Out with the old, In with the new.....

A new year is always confusing for me as I'm always reflective about what the last year brought to me and

what the new year will bring in lieu.  As I began my morning with the hopes for a run today, I begin to lace up

 my new running shoes that my lovely wife gave to me for Christmas.   My new shoes lay next to the pair that

they replaced, the stark contrast of their condition striking me as similar to my apprehension of the new year.

The first thing I noticed was that my new shoes were white, shiny and brilliant in color.  They are not marred

with dirt, mud, grayed from months of running in snow, mud, rain and flood waters. Such is the approach of

the new year our hopes, our dreams shiny and brilliant, yet to be put through the obstacles that we will face,

the lack of a job, some unexpected tragedy, or perhaps money issues that will little by little gray the brilliant

colors that we imagined not so long before.  I also notice in closer inspection the that the heels of my shoes

are not the same.    My new shoes have a full tread, while my older pair has a significant amount of tread that

has eroded away with each step I took in them.  I will no doubt be the same one year from now.  The

constant movement in life that cannot be avoided will wear away another year on me like everyone else,

leaving lines etched in my face, perhaps eroding my hairline, but most certainly it will weaken me with age the

 inevitable mark that no man can overcome or outrun.  My older shoes also appear to be shorter in length

then my newer ones.  An illusion as both are the same model and size, yet it reminds me that past years seem

to have gone by so quickly, time marching on faster and faster, ever decreasing circles at ever increasing

speeds seeming to short change me as if the promise of a new year is replaced by the realization that it is gone

as another approaches.

Please don't get me wrong, I love my old shoes as I have loved my life.  They hold many memories both good

and bad for me.  They remind me of days where I felt 16 again, alive and young living in the moment and the

moment was glorious.  Of days where each step was a struggle, the next more painful than the step before an

agonizing journey that in the end strengthened me physically, emotionally and mentally.  They bring back

scenes to my mind of misty mornings on the river, raging flood waters surrounding our city and the indomitable

 spirit of man to overcome such adversity.  My shoes like the years have carried me there and these things I

cherish greatly.  Yet, I am humbled as I finish tying my new shoes.  There is such promise in them as there is

promise in a new year.  Each step they take me brings me to an unknown journey, perhaps to a place I've

never been, seen or imagined existed for me.  They most certainly will carry me through the mud, snow,

water, good weather, bad weather and I will certainly get out of them what I put into them.  I suppose life and

 the next year is certainly like that, I will get out of it what I put into it.  Run on my friends, it's the glory of a

new year.

Christmas Day...

Here I sit in my living room, TBS repeatedly broadcasting "A Christmas Story" in the background, a holiday

tradition at my house.  We never watch the whole movie at once, just bits and pieces of each movie till we've

finally watched the whole movie at the end of the day.  It seems this morning that many of my friends have

been out of bed early and are stirring about checking their facebook and expressing their heartfelt wishes for a

wonderful Christmas for me and my family.  I look past the beautiful tree that my wife and her daughters so

carefully adorned through our picture windows and see the ground covered in snow.  A rare white Christmas

for us in Tennessee.  I sip a cup of coffee coaxing my body slowly to get ready for the day.  Sarah and I will

open presents later, we have already celebrated with our blended family, each similarly excited about their

gifts. Xbox, flips, makeup and clothes were gifts that were exchanged.  No Official Red Ryder Carbine-


Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle adorns the tree as we worry about eye safety and that of 


the small animals that scurry around our backyard.  Biscuit lays quietly on his bed near the door already 


having made his early morning patrol around the yard ensuring that we are safe inside the house and Black 


Bart is kept at bay.  Later we will share a meal with one of our friends and their two grown boys, it will be a 


great time as we both enjoy each others company very much.  There will be no Chinese Turkey to adorn our 


table and no songs with "bows of frowee ralalala" will be sung.  I will of course suit up and run later today 


battling the wind and cold as I do most days now.  This evening I imagine we'll have a glass of wine settle 


together on the couch and if  I've done well with the gifts perhaps I'll get one more "gift" before the day is 


completed.   I hope so. Tomorrow will come soon enough after and we'll only have 364 more days to get 


ready for Christmas again.   I hope your Christmas is so wonderful today that you'll start counting the days till 


next and if you aren't worried about eye safety that a "Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-


Shot Range Model Air Rifle" finds it's way under your tree.   You never know when they'll spot grizzly bears 


near Pulaski's Hardware store......

One of those people....

It happened on Thursday afternoon.  We have had bad weather here in Nashville for the past several weeks and this last week it's been bitter cold with snow and ice.  The realization struck me in the oddest fashion, it was the cows.  They were staring at me.  Six of them to be exact, all grazing on the side of a hill, fence separating us by less than 2 feet and I could see in their gaze that I had "become one of those people".  

It all started about 4 years ago.  I was as they say, sick and tired and being sick and tired.  I got up one day and looked in the mirror and didn't recognize the man that looked back at me.  I weighed a whopping 250 lbs and couldn't walk to my car without wheezing.  This coming from a man whose family drops dead of heart attacks at about the age I was currently.  So, I decided that I was going to run my way into health.  I bought a pair of shoes and off I went.  I used the Michael White method of running.  Run as far as you can, puke, repeat.  I wouldn't recommend that method but that's just  how I did it.  Funny thing it got easier and I ran farther each week.  At some point I noticed my belly and face started getting thinner and I didn't sound like Darth Vader after walking up the stairs.  I've long held the theory that runners start out with the purpose of just staying in shape, but slowly all the jarring that accompanies running causes small hemorrhages in the brain which in turn makes a runner think, "Wow I think I'd like to run 26.2 miles."  Alas I was no different.  I did start with a half-marathon though, I ran it in 2:47.  Then off to the Marine Corps Marathon for my first.  It was glorious.  I cannot explain nor will I try on why it was glorious but trust me I consider one of my greatest accomplishments in my life.  I won't bore you anymore with the grand details but I've run a total of 5 marathons now, along with a handful of half-marathons, several 10K's and when I want to be totally embarrassed by other men my age I've done a dozen or so 5k's.  What makes me on of "those people" though is my desire, no my obsessive need to run.  I use to be able to run on a treadmill but now I call it the dreadmill and if at all possible I run outside.  If at all possible means I actually still have both my legs and a heartbeat.  

Which brings us back to the present.  Thursday was bitter cold in Nashville, not as cold as Tuesday when I ran just 3 miles.  It was a balmy 9 degrees that day.  I ran at Centennial Park and the ducks were walking on the pond as it had frozen over.  I passed just one other runner and other than that it was me and the ducks.  I stopped running when my teeth starting hurting from the cold air I was breathing in that day.  Thursday was different.  It was raining, cold (around 31 degrees) and I went for a six miler.  The wind was around 10-15 miles an hour and I ran the trail by the river.  The trail goes right by a pasture and the cows had moved to the backside of a hill to move out of the wind and graze to stay as warm as possible.  As I passed them it was then I realized they were staring at me and I was "one of those people".  You know, one of those runners when you are passing in your car you look at your passenger and say, "look at that fool he's out running in 9 degree weather is he crazy?"  or you tell your co-workers  "Do you know what I saw today?"  "Some idiot was out running this morning when it was nine degrees!"  

I would always nod my head when someone said that, thinking what an idiot, who does things like that?  I bet if they passed cows they would stare at them like they were crazy.  Funny it's the same look Sarah gives me when I walk out the door for a run.  It's the same look the cows gave me last week.  

Footnote:  I am proud to say that since 2007 I have run approximately 3,000 miles.  That's over 6 million footsteps, approximately 15 pairs of running shoes and 2 lost toenails.  

I'll be home for Christmas....

I'll be home for Christmas
You can count on me
Please have snow and mistletoe
And presents under the tree
Christmas Eve will find me
Where the love light gleams
I'll be home for Christmas
If only in my dreams

Listen to the words of this song next time you hear it and bear in mind that it was written for the servicemen and women serving in World War II.  A song to encourage and remind them that coming home was just around the corner maybe by Christmas….

His name was Ford McKenzie.  He was 18 when he joined the army and left that backwoods town in south Mississippi.  His father saw him off to the bus stop and in an encouraging but humorous send off he gave his son a homemade “sling shot” to help protect him against the German army.  He was no soft city boy going off to war, he volunteered for a new unit, they called them paratroopers promising they would jump out of airplanes behind enemy lines. They eventually became known as the 82^nd Airborne.  Their training was tough.  Their original camp was near Currahee, a mountainous area in Georgia that had an especially challenging three mile run up a mountain that now is encompassed in the Appalachian forests.   He saw combat almost his entire time in the Army.  He jumped out of a plane on D-day in Normandy, behind enemy lines like they promised winning two bronze medals, a silver star, was wounded twice and still served out the entire war.  With your permission I'll jump ahead and paint you a scene. 

It’s December 25^th, 1944.  Ford is in Bastogne, France.  The newspapers back home have started calling his unit the Battered Bastards of Bastogne because it's 83,000 of us against 250,000 of them.  The Germans are desperate because they know if they lose this one it’s over for them, yet your Commanding officer has refused to give up.  His reply when asked to surrender by a German delegation is “Nuts!”  Its bone rattling cold, the kind of cold that makes you think your teeth will shatter into a million pieces if you don’t get warm and they don’t stop chattering.  You haven’t had a hot meal in week’s maybe even months when you have anything to eat at all.  Your boots and uniforms have holes in them and the snow seeps into those holes like the sand of a beach seeps into your shoes. As a bonus you can’t build a fire to stay warm or crawl out of your foxhole as you are more than likely to be shot by an enemy sniper.  You have run out of most supplies and have no idea when new supplies are coming.  What you do have is Ford McKenzie in your unit.  On Christmas morning, Ford and a buddy crawled out of their fox hole, stealing silently through the woods with his sling shot.  That’s right his sling shot, carried for 4 years, all the way from Mississippi to France.  They eventually catch up with a chicken spotted earlier that morning which inexplicably had somehow escaped the local farmer’s pot.  Ford is as good with his sling shot as he is with his rifle and soon the bird is in hand.  Now imagine what a feast the two of you could have with this bird.  Incredible!  It would probably last you and your one buddy for several meals, but that is not how it works for these soldiers, these band of brothers.  The chicken is shared.  A small fire is risked in a foxhole.  A squad of men gathered in rag tag gear laughing, sharing a cigarette amoung them, a piece of chicken and the memories of past Christmas’ with their loved ones.  I’d like to imagine that someone may have even quietly murmured a song:

I'll be home for Christmas
You can count on me
Please have snow and mistletoe
And presents under the tree
Christmas Eve will find me
Where the love light gleams
I'll be home for Christmas
If only in my dreams.

I wonder now when you hear that song again if you’ll listen to the words more closely trying to imagine sitting in a foxhole with 6 or 7 buddies, huddled for warmth, claiming this is the best meal they’ve ever had, missing their families far away and yet still celebrating the peace of Christmas.  I hope you do.  Then I hope you’ll put aside all the glitz, glitter and clutter; gather your family, your friends, or your loved ones and share a simple meal celebrating the peace of Christmas.  It might just end up being the best meal you’ve ever had…..

Footnote:

Ford McKenzie made it back home eventually living in Franklin Parrish, Louisiana the rest of his life.  I’ve never met a better man. He always treated me like a hero because I served a relatively peaceful stint in the Marine Corps.   He passed several years ago living to be 79.  He never spoke of the war except once.  Ford can be seen on film at the D-day Museum in New Orleans telling this story, sharing a brief moment of a hero’s journey.  I hope someday you’ll visit this great tribute to our servicemen and women. 

We honor you.....

Dear Marine, Solider, Airman and Sailor,

I would like to take this moment to thank you.  I know it's not much and I realize that many of you will never

see this post but I'd like to thank you anyway.   Active duty, reservist, retired or veteran I'm speaking to you.

Once every year America, the country that you serve, chooses to remember you and that day is tomorrow.  I

could tell you that I think about you and appreciate you everyday, but the truth is I like most people take you

for granted.  I do pause today, at this moment to tell you how much I appreciate you and what you do for our

country.  I would call it a job but having served in the Marines calling it a job is a disservice to you.  Please

allow me to express my gratitude to you.

I appreciate that you leave your families behind sometimes for years without seeing them.  I can only imagine

what it must be like to hear that you are a father knowing that your child may take their first step before you

ever hold them.  I can appreciate what it's like to come back from deployment and find that your girlfriend or

boyfriend has moved on to someone else.  I know what it's like to be so lonely for home that you hide so your

buddies don't see your tears.   I can appreciate that mail call is the highlight of your day and a letter from

home will be read so much that eventually it falls apart from being folded and unfolded to be read and shared

with your  buddies.  I know what it's like to be on edge for weeks at a time, to be hungry, tired, dirty and that

a toilet is considered a luxury.  I know what it's like to not see anything and I mean anything but ocean for

weeks at a time and there is no bar, buffet or shuffleboard games on the ship on which you serve.

There are things though that I have no idea how to appreciate about you.  I don't know how to mourn the loss

of one of my buddies.  I cannot imagine coming back without my arm or my leg having to learn how to button

my shirt or walk again.  I cannot imagine how your wife, mother, father, sisters, brothers and friends mourn

when you give the ultimate sacrifice for your country.  How when your flag is folded and handed to your

family somehow they are suppose to understand that you not only gave your life for you country but you did it

for your buddies that count on you everyday.

I could go on and list a thousand reasons why I am writing this letter to you today.  I look back over this letter

and realize that no matter what I say it is inadequate to express how I, no how we feel about you and your

service to our country.  We are honored, blessed and humbled by you and what you do everyday so that

we may work, live and play mostly without a second thought to our safety and freedom.  God bless you

and your family.  We officially honor you tomorrow but you deserve more than our gratitude.

Lest we forget,

A forever grateful American

My home's in Alabama

I grew up in Alabama.  I have told people that in the last several years when asked where I am

from and the looks I get or the comments are less than gracious.  I was even told by someone that I was

officially "white trash"  and they meant it.  I have literally been around the world by ship and by plane.  I've

been in Somalia, Africa, Egypt, the Middle East, Italy, Spain, etc...   I've lived in Jackson, Mississippi,

Atlanta, Georgia and I currently live in Nashville, Tennessee.  I live here because it's where work brought me.

I love Nashville, don't get me wrong, it is a great city and I think I'll probably be here the rest of my life but as

the song says "My home's in Alabama"

I was 20 years of age and had just finished Infantry Training School at Camp Geiger, North Carolina.  I was

given orders to Naval Air Station, Brunswick, Maine.  The morning I graduated I got in my S-10 truck and

drove straight through.  It's 19 hours from North Carolina to Brunswick and that's a lot of road to travel

when you are by yourself.  I can't tell you it was a great drive.  Honestly I can't tell you much about the drive.

What I can tell you is that knowing that I might never see my home, my folks, my friend or Alabama weighed

heavy on my mind;  like the air right before a tornado touches down and changes your life in an instant.  Only

I had 19 hours to think about it.  I did what most people do I suppose I turned on the radio.  In those days

before satellite radio and iPods you had to change stations ever 50 or so miles as you ran out of reception,

waiting till the words were so interrupted with static so that you could no longer sing along or understand the

song.  There was no "seek" button on the radios then, you had to slowly turned the knob till you came upon a

station that was clear.  I listened to gospel, country, rock and almost any station you could imagine.  There

were no "talk" radio or "sports" radio then, just music which is maybe the way it ought to be again, but I

digress.  I was around 17 hours into my drive when I saw the sign that announced the Maine State line.  My

radio was just issuing loud crackles of static and I began to move the dial to find a station hopeful it would lift

my spirits.  The sign had pushed me into a deeper funk, realizing that I was only hours from my life changing

knowing it would never be the same.  Finally, a station cameover the air clearly.  The announcer told me it

was a country station and and a song began to play.

Oh I'll speak my Southern English just as natural as I please

I'm in the heart of Dixie, Dixie's in the heart of me

And someday when I make it, when love finds a way

Somewhere high on Lookout Mountain I'll just smile with pride and say,

that my

Home's in Alabama, 

No matter where I lay my head

My home's in Alabama, 

Southern born and southern bred.

I'd like to tell you I was manly, but the honest truth is I cried like I was 14 year old girl who just had her heart 

broken by her first love.  No cell phone to call home, nobody to share my grief, just me, the radio and 4 men 

who grew up, lived and then sang a song about our life.  I don't know if I'll ever move back to Alabama.

I don't really know what tomorrow will bring or where I'll be six months from now.  What I do know is that 

ever time that song plays if you look closely you might just see a tear in my eye and a smile on my face.  

The clock ticks....

I woke up.  That's how it started two weeks ago.  When I was younger it would have been a minor nuisance

that would  have been brushed away as easily as the cobweb highlighted in the dewy morning as I run the

trails and greenways in Nashville.  It was a sharp pain in both hips and lower back that ran down both my

legs.  I tried the old standbys.....a heating pad, advil and stretching more before and after my runs.  I even

changed my chair at work seeking relief.  I had a run approaching, a 13.1 mile run that was flat and fast.  I

had worked up to 35 - 40 miles of running per week in training.  I had the fastest run since I was in the

Marines just two weeks before, a 6 mile scorcher in less than 50 minutes.  It's not Olympic qualifying time

mind you; but for me it was exhilarating, like the perfume that lingers when a beautiful woman walks past

filling your soul with hope and memories of younger days.  I ran despite the pain, pushing on and telling myself

it would go away.  I had made a commitment both monetarily and emotionally that must be fulfilled despite my

discomfort.  I would not quit, Marines don't quit we push through.  My doctor was more practical.  An xray

demonstrated a compression of the discs in my lower spine.  The effects of age, gravity and effort culminating

in nerves irritated and angry demanding treatment and rest.  Only when satisfied by both releasing me on it's

own timetable to begin running again.

He was at practice.  In the middle of a pile of tacklers, a gaggle of body parts with limbs entangled, boys

pushing and shoving towards the ground, gravity working with momentum to create chaos.  He heard it pop

and the pain was instant.  The left forearm that was straight and strong now was broken and useless as he lay

on the bottom of the pile.  He cried.  I don't blame him, I would have too.  I like to think more from the

thoughts of plays, games and a season lost but I'm sure it hurt too.  The emergency room splinted it and the

next day in surgery the physician pushed it back into place.  The thought of that is not for the faint of heart.  I

have watched this as a nurse in the operating room and it is not done with finesse but with pure brute strength

bone grinding upon bone to reset them into their original but marred form.

We watched from the sidelines last week.  He from the field and I just stayed home.  He surrounded by his

teammates and I surrounded by my guilt, my shame and a heating pad.  He dreams of tomorrow, games and

seasons yet to be played.  I dream of recapturing my youth, running forever never tiring faster and faster.  The

clock ticks for both of us, time running on without regards to who we are, who we were and what we dream.

I only hope for him that he stays a step ahead............

She would have been 43......

She would have been 43 today.  She was born on October 13th, 1967, on Friday October 13th, to be exact.

A fact that my mother reminded her jokingly all her life.  They named her Michelle White. They gave her no 

middle name, just a first and a last. Strong and simple.  She always said she wished her middle name was 

Grace like our grandmother and so my first born's middle name is Grace in her memory.  She grew up 

in the same little town that we all did, but she was special, better, and different than all of us.  She was 

beautiful from the day she was born till the day that she passed.  She had a smile that would light up a room 

and a glare that would melt the surface of the sun if you incurred her anger.  She made friends as easy as 

anyone I know and could push them aside just as quick. She had a gift, some of the older folks call it 

prophecy, where she knew immediately if you were genuine or full of it (as my father would say) just by 

looking in your eyes.  I remember she once made an issue of a choir director at our church that required a 

meeting of the deacons in which she enraged him and mocked him so much I'm told that he had to be 

restrained from coming across a table at her.  Three weeks later the church discovered he was making 1-800 

calls and promptly let him go.  She knew though.  She absolutely and I mean absolutely had to have the last 

word in a conversation.  I recall many times in conversations with my parents, my father telling her to be quiet 

and not say another word, he begin to walk away and she'd say "Fine I won't say that you're wrong", or "I 

didn't say anything in the first place", and it'd start all over again.  She was the most stubborn person I've ever 

met in my life and if you know my family, that's saying alot.  I never and I mean never saw her flinch or budge 

if she thought she was right and her cause was just.  I sometimes envy that of her as I've gotten older.  As 

much as you could love her, she still had a distance about her that only made you want to try harder to gain 

her love or approval.  My last memory of her was fixing her car the day she passed.  I know she was loved as 

the registry tells us there were over 600 people that came to pay their respects and if I remember correctly 

over a hundred cars in the funeral procession.  We all should be hope to have such a send off.

I've wondered about her alot in the last several years, what she would have accomplished, what she might 

have looked like at our age.  I imagine she'd be just as pretty, her face slightly worn over the years but still 

with a smile that would soften the hardest heart and most likely a wisdom of the years that many seek and few 

receive. I also imagined she'd have done things her own way, regardless of the consequences.  I wonder if 

she'd be proud of my accomplishments and ashamed of my failings.  I suppose even now I still seek her 

approval.  Some things never change and never will.  The only thing I know for sure is she'd be 43 today and 

I've missed her for the last 23 years.

Ashamed of us

I'm ashamed of us.  I mean I'm ashamed of us as a society.  It's gotten slowly out of hand over time and I

think we need to reexamine how we view things in todays modern society.  It's been on my mind for

sometime now but it became so apparent this week after the death of Tyler Clementi, a Rutgers University

student who jumped from a bridge after his personal life was broadcast for all to view.   Two Rutgers

students hid a web cam in Tyler's room and broadcast a sexual encounter over the web for all to see.  First

let me offer my condolences to Tyler's family and friends, suicide is a tragedy and having experienced this in

my own family I cannot grieve for you enough.  Second, let me express to you that I am ashamed that some

how we as a society would create an environment that someone, anyone would think these actions would be

appropriate or tolerated.   I suppose that these two students thought this was funny and in some ways we

are all responsible for that.  We post videos of people being embarrassed or hurt on you tube and they

get a million hits, we pay money to go see movies called JackAss or Borat where people are manipulated

into situations that are both degrading and humiliating.  These movies make millions, I believe I just saw an

advertisement for JackAss 3 so somebody's paying to see these movies.   Quite frankly I've never gotten

the comedy aspects of these movies but I know my teenagers think they are funny.  I'm ashamed of myself

now for not being more verbal about the fact they offer no socially redeemable values and permitting my

my kids to watch them.  I believe these movies, these 3 minute clips of life never show the long

lasting effects of our behavior or actions, never demonstrating the consequences known or unknown for the

participants.  So much so that they have become acceptable, that we have embraced them as a social medium

to entertain us despite their negative effects or costs to us as a society.  So far the the cost of one live video

broadcast is one promising violinist dead, two students who are likely to spend many years of their lives in

prison and a slew of family and friends grieving for all three of them.  I'm not laughing anymore and I hope you

won't either.

For the love of the game

For the love of the game.  It literally means to "play for nothing".   I'm reminded of this expression as I

watched  my 9 year-old-son play in his 4th tackle football game of this season.  His team is not very good.  

What I mean to say is that they are not very good by the standards of wins and losses.  They are currently 

0 - 4.  Four losses by a combined score of around 160 - 0.  I'm not exaggerating the score either.  Yesterday 

the sixty or so parents that were at the game screamed and cheered when we achieved our first, first down of 

the season.  

My son plays center or interior lineman on the offense and defense for his team.  They are not very glorious 

positions.  Caleb wanted to be a running back but he's the tallest kid on the team and weighs 2 lbs over the 

limit for a kid to carry the ball in his league.  He also inherited his father's speed and that doesn't help him 

much either when it comes to being a running back.  Not that Caleb complains mind you, exactly the opposite 

he relishes the challenges of blocking and tackling.  I've never heard him complain once this year  about 

anything, not the score, not the heat, not the coaches and not being at the bottom of a number of piles of 

entangled limbs and bodies after the end of a play.  Quite the contrary, he constantly talks about how great

it is to be a football player, to tackle, to block and to play the game every week.  He smiles and waves to me

occasion during the game and practices.  He truly plays for the "love of the game".  Yesterday his team was 

losing 41-0 and on the extra point Caleb tackled the kid on the one yard line.  He immediately got up, 

started jumping up and down, slapping his teammates on their helmets and pumping his fists.  Most of his 

teammates just walked off the field with their heads down but he truly celebrated just the moment.  It 

was glorious in his mind, as if he were Barry Krauss and he had stopped Penn State for the winning 

touchdown in the National Championship game.  In today's age of technology, nutrition, training techniques 

and the monetary awards for being a great athlete my son celebrates the moment for what it is....an 

opportunity to play for the love of the game.  I am humbled by my son who reminds his father to 

celebrate every moment, to cherish every opportunity and to do my best every day regardless of the reward.

You'll have to excuse me now, I've leaving shortly for my daily run of 6 miles, only today I'm leaving my 

expensive modern runner's watch at home.  I'm just going to run, give it my best effort and have a good time.

If you are around when I finish today don't be surprised if  I high five you, jump up and down with a big

smile on my face.  I didn't just win the Boston Marathon, I ran for the love of the game.  

Idiot Tax

I use to be for something I'm gonna call "idiot taxes".  It began with cigarettes and I actually thought it was a

good idea at the time.  You know what I mean, it's the tax that  is suppose to discourage you from smoking

and at the same time "pay" for all the smoking related diseases.  Like I said, I was in favor of this tax but I'm

beginning to rethink my support.  What made me start thinking (always a dangerous thing as my father would

say) is that San Francisco is adding an "idiot tax" to alcohol.  Now it's citizens will be paying an extra 3.5

cents per beer and around 4.5 cents for liquor.  It totals around 16.5 million dollars a year.  The city

decided that all of it's citizens should "share" the medical costs and police costs from drinkers who caused

trouble and those that can't pay their medical bills for alcohol related injuries, accidents and diseases.  Again,

you might think this is a good idea, but lets take it further.  Maybe we should  impose an idiot tax on cars, for

those drivers that drive without insurance or after drinking.  Then we'll idiot tax condoms for those that don't

use them to pay for venereal disease and uninsured pregnancies.  Let's also idiot tax soda and ice cream to

pay for weight watchers for everyone who overeats and needs to drop a couple of pounds.  Now I'm really

getting the hang of this I think, lets have an idiot tax for everything, that way we don't have to promote

responsibility and self control as a society.

I do have one alternative though.  Consider this,  Bill Haslam the republican primary winner for the Governor's

race in Tennessee spent 8.7 million dollars to win just the primary.  Let me repeat this, he spent 8.7 million

dollars to win a primary race for a position that will pay him 155,000.00 per year.  I say we just tax these

candidates every dollar they spend over their annual salary based on the 4 years they'll serve.  We'll call it by

the name I proposed earlier the "idiot tax".   Only now we'll know it's being paid by the right idiot.

Sad songs say so much

I love music.  I especially love a good sad song.  I've been accused in the past that I'd rather listen to


sad songs rather than happy ones and at times that has been true.  I do love a sad song.  I have around 3000


songs on my iPod and most of them are country and many of them are sad songs.  It seems as I've gotten


older I've realized you can't just call them sad songs. Even some of the songs that might sound like a happy


song really expresses  sadness of life's events as they unfold around us.  They express the emotions that


we feel at times when our words or hearts betray us.  Music will heal us when we don't feel like we'll ever be


whole again.  If you'll allow I thought I'd share some of the ones I love with you.


Two that immediately come to mind are Eric Clapton's "Tears in Heaven", he wrote it after the death of his


5 year old son it may be the most healing song I've ever heard.  The other is Vince Gill's "Come rest high on


that  Mountain"  both assure me that there's a heaven.   How could there not be with songs like that?


Then there are heartbreak songs.  We've all had our share of them.  Each of our heartbreaks are different,


sadness, loneliness, and despair all seem to surround us during these times.  Songs have always made it easier


for me through the hard times. Here are some of the ones I have loved or have loved me:


"He stopped loving her today"  George Jones  (a classic and maybe the best country song ever written)


"Being drunk's alot like loving you"  Kenny Chesney (drunk in love and drunk in loneliness is alot alike)


"How can you mend a broken heart"  Andy Gibb (he actually took his own life over a lost love)


"Annie's Song"  John Denver (if you know the story you'd realize this was a sad song)


"Tonight I wanna Cry" Keith Urban (actually Sarah's ex-husband wrote this with Keith)


Each of these songs and many others have soothed me when nothing else would help.  They always invoke


memories both good and bad.  I have several you've probably never heard of that you should listen to at least


once:


"Who wants to live forever"  Queen (who does?)


"It's not just me"  Rascal Flatts (if you've never felt this way you've never been in love)


"Bluer than Blue" Michael Johnson ("and when you're gone I can run through the house screaming and no


one will ever hear me"  <---now that's a sad lyric)


"I'm not your blue skies anymore"  Emily West (the title says it all)


I know that there is a time coming that will need a sad song.  There always will be I suppose.  Sugarland sings


a song called "The very last Country Song", it goes like this:

But if life stayed the way it was

And lovers never fell out of love

If memories didn't last so long

If nobody did nobody wrong

If we knew what we had before it was gone

If every road led back home

This would be

The very last country song

I don't think I have anything to worry about.

Be Careful What You Say....

“Be careful what you say it will come back to haunt you!”  I think I’ve heard this about a

million times in my life and for good reason.  I have always had the knack of saying

things that do come back to haunt me.  It started in my earliest childhood when I

claimed to be able to fly, jumped off the back porch, and promptly split open my head. 

My words are spoken often in haste and with no time to formulate an intelligent reply that

would be more palatable and more digestable for me. (Translated “I’ve eaten my share of

crow). 

This can be a handy ability and almost a super power.  I’ve always had a quick wit and

most of the time have an answer to everything, giving new meaning to the phrase “don’t

let the facts get in the way of a good story”.  I’m not the only person who shares this trait

and many of us who do are quite famous.  Here are some wonderful examples:

“640K is all the memory that anyone will ever need.”  Bill Gates (Currently we are making hard drives with a trillion bits of storage space)

            “Smoking kills.  If you’re killed, you’ve lost a very important part of your life.”

            Brooke Shields

            “Chemistry is a class you take in high school or college, where you figure out

            2 plus 2 is 10 or something.”  Dennis Rodman

            “And now the sequence of events, in no particular order.”  Dan Rather

            “You can’t just let nature run wild.”  George Hickey, former Governor of

            Alaska

And the winning quote is……

“There aren’t enough Indians in the world to defeat the 7^th Calvary.”  General George Armstrong Custard

You tell’em George!

Don't Blink

Don’t Blink.  It’s a song made popular by Kenny Chesney.  The lyrics remind us that

time goes so quickly that before we know it life passes us by.  I have been reminded

of it twice this week.  Once by a cousin’s blog and then on a facebook post by my oldest

and best friend.  My friend and I shared a cradle together in church when we were 4

months old according to his mother and mine.  Once in kindergarten we snuck away from

the church to see a robin’s nest full of baby birds in a local neighborhood.  He fell out of

the tree we were in, scraped his leg then ran off and left me to find my way back.  We

played football,  baseball, cowboys and indians.  We camped in our backyards sneaking

off to wander around the town in which we lived and once went skinny dipping at a

neighbor’s house in the middle of the night ( I cannot confirm that their dog ran off with

my underwear).   We shot each other with BB guns or  roman candles when we could find


them using metal garbage can lids as shields.


Occasionally, I’m sure we even exchanged blows although I can’t remember a specific

incident.  We went on band trips during high school and I can never remember us not

being friends.  He sat at the funeral home for three days when my sister died and I will

owe him that forever.   We have stayed in touch in our adult lives and commiserated

or celebrated life’s events.  He married another high school friend late in life, 


had his first child and introduced me to a side of him I never knew.   This week

his little girl put on tap shoes for first time and my son put on his football helmet for the

first time.  We spoke about it over the phone.   Don’t blink my friend, don’t blink…..

