Don’s Books

THROUGH THE FRONT GATE

/ cigarman501 / Leave a comment

For nearly thirty years I have entered “Through the Front Gate” to a home that is much more than just a place to lay my head. For more times than I can possibly count I have entered a haven and a refuge, made so by the woman that lives here, my Linda Gail. When I repeat the Bible verse, “You are my refuge and strength” I am not talking to God, I am talking about the woman who is everything good about the world I live in…the world that you have created Linda Gail. Saying that I love you seems quite inadequate but it will have to do. “Linda Gail, I love you.” These are stories from thirty years of marriage and the unintended consequences of Linda Gail.

Cover photography is my “view through the front gate.”

Don Miller’s fourth book, THROUGH THE FRONT GATE, will launch August 12…MAYBE,

THE “GUILT” OF CHILD “REARING”

/ cigarman501 / 2 Comments

My daughter Ashley has been put into the hospital. Nothing serious…I hope. She is pregnant with our second grandchild and will be induced to give birth later today. It has “induced” in my head memories from Ashley’s past…and a bit of haunting with it.

I feel a bit like Maximillian Robespierre of French Revolution fame. In addition to “losing his head” during his own “Reign of Terror” Max once, as I understand it, wrote on “child rearing” despite never having a child to rear. When I think of my daughter Ashley, I feel somewhat the same way. I was a part time Dad, and carry a certain burden of guilt because of it. For some reason I feared children. I had a sense I would not wear the mantel of “fatherhood” very well. Thirty-five years after becoming a father, I still am not sure, but could not be happier with the way Ashley turned out.

Linda Gail and I chose not to have children although it was probably me more than she. Instead, we chose to share my daughter with her mother. Our relationship with Ashley’s mother was at times strained and at times not, and probably could be described as “as good as one would expect and probably better than most.” Without consulting Linda Gail, I chose to not confuse the issue of child rearing by “bending” to Ashley’s mother’s vision of raising our child since Ashley lived with her. Ashley’s mother did a wonderful job of raising my daughter with very little help from Linda Gail or myself…until Ashley does or says something that reminds me that we might have had more influence than I realized. I am sure Linda Gail believes our influence was paramount.

Linda Gail’s influence was great, both in amount and purpose. I remember sitting on the front porch rocking while playing some sort of juvenile “name calling” game when the four or five-year-old Ashley called me “penis breath.” You really have to love the lessons learned in day care. Before my eyes could refocus after growing to plate sized, Linda Gail said, “I’ll handle this!” I chuckle seeing Ashley’s little hands clasped over her mouth as Linda Gail whispered in her ear.

I cannot speak for Linda Gail, but most of my warm and fuzzy memories involve a young Ashley, running around “Hemlock Hills.” We purposely wanted to introduce her to a different life style than would be found in the suburbs of Greenville…despite the City of Mauldin being more rural than suburban and the fact there was a huge farm directly across the road from her home. We wanted her to have a “country” slant to her life. Damming up the nearest stream to wade in, searching for salamanders and crawdads. Riding all over the “north forty” across rutted old logging roads while bouncing ourselves silly in the old Land Cruiser. Fishing using a “Snoopy” bobber attached to pink line running through a pink rod. Thankfully, Ashley did not grow up to be a “girly-girl.” I have an idea that both of our grandchildren will be subjected to fishing, camping and hiking. It helps that Ashley married a guy with the same interests.

Early on she had little understanding of certain insects beyond the lightnin’ bugs she released in to her room, wishing to sleep in the warm glow of their flashing little bottoms. Later on a warm July night, before we had installed air conditioning, we heard the patter of her small feet descending the stairs from her bedroom. “Daddy I can’t sleep. They are too loud. Can you turn them off?” She was speaking of the cicadas singing loudly outside of her open bedroom windows. Sorry kiddo I don’t know where the off switch is.

I tried to do things with her that I did when I was a kid. Dragging her into the garden to plant butter beans and then letting her help shell them when they had matured. What do you mean you don’t like tomatoes? Going into the woods to hike…and split and load wood. It doesn’t sound like a lot of fun but it was…I hope. Ashley really didn’t quite get the moral of the story when I put a watermelon in the stream to cool, just like I did when I was a kid. Later in the afternoon as I struggled to retrieve the melon and finding that a “varmint” had begun the party without us, Ashley asked “Wouldn’t it just have been easier to put it in the refrigerator?” Yes, but would it have been as sweet? I have to say Linda Gail probably took Ashley’s side.

As Ashley got older she played soccer and keeping with the insect theme her first team was the “Lady Bugs.” They were so cute. She was not the most gifted athlete, a trait she inherited from me. I remember her running, shoulders scrunched with her chin jutted out in determination. She would later move to goal keeper and I was always amazed, and a bit fearful, at how fearless she was attacking high crosses or the ball being dribbled on a breakaway. I was also a little bit proud…ok, a lot proud. With my own coaching schedule, Linda Gail and I don’t have as many memories of Ashley’s athletic career as I would like but I still cherish seeing her team win a state championship. I was also quite proud when she began coaching during her second of three careers.

Christmas Eve was always our time to get together. Linda’s mother and father, Mr. and Mrs. Porter, now Linda Gail’s stepmother Francis, my brother, Steve, and his wife, Rebecca, and of course Ashley. After an evening of celebrating and gift giving there was always the bitter sweet time when I took Ashley home, late in the night. We would talk, just she and I, until she fell asleep. For some reason I remember driving home in Linda’s little red bug with Ashley helping me shift the gears. Odd what we remember. This past year we moved our Christmas Eve party to Ashley and Justin’s to accommodate Miller Kate and I am not sure if we like it very much…yet.

I have a photograph that always causes a tightness in my chest. Young Ashley is perched upon a twisted tree that resembles the hump of a camel. Mr. Porter (Pop) and I are steadying her with Linda Gail’s mother looking on. Pop and Linda Gail’s mother are gone, as is the young Ashley, replaced instead by my grown up daughter; nurse, wife and mother of a red-headed little “doddle bug,” Miller Kate. I wish Linda Gail was in the picture but, as usual, she was “attempting to capture the memory.”

As I am writing this I have just gotten word that “Little Boy Blue’s” arrival is still on hold. It appears he is ready to come, about two weeks early, and I am sure Ashley and Justin are ready but I’m not sure about Miller Kate. I have a remembrance of a chubby little red-headed kid (brother Steve) who came into my life just before my fifth birthday. As soon as he was old enough to stand I punched him in the nose, not my finest moment. Hopefully Miller Kate will deal with the new addition better than I did.

Despite my guilt and fear, Ashley has turned into a daughter to be proud of…is there any other kind? She is sensitive and strong and actually has some of our “liberal” traits. I just don’t know why she doesn’t like tomatoes. I guess I could have done a better job there.

POSTSCRIPT
“Little Boy Blue” decided to join us during the mid-afternoon. Seven and a half pounds of healthy boy with all of his toes and fingers and everything in between. Dark headed with a full head of hair, I think he will end up red headed like his sister. I’m not sure what Miller Kate thinks about her baby brother yet. She addresses him as “Baby Nolan Samuel”, more as a title than a name. I worry how she is going to react when she realizes that she has to share being the center of the universe with someone else. There is something hopeful about a new birth. New opportunities to make a difference in the world. Hope he grows into a smart, strong, athletic young man but I will accept a good young man. Knowing his parents, I am sure he will have every opportunity to be a good young man.

I hope you enjoyed this excerpt from the soon to be released book about thirty years of the “unintended consequences” of living with Linda Gail, “Through the Front Gate.” For more of Don Miller’s unique outlook on life try clicking on http://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM.

DEVIL ON MY SHOULDER

/ cigarman501 / Leave a comment

…and in my pants I might add. In the movie “Animal House,” Larry’s evil conscience extorts him to “F@#$ her, F@#$ her brains out!” Larry’s good conscience counters with “For shame! Lawrence, I’m surprised at you!” As the scene plays in my head, the evil conscience takes on the voices of every male friend I had in a kind of “choir from hell” while the good conscience takes on the angelic voice of my mother. Although the movie doesn’t come out until almost ten years later, it characterizes the period of my teenage years that finally ended with my loss of innocence…while I was just barely STILL a teenager. Rest in Peace virginity, you are gone forever but like a song said, “gone but not forgotten, dreadful sorry” …and it was NOT lost without putting up a fight. It also reminds me of my Mother’s admonishment, delivered in an angelic voice that may or may not have been hers and harps playing in the background, “Your virginity is a gift from God and once you give it away you can’t get it back so make sure you give it to someone worthy of it.” According to my Mother God’s greatest gift should only be given on my wedding night. Sorry Mom. Christmas came early I guess. After the fifteen seconds it took to lose it, I had to wonder, “What’s the big deal and why would I want it back?” Well I guess it was a big deal for me but a brief deal for my partner. I did better the second time…I think.

Male-female sexual dynamics have always been confusing to me and I refuse to take all of the blame for my confusion. I also don’t claim to be the only person afflicted with the disease. At least I hope I’m not. When it came to the subject of sex, I paid rapt attention like most adolescent boys…and I guess adolescent girls. I aspired to be an honor student. The problem was a lack of information. What little available information there was tended to be conflicting and often quite useless. There was no handbook for us, unless you count the Bible, and our “education” was mostly delivered at church, by our parents, best buddies or bragging upper-classmen. You shouldn’t be surprised to learn we found the latter two sources to be the most interesting. According to the church, premarital sex was a sin punishable by “hellfire and damnation” which did not sound like fun. Pretty much any fun was deemed a sin by the Church of my youth. At a summer revival I found myself gazing longingly at the visiting preacher’s drop dead gorgeous daughter while day dreaming about…” IT.” The minister of course was delivering a loud and lively message on the evils of the modern world including but not limited to premarital and extramarital sex. Why would you put heaven on the front pew and then try to convince me to stay away from it? Later as I looked across the aisle at Elizabeth, another object of my confusion, I thought “Oh how I wish….” Suddenly, I could almost smell sulfur being given off by brimstone burning in hell. Okay, maybe if I do that other thing until I just need glasses. I know that’s a sin tooooooo!

During my Junior High and Senior High School years, I, like most normal males of the period, pitted my religious and parental admonishments against the temptations that seemed to present themselves at every turn: The voluptuous classmate who thought the key to open any door was located in her bra, the petite brunette who wanted to practice her kissing techniques after choir practice…okay, that’s unfair, I was a willing participant and to be honest the key that opened my door WAS in her bra and I reached for it as often as she would allow me. I also had my on again, off again girlfriend, Brenda Leigh who could ramp up my hormone driven libido just by walking into an area with the same zip code. On again and off again had nothing to do with our activities WHICH always managed to stop just short of …heaven. There was always that motherly admonishment delivered by the good conscience on my shoulder and the fear of “burning in hell.” Brenda Leigh should have been wearing a low-cut, red pants suit accessorized with devil’s horns. I know she prodded me quite often with her pitch fork. I probably worried more about hellfire than the potential of pregnancies or “the clap.” I have to giggle over present day social correctness. For some reason saying that YOU GOT THE CLAP (or worse) sounds much more ominous than YOU GOT AN STD.

Just dating began as a challenge for such a socially inept guy as me. My first date was to be a fall dance for late preteens or very early teens that Charlene had invited me to attend at her church. Charlene was a cute, pleasingly cubby (I guess you could insert “full chested” instead of chubby) blond that was destined to be in my class from the first grade through graduation. My parents were to chauffer us to the big dance and her parents would transport us back a couple of hours later except it never happened. I awoke that Saturday morning filled with anxious anticipation and was greeted with a vision in my bathroom mirror of the world’s largest “goob” sitting squarely in the center of my forehead. Mt. Everest had nothing on this angry red blob. Nicknames like “rhino boy” or “horny” suddenly popped in my head as quickly as “Mt. Saint Pimple” had popped onto my forehead. I also felt heated and queasy. By date time I felt that I was burning up and had spent serious prayer time in front of the porcelain alter. Flu was the diagnosis but I don’t know. I feared that it might have just been a precursor of my love life to come.

As I transitioned from high school to college my virginity was still intact and seemed as heavy as if it were a millstone hanging around my neck. I didn’t think about it every minute of the day but it was always there, lurking in the shadows of my mind just waiting for Reggie “Good-Knockers” to walk by. In the fall of 1968, I’m sure I wasn’t the only virginal guy roaming the halls of Brokaw Dorm but the condition was not something guys talk about. Guys talk about what they would do to so and so if they had the chance, not about the fact they had not had the chance. Thinking that Brenda Leigh’s “stern sheets” were in my rear view mirror, I attempted to get into the swing of campus life and despite not having transportation or a lot of money, I did manage a couple of dates, one with a leggy Pennsylvania Dutch girl and later with a cute freckled red head that would end up auditioning to be ex-wife number one. She would win the audition but not until three years later. Before that could happen Brenda Leigh would re-enter, re-exit and then re-enter my life…only to re-exit again, but not before adding to my confusion…. More to come later…maybe.

An irreverent look at what makes men male: small brains and floppy parts. Don Miller’s second book is a sixty-year non-scientific study of jockstraps, cups, transition and relationships. For a great weekend read you may purchase FLOPPY PARTS at http://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM

FLOPPY PARTS: A FORWARD

/ cigarman501 / 1 Comment

ONCE UPON A TIME…

Why write a short collection of “sorta” non-fictional stories about men and their “floppy parts?” I don’t know. Do I have to have a reason? Might it have been a longer collection if I were more gifted or if I had more interesting stories? Did I have to include stories about my own floppy parts? All of these are questions I asked myself before they ever formed in your mind. The major females in my life – my wife, daughter and a cousin who is trying to read this collection and to provide a woman’s point of view along with edits – are all appalled. I am sure my granddaughter would make it unanimous if she could read. I am safe there…for a while. She still loves me as long as I bring her favorite toy Linda Gail when I visit.

While discussing my writings with my brother, my eavesdropping-adult and married daughter commented, “Why are you writing about floppy men’s stuff?” Accompanying the question was a look that reminded me of the taste of a very bad oyster. My wife won’t discuss it at all unless you count eye rolls as discussion, and to quote Cousin Cyndi, “I would love for you to take your God-given talent of writing and delve into a deeper, more socially-redeeming subject. Shift your focus from your genitalia to your heart.” I am not sure I can do one without the other and I really am unsure about the talent thing, God-given or otherwise. I would guess one of my reasons for writing this is the relationship between my genitalia and my heart. Notice, there was no mention of my brain. So, it would seem, as far as the women in my life are concerned, all is normal.

While I have been in the company of women who were just as ribald as any guy, I don’t think most women understand the preoccupation men have with their floppy parts. Watch men lying around in the comfort of their own homes. Try to do this without their knowledge. Why are they stuffing their hands down into the front of their underwear? Are they keeping their hands warm or checking to make sure the something hasn’t just fallen off? It is just that simple a fact; it is a preoccupation with their, or rather our, floppy parts… and a preoccupation with the opposite sex’s floppy and not so floppy parts. Don’t they go gland in gland…ahhhhh… would be hand and hand. Gee, that sounded even worse! The male’s preoccupation seemed to be validated at a place I would never have expected floppy parts to rear their ugly heads – an assisted living facility. Bless my soul! I have heard stories about the wild happenings at some of these facilities for the aged but had dismissed them as urban myths. I find I was wrong… I wasn’t expecting any debauchery at a party for a family member celebrating her one-hundredth birthday. Dora is a very attractive, sweet and vital woman who is still quite mobile despite her walker and doesn’t look or act a day over…ummm…eighty. A gentleman from the facility who looked older than Dora asked, “What’s the celebration?” After being told we were celebrating Dora’s hundredth birthday, the great grandfatherly-looking gentleman exclaimed with a cackle, “If I had known she was that old I would have tried to nail her sooner!” Dora, you might want to brace yourself or keep your door locked.

So, this collection of short stories is mostly about men and their preoccupation with their floppy parts and covers several topics including athlete’s foundation garments, pain and injury, and relationships, mainly mine. It is not intended to be profound or socially relevant, although I do have hopes they will help the author come to grips with the wee bit of guilt that consumes him from time-to-time. I have had a strange and wonderful relationship with the opposite sex. I find them both strange and wonderful and this confliction has caused me much pain over the years. Well, there had to be some pleasure or I would not have kept proposing to them…hummm…there IS a thin line between pleasure and pain. Just the width of four little words – “Will you marry me?”

Sooooooo, these stories are intended to be humorous and to encompass former students, players, peers and the author himself and are written from a decidedly male point of view. They are BASED upon true stories and, despite the pain – physical or otherwise – no animals (human or alien) were permanently injured or killed in the production of this compilation. It is a book about pain and pleasure, love and hate, and sanity and insanity. It is also about the confusion the author has over which of these opposites are which, along with a question as to whether that “overwhelming feeling” might be love or lust.

You may assume there was some poetic license taken and the truth might have gotten twisted enough to be presented the way the author would have liked a story to have ended rather than the way it did. That way, if you actually know me, you really might not know who I was telling a story about…unless you do know, because some of the stories are completely true. What it is not is a graphic “kiss and tell” book. That would be oh so boring. I hope you enjoy the stories and find the humor that was intended. You know there is only one way for you to find it! So, begin… “Once upon a time, fifty some years ago….”

