Our love is like a pair of ancient lizards, sleeping in the noonday sun
Against the heat of desert furnace, we live and catch our winged prey
As other loves perish from thirst for want of rainy fountain
Our love survives the lack of water through cold-blooded design.
Against the rocks and rough and tumble of the passing of our lives
We slither slickety along the rocky sands
For you alone are my desert love, showing your pink tongue to the curulean sky
And I am your reptilian beau, surviving the beating of afternoon suns
To rule in tandem the sands upon which we skitter
Sharing the flies and fleas we find, in loving union, as holy communal banquet.
I wrote this for a contest at the Atlanta Shakespeare Tavern. I hope I win.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Cindy's birthday
Today is Cindy's birthday. It is also the fourth anniversary of the landfall of Katrina on New Orleans. I think to a certain extent that Cindy still associates her birthday with the tragedy that occurred on that date. It was traumatic and continues to be something which is a running sore on this country.
Unfortunately, the whole experience illustrates the differences between the haves and the have-nots in life. The parts of New Orleans which were relatively wealthy recovered relatively quickly and are mostly back to where they were before the hurricane. But the poor parts of New Orleans still suffer from the damage that occurred on August 29, 2005.
Last year, Cindy and I went to Louisiana to visit her family. One morning we drove into town from the communities north of Lake Ponchatrain and came in to the city so that you could see the houses that still suffer from the damage. It was beyond the normal state of poor areas in this country, because you could still see houses which had been abandoned and houses which were being used, but were still suffering from the hurricane damage. East New Orleans was even worse, because it seemed as if it had been leveled and left to rot. Only the Home Depot seemed like something was going on.
The French Quarter and the Garden District were different. The Vieux Carre was hopping like it always does. It was quite resilient, although it was established on the high ground anyway. The Garden District, to the west of the French Quarter was still doing well.
Before I even had visited New Orleans, I always loved the place. When I was finally able to visit, it was better than I imagined. Those few days in January 1983 with Cindy were magical. We walked around the French Quarter and ate seafood in Metarie. It seemed like a completely different country in many ways.
Whenever I have been privy to a conversation about New Orleans with people from New Orleans, they often talk about the problems of New Orleans: the crime, the poverty, the downward spiral of the condition of the French Quarter and other parts of the city, I must admit that I see that and understand their feelings. But I also see a city which holds an exotic place in American culture. It is a third world country in miniature. Visiting New Orleans is like stepping into another culture. The bad is counterbalanced by the food and the tradition and the music and the idiocyncracies of New Orleans.
Of course, a lot of my love for the city is tied to my love for my wife. In some ways, she is the feminine spirit of New Orleans for me. I can not see New Orleans, the city, without thinking about the fun times Cindy and I have spent in the city, in the country surrounding the city and even the exotic nature that Cindy sometimes shows. I love that brown-eyed girl like I love her city.
Happy Birthday, dear wife.
Unfortunately, the whole experience illustrates the differences between the haves and the have-nots in life. The parts of New Orleans which were relatively wealthy recovered relatively quickly and are mostly back to where they were before the hurricane. But the poor parts of New Orleans still suffer from the damage that occurred on August 29, 2005.
Last year, Cindy and I went to Louisiana to visit her family. One morning we drove into town from the communities north of Lake Ponchatrain and came in to the city so that you could see the houses that still suffer from the damage. It was beyond the normal state of poor areas in this country, because you could still see houses which had been abandoned and houses which were being used, but were still suffering from the hurricane damage. East New Orleans was even worse, because it seemed as if it had been leveled and left to rot. Only the Home Depot seemed like something was going on.
The French Quarter and the Garden District were different. The Vieux Carre was hopping like it always does. It was quite resilient, although it was established on the high ground anyway. The Garden District, to the west of the French Quarter was still doing well.
Before I even had visited New Orleans, I always loved the place. When I was finally able to visit, it was better than I imagined. Those few days in January 1983 with Cindy were magical. We walked around the French Quarter and ate seafood in Metarie. It seemed like a completely different country in many ways.
Whenever I have been privy to a conversation about New Orleans with people from New Orleans, they often talk about the problems of New Orleans: the crime, the poverty, the downward spiral of the condition of the French Quarter and other parts of the city, I must admit that I see that and understand their feelings. But I also see a city which holds an exotic place in American culture. It is a third world country in miniature. Visiting New Orleans is like stepping into another culture. The bad is counterbalanced by the food and the tradition and the music and the idiocyncracies of New Orleans.
Of course, a lot of my love for the city is tied to my love for my wife. In some ways, she is the feminine spirit of New Orleans for me. I can not see New Orleans, the city, without thinking about the fun times Cindy and I have spent in the city, in the country surrounding the city and even the exotic nature that Cindy sometimes shows. I love that brown-eyed girl like I love her city.
Happy Birthday, dear wife.
Friday, August 28, 2009
The future today
Most days I hide in an old Victorian house on South Hill Street and see myself as some greying country lawyer, plying his trade, waiting for another call on the telephone. This is fiction since I sit in front of a computer screen all day and refrain from dictating my pleas and briefs to my secretary, who would not know how to take dictation, even if we wanted to give and take that way. The law changes everyday, like the evolution of germs and bacteria on a petri dish. But sitting in my cotton, button-down shirt, I can at least play the scene like Atticus Finch, in some North Alabama courtroom.
Today, however, I received quite a push into the 21st century. After meeting with three elderly black ladies to talk estates and probate and the leavings of memory, I was sitting in my office, reading a book about Andrew Jackson, when my phone rang. It was a lady in Pennsylvania, who calls me from time to time to solicit my aid in closing loans out on the country roads of West Middle Georgia.
And today was different. This time, my contact person wanted to know if I was prepared to close an e-loan, a loan without paper and pen. What this request entailed was bringing the closing procedure out of the piles and files of paper and bringing it forward to what is considered the future, which is loan closing on line on a computer, without printing out the paper or dealing with the words printed on a piece of paper.
So for two hours, I made myself available to the electronic box on my credenza, trying to educate myself and make my self a part of the electronic future of closing. At this point, I am prepared to drive to a small hamlet north of Columbus, and a little house, in which, on Monday morning around 8:00 o'clock a.m., I will join with two other citizens in the rising morning and we will enter the future. Or at least today.
Today, however, I received quite a push into the 21st century. After meeting with three elderly black ladies to talk estates and probate and the leavings of memory, I was sitting in my office, reading a book about Andrew Jackson, when my phone rang. It was a lady in Pennsylvania, who calls me from time to time to solicit my aid in closing loans out on the country roads of West Middle Georgia.
And today was different. This time, my contact person wanted to know if I was prepared to close an e-loan, a loan without paper and pen. What this request entailed was bringing the closing procedure out of the piles and files of paper and bringing it forward to what is considered the future, which is loan closing on line on a computer, without printing out the paper or dealing with the words printed on a piece of paper.
So for two hours, I made myself available to the electronic box on my credenza, trying to educate myself and make my self a part of the electronic future of closing. At this point, I am prepared to drive to a small hamlet north of Columbus, and a little house, in which, on Monday morning around 8:00 o'clock a.m., I will join with two other citizens in the rising morning and we will enter the future. Or at least today.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Wood and linens
The smell of last week's breeze still lies heavy on the sheets
From hanging on the line in the back yard
And the scent of furniture polish is thick perfume
In the old middle bedroom upstairs.
Far in time and distance, I lie separated
From the place that was, that brought me such comfort
But I am there, in my memory, feeling the clean scratch
Of those sheets on my legs and across my chest.
Morning will come soon with the climbing of the sun into the sky
And the past will tuck smartly in some cubbyhole in my mind,
While I press diligently towards tomorrow
To conquer the day at hand, relying on the unseen support
From the days that lie comfortably behind me.
Yet, what is more real: the living of the day
In which I now exist and breathe and stumble towards the next
Or the caress of those sheets on that well-oiled middle bed,
Still scratching my skin and rising fragrantly up through my nostrils?
From hanging on the line in the back yard
And the scent of furniture polish is thick perfume
In the old middle bedroom upstairs.
Far in time and distance, I lie separated
From the place that was, that brought me such comfort
But I am there, in my memory, feeling the clean scratch
Of those sheets on my legs and across my chest.
Morning will come soon with the climbing of the sun into the sky
And the past will tuck smartly in some cubbyhole in my mind,
While I press diligently towards tomorrow
To conquer the day at hand, relying on the unseen support
From the days that lie comfortably behind me.
Yet, what is more real: the living of the day
In which I now exist and breathe and stumble towards the next
Or the caress of those sheets on that well-oiled middle bed,
Still scratching my skin and rising fragrantly up through my nostrils?
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Autumn
I remember this time of year, when the harsh heat of August was melting into September and the beginning of Fall. When I was younger, I travelled to the farm in Tennessee and visited my grandmother. The International Walking Horse Show was being held in Shelbyville. Austin Peay might be playing football on Saturday night. Dad and I would patiently walk the fencerows on Saturday afternoon in search of a mourning dove or two. It would be warm and you could feel the coming of Autumn only at night or in the early morning when I would get up and join grandmommie in the kitchen for breakfast. Later in the season, the leaves on the oaks and maples in the front yard would turn red and yellow, then brown before they fell as a blanket on the ground. Even later, the air would get colder and the smell of burning coal would fall upon the scene and lay a thick sweetness on the ground. At Thanksgiving, we would eat turkey and ham and grandmommie's dressing with sweet gherkins and watermelon pickles and olives and green beans and sweet potatoes, followed by those special little buttery biscuits that my grandmother always apologized for, then offered us two, because they were so wonderfully small. Autumn would end as Christmas rolled around and all of the birthdays would come and go and the world would turn grey and the air around the farm would be cold and bitter, but inside the house, it would be warm and filled with the smell of cinnamon candy, citrusy ambrosia, boiled custard and chocolate caramels and divinity. The sweet ending of the year.
Oranges
Butter orange poppies spread across a California canyon in Spring
Or the orange of the western sky at end of Summer,
Reflecting off a stark butte in Wyoming ,
Is different from the orange of the leaves
Burning flames through a sugar maple in October,
Which is different from the orange in your sock
At the crack of dawn on Christmas morn,
Which gives sweetness dripping sunshine
To a dark, cold world at the dying of December.
Or the orange of the western sky at end of Summer,
Reflecting off a stark butte in Wyoming ,
Is different from the orange of the leaves
Burning flames through a sugar maple in October,
Which is different from the orange in your sock
At the crack of dawn on Christmas morn,
Which gives sweetness dripping sunshine
To a dark, cold world at the dying of December.
Summer vegetables and lined fields in Autumn
I am so glad I don't have to ride back and forth between Griffin and Atlanta every day. Boy, am I tired at this point. I have to assume that my tired state could only be caused by the driving I did during the middle of the day. As I get older, my ability to withstand regular travel hither and yon is reduced. Just a product of the passage of time, but there nonetheless.
I still have a closing this afternoon at six and need to go to church afterward. Cindy will keep a plate warm for me, I know. I am happy to get back into the normal rhythm of life with Wednesday night church and such.
There you go. Why can't I remember how to spell rhythm? There always seem to be certain words the spelling of which remain beyond me. Rhythm is one of them.
I ate lunch at Mary Mac's with a new friend, Brad Howell. Brad is the husband of a former high school classmate of mine at Dunwoody. He hails from Thomson, Georgia, the home of Tom Watson, one of my favorite characters in Georgia history and politics. Watson's statue stands prominently in front of the front stairs into the capital in Atlanta and I stopped by his home in Thomson one time this year when I was coming back from a hearing in Columbia County. Since we are both from small towns, Thomson and Hopkinsville, I thought it appropriate to eat at a place where we could get 'country cooking.' So, I had chicken, rice and gravy with butter beans and cabbage and Brad ate barbecue and brunswick stew. We both washed our meals down with the state wine of Georgia: Sweet Tea.
Cindy said that it was perfect for me, taking something healthy like chicken and frying it and pouring gravy over it all. Well la-di-da. It tasted good and I think the cabbage and butter beans speak for themselves. I will say that it is now after five o'clock and I still can feel my lunch in my belly. So you can also say that it lasted me for a significant time. At least to supper.
