Category: Darrell Huckaby

I know one thing. That stuff wouldn’t have gone over in Harper Valley!

I am referring now to the PTA scandal that was uncovered at E. Rivers Elementary School in Buckhead this week. That’s the Atlanta Buckhead, understand — not the deer hunting Buckhead in Morgan County.

It turns out that more than $53,000 went missing from the school’s Parent Teacher Association foundation. I first heard of the story Wednesday while watching the morning news on WSB, in hopes that Karen Minton would promise more rain for my parched yard and garden.

She didn’t.

When I heard the story two questions popped immediately into my head. One — if $53,000 was embezzled from the PTA, how much money was in their account to begin with? And two — how do you get a job at that school?

My mind also began to wander down memory lane — something it is more and more wont to do these days — to the PTA programs of my childhood at Porterdale School. Let me say this. WSB had a live feed of some moms walking into the PTA meeting at E. Rivers in Buckhead and I promise, none of the moms who walked into the Porterdale School auditorium in the 1950s looked anything like those ladies!

Once again I asked myself, “How do you get a job at that school?”

PTA night was a big deal back in Porterdale. Mill folks were serious about their children getting an education — and hopefully one that would not involve looms or twisters or breathing the foul air of the card room. I was admonished every morning to “mind the teacher” and “behave myself,” the general consensus being that if I did those two things, learning would take care of itself.

After 38 years as a classroom teacher, I can testify with complete confidence that the general consensus was spot on.

Since the parents in Porterdale were serious about their children’s educations, they were serious about doing whatever they could to support the school and the school’s faculty, and one of the main things they could do was become active in the PTA.
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Meetings were held once a month. Attendance was always high. Cookies and punch were served and parents were urged to leave the children at home — unless said children were performing in some way, of course, or receiving an award.

I must have performed often because I don’t have any awards sitting around the house that I received at PTA and I remember going to a lot of meetings. Honesty compels me to admit that they were pretty boring affairs for the most part. Miss Jordy Tanner, our principal and the only person I have ever known with eyes in the back of her head, usually spoke and had a wish list of items she hoped the PTA could purchase or projects she hoped they could complete.

Jordy Tanner was wanting items like extra Popsicle sticks and library paste, understand, for crafts. I can assure you that she never asked for $53,000 worth of anything!

Once in a great while a bit of controversy might erupt during the meeting. One mother raised a big stink once because they couldn’t seem to keep toilet paper in the bathroom. She had sent a whole case to the school but her child’s teacher kept it in the cloak room and dispensed it as needed. The lady was upset because her child was embarrassed because he had to carry the roll of TP down the hall when he had to go and in her words, “Everybody who saw him knew why he was going.”

I was only 8, but even I was smart enough to know that if the dude was going to the bathroom during class he was going to do one of two things. Nonetheless, she started a big rigmarole at the PTA meeting.

Let me insert right here that I never had a problem with carrying toilet paper down the hallway of the school. In fact, I looked forward to it. We were still using pages of the Sears-Roebuck catalogue at the house.

The highlight of each PTA meeting was the room count. Each teacher would stand up and then all of that teacher’s parents who were in attendance would stand and be counted. There was a cash prize for the teacher with the best class attendance — to be used for supplies for the room, of course — and the competition was stiff. Miss Lucy Robinson’s room always seemed to win and my mama insisted that she must be bribing her kids with nickel cups of ice cream or something.

Life was a lot different in 1958. At least some school somewhere has an active group of parents and the good news is that most of the stolen money has apparently been recovered. I am glad, too, because you can buy a lot of Popsicle sticks and library paste for $53,000.

And I’d still like to know how you get a job at that school.

Finally — a bill I can believe in!

In case you missed the hoopla, Gov. Nathan Deal affixed his signature Monday to House Bill 861 which requires applicants for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families to pass a drug test — once — before receiving benefits. We are fixing to drug test welfare recipients, in other words. It’s about time.

But as Lee Corso would say–“Not so fast my friend.”

As you might expect, this new Georgia law has not been universally applauded. Go ahead and round up the usual suspects — the American Civil Liberties, for example, and the Southern Center for Human Rights — because they are threatening to file lawsuits against the state of Georgia and the new law and tie things up in court for years.

