It has been forever since I have braved the genre of “Dear All” letters. The reasons are many, but mostly the dearth of correspondence is the result of a lack of subject matter suitable for my style of writing.

When the kids grew up and moved out, subject matter moved out with them. They were easy targets for satirical humor or at least my attempts at it. Laurie argues that I have plenty of things to write about, not the least of which are two grandchildren, but I baulk. Can anything good come from making light of grandchildren? Just like children don’t want to say the wrong thing to their parents for fear of being cut out of the will, I fear saying something about my grandchildren that would result in them being held away from me at arms-length, at least emotional arms-length.

Furthermore, I have found it necessary to lay off of Laurie since she is the only companion I have in the house. One slip of a joke there and the nights get really cold. So you see, subject matter has been hard to come by. There has been one other reason for “Dear All-lessness.” What little material I have had to write about I have tried posting on a blog, a blog I have not advertised much, primarily because of my lack of internet skills. Regardless, even the blog has been blogless for sometime.

We have had an experience over the past few years that seems to have some claim as “Dear All” material, particularly since it has finally come to resolution or at least a unilateral cease fire. That subject is our battle against the “@!# plant” that has invaded our yard (from this point forward referred to as “DP,” simply because I have a hard time finding the @, ! and # on my keyboard). If you have heard this story, just hit delete; if not, prepare yourself; it is not a pretty story.

The invasion began slowly and in a place that did not raise appropriate alarm, sort of like the Nazi infiltration of Austria in the 1930s. The DP first popped its innocuous-looking leafy stems from the underworld (where it must have been a welcome resident with the evil one and all his minions) in a planter bed on the east side of our pool. Like tares in the wheat field, it grew up intertwined with our favored shrubs and flowers, making it practically impossible to dig out without sacrificing plants we wanted to preserve.

Like greenhorn soldiers we assumed the invader was a volunteer springing up where a previous homeowner had cultivated some unknown and, for us, unwanted shrub. For a number of years we tried to control the DP by cutting it back to the ground without doing more damage to our desired plants than necessary. But cutting back the DP was an abysmal failure; it would not stay cut back. In fact, it began to spread out of the planter bed and into the lawn.

We were dismayed, near despondent, without hope against the ever-widening reach of the menace. We turned to desperate measures, chemical warfare.

Laurie took the lead. I came to know her as Chemical Lau-rie’. She started with Roundup. Yes, we knew our Saint Augustine grass would pay the price of being innocently but hopeless entangled with the DP, but in times of crisis who better than a saint to take it on the chin for a higher good.

We had to rework our budget to afford all the Roundup Laurie bought over the next year or so. We suspect she is on some secret FBI watch-list. We are also pretty sure the EPA has an eye on her, as well as the local water board since the ground water in our neighborhood will likely not be safe to drink for a few decades. (Anyone know the half-life of Roundup?)

Pretty soon the lawn in our backyard looked look a green dress with brown polka-dots. We thought the chemical warfare was working, that the battle was near its end. Although our lawn was damaged, the shoots of the DP also seemed to be dying. The leaves would wither and fall from the stems and the stems themselves would turn black and break away at the slightest pressure.

We soon learned our apparent mortal strokes were inflicting only flesh wounds, quickly healed by some mysterious resource from below. Obviously more potent poisons were necessary. We needed the A-bomb of chemical agents. We went with the Brush and Stump Killer. Surely this weapon would be the key to victory. Sure enough, the DP shoots turned black and broke off to the ground when sprayed with this elixir of death. Of course our lawn suffered as well. Not too surprisingly all fauna also evacuated the yard (I think I actually saw a caravan of grubs, earth-worms and ants heading down the driveway to a safer yard), and I believe our neighbors’ trees started dropping their leaves a little earlier than normal. Nevertheless, happy times were here again . . . until the shoots came back.

It now was obvious that victory over the DP would take more drastic measures, measures that reached below the surface. Out came the mattock and shovel. Wielding the required tools of mass destruction in crowded planter beds guaranteed collateral damage for which we grieved, but sometimes victory comes with high costs (remember the St. Augustine). At this point I had little idea how familiar and skilled I would become with a mattock and shovel.

Digging and chopping became our method of combat for several summers. As we dug and chopped, dug and chopped, we discovered the DP’s leafy sprouts were actually the deceptively tender tentacles of nefarious roots hiding 12” to 18” underground. We did our best to hack the source of our landscape sorrow from it hiding place. But the more we dug and hacked and dug and chopped the more the demon’s little tentacles shot up through the ground.

Root led to root as the months wore on. It soon became obvious we were not fighting individual DPs but a multitude of manifestations of one giant demon. Everything was connected. We needed to find the head of the snake and chop it off.

Knowing that we were intending to extend our patio, we excavated the patch of ground that would eventually be covered by concrete. What we found was horrible, frightening enough to cause casual warriors to retreat to the den. There, about a 1’ to 1 1/2’ underground, stems led to small roots that joined with other small roots, that were the offshoots of larger roots that joined with other larger roots that themselves were merely branches of enormous roots.

They were intertwined with one another and with friendly plants; they wrapped around sprinkler pipes, dove straight down to infernal depths, disappeared under slabs of limestone and reappeared on the other side twice the size as when we lost track of them.

Winter came and we left off digging, leaving some of the uncovered roots laying above ground, exposed to the elements, though still attach to their evil mother.

When we took up the spade in the spring, we found these same roots sprouting, though having been exposed to our winter for three months. Could nothing kill this thing? Laurie just gasped and breathed a Summers’ family expletive, “Ah Shaw”. I am told my eyes narrowed, my nostrils flared, a crazed look crossed my face. What was a war had now become an obsession. It was Ahab and the white whale. Someone or some thing was going to die.

All summer long I came home from work only to eat a quick supper, then grab my harpoon, I mean my shovel and mat-tock, and chase the DP until nightfall. On Saturdays the digging and hacking started at sunrise and often continued into the night.

The rage was blind. Buried utilities and sprinkler pipes were cut without remorse. Ant beds and the dark, silent dens of lizards were destroyed with abandon; squirrels and small children were in harm’s way.

Lawn grass, once lovingly mowed, weeded and fertilized, became just another impediment, thoughtlessly sacrificed to the hunt. Our backyard became Flanders’ Field, scared by endless trench after trench.

In the scorching summer the upturned dirt became so much dust, swirled around by the wind and deposited in the nearby pool, turning it into a yellow-green pond unfit for any life but turtles and frogs.

Then suddenly it was over. Every protrusion of the DP was gone; every root had been uncovered and followed back to its source. I held the last of the DP over my head like a hunter’s trophy.

The bitter truth was finally discovered and bitter it was. For what we determined was that all the roots, some almost 3” in diameter, came from under our northern neighbors’ fence, all headed in the direction of their 30’ Arizona Ash tree, the evil mother, the head of the snake.

Some of the signs were there all along: the leaves matched and the invasive characteristic of the tree matched. I never have liked Arizona; now I know why. Although I have offered my assistance, I don’t suspect our neighbors will be chopping down their tree. It is by their own admission an ugly tree, but it is large, power lines course through it and it stands not 15’ from their house, all reasons it would be costly to remove. However, if it fails to leaf-out this spring and begins to rot for some unknown reason, they may consider removal as a necessary though costly house-saving chore. Ahab and Chemical Lau-rie’ will claim innocence until proven guilty.

By the way, how are all of you doing? I have not written in so long I feel I have removed myself from the family.

Laurie says hi and disclaims any responsibility or involvement in any of the above.

Love,

Ahab and Chemical Lau-rie’

55 and Hair Gel: Is It Right?

Several years ago and somewhat out of the blue my wife suggested that I change hair style. For years, at least since high school, I had always parted my hair on the left side and worn bangs (that sounds terribly feminine). The only changes have been in length, longer in college, shorter after my career began, and color, from brown to gray, a change over which I chose to exercise no control.

Why Laurie made this suggestion I have no clue and am afraid to ask. Inquiry will either cause her to lie or hurt my tender feels (she would hate to admit she had not like my hair for 30 years or that she wants me to look like someone else). Nevertheless, maybe surprisingly to her or maybe not, I did not object. Rather, I embraced the idea and, again at her suggestion, went for a short, spiky look, complete with new-age gel. (Up to this time, my most recent experience with a hair additive was with Butch Wax when I was in elementary school; for those of you who don't know, Butch Wax was exactly as its name advertised, it was wax, and hair amply treated with the stuff was impervious to anything, wind, rain or roaming fingers. In fact, roaming fingers had to roam quickly or become lodged to the hairdo.)

Now the Butch Wax thing was, like I said, was years ago, a childhood experiment, a fad, and, though sticky and prone to gather dust and small insects, was accepted as normal. But what about hair gel for a gray-headed 55 year old grandfather? Am I being too edgy? I mused about this situation when Laurie brought home the first bottle of hair gel. It was L.A. LOOKS' ABSOLUTE STYLING mega mega hold, rock hard fixation gel, hardness level #9 on a scale of 10.

Now that sounds edgy to me, but who am I to make that evaluation? I mean, I still think it is fashionably acceptable to tuck tee shirts into shorts with elastic waist bands and have no qualms about wearing tighty whiteys, though, if you must know, I am eclectic in that fashion area. I think I know where Laurie stands. Not only does she think am I not too edgy, she is still pushing the envelope: the last gel she brought home was L.A. LOOKS' ABSOLUTE STYLING SPORT activity proof power gel mega x-treme gel, hardness #10+ on a scale of 10.

I am pretty sure once geled up with this stuff my hair is an illegal weapon. Which leads me to muse further: what does my beloved want of me, a handsome, with-it husband or protection? The first I believe no amount of x-treme hold mega mega gel will produce; the second, well look out world, butt heads with me and you lose.

Just want to make sure you all know that, though my immediate family may be athletically challenged, we do have blood-kin (my first cousin once removed) who apparently is not. The official Alabama web site ran the article below in November of 2007.

Alabama Softball Lands Georgia Prep Star

The University of Alabama softball team landed one of the most highly-touted recruits in the Southeast when head coach Patrick Murphy announced that Jennifer Fenton has signed a letter of intent to join the program in 2009. Fenton, from Marietta, Ga.

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – The University of Alabama softball team landed one of the most highly-touted recruits in the Southeast when head coach Patrick Murphy announced that Jennifer Fenton has signed a letter of intent to join the program in 2009. Fenton, from Marietta, Ga., becomes the third member of a highly-regarded class of five signed by Murphy and his staff.

"We targeted Jennifer early in the recruiting process,” Murphy said. “She had everything we were looking for with speed, a great arm, a left-handed bat and tremendous upside. We felt she was one of the top outfield prospects in the country last year and are very fortunate she chose Alabama."

Fenton comes to Tuscaloosa as one of the most heralded recruits in the state of Georgia. A star centerfielder at Kennesaw Mountain High School, Fenton led her team to a regional championship in 2007 and regional runner-up finishes in 2004 and 2006. Kennesaw Mountain has qualified for the state sectionals in each of Fenton’s seasons with the team under head coach Lisa Chapman.

The list of Fenton’s accomplishments and awards as a prep star is impressive. She was named the Georgia High School Association (GHSA) Region 5A Player of the Year in 2007, has been a three-time GHSA First-Team All-State selection and has earned First-Team All-Region GHSA honors in each of her four seasons.

The Marietta Daily Journal and the Atlanta Journal Constitution (AJC) named her an All-County selection all four years of her prep career and the AJC honored her as the 2005 “Hitter of the Year”.

Fenton earned KMHS Rookie of the Year honors in her first season of competition, has been named team MVP in each of her last three seasons and served as the team captain the last two years. The four-year letter winner holds five career records at KMHS, including batting average (.465), on-base percentage (.531), hits (201), stolen bases (96) and runs scored (144).

Also a star player for the East Cobb Bullets club team, Fenton led the team to the 2007 Georgia Amateur Softball Association State title and an appearance at the 18 Gold Nationals last season.

A 2007 Wendy’s Heisman School Winner, Fenton earned Kennesaw Mountain’s Most Athletic Award last year and the Iron Horse Award after lettering in three sports in 2005. An excellent all-around athlete, Fenton earned varsity letters in track and basketball, owns the school record in the 100-meter dash with a 12.90 clocking and was the school’s Sprinter of the Year in 2005.

Fenton is also active outside of athletics. She is a two-time Character Award recipient, a three-time Scholastic Award honoree, has been on the honor roll throughout her high school career and has never missed a day of school in her scholastic career. Fenton is also a member of the Beta Club, Delta Epsilon Chi, Future Business Leaders of America and Fellowship of Christian Athletes.

The daughter of Kevin and Jan Fenton, Fenton has a younger sister, Amanda. Her father played football at Maryville College and her mother was on the volleyball team at Jacksonville State University.

Musing: Is nostalgia good?

I had the good fortune last night of spending a couple of hours reminiscing with a friend from high school. Her memories of me were kind. She chose to filter her recollections, I guess, finding no reason to remind me after all these years of the less admirable qualities of my character as a teenager. We did not avoid talking about our failings, but time had given us sufficient opportunity to discover causes for these hiccups other than our own foibles. For example, she allowed that unfair scheduling and bad coaching were the reasons our football team was 1-9 our senior year. I was relieved to hear that; I had decided years ago that we were just a group of under-sized, inexperienced, not particularly talented players. Having been corrected on this piece of history, I can look backward now with a different eye at all my other failings and surmise with at least some confidence that those were not my fault either. Nevertheless, I can't shake the feeling I deserve at least a modicum of blame for some of them.

So the musing: is nostalgia good? Well, I guess if we stay there too long and fully believe our press as edited through the kind memory of a friend, nostalgia may be mildly harmful. But to the contrary, this I know: if I have a chance to visit with a friend I shared my life with as a teenager or even if I just see his or her picture in a high school annual, accidentally pulled from the back of a dusky book shelf, it makes me smile, and that is good indeed.

Musing: What does it mean when my wife asks, “Are you ever satisfied with anything you do”? The question came as I was evaluating the tape and bed job I had just finished on a little cottage we are building. I wasn’t totally unhappy with my work, but there were obvious imperfections I was pointing out to myself and apparently to anyone else ease-dropping nearby.

I have never thought of myself as a perfectionist or a hard-to-please person. My list of not-quite-right jobs is long and the number of my incomplete projects, though not as large as Laurie’s, takes at least both hands to count.

Not only am I not unreasonably demanding of myself, I do not think I have been too hard on my wife and children. Although they are high achievers, I have not driven them to those heights with a cracking whip or iron fist. Actually, I doubt I have had too much to do with their successes in any way, other than paying the bills.

Well, I guess I have avoided the real question, “Am I ever satisfied with anything I do?” The answer, Laurie, is an unequivocal yes, for I have wrestled Medusa and won.

This is Medusa:

Medusa is the battery cable assembly of a 2001 Ford Ranger. This cable has 15 points of connection. At one end it attaches to the battery at the top, front, driver’s side of the engine compartment, at the other end it attaches like a leech to the starter at the bottom, rear, passenger side of the engine compartment and, obviously, in between it attaches to various other components and structures. I spent three days removing the old Medusa and replacing her with a new one of her breed. Both were equally demonic.

The Ranger had died at the curb in front of our house. This unfortunate battle field meant I was often lying under the crippled truck with my legs sticking precariously out into the roadway. One unobservant driver could have left me crippled by friendly fire. The location also meant I had to cart every weapon of war (tool) I own out to the street. At times I had so many tools around the truck that several passersby stopped to ask if I was having a garage sale. I seized the moment and almost sold the truck, but the potential buyer caught a glimpse of Medusa and turned to stone. His wife had to drag him to their car and haul him away. But I digress.

Now, my advice to any of you who need to replace Medusa, I mean the battery cable assembly of a 2001 Ford Ranger, is (1) take it to a repair shop and pay whatever they ask without complaint or (2) sell the blame thing. No one should battle Medusa at home alone, armed only with the weapons owned by the common man. As I discovered, Medusas are embedded in their hosts in ways and at places that require special weapons and super-human dexterity to exorcize. Bolts and nuts of various sizes, both metric and common; clamps; plastic push-in retainers; each tied to the frame, to electrical components, or to the engine block; at the top of the engine compartment, at the front, the middle, the rear and the bottom; in places inaccessible by other than a triple-jointed orangutan.

Nevertheless, I did it and yes, Laurie, I am satisfied. Now that doesn’t mean I did a perfect job. I am pretty sure I am missing a weapon or two, lost in the bowels of the host; a couple of nuts and one particularly deeply embedded bolt are lying somewhere on the frame of the truck; and one plastic retainer was left hanging in mid-air because the old one broke off in the fitting and refused to be extracted. Also, the warrior, that would be me, did not escape unfazed: my spirit was wounded when I whispered a few words of consternations; my fingers still tingle from backing out nuts and bolts for hours a 1/16 of a turn at a time; I have permanent grease smudges on my shoulder blades; I believe I have developed an unsightly but potentially useful third arm joint; and all my joints, including the new one, are stiff from battle. But the ancient Medusa is dead, buried in a Fort Worth landfill, and her descendent is securely embedded in the host, hopefully there to remain until the Ranger is towed to its final resting place or until a new owner makes the stupid decision to go to war with Medusa.

Seven (?) Interesting Things about Me

Well, as requested, here are seven interesting (?) things about me.

I once put a band aid on a wounded frog. Actually, it was a frog I wounded. A cousin and I had made spears from tree branches, weapons not known for their accuracy, and these in the hands of boys not practiced in the art of spear chucking. So no one was more surprised than I when my mighty toss sliced the right rear leg of such an allusive prey. The sight of the wounded frog sliced my tender heart so I ran to the house, found a band aid and made an attempt to bandage the wound. Band aids are not made for slimy frog skin. I did my best. Through it all the frog seemed unaffected by the spear attack as well as the act of compassion. Just another day in the life of a frog.

As a senior quarterback, I led my high school football team to a 1 and 9 record. Had it not been for a kind clock, the record would have been a perfect 0 and 10. We were a very inexperienced team; we only had four returning lettermen, two linemen, a fullback and me. The best of the four was injured in the first game and knocked out for the season. I can say, without stretching the truth much at all, I don’t remember seeing any pass I threw actually caught by one of our receivers. Now we completed some passes, but usually I threw them as I was being clobbered and only knew the results after getting up off my backside. (I was not very good.)

I own 18 pairs of shoes and I really don’t know why. I have no particular love of shoes. Most the ones I have I don’t wear, so variety of need is not the reason. Almost all are either black or brown so apparently I don’t buy them to “match my outfits” like some women do. Maybe I just don’t ever retire old shoes. Maybe they multiple in their shoe bins like rabbits in their cages. I don’t know. I was surprised by the number when I counted them and just a bit embarrassed. “Why did I count my shoes,” you may ask. Don’t know. I’m a little embarrassed about that, too.

The first and only year I taught high school I was not only assigned a full load of freshman and sophomore English classes, but I also was anointed the debate coach. The principal made this assignment without any regard for my ability or experience. I had never coached a debate team; I had never debated (unless arguing with my brother qualified); heck, I had never even witnessed a scholastic debate. Fortunately for me, I inherited two top-notch senior debaters who benefited not one creditable argument from my leadership. On the strength of their previous training, by the end of the year we had (you notice I am taking some credit) participated in the national invitational 1976 Bicentennial Debates in Williamsburg, VA, won our regional championship, placed second in the State, and made it into the second round at Nationals in Seattle, WA. One of my debaters (there goes that credit-taking again) went on to debate in college and ultimately won the collegiate national tournament, all thanks to someone other than me. See, I can be humble.

I once entered and won a watermelon seed-spitting competition. The event was sponsored by our church. I believe it was to be some kind of unity-building activity thought-up by one of our staff members from Arkansas. I don’t know how many contestants confidently stepped to the line to expectorate their three allotted seeds, but all their confidence was in vain. I needed only one attempt to send my seed twice the distance of any other contestant. I may have had no debate experience, but I grow up in Georgia, procuring watermelons from farmers’ fields and spitting seeds at anything moving or stationary. Next time a church-sponsored contest is planned, professionals in the field should be excluded if unity is to be preserved.

Until my family moved when I was nine years old, our home had no running hot water and no bathtub. The bathroom fixtures were limited to a coldwater lavatory and a toilet (coldwater of course). A #2 galvanized washtub hung on the wall just outside our back door. It was in this tub that we bathed. Mom would bring the tub inside, put it on the bathroom floor, and fill it with water warmed in a pot on the stove. It sounds gross, but that tub of water had to do double duty for my brother and me. The one who bathed first probably got cleaner. The other benefit of going first was not getting scald by the fresh pot of hot water Mom would pour in when we complained the water had gotten cold. Now that I think of it, I bet she poured that water haphazardly on purpose.

From the time I was 6 years old, until I was 33, I was in school: 12 years of grade school, 4 years of college, 1 year as a high school teacher, and 10 years in seminary. Had someone told me at my high school graduation that I would still be in school 15 years later, I would have stolen the family car and driven off a cliff. I guess I am fortunate I did not hang around with prophets when in high school. Actually all these years in school were mostly enjoyable. The thought of all this time in academia only distresses me when I realize how ignorant I still am. (A side note: Newt Gingrich was the commencement speaker at my high school graduation. If don’t know who Newt is, you may need some schooling yourself.

Musing brought on by a string on the floor

Recently I was sitting in a chair, staring at a carpeted floor (I sit and stare a lot, or so I am told). The carpet was a short nap, multi-colored weave, the type often found in public concourses like those in airports. As I stared at this carpet I noticed a thin, white string, not more than an inch long, lying between my feet. I also noticed this string would be in sharp focus when I was looking through the middle section of my tri-focals (yes, tri-focals, I am 53 you know), would turn fuzzy when I looked through the bottom section, and would totally disappear when I looked through the top, the distance vision part of my lenses.

This experience was new to me. I have never not been able to see something the size of this string when it's been within two feet of my face, particularly when I have known it was there. Nevertheless, when I first made this string disappear, I fancied myself a powerful magician, capable of making solid objects vanish with just a tilt of my head. Then suddenly I felt not powerful but rather weak and handicapped and old. "How can I not see that blame string? How long," I wondered, "is it going to be before I can't see the string regardless of the lens I use? How long before I can't see the pattern of the carpet or even recognize it as carpet without getting on my hands and knees and feeling it? Heavens, will I even be able to feel by then?"

"Oh Lord, preserve my senses, at least one. May I never miss hearing the call to dinner, even if I have to be led, fed and then kindly put to bed." (Laurie says I'm in real trouble 'cause I don't hear the call to dinner too well now!)