If you enjoyed this excerpt you may download or purchase FLOPPY PARTS at the following link: http://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM

BLACK SNAKES AND A NAKED WOMAN

/ cigarman501 / Leave a comment

I have a fear of snakes. Not a phobia of snakes. Just given the choice of petting a kitten or petting a snake I’m going to pick the kitten…every time! While I don’t have a hatred of snakes I also don’t want to live with them. We have nearly ninety acres of woodlands, streams, hills and valleys. They need to stay out there where they belong. Just after we moved in to Hemlock Hills, we found snakeskins…loooooong snakeskins as in five feet plus and they weren’t out in the woodlands, streams, hills and valleys. We found them under the house, in the attic and behind the paneling cladding our bead board walls. The next spring, we would find out where those snakeskins came from.

It was a late March day when I first made the acquaintance of one of my black rat snakes. Laying in the sun, he was not nearly as scared of me as I was of him…or her. How does one tell? How many steps do you run when you first see a snake lying next to your foot? My escape was more of a combination hop and lunge followed by three rapid steps before my mind said, “Shut it down, it was a black snake and nothing poisonous.” It was a huge reptile, as was its mate. They were a matching pair of near six footers I saw together several days later. Both had recently shed their skin and their black skin seemed to glisten in bright sunshine.

Late one afternoon I saw my three puppies sitting outside the back door leading onto our combination back porch wash room which was adjacent to our kitchen. As I continued past them I told them, “You can sit there and wait but your Mommy (Linda Gail) is not here.” There was no reaction except for wagging tails and their attention seemed to focus on the back door which rarely closed on its own and was always slightly ajar. My attention was also drawn to the door when I noticed six inches of rat snake tail peeking out from underneath. Oh pooh! I ran around and went in the front, jogged to the kitchen and found the rat snake occupying the kitchen, back porch and steps leading to it…ALL AT THE SAME TIME! I stepped toward Snakey hoping it would retreat. It did, right under the dryer. Crap! Okay if I rock the dryer maybe I can entice it to move…but it might move right up my britches leg. If I crawl on top of the dryer maybe I can shake it enough to make Snakey move…that is just where Linda found me. “What are you doing?” She was not happy or impressed with my answer. We decided to open the porch door and close the kitchen door and wait it out. It must have worked.

Every time I watch NCIS reruns and the Mike Franks’ character is featured I remember my favorite of many favorite Mike Franks’ quotes,

“But the memories we make.
We fill the spaces we live in with them.
That’s why I’ve always tried to make sure that wherever I live,
the longer I live there
the spaces become filled with memories –
of naked women.”

My space is filled with memories, but of only one naked woman. I was and am truly blessed. I smiled at the vision of my bride sprinting nude from our old fashioned bathroom. Sprinting and yelling, “Snake, Snake, Snake!” I imagined the snake, a five-foot plus black rat snake, yelling in my head, “Naked Woman, Naked Woman, Naked Woman,” as it tried to climb the wall behind her. We had returned late to our old non-air conditioned home. The late July heat and humidity were still evident when Linda Gail decided to bathe. Believing the bright overhead incandescent light bulb simply added to the heat, she had entered the bathroom in the dark and after beginning to run her water, stripped, reached down and plugged in the small lamp that sat next to the lavatory. As the light dimly flooded the small bathroom, she found herself staring face to “forked tongue” with a snake that was coiled below the short electrical cord. Typically male, my attention was drawn to the vision of a fit, well put together woman with fabulous…EYES, running naked through the house and not on the snake that was trying to escape in the other direction. There is always a price to go with the vision I was enjoying, the snake had to be removed but first I had to find it. “Here Snakey, Snakey, Snakey!”

I know a lot of people will ask, “Why did you not kill it?” Someone sold me on the fact that black rat snakes were predators willing to eat everything from mice, rats and birds to other snakes, including the poisonous ones and if hungry enough their own species. I would agree that this was sound advice. Until they met unfortunate ends we had no snake or rat problem. They were dispatched to “snake heaven” by an over eager, snake despising home renovator who believed all serpents were minions of the devil. Exit my snakes, enter mice, rats and copperheads. I really don’t have problems with copperheads when they are where they are supposed to be and my yard is not where they are supposed to be. I have two Blue Heeler puppies who think they have been placed on this earth to rid it of all serpents. Not a problem until they get bit by a copperhead and they have been, a couple of times, and have never learned a lesson. Because of this fact, I have found myself rescuing our legless non-poisonous little friends by putting them over the fence with the strong admonishment, “Now don’t come back!” Why don’t they ever listen?

Don Miller has written three books which may be purchased at http://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM
“Inspirational true stories” in WINNING WAS NEVER THE ONLY THING can be downloaded for $1.99.
“STUPID MAN TRICKS” explained in FLOPPY PARTS for $.99.
“Southern Stories of the Fifties and Sixties…” in PATHWAYS for $3.99.
All may be purchased in paperback.

CELEBRATING BLACK HISTORY-PEPSI COLA

/ cigarman501 / Leave a comment

This is an excerpt from the book PATHWAYS entitled “Pepsi Cola.” Because of “Separate but equal” and “With all deliberate speed” I had very few opportunities to interact with African-Americans until I graduated from college. Pepsi Cola would be the first African-American adult male that I would have the opportunity to meet and observe. I have heard it said that it was easy to fear what you don’t understand, meeting Pepsi Cola would provide the opportunity for one of those first steps toward understanding. Please note, I attempted to write this from the stand point of an eight-year old mind and in the language of the period.

“While I had seen African-American males I would not meet my first African- American adult male until the very late fifties when we remodeled our house. A black brick mason with the interesting name of “Pepsi Cola” Mobley was hired to add the brick veneer to our original home along with the two new rooms added onto each end. Not only would he add layers of brick to my home, he would add layers to my thinking and understanding.

