch are still moving, and won’t stop. And why the heck are there tears in my eyes while I’m writing this? I think I’m getting soft in my old age.

There have been memories with these two that I will never, ever forget. Those days will be one’s it will be hard for them to remember though.

There’s been days I could scalp them, but I miss them as soon as they walk out the door. Go figure.

Ahh well, it’s not as if they are dropping off the planet. They will still be around plenty…and I walk and walk every day to try and lengthen that time, and slow down those hands on my watch. Love will get you to do things you didn’t think you would or could.

Baby Evie will be down next week for a trial run with Nana and Papa. So, a new chapter joyfully begins while one of the previous chapters begins to wind down. And we turn the page, and wait for the hands on the watch to move ahead into the future.

When you become a parent and your children are small, you think: “one day they will be grown and I will not worry so much about them getting hurt, or being sick. I won’t have to worry about the day to day things, or whether they are eating right or taking their Flintstone vitamins.” You find along the way that this philosophy is incorrect. You never quit being a parent. You never quit being a child.

I think I fought my Dad and Mom tooth and nail on this manner of thinking. Yet, up until the week my Dad died, he was still asking me how I was feeling…how was work going? Was I getting enough sleep…was the stress getting to me? “I’m feeling Ok, work is work, I’m sleeping lousy as always, and yes things are stressful” “Well,” he said, “try and take care of yourself” and then the next week, he was gone…..

I guess there is no more unique relationship than that of a parent and a child. It can go good, and it can go bad, and it can be somewhere in between most of the time. It’s like a game of tennis you don’t finish until someone is no longer there to hit the ball back over the net. You find yourself getting so used to that relationship sometimes that you take it for granted. Really, I guess most of the time. That’s something you will probably live to regret…as a child…or as a parent.

I have done fairly well since my folks died back in 2010…I have stayed conscious of the fact they were gone up until one day last week. I was thinking about one of Dad’s cousin’s wife having passed away, and was wanting to go see the cousin. “I’ll have to ask Dad how to get to his house…” I started to think….and then…I found that I had slipped up. “I don’t think he would answer me” I muttered.

But..you never know, as my wife told me. Not with that man. He might answer me still! A lot of times we have things that are moved around out of their “normal” spot, or something is running that we are just SURE we turned off. My wife will say: “Tarpy did it” “Yep,” I say “playing another practical joke” He loved to tease and poke at ya’, and would laugh like mad if he got you.

So…as I child or as a parent, take all the chances you have to talk. Just talk. It doesn’t have to be anything monumental or deep. Just conversation.