Author: cigarman501

Coffee is Better with a Friend

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Coffee is Better with a Friend

“Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art…. It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.”

― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

Many years ago, my best friend and I would meet on Fridays before the sun rose and walk and jog the Swamp Rabbit trail while attempting to solve all the world’s ills. Many heated discussions occurred but after many years we agree our efforts have come for naught.

We are an unlikely pair. He, the staunch Christian conservative and I, the left leaning, possible agnostic, ordained Dudeist priest. I will let you look up Dudeism on your own.

While staunch, he isn’t MAGA or Christian Nationalist. He cares little for politics or any kind. He would best be described as an old timey Christian singing “Give Me That Old Time Religion” but is more a Reagan Republican than an Eisenhower Republican. While we sit on different sides of the center, we find more to agree on than disagree.

Just off the Swamp Rabbit is a small coffee and art café, The Tree House. Originally it was Leopard Forrest before changing owners along with its name and we stumbled upon it one very cold winter’s morning. We decided to warm ourselves with a cup of coffee and continue to discuss and debate.

The Tree House is cheerful, welcoming and adorned with colorful artwork. The aroma of coffee greets you at the door, and the owners and their working staff greet you inside. They have become the family everyone wishes to have. My brother and cousins should not take offense; they would fit right in with the dysfunctional group we have assembled.

Over the years our duo has grown into a small group. One of the owners, the artist, sat down with us one day, striking up a conversation. Instead of running her off we were introduced to her friends, an English lady who was born during The Blitz, literally born in a bomb shelter. She sits farther to the left than I. Her husband, retired military, sits farther right than my friend. They are an unlikely duo but have managed to make it work for sixty-eight years. She calls us her Muppet men, the grouchy old Muppets that sit in the balcony. Grouchy but just as humorous.

This is the core group, but we welcome nearby diners, attracted by our loud stories and even louder laughter. There are others who are part-time members. We welcome all comers and their contributions. We are a woke, equal opportunity group.

I look forward to Fridays. It is as if the ills of the world that we cannot erase are somehow washed clean. For a bit of time, I don’t worry about what is happening in Washington or Columbia. We don’t worry if we are a red state or if New York has elected a Muslim. All the divisiveness ends. It is fun stories and laughter. It is learning about different backgrounds. Laughter is truly good for the heart as are friends. Friends do make survival worth it. It certainly brings value to mine.

Like Don Miller’s stories? Try “Pig Trails and Rabbit Holes.” Download or purchase from Amazon at https://tinyurl.com/5n8uzuwp

Oh, the Horror…Happy Halloween

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“At three in the morning the blood runs slow and thick, and slumber is heavy. The soul either sleeps in blessed ignorance of such an hour or gazes about itself in utter despair. There is no middle ground.”

― Stephen King, ‘Salem’s Lot

It is the morning of Halloween, and I am awake. For some reason, threeish seems to be the hour that I awake. Sometimes I fall back to sleep but often I do not. This is an often I do not morning. Known as “the Witching Hour,” I certainly seem to be under a spell.

Three AM is referred to as the witching hour due to the belief that it is a time when supernatural forces, such as witches, demons, and ghosts, are at their most powerful. This association stems from the idea that witches cast their spells in the darkness of night when they can go undetected, and it is thought to be when the veil between life and death is at its weakest.

The phrase “witching hour” use began at least as early as 1762, when it appeared in Elizabeth Carolina Keene’s Miscellaneous Poems. It alludes to Hamlet’s line “Tis now the very witching time of night, When Churchyards yawne, and hell it selfe breakes out Contagion to this world.” Thank you, Wikipedia.

Further thanks to Swedish director, Ingamar Bergman. He coined the phrase “The Hour of the Wolf” due to his 1968 thriller with the same name. In his own words, the hour of the wolf is

“The hour between night and dawn … when most people die, sleep is deepest, nightmares are most real. It is the hour when the sleepless are haunted by their worst anguish, when ghosts and demons are most powerful. The hour of the wolf is also the hour when most babies are born.”

