Writing for Sanity's Sake

We are of the earth, no matter your philosophy of how we got here.

We are all creatures of this world.

No matter our skin color or the shape of our eyes, we are creatures of this world.

We are so much like other living things, that it is plain to anyone who will look that our basic blueprint was laid down long ago, in our cells and in our spirit.

We are of this Earth, but our spirit can soar high, if we will only allow it to do so the first time.

High into the pink sunsets we can fly like the eagle or the hawk.

We are every cloud and raindrop which falls and runs to the sea.

We are of the ocean, and every wave which breaks on the sand.

Forever tied to our planet which sustains us, which has sustained us, and which will be here long after us.

This morning should have been Easter. I cannot remember a more beautiful spring morning. This morning should remind us of Christ’s love for us and for all other people. It should remind us through the bright and glorious sunshine, that Christ is the light who came into the world not to condemn the world, but through him to save the world. It should remind us through the gorgeous singing and trilling of the songbirds, that God created a world worthy of our care and nurturing. It should remind us through the blooming and wonder of the superb spring flowers, that through God’s grace and Christ’s sacrifice, that we can all live again if we believe in him. Yes, this morning should have been Easter, but then again I guess any morning can be if your joy is in Christ and your belief is in his defeat of death.

Two people died this past week who were friends of mine, and I didn’t know it in time to go to their funerals…or to the funeral home to honor them.

Mr. E.B. King, Jeff King‘s Dad was a fixture all through my childhood. Jeff and I played a lot of baseball together as kids, and Mr. King was always there to encourage, to help, to coach us, play catch with us…anything he could do to help he always did. I never heard Mr. King ever raise his voice, although he may have…but he seemed a kind and gentle man. The kind of man you look up to as a kid. He was a Navy man, like my Dad was, and I heard him and my Daddy talk about it occasionally. After my ball playing years, I would see Mr. and Mrs. King at Church and they never, ever failed to speak or to smile. They never failed to show joy. Mr. King and I became buddies over 30 years of going to Trade Day together. Can’t count the junk I bought from him that I “needed” At the same time, money could not BUY the good will and friendliness in the conversations we had about everything under the moon. Fifteen or twenty minutes on a Saturday or a Tuesday over all those years. Wonderful person, Mr. E.B., I will surely miss him.

I was thinking while I was out walking today about how I have come through sixty five years to where I am today.

I have had times where I have been mean to people, but I try not to be that way anymore.

I have had times when I said hateful things to people, but I try not to say those things anymore.

I have not loved people in general enough. I have not given enough to those who needed it. I have not consoled those who needed consoling as much as I should have.

I have wasted precious time doing inane things which meant nothing when I could have been doing things to benefit others.

But, in doing…or not doing all or any of these things, I suppose I am walking or was walking literally at the time, in the footsteps of every thinking human being who has ever drawn a breath.

I wonder then, when God made us, and I do think that we were in some sense made, I wonder why we were not made perfectly? Why am I so imperfect? Why is humanity so imperfect?

I walked for five miles and never came up with a really good answer to that question. I don’t think any of us have the answers. I think we all still have many more questions instead.

Certainly there are religious and metaphysical answers, but to seek the answer in human terms only, is very, very hard.

I will think on it again tomorrow if I get to walk around again.

Today has been a day of nostalgic thoughts, and few accomplishments otherwise. As we accumulate more time and more memories, the world itself magically changes around us. Where once existed a world of newness and adventure without cynicism and sarcasm, now exists a world which is a little fuzzy at the edges. Happiness is a daily pursuit and long term plans become a risk. Peace is sought and tranquility of body and mind is accepted with great thankfulness, especially at this time of day when the sun has crossed the sky one more time and I have seen it, and felt it and have been it. I am lucky.

I know my Daddy was a hard working man. I remember being very young, back when we lived over on Simmons street and Daddy would come home from the mill. I rushed to meet him, and most of the days he would grab me up and give me a hug. Some days though, when he had been working right up until the last minute before the whistle blew, he would still have the grease and oil from working on looms on his hands and he had to go clean up before I got my hug.

Mom didn’t like all that mess in her bathroom sink, so Daddy had a little container of kerosine and some soap he kept out next to the back steps, along with some rags with which to wipe his hands. He’d get most of it off his hands, then finish up in the bathroom. I know he was tired, especially on the days he worked over. Still, he always had a little time to play, whether it was throwing a ball around or going out to where the beagles were penned up and letting me play with them a little.

Loom fixers were essential back in the cotton mill in the 1950’s. Good loom fixers, like my Dad were sought after. They moved around from “upkeep to upkeep” inside the weave room, getting the better set of looms to look after as they became more proficient. New fixers got the worst running looms and had to ask for help from the older more experienced fixers sometimes.

I never realized how hard working in that cotton mill could be until after I was sixteen years old. That was the age in which a student could get a summer job in the mill and make themselves some “good” money. A lot better money than caddying up at the golf course, or working bagging groceries at the Piggly Wiggly. So, in the summer of 1967 I got myself a summer job in the mill.

By that time, my Dad had worked his way up to being an Overseer in the mill. He was the “boss” over the second/third shifts in the weave room. My Dad didn’t believe in doing family any favors though. I ended up doing a job called “taking up quills” We’d take a little buggy and go around to every loom and fetch the empty wooden quills on which the filling yarn had been wound. We’d dump the container into which they fell, in our big rolling buggy, and when that buggy was full we’d take it to the “quill machine” It was there that the quills were reprocessed to be sent back up to the spinning room. It was the location of one of the strangest sights I can ever remember.

Me and Kelley ( a teacher at our High School who also had a summer job in the mill) had filled our buggies up to almost overflowing and were bringing them to the machine. The dumping station was a circulating belt which eventually fed into a smaller belt which took the quills upstairs. A lot of times there was a little yarn left on them and the quill machine operator was responsible for getting that yarn off before the quills got to the smaller belt. There had been a large influx of quills and the operator was standing in between the large cirulating belt and the smaller belt buried chest deep in slowly moving wooden quills. With his arms outstreched and pulling the remnants of yarn off of the quills he looked like some strange multicolored ghost with stringlets of light hanging in all directions off on him. He was covered in sweat and it dripped from his face and neck onto the remnant yarn. “Damn” Kelly whispered, “I hope he doesn’t get buried” He didn’t.

There was no air conditioning in that mill back in 1967, just humidity. The more the humidity, the better, because the looms ran better when the humidity was high. They even had “humidity heads” built into the ceiling spewing out moisture into the air. It has hot that summer. Over 100 degrees inside that weave room most days and with that humidity, it was brutal.

I came home most days and just went to bed and slept for 10 hours or so. I didn’t feel much like doing anything else.

I developed a very healthy respect for my Dad, and all of the other men from our community who had been working in that place for most of their lives. They were tough men. Most of them were good men. Many of them, they just don’t make ’em like anymore. My Daddy was one of them, as was many of yours my friends. I met and worked with a lot of them that year and in the subsequent years in which I worked in that cotton mill. I will have to admit that the next summer I asked ol’ Henry Rider about a job before I did my Dad, and he put me to repainting the walls. It was a lot better than collecting quills!

I don’t know what it’s like in there today. I haven’t been in a weave room in a score or more of years. I do know how hard of work it used to be though. Hard..hard work.

The spirit rises, and the pragmatist subsides, and I think of all the things I do not know…nor will I ever know.

I cannot see the wind, but I know it is there because it blows my hair in my eyes. If I cannot see the wind, what else can I not see?

I cannot hear the sounds that the wolf hears, and many other animals besides him. What sounds are there that even the most sensitive of animals cannot hear? What does the Universe whisper just beyond our ability to detect, that may hold secrets we do not know.

Fifty years is a long time. But I remember fifty years ago. I was a senior in High School. I had gotten most of the courses I needed to graduate, so I had two hours of “study hall” in a row that year. I sat there and read most of the time, but every now and then there was some excitement.

One of the radiators started clanking so loud once that we thought it was going to explode. Turns out it just needed draining out. The water in Trion is very alkaline, and water heaters, and radiators too I suppose, get this calcified sediment in them that causes them to stop working. I guess it does the same thing with kidneys, because after drinking Trion water all my life I’ve got about a hundred tiny kidney stones, and one big one lurking in my kidneys. My Urologist says don’t sweat the tiny ones, but if the big one starts to move “you’ll know it, and I’ll see you at the hospital “

We had several fights that year too. I can’t remember if anybody won. I think it was Mr. Hayes who broke them up

Most of the time though, I read books. I got a lot of them finished too. “The Count of Monte Cristo” by Dumas. “The Egyptian” by Mika Waltari, and most of all “Hawaii” by James Michener. That book made me a fan of not only Michener, but also of historical novels. I’ve read all of his books now, some more than once. Colleen McCollough is another favorite, with her long expansive historical series about Rome. Simply put, I became a fan of reading that year, and have never looked back. Those two consecutive study halls were more educational for me then any High School class I could have taken.

I also had Journalism that year, History and Typing II. I wasn’t much in mechanics, so I never took Shop. I kind of regret that at times, but never regret learning how to type 60 wpm. That skill has served me well through the years, first by being able to type my own papers in college (and charge other folks for typing theirs!) but chiefly with the development of the computer and its accompanying keyboard, I had a leg up on many people.  I can still fly on the keyboard when I want to.

Gary Clark was the only other boy in that class with me that year. “Chocks” as we called him. Gary passed away one day suddenly from a heart attack quite a number of years back. I really hated to hear it. He was a good friend.

That year was also filled with some stress. Taking SAT’s, and trying to decide on a college to attend. I finally settled on West Georgia College, and have never regretted it. It was a much different school back then, with a small college feel.

The world was changing back in 1968. MLK was assassinated, then later on Bobby Kennedy, who had decided to run for president after Johnson decided he’d had enough, and had totally screwed up the Vietnam war, and lied about it to boot.

The Beatles were preeminent in music, and brought the British Invasion to a full scale victory.

There were proms and dances. Me and some of my buddies had a rock and roll band.

I dated some nice girls, and generally was the epitome of a slightly nerdy, sometimes cool high school Senior.  I didn’t have my own car, and had an 11 O’clock curfew.  I had maybe four pairs of pants, five shirts, and two pairs of shoes, one of which was for Sundays.

But, most of all, it was a great year.  A year I’ll never forget.  I was seventeen and was going to do great things. I knew it all, and Dad and Mom knew nothing.  I was wrong, arrogant, and stupid.  How many of us weren’t?

I’d love to take the time someday to really write about it in detail.  It would probably be a very long piece.

Most of all, I’d love to go back for one last day to that study hall, with its old rope operated windows opened to the spring breeze in early March.  I’d love to hear the river rushing by just outside the window, and smell the slightly “burnt” odor of the sanforized cloth running over at the mill. I’d love to hear the “twenty minute til four” whistle blow as I was walking Home up the eighth street hill, to a supper that probably include salmon patties and pinto beans. I’d like to see Mom and Dad again and tell them how right they were about things, and that I loved them for all they had done for me.  I’d like to sit in the front porch swing after supper and strum my old Kay guitar until it got dark.

Just one day, then I’d come back…….I swear I would.  And I’d be a better man than I am now.

As I was fishing the river earlier this week, It woke some old memories. Solitude, serenity, serendipity. I used to stumble upon things as a child that may seem very strange to others, but which in my lone way were calming and beneficial.

I would skim rocks across this same Chattooga river for hours. I think once I got up to eight bounces…imagine that sense of accomplishment! I kept a secret place behind the house on Eighth street where I piled unusual and different rocks. Unless someone found them, which isn’t likely, they are still there piled in a pyramid like group.

We all have our secret eccentricities. And our secrets. I was thinking of one of my deep, dark secrets at my granddaughters band concert the other night. How I had always wanted to be in the band…but could never learn to read music. I remember trying out for band. I was give a clarinet. For a few weeks I simply memorized the tunes and played along. But the squiggles on the pages never made sense, and I was too ashamed to ask for help. I could have gone on and just memorized the songs, but…I just felt out of place. I didn’t belong.

I have gone on and learned to play and sing, to write and even lead choirs…all the time not knowing how to read a note of music. I’ve memorized thousands of songs, hundreds of musicals, millions of notes. I can harmonize with anyone on any song. But if someone showed me “Mary had a little lamb” written out in notes with nothing to identify it..I wouldn’t know what it was.

I wish I had said something back in the eighth grade…maybe I would have enjoyed being in the band..who knows. My knees were bad, so no football either. I simply ended up as a cheerer.

Math was pretty much the same also. I faked And guessed my way through algebra. I liked Geometry though, thanks to a very understanding teacher, Mr. Alexander, who gave me a B based more on my great writing and the ability to produce a fifty page term paper on angles. I can remember to this day his surprise that anyone could turn out that many pages on something so innane.

I’m just weird that way I guess…my talents lend themselves more towards slideshow entertaining than reality sometimes as I realized tonight after my bath as I shaved left handed, and brushed my teeth right handed with nary a nick nor a tooth missed. Guess things could be worse. I write with both hands too.

Ah well, enough of this rambling. I have important sleep to get too.

One of the things I used to enjoy the most when I was eight or nine years old was hitting rocks with a stick. I especially enjoyed this activity when I went to my Grandparent’s house.

Grandpa and Grandma lived on the end of an old dirt road and of course that road was loaded with…rocks! I couldn’t wait to get there on a summer day back in the late 50’s. I’d go down to the road right next to the barn and find me a stick about the length of a baseball bat and make a pile of rocks about the size of a quarter. It didn’t matter that the stick was skinny because I could hit those rocks. I honed my hand/eye coordination with hours of hitting rocks into Uncle Lark’s corn field for hours at a time.

“There goes another Home Run for Mickey Mantle” I would holler out in my head. I could hear ol’ Dizzy and PeeWee Reece calling it out over the center field fence at 410 feet.

Mantle was my earliest baseball idol, and still to this day is my all time favorite. There’s a signed photo of him from his Triple Crown year of 1956 hanging on the wall down the stairwell from where I’m sitting. I wish I had gotten it signed in person, but I never got to meet Mickey.

I’d pick those rocks up and toss them in the air and whack them. I’d whack them and try to knock flying birds out of the air, although I never hit one.

This morning as I was walking down by the river, I picked up a skinny stick and a rock and when I got close to the river I threw it up in the air and swung….I was exhilirated and excited down inside as I heard a loud “crack” and “Mickey Mantle hit another home run” into the depths of the Chattooga river.

I looked around to make sure nobody had seen me, and I walked on….