Month: August 2023

Walk of Life

/ cigarman501 / 7 Comments

“If you seek creative ideas go walking.
Angels whisper to a man when he goes for a walk.” ― Raymond I. OD Myers

I am sitting here, coffee in hand, waiting for the angels to whisper and watching the glow of the impending dawn.  I am up for no reason other than I woke up, but my creativity is still asleep.  My alarm is set for 6:00 but it never goes off. It is set because there are medications to be dispensed but I wake up ahead of it.

Every day at 5:00 plus or minus fifteen minutes I meet the day.  “Bright eyed and bushy tailed” or as a coaching friend used to yell to his charges “Another day in which to excel.” The puppies, now awake, look up at me as if to say, “Another day, already? Can you at least feed us?”

During better days, I would be off and running or walking in the dark, my headlamp bouncing and holding back the monsters I might encounter along the road. My own form of “the walk of life.” I was creative during those runs. I don’t know if it was angels whispering or trying to think about anything other than the hill I was about to climb.

My bride, Linda Gail, and I greet the day differently.  I am up and ready to go. “Hit the decks a runnin’ boys and turn those barrels around.” (From an old Johnny Horton tune) She on the other hand is “sorta” awake and pissed off about it.  Linda Gail likes to ease into the day…over an extended period.  “Bring me my coffee and then shut up!  Do not talk to me!”  Thirty minutes later I check on her…with another cup of coffee to replace the one now cold on her bed side table.  Thirty minutes later, she is ready to talk about everything she has been thinking about the last hour. 

When we retired, I decided to use her “ease into the daytime” time as my exercise time.  As you might surmise, I am ready to go to bed about the time Linda Gail is hitting her second wind and fighting sleep like the child that she is.  Sometimes I don’t understand how we have survived each other.

I once used my running and walking to declutter and silence the voices in my head. I also used it for creativity, going over plots in my head or waiting for divine enlightenment from my angels of creativity…until Linda Gail got involved. The way we meet the day really wasn’t as big an issue when we both worked…well it was when we decided to do our exercise walk…together…before we went to work…in the dark…while she was pissed off.    

At first it was due to her fear. I had a heart attack and for six months she was fearful about letting me walk and run alone. During the summer it was not a problem but when the school year began our schedules had to change. I would ease out of bed at four-thirty. I would then wake Linda at five-thirty, bring her coffee and a banana and take off for a thirty-minute run with a plan to meet her for a thirty-minute walk at six. A shower at 6:30 and plenty of time to get to school by 8:00.

That was the plan…which, like well-made plans sometimes do, went asunder.  Usually, I would continue to walk or jog back and forth over the short Airline Road until she showed up…fifteen to thirty minutes late, coffee in hand…and I did not dare make a comment.  The one time I commented did not go well.  On those mornings she showed up early I knew I better be quiet and just walk.  It didn’t matter, any day I should just be quiet and walk until she began to initiate the conversation.  “Why are we whispering?  Are we afraid we might wake up the bears?”

Linda Gail and I didn’t exactly walk for the same reasons.  She walked totally for her head to battle depression…with a cup of coffee in her hand and with frequent stops to point out plants, animals, or reptiles.  In other words, a stroll to “elevate her mind.”  I did it for my head too, but I also walked for exercise.

We haven’t been walking together lately…despite being “yoked” together for thirty-seven years. The brutality of life has intervened along with the brutal heat; our walks have slowed almost to a stop. We finally ventured out to the path around the lake at Look Up Lodge.  A nice slow, reasonably flat stroll on one side of the lake.  A short walk to build up her strength. It proved what I knew, “I have missed our walks.”  I have also missed our talks although I did ask if I had her permission to chatter…old habits, I guess.  Comfortable old habits.

Update on our Walk of Life

Linda is much stronger but battling her neuropathy and foot and leg swelling that sometimes accompanies chemotherapy. We saw a cancer surgeon who muddied the waters a bit. He feels she has been misdiagnosed as to the type of cancer and has scheduled a new and different type of biopsy next week before her next chemo treatment the following week. I’m unsure as to what this means if anything. The plan is the same, continue the “walk of life” as long as possible and as long as it is a quality walk. To all who sent their support and cards of encouragement, thank you. They mean a lot.  

Obviously, this has nothing to do with Dire Strait’s “Walk of Life” but why should I let that bother me? Thank you, YouTube. Besides, I’m not even sure what Dire Strait’s song is about. Enjoy.

Some neat 80’s sports bloopers as a bonus.

Don writes at https://www.amazon.com/stores/Don-Miller/author/B018IT38GM?ref=ap_rdr&store_ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true

The Girl with the Pumpkin on her Head: A Love Story

/ cigarman501 / 6 Comments

“You fell in love with a storm. Did you really think you would get out unscathed?”
― Nikita Gill

When attempting to decide what kind of writer I wanted to be, I authored a book that was a collection of stories about my life with Linda Gail in the foothills of the Blue Ridge entitled “Through the Front Gate.” The book was a collection of stories, no rhyme or reason, I’m not sure I had any goal in mind. Most of the selections centered around the woman I married and the ancient farmhouse we bought. I think I’m going to rewrite it. I’ll have a goal this time…and I hope I’ve grown as a writer. Yes, there is a rewrite in my future.

***

My Birth

“Maybe love at first sight isn’t what we think it is. Maybe it’s recognizing a soul we loved in a past life and falling in love with them again.” ― Kamand Kojouri

I was born in the fall of my thirty-fifth year in 1985. I say this because my “real” life didn’t begin until she said yes.

I hadn’t planned to ask her to marry me. I thought I was too scared to ask as in “already twice burned” scared. As I asked, I looked intently into her hazel eyes and noticed they turned from gray green to bright green. I have learned over the years that green doesn’t always mean GO! Sometimes it means run like hell and be prepared to duck while you are doing it. This was not one of those times.

It was a spontaneous moment. I hadn’t really contemplated asking until I asked. It was a simple…almost casual, “Why don’t we get married.” As the request came out of my mouth, I knew it was blessed by the “gods of matrimony.” She must have thought so too, she said yes.

We weren’t young, I was thirty-five, she a year younger. We were both old enough to know better. Many friends were shaking their heads in disbelief. I had a couple of failed excursions into matrimony, she had never been married. She had been asked more than once but was still holding out for “mister right.”

When I asked for hand, her mother looked me straight in the eyes and without much expression of support said, “I’ll pray for you.” Her father’s comment foretold the future, “I don’t know why you are asking me. She’s never listened to me before.”

I don’t know when I first met Linda Gail, my ex-roommate’s on again, off again girlfriend. If you believe in reincarnation, I may have met her in a previous life. It is as if she has always been around.

I remember her in a striped bikini top over purple shorts as she helped my ex-roomy clean his boat. I noted she was a fine figure of a woman. I found out later she baits her own hook and will take off any fish she catches.

Later there was an early football season encounter on top of a press box before a football game.

We disagree on the moment we met, but I know when I was first smitten. She had an inflated pumpkin on her head preparing to celebrate Halloween.

She was a well-put together, remember the bikini, petite little girl with curly brown hair and twinkling hazel eyes. She had prominent cheek bones but was missing a spray of freckles across her nose. Her smile might be a bit off kilter and she never smiles enough.

Linda doesn’t just enter a room; she explodes into the room. Motion in several different directions as she talks more with her hands than she does with her mouth.

We would become fast friends with a heavy accent on friends. It would be the following football season before I had enough nerve to say yes when she asked me out. I was slow to act because of my relationship with her ex-boyfriend but the action was rapid once it began.

Slow to act but quite interested. I’d like to say that the relationship took off when the ex-boyfriend was transferred to a city three hours away, but the truth is we continued to dance around each other for six months before we finally decided to dance together.

There were friendly “flare-ups” until she took it upon herself to invite me to see an old friend of hers singing at a hole in the wall named the “Casablanca.” It looked nothing like “Rick’s Place” in the movie, but the singer/piano player might have been better than “Sam”. Ronnie didn’t sing “As Time Goes By” though but might have banged out a version of “That Old Time Rock and Roll.”

Yes, a rewrite is in order with a few more added stories.

Update:

As I write this, we are exactly one-week past Linda Gail’s first chemo treatment. I now know that if you have never been through chemo or supported a loved one going through chemo, you have no idea how painful it is.

For two days after, my bride was frantically manic and then the wheels fell off. There was a great deal of pain we weren’t expecting, and she is quite tired and weak. Emotionally, late in the day she grows fangs and bites. Thankfully, there was no nausea.

She is weak but has grown stronger and we have two weeks of reprieve to get stronger until the next one.

It is a learning experience. I have also found out that this disease is not just limited to the person who has it. It is a family disease.

Don’s books may be purchased in soft cover or downloaded at Amazon.com: Don Miller: books, biography, latest update

Controversy Sells

/ cigarman501 / Leave a comment

“This is almost always the case: A piece of art receives its f(r)ame when found offensive.”
― Criss Jami, Healology

Okay, before we argue, I am using the broadest definition of art. Painting, sculpture, music, theater, movies, literature, etc., including a 4-6-3 double play in baseball, especially if it involved Ozzie Smith. Anything done by Ozzie Smith must be considered, at the very least, “artistic” as he danced around the left side of infield.

As if we don’t have enough political dissent, over the past couple of months, we have had controversies involving the arts, sculpture, music, literature, and movies, two within the past month. You know them unless you have been sequestered in the deepest South American jungle for the six months. What do they have in common…money to be made…and in my humble opinion the controversy is stupid!

Michelangelo’s David controversy that got a Florida principal fired, Jason Aldean’s song and video, “Try That in a Small Town”, and the movies “Barbie” and “The Sound of Freedom.” All have created much controversy and as a byproduct created financial boom.

Okay, not for Michelangelo. Mike has been dead for several centuries, and the Florida principal is still fired. She did get an invitation to come to Italy to see the real thing. That seems a very “small” reward. However, it did put Renaissance art back in the public eye which created the problem in the first place.

Artistic controversy is not new, something many artists consciously and actively pursue. Who can forget “Fountain” by Marcel Duchamp, which was a porcelain urinal signed with Duchamp’s pseudonym, R. Mutt, and presented as a sculpture. Who can forget it? I just learned of it but from what I read, it created controversy in 1917 and brought Duchamp to the forefront of the art world and praise from plumbers everywhere.

One man’s art is another’s urinal

A controversy I do remember, Robert Mapplethorpe’s The Perfect Moment Exhibition, 1989, found itself steeped in controversy due to graphic S&M content. The Philadelphia Museum of Art, who had organized the show, had received federal funding from the National Endowment of the Arts. Senator Jesse Helms mobilized a group of members of Congress to sign an angry letter to the NEA.

The show was supposed to open at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., a museum that received a great deal of federal funding, but amid the outcry, the director canceled the show. Financial boom in reverse. To keep funding the exhibit was cancelled.

Aldean’s “Try That in a Small Town” wasn’t particularly popular or a huge money maker until the video splashed like a warm cow patty. When the CMA decided to pull the video over the message of the video, country music fans chose up sides and sent the song to the number one spot on Billboard. All that free advertising. As I understand it, the song also dropped from Billboard’s Number 1 to 27th in record time. Once controversy is replaced by newer controversy, we quickly forget the old one.

Not all controversies translate into financial boom as the then Dixie Chicks found out. During a London concert in March 2003, the band declared that they were “ashamed” of fellow Texan, President George W. Bush, who was planning to invade Iraq.

The comments sparked backlash and the group’s music was pulled from several radio stations and their record sales took a hit. Rebranded as The Chicks, which didn’t enamor them to Southerners, the fourteen-time Grammy winners have never regained their fame.

I grew up in a time of protest music and wonder if, those supporting the message of “Try That in a Small Town” or The Chicks fall from grace would be as supportive of Nina Simone’s “Mississippi Goddam” or Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit.” No need to argue the point, I’m just wondering aloud and yes, I did bring race into the statement.

In case you received your history education from the deep South in the Sixties and Seventies, you may wonder what I’m talking about. Simone’s song was a reaction to the racially motivated 1963 Mississippi church bombing that claimed the lives of four innocent children, and Holiday’s, a protest of the lynching of Black Americans with lyrics that compare the victims to the fruit hanging from trees.

Billie Holiday

There were plenty of folks who protested both songs at the time. “We got several letters where they had actually broken up this recording and sent it back to the recording company, really, telling them it was in bad taste,” Simone said during a 1964 interview on the Steve Allen Show. “They missed the whole point.”

