Nov. 28: "The Dream''

My daughter, Abby, dreams all the time. I’ve heard that we all do. What I mean is that she remembers all of her dreams. But there are decades that go by without me remembering any of my dreams.

Last night, I dreamed and, for whatever reason, it remains vivid in my waking hours, a dream so bizarre as to be interesting. This especially true if you put a lot of stock into the idea that dreams are relevant to real life. I don’t put much stock in that notion and I am particularly adamant when it comes to this particular dream, for reasons that will be all too apparent.

Some parts of this dream, I remember in great detail. Some parts were vague even while I was dreaming the dream. The events in my dream seemed to be loosely connected at best, which is to say that the dream did not proceed logically from one scene to the next. If this were fiction, it would be considered very bad writing.

But I cannot be held accountable for the writing of my dream, of course. I’m just passing it along as I recall it.

I should warn you that some of the material in my dream is best considered for a “mature audience.’’ Again, this is not my fault. Some of it is pretty disgusting, too. (See previous disclaimers).

Now, having said all that, I will proceed with the recounting of last night’s dream If any of you are “interpreters,’’ I’d be interested in what you make of this dream, by the way.

THE DREAM

I don’t know where I was at the beginning of the dream. I don’t know where I had been, either. I got the impression that I was with a friend, although I don’t know who that friend was.

We are walking into a building for some sort of event. I say this because there was a man at the door and while I didn’t give him a ticket or anything, it seemed to me that we had to have his approval before we could enter.

My friend seemed to know something unusual about this man. “Watch this!’’ he said as we approached our turn in line.

The man at the door has this big sword, maybe it was scimitar. At any rate, when a man came up to him, he would take a big swipe with his scimitar and brush the front of the man’s pants without actually making contact with skin.

OK. Here’s where it gets really weird: As soon as he swiped the man’s pants with the scimitar, he would throw a fake penis on the floor, as if he had separated the customer from his, uh, appendage. Everybody laughed.

Soon it was my turn. The guy takes a big swing with the scimitar; I feel the steel brush the fabric of my pants. Then he throws the fake penis on the floor.

For some reason, I am bothered by this. The fake penis on the floor doesn’t look fake to me.

“That’s a fake penis, right?’’ I ask the man, hoping to be reassured.

“You can imagine what you like,’’ he said. “But the fact is, that’s your penis. I missed. Sorry.’’

I was not at all comforted by this, as you might imagine. Do you ever pretend one thing all the while knowing it’s not true? That’s the feeling I had. I was pretty sure it was my penis on the floor – the man with the scimitar even apologized for “missing.’’ But somehow, I just told myself that my penis was still attached and that there was a fake penis on the floor. You would think it would be easy enough to confirm, right? But I didn’t “check.’’ Maybe I didn’t want to know. That’s all I can think of, at least.

The next thing I know I am in a room. It seems like someone’s living room. There are chairs and end tables and lamps and a big sofa with several people sitting on it. I am listening to their chatter when I realize who these people are.

They are from the Westboro Baptist Church – those crazy people that picket the funerals of fallen soldiers. My eyes focus on one woman on the couch. She is in her mid-20s. I recognize her as the heir apparent to the Westboro group.

Now, in my waking world, I had recently read a Kansas City Star profile on this young woman. It was an interesting story, but it’s not as though the whole Westboro affair is something that I have much interest in. I am certainly not obsessed with the subject.

But in my dream, I recognized this woman as the woman who was profiled in the newspaper story. After a while, I could not resist. I remember leaning close to her and saying, “You are wrong and I can prove that you are wrong.’’

She just looked at me, but she didn’t seem to be angry.

It was a confrontational exchange. I don’t remember being mad. I didn’t raise my voice. “You are wrong and I can prove that you are wrong,’’ was delivered in the same matter-of-fact fashion that you might say, “I think your lights are on in the parking lot.’’

We talked for a while. I remember saying to her: “The problem with your group is that you act as though the New Testament never happened.’’

I don’t remember her response or any other part of the conversation, but for some reason, I had the sense that we had agreed to talk about this matter at some future point in time.

The next thing I know, I am slouching out in a big chair. A different woman comes up to me.

“What’s wrong with your pants?’’ she asks. She seems upset.

I look down at my pants. I am wearing blue jeans. The left leg of my jeans, from my crotch to below the knee, has a dark stain. I touch my pants leg. It is stiff; as though whatever it was that stained my pants had dried.

“I think the man at the door cut my penis off,’’ I said.

I do not remember being all that upset, though. It seemed as though I was convinced that he hadn’t cut all of my penis off, just a part of it. It could be fixed, I thought. And that comforted me.

The next thing I know, I am thinking about lawyers. How much do you get if somebody cuts off your penis? That’s what I wanted to discuss with an attorney.

I said at the beginning that I didn’t know where I was. But somehow, I’m thinking now the venue was somewhere on the Mississippi State campus because, as I was thinking about lawyers, I was afraid that if I sued Mississippi State, my professors would flunk me because I sued the school. So I thought, no, I won’t hire a lawyer. First, I’ll see if the school will offer me a settlement.

And then I woke up.

So that’s the dream. I do not suggest it has any literary value, obviously. Nor do I think it is filled with symbolism or is, in any way, a metaphor. I do not believe it is a prediction of some future event, you know, like the dream Joseph interpreted for Pharaoh.

At least I hope not.

Nov. 18: "The Hysterical States of America''

For some time now, one of those informal polls that often appear on Face Book has been circulating among my “friends.’’ The question is simple: Should people be drug-tested before they can receive Welfare?

The “yes’’ answers far outnumber the “no’’ answers.

I am not surprised by this, of course.

Yet the more I think about this reaction, the more I am convinced that it says more about the prevailing attitudes of our country than anything else. Over the past few years, our nation has become a hostage to the unreasoning passions of the few. The Tea Party and the Occupy movement represent two sides of the same coin. They are equally intractable, shrill and confrontational. Overheated rhetoric is the currency of our time. And if you don’t fall on one very loud side or another, you are irrelevant.

 

 

We have become the Hysterical States of America. The man who screams loudest, whose rhetoric is most extreme; he is the man whose voice is heard and followed.

 

 

But what does that have to do with drug testing welfare applicants?

Plenty, I think.

On the surface - which is where our passions are most easily stirred - the idea that a person who wants to apply for welfare should not be a drug-abuser seems pretty obvious. Who could really disagree with that idea? The notion that our taxpayer dollars are going to help people finance their addictions is outrageous. The more we think about it, at least the more we think about it from a strictly emotional point of view, the more outraged we are and the more convinced we become that it would be great if there was a law that required a welfare applicant to pass a drug test.

In the Hysterical States of America,we are in no mood to coddle crack-heads.

 

 

So it should be no surprise that when the idea of drug testing for welfare applicants is posed, the favorable response is overwhelming. And that is precisely what happened in Florida,where voters passed a law doing exactly that. The law has yet to be implemented; a judge ruled the Florida law violated the U.S. Constitution, specifically the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable search and seizure.

Alabama, Louisiana,Kentucky and Oklahoma have also considered similar legislation while a U.S. Senator from Louisianahas proposed a federal law that would require all 50 states to implement acomparable law. Given the Florida ruling, it’s unlikely these efforts will amount to much of anything, however.

 

 

Even so, the issue is worth examining because it speaks to the current climate of debate in our country, which seems to begin and end at the raw nerve ending of our emotions, even at a time in our country when careful, diligent, thorough and dispassionate discussion is most critical. The drug-testing-for-welfare-applicants idea is merely the best available example.

 

 

So let’s peel off the emotional reaction to the question and see what we find.

First, what are the motives behind such a law? There seems to be only two possibilities: Punishment or rehabilitation.

 

 

Although I could imagine there are some who would support the law under the guise that it would help drug users see the errors of their ways, my knowledge of human nature tells me that most people really see the law as a way to punish malefactors. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that, of course. So, for the purposes of this examination, we will proceed with the notion that the reason for the law is to punish.

 

 

Who would be punished under this law? Drug-users? Yes. Who else? In other words, would there be any “collateral damage?’’ Yes, an awful lot, I think.

First, if you cut off welfare money to the drug abuser, you are also cutting off welfare to his/her dependants. The law punishes the guilty and the innocent children of the guilty alike. It’s one thing to hold people accountable, but do we believe we should hold their children accountable as well? Are we that angry?

Perhaps you are thinking that any responsible adult would not put his children in that position and you would be right. Well, introduce me to the next responsible addict you run across, OK? The idea that an addict will act in his own best interests – or even in the best interests of those he/she loves – is to fail to understand the nature of addiction. Drug addicts are going to feed their addiction. Whether they get welfare or not is immaterial. But to a child, welfare can mean the difference between having adequate food, clothing or shelter and having those things at all.

Second, under the Florida law – and likely under any similar law that might be proposed – the applicantis required to pay for the drug test and would be reimbursed the cost if he passes.

The first problem is that it creates a situation where you could actually be too poor to get welfare. The second problem is far more disturbing: It creates a situation where even those who pass the drug test suffer since the costs for reimbursing the applicants for the drug tests come out of the pool of available money for the whole program. As a result, every recipient of welfare money would see his allotment decreased, perhaps dramatically decreased.

And to what good end?

