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Not Really a Rant

11 Jun

Have you ever had those days when things started piling up. First, one thing. Then, another. Before you know it, you find yourself buried under a haystack of negative energy.Haystack

At some point, you find yourself getting mad at everything. It is like the world is a chalkboard, and the rest is all fingernails.

The cashier at the store.

The guy who decided to park in the middle of the street and get something out of his trunk.

The incessant sound of the weed-eater across the street.

The songs that come on the radio.

During times like this, only AC/DC and Black Sabbath can soothe my soul.

As you get mad at everything, you know deep in your heart that the world does not have a problem. It is all coming from inside.

That is the way I have felt for the past couple of days. There is no logical reason for it, and I am supposed to be a logical person. It is just that one thing hit me wrong, and an avalanche was the result.

This could lead me into a long blogging rant, but I am going to refrain. Instead of a long rant, here are a series of thoughts.

I am certain that a person I know sold their soul to the Devil.

I understand why Michael Jordan fans do not like LeBron James. I was a Larry Bird fan who did not like Michael Jordan.

Lightning bugs are strange creatures. They tend to not like being put in jars.

People who read Game of Thrones used to lord over those who only watch Game of Thrones. Now, they get mad because the show has gotten ahead of the books. Of course, they could stop watching.

My county has its own version of the Berlin Wall. It is called Highway 109.

We have a basketball goal, a trampoline and a volleyball net, and all of them are drooping.

The new Colonel Sanders is stupid and does the original Colonel Sanders a great disservice.

The iPhone should have never been invented. It is taking over our lives.

Summer is not the best season of the year. Fall is a lot better.

My last meal has to include Scotch Stew.

When a politician takes a stand of fiscal conservatism and social liberalism, I will definitely vote for them.

Never forget that the Clampett’s were the smartest people on The Beverly Hillbillies.

 

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The Bitter Gene

2 May

On Friday, we had a gathering of faculty and staff to celebrate the end of another academic year. As a few of us sat around a table, the conversation jumped from one topic to another. During this time, someone stated that they liked a tweet that I created about my distaste for coffee. He also does not like coffee and was happy to find someone who agrees with him.Coffee

As we bonded over this issue, the dialogue moved from the liquid and toward those who drink it. Basically, we hate it when coffee drinkers look at us like we are crazy. It usually goes like this:

Would you like a cup of coffee?

No thanks, I do not drink coffee?

They stand in stunned silence and act like they are looking at an alien.

Anyway, one of the biologists overheard our conversation and asked if I like beer, another liquid that I am not crazy about. I will drink it if there is nothing else around. I will also drink it if I am in a crowded bar, and it is the simplest thing to order. However, I have never craved a beer.

All of my life, I have heard people say, “A cold beer would be really good right now.” If I am thirsty I may desire water, a soft drink, an energy drink, chocolate milk. Heck, anything. However, I have never thought to myself, “I would love to have a beer.”

Getting to the point. I told the biologist that I am not a fan of beer, either.

He said that I have the Bitter Gene and that my chemical makeup means that I taste coffee and beer differently from others. I am getting one taste, and they are getting another one.

Now, I know what to say when someone asks how there is any way that I do not like coffee. It is simple. I am genetically superior.

 

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Let Howard Beale Be Your Guide

29 Apr

I am addicted to Twitter. It is where I get all of my information about news, sports and entertainment. It is also where I keep up with the thoughts of friends and coworkers. However, there is something about Twitter that I have noticed.

A lot of people are mad.

Democrats are mad at Republicans for ruining the country. Republicans are mad at Democrats for ruining the country. People are mad because someone is wanting to take away their rights. People are mad and want other people’s rights taken away.

A Twitter timeline can quickly turn into a stream of rage.

A few months ago, a woman followed me, and, since we had some common relations, I followed her. Before long, I realized that she is one of those mad people who thinks Republicans are the spawn of Satan. Every tweet was filled with anger toward the people who she blamed for all of the ills of the world. There were no tweets about anything else.

