Rock-tober 31, 2024

 

As a young man, Dad was a college student studying mining engineering. Facing the perennial issue of college students everywhere, cash flow was a concern. Therefore, one summer between semesters, he took on work as a laborer for a road crew building one of the highways through the mountain passes of northern Luzon in the Philippines. There was no existing infrastructure, just mountain trails connecting scattered villages. For one section of the road, Dad was quartered with a family in a local village.

At the end of a day working highway construction, Dad was famished. He hurriedly cleaned himself up and sat down with his host family, his mouth watering at the sight of fresh fish laid out in front of him. He tucked into the meal with great enthusiasm, downing fish after fish.

Dad suddenly picked up on something odd. The kids were just staring at him, mouths agape, while their parents' heads were bowed with downcast eyes. The uncomfortable feeling in the room was palpable and Dad was desperately trying to discern his situation. Then his heart skipped a beat. A quick headcount around the table and a glance at serving dishes in front of him confirmed his fear. There was precisely enough for each person to have a single fish. Dad was utterly mortified. In his own hunger, he'd denied some of his hosts their own dinner.

Food insecurity in the hinterlands of the Philippines was a concern. Recovery from wartime atrocities inflicted by the occupying Japanese Imperial Army was a slow process. Of course. I'd never encounter this in the sleepy bedroom community of Long Beach.

The summer after 6th grade, one of the neighborhood kids and I were exploring the local woods. Armed with our trusty Daisy BB guns, we took random shots at any viable targets we came across - discarded aluminum cans, pinecones dangling from a branch, even shiny rocks or interesting clumps of dirt in the distance.

Towards evening, we were making our way back to the neighborhood and had to cross one final stream. The only way to ford it was a six-inch cast iron pipe crossing from one bank to the other five feet above running water. After he crossed, I started making my way over. It took all my concentration to keep my balance and avoid an unnecessary dunking. I jumped off triumphantly on the other side and let loose a loud "Yee-haw!" Dude's back was to me, but he held up his hand. I took this as the international symbol for "Good going, dude! Here's a high five to commemorate your achievement." and I dutifully clapped his hand with mine.

That apparently was not his intent because he then turned and gave me the internationally recognized look that loosely translated to, "No, you knucklehead! Quit your yapping!" He then silently touched his ear and pointed up. Dude then crouched down, and I followed suit. I then heard the chirping he was so focused on. "Yeah," I whispered, "It's a bird. C'mon, let's go."

But he silently started pumping his BB gun. Now the neighborhood had a lot of toughs with pretty wide mean streaks who wouldn't think twice about taking potshots at any stray animal they came across. This wasn't the same. This guy was in active stalking mode. He repositioned himself, lined up his shot, and squeezed the trigger. The chirping suddenly stopped, and we heard the bird drop into the brush below.

He spent the next few minutes trying to find his quarry, but by this time we'd lost the light. A bit dejected, he said, "It's too dark. I'll come back in the morning and try again."

I didn’t see Dude again for another week or so. When we finally caught up, I asked the obvious question. “Hey, did you find that bird you dropped?”

He answered while kicking at the dirt, “Yeah, but he was rotten. So, I couldn’t eat him.”

I blinked rapidly, trying to understand what I’d just heard. We weren’t in the swamplands of the Louisiana bayou or the rough back country forests up north where subsistence hunting was a thing. We were in the peacefully pastoral town of Long Beach. This shouldn't happen here. If 10-year-old me had been more on his game, he would have grabbed Dude by the collar and brought him home where we would have feasted on PB&J’s.

I still think about that a lot, and it's informed many of my personal views such as the fallacy of blanket privilege. I can't help but think if we provided assistance to anyone in our sphere regardless of nationality, race, or religion, all the other self inflicted barriers we've erected may start to come down. I hope Dude is doing well these days. At the beginning of the month I'd mentioned, "If you're able to do some good, then do some good." It was mission failure in this instance. I can only learn from it and strive to do better at the next opportunity.

Rock-tober out.

Lynyrd Skynyrd - All I Can Do Is Write About It

P.S.: Thanks, all y'all, for walking with me through an interesting and particularly challenging Rock-tober. Spending the last month and a half between my hometown and Auburn, places deeply steeped in experiences for both Andrea and me, has been both arduous and strangely cathartic. I especially want to thank my blue-eyed, freckle faced wife who was very patient with me, while in the midst of her own loss, when my agitation rose as daily posting deadlines loomed.

I also want to give a shoutout to you readers in Ireland and Sweden who were consistently among the first to hit each post as it dropped. I'm glad you found these vignettes of small town American life interesting, or at least you and I have similar tastes in music. The next time I cross the pond, I'd love to share a draft and hear your views on Irish whiskey and Abba (respectively, of course).

Rock-tober 30, 2024

Growing up on the Mississippi coast, my buddy Mike and I spent a lot of time on the beach. Because neither of us had a boat, we were constrained to splashing around in the shallow waters just offshore. When we got older and bolder, we’d occasionally commandeer a boat that had been tied up on the sand. The one I remember was the Sea Urchin, a small, 8-foot skiff.

Making sure the beach was clear, we carried her to the water. Floating her was a bit of an effort because the Mississippi Sound is super shallow.  We succeeded when we got far enough out, and we hopped in for an illegal, nautical joy ride. The Sea Urchin could be rigged for oars or sail. We had neither. Mike and I would use makeshift paddles or use our hands to scoot around.

Mischief managed; the ‘Urchin was returned to her spot on the beach. Making sure all water was drained and sand expunged, we always ensured she was properly staked, keel side up, above the tide line.

Fast forwarding a bit, one night Mike and I, along with a whole passel of other Island View hoodlums, piled into a neighborhood hooptie and made our way to a favorite hangout - the beach. There, someone talked the group into taking a Hobie parked on the beach for a spin. My Spidey sense went off. Two knuckleheads taking a skiff out for a misdemeanor jaunt in the middle of the day would not likely draw attention. However, half a dozen guys piled on to a catamaran at night with no sail and no lights was going to raise eyebrows.

I stayed ashore while the gang launched the Hobie. Sound carries over the water, and I could see and hear them splashing around even when they were several hundred yards out. They seemed to be having a grand old time and I was second guessing my abstention when the night was unexpectedly and forcefully illuminated by flashing blue lights.

I was suddenly face to face with two of Long Beach’s finest shining flashlights in my face. They conferred with each other, and one of them started making his way towards the water, locking his flashlight on the hijacked Hobie while yelling something indiscernible. His partner flicked his light momentarily to the cat, now being walked back to shore, “Are you a part of that group!?” 

I drew in a deep breath and slowly let it out. There was a code of honor among the Hoodlums: If one of us goes down, we all go down. “Yes, sir.” His flashlight again in my face, I was commanded, “Don’t move!” With that, he walked down to the water to help his partner.

For the next thirty minutes, the errant hoodlums were in turn interrogated and castigated by the patrol officers. Meanwhile, I had thirty minutes to contemplate my own fate. Mom was going to go ballistic if she had to pick me up at county lockup. But that was not to be my destiny this night. One of the officers came over and scanned the hooptie with his flashlight, “Is this vehicle yours?”

“No sir. It belongs to one of the guys in the back of that patrol car.”

After a moment’s consideration, “Do you have your license?” I nodded, and dutifully dug it out of my wallet and presented it him. After examining my credentials, he again used his flashlight as a pointer, indicating two other neighborhood kids who also decided to stay dry that night. “Take these two and get your butts home! Do not deviate! Are you hearing me?!”

“Yes, sir!” I piled into the car with my two passengers and made my way back to home turf, ending my brief part in the Great Hobie Cat Incident.

It wasn’t until the next day that I got Mike’s side of the story. When the patrol officer lit them up out on the water, one of the guys tried to bail and swim for it. Mike, enforcing the Hoodlum Honor Code, yelled for him to get his punk posterior back on board. The kid was now busted and wet for his breach of conduct.

They all wound up in lockup, and Mike described the experience as scenes from Scared Straight. The guy who attempted to bail was given an orange jumpsuit in exchange for his wet clothes. This made him stand out as the group was marched down the jail’s corridors. The gen pop crowd was giving them a rousing welcome, and that brief exposure nearly broke jump suit guy.

Mike’s dad was the one who got the unwelcome call. I don’t know all the conversations that took place on the way home, but Mike and his dad had a true father-son moment when his dad eventually declared, “Yeah, son, let’s not tell your mom about this.”

Warren Zevon - Lawyers, Guns and Money

Rock-tober 29, 2024

Back in January of this year, Spotify gave me a belated Christmas/Birthday present. Either the song slinger's elves or AI was busy cranking the numbers over the holiday and determined my most played artist of 2023 was JJ Grey. Along with that revelation was a recorded message from Grey himself with a "thank you" for the honor. This garnered a rare nod of acknowledgement from this closet luddite, “Huh. That’s pretty cool!”

I’m not sure if Spotify also named my most played song from Gray, but if I were to hazard a guess, it would have been “Lochloosa”. My very first exposure to this song was the closing scene on an episode of House back in 2010. The opening strains got my attention, and when the lyrics kicked in, it was like finding my long lost musical broheim.

Through verse, he painted a picture of his idyllic hometown that had come under siege by unconstrained development catering to rampant tourism. This sounded, then and now, uncannily like the slow simmering clash developing around Long Beach between the pro- and anti-casino camps.

I understand the need for the town to grow its revenue base; Long Beach taxes ain’t no joke. But to exchange the picturesque and scenic beauty of the coastal drive down Highway 90 for a glitzy, shimmering casino and swapping the hypnotic sound of wind and waves crashing on a sandy shore for the cacophonous din of a slot machine den seems like a bad trade.

Up the main drag and north of the tracks stands abundant derelict acreage that was already zoned for industrial use. The site of the old Oreck factory has been largely unused since Hurricane Katrina. Why could it not be repurposed as a supplier for the needs of nearby tech and industrial hubs? The old industrial park is in very close proximity to Stennis Space Center and a short, 50-mile drive on I-10 to Ingalls Shipyard in Pascagoula. Alternatively, any product already has railroad transport available on site to Gulfport as well as the nearby ports of New Orleans and Mobile.

I feel there are other more strategic options other than dropping a casino in downtown Long Beach. I think people may overestimate the revenue these behemoths will bring into the local economy when they have their own restaurants and hotels already on the premises. If looking at Atlantic City and Vegas are any indication, the locally adjacent areas don’t always fare well.

I’d much rather have oak-lined streets draped in Spanish moss, the smell of brine in the air, an occasional train whistle receding into the distance, and the brightest thing around being the sun setting over the water.

JJ Grey - Lochloosa

Rock-tober 28, 2024

Andrea sometimes gets annoyed with me when I lock doors, “Why’d you lock me out? I wasn’t gone that long!” She may roll her eyes when I ask her to secure belongings, “Ugh! No one’s going to walk off with that.” She’s amused with my idiosyncrasies, “I’ll take this seat since I know you don’t like to sit with your back to the door.” 

I don’t think I was always like this. Maybe I was just having flashbacks.

A prior contract required that I have a top-secret clearance. Once this was acquired, I was read onto a project, and the details of the operation were spelled out. I thought, “Oh. That’s cool.” As I sat there, the briefing continued and the need for operational security (OpSec) was hammered home. The possible ramifications started to sink in, and I found myself thinking, “Oh. Crap, this could get dicey.”

After onboarding and more security training and briefings, I was on a team that rotated out into the field on a regular basis. During one of these junkets there was a lull in the process, and I wound up in a conversation with one of the local Feds. He was relaying a recent security incident they’d had. With a shake of his head and a grim smile, he mentioned they’d managed the issue. Dude went on with a pretty passionate monologue about his take on OpSec.

“I went through FLETC. I’ve been trained in counter-surveillance, small arms, and hand-to-hand combat. I’m the hard target. If I was a bad guy trying to compromise this operation, I wouldn’t come after me. Pfft. I’d be gunning for you.”

It was a sobering conversation, and it was my turn to smile grimly.

That was the only job, apart from my brief stint with the Navy, where someone could die if mistakes were made. This gave me a certain clarity on every post I’ve had since that time. There have been multiple occasions when my boss would be stressing because of a deliverable, technical hurdle, or a time constraint.

“Look, Boss, if we royally screw this up, is anyone going to die?”

“Umm. No.”

“We’ve already avoided worst case scenario. Oh, by the way, we’re not going to screw this up.”

That tended to reframe the panicked perspective and rechanneled any nervous energy into more productive outlets. However, the toll of that clarifying perspective is I lock my doors, secure my stuff, and sit facing the door.

Kenny Loggins - Danger Zone

Rock-tober 27, 2024

Near the end of the last century, my job at the time would often fly me to an airport of a city I’d never been to before. From there, I’d pick up a rental car and navigate to the designated jobsite. This was well before the days of Waze and Google Maps, and at that time the best navigational aid I had was MapQuest. Much like today’s mapping tools, I’d key in a starting and ending point. However, since smart phones for the masses were the better part of a decade away, the best I could do was print the resulting instructions and take them with me.

Most of the time, this worked well. However, if I had to deviate from the printed route for any reason such as construction detours or accidents, all bets were off. During one assignment, my designated exit, at least according to my directions in hand, no longer physically existed. MapQuest’s database had not been updated to account for that city’s infrastructure changes. At that point I had to rely on the small-scale map I had of the local area. But plotting out a new course at highway speeds surrounded by local drivers intent on getting to their destination despite any hapless out of towner was not easy.

After that episode, I got myself the latest Garmin satnav device. Gamechanger. Beyond getting me from point A to B and rerouting as necessary, it could pinpoint needed services such as gas stations. It once saved my butt by giving directions to an accessible ATM at 2 AM. It's still sitting in my pile of superseded tech, but I need to fire it up again because it still holds critical data.

On those remote jobsites, I got along well with the local Feds. I’d like to think it’s because I was a pretty cool cat and not the typical dweeby IT type. Regardless, during my time with these men and women, they disclosed some closely guarded intel – the locations of the best below-the-radar eateries in their respective cities. That information is still tucked away securely on that old Garmin.

With the advent of GPS phone applications, many people lost the ability to navigate with actual maps, or worse, never developed it. Full disclosure, when I'm behind the wheel, apart from Spotify, the most used mobile app on my phone is Google Maps. The telemetry it provides like speed, direction, and real time location is excellent. They’ve turned road trips into real life video games. ETA back to Maryland is 18 hours and 36 minutes? Pfft. Hold my Red Bull. That ETA just became my "Time to Beat".

Even with the continuing evolvement of technology, being able to go OG is still a valuable skillset and possibly a lifesaver. Years ago, I was having dinner with Henry, an old high school classmate who’d flown into DC for a meeting. I asked if he had trouble finding the restaurant because unless you break the DC code, navigating the city can be a beast. This led to a surprising diatribe from him where he bemoaned our dependence on GPS. He sounded like "Viper" addressing the Top Gun class, chiding pilots' over-reliance on tech and losing dogfighting skills. As dinner continued, I took comfort in the fact that in the event of a zombie apocalypse, I could pull out my trusty road atlas, compass, and sextant and at least be able to navigate to a safe zone.

The Edgar Winter Group - Free Ride

Rock-tober 26, 2024

It’s weird the things that stick with you. I was sitting in fourth grade music class at West Elementary and the music teacher was explaining that the difference between a band and an orchestra was the presence of a string section. Orchestras had them; bands did not. A few years later I was in one of my first ever band classes at Long Beach Junior High. I looked around and saw the different sections of brass, woodwinds, and percussion. Sure enough, no strings – I guess we are a band.

The vague memories I have for seventh grade band tryouts are of us all lining up and taking our turns at every instrument fielded by the school’s band program. Apart from perhaps the saxophone, I found the woodwinds incredibly shrill and annoying, and I don’t think I had the rhythmic dexterity to wield drumsticks. They were out.

The brass section held more promise. I think I laughed when looking at French horn and trumpet mouthpieces more closely. They just seemed impossibly small to play. The bass section of brass instruments seemed more promising. However, hitting the proper positions of a trombone slide seemed like a perennial guessing game to me, so I preferred the definitive fingering positions of the baritone.

I soon learned there were some disadvantages of playing baritone. It is not a small instrument. Unlike a piccolo case that could fit into a backpack, manhandling that baritone shell and my bookbag on the bus and hauling them across campus every day was a pain in my ass.

At the end of the year, our band director asked if I wouldn’t mind transitioning to tuba and sousaphone. Mr. Hamilton was “car salesman” level persuasive, and I agreed. An immediate benefit was, because of its size, I was given permission to keep a tuba at home for practice. I no longer had to deal with schlepping one around every day.

For the next five years, I played tuba or sousaphone in every game, competition, concert, and hometown parade. Wikipedia lists “Special Effects” that can be done with the sousaphone. One of these was using a “sock” – tight fitting fabric fastened over the instrument’s bell. Larger bands would spell out the school’s name on these socks. We only did it once. One football game after hurricane Elena, the entire section converged at my house and we jerry rigged socks emblazoned with the hurricane logo. They were a hit, as Long Beach, along with the entire Mississippi coast, was still digging out and recovering from the recent storm.

Another effect was affixing flash paper inside the bell. Igniting it would look like the player was breathing fire. Now that would have been cool to pull off, and Mr. Hamilton is fortunate I was never aware this was possible. 

A couple of the guys from band are still my closest friends, and a half dozen of us have our own group where we check in with current with band memes or videos and rehash old shenanigans. One that comes up often is a group of us walking down Magnolia Street after a parade, still in uniform, still with instruments. The (un)fortunate residents in that neighborhood were subjected to an impromptu concert with our rendition of J. Geils Band’s “Centerfold”. 

The J. Geils Band - Centerfold

Rock-tober 25, 2024

Being a fan of sci-fi in movies and series, I’ve of course watched Battlestar Galactica. The late ‘70s iteration was an eye popper for eight-year-old me, but apart from the iconic theme song, it didn’t age well. The 2004 run was different. Following the standard trope of a small contingent of humanity pushed to the edge of extinction, it was the drama of the personal interactions and the well scored soundtrack that made it one of my favorites.

There were two characters, Admiral William Adama and Captain Lee “Apollo” Adama, who depicted a father and son within the same military chain of command. In one episode, the Admiral was forced to send the captain on a mission that was both highly critical to mission success, yet extremely hazardous. Before his son’s departure, despite a rocky history between the two, father and son shared a moment, recognizing this may be the last time they would ever speak. At the end of this interlude, the Admiral gifted his lighter, once belonging to his own father, to his son. It was a family heirloom, serving as both a lucky talisman and an unambiguous declaration of a father’s faith in his son. Against the backdrop of Bear McCreary’s poignant soundtrack, it was a stunningly eloquent scene.

I’ve heard it said our father’s first gift to us is our name, and it’s a lifelong point of honor to keep it unblemished. I literally carry Dad’s name within my own, and the debt I owe him is unpayable. When I was a foolish, know-it-all teenager, we weren’t always on the best of terms. While the life lessons he imparted to me are immeasurably treasured, I can’t help but rebuke myself for this period of my life when I could have spent time with him but didn’t.

That teenage lunkhead eventually found his bearings and I realized, once again, the quiet, dignified wisdom and strength of Dad’s character. A few years later, I asked Dad to be my Best Man when Andrea and I were married. For the portion of the reception reserved for the Best Man’s speech, unbeknownst to him, I had my own.

In a rare, unscripted moment for me, I publicly recognized him for being the finest role model for manhood I would spend the rest of my life aspiring to emulate. Dad was never overly demonstrative with his emotions, but Mom later said he wept openly. She was smiling as she told me, “I’m proud of you, son. You gave him his place.”

Regrettably, there just weren’t enough conversations between the two of us before his death. While I’m thankful for the many things of himself that were imparted to me, there are still times when I’ve desperately wanted his advice or perspective. During these moments, I’ll reach into my pocket and take out his lighter. Turning it over in my hands, I’m reminded, regardless of the task or trial ahead of me, of the unambiguous faith Dad had in me. And I smile.

 

A Good Lighter - Battlestar Galactica Soundtrack

Rock-tober 24, 2024

Mom and Dad were not big into the foodie scene. Apart from the odd holiday or birthday outing to a fine dining establishment, visits to burger or chicken joints were not common.  The overriding mantra for this stance was, “Pfft. There’s food at home.”

This mindset was ingrained into impressionable young me and followed me to college, where I tended to buy groceries and cook my meals. A consequence of this during my time in Auburn was not making rounds of the hot spots hit by all the cool kids. One example is a sandwich shop named Momma Goldberg’s Deli. This place sprouted up in 1976, and their original location was no more than 50 yards from my old apartment. Early in my first quarter, I figured I’d give it a go. 

The interior was what you’d expect from a sandwich shop catering to college students for a dozen years. I remember dark panel walls full of flyers and notices posted by students and student groups. The tables and benches were well worn, but comfortable. I ordered one of the specialty sandwiches and understood immediately why it was held in high regard. It was a damn good sandwich. Yet, the cost of that single meal was enough to cover groceries for several days. For a non-finnicky eater, the math didn’t work out.

That all changed when the redhead entered the picture. Over the remainder of our time in Auburn, I think Andrea and I eventually hit every late-night diner just talking over cups of coffee. We also frequented a good number of the established student friendly restaurants (I’m looking at you, Niffer's), and ranged far afield to places in Atlanta and Montgomery. There was one glaring exception within the Auburn environs – Momma Goldberg’s.

As we’ve been driving around Auburn these past few weeks, I discovered Momma G’s has flourished as the go to deli for the student population, opening multiple locations in the area. I’d asked Andrea if she and the family hit the place as a family when she was growing up. She laughed. I gathered her parents recited the same mantra as mine.

Blatantly disregarding the parental exhortation, our next date night this weekend will be at the original Momma Goldberg’s. It’ll be like ticking something off a checklist, just some thirty years later. Bonus: we’ll be able to legally partake of their beer menu!

The Doobie Brothers - Listen To The Music

Rock-tober 23, 2024

I love me a road trip, and in my forty years behind the wheel, I’ve driven some beauties. One of these is Pacific Coast Highway or California 1. While the number of reasons I’d never reside in the Golden State are many, I don’t mind visiting. When that happens, I try and take in at least a section of this scenic roadway. Whether it’s down near San Diego or further up around San Francisco, coming around each hill and seeing the vista of Pacific coastline opening up before you is miles and miles of oohs and ahhhs.

Another is Route 66, the Mother Road, connecting Chicago to Los Angeles. I’ve stood at the Chicago terminus, and I’ve seen many of the quirky roadside attractions on several meandering drives through the Southwest. For me, something like The Great Meteor Crater near Flagstaff is a “must see” sight, but when Andrea and I drove through, she was not as enthused, “Meh. It’s a big hole”.

Another key picturesque drive is Highway 1 south out of Miami to the Keys – the Overseas Highway. This was one drive Dad most wanted to do, and Andrea and I managed to make that trip a few years back. While we were non simpatico on the tourist kitsch peppered up and down Route 66, on Florida Route 1, she and I were in perfect sync. I had a Buffett playlist going and we were totally grooving on the slowed down, coastal vibe.

I also have a list of my least favorite drives. The Capital Beltway tops this chart with its perpetual rush hour traffic. I-85 running up the spine of Virginia comes to mind, also, with its heavy load of semi-trailer traffic. Because of the dearth of amenities and gas stations, you better plan your pit stops carefully. 

The current bane of my existence is the stretch of I-65 between Mobile and Montgomery. Apart from twin span bridges north of Mobile over some wetlands, there is absolutely nothing of interest on these 169 miles of north-south asphalt running through central Alabama. Plying this stretch was the worst when I would come home from Auburn and the intervening decades have not improved its mind numbing monotony. It's past sunset as I crank out these words so I'm at least spared the view of miles and miles of endless pine trees.

On a southbound run, I once picked up a hitchhiker on his way to find construction work in Florida in the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew. I was driving the ‘Stang those days and this punk kid spent the entire time he was with me slamming my ride and bragging how his uncle’s cousin’s Camaro was better. Maybe he sensed my annoyance or saw my raised eyebrow when I looked his way because he requested I drop him off at the Poarch Creek Indian Reservation 57 miles shy of Mobile.

One of the few times I got popped for speeding was on I-65. The state trooper was in a foul mood when he pulled me over along with another car. He accused the both of us of street racing down the Interstate. Firstly, I wasn’t. Secondly, I wasn’t in the ‘Stang on this trip. I was in an early ‘80s, boxy, four-door, four-cylinder Corolla. That car was kind of cool in its own way, but it was never a legit roadster - Trooper Dude was trippin'.

In yet another vehicle, I was enroute back to Birmingham after visiting with the redhead down in Mobile. It was winter, and the entire state had just gotten a hard overnight freeze. Somewhere along the route, I hit a patch of black ice and did a few 360s before skidding off the road. After checking my shorts, I was able to deduce the Blazer was still upright. Cool. 

Not so cool (it was frigid, actually) was the hike to the nearest pay phone about a mile up the road. After a shivering search through the Yellow Pages, I managed to get hold of a tow service to pull me out. As the driver was hooking me up, he pointed out several places on the hillside where the Blazer’s tires had dug into the muddy embankment. “Dang, son, you should have rolled this rig at least twice.”

I still hate this stretch of Interstate, but I’m forced to concede there’s at least some good juju worked into its asphalt.

Blackfoot - Highway Song

Rock-tober 22, 2024

I don’t remember when Mr. Ray of Ray’s Barber Shop gave me my first haircut, but it was shortly after I came to the self-realization that Mom and Dad weren’t helping my street cred by giving me home buzz cuts. I remember as a kid telling Dad, “I want a haircut like John Wayne!” He’d respond with the mid-70s version of “I got you, fam,” and start cutting away with his electric clippers. I’ve seen the pictures. Six-year-old me was just way more gullible and/or trusting, because I did not look like John Wayne.

My mop was getting too shaggy for my liking, so I stopped in at Ray’s Barber Shop this afternoon. Fellow Bearcats will know Ray’s as a long-standing, Long Beach fixture that’s been in its current spot as far back as I can remember. It was Mr. Ray who gave me my last haircut in Long Beach back in the spring of ’99 when I’d flown down for Dad’s funeral.

I stepped into the shop for the first time in decades. There were some immediate differences I noted. More deer head trophies were hanging on the wall and the stack of Guns and Ammo magazines gave the place a different vibe than back in the day. Apart from a new ATM machine in the corner, I also noted all four chairs were occupied. This was probably the biggest difference to me. 

Back then, there were only two chairs – one for Ray and another for his partner. That other guy did a mean flat top. He’d yelled at me once because I flinched when he was in mid pass. He skillfully jerked the clippers back before they damaged his meticulous work, “Don’t be doin’ that, son! You’ll wind up leaving here looking like Gomer Pyle!”

I didn't have a long wait this afternoon, and as my turn came up, I took my seat in the chair. My guy gave the barber’s typical opener, “How do you want it cut today?” After a lifetime of haircuts from a multitude of barbers, I had my own canned reply.

“Number two on the sides and tapered high in the back. Take a little of the top, but I still want to be able to comb it to the side.” I’ve found it gets better results and no side eye glances than me saying, “I wanna look like John Wayne!”

As I’m sitting in the chair, the door opened, and this dude came strolling through. From everyone’s salutations and rounds of fist bumps, you’d have thought he was Norm stepping into Cheers. I smiled and got more comfortable in the chair. Conversation was lively, going from the best size for exhaust pipes (2 ½ inches was the shop favorite), to the merits and demerits of a Miata. This happened to be the favorite of one of the patrons, and my barber was trying to be diplomatic about his opinion. It happened to be the same as mine, and I was thinking, “Dude, it’s a chick car.”

My guy was pruning the top of my coiffure when age came around as the shop topic, and one of the cutting crew mentioned in a world-weary tone, “Man, I’ve been out of school longer than I was in school.” A quick mental calculation had me chuckling and thinking to myself, “Looka here, son. I’m not sure you’ve had your quota of trials and tribulations just yet. Come and find me in about two decades.”

From my barber, I’d learned that Ray retired several years back and had sold the shop to his colleague two chairs down. I mentioned, "It's cool he kept the name." My guy just smiled.

"When you're talking about a place like Ray's, there's no way you're gonna change the name!"

Everyone noted the absence of the shop's namesake from his former worksite as well as the infrequent sightings of him around town. All barbers and patrons decided it was expected behavior as all of Mr. Ray’s free time was being taken up playing golf. He can rest easy. The place is in good hands as the results of today's visit were redhead approved.

 

George Thorogood And The Destroyers - Get A Haircut

Rock-tober 21, 2024

I am weirdly attuned to Andrea’s voice. She and I were at a party years ago, and I knew the people well enough in this crowd that I was milling about comfortably on my own and not standing in a corner doing threat assessments. We were on opposite ends of this gathering when she called out to me, “Hey, Hon…” She wasn’t speaking loudly, and I wasn’t in line of sight of her. When I came around a corner asking, “Hey. What’s up?”, one of our friends who saw the exchange nearly dropped his drink.

“Lawd have mercy! Mmm-hmm. The two of y’all got some funky, mystical voodoo working between you.”

In the last years before our marriage, we were living very separate lives in different parts of the country. She was in DC working an internship, and I was in Birmingham keeping corporate IT on their toes. While far from ideal, we were making the whole long distance thing work. This was well before cell phones and unlimited minutes, so every one of our calls to each other had a clock on it. Our phone bills from all those late-night conversations were not an insignificant monthly expense. But it was worth the long hours of being tethered to a land line and getting sore from holding the receiver in the crook of my neck. I just wanted to hear her voice. I’d found that just hearing her and not even seeing her was enough to provide a salve if I’d had a less than stellar day.

I know how hard long separations can be on a kid. I went through it with every deployment of Dad’s. It’s inherently different but just as hard for a couple. Since we’ve been married, Andrea and I have been apart more than a few days exactly once. In the weeks after Dad’s death, I stayed back in Mississippi to be with Mom and Grandma while Andrea flew back to Maryland. The distance and emotional drainage I was going through were mitigated by the frequent calls between us. Once again, just hearing her voice was the balm my wrecked soul needed.

In an unfortunate irony, it’s another family loss that will bring our count of long separations to two. She’s returning to Maryland to contend with work issues requiring her physical presence, and I’m staying on in the area to both hang out with Mom and be near Andrea’s sisters in the event something is needed. The one positive development in this situation is in the intervening years since we were first married, there is no longer a cap on call minutes and my neck and shoulders are already thankful for the hands free technology that's come along.

Most of all, I'm looking forward to those evenings when, after dealing with a day's daily dose of issues, of letting the soothing voodoo spell that is her voice wash over me again.

Elton John - I Guess That's Why They Call It The Blues

Rock-tober 20, 2024

We were having a rare in person meeting at work this past summer, and a pizza lunch was provided. Management sprang for a variety of sodas as well, but rather than use the dinky plastic cups provided by the pizza place, I was using my trusty Auburn branded tumbler. I believe it was originally intended as a Christmas present for Andrea, but it was Navy blue, so I coopted it.

I walked into the meeting room totally oblivious to the carnage that was lying in wait. I took a seat, laying my pepperoni pizza laden plate in front of me and setting my trusty flagon beside it. One of the guys on the team spied the large “AU” logo on its side.

“Yo, Wayne! Man, I didn’t know you went to college in Arizona!” Silence fell in the room. This guy joined the team post-pandemic. One of the casualties of being remote and not seeing team members face to face were that the frequent, spontaneous bull sessions around each other’s desks did not take place. It was in these ad hoc gatherings where we learned about each other – family, hobbies, favorite shows, and our alma mater. This didn’t really happen with remote schedules, so he could be forgiven for the error.

Another team member hastily corrected him before I stepped in. “Naw, man. That big “A” is for Alabama, not Arizona.”

The glut of pepperoni pizza was slowing my synapses a bit because I was too delayed in making a critical connection. Since this guy mistook AU for Arizona, I realized he could easily utter a more serious profanity. The belaying words had formed in my head, but I had not yet uttered them when…

“OOHHH! You went to school in Alabama!” My mind was screaming at me to stop him, but I didn’t know how. Wave him off with my hands? Yell? Throw pizza at him? It was too late. The sacrilege had departed his lips and lingered in the ether: ” ROLL TIDE!!!”

Seated to my immediate right was a guy from the Carolinas. He was a fellow SEC’er and a Gamecocks fan. And Dude utterly lost it. In a maniacal laugh that boomed in the small, crowded room, his loud “guffaws” were interspersed with obviously insincere apologies as he fought back tears.

The original instigator’s look of befuddlement was almost adorable in its innocence. “What? Wait…What did I say?” But most people were already filing out of the room quickly and silently.

By now, Gamecocks fanboy recovered sufficiently. Still snickering as he walked out the door, he called back. “He went to Auburn! So, it’s ‘War Eagle!’ and not that other thing.”

Instigator Dude just looked at me. “Oh.”

With that, I shook my head, picked up my plate and besmirched flagon, and walked out as well, leaving Dude to contemplate the foul depravity he’d so wantonly released.

Ray Charles - Hit the Road Jack

Rock-tober 19, 2024

The summer I was seven, Mom and Dad spoke those five words every kid wants to hear, “We’re going to Disney World!” My only prior experience with Disney was the park in Anaheim, CA when I was three. I have vague memories of looking sideways at the costumed characters, thinking they looked a little sus, and absolutely refusing to have my picture taken with Mickey.

Being confident I’d outgrown my muscophobia, Mom and Dad planned a sweeping, all-encompassing tour that summer. We wound up hitting not only Disney World, but SeaWorld, Crystal Springs, and Circus World. Because they were inexpensive and easy to pack, I scored souvenir pennants from all these parks. Folks who’ve hung out at my house back in the day know these continued to decorate the walls of my room all through high school (zero game – but that’s a different post).

However, for a budding nerd, I think the pinnacle of parks we hit that summer was Cape Canaveral. I’d always had a deep interest in space and space exploration, and now here I was at ground zero strolling around wide-eyed and jaw dropped at everything. Seeing the immense scale of the Saturn V up close and personal was mind blowing. Guys walking around in stark white, gold-visored spacesuits gave me more goosebumps than dudes decked out in Goofy or Mickey costumes. There’s a picture of me seated next to one of these guys on a bench. I was keeping my distance from him not out of fear but respectful awe. 

Of all the kitsch I purchased on that trip, my absolute favorite came from the Space Center. It was a Crookes Radiometer, four vanes of solar sensitive pads suspended on a needle inside a bulb under nearly full vacuum. When hit by a strong enough light the vane would rotate.

That gizmo sat in every bedroom window of mine until it was eventually broken by a stiff breeze hitting it from an open window. This is also a shameless hint for Mrs. Claus because I don't think Dude reads my lists after I sent him on an international detour back in '76.

An interesting bookend to this childhood story of rockets and astronauts happened earlier this summer. Andrea had a conference in Jacksonville, but we spent the days before her presentation on Merritt Island where we were guests of Kevin and Ann McGhee, friends of ours living the dream on the east central coast of Florida.

The McGhees were gracious impromptu B&B hosts with full Tex-Mex dinner spreads and breakfast cooked to order. They were also very capable tour guides. Our brief time with them included multiple gator and bird watching excursions, kayaking with manatees and dolphins, and a wide-ranging safari in search of a particularly elusive bobcat.

Of note on their program of events was viewing a Cape Canaveral rocket launch. Our hosts were absolutely dialed in with multiple apps tracking the weather and launch status. Sifting through the multiple data streams available to them, they knew the time and specific launch pad for lift off. Based on that intel, they deduced the best vantage point was a specific restaurant across the bay.

We arrived at the eatery, ordered our dinner, and waited. When the countdown broke the two-minute barrier, all patrons in the restaurant stood in a seemingly choreographed move and made their way to the restaurant’s bay side deck.

You saw the flash of ignition before you heard it. And when you heard it, it would be more accurate to say you felt it – a deep reverberation in your bones that caused me to involuntarily grab the railing.

Our B&B hosts continued to relay information like seasoned broadcasters, correctly describing the planned flight path and giving a surprisingly accurate countdown to the resulting sonic boom coming off the rocket.

Seven-year-old me standing in the shadow of the Saturn V could not in his wildest dreams foresee forty-seven years later he’d be watching an actual Cape Canaveral rocket launch while sipping a first-rate cabernet. Standing there mesmerized, I squinted and forced my eyes to follow the rocket until it faded from sight. The whole experience was superlative convergence of luck, the weather, the engineers sitting in mission control, and the first-rate situational knowledge of our hosts. 10/10 – I would highly recommend.

4 Non Blondes - Spaceman

Rock-tober 18, 2024

For me, one of the most profound ramifications of the Covid Pandemic was a fully remote work status. In pre-pandemic days, prior leadership was always reticent to approve remote schedules. This was reserved and granted only for extreme, extenuating circumstances like a coworker of mine who tore his ACL and was immobilized for several months.

When March 2020 rolled around and first-world knuckleheads were losing their minds hoarding toilet paper, the mandate came down from HHS to go fully remote if possible. This necessarily excluded staff involved with patient and animal care as well as facility workers who kept the campus operating, but for most of us, we were given leave to work from home. My 40-minute commute was replaced by a morning stretch and 40-second stumble to my cobbled together home office.

At first, my colleagues and I were unsure of how to work in this new dynamic. Remote water cooler conversations revealed most of us were, surprisingly, clocking longer hours because it was harder to find a definitive cut-off to the workday. It was hard to ignore a request after hours when your laptop was pinging you three feet away from where you were having dinner.

We all eventually settled into a routine and found a multitude of ways to separate work and home life.  For myself, I carved out space in a small upstairs bedroom and stocked it with a few of my favorite things. Vintage books and comics from my childhood, wooden ship carvings and a plastic plane I assembled as a kid, and mementos picked up from some of our travels were placed around the room. It looked like an eccentric recluse’s study, which is damn close to the mark.

Andrea learned how surprisingly self-sufficient this space was when she brought up a cup of coffee for me. “Oh! I forgot sugar; I’ll be right back.”

“No worries, I’ve got some.”

“You have sugar up here?!” I nodded and pointed to a sugar dispenser in front of a small collection of vintage pipes inherited from my father-in-law.

Semi-jokingly, I told her, “I am fully prepared to weather a few more years in isolation.” I pointed out mason jars full of my favorite tobacco, a humidor full of cigars, and several bottles of bourbon sitting next to my printer.

Sometimes remote work doesn’t mean work from home. I clarified this with a former manager of mine. “Wayne, I don’t care if you’re in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean as long as you’re reachable and able to dial in.” Copy that. Even when isolation was lifted. Andrea and I still avoided flying because of the accompanying hassles of security checkpoints, unreliable schedules, and the chance of encountering knuckle-headed fellow travelers.

When Andrea’s conference schedule resumed, if the destination was drivable, we turned them into road trips. Our current ride was delivered with an onboard modem, and I added an inverter. The result was a mobile office that allowed me to take meetings rolling down I-80 on the way to Chicago or I-95 to the Florida Keys. As a matter of fact, more than one Rock-tober entry was posted on the go with interstate scenery zipping by outside the passenger window. 

The pandemic changed our world and the resulting remote work movement spawned seismic shifts in our work culture. Vacant offices in business districts are affecting not only corporate landlords but the mom-and-pop business that relied on daily workers as their customers. Job seekers started stipulating work  from home privileges along with their salary requirements, and businesses looking to hire first rate candidates touted their generous remote work benefits.

The effects spilled over into our leisure hours, also. Multi-generation households are on the rise as families came together to weather the months in isolation. On the other end of the spectrum, the teardrop camper lifestyle, espousing small, mobile family units, hit a massive surge in interest not seen since the years immediately after WW II. Not surprisingly, I’m in the second group. Among other items on my never shrinking project list is building out a teardrop camper from a kit. I’d love for a future post to be written from a remote campsite out west. Maybe it will be in North Dakota as I check off the last state in a quest to set foot in all fifty.

John Mayer - Waiting On the World to Change

Rock-tober 17, 2024

Andrea recently said, “Wayne, of all the adjectives that could be used to describe you, ‘a flirt’ is not one of them.” That’s fair. It’s been well established in these missives that I have zero game. Throughout high school, even my car, the ‘Stang had more notoriety than me. 

Once upon a time, I thought I’d change that by sheer force of will. In Junior High, I’d heard it said that the frequent fall dances in the gymnasium were the social event for the season. One week I decided to step out of my comfort zone and attend one of these soirees. Taking a deep breath, I punched my left palm with my right fist. “Okay, let’s do this.” The afternoon of the event I polished my shoes, ironed a shirt, and picked out my favorite outdated tie. Then, decked out like a middle-aged sportscaster, I hitched a ride to school from Mom. 

The gym doors were open, and music being pumped out by some local DJ could be heard echoing inside. As soon as I stepped into the gym, I was overwhelmed by the noise, heat, and the sheer number of people swaying in the center of the floor and milling around the periphery. An acute feeling of unease began to rise, and it was more than the heat that was causing the sweat to rise on my brow. Logically, it should have been simple to walk up to a group of girls and join the conversation. Alternatively, I could have sought out a pack of people I knew and attach myself to that clique. Instead, I just looked around at the noisy cacophony and decided that this just was not my scene.

I spent the rest of that night helping in the concession stand.

Somewhere along the way, I managed to lose the timidity of youth regarding conversational ease with the fairer sex. However, I’m likely a long way from “Al Green” smooth. This was hammered home when Andrea and I were at a local restaurant back home. The hostess seated us, and Andrea stepped away to find the restroom. When our waitress checked in, I ordered our drinks. Noting Andrea’s empty seat, she asked, “Shall I come back in a bit to take your main order?”

“That’d be great! Thanks!” And I gave her a wink.

Later into the meal, she returned while Andrea had stepped away again. “Would she like another cocktail?”

“Two, please. Thanks!” And I winked once more. To be clear, I am definitively not a winker. But for some reason, on this day, something glitched in my head like a musical earworm that presented itself as an involuntary eye twitch.

This happened twice more with this poor waitress.

Near the end of the meal, she dropped off our check and scurried away quickly. Andrea picked up on the curious behavior. “Our waitress is acting a little odd. Have you noticed? She’s speaking directly to me and not even looking at you.”

“Yeah… That’s probably my fault. I kept winking at her.” Knowing an embarrassingly good story was coming, Andrea settled comfortably into her seat and took a sip of her cocktail. I sighed and relayed the events that happened mainly during her absence from the table. “It probably freaked the kid out, being winked at so much by a married dude in his fifties.”

“You!?” She started laughing while shaking her head. “You…winked?” Her incredulity was a little bothersome.

“Hey! I know how to wink! I was just making conversation and it happened. I couldn’t help it, but dammit, I couldn’t stop!” 

“OK. Show me!”

I was already self-conscious at this point, and as I complied with Andrea’s request and reproduced the offending action, I feared I looked like a cross between Mr. Spock and Sheldon Cooper attempting to do something antithetical to their core, like smiling.

Despite my efforts, I tried too hard, contorted my face unnaturally, and produced an awkward, sufficiently creepy wink. Andrea’s raucously loud laughter confirmed my fear. It’s nice to know I’m consistent. I’m forty-two years downrange of that kid at his first dance, and I still have zero game.

Grease - You're The One That I Want

Rock-tober 16, 2024

After Andrea and I pulled the trigger on the whole relationship accord and became an official couple, one of our first dates was to Chewacla State Park. After parking at the edge of the forest, we hiked a trail up to the lake. At the end of a meandering path, we found ourselves on a shoreline, taking in the tranquility and serenity of the scene.

Since we’d been friends for a while, this whole transition to “more” was relatively easy in some respects. But at this quiet, picturesque enclave, words failed us both, and we stood in awkward silence.

It was Andrea who jostled us from the quiet. “Can you skip rocks?”

Roused from my personal reverie, I tried to process her question. After more than four years of engineering classes, I could suss out the basic mechanics, but I don’t ever recall sending a stone skipping across a body of water. My internal dialogue was slightly panicked, “Oh, god, it’s second grade recess all over again!”

I picked up a small, flat rock, feeling its heft and weight. Tossing it from hand to hand, I looked to the surface of the lake and tried to do some fruitless mental calculations to get the “proper angle of incidence”. In the end, I just shrugged. Yoda’s terse wisdom won out, “Do or do not. There is no try.”

I drew my arm back, said a silent prayer to the gods of Newtonian physics, and hurled the rock with a slight flick of the wrist. To my relief and astonishment, there wasn’t a single splash and “kerplunk” indicating mission failure. There was a second splash, and then a third, and now a fourth.

Andrea squealed with glee. “Yay! Do another!”

Outwardly smiling, I was hoping I hadn’t used up my dexterity points for the day. Picking up another rock, I hurled it with greater force and managed a respectable 7 skipping splashes before it disappeared beneath the surface.

Andrea was insistent on testing my reserves of good fortune. “Show me how you did that!”

How in blazes do you teach a newly acquired pseudo skill?

I uttered some mumbo jumbo about planting your feet apart in a strong stance and sighting down the path you wanted your projectile to take. She listened intently to my ad-libbed TED Talk on the mechanics of skipping rocks and then started to scan the rocks at her feet. Being very deliberate in her choice, she held up her specimen. “Is this one OK?”

I’m thinking, pfft. I dunno. It’s a rock. “Nice! That one’s perfect, Andrea!”

Pleased with her rock-picking acumen, she smiled and took her stance. Planting her feet and squaring her shoulders, she stretched her left arm out towards the lake like Babe Ruth telegraphing the direction of his next hit.

“Remember to flick your wrist when you release.” Nodding to acknowledge the last-minute pointer, she flung her hand back.

I should have been more explicit in my instructions. On any firing range, traditionally, the safest place to be is behind the shooter. Andrea deftly flouted that bit of battle tested wisdom. She’d managed to flick her wrist and release on the backstroke of her throw, sending that rock directly behind her, where I was standing, and scored a direct hit on the family jewels.

Mortified at what she’d done so very early in our now official relationship, she dropped to her knees, covering her face with her hands. I, similarly, dropped to my knees, my hands covering something else.

She was quickly by my side and my head was in her lap. After the stars faded from my vision, I was able to look up at her concerned face and managed a smile. “OK,” I thought. “Maybe this wasn’t so bad as far as first dates go.”

blink-182 - First Date

Rock-tober 15, 2024

I'm sure Mom and Dad were thrilled, but I don't remember certain motor skill milestones like starting to crawl as a baby or taking my first steps as a toddler. However, as a kid, I do remember my frustration as I struggled to acquire three specific physical abilities. These were attaining the ability to snap my fingers, to skip, and to whistle. Learning how to do each one in turn felt like a massive achievement comparable to riding a bike for the first time.

Seeing someone snap their fingers, producing sound seemingly out of thin air was astounding. My first attempts at replicating the feat were muted disappointments until I developed the hand strength and manual dexterity. Ironically, after five decades of my hands doing everything from cranking wrenches to punching keyboards, the stiffness in my fingers is making snapping them a slowly ebbing ability.

One day for Friday recess in second grade, the day’s activity was a relay race where one leg involved skipping to the next person on your team. You learn to crawl by six months and walk by eighteen months. Where along that development timeline do you learn to skip? I felt truly inadequate because I had no idea how. Observing my classmates with a quiet desperation, I couldn’t pick it up just by watching them. When I ran my skipping leg, my inexperienced footwork made me look like a Monty Python knight riding a wooden stick horse.

Not wanting to repeat that embarrassment, I spent all weekend practicing skipping between our front door, down the walkway to our mailbox and back. Passing cars viewing all this were likely wondering at this clumsy kid continuously tripping over himself in his front yard. “Aww. Bless his heart.”

The struggle paid off, and the next recess period, anxious to show off my new skill, I was skipping everywhere - to the playground, around the playground, and during the PE teacher’s instructions for the day. Eventually, the teacher called me aside saying something along the lines of, “Wayne, let’s put on our listening ears and follow the activity instructions,” but was basically saying, “C’mon, kid. Lay off the sugar and calm the heck down.”

Despite the effort in learning the skip step, I can’t think of a single time since those recess periods where I’ve utilized that hard-won technique.

Whistling was like snapping my fingers. I found being able to spontaneously create a melodious sound without an instrument was mesmerizing. I believe my buddy Noel was trying to teach me one day, and after some initial attempts, he was giving me a tolerant, “Say it, don’t spray it,” look. I eventually did unlock that achievement, and one day I was about eight when a commercial for suntan lotion came on the TV. During the parade of bikini-clad females prancing across the screen, I let out a long wolf whistle. I didn’t understand why, but according to all the Looney Tunes cartoons I’d seen, that’s what a literal cartoon wolf would do when seeing a bikini clad woman.

Mom was standing right behind me.

“Wayne! Where did you learn to do that?!” Apparently, this was a rhetorical question. She didn’t bother waiting for a response, and the look on her face confirmed I should keep my ready answer to myself.  With one hand on her hip and the other in full on, mom finger wagging mode, she continued, “You’d better watch yourself. If you try that nonsense at the beach, you’re likely to get yourself slapped!”

 Stupid cartoons.

Whistling is yet another hard-won skill whose lack of usage doesn’t match the effort expended to acquire it. These days, wolf whistles are reserved for Andrea - usually when she’s walking away.

 

Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers - Learning To Fly

Rock-tober 14, 2024

Every college town has a favorite dive bar. The mission statement of these establishments was to provide a plethora of cheap beer and bottom shelf liquor to help you forget the results of your midterm exams and a revolving door of musical acts to drown out the squee of sorority chicks. In Auburn, this was the legendary War Eagle Supper Club.

Opening its doors a mere four years after the repeal of prohibition, it faithfully inebriated the Auburn student population for generations. A low slung, single-story, cinder block building, its core jankiness all but guaranteed patrons would spawn bad decisions like pop-up ads on your favorite Internet site.

The Club was a good corporate citizen, however. In the mid ‘80s, the owners wanted a way to get students home safely after last call other than an involuntary ride along with Auburn PD. This led to the pre-Uber purchase of a ‘70s vintage school bus that was immediately nicknamed the “slush bus” and, perhaps more aptly, the “vomit comet”.

Unfortunately, I never set foot in the establishment. I was initially underage, but even after crossing the threshold for being legally lit, any imbibing was done in smaller, private settings.

One of these was the Turner household. Chris Turner was a fellow Midshipman, and he, along with his wife, Trish, made sure my first exposure to alcohol was under their watchful eyes. But they weren’t above letting me learn some hard lessons on my own. Chris watched as I mixed my very first cocktail, a rum and Coke, and said absolutely nothing as I poured a 50/50 mix.

All my other “bad decisions” were under similarly controlled circumstances, so I completely bypassed the Club during my tenure at Auburn.

I’ve since unfortunately missed my chance to partake in this hallowed rite of passage. The last call at the Club was on New Year’s Eve on 2015.

Imagine my surprise when, on this current visit to Auburn, I’m seeing ads for a revived War Eagle Supper Club. However, this iteration of the establishment has been majorly gentrified. Rather than a ramshackle building, this one sits on the top floor of a brand new, upscale hotel. The sticky, stale-beer-stained floor was replaced with blue and orange tiles, and wall to wall picture windows overlook the main campus.

While this modern interpretation is the Club in name only, it hasn’t stopped me from telling Andrea it has to go on our “To Do” list if only for “research” purposes for a future post. One question to be answered on our pending probe is the entertainment they’ll be hosting. A core function of the original Club was the showcasing of regional musical groups. A regular was Drivin’ N Cryin’, one of my favorite college bands. They’re still touring, so there’s a chance I may yet check that box of catching a band while overly imbibing at the iconic War Eagle Supper Club.

 

Drivin' N' Cryin' - Honeysuckle Blue

Rock-tober 13, 2024

Spending time in Auburn these past few weeks, several old stories have resurfaced.

A few nights ago, Andrea and I were having dinner with her sisters. As we sat around the table, the conversation turned to a weekly dinner hosted by their church. We had the idea of incorporating the event into the house schedule as a regular social outing for the sisters. Andrea mentioned the weekly dinner had been a standard, recurring event at that church for decades. With a glint in her eye, she outed me. "You know, when Wayne was a student here, before he met me, he had a crush on the young lady who ran that program."

Demure chuckles were heard. "What?! He did!? Tell us more!"

"Yes, he was there every week." Andrea was enjoying this a little too much. "He’d go from table to table greeting people, lend a hand as a server, and wash dishes afterward hoping to spend time with her."

Andrea’s sisters were picking up on her vibe and piled on. In a Scarlett O’Hara accent, Marie asked, “Why, Wayne, did you ask her on a date?”

I shook my head. “It didn’t work out,” was my taciturn reply.

With the faintest hint of a smile, Andrea went for the kill shot, “Why didn’t it work out, Wayne?”

With a resigned sigh, I set both hands on the table, sat back in my seat, and waited for the inevitable. “She was already…attached.”

“Oh, she had a boyfriend?”

“Not quite,” I continued. The sisters looked at me expectantly while Andrea now sat back in her chair enjoying me squirming in the hotseat. “Somehow, unbeknownst to me, she was already engaged.”

This brought on a chorus of “Aww,” from the sisters and, “Wow, that must have been embarrassing,” from Andrea.

Andrea’s little sister attempted to ease my chagrin. Smiling adoringly at Andrea, she cajoled, “Well, that’s all right. Things turned out A.O.K. You’re with Andrea now.” The faintest glimmer of a plan to play an Uno reverse card came to mind.

“Yeah…I guess…. It’s just that…” hamming up the demoralized demeanor, I let my voice trail off.

Marie was now concerned. “Why? What’s wrong?” She was still looking at Andrea, but her eyes narrowed, and she was no longer smiling.

I leaned over and whispered like I was revealing a state secret. “It’s just that, well, you know, a wife,” nodding towards Andrea, “can be very expensive.” Shaking my head for dramatic effect, and with an Oscar worthy, pained look on my face, I added, “Very draining.”

Andrea’s mischievous smirk receded while mine began to show. She protested, “Hey, now, hold on!”

Marie’s arms were now crossed as she looked sternly at Andrea. “Andrea! What have you been doing? You better not have been mean to Wayne!”

While Andrea lodged her protestations, her other sister chimed in, “Yeah, Andi! What’d you do?!”

The sisterly squabble went on without me, and as the din over Andrea’s infractions faded into the background, I turned my attention back to my dinner.

 

Poison - Every Rose Has Its Thorn

Rock-tober 12, 2024

Years ago, I'd be hanging with a former coworker, Mike, after the pair of us dealt heavy damage to one of the local Indian lunch buffets. After each of these excursions, we'd always lethargically, but sincerely swear on a stack of tech manuals to be more judicious on the next buffet run, vowing to ensure the other practiced restraint. This pledge would be held sacrosanct until the next buffet run. 

Mike was prior military, having spent time in Germany with an artillery brigade. He and I recognized our conditioning was lacking and that we'd drifted from the nearly daily physical training in our 20s. In my 20s, I didn't mind running hills, in heat, or even in the rain. Somewhere along the way, I either got soft or extremely more judicious about running conditions. Too hot, too cold, or it's an odd numbered day? Pfft. I'm inclined to ignore the alarm and grab more time in the rack.

So, Mike and I, being avid gamers, let our imaginations run wild. We thought it would be brilliant and a great cardio workout if games could be more realistic in real life. Is your virtual avatar swinging a 12-pound war hammer on campaigns? In our immersive version, you weren't holding a dinky ten-ounce controller, you'd literally be swinging a 12-pound sledge. Did you underestimate that zombie horde and decide to beat feet? You better hope your speed on our hyper-realistic game's treadmill was faster than the hungry mob bearing down on you. We'd basically envisioned the Nintendo Wii and Oculus VR years before those devices came to market.

Fast forwarding nearly two decades, Andrea and I purchased a high-end treadmill. This behemoth was massive and required the vendor to deliver and haul the crates to an upstairs bedroom. Once assembled and online, this apparatus being a mere twelve vertical feet above where I slept, effectively negated any weather-related excuse I'd had to not clock some mileage.

Exploring the capabilities of this thing, I discovered an eye opening feature. There was an entertainment module that contained training regimens in various music genres. One of the workouts was tantalizingly labeled, "Mötley Crüe - 30 Minute Run".

"Awww yeeeaaahhh!"

Hitting the "Start" button launched a line contour landscape with hills and paths. When the soundtrack kicked in, you guided your avatar around the track by manipulating the speed and incline dials on the treadmill. The onscreen pacing guides, showing target speed and incline, varied based on the music, jumping during guitar riffs or a heavy chorus. You earned points by matching what was posted. Feeling particularly energetic? You could max out points by exceeding the guides. As the soundtrack unwound, the difficulty kept building. Soon, with Tommy Lee laying down a heavy beat and Vince screaming in your ear, you're running a 15-minute mile up a 5° incline. While child's play for some folks, to me it felt like a sadistic version of Guitar Hero.

In the end, I might not have been swinging a physical 12-pound mace or running at flank speed from a final boss, but Peloton came damn close to what Mike and I dreamed up. Now I just have to figure out how to do the "be judicious at the neighborhood Indian buffet" part.

Mötley Crüe - Wildside

Rock-tober 11 2024

When we first met, Andrea was a total noob with the classic rock scene. One of my favorite stories about our early relationship is us cruising around Auburn in the 'Stang when an Eagles song came on the classic rock channel out of Columbus, GA. "That's the Eagles, isn't it?" When I nodded, she was absolutely giddy with her achievement. "Hey! I recognized the Eagles!"

Looking back, I should have been more supportive, but instead I just laughed, "Andrea, everybody recognizes the Eagles."

Since those shaky early days, she's plunged wholeheartedly into the classic rock genre. Today, not only are the Eagles in permanent residence on her playlist, but you’ll also find a range of groups from Nickelback to Metallica.

When the two of us stepped into the world of ballroom dance, the best places to practice our footwork were the dance floors of country/western bars. This added country crooners such as Garth Brooks and George Strait to her music collection. 

While she followed me willingly into the hallowed halls of classic rock and has even completed side quests in the country genre, Outlaw Country was just a bridge too far. It's a shame because the likes of Waylon, Willie, and the Man in Black were a big part of my childhood soundtrack. The rasp and gravel in their voices from years of hard living could have paved the highways on the many road trips Mom and Dad and I took, crisscrossing the country with Dad's deployments.

Another member of the fringe country crew was Kris Kristofferson. Writing and performing hits like "Help Me Make It Through the Night" and "Me and Bobby McGee" gave him street cred as both a singer and composer. But he had yet another talent. There's a line in the Bocephus song, "All My Rowdy Friends Have Settled Down" that directly references Kristofferson, "And Kris, he is a movie star, and he's moved off to L.A." Kris Kristofferson had bona fide acting chops.

According to IMDB, Kristofferson had 118 acting credits. I am not aware of any other singer with more. The OG crooner, Bing Crosby, had 108, and even Elvis topped out at 31. The first movie of his I remember seeing was 1978's Convoy. I remember watching him in the main role of Rubber Duck with Dad and thinking, "Man, truckers are the coolest cats on the road."

Later, when I was in high school, he was in the miniseries, Amerika. The plot felt like Red Dawn, taking place in a dystopian scenario where the USSR managed to gain control over the US. The cold war was still raging in real life, and the series caused a lot of controversy with fears it would strain relations with Russia. I remember it made for some lively discussions with my classmates and me in Mrs. Ladner's senior  Government class.

Probably, his most iconic role was the crusty, old codger and tinkerer, Whistler, in the Blade movie franchise. I'd always hoped for a reboot casting Snipes and Kristofferson together. Currently, this may be the easiest to find for a rewatch on streaming services.

In 1985, the four great country outlaws, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, and Kris Kristofferson coalesced into the country supergroup, The Highwaymen. To me, this event was akin to the formation of the 1992 US Men's Basketball Olympic "Dream Team". The amount of soul and talent contained within the group was staggering.

With Kristofferson's passing, Willie Nelson is the last of the Highwaymen standing. In one of the group's titular songs, "Highwayman", in story form, each man in turn tells of how their character met their untimely demise. But each time, they say they're not really gone. As the years roll on, more of the artists I've known from my childhood are leaving this earthly stage, but their body of work remains. They're not really gone. With Kristofferson, we're fortunate that includes his contributions to film as well as music.

The Highwaymen - Highwayman

Rock-tober 10, 2024

On average, one could live up to two months without food (although some of us would last a tad bit longer), but only three days without water. A common perception is lack of safe potable water is only an overseas issue. I've witnessed this presumption played out first-hand. When Andrea and I were in Arusha, a large town in northern Tanzania, we were riding through one remote village. An unexpected summer squall had just passed through the area, creating a mini deluge. The roadway was shedding sheets of water which collected and flowed swiftly in an ad hoc stream by the roadside.

There was a school just off the road, and all the students, all looking to be elementary age kids, were swarming out of the classrooms. With old one gallon water or cooking oil jugs in hand, they lined the street, filling their containers with that roadside drainage.  I spun around in my seat as we passed them by, not sure I was seeing what I was seeing. "Surely that's not their drinking water," I hoped.

Even in areas with adequate rainfall, the water quality may still be suspect. I'd once attempted to join, unsuccessfully, a work crew going to the Philippines to build village water filters. The plan was to construct cinder block squares and fill them with successive layers of pebbles, sand, and charcoal. Water from the local source was then filtered as it percolated through the stratified layers.

The reality is, even stateside we're not immune to water insecurity. The entire southwestern region is at the mercy of a low snow fall season sending them into catastrophic drought conditions. Sometimes it's self-inflicted, like the Flint, MI, water authority failing in its primary purpose of properly treating the city's water supply.

It wasn't long after my arrival at Auburn that I discovered the city's own penchant for odiferous water and accompanying "tang". When running the tap in my efficiency caused me to wrinkle my nose, the first thing on my shopping list, even before my textbooks, was a water filtration system. A few years later, after Andrea and I started dating, one of the most intriguing tales of water woes came from my late father-in-law during one of our post-midnight, night owl conversations. 

As a professor of microbiology at Auburn University and a highly regarded expert in the field, he was contacted by Lee County authorities to track down an e-coli bloom in the local water supply in the mid-'70s.

An early suspect was a series of out houses overhanging Auburn's water supply, Chewacla Creek (yes, outhouses were still a thing in Alabama in the mid '70s). While a contributor, it wasn't root cause. He and his grad students spread out across the region taking samples from lakes and rivers trying to pinpoint the source. I've read the paper his team generated. It's an impressive example of the scientific method in action with multiple temperature plots across months of the year with correlating factors such as rainfall and O2 concentrations. 

The paper's conclusion of the multi-year study stated, "The presence of fecal coliforms and streptococci demonstrates the presence of animal wastes in Chewacla Creek." It turns out the activities of a local dairy farm were a primary cause of the bacterial bloom.

That early morning, in my future father-in-law's living room, the story wasn't over. As smoke swirled in the air from his multi-pack habit, he told me of an episode not in the official report. He had a team on one of the area waterways when one of his grad students called him over. "Hey, Professor, you need to see this." The student showed him the results of a water sample he'd just taken. The culture count of that specimen was off the charts. 

At that point, he looked at me over the rim of his glasses. "Wayne, readings that high don't happen naturally."

He had his team double, and triple check their samples, and the repetition bore out the same results. Puzzled, they walked the banks trying to discover the source. Suddenly, a pipe hidden by foliage discharged a slug of murky water, replete with what looked like toilet paper and a distinct fecal odor. On a hunch they sampled this water and realized they'd found a primary source.

Apparently, the local treatment plant would get overwhelmed during periods of heavy rain and either through willful negligence or incompetence, untreated effluence was discharged into the local water supply.

I'm writing this from the heart of Auburn, and my perception is it's gotten better in the intervening years. These days, I detect no odor, and I believe Auburn water tastes OK. Regardless, I've got a fridge stocked with hard cider, and bottles of bourbon just in case.

Willie Nelson - Whiskey River

Rock-tober 09, 2024

Readers of these missives already know I'm a big history buff. In college, I squeezed history classes in anywhere I could into my schedule, much to the chagrin of my academic advisors.

"So... Mr. Capuyan, your declared major is mechanical engineering?"

"Yes, sir."

"But you've signed up for "History of the Middle Ages?"

"And I'm really looking forward to it!"

"It's a 300-level class!"

"Oh, OK. Cool."

"But...you're a freshman!"

Fortunately, the department waived the underclassman restriction, because I found the class infinitely more interesting than "Differential Equations". It's not unusual for an engineering major to wind up with a minor in math. I bucked this trend and almost had enough for a minor in history. I could then be forgiven for being shocked and appalled when Andrea gleefully once exclaimed she never had to take a single history course for her degree.

I've wondered where this love for all things historical came from. It's not like we had the History Channel growing up. Apart from Mississippi or American history, I don't even remember any classes taught in elementary school.

The curriculum changed drastically when I arrived at Long Beach Junior High, landing in Mrs. Hood's 7th grade World History class. For a budding history geek, that classroom was mind blowing, and her class was responsible for a good portion of the frivolous (but interesting - at least to me) minutiae still rattling around my head.

• The discovery of the fossilized remains of Lucy, which occurred less than 10 years prior, proved the earliest hominids walked upright.
• The Code of Hammurabi is one of the earliest, most complete, and draconian (with literal eye for an eye penalties) law codes in existence.
• The Buddha's real name was Siddhartha Gautama.

Together, Mrs. Hood and our class stepped through all the major ancient civilizations surrounding the Nile, Mesopotamia, and the Indus Valley. And it wasn't all lectures. For one group assignment, Mike and I were teamed up and tasked with creating a clay sculpture of the Sphinx. Initially, we groaned at this project given neither of us had dorked around with clay since kindergarten. But we dove into the task - he worked on the body, and I had to craft the head.

I surprised myself, finding I'd produced a decent facsimile of the iconic sculpture (in my opinion), and I was very proud of my creation. However, our collaboration wasn't that great, and we failed to check in with each other on a regular basis. When Mike and I brought the two components together, laying them side by side, a glaring problem became evident.

"Wayne, man, you made that dumb head too small!" I'm, of course, thinking the opposite.

"What?! Pfft. No way, loser! That body is just waay too big." This back and forth went on like a vaudeville comedy skit as neither of us would relent. After a continued, escalating exchange, Mike summarily ended the argument.

"No! This dumb head of yours. IS. TOO. SMALL!" With that, he crushed my carefully and intricately crafted sculpture with his fist.

Fifty-year-old me would have strung together a string of ear-searing expletives, but eleven-year-old me was just shocked speechless and almost in tears. I was very proud of my Sphinx head.

It was the first time, and to my recollection, the last time Mike and I were at odds. We eventually patched things up and managed to turn in a successful joint project with properly proportioned body parts. Today, we'll occasionally ping each other with interesting historical factoids we come across. 

A life-long friendship and love for all things historical were forged in a classroom with a highly contested clay sculpture, along with Buddha, Hammurabi, and of course Lucy.

The Beatles - Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds