Peaches

Late July,
And in the shimmering heat and humidity
Of Midsummer
I find you suspended there,
Yellow jackets droning around your branches.

In your ripeness
There is no other fruit
Which manages your colors:
Pinks and yellows and bright reds.
A painter's pastel palette,
A still life masterpiece,
The pride of Central Georgia
And upstate Carolina.
The dainty little trees
Rolling away across the hills
Like a chorus line dancing
Away from the curve of the roadway,
The lusciousness of your shape,
Your roundness
Is so feminine;
Your ripe sweetness superb.

In Georgia we name our daughters "peaches" after your example.

If God were to issue prohibition to our parents
Forbidding them from eating of the fruit of your branches
There would be no hesitance before they took that first bite;
The allure would be so great.

Looking ahead

The rain showers we received last night caused the windows at the house to fog over this morning. It appeared as if we were living in a terrarium. I expected to see a lizard or a snake coming around the corner as I ate my breakfast.

When I entered my car an ant was crawling up my shirt. I have had little sensations of critters crawling up my body ever since. I guess they were trying to get away from the rain. We have had so little of it lately, they probably thought it was dangerous. Kind of like drivers in Southern California.

Patti is in Barnesville getting her son signed up for school, which starts on Friday. She is taking the day off and I have arranged to have Kate come in and act as receptionist. She is sitting in her seat, probably going through her emails on the computer.

Yesterday, I came home and Cindy and Kate were discussing her situation. I ultimately ended up going to the grocery for a few things and then driving to our nearby Mexican Restaurant for supper. Everybody seemed to perk up after that.

My sleeping was off last night. I fell asleep on the couch for awhile and everybody kind of abandoned me to my slumber. I woke up and watched a bit of the beginning of a movie and then went upstairs. I fell asleep and slept pretty soundly until about 3:30, when I woke up again and drowsed for an hour or two.

I finally came downstairs and ate breakfast and fell asleep again on the couch. After she finished her shower, Cindy woke me up and I took Tex and the garbage out.

We are looking forward to tomorrow afternoon. Cindy and I are leaving early from work and driving down to Culloden to buy peaches. Then we are driving to Columbus to pick up some documentation from a file at the courthouse. From there, we will go to Country's Barbecue for supper and then attend a baseball game. We are hoping for an entertaining evening at the ballpark.

We have decided that we need to go to the beach. Anybody who has been reading this blog over the past few months knows that the topic has been hovering over my head for quite some time. I think our little family has got to the point where there is no substitute for beachtime, probably in Savannah. We just have to arrange for the wherewithal to pay for it all. We don't intend to take much time off, but knowing Cindy and her schedule, she would definitely like to spend most of Friday, Saturday and Sunday in the proximity to beach, sand, water, seafood and entertainment. I am for that too. It has been quite some time since I was in Savannah. I am really looking forward to it.

Frank, Maggie and Luke in Atlanta

We drove up to Cobb County to watch nephew Luke play tournament baseball this past Friday. The weather was warm and sunny and the baseball field was tucked back into the back of the school underneath the level of the main road running in front of the school. The Sprayberry High School band was practicing for the oncoming football season and students and parents were interspersed here and there around the campus.

We finally found a sign pointing to the baseball fields entrance, even though the baseball field was the first part of the campus we had found when we came to the High School. It just so happened that there was no easy way to get to the baseball field without driving all the way around the school and parking in the main parking lot. Which, of course, was being used by the band.

Tickets for the event were $10.00, which seemed a little high for high school age baseball, but that apparently is the way things go with teenage sports at that age. I couldn't match up with Frank's investment of $500.00 so Luke could play, and he didn't see any of the tournament.

Frank and Maggie drove up on Friday and visited the University of Georgia in Athens. We got to see them on Saturday, when we drove up to Atlanta to meet them for the World of Coke. As it turned out, the National Black Arts Festival was going on at the same time, so everything around Centennial Olympic Park was covered up with people. Making a command decision, we met them at Atlantic Station and ended up walking around in a drizzle, shopping in the various shops of interest.

We finally ended up in a Sports Bar, where the empty smoking lounge was the best place to sit and talk, despite the fact that Cindy and Maggie couldn't handle the cigar smell which lingered from earlier times. We did get a table on the edges of the main restaurant, where the noise was so loud that it was virtually impossible to hear each other.

So we yelled at each other across the table for awhile. I think a knowledge of sign language would have helped us.

Sunday was much better. We had a delightful meal at Mom and Dad's house and were able to sit around the house and talk about things. Maggie is very witty and reminds me a bit of Kate. Frank was giving Lily a hard time when she tried to call him on his cellphone and Maggie joined in the fun with a pretty good imitation of her father.

I wish we were able to see them more often than we do.

Gravity

Oddly enough,
Eggshells seem to ignore gravity.
On a dim Sunday morning
They are hard to crack neatly,
Leaving their cargo loose
In the black, shallow iron pan,
But there they then sit in the sink
Refusing to go gently down the disposal
Perched lightly on the black rubber
Floating above their ultimate end.

After the morning eggs are eaten
Their remains sit there in the sink
Reminding us of our trespasses.

