Writing for Sanity's Sake

I have seen so many posts again lately about the school shootings we have had over the past several years…since they took “God” out of the schools. I personally think that this particular line of thinking is pretty sad. Do we have a God, Jesus Christ in the case of Christians, who has gotten so mad and vindictive that the Courts of the United States ruled against having State sponsored prayer in school, that he is letting more little children get shot to death in schools to “get back at us?” What a pitiful point of view this is. I would want NO part of a God who would purposefully use the deaths of children to punish people. I really wish folks would think about what they are saying before they use this line. God IS in schools every day. In the hearts and minds of everyone who believes who take him there…no group of court can stop that. Prayer groups are still allowed in schools. American has become so diverse in nature, and in beliefs that we have to be neutral about what the Government can and cannot condone in schools. Live and let live.

If I were a stone of some type, I guess I would be a gravel. The kind they use in road paving, and to fill in mud holes. Utilitarian.

I could never be a gold nugget.

They are scarce and valuable. They are malleable and shapeable. They are extremely useful in so many things. Crowns of gold. Rings of gold that are used to bind promises of love.

Not a piece of silver.

A silver coin can lay in the ground for hundreds of years and then with a little polishing, can be as shiny as the day it was made. Silver is valuable. Circulateable.

Certainly never a diamond.

Shiny, hard and bright. A rare treasure. A stone to be cut and set in the most precious of objects. Jeweled scepters, and engagement rings for the stars.

No… Just gravel, with a coating of dust. Doing the job and getting it done. Filling the holes, paving the roads. Year after year.

I wouldn’t….I couldn’t, have it any other way.

Once, I was a kid, a boy, a teenager, a young man.

Once was,… quite some time back. Sixty years ago, then fifty-five years, then fifty. Half a century ago, I was 17.

I was surrounded by people who grew up during the Great Depression, many of whom then went off to World War II to fight against some of the worst evil ever perpetrated against humanity….up until that time. People who then came home and became our parents, our aunts and uncles, our mentors, our neighbors, our preachers and teachers, our coaches, our city councilmen, our mayors, and many, many other roles in our lives. I knew hundreds of these people, perhaps thousands. They were good people, no…many of them were more than good, many of them were great people. While I am sure there were a few who were “bad” I can certainly, personally vouch for the fact that most of those people were good. All of them had one quality which I remember them carrying visibly in their hearts at almost all times for other people to see.

That quality was integrity.

These were people who did things they did not have to do, just because those things were right. Because they knew they were right. Because they knew right from wrong. Because they didn’t blur the lines between right and wrong. Because they did not fool themselves into thinking that they could do wrong and call it right. Because they did not try to bend the facts.They knew nothing about “spin”. To them, right and left meant in which hand you held your pencil.

Because they had seen starvation as children, and unjustified death as young adults, and they had fought against those things, and because they had overcome those things.

These were people who would give you back a quarter in change if you made a mistake and gave it back to them accidentally. These were the people who would give you the extra food they grew in their garden. They were the people who would change your flat tire in order to get you off the road. These were the people who would literally give you the “shirt off of their back”

They were people who would arrive fifteen minutes early for an appointment, or to a meeting, or to church, or to take their kids to school. These were the people who tried to instill all of these values into their children.

Did they fail?

Integrity.

Somewhere, somehow over the last sixty years integrity has, for the most part, been misplaced. It’s been relocated. It’s in the closet. Up on the top shelf, where the old hats are kept. It’s hard to reach. Some people get their flashlights out and find it still. But it’s not easy to come by. It’s not convenient to use. It’s difficult to have integrity. More difficult still to maintain. I know some people who have it. I have some family and friends who have it. I’ve tried my best to have it, perhaps I’ve failed or simply have too high expectations for that old quality.

I saw integrity in action this morning over a dollar that didn’t have to be given to someone, but was because a man had integrity.

It’s a small thing, but a big thing. I knew at that point, I had not failed totally. When I stop and think about it, I feel perhaps I have not failed. Integrity lives on perhaps. I see other examples of it in other places in which I live my life on a daily basis. I am very grateful that I see it. It is something which needs to continue to be passed on.

