Writing for Sanity's Sake

I dreamed a strange dream a few nights ago. Paula and I were in the “hereafter” so to speak. We were both young again, and we were in this huge empty house. Paula was sitting around playing the guitar and singing! “When did you learn to play and sing like that?” I asked. She replied, “Do you think I watched and listened to you for fifty years without learning something?” “I guess not” I said.

The house was huge and beautiful, but empty. I seemed to sense instinctively though, that it had once been full and joyful…and that it would be again one day.

It’s strange what our minds come up with in dreams.

During this time of the year we all see the beginnings, and the endings. The firsts and the lasts. The first Thanksgiving and Christmas for some little ones, and the last for some. Some perhaps expected, some unexpected. “Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get.”

I get emotionally caught up in this vortex of life we all have going on around us constantly, and often forget what I should be all about. I get sidetracked by the everyday humdrum racket of Social Media going’s on, and jump out there with stuff I should just keep “in my heart”. I gotta watch it.

There are firsts and lasts happening this year. There are holes in the fabric of Joy we naively weave around the holiday season left by those whose last, was last season. We fill those as best we can with those tiny, beautiful “firsts” who have come into our lives. We gotta do that. We also need to look around us this year very closely, and tell those around us that we love them. It’s easy for me in some cases, but a little harder in others, although it should not be. It should be unconditional. It’s my burden to bear that I cannot be as kind as I should be, that I cannot be as forgiving as I need to be. I thought about that very thing this morning while I was walking, but then ran off the track before the day had ended. Ah, the nature of humanity constantly wars against our need to be more loving. My fifth grade teacher used to punish us by making us write a particular sentence by longhand either 500 or 1000 times on paper, and turn it in to her. I need to write “I will be a better man” 1000 times by tomorrow and turn it in to God….Maybe then it would stick.

Having now rambled on far too long, I have said all of that to say this: love those around you this year. Be kind to them, and enjoy your time together. Most of us will be able to do that, but there are many out there for whom the holidays are a toil. Children get abused…cruelty runs rampant. If you find any way to help someone for whom the holidays are not a fun time, please do it.

As for me, I’m practicing more on my guitar starting tomorrow because in my dream of “heaven” Paula was playing and singing a lot better than me.

I used to lay in bed when we lived on eighth street in Trion and listen for the freight trains to roll into the rail yard at the mill. We lived just up that steep hill from Riegel textile. Back then, I had a rocket arm and I could stand in my front yard and throw a rock almost to that railroad track.

I listened for the train because the movement of it as it came in and out with loads of cotton and coal, was comforting. Strange isn’t it, what we become used to? I could tell when the cars were being coupled and uncoupled, and whether the engineer was new or experienced by how loud the “clang” was when the cars hit together or pulled apart. A lot of times I would fall asleep dreaming of riding one of those trains out of town and right across America.

I dreamed of the things I would do: cross the Mississippi River, or maybe jump off at Memphis and get a job on a boat heading towards New Orleans. I’d take my guitar with me, and make some money singing in clubs. But then, maybe I’d ride those trains all the way to California, and go into acting….become a star. I loved music so maybe I should go to New York City and try out for Broadway. I knew all the old Broadway songs because I was able to afford those types of .33 rpm records at Redford’s five and dime. They were the cheapest ones. The new popular records were usually 3.99, while “My Fair Lady” and “Broadways Greatest Hits” were .99 cents. More music for the money, and besides, I could hear the hit songs on the radio.

I dreamed and schemed the world of a twelve year old boy, laying in my bed underneath that wide rollout window. The one I could crane my head back, and look up out of at the night sky and get a glimpse of the moon, and some stars, and the occasional plane flying overhead.

Those years on eighth street went by quickly. Looking back now, way too fast. From age twelve to seventeen I lay there and listened and dreamed.

I am reminded many mornings lately of those days because as I walk around the neighborhood in the early morning, the sound of the CSX going down the tracks parallel to highway 41, drifts up from downtown Ringgold. I can easily discern it off in the distance, and having walked the paths right next to where it runs, and having taken pictures of it, I know it’s the same type of train that I remember from my childhood.

My hope is, that somewhere downtown close to the tracks, there’s a twelve year old boy laying in his bed and listening as the train passes by, and dreaming of where it could take him. He may not get there. He may follow a totally different path from what he dreams, and be as happy as I am with where he ends up. But the dreaming will do him good, and give him some happy memories. And sometimes memories are worth more than gold.

9/11/24

Has it been 23 years since the beginning of the hardest period in American history since the Civil War? I remember that day well, watching the carnage and ultimate horror of two gigantic buildings being brought down by terrorists sponsored and financed by a country that we continue to count as an Allie? Why haven’t we held them accountable? Especially the individuals who we know for certain contributed money to bin Laden.

I distinctly remember the wave of patriotism that rightfully spread throughout our country in the weeks and months thereafter, and how we went to the terrorists bases in Afghanistan and destroyed them.

But then …out goal changed to “nation building” to “democracy building” and we long overstayed our presence in that country. I remember how that wave of nationalism spilled over into another war, a needless war….a war that was bolstered by lies, in order to get into. A war more about revenge against Sadaam. A war that cost our country many lives and cost Iraq countless lives. It bankrupted our economy, and almost sent us into a depression. It turned people in those two countries against us. It led to having to plan on how to “get out” when we shouldn’t have even stayed in the first place.

All that had brought us to where we are today by a direct path. Almost everything going on today can be directly or indirectly tied back to that day.

They say 2977 people died on 911. I respect and honor those people. I’m deeply sorry for those families who suffered that loss. I totally believe in the honor that is given to those who died. It’s a chance for our nation to come together year in a non political way to remember innocent Americans who died in a horrible way.

But, even more than the loss of their lives that day, I firmly believe America lost its way that day….and still has not found the path back to where we once were. America “feels”different since that day. We may never feel the same again.

We never had Kindergarten at our school. We started with the first grade. It was in 1956 for me. Now, I know that date sounds pretty ancient to a lot of people. Not so ancient to others. But, in terms of the way things have changed in the world, it was centuries ago!
Back then, we were still in the old three “R” mode of learning. And, believe me, some of the kid’s in my first grade class wanted absolutely NOTHING to do with them of the first day of class.

I remember two girls in particular whose Mom’s had to drag them kicking and screaming into the classroom! Both of them later became good students, but oh…not on that first day.
Things have changed so much.

Kids start going to school, or pre-school, or pre-preschool so young now, that some of them will NEVER be able to remember when they started to school, like I can. I think that it’s kind of a shame too. Those two girls (It was Sandy and Alma by the way) had both experienced what it was like to be HOME with their Mommas, and to have a “little kid’s” life prior to being rudely awakened one morning and being told they were being taken to this strange new place, full of people they didn’t know and things they weren’t familiar with. They were definitely out of their comfort zone. (So was I, but I didn’t cry. I would have, but as long as I can remember I have had this “thing” about not letting people see me cry. Guess I think it shows “weakness” or something) only by being taken out of our comfort zone could we learn new things, but we didn’t know it at the time, and we sure were not real happy about finding out.

We had these cool metal desks though, that had big old holes in the bottom of them to stuff our books into when we were not using them. That was the other thing too…books! Wow, for the first time in my life somebody gave me a book that didn’t have Scrooge McDuck on it, and said it was MINE. At least for that year anyway. I felt privileged! I took care of my books like they belonged to me. When we had to scrawl our names into them a few weeks later, after we all learned to WRITE our names, I felt bad about defacing that nice new book. It WAS really new, because 1956 was only the second year that the new grammar school had been open, so everything was still in great shape.

I lived in the same town long enough to see that same school go through the metamorphosis of age to the point where it had to be torn down a few years after the river got up and got into it. Both the High School and the Grammar school had been built on a flood plain, because that’s the land which the Mill gave the town to build them on. They knew the land would flood, and that’s why they never had put part of the mill on them. It was good enough for a school though. We had a lot of floods, but the huge 100 year flood that came about 1990 or so I think it was, finished both those schools off.

Anyway, I did feel bad writing in a book. I still feel bad when I see a book that has scribbling and scrawling and writing all in it. Books are sort of sacred things to me, since all the knowledge that mankind has ever been able to accumulate is written down in books. Guess that’s why I like to read them still, and buy and sell them too. Some people get most of their information off of computers and TV now, and don’t bother much with books. That’s ok for them I guess, but I don’t know what I would do in a world without books. Kinda’ glad I will be gone before people totally stop using them.

