Christmas Memories (part two)

An added benefit of the Christmas season was the fact that we got out of school for two weeks. This was such a momentous occasion that the school threw a party to celebrate. For the days leading up the party, even the teachers were excited. I didn’t realize it then, but I’m pretty sure the prospect of not seeing their classroom full of snotty, sneezing, smelly kids for two solid weeks was the best gift they could imagine.

Those were the days when it was still called a “Christmas party,” and we were able to sing songs about the Nativity in school without fear of offending anyone. Sure, we might sometimes say “Happy Holidays,” but it wasn’t because we were trying to avoid the word “Christmas.” We knew what it was all about, and we weren’t ashamed of it.

For some reason, the teachers thought it was a good idea to draw names in class and exchange gifts. In a perfect world, this might be a joyous sharing of absolutely equitable Christmas treasures. Unfortunately, there was always at least one kid who got burned during gift exchange, and it was usually me.

While other kids got Yo-Yo’s or Slinky’s, I got the incredibly exciting “book of Lifesavers.” By the time the school day was over, most of the good lifesavers were gone, shared with friends who didn’t get enough chocolate, cupcakes and corn chips at the party. I went home with a partial box of butterscotch, some of which I was pretty sure had been tried and rejected back into the package.

Fortunately, I had other things to think about. Each December my little church presented an epic production of the nativity story, and as one of the young Shepherds, my dramatic responsibility weighed heavily upon me. Despite the fact that my wardrobe consisted of a flannel robe and a towel on my head, I took our play seriously. Not only did I have to convey the sense of duty required to watch over my flock of sheep by night, I also had to express the awe of suddenly seeing an angel (which was usually my cousin wearing a white sheet and homemade wire halo).

We did basically the same play every year, and I appreciate that now. I never got tired of the story. I never got bored. Even at a young age, I learned and understood what the true meaning of Christmas was all about. It was a wonderful gift.

I recall the excitement of practicing and then watching my Dad and other men of the church building the sets and running the wire for curtains. Like the angel costumes, the curtains were also white sheets, hung by safety pins, which made a metallic whirring noise as they opened and closed across the stage. I can remember that sound as clearly today as it made back then.

Instead of theatrical lights, we had a round, plastic wheel of colors which rotated over a single 75 watt light bulb, bathing the stage in an alternating blue, red and yellow glow. It may have been low tech, but the effect was dramatic. If that’s hard for you to imagine, you’ll just have to take my word for it.

I’m not exactly sure how our tiny church was able to present the play each year. By the time we cast Mary, Joseph, Elizabeth, the Angels, the shepherds, the wise men and the Inn-keeper, I don’t really know who was left to watch the play except my mother (who was not the theatrical type). Word must have gotten out about our thespian skills however, because when the lights went down on those cold Sunday nights in December, we always had pretty decent crowd.

Today we get a bit fancy in our Christmas productions. We have to put a modern spin on it, as if the old story isn’t good enough. Even in church, it’s rare to hear an old fashioned Christmas Carol anymore. Like all things these days, we’re sure we can do it better, even telling a story that needs no editing, revision or sequel.

Christmas Memories (part one)

We didn’t have a lot of fancy material possessions when I was a kid, and I think that was a wonderful thing. We didn’t get allowances every week or money just because we asked for it. I can only imagine the look on my parents faces if I had made plans to go hang out with my friends and then said, casually, as I walked out the door, “Oh, I need twenty dollars…for food and stuff.” Instead of cash, Mom would have probably packed me a sandwich. Dad would have ignored me entirely.

That was the way it was, and I am much better for it.

We had what we needed; food, clothes and a warm and loving home. We shared our toys and we took care of them. If our bicycle broke, we repaired it. We didn’t demand another. We learned to tape and solder, so that when the little wires running to the battery on our transistor radio twisted and broke (which they always did), we could fix it ourselves. We knew that we would not be getting another radio any time soon.

Christmas was special though, because we could make a list and get things we never would have requested throughout the year. Mom would get the JCPenney and Sears Christmas catalogs in the mail in early November, and I can remember spending hours looking through the expansive toy section, which was like a magical view into Santa’s Workshop.

We had to choose carefully, however. With four kids, budgets were still limited. We could not ask for anything too expensive, and we understood that. It didn’t really matter though, because when you don’t have a lot, you appreciate anything you get so much more. Besides, there was lot more to Christmas than the presents.

Before we bought our fake scotch pine, the men of the family used to go to my Uncle Jack and Aunt Christine’s farm to cut a live tree. It wasn’t a Christmas tree farm, like I’ve taken my kids to. It was just a farm that had some trees here and there amongst the acreage.

I don’t remember much about the trees, but I remember the excitement of the hunt. We’d trudge through the fields and up and down steep hills, hop over streams and climb over rocks, determined to find that perfect evergreen; not too tall…not too skinny. Standing there with Dad and my brothers in the cold, early December wind, we’d look at each candidate and imagine it strung with lights, ornaments and tinsel.

Once found, Dad would chop it down with the ax he was carrying and we would drag it out, probably losing half the branches and needles on one side as we journeyed back to the truck. That didn’t matter much to us though, because we knew that we only needed one good side to any Christmas tree. The bad side went toward the wall.

Once it was in its stand and perched in the corner of our living room, we’d put on the lights. It was very different than today. This year I put around two hundred and eighteen strands of lights on our tree at home, or so it seemed. Every time I’d think I was done, Connie would pull out another set and say, “it needs more on that side.” In our Christmas pictures, you will notice that I’m wearing sunglasses.

My childhood tree had one, maybe two strands of lights, but they used bulbs the size of my fist, not the tiny bulbs we use today. After the lights were draped around the tree, we’d hang the fragile, shiny glass ornaments. These always made me nervous. The limbs of the tree never seemed sturdy enough to hold them, and I imagined them all dropping to our hardwood floor at once, shattering in a million pieces. I let the others hang those.

Next came the tinsel, distributed carefully from top to bottom, and not too close to the melting heat of the colored bulbs. Again, I was cautious, as each bump against the limbs seemed possible to dislodge an ornament and send it crashing. When, at last, the star was placed on the top (usually with some difficulty), we’d stand back and look at our delicate, beautiful tree. In my mind, it was always a masterpiece.

After the tree went up in early December, presents would mysteriously begin appearing while we were at school or asleep. Each day, I would do a quick count; both the total number of gifts and those which were specifically for me. Those with my name always received a gentle shake, with my ear close to the package for tell-tale signs of its contents. Anything that rattled was a good thing. Clothes did not rattle.

Back then we didn’t compare numbers or box size with our siblings. I don’t think it ever crossed my mind to wonder if David or Wayne or Tracy got bigger, better or more than me. That doesn’t mean I was or am a spectacularly generous and all around wonderful person. It was just the way things were back then.

Many nights I would slip into the living room and turn off all the lights except for those on the tree, then lie on the floor and get lost in the bright colors. My mind would be full of thoughts and wide awake in ways that my tired, adult mind can’t even comprehend anymore. It wasn’t just the dreams of gifts and what might await me on Christmas morning, although that was certainly a part of it, it was the sweet promise of all things Christmas. It was always the best time of year.

Awkward

You have to worry about how your day is going to turn out when you make a little girl you don’t even know cry before it's even 5:00am. Even if your words or actions are completely unintentional, that has to be a bad sign.

At 5am this morning I am standing outside the Baltimore Washington Airport Marriott, waiting for the shuttle to take me to the airport. Just as it arrives, a family comes out behind me, Mom and Dad staggering into the early morning air much as I had done, but their daughter was bouncing with enthusiasm.

She looked to be about four years old, and her chattering, nervous energy reminded me of my own daughters at that age. She pulled a little pink, furry suitcase that no doubt carried her most prized possessions and hugged a white teddy bear tightly with her other arm.

I’ve seen families like this at airports many times; slipping away for a weekend getaway on an early Friday morning, or getting a head start on a week’s vacation. The girl seemed excited to be going on a flight. I wondered if it was her first time flying. I made some quick assumptions, which, as we all know, is not a good thing.

We get on the shuttle and the little girl and her mother sit across from me. The Dad sits behind them. The girl continues to chatter, asking her Mom one question and then another, all in that random, seemingly pointless way that kids do. The Mom was still half asleep, so she answered with the least effort possible. “Yes,” “no,” and nodding.

Although I have a general policy of being somewhat “anti-social” in public when it comes to adults, I can’t resist smiling at a little kid. At one point in her reverie, she happened to glance my way and I couldn’t help but grin. She smiled back and seemed to realize that I was somewhat more responsive to her charms than her parents that morning.

I decided to engage in a bit of conversation, since I knew the shuttle ride would be short and we’d soon be separated in the crowd of travelers and multitude of flights. Imagining her excitement in sharing details of her trip to the beach or maybe Disney World, I leaned toward her and asked, “So, are you flying somewhere fun today?”

The smile instantly faded from her face and she looked at her Mom, who was looking out the window and didn’t hear what I asked over the drone of the shuttle bus engine. The girl turned back to me, lower lip trembling and eyes welling up with tears, and said, “My granny died.”

It was a much longer ride to the airport than I thought it would be, and not nearly as crowded once we got there as I had hoped. As I sit her now, near my gate in terminal D, I can see them…Mom, Dad and now somber child, sitting quietly in the corner. With my luck, they will not only be on my flight, but probably share my row of seats.

