Author: J_Thad_Hankins

Christian, husband, father, libertarian

Chasing the Twins…In Memory of my Uncle Ralph Who Went to Heaven Last Night

My Uncle Ralph was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis over 40 years ago. He retired from preaching and slowly, his health began to deteriorate. By the time he moved in with my family, after the death of my Aunt Bunny, my mother’s twin sister, in 1990, he couldn’t walk and was mostly confined to a recliner where he pored over his massive baseball card collection, watched any sport that happened to be on TV, and became my friend. When Aunt Bunny died he probably never thought he’d be reunited with her sooner rather than later. He probably never expected to live more than 20 years after that. I’m glad he did, though I neglected to visit him in the last years of his life. My loss. I’ll be speaking at his funeral on Wednesday and count it an honor. I’m reposting this article he wrote for my blog back in 2009 in his memory. We will miss him here, but I can only imagine how happy he is now to be reunited in Heaven with my Aunt Bunny who took care of him for so many years. Can’t wait to see them both again.
My mom and dad
My Aunt Bunny and Uncle Ralph
By Ralph Smith
(Commonly known as Uncle Ralph)
It was 1949. Harry Truman was in the White House, the Braves were in Boston, and I was in the U. S. Air Force. I had never heard of Elvis, or Viet Nam, or the Internet. I had never seen a television, a mini-skirt, or a cell-phone. Every jukebox was playing “The Lovesick Blues” by a guy named Hank Williams. I’d never heard of him before leaving for Germany a year earlier. Little did I know that I was coming to his home town, and arriving on his birthday, September 17.
I was sent to Maxwell Field to be re-assigned to some other base. I arrived on Saturday and went to church on Sunday, where I met a pair of pretty twin sisters, Those Twins have been discussed previously on this blog, and if you’re wondering why I’m telling all this, I’ll give you a clue, as Hank would say. If this story hadn’t happened pretty much as it did happen, many of the people reading this blog wouldn’t be here. Come to think of it, this blog wouldn’t be here! So pay attention!
There were a lot of men coming through the relocation center at Maxwell at that time, for various reasons, and the regular staff was snowed under. Hundreds of men were standing in line every day, and it was time consuming work. When the sergeant in charge learned that I was a Clerk-Typist, I “volunteered” to help out. If you served in the Military, you know how you volunteer. In this case, I didn’t mind a bit, because I wanted to see those Twins again.
Those Twins were Dorothy and Doris Barber, but they were known as Dot and Bunny. They were the youngest of fifteen children, and they were the only unmarried ones remaining. That, by the way, was the most amazing family I ever knew, but that’s another story. Because they were the youngest, their Mother was very protective, and insisted that they only double-date. Their Father had died the year before, and their mother was boss. That meant, if I wished to date Bunny, I must bring a buddy for Dot. That was no problem, except for Dot, who didn’t care to date just any guy. I did the best I could but the talent pool was limited.
Then I met Jim, who was returning from Panama. He was tall, and good looking, and almost as cool as I was. He was also a Clerk-Typist, and he volunteered, just as I had, to work at a desk beside me. I persuaded him to double-date. He liked it. We dated the twins, and we became buddies. We were young and foolish. We spent money like congress. We bought a car together. We moved into a vacant room in the transient barracks without permission. That room was for men with four or more stripes. Jim had two and I had two……thar’s four. We talked a lot about all kinds of things. Once, he told me that if he ever had a son, he’d name him Thad. I told him that I had been a Chaplain’s Assistant, and that Chaplain’s name was Thad Son. I kid you not!
We worked hard in the office, sometimes late at night. Our friendship grew stronger. We chased the twins. Jim went to Pensacola with me to visit my family. I went with him to Fayette to visit his. True love didn’t run smooth. We dated other girls, and the Twins dated other guys. I was miseraabe. By this time, I was in love. I thought Bunny was the prettiest girl I ever knew. That was sixty years ago. My opinion has not changed.
We bought a newer car, Through circumstance you don’t want to know, we lost it. Neither of us blamed the other. We had fun together, we made mistakes together. We rode the bus together. We chased the Twins together.
The work we were doing slowed down, and Jim and I were no longer needed there, so we were transferred to other squadrons on Maxwell. The trouble was that we were separated now. We worked and slept in different buildings. Each of us made new buddies That often happened in the Military, and fellows usually just moved on to new relationships. In this case however, a bond had been formed. Jim and I were now more than buddies; we were friends. There was also that common mission…….we were chasing the Twins.
We stayed at Maxwell until we were discharged. We got jobs and Bunny and I were married. Three weeks later, Dot and Jim were married. I was not mature enough for marriage, but nobody could have told me that. I thought I was ten feet tall and bullet-proof. There was no doubt in my mind that I would get a job and climb the ladder of success. Yeah! Jim probably thought just as I did, but I won’t speak for him.
We had chased the Twins, as Jim loves to say, until they caught us. In love stories and fairy tales, when boy finally wins girl, that’s the end, but in real life, it’s only…..THE BEGINNING.
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Steel Shanks and Nails

(Not proofread)
I had a pair of Keds shoes when I was in the second grade. They were blue with a touch of tan and had a little strap on either side that held a small, metal “k”, the forerunner of the iconic Nike Swoosh, I suppose. I remember thinking at the time that this was the coolest pair of shoes I’d ever had. These things are important in the life of an average 7-year old boy. Come to think of it, they’re important in the life of the average 42-year old boy, also. 
These shoes had black, rubber soles and a small tag on the heel said “steel shank.” At the time, I was operating under the now obviously mistaken assumption that said steel shank would make my feet impervious to virtually any sort of damage or injury. Including, but not limited to stepping on a nail. “Watch this,” I remember saying. I’m sure that well over 90% of injuries to humans of the male persuasion are preceded by this phrase. I would also argue that there is almost always at least one female present to witness the utterance of this phrase. In fact, the female is usually the reason the phrase is uttered in the first place. Guys have woven into the fiber of their being the innate desire to impress the ladies even if those ladies are in elementary school. Digression. I excel at it. Anyway, “Watch this,” I said, “I can step on a nail with these shoes and it won’t hurt me.” We had happened across an old piece of lumber with a large nail perfectly positioned to plunge into the foot of an unsuspecting victim. I placed my right foot atop the nail, pushed up with my left foot, and placed the full weight of all 40 of my pounds on the nail’s pointed tip. I stood on it for about 1/1000th of one second. That’s how long it took for that rusty old nail to pass practically unimpeded through the sole of my super-shoe and plant itself firmly into the bottom of my foot. How it didn’t stick out through the top of my foot is something I have no explanation for. It didn’t, though.
My leg and foot recoiled against this Clostridium tetani ridden intruder. I reflexively lifted my foot only to find that the board was still attached to my foot. My father is an old-school Baptist pastor and my mother, the genteel pastor’s wife. Profanity was not something I had heard with any sort of regularity at that point in my life. So, rather than let loose with a string of expletives, I simply started crying. A lot and loudly. I reached down and removed the plank from my foot and sprinted, as much as a kid with a hole through his foot can sprint, home to my mama. I vividly recall both the sound the nail made as it punctured my foot and the immense pain that shot through my body as a result. That’s not something that you forget easily. Even after thirty-five years.
Sometime around 33 AD, Jesus had an encounter with a nail. Three, actually. I’m not comparing my pain to His. I’m saying that I know how bad one nail hurt my foot. Imagine how much pain Jesus felt as a grown man whose full weight was held to a cross of coarse timber by a nail through each wrist and one nail through both feet. Imagine the beatings that left His skin tattered and torn. Imagine the crown of thorns pressed onto and into his head and how the blood must have poured down and clouded his vision. Imagine the humiliation of being mocked and spat upon and paraded practically naked in front of bloodthirsty crowds. Crowds who wanted to see Him dead. Crowds who only days before had welcomed Him into the city as a king to be worshiped. He knew it would be this way. He knew full well the brutal and violent punishment that would be inflicted upon Him. They didn’t take His life, He gave it willingly. He did it because He knew that you and I would one day owe a debt we could never hope to pay. He did it because He loves us more than we can even begin to understand. 
Steel shanks? We don’t need no steel shanks. We’ve got a Savior! Happy Easter!
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What Choice Would You Make? Something Important to Think About.

I turned 42 years old a couple of weeks ago. I know that 42 isn’t old. It’s certainly older but I like to think that if the Lord tarries I’ve still got several years of living ahead of me. One thing I think most people do as they get older is ponder things that maybe they wouldn’t have given a second thought to 10 years ago. There’s just something about the ever fleeting years that makes one understand things in a different, more mature way. That the decisions we’ve made in the past and those we will make in the future affect more than just us. They can negatively or positively affect those who are closest to us. Friends and family whom we love and who love us in return. This is especially true for the children in our lives, whether ours or someone else’s. As such, we should consider the broader implications of every decision we make, realizing how far reaching the consequences of every choice, every decision we make can be. One can ill afford to take these life questions lightly. I don’t. Having said that, maybe you’ll understand what I’m about to share and why I feel the need to share it. I’ve been struggling mightily trying to decide which superpower I’m going to choose when I finally reach the age of effervescence. My late Uncle Charlie Ray said it hit him around 50 so I figure I should be able to hash it out sufficiently over the next eight years.

The obvious choice would seem to be the ability to fly. I’ve always had dreams that I could fly so maybe that’s some sort of secret message from the effervescent dream fairies. Of course, that would only be plausible if I were to somehow overcome my fear of both heights and flying. This power could prove problematic since I have dreams of being stuck on the ledge near the top of a burning skyscraper as much as I have dreams about flying, often waking up in a cold sweat hanging backward off the edge of the bed screaming for my 4th grade teacher, Mrs. Crowley. (It’s a dream. It doesn’t have to make sense.) You’d think the fairies would let me have the power of flight dream in conjunction with the skyscraper ledge dreams just for clarification. Dumb fairies. I haven’t yet been able to fly without the aid of an airplane or a brilliantly engineered rope swing hung from a pine tree on the edge of the lake on which I grew up. The latter was really just falling, I know. It felt like flying for about .6 of a second and was a lot more fun than flying on a plane. The six or seven times I’ve flown on a big ol’ jet airliner I’ve remained glued to my seat. My seatbelt tightly fastened from takeoff to landing for fear that any movement on my part, such as a trip to the lavatory, would cause the plane to tip dangerously sideways, thus sending all of us poor souls foolish enough to board it to a tragic, terrifying, fiery demise. Acrophobia and a firm belief that if I book a flight from Atlanta to New York City I have, at best, a 50/50 chance of reaching my destination alive would probably make the ability to fly as my superpower impractical at best.

Super strength is something that holds some allure for me. Especially if I get to wear one of those leopard skin, over one shoulder, leaving one nipple exposed, unitard things that the guy at the circus wears. Maybe I could change my name to Magnus or something really strong sounding like that. I can just see me now, holding one of those those barbells with the giant black ball on either end aloft with one hand while a beautiful woman rests on the massive bicep of my other arm. I’ll have to check on the uniform requirements. As the guy who was always the smallest among my teammates during my football years, which graciously ended following my freshman year, it would be nice to be able to actually bench press more than just the bar itself. Having to lie about your max on bench press every week during JV athletics can be a little dicey when the time comes to prove it. Never mind that the max you were lying about was 135 lbs. You just have to hope you’ve made enough friends who are willing to lie for you to save your starting job at cornerback. (We only had about 17 guys on the team so that should explain the “starting cornerback” thing for you haters.) Amazing strength as a superpower, though, would seem to lend itself to a lot of requests to help so-called “friends” move. Especially the couch, TV, washer and dryer, fridge, and other heavy stuff. Not that it would be heavy to me, I’d have super strength after all, but I’ve got better things to do every weekend than help people move. My wife says I don’t look all that great in a unitard, anyway.

Which brings me to my final option: invisibility! I put that exclamation point there because, honestly, who hasn’t wanted to be invisible at some point in their lives? That’s exciting stuff! I won’t delve into the sophomoric reasons most guys would give for wanting the power of invisibility. I haven’t been a sophomore since 1985 and am far too mature to entertain such disdainful activities. There are myriad other reasons for choosing this power. Among them: the ability to walk right up into the middle of any group of people engaged in conversation and hear all the great things they’re saying about you. “Have you seen Thad’s eyelashes? They are sooooo the cat’s pajamas. He must trim them with one of those tiny electric clippers normally reserved for facial hair and/or bikini areas. HE’S AWESOME!” How cool would that be? Then you could take measures to accentuate those things and quite possibly supplant the guy on the Dos Equis commercials as the most interesting man in the world. How could that be a bad thing? Of course, if the laws of the various invisible man movies hold true, you’d also have to be naked when you are invisible. I can’t even begin to imagine the ramifications of that unfortunate side effect of invisibility. I don’t even like being naked in the shower. Invisible or not, I can’t imagine I’d like being naked at Wal-Mart or Red Robin or the new yogurt place. Plus, what would you do with your clothes? What if some jokester took them from the bathroom stall you left them hanging in while you went to try and peek in the women’s…I MEAN OVERHEAR WHAT YOUR WIFE IS SAYING TO HER FRIEND ABOUT YOU IN THE FOOD COURT! That’s what I said and you read nothing else! I’m not sophomoric, remember? Geez!

Whew. This whole reaching the age of effervescence thing is turning out to be more complicated than I thought. Maybe that’s why Uncle CR would never use his power of super-intelligence around us kids. It can probably be pretty stressful having superpowers. I think there’s a saying that goes “With great superpowers comes great responsibility.” Maybe I should just stick to saying inane things on Facebook and talking to myself in various bad accents in the mirror while I’m getting ready every day. You know, normal stuff.

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The Great Ice Cream Shop Faux Pas of ’85 (I’ll have Sweet Tea in a Thimble, Please)

This entry was brought about by a picture I recently saw on Facebook. Let me start by saying that I have a question. More than one, actually. Let me preface these questions by first sharing an experience I had many years ago. My first real girlfriend’s name was Wendy. I was 17 and she was 15 when we went on our first date. We loaded up in my green 1972 LTD, it was actually the family car as we couldn’t afford to buy me a car of my own, and away we went to see a movie at the now defunct Twin Oaks Four. Is there even such a thing as a movie theater complex with less than 77 separate theaters anymore? My goodness. I love them but when a theater can be mistaken for Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta you know it’s BIG! Let’s get some moving sidewalks in there, people. I’ve been in some where I have to use my Garmin GPS just to find my movie. I digress. I forget what movie we went to see but I’m confident that some combination of Molly Ringwald, Emilio Estevez, Judd Nelson, Anthony Michael Hall, and Ally Sheedy were in it. Digression again. Anyway…
If you ever went to the Twin Oaks Four, you know that there was an ice cream shop next door. We got to the theater early, bought our tickets, and had a little time to kill before the movie started so we decided to get some ice cream and a drink. We ordered a sundae to share and rather than share a drink, I ordered us both large drinks. After all, I wanted to impress her on this very important first date. The problem was that the cup the large drink came in held enough soda, or sodie-water as my dad says, to quench the thirst of the entire 101st Airborne Division. As if teenagers on a first date aren’t nervous and self-conscious enough as it is, drinking Sprite from a 5-gallon bucket only served to exacerbate matters. I know everyone was laughing and saying, “Look at that poor sap. He forced his date to get the giant drink. A common error on a first date. Bless his poor, dumb heart.” To make matters even worse she had told me that she only wanted a small drink but I, the big spender, insisted we both get larges. Three years later she would dump me for a guy who knew how to work on cars. The breakup was due in no small part to what I now refer to as The Great Ice Cream Shop Faux Pas of ’85. I’m sure it had nothing to do with my unbearable insecurity which resulted in my asking her every 15 minutes or so if she was going to break up with me. I haven’t had a large drink of any sort for almost 26 years. One can’t be too careful with these things.
I realize I took you around the world for this, but here is what I want to know: those of you who enjoy the occasional margarita at one of the countless Mexican eateries in your town, do you ever feel like everyone is looking at you simply because of the sheer size and amount of the drink in front of you? Isn’t the giant margarita overkill or do you get more for less money with the fishbowl? What exactly is the allure of the mega-margarita?
Inquiring minds want to know. At least mine does.
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Of Pizza and Fireflies

Sunday night after church is often Pizza night at our house. Tonight, as I have another slice, I’m also watching the AFC Championship Game as the Steelers are, at least thus far, beating up on the Jets. Should they win, it would set up a Super Bowl pitting the Green Bay Packers against the Pittsburgh Steelers. Two teams that remind me a lot of my childhood. Terry Bradshaw, Lynn Swann, Franco Harris were among my favorite Steelers players as a child. For the Packers there was head coach, Bart Starr who, with his Montgomery and University of Alabama connections, drew a lot of my attention. Anyway, with the help of a Facebook conversation, I took a little trip down memory lane and decided to repost this entry about the innocence and fun of childhood and how we let that attitude slip away from us far too easily as adults. Hope you enjoy…




Originally posted August 11, 2009


Why do I get so excited every time we order pizza? Because we did tonight and I am. Excited, that is.

I grew up in Slapout, Alabama, and the only restaurant there at the time was Hungry Horace’s. Once in a blue moon we would order something from Hungry Horace’s and go pick it up. I can remember only one time that I actually ate there inside the restaurant. It’s probably because they had an arcade and a pool table and my dad wasn’t fond of me going in there because he said the people would get in there and gamble. I don’t know if they did or not but I’m sure that had something to do with it.

Anyway, that was just hamburgers and fries pretty much. Nothing fancy like pizza! We only got to eat pizza every other Friday when we would go to my Aunt Bunny and Uncle Ralph’s house in Montgomery. I loved that! They had cable TV with something like fourteen channels, a piano in the back room that I’d bang on, and they lived in the city where there were other kids to play with within walking distance instead of on the other side of the county. We’d order pizza from Pizza Inn, go pick it up and bring it back to their house, eat it while watching something sports related ON CABLE(my Uncle Ralph is a bit of a sports fanatic). Then, we’d go to K-Mart, the one next to Big Apple, in Aunt Bunny’s big, brown Bonneville where I would always get an Icee and some sort of toy. I have two enduring memories of riding in that car. The first is that I would sit in the back seat on the fold-down armrest in the middle of the seat. I thought it was a seat for kids. Really. Of course I wasn’t wearing a seatbelt. The other was the sound that the turn-signal would make. TUNK-A, TUNK-A, TUNK-A. It was so loud! There is no way you could have gone more than a few feet without realizing it was on the way you can with modern blinkers. No going around the world to the left in that car! 

When K-Mart would finally close for the night we’d head back to my aunt and uncle’s house again where some of the neighborhood kids and I would catch fireflies by the jarful. It was there that I learned you could squeeze the “stuff” out of the firefly’s tail and rub it on your shirt and it would glow(don’t tell PETA). My dad and Uncle Ralph would sit inside and watch CABLE TV and my mom and Aunt Bunny would sit on the front porch and drink coffee and smoke cigarettes. My mom was partial to Pall Mall Golds. That was twenty-nine years ago and smoking was not quite as frowned upon then as it is now(as it should be). I should note that my mom quit smoking altogether several years ago. While they smoked and talked I would run up and down the streets of the neighborhood until I heard mom hollering for me. Then we’d load up in our 1972 LTD and head back to Slapout. I always fell asleep in the backseat, you guessed it, with no seatbelt on. In my pre-adolescent world I wondered how life could get any better! Until I got married and had children, I’m not sure that it did. 

I got older and got my driver’s license and there were things that became more important for me than pizza and fireflies. It’s been almost twenty years since Aunt Bunny, my mom’s twin sister and the closest thing I had to a grandmother, went to Heaven. After that, Uncle Ralph came to live with us for a few years. He has Multiple Sclerosis and has since moved into a nursing home. There is a lot I could write about him and the time we spent as roomies with my parents. In fact, I think I’ll do that soon. 

The older we get, the less we seem to love life. Not that we aren’t happy, but with age comes a job and bills and responsibility. We get bogged down in temporal things that demand far too much of our time and the joy of childhood is replaced by stress and busyness and the pursuit of things we think will give us joy. And sometimes those things do. But that joy is often fleeting and thus begins our pursuit once again.

I think I just answered my own question about ordering pizza. When I sat down to write this it was going to be funny. I like funny. Funny is…fun. I suppose sometimes things don’t work out like we planned. Life is short and each passing year seems to go by faster. Maybe it’s time, as the old Waylon and Willie song says, I got back to the basics of life. Reassess my priorities and responsibilities and concentrate on the things that really matter. Being a good husband to my beautiful wife, a loving daddy to my two incredible children, banging on old pianos, drinking Icees, catching fireflies in jars…and pizza.

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Don’t Mess With Us Christians, We’re Bad!

18Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” Matthew 28:18-20 NIV


Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:6, NIV


“Anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior, I’m telling you, you’re not my brother and you’re not my sister, and I want to be your brother,”  Governor Robert Bentley following the official inauguration ceremony




I’d like to take just a moment to have a word with the Anti-Defamation League, The Birmingham Islamic Society, and various other people and groups who are “shocked” or worry that they may not “receive equal treatment during his (Gov. Bentley’s) tenure as governor.”


Really? These are things that you fear? Seriously? Give me a break! Governor Bentley is a Christian. He has a brother of the biological sort who is a preacher so I can only assume that he grew up with parents who took him to church and taught him Christian morals and values. They probably also taught him that above anything else in this world, that his relationship with Christ is most important. He probably also learned the two passages of scripture that I’ve quoted above. 


The first is universally referred to as The Great Commission in which Jesus instructed his disciples to spread the word of His gospel to all the world. In the second reference, Jesus is speaking to those same disciples, his friends, at what we know to be The Last Supper. He is answering a question from Thomas, famously branded a doubter, regarding how the disciples would be able to find their way to Jesus when he left them. Jesus referred to Himself as the way, the truth, and the life, not one of many ways. Whether anyone outside the Christian faith chooses to believe that or not is up to them. Those of us who do believe it, well, it didn’t originate with us. We didn’t say it, Jesus did, so you’ll have to take that up with Him. 


Rather than pen a deeply theological missive to those who choose not to adhere to Christianity, mostly because my severely limited education prohibits it, let me just tell you what I, a simpleton who was raised in a Christian home with a pastor for a father, think these passages mean and how I think Christians are to live them out on a daily basis. The way that I believe the vast, vast majority of Christians, including Gov. Bentley, do.


I believe that it is the privilege and responsibility of the Christian to share the truth of scripture with everyone that they can in this life. Christians should be sensitive to the guidance of the Holy Spirit in doing so, so as not to offend, frighten, or do a disservice to either the subject of their proselytizing or to God. This isn’t always the case. I understand that. But I believe that most Christians are sensitive to the manner and attitude with which they share the Gospel. I would guess that Gov. Bentley, as a deacon and Sunday School teacher at First Baptist Church, Tuscaloosa, has done this numerous times, likely in a wholly appropriate way with few finding him offensive.


I also would assume that the Governor, like me, believes that the Bible is more than just a book of tales and yarns meant to teach a lesson much the same as one of Aesop’s fables would.  I believe that the Bible is the divinely inspired word of God. A love-letter to all of humanity meant to  guide a fallen creation back to Himself through His Son, Jesus. If I am to be an adherent to the Christian faith then it would behoove me to believe and follow the principles and commands set forth in scripture to the best of my ability. Among those being the way that Jesus dealt with people. He did so with compassion and love, often befriending those who were thought to be unclean or evil or of an inferior race or other people group. The beautiful story of the woman at the well in the book of John, chapter 4 springs to mind. The New Testament is full of similar examples.


I said all that to say this: there are only two plausible things I can think of that Gov. Bentley’s detractors on this (non) issue are being driven by. The first is a lack of understanding of scripture and the manner in which Christians are to be about the work of God here on earth. The second is a desire of the allegedly offended to grab a headline or two or a hundred by attempting to make political hay with the Governor’s comments. If I were a betting man, smart money would be on the latter explanation.

Christians in leadership positions are not to check their beliefs and values at the door. They are not to bow at the altar of “you can’t legislate morality” the way so many politicians mistakenly do. After all, someone’s morality, or lack thereof, is being legislated with every law that is passed in this nation. Christians are to use their station in life, whatever that station may be, to bring glory to the God of the universe. The fact is that those who are not and do not desire to be followers of Christ are not brothers and sisters in the Christian sense of Gov. Bentley, Billy Graham, Thad Hankins or anyone else who is a Christian any more than a member of the Boy Scouts of America is a brother to someone who is a member of their local Masonic lodge. That doesn’t mean you and I can’t be the best of friends or that I will treat you unfairly. I have some dear friends whom I love who are not my brothers and sisters in Christ. I wish they were. Perhaps one day they will. I hope so. But, short of them joining Al Qaeda, I will continue to count them as friends regardless of whether they choose to become a Christian or not.


