A Crisis

The police officers just left. They actually came to my home much quicker than I would have imagined, but they didn’t stay very long. I guess there is really not much they can do for me and honestly having a Fed-X package stolen out of your garage is not what one would deem a heinous crime. But maybe we could have speculated with them for a short time about the people who were out to do me (personally) wrong, or perhaps the details of a recent rash of delivery thefts, or maybe even the pros and cons of DNA evidence?

Of course I don’t mean to make light of the police force. I really just called them because I wanted the theft of my package documented; I wanted to be sure this didn’t happen to my neighbors. The two officers were very nice, and honestly, what could I expect them to do? No more than they actually did.

I tell this story to myself quite often these days. I do so to remind myself how to treat others. An emergency, a crisis, or even something as monumental as a home purchase, has to basic sides-the side in need and the side providing assistance. I’ve often wondered how emergency responders manage to face another day, but then I answer my own question as I watch a man climb inside a septic tank with a hose and a broom. Practice makes perfect-we can get used to most anything.

But along the way we have to remember that the side in need is often having one of the worst days of their lives. A litter of kittens left on your doorstep; a low appraisal on the home that finally has a buyer; a crisis for one, just another day for another. My reaction (often more than my action) will set the mood and dictate the outcome. I will remind myself of this every day.

Holding My Head Up

The door opens for a third time, and the young man walks back inside. I knew that he was having trouble leaving, saying his goodbyes, but this time he wears dark glasses. Without a word, he moves toward the dog and kneels in front of him. I can see his mouth moving, but I don’t hear a sound. The dark glasses do little to mask the emotion in the room and I turn my back to both of them and take a few steps away.

I hear the sound of the door opening and closing again, and I close my eyes. I realize that I’m holding my breath as I listen for the sound of the young man’s truck leaving the parking lot. I hear the engine roar to life and it’s clear that the young man wastes little time fleeing the shelter. He’s gone, but it’s not over. One of us still has to take the dog to Animal Control.

This sounds like the long goodbye of lovers in an airport or the soldier headed overseas, but it is not. This is a scene that unfolds daily in the world of animal rescue. The young man saying goodbye is not even the owner of the oblivious young dog sitting in the lobby of the shelter. The young man is a college student who spends a great deal of his free time with the dogs that we actually have room to take in at the shelter. This was the first time he witnessed what happens when the shelter is full.

I would love to tell you the story of a sad goodbye between this little dog and his soon to be estranged owner; I cannot. This little dog was abandoned by his owner across the street from the shelter. Two students found him standing in the middle of our busy street minutes after his owner was told there was no room for him at our facility. This owner was not looking for help; he was simply turning his problem over to someone else. There is a difference. This man will sleep well tonight; I will not.

Luckily this is not something that happens to me every day. If it did, I’m not sure I could hold my head up; I’m not sure anybody could. But what about the young man I mentioned earlier? Will he continue to come to the shelter? It’s possible that he will become very busy elsewhere. Maybe he just won’t have the free time he had last semester when his course load was lighter. Perhaps he will volunteer somewhere that offers experience in his field of study. He may go somewhere else where it’s easier to hold his head up.

Understanding

In the “self-help” world we live in today, it can be confusing to know who we are and what we really want. Book stores are flooded with written advice on how to accomplish the most obscure tasks, and even my daily internet news feeds post success stories about things that I honestly have trouble qualifying as positive…much less successful. I understand that most of this is simply advice, but it often leaves me feeling like I’m the only person out there who is not obsessed with losing weight or erectile dysfunction! I want to re-grow hair, and now I can do so like a “pro”!

But as complicated as this all sounds, I truly believe that we are all searching for one basic thing. We seek to be understood. This quest is further complicated by the notion that we are all more complicated beings than our predecessors. Really? Of course; I’m the new Andrew 2.0! Throw in the fact that with one click I can find thousands that seem to agree with me and I’m now really on to something. I should write a book!

Of course there is good advice out there. We are, if anything, a more open society and few topics remain taboo. But have we traded our skills to convince and persuade others with simply lining up a posse of internet followers? This hit me hard a few months back when I ended up in (what could have been) a huge argument with my eighteen year-old daughter. It started innocently with her response to my commentary following a story on the morning news. Maybe I didn’t realize that I was looking for a “hell yeah!”, but when I didn’t get one, I got mad. How could she be so stupid?

Luckily this argument began when we were both rushed for time. We stepped away from the altercation with our typical “have a good day” and “be careful on the road”, but I feel sure that the disagreement still bothered us both. Okay, I’m sure that it still bothered me. But the longer I thought about this, the less sure I became of my resolve. I was still as sure of my views on the news story as I was a few minutes before, but my thoughts on her understanding changed completely. I realized that I had placed the burden of her understanding me on the wrong person. This was not her responsibility, it was mine. If you want to be understood, the ball is in your court.

Hope

Sometimes I wonder why I am compelled to spend so much of my free time at the shelter. Okay, I never really wonder about this; maybe I should have said that I wonder where all of my free time goes. But I do understand that look people give me when I’m standing in front of Petsense on a beautiful Saturday afternoon, holding a leashed dog, attempting to strike up a conversation with anyone who will make eye contact! I’m selling something-soap, salvation, home security systems; I am a salesman.

“If you will simply grasp the end of this rope, you will understand!” Not really; there’s none of that. But as the days run together I often forget from exactly where my motivation originates. Giving up rarely crosses my mind, but a little nudge is always welcome. Let me describe the nudge.

It’s almost dark and it has begun to rain. I would love to walk outside and stand in the deluge, but I know that by doing so it will make the smell of my clothes even more unbearable than it is now. Sweat, dog urine, roach droppings…filth. I no longer noticed the smell of the house, or the group of dogs we had just removed from the house, because I was a part of it now.

The 17 dogs we brought in were terrified. They were huddled in the corners of their cages as we described to each other (and anyone who would listen) the conditions they were removed from just minutes earlier. I think we were all still in shock, and maybe a little sore, from crawling through the filth just to be sure no one was left behind.

I hadn’t really planned on going in to much graphic detail about the living conditions that these dogs were just removed from, and I think I will stop here.

 We had reached a point where ran out of things to say to one another in the crowded little isolation room and the air grew quiet. Quiet, but for a thumping sound in one of the cages behind me; the echo created by a dog’s tail hitting the floor of a metal cage; the sound of a wagging tail. When I turned in the direction of the noise, the thumping stopped. The room was once again quiet, but the little brown dog that had made the noise was smiling; the tactic had worked; she got a bite. I walked over to her cage and opened the door. I removed her and held her to my chest. I could feel her tiny heart thumping in her chest as she tentatively licked my hand.

I’ve told this story to several people and their response is usually that this little dog we now call Princess was thanking me. I’m sure she was thankful, but that is not what I felt…and this is not what keeps bringing me back to the shelter. This little creature, this tiny little spirit, having minutes before been living in some of the worst conditions I’ve experienced, had her head held high and was looking to make a connection. She was moving on; she had hope. She gives me hope.

A Season Away

After a great week of early morning dog walks, winter chose today to remind me that he wasn’t going to leave quietly. It was cold! Having to get up and on the road an hour earlier probably didn’t help either, but at least one of my dogs will never accept the notion that something as common as weather could cancel her scheduled expedition. Makes sense to me and it also makes me wonder how many people are killed every year sitting on the toilet when the tornado strikes! “Didn’t hear a thing” the survivor says as the television camera surveys his demolished home, “you know that fan is really loud, but it saved my life this time”.

I’ll stop here with the endless string of bathroom humor that flows through my head daily and talk about what I had planned. Spring is on the way! My neighbor’s Bradford Pear trees are the perfect yardstick to measure the season’s progression and they are the topic of our conversation each morning as the dogs lead us down the street. One would think that after fifty one years of watching the changing seasons the fascination would have faded, but for me it has not. A few cold January mornings may have tested my resolve, but deep down I knew it was just a matter of time before warm weather arrived, and so far, it always has.

Spring is not my true season, no, I prefer summer. The hotter the better! Trust me when I say that I’m not trying to convert you, I understand that we all have our preferred weather conditions, mine just happens to include sweat and biting insects. We all have our seasons.

I’m told that the earth spins and tilts on a predictable basis. Sometimes we are close to the fire and sometimes we are further away; we face the light during the day and we turn our back on it at night. We go through the motions with the understanding that, like it or not, the current conditions will change. If you happen to be in your season, enjoy! If you are simply enduring your present conditions, understand that change is just a season away.

The DMV

A few years ago I discovered that putting my thoughts in print made me feel really good. I admit that I enjoyed sharing them with others (and fielding comments), but the purge effect I felt after doing so was amazing! Unfortunately, I also discovered that if I don’t write them down during the first few hours of the morning, my thoughts become so commingled with the day’s events that they really don’t come out as intended. Hopefully the summer will allow me a few mornings to clear my head. I can start today!

Hardly a day goes by that I don’t pat myself on the back for choosing to live in a small town. I guess the true award goes to my parents, but I have been free to leave this “mean little Mayberry” for more years that I would like to own up to this morning.  I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t complain about things like Friday’s traffic or a fifteen minute wait in the grocery store line, but deep down I know it could be worse. This town is just large enough to grant a small taste of anonymity, but it’s not too hard to make a connection when I really need to. If you ask the right questions, everybody is always somebody’s cousin that your brother’s ex-wife used to work with before Walmart moved to its third location. We’re practically related!

Learning to use these connections has been fun for me, but I recognize the all-to-familiar “why don’t you just shut up and pay the cashier” look my daughter gives me when I talk to everyone in the checkout line at Kroger. I can only imagine how nervous she was when the duty of taking her to the DMV for her driver’s license fell on the shoulders of her long-winded father! Had she not been as nervous as she was, I’m sure I would have been officially asked to “be quiet…just this once”. Fat chance!

I feel sure that everyone reading this has been to the DMV (now the DDS). Even in this little town, the wait can be long and the employees are…serious? A tough crowd, even for Milledgeville! But anyone who truly knows me can guess how it ended. Credit Taylor with knowing how to drive well enough to get her license, but before we could get out of the building, she got a hug and congratulations from the instructor, a written diagram of what she needed to work on, complimentary key chain, and a visit from the clerk that took our initial information! Okay, this clerk came back mainly to pick on me, but the experience was one that we both will not forget.

It seems as though I have made this all about me, and while that is one of my favorite topics, that was not my true intention. I learned a long time ago that I come with a long list of faults and a longer list of limitations. But luckily I also learned that while I can’t be everything, I can at least be friendly and nice. The treatment we received that day made a difference in our lives, and I like to think that the treatment we gave them made a difference in theirs!

An Accident Waiting To Happen

I’ve always considered turkey hunting a fairly safe sport. I understand that safe is a relative term, but at least the woods are not filled with fellow hunters carrying rifles that could accidentally kill you from a distance greater than the shooter could actually see you! For the uninitiated, turkeys are hunted with a shotgun; a close range weapon. But for some unknown reason, I can often find a way to hurt myself in the safest of ventures.

March is a great time to be in the woods. The sub-zero weather has graciously passed, and usually (early on at least), there are no ticks or mosquitos. To hunt turkey, you venture deep into the woods in the pitch-black dark, find a likely place to stop, and listen to the woods creatures as they wake up. Of course you mainly listen for the sounds of one creature in particular, but it’s always exciting listening to them all. Most of the successful hunters I know already know where the turkeys are roosting, but I usually just go when I have time. I hope to either stumble on one, or get lucky and call one up! This is a trial and error sport, but I have been fortunate enough to actually fool one a time or two.

On this particular morning, after calling, changing locations (and repeating this process several times) I decided to call it a day. There were either no birds in my zip code or my rookie calling attempts had them belly laughing as they headed for the hills; either way I was headed back to my truck turkeyless.  About halfway back I came upon an open area with a big gobbler, standing squarely in the center, doing his thing! He was fanning out his tail and his ugly head was blood red, but before I could kneel down and try to make myself invisible…he saw me. Okay, he kind of saw me. Had he fully recognized me for the armed intruder that I truly was, the story would likely end here.

My heart raced as he halted is garish sexual behavior and stretched his neck for a better view. Not really sure what to do next, I pulled out my call and started making girlfriend noises. This seemed to put him somewhat at ease and he would dance for a few minutes before assuming the “you know I can fly” posture. We played this game for what seemed like forever, and I think he finally decided that any woman that could resist the display he was putting on was probably not worth having anyway. Time to run!

Luckily when he decided to run I was prepared to shoot. He was a little bit farther away than I would normally feel comfortable taking a shot, but my quick reaction put him on the ground! Remember I said put him on the ground…I didn’t say kept him on the ground! Before I could put my hands on him, he jumped up and headed for the next county. He was moving pretty good for a wounded bird, but I feel sure that it had something to do with the overdressed, fat little old guy chasing him! Hunting adrenaline is a special kind of drug, and with a borderline overdose flowing through my system, I caught him! Okay…caught up with him. As I reached down to grab him, he decided to fight back. This big guy rolled over on his back and did his best to bury the 1” spurs in my hands or face!

Before I go any further with this story I should probably tell you that this hunting story, while absolutely true, happened several years ago and has nothing to do with the picture of me with the bandage on my face. Actually, I went to the Dermatologist early Monday morning and had a skin cancer removed. I come by this affliction honestly and that is why I posted the picture of my face with the “old man” band aid plastered in the typical spot. The hunting story sounds better, and I doubt many would have enjoyed a story about my trip to the Dermatologist! But just so you know, I came away that particular day unharmed and carrying a big Tom Turkey! What were you thinking happened?

The OSHA Instructor

I’ve been back in real estate now for a couple of years. I guess somewhere deep down I knew that I would end up back here, and to at least to some extent, I never left. I didn’t actively list property and take out buyers, but I tried to keep up with values and with market activity. When I think of it this way…I never left.

The years I spent working with the University Of Georgia were unlike any other I’ve experienced. I basically had two jobs; work and class. Toward the end I had an office in Milledgeville and Athens, but I spent just as much time studying (both in class and online) as I did working. And I liked it! I felt like I was moving in a positive direction and I was always thinking. I’m not so sure that in today’s world this training is something that I will base my career upon, but I use snippets of what I learned every day.

It may come as a surprise to some that one of the certifications I earned was through OSHA (The Occupational Safety and Health Administration). To some…the bad guys! I’m actually an authorized instructor and I can issue ten and thirty hour safety certifications! I know you’re probably wondering what a real estate agent does as an OSHA instructor, and quite frankly I’ve wondered the same thing for quite some time. I have never taught the classes (and probably never will), but this morning as I made my morning stop at Animal Rescue I had my chance!

Before your mind drifts off in to frayed electrical cords and unsafe ladders, I’ll explain. One of our best employees cornered me and asked for help. With a safety violation you ask? Well no, this was (in my mind) much worse. This worker told me that when they were first hired, every day was filled with mystery and training. She had gone from feeling the euphoria of learning new things to the drudgery of every day work! That was when one sentence I learned in the OSHA class popped in my head. “Watch one, do one, teach one”. The surgeon’s axiom! It is our duty as her employer to train her, and it is her duty as a manager to train others. Keep it alive! Sharing of knowledge is, if not the circle of life, the spice of life.

We all have much to share. If your friends see you as a “know-it-all”, the only problem is your delivery…or possibly your audience. When you feel as though you have hit the ceiling of you job, your hobby or even your personal life, I think you would be surprised how renewed you will feel by simply sharing with others what you know.

A Young Man

Eleven years ago my little brother died suddenly. I’ve talked about this publicly for years, and I feel sure that even those who don’t know me very well probably at least know this much about me. About me. I understand that this seems strange to say that his death is something you would know about me, but he’s been gone for years and I’m still here. It’s now something to know about me.

I admit it felt weird when well-wishers said how terrible it was that he died so young. He was thirty eight and I was forty; that’s not young. I have many friends that were grandparents at forty! But as I sit here writing this…eleven years later…I understand that we were both very young. I still am.

I’m too young to have seen my daughter graduate from high school. I’m too young to have had grandchildren. I haven’t had the time to do everything I want to do. I am thankful for all I have already done and seen, but I can only wonder how young I will realize I was eleven years from today.

I always felt that my brother was fortunate to have died suddenly. No extended illness; no months or years of suffering, but really don’t we all die suddenly? No matter how long it drags out, we are here one minute and gone the next. That sounds pretty instantaneous to me! I’m left to wonder if maybe a ‘slower’ death just gives us time to go over a few things. I don’t really believe that all bases would have been covered, but I can think of a few that I wish I had at least attempted.

So today I will understand that I am a young man. Technically I will be older when you read this as I was when I wrote it, but I will still be young man. There is still much to do, and if I haven’t told you lately that I love you, I’m doing so now. I know that I forget to say it sometimes, but I choose to write this off…I am young and inexperienced! I will try harder.

Routine Maintenence

I have always taken pride in my ability to enjoy things that are not typically male. I love to cook, iron and I’m a laundry genius until some someone mixes up my cleaning agents! Okay, I don’t read labels any better than I read directions. I love female authors, and while I don’t exactly read romance novels, often my favorite books are pretty close to exactly that. I don’t necessarily enjoy putting the hammer down (in the middle of adding a room on my house) to cook supper, but I’ve done it many times. I don’t consider myself exceptional; I just have a problem with gender assigned roles.

I understand that this is not always a good thing, and I feel sure that my wife and daughter would agree. I have worked them both like hired help during construction projects and we have all gone to bed mad more than once suffering from the backlash caused by my “unrealistic” expectations. I won’t say that I’m proud of this, but if I’m going to be your mother at dinner time, you can be my man while the work is going on!

But there is one instance where I know that I am all male. Please remember that this is a G-rated post as your mind begins to wander. Welcome back. The time that it is most obvious that I am all male is anytime a doctor is involved. My man’s version of needing a doctor involves wrapping a severed body part in a wet towel for safe and healthy re-attachment. Anything less is like taking a perfectly good car to a mechanic, leaving a blank check, and asking him to find something to fix! Not really, but when I went this week to be checked for a suspicious spot on my face and the doctor told me to take of my shirt…let’s just say I wasn’t surprised. “We’ll find something to remove!”

Understand that I mean everything I’ve previously said about doctors as a joke. I want to be better at this and luckily I am about to have my wish. Anything that sits in the sun for fifty years has (if not an expiration date) a definite need of maintenance. I will do better. I love my family and I plan to live long enough to thoroughly annoy my daughter. Luckily the doctor made an appointment for me to come back in six months to be checked again. We’ll call this something that every real man understands; routine maintenance! Take the whole family and we’ll call it fleet maintenance! Ahh oomp! But I really did like the doctor, he was a nice guy. Maybe I’ll take him a batch of homemade yeast rolls on my next visit!

A Cobbler's Son

“A cobbler’s son has no shoes” I’ve been aware of this saying for what seems like most of my life, but until recently I’d never given it much thought. Honestly I think the primary use of this saying is to let someone off the hook for not doing something that they should have long since done; so let’s just say it makes a good excuse. Because if you really think about it…this is a really stupid phrase!

Have you ever seen a pawn shop owner that didn’t wear a lot of jewelry; or a hardware store owner using a hammer with duct tape on the handle? Antique dealers with a particle board entertainment center standing proudly in the living room are about as common as an accountant with tax problems. I’m not so sure cobblers really exist in modern times, but I all but guarantee you that the owner of a shoe store has an exceptional (if not embarrassing) collection of footwear! Trust me; the cobbler’s son would have had plenty of shoes if he hadn’t spent so much time with that damn budget-killing puppet!

