I have not posted for a few days due to the increasing pressure the Obama administration keeps putting on me to come up with something to end these wars and to get the economy straightened out. I finally told the guy that keeps calling from the White House to back off and give me some time to think. During this ‘down time’ from the pressures of the world I went to an All-Star 8 and under basketball tournament that my super gifted and good looking grandson Jackson was participating in. Now Jackson played in a league in Huntsville that actually required proof of age by a birth certificate before playing. His little group of 8 and under buddies played other kids that were 8 and under throughout the winter and Jackson’s group did quite well. They won all of their league games and lost a couple to teams from other leagues in exhibition games early on. At the end of the regular season Jackson and six other kids that looked 8 and under were chosen to an All Star team that would play in a District Tournament in Hartselle. Well we went to the tournament last night and believe me there has not been a beat’in put on one team by another since Samson took the jaw bone of an ass to all those Philistines a long time ago.
I am not about to accuse the team from Meridianville of using kids that were 8 and above, they may just grow big in the north end of Madison County, but I do know that we did not have one kid that shaved or drove a car to the game in Hartselle. The final score was 30 something to 6 and most of our points came on free throws. Half way through the fourth quarter the coach from Meridianville took his first team out and three of them left for work. Our little band of seven fought to the end. These kids were determined even if out manned. My Jackson is a pretty good size 8 year old and built exactly like his other grandfather, Billy Neighbors, who happen to win both the Jacobs and Outland Trophies in his All American days at the University of Alabama under Coach Bryant. In most circles Jackson is considered pretty big for his age. Last night Jackson looked like the little brother to Meridianville’s point guard.
I guess we are lucky that kids don’t take stuff as seriously as we adults. Our kids played their hearts out and never quit. Even Jackson who does not take losing at anything lightly was still disappointed but over it by the time he got back to Huntsville. Only us parents and grandparents are still carrying this injustice into today and writing about it as a form of release. My son, Bubba, even tried to explain to me that the smaller towns like Meridianville do not have enough kids to spread them out like Huntsville and that since they only fielded one team made up of the best in the area while Huntsville was bla-bla-bla and bla. Makes no difference to me. When a kid playing in an 8 and under tournament is hairy legged and drives I don’t like it one bit. Years ago in Haleyville we would have locked them in their dressing room or cut the tires on their bus if something like this happened. Spending the night in a dressing room, or trying to find someone in Haleyville to change a tire after 7:00 pm after a ballgame would make you think twice about cheating next time. I guess in a town like Hartselle where they have all night service stations and even the kids have a cell phone those remedies would not work, but we would have figured out something to break them dogs from sucking eggs.
On a much lighter note I have got to mention the smarter side of my family. I had an aunt, Martha Whitt Hoover, who went off to Kentucky and raised a family of really smart people. Her children, which make them my cousins, are all pretty special and the rest of use them on our resumes and any other time we need to shore up our creditability. Her oldest, Greg, is a graduate of West Point and retired after a career in the Army and teaches in Franklin, Tenn. The service warped him to some extent making him a dye-hard, orange blazer wearing Tennessee fan but actually a pretty good sort of fellow. Her third, Meg is a beautiful and talented mother and businesswoman that ended up in San Antonio, Texas with three boys (real boys). The second son is a doctor in Nashville.
Now this entire family is and will be the subject of several of these offerings in the future but I have got to mention something about Brad, the doctor today. Brad was just chosen Dr. of the Year, by his peers and hospital staff in Nashville. Now my uncle Billy made it to the top of Alabama Power Co. and my uncle James was the mayor of Haleyville when 911 was birthed and we claim he invented it, and his son-in-law Ken is now the mayor of Haleyville, but in my opinion Dr. of the Year in a town like Nashville is about as high and any of us descendants W.W. and Maggie ever got. Way to go Brad, you da’ man!
Friday, February 27, 2009
Friday, February 13, 2009
The Science Of Romance: Brains Have A Love Circuit
The Science Of Romance: Brains Have A Love Circuit
“In humans, there are four tiny areas of the brain that some researchers say form a circuit of love. Acevedo, who works at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, is part of a team that has isolated those regions with the unromantic names of ventral tegmental area (VTA), the nucleus accumbens, the ventral pallidum and raphe nucleus.”
I ran across this vitally important information while taking my morning jog through the Huffington Post website. I try to go their daily just long enough to glean something extremely liberal to use in irritating my two boys who believe Bill O’Reily and Rush Limbaugh are the direct descendants of Paul the Apostle and John the beloved disciple. What with Valentine Day just two days away and me being totally broke and unable to shower my wife with anything other apologies and promises of better times the article caught my attention.
“THE SCIENCE OF ROMANCE”, most of us would be hooked by such a line after being bombarded with Hallmark advertising over the last couple of weeks. I really have to admit that after reading it all I was somewhat disappointed. I was looking for the magic lines that Tim McGraw used on his first few dates with Faith Hill or something I could use to make Patsy forget about diamonds or other shiny stuff. Instead I got a continuing education on Mrs. Martha Taylor’s biology class. There won’t be much I can do about ventral tegmental area, the nucleus accumbens, the ventral pallidum and the raphe nucleus. I did not know these places existed before I read the article, would not know how the use them or even where to find them if I tried.
This is the kind of thing I imagine the tax stimulus money is going to fund research on. This is not the ‘science of romance’ as it was billed because romance is something that happens between two ordinary people. Use to be that it was always between a man and a woman; today it apparently can be between two of anything that has breath, shape and form. In any event I don’t think when romancing gets started that a lot of thought goes into kicking up the ventral tegmental area, the nucleus accumbens, the ventral pallidum and the raphe nucleus.
I do think the scientist that have moved us this far in the study of romance could tell us what effect some of the old standard pick-up lines have on these newly discovered areas. For instance, does it affect the ventral tegmental area, when a woman hears “get in the truck” or is the nucleus accumbens stimulated when just seconds later the same woman hears, “get in the truck now, damnit”? What part of the brain turns to mush when a lady hears, “Is there an airport nearby or is that just my heart taking off”? or “What time do you have to be back in heaven”? Real research a man can use is needed here. There are enough science books that set out body parts and organs; we need information we can use.
