Category: Darrell Huckaby

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Where is George Carlin when you need him?

You might recall that Carlin, now deceased, was the comedian who made a big splash, especially on the college lecture circuit, back in the ’70s. His most famous bit was about the “seven words you can’t say on television.”

I won’t repeat them here because I’m pretty sure you still can’t say them in a family newspaper, but shortly before his death a few years ago I heard Carlin quip, “I used to talk about the seven words you couldn’t say on television. Now there is only one. Well, two if you’re a white guy.”

Carlin was right. Times change — and our tolerance for filth on television certainly has. Rob and Laura Petrie used to have to sleep in twin beds and now they show stuff in Victoria’s Secret commercials that college students in the ’70s had to go to the Tenth Street Art Theater in Atlanta to see.

But never fear. The government is hard at work in their never-ending efforts to protect us from ourselves and last week the Supreme Court of the United States heard a case concerning foul language and nudity on broadcast television and the world and Janet Jackson eagerly await their decision.

The question is whether the FCC should continue to monitor and, dare I say, censor broadcast television — the stations that can be picked up out of thin air and are, thus, available to every household with a television set, in this age of cable and satellite TV. There used to be a concept that we have to pay for cable so we can buy whatever we want. Obviously the government has no right to regulate what we see by virtue of our own dime — the First Amendment and free speech and all of that, don’t you know.

On the other hand, according to government logic — yes, I know that is an oxymoron — the airwaves belong to everyone, so anything that can come into our homes via those needs to be suitable for anyone to watch.

Now the Supreme Court is trying to determine whether technology has made the whole rigmarole a moot point. Speaking of which — did you hear what Clarence Thomas said about the case?

Nothing.
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Other justices, however, had plenty to say. One of the concerns the Supremes — my apologies to Diana Ross — seemed to have about the issue was that networks could broadcast profanity and even nudity in certain contexts — like a war movie or a documentary on tribal cultures in Outer Bumgolia — but not on other contexts — like cops fighting it out on the streets with drug pushing punks or young twenty-somethings trying to score with the hot chick across the hall.

I made up the part about the documentaries, because I still remember librarian J. Frank Walker keeping the National Geographic magazines under his desk in the school library. You had to have a note from a social studies teacher to look at one. Same concept.

But I digress. One example of the above issue centered around the fact that the FCC gave a pass to ABC for the language in “Saving Private Ryan,” but busted certain other shows when Hollywood stars dropped F-bombs and other inappropriate verbiage on live awards shows.

Justice Elena Kagan is said to have stated that “Nobody can use dirty words or nudity except Steven Spielberg,” which may be the funniest thing Elena Kagan has said since testifying that she was qualified to be an impartial jurist.

John Roberts wondered aloud why we can’t have at least a few stations that parents know are “safe” for children to watch. But are any stations truly “safe” if you define safe as being free from profanity and inappropriate content? I mean, “Friends” used to air on a broadcast network at an hour that was even before my bedtime and I go to bed with the chickens. There wasn’t anything that Chandler Bing wouldn’t say. His eventual wife, Monica, was just as trash-mouthed as he was. And I already told you about the Victoria’s Secret ads.

Allow me to tell you what I think. Instead of relying on the F-C-C to regulate what children may or may not see on television I think that should be left up to the P-A-R-E-N-T. I pick up about 150 channels on my television. Are we really going to continue to regulate three or four of them and not the other 146 or 147?

My father used to say that you can’t legislate morality and I guaran-doggone-tee you that if people quit watching smutty programs, smutty programs will go away.

Meanwhile, can anyone tell me if the National Geographic Channel is available in high definition? I think I have all the Victoria’s Secret ads memorized.

If you suffer from friggatriskaidekaphobia you might just want to go back to bed. Don’t worry. It just sounds dirty, and it’s not contagious or dangerous — at least I don’t think so. What it is, however, is the fear of Friday the 13th, which today happens to be. Now don’t get friggatriskaidekaphobia confused with plain old triskaidekaphobia. That is merely the fear of the number 13 in general. Adding the frigga to the front of the word is where the Friday comes in.

There is no extra charge for this invaluable information and the paper doesn’t cost a quarter any more, but it is still a heck of a bargain.

Now to tell you the truth, I have never been afraid of the number 13 — although I wouldn’t let any of the players on any of the many sports teams I have ever coached wear it. I’m not superstitious, understand — I just don’t like to take chances. I certainly have never been afraid of Friday. To a school teacher it is the best day of every week, regardless of what happens. Therefore I have never held any particular trepidation when glancing at a calendar and discovering that the 13th day of a given month would happen to fall on the day before Saturday.

I have done all sorts of things on Friday the 13th and engaged in all manner of risky behavior without consequence. Last winter I flew to Arizona on Friday, Feb. 13, and wound up with the same number of takeoffs and landings. David Croom and I once took in the original “Friday the 13th” movie at the Strand Theater on the actual date and lived to tell about it. I am pretty sure that I proposed to my lovely wife, Lisa, on Friday the 13th and that has worked out OK — so far. In fact, I cannot think of a single calamity that has ever befallen me on the day that so many people fear.

As I pondered these things earlier in the week — in my brain, mind you; my heart is strictly reserved for a more relevant manner of pondering — I became curious as to why so many people have a phobia about the number 13 in general and Friday the 13th specifically. I did what any self-respecting columnist with a deadline would do under similar circumstances. I Googled it.

Here is what I found out. According to various sources — yes, I admit that Wikipedia was one of them — there was no reference in popular culture or literature about Friday the 13th being an unlucky day prior to the late 19th century. However, the number 13 has long been considered unlucky because it exceeds, by one, the number 12, which is the number of completeness. You know, 12 months in a year, 12 hours on a clock, 12 disciples and so forth. Folks say that if you add a 13th anything it is just bad luck, but I don’t buy that. If that were the case, 14 would be even more unlucky than 13 and 15 more unlucky than 14 and on and on and on.
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And Friday has long been thought to be an unlucky day because Chaucer alluded to that fact in his Canterbury Tales, written in the 14th century. Chaucer obviously never taught a class of hormonal teenagers for an entire week. If he had, he wouldn’t have labeled Friday as unlucky.

So today has gotten a bad rap for no real good reason. I also tried to determine if a lot of really bad things had ever happened on Friday the 13th to justify the fearful reputation with which it has been tagged. Other than the fact that four of the 12 horrible films in the franchise of the same name were actually released on a Friday that fell on the 13th of a month, the worst thing that ever happened on Friday the 13th seems to be the death of Tupac Shakur.

That was it. I could find no evidence of any other earthshaking maladies. In fact, the day seems to be a lot safer than others in many ways. For example, there are fewer fires reported and fewer traffic accidents than other Fridays — perhaps because people are actually more careful on those days or perhaps stay at home to avoid potential problems. And despite urban legends to the contrary, no major airlines report a significant drop off in traffic on that day.

So there you have it. If you have been suffering from fear of what today may bring, your fears are unfounded. Get dressed and get out and about and enjoy your day. You’ll have it made for three more months. The next Friday the 13th is not until April. And let me tell you — it won’t be anything compared with what happens on April 15 — or whatever day they decided to make income taxes due this year.

Now that will be an unlucky day!

Wow.

Ron White, who ought to know, is famous for saying, “You can’t fix stupid.” Well, I don’t want to call anyone stupid because I’m not the brightest bulb in the chandelier myself. But there is a group of teachers over in Gwinnett County that — well, they may not be stupid, but they certainly haven’t been paying attention.

You’ve all heard the story by now. They were studying the life and times of Frederick Douglass in history class over at Beaver Ridge Elementary School. Frederick Douglass, in case you aren’t studied up on your 19th century social studies, was the former slave who blew those concepts of African-Americans being intellectually inferior to whites right out of the water. He was an elegant writer and public speaker and became one of the leading proponents of the abolition of slavery — which was accomplished about 150 years ago, by the way.

Teaching about Frederick Douglass didn’t create a controversy, understand. The controversy came in math class. You see, for years — even before No Child Left Behind made memorizing standards the standard for quality education — educators have been encouraged to engage in what is known as cross-curriculum instruction.

The theory is that learning will be reinforced if students are exposed to the same material at the same time in a number of content areas. This is supposed to make learning more authentic and meaningful and when it is done correctly it really works well and is very effective.

Let me give you a for-instance or three. My now-retired colleague, Mary Supple, who taught American literature to most of the students to whom I taught history, and I used to try our best to coordinate our instruction so that our lessons would complement one another. When my history class was studying the Great Awakening, for example, her classes would examine Jonathan Edwards’s sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” When we studied New England theocracy and the Salem Witch trials, they read “The Crucible.”

When we studied the Romantic Era and learned about the influence of people like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau and their impact on society, her classes read Emerson and Thoreau and learned about their influence on literature.

And when we studied abolition, they read “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” maybe — or “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass.” You get the idea, I’m sure. The instruction students received in one class was reinforced in the other — and let’s face it, today’s students need all the reinforcement they can stand.

The problem with cross-curriculum instruction comes when it is done just for the sake of doing it. Then it becomes forced and artificial and meaningless. It has been a long time, but I have experienced forced cross-curriculum instruction and let me tell you — it ain’t pretty. Teachers wind up veering from the curriculum and making up assignments that have little real relevance to what they are trying to teach and sometimes they resort to tactics as meaningless as–well, as making up word problems in math using references from social studies.
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I know nothing of the motivation, but that is what happened in Gwinnett County last week when a math teacher — or math teachers — decided that they would reinforce a history lesson about Frederick Douglass by presenting math homework problems about slaves picking cotton — and oranges, no less — and receiving beatings.

This is 2012, y’all. Who would ever think it was acceptable to give such problems?

“If Frederick gets two beatings per day, how many did he get per week? Two weeks?” I ain’t making this up y’all. I saw it with my own eyes.

“Frederick had six baskets filled with cotton. If each basket held five pounds, how much did he have in all?”

Are you kidding me? This was an assignment for third-graders!

Now understand, I am the most politically incorrect and insensitive person in the world. Well, maybe with the possible exception of Neal Boortz. I am often outspoken about perceived oversensitivity to all conversation about “old times there” and so forth. I still play “Dixie” on my way to college football games and I have a son named Jackson Lee — but y’all! There is no reason that any third-grader should ever be assigned a math problem about slaves picking cotton or getting beatings. Again — are you kidding me?

Now I don’t believe for a minute that this assignment was intended to be racist or mean-spirited — and I don’t agree with Ed Dubose, Georgia NAACP president, that the teachers responsible should be fired. I do believe, however, that as Jed Clampett used to say of Jethro — “Somebody needs to have a long talk with that boy.” Or man. Or woman. Or all of the above.

And somebody needs to make sure that if cross-curriculum instruction is being pushed, it had better be authentic and effective — and devoid of references to slaves being beaten or picking cotton and oranges.

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Boy, is this younger generation ever going to the dogs! Who hasn’t heard that said?Well, they may be, but if so, you can’t prove it by me. I was reminded this week, on a number of fronts, that today’s youth are actually the salt of the earth and I am here to testify that the salt has not lost its savor. Despite all we adults do to screw things up, the future is in good hands.

For one thing I returned to school this week, which is where I feel most at home. I have the best students in the world. They are bright and polite and caring and have a passion for learning. I enjoy every minute I spend in my classroom. I realize that most teachers don’t enjoy the autonomy I’m afforded in my classroom and most teachers don’t have the caliber of students that I am privileged to teach, but it is going to be really hard to walk out that door for the last time in May without looking back.

Then Tuesday evening my lovely wife, Lisa, invited me to watch an Internet simulcast with her, so we could see how our two youngest children — the ones still in college — are spending their winter vacation, along with 42,000 of their closest friends. They were in the Georgia Dome — but they weren’t there for a football game. This trip was much more fruitful than their previous two visits in September and December.

They were there, along with thousands of other college students from all over the country, for an event called “Passion, 2012.” It was like a three-day tent revival on steroids — or maybe those were just post-pubescent hormones, or maybe the Holy Spirit. Whatever it was, it was something to behold.

This event lasted four days and the students’ days lasted from “can to can’t,” as my daddy used to say. When my kids are at home it is all I can do to get them out of the bed and downstairs for breakfast before noon. Every day this past week they were out and about and taking part in small group Bible studies by 9 a.m. On those rare occasions when they are home on weekends it is a major undertaking to get them to attend one 11 a.m. service at our local church. They paid a couple hundred dollars apiece to be a part of Passion 2012 and attended services at 10:45 a.m., 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. — and followed those up with an additional “community group” at 9:30. That’s a lot of listening, a lot of music and a lot of preaching.

And speaking of the preaching, we heard some of the sessions online and the preachers weren’t pussy-footing around and trying to avoid stepping on toes, let me tell you. They were forevermore shelling down the corn and in their own way were encouraging the thousands of college students in attendance to get convicted or quit pretending.
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Beth Moore was one of the speakers. My wife is a big fan of Beth Moore. I am a big fan of what Beth Moore stands for and of what she has to say. She actually talked one night about human bondage and revealed that there are thousands of people held in slavery around the world and questioned why nobody does anything about it. If people who profess to be Christians won’t, who will? I think some of the folks in the Georgia Dome will.

Andy Stanley also spoke, as well as several other outstanding presenters. The music was fantastic, too — if you like that sort of music. Most young people do. All in all I was as uplifted as those in attendance and my faith in the future was renewed.

And then Tuesday night, as I was reveling in the after-glow of the first night of Passion 2012, I started getting texts from a former student, Kara Fambrough. Kara is a freshman at UGA and setting the woods on fire in the world of international affairs. She has already been awarded a fellowship in the Security Leadership Program administered by the Center for International Trade and Security. Tuesday night Kara was having major concerns about the early returns in the Iowa caucuses. We discussed the upcoming election into the night and she seemed ready to hit the campaign trail immediately to try and make the nation, once again, safe for democracy and commerce.

And please understand — Kara’s politics is in no way the issue, her passion about the future of the country is. There’s that word again. Passion.

Don’t count this generation out yet, y’all, because there are lots and lots and lots of highly driven young people with a passion for all that is good and important in life. I am convinced that this old world will keep right on turning and that 2012 will be a year for the ages.

The eyes of the nation have been peering at Iowa for the last month in anticipation of last night’s caucuses. For the life of me I can’t figure out why. The Iowa caucuses are basically a political beauty contest. There aren’t even any convention delegates at stake. Winning the caucus doesn’t assure a candidate of winning the presidency, or even his party’s nomination. The 2008 Republican winner in Iowa was Mike Huckabee, you might recall. Conversely, not winning doesn’t doom a candidate to defeat, either. In 1976, “undecided” outpolled Jimmy Carter and yet Carter became the 39th president of the United States.

Nonetheless, Iowa is first in the selection process and every pundit scurries off to Iowa and we, the people, get wall-to-wall coverage of what the Iowan voters are thinking.

The results were not in when this column went to press, but one thing has been ascertained over the past four weeks: Iowans know how to bundle up before going outside. It’s a darn good thing, too. It gets cold as a well digger’s bottom in Iowa in the winter. It was 17 degrees in Des Moines at noon yesterday and the high was expected to be a balmy 30 degrees — which is unseasonably warm for the area.

And that’s the tropical part of the state.

That’s why everyone we have seen being interviewed over the past three weeks has resembled the Michelin Man. Knock them over and they will bounce back up like one of those punching bags they used to offer for sale in the Sears-Roebuck catalogue. They have on those great big jackets and scarves and toboggan hats and snow boots — and that’s just to get from the back door to the truck. The only time Southerners bundle up like that is when there is a half-inch of snow predicted and we have to run to Kroger to stock up on milk and eggs.

Truth be told, I don’t even own an adequate winter coat. If it gets really cold, I will throw on my old brown leather jacket — the one I bought at Sam’s Club for about $40 a quarter of a century ago. Otherwise I just layer a lightweight jacket over a bulky sweater and I’m good to go. I don’t think my children own coats either — other than the North Face jackets they were required to purchase when they received their acceptance letters to the University of Georgia.

Changes viagra prices in life style: Don’t belittle the distinction a couple of changes can make. The main thing is that man wants comfort and a good pay package. generic levitra from canada Kamagra has offered a great chance to ED patients to improve sildenafil professional their erection health and live a healthy sexual life. People must make sure to take a better cure to your problem with the help of Kamagra 100mg. this particular cheap generic tadalafil medicine includes the best component inside it that is Sildenafil Citrate. I don’t know when we got out of the habit of wearing coats. When I was growing up, in Porterdale, my mama made sure that I had a warm coat and a sock hat and a warm pair of gloves when winter approached. Of course, that was before the days of global warming and I did have to walk several miles to school every day. Actually, it was about half a mile, but it seemed a lot further.

Two of my favorite stories about my kids feature winter coats. I had just bought my son Jackson a brand new one. I think he was probably in about the third grade and I spent a lot of time lecturing him about not leaving his coat on the playground at school — something he was known to do. Sure enough, the very first day he wore his new coat to school I was at home watching for him to get off the school bus and when he did, he was without said garment.

I went stalking up the driveway to meet him and before he could say a word I lit into him about being so forgetful and irresponsible. When he could finally get a word in edgewise he explained that they were having a coat drive at school, for kids who couldn’t afford coats. He put his new jacket in the donation box because he knew I would buy him a new one. I didn’t know whether to hug him or belt him. I might have done both.

Another time our oldest child, Jamie Lee, hit a growth spurt toward the end of the winter season. She came home from school insisting that she needed a new coat, because her arms were too long for the old one. “Aha!” I thought. “Teachable moment!” I knew spring was only a couple or three weeks away and didn’t want to waste money on a coat that she would have outgrown by the next winter, so instead of a new coat I bought Jamie a copy of Dolly Parton’s children’s book — the one about the coat of many colors that Dolly’s mother had sewn from old rags — with love in every stitch. We even listened to the record and I had Jamie all psyched up to soldier on with her too-small garment for an entire two weeks.

That very afternoon my mother showed up at the back door with a brand new coat for her. “I noticed that the sleeves were a little short on her old one,” was her explanation. Tommie Huckaby, who had probably grown up without a winter coat at all, wasn’t about to let her granddaughter wear one she had outgrown.

At any rate, the folks in Iowa weathered the cold — with or without warm jackets — and made their political preference known last night. Personally, I feel like we are in the same boat we were in back in 1976 — when “undecided” would have been the much better choice.

Happy New Year, y’all.

Finally a year I know how to pronounce. Twenty-twelve. It’s going to be a great year. Know how I know? Because it ends in “two” and just like baseball’s “been very, very good” to Garrett Morris of SNL fame, years that end in two have been very, very good to me.

To begin with, I was born in 1952 — and being born was a very fortuitous happenstance. Honesty compels me to admit that I don’t remember much of what went on that year, but I have heard that Eisenhower got elected and everybody liked Ike, or at least so the campaign buttons claim.

1962 is much clearer to me. I was 10, which is about the perfect age. I was old enough to understand baseball but too young to care that I didn’t understood girls. 1962 was the year Topps surrounded the portraits on their baseball cards with wood-grain paneling. I still have my Mickey Mantle card from that year and it is in almost mint condition. And, no — I am not interested in selling. The Yankees won the 1962 World Series against the San Francisco Giants. The combined rosters of the two teams included seven future Hall of Famers, and Ralph Terry was the MVP.

John Glenn orbited the earth and in the fall JFK stared down Khrushchev and Khrushchev blinked. Marilyn Monroe also died that year, which wasn’t a good thing but it certainly made an impression, even on a 10-year-old who didn’t care if he understood girls or not.

1972 was a great year, too — because I spent it on the campus of the University of Georgia, hallowed be thy name. I have heard a lot of people say they didn’t realize how good they had it in college until they graduated and went to work for a living. Believe me; I knew exactly how good I had it. 972 was the year Earl Fales and Mike Castronis taught me to square dance, and if someone has a copy of “Salty Dog Rag,” I bet I can still ball the jack with the best of them.

1972 was the year of the remarkable Munich Olympics in which Mark Spitz won seven gold medals and 11 members of the Israeli team were tragically murdered. I remember being glued to the television set all day and into the night as a sportscast became a newscast instantaneously.

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In 1992 our third child was born, completing our family. Money was good and we spent our 10th anniversary year in wedded bliss. The Rodney King riots garnered attention across the nation and Johnny Carson took his final bow, but all in all, the year was a prosperous and happy one for me and mine. I’d gladly relive it, which is something I wouldn’t say about the recently deposed 2011.

2002? Well, I turned 50, and it was pretty painless. I was well established in my co-career of educator and writer and Georgia won the SEC Championship and my entire family and I said goodbye to the old year on Bourbon Street in New Orleans.

So here we are at 2012 and I can’t wait to see what it holds. It is an election year, of course, and I have always said that, next to college football, politics is my favorite spectator sport. Whatever else the primaries and general election might be, they will be entertaining — and exciting, too, with the fate of the nation hanging in the balance.

It is also an Olympic Year. The “youth of the world” have been called upon to assemble in London this year. Who can say what drama the summer games might bring? Will there be another remarkable performance by Michael Phelps? Most assuredly someone most of us have never heard of will become a household name.

For the first time in a long time we begin a year without boots on the ground in Iraq. Perhaps this will be the year that the war winds down on other fronts as well. The poet spoke of “the hope which springs eternal,” and why not? Why not be hopeful? We have a brand new year, full of brand new opportunities — and with 2012 being a leap year we have an extra day to fulfill all the promises we’ve made to ourselves.

Happy New Year, y’all. I hope it is the best yet. I’m determined that it will be for me and mine.

I’m not a big New Year’s Eve guy. I’ve never been a big partier. The only time I went to Five Points to watch the peach drop I had my pocket picked. We usually stay home and have a few friends over — who aren’t big partiers, either. Most of the time it is all any of us can do to stay awake until midnight. And let’s face it. Ryan Seacrest is no Dick Clark.

This year, however, I am making an exception. I will probably stay at home and won’t be hosting a particularly raucous party, but this year I will have absolutely no trouble staying awake until midnight. You’ve heard the lyrics from that old Christmas carol that goes “fast away the old year passes?” Well the current “old year” can’t pass fast enough for me and I’m making sure that sucker leaves right on cue. I am done with 2011 and don’t want it to show its ugly face again.

Oh, there were highlights, to be sure, as there are with any year. It was pretty cool when Navy Seal Team 6 knocked off Osama bin Laden. I shouldn’t take pleasure in another’s demise, but he needed killing.

I probably shouldn’t admit this, but the Royal Wedding was pretty cool, too — in a completely different way of course. It was like something Walt Disney might have orchestrated, and who could ever forget Pippa in that white dress?

Locally we had a great snow storm and school was closed for an entire week. We were long overdue, too. And the high school football team at Heritage, where I teach, had its best season in history. On a personal note my son graduated from UGA — and immediately enrolled in grad school. My youngest daughter survived a summer as a high adventure counselor at a New Mexico church camp — and when you operate all summer under the pseudonym “Danger,” survival is a big deal. My oldest daughter made a good living selling drugs. OK. Pharmaceuticals. So those were positives.

But in most ways, for me, 2011 was about as tough as a two dollar steak. I didn’t have as bad a year as Jerry Sandusky, but it was no bed of roses, let me tell you.

I made my first doctor’s visit on Jan. 4 and had so many complaints that neither he nor I could keep them all straight. If it was a part of my body and could hurt it hurt. If it was an organ that could cause discomfort, it caused discomfort. It seemed like I had every medical test known to man — and one or two previously reserved for women — in January and February, without a definitive answer about the source of my problems. We tried this medicine and that medicine but nothing seemed to make much of a difference.

For treating irrespective of the reason, you should definitely cialis buy online read the information, if you have ever lose erections in the bed. Lessen your worries- You cannot be sexually happy, if you are not emotionally healthy. viagra tablets online Caffeine itself does not cialis pharmacy online have the fat burning effect, but because of its stimulating effect on the nervous system, it makes it easier to consume for those who are not a fan of medicinal tablets in general. The cost of propecia at CVS pharmacy online is a perfect cerritosmedicalcenter.com order cheap viagra platform to purchase the blue pill. My wife’s solution to my ailments was the same as it always is. She put me on a diet. She is a little-boned woman, understand, who has to run around in the shower to get wet. She can eat as much as lumberjack after a two-day fast without gaining an ounce and just doesn’t understand my penchant for fried food and potatoes and gravy. Two months and 40 pounds later, I felt so bad that I invited about a hundred of my closest friends to celebrate what I was certain would be my “last birthday” at Henderson’s restaurant. I still didn’t feel worth a darn, but the fish was great and everybody told me I looked marvelous.

I struggled through the rest of the school year and scheduled a plethora of surgeries for the first day in June; surgeries that I hoped would give me some relief from my multiple health problems. On May 13, while making a pre-op visit to Rockdale Medical Center, I got a call on my cell phone from one of my doctors that promptly took my mind off my upcoming gall bladder procedure. A routine blood test during my annual physical had convinced him that I probably had prostate cancer and needed a biopsy.

Three weeks later, while I was still in severe pain from the three surgeries I had in June, my cancer diagnosis had been confirmed and I was wandering among the rubble of the summer searching for clues as to the best path to take to battle the cancer.

Six weeks after a radical prostatectomy in August, which everyone involved thought would solve the problem, I learned that the cancer had spread and further treatment would be needed. All sorts of things go through your mind when you get news like that. Not many of them are positive.

So now I am halfway through two months of daily radiation treatments and won’t know for weeks if that has worked.

But if it doesn’t, the next thing we try will — or the thing after that. One of the greatest things that happened to me in 2011, you see, was that my belief in the power of prayer has been greatly reinforced and I have learned that there are hundreds of people sending up prayers in my behalf.

So get thee behind me, 2011. I will be glad to see you gone. And I can’t wait to welcome 2012, because that will be the year that I find out I am cured. That will be a happy new year, indeed.

American politicians have always been good for a laugh, if nothing else. This adage is particularly true of presidents. When a man is in the spotlight that much he is just about bound to make a few ridiculous statements — even when trying to be serious.

The great humorist Will Rogers once quipped, “I have poked fun at every prominent person of my time, but I never met a man I didn’t like.” Of course Will Rogers never met … feel free to fill in the blank. Even before Will Rogers came on the scene the great Mark Twain was making fun of just about every American who made the mistake of taking himself too seriously. For instance, Twain once wrote, “America is a nation with no distinct criminal class, with the possible exception of Congress.”

Modern comedians, like Jay Leno and David Letterman, have made careers of cracking jokes about the people we elect to lead our country. Let’s face it. There is lots to crack on, and always has been.

Even the dour Republican Calvin Coolidge showed that he had a sense of humor. Coolidge didn’t say much — so much so that he earned the nickname “Silent Cal.” When the aforementioned Will Rogers met President Coolidge for the first time a friend bet Rogers 10 bucks that the president wouldn’t say more than two words to him. Determined to win said bet, Rogers sidled up next to the president and said to him, “Mr. President, my buddy bet me 10 dollars that you wouldn’t say as many as three words to me,” to which Coolidge responded, “You lose.”

Most of the time, of course, the things our politicians say that get the biggest laughs were not intended in jest. Herbert Hoover was as sincere as he could be when he predicted, shortly before the stock market crash of 1929, that “prosperity is just around the corner.” And Bill Clinton most certainly didn’t expect that his statement would become a perpetual punch line when he pointed his finger directly into the camera and perjured himself with the now infamous comment, “I did not have sex with that woman!”

Georgia’s own Jimmy Earl Carter suffered an embarrassing slip of the tongue at the 1980 Democratic Convention by referring to the late Minnesota Sen. Hubert Humphrey as “Hubert Horatio Hornblower.”

John F. Kennedy’s most famous gaffe came in Berlin when, attempting to identify with the people of Berlin, said in German, “I am a jelly doughnut” — instead of “I am a Berliner.”

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Richard Nixon once appeared on television’s “Laugh In” and uttered the show’s catch phrase, “Sock it to me” — this just months before all hell broke loose in Nixon’s presidency with the revelations about the Watergate scandal that led to his ultimate downfall. Nixon, to his credit, had a sense of humor and reappeared on the show after having resigned the presidency and instead of saying “Sock it to me,” said, “You can stop now!”

Of course we could fill a book with the gaffes and transfigurations of the English language for which George W. Bush was responsible during his eight years in the White House. He never could quite pronounce “nuclear,” you might remember. It always came out “nu-cu-lar.” Another time he said “One word sums up the responsibility of this office and that one word is “to be prepared.”

He once stated, “I know that human beings and fish can coexist peacefully.” Another time he said, “They misunderestimated me.” My personal favorite Bushism, being married to a midwife, is, “Too many good docs are getting out of the business. Too many OB-GYNs aren’t able to practice their love with women all across this country.”

Of course the current POTUS has made a few verbal missteps as well. He once famously stated that he had campaigned in 57 states and had only one to go. Another time, when referring to his poor bowling performance said, “I felt like I was in the Special Olympics or something.”

Last week, however, Obama outdid himself — and every other president in history — when he claimed, with a straight face, that he was the fourth best president in history — behind only LBJ, FDR and Abraham Lincoln. That may be the funniest thing I have ever heard a president say and I bet George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and about 35 other former presidents are rolling in their graves with laughter over that one.

Personally I would rank Obama fourth, too — among Jimmy Carter, Millard Fillmore and Warren G. Harding. And let me point out — Will Rogers never met Barack Obama.

Remember comic books? They were all the rage in the ’50s and ’60s — at least in my house. I liked Superman. What was not to like about Superman? He worked for a newspaper in real life and had two hot women — Lois Lane and Lana Lang — in his life. Sure, Lex Luthor was always plotting to kill him and Perry White was a bit of a pill, but he could fly, for goodness sakes, and every 13-year-old boy who ever bought a DC comic knew how Superman used his X-ray vision when he was off duty. And what red-blooded American male wouldn’t love to have a Fortress of Solitude to hang out in, especially this time of year. It was the original man cave!

My buddy Wayne Penn preferred Batman, although I will never understand why. The dude had a cool car and all that but who’d you rather hang out with — Lois Lane or the Boy Wonder? I rest my case.

There were lots of other comics, too. Marvel had Spiderman, Captain America and the Incredible Hulk, among others. DC, in addition to Super and Bat, had Green Lantern and Metal Men and let’s don’t forget Wonder Woman. I actually met her in college — or at least an extremely attractive imposter, but that’s another story for another day.

Randy Layson liked the Easy Company comics, about Sgt. Rock and his band of World War II brothers. They don’t make soldiers like Rock anymore.

My sister, Myron, liked comic books too and I would read hers when I tired of stories about super heroes who were trying to save the world or soldiers who actually did. She liked Nancy comic books and Dennis the Menace. I liked following the adventures of Nancy and Sluggo, too and still keep up with them in the funny papers, but I have got to tell you, Aunt Fritzi has aged remarkably well and if Clark Kent ever showed up to do a story in her town he might give up on that whole Double L obsession.

Myron also read comic books about two little babies called Sugar and Spike. Sugar was the girl and Spike was the little boy baby. They would “goo goo” and “ga ga” when adults were around but carry on conversations that would put the E-trade baby to shame once they were alone. Yes, I would glance at the comic books about the babies every now and then.

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Archie and Reggie were friends with — and romantically involved with, from time to time — Betty and Veronica. Betty was a blond girl-next-door type and Veronica was a spoiled little rich girl with hair so black that they always tinted it with blue streaks. I spent half my life looking for a girl with hair so black that it had blue streaks, but to no avail. Archie and the gang were typical teens who hung out at the malt shop and munched burgers and fries while getting into and out of one scrape after another.

Truth be known I had lost touch with Archie and the gang over the past, I don’t know, 50 years, but they are still around and I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that a lot of us are going to hear a lot about the Riverdale kids soon.

It seems that a year or so ago the publishers of Archie Comics felt compelled to introduce a gay character named Kevin Keller to the Riverdale mix. Welcome to the 21st century? Well guess what, y’all. Next month Kevin, in a flash-forward, is going to tie the knot with an African-American physical therapist named Clay Walker. I ain’t making this up. A comic book for adolescent kids is taking a stance for gay marriage, right there in Betty and Veronica’s hometown. What’s next? Return to Mayberry for Barney and Ernest T’s nuptials? I’m so stuck in the previous century that I haven’t even made up my mind between Ginger and Mary Ann. Thank goodness we didn’t have to throw the professor or Gilligan into the equation! I wonder what Frank Rock would think about all this?

I’m glad that when I was a kid reading comics they weren’t trying to mold my social mores. And to think that my mama got upset when I graduated from Superman to Mad Magazine.

What, me worry? You bet your bippy.

The last American combat soldier quietly left Iraq Sunday, crossing the border into Kuwait with little fanfare. Operation Iraqi Freedom began in March of 2003. My daughter was a junior in high school and a student in my AP U.S. history class. I still remember the spirited debate among members of her class as to whether we, the people of the United States, were doing the right thing by invading a country, in response to the attack on our nation by Muslim terrorists on Sept. 11, 2001, to which no direct connection with that attack had been proven.

I quite distinctly remember one young lady commenting, “I don’t think George Bush can make peace by waging war,” to which another young man responded, “Speaking purely theoretically, I don’t think George Bush is interested in making peace; I think he is interested in killing bad guys.”

Since that March day, almost nine years ago, my own daughter has graduated from high school and college and has, in fact, earned a doctorate degree and is pursuing a quite successful professional career. Most of her classmates and friends have experienced similar success. Many have married and started families. Some are still living in the area. Most have moved on.

During that time, while Jamie and her friends have been enjoying their life and liberty and pursuing happiness, nearly 1.5 million men and women have put their lives on hold to fight to protect the rights and safety of 300 million of us at home and to liberate the entire population of Iraq from the hand of an evil dictator and create for them a better world and a better hope for the future. Many, if not most, went back to Iraq a second and even third time and almost 4,500 of them did not make it home alive.

As I watched the news coverage Sunday morning about the end of the war, a lot of random thoughts were fighting for space in my mind. I thought about the political debate leading up to the initial invasion. It went on for almost seven months and centered on whether former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had secured weapons of mass destruction that he could use against our nation. Our military intelligence insisted that he had.

When we finally got boots on the ground in Iraq we didn’t find hard evidence of such weapons, unless you call the graves of almost 100,000 Kurds and almost another 100,000 Shiites hard evidence, leading George W. Bush’s detractors to rail against the president and accuse him of “lying” about the whole thing. I would suspect that a man of Saddam Hussein’s means and clout in that troubled region could have moved a lot of evidence in seven months.

I thought about Diego Rincon — the former Salem High School thespian — who was one of the very first casualties of the war. If I live another hundred years, I will not forget walking into the funeral home and encountering his flag-draped coffin and his heartbroken family. Such a promising life snuffed out so soon.

I thought about Jessica Lynch, the West Virginia private who was captured by the enemy and later rescued, becoming one of the first heroes of a war that would drag on too long. I thought about all the local families who wrung their hands and prayed for a year or more at a time while loved ones served halfway around the world.

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I thought about Noah Harris, the former UGA cheerleader who carried Beanie Babies around in his haversack for the children of Iraq and laid his young and promising life on the altar of freedom.

I thought about the Sunday morning that I awakened to the news that the Butcher of Baghdad had been captured — hiding in a hole like the low life vermin he was — by an American soldier, and I thought about the December day that I watched with guilty pleasure as he was led to the gallows.

I thought about my good friend Mike Beshiri who spent two Christmases and his 60th birthday at war, long after his days as a warrior should have passed.

I thought about the bumper sticker a soldier gave me that read, “War never solved anything, except ending slavery, fascism, communism and Baathism,” and I wondered what, exactly, we as a nation accomplished in Iraq over the past nine years.

I know that we liberated the Iraqi people from a brutal dictator. I know that we have helped instill a democratic government in that nation and helped provide the people of Iraq with more schools, hospitals and freedom than they have ever known.

Have we kept America safer? Someone smarter than me will have to answer that question. Will the democracy last? I hope and pray that it does. Will the people of Iraq make sure that Diego Rincon and Noah Harris and the 4,500 other Americans who sacrificed their lives on their behalf make the most of the gift they have been given?

I pray they do. Lord, I truly pray that they do.