Don’s Books

PATHWAYS by Don Miller

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Some thirty years ago the seed that would grow into this book was planted in my head when my wife Linda and I took pre-school daughter Ashley, now a mother and wife in her own right, to play in one of the many streams that cut our property. Frogs and their pollywogs, crawdads and minnows were in abundance along with a watermelon that I had placed into the dammed up stream to cool …just like my grandparents had done many, many years earlier. I had warm memories of picking red, vine ripened tomatoes and eating them whole for lunch before having a stream cooled watermelon split open for a sweet and refreshing mid-afternoon snack. I wanted Ashley to have some of the same experiences…without having to hoe the tomatoes or watermelons. Later as I struggled to get the watermelon out of the stream she pointed out, “Wouldn’t it been easier just to put it in the refrigerator?” Yep, and she doesn’t eat raw tomatoes either. Are you sure you are mine?

Closing in on my autumn years I find that my own footprints seem to wander back to the same paths that my parents and grandparents laid out for me…no matter how much I have resisted following them These are stories of my youth and reflect the era that I grew up in. They are what shaped and define me. American Exceptionalism of the Fifties, cotton fields and textiles mills, Civil Rights and “with all deliberate speed,” the Cold War and our involvement in Viet Nam in the Sixties. These are stories of a time now past that still affect us today. I hope if you take the time to read PATHWAYS that it will trigger the memories that you hold dear.

You may purchase PATHWAYS at the following link http://goo.gl/QsTE8r both through Kindle or Amazon.

PATHWAYS by Don Miller

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Excerpt from PATHWAYS

I have a habit of “woolgathering” when doing repetitive tasks. I have always allowed my mind to wander to wherever it might and today’s woolgathering session (insert weed eating) took me back to my childhood home. I have read so many stories by southern authors where hometowns are described as “sleepy, little southern towns.” I cannot describe mine that way. I did not live in a “sleepy, little southern town.” With no signal light or post office, I lived in a scattered, unincorporated rural area that was made up of even smaller, scattered unincorporated communities with the now socially unacceptable name of Indian Land, South Carolina. Home was a brick veneered single story home located on the corner of one of the many unnamed dirt “river roads” that followed a meandering path to the Catawba River and the Charlotte-Lancaster Highway. One of just a smattering of single family homes, with the exception my grandparents’ home and farm and two uncles’ homes and farms, we were the only ones living on the Catawba River side of the Charlotte-Lancaster Highway, on the mile long stretch between “the old cotton gin” and the Van Wyck highway.

Indian Land is located in what is called the “panhandle” of Lancaster County, which to the northwest, juts more like a small accusatory finger than a panhandle into North Carolina, with the “Queen City,” Charlotte to the north and the small railroad town of Waxhaw to the east. To the south, inside of the borders of South Carolina, you will find the city of Lancaster and to the west Rock Hill. To get to Rock Hill, some five miles away as the crow flies, you must cross the Catawba River which early in my life required a scary ride on a ferry. Today it is a congested eighteen-mile car ride that makes me wish for the ferry.

Many small communities were scattered along Highway 521, the Charlotte-Lancaster Highway, and Highway 160 which runs west of 521 to and through Fort Mill, SC and on to Rock Hill. Names like Osceola, Pleasant Hill, Pleasant Valley, Belair, Miller Bottoms, Possum Hollow (pronounced Holler), Yarborough Town and Camp Cox were just some of these small communities that populated the area. During my childhood, the population density became much sparser as you traveled away from these highways, with homes giving way to farms of varying sizes or large tracks of forested areas where wildlife outnumbered the people in the area, especially the area that bordered on the Catawba River. The now socially unacceptable yet historically accurate name of Indian Land comes from the fact that the area continued to be populated by Native Americans, mainly the Catawba and Waxhaw tribes, well after Europeans had arrived in the area. The Catawba Indian Reservation is still, to this day, located across the river from Indian Land but so thorough was their assimilation into the population, the most “Indian” sounding names might be Smith or Jones.

I would not characterize Indian Land as being “sleepy” either. Off of the main thoroughfare, 521, it was as slow and sleepy as a hibernating bear but the two-lane blacktop that connected the trade center of Charlotte, NC with the textile town of Lancaster, SC was always bustling with traffic, especially during those periods of time designated as “rush hour.” At the time there was no industry other than agriculture or a couple of general mercantile stores so people commuted to the larger cities. In addition to commuters, traffic included everything from John Deere tractors to tractor trailer trucks along with the Ashe Brick dump trucks that made their back and forth sojourn from the red clay dirt pit located a mile or so east of 521 to the brick-baking ovens located in the small town of Van Wyck to the south.