“Pepsi Cola” was impressive, as were his two sons who served as helpers and apprentice brick layers. It was their responsibility to carry the bricks and “mud” to their father as he did the placing of the brick runs. I found the whole endeavor to be interesting but not nearly as interesting as the “colored” folk who were carrying out the tasks. The acorns did not fall far from the tree! Close-cropped “steel wool” hair over clear ebony skin; they possessed the whitest of stereotypical teeth below broad flat noses and wide cheekbones. They looked nothing like my friend Maw, who, though tall, had an almost delicate look compared to them. All three were powerfully built with muscles bulging and glistening with sweat from handling and placing the bricks. “Pepsi Cola’s” decades of brick work had given him shoulders so wide I doubted his ability to walk through a door without turning sideways along with hands beaten, scarred and as rough as the slabs on the side of my grandparent’s barn. All three started the day in tattered yet clean tees and denim pants that had patches patched over patches. As the heat of the day intensified, shirts would be discarded exposing broad, powerful chests that were covered in tight black curly hair. Curiously, whenever my grandmother or mother stepped outside, there was a bit of a scramble to put their shirts back on. “Pepsi” was gregarious, singing Negro hymns and laughing his way through the day or “holding court” for anyone nearby, which was usually the eight or nine-year old “little man” that was me. I found him to have the most interesting accent to go along with a lot of words that began with “dees” and ended in “esses.” His sons were the exact opposite – quiet and, I would say, somewhat sullen. In hindsight, my guess is that there was little way to wedge a word in edgewise with “Pepsi Cola” around.

I learned a lesson of the times during the course of the remodeling. Sent to carry a jug of water out to the workers, I asked Mr. Mobley, “Mr. Mobley, would you like some water?” “Eyes do, Eyes do, indeeds, Little Man,” he answered with his best grin. In turn, I gave the sons water and returned to my grandmother who informed me of my grievous faux pas, “You don’t refer to ‘coloreds’ by mister unless you use their first name.” Okay, “Mister Pepsi Cola!” “

If you would be interested in reading the complete selection “Pepsi Cola” and the book Pathways, you may purchase a paperback or downloaded a version using the following link: http://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM

CELEBRATING BLACK HISTORY: LOUIE GOLDEN

/ cigarman501 / Leave a comment

I have been fortunate to have had great relationships with all but just a few of my administrators and athletic directors. Most of my administrators were great people. Louie Golden was one of the great ones but I had to mature and develop some wisdom to see it. When some of these stories were taking place it did not seem so. It was never smooth sailing and some people might have thought Louie’s first name was either “f@#$%^&” or “g#$%^&n” as in that “F@#$%^& Golden!” You might have thought I had the same first name.

For those who do not know who Louie Golden is, he began his career as a head basketball coach at Beck High School during the days of full and token segregation. In 1970 at mid-year, full desegregation was implemented during semester break and Louie lost a basketball team so good its players were purposely split among four area high schools. All four schools made the state playoffs and a previously mediocre Wade Hampton team went on to play for the State Championship. Louie went on to win state championships at both Riverside and Southside High Schools. If you count his days at Beck, Louie retired with over seven hundred victories, five state championships, and another four upper-state championships. In 1993 he was inducted into the South Carolina Athletic Hall of Fame. As an athletic director, Louie started the program at Riverside from scratch and retired with nearly a quarter of a million dollars in the athletic account. He was a success by any standard of measurement.

Because I had been in the area for about fifteen years, I was familiar with Louie. I had also heard many stories about his obsession with saving money, his eating habits and the accusations of recruitment. Money and eating I can attest to but will not go into the recruitment of players because I don’t know for sure anything illegal took place. Despite all of the stories that I had heard about “Big Boy”, nothing in my life or any other life prepared me for him. Three or four inches taller and a good and conservative seventy pounds heavier, he reminded me of a big brown jovial bear. When you talked to Louie you got the idea he wasn’t the brightest light on the tree. It was an act. Louie cultivated his sometimes laughable persona the same way John Wayne cultivated his trademark walk. Louie’s attitude about spending money or the lack thereof, grew as a result of his childhood. Louie had grown up in St. Mathews, outside of Orangeburg, and like most black youths from the area and the time period, he grew up poor. Growing up poor would cause an economic philosophy to develop that could be said to be miserly or downright frugal. His wife Betty will swear it wasn’t just about spending school money.

When he became athletic director at Riverside, Louie was given an athletic budget of zero “monies”. No equipment, no uniforms and no start-up money. Louie had to go into debt up to his eyeballs and as he told me later felt he had been put there as a “token” who was expected to fail. The “Greenville County Way” was to pay coaches stipends and to put down fertilizer on fields and not much else. At Riverside, topsoil was bulldozed off of what would become fields, fences and a press box put up, stands erected and that was it. You could not play a football game without a whole lot of equipment. Somehow Louie was able to get it. Louie begged, borrowed and went into debt but somehow kept his head above water. There was an unconfirmed story that he gave the golf team a dozen balls that were labeled “Fished from the Finest Lakes in South Carolina.” I would say Louie fooled the powers that were and became the success they were not expecting.

Because of Louie’s childhood and Riverside’s indebtedness, to say Louie squeezed a penny is like saying a two hundred and seventy-pound hungry anaconda is giving you a little hug. You never got anything from Louie without a battle. The process seemed like begging and forcing you to beg for money was Louie’s way of finding out how much you wanted something. It was tiresome and more than just a little demeaning. I have this mental picture of Oliver asking “More Please.” I don’t know how many times I heard “Miller you likes to spend too many monies.” That is the way Louie said it. “Monies” with a face all scrunched up like those gross little babies in a bottle. Some people quit asking, some people went to raising funds to support their own programs, some people seethed in anger, while others openly battled him. As far as Louie was concerned the first three actions were great. They did not cost him anything. If you opted for battle he was going to make you give up a pound of flesh.