“In humans, there are four tiny areas of the brain that some researchers say form a circuit of love. Acevedo, who works at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, is part of a team that has isolated those regions with the unromantic names of ventral tegmental area (VTA), the nucleus accumbens, the ventral pallidum and raphe nucleus.”
I ran across this vitally important information while taking my morning jog through the Huffington Post website. I try to go their daily just long enough to glean something extremely liberal to use in irritating my two boys who believe Bill O’Reily and Rush Limbaugh are the direct descendants of Paul the Apostle and John the beloved disciple. What with Valentine Day just two days away and me being totally broke and unable to shower my wife with anything other apologies and promises of better times the article caught my attention.
“THE SCIENCE OF ROMANCE”, most of us would be hooked by such a line after being bombarded with Hallmark advertising over the last couple of weeks. I really have to admit that after reading it all I was somewhat disappointed. I was looking for the magic lines that Tim McGraw used on his first few dates with Faith Hill or something I could use to make Patsy forget about diamonds or other shiny stuff. Instead I got a continuing education on Mrs. Martha Taylor’s biology class. There won’t be much I can do about ventral tegmental area, the nucleus accumbens, the ventral pallidum and the raphe nucleus. I did not know these places existed before I read the article, would not know how the use them or even where to find them if I tried.
This is the kind of thing I imagine the tax stimulus money is going to fund research on. This is not the ‘science of romance’ as it was billed because romance is something that happens between two ordinary people. Use to be that it was always between a man and a woman; today it apparently can be between two of anything that has breath, shape and form. In any event I don’t think when romancing gets started that a lot of thought goes into kicking up the ventral tegmental area, the nucleus accumbens, the ventral pallidum and the raphe nucleus.
I do think the scientist that have moved us this far in the study of romance could tell us what effect some of the old standard pick-up lines have on these newly discovered areas. For instance, does it affect the ventral tegmental area, when a woman hears “get in the truck” or is the nucleus accumbens stimulated when just seconds later the same woman hears, “get in the truck now, damnit”? What part of the brain turns to mush when a lady hears, “Is there an airport nearby or is that just my heart taking off”? or “What time do you have to be back in heaven”? Real research a man can use is needed here. There are enough science books that set out body parts and organs; we need information we can use.
Saturday, February 7, 2009
What Happened to Nicknames?
Nicknames
Did anybody except me ever wonder what happened to nicknames? I live right here in the Heart of Dixie, home to the great tradition of nicknames and hardly ever hear a good or even bad nickname any more. When I was a kid living in the Free State of Winston a politician would not get very far without a good nickname. James “Big Jim” Folsom, Jack “C.C.” Owens, Ben “Uncle Ben” Dodd, “Cotton Tom” Heflin and many more ran successful campaigns in large part because they were just good ole boys the people could trust. Ty ‘the Georgia Peach’ Cobb, “Slingin Sammy” Baugh, Wilt “the Stilt” Chamberlain, Walt “Sweetness” Peyton and many others ruled the world of sports.
There is just something you like about someone with a nickname. In my world I can remember the boys and men having great nicknames, certainly ones that were commonly used in the community. We had some for a few girls but you wouldn’t say them in front of your mother so I don’t consider them legitimate nicknames. Nicknames were not always shorter than the proper name. Tab Partain was known to most as ‘Tabulator’. Many of my dad’s buddies passed on using his real name, Jack, and called him ‘no-buttons’, a handle derived from the fact he ran a laundry and some of their shirts were sometimes returned sans buttons. In that, the greatest generation, in our small town alone there was ‘Slick’ Long, ‘Spike’ Dobbs, ‘Cotton’ McCellan, ‘Son’ Drake, ‘Top’ Dobbs, ‘Bubba’ Scott (who my son is named after) and ‘Rut’ Rutledge just to name a few. There was nothing demeaning or ugly meant by using a man’s nickname it was just a way of life. In thinking I have come to consider it as another sign of closeness and familiarity we have lost in this generation. People that did not know you called you by your proper name and only those who really knew you used the nickname.
My generation had not reached the degree of complication and separation we have today so we just naturally picked up on what our fathers started. In my small high school with the staggering number of 57 in my senior class we had a wealth of names. Jim ‘Monk’ Roberts, whose nickname I never knew the origin of even though we were close. Ray Joe ‘Pano’ Cagle whose name came from someone’s determination that a shirt he wore at least one day was made from the same material panties were fashioned from. Bobby ‘SOB’ Masdon, who because he grew up with two older brothers and a sister, in a neighborhood where most all the kids were older than him and continually kept him at the point of tears in his early life that he was dubbed ‘SOB’ as short for sobbing. We were almost out of high school before be even realized what the initials stood for to a lot of people. We had Teddy ‘Screw’ Driver and James ‘Cotton’ Postell. We had Larry ‘Big Daddy’ Barron, Jerry ‘Chigger’ Wilson and Jimmy ‘Chinck’ Wilson. The Wilson boys you could not use their nicknames to their face because it would shorten your life but alone in a watermelon patch without them around you would utter their nicknames to make you feel a little braver. Although I neither have the time or space to include all in my generation I would feel bad if I did not remember Wayne ‘Beef’ Crumpton, Robert ‘Stud’ Blake and Stanley ‘Stretch’ Thornton. I must also include some of my closest friends with multiple nicknames. James Cecil Long was ‘Geese’ or ‘Goose’ until the early part of Junior High when he lost a lot of weight and really slimmed up to then become known as ‘Skinny’. Jimmy Kent Israel who grew up with two brothers and a slightly older uncle also had two nicknames during this time. Jimmy Kent is still known to me as ‘Kibo’ or ‘Nat’. I think his Uncle Dicky had a lot to do with this confusion.
Two more categories I only have time to touch on are important. The nicknames you had for teachers and other adults that could only be used in secret and certainly not in front of these centers of influence. We had F.A. ‘FA’ Harvey, a principle from the early days of our education. We had Ted ‘Willy Dogan’ Logan, a much beloved assistant coach. The afore mentioned H. L. ‘Bubba’ Scott who for some reason we named ‘Hand Jive’ or simply ‘Jive’ in the darker days of preseason practice. Bill ‘Skin’ Hyde another coach who went on to an outstanding career and the unforgettable ‘Flab’ Babcock a band director that allowed me into our marching band while I was in the third grade and unable to play a note, simply because even at that age I was big enough to wear a uniform. My mother let me march in the band but I couldn’t play an instrument or ride the bus to events, which really hurt my pride.
I think if I ever run for office I will run as Jack ‘The Ripper’ Norman. Pretty catching.
Did anybody except me ever wonder what happened to nicknames? I live right here in the Heart of Dixie, home to the great tradition of nicknames and hardly ever hear a good or even bad nickname any more. When I was a kid living in the Free State of Winston a politician would not get very far without a good nickname. James “Big Jim” Folsom, Jack “C.C.” Owens, Ben “Uncle Ben” Dodd, “Cotton Tom” Heflin and many more ran successful campaigns in large part because they were just good ole boys the people could trust. Ty ‘the Georgia Peach’ Cobb, “Slingin Sammy” Baugh, Wilt “the Stilt” Chamberlain, Walt “Sweetness” Peyton and many others ruled the world of sports.
There is just something you like about someone with a nickname. In my world I can remember the boys and men having great nicknames, certainly ones that were commonly used in the community. We had some for a few girls but you wouldn’t say them in front of your mother so I don’t consider them legitimate nicknames. Nicknames were not always shorter than the proper name. Tab Partain was known to most as ‘Tabulator’. Many of my dad’s buddies passed on using his real name, Jack, and called him ‘no-buttons’, a handle derived from the fact he ran a laundry and some of their shirts were sometimes returned sans buttons. In that, the greatest generation, in our small town alone there was ‘Slick’ Long, ‘Spike’ Dobbs, ‘Cotton’ McCellan, ‘Son’ Drake, ‘Top’ Dobbs, ‘Bubba’ Scott (who my son is named after) and ‘Rut’ Rutledge just to name a few. There was nothing demeaning or ugly meant by using a man’s nickname it was just a way of life. In thinking I have come to consider it as another sign of closeness and familiarity we have lost in this generation. People that did not know you called you by your proper name and only those who really knew you used the nickname.
My generation had not reached the degree of complication and separation we have today so we just naturally picked up on what our fathers started. In my small high school with the staggering number of 57 in my senior class we had a wealth of names. Jim ‘Monk’ Roberts, whose nickname I never knew the origin of even though we were close. Ray Joe ‘Pano’ Cagle whose name came from someone’s determination that a shirt he wore at least one day was made from the same material panties were fashioned from. Bobby ‘SOB’ Masdon, who because he grew up with two older brothers and a sister, in a neighborhood where most all the kids were older than him and continually kept him at the point of tears in his early life that he was dubbed ‘SOB’ as short for sobbing. We were almost out of high school before be even realized what the initials stood for to a lot of people. We had Teddy ‘Screw’ Driver and James ‘Cotton’ Postell. We had Larry ‘Big Daddy’ Barron, Jerry ‘Chigger’ Wilson and Jimmy ‘Chinck’ Wilson. The Wilson boys you could not use their nicknames to their face because it would shorten your life but alone in a watermelon patch without them around you would utter their nicknames to make you feel a little braver. Although I neither have the time or space to include all in my generation I would feel bad if I did not remember Wayne ‘Beef’ Crumpton, Robert ‘Stud’ Blake and Stanley ‘Stretch’ Thornton. I must also include some of my closest friends with multiple nicknames. James Cecil Long was ‘Geese’ or ‘Goose’ until the early part of Junior High when he lost a lot of weight and really slimmed up to then become known as ‘Skinny’. Jimmy Kent Israel who grew up with two brothers and a slightly older uncle also had two nicknames during this time. Jimmy Kent is still known to me as ‘Kibo’ or ‘Nat’. I think his Uncle Dicky had a lot to do with this confusion.
Two more categories I only have time to touch on are important. The nicknames you had for teachers and other adults that could only be used in secret and certainly not in front of these centers of influence. We had F.A. ‘FA’ Harvey, a principle from the early days of our education. We had Ted ‘Willy Dogan’ Logan, a much beloved assistant coach. The afore mentioned H. L. ‘Bubba’ Scott who for some reason we named ‘Hand Jive’ or simply ‘Jive’ in the darker days of preseason practice. Bill ‘Skin’ Hyde another coach who went on to an outstanding career and the unforgettable ‘Flab’ Babcock a band director that allowed me into our marching band while I was in the third grade and unable to play a note, simply because even at that age I was big enough to wear a uniform. My mother let me march in the band but I couldn’t play an instrument or ride the bus to events, which really hurt my pride.
I think if I ever run for office I will run as Jack ‘The Ripper’ Norman. Pretty catching.
Friday, February 6, 2009
Brain Drain or You Got to be Kidding
Brain Drain Blues
In debating the President’s economic recovery package, specifically the limit on compensation for executives, the Repubs are getting a little touchy. Sen. Claire McCaskill said the financial executives just don’t get it. “It’s like they are kicking sand in the face of the American people,” said Sen. McCaskill when referring to the continued extravagance in the boardrooms of the ‘big money’ recipients of the previous TARP funds and the hat in hand beggars now soliciting more ‘Bail Out’ money from the government.
