Swing low(er)

Last week would have been a bad week
He might be dreadin' the next few years
I'd say, "Pull up your chariot and have a seat,
Let me buy you a beer"

Maybe he knew all this would happen
Or maybe it was never revealed
Is it time for the seventh seal's unwrapping
Are we too far gone to be healed

I'd take him to meet my cousin Leah
A church-going lady to her core
Show him how clearly she sees the evil
So many others choose to ignore

I'd ask him if he ever misses Tishbe
We might compare idols old and new
Did he see my grandma up in heaven
And was she sittin' on the second pew

When he spoke of the seven thousand faithful
I'd say I think I understand
'Cause despite how it looks there's still millions
Who haven't bowed a knee to the orange man

That's when he told of some Jezebel
Something about Mount Horeb and some death plot
I'd joke that I'd known a couple of those myself
But his face made me think I had not

I knew when I asked that he wouldn't tell me
If I was gonna make it to heaven someday
"Well, I'm no prophet," he'd start and we'd laugh
"But if I were you I'd trust and obey."

I'd ask him about old Methuselah
He'd say, "He looks good for nine-sixty-nine."
And I'd reply, "That's easy for you to say."
When he told me don't be afraid to die

He'd cinch up his robe, say, "It's time to go.
You know the ninth hour is drawing nigh."
I'd ask, "Is there something I should know?"
He'd smile, "You'll understand it all by and by."

Last thing I'd do is beseech him for a ride
"Just be sure, Gentile, before you hop in.
'Cause once this chariot is in the sky
We'll nevermore pass this way again."

Slow as Christmas

Slow as Christmas, as it was
When sleep came slow, and Santa Claus
Was seen through sinless eyes

December days lasted ten
And time seemed a trustworthy friend
When Mamaw was alive

Slow as Christmas, as they pass
The rate of grains through hourglass
Will leave your head a-spin

Wish I might, I wish I may
For just one year, for just one day
Let it be slow

Again

Life, of late

We celebrated Luke last week as he completed his eighth trip around the Sun.  There was a party at the bowling alley followed by him (us) hosting his first sleepover.  Four eight-year-old boys hopped up on cupcakes running wild through your house for several hours is something everyone should try to avoid at all costs.

This will go down as the year Luke learned to ride a bicycle.  He attended his first (and second) Alabama football games, his first Alabama basketball game.

This was the year he and his sister learned how to swim.  Thinking back to those first couple of lessons, when he was the only one in class who couldn't swim down to the bottom and retrieve rocks in three feet of water, I wasn't sure he was going to make it.  But unlike me, whose first swim lesson was my last, he stuck with it.  I promised myself I wouldn't doubt him again.

He played soccer and flag football for the first time, scoring his first goal and catching his first touchdown.

That's quite a year.

He also started writing a "book," titled "The Frightened Pumpkin."  As I remarked to a good friend a couple of weeks ago, the kid is more me than I am sometimes.

Harper, meanwhile, lost her first tooth this year.  Her current tally stands at four lost -- her two front teeth on the top and bottom.  They've begun to grow back, but oh, was she cute when they were missing. 

She has come so far this year with her reading and math.  Luke's always been the academic achiever.  Popular at school, but sort of unaware of or indifferent to it.  Harper is more of a socialite.  She makes a new friend in five seconds and has confidence (and sass) to burn.  But I have been amazed by how she has flourished academically the past couple of months.

Her latest thing is to play hangman, which she calls "that word game."  We'll alternate attempting to guess each other's words, which can be a little challenging at times with some of her spellings.  She gave me one today that I couldn't figure out, "I love Jaesses."  Apparently that's her spelling for Jesus.  I did rebound nicely when we started doing Disney princesses and managed to solve "Poacahotes."

My poor girl has been sick most of the past two months.  She first had strep, then picked up hand, foot, and mouth (mouth part only), before ending the trilogy this week with walking pneumonia.

Not sure where she's picking up these germs, he says as he wipes fingerprints from the Chromebook screen and (what he hopes is) chocolate from the keyboard.

Hopefully having them home for nine days will get some of the sickness out of the schools.

At our Thanksgiving gathering this evening, she said something about having a great dad.  Then she came over and whispered to me, "The reason I think you're a great dad is because you're bald.  And most dads aren't bald.  That makes you unique. You don't worry about it.  You just always be yourself."

She's such a little encourager.  

Lots to be thankful for.  On Thanksgiving Day and every day.

Wishes for good health, warmth, peace, and happiness to all.

Wins amid the losses

To say the start of the season for the 8-and-under Magic basketball team has not gone well would be akin to the Tacoma Narrows toll collector informing his boss, "Sir, there's been a slight problem."

26-3.

20-3.

24-6.

These are our scores.  

However, the score simply cannot tell the whole story.  It doesn't show which player cried, which player flat-out refused to go on to the court the entire game, nor which player left the bench and ran halfway across the court while the game was going on.  Those last two were the same kid by the way.

It doesn't tell of the pituitary prodigy we faced in Game 3.  This "8-year-old" Goliath was north of five feet tall and had to weigh in the neighborhood of 140 pounds.  He would simply stand in the lane with his arms raised, a teammate would pass it to him, and then he'd turn and shoot as our guys helplessly flailed away.  

At one point the Philistine stood next to our tallest player, who I estimate goes about 4'4."  I swear there looked to be at least a foot difference.  There is no way that kid is eight!

But the score does tell some of the story.  For example, equipped with a few seconds and a rudimentary understanding of basic arithmetic, one might make the observation that even if we added up our score from all three games, we still would not have more points than any of our opponents managed in just one game.

But much as I implored my mother several times on report card days, we ask that you not judge us by our scores.

Let's instead look at this season through the eyes (and Coke-bottle glasses) of our shortest player, whom I will refer to as Ralphie.

Ralphie is the one who refused to go in the entire first game.  The league rules state every player must play a minimum of ten minutes barring injury, illness, etc.

The first time I tried to put him in, he shook his head and said, "I'm scared.  There's too many people here."  The next time his reason was, "The other team is too big." (They were.)  And lastly, "I don't want to play basketball, I want to play baseball."  At one point he was sitting up in the stands by his parents.

In our postgame huddle, I put my hands on Ralphie's shoulders and said, "You're gonna go in the next game for me, aren't ya?"  He nodded.

I had to reassess.  Apparently, my pregame prayer of, "God, please just let us score," would have to be adjusted to, "Lord, please give Ralphie the courage to go into the game."

In game two, he did just that.  

Then there's Will, the kid who started crying six times in our first practice.  He hasn't cried once during a game.  He instead runs full speed on and off the court usually with a big smile.

We did have one kid cry because he got called for a foul.  I told him fouling just meant he was playing aggressively.  That didn't stop the tears, but I did feel like a good person and, really, isn't that what this is all about?

It's these little moments--the incremental improvement, seeing a kid clear a mental hurdle, seeing them having fun, etc.--I have come to relish.

In a few weeks, I won't remember any of the scores; none of us will.  Except maybe the parents who request their child not be put on Luke's dad's team next year.

But the moments will linger.  

Like RJ sitting on the bench as we trailed 18-3, asking me if we were losing.  Or the kids who cried and were too scared to play constantly asking if they could go back in.  And Ralphie--little blonde-haired, bespectacled Ralphie--sprinting toward me after Game 2, a game we had lost 20-3.  As I leaned down, expecting a high-five, he leaped into my arms and gave me a hug.

Those moments won't soon be forgotten.

And no, RJ.  They may have more points than us.  But I don't think we're losing.

Twelve years of Sunshine

A sweater drying rack sits next to the end of the couch, though it scarcely sees a sweater, and never on the topmost tier.

If you were to visit our house, even in the steamiest most miserable days of Alabama summer, you would likely find the garage door cracked open five or six inches.

The bottom shelf of the bathroom closet contains two small stacks of towels which we've not used for a decade.

And at the foot of our bed stands a five-foot-tall contraption of carpeted platforms, tunnels, and scratching posts, marketed as a "Kitty Condo."

These are signs of Sunshine.  

Sunshine came to us a scared and scrawny mess.  Her tail was bloody, the fur having been sheared off by some accident I supposed, or worse, an act of cruelty.

That first night, I patched it up with some paper towels and Scotch tape; and put a cardboard box with a towel inside on the back patio so she might have a place to sleep.  I hope she doesn't remember those times.

I recall looking out one of those early days and realizing she must have gone over the fence.  Even though pets were not allowed in the apartment, I hoped she would return.  She did.

After a couple of tepid attempts to find her a home, it turns out she had already found one.

Next came a trip to the vet.  She had ear mites, was terribly constipated (originally diagnosed as pregnant), and would need surgery to amputate her tail.  They kept her for a week.

We talked about her lots in those seven days, hoping she would be ok, wondering how we would manage to hide a kitten from a landlord who unlocked the apartment once a month to let in pest control.

The vet said they tried to give her a bowl of food, but Sunshine turned it over to use as a pillow.  She still likes to have some sort of pillow, be it a stuffed animal, folded towel, or one of her people's hands.

Back home, she had to wear a collar of shame for ten days to keep her from picking at her stitches.  She was not a fan, and let us know frequently and vociferously.

Originally, I kept her in the bathroom at night and when we were at work.  I hate thinking about that now, but she never seemed all that affected by it.  She simply cried at the top of her lungs as soon as I came through the door to remind me she was upstairs.

The house was for her.  It may seem a ridiculous thing to say, even more so to do, but it is the God's honest truth.