I think of this today as I sit in my recliner typing on the computer. This is without a doubt my favorite spot in the house and it’s where I do some of my best thinking. But today, instead of kicking back comfortably while writing, I am sharing my space with a massive 6 ½ pound chair-hogging Chihuahua! Dog number two; pet number four. The cobbler’s shoes are beginning to stack up.

As a family we have discussed the merits of owning one dog at a time on many occasions. This had to be spoken aloud when we started volunteering for an animal rescue group, otherwise we would quickly become a satellite location! The best way to spot the new guy at the shelter is to count his animals. But I really don’t intend to have too many and I tell myself that if the new dogs wasn’t the polar opposite of my old one, I would not have taken her home. I tell myself lots of things.

I think I will sign off now and maybe go and change my shoes. I’ve had this one pair on since breakfast, and while they are very comfortable, I really have some others that I want to wear today!                          

Smile

One of the best parts of getting a new pet is choosing the perfect name. Of course this is just a technicality for me because I’ve always been of the school of thought that a really good pet deserves a dozen names! I often call them by a secondary name for so long that I forget what their given name really is! It’s probably a good thing my animals don’t have a Social Security card or I could be charged with identity theft!

Imagine for a minute the volume of names that must be chosen by an animal rescue group. Some do come already named, but the vast majority of them come in with no name. I have been amazed how quickly they learn the names they are given, but in an atmosphere as crowded as this, they really seem to long for an identity.

I’ve recently started volunteering at the shelter again after a 25+ year absence. My younger brother got me started back then, but honestly I had my feelings hurt pretty early on and was unable to stay. I always admired him for possessing a gene that I obviously lacked; he was a diligent and dedicated volunteer and I feel sure that he helped choose many names for the animals over the years.

I have to admit that I think of my brother often, but when visiting the shelter I think of him constantly. My brother Gus was the type of guy that a dog would approach without hesitation. Okay, they approach me the same way, but it is sometimes with a growl and fangs bared! Gus told me that the reason this happened was because I needed to smile more. He said that the look on my face (the one I deemed concentration) was a little scary to dogs and people. More than once, when I passed him driving down the road, he would call me and say one word; “smile”. I would look at my reflection in the rearview mirror, smile as wide as I could manage, and do my best to hold it for the rest of the day.

Okay, I have gotten way off course on the subject of naming pets. After all this time I still enjoy talking about my brother as much as ever and I still give myself the old rearview-mirror-check more than you might imagine. But as I rode home Saturday afternoon from a long ARF adoption event at a local business, I had no need to check my smile. I was very tired, but it had been a good day. Two dogs that had just met that day found great homes; Turtle and…wait for it…Gus! I hope you smiled too.

Vacation Pictures

Okay, there is nothing quite like a brand new computer! It still has that new computer smell and jumps around as fast as lightning. But I have to admit that I become really attached to one after I’ve had it for a while. It’s kind of like your favorite shoes or a well-worn baseball glove; a part of the family. But when something goes wrong…I have to stop myself from throwing it out the window! I’m glad I don’t have such a volatile relationship with my family.

The latest near-miss episode involving my virtual best friend happened last night. Granted I had no business even being on the computer given the fact that I had just driven the six hours that officially ended a four day beach vacation. I should have been unpacking or cleaning up the dinner dishes, but what I really wanted to do was scroll through my vacation pictures! Milk it just a few more minutes!

I took the card out of the camera and slipped it in my card reader as I have done a million times before. I scrolled through the thumbnail images and chose several to email some friends we had met there on a fishing trip. I leaned forward slightly for a closer look and the laptop moved just enough to bump the USB connection of the reader with my freshly suntanned leg. The computer made the “new hardware” sound and the images disappeared. When I tried to open them back up...that damn loose USB port! Now it said that the SD card needed formatting! I had well over one hundred pictures that would be wiped out by this function.

I immediately looked online at several SD card repair programs that claimed to be absolutely free, but that was only to look at the pictures. “Oh, you mean you wanted to save them? Well that will be $39.95, you should have said so before you loaded all the software”. Luckily my wife stopped me before I downloaded a direct link to a Russian boiler room. Under direct orders to “leave it alone” I went to bed and promised to visit Office Max the next morning.

Luckily the clerk at Office Max had no idea what I was talking about. “Why don’t you just format the card yourself” was the best she could do. Wow, I never thought of that! Can I just throw my camera in the trash here or do I need to take it home and put it in the recycling? Sorry, the impatience returned there for a second. To make this story simply too long instead of way too long, I’ll finish up here. After a desperate plea, a Facebook friend sent me an article that mentioned a program called PhotoRec. It was absolutely free and it not only retrieved my vacation photos, it brought back about 200 more that I had long since erased from my camera! It runs in a DOS format that I don’t begin to understand, but it can’t be too hard because I saved my pictures! I may just keep that old baseball glove a little longer!

Pompous Grass

When I traded my home and 80 acres in the country for a subdivision inside the city limit, I saw no need to keep my tractor. Of course my wife didn’t think that was the best of ideas, but I was really kind of tired of trying to keep it running anyway. I don’t know the exact acreage of my current yard, but the little push mower I owned seemed to be adequate to preen what little lawn I was now charged with maintaining. I must have forgotten what dragging around a lawnmower in 100 degree heat really feels like!

One of the best ways to combat the pain of outdoor work in this type of heat is to only work early in the morning and late evening. Unless you are retired, or independently wealthy, this leaves the evening as the only option for weekday maintenance. Get off work, eat supper, drink a couple of beers, and see if you can have a heart attack before bedtime! Wait a minute…it sounds like I’m complaining about summertime. I’m better now; I just slapped myself.

I thought of one such summer evening this morning as I read a friend’s Facebook post about a battle waged with a clump of Pampas Grass. It was probably my second season in the new house, and I was doing my best to finish cutting the scorched summer grass with what little daylight remained. The main part of the yard was done and I was trimming the little strip that touches the street. After pushing the mower all the way to my neighbor’s mailbox, I turned to drag the screaming beast in the opposite direction. If the heat was stressing my heart, what I turned to face almost stopped it! Every one of those awful English horror movies I watched as kid had just come true; I was locked in a death gaze with Count Dracula!

Okay, it wasn’t an actual vampire, but my heart was a little slower at figuring this out than my head was. This stoic demon I faced was actually my dark-headed, dark featured Romanian neighbor that I really didn’t know very well. The fact that he was offering the use of his “sit-down” mower calmed my nerves a touch, but I was still shaken as I relayed the evening’s events to my wife and daughter. Of course they thought this was pretty funny, and once I sat down and stopped stripping cloves of the garlic bunch, I enjoyed a pretty good laugh at myself as well. I knew what his real name was, but from that day forward he was referred to (in private of course) as Boris.

Fast-forward a couple of years and I’m sitting on his back deck having a taste of his favorite scotch. His English is not perfect, but after a couple of drinks we seem to understand each other pretty well. But alcohol also has a way of relaxing the tongue and after I slipped the first time and called him Boris (he didn’t notice) I decided to just pack up and go home before I did it again. I walked through the dark mumbling his real name over and over; doing my best to bring the truth to the forefront!

That was a long story to explain my grandmother’s love of pompous grass! But what I do know is that she knew (at some point anyway) what the real name of this plant was. But she had used her pet name for so long I doubt that she remembered anymore. Her name for this plant was so etched in what she knew that I feel sure it sounded funny to say the correct name. If you say, or think… or hate something for a long enough period of time it becomes the truth.

A path

Buried in my list of unpublished blogs are three drafts, written about the same subject, that I just can’t seem to finish. I think I know what I want to say, but each time I begin I end up spiraling in several (often unrelated) directions. How could a subject so simple lead my mind in so many directions? I’ve made an executive decision to just lay it out there and see where everyone else’s mind wants to go.

The subject in question is a small dirt trail carved neatly into the thick green grass of my lawn. This path winds around the side of my house from the garage to the back steps and is as neat and smooth as any made by man or machine. Both of my cats and my current dog use this path on a daily basis and I have even witnessed the propane delivery guy drag his hose around back using the trail as though it was made just for him. At only a few inches wide, I have always been amazed at how permanent this trail has become.

The machine that carved this path was a little 35 pound border collie. Even though he has been gone for almost two years, the trail is as neat and smooth as the last day he used it. As I was cutting the grass last weekend, I have to admit that my heart skipped a little when turned toward this side of the house and noticed the path; he was a good guy and a great companion. But I also understand that he created this trail simply because it was the shortest distance between to places he wanted to be; he wasn’t carving a monument to honor his existence.

But as we go about our day to day lives, how do we know exactly when we are creating something as permanent and lasting as this faint little trail? Maybe we should just assume that we always are. Speak as though someone is listening; act as though everyone is watching. You never know, one of those little trails you are carving may be one that will still be here long after you are gone.

The World is Round And I Can Prove It

The ink on my marriage license was probably still wet when I began looking for a good spot to build a house for my wife and I. Of course I was a rookie husband and didn’t understand (yet) that all I really needed to do was put my wife on the task and it would be solved. Once she was on board we would go from simply looking and wishing (man style), to actually purchasing (woman style). Though this was almost 25 years ago, I can still remember it like it was yesterday; “What do you mean you need to think about it? This is what you said you…we…wanted. Just sign the damn papers!” I did; she was right.

Of course I needed a second push not too long after we moved on to the property. The trailer we were temporarily (this is a relative term…as decisive as kind of or probably) calling home was the complete package; cozy, mine and paid for. I had my pre-planned share of responses to the I-though-you-said-we-were-going-to-build-a-house music that had become the soundtrack of my life, but the one I usually settled on was our lack of money. “What do you mean you need to think about it? You said if you…we…could get the money we would build a house. Just sign the damn papers!” I did; she was right again.

If I sat here and continued to tick off the timeline of my life it would end pretty much with the same few sentences as the previous paragraphs. I have no doubt that most successful relationships are fairly similar even if the roles are reversed; somebody fattens up the hog and the other makes food out of it. I’ve lived long enough to know that the history books left out the part where someone (Mrs. Columbus?) said “You said the world was round and if you had the money you…we…could prove it. Just sign the damn papers! He did; somebody was right, again.

We all need that little push of validation and we rely on it whether we realize it or not. It is so easy to accuse others of back seat driving and second guessing your well-laid plans, when the real problem lies with our ability to have our good ideas perfected. Credit is both fleeting and worthless; too much is harmful. To throw the dart and hit the bullseye on the first try is, and will always be, luck. You can be really good, but you will never be a champion alone.

Last Day Of School

The last day of school came and went this year for my daughter with little fanfare. We did go out for lunch that last half day day (if you know me that is somewhat of a big deal), but I do miss the grammar school days and their end of the year parties. Sometimes I think I actually became more attached to her school buddies than she did, but really I was just looking for a chance to have some fun.

My daughter is an only child. I don’t mean to inflect any type of tone into this, it’s just the way Mother Nature planned it for us. When the OBGYN wants to discuss birth control on the first post-delivery visit…you just know it’s time to leave well enough alone and enjoy what you are fortunate enough to already have. Having grown up with two brothers, I have to admit I have kind of liked the idea of having only one child. I can both take her to school and pick her up, and we have plenty of alone time to get to know each other. She may argue too much time, but I kind of like it.

One of the bad parts of having only one child is that I wouldn’t dream of her riding the school bus without siblings. She did ride some when she was a little kid, but this was mainly because she wanted to and we lived in a county with a tiny school system. I knew the bus driver and most of the kids she rode it with.

 But when I was a kid the school bus was the place to cause trouble! We (okay I) found plenty of trouble on a regular basis, but the last day of school called for plans of epic proportions. Something to laugh about all summer! I feel sure we discussed several potentially lethal scenarios, but at the last minute we decided something involving water guns…and the bus driver.  Okay, I never thought about the fact that we would have to ride next year, same bus-same bus driver; miscalculation number one!

Somehow we managed to keep the water guns in our pockets until it was our time to depart the bus. Living very close to the county line meant we were among the last to leave the bus, but there were still enough kids to laugh at the bus driver and maybe he wouldn’t be as pissed with only a few watching him get hosed down. Another miscalculation! As he pulled to a stop and worked the lever to open the door, we sprang into action. With all of the trouble there has been lately with schools and guns this hardly seems funny now, but watching the screaming driver cover his face with both hands as three little boys soaked him with water guns…well I don’t care who you are; that’s funny.

But the most memorable part of the day was what was to follow. Physics state that a bus driver shaped man would never be able to catch three little boys on a good day, but our last miscalculation was the fact that my father was walking down the driveway to celebrate with us the survival of yet another school year. As we tore down the driveway, the fear in our eyes was enough for him to know that what he really needed to do was run with us, and in any direction other than the house! Till the day I die I will never forget the image of three boys and a grown man, hiding in a ditch in the woods, listening to the infuriated bus driver scream “I’m gonna tell your daddy!”

Old Photos

When I was a kid, my parents and grandparents would often give me a family lesson by showing me boxes of old photos. “This is my great uncle John; he’s my mother’s uncle from the Taylor side. You know, they were the ones that moved from the country before I was born. Doesn’t he look like your cousins in Dublin?” I remember thinking he really looked like the man that my fourth grade social studies teacher told us drove the final spike in the transcontinental railroad, but to say that would just be mean. Everyone in those old black and white photos really looked like the only people they were related to were each other.

Those grainy old photos made everyone look sweaty and sunburned. Their clothes were too big and if they were actually looking at the camera, you would think all they really wanted was something to eat. But as detached and indifferent as I was, the look on my relative’s faces when they viewed the pictures was much different. These weren’t images of dust bowl farmers in a text book; they were real individuals that my relatives knew personally. Loved ones captured with the technology of the day. I didn’t want to be mean, but most of the time I really didn’t feel much emotion and I had no Idea what to say.

As technology advanced, so did photography. There a few gray pictures (as my daughter refers to them) of me as a child, but luckily most are in color. My neighbor gave me an old camera when I was probably 10 years old, and while color film was available, it was out of my price range. I wasn’t necessarily the next Ansel Adams anyway and I stand by my parent’s decision not to pay good money for the developing of pictures “snapped” of the back of my brother’s head or vacation pictures of a car lot in North Carolina. Pointing and clicking was cheap, but buying the film and having God only knows what developed was not.

Affordable digital photography has been nothing less than revolutionary. I can now take hundreds of photos and decide if I want them or not in just a few seconds; I can re-take until I get what I want.  I do feel sorry for those who have never experienced the anticipation of driving to Revco to pick up a package of 24 unknown images from a family vacation, fishing trip, litter of puppies and a few shots of the nothing that it took to finish out the roll of film. But don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t go back to this for anything!

Since Facebook has become “the box of old photos in the attic” for many, I can now anonymously scroll through thousands of old photos whenever I choose. It is easy to spot the digital photos from the scanned images taken from the real box, but not necessarily in the obvious pixel count or color saturation. The old photos are rarely perfect; someone is looking the wrong way; eyes are closed; the group is off center or the lighting is wrong. “Take two just in case”. These photos were taken with the cross-your-fingers-and-pray-for-a-good-one cameras of really not too long ago, but they are as real to me as the perfect pictures of today. I knew these people and I love and miss them. Technology can’t change everything.

Art

Middle Georgia has enjoyed an extended spring this year; what old timers refer to as a “real spring”. Fifty degree mornings in mid-May are unusual for this part of the planet as we typically go from winter to summer without an in-between. I am a die-hard cold weather hater, but I have to admit I have enjoyed the mild temperatures.

A big bonus of a lengthy spring is the amount of time we are able to enjoy blooming plants. Flowers. The cool air has probably slowed the growth of my vegetable garden somewhat, but I’ve lived long enough to know that I will soon tire of dragging a garden hose and watching plants I’d known since birth slowly wither in the heat.

Having grown up in a rural area, most of the flowers I was accustomed to were wildflowers. My parents were always slowing down (or stopping) to positively identify some type of roadside plant that had gone unnoticed until it bloomed and I learned the names of many beautiful plants. I’m not saying that we had no store-bought flowers planted in our yard, but I will say that we had more than a few native plants that were allocated from the roadside. Many of these were wildflowers that, not having been manipulated by modern science were not as ornate as their hybrid offspring, but I learned to love and appreciate them nonetheless.

Somewhere along the way I decided that my family’s love of all things growing and blooming was unique. I knew that I was probably one of the only kids in Mrs. Bruner’s science class that knew what a host plant for butterflies was, but I didn’t understand that many of the other kids (and their families) loved flowers and plants for no other reason than that they were beautiful. Simple aesthetic love; art for the sake of art.  The realization that people who would never attend an art show or buy a sculpture; those who could not pronounce the scientific name of a sunflower (or care to even if you helped them) would spend long hours and hundreds of dollars on something as frivolous as flowers.

As we back out of the driveway for our morning commute, my daughter leans back to allow me to look for oncoming traffic; I didn’t even have to ask. We make our first turn and she opens the console, takes out two peppermints, and absently places one in my outstretched palm. She reminds me that today is Friday and pick up will be the normal 3:15 as we come to our last turn before leaving the neighborhood. “Wow!” my daughter exclaims as I automatically tap the brakes expecting the usual family of confused deer to narrowly escape my bumper. “Look at that bush”. When I look at the bright orange flowering shrub that was (until this morning) a nondescript green ball of leaves, I understand why we go to such great lengths to plant flowers.

You Never Know

I was the type of kid that dreamed of having a job long before I was old enough to qualify. My parents offered an allowance for doing things around the house, but like most kids this just didn’t seem like a real job to me. I often wonder why I was so impatient to jump out in to the complicated world of busy adults, but I remember thinking that my life just wasn’t happening fast enough. I’d been preparing for the launch for 13 years! I wish I could have understood back then that at my current age life would happen at lightning speed, but what teenager thinks they will actually live 50 whole years!

I was able to find odd jobs here and there, but of course transportation to and from was always an issue. We didn’t exactly live walking distance to town and the only bus that passed my house was the school bus. So let’s just say that my options were limited. Picking up bottles beside the highway (aluminum cans were yet to be invented) and farm work were really my only options, and trust me when I say that I met very few self-made millionaires in this line of work.

One summer a neighbor with a very large farm planted watermelons. This particular fruit doesn’t lend itself well to mechanical picking and I had high hopes for a good late summer job. I knew I would be perfect for the job because by the end of the summer I had stolen so many of them for personal consumption that I could run the 100 yard dash with one under each arm in less than ten seconds! As luck would have it, me, my brothers and several other kids that lived close by got hired for the job.

I quickly discovered that running with two melons in no way compared to picking up, lugging and tossing melons for eight hours a day. This was real work! I was pretty tired by the end of each day, but I still looked forward to late afternoon when we actually loaded them in to the eighteen-wheeler. At this time I was able to talk to the truck driver and I guess I kind of felt like a big-wheel loading a product for over the road travel! An important cog in the wheel of interstate commerce!

I have never forgotten the day, as we finished loading the last of the trucks with melons, the truck driver came up to me and said “you are a really hard worker; you’re going to make somebody a good man one day”. At this point I would have worked for free! In hindsight this driver could have paid all of the workers this compliment, but I didn’t even consider this at the time. I knew that I had tried really hard and someone had noticed. This lone comment fueled my ambition for many years and in many ways it still does today; if you try hard, others will notice.

I won’t pretend that I thought of this exact moment last night as the 4-H awards presentation we attended came to a close, but the spirit was with me. My wife and I made small talk with the parents of the club members and gave a pat on the back to many of the award winners. But as the crowd began to thin and everyone headed for the exits I motioned for one of the younger club members to come closer so I could tell her something in private. “You are a good speaker” I told her, “Keep at it and you will be better than most of the others who spoke tonight”. You never know what will stick with someone…for fifty years!