I got into the habit of eating a meat and three when I was in law school in Athens. A bunch of my friends and I used to walk across Broad Street to Helen's restaurant and eat lunch most every day. At least that way I knew I was getting something that was intended to be healthy and full of all the vitamins, minerals, protein and carbohydrates. And sweet tea, always sweet tea.
I know this, I lost a ton of weight in my first year of law school. All that weight I put on for football dripped off when I wasn't eating to make sure I didn't fly backwards when I encountered an offensive tackle on the football field.
Which reminds me: it is upon us. When I go to pick Cindy up at Griffin Tech in the afternoon we pass the football field for a Christian high school and three fields of football players stretching out before practice for the recreational league. There are a lot of times in which I wish I was out there just like them. Smelling the grass, feeling the dizzyness after the first pop of headgear. The sour taste of the chalk from the lines on the football field. The burn of the bruises on my shoulders and forearms. The glory of putting some quarterback on his butt. Hunnh!
Ah, fall is upon us. Glory, glory, glory. The cool breezes and bright colors of dying leaves. Is there anything better?
I still have a closing this afternoon at six and need to go to church afterward. Cindy will keep a plate warm for me, I know. I am happy to get back into the normal rhythm of life with Wednesday night church and such.
There you go. Why can't I remember how to spell rhythm? There always seem to be certain words the spelling of which remain beyond me. Rhythm is one of them.
I ate lunch at Mary Mac's with a new friend, Brad Howell. Brad is the husband of a former high school classmate of mine at Dunwoody. He hails from Thomson, Georgia, the home of Tom Watson, one of my favorite characters in Georgia history and politics. Watson's statue stands prominently in front of the front stairs into the capital in Atlanta and I stopped by his home in Thomson one time this year when I was coming back from a hearing in Columbia County. Since we are both from small towns, Thomson and Hopkinsville, I thought it appropriate to eat at a place where we could get 'country cooking.' So, I had chicken, rice and gravy with butter beans and cabbage and Brad ate barbecue and brunswick stew. We both washed our meals down with the state wine of Georgia: Sweet Tea.
Cindy said that it was perfect for me, taking something healthy like chicken and frying it and pouring gravy over it all. Well la-di-da. It tasted good and I think the cabbage and butter beans speak for themselves. I will say that it is now after five o'clock and I still can feel my lunch in my belly. So you can also say that it lasted me for a significant time. At least to supper.
I got into the habit of eating a meat and three when I was in law school in Athens. A bunch of my friends and I used to walk across Broad Street to Helen's restaurant and eat lunch most every day. At least that way I knew I was getting something that was intended to be healthy and full of all the vitamins, minerals, protein and carbohydrates. And sweet tea, always sweet tea.
I know this, I lost a ton of weight in my first year of law school. All that weight I put on for football dripped off when I wasn't eating to make sure I didn't fly backwards when I encountered an offensive tackle on the football field.
Which reminds me: it is upon us. When I go to pick Cindy up at Griffin Tech in the afternoon we pass the football field for a Christian high school and three fields of football players stretching out before practice for the recreational league. There are a lot of times in which I wish I was out there just like them. Smelling the grass, feeling the dizzyness after the first pop of headgear. The sour taste of the chalk from the lines on the football field. The burn of the bruises on my shoulders and forearms. The glory of putting some quarterback on his butt. Hunnh!
Ah, fall is upon us. Glory, glory, glory. The cool breezes and bright colors of dying leaves. Is there anything better?
Psalm 65: 8-13
"You make the gateways of the morning and the evening shout for joy.
9 You visit the earth and water it,
you greatly enrich it;
the river of God is full of water;
you provide the people with grain,
for so you have prepared it.
10 You water its furrows abundantly,
settling its ridges,
softening it with showers,
and blessing its growth.
11 You crown the year with your bounty;
your wagon tracks overflow with richness.
12 The pastures of the wilderness overflow,
the hills gird themselves with joy,
13 the meadows clothe themselves with flocks,
the valleys deck themselves with grain,
they shout and sing together for joy." Psalm 65:8-13
I went to a website operated by the Presbyterian Church (PCUSA) from Louisville. The church operates a devotional website which I visit from time to time. Unfortunately, I haven't felt like going to the website recently. I suppose that is understandable. However, this morning, before I headed out to McDonough and the rest of the day, I stopped and pulled up the website to read it. The first passage on the devotional was Psalm 65. I began reading and this last part of the psalm really caught my heart.
In these times of trouble and loss, when it is difficult to see the sun for the dark clouds which surround us, it is perhaps very important to catch a glimpse of the beauty and bounty that God has prepared for us and continues to provide. The sunshine of the poetry and the vision of the awesome wonders in this world is something to hold on to and keep within us. We too must "shout and sing with joy."
Our path is not so hard that we cannot continue on despite the lateness of the hour and the roughness of the road.
9 You visit the earth and water it,
you greatly enrich it;
the river of God is full of water;
you provide the people with grain,
for so you have prepared it.
10 You water its furrows abundantly,
settling its ridges,
softening it with showers,
and blessing its growth.
11 You crown the year with your bounty;
your wagon tracks overflow with richness.
12 The pastures of the wilderness overflow,
the hills gird themselves with joy,
13 the meadows clothe themselves with flocks,
the valleys deck themselves with grain,
they shout and sing together for joy." Psalm 65:8-13
I went to a website operated by the Presbyterian Church (PCUSA) from Louisville. The church operates a devotional website which I visit from time to time. Unfortunately, I haven't felt like going to the website recently. I suppose that is understandable. However, this morning, before I headed out to McDonough and the rest of the day, I stopped and pulled up the website to read it. The first passage on the devotional was Psalm 65. I began reading and this last part of the psalm really caught my heart.
In these times of trouble and loss, when it is difficult to see the sun for the dark clouds which surround us, it is perhaps very important to catch a glimpse of the beauty and bounty that God has prepared for us and continues to provide. The sunshine of the poetry and the vision of the awesome wonders in this world is something to hold on to and keep within us. We too must "shout and sing with joy."
Our path is not so hard that we cannot continue on despite the lateness of the hour and the roughness of the road.
Monday, August 24, 2009
My mind is fried
I got back in to the office and everything seemed about the way I expected. A little more piled up with messages and mail and things to deal with. I needed to prepare some discovery and an objection to a probate and see a client in jail who will be brought to court to meet with me and the judge and the solicitor tomorrow afternoon. He faces some more probation and some more fines and some more community service and there is not a logical way for him to earn a living when he is released from jail. In addition, he will be in the county jail for at least another four months. How do you deal with that. I told him that it is better to serve time on a burglary than be placed on probation for a dui. Strange.
I met with three people who between them might have half a clue. I spoke with someone who is singularly going to force me to throw my cell phone into the Flint River somewhere south of Upson County. I also spoke with someone who was told that the reason I had not written was because my aunt had died and I had been out of state attending her funeral. He said he understood. Later in the day, he called back and asked me when I would be sending the letters. He obviously understood.
These are a few of my favorite things.....
Apparently a man is growing truffles in East Tennessee. I look forward to buying truffle oil from a local source. That can go along with the ginseng stolen from the deep woods and sold in China. The new triangular trade: France, China, East Tennessee? I would like to start something with East Tennessee where we send them something and they send us something really valuable: heirloom tomatoes. As a matter of fact, they can just keep sending those tomatoes southward. I figure we can work something out later. I'm sure of it.
I am sure I am not out of things to write about. I think I need to find the 'negative capability' that Keats spoke about. Finding the mean by realizing the time when you stop adding and let be. Kind of a late Beatles philosophy where you know when to stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Understand? I think you have to be a certain type of English major to really appreciate that.
I met with three people who between them might have half a clue. I spoke with someone who is singularly going to force me to throw my cell phone into the Flint River somewhere south of Upson County. I also spoke with someone who was told that the reason I had not written was because my aunt had died and I had been out of state attending her funeral. He said he understood. Later in the day, he called back and asked me when I would be sending the letters. He obviously understood.
These are a few of my favorite things.....
Apparently a man is growing truffles in East Tennessee. I look forward to buying truffle oil from a local source. That can go along with the ginseng stolen from the deep woods and sold in China. The new triangular trade: France, China, East Tennessee? I would like to start something with East Tennessee where we send them something and they send us something really valuable: heirloom tomatoes. As a matter of fact, they can just keep sending those tomatoes southward. I figure we can work something out later. I'm sure of it.
I am sure I am not out of things to write about. I think I need to find the 'negative capability' that Keats spoke about. Finding the mean by realizing the time when you stop adding and let be. Kind of a late Beatles philosophy where you know when to stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Understand? I think you have to be a certain type of English major to really appreciate that.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Lessons in the losses
We should stop and try to learn something from this season, these moments of loss. Over the past few days, I have heard so many of my relatives talk about how this has been a terrible summer. My uncle's brother died earlier in the year. Then my own father passed away in July. Finally, my aunt has now passed away in Florida. So my family has been gathering over the past few months to touch, commiserate with each other, and think about the brevity of life.
On the positive side, I have been able to sit down and eat with my family, together like we rarely are able to do so when something significant like the loss of family members doesn't happen. We have reconnected with each other, even for such a short time, and I feel that I have been able to recognize (think again) how much I really like my family members. We were drawn together by these losses and came together to offer each other support. In my mind, we also were able to enjoy each other and realize that we did do so.
Sure, there are differences and we don't all live together in some Kennedy compound of the Baynham-Morris variety. Some of us live in Atlanta, some in Pinellas County, Florida, some in Palm Beach County, Florida. Some of us are older, some in the middle, some quite young. One is in college, some are retired, some work, some do not. Some are Catholic, some Baptist, some Presbyterian, some don't seem to know.
But last night, I found myself in my parent's bedroom with my brother and mother, looking over some of the physical leavings of my father. For a time, we could talk, question each other, consider matters and laugh at our failings and our past and our connections, even though I no longer get up in the morning in the bed next to my brother and dress for school and eat a breakfast provided by our mother. Despite the changes over time, we still do enjoy each other and can smile and laugh with each other.
Summer is a time of recreation, a time of release and relaxation. All those re-s. Kate asked me yesterday when Summer would be over. From a factual standpoint, I told her that Summer would be over on September 21. From a traditional point, it will end on the weekend of Labor Day on September 4th. But I do hope we can hold on to a bit of Summer, in the sense that we look back on our lives from time to time and remember those Summer vacations in Florida, visiting our family in St. Pete and Hopkinsville and Clarksville. I hope we can remember the watermelon and peaches and baseball and fireworks and family picnics. I hope we can remember two a day football practices and the first day of Summer vacation from school when we would get up early, eat some cereal and drink some orange juice and step out of the house and gather with our friends up the street at the corner down from the Balfours' house and feel like the Summer ahead of us, with baseball and bicycles and hotdogs and hand-churned ice cream, was eternal and never-ending.
I hope that as the years continue, I will be able to sit in my chair and feel myself on a wooden porch in a farmhouse in Montgomery County, Tennessee, and help my grandmother snap beans into a pot for our supper and feel the breeze off the corn outside the screen window. Later, I will leave the dining room table, having eaten my share of green beans and corn and tomatoes and those tiny, buttery biscuits my grandmother made which were always amazing, but always apologized for by my grandmother as she asked us to "take two, because they're small." And I will step outside the house, and play with the English setter puppies living in the little wooden doghouse by the coal house, and I will walk around the house and watch the sun go down in the broad, full day. And we, the whole family, will sit together and enjoy the leavings of the day. And even though the day will be over, who can really say that the day is over. After all, sitting in my chair, I can live it all over again without any effort on my own.
In the season of loss, we need to remember the ones we love who are still around us, take the time to remember how much we do love each other, and take the time to remember those warm, sweet moments which are behind us, but never really gone.
On the positive side, I have been able to sit down and eat with my family, together like we rarely are able to do so when something significant like the loss of family members doesn't happen. We have reconnected with each other, even for such a short time, and I feel that I have been able to recognize (think again) how much I really like my family members. We were drawn together by these losses and came together to offer each other support. In my mind, we also were able to enjoy each other and realize that we did do so.
Sure, there are differences and we don't all live together in some Kennedy compound of the Baynham-Morris variety. Some of us live in Atlanta, some in Pinellas County, Florida, some in Palm Beach County, Florida. Some of us are older, some in the middle, some quite young. One is in college, some are retired, some work, some do not. Some are Catholic, some Baptist, some Presbyterian, some don't seem to know.
But last night, I found myself in my parent's bedroom with my brother and mother, looking over some of the physical leavings of my father. For a time, we could talk, question each other, consider matters and laugh at our failings and our past and our connections, even though I no longer get up in the morning in the bed next to my brother and dress for school and eat a breakfast provided by our mother. Despite the changes over time, we still do enjoy each other and can smile and laugh with each other.
Summer is a time of recreation, a time of release and relaxation. All those re-s. Kate asked me yesterday when Summer would be over. From a factual standpoint, I told her that Summer would be over on September 21. From a traditional point, it will end on the weekend of Labor Day on September 4th. But I do hope we can hold on to a bit of Summer, in the sense that we look back on our lives from time to time and remember those Summer vacations in Florida, visiting our family in St. Pete and Hopkinsville and Clarksville. I hope we can remember the watermelon and peaches and baseball and fireworks and family picnics. I hope we can remember two a day football practices and the first day of Summer vacation from school when we would get up early, eat some cereal and drink some orange juice and step out of the house and gather with our friends up the street at the corner down from the Balfours' house and feel like the Summer ahead of us, with baseball and bicycles and hotdogs and hand-churned ice cream, was eternal and never-ending.
I hope that as the years continue, I will be able to sit in my chair and feel myself on a wooden porch in a farmhouse in Montgomery County, Tennessee, and help my grandmother snap beans into a pot for our supper and feel the breeze off the corn outside the screen window. Later, I will leave the dining room table, having eaten my share of green beans and corn and tomatoes and those tiny, buttery biscuits my grandmother made which were always amazing, but always apologized for by my grandmother as she asked us to "take two, because they're small." And I will step outside the house, and play with the English setter puppies living in the little wooden doghouse by the coal house, and I will walk around the house and watch the sun go down in the broad, full day. And we, the whole family, will sit together and enjoy the leavings of the day. And even though the day will be over, who can really say that the day is over. After all, sitting in my chair, I can live it all over again without any effort on my own.
In the season of loss, we need to remember the ones we love who are still around us, take the time to remember how much we do love each other, and take the time to remember those warm, sweet moments which are behind us, but never really gone.
Friday, August 21, 2009
A cold beer might be nice
Even at 1:00 o'clock in the morning, an advertisement for Olive Garden drives me crazy. I didn't think I was that hungry, but they just showed several pasta dishes they are now selling at Olive Garden and I could really use a big bowl of pasta and a salad and a glass of red wine. Gosh, I am ridiculous. Why does food get me every time.
This afternoon, several ladies from First Baptist church came to Cicely and Bill's and delivered a whole table full of food including turkey and ham and corn pudding and green beans and macaroni salad and potato salad and such. Then key lime pie and carrot cake with creme cheese topping and brownies and other stuff. It was sublime. All washed down with sweet tea. It was four thirty, but now it is six and a half hours later and I am hungry again.
I don't think anything is open now. The house is dark and everyone, except myself, is asleep. Even the dog. And I don't think there are any leftovers from Olive Garden hanging around, but just seeing that made me hungry. Which is also ridiculous, because I am still full from this afternoon's repast.
Oh well, we went to the beach after the get together at Bill and Cicely's and watched the sun going down over the gulf. And we could see massive cumulus clouds piled up like orange and pink mountains flowing from the east toward the gulf, topped with layers of cirrus clouds like a giant painter stroked his brush across the top of the clouds. And the clouds reached out across the sand and promised rain but there has been no rain here. Perhaps the rain is falling south of here or out in the gulf. I don't know.
Tomorrow we are going to the beach and it will be hot and the sun will be high in the sky and the sky will be blue. At the end of the day I will be red and hot and greased down with sunblock. And I will take a shower and wash the sunblock off my body and there will be heat and a tingle on my skin. And I will feel and smell like Florida as I eat my seafood for supper.
A cold beer might be nice.
This afternoon, several ladies from First Baptist church came to Cicely and Bill's and delivered a whole table full of food including turkey and ham and corn pudding and green beans and macaroni salad and potato salad and such. Then key lime pie and carrot cake with creme cheese topping and brownies and other stuff. It was sublime. All washed down with sweet tea. It was four thirty, but now it is six and a half hours later and I am hungry again.
I don't think anything is open now. The house is dark and everyone, except myself, is asleep. Even the dog. And I don't think there are any leftovers from Olive Garden hanging around, but just seeing that made me hungry. Which is also ridiculous, because I am still full from this afternoon's repast.
Oh well, we went to the beach after the get together at Bill and Cicely's and watched the sun going down over the gulf. And we could see massive cumulus clouds piled up like orange and pink mountains flowing from the east toward the gulf, topped with layers of cirrus clouds like a giant painter stroked his brush across the top of the clouds. And the clouds reached out across the sand and promised rain but there has been no rain here. Perhaps the rain is falling south of here or out in the gulf. I don't know.
Tomorrow we are going to the beach and it will be hot and the sun will be high in the sky and the sky will be blue. At the end of the day I will be red and hot and greased down with sunblock. And I will take a shower and wash the sunblock off my body and there will be heat and a tingle on my skin. And I will feel and smell like Florida as I eat my seafood for supper.
A cold beer might be nice.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Representative Democracy and its dissidents
As I said last night, Cindy, Kate and I watched the Torchwood mini-series on television last Saturday night and early Sunday morning. The story involved the effort of an alien race to come to earth and demand the lives of 10% of the children of earth. As the plot unfolded, the British government was willing to host these alien invaders and try to placate their coming to earth, in hopes that the aliens would seek no recompense from the British people.
As we watched the mini-series, we found that the British government had encountered these aliens before, in the late 60's and had given them twelve Scottish children from villages and towns far from the public eye. Afterward, the aliens had left them alone and the bargain seemed a good one to those involved in the transaction.
But now the aliens were coming back. The British scrambled to be good hosts to these visitors. In the end, they allowed other countries to participate as secondary participants in the entertaining of the aliens.
Unfortunately, when the aliens were questioned as to why they had returned to earth, the aliens made their demand for 10% of the children of the world. Upon receipt of this demand, the British envoy requested the reason for this demand. The aliens allowed them to glimpse into the place provided for the aliens, and the scientists and politicans found that the aliens used these children as a drug. The aliens had taken eleven of the twelve children they had taken in the 60's for some intoxicating effect they had on the aliens. Now they wanted more children to build a supply of drugs for the future.
At this point, the governmental and military powers put their heads together and tried to come up with a plan. Not willing to band together to fight the force of the aliens, the British and the Americans were willing to surreptiously gather children from all over the world in order to satisfy the needs of these alien visitors. As the story continued, it appeared that the aliens would get what they wanted and the governments and the military would be complicit in assisting their desires.
At this point, the remaining members of Torchwood, this governmental agency created to fight aliens who attacked Britain, jumped in and defied the government and the military and hid children and fought the aliens. Fortunately, in the end, they found a way to defeat the aliens and protect the children of earth from being used by their official governments as pawns in an enormous drug trafficking ring into outer space.
I realize that this story is science fiction, but science fiction often provides a valuable lesson for our daily lives and a source for discussion in the real world. As I watched the mini-series, I thought about the many times in the history of the world in which governments and military forces have been cowtowed to or have cowtowed to the threat from without or within because it was expedient to cave in rather than fight the powers of wrong and evil.
In the story, the duly-elected governments and contituted military powers were faced with a threat, a terrible threat to the people. The final threat was total eradication if they did not comply with the demand. However, rather than attempt to fight the alien threat, the governments and the military decided that the demand was not so great that it could not be complied with in order to satisfy the demands and the threat.
At this point, the individual citizens acted against the determinations of the government and the military, and attempted to hide their children and fight the aliens. This action of dissent against the elected officials ultimately was successful; however, points to a real element of living in a democracy.
When we elect our representatives in the governments, we defer power to them to represent us and make good and sound decisions about the threats and needs of the country as a whole. Most of the time we grudgingly allow these officials to act on our behalf. However, there are ultimate limits on their power and we must withhold ultimate control from the powers we constitute in order to protect ourselves from the tyranny of the majority.
Perhaps this is why the Second Amendment is ultimately so important. The glory of a democracy, where the citizens of a country retain the power to govern themselves, is also the ultimate threat against that same democracy. The question is this: what happens if the government, duly constituted and politically able, determines through its rules and procedures to destroy the citizens of the nation? Theoretically, the democratic government could vote to commit suicide, much as the Jewish people who found themselves on the heights of Masada did, when they were facing the legions of Rome. Theoretically, this would be a legal decision.
But that doesn't necessarily make this decision the right decision. On the contrary, we acknowledge that our government can make the wrong decisions. That is why we have appeals in court cases, and the rights of recall, redress, impeachment and so forth in the legislative arena. In this context, perhaps the ultimate redress is the action of the minutemen in Concord and Lexington, arming themselves against the actions of the government and military, and firing that "shot heard round the world" on Concord bridge. In that action, perhaps the only ultimate court of inquiry is the court of history and the findings of posterity as to the actions of their fathers and mothers.
Most Americans have accepted the actions of those dissenters in early American history to take hold of the reins of government from the British King and Parlaiment. Most Americans condemn the actions of the citizens of Charleston to take control of the reins of power and fire upon Fort Sumter in 1860. Most Europeans laud the efforts of the resistors to Nazi and Fascist powers in France and Italy and Germany and throughout the European continent.
The ultimate question is when it is appropriate for the citizens to take arms against their own country. Our legal system is filled with remedies for the citizens when the officials of government act against the authority of law or against the best interests of the voters. But like the members of Torchwood, we know that there is a limit beyond which we citizens might take matters into our own hands and protect ourselves against the forces of our governments.
Ultimately, perhaps that is why we have the Second Amendment and the right to bear arms. That is a troubling thought in some ways, but certainly an interesting issue to find its discussion in the context of a work of science fiction. It is only when it came up beyond the forum of fiction and found its discussion in real life which forms the ultimate issue of citizenship and the limits of democracy.
As we watched the mini-series, we found that the British government had encountered these aliens before, in the late 60's and had given them twelve Scottish children from villages and towns far from the public eye. Afterward, the aliens had left them alone and the bargain seemed a good one to those involved in the transaction.
But now the aliens were coming back. The British scrambled to be good hosts to these visitors. In the end, they allowed other countries to participate as secondary participants in the entertaining of the aliens.
Unfortunately, when the aliens were questioned as to why they had returned to earth, the aliens made their demand for 10% of the children of the world. Upon receipt of this demand, the British envoy requested the reason for this demand. The aliens allowed them to glimpse into the place provided for the aliens, and the scientists and politicans found that the aliens used these children as a drug. The aliens had taken eleven of the twelve children they had taken in the 60's for some intoxicating effect they had on the aliens. Now they wanted more children to build a supply of drugs for the future.
At this point, the governmental and military powers put their heads together and tried to come up with a plan. Not willing to band together to fight the force of the aliens, the British and the Americans were willing to surreptiously gather children from all over the world in order to satisfy the needs of these alien visitors. As the story continued, it appeared that the aliens would get what they wanted and the governments and the military would be complicit in assisting their desires.
At this point, the remaining members of Torchwood, this governmental agency created to fight aliens who attacked Britain, jumped in and defied the government and the military and hid children and fought the aliens. Fortunately, in the end, they found a way to defeat the aliens and protect the children of earth from being used by their official governments as pawns in an enormous drug trafficking ring into outer space.
I realize that this story is science fiction, but science fiction often provides a valuable lesson for our daily lives and a source for discussion in the real world. As I watched the mini-series, I thought about the many times in the history of the world in which governments and military forces have been cowtowed to or have cowtowed to the threat from without or within because it was expedient to cave in rather than fight the powers of wrong and evil.