Just a day after the President suggested a paltry $500,000.00 per year cap on the executives of companies taking our money to get their companies out of hock, the ‘trickle down’ boys began to squeal like stuck pigs. I’m sure the faxes, e-mails and lobbying buddies were covering the old money politicians like one of those new ‘Snugglies’ we see daily advertised on T.V. Most every imaginable excuse is now being made to avoid such common sense legislation. I think the dumbest is the one made by the former President of Merrill, Lynch, the guy whose reason for spending $1,250,000.00 to redecorate his office, while his company lost 20 Billion dollars in the last quarter of last year, was because he just didn’t feel like he could work in the old place. This genius actually told a live reporter on a network show he felt he had to pay the year end bonuses for his company, which amounted to over a billion dollars, because if he did not he was going to lose his good people. Good people! What part of losing 20 billion dollars does this fool not understand? Right this minute, I can get in my car and drive across town to the sale barn and put together a group of Mexican farm workers, not the farm owners but the illegal’s that can not speak English, and live twelve to a two bedroom trailer and together we can’t lose 20 BILLION DOLLARS in a year, much less a quarter. If I could gather the actual farmers and throw in my barber Vic, we could maybe make at least a couple of percentage points or at least make more than we making now and have a little left over for the investors.
One insider that agreed with the President on the limitations suggested that big time executives might even be required to qualify for their pay in the same manner that unemployment compensation recipients do. That is they must prove that they are working a minimum of 40 hours per week on the job. They could not count the time they spent reading the Wall Street Journal or commuting in company cars with paid drivers or flying in company air craft. That each company should be required to charge for meals in executive dining rooms and that outside executive meals be limited to a set per diem as is the case for other government employees until all government money is repaid. He noted that full control over the affairs of the company be returned to its Board and Executives as soon as all the government money is repaid and the company is operating on it own. The response to this has been strong. It is unheard of, the panic mentality abounds that we would be risking the loss of the geniuses of the financial world. "It's a leap, because the executive at the bank is a free agent who can leave the bank and go to work someplace else," said Sen. Bob Bennett (R-UT) of the welfare comparison. "You run the risk of having a brain drain at the bank of their top talent." Lord forbid us having a brain drain in our financial world. Where are they going? I can just hear a potential employer now asking during the interview portion of the hiring process, “why’d you leave your last job Mr. member of the brain drain”? “Oh, I lost the company 20 Billion last quarter and they wanted to cut my pay to a mere $500,000.00 next year and I just can’t live on that,” Brain Drain would reply. We’ve already lost the genius of George W. in the White House, Donald Rumsfield in the Pentagon. If this happen the only thing holding this nation together would be Bill O’Rielly and Rush Limbaugh and it is doubtful the the two of them could prevail against hords of common citizens that would like to see this nation work the way it was designed to work. For the people and by the people.
God save our nation from the great brain drain of smart people that have governed our country and its markets for the last eight years.
In debating the President’s economic recovery package, specifically the limit on compensation for executives, the Repubs are getting a little touchy. Sen. Claire McCaskill said the financial executives just don’t get it. “It’s like they are kicking sand in the face of the American people,” said Sen. McCaskill when referring to the continued extravagance in the boardrooms of the ‘big money’ recipients of the previous TARP funds and the hat in hand beggars now soliciting more ‘Bail Out’ money from the government.
Just a day after the President suggested a paltry $500,000.00 per year cap on the executives of companies taking our money to get their companies out of hock, the ‘trickle down’ boys began to squeal like stuck pigs. I’m sure the faxes, e-mails and lobbying buddies were covering the old money politicians like one of those new ‘Snugglies’ we see daily advertised on T.V. Most every imaginable excuse is now being made to avoid such common sense legislation. I think the dumbest is the one made by the former President of Merrill, Lynch, the guy whose reason for spending $1,250,000.00 to redecorate his office, while his company lost 20 Billion dollars in the last quarter of last year, was because he just didn’t feel like he could work in the old place. This genius actually told a live reporter on a network show he felt he had to pay the year end bonuses for his company, which amounted to over a billion dollars, because if he did not he was going to lose his good people. Good people! What part of losing 20 billion dollars does this fool not understand? Right this minute, I can get in my car and drive across town to the sale barn and put together a group of Mexican farm workers, not the farm owners but the illegal’s that can not speak English, and live twelve to a two bedroom trailer and together we can’t lose 20 BILLION DOLLARS in a year, much less a quarter. If I could gather the actual farmers and throw in my barber Vic, we could maybe make at least a couple of percentage points or at least make more than we making now and have a little left over for the investors.
One insider that agreed with the President on the limitations suggested that big time executives might even be required to qualify for their pay in the same manner that unemployment compensation recipients do. That is they must prove that they are working a minimum of 40 hours per week on the job. They could not count the time they spent reading the Wall Street Journal or commuting in company cars with paid drivers or flying in company air craft. That each company should be required to charge for meals in executive dining rooms and that outside executive meals be limited to a set per diem as is the case for other government employees until all government money is repaid. He noted that full control over the affairs of the company be returned to its Board and Executives as soon as all the government money is repaid and the company is operating on it own. The response to this has been strong. It is unheard of, the panic mentality abounds that we would be risking the loss of the geniuses of the financial world. "It's a leap, because the executive at the bank is a free agent who can leave the bank and go to work someplace else," said Sen. Bob Bennett (R-UT) of the welfare comparison. "You run the risk of having a brain drain at the bank of their top talent." Lord forbid us having a brain drain in our financial world. Where are they going? I can just hear a potential employer now asking during the interview portion of the hiring process, “why’d you leave your last job Mr. member of the brain drain”? “Oh, I lost the company 20 Billion last quarter and they wanted to cut my pay to a mere $500,000.00 next year and I just can’t live on that,” Brain Drain would reply. We’ve already lost the genius of George W. in the White House, Donald Rumsfield in the Pentagon. If this happen the only thing holding this nation together would be Bill O’Rielly and Rush Limbaugh and it is doubtful the the two of them could prevail against hords of common citizens that would like to see this nation work the way it was designed to work. For the people and by the people.
God save our nation from the great brain drain of smart people that have governed our country and its markets for the last eight years.
Monday, February 2, 2009
KNOCKED OUT THE PITCHER!!!
It happened about this time of year 46 years ago and I still get nightmares about one of the top three bad events in my life. I was a junior in high school and totally secure in my little world of Haleyville, Alabama, the greatest place to grow up in during the 60’s. During the winter I’d been named a captain of the next year’s football team, I was making pretty good grades and dating the drum majorette of the band. In Haleyville during that time high school football players were the kings of the town year round and could do no wrong. Spring sports were played for pure enjoyment and to give us kids an excuse from working during that time of year. The coaches that coached football in the fall and for a few weeks in the spring coached our baseball and track teams and got us to and from the other small towns in the area for games.
