“Sometimes the greatest tests of our strength are situations that don’t seem so obviously dangerous. Sometimes surviving is the hardest thing of all.” ~ Richelle Mead
It is my annual day of introspection. A day rife with questions but devoid of answers.
What did I accomplish in 2024? What do I want to accomplish in 2025…. It is the end of one year and the beginning of a new one. It is a jumbled chalkboard waiting to be erased, a fresh one waiting to be written on.
While I am desperate to erase the old chalkboard, I’m too invested in 2024 to even think about 2025. Loss will do that and 2024 was full of loss. Viewed through the wrong end of a telescope, 2025 seems to be filled with the reckonings caused by those losses.
Often, losses won’t allow you to turn loose or maybe you just don’t want to turn loose. I am a fly caught in a spider’s web of my own making and am battling the urge to remain there.
Sometimes all you can do is survive. When thinking about 2024 the best I can muster is that I survived. I accomplished nothing but survival.
What will 2025 bring? On a personal level, it will bring whatever I allow it to bring. I visualize a closed door, and I am fearful to what spiders are hiding behind it.
I can only control my personal space and the challenges the world poses to it. I also know beyond a shadow of a doubt external forces will throw curveballs causing me to frail awkwardly. The metaphorical “swing and a miss” followed by a graceless pirouette and faceplant.
As I struggle against my web, I wonder, “What do I want to do in 2025?” My first thought tells me a lot about where I am mentally. “I want to sit in the dark and be left alone.” I want to lay on my web and wait for the spider to wrap me in insulating silk. I am in a dark place.
But I am a survivor. I am going to move forward into 2025. I’m not going to sit in my dark place. I will not allow the spider to devour me. Easy words to say, not so easy to carry out.
One lesson I learned from my losses is that I am loved. Deserved or not, family and friends have proven this, and if nothing else, I’ll not let them down. I will not let me down. I will continue to struggle against the spider’s silken trap and my own self-destructive tendencies.
I have a hole in my heart the size of the Grand Canyon, that will never be filled. I realize the crater will always be there. I also realize that there is nothing wrong with trying to fill it. Happiness cannot find me sitting in the dark. Somehow, the sunlight must prevail. Buckle up spider, the battle is on.
“The only good thing about the good old days is they’re gone.”― Dick Gregory
The cold snap of the last few days have me thinking about the “Good Old Days” people wax poetic about. It is cold and windy and has me longing for the humidity and mosquitoes of summer.
Our good old days started when Linda Gail and I moved into the foothills of the Blue Ridge in 1987 just before a twelve-inch snowfall that kept us stranded for over a week. Despite questioning our sanity, the old farmhouse became our “little piece of heaven.”
An old farmhouse sitting above the Cherokee Scenic Highway, built in 1892 that had no electricity, heat or plumbing until 1956 when the new owner, long time Methodist missionary and reverend, James Copeland and some of what he called his good “Baptist Brothers” installed it. It has never been updated and I admit I sometimes worry about how well the good “Baptist Brothers” installed it.
Prior to 1956 this old house, with no insulation, was heated with a wood stove and five fireplaces, water was hauled from the stream located below the house and the outhouse was, and still is, located some thirty yards behind the house.
Would anyone like to explain to me the “Good Old Days” as it relates to the series of cold days we have experienced and the impending “Snowmageden” we are facing this weekend? I am reminded of the old childhood joke, “Have you read ‘A Mile to the Outhouse’ by Willie Makeit. The book was illustrated by Betty Don’t.”
I should point out that indoor plumbing was added in 1956 to an old porch that was closed in to accommodate it. We now have updated heat, two more bathrooms, a new well with running water and we only actively use one of the fireplaces. The insulation in the old part of the house needs to be redone but at least the old wavy lead windows were replaced.
I spent some eight hours spread over three days, cutting and splitting two pickup truck loads of dead fall with a chainsaw, axe, sledge and wedge. I also had benefit of a tractor with a frontend loader to help keep me out of trouble. My back might disagree with that last statement and has me wondering how did the previous generations keep a woodstove, and five fireplaces fed without benefit from later technology?
Hey, I’ll let you keep the good old days. I’ll take the toilet paper over the Sear’s catalogue or corn shucks any day.
“… the only thing worse than losing is not playing” ― Cormac McCarthy, The Passenger
I’m struggling. There are too many memories surrounding me…or too few. I really thought the college football season would provide a soothing anodyne. Something to take my mind off the way things are. A possible reminder of the way things once were. Football has not been a soothing anodyne.
I once “lived” for football season, whether I was coaching it or sitting in the stands watching…or from the comfort of my recliner. My bride was a fan too, especially College Game Day and Lee Corso. She would find kids that she could love and pulled for them as if she knew them. Linda never met a “human interest” story she didn’t love. She always pulled for the ones who had overcome some type of tragedy. God I miss her.
I haven’t felt the zing, and it is not totally because I’ve lost the most important person in my life. I’m sure that is a part of my lack of enjoyment but mostly I am not zinging because of what football has turned into.
NIL, transfer portal, too much video review, too much SEC hype, mostly off the field things have robbed me of my zing.
Once we played athletic games for the enjoyment of playing athletic games. Now every game seems to be a business opportunity. I foresee a time when players will be wearing the name of their sponsor on the back of their jersey instead of their own.
There was a time when we preached “hard work will pay off.” Now, if we are not instantly gratified, we move on to another team via the transfer portal. “Hurrah for me and the hell with everybody else!” seems to be our cheer.
When I began coaching back in the dark ages of “three yards in a cloud of dust”, we taught loyalty and love for our team and teammates. We taught fair play and behaving yourself. How many times did I preach, “Remember who you are and where you come from. Do nothing to embarrass your school, yourselves, your parents, and your coaches. Go out and make your parents proud.” I’m not sure that would go over well with today’s players. Have I become too jaded?
Don’t get me wrong. I do think players should benefit from their NIL but jumping from team to team because one team has boosters with deeper pockets is ruining the game for me. The same is true of coaches jumping ships and leaving the players they recruited high and dry.
Unlike economics, the NIL has trickled down to the high school level where I spent forty-one years coaching. I’m not sure I could coach in this environment.
I’m writing this on what is known as “rivalry weekend.” The weekend began yesterday, the day after Thanksgiving. Georgia and Georgia Tech fought through eight overtimes last night. I didn’t have a dog in the fight although I tend to pull for whomever Georgia is playing against. It was a hard-fought game that I should have found exciting but I found myself almost ambivalent. It is as if I’m watching out of habit…because watching is what I should be doing.
Today I do have a dog in the fight, so I’ll leave self-evaluation until tomorrow. Until then “Go Tigers.”
“Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win.” ― Stephen King
As a child I believed the witching hour was the hour after midnight. As an adult I have found it to be the 3 am hour, an hour that can often encompass the rest of the night. As much as I might wish to be haunted by certain ghostly specters, most of the spells cast upon me emanate from my own mind and create monsters that wish to consume my soul.
I once dwelled on issues that amount to little…the molehills of life. Questions such as “Should I have bought toilet paper” when I last went to the grocery store or is there some hidden malady hiding in my water heater causing it to breakdown when I next need hot water. These issues are random and silly but rob me of my needed sleep.
I live in an old farmhouse, over one hundred and twenty years old. During the quiet of the witching hour, the house creaks and pops in the same way I creak and pop when I first arise in the morning.
The puppies squirm and whimper as they dream whatever puppy dogs dream about. Mice play in the attic…I really need to go up and check on what damage is being done. Something else for me to dwell upon while I wait for the sun to appear.
Lately my witching hour doesn’t dwell on the silly or random. Lately, my reflections focus on my bride. It has been seven months, but her death is still fresh and cutting. Many days I walk into the house expecting to find her puttering about, her dark mane of hair framing her smiling face and twinkling brown eyes. I am heart wrenchingly disappointed.
The witching hour was the time Linda would attempt to get up, on her own, and go to the bathroom. After several falls my puppies and I learned to wake up with her. It is a habit I can’t seem to rid myself of.
In the dark of the witching hour, I struggle to see the youthful and energetic Linda Gail. I must force myself to purge the memories from the final year of her life, struggling to replace visions of sickness and pain with memories of the special times in our life.
My recent dreams seem to trigger the witching hour. My dreams have a common subject, being lost. Common locations can be seen but I can’t find my way to them. With every twist and turn they seem farther away, or sometimes, disappear totally.
I am lost on streets or bizarre corridors that shouldn’t exist. I encounter old friends along the way, folks I haven’t seen in years…many now dead. They are no help, their directions causing me to become more lost. In the dream I grow fearful and anxious.
I awaken and find that fear and anxiety are real. I lay quietly attempting to regulate my respiration before getting up and staggering outside to attempt to calm my panic with a cigar. My faithful companions come with me, guarding me until I rise to return to bed. A return to sleep rarely occurs.
I don’t need someone with a medical degree in psychology to explain the origins of my dreams. I am lost… in the dark or in the light of day, I am lost without my rudder. The seas are stormy, and I have no way to steer. “The monsters are real, and the ghosts are real too.”
***
On a brighter note, before Linda’s transition I released the book, “Food for Thought.” It can be purchased in paperback or downloaded at http://tinyurl.com/yrt7bee2
Eclectic: deriving ideas, style, or taste from a broad and diverse range of sources
My brother, son-in-law, and I made the trek to Floyd, Virginia for the seventh or eighth edition of my cousin’s annual “meat day.” The reason for the lack of clarity as to whether it was the seventh or eighth edition will become clearer later. I am clear about this; it was my first time.
Meat day has three simple rules: no women, no vegetables, and no chicken bones thrown into the yard. Other than that, it was an epicurean’s delight sans females. Food in the form of many different proteins, slowly cooked or smoked to perfection, and plenty of libations to wash it down with. I think the “plenty of libations” was why my cousin was a bit unclear as to whether it was the seventh or eighth episode. Did I mention my cousin is also the long-time mayor of Floyd?
Floyd is a small, sometimes sedate, sometimes bustling, sometimes crazy town some thirty miles past the equally small town of Hillsville off Interstate 77. Located near the Blue Ridge Parkway, there is a vibrant culture of music, arts, local foods and wines, and outdoor recreation. It is a key stop on The Crooked Road, Virginia’s heritage music trail and is known in some circles for the famous Friday Night Jamboree at the Floyd Country Store. Floyd is the home of the annual world music festival called FloydFest. If you like country, blue grass, or alternative music you should schedule a stop. Music lovers from forty-seven states enjoyed FloydFest’s five day event.
None of that really matters as far as our trek is concerned and the information was taken from the Floyd, Virginia Tourist Site. One bit of information that does matter is the statement from the same site, “Running on Floyd time. Floyd is as much a state of mind as it is a destination.”
It became apparent that meat day could have been just as easily named “meet day.” As I questioned my kin folk as we traveled the four hours to Floyd I asked, “How many people will be attending this…whatever it is?” Answers varied between twenty-five to fifty. They were off by about a hundred or more. The town of Floyd boast some four hundred and fifty inhabitants, and I venture to guess that most of the drinking age males came by at one time or another along with the fifty or so hardcore attendees there for the duration.
While I did pig out on barbecued ribs, pulled pork barbecue, smoked meatloaf, pig candy, and another half dozen proteins, (nothing was bad) I remained mostly sober despite the vast choices of distilled spirits and herbal remedies available. I’m glad I did because being a people watcher, I was able to enjoy the diverse folk who attended.
Diverse in race but more than that. Floyd was a destination for the counterculture in the 1960s and 1970s. It became apparent that the counterculture attitude was still in effect with the diversity of thought and actions of the men in attendance. I can only describe it as the most eclectic group of people I had been around since my engagement party, and that was way eclectic. Meat Day was eclectic on steroids.
An undercover cop joined former felons, along with legal and illegal pot growers and moonshiners. There was a PhD who worked for the government, motorcycle gang members, a major book publisher, all who joined the “salt of the earth” types wearing tie-dyed tee shirts under Oskos by Gosh overalls. The retired football coach of Floyd High School spent his entire forty-two-year career at that one school and enjoyed the day with us. Even my cousin’s political rival dropped by to enjoy the fun. Hardcore men who left but not before saying, “I’ll see you in church tomorrow.” There is a fine line between Saturday night and Sunday morning.
I tried to listen more than I talked. You learn better by listening. There was no talk of politics despite the many Trump and Harris signs I saw posted along main street. No disparaging the women who weren’t in attendance to defend themselves. Not one “pull my finger joke” but plenty of laughter, backslapping and hugs. There were stories from the past, good natured ribbing, and some “whatever happened to old so and so” questions.
They reminded me of the kids I loved to teach. Those that walked to their own drummer. The round pegs too many teachers attempted to fit into square holes. With today’s political climate, they made me hopeful.
Now that I’ve been I will go again but I will pace myself a little better. I figure it will take my system several days to recover from the protein blitz I subjected my body to. I also am attempting to produce descriptors to use other than eclectic. How ‘bout fun. A fun and educational evening in the eclectic small town of Floyd.
“Learn to light a candle in the darkest moments of someone’s life. Be the light that helps others see; it is what gives life its deepest significance.” ― Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart
My lights went out at 2:15 in the am Friday morning and didn’t come back on until Sunday at 4:15 in the pm. Did I mention there was another Sunday between that Friday and Sunday? And two football Saturdays? With the lights went my well water. Ten days without power and water. I learned a great deal sitting in the dark courtesy of Hurricane Helene. My puppies learned about cursing.
The first thing I learned was that no matter how much you prepare for a hurricane, you forget something. I checked off my list of toilet paper, water, ice, batteries, flashlights, lanterns, snack food, power bars and the like. What could I have forgotten? I should have done a couple of loads of washing, invested in some paper plates, and I should have cooked as much food as I could have from my freezers. Also, I should have considered water to flush with instead of relying on rainwater. I had plenty of rainwater but had to use a sieve to remove leaves and twigs.
I learned that when the lights go out at 2:15 in the am and the clouds are as thick as your brother’s head, it is not just dark, it takes dark to another level. I literally couldn’t see my hand in front of my face and now understood the saying, “as dark as the inside of a cow.” Matches…where did I put those matches? Shit! I left that off my list too.
I learned that all things don’t look better during the light of day, especially if the eye of the hurricane hits at dawn. “Was that the wicked witch on her bicycle?” Couldn’t have been. The rain was falling sideways, and she wasn’t melting. How long before a tree comes down?
Later in the evening on the first Friday, as the clouds cleared, I ventured outside to view the damage, not too bad in the yard. A lot of debris, a door off a garage, three greenhouse covers damaged, and the limb that had taken the power stack off the side of my house. I wish I hadn’t ventured out of the yard. A goodly number of trees down. Plenty of firewood for several winters.
Long after the hurricane had left us, I had plenty of time for contemplation. The dark seemed to aid the process.
One of my most immediate thoughts was that my forefathers and mothers were made of much sterner stock than I was. Somehow, they survived with outdoor toilets, potbellied stoves, kerosene lamps, and cast-iron frying pans greased up with lard and bacon grease. I didn’t have any lard or bacon grease or a chicken to pluck and fry up.
My only contact with the outside world was a battery powered AM/FM radio that only picked up one station, B 93.7, a contemporary pop channel. As I feared, I am not very contemporary or pop and will invest in a better battery powered radio before the next natural disaster. I didn’t realize radio stations were so repetitive. I heard “A Bar Song” by Shaboozey so much I started to sing along…and it is still playing in a loop in my head.
One thing I didn’t learn. No matter how many times I walked down a hallway and flipped the light switch, the lights weren’t coming on. The first thing I did when the power came back? I flipped that switch just to make sure it worked.
Funny story, unless you were there. With the total darkness the animal life becomes emboldened. As the clock struck one am one night, Cora, my bratty little blue heeler, decided she needed to go out for a potty break and Quigley decided she needed an escort. Cora came back and Quigley decided he was going to stay out…and I let him, leaving the door cracked and the mosquito net in place.
Two hours later, I had fallen asleep and was rudely awakened when all hell broke loose. Seems a possum decided to check out the opened door and both Quigley and Cora decided the animal didn’t belong. Luckily, she made it to the pecan tree just outside. I found both puppies gazing heavenward. My flashlight lit up two beady little eyes staring back at me.
Two days after the lights came back on the little critter decided to try it again. Quigley is still outside barking at him/her.
I don’t want to make light of the situation. I learned how lucky I was compared to the people around me, especially those in Western North Carlina. I have been to many of these places. One of the last drives I took with my wife before she passed was through Chimney Rock. It is unfathomable that there is so much misery and destruction. Chimney Rock, along with many other places, was wiped out.
Mother Nature is a bitch, and I believe we humans are fueling her anger. We cut down her trees and put up paved parking lots and tall stacks belching smoke. With eight billion people, concrete has increased, replacing much of the green, and temperatures have soared with it. It couldn’t be climate change, could it? No, its just Revelations being played out and the end of times.
Much to my mental and emotional discomfort, I once again learned that no matter how devastating the situation, politics are always in play. I probably sat in the dark too long.
No, I definately sat in the dark too long.
***
Don Miller’s latest offering is “Food for Thought.” Essays from the mind of The Mad Southerner.
“‘I don’t like that this is a fact of life . . . but if you are psycho and you want to make headlines, you realize that our schools are soft targets.” – JD Vance
People who read this will be surprised. They might even be concerned. Knowing my left leaning self I’m a bit surprised. I agree with JD Vance. I agree more with what he was accused of saying rather than what he actually said. I believe school shootings, along with all other shootings, are a fact of life and there is no going back. We are what we are…which is a very violent culture.
Why should I believe there is an answer? No matter which side you chose to blame, no matter what we believe to be the problem, we had ample time to change the trajectory of violent crime against others. We haven’t. If anything, the rhetoric of hate speech has ramped up.
Well, in truth, violent crime is down overall, but gun deaths are still high, and we still have young people dying. Many die from each other’s hands on street corners but that is different in my thinking than sending your child to school and wondering if you will see them again.
Honestly, the drop in violent crime is probably as much due to happenstance than anything we are actually doing. Cynical? Oh yes.
Before I retired from teaching, I took part in “active shooter” drills. I shouldn’t…but will admit I didn’t take them as seriously as I should have. It could never happen here. That three quarter inches of sheetrock will protect us as well as getting under a desk will protect us from a tornado or nuclear bomb. I would certainly take it more seriously now…as seriously as life and death…especially with two school age grand babies.
The bodies of this latest horror had barely grown cold, but the arguments had begun. Even the comments, “It’s too early to debate politics and school shootings,” made my stomach turn. If we wait more than a couple of days, the argument will be too late to debate. It is too late. If we couldn’t do anything significant after Sandy Hook, why would we now?
Fingers point to too many guns, easy access, mental health issues, bullying, violent video games, transgenderism, poor parenting, God being removed from schools. The FBI, and local law enforcement are scrutinized and blamed…or accused of being part of a plot to take all of our guns. Some are legitimate but what have we done to fix it? Little.
We use the same arguments and blame used the last time children and teacher’s bodies were torn asunder. The same arguments that have been used for the past quarter century. No, nothing will change until we change ourselves but that isn’t happening. We would rather debate death like our favorite football team’s next game and offer little more than thoughts and prayers.
Despite my best efforts to remain hopeful, I have grown cynical of the world I live in. Hope seems to be the new buzz word for the political party I will vote for in November. In the state where I reside, I might as well stay home because the state will be red by a landslide. So much for my hopefulness.
***
The featured image I used was Mitchell Gaudet’s ‘Shooting Gallery Exhibition’ which focuses on the issue of gun violence and gun culture across the U.S.
***
On a more hopeful note, I was born Southern fried in the renderings of fried fatback. Short essays and recipes from the South. Download or purchase it in paperback. “Food For Thought” by Don Miller. http://tinyurl.com/yrt7bee2
“Accordingly, I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president.” Lyndon Johnson
The Democratic Convention begins tonight. Every four years, the Democratic Convention reminds me of the year 1968. It is the way my brain works and I have quit trying to fight it. It is one of the pig trails I travel in my head. That being said, 1968 sucked but at least this year’s convention, Richard Daley isn’t the mayor and in charge of security.
Vietnam protests joined Civil Rights protests, walkouts, sit ins, hostage taking along with the riots that saw Chicago policemen in battle gear wading into crowds and beating Vietnam War protesters and news correspondents, this was during the 1968 Democratic Convention and played out during August on our television sets. As the 2024 Democratic Convention kicks off, I’m again reminded of the clusterf*ck that was 1968.
1968 began badly and quickly got worse. The Battle of Khe Sahn and the Tet Offensive played out on the nightly news in January. The USS Pueblo was seized by the North Koreans. The only good thing to happen in January was the debut of Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In.
February saw three students from Orangeburg, SC murdered by highway patrolmen during a Civil Rights protest at an area bowling alley. Thirty-one were wounded, many shot in the back, many with riot guns. A much larger protest at Howard University was without student murders but lasted much longer.
Maybe the best thing to come from February was a Walter Cronkite special after he had visited the front lines in Viet Nam after the TET Offensive. The special ended with the now legendary personal commentary from Cronkite declaring that the war was unwinnable, and that the best option was to negotiate for an end to the battle. That analysis would famously lead Lyndon Johnson, watching the broadcast, to declare “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost middle America.” Later, in March, Johnson would face the nation and reveal, “I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president.”
Also in March, My Lai, the massacre of Vietnamese civilians that would not become public until November of 1969.
In April and June, we lost Martin and Bobby to assassins’ bullets and American cities burned. A shootout between Black Panthers and Oakland police would result in several arrests and deaths. A double explosion in downtown Richmond, Indiana kills forty-one and injures one hundred and fifty. It was due to a natural gas leak.
The United States wasn’t alone in our discontent. Social unrest seemed to grip the world. Movements sprang up worldwide as protests were registered in over two dozen countries. Here at home, in addition to our Vietnam War and Civil Rights movements there were the Anti-nuclear movement, Environmental movement, Hippie movement, Women’s liberation movement, Chicano movement, and Red Power movement. All staged protests.
One would hope the violence that played out on our black and white TVs during the Democratic Convention would be the end of it all. It wasn’t. There were continued protests and shootouts but just like in 1968, I’ve had enough.
In October, In Mexico City, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, two black Americans competing in the Olympic 200-meter run, raise their arms in a black power salute after winning, respectively, the gold and bronze medals for 1st and 3rd place. They were sent home and not to a hero’s welcome by the Silent Majority being courted by Richard Nixon. Nixon would win the Silent Majority and with them, the election in November creating more problems during the new decade.