As a basketball coach he was extraordinary. He could teach the game in simple, uncomplicated terms, was a great game manager and motivator. Louie also understood people and knew which buttons to push. The late Steve Kahler told a story about Louie cutting his C team. Kahler had so many kids trying out he needed help. Louie came in and brought the kids trying out together. He asked who the best seventh grader was. Fingers pointed at one of the kids. Then he asked the eighth and ninth graders who could beat him one on one. Hands went up. Louie turned to those who hadn’t raised their hands and said: “You’re cut!” That took about thirty seconds and took care of too many kids to work with. Louie did not get one phone call from a disgruntled parent.

After a bad scrimmage, instead of the normal film breakdown, Louie loaded his team on a van and told them they were going to get fitted for shoes. He drove them toward Duncan lecturing them about running the flex offense, playing with hustle on defense and not working hard enough to be in shape. Five miles out on a rural highway between Greer and Duncan, Louie pulled the van over, ordered them all ot of the van. He told them they better be back for the official start of practice and anyone who didn’t was cut. All of them got back and they went on to win another state championship for Louie and Riverside High School. I do not think he could get away that in today’s legal climate.
Humor aside, you have to give Louie credit for what he accomplished. He took kids at a predominantly white, economically entitled school and was successful. He then went to predominantly black, economically depressed school and was successful. Louie even took a girls’ team that had not won in over a decade and took them to the playoffs. Why? Obviously he knew basketball. Most importantly, he coached kids and never put the game ahead of them, which is a testament to his character.

This is an excerpt from “Winning Was Never the Only Thing” which can be purchased at the following link: http://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM

NOT GOOD SENSE

/ cigarman501 / 1 Comment

This is an excerpt from the book FLOPPY PARTS which focuses on one man’s battle with interpersonal relationships. “Not Good Sense” explains how my mind sometimes wanders into stories. FLOPPY PARTS may be downloaded or purchased at http://goo.gl/0Lt0O8

“NOT GOOD SENSE”

No one thinks MY tractor is sexy but…my thoughts are. I seem to do my best thinking when sitting on a tractor or a lawn mower. I do not understand why mowing my grass causes my mind to wander over a plethora of subjects, most of which have occurred in the far distant past and for some reason causes me to focus on my “little friends” or athletics or both. For clarification, when I speak of my “little friends” or floppy parts, I am speaking to or about my man parts and their effect on my miniscule male brain.

I may just be getting high off of the exhaust fumes but my wife calls what I am doing chasing rabbits. One of the newer verbiages in education has become the use of the phrase “bird walking” but I shan’t use educational verbiage but instead I think I shall use the archaic, yet applicable descriptor “wool gathering.” My wool gathering today has netted me “three bags full” of thoughts and probably will explain the less than tidy look of my yard. Please don’t tell Linda Gail about the small patch of iris that just got a closely cropped hair cut. I’m sure she will notice it all by herself. I don’t believe it is the actual sitting on the mower that triggers memories but rather the assault on my senses from the smell of cut grass and the feeling of perspiration that is soaking my clothes before finally pooling in the seat of my pants and in the bottom of my boots.

What seems quite bizarre to me is the falling domino effect that my memory takes on as one thought triggers another and another, on down the line at a speed that reminds me of a nuclear reaction. Much more than women, men are SO ruled by their senses. I still pick books by their cover, salivate heavily at the aroma of grilling steak or slow cooking BBQ, and still want a cigar anytime I taste Jack Daniels or vice versa. It would also explain why Playboy was able to have so many “thought provoking” articles and still be a top grossing magazine until internet porn took over. It also explains why beautiful and talented Julia Roberts ended up married, albeit briefly, to the very talented but yet bizarre looking Lyle Lovett. Men are driven more by their senses than women. Most women do find men’s brains to be sexy while men find women’s brains to be sexy if they are attached to a great set of…I will probably elaborate on this subject later but until you read my book you will just have to trust me. On this day it seems to be my sense of smell that triggers my memories. It is late August and although I have not coached football in over a decade nor played it in over four, it is the smell of fresh cut grass and later feel of oppressive humidity that takes me back to those early days of not only my youth but also my adulthood…and as crazy as it sounds my relationship and interaction with the opposite sex.

As I continue my ever decreasing circular path to nowhere, I am transported back to the old practice field behind my high school which always began the day wet with dew but ended the day as crusty and dry as the African Sahel. As I attempt to make sense of my mental wanderings I realize this field of athletic endeavor would be the beginning of my education, my meandering trip into adulthood and a journey that I have yet to complete or refine. It is inevitable that my senses will take me to a place I don’t want to go while sitting on a tractor. No matter how I battle it I am always drawn toward the opposite sex and the effect they have had on my own “floppy parts.” Hum, that might make a good title for a book.

Other books by Don Miller are

Inspirational true stories in WINNING WAS NEVER THE ONLY THING by Don Miller #1.99 on #Kindle http://goo.gl/DiO1hcX
“Baby Boomer History” in Don Miller’s PATHWAYS $3.49 on Kindle http://goo.gl/ZFIu4V

THE DAY BEGINS

/ cigarman501 / Leave a comment

Excerpt from the book PATHWAYS. One of my pathways of life led into the textile mills of South Carolina. This excerpt is about my first shift working in the weave room of the White Plant in Fort Mill, SC at the tender age of fourteen.

THE DAY BEGINS…

If you are into “titles”, my first “position” with Springs was as a spare hand. A spare hand was, in modern parlance, a daily “at-will” employee. I would go in and wait at a specified work bench until the second hand came to us and sent us to do a certain job or if there were not a job, send us back home. I never got sent home even though after many year-long, eight-hour shifts, I wish they had.

