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…..