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The Helped

I find myself spending too much time thinking about the world I will leave to my 13 year-old, Rachel. There seems to be a whole lot of bad news some days. Recently, the attacks in Belgium just seem to be latest senseless act of a growing set of desperate people who feel they are not being heard. The mayhem always has the violence porn industry in tow. I wonder if there is an antidote to the hopelessness, fear and impending doom Rachel sees every day.

Then I remember Fred.

Fred Rogers, that’s Mister Rogers to you and me, seemed to be the world’s ambassador to children. He delicately explained the world to us in all it’s wonder and all it’s chaos. He seemed to instinctively know what we needed. That sweater and those sneakers were our symbols of certainty, sanity and safety before we even knew what those words meant. He spoke our language in a steady voice which never stooped to condescension. I guess Mister Rogers learned well the story of Job in seminary because his patience seemed to be unlimited.

Do you remember how he told us we could think about a disaster?

He told us the story of his mom’s advice about how he could think about disaster and violence porn. She told him simply, “look for the helpers.” In our language, he told us faith and hope would be found in the “helpers.” He felt so strongly about his mom’s helper concept that he urged the violence porn industry not to edit those helpers from their porn.

Did you watch Mister Roger’s Neighborhood as a child?

I look for the helpers today. I find great solace in them today. I think Jesus would have been a helper. In spite of personal danger, these people run toward the fire. Many have no skills to bring to bear once they make it to the breach. They might be bricklayers, garbage men and window washers but, they try to help anyway. Knowing their only contribution might be human kindness, they are willing to give it. Their split-second decision is to love.

Do you know people like this?

In my recent spiritual spring cleaning, I have made a decision to look for the helpers. I have made a conscious decision to reduce the influence in my life of people who seem to take pleasure in violence porn. I want to replace those people with helpers as influences in my life. This is an endeavor for me and not a transformation. I have however found peace in the journey. It is not my nature to run toward the fires of this life but, there is peace there. I have to be honest here. It is not my nature to serve those I don’t feel worthy. I feel that there are people in my life who build fires in their’s every day. My nature is not to run toward those self-made fires.

Have you had your feet washed in a figurative or literal sense lately.

I think back to all those who washed my feet. There were times I did not deserve it. There were times I would not have washed my own feet. Helpers have been everywhere in my life. Those helpers came exactly when I needed them. Fortunately for me, they didn’t ask questions. Perhaps some of them once had the same done for them. Perhaps they washed out of gratitude. Perhaps they washed out of a longing for peace. Regardless, the affect on my life has been profound and lasting. I am grateful for the helpers, the foot-washers. They are the perfect antidote for the darkness which visits all of us. I pray that there are lots of helpers in Brussels. I pray that the children of Belgium get to see plenty of those helpers in action.

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Anniversary Salute

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I had a little anniversary a few days ago. It seems that 32 years ago, when I was 21, I raised my right hand to become a private in the US Army. An odd institution, the Army. Although I had signed a contract, the oath was the binding instrument:

“I Dal Ogle do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.”

I took that oath at a MEPS center in Nashville, Tennessee. MEPS was one of the first in a long line of acronyms I would learn and use every day in the Army. In this case it stood for Military Entrance Processing Station. Later I would learn the art and the joy of the backwards acronym. You know, Bag, Sleeping or Jeep, Personnel…Yup, the American military is its own subculture and they teach you everything you need to know about your new chosen culture in twelve weeks.

Do you know anyone shipping off to Basic Training?

Basic Training is probably the understatement of the millennia. The physical part of basic gets all the press but, the important part is unlearning everything you have learned in life to that point. Once you have properly forgotten you can then relearn the Army way. From rank identification, who to salute, to how to sign and date your signature, you have to learn it all. I still date some documents the Army way. The beautiful simplicity of the day, month, last two of the year, is a sort of secret handshake for all in the club. See, the numbers are separated, it avoids confusion, if you go to Europe you won’t be lost…

I guess you can take the man out of the Army…

After my basic at Fort McClellan, I went to advanced training at Fort Gordon, Georgia. In case you are unfamiliar, Fort Gordon, outside of Augusta, is the hottest place on earth. I drank more water out of a smelly canteen there than…well, I drank tons of water. I drank it mostly out of fear. They told me if I contracted heat stroke I would be Court-Martialed for insubordination and who needs that? I guess they would have gotten me well then sent me to stockade.

