Brought to you by the Roman numeral XIII and the Norse god of thunder

A long time ago, in a blog not that far away, there was a weekly blog meme known as the Thursday Thirteen.  The premise was straightforward: Blog a list of thirteen things.  It could be your thirteen favorite Keanu Reeves movie quotes ("Excellent!" "Party on, dudes."), your thirteen favorite Oprah giveaways, or simply thirteen random thoughts.

With all it's alliterative allure and randomness, how could I refuse?  So I participated for a few weeks back in late 2005 and early 2006.  And here's a bit of Bone trivia: The Thursday Thirteen was how I "met" Renee (I'm pretty sure).  An encounter which has truly enriched her life (less sure).

So for old times' sake...

I.  I watched "Sharknado 3" last night.  I never saw "Sharknado 2" so I was a bit lost for the first few minutes.  Spoiler alert: The movie ends with David Hasselhoff floating off infinitely into space.  Which, coincidentally, is where I thought he had been all along.

II.  Summer TV: 200 channels and "Full House" reruns are still the best thing on at least four nights a week.

III.  Sticking with the TV theme, Monday is Luke Spencer's final day. 



IV.  "How do you tell somebody that you care about deeply, I told you so?  Gently, with a rose? In a funny way, like it's a hilarious joke?  Or do you just let it go, because saying it would just make things worse? ...Probably the funny way." ~ Michael Scott.  (I've been rewatching a lot of "The Office" on NetFlix lately.)

V.  I'm in between books right now.  Waiting for "West of Sunset" to come out in paperback, 'cause that's how I roll.  And wondering should I read "Go Set a Watchman." 

VI.  Dad turned 65 this week.  I bought him some Fender wall art at Hobby Lobby for his guitar/amp repair shop, then signed his card, "Love, Bone: The Fender Stratocaster of sons."

VII.  Mom slipped "POTUS" into a conversation yesterday.  Which prompted a "Whoa, whoa, whoa!  WHAT did you just say?" response from her firstborn.  "POTUS?" she repeated, sounding a tad uncertain she had used it correctly.  I continued. "First you get an iPhone.  Now, POTUS is part of your daily vernacular???"  This is a woman who cruised through the 80's and 90's never even attempting to figure out how to program a VCR.  I'm gonna need some time to process.  I don't understand the world anymore.

VIII.  "I wish you would post even more political and religious stuff on Facebook," commented no one, ever.

IX.  We went to see the musical, "Oklahoma!" last week.  I think I can sum it up in one word:  long.  It was an hour and forty-three minutes before they got to intermission!  I wasn't sure I was going to make it.  Hopefully, I scored some bonus points.  Although I may have just been making up for some previously accrued demerits.  I firmly believe some mysteries cannot be known by mortal man.

X. The same local troupe that did "Oklahoma!" is doing "As You Like It" later in the season.  I'm thinking it's a go.  After all, can one desire too much of a good thing?  And by desire too much of a good thing, I mean, accumulate too many bonus points. What sayest thou? 

XI.  In honor of the 46th anniversary of the alleged moon landing... We can put a man on the moon but we can't put a small, respectful partition between every single urinal in every single public restroom in this country?!  (Sticking with the Shakespeare theme) I think no partitions is taking this "All the world's a stage" thing a bit too far.

XII. There are 44 days until college football season.  "I can tell you who time strolls for, who it trots for, who it gallops for, and who it stops cold for."  And I can tellest thou who it dost moveth like a snail for. (Hint: It's a blogger who accrues demerits at a sometimes frightening pace.)

XIII.  I've been listening to the new Jason Isbell album.  (I had to do something to get "Oh what a beautiful moooooor-ning" out of my head.)  After the brilliance of "Southeastern," I was afraid I'd be disappointed in whatever came next.  Kinda like losing the best girl you ever had.  But music is not like women, so I needn't have worried.

Even though the album only came out this past Friday, the folks at YouTube are all over it.  This is one of my favorites so far.  The hook line is sort of a theme woven throughout the album and many of the characters he paints such vivid pictures of.  It poses one of those profound, make-you-think questions.  I know I've been obsessing over it for days now...




"Are you living the life you chose?  Are you living the life that chose you?"

Summer: A Retrospective

Why does every year feel like the hottest summer ever?  Maybe it's just that I'm older.  Or maybe they are getting hotter, but this isn't a post on global warming.  I think we all know that's a farce perpetrated by Al Gore, the liberal media, most scientists, and the melting polar ice caps.

We're working on our 7th day of 96-degrees-plus.  Haven't hit triple digits yet, though we're hopeful for the weekend.  It gives us something to watch for, and helps break up the monotony of treating ourselves for signs of heat stroke.

I imagine it was like being on the Ark on day 39 of rain, and Noah's wife was probably like, "Dude, I'm so over rain."  But Noah was probably like, "Eh, the house is already a total loss, I'm gonna have to go to the Apple merchant to get a new abacus, may as well go for an even forty at this point."

A midsummer night's storm passed through Tuesday evening, providing a brief respite from the heat and bringing a few small tornadoes to neighboring counties.  The worst we got was having someone's trampoline blown into the road in front of my house.

It wasn't always like this.  Was it?  Summer used to seem cooler.  Plenty warm, for sure, but not my-internal-organs-are-going-to-fry-if-I-stay-outside-more-than-ten-minutes hot.  Anyway, it all got me to thinking about all the things summer used to be.  If you'll indulge me whilst I wax nostalgic for a moment...  ("As opposed to every other post you've ever written, Bone?")

----------------------

Summer was a ballpark.  Lit up six nights a week.  Never on Sunday.  (You were in church then if your momma had raised you right.)  It was something to do in a town that didn't have anything else to do but go to the Hardee's or get up to no good.  I met a few girls there and played a little ball.  I was better at the latter but the former became a lifelong pursuit.

Summer was freedom.  Being out of school.  Every night felt like Friday night.  And that sultry evening air seemed to feed the restlessness.  Windows down, radio up.  Night driving and singing loud to some old summer song.

Summer was morning trips to Mamaw's with Mom.  Taking her into town and having breakfast at the Burger Chef.  Days lived with no real concept of time.  Mom was young, Mamaw was old, and it seemed that they would always be.

Summer was the city pool.  Learning to swim at the ripe old age of... well, is that really relevant here?  The cute lifeguard who unfortunately was too old for you.  (Which, personally, I've come to find I much prefer to them being too young.)

Summer was vacations.  Mostly just to Nashville.  They were small but they were ours.  Mom and Dad were still together.  I'd sit in the back seat and add up the miles between dots in the Rand McNally.  First I got too cool to go, then too old, and then Mom and Dad weren't together anymore.

Summer was time well wasted.  Countless hours spent on video games, hanging out at the mall, riding bikes, trading baseball cards, building forts, playing basketball, or long afternoons simply being bored.  Staying up late and sleeping later.  Some might disagree, but I say remain a kid for as long as possible.  Once the real world takes hold, it doesn't easily let go.

Summer was a song.  A thousand of them, really.  Sometimes sweet and wistful, sometimes upbeat and carefree.  But always, ended too soon.


(One of my thousand favorite summer songs...)

XLII

The more I think about being born in February, I'm convinced my mother planned it that way, neatly nestled in the vast dead period between football season and the next football season.  I was a month early, but still it was post-Super Bowl.  I'm sure her thinking was, "OK, football's over, The Waltons is a rerun this week, let's go ahead and get this over with."

Sometime last week, the calendar reminded me I had clicked off another year.  Forty-two.  Which doesn't seem all that significant until you learn that is exactly one third of the way to my goal of one hundred twenty-six.

You think Betty White is a riot in her nineties?  Just wait until Bone in his hundred-aughts, and hundred-teens.  Hilarity shall ensue.

This also marked the year I officially turned into my dad with regards to gift requests.  I couldn't think of a single thing I wanted/needed.

Save for t-shirts.

And socks.  (I refuse to ask my mother to buy me underwear.)

No one makes a big deal about your age when you're my age.  I mean, I'm already old enough to run for President.  I can't get my AARP membership for eight more years (though judging by the number of mail-outs I have been receiving for awhile now, their advance recruitment efforts are unequaled).

Turning forty-two, it isn't like anyone says, "Ooo, you're twice the legal drinking age!  Don't do anything I wouldn't do!"

But it's not bad.

My birthday morning started with a call from Nephew Bone, who serenaded me with "Happy Birthday."  Minutes later, I played my highest-scoring word ever in Words With Friends (not against Nephew Bone).  The word ("stripier") wasn't all that impressive, but the 149 points was decent.  I basked in the afterglow of that achievement clean through lunch.  (Some would suggest I'm still basking.)

With grave apologies to the Hemingway estate, I suppose you could say the remainder of my birthday was a moveable feast.

Birthday night was dinner out with my dad and step-mom at a Mexican restaurant.  I had the shrimp burrito.  Then Friday night, we drove up to Nashville to meet friends at Famous Dave's.  Ribs, catfish, collard greens, and slaw.  Things wound down with Sunday dinner at mom's, or as I like to call it, Fat Sunday.  There were pork chops, fried chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans, cucumber salad, and more.

Desserts sampled at one point or other during the four-day Carnival de Cholesterol included chocolate cake, apple cobbler, pineapple upside down cake, and a glazed creme-filled doughnut from Krispy Kreme.  (Hey, it's right by the Famous Dave's!  I was raised that when you're that close to a Krispy Kreme, it's impolite and possibly even sinful not to go.)

For Lent, I'm giving up my aversion to angioplasty.  Evidently.

I'm sure everyone says the same thing, but I don't feel forty-two.  I feel twenty-five.  Granted, a twenty-five-year-old who struggles to stay up past 10 p.m. most nights.  But also one who has grown to appreciate the value of life's simpler pleasures, like long naps, sunsets, liquid Maalox.

And new socks.

Here's to the next eighty-four years.

"The truth about a mirror / Is that a damned old mirror / Don't really tell the whole truth / It don't show what's deep inside / Or read between the lines / And it's really no reflection of my youth..."

"Hey son's" and hugs

(My Dad's birthday was Monday.  So I decided I would finish this story I'd started a couple of years ago....)

It was the last and only cold day of spring.  Temps had started out in the mid-60s that April morning, but a cold front had sent them plunging into the 50's by early afternoon.  Throw in a stiff wind and it was downright chilly.

Turning off the almost-two-lane country road, I saw him standing in the driveway in his fishing hat, straightening out some line.  There was something about that moment, seeing my dad already outside getting things ready, that made me smile, and does even now.

As I got out of the car I was greeted with that familiar, drawly "Heyyy, suh-uhn."

My sister was along with Nephew Bone soon and we headed down the long, hardly-one-lane dirt driveway and across a small field to the pond.  I took notice of Nephew Bone imitating Dad -- Peepaw as he calls him -- several times that day.  And imagined myself doing the same thirty years before.

We weren't long for fishing that day.  The weather was not our friend, and no one had dressed quite warm enough for it.  So after about an hour we packed up our poles and tackle and snacks and headed back to the house.

As I drove away that day I made the same promise to myself I always make, and break: to visit more often.

And I was thankful.

Thankful that Dad was happy -- as happy as I can ever remember seeing him.  He seems to have found an ease and a contentment with life that wasn't there for far too long.

Thankful I can still call him, to ask for advice about the house, or my Jeep, or just to hear that familiar "hey son" in a world that seems to go a little crazier every day.

Thankful Nephew Bone gets to spend time he will remember with his Peepaw, and vice-versa.

And thankful there's still a place I can go to, and even though I've never lived there, feel welcomed, and loved, and home. 

Dad and I had a couple of rough patches, as I suppose fathers and sons sometimes do.  But that seems like another lifetime now.  These days, I love you's have replaced simple goodbyes.  And we've long since traded hand shakes for hugs.

That's a trade I'd recommend to anyone.

"I know I can't turn back time / We'll slow it down while we can / I'm going home to see him / While he still knows who I am..."

Twilight

 It's a beautiful evening here as I sit on the back porch writing.  Twilight is setting in.  The clouds are a mix of pink and and purple and a weird blue-gray.  The moon is out -- a waxing gibbous, I think it's called.  Looks like it'll be full in a few days.  It's a painting.  God doing his best Bob Ross.  Or maybe God let Bob paint this one...

I don't know what it is about Father's Day that makes me think about my dad.  Just one of life's little mysteries, I suppose.

Saturday, the plan was to meet Dad and his wife and go to supper and to the cemetery where his parents are buried.  (I've written about the cemetery here.)   Dad wanted to meet at 3:30.  It's about a 45-minute-to-an-hour drive to the cemetery.  So I'm thinking we'll get there at 4:30, leave the cemetery around 5ish, and be at the restaurant by 5:15 or so.  I know they like to eat super early, so that seemed like a good compromise.

I cannot adequately describe the moment of surprise and just wanting to burst out laughing out loud as Dad blew past the exit to the cemetery and I realized, "Oh, my dear Heavenly Father, we are about to eat supper at 4:15 in the afternoon."

But that's exactly what happened.

As we were ordering our drinks, my step-mom got water and whispered, "I didn't figure I oughta have any caffeine this late in the day."  Meanwhile, I was looking much forward to my sweet tea and thinking, "I'll be doing great if this is the last caffeine I have today!"

After force-feeding myself a rather delicious meal of a cheeseburger, chili dog, (What?  They're really small!  Everybody gets multiples!) and banana pudding for dessert, we left for the cemetery.

Dad took a different way -- an old way -- and showed us the house where he grew up.  As we continued on the drive, I asked where his high school was, and he started peering off the road to the right.  He said, "You can probably see it behind these new buildings."  The buildings turned out to be the new school. He didn't realize they had built one.  And though I'm sure it didn't bother him, I felt bad for him in that instant.

Later, he took us clear across town to the cemetery where his two half-brothers are buried.  They weren't buried near each other and they obviously weren't buried by their parents.  I wondered why.  Dad didn't seem to know.

At some point as we walked amongst the peaceful rows of markers and flowers Dad mentioned that he and his wife had already purchased their spaces at a cemetery near where they live now.  It's not something I wanted to think or talk about, so I left his words to linger and fade without a response.  At the same time, I marveled at how he spoke of his own mortality with such matter-of-factness.

I think Dad is in a really good place these days.  There's an ease in him now that wasn't always there.  A contentment.  He seems to have found the answers to some of life's many questions.  It gives me hope that I, who take after him in so many other ways, will do the same.

He's all over Facebook now.  He mentioned it on at least six separate occasions during our excursion Saturday.  And when I called to see if he wanted to do this for Father's Day, he was at the gym.

We leave each other with a hug instead of a handshake anymore.  And the "I love yous" are no longer just implied.

But not everything has changed. He's still playing the guitar, still working, still driving the same old Chevy truck, which seems to always be barely running.  He's still in church every Sunday morning and night.  And he remains quite taken with his role as a grandpa.  "Peepaw," Nephew Bone calls him.  Some might say it's the role he was born to play.

Me, I always kinda thought he made a pretty good dad.

"I notice I walk the way he walks / I notice I talk the way he talks / I'm startin' to see / My father in me..."

The Mount Rushmore of dads

Parents.  They're the best.

Sometimes you think you know them so well -- their dislikes, their... other dislikes, which things you should never tell them under any circumstance, and exactly what to say to get them to kick in a few extra bucks for groceries (vacation, shoes, etc.) without having to directly ask.

And then sometimes, it's as if they aren't your real parents at all, but rather part of some top-secret experiment.  Aliens, planted by the government and made to look like your real parents.  And you are just a pawn in their game, kept alive only to make it appear as if they are an average American family.  You know, so the Soviets won't catch on.

Here's a for-instance:  My sister called a few months ago to tell me Dad was posting pro-gun propaganda on his Facebook page.  OK, fine.  Dad and I have never been completely in agreement on politics, and a lot of people post crap like that.  So not all that odd, right?

Except...

We never had anything more than a BB gun in the house, ever, for my entire life!  I wanted to comment and say exactly that, but you know how parents get if you post all the time on their Facebook wall.  They think you're hovering.

Then a couple weeks ago, I was conversing with a lady whose husband played music with my father in the seventies.  As in, the nineteen-seventies.  I knew Dad had played music most of his life, so again, not a big shock.

Until...

She started telling me that Dad's band had a manager who booked them gigs around the area.  In her opinion, the reason they never got any bigger was they refused to play places which served alcohol.  AND, they wore matching "uniforms."  According to her, they were leisure suits -- silver jackets and green-and-white striped pants!  It sounds like they were basically the white Temptations!

How did I get to be this age and never know this about he who reared me???

Now for the latest adventure in the My Dad Is From Mars saga.  I was talking with my alleged father the other day, and he informed me he and his wife are thinking of taking another trip.

Let it be noted here that my dad, who used to complain about going anywhere farther than out to eat, has in his recent years become a veritable Kerouac.  Except without the drinking.  Or the writing.

Last year, they visited North Carolina.  The year before that, it was the Grand Canyon.  And this year?

"We're thinking of going to South Dakota."

What I thought was, "To get ready for some sort of doomsday scenario?  Is the end upon us???"

What I said was, "Oh, that'll be nice.  I've heard there's lots to do there.  Mount Rushmore and the Black Hills...."

He replied, "Yeah, and there's that mountain with the Presidents' heads."  Dad doesn't hear so well anymore.

He continued.

"And there's Sturgis, where they have the big motorcycle rallies."

Uhh..... what?

I think my feeling at that point could best be described as one of bewildered confusion.  Suffice it to say, at that moment, I was confildered.  I'm fairly certain I gave him that you-just-sprouted-a-second-head look.  And not just any second head, but one that looked like my Dad and spoke alternately with the voices of Dog the Bounty Hunter and Wink Martindale.  You know the type.

How does my dad even know about Sturgis?  And why on Earth would he think of going?  Maybe he watches Full Throttle Saloon.  Or maybe this was some sort of joke, like how he used to drive across the river pretending he was going to Huntsville (then the nearest place) to buy alcohol until I would cry and beg him to turn around.

Or maybe, just maybe, my father has a Harley I don't know about.   And chaps.  And quite possibly an "NRA" do-rag.

Oh well.  I can only hope and assume his pro-gun rhetoric will serve him well there.

Godspeed, my enigmatic longtime legal custodian.  May Charlton Heston be with you.

Oh, and you're probably gonna need a new name.  Something tough like Tex, or Maverick, or Sea Bass.

God, I hope he knows it's motorcycles, and not bicycles.  A son worries.

"You can just turn in your ring and your tie tack 'cause Coy, you are out of the Shrine! You're gonna be blackballed, Coy!  That's right.  You may have to pack your bags and leave town. What do you mean, you might join the Hells Angels?"

Thoughts of home

It's not the town where I was born.  Nor is it the town where I live now.  But it's where I've spent the most of my days.

None of my family live there anymore.  But it's still the one place I'm more likely to recognized than anywhere else.

I still think of it as home.

There, I'll always be my parents' son, or my sister's older brother.  The kid in the brown smock and pink knit, square-end tie who bagged groceries at the Piggly Wiggly.  The underachiever who frustrated more than one teacher because he cruised through high school finishing sixth in his class rather than daring to stand out by, oh I don't know, actually trying.

There's something reassuring in the knowledge that whether you go off and make it big or whether you never amount to much of anything, in your hometown you're still just you.

I had occasion to visit my hometown a few weeks ago.  The only accountant I've ever used has her office there.

A lot sure has changed in that little town.

To someone only passing through that would probably seem strange to hear.  For it's nothing you would notice at first glance.  Just a lot of little things that only someone who spent a number of years there --  who grew up there -- would see.

The four-way stop has been replaced by a traffic light.  The shopping center once home to the Winn Dixie, a Bargain Town, and the Elmore's five-and-dime now houses a different grocery store, a gym, and an H&R Block.

They've built a new courthouse out on the four-lane.  The old courthouse is just a building now.  It's three stories serving as an unintentional monument of the town square which has changed so much around it.  Thirty years ago, it was still the center of commerce.  And every Friday and Saturday night, there would be a solid line of cars -- teenagers in Trans-Ams and old pickup trucks and Novas -- cruising the square.

I remember when the "new" four-lane was first coming through.  Before it opened, you could go around the orange roadblock signs and drive on the fresh, jet-black pavement.  It's where Dad would take me to practice driving, since you didn't have to worry about traffic.  And I realized he was younger then than I am now...

They finally tore down the old Star Theatre.  It was an old-style art deco theatre with half-moon doors.  And even though it was never open as long as I can remember, seeing its ticket window and big marquee, I always liked to imagine how alive it must have been on some long ago day.  Every so often, there would be talk that somebody was going to open it back up again, but nobody ever did.  

I drove past the spot where the old lumber company used to be.  A few years ago, it burned to the ground.  I knew a fireman who died there.  The obvious void in the landscape seemed fitting for the gaping hole I know he left in the lives of his wife, and children, and grandchildren.

Somewhere around this time, it began to dawn on me how virtually every street in this town held a memory for me.  Almost every building, some significance.

The old Texaco, which is now a used car lot, is where I used to stop every evening on my way to work (under the guise of buying a snack) to see a girl who worked the counter.  She even stopped in to see me at work a couple of times, but I was too naive or unskilled to ever go any further.

That's just a few blocks from the intersection where I killed my Jeep umpteen times one night when I was learning to drive a stick.  We must have sat through at least 5 green lights, me panicking while my baby sister sat in the passenger seat telling me it was going to be OK. She loves recounting that story at family gatherings for some reason.

Just off the square, there's the Western Auto where I once bought a 10-speed.  It was all covered with dust and the tires were flat and I remember thinking they must not sell too many bikes.

Out on the four-lane, now next to the new Walmart, is the church of Christ where I had my sins washed away.  I can still remember the feeling of freedom and purity I felt that day, and the guilt I've felt so many times since.

If you head south, on the outskirts of town, there's the Baptist church which none of us attended, but we sure made good use of their outdoor basketball court.  The goals are no longer there, the church having installed an indoor gym many years ago.  The old court now serves as a parking lot for the church buses.  As I'm writing this, I just now remembered there would sometimes be an older gentleman, probably in his 70's, who would occasionally come and bring a lawn chair and watch our pickup games.  I hadn't thought of that memory in probably twenty years!

A part of me will always be bound to that little town, held fast by so many memories, people and places, a lot of them no longer there anymore.  But I can still see them, in my mind, frozen in time exactly as they were ten, fifteen, twenty-five years ago..

I smiled when I thought about the barber shop where old Mister Albert used to cut my hair.  I never saw him when he wasn't wearing dress pants and a button-down shirt.  Dad and I would both get our haircuts the same day.  I'll always remember the story about Mister Albert having a mild heart attack while cutting someone's hair.  He sat down in a chair for a couple of minutes to rest, then got up and finished the haircut before he would go to the hospital.

It feels like I could go on forever.

Not surprisingly, the accountant asked about my mom.   There, I'll always be my parents' son...  I just had to sign some papers.  We exchanged a bit of small talk and I was on my way.

A lot of times I would have taken a couple minutes to drive by our old house: an unassuming three-bedroom brick on a sleepy little street with a carport, gravel driveway, and a maple tree in the front yard.  It's the last place my parents lived together.

But on this day, I did not.

Maybe I was afraid it had changed and wouldn't be as I remembered it. Maybe I'd seen enough change for one day.

Besides, I can go back there most anytime.

All I have to do is close my eyes.

"Southbound breezes blowin' / This town ain't my home / You can slow me down / But I'm goin' / If I can turn this road I'm on / Southbound..."

Dashboard confessional

The Jeep hit a milestone Thursday. And apparently, I thought no one would believe me if I just told them? Why else would I take a picture?



What? I had to slow down to take the picture. Because while texting and driving is now against the law in our increasingly totalitarianistic state, as far as I know taking pictures while driving is not.

One hundred thousand miles. Or by my rudimentary calculations, somewhere between $12,000 and $18,000 in gasoline. I started thinking what if gas were half the price it is now, how much money could be poured back into the economy. So let's say $7,000, multiplied by a guesstimated 200 million licensed drivers, where each abacus bead represents $100 billion dollars, carry the one, the total comes to roughly $1.4 trillion. Per one hundred thousand miles driven, of course.

Thursday was also my Dad's 61st birthday. I'm not sure how many miles that equates to, but fortunately Dad has always been pretty low maintenance.

Once again ignoring his requests for socks, I got him a gift card to one of his favorite restaurants and a fairly lame card. That's because I'm pretty sure the only decent card they had was the exact card I got him last year. And I looked in three different stores! The selection of greeting cards in this country is beyond atrocious.

We had a small gathering at my sister's. Dad was there, as you might imagine, since it was his birthday. But Nephew Bone was the star of the show, as he has been since making his debut almost three years ago. He has progressed from saying "Bama" to now saying "Amabama," which we unanimously agree is the cutest thing ever. Of course, I had to joke that Mom and Dad didn't think it was all that cute when my sister started saying "Amabama." Then again, she was nine.

After supper, Nephew Bone took me by the finger (unknowingly causing my heart to instantly melt), and led me back to the hayfield. He had me put him on top of a hay bale. Then my sister's dog, Pepper, jumped up on one, presumably to protect Nephew Bone? I dunno.

Anyway, there were eight or ten bales lined up with small enough spaces in between so that you could step from one to the next. Suddenly, Pepper started racing back and forth on top of them. She looked like a greyhound at the track. Well, Nephew Bone just thought this was the funniest thing ever. He nearly fell off the hay bale he was laughing so hard. I reached to steady him. He could barely stand. It was one of those can't-catch-his-breath laughs, and it was just perfect.

Mostly, the miles rush by in a blur, by the hundreds and thousands. But a few are worth slowing down for, if only to take a mental picture.

"If we had an hourglass to watch each one go by, or a bell to mark each one to pass, we'd see just how they fly..."

One fish, two one fish

Thursday afternoon, I went fishing at Dad's. As I think back on it, I'm reminded of some grand old country song lyrics from yesteryear. To paraphrase slightly, Bone's daddy was takin' him fishin' when he was (thirty-)eight years old...

It's the first time I'd been fishing in 15 or 20 years. The last, and only, time I fished with any regularity was back in high school. A group of us guys used to fish in a creek just below a dam by an old grist mill. I was pretty good at it. And by "it," I mean, getting my line hung up on the dam, having to cut it and losing the lure. They started calling me "Bait."

And since I don't believe in these fancy-schmancy technological fishing advances such as depth finders, or tackle boxes, I never had my own lures. Therefore, the many lures I lost belonged to someone else. So they started calling me other names, as well.

Anyway, back to Thursday. Allow me to preface this by saying I was never told what we would be fishing for, which I do believe is a pretty important component in determining what kind of bait or lure to use. Am I right? So drawing on all my previously forgotten fishing experience, I opted to go with the green lure. Everyone else was using live worms.

Well, by the time everyone else had caught multiple catfish before I had even caught one, it was clear that worms were the way to go. But I wasn't swayed. Because a great fisherman can catch fish even without the perfect bait. OK, I just made that up, but it sounded good.

Let me also proffer some advice to the ladies here. If a guy takes you fishing, you shouldn't catch a fish before he does. But if that can't be helped, then you really, really shouldn't catch three fish before he has even caught a single one. That could really put him in a sour mood the rest of the day, you know, if he's not as secure in his masculinity and fishing prowess as, say, me or Bill Dance.

Alright, back to my fish tale. Finally my persistence paid off as I hauled in about a half-pounder. Shortly after that, I decided to switch over to the white lure, but they just weren't hitting that at all. (Clearly, my instinct to go with the green over the white in the first place had been spot on.)

For me, fishing has never been just about how many fish you catch anyway. It's more about the atmosphere, the camaraderie, and of course, the snacking. Being outdoors, legs hanging off the pier, drinking a Sun Drop and munching on some barbecue fried pork skins--that's all I really need.

Besides, I've always been more of a caster than a quote, "fisher." I mean, anyone can drop a worm in a pond and catch a fish. But a perfect cast? The whir of the thingy unwinding, the unmistakable plop as the sinker hits the water, then the click of the other thingy. Sigh. There's nothing like it.

So all told for the day, I only lost one lure. Which I kind of equate with only losing one ball during a round of golf. Which I consider to be an excellent day. I only caught one fish, and threw it back. But again, that's perfectly fine with me. I think I speak for most fishermen when I say I don't really like having to touch the fish when I catch them.

It's kinda gross.

"You and me goin' fishin' in the dark. Lyin' on our backs and countin' the stars, where the cool grass grows..."

April 27, 2011

For me, that Wednesday began with a 5:20 wake-up call from Dad. Unexpected, but not surprising.

"You awake?"
"Uh, yeah."
"You need to watch this weather. They say it's gonna get bad today."

It was only ten minutes until I'd normally get up, so I turned on the TV and saw there were already warnings out west of us. Five minutes later while I was in the shower, my phone rang again. Turned out to be my sister. I had asked her the night before to call if her weather radio went off during the night.

The warnings started before 6 AM and were virtually continuous for the next fifteen-plus hours. My sister, who had a storm shelter installed a few years ago after a tornado passed within two miles of their house, was calling throughout the day asking if it was safe to come out. Her power was out and her weather radio had stopped working. Every time, the answer was either "no" or "maybe for a few minutes, but there's another storm coming."

I left work about 3 that afternoon, came home and continued to watch the weather. I guess it was around 4 that my power went out, which seemed a bit odd as it wasn't real stormy here at that time, just extremely windy. Later I would learn that TVA, which supplies electricity to most of north Alabama, had suffered severe damage to their main transmission lines and power wouldn't be restored for days.

After about fifteen minutes with no power and knowing the storms had been coming one right after another, I decided to go back to work. At least there we had a generator and could watch UHF channels. I stayed at work for the better part of the rest of the night, except for one foolhardy period when I decided to drive around to look for signs of storm damage.

Driving home that night was eerie, with no traffic lights, no store lights, and only the dim glow of candlelight coming from a few homes. I lit a few candles, found a couple of flashlights, and made a sandwich. The power was out, internet was down, and my cell service had been out since early afternoon, so I decided to go to bed. I'd heard reports of tornadoes on the ground, homes damaged, but had no idea of the kind of devastation and loss of life I would hear about and see over the coming days.

The stories came in first -- stories of the damage, loss of life, and heroism. Stories like a grandmother who laid on top of a baby to protect it. The baby survived while the grandmother lost her life. Then came the numbers, the fatalities. They started high and they climbed hour by hour. Then the pictures and the video began to come in -- footage as bad as anything I've ever seen and yet once you see the damage in person you realize the pictures can't begin to do it justice.

I drove to Dad's one evening -- I think Friday or Saturday, the days run together -- to help him set up a generator. I'm pretty sure he didn't need any help, but just wanted to see me. On my way there, I got my first look at some of the damage. When I got to Dad's, he showed me all the debris that had fallen in their front yard. Among it was a pair of kids blue jeans, size 4, and an 8x10 photograph of a little girl. They had no idea who she was. I could only hope she had survived.

An EF5 tornado -- the highest-rating given, for storms with winds over 200 mph -- passed within 3-4 miles of Dad's house, and within a mile of where Wolfgang lives. Minutes later, the same tornado destroyed my first cousin's house. She and her husband hid in a closet. All that remains of their house is that closet and part of one wall. They survived. Hundreds across Alabama didn't.

That particular tornado stayed on the ground continuously for over 100 miles. I drove through some more of the damage on my way to church Sunday. My eyes started to water. Every image, every location, breaks your heart all over again. The destruction is so massive that eventually words fail.

Another somewhat unique aspect to this disaster was the widespread and lengthy power outage. At one point, we heard over 600,000 were without power. Obviously, that is secondary to the tornado destruction, but still significant in that it no doubt prevented some people from being forewarned. The local TV stations were doing a great job covering things, but probably over 90 percent of north Alabamians weren't able to watch TV.

TVA was originally giving estimates that power could be out five to seven days. Some areas were on sooner. Some still don't have power today, eight days later.

People were unprepared for an extended power outage. Most lost everything in their fridge and freezer. Gasoline became a premium commodity. The few stations that had generators and were able to pump it had lines half an hour to an hour long the first day or two.

I had no cell phone service, no internet, and no home phone service for a couple of days, as both my landline phones are cordless and therefore need electricity. I am beyond embarrassed to admit that it crossed my mind Thursday to maybe go and stay overnight with friends in Nashville on Friday, just so I would be able to use my cell phone and text and call people back who had tried to check on me. It feels incredibly selfish now that the thought even crossed my mind.

Because as I began to see the damage and the relief efforts that were underway, I quickly realized this was not the time to skip town, this was the time to help your neighbor. I managed to find an old corded phone at work which I borrowed, just so I wouldn't feel completely disconnected from the outside world.

At work, management decided we would work through the weekend due to the situation. I had thought of griping for half a second, but in hindsight I'm so glad we did. It felt like people needed us there. Our generator began to run low on gas on Thursday or Friday -- again I forget the day. A frantic search for fuel paid off. We remained on generator power until sometime yesterday.

The relief effort has been amazing. It has risen to match and begun to overcome the devastation. There were reports of some areas even turning away volunteers or having no more room to store the supplies that had been donated. The outpouring of love and people's faith in the face of death and total loss has been incredible.

It makes me proud to be from this area and to call Alabama home. And hearing stories about people from all over the country showing up to help give me hope and make me proud of America. Race, religion, politics -- none of that mattered. People simply helped. And they continue helping. As I've witnessed this tragedy bring out the best in so many, it makes me wonder why we can't treat each other this way all the time.

Something else I've observed: Events like this divide people into basically two categories. There are those who help, as instinctively and as automatically as they breathe. It's as if there isn't even a choice. It's just what they do. And then there are those who seem completely oblivious to everything going on around them, whose only concern seems to be themselves, and everyone else can go screw themselves. And you don't have to ask which category someone falls into. You don't have to dig very hard at all. Just observe, and it becomes quite obvious.

I'm proud to say almost everyone I know was doing something to help. My sister and her husband went to try and help my first cousin. Dad, who was still without power at the time, called two different days saying they were getting supplies to take to volunteers and victims. Axl went out with search and rescue teams. Even LJ went out at least three days that I know of to help in the clean-up effort.

Several other things struck me during all this. Forgive me for jumping around here but I just want to get all my thoughts down.

People in one area that was devastated often had no idea there was just as much devastation in countless other areas, in some cases for days due in large part to the power outage. I realized this talking to Axl one night. He had been out with search and rescue but still had no power or internet and was stunned as I told him of the devastation I'd heard of in other counties and areas.

It also struck me during this time that you, people outside of Alabama, probably had a lot better idea of what was going on than most anyone here. Again because of the lack of power and communications.

And finally, having watched Japan, and Katrina, and numerous other disasters play out on TV, I have realized something I really knew deep down but just chose to forget or ignore most times. Just because a few days pass and the national media moves on to something else and suddenly you've become day-before-yesterday's news doesn't mean the disaster is over or things are normal.

Things won't be normal for months and months. And when they finally are, normal will be different from whatever it was before. We will never forget the images, the stories, the victims, the loss, the damage. Nor will we forget the heroes, the survivors, the rescuers, the volunteers, the love and the kindness. And if we ever think we might, we will drive past a place where a store or a school or a neighborhood used to be, or maybe a spot where the trees suddenly aren't quite as tall or dense as they are just down the road. And we will remember.

I write all this realizing I am incredibly blessed. Not only am I alive and well, but so are my family and loved ones. I suffered absolutely zero property damage. My town was one of the most very fortunate. Time and again Wednesday and Wednesday night, tornadoes would track a few miles north or a few miles south of us. And we were one of the first areas to get power restored. So yes, I feel blessed. And guilty. Why them? Why not me? I know that feeling well.

The tornado outbreak of 1974 had always been the stuff of legend around here. Someone wrote a book about it and I remember looking through it a few times and reading some of it. There were personal accounts of survivors and stories and sometimes pictures of those who died. I still remember this one family -- a man, his wife, and their kids -- who were all killed in the '74 tornadoes. I can still remember their first and last names. I can still see that picture. And I haven't looked at that book in at least twenty years.

When I asked Dad if he thought this was worse than '74, he didn't hesitate to say yes. The numbers -- of injuries, damage, and loss of life -- say it isn't even that close. At least in Alabama. The last I saw there were around 250 killed in the state and over 3000 injured. That's roughly triple the 1974 numbers of 86 fatalities and 949 injuries.

I grew up with what probably was an unhealthy fear of tornadoes. I hated the word, hated to see it in print, hated to hear anyone say it. Anytime there was a tornado warning for our county, Dad would make us get out and drive around, or sit under an overpass or go to the courthouse basement. As I got older, I started staying home when my family would get out. And after I moved out, the fear gradually dissipated and I'm sure I became too lax when it came to storms.

Today, I have a new-found respect, for a word and a monster I still hate.

"My home's in Alabama, no matter where I lay my head. My home's in Alabama, southern born and southern bred..."

These are the great snows of my life

Another week, another blizzard.

Sunday night brought eight inches of snow to our sleepy town. I feel like I'm getting used to the snow -- like this is the new norm. Monday morning, I drove into work for half a day. There were literally only two other cars on the road. I thought I did fairly well considering my limited previous experience (which includes both a 270-degree spin as well as the mailbox incident). I suppose I have to credit my new-found snowy-road driving skills to the DK Summit Course on Mario Kart.

I've made snow creme, a snowman (aka "got my Frosty on), and a snow angel, thrown snow balls, had hot chocolate, and attempted to go sledding on a knee board (didn't work). I'm not sure what more I can do, aside from building a cozy fire. And the last time I tried that the landlord seemed a little perturbed.

Do you have any idea how rare it is for us to have two snowman-able snows in one winter? It hasn't happened in over four thousand years. OK, maybe not that long, but I can't recall it ever happening. Of course, I also can't recall what I had for supper last night, so take that as you will.

It has gotten me to thinking about significant snows of the past that I've experienced. The first one that came to mind was the ice storm of '85.

I'm pretty sure it was a Thursday or Friday morning in late January or early February. I was eleven and still living with my parents at the time. The power went out very early. I remember lying in bed and hearing these thunderous, window-rattling booms and seeing what looked like green lightning through the windows. I thought it must literally be thunder, but Dad said that the transformers were exploding.

Dad had to go to work regardless. They had a generator where he worked, and since we had no power or heat, he loaded us all in the car -- Mom, my sister and me -- and off we went. We didn't get far.

What looked like six or seven inches of peaceful, unblemished snow turned out to be several inches of snow covered with a thick, solid sheet of ice. Dad must not have known that because as soon as he backed out of the carport, the old Monte Carlo hit the ice and skidded straight into the ditch. A cop with tire chains pulled us out, I think, and carried Dad on into work. Fortunately, that's the only time I ever saw Dad carried away in a patrol car.

I don't remember how long we were without power, but I don't think more than a day. Of course, living in town we were among the first to get power back. Others went without it for days. I do distinctly remember the power coming back on before the cable did and playing Combat on the Atari 2600 for hours. The rest of that extended weekend was spent playing in the snow and ice. It was so slick you could have about sledded uphill.

I fully expected to be out of school for a couple of days -- by the end of the weekend, most everything had melted -- but then we wound up being out of school for at least two more days the next week, too. Counting Saturday and Sunday, we were out of school for five or six days straight. Talk about hitting the snow-day lottery.

It is true that the South completely shuts down with even an inch or two of snow. But never in my life were things shut down for as long as they were during the ice storm of '85. I've never seen anything like it before or since.

"I wonder if she thinks about Jackson Hole. Nights beside the fire and angels in the snow..."

The pilot

You guys really have me thinking about this reality show idea. I've been trying to figure out who I would get to narrate it. While Bill Curtis might seem like the obvious choice initially, I'm afraid he might be a bit too dramatic. You know, for a reali-com. (I just invented that term.)

I'm thinking maybe Mark-Paul Gosselaar. After all, he is the man who gave me the best nine minutes of my life. Also, just once I'd like for him to call me "Preppy." Of course, I'll need a backup plan in case he's unavailable. And if finding a narrator for my own reality show is anything like finding a date for senior prom, I'll need three or four backup plans.

While I continue to ponder this, as well as possible title ideas, I've decided to do a test run to see what an episode of the Bone reality show might include. Today I will be doing a written storyboard, if there is such a thing, of Bone's Thanksgiving Week. Consider this sort of a faux-pilot, purely for my benefit. As well as any TV execs who might be reading.

Today's episode of A Show With No Name begins with Bone on his way to pick up Nephew Bone for a trip to Chuck E. Cheese on Tuesday evening. The action quickly turns exciting as Bone sees blue lights in his rear-view!

As "Theme Song From The Dukes Of Hazzard" begins to play in the background, a low-speed chase ensues, lasting approximately fifteen seconds, until Bone is able to safely pull into the parking lot of a nearby bank. The officer approaches the car. What will the charge be? Another speeding ticket? Hit-and run? Texting while driving? (This is where we'd cut to commercial for added suspense.)

Turns out Bone was guilty, allegedly, of that most heinous of traffic offenses: following too closely. Are you kidding me? That doesn't even make a good story. It's embarrassing to even tell. In fact, just forget I said anything. We're gonna have to seriously edit this part to make it exciting.

Less than an hour after his latest run-in with the popo, Bone is spotted across town laughing it up at the aforementioned nightspot playing the football toss game. So adept is he at tossing mini-footballs through the little holes that he eventually runs the game out of tickets. At the prize counter, Nephew Bone chooses a lizard and some (temporary) gangsta tats, while Bone opts for some Pop Rocks.

Bone's athletic exploits continue to be on display in our next scene, as we see him at home -- alone -- playing Wii. After a couple of hours, he sets a new personal best by Wii bowling a 279! Then he remarks aloud, "If only Walter Way Williams could see me now!" Um, is Bone aware no one else is in the house? In other news, Bone's right shoulder is quite sore for about four days.

Next it's time for Thanksgiving with the Bones, a great opportunity for viewers to meet the Bone family. If you're wondering why everyone is shouting, it's because Daddy Bone doesn't have his hearing aid today. After breakfast at Daddy Bone's and before supper at Momma Bone's, Bone enjoys a Thanksgiving lunch of chips and salsa in his modern, yet practical bachelor pad. He dozes off and much like the rest of America, misses the second half of the Patriots/Lions game.

This week's episode ends on the highest of highs. It's Saturday night and Bone is home alone again, which is peculiar for sure. We see him at his computer, looking to spend the rest of the $25 iTunes gift card he received last Christmas. In the show's emotional climax, he discovers that iTunes has added "Hands To Heaven" by Breathe! At long last!

Bone is seen swaying back-and-forth in his office chair while singing along as the camera fades.

Executive Producer: Charles Rosin

"So raise your hands to heaven and pray, that we'll be back together someday. Tonight I need your sweet caress, hold me in the darkness. Tonight you calm my restlessness. You relieve my sadness..."

Lakeside revelations

I've discovered that I now divide the nation/world into regions by bloggers that I know. For instance, my dad is in North Carolina this week. North Carolina is (a) Sage's old stomping grounds and (b) near Pia. I refer to this as Geoblography. And that is the end of the Geoblography part of this post.

In other keeping-tabs-on-my-parents-until-God-help-us-all-they-start-tweeting-someday news, we got Mom moved into a house a couple of weekends ago. It's funny, had I typed "home" there in place of "house" that would have had a whole other connotation, even though it is her home. Anyway, we had five men of the Bone extended family on hand for the proceedings.

There was my cousin's husband and me; my sister's husband, who'd just received a cortisone shot in his back the previous day; my uncle R, who had back surgery earlier this year; and my fave aunt's 72-year-old husband, which I know makes him my uncle, but as it's her second husband I guess I'm slow to acclimate, even though they've been married for fifteen years. With a crew like that, who needs Two Men & A Truck?

After all that heavy lifting, plus the added pressure of Blogust and the general stress of just being me, I decided to take a three-day weekend this past week. And I spent much of it near, on, or in the lake. Which makes me think of a joke I heard on the radio recently:

What's the difference between a pond and a lake?

If cattle relieve themselves in it, then it's a pond.

So this was definitely a lake. I hope.

One highlight of the weekend was getting to drive/ride around on this little two-seater motorized mini-catamaran-like watercraft. I had never seen anything like it, and apparently a lot of other people hadn't either, as it seemed to be the talk of the lake. We got a "That's pretty cool!" and a "What is that thing?" or two.

At one point Saturday, this pontoon boat slowed down and waved us by, then one of the guys yelled, "Where do you buy something like that?" At first, I thought they were talking about my trusty gray Gilligan hat, but no. Later, when we docked to have lunch at a lakeside restaurant, one guy quipped, "That's all motor, no boat." There's no comeback for that. I spent a good ten to fifteen minutes trying to decide if "all motor, no boat" could possibly be a euphemism, but was unable to come up with anything.

Recounting other less exciting events, I managed to not roll the jet ski, and I may or may not have fallen asleep on the boat, but most likely did. You put me in the sun and stop talking for about twelve seconds, I'm gone.

There were a couple of points where the lake houses and noisy jet skis gave way to quiet, narrow channels. These no-wake zones were lined with trees, wildflowers and more lily pads than I have ever seen. We also were fortunate enough to see a couple of blue herons perched along the banks. I thought of the oil spill.

All in all, it was a super relaxing weekend, letting nature fill my senses and having no other place in the world to be. I'm pretty sure my blood pressure dropped about fifty points, if blood pressure is even measured in points.

I'm also pretty sure I realized that a sparrow and a robin are the only two birds I can identify for 100% certain. (I thought the blue heron was a crane.) Maybe a cardinal, unless that's different from a redbird.

The lake isn't quite the beach. (It also isn't a pond, but that's neither here nor there.) But it's still water, and there's still a breeze. Sitting on the pier in the evening, watching the sun reflecting across the water until the very last sliver dips below the horizon, there's nothing quite like that.

After all, we only get so many sunsets.



"Stars are dancin' on the water here tonight. It's good for the soul and there's not a soul in sight. This boat has caught its wind and brought me back to life. Now I'm alive, and well..."

The time Google saved me 300 bucks

Blogust rolls on. We're on our 4th consecutive day of over 100 degrees here. Don't tell anyone, but I secretly love the heat...

One night last week on my way to go for a run, the keyless remote wouldn't unlock the car door. Shifting seamlessly into MacGyver mode, I used the key-shaped object attached to the remote and was somehow able to manually unlock the door. I figured maybe the battery in the remote had died.

When I got to the park, I noticed something else askew. The interior lights wouldn't go off. I opened the door and closed it again, took out the keys, got out of the car, closed the door and waited for thirty seconds. I did everything but march seven times around the car blowing a trumpet. The lights were still on.

Finally, I discovered if I turned the dimmer switch all the way down until it clicked, the lights would go off. However, this meant that they wouldn't come on when I opened the door. And also that I would scarcely be able to see the speedometer, gas gauge, and most importantly, the radio, when driving at night.

Befuddled, I googled a couple of things and found a site with several suggestions of things to try. Such as, disconnect the battery for ten minutes, check to see if a button in the driver's side door might be stuck, take out all the bulbs, sell the car for scrap, etc.

The situation grew even stranger the next day when I discovered that nothing on the driver side door panel worked: mirrors, windows, door locks, my Dixie horn (kidding!), nothing. So I decided to call Dad and see what he thought. He said he'd drive over Friday afternoon to look at it.

In the meantime, I googled again with my new details. This time I found a site where a couple of people had suggested that there was a short in a ground wire in the driver's side door.

Well, long story slightly shorter, that ended up being exactly what it was. After removing the rubber boot from the door revealing a cluster of wires, we found a large black one that had been completely snapped in two.

All that was left was a trip to Radio Shack to give them my phone number and pick up some crimps and extra wire. Total cost, about ten bucks. So thank you, fixya.com. And thank you, Google. You are amazing. I predict that pretty soon, people will be performing medical procedures on themselves.

I can see it now: "I'm sorry, Mister Bone, but it appears that you used AskJeeves to perform your self-tonsillectomy. Unfortunately, that is not one of the preferred-search engines covered by your insurance."

As we got into Dad's van to go to Radio Shack, he put on these huge sunglasses. Before I could say anything -- and believe me I was going to -- he spoke.

"Are these women's glasses?"

"Uh, yeah, I think so."

"Oh me."

"Let me see 'em." I tried them on and looked at myself in the mirror. "Yep, they're women's."

"It's hard to tell the difference."

"Yeah, it is sometimes."

"Well," he continued, slipping the glasses back on, "I went back and bought a different pair, but I still wear these in the car."

So in closing, if you should see a 60ish man driving around in a white van with Paris Hilton glasses on, I don't know him.

"Fixin' up my car, workin' for a livin'. Drive down to the seashore, lookin' at the pretty women. I'm an American boy..."

Reminiscing at the speed of life

Over the years, my earthly father has passed along to me morsels of wisdom and knowledge that only come with life experiences. Things such as the best place to be in a tornado warning is driving around in a car, never take a shower if it's thundering outside, and of course, if you're fishing from the bank and a snake swims by, the fishing trip is over five minutes ago. You can't put a price on that.

A few weeks ago, he who reared me passed along something a bit more tangible but just as priceless. He had come across some old home videos of yours truly and decided to have them put onto DVD.

Now when I say home videos, I'm not talking videocassette. Oh no, it was a bit more primitive than that. As in, when we watched them back, we watched them on this film-projector-like thing. It had a bulb. I clearly remember there was a bulb involved somewhere in the process. Also, I don't think there was any volume. It was kinda like starring in my own Zapruder video.

We hadn't watched these back since I was little. I guess the bulb went out twenty-five or thirty years ago and we just never replaced it, or more likely, they stopped manufacturing it. So I was anxious to see what was on there.

The opening scene has a young Bone, circa six months, in a swing eating some unrecognizable food. Later, there is footage of me rolling over and then what I assume to be some of my first steps, both of which I still consider to be among my top ten accomplishments. I mean, really, what else?

Then a few scenes in, there is my mom. So slender and so strikingly young. And at once, my whole demeanor changed. Inundated by waves of thoughts and emotions coming so fast I can't begin to sort through them. Her hair, long and straight, she's holding me up to pick mulberry leaves. I teared up and I'm not even sure why. Just... she was so young. And where did all those years go?

A couple of scenes later, my dad makes his only appearance. With his seventies hair and butterfly collar shirt, he's lying in the floor beside me mouthing "look at the camera." His mannerisms too much like mine.

The videos basically document my first four years -- birthday parties, a couple of Christmases. There are at least four guitars, both real and toy, placed in front of me on different occasions. Dad has apparently been trying to get me to play the guitar from day one on, until and including the present, as evidenced by the guitar permanently on loan from him mostly collecting dust in my bedroom. The most I ever do is pluck a few times at one, then or now.

Naturally, I had to show the DVD to Mom. She watched with near disbelief as she let two-year-old me hold and lick icing off a big butcher knife, my hand grasping the blade of the knife instead of the handle. And again as I was learning to walk along a sidewalk, mere feet from a street with cars passing by. Later, there's footage of me at probably 3 or 4 playing in the snow, a coat on but no gloves. All that, and I turned out OK!

It is an odd thing to be watching oneself, and you know it is you, but it seems like you're watching somebody else. But that is how it felt.

Still, the DVD is priceless, because if I had ever thought of those home videos, I would have been quite certain that I would never have seen them again.

No further footage exists to prove that I ever walked this Earth. After the Zapruder camera, I'm fairly certain no one in my immediate family owned a video camera until my sister bought one when Nephew Bone came along. So no first swimming lesson, when I cried and never went back. And absolutely no proof I was ever terrified of grasshoppers, as my family alleges.

Along with the feeling that I was watching somebody else, there was a constant and overwhelming sense of the incredible speed at which time and life pass. There was today and thirty-six years ago separated by just a few feet. And yet, such an untraversable distance.

Where did all those years go? And not just the years, but the months and the weeks, the mornings and the evenings, the doctor's appointments and little league games, the school days and the workdays, the summers and the autumns. Is there nothing left to keep, to hold on to, to show to someone that "This was me. This was my life. This was what I did?"

I suppose there are but scattered pictures. And memories, like invisible pages pressed tightly together in some book that looks surely too small to hold all of our days, all that we were and all that we've done. And maybe if we are lucky some day some wind blows open the book to a memory we thought we had long since forgotten.

Though I was supposed to be the centerpiece of these home videos, as I watched them back I found myself focusing more on my parents. They both turn sixty this year -- Mom in October and Dad just last week. I tried to imagine how they must have been back then, not having a whole lot. I thought about how they must have struggled sometimes to get by, and how in the world they knew how to start raising a child when they were fourteen years younger than I am now.

I wonder if they ever look at me today and think back to a little boy with blonde hair and a cheesy grin playing in the snow with no gloves on and ask themselves the same question: Where did all those years go?

"Though it's clear as day in my mind, the picture of a simpler time. Wish change would just leave well enough alone. Those days are gone now, when daddy was a strong man, and momma was a blonde..."

In a summer swelter

I think I finally understand what that song means. Well, that line anyway. Well, that part of that line. If ever was a summer swelter, we are in it. All except for the minor detail that it's not quite yet officially summer. I golfed yesterday, was already glistening with sweat on the first hole, and by the end of the round my shirt was like you had dipped it in water.

We're in another one of those stretches of twenty days of temps in the nineties and heat indexes normally reserved for the surface of Mercury. I have a standard line that I use in times like these: "Cold enough for ya?" It gets a laugh like a tenth of the time, but it's a decent conversation starter. OK, maybe decent is too strong a word there.

Of course, leave it to me to get a cold in the midst of all this. How does that even happen? I caught it on a Wednesday night and kicked it by the following Tuesday.

Being sick did give me additional time to realize there is nothing to watch on TV. Not any sports I'm very interested in. Not a Newhart rerun. Nothing. Just the World Cup. When is that over? I want my ESPN back. I can get into pretty much any sport you throw out there -- curling, Australian Rules Football, I've even watched the National Scrabble Championships. But soccer? I'm sorry, it's just not happening. Oh well, just 77 more days 'til football season. And I'll be asleep for like 15 of those.

I wish I could blame my being sick for my lack of blogtivity. But let's face it, I've been mentally lamenting -- if that's possible -- the excruciatingly slow death of my blog for awhile now. I want to write, but either I have no inspiration or I get sidetracked playing Family Feud on Facebook while singing along to Rob Thomas on iTunes. (I can't believe I just admitted that. The Family Feud part, I mean.)

I need discipline. Someone to say, "Bone, you can't go out to play until you've done your homework." By "go out to play" I mean "retreat further from social interaction by playing games online." And by "done your homework" I mean "written for thirty minutes."

I thought about re-instituting my Blogtober rules for June, but decided I'd wait until at least August, as Blogust sounds better than... well, whatever Blog-plus-June would be. On the other hand, Blogust also sounds a little like one of the ten plagues.

We shall see. Meanwhile, if you Boggle online, hit me up. I'm "Bone" or "Roll Tide" on the 4x4 board.

Finally, I'd like to close today with a Father's Day anecdote. I had contacted Dad's wife earlier this week for some possible ideas for Father's Day gifts, hoping maybe to surprise him. That went something like this:

"Have you heard him say anything he might want or need for Father's Day?"

"Yeah, there are a couple of things he's mentioned."

Alright! I'm thinking. She continues.

"The band on his underwear tore the other night and he was going to buy some new ones but I told him Father's Day is coming up and the kids might get you some."

Short pause to wait for response. There is none.

"He wears the white briefs."

"OK. Anything else?"

"He also needs some of the Mach 3 razor blades."

Sigh. OK, first of all, I'm not buying tightie-whities for anybody, especially not anybody related to me. Second of all, this is exactly the same thing Dad asked for last Father's Day, except I think he also wanted batteries last year.

As the week wound down, my sister and I were still void of ideas, so I decided to just call Dad and ask him directly if there was anything he wanted.

"Ya'll don't have to get me anything. Just keep being my kids." His usual response.

"Dad, it's Father's Day. You know we are going to get you something, just as we have every Father's Day, lo, these many years."

"Well, I guess I could use some new underwear. Mine's got holes in them."

Audible sigh.

"I wear the white briefs."

Yes, Dad, I am aware. Some of my most vivid childhood memories are of you walking around the house at night in ONLY those white briefs. Everyone's father does that, right? Actually, you know what, don't answer that.

"Alright. Is there anything else you can think of?"

"Oh, you know what, there is something else I need."

Finally! At long last!

"Ya'll can get me some of those Mach 3 razor blades."


"Man, it's a hot one. Like seven inches from the midday sun..."

Wonder whatever became of me?

Let's begin today with a little humor. Very little.

Phone call from Dad the other day:
"Did your sister tell you I'm getting an iPad?"
"What! No you are not."
"Yes, I am. I'm getting an iPad."
"Oh, Lord help us." (Thinking, how will he ever learn how to work it?)
"The doctor says I have cataracts, so after they do surgery I'm gonna have to wear an eye pad."

*smacking self on forehead*

These are my comedy roots. Knowing this, I think it's quite remarkable that I have ever made anyone laugh at all.

Easter has come and gone since the last time we commenced. Highlights included Nephew Bone hunting eggs. Although they weren't really hidden, they were just sort of strewn across the yard in plain view. Back when I used to hunt, the eggs were hard to find! They would be up in trees, across a busy street... Then again, I was thirty-six.

Then, of course, there's the Easter candy. How they came up with the combination of hiding eggs and eating candy I'll never know. Asking me to pick my favorite Easter candy is sort of like asking me to pick my favorite Wham! song -- virtually impossible and even the bad ones are pretty good.

However, Marshmallow Peeps are a perennial favorite around the Bone household. I especially appreciate the extra effort they take in putting two brown dots for the eyes on each and every chick. What was the thinking behind this? "No! You can't market them like that. No one will ever believe they're chickens unless they have eyes!"

This past Saturday, I ran my first 10K of the year. I say first, which would indicate that there will be at least one more in the lead-up to the half marathon of a still-to-be-determined date and location. I ran a 48:35 Saturday, good for a solid 66th-place finish. I also realized that I have the same thought when I get to every race and see hundreds of people milling around: Am I the only person here who isn't normally up at 6 AM on a Saturday!?!?

In other news of note, I think we may have skipped right over spring this year in the heart of Dixie. We had about two days of windy, 65-degree weather. Otherwise, we pretty much went straight from not-really-cold-enough-to-be-winter-but-too-gray-to-be-spring to may-as-well-call-it-summer. I briefly considered inventing another new season -- perhaps Spummer or Suing -- but I figure one new season is enough for one person for one lifetime. I don't want to be too prolific, else people will start expecting things.

Not that I'm complaining about the weather, mind you. I enjoy warmth, whether it's an inappropriate hug from a grandmotherly old lady who I don't really know or simply basking in the glow of our yellow sun. Temps have been in the 80's most of the last two weeks here and I've been taking full advantage, doing plenty of grilling, golfing and running.

Next weekend, I'll be heading up to Cincinnati to see my beloved Reds play. It'll be my first visit to Great American Ballpark, or Cincinnati for that matter, land of Johnny Bench and Johnny Fever. We're going to the game on Saturday. I'm open to suggestions for something to do that Sunday, as apparently there is, much to my dismay, not a WKRP In Cincinnati museum.

"From some other planet, I'd get this funky high on yellow sun. Boy, I bet my friends would all be stunned..."

Who goes bowling at one o'clock on a Saturday?

Friday marked the passing of another year in the life of Bone. As I commemorated the occasion, my Dad commiserated, "You're not a year older, you're only a day older than you were yesterday." Which sounded pretty good until I realized that I was on day number thirteen thousand, five hundred fourteen.

Phew. That's a lot of times hitting the snooze button.

It also reminded me of one of my favorite all-time George Costanza quotes: "If you take everything I've accomplished in my entire life and condense it down into one day, it looks decent!"

In other birthday weekend news of note, Wolfgang had started texting early in the week asking if I wanted to come bowling Saturday at 1 PM to meet his new girlfriend. My first (and second, and third) reaction was, "Who goes bowling at one o'clock on Saturday afternoon?" Not to mention that Wolfgang had pretty much dumped LJ and I since acquiring said girlfriend and I hadn't seen him in three weeks. But mainly, I just kept thinking, "Who goes bowling at one o'clock on Saturday afternoon?" So I resisited. Still, he was oddly persistent and would not relent until, at last, I acquiesced.

Or to shorten that paragraph, I went bowling Saturday.