Since I was the biggest and was by far the slowest kid on our baseball team I naturally got the call to catch. I was a decent catcher for our time and size of school but mostly I was the only one that would fit the chest protector that had been bought years before when the school had a real catcher. I stopped a high percentage of the balls thrown at me and on occasion, if I had a base runner as slow as I was, I could get the ball to James Cecil Long who usually covered second for a put out. On offense I often hit the ball but was so slow I have been known to suffer a put out at first from a ball hit to left field. Fortunately for me we did not have anybody else that could wear the chest protector so I got to play on a regular basis.
Another big downer for baseball in our little hometown, and most of our area, was the lack of decent facilities to play on. In Haleyville we played in a field out near the Armory that I guess the American Legion had built many years before. The backstop was made of some old power poles (I’m sure Alabama Power found missing on some inventory) covered with chicken wire that had been salvaged from farms when the chicken industry moved from yards to chicken houses. The dugouts were only benches set fairly close to the first and third base lines due to the fact roadways separated by huge ditches ran immediately behind them. Not much chance to make a play on a foul ball since the player making the play was in danger of falling into a 4 to 8 foot ditch if he got outside the benches.
We did have from time to time some pretty good baseball players. Bob Masdon, a lifelong friend was probably the best I ever played with. When Bob was 15 he hitched a ride with some older kids to Winfield where the Cincinnati Reds were holding tryouts. Bob lied about his age when he registered that morning and he did so well in the tryout that the guys running them tried to offer him a contract. He had to confess his true age and go home empty handed. The victim of my misadventures was a pitcher named Talmadge Goodwin. Talmadge was a pitcher unequaled during our time as high school baseball wannabes. Talmadge was the real thing, the first guy who could really throw a ball through a car wash and have it come out dry, that is if we had car washes during that time. He had every pitch and heat to burn, but unfortunately I was his catcher and because of me he never made it past playing for the Pete Miller All-Stars, on Sunday afternoon in Winston and Walker County against the likes of Nauvoo and Carbon Hill.
To showcase Talmadge and Bob and some other fairly good players our coach scheduled a game in Florence against Coffee High School that fateful day in the spring of 1962. The entire team crammed into three old army surplus cars the booster club had bought for the athletic department and headed for Florence and our shot at the big time. As we unloaded we could just a well been at Wrigley Field or Yankee Stadium, as I remember it today it was beautiful. A field with grass on the infield, smooth, rock less red clay base paths and hitters boxes, on deck circles on both sides of the plate and most important a fence completely surrounding the park with yardage signs down both power alleys and in straightaway center. It could not have been more beautiful. In contrast most of us didn’t even have matching pants and jerseys.
Uniformed umpires met at home plate with both coaches and after the normal warm-ups the game began. I don’t remember exactly, but I do know that we had a base runner or two in that first inning but failed to score any runs. Scouts from several colleges and a few professional scouts had come primarily to see this kid, Talmadge Goodwin from Haleyville throw and check out all the rumors making the rounds in those days. I was catching this star and was in total awe of the whole thing, maybe too much in awe. Talmadge warmed up from the mound to start the bottom half of the first inning. He had his best stuff for this big day. His fastball was literally knocking my mitt off my hand and all the breaking stuff was moving like a roller coaster car on a fast track. Every scout had his eye on this phenom and Haleyville was about to make its mark on the baseball world, except for one small problem. Talmadge signaled me that the warm up was complete and to ‘throw-it-down’, the last ritual before bringing the batter to the plate. As Talmadge threw the last pitch a hopping curve ball, he turned his back to the plate and bent over to pickup a rosin bag lying next to the pitching rubber. I caught the ball and with my best move jumped from my squat and fired the ball to James Cecil at second. I fired just as Talmadge raised up from his bent over position.
I never saw the ball come down. I did see it hit Talmadge in the back of his head and I saw it careen skyward, I promise I never saw it come down. Our hero was fallen, not in combat but from my very own friendly fire. The hauled him off on a stretcher and we picked up him at the hospital in the army surplus car on the way home. Talmadge signed a football scholarship later that spring to Alabama but never played a down. I have always wondered what would have happened if I had now knocked him out of not only his but our whole teams biggest game.
Talmadge is dead now (not from my throw) and he never held my throw against me, but I will never forget it. That throw would have been perfect if he had just stayed down and left it alone.
Since I was the biggest and was by far the slowest kid on our baseball team I naturally got the call to catch. I was a decent catcher for our time and size of school but mostly I was the only one that would fit the chest protector that had been bought years before when the school had a real catcher. I stopped a high percentage of the balls thrown at me and on occasion, if I had a base runner as slow as I was, I could get the ball to James Cecil Long who usually covered second for a put out. On offense I often hit the ball but was so slow I have been known to suffer a put out at first from a ball hit to left field. Fortunately for me we did not have anybody else that could wear the chest protector so I got to play on a regular basis.
Another big downer for baseball in our little hometown, and most of our area, was the lack of decent facilities to play on. In Haleyville we played in a field out near the Armory that I guess the American Legion had built many years before. The backstop was made of some old power poles (I’m sure Alabama Power found missing on some inventory) covered with chicken wire that had been salvaged from farms when the chicken industry moved from yards to chicken houses. The dugouts were only benches set fairly close to the first and third base lines due to the fact roadways separated by huge ditches ran immediately behind them. Not much chance to make a play on a foul ball since the player making the play was in danger of falling into a 4 to 8 foot ditch if he got outside the benches.
We did have from time to time some pretty good baseball players. Bob Masdon, a lifelong friend was probably the best I ever played with. When Bob was 15 he hitched a ride with some older kids to Winfield where the Cincinnati Reds were holding tryouts. Bob lied about his age when he registered that morning and he did so well in the tryout that the guys running them tried to offer him a contract. He had to confess his true age and go home empty handed. The victim of my misadventures was a pitcher named Talmadge Goodwin. Talmadge was a pitcher unequaled during our time as high school baseball wannabes. Talmadge was the real thing, the first guy who could really throw a ball through a car wash and have it come out dry, that is if we had car washes during that time. He had every pitch and heat to burn, but unfortunately I was his catcher and because of me he never made it past playing for the Pete Miller All-Stars, on Sunday afternoon in Winston and Walker County against the likes of Nauvoo and Carbon Hill.
To showcase Talmadge and Bob and some other fairly good players our coach scheduled a game in Florence against Coffee High School that fateful day in the spring of 1962. The entire team crammed into three old army surplus cars the booster club had bought for the athletic department and headed for Florence and our shot at the big time. As we unloaded we could just a well been at Wrigley Field or Yankee Stadium, as I remember it today it was beautiful. A field with grass on the infield, smooth, rock less red clay base paths and hitters boxes, on deck circles on both sides of the plate and most important a fence completely surrounding the park with yardage signs down both power alleys and in straightaway center. It could not have been more beautiful. In contrast most of us didn’t even have matching pants and jerseys.
Uniformed umpires met at home plate with both coaches and after the normal warm-ups the game began. I don’t remember exactly, but I do know that we had a base runner or two in that first inning but failed to score any runs. Scouts from several colleges and a few professional scouts had come primarily to see this kid, Talmadge Goodwin from Haleyville throw and check out all the rumors making the rounds in those days. I was catching this star and was in total awe of the whole thing, maybe too much in awe. Talmadge warmed up from the mound to start the bottom half of the first inning. He had his best stuff for this big day. His fastball was literally knocking my mitt off my hand and all the breaking stuff was moving like a roller coaster car on a fast track. Every scout had his eye on this phenom and Haleyville was about to make its mark on the baseball world, except for one small problem. Talmadge signaled me that the warm up was complete and to ‘throw-it-down’, the last ritual before bringing the batter to the plate. As Talmadge threw the last pitch a hopping curve ball, he turned his back to the plate and bent over to pickup a rosin bag lying next to the pitching rubber. I caught the ball and with my best move jumped from my squat and fired the ball to James Cecil at second. I fired just as Talmadge raised up from his bent over position.
I never saw the ball come down. I did see it hit Talmadge in the back of his head and I saw it careen skyward, I promise I never saw it come down. Our hero was fallen, not in combat but from my very own friendly fire. The hauled him off on a stretcher and we picked up him at the hospital in the army surplus car on the way home. Talmadge signed a football scholarship later that spring to Alabama but never played a down. I have always wondered what would have happened if I had now knocked him out of not only his but our whole teams biggest game.
Talmadge is dead now (not from my throw) and he never held my throw against me, but I will never forget it. That throw would have been perfect if he had just stayed down and left it alone.
WHO IS GOING TO D-BONE THE CHICKEN IN OBAMA’S NEW WORLD?
I want to preface anything I say here with the acknowledgement that I think President Obama is the best thing to happen to our country in a long time. I think he has the intelligence and insights to not only see but to understand where divisive and bipartisan politics have taken us over the years since we were truly united for a long period of time. I have been a fan of this dynamic young leader since his appearance at the Democratic convention four years ago and my admiration has done nothing but grow since that night over four years ago. I have watch his campaign over the last two years and intently followed his evolution to the oval office and I firmly believe he is definitely the man for the job he now holds.
My question today is not whether the plans and policies in the inaugural address can become a reality, my question is will we be able to find people willing to fill the stimulus jobs the President proposes. I do not think it will be hard to reach a consensus among Republicans and Democrats on designing or funding such stimulus programs. The majority by now realizes that cash must begin to flow to the middle and lower portions of our economic structure. Somebody has got to have the money to buy a new mattress or big-screen T.V. Fixing the car companies is a total waste of money if there is not going to be someone to buy the new cars they produce. The problem I see is that it is going to be hard to get someone to take one of those stimulus jobs if he can make “livin money” doing nothing and drawing food stamps and other “government money”. Granted the stimulus wages would probably be higher but so is the wage for cooking at McDonalds and working for landscaping companies which only the Hispanic members of our society will take now. Poultry plants across the south are almost 100% staffed by Hispanics who are the only applicants for the jobs. What is going to be the motivation to get this vast wave of Americans to take a job working on ‘shovel ready’ highway project in the middle of winter or heat of summer when they will not d-bone a chicken for $9.00 an hour in an air-conditioned building.
There is a large number of high-end unemployed that have lost their jobs and life savings due to the current crisis with a very good work ethic and desire to become re-employed. These people are the baby boomers who have a strong appreciation of work and the ability to provide for their families. They have a pride that will not allow them to ‘live off the government” and they want to work, the problem with them is that they have reached an age where physical labor is no longer practical. Repairing the infrastructure and ‘greening’ or nation is going to require hard grueling work these people could not do because of physical limitations.
I know President Obama is smart and God only knows he is going to need to be. We do not need to create more jobs for our Hispanic neighbors to man while sending their income home to Mexico and other South American countries. I am in full agreement that Public Work jobs similar to those of Roosevelt in the Great Depression are one way to get cash into the economy. It has worked before and will work again; the trick is to see to it that this great entitlement society recognizes that work is a precedent to being entitled to anything. This is going to be hard. There will not be any marching bands or celebrity galas going on while the tough stuff gets done. Everyone talks about readjusting our economy, which is not going to be hard to do. Readjusting our sense of entitlement is going to be the real bitch in this thing.
I think my man Obama can do it!!
