Probably like most of you, we have had ( or still do ) several pets in our lives. What is ironic, I can still remember all of my dog’s names, but have trouble remembering some of my kin folks. Hmmmm!!! maybe there is a reason I do not want to remember ALL of my kin folks ( just saying).

Brownie was my first dog. Did he come with luggage, of course. In my small town a dog did not need a collar with any I.D. or chip ( like a chip existed then). The neighbors knew that dog is so and so’s dog. The dogs also knew which neighbors offered bones, cornbread, or any form of leftovers. ( side note-Google hushpuppies and see how the name came to be ). As Elmer, the town poet would say, ” that dog would eat the end off a Southbound train going North”. For the record, Random House Publishers never did beat down Elmer’s door to publish his works.

Speaking of train’s, that is how Brownie came into our lives. Many years ago train engines would give off steam. Brownie happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The hot steam from the train scalded his right side taking the hair with it. As fate would have it, Brownie found refuge under a small bridge leading to our home. As I crossed the bridge one day, I heard a whimper. Being ” curious Joe ” suddenly I was eyeball to eyeball with a medium sized, ribs showing, sad eyed dog.

My mom was a dog lover as long as it belonged to someone else. Coaxing Brownie home, my sisters threw me under the bus as soon as mom appeared. ” Mom he has a dog and it is half dead with it’s hair missing from the right side”. Mom’s laser brown’s settled on me. I’m thinking here comes the 18th. commandment, and it did. ” Do not feed that dog. If you do it will not leave”. Mom’s 18th. said one thing but I knew her heart was saying something else. For some mysterious happening Brownie got fed. Maybe it was the lard ( for the younger followers, lard is today’s cooking oil) used for cooking everything, but Brownie got healthy, his hair grew back slowly and I had a buddy.

Everywhere I went Brownie went with me. I learned to swim at the Butler Mill Hole pond near our home. When I had the confidence to jump in water over my head finally struggling to reach the bank, Brownie was right beside me shaking the water off his back.

Brownie was with us for fourteen years, finally passing of old age. When he passed, my sisters and I gave him a proper burial with scriptures and a verse of ” Shall We Gather At The River”. Brownie had become the four legged family that we all loved. With tears in our eyes as we approached our back porch, mom met us. With tears in her eyes she said, ” If another stray dog comes here, do not feed it. If you do it will not leave”.

Be safe.

If you advocate the events at the nations capital this week, not sure we are living on the same planet. If you were reduced to tears ( as I was ) at 79 years of age, breath deep. Over my life time I felt as though I had encountered every facet of the hills and valley’s the world has to offer. The events at the nations capital on 1/6/2021 left me speechless. I had to ask myself, ” is this America’? or some third world country where mob rule is an acceptable practice.

Good bad or indifferent, America still ( by the Bill of Rights and Constitution) allows freedom of speech and assembly. On 1/6/2021 those rights were null and void. Peaceful protesting is a given right, destruction and killing at one’s free will is another.

I am not a person easily drawn to tears. My mourning and remorse is usually done in my private time, however on 1/6/2021 my heart and resolve for this country drew me to tears. Grown men and women do cry, especially now.

Be safe.

It’s beginning to look a lot like ( wait for it) ——————–Christmas. There I said it, are you happy now. For the record, I am more the ending of ” The Grinch That Stole Christmas” than the beginning.

Probably like most folks who are gluttons for Christmas punishment, we have always had two trees. The smaller tree is loving referred to as the “Charlie Brown” tree. These two tree’s for years have been a long standing tradition. I too have a long standing tradition. As dusk is setting in yours truly can be found sitting on the sofa in our living room with an adult beverage trying to solve the world’s problems. After about a minute of problem solving I resort to less stressful things.

For many years I would attempt to escape my wife’s question and answer period regarding equality of Christmas presents, did we purchase the right gift for the right person, do we have Scotch tape ( only the transparent kind), guys have you got my back on this? ( wow!! did I just throw the men under the bus?). I may be the oldest Elf on the self, because I quickly learned how to disappear to the living room. But, But, But, what to my wondering eyes would appear, not eight tiny reindeer, my wife asking, ” what are you doing”? The only thing I could come up with, ” I am counting the lights on the Christmas tree.”. Now when I suddenly disappear, rather than seek me out she will say, “counting Christmas lights”? Even though it has become a figure of speech over the years there is validity to each light I count. Light one– could be a loved one, light two– family, light three– blessings, and on and on. Grab some eggnog and try it. Amazing how many lights have meaning.

In a few days it will be the ” Big Guys” birthday. Let us all remember ” the reason for the season”. Peace on earth, good will to all.

Merry Christmas. Be safe.

” A TIME TO WEEP, AND A TIME TO LAUGH; A TIME TO MOURN, AND A TIME TO DANCE” ( ECCLESIASTES)

I know just enough about the Bible to be dangerous. Dangerous in the sense of misinterpretation or misquoting the scripture. Being raised in a Southern Baptist home any of the two afore mentioned mistakes lead to immediate banishment from the will.

I have a granddaughter when she begins her sentence with “SO”, buckle up cause here comes the “Twilight Zone”. However for this entry I must borrow her “SO”.

“SO”, as we approach the Christmas season the eighteen words from the opening Bible verse seem “so right on”. Covid-19 has created weeping, and mourning the world over in one way or another. As long as the youngest lives 2020′ will go down in history as a world changer, just as 9/11 did for many of us. “SO” with all the horrors of 2020′ is there any room left in our souls for laughter and dancing? Yours truly is making every effort to push for the old adage, ” Is your glass half-full ( optimism ) or half-empty ( pessimism ).

Since January 1, 2020 the white elephant in the room has been Covid-19. With God’s guidance, fantastic scientist, and phenomenal first responders the vaccines hopefully will offer light at the end of the tunnel. Sadly, we may never return to what is considered normal, but maybe the new normal will be more doable.

Thanksgiving allowed me the opportunity to be in the presence of my ” thirty- something and younger granddaughters and grandsons. ( we did wear mask, social distancing, and wash our hands). For once I listened more than I talked, “SO” my grandchildren did not disappoint. Their conversations were filled with laughter, kidding each other, boy talk–girl talk, upbeat attitudes, making fun of the “old guy” and ( wait for it) acting normal.

Without sounding braggadocious, these are smart children that realize the status of an upside down world, but for a short period of time their glasses were half-full. It was quite contagious. Be safe.

I am feeling really good today. Just got released from the “Milky Way and Snickers Rehab. Center from Halloween candy addiction. I attribute part of my downfall to the four and five year old “Trick or Treaters”. This age group is vicious when it comes to negotiations. Try trading two bags of M&M’s for one Milky Way bar. Five year old, “Nope, not unless you throw in a Twixt bar.

Today’s assignment is a two part question. 1. How would you define kindness? ( no fair Googling). 2. Name five people you feel are kind and why? You are thinking ” easy-peasy”, just be sure to think through the “WHY”.

At my age I have amassed a long list of kind people. Rest assured it was not derived from the typical mundane, “It is so good to see you”. You’re thinking,” Really, where were you when I needed a friend”? Have you ever heard someone make the comment, ” I am a good judge of character, or you only have one chance to make a first impression”. And then ( wait for it) after a period of time you think, ” what the h*%# was I thinking”?

If I may get personal, my mom tops my list of kind people. I recall a conversation with my mom years ago regarding her safety ( widower- living by herself) and strangers knocking on her door. My question to her, ” Mom what would you do if John Dillinger ( notorious bank robber from the great depression) knocked on your door and said he was hungry”? Her reply, ” if he was hungry I would offer him something to eat”. Of course the food would include a healthy serving of Biblical content as well. She was a true giver.

In the world there are givers and takers. I propose true givers do it because of a kind heart. I also propose that some takers abuse the kindness. There is an old adage, ” A taker is someone who will steal your wallet and then try to help you find it”. I hope your answers to question 1 and 2 have more givers than takers. Be safe.

If you have followed any of my previous blogs ( thank you) you probably surmised I came from a small Southern town in Eastern N.C. We were blessed to have two doctors, that I will refer to as Dr. B and Dr. H. Their bedside manner was totally one-hundred and eighty degrees apart. ( personal sidebar–both made house calls in the day, and yours truly was delivered in a small wood frame house on a cold November day. Take that Grey’s Anatomy). If one looked up country doctor in Webster’s ( for the young I.T.’s out there, that is a dictionary) Dr. B’s picture would be beside it. If you looked up methodically, Dr. H’s picture would be beside it.

Several blogs ago, I gave a brief description of my two older sisters. Both quite different, but did have one thing in common. They loved pushing me into the double-dare world of my on stupidity, ” you can’t do that”. To this day I still have the scars to prove that stupidity. Examples of their double-dares: No, I could not jump from tree to tree as Tarzan did, ( stitches), no I could not jump off the roof of our house with a towel as a cape and fly like Superman (stitches), no, I could not jump on the bed and do a backflip ( stitches), and no, a wash tub is not a good idea as a boat in a flooded swamp ( stitches).

As my sisters would drag me screaming and yelling to Dr. B’s, the welcome became monotonous, ” what did he do this time”?. Dr. B’s practice was made up largely of textile mill employees. For the mere sum of three dollars a week deducted from your pay, your office visits were covered. Before you start comparing medical cost for today think. Dr. B was pulling three dollars a week from four hundred employees weather it was needed or not. If there was an additional charge it was usually for penicillin shots, that was the cure all for everything in the day. Unless you had one foot in the grave, a visit to Dr. B was about fifteen minutes. His class line, ” does it hurt when you do that”? Yes. “Well don’t do that”.

Dr. B’s office was located in the in the back half of the local drug store ( which he owned), privacy was not an option. Everyone in town knew exactly the ailments of the neighborhood. On this occasion as I was getting stitched up from one of my double-dares, when my mom happened to drop into the drug store. ” Who in the world is doing all that screaming back there” she asked. Mr. Todd the manager replied ” I think your daughters just brought your son in for stitches”. For the record, Dr. B preferred rubbing alcohol as a pain killer rather than wasting time with a shot of Novocain.

A few years later I gave up on Tarzan, Superman, and acrobatics. Still out to lunch on the wash tub as a floatation.

Modern medicine from yesteryear. If you are employed by Medicare, please disregard the above.

Be safe.

Having played some high school and college baseball years ago, there was a term often used by the players, ” He has lost his stuff”. That usually is in reference to a pitcher. The reason that term resonates with me today is my concern, “Has America lost it’s stuff”?

When I do my daily meditation ( right now I am up to three minutes a day) I ask myself, ” have I been living under a rock for the last decade”? If so when and where in God’s name did so much hate infest our way of life so quickly.

Pharmaceutical companies are the best brainwashers in the world when it comes to a cure all medicine for every aliment known to man or woman. The user is shown skipping across the meadow or watching a sunset holding hands with their significant other and all is well with the world. Then ( wait for it) a voice sounding like Darth Vader gives you the side effects of the miracle drug that seem worse than the cure, ” say what”?. How about just finding a cure for the common cold and when doing your research throw in a ” stop the hate pill”.

If Covid 19 was intentionally developed by a foreign country, Darth Vader forgot to give us the side effects. Pick your poison, social injustice, advocates to defund law enforcement, the new normal, rioting, and all the needless killings of ALL PEOPLE and *^&!#@$ POLITICS. Are you as sick and tired of being sick and tired with all the crap in our world, (except rice, love me some rice) as I am.

Has it occurred to you how we “cherry pick” Bible verses? ( WOW!! where did that come from–I’m beginning to sound like Tyler Perry’s Madeira) You know, John 3: 16, the Lord’s Prayer, the 23rd Psalm. Here is one that works for me.

” In this life we have three great lasting qualities, FAITH, HOPE, and LOVE, but the greatest of these is LOVE. Without LOVE there cannot be genuine HOPE”.

Be safe. PS: My wife and I have already mailed in our ballots for the upcoming election, so would the television stations please refrain from airing all future political ad’s to our home

Hey guys. To use a line from Arnold’s movie, The Terminator, ” I’m back.”

Back in the day when I was teaching school ( yes, we did have electricity) it was imperative on the first day of class to establish an air of student empowerment. In layman’s terms, ” you think, I think, we think”. As my class of thirty settled into ” Introduction of Health 101″ I opened with the following, ” A mind is a terrible thing to waste”. Between the ” thinking thing and the terrible mind thing”, I was staring at thirty deer in the headlights faces.

Grouping for some form of follow up, from the back of the room a hand goes up. ” Yes Willard, you have a question”?

” Hey teach (lovingly) you are saying you are going to do my thinking and I am going to do your thinking”? ” Then I’m thinking you just give us all A’s and don’t bother us with the bones in the body or all the blood type stuff”.

Of course the room erupted in laughter. Trying to regain control of thirty freshman students is like trying to herd cats into a cage.

” Willard you are partially right. What I want to do is present the class with subjects that creates discussion from your perspective. Here is an example”.

“Everyone look at your fingertips. Would you believe that in the whole world no one has fingertips identical to yours”?

Willard again, ” So when my uncle was booked at the county jail and fingerprinted, no one has the same fingertips”?

“Yes”

Willard, ” wonder if my uncle knew that when he broke into the auto parts store”.

As if by magic everyone began to examine their fingertips. It was like a “flash mob” broke out. The students began to compare their fingertips with other students.

Realizing the sudden interest, my light bulb went from dim to bright. ( side note–if you are older than thirty you can remember chalk, a chalk board, and chalk erasers. If you are younger than thirty you are probably having a ” what moment”.) I proceeded to take the chalk eraser and tap a light film on the chalkboard.

” Who wants to check out their fingerprints”?

After a small chalk storm, all thirty students had pressed their fingertips on the board”.

Willard again, ” Hey teach what about our palms, do they only belong to me”?

” Great question Willard, that is tomorrow’s assignment”.

Willard again, ” hey teach are we going to do feet”?

Well I declare, we do think.

Be safe.

To my small gathering of followers, “I’m back”. To those of you who’s world has been turned upside down since March 13, 2020, raise your hand. Yes, mine is in the air as well. Since all the news is “doom and gloom” these days, I have a quick fix. From five o’clock to seven o’clock put your tread mill on extreme workout, grab an adult beverage and good book and listen to that bad boy run. Most of the time it will drown out CNN, Fox and ABC News.

Okay, German chocolate cake or for the cake aficionado G.C.C. Until recently I did not know my son loved G.C.C. as much as I do, must be a DNA thing. On a recent beach trip with the family my two daughters surprised us with a freshly baked G.C.C. I declare,” how thoughtful they would do this for me”. Also to my surprise, one of my granddaughters best friends admitted she to was a G.C.C. junkie. As the ” prize” was sitting in the cake plate, we hoovered over it like it was the Holy Grail. The three of us criticizing the cake hoping it would dissuade the other two on their share. ” The icing is to runny, one of the layers has a sad spot, it looks over baked”. There was a time my daughters threatened to duck tape the cake plate hoping the adult cake vultures would perch someplace else.

After dinner and some down time, the magic words were spoken, ” who wants cake”? I must admit on my part, I did show a lot of restraint not rushing the cake. Ladies and children first, then my son as I hummed ” The Eye Of the Tiger” ( from Rocky sequel 12 ), then me. (Here is a tip for the cake aficionado’s, be the last to cut your slice of cake. This way you can scrape the crumbs and icing left on the cake plate) After wonderful G.C.C with milk, me and my big mouth announced, ” G.C.C. is my favorite breakfast food”. Much to my dismay the other two G.C.C. vultures said the same thing, surprise surprise. The next day when I was about to leave, my two loving daughters had salvaged me two slices for the trip home. I think I heard one say, ” breakfast is on us”.

Be safe and keep the faith.

In some of my recent blogs I do have a tendency to get long winded. I attribute some of this to all the Baptist sermons from my upbringing and/or the sermons my mom referred to as she disciplined me. Discipline is being politically correct for a ” whupping”. Her words, not mine, ” Lord forgive me for this punishment ( whupping), but I did raise him to know better. We have all heard people say, ” The Lord spoke to me”. During one of my discipline sessions I thought I heard the Lord say, ” Right on Lou, proceed. Spare the rod and spoil the child”. Then I said, ” Lord , what about that 70 x 7 forgiveness issue in the Bible”? The Lord does answer prayers, however in this particular matter there was some delay getting back to mom.

Have you ever heard cliches or quotes that in today’s world seem so relevant? Here are a few that resonant with me, with my sidebar.

A. ” be careful what you wish for” Our next president

B. ” what was I thinking” I wish to God I could turn back the hands of time for five minutes.

C. ” good things happen to bad people, and bad things happen to good people” Personally, I never had much sympathy for a parent that abuses a child.

D. ” these are the times that try men’s souls” Coronavirus, racism, greed, politics that fail the common man, all lives matter.

E. ” how much is enough” What shall it profit man, if he gains the whole world and loses his soul.

F. ” always treat people the way you want to be treated” If questions, read “E” again.

G. ” those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it” Our current world crisis.

H. ” conscious, a sense of right and wrong with an urge to do right”. Never could understand how a televangelist worth millions could sleep at night after appealing to the poorest to plant a monetary seed to aide God’s work.

Just saying. Hope the new normal is doable.