In the story, the duly-elected governments and contituted military powers were faced with a threat, a terrible threat to the people. The final threat was total eradication if they did not comply with the demand. However, rather than attempt to fight the alien threat, the governments and the military decided that the demand was not so great that it could not be complied with in order to satisfy the demands and the threat.
At this point, the individual citizens acted against the determinations of the government and the military, and attempted to hide their children and fight the aliens. This action of dissent against the elected officials ultimately was successful; however, points to a real element of living in a democracy.
When we elect our representatives in the governments, we defer power to them to represent us and make good and sound decisions about the threats and needs of the country as a whole. Most of the time we grudgingly allow these officials to act on our behalf. However, there are ultimate limits on their power and we must withhold ultimate control from the powers we constitute in order to protect ourselves from the tyranny of the majority.
Perhaps this is why the Second Amendment is ultimately so important. The glory of a democracy, where the citizens of a country retain the power to govern themselves, is also the ultimate threat against that same democracy. The question is this: what happens if the government, duly constituted and politically able, determines through its rules and procedures to destroy the citizens of the nation? Theoretically, the democratic government could vote to commit suicide, much as the Jewish people who found themselves on the heights of Masada did, when they were facing the legions of Rome. Theoretically, this would be a legal decision.
But that doesn't necessarily make this decision the right decision. On the contrary, we acknowledge that our government can make the wrong decisions. That is why we have appeals in court cases, and the rights of recall, redress, impeachment and so forth in the legislative arena. In this context, perhaps the ultimate redress is the action of the minutemen in Concord and Lexington, arming themselves against the actions of the government and military, and firing that "shot heard round the world" on Concord bridge. In that action, perhaps the only ultimate court of inquiry is the court of history and the findings of posterity as to the actions of their fathers and mothers.
Most Americans have accepted the actions of those dissenters in early American history to take hold of the reins of government from the British King and Parlaiment. Most Americans condemn the actions of the citizens of Charleston to take control of the reins of power and fire upon Fort Sumter in 1860. Most Europeans laud the efforts of the resistors to Nazi and Fascist powers in France and Italy and Germany and throughout the European continent.
The ultimate question is when it is appropriate for the citizens to take arms against their own country. Our legal system is filled with remedies for the citizens when the officials of government act against the authority of law or against the best interests of the voters. But like the members of Torchwood, we know that there is a limit beyond which we citizens might take matters into our own hands and protect ourselves against the forces of our governments.
Ultimately, perhaps that is why we have the Second Amendment and the right to bear arms. That is a troubling thought in some ways, but certainly an interesting issue to find its discussion in the context of a work of science fiction. It is only when it came up beyond the forum of fiction and found its discussion in real life which forms the ultimate issue of citizenship and the limits of democracy.
Democracy, and its detractors
On the news this morning they had stories of policemen in Tampa being killed, women being kidnapped in North Georgia and storms in the Atlantic, the Gulf and across the great plains of America. The story which caught my eye was the attempt by the Afghan government to hold an election.
Apparently, the second free elections were scheduled for today in Afghanistan. The last time the Afghan government held free elections, the turnout was amazing. It really put our elections to shame, as far as participation. But this time was different. The Taliban, that conservative, radical Islamic group which has wreaked havoc throughout the middle east and was a big part of the reason we went into Afghanistan in the first place, due to their attempts to clear Afghan culture of any non-fundamental Islamic elements, attempted to reduce the participation of Afghan citizens from the election.
The Taliban, which wants to gain greater control over Afghan culture, and is willing to do almost anything to accomplish this task, is willing to shut off the exercise of Afghan free will through acts of terrorism. They are willing to cut off dissent by violence. In the Afghan elections, voters were required to place ink on their thumbs and make a mark on their ballot to show that the individual voters had completed their votes. The Taliban promised to cut off the thumbs of anyone they found with ink on their thumbs.
This is the same regime which tried to reduce the civil liberties and channel the thinking of an entire nation by destroying statuary in the desert which was placed thousands of years ago by believers in a different theological construct. Statues which meant very little to the Afghan people other than providing a historical background for their national heritage. Stupid acts which merit nothing and provide no positive action in any way, theological, ethical, political or otherwise.
How different are the civil liberties we are allowed in this country, thanks to founding fathers who sought to protect the rights of the citizenry to think as they chose and to retain the freedom of conscience. We must guard and protect the rights of our citizens to think differently from us, no matter how different or obnoxious to our own thoughts and beliefs. We must educate our children and teach them as we see fit. But we must not choose to act, as the Taliban, to eradicate any dissent or thought which differentiates from our own, no matter how serious or trivial.
A pile of severed ink-stained thumbs, crumbled historical artifacts and broken bodies lying in hospital beds is the legacy of the effort to control the beliefs and conscience of these nations.
Apparently, the second free elections were scheduled for today in Afghanistan. The last time the Afghan government held free elections, the turnout was amazing. It really put our elections to shame, as far as participation. But this time was different. The Taliban, that conservative, radical Islamic group which has wreaked havoc throughout the middle east and was a big part of the reason we went into Afghanistan in the first place, due to their attempts to clear Afghan culture of any non-fundamental Islamic elements, attempted to reduce the participation of Afghan citizens from the election.
The Taliban, which wants to gain greater control over Afghan culture, and is willing to do almost anything to accomplish this task, is willing to shut off the exercise of Afghan free will through acts of terrorism. They are willing to cut off dissent by violence. In the Afghan elections, voters were required to place ink on their thumbs and make a mark on their ballot to show that the individual voters had completed their votes. The Taliban promised to cut off the thumbs of anyone they found with ink on their thumbs.
This is the same regime which tried to reduce the civil liberties and channel the thinking of an entire nation by destroying statuary in the desert which was placed thousands of years ago by believers in a different theological construct. Statues which meant very little to the Afghan people other than providing a historical background for their national heritage. Stupid acts which merit nothing and provide no positive action in any way, theological, ethical, political or otherwise.
How different are the civil liberties we are allowed in this country, thanks to founding fathers who sought to protect the rights of the citizenry to think as they chose and to retain the freedom of conscience. We must guard and protect the rights of our citizens to think differently from us, no matter how different or obnoxious to our own thoughts and beliefs. We must educate our children and teach them as we see fit. But we must not choose to act, as the Taliban, to eradicate any dissent or thought which differentiates from our own, no matter how serious or trivial.
A pile of severed ink-stained thumbs, crumbled historical artifacts and broken bodies lying in hospital beds is the legacy of the effort to control the beliefs and conscience of these nations.
A new sun glinting on different waters
It has been some time since I could sit down and take the time to write what is on my mind. My mind has been distracted recently and I have tried to handle business, which is always there even when the money is not. I am never without something to do. I think that is a big part of adulthood.
Anyway, Momma sent us home two weekends ago and ordered us to stay at home for a weekend. So I became reaquainted with the mattress on my bed at home. How delightful. And I got to do some work around the house.
I was faced with something which I didn't anticipate. On Saturday evening, Cindy, Kate and I began to watch five episodes of a special on BBC America, which wound up the series called Torchwood. Torchwood was an ofshoot of Dr. Who, which is a long running science fiction on BBC, which began in the early 60's and continues on television in Britian even today.
At any rate, Torchwood was a spinoff from Dr. Who which involved a team of people who battle alien life forms who attempt to take over the planet, predominately in Britain. Their headquarters is in Cardiff, Wales, which is handy since most of the characters live in Cardiff and most of the actors are Welsh.
At any rate, for some reason, the producers of Torchwood decided to end the series by having a mini series on five successive nights in which the world and the three surviving members of Torchwood battled aliens who desired to take 10% of the children of the world as hostages for some undetermined use.
When we began to watch the five episodes on Saturday night, we anticipated watching one, maybe two of them and leaving the rest to watch on some other night. As it turned out, the plot and acting was so compelling that we ended up watching all five episodes on Saturday night and Sunday morning and going to bed close to 3:00 on Sunday morning.
Needless to say, it was much later than normal when I awoke on Sunday morning with the idea of going to church. As I stumbled around the house, trying to eat breakfast and awaken the synapses in my brain, there was a strong, growin desire to stay at home and avoid church that morning.
As I sat there on the couch in front of the television, it occurred to me that perhaps the main reason I didn't want to go to church was because I didn't want to talk with my friends at church and have to rehash the loss of my father. As the thoughts whistled around my brain and the sleepiness continued in my limbs, it came closer and closer to 10:30 and the beginning of church.
I finally made the decision that I needed to go to church, so I went back into the dark bedroom and took a shower and dressed for church. I arrived at First Presbyterian and opened the large entrance doors to the narthex. Inside were two of my friends. They both greeted me warmly, but there was still some talk of condolence. I took a bulletin and walked back to the choir room. It appeared that we would not have choir that morning. Several of us entered the choir practice room and were told to go sit with our families. I wondered if I should just go home and join
Cindy in bed.
But I reentered the sanctuary and there were more members of our church who had things to speak to me about. I ended up sitting with them and talking a bit about what the past few weeks had been like. It finally ended up being a good thing to be able to feel the friendship and concern of my friends at church. I left the sanctuary after the service and returned home. The rest of the day seemed to be aiming for a bit of rest.
Then word came that my Aunt Meg was suffering from another stroke in Florida. Now I am in St. Petersburg. Tomorrow is her funeral and burial. The family is gathering. The friends are here. Here we go again. Here we are again.
I love my family. I love our friends. Emotions are hard and lie right below the surface. We try to carry on. Sometimes it is tough. Ecclesiates says everything must have a season. It seems to me that all seasons come together. Perhaps it is just our understanding of it which fluctuates.
Sometimes we see with eyes half open. Sometimes we intentionally avert our view. We laugh and whistle past the graveyard. This world is full enough with heartache and sorrow. But there is laughter and joy as well. It is all there. We can't assume that one overwhelms the other, because they do not.
It is a mixed bag. As we ponder the brevity of our lives, we must also find a time to enjoy the waves rolling up on the shore, the cry of seabirds, and the colors of the sun sinking in the western sky at the end of day. Perhaps all of it is why we find ourselves in this place right now.
Anyway, Momma sent us home two weekends ago and ordered us to stay at home for a weekend. So I became reaquainted with the mattress on my bed at home. How delightful. And I got to do some work around the house.
I was faced with something which I didn't anticipate. On Saturday evening, Cindy, Kate and I began to watch five episodes of a special on BBC America, which wound up the series called Torchwood. Torchwood was an ofshoot of Dr. Who, which is a long running science fiction on BBC, which began in the early 60's and continues on television in Britian even today.
At any rate, Torchwood was a spinoff from Dr. Who which involved a team of people who battle alien life forms who attempt to take over the planet, predominately in Britain. Their headquarters is in Cardiff, Wales, which is handy since most of the characters live in Cardiff and most of the actors are Welsh.
At any rate, for some reason, the producers of Torchwood decided to end the series by having a mini series on five successive nights in which the world and the three surviving members of Torchwood battled aliens who desired to take 10% of the children of the world as hostages for some undetermined use.
When we began to watch the five episodes on Saturday night, we anticipated watching one, maybe two of them and leaving the rest to watch on some other night. As it turned out, the plot and acting was so compelling that we ended up watching all five episodes on Saturday night and Sunday morning and going to bed close to 3:00 on Sunday morning.
Needless to say, it was much later than normal when I awoke on Sunday morning with the idea of going to church. As I stumbled around the house, trying to eat breakfast and awaken the synapses in my brain, there was a strong, growin desire to stay at home and avoid church that morning.
As I sat there on the couch in front of the television, it occurred to me that perhaps the main reason I didn't want to go to church was because I didn't want to talk with my friends at church and have to rehash the loss of my father. As the thoughts whistled around my brain and the sleepiness continued in my limbs, it came closer and closer to 10:30 and the beginning of church.
I finally made the decision that I needed to go to church, so I went back into the dark bedroom and took a shower and dressed for church. I arrived at First Presbyterian and opened the large entrance doors to the narthex. Inside were two of my friends. They both greeted me warmly, but there was still some talk of condolence. I took a bulletin and walked back to the choir room. It appeared that we would not have choir that morning. Several of us entered the choir practice room and were told to go sit with our families. I wondered if I should just go home and join
Cindy in bed.