What I miss the most about my home, other than family who have passed away, are those dirt and gravel roads that cut through the area leading to the forests, fields or to farms, many on the river bottoms that lay near the muddy rock-strewn waters of the Catawba. Those roads were slow and easy on both the legs and eyes, leading me to adventure or work or sometimes both at the same time. Those dirt roads no longer exist anywhere other than my memory as Charlotte has sprawled across the state line, devouring farm and farm lands like a monster in an old Japanese horror movie. The house that I grew up in along with so many other familiar structures no longer exists and the land it sat on is now covered in condos belonging to an upscale retirement community. Most of the cotton fields that fed the area cotton mills are gone, as are the mills themselves. They are not only gone from my little part of the world but they are gone from the country itself and I feel great sorrow because of it. When I visit family there, if I close my eyes and concentrate enough, I can still see those dirt pathways and in my head, at least, feel the powdery dust between my toes. I now realize that no matter how far I have traveled, I have never been far from them and home.

SANDLOT BASEBALL: A story about Indian Land from PATHWAYS

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I have spent a large portion of my life sitting on a tractor, riding mower or John Deere Gator doing nothing more than traveling in circles. Cutting fields or dragging infields for untold hours, always ending up where I started. Miles and miles going absolutely nowhere. Occasionally, I did try to cut in different directions so that I might unwind myself. My last field, a middle school field, in Greenville County, South Carolina, was a palace compared to any of the fields that I played on in high school. It was a different time on a different planet, it would seem. My statement doesn’t mean that I didn’t coach on some pretty poor fields.

Our field was no different from any of the other fields that we played on in that it was terrible. Like many other fields, it was built as an afterthought. It was, however, terrible in different ways than the other terrible fields. Every field has its own…ah…ambience for lack of a better word. Ours was a football field adjusted to accommodate a baseball field. The backstop was constructed from creosoted “re-purposed” telephone poles and chicken wire. A skinned infield was located off of one end meaning the right field fence would have been about two hundred and fifty feet from home plate…if there had been a fence. Instead of a fence we had a steep drop off that was studded with pine trees. The left field line went on forever following the general path of the football sidelines until it ended with a fence. While much deeper, at least there were no light standards to navigate in left although there were goal post to worry about. In right you had to worry about light standards and goal posts. David Jowers, a big, blond-headed lefty, ripped a line drive so hard that when it hit a light standard he was almost a “3 unassisted” at first base from the rebound. After striking the standard it one-hopped back to the first baseman.

I found myself “camped out” in right field my sophomore year as the starter. Proud to start, normally right is where you put your worst fielder if you are playing on a little league team. Thank goodness this wasn’t little league or I might have gotten my feelings hurt. I think I played in right because I was the most expendable. No big loss if I ran into one of the light standards or got tangled up in a goalpost.
My first start was not on our terrible field, however, it was on someone else’s terrible field, Mt. Pisgah I think, and my first start was almost my last. Their field was not a football-baseball combination, it was an afterthought stuck behind the gym which took up a lot of the area of right field along with its high brick staircase that led up to court level. Just behind the infield a hard-packed dirt road ran through right and on into left field. Did I mention the outfield grass had not been cut and mounds of clover pushed up through the dormant Bermuda? To further complicate my field of dreams, the fans brought their lawn chairs and sat in the shade created by the high gymnasium walls and the tall staircase. If there were any ground rules involving fans I was not told them.

Early in the game a ball was hit over my head. I thought I could reach it…back then every ball that was hit I thought I could reach. Doing my best impersonation of Willy Mays at the Polo Grounds, I spun to my right and sprinted to the point I thought the ball was going to land. All I could see in front of me was a sea of fans…well maybe not a sea, more like a small pond of fans. All I could hear when I looked back over my left shoulder for the ball was the SNAP, SNAP, SNAP of lawn chairs being closed as fans vacated the area. No, I did not catch it. I watched the ball pass cleanly between my extended glove and my nose right before I stepped into someone’s green and white lawn chair. At least they didn’t have to cut me out of it.

Late in the game a flare was hit between me and the second baseman. I decided to field it on its first bounce but the ball didn’t bounce. Instead, it died in a clump of clover and my glove passed harmlessly over it. Slamming on brakes I then fell down, got up, overran the ball again before the “third time being the charm” came into play. All I could do was hang my head. When we finally got them out Coach Gunter met me at the bench and asked “Do you need to take a stick with you?” “Sir?” “So you will have something to hit it with!” Yeah, maybe. Later a popup between the second basemen and myself would turn into a double as I waited for it to come down…AFTER IT BOUNCED! The ball hit the hard-packed dirt road. Momma, I want to go home!

