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CIRCLES

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I wonder how many YEARS of my life have actually been spent driving mowers and tractors in circles? In my own yard, on football and baseball fields? Finishing up where I started only to do it over again…and again…. I find that my mind drifts with the repetitive mindlessness of the job…until I run over something I shouldn’t or cut a clump of Linda Gail’s flowers.
This time of year, the hot and humid doldrums of summer, my mind “circles” to twenty-nine seasons as a football coach…despite not having coached football in fifteen years. It’s been that long? With the coach’s clinic this weekend I am reminded that the football season is just around the corner. The smell of my freshly cut grass, along with the heat and humidity, takes me to the fields of my past. Twenty-nine first practices followed by twenty-nine first games. Fields freshly manicured with sharp white lines almost glowing from the reflected light from above.

In some ways my twenty-nine seasons were a study in frustration. Eight seasons finishing above .500 and a small, very small, handful of break-even seasons. We have at least three coaches in South Carolina with eight or more state championships during their career. It gets much worse, five of those winning eight seasons occurred during my first nine seasons. Three winning seasons over the last twenty. My own tenure as a head football coach boasts one winning season, six wins out a total of thirteen over four seasons. What made me think I was head coaching material?

I spent this past Friday morning with best friend, former boss and Linda Gail’s former high school classmate, Mike “Hawk” Hawkins. I was lending “moron” support as we attempted to erect a backyard swing from scratch. The “blind leading the blind” didn’t quite describe it. More like the “blind leading the stupid.” Somehow with a bit of “cussin’” on my part and a lot praying on his, we got the job done. Maybe it won’t collapse in on itself. More importantly, being around “Hawk” reminded me of why I coached football for twenty-nine years despite the frustration. It was the people and the personalities surrounding high school athletics.

My last game coaching football was Mike’s last game as head coach at Riverside. No man could have put more into a program than he did but it wasn’t in the cards. My first five years as his assistant netted two winning seasons and a couple break evens but then the wheels fell off the jalopy. To quote Linda Gail and thousands of others, “You can’t make silk purses out of sow’s ears.” We had great kids who tried and worked hard but were “athletically challenged” proving that you could do most everything right and still not be successful. Weekly we found our X’s to be much smaller and slower than our opponent’s O’s. Tasting just a bit of success is what made my last game much sweeter.

I don’t know how many games we won my last year…it wasn’t many. It doesn’t matter because we won the last one. A playoff bound Mann team came to the River and our kids rose up and smacked them in the nose. Hawk devised what I have always called a “bastard” defense, throwing caution to the wind and our kids executed it. As the seconds ticked down a senior defensive end who, in a normal defense, would not have been dropping into pass coverage, did. Geoff Rigsby intercepted the confused Mann quarterback to ice the victory…my last victory. I didn’t know it was my last game at the time. I was living vicariously through “Hawk” who was being carried from the field on the shoulders of his players while what few fans were in attendance were bring down the goal posts…well bending the goal posts.

A friend who used to coach with Hawk and I, Rick Scott, once said, “Winning is better than sex.” I bit, “How is that?” “Sex only last a few minutes. A win lasts all week long.” Well! I would guess he is correct. I’ve enjoyed my last win for fifteen years.

For more humor by Don Miller click on the following link: http://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM

THIRTEEN TURKEYS REVISITE’

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Early this past spring I made a blog post lamenting a depression hanging on as tenaciously as the cold of winter. My depression evaporated when I happened upon twelve turkey hens and a tom grazing in a patch of winter rye or possibly chickweed. It caused a revival in my spirits. This morning, as I set off for a run, the cold and wet spring, along with my depression, were far from my mind. I don’t have time to be depressed as the tropical rainforest portion of our summer is upon us. Many of us have been enduring a severe drought and while it has been drier than usual in our little bit of heaven, any drought conditions apparently came to an end with the tropical like thunderstorms appearing in the late evenings for the last five days. Mimicking their first cousins found around the equator they have been torrential and loud on our metal roof. Just ask our weather puppy, Tilly.

My “over producing” garden, Linda Gail’s backyard which resembles a…jungle of ferns, milkweed and morning glories, a tractor that runs only when the spirit moves it, along with optimum kudzu growing conditions will keep me busy for the foreseeable future…so I haven’t been thinking about MY turkeys at all. I know they are not mine but I tend to think of them as if they were. I am willing to share them with the world…unless you are a hunter.

I had not seen MY turkeys for a while. I wasn’t concerned…it is THAT time of the year. I don’t see a lot of MY birds of any variety this time of year. A few come to my feeders but most have abandoned me to the squirrels who never seem to leave. MY birds are busy raising their young. Feeding and teaching, the same activities we humans must see to although the feeding of our off springs shouldn’t involve worms and insects. These child “rearing” activities were evident when a mother hawk used a small open space behind our house to teach her offspring the nuances of hunting field mice…a practice I quite approve of. It was also evident this morning when I ran up upon MY twelve turkey hens and their off springs. There must have been thirty of them. The wide drive was black with them…or brown with them. In the blink of an eye the poults and their mothers had scattered leaving me to wonder momentarily if I had actually seen them or was I having a hallucination caused from my oxygen starved brain. I did not see the tom but I am sure he was around resting, having enjoyed the “fruits of his labor.”

My already high spirits soared even higher just seeing them. I couldn’t wait to tell Linda Gail…but being two miles from home I would have to. Thirty minutes later I was rewarded with the smile I knew my story would evoke…and I didn’t even have to embellish it.

Like Don’s non-fiction? Try the following link for more http://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM

REPUGNANT

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I do find this meme repugnant. This might be the first time I have used the word repugnant…EVER. It is not a word I usually think of but after seeing several of these and similar memes I decided to become repugnant to those who post them. I am going to be short and only address two points of repugnancy.

Point one, the idea that all protesters should go out and find a job is…well…repugnant. I personally have five friends, that I know of, who participated in one or more of the #BlackLivesMatter protests. All are law abiding, don’t want to see our policemen shot down in sniper attacks but yet believe there is a problem with our country as it exists now and also don’t want to see people of color beaten or shot. Actually, despite SOME people’s beliefs, they don’t want to see anyone beaten or shot. All five have jobs. All five have what are called “advanced degrees.” One has Doctor in front of her name. All five have families and just want their children to grow up safe and your children to grow up safe as well. I know this goes against the vision some of you wish to believe but most #BlackLivesMatter protesters just want a better and safer America for everyone.

Second point. The United States has a long tradition of protest. It actually dates back to before the United States was the United States. Anyone remember the Boston Massacre? It began as a protest by a group of people who believed an unjust government and its “minions” was marginalizing them. Granted the protest probably began with one or five too many drinks at a local tavern but it escalated to the hurling of insults and snowballs (maybe rocks too) at British Redcoats guarding the Customs House on Kings Street in Boston. It ended with five dead colonists and was heavily used as propaganda by the likes of Paul Revere and Samuel Adams. In a “no matter how much things change, they remain the same” moment, six of the soldiers were acquitted of their “crimes” and two others were given light sentences. Five dead colonist along with six wounded didn’t seem to amount to much.

Most of that I learned in school. What I didn’t learn, until I studied it on my own, Crispus Attuks, the first casualty of the so-called massacre and maybe the first casualty of the American Revolution, was the son of an African slave father and a Native American mother. I wonder what he would think about his sacrifice now? I think he would find this meme repugnant too.

More of Don Miller’s non-fiction is available at http://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM

SILENCE

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I blogged this in December. It pretty much sums up my feelings for the last two days. Sorrow doesn’t quite cover it.

cigarman501's avatarRavings of a Mad Southerner

I worry. Worry for family, country and friends. Friends of all races, creeds and colors. I pray. There is no answer, nothing but silence.

I wonder. Wonder at how the world has come to this. I pray. There is no answer, nothing but silence.

I rage. Rage at Christians, Muslims, Atheist, Liberals, and Republicans. I pray. Again, there is no succor, only silence.

I hate. Mostly I hate myself for hating. I pray for the hatred to be taken away. It does not relent. The silence swells in my mind.

I ask for enlightenment. Understanding, Wisdom, Awareness and Insight. Why do we do nothing but debate? I pray. There is nothing but deep, dark silence.

My grandmother instructed me to “lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.” I pray but the silence has become a deafening roar in my ears.

I must keep looking unto…

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INDEPENDENCE DAY AND BARBEQUE

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My introduction to BBQ came in the early Fifties during Independence Day celebrations held at my school. As a family, we would load up the car and go to the school for an afternoon of celebrating our independence from Great Britain, fun, games and, most importantly, BBQ. I cannot remember if there were decorations, I am sure there were, but I remember going to the field behind the school and seeing the pole that had been set up for the greased pole climb and a small cage with a greased pig. Hum, greased pig, greased pole, and BBQ sounds like we have a trend going. No, that statement is not true – there was nothing greasy about our BBQ.

I have no idea who had cooked the pigs, but I do know my Uncle James had donated them and had overseen the night-long festivities and I was too young to know what that might have entailed. All I know is that you could smell those hogs cooking and see the smoke rising out of the soil that covered the pit. The smell was too, too, too… I am at a loss for words, but it was as close to heaven as I want to get without dying.

Besides eating the BBQ there were patriotic stories to be told, games to be played and winners to be awarded. There might have been a softball game before the older boys attempted to climb the greased pole. And then there was the contest to catch a greased pig – a contest in which I once excelled and won. That year it wasn’t much of a chase. As I started toward him to make my grab, the little porker ran right at me and rolled ove4r. What a bummer, I didn’t even get my clothes dirty. It was like a “tag you’re it” scenario. We also ran sack races and three-legged races. For the less mobile athletes, pie-eating or watermelon-seed-spitting contests were enjoyed. After all of that excitement it was finally time to eat.

We sat down to succulent pulled-pork BBQ served with Dutch Fork mustard sauce, hash (not to be confused with Brunswick Stew) served over long grain WHITE rice (not the healthy brown stuff), Cole slaw, white bread and, what I guess, was a pickled “bread and butter style” cauliflower medley on the side.

Yes sir! It was truly heaven-on-a-plate and an argument for why immigration is a good thing. Also, it was a time that you could thank God for having a belt buckle that would allow you to ease the pressure on a BBQ-stuffed stomach. Thinking it couldn’t get any better, I finally reached the age where I was old enough to participate in the festivities associated with the production of hardwood coal – drinking and storytelling.

During my college days, a group of us “summer schoolers” decided that a pulled-pork BBQ party might be in order for those of us not going home for the Independence Day break. Several of us who had experience in this Southern tradition and were tabbed to prepare the feast.

One of my jobs that night was to stir a big iron kettle full of hash. For the uninformed, and you may want to remain that way, hash is all the “lesser” or unrecognizable parts of the pig, coarsely shredded and cooked with potatoes, onions, spices, and cider vinegar until it all falls apart into an unrecognizable hash. I’ll never forget as I stirred the hash that night with a boat oar, I saw something white roll to the top. What the…? As I kept stirring, it turned over and I saw …an eyeball staring back at me! Gulp. As I said earlier, stay misinformed.

After such a hard night of stirring, drinking, and lying, I mean storytelling, it did not take long after dawn for someone to point out the need for breakfast. Several of my fraternity brothers went to Winn Dixie and came back with enough chicken halves to feed us all. Winn Dixie donated them. Those roasted chickens may have been the best breakfast that I have ever eaten. All the great chefs say that tasty food is first about taste and then about presentation. I think they should have added that it is all about the company you are sharing it with. Good friends will even make bad food better.

Hours later the BBQ was finished, and it was time for the decisive moment. I got my plate with the hash and rice, and for the first time ever concerning BBQ I hesitated a bit before my first bite. Remembering that white thing floating in the hash, I had a little moment of contemplation along with a big hunger for that BBQ. It was then that I made the decision that if I had liked hash before I knew there might be an eyeball in it then I could still like it after… and I did! Eyeball and all!

Independence Day is about much more than BBQ, bottle rockets and patriotic music despite being a terrific way to celebrate it…if you remember sacrifices Americans have made to maintain it. From George Washington and his troops at Valley Forge, to the 54th Massachusetts attack on Battery Wagner, Marines at Iwo Jima, the Chosin Reservoir or Que Son, the Freedom Riders, and Civil Rights Marchers, all have made sacrifices, some ultimate, to insure our continued independence. We don’t need to forget that fact and allow it to get lost in mounds of BBQ, especially, this year.

I do not believe we can continue our divisiveness and maintain our independence. We are STILL the greatest country in the world despite the many issues facing us that must be worked out. Maybe if our leaders sat down together with a mound of BBQ compromise might be reached. It is hard to yell at each other with a mouthful of pig.

A portion of this came from Don Miller’s book PATHWAYS, stories from his
youth, which can be purchased at http://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM

LOVE CONQUERS ALL ‘COMERS’

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I don’t think Virgil, the originator of the quote “love conquers all,” had baseball in mind when he made it. He was dead several centuries before Abner Doubleday was “credited” with inventing the game but ‘love’ appeared to be the big equalizer in Coastal Carolina’s unexpected and unprecedented run to the College National Championship in Omaha.

Coach Gary Gilmore had his own quote which he just managed to choke out as tears rolled down his face. “We may not the most talented team in America but we are the champions.” Talent is a funny thing. Too much talent may not be enough to get you to the pinnacle of a championship if there are too many egos to deal with. Too little talent may not even get you into the same zip code. There has to be enough talent but talent will only take you so far. There has to be more and the Chanticleers displayed not only talent but all of the clichés we coaches have a tendency to use. Tenacity, heart, and hustle were but a few that I thought of but one that is often over looked, especially when it comes to men’s athletic endeavors, is the love that was apparent when these young men and their coaches took the field. It is a love only “championship” athletes and coaches can understand.

I had no expectations when Coastal took the field against the “Juggernaut” that was Florida. I remember telling my wife how small they looked compared to the Gators. By the time they recorded their last out against Arizona I found they had grown just a bit, at least in my estimation. Being able to continually find a way to “snatch victory from the jaws of defeat” takes much more than talent. I am reminded of a Lew Holtz story he told early in my coaching career when he coached at NC State. When questioning an undersized defensive end about his ability to “whip” a certain all-American offensive tackle, the young man exclaimed, “No Sir…but I’ll fight him till I die.” This was a mentality shown repeatedly by the Coastal team. Thankfully, no one was able to make the kill shot.

I only met Coach Gilmore twice during my career and I doubt he would even remember who I was. I remember him well from a clinic I attended and later when I got to coach the South Carolina team in the North Carolina-South Carolina Challenge held at the Chanticleer’s stadium. I remember he displayed two major attributes. Passion and Humility. I get to add another, love for his players. From listening to his players in their postgame news conference, his love was returned tenfold.

When I think of my most successful teams I can’t help but draw parallels. They were all talented enough to overcome bad coaching, mistakes, and poor officiating. All of them had a love for the game and a love for each other. They wanted to do whatever needed to done to win…not for themselves but for their teammates. Many times it is not the “nine best” that wins the championship. In Coastal Carolina’s case it was the “best nine,” or best twenty-five that came home with the gold. Congratulations Chanticleers. For this season at least, fairytale rooster or not, you are the “cocks of the walk.”

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

SUMMER IN THE SOUTH

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I really can’t think of much that I dislike about living in the South…ummmm…summertime humidity and mosquitoes can be found anywhere. Right? Sometimes we Southerners only have two seasons – “damn cold or damn hot” … occurring in just the blink of an eye. An old South Carolina saying tells us a lot about our climate. “If you don’t like the weather now just wait a minute. It will change.” I find this to be true during the spring and fall.

I remember a “damn Yankee” football player from the early 90’s who had joined us from one of the “I” states, Indiana I think, and who, before our first August football practice, explained to me that “I can handle the heat. It gets hot in Indiana, too.” An hour later, after his eyes had rolled back in his head, I was cooling him off with ice water soaked towels and forcing him to take sips of Gatorade. Yes, it does get hot in Indiana but, “It ain’t the heat in the South. It’s the humidity!”

When Linda Gail and I moved into our little “piece of heaven” we had no air conditioning. Open windows and ceiling fans moved warm and humid air and reminded us of our youth…except for the ceiling fans we did not have during either one of our youths. More concerned with conserving heat during the wintertime, unlike” flat land country” farmhouses, ours had eight foot ceilings instead of ten footers and late in the day our lower ceilings would trap heat. A lot of late evenings were spent talking on the porch until it was cool enough to go to bed. A breeze might bring the smell of honeysuckle while we listened to the cicadas and other night sounds. I might enjoy a cigar while staying hydrated with a few adult beverages…until the mosquitoes came for dinner. No matter how much citronella we burned or how many fans we used, the little blood suckers seemed to always find us…and still do.

Mosquitoes are just a fact of life in the South and I praise God they don’t grow to the size of vultures. On a trip to the coast I remember making an impromptu nature call where the only facility available was an old fire road in the middle of a pine forest off South Carolina’s Highway 17. As I completed my task, I looked down to insure nothing got caught in the zipper and could see a cloud of mosquitoes attempting to make off with my man part. Itchy and it was in November! F&%K it! I DID zip up too quickly! For some reason Linda Gail thought it was hilarious until the little vampires who had followed me in to the car decided she was sweeter meat than I was. I laughed and I laughed and I laughed.

We have “stinging” insects too. Wasps, hornets, bees, even a little bitty thing that might be called a “no see um” … if I could see um’. Generally, I dislike them all. Specifically, I hate the yellow jacket. The little “bastards!” They are small hornets who build nests underground, under leaves or in hollow stumps. Related to bald faced hornets and common wasps, they are much faster, more aggressive and make a honey bee sting seem like a French kiss from your beloved. If you step into a yellow jacket’s nest, you will not get stung once but several times and the little bastards will pursue you. Talk about holding a grudge.

The first time I stepped into a nest I got stung a dozen times, all from the knees down. When I finished beating them off of me I found my legs covered in “stinging” whelps that slowly, over a matter of days, turned into itchy, oozing wounds that resembled cigarette burns despite being treated with Linda Gail’s “old time remedy,” chewing tobacco and Arm and Hammer soda. This was also despite initially wearing heavy blue jeans, boots and heavy socks. I say initially because I “shucked” my pants pretty quick. Over time I have found it better to wear shorts. You get stung fewer times before being alerted to “run like hell” and the wounds are not nearly as bad. It’s as if the yellow jackets, when met with “blue jean” resistance, really got pissed off. I stepped into a nest while using my weed eater near the back door of the house one morning. Luckily I saw the cloud of “little bastards” erupt from their hole and I ran for the safety of our closed in back porch. Yelling, slapping and running, somehow all at the same time, I found my “beloved” slamming the door in my face and screaming, “Don’t come in here they will just follow you in!” Thank you SOOOOOO very much.

As I related in an earlier story I am not the only one to run afoul of the “little bastards.” One of my goats stuck his nose into a yellow jacket’s nest and received numerous stings to the head and neck. With a leather collar around his neck the swelling had nowhere to go causing his head to swell, and swell and swell. By the time I rescued him, his head was the size of a basketball and I was afraid he would begin to chock if I did not release him from the collar. As soon as I cut through the collar his head began to “deflate” and I worried that he would die when the poison hit his heart. He didn’t and just went back to eating. Goats are simple creatures…unlike my wife who would have let the goat come in regardless of how many yellow jackets followed him. It’s good to know where I rate on her hierarchy of animals that she loves.

Few things that I hate about the South? I just got my first yellow jacket sting of the summer. Luckily, just one and I have found their little underground lair of pain. I will make the “little bastards” pay when night time falls. I will come calling with my little can of “payback” and for a brief time there will be one less thing to hate about the South.

This is an excerpt from the soon to be released book “Through the Front Gate”
Don Miller has also written three other books which may be purchased or downloaded at http://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM

OH THE “HUMIDITY”

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I was having a vision of a “Donnie” shaped “Hindenburg” bursting into flames while crashing to the ground or maybe I should be having the Mr. Carlson, Les Nessman moment, “As God as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.” No that doesn’t fit the story because I despise flying and I am somehow both burning up and drowning in my own…sweat. If I were a Southern lady I would be “glistening.” I’m not even a Southern gentleman, so I am just drowning in my own sweat and the biological process is not functioning as it should. Sweating is not keeping me cool because evaporation is not occurring. Instead it is as if I am running within a thick, heavy and wet wool blanket.

The Yogi Berra voice in my head repeats the quote, “It ain’t the heat it is the humidity.” After thirty-nine years of coaching spring sports, always interrupted with an early spring or late winter snow storm along with many days with wind chills near zero, I swore I would never gripe about summer heat again. I haven’t but I did leave myself an out with the humidity.

Running on roads and paths located in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Escarpment can be challenging. I cannot run or walk and get away from hills unless I get in my car and drive somewhere flatter and sometimes I do. I should have done so this morning. Instead it was a half mile up, a half mile down, followed by a mile up, a mile “sorta” flat and then reverse the map…except before reversing the map I was dead or at least in the process of drowning in my own sweat. My feet were squishing inside of my shoes and we won’t discuss what is happening within my “breathable and perspiration wicking” underwear. I am reminded on a young football player who had moved in from one of the “I’’ states in the early nineties. We had discovered that withholding water did not make you stronger, it in fact could make you dead, and were moving to unlimited “rehydration” breaks. During a break I noticed the young man was not rehydrating and told him to drink. He said that he was okay that “It gets hot in the ‘I’ state too you know.” Yeah, but it ain’t the heat….” Fifteen minutes later we were fanning him and covering him with wet and cold towels after his eyes had rolled back in his head.

Several years ago I participated in the Morris Broadband Half Marathon on top of Caesar’s Head at DuPont State Forest or the “Half from Hell” as I like to refer to it. The race is up and down at an altitude I was not used to and to add to my discomfort, twenty degrees warmer than I had trained due to an early spring heat wave that included high humidity. At least the mosquitos and gnats had not come out yet. During the last mile, which was cruelly uphill to the finish, I gathered what little strength I had left to pass a young woman. As I neared her I realized she was in a conversation with herself and it wasn’t a nice conversation. She was using the words f@#$ and motherF@#$ in ways just not meant to go together. As I passed, I asked if she was okay. She responded with “I left f@#$ing Ohio two days ago to run in this Motherf@#$ing race. When I left, it was thirty-two F@#$king degrees. I drove a thousand f@#$ing miles to run in this f@#$ing s^&%.” “Well bless your heart.”

We both finished. I even finished second in my age group although there weren’t that many in my age group foolish enough to run it. An hour and a half later, on the winding road down to the flat lands, I passed out…while driving. Somehow I managed to get the jeep off of the road before doing so and could not figure out why Linda Gail was yelling at me to wake up. Now that was a weird dream that wasn’t. “Oh the ‘humidity’” I guess. I am home now and it has been an hour and half. I guess I am okay…for now, despite not having the energy to go to church. God forgive me for my language, for failing to go to church, for…every other sin I have committed.

A friend of mine in the know says it is better to run in the middle of the day when the temperatures are high but the humidity is low. Something about the heat index I guess. I might try it but do have a few questions for him. “How do you know if you are not a runner, and you are not.” and “When is the humidity ever low for the next three months?”

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

DEVIL ON MY SHOULDER

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

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

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

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

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

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