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BLACK SNAKES AND A NAKED WOMAN

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CELEBRATING BLACK HISTORY-PEPSI COLA

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

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

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

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

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

SOMETHING ABOUT THE COLD

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Spring is right around the corner. I could feel it in the cold this morning. It was still twenty-nine degrees, plenty cold for here in the foothills of the Blue Ridge, but there was a different feel to it. A feeling that winter’s death grip is loosening. A feeling that the rebirth I associate with spring might be on the horizon. It is a feeling of change. I know that winter will attempt to hang on. In this part of the world March snow storms are not uncommon and the last frost date is April fifteenth. BUT IT JUST FEELS DIFFERENT!

As a retired baseball coach my feelings of change may be tied to major league pitchers and catchers reporting to camp or the reports of high school and college scrimmages with their opening dates just around the corner. I remember a game finished in a heavy sleet and another with a wind chill so low that both pitchers combined to pitch a one hitter. I do not miss games in early March. No, winter will hold on as long as it can despite what a ground hog saw or didn’t see.

There are other harbingers. Crocus and buttercups are trying to push up toward the sun. I saw gold and purple finches at my feeder. Time to get some thistle. The main herald is my beautiful red tailed hawk. Well she is not mine but it is the third or fourth year she has made her nest in a dead oak tree on the hill above us. I hear her mating call and know there is a male somewhere and that it won’t be long until they will be training their little “branch hoppers” to fly and hunt.

If weather trends continue like the years before, there will be plenty of great days for baseball practice, a round of golf or even wetting a hook in late February and then March will come in like a lion with strong and mostly cold winds. I see there is possible snow coming next week but there is something about this cold.

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CELEBRATING BLACK HISTORY-IN PRAISE OF DIVERSITY

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I thought I would avoid this question but I got the dreaded “When are you going to teach white history?” Why are some of “white” America so “butthurt” over Black History Month? And come to think of it a certain news celebrity of color too. I have seen social memes and comments that have included “When is White America going to have a Month?” “Black History Month is Racist!” “Why do we have to have a Black History Month?”

In a perfect world, YOU WOULDN’T. Nor would you have Women’s History Month, in March, a Native American Heritage Month, in November, a Hispanic Heritage Month beginning in the middle September or any of the others that you can take the time to look up. Unfortunately, we are not, nor have we been, living in a perfect world. To quote a former student, “We celebrate white history in all months that don’t begin with F.”

As a retired, high school history teacher I know history books are written from a decidedly Anglo-American point of view…well…at least where I taught. Asians are mentioned about four times. Transcontinental Railroad, the Chinese Exclusion Act, the Japanese involvement in World War Two and China goes communist. Oh, I almost forgot Viet Nam. That makes five.

Hispanic contributions, maybe a bit more. Spanish colonization, Mexican-American War, Imperialism, Pancho Villa, and then a jump to NAFTA and the question “Why are they taking our jobs?” Notice, these are all mostly decidedly negative when viewed from an Anglo point of view.

Native Americans are prominent but disappear after Wounded Knee unless you happen to bring them back up in the Sixties with the many social movements. Again, until recently, Custer’s Last Stand was viewed negatively by Anglo America. Damn Redskins stepping on our Manifest Destiny and the only good Indian…! I digress.

I rarely taught Black history during Black History Month. I was wrong. I deluded myself into thinking that I taught ALL HISTORY ALL YEAR LONG and didn’t need to focus on Black history. Then I began to assess what I had taught. I’m not happy. Kind of like ALL HISTORY CAN’T MATTER UNTIL BLACK HISTORY MATTERS.

Denmark Vesey, Nat Turner, Harriett Tubman, Fredrick Douglass, W.E.B Dubois versus Booker T. Washington, Rosa Parks, Dr. Martin Luther King and maybe Malcomb X. There were others but most were only related to one aspect of African-American lives and American history. A decidedly important aspect but besides George Washington Carver and Langston Hughes, there was nothing about other contributions.

Black History Month should be viewed as an opportunity to spotlight contributions by African Americans. Musicians, artists, writers, poets, inventors, explorers, scientists, business people, soldiers, etc. As a teen, I picked up one of my father’s books, Foxes of Harrow. It was written by Frank Yerby. I read all of his books that my father had and along the way picked up a few more. They featured historical fiction and a bit of…latent eroticism. Nothing graphic!

As a young adult, I was looking for more of Yerby’s books not realizing he had died and found out he was bi-racial and from Georgia…which meant, because of the “one-drop law”, he was black. Who knew and it didn’t matter. Just like celebrating Black History Month shouldn’t matter if you are white, green or multi-colored. It should be a positive educational experience for all.

