humor

DRUNKS, FOOLS AND … OTHER FOLK WHO HAVE ENDED UP IN MY YARD

/ cigarman501 / Leave a comment

Another one last night. There is an old quote that goes something like “God takes care of or looks out for drunks, fools and children” …and on my particular stretch of Highway 11, the Cherokee Scenic Highway, I would add old ladies, former students, members of the South Carolina General Assembly, their mistresses, car and motorcycle thieves and our South of the Border brethren. Why do I say this? Because at one time or another all have ended up in my yard with their wheels pointed toward the sky and not one has been unable to walk away. While most were not unscathed, most only had minor bumps, cuts and bruises from their brush with fate.

My home sits one-third of the way up a high hill between two curves and for some reason people have a hard time navigating those two curves. Drunk, sober, day light, night time, rain or clear as a bell, it just doesn’t seem to matter. In our near thirty-years here we have witnessed at least three dozen “brushes with fate” …that we actually know about. There have been others we have not witnessed with only jagged pieces of plastic, metal or glass to attest that they occurred…like last night. There have been many memorable ones but I won’t bore you with them all.

We always hear them first. A tattle tale scream of sliding tires signifying that they had gone into to the curve to fast, smashed their brakes and over compensated. This is usually followed by a “thump” we feel as much as hear. How fast they were going determines where they ended up. After using my side of the hill as a ski ramp a drunk wrapped his car around my closest neighbor’s pine tree and kept trying to extricate himself early one morning. As I sleepily wandered down my drive I watched the tree top sway back and forth as “I got a snoot full Tommy” jammed his gear shift first into reverse and then into forward, not realizing his car was in a “horse shoe” around the now dying pine. Not really knowing what to expect I watched him warily as left his car, tripping twice before he fell face first into a bank. He didn’t even try to break his fall. I felt safe. As I rushed to assist he hopped to his unsteady feet and in a voice that was preceded by the smell of stale beer and cigarettes explained, “I thought I could drive it out.” I jokingly responded “Not without a chainsaw.” He didn’t get the joke and asked, “Man, you got one?” He was not happy when the state constabulary showed up. He fixed me with a drunken stare and said “Man, you sold me out.” Yep.

I have heard said that if you fall from a high place your life flashes in front of your eyes. I don’t know because in order to fall from a high place one must climb to a high place and that AIN’T GONNA HAPPEN! I do know if you are facing what might be certain death your life does just that. With one more post hole to dig, I had paused to rest my aching arms when I heard the scream of locked up tires. As I spun I saw the out of control car become airborne while making a bee line straight for me. As I moved to my left, the car landed and spun “butt-end” forward…and again homed in on me. Time slowed but my life flashed. Ooooh, I HAD FORGOTTEN THAT LITTLE TIDBIT. At the last moment it veered away from me and I tripped over a rock and ended up in the stream below, which put me in a perfect position, albeit wet, to see the car crash, rear end first, into the concrete culvert that my stream ran through. The older lady seemed to be ejected through her open window when her shoulder harness caught and “reeled” her back in. I ran to her fearing the worse. She just looked at me and said, “I guess I hit my brakes a bit too hard. I thought we were both goners.” As had I but I asked if I could assist in anyway before running to call the authorities. She looked up and with a “toothless grin” explained, “I seem to have lost my teeth when I went out the window, do you think you might look for them.” “Pride goeth before the fall” but no self-respecting “Autumn Belle” should be without her false teeth while waiting for an ambulance. I found them and while rinsing them in the stream discovered I had dislocated a finger in my fall. Boy did that hurt…but not until I looked at it.

I left to run on a Sunday morning several years ago and I remember that it was a glorious day. The sun was still just below the horizon but with the stars still twinkling above I knew we were in for a bright blue sky once Old Sol rose from his slumber. Despite being on the wrong end of a ten mile run I was as happy as if I had good sense until I looked down toward my mailbox. A highway patrol car, a car on its top, what appeared to be three bodies laid out side by side and a short dark guy speaking with great animation to a highway patrolman. The three bodies weren’t bodies at all but they were all as drunk as ole “Cooter Brown” or the Spanish equivalent, “Cooter Marrón,” and were sleeping it off in the now early morning sun. I am sure that later in the day they might have prayed for death and the highway patrolman JUST LEFT THEM LAYING THERE to sleep it off! The wrecker showed up, took the car, and the highway patrolman JUST LEFT THEM THERE. I couldn’t just leave them there. “Habla Ingles?” I got a head shake, IN THE NEGATIVE, followed by “Habla Espanol?” With my thumb and pointer finger held close together I reluctantly said, “un poquito.” We are off to a great start and I wish I had paid better attention in my college Spanish class. Using a combination of pidgin English, Spanish and wild hand waving I determined that they lived “somewhere over there.” According to his hand signals somewhere between Nova Scotia and Miami. Ten minutes later they piled out of my old land cruiser in Marietta, not Miami, and despite their hangovers erupted into smiles, head bobbing and a chorus of “muchas graciases.” There were other phrases that might have translated to “You are my hero” but I am not sure. My last thought was a hope they had a bit of the “hair of the dog” to help them with the hangovers that were sure to come.

For great #nonfiction on #Kindle try Don Miller at http://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM

GROWING OLDER GRACELESSLY

/ cigarman501 / 3 Comments

Lying in bed I go through the same progression every morning. I wonder if I move, “Am I going to break?” I begin by wiggling, first one little toe, then the other and gradually work my way up. My goal is to get my feet on the ground and stand erect without making the same noises my father made when he was my age…I am now faced with the realization I have outlived my father by five years. That is a sobering thought. My second goal is to check the local obituaries and find that my name is not listed there.

While I am aware of my age, it has not been an issue until recently. For the past year I have battled an arthritic knee that keeps me from running and rocked a vertebra onto my sciatic nerve while splitting wood that, for a month, kept me from doing just about everything else. Bad enough but a conversation with a friend of mine really made me pause to consider the question of my age. Married, hers is a May-December romance. She is May and he is December…which is not true. She is more April and he is more, say, October. With his impending retirement she has suddenly become concerned about her husband’s age or rather what her husband’s age might have in store for them both. Seeking enlightenment from me, I was not able to give it. My mind asked “Why is she asking me? I’m not old?” My body answered, “You’re three years older than her husband.” Gee, where is my cane?

Today I got to do my “Medicare Wellness Profile.” It included an eye test, whisper test, walking test and questionnaire with such thought provoking questions as “Can you bathe and wash yourself without help?” Yes, and I can wipe my butt too. All went with the normal check of BP, ability to process oxygen and EKG. “You want me to get out of a chair, walk six feet return and sit down again?” Oh me! The nurse in charge said I passed with flying colors until you consider I am being compared to “really old people,” something the old bat pointed out. Funny, I think like a young person, but I guess the mirror doesn’t lie. Why couldn’t I have at least had Sam Elliott’s hair?

Forty years ago, during the first jogging craze, I began a haphazard exercise regimen. Haphazard in that I would allow anything to get in the way in order to avoid it. Finally getting my mind right in the Early-Nineties, I got into the habit of exercise…until a side lunge put me in the hospital to have cartilage removed. No more lunges of any type. Later a miss step on the baseball field would require the other knee to be scoped for the same reason and in 1999 I had the second of two operations on an arthritic big toe. I found myself out of the habit of exercise and into any habit that involved sitting on a couch and consuming mass quantities of fried foods and beer. Forty pounds later I could not deny what the mirror was showing me. Two hundred and thirty-two pounds on my five foot nine frame could no longer be hidden. I was sloppy fat. On April 8, 2006 I made the decision that I had to make radical life style changes. My realization would be further emphasized the next day.

In a month I will celebrate another birthday and a ten-year anniversary. “Happy birthday to you…How old are you? F@#$ YOU and your horse!” Family had gathered to celebrate my birthday on April 9. Always irreverent, my brother presented me with a birthday card featuring a grim reaper reflected in a car’s rear view mirror and the warning “Objects may be closer than they appear.” Five hours later I found myself hooked up to a gazillion monitors after having just survived a heart attack and having had a catheter and stint surfed into a clogged artery. One month later the original stint would be joined by three more in three different arteries. I was six months away from a loss of seventy pounds and running a 5-K. Yes, it was a radical life style change. My brother was so broken up about the card he had given me, I got it again the next year. It is now framed as a constant reminder of what I am trying to outrun or out walk at least.

For ten years now I have drug myself out of bed and done something. Now at least I wait until the sun is up. At any age, walking, running, cycling, stretching and strength training, I guess it’s all about movement. Moving your ass out of bed and onto something more productive. If I happen to live to be ninety-five I want to be mobile and not in bed…wait. Bed? I just thought of a great way to die…traumatic as it might be for the other individual…or group. I would have to stay in good shape to do it. I believe I will get out of bed in the morning and do what I have been doing for the last ten years.

Move that butt Lard-O! Time’s a wasting!

For great #nonfiction try Don Miller at http://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM

WHEN PIGS FLY….

/ cigarman501 / Leave a comment

Despite having written about pigs recently, when I left this morning for my daily walk I had no idea that I would have a flood of thoughts about pigs…I was just thinking about the upcoming election I guess. I think about the election a lot. In fact, I pray about the election a lot but as yet I have had no divine enlightenment. The silence is deafening. I wish the debates were…silent, they are already deafening with their stupidity.

“I’m gonna be as happy as a hog in slop!” With the outcome of this election? “When pigs fly maybe!” There are no good choices and I fear whoever wins is going to leave us “smiling like a dead pig laying in the sunshine.” In other words, some of us will be ”smiling” but things will not be as good as we might want to believe they might be…regardless of which party wins. (In case you don’t know, dead pigs go through biological changes that includes their lips pulling away from their teeth giving them a macabre smile. This smile gives them an extremely happy appearance despite they’re being dead)

I have already called the primary process. It’s over. The election will be one of “Macbeth’s witches,” a sullied Hillary versus a Donald who could have been cast as Napoleon in “Animal Farm.” The rest of the candidates are dead men walking. What a choice! I remember my father using a short analogy to make a point about one of my friends he was uncertain about. Dad was famous for using analogies, metaphors or similes to make his points. He said, “Son, do you know what you have if you bathe and shave a pig and put a red bow around his neck?” After I looked at him dumbly for a moment he answered his own question. “A PIG!” As soon as you turn your back on him that old hog will head right back to his mud hole no matter how clean or dressed he is.” Profound and spot on when referring to our presidential choices.

Profound but not true, as I have found out. Pigs are actually much cleaner than our politicians and will pick a swimming pool filled with fresh water over a mud hole any old day. It seems our politicians would rather wallow in a mud hole full of lobbyist, special interest groups and corporations rather than running the chance of staining themselves in the swimming hole that is “We the People.” I am including our entire population as “We the People,” the rich and poor along with those of us swimming like crazy to stay in the middle. It would also include all races, religions and sexual leanings not just the ones the majority believes in. If our presidential winner decides to return to the mud hole that is our political system, I fear he or she will find plenty of company. I visualize Congress making mud pies instead of doing their job…much like the previous seven years.

Suddenly the silence is not so deafening. I believe I will write in a vote for the pig. At the very least I will know what I have if he is elected. “Sooooooie Pig, Sooie.”

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

FLOPPY PARTS: A FORWARD

/ cigarman501 / 1 Comment

ONCE UPON A TIME…

Why write a short collection of “sorta” non-fictional stories about men and their “floppy parts?” I don’t know. Do I have to have a reason? Might it have been a longer collection if I were more gifted or if I had more interesting stories? Did I have to include stories about my own floppy parts? All of these are questions I asked myself before they ever formed in your mind. The major females in my life – my wife, daughter and a cousin who is trying to read this collection and to provide a woman’s point of view along with edits – are all appalled. I am sure my granddaughter would make it unanimous if she could read. I am safe there…for a while. She still loves me as long as I bring her favorite toy Linda Gail when I visit.

While discussing my writings with my brother, my eavesdropping-adult and married daughter commented, “Why are you writing about floppy men’s stuff?” Accompanying the question was a look that reminded me of the taste of a very bad oyster. My wife won’t discuss it at all unless you count eye rolls as discussion, and to quote Cousin Cyndi, “I would love for you to take your God-given talent of writing and delve into a deeper, more socially-redeeming subject. Shift your focus from your genitalia to your heart.” I am not sure I can do one without the other and I really am unsure about the talent thing, God-given or otherwise. I would guess one of my reasons for writing this is the relationship between my genitalia and my heart. Notice, there was no mention of my brain. So, it would seem, as far as the women in my life are concerned, all is normal.

While I have been in the company of women who were just as ribald as any guy, I don’t think most women understand the preoccupation men have with their floppy parts. Watch men lying around in the comfort of their own homes. Try to do this without their knowledge. Why are they stuffing their hands down into the front of their underwear? Are they keeping their hands warm or checking to make sure the something hasn’t just fallen off? It is just that simple a fact; it is a preoccupation with their, or rather our, floppy parts… and a preoccupation with the opposite sex’s floppy and not so floppy parts. Don’t they go gland in gland…ahhhhh… would be hand and hand. Gee, that sounded even worse! The male’s preoccupation seemed to be validated at a place I would never have expected floppy parts to rear their ugly heads – an assisted living facility. Bless my soul! I have heard stories about the wild happenings at some of these facilities for the aged but had dismissed them as urban myths. I find I was wrong… I wasn’t expecting any debauchery at a party for a family member celebrating her one-hundredth birthday. Dora is a very attractive, sweet and vital woman who is still quite mobile despite her walker and doesn’t look or act a day over…ummm…eighty. A gentleman from the facility who looked older than Dora asked, “What’s the celebration?” After being told we were celebrating Dora’s hundredth birthday, the great grandfatherly-looking gentleman exclaimed with a cackle, “If I had known she was that old I would have tried to nail her sooner!” Dora, you might want to brace yourself or keep your door locked.

So, this collection of short stories is mostly about men and their preoccupation with their floppy parts and covers several topics including athlete’s foundation garments, pain and injury, and relationships, mainly mine. It is not intended to be profound or socially relevant, although I do have hopes they will help the author come to grips with the wee bit of guilt that consumes him from time-to-time. I have had a strange and wonderful relationship with the opposite sex. I find them both strange and wonderful and this confliction has caused me much pain over the years. Well, there had to be some pleasure or I would not have kept proposing to them…hummm…there IS a thin line between pleasure and pain. Just the width of four little words – “Will you marry me?”

Sooooooo, these stories are intended to be humorous and to encompass former students, players, peers and the author himself and are written from a decidedly male point of view. They are BASED upon true stories and, despite the pain – physical or otherwise – no animals (human or alien) were permanently injured or killed in the production of this compilation. It is a book about pain and pleasure, love and hate, and sanity and insanity. It is also about the confusion the author has over which of these opposites are which, along with a question as to whether that “overwhelming feeling” might be love or lust.

You may assume there was some poetic license taken and the truth might have gotten twisted enough to be presented the way the author would have liked a story to have ended rather than the way it did. That way, if you actually know me, you really might not know who I was telling a story about…unless you do know, because some of the stories are completely true. What it is not is a graphic “kiss and tell” book. That would be oh so boring. I hope you enjoy the stories and find the humor that was intended. You know there is only one way for you to find it! So, begin… “Once upon a time, fifty some years ago….”

If you enjoyed this excerpt you may download or purchase FLOPPY PARTS at the following link: http://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM

HALF MARATHONS, BBQ AND POT BELLIED PIGS

/ cigarman501 / 4 Comments

I had returned joyfully from my first half marathon, a feat, if not biblical in scope, monumental for me. The ride home had replaced my post-race euphoria with a bone weary soreness and all I wanted was a hot shower, a post-shower brew or six and a nap.

I felt once I had accomplished these few, smaller feats I would be able to meet the evening along with partaking of a little BBQ with friends to celebrate my success. Instead I was faced with a lost “potbellied” pig. It was huge and it was outside of my back fence “root hogging” for all it was worth. The old idiomatic saying for self-reliance, “root hog or die,” did not seem to fit. I would say this pig had missed very few meals. It looked like a Vietnamese potbellied pig but it was huge, much larger than the three hundred or so pounds it was supposed to weigh. If it had been having to “root hog” to survive it had been doing a great job.

Linda and I debated what should be done and I was chosen to go out and “shoo” it away. My yelling must have sounded too much like “sooie” because he came to me rather than running away. There was a frayed rope around its neck…obviously a pet. He followed me into the goat pen and seemed to be quite happy to root around in left over lettuce, table scraps and goat pooh, his snout all moist and…yucky. After his late morning snack, he decided to plop down and take a nap. When I say plop, the earth moved.

What to do? There were only a few homes nearby and we knew our neighbors didn’t have pigs. How far can a pig roam? We drove to the nearest home with an unknown pig population and hit the jack pot right off the bat. Off the beaten path, at a crossroads with the Native American name of Chinquapin and Langston Circle, there was an old house in major need of under pinning and paint. The gentleman I found outside could have walked out of an “inbred cannibal finds a chainsaw horror movie” and was complete with overalls over a dirt stained “wife beater,” a sweat stained straw fedora on his head and broken down brogans on his feet. Yes, the requisite “chaw” was resting between his cheek and “toothless” gum.

When asked about a pig his response was to look under his house while explaining “I got one around here somewhere.” “Damn where did that pig get off to?” He further pointed out, in between spitting tobacco juice, “If it weren’t for my wife that hog would be in my fridge and not under my house.” I knew the feeling and decided I might ought to laugh.

Because I was having the “Motel Hell” vision of Rory Calhoun donning a pig’s head and picking up a chainsaw, I decided to bring the pig to its owner rather than the other way around. Doing so, I found out a lot of interesting facts about pigs. They won’t jump into the back of a pick-up and refuse to “walk the plank” onto it. Too heavy to lift without a front end loader, something I had, but once again “Piggy” was too smart for my own good. We were going to have to walk back…and I was already beat. Up Highway 11 and then left onto Chinquapin, “Piggy” and I were looking at a half mile uphill climb in what had become a moderately hot mid-day sun.

My education would continue. People look at you “funny” when you are out “walking your hog.” Some laughed and pointed fingers, others laughed and ran off the road although they recovered before doing any damage. I also found out pigs will run when they realize they are headed home and very quickly I might add, eleven to fifteen miles per hour. They don’t run in a straight line either, more like a destroyer trying to avoid torpedoes. To put this in perspective, I had just completed a half marathon running an averaging six and one half miles per hour. I was outclassed by a pig and in a full sprint to keep up.

Thankfully, despite the old saying “sweating like a pig”, pigs don’t have many sweat glands and when pigs become overheated they become “mule” like and simply lay down where they are. I say thankfully because I wanted to lay down next to him. Can pigs have a heat stroke? Yep. I had another thought involving the old Southern idiom, “As happy as a dead pig in the sunshine,” but was a little concerned which of us would be the “smiling” dead pig. Thankfully, we both survived. After a bit of rest, “Piggy” slowly sat up and continued on his way…at a much slower pace.

Later in the evening, after finally getting my shower and nap, I found myself at the Green River BBQ in Saluda. It was probably just my imagination but for some reason the pulled pork and ribs tasted just a bit sweeter. It also could have been the adult beverages I was trying to rehydrate with or the mental vision of a “potbellied” pig squirming to get under an old front porch.

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

BLACK SNAKES AND A NAKED WOMAN

/ cigarman501 / Leave a comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

TRIPPING OVER A ROOT WITH ESTERLEEN

/ cigarman501 / Leave a comment

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

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

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

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

ANIMALS GOING BUMP IN THE NIGHT

/ cigarman501 / Leave a comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

All maybe purchased as paperbacks.

THINGS GOING BUMP IN THE NIGHT

/ cigarman501 / Leave a comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

If you enjoyed this story, you might be interested in Don’s books which maybe downloaded on Kindle
Inspirational true stories in WINNING WAS NEVER THE ONLY THING $1.99 on Kindle at http://goo.gl/DiO1hcX
“STUPID MAN TRICKS” explained in Don Miller’s FLOPPY PARTS $.99 on Kindle http://goo.gl/Ot0KIu “Baby Boomer History” in Don Miller’s PATHWAYS $3.49 on Kindle http://goo.gl/ZFIu4V
All maybe purchased as paperbacks.

NOT GOOD SENSE

/ cigarman501 / 1 Comment

This is an excerpt from the book FLOPPY PARTS which focuses on one man’s battle with interpersonal relationships. “Not Good Sense” explains how my mind sometimes wanders into stories. FLOPPY PARTS may be downloaded or purchased at http://goo.gl/0Lt0O8

“NOT GOOD SENSE”

No one thinks MY tractor is sexy but…my thoughts are. I seem to do my best thinking when sitting on a tractor or a lawn mower. I do not understand why mowing my grass causes my mind to wander over a plethora of subjects, most of which have occurred in the far distant past and for some reason causes me to focus on my “little friends” or athletics or both. For clarification, when I speak of my “little friends” or floppy parts, I am speaking to or about my man parts and their effect on my miniscule male brain.

I may just be getting high off of the exhaust fumes but my wife calls what I am doing chasing rabbits. One of the newer verbiages in education has become the use of the phrase “bird walking” but I shan’t use educational verbiage but instead I think I shall use the archaic, yet applicable descriptor “wool gathering.” My wool gathering today has netted me “three bags full” of thoughts and probably will explain the less than tidy look of my yard. Please don’t tell Linda Gail about the small patch of iris that just got a closely cropped hair cut. I’m sure she will notice it all by herself. I don’t believe it is the actual sitting on the mower that triggers memories but rather the assault on my senses from the smell of cut grass and the feeling of perspiration that is soaking my clothes before finally pooling in the seat of my pants and in the bottom of my boots.

What seems quite bizarre to me is the falling domino effect that my memory takes on as one thought triggers another and another, on down the line at a speed that reminds me of a nuclear reaction. Much more than women, men are SO ruled by their senses. I still pick books by their cover, salivate heavily at the aroma of grilling steak or slow cooking BBQ, and still want a cigar anytime I taste Jack Daniels or vice versa. It would also explain why Playboy was able to have so many “thought provoking” articles and still be a top grossing magazine until internet porn took over. It also explains why beautiful and talented Julia Roberts ended up married, albeit briefly, to the very talented but yet bizarre looking Lyle Lovett. Men are driven more by their senses than women. Most women do find men’s brains to be sexy while men find women’s brains to be sexy if they are attached to a great set of…I will probably elaborate on this subject later but until you read my book you will just have to trust me. On this day it seems to be my sense of smell that triggers my memories. It is late August and although I have not coached football in over a decade nor played it in over four, it is the smell of fresh cut grass and later feel of oppressive humidity that takes me back to those early days of not only my youth but also my adulthood…and as crazy as it sounds my relationship and interaction with the opposite sex.

As I continue my ever decreasing circular path to nowhere, I am transported back to the old practice field behind my high school which always began the day wet with dew but ended the day as crusty and dry as the African Sahel. As I attempt to make sense of my mental wanderings I realize this field of athletic endeavor would be the beginning of my education, my meandering trip into adulthood and a journey that I have yet to complete or refine. It is inevitable that my senses will take me to a place I don’t want to go while sitting on a tractor. No matter how I battle it I am always drawn toward the opposite sex and the effect they have had on my own “floppy parts.” Hum, that might make a good title for a book.

Other books by Don Miller are

Inspirational true stories in WINNING WAS NEVER THE ONLY THING by Don Miller #1.99 on #Kindle http://goo.gl/DiO1hcX
“Baby Boomer History” in Don Miller’s PATHWAYS $3.49 on Kindle http://goo.gl/ZFIu4V