Category: Uncategorized

Wangdoodles and Vermicious Knids

For some reason today I thought about the line from Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory where Gene Wilder as Willie Wonka tells his group of guests in his factory about the Oompa Loompas and their country and how they came to his factory: “Oh, well, then you know all about it and what a terrible country it is. Nothing but desolate wastes and fierce beasts. And the poor little Oompa Loompas were so small and helpless, they would get gobbled up right and left. A Wangdoodle would eat ten of them for breakfast and think nothing of it. And so, I said, “Come and live with me in peace and safety, away from all the Wangdoodles, and Hornswogglers, and Snozzwangers, and rotten, Vermicious Knids.”

I sometimes wish that a place like the Chocolate Factory existed, and that those of us who wanted to, could go there. “Well there’s Heaven” some people will say: “It’s a lot better than a Chocolate Factory” Well I’m not ready to go there quite yet. As the country song says: “Everybody Wants to go to Heaven, but Nobody Wants to Die” That’s how I feel about it. (ok, that’s my limit for clichés and quotes for the day!)

The kind of place I am thinking about doesn’t exist anymore, if it ever did. As the days grow more and more dangerous during this age and in this time, there is very little a person can do to get away from the world that want’s to harm them, unless you want to move to one of the islands that the “Survivors” have abandoned, and start using their stuff and living like them.

A lot of people have tried to create their own “safe haven” Jim Jones, and his followers. David Koresh tried. A lot of people try to start their own Valhalla, and somehow it always seems to fail. I wonder why? Is humanity and human nature so geared to be combative and hateful to other humans who don’t “fit in” that no matter what we do here on this earth, we are doomed to fail when it comes to loving and protecting those who are different? You would like to think that wasn’t so, but tell me a time and a place where there has ever been a “Chocolate Factory” for the Oompa Loompas?

Sadly, I can’t think of any. I know that all religions promise us a place like that of one kind or another. Heaven, Nirvana, you name it. We have been promised it from them all. But that’s ONLY due to us after we die. I sometimes wonder about the theory some “preachers” espouse that people are living their “hell” while they are here on earth. Some people do I think,… of their own accord.

I know there are many, many joyful things that we have while we are here. Most of the time, we don’t really see them or appreciate them while we are experiencing them, and it’s only through the glasses of “nostalgia” and memory that we look back and think about what we should have done, or might have done to make things better, or to enjoy things more. That’s probably why I reach back into the past so much through my writing. Maybe I didn’t get it right the first time! Damn I wish I had another chance sometimes!

But sometimes when really bad and horrific things happen to good people you HAVE to wonder why. Senseless murders, children molested, wars and killings of innocents. Good people having to suffer with horrible, painful diseases. Where was THEIR safe haven? Life just never ceases to puzzle me when it comes to things like that. Why do these things happen? What can the purpose of this possibly be?

I guess it’s all in what you seek while you are here. I think none of us, from the Pope to the Dali Llama really knows, with absolute certainty what is waiting for us.

I kind of hope I open my eyes and I am walking into this big Chocolate Factory where everything is made of candy and………………

Peace and Joy!

Society as we know it is bound to be in for some big changes in the near future. For all we know, they may already be occurring.

For some inexplicable reason, the brilliant minds of mankind, and their ability to expand technology, has always outstripped the capacity of the “General populace” to cope with the social ramifications of the new technologies. Most of us are able to use them, but we do not fully comprehend “what makes things tick” This had lead us into the trap of thinking WE control technology instead of vice versa. I have a chilling hunch that this will come back to be a nightmare for us at some point in the future. Science fiction authors already have imagined it.

Suppose there comes a day when there is a computer program which is sufficiently advanced that it can replicate itself, or worse yet which “guards” itself from being changed or manipulated by humans. Suppose there are robotics which are sufficiently advanced that super “brains” can be programmed into them. Then suppose they “decide” at some point they don’t require biological organisms anymore. Crazy science fiction? Perhaps. I personally think there needs to be a lot more research into the ethics of “artificial intelligence” We need to think a lot more about what we are doing in this area before we do it.

In the Jetsons cartoon, the Jetson family had “Rosie” the robot maid to do their bidding. I would hate for that role to be reversed. I know it sounds crazy, but the basis for an AI society is already in place. Since such intelligence would have no emotions or emotional attachment to their human creators, whose to say what would happen. My Father in law was one of the very first people to do AI research in the 60’s, and he was very leery of its roll in human society.

Technology is great, but what price will we eventually be paying for it if we do not use OUR brains now to look several moves ahead on the chessboard towards an end game. Are we intelligent enough even now to stop ourselves from being steamrolled?

I’m a good chess player, but the computer beats me every time when it’s set on “normal” The smartest Jeapordy champions of all time were annihilated by a computer brain. We all sit back and post on Facebook, and we then get some sleep. Computers never sleep, they run 24-7. Computer programs are created to solve problems. I for one hope they don’t solve the problem of how to take care of themselves without needing humans.
Thanks Matt Bowers for getting my brain going on this. It’s definitely a conundrum.

At one time I dreamed of being famous. Singing for a livin’ maybe, singing my own songs. Making the big money.

My wife knew who Garth Brooks was when we sat a couple of tables away from him and his first wife Sandy at a NSAI award ceremony dinner in 1989. He won an award that night…a very humble guy as I remember. He’s done pretty well since then.

I had a song on hold for Charlie Daniels once, but he eventually passed on it. Same story with Patty Lovelace. Good..but not quite good enough. It became too hard to work full time and ride to Nashville once a week. Easier to just “pass” on it.

Back in the days of cassette tapes, and trying to get publishers and artists to listen, an outsider getting in was a million to one shot. All of them had friends, and relatives and drinking buddies. They got the first shots, hell you can’t blame the guys in high places for that…I’d have done the same thing.

There was no Soundcloud back then, no internet communities, no American Idol, or Voice. It all boiled down to politics and friendships. Being a nobody from nowhere Georgia was hardly a good resume.

I loved it back then, but barely even pick up a guitar anymore. I moved on past that, and I’m just as happy, maybe happier than I woulda been. It takes some skill, a little talent, but most of all luck. Being in the right place at the right time. I don’t know about the first two even, but I know I was never in the right place at the right time.

It became clearly evident to me the day I got stuck on an elevator at the Nashville Hilton. There was a big songwriter hoo ha going on at the time, but I got stuck on the elevator by myself for an hour and a half. I wondered why some big name producer or artist couldn’t have been on there too. I’m sure I had a cassette tape in my pocket at the time!

I really think it’s my job to try and give out a few “little” joys when I can. It’s my job to be Dad and Papa, and be here for my wife. All the the things I have now, though they are not material possessions, mean much more than I can say. I may act like a grumpy old man a lot, but I think that’s just cause I don’t get enough sleep!

I probably would have never gotten the happiness I feel if I had been “famous” I would have undoubtedly been too busy trying to make people who didn’t love me happy instead. I don’t think that would have been such a good trade off. I honestly believe we end up being where we are meant to be, doing the things we should be doing. Let’s all just try to do good, and we will be a success no matter what.

In my past, in the days when I was growing up, one encouraging word from the right person could make my day…. maybe my entire week.

If my Dad told me I had done a good job on something….anything really, I redoubled my effort to do an even better job the next time.

I had the most difficult time learning to tie my shoes. I can remember, because I was almost six before I could tie them well. Dad never got mad, just kept encouraging me to try again. “You’ll get it” he said. And I finally did.

I had a lot of problems with some relatively simple motor skill tasks. I was smart in other ways. I could read before I started school, and I was always good at doing adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing in my head. I could figure percentages of things especially well…..but I had trouble keeping my pants zipped. Go figure.

It could be the concussion I suffered riding my tricycle down our brick steps when I was four. I busted my head open, was bloody as hell, and got knocked out. It took 12 stitches to close the wound, and I told Dr. Allen to “keep his shit’n hands off me,” while he was doing the stitching. “Where’d he learn that language?” He asked “From his Mom”. Said Dad.

It could be the severe high fever (106 degrees) that I had right before my third birthday, which caused my eyes to cross so severely, you could barely see the blue. They stayed that way for a year, then gradually uncrossed. I don’t remember it, but I’m sure my brain was about fried.

But I got over those things. I was encouraged to improve. So I did.