Thirty plus years later I would find myself standing at home plate behind Lockhart High School thinking about the fields that I had played on and wondering if I had just stepped through a time portal. In the spring, their outdoor athletic facility was a football field that doubled as a baseball field. In dead centerfield was a press box with bleachers that extended into left and right fields. Both sets of goal posts were in play as were several light posts that ran behind the bleachers. The right field foul line actually split the goal post which made them in play. The infield was placed off of what would have been the actual football playing field but dimensions were strange. Somewhere near four hundred feet down the left field line, nearer to five hundred down the right and a mere two hundred fifty feet to dead center if you hit a ball over the press box. What really bothered me was the water spigot with the bucket turned over it in center field and the hole filled with tires beyond the right field goal post. The coach had used more chalk to lay out the out of play areas than he had used to line the field. During the longest ground rules meeting in the annals of baseball, I was told that if a ball rolled into the hole filled with tires it was a ground rule double. I was more concerned with what happened if my right fielder fell into it. This game was a tort liability waiting to happen. I decided the best thing for me to do was to put the outfielder I could most afford to lose in right field…just like my coach had done thirty-plus years before.

Second Chances

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Sometimes I get to work too early. The sun had not made an appearance as I drove around the gym toward my parking place. I would not have been able to see Ole Sol if he had been up as it could not have been foggier if I had been in an old werewolf movie. We were still a few days away from the official start of school and were in the middle of the mandatory teacher workdays that, despite its name, allow teachers to get no work done. As I pulled into my parking place I noticed a car parked next to the fence separating the parking lot and the baseball field. I saw movement off to the side near our activity bus. It turned out to be a young man carrying a gas can and a cutoff garden hose. Hummmmmmmm. I wonder what he could be doing. Give the kid credit; he walked right over like he was supposed to be carrying a gas can and garden hose.

Despite recent true life horror stories, I have really never felt fearful in a school environment. This was not a normal school environment and I freely admit to certain feelings of, ah, trepidation. When he spoke I could actually smell gasoline on his breath. Rather than point out the dangers of huffing gasoline I just asked him what he was up to. He was good, I admit it, as cool under fire as any twenty year combat veteran. “Man, I just ran out of gas and the coach just came by and said I could get some gas.” Really, can you describe him for me? “Ahhhh, it was so dark and foggy I didn’t get a good look.” I decided to take a direct tack and told him what I knew to be true and who I was. Realizing he needed gasoline I was going to let him have it but at a price. He would have to return before five o’clock that afternoon with gas or money to replace it. If he didn’t I would call in his tag number to the police and have him arrested. He agreed but of course never showed up. I called his tag in and found out it had been reported stolen. Imagine that.

The following Wednesday, school started for real. I walked into my first period class ready to impart my vast knowledge of driving to the impressionable young minds that were now in my charge. As I called the roll I noticed a young man sitting on the front row trying to make himself look invisible. When I called his name he raised his hand and continued to think invisible, really invisible. “Son, do I know you?” He replied, “No Sir.” “Oh I believe I do and providence has delivered you right into my hands.” I told him to hang around when the bell rang. We came to a quick understanding since I had a name and access to an address. He returned the stolen car tag and spent the rest of the semester doing all of the odd jobs that I cooked up for him. He did such a good job I enlisted him to play football the next year.

This is a short excerpt from “Winning Was Never the Only Thing…” The complete book may be purchased or downloaded at the following link: http://www.amazon.com/Winning-Was-Never-Only-Thing/dp/1500597732/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1446497350&sr=8-1&keywords=winning+was+never+the+only+thing

THE ANGRY YOUNG MAN

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The following is an excerpt from “Winning Was Never the Only Thing…” and one of the reasons that teachers live to teach. Should you wish to purchase a copy it can be purchased in book form or downloaded at the following link: goo.gl/dO1hcX
THE ANGRY YOUNG MAN
As a student, Leroy was no great shakes unless you compared him to a 1.0 earthquake. It would become apparent as time went on that he was a lot brighter than he was letting on but it would take several years for his intelligence to truly manifest itself. After telling him to complete an assignment and get back on task, he tore off a piece of tape, put it on the palm of his hand and said, “put this agin’ your ear and see if you can hear this tape telling you Hell No!” For creativity I would have to give it a ten. For stupid things to say to your teacher and coach, also I give it a ten. As a hush fell over the class, a flush of heat rushed from my feet to my ears. I calmly turned to the door and asked him to step outside with me. I was hoping that by taking time to walk out I would calm down. It didn’t work. When we got to the hallway, I turned and grabbed him by the throat while pushing him against a locker. In my mind I can clearly hear the hollow metal thud that the locker made, and the rattle of disturbed locks. I do not know what I said, which is not a good thing. From past history I would reason that I probably used the F word a lot and probably used it in ways it was never intended to be used. Luckily I came to my senses, realizing that not only had I picked him up off of the floor but that I was choking him. As I gazed upon his reddening face and into his saucer like eyes I decided that I probably should let him down and did. I was not proud of myself and for the next week cringed every time my classroom door opened. I fully expected the men in blue to show up to arrest me or Mr. Rhodes, my principal, to fire me. It did not happen and interestingly, Leroy’s brightness began to show a flicker of dim light. Please, I would like to make an observation to all budding young teachers; this is not a good motivational tool.

Leroy was also a baseball player of sorts. Two for four at the plate is great but as a career not so much. In the four years that I had him as a player he was able to complete just two of those seasons, his freshman year and his senior year. In between there was an issue with eligibility his junior year but before that, there was an issue with me and his anger his sophomore year. Small, quick and wiry, Leroy possessed a howitzer for an arm although, at times, it was somewhat inaccurate. As a freshman I used him as a pitcher, short stop and outfielder and he distinguished himself enough to make the varsity team his sophomore year. Unfortunately, Leroy had a huge hole in his swing. Anything that curved or bent avoided his bat as if it had some sort of perilous disease. My tiring of repeatedly saying, “Out in front and over the top” caused me to bench him in favor of another player. People on the bench have at the very least, two issues; one, they don’t like being there and want to play more. I understand this and really do not want a player that doesn’t want to play. Two, they do not like to chase foul balls. To a player chasing foul balls is demeaning. I agree with them that it is demeaning but I don’t care, it has to be done. Being Leroy, the anger kept building until finally he could not take it anymore. When I told him to “hop on” a foul ball he did not move even though I knew he had heard me. “Leroy, the ball will not grow legs and come back on its own.” His comeback was, “It’ll have to before I go pick it up!” My calmness surprised me. “Leroy, either get the ball or go get out of your uniform and don’t come back.” Unable to get past his anger you can guess which option he chose. I found his uniform hanging on the door knob of the athletic office. The ball did not return itself either.

Because I primarily taught freshmen, I saw very little of Leroy his junior year. Some would say this was a blessing and at the time I would have agreed. Due to his grade problems I did not have to deal with him during baseball season and did not expect him to come out his senior year. As usual I was incorrect. Like a bad penny, he kept turning up. What did I have to do to get rid of this kid? When I saw him sitting at a desk in the first organizational meeting of the year, my first thought was “You’re cut.” As the meeting came to a close, I noticed Leroy hanging back. As soon as everyone had exited, Leroy was at my elbow. “CaCaCaCoach Miller,” he stammered while looking at his shoes, “You don’t owe me anything but can I come out for baseball?” I was somewhat taken aback that he had even asked. “Why should I let you come out Leroy? We have not exactly Gee-Hawed.” Again looking at his feet Leroy finally looked up and said, “I’m not the same person. Can you give me a chance to prove it?” With “No way!” on the tip of my tongue I instead said sure. I am such an old softy. I did not totally lose my mind, I gave him quite a few parameters to adhere to and he did; to a Tee!

Leroy’s season was a good one for him on the worst team that I had at Riverside. He still had the hole in his swing but so did everyone else. In between innings I found him sitting next to me talking about the game that was in progress or cutting up with his best friend, David Brissey. He seemed to be less angry and much happier. At practice he was usually the first one out to the field and since he lived near my route home I began to taxi him home. In other words, I was seeing way too much of him. Seeing and participating in the turn around in Leroy’s personality helped make the season more successful than it really was. He was still an angry young man and at times gave in to the anger. Mostly he used his anger as a tool for success and for some reason Leroy had decided that I was responsible for that success.

As Leroy’s senior year drew to a close I found myself being invited to many different family functions, including graduation celebrations, graduation itself and an impromptu evening fishing expedition over spring break. As we sat in his grandpa’s old and beat up Jon boat Leroy told me that the best thing that ever happened to him was being jacked up against a locker and being kicked off of the baseball team. He had done some type of self-analysis his junior year and realized that he was headed down a long, bumpy and unhappy road if he did not change his ways. Not bad for a seventeen year old. It was as if he had become self-aware; then he dropped a bomb shell. He was going to go to college. I did not want to throw ice water on his dream but to myself I contemplated the likelihood of his success with the grades that I knew he had. They would not reflect the type of student usually pursued by institutes of higher learning. I am glad I didn’t and was once again was proven incorrect. Leroy took remedial and transfer courses. On a recommendation from me, he began his career at North Greenville University and if memory serves, somehow ended up at Furman University. If Furman were up north it would have been a member of the Ivy League and mentioned with Yale and Princeton. He not only ended up there, he graduated. Leroy traveled a little farther down his road and picked up a Masters Degree and even ended up teaching at the collegiate level for a while. I try not to wish bad things on good people but I fervently hope that he had a student that was just as big a hemorrhoid as he was. I also sincerely hope that if Leroy had such a student that the student turned out just as successful as Leroy did. Leroy, even though I’m not sure why, I consider you to be my biggest success story. Hope you are well!

A LITTLE BIT OF EDUCATION…

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This is an excerpt from the book “Pathways” which will be released in mid-November.

I have joked to my classes that I went to the the only elementary school, called a primary school back then, that had a student parking lot. I did, but it was because I went to Indian Land School where kindergarten through twelve was housed in the same building that had just one parking lot. A long low brick building similar to all that were built in the late Forties, it sat on the top of a small hill overlooking Highway 521. The primary school was housed downstairs on one end while the junior high was up the stairs above it and separated from the high school by huge double doors. For my first eight years the only time we ventured into the realm of the upperclassmen was the occasional trip to the library or auditorium and daily, having lined up like Clementine’s little ducklings, when we quietly marched to the cafeteria for lunch. The only sounds allowed were the taps and clicks caused by hard soled shoes on the highly polished hardwood floors.

In order to meet the needs of a modern world, a gymnasium was built adjacent to the high school wing. Other buildings had been added to accommodate such non-core classes as Ag, shop and band, and to house sports facilities in the form of football and baseball locker rooms. These rooms surrounded a cannery that was opened in the summer months and used by all of the families… make that all white families in the area.
There was no kindergarten during those years either. In those days, parents were still responsible for teaching basic ABC’s, numbers, and colors and such – things that kindergarten teachers are now saddled with because parents are way too busy to teach them.

My kindergarten education was year-round and administered not only by my parents but also by my grandmother, Nannie, who was an exacting taskmaster. Even during the summer months between sessions of school my education continued. While other children frolicked, romped, hither and yon seemingly doing nothing educationally, a bookmobile would show up at Pettus’s Store. Every two weeks, like clockwork, my grandmother would take me by the hand and walk me down to Pettus’s Store “to meet the bookmobile,” a vehicle which looked a lot like a converted school bus of a great age. Inside, instead of seats, there were shelves with rows and rows of books on every subject. I would pick out three books that interested me and Nannie would pick out three books that she thought might interest me. Of course the books she picked were of some type of educational value like say Einstein’s Guide to Quantum Mechanics. That gave me a total of six possible books to read over a two week period.

There really wasn’t anything possible about it because I did not seem to have a choice. Sit your self down under yonder shade tree and read or walk yourself out to yonder hot sun and corn row and pick up a hoe. There did not seem to be anything to debate so I became an avid reader and still have not found a hoe that comfortably fits my hand…not that I am actively looking. At any time, while sitting under that shade tree, I might be called upon to read aloud and could expect to be quizzed with a Moon Pie as a treat instead of a carrot strung onto the end of a fishing pole. I did not realize how much I would appreciate that later…much later. During the winter months, activities might be changed due to the weather but still were focused on the three R’s and a healthy dose of Biblical study that went on 24/7 it would seem.

Because all children did not have the benefit of my grandmother and because “Some Children Are Left Behind”, regardless of what a former president might have passed into law in the far distant future, we could have had an elementary school with a student parking lot because the concept known as social promotion was several years down one of those pathways in South Carolina. That’s right – no social promotion! The good side of that equation was that there was no compulsory attendance rule either. Good side? I have been on both sides of the coin. I was a student when there was no social promotion or compulsory attendance and then a teacher under both systems. So which do I prefer? Unh-Unh! That is my secret but there are reasons why South Carolina’s education system ranks so low today and why we had no social promotion or compulsory attendance rule at the time.

Those reasons are connected. We are still trying to shake off and remove the cobwebs from the years when I was a public school student and cotton textiles were still king in the New South. I am not implying that it was the intent of mill owners or their politicians, held firmly in owner’s pockets, purposely to keep the state “stupid.” Well, maybe I am. One did not need a particularly “globally aware” or educated workforce to produce the raw materials and finished products associated with textiles. Remember, an educated workforce might actually ask for a raise or, worse, mention the word—union. You really did not need to know your multiplication tables to do most jobs in a cotton mill although I did, in fact, have to use a slide rule in one. Yeah and I still have yet to use Algebra in the last fifty years. I keep hoping my education was not for naught!

Textiles also provided the ultimate “alternative” school. Where does a “left behind” fourteen-year-old sixth grader go when he decides to drop out of school? In my day, they became solid, tax-paying citizens who labored in the lower recesses of the cotton mills doing those jobs that were highly repetitive, back-breaking and lower paying until they taught themselves something else that would elevate them to another highly repetitive, back-breaking but higher paying “low paying job.” Understand, these low paying jobs still provided a higher level of poverty than the rest of the world enjoyed. We were still taught that education was important and that a high school diploma was the only way to get the “better” jobs in the mill. The problem today is that we do not have that “alternative” school any more and there are only so many shifts at “Mickey Dee’s” or the like.

TEACHER CREATIVITY GOES AWRY

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Sometimes teachers can be more creative than they intend to be and sometimes their best laid plans do go asunder. There was one student teacher from Bob Jones University who had her students create flash cards to assist her student’s review of material for an upcoming test.

Questions were written on one side with the answers on the other. This is something that most teachers do to assist their students as they learn new material. I only mention that she was from Bob Jones University, a fundamental Christian university, because quite a few of their student teachers were not very…well…worldly. Most became exceptionally good student teachers once they realized the games that high school students sometimes play.

This one student teacher may have been worldlier than she let on, but from all accounts she was not a particularly good student teacher. As she held an in-class review, the student teacher asked, “This American activist crusaded on the behalf of the mentally insane in the late 1800s, who was she?” After giving her students time to search for the answer, she then asked, “if everyone had their Dix out?” Okay say it slowly and aloud. “Do you have your Dix out?” If you burst into laughter, you now know what her class did.

Early in my career I also tried to be creative. I tried to be creative late in my career but was smarter about it…. Well not; I just remembered making a pickle light up, blowing up hydrogen balloons and demonstrating a potato gun. One of my favorite demonstrations was to show the behavior of metal sodium when placed in water. As I look back on this time, I realize it might not have been a smart thing to do because the reaction produces heat and hydrogen, along with a caustic base, and there is a potential for an explosion and therefore some danger.

I would drop a ridiculously small, bee bee sized amount of sodium into a lab sink with a small amount of water. Everyone would be wearing safety googles as we watched the sodium spark and smoke as it ran around on the surface of the water like a “scrubbing bubble.” If we were lucky, the spark would ignite the hydrogen and would cause a small “pop” that might get a few people wet. All of this was strictly monitored by yours truly.

I had to quit doing this demonstration when a group of student lab assistants decided that they would recreate this demonstration in the sink located in the chemical storage room. Using the logic that kids and not so bright adult, Southerners sometimes employ, if a little is good, then a lot would be great.

Instead of dropping a bee bee sized amount of sodium into the water they dropped a golf ball sized amount. As the reaction progressed all was fine until one of the other science teachers walked in on them. To cover up their crime, they pulled the plug in the sink to dispose of the evidence and this is where the dangerous fun began.

All plumbing fixtures in a science lab are made of glass to prevent chemical reactions involving corrosive acids and metals. They are also connected to each other. When the sodium hit the trap, it had nowhere to go and exploded. Luckily, no one was injured but the same could not be said for many of the interconnected glass traps. Also, a few students standing near to lab sinks got unexpected baths in what could be described as a toxic brew of water. While no one was injured, the old saying that “it is all fun and games until someone loses an eye” still applied.

Another of my favorite activities was the end of year “water rocket” project. Who knew that a two-liter soft drink bottle with fins and nose could fly so far? Filled with water and pumped with a bicycle pump to eighty or so pounds of pressure, we had one fly from the front lawn of the school, over said school, and to the far side of the football stadium. Granted, there was a stiff wind blowing but the designer was smart enough to cut his fins in such a way to impart spin. It flew and flew and flew.

Most didn’t. Quite a few just barely got into the air, which was the one requirement to receive a passing grade. Get off the pad for a ‘D’! For a dozen or so well-designed rockets, you might have thought of the movie “October Sky.” Because we flew them from the front lawn during the late day classes, parents waiting to pick up their kids in the car line were given a show, and many left their cars to have a better view. The parents loved it and the flights became an unexpected public relations coup for me as they praised my creativity and innovation.

They would stand in groups, applauding every liftoff and cheering for those who cleared the launch pad. Most of the good ones flew a hundred or so feet and then crashed harmlessly onto the lawn or at worst the top of the school. That was until a change in wind direction brought them crashing down into the car line. I don’t think my parents realized that they could move so fast, and the scene reminded me of film from World War II. Well, so much for scoring the public relations coup and all my creativity with it.

Excerpt from “Winning Was Never the Only Thing….” which can be downloaded on Kindle or purchased on Amazon at http://goo.gl/UE2LPW

FIFTY YEARS AGO-THE SUMMER OF LOVE

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“I like old hippies so much more than old conservatives.”
― Oliver Markus Malloy

My summer of love was nothing like THE Summer of Love. I’m sure you have all read or seen the history of the Sixties. If you haven’t, you’re just too young. There was no greater decade…or worse one.

The Summer of Love took place in 1967 in and around San Francisco as some one hundred thousand kids descended upon the Haight-Asbury area or what became known as the “Hashbury” region of San Francisco. The summer of 1967 was the culmination of a half-decade of excesses that involved more than just a summer of love, drugs, and music. It exemplified what many of the youth of our country had been moving toward during the entire decade of the Sixties…despite the protests of our parents. Many but not all. I was oblivious.

I was caught unaware of what was going on in San Francisco. I saw a few mentions of “hippies” on the evening news hosted by “the most trusted man in the United States,” Walter Cronkite. Dirty, long haired, flower wearing and dope using, they were celebrating “free love” while protesting the Vietnam War, wishing to “make love, not war” while “wearing flowers in their hair.”

Many of my friends spoke of “dirty” hippies who were tearing our country down with their protests. I couldn’t understand the disdain, making love sounded a lot better than making war. After two divorces I now realize that there is only a thin line between the two and that the free love mantra of the period was anything but free.

Despite the ongoing Cold War and the assassination of President Kennedy, the early Sixties were a period of hope. The Cuban Missile Crisis was behind us, and we still believed in the American Exceptionalism of World War Two. The young Americans, the Baby Boomers, found a role model in the youthful president, John F. Kennedy, and the sorrow of his loss did little to dim the hope of the period.

His death heightening our hopes making the failures at the end of the Sixties that much harder to take. There were plenty of causes to fight for, Civil Rights, Women’s Rights, Gay Rights, Native American Rights, “the Right to Party” …wrong generation but we did our share…but not in Indian Land, South Carolina.

Indian Land was still about the “status quo,” working class families either toiling at local textile mills or in agriculture related endeavors, most of whom who still believed in the mantra “our government right or wrong.” Vietnam and Watergate would change all those beliefs and more for my generation.

Vietnam would change us in ways that I don’t think we understood even though most of the denizens of my small community continued to support the war to its bloody end. I would support it until opening a new chapter of my life at the “non-hot bed of political and social change,” Newberry College and was glad to have received my 2S deferment.

My departure for Newberry would coincide with the year 1968. This retired history teacher has always believed that 1968 was one of those years that ranks with other significant years like 1776, 1861, 1917 and 1941. What made it significant was the fact that despite the divisiveness of the country, we survived as a nation. The assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy, Mai Lai, the Tet offensive, and the worst damnation the war would receive, Walter Cronkite said we couldn’t win, and he was right.

Protests raged, exploding during the Democratic Presidential Convention in Chicago and at colleges across the US including South Carolina State where three protesters were shot and killed by the police. Somehow our government held on, right through the Sixties into the Seventies and Watergate.

I wonder if some future history teacher will be saying the same about the divisiveness of this year or the next. How much more can our hatred for each other grow? Will 2015 or 2016 be the year that we survived despite fighting against ourselves, or will it be the year that the United States became something else?

We are already on borrowed time and the specter of the breakup of the Soviet Union after their excursion into Afghanistan haunts me a bit. I wonder if the war with ISIS is winnable. Deep down I believe that our enemies do not lie outside of our borders. How many countries and empires have come and gone during our brief history? We have come and I wonder if it is just our time to go.

Don Miller’s author’s page can be found at https://www.amazon.com/stores/Don-Miller/author/B018IT38GM?ref=ap_rdr&store_ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true

THE CELLAR

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It was an early Sunday morning, as in one or two in the morning. 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 radio 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 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. A door next to a large oak tree had a simple wooden sign above that welcomed you to “The Cellar.” That tree with roots that had pushed their way above ground level was an obstacle to 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 to be kicked out of 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 office 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. The dance itself and the music 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. 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 in to 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. There is a restaurant in its place now. 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 nights 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.

Trips to The Cellar were not limited to summers. There were many sixty-mile road trips from Newberry to Rock Hill in Sid Crumpton’s VW or Tom Hocker’s little foreign car with the caved-in trunk. We would pick up dates at Winthrop before making the short jaunt into Charlotte. Yes, there were several late nighters that saw us back at Newberry just in time to make our morning classes. Dr. Wilson, a history professor, once remarked, “Miller, if your eyes are hurting you as bad as they are hurting me, you need to bandage them.” I WAS looking through a pink haze.

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 figures 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 really 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…Nah! Al decided to hitch hike to California. He didn’t make it out of Charlotte and 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 dancing suits and Disco. It was something so different I never even tried to get the hang of. 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 a ritzy restaurant and…sadly, like Al and John, a memory of something that once was.

“Place of the Sunlight of God”: An excerpt from a story about Tamassee-Salem

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With the announcement of the closing of Tamassee-Salem I would guess that it would be normal to feel nostalgic…and I am. The following is an excerpt from “Winning…” in which I explain how I ended up a Tamassee-Salem where I spent seven of the best years of my working life. Enjoy for free…but the whole book can be purchased at goo.gl/dO1hcX

If you travel west on Highway 11 between Highway 14 and the Georgia State line, you will certainly understand why this particular highway is called the Cherokee Scenic Highway. Small mountains, water features galore, forested areas, parks and unfortunately, many golf courses cover the landscape around what was once a Cherokee trading path. Traveling is usually slow due to pulp wood trucks, bass boats being towed to and from Lake Keowee, or “Sunday Drivers” sight seeing on a Wednesday. I am fortunate to have lived on Highway 11 for nearly thirty years. Even after all of this time, Linda Gail and I still like to explore around Highway 11, looking for pig trails that might lead us on an adventure. Sometimes you get what you ask for.

Late one Friday, in the spring of 2001, Linda Gail and I were enjoying the evening while driving west in her Mustang toward the setting sun. We had eaten at a local golf course called The Rock and had turned west toward the sun instead of east toward home. I felt this was somewhat symbolic as I had made the decision before the 2001 baseball season to retire from athletics and ride off into the sunset. As soon as the baseball season ended, I began to regret my decision. While Linda Gail and I rode west, top down with the wind in our face, we talked about our careers, shared stories about former players and friends and discussed what I was going to do with those free hours I had not had for twenty-eight years. I did not have a clue but knew I did not like the size of Linda Gail’s honey do list.

I have often joked that if you drive far enough on Highway 11 you will reach the end of the world. If you turn left at the end of the world, you will find yourself in Salem. It is less than one square mile of mostly … nothing. The city of Salem boasts a population of one hundred and thirty five people according to the 2010 Census. The area adjoining it, Tamassee, is an unincorporated area whose name in the Cherokee language means “Place of the Sunlight of God”. It was named for an old Cherokee village destroyed by Andrew Pickens in the late 1700’s. There are a few businesses, churches and homes clustered around Highway 130 and what is called Park Avenue. There is also a fire department to the east and area’s namesake Tamassee-Salem Middle and High School to the west. This is where we found ourselves on that Friday evening with the sun setting behind the hill that the school sat on. The symbolism had not gone un-noticed as I joked, “I know what I can do when I grow up. I’ll come be the athletic director at Tamassee-Salem. They don’t have football or soccer. How hard can it be?” I have since re-thought the silliness of that statement.

As I looked at a South Carolina sports website the next day, I found a classified advertisement for a baseball coach and social studies teacher at, you guessed it, Tamassee-Salem. Once I got over the tingle up and down my spine I began to feel a strong pull toward the setting sun. I am religious but not in a recognized way. Even though I was publically dunked into the Baptist Church where I still attend, I lean more toward the New Testament Evolutionary Church of Christ according to Don. I even throw in a little Buddhism to add seasoning and for heat would like to combine it with some of the pagan activities that I have read about. For some reason Linda Gail won’t let me.

I still could not deny the feeling that I was being called to Tamassee-Salem. Like a moth’s attraction to an open flame or a siren’s call, the tug was unmistakable and strong. I discussed my feelings with Linda Gail but did not come to any clear decision. Linda gave me her normal “Do what you want” advice. The following Monday I continued to battle the feeling that I was being pulled toward Tamassee-Salem and decided that during my planning period I would call and inquire about the position. The telephone call was … well, interesting. Mr. Bill Hines, Tamassee-Salem’s principal, could not figure out why I wanted to come to Tamassee-Salem after my successes at Riverside. After the third time of being asked “But why do you want to come HERE,” I responded, somewhat testily, “I don’t know that I do, that is what I am trying to find out.” In Bill’s defense, he thought that I had committed one of the two cardinal sins of teaching or coaching that will get you fired faster than your won-loss record; diddling where one should not diddle or spending money that was not yours to spend. When I took the job at Tamassee-Salem a lot of my coaching peers actually thought the same thing. They could not understand why I was walking away from a successful program for one that had not even attained mediocrity. I wasn’t sure either but I told Mr. Hines that I was still a teacher in good standing at Riverside and gave him permission to call to confirm it. The next day he called back and invited me to come for an interview.

As I walked away from my interview, none of the allure for Tamassee-Salem had been displaced. I liked everyone that I had met and felt that the administration had gone out of their way to impress me which was quite flattering. (I am not easy but I can be had.) I also knew that athletically it would be a challenge, but I felt that I probably needed a new challenge.

As much as I felt that I had “come home,” I was still in a conflicted state. I had many close friends at Riverside and had served in Greenville County for twenty-five years, but my biggest issue was with my wife. Linda Gail and I had spent over fifteen years involved with the Warriors. She was the junior varsity girl’s basketball coach and the varsity girl’s tennis coach at Riverside. Our support of each other athletically was part of our relationship. I was actually present when Coach Golden asked her if she was interested in the coaching position. Louie was trying to hire a body just to field a position and had not realized what he was getting into. This is something he and I share … the not knowing what we were getting into, not the body. Linda Gail and I had been intertwined with athletics and each other our entire dating and married life. I debated with myself the decision to change schools. Our intertwinement included friends, parents, students and former players in addition to each other.

When I returned to Tamassee-Salem for my second interview, it turned out not to be an interview but an offer of employment. I had decided to take Linda Gail with me and while driving around the community, I found her to be somewhat reserved. Anyone who knows my wife would never use that description, but she was on this particular day, which made me very uncomfortable. She realized that our lives were getting ready to change, something that had not dawned on me but quickly would. When I returned to my truck with the news that I had been offered the position she broke into tears which I found were not tears of joy. Linda realized that a large part of our lives together had “been torn asunder” and the man responsible was me. We recovered, as many couples do, when their unions were torn apart by seductive outside forces. Luckily my seductive forces were another school and not … well, take your pick.

I spent seven great years teaching and coaching at TS during my first “retirement” and would trade nothing for the experience. I made many acquaintances that I now call friends. I am sorry the old girl is going to close. For me Tamassee-Salem lived up to its Native American name a “Place of the Sunlight of God”.