Nowadays, she meets us at the door every single time we come home.  She has a large fenced-in backyard.  And at night -- every night -- she sleeps on (what used to be) her mommy's pillow.  Mrs. Bone sleeps scooted down a bit in the bed to make room.

No longer scrawny, she is shiny and healthy.  To show her gratitude she has brought into the house, in no particular order: numerous chipmunks, a frog, a snake, and multiple birds, all very much alive.

Not long after I started working thirds at the 911 Center, Mrs. B went out of town for a weekend, leaving Sunshine to spend her first night alone.  We have security cameras inside the house, kitty cams we call them, bought for the specific purpose of checking on her when we're gone.

That night I left her sitting on the back of the love seat looking out the front window.  And there she sat, the entire night, nine solid hours, watching and waiting for me.

She loves her people, and we very much love her. 

One of my favorite photos of Sunshine is from when we were getting Luke's room ready in the weeks before he was born.  She is lying contentedly in the otherwise empty baby bed.  I'm almost certain she thought we had bought the bed and were furnishing an entire room just for her.  

The kids came along and Sunshine has gradually adjusted.  She no longer scampers out of the room if one of them walks in.  She lets them pick her up, pet and brush her, and she has never once clawed either child.  

Last week marked twelve years since Sunshine came into our lives.  The vet said she was between six and nine months old when she found us, but we don't really count that time.

She still hunts.  This past Saturday, she royally pranced through the kitchen with a live chipmunk in her mouth.  Still meets us at the door.  Still sleeps on her mommy's pillow at night, naps on her shelf in the bathroom, and on the sweater rack in the living room next to a pillow that reads, "Reserved for the Cat."

Many a night after we get the kids to bed, she will hop onto my lap in the recliner, almost inevitably putting me to sleep.

It's hard to remember what we did before her.  But I am certain we were a little less happy.

And no matter how many days I come home to that gray, white, and gold calico sitting in the doorway or looking out the front window, they will always be too few.

Hats

"I collect hats.  That's what you do when you're bald." ~ James Taylor

For anyone afforded a decent number of years, I suppose, we come to wear many different hats.  Literal hats and figurative ones.

Considering my literal headgear history, the first place my mind goes is the misshapen black felt cowboy hat I wore to some conspicuity during my tight Wranglers and western boots stage of the early-to-mid nineties.  (If ever there was a photo which perfectly encapsulated the phrase, “all hat, no cattle…”)

Thankfully, there are no digital images of this atrocity in cyberspace as the internets were still on dial-up then and it would have taken two to four hours to upload.  Of all the blessings the Lord hath bestowed upon me, surely this one shall never go unappreciated.

I've worn bandanas, beanies, and baseball caps.  A fisherman hat, scally cap, hard hat, Santa hat, party hat, toboggan, even a fedora.

On the figurative side, I've worn the hat of the aggravating brother, favorite/only son, grandson, nephew, uncle, and a dad.  I've been a trainer and a trainee, boyfriend and ex-boyfriend, radio DJ and furnace helper, bag boy and 911 dispatcher.  A reader, and, hopefully, a writer.

And this month, still in the springtime of this, my sixth-decade of breaths and heartbeats, at the ever so gentle behest of Mrs. Bone, I have added to my hat collection.

In this role, I may be spotted wearing a whistle around my neck, carrying a clipboard, and possibly having mostly civilized conversations with men of a certain age who are adorned in zebra-striped shirts.  Some of whom appear to have serious vision deficiencies.  

All the while trying to corral nine 7-and-8-year-olds.  One of whom, even after three practices, I keep calling another kid's name.

Yes, this fall and continuing into the early winter, I will don the hat of basketball coach for Luke’s 8-and-under youth basketball team.

How is it going, you ask?  Well, hold onto your hats.

At the first practice, one kid started crying no less than SIX different times.  It was probably more like eight or ten, but I don't like to exaggerate.  (Unless it makes something funnier; or earns me some measure of pity, or glory.)

So much for my mantra of "Make Youth Sports Fun Again."

There has been progress.  At the second practice, the same kid only started to cry once, at least that I saw.  I was mostly trying to avoid eye contact.

Then last night, at our third practice, no one cried.

They seem like good kids though, all with varying degrees of inattention and hyperactivity.  "They keep me young," I like to say, before coming home and Biofreezing my back.

I had no idea there would be so much to do.  You have to draft your team, then contact each parent to let them know whose team their child is on.

I had to (sort of) learn to use GroupMe!  What’s next--TikTok?  Kik?  FriendMaker?  

Then you have to find times to schedule practices when the gym isn't booked.  There are forty teams across all the age groups, and two courts which are only available for practice on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday evenings.  So, the math doesn't really work.

You have to ask what size uniforms each kid needs and what number they want to be.  Then you have to find a place to order the uniforms.

Thankfully, Mrs. Bone did most of this so I could focus on YouTubing “basketball practice drills for kids” and “how to not make a child cry.”

Now I have to message everyone to let them know when and where the next practice is.  That way they can message back their child can't make it because "He already has kickboxing practice that night," or "My mother's in the hospital," or my personal favorite, "We're going trick-or-treating, who would schedule basketball practice for Halloween night?"

Oh, keep your hat on, Betty.

And don't come whining to me when little Billy has three cavities and still hasn't learned what he's supposed to do in the box-and-one defense.

I mean… uh… who's ready to have some fun!  

Yeah!  That's what this team is all about.

(Though I might not hang my hat on that.)

Unspoken lullaby

You cried out for your mama.  I came to check on you since I was still awake on the couch and your mama gets up with you ninety-nine percent of the time.  Lord knows she could use the rest.

You were crying softly as I came into your room.

"What's that on the floor?" you pointed.

It was an AC adapter for the computer, I explained.

"But I want Mama."

"Mama's asleep, buddy."

I knelt on the floor and wrapped my arms around you until I thought you had gotten back to sleep.

Minutes later, you cried out again.  This time you pointed to something in the rocking chair.  It was the laptop.  I assume you must have been having a bad dream.

As I knelt beside you again, I only wished I could take it all away.  As most any parent would, I suppose.  I had nightmares as a kid and can't help but assume that's where yours come from.

My head resting on your back, I listened to you breathe and struggle to get back to sleep.  Your stomach made a noise and I smiled.

You were scared.  Of what, I didn't know.  But I had been there.  Heck, I'm scared now.  Every day.  The news is unwatchable.  Guns.  Hate.  Floods.  Fires.  Wars.  Anger.  Disease.  Death.  The world is a scary place.

In that moment, I was thankful none of those things (hopefully) were on your mind.  Your fear was (hopefully) something irrational.  Not that that made it any better for you.  But at least you're still young enough that I could comfort you, make you feel safe, and (again, hopefully) convince you everything is going to be ok.

I awoke this morning to you lying in our bed next to your mama.  I guess she didn't get as much rest as I had hoped.  But I was thankful she was there to comfort you.  

You were asleep.  You were safe.

Damn all the bad we inherit.

In a southern town

Everything closed on Sunday, 'cept the Shell and one drug store
Never thought you'd miss it then, but you kinda miss it now
You can still hear Daddy sayin', "We better be gettin' home
'Cause they'll be rollin' up the streets when the sun goes down..."
In a southern town

Commodity cheese and butter on the third of every month
Long line at the armory, but there's plenty to go around
Piggly Wiggly, Johnson's Hardware, Elmore's five and ten
It's been decades since their walls have heard a sound
In a southern town

One four-inch February snow would close school for a week
That hill out by the state road was good for sleddin' down
Preachers preached, teachers taught, and we prayed for peace and rain
We believed that the things we sought would someday be found
In a southern town

Rode everywhere in truck beds or pedaling our bikes

Every street, field, and creek, a new adventure to be found
Friday nights in fall meant high school lights and marching bands
You learned to kiss, and cuss, and fish, and make a joyful sound
In a southern town

At lunchtime, Miss Leona sliced hoop cheese and stick bologna
Buy a Moon Pie and a cold drink to wash it all down
We walked home from school, played outside all afternoon
Came home at suppertime, the whole family gathered 'round
In a southern town

We ate iron skillet cornbread at least four nights a week
Got tired of it then but you'd love to have a pan right now
And though it hadn't shown a movie since nineteen sixty-nine
It felt like somebody died when they tore the ol' Star down
In a southern town

Two-finger steering wheel wave to every car you'd pass
If they didn't wave back you knew they's from out of town
Go to the county fair, you'd swear half the county was there
Bingo on the loudspeaker, you can almost hear it now
In a southern town

God was great, God was good, we thanked Him for our daily food
Especially when it was dinner on the grounds
Kids wore out the town square and Winn-Dixie parking lot
On Friday and Saturday nights just driving around
In a southern town

They'd pump your gas and check your oil at Harris Sixty-six
Pass their days to the music of that bell hose sound
Mister Albert would cut hair, five dollars, six days a week
You still grin when you see a barber pole spinnin' around
In a southern town

You remember gettin' a Hardees, a Subway and a Sears
And we were all excited when Walmart came to town
But then Mister Sparks' store had to close, Johnson's hardware, too
And it hit real hard when the paper mill shut down
In a southern town

I'd vow there was more kudzu then, fireflies, and kindness, too
Our old tube TV must have weighed two hundred pounds
You's proud to say you voted but you never said for who
Seemed everyone you knew had been lost but now they's found
In a southern town

Everything closed on Sunday, 'cept the Shell and one drug store
Seemed so inconvenient then, but you kinda miss it now