Portrait of the artist in his boxer shorts

When you are sitting in your college classroom
Listening to the professor drone on
About the changes in literature
Brought on by the work of this artist
The place in history he achieved
By the power of his imagination
Turning the words around on their head
Touching the hearts of his readers
Winging their imaginations to a place of communion
Teaching some sublime jewel
Threshed from the experiences of a young boy
Riding his bike down Roswell Road
Toward Buckhead and the pharmacy on the corner
You don't anticipate the experience
Of answering a call for room service
In some downtown hotel
Walking the tray down the hallway
Knocking on a hotel door, number 436,
To find yourself in the presence
Of the artist himself, answering your knock,
Sleepily awaiting your arrival
Clad only in his boxer shorts
His corpulent frame stepping away from the doorway
To effectuate your presentation
And the shimmer of his holiness was slightly altered
In the thin gray light of the early morning,
Leaving you two souls in a hotel room
Passing through the most brief of encounters,
For we all need our breakfast.

Behold the man.

Someone must deliver; someone must pay,
Or charge it to his room.

Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald of Montgomery, Alabama

Daddy's little girl;
A pure Magnolia blossom
Among the debutantes
And poor little rich girls
Speaking their poor French
Among the snooty Parisians
Listening to Josephine Baker
And the early kings of jazz
Meeting Hemingway, Stein and Picasso
In smoky little dives on
The Left Bank, near the Seine.

There was no Prohibition in France.

The traffic lights sparkling red and green
Through the Springtime mist,
Colors running, fading in the evening rain shower,
Cut flowers from a cart,
Champagne cocktails at the bar
Leaving little time for letters, novels and such.

Until the dream died,
Lost in the struggle to survive
When the words didn't come as easily
And Depression fell on them all:
Hemingway to Key West, Picasso back to Spain
Only Stein stayed with her Alice
And Zelda abandoned Paris and the Jazz Age behind her
Living alone in a mountainside retreat
Among the evergreens of North Carolina,
The cool mountain air scorched her lungs,
The fire and the spark
Ending in a pile of ashes on a hillside.

Zelda

Today is the birthday of Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald, whose privilege and burden it was to be the wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald. She was born in Montgomery, Alabama and met Fitzgerald when he was a soldier, fresh out of Princeton. You can look at pictures of her when she was young and realize why she was Fitzgerald's Helen. She was very pretty. I think her beauty would be recognized today, even though our standards these days are somewhat different.

But she was not your typical Southern beauty queen, all beauty and flash and apple pie American ambition. I have always tried to recognize the inner beauty of the women around me and I have no doubt that Zelda's wit and intelligence caught that boy from the plains of Minnesota and anchored his heart in ways that mere physical beauty could not. Everything I have read has lead me to believe that their relationship was strong despite its self-destructive nature. She was his muse. They were the ideal of the beautiful people of their time. The Jazz Age couple.

Even Hemingway recognized the great talent that Fitzgerald had compared to the other writers of his day. And I think that Zelda had talent as well, although to a lesser degree. The Writer's Almanac had a blurb about Zelda Fitzgerald today and they quoted a letter she wrote to the parents of F. Scott Fitzgerald after he died. The writing that they quote is sublime and poetic.

It is so tragic that the couple died in the manners in which they passed. He in Hollywood, trying to make a living with his talent. She in a fire in a sanatorium in North Carolina. Perhaps the most tragic element of their deaths was the fact that they were separated at the end.

Trauma

There was a program on NPR on Sunday afternoon in which they were reading pieces written by people involving people dying and how they dealt with the occurrence. The particular reading we were listening to involved a young man who was driving his car at the end of his senior year in high school when a young girl in his class drove her bicycle in front of his car, the young girl dying in the accident. The police investigated and found that the accident was not caused by anything the young man did while driving. It appeared that the girl simply veered into his path by mistake. There was even the suggestion that the young girl may have wanted to end her life.

The reading went on to discuss the things that happened to the young man as the school year progressed. He attended the funeral of the young girl. He encountered his friends and the friends of the young girl. He visited her parents. He even discussed the accident with someone he was dating and got involved in an argument with her in which his date confessed that she had considered suicide and almost veered into traffic in an effort to effectuate the suicide.

As I listened to the reading on NPR, my mind drifted, as it is want to do, to an episode in my life, involving a traffic accident. When I was seventeen, my family drove down to St. Petersburg, Florida for the wedding of my cousin, Cicely. I had recently returned from a trip my friend, Graham Gardner and I had taken in which we drove around the southeastern part of the country, visiting colleges in which we had an interest. The trip we took went from Atlanta to Clarksville, Tennessee and my grandmother's farm, to Vanderbilt University, to Danville, Kentucky and Centre College, to Knoxville, Tennessee and a ride with a young blonde coed in her blue volkswagen beetle. After escaping a kitchen fire in our hotel and exploring Cumberland Avenue, we drove over the Smoky Mountains past Cherokee to Durham, North Carolina where we visited the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and Duke. After an unpleasant encounter with a bigoted admissions director from UNC, we drove up into Virginia, where we almost got stuck in the mud during a rain storm, only to be rescued by a number of young men who pushed us out of the bog. Finally, we drove on to Charlottesville, where we stayed with Graham's aunt and uncle, finishing our trip with a Sunday morning tour of UVA and Monticello. The last day of our trip was spent inspecting the serpentine brick walls of Mr. Jefferson's college and a tour of his mountain retreat.

