A Long, Hard Year

March 29, 2025 / cigarman501 / 7 Comments

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What Ifs

July 13, 2024 / cigarman501 / 6 Comments

“I’m always wondering about the what ifs, about the road not taken.”
― Jenny Han, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before

“What” and “if” are two words if taken alone, are benign. Just don’t put them together side-by-side. When taken together, they have the power to haunt you for the rest of your life. “What if…?”

I am attempting to “get on” with the rest of my life after loss of my beloved wife but find myself dwelling on a myriad of “what ifs.” Is this what haunted means? I spend too much time dwelling in the dark place that is my head.

My “What ifs” come calling during the darkest part of the night, usually around the witching hour. Many come after dreams with a reoccurring theme. I am lost in familiar surroundings and can’t find my way. I should find out what my dreams mean.

It is normal, after experiencing a life altering event, to assess where you are in your life. I truly try to focus on “what is” but I can’t seem to keep “what was” from creeping into my thoughts. It doesn’t take long for “what is” to morph into “what if.” I should be concentrating on “what will be” but can’t seem to move on.

What I wouldn’t give for a mulligan. What if I had a chance to do it repeatedly until I finally got it right? Or do it wrong again? What if I came to the fork in the road and took it ala Yogi Berra? What ifs are driving me a little crazy.

I realize now, a lot of my what ifs have to do with focus. Retirement brought a lack of focus. Linda dealt with it better than I did. She focused upon helping aging family members and friends, buying plants, and buying anything that might be on sale…whether she needed it or not. I focused on her and became her enabler.

Aside from her buying habits, she was the rudder to my dingy and my rudder is now missing. The way my head is, I fear stormy weather is ahead with no way to steer to avoid it. “What if…?”

Somewhere along the way we lost our spontaneity. I enabled that too. Was that because we grew older? I don’t think so…I think “what ifs” took on another meaning…an even more negative meaning. It is as if we grew scared to take chances.

The Linda I fell in love with never liked anything scripted. She was fearless. We dropped a hat and took a road trip to Georgetown to celebrate our anniversary…not realizing it was also the weekend of the Fourth. We found the last room available in Georgetown County. That “what if” was epic.

Traveling at the drop of a hat worked out more times than it didn’t. I can’t remember any that didn’t work out…Well, we should have never made that side trip to Memphis…the barbeque just wasn’t worth it. We dropped our hats and traveled to New Orleans to celebrate an anniversary and later to Omaha to see the last College World Series played at Rosenblat Stadium. We didn’t think twice about it. What happened to us? Why didn’t we take more chances? “What if…?”

What if Covid hadn’t hit. What if we had discovered the cancer earlier…what if I had found her sooner after her first stroke when the “clot buster” drug could have been administered. What if I could hold her one more time? What if I could kiss her one more time? I think those last two are the what ifs I’m mostly dealing with.

Before Linda passed, I wrote “Food for Thought.” It is more about thought than food but there are plenty of recipes too. Available in paperback and download at http://tinyurl.com/yrt7bee2 .

It was the Kiss

June 29, 2024June 29, 2024 / cigarman501 / 10 Comments

“Okay, this was kissing. Serious kissing. Not just a kiss before moving out, not a good-bye, this was hello, sexy, and wow….” ― Rachel Caine, Glass Houses

I’ve got Betty Everett’s “Shoop, Shoop” song playing in my head. If you don’t remember it, there is a Cher version that is slightly younger. The reframe, “It’s in his kiss, that’s where it is” is on auto repeat in my head. I am changing the pronouns from his to her.

Today would have been thirty-eight years…our anniversary. Unfortunately, it is exactly three months to the day since you left me. It is exactly three months not using the “d” word. Saying you “left” implies there is a possibility of reunion. Using the “d” word implies finality and I can’t use it. The truth hurts too badly.

This past weekend I decided to take a drive. I needed to get out of the house and a walk in 95-degree weather didn’t seem prudent. I decided to retravel some of the old pig trails we once traveled together in the comfort of our air-conditioned Jeep. It was a mistake. The pig trails mean nothing without you.