I suppose it would, indeed, deny money to some desperate addicts. I suspect a few of those people might say to themselves, “Well,perhaps I should get treatment for my addiction.’’ A larger group, I suspect, would be inclined to say, “Perhaps I should rob someone or steal a car.’’ Call me a pessimist.

 

 

There is much I could add. Alcohol is far more likely to be abused among the poor than drugs, yet no one has called for alcohol tests. The drug test is for applicants only, so there would be no incentive not to use drugs once you are enrolled. Clearly, it’s achieves nothing really except to add another level of bureaucracy to yet another federal program. Generally, my good conservative friends are opposed to bureacracy, but I suppose they are willing to make an exception in this case.

Really, though, is there any need to go any farther? No matter how you dissect it, the worst result would be that the innocent would suffer far more than the guilty.

And yet when my friends – all of them kind, decent, caring people - were asked if such a law is a good idea, they loved it. They loved it because it catered to their sense of outrage and there was no effort to examine the matter carefully.

We are seeing far too much of this sort of skin-deep reasoning these days, from immigration to taxes. People are angry and somebody has to pay. Let the chips fall where they may. We are unable or unwilling to see beyond naked emotion.

Heaven help us, huh?

Oct. 28: Prop 26: Quixote rides again!

What follows is an Op-Ed piece I submitted to the school newspaper:

It has been interesting to follow the debate over Proposition 26, more commonly known at “The Personhood Amendment,’’ both in my encounters with those who are advocating for and against the ballot measure around campus and in the pages of the Reflector.

The previous opinion pieces published in The Reflector have considered this topic almost exclusively on moral and ethical grounds and it is highly unlike that anything I might add to the matter on those grounds would alter anyone’s view.

But I do believe there is another way of considering thistopic that is, at the very least, equally relevant.

As I consider the debate over Proposition 26, the more I begin to see it not merely as a debate over an issue that has divided Americans for the past 40 years, but as a microcosm of what makes Mississippi, well, Mississippi.

Last week, I spent some time observing two groups who were arguing on either side of Proposition 26. The Pro-26 and Anti-26 groups had set up shop just feet from each other on the Drill Field. I listened as advocates for both sides made their pitches to passer-by students. Predictably, each group
accused the other of distortions, disinformation and exaggerations.

Finally, I approached a member of each group and asked what would happen if the Proposition passed, which, I suspect, is the likely outcome.

After listening patiently to both parties, I am convinced that both sides are wrong.

What will happen if Proposition 26 passes?

Nothing.

Proposition 26, if passed, cannot be implemented because it will never pass Constitutional muster. State laws cannot usurp federal law and, clearly, Proposition 26 will certainly be challenged in the Courts and there is no reasonable expectation that it can meet the legal challenges.

Pro-26 advocates argue that they do have the Constitution on their side, noting that anything that any powers not implicitly given to the federal government are ceded to the states. But that argument has been repeatedly refuted over the decades. In fact, Mississippi, along with many other Southern states, used the “state’s rights’’ argument to secede from the Union in 1861 and later to fight Civil Rights legislation in the 1960s. Obviously, the tactic failed miserably in both cases. The “State’s Rights’’ argument is a thin limb for Pro-26 supporters to cling to.

Mississippi is just one of 32 states that have proposed some sort of new definition on
“personhood,’’ which is primarily a legal strategy devised to overturn Roe v. Wade. Mississippi’s version is broader than most – too broad, it seems. Neither National Right to Life, the nation’s most prominent anti-abortion organization, or the Catholic Church, whose views on abortion have never been ambiguous, offer support for Mississippi’s amendment.

In fact, there is some belief that Mississippi’s proposition might ultimate damage the anti-abortion cause.

James Bopp Jr., the top lawyer for National Right to Life, told the New York Times that the amendment is  regrettable from a pro-life perspective. “From the standpoint of protecting unborn lives it’s utterly futile,” he said, “and it has the grave risk that if it did get to the Supreme
Court, the court would write an even more extreme abortion policy.”

So, no, I won’t be voting for Proposition 26 on grounds that have nothing to do with the moral and ethical implications it represents, but because it will serve no useful purpose.

I stated that if Proposition 26 passes, nothing will happen. But that’s not true, of course. Something will, indeed, happen. What willhappen is that Mississippi taxpayers will spend millions of dollars over the next decade fighting a legal battle whose outcome is about as predictable as an Ole Miss-Alabama football game – with the state playing the role of Ole Miss. And the state will spend
these millions of dollars at a time when it is busy slashing budgets for health, education and programs for the poor.

But that’s the way it’s always been with Mississippi: We seem incapable of fighting any battles other than the ones we are certain to lose. In the meantime, the issues that should command our attention are neglected while we wage against a quixotic war on hot-button issues that have
little real impact on the real issues that Mississippians have faced seemingly
forever.

I am native Mississippian, and 52 years old, a non-traditional student both chronologically and, I suspect, philosophically. All my life, Mississippi has ranked last (or first, provided being first means worst) on just about every measurable “quality of life’’ issue. That’s “Our State:’’ Last in education,
first in poverty, last in health care, first in obesity.

So what do our political leaders do when they consider Mississippi’s regrettable state? They push legislation on things like voter ID, abortion, gun laws, etc. – measure that appeal only to passions, but do little – nothing,really – to move Mississippi up or down any of those lists. It’s almost as if our “leaders’’ are simply shrugging their shoulders and saying, “well, somebody’s gotta be last, right?
Might as well be us.’’

And yet the same people – or different people with the same views – are elected over and over again.

I hope to live long enough to see a real leader emerge in our state someday, someone who has real ideas and is determined to focus on that list and move Mississippi, at long last, in a hopeful direction. Of course, how he will be elected is another matter entirely.

Mississippi is like a house with a badly leaking roof. Our leaders respond by calling for
bigger pots.

If futility could be ranked, I know just where Mississippi would stand on that list.
Proposition 26 is  just the latest example.

Slim Smith is a seniorCommunications major from Tupelo.

Sept. 20: "Is Plato right?''

A sneak peek at my magazine column for October:



Professor Holt stood in front on his History of Western Philosophy class and posed a question that compelled the 32 students to diligently study their shoes.

It was not a philosophical question.

“How many of you read what I assigned last time?’’ he asked.

One student raised his hand. The hand belonged to the old guy who always goes to class early, sits up front, takes copious notes and never sends text messages during class. (Hate that guy!)

Dr. Holt’s eyes settled on me.

“You did?’’ he asked in a tone of wonder. “What’s wrong with you? Don’t you drink beer all weekend like normal people?’’

And so it is in the world of Dr. Holt’s History of Western Philosophy class, where good is a curiosity and bad is to be expected.

For the first few weeks of class, I had pretty much made up my mind that Dr. Holt was the worst sort of teacher you could have. Now, I am convinced he is the finest kind.

He is, in some respects the caricature of the eccentric college professor. He is perpetually flustered, utterly disorganized and has an almost pathological hatred of dry-erase markers. The markers are forever running out of ink as he writes rather maniacally his Greek phrases on the big white board up front. About every five minutes, an unworthy marker goes flying across the room, followed by what can only be assumed is a string of Greek curse words.

Yet for all his imagined flaws, there is one indictment that no student will ever make against him: Dr. Dale Holt absolutely loves Philosophy.

His enthusiasm for it, his endless fascination, seems to shoot from his fingertips and the ends of his graying hair. In fact, this passion is so boundless that he often leaps from one complicated idea or theory to another, leaving a wake of ancient philosophers behind like dust from the back of a pick-up truck. We students, hardly any of us philosophy majors, struggle mightily in a futile attempt to keep up.

In short, he loves Philosophy like I love the newspaper business – even after I got kicked out of the newspaper business.

I was afraid I would fail the class. But then Dr. Holt revealed a little secret, which I was able to confirm by talking to previous students in his class: His tests are impossibly simple. He only gives two of them, a mid-term and a final.

On the class website he posted a “sample test,’’ that he says are a pretty fair representation of the real tests.

One sample question:

One of the first conceptual difficulties to be faced when studying the history of philosophy is:

A. Determining what your subject matter is: that is, answering the question, “What is philosophy?’’

B. Deciding whether to buy the book or sponge off my classmates.

C. Stockpiling enough caffeinated soft drinks to see me through the semester.

So you can see, Dr. Holt is not too hung up on tests and grades and those sorts of things.

And yet, I find that after five weeks of classes I am somehow learning more in his class than in all of my other classes, where tests and grades are serious business and the student is inclined to gorge on facts primarily for the purpose of regurgitating them at the appointed test times. I find that I am beginning to love philosophy whereas Spanish III, for example, leaves me cold and uncaring.

For the past two weeks, we’ve been studying Plato’s Republic. Maybe it is a combination of Plato’s brilliance and Dr. Holt’s enthusiasm for the subject, but whatever the reason I find that I am fascinated by it. In fact, so revealing has it been that I am embarrassed to note that my first exposure to it came at the age of 52. It’s like discovering a thing that, to your surprise, has been pretty much common knowledge to everyone else for years and years. Like Facebook, for example.

In The Republic, in case you haven’t read it or the intervening years have dulled your memory, Plato – speaking through his mentor, Socrates – seeks to define “justice’’ during an argument with his friends. Socrates’ friends, it seems to me, are almost always insufferable prigs. No wonder he wound up drinking poison. I rather imagine it would be like being trapped in a never-ending Tea Party rally.

In seeking to define justice, Plato constructs a city he calls the “just city,’’ where everyone has a well-defined role and is committed to performing the duties of that role.

The end result would be a society where each is given what is his due and each person’s work is devoted to what is best for the city as a whole.

Socrates’ friends listen to his theory carefully and it occurs to them that the “just city’’ would likely be met with some fierce opposition, for it is, in many ways, far from Utopian.

How would Socrates propose to deal with the protests that his concept would surely prompt?

Paraphrasing here, Socrates says you would pretty much have to kill anyone over the age of 8 and start all over.

Clearly, Plato was not really constructing what he considered to be a perfect society. He was merely using it as a model to define the complicated idea of justice.

But more and more I wonder if Plato’s solution – made in jest – is about the only solution we have left to fix what is wrong with our own country these days.

I don’t suppose we could really kill everyone over the age of 8, although I do have a pretty good idea of who I would start with.

But I do wonder if we have reached the point where we are so divided that we cannot grasp any real solutions.

The best example I can think of came on the night the President made his speech on the Jobs Bill.

Within five minutes of the close of his speech, I noted sadly that many of my friends on Facebook had already torn in it apart.

“It’s all about unions and redistributing the wealth,’’ one posted.

Another suggested that the job bill was merely a tool to create a socialist state.

Yet another said it was “just another bailout.’’

This seems a horribly wondrous thing to me, that common, everyday people would be able to divine and analyze the bill within mere minutes.

I asked each of those folks if they had read the bill.

Of course, they had not, mainly because there was no bill to read at that point.

Will the president’s job bill work? I have no idea. But I would like to think that all of us have suffered enough to at least approach it with an open mind.

To me, our situation is like falling off a ship far out at in the ocean. In that circumstance, you will try anything you judge might possibly float and you will keep trying things until you find something that does. I can scarcely believe that a rational person, flailing away in a vast sea, would see an object close at hand and began to theorize on that object’s ability to support his weight. I don’t think he would be too worried about the source of this object, either. No, I believe that he would approach it hopefully and put it to the test, laying aside his skepticism for the moment.

But we Americans seem to have lost that capacity. I sincerely believe we would rather drown.

I am no apologist for the President, I should point out. He seems to lack one essential quality: The ability to lead.

But I wonder, too, if anyone has that ability. I rather doubt it. The Right devours the Left and Left devours the Right. We are consuming ourselves. We are torn and bloodied and in rags, but hey, our dogma survives, unmolested and robust as ever.

Sometimes, I think it’s simply a matter that we haven’t reached the real crisis yet. Oh, I know you will hear people screaming from the rooftops that America has reached the point of desperation. And yet, just watch: As soon as a new “i-Whatever’’ comes on the market, millions of sorely-pressed Americans will stand in line for hours to throw hundreds of dollars at the cashier.

It’s one thing to theorize about going hungry. It’s quite another to actually go hungry.

Maybe that’s what it will take, ultimately. Maybe we’ll all have to suffer – really suffer – to the point where we are willing to try anything to see if it will float.

We’re not there yet.

I have a feeling we’ll get there soon enough, though.

I don’t see any other way, really, sort of an epidemic of common sense.

But as long as the question remains “Which Party is more Evil?’’ rather than “What will we do about supper?’’ we are at an impasse.

We would rather gouge each other’s eyes out than listen to what the other person has to say.

Maybe Plato was right. Maybe all that can be done is to start over.

But how?

Sept. 5: "Back in the game?''

I saw a lot more of the Ole Miss campus than I intended on Saturday.
Back in Oxford to report on a football game for the first time in more than 18 years, I found that the campus was just enough of a blend of old and new to leave me thoroughly confused.

I spent about an hour weaving through the narrow, pedestrian-clogged streets that surrounded Vaught-Hemingway Stadium trying to find the Media parking lot, which had been moved to a different location over the ensuing two decades.

When the sports editor at my old newspaper, the Biloxi Sun Herald, asked me to cover the game, I had no trepidation. I don’t know how many football games I’ve covered in almost 30 years in the newspaper business, so I wasn’t sweating this one. After all, it was a 3:45 p.m. game, so the prospect of a tight deadline - a sports writer’s primary stress-producer - wasn’t in play.

But, of course, first I had to actually get into the stadium.

I succeeded, I am happy to report, and I’ll know right where to go next time.

I found the Media entrance to the stadium with no difficulty and stepped into the elevator that would take me to the press box. The young student whose job it was to shuttle folks up and down to the various levels of the stadium, nodded and smiled.

“That’s what I want to do,’’ she said warmly, pointing at press pass attached to my shirt.

“Huh?’ I said.

“Be a sports reporter,’’ she expanded.

“Oh,’’ I said. “Well, good for you. That’s wonderful.’’

The response I really had in mind was, “Don’t you think going from elevator operator to sports reporter is sort of a lateral move?’’ But then I remembered how excited I was at the prospects of being a bona fide, paid-to-do-it sports writer all those years ago. So I suppressed the urge to speak candidly.

“Good luck!’’ I said as the elevator door opened at the press box level and I stepped out.

The game-day staff at Ole Miss, much like you will find throughout the South, is impossibly polite, friendly and accommodating, so the warm reception I received mitigated a slight nervousness that I began to feel as I stepped into the press box.

It was the assignment that made me nervous, obviously. It was just being back in this old familiar setting after so many years away.

I’ve been back in Mississippi for almost nine months now and, during that time, the word has spread among my old sports-writing colleagues of not only my return, but the circumstances that surrounded it. This was the first occasion I’d have to see any of them.

In a word, awkward.

“Hey, Slim! Good to see you,’’ said Parish, who I once interviewed for a reporter job about 20 years ago when I was sports editor in Biloxi. “I heard you were back…’’

There was a moment of nervous silence. He seemed to be struggling for the right words to say. Then, finally: “I’m sorry to hear about your, uh, troubles.’’

“Yeah, I almost never found the media parking lot,’’ I answered with a wink.

Of course, that was not the “troubles’’ my old colleague was trying to find a tactful way to acknowledge. But I was just as eager to leave to subject alone as he was.

Most of the other old acquaintances seemed happy enough to leave the subject –un-broached. But I did notice there was one fella who kept giving me an odd look, both in the press box and later, in the Ole Miss interview room. As I was walking back to the press box after the interviews were over, he finally approached and introduced himself.

Turns out, he’s been around Mississippi for as long as I have, working mainly at small weekly papers. To my knowledge, I had never met him. I certainly didn’t recognize him. But somehow, he knew me.

“Where have you been?’’ he asked.

It was just the sort of question I had been rehearsing my answer for as I drove to Oxford.

“Santa Rosa, San Francisco, Arizona, Prison,’’ I said. “Three of ‘em were job related.’’

He did not seem to know what to make of my answer, really. So he started talking about the facilities at Ole Miss, about how much they had changed since my last visit. I feel sort of bad about the way I responded now. It was sort of a blunt way to put and he had asked the question innocently enough.

Since returning to school, I’ve spent a lot of time wondering about what to do next. It’s still an open question, to be honest. I figured the first order of business was to get that degree I didn’t think I’d need 30 years ago when I dropped out of school. But I’ll graduate in eight months. Then what? The idea of law school appeals to me on some level. Getting my Masters and teaching seems like a reasonable idea, if someone is inclined to hire someone with my background (the bad part, I mean).

Then again, I could always do this – sports writing. I figure I could get a low-paying job at a small paper and start over. There is certainly some comfort level in this profession: I know I can do a credible job.

But do I want to?

A few years before I went to prison, I left sports journalism to write news columns, mainly because I began to realize that the people in the grandstands were a lot more interesting to me than the people on the playing field.

So do I really want to go back to that? I don’t know. It’s fun, to a certain degree. But still…

As we were waiting for some of the Ole Miss players to arrive in the interview room after the game, I ran into another old colleague. I want divulge his name, but he is a few years older than me and has been covering sports in the South for more than 30 years. He’s widely regarded for his writing ability, too, and is treated with deference by even the most elite of coaches.

We stood there, not speaking, just waiting for the player we wanted to talk to, when he said in a weary tone of voice, “I’m so tired of this s—t.’’

He didn’t have to elaborate. I knew precisely what he meant.

A lot of people would be inclined to think that being a sports writer is a dream job.

But you do it long enough and the new wears off and the endless demands of driving all over creation to get to games, the sometimes crazy deadlines, the long hours of weekend duty, the surprisingly fragile egos of the athletes and coaches you deal with on a regular basis, the complete lack of perspective and proportion of fans and the low pay begins to grind you down and you get cynical, bitter even. Mostly, though, you just get “tired of this s--t.’’

So that’s the dilemma: Do I start at the bottom doing something I do well with the distinct possibility that I might get soon completely sick of it? Or do I step away from what I do best to pursue some vague possibility that might end up just as empty?

I just don’t know.

In the meantime, going to games is fun and it puts a few bucks in my pocket.

For now, that’s all I really know.

Aug. 21: "Two of Life's Great Mysteries''

For some time now, I’ve been able to escape what, for a 52-year-old man, is the often surreal atmosphere of life as a college student to do some country living on the weekends.

Granted, Starkville, Miss., is not located in a sprawling urban metropolis. Nor does Mississippi State University lack a certain bucolic quality. There are plenty of open green spaces and ancient shade trees around campus.

Still, these weekend escapes to rural Pickens County, Alabama (somewhat a redundancy, since the whole county is more or less rural) have been a salve for the vagaries my new life as an old student. Out here on the Price homestead, where you have to drive five miles to find a paved road, things just don’t seem to rush at you. You have a chance to study something in detail because it's usually in no great hurry. Except for the hummingbirds, who even mate in mid-flight. Guessing you probably didn't know that.

This weekend, I cut down some small trees near the creek where the family goes fishing and stages parties from time to time. I cut some grass and spread some ant poison on some enormous ant hills that had been built in the roots of several of the great old oaks that surround Joy’s little cottage.

I also, pulled up a dead shrub by tying a rope a round it, attaching the other end of the rope to the trailer hitch of the old Ford 150 pick-up and yanking it out, roots and all. That was more fun than you would probably ever suspect. Here’s an oddity, though: It took four feet of dirt to fill the one-foot hole where the shrub used to be.

So it was a hot, busy, sweaty-stained weekend. At my age, this sort of work requires frequent breaks, usually taken under the closest available shade. Two hours into the day, I was already soaked with sweat, having sweated through my jeans even. The bandana I tied around my head to keep the sweat out of my eyes, when rung out, could fill a fruit jar, it seemed. But it’s a good kind of dirty sweat, somehow. It just feels good, in a way I am at a loss to explain.

I did run one errand during the weekend, driving over to Carrolton, the closest town, to buy some night-crawlers and crickets, just in case somebody decided to go fishing.

“There’s a cricket basket in the truck shed,’’ Joy told me.

So I grabbed the cricket basket and headed for town.

Joy had told me I could buy the worms and crickets at the little grocery store in town. I looked around the store, but didn’t see anything that looked like it might be where you would keep bait. Finally, I approached the checkout counter and asked the man behind the counter if they had crickets for sale.

“Crickets?'’ the man said in an accent I recognized as being Indian (by Indian I mean the big country in Asia).

“Yes, crickets,’’ I said.

The man made a motion as if he were swinging a cricket paddle. “That kind of cricket?’’ he asked.

“No,’’ I said. “I mean for fishing.’’

“No. I am sorry. We don’t sell them.’’

Fortunately, another customer had arrived at the counter as I was having this discussion with the clerk.

“You can get crickets at the One-Stop, I think,’’ she said. “Otherwise, you’ll have to go to Pickensville.’’

I’m not sure where Pickensville is located, but the woman said it as if it were a long drive. So I was relieved to discover that you can buy crickets (and worms) at One-Stop in Carrolton.

The man at the One-Stop took my cricket basket and returned a few minutes later with 100 (or so) crickets in my basket.

“The worms are in the refrigerator over there,’’ he said.

Driving back to the Price homestead, I looked over at the little round wire mess basket, full of crickets.

It’s a funny thing, really. I’ve seen and used cricket baskets since I was a little kid.

But somehow, two marvelous thoughts came to me as I drove along the little blacktop highway.

First, why don’t the crickets just hop out of the basket? Second, and this is probably even a greater mystery, who figured out they wouldn’t?

On the outside chance that you don’t know about cricket baskets, a description is necessary. A cricket basket (it can be round or square) is made of wire mess and is about 12 inches tall. Here’s where the mysterious part comes in. There is no lid on the basket, only a sleeve, usually plastic, that fits inside. Even so, the opening at the top is large enough for even the biggest hand to fit into to retrieve a cricket.

Now, I know enough about crickets to understand that even the most ancient, infirmed of crickets can jump a good 18 inches. Any cricket could, at least in theory, stand at the bottom of the cricket basket and hop straight up out of the opening in the top of the basket and escape to freedom.

But they never do.

But here’s the more interesting part. Someone – no one will likely ever know who – figured this out and designed a basket for keeping crickets that didn’t have a lid. The idea of a container without a lid used specifically to keep something inside that has the ability - not to mention the desire - to get out seems to defy all logical thinking.

In my mind, it is one of the great inventions of all time, not because of its contribution to society – which, at best, is marginal – but rather because it is so contrary to any conventional way of thinking.

As far as I know, there have been no real technological advances in this field. Long ago, somebody figured this out and they’ve been making cricket baskets pretty much the same way ever since.

When you buy a cricket basket, you do not have to work about a 4G version of it hitting the market next month. Strangely, that idea appeals to me.

Maybe it’s just a sign I am getting older. I find that I am comforted more by the old things that don’t change than I am excited by all the new things that change all the time.

The road in front of the Price homestead has been a dirt road for close to 100 years. Most likely, a hundred years hence it will still be a dirt road.

And the cricket basket of 2111 will look the same as the one that is sitting on the front seat of this old pick-up truck.

And the crickets won’t hop out.

They never do.

They never will.

I like that.

Aug. 18: "She had it comin' ''

Today was just my second day of fall classes and, as you might suspect, it requires a certain amount of adjustment.

Probably one of the biggest adjustments so far has been getting used to my parking situation. When I first enrolled in classes back in January, I managed to get a parking spot in the Commuter West parking lot, which was within easy walking distance of my classes. This semester, however, I procrastinated to the point where, when I applied for a parking decal, the only available spot was in the Coliseum Lot, about a mile-and-a-half from where my classes meet.

Fortunately, MSU has shuttle buses that service far-flung lots such as the Coliseum. So the trick has been figuring out what time I need to be at the stop to catch a bus that will get me to my classes on time.

I’ve been late to two classes, but not because of the bus. Rather, I arrived at my first class on both Wednesday and Thursday only to find out that the class had been moved to another building across campus. Of course, I wasn’t the only student to arrive late and both of my professors understood the situation.

But I have to confess that I boarded the shuttle bus in somewhat of a foul mood on Thursday. My first class on Thursday is College Algebra. I don’t like College Algebra. I don’t understand College Algebra. College Algebra is not my friend; it never has been. Most likely, College Algebra is going to mess up my otherwise pristine GPA.

So I was not happy as I boarded the bus, which was full to the point that only two seats were unoccupied, aisle seats near the back of the bus, opposite one another. On one side, sat a pretty little blonde co-ed. On the other side, was a dude. Can you guess which of the two seats I chose?

“Can I sit here?’’ I asked.

The co-ed didn’t answer. She rolled those big blue eyes of hers and snatched her enormous purse off the empty seat, her reaction being what you might expect had I asked to borrow her tooth-brush.

So I sat down on the other side, next to the dude, who sported a black T-Shirt with the message “I am ashamed of what I did for a Klondyke Bar’’ written across the front.

“How’s it going?’’ I asked, chucking at this T-shirt.

“Not bad,’’ he said. “It would be better if it wasn’t so early.’’

I looked at my watch: It was 9:10 a.m. I guess we have a different definition of “early.’’

As the bus meandered its way across campus, I was able to learn the following about the dude next to me. His name is Kyle. He’s a sophomore from Jackson. He’s majoring in Chemical Engineering. His first class on Thursday is Calculus II. Strangely, the fact that he was starting the day with a math class did not put him in a foul mood at all.

“It’s not hard,’’ he said.

Maybe, I thought, but on the other hand, this guy thinks 9:10 a.m. is “early.’’

Kyle was pleasant enough company, but for some reason I couldn’t quit thinking about the snub I had received from the blonde sitting across the aisle from me.

Normally, I am the kind to take such slights, condescensions and minor acts of rudeness in stride. But I was going to College Algebra, so I wasn’t in a forgiving mood.

I look across the aisle at the blonde and noticed she was wearing a white T-Shirt with the words “Mississippi State Baseball’’ written on it.

A devious idea popped suddenly into my head.

I looked over toward her until she felt the weight of my stare. Tipping my head so that I could gaze over the lens of my sunglasses, arching an eyebrow and using my most leering tone of voice, I asked, “So, sugar, what’s your favorite position?’’

She recoiled in disgust, her blue eyes shooting darts at me.

I let that question hang in the air for a moment, savoring the delicious aroma of co-ed smoke. Then, pointing to her shirt, I said in my most innocent voice, “you know, baseball position? I like shortstop myself.’’

Her face turned a bright, blushing red. As she was struggling to fashion a response, I turned back to Kyle and asked him how many hours he was taking this semester.

She never did answer. As the bus rolled to the final stop five minutes later, she bolted from the bus, her face still a radiating shade of red.

OK. So maybe that was sort of a mean thing to do. But, hey, I was on my way to College Algebra. Besides, if everything about college life can be a learning experience, I like to think I left her with a valuable lesson: Never roll you eyes at an old person unless the person is one of your parents. We may be old, but you DO NOT want to cross us on a day we have College Algebra.

I arrived at my College Algebra class 10 minutes early, learned the class had been switched to another classroom across campus and finally slipped into a seat just as the professor was beginning class.

As she was going over the syllabus, I stared with horror at the blackboard behind her. It was full of all sorts of numbers, letters and odd lines and slashes.

I like to think that I am open-minded, tolerant person. But I will confess I can be close-minded and deeply prejudiced on some subjects. One of those subjects is mixed marriages of numbers and letters. In my view, math classes should content themselves with numbers and leave the alphabet out of it. Same goes for language classes: Stick to the letters, words and phrases and leave the numbers to people like Kyle.

But College Algebra has no sense of propriety. It brazenly throws a letter (usually “X’’ or “Y’’) right up next to a 7 or a 3 without regard to the tender sensibilities of traditionalists like me.