Civil liberties? Human rights? Which right do you suppose these organizations are championing? The right to use illegal drugs or the right to live on the public dole? I don’t think they will be able to make a case to convince me of either argument — particularly on the day that I filed my most recent income tax return.

Know what the first law ever made in what would become the United States was? “Thou who dost not work dost not eat.” Captain John Smith came up with that one and it was a humdinger. It saved the Jamestown colony from extinction. Somewhere along the line that law became “Thou who dost not work may sitteth on thy lazy arses while the rest of us feedeth thou.”

Save your breath and your ink. I am not against helping people who need help. I support our local food banks and all sorts of charitable institutions that help people who have fallen on hard times. I am merely against the government taking money from hard working individuals and giving it to dead beats — and anyone who has money to spend on illegal drugs doesn’t need my money to feed their family.

According to research this bill will save the state of Georgia almost $2 million a year by reducing the number of applicants for the program. They won’t even apply, understand, if they know they will have to take a drug test. The test costs $17, by the way, and the applicants are required to foot the bill themselves.

If you aren’t doing drugs you have nothing to fear. If you are, clean your act up and then apply. Sounds reasonable to me. And you only have to pass the sucker once.

Apparently there is a great disparity between what I find reasonable and what the ACLU and SCHR find reasonable. They claim that this new law is a clear violation of the Fourth Amendment.
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Really? This is what the Fourth Amendment says.

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable search and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the person or things to be seized.”

These agencies are convinced they can find an activist judge who will declare that a drug test is a violation of the implied privacy of the Fourth Amendment. In the immortal words of former governor Lester Maddox, “Phooey.”

I think the key word here is “unreasonable.” This law does not profile or accuse or choose people at random. It is to be equally applied to all. If you want to ask the rest of the people to help you support your family I think it is perfectly reasonable for the rest of the people to ask you to prove that you are a law-abiding citizen who is not wasting the resources you have at your disposal on illicit drugs.

Goodness gracious, y’all. You can’t even play football at Georgia if you use drugs — at least not in the first couple of games. Why should you be able to eat at the public trough?

Our neighbors to the South passed a similar law last year. They were the first state to do so. It is currently under challenge in the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. A Florida judge suspended their law until the outcome of the appeals is determined. The opponents of the Georgia law claim that that is reason enough for the governor to have vetoed House Bill 861.

Bull feathers.

Our elected officials are charged with looking after the public trust. A part of the public trust is to spend the people’s money wisely. I think this is a much needed step in the right direction. Maybe one day we will realize that “we the people” are not entitled to spend other folks’ money and that “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” doesn’t include the right to toke up while living on the public dole.

I know. I know. But a guy can dream.

After much research and a considerable amount of thought, I have finally figured out what is wrong with society. We don’t spend nearly enough time sitting around the kitchen table. I’m serious about this thing, y’all, and I’m not just talking about eating supper, either.

Folks used to entertain in the kitchen and the kitchen table was the centerpiece of the home. People seldom come and visit us. There are a variety of reasons why they don’t. For one thing, it’s next to impossible to catch us at home, and if we are at home we are usually far too busy to sit down and visit, and, yes, I realize what a shame that is. We don’t get a chance to invite people over to visit often enough because our house is always so messy that we’d be embarrassed to have company — the price we pay for living the suburban lifestyle of the 21st century.

When we do invite folks over, we don’t sit around the kitchen table. We often go into the great room and stare at our giant television screen, whether something is on that is worth watching or not. Talk about a conversation killer! Try talking to a friend about a subject of substance while some girl in a bikini is being covered with tarantulas and scorpions.

If neighbors drop by unexpectedly and the great room is more than 3 inches deep in dust or dirty clothes we might sit outside on the deck, which creates another whole set of problems. Right now, of course, there is the pollen issue. A guy came by the other day and I invited him to sit a spell on the back porch. He left an hour later with an inch-and-a-half of yellow residue stuck to his hair and clothing.