My drive did trigger memories of a time now past. The good old days…late 1984. Pig trails meant something then.

I danced around you for a year or more while you dated Jim, my roommate. We became great friends that year. We grew close but there was no dancing together. You tried to “fix” me up with all your friends, but all your efforts failed. The joke was that you failed so badly you took mercy on me. Thank you for that mercy.

I think my subconscious knew you were the one. I recognized there was a spark, a tingle whenever our fingers might touch but you belonged to another. That’s not true, you never belonged to any one person, not even me. The problem was that I was loyal to a fault even to a person who didn’t deserve it or you.

Later that year, there was the inflatable pumpkin on your head in the fall and a major reaction when I came home and found you helping Jim wash his boat that spring. That two-piece… ala Jimmy Carter I sinned in my mind. In between there was the ice storm power outage and Jim’s stupidity putting a puppy dog under the house to keep warm with a five gallon can of kerosene. I don’t know when we laughed so hard, and Jim didn’t appreciate it or deserve the puppy…or you.

With summer came the road trip from hell. I was a tag along…a third wheel as I had been all that year. If a film or fifties TV show had been made of the year, I would have been Pat Brady to Roy Rogers or Jingles in Wild Bill Hickock…funny but safe.

Jim was forced to move to Charleston because of his job but your relationship with him was already unraveling…had been unraveling for a while and that trip to Charleston brought it into focus. I had nothing to do with the fraying even though Jim believed otherwise.

I don’t remember what threw us together without Jim that Saturday afternoon in Charleston, but I took you to the market. What an afternoon. That is when it dawned on me that you might be special. Confirmation would have to wait until Jim’s final straw broke your back.

After your breakup, I continued to dance around until you took the initiative. We found ourselves dancing together for the first time at Bennigans. Serendipity put us together, and like the stray animals you love to adopt, I followed you home. The pretense was to get you safely home but there was the goodnight kiss…and I knew. There might have been several kisses at your doorway, but I knew after the first one. You were the best kisser…the best friend…the best lover…the best everything. I think heaven will be like that first kiss.

Dusty Springfield has replaced Betty Everett, “That ever since we met you’ve had a hold on me, it happens to be true, I only want to be with you!” And now I can’t. I can only remember your kisses…and the way your body fit perfectly with mine when I held you close. You took spooning to a grand level.

I think about all the mistakes I made before we found each other. You made a few mistakes too. Our mistakes were fate’s way of preparing us for kismet. We talked about it often, sometimes karma isn’t a bitch.

The night I followed you home I wanted to protect you. I have wanted to protect you for thirty-eight years. When it came down to it, I couldn’t protect you from what I couldn’t see or touch. It isn’t logical but I still feel guilty.

Happy Anniversary my love. I miss you terribly. Truely, the guilt is real. So is my love.

Do I Want it to Get Better?

June 8, 2024 / cigarman501 / 6 Comments

“Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime and falling into at night. I miss you like hell.”
― Edna St. Vincent Millay

It has been two months, ten days and a double handful of hours, minutes, and seconds since you left me. I do miss you like hell. You were my sunshine, and the skies are much grayer since you left.

Family and friends check in to make sure I’m okay and always ask, “How are you doing?”

I appreciate their concern, but I don’t know how to answer the question. “I’m okay” is the lie I often tell them because I don’t think people want to hear, “Somewhere between numb and devastated.” Whatever I answer, I usually get the unsolicited but well-meant comment, “It will get better over time.” Will it?

I appreciate the advice but one of the voices in my head asks, “Do you want it to get better and for clarification, what is ‘it’ exactly?”

An honest question deserves an honest answer. I don’t have one. I’m at a loss. I want the pain to go away but I honestly don’t think I want the hole in my heart to heal. I think for the pain to go away memories must fade like an old black and white photo. You were so much more than a faded black and white photo. You were my “technicolor” darling.

My life was without color, and I was never whole until I met you. You were the tie that binds and a colorful psychedelic painting. I’ve gone back to incomplete and unraveled and as bland as boiled chicken. I don’t like the feeling that I’m not dead but not alive either. I am in a halfway house for grievers it seems.

Truthfully, I don’t want to not be thinking about you. I don’t want to not be missing you. I want you to be the first thing I think about when I rise in the morning and the last thing I think about when I go to sleep. You deserve that along with the thoughts that come to me throughout the day and in dreams at night.

I’m sure people are worrying that I’m spending too much time alone wallowing in self-pity. I’m not. I’m not alone. You are still here. I carry you with me, right next to the hole in my heart.

I remember going to parties or gatherings and following you around like one of our puppy dogs. We would always find ourselves in an unpopulated corner of the room talking to each other, ignoring everyone else. You were always the most interesting person in the room and tit was comforting feeling your hip pressed against me and your arm hooked in mine. I carry you with me but the thought that I will never hold your hand or hug you brings back the unfathomable pain.

I try to stay busy. You certainly left me with a gracious plenty to do but as I work my way through bins and boxes, it is like one of our adventures. I never know what I’m going to find next, I just know it will remind me of you or something we did.

“So”, the nagging voice in my head asks again, “do you want it to get better?” No, I don’t if it means the memories of you will diminish in any way. Maybe I can just hope for getting different rather than getting better.

***

Just before my wife’s passing, I published a “cookbook of stories” described as being Southern fried in the renderings of fried fatback. These are short essays and recipes from the South. Download or purchase in paperback. Food For Thought. http://tinyurl.com/yrt7bee2

A Letter to the Love of my Life

April 10, 2024 / cigarman501 / 8 Comments

“Death ends a life, not a relationship.”
― Mitch Albom, Tuesdays with Morrie

My Dearest,

I walk through the door hoping I will find you sitting up and smiling a hello. Once again, my hopes are dashed. I watch you as I wait. My heart is breaking. I listen to your breathing, my life hinging on your next breath.

You look so peaceful and youthful. It is as if you have lost thirty years. During the thirty-eight years I have loved you, peaceful is a word I would rarely use, beautiful, a word I always used.

You once described one of your players as your “bull in a China shop.” It is a description I could apply to you as well. Remember your little red VW Bug? When I questioned the safety of your brakes you shrugged and said, “Who needs brakes? I have a horn.”

There was only one speed with you and it was Warp Factor Nine, wide open. Somehow you managed to pull it off with grace and elegance…even dressed in your ten-year-old sweats and always wearing purple.

You always waltzed to the music only you heard. You did it in a genteel and lady like manner, even when coaching. Everyone knew who was in charge and knew when your mind was made up you would not be dissuaded. Right was right even if it was your right.

It was kismet meeting on the press box at Eastside High. Later there was the Halloween pumpkin on your head and a brutal trip to Charleston with your ex-boyfriend. I thing I knew then but it took nearly a year of dancing around each other before we decided to dance together.

Neither of us were looking to fall in love. I had been bitten twice and you thought you were looking for the perfect man. For some reason you asked me out after trying to fix me up with all your friends. It may have been pity; I like to think it was by karmic design.

I asked a question I swore I would never ask again. You decided perfect was not what it was cracked up to be and said yes without hesitation. For thirty-seven years I have been blessed with your love, support, and enthusiasm. For thirty-seven years you have been blessed with an imperfect mate. I’m sure my most redeeming quality was allowing you to have your head like the unbroken filly you were.

Our life was a life easy to laugh about. Stories of biddies falling out of trees, a baby goat being raised in our only bathroom. A fully grown goat falling into our well or a naked woman being chased from the bathroom by an equally naked rat snake.

Epic road trips on a whim, many using your “shortcuts” to make sure the enjoyment would raise questions such as “Are you sure you know where you are going.” One that ended at a warm Georgetown bar on a windy, bitter night. A warm bar that included shrimp and grits, Jack Daniels, and a bluesy singer behind a grand piano.

I could go on but instead I will promise that our grand babies will hear about their grandmother. I promise they will remember their Grandmommy Linda.

Everything was not laughter and giggles. We had our share of what I called “clearing off showers.” Thunderclaps and torrents of rain would give way to freshly cleansed air. Life would settle down and it was good.

I’m not ready for you to leave me. This wasn’t the way it should be. Still, I am thankful for the time we had together.

