Author: thegraymaniac

Fishing. I’ve spent a lot of time when I was little going fishing. Most of the time it was with my Dad. I have to admit that I never really “had it in my blood” like Dad did. I loved it when they were biting. Nothing beats the feel of throwing that line out there and letting it sit…and then when that stopper on the top of the pond starts to bob. The blood pressure goes up a little, your heart beats faster and you start to hold your breath. Then when it disappears all the way under, BOOM…you snatch that line back and hook ‘em good! I was a slow learner at first. I had a hard time waiting until that stopper went all the way under. I wanted to snatch it up and pull just as soon as the stopper started moving. I have missed many a “bait stealing” little bream by being impatient. Dad taught me to be patient when it came to fishing.

I remember going to a little pond somewhere down in Gore about 1960 to fish. Can’t remember who owned it, just a little ways out the road to the left after making a left hand turn there at Ballenger’s. I was fishing with worms trying to catch some Bream and Daddy was Bass fishing with a “shyster” lure. I had caught one and wanted to show him, so I ran up behind him with my fish on the line just as he was about to make a cast. The “shyster” caught me in the left earlobe on Dad’s follow through and one of the barbed hooks went right through my earlobe. The look on Dad’s face was one of surprise and shock and horror all at once. Needless to say, our fishing trip for that day was over with. I think we went back to old Doc Clemens up at the old hospital, and he actually used a pair of wire cutters to just cut the barbed end off and pull the other end through my earlobe. It really wasn’t as painful as it looked. I never walked behind my Dad again when he was casting! I know he felt bad about it, even though it was my fault he kept telling me he was sorry.

But there were lot’s of other times that the results were better. Many days of catching Crappie down at Lake Weiss with leadheads. We would put two leadheads on at a time when they were biting hard and sometimes we would hook two at the same time! Daddy would whoop and holler and you could hear him all the way to Centre. I have photo’s of him with stringers full of those fish, and boy were they tasty! It was a yearly ritual every spring as to when the Crappie would start biting! Ahh yes those were the days. We didn’t own a boat, so we would put on a pair of waders and wade out chest deep in that cold water so we could cast out as far into the lake as possible. I know I about drowned a couple of times when I would fall or trip and the lake water would fill those dang waders up. Daddy would just laugh at me.

One fishing highlight was in 1966. It was the first time I EVER went to Florida. We went with the Browns and I think my cousin Judy came along. We went DEEP SEA FISHING! It was in August and I was getting close to 16, but looked a little older. I was more interested in girls at that time than in fishing but couldn’t resist the lure of going out on the Ocean and trying to catch a “big ‘un” We went out on a chartered boat…Captain “somebody” or another. Before we left, everyone kicked in a couple bucks for the lucky person who caught the biggest fish. Dad kicked in a couple for him and me. The ride out there was great for me, as I wasn’t prone to motion sickness. I met a little old girl and Mikey got seasick. Everything was cool, and I was wanting to spend more time with the girl than fish but Daddy set me straight: “I paid for you to fish, so get your ass out here and fish!” Well I did, and the first bait I sent down got me a bite. It was an electric reel which we had rented, so I pushed the button and pulled. I thought I had snagged somebody else’s line…the dang thing wouldn’t come. I kept pulling and pulling and finally this giant fish head hit the surface. Jeez, I though I had a whale! Turned out it was a 33 lb Red Grouper, which ended up netting me 44 dollars for the biggest fish of the trip! I was rich! It was a good and a bad trip….Mom and Dad fought…and there were roaches in the motel. But, it was memorable.

I have said all this to get to this point. Dad probably went fishing for the last time about 2007. I think he and Uncle Frankie went over to Billy Locklear’s lake and caught a few bream. Dad’s health started getting bad about then and he couldn’t got by himself anymore. Too many car wrecks had happened and there was a danger of dizziness and black outs. Dad kept asking me about going fishing, but I was on the night shift working 12 hour swing shifts and rarely if ever felt like doing anything but sleeping. Dad and Mom got to where they couldn’t take care of themselves and we decided that Assisted Living was the only choice for their care. Dad kept after me though: “When you gonna take me fishing?” he would ask “When it warms up good Dad” says I.

In April of 2010, Dad was feeling pretty good. I was on the 2nd shift then and still not feeling good, and not sleeping good. Dad asked me again “When we going fishing, son?” I promised him we would in a couple of weeks. “We’ll go down at Sloppy Floyd’s” I said. “You can sit up there on the walkway in the wheelchair if you have to and fish from there” I remember those exact words. I meant it. But April moved on into May..and we didn’t go.

