Go Governors!

When I was in high school my grandfather told me two cheers from when he was in school. They were:

"Chew tobacca, chew tobacca, chew tobacca spit! We think your team ain't worth _____!"

"Pork chop, pork chop, greasy, greasy! We can beat your team easy, easy!"

That went well with the two names he thought we should name children if they were born female: Alice Ophelia and Mary Luzinka.

I am not quite sure why I thought of that, but it probably has to do with these two cheers for APSU:

"Let's go Peay! Let's go Peay!" and "The Fly is open! Let's go Peay!"

Governors may be one of the more original, but appropriate mascots. The school is named after Governor Austin Peay, who was from the area, practiced law in Clarksville and apparently was very interested in education in Tennessee. To name a teacher's college in his hometown after him was quite appropriate. And while the name 'Governors' doesn't necessarily strike fear in the hearts of the opposition, I'm not quite sure which mascot names do these days.

Everybody is so concerned with making sure no one is offended by their mascots and the images of the athletic teams that borrowing the fearsome traits of anyone or anything is a questionable action. No wonder we have the Banana Slugs and the Artichokes and the Blue Hose. [No offense, Kate.]

I defend the use of the Braves by Atlanta in this way: the team began in Boston. This was one of those teams which couldn't settle on a mascot. They were the Pilgrims, the Doves, the Bees. It's almost a miracle that they settled on anything. The original Boston Braves were the citizens who dressed up as Indians and threw tea out into the harbor to protest the tax on it. They weren't real Indians, but they were a significant part of our early history in this country. So the Braves are named so, not after Native Americans, but after those guys dressed up like Braves in the days before July 4, 1776.

By the way, the Cleveland Indians were named so after a former player on the Cleveland team who was a Native American. The player died while still playing and the team wanted to honor him by calling the team the 'Indians.' So we shouldn't be too critical of that use of the name, either.

There are plenty of incidents in our history in which the European-Americans took advantage of the Native-Americans for which we should be rightfully criticized without worrying about the use of these names by colleges, high schools and professional sports franchises.

That's my little sermon for the day.

James "Fly" Williams and the beginning of APSU basketball

I know that APSU has been playing basketball since they opened the school back in the 30's, but I was flipping through the internet and found a story on famous alumni of all of the schools involved in the NCAA March Madness which just ended last night. It was interesting to see who AOL picked as representative of the graduates of the various schools. It was also interesting to see where certain people matriculated. For instance, who would have thought that the actor "Don Johnson" went to Kansas? I guess he's happy now. Goldie Hawn went to American University.

Anyway, the famous alumnus of APSU was an ag scientist who cloned the first calf in the United States. This caused me to go to the entry for APSU in Wikepedia to see who else was listed as famous alumni of the college.

As I drifted down the page, I saw a lot of athletes, politicians and celebrities. But one name stuck out: James "Fly" Williams.

When I was in high school, still trying to play basketball, Sports Illustrated had a short article one Winter about a basketball player at APSU who was in the top five of national basketball players in scoring. The story told of a young guy from the streets of Brooklyn who was convinced to come down to Clarksville, Tennessee to play college basketball. I'm sure he had no idea where Clarksville was when he agreed to go play basketball there.

Anyway, he averaged over 27 points per game and led the team in his freshman year to the NCAA's for the first time. He even led the team to the second round with a win over Jacksonville State. I remember that year because a local Atlanta station played the next game where Kentucky beat APSU and eliminated them from the competition.

All of a sudden, this little college in Clarksville, Tennessee, which was known to me only because both of my parents had graduated from the school and had lived nearby, was a hot commodity in college basketball. During those years, they even had a tall rebounder from Texas named Percy Howard, who was in the top ten of rebounding before he fell off a roof on a summer job and disappeared from college basketball. Oddly, he reappeared when he caught a touchdown pass for the Dallas Cowboys against the Pittsburgh Steelers in a Super Bowl.

The next year, the Governors again went to the NCAA's, only to get eliminated by Notre Dame. I remember watching that game, with Adrian Dantley leading Notre Dame.

But the following year, Fly Williams left APSU and went to the ABA, where he played briefly for the St. Louis Spirits. The beauty of his short time there was that it led the school and the State of Tennessee to build a large basketball arena for APSU and has kept the basketball program at APSU in the fore of small schools around the country. The governors don't usually get very far, but they do make the dance most years.

And all of that was due to the efforts of a first year assistant basketball coach and a playground phenom from Brooklyn who decided to travel down to Tennessee to play basketball.

All about feet, football and getting on my feet

This past weekend, I left work early on Friday and took Cindy to see "Leatherheads" at the local movie theater. The movie was about professional football in the 1920's when professional football was considered considerably lower than college football, which, of course, was the bailiwick of all the high-toned colleges like Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and so forth. This movie involves a college football hero from Princeton who is convinced to play for a Duluth, Minnesota professional football team. This brings money and blows life into the the dying professional football league and causes the local press to investigate the truth behind the hero from Princeton.

I liked the movie and Cindy and I had a good time at the movie and then eating supper afterward. It was a nice date. And we were back home before 9:00 o'clock.

All weekend I was resting my foot. Only on Sunday did I do anything other than sit around and rest. This morning, my foot was almost back to normal. I could actually see the veins in my foot, which was a first in about a week. I've got to believe that in a couple of days I will be able to put my shoes back on both feet. That's my goal for Friday, since I have a hearing in Carrollton on Friday morning.

Well, I have several meetings with clients this afternoon. I am looking forward to laying back down on the sofa this afternoon and taking my medicine. Of course, I am really looking forward to being over this mess.

Journey through health care

Well, the ice and elevation of my foot didn't help the swelling much and Cindy gave me her crutches to use. I decided last night, upon the further prodding of my wife and mother, that I should see the doctor. I got up in the morning and rode my butt down the stairs and took a shower. Cindy fixed me breakfast and I drove her to work and rode over to the doctor's office. My doctor was out of town so I had to come in as a walk-in patient. Which meant I got to sit in the waiting room for quite a time before they could get to me. I watched a lot of Griffin cross my path to the reception.

They finally called my name and took me back to the end of the line for examination rooms. The nurse took my pulse, temperature and blood pressure. I was normal. Imagine. That doesn't happen very often.

Finally, they took me to the x-ray room and took pictures of my foot. Oddly, everytime they tried to take my x-ray, someone called me on my cellphone. I asked if the cellphone would create a problem for the x-ray and was told that it would not.

After completion of the x-rays, they returned me to the examination room and I waited for the doctor. The doctor arrived and asked me if I had ever had the gout. No.

I was told that I didn't have a break, but seemed to have an infection. So, I left with a prescription for antibiotics and went to the office. Now, I am sitting here in the downstairs conference room waiting for twelve noon to arrive so I can drive over to Kroger to get my prescription filled.

That's it. The antibiotics are supposed to take care of it in a few days.

Cross our fingers.

Jocko's pizza with extra pepperoni and a pitcher of Tuborg

When I was a senior in high school, I had a group of buddies, most of whom were football players at Dunwoody, who used to get together to amuse ourselves in various ways. A group of us used to refer to ourselves as the 'Irish Mafia' and we would get dressed up in our Sunday best, drive over to Sandy Springs and a restaurant known as The Speakeasy and we would pretend that we were a group of mobsters. The running joke involved a situation where a couple of the guys would enter the building, look around, then motion for me to enter. After that we would sit at a darkened booth and the guys would order for me to the waitress. When we finished eating, one of the other guys would pay and the protection would ease out to check the outside of the restaurant, then escort me out.

I was never real sure what the poor waitresses thought, but it was rather amusing to pretend we were some type of group hiding out from the other 'families' and the police. Of course we were all teenagers, just barely legal, and it was just a lark for us.

Anyway, one of my buddies from the group called me today. A good number of us seemed to have a nickname. Gary DeFilippo was "Flip." I was TEB, TB, Uncle Teb and Mr. Baynham. Flip always referred to me as 'Mr. Baynham'. Mike Williams was "Willie", John Boswell was "Boz." Then there were Jim Connolly, Graham Gardner and Ronnie Brown. There were a few others who came and went depending on the weekend.

When I think back on that we were really pretty goofy. I guess we just didn't care. Oddly, a few of us attended quite a few first rate colleges: Harvard, Stanford, the Naval Academy. A couple of them actually made it out to my wedding in California. Of course, some of them were in California at the time and still live out there. But we had a good group from my high school days at the wedding.

I have been thinking about those guys lately. Apparently, a couple of them got together recently and had a mini reunion. They were talking enough about me that Flip decided to call me. I now have numbers for Flip, Willie and Jim.

Flip came to Dunwoody when we were juniors and split time with Willie at tailback. One of the few games we won that year was against Cedar Shoals. I remember Willie had a ton of yards that day, and it seemed like there were a number of long runs where I was leading Willie down the field toward the end zone. Everytime as we got near the end zone, I would try to shade the defensive back to give Willie enough room to run into the end zone. And every time, Willie would cut away from the direction in which I was shading the d-back. Every time we broke free and headed toward the goal, Willie would cut back into the field and get tackled inside the five yard line.

Upon that occurrence, Coach Jackson would replace Willie with Flip, who would drive in for the touchdown. So by the end of the game, Flip had a ton of points scored, but little yardage and Willie had a ton of yards but no touchdowns. Just the way it went.

One break we had a 'mead party' in which we bought about every bottle of mead we could find. I remember falling asleep on the couch downstairs in the basement and waking up to see Flip playing "LaGrange" by ZZ Top on my dad's Martin acoustic guitar, while several of my buddies were gatoring on the floor. That was too much of a scene; I went back to sleep.

I also remember one time when we went over to the Defillipo house and called the information line for the Great Southeast Music Hall. The recording said that we could come over that night to hear 450 pounds of the best Chicago blues around. That night about ten white boys were just enthralled to hear Willie Dixon and his band from Chicago play some excellent blues. By the end of the evening, we were down on the side of the stage, shaking hands with the band and the man himself. His fingers were like kielbasa. It was rather difficult to shake hands with such massive hands.

But I can say I saw and shook hands with the great Willie Dixon. And all my buddies were there too.

The Music Hall and Underground were my second homes on the weekends in those days. What a lot of fun. What a lot of fun.

Live music. Draft beer. And Jocko's pizza.

Hot pretzels, a bucket of beer and seats on the floor of the music hall.

What a lot of fun.

I wonder what happened to James Lewis Dorsey?

No, my left foot

My left foot. I'm beginning to think that that book and the movie they made from it should have been about me. A couple of years I developed a chronic pain in my left foot. I went to a doctor in Fayetteville whose nurse (never saw the doctor) diagnosed me with a condition called 'Morton's Neuroma.' This is a condition where the tendons in your foot get wrapped up with the nerves running alongside them. This causes swelling and pain in the foot.

At the time, the nurse gave me a shot of cortisone and told me to buy a pad for the ball of my foot. The cortisone did little but the little pads were amazing. The pain and swelling disappeared almost immediately. After awhile, I found that if I could get shoes that had a high arch support and padding for the feet, like a good athletic shoe, that I could avoid all of this swelling and pain.

Anyway, two days ago I began to have swelling and pain again in my left foot. It felt like my foot was broken. After a day of walking and what-not, the left foot swelled up to such a great degree that I didn't feel like walking anywhere. Going up stairs wasn't any fun either.

For the last two days I have been hobbling around everywhere. Yesterday, every place I stopped to step up to the courthouse steps caused more pain and swelling. Last night, I got an ice pack out and put it on my foot. I found that the ice relieved the pain and swelling so long as I wasn't walking on it.

This morning, my left foot felt almost perfect. But as I walked on it, the pain and swelling came back. Now I am wearing tennis shoes for the support and icing my foot on the floor of my office. So far, I have spoken with two clients and avoided having to get up to speak with them anywhere other than at my desk. That was a little bit embarrassing.

Well, we will just have to persevere.

The old stomping grounds

Twenty five years ago I was a brand new lawyer in the state of Georgia, practicing with a law firm in Toccoa. During those six months I drove all around the Northeast Georgia mountains and the upcountry in South Carolina.

One of the spots to which I had to travel was Carnesville, the county seat of Franklin County. Carnesville is a tiny little mountain town in a small county, planted between Elberton and Hartwell and Toccoa and Jefferson and Homer. One time back in 1982 I had to travel to the courthouse in Carnesville. When I finished with my business, I hopped in my car and headed the car back down the road toward Toccoa. I stopped at a stop sign on the corner of the courthouse square. As I stopped, I noticed an old Victorian era house across the street with a broad wrap around porch. As I glanced at the house, the screen door on the front of the house swung quickly open and a naked three or four year old boy came running out the house and around the porch. Immediately thereafter, the door closed and swung open again to reveal the child's mother following her son, with towel in hand.

That image has remained as my picture of Carnesville ever since. Today, however, I got a new image to go along with naked child and mother. When I went to Carnesville to cry out the foreclosure sale, I didn't know at which entrance from which I was supposed to cry the sale. I walked into the old courthouse and entered the clerk's office. One clerk was dealing with a man and a woman and their requirements for responding to a court summons. The other clerk was on the phone dealing with another citizen of Franklin County and their court summons. I stood in the doorway for one of the clerks to complete her task.

Finally, the clerk on the phone hung up and turned to me. I explained to her that I needed to find out from which entrance I was supposed to cry out the sale.

Her response, "We don't cry foreclosure sales in this office."

"No, no. I want to cry out the foreclosure sale."

Pause.

"Oh. Well, you'll have to ask the clerks in the real estate room."

"Ok. Thank you."

So I walked down to the other end of the courthouse and entered the deed record room. Inside there was one clerk, sitting behind a counter.

"May I help you?"

"Yes, from which entrance to the courthouse are foreclosure notices cried?"

She pointed to the nearest entrance, "That one."

"Thank you."

So I left the record room and went out in front of the courthouse. Nice to find someone in the clerk's office who knew the answer. As I began to read the foreclosure notice, a young man ran awkwardly toward me on the courthouse steps and stopped, perched next to me on the banister to the steps. I stopped reading for a second and considered his presence. He smiled sheepishly.

I continued to read the notice. When I was finished, I announced the lender's bid and looked up at the young man.

"Do you want to place a bid?"

He shook his head, "No, no. I just driving by and saw you reading and thought I'd give you someone to listen to you read."

He smiled at me and I smiled back at him. "Alright."

So I completed the cry-out and the two of us left the courthouse steps and I drove on the rest of my round-about journey from Carnesville to Dahlonega and Dawsonville and then back home.

A lot of the courthouses had changed since I was a young attorney in Toccoa, but it was a little comforting to see that in some counties the terrain was still similar to 1982. I don't feel so damn old.

Of course, it doesn't take that much to make that happen.