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A Little Piece of Heaven

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“Is it possible for home to be a person and not a place?” ― Stephanie Perkins, Anna and the French Kiss

“Home isn’t where you’re from, it’s where you find light when all grows dark.” ― Pierce Brown, Golden Son

“Outside the Front Gate”

We were separated from our “little piece of heaven” in the foothills of the Blue Ridge in the late summer of 1987 by a chain link fence and a locked gate with a puppy dog emblem on top. To ensure we didn’t venture in was a huge, bearlike dog. He was quiet but eyeing us warily from what I assumed was a garage but could have been the Blue Ridge’s largest doghouse. We didn’t know at the time that this would be our little piece of heaven but there was a sign on the driveway saying, “For Sale.”

“Sometimes you don’t know you are lost until you are found.”

We were out making memories as we did back then. Driving unknown roads hoping to get lost on some winding pig trail. Gas was cheaper and our car a steed to find adventure. It would be the beginning of many such adventures but none as important as this one.

We talked about the need to move into something larger. Something rundown we could renovate…a couple of acres of land to surround it. Somewhere we could spread out a bit. Something better for two people and three puppy dogs than a condominium. Somewhere to make memories. This was it we just didn’t know it at the time.

My bride exclaimed, “This is perfect.” “Not so fast” my Lee Corso voice said in my head. That’s not true, I didn’t know much about Lee Corso thirty-six years ago and don’t think ESPN’s Game Day existed. What was true was that there would be many pig trails and switch backs before it became “our little piece of heaven.”

 “Not so fast!”

My bride made the phone call as soon as we got home. When she gets something in her head, she takes the bit in her teeth and will not be turned even if it means galloping over a cliff. The realtor was nice but told us a couple was signing a contract on the property the following week. My bride was deflated. I wasn’t sure what I was.

He told us 3300 Highway 11 was an old farmhouse sitting on the front right corner on eighty-seven acres fronting Highway 11. We found later it was populated with eighty-seven acres of pines, oaks, mountain laurel, black walnuts, and hemlocks. It was cut by seven streams with the scattered remains of moonshine stills littering their banks. Some foggy mornings the smell of sour mash still permeates the air.

Old as in built in 1890. It was described as gently rolling but that was a lie. It was cut with streams that left deep ravines to be navigated. Significantly more land than we needed, and I took the realtor’s word as law and immediately forgot about the eighty-seven acres and the old two-story farmhouse.

A phone call later in the week brought it back to the forefront of my pea head. The realtor let us know, “The owner, Mr. Copeland, would like to meet you and would be willing to take you on a tour.”

Linda immediately jumped at the opportunity and the rest is history. After a day of being walked into the ground by a seventy-seven-year-old retired Methodist minister, Mr. Copeland walked out of the scheduled closing simply saying, “I like them better than you.”

“Through the Front Gate”

I don’t know how many times I’ve walked through our front gate but I’m always glad to be back. I feel like this is where I want to be…need to be. It is where that special person is and where darkness always turns to light.

Despite the trials and tribulations of the past thirty-seven years, this is home. Despite the concerns of getting too old to keep up with the place, no matter how run down or overgrown, this is home. This is home because Linda Gail is there along with the ghosts of people and puppies now gone.

Weekly Update

Linda had her second treatment. She is a little “wired” from the steroids but was able to get some sleep the night after. Two days removed from the chemo she looks like she sat too long in the sun and her bruises are more apparent due to the blood thinner she is on. She is weak as a kitten.

Earlier bloodwork indicates positive results so we are hopeful that the chemotherapy will put her into remission. Her hair is falling out and it has been a bitter pill but Linda being Linda has added colorful scarves, one her grandmother wore, and a floppy purple hat.

She was also gifted a beautiful wig. Thanks for all the prayers, cards of concern and good Ju Ju, and support. Special thanks to Kristen Coward for the beautiful, knitted throw and Christin Bennett for the beautiful wig.

The blog image is at the front gate looking in through Japanese Honeysuckle. It also served as a cover photo of the book, “Through the Front Gate.” It and other books and novels can be purchased at https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Famazon.com%2Fauthor%2Fcigarman501%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR0G8ELuHBR-zAMdiSZ_Z9GoeW5Psc0S14PJw504LpXFf52Jks6KPrEQaRQ&h=AT2IgW5Kbd1ZtAc4wst-zIreyxAHAKtKLouaz6WV3uU4HpYHAY8ein7iMLZ1tAGtutYNPRNJ-Osf6jiN7_6o5okZBWh-zAESJSSmXOdrud3JDHqu2HYvwGecM2OtWP_wdYT_QI-qUUsXgW1B-_qdtw

With a Little Bit of Love and Luck

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“Everybody needs a little good luck charm
A little gris-gris keeps you safe from harm
Rub yours on me and I’ll rub mine on you
Luckiest couple on the avenue” Jimmy Buffett, Love and Luck

I’m trying not to focus on bad luck. I’m waiting on Linda to ready herself for an unexpected trip to the hospital for an ultrasound. Her foot and leg are swollen and while swelling can be a byproduct of chemotherapy, the oncologist is sending us just in case. Don’t need a nasty blood clot…sometimes you get what you don’t need.

It would be easy to wallow in self-pity and rue the hand Linda and I have been dealt. It is hard to go with the flow when you worry the flow might be circling the toilet. As I question the direction of my flow a lyric from a Jimmy Buffett tune plays from my earbuds, “Mysteries, don’t ever try to solve them. We’re just players in this game and no one’s keepin’ score.“

Life is mysterious and not only is no one keeping score, no one knows the rules of the game.

Buffett left for “one particular harbor” Friday, luckily his music is still around to provide soothing anodynes when needed. He wasn’t the best singer or guitar player but there always seemed to be a message that rang loudly…even if it was a party tune. When not singing sea stories, or party songs, he shared his poetic philosophy set to his music. I felt profoundly uplifted when Love and Luck came up on my play list and it has been playing in my head for the last few days.

The first time that I heard of Buffett was from the juke box in a “ne’er-do-well”, hole in the wall bar in the mid-Seventies. It was a perfect Buffett venue. Low lights, a small bandstand, and the smell of beer and cigarettes…maybe “funny” cigarettes hung in the air. We were loud, at best tipsy, and laughed at Let’s Get Drunk and Screw.

Still, he didn’t speak to me until I was walking past a now closed record store in a now closed shopping mall. I had no intention of purchasing an album but after standing and listening to A Woman Gone Crazy on Caroline Street followed by My Head Hurts, My Feet Stink, and I Don’t Love Jesus being piped through the speakers, I was hooked and walked out with the album Havana Daydreaming. Several more albums followed.

“Better days are in the cards I feel, I feel it in the changing winds, I feel it when I fly. So, talk to me, I’ll listen to your story, I’ve been around enough to know there’s more than meets the eye.”

Linda has had a hard week and I’m trying to believe there will be better days. I really am. I’m trying to believe we’ll get to act like the crazy teenagers we never got to be once we get this craziness under control. Even if it is just in our heads. Boat Drinks and Gumbo in New Orleans again…but my knees won’t let me chase the street cars or fast dance to Freeway of Love. Walks along Fort Walton Beach…any beach. Any little seacoast town will do, the seedier the better.

So many sweet memories embrace me…am I retreating into the past too much with the ghost of Buffett riding as my navigator? We’ve had a good life. Am I wrong to want more?

“So have your fun, go ahead and tell your story. Find yourself a lover who will glue you to the floor.”

Life is a mystery and the near future even more so. There must be time for a story or two and a little bit of fun, a little bit of luck, a little bit of love.

I’ve found my lover but at my age, I’m not sure I could get up off the floor, glued or not.

Update

Monday’s ultrasound found a “nonoccluded” blood clot. Nonoccluded means that it is not obstructing blood flow but is still concerning. Linda received a shot of anticoagulant and we both received instructions on how to give the shot which must be administered daily, in the stomach, for a yet to be determined period. So far, I have administered two of them.

Tuesday, we had a surgical biopsy that we probably won’t know the outcome of until Wednesday.

Another battery of labs is scheduled for Thursday. We began the week with only the biopsy scheduled but that fell apart quickly.

Next week we have our second round of chemo.

My bride is still in good spirits through it all…well most of the time. I must remind myself that my fear is only surpassed by hers and sometimes frustrations get the best of us both. I’ll do my best to remember:

“With a little love and luck, you will get by
With a little love and luck, we’ll take the sky
In this megalo-modern world, you’ve got to try
Try a little love and luck and you’ll get by”

This post was written before the news of Jimmy Buffett’s passing on Friday September 1. It had to undergo some verb changes. I feel I have lost an old and dear friend. Jimmy has accompanied me on many long runs and walks, on trips, during backyard cookouts, and a party or five. His “drunken Caribbean rock and roll” coming to me through earbuds or speakers. So glad I got to see him in concert. His spirit and philosophy will continue to live on. “But there’s one particular harbor/ So far yet so near/ Where I see the days as they fade away/ And finally disappear.”

Image of Buffett from the New York Post September 14, 2018. https://nypost.com/2018/09/14/jimmy-buffett-went-surfing-just-before-hurricane-florence/

Love and Luck by Jimmy Buffett
Track eleven on Boats Beaches Bars & Ballads produced by Michael Utley & Russ Kunkel

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

Walk of Life

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“If you seek creative ideas go walking.
Angels whisper to a man when he goes for a walk.” ― Raymond I. OD Myers

I am sitting here, coffee in hand, waiting for the angels to whisper and watching the glow of the impending dawn.  I am up for no reason other than I woke up, but my creativity is still asleep.  My alarm is set for 6:00 but it never goes off. It is set because there are medications to be dispensed but I wake up ahead of it.

Every day at 5:00 plus or minus fifteen minutes I meet the day.  “Bright eyed and bushy tailed” or as a coaching friend used to yell to his charges “Another day in which to excel.” The puppies, now awake, look up at me as if to say, “Another day, already? Can you at least feed us?”

During better days, I would be off and running or walking in the dark, my headlamp bouncing and holding back the monsters I might encounter along the road. My own form of “the walk of life.” I was creative during those runs. I don’t know if it was angels whispering or trying to think about anything other than the hill I was about to climb.

My bride, Linda Gail, and I greet the day differently.  I am up and ready to go. “Hit the decks a runnin’ boys and turn those barrels around.” (From an old Johnny Horton tune) She on the other hand is “sorta” awake and pissed off about it.  Linda Gail likes to ease into the day…over an extended period.  “Bring me my coffee and then shut up!  Do not talk to me!”  Thirty minutes later I check on her…with another cup of coffee to replace the one now cold on her bed side table.  Thirty minutes later, she is ready to talk about everything she has been thinking about the last hour. 

When we retired, I decided to use her “ease into the daytime” time as my exercise time.  As you might surmise, I am ready to go to bed about the time Linda Gail is hitting her second wind and fighting sleep like the child that she is.  Sometimes I don’t understand how we have survived each other.

I once used my running and walking to declutter and silence the voices in my head. I also used it for creativity, going over plots in my head or waiting for divine enlightenment from my angels of creativity…until Linda Gail got involved. The way we meet the day really wasn’t as big an issue when we both worked…well it was when we decided to do our exercise walk…together…before we went to work…in the dark…while she was pissed off.    

At first it was due to her fear. I had a heart attack and for six months she was fearful about letting me walk and run alone. During the summer it was not a problem but when the school year began our schedules had to change. I would ease out of bed at four-thirty. I would then wake Linda at five-thirty, bring her coffee and a banana and take off for a thirty-minute run with a plan to meet her for a thirty-minute walk at six. A shower at 6:30 and plenty of time to get to school by 8:00.

That was the plan…which, like well-made plans sometimes do, went asunder.  Usually, I would continue to walk or jog back and forth over the short Airline Road until she showed up…fifteen to thirty minutes late, coffee in hand…and I did not dare make a comment.  The one time I commented did not go well.  On those mornings she showed up early I knew I better be quiet and just walk.  It didn’t matter, any day I should just be quiet and walk until she began to initiate the conversation.  “Why are we whispering?  Are we afraid we might wake up the bears?”

Linda Gail and I didn’t exactly walk for the same reasons.  She walked totally for her head to battle depression…with a cup of coffee in her hand and with frequent stops to point out plants, animals, or reptiles.  In other words, a stroll to “elevate her mind.”  I did it for my head too, but I also walked for exercise.

We haven’t been walking together lately…despite being “yoked” together for thirty-seven years. The brutality of life has intervened along with the brutal heat; our walks have slowed almost to a stop. We finally ventured out to the path around the lake at Look Up Lodge.  A nice slow, reasonably flat stroll on one side of the lake.  A short walk to build up her strength. It proved what I knew, “I have missed our walks.”  I have also missed our talks although I did ask if I had her permission to chatter…old habits, I guess.  Comfortable old habits.

Update on our Walk of Life

Linda is much stronger but battling her neuropathy and foot and leg swelling that sometimes accompanies chemotherapy. We saw a cancer surgeon who muddied the waters a bit. He feels she has been misdiagnosed as to the type of cancer and has scheduled a new and different type of biopsy next week before her next chemo treatment the following week. I’m unsure as to what this means if anything. The plan is the same, continue the “walk of life” as long as possible and as long as it is a quality walk. To all who sent their support and cards of encouragement, thank you. They mean a lot.  

Obviously, this has nothing to do with Dire Strait’s “Walk of Life” but why should I let that bother me? Thank you, YouTube. Besides, I’m not even sure what Dire Strait’s song is about. Enjoy.

Some neat 80’s sports bloopers as a bonus.

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

The Girl with the Pumpkin on her Head: A Love Story

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“You fell in love with a storm. Did you really think you would get out unscathed?”
― Nikita Gill

When attempting to decide what kind of writer I wanted to be, I authored a book that was a collection of stories about my life with Linda Gail in the foothills of the Blue Ridge entitled “Through the Front Gate.” The book was a collection of stories, no rhyme or reason, I’m not sure I had any goal in mind. Most of the selections centered around the woman I married and the ancient farmhouse we bought. I think I’m going to rewrite it. I’ll have a goal this time…and I hope I’ve grown as a writer. Yes, there is a rewrite in my future.

***

My Birth

“Maybe love at first sight isn’t what we think it is. Maybe it’s recognizing a soul we loved in a past life and falling in love with them again.” ― Kamand Kojouri

I was born in the fall of my thirty-fifth year in 1985. I say this because my “real” life didn’t begin until she said yes.

I hadn’t planned to ask her to marry me. I thought I was too scared to ask as in “already twice burned” scared. As I asked, I looked intently into her hazel eyes and noticed they turned from gray green to bright green. I have learned over the years that green doesn’t always mean GO! Sometimes it means run like hell and be prepared to duck while you are doing it. This was not one of those times.

It was a spontaneous moment. I hadn’t really contemplated asking until I asked. It was a simple…almost casual, “Why don’t we get married.” As the request came out of my mouth, I knew it was blessed by the “gods of matrimony.” She must have thought so too, she said yes.

We weren’t young, I was thirty-five, she a year younger. We were both old enough to know better. Many friends were shaking their heads in disbelief. I had a couple of failed excursions into matrimony, she had never been married. She had been asked more than once but was still holding out for “mister right.”

When I asked for hand, her mother looked me straight in the eyes and without much expression of support said, “I’ll pray for you.” Her father’s comment foretold the future, “I don’t know why you are asking me. She’s never listened to me before.”

I don’t know when I first met Linda Gail, my ex-roommate’s on again, off again girlfriend. If you believe in reincarnation, I may have met her in a previous life. It is as if she has always been around.

I remember her in a striped bikini top over purple shorts as she helped my ex-roomy clean his boat. I noted she was a fine figure of a woman. I found out later she baits her own hook and will take off any fish she catches.

Later there was an early football season encounter on top of a press box before a football game.

We disagree on the moment we met, but I know when I was first smitten. She had an inflated pumpkin on her head preparing to celebrate Halloween.

She was a well-put together, remember the bikini, petite little girl with curly brown hair and twinkling hazel eyes. She had prominent cheek bones but was missing a spray of freckles across her nose. Her smile might be a bit off kilter and she never smiles enough.

Linda doesn’t just enter a room; she explodes into the room. Motion in several different directions as she talks more with her hands than she does with her mouth.

We would become fast friends with a heavy accent on friends. It would be the following football season before I had enough nerve to say yes when she asked me out. I was slow to act because of my relationship with her ex-boyfriend but the action was rapid once it began.

Slow to act but quite interested. I’d like to say that the relationship took off when the ex-boyfriend was transferred to a city three hours away, but the truth is we continued to dance around each other for six months before we finally decided to dance together.

There were friendly “flare-ups” until she took it upon herself to invite me to see an old friend of hers singing at a hole in the wall named the “Casablanca.” It looked nothing like “Rick’s Place” in the movie, but the singer/piano player might have been better than “Sam”. Ronnie didn’t sing “As Time Goes By” though but might have banged out a version of “That Old Time Rock and Roll.”

Yes, a rewrite is in order with a few more added stories.

Update:

As I write this, we are exactly one-week past Linda Gail’s first chemo treatment. I now know that if you have never been through chemo or supported a loved one going through chemo, you have no idea how painful it is.

For two days after, my bride was frantically manic and then the wheels fell off. There was a great deal of pain we weren’t expecting, and she is quite tired and weak. Emotionally, late in the day she grows fangs and bites. Thankfully, there was no nausea.

She is weak but has grown stronger and we have two weeks of reprieve to get stronger until the next one.

It is a learning experience. I have also found out that this disease is not just limited to the person who has it. It is a family disease.

Don’s books may be purchased in soft cover or downloaded at Amazon.com: Don Miller: books, biography, latest update

Controversy Sells

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“This is almost always the case: A piece of art receives its f(r)ame when found offensive.”
― Criss Jami, Healology

Okay, before we argue, I am using the broadest definition of art. Painting, sculpture, music, theater, movies, literature, etc., including a 4-6-3 double play in baseball, especially if it involved Ozzie Smith. Anything done by Ozzie Smith must be considered, at the very least, “artistic” as he danced around the left side of infield.

As if we don’t have enough political dissent, over the past couple of months, we have had controversies involving the arts, sculpture, music, literature, and movies, two within the past month. You know them unless you have been sequestered in the deepest South American jungle for the six months. What do they have in common…money to be made…and in my humble opinion the controversy is stupid!

Michelangelo’s David controversy that got a Florida principal fired, Jason Aldean’s song and video, “Try That in a Small Town”, and the movies “Barbie” and “The Sound of Freedom.” All have created much controversy and as a byproduct created financial boom.

Okay, not for Michelangelo. Mike has been dead for several centuries, and the Florida principal is still fired. She did get an invitation to come to Italy to see the real thing. That seems a very “small” reward. However, it did put Renaissance art back in the public eye which created the problem in the first place.

Artistic controversy is not new, something many artists consciously and actively pursue. Who can forget “Fountain” by Marcel Duchamp, which was a porcelain urinal signed with Duchamp’s pseudonym, R. Mutt, and presented as a sculpture. Who can forget it? I just learned of it but from what I read, it created controversy in 1917 and brought Duchamp to the forefront of the art world and praise from plumbers everywhere.

One man’s art is another’s urinal

A controversy I do remember, Robert Mapplethorpe’s The Perfect Moment Exhibition, 1989, found itself steeped in controversy due to graphic S&M content. The Philadelphia Museum of Art, who had organized the show, had received federal funding from the National Endowment of the Arts. Senator Jesse Helms mobilized a group of members of Congress to sign an angry letter to the NEA.

The show was supposed to open at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., a museum that received a great deal of federal funding, but amid the outcry, the director canceled the show. Financial boom in reverse. To keep funding the exhibit was cancelled.

Aldean’s “Try That in a Small Town” wasn’t particularly popular or a huge money maker until the video splashed like a warm cow patty. When the CMA decided to pull the video over the message of the video, country music fans chose up sides and sent the song to the number one spot on Billboard. All that free advertising. As I understand it, the song also dropped from Billboard’s Number 1 to 27th in record time. Once controversy is replaced by newer controversy, we quickly forget the old one.

Not all controversies translate into financial boom as the then Dixie Chicks found out. During a London concert in March 2003, the band declared that they were “ashamed” of fellow Texan, President George W. Bush, who was planning to invade Iraq.

The comments sparked backlash and the group’s music was pulled from several radio stations and their record sales took a hit. Rebranded as The Chicks, which didn’t enamor them to Southerners, the fourteen-time Grammy winners have never regained their fame.

I grew up in a time of protest music and wonder if, those supporting the message of “Try That in a Small Town” or The Chicks fall from grace would be as supportive of Nina Simone’s “Mississippi Goddam” or Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit.” No need to argue the point, I’m just wondering aloud and yes, I did bring race into the statement.

In case you received your history education from the deep South in the Sixties and Seventies, you may wonder what I’m talking about. Simone’s song was a reaction to the racially motivated 1963 Mississippi church bombing that claimed the lives of four innocent children, and Holiday’s, a protest of the lynching of Black Americans with lyrics that compare the victims to the fruit hanging from trees.

Billie Holiday

There were plenty of folks who protested both songs at the time. “We got several letters where they had actually broken up this recording and sent it back to the recording company, really, telling them it was in bad taste,” Simone said during a 1964 interview on the Steve Allen Show. “They missed the whole point.”

Holiday’s song, first sung in 1939, came as lynchings of Blacks had reached a peak in the Southern United States during the first third of the 20th century. Southerners were not impressed, and the song received little play south of the Mason-Dixon.

Movies have always been controversial. From “I Am Curious (Yellow)”, “A Clockwork Orange”, to “The Passion of Christ”, sex, violence, or religion have always driven the controversy and now we get to add partisan political positions to those controversy.

Original Cinema Quad Poster – Movie Film Posters

Jim Caviezel, who once played Jesus Christ in Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of Christ”, stars in “Sound of Freedom.” The controversy is not over whether the movie is good or bad but over certain inaccuracies and Caviezel’s supposed ties to Qanon. I don’t know if the movie is good or bad because I haven’t seen it, but I know every movie that is based on “true events” has inaccuracies and untruths for the sake of drama and “esthetic appeal.”

Caviezel’s ties? I liked him in “Person of Interest” and “The Thin Red Line” before I knew his political affiliation and I will still like his acting now that I know it. To like one’s acting ability doesn’t mean I have to like the actor or agree with his politics…or vice versa. If it weren’t for people politicizing, I wouldn’t know his political posture today.

“Sound of Freedom” has made over one hundred million at the box office, mainly from efforts by those on the political right supporting it and the left denigrating it. That being said, the left has won the money battle with “Barbi.” “Barbi?” Over one billion in three weekends. The right yells, “woke, woke, woke” and the left goes and turns it into a billion-dollar movie…about dolls. Only this week’s Mega Million lottery winner made more.

I’m sure millions of current or former Barbi doll owners bought tickets regardless of political standing but much of the controversy surrounding the movie was over whether the Ken character had enough testosterone or was he a sniveling little, whoosie. A character based on a doll with no man parts to begin with.

Liking or disliking art due to political affiliation seems…I don’t know…what is worse than stupid. Mindless? Do I like the painting, the song, or the movie? Did I ask how Cassius Marcellus Coolidge, the artist who created the “Dogs Playing Poker” voted in his last election? No, I just like paintings of puppies smoking cigars and playing poker. No controversy there.

Note: Please don’t point out that I left out…. Sadly, there are dozens of controversies over literature I could have picked. I just don’t have the time.

Update: Things change fast when dealing with controversy. Contemporary Christian music star Derek Webb’s collaboration with Drag Queen Flamy Grant on his new album “The Jesus Hypothesis” has thrust them both into the cross hairs of conservative Christians attacking the release. What happened? The protest AGAINST those attacks have propelled the singing-songwriting drag queen and Webb to the top of the Christian music charts. Yes, controversy sells.

Flamy Grant Sings and Strums

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

Update: The Luck of the Draw

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“Today we fight. Tomorrow we fight. The day after, we fight. And if this disease plans on whipping us, it better bring a lunch, ’cause it’s gonna have a long day doing it.”
― Jim Beaver, Life’s That Way

Three and a half weeks ago we failed to draw two to an inside straight. An update on Linda Porter-Miller.

The oncologist confirmed that the biopsy verified our worst fears. Rather than let us sit in stunned silence the doctor prattled along telling us that it was his belief that we could get Linda’s disease into remission. There would be chemo, but surgery might not be in our future because of the way the disease has progressed.

Linda, my better half for nearly forty years, refuses to use the word that describes the disease, but oncologist and chemo are give aways to what we are facing. The disease has focused on her female parts, south of the border, and I will leave it there.

Those who played for or coached against Coach Porter-Miller know what a competitive little girl she is and will have no doubt in the belief of Jim Beaver’s quote, “And if this disease plans on whipping us, it better bring a lunch, ’cause it’s gonna have a long day doing it.”

Everyone who knows her knows too, she is a complicated individual who is not satisfied to battle just one disease. The Monday before we were to have a PET scan and begin chemotherapy, she decided to have a TAI stroke. Two days in the hospital and a battery of tests proved she had had more than one and we went into battling a two-front war, putting off the chemo for a week.

In typical Miss PE fashion, (Miss PE is what her elementary students called her) she has decided it was the best thing that could have happened. Better to know now than to find out in the middle of a war that your rifle was going to misfire. (I apologize for mixing metaphors from gambling to warfare)

She has recovered from the stroke nicely. She stumbles over the occasional word, especially when texting but still talks ninety miles a minute. She makes as much sense now as she always did.

So, we began chemo two days ago, three by the time this is posted. Linda has done well. The big challenge has been keeping up with and when to take the myriads of drugs we are forced to take or in my case administer. We also found out that Linda can’t tolerate the Claritin she was prescribed to counter bone pain. I am reminded of a college student hopped up on “Black Beauties” cramming for an exam.

She is hyper and restless, unable to sleep. I know this is temporary and she needs to rest. I expect her to go “bust” at any moment and wind down like a child’s toy. She needs to rest. This is the first of six treatments. I expect a hard fight and hope for a long fight.

Friends, family, former players, and coaching peers, Linda doesn’t “do” Facebook but if you want to drop a note, I’ll pass it along or if you want to send a card, our address is Linda Porter-Miller 3300 Highway 11, Travelers Rest, SC, 29690.

Luck of the Draw

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“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.