Month: February 2018

Winter’s Deathly Grip….

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Winter’s deathly grip is loosening.  Spring is right around the corner. I could feel it in the cold this morning. It has been warmer…and wetter than usual…until this morning.  It was still thirty-nine degrees, plenty cold for a walk in the foothills of the Blue Ridge, but there was a different feel to it. A feeling that the rebirth I associate with spring might be on the horizon. It is a feeling of change.  The brightening in the mornings chasing my depression away.  I know that winter will attempt to hang on, as will my depression but I am hopeful.

In this part of the world, March snowstorms are not uncommon and the last frost date is April fifteenth. BUT IT JUST FEELS DIFFERENT!

As a retired high school baseball coach, my feelings of change may be tied to major league pitchers and catchers reporting to camp or the reports of high school and college scrimmages with their opening dates just around the corner. I remember a game finished in a heavy sleet and another with a wind chill so low that both pitchers combined to pitch a one-hitter. I do not miss games in late February and early March. No, winter will hold on if it can, despite what a groundhog saw or didn’t see.

There are other harbingers. Crocus and buttercups have pushed up toward the sun. Scott’s Broom is blooming yellow and the quince pink.  My many forsythia bushes are putting off green leaves and a few yellow blossoms telling me my spring allergies are just around the corner.  I welcome them along with the work to come to reclaim and maintain my backyard.

I saw gold and purple finches at my feeder, feasting on the thistle they find there. The main herald is my beautiful red-tailed hawk. Well, she is not mine, but it is the third or fourth year she has made her nest in a dead oak tree on the hill above us. I hear her mating call and know there is a male somewhere about. It won’t be long until they will be training their little “branch hoppers” to fly and hunt.  One of my harbingers I haven’t seen yet are the turkeys.  There was thirteen last year, I hope there is more this year.  I’ve seen where they have been but not them.  I’m sure I’ll see them soon.

If weather trends continue as in the years before, there will be plenty of great days for baseball practice, a round of golf or even wetting a hook in late February.  Flowers and plants will green out and bloom, then March will come in like a lion with strong and mostly cold winds.  I hope my fig tree will survive.  I’m sure there will be a chance of snow to come before winter loosens its deathly grip but there is something about this cold.  It’s different…and it is welcomed.

For years before her death, my grandmother would seem to waste away during the winter months.  Her spirits would begin to rise when the seed catalogs began to arrive. She would recover during the spring and bloom like the spring flowers.  I’ve reached the age…and I understand.  I hope I am able to bloom one more time.

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The image was shared from https://askhomesale.com/2015/03/23/spring-spiration/

A Teacher’s Anger

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Rant and Ramble Alert.

I read that the teachers from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School went back to school Friday.  I can’t fathom their emotion.  I’ve tried to empathize, I want to feel what they felt.  I’ve never feared for my life in a school or at an athletic event.  I probably should have been fearful but wasn’t.  I’ve tried to reach inside of myself and find a situation where I was as scared as they must have been…and are.  I’ve waded into fights, made small talk with angry parents and been called into the principal’s office.  In my memory, I can’t find one instance of terror.  Is it bad for me to feel a certain elation for never having been that afraid?

For those of you who don’t know, I spent forty-four years teaching and coaching in the public-school system of South Carolina.  I’m in my eighth year of retirement although I took long-term substitute assignments the first two years.  The most fearful I’ve been in a school was a two-hour tornado warning my first-year teaching.  I spent two hours in an underground, mildewed book depository at Gallman Junior High School with ninety or so seventh graders as a tornado wreaked havoc between Newberry and Greenwood.  I didn’t fear for my life.  Yes, I did fear for my sanity…but not for my or my student’s lives.

I can’t imagine what those teachers felt…walking into the school again.  I wonder about those teachers who taught on the second and third floors.  Surely, they will be moved to other areas.

The children will return soon…some of them.  I have seen several expressing their doubts.  If my child came to me and told me, “I can’t go back,” what would I do?  I couldn’t force her to go back and live with myself.

I see people have jumped on the “arm our teachers” bandwagon.  I don’t know.  More guns?  So many questions.  Teachers haven’t had the resources and the respect to do their jobs for a while now.  Now we are going to add to their already, heavy burdens?

