About An Angel and Good Spaghetti...

Mae Evelyn Canada Roberts made really good spaghetti.  Odd that out of ninety years of life so devoted to her family, faith and country the first thing that comes to my mind is her spaghetti.  But Lordy it was good spaghetti.  I suppose there were nights that its job was to simply be supper for her family. But when I remember that spaghetti, I remember it feeding a small army.  Her family, my family and anyone else that showed up hungry.

 She and her husband were friends with my parents going back to when Moses wore short pants. We lived on one end of the town and they lived on the other.  But once or twice a year we made the trek from East Atlanta or Stone Mountain (depending on where we were living at the time) to Riverdale to spend an evening visiting, laughing and digging back into stories that went on long after our plates were empty.  They were stories from days that seemed like a thousand years ago to me but were clearly just yesterday for the parents and grandparents at the table.  Listening to them, the evolution of what we later called "the greatest generation" was quite evident. If not then, certainly later in life when I had sense enough and life experience enough to appreciate what these people had lived through. Along the way I wasn't ever the kid yawning and watching the clock in U.S. History classes.  Because of those evenings at the Roberts' supper table (and that heavenly spaghetti) the places and people taught through textbooks and lectures were days I felt I'd lived myself.
   
Evelyn was the very embodiment of everything we've come to know about that generation:  Loving those in  their life with a deep,  functioning love - "...not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth." (1 John 3:18.  You have no idea how proud it'd make her that I quoted scripture in my effort to pay tribute to her.)  Never living above their means.  Never complaining about a day's work, whether at a job or at home, keeping a house full of young 'uns  in clean clothes and with full bellies. Hardships endured weren't refined into fuel for martyrdom - they were transfigured into ways to make the world a better place.

When I was a child and at home during the summers, it was usually just Mama and me, as my sisters were older and either married, on their own or going to summer classes.  The phone rang a few times a day.  I learned Mama's demeanor well enough to know who was on the other end.  If it sounded like she was talking family business (" I went to the bank..."  "Insurance company called..."  "That faucet is leaking..."  Tim's been in the backyard all day with the dogs...") it was Daddy, checking in from his office to see what was shaking. If she was laughing out loud, making jokes, being happy and assuring the person on the other end it was good to hear from her, then I knew it was Evelyn.  Mama would be in a good mood the rest of the day after a call from Evelyn.  

I don't think she ever forgot a birthday.  And stand back when you opened her card - confetti or glitter was going to fall out and make you laugh.  She sent me and my sisters birthday cards whether we were 10 years old or grown, married folks.  There are a few still around my house somewhere, I'm sure.  I'll never throw them away and someday - when my time comes and someone is going through stuff I've kept - they'll wonder where the confetti is coming from and go home with a speck of glitter somewhere on their body.

I was there at the hospital the last time Evelyn came to visit Mama, shortly before we had to relinquish the matriarch of our family to hospice care.  Mama was near the end, not talking much.  When she did talk it was not something one could understand . She recognized very few of us and was clearly ready to go home.  A stare was all she had to give.  But when Evelyn approached her bed, grabbed her hand and said "Hey sweetheart..."  Mama smiled a big smile.  Evelyn said "I came by to see you how you're doing and to tell you how much I love you."  For the first time in a while Mama opened her mouth and said "well ok then."  They kept holding hands for more than just a few minutes, simply exchanging smiles.  I could see a thousand unspoken sentiments being expressed by two people who KNEW each other, down to the core of their souls.  When she left Evelyn kissed Mama on the jaw and walked away from that bed and told her son "I reckon we'd better go."  She gave me a kiss and a hug and told me everything was going to be alright.  I knew she didn't mean that Mama wasn't going to die - it meant that Evelyn firmly believed she'd better off than all of us when she did die and wanted me to believe it too.

Because of a pandemic attacking the country she loved, only a few us were able to sit out in the sun and say goodbye to Evelyn as they laid her to rest right next to her beloved husband.  Though we're not blood relatives I'll be forever grateful to her family that they consider us such and allowed us to be there. Speaking of being laid to rest, I hope Evelyn's able to get some.  See on the other side she's going to be quite busy helping my Mama keep my father and her husband in line.  And I sure hope she has time to keep an eye on me and all the countless souls that gained an angel when she left us.  Mostly, I hope that heaven has a kitchen - I'm gonna' need a plate of spaghetti when it's time for me to head that way.   

If Daddy came back to visit me and 2020

     "So people pay...FOR WATER?" (Which would be followed by "if you put a $1.25 in that machine for a bottle of water we're going to have a talk.")

     "So essentially if you BREATHE near a quarterback it's 'roughing the passer' now?"

     "Seriously?  The Braves WON a World Series and the Falcons WENT to 2 SUPER BOWLS?"

     "Tech won a National Championship in 1990?" 

     "You're paying someone to change your oil?   WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU??"  (After an explanation that vehicles are a bit more complicated now and have computers and you can really screw up stuff by working on them yourself - "Well then I'd walk wherever I had to go.  NOT paying people to work on my cars.")

     "Gas costs WHAT a gallon??  Well then I'd walk wherever I had to go"

     "Central air-conditioning?  Did you find a gold mine on your property?  Buy an attic fan, open the windows and turn off the a.c."

     "I'm right proud of the woman you married. She's a good girl.  But, seriously....YOU do the dishes AND COOK sometimes?  We're going to have a talk."

     "Pandemic or not, I'm siting on the left side, third row of that sanctuary come Sunday morning if I'm alone and have to preach to myself."

     "So you're telling me this pickup truck we're riding cost more than the house you grew up in??  Turn off the A.C. and roll down the windows!  I'm freezing! And why in the world does the radio keep saying 'subscription updated.'  You PAY for radio???"

     "I guess if you insist on making the gas companies rich don't wait on some little bell to tell you when you need gas.  It hits half a tank you go to the gas station and fill it up...after you go to the bank and take out a loan!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

     "They just let that person use that word?  ON THE NEWS?"

     "YOU HAVE HOW MANY CHANNELS ON THIS TV?  AND HOW MANY DO YOU ACTUALLY WATCH?  UNPLUG THAT THING AND GO BUY SOME RABBIT EARS."  (this could be the only argument I MIGHT win by explaining that with that many channels you can get up on Saturday mornings in the fall and watch college football games until the wee hours of Sunday morning.)

     "NO! There's only one Varsity.  And this ain't it and I ain't going in...but if you are bring me a chili dog."

     "This chili dog ain't nowhere near as good as the ones at the real Varsity."

     "This is not a grocery store.  It's a small town.  I bet they got their own zip code.  And why is that woman letting her young 'un climb those shelves?  If she won't jerk a knot in him I will! 
And what is that...a...a...PHONE in her hand?   I don't like talking on the one at the house! Not taking one to the store with me!  How much you pay for that?"

     (Still at the grocery store) "That woman on the cereal aisle is talking to herself" 
Me - "Daddy, she's got a bluetooth."
Daddy - "well she oughta get a crown..it's obviously making her nuts."

     "Red Man chewing tobacco is offensive?  To who?  I'm the one chewing it and not hurtin' a soul!"

     (Speaking of phones)  "So you just took a phone out of your pocket and paid your light bill.  Well isn't that fancy DICK TRACY?!!  How much do you pay for that?"

     "So you take your kids to all these different places where they can play with other kids?  Our kids always had a place to play with other kids.  IT WAS CALLED THE BACKYARD!!!!!!!!"

     "The dog spends all his time in the house and sleeps in here, too?  Well that's a good thing."  (animals - his Achilles Heel.) 

    "So you're a man. A pretty good one I reckon. You married a good girl, you got a good home and a good dog.  I'm right proud..............I'm not used to men talking to each other this way.  I'll shake your hand if that's ok."

     

    

   

    

Thursdays In East Atlanta

     Eight O'clock Coffee.  I paused when I saw the name on the little pod of coffee I was about to put into our space age coffee maker.  You know you've made a considerable number of trips around the sun when a routine erupts into a very random memory.  Then you find yourself back in a time when we didn't have space age coffee makers and one had to wait on a percolator to quit bubbling before the coffee was ready. 
     I had a psychology professor who described our minds as filing cabinet drawers (ok, so I went to college back when people used paper and the filing cabinet industry flourished.)  The files we use a lot-phone numbers, passwords, our address, the way home to that address, how to tie our shoes - are always at the front of the file drawer.   The files seldom or never used - your locker combination in eighth grade, EVERYTHING you learned in algebra, the questions on your learner's permit test - get pushed to the back of the drawer.  Also back there are very good things.  Conversations, sights, sounds, smells, tastes, days spent on inner tubes and playing in creeks.  This morning the Eight O'clock Coffee pod reached way back in the drawer and pulled out the file labeled "Thursdays in East Atlanta."
     Mama didn't learn to drive 'til she was 40-something.  So when I was a child and grocery store day arrived we had to take a long walk.  We went up Fayetteville Road and took a right on Mary Dell Drive.  We'd walk past East Atlanta High School and Peterson Elementary, all the way to the bus stop at the top of the hill. At the bus stop we got on the Gresham Limited and rode to East Atlanta.  I remember those old buses having straight-shift transmissions.  So depending on your driver, you might have a rough ride.  And if it was damn hot outside, it was hotter in that bus.  You could slide open the window and blow some hot air in on you if you liked.  But the passenger next to you might put up a fuss about it if she'd just been to town to have her hair set.
    Back to our destination.  East Atlanta is in the city limits of Atlanta yet it behaves like a small town inside that large city (then and now.)  Now they call it East Atlanta Village and it's a trendy, Bohemian little stretch of Flat Shoals Avenue.  There's restaurants, coffee shops and funky stores of all kinds.  But back then it was just the main street of our little town in the city and where we did our "trading."  There was a Trust Company Bank on the corner of Glenwood and Flat Shoals. There was also a bakery, a drug store, a movie theater, a barber shop and an A&P grocery store down that little 1/2 mile of street.  On those Thursdays, our trips on the Gresham Limited had two primary destinations:   The Trust Company Bank to cash a check so that we could buy groceries and then up the street to the A&P to buy them.
     When we arrived at the A&P I was already in pretty good shape, thanks to a lollipop courtesy of the teller at the bank.  Mama would lift me up and put me in the seat of the buggy and we'd head for the Coke machine.  Soon I was armed with a lollipop in one hand and a cold "Co-Cola" in the other (glass bottle of course.)  This was the 1960-something equivalent of letting a young 'un watch "Sponge Bob" on your iSomething so that you could shop in peace.
     Back to Eight O'clock Coffee.  The reason that little pod of coffee took me back to simpler days was that Eight O'clock coffee  grinder that sat in the middle of that old store. To a small child it seemed as big as a Volkswagen.  The coffee was sold whole bean and there weren't 90 brands from which to choose.  I remember Eight O'clock and Luzianne (which had chicory root in it and could walk on its own.)  Since coffee grinders were not household items in those days one had to pour your choice of coffee  in the store's grinder and grind it there. I'm firmly convinced the beautiful smell coming out of that huge coffee grinder led to the coffee addiction I carry with me still today.   I started drinking it when I was around 5 or 6 years old.  Mama used to put an ice cube in it so it wouldn't burn my tongue.  Daddy fussed that it would stunt my growth.  Well thank God I drank it...
     Without fail we would see someone we knew while shopping.  We always ran into Anne Bullock as Thursday was also her grocery day. Other than being patrons of the same grocery store we also went to church with Anne. This was at the Methodist church that sat at the corner of Moreland and Metropolitan and was named after Martha Brown (I never really knew who Martha Brown was...but there hung a very unflattering portrait of her in a hallway at the church.)  Every Sunday Anne sat on the second row of the left side of the sanctuary and we sat right behind her on the third row.  I can remember thinking she must be the richest woman in East Atlanta 'cause of the way she dressed. And she was always dressed as nicely at the A&P on Thursdays as she was at church on Sunday.  On the day of my baptism she was wearing a hat full of flowers.  Before they could get me up there to sprinkle my head, I'm told that I picked a few of the flowers out of that hat.  Later in life I had the opportunity as a young adult to visit with Anne.  Though much older, it was apparent that she still never left her house without looking good enough to take to Chinatown.  I reminded her of the stories I'd heard about me ruining her hat the day of my baptism.  She had no recollection of it but got a good laugh nonetheless.  She couldn't remember the hat incident but she did share something with me  that had managed to stay with her into what were, by then, the latter days of her life. "I can remember seeing you sitting in that buggy at the A&P, a lollipop in one hand and a Co-Cola in the other.  I used to think 'we should all be as content as that child is right now.' "
     Contentment.  It seems to come naturally in your early years but has to be hunted down later in life.  I think that old A&P store is some type of hipster art studio now.  Reckon it might cause a stir if a 50-something-year-old man came and sat in the middle of the place, a Coke in one hand and a lollipop in the other and asked what they did with the coffee grinder?
    
   
     

Black Hearts (not associated with Joan Jett...)

There was one black-construction paper heart and one red-construction paper heart that sat on the table behind Miss Lutrell's chair.  She was a legendary second grade Sunday School teacher at the Methodist church on the corner of Metropolitan and Moreland Avenue.  The church was named after Martha Brown and the neighborhood was called East Atlanta.  When she wasn't teaching us songs we'd remember the rest of our lives - "THE B-I-B-L-E, YES THAT'S THE BOOK FOR ME!" and the song about the "church in the wildwood" (which fondly brings to mind the "Man In A Hurry" episode of the "Andy Griffith Show")  - she was teaching us the significance of those construction paper hearts. 

Miss Lutrell told us that the red heart represented someone fortunate enough to know Jesus.  I'm not being sarcastic when I say that I was always afraid I didn't know Jesus because in my juvenile mind one had to be in the physical presence of someone before you could say you knew them.  The black heart, on the other hand, was representative of someone who didn't know Jesus.  I was fearful that was me as I'd never actually met the man.  But through her lessons I would soon learn that one knew Jesus through the good things in their lives like sweet mamas and daddies and roofs over our heads and food to eat and sunrises and full moons and warm beds to sleep in and hamburgers from Charlie's Place (which was down at the corner of Glenwood and Moreland.)  Jesus manifested himself in many happy ways and if you knew and loved Him your heart was that beautiful red.

So who, then, possessed the black hearts?  I reckoned they lived in the people I saw on the news, the ones that stole,shot, stabbed and murdered.  THOSE were the black hearts.  Unfortunately, growing older I came to realize that the black heart manifests itself in many ways and not all of them have a thing to do with religion or whether or not you know the Son of God.  As my dearly-departed mother put it, "there's just a lot of meanness in the world."

I think it's sad that they've had to come up with a name for "shaken child syndrome".  I think it's sad that here in 2018 people are marching under Nazi flags and harbor a hate based solely on color or ethnicity. It's even sadder that there's people in high places that defend them.  Speaking of those in high places I'm sad that they're rounding up humans that have lived nowhere but here and separating them from family and sending them to a country that's never been home.  I'm sad that power is not used to keep us safe but to feed self-interests and egos and that's now the definition of leadership.  There are no more statesmen, only politicians.  "There's just a lot of meanness in the world" but I never expected it to be manifested in those who swore constitutional oaths to protect the average folks.

