Category: Uncategorized

My fear for our species is that we have come so far, so quickly, while taking so little caution to understand what we are becoming, that we no longer really know what we are. What do you think we are? Do you give yourself a label? What do you call yourself. There’s tons of adjectives out there in the English language. Which one do you use to describe yourself?

Sometimes we rely on our labels to identify our emotions for us. If we are religious, we’re supposed to be kind. If we’re an atheist and do not believe in any Gods, then that somehow makes us “less” as a person. If we are “liberal” if we are “conservative” what emotions are we supposed to carry? (No answer required, it’s a rhetorical question).

If we forget the basic emotions that make us human, or freely give them up, then we are lost. If we tie our emotions to a label, we are equally lost.

One of the biggest problems is that lying is an almost innate human trait…at least in our society. Kids learn to lie before they can learn to read or write. A lot of it is “our” fault. Our being the caregiver or raiser of any child. You are alone at the house with a three year old, and you walk into the kitchen and there’s spilled milk on the floor. “did you spill that milk’? you ask the 3 year old. In their mind they weigh out the options to your “yes or no” question. “No” they say. “well if you didn’t do it, who did”? you ask. “The dog” they say. Well…there’s a million to one chance that it could of been the dog, so…you let it go. The child just learned something. It’s sorta’ like: “have you been eating chalk”? “No…not me.” “Well….then why do you have it all around your mouth”?

Today is a day for change, and only WE can decide to make a change in ourselves. Nobody else is going to, or has the ability to change you unless you want it. Other people can affect you, but NOT change you. Nobody else has to know you have pledged yourself to change. They will know by your actions. We cannot remain the same and expect the world to get better!

Forget your label and just become a member of the human race. Live and let live. Don’t hate something or someone simply for who or what they are.

Start getting rid of politicians who do nothing but lie and foment hatred. Vote the out. Reject their rhetoric. Don’t let them decide who you are.

Banana Pudding Poke Cake

1 box yellow cake mix

2 sm. Boxes of banana pudding instant pudding

4 cups of milk

1 8oz tub of whipped topping thawed

2 bananas

20 vanilla wafers crushed

Prepare cake mix as directed on box for a 9×13 cake. Allow cake to cool for just a couple of minutes. Then, with a wooden spoon handle or some other similarly-sized object, begin poking holes in the cake.

You want the holes to be fairly big so the pudding has plenty of room to get down in the cake. Be sure

You poke right down to the bottom of the cake.

In a bowl whisk together instant pudding with 4 cups of milk. Stir until all lumps are gone. Let the pudding sit for just about 2 minutes, so it has just slightly begun to thicken but not fully set. It should still be easily pourable. Pour pudding over cake, taking care to get it into the holes as much as possible. Spread it all out and using the back of the spoon gently push pudding down into the holes.

Put it into the refrigerator to set and cool. Once the cake is completely cooled place sliced bananas on top of the pudding, then cover with whipped topping, last sprinkle on all your crushed wafers.

(I added the bananas to the recipe, you don’t have to use banana, I always have to do something to every recipe.)

“Make American Great Again” is a motto being used by a politician. But he’s not the only one who tries to intimate that previous times in the history of our country have been “greater” than now. My question is, when were those times?

I’ve read a lot of the history of this country. A lot of history that is hard to get, A lot of history books that are hard to get. A lot of different points of view. I minored in History in College (actually one of my two minors) I have had a more than passing interest in the history of our country. I can’t find a time in the history of America in which we were really “great” for every sector and factor of our country. For every race and creed. For every economic level of our country. So, I want to know, when they speak of making America “great again” what are they talking about?

Why not instead talk about making America great for everyone? Why not do it now? America is the best country in the world, even with all of it’s problems. Lets learn to work together for the good of every single person who is in this country regardless of what they believe. Let us solve the problems we have now, and not create more of them by building walls instead of bridges. We are better than this. We are better than what the politicians are telling us we are. How dare they insist that we are such bigots and haters!