I question the safety of a classroom with a gun in it.  I question if a marginally trained teacher with a handgun can stand up to an assassin with a military-style weapon bent on murder.  I wonder what that teacher will do with their students while banging away with a handgun at a moving target that is banging back at them with a rifle…and a thirty-round mag.  I worry about the children who might be caught in the crossfire.

Three teachers died in this attack attempting to save young people.  I wonder I would have been up to it.  I’m glad I never had to find out.

The police and our military personnel make the choice to take their lives into their own hands and carry a weapon as a way of life.  While I commend the police and our military personnel, teachers make the choice to teach.  We are called to nurture, foster, and mold…not shoot.  We are supposed to train, raise, educate and uplift…not take the life of another.  Now we must decide, are we willing to fight fire with fire, six guns blazing.  I just don’t know.

Here in South Carolina, we already have a teacher’s shortage…an estimated six thousand this coming year.  One of the reasons is the state can’t afford to pay the oldsters willing to come back and teach after retirement.  Older folk forced out and young people who don’t seem to see teaching as a very uplifting profession these days.  It might be the GoFundMe pages I see from teachers trying to raise money for their classes.  Exotic stuff like pencils, notebooks, and calculators.  Now it has been suggested to pay bonuses for gun-toting teachers.

I see the teaching shortage increasing along with the class sizes we are instructed to “teach and protect.”  What sane person wants to train to take a bullet while being disparaged, disrespected and undervalued?  I just don’t know.

I am angry, I’m sure you can tell.  I’m angry at the society which has created this culture and I don’t know how we’ve gotten on this path.  I am angry at the gun culture I have been a part of.  I’m angry at law enforcement who could have nipped this shooter before he became a shooter.  I’m angry at the NRA and the gun industry that has enough money to make a difference but instead chose to buy the Congress I am angry with.  I am angry at adults who undervalue the opinions of young people and post hurtful memes or attempt to discredit survivors who were there.  I

am angry because people in positions to make law are unwilling to have a conversation about smart and consistent gun control.  I am angry because people in positions to make law are unwilling to have a conversation about the problem being more than just smart and consistent gun control.

Finally, I’m angry that white males are the mentally ill ones, and no one seems to want to do anything about it…or even recognize it is a problem.  I’m angry with many people.  I don’t believe any of them are the teachers and the students.

I’m going out to walk now.  Maybe I can walk off my anger or at least quiet my mind.  Maybe an answer will come to me.  I will pray for an answer but so far there is only silence and my own anger.

Don Miller’s writer’s page can be accessed at https://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM

Olympic Lows….

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I’ve enjoyed the Winter Olympics…not the actual Olympics but the backstories.  I’m not much into cold weather sports…or just cold weather.  I do enjoy the stories of what the athletes have overcome to get to where they are.  The Nigerian bobsled team, an American soldier who had to train for the bobsled while serving in the sands of a far-off land…you get the idea.  What I haven’t understood is the hatred directed at some of them.

My case in point is Lindsay Vonn.  I admit I haven’t really followed her career, hanging on her every run.  I did make note that she was a pretty, blonde haired girl who liked to go fast and live on the edge.  She reminded me of all the pretty blond girls who wouldn’t give me the time of day…back in the day.  I didn’t hold it against her and watched replays of her more memorable moments.

I held my breath watching some of her more cringe-worthy crashes.  A mutilated knee or a broken arm, being airlifted from the slopes.  Injuries that could have ended many careers but not hers.  She chose to work to overcome and compete in one more Olympic game…and dedicated it to her grandfather.  You would think people could cut her a little slack.

I admit to cringing, too, when it became newsworthy that she was dating Tiger Woods but then again, he is the Tiger.  I’ve made a few missteps when it came to affairs of the heart…I think.  At my age, it’s a bit hard to remember.  I do remember that none were newsworthy.

But oh my, she made the worst mistake of her life.  When asked a question, she told the truth.  “Well, I hope to represent the people of the United States, not the President.”   She further went on to disparage the President by saying that she wouldn’t go to the White House if she won.  How bold and audacious…how completely unpatriotic, to tell the truth when asked the question.  She was racing for her country, herself and her recently deceased grandfather…but, not the President.

Can we not overlook a little faux pas?  Can we not overlook not racing for our President or visiting him if she won?  Can we not give her some thumbs up for standing by her beliefs even if we disagree with them?  Must we boycott or cry out for cancellation because someone doesn’t agree with our position?