Marine Corps Lougie

As many of you know I am a former Marine. I served my Country proudly and it was a life changing experience. I wouldn’t take a million dollars for the experience but I wouldn’t take a million dollars to do it again either. Now for those of you who are squeamish should stop reading here, actually you should have stopped reading at the title probably. This story goes back to boot camp where I first experience both real excitement and real terror. Let’s visit that time.
Its spring of 1984, late February or March I guess, but regardless spring had already started to make the trees and flowers bloom and to give me my first sinus infection of the year. I know it was a Sunday afternoon because it was Parent’s Day on the island. That’s Parris Island of those of you that weren’t Marines. It is where they train us Devil Dogs to protect and serve. The Sunday prior to your “graduation” is when they allow your parents to visit you, tour the island, and see how Uncle Sam has transformed their sons and daughters. On this particular day while all this was going on my platoon, Platoon 1042, was practicing drill on the parade deck. This is where the drill instructor takes his platoon in formation, marching them back and forth across the mile wide /deep parade deck (picture a large empty parking lot) teaching them to turn right, turn left, about face (turn around) and all the intricacies of marching. This of course, with 18 year old boys who generally can’t remember which is their left and which is their right when asked to turn in that particular direction. It was hot, I’m thinking high 80’s with lots of humidity on that day and my sinus infection had morphed into bronchitis where I could feel it rattling around in my chest. After several hours of marching-stopping-yelling, marching-stopping-yelling, then marching some more I wasn’t feeling so great and out of nowhere I had a deep chest rattling cough. At that precise moment out of my mouth flew a giant lougie!
Now there are many things that you want to do while marching in formation at Parris Island with your drill instructor watching on Parent’s Day but unfortunately “hocking a lougie” is not one of them. Immediately, and I mean perhaps before “it” hit the parade deck my drill instructor was screaming, “Halt, Halt everyone @&&^%$ Halt”. I will tell you it turned some of the parent's heads. Rushing up to where I was in formation (luckily for the rest of the Marines I was on the outside rank) we had the following conversation, that is if you can use the word conversation to describe one person screaming at another person that is standing at attention:
Drill Instructor: Recruit White did I just see you hock up a Marine Corps lougie on my parade deck?
Me: Sir yes Sir!
Drill Instructor: Let me get this straight, you actually just hocked a lougie on my sacred Marine Corps parade deck? The same parade deck that thousands of men who gave their lives in the service of their country marched across?
Me: Sir yes Sir
Drill Instuctor: You maggot, in the Pit right now!
Me: Sir yes Sir
Well off I ran to the "pit". The pit is the Marine Corps version of a large sand box. Its probably 50 yards long and 30 yards deep, big enough to have a 50 Marine platoon standing in it at one time. When you go to the pit it's not just to stand around in, the pit is strictly for "incentive PT". Incentive PT (PT + physical training) is just fancy words for exercise until you are about to pass out. Apparently my "lougie" had really incensed my drill instructor and he began to scream different incentive PT exercises to me, "bend and thrust, jumping jacks, push ups, sit ups, leg lifts (a particularly evil exercise in which you lay flat and elevate your legs approximately 6 inches off the ground and hold them there). This went on for approximately 45 minutes. I was dying. The rule governing incentive PT that I found out later is that a drill instructor cannot provide more than 20 minutes of incentive PT in one hour. Apparently my drill instructor had forgotten this rule. Then came the most dreaded command for any Marine in the pit, "make it snow, recruit, make it snow" This particularly insidious command requires the recruit to run in place reaching down to grab handfuls of sand and throw them in the air above his head. Now I don't have to tell you the effect this has on someone that has been sweating in almost ninety degree heat and 80 percent humidity. In mere seconds you are covered in sand, it's in your hair, inside your camo uniform, your boots, your underwear, your....you get the picture. Here's the rub if you'll pardon the pun, you only get one shower a day there and this is right before lights out, so you go the rest of the day in this condition. It is miserable! Try this tomorrow. Put on a dress or a suit depending on who you are, run 5 miles, roll around in the sand and spend the next 12 hours at work without a shower. You get the picture.
What the drill instructor didn't notice and quite frankly I had gone into sort of a dazed state from lack of oxygen, is that every parent from that was visiting the island on that day had begun to gather to watch this experience. I can't be sure how many of them there were watching because I could only look straight ahead but by my count it was close to 50 or 60 parents with their Marine sons. This spectacle prompted him to immediately stop my "incentive PT". It might have been the several mothers that had begun to weep and wail while watching or it might have been my weeping that stopped him. Regardless I wish to thank all those parents now and to ask their forgiveness for not being more gracious to them at the time (I hope they'll understand). Where were we? Yes, my drill instructor then ordered me back into formation. You might have thought it was over at this point but trust me it was just beginning. When I got back into formation (oh and if you want to be unpopular with your fellow Marines, just have them stand for 45 minutes at attention while you are being worked in the pit) the drill instructor approached me again:
Drill Instructor: Recruit White did you hock a lougie on my parade deck?
Me: Sir Yes Sir
Drill Instructor: PICK IT UP!
Me: Sir? (imagine a voice that sounds like Pee Wee Herman when he's out of breath here)
Drill Instructor: What part of "Pick it up" did you not understand?
Me: Sir recruit understands Sir
Drill Instructor: Then pick it up.
Needless to say compared to picking up a lougie, hocking them up is a breeze. I will spare you the ugly details but I did mange to get most of it off the parade deck.
Drill Instructor: Now put it in your pocket!
Me: Sir (again imagine Pee Wee Herman)
Drill Instructor: Are you stupid? What about "put it in your pocket" do you not understand? Did you go to school growing up? Are you a moron? Did you mother marry her brother? (I think there were more insults, but I can't write them here and I think you get my point.)
Me: Sir yes Sir
I then placed the scraped up, nasty sticky, sand covered lougie in my pocket. Then as if nothing happened my drill instructor turned barked a command and off the platoon marched. I was grateful thinking the incident was over for me. I was sadly mistaken, but that's for my next blog entitiled; "Recruit White did you hock a lougie on my parade deck this morning?" Sigh......

"I wish you knew my father"

Today is Father's Day and many of you will celebrate it with your father, some of you will not be able to visit with your father, but will celebrate the memory of him. This has been on my mind lately, since my father is getting older and not always in the best of health at times. I've thought many times in the last several years about life and frailty of it and I've come to the conclusion that "I wish you knew my father".
My father was born in Flushing, New York, 1 of 3 children. He was the youngest of the three and was raised there by Grace and Russell, my grandparents. He enlisted in the Air Force in the early 60's and met my mother on the beaches in Florida. He told me the story the other day that after he met her that he got on his Indian motorcycle and rode all night from Pensacola to Sylacauga, Alabama. He said it was raining and he would ride awhile until the rain caught him and he would stop under an overpass till the rain passed and he'd get on his way again repeating this process all the way there. He tells me that his financial situation was such that when he arrived in Sylacauga he actually slept propped up on his motorcycle until the town got to stirring around and then he asked where she lived and paid her a visit. Now I don't know, but I'm not sure many men would go to that length to see a woman they had just met and didn't actually know her address. By the way, they will be married 50 years in December. I wish you knew my father.
They married while he was in the Air Force and they traveled to Japan where they had my sister Lisa and a bought their first furniture, a console stereo with an record player and radio. They had no chairs to sit on so they and their friends would sit on the floor and bed and listen in the evenings as their entertainment. The stereo is still resides at their house. I once saw Patty Duke buy the same stereo on a TV episode that was filmed in black and white. They eventually were transferred back to the states and I was born at Eglin Air Force Base. My mother eventually moved back to Birmingham because my father was sent to Thailand as the Vietnam War began to heat up and eventually after 8 or 9 years of serving his country my father got out of the Air Force as a Buck Sargent and returned to Birmingham, Alabama. He got a job with Drummond Coal where he started working at the coke oven (a process that requires superheating coal to around a bizillon degrees and then cools it quickly). He once told me that he wore long johns in the summer because they helped keep him sweaty and more cool during work. He once helped my bother-in-law lay sod in 90 degree weather drinking a cup of coffee while the rest of us were about to pass out, we were all in our twenties at the time! He worked there for a couple of years and then was in a bad car accident. He was out of work for 18 months, he had over 20 operations during that time to repair his right leg, chest and face where he suffered the most injuries. I remember the first time he was allowed home and he went to sit down on the toilet and his repaired femur snapped and back he went to the hospital. Eventually, he returned to Drummond Coal and the first week on the job a piece of railroad tie was kicked up by a coal car and hit him in the face. He required several more operations and I'm told has mostly wire and very little bone in his facial area. He recovered and went back to work. He mananged to work there for 1 month shy of 40 years when he retired several years ago. I wish you knew my father.
Of course I've skipped many things during this time. He and my mother had two more children, both girls. He coached baseball for me, softball for my sister, worked the swing shift for around 20 years while doing this. He became a deacon in the local Baptist Church and I can't remember a Sunday we didn't go while I was growing up. He lost a daughter to suicide when she was twenty and without hesitation adopted her 5 month old son and raised him. Bobby is twenty-one now and hiking the Appalachian trail. My father is recognized by almost everyone who knows him because he has had a handlebar mustache for around 30 plus years. I've never met a man or woman that didn't love him or respect him. I wish you knew my father.
Around 6 years ago he and my mother were driving back from a high school basketball game where they lived and their car was struck by a drunk driver. It nearly killed both of them and they probably only lived because they were rescued by an incredible man that pulled them both from their burning car. My father sustained two broken legs, burns to his face and multiple other injuries and was life flighted to the hospital. I met the state trooper that worked the accident and he told me that my father might be the toughest man he ever met. When I asked why, he told me that when he got there my father was laying on the ground saw the state trooper, rolled over, took his wallet out of the back pocket of his pants and handed his license to the state trooper. I wish you knew my father.
If a man is measured by his friends, then I can tell you that after the accident they came out of the woodwork. They brought every meal for my parents for one month, every meal. The church men showed up on a day's notice to build a ramp for them be able to get in the house in their wheelchair. They had hundreds of people visit them and I do mean hundreds. My father has had 5 or 6 additional surgeries since the accident, several resulting in a couple of strokes, a period of time where he went blind and a seizure disorder that affects his life. Yet, when I call and ask him how he's doing his reply is the same, "I'm in pretty good shape for the shape I'm in." I wish you knew my father.
I'm very thankful today that I can post a blog that says I still talk with my father and tell him I love him every time we get together. I hope you had a father alot like mine growing up, loving, hard working, a good provider and a faithful husband. If you did I am sure you understand how I feel today and if you didn't "I wish you knew my father."

Zero Turn Lawn Mowers and 72 year old mothers...

Well lets get this started off by telling you how my weekend went last Saturday. Sarah and I drove to our parents (they live exactly 6.8 miles apart I know this because I run it when we are there sometimes). We went to drop my youngest two children off to spend the week with their grandparents and the excuse that I was going to "help" my parents with a few chores. The first was cutting their grass. Now if you have been to my parents you'd know they live in the country and have about 3 acres of land which about 2 of those require cutting with a lawn mower. So when I got there Saturday it was well past the time to cut since my mother hasn't been feeling well and my father can no longer cut the yard. Here's where the tricky part comes in... My 72 year old mother just bought a zero turn lawn mower. You know the ones, have the captain's chair on top of the machine and two space shuttle handles on each side, allowing you to turn in 0 degrees, thus a zero turn lawn mower.
First let me tell you that the handles are sensitive to the touch, when I say sensitive I mean imagine telling Mike Tyson that he has a high and squeaky voice and you'd get the same violent reaction by moving the handles ever so slightly. I found this out when I tried to back the mower out of their garage, it was relatively difficult but uneventful, I feel certain my parents will not notice the dent in their car it's such a small one. Things didn't get much better when I actually got to the grass. I can best explain it by relaying a phone call my father received from one of the neighbors.
Ring Ring
Father: Hello
Neighbor: Hi Jim how are you today?
Father: I'm in good shape for the shape I'm in.... (my Dad cracks me up)
Neighbor: Hey Jim who's cutting your grass? Stevie Wonder?
Father: What?
Neighbor: Who's cutting your grass? Stevie Wonder? I don't know if you realize it but there's some man cutting your grass, well it kinda looks like he's cutting your grass, your yard looks like a Salvador Dali painting, like a giant cow threw up after a all night eating binge....
Father: Oh, that...that's my son he's trying to be helpful so we let him cut the grass...
Neighbor: Wait, hold on..Geesh....he just took his hand off one of the controls to scratch his face......whew that was close. I'd hate to see Jenny's face if we had to pull that mower out of the pond.
Father: Yea, you know he almost slid his car off into that pond last time he was here..
Neighbor: Yea I remember that. Hey Jim I'm not much into interfering but maybe you shouldn't let him help so much....
Father: Yea probably not
Neighbor: Actually let him help, maybe we should just sell tickets next time....

When I finished cutting the grass my mother asked me to wire some electrical outlets in the basement. Before I could start I noticed the neighbors had set up chairs in the drive way. Wonder what that was about?