The Give and Take of Thanksgiving

A few months back, while I was visiting my family in Kentucky, I made my annual, off-the-cuff suggestion that everyone should come to Tennessee and have Thanksgiving at our house. Although the invitation was sincere, I was still fairly shocked when the idea was met with not just approval but a dizzyingly efficient bit of Warford family logistical brainstorming.

Within minutes my mother had devised not only their travel schedule (including…the time they would need to be on the road, when the meal would be served and the exact time they would need to depart for home the next day), but she had also sketched out a general menu of who would bring what. It was just another reminder that if my Mom had been in charge of the war in Iraq, our soldiers would have been home in time for the first Christmas. She is a master at coordination and timely exit strategies.

Once we got home, it began to sink in that I had committed us to a fairly large undertaking. I have had family visit before, but not so many. In addition to my parents, my two brothers and their wives would be coming, as well as two nieces and their three children. I looked around our house and wondered where I would put everyone.

Thank goodness for Hilton Honors points! Just down the road from our house is a nice, fairly new Hampton Inn hotel. Five room reservations later and the bathroom/bed issue was taken care of, but not the issue of “where is everyone going to eat?”

For some strange reason we thought our recent home renovation would expand the existing structure. This was a basic failure in concept. Everything does look different (and hopefully, better), but square footage wise, we have the same house…and the same limitations.

Then I remembered our holiday meals when I was a kid. My Mamaw and Papaw, aunt, uncle and cousins would descend upon our house for holidays, and it wasn’t about where we sat. The rooms in my parent’s old house were not large either, and the “kids” table often sat in the master bedroom off the den. From the laughter and chatter that always echoed through the door, I don’t think it mattered where we ate.

Our Thanksgiving meal was always lunch, served at 1pm. That gave us kids the time to watch the Macy’s parade in the morning while Mom did her magic in the kitchen. As we got older, we’d be recruited to help with menial tasks, like peeling potatoes or rolling bananas in chopped peanuts. The menu was extensive, but somehow Mom always had everything hot and ready when it was time to eat.

On TV and in movies, the big holiday turkey came to the table whole, glistening and dark brown, stuffed with dressing and garnished around the platter. We didn’t have that kind of table space, or that kind of time. Waiting for everyone to gather, hold hands and watch Dad carve the turkey would have caused our other food to grow cold. Our holiday meals were essentially a buffet line of everyone’s favorite dishes. Mom did not hold back, partly for fear that someone would be disappointed, but mostly because she loved to make us happy…and well fed.

Due to the multitude of dishes sitting on every available surface, the turkey was always pre-sliced, served on a large platter with the pre-carved ham. When it was time to eat, we’d all gather in the kitchen for Dad to pray. As a kid, I probably didn’t listen to the words of any of those Thanksgiving prayers. My mind was overwhelmed by the waves of intoxicating food smells flowing through the room. Still, I’m pretty sure I got the message, because I was always happy and grateful to be there; blessed then and now to be a part of my family.

It won’t be the same having the meal at my house and not in the house I grew up in. Unlike Mom, I am not making everyone’s favorite food (just mine). It won’t be the same for a lot of reasons, but I hope the spirit of the day and the joy of being together is still as strong as when I was younger. I want those kinds of memories for my kids. Vivid and sweet, warm with laughter, the smell of heaven drifting out of the stove and throughout the house.

I hope they feel thankful.

"Team Dad"

I enjoy a good romantic story. I say this as a pre-emptive defense against what will no doubt be a barrage of “typical male,” and “you just don’t understand” responses to what I am about to say. If you know me at all, you should know that I am not “typical.” I’m a heterosexual male who enjoys show-tunes. I would rather watch Sleepless in Seattle or The Proposal instead of either of the Transformers films, and I do not like NASCAR or Wrestling. I could go on trying to explain myself, but I fear I may have already crossed a line and will be refused entry to men’s rooms across America.

The four women of my house are all aglow this week over the eminent release of “New Moon,” the second movie in the Twilight saga. They have their tickets purchased for opening day and are divided into friendly camps of “Team Edward” and “Team Jacob,” although I’m sure they would happily join whichever “Team shows up at the door.”

I freely admit that I have not read any of the Twilight books, but I know the stories. (SPOILER ALERT: if you have not read the books and plan to do so, please don’t read further). The basic outline is something like this: Bella meets Edward the vampire in book one and they fall in love (with lots of soulful staring on her part, lots of soulless longing on his). In book two, Edward leaves Bella to protect her from the violent nature of vampires, allowing Jacob the werewolf to move in, usually shirtless. Something happens at the end and Edward and Bella are reunited.

Book three finds them fighting a dangerous vampire threat while working out their confusing love triangle. Bella realizes that she loves both Jacob and Edward, but the wily wisdom of the old bloodsucker wins out, leaving Jacob to run away, searching for a silver bullet.

In the final book, Bella and Edward marry and immediately conceive a child. Bella nearly dies during childbirth, so Edward turns her into a vampire as well, promising them an immortal life of youth, devotion and pale skin. Jacob, having returned and not wanting to be left out, “imprints” on their newborn daughter, which is somehow explained as making her his soul-mate (but not in a creepy way).

I assume that there is much more to it than that, but honestly, I could care less. I still can’t get past the disturbing premise. First, we’re supposed to accept that it’s perfectly okay for a one hundred year old vampire to stalk the halls of a high school and hit on teenage girls. As a father of three daughters, I have a minor objection to that.

Then, I have to wonder, why is this guy still in high school? How stupid is he? This has to be his 20th trip through twelfth grade! Is this supposed to be an indictment on the state of our public education system? Storywise, the only reason Edward is in high school is to meet Bella. That’s not fate, that’s stretching credibility. He should have moved on with his life long ago. (He could be a young looking Doctor. It worked with Doogie Howser).

Fans ignore all of this however. His age supposedly gives him a worldly essence, a Victorian romantic spirit as if a young Heathcliff himself walked straight off the moors into a modern American high school. “Men don’t act like that these days,” those caught under his undead spell will say. “He respects her and protects her. He’s so courteous and manly.”

Have they looked at the guy in the movie? He reminds me of an eighties punk rocker. Sort of like Billy Idol without all the leather and different color hair. Real men don’t wear lipstick.

I guess one reason that this bothers me so much is that the heroine, Bella, is every father’s worst nightmare. She’s that smart, good girl who suddenly becomes obsessed with the dangerous boy. She throws everything else away in her desire to be near him. Nothing else matters. When she’s grounded by her Dad, she slips out and runs through menacing forests and jumps off cliffs. Her life has no meaning without Edward (or…for a short time, the hunky, shirtless, but also very dangerous Jacob).

Bella is definitely not the role model for an “independent, strong young woman with healthy self-esteem” that we parents wish for. She is a morose, delusional, morbidly selfish girl who finds her self-worth only through the man she loves. In a world without vampires and werewolves, she’d end up being the doormat of some brutish, semi-charismatic loudmouth, wearing long sleeves to hide the bruises and telling her family that she can’t leave him because he loves her so much.


Am I taking all of this too seriously? Yeah, probably. It’s just a silly set of books and movies. Surely teenage girls can separate the difference between a fictional character (who might be dangerous but is primarily honorable and sexy), and the hot guy at the next locker (who tells her how pretty she is, opens her car door, and threatens that if she really loved him, she’d prove it). That’s just the nature of romance, right?

Like most of my rants and arguments, this will likely fall on deaf ears. “Much ado about nothing,” will be the snickering answer, and I sincerely hope so. I hope my girls enjoy it for what it is and see it for what it isn’t. I pray that they understand that the real-life “Edwards” are not always so chivalrous, and the real-life “Jacobs” might not always be the rescuer, but the one they need rescuing from.  I hope they don’t get blinded by pretty boys who somehow “sparkle” in the sun, but find someone who thinks and treats them like they hung the moon.

Barking at the Moon

I used to have a poster hanging in my office that said “just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.” I’m not sure what happened to it. I’m pretty sure someone stole it. I can’t prove that, because whoever did it was likely a professional. They left no trace. That’s how they work.

I have always been intrigued by conspiracies. Even before I stood behind the wooden fence on the grassy knoll in Dallas or strolled through the infamous seventh floor of the book Depository building, I knew that Lee Harvey Oswald did not act alone. In fact, I was fairly confident that he might not have been involved at all. The Warren Commission report was one of the great lies ever foisted upon the American public. But certainly not the only one.

Rich and powerful men have twisted and distorted information since the beginning of civilization. Whether to protect those whom they don’t feel are intelligent enough to handle the truth, or more likely to promote some nefarious plan to increase their wealth and/or power, they use all of their means to keep us in a dark, ignorant place.

What exactly (and we all have the right to ask), is in Area 51? Who are the “committee of 300” and the “Skull and Bones Society?” What secrets do the Freemasons hold, and why do they hold them? How many licks DOES it take to get to the center of a tootsie roll pop? Enquiring minds want to know.

Regardless of the political party, those who run for office or maintain positions of power in our government are, without fail, members of the “haves” and definitely not the “have nots.” To get to those lofty heights, you have to know someone (and not Bubba the mechanic, who lives down the road). It’s a vicious cycle that never seems to end; with our laws, fortunes and national destiny run by people who are no more common than the use of a two dollar bill. Even if they start out trying to do the right thing, by the time they have reached the point of an election, they have shaken too many hands in dark rooms and nodded approval to too many suggestions whispered over their shoulder.

But I digress….

What got me pondering this ocean of paranoia? I’m sure you are dying to know. It’s simple…high school math.

My middle daughter was deep in thought, hunched over her sophomore Algebra 2/Trigonometry book, and as I walked past, she asked if I could look at one of the problems. (I’ll pause here to explain that math is not one of my strong suits. I do fairly well at addition, subtraction, multiplication and division…but when it gets to algebra, I generally say, “I’ll never use that.” I said that in high school and college, and unlike most things I thought back then, it has turned out to be true. I have yet to run into a single situation in my adult life where algebra has been required to survive. In fact, I’ve never had anyone ask me to figure out what X is.)

Anyway…she shows me the problem and there’s a series of equations with both an x and an i in place of numbers. “What does the “i” mean?” I ask.

“That’s an “imaginary number.”

“Isn’t “X” an imaginary number?”

“No, “X” is a real number.”

This went against my internal logic. “Then why isn’t it actually a number? If it’s a letter and not a number, then isn’t it imaginary too? And why don’t you just make up an answer? Say the answer is “J.” Tell the teacher you made up an imaginary answer.”

She looked at me with the sad expression of a kid who suddenly remembers that their father is an idiot. She dropped her head back to her studies and said, “You know Dad, I’ll figure it out.”

So once again, I’ve failed one of my children. That’s not uncommon. Nor is it my point. The purpose of this little diatribe is that there are people who create things only to make other people feel stupid. It’s just another conspiracy. I mean, seriously, why do we need “imaginary” numbers? I have no doubt that Rafael Bombelli, the perpetrator of this ridiculous scam, was probably a Freemason.

We’ve put a lot of faith in smart people, but I have to wonder, is there a possibility that they are only considered smart because they tell us they are? Our world becomes increasingly complex as eggheads and scientists try to explain how things work. Most of us stop trying to understand after a while and simply say, “Whatever…you guys deal with that.” Consider how a magician puts on a cape and a tall hat and performs an illusion…amazing the audience with a simple sleight of hand primarily because he is dressed for the part.

I was at a conference a few years back where a renowned scientist spoke. He had been working on a theory for nearly forty years. (Read that again and let it sink in). He has been performing government funded research for four decades (practically my entire life) and admits that he has not resolved or proven anything. After he spoke, he gleefully showed photos of his new yacht to colleagues and boasted of his impending retirement. Even more frightening than that was the fact that four other (younger) scientists spoke at the same conference about their research based upon his “unproven” theory!

I’m sure that the obvious response from those who support him would be that I am simply not smart enough to understand the research. My feeble mind cannot comprehend the importance and significance of his work. My answer to that would be that after 40 years of no proof or practical application to whatever his theory is, he obviously doesn’t understand it either.

So, yeah…I guess I am paranoid. I see conspiracies in unanswered questions. I find malice in double talk. I don’t trust people in authority who don’t explain or justify their decisions. I’m pretty sure Big Brother is always watching…even crazy bloggers who like to bark at the moon. I should probably be more careful.

News to Me

A lot of us are upset about the new FaceBook homepage, and with good reason. With the logic of a meth addict, the big brothers at FaceBook master control have decided that our world is not confusing enough, and that we need not only MORE information, but a double dose of the same information (only scrambled into an incoherent mess).

I never know which homepage might pop up when I go to my FaceBook. Will it be the current (hence the word “live”) “Live News Feed,” or the random, confusing and seemingly pointless “News Feed.” I assume the “News Feed” is an effort to cater to those who have been highly medicated or hiking on the Appalachian Trail for several days, since the posts sole purpose seems to be to tell you what people were doing yesterday or possibly a week ago. I could less care less about that. I live in the now.

I’ve read that their goal was to create a filtering structure that would allow us to create the home page that we want to see, but I might need new glasses, because I can’t envision what they are talking about. I have learned that I can filter out certain applications and any friends that I don’t want to see anymore, but I have not learned how to get rid of particular FaceBook annoyances that seem to never go away.

While I am always interested in the photos my friends post (okay, I’ll be completely honest…I’m only “usually” interested in the photos, just as my photos of buildings, trees or my kids making goofy faces are only of interest to close friends, family and the terminally bored), Facebook has generously given me the option to filter them out. I do not, apparently, have the option to get rid of all the “Bob became a fan of Fat Free Cool Whip” or “Sue became a fan of Rob Pattinson’s left ankle” posts. These seem to spread through my live feed like kudzu and cannot be killed.

Being a “fan” of something is a big thing on FaceBook. I jumped on a few bandwagons when I first joined, but then I realized that there were no actual perks or benefits to stating my support, and I would never get that autographed photo of Julio Iglesias I’ve always dreamed of, so I gave up.

Besides, I'm not giving my stamp of approval to just anyone or anything. Who knows, it might come back to haunt me someday that I was a FaceBook fan of "orange marmalade" or something which seems totally innocent now but might one day be the cause of a global catastrophe. Who or what you are a fan of on FaceBook might be how they sort out the wheat from the chaff. Laugh now, but one day, as you stand behind a barbed wire fence staring out at what used to be your freedom; you'll remember my words...and shed a tear.


I could also care less about who my friends are becoming friends with. These nuggets of information take up prime real estate on my crowded homepage and only serve to make me aware that almost everyone seems to know many more people than I do. Admittedly, I am pretty selective about who becomes my friend (don’t get a big head, some of you, because I have had my weak moments and let a few “acquaintances” slip through the cracks), but when I see folks who have four or five hundred friends, I have to wonder how they keep up. I feel guilty for not having enough time for my meager one hundred and thirty seven. How do they share the love? They must not have a job. (Or maybe…just maybe…they aren’t truly “friends” with all those people. Shameful).

At least I can hide all the game updates. I’m thrilled that my friends enjoy Farmville, Mafia Wars and many others, but I don’t need to know every time you plant a virtual row of corn or take out another simulated hit man. If I couldn’t hide all the game apps in my Live Feed, I’d spend hours searching through the countless updates to find what is really important to me: what my friends had for dinner and who did or didn’t sleep well last night.

Trick or Treat

I never had a fancy Halloween costume as a kid. We didn’t have big Halloween stores stocked with expensive costumes, talking skulls and life-size, animatronic Freddy Krueger dolls. We also didn’t have a Wal-Mart with rows of discounted outfits and semi-realistic rubber masks. Halloween was low-tech back then, but just as fun.

Each year was pretty much the same. We bought a cheap, thin, plastic mask (which was supposed to look like Frankenstein or an evil clown) and wore it with our regular clothes. If Mom had an old white sheet, we might cut a hole in the middle to stick our head through and go as a ghost clown or a ghost Frankenstein, but that was about as fancy as we got.

The masks were held on by a rubber band that barely stretched enough to get over my head. It was so tight that a tiny ridge would form in my scalp and remain there for days. The band never made it through the night, however, usually breaking and being retied several times, which only made it tighter. By the time we got home, it had created a new part in my hair, running around my head just above my ears.

The sharp oval edge of the mask, pulled snug by the rubber band, dug into my chubby round face and created a seal which held in not only the plastic smell, but also the toxic Petri dish of hot breath and sweat building up inside. There was usually a small slit across the molded mouth and two eye holes which never seemed to line up with my actual line of sight and provided almost no relief or fresh air from the oppressive heat and moisture. On even the coldest Halloween nights, I staggered around the streets under the delirium of growing heat exhaustion, pushed on only by the promise of the goodies slowly collecting in the bottom of the pillowcase I carried.

There is a particular excitement about walking up to a stranger’s house, knocking on the door and getting candy. You never know if the person will be happy to see you or maybe be that grumpy old man you’ve heard about who grabs little kids and feeds them to his Doberman. The air is full of mystery and the rustle of the leaves whisper to you as you walk. It’s dark, and in the distance you can see little clusters of other creepily dressed trick or treaters, passing under streetlights and disappearing in the shadows.

Mrs. McClain, a short, sweet widow lady who lived just across the street, always made popcorn balls for us, wrapping them in plastic wrap and tying them with ribbon. She’d have other candy too, and not the cheap stuff. She gave us full size candy bars, like Almond Joy (which was my favorite), or hands full of Hershey Kisses. As I got older I realized that she had two bowls of candy; one for the regular trick or treaters and one for the Warford kids.

When we got home, we’d dump our candy out on the den floor and wade through our treasures, separating them into the good stuff and the stuff that would go back in the bag for a day when we were really desperate. The rare packs of M & M’s, Snickers and Reese Cups barely made it into the good pile without being eaten immediately, while Necco Wafers, Dots, and those bizarre orange Circus Peanuts were pushed aside to be experimented with and thrown out later.

Candy Corn fell into an in-between ranking. They didn’t have a lot of flavor, but at least they were easy to eat and could be made into a game, of sorts. My goal while eating Candy Corn was to try and dissect the three unique colors (white, orange and yellow) evenly with my teeth. After all these years, on the rare occasion that I eat candy corn, I still eat them the same way.

These days, we’re serious about our trick or treating. We drive to high volume, high yield areas. We plan our attacks with the precision of a military exercise. Costumes ideas are more elaborate and often unified in theme. Although our two older kids have outgrown the act of begging for candy (at least from strangers), they still dress up and go with us. It’s a family event we all enjoy and look forward to each year. I hope their memories of Halloween are as special as mine are.

Video-drone

I’m not fond of the term “couch potato.” First, a potato has no arms, so it would be incapable of either using a remote control or reaching for snacks. Second, without a brain it’s just a starchy tuber, unable to master the complexity of multiple technological gadgets. I have four remotes on my end table and the exact order of use, menu options and necessary interactions require what is the equivalent to a Master’s degree in quantum mechanics (and that’s not counting the additional learning curve required to fire up the Wii). No, my living room is not a playground for veggies. It’s serious stuff.

However, I am not offended by the term “TV junkie,” although I’m sure I should be. It would be dishonest (and easily proven false) for me to say that I do not love television. I’ve been a watcher all of my life, starting with my parents old black and white console and continuing to my current home which has a TV in almost every room except the bathroom (and I have considered that, but I am afraid it will cut down on my already limited reading time).

Now, I know that a lot of people will argue that too much television is a bad thing, and I’d agree. You have to sleep…that’s a basic human need. Work too, is important. Without those paychecks, the power would be cut off, and eventually some kind of eviction would take place, removing me from my home and the televisions. So…there has to be a balance.

I was speaking to someone the other day who said they do not own a television. She said she didn’t need it. She had cats. My first thought was, “those must be some mighty entertaining felines,” but I knew that there could be no comparison. Cat’s would never wear a puffy shirt, or eat Kerosene pickles, or boldly go where no cat has gone before. No, the cat lady went into my mental file cabinet, labeled the same as everyone else who says that they don’t own a television is classified, “eccentric and weird.”

Like everything else that’s either good or bad for you, there have been improvements over the years. When I was a kid, we had an antenna on a pole attached to the side of our house. If one of our four channels did not come in clearly, we opened the den window, reached out and turned the antenna. Simple fixes for simpler times.

Now, I have digital high definition cable. 450 advertised channels (although two hundred of those are music channels, which I do not classify as television). The rest are split between the regular versions of cable channels and the HD versions. Then there are the multiple versions of MTV, VH1, Discovery, ESPN, Disney and HGTV, most of which hold little to no interest for me. By the time it all narrows down, there are about six channels that I watch consistently. That’s two more than I watched when I was a kid for free. Now I pay over $100 per month. That’s called “progress.”

Still, I have my shows that I do not want to miss, and the one piece of technological genius that I have fallen in love with is my DVR. No more blank VHS tapes and tricky timer settings for me. Just label a show a “favorite” and the DVR will record all the episodes. This works great, as long as the kids don’t do the same for “Suite Life of Zach and Cody” and “Hannah Montana.” Disney airs episodes of these shows constantly, so the DVR space will fill up in less than a day. (This situation has been dealt with in my home. I would explain further, but we agreed as a family not to discuss it anymore).

The best thing about recording our shows on the DVR is that we have the ability to fast forward through the commercials. We can skip through a half hour show in less than twenty minutes, and a full hour show in less than forty five. When you watch a lot of television, that’s important. That gives us extra time to do something as a family, or take a nap.

Because I’m sure you are dying to know what my “don’t miss” shows are right now, I’ve made a little list. I keep telling myself that if I stuck to this list and did something productive with the rest of my free time, I’d probably accomplish something, but that’s the problem with TV addiction…you stare at the screen even when there’s nothing worthwhile flashing across it.

Monday:
How I Met Your Mother (I’ve been a fan since day one. Definitely under-rated and absolutely Legen---wait for it—dary)
The Big Bang Theory (funniest show on television right now and a family favorite)

Tuesday:
NCIS (what can I say, that Mark Harmon is sexy)
Biggest Loser (great to watch while gorging on pizza rolls and ice cream, especially if you want to hate yourself in the morning)

Wednesday:
The Middle (brand new and already a family favorite. Second funniest show on TV. The whispering kid kills me!)
Glee (words cannot express how much I love this show)

Thursday:
Bones (this is the one show on the list I do not watch regularly, but should. I love this show and the characters. Better than any of the CSI shows)
The Office (not as great as it used to be...but neither am I)
30 Rock (the previous funniest show on TV is still funny…and I never get tired of Tina Fey or Alec Baldwin)

Friday:
Monk (an old friend that will soon go away. He was the one person more weird than me. What will I do when he’s gone?)
Psych (funnier than most sitcoms, our family watches this…and Monk…together. If there were no other reason, that would still make it one of my favorite shows)

Saturday:
Saturday Night Live (almost always more “miss” than “hit,” I still like to see when it knocks one out of the park. Thank goodness for the DVR, I don’t have to stay up late anymore to watch it)

Sunday:
I have no great love for the shows of Sunday night, so I give my eyes a rest (or catch up on shows I’ve recorded).

Of course, this list does not include 24 or Lost, which don’t start until after the first of the year, but it’s a pretty good list. Like I said, it’s not as bad as I thought. When I honestly looked at the schedule, these are the only shows I really feel the urge to see each week.


That leads me to a bigger question. What do I do with the rest of my time?

Sunny Daze

I’ve tried to think of a way to put into words the beauty of the sky as I flew into Knoxville Thursday evening. After the weirdness of the previous flights, it was nice to be on that last short leg of the trip and know that I was finally going home, but once I was in the air, flying higher and higher above the graying clouds, I almost wanted to stay up there.

The gloom and rain that has saturated our days in the last few weeks seems to have seeped into our souls. I’m used to my buddy Thaddeus whining and complaining about the miserable weather in Seattle and I like to give him a hard time, telling him it’s not so bad and he needs to just deal with it. Now I know that it’s not so easy. Constant rain and clouds saps you of energy and joy. Those who grew up in the Northwest might be used to it, but it’s not normal for us. We’re shiny happy people. We like our sun.

Like Superman, we tend to get our energy from the sun. On a beautiful, sunny day, we feel empowered. It makes for a good day to hike, or doing outdoor chores. When the sun is shining we feel we need to do something, because it’s just too glorious a day not to.

Rainy days, however, are great for staying in bed…or just lounging on the couch and watching reruns of shows you weren’t sure you liked in the first place. Anything but having to expend energy which we are pretty sure we don’t have. Our batteries are used up, and without the sun, we don’t have a way of recharging.

I have been reading about everyone’s shared despondency on Facebook. Rain, rain, go away, they all seemed to say, we’ve had enough and we want to play. As I talked to Connie each day on the phone, she talked in hushed tones about the ever present drizzle or downpours and the despairing mood at home. As much as I wanted to be there, I knew that I was not walking into a party, but more the mood of a wake.

Yet, as I stared blissfully out my oval airplane window, nearly blinded by the brilliant, radiant light, I could hardly comprehend the doom and gloom below. As we sank lower and lower in the sky, I was amazed at how long the sun stayed with us. Below ten thousand feet, it was just as powerful. Farther and farther we dropped, and my eyes still squinted from the rays, even as our wheel bays opened and I could feel the hydraulics expand and lock into place.

We sank into wisps of white clouds that quickly grew darker, and in seconds we were out of them and racing toward the quickly approaching ground. Splatters of rain hit my window and our wheels touched down with jolt on the runway. I bent my head to look out the window and up at the sky. Dark clouds, gloomy and denying, lay low over us.

I don’t know how many times I’ve flown over the years, on both clear, beautiful days and those when I felt that noontime could just as well be dusk, but I had never been struck with such a clear vision of how small my peripheral vision was until right then. We see what we see, and are often easily blinded by the swirl dark clouds in front of us. When that happens, it is almost like that is all there is and ever was. That the sun is not simply hidden, but non-existent. Nothing could be further from the truth.

As I drove home, swallowed by dark clouds and spit at by rain, I smiled. I felt energized. I had seen the sun, and had captured a piece of it to take with me. I knew now that what I should have realized all along. The clouds were only a few hundred feet off the ground, and they were thin and weak. The sun was always in its place, as bright and powerful and life affirming as ever. I just had to have the faith that I could still feel it’s warmth on cold, dreary days, and wait for the day that it would wash over my face again, so bright that I will have to cover my eyes.

Flying High (the unintended sequel)

Flying High 2

As I settled into my seat on flight 6127 yesterday afternoon, after another round of delays and airport aggravation, I was primarily thinking about getting home. It had been a relatively short trip, but it made no difference. When it’s time to go home, you just want to get there.

This plane was smaller than what I had flown on Monday, with two seats on one side and a single seat on the other. I was happy to have gotten a lone seat, avoiding the uncomfortable head nods and awkward press of body to body that always seems to be more my fault than theirs.

While I stuffed my backpack under the seat in front of me, I heard a voice that plucked at my memory and my nerves. “Good Gawd, I don’t think they can make these things any smaller! I can’t hardly get my big butt through here.”

I looked up to see the frizzy hair and frowning face of Ann, one third of the drunken trio who had tortured me on my previous flight. I almost had to laugh. Maybe this was some kind of Karmic retribution for my withering lack of patience with folks who lack certain basic social skills. They say you get what you deserve, so this must have been God’s way of saying, “straighten up, buddy. Fly right.”

To make matters worse, she sat behind me again. If this was to be retribution, then there could be no other place. She had her three bags of Phillies’s memorabilia and her Ben Franklin coffee mugs (which, even when wrapped well, can give a good wallop to a shoulder when they are swung through the aisles with mad abandon). She grabbed my seat and used it to guide herself into a sitting position, pulling with such force that I nearly reclined into her lap.

The other two ladies came along soon after, and were fortunately seated somewhere in the rear of the plane. I almost expected them to carry on a conversation across ten rows, but thankfully, they did not. The younger woman had a bag of food from Panda Express, so I was even happier that she was not sitting near me. I’m not a fan of smelly food on an airplane, and the aroma of Mu Shu Pork or Sesame Chicken can be a bit overpowering. If we encountered any turbulence, that smell would not help keep stomachs calm.

Ann seemed to be having trouble with all her stuff. The overhead bins were mostly full and there wasn’t enough room under my seat for her combination of souvenirs, large purse and leopard print carry-on. The man across the aisle from her, trying to be nice, offered to help stow her bags. I glanced back and saw her eyes mist over. I think she fell in love.

“Oh, aren’t you a sweetheart” she said, her voice dripping with smoke damaged southern charm. He took part of her bags and stuffed them into spaces in two different bins. “Oh Gawd,” she gushed, “I just might have to take you home with me!” He smiled politely and I considered grabbing his arm to warn him; “run man…get off the plane! Rent a car or walk if you have to, but don’t get caught in her snare!”

She continued having trouble getting situated, and I could feel her twisting behind me, pulling hard on my seat over and over again, and then letting it go to spring it forward against my head with a thump. Her knee jabbed into my back repeatedly, and if I hadn’t been more than a little bit scared of her, I would have said something. Instead, I just grimaced in pain and thought about how I would decimate her in my blog.

Before the door was closed for takeoff, a passenger in one of the front seats made their way down the aisle to the back, and not long after, the co-pilot did the same. Ann reached across the aisle and poked her new boyfriend in the arm. “What’s the deal? Is there a bathroom back there or something?”

I glanced back and caught the look on his face. Like most people, he didn’t know what to say, so he just smiled and buried his nose in the Delta Sky magazine. She wouldn’t let him off so easy though, adding, “I hope we don’t fly too high this time. That just kills my ears.”

I have to admit that this time I couldn’t stop myself from laughing out loud.

The rest of the flight was fairly non-eventful. Ann fell asleep not long after take-off and alternately snored and snorted through the rest of the flight. When we finally landed, I was tempted to ask how her manhunt had gone in Philadelphia, but decided against it. My curiosity was not worth the mental scars that too much information would no doubt create.

I hurried to get off the plane and found my way quickly to my next gate, desperately hoping that they were not somehow on my flight to Knoxville. They were not, and I did not see nor hear them again. Much later, after more delays and some mechanical troubles that kept me in Cincinnati longer than I wanted, I sat and wondered if there was some lesson that I was supposed to learn from all this.

I’m sure there were plenty. Maybe I am supposed to be more tolerant. Maybe I shouldn’t worry about people being obnoxious in public. Maybe I should simply drive instead of fly if my destination is within the continental United States. All of these and more are likely true. If I were a better person, I might actually learn from them, but like the drunken trio, I have my own faults, and I seriously doubt that I’m gonna change.

Flying High

Flying always seems to get the hairs on the back of my neck to stand up. This is very unfortunate considering the frequency of my air travel, but nonetheless it provides me with constant fuel for my various rants.

Yesterday I was struck by delays and cramped seating, oversold flights and cranky fellow travelers. Topping that off, when we finally landed in Philadelphia, after what had been a long layover in Cincinnati, our gate was occupied by another plane and we had to sit on the runway for over thirty minutes, staring at the dozen or so empty gates that surrounded our final destination. Obviously, the decision makers at the airport had no idea the stew of frustration and anger already boiling inside our metal tube.

Taking up the entire row behind me, window to window, were three women who I will politely refer to as “classless rednecks.” Two sat in the seats directly behind me, and the third lady, rather wide in the hip area, sat in the two seats across from them. Undeterred by the loud hum of the jet engines, nor the fact that they were surrounded by fellow travelers who were trying to read, sleep or carry on their own quiet conversations, they bellowed across the aisle to each other.

I’m not sure how they had spent all their time in the Cincinnati airport, but I’d wager everything I own that a good portion of it had been in a bar. Although I am fairly confident that they were relatively obnoxious when sober, the intake of alcohol had given them the added delusion that they were sexy, funny and the only people on the plane.

Throughout the flight these three conversed loudly on a variety of subjects; anything from one’s lack of texting skills to another’s irritable bowel syndrome. Apparently the one named Ann had a husband named Ray who didn’t pay her a lot of attention. She seemed fine with that however, and stated clearly that she intended to find someone who would, hopefully at their hotel bar that very evening.

One commented on the fact that her daughter had developed quite a “potty mouth,” and then proceeded to prove that the fruit did not fall far from the tree. In fact, all three sounded like they had just come ashore from a six month tour of duty, where they likely terrorized their fellow sailors with their obnoxious behavior and crass language.

I realized through their incessant chatter that none of the three had flown before, but I also had to wonder if they had ever been out in public. I only hoped that where ever they came from, it was neither Tennessee nor Kentucky. Holding claims to both states as home, I would have been very embarrassed.

Ann complained for most of the flight about her ears hurting. At one point, and I swear I am not making this up, she actually said, “Why do these damn planes have to fly so high?” The woman in the seat next to me looked up from her book when she heard that nugget of genius and glanced at me as if to say “did I just hear her say that?”

Of course, when it was finally time to leave the plane, they did not follow the rules. Pushing their way forward, they muttered “’scuse me” and elbowed people back into their seats to clear a path. I heard one cackle throatily over her shoulder to her friends, “Why are they all in such a damn hurry?”

I can walk pretty fast when I want to, so inside the terminal, I got away from them as fast as my legs would go, but could still hear their throaty horse laughs echoing down the corridors, frightening small children and peeling paint off the walls. I have no idea where they were going or in what hotel they were staying. I prayed that it was not mine, and I also said a little prayer for the unsuspecting fellow who would cross their path later that evening in a hotel bar. I hoped that he would not be so drunk that he would fall into their grasp, or if he did, that he would be too drunk to remember.

A Noble Attempt

It’s been fascinating to watch the reaction today to the announcement that Barack Obama has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. There is a considerable amount of shock, which is understandable, especially since Obama has only been in office for nine months and his legacy has barely been sketched, let alone carved into monument. The view that this prize might be a tad pre-mature is reasonable, but the more base reactions of the American public might also give more credence as to why he actually got the award.

He survived a fairly vicious presidential campaign with his dignity intact. He maintained a level of civilized behavior despite personal attacks and a barrage of misinformation. He has since withstood ridiculous accusations that he is not an American citizen, is a socialist, and been compared to Hitler and the master criminal, The Joker. Louder and louder screams from some factions of our nation have yelled, essentially from day one of his Presidency, that he will destroy our country and should be impeached. I would assume that some of these concerns are sincere, while others are based on blind ignorance or even worse, racism.

Throughout all these attacks, he has remained calm, dignified and respectful to others. I don’t know if I would have done that. If someone calls me a liar in the capital of our country in front of the entire nation (at least those who cared enough to watch the speech), I think I wouldn’t have been very quick to accept his weak, forced apology. Obama did and tried to put the outburst behind him.

What I’m trying to say, and probably not very well (not that it matters, because those who hate him will continue hating him, even if they don’t know why), is that Obama just might have gotten the Nobel Peace Prize for not quitting his job already or slapping someone in the face.

Most of us who work are protected by various legalities. If I go to work and my co-workers or bosses give me too hard a time, I can go to Human Resources or hire a lawyer. I can fight back against working in a “hostile” work environment. The President of the United States doesn’t really have anywhere to go! He’s been called names, threatened and disrespected. There was a teenager recently who started a Facebook survey to ask whether someone should kill the President! I don’t know about you, but if I were Obama, I’d have been on the phone to some secret CIA group right away and that kid would have disappeared off the face of the earth. But that might be why I will never receive the Nobel Peace Prize.

Seriously though, it’s pretty sad how much hate there is in this country right now. There is no consideration that the world outside our borders might be looking upon us in a new, more hopeful light right now. There is no thought that this prize might not be for just Obama alone, but for the powerful democracy that elected him. They recognize this, even if we do not.

Despite our childish arguing and posturing, our stubborn grandstanding and belligerent bellowing, the world is looking at us for the first time in a long time as a nation capable of great things. One hundred and fifty-five years ago…barely four generations…we were fighting amongst ourselves to abolish slavery. Fifty years ago we were still segregated…and this year we inaugurated our first black President. I don’t care if you don’t like him or his politics, that’s pretty amazing.


I know it’s hard to see past our own front doors and porches. It’s almost impossible to see past our own cities, towns and states. Imagining the expansiveness of the world, and the diversity of thought it contains, usually escapes us all. Today, we received a wake-up call from the world. They are watching. They are waiting for us to live up to our promise and potential…and unlike many of us…they think we can do it.

Getting away (part one)

It’s nice to get away sometimes. I highly recommend it. I know that sounds strange for someone who travels for a living, but there’s a big difference between “going away” for work and “getting away.”

Connie and I have been trying for a while to take a little trip. It didn’t matter too much where, just somewhere different and somewhere quiet. Between my work schedule and the responsibilities of family and kids, we had not had a lot of luck. But then things suddenly fell into place.

It took some careful planning, and I had to build our “get away” around a work meeting, but somehow we made it happen. Last Thursday afternoon we packed our bags and headed Northeast, arriving that evening in Roanoke, Virginia where we had a nice dinner at a local diner and then a wonderful visit with our niece Angela and her adorable newborn son, Noah.

Our timing was perfect. Noah had been born on Monday and had only been home from the hospital for one day when our little adventure brought us right by their door. His grandparents, Connie’s sister Sally and husband Dan were there, glowing in pride, and it was great to see them too, although the focus of everyone’s attention was on the baby.

Angela’s husband Jeff staggered through with the weary, happy, slightly overwhelmed look I knew and understood well. It doesn’t matter how many parenting books you read or how many videos you watch trying to get ready, nothing prepares you for the massive amount of stuff you have to do as a new parent. Every waking minute seems to revolve around doing the right thing in the right way for the baby. It’s exhausting.

Friday morning we got on the Blue Ridge Parkway and headed north. We had debated taking our convertible, thinking the wind in our hair on a beautiful fall day would be great, but I wasn’t sure if I wanted to put 1500 miles of wear and tear on our car and ended up convincing Connie that the “logical” thing to do was to get a rental. Amazingly, it turned out to be a good idea.

I doubt we would have had our top down for more than five minutes during the entire trip. The average temperature across the parkway and Shenandoah’s Skyline Drive was probably no more than 55 degrees, but with fierce gusts of wind that came along about every two minutes and drove the temperature down to near freezing.

When we stopped at overlooks to take pictures, Connie would hop out, snap a few with her camera and then jump back in the car, where she would wrap herself in a blanket and shiver. I did not mind the cold so much, being fairly well insulated from years of macaroni and cheese, hot wings and lack of exercise. While Connie’s teeth chattered and she feared that she might get frostbite, I stood proudly on the mountaintops in my short sleeve shirt and khaki shorts, throwing a few more calories into my internal furnace that runs a few degrees higher than the average person anyway.

Despite the cold, and the fact that it was a little cloudy that day, it was still amazingly beautiful. It was my third trip along Skyline Drive and it was still as awe-inspiring as my first time. Riding across the crest of ridges with expansive valleys sprawled out on either side, you are tempted to stop at each of the many overlooks, just to take the time to breathe it in.

After two hundred miles of peaceful, scenic driving, we reached Front Royal and merged with the heavy highway traffic heading north to Winchester, Virginia. Being tired and a little too reliant on Interstate signs, I did not reach for my printed Google map directions and quickly realized that I had missed the exit to our hotel. I took the next Winchester exit and in a brief moment of reasoning that somehow ignored my miserable history in terms of navigation, I decided that rather than turn around and go back the way we knew would get us there, I instead would blaze my own path across back roads and alleyways to what must logically be the location of our bed for the night.

We had a thorough tour of Winchester. I’m sure those who live there think it is a lovely town. I hope they are happy and that their children live in peace and prosperity. I also wish to never visit that flaming pit of despair again.

You never fully realize how tired you are until you are ready to be where you want to go and just can’t seem to get there. We were tired and hungry, and all we wanted to do was get to the hotel, drop off our stuff, freshen up and then get a nice dinner at one of the restaurants that invariably cluster nearby. It was a simple plan, but nothing about it seemed to work.


First, of course, I had gotten us lost. This was frustrating for us both. I don’t like being an idiot and Connie does not particularly enjoy being married to one, so the rising tension in the car as we seemed to drive further and further toward a final destination of nowhere was getting uncomfortable. Stupidly, as I took another random turn, I would say, “this has to be it,” and then moments later, after turning around in any available driveway or wide spot in the road, I would say, “it must have been that other way.”

For lovers of apple sauce and other apple products, we did learn that Winchester, Virginia is the home of White House Foods. We also learned that their dock areas are very busy and if you sit still for very long looking at a map, they will attempt to load your vehicle onto an outgoing rail car.

Oddly, we also learned that Winchester has two roads by the same name which run through town in various mis-directions and for no apparent reason (and no warning by way of signage) become other road names entirely. I’m sure that if you grew up there and worked in the Apple canning facility all of your adult life, you’d know how to get from point A to point B without the use of street signs, but for visitors and those who are not blessed with magical intuition, a clear and obvious street sign would be NICE!

When we finally stumbled upon our hotel for the night, we were surprised to see that it was a practically new facility and had obviously been built on the promise of future development in the area. With the exception of a gas station across the road, there were no restaurants within sight. The friendly front desk clerk pulled out a map when I asked for potential eating establishments and pointed to a small dot on the far side of a white expanse. “This is where we are,” he said. “You can go here,” and pointed to a group of dots on the far side of the map, “or here,” designating another grouping farther up the page.

“How far are they?” I asked.

“Oh,” he cocked his head to the side and thought a minute, “it’s only about five to seven miles to any of them.”

I was not looking forward to another visit through the tangled streets of town, so we chose to stay on the road that led back to the Interstate and the exit that I had previously missed. By now it was dark and our exhaustion and hunger was getting the better of us. We normally like to find restaurants that we don’t have in the Knoxville/Oak Ridge area. We can eat at Outback anytime.

My preference is usually for small, local, home-style diners and café’s. I especially like the notion of a family run business. I imagine Momma in the back frying chicken, baking biscuits and pies. Dad doing dishes and checking the ovens while the kids serve the yummy goodness with a friendly smile and a refill on sweet tea. It’s part of that Mayberry utopian existence that floats around in my brain.

Our options for local goodness seemed limited in Winchester. There was a steak and seafood place that had a promising name, but when we started to turn by the sign we realized that it was located in a Holiday Inn. I don’t eat at hotels located next to an interstate. That’s just a rule that has served me well. No offense meant.

There were a few Mexican restaurants that appeared to be housed in converted bank branches, and a promise of the best fried chicken “you’ll ever eat” at a place which also sold gas. We ended up at Golden Corral, if for no other reason than I was about to run out of fuel, and Connie out of patience. At that point, our hunger was not willing to wait for a server to take our order and prepare it as requested. We just wanted a plate and anything that was grilled, fried or sautéed. Fortunately, there was an abundance of all.

Back at our hotel, collapsing on the couch in exhaustion (and a bit of buffet regret), we ended up laughing about how such a wonderful day in the mountains had ended so ridiculously. Despite our frustration at being lost and trying to find a good meal, it had still been a great day. Even our mutual dislike for this small apple town in Virginia would only add to the warm memories of our trip, which had barely even begun.

A Simple Smile

I saw a woman at the Raceway last week. We were both filling our cars with gas. I wouldn’t have noticed her at all, and she was making every effort not to be noticed, but like a person who draws attention to themselves with a bright, shining smile, she caught my eye because of her overwhelming sadness. Her head was sunk low, hanging heavily off her stooped shoulders. She leaned against her car, her body language speaking volumes about how she felt.

I had never seen her before and would likely never see her again. Still, she broke my heart. No one should walk around looking so sad. I couldn’t help but wonder what was haunting her so deeply. She was younger than me, probably by a good fifteen years, but she carried a lifetime of unresolved problems in her shy, hurting eyes. I wondered who her father was and how he would feel to see his daughter look so beaten down. I thought of my own daughters and hoped that they never, ever looked that way.

My fuel tank filled and the pump turned off, and I was soon sitting in my car, ready to leave. I glanced in my side mirror and took one long last look at the young woman. It crossed my mind to get out and offer her a friendly word. I wondered if one smile from a stranger might offer a slight lift to her gloom. Probably not, I thought, certainly not from me. Who did I think I was? I debated long enough that she finished and got in her car, driving away to whatever in her life was making her look so somber.

The moment had passed. I could not go back. If there had been a slight chance that I could have offered a moment of kindness to someone who seemed to desperately need it, I had let it slip through my fingers. I will never know if it would have made a difference.

I pulled away from the pumps and turned back toward home. I felt pretty fortunate…and more than a little ashamed that I so easily take my own happiness for granted.

Happy Campers

Like most parents, I want my kids to be happy. I look back on my childhood and remember good times and feeling safe and loved. I hope my kids will feel the same when they are my age. Memories are the warm blanket we pull out on days that give us a chill. When work is a little too frustrating, or money causes too much stress, it’s nice to think back to simpler times, when I didn’t have to be responsible.

I know that there a lot of kids who didn’t have that luxury. I was fortunate. I did not have to experience a parent’s death or a divorce. No abuse, no addictions. I never even saw them fight. They were stable. I had no idea at the time what a rarity I was experiencing.

My kids have not been quite as fortunate. I’m not nearly as stable as my parents. I think I’m a little more fun, but that may not always be a good thing. Sometimes kids don’t need a comedian, they need a father. I’m not sure I’ve balanced that as well as I could have.

Still, Connie and I have tried hard to give the kids a relatively stable home life. We do a lot of things together as a family, and I’m both thrilled and proud that Shelby still seems to enjoy being with us all, despite the fact that since she will soon be turning nineteen she has plenty of other options. We like picnics and parks and hiking and movies. Not every minute is whistling and holding hands, but I think we enjoy each other’s company.

As fall approaches, our thoughts turn to camping. Some of my favorite memories with my kids have been sitting around the campfire, watching them roast marshmallows and seeing them laugh in the orange glow of the flickering flames.




Last year was disappointing. Due to my work schedule, weather and other factors, we did not get to camp at all. It frustrated each of us, as if our year was somehow not complete without the frigid chill of sleeping in a tent and the unmistakable sound of zipper flaps opening and closing.

We didn’t camp a lot when I was a kid. I only remember once, sleeping in a big, green, canvas Army tent my Dad had procured and when we woke up the next morning, any part of our bodies that had touched the fabric had turned a dull shade of asparagus. I looked like Kermit the frog.

It was fun though, and another of those childhood memories I cherish. The next time I camped I was newly married, and our pup tent was cozy and romantic (admittedly, when you are newly married, you pretty much find everything romantic).

Before the kids were born, Connie and I camped a few times with our young married group at Robertsville Baptist Church, which culminated in the legendary night when all the husbands stood around the campfire taking a bite from their hot dog and then a bite from a large onion. The first to finish their onion was the winner (I don’t believe there was an actual prize other than bragging rights). Needless to say, there was not a lot of romance that evening.

At some point someone told us about a campground in Wartburg, TN which was about twenty-five minutes from our home. Frozen Head State Park is situated at the base of a wooded ridge in the Cumberland Mountains, two miles from the Morgan County Correctional Facility for Men and about five miles (as the crow flies) over the hill from Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary. With armed guards protecting us on both sides, we decided the area had to be safe. That's important to responsible parents.

The park itself has great hiking and a nice secluded, natural feel. The campground is lush, by campground standards. Raised, gravel tent platforms, with large metal fire rings and dry wood available at a central shed. Sturdy, clean picnic tables, charcoal grills and plenty of trash receptacles spread around. Best of all, the large bathroom facility was heated and had hot water for morning showers.

Now, I love camping, and can “rough it” if I need to, but I’ve tried it both ways and I have to tell you: getting up to a hot shower is a great thing on a cold fall morning. That shower, more than anything, makes Frozen Head my favorite place to camp. It spoiled me.

When the kids were very young, we left them with family when we camped. It’s too hard to keep them away from the danger of the fire and keep them quiet in the tent. We learned this lesson the hard way with Shelby when I spent most of one long, cold night sitting in the car, hoping that the windows and metal would keep her cries from waking other campers. It was miserable and one of our worst camping experiences.

Not THE worst, however. I will write about the night that my buddy Thaddeus kept us awake all night, but not today. (I’m also open to a bribe if he would prefer that story remain unwritten. College is expensive).

As soon as they could handle the camping experience (usually around age three), we started taking the girls with us. Frozen Head became known as the place with the “big rock,” because of a large boulder that sat across from the bathrooms. Close to ten feet high at its summit and nearly thirty feet long, the girls learned that they could climb the rock and view the entire campground. As usual, I believe it was Ashlyn who first made the attempt. Even at a young age she was fearless and scrambled up the rock like a little monkey. Shelby, who inherited my desperate hesitation for all things precarious, followed soon after, but much more slowly, exact with each hand grip and foot hold.

We always gathered plenty of wood and at night we sat around the fire, laughing and telling stories, but also just enjoying the escape from technology and the world. I loved to watch the girls slow down, sitting in our folding chairs or on a log and staring quietly into the crackling embers. They never once complained that they were bored.

Many times we found ourselves camping in the month of October, on or near Halloween. The girls would carve pumpkins on the table in the afternoon and then put candles in them at night so that we could ward off the spooky spirits of the woods. One year, while camping with friends, a jack-o-lantern was placed in the basket of a bicycle, and as it was ridden through the campground in the dark of the night, it looked like it was floating; the dancing flame inside making the cracked grin and pointy eyes visible and haunting from a long ways off.

I am always the first to get up when we camp, starting the fire again and heating water for coffee. I don’t mind though, it’s a Dad thing. I do most of the cooking, and I enjoy that too. Breakfast in the outdoors is special. There is nothing like the smell of bacon frying over an open fire. Of course, it’s usually so cold that be the time we eat, both the bacon and the eggs have some frost on them, but it’s all a part of the experience.

I am looking forward to camping this Fall. We are going to make it happen. It’s a priority for us. I’ve got room for a lot more memories in my blanket.

Our Little Universe

It can be a little overwhelming when you think about how many people there are in this world. True, most of us don’t think about it all. We’re pretty busy just thinking about ourselves most of the time. If we were honest, truly honest, we’d admit that our thoughts and concerns are primarily consumed with just our own little world and that’s it. By that I mean those things that we see and know on a regular basis: our family…our friends…our co-workers…our jobs…our health. Even this much smaller personal universe is usually narrowed down, moment by moment, based on what we are seeing or doing at any particular time.

I deal with this issue quite a bit. Spending so many weeks on the road, it’s common to feel myself being distanced from others, even my wife and kids. It’s not that I don’t think about them, because I do quite a bit. I worry, I miss them, I pray and I wonder what they are doing when I’m not there.

Still, I don’t think about them twenty-four hours a day. I don’t even think about them sixteen hours a day (that’s if I was lucky enough to actually sleep for eight hours). No, there are too many diversions. The work I am doing on that particular trip, the television show I am watching in the evening as I relax, the minutiae of day to day life. All these things are a distraction from those I care most about.

I am also 100% certain that the same goes for them. I would expect no less. They have other things going on. They don’t sit around all day long looking at my photo, crying for me to be there.


That’s not evil, cold or shallow. That’s just life.

We only see, hear and know what we experience ourselves. We have our own beliefs and thoughts. We do not share the same space at any given time, so our view on the world is always changing and always different. We are like snowflakes. No two humans are alike.

Every experience affects us in some way, changes our perception. We comprehend things differently. Take any ten people to an art museum to look at an abstract painting and they will give you different opinions. Some percentage of the group might come to a general consensus, but no doubt the particular descriptions will be slightly to very different.

People say they know each other. Husbands and wives, parents and children, even best friends…they say things like “no one knows them like I do.” That may well be true, but you don’t know them like they know themselves. Contrary to the popular myth of complete and total disclosure in a relationship, we don’t tell each other everything. We keep some opinions to ourselves…and that’s a good thing.

I know what you’re thinking. I’m being paranoid. Just because I have things in my head that I don’t tell anyone, doesn’t mean everyone else is so sneaky. I t’s probably just me.

If that’s what you are thinking, you’re missing my point. I’m not talking about deep, dark, dirty secrets (although a good number of people have those). I’m talking about the fact that there is no way we could possibly share every thought we have with others.

First, there are just too many (at least I would hope so…thinking is kind of important). Second, we don’t believe anyone else would care about some of our random thoughts and opinions (and that is almost definitely true). Third, we generally don’t like arguments or disagreements. (I said “generally,” because some of us love to be argumentative. It’s kind of a hobby).

Even in the best relationships, there are moments. If you are married, you’ve had them (and don’t lie and say you haven’t). It’s that moment when your spouse does something, even a minor something, that just hits you the wrong way. You look at them and for a brief second think, “who is this person?”


Of course, five minutes later you look at them and fall in love all over again (at least hopefully), but the inescapable fact is that it’s part of being human to be different. We aren’t supposed to agree all the time. We get on each other’s nerves. We are individuals.

There are lots of shades of gray in life. Most serious issues can’t be decided with a simple “yes” or “no” answer (despite the fact that we desperately try to do that). We think every peg should fit in the round hole; every decision should be “one size fits all.”


Despite the individuality of our thoughts, and the uniqueness of our personalities, most of us have religious, political and ethical views based in some part on what our parents or relatives taught us growing up. There’s a good chance that if your parents were Catholic or Baptist, Atheist or Muslim; that’s what you will believe too.

Every family does things a little differently in their own homes. Some families are “ketchup on scrambled eggs” people. Others make their beds every day or sleep in pajamas and socks. There’s a joke about a young wife who started to cook a ham and cut the ends off before she put in the oven. Her husband asked why she did it like that and she said that was the way her mother cooked ham. When they spoke to the mother later, they asked why she did it that way and she said that it was the way her mother had cooked ham. The curiosity was too much for them, so they called the great-grandmother to ask why she did it that way. She said, “My baking dish was short.”

Ugly traits get passed down as well, like bigotry, racism, abuse, and male pattern baldness. We may think for ourselves, but we were probably nudged strongly in a particular direction by someone at some point. We aren’t forced to take that path, but if the trail has been blazed already, it’s much easier to follow.

Last year during the presidential election, I found it interesting that my fifth grade daughter came in from school talking about politics. Some of the kids in her class had discussed who they wanted to be President. They had a very heated discussion, and all believed that they were right because their parents were for that person or political party. Talking about the kids who differed from her opinion (and her opinion was my opinion), my daughter even said “how can they be so stupid?” I imagined the same conversation was going on all over West Oak Ridge, and in many of those homes we were the ones being described as “stupid.”

It’s amazing our arrogance. Anyone who doesn’t believe like we do must be “stupid.” We can’t usually agree with our spouse or friends about where we want to go for dinner, or what movie we want to see, but we feel we have the intelligence, logic and justification to force our political, religious and world views on everyone else. That’s a scary thing.

How do we find that perfect balance between confidence in our own personal beliefs and mutual respect for others who feel differently? Humanity has not done well with this in the past. Some of the most dangerous people in history were usually zealots; obsessed with their own superiority and usually deluded by a perceived “greater calling” in the name of God or some higher power. Both Hitler and the Ku Klux Klan used God as justification for their atrocities. The American government and religious leaders decimated entire tribes of Native American’s for their “heathen” lifestyle. Indian children were taken from their parents so they could be educated in the proper Christian way. It was considered the “white man’s burden.”


What’s sometimes hard for us to comprehend, at least if we take the time to think about it, is that none of the people who did these terrible things thought that what they were doing was wrong. In fact, they probably thought that they had done the right thing until the day they died. Today, as we live under the continued threat of terror attacks, we believe our enemies to be pure evil, while they think that they are doing the will of God.

Stand around any school playground for a while and you’ll probably see a fight breakout. They might not even remember what it was all about an hour later, but at the time each kid is sure of one thing; they are right and the other is wrong. Same goes for almost any divorce, argument between friends, or disagreement in a boardroom. Somebody is right and somebody is wrong.

Sadly, no voice from the heavens booms down to tell us which is which. No magical halo appears over the good guy; no devil horns for the bad. Both sides will likely walk away still believing in their own unquestionable veracity.

It comes down to the fact that we each live in our own little universe. We see what we want and hear what we want. We view the world through eyes clouded by personal perceptions.

Am I saying that we shouldn’t stand up for what we believe in? Absolutely not. If we don’t voice our opinions, nothing would ever get done. Society would stagnate without change. The difference is between having a mutual, informed, respectful debate and a stubborn, angry standoff which will likely lead to escalating violence.

Respecting other people, even when we feel that they are wrong, is one of the hardest things we have to do as humans. So hard, in fact, that we simply don’t try very hard.

It’s just so much easier to call them “stupid.”

Remote Controlled

Hello, I’m Bruce and I’m a media junkie.

It probably started when I was a kid, sitting in front of the big black and white console television that was the focal point of our den, watching repeats of shows that were new to me and building a pop culture catalog in my head that provided a wealth of useless trivia and future party tricks. I was friends with Theodore Cleaver, Opie Taylor and Gilligan. I had a crush on Marcia Brady and the Bionic Woman. In the one vital question that faced American males in the last half of the twentieth century, my choice was unequivocal: Mary Ann, not Ginger.

I loved television. The Rockford Files, Starsky and Hutch, Cannon and McCloud. Gunsmoke, The Rifleman, Happy Days and Emergency. In my backyard, I pretended to run in slow motion (which for me was called “normal”) and called myself Steve Austin, a man who had been barely alive; rebuilt and better than he was. Better…stronger…faster. I jumped off of picnic tables and over short shrubbery, making a strange clicking noise in my throat and imaging that I was leaping over cars and saving the world. I was the Six Million Dollar Boy.

It’s amazing what you can learn when you don’t have sports and social activities to waste your time. I learned about the Korean War from M.A.S.H., and the inner workings of a television newsroom from Mary Tyler Moore. I learned about life in the ghetto from Jimmy Walker in Good Times, and frontier life from Laura Ingalls in Little House on the Prairie. I learned to appreciate sarcasm from the twisted mind of young Danny Partridge. The education broadcast from the flickering tube was as complete as that which I received in the classroom.

I could turn off the television too, finding escape in books and magazines. I read the Hardy Boys and the Three Investigators growing up, imagining myself a young detective, solving murders and robberies that confounded the ordinary mind. As I grew older, I enjoyed the classics, particularly the gruff prose of Hemingway. I found a special place in my heart for Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. I loved the book long before I saw the movie…and after I saw the movie, I loved them both even more.

I was haunted by A Death in the Family, by James Agee, and had no idea, as I lay reading in my bed that I would one day move to the Knoxville area where the novel takes place. It was that novel that made me fall in love with the written word, and the power that it can have in transporting you to other places and into other people’s feelings.

In high school I started working at the Public Library, which did wonders for my social life. No girl can resist a guy who works at the library.

I was put in charge of the Periodical Room, and soon became enthralled by the depth of articles in Time, Newsweek, Life and U.S. News and World Report magazines. I realized that there was a lot more to the news than the brief clips and sound bites allotted during the 30 minutes Walter Cronkite delivered each evening. Once again the written word broadened my mind and gave me a deeper appreciation for research and investigative journalism.

I read more than the news, quickly browsing through People magazine to see how the stars lived and Reader’s Digest for the jokes and Drama in Real Life stories. When no one was looking, I read articles in Glamour and Cosmopolitan that talked about what women wanted (and didn’t want) in a man. This was quite and education for my seventeen year old mind. I didn’t understand everything they wrote about, but since I was in a library, I could look it up (and I did).

At the suggestion of our head librarian, I read my first Stephen King novel, Salem’s Lot, finishing it in less than twenty-four hours and feeling a bit like a vampire myself by the time I was done. That night, as I read by the dim lamplight beside my bed, I literally could not put the book down. When I finally fell asleep, sometime in the wee hours of the morning, I continued the story in my dreams. When I went back to work that afternoon, I scooped up another King novel, eventually working my way through all of his books. My favorite King novel was and still is The Stand, with scenes that are still fresh in my mind almost 30 years after I first read it.

With the job at the Library and my own disposable income, I was able to expand my media addiction to movies. My buddy Rodney and I would drive to the Louisville Showcase Cinema’s and often sat through two movies in a night; as if we were trying to catch up on all the movies we never saw when we were kids. I remember one magical night in late December 1982, when I saw a double feature of 48 Hours and Tootsie. Both are still among my all time favorite movies.

**Let me digress for a moment and speak of 1982. The year I graduated High School may be one of the greatest years for movies since 1939. Here’s just a partial list of movies released that amazing year:

E.T. the Extra-terrestrial, Ghandi, Tootsie, 48 hours, Poltergeist, John Carpenter’s The Thing, An Officer and a Gentleman, Porky’s, Star Trek ll: the Wrath of Khan, Sophie’s Choice, Blade Runner, Conan the Barbarian, Missing, Diner, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, My Favorite Year, Tron, and The World According to Garp.

There are more films on that list that I love than almost any other year in cinema history (and no, Porky’s is not one of them).

My love for movies, TV and books continued even after I married, and my wonderful wife indulged and continues to indulge me in my obsessive media interests as long as I occasionally take her to the mountains for some fresh air and walk in the woods. Our first year together, we experienced the joy of Top Gun on the big screen (actually seeing it three times before it was officially released…which I am sure is some kind of record), as well as Stand By Me, Aliens and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. It was a very good year.

We cuddled on the couch, watching all eight hours of Lonesome Dove, crying together at the death of Gus McCrae and realizing even then that we would probably never see a better mini-series on television. We were right.

Like a lot of us, our dates were often sitting on the couch with a bowl of popcorn. We loved Hill Street Blues, L.A. Law, Cheers, and The Cosby Show. More alternative entertainment took some work, so like a drug dealer whispering through the fence at a schoolyard, I eventually got Connie hooked on Quantum Leap, Star Trek: the Next Generation and The X-Files. Surprisingly, it wasn’t all that hard. She won’t admit it, but she’s a junkie like me.

My wife and kids get aggravated at me when I stay too long on a news channel or choose a History Channel documentary over a repeat episode of Full House, but I enjoy learning new things. The kids are junkies too, but their addiction is mainly television and the movie/book universe of the Harry Potter and Twilight series. Ashlyn is reading the Harry Potter books for a second time right now, and although I would prefer she broaden her mind with other literature, I’m simply glad that she is reading. Too many young people let others visualize the world for them, when only the written word puts their own mind to work making it real.

The Internet opened new doors for my pop culture fanaticism. Now I had a massive library of useless information at my fingertips, and if I could only find the right query word, the answers would be mine. Everything seemed to be on the World Wide Web; good, bad, disturbing…inspiring, educational, and conflicting. Time wastes at a rapid pace in the blue glow of the computer screen. One click leads to ten which leads to a thousand, and soon a few years have passed.

With the click of my mouse and a few pecks on the keyboard I have learned things I never knew, viewed things I might have never seen (including a few things I wish I had never looked at). It is an incredible tool; an encyclopedia of humanity that lives and breathes, growing with each passing moment as new information on our very existence is added. Like most things, it can be used for both good and evil, capable of helping or hurting; informing with an expanse of knowledge never available before. Like most things that we are addicted to (whether we know we are or not), the ability to turn it off is there, but often not the will.

As I travel, my laptop has become my outlet and my friend. In my hotel room late last night, I sat on my bed and read news stories and blogs, checked my email and clicked on Facebook to see what my “friends” were doing. Meanwhile, the television whispered to me from across the room and the book about depression era gangsters lay next to me, waiting its turn to take me back in time and eventually into slumber.

I am a media junkie. I just don’t know if it’s a problem, or who I was always meant to be.