Luck of the Draw

/ cigarman501 / 19 Comments

“Shit storms are no fun to walk in with your mouth open.” ― Jean Oram, Champagne and Lemon Drops

Sometimes you draw two to an inside straight and hit, other times a royal flush is not good enough to win. It all comes down to the “luck of the draw.” Some would say “that’s life.”

I don’t agree. Poker isn’t life. Life isn’t choosing whether to take a card or standing pat. Sure, we sometimes must make choices but sometimes we walk through shit storms that are not caused by our choices. Sometimes, we draw a hand that goes bust. The luck of the draw. That’s life.

We’ve received what I would call a “gut punch” of a diagnosis. I’m not going to say who or what. Saying it would bring a wrath down upon me worse than the disease itself. Everyone who needs to know, knows and I’ll leave it at that. I’m writing about it simply to…I don’t know why I’m writing about it. To keep from losing my sanity?

During the light of day, I force reassurance, offering nothing that is not positive, sympathetic, or affirming. During the darkness of night, not so much. I’m left with my thoughts that turn into dreams that turn into nightmares. As you might guess, I’m writing this to the light of my computer screen far past the witching hour.

Even during the light of day intrusive thoughts worm their way into my head. I must stay busy. If I try to write or watch TV, I find my thoughts wandering and wondering about what life is to bring.

One of my thoughts is “What did she do to deserve this?” She checks all the right boxes. I’m the one that should be struggling with a diagnosis. All my checks are on the wrong side of the ledger, not hers. She doesn’t warrant this. She has rarely gambled in her life.

I remember my father as he dealt with my mother’s illness, ALS. She was a good woman who didn’t deserve her lot, either. Hours after the singing of the National Anthem ended the TV programing for the day, I would see him playing solitaire.

I don’t know how he did it. Working a shift in a cotton mill, doing everything he could for my mother when he got home…and still playing solitaire into the wee hours. I fear he is a better man than I. I hope I can stand in his shadow. I’m glad I had him as a role model.

I never believed my mother would die. I was a childish eighteen-year-old when she did. She was ill for years and yet right up until we received word of her passing, I believed she would continue to survive. I’m trying to maintain that hope now.

A quote by Jonathan Anthony Burkett, “In life we all go through trials and tribulations. So now tell me, will you pass, or will you make a mess?” God, please let me pass this test. Not for me but for her. Let me be who I need to be. Give me the strength not to “crap out.” Above all, let her recover.

Wednesday is a big day for her…for us. Sickness is a family affair. I’m sure the anxiety will continue to build. I wonder, which is worse? Knowing or not knowing. I won’t know until Wednesday.

I posted in a blog earlier this year expressing my belief that the quote “God will never give you more than you can handle” is a fallacy and does more harm than good. I hope my belief hasn’t come back to bite me. I hope I don’t have to find out if it is true or not.

Please keep us in your thoughts. Prayer would be nice as would good mojo or ju ju. Black magic…I’ll take it. I’ll take what you can give. Thanks.

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

Hatred-An American Pastime

/ cigarman501 / 4 Comments

“Memo to extreme partisans: If you can’t bring yourselves to love your enemies, can you at least learn to hate your friends?”
― Walter Kirn

To my right leaning friends who read…who read my blog, don’t shoot the messenger because I’m choosing to quote Hillary Rodham Clinton. It is a necessary quote to help make my point. Please read farther than the quote.

“Not every election will be so filled with venom, misinformation, resentments, and outside interference as this one was. Solutions are going to matter again in politics.”

― Hillary Rodham Clinton, What Happened

I am sorry Mrs. Clinton, I disagree. It is easier to fill an election with venom, misinformation, and resentments than to provide solutions. Solutions require thought and tend to be expensive. Outside interference comes free of charge.

Venomous hatred is America’s new spectator sport with misinformation and resentments leading the cheers. No that is not true. Hatred directed at the “other” side has been around for…ever? Hatred is more of a participatory sport than spectator. Misinformation and resentments are dressed like the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders with their high kicks aimed at the heads of their opponents.

Hatred is not new; it just happens at light speed with social media with cowards hiding behind their computer screen.

I can’t help but think of abolitionist Charles Sumner being beaten by pro-slavery Preston Brooks in the hallowed halls of the Senate in 1856. Sumner made the mistake of calling out Brooks’ cousin over the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Making it about family honor rather than a squabble over the expansion of slavery, Brooks confronted Sumner in the Senate chamber and almost beat him to death using a thick cane with a golden head.

Bleeding, Sumner managed to stagger up the aisle before collapsing and losing consciousness. Brooks continued to beat the motionless Sumner until his cane broke, at which point he continued to strike Sumner with the remaining piece. While many attempted to come to Sumner’s aid, they were held off at gunpoint.

Brooks was left with a broken cane and Southern sympathizers sent Brooks hundreds of new canes in endorsement of his assault. One was inscribed “Hit him again.” I would call this a breakdown in civil discourse. Sumner was never the same, both physically and emotionally and died of a heart attack in 1874.

I am not immune to feeling hatred. I did want Ted Cruz to throat punch The Donald after Trump insulted Cruz’s wife during a televised debate before the 2016 elections. Cruz being Cruz snuggled up close to The Orange Man instead.

Far beyond throat punching, if you paid attention in US History, one might remember the Hamilton-Burr duel in 1804 which saw Aaron Burr shooting Alexander Hamilton dead. We might end much useless debate today if we allowed our legislators to duel it out…or even “duke it out.” Judging from our love of firearms, many Americans would stand behind this.

Americans like to get a good hate on, we even drum up reasons to hate when none exists. A liberal publication, I know I’m taking a chance with my right leaning friends to quote two liberals, published the opinion of Tom Krattenmaker who described present day hatred as “so thick you can cut it with a knife and eat it with a fork. I’m afraid many of us are finding it a little too tasty.” He was discussing the recent breakdowns in civil discourse.

Hatred has been ingrained throughout the generations of American history and it is easy to point a finger and workup a good loathing for the other side. Hatred is in our genes, and we display our hatred in the strangest manners; Songs about small towns bring out the worst on both sides. Books might make our kids feel bad and should be kept out of their hands. Media darlings who dare to differ from our beliefs need to be boycotted.  Sports teams not singing our National Anthem need to move to China.

Strangest recently, a movie about doll characters dressed in pink…the movie portrayed Ken as not masculine enough according to certain pundits. Do you realize neither Barbi nor Ken dolls have genitalia? The stars? I saw a nude scene involving the female lead. Her female parts seem in good form…and then some.  Everyone is fair game, even people playing dolls.

Since becoming a nation, we have focused hatred on corrupt politicians for as long as corrupt politicians have been around…which is forever. Andrew Jackson ran as the “anti-corruption” candidate in 1824 (Take note Ted, he also fought a duel when someone insulted his wife). President Grant was up to his neck in graft and corruption…not him personally but people associated with him. The entire Election of 1876 was fraught with corruption. No, it ain’t new but closing our eyes to it seems the new norm.

Hatred isn’t limited to politics but could be a product of politics. Going back to colonial times we “hated” the “redskin”, drumming up support to take their land for better use. That was the basis for our hatred as the natives had the audacity to try and stand up to us.

“No dogs or Irishmen allowed” was our reaction to the Potato Famine. Newly freed slaves better not let the sundown catch you in this town. The Chinese, who were building the railroads for a “fish head and a bowl of rice a day,” had their pigtails cut off. Middle and Eastern immigrants were ridiculed during the Industrial Revolution and the Gilded Age. “Japs” “Krauts” and “Wops” were less than endearing terms used during the war years…and after…and before. Even the “Okies” were turned away at the California border as they migrated to get away from “The Dust Bowl.” We are good at using our hatred to eat our own.

A groundswell of anti-foreign hatred became evident with anti-Asian assaults provoked by blaming China for the Covid pandemic. It didn’t matter that many victims had lived their entire lives in the US.

There was also has the anti-Hispanic hatred element, seen in the call for the wall at our southern border and in the fear of an invasion of Latinos following the inauguration of President Joe Biden. That surge was realized but as soon as Title 42 was rescinded, illegal entries encountered at the border dropped by fifty to seventy percent.  Will that continue? Only time will tell.

The “crisis at the border” is not just a political concern but a humanitarian concern. Many on the right who believe in the “crisis at the border” also believe in “The Great Replacement Theory” and don’t seem to care about humanitarian concerns.

Lest I forget, there was a great deal of hatred on display during the January 6th protest, riot, insurrection…or the tour made by peace loving tourists.

It is not just the political right. No one my age should forget the liberal protests and riots of the late Sixties and early Seventies. War protests, civil rights protest, and the 1968 Democratic Convention all turned violent and were fueled by someone’s hatred.

Liberals expressed their hatred by taunting Viet Nam troops returning from the war and bombing or burning symbols of American Imperialism.

The ’67 Detroit riots lasted for five days and forty-three people were killed and over eleven hundred were injured. It also helped to trigger protests across the US that were a part of the “long, hot summer of 1967.”

The Holy Week Uprisings involving several US cities in April of 1968 after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

The Occupy Movement a decade ago, the Portland Riots after the death of George Floyd and others were liberal protests and riots and led to loss of life and damage in cities other than Portland.

Much hate on both sides and these are just a few examples.

A Newsweek poll conducted by Pure Spectrum found that 23 percent of survey respondents said it was “definitely” or “probably” justifiable to engage in violent protest. Among those polled, self-identified liberals were the most likely to say violent protest was ever justified at 28 percent, followed by conservatives at 25 percent. Ideological moderates were the least likely to say violence against the government was ever justifiable at 17 percent. Thankfully, 77 percent disagree.

Yes, Americans welcome a good hate. I am reminded of my college’s football cheer, “Kill em, kill em, we don’t care. We’ve got a graveyard over there” while pointing at the cemetery next to the stadium. Good, clean American fun.

Don Miller writes both fiction and non-fiction. His latest book, a historical novel of the Depression, Thunder Along the Copperhead, among others may be found at https://www.amazon.com/stores/Don-Miller/author/B018IT38GM?ref=ap_rdr&store_ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true

Relics of the “Good Old Days”

/ cigarman501 / 8 Comments

“One tatty old man in jeans—what was he thinking? Jeans are for young people.”
― Jo Walton, Among Others

I stood in front of my closet staring at racks of pants, neckties, and dress shirts that I wore when I fought the teaching wars. I’ve been fully retired for nearly a decade, and these are nothing more than relics from those days. Several suits and old man Fedoras that I once thought were cool are among those relics.

I haven’t worn these clothes in a while. I’ve turned into the old man who wears shorts or blue jeans and tee shirts…occasionally a flowered Hawiian if I really want to dress up. If I can’t get away with those choices, I rotate between three dress shirts and two pairs of dress trousers…both khakis. If I must go somewhere that requires a necktie I don’t go.

Why do I keep these relics? I have no intention of going back to teaching. Someone could use them if they weren’t concerned about this year’s fashion statements, the width of my ties, or the sweat stains on my fedoras. It must be the memories of the “good old days.”

“When we think of the past it’s the beautiful things we pick out. We want to believe it was all like that.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale

I’ve heard too many of my peers express their feelings about the “good old days.” Waxing poetic about how the days of our youth were so much better than present days. I’m sure it is due to a lost relic from our past. The relic we once called our youth.

I am a Boomer. I was born in 1950. I mostly enjoyed my childhood. I was, as were most of my friends, blessed with a family that extended far outside the walls of our homes, a family that included those with different surnames and DNA.

The African proverb, “It takes a village to raise a child” was a truism even if the village I grew up in was far from Africa in both location and thought. The saying emphasizes a child’s successful upbringing is a communal effort involving many different people and groups, from parents to teachers to neighbors and grandparents.

If these are the “good old days” you wax poetically about, I am in total agreement. They were as good then as they are gone now.

“Glorifying the past because we like the story better isn’t history; it’s propaganda.”
― Beth Allison Barr, The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth

The good old days are person specific. Just because you or I remember our childhoods as wonderful doesn’t mean everyone remembers theirs that way…and I doubt everyone’s life was wonderful all the time. It is easier to remember the drunken party fun and forget the blinding hangover the next day.

There seems to be much debate about our youth. I hear that when we were kids, things were different. Things were better. Things were less politically correct. There was more freedom. The world was safer. I agree it was different but argue it might not have been better.

Safer? No seatbelts, riding in the back of pickup trucks, riding bicycles without helmets, lawn darts, cigarettes everywhere, drinking from rubber hoses…get my point? I survived but have many scars to remember the “good old days.”

Maybe you heard your own parents talk about how kids (you) used to be better behaved, how when they were your age, they worked harder and had their act together. I heard this in 1969 when my first semester grades were reported to my parents and found to be quite lackluster.

Think our youth are worse? Here’s a quote from the Fourth Century BC, over 2500 years ago. Credit Plato or Socrates. “What is happening to our young people? They disrespect their elders; they disobey their parents. They ignore the law. They riot in the streets, inflamed with wild notions. Their morals are decaying. What is to become of them?”  This was during the Golden Age of Athens, Greece.

Truthfully, the quote is more of a summary of the period and Plato’s and Socrates’ thoughts, but the summary is now over one hundred years old. The facts are, kids have always alarmed their parents, new generations are always vexing to the generations that came before.

“The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”
― Franklin D. Roosevelt

You might want to ask the question, “The good old days were good for whom?”

Black people, Indigenous Americans, “ethnic minorities”, the poor, women, people with a disability, gay people? The trouble with this question is it is often answered in a straight, white perspective that is decidedly masculine. The Sixties were populated by protest and the growing pains those protests fostered.

Today, most of us are fighting on some side of the culture wars but the Fifties and Sixties were fraught with minefields for the “others.” Civil Rights, the war in Vietnam, The Cold War, assassinations, riots, gays forced to stay in the closet lest they tempt being rolled on a Saturday night. Women’s rights? Women couldn’t apply for a credit card without their husband’s permission. The disabled didn’t even have a way to the table much less a seat. Oh…those good old days.

In some ways, the more things change, the more they stay the same. We are fighting the same battles today. Only the battlefield names have changed.

“There is a fountain of youth: it is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of people you love. When you learn to tap this source, you will truly have defeated age.”
― Sophia Loren

So why do we look back on those days of yesteryear with so much fondness? Why do we save the relics of our past? I have a theory.

At a certain age it is easier to look backward because we know the story on the road already traveled, and the road we now travel on is much shorter than it once was. We make the road we once traveled warm and fuzzy and slightly out of focus instead of facing today’s grim reaper we see closing the gap in our rearview mirrors.

I believe Sophia is on to something. My body creaks and cries out in protest every time I think about cranking a lawnmower or chainsaw, but my mind wants to be creative and active. My mind makes me go on and crank the lawnmower or chainsaw.

Where there is creativity there is youth. Afterall, Anna Mary Robertson Moses, better known as “Grandma Moses”, did not start painting until she was 76 years old. Even though she had no formal training, she painted every day for 25 years and produced thousands of paintings.

I have hopes that I’m not just a relic from times past. I have hopes that I can still contribute…Maybe I can HELP make these the “good old days” for another generation instead of lamenting how sad things are now.

Don Miller’s works may be found at https://www.amazon.com/stores/Don-Miller/author/B018IT38GM?ref=ap_rdr&store_ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true

The Devil’s House Pets

/ cigarman501 / 10 Comments

“If you don’t think a small act can make a difference, try going to sleep with a mosquito in the room.”

Julie Foudy

Source: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/167196204888780155/

I have trouble believing the story of the Great Flood and Noah’s Ark…wait, there is geological evidence of a flood in the Middle East around 2900 BCE, so the story of the flood is probably true although I doubt it was worldwide. The story first appears in the Epic of Gilgamesh, an Akkadian poem that appears around 2100 BCE.

Noah? I can be convinced there was a guy building a big boat, surrounded by friends and family, all shaking their heads and “tsk, tsking” until the rains began. You cannot convince me that Noah would have included mosquitoes and not included unicorns. Mosquitoes…the Devil’s own house pets. A simple slap would have ended much misery.

Come on Noah. Aside from man, mosquitoes kill more people worldwide than any other animal, mostly due to malaria. No fangs or claws, no venom. Less than a quarter inch long and it is only the female that kills because she is the only blood sucker. A flying killing machine with a needle for a nose. The male spends his ten days on earth happily sucking nectar and fertilizing eggs. The female? Two months of sucking blood and laying eggs.

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/memes/comments/c04zxg/mosquito_bad/

I’ve never heard of a unicorn killing anyone…oh, yeah. Scratch that thought…unicorns don’t exist, but mosquitoes do. There is no justice.

It is that time of year in my little piece of heaven in the foothills of the Blue Ridge. Not only is the Devil attempting to smother us all with heavy blankets of heat and humidity, but he also released his house pets. Forget the hounds of hell, its mosquitoes, gnats, and deer flies.

Even if I don’t contract malaria or Dengue fever, they are all just annoying. Mosquitoes buzzing around my ears…or ankles, sucking whole clouds of gnats into my sinuses, or having deer flies attack my balding pallet. Annoying! Annoying! Annoying!

Nothing is more annoying than a mosquito buzzing around your ear…especially at night when you are trying to sleep. One mosquito evades destruction…although it destroyed my sleep and I have an itchy ear.

It makes one lose one’s religion. You say things you would not say in the presence of polite society…”The little bastard got me on the f***ing ear.” See, not only can it suck three times its weight in blood, I lost my religion.

As I stood in line at a local mercantile a man in front of me set a spray can of Deep Woods Off on the counter and engaged the young woman manning the cash register. I found he had come close to losing both his own religion and his sense of humor.

Upon putting the insect repellant down the young woman asked, “Did you find everything you needed?”

The customer exhaled heavily, “I hope so, thankfully. Listen, I’m a good Christian and I know God wants us to love our neighbor and forgive others of their sins, but… f*** mosquitoes. Seriously.” No, not the language you hear in polite society…or from a Baptist minister.

The young woman smiled, “Here is your receipt. Have a better day.” She was a Southern lass and understood.

The customer, now smiling, answered, “You too…and apologies for the language.”

I’m not going to try and convince you that spiders are beneficial. Source: http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/3tza6i

There is a reason the little f@#$*rs are attracted to some people more than others. Mosquitoes are attracted to carbon dioxide released through the skin and exhaled from our lungs. They are also attracted to people who sweat a lot and who are beer drinkers. Ah, the trifecta. Why can’t they suck fat?

The fact is, the more you sweat and pant trying to shoo her away, the more attracted she is to you. “Ah the sweet smell of lactic acid,” she thinks, following our exhalations back into our face. Reminds me of a girl I dated in the early Eighties, but she wasn’t a blood sucker, but I had a hard time getting rid of her just the same.

We just had a thunderstorm come through. Lowered the temperature ten or fifteen degrees and took the humidity right out of the air, leaving behind perfect mosquito hatching weather. We can’t win. I should hang garlic around my doors and windows.

Source: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/428756827010059361/

In a lifetime long ago, on a trip to the coast, my bride and I took a side trip…another phrase for “we got lost on a pig trail.” I felt the call of nature and pulled down a dirt road into a secluded turpentine farm. Tall pine trees crowded in around the single track and blotted out the sun. As I found out, a perfect climate to breed all the mosquitoes in the world plus one.

As I finished my business, I looked down at my “man part” and found it covered in mosquitoes. To save it from Satan’s hellhounds, I zipped up too quickly and you can guess that outcome. My wife laughed and laughed until the thousands of mosquitoes that followed me into the car found her blood to be sweeter than mine. Justice.

If you enjoyed this, Don Miller’s authors page may be found at https://www.amazon.com/stores/Don-Miller/author/B018IT38GM?ref=ap_rdr&store_ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true

Blog image courtesy of Newsweek.

Twitter Storm: 1776 

/ cigarman501 / 1 Comment

Originally shared in 2019, a humorous look at Independence Day in the age of social media.

cigarman501's avatarRavings of a Mad Southerner

“If Paul Revere had been a modern-day citizen, he wouldn’t have ridden down Main Street. He would have tweeted.” — @AlecJRoss

Dateline Philadelphia July 5th, 1776.  Lester Holt’s great, great, great, great grandpa dressed in colonial garb, including powder wig and tricornered hat, is reporting live from outside of the Pennsylvania State House.  “Since learning that twelve of the thirteen British colonies have declared their independence from the English crown, King George III has erupted in a storm of angry twitter posts directed at the Second Continental Congress in general and specifically outspoken members such as Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, his brother Samuel along with Ben Franklin.  The last exchange was just minutes ago with the king tweeting, “I dare you!” and Tom Jefferson responding, “Yo Mama!”  (New York did not sign the original document until later.)

A former student sent me down that pig trail which led…

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Weather Forecast: Fat Men in Tank Tops

/ cigarman501 / 7 Comments

“I hate dressing. I hate the heat. I hate sweaty people getting aggressively close to you when you’re walking down the street.” – Johnny Weir

The temperature is climbing and will touch ninety if the weather liars are to be believed. I don’t need the weather liars to tell me that the humidity is climbing toward ninety too. The air will feel like triple digits they say. The air is not mid-July or August heavy but if the air were a human it could stand to lose a few pounds. So could the guy in the pea green tank top.

Hot and humid weather brings them out like darkness draws cockroaches. Industrial sized men in cargo pants that reach below their knees, flip-flops, and tank tops they have not only grown into but have grown well beyond.

Anyone who knows me, or sees the way I dress, knows that I’m not a fashion snob but I do own a mirror. I sometimes wear cargo shorts that hit just below the knees, but I never wear flips or slides outside of the house. My toes are in too bad a shape to subject people to that. Looking at my toes the descriptor “gagger” comes to mind.

Tank tops? Never have I ever. Why? Again, I own a mirror. As the ravages of age have befallen me, I don’t even like to wear short sleeves. Since a 2006 heart attack, my weight has remained a somewhat constant one-eighty, down from two thirty-two the day of the event. I’d like to weigh my all-time low of one sixty-eight, but that all-time low may be a mirage.

While my weight has remained constant, my body has changed. I blame my abhorrence of strength training. My chest has fallen into ass and my arms have shriveled. Think of a potato with twigs for arms. I should rethink the mirror thing.

I wish Mr. Pea Green Tank Top had been a mirage that dissipated rapidly. Instead, he picked a table directly in line with my line of sight and began to scratch an underarm featuring underarm hair that reminded me of one of Star Trek’s Tribbles.

He was like watching a train wreck you could not avert your eyes from. A pie shaped, very florid face with thin hair above, sweat plastered to his forehead. His triple chin sat atop a tank top stretched to a breaking point and a chest that should have featured his wife’s bra.

For a moment I mentally applauded his fashion confidence…just not his fashion sense. This was a man comfortable with his considerable heft and was displaying it proudly. I’m sure had he known what I was thinking, he would have exclaimed, “Kiss my porcine ass cheeks, I’ll wear what I want. If you don’t like it eat somewhere else.”  

He would be correct in his thinking. It is none of my business how others dress but I found that my appetite for a fish taco had waned. For some reason, the fish didn’t taste as good. Maybe I am a fashion snob.

I was also reminded of an industrial sized friend who asked a young lady out on a date. The object of his desire asked, “Why should I go out with you?” His answer was, “I don’t sweat much for a fat guy.” She liked his sense of humor, went out with him and they have been happily married for several decades.

If I have offended anyone, let me reiterate. I am not fat or health shaming him. I am questioning his fashion choice…I am also questioning an eating establishment that doesn’t feature a tank top banning to go with “No shirt, no shoes, no service.”

Don Miller’s author’s page may be found at https://www.amazon.com/stores/Don-Miller/author/B018IT38GM?ref=ap_rdr&store_ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true

Why Are the Scientific Instruments Searching for Intelligent Life Pointed Away from Earth?

/ cigarman501 / 5 Comments

“He had just about enough intelligence to open his mouth when he wanted to eat, but certainly no more.” ― P.G. Wodehouse

Did someone really try to eat the box? This must be a message to all the Stoners with a powerful hankering from the munchies. I was already worried about humanity, but I now am terrified.

Stupid people winning stupid prizes is not something new. What is new is social media never letting people live down their stupidity…if they manage to survive their stupidity.

When a redneck says, “Hey y’all watch this,” it is best to have 911 keyed up and ready. It is often the last words out of their mouths as they audition for a Darwin Award.

The two good old boys who, on a hunting trip got drunk, and decided to see who was the best shot with a crossbow by William Telling beer cans…off each other’s heads. One lost an ear but managed to avoid the “Fickle Finger of Fate.”

My best friend tried to emulate Roy Rogers jumping onto a horse from a balcony. We had no balconies on our farm and decided to use the hayloft of the barn. We didn’t have a horse either, but we did have a bicycle. Thankfully, he went first while I held the bicycle…he also went last.

Also from my childhood, the fella whose gas gauge had quit working. Needing to check the level in his gas tank one night, he decided to use his Zippo to get a better look. Singed his eyebrows it did and destroyed a perfectly good ’51 Plymouth. He seems to not be the only one who decided to check their fuel level with an open flame. See the warning label below for a jet sky.

No one lost a life in these examples and leads credence to the old French saying, “God always helps fools, lovers, and drunkards” Sometimes.

One must remember that for every warning label there is at least one person who has done something dumb and then sued someone for their own stupidity. Remember the McDonald’s lawsuit? Coffee cups now carry the warning, “Do not spill coffee on your crotch” label. Actually, the warning is “Caution: Contents Hot.” We also got cardboard sleeves and “sippy cup” like lids from that lawsuit. Technology as needed for the survival of the species.

As a science teacher there were sometimes unintended consequences to some of the experiments and demonstrations I did. I don’t know who it reflected more poorly upon, the students or me. The good news is no one lost an eye.

I really should never have given out the instructions on “How to build a potato gun” after demonstrating one in class. One of our nearby communities faced a series of “spud” attacks and a picture window was knocked out. I was young and stupid, like my students. Enterprising young people, “There are dozens of internet sites that will tell you how to build one. Go out and do your worst.” Now I’m old and stupid.

Spud guns will raise a knot if mishandled.

A demonstration of the reaction of potassium and water went off the rails when several Senior lab assistants decided to recreate it. I used a lab sink half filled with water and a BB sized amount of potassium, a soft metal that will react with the oxygen in the air and violently with the oxygen in water, creating enough heat to ignite the hydrogen that is released in the reaction. The small sample sparked and smoked on the surface of the water drawing oohs and aahs. The lab assistants? About two inches of water and a golf ball sized piece of potassium. After all, if a little is great, a lot is monumental.

Knowing they were in the wrong when the department head walked into the storage room used to hide their activity, they compounded their folly by attempting to dispose of the evidence by pulling the drain plug and allowing it to drain.

Do not try this at home!!!!

As soon as the potassium hit the trap there was an explosion shattering several of the connected glass traps used in laboratory settings. No one was hurt but several students were drenched in yucky water at their lab stations as pressure caused water to flow in the wrong direction. I received the dreaded intercom message from the principal’s office, “Mister Miller, come to my office immediately, please.”

For my next trick, I will make a dill pickle light up in the dark…I’ll save that one till later…no I won’t.

Before you rry this, it takes 120 volts which will make you light up if handled incorrectly.

Really smart people do stupid things too. Ben Franklin’s kite experiment comes to mind, but he survived his foolishness. Sir Francis Bacon didn’t.

On a freezing day in April 1626, the philosopher-scientist, Francis Bacon, had the idea that freezing might preserve food and decided to gut, pluck, and stuff with snow, a chicken. Neither the chicken nor Bacon survived. Bacon developed pneumonia before the experiment could be proven and died.

If you are unfamiliar with the Darwin Awards, they are a tongue-in-cheek honor that originated in Usenet newsgroup discussions around 1985. They recognize individuals who have contributed to human evolution by selecting themselves out of the gene pool by dying or becoming sterilized via their own actions. Sir Fransis Bacon would be the only possible Darwin Award winner from my examples.

Note: I wrote this before the loss of the Titan submersible with five people on board and considered whether I should share it or not. Obviously, I made my decision.

I have seen much debate about the wealth of these individuals and the intelligence of these individuals. While this terrible event proves wealth and intelligence will not shield you from your fate, there is nothing remotely humorous as the memes and jokes I have seen might have you believe. Shame on some of us as humans.

Don Miller’s Authors Site may be found at https://www.amazon.com/stores/DonMiller/author/B018IT38GM?

Another Father’s Day

/ cigarman501 / 8 Comments

“That was when the world wasn’t so big, and I could see everywhere. It was when my father was a hero and not a human.” ― Markus Zusak, I Am the Messenger

Its Father’s Day and I can’t help but think about my father.  I don’t have enough memories…I’ve now outlived him by over a decade.  He died when I was twenty-six as I was just beginning my own pathway to adulthood, a sometimes twisting, bumpy pathway that he might have been able to smooth and straighten out.

“Foss” was a small man who, at least in my own memories, cast a much larger shadow…a shadow that gets larger as I get older, I’m sure.  He was five feet six in his shoes but now seemed much taller. I don’t think I ever viewed him as heroic, just a solid everyman. Being solid can be heroic.

He was stoic…to a fault and had a dry sense of humor. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, the twelve-year-old me pondered aloud, “Shouldn’t we be getting a fallout shelter?” My father looked over his reading glasses and quipped in pure deadpan, “You know where the shovel is. Come get me when you think it is deep enough.”

A member of Tom Brokaw’s “Greatest Generation”, he kissed my mother to be goodbye and went off to fight fascism and militarism with MacArthur’s army in the Philippines.  Like everything he did in his life, he did it the best way he could, without fanfare, with a wrench in his hand instead of a rifle, keeping landing craft afloat and moving troops and material to the beachheads.  Not very heroic or as flashy as a Thompson sub-machine gun but just as necessary.

Technical Sergeant Ernest R. Miller

I asked him once how many enemy soldiers he killed in the war. Again, delivered deadpan, “None. Never shot at one but I did hear gunfire once and our own artillery kept us awake at night.” In another question-and-answer period he admitted that his maintenance battalion normally went ashore just after the nurses. Later he would follow the nurses ashore at Okinawa and as part of the Japanese Occupation Force.

According to him there was a near miss when an unexploded bomb went off due to a trash fire built in the hole the bomb had made. Lucky for me he was behind a nearby building when it exploded.

After the war, he made a living the same way, with a wrench, as a loom fixer for Spring Mills, toiling in grease, lint, and heat.  I still have the thirty-year pen he proudly wore on his suit coat lapel.  He and my mother provided a home and everything that was necessary for my good life…not everything I wanted, but everything I needed.  A good life I find meandering back toward in my mind as I settle into my own autumn years.

I’m most proud of the way he treated my mother…yes, they had their battles, she was a red-headed Scot Irish lass and had the stereotypical temper to go with the hair.  Her explosions were thunderclaps that abated quickly, and Ernest usually absorbed them stoically.  I was always surprised when he didn’t…whether it was reacting to her or something stupid that I had done.  While I never heard him say it, I’m sure he loved her.

Later, when she was diagnosed with ALS, he was there.  Physically and emotionally, he supported her every way he could while attempting to keep body and soul intact.  He didn’t do it alone, but he was there for us all and I’m proud of his efforts.

I shouldn’t make this sound like our relationship was idyllic…there were moments, especially after my mother’s death when he remarried. 

I have a note he left me one morning, a cherished bit of memorabilia.  It stated simply, “The lawn mower has been in the front yard for three days.  Either use it or put it up.”  He was a man of few words and actions did speak louder than words…although when he sat me down for a “talking to” I would have rather he just hit me and get it over with.

It’s been forty-seven years since he died, in the cotton mill he worked in… a cerebral hemorrhage.   I remember the phone call from my brother. 

Like most sons, there was much I wish I had told him when I had time…I just didn’t take the time.  I did receive a bit of closure.  In a codeine-fueled battle with pneumonia, he came to me in a dream.  With him sitting at the foot of my bed we talked.  I was able to tell him things I had not.  I was able to tell him I loved him.  The dream was too real to have just been a dream.

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

My Throbbing Opposable Thumb

/ cigarman501 / 20 Comments

“Dinosaurs are extinct today because they lacked opposable thumbs and the brainpower to build a space program.” — Neil deGrasse Tyson

Like most people, opposable thumbs are not something I tend to think much about…until yesterday. Yesterday I took a dive, forehead planting just outside my home. Luckily, I chose a large patch of un-mowed clover to crash into. I’d like to blame my puppies, but it is due more to an overactive clumsiness gene.

What does my clumsiness and painful neck and shoulders have to do with my opposable thumb? Somewhere in my dive I jammed the thumb on my left hand into the ground before falling on top of it. It pained me yesterday but this morning…. As a friend once wrote, “The pain is exquisite.”

Overnight my thumb became swollen and blue reminding me somewhat of a Louisiana Boudin Sausage when I viewed it in the morning light. When I sucked on it, it reminded me of nothing like sausage. The pain is manageable if I don’t move it…or anything else. I’m right-handed and thought, “no big deal it’s my left hand.” A bit of ice will do the trick. Wrong. I can’t even open the baggie to put the ice in without using my teeth.

Problems manifested as soon as I attempted to squeeze toothpaste onto my toothbrush to rid myself of my morning breath. I am a left-handed squeezer and even more clumsy reversing the process, attempting to hold my toothbrush in my left hand like a baby holding a spoon. I’m not ambidextrous unless that means “equally clumsy with both hands.”

Have you tried to unzip and unbutton your pants to answer a dire morning call to nature? Damn near impossible without using both hands and both thumbs. Damn near but I did avoid a catastrophe. Unfortunately, I now must sew a button on to my pants. That won’t happen for a while.

Simple acts become impossible. Holding a cup of coffee in one hand and a breakfast burrito in the other. I had to change into my third pair of shorts having dumped my burrito into my lap and onto the floor. Manna from heaven for the puppies. I just triggered another question, “Why do we call it a ‘pair’ of shorts rather than just one short?” Inquiring minds must find out.

Tearing the top off a food packet like the shredded cheese I wanted to put into the grits I’m now eating because of the dropped burrito was challenging. After a failed attempt using my teeth, I accomplished the feat with scissors and a left elbow trapping the package against the center kitchen island with a bit of body contortion. Tried to stir the cheese into the grits by trapping the bowl against my chest…that required a tee shirt change…which is also hard to accomplish.

Geez, I sure hope I don’t have to unscrew a bottle top.

At some point I will have to put on shoes and am questioning whether I’ll be able to tie the shoestrings. Simple things a right-handed person doesn’t realize you need a left thumb to accomplish. I’m sure my list will continue to grow as the day goes on, but I’m quitting now. I’m having trouble hitting the space bar with my left thumb.

***

To answer my question about shorts…or pants, the phrase “pair of pants” harkens back to the days when what constituted pants consisted of two separate items, one for each leg. They were put on one at a time and then secured around the waist.

The term “pair of pants” is derived from French, where the word originally meant two separate garments that were worn together. At that time, the pants were separated by leg coverings, which made it logical to call them “pairs”.

The word pants? Pants derives from the word pantaloons, which has several differing spellings.

Don Miller writes about subjects other than opposable thumbs and pairs of pants. His works may be found at https://www.amazon.com/stores/Don-Miller/author/B018IT38GM?ref=ap_rdr&store_ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true

In worlds with pencils, schools page drink slime

/ cigarman501 / 2 Comments

Cannot disagree.

Steve Miller's avatarReflections Of A Gasbag

Yes boys and girls we are starting that time, the time where Word Salads run amok. The most wonderful time of the next two years. Politics in the great ole USA. Seems like yesterday we were getting over 2020. Seriously I think it was yesterday or as our Vice President would say it’s just a significance passage in time:

“The significance of the passage of time, right? The significance of the passage of time. So when you think about it, there is great significance to the passage of time…there is such great significance to the passage of time.” Such inspiring words from our second in command. One of our many politicians who have mastered the art of saying nothing substantial.

“I’ll show you politics in America. Here it is, right here. “I think the puppet on the right shares my beliefs.” “I think the puppet on the…

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