Was it so egregious, we cannot give a pass to a woman who has been an inspiration to other young women…and men I would guess?  Can we not give her a participation trophy for doing her best?  Can we not just say “Thanks for the efforts?”  No, she was refusing to go to the White House, and for some reason, it is an unpatriotic travesty.  Many are happy…an ungrateful US athlete failed.

I wonder if any Olympic athlete woke up this morning and said to themselves, “This one’s for you Donnie T?”  Another question might be, “Should they?”  Are we so filled with hatred we must glorify OUR athletic failures for answering a question with truth?  Should all athletes just give up their First Amendment rights, just because they are athletes?  I would say our friendly Russian trolls have done their jobs well…or maybe they didn’t really have to.

Don Miller writes on varying subjects, not all are subjects that bother him so.  If interested you can find him at https://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM

 

Thoughts and Prayers….

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PESSIMISM WARNING! I hate to pee in your Cheerios, but nothing will change. Another mass shooting, another school shooting.  It is just who we are. We are a toxic brew of violent nature, toxic masculinity, with a gun and target rich environment.

We are first in mass shootings, first in gun deaths, nearly half in suicides, and domestic abuse. More than any county of the “civilized” world, not at war. But nothing will change. We make it about anything other than intelligent gun control or an in-depth study of our violent culture and how we perpetuate it.

We don’t want to spend money on education to lift people, we would rather spend it on prisons or shift school money to private schools. We would rather erect a wall than take a serious look at our own culture and its motivations and the dangers from within.

It must be about mental illness, and it is, even though we’ve made it easier for the mentally ill to possess guns. We put the killer under a microscope, scrutinize and debate race, or religion or immigration. If we can’t hang the murderer on one of those excuses, we make it about politics or gun free zones or sanctuary cities or Mars ascending into Venus…when it should be about our culture…the culture of the gun. We offer our thoughts and prayers.

I consider myself a spiritual man, if not, a religious one, but our thoughts and prayers are wearing thin especially when it involves the same kind of kids and schools, I taught and coached in for forty-four years. The thinness is because I believe nothing will change. It is too much a part of our culture. We are a violent group, some with Bibles in one hand, rifles in the other. “Thou Shalt not Kill” should have an addendum. Thou Shalt not Kill unless it abridges my right to purchase and use an AR-15 or any other gun.

I probably shouldn’t be focused on the AR-15…although there is a good reason. From Aurora to Stoneman Douglas High and beyond, it seems to be the weapon of choice, whether due to popularity or ease of use, I don’t know. I don’t know what was used in our latest murder de jour, but I know we’ve weaponized ourselves with all sorts of arms. I have two handguns and a shotgun myself…and a rock, car, butter knife and a fork.

There seems to be something about our manhood that goes hand in hand with a handgun or rifle…and the violent tendencies we hold dear. Do they make a perfume “Ode de Gunpowder?” I’ll write about women just as soon as there is a female mass shooter. Why are our males more violent than females? They are not, women just like to inflict pain over a longer period…. Sorry.

Our country was forged on violence…from the very beginning and we glorify it. From an “Eye for an Eye,” to the cult of the warrior in the many wars we have fought, to the dubious history of the Western gunfighter. Our video games, television programs, and movies glorify violence, and they have an effect. It is still about the Alpha male with the gun in one hand and the adoring, scantily clad female secured with the other. At least we’ve added movies with scantily clad, female superheroes. Hum…sex, and gunpowder….

So, as pessimistic as it sounds, I don’t think we will ever change. I believe we will continue to lead in categories we say we don’t want to lead in and continue to offer our thoughts and prayers instead of taking a meaningful look at our culture and what our culture breeds. Because we won’t take a meaningful look, I expect the violence to increase…but I’m not sending any more thoughts and prayers.

THE MAGICAL, MORONIC, MANUFACTURED CELEBRATION OF LOVE

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I blogged this last year…it’s still relevant.

Ravings of a Mad Southerner

I despise Valentine’s Day. How did we get from the celebration of a Roman festival to the madness of today? A manufactured, merchandize driven celebration of love…or the realization of being quite alone. At least if you are depressed there is plenty of chocolate to raise your spirits and increase your waistline. The Valentine’s candy and cards at Wally World has been displayed since the day after Christmas.

A bit of history. One historical version suggests THE FESTIVAL began as the honoring of the Goddess Juno during the Roman Feast of Lupercalia. Young men and women drew names from a jar, pairing themselves for the duration of the feast and sometimes for the year. This was before the use of car or room keys in a fishbowl I guess. Yes, some would fall in love and sometimes even marry. Ain’t that romantic…or moronic?

Farther down the road known as history…

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Two Dolla’ Pitchers….

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Two-dollar pitchers of beer. Bigggggg pitchers. Cheap beer even forty years ago…and a potentially lethal elixir when consumed in the dark, hole in the wall bar named Dino’s Lounge. Stir in for flavor a local, bluegrass “party” band named the “Stoney Creek String Band”, one might think they were consuming a magical concoction that made one bulletproof. Insert a shapely blond in jeans and a white men’s shirt as a swizzle stick…the story might take a twisted route. One might find himself married.

Apparently, the Seventies were an obscure and somewhat blurry period of my life. Well truthfully, I was stone cold sober when I asked her to marry me…maybe I should have remained incapacitated until the Eighties and I assure you a hangover would not have been as bad. Another bad news flash, I ain’t tellin’ this story. There are people still alive who just would not understand.

I’ve never had a drinking problem…not that I didn’t try to. Drinking seemed to be the cool thing to do and I could have had an advanced degree in two dolla’ pitchers of beer and Jack Daniels “Likker” drinks. I failed my dissertation. The times I stepped one or five beers or mixed drinks over the line, I didn’t much like the outcome the next day. Whether it was the hangover from hell I woke up with or the person from hell I woke up with, both were powerfully painful occasions and I was smart enough to learn from them…after a while. I find it interesting how well I remember the hangovers…the people not so much. That may be a blessing.

I learned from my mistakes which means I have survived my own stupidity. Despite the pain of my stupidity, I look back fondly at the people who live in those memories…but there was that proposal…and its acceptance. In all honesty, I look back fondly on the blond headed swizzle stick, she was a wonderful woman and my divorce was just that, my divorce.

It’s social media’s fault I’m percolating over my misspent youth…well, misspent young adulthood…I was a late bloomer. It could be the gray and rainy day too. “Rainy days and Mondays….” Gray and rainy days tend to make me percolate over misspent youth and my attention was drawn to a post about a former teaching peer, now deceased, which makes it more depressing.

My memory took me to one of those two dolla’ pitcher nights, Dino’s Lounge and Stoney Creek. A table surrounded by young men who still had their hair, harassing the pretty waitress as if we really had a chance and leaving a big tip just in case. Young men, friends who shared embellished stories of conquests past and ones we hoped would come. Young men with ready laughs and all their teeth. A brother, former coaching peers, a band director and a couple of former players. I remember it was a fun night long ago…but that might be those two dolla’ pitchers.

Somehow, we all survived to find other ways to die. Several are no longer with us…gone too quickly, but we all survived our foolishness. We all survived to be fine, upstanding if boring, citizens. Those young men still live in those memories…they will live as long as I live, along with two dolla’ pitchers, Dino’s Lounge and the Stoney Creek String Band.

Footnote: There is a Stoney Creek Band which still exists after forty years in the business. They must be good and they play bluegrass too. It’s not my Stoney Creek Band which exists only in my memories. I’m sure there is a Dino’s Lounge somewhere. If it has two dolla’ pitchers, don’t bother telling me, I ain’t going.

Don Miller is a multi-genre writer. His works may be accessed at https://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM

Steak Chips….

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I never know what will trigger a memory.  They just occur…a benefit from age?  Great, I’m glad there is one benefit from age…wisdom certainly isn’t.

Recently it was an unlikely trigger…Dr. Oz of daytime tv fame.  I walked in to find him prancing from my tv screen discussing how to make hamburgers moist despite overcooking…as in cooking to well done.  Well done and then some…something my grandmother would have done to hamburger or steak.  The young man being interviewed was using a “panade.”  Being as country as a fresh cow patty I looked the word up. Suddenly I was back in a small kitchen watching her making her most special, well done, yet moist hamburgers.

My grandmother grew up in a time when meat was slaughtered and processed on the farm…in not the most sterile conditions.  There was a disease, trichinosis, caused by a roundworm that could be transferred from undercooked meat to humans.  This led me to believe that all steaks were…well…cracker like…dry and tending to make snapping sounds when cut…like a potato chip.