On May 21st, they called me at work from the “Cozy Manor” and told me Dad was sick. He had been bleeding and having lots of stomach problems. I called the 3rd shift supervisor and asked if he would come in a little early so I could go check on my Dad. He came in an hour early…wow a lot of help. I went to LaFayette and Dad was sleeping. I asked him how he felt and he said “ok, but I would like a drink of cold water” I brought him one and asked him if he wanted me to stay. It was 1:30 or so in the morning. “You go on home and rest, and come back in the morning” he said. He woke me up at about 7 am the next morning and said he was hurting in the chest…and then he said “Can’t breath good” and it sounded like he dropped the phone. By the time I got there, my Dad was dead.

Guilt comes in a lot of sizes. Small, medium and Extra Large. My guilt for not staying that night goes beyond extra large. It’s hard to describe still. It’s like swallowing a rock and having it sit down there in the pit of your stomach all the time. You forget it’s there sometimes, but at other times it just eats you from the inside out.

I was going to wait until May to reminisce about fishing and my Dad. But, I picked this “special” day which happens only once every four years. It’s an extra day on our calendar and it represents that extra day which I wish I would have had with Dad. I wish that extra day would have been the one day that I had taken him fishing. That day which I had promised him. That promise which I didn’t keep…. I pray that if there is a pond or a lake between Earth and Heaven that when I die that God will let me go with Dad out on that little body of water and try and catch a couple of bass. I owe it to him.

Have you ever caught yourself saying: “I just HATE……so, and so…” person?

I’ve been guilty of it a lot. I’m trying to quit saying “I hate” though.

The reason, in my case, is very simple. I don’t know any of the people I have just offhandedly tossed that phrase towards. I…don’t….know…them.

I think for most of the “I hate’s” it has been a dislike, or disagree instead.

After Antonin Scalia died a couple of weeks back, I watched a good bit of his funeral. I saw the love his family had for him, his children and his friends. I certainly had disagreed with him on many things in a philosophical way. But, I did not know the man. I only knew what I knew about him…from articles, videos, televison. I had no idea really, who the man actually was…same thing for some of our current political stock, on both sides.

So, as I thought about it, I thought back about other people in the past at whom I had thrown that phrase.

I didn’t know them.

Of people who I actually knew, actually had a relationship with over a long period of time, I could think of nobody that I “hated”

I have a couple of people who I had close relationships with in various ways who were close….but even now I have let that go…I have let it go..

It’s a word of such finality, and should not be used flippantly as I have used it in the past. As we often use it in our vernacular today.

I have certainly disagreed with a lot of people in politics, in religion, in sports, in all walks of life many times. I should never have said I hated them. I didn’t, and I don’t. It was just something to say.

There’s a huge difference between not agreeing and hating, and we should all think about that difference before we make the statement.

I’m going to try and do better…

As a long time metal detectorist and treasure hunter I cannot say enough about how envious I am of the two people in California who found the 10 million dollars worth of gold coins while on a walk. I have many coffee cans full of dirty old Lincoln pennies, some of them half eaten up by the acidity in the soil, I have Nestle’s containers full of oddball metal stuff that I still have not identified…some old Civil war lead bullets, some marbles I found while digging up a ton of coke pop tops, and pull tabs (which by the way I took home and properly disposed of) but…the most rare thing I ever found during my metal detecting and treasure hunting career was one single silver half dollar…pristine and beautiful. I saw one of the gold coins on the news tonight…the rare one worth a million bucks by itself…wow. I still look for “treasures” every week at flea markets and trade days…and I have found some nice stuff over the years…but absolutely nothing would approach actually digging up a gold coin from the ground. I would probably just drop over….

If the United States of America is the “melting pot” of the world, then New York City is at the center of the pan. It’s the hot, hot cauldron which has produced many a hero, but conversly has produced many a fiend.

The five boroughs of the great city which was founded in 1626 as New Amsterdam have given us Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt, Mark Twain and Walt Whitman. It has given us Carl Sagan, Lou Gehrig and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Also Anton Scalia, and Harry Houdini. A diverse group of good folks.

There also have come the “Son of Sam” and the Oklahoma City bomber, born in New York City. Many others…good and evil, darkness and light..

The complex interwoven city, with it’s open mindedness also harbors the most secret of secret societies and relationships between people who might at first glance seem to be on opposite ends of the spectrum from each other.

Businessmen and mobsters in relationships. Prostitutes and politicians. Rabbis and priests. Strange bedfellows, strange indeed.

Now comes Donald Trump…and the story begins……

There will be more….

