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............