Now, I don’t want to give you the wrong idea.  We weren’t eating premium cuts of meat either.  We were the ones who made “eating high on the hog” or in this case, cow, possible.  Generally, we ate variations of round steak, cubed and then turned into a cracker, may be covered in a milk gravy or covered in a beading and then turned into a cracker before being covered in a milk gravy.  Yes, she overcooked them and taught my mother to overcook them as well.

I didn’t know any better until I went off to college.  I didn’t know steak came anyway other than chip like…and cubed.  A young lady I was dating suggested that I might want to try my filet mignon cooked less than well done.  During those days if a young lady I was dating had suggested I might try a dead cow’s hoof raw, I probably would have eaten it with a smile on my face.  The things you might do for love I guess…or lust.  Despite thinking it was just heated past raw, I found it to be moist, tender, quite tasty and not the least bit cracker-like.  I also didn’t pronounce it correctly either, “fill-it-mig-non.”

As bad as Nannie’s steaks were, her hamburgers were heavenly…despite having every bit of pink cooked right out of them.  They were moist because she added her own version of a “panade.”  A French word, it is a paste made from stale bread and milk or a word that means, “A state or experience of misery or poverty.”  I know my grandmother and grandfather experienced poverty, even before the Great Depression.  Just not sure about the misery but I doubt it.  Gee, the things you learn if you just pay attention.

She didn’t use bread as I remember, she used oatmeal or crushed up crackers.  Nannie also added sautéed onions and used a spice list I’ve never been able to recreate.  I’ve tried, repeatedly with different variations, and have only created my own version of a fried meatloaf…not bad, but not the same at all.  Boo, hoo, hoo.

My grandmother was a good cook, but it usually involved chicken, fried or in a pot pie.  Maybe wildlife like cooter soup or squirrel dumplings and for clarification, in those days a cooter was a turtle.  I know today’s word usage might cast some shade on that dish, but turtle soup was quite tasty…much tastier than her steak chips.

Thank you, Dr. Oz.  You have reinvigorated my efforts and brought back memories of the sound of beef patties landing in a greased, hot cast iron pan, moist and tasty hamburgers on white bread, a small kitchen and the woman who toiled there.  Ummmm, ummmm…wait, you mean I’ll probably use ground turkey instead of beef?  Roasted not fried?  No lard?  Oh well, thanks for the memories anyway.

Don Miller’s writer’s page can be found at https://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM

Cornfields…in My Mind

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It’s early February, it’s been cold here in the foothills of the Blue Ridge…not Chicago or Moscow cold…but for us thin-blooded Southerners it’s been damn cold.  It’s warmer today but that’s because it is raining to beat the band or to beat my metal roof.  Despite the elements, thanks to my son-in-law’s mother, I’m thinking about cornfields.  A bit early in the season to be thinking about cornfields but my thoughts tell me Kimberly’s memories of cornfields are a little different from mine…maybe.

Kimberly, Justin’s mother, posted a cornfield meme extolling the joys of running and playing in the cornfields of her youth and the memories they elicit.  I’m happy for Kimberly and her memories…mine are different and not the least bit warm and fuzzy.

I tend to lump cornfields and hayfields together…except I don’t eat hay.  Corn I love…in any form including liquid and I’m not speaking of corn syrup.  Sorry, the train went off the rails for a moment.

I remember corn and hayfields as places to stay away from if possible.  It was impossible for me to stay away from them, it was part of the job…or just part of my childhood.  There was always a lot of work associated with them both and to this day I break out in hives when I see square bales drying in a hayfield.

I associate corn and hayfields with loneliness, extreme heat, humidity, stinging bugs and venomous snakes.  You’ve never been hot and sweaty like cornfield or hayfield hot.  Drowning in your own sweat hot.  You’ve never been scared like flipping a hay bale over and finding a moccasin scared, the wrong end of the snake bound up in the bale.  You’ve never been scared like plowing a cornfield near the bottoms and having a black snake fall out of a tree and land on your shoulder scared.  You’ve never been stung like stepping into a yellow jacket’s nest stung…wherever, it really doesn’t have to be in a cornfield or hayfield.

