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.")

A Christmas Verdict....

     Well, it's that time of year again.  And I'm not talking the birthday I celebrate today.  I'm talking about that OTHER birthday that is celebrated this time of the year.  The one where we decorate trees, spend money we don't have and listen to music exclusive to this month....although it seems we're sometimes starting to hear it around November 15th.  It's the time of the year when those that know me look to see which state of mind I'll be in as December 25th gets closer.  I'm usually in between a Currier & Ives snow-covered portrait and a stupid little ditty about a kid wanting a rhinoceros for Christmas.  And that's an improvement - I used to be somewhere between the rhinoceros kid and "Humbug!"
     This Christmas, I have different perspective on many levels.  Back in October I had a scare that provided an ambulance ride, a week in the hospital and the realization that when we reach a certain age the parts in our body do begin to wear out.  By the miracles of modern medicine (both in the hospital and in the handful of pills I take daily) I should be around for a few more Yuletide celebrations.  To quote that Great American Jesse that I worked with many years ago, "Damn,,,,if I'd known I was gonna' live this long I would've taken better care of myself!"  (Jesse, as a POW in WWII had no reason to regret any day or way he spent living his life.  Those of his ilk are the reason those of us native to these lands speak English today.) 
     More perspective was added by the recent loss of one of the kindest, wisest souls I've ever encountered.  He sweated as many buckets over Georgia Tech football as I do and he raised a beautiful family (with his BEDROCK of a wife.)   He taught me a lot about what it means to be a gentleman....all while sitting one row in front of me for many years at Bobby Dodd Stadium.  He was watching the men in gold hats play ball when the season started...but cancer won the physical battle and he wasn't there for the end of the season.  I wish I'd known that when Deion Hill ran across the goal line with 30-something seconds left in that Georgia Southern game it was the last opportunity I'd have to get a high-five from him.  He was already too weak to stand but I felt that hand slapping my ankle and, when I turned, saw that hand in the air and the day was made.  As I say, cancer may have won the physical battle, but I firmly believe that he won battles that go beyond our physical, very temporal existence.  The day he died, Tech went out and THUMPED those Tigers from Clemson. Sometime in the third quarter I stood up and gave the loudest "WHAT'S THE GOOD WORD!" cheer ever heard in section 206 in his memory.  Then last Saturday when a 53 yard kick BARELY made it over the crossbar at Sanford Stadium - sending a game to overtime that seemed lost - I knew who was there playing like Tree Rollins and giving that ball a tip up and into the history books.   But now, he's not here to celebrate holidays with his family but I hope they know he's there, just as he was to help the boys beat Clemson and Georgia (and I hope he's ready to tip a few more balls into glory when we play FSU Saturday night.)
      Back to my ambulance ride.  I knew that I was in danger when the EMT's refused to go to the recommended hospital and headed to something closer.  I didn't really fear DYING itself - I DID worry that I'd leave this planet and not have one more minute with the prettiest, sweetest girl I know.  I feared not having the opportunity to tell her goodbye and thank her for the miracle that it was when someone like her decided to accept an offer from someone like me to live life with this goober.  If you're someone that has known me over the years, you'll know that I wasn't exactly marriage material for a LONG time.   There were many bartenders, music and sports venues, liquor stores and the sellers of chicken wings and pizzas that lamented my domestication.  Our world is now much bigger than any of the "daily unadulterated crap"  that would try to keep us down.  This Christmas, more than ever,  I'll cherish celebrating with her (even if it involves nothing more than our bathrobes, sleeping late and old movies.)     Someday, I promise her a time when she can sit on her back porch and stare at nothing but her pool, a ton of acreage stretched out behind it, and 14 or 15 dogs chasing the same tennis ball.  For now, though, I cherish our little suburban patio that stares at a privacy fence with a sweet yellow Lab lying there, sniffing the air in between naps in the sun.  If that is all we ever have I'll consider it riches beyond measure. (And you're a Jimmy Buffett fan from a LONG way back if you didn't have to confer with Google to see why I put "Daily unadulterated crap" in quotes.)
     Final verdict - I may be more "Feliz Navidad" than "Humbug!" this year.  Alert the media...

"CATCH THE BALL STEPHEN HILL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! GOOD GRACIOUS!"

   

"I don't know if we each have a destiny, or if we're all just floatin' around accidental-like on a breeze. But I, I think maybe it's both."  (forrest gump)

    I knew nothing of this man and his family that started sitting in front of us at Georgia Tech football games some 15 years ago or so.  But over the next  15 years we were afforded the opportunity to get to know a fine soul, one that tolerated me becoming sometimes loud, sometimes stupid, sometimes, uh, "over-served."  There in section 206 he and I  became buds, we became philosophers, we became coaches  (convinced that we knew full well what needed to happen on this play, this fourth down or in this time-out than more-so than anyone Tech had on their payroll.)  A good day was one where I went home with my hand stinging because he and I had exchanged so many high-fives.  


     However accidental it was that he and his beautiful family ended up part of our lives, the years that followed acquainted me with his destiny - To make everyone around him happier, better, stronger and feeling important and good about themselves..  It didn't matter if it was family, stranger, someone getting their chemo treatment at the same time he was getting his or just some goober sitting behind him at a ballgame.  Perhaps it was his destiny to be that feather that floats on the breeze in and out of lives that needed him..  For a large chunk of the time that I had the pleasure to watch those ballgames with him, I was in terrible health due to large amounts of excess weight.  There was a time when my family had to consider whether or not it was safe for me to go through the rigors required of climbing to the upper tier of that venerable old stadium.  I was, quite often, mocked in public, pointed at, laughed at and became a sideshow for many sad folks. It often made me rather reclusive, the game was - after all- going to be on t.v. (and a Georgia Tech football game was sometimes the only time I'd even consider putting  myself in a crowd.)  But knowing HE would be there I insisted on getting there.  And  there he was, just glad I'd made it, not seeing the fat guy, not seeing  the one getting help going up and down stairs, I was just ME and he always seemed glad to see ME. Many times he offered to get me a bottle of water or something from the concession stand knowing that navigating stairs more than I had to wasn't possible.  He'd asked how I was feeling but without dwelling on it.  Instead, he knew I was there to talk football and I imagine he knew that the time I spent talking it with him took my mind off much sadder issues that usually occupied my mind.  He never mentioned my weight to me until I lost  a CONSIDERABLE amount of it and could then bound up and and down those stairs like a teenager and get my own bottle of water.  THEN he took a minute to shake my hand and say "You look great."   He could've slipped me a wad of cash and it wouldn't have felt any better.

     We got word that his fight was over very early Saturday morning, just as I'd started loading tailgating necessities into my truck, getting ready to watch the boys play their final home game of 2014.  We contemplated not even going to the game wondering if that would show a a certain measure of disrespect to the passing of our friend,.  But in those pre-dawn hours we decided there was no greater measure of respect that we could show him than by being there and being very loud.  At our tailgating festivities we drank a toast to him (though I'm not sure he approved of such libations) And then, in the third quarter,  I stood up on my row and gave the loudest "WHAT'S THE GOOD WORD???????????!!!!!!!!!!" cheer that I've ever mustered for the inhabitants of section 206.  Those around us joined with great gusto, emboldened by the beating those wearing white and gold were throwing down on Clemson.  I'd like to think he heard us and laughed.  Many times over the years he and I dared each other to give that cheer our best shot.  My bride told me that on this Saturday she'd never heard my voice get that loud.  I told her I must've had some help.  Speaking of getting some help, those poor boys from Clemson didn't stand a chance.  I like to think Bill was somewhere, giving a push the likes of which he could've never given from section 206   At least one son of Tech did, indeed,  "arise, behold!" 

The spirit of the cheering throng
Resounds with joy revealing
A brotherhood in praise and song,
In memory of the days gone by.
Oh, Scion of the Southland!
In our hearts you shall forever fly.

   

Returning to the scene of the crime...

     The crime in question started 14 or 15 miles down the road with a simple doctor's appointment in Buford, Georgia.  I'd been fighting bronchitis and,  as everyone that has known me my 50 years on earth, a simple respiratory infection that is a nuisance to most quickly becomes something that kicks my posterior, all because of respiratory issues I inherited from our dear Mother (all the sweet things I COULD'VE gotten from her but I got bad lungs...anyway.)  On  October 21, 2014  I went to see why this infection was hanging on so long and  had beaten two rounds of antibiotics and why I couldn't take a shower or pour a cup of coffee without having to sit down and rest afterwards. 
     The doctor came into the room and after the obligatory "Who's Tech playing this week?" (my doctors know me well)   He put a stethoscope to my lungs and heart and said "Dang....that ain't right" and looked outside the exam room door and hollered at his nurse  - "BRING ME THE EKG AND CALL GWINNETT COUNTY!!!"   I figured they'd had a toilet backing up or low water pressure and wanted the county to come out and see if they could fix it!!   No, he was summoning some brave young men from the fire station right up the street to come and take me somewhere for help.   I asked him what was wrong.  He said "I need you to relax.  But you ARE in A-FIB at the moment."   I asked for an explanation.  He said "It means you're not going home....we're going to the hospital."   Again, I asked him for an education on A-FIB.  He said "either you've had a cardiac episode or you're about to have one....either way, we need to get you to a hospital.....but relax."    Hmmmm...ok...there's a pack of wild dogs chasing you and you might survive....or you might end up supper.....but relax.
      When these brave young men arrived (I'm  fairly certain that I have socks older than all of them) I was - in spite of my fear - impressed at the way they went about their work. The one in charge told the doctor (after seeing my EKG) "We're not going to Gainesville (where my doctor wanted them to go)   We're not taking that chance.  We need to get him someplace closer."    Not exactly words of comfort.  They decided to take me to Northside/Forsyth in Cumming, apparently figuring I'd live that long!  As we made our way out to the ambulance  I told one of them that he probably  would've eaten a bigger bowl of Wheaties if he'd known he was going to have to drag ME into the back of a truck.  His response - "I ain't lost one yet, Mr. Freeman.  Me and you both are about to go for a ride."   I wanted to give him a big man hug.  He was right....we both got in the back of that truck. And we both made it to Northside Hospital..
     I say all of that to say this.  During that ride, despite hearing transmissions from ambulance to hospital telling them how far out we were and what EKG was showing and to make sure they had this, that and the other thing ready to stick, strap and glue to me,  it wasn't my demise I was most afraid of facing.   I knew it was a possibility but it became a separate issue.  What was at issue was the fear that I might cross into whatever happens to us  when we leave this very temporal existence without seeing the sweetest, most perfect face I know ever again.   She's the soul that braved taking me as her own.  She's the soul that had a thousand other chances in life but decided I was the one she wanted to live with "til death do us part." I just didn't want that to be right there, right then.
     Long story short (too late, right)  she made it to the hospital and the grasp of her hand felt better than anything they'd given to relax me.  The minute she was there she became two people. The RN I married and my wife.  She was asking doctors questions and keeping a close eye on monitors.  With her there, I felt like  I was gonna' beat this thing like a rented mule. Still, it was touch and go for a while (as my heart wouldn't find normal rhythm until they forced it to with a dose of electricity late into my second day there.)    But that very first night, after they moved me to a room on the cardiac floor,  she fell asleep with her head on the railing of my bed, not letting go of my hand, refusing to be comfortable anywhere else.  Again, it made me realize I was walking out of this damn hospital and nothing would stop me. And a bunch of tests and procedures later (some of which hurt like hell - I've never had a needle puncture the lining of my lungs) I did, in fact, get in her car and come home and sit in my recliner and pet my Labrador Retriever.
     Fast forward to yesterday, when I went to a professional building next to the hospital for a follow-up appointment with one of the specialists that saved my life.  I saw an ambulance flying around to the emergency entrance.  I felt compelled to follow.  The ambulance parked.  And so did a woman nearby who got out of her blue car and broke several olympic records running to the ER entrance to meet the soul being rolled down the same hall I'd recently traversed.  I watched her and I cried because I imagined my own angel running across that same parking lot and felt guilty that I'd put her through that.
       Her favorite show comes on tonight.  I'm gonna' cook her a steak and rub the feet that she works on all day while she watches that show.  And I'm going to say a prayer for some folks we know that have taught me what life and love and eternal things are all about.  They've done this all while watching  their husband and father (one of the finest spirits I've encountered)  fight something far worse than what I faced.  To my boy I say this...let those 3 lovely ladies take care of you and think  "THERE ya' go...."  (which I've heard you say with every Georgia Tech first down.)
"So, if I had a barrel of rum and sugar 3,000 pounds....a college bell to put it in and a clapper to stir it 'round.  I'd drink to...."   THAT good fellow.......
(And also to my cousin Patrick who - standing in my hospital room - told me he missed my writing.  You lit this fire....) 

Dear Ray Rice,

      Granted, I've got a soft spot for football players.  It's the only sport in which I've participated (in an "organized" fashion - I also played a bunch of touch football and tackling games in the neighborhood.  Tackling is fun)  It's the only meeting point my father (who died when I was pretty young) and I ever had together.  When we could talk about nothing else, we could talk about why tackling has left the game (Dear GOD, if he could see the way people tackle now!)   But here's the other side of the equation - growing up in a house full of sisters taught me that it's never (repeat NEVER) appropriate to put your hands on a member of the fairer sex.

     They can be hard to understand.  They can be hard to relate to on ANY terms.   But guess what? They're human spirits who are not as  physically strong as we were built to be.  Note that I said "physically."  Doesn't mean that they're not strong.  My dearly departed mother used to say "there's a good reason the Good Lord decided to let women have the babies - men would've surrendered."  She also used to tell me that "any man who would hit a woman is a coward.  It's easy to be brave when you know you're stronger."  How many movies and stories (and reality)  have we seen play out where chaos reigns until a woman tells everyone in the room to shut up and settle down?   From Mama Corleone ("Santino!!!  Don't interfere....") to Scarlett O'Hara ("God is my witness...")   They can kick ass and take names on their own terms.   Even now the woman I love the most can make me behave with a telling glance from across the room (or, usually, from her seat at a football game....yeah, I'm a lucky Neanderthal.) 

     So here's the rub Ray Rice.  I wish you well in whatever you choose to do going forward.  But stay away from anything that makes you a symbol for stronger and faster professional athletes, many of whom I've been fortunate enough to meet face to face. My impressions of them have always been that they're guys just like the rest of us.  All we see is them running over people, causing concussions, throwing  99 mph fastballs at batters' heads, stopping short-handed goals with high sticks or putting dunks back in faces, But I'm quit sure that MANY of them have one of those "weaker folks" somewhere saying "We need to talk..."