To The Wheeler Class of ’77

My latest book, Surviving The Smoke Hole & Other High School Accomplishments, has just been released.  Needless to say, I hope all of you and several million more people buy it so I can retire. It is a personal book. At least, as personal as I will get. I hope you enjoy it and it brings you laughs.

A few things.

First of all, it is not a history of Wheeler. It is my history at Wheeler. I don’t mention the football team at all, even though they totally rocked back then. I was going to name the book Eat ‘Em Up, Beat ‘Em Up”, because that’s the only cheer I remember.  I don’t talk a lot about the pep rallies, even though they were all great and I always think about the cheerleaders’ high kicking every time I hear Chicago’s “Make Me Smile”.  I mention in passing Mr. Diffly’s obscene gesture to the members of the sophomore class only because it was so epic. Today, students at elite universities flip out when they see the word “Trump” written in chalk. I don’t remember many sophomores being upset at a teacher flipping them off because they lost a cheer contest.

 

In the forward, I explain there were a lot of people and events I did not mention, but it does not mean those people and events were not important. Like the children of Lake Woebegone, you are all above average.  So if you were not mentioned in the book, it is probably due to my faulty memory, which I discovered was pretty rotten for a history major writing a memoir. 

One thing you learn majoring in history is that memoirs are often used to “settle scores”. That’s where my faulty memory comes in handy because I’m sure there were some scores I needed to settle, but I just can’t remember any. 

(There’s a website called “Rate Your Teacher” and I found a comment about one of our teachers. Really.  It said: “Was not very nice in 1978”.   That’s what I call settling a score!)

Some of our classmates are named. Others were not by their own request. Some were not named due to common sense. There were those not named simply because I couldn't remember their names  Others have been given a pseudonym.  Lisa Randall, who proofread the book, said I should have a special “Key” for our class which identifies those people.   I decided against it because I either didn’t name the person or gave them a pseudonym to protect their innocence and/or my face. 

So don’t ask me to name anybody. Because I’m not telling.

There are some topics not mentioned, like race. Let's face it: just about everybody at Wheeler was white. 

I don’t mention the deaths in the class.  A girl named Sabrina was killed in a car wreck our sophomore year. A teacher committed suicide. Of course, I will always remember where I was when I heard about Steve Tew.   But I don't remember any counselors being sent to the school to help us deal with any grief.  I loved and appreciated Steve. He laughed at my jokes.

All of us remember Steve Leary.

I will always remember him in Spanish class in 7^th grade, picking his nose just to irritate the teacher. The Spanish teacher, a Cuban exile, would always freak out because Steve was a hemophiliac and she thought a finger nail would cut him and he would bleed to death. It would be death by nose picking. They made only one Steve Leary. He passed away in the early ‘80’s.  

One event I should have discussed was the original painting of the Cat Paws on Holt Road in 1973. You would be surprised how much I have read about this event and all of it wrong. I know because my brother was there and he set a Manis Land Speed Record running back to our house when the cops came. 

I do want to acknowledge that for some of our fellow Wildcats, things were not hunky-dory.  One person told me, “To be perfectly honest, I have very few fond memories of high school”.  This individual said, “I hold no grudges and am FB (Facebook) friends with a few Wheeler peeps that were less than kind in those days but I doubt they even remember. Life is too short to hold grudges or assume the behavior of 16 year olds never changed.  Who knew what was going on in their lives?”   

 

One time, during my one brief shining moment (May, 1977), a person made it a point to walk up to me, as I was basking in the glow (of what I thought was) popularity and say, "You know, some people think you are really funny. I think you are sick."  But life is too short to hold grudges. Plus, as John Lennon once remarked, "Time wounds all heels".

We were a blessed generation of kids.   My dad, when he was 13, hitchhiked all the way from East Tennessee to Maryland to look for work.  When I was 13. I had to stand up and actually walk over to the television set to turn a knob to change channels. I think my son would have passed out at 13 if he had to turn a knob to change channels.

Aside from the channel changing bit, we had to made. We were smack dab in the middle of a youth culture. Everything we did was cool. Except for disco. That was stupid and I would like to apologize for it.

All in all, this book is a Valentine to all of my fellow Wildcats.  I love all of you. Some more than others.

 

The Grass Keeps Right on Growing

The grass keeps right on growing
The sun goes right on shining,
there are apples on the apple tree.
Ain't life a funny thing? Flowers bloom and birds still sing
and everything's the same except for me .  ~ Gloria Shayne

 

You know, I thought I wouldn't have to write this blog post.

I thought, at least I hoped, the Republican Party-the political party of mature adults-the political party that was not given to whims or flights of fancy, would send Donald J. Trump back to reality television. It turns out, in reality, Trump will be the nominee of The Republican Party.

God, have they lost their ever lovin' minds?

I have been pretty clear as to why I was a founding member of #NeverTrump.

1. The man, who wants to be the Commander and Chief, denigrated John McCain's service to this country as a Prisoner of War. The man who got four deferments for a medical condition of his foot and he can't remember which foot. Incidentally, McCain was the Republican standard bearer in 2008 and Trump will expect McCain to fall in line. Not likely.

2. The man, in a public speech after Mitt Romney's speech blasting him said, "He was begging for my endorsement. I could have said, 'Mitt, drop to your knees.' He would have dropped to his knees." I don't have to translate this for you. Trump is tacky and vulgar. Apparently, money cannot buy you class.

3. Speaking of Romney, it is said Romney spoke Conservatism as a second language. Trump speaks conservatism as if he's carrying around a Berlitz Language Book and saying words loud as he possibly can like he's an ugly American tourist in Paris.  Trump is not a conservative in manner, thought, or deed.  He's gaudy, ostentatious, and I would be shocked if he ever heard of Edmund Burke.

4. My nickname for Trump: Dumb Donald. Look, he was unfamiliar with The Nuclear Triad. That's like a builder not knowing about concrete. He doesn't know or care that The Smoot-Hawley Tariff exacerbated The Great Depression and yet he argues for high tariffs if other countries doesn't give us "good deals". He doesn't know or care that the phrase "America First" carries baggage because of The America First Committee which tried to keep the US out of World War II and was full of German Sympathizers.

5. He has a penchant of accepting, apparently at face value, any stupid conspiracy theory that comes down the pike. Four years ago, he was going to "prove" Obama was born in Kenya (Obama wasn't and Trump didn't)  Now, he's peddling that Ted Cruz's dad was somehow involved in The Kennedy Assassination. If the race had gone any further, I'm sure Trump would have figured out some way of tying Cruz with the Manson Family or O.J. Simpson.

Those are just five reasons, and I could come up with more if you give me another second, of why I don't think Trump is fit to be President.

Look, I know everybody on my side of the river is "mad" at "career politicians".  I know Ted Cruz is a goofy looking guy-the kind that would look at you like you really shouldn't have that beer because God doesn't want you to drink. But really, Trump?

I have no idea what I'm going to do in November. If Trump somehow transforms himself from this ugly duckling of a candidate into a beautiful swan of a possible President, maybe I could hold my nose and vote for him. Maybe if he has a good running mate.  But it is going to take an industrial size clothes pin.

I could vote for a Third Party, although that 's kind of like going ahead and voting for Hillary. Just thinking about it makes my head hurt.

By the way, don't start the brow beating that "this is the most important election of our lifetime" and I "must" vote for Trump.

Inez (my mom) always stressed to me to vote for the man and not the party. The problem is both candidates are deeply flawed, to say the least.

But the grass will keep on growing no matter who wins and the sun will keep right on shining. Just the thought of having to choose between these two amoral snakes makes me shudder and it is really disappointing that we can't do better.

I will say this: if Hillary wins, y'all are going to get an "I told you so".

 It will be huge.

Series of Dreams

⁵ Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him all the more. ⁶ He said to them, “Listen to this dream I had: ⁷ We were binding sheaves of grain out in the field when suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright, while your sheaves gathered around mine and bowed down to it.”   Genesis 37: 5-7

Look, everybody has dreams.

I'm not talking about "I have a dream of winning the lottery" or "I dream of owning my own business". I'm talking about ZZZZ-induced  REM fueled dreams. I'm talking about dreams where you wake up and go "whoa, what was that about?". I 'm talking about dreams where you tell your wife about it and she just looks at you with that look that conveys this one subtle message: You are a moron.

As everybody knows, dreams must mean something. There are plenty of people to help you interpret your dreams. For example, in the Aisling A-Z Dream Dictionary, it gives you an interpretation of the symbols of your dreams.

For example, if you happen to dream about feces ( or "poop" to you Trump voters out there), it means " there are problems with your colon".  Hey, it is on the Internet, so you can't argue with it.
 
I just happened upon the meaning of bare bosoms in dreams. Not that I have dreams about bare bosoms. At least not now. Maybe when I was thirty-five.  It says "Breasts symbolize nurturing in dreams. For example, if a friend has exposed breasts in a dream it is a request for you to use your nurturing / leadership abilities in social settings."

This is going to come in handy when I tell my wife about the dream I had about, oh, just to pick a name out of the sky, Nicole Kidman, and she was topless. It simply means Nicole wants me to use my nurturing/ leadership skills in social settings.  Thanks, Nicole!

In fact, I've had a lot of celebrities in my dreams. My dream world is a regular US Weekly.

One time, I dreamed about Urkel from the 90's television show, Family Matters. We were walking up the steps going into a house for a party. That's it. I think I asked Urkel if he knew anybody at the party.  Not sure why I had a dream about Urkel, because, let's face it, he was one of the more annoying figures of the 90's along with Janet Reno and whomever came out with the "Macarena" song.

My interpretation was this: even though I did not make good grades in high school, I knew a lot of people that did and I probably would have hung around Urkel if he had gone to Wheeler in the mid-70's.

On a little more serious note, I've had two vivid dreams about Bob Dylan. Whenever one of my parents would die, Bob would show up in a dream, unannounced. In true Bob fashion, I didn't understand anything he said, but I knew it was probably important. In the dream after Old Man Manis died, Bob was sitting up in a tree, talking to me about something real deep, but I couldn't understand it.  Just like a couple of his concerts I've attended.

The celebrity dream that caused a lot of discussion around Manis Manor is the one I had about Jane Seymour.

Yes, I admit it. Like many male baby boomers, I have a crush on Jane Seymour. I don't quite know what it is, but there is just something about her I've always found attractive. Maybe it's because she's good looking.

The dream was this. I took Jane Seymour to a basketball game at East Cobb Junior High School. I was in 8th grade in the dream. Jane was starring in "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman".   It was a big game, packed house, and we went up in the stands.

I could hear everybody in my class saying "Hey Manis" and "Manis", but they were pronouncing it like they did back then:  "May-Nus" (you have to remember-this is The South).  They were impressed with my date. Even the cool kids like my friend Craig, who probably did go out with Jane Seymour a couple of times.

Jane wore yellow sweater. We sat together and watched the game. That was the dream. No big make out session with Jane Seymour. She kept her clothes on. I guess there was no one she wanted me to use my leadership/nurturing skills on.

When I told my wife about the dream, she said, "Yellow?!".  She promptly showed me a picture she had found: my prom picture.  My date wore a yellow dress.

On Mindfuldreamer.com it says this about the color yellow in dreams:

"Yellow is a color with various meanings, usually either positive or negative depending on the context of it being used in the dream. On the positive side it can mean innocence, hope, happiness, and lightheartedness - to have a "sunny disposition". On the negative side it can mean indecision, cowardliness, or sickness. Pay careful attention to how the dream made you feel to understand the meaning of the color yellow in your dreams."

With that in mind, I think I can say on the positive side that the color yellow in this dream means my happiness was taking a major TV star to a basketball game at my junior high school.

Other than that, I haven't the slightest idea what my Jane Seymour dream meant.  My wife says it means that Jane Seymour is "my woman".  She also said something about medicine and needing to increase my dosage. 

The Plastic Flute

In case you didn't know, I've been writing a couple of books this past year.

One book was something I've had in the can for a long time, sort of like Harper Lee, except I'm no Harper Lee. It also doesn't touch on significant existential themes unless you count jokes about moms jumping up and down when a nine year old hits a home run as meaningful.

The second book is a little more personal; it is about my life in the 70's at Wheeler High School.  I expect Ryan Gosling to play me in the movie.

At the time I went to Wheeler, it was THE school in Cobb County. Wheeler was in East Cobb, and cousin, East Cobb was a-booming back then.

It was interesting writing about my life back then because unlike most people, I just went to school and came home.  I wasn't in any clubs. My grades were not good. I was too small for sports. I've always wondered why I was like that.

Then one day it hit me.

In sixth grade it was announced that we would be having "band" practice. This is when the high school and junior high school band teachers went to the elementary schools and tried to teach the kids how to play a recorder, which is a black plastic flute.

Like everyone else, I received my flute and went to "band" class.

Okay, I will admit one thing. I was eleven years old. I really did not grasp the significance of playing a plastic flute.

I will admit something else. I probably did band class so I could get out of my other classes. I'm pretty sure my friends were a part of it too.

First class. The band teacher gave this home work: Practice on your recorder.

A week goes by before the second class. I practiced on my recorder for maybe two minutes, total. That's being generous.

Second class. The band teacher catches me talking to another student during class. I stopped talking. The class ends and the band teacher gives the same home work as before. Again, I might have picked up the flute to look at it.

Third class. The band teacher is going over the scale. The band teacher points at me as I am mouthing the notes and says I'm just "following the class" and "doesn't really know it". Okay. You got me, Sherlock.

 The class ends. The band teacher wants to see me after class.

The band teacher has me sit down. The band teacher sighs.  The band teacher looks at me and says, "You know, some people can do things and some people can't do things. You can't do this. Please give me your flute."   I give the band teacher my flute.

As I look over this incident, I can honestly say this: that band teacher really sucks.

For one thing, and I cannot over emphasize this, I was ELEVEN years old. On top of that, I was an ELEVEN year old BOY.  Eleven year old boys are not known for their ability to follow instructions no matter if it was 1971 or 2016.

It is just an awful thing to tell a child they simply don't have what it takes to play a plastic flute. I'm still not sure what it takes to play a plastic flute.

I'm not sure if the band teacher wanted me to protest it and then come in the next week playing like crazy. Maybe that was it. However, even though I was a smart aleck kid, I was compliant and if an adult told me I couldn't do something, it made sense to me that I couldn't do it.

So, a door was closed to me- I couldn't even be a band nerd. It was closed by an adult, that had observed me for, maybe, three hours total.

That's just the way it was back then. Adults threw kids in a box and that's where you were expected to stay.

By the way, there are tons of my contemporaries who worship this teacher. That's okay. Maybe I was the one kid that he made a mistake with, I don't know.  I'm glad nobody else had my experience.

I'm not going to lie. Five years later in high school I was not thinking, "Man, that teacher kept me from band".  I didn't obsesses over it. Still, I've wonder if this was in the back of my mind: I can't even play a plastic flute.

Last week, my high school celebrated its 50th year of existence. I saw a lot of people I haven't seen in over thirty-five years.  I ran into one of best teachers ever, Roger Hines. He was the most challenging teacher I had at Wheeler. I wrote a paper for him once. Somehow, I made a 92 on it.  I wonder what would have happened if he told me some people can write and others can't.

I probably wouldn't have written a blog for seven years or be coming out with a couple of books.

Reagan vs Trump

It has been a little difficult this election cycle.

A lot of people-and I do mean a lot of people-that I like are big supporters of Donald Trump.

This is difficult for me because I basically see Trump as an insincere jerk with a big touch of douche in him. His appeal is totally lost on me.

Some people see a strong leader. I see a dope with a big mouth. Some people see a business genius. I see a relentless self promoter who's as sincere as a lap dance and wrong about as many times as he is right.

But one of the things that has bothered me is the comparison some have made between Trump and Ronald Reagan. Craig Shirley, who worked in Reagan's campaigns said, "In the '60s and '70s he(Reagan) was often derided by the eastern elites, by academia, by the establishment of the Republican party. He was considered the George Wallace of the Republican party, a grade B actor with premature orange hair."   

Yeah, but...

Reagan:  He was born in poverty.

Trump:    He was born very rich.

Reagan:   He worked his way up the Hollywood ladder on his own.

Trump:    He proudly tells audiences that he started out with a mere "million dollar loan" from his dad.

Reagan:   Started out as a Roosevelt/Truman Democrat but left the party in 1962. He said,"I didn't leave the Democratic Party. The party left me."  Basically, he began his shift in the 50's when he was a spokesman for General Electric.

Trump:     May/may not have been a Democrat or Republican. Not sure. He's given a lot of money to Democrats over the years. He says he's changed his position on several issues. He's been pro/anti abortion, pro/anti second amendment.  His basic theme is everyone is stupid except for him and he's the only one that can make "good deals" to make America "win".

Reagan:    Believed in The 11th Commandment: Thou shalt not speak ill of another Republican.

Trump:      Believes the last Republican President should have been impeached. Believed the party's nominee in 2008, John McCain, a Vietnam POW, was not a "war hero". Trump said he liked people that "weren't captured" and that McCain's experience was "irrelevant."   Trump called the last Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, "a dope".  He made derisive personal comments about Carly Fiorina, Ben Carson, Jeb Bush, and just about every other Republican not named Jeff Sessions, Chris Christie, or Sarah Palin.

Reagan:    Gave great speeches. "A Time For Choosing".  The Fortieth Anniversary of D-Day. "Mr. Gorbachev: Tear Down This Wall". The remarks on The Shuttle Disaster.  "A shining city on a hill".

Trump:      Most of his speeches seem off the cuff.  Spends a lot of time talking about polls. "Really amazing". "Totally unbelievable".  Says "I" and "Me" about four hundred times more than President Obama, the previous winner of the "I'm The Messiah You've Heard So Much About" award.

Reagan:     Two marriages. The first marriage died due to irreconcilable differences. The second marriage lasted over fifty years.

Trump:       Three marriages, trading in the old one for a newer model. The current Mrs. Trump has posed nude making her the first potential First Lady to ever appear naked in a magazine.

Reagan:      Memorable debate performance-"Are you better off than you were four years ago?"

Trump:        Memorable debate performance- felt the need to defend the size of his penis.

Reagan:       Had the support of all of the conservative infrastructure including The National Review  and George Will.

Trump:        Does not have the support of conservative intellectuals. He has the considerable support from a lot of radio talk show hosts and Ann Coulter.

I could go on and on. All I can say is Donald Trump is no Ronald Reagan.