After a while, I began to feel sorry for her. Is her whole life focused on political hate? I could not stand it for long and stopped following her. A few weeks later, she stopped following me.

She is just one example, and I can find plenty that come from the other side of the aisle. My point is not to disparage political ideals. It is to come to grips with the fact that the world is full of anger.

When it comes to politics, people have always gotten upset. Heck, politics is all about winners and losers, and losers usually do not walk away happily. However, in the social media world in which we live the anger has been ramped up.

Simply, people say things on Twitter that they would never say to someone’s face. It is like they are behind a protective wall and cannot be held accountable for the hateful things they say about others.

This also spills over into the world of sports. You have not seen anything until you have seen the messages that grown men send to high school kids who did not choose to play football for their favorite schools. They call them losers. They hope that they will get hurt.

The anger on social media is over the top, and I have not even mentioned Facebook, a domain in which I refuse to enter. On Twitter people only have 150 characters to spew their madness. On Facebook, they can write paragraph after paragraph. I cannot imagine what people say on that platform.

All of this brings Howard Beale to my mind. If you do not know Howard Beale, then I bet you know what he said. Howard is a character in Network, a 1970s movie about the television industry. Howard is a news anchor who becomes unhinged, and the network gives him his own show to spout his ramblings.Howard Beale

He becomes popular when he talks about the problems of the world and the frustrations they cause. He asks his audience to go to their windows and yell, “I’M MAD AS HELL, AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!!”

Soon, people all over the country are yelling out of their windows. I wish more people would do that. Instead of getting on social media and talking about other people, they should just go outside and yell. Then, they are relieved of their frustrations without filling my timeline with senseless anger.

I say senseless because we can get on Twitter or Facebook or a blog and talk about how terrible other people are making our world, but it is not going to stop anything. If you are really mad then get off social media and do something to fix what you think is wrong.

Of course, you could just do what Howard Beale said 40 years ago. Yell out a window.

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It Happened at the Inaugural Ball

21 Apr

In 1986, Ned Ray McWherter was elected governor of Tennessee. That probably did not mean much to most of the state’s high school students, but it turned out to be a big deal for me.

My best friend’s family was good friends with Ned Ray, and he worked in hard on the campaign trail. When victory was obtained, my friend was ecstatic. He was also fired up because he was invited to the Inaugural Ball. In fact, I heard over and over and over about how he was going to the gala.

On top of that, he kept talking about the hot girl that he was taking. It is all I heard.

“I am going to the ball, and I am taking this hot girl.”

I was getting sick of it and could not handle it. One day, I told my dad how tired I was of hearing my friend brag about this big date to this big event.

A few days later, my dad came home with a surprise – two tickets to the Inaugural Ball. He told me to get a date and go. However, I could not tell my friend. My dad wanted me to show up at the celebration and surprise him.

I handled the plan perfectly. I got a date. We got dressed up and went to the ball. It was held in a bunch of ballrooms at the Opryland Hotel, which meant that we would have to search.Opryland Hotel

Finally, we saw my friend across one of the big rooms.

As we walked up, my friend was in a state of shock. He could not believe that I was there. After all of the bragging, we were in the same room and him and his date. However, I must admit that he was right about one thing. His date was hot.

That is one reason why I married her.

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The Yard Dog Award – The Destruction of Steve’s

17 Apr

I noticed a message about an intramural tournament on our campus marquee, and it brought to mind an intramural tournament during my college days. It also made me realize that the experience from long ago deserved the Yard Dog Award.Yard Dog

My roommates and I spent several late nights playing pickup basketball. That, of course, means a couple of things. First, we thought that we were decent basketball players. Second, we were too nerdy to find more fun late night activities.

Anyway, some of the regular players thought it would be a good idea to form a team and enter the intramural basketball league. Robert, one of my roommates, and I did not think it was a good idea. We did not consider ourselves to be the next Michael Jordan and knew that the other guys, no matter how delusional they were about their own skills, were also not the next Michael Jordan’s.

The team was called Steve’s. I have no idea why it was called Steve’s. Apparently, somebody thought that would be funny. That should give you an idea of our sense of humor.

We agreed to show up for the first game with the understanding that we would only play in an emergency, like someone losing a leg. When we walked into the gym, Robert and I knew that we should have stayed home.

The opposing team consisted of Prop 48 guys. In other words, they had been recruited to our school to play basketball but had not qualified academically. Their pre-game warmup was a dunk contest, and we were practicing our set shots. Yep, the nerdy guys who played pickup basketball was going to play against a team of college players.

Heck, their coach even showed up wearing a suit. Our coach did not show up wearing a suit because we did not have a coach.

The game went as you would expect. I cannot remember the score, but it was definitely too many to not enough. It was, in eloquent terms, an ass kicking.

As the clock wound down, Robert and I were still sitting at the end of the bench. Then, a couple of our friends, who had survived this beating, convinced us to go into the game and let them off the hook.

We did the best we could. We played hard on defense. We actually got some rebounds. I even made a layup because the guy guarding me knew that it did not make any difference. Unfortunately, there was one guy on their team who had not come to that conclusion.

I had the ball and passed it to Robert at the top of the circle. There was no one around him, which meant that he had an open three-point shot. That is when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw one of the players run at Robert from under the basket. He jumped and hovered like a helicopter. As Robert let the ball go, the guy hung in the air and waited. Then, he blocked it.

When I say he blocked it, I am not describing it properly. When he hit the ball, it sounded like a gun going off. When it hit the wall at the other end of the court, it sounded like a bomb going off. Oh yeah, the ball did not hit the ground in between. This guy blocked a three-point shot and it slammed into the wall at the other end of the court.

I cannot remember if Steve’s continued playing in the league because Robert and I never went back. We had taken part in one of the biggest blowouts in basketball history and were not about to repeat the experience.

With all of that being written, the Yard Dog Award goes to those who thought playing in the intramural basketball league was a good idea. An individual award goes to the person who thought Steve’s was a catchy name.

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A Historical Reunion

26 Mar

On Sunday, the memorial service was held for Monty Pope. You have read about him a couple of times on this blog and, hopefully, got a glimpse of what he meant to the people he encountered. In fact, hundreds of those people attended.

Looking around the room, I noticed that many of them were graduates of our history program who had traveled from great distances. Then, it hit me. Not all of the history graduates knew each other. The crowd consisted of people who took the same classes from the same teachers but never crossed paths.

Obviously, I realized that there are different generations of students, but it had never hit me like it did that day. Heck, the other two history teachers did not even know who many of the former students because those students predated them.

I am not sure where I am going with this, but it brought a few things to mind. First, it was great that they thought enough of Monty to be there. Second, I have been teaching for a long time. Third, we should have a history graduate reunion to let these people meet each other.Reunion

I have no idea if anyone would show up, but it would be interesting to hear them exchange stories. It would also be cool to know where they are and what they are doing.

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The Final Hand

21 Mar

He had never been there before, but he had been to a thousand places just like it. Trash in the street. Dingy building. Some guy standing in the shadows by the door.

They nodded to each other as he walked through the door and made his way into a dimly lit room. However, it was the only light that the men in the room had probably seen in a while. They were creatures of the darkness. All they needed was a light shining down on the felt table covered with cards and chips.

He was a poker player, and these were his people.

He took the empty seat and looked around the table. A couple of them he had played against many times. The others were new. That did not matter. He would learn about them.

Through the night, he studied the players. He studied their playing style. He studied their mannerisms. He studied who they really were.

To his left sat someone who he knew well. A great athlete whose life peaked as a high school hero. His body was broken, and his competitive need could only be filled on the felt. The rest of the time he maintained the same field where he once dominated.

The next player was the typical guy who learned how to play by watching television. He had the hoodie. He had the cap low over his eyes. He should have been playing a fifty cent game at some backwoods casino.