Gravitate towards acceptance of everyone, the equality of everyone, the respect of everyone, the compassion towards everyone. Gravitate towards the opinion that everyone is entitled to HAVE an opinion, and even though it might be different than yours, don’t hate them for it. Negotiate, talk out problems in a calm and civil manner. No more of this bullshit yelling and calling people names and threatening to shoot them cause they are different from you.

I’m tired of it, and I don’t think I’m the only one.

Bowers Family
— Read on korielizabethphotography.passgallery.com/-bowersfamily/gallery

Banjo Man

Sometimes the most beautiful things in the world are never heard or seen by other humans. There are rare times, when you stumble across them accidentally and they are so fleeting and unique that they can never be replicated.

I have written many times about my Grandfather, and how as a child I used to sit on the porch of his old house and watch and listen as he played his banjo. It’s one of my best memories.

The other day, one day this week, I was walking my regular route through town. It takes me past one of the town’s unusual resident’s house. He’s a man a little older than me who lives up on the hill behind the ballpark. He’s different. I was rounding the curve in the hill when I heard it…the banjo playing. But it was not just ANY old banjo playing. This was the Flat and Scruggs kind of banjo playing. This was blue grass roots. This was great playing. This playing made the leaves swirl in little circles in the air, and the needles of the pines lean in closer to hear.

At first I thought it was a professional recording, but then realized it was coming from the little white house on the hill with the name “Earp” on the mailbox. It was somebody playing live. Probably…most probably it was V.W. Earp, that different little man who lives there alone. I stopped there and eavesdropped on this playing. I don’t know what song it was. It didn’t matter. It was heavenly. Complicated, fast. The type of playing you wish you could do if you were a pro. I moved on reluctantly after five minutes, finishing my walk. I shook my head in wonder at the savant like talent of this man.

I had seen some of the other things he had done in the past. My good trade day friend, one of the Webb twins, (I can’t remember if it was Ronald or Donald) showed me a design that V.W. had drawn. It was a complicated and quite logical drawing of how to stop the flooding on the Chattooga River. I guess V.W. had given this to him some time back. It looked like something that Leonardo da Vinci might have done. It was a crude, but at the same time a simple and brilliant plan. Of course, nobody took it seriously. I wonder if it would have worked.

I think the Webb boys have a weekly “shack picking and playing” session somewhere, (don’t know for sure…never been invited to come!) I hope V.W. shows up there sometimes. It would be a shame for nobody else to ever hear that gorgeous music. I wonder if he has many friends. I see him out and about his house with his little white dog following him and I throw up my hand and say “hey” I’ve run into him at the local grocery store and talked with him for a few minutes at a time. Conversations which are strange and disjointed, but at the same time very interesting.

I marvel at people like this. I knew Mr. Earp was an unusual man. I grew up around him and his brother and I knew his father, but I can’t begin to comprehend this person. This outlandish “character” who on the outside is so incomprehensible to “normal” people, but who on the inside is such a talent and has such a tremendous intellect. A person who because of his eccentricities has a problem finding outlets for his talents, which will fit nicely into our societal norms. If you act a little different no matter if you cannot help it, it’s hard for people to take you seriously sometimes. There’s no doubt about it. Nowadays in schools perhaps things would develop differently. Back in our day in school… There just weren’t things available.

I’m glad I know this man and I’m glad I took that five minutes to listen to his music. I will always remember it.

I held up my hands today and looked at the back of them. My skin is thinning and parchment like, with blue veins and smaller red arteries running just under the surface. Looks all the world to me, like some odd and bizarre road map, minus the numbers. I guess I could consider these old hands a road map of my life for sure.

They have been with me on the road, as I have traveled at the very least over half a million miles in a car over the past thirty years.

They have been with me holding first three children and then nine grandchildren since 1972. For the most part they were comforting, with a few detours for some parenting corrections.

I hope and expect they will continue to be my own “living record” of more things to come over the next few years. The good and the not so good, whatever life brings.

My confession, my sorrow……

For me, this coming of the electronic age has been somewhat of a downfall. It’s been my fault, because I let myself succumb to it. It started in the mid to late 90’s and has sucked so many precious hours, days, month and years away from me that when I look back on it, it saddens me so much.