As I pulled into the parking lot of the bowling alley, I saw my sister's vehicle. What is my sister doing--- Ahhhhhhhhhhhh! Before I could even finish my thought, I knew. It was a surprise party for Bone. They fooled me! Augh! I was lied to by people I trusted!

It turned out to be quite the event. Worlds collided somewhat as the Darryls met the parents, which was... awkward at best. There was also the second meeting of Nephew Bone and the godson. They mostly stared as they appeared to be sizing each other up. It was kinda like when Godzilla first meets King Kong.

Some people were hesitant to bowl at first, but Nephew Bone finally got the ball rolling. Literally. He used a bowling ramp. And someone had to put the ball on top of it. And most of the time he didn't wait around to see how many pins he knocked down. But he did push the ball down the ramp.

Even my Dad bowled! He said he hadn't been since he was 17 or 18, which I think is true. Or he could have just been making up excuses for his score, I'm not sure. It was hard to tell which one of them had more fun. I'm gonna go with Nephew Bone, but it was close.

I had a good day on the lanes. There was just the right amount of oil on the ball and pizza grease on my fingers. Wanting to set a good example for Nephew Bone, and with images of all my bowling heroes -- Norm Duke, Kelly Kulick, and of course, Walter Ray Williams, Jr. -- running through my head, I threw a 186-179-161 series. They gave me a real bowling pin and three balloons! Turns out that was for my birthday and not for my bowling performance, but still.

Also, AMF Bowling Centers apparently has their own syndicated radio station. They were giving shout-outs throughout the day to people having birthday bowling parties all across the country. Of course, most of them were under 16. But let's not nitpick. Besides, it helps to answer the question, "Who goes bowling at one o'clock on a Saturday afternoon?" Apparently, 14-year-old Megan from Grand Rapids and all her friends.

Finally, I would be remiss if I failed to mention that I also got a Wii this weekend. I figure that's right in keeping with my tendency to be on the trailing edge of technology. I could foresee 2011 being the year I finally get a DVR. OK, maybe 2012.

By the way, does it seem odd to anybody but me that all the other people in the Wii bowling center have no legs?

Anyway, that was my weekend: a Wii and a birthday party at the bowling alley. A day older? Yes. A day more mature? Maybe next year.

"Too old to be wild and free still. Too young to be over the hill. Should try to grow up but who knows where to start..."

Thanksgiving revisited

I was googling "can you put tennis shoes in the dryer?" last evening when it hit me, I should probably look into getting a life. But more than that, I needed to blog. So here goeth.

It may seem odd, and a bit late, to blog about Thanksgiving on the Thursday following the holiday, but perhaps it is closer to keeping with tradition than you think. I mean, do you really think the Pilgrims got up Friday morning and blogged? No, they got up early and waited for the morning news courier to ride into town so they could get the latest on the John Alden horse-accident scandal -- aka the story that "rock"-ed Plymouth. (Source: Bone's Revisionist History of the 1600's: Vol. 34.)

Alden claimed it was a private matter, but there were too many questions. I mean, who's going for a ride around the village at 9:15 PM? Unless your name is Paul Revere and the British are indeed on their way, it's a little bit odd. And an auger in the bridle? How does that even happen?

Thanksgiving with the Bones may not have been historically significant nor had as much media coverage as some, but it was no less special. Breakfast at Dad's has become the tradition for Thanksgiving morning in recent years. It sort of has a "Breakfast At Wimbledon" ring to it, and is every bit as classy. If we had our own reality show, you would have learned on this week's episode that the Bones prefer their eggs scrambled and Mountain Dew is the beverage of choice.

For lunch, I went with a bit of non-traditional fare, enjoying some Chef Boyardee Beefaroni. It wound up being just enough to tide me over until dinner at Mom's. The menu there was turkey and ham, dressing, cranberry sauce, green beans, macaroni & cheese, cucumber salad, corn on the cob, coleslaw and mashed potatoes, with strawberry pretzel for dessert. (Once again, no cherry pie. I bet Marie Callender's family had cherry pie.)

Friday was the annual Alabama/Auburn game, also known as the day you don't schedule your wedding or funeral, that is if you actually want anyone to show up. (Personally, I don't believe you should schedule them on any day when there's a game, but then again I was raised strict orthodox Bama, so I'm old school like that.) The good guys pulled out an exciting 26-21 victory, turning Black Friday into Crimson Friday, and making my momma cry.

It's so easy to take for granted these holidays, time with family, and always having plenty to eat. But Thanksgivings and Christmases seem to get here faster every year. And they never last long enough. Already it's December. I swear I don't know where the years get off to anymore.

I just remembered one more little anecdote from the weekend. After Breakfast at Dad's, he and I were in the garage putting a new hood lift support thingy on my Jeep. He gave me his annual ya'll-don't-spend-too-much-on-me-for-Christmas-this-year speech. Then waxing philosophical said, "Son, the older you get, the less important gifts become. What I really appreciate about the holidays is all of us just getting to spend time together."

Which I took to mean that Santa will not be bringing Bone a new laptop this year.

"Eat that turkey all night long. Fifty million Elvis fans can't be wrong. Turkey lurkey doo and turkey lurkey dap. I eat that turkey then I take a nap..."

A Czar is born

Dear Mister President,

Please consider this my application for the not-yet-created-but-long-overdue position of Public Toilet Czar.

First allow me to explain why I feel I am most qualified for this not-yet-created-but-long-overdue position.

I have used public toilets all my life. I was raised by parents who have a great appreciation for bathrooms, in general. My dad spent an inordinate amount of time in there when I was growing up. And my Mom is a one-stop source for the cleanest public restrooms in town. And might I humbly add, sir, that I feel I have taken their neuroses to entirely new heights.

My best guesstimate says that over 99% of Americans will use a public toilet in his or her lifetime. That's nearly... seven-eighths of our entire population. (What? I'm the Public Toilet Czar, not the Math and Science Czar.) And while we've come a long way since the outhouse--well, except for the port-a-potty--we have a long way to go. I feel I am the only one to lead us down that porcelain and tile highway.

Just the other day I was in a convenience store men's room and the paper towel dispenser was empty. In the United States of America in the year 2009, this is inexcusable. Therefore, as my first act as Public Toilet Czar, it will be illegal for any business or other public facility to have a restroom with an empty paper towel dispenser.

Not only that, but all paper towel dispensers and faucets will be motion activated, thus negating the need for anyone to ever have to touch a germ-infested handle or lever again. And all hand blowers will be outlawed! For Pete's sake, we put a man on the moon--allegedly--surely we can eliminate the primitive practice of standing in a malodorous room for two minutes waiting for our hands to dry.

As my second order of business, I will require that all public toilet doors open outward. Nothing irks me more than washing my hands thoroughly, drying them, then realizing I have to grab a bacteria-riddled handle to open the door and exit the restroom. This is a matter of public health. No American should get sick simply because they use a public restroom. And while I look forward to working with Health and Human Services Secretary Sebelius on this, I estimate this simple act alone could cut down on the number of swine flu cases in this country by at least 0.01%.

The final part of my three-pronged plan as the new Czar de Johns will be to post my rules of male restroom etiquette (see enclosure) in every public restroom in this country. Anyone found to be violating these rules will be issued one warning. A second offense will result in capital punishment. Too harsh? OK, deportation. Still? Fine, a second offense will result in the offender being under public toilet arrest. This means they will be forced to wear a monitoring bracelet and will be banned from public toilets nationwide for a period of time to be determined by a one-man panel consisting of me. Just think of me as the Roger Goodell of toilets.

My plan can only work if everyone does their part. Therefore, businesses who install partitions between urinals will receive a tax credit. The same goes for those who display the USA Today under glass on the wall above the urinal. I spent ten minutes in there one day reading an enthralling story about Misty May and Kerri Walsh. Also, I will appoint a six-woman panel to come up with the rules of female restroom etiquette. They will also report back to me on why women take so long in there. Come on, sir, you know you're curious.

I feel a strong majority of Americans still want and support a public option for going to the restroom. Therefore I will not back down. My goal is to make each and every person feel as comfortable with going in a public toilet as they would be sitting in their own bathroom at home--one pant leg completely off, a nice gardenia-scented candle burning as they skim through a Better Homes & Gardens magazine.

Now, these are the main points of my plan, and while there remain some details to be ironed out, I have never been very good at ironing. So we'll just go with this for now.

Let me close with a quote (that I have amended slightly) from someone famous. Some men see things as they are and ask why. I dream of public toilets that never were and say why not.

The time to act is now. Don't let our country go down the toilet. Rather, let our toilets rise to meet us. This is my calling. This is pretty much all I think about.

Give my best to Mrs. Obama, Kasha and little Maria.

PS: If my application is inexplicably denied, I will accept an autographed picture of President Clinton instead. Thanks.

"O beautiful for patriot dream that sees beyond the years. Thine alabaster cities gleam, undimmed by human tears..."