It was during the ride back home from Charlottesville when my mother asked me if we had visited W&L and VMI and sent me on a journey through our college directory which would ultimately lead me to college in Lexington. We stopped in South Carolina near Greenville and bought four large, round watermelons for a quarter each. I remember taking one with me to Florida when Frank and I drove on the trip to the wedding.

When I arrived in Dunwoody, Frank and I immediately drove down I-75 to Valdosta and stayed at the Holiday Inn on the north side of town for the night. The next morning we drove on to St. Petersburg and the small motel on Fourth Avenue which had been suggested by my great-uncle.

That night, we went through the rehearsal for the wedding with the wedding party and then Frank and Ed and I followed the other groomsmen up to a place on the north side of the county where they were celebrating the last night of freedom for my cousin's husband. That night, Frank, Ed and I ended up on the beach in Clearwater, wandering around until the wee hours of the evening came and sent us home.

The next morning, we woke up and as the day progressed, my father sent Frank and myself out to find some lunch. There was a Lum's restaurant several blocks down the road, so we drove down to get something to eat. After our lunch, I headed the Ford Pinto on a back route back to the motel.

As we navigated the streets of North St. Petersburg, I noticed that some cross streets in the area had a stop sign and others did not. As I proceeded down the street, I began to cross through an intersection and just happened to notice a stop sign out of the corner of my eye. The last thing I remember was the thought, "Oh well."

There was an immediate sound of popping metal as the front end of the Pinto slammed into the front end of an older Buick Lesabre. The Ford hit the front wheel hub of the Buick and immediately turned into an accordion shape from the collision. As the front end of the Pinto slammed into its ultimate final shape, the car pivoted and slammed again into the side of the Buick. Finally, the momentum of the car lead us into the front yard of the corner lot.

The first thing I remember after the accident was the smell of power steering fluid which had sprayed into my nose. The smell stayed with me for a long time. When the impact occurred, my arms had hit the steering wheel at the bottom, leaving bruises just above my elbows on both arms. I looked over at Frank. Frank had hit the dashboard with his forehead, even though he was wearing his seatbelt, his glasses splitting in two from the impact with the dash. When the car spun on its axis, Frank's shoulder hit the passenger door. His head and shoulder left two large dents in the dashboard and the cardoor.

I asked Frank if he was ok. He grunted affirmatively. I tried to open my car door, but the metal from the misshapen front of the car prevented me from opening my door. Fortunately, Frank's car door would open.

We crawled out of the wreckage and looked around. I walked over to the other car and talked to the driver. He had hit his forehead on the visor above the windshield. He had a small cut on his forehead. Otherwise he said he was fine.

At this point, I sent Frank down the block to go get dad. As I waited, some large man in a van started asking questions about the accident. When he found that I was 17, he informed me that no one of my age should drive and that his children wouldn't drive until they were twenty-one. I sheepishly and quietly listened to his tirade.

Finally, my dad arrived and sent me back to the motel to dress for the wedding. Frank and I hastily dressed in our tuxes and rode with momma, dad and Susan to the church for the wedding. I don't remember much of the wedding. No one other than our parents and Susan knew about the accident. After the wedding, Frank and I sat on the stairs of a stairwell in the church and tried to catch our breath.

There is a picture of Frank, Susan and myself in our wedding finery after the wedding. When I look at the picture, it is clear to me that my eyes and the eyes of my brother are quite glassy. I don't remember much from the wedding. The only smell I have is the power-steering fluid. The only sensation is a pulling in my back that I can still feel today.

After that weekend, I would have to say that my driving was very careful. Much more so than before. There has never been a month, probably, in which I haven't reflected on that weekend. It is a memory which I will carry to the end. No one died and there were no serious injuries to the people involved. Thank God. I still remember.

Supper on the horizon

This has been a long day today. I still have a little to go before the end of the day. I am supposed to pick up Cindy at Griffin Tech at 6:15. I am hopeful that we can get the issue of supper ironed out without too much trouble. Last night was quite a struggle.

Kate wanted something hot. Cindy wanted something light. They couldn't make up a compromise or combination of the two. Finally, Kate decided she wanted chili. She was thinking about a can of chili. Cindy decided she wanted cereal.

I ended up driving to the grocery store and buying the ingredients for making chili. I took it home and made chili with macaroni for Kate and myself. It was pretty good but not that hot, actually.

I have been in the mood recently for a bison burger from Ted's. I actually proposed getting hamburger meat from the grocery store for hamburgers. No one bit.

I actually have had a hankering for a pizza with a large amount of pepperoni on top. I know that isn't very healthy. I know. I know.

A hamburger, salad and a beer would be nice.

Cissie Perry says we think too much about food in my family. Perhaps.

Smoking rodents

Kate and I were driving in my car over to Coates Foreign Car Service after lunch today. I was stopped at a three way intersection waiting for two other cars to maneuver through the intersection.

As I waited for the other two cars to move, Kate chirped, "Look! A squirrel!"

I looked to the left of my car and identified the squirrel about which Kate was drawing my attention [that's an awkward sentence]. As I stared at the squirrel in the road, I noticed that the little gray rodent had what appeared to be a half-smoked cigarette perched in the side of its mouth. The cigarette wasn't lit, but the squirrel was still holding it in its mouth, as if it were looking for a light.

The squirrel didn't say anything, otherwise, I would have offered a light off of my car's cigarette lighter. Instead, the squirrel hopped off the road and down into the relative safety of a dark, overgrown woods by the road.

I guess the local fauna didn't get the message from the Surgeon General on the hazards of smoking. I'm not sure how progressive it is to see the local wildlife with a cigarette, even if unlit. Perhaps, the squirrel was trying to quit.

I'm surprised the squirrels and rabbits and whatnot in the old woods past the Balfour's house didn't take up smoking. Maybe they are what set the old woods on fire back when I was a young teenager. And we always thought it was Fred Warden.

Crops

The backyard grass is way high.
I am walking the dog
Before we leave him behind
To travel up to Atlanta
For Sister Susan's birthday party,
But my attention is caught
By the height of the grass,
So thick and dark green,
And lush, and I am oddly
Proud, like a farmer in his field
Admiring his corn crop,
All the time realizing
That everything would look better
And neater, if it was cut shorter.

I have the same thought
When I stare sleepily at my tousle of hair
In the morning mirror.

Alphabet in motion

A stands for action
B stands for boot!
C stands for coast
D stands for drive
E stands for easy
F stands for foom!
G stands for get it!
H stands for haul ass
I stands for ignite
K stands for kill it
L stands for lie
M stands for motion
N stands nudge
O stands for oscillate
P stands for pitch
Q stands for quit
R stands for race
S stands for stop
T stands for turns (four)
U stands for undulate
V stands for vroom!
W stands for "We've all got wheels."
X stands for RAILROAD CROSSING
Y stands for yaw
Z stands for zip!

Frustration

The air at Cissie's yesterday was warm, but not so humid that if you were a stranger to the location you would necessarily assume that you were in Georgia. Kate had been swimming, and she was wrapped up in a terrycloth towel. Cindy and Cissie and Kate were sitting on the back porch of Cissie's studio apartment, and the frozen margaritas which they had shared had surrounded them with a relaxation and bonhommie which was not common for Griffin in July.

We decided that Kate would prepare a light supper for us and she left the back porch to remove the towel and replace her bathing suit with her regular clothes. I stepped around the common table and sat down in the chair which Kate had vacated. I pulled a stool up from under the table and stretched my legs out on the stool.

As we sat idly chatting at the table, I suddenly noticed a swarm of small mosquitoes swirling around my feet and legs. My pants, socks and dress shoes prevented their entry onto my bare legs and feet, but that didn't dissuade them from continuing their swarm around my feet. There must have been twenty or so of the little insects trying to get to me.

I sat there, watching the mosquitoes trying to find their way past my shoes, socks and pants. Despite their frustration, I ultimately had enough myself. Sitting their, watching these insects swarm my feet became too much. Ultimately, I had to go inside.

Fortunately, they didn't follow me in.

Whiteface cattle

What are you thinking?
Staring through the barbed wire
Solemnly chewing the noontime meal
Of Johnson grass, clipped from the fencerow
Mewling for your babies
They are frolicking in the new grass
You are sentinels in the pasture
Watching me drive by,
Welcoming me, letting me pass
Down the gravel right of way
To the eternal house on the hill
White frame and stone pillars
Guarded by the oaks and maples
Planted in the front yard.

Your night time calling is a frequent lullaby
In my dreaming, even today.

Carry me

Perhaps the most significant moment in my life
Was when my parents decided to leave Kentucky
And Tennessee behind them, the fields and
Fences, rolling out as far as eye could see,
The green, lush carpet of pastures
Knit together by fences and train tracks
Leading away from the birthing stalls,
Whiteface cattle staring through the rails.

For they always carried me back home
Where family were waiting,
Familiar faces, gentle hands
Waving from the front porch
Coming toward us through the oaks' shadows.
Their image reminding me that there was a place
Beyond the maple bunk beds my brother and I shared
Outside the view from my narrow bedroom window
Where I somehow belonged
Somewhere to return again,
A lease on my tender heart
Calling me homeward.

Connections

I traveled alone by air
One time, well, more than one time,
But this time, sitting alone in my seat
Surrounded by familiar strangers:
Families on vacations,
Servicemen in transit,
Businessmen heading for meetings
Or returning home, at last,
And my family was elsewhere
Perhaps, waiting for me,
At some familiar airport toward which I flew
Or, perhaps, just leaving the airport back home
Where I had been properly kissed goodbye,
Separating at the concourse
Walking back to the car
Sitting in its space in the parking deck.

My plane was then soaring through the blue sky
And I was working on my first soft drink and peanuts
When a pretty young thing,
In her official blue uniform
Carrying a corporate smile and an armful
Of plastic earphones
For the in-flight movie
Stopped by my assigned seat
And inquired if I wanted to purchase a headset
For my personal entertainment, to fill my hours in her care
And I immediately realized that I had no money
In my pockets with which to purchase a headset
And I confessed my poverty
And she stared at me for a few seconds,
A look of indecision on her face,
And glanced away from me toward the other occupants,
Then, finally walked past me to the next row of seats.

In that moment, I wondered,
Was she considering just handing me a headset
As gratuity, a gift from her to me,
A personal touch among the assigned seats in coach
Or was she simply tired of dealing
With the freeloading passengers, like me?
How close did I come to a moment
Of human connection on that flight,
High above the broad expanse of America,
The hills, rivers, forests and farmland
Rolling beneath us, the lives and stories
Passing unseen, as we flew to our destination,
The towns and cities and farms and houses
Falling behind us, mile after mile at a time?

Seafood dreams

Somebody is playing a bad trick on me. I went home today and heated up some leftovers for lunch. London Broil, potatoes and green beans. As Kate whirled around my lunch plate dusting the furniture, I sat there on the living room couch and turned on the television, setting the channel to WGN out of Chicago, so I could watch a rerun of Homocide: Life on the Streets, which was ordinarily filmed in Baltimore.

Except in this episode two of the detectives from the Homicide Unit were out of town, searching the streets of Miami for a suspect who was hiding out somewhere around Miami Beach. The two detectives looked rather uncomfortable as they walked around the sidewalks in their suits, dress shirts and ties. Ultimately, they had to give up their search for the evening, and ended up in a seafood place on the beach. At that point they were discussing the overall respective merits of the indigenous stone crab as compared to the Chesapeake Bay blue crab. At this point my overwhelming desire to be at the beach, eating seafood took over.

So here I am, sitting in my office, with a pretty blue sky above and a lot of grass and concrete around. Brick, mortar, sheetrock, asphalt. Nowhere near a beach. Covered up with paper, payroll, deadlines, client expectations. Papers to be filed. Causes of action to be filed. Bills to be paid. People to be satisfied. The never ending rumble tumble of an adult life.

Nowhere near the Gulf or the Atlantic Ocean. Just sitting here in my office, wishing I was eating seafood somewhere near the beach. On the water, perhaps. Boss Oyster. Crab Shack. Crab Trap. Crabby Bill's. Philthy Phil's. Woody's. Mandina's. Char-lou's. They just roll off the tongue.

With a beer in one hand and a fried shrimp in the other. Oyster shooters and Buffalo Oysters within reach. Not worrying about how much weight I am putting on. Not worrying about the next bill to pay, other than the restaurant check. Worrying about the amount of cocktail sauce on my plate, the disappearing pile of fried shrimp and oysters and the fluid level of my beer glass. The sweetness of the tea, the tang of the limes and lemons.

Enjoying the sun and the surf and the gulf breeze and the sand in my sandals. Greasy from the sunblock. Warm from the sunburn on my arms and legs and face. Dressed comfortably in t-shirt and shorts. Finding satisfaction in the environment in which I find myself.

Right now, I can hit Miles Davis' "Miles Ahead" on my ipod and catapult my body to an automobile driving over the bridge between Tampa and St. Pete. Windows open. Laying back, relaxed in the driver's seat. Watching the waves pushing the water from one side of the bay to the other. Fishermen in boats. Seagulls soaring overhead. Even a pelican. Right now. Immediate satisfaction.

I am back. The music is over.

Rescue me.

Thinking back to the seventies

You know, the seventies were an interesting time to grow up to adulthood. We started off with the end of the hippie era which began around 1967 and probably died at Kent State. We had the expansion and the end of the Vietnam war, which died with a whimper in the Ford administration. We had Watergate. Nothing like the struggle of politics and jurisprudence spread out on the television. Come to think of it, we could easily refer to the seventies as the media era.

War was graphically shown to us on the television and on the front covers of newspapers and magazines. We got to experience campus unrest, members of the president's cabinet before congressional committees, the trial of officials, the struggle between the executive branch, the legislative branch and the judicial branch. We got to watch a lot of musicians perform various styles of music on television. Radio expanded from am to fm. We had records, eight-track tapes and cassette tapes. Personal computers were born.

The era saw the beginnings of acid rock, country rock, glamour rock, jazz rock, folk rock, disco, punk rock, new wave rock. It seemed like any type of music could be heard on the radio. Country moved from Nashville to Texas and back again. Jazz faded from view. But we saw a wide variety of music at the Great Southeast Music Hall and Alex Cooley's Electric Ballroom in Atlanta.

Comedy changed. I saw Steve Martin open for Martin Mull. Suddenly comedy was post-modern, where it wasn't a comedian telling stories on stage. Instead, someone like Steve Martin was blurting out bits and pieces of humor without any plot. Saturday Night Live began. Suddenly the comedy ordinarily seen in comedy clubs like Second City were seen on television.

Movies were different. The seventies was the era of the Anti-Hero. Actors like Gene Hackman and Dustin Hoffman and Jack Nicholson came to the fore. The stories weren't glamorous and pretty. The heroes were flawed.

I remember buying books for my mother and she complaining that the characters weren't pretty for her taste. Well, that was the way in the seventies. Men wore beards and mustaches. Women wore their hair long or permed it out.

Then disco came and brought a sense of style and glitz. But that was short-lived and we went back to punk and new wave.

Yes, an interesting time.

Little league memories

When I was a senior in college, I was discussing the topic of why we played football with my roommate and fellow teammate on the Washington and Lee football team, Don Crossley. Don had fingers which were mangled from having his hand broken between two helmets of opposing players. I had a knee which would only feel secure when fluid would fill the cavity around the knee and provide cushion to the stressed parts of the knee. At some point in the conversation, one of us made the assertion that we probably played for the benefit of our fathers. I remember that we found consensus with that statement and probably quit trying to figure out the answers to such esoteric questions at that point. Most likely, Don went into the kitchen and made tacos for the two of us. We usually sat in front of the television and ate tacos and drank PBR out of long necked bottles until it was time to go to bed. Commonly, that was the last thing we did on Friday nights before a home football game.

My dad played football in high school. His dad played football in high school. I don't think there was much of a chance that his dad played football in high school. When he was at the age when most boys play football, my great-grandfather probably worked on the farm with his family. In the 1870's and 1880's, football was a game that was played by rich boys at Ivy League schools. Fortunately, by the time my grandfather came around, football was being played by poor farm boys and rich city boys alike. And so a long chain of football players began in our family, ending, so far, with me and my brother and Frank's son, Luke. Luke tried football for a little while, but really likes baseball best.

My father probably was a better baseball player than a football player, having played from a small boy to his later teenage years in American Legion ball. When my father found himself with two sons of the age for playing little league baseball, he tried to get us interested in baseball. Of course, we were already signed up for football in one of the best youth athletic organizations in the country. However, like thousands of young American boys, we found ourselves signed up for Little League baseball in the early spring. Dad also tried to get us interested in playing his normal position: second base. Unfortunately, only my brother did well in the infield. I remember one experience where my dad tried me at second base in a game. The other team realized quickly that they had a untalented neophyte at second and after three errors and one, final successful throw to first, I went back where it was safe in the outfield.

Early on in my career, the coaches found that I had little talent for snagging hot grounders off the infield grass. It may have had something to do with my uncorrected nearsighted vision. I am not sure. But at any rate, they quickly put me out in left field to languish in the grassy outfield at the national league playing field at Murphy Chandler park.

I only played baseball for two seasons, so I never developed any great skills out there, and my hitting was pretty poor, but I finally developed some skill at finding my way under the fly balls hit out in left field. This became my only skill in baseball. Later on, when I played church league softball, I found my real position at catcher. Just the perfect place for retired linebackers.

The little league program at Murphy Chandler was divided into two leagues: the national leage and the american league. The american league teams played on a field which was placed so that right handed batters faced the afternoon sun as they stood in the batter's box. This clearly provided an advantage for pitchers and fielders in the american league. The national league field, on the other hand, favored the batters, since home plate was located at the northwestern corner of the field and the batters faced southeastwardly, away from the sun, when they batted.

The players with the real disadvantage were those who played late afternoon games on the left side of the field, the shortstop, the third baseman, and the left-fielder. This particularly became so at around the time the afternoon sun drifted down above the batters box and sat on top of a hill which lay behind homeplate, the concession stand and the scorer's box.

For someone like me, playing out in the broad expanse of left field, the late afternoon hours became particularly precarious, as your line of vision toward the batter and the ball coming off of his bat was hidden by the bright orange sun on the hill behind the batter. Most batters seemed to be right handed, and when they connected, the ball ordinarily lept off their bat in some direction towards you, then disappeared in the orange ball on the hill.

At this point, if your vision was not temporarily impaired to an extant that you couldn't see anything from the white dots swimming in front of your eyes, you might see the ball again when it rose above the sun's light, only to disappear again when it fell to the level of the sunset.

The player who I replaced on our little league team gained some notoriety by catching a fly ball out in left field with his eye socket. I never got that clumsy, but I remember that it was pretty difficult to keep up with the ball when it flew off the bat of a right-handed batter.

Perhaps my greatest moment in little league baseball occurred in a game with the giants, when one of the better players on the giants hit a ball out towards my position. As soon as the ball left the bat it disappeared into the sun sitting on top of the hill. With the crack of the bat, I instinctively began moving toward the general direction of the ball. I remember running at an angle toward right field, not really being able to see anything in the sunlight on the hill. I was just running blindly out in leftfield.

At the last minute, maybe fifteen feet or so before the ball came to me, the ball reappeared out of the sunshine. Instinctively, my glove hand went out and I caught the ball. I remember our shortstop jumping up and down and in my excitement I threw the ball over this head into the infield. I don't think I had a more lucky moment in baseball than that one.

I do remember one game where a little pop went over the pitcher's head and our shortstop and second baseman got tangled up together, giving the baserunner on third the idea of running for home. One of the fielders threw wildly toward home and the ball went over the catcher's head to the backstop.

Meanwhile, I was drifting in toward the infield to back up the fielders. The batter decided to run for second and our catcher realized it and threw to the only person near the base: me. As the ball came to me I swiped at the runner and then threw back to home to thwart the other runner from going for home. The referee at second called the batter out at second and I ran back to rightfield. That was my other big play in baseball.

In my second and last season, my eyesight was corrected with glasses before my last game. In the last game of my career, I could suddenly see the ball distinctly when it came from the pitcher's hand. I remember that I walked two out of three times at bat and got a hit the only other time I batted. Perhaps I might have amounted to something if I had worn glasses for the rest of my career.

For better or worse, that was the end of my baseball career. I got to play basketball, which was truly my favorite game, and a whole lot of football, in which I had some talent.

Thankfully, I got to do a lot of things with football. I played on the same field as George Rogers, Heisman Trophy winner (Duluth). I got to play in the highest classification in Georgia against some of the best teams in the area (AAA). I played my best game against the team which ended up being the number two team in the state (Lakeside). I got to travel to New London, Connecticut (Coast Guard), Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania (Bucknell), Georgetown, Virginia (Georgetown), Sewanee, Tennessee (The University of the South), Davidson, North Carolina (Davidson) and Danville, Kentucky (Centre College). I got to play on the same team with someone who was drafted by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (Jack Berry). And I can say that I played four years in college, for a team which at one time played all the big schools in Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, and Maryland. We even played in the Gator Bowl one year (not while I was there, of course).

That's not bad.

Our girl in Europe

Daughter Kate went out with her aunt Missy and a friend while in Knoxville on the Fourth of July. They ended up in a bar in downtown Knoxville, drinking beers and shooting pool (my daughter). Apparently some frat boys from Knoxville came up and tried to throw a line at Kate. Her response was sarcasm (surprise). One of the boys informed her that she was only a 7 out of 10. She informed him that that was high talk for a young man who was losing his hair (that hurt her daddy a little, too).

That does remind me of the exchange uttered between John Wayne and Robert Duvall in the climax of the movie "True Grit."

Ned Pepper: What's your intention? Do you think one on four is a dogfall?

Rooster Cogburn: I mean to kill you in one minute, Ned. Or see you hanged in Fort Smith at Judge Parker's convenience. Which'll it be?

Ned Pepper: I call that bold talk for a one-eyed fat man.

Rooster Cogburn: Fill your hands, you son of a bitch.

[I borrowed that dialogue directly from the movie screenplay.]

With that John Wayne charges the outlaws on horseback, with two guns in his hands and the reins in his teeth. Of course, he guns down the outlaws and saves the day in the end. A grand scene.

Later in the evening, two young British scientists brought drinks to Kate and her aunt and friend and tried to talk them up. Kate was told by one of the Brits that she was the most European American he had ever encountered.

Last night, Kate told us a story about one time when she was in Prague and was mistaken for a Frenchwoman by a Czech. I thought these two stories were quite ironic for the daughter of someone (me) who was cursed at twice in England for being an American. Be careful when you wear cowboy boots and polo shirts in Britian.

Kate doesn't take our genetic predispositions against the Brits as seriously as her dad. After all, we are directly descended from Lieutenant Gregory Baynham in General Washington's army and a McElroy who was a member of the army which took down Ferguson and his British troops on Kings Mountain and then later witnessed the surrender of Cornwallis to Washington at Yorktown. Then again, there was someone from whom my grandmother Baynham is descended who fought with Andrew Jackson against the British in New Orleans in the War of 1812 and a Sicard on Cindy's side who also fought the British in the Battle of New Orleans.

So maybe it is a little ironic that Kate keeps getting these Europeans confused about her national derivation.

Of course there was a Baynham in Stuart England (before we were sent off to America under sentence) who was utilized by the Catholics in the Gunpowder Plot. He was apparently dark-skinned and multi-lingual, so that the plotters sent him on a mission to the Pope to gain forgiveness for the plot because his dark skin and linguistic abilities could be utilized by him to disguise himself as a Spaniard or an Italian on his journey to Rome. Maybe Kate takes after him.

Maybe Kate should get a job which allows her to masquerade as a European. Kate Baynham, Agent 008 1/2.

Thursday morning/July sunshine

For the last few nights the weather has teased us with the possibility of rain. Every night around nine o'clock, thunder rumbles from the west and lightening breaks across the horizon. We wait for the sound of rain on the windows and roof. But nothing. We turn on the news and see the evidence of rain storms across the northern part of the state, but nothing seems to come down across the southern crescent.

I spoke with momma last night and she told me they had had several inches of rain each day for the past few days. When I told her we had not she informed me that she didn't have much sympathy for us since we had been getting rain in the recent past when they had not. Not the kind of attitude I expect from my mother. Dad, maybe. But not mom.

Niece Lily is staying with mom and dad for a couple of weeks. We are driving up to visit. Cindy and Kate will stay in Dunwoody tonight. I don't know what we will be doing this weekend.

Yesterday afternoon Cindy informed me that she and Kate wanted pancakes for supper. I volunteered to make them for them, but she wanted to go to IHOP. As it turned out, it was a pleasant meal. I had double blueberry pancakes and ham. Kate had a huge omelette. It might have been God's omelette. I don't know how she got it. Cindy had some bacon and egg and potato and cheese skillet dinner. She ate about half of it. Cindy and Kate took the balance of their meals home.

After dinner, Cindy informed me that she needed gas in the car. We drove up to Sunnyside and filled up at the new Racetrack gas station. They have the cheapest gas in metro Atlanta, for now. 3.94 for regular. I put $40 worth in Cindy's car and $30 worth in mine. We both got about half a tank out of that. Of course, mine will last longer and go farther.

I get to drive to Greenville today. That is a trip I haven't made in awhile. I've got to get the oil and filters changed beforehand.

Time to carry on.

Watermelon

What summer pleasure is greater?
The bright green stripes of its ripeness
And a loud thwok to my knuckle,
Iced down in a cooler out back.
Go grab a sharp kitchen knife
And slice down deep into the center;
Reveal that sweet pink flesh
The brown seeds like buttons on its vest.
Take a big spoon from the drawer,
Sweet ambrosia on the vine;
I even like the rind,
Make me happy anytime,
Breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Late at night, before my head hits pillow
Wash the sweet, sticky juice off my arms and hands
Asleep from the draught of my Dixie wonder,
Pink pleasure of paradise.

Football season

The first thing you notice is the smell of cut grass,
For it is a game that begins in summer's bounty
And is played out on the thinning brown carpet of Autumn.
Then comes the sharp sniff of lime dust
Measuring off the fields on which you play
In yards and ten yard increments,
For football is a game of down and distance.
Then, if you are fortunate enough,
You grasp the smell of new leather, once pigskin,
Married together with the aroma of the earth beneath your feet,
The cool dew of a summer morning, an evening thunderstorm,
Even the surprise of an early November snowfall,
When your legs will burn, your body will coil like a snake
Taking head-on the beatings to come
Which leave you with those foggy memories:
September afternoons, gray days in October and November
As you marched across those fields of conquest,
The victor or the vanquished, no matter, really,
Its that you played the games that matters,
Suddenly remembering the pallete of orange and crimson brushes
Of the oaks and maples planted beyond the field
And the Fall breeze whisper, the pink and purple sunsets
Of a Football weekend,
Your limbs bearing the purple bruising
Tattooed by the endeavor, the badges of honor, of the season,
Of memory.

Funeral

Kate and I attended the funeral of Paul Upole at our church yesterday afternoon. Kate said it was the best funeral she had ever attended. The funeral was quite upbeat, all things considered. Paul was a sweet-spirited person, who was always helpful and friendly. He started a group in Griffin called "The Brotherhood" which was a group of men of every race and denomination, who met once a month to fellowship, sing hymns and choruses and have a bible study. He also worked on habitat houses and manned the food pantry. He was very knowledgeable about the derivation of hymns.

He had been nominated to serve as an elder in our church on numerous occasions. He always turned this post down, mainly because he was unwilling to uphold that portion of the Presbyterian theology which deals with predestination. He was raised a Methodist and was unwilling to accept the concept of predestination. It was the only denominational quirk which kept him from serving in our church. For everything else, he was more than willing to lend a hand.

That was a small bit of quirkiness to stand by under the circumstances.

One little task that Paul always did was to call members of the church on their birthdays. It was always a pleasant call to take when Paul called me on my birthday to wish me a Happy Birthday. Sometimes the little things are the most meaningful.

We will miss him. His funeral was just what he probably would have wanted. It was a celebration rather than a commiseration.

Fireworks, both manufactured and natural

We worked on a new project on Cindy's Mom and Dad's house on Saturday. I was able to develop my skills as a chiseler. Of course, as you are want to do, we spent quite a bit of time at Home Depot trying to get the materials one needs for the project. I also got to help another older gentleman out who was trying to buy plywood without the assistance of a Home Depot employee. The rest of the day was spent on trying to get the lumber cut and arranged to provide the framing for the project.

In the afternoon, I took a shower and relaxed.

Friday was the Fourth of July. After supper we drove into town and dragged some folding chairs into position to be able to hear the Knoxville Symphony and watch the fireworks. After we got arranged, Cindy decided she was thirsty, so I walked over to a stand where they were selling large plastic cups of sweet tea, deep fried potato chips and corndogs. I ordered two iced teas, a corndog and slathered mustard on the corndog and ate it in peace, while the symphony played a second tune. By the time I returned to my seat, a bolt of lightening had hit and the conductor of the symphony informed us that the symphony would be ending and we should vacate the open field.

So we hiked back to the car in the parking lot. We drove down Cumberland Avenue to the cut off to Alcoa and then took the Pelissippi back to the house. By the time we made it home, everyone was shooting off fireworks. We stood out in the driveway for awhile and watched the fireworks from several positions around the neighborhood.

I did get to watch several hours worth of historical programs on the Revolutionary War. Kate and I sat and enjoyed the stories. That was fun.

Solitude and cacophany

On Tuesday, I drove over North Georgia, crying out foreclosure sales, and ended the day with a trip to Peachtree City for a closing. At the end of the closing, I drove over to Ted's Montana Grill and requested a seat for supper. It was around 7:30 that evening and the interior of the restaurant was bathed in the golden light of the dying day. After a few minutes, I was seated at a table, a fresh white tablecloth and cloth napkins at my place. Very soon after my seating, the waitress came and sat down across from me at the table. She spoke softly with me, inquiring about my needs and wishes. After some preliminary chat, she left me to attend to other customers and arrange for my glass of beer and a separate glass of water.

As I sat down, I looked around the restaurant. The decorations of these restaurants is comforting to me, all dark paneling and portraits of natural western scenes. The restaurant was relatively quiet and I was able to relax in the calm environment.

Later, my meal was brought to me and I was able to enjoy a meal of meat, potatoes and green beans in peace. The combination of the comfort food and the calm of the restaurant allowed me to come down from the long day of driving and crying.

Finally, my meal was completed, and paying for my sustenance, I slipped out the front door to the sidewalk outside. I visually located my car and began to walk across the concrete sidewalk to my car. Imagine the one hundred eighty degree alteration of my mood, when I soon heard the jazzy conversation of a young teenager, talking on his cellphone, his volume loud enough to allow everyone within fifty yards to hear his conversation. I glanced at him harshly and wondered what about his conversation he felt was so important to the rest of the shopping center.

A sense of peace is so hard to find in the world in which we live. Perhaps we should not expect so much from the average day. However, in a world in which phone booths are no longer found and the ability to make a telephone call is as close as the phone attached to our ear, the sound of music blaring from our cars and ipods, it is no wonder that peace and quiet are such short commodities.

On this day, the peace and relaxation I had found, was short lived, indeed. Something quickly shuffled to the past. Relived only as a memory.