I looked at one online game that I have played quite a bit over the past decade. It keeps up with your time played. It said I had played 883 hours. That’s a total of 36 days. Over a month. Of course that’s not consecutively staying on, but an aggregate of time periods of from half an hour to 5 or 6 hours. That’s bad enough, but it’s not even the online game which I have played the most. I’ve played Ultima Online, World of Warcraft, Guild Wars, Skyrim, Diablo, and a few others. I conservatively estimate, I’ve wasted up to 16 months or more of my life playing these games. I could have been reading. I could have been writing music, or working outside in the sunshine, golfing, fishing, anything. I was sucked into these games, just like I found myself sucked into social media. There’s also no telling how much time I have spent on Facebook and other forms of “not so social media”

I thought it was really great at first, but the last two or three years have been difficult. What started out as a connecting with old friends has become a mess. It’s become politics, it’s become partisan, it’s become fake, it’s become people taking advantage of other people. It’s become, for the most part, with the exception of being able to see the connections with my family through this medium, useless to me as something positive in which to participate. The information they glean from us is sold to unscrupulous people who take and use it for nefarious reasons. Period. If it were not for the relationship aspect on social media with my family, I’d get off in a heartbeat.

I’m hoping to go back to some of my pre mid 90’s habits of reading books, and relaxing more at night before trying to sleep. I have no doubt that using these electronic devices for all things all hours of the day and night have not been beneficial healthwise…at least for me. I wish I could change what has been, but I can’t. I can’t get all that time back that I have wasted.

When I was a young man, in my twenties and I thought of long term things which needed to be accomplished I always thought “Well, I have plenty of time to get that done…” Turns out, I didn’t. I didn’t take the time to do the things I needed to do to get some of those things done. I could sit here and regret it….and in a way I do. I’m sad about it in some ways. But…if wishes were horses…

We human beings have become captivated during my lifetime by technology. We have, in a sense, become captive by it. All of our lives have become structured around the computer driven world around us. Much of it was good, but now much of it brings danger and sorrow for us. Not a day goes by that you don’t hear of “hackings” of large companies, stealing the private information of people. Chances are if you have a credit card, or credit cards then you have been compromised. If you have been on Equifax, you have been compromised. We have probably been compromised in so many ways that we have no idea how bad it really is. It’s pandemic. It’s probably unstoppable at this point.

Another thing technology has brought us that we did not need is 24 hour “news” Ted Turner brought that to us even before the computer age with CNN, and things have gone down hill from there. Now there is channel after channel of 24 hour news “indoctrination” coming to us with a “slant” courtesy of whoever owns the stations, or whoever has influence over them. We are being constantly bombarded by propaganda to the point where we do not know right from wrong, or up from down. We are being manipulated by these 24 hour a day “talking heads” to the point where our world is much worse than the program Max Headroom ever imagined it to be.

Can we go back and fix any of this. No. Can we do things going forward to mitigate the damage which has been done to us? Perhaps. It won’t be me doing it though, because I’m 67 1/2 years old. It’ll take a lot longer than the years I have left to change humanity to a more enlightened state.

As for me, I’m going to do my utmost best to stop being a victim of my own obsessions. I’m really going to try. I’m going to fail some, but I’m damn sure going to try. How about any of you, my friends? Am I wrong? Am I crazy? Mayhaps I am.

To all of you, Godspeed, and God bless. Don’t expect a whole lot out of me….but I’ll be around with photos and such.

“To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven” This is our “season” If you wake up this morning and are still walking on the earth, then it’s your season. You can choose what to do with it. Will you gripe about something you can’t do anything about? Will you say something kind to someone you don’t know? Can we accomplish something worthwhile today, no matter how small it may seem? Can we be careful about what comes out of our mouth, and make sure we don’t “cut” somebody with words? Solomon was a wise man, and throughout the book of Ecclesiastes, he puzzles about the meaning of life and comes to some pretty sad conclusions about people. Let’s try and prove him wrong.

When I was a little kid one of my worse worries was that I would “die young”.

I learned too much about death at too young an age, or at least I was conditioned to fear death. Death was bad. The ultimate separation from those you love, the final farewell to those things in this world with which we become familiar and comfortable.

My religious upbringing didn’t really lend much comfort in many ways either. I was taught about hell, and how I would be going there to burn for eternity if I didn’t repent of my sins. The problem was, this was imprinted on me so early in life. Eight, nine, ten years old. Happy potential childhood became scary times of ultimate decision making. In my opinion that kind of pressure, that kind of tactic…is unfair to young children, and I now reject scaring little kids with the visions of a ghastly hell in order to “bring them to Jesus”. If a person is going to follow that path, they will follow the light…not the dark. But…all that aside.

I think I missed my appointment with an “early” death at age 49, with heart attack number one, and again at 60 with heart attack number 2, and quad bypass surgery. Being sixty six and a half now, I am no longer young in years, although I feel better now than I did twenty years ago.

Age 46 was when nurse Betty Stone drew a vial of blood from my veins, and then called me to her office later on to show me the layer of fat…triglycerides..which were floating on top. My reading was over 1000. Genetics…my Dr. said, and gave me pills…which I still faithfully take. But, even so, I have lasted longer than I thought. Longer than a number of my classmates with whom I graduated. I think about them at times, and wonder why. I’m guessing it’s just the tide of life, which carries some of us further in its foamy wake than others. That’s all.

The other night I dreamed about my Grandpa Jervis. That doesn’t happen often. He and I were driving around hunting bargains at yards sales, and got lost. I was concerned, but he just said: “keep on driving and you’ll eventually come to somewhere you know”. And we did in the dream. We ended up on Rossville boulevard. (Who knows with dreams? You just gotta go with the flow).

All I know now is that every day I wake up is a good day. As the old song says: “Even the bad times are good”. I’ve had a good life, good family and mostly good friends. So, I’m just going to keep on driving, until I get to where I’m going, or at least come to somewhere I know. And when the tide of life deposits me there, I will know….many things, or perhaps none…what will matter will not be the date and time of that arrival, but the fun and quality of the trip.

Thanks old Grandpa, for the advice, and the cameo appearance in my dream.

Being really tired after driving ten hours today (my choice…as Paula offered) but being that tired and then eating a quick bite, I went out to walk. I don’t know why, but I had a quick and fleeting thought that I should call my Dad and let them know we got back ok……

Why did I think that?? It’s will be five years in May since Daddy died, and I thought I should call? I shook it off, and continued to walk around this old mill town. “Why did I ever stay here?” I wondered

My Dad called me, back in the summer of 1974. He knew I wasn’t liking my new job fresh out of school, and liked living in Toccoa even less. Kirsten was two and the apartments we were living in were terrible. Our cat “Hector” had gotten run over and killed. The security was awful. I couldn’t envision raising our little girl there.

Dad had talked to some people, and I had a job as a “management trainee” if I wanted it. I thought about it.

Could I make a good life in a cotton mill town for my little family? The schools were good. I knew people. I called my Dad back: “I’ll take the job” I said. So we moved back “home”

I am not sure it was a perfect decision. We have ridden the roller coaster. I know my wife has had a difficult time in some ways. I know many people here. I grew up here. She knew nobody, and in a small town that’s a problem. I am so sorry that many times she was “Larry’s wife” That’s not much of a description for the clever and caring person who keeps me straight.

I had my problems over the years with jobs, with finances, with so many things. So, I called Dad a lot for advice and help. He never once…not once…refused to help me. He chewed my ass out, yes even as a young adult, if he thought it was necessary. It was. Certainly at times it was. Whenever we went off for a vacation or a long stay he’d tell me to call when we got back. “Just for peace of mind”

So I guess that’s where that flashback came from this afternoon. Either that, or part of his spirit still inhabits this one horse town we call home. I’m not so certain that’s not so, as Rue and Eli seem to “know” him…having both looked at his picture and called him “Papa” or “Tarpy” without having been told who he was. Who knows. Not me for sure…