But I reentered the sanctuary and there were more members of our church who had things to speak to me about. I ended up sitting with them and talking a bit about what the past few weeks had been like. It finally ended up being a good thing to be able to feel the friendship and concern of my friends at church. I left the sanctuary after the service and returned home. The rest of the day seemed to be aiming for a bit of rest.
Then word came that my Aunt Meg was suffering from another stroke in Florida. Now I am in St. Petersburg. Tomorrow is her funeral and burial. The family is gathering. The friends are here. Here we go again. Here we are again.
I love my family. I love our friends. Emotions are hard and lie right below the surface. We try to carry on. Sometimes it is tough. Ecclesiates says everything must have a season. It seems to me that all seasons come together. Perhaps it is just our understanding of it which fluctuates.
Sometimes we see with eyes half open. Sometimes we intentionally avert our view. We laugh and whistle past the graveyard. This world is full enough with heartache and sorrow. But there is laughter and joy as well. It is all there. We can't assume that one overwhelms the other, because they do not.
It is a mixed bag. As we ponder the brevity of our lives, we must also find a time to enjoy the waves rolling up on the shore, the cry of seabirds, and the colors of the sun sinking in the western sky at the end of day. Perhaps all of it is why we find ourselves in this place right now.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
At Play, at rest.consumation of reality
Tomorrow is another day of trying to get through the morass of details on this estate. Of course, I also need to work on an estate in Pike County at the same time. So tomorrow is estate probate day for me. I used to be a dirt dawg. Now I am another kind of dawg, I suppose.
Frank and I had a good conversation earlier today. I hope to get some information so we can make some decisions about some of this personal property. It is actually working pretty economically, time-wise.
I actually had some helpful telephone calls today. Now we need to continue working on some other things and I think it is time to work on some bills for this month. So the next few days will be rather intensive, I think. I have to juggle these next few days and work on time management.
Of course, I am still waiting on some information from some of these nimrods. And I would really like to find a few days to enjoy a place far from home and near a place of recreation. As a matter of fact, in a place of recreation. I could use a few days in play. Play, for real. Hiking. Swimming. Writing. Drinking. Eating. Sunshine. Maybe even a bit of rain. Fishing. Fresh vegetables. Reading. Playing guitar and singing. Enjoying my family. Enjoying the world God has given us.
Frank and I had a good conversation earlier today. I hope to get some information so we can make some decisions about some of this personal property. It is actually working pretty economically, time-wise.
I actually had some helpful telephone calls today. Now we need to continue working on some other things and I think it is time to work on some bills for this month. So the next few days will be rather intensive, I think. I have to juggle these next few days and work on time management.
Of course, I am still waiting on some information from some of these nimrods. And I would really like to find a few days to enjoy a place far from home and near a place of recreation. As a matter of fact, in a place of recreation. I could use a few days in play. Play, for real. Hiking. Swimming. Writing. Drinking. Eating. Sunshine. Maybe even a bit of rain. Fishing. Fresh vegetables. Reading. Playing guitar and singing. Enjoying my family. Enjoying the world God has given us.
Thursday morning, 6:42 a.m.
It is now 6:00 in the morning and I can sit here and assess the damage. I got to bed earlier and read on my book for awhile, instead of sitting in this chair and watching television. I did not wake up until 5:50 this morning and I feel better than yesterday. Perhaps I might be able to do something productive this morning.
Yesterday morning, I got to the office and was not up to doing much. Fortunately, I got a call from the borrower in Greensboro around 10:30 and drove back to get her signatures on the paperwork. This allowed me time behind the wheel of the car which allowed me to get something to eat and sit in front of ESPN and watch a discussion of Rick Pitino's "indiscretion" with the sound off on the television. I wonder if they were watching that in Lexington with the sound way up. That might take a little pressure off the new basketball coach in Lexington.
I wonder what cousin Jeff thinks about that? He is such a virulent UK hater, I wonder if that anti-Hilltopper sentiment extends to Louisville also? I would assume any other university which competes with WKU would run afoul of cousin Jeff.
I just saw Tiger Woods and Phil Mikkelson putting on Sportscenter just a second ago. I am not prejudiced against lefthanders, but when Mikkelson putted, there was something fundamentally strange about the way it looked. It almost looked like he was putting with the backside of his putter. I know that is not the case, but there are so few lefthanded golfers who get much time on ESPN that it was odd looking at first glance.
I didn't mean to sound like I had something against left handed people, but it just caught my eye. I never had that response when I was watching footage of Jimi Hendrix playing guitar and he was lefthanded. It is interesting what catches your eye. Perhaps my interest in the two clips was caused by running them back to back on the program. It forced the images to run side by side.
When you watch Sportscenter like this you get to a point where the stories start running all over again like when your cd player starts rerunning the same stories for a second time. I have come to that point in this morning's television.
I know with cd playing that Cindy and I have been driving down the road and we have had something in the cdplayer which runs several times before one of us realizes that we have allowed the cd player to rerun the music. That either means that we didn't appreciate the music enough to realize the music was playing for a second time or we liked the music so much that we were able to run it again without noticing.
Well, it is 6:42 now and Cindy is in the shower. What that means is that I will have to water the plants on the patio pretty soon. I better get some breakfast pretty soon. Later.
Yesterday morning, I got to the office and was not up to doing much. Fortunately, I got a call from the borrower in Greensboro around 10:30 and drove back to get her signatures on the paperwork. This allowed me time behind the wheel of the car which allowed me to get something to eat and sit in front of ESPN and watch a discussion of Rick Pitino's "indiscretion" with the sound off on the television. I wonder if they were watching that in Lexington with the sound way up. That might take a little pressure off the new basketball coach in Lexington.
I wonder what cousin Jeff thinks about that? He is such a virulent UK hater, I wonder if that anti-Hilltopper sentiment extends to Louisville also? I would assume any other university which competes with WKU would run afoul of cousin Jeff.
I just saw Tiger Woods and Phil Mikkelson putting on Sportscenter just a second ago. I am not prejudiced against lefthanders, but when Mikkelson putted, there was something fundamentally strange about the way it looked. It almost looked like he was putting with the backside of his putter. I know that is not the case, but there are so few lefthanded golfers who get much time on ESPN that it was odd looking at first glance.
I didn't mean to sound like I had something against left handed people, but it just caught my eye. I never had that response when I was watching footage of Jimi Hendrix playing guitar and he was lefthanded. It is interesting what catches your eye. Perhaps my interest in the two clips was caused by running them back to back on the program. It forced the images to run side by side.
When you watch Sportscenter like this you get to a point where the stories start running all over again like when your cd player starts rerunning the same stories for a second time. I have come to that point in this morning's television.
I know with cd playing that Cindy and I have been driving down the road and we have had something in the cdplayer which runs several times before one of us realizes that we have allowed the cd player to rerun the music. That either means that we didn't appreciate the music enough to realize the music was playing for a second time or we liked the music so much that we were able to run it again without noticing.
Well, it is 6:42 now and Cindy is in the shower. What that means is that I will have to water the plants on the patio pretty soon. I better get some breakfast pretty soon. Later.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Wasted days and wasted Nights
This weekend is upon us and coming on quickly. At the beginning of the summer, I thought Cindy and I would be attending a concert with John and Cheryl in Peachtree City in which various 70's bands would be performing in Hippyfest 2009. Brewer and Shipley are supposed to be part of the concert. I thought it would be fun, but as we get closer, I don't think we are going. I suspect that all the tickets are gone, anyway.
Recently, Cindy and Kate opined that they would like to hear Paul McCartney at Chastain Park Ampitheater, but that is fading away as well. Something tells me that very little will done this weekend.
Summer is fleeting. It would be nice to come up with something to do which would be physical, recreational and fun. Not indoors. Making use of the outdoors. It all would be quite nice.
But most of the times, we waste it with watching television, staying indoors and staying up late at night and sleeping in late in the morning.
It is time to adjust the body clock.
At any rate, thanks to Freddie Fender.
Recently, Cindy and Kate opined that they would like to hear Paul McCartney at Chastain Park Ampitheater, but that is fading away as well. Something tells me that very little will done this weekend.
Summer is fleeting. It would be nice to come up with something to do which would be physical, recreational and fun. Not indoors. Making use of the outdoors. It all would be quite nice.
But most of the times, we waste it with watching television, staying indoors and staying up late at night and sleeping in late in the morning.
It is time to adjust the body clock.
At any rate, thanks to Freddie Fender.
Monday, August 10, 2009
Changes in ten years
I would like to travel to Virginia this Fall to join with my brothers and watch W&L play football among the red and orange leaves and the cooler weather. It is quite a desire among the heat and humidity of August. Certainly something to be desired.
It has been over ten years since I drove to Lexington to enjoy the celebration of the two hundred and fifty year anniversary of my alma mater. That was a party and the last time I was together with my former roommate, Ken Smith, who died of liver cancer a few years later. He is buried in Roanoke, near his mother's family. His brothers are all alone together. Ken is gone. Their parents are gone.
The life I have now is so different from 1999. My grandmother is gone, died on December 2, 2000. My senior roommate is gone, having died around about that time. The three name partners in the law firm in which I worked for many years have all passed away. Most of the industry which used to run Griffin, Georgia is gone. My father is gone, having died on July 13, 2009. The world is so different, having changed in so many ways on the morning of December 11, 2001.
I remember that day. We were arising to drive back home from Bayou Lacombe. We had participated in Cindy's grandmother's funeral in Metarie. We met at the funeral home and discussed her passing. Later, we drove to the cemetary and parked our cars to take her ashes to a crypt where they had opened the window of the crypt to accomodate her ashes. A burial in New Orleans is different.
As most people know, they can not bury people below the surface because of the water table. So everyone is buried above ground in the many crypts and mausoleums located in the cemetaries. It is very different from a burial in the other parts of the country, where a hole is dug and the box lowered into the ground, a stone to mark his place of burial. Instead, the ashes are taken and placed within the crypt with a notation on the stone tablet which covers the place of rest.
After the service, we ate supper together and then waited for the next day when we would return to Georgia. But the events of the morning of September 11th changed all that. After watching the planes crash into the towers and hear of the other planes in Pennsylvania and Washington DC, and see the towers tumble in New York, we packed the car and headed east on I-10 toward Mobile.
I remember stopping to fill the car with gas and talking with the clerk, who didn't know anything about the terrorist acts; she had been working for the entire time of the events. No one had come in to buy gas with the news, until we came. Then later, in South Alabama, we stopped again to get gas and a snack and ran into some National Guard soldiers who were coming back from dove shoots to serve their country. Later, when we passed the Atlanta Airport, it was strange to drive past and not see any planes taking off or landing at the busiest airport in the USA.
Many things changed after that. I would have to say that there has been quite a change in my life since 1999. Many changes. Some good. Many bad. Still, Kate has completed her college degree. Cindy has a job which doesn't stress her as before. I have my own business and have learned much over the past nine years. I'm not there, perhaps, but I am learning.
I had a client come to my office back around 2003. He had started as a nuclear engineer in Florida. At the time, he was a general contractor in the area. We were talking in my office one morning. The topic of mistakes came up and he gave a bit of philosophy on it. He said, "Everybody makes mistakes. Its what you learn from your mistakes that is important."
Boy, isn't that true?
It has been over ten years since I drove to Lexington to enjoy the celebration of the two hundred and fifty year anniversary of my alma mater. That was a party and the last time I was together with my former roommate, Ken Smith, who died of liver cancer a few years later. He is buried in Roanoke, near his mother's family. His brothers are all alone together. Ken is gone. Their parents are gone.
The life I have now is so different from 1999. My grandmother is gone, died on December 2, 2000. My senior roommate is gone, having died around about that time. The three name partners in the law firm in which I worked for many years have all passed away. Most of the industry which used to run Griffin, Georgia is gone. My father is gone, having died on July 13, 2009. The world is so different, having changed in so many ways on the morning of December 11, 2001.