And I wouldn’t dare invite someone to come in and sit down around the kitchen table. To begin with, we would have trouble finding it. Even as I speak I know without looking that my table is piled high with mail, sweaters, and jackets, not to mention newspapers, magazines and assorted athletic apparatus. The kitchen counters are probably piled high with dishes, and I’m sure the panty door is wide open, with the contents bulging out into the room. Don’t even get me started on the desk by the kitchen door. Trust me — our kitchen is not conducive to casual entertaining.

The erectile dysfunction is not a curse to them and that is why they don’t like to share such cheap sildenafil uk problems with their partner. cialis tadalafil tablets Acai contains plenty of dietary fiber, which helps to improve your skin tone. Check Out Your unica-web.com tadalafil tablets The conclusion of this article is that erectile dysfunction medicines are available in the market, each claiming to be better than its predecessor in several other characteristics. As the initial step in making a number of men faces it is erectile dysfunction actually? Erectile dysfunction is a generic sildenafil type of disease that are of Ayurvedic type and the work of the Montgolfier Brothers that had managed to invent a hot air balloon that could carry both animals and human beings successfully eventually found its major recognition by this type of balloon being named Montgolfere after. Mama’n’em — now that was a different story. Tommie Huckaby had a little cross-stitched piece on the wall of her kitchen that read “No matter where I serve my guests, it seems they like my kitchen best.” They did, too. Throughout her entire life she spent most of her waking day in the kitchen and when friends came by — as they frequently did — she would invite them to sit down at the kitchen table. They would drink a cup of coffee — or three — and solve the problems of the world.

On Saturday nights — or on special occasions, such as New Year’s Eve — couples would come over for supper and once the dishes were cleared away everyone would invariably gather around that kitchen table, sip drinks a little stronger than Maxwell House coffee, and swap stories long into the night. And I’ve never seen happier or more harmonious people than the ones that would gather around that little kitchen table in Porterdale.

When my daddy and most of my parents’ friends were long gone, my mama still spent most of her time sitting at that same kitchen table. Her kitchen always looked the same. There was a ledge under the window that always held an African violet or two, pictures of her grandchildren and the little music box that played “It’s a Small, Small World” that she bought at the 1964 World’s Fair in New York. On the table itself there was a napkin holder, of course, full of paper napkins, and a little toothpick holder full of toothpicks. How many of y’all have toothpicks and napkins sitting on your kitchen tables right this minute? If my mama were still alive, she would. I guarantee it. And a bottle of Tobasco, of course. There might be some sort of piece work — crocheting or knitting, and perhaps a Reader’s Digest — but I guarantee you, even though she might answer your knock on the door with “Come in if you can get in!” there was never a need to scramble around and make things presentable. They already were.

Of course she wasn’t as busy doing all the important things we do these days. All she had to do most of her adult life was to work a stand of looms eight hours a day, cook supper every night, wash clothes, clean the house, sew, and raise a family. That and sit around her kitchen table, visiting with her friends and family.

#I wish I were as smart as my mama.

So Arthur Blank wants a new playpen for his football team — and on the taxpayer’s dime. Are you kidding me? The Georgia Dome is not good enough for the Atlanta Falcons? I don’t think Arthur Blank grew up like I did. If he had he would be a lot more impressed with his team’s surroundings.

I love athletics and I love visiting stadiums. I’ve been to at least a hundred. On a recent visit to Houston, my lovely wife, Lisa, and I made a stop in Baton Rouge to pay homage to LSU’s Tiger Stadium. They have a one-animal zoo right outside the main gate where we found Mike the Tiger holding court. He ain’t Uga, but he is an impressive animal. We were lucky enough to run across an assistant football coach who let us inside the stadium — on a Sunday morning — and onto the field.

My first encounter with an athletic facility was Snow Field in Porterdale. It is now, quite fittingly, known as B.C. Crowell Park. I tried out for Little League on Snow Field. There were lots and lots of sandspurs in right field, where I spent most of my time. I also watched Blunt Patterson pitch a thousand softball games on Snow Field.

We also had the “big league ballpark” in Porterdale, down by the Yellow River. It had a covered grandstand and everything. Once in a great while B.C. Crowell — see above reference — would take our P.E. classes there to play and sometimes Ronald Bradley would bring his Newton Ram baseball team out to Porterdale to play. I saw Tim Christian pitch against Hart County in the state play-offs at the big league ballpark in Porterdale.

The first actual “stadium” I visited was Ponce De Leon Park, in Atlanta — right across the street from Sears-Roebuck. The Crackers played there back when the Crackers were the New York Yankees of the Minor Leagues. I felt like the luckiest boy on the planet the first time my daddy took me to see the Crackers play. There was a magnolia tree in center field. The tree was in play.

That was nothing, of course, compared to the first time he took me to Athens to watch the Georgia Bulldogs play football. We didn’t actually go inside Sanford Stadium, understand. That cost more money than we had. We sat on the railroad tracks and looked down onto the field. Our tailgate was a couple of mayonnaise sandwiches wrapped in wax papers. Mama fixed me a fruit jar full of iced tea. I guess Daddy was drinking water because the contents of his fruit jar was clear. I have since been inside Sanford Stadium once or twice.

I was at the first baseball game ever played in Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, and I still don’t understand why they tore it down. Ed Hertwig took his son, Craig, and me to the exhibition between the Braves and Detroit Tigers, and if I live to be a hundred I will never forget how green the grass looked or how blue the seats were. I fell in love with the facility that would become known as the Launching Pad and for the next 30 years went there every chance I got.

David Hancock took me to the last game ever played in Atlanta Stadium. It was a World Series contest against the New York Yankees. The Braves lost.
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I was excited to see the new stadium, Turner Field, and I must admit that it is quite fancy. It has that old-fashioned ballpark field plus every modern bell and whistle that could be thought of in 1996, when it was constructed for the Olympic Games. My first baseball game there was 1997. Two weeks later I went to Chicago and watched the Braves play the Cubs in Wrigley Field.

They didn’t have any bells or whistles but they had ivy-covered brick walls and a hand-operated scoreboard and dollar Cokes. Better luck next time, Ted.

I have been to lots and lots of other stadiums, too — including the original Yankee Stadium, in 1970.

And, yes, I have been to the Georgia Dome on a number of occasions. Honesty compels me to admit that I haven’t seen the Falcons play there, but I saw Olympic gymnastics in the building — anyone remember Kerri Strug? I have also been to several SEC Championship games, a butt-whipping at the hands of Boise State and even a Sugar Bowl game.

I have also been to several of the bowl games formerly known as Peach in the Georgia Dome, and if anyone remembers the Peach Bowl games that used to be held in Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium you will know why Arthur Blank needs to abandon the notion of an open-air football stadium in Atlanta. The Georgia Dome is just fine.

But if the Falcons are insistent that the taxpayers build them a new facility I suggest that we the people make them the following deal. We will spring for a new open-air stadium as soon as Atlanta wins a Super Bowl, or when hell freezes over — whichever comes first.

In the meantime, I think I’ll drive down to Ponce De Leon Avenue and look around. They tell me the magnolia tree is still alive.

This past Sunday the eyes of the world were on Augusta as a good ol’ boy named Bubba — a former Georgia Bulldog who never had a single golf lesson in his life — pulled off an improbable hook shot off the pine straw and through a narrow tunnel of trees and people, to win a playoff and earn the right to wear the most coveted garment in the world of sports. When he exclaimed “Go Dawgs!” during the green jacket ceremony people were barking from Rabun Gap to Tybee Light. He also evoked the name of Jesus during his interview — fitting for an event that concluded on Easter Sunday evening.

Even those people who began the week pulling for a resurgence by the recently deposed King of Golf, Eldrin Woods, were generally pleased by the way the final round unfolded — and most of those who found themselves pulling for Phil Mickelson as the day began became Bubba followers before it ended.

April 8, 2012, will go down in history as one of the greatest in the storied sports history of our fair state.

But when you wake up tomorrow morning you might want to take a look at your calendar — or on the masthead of your newspaper. The date will read April 12 — which back in 1945 was a pretty big day in our state’s history, too. On that date in history the eyes of the world were focused on Georgia, too — but not on the city on the eastern edge of the fall line.

There was no Masters in 1945. For the third consecutive year the event had been cancelled, in deference to World War II. No, on April 12, 1945, you would need to look about 200 miles to the west and south — to the small little hamlet of Warm Springs — to learn what all the fuss was about.

The Germans were all but defeated. Adolph Hitler would die of a self-inflicted gunshot wound before the month ended. In the Pacific, we and our allies were locked in a death struggle on Okinawa that would cost over 100,000 lives before it was settled in June — and back here at home our Commander-in-Chief, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, was having his portrait painted at his vacation home when he complained of a “terrific headache.”

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The nation was shocked to learn of FDR’s death. Although his health had been deteriorating rapidly since returning from the Yalta Conference a few weeks earlier, his condition had been kept secret from the public. He was only 63 at the time of his passing, but seemed much older. He had been president for 12 years at the time of his death — longer by four years than anyone in history — and was five weeks into his fourth term when he died.

Roosevelt’s legacy continues to be debated to this very day. To some he was a savior. Even though it was the U.S.’s entry into World War II and not the New Deal that ended the Great Depression, Roosevelt did give hope and inspiration to many. He provided them jobs when they had had none — even though it was government-sponsored “make work” which did little or nothing to revive the economy. He turned the lights on in the rural South with his Rural Electrification and the TVA and through his radio broadcasts — his “fireside chats” — he convinced many Americans that he really did “feel their pain” decades before Bill Clinton coined the phrase.

To hear others talk you would think that Roosevelt was akin to Lucifer himself. They blame him for laying the groundwork for the modern welfare state and dependence on government entitlement. They claim that he was power-hungry and no friend of the Constitution. They point to his scheme to try and circumvent the system of checks and balances by packing the Supreme Court with his on appointees. They castigate him for eschewing the precedent established by George Washington that presidents should step down after two terms by running for — and winning — a third and fourth term.

But on the day he died the nation universally mourned the man who told us that the only thing we had to fear was “fear itself.” The famous picture of Graham Jackson playing “Going Home” on the accordion, with tears streaming down his face, epitomizes the emotions most Americans felt in that day.

So we have a tale of two Georgia springs — one joyful, one sad. One a passing footnote, one of historical significance. Each worth mentioning in their own right.

I always think about Wayne Doster on Easter. It’s not because his daughter Paige is one of my favorite human beings, either. I think about Paige whether bunnies and colored eggs are part of the motif or not.

Wayne Doster was a Porterdale boy, although I am not sure his son, Jud, admits that. He and I were raised in the same church — Julia A. Porter Methodist. Although “memorial” and “united” and maybe even a few designations I have forgotten about were attached to the title at one time or another, we usually just referred to it as Julia A. Porter.

Wayne was about a half-a-generation older than me. Y’all know how that is. When you are 8 years old a person who is 15 seems like a grown man, so I have no idea exactly how much older than me he actually was. I do know that his wife, Glenda, was my lovely wife Lisa’s second-grade teacher. Everyone knows that I robbed the cradle, however, so that sheds little light on the subject.

The point is, when I was growing up Wayne Doster was somebody I looked up to. He was smart and funny and good-looking — he was everything an impressionable and ambitious young person could ever hope to emulate. Except for being a Tech man that is. I don’t know what got into Wayne and his brother Doug, another of my childhood heroes, when it came to choosing collegiate allegiance.

Wayne grew up and left home and I seldom saw him — except at Homecoming every October and camp meeting every August — for a decade or so. Then I grew up — some would debate that — and moved to Conyers, where Wayne and Glenda resided, and we were once again united in church membership — at Conyers First United Methodist.

It turns out that nothing had really changed. Wayne Doster was still a person that I could look up to. He was a pillar of the local community, had a beautiful wife and a great family and he worked for Coca-Cola. Who wouldn’t want to work for Coca-Cola?

Of course, he was still a Tech man, but nobody’s perfect.

I taught the young married Sunday school class back then, when all the members were young and recently married. That was a quarter-of-a-century ago, understand — and from time to time I would ask Wayne to come in and lead a monthlong series for us. I learned at an early age about killing two birds with one stone — my apologies to the PETA people and the environmentalists for my insensitivity. When Wayne came in to teach, I got a break and the class got a much better teacher. Win-win.

None of the above has anything to do with why I think about Wayne Doster every Easter morning. No, that goes back to a hot August night, the last summer that Wayne was alive. Camp meeting at Salem had begun on the Friday after the second Sunday that year, the way God and Bishop Arthur Moore intended.
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Wayne was a trustee and was there every night, as always, but this particular year was different. He was sick, with a rare blood disease for which the doctors had no answer. It was whispered, up on the porches of the tents and behind closed doors, that Wayne’s illness might be terminal — which it turned out to be.

But no one would ever have known it by their conversations with him that week. Every time I saw him he was upbeat and positive and his radiant smile was just as quick to split his handsome face as ever. On the last Friday night of camp meeting Wayne sang a solo — “Because He Lives.”

It was one of the most beautiful renditions of that song I have ever heard, not just because the performer had such a great voice — which he did — but because he sang it with so much feeling and emotion. I won’t assume that everyone knows the words to the song. The last verse contains these words.

“And then one day, I’ll cross the river. I’ll fight life’s final war with pain; And then, as death gives way to vict’ry, I’ll see the lights of glory and I’ll know He lives.”

The first line of the chorus goes like this:

“Because He lives, I can face tomorrow. Because He lives, all fear is gone.”

And that’s why I think of Wayne Doster every Easter. Every Easter, when I hear or sing “Because He Lives,” I can see his face, as he was singing that same song. I could tell at the time, and am just as certain today, that he believed every word he sang, and that all his fear was, indeed, gone — and had been for 2,000 years before he was even born. Wayne Doster still inspires me.

Happy Easter, y’all. Christ is risen. He is risen, indeed.

I have probably read every western novel Louis L’Amour ever wrote — which is saying something. He wrote a lot of them. He was probably a more prolific writer than even the great Chris Starrs. His leading men were always strong silent types — tough as cobs and honest as the day is long.

One line that L’Amour wrote has stuck with me all of my life. One of his characters, and I won’t pretend to remember which one or in which of his works, never said goodbye. His standard comment, upon bidding adieu to an acquaintance was, “It’s a big world. Trails cross.”

Indeed it is and indeed they do. I have a hard time going anywhere that I don’t run into someone from home or someone whose path I have crossed. I was reminded of such an occasion this week — and someone else actually brought it up. I was exceedingly glad they were witnessing the event, because as bad as I am to make up stories — I never let the truth stand in the way of a good one — nobody would have believed me if I had told the tale.

A little background is in order. In 1986 I took a high school girls’ basketball team to Hawaii. We stayed two weeks and played 10 games. We won all 10, too. Martha Worley and Trudy Harris were on that team and they can vouch for how good we were — and how much fun we had.

I don’t think the 50th state was ready for me, however. I was a little more animated than the coaches they were used to. We were also the first high school team from the mainland to play in Hawaii and big crowds turned out to watch us play — particularly when we challenged the twice-running undefeated state champions on the Big Island. The Hilo Armory was filled to capacity for that game and it was broadcast on the radio and publicized in all the papers. There was even a reporter waiting for us at the Hilo airport upon our arrival.

For the record, we were up one at the half and won by 20.

Fast forward 21 years. Georgia was about to play Hawaii in the 2008 Sugar Bowl game — following the 2007 season. About 20 of us went down together for the game and a good time was had by all — even if my daughter’s boyfriend did spray crab meat all over Bob Bradley’s new cashmere sweater.

I was on an elevator in the Embassy Suites hotel, where we were staying, and an older lady, obviously a native Hawaiian, stepped on. She stared at me for a couple of floors and then tugged on my sleeve and said, “Excuse me, sir, but I know you.”

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She said, “Yes. You brought a basketball team to Hawaii to play, and I saw your team in the Hilo Armory.”

I was flabbergasted to say the least. Another time a young girl, whose name, I recall, was Blair, walked up to me in Love’s Restaurant, near Savannah, and informed me that she had been my server on a train in Alaska five years earlier.

See. It really is a big world and trails do cross. I had been all sorts of places and so had those other people, and yet our paths randomly crossed, thousands of miles and so many years apart.

Now I told you all of that to tell you this. In 1968 Jerry Aldridge carried me and a whole gang of local Boy Scouts to Philmont Scout Ranch in Cimarron, N.M. The trip still ranks as one of the great adventures of my life.

We rode to New Mexico in style, on a Trailways Silver Eagle chartered coach. The second night out we went to a baseball game at the Houston Astrodome — the brand new “eighth wonder of the world.” At least we tried to. As it turned out the game was sold out so Mr. A took us to see a movie, instead. We saw “Bandolero,” with Jimmy Stewart and Dean Martin and we liked it lots better than the baseball game because Raquel Welch took off practically all her clothes and that was something to behold for a 16-year-old boy. Jerry made us promise not to tell, and I have kept my word — until now.

That trip came to mind because as I write this I am sitting in a waiting room at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, in Houston, Texas — staring at the top of that same Astrodome — about a half-mile away. I have traveled so many trails during my life and now fate has brought me so close to a spot that I first visited when I was 16. Ironically, Jerry Aldridge, who brought me here the first time, is battling the exact same insidious disease that I am. He is doing it with much more grace and much less fanfare than me, and I covet your prayers on his behalf.

It is a big world. Trails cross. I can’t wait to see what further adventures God has in store for me.

I’m pretty sure it started when Roger Dancz removed the word “Dixie” from the name of the Georgia Redcoat Band in favor of political correctness.

You may recall that legendary Atlanta radio personality Ludlow Porch satirized the UGA band director’s decision with a soliloquy in which he suggested that Redcoats should be dropped from the title as well for fear of offending people whose ancestors might have died at the hands of British soldiers during the Revolutionary War — or the more recent War of 1812. He also suggested removing the word Georgia from the name because there were lots of folks from Alabama and Mississippi and even foreign nations, like Pennsylvania and New Jersey, who might take offense at the state name.

Ludlow also reminded everyone that many people died at the hands of bands of marauding Indians, too — so if Mr. Porch had his way, the group that marched onto the Sanford Stadium turf would be henceforth known as “The.”

You might have thought ol’ Ludlow had completely lost it if you didn’t realize he was just poking fun at the political correctness police, but he might very well have simply been a man ahead of his time.

Last week, in New York City, a proposal was made that makes calling the band formerly known as the “Dixie Redcoats” simply “The” look perfectly logical.

And what you are about to read — well, I ain’t making this up, y’all. It is so.

The New York Board of Education came out with a long list of words that it intended to ban from any and all test questions, for fear of offending someone’s sensitivities. Well, that’s understandable. Nobody wants school children to be offended, any more than we want to damage their self esteem by actually failing them if they haven’t proved they have learned anything. But you ought to see that list!

Dinosaur is on the list. Why, you might ask? Easy. There might be a Christian fundamentalist taking the test who does not believe in evolution and the mention of the word dinosaur might conjure up all sorts of anti-religious sentiments and destroy that child’s psyche forever.

Shoot fire. I’m a Christian fundamentalist myself, but I’m not offended by dinosaurs. I used to watch “The Flintstones” every week — although I never quite got the Christmas episodes, since they were living in 50,000 B.C. or whatever it was — but I still liked watching Fred and Barney, and Wilma was kind of hot. I never thought to be offended by the fact that they had a pet dinosaur.

“Birthday” is on the list, too. Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t believe in celebrating them and we can’t offend Jehovah’s Witnesses — even though they can knock of my front door during Christmas dinner every year.

Oh, yeah. You can’t mention Christmas, either. Nor can you use “Halloween” on a test question in New York City. We would hate to conjure up images of paganism. I am not sure if you can use “conjure” or not.

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“Baby-daddy” is apparently acceptable. “Rock ‘n’ roll” is not. Don’t ask me on that one.

Test makers would be allowed to mention office or workplace computers but could not mention home computers, because there might be children that didn’t have one, and we wouldn’t want anyone to have to read about something they didn’t have. Goodness gracious! Our teachers at Porterdale School couldn’t have tested us all because most of us didn’t have a pot to pee in or a window to throw it out.

“Disease” is on the list. “Death” is on the list. “Celebrity” is on the list. And the teachers couldn’t use words about travel or vacation or gifts or prizes — because everybody doesn’t get gifts or prizes or travel or go on vacation. Can’t mention “junk food.” I guess that would make kids hungry and we do have this obesity epidemic going on. Politics, poverty, television and video games — all banned.

I think the New York School Board was out to prove that Mark Twain was right when he said, “God made idiots for practice, and then he made school boards.”

None of that could be used on a test in New York, by the way.

There is a modern term for the New York Board of Education’s proposal. It’s called “dumbing down” education, and it is as rampant as obesity.

But not to fear! Even as I was typing this column, breaking news came over the wire that the New York City Board of Education had revoked the list of banned words, as of 6:14 p.m. Monday.

Whew! That’s a relief.

Now if we could just get somebody to do something about the Georgia Redcoat Band.

Excuse me! No offense intended. I meant “The.”

There’s no better place than the North Georgia Piedmont in April. The dogwoods are spectacular. The temperatures are balmy in the afternoon and crisp at night and the dreaded summer humidity has yet to make an appearance. If heaven ain’t a lot like Georgia in the spring, I will probably be disappointed.

My son, Jackson, is one of the luckiest guys I know. He has gotten to spend the last five Aprils as a student at the University of Georgia. The general magnificence of spring increases exponentially as it reaches Athens, in general, and the UGA campus in particular.

There is always something going on. There is baseball at Foley Field, tennis at the Dan Magill complex — not to mention all sorts of intramural sports. The streets are overrun with joggers and, unless things have changed tremendously since I was asked to walk under the Arch and keep going, four decades ago, there are beautiful coeds in skimpy attire acquiring beautiful golden tans beside apartment complex pools and on dormitory lawns as far as the eye can see.

It is little wonder Jackson didn’t want to leave when he graduated last May. I wouldn’t have wanted to leave either. He is slated to graduate again in a few weeks — with a master’s in math education, of all things. I have asked Dr. Adams to make sure Jackson engages in gainful employment before he is admitted into whatever graduate program comes next.

I am actually shocked that one of my children majored in math. He certainly didn’t get his aptitude for figures from me. Come to think of it, his mother’s not that bright, either. I took exactly one math class during my undergraduate days. It was college algebra from Colonel Stanley I think he must have earned his rank under General Lee in the Army of Northern Virginia. I wasn’t a real good math student but Colonel Stanley agreed to give me a D if I agreed never to take one of his classes again. It was a win-win for both of us.

Jackson didn’t enroll in college with the intention of being a math teacher. He started out in landscape architecture. One spring evening I got a late-night call from my cousin Carolyn, whose son, Howell, had earned an LAR degree from UGA. We lost Howell in a tragic automobile crash and my cousin endows a scholarship in his honor. She had been to the annual banquet to do just that the evening she called me.

I was surprised to learn that my son’s name had been on the agenda that night. He was to have received an award as the top sophomore student in his program and, according to Carolyn, was not there to receive it. I immediately called him to ask him why.

He stammered around a bit and finally told me that he had changed majors and didn’t feel right accepting the award when he wasn’t going to stay in the program. “Why didn’t you tell me you were changing majors?” was my next question.

“I didn’t want you to yell at me,” was his response.

“Don’t be silly,” I said. “Why would I do that? What did you change to?”
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He told me education. I yelled at him.

And then I asked him why he wanted to be a teacher. His explanation humbled me.

He said that all they talked about in business classes was “making money” and he said that making money didn’t interest him that much. That’s an easy position to hold when your parents have always given you all the money you’ve needed.

He went on to say that he started trying to figure out what would make him happy, and make him feel like he was making a difference in the world and he started listing the people he knew that seemed happy — and the people who had positively impacted his life.

They were all teachers.

He specifically mentioned his band director, Greg Gajownik, and his stats teacher, Maggie Tramantano, and one of his social studies teachers, Jim Hauck. Then he said, “Everywhere we go people come up to you and say you taught them at this school or that school and they all seem to think so much of you and they all tell you what a difference you made in their lives. I want to make a difference in people’s lives, too.”

What could I say to counter that?

You are right. Nothing.

So now Jackson is about to begin his career in education, and I know two things for certain. I know that I am glad Jackson stayed in turf grass management long enough to figure out how to get the weeds out of my lawn. And I know that when next school year rolls around, some lucky school is going to have a great new math teacher.

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.