The Goat Man

When I was a teenager, I used to spend summers working with my father all over south Alabama, most of Georgia and into Mississippi. His business was cleaning and repairing shopping carts. We traveled around mostly secondary roads into places like Demopolis, Sylacauga, Clanton, Enterprise, etc. We also spent time in the larger cities as well. It was pretty boring and hot, merciless work for which I earned minimum wage.

I clearly remember the few occasions where we would run across the “ Goat Man ” traveling down a secondary, less traveled road. He was always to the side of the road and taking his time and did not seem to ever back up traffic. He was quite a sight with his little herd of 20-30 goats just ambling on down the road pulling a ramshackle old wagon on his way to no where and in no hurry to get there. He always inspired an image of speculation as to what he was all about. Some thought he had some sort of mystical power, I guess somewhat like a wizard. Others thought he was a holy man with a commanding evangelistic style and could save your soul. I guess in the fashion that Neal Diamond used to sing about Brother Loves Travelin Salvation Show. I think the sum and substance of the Goat Man was that he was a penniless, vagabond. There were many characters like him that seemed to find their way through Mayberry on the Andy Griffeth show. Sheriff Taylor always seemed to escort them on out of town as a few chickens and hams disappeared in their presence.

The speculation as to who he was was part of the fun and lore of seeing him. Back in the 60’s we did not have 15 round the clock news and information channels on the cable. As a matter of fact there was no cable TV. There was only a flimsy antenna that could bring in three of the major networks if you were lucky. Thus the speculation was just that, rumor and fantasy for the most part. Nowadays there could have been a reality TV show starring the Goat Man in the same vein as Honey Boo Boo. Perhaps he could have been a presidential candidate.

Wikepedia paints him as somewhat of a kook. His real name was Charles (Ches) McCartney. He had run away from the family farm in Iowa at age 14. I was raised on a farm and left around 14 yoa. I can certainly see the temptation to leave because it was hard work and the lure of the open road would have been tempting. He lived off of his goats and donations from strangers. He was a friendly sort of person and did a little preaching when the mood hit him. It was reported that he smelled very badly. Speculation would be, did he earn the moniker of “ goat man “ from the company he kept or because he smelled like one? He died in 1998. He claimed to be 106, but it is more likely that he was 97. He met his demise in a Georgia, nursing home. He married and had a son who preceded him in death along the way.

I remember moving to Tallahassee in 1972. After a short while living here and driving the streets I encountered a bearded man in a crown and a cape with a gold cross hanging around his neck. I soon learned that this was King Love. His real name was Kamal Abdou Youssef. King Love was born in Egypt in 1933 and matriculated to the states via New York, Tampa and ultimately to Tallahassee. He was a physician and had practiced pathology it was rumored and had somewhere along the way gone off the reservation. His mission in life was pretty simple. He would find a spot on a street corner and dance and shake a tambourine or beat on a drum and would espouse that love was the answer to all the world’s ills. Well, it was hard to argue with him on that accord.

He was obsessed with then Governor Bob Graham. He spent his social security check at Kinkos making up bulletins and flyers which he would toss across the fence at the Governor’s mansion. The security staff kept a close eye on him but never had to shoot at him. I had a golf partner, close friend, who was a practicing ER physician. He told me of an occasion when one of the nurses came to him and told him that King Love had been triaged into one of the exam rooms. He had to come immediately to see the King. The urgency was that he seemed depressed. This nurse declared that seeing King Love depressed was just too sad to deal with . My doctor friend had to do something immediately.  King Love died some time back in federally subsidized housing of natural causes here in Tallahassee. Culleys funeral home gave him a free funeral and burial. There were a surprising number of Tallahasseans in attendance.

I am not sure why I am blogging about this today. Maybe it is because it is rapidly becoming summer and my mind travels back to past summertimes when living seems to get a little slower and laziness descends on us. We are all about the hustle and bustle of whatever it is that we do. To have actually seen these two folk legends in my lifetime causes me to speculate as to what made them compelling? It is sort of like the bumper sticker that used to be popular, “ Why be normal ?” Indeed, why? We see these sorts of folks that seem to be caught up in their own little lives. They live in their private little dillusional existence and seem to get by while all the rest of us are pressing hard to make the buck to pay the rent and pay the utility bill and in my case buy some green peanuts for Nancy, my wife, who loves to boil her own peanuts in the summer time. I think, at least in my case, that there is some envy in play.