I remember that day. We were arising to drive back home from Bayou Lacombe. We had participated in Cindy's grandmother's funeral in Metarie. We met at the funeral home and discussed her passing. Later, we drove to the cemetary and parked our cars to take her ashes to a crypt where they had opened the window of the crypt to accomodate her ashes. A burial in New Orleans is different.
As most people know, they can not bury people below the surface because of the water table. So everyone is buried above ground in the many crypts and mausoleums located in the cemetaries. It is very different from a burial in the other parts of the country, where a hole is dug and the box lowered into the ground, a stone to mark his place of burial. Instead, the ashes are taken and placed within the crypt with a notation on the stone tablet which covers the place of rest.
After the service, we ate supper together and then waited for the next day when we would return to Georgia. But the events of the morning of September 11th changed all that. After watching the planes crash into the towers and hear of the other planes in Pennsylvania and Washington DC, and see the towers tumble in New York, we packed the car and headed east on I-10 toward Mobile.
I remember stopping to fill the car with gas and talking with the clerk, who didn't know anything about the terrorist acts; she had been working for the entire time of the events. No one had come in to buy gas with the news, until we came. Then later, in South Alabama, we stopped again to get gas and a snack and ran into some National Guard soldiers who were coming back from dove shoots to serve their country. Later, when we passed the Atlanta Airport, it was strange to drive past and not see any planes taking off or landing at the busiest airport in the USA.
Many things changed after that. I would have to say that there has been quite a change in my life since 1999. Many changes. Some good. Many bad. Still, Kate has completed her college degree. Cindy has a job which doesn't stress her as before. I have my own business and have learned much over the past nine years. I'm not there, perhaps, but I am learning.
I had a client come to my office back around 2003. He had started as a nuclear engineer in Florida. At the time, he was a general contractor in the area. We were talking in my office one morning. The topic of mistakes came up and he gave a bit of philosophy on it. He said, "Everybody makes mistakes. Its what you learn from your mistakes that is important."
Boy, isn't that true?
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Travelling through the past
I was thinking of my father's Hillman Scout that he drove when we lived in our second home in North Indianapolis until 1964. There wasn't much to it. It was a tiny miniature panel truck, an English truck which is no longer made. Not saved like the Mini-Cooper. Just saved in my memory and a few old photographs.
My father would drive around North Indianapolis with me in the bucket seat beside him. We would roll the vented windows open to give us some cool air in the Summer heat. He kept a grey-leather cased radio in the car and we listened to folk music from a radio station in Indianapolis.
At night, dad would pull out the old Martin guitar which had been my great, great (I really don't know how many greats) grandmother's guitar. We would sit in lawn chairs on the grass in the back and dad would play "Go Tell Aunt Rhody" and "Has Anybody Seen My Gal" and "Goober Peas." Sometimes on car rides to Hopkinsville and Clarksville, we would sing "Goober Peas" and other songs while we drove up the Kentucky Turnpike toward Louisville.
I remember driving through downtown Louisville and going over the bridge from downtown Louisville up to rural Indiana. I specifically remember looking down on the Ohio River and seeing the boats running upriver toward Cincinnati and Pittsburgh or downriver toward Evansville, Owensboro, Paducah and St. Louis or New Orleans. One of the original superhighways flowing beneath the very bridge over which we travelled.
When I was about seven or so, my grandmother Gary and I would spar and pretend to be Cassius Clay and Sonny Liston. I always played Cassius Clay, because he was from Kentucky, just like me. Dee Dee would condescend to be Sonny Liston. We would spar until it was time to run into the kitchen and eat a popsickle or drink water from the individual water bottle kept there by our grandmother so that every child would have his or her own bottle.
Sometimes, after supper, we would have chess pie or pecan pie or chocolate pie. I loved pie, still do. My grandmother said that if you ate too much pie your stomach would fall. When I look into the mirror, I sometimes think her prophecy came true.
After Jenny Stuart Memorial Hospital bought her house for expansion, she moved into an apartment in town. Late at night, the man who lived upstairs would get dressed for work. He was a policeman and his heavy boots hit a hard tatoo on the floor above. Thank goodness, my grandmother was deaf and would not hear the footfalls from above.
Ed and Cicely and Frank and I would run errands for Dee Dee, walking over to Giles Grocery Store for something she needed. Later Momma and Aunt Meg might take us to swim in the swimming pool at the club out off the highway to Clarksville. They might even take us to Jerry's for hamburgers. Sometimes we might go to visit the Clarks or Aunt Ruth or Aunt Ease while we were in town.
Sometimes we would drive down 41A to Clarksville and visit Aunt Mamie in her homeon Franklin Street. She always gave us a cold coca cola before we left. Her house was emaculate and way too large for one little old lady. Later, if grandmommie was with us, she might take us down the street to Goode Wilson's pharmacy and give us a dollar to buy a model or a comic book or something to amuse us when we got back to the farm.
The farm was an amazing collection of places to explore. The stables were a place where we could climb up into the loft and look for chicken eggs or chase doves out the barn or look down into the tack room at all the equipment for the mules.
Out in the fields, we might find blackberries in the bog, or go fishing in the pond or go find arrow points in the ground outside the back barn. On the edge of the fields, we might walk into the woods and find the bones of cattle who went to die alone in the woods. Like rudimentary dentists we would take the teeth out of the jaws of the skeletal cow skulls and bring them back to the house to show the adults.
Later, after supper, we would sit in the squeaky chairs under the trees out in front of the farmhouse and listen to the bob white quail call in the trees above us. The adults would talk and Frank and I would take turns swinging on the tire swing hung from a tree out front. It would be summer, but we would always be so cool under the trees in the twilight. Before I-24 was constructed along the western edge of the farm, the air was quiet except for the lowing of the cattle and the sound of the beetles and crickets in the trees.
That night, Frank and I would climb into the bed in the front bedroom and the sound of the airconditioning unit in the window would lull us into a deep, deep sleep. A sleep so deep like nothing I have been able to experience in a long, long time. An honest sleep, without troubles and trials and the worries of today.
Oh to sleep like that again.
My father would drive around North Indianapolis with me in the bucket seat beside him. We would roll the vented windows open to give us some cool air in the Summer heat. He kept a grey-leather cased radio in the car and we listened to folk music from a radio station in Indianapolis.
At night, dad would pull out the old Martin guitar which had been my great, great (I really don't know how many greats) grandmother's guitar. We would sit in lawn chairs on the grass in the back and dad would play "Go Tell Aunt Rhody" and "Has Anybody Seen My Gal" and "Goober Peas." Sometimes on car rides to Hopkinsville and Clarksville, we would sing "Goober Peas" and other songs while we drove up the Kentucky Turnpike toward Louisville.
I remember driving through downtown Louisville and going over the bridge from downtown Louisville up to rural Indiana. I specifically remember looking down on the Ohio River and seeing the boats running upriver toward Cincinnati and Pittsburgh or downriver toward Evansville, Owensboro, Paducah and St. Louis or New Orleans. One of the original superhighways flowing beneath the very bridge over which we travelled.
When I was about seven or so, my grandmother Gary and I would spar and pretend to be Cassius Clay and Sonny Liston. I always played Cassius Clay, because he was from Kentucky, just like me. Dee Dee would condescend to be Sonny Liston. We would spar until it was time to run into the kitchen and eat a popsickle or drink water from the individual water bottle kept there by our grandmother so that every child would have his or her own bottle.
Sometimes, after supper, we would have chess pie or pecan pie or chocolate pie. I loved pie, still do. My grandmother said that if you ate too much pie your stomach would fall. When I look into the mirror, I sometimes think her prophecy came true.
After Jenny Stuart Memorial Hospital bought her house for expansion, she moved into an apartment in town. Late at night, the man who lived upstairs would get dressed for work. He was a policeman and his heavy boots hit a hard tatoo on the floor above. Thank goodness, my grandmother was deaf and would not hear the footfalls from above.
Ed and Cicely and Frank and I would run errands for Dee Dee, walking over to Giles Grocery Store for something she needed. Later Momma and Aunt Meg might take us to swim in the swimming pool at the club out off the highway to Clarksville. They might even take us to Jerry's for hamburgers. Sometimes we might go to visit the Clarks or Aunt Ruth or Aunt Ease while we were in town.
Sometimes we would drive down 41A to Clarksville and visit Aunt Mamie in her homeon Franklin Street. She always gave us a cold coca cola before we left. Her house was emaculate and way too large for one little old lady. Later, if grandmommie was with us, she might take us down the street to Goode Wilson's pharmacy and give us a dollar to buy a model or a comic book or something to amuse us when we got back to the farm.
The farm was an amazing collection of places to explore. The stables were a place where we could climb up into the loft and look for chicken eggs or chase doves out the barn or look down into the tack room at all the equipment for the mules.
Out in the fields, we might find blackberries in the bog, or go fishing in the pond or go find arrow points in the ground outside the back barn. On the edge of the fields, we might walk into the woods and find the bones of cattle who went to die alone in the woods. Like rudimentary dentists we would take the teeth out of the jaws of the skeletal cow skulls and bring them back to the house to show the adults.
Later, after supper, we would sit in the squeaky chairs under the trees out in front of the farmhouse and listen to the bob white quail call in the trees above us. The adults would talk and Frank and I would take turns swinging on the tire swing hung from a tree out front. It would be summer, but we would always be so cool under the trees in the twilight. Before I-24 was constructed along the western edge of the farm, the air was quiet except for the lowing of the cattle and the sound of the beetles and crickets in the trees.
That night, Frank and I would climb into the bed in the front bedroom and the sound of the airconditioning unit in the window would lull us into a deep, deep sleep. A sleep so deep like nothing I have been able to experience in a long, long time. An honest sleep, without troubles and trials and the worries of today.
Oh to sleep like that again.
Dining together
When I was a child, meal time meant that everyone in the family was gathered around the kitchen table and we ate a meal prepared by Momma and enjoyed the company of each other. I can't say we sat around discussing the problems and concerns of the family members. My parents didn't use meal time as a forum for educating the children, as Joseph Kennedy did with the young Kennedy children in Boston. When we were younger, the children didn't say much at the dinner table. It was only later, when we were older, that we joined in the conversation to a great degree.
One of the concerns I have had as the husband and father is that we don't eat dinner at the table and enjoy each other's company. Instead, most meals are eaten in the living room with the television going on. Now that doesn't mean that we don't enjoy each other's company. We talk and joke and discuss things. Perhaps more than some. But there isn't that sense of sanctity and specialness that is achieved when the whole family comes to the dinner table and gives their time to the whole.
In this environment, the dinner eaten together, whether at home or in a restaurant, becomes quite special. When we were young, our parents took us to restaurants regularly. Eating out was a special occasion. It was fun. To this day, I enjoy eating out with Cindy or Cindy and Kate or any combination of family members and friends.
A meal eaten together in an environment which is conducive to that feeling of togetherness and specialness is worthwhile in many ways. I often say that Christianity and Judaism are unique in that they both involve a common meal as part of the center ritual of the religion. Whether it is Communion or Passover, both religions call the family and friends together and ask them to invite God into the presence of the gathered.
Last night, Cindy and I celebrated our anniversary with a meal at one of our favorite restaurants in Atlanta, "Babette's Cafe" on Highlands Ave. The first time we went there was about ten years ago, with Susan and Kate and Mom and Dad for Mother's Day or Father's Day. I remember sitting around the table in the restaurant and enjoying the sublimity of the food and enjoying the presence of each other in that quiet, controlled atmosphere. It gave me joy and peace in a way that few things do.
Since then, we have come back to Babette's for meals on special occasions or when we want to make a day more special. One time, I took off early from work, and Cindy and I drove up and watched a foreign movie, with subtitles, about the life of Edith Piaf. Afterward, we drove around trying to find some place to eat supper and continue the French experience. We wound up at Babette's and really enjoyed our time together.
So, last night, Cindy and I dressed up and drove down from Dunwoody to Babette's and took our table and enjoyed a delicious meal with glasses of Bordeaux and found, again, the love we still have for each other, twenty six years after the fact of our vows. A half loaf of french bread was brought to the table with butter. I ate mussels in a sublime sauce, followed by a fish dish with fennel and tomatoes. Cindy, on the other hand, enjoyed heirloom tomatoes and a heart of palm salad with veal picatta. Afterward, we enjoyed our desserts and finally left our table, satisfied and enjoying the connection remade between us.
Life is not so hard that we can't make it more enjoyable with a loaf of crusty bread and a glass of good French wine. A fresh blueberry tart is not a bad addition, either.
One of the concerns I have had as the husband and father is that we don't eat dinner at the table and enjoy each other's company. Instead, most meals are eaten in the living room with the television going on. Now that doesn't mean that we don't enjoy each other's company. We talk and joke and discuss things. Perhaps more than some. But there isn't that sense of sanctity and specialness that is achieved when the whole family comes to the dinner table and gives their time to the whole.
In this environment, the dinner eaten together, whether at home or in a restaurant, becomes quite special. When we were young, our parents took us to restaurants regularly. Eating out was a special occasion. It was fun. To this day, I enjoy eating out with Cindy or Cindy and Kate or any combination of family members and friends.
A meal eaten together in an environment which is conducive to that feeling of togetherness and specialness is worthwhile in many ways. I often say that Christianity and Judaism are unique in that they both involve a common meal as part of the center ritual of the religion. Whether it is Communion or Passover, both religions call the family and friends together and ask them to invite God into the presence of the gathered.
Last night, Cindy and I celebrated our anniversary with a meal at one of our favorite restaurants in Atlanta, "Babette's Cafe" on Highlands Ave. The first time we went there was about ten years ago, with Susan and Kate and Mom and Dad for Mother's Day or Father's Day. I remember sitting around the table in the restaurant and enjoying the sublimity of the food and enjoying the presence of each other in that quiet, controlled atmosphere. It gave me joy and peace in a way that few things do.
Since then, we have come back to Babette's for meals on special occasions or when we want to make a day more special. One time, I took off early from work, and Cindy and I drove up and watched a foreign movie, with subtitles, about the life of Edith Piaf. Afterward, we drove around trying to find some place to eat supper and continue the French experience. We wound up at Babette's and really enjoyed our time together.
So, last night, Cindy and I dressed up and drove down from Dunwoody to Babette's and took our table and enjoyed a delicious meal with glasses of Bordeaux and found, again, the love we still have for each other, twenty six years after the fact of our vows. A half loaf of french bread was brought to the table with butter. I ate mussels in a sublime sauce, followed by a fish dish with fennel and tomatoes. Cindy, on the other hand, enjoyed heirloom tomatoes and a heart of palm salad with veal picatta. Afterward, we enjoyed our desserts and finally left our table, satisfied and enjoying the connection remade between us.
Life is not so hard that we can't make it more enjoyable with a loaf of crusty bread and a glass of good French wine. A fresh blueberry tart is not a bad addition, either.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Twenty Six years ago today
Twenty six years ago, at this time in Orange County, California, a photographer was hustling us over to a construction site to take pictures of our wedding party. When I look at the pictures now, I see an awful young bunch of people amongst the greenery of August, 1983.
I remember that day pretty well. I awoke rather early and went into the kitchen of the house we were using. Inside the refrigerator was a small can of Donald Duck grapefruit juice. I couldn't see anything else which drew my attention. I opened the can and drank. That is how I ended up with nothing on my stomach but the acid of a small can of grapefruit juice.
Afterward, we showered, dressed and went over to the church to prepare for the wedding. We drove up to the entrance of the church and went into the little room to the right where we waited for the beginning of the ceremony. The pastors came into the room and my dad took care of paying for their services. We had our pictures taken, dad and I, in the waiting room.
Finally, the music began and my father and I walked down the side of the sanctuary of the Methodist Church and arrived at the front of the church. I watched as the ladies were escorted down to the front by my groomsmen and then the music changed and Cindy's dad began the long walk down the center aisle toward the front of the church. As I watched, I tried to catch Cindy's eye, but she seemed focused on the floor. She was beautiful nevertheless.
The parties arrived at the front and the ceremony began. The two ministers traded off stories and liturgy, prayers and vows. At some point, Cindy and I went around the alter and knelt behind the table. I slowly leaned over toward Cindy and whispered in her ear, "I was surprised that you could get that ring on my massive paw." Cindy giggled.
Afterward, the parties exited, the congregation left the church for the reception, and we were stuck inside the sanctuary while the photographer tried to get every possible combination of pictures in the front of the church. Later, he escorted the whole wedding party next door to the construction site for an outdoor picture which took an interminable time, but turned out nicely.
Meanwhile, my in-laws' former next-door neighbors from Natchez, Mississippi, were waiting in their Rolls Royce to take us to the Balboa Yacht Club for the reception. Someone told the photographer to go to the yacht club and not the Balboa Bay Club. He said he understood. He did not.
So we arrived at the yacht club, sans photographer, and began to speak with the people who had gathered for the wedding. At some point, early in the festivities, I stepped through a barrier to the bar and asked the bartender for Bourbon on the rocks. He asked what we were celebrating. I told him my wedding. The drink was on the house.
As the temperature at the yacht club sweltered at record levels for Southern California, the locals began to swelter and melt at their tables. Meanwhile, temperatures in the 80s or 90s seemed pretty cool for August for this Georgia boy and most of the wedding party who were from the southeast adjusted fine to the heat, without humidity. The band began to play, and we danced among our guests.
It was really fun until the photographer showed up. At that point, we had to go with him outside for the typical pictures. Thank goodness Susan and Tammy had been taking casual pictures. There were quite a few iconic pictures taken by those two, particulary one of Uncle David and another of John with Cindy's bridal veil on his head.
Afterward, we left the party for Cindy's mom's Oldsmobile Cutlass and the ride back to the house, where we could shower and change and relax a bit before Tammy and Mike drove us into Los Angeles and the Hotel Bonaventure.
We were very tired and hungry and ate a sandwich before heading upstairs to find the magnum of champagne waiting for us. It ended up being somewhat of a waste, as we really weren't up to drinking that much bubbly before calling it a day. I ordered room service for the next morning and we went to sleep.
The next morning, we were awakened by a knock at the door; Cindy hid in the bathroom, and I answered the door and let the room service waiter get the room ready. He opened the drapes and I opened the sheers and saw the Hollywood sign on the hills outside our window. That was pretty cool.
After breakfast, we dressed, arranged our suitcases, and headed downstairs to the bellstand and the shuttle which took us to the airport for a ride to Atlanta, then on to London. I wouldn't recover completely until about three days into our time in London.
It was a lot of fun. Despite the heat and the flubs with the flowers and the Californians questions as to why I wanted to live in Georgia. All that went by the wayside as I had my wife on my arm, headed for a new adventure.
Happy Anniversary.
I remember that day pretty well. I awoke rather early and went into the kitchen of the house we were using. Inside the refrigerator was a small can of Donald Duck grapefruit juice. I couldn't see anything else which drew my attention. I opened the can and drank. That is how I ended up with nothing on my stomach but the acid of a small can of grapefruit juice.
Afterward, we showered, dressed and went over to the church to prepare for the wedding. We drove up to the entrance of the church and went into the little room to the right where we waited for the beginning of the ceremony. The pastors came into the room and my dad took care of paying for their services. We had our pictures taken, dad and I, in the waiting room.
Finally, the music began and my father and I walked down the side of the sanctuary of the Methodist Church and arrived at the front of the church. I watched as the ladies were escorted down to the front by my groomsmen and then the music changed and Cindy's dad began the long walk down the center aisle toward the front of the church. As I watched, I tried to catch Cindy's eye, but she seemed focused on the floor. She was beautiful nevertheless.
The parties arrived at the front and the ceremony began. The two ministers traded off stories and liturgy, prayers and vows. At some point, Cindy and I went around the alter and knelt behind the table. I slowly leaned over toward Cindy and whispered in her ear, "I was surprised that you could get that ring on my massive paw." Cindy giggled.
Afterward, the parties exited, the congregation left the church for the reception, and we were stuck inside the sanctuary while the photographer tried to get every possible combination of pictures in the front of the church. Later, he escorted the whole wedding party next door to the construction site for an outdoor picture which took an interminable time, but turned out nicely.
Meanwhile, my in-laws' former next-door neighbors from Natchez, Mississippi, were waiting in their Rolls Royce to take us to the Balboa Yacht Club for the reception. Someone told the photographer to go to the yacht club and not the Balboa Bay Club. He said he understood. He did not.
So we arrived at the yacht club, sans photographer, and began to speak with the people who had gathered for the wedding. At some point, early in the festivities, I stepped through a barrier to the bar and asked the bartender for Bourbon on the rocks. He asked what we were celebrating. I told him my wedding. The drink was on the house.
As the temperature at the yacht club sweltered at record levels for Southern California, the locals began to swelter and melt at their tables. Meanwhile, temperatures in the 80s or 90s seemed pretty cool for August for this Georgia boy and most of the wedding party who were from the southeast adjusted fine to the heat, without humidity. The band began to play, and we danced among our guests.
It was really fun until the photographer showed up. At that point, we had to go with him outside for the typical pictures. Thank goodness Susan and Tammy had been taking casual pictures. There were quite a few iconic pictures taken by those two, particulary one of Uncle David and another of John with Cindy's bridal veil on his head.
Afterward, we left the party for Cindy's mom's Oldsmobile Cutlass and the ride back to the house, where we could shower and change and relax a bit before Tammy and Mike drove us into Los Angeles and the Hotel Bonaventure.
We were very tired and hungry and ate a sandwich before heading upstairs to find the magnum of champagne waiting for us. It ended up being somewhat of a waste, as we really weren't up to drinking that much bubbly before calling it a day. I ordered room service for the next morning and we went to sleep.
The next morning, we were awakened by a knock at the door; Cindy hid in the bathroom, and I answered the door and let the room service waiter get the room ready. He opened the drapes and I opened the sheers and saw the Hollywood sign on the hills outside our window. That was pretty cool.
After breakfast, we dressed, arranged our suitcases, and headed downstairs to the bellstand and the shuttle which took us to the airport for a ride to Atlanta, then on to London. I wouldn't recover completely until about three days into our time in London.
It was a lot of fun. Despite the heat and the flubs with the flowers and the Californians questions as to why I wanted to live in Georgia. All that went by the wayside as I had my wife on my arm, headed for a new adventure.
Happy Anniversary.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Finding faith on the moon
To get a man on the moon and bring him back, that was the challenge issued by President Kennedy. After seven years of science and mathematics and precision, a Purdue engineer and pilot stepped off a step on a ladder and touched down on the previously unknown. Numbers and scientific proof and equations and method.
But ultimately, there was a whole lot of faith in the process, in the people, in the work, in the machinery and in the God that carried them from Cape Kennedy to the Sea of Tranquility and back to earth. The proof of that lay in the final step he took.
Because Neil didn't know what would happen when he stepped off that step. He didn't know what his foot would hit when he stepped. And after it all was over, they didn't really know what would happen when they hit the jets which would take them back into orbit. They had faith that Michael Collins would be able to dock the command module with the lem. They all had faith that the science and the mathematics would shoot them out of that orbit around the moon and return them to earth and that the parachute would hold when they dropped in the ocean.
And despite the precaution of placing them in an air-tight trailer on board the aircraft carrier for several weeks, they all had faith that they had not brought anything back from the moon which would contaminate our planet.
And they all were right to place their faith where they did. Because that is exactly what they believed and exactly what President Kennedy believed when he challenged us to go there in the first place.
But ultimately, there was a whole lot of faith in the process, in the people, in the work, in the machinery and in the God that carried them from Cape Kennedy to the Sea of Tranquility and back to earth. The proof of that lay in the final step he took.
Because Neil didn't know what would happen when he stepped off that step. He didn't know what his foot would hit when he stepped. And after it all was over, they didn't really know what would happen when they hit the jets which would take them back into orbit. They had faith that Michael Collins would be able to dock the command module with the lem. They all had faith that the science and the mathematics would shoot them out of that orbit around the moon and return them to earth and that the parachute would hold when they dropped in the ocean.
And despite the precaution of placing them in an air-tight trailer on board the aircraft carrier for several weeks, they all had faith that they had not brought anything back from the moon which would contaminate our planet.
And they all were right to place their faith where they did. Because that is exactly what they believed and exactly what President Kennedy believed when he challenged us to go there in the first place.
The touch of the ordinary
I graduated from Law School just as MTV began on cable television. I remember visiting Ken Smith in Danville, Virginia and watching music videos while Ken was at work. The effect of the images as connected with the music was alluring and addictive. So addictive that in 1983 my cousin Ed spent most of his vacation time in New Orleans with his buddies, eating pizza, drinking beer and watching music videos while the allures of New Orleans hung outside the house, thick like the humidity and the Spanish moss in the trees.
I remember that I soon found room to object to music videos because they substituted a pre-made image to go along with the music. This created a situation in which pre-packaged images substituted for the associations between the music with the age of the listener and the places in which we heard the music. It eradicated the imagination of the listener, the memory of the recipient and replaced it with some mini-drama, conceived by some Hollywood director or "creative" person. Our memories were replaced with a storyboard.
When I was a young teenager, I remember listening to "Smoke on the Water" by Deep Purple while my buddies and I played cards and slept over at each other's houses during Summer break. The songs of Deep Purple and Jethro Tull and such make me think of those sleepovers in Dunwoody in the late 60's and early 70's.
For at least two years, the equipment manager at W&L would put Jethro Tull's "Aqualung" in the tape player first and we heard it every day before and after football practice. For that reason, that song reminds me of a dusty locker room under the stands at Wilson Field. Just like "Beast of Burden" by the Rolling Stones reminds me of our Senior year during football season. I can't tell you how many times we sang that at the top of our lungs during my senior year in football.
Jim Stafford's song, "Spiders and Snakes" will forever be associated with high school basketball, since it seemed to be constantly playing when John Boswell and I were driving either to or from basketball practice. Of course, "One Toke Over the Line" figures in there too, since we always sang that together when driving around.
When I think of Grand Funk Railroad, I think of a restaurant in Valdosta where my parents always drove to meet my aunt and uncle to exchange Christmas presents. In the restaurant was a juke box which had all the greatest hits of Grand Funk, and which always seemed to be playing while we ate at the restaurant in early December.
Finally, Peter, Paul & Mary's "If I had a Hammer" makes me think about driving around Indianapolis with my dad in his Hillman Scout, listening to the folk music on the gray leather radio he kept in the Hillman.
I have food triggers to memories. Fried Shrimp makes me think of St. Petersburg. Oysters mean Apalachicola. Beaten biscuits mean little ham biscuits in a bag for the train ride from Hopkinsville. Barbecued pork means the Pic A Rib across from the old train depot in Clarksville. Turkey, dressing and all the trimmings reminds me of the dining room at the farm. A cold coca cola is the front room in my great aunt Mamie's house on Franklin Street. And coal smoke drifting in the winter wind, and the smell of tobacco curing permeating everything throughout the year.
Its funny how different things can trigger explicit memories and emotions. Like this afternoon. Kate and I were standing in line at the Kroger Pharmacy, trying to buy prescriptions for Cindy, toothpaste for Kate and dogfood for Tex. We were talking about nothing. Really, nothing. Cindy was sitting elsewhere within a display of patio furniture and plastic cabanas, trying to quell a burning pain in her knee.
When we had completed our purchases, we left the pharmacy area and headed for the display where Cindy was sitting. As I approached, I noticed her sitting under the plastic cabana, with her sunglasses on. I made a bad joke about visiting Margaritaville.
But as I approached closer to Cindy, I noticed a hitch in her voice as she told me she had called Momma's house to hear the recording left by Kate on the answering machine. Apparently, as she heard the answering machine message on the telephone, she suddenly remembered that the old message had been laid down by my father. Now Cindy sat, behind the privacy of her sunglasses, and mourned anew for the loss of my father. For the loss of his recorded voice on an answering machine.
As I bent down to comfort Cindy in her chair, employees of Kroger came up behind us and offered assistance and comfort. Kate, embarrassed by the attention, hustled us out of the store. I offered my arm to Cindy as we left the store.
In his old age, my father could be sarcastic and short sometimes. Particularly to Cindy and to Momma. But I guess we all knew the depth of his love for us and still feel our loss. It is amazing what can trigger those memories. Amazing how deeply they go. And how closely they remain near the surface.
I remember that I soon found room to object to music videos because they substituted a pre-made image to go along with the music. This created a situation in which pre-packaged images substituted for the associations between the music with the age of the listener and the places in which we heard the music. It eradicated the imagination of the listener, the memory of the recipient and replaced it with some mini-drama, conceived by some Hollywood director or "creative" person. Our memories were replaced with a storyboard.
When I was a young teenager, I remember listening to "Smoke on the Water" by Deep Purple while my buddies and I played cards and slept over at each other's houses during Summer break. The songs of Deep Purple and Jethro Tull and such make me think of those sleepovers in Dunwoody in the late 60's and early 70's.
For at least two years, the equipment manager at W&L would put Jethro Tull's "Aqualung" in the tape player first and we heard it every day before and after football practice. For that reason, that song reminds me of a dusty locker room under the stands at Wilson Field. Just like "Beast of Burden" by the Rolling Stones reminds me of our Senior year during football season. I can't tell you how many times we sang that at the top of our lungs during my senior year in football.
Jim Stafford's song, "Spiders and Snakes" will forever be associated with high school basketball, since it seemed to be constantly playing when John Boswell and I were driving either to or from basketball practice. Of course, "One Toke Over the Line" figures in there too, since we always sang that together when driving around.
When I think of Grand Funk Railroad, I think of a restaurant in Valdosta where my parents always drove to meet my aunt and uncle to exchange Christmas presents. In the restaurant was a juke box which had all the greatest hits of Grand Funk, and which always seemed to be playing while we ate at the restaurant in early December.
Finally, Peter, Paul & Mary's "If I had a Hammer" makes me think about driving around Indianapolis with my dad in his Hillman Scout, listening to the folk music on the gray leather radio he kept in the Hillman.
I have food triggers to memories. Fried Shrimp makes me think of St. Petersburg. Oysters mean Apalachicola. Beaten biscuits mean little ham biscuits in a bag for the train ride from Hopkinsville. Barbecued pork means the Pic A Rib across from the old train depot in Clarksville. Turkey, dressing and all the trimmings reminds me of the dining room at the farm. A cold coca cola is the front room in my great aunt Mamie's house on Franklin Street. And coal smoke drifting in the winter wind, and the smell of tobacco curing permeating everything throughout the year.
Its funny how different things can trigger explicit memories and emotions. Like this afternoon. Kate and I were standing in line at the Kroger Pharmacy, trying to buy prescriptions for Cindy, toothpaste for Kate and dogfood for Tex. We were talking about nothing. Really, nothing. Cindy was sitting elsewhere within a display of patio furniture and plastic cabanas, trying to quell a burning pain in her knee.
When we had completed our purchases, we left the pharmacy area and headed for the display where Cindy was sitting. As I approached, I noticed her sitting under the plastic cabana, with her sunglasses on. I made a bad joke about visiting Margaritaville.
But as I approached closer to Cindy, I noticed a hitch in her voice as she told me she had called Momma's house to hear the recording left by Kate on the answering machine. Apparently, as she heard the answering machine message on the telephone, she suddenly remembered that the old message had been laid down by my father. Now Cindy sat, behind the privacy of her sunglasses, and mourned anew for the loss of my father. For the loss of his recorded voice on an answering machine.
As I bent down to comfort Cindy in her chair, employees of Kroger came up behind us and offered assistance and comfort. Kate, embarrassed by the attention, hustled us out of the store. I offered my arm to Cindy as we left the store.
In his old age, my father could be sarcastic and short sometimes. Particularly to Cindy and to Momma. But I guess we all knew the depth of his love for us and still feel our loss. It is amazing what can trigger those memories. Amazing how deeply they go. And how closely they remain near the surface.
Communion on the moon
I read recently that when Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong landed on the moon's surface and climbed down the ladder to place a human foot (or four) on the bleak surface, Buzz had secreted a tiny communion cup and loaf for serving a communion service on the surface of the moon. I don't think it was publicized and the elements were returned to the Presbyterian Church which had provided them, but I thought it was interesting that he, as a Presbyterian elder at the time, found it important to take this risk in order to celebrate his faith.
I also read that he is no longer a Presbyterian elder and does not attend church, which is somewhat sad. I don't ever find the loss of faith to be inspiring or proof of some counter-argument. Instead, I see it as a loss of something which was significant to the former believer. As difficult as it may be to hold on to a faith, such as Christianity, it does require a beautiful sort of courage to hold to a belief by faith alone, particularly when the experiences of life often countervail to our beliefs.
Faith which holds the Believer is strong and so is doubt, sometimes. The greater the doubt, the greater the faith which is required in order to stay faithful. When a faith which led someone to secrete contraband on a space mission in order to celebrate a personal belief and make contact, spiritually, is lost, then something precious and beautiful is lost as well.
In a world without faith, we are all losers, equally. I remember the picture of the earth rising over the surface of the moon which was taken by the two astronauts of Apollo 11. That sight was awesome to us, but particularly so for those two lonely men on the surface of the moon. I wonder how much of that awe was lost when the astronauts returned to that beatiful orb rising in the black nothingness of space and started dealing with the banal and the necessary.
I also read that he is no longer a Presbyterian elder and does not attend church, which is somewhat sad. I don't ever find the loss of faith to be inspiring or proof of some counter-argument. Instead, I see it as a loss of something which was significant to the former believer. As difficult as it may be to hold on to a faith, such as Christianity, it does require a beautiful sort of courage to hold to a belief by faith alone, particularly when the experiences of life often countervail to our beliefs.
Faith which holds the Believer is strong and so is doubt, sometimes. The greater the doubt, the greater the faith which is required in order to stay faithful. When a faith which led someone to secrete contraband on a space mission in order to celebrate a personal belief and make contact, spiritually, is lost, then something precious and beautiful is lost as well.
In a world without faith, we are all losers, equally. I remember the picture of the earth rising over the surface of the moon which was taken by the two astronauts of Apollo 11. That sight was awesome to us, but particularly so for those two lonely men on the surface of the moon. I wonder how much of that awe was lost when the astronauts returned to that beatiful orb rising in the black nothingness of space and started dealing with the banal and the necessary.
The loss of faith
When Neil and Buzz stepped out on that lunar landscape
And conquered the moon for God and Country,
Buzz included a tiny communion cup and loaf
So that he might share the moment
With Christ and all his Presbyterian apostles.
But now I learn that Buzz has lost this connection
And flies solo now without the aid of the Heavenly host.
Which leads me to wonder what virus
He contracted when he stepped on the moon's surface
Or what vision he discovered when the wonder and awe
Of July 20, 1969 had passed us by.
It is sad, in a way, to consider
That when all the eyes of our home planet,
Blue, Green, Black, Brown and Hazel, were fixed upon his form
Bouncing happily across the extraterrestrial dirt of the moon,
He took time to connect with its Creator
And yet will not find the time today when he is earthbound,
More alone in this world, save for the lonely multitudes around him.
And conquered the moon for God and Country,
Buzz included a tiny communion cup and loaf
So that he might share the moment
With Christ and all his Presbyterian apostles.
But now I learn that Buzz has lost this connection
And flies solo now without the aid of the Heavenly host.
Which leads me to wonder what virus
He contracted when he stepped on the moon's surface
Or what vision he discovered when the wonder and awe
Of July 20, 1969 had passed us by.
It is sad, in a way, to consider
That when all the eyes of our home planet,
Blue, Green, Black, Brown and Hazel, were fixed upon his form
Bouncing happily across the extraterrestrial dirt of the moon,
He took time to connect with its Creator
And yet will not find the time today when he is earthbound,
More alone in this world, save for the lonely multitudes around him.
Monday, August 3, 2009
Anniversaries
August 3rd. Susan and Kevin's anniversary. Dee Dee's birthday. Three days until Cindy and my anniversary. Despite the hustle and bustle, it feels better, a little calmer than last month. I hope Susan and Kevin enjoy their anniversary.
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