So, as I stared at the blackboard, the numbers and letters seemed to me to form some sort of Hieroglyphic message. After 10 minutes of careful scrutiny, I translated Problem No. 1 thusly: “In the third year of the square root of 7 to the third power, the Great King Xerxes decreed that all males under the age of (X x 3) – (2 x Y squared) would be 13 cubed.’’

To my dismay, this was not quite right.

The professor, having finished reading the syllabus, finally turned to the blackboard. At that point she said something that made my blood run cold:

“OK. These problems are all just really a review of what you have already learned before,’’ she said. “We’ll just go over them quickly just to refresh your memory. You learned all this in high school.’’

High school? I haven't been in high school in 35 years! All I remember learning in high school was that if you stare at Julie Tutor's long, shapely legs long enough, eventually she'll catch on and give you that disppointed look that says, "I would be less ashamed of you if you were a cuter boy.''

Back then, when I was teen-ager, I worked one summer at my cousin’s produce business. One of my co-workers there was a shiftless, lazy, perpetually drunk middle-aged drifter who - having accomplished so very much in life - felt it was his duty to pass along to me the wisdom he had acquired on his way to current lofty condition.

“Always fall behind early,’’ he once told me solemnly. “It gives you more time to catch up.’’

Well, all these years later, I find that I have taken his advice, at least as far as College Algebra is concerned. I was behind before I sat down, it turns out.

Fortunately, nobody rolled their eyes at me on the shuttle ride back to my car.

Good thing.

Aug. 14: "When Cats Fly''

This afternoon, I will return to Starkville after spending my break between the end of summer school and the start of fall classes at my friend’s home in rural Pickens County, Alabama.

It has been a good break. In two weeks, I’ve grown accustomed to sitting on the seat of a tractor and the fields around Joy’s place, all freshly bush-hogged, display my handiwork. I also took out an old fence line, weeded flower beds, trimmed some trees and performed a multitude of other duties during my time here.

In the afternoons, we retired to her front porch and watched the world go by, at least the part of the world that came rumbling down the stretch of dirt road in front of her little cottage, each car or truck trailing a fog of orange Alabama dust in its wake. I told Joy that if I lived here, I believe I’d just buy an orange vehicle and be done with it. A car-wash in this part of the world lasts only until the key hits the ignition.

I have been blissfully unaware of the “news’’ of the world, mainly because the TV hasn’t been on since I arrived. But, of course, the real news – the kind that really has some actual bearing on a person’s life – hardly comes via the airwaves anyway.

So if you were to ask me what the news has been here, I would say that it’s been a quiet couple of weeks. Probably the biggest development during my stay here has been the Redistribution of the Cat Population. I’m guessing this wasn’t covered on Fox News or CNN, so this is probably the first you have heard about it.

This is probably not big news to most folks, I realize, but it’s a major development for Elsie Price, who I am sure is happy to be rid of the Flying Cat population at her house.

I realize that this all warrants some explanation.

When Joy relocated from Jackson to the family property here in Alabama, she brought with her a couple of house cats – Bella and Lacey. At first, Joy and the cats moved in with Elsie, Joy’s mom. Each day, Joy would get up and go a few hundred yards down the dirt road to make ready her little cottage, which was once occupied by her aunt. She worked all day at the cottage, returning to her mom’s home in the evenings.

Bella and Lacey are sisters from the same litter, Joy says. I suspect it would be more accurate to call them half-sisters. Bella is jet black with just a spot of white fur on her chest and belly. Lacey is a Siamese of some sort, white with a blend of beige, tan and brown with four white feet that Joy calls “her snowshoes.’’ The striking difference in their appearance suggests different fathers.

Joy says that a female cat can be impregnated by multiple males and deliver the babies in the same litter, you know, sorta like what happens on “Jersey Shore’’ every week.

Anyway, Bella and Lacey settled in at her mom’s house. Because Joy is an independent contractor – a project engineer who specializes in nuclear power – and often is away on business for a month or two at a time, it made sense that Bella and Lacey would make her mom’s house their permanent residence.

But a couple of developments began to complicate matters.

First, Joy’s mom already has two cats – Tiger and Bama. They are strictly outdoor cats and presented no problem at first. But soon, Lacey and Bella began to notice that, although outdoor living lacked certain conveniences – upholstered furniture and air-conditioning to name two – Bama and Tiger seemed to have a pretty interesting life. Ultimately, Lacy and Bella were able to convince Joy’s mom to let them go outside from time to time. But as the weeks went by, the two cats began to like it so much that it was difficult to get them back in the house. Ultimately, nothing short of a thunderstorm could induce them to come inside.

This soon became a cause of concern. Unlike Tiger and Bama, who grew up as outdoor cats, Bella and Lacey are city cats who had always lived indoors. As a result, the fear was that Lacey and Bella lacked the necessary survival skills to live in a place that is populated by coyotes, foxes and snakes. Bama and Tiger knew how to avoid such predators, but Lacey and Bella were innocents, and it seemed only a matter of time before curiosity might indeed kill the cats.

So the decision was made to capture Bella and Lacey and return them, on a permanent basis, to the status of indoor cats. Of course, nobody asked Bella and Lacey if this was their preference. Suffice to say, they did not accept the transition gracefully.

First, they were forever waiting by the door, ready for any chance to bolt outside. That strategy produced only very limited success, however.

So Lacey and Bella came up with a different tactic. They decided they would pretend to be deathly afraid of the carpet.

This is how Bella and Lacey became that rare breed of animal known as Flying Cat. At her mom’s house, their feet never hit the floor. Rather, they leap from one piece of furniture to the next, like a man might jump from one river rock to another to get to the other shore. Did you ever see the map in those magazines that are stuffed into the seatback pocket of an airplane that show all of the places the airline services? I suspect Bella and Lacey have created a similar mental map of the house: “Cat Flight 104 from Recliner to Coffee Table is now ready for departure.’’

The house is clean, nicely furnished, comfortable. But even the coziest of ambiences is altered when the air is thick with cats.

Unlike me, Joy and her mom are convinced that the cats’ sudden and almost pathological fear of the carpet is grounded in truth rather than conspiracy. Fleas, they say. Their theory is that Bella and Lacey picked up fleas from outside and brought them into the house, where the vermin had nested in the carpet. Joy went online and read that cats will avoid any area which they know is inhabited by fleas. So, the thinking goes, there must be fleas in the carpet.

It’s a reasonable idea, of course. But the theory breaks down a bit when you consider the measures taken to address the problem and how ineffective those solutions have been. The carpets have been treated not once, but twice, with flea-killer. The carpets have been shampooed. Both cats have been given flea-preventative medications. And yet, the cats still avoid the carpet like a debutante avoids a Wal-Mart.

It is for that reason that I believe this fear of the carpet is a recent fabrication. If dogs rarely think, cats think entirely too much, if you ask me. They seem to me to always be carefully calculating their next move.

A few days ago, Joy decided to move the cats out of her mom’s house and into her little cottage. I am happy to report that Lacey and Bella have ceased their flying. I think maybe they realized that the strategy wasn’t working. At any rate, they walk around Joy’s house, showing no aversion to her rugs.

But somehow I don’t think we’ve seen the last of the cats’ plots to return to outdoor living. Rather, I think they are formulating a new strategy. Heaven only knows what it might be. I mean, if they’ll concoct a Flying Cat strategy, there is no limit to the extremes to which they are willing to go.

For now, though, they have offered no clue. I am watching them carefully, however. They are up to something, I am sure.

Aug. 12: "Escape to Alabama''

I’ve been spending the two weeks between the end of summer school and the beginning of fall classes at my friend’s house in Carrollton, Ala., which is about a pig squeal over the Alabama-Mississippi line.

Actually, Joy’s place is not in Carrollton at all, but about 12 miles outside of town. She has been living here on her family’s property for about a year now after leaving her job in Jackson to become an independent contractor. Joy lives in a cozy little cottage that once belonged to her aunt. The cottage is one of three houses on the family’s 160-acre plot of land that has been in her family for close to 100 years.

Of the 160 acres, about half of it has been cleared, mainly because her maternal grandparents once farmed the land. But it has been probably 50 years since the last crop was put in, so – aside from a 10-acre pasture that his home to a couple of fat and happy mares – most of the cleared land exists only to be bush-hogged. About the time you have finished bush-hogging everything, it’s time to start all over.

So the past two weeks have been productive. Joy, who is as comfortable on the seat of a tractor as she is on the floor of a nuclear power plant, took over the bush-hogging duties, which left me to do other things.

One day I took out an old fence line, using a shovel and a sledge-hammer to remove about 30 posts that has been sunk about half-way to China. It was hard, hot exhausting work, but when I had managed to get the last post out of the ground, I looked upon my work with great satisfaction. I’ve heard about 10 comments about how great it looks, mostly the sound of my own voice. But it was a job well done, even if the reaction of others has been a bit subdued.

We’ve been busy doing odd jobs every day. We’ve weeded her mom’s flower beds, repaired a broken weed-eater, sanded her front porch, which will be painted if it ever decides not to rain every day as it has for the past four or five days.

At about 5 in the afternoon each day, drenched in sweat and grime, we stagger up on the front porch and sip from long glasses that, because of condensation, are soon as wet on the outside as they are on the inside. We talk a little between long silences as we absently watch the little corner of her world.

The property is located along a dirt road of about eight miles that connects one narrow stretch of black-top road to another. Because it is neither a major road nor a shortcut to anywhere, the people who come down the road trailing a cloud of red Alabama dust are few and familiar. Joy’s little cottage sits about 30 yards back from the little road. From her porch, we can survey about a four-hundred yard section of the road, from her mom’s house, which sits high on a hill in one direction, to another hill distinguished by two giant oaks, where her grandparents’ house used to be.

Because the traffic is limited to those who live along this dirt road and Joy grew up here, she knows every vehicle that comes into view. She not only knows their names, but where they have been and where they are going.

“There’s (so-and-so),’’ she notes as a truck approaches at one end of the road. “He’s going to see his mama.’’

“There’s (whoever),’’ she says. “He’s just got off work. He works for the county and lives in the house next to where that old trailer used to be.’’

Things like that.

About 3 every afternoon, a little red car comes scooting down the road.

“That’s Mr. O,’’ Joy says. “He’s going to (so-and-so’s) house to have a beer. You watch. He’ll be back through here in about an hour. Then, in about another hour (so-and-so) will come down the road to Mr. O’s to have a beer at his place. They’ve been doing this every day for as long as I can remember.’’

Every car or truck that passes slows in front of Joy’s little house to wave. We wave back. My presence here is bound to be the hot topic up and down this dirt road, Joy says, laughing.

On weekend mornings, Hugh appears at one end of the road riding his big tractor and pulling his heavy-duty bush-hog. Hugh is a man in his mid-50s who never married and doesn’t smoke or drink. He seems to spend almost all of his weekends on that big tractor. Hugh bush-hogs the banks of the road and the steep hills, ditches and rough ground that the people who live along the road have neither the equipment nor the nerve to tackle. As far as anyone knows, he isn’t paid to do it. It’s just something he does.

But the traffic is pretty light. Most of the time, we just watch the birds that frequent either at the bird-feeder in her yard.

Because I am an early riser, I’ve spent the early-morning hours sitting on the porch drinking my coffee and reflecting on my life’s journey – where it has lead, where it might yet lead. At that hour, I have the company of a pair of cardinals, mates who come to have breakfast at the bird-feeder. They will swoop down to eat the bird-seed and they fly off across the road, disappearing into the kudzu canopy, only to repeat the circuit several times over the next hour or so. Nobody stays at home to eat anymore, I guess.

The other afternoon, Joy and I noticed a group of about six cardinals gathering at the bird-feeder, all females. I speculated that the girls had left the kids at home with their dads to have a Girls Night Out and, in the Southern tradition, decided to go to the buffet. I wondered what the topic of conversation would be among them as they flitted and chirped and chatted around the bird feeder. They don’t watch “The Bachelorette’’ or “American Idol,’’ I’m guessing, so I have no idea what they might have to talk about.

The birds are not the only animals who call the area home, of course. One day just after dark, I noted the vague shape of an armadillo waddling through the yard while Joy was in the house making supper.

Joy was irritated by this development. “Damn armadillo,’’ she said. “I woulda shot it if I had seen it.’’

Why? Well, for some reason this armadillo – despite hundreds of acres of perfectly suitable locations - has chosen to dig his holes next to Joy’s propane tank.

There are bigger animals that live along this dirt road, too.

The road is dotted with deer stands, and for good reason. The woods along the road are teeming with deer. I’ve only seen one buck so far and a small one at that. But it seems like every time you drive down the road, you spot a doe.

It seems to me that the main diversion of the doe that live here is to stand in the middle of the road and wait until a car approaches, and then jump back into the underbrush. It must be terribly boring to be a doe in this part of the world, I reckon.

I suppose to some people, life for the human animals our here in the country is sorta boring, too.

It suits me just fine, though. Somehow, it’s soothing to be out here, getting dirty and sweaty and then spending the afternoons and evenings on the front porch.

I haven’t watched more than 10 minutes of TV since I’ve been here and that’s a wonderful thing. Out here on the front porch, you watch the world and get to make up stories about what you see. It’s not that way when you are sitting in front of a TV: Somebody else gets to make up the stories and you just have to sit there and take it.

I like this way much better.

In a little more than a week, I have found that there are any number of stories that I am itching to tell, including the story of Skylar the Jealous Terrier, The Great Cat Migration and Homecoming Day at the Crossroads Baptist Church to name just a few.

But for now, I’m going to keep those stories percolating in my mind. Its 10 a.m. and time to get busy.

Aug. 5: "B'' Material

The streak is over. It ended at roughly 11:15 a.m. on Wednesday, July 24, although I wasn’t aware that it had ended until a day later.

The streak to which I refer was the unblemished march of A’s since my return to school almost 30 years after I had dropped out of college. I was running the table: Geography, Journalism Ethics (yes, there really is a class on journalism ethics, believe it or not), Mass Media Law, Spanish I, Public Speaking, U.S. History Since 1945, Mass Media in Society. A’s in all of them.

In my mind, those A’s that marched so proudly in some grand procession of perfection stirred in me some dreamer’s belief that my life could amount to more than a cautionary tale.

And then came Wednesday and my Final in Spanish II. For the entire term, I had maintained an A average. But on Wednesday, I was far from an A student. Here is the weird part, though. After I finished the test, I figured I had done fairly well – maybe a 92 or 93, certainly no worse than mid-80s.

I was already counting this un-hatched chicken, you might say.

I went on line a day later, mainly just to stare with great satisfaction at my grades for the term. There was the expected “A’’ in my Mass Media in Society Class, but there was this odd symbol next to Spanish II. It read “B’’.

“B’’

That’s what it said. “B’’ which is short for “Be serious. You’re not kidding anybody, loser.’’

I emailed my professor to ask what I had scored on the final. He responded that I had made a 77. My face went flush with embarrassment. Really? A 77? Pathetic, by far the worst test score I had made since returning to school.

And so I got a “B’’ for the class.

I know what you are thinking, of course. You are thinking that I am overreacting. Those who I have told about my “B’’ have rushed to point out that a “B’’ is hardly a mark of failure.

I wish I could see it that way, I really do.

But when I see that “B,’’ it says to me, “second place.’’ It says, “Good, but not the best.’’ It says “You’ve fallen short of your goal. Again. Like always.’’

Second place is pretty good, sometimes.

But sometimes, second place is awful. I’ve come in second in three relationships and the rejection is more painful each time. The last one almost ruined me. In fact, I wonder if it hasn’t ruined me. I am a joke to her and the “winner’’ she plans to marry in a few months, I realize.

There is a lady in my life now – a smart, beautiful, stunning woman - that deserves to be loved. But I am afraid to go there, afraid that it will end in another second place, no matter how promising and hopeful the prospects seem to be right now.

It always ends that way. In Spanish II, I was an “A’’ student every day - until the last day. Then I was a bum and it didn’t matter if I was an “A’’ student before.

It always ends like that. And each time, I shrink a little and the light becomes a bit more dim. Today, I’m feeling around in the shadows.

This morning, I emailed an old acquaintance, Charlie Mitchell. I knew Charlie back when he was the editor at the Vicksburg paper. Charlie is now an assistant dean at the Ole Miss journalism school. I wrote to him, explaining about how I had been in the newspaper business for a long time until I went to prison for DUI. I wrote that I was working hard to redeem myself and asked for his advice on whether I should pursue a Masters in Journalism at Ole Miss or, instead, stay at State and get a Masters in English. My plan is (was?) to teach English Comp and/or Journalism at the university level.

Charlie wrote back to tell me that either path would be OK. He also said that I might face some obstacles.

He wrote:

“In the big picture, all colleges, public and private, manage their image with unprecedented intensity because they rely so heavily on donations and good will. The knee jerk at some will be not to run the risk of a headline reading, "Ex-con teaching our little children." As a journalist, you know the story could just as easily be about focus and redemption. The challenge is to find a school willing to take that risk.’

There’s nothing inherently wrong about that response, of course.

On the other hand, it wasn’t something I didn’t already realize.

In reality, I wrote to my old acquaintance hoping he would say something like, “Come on up to Ole Miss! We’ll help! We’ll make it work, pull some strings, give you a hand!’’

It is not what he said, of course, and the impression I got from the email was akin to what you encounter on dating sites when a person who isn’t interested sends out the standard “Good Luck in Your Search’’ message.

One of the reasons I came back to Mississippi was the naïve belief that there might be some people here who, being in a position to help me, might show some compassion.
Clearly, I was wrong. I suspect Charlie sees me as damaged goods, someone unworthy of anything but condescension. I know damn well I’d be the best student in that graduate program, but clearly, I represent some sort of “risk.’’ I wish someone who feels that way would actually tell me what “risk’’ they think I represent. But it’s no use to argue.

I’ve learned a little about a lot of things since returning to school – a little geography, a little history, a very little Spanish. But what I’ve learned most of all is that you can be an “A’’ student every day, but that doesn’t matter if you blow the Finals.

Sometimes a life is defined by its worst moment and every effort to escape it is an exercise in self-delusion. You are forever viewed as a “risk.’’ It doesn’t really matter how sorry you are for your mistake, how hard you have worked to overcome it. People love second chances, as long as they’re not the ones providing them.

The women I have loved and lost would probably tell you that, too. They would probably tell you I’m a good person. But, you know, just not good enough.

I’m just a “B’’ kind of guy, I guess.

July 30: "NFL dreamin' ''

The NFL Labor impasse ended last week. It was written about in all the newspapers. But it was written more eloquently on the face of Blakely Feld, who sits next to me in my Mass Media in Society Class.

Blakely, a 21-year co-ed from Alabama, fairly bounced into class that Monday afternoon, smiling broadly.

“The lock-out is over!’’ she said. “I’m so excited!’’

No doubt, NFL fans everywhere were excited when the NFL owners and players reached an agreement on a 10-year collective bargaining agreement, insuring that the 2011-12 season will proceed without delay or interruption.

Even so, few of us have what you would call a vested interest in the matter.

And that sets Blakely Feld, who will finish her undergraduate degree in Communications/Public Relations next week, apart from most of us. Blakely Feld met a boy soon after arriving at Mississippi State four years ago, an MSU football player, it turns out. They were married last year.

Her husband, Aaron Feld, is not a household name, not even on the MSU campus. You won't find his name on an All-American list or even on the All-SEC team. He was never a team captain and hardly ever was deemed important enough to be interviewed during his years at MSU.

And yet Feld is one of the few MSU players who will have a chance to join that elite group of people who can call themselves NFL players.

Feld’s opportunity relies on one simple skill: He snaps a football. Feld has snapped the ball for MSU on kicks and punts since his freshman year. That tells you one very important – you could say essential – fact. He has done his job consistently well.

And for snappers, doing their job consistently well is the critical factor. Other players can miss an assignment or make a mistake without jeopardizing their careers, provided their successes exceed their failures.

But snappers have no room for error. During a typical game, they’ll snap the ball maybe a dozen times and, if all goes as expected, hardly anyone will note their performance. But one bad snap can alter the outcome of a game. You mess up as a snapper and your job prospects cloud considerably.

When I first met Blakely and she told me about her husband, I asked her if she had read the book, “The Long Snapper.’’ She said she had heard of it, but hadn’t read it. I told her I had the book, but when I got home I realized that book was in storage at my sister’s house in Tupelo.

The book is about former LSU football player Brian Kinchen, who has spent 13 seasons in the NFL, primarily in the role of long snapper. The story begins with Kinchen back in his native Lousiana, teaching at a middle school and out of the game for three years.

In December of 2003, The New England Patriots lost their long snapper a few days before the playoffs started and called Kinchen for a tryout. The story follows Kinchen’s experience with the Patriots, from beating out another long snapper who had been called in for a tryout to the Super Bowl, where – as fate would have it – Kinchen, tormented by fears he would make a critical mistake, was called upon to make a snap on what proved to be the game-winning field goal.

“I need to read that book,’’ Blakely Feld after I told her what the book was about.

In the days after the lockout ended, Blakely gave us regular updates on her husband’s situation. There were several teams who had expressed some interest in signing her husband to a free-agent contract. She seemed equally excited about each team. Even the thought of her husband playing in frigid Buffalo seemed wonderful to her, although she did fret about her inadequate wardrobe for such a harsh climate.

Then, last Thursday, Blakely sorta levitated her way into class.

“He signed with Tampa Bay!’’ she squealed.

Blakely is s sweet girl, and it was fun to see her so excited.

Now, I have no idea how her story will turn out. The fact is that half of the players under contract today will be out of a job within a month. Tampa’s long-snapper last year was injured, so there is an opening for the job. But there are, of course, no guarantees and I am certain that Feld won’t be in the only long-snapper the Bucs will be auditioning this month. It’s not a sure thing but any means.

Of course, that is a possibility I am sure Blakely Feld is well aware of. And if she was not aware, there was no inclination on my part to point out the sobering prospects.

By the middle of the week, Blakely Feld will finish school and fly to Tampa to join her husband at training camp. How long the Felds will be there, I don’t know.

I’d like to think that her husband will get the job and have a long career. If he does, he’ll make probably in the neighborhood of $350,000 per year, which is a heckuva lot better pay than most recent graduates could even hope to make.

But he may also find that his NFL dream lasted only a few short weeks.

In either case, I think the Felds will do just fine. They are young, in love and both have college degrees. It’s probably a long shot, this NFL dream. But it’s a shot.

If it doesn’t work out, the Felds will have to find a new dream, even if the new dream seems dull by comparison to this one.

But life is like that sometimes.

Whether it is love or a career or any number of things that shape a person’s life here on earth, you have to let go of an old dream before you can dream a new one.

That’s been my experience, at least.

July 10: "Joy''

A few of you have noted that presence of a certain fetching brunette on my Facebook photo gallery, whose company I am enjoying of late.

Her name is Joy and she lives in Alabama, about 20 miles from Columbus near a town whose name mysteriously evades me, even though I’ve been through it several times on visits to see her and I’ve heard the name of the town many, many times since Joy and I began seeing each other about six weeks ago. It starts with a “C’’ and, somehow, I can never remember the name of the town. There may be some pathology associated with this. I find that I am mystified by meaningless things these days.

For example, I had a Spanish test on Friday. In that test, we were supposed to conjugate verbs in the past tense according to the “fill in the blank’’ sentence. We were given the verb in English, so we had to know the Spanish verb and be able to conjugate it according to person, gender and number. As fate would have it, the one verb I could not recall wound up in three different questions. It was the verb “to arrive.’’ I guessed “salir’’ and conjugated the verb accordingly in each of the questions. But I am not sure at all that “salir’’ is the Spanish verb for “to arrive.’’

And two days later, I’m still not sure what the verb is. You would think I would have looked it up, but oddly enough I haven’t. Last night, I dreamed about whether “salir’’ is or isn’t the Spanish verb for “to arrive.’’ I cannot tell you how often I have worried over this matter during the past 48 hours. And yet, even now, I don’t look it up.

So, yes, I may have some “mental health’’ issues.

But my mental state is not the purpose of this post. The purpose of the post is to tell you about my new friend.

As I said, her name is Joy. I have no idea what the town is where she lives. I’m pretty sure it’s not “Salir, Alabama’’ though.

The first thing you might notice about Joy, should you meet her, is that she is tall and lean. She says she’s 5-11. I say she’s 6-foot. We went to dinner last week and she wore heels. She TOWERED over me and I’m 5-foot-11.

She is the youngest of four girls and lives in a little house that is part of her family’s 140-acre spread.

She is an independent contractor, an expert on nuclear power plants and has been all over the U.S. and the world with her work. In a decidedly man’s world, she commands respect.

That’s one side of her.

The other side of Joy is revealed only when she is back “home’’ in Alabama. The woman works like field hand – she can handle any repair job you can think of. She’s comfortable with almost any tool or piece of equipment you put in front of her and it’s not uncommon to see her soaked with sweat and smiling through an inch of dust and grime from a long day’s work on “the property.’’ She can shoot a deer, catch a fish, build a duck blind, drive a tractor and bush-hog a field.

And yet, she can knock your eyes out in a cocktail dress and rock a bikini in a way that women 20 years younger can only envy. She is bronzed from the sun and strong from hard manual labor. But she is in every way as feminine as any model.

In fact, she was a model. She was featured in magazines and sales fliers and was the month of May in a “Girls of LSU’’ swimsuit calendar in the mid-80s when she was living in Baton Rouge, even though she never attended a class at LSU (She got her degree from MUW).

She is a woman of remarkable energy; a vibrant, passionate, caring woman.

And she likes me, which I find as perplexing as Spanish verbs.

June 6: "Estudiante''

I’m not sure what I expected summer school to be.

Whatever it was, it was wrong.

As of Monday, I have now attended each of my two classes – Spanish I and History of the U.S. After World War II – four times. Already, I’ve had one major test (in Spanish) and two quizzes (history) with my first essay due on Wednesday and my second Spanish test on Thursday.

What I am discovering if that summer school is not day camp. It’s work, and lots of it - daily reading assignments in history and web assignments for Spanish, which are due on Friday each week.

Unlike the classes I took during the spring semester, you never had a day between classes to finish your assigned work. When you have assigned reading on Tuesday, you had better be able to discuss in on Wednesday.

Far more than is the case during the spring semester, summer school requires daily homework.

I guess, had I thought about it, I would have understood why it must be so. Obviously, when you are compressing a semester’s worth of material into fewer than five weeks, the pace is accelerated. In fact, by the end of the week, I’ll be 40 percent finish with the courses.

One benefit of summer school – small classes. There are 16 students in my Spanish class, just 12 in my history class.

I am really enjoying the history class, since it touches on a subject that I had already gravitated toward. About a month ago, I finished reading David Halberstam’s “The Best and the Brightest,’’ a masterful examination of how the U.S. became hopelessly, tragically entangled in Vietnam.

And just this week, I finished reading Michael Korda’s “ Ike: An American Hero’’ a thorough, if fawning, biography of Dwight Eisenhower.

Both books are of obvious relevance to the course.

There is another cause for optimism as far as the course is concerned: All the quizzes and tests are essay-style. In fact, our three main tests and the Final are really three-page essays that we get to write from home, using our notes, on the day before the test is due. I’ve always felt that essay-writing plays to my strength, so I feel very confident about this class.

Spanish is going well, too, although the pace is alarming. Still, I’ve picked up enough Spanish in my years in Arizona to have at least mastered things like pronunciation.

I’ve also met a couple of friend in the class – Lauren is 22 and from Tupelo; Susan is 31 and is a grad student from Belmont. We meet at the library on the night before tests to study.

Hasta luego!

May 31: "Law school?''

It’s been a month since the end of my first semester back in school. During that time, I’ve been working at a convenience store and worrying – needlessly, it turns out – about whether I would get the financial aid required to attend summer school. I’ve also been waiting for Mississippi State to release the President’s List.

I will confess that I’ve been sort of glorying in finishing the spring semester with a 4.0 GPA. I don’t really need the President’s List notification to confirm this – it’s a part of my student record now – but being on the list somehow makes it seem more official.

But Wednesday, I begin summer school classes, so this is probably a pretty good time to put last semester behind me. If you know me, you realize I have a strong tendency to sort of live in the past, mostly to my detriment. Most of that past, at least for the past five years, has been a painful memory. Even the things that began sweetly and still stir my heart, ended badly. And I can’t seem to give that up entirely.

So shifting my focus to what lies ahead is not as easy as you might assume. I just can’t seem to let well enough alone, as the saying goes.

But there is good reason to look forward.

About a month ago, I met a beautiful, talented, smart woman. I won’t go into any other details because it’s always been my policy on this blog to protect the privacy of those people I meet for whom a fair amount of privacy is in order.

But I will say that this woman is an attorney and through out conversations, an idea has emerged – an idea that is almost as frightening as it is exciting.

This woman – I’ll call her Lisa – is an attorney. In fact, she went to Law School in her late 30s after working as a bank examiner for many years.

Law School. I confess that I’ve been toying with the idea ever since my Media Law professor at MSU suggested that I had “missed my calling.’’

And in some respects, my interest in Law goes back to my childhood. I remember as a child, the Daily Journal ran a syndicated “Ask the Lawyer’’ type column. I would cut these articles out of the paper, consider the question and the answer supplied and think about why the lawyer gave the advice he gave. I liked the idea of being a lawyer.

But somewhere along the way, I got the writing bug and I can’t say my interest in Law was something that stayed with me, at least not consciously.

But now, as I consider my future, I wonder if going to Law School might be a worthy pursuit. I have to confess that writing briefs and making arguments before the court has an enormous appeal. Of course, like any job, the good stuff is often a small part of the job. The practice of law is mostly drudgery. Then again, what isn’t? We endure the drudgery to get to the “good stuff,’’ in almost every occupation.
But there are some serious obstacles I would have to clear if I were to go off in this direction. Some are practical, others psychological.

Practically speaking, I would have to assume even more debt to go to Law School. I figure, I’d be anywhere from $50,000 to $70,000 in the hole at the end of the process.

You could look at that as an investment in my future, I suppose. But at the same time, could I make enough as a practicing lawyer to pay back those loans? There’s a saying that goes, “Some artists deserve to starve!’’ and the same applies to attorneys. Lord knows, there is no shortage of them and Lord knows there are an awful lot of them that are making next to nothing.

So if were to make the commitment to becoming a lawyer, I’d have to be a successful one, and that means long, long hours for lots of years. I have always dreamed that someday, I’d spend my “Golden Years’’ enjoying myself to some degree, doing a bit of traveling, working in the yard, playing golf, visiting my as yet-to-be-born grandkids.
But it looks as though I’ll be working hard until I drop. Of course, this is likely no matter what occupation I chose.

Becoming an attorney would also mean finding a firm that would hire a middle-aged recent Law School grad with a felony record or, failing that, the ability to develop my own clients, which is also a risky venture.

Of course, I could be getting ahead of myself. First, I’d have to take the LSAT (the exam that all prospective Law School candidates must take before admission) and knock it out of the park. I’d have to score very, very high.

The main reason for that is my academic record. My years of being an indifferent student are coming back to haunt me in this regard. By my calculations, the best GPA I could finish with would be a 3.47, which is pretty good – unless you are applying for law school. In that case, it’s near the bottom. To compensate for that “low’’ GPA, I’d have to ace the LSAT.

And, of course, there is the matter of even getting to that 3.47. To achieve that GPA, I would pretty much have to maintain a 4.0 GPA the rest of the way – that means I would have to make an A in both summer school terms and the fall and spring semesters.

That’s a tall order and it dawns on me that my 4.0 in the spring is merely the first step. I would need to do it again. And again. And again. And again.

It’s a challenge, to put in mildly.

Then there is another matter, one more psychological than anything else – three more years of school. Do I really want to commit to something like that?

Ever since I went to prison, I’d lived in equal parts past and present – reliving the awful nightmares of the past while clinging to the dream of a future when I was working, in a loving relationship, living in a place where I knew I would be more than a year or so, a life where I didn’t ever had to be lonely anymore and I would have the simple things that most people take for granted at my age but have eluded me for so many years.

Live in the moment? I’ve hardly ever allowed myself to do that. Or perhaps, I’m just not capable, anymore. I spend my life regretting the past and hoping for the future. I fear I am damaged beyond redemption.

But there is mostly pain in my past and the present if filled with uncertainty. To survive, I have had to dream that the future is somehow better than either my past or my present even though there is nothing really that guarantees that.

But I can’t stay where I’m at, so going to school – either as an undergrad as I am now or as a graduate student or Law School student – are steps toward that future I so desperately cling to give me something rather like hope. If my life is to be a disappointment, it won’t be because I didn’t try to make something out of it.

So to me, going to Law School is another three years of living in limbo. It’s a helluva risk.

I’m just not sure.

All I really know is that summer school starts on Wednesday and I have to be ready to continue this journey, even if it doesn’t amount to much more than tilting at windmills.

So here I go!

May 10: "In Stitches'''

It was a little bit before noon Monday and I was hammering away at an enormous section of awning that had been wrapped around a tree in the tiny little town of Woodland, Miss., trying to finish up before we broke for lunch.

I was in Woodland, a “suburb’’ of Houston, with a group of six folks from Mississippi State as we helped out with clean-up from the big tornado a couple of weeks ago.

So there I was, slinging my sledge-hammer in the bright blazing sun, trying to dislodge the long sections of sheet metal from their metal posts.

With a thunderous smash, a piece of dislodged sheet metal flies away from its support and….

If you saw the movie “The Outlaw Josie Wales’’ you may remember a scene at the end of the movie. Josie is finally confronted with his old regiment-leader-turned-bounty-hunter. His pursuer has had a change of heart and is content to let Josie go as his eyes drift down the Josie’s boot where drops of blood fall from a wound and splat, splat, splat on Josie’s boot.

And this is precisely what I saw. Big, fat drops of blood were splattering on my left work boat. I looked at my boot, and then looked at my left hand. It was pouring blood from a couple of gashes on the back of my hand from where that piece of sheet metal had jumped up and bit me.

I didn’t think much of it at first. The gash was at a place where the blood vessels are close to the skin, so the amount of blood was not alarming. One of my colleagues started pressing on gauze from the First Aid kit onto the wound. It took about five gauze bandages to stem the flow enough to get a look at the wound itself. It was pretty deep, pretty close to the bone.

So instead of going to lunch, I went to the emergency room at the hospital in Houston.

I had to stop by the admissions desk and fill out some paperwork and answer a few questions.

The first three questions the admissions lady asked: Do you have a living will? Do you have Power of Attorney? Are you an organ donor?

“You do realize all I have is just a cut hand, right?’’ I asked.

“Oh, it’s standard procedure,’’ she said. “We have to ask those questions to anybody who comes in.’’

After I answered her questions (no, no and yes), the ER nurse examined the wound and asked me what I had been doing when I was injured.

“I was bustin’ up a chiffarobe for Miss Mayella,’’ I answered, but it was clear she didn’t get the literary reference.

“Huh?’

“I was breaking up a metal awning with a sledge hammer and one of the pieces of sheet metal cut me,’’ I said.

She seemed satisfied with that answer. She gave me a tetanus shot, bathed the wound and set up the little table for the doctor, since it was obvious I would need some stitches.

The doctor came in and began to anesthetize my hand and prepare the sutures and he made small talk.

“You’re not from around here, are you?’’ I said, having noticed a distinct accent.

“I’m from Croatia,’’ he said.

As he was busy taking care of my hand, I began to wonder how a doctor from Croatia wound up in a hospital in Houston, Miss. I’m guessing he did not finish at the top of his class at medical school, but since it was a pretty simple procedure I wasn’t too worried.

He seemed like a nice guy and he had 11 stitches in my hand in no time. I was out the door and headed for lunch with instructions to be careful not to use the hand in such a way that it might bust loose the stitches.

I had to stop by the admissions desk again. Noting on the paperwork that I have no health insurance, she wanted to know what I could pay. I looked in my wallet.

“I have $25?’’ I said.

“That’s fine,’’ she said. “You’ll be getting some information in the mail in a few days.’’

By information, I assume she was talking about a bill.

I don’t know how much the bill will be, but I do know how much I can afford to pay. The hospital in Houston is not going to be happy, I figure.

But I’ll deal with all that when I can, as I can.

After lunch, I went back out to the clean-up site and worked one-handed the rest of the day, mainly dragging tree branches and other debris and putting them on a big pile next to the little gravel road where it could be collected later.

We were supposed to stay overnight and to finish up the project, but both of our chain saws broke down, so we packed up about 5 p.m. and headed back to Starkville.

Once we get the chain-saws repaired, we will return to finish the job, probably in a week or two.

I intend to be more careful next time. I can’t afford not to be careful, I guess.