PFC James Clayton Reed

Re-post from May 2011:

My thoughts are turned this Memorial Day weekend to my first cousin, Jimmy Reed. He is one of 3 children born to my aunt Delores and Uncle Clay who lived in Los Angeles, California, light years from where I lived in West Virginia and later Montgomery, Alabama. We shared some happy childhood experiences. We did not see each other often but when we went to visit them or vice versa it was for extended periods of time. I remember him as being funny and entertaining. He was my younger brother's age almost exactly. They could always make me laugh.

Well here I am turning 65 in two days. I had a thirty year career with DuPont and got to travel a lot. I was able to carry some important assignments for DuPont and achieved some degree of recognition. I met a wonderful girl and we fell in love and raised 3 children. We have 7 grand children. I used to coach softball and baseball, volunteer in scouting, work in PTA, go on family vacations and just generally have had a great life.

Jimmy died just west of Khe Sanh during operation Purple Martin March 20,1969. That was just a little more than 30 days before his 19th birthday. He was a member of the D Company, First Battallion, Third MarDiv, USMC. He died that day along with 2nd Lt. Mike McCormick of Wellston, Ohio; LCpl Max Baer of Goshen, Ind; LCpl Steve Byars, Lakeland, Florida; LCpl Ernest Elders of Shelby, NC; PFC Norman Beck of Rockford, Il.; PFC Jeffrey Forry, Marion, OH and PFC Larry Knox of Harrisonville, MO.

I graduated from college in 1969 and rode a student deferrment to avoid military service. I also pulled a 344 as my draft lottery number. Were it not for those two happenstances I well could have had my name engraved onto that war memorial wall in Washington, DC. I have been there and was able to find Jimmy's name on that wall. It is a somber and eloquent memorial fitting as a requiem for those who gave their lives on various battlefields of the Vietnam war. For whatever purpose that war served I honor his memory this Memorial Day. I wish I could pick up the phone and call him and tell him a joke or two but that opportunity was nullified by the winds of war. His Mother, my aunt Delores, has grieved every day for her fallen son for 42 years now.

It is pure irony how some of us end up pursuing the military option. Today we have a totally volunteer military. You press the statistics on the makeup of our armed forces and you will see a lot of people who just seemed to have no other option than to join the military. The impetus is largely economic with job prospects being what they are. In mine and Jimmy's youth the draft was rampant. The selective service boards were steaming at full speed. In my case, had I not been a student it was a certainty that I would have been drafted into the miltary.

I recall that in those days you would report for a college class and two or three of the people that had been in the class the day before would be gone. You had to maintain a class standing to keep your draft exemption of 2-S. In order to do that you had to be in the upper 1/4th of your freshman class in academic performance. Fail to do that and you were draft fodder. Sophomores had to be in the upper 1/2 and Juniors in the upper 3/4. If you made it to be a senior then they left you alone. Along about my freshman year they administered the selective service standardized test. The guys at Harvard made the claim that the students in the bottom 3/4 of their freshman classes were superior to the upper 1/4 of the freshman class at State College X. So the selective service came up with the standardized test and administered it to us all in the second semester of my 1st year. You either had to maintain your academic standing or have scored 75% or better on the test. I remember scoring a 78 and my worries were ended.

There was also a point at which I was thinking I needed to drop out of college. I checked with the draft board and I was told the day after I did I would be reclassified 1-A and almost certainly drafted into the military. I do not know of Jimmy's circumstances but while I was studying Mark Twain in English 301 he was most likely doing basic training at Paris Island. Talk about worlds apart.

When I ponder the freedoms under which I live and also ponder the 58,220 war dead from the Vietnam war, the 405,399 from WW2 and the 116,516 from WW1 I feel guilty and appreciative at the same time. I do believe that those fallen willingly sacrificed their lives so that we could continue to breathe the free and unfettered air of liberty. I have to ask myself what sort of life have I led to justify the single death of my cousin Jimmy, not to mention the 100's of thousands of war dead who made similar sacrifices.