I used to love to take broom handles and hit rocks from my Grandpa’s dirt road driveway, out into ol’ Uncle Lark Davenport’s corn field. That field was all rocks and no dirt anyway, so he never cared. I spent many, many hours whacking rocks. I was an awkward and backward 12 year old the year..the last year, I was eligible to play little league. I was embarrassed to try out, but two great men in the community encouraged my efforts, and all of the hours I had spent whacking little rocks with a skinny stick paid off as I found I could really rip a baseball with a baseball bat. Made the Allstars that year.

I wanted to write my Freshman year in High School, but was afraid I couldn’t do it well enough. Mrs. Wingfield, who was the English teacher and editor of the school paper read some of my poetry, and encouraged me to enroll in journalism class. I ended up writing quite a few articles, and a lot of poetry. I was just looking through my old scrapbook of “inches” I wrote for the paper the other day. I thought of Ms. Jesse’s encouragement, and how she believed in me. She was a great teacher.

I could go on, but I guess my point is clear. All the things I ever succeeded at even moderately were the result of being encouraged. Trying to make me do something I don’t want to do, especially if someone is coming from a bullying attitude, or an attitude of “my way or the highway” just makes me buck up like a mule. I have even shut down in past years with people who insist they were dictators, and their word had to be obeyed or else. I once walked out of a meeting with a “boss” like that, walked to my car, and turned it on and drove home. The guy called me and begged me to come back…because I was running his factory one handed. I didn’t.

I’ve walked out of college classes on the first or second day (and some halfway through the course) because the professors were discouragers instead of encouragers. I did not need them, or their negativity in my life.

Of course some of these actions have cost me….some of them were foolhardy. But I didn’t stop to think at the time.

I don’t encourage anyone to be like me. To be like I was. I got lucky and married a sane wife with good sense, who balances out my impetuous nature with her common sense.

I’ve helped her raise three wonderful and successful children. I hope I encouraged them more often than I discouraged them. They certainly grew up with one slightly off center, brain impaired Dad.

I think nowadays we as a country, as a world…need to encourage our children and little ones. Let’s tell them that there’s nothing….nothing, that they cannot accomplish. And if we tell them, and they truly believe us, perhaps they will save this world and usher in a new age of peace and prosperity.

If I don’t see you, or talk to you before then, have a Merry Christmas..Happy holiday, nice days off, or…..whatever you want!

I am here.  All I have to do here is to live within the limitations of the body which I have been fortunate enough to possess.  I have to live within the limitations of eons of evolution here on this globe.  The limitations which gravity imposes.  The limitations which the atmosphere and the chemicals on this globe impose.  The limitations which the evolution of my human brain impose.  I am here, but I must live with those limitations.  I must live within the confines of these things which my human body imposes.

The human body exists, the brain develops and we learn.  We are limited in our learning by our senses from which our emotions develop. We are then guided by our emotions.  Our emotions guide our brain into believing that there is existence beyond the lives we possess here on this speck of dust in the Universe, which we know as Earth.

I have come to believe my emotions, and believe that there is something beyond my existence here, which will take place after I die.

“I want to go home” my Daddy told me once not long before he died.  “To heaven?” I asked him.  “No” he said.  “I want to go home”  I didn’t understand him then.  I simply told him that I loved him.  He told me he loved me.  But, I have not forgotten that he wanted to go home when he was old and sick and tired.

When his brain was showing him things the rest of us could not see. Things which we told him were not real, but which were totally real to him.

There is that something within us which at some point or another in this human life, makes us wish for home.  It is no religion which dictates that, I think.  I think the only religion is love.  Everything else which calls itself a religion and says it is built around love, only creates hatred.  Look at it all, and you will see that what I say is true.  There is true love within all religions, isolated and rare

We cannot go to a place of home when we leave here which is in anyway connected to this human body, or to this earthly existence which we know so well.  When we go to the place where all other life before us has gone once they are through here, it will be home.  I do not know what it will be like.  I do not know what it is, but it will be home.

And we will all be together.  Or, as together as we can be.

Does anyone else ever feel it? Even when you are sitting in your own house in your favorite chair, it sometimes sneaks up on you. You may feel comfortable, got your slippers and your robe on, and then you just get a feeling that you’re in a strange place…you are not home. You’re at your house, but you are not…home.