Then, there was the man who looked like he had been sitting in the same chair for a hundred years. His eyes looked tired, and his face looked like it would crack if he smiled. At some point, he mentioned that he had won a tournament several years ago. It was said in passing but was meant as a declaration of the greatest moment of his life.

Across the table sat a man who was hard to read. He had dabbled in different jobs with varied levels of success. He liked to talk, which meant that his time as a car salesman and a real estate agent may have been the high points. Funny, his rate of conversation paralleled the size of his chip stack.

A hulking guy sat next to him. He was the type who lorded over the table and hoped to win with intimidation rather than skill. He did not talk much, the stereotypical strong silent type, but it did not take much time to discover that he was a short-haul truck driver who was thousands of dollars in debt.

The strangest one sat to the left of the Hulk. Not strange in the sense that he could be a serial killer. Strange in the sense that he did not belong in the room. He wore a sweater vest and glasses. He was educated. Why was he in the room? Did he worked in a skyscraper and get his thrills by playing in the gutters? It was difficult to figure out.

The last player was the one he knew best. The one who put this game together. He played wild and lived wilder. He played this game, but the game possessed him. He had won money at the game, but, in return, he had lost his family to the game.

As the hands flew by, he studied the other eight men at the table. He lost track of the cards and of his chip stack. The game became a blur.

As he studied his opponents, he began to realize that he did not want to play anymore. There was a time when he, like the others in the room, lived for poker. However, he did not care about winning or losing. He wanted to be out of that game. He wanted to be away from that table. He wanted to be out of that room.

He wanted to be where life meant more than a handful of cards. He wanted to care about more than the flop, the turn and the river.

A line from a long forgotten movie came to him.

This game had lost its allure.

On the next hand, he went all in without looking at his cards.All In

It was time to go home and leave this game behind.

His chips went into the stack to his right.

He got up from the table and walked out into the night. He had lost the hand, but he knew that, in the final hand, he had won.

 

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All About the Pronunciation

10 Mar

This past Sunday, we attended church and continued our search for the right congregation. We have been to several places. Some of them we liked. Some of them we did not like. Others we found to be middling. In the process, we have seen old friends and met some new people. I know we will find the right church.

I grew up in a Southern Baptist congregation and was not exposed to other denominations. As a result, it has been interesting to notice the differences among the places we have been. It has made me think about how the Christian belief has divided itself into varied pieces. They all believe in the life, death a resurrection of Jesus, but, from there, the things go in all kinds of directions.

During a recent sermon, my mind began to wander toward those differences and the time when many of them began – the day Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses on the door of the church. It was a world-changing moment that kickstarted the Protestant Reformation.Martin Luther

Do not worry. I am not going into the history of religion. Instead, I am going into my childish brain. I have not taught World Civilization in a few years, but, when I did, I always showed a documentary about Martin Luther. I figure the experts on the screen can explain his life and importance better than me.

Anyway, the documentary is divided into sections, and one is entitled “Diet of Worms.” I know the correct pronunciation of that event, but my brain always registers it with the southern United States pronunciation. That is when my childish brain starts working, and I cannot hold back a smile.

Did they punish Martin Luther by making him eat bait?

Was that the menu at the cafeteria? If yes, then it is no wonder that they were uptight.

Did they order out and some servant come back with the wrong thing? I can hear him trying to explain how the drive-thru window got it wrong.

I know that the Diet of Worms was another important event in history. Martin Luther’s life was on the line, and he stood firm with his criticisms of the Catholic Church. This, along with help from some powerful leaders, brought about the Protestant Reformation. Of course, that means the churches we have been visiting owe their existence to the people and events during that time.

I wonder how many Protestants know that. I also wonder how many Protestants would be as childish as me if they heard about the Diet of Worms.

By the way, ask some people about Martin Luther and see how many talk about his “I Have a Dream” speech. It will probably be more than you think.

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Collapse of the Snow Dome

5 Mar

This is my 600th post, give or take a few, and I thought about doing something in commemoration. Instead, this post will go in another direction.

Today is March 5. Spring Break is next week. Not long after that, we will have the first day of Spring. Why do I mention all of that? Because this is what everyone found when we awoke.image-23

March is supposed to come in like a lion. This time, it came in like a polar bear.

For the past several years, we have lived under the Snow Dome, and none of the white stuff has made it to the ground. Now, the Snow Dome has faltered, and I am not happy about it.

Al Gore has an office in Nashville. Once these roads clear, I am going to visit him and find out what went wrong.

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Observations of the Apocalypse

29 Jan

I was checking the locks before going to bed and saw a slip of paper stuck in the front door. It was a pamphlet, and its haunting title stared back at me.

Will This World Survive?

I usually throw this stuff away, but something made me keep this one. Was it a sudden fascination with the apocalypse? Not really. I thought it might make an interesting blog post. A few minutes ago, I read it and came up with a few observations.End

1. Whoever left the paper in our door is dedicated to the cause. It is cold out there, and they certainly left one at every house. I am not sure about this apocalypse stuff, but I have to admire their dedication to making sure everyone knows about it.

2. Is this something that happens in other parts of the country, or is it a southern thing? We live in the buckle of the Bible Belt and having someone stop by the house to talk religion is not unusual. I wonder if it happens in places that are not as fundamentalist as here.

Now, a break for some apocalyptic trivia. A lot of people know about Nashville’s music industry. However, few people know that Nashville is also home to a large printing industry. In fact, Nashville prints more religious material than any other city. Oh yeah, it also prints more pornography than any other city.

3. The first sentence states the following – “No other generation has heard so much talk about the end of the world.” I guess that is true, but predicting the end of the world is not something new. I think back to the Millerites in the 1840s. They were convinced that the end was near. When it did not happen, some fulfilled the prophecy by committing suicide.

4. The pamphlet lists the ways in which the world may reach its demise. It contains the usual suspects – nuclear holocaust, pollution, economic chaos. However, it did not mention the current apocalyptic fad. Everyone knows that the world will end with a zombie apocalypse. Anything that leaves that out is not considering all of the possibilities.

5. There are passages about Noah and the flood. Humanity went off the rails and a cleansing was needed. The waters covered the wicked, and Noah was left to repopulate the world. It continues by saying something that I have heard in many sermons. The next cleansing will be with fire. That could be a nuclear fire, but I would bet on an issue with the sun. Whether by bomb or sun, that is going to be a cleansing that is hard to survive.

6. At this point, the pamphlet delves into history. There are a few sentences about a sign. Then, there is mention of the First World War. I got from this that the sign and World War I have something in common. In essence, the apocalypse began in 1914. It was supposed to be the “War That Ends All Wars.” Turns out, it was the war that ended everything.

7. What has happened in the last hundred years to prove that the end is near?

War has raged, and hunger has killed millions

Earthquakes have killed more people in the past hundred years than in the centuries before. Of course, there have been large cities built on fault lines.

Diseases, starting with the Spanish Flu, have ravaged populations.

Streets are filled with lawlessness and chaos.

In short, all of the signs are there.

8. The pamphlet was last updated in 2005. Has anything happened in the last 10 years to change course? I guess that is why zombies were left out.

9. This world will surely come to an end. At some point, our sun will die, and the planet will die with it. Hopefully, humanity will be able to escape with technology. However, they may not be the case. We may go the way to the dinosaurs and other creatures that have inhabited this place.

However, people have been looking for the end of the world since there has been people. The Millerites did it, and plenty of others did it before and after them. Sadly, it is a self-fulfilling prophecy for many. Today, I read about a young family that was found dead because the parents had become obsessed with the end of the world. For them and their children, it ended with poison.

The apocalypse cannot be predicted because the signs are always there. Heck, everyone who has ever predicted his has been wrong. War, hunger, natural disasters, disease and crime are tragedies that have always been with us. Instead of looking for signs, we should be looking for ways to fix them.

I avoid writing about religion, and I do not mean for this to be about that subject. I am saying that we should not focus on the world ending. We should focus on fixing it.

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