Author: Darrell Huckaby

I watch the classic Jimmy Stewart movie every year about this time, but I don’t need Clarence the guardian angel to remind me that I’ve had a wonderful life. When I was growing up in the little mill village of Porterdale, wearing the same pair of overalls every day and digging for doodle bugs under the house, I could never have dreamed of the places I would have been and the roads I would have traveled by this point in my life.

I have received many awards and honors. Doris Nevels and I were named “yummiest” freshmen by our school newspaper, “The Ram Speaks.” That is not to be confused with “The Ram Squeaks,” which was a satire of the school newspaper published by a person who shall remain nameless. His initials are Mike Lassiter. Honesty compels me to admit that I don’t know what makes a freshman “yummy,” but if the honor was bestowed upon Doris Nevels, I’ll take it as a compliment.

In college I got a commendation from UGA President Fred Davidson for not driving away from the scene of the crime when I drove a university van full of basketball players into the side of a Lincoln Continental in Charlotte, N.C. We were in a hurry, because we were headed to see the Jackson Five in concert, but I waited for the proper authorities.

Once upon a time in galaxy far, far away I was voted Teacher of the Year by my peers, and another time I had the school annual dedicated to me. They call them “yearbooks” now. I have a basement full of coaching awards and trophies, and I was once named “Person of the Year” by the Joseph Wheeler Camp of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. I ain’t making this up, y’all. I was. And one time, in Sitka, Alaska, I was chosen from an audience of almost 40 people to go up on stage with two long-legged saloon girls to dance the Can-Can.

I told you. I have lived a charmed life.

But of all the plaques and trophies and citations I have received over the course of my lifetime pale in comparison with the award I received this week — or will receive, as soon as my youngest daughter, Jenna — Queen of the Eye-roll — gets by the UGA Food Services office to pick it up.

Once she does, I will be the proud owner of a “Taste of Home” commemorative plate that is being bestowed upon me by the executive director of Food Services at the University of Georgia, hallowed be thy name — the incomparable J. Michael Floyd. While the rest of this column has been written with my tongue firmly in cheek, I am completely sincere when I speak of my admiration for Mr. Floyd and his staff. As I have said before, he is simply the best there is at what he does — and he has a plethora of awards of his own to prove it.

For the uninitiated, once each semester the UGA food service hosts a special event for the students called “Taste of Home,” in which they replicate favorite family dishes submitted by the students’ parents. The parents whose recipes are chosen receive the aforementioned commemorative plate as a keepsake. All of my children and all of my money go or have gone to Georgia. They have all consumed thousands and thousands of delicious and healthy calories provided by the award-winning UGA food service and now — finally — one of my very own recipes will be featured at the fall semester Taste of Home feast on Dec. 1.
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In case you are wondering what delectable dish of mine Mr. Floyd chose, and even if you aren’t, it’s one of my favorite tailgate entrees from my “Southern Eatin’ Cookbook,” called “900 Miles South of Buffalo Chicken Wings.”

It’s a Southern cookbook — get it? So we couldn’t have plain old Buffalo wings because …

Oh, never mind. If I have to explain it, you won’t get it anyway.

Another perk of having my recipe chosen is that Mike Floyd sent me a copy of my recipe extrapolated out to feed a multitude of people — instead of the eight or 10 folks the original recipe is meant to serve. In the spirit of the season, I will share the recipe with you.

First you make the sauce by melting 134 pounds of butter and mixing it with 12 gallons, 2 quarts and 1 cup of Tabasco sauce, 9 pounds, 67 ounces of paprika, 2 pounds of salt, a pound of black pepper, 15 ounces of red pepper and 2 gallons of Worcestershire sauce. Stir well.

Next fry 2,150 pounds of wings to an internal temperature of 165 degrees and toss the wings in the sauce.

Now, you, too, can make my wings for 5,000 of your closest friends. And thank you, J. Michael Floyd. You have made my day, week and year. Let the Big Dawg eat.

This is the column I most look forward to writing each year, because it is the easiest to write. For the past 15 years, on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, I have gotten to count my blessings in this forum, which is, in and of itself, a noteworthy blessing. This year is particularly special, because I have been reminded quite dramatically of the privilege of life and of the impact the 800 or so words I share each week seem to have on so many wonderful people. As Snuffy Smith used to say to Loweezy, “time’s-a-wastin’!” so let’s get started.I am thankful for the first fire of the season, and the warmth it provides — and when it’s on up in the winter and we’ve had a fire for about 40 straight nights, I am thankful when someone else dumps the ashes.

I’m thankful for the clerk who counts change back the old fashioned way — starting at the amount of my purchase and working up to the amount of money I handed them. In today’s economy, I am thankful for change, period. I’m also very appreciative when someone else makes the morning coffee — which isn’t often — and I’m thankful for the phantom who arises in the middle of the night to place my morning newspapers squarely in the middle of my driveway.

I’m thankful for rain and for the sunshine that follows. I am thankful for green grass. Especially when my son mows it and I don’t have to, and for freshly baled hay — especially once it is safely in the barn. I’m thankful for flights that are on time and for trips that involve equal numbers of take-offs and landings. And I am especially thankful for the flight attendant who doesn’t act like she — or he — is doing me a favor by allowing me to board the airplane.

I am thankful that, way back in the 1950s, the state of Georgia had the good sense to buy Jekyll Island and I am thankful that I have had the opportunity to camp there virtually every spring for the past three decades. I am thankful for every sunset I’ve watched over the marshes of Glynn — gnats, no-seeums and all — and I am thankful for every night around the campfire and every mile I’ve ridden on my bicycle — especially those miles in which I have been joined by my three children and their friends.

I am thankful for the dirty, dingy streets of the New Orleans French Quarter, the snow capped peaks of the Rocky Mountains and the rolling waves of the Atlantic Ocean. I am thankful for the craziness of Key West’s Duval Street and the quiet calm of my own front porch. I’m thankful for red clay sunrises and clear black starlit nights and for full moons. I am thankful when the song leader calls out a hymn that I know by heart, and I am thankful for the preacher who understands that he is not the star of the show and presents the good news of the Gospel.

energyhealingforeveryone.com viagra shops in india The combination of food consumption and specific exercise to promote penis growth. Sildenafil citrate – a dynamic ingredient in Kamagra products works by relaxing blood vessels, improves blood supply and causes rock hard erection. generic viagra sales For more information please visit multicarehomeopathy.com . buy levitra viagra There are certain side effects associated cialis sales with Kamagra. I am thankful for pinto beans, fatback and Vidalia onions. I am also thankful for vine-ripened tomatoes, fresh corn off the cob and Mary Anne Gordon’s scuppernong jelly. I am thankful that my children still like to travel with me from time to time, even if is because I always pick up the check.

I am thankful that my parents raised me right and that they had the good sense to hug me when I needed hugging and to punish me when I needed punishing. I am thankful for the six years I worked in a Bibb cotton mill and I am thankful I no longer have to. I am thankful for the University of Georgia and the impact it has had on my life — and will have on the lives of Jamie and Jackson and Jenna.

I am thankful for unexpected visits from old friends and for each and every one of the cards and letters and emails I have received from those wishing me well — and I am thankful for Facebook and the enormous network of support it has provided. I am thankful for Dan Magill. I am also thankful for my lovely wife, Lisa, and the fact that she loves me even when I am not particularly lovable. In fact, I am thankful that she loves me especially when I am not particularly lovable.

I am thankful for Depend guards. I know you never thought you’d read that in one of my columns any more than I thought I’d write that in one of my columns, but I am. I am so very thankful for the doctors and nurses and technicians and medical researchers and all the other people who are in the trenches on a daily basis, helping me wage war against the insidious disease that is trying to limit my number of Thanksgivings. I am thankful that Alice Queen allows me to share my thoughts with her readers every week.

And I am thankful — and confident that next year, on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving — I will be right back here with an even longer list of blessings.

I woke up Thursday morning with an appetite for some good news — which has been a rare commodity these days. I turned on the coffee pot, as is my custom, and the dog and I walked up our long driveway to pick up the morning papers. I could hardly wait to spread them both out — our local tome as well as the big city offering — and find something to lift my spirits.

I was out of luck with the local paper. The teaser above the masthead told me that if I turned to page 4A I could read about storms slamming the Southeast. The headline above the fold informed me of funeral plans for a police officer — a graduate of Heritage High School, where I teach — killed in a car crash by a wrong-way driver. There was a picture of the seasonal ice rink getting ready to open, but that prospect didn’t really get my motor running, if you know what I mean. There was another story about a shooting suspect being identified in a police lineup — not exactly something that would make Charlie Weaver write home to mama — and so forth and so on.

I could sum up most of the news in one word. Depressing. The day before there had been a big story about a huge shortfall in the county budget. Thank goodness we got all those framed portraits of the commissioners ordered before we ran out of money!

With a sigh I set the local paper aside and turned to the big city newspaper, hoping for more cheerful news. It was not to be. They featured a big story on the front page about the financial woes of the European Union and the effect a failing Euro would have on the American economy.

I’m telling you right now, Ralph — the news ain’t pretty. They quoted a guy named Rajeev who works at Georgia State as the director of their Economic Forecasting Center. I remember when people who worked at Georgia State were named Bubba. Old Rajeev is a gloomy Gus if there has ever been one.

It seems that the job market ain’t likely to get better anytime soon. Folks need jobs. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist — or an economist — to figure that one out. If you don’t have a job you don’t have money to buy stuff with. If nobody’s buying anything, nobody’s selling anything and if nobody is buying or selling we go into a downward spiral. There are way too many people without jobs and schools are turning more and more people out on the job market every semester. I got a couple of young’uns that I hope will be looking soon. The Georgia job market needs to grow, but it’s not gonna happen — not anytime soon.

Encourage Him More than anything makes sure you encourage him for seeking the answers, talk about his feelings and complete needs. canadian pharmacy viagra Penis pumps are additionally helpful for masturbation, and for expanding the viagra pfizer pharmacie blood flow to the penile tissues and it in addition has Arginine imitative that will force you up in no instance. It promotes relaxation and boosts endurance and energy levels. order viagra energyhealingforeveryone.com Apart from this, cialis sale energyhealingforeveryone.com you can get rid of Erectile dysfunction when you really need erection. Of course when folks looking for jobs are more plentiful than jobs themselves, people who have them are usually just happy to keep them, so salaries go down, down down in a burning ring of fire and frustration. That’s the forecast for this year. I know my take-home pay has dropped steadily since we elected that education governor a few years back — and I don’t think we’ll have an increase in teacher’s salaries anytime soon — or anybody else’s either. See downward spiral comment above to understand the impact of lack of pay raises on the continued economic doldrums.

It’s not just cash flow that’s dropping either. Personal wealth continues to tank. The biggest financial asset most Americans own is equity in their homes. Home values have been dropping like proverbial rocks for a few years now and the prediction is that they won’t rebound for about five more years. Really? Five years? Who can wait five years for their home to regain its lost value? Not I.

Of course any company who does business with Europe these days will continue to struggle as Europe struggles and as long as we keep restricting oil production in this country and remain at the mercy of foreign oil suppliers, we are going to keep paying out the nose for gasoline. That’s not so bad though. The only people high gasoline prices affect are those who drive motor vehicles — or buy products transported to stores in motor vehicles.

Big sigh. If it weren’t for bad news, there’d be no news at all! I gave up searching for good news in the papers and turned on the television — just in time to see Karen Minton tell me it was going to be cold as a well digger’s bottom this weekend.

Sometimes it just doesn’t pay to get out of bed. I started to climb back under the covers and try again the next morning, but realized that wouldn’t solve anything. So I decided to do what we all do when the news gets bad. I decided to just keep on keeping on.

There’s got to be some good news on the horizon, however. Besides, they say it’s always darkest before the dawn. I can’t wait to see the sunrise tomorrow.

I have long been a big fan of pecans. I have never been certain how to pronounce the word — I say “pee-can,” you say “p’cahn” — but I’ve always known exactly how to devour the delectable nutty meat found inside the shells.

When I was growing up we could find pecans all over the place — just lying around on the ground. It was almost like they grew on trees. I would watch old men who worked in the mill pick up pecans and crack them against one another in their powerful fists. We ain’t talking paper shells here, either. I would try to do that in private, but lacked the power to make it happen. I was always relegated to stomping on the nut with my foot, which crushed the pecan and ground bits of shell into the meat. Sometimes I cracked them with my teeth. That would create a whole different set of problems.

One day, I told myself, I would be strong enough to crack two pecans in my bare hands. I’m still working on it.

When Thanksgiving approached, Mama would take us to visit her friend who lived out in the country and we would pick up pecans. We could have all we wanted. It was fun — for the first five minutes. After that, it was back-breaking labor, but Mama would remind us how much we would enjoy the pies and candy and other dishes she would create from the fruits of our enforced labor.

Once I was grown, I spent two years in exile below the gnat line. I lived in a singlewide trailer in a pecan grove in Meigs, Ga. I may write a book about my experiences in Meigs, once the statute of limitations has expired on all of the stuff my roommate and partner-in-crime, Ken Cooper, and I got into down there.

I was sound asleep one Saturday morning, on up in the fall, when the earth started to move under my mobile home. The trailer was shaking and trembling and I thought it would come apart at the seams, and pecans began pounding the top of the roof like they were being fired from a Gatling gun. I jumped out of bed and ran to the window. There was no earthquake and no pending apocalypse. Gathering season had simply begun for the pecan crop. Huge machines, called shakers, had been hooked up to the giant pecan trees surrounding my home and large sheets had been placed under the spreading limbs. The harvest was being shaken out of the trees, onto the sheets. I watched in fascination and developed a whole new appreciation for South Georgia agricultural ingenuity.

Some companies offer purchase viagra from canada free shipping for supplying the medicine. Spammers also use nefarious means that are akin to hacking to send their mails by using malware and the like. generic viagra from india There can be so many causes of this disease, so what’s the reason of causing order viagra view over here fallopian tubal blockage? Let’s learn about it. 1. Because it has the effect of freezing muscles, it was order cheap viagra originally developed to treat spasms, particularly overactive eye spasms. Suffice it to say that pecans were plentiful when I lived in a grove, but once I moved home, to the North Georgia Piedmont, I had to rely on more conventional sources to get my share. Once in a while Lamar Crawley would bring me a grocery bag or two he had gathered in his yard, down in Monticello — and I could always count on Ben Evans to have a fresh crop on hand at his market.

The bottom line is, like I said at the top of the page, I have always been a big fan of pecans. Now I told you all of that to tell you this. Pecans, even in Georgia, which is the leading supplier of pecans worldwide, are in short supply this season. That’s right. As many pecans as we grow here in the Peach and Poultry State, the supply is not enough to keep up with the demand.

Oh, you can find pecans all right. They will be on the shelves of every supermarket and produce stand around — but you’d better be prepared to cross someone’s palm with silver because prices are going to be sky high this time around.

John Steedman, owner of the North Georgia Pecan Company, recently reported in the Athens Banner Herald that the price of a pound of premium pecans would jump this year to $9.95 — a two dollar increase over last year. That’s a pretty hefty jump. He blamed this year’s drought in South Georgia for part of the problem. The other cause, he said, was that the Chinese have developed a penchant for pecans — particularly those of the Georgia variety.

That’s right. My access to pecan pie, glazed pecans, pecan brittle and all the other delectable dishes my lovely wife Lisa makes with pecans during the holidays, is at risk due to dry weather and Asian appetites.

Not to fear! It wouldn’t be Thanksgiving, for me, without pecan pie, and I shall prevail. I’m making a run to Monticello to see Lamar Crawley. If anybody sees Lisa at the grocery store, please remind her to pick up an extra bottle or two of Karo syrup. In the meantime, pray that the Chinese don’t discover sweet potatoes. They are my second favorite kind of pie.

I’ll watch an awards show on television for a little while. I like seeing the good-looking women stroll down the red carpet (OK. I’m a pig. So sue me. I’m not running for president.) and hearing the opening monologues and I like the little film montages and tributes that most of the shows have.

I’m not real big on the political statements some of the Hollywood shows try to make and easily tire of the acceptance speeches. I’d say that I’m good for about 45 minutes of the Academy Awards, a little less for the People’s Choice and I might watch 10 minutes of the Emmy Awards.

But when the CMA Awards come on, well, let’s just put it this way. I am down with the CMA’s, y’all. I’m there for the duration. The show originates from Nashville, not the land of fruits and nuts –and any political statements coming out of Nashville are probably political statements that I agree with.

Plus, a lot of my favorite Hollywood types seem to show up at the CMAs anyway — Nicole Kidman was there Wednesday night and so was the girl who plays in “Revenge,” one of my new favorite television shows. And when’s the last time you saw Little Jimmy Dickens portraying Justin Bieber at the Oscars?

Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood were the co-hosts of this year’s show, for the fourth year. They’ve about got it down by now and at one point in the proceedings Paisley seemed to be openly campaigning for the recently vacated job as emcee of the aforementioned Academy Award show. He was too late. I heard that Billy Crystal just got that gig. But he and Ms. Underwood work well together and are really funny — and at least one of them is really nice to look at. I’ll give you a hint. It’s not the one in the cowboy hat.

Since I’ve already admitted to being a male chauvinist pig, I will go ahead and admit that I could just sit and stare at Carrie Underwood all night, even if she never opened her mouth. Before you crucify me for that remark, I want you to know that Buster Davis said the same thing and he’s a whole lot nicer than me.

I guess I like the CMAs so much because country music performers have always struck me as a lot more genuine than those in other realms of the entertainment industry. They seem to be real close family, too — even though my daughter Jenna insists that Taylor Swift rolled her eyes when Miranda Lambert was named Female Vocalist of the Year. Of course, I have always called Jenna the Queen of the Eye-roll so I guess she should know one when she sees one. Taylor was all sweetness and light, of course, when she was named Entertainer of the Year.

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Right in the middle of the parody, Hank Jr. himself walked onto the stage. I’m here to tell you, he’s a big old boy, and he jumped right into the festivities and got the party started right.

I think my favorite part of the show, other than watching Carrie Underwood and the girl in the short purple dress who brought all the hardware out, was when Zac Brown and Gregg Allman teamed up to sing “Georgia on My Mind.” I’m pretty sure that Ray Charles was smiling down from heaven during that number.

I also liked the tribute to Glen Campbell. Old Glen has been through a lot lately and was recently diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. But when various country stars sang his golden hits, like “Galveston” and “Wichita Lineman” and “By the Time I Get to Phoenix,” he was able to pick up most of the words. It was a touching moment when they brought him up on stage.

I also loved the bit where Paisley and Underwood exchanged gifts. She got a Faith Hill “Barbie” and he got a Tim McGraw “Barbie” — which was supposedly anatomically correct and built to scale. In case you aren’t a country music fan, McGraw and Hill are husband and wife, and their reaction to the skit was priceless.

A lot of the old stars, like Reba McEntire, were on hand, of course, along with a lot of the new ones, like The Band Perry and Luke Bryan. They even had the guy from “Modern Family,” the one who reminds me of my boss, Greg Fowler, come out and give an award, although if he’s country, I’m a midget Russian astronaut.

All in all, it was a great evening and served to remind me, yet again, how proud I am of my roots. I may be American by birth, but I am purely Southern by the grace of God.

If you want to know how the economy is going without checking the Dow Jones Industrial Average, just look around for “yard sale” signs. When times are tough, a lot of folks start digging through their junk in hopes that it will become someone else’s treasure. Times must be tough because there seems to be a yard sale on every corner these days.

I would have one myself if I could A) find time to dig through all the junk in our attic, basement and closets and B) force myself to part with the few items I have that anyone might actually be willing to pay good money for.

My lovely wife Lisa went in with two of her friends and gave it a go a few years ago — at her friend’s house. I don’t know how much money she made, if any, but I am pretty sure we still have a lot of Lisa Boisseau’s knick-knacks sitting around our house. Lisa Boisseau was the hostess of the joint sale. I don’t know if she has any of our stuff sitting around her house or not.

I helped my mama have a yard sale once. It was hard work. She spent a week making labels and putting them on everything from glassware to aprons to 10-year-old clothes. When the big day arrived, we set up tables in the yard and set old furniture and small appliances all around and spread sheets out to put clothes on. She priced some things as low as a dime. Her big ticket item was an electric blanket that she was willing to part with for about five bucks. This was at least 15 years ago, understand, because she has been gone 12 years. Do people even use electric blankets anymore?

Naturally I whined and groused and complained all week and insisted that she was wasting her time. I was certain nobody would want anything that we were going to strew across her front yard. Of course, I was certain the electronic calculator would never replace the slide rule, either.

Nonetheless, we put an ad in the newspaper and stuck up a few obligatory signs on Friday night. My mother made me promise to be at her house bright and early on the Saturday morning of the sale. I am not sure what time I got there, but I distinctly remember stopping at Mamie’s Kitchen for a pork tenderloin biscuit and cup of coffee on the way and when I arrived at her house — at least 30 minutes before the appointed time — I couldn’t find a place to park and her would-be customers were anxiously going through her things as quickly as she could bring them out of the house.

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Honesty compels me to admit that I didn’t understand anything at all about the way these things were supposed to work. Everything had a price tag — everything. I marked the little stick-on labels and stuck them on myself. But what was on the label and what people wound up giving us for Mama’s junk seemed to have no correlation whatsoever. I think haggling over prices was part of the fun for most people.

Another curious thing was that Mama would let some stuff go for practically nothing — she might take 50 cents for a three dollar item, for instance — but she was adamant about other prices. If the tag said 15 cents then she was going to get 15 cents for it.

Once the morning rush subsided the traffic was pretty sporadic, but I don’t think there was ever a time when there wasn’t at least a couple of people poking around through our stuff. Some people actually asked to go inside and see if there were large items they might want to purchase. We declined those offers.

To my utter amazement, we sold almost everything she had on display and at the end of the day a guy in a rusty pick-up truck came by and gave us 10 bucks for everything that was left over. At the end of the day she had accumulated about $225. She told me that she used to work over a stand of looms for a month for that much money.

It makes you think, doesn’t it? Christmas is, after all, just around the corner and times certainly are tough. I do happen to check the Dow each day and maybe I need to start putting little stickers on my junk. I don’t have an electric blanket but I’m sure I have a fake mother-of-pearl framed mirror around the house somewhere.

Wow. You talk about a buzz kill! Sharnell really knows how to break up a good party.

I was having a great week, y’all — and was looking forward to an even better weekend. I was able to bask in the post-cocktail party glow. (My apologies to Dr. Adams; I didn’t touch a drop in Jacksonville. Promise!) We had beaten Florida and I had enjoyed a glorious weekend on St. Simons with close friends and family. Life was good.

I was looking forward to a great weekend, too — filled with food, fun and football — three of my favorite things. I would even get an extra hour of sleep Saturday night, thanks to Daylight-Saving Time ending.

There would be Friday night football. It was Senior Night, too. This year would prove to be particularly poignant, because there is a good chance I will be graduating with the Class of 2012.

You know what I like most about high school football on Friday night? I mean other than the football game itself — and the band — and the cheerleaders. I like the concession stand. I could gain 10 pounds standing behind the bleachers inhaling the aroma of the hamburgers on the grill — not to mention the hot dogs. And at our school they make nachos and fried chicken fingers and seasoned french fries! They still make popcorn the old-fashioned way, too.

Friday night lights are followed by Saturdays between the hedges — and Saturday in Athens means tailgating. It is time, once again, to let the “Big Dawg” eat — and the “Big Dawg,” in this case, would be me. Fried chicken, country ham, pork barbecue — you name it and I will eat it on a football Saturday — and being down to a fifth-string tailback doesn’t curtail my appetite one whit.

This week offered the bonus of following up Georgia’s Homecoming contest with the Game of the Century — between Alabama and LSU — on prime-time television. Obviously such a special game requires a special array of food.

We always eat a big breakfast on Sunday — and a big lunch — in preparation for an afternoon of couch potatoing — with pro football providing the background noise.

Those were my weekend plans — before Sharnell dashed cold water all over them. OK. I know. Time to explain.

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Sharnell and I were getting along famously at first. I learned that she was from Montezuma and a proud graduate of Macon County High School. I am familiar with Montezuma. It’s a good place and produces good people — like Sharnell. She completed her education in Chattanooga, Tenn. It’s a nice place, too.

She was friendly and gentle and when she filled that big syringe full of radioactive gunk and when she stuck the needle in my arm, I barely felt it. I am a big baby about needles, too. Sharnell was on the verge of becoming my best friend.

And then she gave me my orders for the rest of the weekend. That’s when she and I began to fall out. You see, I have to go back to the hospital Monday and Tuesday for a series of body scans, to see if we can trace the radioactive gunk and find out where those pesky cancer cells are hiding out. Apparently there are rules to follow when undergoing such tests.

First was the food thing. This nice young Montezuma lady forbade me to have beef, pork or chicken for five days. I could have fish as long as it wasn’t fried. Why bother?

Are you kidding me? An entire football weekend without a burger, a piece of chicken or a barbecued pork pig sandwich?

And that wasn’t the worst of it. She sent me to the store to pick up not one, but two, bottles of Magnesium Citrate and two Fleet — well, you know what Fleet makes. I was supposed to start using the Magnesium Citrate Saturday morning.

Does she not know how far it is from Section 108, row 50 to the nearest men’s room? Woe is me. When I voiced my displeasure, Sharnell asked me if I wanted to enjoy the football weekend or get well. I was reminded of the whole Jack Benny bit. A robber accosted the notorious cheapskate with the choice, “Your money or your life.” Benny pondered a while before responding, “I’m thinking. I’m thinking.”

I’ll deal with Sharnell on Monday. Meanwhile, keep those prayers coming, y’all. They really do help.

You’re welcome to the interstates. Nothing beats driving along the blue lines on the map — those smaller roads that meander through the countryside.Last weekend I had the opportunity to drive home from the Georgia coast and instead of joining the throngs on Interstate 95 and Interstate16, I drove cross country through some of the most beautiful farm land I have ever seen. I didn’t realize that we still grow so much cotton in Georgia.

We drove through or by-passed a lot of towns with familiar names and doing so brought back fond memories of trips to the coast I used to take with my parents when times were simpler and there were no interstate highways. We went through Jesup and Eastman and Surrency and saw signs pointing toward Hazlehurst and Hawkinsville and Reidsville.

We didn’t go through Reidsville, but I wish we had. It holds a soft spot in my heart and always will — and not because the state prison is there. Reidsville was the hometown of one of the most influential people in my entire life — my first-grade teacher, Miss Ruby Jordan, who was also my second-grade teacher, too.

Miss Jordan was up in years when I began my formal education in 1958. There was no kindergarten in Porterdale in 1958 and preschool for 4-year-olds hadn’t been thought of, so I began my schooling in the first grade. I couldn’t have had a better teacher.

Educating our children — or attempting to do so — has become a frustrating task in the 21st century. There are so many mandates from above — and I mean all the way to Washington, D.C. — by people who really don’t understand what really goes on in the classroom, that we are rapidly losing sight of the fact that the professional educator is the most valuable asset in our quest to educate and inspire the young people upon whom the future of the republic rests.

Miss Ruby Jordan was a professional in every sense of the word. She taught because she loved teaching children. Think about that for a moment. She didn’t love teaching reading or writing or arithmetic — she loved teaching children — and was great at it.

Ruby Jordan understood that each child was different and that each child had different needs. She realized that everybody doesn’t learn the same things at the same time in the same way. Let me give you a for instance.

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But she didn’t just recognize my strengths. She also recognized my weaknesses, which were legion, and made sure that they were addressed as well. She didn’t elevate me above other students and she didn’t lower me below other students. She treated me — she treated all of us — as individuals, and made sure our needs were met, to the best of her ability.

The actual knowledge she imparted to me and the 30-some-odd little lintheads that were my classmates was secondary to the more important life lessons she helped us learn — and there is a difference between teaching and helping someone learn. She taught us discipline. She taught us to respect ourselves and one another. She taught us that learning could be fun. She taught us to be proud of ourselves and our parents.

It’s funny what people remember. I remember that several times a year we had to fill out various forms that called for our parents’ occupation. Miss Jordan taught us to put “textiles” in that form. When she had to get someone told, and from time to time all teachers have to get someone told, she would add onto her admonishment, “put that in your pipe and smoke it.”

I will never forget the day she told me that she was ashamed of me — for getting in a fight, of all things. I wish I could say that I never got in another fight after that. I guess I could say it, but I’d be lying.

All these thoughts and many others raced through my mind as we passed near Reidsville last Sunday and I started to suggest going to the local cemetery there and searching for Ruby Jordan’s grave. I would love to find it and pay my respects. I didn’t, but I wish I had. Perhaps next time.

In the meantime I can only hope that somehow she knew, before they put her in that grave, how much she meant to so many children just like me.

I’ve never been much of a joiner. I joined the Boy Scouts of America when I was 8 and the Methodist Church when I was 12. That’s about it — unless the PTA counts. Surely I have a PTA membership card stashed away in a desk drawer somewhere.

They sent me a membership card for the AARP when I turned 50. I filled out the form and sent it in, just to see who all they would sell my information to. I never sent them a payment but I get an awful lot of mail addressed to Brother Darrell Lee Huckaby, Esq.

Thursday afternoon I joined another club. The FOFC — Fat Old Fools’ Club. Actually, the founder calls it something else, but I wasn’t sure I could write “old farts” in a family newspaper.

I was recruited into the organization while walking on the East Beach on St. Simon’s Island. I was in town for a family reunion, held in conjunction with the annual humility seminar held on the banks on the St. Johns River every October and ran across the club headquarters, housed under a red tent near the King and Prince.

The president of the club happens to be an old friend of mine. He shall remain nameless, but he is a graduate of Clark Central High School and fellow educator. Like me, he used to coach girls’ basketball but several years ago he went over to the dark side and is now an administrator.

The qualifications for membership in the FOFC are pretty simple. You have to be old — see above reference. I’m practically 60, so I qualify. You have to be fat, obviously. 200 pounds is the minimum. They pretended to believe me when I claimed to weigh less, but only because I’ve been sick and they were feeling sorry for me. None of the other men under the canvas needed such a dispensation, trust me.

The other qualifications are that you have to have seen at least 200 Georgia football games. We’re talking in the stadium, not on television. You also have to have been to at least five bowl games and to have actually seen Georgia beat Florida in Jacksonville.

I qualified on every level and asked them to put me down for a lifetime membership.

What, you might ask, does one do when one becomes a member of the FOFC? I’m glad you asked. Basically, as far as I can tell, you sit in the sun — or the shade, if you prefer — and enjoy cold beverages while watching people and swapping stories. Any degree of truth in said stories appears to be purely optional.
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Let the record state that the inaugural meeting was a rousing success. We attracted new members from near and far — Athens, Conyers, Porterdale — and even the northern extremities of Gwinnett County.

The people-watching was extraordinary. Georgia Bulldog fans come in all shapes and sizes. And ages. One octogenarian attempted to join our happy group. We were relieved that he only weighed 78 pounds and thus didn’t qualify. We didn’t mind that he was in his 80s, but the Speedo he wore beneath his tank top gave us pause.

Honesty compels me to admit that I tried to avoid watching some of the more appealing people on the beach (it was 84 degrees, by the way), because the president’s wife and teen-aged daughter were in attendance. I didn’t mind them knowing that I was a fat old fool but I didn’t want them thinking I was a dirty old man.

But the stories! The stories were quite grand and got taller and taller with each telling. Of course, stuff got deeper and deeper, too — and that was before the tide came in.

Sadly, I was the oldest person in the group. I saw my first game when Wally Butts was still roaming the sidelines. Most of the others started watching in the 1960s, but more than made up for what they lacked in longevity with experience.

One bunch had been to virtually every game during Mark Richt’s tenure and tried to relive every win. Their memories were a bit murky about some of the details of some of the games, however. As the meeting moved along I could understand why.

The president finally adjourned the meeting around suppertime. I think the shrimp and oysters at the Crab Trap were calling his name. He promised that we would reconvene at 10:30 Friday morning, however, and the second meeting was even better than the first.

And we are not an exclusive club. Everyone is welcome, as long as you meet the criteria. Next meeting is the fourth Thursday in November, 2012. Y’all come. The Lord willing, I’ll be there.

I have been accused, from time to time, of being a wild and crazy guy, if I may borrow a phrase from the classic Steve Martin Saturday Night Live skits of a bygone day. At least I was in my younger days. I have done some pretty stupid things on a dare. I would tell you about a few of them, except my children read this column from time to time and I’m not sure how long the statute of limitations is on some of the stuff I did, particularly while I was a college student at UGA.

I don’t want (UGA Police chief) Jimmy Williamson knocking on my door in the middle of the night to settle old scores. What’s that old adage? Let sleeping dogs lie?

But on the wildest, craziest, most carefree night of my life, I have never been crazy enough to get myself in the situation an old boy out it Vallejo, Calif., did last week. This guy bet his buddies a hundred bucks that he could fit inside a baby swing in Blue Rock Springs Park.

How does something like that come up? Does someone just look at the swing and at their friend’s carcass and say, “Nobody could ever get their rear end into that small, tiny swing?”

That would be like saying, “Nobody could ever get that Coke machine in the back of a Volkswagen” or “Nobody could ride a motorcycle up one side of the Georgia Coliseum and down the other!” I’m not saying I have any knowledge of anyone ever doing such things. I’m not saying I don’t, though.

But we were talking about last week in California. None of the reports I read about the incident indicated whether alcohol was involved, but I’d say it was a safe bet that it was. This guy was nothing if he wasn’t determined. He meant to win his buddies’ bucks, understand. He went to the store and got some liquid laundry detergent. He used this as a lubricant. He wanted to get real slippery, so he could get into — and presumably out of, said swing.

Next he took off his pants — come to think of it, I’m just about certain that alcohol had to be involved — and sure enough — he got himself all the way into the little baby swing. I’m sure this fellow had studied the laws of physics at some point in his educational career. He was probably aware of natural laws like, what goes up must come down and an object in motion tends to stay in motion. He probably extrapolated those laws to include what goes into a swing must come out of a swing.
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Only he doesn’t. Or, at least in his case, it didn’t. He got in, but he couldn’t get himself out. He was stuck like the proverbial bug in a rug — or like a big man in a baby swing.

Now when I read about this stunt I tried and tried to imagine a scenario in which, at some point in my life, I could have wound up like this guy. Honesty compels me to admit that there was a day — a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away — when I might have been coerced into attempting such a stunt. Like I said, I have done a lot of strange things on a dare. But I could not imagine, under any circumstances, a situation in which my friends would have left me in the lurch like this guys’ friends left him.

That’s right. Once he got stuck in the swing, his so-called friends split and left him there — in the park, in the dark — all night long. I guess they thought it was funny at the time. But think about the poor guy. He was there for nine hours — without his pants — stuck in a swing. Can you imagine what must have gone through his head during that time? I bet he plotted all sorts of revenge on the guys who left him there.

The next morning, at dawn’s early light, I suppose, a park maintenance man came around and found our guy squalling like one of the babies that are supposed to fit in the swing. The park custodian summoned the police, who were unable to extricate him. They in turn called the local fire department and they saved the day, by cutting the chains away from the swing. His ordeal wasn’t over, though. He had to be taken to a local hospital where the swing was cut away from his backside with a cast cutter.

You can’t make this stuff up, y’all.

At least he’ll have a good story to tell people — once he gets over the embarrassment. I just hope he got his hundred dollars in advance, because with friends like his, he doesn’t need any enemies.

We, as a people, take a lot of stuff for granted these days. For instance, we are no longer amazed that we can turn a knob — or, actually, press a button on a remote control — and watch a football game being beamed live from 2,000 miles away, or a dictator being overthrown from halfway around the world. I still remember the first show I watched on a television set. It was a dramatization of “Little Red Riding Hood” and I was scared to go to sleep at night for weeks.

We take central heat for granted, too. At least I do. If the house is cold I just run my finger along a thermostat control and before you can say Jack Robinson I am warm as a bug in a rug — until my lovely wife, Lisa, comes along and turns it back down again. Not so the humble abode of my childhood. We had one gas space heater in our little house and it was turned off at bedtime, lest the pilot light go out in the middle of the night and cause us all to be asphyxiated by the gas fumes.

Don’t laugh. I lost an uncle that way.

I will never take my flush toilet for granted and if you have ever had to put on a winter coat and a pair of shoes to go to the bathroom at night, you won’t either — but you get my drift. We are truly living in remarkable times and should be amazed every single day at the amazing technological advances that we have experienced over the last four or five decades.

Speaking of taking things for granted, consider the modern grocery store. They aren’t your mama and daddy’s Big Apple or Colonial Store — I can tell you that. They don’t have savings stamps these days but they have a wider variety of foods than those of my parents’ generation could have ever imagined.

Thursday was grocery day in our house when I was coming up and my daddy, who worked on the second shift in the Osprey Mill, did the shopping in the morning, when the stores weren’t crowded. I loved going with him in the summer, when I wasn’t at school. Daddy had a system for buying groceries. He would go up and down the aisles, buying the “specials” first, calculating in his head the amount of money he had spent.

Next he would visit the meat counter, and the amount of money left in his budget would determine the cuts of meat he would buy. Supermarkets had butchers on duty in those days and if a customer didn’t see a cut of meat that suited him — or her — the butcher would trim something up, right on the spot. After visiting the meat counter we would hit the produce department — where they also had a person on duty to weigh up the selection, bag it, and put a price on it.
#We would buy the milk last so it wouldn’t be out of the cooler for very long and Daddy was extremely vigilant about checking the expiration date — something I have inherited from him.
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Of course in those days there were no scanners. The checker had to ring up the purchases by hand and there was a bagger to load the groceries into paper bags — or boxes, if you preferred. Homer Huckaby loved to do math in his head and he would whisper his estimate to me before the clerk told him the final amount. He was seldom off by more than a few cents.

I don’t do all the grocery shopping at our house, but I do at least half of it — and a lot of the cooking, too. I don’t make one trip a week to the market, though. I go almost every day — and when I stop to think about the vast array of food available at the typical American grocery store — which I don’t do that frequently — I am truly amazed.

We have an abundance of fresh produce, year-round. We don’t have to wait until the 4th of July to buy watermelon. You can buy a slice today if you want to — and we can buy oranges in June and cantaloupes in April and we can purchase varieties of fruits and vegetables that I didn’t even know existed when I was a kid.

They have delicatessens in most grocery stores and fresh seafood and bakeries and anything and everything you could ever think of to take home to cook — not to mention fresh flowers and helium balloons and prescription drugs.

Yep, we really do live in the land of plenty, and most of the time most of us probably take it all for granted. Of course there is a downside to all this progress.

I have cable television but there’s nothing on that compares to “I Love Lucy.” I have central heat, but haven’t owned a robe or bedroom shoes since we got wall-to-wall carpet. And shopping is a pleasure at my local grocery store — but they don’t have a butcher behind the meat counter or a produce man, and just try to find a jar of pickled peaches!

I guess sometimes progress isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

“All glory is fleeting,” thus sayeth the Roman Emperors returning from their conquests. If you believe the Hollywood version of “Patton,” that is. Last week, yet another tyrannical despot learned that lesson the hard way — along with a more important lesson, humans, even despots, are mortal. Everybody dies.

It is always interesting to observe the behavior of these bullies in their final moments. None seem particularly brave when they have to face their enemies without benefit of the goons they have hired to protect them. Hitler, for instance, took the coward’s way out and committed suicide, once he realized his demise was imminent.

Saddam Hussein was taken alive, hiding like a rat in a spider hole. It is interesting that he had almost a million dollars in cash with him. Dollars, mind you — not Euros. He was also armed, but chose not to shoot it out with the American soldier who took him prisoner. It is reported that he identified himself as “Saddam Hussein, president of Iraq” and then offered to negotiate.

It has also been reported — or at least rumored — that the soldier who pulled him out of the hole responded, “I am from the United States Army. President Bush sends his regards — and you are under arrest, you SOB.” I have no idea if that is true, but I hope it is.

Saddam terrorized millions of people and was responsible for the death of hundreds of thousands of others, but in the end he was just another two-bit dictator with a hood over his head and a rope around his neck. He didn’t look particularly powerful, wealthy or intimidating standing on the gallows.

Osama bin Laden looked fearless during his hate-filled rants aired so frequently over the Al-Jazeera television network. Some reports say he tried to hide behind a woman when Navy Seals infiltrated his lair last May. When they dumped his body in the ocean, I don’t think they wrapped up any of his great wealth in the burial shroud.

And now Moammar Gadhafi is dead. Another dictator bites the dust, and like most of his counterparts throughout history, he did not go quietly into the dark night of death. He was captured, appropriately enough, hiding in a sewer, in his hometown of Sirte. Ironically he was armed with a golden gun. He reportedly pleaded for his life, begging his captors not to shoot him. He kept insisting that the actions of his captors were in violation of Islam law. He asked them, “Don’t you know right from wrong?”

Now that’s ironic.

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I heard the news about Gadhafi’s death the same way I hear everything these days. I got a text. Honesty compels me to admit that I wasn’t filled with jubilation, as I was when I heard that Saddam Hussein had been found or that Bin Laden had been killed. Those revelations came as more of a surprise. It was a foregone conclusion that Moammar’s days were numbered, and it was a matter of “when” not “if” he would be found.

Do you want to know, truthfully, what my first thoughts were? The very first thing that came to mind was Ronald Reagan and his failed attempt to rid the world of Gadhafi in 1986. I don’t know how things work where The Gipper is spending eternity, but I hope President Reagan is aware of what happened. Maybe he got to have a handful of jelly beans to celebrate.

Then I thought about the innocent souls who died at Gadhafi’s hands aboard that airliner that exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988.

And then I thought about the late great Atlanta Constitution columnist and Southern icon, Lewis Grizzard. Back in 1986, Grizzard recorded a hilarious standup bit about Gadhafi in which he explained what the Libyan dictator’s name really meant. According to Grizzard it means “do-do pot.”

Grizzard also explained why Gadhafi was in such a perpetual foul mood. He just spent too much time, according to Lewis, with sand in his under-drawers. I don’t know how Lewis celebrated the news of Moammar’s demise, but I bet he toasted the occasion with something a little stronger than jelly beans.

Gadhafi terrorized much of the world for more than four decades and accumulated a vast amount of ill-gotten wealth. Today he isn’t scary at all and all of his worldly wealth was left behind.

“All glory is fleeting.”