As scary or painful as those examples were, I associate corn and hayfields most with loneliness.  You’ve never been lonely until being set out on the river bottoms, watching the old Chevy flatbed disappear.  Hoe in hand, a paper bag lunch of Vienna sausages and soda crackers, a jar of water wrapped in newspaper to keep it cool, knowing you are going to be there ALL DAY LONG, ALONE.  Alone with only your thoughts, your fears, the heat and humidity, the stinging bugs and the reptiles.  Endless rows of corn, thousands of miles long.  All day until you saw that old Chevy flatbed coming back to get you.  Hoping, as the thunderheads built on the other side of the river, that that old truck would get there before the thunderstorms and the lightning they would bring.

I do have good memories too, not about playing in the cornfields or hayfields, but the aftermath.  Laughing with my Uncle James, Mike and Rusty…after the hayin’ day was done.  Playing football in the fields and scratching yourself to death if you fell in the stubble.  Watching the sweat fall from my grandmother’s brow as she cut sweet corn to cream or turn into soup mix.  Eating that first roastin’ ear of the season.  Maybe tastin’ just a touch of corn likker.

Thanks, Kimberly…thanks for triggering a bright and warm memory on a drab, gray day.

For more of Don Miller’s writings, you may find him at https://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM

The Super Bowl and the Politics of Losing

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It’s Super Bowl Sunday!  If polls are to be believed, I will join over one hundred million other fans watching the world championship of football.  Unless something disastrous happens before this evening’s game, I will watch my fifty-second game.  I’ve watched them all, dating back to the first one when the Bart Starr led Packers easily defeated the Len Dawson led Chiefs in what was not even called the Super Bowl.  It was the NFL-AFL Championship.  It doesn’t matter, I pulled for the wrong team…as usual.

The game has certainly changed…except for me pulling for the losing team.  I have actually rooted for the winner half a dozen times…maybe.  In some ways, it has become more about the concerts, half-time show and commercials than the game itself.  I must admit I have always enjoyed the commercials…especially the Budweiser Frogs and Clydesdales.  And there was the one featuring a scantily clad and pubescent Britney Spears dancing under erect Pepsi Cola bottles, which popped their lids in a foaming conclusion…after a Viagra commercial.  Very poor timing.

What I’ve not enjoyed, is seeing teams I pull for demolished.  As I look back, the line from the Steely Dan tune, “Deacon Blues”, comes to mind.

“They got a name for the winners in the world
I want a name when I lose
They call Alabama the Crimson Tide
Call me Deacon Blues”

So just call me Deacon Don I guess.

On to the politics of the game.  Kneeling versus Standing…or Standing versus Kneeling, boycotting versus watching.  Because my father was a World War II veteran, I will…probably never kneel…even though I believe their cause is just.  Because my father was a World War II veteran I’ll never berate those who do, and I’ll never boycott.  It may be the biggest game of the year, but it is still a game…an expensive game but a game none-the-less.  It’s not life or death…and despite what they might say, it isn’t war.

I find it interesting people will wish failure upon others because of their political views.  Sure, some of the people playing the game are spoiled and I would say all are overpaid…just like in other businesses.  According to many, it’s just Capitalism.  The league and owners are getting rich and commercials cost way too much.  Just Capitalism… right?  Some of the players are criminals…just like in other businesses.  Some are not very loveable…just like in other businesses. I would also comment that an old white guy probably shouldn’t comment on the trials and tribulations young black men might go through despite what they make now because it’s not about money.

What really concerns me are the folks who make their livings off professional football who aren’t players, coaches or owners.  The groundskeepers, the guy on the street hawking knock-off t-shirts, the folks working in concessions, even the folks working in the Wilson factory producing the footballs for the game…over three hundred.  These people rely upon the game of football for their livelihoods.  Do we wish to put them out of work because of a political stand?  I don’t.

Art, and I believe there is an art to all forms of athletics, has always reflected the politics of the times.  From Dante’s Inferno to Common Sense to “For What It’s Worth” to present day Rap and in between.  Politics and social upheavals have fueled many art forms and people have used their forums to express their beliefs…and their protest.  They have the right, and we need to protect those rights at all costs…and yes, you have the same right to turn it off or change the channel.  I also reserve the right to believe wishing failure upon my friends and neighbors is stupid…even if I don’t know them, and even if they pull for a different team…or political party.

Above all, and most important…Gooooo Loser!

Don Miller writes on varying subjects…some might be considered interesting.  Please go to his author’s page and check him out.  https://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM