Writing for Sanity's Sake

In all the Universe there are probably no other beings like we humans. I know that science has found there are many Earth like planets out there, but Earth like is not Earth.

When you think about the fact that we alone may be the only intelligent life in the cosmos it is a daunting thought. I realize that many people don’t believe we are “alone” in the Universe, but so far there is no proof to the contrary…Star Wars and Star Trek notwithstanding.

It leads me to think that humanity has a huge responsibility. We have an obligation to find a way forward to peace. We have almost a sacred trust to preserve our species.

LIFE

I got to thinking. What is happiness, what is satisfaction as it applies to out life here on Earth? What does it mean? How do we get it?

God it seems so very impossible sometimes, especially in this day and age of division and subtraction.

And then, I thought some more……and I dreamed, and had an epiphany of sorts…along with some very strange and sinister nightmares. But I thought first of the epiphany…..

If I have ever done or said a kind word to someone when they needed it, then I am satisfied.

If I have ever given good advice to my children, whether by pure accident, as would be the case most of the time or by chance of experience then I am satisfied.

If I have ever kissed my wife, and she was persuaded that she had married the right man, then I am satisfied.

If I have ever sung a song that brought out an honest emotion, or written a word that sparked a thought in someone’s mind, then I am happy.

If I have ever fed a hungry animal, whether is was a bird, cat, dog, squirrel, or any other living thing that God has created, then I am satisfied.

If I have ever thought a thought that was pure enough for God to appreciate, then I am very happy.

If I have ever cooked food for loved ones, or strangers that they enjoyed or that made them happy, then I am satisfied.

If I ever told a joke that got an HONEST laugh, then I am happy.

I have seen the Ocean on both sides of this wonderful country and walked in the sands and didn’t do it for the first time until I was 16 years old. It was so wonderful, I was so happy. And I have that same thrill and feeling now, everytime I look out over the ocean….

I have stood besides ruins of a culture in Greece which was over 2500 years old, and I was happy.

I have touched the skin and felt the warmth of every person who I have loved the most on this Earth, and I am so satisfied.

I have eaten my Grandmother’s suppers, and have been filled and fulfilled.

I have listened to my Grandfather play the banjo and sing, and it made me happy and it made me part of who I am today.

I have found many an arrowhead in the fields of my youth, and thought about the people who once populated this land, and was genuinely sorry for what they had to go through, and I was saddened.

I have seen a Golden Eagle in flight. It was a dream come true.

I have listened to the Beatles, Elvis, Mahalia Jackson, Percy Faith, Perry Como, Rod Stewart, Johnny Mathis, The Blues Brothers, The Righteous Brothers, Ray Boltz, Bing Crosby, Sinatra, Dean Martin, Laura Fabian, Eva Cassidy, Judy Garland, Jerry Lee Lewis, Clint Black, The Everly Brothers, and on and on.

I listened to Leonard Cohen sing “Hallelujah” last night on youtube, and watched Prince play the most awesome guitar solo ever on George Harrison’s “While my Guitar Gently Weeps” and I was happy. God…I love music so much. I will miss it one of these days, or it will miss me….

I have watched Meteors pour from the sky at such a rate that no one could have counted them. It was a once in a lifetime thrill.

I have seen an eclipse of the Sun and the Moon, and have seen a Comet in the Eastern sky during the early morning.

I have caught the tears of my children and tasted them. I have touched them when their skin was so soft and delicate that my whiskers made little red spots. Now I do it with my Grandchildren….and it has made me so happy.

I have played my guitar in my younger days until my hands cramped and my fingers bled, and oh what a catharsis it has been for me. Bless the person who invented it.

I have eaten wild onions and smoked rabbit tobacco. I hated them both but it was a matter of pride.

I have given money to many a homeless person, and have never told a soul (until now)

I have been in the middle of Storms of Nature and Storms of life that I did not think I would ever survive, but I did. And I am satisfied I passed the fire of that forge.

And the list could go on and on forever.

I have loved this life, and the souls of the people that our creator has chose to populate the bodies of the ones I love. I love it still every day. I want it still every day. I am afraid of it still every day. I never want it to end, but I know it well. I lay in bed at night and imagine it and dread it, but at the same time I know that it will bring peace and not torment.

I have witnessed things every day that I could not have imagined when I was a child. I witness them now every day, and I am in awe and wonder at what has come to pass.