Doesn’t the Army have curious ways of looking at things?

On a 90-degree day in October I left what I knew of the world in Charleston, South Carolina and my crying mom. When I landed in the alien land they called Germany, it was 45. It snowed two feet that night and stayed on the ground till July. The first order of business for me was to get a roll of what looked like play money, put that money in huge toy telephone and call mom. I reassured her that we were not lost somewhere in the Mid-Atlantic then asked her to do me a favor. I asked her to dig out all those catalogs we had received for years and find the largest coat she could buy. I asked her to ship it immediately.

Have you ever had long stretches where your bones were chilled?

After a time of self-pity, God spoke through Private Donald Sponcelor from Los Fresnos, Texas. We were not men of the world but, during a Dopplebock fog, he had a moment of clarity. “I heard you could go to Frankfort on a train for ten marks,” he said. I could even do the math on that one. With our exchange rate, that was about three bucks. We weren’t sure what waited in Frankfort but, it was better than a drunken pity party in the barracks of Bad Hersfeld. A month later we began our tour of 22 countries for train tickets which cost less than cab fare.

My work in Germany was spent on the East/West German Border. Someone called it the Frontier of Freedom. I was a Calvary Trooper. I must say, I still love the smell a Lycoming gas turbine makes when it warms up in the morning. I would love to report to you some heroic exploits but, it was mostly boredom. The only shots fired at me in anger were mostly from drunken East German and Russian conscripts trying to shoot defectors or something.

I don’t think I was ever in any real danger from the enemy.

Later in the Alabama National Guard, I would go to the other border in South Korea. The difference was stark. The East Germans and Russian conscripts acted as if they could shoot you if it was a necessity. The North Koreans acted like they would take great joy in killing you and eating you. No one ever seemed to escape over that border. Korea was also a cold place. At the time I was in South Korea, it was also very poor. They were very nice people who were desperately poor.

Have any of you been to those places lately?

They tell me goat herders have taken over the fences on the former German Border. I also have word that those South Korean rice fields I witnessed being fertilized with human feces have given way to huge car and TV manufacturing facilities. Being an old Cold Warrior, I am happy things turned out so well in Germany. I am sad however, when I hear that hundreds of thousands of people continue to starve under the thumb or Kim Jung-un or whoever is in charge North Korea these days.

I miss MY Army.

My experience has now, apparently, been relegated to history. All those countries and good times are a thing of the past. My new Army brothers and sisters have been in a real shooting war for over fifteen years now. They deploy, rest for a few months, deploy…Most of them have lost at least one of their brothers and sisters-in-arms. Many of them have been maimed. Most of them suffer deep mental scars few will ever have to feel. The scars that come from seeing things which should never be seen and doing things which no one should ever have to do. I think about my Army experience and how different it is from the 21 year-olds raising their right hand today. I am honored, humbled and grateful, beyond words, that someone would raise their hand for me. I feel so blessed everyday that they will.

Godspeed my brothers and sisters.

This will defend.

Picture Credits:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/11th-Armored-Cavalry-Regiment-ACR-Squadron-Mousepad-Vietnam-Ft-Irwin-Fulda-Gap-/191120212826

Johnny’s Joy

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There was a man in my home town named Johnny. He lived in Belgreen outside the town of Russellville where I grew up. I think he lived with his sister. Johnny was “special.” Everyone in northwest Alabama knew him because at some point, they had given him a ride. See, Johnny didn’t drive. He still liked to visit the big cities of Muscle Shoals, Florence, Sheffield and Tuscumbia. There were things to eat, places to shop and wonders beyond those Belgreen had to offer. You always knew for days when you had given Johnny a ride.

I am sure you know people who feel showers are overrated.

Johnny frequently went on odysseys which stretched over several counties. At the end of these odysseys when he was headed home his request was simple, “tate me to Belgreen.” It always amazed me how he could move around such a huge area simply on the largess of those willing to give a hitchhiker a ride. Most of those rides were given by people who knew they were about to receive an aromatic gift which would keep giving for several days.

Would you have given him a ride?

Johnny was always so excited to see you. My friends and I had given him many rides but, one stands out. He had been to a shop in downtown Florence on that day. He had forgotten to close the back door of the car because he was so excited. Apparently he had located a trinket or dust collector which made the perfect gift for his sister. It may have been a ceramic frog or a rabbit or something…I can’t remember. Although he did not speak very plainly, we were able to piece together that Johnny’s sister loved that kind dust collector and had many of them throughout the house. He was beside himself with pride.

I wish you could have met Johnny.

Sure, Johnny would give us a beer from time to time. We also had a laugh or two at his expense. There is something funny about a child in a middle-aged man’s body. Mostly, however, we genuinely liked Johnny and how could you not like Johnny? I think he liked us. God chose to freeze him at place where we found ourselves. We were not quite adults and not quite children anymore. His permanent adolescence made him one of us with all its wonder. Yeah, it is safe to say that Johnny, for many of us, was our first lesson in packaging.

Does God hide his best surprises from you sometimes?

Johnny, unshaven, unclean, and repulsive in many ways was one of my first opportunities to see and feel unbridled joy. The legend, I later learned, was that Johnny was headed to an Ivy League school on scholarship before the train accident. The unrecoverable brain damage left him in a childhood state of, well, joy. Every day was an adventure. He was doomed, blessed maybe, to forever live in the moment. I imagine he never had a regret when his head hit the pillow in Belgreen. I am sure a part of Johnny’s brain visited the past from time to time but, I never witnessed regret. Sure, people played tricks on him from time to time but, he never held a grudge. He loved his drivers and they loved him.

Johnny passed away several years ago but, we still talk about him often. We always have a laugh or two. The laughs always remind me of that twilight between childhood and adulthood. There is wonder and joy in those times. There is also pain. Johnny taught us that the pain is fleeting and grudges only rob us of real joy. There were a hundred reasons to avoid Johnny. We could have marginalized Johnny but, it would have been our loss. The gift of permanent childhood joy would have remained unopened and our lives would have been a little darker.

Happy Birthday to Curiosity Just Because

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I saw a meme on the internet about how Curiosity, one of the Mars Rovers, sings Happy Birthday to itself on the anniversary of its landing on Mars. Of course I went outside to look at Mars and I tried to take its picture. I ended up with a sunrise picture of Venus for the cover shot on this article…err… more or less.

I hope you can make it outside this morning.

Once back inside I checked out the meme on the internet. As we have discussed before, internet memes are, well, made up from whole cloth sometimes. That is a nice southern way of saying they can be giant lie. I found the delightful video which might be attached, err, maybe, to this article.

I have pulled out all the stops for you today. Videos, pictures…I am really stretching the limits of my nerdom today.

It seems they needed a way to shake the dirt samples down into the little laboratory inside the rover. You know, to test for the building blocks of life or whether, or not, Elvis had visited. The weight of a mechanical device to perform this task, was extravagant. In the space flight business, weight is always a premium. So instead of an arm or something, some very smart person thought resonance might work…You know, Ella Fitzgerald, is it live or is it Memorex?

Perhaps you are too young to remember Ella breaking a wine glass.

To use resonance, all you need is a relatively light speaker. Since they had the speaker, well, the road to “Happy Birthday” ran right through the last bite of bologna sandwich. Let me explain. The best ideas, the ideas which capture the imagination, are always hatched while everyone is chewing on the last bite at lunch. It is a time when thoughts and conversation drift from weather, report cards and new Hondas back toward work and the project. I believe a Supreme Being loves that twilight, I believe all things are possible.

When do your best ideas seem to show up?

In this case, it was a bunch of real, live rocket scientists finishing their lunch. Someone with a half-mouthful said why don’t we let it sing to itself! I am sure the idea was dismissed out of hand…too much battery power, it could corrupt our samples and the most critical of all questions, why?

Did your mom ever tell you why was a crooked letter?

I think I was one of those children who relentlessly peppered his folks with questions. My poor stay-at-home mom was the unfortunate victim of most of them. I think her exasperated answer held meaning which is still useful for me today. The letter “Y” is indeed a crooked letter. I think in her exasperation with her child, she was telling me that today, it was the best answer I would get. As an adult, I think sometimes, she was telling me no answer might be the best answer.

Philosophy is hard for a nuts and bolts engineer, so bare with me.

See, in the return-on-investment, what have you done for me lately world it is unacceptable to say, “why is a crooked letter.” You need talking points, charts and a YouTube video chock full of reasons why in today’s immediate gratification world. If you don’t believe me ask the people at the Large Hadron Collider. When their answer to the question, “why are you spending all this money,” is, “we think but, we are not sure,” people’s eyes glaze over and the discussion is over. That is why American scientists are in Europe and not in the United States, right now doing science which might change everything we know about physics. See, there is no satisfaction and certainly no immediate gratification in the “Y is a crooked letter” argument. Neither is there satisfaction in the argument’s cousin, “because.”

Truth is, Curiosity singing “Happy Birthday” to itself 46.8 million miles away, more or less, might be the coolest thing a child hears today. If the child plays the video, it could motivate the little girl or little boy to hear it for himself one day. We don’t know. We, and the scientists at CERN really don’t know what the Large Hadron Collider will find. We already know about the Higgs-Boson Particle. Otherwise, we don’t know.

Do you think there should be payday at the end of every human endeavor? What ever happened to wonder?

I remember watching Neil Armstrong on a little 19-inch black and white TV in Nashville, Tennessee with my Daddy. As a nuts and bolts engineer, I really have no idea if it had any kind of psychological affect on my life. I am bright enough to believe we are sum of our experiences in many ways. You can call it a waste of battery power if you want but, a little robot singing a song a tens of millions of miles away has its own kind of power. Inspiration defies being quantified or monetized. Why something inspires is… well, Y is a crooked letter…And who knows, Elvis might be listening.

Making My Mark

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Just as you cross into Alabama from Mississippi on US-72 after the welcome sign, brought to you by the governor, there is an interesting monument. It, too, was brought to you by former Governor Dixon and, of course, Director Shaddock. Apparently, in the early forties, the Highway Director and the Governor decided to commemorate Alabama statehood, whose centennial had arrived back in 1919, with a monument. Since you can’t sling a dead cat in most places without hitting a monument of some kind, they didn’t exactly hit on an original idea. Did I really write that thing about the cats?

If you are a cat lover, I want to formally apologize right now.

It is actually a pretty stretch of road and a nice place for a Sunday drive. If you are ever around these parts I would highly recommend the side trip. A little over four miles into Alabama, just before the Buzzard’s Roost Bridges, on the same road, is our locally famous “Shoe Tree.” For a reason I can’t exactly describe, I find the Shoe Tree, well, creepy. The Shoe Tree is a converted Sycamore tree in an impressive limestone rock cut. Some people write messages on their shoes before they tie the laces and fling them on the tree. I am sure this is also, not an original idea.

Can you tell where this column is heading?

We were never sure when a shoe had done its job and become litter at the Tuscumbia District. We also really never knew what to do with the granite monument. Is pressure washing enough? Should we honor, err, statehood with Daisies or is Creeping Juniper ok? How many people, exactly, stop and look at it anyway? It would take a very good set of binoculars and real talent to read it at cruising speed.

I have a few pairs of old shoes. Should I write a note and fling them at the Shoe Tree? Will the monument my family buys to plant me under suffice or should I make arrangements for something else?

How will I make my mark?

When I read the obits in the paper, I usually look for someone I know. Age is a dead giveaway…let me rephrase, in finding people I know, age is a very good place to start. In the south we must then sort by funeral attendance, or not, by funeral visitation, or not, by flower arrangements, or not…I usually make my determination using the niceness quotient. Was he nice to me? Was someone in her family who was nice to me taking the death pretty hard? Like any good engineer, I have data and a test for most of life’s mysteries.

Do you have a rule for funeral attendance?

So, I guess part of my mark will be constantly working on my niceness quotient. As for the other things, I think they will take care of themselves if my niceness quotient is sufficiently high. Truth is, most of the things we do for our legacy are fleeting. Shoes rot and monuments fall down. Our actions are what make people show up to help plant us. If someone misses me, I am pretty sure my mark will be made.

Arrowhead Convention

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I met my friend Paul when I did a little spiritual spring cleaning on my life about three years back. Paul and I have very little in common. Oil and water aside, we humor each other and do things from time to time which we would not have done otherwise. I did one of those things recently when I accompanied him to a Native American artifact show in Leoma. For those of you not familiar with southern Tennessee, Leoma is just north of St. Joseph. Or explained in the local tongue, Leomer is right up 43 from Saint Joe. Since we are oil and water, I might have referred to the event as an arrowhead convention.

Paul usually ignores my smartellicy remarks. I think that is why we remain good friends.

We met in a parking lot in Florence because Paul gets impatient sometimes. It was a good ride north lined with short, light green winter wheat. We arrived at a little park in Leoma with a beige metal building in the middle. We knew it was a park because it was circled by the requisite round, log, park fence. It was also evident by a scattering of concrete picnic tables. Men and women were gathered around the door smoking in their Carhartt coats and overalls. As we walked in, neighborly howdies were exchanged.

I wish you could have seen Paul’s quick pace. I think he was a little excited.

It was a pretty big crowd and I think we lost each other pretty quickly. There were lines of plastic family reunion tables filled with wooden display cases. I remember being more impressed with the wooden cases than the millions of arrowheads they protected. Paleo, Mississippian…Yada Yada…I was not impressed. I overheard stories at every table about finding this one here and that one there. I overheard experts assessing someone’s artifact. I was working pretty hard at being unimpressed.

Have you ever gotten the feeling God was trying to get your attention?

Seeing the ocean of arrowheads, I decided to find something different. A few minutes later, I found a large dark stone in the shape of an exclamation point. It was without the dot, of course. It was about the length of a hubcap and the width of a bar of soap. The plaque on the case said it was a Celt. The woman behind the table smiled to the point of a grin and said, “I like that artifact too. It’s Jerry’s favorite piece.” I wasn’t sure who this Jerry was but, I had to agree with him. I asked her for what the item was used. “I could tell you but, I will mess it up. Hey can you talk to him,” she asked another short, fat, baldheaded man like myself who was over at the next table and I’m sure talking about finding this one here and that one there. When he arrived I found myself still pointing at the Celt.

Have you ever wondered if excitement was a disease you could catch like a Cold Virus?

The way Jerry demonstrated using his hand as a visual aid and his ear to ear grin invited me to catch his excitement. He explained how people would cut a tree and fashion a sort of hoe to hollow trees and shape things like canoes. He explained with sweeping hand gestures how with transportation, a whole new world was opened. He talked about how societies who spent less time traveling were able to work on things like a common language, the arts… I love cause and effect. Jerry then delivered what I am sure God’s message for me was that day. The Celt was eight to ten-thousand years old. He continued to explain how artifacts like the Celt helped disprove some historical theories but, my mind had ground to a halt.

Is there anything more complex than perspective?

That line is from a movie, I think, but, it is really true. Just as transportation changed the lives of the Paleo-Americans so, couldn’t the Celt change my life. Shouldn’t any real spiritual spring cleaning begin with a change of perspective? I know my problems were suddenly reduced to their proper place when I held that Celt in my hand. The same tool that some poor sap used to build a leaky canoe ten millennia ago is a tool I could use. A tool to cut away what does not work in my spiritual canoe. Once shaped, there is really no limit to where God can take me.

The Fast Train to the Meaning of Life

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I have become friends with someone at work. I think his title has something to do with communications. I think a more appropriate title might be Area Omniscient. Jonathan knows anything you want to know about most anything. Sure, his primary duty is making sure the right people get together and, pardon me, the trains get there on time but, he has apparently decided not to be defined by any old title. Among a host of other talents, his natural curiosity has allowed him to speak Scannerese. Its my blog and I reserve the right to make up words from time to time. Scannerese is the language firemen, state troopers, DOT crews… use when they communicate on the radio. I’m sure you have heard it before on one of those crime dramas on TV. “Base this is 2600, 10-41 er, at subject, 10-55, corpus delicti, 1523, maux nix, on scene, 2600.” Everything said on a two-way radio also has to be said under the breath and indecipherably fast. He actually knows the lingo, he is able to understand it under the breath and is able to respond in kind.

I hope you can meet him one day.

Jonathan has a bunch of hobbies and one of those is trains. He loves them. He and his fellow train enthusiasts have a sort of

underground network. They take great joy in seeing a neat, vintage or otherwise rare train. This is where Jonathan shines. His ability to speak Scannerese allows him to listen to a scanner and determine if such a sighting is coming his way. We have a local train yard and when Dodo Bird of trains is on its way, he knows. He dutifully reports the potential sighting to the network and at the first opportunity, a break or lunch, he dons his hat and walking stick and walks the short way from the office to the tracks. Sometimes he meets his fellow enthusiasts and they oooh and ahhh together. Sometimes he might take a

Jonathan Melton

picture to later post on a social network but, many times watching trains is a solitary tribute known only to Jonathan and the train engineer who, I am sure, provides a neighborly wave.

I wish you could see the joy in Jonathan’s face when he is getting ready for his stroll.

I wondered for some time why Jonathan made his romps across the cornfield between the office and the tracks. I must admit, when I saw the unmitigated joy in his face I thought he had a special audience with Elvis or he had found the Indian treasure in Redbone Cave. Redbone Cave and a Cherokee treasure is a long story for another article. Anyway, that day, when he was getting his walking stick, he granted me rare access to his top secret train intelligence. I don’t remember the specimen he showed me in the picture but, I remember how he beamed when he showed it to me.

Jonathan Melton

I wish you could have been there.

I guess Jonathan chooses to put himself in joy’s way. He, we, have to work at it. Many times, joy requires our most precious commodity, time. Jonathan could easily busy himself with all manner of distraction. There are auditoriums to book, motor pool cars to check out, accidents to report…sometimes it is hard to focus. Sometimes we have to wait next to the tracks all day to see joy. Joy can be a very personal experience or sometimes we get to oooh and ahhh together. Joy is there, we just need to keep our hat and walking stick ready. The scanners, phones and demands of those who travel with us are loud but, if we focus, we might hear the train coming. Then we just have to choose to be at the track.

Ode to Bright Stars

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We found out Monday that Glenn Frey had died. It will be impossible write about Glenn without superlatives so I won’t resist. To a person, everyone I knew was genuinely shocked. I guess we expected the reaper to first visit the other less sane members of the Eagles. In the end however, I guess the brightest stars are destined to burn out first…and bright his star was.

Quick, do you have a memory associated with an Eagles song?

There were so many. One of These Nights will forever be an 8-Track song. If you have no idea what I am talking about, ask your folks. It will be an 8-Track song cruising on Woodward Avenue in a beige seventies vintage Chevrolet Impala forever. If you are not sure what I am talking about ask Ronald or Roger. Desperado will be the slow dance song which defies the cute sitters at Patrick’s in perpetuity. Ask Tammy or Kim or… if you don’t believe me. Life in the Fast Lane is the song that makes you take your top off, Spitfire convertible top, that is. Already Gone has broken up more couples than Jerry Springer. If you don’t believe me, ask…

You thought I would blog about her? Nope, sorry.

Anyone with a pulse in the seventies or eighties can name at least one association with an Eagles song. In those decades those songs were prevalent, pervasive and some would say pungent comments about our time. Their lyrics and melodies rang true for another generation fourteen years later.

I know, I went to one of the reunion concerts at Clemson’s Death Valley in the late nineties.

That concert’s attendance was just weird. There were people my age who loved the Eagles but, didn’t really have a chance to see them in concert before the spectacular breakup. There were old people who had probably seen the Eagles numerous times and then there were the kids. Don Henley seems to want to attribute their kid appeal to the rise of classic rock stations. I think he is just too humble to admit the music is timeless.

Whatever the secret sauce, the Eagles doled it out in buckets.

Henley was quoted in a statement a few days ago that Glenn Fry “was the one who started it all…the sparkplug…” I think that is the kind of thing a partner says about his fallen friend. Truth is, the Fry, Henley partnership will go down in the history of American music. To be sure, there were others, Meisner, Walsh, Felder… But, Fry and Henley had the vision. Sometimes by sheer force of will they kept the dream alive.

Until they couldn’t.

In 1980 a couple of years before I graduated high school, it was over. Some of us actually grieved. We always believed and in 94 we were given one more small dose of melodic genius. The Eagles were granted what a precious few will receive in this life, a curtain call. This time, it’s gutwrenchingly final. I think we are sad that another generation will never get the gift of 94. Maybe we are sad the group who wrote the score to our youth is now gone forever. We are sad for Don and the others. We are just shocked and sad. Rest in peace, Glenn.

I Guess My Affair is Over

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We have been together for some time. Jennifer, my wife, introduced me to her a few years back. That might be a little strange but, Jen could see we had so much in common. Her brother Joe is a big Clemson fan like me. Like me, she over-visits the upstate of South Carolina. Recharging her batteries involves a cabin on a lake somewhere up there. I can see myself doing the same thing. I have an idea which lake but, I will keep her secret. Our affair is based on mutual admiration, respect and similar history. We are similar in all the things that really matter. Well, mutual to the extent she wouldn’t know me from Adam’s housecat at the grocery store.

Do you think it is kinda weird that I think my wife loves her too? I guess it doesn’t matter. It is over anyway.

I was introduced one morning when Jennifer and I were reading the paper. With my supernatural powers of intuition, I noticed she was sniffling. “I will never read Sharon Randall again. Just read it,” she said sticking a rolled up section of paper in my face like I hadn’t gone outside to do my business. I don’t really read the “Life” section of the Times Daily but, I humored her. I don’t remember the story but, I remember the lump in my throat. It was big as a softball. It was probably a column about her first husband. I remember how Sharon would stop with a sort of literary device to ask me a question. That’s exactly how it felt. She wanted to stop her story a minute to see if I was ok… you know, paying attention.

I have stolen Sharon’s device and I am not giving it back. You can’t make me.

Reading her columns, I always feel like I am listening to a story over her breakfast table. I know the characters of her stories. Joe, her brother, is blind and is a BIG Clemson fan. I know her boss turned second husband. I have heard all of the grand babies’, Wiley, Randy and Henry…

I wish you could have been there the day Jennifer learned I was reading Sharon’s columns on-line, ON THURSDAY.

Jennifer is black-fingered newspaper reader from way back. Without Dead trees and Diet Mountain Dews, I don’t think we would ever make it to church. That morning I grinned, handed her the paper and told her she would probably like Sharon that morning. “How do you know?” I surprised even myself by keeping that secret until Sunday. “Because, I read it online Thursday,” I said without even the slightest hint of guilt.

Ok, maybe I felt a little guilty.

We both have a connection to Sharon’s work that is hard to describe. She seems to have been there. Her accounts of her first husband were a huge solace after my daddy-in-law died. I have no idea why. If someday in my writing I can connect in some small way as she has, it will have been a good day.

I guess you have read by now that Sharon won’t be in the paper Sunday.

I will miss our visits. I will miss our little chats. I will miss her family. Now they like the cousins we never see. I don’t know about syndication. I am not sure Sharon will ever grace the pages of the Times Daily again. If it turns out Sharon isn’t coming back, I know more than a few people will be sad.

I know two people whose Sunday morning will never be the same.

Sharon Randall says she is looking into self-syndication. You can read her archived columns and the status of her syndication here.

Catching Up

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I have been on a little sabbatical for a few months.

Since we visited last, my clan moved from the Half Acre Wood. Our little world is a little more sterile and severe today. Don’t get me wrong, suburbia has its advantages. Those pesky Dandelions are a distant memory after the scorched earth of new construction. The new sod stands in formation ready to beat back nature. We traded our easily traversed Leyland Cypress and Razzledazzle bushes for a six-foot privacy fence. For our trouble, we have met precisely two of our new neighbors. One of those meetings was about, you guessed it, our fence.

To be sure, however, a few of our neighbors have not yet been built.

Our little cul-de-sac only really has two houses with families installed. Our Saturday and Sunday mornings are still filled with hammer blows, mixing and sawing. We are a work in progress. We had a little note from the Homeowners Association in our mailbox one day but, no one has come by to welcome us. Jennifer tells me there will be more people moving around in the summer.

I am looking forward to summer.

After being invited for left-overs at my mother-in-laws last night, we drove by the Half Acre Wood. See, Leslie’s left-overs are better than most first-cooked meals. Fried Okra, Limas, Roast… well, I bet you can taste my picture. Being two blocks away from your Mother-In-Law has its advantages. Being six miles away is, well, slimming. We had taken Jennifer’s car so she forced me to ride by the Half Acre Wood. It was my first time since I saw it in the rear view mirror of the U-Haul. I saw the double four-foot Oaks with Rach’s tree house first. The tree house was still in-tact but, the new owner, a single guy, had taken down the swings. I saw the Cedar with the dog grave yard next. Then the garden shed came into view.

I miss the Half Acre Wood.

I guess new adventures are on the way. I think our new abode needs a name. I will work on that. Home is such a loaded word. Home is where Rach’s height and date is written on the pantry door. Home is where the coffee pot has stained the counter. Home is where a piece of hardwood creaks and should be avoided before everybody wakes. Home is where the best dog ever, period, … is buried, until the next best dog is.