I don’t know why he included babies, I hope it is simply a fact, although Rosemary’s Baby came out in the same year. A movie based on the spawn of a human woman and the devil himself, I know some babies that cry like their father might have been Satan.

In the dim light of my computer screen, I wonder if I am haunted. There are certainly memories that haunt me. My old farmhouse creaks and moans when the wind is just right, sometime there is the patter of little mice feet or a shadow that I had not noticed before. All seem to make me feel haunted. I can see my puppies, asleep on the couch, twitching in their sleep as if they are chasing a dream involving rabbits or squirrels. Haunted? Probably.

I am unsure when I first became interested in horror. I remember reading Mary Shelly, Bram Stoker, and Edgar Allen Poe when I was in high school. Horror greats from another age along with black and white, midnight horror fests that included reruns of Boris Karloff as “the monster” and Bela Lugosi, not the first vampire character but certainly the coolest Count Dracula.

On the small screen there was Thriller’s “Pigeons from Hell”hosted by Karloff, The Twilight Zone with Rod Serling hosting Captain Kirk’s “Terror at 20000 Feet” and Alfred Hitchcock Present’s  “Lamb to the Slaughter.” I wonder if we taste like chicken.

In college I remember going to the old Ritz Theater in Newberry with a group of fraternity bros. The Oblong Box starring Vincent Price was playing.  A movie about premature burial and Voodoo, a scene of a hand reaching out of a casket is all I can remember. It may be blasphemy, but I was never a Vincent Price fan and had to research what the movie was about.

I may not know when I became a horror enthusiast, but I know when it became solidified, along with science fiction, as my go to genres. Whether on a printed page or on a screen, it is Stephen King.

I have told this story before and will probably tell it again. My first King book was “’Salem’s Lot.” A story about the infestation of small-town Maine by vampires. According to King’s own words, “it is Peyton Place meets Dracula.” Whatever it was, it scared me to death, scared to death in a good way.

I remember reading it late on an early spring Saturday night. I was alone, propped up on my bed, which itself is horror for an unattached young adult male. My windows were open to a welcoming breeze, the drapes fluttering occasionally.  A thunderstorm was rumbling in the distance.

As I read a passage that explained that vampires had to be invited into your home and were sneaky enough to hypnotize you into doing so, I heard a faint tapping on my second-floor apartment window.

“Tap, tap, tap!” I pause and listen. I heard it again. The same tap, tap, tap. There was no way I was going to walk over to that window. Instead, I did what any sane person would do. I left the light on and pulled the bed cover over my head.

The next morning, in the light of day, I found the tapping was caused by a tree limb that had grown too close to my window. Sure, that was it.

I have the newest remake of ‘Salem’s Lot ready to be watched. I have been saving it for this Halloween night. I hope it is at least as good as the late Seventies miniseries although it may be impossible for anyone to replace James Mason as the vampire’s main minion, Richard Straker. If it isn’t, I can reread the book. I still have my original copy.

However you celebrate Halloween, I hope you have a ghoulishly, good night. Here are happy “boos” to you.

If you like fiction, try Thunder Along the Copperhead. Not Gothic horror, it is a historical romance with plenty of history of the depression year of 1933. An almost destitute farm woman, a damaged World War One veteran who moonshines on the side are the primary characters. Please help a struggling author by downloading or purchasing it in paperback. Thanks, I know you will.

Protest and Dissent

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“We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men – not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes that were, for the moment, unpopular” ― Edward R. Murrow, 1953(?)

I’m waiting for the sun to show its presence. Something has my puppies all “ah twitter.” Something has me the same way but at least I’m not outside barking into the darkness. Instead, I am sitting in the dark here pondering the upcoming No Kings Protest.