Holiday’s song, first sung in 1939, came as lynchings of Blacks had reached a peak in the Southern United States during the first third of the 20th century. Southerners were not impressed, and the song received little play south of the Mason-Dixon.

Movies have always been controversial. From “I Am Curious (Yellow)”, “A Clockwork Orange”, to “The Passion of Christ”, sex, violence, or religion have always driven the controversy and now we get to add partisan political positions to those controversy.

Original Cinema Quad Poster – Movie Film Posters

Jim Caviezel, who once played Jesus Christ in Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of Christ”, stars in “Sound of Freedom.” The controversy is not over whether the movie is good or bad but over certain inaccuracies and Caviezel’s supposed ties to Qanon. I don’t know if the movie is good or bad because I haven’t seen it, but I know every movie that is based on “true events” has inaccuracies and untruths for the sake of drama and “esthetic appeal.”

Caviezel’s ties? I liked him in “Person of Interest” and “The Thin Red Line” before I knew his political affiliation and I will still like his acting now that I know it. To like one’s acting ability doesn’t mean I have to like the actor or agree with his politics…or vice versa. If it weren’t for people politicizing, I wouldn’t know his political posture today.

“Sound of Freedom” has made over one hundred million at the box office, mainly from efforts by those on the political right supporting it and the left denigrating it. That being said, the left has won the money battle with “Barbi.” “Barbi?” Over one billion in three weekends. The right yells, “woke, woke, woke” and the left goes and turns it into a billion-dollar movie…about dolls. Only this week’s Mega Million lottery winner made more.

I’m sure millions of current or former Barbi doll owners bought tickets regardless of political standing but much of the controversy surrounding the movie was over whether the Ken character had enough testosterone or was he a sniveling little, whoosie. A character based on a doll with no man parts to begin with.

Liking or disliking art due to political affiliation seems…I don’t know…what is worse than stupid. Mindless? Do I like the painting, the song, or the movie? Did I ask how Cassius Marcellus Coolidge, the artist who created the “Dogs Playing Poker” voted in his last election? No, I just like paintings of puppies smoking cigars and playing poker. No controversy there.

Note: Please don’t point out that I left out…. Sadly, there are dozens of controversies over literature I could have picked. I just don’t have the time.

Update: Things change fast when dealing with controversy. Contemporary Christian music star Derek Webb’s collaboration with Drag Queen Flamy Grant on his new album “The Jesus Hypothesis” has thrust them both into the cross hairs of conservative Christians attacking the release. What happened? The protest AGAINST those attacks have propelled the singing-songwriting drag queen and Webb to the top of the Christian music charts. Yes, controversy sells.

Flamy Grant Sings and Strums

Don Miller publishes at https://www.amazon.com/stores/Don-Miller/author/B018IT38GM?ref=ap_rdr&store_ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true

Update: The Luck of the Draw

/ cigarman501 / 20 Comments

“Today we fight. Tomorrow we fight. The day after, we fight. And if this disease plans on whipping us, it better bring a lunch, ’cause it’s gonna have a long day doing it.”
― Jim Beaver, Life’s That Way

Three and a half weeks ago we failed to draw two to an inside straight. An update on Linda Porter-Miller.

The oncologist confirmed that the biopsy verified our worst fears. Rather than let us sit in stunned silence the doctor prattled along telling us that it was his belief that we could get Linda’s disease into remission. There would be chemo, but surgery might not be in our future because of the way the disease has progressed.

Linda, my better half for nearly forty years, refuses to use the word that describes the disease, but oncologist and chemo are give aways to what we are facing. The disease has focused on her female parts, south of the border, and I will leave it there.

Those who played for or coached against Coach Porter-Miller know what a competitive little girl she is and will have no doubt in the belief of Jim Beaver’s quote, “And if this disease plans on whipping us, it better bring a lunch, ’cause it’s gonna have a long day doing it.”

Everyone who knows her knows too, she is a complicated individual who is not satisfied to battle just one disease. The Monday before we were to have a PET scan and begin chemotherapy, she decided to have a TAI stroke. Two days in the hospital and a battery of tests proved she had had more than one and we went into battling a two-front war, putting off the chemo for a week.

In typical Miss PE fashion, (Miss PE is what her elementary students called her) she has decided it was the best thing that could have happened. Better to know now than to find out in the middle of a war that your rifle was going to misfire. (I apologize for mixing metaphors from gambling to warfare)

She has recovered from the stroke nicely. She stumbles over the occasional word, especially when texting but still talks ninety miles a minute. She makes as much sense now as she always did.

So, we began chemo two days ago, three by the time this is posted. Linda has done well. The big challenge has been keeping up with and when to take the myriads of drugs we are forced to take or in my case administer. We also found out that Linda can’t tolerate the Claritin she was prescribed to counter bone pain. I am reminded of a college student hopped up on “Black Beauties” cramming for an exam.

She is hyper and restless, unable to sleep. I know this is temporary and she needs to rest. I expect her to go “bust” at any moment and wind down like a child’s toy. She needs to rest. This is the first of six treatments. I expect a hard fight and hope for a long fight.

Friends, family, former players, and coaching peers, Linda doesn’t “do” Facebook but if you want to drop a note, I’ll pass it along or if you want to send a card, our address is Linda Porter-Miller 3300 Highway 11, Travelers Rest, SC, 29690.

Luck of the Draw

/ cigarman501 / 19 Comments

“Shit storms are no fun to walk in with your mouth open.” ― Jean Oram, Champagne and Lemon Drops

Sometimes you draw two to an inside straight and hit, other times a royal flush is not good enough to win. It all comes down to the “luck of the draw.” Some would say “that’s life.”

I don’t agree. Poker isn’t life. Life isn’t choosing whether to take a card or standing pat. Sure, we sometimes must make choices but sometimes we walk through shit storms that are not caused by our choices. Sometimes, we draw a hand that goes bust. The luck of the draw. That’s life.

We’ve received what I would call a “gut punch” of a diagnosis. I’m not going to say who or what. Saying it would bring a wrath down upon me worse than the disease itself. Everyone who needs to know, knows and I’ll leave it at that. I’m writing about it simply to…I don’t know why I’m writing about it. To keep from losing my sanity?

During the light of day, I force reassurance, offering nothing that is not positive, sympathetic, or affirming. During the darkness of night, not so much. I’m left with my thoughts that turn into dreams that turn into nightmares. As you might guess, I’m writing this to the light of my computer screen far past the witching hour.

Even during the light of day intrusive thoughts worm their way into my head. I must stay busy. If I try to write or watch TV, I find my thoughts wandering and wondering about what life is to bring.

One of my thoughts is “What did she do to deserve this?” She checks all the right boxes. I’m the one that should be struggling with a diagnosis. All my checks are on the wrong side of the ledger, not hers. She doesn’t warrant this. She has rarely gambled in her life.

I remember my father as he dealt with my mother’s illness, ALS. She was a good woman who didn’t deserve her lot, either. Hours after the singing of the National Anthem ended the TV programing for the day, I would see him playing solitaire.

I don’t know how he did it. Working a shift in a cotton mill, doing everything he could for my mother when he got home…and still playing solitaire into the wee hours. I fear he is a better man than I. I hope I can stand in his shadow. I’m glad I had him as a role model.

I never believed my mother would die. I was a childish eighteen-year-old when she did. She was ill for years and yet right up until we received word of her passing, I believed she would continue to survive. I’m trying to maintain that hope now.

A quote by Jonathan Anthony Burkett, “In life we all go through trials and tribulations. So now tell me, will you pass, or will you make a mess?” God, please let me pass this test. Not for me but for her. Let me be who I need to be. Give me the strength not to “crap out.” Above all, let her recover.

Wednesday is a big day for her…for us. Sickness is a family affair. I’m sure the anxiety will continue to build. I wonder, which is worse? Knowing or not knowing. I won’t know until Wednesday.

I posted in a blog earlier this year expressing my belief that the quote “God will never give you more than you can handle” is a fallacy and does more harm than good. I hope my belief hasn’t come back to bite me. I hope I don’t have to find out if it is true or not.

Please keep us in your thoughts. Prayer would be nice as would good mojo or ju ju. Black magic…I’ll take it. I’ll take what you can give. Thanks.

Don writes about happier things at https://www.amazon.com/stores/Don-Miller/author/B018IT38GM?ref=ap_rdr&store_ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true