I have seen the wonderful side of mankind first hand, but have seen his terrible wrath firsthand also, not as much as many…but enough for me to know I don’t want to see more, and I don’t want others to have to experience the awful red anvil of war and famine and death.

But strangely, I understand these things are also is a part of life we must know in order to appreciate the blooming of the delicate flowers of spring, and the birth of a child.

I have cried many tears, and I have asked for forgiveness for the sins I have committed. But there are those that won’t or can’t.

I don’t know what will happen on the day I leave this earth. There are not many who will know or care.

But if it is today, or in 25 years…I am happy, I am satisfied, and I am content.

In the bad dream I had last night, I had just awoken from being knocked down, or knocked out. I had a rag or some kind of headband around my head, and blood was dripping down into my eyes. I was walking….through I neighborhood I knew, but not one that I know.

My left leg was stiff, and I was limping badly. I had a walking stick and was leaning heavily upon it. The air was smokey and dank. Heavy with moisture of some type. Not rain though…something chemical and harmful.

I could see the buildings in the area, and they looked terrible. They didn’t looked like they had been blown up. They looked extremely old. They looked like they had just been standing there “disintegrating” over a long period of time. The sun was trying to break through the smoke, and it looked huge and orange in color.

As I limped very slowly down the hill, towards a valley with a lot of old, tall and dead trees, I saw a huge covey of birds rise up out of the center of that black forest. At first I thought they were blackbirds, but as they came closer, I could hear the “caw, caw” of their rough call, and knew they were crows. My nemesis. Crows.

I thought: “they have been following me for years, and now they are here to kill me”

As they flew closer, I raised the walking stick up into the air and discovered that it had turned into a shotgun! I began to shoot..and shoot…and shoot…

Then…I woke up…

I start off walking towards the river. It has always been there. I don’t know how many centuries it has flowed its current course, but likely it has been many. The center of the little town grew up around it’s flood plain, copying the footprints of the Cherokee who lived here and the mound builders who preceded them.

More than likely, even older Paleolithic people inhabited this area over 10,000 years ago as exhibited by Russell Cave in Alabama and the artifacts found there. I think there may have even been some Clovis points found in this area.

I like the spirituality of the land and its lay. This area is one of the most Geologically stable and least changed in this country. Things are much as they were in terms of the land for these past many centuries now. I feel this as I walk.

I imagine a time when the rivers were filled with gar and sturgeon, and even occasionally a bison would wander this far south. When bear, puma and wolf roamed here. When huge trees grew uncut and blocked off the sunlight to the forest floors. I wonder at how the progress of mankind has shaped those bygone days into what I now see on my walks.

Oh I can imagine that life was extremely harsh for humanity in those years. A day was filled with the immediate needs for survival. Food and shelter…clothing. But by and by things got better. There was agriculture, There were the beginnings of government amongst the red man. Especially advanced with the Iroquois nation. What might have developed from these beginnings I often wonder?

I have read in history where the natives of this country were of much more robust and good health than the first Europeans who came here. They were just not resistant to the diseases which came with the white man and between measles, smallpox, and other contagious sicknesses 8 out of 10 of them perished within the first 100 years of contact. The rest were swept aside like dust on a clapboard floor.

Sometimes now as I walk along the bank of the Chattooga river I hear faint voices on the wind whispering “Why, why?” For that question I have no answer.

A Seventies Memory- The Death of a Stranger

Paula and I went to Canton, Georgia today to take the two Cocker Spaniels to the lady from the Cocker Spaniel of Georgia Rescue group. Instead of going down I-75 and cutting across on Hwy 20 we went the “old” way on Hwy 140.

This is kind a trip down memory lane for us, as we used to come this way quite often between 1970 and 1974 when we lived in Athens. We didn’t really care for the ride on the Interstate back then so we sought out several more “scenic” routes to travel from Athens back “home” to Trion. This drive takes you through Waleska, Georgia where beautiful little Reinhardt College is located. What a pristine and pretty little campus, plunked down right in the center of rural outback Georgia. Even now, Waleska is much as it was back in the 70’s. Can’t say the same for Canton though.

At one time, the entire ride from Athens to Trion or back using these old “back road” routes was pretty much like an extended ride in the county. Canton use to be a tiny little mill town like Trion, before Atlanta crept up on it from the South like a tortoise who comes on slowly but surely and in the end wins the race. Canton is much more like a bedroom community for Atlanta now, with even the old Canton Cotton mill building turned into apartments. Wow….things really have changed.

