Sayings and Quotes

My Body is not a Temple

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“Middle age is when a narrow waist and a broad mind begin to change places.” – Anonymous

At best I’ve never had a narrow waist and my mind may be broader than it has ever been. Middle Age? I passed that landmark a while ago.

My body was never a temple, more like an old barn, some of its weathered cladding falling off, the tin roof turning reddish brown with rust, and one door sagging on its hinges like a drunken sailor on liberty. If I could see inside, broken down stalls would be filled with old, dried-up horse apples and cow patties. Let’s face it, middle age is in my rear-view mirror along with a steadily approaching figure known as the grim reaper.

With the approaching fall, the dreaded “physical” season is upon me. It began midweek with a full body “search” for nasty squamous cells, basil cells, or any other carcinoma that might be found. As I looked into a strategically placed mirror, I saw an alien old man who’s pale and scrawny shoulders and chest had fallen into his waist and his waist into his ass. My only six pack is cooling in the fridge. Not a pear shape exactly, more of a triangle. Note to self, stay out of eyeshot of mirrors, it is easier to lie to yourself that way and not as depressing.

The scan went well considering. I stood in my underwear in front of my extremely attractive and pregnant dermatologist and her attractive nonpregnant nurse. I didn’t know I could suck in my stomach for that long. Oh, the vanity of it all and they are young enough to be granddaughters.

One suspicious area was biopsied and three pre-cancers burned off, one squarely in the middle of my forehead.  Cue the “Did you forget to duck” comments.

Early next month I have my general physical with all its bloodwork and a week later a physical with my cardiologist with the sticky and ice-cold patches reading electrical impulses for the EKG. It is a known fact they store them in a freezer. I don’t expect any unwelcome news, but they do trigger reflection.  The physicals will all confirm what I already know, I’m old…but I’m still alive.

Two quotes about aging by baseball great, Satchel Paige are stuck in my head. Born in 1906, Paige pitched his last professional game in 1966, just weeks before his sixtieth birthday. Due to the Major League’s color barrier, he pitched for over twenty years combining time with the Negro Leagues, barnstorming and semi-pro ball before getting an opportunity to pitch in the Majors for the Cleveland Indians. Owner Bill Veeck knew a draw when he saw one and knew Paige would put people in seats.

Paige was forty-two and two days old when he threw his first pitch, still the oldest rookie to debut. When reporters asked about his age, Paige replied, “How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you was?” Sage words. Time is a human construct used to torture us with thoughts of our own pending mortality.

A 42-year-old rookie warms up for the then Cleveland Indians

In the two and a half months left in the 1948 season, Paige finished with a 6–1 record and a 2.48 ERA, pitched two, nine inning shutouts, struck out forty-three against twenty-two walks and gave up sixty-one base hits in 72 and 2⁄3 innings. And Cleveland? They won the World Series in six games; the last time Cleveland won a World Series. Not bad for a rookie of any age.

The second notable Paige quote rattling in the empty drum that is my mind, “Don’t look back. Something might be gaining on you.” I know the grim reaper is drawing closer, but I rather not know when he will place his bony hand upon my shoulder. No need to dwell on the inevitable. I hope I wake up dead one morning with a surprised look on my face.

Three additional quotes from Satchel Paige:

“You win a few, you lose a few. Some get rained out. But you got to dress for all of them.” (Metaphor for life)

“I ain’t ever had a job, I just always played baseball.” (When you enjoy what you do it is hard to call it work)

“Never let your head hang down. Never give up and sit down and grieve. Find another way. And don’t pray when it rains if you don’t pray when the sun shines.” (Don’t just pray when things are bad.)

Don Miller’s authors page can be found at https://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share

A Titch’s Wit

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I am contemplating my stupidity. According to the weather liars it’s twenty-seven with a wind chill making it feel like nineteen. I know. You northerners are cranking up the grill and getting the beer put on ice. Here in the foothills of the Blue Ridge, we might be headed toward a modern ice age. I could be in Florida where the cold snap is expected to cause cold-stunned iguanas to fall from trees.

Fear not. It will wake up when it warms up.