I suppose I have made small sacrifices but the bumper sticker I read once that said "All gave some but some gave all" makes me realize what an investment we all have in our freedom. Just about every American can tell a similar story as mine about my cousin, Jimmy. I contemplate why he had to lay down and die that day in Vietnam. It was because he felt the call to duty and like others of his family before him felt the obligation to serve. Pure and simple.

May we take a little time to really remember those who sacrificed their lives and well being to keep us safe and free this Memorial Day weekend. God bless you Jimmy. You were way too young to die. I hope to see you again someday, if I am worthy, and shake your hand and say thank you in person. I hope that you will see someone standing in front of you who you can feel justified your sacrifice. I need to work to become such.

LOUD AND OBNOXIOUS

How many times have you been lying in your bed at night and just drifting off to sleep and some Neanderthal comes driving by with his woofers at full WOOF?. He is very likely to be a pimply faced little boy who looks like a troll and could not buy himself a date with a girl. So he and his friends are cruising in your neighborhood, sharing the milk of their taste in Rap music. Wait a minute, delete the music from that sentence, because it ain’t and insert a capital C in front of the rap because it is.

There was such an event that occurred recently in Jacksonville that resulted when a citizen in between doses of his Adderall emptied his 9 MM magazine into a car of punks who were playing their music in a loud and obnoxious fashion in the parking lot of a convenience store. He asked them to turn the C-rap down and they refused. He then went off the reservation and killed one of them and mortally wounded 3 others. Betcha the one who assumed room temperature wishes that he had just turned it down if only for a brief moment. I think he earned a life sentence in Federal prison for his action. Betcha he wishes now that he had just gone home and taken his Adderall.

My wife and I were recently at the beach to celebrate our 43^rd wedding anniversary. We drove down to Mexico Beach one of our favorite hangouts. We always rent a room at the same place and enjoy the sounds of the surf. US Highway 98 runs right through the middle of Mexico Beach. Everywhere we looked we saw motorcycles. From the moment we checked into our room we heard the sound of motorcycles. For two days we got to see and hear, first hand, the participants in a week long gathering called “ Thunder Beach.”  I respect people’s right to own and operate a motorcycle. They are a fascinating sub-culture of people. Most of them wear Harley Davidson monogrammed clothing. Pretty much all of them have numerous and sundry tattoos many of which you would be ashamed for your minister, daughter or granny to see and read. The bikes they ride cost a pretty penny. I am not sure that Harley-Davidson stock is publicly traded but it bears looking into about like Smith and Wesson stock. One profile that I think demarcates the subculture is that most of them are OLD MEN. They have to have been successful to afford those Hawgs.  By the way do you know what they call motorcyclists down at the ER? Organ donors. In the meantime, ride those damnable things somewhere else besides my neighborhood or my beach.

I live on a busy street. The traffic at certain times is unmerciful. Everyone in Tallahassee cuts through Killearn Estates to get somewhere else. We also happen to have a very nice sidewalk that runs in front of my house. The joggers, walkers, bikers, pogo stick enthusiasts, etc. comprise a steady stream of traffic by my house. I cannot tell you the number of times that I have been awakened prior to 6:00 AM by runners and/or joggers that come by my house guffawing and talking to each other at the top of their lungs. It is the rudest, most selfish activity that I can imagine. Now I am proud of people who exercise. Heaven knows I could use a little more of it myself. However could you not do it without noise? How about give me your address so I can get my golf group together and drive golf balls off the side of your house at 4:00 AM.

I love the people who go walking through the supermarket with their cell phones on speaker. They are talking at the top of their lungs to someone on the other end talking at the top of their lungs. Do you really think the rest of humanity gives a rip what you and your genetically deficient friend are talking about? At the very least take it off speaker. At the very most wait til you get home to hold this meaningless, superfluous conversation.