Three of my last four years before retirement were teaching “cultural” geography. I loved it. One, I had no end of school testing pressure and could go off on any tangent I desired to go off on. I could be creative and allow creativity from my students. It became about cultural diversity.

A paragraph I wrote in a story about a former student turned preacher I said, “Today I look toward diversity as a smorgasbord of delights. I believe we should just focus on how diversely different people party. How can you be distrustful of people who produce such wonderful food? Or music, or art, or etc…. My life without Latin, Soul, Oriental and Cajun foods would not be life-ending but life would not be as joyous, especially without a Belgian, Mexican, Jamaican or German beer or maybe some Tennessee whiskey to go with it and a Cuban cigar for afterward. Someone might as well play some Blues, Reggae or a little Zydeco to help the atmosphere along. It is just as easy to focus on the positives about diversity as it is the negatives and again with knowledge comes understanding.”

I realize that I am a social liberal and make no excuses. I believe that the rights that someone else is given don’t take my rights away from me despite what I might think, including the right to celebrate Black History Month…or Cinco De Mayo and St. Patrick’s Day for that matter. In fact, I have joined in. Who knows? This old dog might just learn a new trick or twenty.

TRIPPING OVER A ROOT WITH ESTERLEEN

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As I have gotten older I tend to view my past through, at the very least, a guise of humor. My own form of historical “rose colored glasses.” It was not always that way when the past was just too near the present. My wife hates it when I try to hide behind present day humor. In fact, seconds ago I got the “Your humor is inappropriate” speech. Geez I feel like a slug. I often wonder if there are some subjects that viewing with humor should be a taboo? My interactions with the opposite sex, including my wife? Yes, we still interact and I did write a book entitled “Floppy Parts.” My heart attack? There is little humor in an elephant sitting on your chest. Race Relations? I am always unsure about joking about race relations.

By 1977, seven years after complete desegregation came to the state of South Carolina, tensions were still raw but at least they were being kept in check…and mostly under wraps. Then came the miniseries “Roots” and LeVar Burton’s debut as Kunta Kinte. My little classroom world suddenly became a little less calm. As a faculty, we were warned that this television production based upon Alex Haley’s book of the same name, might cause ill will and the trouble associated with it. We were instructed to be ever vigilant and try to defuse any situation that might arise from the unrest. Enter Esterleen Hill.

Esterleen could cause unrest on the calmest day. It was just her way. She was impressive in size, not fat, just very healthy especially in the areas that men like for women to be healthy. She had a healthy grin and laugh to go with her healthy size and tended to wear her ”healthy” feelings on her sleeve for all to see…and hear if you were blind. While seemingly mature beyond her years, she was not likely to let her feelings go unheard by anyone willing to listen. Actually you were going to know her feelings whether you were willing to listen or not. Outspoken? You bet. Using the vernacular of the times, she was also just a tad bit militant when it came to race relations. I am not saying she had Black Panther posters pasted to the inside of her locker but if given the choice between an autograph from Huey Newton or Martin Luther King, Esterleen would have picked Huey’s. She told me many times, “Just go on and leave me alone! I didn’t ask to be here anyway.” Here would be the recently desegregated Mauldin High School.

For reasons that escape me, Esterleen and I connected although at times the connection would be strained. Because of our connection, when a “good old boy” attempted to stir the racial pot by saying, “I don’t know why God made n@#$%^s!” I took it upon myself to try and defuse the situation and steered Esterleen and her half dozen or so minions into my room. My intent was to utilize what is called a “teachable moment” and have them participate in a “healthy” discussion. First, I had to get control of the situation which at this moment was controlled by Esterleen. With her voice at its highest volume setting she proclaimed that she was not going to let that “honky son of a bitch get away with that shit!” I fixed her with one of my “teacher” stares and in my best authoritarian voice instructed her to “BE QUIET AND SHIT RIGHT THERE!” Did I just say that? Judging from the look on Esterleen’s face, I guess I did. In a somewhat less authoritarian voice I said, “I mean sit! Sit right here!” Judging from the laughter that had exploded and the bodies rolling on the floor I guessed that I had “defused” the situation. Teachable moment? Healthy discussion? No just laughter…and the calm that followed.

“AND HEADS EXPLODE”

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“Social commentary is the act of using rhetorical means to provide commentary on issues in a society. This is often done with the idea of implementing or promoting change by informing the general populace about a given problem and appealing to people’s sense of justice.“ Credit to Dictionary.Net.