Some historians believed 1968 saw the greatest wave of social unrest the United States had experienced since the Civil War. Of course, that was before 2020 and the beginning of 2021. I don’t know what historians will determin about these, there is so much misinformation to sift through I doubt a consensus will be reached during the remainder of my lifetime.
Despite the terrible year of 1968, I was a high school senior and college freshman in 1968. I was more interested in chasing the elusive American female and drinking beer at The Cellar, than what was going on with Viet Nam protests and the Civil Rights movements. That would change when I did my best to flunk out of college and luckily failed at that endeavor by the skin of my teeth. Viet Nam suddenly became a real possibility, but I managed to right my ship.
As a social studies major, the late Sixties and Seventies became a focus of my personnel studies. The world changed in 1968 and laid the groundwork for what was to come. I believe many of our present problems are a manifestation of that tumultuous year. Here is hoping that despite expected protests, the 2024 Democratic Convention is peaceful.
“The act of taking the first step is what separates the winners from the losers.” ― Brian Tracy
I’m watching Olympic volleyball as I create this. US versus Poland. While my heart is with the red, white, and blue, the match is hotly contested, and the outcome is in serious doubt. It is a shame one team must win and one team must lose but that is the way we measure success. Winners or losers, there is nothing in between.
When the match is over one team with be running amok with chest bumps, high fives, and hugs. The other team will react with tears, some on their knees attempting to bury their heads in the hardwood floor. Ah, the agony of defeat.
This year, nearly one thousand medals will be awarded in three hundred and twenty-nine medal events across forty-five sports. I will check the medal count daily and live vicariously through our athletes as they strive for the podium.
Two hundred and three different Olympic committees with over eleven thousand athletes are competing for one thousand pieces of gold, silver, and bronze. Three hundred and twenty-nine gold medals will be awarded, the rest are “losers.” Granted, medals will be earned for the first and second losers.
The lyrics of the Steely Dan tune, “Deacon Blues”, plays in my head.
“They got a name for the winners in the world, I want a name when I lose. They call Alabama the Crimson Tide, Call me Deacon Blues.”
The song is about the unrealized desire of a man who wants to be a jazz saxophonist but somehow it resonates in my meandering mind. It may be because of my unrealized desire to be both a professional saxophonist and a professional baseball player. I understand losing.
Loser update: Poland prevailed and the US volleyball team will have to be satisfied playing for the second loser spot. For those lost in my analogy, that is the bronze medal.
I’m sure many of you would like for me to “get to the point.”
For forty-one years I was an athletic coach. I, and my teams were defined by two distinct but opposite poles. Winning or losing. There was no middle ground. There was no room for moral victories. All I had to do was look at the scoreboard to see if my team was successful. Too many moral victories will get a coach fired.
It wasn’t until I took over a team that hadn’t won a game in two years and had in thirty-seven years never won more games than they lost that I had to redefine what was successful. Effort, making the effort to win. We were the greatest example of “the participation trophy” but we took that first step and improved.
The modern Olympic creed, expressed by its founder Pierre de Coubertin says it all. “The most important thing. . . is not winning but taking part”. The Olympics are about diverse groups coming together and taking part.
The nearly eleven thousand athletes competing in the Olympics are all winners. Most will not collect a medal. Some will lose by an eyelash while others will finish dead last. Some will get the dreaded DQ and a pole vaulter lost a chance at the podium because his man part got in the way although his dating portfolio may have improved.
While draped in a shroud of controversy from the “get go” I have found much to celebrate in this year’s Olympics. Simone Biles returning to gymnastics and silencing a long line of nay sayers, along with the rest of the gymnastic team that shouldn’t be forgotten because of Simone. Katie Ledecky and our swimming teams were dominant. Our track and field teams were too.
My favorite feel-good stories: A sixty-one-year-old Chinese ping pong player gave me a short-lived moment of hope. The Turkish shooter dressed in jeans, tee-shirt, and black horn rims finishing on the podium in his event. All he needed was a shirt pocket with a pack of Camel unfiltered to be perfect.
The pommel horse gymnist with his own pair of horn rims. A bicyclist who four months ago was an alternate, winning the gold in her event. An Egyptian seven-month pregnant fencer redefined what it meant tocompete in the Olympics.
Not all of my heros were participants. The “dad bodied” guy in the colorful Speedo who was responsible for collecting swimming caps from the bottom of the pool was the definition of bravery.
We throw the descriptor “loser” around too much, especially here in the United States. We forget that all these athletes train for months if not years just to participate. They invest massive amounts of time, many on their own dime and most fall short.
All athletes are not as blessed as Simone Biles; some are the Eddie the Eagle, the Jamaican bobsled team, Eric the Eel or the poster boy for the “agony of defeat” on the Wide World of Sports, Vinko Bogataj. They all lost or wiped out in glorious fashion. All had to win something just to get to the world stage. I toast all the losers in the Olympics, you are all champions.
“I’m always wondering about the what ifs, about the road not taken.” ― Jenny Han, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before
“What” and “if” are two words if taken alone, are benign. Just don’t put them together side-by-side. When taken together, they have the power to haunt you for the rest of your life. “What if…?”
I am attempting to “get on” with the rest of my life after loss of my beloved wife but find myself dwelling on a myriad of “what ifs.” Is this what haunted means? I spend too much time dwelling in the dark place that is my head.
My “What ifs” come calling during the darkest part of the night, usually around the witching hour. Many come after dreams with a reoccurring theme. I am lost in familiar surroundings and can’t find my way. I should find out what my dreams mean.
It is normal, after experiencing a life altering event, to assess where you are in your life. I truly try to focus on “what is” but I can’t seem to keep “what was” from creeping into my thoughts. It doesn’t take long for “what is” to morph into “what if.” I should be concentrating on “what will be” but can’t seem to move on.
What I wouldn’t give for a mulligan. What if I had a chance to do it repeatedly until I finally got it right? Or do it wrong again? What if I came to the fork in the road and took it ala Yogi Berra? What ifs are driving me a little crazy.
I realize now, a lot of my what ifs have to do with focus. Retirement brought a lack of focus. Linda dealt with it better than I did. She focused upon helping aging family members and friends, buying plants, and buying anything that might be on sale…whether she needed it or not. I focused on her and became her enabler.
Aside from her buying habits, she was the rudder to my dingy and my rudder is now missing. The way my head is, I fear stormy weather is ahead with no way to steer to avoid it. “What if…?”
Somewhere along the way we lost our spontaneity. I enabled that too. Was that because we grew older? I don’t think so…I think “what ifs” took on another meaning…an even more negative meaning. It is as if we grew scared to take chances.
The Linda I fell in love with never liked anything scripted. She was fearless. We dropped a hat and took a road trip to Georgetown to celebrate our anniversary…not realizing it was also the weekend of the Fourth. We found the last room available in Georgetown County. That “what if” was epic.
Traveling at the drop of a hat worked out more times than it didn’t. I can’t remember any that didn’t work out…Well, we should have never made that side trip to Memphis…the barbeque just wasn’t worth it. We dropped our hats and traveled to New Orleans to celebrate an anniversary and later to Omaha to see the last College World Series played at Rosenblat Stadium. We didn’t think twice about it. What happened to us? Why didn’t we take more chances? “What if…?”
What if Covid hadn’t hit. What if we had discovered the cancer earlier…what if I had found her sooner after her first stroke when the “clot buster” drug could have been administered. What if I could hold her one more time? What if I could kiss her one more time? I think those last two are the what ifs I’m mostly dealing with.
Before Linda passed, I wrote “Food for Thought.” It is more about thought than food but there are plenty of recipes too. Available in paperback and download at http://tinyurl.com/yrt7bee2 .
Ravings of a Mad Southerner 