Even mother nature intercedes on our quietude at times. I love mockingbirds. I think they are our state bird here in Florida. I have had numerous experiences at 3:00 AM where a mockingbird has decided to serenade me outside my balcony. A pellet gun can be useful during such episodes. Waving a towel at the energetic little insomniac is effective. I remember once upon a time visiting friends in Arizona. Now that is a serious time lag. If you can last to 10:00PM their time you are retiring at 1:00 AM your time. On this particular occasion I remember a mockingbird serenade beginning at about 2:00 AM EST and persisting well past morning. Maddening!

Why do the inhabitants of our world have to be so incessantly loud? Is it installed into their DNA? Do they need to be noticed? Are they lacking something in their personal lives? How many times have you stayed in a hotel where a party begins at midnight and persists for many hours right next door to you? This usually happens when you have to be at a meeting at 7:30 AM. I remember one such occurrence in the Rennaisance in downtown Atlanta. The party began at 1:00 AM. No pounding on the walls, calling the front desk beating on their door could tone it down. The smell of Mary Jane wafts through the door between your rooms. They have numerous bouts of wrestling on the bed that bangs up against your head board. They could care less that they are keeping you awake. On this one occasion I had to arise at 6:00 be in my meeting at 7:30. By this time they are sleeping comfortably in their beds. The last act before I leave the room is push the TV to face their door and turn it up to full volume. I am sure that they were so stoned that it mattered little. I still smiled as I pushed the button to summon the elevator.

Our US Constitution was written with these words in the preamble “….to ensure the domestic tranquility………” What the heck ever happened to that notion? In parting I find irony in the fact the army, CIA, UN, etc. brought the ruthless thug Manuel Noriega to justice by flushing him from his mansion by playing rock and roll at killer decibles 24/7 until he crawled out in a state of humble silly-puttiness and surrendered. Something to think about.

Sweet Caroline

Today I blog about my first grandchild, Caroline. I think back to when I first met her. She was minutes old, coming from the delivery room in her father's arms. She was a little ball of pink, glowing newness. She had just come from her Mother's tummy. That tummy that I used to tickle in a father's generational fashion when she was a wee little tot. I loved Caroline instantly as I had her mother when I first saw her in 1976.

Caroline is one of 7 grandchildren belonging to my wife, Nancy, and I. We love them all proportionately. However, the first grandchild holds an important place in a grandparent's value system. Sort of in the same fashion as Iasaac must have held Joseph within the relevence of time and space. She was such a godsend to us in a time in our lives when we needed some sort of interdiction from on high.

I had just been out-placed from my job and career of thirty years. It was only a job and a means to an end. But it also carried within it security and expression of the well springs of my life enabling me to provide for myself and my family. It was a jolt to my central nervous system and due to the fact that it jolted me it had a similar effect on Nancy and our daughters and son. I had decided to launch a new career in real estate in that year 2002. This was a major paradigm shift for all of us. There was a lot of angst surrounding a learning curve that required class time and testing and ultimately licensure.

On this particular day in August I announced to my new colleagues that I had to leave a meeting that I was in and go to the hospital to become a grandfather. That raised some eyebrows as if I were scheduling cardioversion or some sort of surgical procedure. I explained that my daughter was due to have a caeserian section at 2:00 PM and I would thus become a grandfather. The raised eyebrows transitioned instantly to smiles and laughs and congratulations.

Due to to the fact that our daughter was working and our son in law was in medical school we had the grand opportunity of having Caroline with us over the course of many days and sometimes even nights. She shifted our focus to the new beginnings of a little life surrounding nurturing and innocence. I cannot help but remember the words and lilt of a song that Bobby Goldsboro sang in the 60's. It was Watching Scotty Grow. All that had brought worry and anxiety to our lives dissipated into the day to day practice of watching our little Caroline grow. We doted on her and still do to this day 13+ years later. I cannot help but remember how she used to cry and pitch an unmeasured fit when her parents would come to get her and take her home with them. I smile today at their having to bring her back and let her hug and kiss us one more time. It was not as if they were carrying her off to water board her. It is just the unseen bond that develops between a child and grandparent that borders on euphoria, an unseen state of well being.

Time would pass and Caroline would add two more little sisters to her family. We loved each of them in their own special way. Our love with them is a trivalent bond that cannot be broken. It is soddered by the same mixture of doting attention wrought in a way that only a grandparent can perform. Once when she was little her mother waked her one morning and announced to her that she was going to have a wonderful day and to guess where she was going to go. It was somewhere wonderful. Caroline immediately responded with 'Nana and Pop's house?' She was even somewhat disappointed to learn that she was going to Disney World.

Her father accepted a medical residency in Pensacola. Caroline and her little sister, Kate, would be moving 400 miles in a round trip from us. Caroline and Kate stayed numerous days with us while Mom and Dad arranged the move into a demanding life as a medical resident. We somehow made it through that separation. We did put several thousand miles on a fairly new Mercury Mountaineer over the course of those 4 years.

They also made numerous treks back to our home for holidays and wonderful visits adding a little Georgia Clare to the family as well as a  90 pound American Bulldog, named Sam.

When Caroline was little I used to feed her animal crackers. I would hold one in front of her and ask her the question " Who loves you baby?" She would respond with "Pop" and she would get the cracker. It always disappeared quickly with a smile on both of our faces. Once, years later, during a family dinner she looked at me as she handed me some bread and asked, " Who loves you, baby?" I melted then and I melt now thinking of that and a thousand other little, silly interchanges with our Caroline over her 13 years of life.

The day after Thanksgiving when she was 5'ish. She had come from Pensacola and was sitting on my lap as I played some songs from You Tube. This was a common scene when she came into my office. On this particular day I chose to play her Neal Diamond's, Sweet Caroline . She relished it. Of course I had to embellish the experience a bit and tell her that song was about her. She was captivated by it as we played it over and over. Then she wanted to write a letter to Mr. Diamond and thank him for writing that song about her. I helped her write the letter. We sealed it in an envelope and put it in the mailbox and she went off happily preoccupied with the strains of Sweet Caroline playing in her little memory. It struck me as irony that just at a time on the calendar when other little children were writing to Santa Claus, Caroline was writing to Neal Diamond.

On the occassion of Nancy's 60th birthday. I connived and threw her a surprise birthday party. People came from as far away as Mesa, Arizona and Columbia, South Carolina. Of course, Caroline and her Mom and sisters came from Pensacola to join the surprise. We had hired a DJ to play music. He happened to be one of Caroline's Uncles. One of the songs in his armamentarium was Sweet Caroline. She was 5 at the time and wore a red dress. She managed to coax her Uncle Stace into playing that song over and over. She would happily dance swirling around the dance floor in that pretty little red dress and stole the night.

Someday, I will lay down in a place hopefully not very far from here and graduate from this life. I will replay a lot of scenarios in my mind in the same fashion that Mufasa from the Lion King did partly with his son, Simba, as he made the jump to hyperspace. I will see a little girl in a red dress dancing around a dance floor to the tune of Sweet Caroline. I will inventory my life and count my many blessings. This precious little grandaughter that my daughter and son in law and the God who gave me life sent to me will be present in my inventory of memories. What joy and happiness she has brought to me and so many others. To say I love you Caroline is an inadequate expression of what you have meant to me. May your life be filled with  many happy memories of life similar to what you have brought to me.

Repost on Capital Punishment ( From February, 2011 )

We are embroiled in a capital trial here in Tallahassee. The accused is a man named Hilton who allegedly killed and decapitated a nurse from Crawfordville named Cheryl Dunlap around Christmas three years ago. Hilton has already been found guilty in Georgia for the decapitation murder of a young lady hiker and sentenced to life in prison there. He was extradited here to stand trial for Dunlap's murder to apply the rule of law, provide closure for the victim's family and, in that Florida still has the death penalty, pay for his crime with his own life.

So the debate continues on concerning should government via it's judiciary be in the business of applying the Mosaic law of " an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" ?
As an aside, I wonder just how far the Mosaic law is from Shiria law in that realm. Under Shiria law, it is my understanding that a woman may be stoned to death for committing adultery. That is a big time " Whatttttttttt?" on my radar screen. They ain't enough rocks in America to keep up with that death sentence as adultery is as common as drinking water.

However, back to the capital punishment debate. In my past I have held the personal belief that capital punishment should be a part of our system. It is an effective deterrent in my mind. If for no other reason it deters mass murderers from recommiting the same crime. What about the rights of the deceased to have justice applied? Where there is overwhelming evidence that the accused perpetrated the dastardly deed does not the punishment match the criminal act?

I then read a book by John Grisham, called The Chamber , and another entitled The Innocent Man. They both had at their core the capital punishment debate. One was a saga of a grandson of a member of the KKK on death row for a bombing of a southern church where little girls were killed. The other was a man who served 20 years in prison lots, of it on death row, until proven innocent. They softened me up a little on capital punishment. However, I, who has extreme claustophobia and panic disorder, would prefer to be gone than to have to spend the rest of my life in a cage.

I just read an op ed by Sandy D'Alemberte whose name I never could spell correctly. He used to be the president of FSU and is a very bright and wise JD. It was just published this past Sunday in our local muckraker newspaper, the Tallahassee Democrat. He calls into question the wisdom in retrying Hilton for a crime for which he has been sentenced to life in prison up in Georgia. In these hard economic times why should Florida citizens have to bear that expense? Another juris doctorate answered his query in this morning's edition of the fish gut wrapper, Democrat. He basically said that a criminal should not be allowed to manipulate the system to his benefit. To wit, Hilton confessed to the crime in Georgia so as to avoid prosecution in Florida and risk having his own head sawed off with a serrated hunting knife by a state paid assassin. Of course his victims did not have a choice in that regard in that he acted as judge, jury and executioner in each heinous act of lunacy.

I cannot help but reflect back over the years. I remember picking up the newspaper in my front yard back in January of 1978 and reading the blood chilling account of the Chi Omega murders. We were all touched by this maniac over the years in just staring at him as you would a two headed mountain goat at the county fair. You were disgusted at his depravity but we were drawn to the account of this looney tune as it played out in the written and electronic media. They even made a movie about Ted Bundy and someone wrote a book. Heck, some freako even married him and had a child by him through the benefit of conjugal visits while he was in prison.

I used to be in the pharmaceuticals business. For a period of time I called on Florida State Hospital in Chattahoochee. I used to go back into the forensic unit and speak with the psychiatrists back there in that hell hole. That is where they keep the people who killed their grandmother for turning off the TV in the middle of a Tom and Jerry cartoon and then grinding her into sausage. They were adjudged to be too crazy to stand trial and placed in the forensic unit at Florida State Hospital (FSH). I would walk by the doors where they kept the Freddie Kreugers of our world and the screams and epithets you heard would make your hair stand on end. If there is a such a place on earth where demonic spirits rule, I would nominate that place as spook central.

Anyway on one particular day I was in to visit my friend and client Dr. Carmencita Mola, psychiatrist. There was quite a buzz ensuing amongst the staff. I asked her what was up and she told me that Ted Bundy was coming to their facility for a few days. I asked for what purpose. The answer is almost laughable. You see, he was sitting on death row after having been sentenced to death in Lake City for the rape and murder of Kimberly Diane Leach. All the pleas had played out and it was pretty certain that Teddy was going to fry. Now ( you are not ready for this ) the state of Florida was postured to kill him in a few short months. He was in FSH to receieve counseling to help him deal with the fact that the people who were paying for this counseling were going to kill him. I wonder how much "counseling" he gave the 36 to 136 people whom he killed prior to bludgeoning them?

Incidentally, I had a close friend, Alex, who was an assistant state attorney in Lake City. I would see him pretty frequently and we would go to lunch. It was his task to bring evidence to the table to help prosecute Bundy. He interviewed him face to face. He told me two things that remain with me to this day. One was that being in the presence of Bundy was like looking into the eyes of Satan. Secondly, Alex had a little 12 year old daughter. He told me that reviewing the evidence of the murder kept him awake at night. He was a pretty tough old state attorney and the evidence was so horrible it kept him awake.

I knew two people who were in law school with Bundy at University of Utah. My son dated a girl in college whose father had been the policeman who had arrested him in west Florida. All said what a sociopathic human being he seemed to be.

To end my recollections about Bundy who assumed room temperature 22 years ago I have to put you on an airplane heading to Tampa. Halfway there the captain came on the PA and announced that Ted Bundy had just been executed. There was spontaneous applause that occurred throughout the cabin. I am not going to tell you whether or not I joined in. I do remember staring out at the ground below reflecting long and hard for the rest of the trip on the role of the death penalty in our judicial system.

I think if I were a relative or friend of Cheryl Dunlap I might want to reserve a front row center seat to witness Mr. Hilton take his last breath somewhere down the road. If it had been my wife or daughter he had taken and killed I would pray for 2-3minutes alone with him in a room. I suppose that capital punishment must have a stronghold in our primieval identity.

Pretty Paper, Pretty Ribbons of Blue

This is one of my favorite holiday songs. I am generally familiar with the Willie Nelson version. I think that Roy Orbison's version may have preceded his.

Some of the lyrics are as follows, as best I can remember:

"Pretty paper, pretty ribbons of blue;
Wrap your presents to your darling from you.
Pretty pencils to write 'I love you'.
Pretty papers, pretty ribbons of blue."

The ballad surrounds a story line of a downtown press of shoppers who hustle and bustle their ways past a fellow sitting in the middle of the sidewalk singing this song and peddling his wares.. He is obviously handicapped in some fashion or another. There is a description of the encounter by the shoppers who ask themselves if they should stop. The unilateral conclusion is that they cannot because they are much too busy. The song describes the colors, movement and and the lack of connection amongst the crowd, one to another during the holiday season. The lyrics include the onamonapia of the sound of children singing in the background. All in all a very moving holiday tune.

I think back to a time I was staying in Baltimore right next to the baseball park, Camden yards. It was cold and nearing the holiday season. I recall leaving our hotel with a group of people on our way to dinner walking across the Inner Harbor. This has to be nearly 20 years ago. There were 10 panhandlers for every passerby. All of them looking for a handout. Theirs was a very competetive endeavor as some of them were pushing one another posturing for a better position amongst the crowd. I remember emptying my pockets of change and smaller units of cash. It was but a little smear of ointment to a gash that oozed blood. You almost have to be compassionless to survive such an ordeal. Yet that is very difficult for most of us. Most of us would rather not be compelled to come face to face with the problem this land of freedom and opportunity has in meeting the needs of our underprivileged population.

I think of a friend of my wife and mine. Her name was Betty Williams. She had been confined to a wheelchair and a hospital bed for the greater part of her life. We became acquaintances and then friends through an outreach program with our church. The mission was just to befriend her and visit her a minimum of one time per month. Nancy, my wife, visited her by herself for several years. Nancy became part of her inner circle and cashed small checks for her and took her an illicit chili dog and other treats that diabetics are not supposed to be allowed. I fussed at Nancy for doing that and ultimately I became part of the delivery system. Indeed our entire family came to know Betty, including our bassett hound Cleo. We always took time on holidays especially to get by and see her.

She had been confined to a nursing home bed for more than twenty years. When you entered her room her smile and greeting filled the hallway and bored straight through to the center of your heart. She had a little bit of family but their circumstances were meagar. It turned out that Betty had a steady stream of visitors not just from our church but several other churches as well. The more the merrier. She captivated us all with her upbeat attitude in spite of her limited circumstances. I came to find myself stopping by to see her several times a month. I always was lifted by her. I suppose I was ministering to her in a fashion but I recall that often she ministered to me.

She was like a child at Christmas. She always had a pretty good list of things she wanted. They were not expensive requests and it seemed that every year her posse of friends would deliver what was on her list of requests and then more. She beamed with glee over every wrapped gift that found its way to her room. I can still see her big smile and hear her hearty greeting. I remember the time her TV gave up the ghost. I took it upon myself to ask people for a donation to help buy her a new one. It was the easiest fundraiser ever. I had more than enough money to make the purchase in no time. There was enough money left over to buy her a VCR and some videos. She insisted on writing each donor a thank you. Of course she had lost the use of her arms and hands years earlier, so I got the opportunity to write each note for her. She ended each note of thank you " in the name of Jesus Christ, your friend, Betty."

One day, about 10 years ago, I went to see her and another person had taken over her room. Betty had developed one of many infections and this one was more that her frail 66 year old body could bear. In the isolation of an ICU she went home to that God who gave her life. I learned along the way of my association with her that she herself had sold pencils on one of the streets in Tallahassee before she became a permanent resident of her nursing home. So I think of Betty each time I hear this song.

" Pretty paper, pretty ribbons of blue.
Wrap your present to your darling from you.
Pretty pencils to write I love you.
Pretty paper, pretty ribbons of blue."

Thank you Betty for all you did for me and my family over, many, many years. I hope to see you again one day. I hope I am worthy to kiss you on the cheek and hug you.

The Zen of Thanksgiving

It was Thanksgiving 1995. My Father-In-Law lay in a nursing home in Tampa suffering with a myolopathy akin to ALS, Lou Gehrig's disease. I had just received word that if I wanted to see my father alive that I needed to get to Chattanooga, Tennessee. We had just loaded up in Tallahassee heading to Tampa when that word came. What was I going to do? We only had one car that was road worthy. All local rental car companies were out of inventory. There was nothing left to do but to head to Tampa, leave the car for my family and rent a car in Tampa. Thus I spent this Thanksgiving day entirely on the interstate. I-75 to Tampa and then I-75 and 85 north.

I traveled for a living so driving the interstate was no stranger to me. However, this interstate experience was vastly different. Why? Because you could have shot a cannon down either side of the interstate and have been hard pressed to hit another living soul. My Thanksgiving dinner consisted of a Big Mac at a McDonalds in Valdosta, GA. Along with some fries and hot apple pie and large diet Coke it was hardly the visionary turkey that had dominated my mind along with my Mother-In-Laws corn bread dressing. Add in the other elements of the feast that I was accustomed to and my state of depression deepened. As I drove I noted the bucolic landscapes off to my right and my left where you could see the automobiles gathered. I envisioned all the occupants of those homes gathered around a well dressed table, giving thanks and stuffing themselves with mashed potatoes and gravy, cranberry sauce and numerous casseroles of broccolli, green beans, squash.

I made it as far as I could towards Chattanooga and finally had to find a room for the night. Exhausted I retired to a room all alone. My little family was safe and warm with my Mother-In-Law back in Tampa eating pecan pie and pumpkin, cherry, apple pies with whipped cream loaded on top. My Kentucky fried chicken with an institutional  piece of some variety of pie hardly seemed adequate this Thanksgiving day. I thought of my son who was 6,000 miles away from me in Buenos Aires on a church mission. How I missed him and felt a kinship with him in being absent from home.

Sleep came with great difficulty. I watched football on TV as long as I could stand it. My mind kept coming back to counting my blessings and trying hard not to sink into despair. I thought of my father and our strained relationship. He who had fought in WW 2 and had floated in the South Pacific 50 plus years prior. 48 hours in that circumstance after his ship had been torpedoed by the Japanese. My Father-In-Law who had been a mess sergeant in that same war and had seen Mussolini hanging upside down along with his girlfiend outside the gates of Paris. I thought of how difficult their circumstances had been all those many years ago and how they most likely wanted nothing more than to sit down with their families and share a meal of any sort. Whether or not it included turkey and dressing did not matter.

I sit here, 20 years after the fact. We just completed a wonderful Thanksgiving with traditional eats of all varieties. My Father did not make it to Christmas that year. We were back in north Alabama to bury him just 3 weeks later. Me, my wife, my two daughters and my son who would make it home from Argentina traveled there and back in a state of Thanksgiving just to be together.

Our minds are reservoirs of an awareness and a yearning for home and all things associated. When that circumstance is altered it is painful to endure. I suppose that all the roads and pathways in our minds lead to but one place. That one place is home where we find warmth, sustenance, association with those we hold dear. There is no effective substitute for it. It is a concept, an image and a zen-like emotional and psychological experience that keeps our GPS honed in that direction. Much more often than we are aware.