I think it's sad that hearing words like "human shields", "human trafficking" and "sex trafficking"on the news no longer cause our jaws to drop.  They elicit a response no more dramatic than we give to car wrecks and snowstorms.  People are hungry and can't get health care in the richest country on the planet.  When hurricanes and natural disasters hit there are those who leave dogs tied to trees or cats locked in the basement to drown or become miracles.  "There's just a lot of meanness in the world."

Beyond the "meanness" quote one of my mother's other favorites was "he's quit preaching and gone to meddlin' " whenever a preacher got personal.  And it's quite likely I've quit preaching and gone to meddlin'  But I am sad that the black heart has outgrown second grade Sunday School theology. I'm sad that it's so mainstream.  I'm not sure what the solution is but I think my father-in-law had what would be a good start.  He was an elementary school principal and I'm told that he greeted students at the door every morning at the front door of the school, be it rainy, cold or hot.  And he gave each student a thumbs-up and told them to "do something good today."  It might be a start if we'd all just do something good today. And  I know that I do far too little good when I see the picture that floated around the Internet of an old man taking a bag full of tennis balls he'd collected to an animal shelter so that  homeless dogs had something to chase.  Good may make a comeback yet.  Having a few more Miss Lutrells and a few more old men wanting to make dogs happy would be a start.

3 Men In Heaven.....

      "I loved him and was proud of him.  But you saw how I was raised and what I had for a father - I never learned how to show pride or affection," said the first man.  "I feel bad about that now."
     'I know," said the second man.  "The way you were raised wasn't your fault. That was obvious when I married your sister." The second man  (with skin turned leather from years working in the sun and fingers busted from so many missed hammer strikes)  then got pensive - " I cared about you and I cared about your son - that's why I  worked so hard to take care of your son/my nephew. Men of our generation didn't tell each other how we FELT.  We just dealt with what we had to deal with....usually a day at work."  He then leaned back in his chair and took a long draw on a Winston...."He's good people and I always enjoyed having him around.  You'd be right proud of the man he grew up to be.  Married a real good girl.  She takes good care of him."
     The first man looked off towards the horizon that I assume is always blue sky, puffy white clouds and where the sun is always rising.  "It really wasn't fair - you had a boat and God knows he loves boats and water and fishing."
     The second man laughed - "It's because I knew how to play AND work.  All you worried about was work."
     "I reckon," said the first man though the answer didn't make him all that comfortable.  Even in the hereafter, he worries about who's  making sure Atlanta streets aren't falling in on themselves and who is cutting the grass at houses he no longer owns..   Even here, he doesn't know how to completely relax.  A restless soul is a restless soul wherever it resides.
     "I think I've been looking for y'all."   There was suddenly a third man in their midst. He was all manners, perfectly trimmed moustache and sideburns.   "I think y'all must be Daddy and Uncle Ralph?"
      "You found us..."  said the second man  (who we now know is Uncle Ralph.)  "You're the one who took the biggest chance of all."
      "How's that?" said the newcomer.
      Uncle Ralph laughed "You had one child.  And you let him marry that only child....a DAUGHTER!"
      "Well," said the newcomer. "I told him early on that he was raised to have character.  And now I'm sitting here with the folks that taught him character.  My name is Charles...but I already know your names - Sam and Ralph.  I've heard many stories."
      They sat without saying a word for while.
Sam -  the father - said "I'm just glad they let you drink coffee and chew tobacco up here"
Ralph - the Uncle - said "I'm just glad they let you drink coffee and smoke Winstons up here."
Charles - the father-in-law - said "I don't drink coffee and hate tobacco."
Ralph-"Well, there's somebody over there smoking pork shoulders and making sandwiches"
"I'll be right back..." said Charles.  
   

    
 

"Ma" Goddard and the Greatest Generation

     We should all be as lucky as Helen Goddard.  Her obituary notes that she died at 96 while vacationing in Mexico.  I could handle leaving this world while sipping on tequila slammers in some ocean front cantina, dining on another bowl of ceviche (heavy on the jalapeno)  I have no evidence that she was enjoying tequila or ceviche....those are my own vices thrown into the story.  I do know, though, that whatever she was doing there in Mexico someone near her was smiling.  You had to smile when in her company.  An individual who loves life that much rubs off on those around them.  An individual who loves everything and everyone around her more than she loves herself is a gift from God.

     I saw her at church and in the classroom.  That's one of the perks of growing up in the "touch of country in the city" that Stone Mountain, Georgia was at the time.  Those of us raised there were, truly,  raised by a village.  There was always someone to feed you or give you a ride or ask how your family was doing.  Helen Goddard was the epitome of the guardians that surrounded us.  When at church she never asked if I'd done my homework.  When at school she never asked if I'd gone to youth choir practice.  She was a rare soul that cared about US in whichever venue we were lucky enough to be near her.  She was the first person (outside of my family) that I ever discussed plans I wished to pursue in adulthood.   I remember the room, the afternoon, the smile on her face and the chalk dust on her hands when she grabbed my face and said "Timothy.....you can do whatever you want.  You being you is important to everyone that knows you.  Don't live life in terms of income.  Just live life...."   I think she practiced what she preached, given that she died in Mexico after nearly a hundred years on this planet.  She knew how to live life. 

     It's no wonder that my generation spends so much money on therapy, self-help books, medication and tequila slammers.  Just look at the people against which we had to measure ourselves.  A work friend - in his 60's - once told me "Thank Christ your generation didn't have to fight World War II - we'd all be speaking German."  I couldn't disagree with him.  I've not accomplished any of the things I discussed with "Ma" Goddard that afternoon.....but I have lived life.  I hope she'd be proud....

Okra

     "Do you want  your Aunt Nell to cook some fried okra tonight?"  Uncle Ralph asked this question about 2:30 in the heat of the afternoon, while I was scraping weeds out of the okra and beans and tomatoes and anything else he'd chosen to grow that summer.  I figured I was earning me a trip out on the lake in his boat to catch some fish that Aunt Nell could also turn into a religious experience.  I didn't know I was placing my vote where supper choices were concerned. 

     "Yes sir, that'd be good."

     "Use 'Sir' when talking to your daddy.  I don't need that.  If  you want some fried okra, look on the porch, get a bucket and come back out here and pick some."

     Okra - for those not afraid of hot weather and home-grown anything- tastes like someone picked heaven, cooked it and served it up fried, boiled or pickled.  To this day I not only enjoy its taste but realize it's part of what makes me, well,,,,,ME.  It has much in common with the way I pronounce certain words and love hot weather. 

     I ran to the porch, grabbed a bucket and picked as much as I could.  "If it ain't as long as your middle finger, don't pick it"  he said.  I cheated several times and picked some way short.

     "That's enough for supper...go back there and wash off unless you and Alan are going  swimming after while..."   ("After" probably being pronounced "Atter" and Alan a reference to the cousin I spent most of my formative years following around on lakes and in woods and anywhere else he went.)  

     But before I made it to the shower, Aunt Nell stopped a shirtless me and screamed at her husband "PA!  You didn't tell him to wear a shirt before he went out and picked okra???!!!"  I had welts up and down my chest, stomach and back where I'd been picking.   As was par for the course, my dear uncle just laughed and said "Well, he won't do that again."  Okra, you see, has this fuzz on it that's very much akin to the  insulation we use to  secure our houses from the elements.  If you're not careful while picking it, you'll soon need a bath of Witch Hazel or Calamine Lotion (I vote for Witch Hazel because Calamine makes you look like you took a bath in Pepto Bismol)  I didn't care if acted like battery acid upon my skin.  A taste of okra is worth any hardship that you have to endure to get it on a plate.

     I see a lot of commercials these days dealing with "What do  I feed my kids??!".  There's great mention of chicken fingers because they're so easy..  The women that I grew up around would've said "chickens don't have fingers....what do you want for supper?"  I know times are different.  Both parents have to get out and make a living.  So I reckon 2:30 p.m.  inquisitions about "what do you want for supper?"  are as antique as turntables and VCR's.   This makes me sad...and also makes me want okra for supper....

    

Where you are and what you are........

Dear God, I hate the word "Settle."   It sounds like things didn't work out and, well, this is the best I could hope for. I'm beginning to believe that's NOT what "settle" means at all.   I had a long conversation yesterday with someone who's been dealt a hand she didn't ask for, but is quite content that, if this IS the final hand she's been dealt, she's ok with that because her life has been more than she could've ever hoped for.  MY hope is that it's not her final hand and she's here to tell me to quit taking life so seriously for many more years to come.  I get the feeling she wishes people would start treating her like HER instead of defining her by the battle she's fighting.  (Then there are others who need to quit pitting their own travails against hers, trying to compete in the "I've got it so hard department."  That's a one-sided pity party so just cut the crap, please.  Never, EVER will I understand the need for some folks to beg attention by bringing attention to the "daily unadulterated crap" that we all suffer.)

Back to the issue of "settling."  WHERE I am makes me happy.  A beautiful wife, a good old dog (who's slowing down considerably and I fear you'll soon be hearing me deal with her move on to wherever it is dogs go when they leave us.)   I married into a great family that loves me and treats me like their own. I want for little and the change of seasons (you know, from baseball into college football) keeps my simple needs met.  But realizing there's another side of me doesn't mean I've settled for married life and old dogs and sports.  It means that life is made more interesting because I have the perspective of being a working guy who finds more loose hair in the sink by the day....but is also governed by the very long-haired guy who really enjoys banging on stringed instruments and playing loud music and living on the road that exists on his inside.  Those who know me well can hear certain songs (an example of which is displayed below) and know "that's a Tim song."  They knew me when I aspired to be someone sharing that type of art with the world.  Now it's been deemed planet earth is better served by my life taking place between 9:00 and 5:00 so that I can take care of the people I love when they need it.  From here, I can better relate to nieces and nephews who are still exploring the thousands of options life has to offer.  If me living normal gives them the opportunity to explore EVERYTHING, I'll "settle" for that every day of the week and twice on Sunday.  Most importantly, from there I can fall asleep every night looking at the sweetest face God ever put on earth and listening to an old dog snore at our feet.  I've not "settled"  I won....
Now, for some "Tim music"

Jesus in the moon

"Look now....pay attention.  Look to the left and you can see his nose, beard and eyes looking off towards the front of the neighborhood...."

"I'm sorry, Babe....I don't see nothing."

"You're not looking right.  Can't you see that one dark spot on the left side of the moon?  That's his nose...."

"I can't see it.  I think you must be more Christian than I am."

"NO, I'm not more Christian....but I spent a lot of time out behind Ma's Ma's house staring at the moon in the summertime.  And she always said you could find the face of Jesus in a full moon."

     Years later, she still looks up at every full moon and tells me "I miss Ma-Ma" (in our southern vernacular it's pronounced "Maw-Maw").  "She taught me how to find Jesus in the moon.  And we always sang old gospel songs at her piano"   Inevitably she cuts her thoughts short and says "I don't like telling you that because it makes me sad that you never really knew either of your grandmothers."  I make her feel some better by telling her that she's right, I didn't KNOW either of them.  One of them died the year before I was born.  But one lived long enough for me to see her in her last days.  It struck me (and I still  take pride in) how "Cherokee" she looked.  She says "that's why you don't ever sunburn....you've got that Indian skin."  I think she takes comfort in pointing out that I do have some small connection to a woman I never really KNEW...but to which I am definitely connected.

I played her one of my "long-haired" songs called "The Whippoorwill"  recently.  I told her that the guy that wrote it deemed it one of his best because it reminded him of singing old gospel music by his grandmother's piano.  She got tears in her eyes and I felt guilty because it wasn't my plan to make her miss Ma-Ma and that old piano.  She got really choked up when there was mention of 'barefoot and smiling there by the piano...."   And then I got choked up....because I could see the woman that makes it worth getting up in the morning standing there in the hot Alabama summers by Ma-Ma's piano and singing "Power In The Blood" at the top her lungs.  I haven't done much right in this life....but celebrating her birthday over this past weekend it has occurred to me that I've got great taste in women.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EW-Lj6XkLj0

"I hate the singing parts..."

     Christmas in early 1970-something always meant that Winifred Freeman had to watch "White Christmas" or "Holiday Inn" as many times as they would show it on one of the 5 or 6 channels we were blessed with on our first color television set.  Then and now I'm convinced they're actually the same movie...characters change and some songs change but little differentiates one from the other.   The stories were good enough (it was Christmas, after all, and nothing embodies the magic of childhood like December 25th.)  But I thoroughly despised and ridiculed the moments where characters suddenly launched into song.  And they told me "Ultra Man" and "Speed Racer" and the "Banana Splits" weren't real and just for fun?  But it IS real when people start singing to each other with an orchestra playing??  While riding on a train hoping that it will "Snow, snow, snow...." when they get to Vermont?  THAT'S real?   My mother laughed out loud every time I said "I hate the singing parts."

     I was exposed to many other musicals in those formative years.  Mother loved "My Fair Lady" (I think the primary draw was her crush on Rex Harrison)   And "Fiddler on the Roof" came on television at least once a year and all I remember from that is someone wishing to be a "rich man."  Sound of Music was, again, a good story but who among us has had opportunity to run and sing our way through lush mountain meadows with full orchestral accompaniment?  Or stand in a gazebo and woo our crush by singing to them that we're "16 going on 17" (or whatever....man card rules forbid from me remembering the exact lyrics.) 

     But then something happened.  My older sisters started going to and listening to this musical based on the last week of the life of Christ.  First it was a stage production then a movie came out by the same name.  I never saw the musical or the movie but I did sneak in and give a listen to the soundtrack which had a really big album cover.  Some of the songs were a lot cooler than the ones belted out by Rex Harrison or Audrey Hepburn.  A musical that was as "cool" as some of the "hippy" music that pissed off the grown folks - that was worth a listen.

     Fast forward 40 years or so.  The same guy that put together the musical about Jesus' last week has taken one of my favorite movies and turned into a musical with a lot of "singing parts."   It's enjoying a pretty strong run on Broadway and, as luck would have it, my bride and I were taking a trip to the Big Apple as part of her birthday celebration.  Along with my youngest sister's family, we head to the Winter Garden Theater on a windy March Sunday and check out the matinee performance of "School of Rock."  Tides turned, the heavens shook and lions and lambs laid down next to each other.  See, I sat glued to my seat and thoroughly enjoyed this bit of culture, singing parts and all.   Of course it was a huge help that the singing parts were mostly of the very loud, bombastic variety  - key elements to most of the music I enjoy.  But there was also those darn kids...

     Children's efforts in the dramatic arts are fun to watch no matter how many lines they forget, how many notes are sung or played flat or how amateurish a presentation looks.  So take a bunch of kids that are very, VERY good at what they're doing (be it voice, drums, basses or electric guitars) and it's nothing short of fireworks.  There weren't any forgotten lines or flat notes and I heard some musicians better at their craft than many making a lot more money.  A couple of hours in a theater flew by and I ended up wanting to take the little doll in pigtails home with us (banging on her bass, making her best rock & roll face and singing like an angel)  I now follow a couple of 12-year-olds on Twitter.  I now know some "singing parts" by heart and listen to them often.  Amazing how appealing something becomes to me when you put "Rock" in the title...

Do yourself a favor....

Good Friday

    
Christ the Lord is risen today, Alleluia!
Earth and heaven in chorus say, Alleluia!
Raise your joys and triumphs high, Alleluia!
Sing, ye heavens, and earth reply, Alleluia!
Charles Wesley

     There were always cupcakes that looked like Easter baskets.  Mama would take coconut, mix it with green food coloring, then put the "grass" on top of a cupcake already covered in white icing.  She'd nestle in some jelly beans and then bend a straw to make it look like a basket handle.  She took the Easter Basket cupcakes to Sunday School for the third graders she taught for years.  We'd have extras at home.  I think about her and those cupcakes every Easter.

     There was the year that Daddy began some huge project in the basement a couple of weeks before Easter.  He kept asking me to come downstairs and assist.  Every time I asked him what we were building and every time he found a way to avoid the question.

 "Just hold that board still so I don't hit you with the saw."
"Yessir,,, but what are we building?"
"It's a secret...I don't want to tell anyone in case it doesn't turn out the way I want it to...."

     Being the engineer he was I could tell he'd drawn up some plans for whatever it was on some drafting paper from his office.  But that wasn't unusual - the simplest of household chores sometimes started on drafting paper from his office.  When Easter morning finally arrived, I was led down to "the project" now finished in the basement. Turns out it was a rabbit pen and I had been given two live rabbits in lieu of an Easter Basket that year.  I liked them even better than the peanut butter eggs and jelly beans and Easter Basket cupcakes.  At least one of them lived much longer than rabbits usually do, not dying until we'd moved to a new house and I was a teenager.  It might've been my best Easter.

     Easter always meant a new suit.  You had to get a new one, not just because of Easter protocol but because you were growing at such a pace that last year's suit didn't fit or it was just showing the wear and tear a reckless male child can exact on a good suit.  Some of them were God-awful gawdy, in colors that would've been plain garish the rest of the year.  But on Easter they seemed perfectly natural, as did the gigantic hats that adorned my sisters' heads.   Those hats looked like they were on their way to the Kentucky Derby, not the Methodist church at the corner of Metropolitan and Moreland. I remember Easter being the only time Daddy slapped Vitalis in my hair, using it's miracle powers to control a cowlick that could double as a television antenna.  I never knew why he had a bottle of Vitalis in the medicine cabinet - he was bald.  I reckon to use on that one Sunday a year, so that my hair would be as spiffy as my suit.

     After church there was ham.....lots of ham. And green beans.  And deviled eggs.  And more ham.  Being older and slower and busier I now know the Herculean effort involved in a spread like that one.  Especially AFTER you've made the Easter Basket cupcakes, helped sisters get those huge hats to perch on their heads just right and kept  a rotten little boy in a new suit from going down to the dog pen to play with his favorite creatures ( "You can 't go to church smelling like a dog!")

 Lives again our glorious King, Alleluia!
Where, O death, is now thy sting? Alleluia!
Once he died our souls to save, Alleluia!
Where's thy victory, boasting grave? Alleluia!


     Last night, late in the evening on Maundy Thursday,  I decided to watch the news before I went to sleep.  On the news, I saw infant lying amongst the rubble of a freshly bombed airport terminal,  crying at the top of its lungs.  I suddenly wasn't so sleepy.  No one responded to its screams because that baby's dead mother was lying next to it - the nails in the homemade bomb someone turned loose in that airport had found her body instead of her baby's.  Though someone slowed down long enough to take that video on their phone they didn't stop running.  "I couldn't run past a dog crying for it's mother, how can those people just ignore that baby?"  I decided to not be too hard on them because I've never found myself in the middle of a terrorist attack and don't know how I'd react. I was glad the lady of the house had already fallen asleep so that she wouldn't see a tear roll down my cheek as I tried to rest.   I tried to relax.  I even tried to pray.  I didn't do much of either.

     This morning's Good Friday.   I worked hard to put my mind on my job, answer emails, make some calls and play catch up from a busy week.  But I didn't turn on the news.  I didn't want to hear that baby crying again.   So I kept my nose to the figurative grindstone and kept hoping it'd feel like the middle day of the three days that are supposed to define the faith I was raised to lean on (no matter how dark things became.  "There's Power In The Blood!")    But it was so much easier back then.  Easter Sunday and church and Charles Wesley hymns and ham and bunny rabbits and fancy cupcakes and more ham.  Yes, the world was much, much nicer.   Hell, we even loved going to school most days!  I can remember one time, in second grade, Mrs. Kilpatrick (who was at the same time the scariest and sweetest teacher God ever put on earth) showed us a map of our United States.  She went around our circle, pointed at a state and we took turns telling her what each abbreviation meant.  Everyone else got "GA"   or "TN"  or "NY"    I got "VT"  I said, "uh,,,,Vietnam?"   It was some word I'd heard on the news, you see. 

          “He stood at the window of the empty cafe and watched the activites in the square and he said that it was good that God kept the truths of life from the young as they were starting out or else they'd have no heart to start at all.”
Cormac McCarthy, "All the Pretty Horses"

Coffee & Crosswords

     "If you like colored water, you'll have to get your coffee somewhere else."  God knows the Luzianne coffee with chicory root that she used to brew in the morning could put hair on your chest (or take it off your head - a distinct possibility given my father's head and the way mine has turned out.)   Singing in the morning.  Who sings that loudly before the sun's up?  I can remember as a child thinking "if I didn't have to go to school and got to stay at home all day and do crossword puzzles I'd sing in the morning, too."   But that's not all that consumed her day - I was just too innocent (ignorant) to realize it.  Like anyone else raising a family, our clothes got washed, a broom got pushed and a hot meal at suppertime starts in the afternoon.  But when I think about her, the first images that come to my brain are strong coffee, crossword puzzles and that constant singing in the morning.

     Today would've been her 91st birthday and I considered going to the cemetery on my lunch break, putting down some flowers and standing there sad for a minute.  But I could just about hear her voice - "You've had a cold all week.  You don't need to be standing out here in the wet and cold."   She used to say she didn't want an open casket when she died ("I don't want people standing around saying 'Oh, doesn't she look good?!'  No!  I'll look dead!")   In the same conversation she would tell me "and I don't want people standing around at the cemetery staring at the ground.  That's not me in the ground."   Indeed it's not.  "Sweet" is something that lives on in our hearts, in our memories of her.  And 9 times out of 10 it's the first word I hear folks use when remembering her. "Your mama was so sweet."   "She was so sweet to us."  "She was sweet and she could cook!"  

     And she could make a pretty good cup of coffee.  My bride loves to poke fun at my own coffee addiction.  "I've never seen anybody who could just chug scalding hot coffee like you and  Erfy!"  I take it as a compliment - maybe if I can chug coffee as well as she did someday I'll learn to be as sweet as she was.  Probably not...and there's no chance I can breeze through a crossword as quickly as she did.  And my singing is not something you ever want to hear at any time of the day.  The fact that today's her birthday didn't make me  miss her any more than I already miss her every other day of the year.  And she'd be ok with that, I think.  "Just finish your work, make a pot of coffee and decide what you're gonna cook Rhonda for dinner."  I miss her but I can still hear her...

     

Penguins in the woods.....

     I just didn't want to get involved with Monday this morning.  A pot of my favorite coffee and I was still sitting and staring,  in spite of the big chunk of adulthood staring me in the face through a laptop and emails.  If you had a "Christmas break" then God bless you.  For a lot of us, Christmas break was Christmas Day and then another week of work then a day off Friday for New Years Day.   Had I scheduled my year a little differently, I would've taken some time off during the holidays but sometimes year-end business doesn't always lend itself to that.  In fact when I turned on my laptop I was bombarded by folks who HAD taken a chunk of time off since the week before Christmas and were now anxious to get things rolling again.  I was just anxious to drink coffee and feel sorry for myself.   And, as for my bride, being an RN rarely lends itself to long breaks of any kind.  At least I'm able to work from home and didn't have to get back into the commute and traffic like she did.

     I poured another cup and turned on CNN.  They interviewed Donald Trump.  I listened to the interview because I'm grown, by God, and listening to folks running for office (especially THAT office) should be on my agenda.  A few minutes in I couldn't decide if I was disgusted or frightened that someone who apparently went to politician fantasy camp (but then made the team!) was THIS close to the Oval Office. 

     STILL not wanting any part of Monday I poured another cup and started flipping channels.  Came upon some cartoon where a tiny British girl was imagining all the things that lived in her imaginary woods.  She decided her woods were full of penguins.  The little girl playing alongside her said "Penguins don't live in the woods!"  The first little girl had a swift and convincing retort with "They do in MY woods."   I couldn't tell you the name of this cartoon but I watched more of it than I did the Trump interview.  A little girl wanted to frolic in woods where penguins lived.  Hell, who wouldn't??   I was jealous of her innocence and imagination.

     Back in my single days - when I lived alone in a crash pad with a 130 pound Labrador Retriever - I had an odd cure for insomnia (because, well, I'm odd.)  Stashed away in my nightstand was the first book I ever read and had  held onto through all the changes and travels.  Anytime I had trouble sleeping  I grabbed my copy of "Charlotte's Web," opened it and started reading on any page.  I knew the story well enough to immediately follow whatever was going on with that girl and her pig.  A visit to childhood usually relaxed me enough to put me to sleep until an alarm clock forced me to, once again, deal with adulthood. 

     I'm not sure if I still have that copy of "Charlotte's Web."   It's probably best - I should learn how to deal with the "daily unadulterated crap" without trying to resurrect childhood innocence.  Still I think there's a reason why we leave this world sometimes curled back into the position in which we entered it (and, during our journey, spend a lot of time looking for our own patch of woods full of penguins.)  

Bigfoot and a schoolboy heart...

At the house we lived in up until my ninth year on the planet, there was a crawl space by the basement stairs that seemed to go on forever.  When going down the stairs you could look over into the crawl space (the only part of that basement that was unfinished) although I seldom did.  I didn't want to see eyes looking back at me.  I didn't want to hear anything moving around.  Anytime I had reason to go down into the basement I simply kept eyes forward, turned on the tunnel vision and made a mad dash down the stairs.  

But then, one day, the kid that lived next door to us (who was my partner in crime in many situations our parents probably wanted us to avoid) got up our nerve and went halfway down the stairs and crawled up there with two flashlights.  We spent half a Saturday getting up our nerve and then summoned up all the bravado that can live in a child of single digit age and climbed from staircase over into crawl space and began our journey.  Needless to say, we found nothing but Georgia red clay and some vents in the cinder blocks through which one could see out into the side yard.  We crawled far enough to look through those vents at green grass and sunshine.  We then crawled back out of there quite disappointed,  having lost a good measure of excitement from our young lives.  Granted, it was excitement grounded in fear, but excitement none the less.  And on that Saturday afternoon, it was taken from us! 

Life is so much more fun if you think "something" is up there, out there or in there.  If we've discovered everything that creeps and crawls and swims and flies then I think we're living in boring times!  Plus my wife just gets way too much enjoyment watching me glued to television shows where folks from West Virginia to Australia are out in the woods and jungles looking for creatures that live (for some folks) only in legend and folklore.  But I like to think  they're just one step away from coming face to face with Bigfoot (or the Grafton Monster or the Hellhound or a Yowie.....)

They spend a lot of time on these shows howling off into the dark night.  Sometimes they get a response.   "SEE!?"  I yell at her!  "SOMETHING ANSWERED THEM!!!"    "It's some other goober off in the woods yelling back at people stupid enough to be out yelling at things that aren't there!" she responds, usually through chuckles.  She says it worries her that I lend any credence to their "research."  Truth be told, I can spot a fake or staged "reality show" as easily as the greatest skeptic.  I just don't want to. I guess being scared of stupid things is the last way someone my age can hold on to the heart of the child still living somewhere inside of an aging body.  Besides, one should watch these shows if for no other reason than to feel better about themselves.  Some of these "hunters" and "researchers" are more likely to find Bigfoot than they are a barber or a dentist.  I ain't a handsome man but DANG I can clean up and look a sight better than that!! 

The weather lady and the rain and Mama and black coffee....

       It was that great southern philosopher Lewis Grizzard who many years ago said that the weatherman talked too much.  "All we want to know is whether or not it's going to rain."  If he felt that way twenty-something years ago, he should hear meteorologists these days (they're now really smart and sometimes women.)  This morning, for instance, I just wanted to know if the rain was going to be of the Biblical proportions they'd been promising all week (turns out it was.)  But before I could hear the bottom line, I had to be educated about how soil temperature in Idaho had caused a frontal boundary to spawn a wedge that pushed high pressure back to Mexico and that - mixed with Gulf moisture - meant that we all could quite possibly drown by midnight. "But in case you don't, we're giving away antibiotic-free turkeys to 100 viewers tomorrow.  Remember, you must be watching to win!"  
     I was gathering this news from a meteorologist on a different channel than our usual (yes, one of the signs of old age is that you have a preferred news channel.)  I actually didn't know this woman was still on television.  Just the sight of her face, though, brought a smile to mine.  I was taken straight back to a breakfast with Mama many years ago, not long after we'd first started noticing signs of dementia.  Our roles as adult/child had just started their reversal and on this particular morning I had to promise to take her to breakfast if she'd let me take her to get a flu shot.
     The flu shot went by without incident but in the middle of that breakfast she suddenly hit me on the arm and got quite animated.  "LOOK! THAT'S THE WOMAN THAT TELLS THE WEATHER ON CHANNEL 2!!!!"  I was really hoping that the object of her shouting was sitting a great distance from us, rendering her unable to hear Mother's glee.   No such luck - she was at the table right next to us.  I could've reached out and hit HER on the arm.  I just said "I think you're right" and gave an apologetic smile that tried to say "sorry, but she's old and it doesn't take much to excite her."   The meteorologist  just gave me a wink and a smile that let me know it wasn't as much an intrusion on her day as I feared it would be.  A minute or two of silence passes and I'm hoping the episode was behind us...but the hollering started again.   "GOOD LORD SHE'S A TALL DRINK OF WATER!"  I thanked the Almighty that her height was the only thing of note that my mother could find to holler about.  The only thing I noticed about her was that she apparently has a coffee addiction that rivals  my own.  She pounded as many cups as I did and drank it black, the way the Good Lord intended for people to drink coffee.
      So, anyway, a promise of bad weather turned into a visit with Mama.  Laughing instead of hurting is a good way to miss her. 

    

Leave it to Clapton....

     You think you've never heard of Conor, but you have.  If you've heard Eric Clapton sing "Tears In Heaven" you're familiar with Conor.  He was Eric's son, who fell out of window in March of 1991.  But his demise (sad and horrific as it may be) isn't the part of his life that holds me captive.  It's his birth.  Because, when retelling the details of that birth on August 21, 1986,  Clapton wrote in his autobiography:

"I just had an incredible feeling that this was going to be the first real thing that had ever happened to me.  Up till that moment, it seemed like my life had been a series of episodes that had very little meaning."  

     So a resume that would ultimately land you in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame THREE TIMES (once solo, once with Cream and once with The Yardbirds) had little meaning for you?    Having your name scribbled on subway walls followed by "....is GOD"  meant little?  Changing the way people play guitar FOREVER meant little?  A career that ultimately won 18 Grammys meant little?

     If Eric Clapton, at ANY POINT, felt  that his life had little meaning....dear GOD imagine how the rest of us on planet earth feel.  Those of us with broken dreams, marriages, careers  and promises...imagine how WE feel.   I've read every word of Clapton's autobiography twice.  And no words included hold as much meaning as the notion that he ever (EVER) felt like his life had little meaning.

     I'm not alone in growing older by the day.  Hell, everybody I know has pains and issues that remind us that we're "Growing older but not up...."  (to quote another great songwriter whose roots are planted in soil much closer to my native soil than Clapton's)   But inside all of us lives the fear that - as we near our expiration date - we've done NOTHING to make people's lives better.

     I can live with never being monetarily rich.  I only want to keep people I love comfortable.  Anything past that is gravy.  I can live with the hits & misses of career choices - they only gave me opportunity to meet some very cool people, some of them (though gone) still touch my life.  But what I don't want to happen is to leave this opportunity thinking that I wasted time.  You see my Mother lost 3 babies on the way to having me.  That's a LOT of a pressure to live under....thinking 3 other souls didn't get to walk on this planet so that I could.  Perhaps they would've done better.  Perhaps they would've built buildings.  Maybe they would've become philosophers, professors or engineers (like our father!)   But they lost their shot so that this one person (ME!) could live to learn how to pluck a guitar, write a few songs, start a novel (or FIVE!) yell very loudly at Georgia Tech football games and make folks feel at home when they come to watch minor league baseball. 

     I wake up every morning and look at the sweetest face God ever put on earth. There is (and always will be) a good dog lying near where we sleep.  If that's as good as it gets, then I really need to believe that I've won.  But I'd like to tell Eric.................QUIT WHINING!  YOU'RE CLAPTON!!!!!!!! 

    

Mama's Boy

     Respect prevents me from calling him an old man.   Yes, he's lived 81 years on this planet.  He sometimes loses his sense of time and place.  He moves slowly, sleeps a lot and takes a long time to get out a vehicle.  That's especially sad because - aside from faith, family and country - vehicles have been his life.  But there's one time when he's no longer slow.  There's one time when he practically jumps out of a car and hits the ground running, knowing exactly where he's going.  It's when you take him up a road that the rest of the citizens of Bibb County, Alabama probably mostly ignore.  At the end of that road, when it turns to gravel, sits an old country church and a cemetery on a hill.   There's no fear of falling when the walking stick he calls "Slim" barely touches the ground, guiding him over sweet gum balls and uneven earth to get to the spot where his mother's buried.  A man can live to be a 100 but any walk that ends with him being in proximity to Mama is made expeditiously. 

     In our younger years, they hold us when we're hot with fever.  There's nothing that calms like realizing your mother is in your bedroom in the middle of the night, ignoring sleep because she could hear the way you're  sneezing, wheezing, coughing or shivering.  Then, no matter how many years pass,  all food is judged by the way Mama cooked it.  All flowers, in the springtime, are remembered as "the ones that Mama planted around her front porch" or "down there by the mailbox."   Days of the week are remembered as the ones when she walked up a certain street in a very small town to have her hair "set" so that it'd look good come Sunday morning.  Our Daddies are special and have another world of things they teach us.  But they don't become the one thing that turns us into mush when someone mentions their name after they're gone. 

     I watched him for a minute, and I thought he would cry.  But he just turned and looked at me and said "that was my Mama, Tim."   I said "yes, sir....I know."  There were headstones in that old cemetery proudly regaling their service to the "Confederate States of America."   He noticed them and said "yes, that's interesting."  But then he turned and headed back down the hill, again looking old and slow and in need of assistance dodging those sweet gum balls.   He rushed up the hill to feel  that spirit that gave him life on this earth.  He walked back down, again an old man, hoping that a bunch of gospel hymns are true and he'll walk with that sweet soul down streets of gold someday.  I think right now he'd settle for one of her biscuits and a bowl of 'fields and snaps"  that she cooked whenever he came home hungry, be it from high school football practice, college or the Army.  . 

And then God created dogs........

     The first dog I ever found dead was Prissy. I think it was on a Saturday morning.   As a seven-year-old here on planet earth  there were two dogs that occupied my time and emotions  - Ginger and Prissy.   No clue what breed they were.  They both always seemed in need of a haircut (these days you call them "grooms" or "doggy day care sessions")   And the one day I was allowed to sleep late (Saturday, of course,  because you had to get up at an early hour to make it in time for Sunday School with some Vitalis in your hair on the seventh day) I usually started my day running down to the dog pen to make my buddies run and jump and act stupid.  I can still remember the way that dog pen smelled, like dirt and leaves and, well, dogs.  I usually came back from my romps in the dog pen smelling the same way.  But on this Saturday Prissy was lying there motionless and not responding to anything I said. Ginger stood to one side and stared at me, probably having the same concerns as to why Prissy wasn't moving.   I ran faster than I'd  ever run back to the house to tell someone that Prissy wasn't moving.  I wasn't smelling like dirt or leaves or dogs...but I was covered in tears. Daddy walked down there, pronounced her dead and instructed one of my sisters to distract me somehow (probably involved a trip to the old Burger Chef in Gresham Park) while he tended to a dead dog.

The surviving dog Ginger lived another few months....or years.   I'm not sure (at that age, time doesn't get marked as precisely as it does later in life.)   But I do know her demise not long afterwards was another defining moment in my life, but on a deeper level.  It was the first and only time I ever saw my father cry.   He was crying because the vet said Ginger was suffering.  So Daddy brought her home and took out his .32 caliber pistol (which hides somewhere in my house right now) and put her out of her misery.  He did it while, again, telling one of my big sisters to distract me, this time probably involving South Dekalb  Mall and a pizza burger at the Orange Bowl. ( Damn, ain't no wonder I love food.  It served as a distraction to some very traumatic events very early in life!)   When we got home Daddy was sitting in his chair in the living room, chewing tobacco and crying.  I didn't ask questions.  I knew it meant Ginger was gone (one way or the other.)  I went and sat on my bed the rest of the afternoon (the spot from where out of my bedroom window I could see an empty dog pen) crying and thinking no dog could ever replace Ginger and Prissy. 

     But there's been dogs that have done the job admirably  You see, after Ginger and Prissy were gone I moved on into  life as a teenager while being tailed by a Beagle named Siren and her buddy, a Beagle/Terrier mix named Jake.  They came into my possession like most everything else in my life, courtesy of older sisters  I think Siren belonged to one sister and Jake belonged to a professor at Georgia State University who was teaching another sister.   They were good dogs and I learned early that noise is the one thing a Beagle does well.   You can hear them a mile off and I reckon that's what makes them such good hunters.  Siren was allergic to everything except oxygen and my parents spent many dollars keeping her from being miserable.  I can hear them both now, trying to outdo each other with that distinctive howl, usually responding to a firetruck or to each other at opposite ends of the yard.  When bred for the thrill of the hunt, one must make their own thrills when forced to live in suburban Atlanta.

     When I transitioned from being a confirmed bachelor to a married man, a 130 pound black Labrador Retriever made the same transition.  A newly built house lost some of its newly laid carpet one morning when my new bride accidentally left the bedroom door closed when she left for work.  Unfortunately the bedroom was Buzz' safe place in the new house and he did his best to dig under that closed door while we were at work.  Despite how close he came to making us single guys again, Buzz won my bride's heart and together we spoiled him rotten as he became an old man.  Together we held him when the vet at the emergency clinic ended his suffering, sometime in the middle of his 12th year. .  He was extremely intelligent, extremely loyal - mostly to my mother in her later years.  After being banged up in a bad fall, we moved her into the little crash pad apartment Buzz and I shared in our single days.  We moved her there because everything she'd need was on one floor.  I let her sleep in my bed and I slept on my couch.  The first day we moved her into the little world that Buzz and I shared he walked slowly backwards with a strange look on his face, knowing something was very wrong with her.  From then on, he didn't leave her side, even sleeping in the floor by the bed. I was awakened often during that time by scratching on my face because she'd told him to "Go get Tim....go buddy...wake up Tim!"   whenever  she needed the bathroom, a glass of water or anything else she couldn't get during the night.  So you see, by the time that vet, my wife and I ended Buzz' suffering in the middle of the night at some emergency animal clinic he'd become a hero to many and his work here was done.  The many pictures of him that populate our house will always bring a smile and a tear.

     Now we've another Labrador Retriever (a yellow one this time) entering old age herself.  But don't tell her.  She chases remote control trucks on the patio, she has a toy box full of things that will inevitably get pulled out just when the humans in the house have hit couch and recliner, exhausted from their workday ("oh, y'all were planning on crashing?   I've been napping all day and really need someone to throw this stuffed duck for me!!!")     We'd had her several months before we ever heard her bark.  We honestly thought something was wrong with her, rendering her unable to bark.  Alas, we now know that her lack of barking is only because she loves every single thing about being alive and being part of a family.  She had huge shoes to fill when Buzz died.   She did it with flying colors.  And now she's laid the groundwork for another huge hole that's going to need filling someday.  I'm excited to see the canine soul that may not even be amongst us yet, but the Good Lord knows we'll need when the time comes.  See, I always figure God made everything else -including us stupid humans -and then thought "Wait ....I can do much better than that!"   He then created dogs.

     I heard one time on the Andy Griffith show that "your first flame never quite burns out."  That probably holds true when dealing with silly human crushes.  But I really think it's different with dogs.  The flame for that first dog never burns out, true.  But it seems there's always the next one to carry that torch because that's their mission - to make our lives complete.  Each subsequent one accepts the relay from the previous with pride, carrying its own flame, unique but part of the same mission the creator of the universe gave them when he put them in our midst to take care of us.  I got a tear in my eye when a Beagle won the dog show the other night.  It's face looked just like that Beagle of my childhood, Siren..  I felt her somewhere, rolling in green grass, relaxed and happy (and no allergies!) because she knew there was a long line behind her watching my every step.  I hope they're all there on that side of whatever happens to us when our own bodies give up the fight.  If "eternity" means a "heaven" that is a life spent with dogs romping in an eternal springtime, their barks and howls asking "what took you so long?"  then I need to start acting like somebody and going to church. 

    

When Men Should Cry........

     I lied to my wife last night.  There, I said it, it's out there, you know, she knows and we all know.  I'd relocated from my recliner in order  to sit next to my best girl, perched there on the couch.  I think she's the only thing I've  done right in my 51 years on planet earth.  And lest you think I've gone soft, I went to sit next to her to watch the marathon of "Rocky" movies they were showing on one of our zillion channels that we pay a zillion dollars to enjoy.  They were at Rocky III which, for the record, is the last one to which I give any CREEDence (see what I did there?)    They were at the point in the movie where Rocky resigned himself to not wanting to be the champ any longer.  This was after Apollo had gone to the trouble of flying him out to Los Angeles to train him "old school."   Adrian was looking dead into Rocky's eyes and asking "Why'd you come here?"  I started getting misty...on many levels.  First, I remembered the umpteen times I'd seen this movie in the theater with a posse of friends that still - through the magic of "social media" - are a part of my life.  But also because I know that since February 22, 1997 I've faced situations much less serious than trying to be the heavyweight champion of the world where she's had no issue pulling me aside to say "Shut up and tell me what's happening in your mind right now."  On this night she said "Are you crying??"  I LIED and said "Uh, no....this cold has my eyes weeping..."  She knows I was lying.  She knows that I grew up respecting a Mama, three sisters (one adopted sister....I love you Judy) and a multitude of aunts   I'm talking about women that could strangle chickens, dress hogs, play killer basketball or put supper on the table for a hundred WHENEVER the occasion called for such. The result is that I have a deep, deep respect for women and can't enjoy any entertainment that degrades, objectifies or depicts violence against them.   Another result may just be that I've fought a life-long battle with being a man that cries.  Crying is, after all,  a pretty normal occurrence in a house full of females.  So maybe I grew up thinking it's acceptable?  Anyway...I'm out of the crying closet.

     My propensity for shedding  tears is well known to those around me.  My wife tells me it's because I have a big heart.  I think it's because I'm unstable.  We're not talking about crying at funerals or other occaions that warrant crying.  Yesterday I cried watching a car auction because proceeds from one vehicle went to help veterans injured in the line of duty.  I cry when they play the National Anthem at ballgames.  I cry when a bunch of kids sing "Away In A Manger" at Christmas.  I cry when I think about how much I love my nieces and nephews and the fact that they may be the closest thing I'll ever come to having kids of my own.  I cry when student athletes wearing White & Gold beat other student athletes wearing red & black, like they did back over Thanksgiving weekend.  I cry when an old dog puts her head in my lap to make sure I'm ok or to ask me if we can go out in the cold to see if that noise in the backyard was a rabbit....or the wind chimes.  Hell, I get misty when I eat a bowl of collards and cornbread because I think about my dearly departed Mama who taught me to love such delicacies. Speaking of dearly departed Mama, don't let my cd player come upon "The Best of Glen Miller" because I'll need a minute.   And I cry at "Rocky" movies.  Just dammit.................

     There is ONE thing that makes me feel a bit less unstable about this embarrassing state of affairs.  If you look through my middle sister's wedding album, there's one shot of my cousin Alan (who, along with his father, taught me most of what I know about being a man) sitting there crying...at a wedding.  If you knew him, you'd know why that's surprising.  He was a big man that was strong as an ox.  I spent most of my adolescence trying to lift anything he'd just thrown in the back of a truck.  He's the guy that could throw me in a lake to teach me how to swim, yet pull me aside and put his arm around me if he knew I was upset.  He could smack me in the back of the head and show me a REAL body slam (not like the fake ones we watched on "Georgia Championship Wrestling)  But he could also cry while we watched a re-run of "The Rookies" together one Saturday afternoon (Google is your friend.  "The Rookies" is where the world first saw Kate Jackson, long before she was an "Angel")   I'm no small man myself and people sometimes rely on me to lift heavy things.  So whenever I feel the floodgates opening I remember Alan, and realize that's whatever started my waterworks would also start his.  (And he'd be pissed - but not surprised -  that I spent a month crying when cancer took him away from us way too soon.) 

     So does the shedding of tears still separate the sexes?  I'm asking because, surely, I no longer know.  Earlier today, on my random search for music, I came across Skynyrd playing Curtis Lowe.  I shed a tear.  Does that make me a redneck or a girl............or both?

You know what????????

     I grew up United Methodist.  I went to college for a while at a Methodist school. There I was educated by some radical Methodist scholars who loved golf and homemade ice cream.  Hell, my propensity to drink fermented beverages every once in a while may have already clued you into the fact that I'm a dyed-in-the-wool Methodist (as will the fact that I just used the word 'hell" in a sentence.)   But guess what - I didn't wake up this morning wanting to go kill some Roman Catholics (them with their Apostolic succession and 'Power of the Pope" and all 'dat)   I've never wanted to kill some Jews.  Seriously, they're WAITING on the Messiah??   There's "POWER IN THE BLOOD!" by God!!!!.  (And if you'd just split a bag of pork rinds and a cold PBR with me you'd not worry so much about that Kosher issue.)   I don't want to  kill 7th Day Adventists - who goes to church on Saturdays??!!   (The Good Lord set aside that day for college football!)  I've never thought about killing Hindus - WHO doesn't like a chunk of red meat cooked on a fire? 
     I can certainly live with you if you can find a way to live with me.   If you're using religion, societal differences and prejudices as justification for murder, me thinks you left the womb with murderous tendencies.  I quote her often, but my dearly departed Mother would tell you that the devil's getting your room ready.  (But she was a DIEHARD United Methodist....perhaps you should've gotten to her in a smart bomb or a random shooting before she was able to show  herself as an "infidel.")