I’ve spent too much time on social media reading about “the battle lines being drawn.” Name calling from both sides. Motivations being dissected. No, I’m not getting paid. Soros has offered me nothing, I protest to support our democracy for free. I’m not a Marxist, a communist, or an anarchist. I’m not a terrorist. I’m just worried.

I can’t believe I feel motivated to protest. A balding, achy kneed, seventy-five-year-old considering making a sign and joining the protest. I’m a “Boomer” and according to social media, I should be supporting the other side.

My brother is questioning my sanity, I am sure. He believes the present turmoil and concerns about a dictatorship is “much to do with nothing.”  According to him, we have too many checks in our system. I hope he is correct but believe we can take nothing for granted, especially our democracy.

I am a product of a period of protest. Born in 1950, I was unaware of the social change that Bob Dylan sang about in 1962, and I guess my answers are still blowing in the wind. The protests of the Sixties and Seventies shaped me in ways I was unaware of until my later adult life.

Despite calls for nonviolent protests, the Sixties and Seventies were fraught with a fire that even fire hoses couldn’t extinguish. I hope the protests from this Saturday are not violent, but I fear there will be agitators from both sides. I fear one side has begun to stoke the fire to oppose and hopes it will lead to confrontation. We must avoid our base instincts to retaliate while we defend our democracy.

I don’t hate America. I’m not willing to “move to those countries” more in line with my beliefs as more conservative “friends” have suggested. My beliefs align with what is written in our Constitution and its Amendments and not with a tinpot, want-to-be autocrat.

Portland frogs, naked bike riders, and serenading ICE facilities with jazz bands dressed in animal costumes have brought a breath of creativity to the protests in cities invaded by ICE and National Guard. Unfortunately, there has been enough violence to make large-scale protest worrisome.

I have been accused of not caring about crime in blue cities. This is not true. I care about crime anywhere and quite deeply.

I care about hastily trained ICE agents using undue force and friends who support it and attempt to justify it with the ends justify the means. You cannot justify women and children being drug from cars, beaten, even shot.

I care about National Guard troops who are not properly trained in policing. I remember “four killed in Ohio.” I worry that they will be forced to be trained in domestic urban warfare and ordered to use their training.

We, as a nation, have a rich history in dissent and protest. We were born, as a nation, from dissent and protest, some quite violent. The Revolutionary War, sometimes referred to as our first civil war, was quite violent and began due to protest and dissent.

There were people then, as there are now, who believed our dissent and protest was unintelligent and ignorant. They believe it is misplaced. I guess there are always two sides to any protest.

I worry that we are sliding down a slope toward dictatorship and oligarchy…or have hit the rock bottom and are already there. It seems that I face people who are okay with, if not welcoming, a change in our system of government and willing to accept an autocrat.

Our legislative branch seems to have surrendered as well as a third of our voting population. I am not willing. I’m not against change but I am not for illegally circumventing the checks put into place by the authors of our Constitution.

I trust our President, not at all. Nor do I trust his advisors, his cabinet members, the Supreme Court, and our Legislative branch. It hurts me to say it, I don’t trust those who voted for him, including family and friends.

I worry too, that for every person who thinks as I do, there are good folks…well intentioned folks, who believe otherwise. Folks who want change for the sake of change. Folks who will pay for that change, as will I. I don’t hate them. I feel sorry for them and worry about what they are willing to do to me and my family.

There is plenty wrong with our leaders, not our system of government. Our leaders are the problem. We have leaders who are dedicated to the people and leaders who are only dedicated to themselves and their party. It appears one side, the wrong side, has taken control.

Protest seems to be the only avenue available. “There comes a time when one must take the position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular, but he must do it because conscience tells him it is right.” ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

I believe I have come to that time.

America the Beautiful…No More

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“I really love America. I just don’t know how to get there anymore” -John Prine

It’s Independence Day and somewhere deep in my soul, I feel, “So What?”

I’m celebrating like most any other day. Sitting with my puppies lost in my thoughts. Often my mind is a terrible thing. A cigar and brown liquor drink will soon join my terrible mind as I wait for the pyrotechnics to begin. I have no belief the drink will help.

