nobody asked…

It wafts across my consciousness like an ancient dream, but it was very real and just a few decades removed. It now seems a world away, but it’s only a couple of hours drive. Going there now is to travel back in time, to the formative years of my youth and my coming of age. So much of it remains untouched by the passing of years. Yet it is in enough ways different that it is no longer home.

We did not appreciate it then, but growing up in the ’50s in Huntingdon was about as close to ideal as anyone could hope for. It was small town USA with a tree-lined Main Street, where everybody knew everybody, where house and car doors were left unlocked with never a problem reported. People had values. The school, along with several Christian based churches, provided the social hubs for most of the population. People worked hard but enjoyed life and took a day off on Sunday. Most merchants also closed shop on Wednesday afternoons, a practice that now seems odd. I never knew or thought about why — that was just part of the natural order of things.

The population then was around 3,500 but we liked to call it 5,000 because that sounded so much larger. The Court House, situated on a knoll where Highway 70 intersects Highway 22, remains as it was then, a permanent sentinel keeping watch over the town, and an effective speed-bump in the center of town. Thru traffic and townsfolk alike had to literally drive around the Court House to get through town. U.S. Highway 70 was the main East-West route across the state, so there was a lot of Memphis to Nashville traffic, including 18-wheelers, that cursed and smoked and spit their way around Court Square. The Interstate Highway System was just getting underway, would be years in the making, and would miss Huntingdon by about 20 miles. The bypass, similar to the ones that would encircle every small town eventually, had not yet been thought of.

On a recent visit with my remaining family there, I discovered that a traffic light had been installed where the bypass intersects Highway 70 on the west side of town. This is not a flashing yellow caution light, or a flashing red stop then proceed with caution light, but a full-fledged light with green, yellow, and red lights that work on a timing mechanism. Prior to this, Huntingdon proudly claimed to be the largest town in the country without a stop light.

In the 1950s, all commerce in town was huddled around Court Square or within a couple of short blocks on the spokes coming into the Square. The only bank in town, a couple of general stores, or department stores as they preferred to be called, one jewelry store, a florist, two insurance agencies, a grocery store, the obligatory cab stand — pool hall combination, and three car dealers, one to represent each of the great American automobile manufacturers. And, of course, the churches — one each of Baptist, Church of Christ, Methodist, and Presbyterian, all within shouting distance of the Court Square.

In the ’70s and ’80s, as the town grew, new strip shopping centers opened on the east side of town, right along East Main, or Highway 70. When the mecca of Walmart was established, smaller merchants sprang up around it, as if to suckle the rich flow that would follow. Downtown began to wither. Stores changed hands. The jewelry store became a card shop, the Post Office became offices when the new one was built out on the edge of town. Even the doctors’ offices moved out to stand sentry around the new hospital. Some of the churches moved to the ourskirts of town and erected new buildings. Like so many other little towns across the country, especially the ones missed by the interstate highways, downtown Huntingdon was changing. It was beginning to die.

There were enough stubborn merchants that held on, determined to not let the town wither into obilivion, as had happened with others around it. Stores came and went, sometimes coming back again. The couple of cafes in town changed ownership, changed names, moved to a different building, changed menus, and somehow managed to survive. Some of the small mom and pop shops were able to retain enough of their loyal clientele to withstand the merciless marketing onslaught of Walmart. Bob’s Dairy Bar out on the edge of town had disappeared after Bob died at a too early age, and was eventually replaced by the usual assortment of McDonalds, Hardees, and Wendys. The local bank was swallowed up in the bank merger mania that started in the ’80s, but the main local office continued to anchor the same downtown corner on Court Square.

The aluminum foil plant that had arrived in the late ’60s continued to grow and provide stable employment and a strong economic base for the town. As the population grew and the bypass was completed, Walmart moved from their original location to a huge new Walmart SuperCenter across town. After the bumpy turn of the century, an old department store that anchored the Court Square across the street from the bank was taken over and rebuilt as The Dixie, a first class performing arts center for the region. The name derives from Huntingdon’s claim to fame, Dixie Carter, who grew up in Huntingdon as I did. As a senior, Dixie played first chair trumpet in the school band, while I sat as a shy freshman in the clarinet section, sucking on my reed, slobbering on the stage floor, and peeking over my sheet music at Dixie. She went on to entertainment fame as Julia Sugarbaker of Designing Women. I went on to post stuff that nobody cares about in this blog.

Daddy died in early ‘95 and Mom is in a nursing home only a few blocks from where her house, now someone else’s, sits. Most of their contemporaries are either gone or in nursing homes. My brother and family are still there — never left. He retired from the aluminum plant a year ago and his wife just hung up the teaching tools after a long career. Some of my old school mates are still around, all looking much older/fatter/balder/grayer than I do, of course. We’re having a class reunion this fall and it will be interesting to hook up with some that I have not seen or thought about in 30 or 40 years. Going back now is a bitter-sweet experience. Of course I visit with Mom at the nursing home, go by Daddy’s grave and say howdy, visit with my baby bro, and occasionally see someone who I recognize or who remembers me. Driving around town always impresses me with how little the town has changed, while reminding me how very much it has changed. I leave and head out Highway 22 toward the interstate, realizing once again that I can’t go back.

Others, if they think about me at all, probably think, there is a successful, happy guy, who has the world by the tail. Some snippets of that view are close to the truth … on some days. But underlying the facade of perceivable success, I am immersed in abject failure and misery. On several levels, my life is in a bankruptcy of achievement. Let me explain…

My office wall is decorated with diplomas from my years of pain and suffering. The University of Tennessee granted me a degree, Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering (BSEE), perhaps in order to get rid of me, but once you’ve got it, the reasons and grades don’t matter much. A few years later, I received a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Pittsburgh. That one required four years of evening school and many laborious hours of team meetings at one of the pubs just off campus.

Now, you may be thinking, Why does a guy with a BSEE and MBA consider himself a failure? Consider this: as a wee lad, and probably up through 8th or 9th grade, my life dream included going to college and majoring in Spelling. You see, spelling was always my strongest subject in school where I never made less than an A. Imagine what a crushing blow it would be to learn that there is no such thing as a university degree in your favorite and strongest area of endeavor. That impoverishing news was accompanied by an explanation that there is no such thing as a professional speller — you know, an adult who gets paid to spell. Geeesh… I wasn’t so sure this growing up thing was all it was cracked up to be.

At the age of 7 or 8, I did not connect the dots relating education to occupation. My educational goal of Spelling was not complimentary to what I really wanted to do when I grew up. So what? That disconnect was years away from realization and impact. Turning my face upward at their awesome sight and sound, there was no doubt I was going to be a jet test pilot. I knew enough not to go into combat and get my ass shot off. But, test pilot… Getting to fly all the latest planes, zooming around at the speed of sound at low altitude scaring the shit out of little old ladies… yeah, I had a calling, for sure. This was so good because it allowed me to safely put aside those childish ambitions of cowboy, fireman, policeman. All the other boys were going to be one of those. I was going to be a jet test pilot…

By around age 12 or 13, I had learned that to be a jet test pilot, you had to first go into combat and get your ass shot off. Scratch that nonsense. Reality-based life decisions were still slightly beyond my grasp, but for a brief moment, I had a new career goal — Goat Counter.

We frequently visited one of our country relatives. After the huge country suppers, while the women cleared the table and cleaned the kitchen, the men went out back to smoke and tell lies. That’s what I called it, though they were all good men and wouldn’t think of telling a lie. They were just spinnin’ tall tales and shootin’ the bull. After a little while Uncle Fred, with pipe dangling from his mouth, would break from the group, and head off toward the barnyard. Sometimes one or two of the other men would go with him, sometimes he went alone. One time when he was going alone, I asked him where he was going. “Over at the barn,” came the reply. “Whacha gon’ do there?” I asked. “Count the goats,” Uncle Fred mumbled through the clenched teeth gripping his pipe stem. “Kin I go count goats, too?” I pleaded. By then, a couple of other country cousins had joined me, listening expectantly to the exchange. Uncle Fred paused, took his pipe out and examined it closely for manufacturers defects for what seemed a long time, then looked up at us and said we could go for a few minutes, but we better watch our step walking across the barnyard, and come on back when he told us to.