We used to sometimes come this way in the evenings after work when we were coming home. It was beautiful back then….so starkly dark you could spot “shooting stars” from inside the car at night. The roads are mountainous and curvy and I always was careful and took my time, even as a “young an’” back then. One night as we were going up the first big hill outside of Canton a little red sports car came flying around us on a double yellow line. “Dang,” I said “If that guy don’t know these roads he’s liable to get killed” Prophetic…and quickly so.

As we drove on, just another couple of miles we saw a huge flash of light up ahead lighting up the night sky. “What the hell…” I muttered. As we rounded a steep curb we saw the reason. The little red sports car hadn’t mad the curb and had overturned and slammed into the harsh mountain rocks sticking out from the curb. The car was fully in flames…so hot that we could barely stand the heat even from the other side of the road. We could see the guy in the upside down car, immobile and burned in the driver’s seat. “Oh my God” my wife said.

It was a lonely and desolate Friday night and there was not much traffic on highway 140 back then. No other cars passing to flag down. No cell phones back then. I didn’t have anything resembling a fire extinguisher…and even if I had I could never have gotten close. We decided to go as quickly as possible to the next house, which was a new trailer on the right hand side of the road about a mile away. We frantically knocked and told them what had happened and they called the sheriff’s department. We decided not to stay. It wasn’t that we didn’t care, but there was nothing that we could have done. We didn’t know the driver, we were not actual witnesses of the accident, and we did not want to go back to that horrific scene. My wife especially, did not. I gave the people at the trailer my name and my folk’s phone number and told them to tell the police if they needed us to call. They never did. I’m guessing my explanation to the owner of the trailer was sufficient to what they found.

We went back that exact same route today, and relived that day. We talked about it again, and how so much time had passed, yet that memory was fresh. The same trailer was still there…had been built onto several times over the years and looks well lived in, now 40 years later. Forty years. Yet I still have that image in my head of that man or boy’s body in that burning car. I can still feel the heat at that curve and feel a little uneasy looking at the rocks there, which bore the blackened marks of fire for many years. My wife remembers jumping up in the bed at my folk’s house several times that night when the gas heater would light up.

I’ve never witnessed that happening again during my entire driving career from that day til now, and I hope I never will. Somebody’s son died that night. Maybe somebody’s brother. I believe it was a young man, so he could have been a student or someone just starting out in a working career in life. Wasted, because he had a red sport’s car that he couldn’t control going around a curve. I never tried to find out who it was. I didn’t want to know. I still don’t. I feel some sense of guilt because of what I said as the driver passed us going up the hill…..

As the sun goes down tonight and they are predicting snow, I can’t help but think how beautiful the morning was on this day. It was coolish…around 30 degrees, but that’s nothing to a guy who braves 25 degrees or lower to prowl flea markets hunting for junk. So I walked and had a go at some photos of familiar things. I know all of you my Facebook friends have seen these views many times, but for every day that passes there is a subtle difference. There is a tiny erosion of time in both me and the scenery. I feel different. I feel much differently about things than I did as a young boy. Things just don’t appear as bright and new as they did then.

I played and fished around this river all of my childhood. I put a hole in my shinbone on one of the limestone rocks in the river on the day Kennedy was shot, and happened to be home on that day to hear Walter Cronkite announce his death. I was trying to jump from one rock to another and didn’t quite make it with my left leg, and jammed it into one of the sharp limestone “knobs” on the rock.

It had been our lunchtime at school, I think about 11:15 a.m.,when I did it and Mr. Couey, one of my teachers had sent me home for medical attention. My Aunt Shelia Stuart was visiting us that week and I remember she and my Mom gasping at the news when it came on T.V. a little after 12:30 on that Friday afternoon. I don’t know whether my Aunt remembers it or not, but I do. So, I got this dime sized scar in my shin that I call my “Kennedy” scar.

It’s surprising that so much has changed in the years since then. I do however, look with a surprising amount of respect at that damn rock every time I go over the bridge which leads to the mill. I was allowed a glimpse of history and a long term memory because of it.

As first graders one of the first things the teachers taught us to do at recess was to “pick sides” to play games. Red rover, Tug of war, later on other team sports. We chose sides for tasks inside the classrooms. From the very beginning of our education, a hierchy was established. The same children were chosen by the “leaders” for the same sides every time. The same kids were picked last every time. We were taught to be devisive from the very start and it continued through our entire school career. After a while, it was something from which you could not break free.