You have fought hard. It is time for you to rest and lay your burden down. It is time for you to step into the light. Time to start your next great adventure. Time to prepare for when I join you.

You are loved more than you could ever know. Rest now, my darling, rest now.

Your love, Donald.

Linda Porter-Miller passed March 29, Good Friday.

Walk of Life

August 27, 2023August 26, 2023 / cigarman501 / 7 Comments

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Update on our Walk of Life

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

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

Some neat 80’s sports bloopers as a bonus.

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

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

August 20, 2023August 18, 2023 / cigarman501 / 6 Comments

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

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

***

My Birth

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Update:

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

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

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

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

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

Valentine’s Day Horrors

February 14, 2023October 22, 2023 / cigarman501 / Leave a comment

“On Valentine’s Day, the Spirit Club plastered the school with red streamers and pink balloons and red and pink hearts. It looked like Clifford the Big Red Dog ate a flock of flamingoes and then barfed his guts up.” ― Carolyn Mackler, Vegan, Virgin, Valentine

“Cupid, draw back you bow”

Note to self if you drop a rose bush don’t try to catch it. I’m now oozing blood from five spots on my right hand. Roses have thorns even those purchased from Valentine’s Day.

It seems, every Valentine’s Day is my own version of The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre or a Valentine’s slasher movie. I am sure I will have shot myself in the foot by day’s end but at least my bride hasn’t beheaded me like the original St. Valentine. I’m also sure she has considered it.

When it comes to Valentine’s Day, like Midas, I have a special talent. Everything I touch turns into poop.

I haven’t had a successful Valentine’s Day since grammar school. We filled out cheap, little Valentines for everyone in class. Short little sayings like “Be Mine!” I remember looking at “Be My Valentine” from Big Lamar, the class bully that should have been two grade levels above us. We had yet to become creative with little poems like, “Roses are red, violets are blue. Your feet smell like cow poop and your breath does too.”

My first negative memory of many was a Valentine’s Day preteen party in the early 1960s. The Church sponsored event was supposed to be a dress up, Sunday best kind of gala. A Kool-Aid and cupcake affair. We were Methodist so dancing would be allowed, and I prayed my two left feet would somehow transform themselves. A cute little blonde girl had agreed to “hang out and talk.” My first date.

The day before, the world’s largest zit appeared in the middle of my forehead. It didn’t matter. I’m sure the dance was great, but I have no memories of it because I didn’t get to go. My anxiety over my “first date” was so great I threw up and was kept home, in bed, covered in Vick’s VapoRub, the cure-all of the day. It might have been a stomach virus, but Valentine’s Day has been its own virus since. VapoRub was not the cure.

The dance worked out well for my date. A friend took advantage of the situation, and they became a couple. This weird Cupid moment might have been the high point of my attempts at being a romantic Valentine.

Can you imagine? On average, fifty-eight billion pounds or two point two billion dollars’ worth of chocolate will be sold the week leading up to Valentine’s Day. Over two-hundred and fifty million roses are produced just for Valentine’s Day. That is two point three billion in flower sales. A whopping six point two billion dollars are spent on jewelry. I have contributed with little success.

Love-struck Americans dole out almost twenty-four billion dollars on Valentine’s Day with men spending twice the average. Men will spend on average, one-hundred and seventy dollars to prove their undying love. Women? Half of that.

I’m waiting for a masked psychopath to show up to carve out my heart in a real-life Valentine’s slasher movie. Blood splatter replacing rose petals scattered on the bedroom floor.

Speaking of bloody, how did the violent death of a Catholic saint become a celebration of love anyway? There are three suggested stories about three different Saint Valentines. What do they have in common? Martyrdom. Violent death. Two of the accounts involve beheading. Somehow beheading seems apropos. How many of us have lost our heads over someone we shouldn’t have?

That still doesn’t explain cards, candy, flowers, and jewelry but a historical change in Nineteenth Century America does. Prior to this time most marriages were economic rather than romantic despite what romantic writers would have us believe. Even the poor founded their marriages more as economic alliances than romantic love. “Two can live as cheaply as one,” I was told once. Someone lied to me.

This changed in the mid-1800s from economics to romance, or at least combined the two. It also triggered an increase in the giving of tokens of love and it has snowballed from there.

I have taken to giving rose plants as a token of my undying affection. My bride and I plant them in a rose garden next to my vegetable garden in hopes they will bloom as our love has. I dig the holes and let my bride plant them and as soon as she does, they become her responsibility. If they die, it’s on her.

My Midas special Midas touch is still in effect. Damn rose plant has thorns and they have already bitten me. This Valentine’s Day is in fact a bloody one.

Don Miller’s author page may be accessed at https://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM?fbclid=IwAR3yEfoldEBWs3ZbA6bCCQc13npcCrXWdZl0pVYvdbsRMQ86SppPZQVl3SE

To Puppy or Not to Puppy, that is the Question!

April 19, 2022April 21, 2022 / cigarman501 / 2 Comments

“I wish I lived in [a]world, where it’s sunshine and puppies all the time.”
― Charlotte Huang, Going Geek

I fear the question is not “to puppy or not to puppy.” More likely it is, “Will there be one, two, or three puppies?” We are going to visit puppies today.

My bride and I have been surrounded by animals during our near forty years together…except for the previous two years. The pain of losing our darlings of fifteen years, Maddie, and Tilly, has been too much. We’ve mentioned inviting a fur baby into our lives and then listed a litany of reasons why we shouldn’t. That may be ending…maybe.

A friend of mine thinks we need a puppy and continues to send links to local shelters. I love her and hope she continues but I’ve been able to avoid the cuties until early last week. Three sisters, little balls of fur, big ears, and sad faces. “Come on old man, come get us!” We are supposed to ‘visit’ today.

Maddie and Tilly were Cattle Dogs, Blue Heelers. These are Heeler mixes and I’m in love. I just wonder. Heelers are high energy and I fear my tanks are running dry.

Tilly and Maddie waiting patiently for a checkup

Puppies, Bubba, Brodie, Bogie, Sassy Marie, Jackson, Maddie, and Tilly, short for Madeline Roo and Matilda Sue. Kitties Minnie Muffin and Santana. A myriad of goats with N-names beginning with the first, Nannie. Bunnies with B-names, the first, a gift for my wife named Buster. A one-legged rooster named Boomer. Their graves surround our home reminding us of love and commitment.

These don’t include the wild animals that grace our homestead in the foothills of the Blue Ridge. All are welcomed and make our lives richer…even the bear that occasionally tears down my fence and steals my trash.

I’m reminded of the possum gifts Maddie and Tilly would bring us. To my knowledge not one was injured or died. They really do play possum, especially the one that tired of “playing” and got loose in the dining room.

Questions lead to more questions and will lead to decisions. One, two, or three? Do we need a puppy…or three? Do we have the energy to deal with a new puppy…or three? Will we outlive our puppy…or puppies? If they are as long lived as our last three, I’ll be eighty-seven. Does that puppy, or do those puppies, need us? Is it that I just want a puppy? Am I overthinking it all?

My bride is not helping me. I can’t read her. I know she wants a puppy but am I forcing the issue? Can she resist if they are not the “right” puppies? She has never resisted anything with fur.

Are we even set up to house a puppy…or three? Fences need to be mended, literally not figuratively. If we bring them in, we must declutter…whether we get puppies or not we must declutter.

Crate training and house training…sit, fetch, stay, roll over, play dead. Geez. The fact is they train us as much as we train them…and they are so loving and soooo much fun. There is nothing like a puppy asleep in your lap.

They aren’t children…but like children they can’t be left to their own devices. Done right, they require care and commitment. If you think putting a puppy on a chain and leaving it outside is being a puppy parent, you are deluding yourself and making an animal’s life less worth living.

We have ninety acres of land with a large fenced in area around our house. Perfect, except for the wildlife that once ran unimpeded before puppies wanted to herd them. The squirrels, the raccoons, the possums, the bunny that is almost tame. The occasional snake. Decisions, decisions.

Like children, they are expensive. They must be dewormed, groomed, their nails trimmed and treated when they get sick. They have accidents. You have never lived until staggering downstairs in the middle of the night and stepping in a warm, squishy, stinky, goo. “Good morning to you!”

But there is soooo much love to be had…and given. That is the big question. Do I still have the love to give? I do, or I wouldn’t be having this conversation.

Addendum

Our trip didn’t bear fruits or puppies. Turns out that they weren’t as advertised. Do not despair for us because sometimes fate intervenes. We are hot on the trail of a heeler puppy that we will visit this weekend. Until then enjoy the video.

Blog image used from Pixels. Hendley, Haisley, and Harley copied from the shelter site.

Don Miller writes on various subjects and genres. Connect with him at https://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM?fbclid=IwAR3-vMhl68w_x0yUPu5L-_NRugT5oWoOBrlnr7QolweAJPyDHgcZP1qhayI

Valentine’s Day Grinch

February 13, 2022 / cigarman501 / 5 Comments

It seems, every Valentine’s Day is my own version of The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. Once again, I have shot myself in the foot but at least my bride hasn’t beheaded me like the original St. Valentine. I’m sure she has considered it.

When it comes to Valentine’s Day, I have the Midas touch in reverse. Everything I touch turns to poop.

My first memory of a Valentine’s Day celebration was a preteen party in the early 1960s. The Church sponsored affair was supposed to be a dress up, Sunday best kind of gala. We were Methodist so dancing would be allowed, and I prayed my two left feet would somehow transform themselves.

The day before, the world’s largest zit appeared in the middle of my forehead. It didn’t matter. I’m sure the dance was great, but I have no memories because I didn’t get to go. My anxiety over my “first date” was so great I threw up and was kept home. It might have been something else but Valentine’s Day has been a downhill drag since.

Can you imagine, on the average, fifty-eight billion pounds or two point two billion dollars’ worth of chocolate will be sold the week leading up to Valentine’s Day. Over two-hundred and fifty million roses are produced just for Valentine’s Day. That is two point three billion in flower sales. A whopping six point two billion dollars are spent on jewelry.

I’ve all but given up on making Valentine’s Day a special event. Attempts at romantic dinners have ended with food poisoning. I’ve tried poetry, “Roses are red, violets are blue, pizza is hot, and so are you.” I’ve tried to create artistic and rustic birdhouses with tin hearts or a couple holding hands. Most fell apart as quickly as my other attempts at romantic expression. I’m waiting for a masked psychopath to show up to carve out my heart in a real-life Valentine’s slasher movie. Blood splatter replacing rose petals scattered on the bedroom floor.

The seeds of the holiday we know as Valentine’s Day were planted in Lupercalia, an ancient Roman festival honoring the Roman goddess of marriage some twenty-six hundred years ago. It was a pagan festival and involved excesses we have come to expect from such a ritual.

Lupercalia was a sexually charged and violent rite, involving the sacrifice of dogs and male goats as a sign of virility. Priests would cover themselves in milk and the blood of their sacrifices and run naked through the streets whipping women with strips of goat hide cut from the bodies of their sacrifices. Sounds like fun. Getting whipped would allow the barren to become pregnant and women lined up for the opportunity.

Later in the day, men would pick women’s names from a jar in hopes that they would form a romantic bond. In my mind I read that differently than it was written. I mentally visualize a Seventies wife swapping party with car keys drawn from a candy dish. I have no firsthand knowledge, I read a lot.

All this changes around 500 A.D. with the rise of Christianity. Pope Gelasius replaced the pagan rite by instituting the Feast of Saint Valentine on February 14. Christians feeling the need to end all the fun of naked men running around whipping women.

There are several stories involving Christians named Valentine who were executed by the Roman Emperor Claudius II about two hundred years previous, but the most famous was a third-century martyr imprisoned for secretly marrying Christian couples and helping persecuted believers. This Valentine was reportedly executed on Feb. 14, 289 A.D.

As fiction became more interesting than fact, the future saint supposedly restored sight to his jailer’s blind daughter. Later, the legend grew even more to include a letter he gave the girl before his execution, reportedly signed “Your Valentine.”