Author: Darrell Huckaby

I have spent hours and hours of my life sitting in front of the television set, shouting random trivia in question form. Yes. I am a “Jeopardy” junkie. It looks so easy at home. I usually know almost all of the questions in the first round. Double Jeopardy, not so much — but even a blind hog finds an acorn from time to time — and Final Jeopardy is a crap shoot. And I know that I am more interesting than 78 percent of the contestants that actually make it onto the show.

A few years ago — during the reign of Jeopardy Champion Extraordinaire, Ken Jennings, I actually flew all the way to Los Angeles to try out for the show. It was a disaster. The game is a lot harder in the studio than it is at home.

About 300 of us gathered at a hotel near Studio City — wherever that is — and took a paper and pencil trivia test. That apparently went well because I was one of a handful of folks chosen to be interviewed and play a practice game. I guess the interview went well enough, but during the practice game — I choked. There’s no other way to put it.

I sat and stared at the screen as the first few clues were revealed. That’s all I did. I just sat there. Finally, the pretty young thing that was acting as the host — Alex Trebek must have been on vacation that day — reminded me that I hadn’t participated.

I blurted out the very next answer — which earned me a reprimand for not buzzing in first. So I buzzed in on the next question and then blurted out the answer. I forgot to put it in the form of a question. The next time I buzzed in I didn’t know the answer.

They gave me a Jeopardy coffee mug for trying out and said, basically, don’t call us — we’ll call you. But they never did.

The trip to LA wasn’t a total loss, however. I got to walk on the beach at Malibu with Mary Jane Odum — thus fulfilling another lifetime dream.

But I am a stubborn sort and have never been one to give up easily. If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again and all of that. Wednesday night I accepted the challenge and tried out for “Jeopardy” yet again. No, I haven’t been to the west coast. They let you do it online these days, which means that instead of having to dress up and wear a tie and my Sunday shoes, like I did in LA, I could try out for “Jeopardy” in my lucky Georgia Bulldog boxers and Hog’s Breath saloon T-shirt — which might be too much information. Good luck getting that image out of your mind.
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The test started at 9 p.m., but I had to sit and stare at a picture of Alex Trebek for 16 minutes to make sure I was logged on. I had rather been staring at a picture of the cute girl in LA that had to remind me to take part in the game.

The online test was tough! They threw question after question at you — 50 in all — and you had 15 seconds to read the question, digest the information and type in your answer. Thankfully the answers didn’t have to be in the form of a question and spelling didn’t count.

Spelling should never count. I agree with Thomas Jefferson. “I have nothing but contempt for a man who can only think of one good way to spell a word.”

There were no questions about Thomas Jefferson, by the way. There was one about Andrew Jackson, however and one about Bill Clinton. I am confident I got both those right. I also got the ones right about U.S. geography, because I’ve seen about all of it there is to see. I knew, for instance, that Ft. Sumter National Monument is in Charleston Harbor and that the Colorado River is near Yuma, Ariz. I also knew that Roger Williams gave Providence, R.I., its name.

There were lots of other questions I didn’t know, however. Don’t even think about asking me a question about opera — which they did, or scientific equations. There were some questions I knew but didn’t get typed into the space in time. All in all, I am certain I did better with the pencil and paper version of the test and — just like before — I won’t hold my breath until they call me to be a contestant on the show.

Big sigh here.

But at least I can look on the bright side. This time I didn’t spend several hundred dollars on a flight to LAX. When my humiliation was over I just tootled off to the bedroom to try to get some sleep. Of course I didn’t get to walk on the beach with Mary Jane Odum either. Everything’s a trade-off in life.

It’s been a great week to be a spectator — if you’re into that sort of thing.

March means madness for hoops fans, of which I am one. Thursday night through Monday night I spent as much time couch potato-ing as I possibly could. Alas, most of the underdogs in the NCAA tournament had used up their magic, Cinderella had lost her glass slipper and all those other sports cliches we like to use this time of year.

But the Kentucky Wildcats were special. There was a day when I was a huge Kentucky fan. As a small boy I would sit by the old Philco radio in our kitchen and listen to Cawood Ledford call Kentucky games on WHAS out of Louisville. Adolph Rupp, the Bluegrass Baron of Basketball — the “man in the brown suit” — had built a dynasty at UK and I have always admired folks who rise about the great unwashed year after year after year.

Ledford was to Kentucky fans as Larry Munson was to Georgia football fans, serving as the “voice of the Wildcats” for 39 years. That’s not a bad gig for a boy who grew up in the shadows of the hard, hard hills of Harlan’s coal mines. I can still hear the east Kentucky twang in his voice across all these years.

“Put it down! The ‘Cats are running!”

“That shot had a lot of iron in it, but it’s good!”

“He’s bobbing and weaving up the court. Pass to Dampier. Bang!”

I ceased being a Kentucky fan when they ran my friend Orlando Smith out of town a few years back, but even I will admit that this year’s squad is something to behold — and I beheld them Friday evening and Sunday afternoon.

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I know. I know. Eldrin is a bad person. He’s probably a jerk. He is selfish and arrogant and cheated on his wife — apparently with dozens of women — and he didn’t give Hank Haney enough credit for all of the success he earned during the first 33 years of his life. And he fired his caddy, Stevie Williams, who is probably a bigger jerk than Tiger.

I don’t care about any of that. I really don’t. If I want to watch someone because they are a nice person I’ll go next door to Colleen Gordon’s house. When I want to watch someone who is the best there ever was at what he does, I’ll take Tiger — especially in that Sunday-red shirt. When he’s right that is. Honesty compels me to admit that Tiger hasn’t been right for a while — but he was golden Saturday and Sunday, and I enjoyed every drive, chip and putt. When the last one rolled in, giving him a five-stroke win in the tournament that Arnie built, I cheered right along with the rest of gallery. God willing I’ll be watching him put on another green jacket Easter Sunday evening.

Monday was ladies’ night on my television. Tennessee was playing the Baylor women in a game that would send the winner to the Final Four in Denver and the loser home — and possibly into retirement. In case you are among the 99.99 percent of the population who doesn’t follow women’s basketball, Kim Mulkey, former Louisiana Tech All-America, coaches Baylor. The most dominating player in the country, Brittney Griner — all 6 feet, 8 inches of her — plays for Baylor. Pat Head Summitt — the greatest coach ever — with or without a Y chromosome, coaches the Lady Vols of Tennessee. Pat has been diagnosed with dementia of the early onset Alzheimer’s variety. There is a world of speculation as to her future and most people assume that this will be her last season, although no announcement has been forthcoming on that issue.

I am a great admirer of Pat Summitt and if that was to be her last game, I was going to be watching — and pulling for her team to upset the soon-to-be 38-0 Baptist Bears. It was not to be. Baylor won going away but there was a bit of excitement near the end of the game when a fight almost broke out with 20 or so seconds left to play — resulting in the disqualification of three Baylor starters.

So I had several great days of spectating. But I didn’t get to see the show I really would have liked to see this week. In Washington, D.C., the most significant Supreme Court hearings since 1954 has been taking place. I would purely have loved to have had a front row seat to those proceedings. Some insist that the fate of an entire nation lies on the justices’ balance. The arguments are so important that Clarence Thomas cleared his throat at one point and the reporters thought, for a brief moment, that he was going to actually speak.

He did not.

It won’t matter what Kentucky does in New Orleans or what Baylor does in Denver or what Tiger does in Augusta — but what the Supreme Court decides about Obamacare and the power of the federal government — well, that’s going to matter a great deal, to all of us.

Spring break is just around the corner, y’all — at least for those of us who labor and learn in the school system where I’m employed. I realize that for many the concept of a week off from work in the spring of the year is completely foreign and that for others, spring break has come and gone. You’ll forgive me if I revel in the fact that I have a week off looming on the horizon.

In a different life, when I coached high school girls’ basketball for a living, the site of the NCAA Women’s Final Four would determine my spring break destination. In 1985, my lovely wife, Lisa, and I drove a couple of vans full of teenage girls from Atlanta to Austin, Texas, to watch the Georgia Lady Bulldogs compete for the national title. The Lady Dogs had Teresa Edwards, Janet Harris and Katrina McClain on that team and, I thought, were a lock to win the championship.

You haven’t lived until you’ve taken a 2,000-mile road trip with 18 teenage girls and a pregnant wife — especially when most of the teenage girls thought Austin, Texas, was a lot closer to the beach than it actually was.

We spent the first night in New Orleans, where Lisa and I had honeymooned three years earlier. That trip ended with me in the hospital. I had to be flown back to Atlanta for emergency surgery. I promised Lisa then that we would return to New Orleans one day — and there we were, on a second honeymoon. Somehow my lovely wife didn’t quite see it that way. I don’t know if it was the morning sickness or the entourage of female athletes accompanying us that ruined her mood.

Things got better once we arrived at the Friday night semi-finals. Andy Landers hooked us up with great seats, right behind the Georgia bench. His wife Pam happened to be pregnant, too, and Lisa’s mood improved considerably once she had someone with whom to commiserate.

Georgia’s victory over Western Kentucky put everybody in a good mood. On Saturday we motored down to San Antonio. We visited the Alamo, rode in a little boat and had lunch on the Riverwalk and watched them move the Fairmont Hotel five blocks down the street.

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In subsequent spring breaks I watched Texas win the Final Four in Lexington, Ky., Tennessee win in Austin, Texas, (we flew) and Louisiana Tech win in Tacoma, Wash. After that I said to heck with it and started seeking warmer spring break climates. (Translation: Lisa said enough women’s basketball.)

Most of our subsequent spring breaks have been spent in idyllic splendor on Jekyll Island. It has become a family tradition to camp out under the Live Oaks on the north end of the island. I have spent some of the most serene moments of my life sitting around campfires on Jekyll, surrounded by those I love, being eaten alive by gnats and no-see-ums, toasting marshmallows and swapping stories — some of which were even true.

Our days were filled with long morning bike rides, afternoons on the beach and some of the most competitive mini-golf games in history. The bike rides were always the best part of the trips — except maybe the seafood. There’s no better feeling on earth than coasting along the bike path next to the Jekyll River, under the Spanish moss laden live oak limbs, breathing in the salt air and gazing out over the beautiful marshes of Glynn County that Sidney Lanier immortalized 150 years ago.

We won’t be making the trip to the Georgia coast next week. If any of you happen to, though, tell the guys at the City Market that I’ll be back next year and will buy double the shrimp and flounder. This year I am going back to Texas for spring break. I am looking forward to spending the week at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. I’m not being facetious, either. I really am looking forward to it. They tell me that the folks at M.D. Anderson are about the best in the world at dealing with cancer, and mine seems to be particularly stubborn.

We learned this week that it has shown up in my bones, so we need to find a solution soon. I’ll let you know how it goes. And who knows — maybe I’ll take Lisa back to New Orleans on the way home.

We were a Constitution family when I was growing up. Back then Atlanta was a two-newspaper town. My daddy worked the second shift in the mill so we got the morning paper. That created a conflict for me because Furman Bisher was in the Journal, which came out in the afternoon. I eventually started using the dime I got each morning to buy a newspaper instead of an ice cream cone or cherry Coke so I could read what that great scribe had to say.

Furman Bisher got me in trouble when I was in the eighth grade. Our teacher, Mr. J.T. McKay, assigned our English class to write an essay describing the things for which we were thankful. Instead of the flowing literary prose Mr. McKay preferred I penned a staccato-type column. “I am thankful for cold ice on a hot day. I am thankful for the smell of a freshly mown lawn — particularly when I am not the one who had to mow it.” That sort of thing — in a style unabashedly copied from Bisher’s annual Thanksgiving Day columns in the combined edition of the Journal-Constitution.

“I ought to horsewhip you,” Mr. McKay said when he handed back my paper — with a big red “F” on top. I don’t think J.T. McKay would get by with threatening to horsewhip a child in today’s politically correct school climate. When I explained to him that I was emulating the great Furman Bisher, and produced one of his Thanksgiving columns to back up my claim, my teacher apologized — and changed my grade to a “C,” admonishing me to “develop my own style.”

I have — but I still write a Furman-style column every Thanksgiving.

In high school, I became sports editor for the school newspaper, the “Ram Speaks,” and made it known that becoming a sportswriter was my life’s goal. Who wouldn’t want to make a living going to ball games? Mike Lassiter immediately christened me “Furman” — a nickname I secretly relished. Later on I worked as a stringer for Bob “Furman” Greer — longtime sports editor of the Covington News. It was probably Mike Lassiter who gave Bob Greer his nickname, too — and I bet there were hundreds of other “Furmans” writing for hundreds of other school and small town newspapers across Georgia and the South — just like every kid who played catcher in those names was called “Yogi.” Furman Bisher was the dean of sportswriters.

He wrote about baseball and golf and college football and horse racing in such a way as to make the reader feel not only like they had been at the game or match or race but like they had enjoyed a personal interaction with the competitors. Every writer has the same supply of words at his or her disposal but Furman Bisher could arrange them like none other.

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Furman Bisher was a throwback to what was, in my opinion, a better age — a time when newspapers arrived each day and, when people picked theirs up from the front steps or driveway, they hadn’t already read every word in it online. They hadn’t been tweeted the news or seen it on Facebook. In those days, writers were true craftsmen — wordsmiths, if you will — who really put their hearts and souls into their work. They were writers, not bloggers — and trust me on this one, there is a world of difference.

We, the readers, were loyal to those whose columns we read on a regular basis. We came to feel like we knew the writers and they were part and parcel of our daily lives. We didn’t always agree with what they had to say — my father refused to read Bisher for years after his “Story of a College Football Fix,” maligning Georgia’s esteemed football coach Wally Butts, appeared in the Saturday Evening Post — but we still read every word, thankful for the talent they so freely shared with the world.

I had the great fortune to meet Mr. Bisher for the first time about 15 years ago. He was warm and friendly and gracious and I couldn’t believe I was actually having a conversation with one of my childhood heroes. The top of a pedestal is a precarious place and many times, after meeting those I had placed on said pedestals, I have come away feeling disillusioned. Such was not the case with Furman Bisher and every time I have run into him since that first meeting he has been just as friendly as the first.

Furman Bisher died Sunday of a massive heart attack. He was 93. His death marks the end of an era. We will never see his likes again. May he rest in peace — and may he live forever in the printed words he leaves behind.

#Selah.

Here we are in the middle of March and the weather is in mid-season form — if the season is summer, that is. Old Man Winter barely came by for a visit this year. I think the reason he stayed away is because gas is so high he couldn’t afford to make the trip.

Whatever. All I know is that the thermometer on my back porch read in the 80s on three different days this week and as summer approaches, it looks like it’s going to be a hot one.

But before we can embrace summer here in our little section of the North Georgia Piedmont, we must take time to enjoy the spring season, which will be officially arriving in just a few days. March Madness is in full swing, the Masters is just around the corner. Folks who actually gave something up for Lent this year are counting down the days until Easter, and next weekend one of the grand rites of the season will occur. It’s Cherry Blossom Festival time again, y’all.

The Cherry Blossom Festival, in its infancy, was held on the grounds of what used to be Maxell, the Japanese-owned company that makes and packages videotapes and CDs and such. The Maxell folks were determined to be a vital part of the community and a good neighbor, and the year before I moved to Conyers they instituted a springtime festival on their property grounds, amid the many, many cherry trees that they had planted in an effort to help beautify the area.

My lovely wife, Lisa, quickly embraced the Cherry Blossom Festival and looked forward to it every year. Honesty compels me to admit that I was a reluctant participant the first time she convinced (nicer word than “forced”) me to go over to the Parker Road gathering with her. Arts and crafts meant “shopping” to me, and I have never been a big fan of shopping. But I did quickly become a fan of the annual Cherry Blossom Festival because although there were plenty of arts and crafts and a right fair amount of shopping there was also a lot of food — you can’t have a festival without funnel cakes — and a lot of friends that I didn’t get to see very often.

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Word of our local festival spread an eventually it outgrew its home at Maxell and was moved to the Georgia International Horse Park and then, of course, like everything else about Rockdale County, things just weren’t the same — or so people said. Instead of local vendors there were folks from all over. Traffic was a mess and it was hard to get in and out and you no longer knew everybody you encountered. The Cherry Blossom Festival became a microcosm of what the community had become and a lot of local people began to stay away — which isn’t a good thing — because you see y’all, the Cherry Blossom Festival is still ours. It is our own community festival and it is run by local folks who put in a lot of effort and elbow grease all year long into making it, year in and year out, one of the best in the South. There are arts and crafts galore and tons of entertainment and there are still a lot of local vendors. Plus it is people-watching heaven and if we all go, well, we will all be there — and you can spend as much time as you want catching up with old friends, or maybe making a few new ones.

When I started writing for the Citizen newspapers, about 16 years ago, our editor Alice Queen invited me to come and sit at the Citizen’s tent, which always has a prominent spot near the entrance to the grounds. I have done so every year since. It is fun to meet the readers and hand out small gifts and register folks to win larger prizes. Once in a great while I sell a subscription to the paper. And I usually have a few of my books, which I would gladly autograph for anybody who wants to buy one. And I really do need to autograph a few books this year.

This year’s festival is next Saturday and Sunday — so y’all come. I’ll be around from noon until 3 on Saturday and Sunday. I would purely love to see every one of you.

And besides, there will be funnel cakes. After all, you can’t have a festival without funnel cakes.

I don’t like Mitt Romney.

The heck of it is, I will probably wind up having to hold my nose and vote for him in November. Even more ironically, three months ago I liked Mitt Romney just fine. I would even say that I admired him — and I certainly respected him and believed him to be a person of character and integrity.

I no longer admire Mitt Romney. I do not respect him or believe him to be a person of character and integrity — but most of all, I don’t like Mitt Romney. I think he’s a putz.

Ask one of your Jewish friends.

First of all, Mitt Romney comes across as believing the fact that he has lots and lots of money makes him somehow superior to the rest of us. Understand this, I am not opposed to people making money and I am not jealous of Mitt Romney and his money. More power to him.

I am, however, opposed to people who constantly flaunt their money — to the point that they lose all touch with the great unwashed — like me — who have to make do without large sums of the green stuff. Case in point — every time a reporter asks Romney a question about just about anything his retort is “Listen, I am successful. I have worked hard. I have made a lot of money. I am not going to apologize for having a lot of money.”

We get it, Mitt. But that wasn’t the question.

It’s getting to the point that Romney reminds me of the old Gary McKee bit. Right after Herschel Walker left Georgia to sign with Donald Trump’s New Jersey Generals for what at the time seemed like a gazillion dollars, McKee would play a little clip every time Herschel’s name was mentioned that went, “Gonna buy me a boat, gonna buy me a car, gonna buy me a fur coat, gonna buy me a gold Rolex watch, gonna get my teeth fixed.”

No matter the question, the answer was Herschel’s litany of proposed purchases. That’s the way Romney is. No matter what the question, the response is, “Listen, I am successful. I have worked hard. I have made a lot of money. I am not going to apologize for having a lot of money.”
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Romney showed his disconnect with the average American during one of the early Republican debates when he offered to bet Texas Gov. Rick Perry $50,000 about some claim Perry had made about Romney’s past record. The average American might bet a Coca-Cola or a dollar, but Romney went straight to the $50,000 mark.

Romney’s penchant for so vulgarly displaying his wealth isn’t what really turned me against him. It was the scorched earth advertising barrage he unleashed against Newt Gingrich after the South Carolina primary. The whole campaign was based on lies and half-truths and the thing is, Newt Gingrich, over the years, has made it very easy for opponents to find plenty of reasons to attack him and his policies without having to make up stuff. Anyone who will lie to get elected will lie after he is in office and when faced, with those lies, on the debate platform, Romney tried to deflect criticism by claiming the material was put out by PACs and that he had no knowledge of what was in the ads or what material they contained.

Right. Would you believe a guy with hair like Mitt Romney’s if you heard him make such a statement? Me either.

I could forgive Romney for flaunting his wealth and for telling lies about Newt. I cannot forgive him for the condescending attitude he has taken toward my fellow Southerners during his recent campaign forays into Alabama and Mississippi. Last week he admitted that he felt like he was playing in an “away game,” during a visit to the Magnolia State. And yet he wants, I assume, to be president of the entire United States — not just New England and Utah.

And this week he has confounded his growing list of sins by mocking our language and our food. If I were president of the United States I would issue an executive order making it a capital crime for any Yankee to ever attempt to use the common contraction of the words “you” and “all.” If you can’t say y’all the way God and Herman Talmadge intended it be said, just shut up. Sometimes it is better to remain quiet and be thought a fool than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt.

And how dare Mitt Romney try to cozy up to the good people of Alabama and Mississippi by condescendingly announcing that he’d had his “cheesy grits” for breakfast. He should be flagellated with a cotton stalk and sent back to Massachusetts where he came from.

The fact that he is the front runner in the presidential race and yet finished third in both of this week’s Southern primaries shows that the good folks of the Capstone and Mississippi agree with my assessment.

I may have to vote for Mitt Romney but I won’t have to like it, and if you think, Mr. Romney, that you are so superior to us poor ignorant Southerners — well, please feel free to kiss my rebel rump.

This weekend I am celebrating the 50th anniversary of my 10th birthday. Pretty cool, huh? I never thought I would make it this far. In fact, last March 10 I celebrated what I was certain would be my last birthday by eating catfish with 104 of my closest friends at Henderson’s Restaurant, near Covington.

But we were talking about turning 10. That was special. I was in Betty Robertson’s fourth-grade class at Porterdale School. I have spent a lot of days and weeks and months and years in school and none of the days, weeks, months or years have been as much fun as Betty Robertson (Kincaid) made fourth grade.

My special day fell on a Saturday in 1962, just like this year. (I had to look that up. My memory is good, but it ain’t that good.) We celebrated in my class on Friday and my daddy came to school for the first and next to last time of my academic career. He showed up right after lunch with a birthday cake and ice cream for the entire class — and a gift.

Now understand, my father was a generous person, but did not buy gifts often. He left that up to Mama. But on my 10th birthday he showed up at school with a present that he had picked out, paid for and even wrapped, all by himself. It was a major league style Ted Williams model baseball glove. It cost $12.95 in the Sears-Roebuck catalogue. I knew because I had stared at the page it was on for months, never in a million years dreaming that I would actually own such a treasure.

Now if you don’t think $12.95 was a lot of money in 1962 consider that gas sold for a quarter a gallon and the minimum wage was $1.15. My parents had to do without a lot so that I could have that mitt — but as grand as the glove was, the fact that my daddy had bought it and brought it to me at school was much grander.

The second time Homer Huckaby showed up at my school was to celebrate a birthday, too. I was sitting in Joe Croom’s chemistry class when he arrived. Now Joe Croom was probably the best teacher I ever had, but honesty compels me to admit that my own lack of effort prevented me from learning as much science as I might have from this great man. On this particular day I was busily engaged in flirting with all of the girls around me when Mr. Homer Sharp, the principal at Newton County High School, came over the intercom and asked if I had made it to class that day.

“I’m afraid so,” was Croom’s cryptic answer.

“Please send him to the office to check out,” was Mr. Sharp’s reply.

I was shocked because I never remembered having been checked out of school in the middle of the day. I was even more surprised when I got to the office and found my father standing there, chatting with Mrs. Willie Campbell.
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What a birthday! We left school and went downtown in Covington and ate lunch at Mickey’s Grill. Then we walked across the street to the courthouse and I took my driver’s test. There wasn’t much to the driver’s test in 1968 — especially the driving part. You just backed the car out of the space on the Square, drove around the Square once and then back behind the courthouse to parallel park. It was a piece of cake and a moment I had dreamed of since — well, probably since I was 10.

I felt grown as I walked down the courthouse steps with the piece of paper that was my temporary driver’s permit in my pocket.

My birthday took a decided turn for the worse after that. My little birthday tour wasn’t quite over. We had one more stop. The employment office above the drug store in Porterdale. Mr. M.B. Shaw, himself, signed me up and at 3 o’clock I started work on the second shift in the Osprey Mill. Happy birthday sweet 16.

I wound up working in the mill, off and on, for the next six years. It didn’t hurt me any.

When I turned 20, I got in deep trouble because of my birthday. I was a sophomore at UGA and had started dating a girl back in October. I didn’t stay with the same girl long back in those days so when I first started going out with this particular young lady I told her that my birthday was the week before Thanksgiving — assuming that we would have parted ways by March. She gave me a great birthday party in her dorm room — complete with cake and ice cream and all my friends.

By some miracle of fate we were still together in March. When my roommate decided to give me a party on my real birthday the jig — and the relationship — was up.

There are no big plans for my 60th birthday. Just waking up will be celebration enough.

But I think my son Jackson will be home from college. Maybe I can persuade him to go outside and play catch with me. The weather is supposed to be warm and I have a really nice Ted Williams baseball glove stuck back in the closet somewhere.

I am proud to be an American and yesterday I exercised one of my most valuable rights. I voted in the Republican presidential preference primary — and was appalled by the sparse crowd that joined me at the polls.

Now I realize that the winner of the Georgia primary was a foregone conclusion by the time the first ballot was cast Tuesday morning — and I realize that the mass media has assured the nation that the winner of the Georgia primary has no chance of winning the party nomination. I also know that about 6 percent of the folks in my county had voted early and that a lot of Rockdale residents don’t vote in the Republican primary. I know all that stuff.

I am still appalled. When there is an election people should vote. Period. It is political ignorance and political apathy that have brought our once great nation to the place it now sits — teetering on the edge of disaster. But that’s just me and I guess the right not to care is just as precious to some people as any other right.

Now me, I’ve always been interested in politics. In 1964 — at the age of 12 — presidential politics cost me one of the most severe paddlings ever administered in Jordy Tanner’s office. Jordy Tanner was the principal of Porterdale School, where I was a seventh-grade student. Lyndon B. Johnson was running for re-election — against Barry “Nuke ’em ’til they glow” Goldwater.

Most Georgians still thought they were Democrats in 1964 so I thought I wanted Johnson to win. Boy, was I ever dumb!

Our social studies teacher, Mrs. Carter Robertson, assigned each of us to write a 30-second speech in support of the candidate of our choice, which we would give in front of the entire class. I chose a poem, which may or may not have been plagiarized. Who can remember after all these years?

But I do remember the poem and I remember the ensuing spanking.

“You’re for Goldwater; I’m for LBJ. We can’t fight it; it’s the American way.

Let’s shake hands and forget the past. I’ll hug your elephant and you can kiss my ass.”

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I learned my lesson and stayed apolitical during high school. Besides, I was a lot more interested in Kim Puckett’s legs than Richard Nixon’s domestic policies. Lee Piper did almost get me killed in Greenville, S.C., the day after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated and I got in a knock-down-drag-out with Jim Peay when Nixon decided to expand the Vietnam War into Cambodia, but other than that, I minded my own business.

The first election I got to vote in was 1970. It wasn’t a presidential election year, but I voted for Jimmy Carter to succeed Lester Maddox as governor of Georgia — but only because Lester wasn’t eligible to run again. I would compound that mistake by voting for Carter for president in 1976. Jimmy Earl single-handedly broke me of ever voting Democrat again.

1972 was my first presidential election. For a long time I thought that George Wallace would be the Democratic nominee. Apparently so did other people, much higher on the food chain than me. Wallace was shot in Maryland on May 15, effectively ending his campaign.

In November I caught a ride home from Athens, where I was attending the University of Georgia, hallowed be thy name, and proudly walked into the Porterdale gym to cast my first presidential ballot. I voted for Richard Nixon and felt guilty about voting for a Republican my very first time out until my daddy admitted that he had voted for Nixon, too. In fact, so had 75 percent of the state. Four years later only 66 percent of Georgia voters would cast ballots for the state’s aforementioned favorite son.

In 1980, lesson learned, I voted for Ronald Reagan — twice. I’m not sure I should admit this, but I was living in deep South Georgia at the time — way below the gnat line — and had moved my voter’s registration to Thomas County. (I told you I was way below the gnat line.)

But there was a hotly contested mayoral election in Porterdale that year — or maybe it was important seats on the city council. My mama begged me to drive home and vote for the local people. She was certain that the ladies that ran the polls in Porterdale wouldn’t turn Tommie Huckaby’s boy away. So after I voted in Meigs that morning I drove “home” and voted for my mama’s slate of officers that evening. And she was right. Nobody even questioned me or asked to see an ID.

Honesty compels me to admit that although I told myself I would only vote for the local people, Reagan’s name was right there on the ballot and interest rates were at 18.5 percent and inflation was in double digits and gas was way high — I went ahead and voted for Ronnie again. And before you cast stones, remember — Jesus turned water into wine to make his mama happy.

I promise I only voted once yesterday — but come November — well, if I thought I could talk somebody into letting me vote twice, I just might give it a try.

“Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball.”

Jacques Barzun — a Frenchman — wrote that, in 1954. That was two years after I was born and two years before Don Larson pitched the only perfect game in World Series history. They say that professional football has surpassed baseball as the National Pastime, but when I turn the calendar page and March pops up I still get a strong urge to rub Neatsfoot oil into my 46-year-old glove. Anybody want to play a little catch?

Baseball and I go way back. The first game I actually remember was the aforementioned masterpiece by Don Larson. I was 4 years old and all I wanted to do that day was sit under the house and run a little straw round and round in a doodle bug hole.

My daddy had other plans for me that October afternoon. He made me come in the house and sit down in front of our tiny black-and-white television set and watch grown men play a game I knew nothing about. Every time I complained he explained that something special was happening and kept insisting that I would thank him one day.

All I really remember is that I didn’t want to be sitting on the living room floor when the doodle bugs were biting and that when the game was finally over one of the grown men jumped into the arms of one of the other grown men and rode him off the field.

That would have been Yogi Berra jumping into the arms of Don Larson, of course, and I have thanked my father many times for making sure I didn’t miss one of the most historic contests in the history of the game I would come to love — and hate.

What I love is the perfection of the game, as remembered in black-and-white from the 1950s and early ’60s. There were eight teams in each league. Each team played each other team an equal number of times during the year. The best team in each league played one best of seven series before the weather turned bad in the fall to determine the champion.

Every player played in the field and every player took his turn at bat. The home team wore white and had their nickname or logo across the front of their jersey. The visitors wore gray and had the name of their city on their chest. Everybody wore stirrups and their pants just below the knees, the way God and Kennesaw Mountain Landis intended.

I was an American League guy because Dizzy Dean and Pee Wee Reese brought the New York Yankees into my living room every weekend. I knew the starting lineup of every team in the league. I could buy 10 baseball cards — and 10 pieces of rock-hard bubble gum — for a dime at the drugstore. I could get a dime by picking up 10 Coca-Cola bottles.

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Every morning I scoured the box scores. I kept the statistics of my team — the Yankees — in a Blue Horse notebook and hated when they played in Kansas City because those boxes didn’t make the morning paper and threw my batting averages off for an entire day.

I looked forward to Sundays because they listed all the stats for all the players in the paper and for Mondays because there were no Sunday night games and the standings were always up to date on Monday morning.

Baseball was perfect in 1958.

Then came expansion and more expansion and the designated hitter and double knit uniforms — and Curt Flood got the reserve clause outlawed, which led to free agency and made gypsies of almost every player. They eventually broke the leagues into divisions and added wild-card teams to the playoffs and I am glad Jake Westbrook got a World Series ring but I hate that the games aren’t over until midnight.

Now we only see the Dodgers twice and have interleague play and steroid use has made an entire generation of statistics suspect and the record book irrelevant. The complete game has been virtually eliminated and we have setup men and closers and seventh inning guys and eighth inning guys in the bullpen, and I don’t think they even put bubble gum in baseball cards anymore.

Did I mention how much I hate the designated hitter?

But it is March and the Yankees still wear pinstripes and you still have to get 27 outs to register a win. I have made it to another baseball season — and as long as there is baseball hope will spring eternal.

Play ball. In fact, in the immortal words of the great Ernie Banks, “It’s a great day to play two.”

There’s an old Southern expression, “back in my old stompin’ grounds.” Having examined the nuances of Southern-speak for nearly six decades now, I have determined that “stompin’ grounds” generally referred not so much to a place where one lived, but more a place where one visited, hung out and — more importantly — shared good times with good people.

I found myself back in my old stompin’ grounds last week. My lovely wife Lisa and I had business to attend in Jacksonville, Fla., — and for once that business didn’t involve orange-and-blue-clad mullet- and jean shorts-wearing Gator fans.

We spent a morning at the Mayo Clinic, gathering information for future reference. That same evening I had the opportunity to entertain a great group of seniors at Deermeadows Baptist Church. In between — well, in between we did a little stomping around on Jacksonville Beach.

Jacksonville Beach was a magical destination in the 1950s. The Bibb mills would shut down for the week of July 4th and my family and a large contingent of their friends would head south to enjoy the sun and sand and surf and — if we had managed to save back a few extra dollars — a seafood dinner at Strickland’s.

Travel was different back then. We would always leave in the middle of the night. Cars weren’t air-conditioned in those days — not ours, anyway — and it was cooler. Plus, we would save an entire night’s lodging. My sister would stretch out on the back seat and wrap herself up in a blanket and go to sleep. I would lie across the deck behind the back seat and gaze at the stars in the black night sky, dozing off occasionally.

In the front seat my parents would laugh and talk and snuggle and drink moonshine whiskey out of Dixie cups while singing “On the Jericho Road” and “Side by Side” at the tops of their off-pitch voices. This was before the days of interstate highways, of course, and once in a great while Daddy would slam on brakes to avoid hitting a possum in the road. My sister and I would wind up intertwined in the back floorboard with the transmission hump digging into our backs. It was part of the adventure.

There was usually a whole caravan of cars strung out along 441, and we would stop in a roadside park south of Macon and have a big picnic breakfast at about 4 a.m. Nothing tastes better than country ham biscuits, deviled eggs and hot coffee out of a thermos with a full moon keeping vigil overhead.

The trip was prelude to the fun we would have once we actually got to the beach. My family always stayed in a two-story boarding house across the street from the beach called St. John’s Apartments. The St. John family lived on the lower level. There were three apartments upstairs that they rented out. There was a screened porch across the front of those units that provided a view of the ocean, across the roof of the low-rise motel across the street.
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The Atlantic Ocean, with her rolling surf, was the main attraction of the week, and I would spend all day, every day riding the waves on a patched up tire inner tube, attempting to dig through the sand to China and making giant sand forts that would disappear at high tide.

There was a pier a block or so down the beach and once or twice a day we would walk to the end to see what the fishermen were catching. Once we saw them pull in a 12-foot shark — at low tide. I spent a lot of time building sand castles the rest of that week.

A half-mile north was the boardwalk, with its giant Ferris wheel and roller coaster — the Wild Mouse — and other attractions. I wasn’t a thrill seeker at that point on life and the one night a week we went to the boardwalk, I spent most of my time and what little money I had in the penny arcade. To spend four days at Jacksonville Beach with family and friends was as close to heaven as a little lint-head boy could get in 1959.

Now I told you all of that to tell you this. Last week, my lifetime friend, Terri Hubbard Cooper, picked Lisa and me up at our Jacksonville hotel and in between Mayo and the church service, took us out to Jacksonville Beach. She was patient enough to drive slowly up and down the streets and avenues and let me get out and walk around and use my instincts to locate all of the old places I used to haunt. The old pier is long gone, but we found where it had been.

The boardwalk has been gone even longer, but the Red Cross Lifeguard Station is still standing — and still in use — and Rob, the guy in charge, gave us a tour of the facility and showed us dozens of pictures of the beach during its heyday. He even let us climb up in the observation tower — something I always dreamed of doing when I was 7.

And best of all — yes we did — we found the building that had once been St. John’s apartments. Like me, it is just barely standing, after all these years. It had been remodeled a few times. But it was there.

What a grand and glorious afternoon we spent digging up my past. Precious memories — how they do linger.

I have seen way too much of Scot Ward lately — and told him so. Scot is a funeral director in Conyers, where I live, and it seems like I have been to an unusually high number of funerals as of late. They all have been very dignified and meaningful services — but most of them have been to remember the patriarchs and matriarchs of our community — men and women who have lived long lives, well into their 80s. While there is always a degree of sadness when any loved one is laid to rest, most of us, truth be known, would gladly accept a date with our maker after eight or nine well-lived decades.

Monday, however, I attended a service for an incredible lady whose time came far too soon.

I was at my usual post Thursday evening, in my recliner, by the fire, when I heard a scream from the kitchen. I raced toward the source of the outcry. Lisa, my bride of almost 30 years, had plopped into a chair by the kitchen table. There was a look of disbelief on her face as she sat, staring at the screen of her cell phone. She had obviously received very upsetting news.

She looked up at me and in a bewildered voiced told me, “Laura Barnes just died.”

I stared at her for several moments, trying to wrap my mind around what she had just said. I wasn’t really able to do it and, truth be told, still haven’t.

I sat down beside her and made her repeat the awful, terrible, horribly tragic news two more times before the truth of what she was telling me registered. Even then I didn’t know what to say or do. Lisa was telling me of the demise of one of the finest human beings I have ever known. Words cannot express how much respect I will always have for Laura and her husband, Butch.

Our lives — Lisa’s and mine — have been intertwined with that of the Barnes’s in so many ways over the years that it is hard to explain all the connections. I heard stories about Butch from the time I married into Lisa’s family. His mother and my mother-in-law shared a hospital room when Butch and my brother-in-law, Eddie, were born. I guess that’s going back a ways.

Eventually I would actually meet Colonel Barnes and found him to be one of the most squared-away soldiers, and men, I had ever had the honor of getting to know. He is a true patriot and I came to appreciate and respect his opinion on just about any and every subject we ever discussed — and we have discussed a lot of topics over the years.

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Butch was in Iraq for most of one of the years I taught John, but I soon learned that Laura, although she was considered the good cop when it came to family discipline, could do plenty of knot-jerking if knot-jerking was in order. She could also be very persuasive, in a loving way, when a certain teacher was guilty of a little foot-dragging when college recommendations were due. It all worked out. John’s a Bulldog.

Eventually we would wind up spending time at the same soccer fields and going to the same church and teaching in the same school system. My youngest daughter doesn’t like for anyone but Traci to cut her hair. My lovely wife Lisa has taken care of Traci through two births. Traci’s husband, Jason, and I teach together. Laura taught several women’s Bible studies that Lisa attended — and, in fact, had been leading a series of lessons about Esther, another great woman of God, the past few Sundays.

You get the picture. My family and Laura’s family had the kinds of connections that people who live in the same small town all their lives develop — and, like I said, I can’t think of a single person I have admired more.

She was kind and funny and so very genuine — and she was loved by her family, her friends and her community. As testament to that love a large segment of our community filled Rockdale Baptist Church Monday afternoon, sitting shoulder to shoulder, to grieve and pay respects to Laura’s family and her memory.

A picture, as they say, is worth a thousand words and the montage of photographs than ran across the screens at the front of the church prior to the service told a story far more poignant than I could ever write — a story of a young couple in love with one another, in love with their family and in love with life. Laura was the centerpiece of that story and now she is gone.

She was only 53.

Life is fleeting and sometimes seems to evaporate like a mist around us before we realize it. And now the collective heart of an entire community grieves with Laura’s family and loved ones.

“To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven.”

King Solomon wrote those words around 935 B.C. Pete Seegar covered the song almost 3,000 years later, in 1959, and The Byrds took it to No. 1 six years after that. I am pretty sure the “turn, turn, turn” part was all Seegar, because I couldn’t find it in any of the translations of the Bible we use at our house.

“To everything there is a season.” Those of us who follow the liturgical calendar of the Christian church find ourselves right in the middle of the season of Lent this week — that 40-day period of fasting, reflection and self-denial that begins on Ash Wednesday and ends on Easter Eve. Christians of many denominations follow the practice of giving up some self-serving indulgence during this period. I think the idea is that the sacrifice will remind us of Christ’s sacrifice on our behalf and help us to draw closer to God.

Who wouldn’t want to grow closer to God?

When I was a child, growing up at Julia A. Porter United Methodist Church, I didn’t know a lot of theology but I knew that every day my mama would leave a dime on the kitchen table for me when she left for work in the mill and I could spend that dime at the drug store after school. There was a lot you could buy with a dime. I could get a cherry Coke and a bag of chips or a lemon sour and a pack of crackers, or a chocolate ice cream cone and five pieces of penny candy. Spending that dime was a tough decision.

Times have changed. My daughter, Jamie, is a pharmacist and I can’t buy anything in her store for 10 cents.

During Lent, I didn’t have to make that decision, because every year we were given a Lenten Folder on the Sunday before Ash Wednesday and during that 40 day period — not counting Sundays, when I didn’t get a dime anyway — I was expected to put my dime in my folder and do without my ice cream or Coca-Cola. I didn’t know why exactly, but I knew that on Easter Sunday, when we all marched up to the front of the church to place our Lenten Folders on the altar, I felt proud about my sacrifice.
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Now I told you all of that, believe it or not, to tell you this. This past Ash Wednesday I was walking in high cotton. I was invited to stand behind the pulpit at Conyers First United Methodist Church and deliver the Ash Wednesday message. Now that’s not just any pulpit, you see. That is the pulpit from which Dr. John Beyers usually preaches.

Now understand this. I have lived a sort of Forrest Gump-like existence. I had a very humble beginning in Porterdale and have lived a modest and relatively insignificant life, but throughout my life I have often found myself thrown into the company of many people the world would consider great. I have met governors and presidents and star athletes and movie stars. Although I have never found myself in the company of kings, I did meet Prince Charles at Sanford Stadium one Saturday afternoon. I have had the opportunity to sit down and visit with Bob Hope and Bear Bryant and Johnny Cash. I even saw Elvis in person in the Macon Coliseum in 1973.

I am usually at ease in any situation and am seldom intimidated by my surroundings. I was intimidated Wednesday afternoon when I stood up to speak in Dr. Beyers’ church.

I have heard hundreds and hundreds of preachers in my day — of all denominations. As I have listened to most of them preach, if the truth were known, I have said to myself, “I could do a better job than that.”

I have never believed that for a moment when I have heard John Beyers preach. I greatly admire the intellect and the passion he brings to his sermons — as well as his knowledge of the scriptures and the thought he obviously puts into each illustration and each sentence.

I didn’t try to be John Beyers Wednesday, but I gave my best shot at being the best Darrell Huckaby I could be. I just hope some of what I said took. I hope that I managed to say something that made a difference in somebody’s life, because if I didn’t, I wasted my time as well as the time of all the people who heard me speak. If I have learned anything this year, I have learned that time is far too precious a commodity to waste.