My question today is not whether the plans and policies in the inaugural address can become a reality, my question is will we be able to find people willing to fill the stimulus jobs the President proposes. I do not think it will be hard to reach a consensus among Republicans and Democrats on designing or funding such stimulus programs. The majority by now realizes that cash must begin to flow to the middle and lower portions of our economic structure. Somebody has got to have the money to buy a new mattress or big-screen T.V. Fixing the car companies is a total waste of money if there is not going to be someone to buy the new cars they produce. The problem I see is that it is going to be hard to get someone to take one of those stimulus jobs if he can make “livin money” doing nothing and drawing food stamps and other “government money”. Granted the stimulus wages would probably be higher but so is the wage for cooking at McDonalds and working for landscaping companies which only the Hispanic members of our society will take now. Poultry plants across the south are almost 100% staffed by Hispanics who are the only applicants for the jobs. What is going to be the motivation to get this vast wave of Americans to take a job working on ‘shovel ready’ highway project in the middle of winter or heat of summer when they will not d-bone a chicken for $9.00 an hour in an air-conditioned building.
There is a large number of high-end unemployed that have lost their jobs and life savings due to the current crisis with a very good work ethic and desire to become re-employed. These people are the baby boomers who have a strong appreciation of work and the ability to provide for their families. They have a pride that will not allow them to ‘live off the government” and they want to work, the problem with them is that they have reached an age where physical labor is no longer practical. Repairing the infrastructure and ‘greening’ or nation is going to require hard grueling work these people could not do because of physical limitations.
I know President Obama is smart and God only knows he is going to need to be. We do not need to create more jobs for our Hispanic neighbors to man while sending their income home to Mexico and other South American countries. I am in full agreement that Public Work jobs similar to those of Roosevelt in the Great Depression are one way to get cash into the economy. It has worked before and will work again; the trick is to see to it that this great entitlement society recognizes that work is a precedent to being entitled to anything. This is going to be hard. There will not be any marching bands or celebrity galas going on while the tough stuff gets done. Everyone talks about readjusting our economy, which is not going to be hard to do. Readjusting our sense of entitlement is going to be the real bitch in this thing.
I think my man Obama can do it!!
Smart People
I hate to be one of those guys who is always pointing out a problem but never offers any solutions. My last entry pointed out what we should not be looking for in this season of 'bailout and stimulus' but did little to shed any light on what we should be looking for this year. I know I said we had better get someone smarter than me anybody I ever knew but failed to give any examples. After giving this some thought over the last two days I have a few suggestions for the type of person that should be considered.
The first example I thought of was the person who invented ‘spell-check’. Now this man or woman is smart, double barrel smart. Not only did they have a tremendous vocabulary, they know how to spell all the words correctly and even invented a process that identifies your mistake instantly and gives you options about what you are trying to say. When you think about what this invention saves just in onionskin copies and eraser rubber alone it is phenomenal. Millions and millions of trees have been saved and secretaries all over the world are spending more time at home and with their kids than can be imagined.
My next candidate would be the man or woman who invented the pull-top drink can opener that stays on the can and does not pull off to become either litter or a small weapon for self-mutilation. During the 60’s and 70’s when the first generation of pull tops were first introduced many strange and sometimes dangerous practices were adopted for disposing of the shiny little rings. A lot of our neighbors from north of Kentucky (Yankees) found themselves collecting these little baubles and stringing them together for home interior decorations. Strings of thousands were used to decorate family rooms, man caves and neighborhood bars. Now this practice certainly was a big help in keeping the Great Lakes litter free from the vast amounts of aluminum left around their shores by beer drinkers but really did nothing for the home décor of the area. Here in the South we also became pretty good at stringing the little aluminum flaps together but we used them mostly for body and automobile decorations and cheap jewelry. A lot of our women still carry the scars of being slightly lacerated around the neck and arms from necklaces and bracelets given them by their boyfriends after a day at the lake, fishing and supposedly drinking beer. We also used the little chains for decorating of our cars during that time. Nothing said ‘I’m a man’, like a string of beer can tabs artfully draped around our sun visors, rear view mirrors and back windows. Of course to our mothers they were from Coke cans but to those who mattered they were always from the vast amount of beer we could handle.
My last nomination must go to the inventor of the greatest invention in history. I think the feeling is almost unanimous that the person who invented the ‘Thermos’ bottle was the world’s greatest inventor and probably smart enough to lead this country for four years. I know it started with as a joke but who among us after hearing that old joke is not still thinking about the truth contained in the humor. You take an inanimate object like a ‘Thermos’ bottle and pour something hot into it early in the morning and it is still hot late in the afternoon. You take something cold and pour it into the same bottle early in the morning and then in the late afternoon it is still cold, and the question still baffles us as to how it knows just what we expect it to do. Now all of us snicker when we hear this old joke, but we really don’t know and we always leave pondering that last question,
“How do it know”.
Smart people come few and far between.
The first example I thought of was the person who invented ‘spell-check’. Now this man or woman is smart, double barrel smart. Not only did they have a tremendous vocabulary, they know how to spell all the words correctly and even invented a process that identifies your mistake instantly and gives you options about what you are trying to say. When you think about what this invention saves just in onionskin copies and eraser rubber alone it is phenomenal. Millions and millions of trees have been saved and secretaries all over the world are spending more time at home and with their kids than can be imagined.
My next candidate would be the man or woman who invented the pull-top drink can opener that stays on the can and does not pull off to become either litter or a small weapon for self-mutilation. During the 60’s and 70’s when the first generation of pull tops were first introduced many strange and sometimes dangerous practices were adopted for disposing of the shiny little rings. A lot of our neighbors from north of Kentucky (Yankees) found themselves collecting these little baubles and stringing them together for home interior decorations. Strings of thousands were used to decorate family rooms, man caves and neighborhood bars. Now this practice certainly was a big help in keeping the Great Lakes litter free from the vast amounts of aluminum left around their shores by beer drinkers but really did nothing for the home décor of the area. Here in the South we also became pretty good at stringing the little aluminum flaps together but we used them mostly for body and automobile decorations and cheap jewelry. A lot of our women still carry the scars of being slightly lacerated around the neck and arms from necklaces and bracelets given them by their boyfriends after a day at the lake, fishing and supposedly drinking beer. We also used the little chains for decorating of our cars during that time. Nothing said ‘I’m a man’, like a string of beer can tabs artfully draped around our sun visors, rear view mirrors and back windows. Of course to our mothers they were from Coke cans but to those who mattered they were always from the vast amount of beer we could handle.