Dodging cow-piles across the barnyard, we didn’t utter a word as we followed Uncle Fred over to the goat pen. Once there, we leaned on the fence the way he did, and intently studied the herd. Uncle Fred pointed out one ram to be avoided because it was “mean as a snake.” A nanny was great with child and about ready to pop. Several baby goats were running around. There are few things cuter than a young kid that is still sweet and innocent. It is amazing how human a goat’s eyes are, right down to the eyelashes. After standing there a few minutes, Uncle Fred asked how many we counted, and of course we hadn’t. So, each of us started counting and, though not in unison, quite close together, sang out, “21,” “19,” “22″. Uncle Fred looked at us, looked back at the goats, played with his pipe, and said, “That’s priddy close. Y’all make good goat counters some day. Now, y’all young’uns get on back to the house. I got things to finish up out here at the barn.”

I always suspected that Uncle Fred had a bottle of hooch stashed out at the barn. And when he headed out to count goats after supper, he was also going to visit that bottle for a quick swig. Yessir, goat counting looks to me to be an honest and honorable occupation. Something to aspire to…

Regular or longtime readers know that I failed to achieve my dreams to be a professional speller, a jet test pilot, and a goat counter. I have had a good life, but the shards of shattered dreams occasionally prickle and ache like a long-healed broken bone in bad weather.

From time to time I have this debate with myself, and I usually lose. Is it preferable to lose your mind or your body? Mom has an amazingly clear mind for an 87 year-old who has been in a nursing home for about three years. I’m thankful we have them as alternatives, but those places dull the mind, kill the appetite, and smell like a concoction of piss and Lysol.

Her days are all the same, spent in her power-lift recliner watching TV. Her knees and hips are shot, making her a prisoner of the space she occupies. Not even the large print books we have taken to her are comfortably readable with her failing eyesight. And her poor gnarled hands, ravaged by arthritis, can no longer perform the miracles of earlier years. The photo here is not of Mom’s hands (she is far too proud to allow a revealing photo of her once busy hands), but could be as these are so similar to hers.

My earliest memories include those hands, always busy. If she was not cooking or cleaning or sewing (She made everything we wore in those days, even Daddy’s dress suits and ties.), she was working at one or more crafts. Her projects at any given time followed, more or less, the trend of national popularity. At various times she immersed herself in counted cross-stitch, candle making, crochet, decoupage (Daddy used to warn us to keep moving or she would decoupage us.), needlepoint, foiling, making knick-knacks and designs by gluing rocks and beads and shells together, basket weaving, and latch-hooking rugs.

I don’t know if people still latch-hook. Many have probably never heard of it. It is a tedious process starting with a design on a backing, which can be canvas, burlap, or a jute mesh. Today there are even molded plastic grid panels. What I remember of Mama’s work involved a design marked out on burlap. A latch-hook tool was use to hook and pull the right color of yarn (all wool back then) through the backing and latch or knot it into place. A small area rug such as the one shown here involved many hours of work, hooking and pulling and latching hundreds or thousands of pieces of yarn. Slowly the raw outline was filled in with the chosen colors in a paint-by-numbers fashion until the design evolved into full bloom. Mama loved roses, so much of her work involved those lovely flowers and/or rose colors.

Mama can no longer do those wonderfully creative activities that added her personal touch of love and warmth to our home. She can no longer latch-hook. But in her day, Mama was a helluva hooker…

Did I dream it? Maybe read it somewhere? Perhaps on April Fool’s Day? For a couple of days I’ve had this idea in my head that the much maligned leisure suits of the 70s are making a comeback. Most folks who remember them will groan. But as tacky as they were, they were comfortable (I’ve been called a creature of comfort), practical (above all else I am a practical man), and relatively inexpensive (those who know me well would readily agree that I am cheap a man who recognizes and appreciates value). So, I for one would not loudly object if the sleazy leisure suits reappeared on the American scene.

These artful uses of leftover upholstery and drapery material were popular back when I was. In the day, I owned three — a baby blue, a lime green, and the requisite beige. All were some kind of stretchy knit material that was a blend of polyester and highly combustible flame thrower fuel. Smokers had to take special precautions lest they spontaneously ignite on the disco dance floor. None of the jackets were lined, and as I recall, the workmanship was not up to Brooks Brothers level. The typical leisure suit had top stiching and they were worn with those gaudy shirts with the collars that looked ready to take flight. Nevertheless, we all had them and wore them. That is, until someone decided they were no longer hip or cool or jivin’ or whatever. Never has an entire genre of clothing disappeared so quickly. First, they went into garage and yard sales. Next stop was Goodwill or other second hand store. Finally, most found their true calling as chopped up pieces were used for wiping down diesel engines in one of those bigass truck wash-o-matic palaces.

Still, if they really do appear once again on the haberdasher’s radar, I’ll probably get in line. But please, no lime green, and no bell-bottoms. I see stove-pipe legs, no cuffs, and Nehru (no lapel) jackets with lots of pockets (think photographer’s vest). Those of you who are groaning, just you wait. You’ll be lime green with envy when you see how hot, hot, hot I am…

Saturday night was Geezer Night. We get together several times each year for dinner out or at one of our homes with everybody bringing a dish. Good food and drinks are not the focal point of these get togethers, rather they are celebrations of each other, of lives started together, gone off in diverse directions, and now merged anew as we found each other again.

Sometimes there are four of us, usually six, occasionally eight. By some definitions, we are all seniors, ranging in age from mid-fifties to mid-sixties. We prefer the label of Geezers, said, of course, with tongue firmly planted in cheek, as we are all quite healthy, vital, and viral. Or maybe that’s virile? Healthy means we are all ambulatory, can sit up and take sustenance on our own. Vital refers to the fact that we can all articulate our well thought out and stubbornly unchangeable opinions on important aspects of life, politics, government, religion, and the side effects of various blood pressure medications. We still matter in a world gone nuts. And virile — I forgot what that means; let me check with some of the others and get back to you if any of them have any ideas.

Jim and Cousin Gloria (a couple) and I were in the same high school class. Cousin Linda and Cousin Glenn were a bit younger. Linda’s husband, John, is a native of Nashville. Glenn’s wife, Alacia, is from back home. And Roomie calls Cleveland, MS, home. Our home town in West Tennessee was and is quite small, the kind of place where everybody knows your name … and your business and every time you sneeze. Growing up together in one huge extended family with more cousins than we could count, Gloria, Linda, Glenn and I were naturally very close. We were back and forth to each other’s homes constantly.

On graduation from high school, we all went away to college, after which we all pursued and achieved some level of success in our chosen fields. The group includes present or former dentist, high school football coach with multiple state championships, big national retail store manager turned banker, Fortune 50 corporate executive, a couple or three educators, a published author, and an entrepreneur. After many years and many miles with little or no contact, we all ended up in the Nashville area. As we sought each other out, we began to understand that we were re-creating something very special that had been lost for so long. The spouses have also become as integral to the whole as are the cousins.

Life’s bumps and bruises and twists and turns have tempered each of us differently. Though we emerged from a common background, there is a rich diversity that now distinguishes each of us from the others. I proudly anchor the left end of that spectrum. Some of the others eye me suspiciously, while at the same time giving me a warm and sincere smile. If we would allow it, out differences could get in the way, but we are too tightly bound by our similarities and our common ancestry to let that happen.

Whether we all live for only one more celebration, or another 25 years of enjoying each others’ company, I believe they are as happy as I am that we roamed the earth until we found each other again. We embrace. We clasp hands. We kiss. We say I Love You.

Yes, cousins … Geezers … I love all of you! Thanks for enriching my life … again!

One of the worst snowstorms ever to hit the South was in early 1951. I was a wee lad living with my family in Meridian, MS, where it never snowed. Nobody had winter gear. Sleds were unheard of. No one had ever seen a pair of skis except in the movies (TV was not yet available to the local populace). But in 1951 it snowed. And snowed. And snowed. The memories of wee lads tend to grow along with wee lads, so I don’t really know how much snow accumulation there was, but it had to be several feet deep… Well, OK, probably a couple of inches. But to wee lads who had never seen snow, that was a blizzard, the storm of the century.

A family had recently moved in next door. They came from Maryland, wherever that was, and their son Dickie had a sled! He was a few years older and quite possessive of his sled, not wanting it wrecked or damaged by an incompetent wee lad who had never seen one. Mama felt sorry for my younger brother and me, not being able to sled down the steep driveway. We might never see another snow and she didn’t want us to miss the experience. So out she comes with a very large, old enameled steel dishpan for me and a big cookie sheet for little brother, David.

That day I did some serious sledding panning down that driveway, off the end of it and on down the hill in the back yard. As for little bro’ who was only about four years old, he mostly just sat on the cookie sheet at the bottom of the driveway, watched me zoom down and trudge back up, and yelled and waved his arms a lot. The zooming and trudging lasted until afternoon when the snow began melting, the dishpan started kicking up sparks from contact with the concrete driveway, and a hole was worn through the enamel and steel. But for those few hours on that one day, yes sir, I was King of the Slopes!

If Mama had known, my butt would have been grounded until I was 38. But like most 10-year olds, I figured that what Mama don’t know won’t hurt her. I also understood the corollary to that, what Mama did know could hurt the hell out of me.

The shiny new 26 inch Schwinn Hornet bicycle had been my reward for completing third grade with good marks, not getting dismissed for throwing spitballs or pulling that cute little red-headed girl’s pigtails, and avoiding bloody noses from fighting with other budding young Supermen like myself. What a beauty it was — burgundy-red and cream, whitewall tires, and a decorative tank between the horizontal ball-buster bars. The tank had the function of housing the non-functional, button operated, battery powered horn. I accessorized my bike by adding a squeeze-bulb horn clamped onto the handlebar, a basket mounted on the luggage carrier above the rear fender, and tassels streaming from the handlebar grips. And, of course, there was the requisite spring loaded wooden clothes pin for clipping a piece of cardboard in place to clack against the spokes when I was not in stealth mode.

Please understand, this was no flimsy, lightweight, wimp of a bike like the ones made today, but a heavy-duty model built to withstand both the stress of high-speed racing and the tortuous rigors of off-road adventures. There was never any hassle or hesitation for changing gears since this was prior to introduction of gear changers a few years later. And the rugged coaster brakes were far more durable than the delicate and temperamental hand-operated caliper brakes that more expensive models would soon have. This was every boy’s dream in the early 1950s. Unless, of course, your parents could afford the top of the line — the totally awesome Schwinn Black Phantom. It was roughly the same bicycle I had, but with a fancier paint job, chrome fenders, and a name that brought fear, awe, and envy to the neighborhood boys. My parents had to save and scrape to get the Hornet for me, so I was happy.

My parents were confident in my ability and trusted me enough that they allowed me to ride my new bike as far as school, which was a couple of miles away. I knew all the back roads and side streets and had enough sense to avoid the heavy traffic of the main avenues. In time, I reasoned that if going to school was OK then going to visit my friends who lived similar distances from my house would be OK. They lived in several different directions, but nothing was ever said about direction, only distance. So I routinely rode to see my friends Richard and Marcus who live across the street from each other, in the direction of downtown. One day we talked about going downtown, and decided that as long as we were careful, everything would be OK. Since there were no incidents and we were not found out, we decided that it would be OK to do it again. And again. And so we did.

Three 10-year old boys zooming up and down busy city streets, taking wrong-way shortcuts through one-way alleys, avoiding the buildings where two of our dads worked — we were hot snot on a stick. We had this thrilling adventure many times, and somehow our parents never discovered our transgression. It was during that period that I first learned to answer the questions, “Where have you been?” and “What have you been doing?”, with “nowhere” and “nothing”, respectively.