There was an almost military type of hierarchy in the weave room and, I am sure, the cotton mill itself. The plant manager was the general; many “white shirts” in ties were the staff officers; the room managers the lieutenants or captains; and the second hands were the sergeants. Within the “enlisted” ranks there was a peaking order: weavers and loom fixers and over haulers at the top; warpers, battery fillers, oilers, blow-off hands, sweepers, and doffers at the bottom. Spare hands? If the mill had been a caste system, we would have been “the great ignored”…until we screwed up!

My second hand was Coley Spinx.(Sp?) At the time I believed that if I needed to look up the word “intimidating” in the dictionary, a picture of Coley would accompany the definition. A friend of my father’s, the former World War Two Marine had Popeye-sized forearms that sported the requisite Marine Corp Eagle, Globe and Anchor tattoos that all Marines are so proud of. Built like a rain barrel, with arms and legs to match, it was easy to visualize him in his fatigues and wearing a jaunty but useless “tin hat.” With a half-smoked cigar jammed in his teeth, I imagined him defending his squad with a fifty-caliber machine gun clutched in one ham-sized fist and a bazooka in the other. You should probably remember that this was the fertile mind of a fourteen-year-old growing up in a period when kids still “played” war games. I am still in awe of old Marines…and young ones, too.

Fourteen sounds young to be working in a cotton mill…it is, but we did, in fact, have child labor laws in the summer of 1964 – just not like those of today. It had not been that many years removed from ten-year-olds or younger spending ten or twelve hours doing the mind-numbing and body-breaking labor in our industrial plants. As I studied the Industrial Age or prepared lesson plans to teach it, I could not help but contrast the mills of the late Nineteenth or early Twentieth Century with the first mill where I worked. Springs provided their employees with a well-lighted and clean (if any cotton mill can be called clean) working environment that had large restrooms and a cafeteria that produced full course meals, if desired, and if you had the time to eat one. I would find out later working in other mills that these amenities would be the exception and not the rule.

An ill at ease, nay scared, fourteen-year-old “Donnie” awaited his fate in his now sweat-soaked tee shirt and jeans. Eight hours later, the tee and jeans would still be sweat-soaked and anything but clean. Lint, rust, oil, grease, and general dirt combined with the blood from a first hour on the job accident and eight hours of sweat made my clothes look like I had spent the day in a coal mine before being dragged home behind a horse with a terrible case of diarrhea. Come to think of it, my clothes smelled the same way and my body wasn’t in much better shape. I knew what I was going to buy with my first paycheck. A radio? A movie and a meal for my girlfriend? A vacation to Disneyland? Come on… I was only fourteen, had no girl friend and was making minimum wage which I think was a buck twenty-five an hour or about seven bucks an hour in today’s money. No, tee shirts in any color other than white and several pairs of pants made from the lightest cotton duck I could find would be my first purchases. While jeans were fine in the fields where the air tended to dry them and contact with briars required them, the eight hours of constant sweating and an unhealthy intake of salt tablets had left me galled from waist to knees. Baby powder and lighter, softer trousers seemed to be a ticket for the destination known as “on-the-job” comfort.

If you enjoyed this story from PATHWAYS, you may download or purchase it or Don’s other books at the following links:
Inspirational true stories in WINNING WAS NEVER THE ONLY THING by Don Miller #1.99 on #Kindle
http://goo.gl/DiO1hcX

“STUPID MAN TRICKS” explained in Don Miller’s FLOPPY PARTS $.99 on Kindle http://goo.gl/Ot0KIu

“Baby Boomer History” in Don Miller’s PATHWAYS $3.49 on Kindle http://goo.gl/ZFIu4V

LIBERATION

/ cigarman501 / Leave a comment

I read that the Buffalo Bills have hired a new assistant coach. Ordinarily news like this would not find its way out of the city of Buffalo but today it is nationally news worthy. And why would that be? Their new, full-time, specialty teams, quality control coach is a female and the first of her kind. Kathryn Smith is the first full-time NFL assistant coach. This comes on the heels of Jill Welter’s internship as she served as an Arizona Cardinal linebacker coach during the summer. Back in April of 2015, Sarah Thomas became the first female NFL official. I guess these would be major steps in women’s rights. It doesn’t seem that long ago women newscasters were arguing with the league for access to the side lines and, GASP, the locker room. My guess is, once the furor and the abusive and stereotypical comments die down, they will be successful in this bastion of testosterone. I do find it interesting many men still believe that “A woman’s place….”

I have been involved with many firsts when relates to Women’s Rights. I taught for the first female principal in Greenville County, South Carolina, coached the first female to be allowed to play high school soccer and the first coed to play football at the varsity level. I was looking for none of these firsts and had the media not made an issue of it I would not have known. Title IX now that’s another story.

I wrote the story “Liberation” for the book FLOPPY PARTS and with the news of the day decided to dust it off. I hope you enjoy.

LIBERATION
Even though Charlotte, NC was close by, we were sheltered from the rapidly changing outside world. It was a long twenty miles to the Queen City on a two-lane blacktop and, by the way we grew up, possibly a decade in time removed. We had gone through the duck and cover drills that assured us that any textbook would protect us from a nuclear attack provided we took all sharp objects from our pockets. We were raised to be stoic and to be seen and not heard. In some ways we were raised to be “un-included.” Words like duty, reverence and respect were a part of our vocabularies. We still believed in the “American Exceptionalism” of the post-World War Two United States despite the warts we tended to ignore. We were decidedly Republican and my grandmother openly worried more about having a Roman Catholic in the White House than a democrat.

Still, being typically male, I was more aware of my floppy parts than world affairs, and, beginning in the late Sixties, they both got tied in knots.
Even though any available female was fair game and a target for our raging hormones, we had been taught to respect women. It was okay to pursue, but you didn’t lay a hand on a woman. You gave up your seat to women and you opened doors for women. As males, we did this not because we viewed women as weaker but as a sign of respect, the same way we were taught to say “Yes, Ma’am” or “No, Ma’am.” Most importantly No Meant No and not maybe. It was easier in those waning days of the Sixties because the girls had been taught the same way… and they didn’t have The Pill. I admit I may be looking through “rose-colored” glasses because I had been surrounded by such STRONG female role models. I believe with all my heart that women who grew up in rural settings during the depression and World War Two were taught to be stronger than their urban counter parts. I remember asking my grandmother to describe the changes she experienced during the Great Depression. She laughed and said, “We were farming on the lien and it was so hard already we never noticed.” That would be that she was out in the fields with my grandfather doing hard “man’s work.”

Regardless of my beliefs, all of them began to change as I welcomed the new decade and my address changed to Newberry. There were many movements spawned by the period. Native American Rights, Gay Rights and environmentalism were a few that joined Civil Rights during the “Age of Love”. Also, there was my favorite – Women’s Rights. There was one positive about the Women’s Liberation Movement – bra burning. Whether they were wearing a bra or not, women deserved to have the same rights as men despite the chauvinist argument “I don’t know why they want to climb down off of their pedestals?” After watching MAD MEN I wonder how high that pedestal actually was and who really had the power. I am sure this portrayal was “exactly” the way it was in the Sixties.
Liberation was a battle ground where if you picked sides you were either labeled a eunuch, if you agreed with the cause, or a chauvinist pig if you didn’t. Most of the Newberry coeds were southern gals (Is my chauvinism showing?) and had grown up under the same Biblical tenants as mine. The “times they were ah changing” and it wasn’t unusual to hear discussions about “Who should pay for the cost of birth control?” or “Who should make the decision about getting an abortion?” Fifty years later I still avoid expressing opinions on those questions because to do so would be to spoil for a fight.

Women’s Lib finally tied me in knots in the early Seventies. I remember walking up to the campus library door and seeing the reflection of a coed approaching me from behind in the door’s polished glass. Her reflection was dressed in bell bottoms and a pea coat, fashion staples of the period for those individuals who took political positions somewhere left of center. I also had time to notice her really short dark hair and the narrow, hawkish shape of her face. Nevertheless, I paused and opened the door for her. Smiling, I nodded my head and then got my ears pinned back. With a face that truly had turned hawkish she spat, “What are you asking me to do? Inviting me into to your male-dominated world? Baby Dicked Chauvinist Pig!” If you are waiting for my snappy comeback, hell may freeze over first. I still don’t have one. I should add, she still managed to enter the library ahead of me through the still-opened door but then so did the next fifteen people as I stood with jaw “slack and agape.” Baby dicked? Where did that come from?

Despite wearing khakis, oxford cloth and penny loafers during most of my adult life, I find myself embracing my “Old Hippy” side with flip flops, blue jeans and tee shirts to accommodate my move to the center left of politics as I have retired. Hawaiian shirts are a far cry from bells and pea coats but I wear them proudly. I believe in equality above all else. Equal rights, whether racial, gender, sexual, religious or economic, should be our goal as a country or as a people of that country. Women should have the same opportunities to succeed or to fail as men and it should be for the same pay. I was again sheltered when I chose teaching as my vocation. Teaching opportunities and pay were always equal and, as far as pay was concerned…Sorry, wrong movement. Now, I don’t know about upward mobility into administration but I do know that if I were ranking principals, women would take the top two positions as the best of the many I have had. The best one asked me during my interview in 1974 if I would have a problem working for a woman. She kind of leaned in as if she were going to tell me a dirty joke when she asked me. I thought, to myself, “I want this job so badly I would work for an orangutan.” To her I simply answered, “No problems whatsoever, I love women. My mother was a woman.”

I think there might have been a price for the equality so deserved by women. I read more about the rise of attacks against women or spousal abuse and see that doors are not opened and seats not given up nearly as often as they used to be even here in this hotbed of Southern chivalry. I guess I should add despite a little hawk-faced witch from 1970. Could that be the price that women pay? Maybe they did knock themselves off of their pedestal.

During the late Seventies, athletics were equalized due to Title IX legislation…except it wasn’t, at least in the school district in which I toiled. Rather than add resources to girl’s athletics, resources were taken away from men’s athletics which left a bitter taste in most male coaches’ mouths. I remember being told that, as a baseball coach, half of any money raised by my baseball team could be spent by the softball team whether they participated in the fund raiser or not. Luckily I had great relationships with my softball coaches and this never happened. Everyone didn’t have those great relationships that I fostered with malice and forethought.

While sitting quietly in a graduate course that included a study of the distribution of monies for athletics, a young female coach commented that it did not matter. “God Football” gets it all and until they fire all of the football coaches, girls would get nothing. At a break I could not help myself and strolled over to advise her that, while her feelings might be warranted, expressing them in an open forum might not be the best idea, especially if she were looking for a job. I also pointed out that football paid the bills and probably was what allowed her to have a job. She said something about having to “audition instead of interview” and that she was not “giving up the cause” just to get a job and that “maybe I should wait until my advice was asked for.” Her bell bottoms and pea coat were showing and no good deed goes unpunished. Several months later as we were looking for a girls’ softball coach, I received a call from my principal informing me that he was sending a prospective coach to be interviewed. Yeah, it was her and the look on her face was priceless. No, she didn’t get the job. Instead, we hired a softball coach who was also an offensive line coach. To her credit, she didn’t back down either, but then I am sure she knew she was doomed from the start. Does this make me a chauvinist? I don’t think so… but I do admit to being a realist.

If you enjoyed this story you may download it and other “STUPID MAN TRICKS” in Don Miller’s FLOPPY PARTS $.99 on Kindle http://goo.gl/Ot0KIu