 Well, I was having a good morning, till I decided to choke myself on a sip of coffee. But I’m alright now; I spit it back into the cup and drink it again… I know. Last night I went to bed rather quickly till around four in the morning when I was awakened by a series of dreams about my hometown of Bloomingdale, GA. In my dream, the sleepy little suburb of Savannah changed from streets lined with simple tract houses to having been mowed down to make room for new warehouses for the expanding port and the auto plant nearby. I was walking around looking for all the landmarks that made this place my home. And all I could see were row after row of metal-sided buildings and a huge paved-over parking lot. All the houses were gone. The canal I crossed over on a railroad tie to go to school and caught tadpoles in on endless summers. Jone’s Service Station where I bought and brought cigarettes for my grandparents. Even the Baptist church behind my grandparents' house, where we went to church. All gone. When I woke up I felt disoriented and sad about what had happened to the history of my youth. But to be honest, ever since my mother passed some 20 years ago, I haven’t been back to Bloomingdale very much, other than to check on my father’s gravesite. My life and my home has been centered on the middle of the state for the last 32 years. So some may wonder why I still call Chatham County my home. Well, my wife can tell you, I’ve always called old people “Granny.” Even though I’m a Grandpa myself and have been for over ten years. It’s funny how my adult children see me as old. How my grandkids definitely see me as old. Hell, my damn body knows I am old. So why do I still see myself as that fat, four-eyed kid from 103 South Chestnut Street? I guess within each of us that’s how it’s always going to be. My years in old B’dale weren’t all sunshine and roses. I grew up fat and believe me I was teased for it. I had a lisp when I spoke, for which I was teased more. Neighborhood kids can be the cruelest bullies of them all. But I learned to escape their taunts by playing the clown, and for most of my life it worked. So after 63 years, I have developed an armor as thick as a tank. So where am I going with this, you may ask? I suppose I’m here to say that despite the distance between me and Bloomingdale and all its painful memories… it’s still home. Every so often we need to exercise the pain that lives within us, no matter how deep. You can try to bury it deeper, but eventually, those seeds of pain will peer through the cracks of the thickest concrete. So I often have to look that pain square in the eye and hold it tight and tell that kid that I love you and that it’s going to be okay. So many of us glorify the past with our stories of “remember when?” when in fact the good old days weren’t all that good. Abuse and pain linger just around the edges, shaping us in ways we find hard to look at. But life is finite, just like my old man who lays under Gravel Hill Cemetery. I realize now that I’m not just visiting a gravesite when I go back to Chatham County; I’m visiting that fat, four-eyed kid from 103 South Chestnut Street. The canal where I caught tadpoles might be paved over by a parking lot, and the Baptist church might be gone, but that boy is still there. As the warehouses move in and the world changes, I’m going to keep holding his hand and tell him he’s going to be alright. For we’re both just trying to get home. #Memories #InnerChild #Healing #Compassion #Change
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 This morning’s looking about right for a late January, kinda hazy, kinda blue, kinda gray. The air is as sharp as an ice cold knife as well. I’m bundled up as I should be, the bed is made, and the medicine has been taken. Looking at my files I have several stories ready to be varnished and touched up for publishing. But none of them are sitting on my screen. I guess I just don’t feel like having leftovers from the past few days, no matter how delicious they were to write. So now that I’m a paragraph into this fresh screen, I’m still just as clueless as I was when I started. Still I’m not willing to breathe in the same old smoke I exhaled yesterday. So as I stare out at the empty tree branches that line the opposing field. They sort of remind me of my mind at the moment. Listening to the notifications on my phone all telling me, this or that, is making me feel like a cornered rabbit that’s being hunted. So I cower in a corner trying to make myself as small as I can. Some of you would say, that’s the coward’s way out, and frankly, I won’t disagree. But when, for the better part of your life, you were forced to cower. Then it becomes your only means of survival. So forgive me if I don’t sound so bold or proud. Or that I should just get over myself as my mind often tells me to do. But this is me, this is part of who I am. Between the billowing smoke and towering thunder, lies a small, frightened child. That never got too many hugs. But did get too many reprimands for being too weak and timid. So excuse me for my honesty and my willingness to tell the truth. #Reflection #Honesty #Healing #Confession #Forgiveness  After washing that gritty taste of the powdered medicine out of my mouth. I rewarded myself with a tasty multivitamin and B12 gummy vitamin to cleanse my palette. After that, I took a sweet sip of lukewarm coffee, which my wife brought to my study over an hour ago. But we never complain, it’s too damn early in the morning for that, for you never disturb the Great Michael Strahan. My wife’s many defenders would say. “Now quit picking on her!” To which I reply, “You don’t live with her.” But I’m trying to be a civilized person this morning, while the rest of the country is going bat shit crazy. And can you blame them, apparently they have been given permission by the crazy Uncle you sit in the big chair at holidays, and hope he fells asleep. But my question is, who’s to blame? The uncle? Or the minions that beg for his permission? Power is a temping seed which in a way we all crave. Some of us just a little, some of us a whole lot. In my house I am really a reluctant ruler, a caregiver by default. But as the sun rises over the grey clouds, I hope that in time, the compassionate majority of this country will rise up and embrace their power. And I don’t mean by the Jackboot or the gun. But by peaceful assembly and the protest across this great nation. To all say in unison, “No Mas!” Now you may be part of that frightened minority that believes compassion and hope are bad. But I’m telling you on an individual level, most want the same for their kids as you do….they want peace. But Jackboots and Brown shirts ain’t going to do it. This is a democracy, not a kingdom or dictatorship. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”. #Life #Liberty #Happiness #Compassion #Empathy #Democracy  Jekyll Island I stir in the powdered medicine with my magic wand, an old disgusting plastic straw I haven’t had the mercy to throw out, into the cup of tea. The only beverage I’ve found it blinds the awful taste of that gritty powder. Popping the eleven pills into my mouth in groups of four, four, and three. When including the powder and the vitamins, that makes fourteen different medications I take each morning. With each serving the purpose of keeping my sweet ass alive and functioning. As per usual, I rise up promptly at seven with my bride. Once she exits the room I usually just lay in the bed for a few minutes reading over any emails or messages I may have gotten during the night. Some of the time I take a moment to write encouraging little notes to some of the posts that I read. It’s an old habit I find hard to break, but one I do with sincerity to a few I feel that need it. Outside it’s a gloomy shade of gray, but the windows are still open for a cool breath of fresh air. If you’ve forced yourself to read this dull trash to this point…congratulations. As usual is just another snapshot of my morning. Peering beyond the chain linked fence and the hedgerow there’s an old plastic container rolling by my window. I smell the burning of my standby candle. A holiday scented something I picked up for 50% off some time ago. It burns like sage, although it says pumpkin on the label. But maybe that’s just what I need to run off the evil spirits that are hanging around my head. So sorry, no affirmations for you this morning. You just have to read a book by my friend Kari Scott titled Beginning to Become, available on Amazon Kindle as an eBook. There in her infectious way she will take you through a series of life affirming affirmations that are sincere and honest. And face it, that’s all any of us can ask for out of a lite little reading, that will hopefully pull your head out of the sand. #JustAnotherDay #Affirmations #Recommendation #HolidayCandles  Image By: FD Thornton I woke up a little too early this morning for my taste, but I did get a solid night’s sleep. When I first opened the curtains in the study it was still dark outside, with the slightest hint of dawn. But now that I’ve taken my meds and drank half-a-cup of decaf, the promise of a bright sun has appeared. Hadn’t heard much from the kids upstairs yet, maybe they got ready while I was in the shower. Meanwhile my wife is replaying the college championship game highlights from last night, on the big screen. The haze of pink and grey climbs ever so gently outside my windows. Reminding me of mornings warming up my DJB Transport for a day of sand hauling and dike building. Out on the banks of the Back River just behind Hutchinson Island overlooking Old Fort Jackson and the Riverfront in Savannah. Does were fun and productive days where I made a nice chuck of change working 12 hour shifts, 14 days straight , with 4 days off. In the hot summer the Boss would head over to Savannah and buy us a case of ice cold apples to snack on during the day. Then on payday he would cash our checks for us and buy two big coolers of beer for us to drink at the end of a good shift. That was one of the few jobs I hated to see end, with two years of building dikes to hold silt dredged from the Savannah River. I don’t know what got me thinking about that particular job, other than I liked it. I mean, I worked a many a job where I saw the dawn come up over an ice cold sky. But such as it is with an old memory, they either make you smile or make you cry. Today was a good memory and that’s good. Still it’s okay to face bad memories, just as long as you face them with forgiveness in your heart. For you or the one that hurt you. For ghost of the past can be unforgiving, unless you take their power away. #Ghost #Memories #FaceTheTruth #LoveYourself #Zen  Pulling back the curtains in my study and the sun had barely crossed the horizon. Leaving the crescent moon on the edge of daylight and dark. I did my best to take a picture, but I suppose some images are best left for the mind. I woke up a bit early and couldn’t really get back to sleep. Laying there I simply held my wife while she continued to sleep. I don’t know how she does it, but for decades I’ve always envied her ability to sleep. Waking up with a good attitude, minus a sinus headache. The air was really dry last night and even with a humidifier on my CPAP, I found it difficult not to have a dry throat. But as you all have come to expect, it is what it is, and so I go on. Yesterday I had a brief live conversation with a young woman I follow on TT. She is a mother and wife with two teenage boys, and she has MS. And she uses the platform to bring awareness and talk about her adventures with that debilitating illness. I connect with her with my own physical limitations. And our conversations usually gravitate towards how we get along with those limitations. Along with the burdens we feel we put upon our families. While we suffer from two very different illnesses, the effects on us are very similar with physical mobility and quality of life. The main difference being mine was preventable and her’s isn’t. Still it’s nice to have a friend that understands and has the same attitude towards surviving. So as I sit here on this early morning with the sun rising over the trees. I’ve found peace living with an illness that will eventually kill me. So I don’t treat my life as a death sentence or at the very least use it as a reason to give up. Like my friend, I do my best to wake up every morning with a good attitude, that today will only be as good as I can make it. #CrescentMoon #Attitude #Survival #LivingWithMS #CHF  Gas Lines of the Oil Embargo Well it’s the middle of the month and my debit card is already declining payments I run out of money for. So like most of working class America it’s time to batten down the hatches and hope you got enough eggs and milk for the rest of the month. But of course most of us have eggs and milk because we mostly live in our cars and go thru the drive-thru cause we’re too damn tired to cook when we get home. But such as it is here in consume, consume, consume America. I’m probably the last generation other than our octogenarian aunts and uncles that remember when going out was a treat and not a daily habit. When our moms either worked at home or had day jobs working in an office or a paper plant. But they still got home and cooked our meals. We just started eating Hamburger Helper because of the Recession of the 1970’s and the Arab Oil Embargo. I miss the Government Cheese we used to get and the odd jobs I could get cutting grass and burning trash. Today, I can’t afford anything but processed meat, even though the government wants me to eat more real meat. But I do eat a lot more of the Holy Trinty I was brought up on (celery, bell pepper, and onions). I use it to dress up Hamburger Helper like my Mom…minus the Government cheese. But life rolls on while our grandkids are raised by tablets instead of VHS tapes. While our owe noses are stuck to social media, cause that’s the only way to see are said grandkids anymore. Yeah, the good old days, not much better than today. But with less gadgets, and far more time. #GoodOldDays #Struggling #Commentary #ADayInTheLife  Damn I'm Pretty What a difference a day makes. With a blinding morning sun and the wind beginning to howl, winter is once again paying us Southerners a visit. Gone are the gloomy but warm temperatures of yesterday and Hello to Frosty the Snowman we true Southerners fear and dread. “We were not built for this…”, as many of my British friends say about visiting Disney World in July. But given the unpredictability of the times, a “once in 50 year storm” has now become more frequent. So I sit here after a hot shower and a shave, looking good, but feeling like hell. My head is aching with what would feel like a springtime allergy, but it’s the dead of Winter. I’m pretty sure it’s me adjusting to the dry heat of our central heating unit. But I got the windows cracked open in my study hoping to draw in a little moisture, much to my wife’s dismay. So I ask myself if I have something significant I need to say. But the answer keeps coming back, No. I guess some days aren’t meant for quiet reflection as much as appreciating what you see in front of you. Or to jump straight into the task at hand and use thee skills God(s) have given you. But often we lay around focused on ourselves crying in our coffee cups. That bemoan the day with their slogans like “Coffee Comes First” or “Life Begins After Coffee”. I mean I did feel bad this morning leaning of the grab bars in my shower, trying to balance while washing my hair, but I made it through. Then I dragged myself into the office, took my meds and started my day. After a couple of hours the meds are kicking in and the damp cold air is helping my head. Life doesn’t have to be a chore all the time. Every once in a while a sweet scent from out the window hits your nose. And reminds you, days like these can be a blessing and not a curse. #BeABlessing #WinterMornings #Complaining #Attitude #Life  This morning’s skies looked more like the opening scene in an old black and white horror movie then anything. With the bare limbs of the pecan trees creeping ever upward. With a forecast coming for rain and colder temperatures, my nose is already dripping in hapless anticipation. Pulling out a new candle, the last one served me well with hopeful inspiration. But this new one seems to be a hot one, with a bright flame burning quickly down the center of the wax. Other than that the day is starting as most do. With the phone dinging with notices that mean nothing in particular, but demand my attention like they’re something important. As I check my phone to verify my suspicions. The sky outside looses most of its creepiness and gives way to the bluish-grey hue of January rain. Feeling a bit artsy, my thoughts drift to sunnier skies and the dull grey waters of the Atlantic Ocean. And the anticipation of a short visit to the coast to walk the beaches of my youth. While my wife collects seashells I will walk the shore to take a few pics. Often I preach about living a life free of worrying about the future. But I can’t help but look forward to a week of breathing in salty ocean air that will no doubt chill me to the bone. For life is often like these two burning candles, with one burning bright hot and the other slowly working to it’s end. I don’t know about you, but both of these are examples of how we live our lives. Either quickly running from one crisis to another always fretting about the day. Or learning to simmer in the joy that the day and tomorrow will hopefully bring. #ThinkingOutLoud #BurningACandleAtBothEnds #Worry #Fear  Just a reminder, I write books. Right now I’m chewing my morning dessert, the two fruity gummy vitamins I save for last when I take my medication. I got up earlier after a shitty night of tossing and turning while dreaming about getting shot in a gunfight. Don’t ask. But by the time I woke up and jumped into the shower, I was feeling dizzy, but still pretty good. For a 63 year old heart patient with an implanted defibrillator and a history of mental illness. Yet I felt pretty good under the hot shower water. Now I’m sitting here in the total silence of my office. Facing the music head on that I am a lucky man to still be here. But that’s mostly because of my innate fear of death and my responsibility towards my family. I think my two oldest sorta get it now, about the responsibility towards family. Since they both now have kids. But about the innate fear of death, well I don’t feel that one so much. After the first widow maker, that fear seems to have abandoned me. Not so much a spiritual revelation, but a moment where I faced death and felt fine about it. Maybe my Evangelical Family would like to call it a come to Jesus moment, but I don’t see it like that. I think of it more as facing the fear head on and taking ownership of it. Know what I mean? Now I’m not much of a gambler, I really don’t like taking risk. But when faced with a life or death situation, I don’t run. And I guess in a way that’s what this whole conversation is about, not running. Own up to your faults and try to do better. Stop living on the fairy tale dreams of affirmations and put “Feet to those prayers”, as an old Preacher once said. Stop living your life hidden behind a wall of Bullshit. Face your fears and don’t back down. #Backbone #FaceTheFear #LoveYourself #DontBacKDown |
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January 2026
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