Writing for Sanity's Sake

What can one man do to make things better? I’ve been paying close attention to this social media tidal wave since it first hit. I was on “My Space” back when AOL was the big deal, and I jumped onboard Facebook in 2009. I’ve made some friends here in the virtual world…friends I have never physically met.

Isn’t that a strange thing to say? I have stumbled upon my virtual friends mainly from a commonality of shared social, cultural, and political values. Therefore, most of my virtual friends think pretty much like I do on those issues. While that’s not a bad thing altogether, I think it has led many of us away from dealing with each other in the real world.

I have differences of opinion with people I have known all my life, and I would never have known it if not for this constant spotlight we put ourselves into. We are trapped by the ease in which we can see and read everyone’s post. We are appalled at times at what we see on this virtual page, perhaps so much in disagreement with what is written, that we are angered to the point that we “unfriend” a long time acquaintance or a family member. That didn’t used to be a big thing back in the early days of this media, but now it’s akin to a slap in the face, and a request for a duel. It’s telling someone that you have known forever that you don’t want to see what they have to say, or what they do anymore.

It’s a weird situation.

I think in all this time since 2009, I cannot remember changing anybody’s mind about anything to do with the above mentioned attributes which are discussed so much on these pages. I believe we don’t change people’s minds here on this media, but instead simply galvanize them in the mindset in which they already dwell.

I am more certain to have changed a few opinions by talking with people in person, face to face…then by anything I have written here. If it’s political especially, I’m simply preaching to one set of people, and making the other set mad.

I see on my pages, where I pledge from time time to simply stick to what I think I do best…some photos, some simple stories…but then I get sucked back into the vortex by something outrageous which happens in our country or in our world. Lord help me, it’s hard not to. This medium is designed to keep you “activated” about issues, and it has become more and more filled with people, both fake and real, whose purpose is to keep us stirred up, and divided against each other.

I have taken this week to honestly and truly try to judge how this media takes people that I know are good people, and turns them…turns me…into agitators against each other. I’m sickened by what I’ve seen and read. I’m so repulsed by a lot of things which I have read and seen just on my Facebook friends pages, that it’s hard to express. I really hope everyone will take a look at what you post and share, and think about the fact that many, many people see what you share and use it to form an opinion about the type of person you are, regardless of if you really ARE that type of person. I could site specific examples, but Lordy…I’m not going there.

Remember that if you share something, lots of people see it. You may not get a “like” or a comment, but it gets seen a lot. I know some people don’t care, but I do. I want to get off of this train of constantly having to keep up with posts and comments, and stories….which, while many are important…few are things which I can personally change. I’m tired of feeling like I have to toe some kind of line with my friends, out of some kind of imaginary obligation to let them know I’m right there behind them, to back them up. It’s exhausting. It’s also unnecessary. None of y’all need my opinions to make your day. By now all of my Facebook friends know about what I’m for and what I’m against.

I’ve said all that simply to say this: We are all different, and have different opinions and philosophies. I hope we can try to spend less time arguing about them here, and instead spend more quality time with our loved ones, and our friends with who we physically deal. I’m looking forward to our 50th class reunion party in July, where I hope to be shaking hands, hugging, and speaking about old times with some people I love dearly. To any of those people, and really to most all of the people who I know, I offer my sincere wish that we can continue to discuss life, but do it in a friendly manner.

I remain as I am, and will be…yours truly.

I know that there is spiritual good in the Universe. I have felt the pull of this Universal light more and more lately. I will have to say that I don’t believe mankind is correct in most of their thinking about how things are really composed.

I believe the truth is as far outside our realm of understanding as our intellect is to an earthworm. Lord how vain we are to think our importance is so central to the story of the Universe itself. I’m not sure if we will ever eventually know the secrets of creation either.

Whether we do or not, I continue to believe our purpose is linked to relating with other humans in a positive manner, so that there continues to be a human species with which to build a future, so that we can reach out and seek the answers to our inquiries about life, and why it exists.

Free will.

Without it we would simply be puppets on a string. God gives us the privilege of choice, and our choices have effects on all others around us. We cannot even or ever know what the ramifications of our choices are. We our not guided by predestination. We cannot be. What God would be so cruel as to give us the false feeling of freedom, when our lives were already mapped out on some Cosmic scale. So, be very careful what choices you make because your choices are your life.

MY TOWN

It was a fine hot day today. One of the kind of days we would have snuck up to the old boat dock and went swimming in the Chattooga river. That water was nice and cold, even in July because it had spring water running in it not too far back up stream. A lot of us boys spent time there. From the time I could swim at ten years old, until I left to go to college I went there once or twice a year.

We practiced baseball twice a week and had two games a week to play. I hated Saturday practices after I started playing golf. By the time morning practice was over…You were hot and sweaty, thirsty and tired. We still hiked up to the Trion Golf course and played nine holes though. Our Daddy’s were members through the mill and we got to play for free. We’d come back home…most of the time one of our Dad’s would come and get us…as it was usually after four when we finished.

On the weekends, we went to Chamlees Skating rink. We hung around, listened to the music and tried to get the girls. Sometimes we did something right and ended up skating holding hands with one of the girls. I so remember the songs on the “box” “Runaway”, “Tellstar” ,”Teen Angel”, “Leader of the Pack”, “It’s my Party”‘ and on and on. Songs which, if I hear them now transport me directly back there in time and space. It was a wonderful place…a refuge for kids in a small town with nothing else to do.

I would go fishing in the mornings at the river and sometimes stayed all day. We dug our worms from under the wagon bridge, big old juicy green colored worms. We fished for catfish and carp….My Uncle called them “bugle mouth bass” We took our catch up to the black folks in town and sold them. I know several of them told us they loved the carp. They loved us boys, and we loved them. There was no animosity or fear and hatred…just kids selling their catch to somebody who wanted them.

All the yards in our little town were cut neatly, with neatly trimmed bushes and flowers, and well cared for vegetable gardens in the back yards. The men would be out in their yards in their sleeveless t-shirts cutting that grass every day. They used to run a contest called “The yard of the month” for the neatest, most well kept yard. It was an honor to win…not a joke. My Dad won it one time in the years they ran it. He was happy as a pig in slop, and hung that little metal sign right out in the front yard. “YARD OF THE MONTH” emblazoned in blue letters on a white enamel background.

Summer seemed to go on and on….catching fireflies, chasing low flying bats with sticks trying to knock them down. Neighbors actually sitting on each other’s porch and talking…getting to know each other…their troubles, their joys, their hope for the future.

Fall would eventually roll around, and I was excited about going back to school, seeing friends I’d missed all Summer. We’d take a special trip yo Rome so I could pick out new school supplies. One big multi subject notebook, pencils, one or two good pens, some three ring notebook paper. The tension was palpable the night before the first day of class. Who would be the teacher for my classes, who would be in the classes…especially which girls. How would life be for that school year? Truth is…I loved trekking up and down those old wooden halls. I loved the camaraderie of my close friendships. The hard day’s, the easy days…I loved them all.

I think about my friends and classmates who have passed on. I miss them, even though I seldom saw some of them. We all shared something very special during all our seasons here in Trion. Most of us started out together in first grade, and went all the way through graduation. You don’t see that much. We were brothers and sisters, best friends, worst enemies, boyfriends and girlfriends…And most of all kindred spirits of what it was like to grow up in a little cotton mill town in Southern America, USA.

Time, time…time; time.

You cannot stop it. You cannot get it back. You better be careful with what you got….

But none of us are.

In the end, we run out of it. It’s more precious than gold, more difficult to explain than the theory of relativity.

I need to give it a lot more respect, although I try…I do.

I used to keep up with it on a timex that I had to wind. Then they put batteries into my watches. Then the devices I use to track my steps, my sleep, my exercise and every move I make, have a clock on them.

But I still wear my timex indiglo at night, because if I wake up I want to know the time.

Does anyone ever wish we could go back and uninvent some of the things we’ve added to our lives in the past fifty years?

I used to have a lot more time to do other things. Now it takes up a lot of my time fiddling with all the new gizmos that have been invented. Emails, and FB posts, and fake phone calls, and computer games…and God don’t even get started with Pinterest.

I sat down next to the footbridge yesterday and stared at a little black and white tile that came from an old torn down gymnasium, for five minutes. That wasn’t a waste of time in my opinion, as it brought back hundreds of memories.

I held my granddaughter for an hour and a half nap today, and slept about thirty minutes with her. That’s definitely not a waste of time! One day she’ll quit napping and that’ll be the last of the last…..

Well, time to wind my watch and sleep.

Father’s Day…a writing from 2006

Tick, tick, tick. That’s one second per tick. It doesn’t seem like much does it? The bad thing about it is that it constantly keeps going, it incessantly keeps moving! On and on. Like Mother Nature’s Chinese water torture device. It can be a blessing….or a curse.

It’s a darn funny thing isn’t it? What other thing can you think of which can drag on so slowly, but whiz by so quickly it’s almost a blur?

It seems like such a short amount of ticks ago that I was just a child. Sitting out on the old wooden front porch of my Grandfather’s house and listening to his Kentucky influenced, Georgia Blue Grass, Back Mountain Baptist, Hoedown Revival Banjo playing and Back yard singing. Whew. Not many ticks at all.

Even fewer ticks ago, my first daughter was born. She died 172,800 ticks later. That’s only 2 days. Seems like a lot of ticks doesn’t it? It wasn’t. That was the day I became a Father. I really didn’t get to enjoy the actual holding of a child of mine until sometime a couple of years later. My second daughter Kirsten was born. That was 1972, so I have been a Father for many ticks since then.

My oldest son was born in 1975, and my youngest son in 1980. Nothing has been more fulfilling then being a part of these three wonderful personalities over the ensuing years. Perhaps with the exception of sharing all these wonderful ticks with my best friend and partner, my wife Paula.

I also appreciate all of the ticks I have had, 70 years worth of them, with my Father. I fail to tell him that as much as I should.

In any case, Happy Father’s day to all the Dads out there. Hope you have many more happy ticks with your kids, your parents, and your wife.

Enjoy them, like the old Native American saying goes: “Nothing lasts forever, except the mountains and stones.” Even those pass away after a while!

Peace!!

Chapters. Life is made up of different chapters. Some are longer than others. Some are sweet and some bitter…and some are bittersweet. The story of our lives runs in many different twists and turns, and goes off on some unexpected tangents. The plot seems never to go as we would write it. There are very rare and few perfect manuscripts.

Sometimes you know when one chapter is going to end, and sometimes it is unexpected. Some good ones, just like the good ones in your favorite books….you don’t want to end. I expect also, that the final chapter and the end of the story itself is a downer! But who knows?

As I look out over the next few months, and into the next year….I wonder what lies ahead, and I think about whether it is time to close this long and wonderful chapter in my story, and move on towards the end under my own power, instead of being carried later on!

Chapters….that’s what life’s made of….some are difficult to conceive, much less to write.

Spring Lizards and Summer Days- 2007 (re-edited today)

Nowadays at my age, the long hot summer days are just not as much fun as they used to be when I was a kid. Back then we really had nice long breaks from school. None of that six or seven weeks out, and then right back in the school building. Back in “the old days” we had three FULL months out for summer break.

None of that year round school for us old timers! May 31 rolled around, and it’s see ya’ later to the teachers until the first week of September….Yahooo!! Heck, that was so long, I forgot most of what I’d learned the year before in school! I think that’s why the first six weeks every school year back in the good old days were “review” weeks. “Reteaching” weeks for some pretty good school teachers. But, we made it through, and I wouldn’t take anything for the memories of those long, hot summer days back when I was young.

I tell you, spring and summers were the best back in the 50’s and 60s’.

I would go to the old wooden toy box back in my room, and starting digging down to the bottom, looking for my old worn out, smelly leather baseball glove with “Pee Wee” Reece’s name engraved in it. I don’t know how I ended up with Pee Wee, as I never played a lick of ball in the infield. I was always an outfielder.

I tried out for third base once, but after I had stopped the first four hard bouncer’s that came my way with my face instead of my glove, the coach thought it might be safer to put me in left field. I agree with his decision.

I liked left field. It was one of those positions where you could kind of day dream a little. Most everything that came out that way was either an easy pop fly, or a one bouncer. I was a cinch at catching those. None of that “hot corner” stuff for me.

I once was standing out in left field during a game and looking down at the ground trying to spot any four leaf clovers that might be growing there. I heard the loud crack of the bat, and looked up to see the baseball headed over my head. Way over my head. I didn’t want to look completely stupid, so I turned around and stuck my old glove out and ran as fast as I could towards the fence. The ball dropped right into the webbing of my glove. I never saw it until it did. I heard a cheer go up from the stands, and when we came in, I got more pats on the back, and attaboys then I had ever gotten before. I just said “I had it all the way”

I could never bring myself to disappoint all those people by telling them it was just pure luck.

The other great thing about warm weather was spring lizard and craw dad hunting at Grandpa’s and Grandma’s house. When warm weather hit, we would go up there a lot more often. It was difficult during the winter time, because there were only two bedrooms downstairs at their house, which meant the remainder of the guests, had to sleep upstairs. During the winter time, sleeping upstairs was just like sleeping outside. There was NO heat. I spent many a winter night with 10 quilts piled on top of me, unable to turn over, but desperately trying to conserve what little body heat was emanating from me in order to be alive the next morning. I always managed to do it somehow.

So, besides at Christmas, I didn’t like Winter time visiting at the old folk’s house!

But with spring and warm weather coming, there was the promise of fishing, and in order to fish there had to be bait. This meant my favorite activities of digging in the dirt for worms, and turning over the rocks down in the little fast running creek in front of the folk’s house for Spring lizards and Crawdads.

The only draw back to trying to catch a bucket full of these water dwelling creatures was that they were also favorites of the snakes that prowled the banks of that same creek. I was never really too afraid of snakes when I was a kid until after my Grandpa’s Uncle “Lark” Davenport killed a rattlesnake one day that he stretched across the old dirt road leading up to Grandpa’s house.

He stuck its head end in the bank on one side, and its tail end in the dirt bank on the other side. Now, that little old road was narrow, but I estimate it was at least 7 feet across, so my respect for the snakes in those parts increased tremendously after that. I asked Uncle “Lark” how he killed it, and told me he cut its head off with a hoe while he was out in his corn crib. Apparently the rattler was stocking up on some of the rats that always frequented that place. “If he hadn’t been a rattler I’d have let him be,” said Uncle Lark. I’d have let him be anyway, I think. He would have owned the corn crib after that. Rats and all.

Some of those spring lizards that we used to catch back then were as big as small snakes. Imagine turning over a big old rock, and seeing something black wiggling around that’s about a foot long. Would you stick your hand down in there and grab it? I sure did, and laughed about it the whole time. “If the bass don’t bite that,” I thought “then it might bite the bass!” Either way, we get the fish.

The crawdads were harder to catch then the spring lizards. Have you ever seen one of those little boogers take off? They are like a backwards rocket! I don’t know how they do it, but when they get scared they shoot water out their rear ends, start flapping their tails and away they go. You had to be good at estimating where they were GOING to be, not where they had been, in order to catch them. I never had the least idea that humans ate those things when I was a kid. The first time I went to Louisiana as an adult, and someone tried to serve me a dish made with Crawdads, I got kind of nauseated. After I tasted it though, it wasn’t half bad. I kind of like Etouffe’ now.

Yep, that’s how I feel today with all this heat in the air. I remember how cold that creek water was, even on the hottest of June, July and August days. I remember how I would even dare to reach down and bring a handful of that pungent water up to my mouth and drink it in deeply.

My blood is partially made from that creek water, and my soul is partially lodged in that mountain land.

That little old creek is still there, but I don’t know what the new owners of the land would think about an old man tromping down the middle of their creek with a Styrofoam bucket and yelling yahoo every time he came up with a lizard.

I wonder if there are even any left?

A Fathers Day Message.

I hear what the religious leaders say…about families, about Mothers and Fathers…And what the old testament said. But…it is the old testament. I know a Father’s love is necessary if at all possible. I also know sometimes Fathers totally mess up their kids. I’m glad my Dad was good to me, and I have tried my best to be good to my children. My wish is that all children have good role models, tight families, but most of all that children have parents…People…who love them, and show them so, and tell them so.

I know also that when his disciples told Jesus there were 5000 hungry people following him, some of them sick…he first went among them and healed them, and then he took a small amount of food and blessed it, and fed them all…with baskets full of food left over.

He did not “qualify” these people, nor did he care what class they were, what color their skins were, what their sins were, what country they were from, or who they loved and why. He didn’t even preach to them at that point…simply ministered to their physical needs and sent them away. He wasn’t mad because they senselessly followed him far away from civilization. He dealt with them all equally. He was good at that.

If your a Christian, or if you are some other religion, or no religion at all…It’s good to remember to treat all people with love and respect. Jesus did not put himself above anyone…except for that one last time.

It is so hot. I walked a little spell with Kirsten and Stacy this evening, and the sun was like an oven whose object seemed to be to cook my head! I should have worn a hat. I know that, but was just too caught up in immediately setting out that I didn’t plan things out well. It was kind of a spur of the moment thing. Something which wouldn’t have occurred to me to even care about in the least…before the turn of the century. That’s a statement which gives me an odd feeling. To be a child of two different centuries.

I do have to start planning better though. I never thought when I was a kid that I’d ever live this long. In the 1960’s the 21st century was just a shadow, looming long out ahead. It wasn’t real, didn’t seem real, didn’t seem possible to comprehend. Oh, a lot of writers and seers were thinking about it and predicting what it would be like. None of them got it exactly right. Not Nostradamus, Edgar Cayce, or Jeanne Dixon. Not H.G. Wells, Ray Bradbury, or George Orwell. None exactly right. Predicting the future is a job I wouldn’t want. That, or a weatherman. But now it’s here, and 65 is on the horizon if I make it to October. With this heat, I will be glad when it gets to be October. Granny said never to wish your life away, but dang it I can’t help it.

I’ve got to start remembering my hat, my sunblock, my vitamins, my eye drops, my skin lotion, and my fiber. I have absolutely got to keep my mind on my driving, and go to my scheduled Drs. appointments. I have to do these things because no matter that my mind tells me I am still 18, my body tells me the truth. Oh, I’m in pretty good shape for the shape I’m in…heck I just climbed one of them three story rock walls last weekend. Couldn’t sit up from a prone position til today though…who knew you used your abdominal muscles to do that?

We are not promised tomorrow, as many will say and having lived this long I must agree. I would like to stick around for a while longer though, because I have unfinished business. So if you see me walking around in the blazing sun with no hat on, you have my permission to verbally reprimand me.

How I wish I could find a genie in a bottle to give me three wishes, or perhaps a magic wand. Maybe even just one of the “little people”. Anything magical I can find to make this world a better place. But alas there is no magic in the earth to help us heal ourselves.

We will have to do it with hard work, cooperation, understanding, compromise, and empathy.

We will have to get rid of our own inhibitions and learn logic, common sense and practicality.

Some people will have to go, and some ideas of what’s right and what’s wrong will have to be turned upside down. Topsy turvy. That is, unless I find that damn lamp or magic wand.

In that case I’ll just fix it all myself.