 I’m forcing my thoughts to go back to the “Good Ole Days” to the celebrations of my youth. Yes, I understand that once you get past Dutch Fork BBQ, South Carolina hash, greased pigs and poles, patriotic songs, and the fireworks, for some, America was a beautiful, seemingly, impossible dream. See, I can’t keep my mind on little Donnie enjoying the Fourth of July celebrations of the late 1950s and early 1960s.

I was young and still believed in the American Dream my parents were peddling. This was before Viet Nam, before Watergate, before Reagan’s “trickle down” and the endless wars, mass shootings, and the hatred I am seeing displayed in the present. I have become more liberal in my autumn years and a tad bit cynical.

Honestly, I could withstand most of this…except for the hatred that is now being peddled like Clark Stanley’s Snake Oil Liniment…seemingly from all sides. We are taking doses of snake oil quite liberally. Especially, one side but the other side is not squeaky clean either.

America the Beautiful has lost its empathy and with it, its humanity. With our humanity we have lost our benevolence, creativeness, our brotherly love. Why?

We have embraced cruelty. Why just disagree with someone when we can metaphorically cut them deep, wide, and frequently.

Some will immediately begin to discuss…no argue venomously, that it is the Trump effect. This may surprise you. I don’t believe he isn’t to blame. Trump is a catalyst. We knew who he was from the early Seventies.

Trump is the greatest snake oil salesman of all time, and it is his followers who turned America into the not so beautiful. PT Barnam said, “there is a sucker born every minute,” and Trump took it to heart. I’m just flabbergasted that he found so many in one place.

The cruelty didn’t just begin with Trump 1.0. It was present well before Trump. It has always been there. An honest study of history will bear that out.

The cruelty has expanded with social media. Trolls, bots, foreign agents, and computer alphas hiding behind their keyboards have pushed the idea that being cruel was cool. It has been effective.  

Before someone suggests, since I hate America, I should leave. I don’t hate America. I love America with all her flaws. The concepts behind “America the Beautiful” are still there but like John Prine, I don’t know how to get there anymore.

Note to Steve: The drink and cigar did not help.

A Long, Hard Year

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“When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.”
― Kahlil Gibran

I sat with a group of friends at a local café. It is usually a time of joy, sometimes when I need it the most. This was one of those times. It is March and I have begun to contemplate the past year since Linda left me.

My friend Val, the eighty-two-year-old teenager, asked how Linda and I met and cautioned, “If it is too hard to talk about….”

“Val, I never find it hard to talk about Linda,” I answered. It is never too painful to talk about her. It is the dark, quiet times when I am alone with my darkest memories that I find hard. A vibrant, loving woman reduced to an urn of ashes is what is hard. Still, I left our gathering smiling, my mood lightened, even if it was short lived.

I only share the good times when I talk about Linda. There were thirty-eight years of good times. Tales of our first meeting and the winding road that we traveled trying to acknowledge we were in love were the subjects of the day. The meeting on top of a football field’s press box or was it when she stood with an inflated pumpkin on her head? The trip from hell to Charleston with her then boyfriend, my roommate. A trip to a local dive, The Casablanca Lounge, that brought love more into focus. In that conversation with Val, I realized I had an anodyne for the deep darkness I have been feeling for the past twelve months.

I have an old photograph of Linda being Linda. I keep it close by to remind me of who Linda was…not what she became. Hands apart, she is sticking her tongue out. The photo is dark but not as dark as her curls, the dark curls I loved and remember most. This is Linda, the Linda I must remember. The Linda that still makes me smile.

I must also remember the Linda of the last year of her life. I have no choice. Even in the darkest moments there were pinpoints of light. No matter how weak she became, there was still a light that shined brighter than all others. She struggled with names and called everyone “Baby” and told them, “That’s alright, it’s okay” even when it wasn’t.

Still, the darkness encroaches along with the bitterness I feel. Life played such a terrible trick. From the joy of being told, “You are in complete remission,” to the stoke a scant week later. Four months later she was gone…four months that seemed like four lifetimes for all the wrong reasons.

Despite the photography, I don’t think I will ever get over the bitterness. Despite the wonderful memories, I find myself angry. Sometimes, I get angry at myself. I get angry at God. I could have done more. I could have held her more, danced with her more, kissed her more.

God could have not been such a hateful trickster. Why did you take her from me in such a painful manner?

Selfishly, I feel robbed. She is gone and I am left to act as if I am still alive.

The lyrics of an old tune popped in my head, “Don’t it always seem to go. That you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone.” I always knew what I had, and it made her loss even greater. There is a hole in my heart I never want to heal.

Even with bitterness there is room for joy. Life without Linda is a two-sided coin. Bitterness on one, the joy that was Linda on the other. I find that there is always something to smile about even in the darkness of absence.

The Cellar Revisited

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I originally wrote this years ago. Since learning the former Beach Music icon, The Cellar, burned Saturday morning, I decided to update it as a eulogy for a place that held a prominent place in my memories and a time long gone.

“A long, long time ago, I can still remember how that music used to make me smile”               -Don Mclean, American Pie

It was an early Sunday morning, as in after midnight. I had just returned to my dorm room from a date with a young woman who was successfully auditioning to become ex-wife number one.

Sitting at my desk listening to the local radio station, I was shocked to hear that Billy Stewart, the singer, had died in an automobile accident near the North Carolina coast. It was January 18, 1970; he had died just hours before.

Saddened by the news of his tragedy, for the next hour I sat and listened to Billy Stewart’s greatest hits while reminiscing with one of the voices in my head about seeing him live the previous summer. “Summertime,” “Sitting in the Park,” “I Do Love You,” “Secret Love,” – I heard them all and more that morning on WKDK. I had been there to watch him sing all those songs live at The Cellar in Charlotte in 1969.

To this day, I enjoy “hole-in-the-wall” kinds of places, and The Cellar was certainly that. A little dark, it was mostly lit by neon beer signs and had an ambience that was special only to me and the rest of the flat top, madras and khaki wearing, and Weegan crowd.

A door next to a large oak tree had a simple wooden sign above that welcomed you to “The Cellar.” The tree with roots pushing their way above ground level was an obstacle getting into the club. I think it had become a type of “drunkenness” test administered by the bouncers taking up the cover at the door. I once had a friend get kicked out for being drunk after he had tripped over one of those roots. The problem was we hadn’t made it into The Cellar. Don’t you have to be in before you are thrown out?

The Cellar was aptly named being in the basement of an old brick building. Once you navigated the tree roots, paid your dollar cover and walked through the door, you would be assaulted with the sound of a live band playing “soul” or “beach” music or the greatest “beach” music jukebox in the world doing the same.

A bar, located to the right, ran the length of the foyer for lack of a better descriptor. Double archways separated the bar from the young people “strutting their stuff,” dancing a dance known as the “Carolina Shag,” a descendent and a much slower version of the Jitterbug or Lindy Hop. The dance itselStrandmusic that went with it was born on the shores of the Carolina Grand Strand and continues to be so popular today that it has been named the state dance of South Carolina.

A small bandstand was located against the left-hand wall in front of a hardwood dance floor. The rest of the flooring was unfinished concrete. Near the right-hand wall was a small seating area. In addition to the music that made normal conversation impossible you would be seduced by the smell of stale cigarettes and spilled beer. Oh, how I loved it!

The Cellar had everything a college boy might desire except the restroom was upstairs and navigating the stairs became much harder as the night progressed. It was such a ratty place that people our age could do as we pleased and there was no way we could mess it up any more than it was.

We certainly did not have to be rich to go there as it had a cheap cover charge, live bands, fifteen-cent drafts, and college girls…if you had a good line to meet them. I did sing the Sam Cooke lyrics from “Another Saturday Night” on occasion, “If I could meet ‘em, I could get ‘em, as yet I haven’t met ‘em, that’s why I’m in the shape I’m in.” I wonder if a simple “Would you like to dance?” would have worked?

I was not shutout every night but the night I heard Billy sing live I invited Sally McGinn to join me to ensure I didn’t want for female companionship. It was a good thing. There were so many people jammed into such a small space, movement, or meeting anyone was nigh on impossible. I remember being packed in so tightly, Sally and I could not have been any closer unless it had been our wedding night. No, tightly packed doesn’t quite describe it. When we left, the floor was so sticky with spilled beer, momentarily I was cemented to the concrete. I miss that.

Billy was not the only live act to grace the small stage at The Cellar. Every weekend there were different groups performing. Archie Bell and the Drells “Tightened Up,” The Georgia Prophets gave me a “Fever” and the Catalinas reminded me that “Summertime’s Calling Me,” as is The Cellar…which, like so many places of my youth, no longer exists.

 Much of my time during the summers of ‘68 and ’69 was spent pursuing coeds at The Cellar. High school friends, Al Stevenson and John Nesbitt, along with myself, became the Three Musketeers those summers pursuing “man’s favorite sport,” but like “car chasing” dogs, rarely did we catch our quarry. We were the Three Stooges instead.

We worked during the summer, and I remember many mornings getting home just in time to change clothes and head back to work in Charlotte. Working for Crowder Construction Company on Interstate Seventy-Seven, I attempt to avoid bridges that I know I worked on during those summers. I fear they could fall in at any minute.

My last trip to The Cellar would occur in the summer of 1970. I brought Dianne, the woman who would become ex-wife number one, home to meet the family and later took her out for an evening of shagging at The Cellar. It was a standout night that figured prominently in my memories. Dianne was a statuesque redhead who rocked a red-patterned halter suit that she filled out quite nicely and more than adequately. We ran into Al and with his drooling Saint Bernard impersonation I would say he was impressed, too.

I’m not sure why I never went back. I know I never intended not to. School, life, and marriage along with divorce got into the way. I think in some ways it was a sign of the times, or I just grew up.

Al decided to hitch hike to California. He didn’t make it out of Charlotte but ended up living on a local commune trying to find himself. I understand he was successful. John followed the same track as I, teaching before getting into school administration before he died. Shamefully, to my knowledge I never saw them again.

While the music didn’t die it changed along with the times. It went from easy rhythms about love to harsh Protest music. Shagging to that was impossible and the mood was wrong. In 1977 Saturday Night Fever put a spotlight on leisure suits and Disco. I never tried to get the hang of it.

As disco fought its death throws, Urban Cowboy was released, making Country, the Texas Two-step and line dancing the craze. Somewhere in the Seventies and Eighties I got lost and our ratty club became The Country Underground and later a restaurant and…sadly, like Sally, Dianne, Al and John, a memory of something that once was.

Valentine’s Day

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“This fire that we call Loving is too strong for human minds. But just right for human souls.”
― Aberjhani, Elemental: The Power of Illuminated Love

It is Valentine’s Day. My first without my bride. Memories flood over me…and when it came to this day, few were memorable in a positive way. It was always a very stressful day.

My bride didn’t like traditional Valentine’s Day gifts…you know…roses or chocolate.  Stress!  I mean she likes roses, but she’d rather have a bare root rose to plant in the spring…you know the gift that keeps on giving…season after season.  I did that for one year.  It died.

Chocolate would be fine if we celebrated at an intimate little Belgium chocolate shop, we once discovered in Charleston…the owner, a Belgian Jew whose family fled to the United States as Nazi tanks began rolling toward France, died a while back.  How dare she.  The son who took over was…was…delicate and high strung, prone to fainting.  He couldn’t take the pressure of making handmade chocolate delights.  He sold out and for some reason, it’s just not the same.  It’s like the shop died too.

One of the first Valentine’s Days we celebrated after moving to the foothills of the Blue Ridge is a prime example of my luck as it relates to Valentine’s Day. I found a nearby inn offering a romantic dinner for two.  I jumped on it…it snowed.

The owner called us saying, “they say the roads are cleared.  We’re open but have no power.  We’ll be preparing your meal over an open fire if you can get here.”  We’ll get there. 

“Have four-wheel drive, will travel” which explains why we opted to take the Thunderbird instead of the old Landcruiser.  The Landcruiser just wasn’t sexy enough for Valentine’s Day.  “Fools rush in….” Up the Saluda Grade for twelve or so miles.  Everything was fine until we hit the North Carolina line.  Snowplows?  Even South Carolina has heard of them.

It was a drive through the mountains that reminded me of the scenes from the movie “Battle of the Bulge.”  The road looked like it had been bombed.  Trees and powerlines went down, six inches of snow on the ground with a heavy fog rising as it melted.  Instead of Nazis directing mortar fire on us, power crews in yellow helmets directed us around obstructions.  No artillery shells exploded, just transformers lighting up the approaching darkness.  We made it.  How are we getting home?  I’m sure the inn is full…it was.

Saluda, North Carolina, is a rustic little village filled with memories of past days when it was a stop for the railroad.  The inn, built to serve the railroad elite, was located on the far side of town, and welcomed us with hurricane lamps that gave the old structure a turn of the Twentieth Century feel.

Oil lamps provided a warm glow with a hint of kerosene wafting through the air.  An intimate table for two covered in red and white checkerboard.  A flickering candle in the center of the table caused shadows to dapple around us as if bathed in soft moonlight.

There was a view of snow-covered mountains as we sat next to an open fireplace that could have burned a giant Sequoia tree.  Everything was warm and cheery…and of course, romantic.  None of the waitresses called anyone honey or sweetheart.  The offer was of a young red wine, not sweet Southern tea.

The bill of fare included mushrooms stuffed with duck liver pâté, Caesar salad, a healthy cut of filet mignon sided with asparagus and roasted potatoes…can you believe I can remember a dinner from nearly forty years ago?

A chocolate cheesecake topped with a cherry sauce finished the meal…a decadent, triple-digit priced meal…worth every penny…to me…but not to my bride which is the only reason I had come here anyway.  She enjoyed the meal when she ate it, later…not so much.

We decided to take the long way home by interstate…the interstate had to be clear.  The wide four lanes had to be safer than the two lane we had traveled up.  We found it clear of snow.  We also found it shrouded in a heavy fog rising from the asphalt as thick as (insert your own cliché here).

Worse still, my bride was sick.

“Honey, you need to pull over,” she said weakly.  She looked a bit green in the light cast by the passing headlights.

“What?”

Said with emphasis, “YOU NEED TO PULL OVER!  I’M GOING TO THROW UP!”

Slowing and easing to the side of the road, “STOP THE DAMN CAR WILL YOU!”  Okay, not fast enough.

I watched in horror as half of a triple-digit meal landed on the pavement with the force of a high-pressure hose.  Think Linda Blair in “The Exorcist.”

Once I helped her into the car, I pointed out, “The pâté….”  I shouldn’t have mentioned food.

“What?”

“It had to be the pâté.”

“Oh, just shut up and get me home!  NO WAIT.  STOP THE CAR…NOWWWWW!”

So much for the after-dinner festivities.

I’m only sharing because it exemplifies the horror that is Valentine’s Day…and it is more subtly humorous in retrospect than at the time.  The ‘meal from hell’ is not the exception; it is the rule.  So bad are my Valentine’s Day memories, I’ve blocked most of them, locking them away somewhere in my head and throwing away the key.

What can you expect from a celebration of love named for the patron saint of epilepsy?  A jailer beaten, clubbed, and beheaded for trying to convert prisoners into Christians.  Nothing says “Be my Valentine” like a bloody, headless corpse.

I thought long and hard about this Valentine’s Day…just like every other one when she was alive.  It’s been a rough month in a rough year.

The last Valentine’s Day gift I gave her was perfect. A handmade (chortle) necklace…a cheap, fake silver locket in the shape of a sunflower on a cheap, fake silver chain.  The sunflower splits apart to expose an engraved message, “You are my sunshine.”  It’s beautiful.  Perfect.  She was my sunshine.  Her light still burns brightly in my heart.

Soulful Vaccination

/ cigarman501 / 2 Comments

“The saxophone is an imperfect instrument, especially the tenor and soprano, as far as intonation goes. The challenge is to sing on an imperfect instrument that is outside of your body.”

— Stan Getz

Other than those found on my playlist, I hadn’t thought about saxophones until I chanced upon a beautiful, blond, Dutch saxophonist named Candy Dulfer. Where have you been all my life?  I admit her long legs and short skirt got my attention at first but then I clicked on a YouTube video, and not only does she look alluring, but she is also a damn fine saxophonist.

A version of “Pick Up the Pieces” led me to a cooperative effort with Glennis Grace singing Phil Collins’ “In the Air Tonight.” This in turn led me to a comment by a fan, “Just what I needed, a soulful vaccination.” I feel it. I needed one too.

I am prone to following pig trails in my mind and was led back to late 1950s or early 1960s to my mother’s living room. A large, cabinet stereo occupied one corner, and my mother was prone to playing Ray Coniff, Perry Como, or Mitch Miller…she did give me Johnny River’s “Live at the Whiskey a Go-Go” my fourteenth birthday, but rock and roll was a rarity for her.

She inadvertently introduced me to the saxophone with Billy Vaughn and his Orchestra. Vaughn’s trademark was harmonies with twin alto saxophones.  I think it was his rendition of “Red Sails in the Sunset” that got my attention, and I found myself attempting to play the sax in my high school band. They accepted all comers and honestly, I was no better at the saxophone than I had been at the drums, the first instrument I tried but failed to master.

Unless playing the cymbals, I didn’t have the manual dexterity to be a great musician despite my “want too”. More than likely, I would simply catch a body part between the two cymbals.

 More importantly I needed a “soulful vaccination” …or maybe a “soulful transfusion.” To quote my band instructor, “You’re just too tight assed.” He was correct and not just about playing the sax. It is a trademark of my life in general. Friends always comment, “I can’t believe you did that”, whenever I might step out of my comfort zone.

I played just well enough to join my college band, they accepted all comers too, and even spent a year as the second alto in the jazz ensemble… but only because we needed five saxophonist and five were all we had.

 I was no Cannonball Adderly or Junior Walker, but I had a great time and made great lifelong memories. I even got to play with Doc Severinsen during a jazz clinic. There was also a long night of partying with him but for some reason I don’t remember it as well.

I probably could have been better had I concentrated. I blame my small high school. Blame but in a good way. We were so small I was involved in everything from chorus and band to baseball and football. I was able to do it all but mastered none and would not take money for the memories.

Thanks Candy. Thanks for your sexy and soulful renditions. Thanks for the pig trail you sent me down. I’ll be adding you to my playlist. Thank you for the soulful infusion.

Don Miller’s latest offering is “Food for Thought” and can be purchased on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/Food-Thought-Musings-Mad-Southerner/dp/B0CVFVVKZ3/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3JOR4JC665OYR&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.qHgZwjWZGMMWOAkFzZNGvUYxwSKDGldwLlh06k97FCmeZeq-pJC3KvlR9FJlvR50DyXu0dByDs0VDomtfuOpRw.4zi2lLYNri-Omdm8TQ4n4-aweXDLZEaozt9zQm83Ruk&dib_tag=se&keywords=food+for+thought+book+Don+Miller&qid=1737828043&sprefix=food+for+thought+book+don+miller%2Caps%2C95&sr=8-1