Practically everything we do requires us to choose a side. Take a moment and think about it. I don’t have to name them all, you know of what I speak. Sides. Choose a side. Right or left. Red or Blue. Pro this, or pro that. “Red rover, red rover send Susie right over”

I was usually one of the last people picked for any team. I know why now. It was because I didn’t want to be on a side. I think maybe I just wanted to be an observer or maybe a referee. I never fit well on either side. I still don’t.

I think it was wrong of them to make us choose sides. Choosing teams would have been better. There is quite a difference you know.

The experience we obtain as we grow through childhood shapes our opinions for life. I have never changed my basic philosophy about things since I was a young man. I have pretended, and acted. I have conformed to rules with which I did not agree. I have assauged the feelings of many. I am none the worse for it because I know the real person who I am and I’m satisfied with my actions. On occasions I have had to choose sides. But I did not like it.

I live for the day when society does not demand we must hate one another for the side on which we have been picked, or with which we choose to affiliate. I’m afraid my frustrations or lack of patience may occasionally spill over into expression of opinions which may not be popular. For this I apologize in advance and beg you remember it’s just the way I was taught.

“Bum, bum, bum here we come blowing our bugles and beating our drums”

Once, when I was a four year old child, I rode my tricycle down the red brick front steps of our old mill house on fifth street in Trion.  The tricycle flipped over and my forehead hit the edge of those red brick steps and they became even more red with my blood spilling out from the newly formed gash on my body.  I think I was temporarily unconscious, but then I remember the curtain of my own blood running down over my eyes.

I could have laid there and bled to death.  But then my Dad came out and lifted me up and took me to the Doctor, who put eight stitches in my head.  The scar is still there to remind me that when you are down and cannot help yourself, you had better hope there is someone else around who CAN help you.  My Daddy lifted me up many more times, both literally and figuratively.

When I was bullied and belittled in school because of my appearance and my shyness, there were some very wonderful and dedicated teachers who believed in me, and gave me a chance to do things I could not have otherwise done.  A chance to sing.  A chance to write, a chance to believe in myself as a person.  They lifted me up.

There were faithful and wonderful classmates who were and are like brothers and sisters to me.  Beautiful friends, who have lasted a lifetime.

As an awkward college freshman I met a young girl, only 18 years old, with whom I started to hang around and tease, then date, then fall in love and marry.  She has lifted me up many, many times during the last 48 years.  What would I do without her?

I have met perfect strangers over the years who have become fast friends.  Many of them are encourager’s.  They have positive attitudes and smiles on their faces.  I envy them, because many days I cannot be that way.  Some days are partly cloudy to cloudy with storms.  More of them than I would like to admit.

My children and grandchildren have lifted me up.  They accept me for who I am, and look over many of my faults.  They help me to survive this life for which I feel many times very unsuited.

Yet, I am who I am, and that fact cannot be changed.  I am what I was “programmed” to be during the first year of my life.

I have tried my best over the years to be someone who would treat others like the golden rule says to treat them.  I have lost promotions, and in some cases jobs because I would not treat other people as objects to be used up and discarded.  I think it was the right thing to do.

I have given cash to homeless people, beggars and probably some con men and women.  I hope that some of that money went for food and blankets.  As a matter of fact in some cases I just bought the food and blankets in the first place!  I think it was the right thing to do.

But, doing the right thing won’t get you anywhere most of the time.  Most of the time, it will get you right where I sit today.  Behind the screen of this little computer, wishing I had made some different turns sometimes.  Wishing I had gone down some of those “less traveled roads”

But, if wishes were horses, then beggars would ride.

I don’t see any horses around here.  Not even a pony.

How then, can I find redemption?  Can I find it through religion or belief in a God and Creator?  Can I find it in the Bible, or the Koran?  The sayings of Confucius or Lao Tse?

I don’t think so.

Can I find it through science and the pursuit of technology and knowledge?  If I could have, I would already have I think.

I suppose my redemption can only come from what is inside of me.  Yet, I am still the same little child who rode his tricycle down the steps and busted his head wide open.  There hasn’t really been a whole lot of change, except for the passing of time.  Now, I must lift myself up, since my Dad is gone.  My parents both are gone.  Childhood is gone.  School years are gone.

Chances to ride the roads and see the sites are quickly slipping away as I sit behind this screen and type.  I should be out searching for redemption, but here I sit.  Redemption will only come when I am satisfied that I have done everything I can do for everyone I can do it for.  Is that sentence grammatically correct?  I don’t think so, but it fits.  It fits me like a glove.

I will never been satisfied, so I will never find a proper redemption.  All I can hope for now is peace, and I believe without absolute certainty that I will find that.

 

 

 

 

I’ve mentioned before that I used to get a small allowance as a kid. But, my Dad figured that my duty for that small amount of money would be mowing grass.

I started cutting grass when I was 9 years old. My Dad taught me the basics of grass care and lawn mower maintenance. How to carefully fill the mower with gas, check the oil after each use, how to overlap on each pass slightly as to not “miss a spot” Our yard over on Simmons Street seemed the size of Forest lawn to me and it seemed to take forever to cut it. It was boring, so I daydreamed about playing baseball. I was old Mickey Mantle in the 9th inning of the World Series getting the winning hit. In the end the grass got cut.

Down the road a few years later when I was 12, if I wanted money I had to work for it. At the beginning of the Summer in 1962, my Dad said “Go out and get you a few yards to mow.” So I went out and asked. I got Mr and Mrs Smith’s yard in the two story white house across from the mill. Mr and Mrs Cohran’ s house beside them, and the Smith’s two adult daughters who lived behind them on fifth street. I had a couple of them up on eighth street too, The William’s house and old Mr Crawford’s house. Mr Crawford was a character. He had been in WWI, and had been gassed with Mustard gas. Even though that had given him lung problems he still worked very hard at the Mill as a sweeper. He was quite a talker and I learned a lot from listening to him.

I got so many yards to mow, that I was super busy! The first couple of weeks were not so bad, but then there was ball practice….extra ones even, due to the fact that our coach really wanted to win first place. My client’s yards started getting long and Dad ended up “helping me out” so I could keep my yards and get my money. Dad didn’t complain. That’s just the way he was.

We won first place in little league that year, and I know Dad was proud. Tired from having to help me mow yards, but proud nonetheless. I continued to mow these same yards for years after that because Dad had “saved me” that year. I think my brother Mike Bowers kept on mowing them after I went off to West Georgia. Dad continued to help me if I needed it, and he would always check to make sure I hadn’t missed a spot. He did the same thing when I washed the car too!

I’ve tried to live the same philosophy. Let people work when they can, help when they need it, and tell them when they have “missed a spot”

There are stuffed animals lined up in the hall. Three Teddy bears being taught by a monkey in a green plastic chair. I know this because that is what my three year old Rue told me. She showed me a page with super hero stickers all lined up in a row and told me it was her “lesson plan” I’m sure the monkey can handle it.

Outside next to my storage building is a little pile of rocks of different sizes, shapes and colors. This is Eli’s collection from our hike across the old apartments lot on Park Avenue yesterday. I let him out of the stroller and he picked and chose, throwing the ones he didn’t like as far as his little arm could chunk them.

Paula and I have been keeping these two for over 3 years now, since they are both closer to 4 than 3. When we started, I was still a very sick man. I struggled with heart and chest pains. I was on the verge of diabetes and had very little energy. As these two progressed from helplessness to walking, to running, to talking and thinking….to becoming little humans, I realized that I would like to be around with them a little while longer. I didn’t do much about it at the time though. When I found out last year that Matt and Courtney were finally having a baby, I decided to become more active.

So I started walking. I went to the gym because Paula was doing rehab, and I have kept on going.

I got one of those fitbit things for my birthday back in October and as of today I am nearing a million steps on it. I still am not “healthy” as a normal person by any means, but I think having these youngsters and now a new baby have kept me from going downhill. Instead I have come uphill a bit. I still go to sleep all the time. Rue was poking me this morning while she was sitting in my lap in my chair saying “Wake up Papa…wake up”

I have beautiful teenage granddaughters I want to see graduate from high school, and a young adult granddaughter I want to see get a good start on life. I’m trying to teach Auttie a little guitar too. She’s doing really good.

Not even to mention my three children who are my friends and my dear wife. We have a fiftieth wedding anniversary coming up in a few years, and I got to make plans to be here for that. I think we are going to Disney world.

Yet…my goals are all attainable short range deals. One day at a time, and stack them up like bricks at a kiln.

So, I’ll leave the stuffed animals where they are for now, and the rock pile too. They will remind me of the two who put them there and how much I love them….and how much I love them all.