Fifty years later I told my Mom about it, and she scolded me almost as much as she would have if she had caught me in the act. Then she laughed — we laughed — and we agreed that it was a miracle that any of us lived to grow up and tell about it. Great bike, good times, good days, stupid tricks.

[A flip of my Superman cape to Bob Brady who inspired this piece with his recent post of Superheroes at his and Mick's Blog Brothers site.]

Some of us seem to be born with the gift of knowing how to use tools, fix things, do things around the house or workplace. I am cursed to be one of those. Others are not so lucky, never really understanding which end of the screwdriver to hit the nail with. My neighbor, Fred, was one of those.

It was about 1968 in Bethel Park, PA, a suburb full of families whose bread winners, almost all daddies in those days, commuted into Pittsburgh to work for companies with household names you probably know … Westinghouse, US Steel, Mellon Bank, Alcoa, PPG, Rockwell, and others. I was an engineer who worked for one of those. My neighbor Fred was in sales with a major insurance company — Travelers or Prudential, somebody like that. Damn nice guy a couple of years older than me, and a fun family. We and a couple of other young couples in the neighborhood grilled out, had bring-a-dish dinners, played bridge, and kept the local beer distributor’s profit margin comfortably in the black.

One day Fred showed up at the door asking if he could borrow my electric drill. Every guy on the block knew that I had a workshop full of tools. I retrieved it from my shop in the basement while Fred chit-chatted with my then wife. When handing it over to him I asked what he was doing, and he told me that Carol wanted some shelves in the laundry room. So off he went to fulfill his honey-do obligations.

Half an hour later, Fred was back at the door, drill in hand. I said, “That was a quick job.” He looked at me, head cocked to one side, and sheepishly said, “Is there something that’s supposed to go in here?”, pointing to the business end of the drill. As I looked at him in puzzlement, trying to figure out what he meant, he added, “You know — something to make a hole with.” It was all I could do to choke back my laughter as I replied, “You mean a drill bit?” “Well, I guess so, whatever that thing is called.” He didn’t have a clue on what size bit he needed, so I grabbed the entire rack of about 3 dozen bits, from 1/64″ up to 3/8″. As soon as he saw them, he said, “Yeah, I think that’s what I need, but I don’t know what size.” “You got any cold beer in the fridge?”, I asked. To which he replied something like, “Is the Pope Catholic?” So I said, “Come on. You open the beer and I’ll put up the shelves for you.”

He was relieved to have some help, and Carol was happy to get the shelves up. Of course, Fred had bought the wrong brackets — and anchors — and screws — and shelves. But with several trips back to my basement workshop, and several beers later, everyone was happy. Remembering the whole incident some 40 years later, I still chuckle over the expression on Fred’s face that second trip to my door. This reminds me of an adage often repeated by one of my favorite authors, Jerry Pournelle, who was as good with his techie column in Byte magazine as he is masterful at crafting science fiction stories of worlds far away in time and space. He often advised readers of his monthly Chaos Manor column in Byte:

If you don’t know what you’re doing, you better know someone who does.

One of the most important imprints made on a malleable young me was by Pop, my maternal grandfather. He had been a farmer, blacksmith, carpenter, builder, real estate investor, grocer, landlord, husband, father, and grandfather. And somewhere in the midst of all that he found time to go fishing … frequently. Several weeks each summer I stayed with Pop and Grandma and loved every minute of it. Pop was a kind, gentle, and patient man, who taught me how to use and take care of shop tools and equipment. And he took me fishing … frequently.

Pop would hitch up the boat trailer behind his pickup truck, grab the bait buckets he had prepared the day before, stop by the grocery where we would pick up some baloney sandwiches, cheese and crackers, and ice cold Cokes — the big King Size Cokes in the 10 oz. glass bottles — and off to the lake or river we would go. Sitting in a boat with Pop all day, I learned a lot. I learned that I didn’t really like fishing, but I loved being with Pop. He taught me things. And I learned things. Fishing was a masquerade, an excuse, a vehicle. He talked and I listened … and learned.

Pop had many wise things to say, and some maybe not so wise. Some, like his extreme superstitions, were just plain silly. But who was I to tell him that. He always had a way of putting things in perspective. When my mother would worry, or I would fret about something, Pop would typically try to defuse it by rhetorically asking, What difference will it make in 100 years?

Between Pop’s practical approach and Daddy’s laissez faire attitude, I like to think I turned out to be about as self-sufficient, non-intrusive, and laid back as a person can be in these turbulent and trying times. They taught me how to step back and view myself and my role in the larger picture, and how to take life as it comes at me, one day at a time, making changes for the better where I can, but never losing a firm grip on what is real, what is important. They taught me to live life meaningfully, but never to take myself too seriously. Even now, many years later, I am still struggling to live up to their examples and their teachings. And Mom is still worrying.

One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown
is the belief that one’s work is terribly important. – Bertrand Russell

There was no way I could have even suspected that an evening involving chianti, brandy, and a cheap cigar would result in a feat with such a WOW! factor and a world record. It was January, 1962. I was 19 and in my sophomore year at The University of Tennessee, but out of school for the winter quarter on an Engineering Co-op work assignment. Jim, with whom I shared an apartment, had gone home for the weekend, and my fiancee was 400 miles away, working in Memphis at the other end of the state. So when a friend called and invited me over for a spaghetti dinner, I was quickly into it. Jack was a fellow inmate in the Electrical Engineering college at UT. He and his wife Fran looked out for their single friends who might be in need of actual food and understanding companionship. So this Friday night, I allowed them to look out for me.

Fran’s spaghetti was excellent, at least for my southern taste back then. They had a couple of bottles of cheap chianti, that we sipped while unraveling the philosophical concepts behind the woven straw jackets on the oddly shaped bottles until we were certain that our Italian accents were passable in Tuscany. Read more

Twenty-eight was a wonderful age. Being recently stripped of any meaningful assets by divorce, my pockets were usually empty, but I had enough to have fun and enjoy life without developing any seriously expensive habits. Just enough to get by on. One end of my apartment was a glass wall that framed the balcony, giving a view of a large wooded city park. It had the feel of living outdoors. I had friends who had been good to me, a good job with a promising future in a Fortune 50 company, a decent component stereo system with an excellent colletion of LPs, made to sound better than it was by the absence of sound absorbing and reflecting furniture. I had none. An old card table and four folding chairs, home-made shelves for the stereo equipment, a roll-up mattress on the floor for sleep and other activities. That was it. Life was good.

Sipping my morning wakeup coffee and having the first glorious cigarette of the day, it slowly seeped into my emerging consciousness that something was not quite right. My mouth and tongue felt … funny. Hard to describe, but just … different. Oh, well, it was 6:30 in the damn morning. Another coffee and cigarette and it will be fine.

I shuffled/stumbled to the bathroom for my daily 4S ritual (for those not in the know, that is shit, shave, shower, and shampoo), stopping to check my mouth in the mirror. “HOLY SHIT!” Read more

Growing up in the late ’50s and ’60s in rural West Tennessee, kids rushed home from school to watch the Cousin Tuny Show that aired on WDXI-TV Channel 7, from Jackson, West Tennessee’s first CBS affiliate. Cousin Tuny was a character that looked like a cross of Minnie Pearl and a crazed escapee from Western State Asylum. She hosted groups of children on the show, teaching valuable lessons and values. Parents, churches, and schools could schedule to take their young ‘uns to appear on Cousin Tuny, and for those small tykes it was a thrill like no other.

My little brother was one of those lucky kiddos who had the opportunity to be on the Cousin Tuny Show. As she made the rounds of the kids sitting around her on stage, she came to him and asked, “What is your name, young man?” Read more

My parents were firmly against having pets. No matter the depth of logic that our arguments held, my brother and I were always denied a child’s basic Constitutional right to have a dog. Mama always had the last word in such discussions with, “And besides all that, I don’t have time to feed and take care of a dog, and I know you wouldn’t.” Never got my pony either, but that’s a horse of a different color…

On becoming a father, I wanted to make sure that my kids had every possible experience and every affordable advantage, to help them become well rounded persons with solid values. So when my daughter was a toddler, I decided she should have a puppy that would grow up with her.

A neighbor’s beagle had been attacked and raped by another neighbor’s dog, becoming quite pregnant in the process. They were never sure, but the rambunctious miniature schnauzer a couple of doors up the street was the number one suspect. He frequently ran loose and would hump anything that would stay still for a few seconds. A foot at the end of a dangling crossed leg, a foot stool or hassock, a basketball. Oh, and don’t leave your freshly plugged watermelon on the ground.

A few days after the pups arrived we went and took a look. My daughter immediately fell in love with one of them, the one that came to her and suckled her little fingers. He was a cute little thing, this lovable product of a neighborhood indiscretion. We agreed to take him as soon as they were ready to wean. In the meantime, laws were laid down and imprinted into my brain — NO dog in the house. I dutifully built a pen out on the shady side of the house and started acquiring canine educational materials such as a rubber ball with a bell in it, rawhide bones, water and food bowls, and of course the obligatory stack of newspapers. Actually, having never had a dog, I had no frigging clue what I was doing. And I did it with passion and purpose. Read more

My baby brother was a handful. He was far superior at focusing his energies on playing ball or climbing a tree or chasing a frog or pestering me than on studying or doing homework. He was always in trouble over something. I, on the other hand, was the perfect lad, very studious, never in trouble, the glint of my parents’ eyes. Now, may I interest you in some future beachfront property in a remote area of the Florida Everglades?

There was a service station (that’s a gas station to you young ‘uns) between our house and the commercial laundry my mom and dad owned and operated. We passed back and forth frequently, usually to the rear of the station. Brother could not help but find something along the way to investigate. It might be a mouse trapped in an empty bottle, new gravel that provided many good throwin’ rocks, and for targets — anything that moved or didn’t. Or it might be something as simple as a small limb fallen from the black walnut tree. He would beat on everything in sight all the way to the laundry and back, just to raise a ruckus. One just knew that with him having such a gift of investigative curiosity, sooner or later, trouble would find little David. And so it did…

I was on my way to the laundry and David was playing behind the gas station, taking inventory of the fine collection of 55 gallon steel drums. Some were empty, some contained trash, some were on their sides, most were rusty, and one was almost full of spent motor oil drained from vehicles to make room for a few fresh quarts of the slippery stuff. Stations collected it back in those days and the county would come around periodically to get the burnt oil, as it was called, to spray on gravel roads out in the countryside to keep down the dust. They also sprayed it in ditches alongside the roads to control the mosquito population. Baby brother had no knowledge of all that, but the open barrel of oil spoke to him in ways that we can only guess. As he hoisted himself up to get a better view of the contents, David lost his balance and went head first into the thick, black goo. Being the older, wiser, and stronger brother, as well as the only other person within earshot, it fell to me to make a split second decision on whether to save him. My intuition and upbringing conspired and triggered me into action, pulling him out. Of course he was terrified, yelling and crying and kicking and screaming and flailing his arms. He was yelling something about he couldn’t see, and I gently calmed him by saying something like. “Dummy, it’s ’cause you got your eyes closed tight. You keep them that way and hold on to me till we get to the laundry.”

Mama went hysterical as Daddy fought to hold back a belly laugh. They stripped off his oil-soaked clothes and disposed of them, got him scrubbed down, cleaned up, dryed off, and into fresh clothes. Every step of the way was accompanied by Mama’s scolding and chanting, “What were you thinking of? You could have drowned in that barrel if your brother hadn’t been there. Well, I hope you learned a lesson, young man! You could be dead right now! What were you thinking of?… etc., etc.,”

Fifty plus years later, I still remind David occasionally that he owes me bigtime. He usually looks askance at me and mumbles something about being pushed. Then he grins and tells me that when I fall into a barrel of oil, he’ll pull my lazy butt out . And, you know what? He will — I’m counting on it.