So, when two different people “search” Google….both typing in the exact same word or phrase, different information may be retrieved depending on the identity and biased preferences which have been stored for that person. Thus, the idea of “impartiality” of the internet is nothing but a myth, as what people find when they search for things has been slanted by the information which has been stored on what they have looked for in the past, things they have favored, things they have stayed away from, etc.

I think I realized this, but was unable to accept it totally until I read an article another friend posted last night on how the internet was being manipulated by multi-billionaire programmers.

I now must definitely stick to my Dad’s old axiom of believing nothing I hear (or read in this case) and only half of what I see…(and that half being what I see in person)

The age of internet propaganda is going to be a very, very hard road to navigate, full of pitfalls and dead end roads, wrong turns and tom foolery. Good luck to everyone in trying to get through the maze.

If you don’t think you are being tracked and manipulated by the internet just do a simple experiment. Go onto Amazon and search for a product, but don’t buy it. Then see if the next time you get on Facebook an advertisement doesn’t pop up, with the item that you searched on Amazon being right there on your timeline. Same thing for sites like Ebay, etc. Every time we have gone on these huge sites and without much thought, have checked the box that these sites could “share” our information with FB, or any other site for that matter, we have opened a Pandora’s box for ourselves that it will be difficult, if not impossible from which to extricate ourselves.

Our closest relatives are quite telling. I mean, they are not telling us as in writing us a book or anything. They are not speaking English to us. Maybe a little sign language now and then. Rudimentary stuff. Yes, No…Gimme’ banana. Stuff like that.

99.6% of our genome is shared with Chimpanzees, and now scientists have found, also with Bonobos, (pygmy chimps) although we share a different 1.6% of our genetics with Chimps than we do with Bonobos.

Monkeys and Greater Apes, like the Chimpanzees, are generally not pleasant creatures. Chimps especially will become very vicious creatures as adults. Just think back a few years when the poor lady in New York City got her face ripped off by one of her friends “pet” chimpanzees. Vicious.

My Father in law was a Veterinarian. Dr. L.J. Neurauter. He was an administrator, and after he retired from the Air Force, he ran the BIG primate center out in Davis, California. But he didn’t like monkeys. He certainly didn’t like the Chimpanzees. One time we visited them in Davis, and took a tour of the primate center. “Don’t get too near the Chimpanzee compound,” said Dr. Neurauter. “They’ll throw feces at you, and they are really accurate.” I took him at his word. He went on to tell us how none of the handlers would ever…ever…get in the chimpanzee compound with them out, unless they had a death wish. Vicious with each other, and vicious with human beings. Almost like a hatred of human beings.

Our closest relative, as far as genetics go. I know a lot of people are gonna’ say: “We didn’t evolve from monkeys!”

So true.

We had a common ancestor with the chimpanzees and bonobos about 4 million years ago, and the ancestor who eventually evolved into human beings split off from that common ancestor. I imagine they were pretty vicious animals. Out of the three most closely related Primates, the Bonobos, who are the smallest, are the least vicious. Humans and Chimpanzees….not so much.

Survival of the fittest…and the meanest.

As Anthropology major in college, I took a lot of classes in Physical Anthropology. Dr. Butler. A hard man to please if you didn’t study like you outta’. He once told me that early man was probably a vicious animal, but also a social animal. Conditions of living dictated that families stay together for protection from larger predators. Sabre tooth tigers, Cave bears. You know…all that Jean W. Auel stuff. Eventually families started hanging around together for even more protection. They became tribes. Tribes grouped together and became ethnic groups. Discovered agriculture. Started building small villages, towns, cities. Still maintained the viciousness. The aggression and the primal instincts of those first ancestors.

Survival of the meanest?

For how long?

The creator alone knows, and he ain’t telling.

Often when I’m walking around on a day like today, and look up and see our moon, Earths very own personal companion, I am struck by a deep desire, almost a need, to take off up into the sky. I feel like I could just fly up there in the blink of an eye and make a soft landing, and just walk around and explore.

Two things for which I’ve always had an affinity. The moon, and exploring. I know it’s a silly thought to even imagine being able to have an out of body episode and go to our moon. At times I feel as though I might be able to one day, who knows. Who’s to say it’s impossible.

Man once did go there. We once had the technology to go there. Even more than that, we had the heart of explorers to get it done. We saw potential out there, out in the stars. Now, we are mired in the mundane muck of partisanship, which causes us to barely be able to get a trio of people together who agree on any subject, much less to make plans for the future of the survival of the human species.

Where once our schools and universities turned out graduates with high ideals and aspirations, we most often now turn out technocrats and bureaucrats who’s only wish is to line their pockets as easily as possible with other people’s money.

How’d we get this way? That question is less important than how we get out of being this way, and start again anew with people who wish to add and multiply, instead of subtract and divide.

To start again to learn simply for the satisfaction and for the beauty of knowing the truth. The truth must be sought out with singularity of purpose in this day and age. It must be sniffed out with the nose of a bloodhound. Why? Because non truth is so, so easy to find. It lays around on the ground, and on the pages of rags called newspapers, and on internet posts and “news sites” and memes, always conveniently right within reach. Right at our fingertips. It’s an easy, fattening fast greasy food, and it gets gobbled up like grass by sheep.

I know I ramble on and I apologize. I believe there are many more good people out there than I sometimes think. I know our younger generations will be wiser than we old ones. I sometimes think people of my generation got dropped right in the middle of this rapidly changing age of technology, and a lot of us have difficulties keeping track of it. The coming generations will have known nothing but the current and future technology, and hopefully will be able to make it work to their advantage. That’s my hope. That, and a trip up to the moon one day to explore.

This week when you touch someone you love, think about it.

What I mean is to consciously think to yourself, “I’m touching one of the people I love most in the world, and this is how love feels”.

Is this the last touch? Do we ever know. In this world today, there is much uncertainty.

More than anything else, a touch conveys love. If you don’t do it, one day you may wish you had. You may wish you could.

Saying “I love you” while you’re doing it, doesn’t hurt one bit either.

There’s way more than enough hate, distrust, disagreement, and bitterness to go around. We all should try more kindness instead.

It might just “touch” some hearts. Our road ahead is perhaps rocky. Love your family.

They all looked around for help in getting away from the vile monster who was trying to destroy them. They cried, yelled and gnashed their teeth as the creature roared and tore at them.

They ran in all directions, but no matter where they went he found them and tromped on them.

…but from the nasty, foul beast they had created there was no escape. They had prepared the nest for his birth, and found that it was a hard matter indeed to dispatch their own progeny.

And yet even as it killed them, they continued to feed it with the same sustenance which had caused it to become so fearsome.

“Dreary” my Mom would say as she looked out the window, “such a dreary day.”

Mom used to look out the windows a lot during the Winter, and she hated the dreary, rainy days like we are having lately. She didn’t much like winter at all after Christmas was over and done with. I have to admit, I’m much the same.

On sunny, warm days Mom might go around with her dust rag, polishing the coffee table and end tables and hum some country tune she heard as a child. She could sing on tune and in key if she wanted to, but would never let anyone hear her if she could help it. She would clown around most of the time, and act silly with it when she sang.

She once told me she wanted to be a country music singer when she was a little kid, but her Daddy had made fun of her once when she was singing, so she never sang for anyone after that. It was a shame, because in the unguarded moments when the sun was shining outside, I could hear a spark. I loved it when the sun was shining as a child, and Mom was happy. It didn’t happen too often, because Mom’s personality became dark very early on due to mental illness, and stayed that way off and on until she died.

As far as the singing goes, she had done the same thing to me when I was little also, but probably hadn’t realized it. I had heard Elvis singing on T.V., and stood in the doorway of our home on Simmons street and belted out my version of “Hound dog” Mom burst out laughing at me. I think it was because she didn’t know before that moment that I actually could sing. I was embarrassed. I wouldn’t sing out loud for anyone after that, until the year I was in the eighth grade.

I was in “Glee club” at school and we were singing as a group with band director John Corruth as our director. It was at Christmas and we were doing a version of “White Christmas” I was really into the song, and with the seeming anonimity of others around me singing, I was belting out my best Bing Crosby version. “Hey Bowers” said Mr. Carruth. “I want you to sing the first verse of that song at our program as a solo”. “You sound pretty good.”

My face went bright red, and I almost ran out of the rehearsal area, which was at the front of our Elementary school cafeteria. But…I ended up doing it, and although I was extremely nervous, my voice didn’t break. I went on to do a lot more singing during High School. If it hadn’t been for that one situation with Mr. Carruth though, I may not have.

My parents didn’t come to that program. I can’t remember them ever coming to any of the “minor” activities we did at school. It’s not that they weren’t interested, but it was more that the programs took place during the hours in which they worked. I wish they could have been there sometimes.

As my Mom got older, she was beset by a bevy of health problems which finally took her away in December of 2010.

But sometimes during the dreary days of winter, like the one today, as I dust the bookshelf or the T.V., I can hear her gently humming a country tune…..