But, I digress. I think the point I was trying to make was about how kids miss a lot of their childhood nowadays. They are thrust into the world of learning, and really into the adult world itself much too soon. We think of them as little adults from just about the time they can come up with a sentence that makes sense.

“Time for little Tommy to start to School, he just said his first word!”

It’s a little much I think.

Fall is coming.

The days of Summer are numbered. The only thing left in the garden is Okra and a few scraggly tomatoes growing up too high for the bugs to get. The humidity is so bad that when I took my camera from the inside to the outside yesterday, I had to wipe the fog off the lens for twenty minutes before I could take a picture. You can’t walk around the neighborhood without having to wring a quart of sweat out of your T-shirt when you get back. So…I’ll trade the last of the fresh Okra to get rid of the humidity and the bugs.

Perhaps an early frost this year? An early end to the “dog days” of the Summer of 2024? Usually the first frost is very close to my birthday…which is October 21, but I definitely would not mind a good hard, white hoar frost much sooner. I love them. I love the crisp, snapping, hot Apple cider, make a pot of chili days, which start out in the mornings with a white icy ground and ease up into the mid 60’s by afternoon, with a bright warming Autumn sun in the sky.

I love those days. The ones where you wear a sweatshirt but not a coat, and you see the kids out tossing around a football. The ones where the wind kicks up little whirlwinds of red, orange, brown and yellow leaves. The smell of somebody off somewhere in the distance burning a pile of those same dry leaves. The sunsets which are bright and clear with a few streaks of purple… oh how sweet and precious are those days. More valuable to me than piles of gold or diamonds. Especially when they are populated with my loved ones.

I want to be even more aware of the wonderful days of Fall this year. I want to notice how blazing Orange the pumpkins are at Halloween, and how wonderful my wife’s Thanksgiving dressing smells and tastes. And then I want to see the little one’s eyes light up at Christmas when they tear into their gifts. I want to hug my new grandchildren, and smell the fresh newness of their lives. I want to see things through their eyes. Especially the littlest of the group.

I never took the days of Autumn for granted. Even as a child I knew they were something special. The first poem I ever wrote was about the beauty of a special Fall day. The first song I played on my guitar and sang to was “Autumn Leaves” ” ….the falling leaves, drift by my window, the autumn leaves of red and gold…”

And so I hope for an early fall, an idyllic fall, a peaceful fall, a loving fall, a prosperous fall and a memorable fall. Not just for myself, but for all of us who need one right now so very badly. For those of us who have already seen more of them than we will ever see in the years ahead. Seventy two is looming for me in October……

A taste of simplicity, a smell of memory, a sight of loveliness, a sound of familiarity and the feel of hope…for the future of all mankind. An Autumn of change..and not just in the weather.

Reflections……

I love sunrises and sunsets. Trees and rivers…beaches and snow capped mountains. Birds and bees, foxes and beaver. I have seen all of these things with my own eyes and I know them.

Almost anything which exists in nature has it’s own beauty and symmetry.

But I also love churches and cemeteries. I love bridges and lighthouses…rusty old wagon wheels and sewer covers.

Remains of ancient buildings or a lovely finely crafted arrowhead. These things created by man also have beauty.

I have appreciated the chance to live, and to witness these things, and so much more.

I love the family of which I am a part. I continue to be here because of them. I want to protect them, though I know they are well able to protect themselves. My children long ago grew to adulthood.

All things change.

The personal relationships. The human achievements. The natural world. They all change. We humans are foolish to even believe we will always be the dominant force on this planet. That will also eventually change. Whether by our own hand or by nature’s whim. We are transient. We are today’s dinosaurs.
We ought to be smart enough to pull together as mankind, and reach out to the stars, and try and extend our race to some of those other Earth like planets which are just waiting for us.

But instead we are petty. We are too busy hating each other for our miniscule variations in skin pigment, sexual attraction, and perceived different philosophical values, to see that we are all …simply… human.

I think daily of things we might do to make ourselves of service to each other. Simple things…nothing complex. Compassion, love, kindness, recognition, respect, civility, friendship, giving. One word sermons. I think daily of my age, and of the chances I have had to be better, but was not. I hope I can live long enough to practice some of what I should have been doing all along.
I would not wish to be young again…not in this day and age. It has taken me all these years already to realize how deep are my shortcomings. I wouldn’t relish reliving those learning experiences.

Look at yourself in the mirror, where you are now in your journey, and ask yourself if you are happy with what you see. Listen to yourself and decide if what you are saying or writing is helping or hurting other people. Sometimes you may have to change in order to make a difference for the positive in this life. It’s not as hard as we make it out to be…

When I was a little kid, we lived up near the top of fifth street in a little old mill house. The street ran about perfectly from East to West, so that when I went out in the morning and looked towards Taylor’s Ridge I could see the sun come up. Even as a little kid, I got up early. I don’t know why but I have always been that way and still am. In the evening, I could look down fifth street towards Trion mill at the other end and see the sun set over the top of the mill. We lived that close. If I’d been able to throw rocks very well back then, I’d have been able to make about three good throws and would have broken out a window on the third throw in the General office building. I’d never do a thing like that, or even consider it though….you know…

I got to where I appreciated the sunrises and sunsets then when I was four or five years old, and I still do. I got to where I appreciate a lot of other things during those early years too. Pinto beans and fried ‘taters. Good ‘funny books” (later comic books, but funny books back then) Blue jeans, and good white cotton socks. A few toys to play with…back then I liked tinker toys and matchbox cars. I didn’t have a single other kid to play with back then. It was just me. There were a couple of neighbor kids, but they wouldn’t play with me. They just stole my toys if I happened to leave them out.

I really didn’t make any friends until I started to school. There was a pool of about 60 of us kids in my class and we pretty much stayed together all through school. Those were and still are my best friends. The only ones I have ever had besides my wife now….who is my best friend. I don’t often speak of specific instances of things that we did during my “growing up” days….I might get somebody in trouble. I appreciated that small town of that era. Things change though, and things have changed there and not too much for the better. I won’t go through all that though. You people who know…will know what I’m talking about.

I said all of that to get to the dream I had last night. All I can remember is that I was walking up fifth street at first light….not at sunset as you might think, but at dawn. I had such a wonderful feeling that I was going home. I woke up briefly, just long enough to remember that part of the dream. I’m glad I did, because things in this world are just getting really tough. Everything that’s happened over the past few years makes me glad I’m winding down instead of winding up. Don’t get me wrong, I still enjoy my life, it’s just that as you get older your viewpoint on life changes. I care more now about the lives of my children and grandchildren than I do my own. I would do anything I could in my power to help them, but in some situations there is just nothing you can do anymore except to hope and pray. Hope and pray that the ones you love will be safe for one more day.

I guess I’ve prattled on enough for now. Just want all my family and my few friends to know that I’m thinking of you, and that I love you all. One of these days when I make it to the top of that hill up on fifth street and go on over the top just remember I told you so!

I have sang the song “I’ll fly away” hundreds of times. In choirs, in duets and quartets. Solo.

“I’ll fly away, oh glory….I’ll fly away”
“When I die, hallelujah by and by”
“I’ll fly away”

I’m looking up at the heavens sometimes at night, as I did the other week looking for shooting stars, and I get strange feelings. I get carried away. I feel like if I could, I would simply float up into the air, and keep on going.

Out past the moon, out past Mars and Jupiter. Out of our solar system and into the Milky Way. Through nebula, and skirting black holes. Past dwarf stars and red giants. To gently go where no man has gone before. But I pull back for now.

I am not finished here yet. Not finished. I’ve things yet I want to do. Little ones I want to nurture and love a bit longer. I don’t for how long I’ll get to. Nobody knows, except perhaps God, and I’m certain sometimes he gives extensions for his own reasons.

Truth be told, I’m really tired this summer. I’ve been dealing with health issues of various kinds practically all season, including a bad spell this afternoon with some rogue PVC’s, and tachycardia. You’d think with all the cardio I do, I’d be fit as a fiddle, but I reckon it’s really simply maintainence I’m doing. No matter though. I’m a survivor.

Robert Frost said it best: “for I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep…..and miles to go before I sleep”.

….or in my case before I fly away.

Have a great week everyone, and when you can manage to, “go home and love your family.”

Watching the movie “First Man” yesterday about Neil Armstrong’s life, and about America putting men on the moon was a stark reminder of where we have been as a country, as opposed to where we are now.

The strength, resolve and focus that we had as a country to go to the moon…to beat the Russians in our space program, was something which inspired and united us as a people. I know there were a few detractors who protested about the money being spent on that program, and that protest was addressed in the movie.

Overall though, it was a matter of togetherness that included most Americans. Was there a black astronaut at first? A woman? No there was not. I do firmly believe however, that the overall encompassing reach of the program, on all levels…not just the men who composed the crews, led to more inclusion, faster than in other areas of our countries culture.

I know that as far as me personally, the space program was a part of my childhood, which I cannot separate from my psyche. It was an excitement, and an interest from the days of Sputnik and Telstar, all the way through the Mercury program, with pictures of Alan Shepherd and John Glenn taped to the headboard of my bed, right next to JFK’s and RFK’s. It continued through Gemini, with all its tragic deaths….finally into the Apollo program. My favorite photo of all time was from Apollo 8, the first photo of our beautiful blue marble hanging out there in space, like the last gorgeous ornament hanging lonely but divine on the tree being taken down from Christmas that year.

I think perhaps my somewhat obsessive need to photograph the moon, and watch the skies, stems from my childhood wonder with putting men into outer space.

Paula and I were more amazed than ever before about the ability of the scientific community to be able to propel what were essential well built metal “cans” into space, with high powered explosives to launch them, and not only keep the people in them alive, but eventually guide them to the moon. At one point in the film Armstrong was using a handheld geometric chart aboard Gemini 8, plotting lines to try and connect with another capsule with which they were supposed to dock. Computers were these huge and heavy refrigerator sized machines which contained barely a fraction of the computing power of even the earliest PC’s with the original version of Windows. Consider the following from Google:

“So when NASA astronauts rapidly approached the moon 50 years ago, a lot was riding on a computer with less than 80 kilobytes of memory. By today’s standards, it’s a dinosaur. The Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC) weighed 70 pounds. Programs were literally woven into the hardware by hand — it was called “core rope memory.”

What amazing devices of mechanical engineering were those early crafts. What focus and bravery, combined with a sublime curiosity, about pushing the boundaries and limits of mankind’s physicality and mentality to the limit of its endurance these people possessed. Amazing.

While the photos of all my childhood heroes are gone from the headboard of the bed, I still have a plate block of the Apollo 8 stamps which I bought at the West Georgia College Post Office in late May of 1969, before I headed home for the Summer to get married, and start a new kind of life. I remember well Paula and I sitting on Mom and Dad’s couch in the living room on July 20th and watching “the Eagle” land, and later hearing Neal Armstrong’s famous words. “That’s one small step for man, but one giant leap for mankind”. But was it really?

I’m not sure what it would take to break America out of its current polarization and deep divisions. Something like putting a man on Mars? I wonder if even that would do it. I wonder at times if we were even as solid of a country back then like I thought we were, or if I was simply looking at the moon through rose colored glasses?

Something to think on from Larry Bowers —

“1619-1865 is 246 years. 1865-2019 is 154 years. We have almost a century left until this country has lived as many years without legal slavery as it did with it. That doesn’t even count another 100 years exactly from 1865-1965 when the voting rights act passed. So in reality that’s 346 years.

Spain, and then Mexico…after it won independence, owned much of the Southwestern US from 1521 after the conquest of the Aztecs, until 1848, when the Treaty of Hildalgo was signed, ending the Mexican-American War, which the US had instigated. The US got Texas, Southern California, most of New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado in that treaty. That’s 327 years the SW United States belonged to the “Hispanics” and 171 years that the United States has owned it. All citizens of Mexico got to choose to stay in the new United States, or go back to Mexico. Most of them stayed, creating an instant cross culture between the United States and Mexico, which has persisted since then. That’s a total of 498 years that Spanish speaking people have been in this area, as opposed to only after 1848 that white Americans started to go into these areas to settle. (The Gadsden purchase of 1853 further enlarged New Mexico and Arizona)

It amazes me that in just a very few short years, history in this country has been forsaken for media make believe. The myth of white manifest destiny over the cultural patterns of this country, and the belief that somehow the stain of slavery and repression has been washed as white as snow in a few short years belies the facts which lie in the history of America, if any would take the time to read it. Perhaps it cannot be understood.

Perhaps the trend of purposeful ignorance has taken such deep root that it can never be reversed. It is a shame that we Americans of the last half of the 20th century have been either unwilling or unable to defend the hard won freedoms and openness that our Fathers fought and died for in World War II. We have given them up to Autocracy and Oligarchy with hardly a fight.”