I keep waiting for Beyoncé and her half-time show to go away and slope off into the sunset but she can’t because “heads are exploding” everywhere. I hate that description. Social media trolls, left and right, need to find better descriptors…as do I. The fact is the vast fabric of social media won’t allow her fade away.

I don’t dislike Beyoncé…or her hubby Jay Z. I don’t know them well enough to dislike them. I don’t buy their music simply because “it’s not my cup of tea.” It has nothing to do with boycotts. Their music simply justifies my belief that very little good music has been produced since the Eighties. Give me BB King, Taj Mahal or Jimmy Buffett any day but that is nothing more than personal preference and the fact they go well with Jack Daniels and a cigar. I know Beyoncé less than I understood the half-time show. I didn’t understand the show at all because the poor audio combining with my near deaf right ear made it impossible. I also would suggest that I might not have understood it due to my age and race. Visually, that part I got…the forms not the uniforms. The next day, after heads began to explode, I decided to educate myself by cueing up her video so I could run back any portions I might have missed in real time. It was a mistake for sure because of the thoughts that began to percolate in my head. My thinking probably is better characterized as fermenting rather than percolating.

One of the thoughts fermenting in my head was that many artists have used their particular mediums to make social comments since…since…since Homer penned “The Iliad” and “The Odyssey.” Martin Luther’s “Ninety-five Theses”, along with a printing press, helped to bring about the Reformation and was considered radical at the time. Many writings led to our own American Revolution along with one in France. There were a couple of monarch’s that didn’t agree with those “liberal” social commentaries including one whose head didn’t explode but ended up in a basket.

During my own lifetime many famous people have provided commentary on issues to promote change. In the arena of sports, Cassius Clay burned his draft card in protest of the Viet Nam War and racism. That was before he became Muhammad Ali. John Carlos and Tommie Smith, fists raised in the Black Power salute at the Olympics, were branded, along with Ali, as being un-American for speaking out against racial injustice. War protest songs like Buffy St. Marie’s “Universal Soldier” or “For What It’s Worth” sung by Buffalo Springfield were not well received by the “Establishment.”

Songs of the Civil Rights Movement like “The Times They Are a Changin’” by Bob Dylan and Curtis Mayfield’s “People Get Ready” supported one “radical” position and made the status quo very uncomfortable. That was the point wasn’t it? MAKE SOMEONE UNCOMFORTABLE! Even the Academy Awards were used when American Indian activist, Sacheen Littlefeather refused Marlon Brando’s Oscar when Brando staged his own boycott in 1973. With many other examples it is my opinion that Beyoncé is simply joining a larger group of social commentators using song or dance to make her point.

During the years of my youth, as the social, civil and political struggles played out on my black and white television set I remember the heads of my father’s generation exploded to…we just didn’t get to see it play out at the push of a finger or click of a mouse nor did everyone have a computer to make their feelings clearly known. Terms or statements like “thugs,” “has been bitch with thunder thighs” and “trash” have replace terms and statements like “uppity Negro” or “don’t know their place” but the intent seems to be similar. For some reason my parents made few, if any, comments and seemed to be more concerned with whether or not I was wearing socks with my Weejuns than activities playing out in Oakland, California.

Questions, so many questions. Was her show appropriate for the Super Bowl? Where else are you going to have a “gazillion” people to promote a cause to? Could she have dressed differently? Sure but it’s really not my place to be a fashion NAZI. Was it anti-cop? Maybe. It certainly was anti-BAD COP! If that is bad I guess I am bad because I stand with everyone who is, against bad cops including, I hope, the majority of cops who are, in fact, GOOD COPS.

Are the Black Panthers or Malcomb X anti-white? I don’t believe promoting your own race or ethnic group is anti-another race or ethnic group. The hardest point to admit for some of us is that there were and are valid reasons for what both the Black Panthers and Malcomb X were promoting, using rhetoric similar to modern secessionist and militia members operating today.

Before you say it, the Black Panthers’ original ten points said nothing about killing whites or the police, they proposed using the Second Amendment to protect their race. It is also not against the Constitution to say you are a socialist or a Marxist. Seems like I’ve seen something written recently about both of those points…and others. Were cops assassinated, yes and I despise that fact along with the Black Panthers who were assassinated by the FBI. Actually I abhor all violence in any form, for any reason.

Lastly, and my cynical petticoats are getting soiled, both Beyoncé and Jay Z are smart business people. You can call for a boycott if you want but something tells me their bank accounts are going to increase rather than decrease. Seems like the members of The Beatles did okay even after my brother and two cousins burned all their records when the group announced that “they were bigger than Jesus.” I see the Dixie Chicks have made a comeback. What did they do?

So ends my social commentary and I hope your head doesn’t explode as you read this.

CELEBRATING BLACK HISTORY: LOUIE GOLDEN

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CELEBRATING BLACK HISTORY-RON MCNAIR

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I remember walking into the office at Greenville High School after a Driver’s Education class and being told the space shuttle Challenger had disintegrated. I felt immediate loss for the crew and their families and a special connection to Christa McAuliffe because she was a teacher. It would be later that I would put the name and face of Ronald McNair together with the same young man I had heard speak at a science convention some years earlier. Ronald was a NASA astronaut and a son of South Carolina.

Years before he had received his PHD from MIT and had become a leader in the field of laser physics and years before he was selected to be a NASA astronaut, he was just Ron McNair THE CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST. Growing up in Lake City, the nine-year-old McNair refused to leave the segregated public library until he was allowed to check out his book. After his mother and the police were called…Ronald got his book. The library is now named after him…as is the McNair Building at MIT.

Ronald McNair was the second African-American to fly in space and the first of the Baha’i faith. A saxophonist, McNair was to record a solo as a part of Jean Michael Jarre’s album “Renedez-Vous” that was to be fed live from space during a concert. That dream ended when the flight broke up after just seventy-three seconds over the Atlantic Ocean. The last selection from the “Renedez-Vous” is simply named “Ron’s Piece.” Carl McNair, Ronald’s brother, has written a book about Ronald named aptly, IN THE SPIRIT OF A LEGEND.

CELEBRATING BLACK HISTORY: 1951 SAN FRANCISCO DON’S FOOTBALL TEAM

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I was motivated to do a bit of research on the 1951 San Francisco Don’s football team after seeing a piece on CBS prior to the Super Bowl. It was as good as the game was bad so I decided to share.

After 40 years of football mediocracy, the 1951 San Francisco Dons finished their season 9-0. The team would produce four NFL hall of famers, Gino Marchetti, Bob St. Clair, Ollie Matson and their sports information director Pete Rozelle who would spend thirty years as the Commissioner of the NFL despite never actually playing it. The Dons were considered for bowl bids to the Sugar, Orange and Gator Bowls and offered by the Orange but only if they left their African-American players Matson and Bob Toler at home. This of course was due to the prevailing attitude of segregation that existed in the South during those days. Despite being in severe financial straits and needing the bowl money badly, the team refused to participate without their team mates. Because of their financial situation it would be USF’s last year as a Division I program. They would eventually discontinue football totally in 1982 after participating as a Division II school.

Matson would go on to win a bronze medal in the 400 meters during the 1952 Olympics and have a very successful NFL career as a running back. He would be selected to the Pro Bowl six times and was named an All-Pro five times. Ollie Matson would be named to the NFL All Decade team for the 1950s before being selected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1972.

Toler, an offensive lineman, could have join Matson in the NFL had he not injured a knee. He would instead give up playing football totally and complete his degree in science and become the first African-American game official in the NFL.

The 2008 Fiesta Bowl honored the Dons and they were a subject of the documentary “’51 DONS.”

ANIMALS GOING BUMP IN THE NIGHT

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Since only six of you actually saw the original blog I decided to “rebrand,” “re-picture” and “reblog” this in hopes more people would find in enticing. We will see. Two divorces say I have been disappointed before.

Viewed from a distance, sitting on top of a small hill and surrounded by hemlock, poplars and black walnuts, our old farmhouse looks like it might be haunted and must be inhabited by all types of “haints”, poltergeists or spirits. This assumption is especially fitting when viewed during the darkness of night. Some of my students have even made comparisons of Casa de Miller to the “Bates’ Motel” of Alfred Hitchcock fame. So haunted it looks, in the thirty years we have lived here not one Halloween trick-or- treater has had the intestinal fortitude to come to our door despite the brightly burning outside light. I have to admit I have seen unexplained movements just inside of my vision’s periphery and have heard noises I just could not explain as the “creakings” of an old house. “I ain’t afraid of no ghost!”

Built in 1888, it sits on top of oak timbers milled from the land it was built upon. Although we did not know it at the time, our old home had beadboard walls and ceilings to go with pine flooring, wavy lead glass windows, and was covered by tin shingles. It also sat bathroom-less with no plumbing or electricity until 1956. My guess is that most of the winter functions “back in the day” took place in the small kitchen due to the heat produced by the cook stove and the close proximity to the path leading to the distant outhouse. The old house also had no insulation until 1956 when shredded paper insulation was blown into the walls. Sixty years later, my guess is the insulation has compressed just a wee bit. Mr. Copeland, Hemlock Hill’s previous owner, was a fount of information with a former minister’s well developed “sense of the spoken word.” In preparation for his retirement, he had purchased the house and land in the 1950’s after it had sat empty for several decades. Later it would be inhabited by human beings off and on until Mr. Copeland finally retired from “preachin’ the Gospel” in the late Seventies. I say “inhabited by human beings” only because it was and still is inhabited by more than just two-legged animals and their four-legged pets as we found out when removing the cheap paneling and ceiling tile covering our beadboard walls and ceilings.

While moving in we noticed the quilting room, complete with quilting racks and their supports, had no paneling or ceiling tile. Mr. Copeland had converted the quilting room into his study and informed us the whole house was done with the old-fashioned beadboard the study sported. He had put cheap quarter-inch paneling up to help insulate the house. Really? Quarter-inch? The next month or so “lifetime” was dedicated to the removal of the ceiling tile and paneling. We found out two things. Similar to his verbal skills, Mr. Copeland believed if one nail would do the job, four ought to be used…more if there happened to be a pine knot nearby. His philosophy seemed to be “Nothing done could be overdone.” The one-by-four-inch strips of wood that held the ceiling tile were almost impossible to get down because of the four ten-penny nails spaced every foot or so. Our second discovery was that Mr. Copeland had no issue about covering up dirt dauber nests or bird pooh. The same was true of the paneling but, at least, he used the small paneling nails…thousands of small paneling nails. There were also several large snakeskins found, not only in the attic but in other rooms as well. Okay…where there are snakeskins….

Old houses make noises. Creaks and groans make me wonder if there is a “life” existing inside of our old home. There were other noises that could not be explained away as just the “settling” of the old house. Some of the ghostly noises we heard emanated from the old attic and a downstairs…for lack of a better descriptor… “cubby hole” in the upstairs master bedroom. Thumps and squeaks with the pitter-patter of little feet led us to believe that there had to be a herd of mice in our downstairs “cubby hole.” There were also those periodic booming sounds as something traversed the metal roof during the darkest moments of the night that didn’t sound like a mouse. One night Linda and I decided to explore the “cubby hole” and its strange noises not really wanting to find a colony of mice. We didn’t. Instead, we found a colony of flying squirrels. It’s amazing what the width of a tail will do to your mood, especially when one of the “big eyed” rodents decided to make his getaway by gliding from a rafter to a small opening that led to the outside. “Rocket J. Squirrel” didn’t stay there. Later we would find colonies in unused chimneys, behind my books in the study. One “little gamester” would send our indoor cat “Minnie Muffin” into a “hissy fit” as it glided back and forth between the fireplace mantle and bookcase in the study. The booming noises on the roof? We still have no idea and just named it a “boomer.”

Typically, male, I came in from a morning of cutting and splitting wood, pulled off my boots and socks, stuffed the socks into the boots and left them in the hallway next to our staircase…for about two weeks. Linda finally took me to task, firstly, over leaving them for her to trip over and secondly, because, according to her highly developed sense of smell, they stank like something dead. I took offense to the idea that my boots stank until I took out a sock and found what I thought was a dead rat rolled up in it. Our simultaneous “GROSS!” exclamation changed to an “OH NOOOOO!” exclamation when it turned out to be a flying squirrel. From here our explanations of its unfortunate demise took two different paths. I said that death was due to it rolling up in the sock and becoming trapped. My love explained that it met the grim reaper after having breathed the stench of my boots.

We may have become too used to the creaks and groans that our home emits…or maybe to the ghosts, spirits or flying squirrels who decided that our home was just too crowded for them. I just don’t hear them anymore and it makes me feel just a bit sad. Those scratches made by the real mice? That’s another story or five for another day.

If you enjoyed this story you may be interested in one of Don’s books

Inspirational true stories in WINNING WAS NEVER THE ONLY THING $1.99 on Kindle at http://goo.gl/DiO1hcX
“STUPID MAN TRICKS” explained in Don Miller’s FLOPPY PARTS $.99 on Kindle http://goo.gl/Ot0KIu “Baby Boomer History” in Don Miller’s PATHWAYS $3.49 on Kindle http://goo.gl/ZFIu4V

All maybe purchased as paperbacks.