My last nomination must go to the inventor of the greatest invention in history. I think the feeling is almost unanimous that the person who invented the ‘Thermos’ bottle was the world’s greatest inventor and probably smart enough to lead this country for four years. I know it started with as a joke but who among us after hearing that old joke is not still thinking about the truth contained in the humor. You take an inanimate object like a ‘Thermos’ bottle and pour something hot into it early in the morning and it is still hot late in the afternoon. You take something cold and pour it into the same bottle early in the morning and then in the late afternoon it is still cold, and the question still baffles us as to how it knows just what we expect it to do. Now all of us snicker when we hear this old joke, but we really don’t know and we always leave pondering that last question,
“How do it know”.
Smart people come few and far between.
"In God we Trust"
I got one of those e-mails today that threatened me with total separation from the human family if I failed to pass it on to everybody in my contact list. I am ashamed to admit it but those things nearly always get my attention. The only ones that I feel safe in ignoring are the ones with pictures of either puppies or clouds over quotes from some dead person about inner peace or knowing one’s self. The rest, that include pictures of soldiers, flags, little kids or God, I feel compelled to pass along to selected contacts that I don’t mind embarrassing myself with. You easily decide which ones go to your perverted friends and which ones you send to the people in your Sunday school class.
One came today I quickly closed deciding it posed no real threat to my future well-being and would not cause any bad consequences if I simply deleted it right then and there. As the day went on I kept thinking about the ideas that e-mail contained and its message made more and more sense to me the longer I thought about it. The jest of the message was that if the anti Christians wanted to insist in taking “In God we Trust” off anything related to the government, then the rest of us should simply start using the phrase on any and everything we do. The more I thought about this idea the more sense it seemed to make.
I have never agreed with the Roy Moore thinking that it was the government’s place to spread my religious beliefs to our fellow citizens. I think that is akin to expecting the government to raise our children, care for our old folks and to enforce a system of morality and religion we want to believe in but don’t want the responsibility of perpetuating. That is not the government’s job and Christ taught us that lesson while he was here.
The idea in the e-mail today was for Christians around the world to tag ourselves as believers by using the ‘In God we Trust’ thought in everything we do. To include the phrase in our signature lines on all our correspondence, on our business cards, in our literature and in way we communicate with others. The more I thought about the impact of this simple effort the more I liked it. Every person that has contact with a person following this discipline would be witnessed to, hopefully many times every day. In doing this a person is not saying he or she is better than anyone else, more saintly or better than the next guy. They are simply letting everyone he or she knows and deals with daily know they have a God in whom they trust. How many more times would God’s name of be brought to the attention of countless millions of people a day if we all started including this simple statement on everything we did.
The phrase is not offensive. It promotes no church or denomination, it is adaptable and relevant to all religions in the world today, it simply identifies one as a person who trusts God. To those who have no use or need for a God it means no more than a person saying ‘I’m a man’ or ‘I’m an American’. To those who do believe or are searching it can be an affirmation of their own belief or an encouragement in that there are others who do believe and are not afraid to proclaim that belief. This movement has the potential to witness to countless people every day and bring them together as believers.
It is past the time for us to depend on government to perpetuate the spirit of our faith. I would have no problem offending anyone this simple statement would offend. If I’m living my faith as I think I should I might even cause someone else to become a little bolder in his or her own spiritual walk.
I’ve already deleted the message I got this morning. It really made much more sense than these ramblings I tried to write here, but I hope at least one person more gets the message I’m trying to send. If you think I’m a religious nut or if I may offend anyone I would simply say: ‘take a ticket and get on to the back of the line’. You’ve got to trust someone and I’ll take the one I choose everyday.
‘In God I Trust’
One came today I quickly closed deciding it posed no real threat to my future well-being and would not cause any bad consequences if I simply deleted it right then and there. As the day went on I kept thinking about the ideas that e-mail contained and its message made more and more sense to me the longer I thought about it. The jest of the message was that if the anti Christians wanted to insist in taking “In God we Trust” off anything related to the government, then the rest of us should simply start using the phrase on any and everything we do. The more I thought about this idea the more sense it seemed to make.
I have never agreed with the Roy Moore thinking that it was the government’s place to spread my religious beliefs to our fellow citizens. I think that is akin to expecting the government to raise our children, care for our old folks and to enforce a system of morality and religion we want to believe in but don’t want the responsibility of perpetuating. That is not the government’s job and Christ taught us that lesson while he was here.
The idea in the e-mail today was for Christians around the world to tag ourselves as believers by using the ‘In God we Trust’ thought in everything we do. To include the phrase in our signature lines on all our correspondence, on our business cards, in our literature and in way we communicate with others. The more I thought about the impact of this simple effort the more I liked it. Every person that has contact with a person following this discipline would be witnessed to, hopefully many times every day. In doing this a person is not saying he or she is better than anyone else, more saintly or better than the next guy. They are simply letting everyone he or she knows and deals with daily know they have a God in whom they trust. How many more times would God’s name of be brought to the attention of countless millions of people a day if we all started including this simple statement on everything we did.
The phrase is not offensive. It promotes no church or denomination, it is adaptable and relevant to all religions in the world today, it simply identifies one as a person who trusts God. To those who have no use or need for a God it means no more than a person saying ‘I’m a man’ or ‘I’m an American’. To those who do believe or are searching it can be an affirmation of their own belief or an encouragement in that there are others who do believe and are not afraid to proclaim that belief. This movement has the potential to witness to countless people every day and bring them together as believers.
It is past the time for us to depend on government to perpetuate the spirit of our faith. I would have no problem offending anyone this simple statement would offend. If I’m living my faith as I think I should I might even cause someone else to become a little bolder in his or her own spiritual walk.
I’ve already deleted the message I got this morning. It really made much more sense than these ramblings I tried to write here, but I hope at least one person more gets the message I’m trying to send. If you think I’m a religious nut or if I may offend anyone I would simply say: ‘take a ticket and get on to the back of the line’. You’ve got to trust someone and I’ll take the one I choose everyday.
‘In God I Trust’
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
