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.
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Thursday, August 18, 2011
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.
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.
Sunday, August 14, 2011
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.
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.
Friday, August 12, 2011
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.
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.
Friday, August 5, 2011
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.
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.
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