Why am I contemplating my stupidity? It is walking day with my best friend, Hawk. Normally we walk on Fridays but scheduling problems and Covid reared their heads, so this is the first walk in three weeks, and it is on a cold and windy Saturday morning.

Two seventy-one-year-olds braving the elements, to set in their ways to ask, “Do you think we ought to just go to the coffee house have a cup of coffee?” Noooo. We are much too manly to do something smart. Neither one of us wants to admit we would rather be sitting in the warmth sipping a dark roast.

Southerners don’t do cold.  Add snow or ice and we are damn near suicidal. It became apparent that Southerners don’t do cold when I looked up “Southern Sayings About the Weather.” For every Southern saying about the cold, there were dozens of heat and humidity sayings and right now you can guess which one I would prefer to be using.

“As cold as a well-digger’s butt in January” is about descriptive as we get. That one along with “Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey”, and “as cold as a witch’s tit in a brass bra” are not even Southern. We plagiarized them from our Northern neighbors or some of our English forefathers and foremothers.

Per normal, this sent me down one of my many rabbit holes. Where did such sayings come from?

While freezing the balls off a brass monkey seems to be a physical impossibility, what if I told you that a brass monkey might not be what you are thinking it might be. As one story goes, cannonballs on English ships used to be stored aboard ship in piles, on a brass frame or tray called a ‘monkey’. In very cold weather the brass would contract, spilling the cannonballs: hence very cold weather is “cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey”.

Cannon balls sitting in a Brass Monkey with a cannon from a British sailing ship.

Notice I said one story, a story that probably isn’t true. According to www.lexico.com, the term ‘monkey’ is not recorded as the name for such an object. “The facts, ma’am, just the facts.” The rate of contraction of brass in cold temperatures is unlikely to be fast enough to cause the reputed effect and the phrase was first recorded as “freeze the tail off a brass monkey” which removes any essential connection with balls, brass or otherwise. Why let facts get in the way of a delightful story?

It seems that the phrase, “cold enough to freeze the balls off of a brass monkey” is simply a humorous reference to the fact that metal figures will become very cold to the touch in cold weather. Descriptive but boring.

Can you tell which one is cold?

So, what about a witch’s mammary glands encased in a brassiere made from an alloy of copper and zinc? One might think Salem Witch Trials or some old English saying but it is not…at least not in print and the saying is not ‘that’ old. It may have been used earlier but first appeared in print when American historian and writer Francis Van Wyck Mason wrote Spider House in 1932. The exact quote was “As cold as a witch’s tit outside.” The addition of the brass bra probably connects to the brass monkey’s testicles in some way.

Actually, a Bronze Age Goddess Bra, not brass. Probably worn in a Russ Meyer sexploitation film although the bra might not be large enough for one of Russ’ heroines.

Interesting fact from the 1700s, the prime time for witch trials. Women with erect nipples were considered to be in league with the devil. This explains an interesting correlation between an increase in witch trials and cold weather…and why a brass bra might have been utilized for protection had brassieres been invented.

That leaves us with “as cold as a well digger’s butt in January.” Do I really need to explain this? If you have ever watched a chubby plumber at work, you have an idea of its origin although plumbers aren’t well diggers.

I’m sure Jeb is a good plumber

There is no scientific reason for a well digger’s rump to be colder than say an ice skaters. “As cold as an ice skater’s butt” is more mentally pleasing than the crack of Ole Jeb’s butt peeking out of his wrangler jeans while he works on my grease trap.

We survived our walk and the rabbit hole fell into. The walk wasn’t bad until the wind blew. Well, it snowed on us. Maybe ten flakes in a minute. We also found we weren’t the only fools out and about. I really enjoyed certain runners in their lycra body suits although I’m sure several could have been put on trial in 1700s Salem for witchcraft. 

For more go to Don Miller’s author’s page at https://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM?fbclid=IwAR1ThWNJrpUfzoiZb_aT5DzaIQX1-DDiSJiDHVXAzn0ttDYNhLs3VW5w6SY

I SOMETIMES OPEN MY MOUTH AND MY DAD POPS OUT

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I have reached the age. The age when I hear my Dad, not only in my head but sometimes when I open my mouth. Even though he will have been gone forty years this coming August I can see and hear him clearly. I also hear him in my groans as I slowly slide out of bed, attempt to straighten up and not wake up my wife. OOOOOOOh. I have out lived him by six years…or eight, depending on whether you believe what is etched on his tombstone. Born November 18, 1916 or November 16, 1918 might depend upon what he told my younger “evil step mother” since she put November 16, 1918 on his tombstone. I don’t guess it matters since he did not live to retirement age, but his service records say November 18,1916. The things we do when we are in love…or for me, when we think we are in love. As I waited with him in the minister’s alcove before marching off to my first execution… marriage, I asked what kind of advice he could give me. He had two comments. Never a crude man, his first comment, none-the-less, was. “Son this is going to be the most expensive piece of ass you are likely to get” and the second, “There are two theories about arguing with a woman. Neither one works.” If I were not already unsure about the state of matrimony, I was then. I have passed those little nuggets along to friends getting married because I found them to be true.

I remember my father as a quiet, respectful man who was slow to offer his opinion, believing that “It was best to keep your mouth shut and let people think you a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.” That was one of his favorite quotes. Not original but one I heard a lot and wish I had taken the quote more to heart. I usually heard the quote right after I had said something really foolish…or stupid. Ernest would tuck his chin, look over his reading glasses and cock his head slightly to the left while delivering this “pearl” of sagacity. As I scroll on Facebook or listen to discussions of certain presidential candidates, I try to remember my father’s advice along with Mark Twain’s “Never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference.” More than one class of students or a player heard the first quote…also accompanied with a tucked chin and head turn while looking over the top of my reading glasses. They didn’t much listen either.

In addition to being a quiet man, my dad was slow to rile. He had a long fuse, something offset by my mother. She was not only a redhead but a hothead when it came to her temper, living up to the stereotype of her hair color and Scots-Irish genes. With her, discipline was not something “best served cold” and between the bite of a narrow leather belt or the “switch dance” I performed for my grandmother, my brother and I would be considered “abused children” by today’s standards. While explosive, my mother would get over her anger quickly. Dad did not have to get over it, he was a talker whose logic involved the expression of disappointment, sadness and dismay over whatever stupidity I had managed to accomplish along with hopes for my genuine repentance. There were too many sessions where my thoughts were, “Just hit me, PLEASE…JUST…HIT…ME…AND…END…THIS!” Funny, the sessions became less numerous as I got older.

I have found myself to be somewhat the combination of both of my parents. I TRY to be slow to rile like my father but when I do go off like my mother, it tends to be “explosive” much like a thunderclap rumbling on for a few seconds and then disappearing. The rumblings are moments of sorrow and disappointment having lost it combining with the receding anger. I wonder if my mother had those feelings? I was fortunate to have a nearly perfect daughter, aside from a short battle with the sickness known as “senioritis” the last few weeks of her last year in high school. I only remember physically disciplining Ashley once. A light slap on a bare leg sent her into wails of “imagined” pain and a gush of tears. I knew then what my father meant when he said “Son this is going to hurt me more than you.”

When I entered my dating years in high school, I often got the “Be home by midnight son” and a “If you ride with the Devil he is going to want to drive.” There was the added admonishment, “If you do something to get arrested don’t call and wake me up.” Midnight, why midnight? The night is still young. “Son if you can’t get it done by midnight it’s not happening and nothing but trouble happens after midnight.” I can hear him when I said the same thing to a group of players. Sage advice but “Wisdom is wasted upon the young” including yours truly. I rarely got into trouble but it was always after the “witching” hour. Major trouble never found me…or maybe it did and I was just lucky. Why are stolen watermelons tastier than those grown in your own garden?

I don’t have a son, just former players and it was decided early that daughter Ashley would be disciplined by her mother, the parent she lived with. While I did not agree with everything her mother did I held my tongue and it must have worked because my daughter has turned into a fine woman…and mother. Despite our lack of time together, I see some of me in her…or is it just wishful thinking. I wonder if she will hear me echoing in her head after I am gone and occasionally allow me to pop out of her mouth? I can only hope I guess.

More nonfiction by Don Miller is available at http://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM