Category: Darrell Huckaby

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

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

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

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

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

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

This drug will act as a safe guard against clotting impacts. purchase cheap viagra In fact, sildenafil without prescription donssite.com from toys to electronic gadgets, everything is available online. But with the development in the technology which has made it possible only for the human body to function in a normal way and also kamagra 100mg tablets UK are FDA approved medicine which has passed 3000+ tests to prove it safety and effectiveness on the male body. http://www.donssite.com/steertech/kenworth-exhaust-repair-steering-repair-refurbish.htm viagra pfizer 25mg Here, some of the benefits of using this medicine: Kamagra viagra 50mg – A World Class Medicine for ED The individuals who are enduring with such a troublesome condition can now be cheerful as Kamagra offers help against such a tormenting condition. For 59 years he covered sports for the Atlanta newspapers. He became, as many have said, an icon. He was Atlanta sports and he helped Atlanta grow into a major league city. He also wrote for national publications and after retiring from the big city paper three years ago continued to write a column. In fact, his column appeared in this paper as recently as last week.

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

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

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

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

#Selah.

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

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

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

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

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

When you are under stress, pressure, fear buy tadalafil from india or depression, your sexual organs hardly function properly, which is why your erectile function gets affected. There are various generic viagra without visa causes, which lead to male impotence. They are widely consumed by generico cialis on line men to not just improve erection but also improve overall sexual stamina. For all the individuals who are deprived with the exciting cheap levitra formations and maintain stiffness of the male sex organ during the actions of copulation. Remember, this was back in the “everybody knows everybody” era and on many Saturdays it was Lisa who had to pull me away from the event because I was having so much fun visiting with folks and people watching. I may not be much of a shopper but I am a world class people watcher.

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

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

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

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

I don’t like Mitt Romney.

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

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

Ask one of your Jewish friends.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Baseball was perfect in 1958.

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

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

Did I mention how much I hate the designated hitter?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

canadian viagra prices Confidence – No matter what a woman tells you about the Blue Lotus Extract. Common clinical syndromes associated midwayfire.com purchase viagra online with impairment in sexual function are: Sexual aversions – Low libido (low sex desire): – It is common to lose interest while performing sexual activity then there is a need to enhance your sexual life. cialis without prescription http://www.midwayfire.com/minutes/07-10-12.pdf Whether the levels of these hormones are either high or too low, it will create problem for you.The medicine starts working effectively after 1 hour and is more than sufficient to have a satisfied sex life. There can be physical, mechanical, interpersonal or cialis tadalafil online emotional problems and these diseases are affecting all ages starting from the infants to the old age people. I had the privilege of teaching both of Butch and Laura’s children, Traci and John. They were both unique and fun-loving kids who I learned to love and appreciate. In my mind’s eye I can still see John — who is tall and lanky, like his father — folded up inside one of the jokes the Georgia public school system plays on tall adolescent boys called student desks.

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

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

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

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

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

She was only 53.

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

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

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

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

Who wouldn’t want to grow closer to God?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In case you missed all the mattress and furniture sales, the reason the mail didn’t run Monday was because we were celebrating Presidents’ Day — a day set aside to honor all of the men who have served as our supreme leader. Today, however, is the birthday of the man who is known as the Father of our country. That’s right. George Washington was born on Feb. 22, 1732, near Pope’s Creek, Va.

Washington was, among other things, a gentleman farmer — and, yes, he owned many, many slaves. He was also a surveyor and a soldier, serving with distinction in the Virginia militia during the French and Indian War and, of course, as general of the Continental Army during our own American Revolution. He would be the first war hero elected to the office of President of the United States, but he would not be the last.

Everyone knows the legend of little George cutting down his father’s cherry tree and then admitting that he had done it — supposedly prefacing his confession with “I cannot tell a lie.” Wouldn’t that be a refreshing attribute for a modern politician to possess?

You may also have heard that Washington once threw a silver dollar across the Potomac River, but that’s not such a big deal. Everyone knows that money went a lot further in those days.

Washington served as president of the Constitutional Convention in 1887 and was the unanimous choice of the Electoral College to serve as the first president of our nation. Delegates to the Electoral College were appointed by state legislatures in those days, not voted upon by the people. Our Founding Fathers didn’t believe the populace to be informed or intelligent enough to choose the president and we have proved them right over and over and over.

Washington, as you may or may not know, was neither Democrat nor Republican, but a Federalist. He believed in a strong central government, power vested primarily in the affluent, more educated citizens and government programs that supported industry and commerce. He also believed that America should tend to her own affairs, as much as possible, and allow the other nations of the world to attend to theirs. In fact, in his farewell address to the nation, after his second term as president was up, he warned us to always beware of entangling foreign alliances. He didn’t want us to get drawn into a war that had nothing to do with our best interests.

Washington was perhaps the perfect person to serve as the first president, because of his lack of ambition and his high character and sense of duty. The people would gladly have proclaimed him king, but he would not hear of it. He was very aware that everything he did in the new office with which he had been bestowed would establish a precedent for those who followed, and in establishing these new precedents was intent on doing what was best for the new country and not for himself or his political party.
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In fact, although a Federalist, Washington eschewed party politics, leaving the control of the party itself to Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton. Talk about a precedent having gone by the wayside!

Washington insisted that the president of the United States was not above any private citizen — how refreshing is that? — and insisted that he — and subsequent leaders — be addressed simply as “Mr. President.” Thank goodness. Just imagine seeing the old JFK-Marilyn Monroe clip over and over and over while she sang, “Happy Birthday Your Royal Majestic Excellency… ”

Washington also made it clear that the United States was the equal of any nation on earth and insisted that as such, the president of this nation would never bow to a foreign prince or head of state. Well, it worked for the first 220 or so years.

Lest you think Washington was a reticent leader who lacked authority, when the federal excise tax on whiskey was ignored by a group of western Pennsylvania moonshiners, he dusted off his old Revolutionary War uniform and personally led an army of 15,000 troops across the Alleghenies to put down the “rebellion.” About 20 of the insurgents were arrested and two were found guilty of treason and sentenced to death, but Washington pardoned both on the grounds that they were basically “too stupid to hang.”

After completing his second term Washington refused the third term that could have been his for the taking, insisting that no president should serve more than two terms, lest he become too powerful. Every president followed that lead for almost 200 years, until FDR ran for and was elected to third and fourth terms in the 1940s.

Upon Wasington’s death, Henry “Light-Horse Harry” Lee eulogized Washington by calling him “First in war, first in peace and first in the hearts of his countrymen.” Truer words were never spoken. America doesn’t produce leaders like George Washington anymore. It’s a shame, too. We sure could use one about right now. The good Lord knows, we sure could use one.

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My friend Vickie Hammond, who is an elementary school teacher, bless her heart, posted on Facebook last week about the bad weather. She was bemoaning the fact that her kids would miss recess for the second day in a row. She wasn’t sure she could tolerate that.Vickie’s post sent my mind hurtling back through time. That happens a lot these days. For a brief while 50 years had been lopped off my life and I was a jug-eared 9-year-old, wearing overalls and a pair of Thompson-Boland-Lee’s finest brogan shoes, sitting on a see-saw on the Porterdale School playground. Linda King was probably on the other end.

I knew we kids looked forward to recess back in those days but never stopped to think that the teachers might look forward to it as much, if not more, than the little lintheads in their charge.

It was a magical time. We got to blow off steam and burn up some energy, and a kid can learn a lot of important lessons through unsupervised play. One of the most important was that self-esteem cannot be awarded, like a plastic participation trophy.

We actually had to come up with ways to entertain ourselves on the playground. The younger kids would play games like Red Rover and Drop the Handkerchief and tag-out-of-jail. Once we got older the boys would break off and play pitch-up-and-tackle, which was a game about the survival of the fittest. A ball would be thrown into the air — any kind of ball would do — and the person who caught it would run around like a chicken with his head cut off while the rest of the boys in the class tried to tackle him. The game could really get rough and those who weren’t up to it could go see-saw with the girls.

See above reference to Linda King.

I had a lot of fun on the playgrounds of Porterdale School during recess. I also experienced the most embarrassing moment of my life — at least to date.

Remember the recurring dream about showing up at school without your clothes? I lived it.

I was in the third grade and back in those days wore the same pair of overalls to school every day — as opposed to the present day when I wear the same pair of khakis to school every day.

I had outgrown my only pair of overalls and Mama told me to stop by White’s on the way to school and let Bobby Smith put me in a new pair. White’s was where people in Porterdale bought clothes and they opened at 7 a.m. so folks getting off the third shift in the mill could shop on their way home from work — or so little burr-headed boys could get a new pair of pants on his way to school.

Alas, on this particular day, White’s didn’t have a pair of overalls in my scrawny size. That was not going to prevent Bobby Smith from selling a pair to my mother. He put me in some overalls that were about three sizes too big. He cinched up the straps and rolled up the legs and told me that I would “grow into them.” The stride of those pants was down around my knees. I was ahead of my time. I was busting slack before it was cool.

Believe it or not, nobody in my class made fun of me when I walked in the door in my new ill-fitting garments. Our mamas were all children of the Great Depression and knew what it was like not to have nice clothes. They would send us to cut a switch if they found out any of us had made fun of what someone wore to school. Everything was fine until recess.

Now understand this, we had great playground equipment in Porterdale. The machinists in the mill made it and we had a giant sliding board. The fun of the sliding board was to wait until the teacher wasn’t looking and then climb out and slide down the support pole — like a fireman — instead of the slide.

It was my turn on the slide and I caught Miss Elizabeth Willis not looking and I slid down the pole. My pants, however, with all that extra fabric, caught on a bolt and stayed at the top. Ripped right off me. There I was in front of God and everybody in just my T-shirt, my brogans and my step-ins.

I did what any other 9-year-old boy would have done. I ran home.

When I got there I found my daddy — who worked on the second shift — sitting at the kitchen table reading the newspaper. When he asked why I was home from school and practically naked I said, “Daddy, we’ve got to move!”

Thankfully we didn’t.

Recess. What precious memories. I bet Vickie Hammond didn’t see anything like that last week!

“I’m sorry. You have the wrong number.” If you are like me, you don’t find yourself saying that as often as you used to. Have you noticed?

We still get plenty of solicitors at my house, and robo-calls, particularly during the election season, and a plethora of folks wanting me to take part in this or that survey. But I get very few wrong numbers. I think the reason is because we don’t actually dial numbers as much as we used to. Now we have numbers programmed into our phones. If your phone is programmed correctly and hit the right name, the phone will dial the right number.

My friends and I arrived at this thesis over Valentine’s dinner Tuesday night when the conversation turned to wrong numbers. Each of us had had a number that was one digit off from a place of business and each of us had a story about how we handled the almost daily misdials we received. Allow me to give you a for-instance or three.

One couple had a number that was one digit away from a urologist and constantly came home to answering messages describing burning sensations and worse. What’s up with that? Don’t people even listen to answering machine messages?

Wait. Don’t answer that question. The urologist in question was actually my own and I have had his office on speed dial lately. I found myself praying that none of the errant messages had been mine. The worst part of that revelation was that the man of the couple admitted that he simply deleted the messages, although if he actually answered one of the calls he would give the correct number to the caller. His wife, bless her heart, said she would actually call the parties back. She happens to be a nurse but insisted that she only dispenses phone numbers, not medical advice.

Someone else had a number that was almost the same as a local taxi dispatch. She got call after call after call, often late at night, from inebriated bar-hoppers looking for a safe ride home. This party pleaded with the cab company to change their number, to no avail, of course. That is, to no avail until she started telling everyone that called that she would have someone pick them up in 10 minutes. After a few weeks of complaints from irate would-be customers the hack company got a new number and my friend got a lot more sleep.

Another guy knew of someone whose marriage almost broke up because of a wrong number. This was obviously in the pre-caller ID era. Every night he would get half-a-dozen calls from people who would hang up when he answered. Apparently the jealous sort — not to mention suspicious — this person convinced himself that his wife had a boyfriend who was hanging up when he answered. It turns out that his number was one off from one the local bank used to offer time and temperature.

Naturally I had a story of my own. Don’t I always?

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Once, during the buildup that preceded Desert Storm, I got a call from a frantic lady whose television had suddenly gone out. I have no defense for my response except “the devil made me do it.” Hey, it worked for Flip Wilson.

I told the lady that I couldn’t comment but that if she turned her radio dial to WSB radio she would get all the details she needed. The poor lady was convinced we were under nuclear attack and I felt bad for a few minutes after she hung up — but got over it after the next four or five calls reporting the same outage.

My favorite wrong number story, however, was one my daddy used to tell. He was working third shift in the mill and tried to sleep during the day. Unfortunately, for him, his phone number was almost the same as that of the drug store in town. One day, after being awakened one too many times, he found himself on the line with a lady wanting to know how to take the pills the drug store had sent over that morning.

My father allegedly told her to “take them all at once.”

“Is this Standard Pharmacy?” was the startled reply.

“Hang, no,” he told her. “This is Homer Huckaby!”

Well, I have found a sure fire way to avoid the few wrong numbers I might still get. I just don’t answer the phone. Please leave a message after the beep.