The people in the generations who were alive when I was a kid, a little boy, a young man….they knew integrity. They held themselves accountable for doing the right thing. They didn’t have to have anyone else, or any other thing besides their conscious to guide them. They were not perfect, but their spines were straighter than many in this day and age, including our leaders in many areas. Perhaps especially those.

I’d like to simply just thank them for what they all meant to me. I’ve fallen short of their example, but I swear I’ve tried….and I will continue to do so until my last breath.

To the night…sleep tight, all my loved ones and friends. Tomorrow we will find us a better day and maybe a better world. If not, let’s make the best of what we’ve got. Be kind to someone. Give if you can to those who have less than you. Hug and kiss your family. Love if you want to be loved.

And in your dreams, you may find solace…and occasionally perhaps a glimpse of wisdom. You may find true love, conflict and maybe betrayal. You may dream the idea that changes the world, a new paradigm for a new age….but then awake, and forget it all. Dream well this night…

The exhibit by Mother Nature this morning, or…by God, whichever you choose, is glorious. The pollen is not quite stirring as strongly yet so I was able to take deep breaths of wonderfully fresh and cool air into my lungs. The dogwood tree in my front yard is in full bloom and so white that it nearly mirrors the snow from this past winter, the blooms are large and almost fluorescent.

The large red headed woodpecker which lives the Oak tree in the front of the house is slamming his head into a rotten branch and enjoying his breakfast. The other birds are singing a Sunday song of happiness to go along with Mr. Woodpeckers drumming and it becomes an orchestra of nature which no human band could ever replicate.

The sunrise is pink and purple, peeking up over Taylor’s ridge into our little valley saying “Howdy, how are ya?” I can almost hear my Dad’s voice from these same spring mornings years and years ago: “Rise and shine” he would shout. “Rise and shine.”

Well I have risen this morning, and as always I am optimistic as a new day is born that it will be better than the one before it. Who knows how I will feel about it, when Mr. Sun has made is entire journey across the sky tonight? I hope I am still optimistic. I hope all of my friends will find a sense of optimism today. I hope we will all find a renewed sense of giving today, and will act upon that sense of giving and help someone who needs helping. Wouldn’t that be a wonderful gift to give to go along with this wonderful gift of a day we have been given? I think so.

If a person has plenty of money and other goods with which to take care of themselves and their family, should they then ideally give the remainder of what they have to those who are needy?

If everyone did that, what would the world be like?

Is it redistribution of wealth, or is it charity? What is the difference?

A. Giving of our own free will to those we choose= charity?

B. Having things taken by others and given to those who they decide need it= redistribution of wealth?

If A were closely followed, would B even be necessary?

I’ll be the very first one in line to admit that I have not always been the most charitable of people. I’m trying harder. I’m getting better.

I’ll have to say though, without reservation, that the gift of a quarter of a billion dollars which Sean Parker is donating for immunotherapy cancer research might really come close to finding a cure for cancer. I remember so many times hearing on TV, during interviews with various people about what their fondest wish would be, and a “cure for cancer” was always at or near the top of the list.

And it takes one of the young, techie billionaires to donate enough money to maybe get the job done.

Not the Koch brothers, nor even Gates or Buffet…but a billionaire millennial.

Perhaps there is hope after all. Perhaps many of us, including me, can look at this man’s gift and think: “well I can’t do that much…but I can do more than I am doing now”.

All the Masters I have won.

Sitting there watching Sergio Garcia finally win the Masters on Sunday, I like to remember back to my High School years and all of the times which I won that tournament. It was many times, as I remember….

I switched from baseball to golf after I had a knee injury while playing baseball. Old Doc Clemens wanted me to walk…even while I still had a cast on my injured left knee. My Dad liked golf, so he bought me a set of “Kroyden” golf clubs from one of the supervisors he knew at the mill. It was minus a 3 iron…which had gotten wrapped around a tree. Thinking back, I guess that’s why he got them so cheaply. The guy was giving up the sport. I still have the nine iron from that set. I used it for years and years around the greens. I chipped a lot of balls in the hole with that club. I won the Masters a couple of times with it.

I had a hole in one on number four at the Trion golf course once. It was, however, a two. I was playing with old friend of mine Steve Hammonds. I lined up that five iron and took a mighty first swing…..and…whiffed the ball. Totally missed it. I tried to play it off as a practice swing, but Hammond wouldn’t let me. I changed clubs to a four iron and swung a little more gently and the ball took one hop and bounced right into the hole. “Hole in one” I yelled. “No, said Steve…it’s a two” Ah well, at least it was a birdie. The only hole in one in all my years of playing and it would have to be a two!

Being a solitary soul, I played many rounds alone. Those were the “majors” for me. I can’t tell you all the amazing shots which I made, all of the commentary from the announcers. (I didn’t know who they were back then…but they later turned into the voices of Pat Summerall and Ken Venturi) I made up all the acceptance speeches, held all of the “loving” cups with my name engraved into them. I won the “grand slam” many times over.

The golf course was my home away from home. I worked at the “pro shop” for a couple of years and learned a lot of neat new words from all of the older golfers, as the shop was just off of the first tee at Trion…with the river running right next to the fairway on the right. My friend Michael Brown and I dove into that muddy mess after a lot of tournaments and felt in the “gunk” with our hands, often coming up with dozens of balls which had found their way into the “wet” I mowed around the roughs and sloughs. (Lamar would NEVER trust me to mow the fairways or the greens) I caddied for the guys from Ware Shoals S.C., when they came down for their yearly match with the Trion supervisors. They paid better, especially as a caddy AND a player, I knew the course well.

My best tournament I ever played (with the exceptions of those imaginary ones) was in my Senior year at Trion High. There was a Fall tournament…a “Jaycees” tournament for the youth of the community. It was divided by age and I was in the “fourteen and over” group. I played excellent and consistent during this 27 hole day long affair. I had three 37’s for 111. Three over par. Some of the best golf I have ever played. The air was crisp and leaves were already starting to turn. The sun was gorgeous and temperature just loomed in the 70’s. The golf course was in immaculate condition. As I walked up onto the old clubhouse steps after my last round I just knew that I was going to finally get that trophy I wanted do badly. It would make up for losing the Region tournament low medalist by hitting my ball inside a 55 gallon trash can. I knew I could beat all the kids around town with my score. I hadn’t counted on an outsider from Savannah coming up and playing and shooting a final round 33 to post a 108 and win our age group. His Daddy Tommy had been pro at the Trion golf course some years back. Kid’s name was Andy Bean. He did go on to win a lot of money on the PGA tour…but that wasn’t any consolation to me at the time.

I haven’t played a round of golf since about 2004 or 2005. I think about playing from time to time but just don’t get out there and do it. Perhaps I’ll go play a round by myself someday soon just to get back into the “swing” of it. I can hear Pat Summerall’s voice now….”and Bowers chips the ball into the hole on the 18th, winning the 1975 Masters” Ahh the memories..both real and imagined.

I remember when the “Doughboy” stood in the center of the “square” out in front of the “Big Friendly” Trion Department Store. I was always in awe of that statue. I remember reading the names on it over and over…some of them familiar names of families who lived in Trion.

The Department store itself was a wonder! There was no other place like it in the world. You could get anything, and I mean anything in that store. I loved going in there as a child. The toy aisle looked like it went on forever! There were Lincoln Logs, Tinkertoys, and Matchbox cars. There were cap pistols, and a rack next to them with a “bluejillion” packs of caps on it. There were porcelain dolls for the little girls. There were bicycles and stuffed animals. I can remember how wonderful this area looked when it was decorated for Christmas. Big, giant, bright Christmas balls. Rows of tinsel. Lots of the big old huge lights that screwed in and out of the sockets.

One of the most vivid memories of Christmas, was when I was four years old and I got the “Hopalong” Cassidy outfit and guns. I don’t think I took that outfit off for a week. I didn’t find out until years later that Dad had put that outfit and those guns on “layaway” almost 6 months before Christmas and had paid a little a week on them until he had them paid for. I don’t know what happened to them. My Mom was NOT a person to let something lay around in the house and take up useful space if it was not being used. I surmise that I probably wore them out using them the first year or so I had them, and they got tossed out in the move we made to Simmons Street. One of those guns go for about 120 dollars now on Ebay.

Mom got me even worse when I went off to college my freshman year. I had MY closet in my room filled with all of the Marvel comics that I had bought over the years. I had the first issues of a lot of them, plus the subsequent early issues. I had my old baseball cards which I had taken good care of, in a couple of shoeboxes. Mantle, Maris, Aaron. They were all there. We were not allowed to come home from school for the first month, if I remember correctly…it was one of the rules. The first time I came back home, I opened my closet and my stuff was gone! I know everybody says it, but in my case it was true….my Mom had thrown my comics and cards out. I cried then…but I cry harder now when I see how much some of those collectibles are worth.

Back to the Big Friendly though, there was a fabric department, a hardware store, a grocery store, a drugstore, a funeral parlor…? Yes, there was…a funeral parlor upstairs in the Big Friendly. The way the store was laid out, you could drive around the back and be at “ground” level. And so…the departed could go in and out the “back door” without creating an issue throughout the rest of the store.

Across the street from the Big Friendly you had the Post Office on the corner. Next to the Post office was the Barber shop.

We had one of the most modern and wonderful places called the “Y” The mill had first built a swimming pool sometime around 1934, and then built the “Y” up around it. It had an inside heated pool, a gym, a pool and ping pong room, a weight room, a theatre on one end, a snack bar….this place was WAY ahead of its time. In 1973, our class of 1968 had our five year reunion there….not long before they tore it down. I loved that place and often wished there had been some way to save it. It would have really been a historical landmark if it could have been saved.

If we wanted to, we were allowed to leave school for lunch back in those days. A lot of us opted to do so…lunchroom food being what it was. A lot of times we went up to a little place over near the mill which served burgers, fries, and dogs. I think Mr. Colbert owned the place. We thought the food was decent, and he also had a jukebox which was somehow filled with the most current songs. That was the first place I ever heard a Beatles song, the Rolling Stones, many of the iconic groups of those days first came to me over the jukebox in that dive.

We had to cross over a little bridge leading out to the burger joint. There was a creek which ran out from under the mill which flowed into the river at that point. It started into the mill as normal colored water…but being as there was a dye house at the mill back then, it would come OUT of the mill almost any color you could imagine. I used to like to guess what color the water was going to be every time I crossed over that bridge. I had no idea the colored “water” going into the river was polluting it.

The river is cleaned up now and it’s one of the cleanest in the State. There are kayakers going up and down it every day, and I believe that there are some great game fish in the river now.

As much as I long for those “bygone” days every now and then, I realize that memories are sometimes much sweeter than the actual living. So, I try to live everyday now hoping to give the people who are around me…especially the little ones, something sweet to remember.

I thought about a lot of things today, I thought about how we are…our memories. Each of us a unique being with many shared experiences “remembered” differently.

Many days I’m flooded by those memories that belong to me, and I’m out of control and over emotional with the feel of them. Some days, they trickle in, and I am in better control of myself. Is anybody else like that? There are times I begin to write about times gone by, and I cannot finish. My train runs off of the track because tears….either of sorrow or of joy, blind me.

It becomes a bit messy and embarrassing sometimes.

As I rummaged through some old things today, and found some old writings of mine from school, I marveled at how far we have come since those days in the sixties.

I think about our old High School, and the fact that me and the people in my class were able to go to school in what was essentially a museum. We sat in old hardwood desks which still had the holes in the top where inkwells used to sit, so that the students could fill their pens from them. I’ve had some of those old ink jars over the years.

The old wooden floors in that school would creak and groan, as the bulk of students went out and back during classes. The old, huge windows had mechanisms inside them which assisted letting them up and down. Even the tile floors in the “new” wings of the school was the thick rubber vinyl stuff, which had to be coated in wax periodically, and buffed out in order to maintain them. I used to love that smell. I used to love the smell of the sanforized cloth that drifted across the Chattooga river from the mill and in through those big old windows. I used to love the clanking and banging of those old radiators during the cold winter months, as the steam poured into them.

In the first typing class I took, we all had the old “manual” typewriters, mainly Royals and Underwoods. Many, many times we would cross up, and hang up the keys during our exercises, and have to stop and untangle our mess. In my second year typing class we actually had a few new electric typewriters that plugged into the wall. Only the best students got to use those. I’m really thankful that Gary “Chocks” Clark talked me into taking that second year. It has been a gift through my entire life to have learned that skill. Many times I know I would not have “written” anything without that ability to “fly” over the keyboard. I’m sure a lot of people might wish I had taken shop instead.

We had the most unique and unusual gym in the state of Georgia in our town. It had an inside heated pool, a snack bar where you could get cooked little burgers and fries, and the best cokes. There was an upstairs basketball stadium…albeit quite small by today’s standards. We had a pool room, weight room, locker rooms, and various other sundry alcoves and inclusions. It had a movie theatre, and a staged theatre on one end also, although they closed those down very early along. I remember having our fifth year class reunion in that old gym in 1973, not long before they demolished it. What a wonderful place it was.

The most important and beautiful thing about those years, 1964 through 1968, were the people. Of course, I’m not going to sit here and say I loved everybody. That’d be a lie. However, for the most part, the people…my classmates and the “upper and underclass” students, were the lifeblood of the school in our little mill town. I wish I had time to go through and name each and every person with whom I remember going to school. I could do it if I had the time, or took the time, and could tell you a lot about some, but at least a little about most. Most of it would be good. Most of it would be joyful, some filled with a little regret….but, that’s the way of life itself, isn’t it?

I remember the ringing bells, the scurry of changing classes, the daily whispers….who’s dating who, who wants to go steady, who broke up today.

I remember the good teachers, the great teachers, and the ones….the very, very few…who didn’t like what they did, or who weren’t meant to be trying to do what they were doing. Those folks didn’t stay long, because our little school mainly attracted teachers who knew a good thing when they found it, and made a career in our school. I won’t try to name them all. Get out your annuals, and you’ll see their pictures. Mrs. Wingfield, Miss Bankey, Mrs. Myers, Mr. Jug Hayes, Mr. McCain, J.W. Greenwood, so many more. You’ll see yours too, my Facebook friends, because many of you were there. Many of you lived it with me. Many of you share these memories and those times. Most of us are still here, but some are gone.

It was pretty good, wasn’t it? Almost everything since then has also been good. As a whole, life’s been good to me.

Love you all.

My Daddy once told me that unless a man had something useful to say, he should keep his mouth shut. As most of you realize if you know me, or have read my writing it’s obvious that I should keep my mouth shut most of the time. I just can’t help it though, useful or not I have to say what I think.

What I am opening my mouth (or keyboard literally) to talk about today is hope. That’s right, hope. I have to have it. It has to be there, like a piece of driftwood in the vast ocean when you are drowning. Something to grab hold of and stay afloat. My hope is for the future. The future in which I will be missing, but my children and grandchildren and whatever descendants that I may be blessed with (who will never know I existed,) will know.

Right now, it kind of looks bleak, and that is why I have to have hope. I don’t think there is any way that the members of my generation, the baby boomers, can fix the mess that we are in now. It’s not just one mess, but MANY different messes going on simultaneously which make things so complex.

There are the changing demographics of the entire world. People of different races and cultures are traveling far and wide in this day and age and settling in places their ancestors would never have imagined. As they do this, they become familiar with each other and one thing leads to another and you have relationships being built between these members of different races and cultures. Some still try to stick with their own cultures, but inevitably I believe will fail. The children of the future will all probably look like Tiger Woods and Mariah Carey. I think at some point there won’t be any black, yellow, red and white anymore. There will be one color and one international culture at some point. I don’t know how far in the future that this may occur, and I don’t know if mankind can keep from destroying each other first with nuclear weapons but if they can then that’s one thing I think will happen. It will be a huge challenge for our descendants who are at the “transitional” stage. (Or maybe that’s where we ARE now?) It could well be that the future inhabitants of this planet will “ease” into this situation so gradually that no one will ever know it’s happening until it’s upon them. I don’t think it will be a bad thing either. One of things that continually breeds discontent, distrust and war is the difference between people’s race and culture. If there IS not difference then they will have to find something else to fight about. Maybe they won’t be able to.

There is the quickly changing face of technology. I would have NEVER in my wildest dreams as a child imagined the world as it is today. There have been so many advances in the last 50 years that it makes the 1950’s seem like the Stone Ages. What we take for granted every day now, would have seemed like a trick of magic back then. Computers will continue to advance and now that robotics IS actually taking off like Isaac Asimov thought it would, our descendants can look forward to a world where the physical part of living will become easier and easier.

There will be issues that come up, ethical issues, which will challenge the very core of the morals of our society. What about a computer program that can store the “essence” of a person on a program, and come up with a “virtual” person who is exactly like the person who is dying. Anyone ever seen the movie “Freejack” with old Mick Jagger? That’s science fiction still, BUT so was Jules Verne back in the late 19th century. It may not be that a person’s “essence” can be stored on a computer and then put back into another person’s body. I am not sure it will ever get to that point. BUT to create a “virtual” person with the knowledge and character of a real live person is but a few steps away from becoming a reality. You can “store” Grandma or Grandpa on the handy dandy virtual person program, and pull them up to talk to any time you want. How would you like that? Kind of a spooky thought isn’t it? Yet, right now people who play the high tech computer games that generate “characters” to play through (the avatar type games) are already interacting in a very close knit way with these “quasi-people.” You can give them character traits, physical characteristics, and other things which make them “almost” seem human. It’s only a few steps away until you can do the same thing with your dear Uncle Bob, believe me. Soulless, yes. Interaction there will be. There could also be a use for this type of program to reduce overpopulation, in that people who are not allowed, or don’t want to have a “real” live child, can have a virtual child which they can “raise” from a baby all the way up through adulthood. The cost would be quite a bit cheaper to raise this type of “child” too.

Medically speaking, the people who can make it 20 or 30 more years are likely to be able to live practically as long as they want. With the research and discoveries in genetics that are now taking place, it won’t be long until the genes that cause “aging” as we know it, will be discovered and neutralized. People who are well off enough financially will be able to benefit from this expensive technology and beat “the system” Dick Cheney may actually still be here in the year 2100! Hmmm…?

I think that many diseases which afflict people such as cancer, heart disease, and all the big killers will be beaten. People will have to be run over by a Fire Truck in order to die. That’s about the only thing which will do it. However, I am sure there will be a lot of volunteers to be “uploaded” into the computer program which I mentioned in the previous paragraph. After all, who REALLY wants to live forever? And you probably will still have the old aches and pains that won’t go away. (Maybe not, they may have something for that too) Besides, you might be able to do things on that computer program you could NEVER do in real life, like fight dragons, or fly. That would be a hoot, right?

I wonder if people will still be able to go out and have a juicy steak or a lobster, or if everyone will have to eat those little pills like the one that Willy Wonka invented that turned Violet, well…purple I guess. Hopefully, he will have perfected them by then and we won’t have to go somewhere and have the juice squeeze out of us.

I kind of wonder too if space travel will advance to the point where we will be actually sending people out on missions to other galaxies. Will the episodes of Star Trek, The Next Generation be a reality or a near reality at least? If we can tear enough money away from the government’s efforts at exterminating people in other countries, we may be able to give some of it back to the space program and find out!