I get that feelings sometimes, and it’s a strange thing. I go outside and look up at the stars sometimes and I wonder, why am I here and not there? I saw a gorgeous, unbelievably beautiful panorama photo of the night sky that someone had taken with a special HD camera. As far as the eye could see into the photo, were the little specks of distant stars. Millions and millions of them. I felt out of place just sitting here in my chair and looking into that photo on my computer screen. What is out there? Is there a heaven out there somewhere? Are there millions of other worlds out there which are “Earth like” with life on them? The scope of my existence sitting here looking at that became so tiny…so insignificant. How does it really matter what I am doing here on this little speck of dust? Is this really my home, or is my home somewhere out there?

I am Charlie Brown

I think maybe it’s because my birthday coincides with the first syndicated appearance of Charlie Brown in the newspapers back on October 21, 1950. I have always been like “good ol’ Charlie Brown” even before I knew who he was. It could be that or either just the luck of the Irish (or the Scotch-Irish in my case) but when I was young, every time the gang in our neighborhood got together to choose up sides for baseball or football, I always started to get a knawing feeling in the pit of my stomach. I just knew that no matter what happened, I would be the last one chosen for the team.

It wasn’t that I was that bad a player, because I wasn’t. There were just a lot of decisions which entered into who was chosen and who wasn’t. Rickey was chosen first because he was the fastest. Mikey was chosen early because he was small and quick and could maneuver well. Mike B. was chose early because of his HUGE size. Hiram was chosen, because he was the meanest and nobody wanted to choose the meanest guy last. Stanley was the friendliest so he got picked. So, by the time the last choice came around, it was me who was left. The last boy to be chosen.

I was mediocre at most things. In baseball, I was probably the best hitter though. I later won a lot of games for my team in Little League, although I was the last kid picked by a coach for his team. I steered away from baseball and football in High School and went with “individual” sports like golf and tennis, where I did well.

I’m not sure what the problem has always been. Maybe I don’t smile enough. I sure never kissed up to anyone just to be chosen, I considered that below my dignity. Guess it’s just part of that Scotch Irish heritage thing again, where my ancestors never bent their knees to the English. I am sure quite a few of my ancestors got a chopping or a hanging because they wouldn’t bend quickly enough.

FREEDOMMMMM…….Hmm,..guess I watched “Braveheart” one too many times.

I was big, but not the biggest, fast but not the fastest, quick but not the quickest. For sure I was never the meanest. Definitely not the friendliest. Maybe the quirkiest. Yep, for sure that.

But I guess the main thing is that it really never bothered me that much back then to BE the one chosen last. It bothered all the other guys, and if they were the last one picked they would raise all kinds of hell, and get their feelings hurt. I never did. It bothered me some, but all I really wanted to do was be a member of the team, and I always got to do that even if I was the last one, so what did it matter really? The proof of your worth comes after the choosing not during it. So, I guess that’s another reason why I was always the last one chosen. I took it calmly. I was always the mediator and rarely the instigator. It must be because I’m a Libra. That causes me to believe in a certain balance. Or maybe because I believe God made us all the same on the inside.

As I have gone on through growing up and into my adult life, it has become more difficult to be the last one chosen. I still exhibit most of the same qualities I did as a kid. I am smart, but not the smartest. Quick to learn, but not quite the quickest. I work hard, but there are probably some people out there who work harder. I am consistent in my beliefs about how people should be treated, but I am still not mean. I believe in treating other people like I want to be treated. I still don’t smile that often, and I am terrible at telling jokes. Most jokes require that you belittle someone or something, and I am just not going to do it. I don’t like talking about myself and what I have accomplished, or failed to accomplish for that matter. I just still believe in that balance. I believe in being calm and waiting for all the decisions to be made and for all the choices to be exercised.
I believe that fairness should be Universal and not just reserved for the richest, the strongest, the most advantageously placed politically, the meanest, nor due to any other quality that might be construed as giving a person the appearance of forbearance or special treatment. I despise favoritism. Fair is fair. People know what is fair and what isn’t. It is an innate quality that is placed within each of us a birth. The only difference is that some humans believe in “being” fair, and some don’t.

So, many days in many ways I still wait to be chosen. I have a good record in life, not outstanding but good, and always trying to be fair and fight injustice. Just like back in my baseball playing days I have had a good average and have always helped the teams I have been on. I would love to be chosen first sometime in life, BUT even if I am still the LAST one chosen I will continue to do my best to be above average. Even if things don’t turn out to be exactly fair in THIS life, I think that the Universal “balancer” will square things up one of these days. It may be a while yet, but it is one thing that IS inevitable.

I’ve noticed a lot of folks are doing the daily thanks in November for the good things in their lives. I think it’s a really good thing, and I wanted to take a chance to give thanks for the wonderful things which I have experienced in my life. I haven’t been doing it daily, so this is my “one time” thing.
I’m very thankful for my family…my wife, children, grandchildren. My Mom and Dad, my brother. (And all of my other loved ones who are connected to the ones I have just named. I could name them all, but they know who they are! ) I believe my one major goal in life, starting way back when I was a teenager, was to have a family and to do the very best I could to be a good Father. I could have chosen baseball, or golf, or music, or a career of some other sort to be my main life goal…but I had a different scenario in mind. I am thankful for being able to experience so many fulfilling things through my wonderful, supportive family.
I give thanks, or course, for all of the other things most everyone else does. Life and a chance to live it. Living in a great country, where we at least still have the freedom to come and go as we like and to do many things people in other countries can’t do. Thankful that folks can still go to Church and worship where they want, when they want. Thankful for modern medicine, it saved my life. Thankful for advances in technology, which allows me to communicate with you! Thankful for so, so many little things: running water, books, refrigeration, friends, classmates, prescriptions, underwear, automobiles, you name it, and I’m probably thankful for it.
I am thankful for music and the influence it has had on my life. I haven’t been a “commercial” success like I thought I wanted to be, but I have enjoyed the love of music just for the sake of its beauty and the satisfaction it gives me to “make” it and to listen to it. Thankful for guitars too!
I am thankful for growing up in the small town of Trion, Georgia. I am so thankful that I went to school with the people who were my classmates. That small group are like brothers and sisters to me. All of us went through so many things together. Butt whooping’s, schoolyard fights, proms, dances, football season, band, term papers, tests, Ms. Roberts, Mr. West, playing basketball in the old gym, eating at the “Y”, having plays in the old theatre, fishing in the river, sneaking out of class, loving each other, and hating each other (sometimes, but not for long) Living in a small town meant being able to walk from one side of it to the other without having to take food and water to survive. It meant spending the night at your best friend’s house so much that their parents threatened to claim you on their tax returns. It meant playing “pick up” baseball every day during the summer, and “choose up” football every day during the winter. It meant watching the river flood our beloved school to the point of uselessness. It meant the Skating rink, and the one theatre in the Country were all the places you had to go for “proper” entertainment. It meant knowing which guys had the most “bad ass” cars in town. I’m thankful I got to play baseball and then golf. I had two or three of the best coaches a boy could have in Dugan Peace, Jesse Emory, and J.W. Greenwood. J.W. taught me that it’s better to be lucky than good any day. Ha! It was good, and I am thankful for all of it.
I am thankful I got to go to college for five years, and although I didn’t finish, the knowledge I received has served me well. I went to both West Georgia College and the University of Georgia. I am thankful I met my future wife there, and very thankful she decided she wanted to spend time with me. (And still is!) I am not proud that I didn’t graduate. It’s been a thorn which I and nobody else, put in my side and has stayed there for almost 40 years now. But, I am thankful it still pricks me at times when I start something and I am tempted not to finish it. It has helped me finish a lot of things I would have not have, otherwise. It helped me to encourage all of my children to finish…which they all did pretty much on their own without much help from me at all!
I’m thankful I took Typing II in High School instead of Shop. I made a lot of money typing College papers for other people, and learned about as much from that as I did from my classes. It also helped tremendously my ability to edit for incorrect grammar and spelling. Makes it easy to write these epistles on Facebook too!
I am also thankful for some of the things which I have experienced in life, for which others may think to be a little odd. I experienced the death of my first child, and though it was heart wrenching, I am thankful for her, and the fact that she lived and she was ours…mine and Paula’s. She paved the way for our other children and a deeper appreciation of them for me, than I might have otherwise had. I looked at them many times and thought of her and was extremely thankful that I had three other chances to be a Father. (For as I have previously said…I think it’s my purpose in life) Her death prepared me at a very young age for the realities of life, that bad things happen and you must overcome them lest they overcome you. I am thankful that even after 43 years I can still sit here and have tears fill my eyes when I think of her. It proves to me I’m still human.
I am thankful I had some hard, manual labor jobs at the beginning of my working career. They made me determined to look for better ways to make a living. They (along with my wife) shook me out of a rut I was in and might have stayed in, and gave me impetus to go on to better things. I am thankful that I eventually found some very good people for whom I enjoyed working. I am thankful for the people I worked with, both good and bad. The good ones confirmed my philosophy that there ARE more good people than bad in this world, and the bad ones helped build my character to withstand and persevere against things which are wrong, and to have some ethics in life. I am thankful for the very hard and nerve wracking battles I had against unethical peers, who only cared for themselves and not others…who only cared for the numbers and not the people, and I am thankful that most of the time I won…though not always, and sometimes at a heavy cost.
I am thankful that I have had enough financial resources to live life at a “good” level, though never at a “super-secure” level. (I am not anywhere near rich…and never will be) It has taught me that envy is never a good quality. It has taught me that some of the things I coveted turned out to be unnecessary, and that the wealthiest people are not always the happiest. It has taught me that I should have paid better attention in “Economics 101” at West Georgia. It has taught me to be innovative in order to survive, and to try and help others who have even less. (And there are many, many of those out there, believe me…I feel blessed for what I have in comparison to a lot of people in this country and in this world)
Finally, I will end up by saying I am thankful that our Creator has allowed me to enjoy all these things and allows me to continue to be here and enjoy them. Thank you God.

I believe when I first became conscious of being an individual human being, and of having a responsibility to become “something” to the world….something of consequence, I was very afraid.  I was not even a teenager when I first had these thoughts.  “What will I be?” “What will I do?”

I wasn’t obsessive about it, just concerned.

I dabbled around with music.  I have played guitar and sang.  I sang at schools and churches.  I sang and played at functions, at skating rinks and at dances.  But, I never became a “singer” for a living, or a writer.  I tried, but I couldn’t quite get it done.  I couldn’t drive the nail into the center of the board.  I couldn’t quite close the deal.  I wasn’t in the right place at the right time.  Lord, I wish there had been a “Voice” or an “American Idol” show around in the seventies, or even the early eighties.  I’d have sure tried to get on.  I’m not sure if I would have gotten in, but I’d have tried.

I thought about sports too.  Baseball mostly.  I had some talent there, and just didn’t pursue it past my teenage years.  I became enamored of golf, and although I never was nearly as “good” at that game as I had been at baseball, it suited my goofball nature better than baseball.

I thought about these things this morning while I was sitting on the couch, drinking a cup of coffee and looking over my “Ancestry.com” account.  If you have ever dabbled with that site, I don’t have to explain what it’s all about.  It’s a place where you can plug your name and some dates into a spreadsheet of sorts and from there you plunge headlong into your ancestral past.  I’ve been playing with it for a long time now.  I’ve traced ancestors from my Dad and Mom all the way back to nearly the Middle Ages.  It’s amazing how the information has evolved over the years since I first started meddling with it.  I have found everything from Civil war soldiers to ancestors who were on the Mayflower, to Kings of England.  Most of my ancestors are more mundane, however.  Farmers, mill workers, lumberjacks and jacks of all trades.  I was working on some clues for one of my ancestors who was born in 1840 and died in 1907, when it  hit me.  That’s the same exact number of years I have been on this earth.  Then the rush of time hit me hard in the face, like a tractor trailer going seventy five.  The lifetime of that particular ancestor of mine is my lifetime.  My years.  My current number.

I wondered what their dreams were when they were 12, or 15 or 18.  I wondered what their goals for their life had been.  I wondered if they had achieved them.  I cried in my coffee because all this time I have been looking at these ancestors, it has been from a cold, impersonal and technical way.  It’s been purely from an informational standpoint, and never from a human relations one.  They were not, and are not just a name and some numbers on a page.  They were people.  People who lived and died, loved and cried, built and tore down, sang and danced, worked and played.  People who did everything I have done, and will do.  Just in a different setting and a different format.

I wonder if someday there will be a man or a woman sitting around and looking at the research which I have done on this site and thinking:  “What the hell was he thinking?”

I hope perhaps instead, that the memories I have tried to instill in those loved ones around me will be remembered, as my Grandma used to say, “until I pass out of memory”  Once that happens, I’ll be just like my dear relative who lived 67 years, during the Civil War and much strife and pain in this country…..I’ll be just a name and a number on a page somewhere, or on a stone perhaps.

Reverie

When I was a little kid, I found that I didn’t always have to have another person to play with in order to have fun. I guess you might say, I had a vivid imagination. I created my own worlds to play in, and stayed in them for hours and hours sometimes. Many times when I stayed at my Grandparent’s home I would go up behind their house into the hills alone, and stay there most of the day. I would hunt for arrowheads and many times would find one or two. I made myself bow and arrow and shot them at invisible enemies. I dug into the red clay dirt and made a cave in which me and my gang of outlaws hid. I climbed trees….not too high because I was afraid of heights, but high enough. I took sticks and limbs which had fallen from the great high oaks and hickories, and built little cabins. I cracked those hickory nuts, and ate persimmons and liked them. I lived many lives there. Only the way my Grandmother’s voice carried in the thin mountain air served to draw me back into the reality of the world of others.

At home I also had my sanctuaries. The old river dam at Trion was a second home. I fished there with a cane pole pulling out many a tiny bream that my Dad would look at and judge and then say “throw ‘em back…too small” I went on my own many times to the jagged limestone rocks which jutted out into the river at many places and jumped from one to another, sometimes making it, sometimes not. I swam at the “boat dock” sometimes alone, sometimes with friends like my ol’ buddy “Barbeque” who lived on the same street as me. Countless times before I ever played organized baseball, I would play the entire World Series in my back yard. Throwing the baseball up against the rugged red bricks on the backside of our house, sometimes clipping the siding…much to my Mom’s dismay but drawing very little ire from my Dad, who seemed to understand where I was coming from. Playing with my dogs, especially my old buddy Lobo..who was a mix of just about every kind of dog a man could think of, and about as tough a fighter and survivor who ever lived. He was near death so many times, and brought back to life with Peroxide and love, you would think he had a cat’s nine lives. He taught me a lot about the will to live, and how strong it is in every living thing.

I also developed a knack of “inside the house” entertainment too. I would sit around and read comic books by the hour. Uncle Scrooge comics at first, and then graduating to Superman and Batman, and finally becoming excited about the “new” Marvel comic books which were coming out. Spiderman, and The Fantastic Four, Dr. Strange, The Hulk, Thor, and Iron Man. I bought them all, just as soon as they came out and then followed them religiously. They were cheap, and it was what I spent my allowance on. If my Mom hadn’t thrown them all away when I went off to college, I might be rich today. I also loved books, and constantly had my nose stuck in one. If I was inside, I was reading. Listening to music and reading. I loved the big 33’s and bought the ones which were cheapest at the store. That means I listened to a lot of Broadway, since they were usually 99 cents versus 3.99 or more for the “Rock and roll” records. I can still sing most of the songs word for word. “Some enchanted evening…you may meet a stranger…” or “I could have danced all night, I could have danced all night and then have begged for more…I could have spread my wings…and done a thousand things, I’ve never done before” Yep…My Fair Lady, The King and I, Oklahoma, Camelot…and on…and on…I was a weird child.

I’ve done so much as a child, before my adult life started, even though much of it was on my on…inside my head, that I don’t feel like I was “cheated” during my childhood. I don’t feel deprived. I feel…normal. My adult life has been equally fulfilling. A lot of you have seen the pictures of my family. I love them as much as I appear to…believe me.

Now, I don’t know how other people feel…don’t know how they experience things. None of us do. We live our entire lives side by side with other human beings, but we have no earthly idea exactly what’s going on inside their head. We assume they process and navigate information the same way we do. That can’t be so, otherwise we would have a world full of people who are essentially alike. I think one of the things which has brought the human race to where we are today, is not our similarities but our differences.

We need to celebrate that fact. We are all a universe inside the frail body of a human being, and even after that body fails us that Universe will go on. Together we will go on.