It’s a matter of semantics, really. If you are an Orhtodox Jew, you aren’t a Christian. If you are a practicing Muslim, you aren’t a Christian. If you are a Wiccan, you aren’t a Christian. If you are an atheist, you aren’t a Christian. If you believe Jesus was born of a virgin, was crucified on a cross, rose again three days later, and you invite Him to be the Lord of your life then you are a Christian. Outside of that, you aren’t, thus precluding you from being a spiritual brother or sister to anyone who is. How is that offensive or frightening? Be honest. My three sisters are my sisters because they were born of the same two parents as I was. My spiritual brothers and sisters are spiritual brothers and sisters because they made a decision to be adopted by the same Heavenly Father that I did. It’s that simple.


If our new Governor is a devout, devoted Christian who is earnestly seeking to relate to people in a manner of which Jesus would approve, then any fears anyone has about not being treated fairly by this new administration are completely unfounded and for them to insinuate otherwise is shameful. To say that one can’t govern fairly if they practice a certain faith is in itself unfair. Context clues and recent history lead me to believe that there is no real fear of this and that this whole affair is nothing but the most recent case of political posturing by those who desire the limelight or have an ax to grind with a particular belief system.


If I’m proven wrong then I’ll step up and admit it and take whatever lumps I have coming. If, after a reasonable amount of time (more than a day), those who are “afraid” Gov. Bentley won’t represent them fairly as citizens of this great state are proven wrong they should be willing to do the same. I won’t hold my breath because by then they’ll likely have forgotten the horrible, detestable, evil words spoken by this governor and will be in search of something new to be offended by. Perhaps a child bringing a Bible to school with him in his backpack or someone with her head bowed, silently thanking God for and asking Him to bless the meal she is about to eat. We Christians are a mean bunch, after all. If you don’t leave us alone we’ll start responding in large numbers to places devastated by natural disasters like hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, and even terrorist attacks. Don’t believe it? Try us. We’re bad.

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Is Sarah Palin to Blame for Violence? A Palin Critic Says No. But…

Posted by Nicky D.


I dislike Sarah Palin. I could go into a big long paragraph about how she is a genius at manipulating the American public, how her addition to the republican ticket should have made every single woman in America (no matter what your party preferences are) say “Really? Is that what you think of me? That my brain is so tiny and incapable of understanding the big bad world that you think you can get my vote by just by saying ‘look she has girly parts just like you’? or how she preys upon the simple minded by spewing one over-simplified, socially irresponsible, folksy catch phrase after another designed to make herself seem more like you, but I won’t. 

She is though, like all of us everyday folks, just the worst possible versions of ourselves we could ever be. Mean, racist, intolerant, misinformed, cruel, and socially and environmentally irresponsible. Odd that these are the qualities she chooses to highlight so that she seems relatable. Makes you wonder who exactly she thinks we ARE. See, I didn’t write a paragraph about how much I dislike her. I wrote two, but only two. Very conservative of me I think.

Now that I have made my position on Sarah Palin clear let me just say I think it’s horrible that any of the blame of this awful event is being directed at her. Should she have put other politicians in metaphorical “crosshairs”? Nope. It was stupid, but she’s hardly alone in her poor judgment It’s the political environment today. Acrimony over harmony. Hatred and fear are part of the political process these days. Is it her fault? Nah. It’s ours. They didn’t put the McRib on the menu cause nobody eats it honey. Do we find it vile and disgusting? Do we contemplate how any good could possibly come of it? Do we recognize that its harmful and unhealthy? Oh yeah. But it’s so deliciously easy to swallow. 

We love to be angry. We are mad as hell, even if we can’t really articulate what it is we are so mad about. Funny thing is, I think people are scared more than mad. We are being manipulated to respond to our fears with anger. And I have to disagree with anyone who says fear mongering and inciting hate haven’t primarily been the go-to tools of the far right. 

Now that’s not to say that I think this particular trend is the reason this individual set out to kill a person whose political beliefs he did not agree with, if it is determined that was actually his motivation.
The man who walked out of his home with a loaded weapon with the intent to wreak this type of havoc clearly had some mental illness and his choice was a product of that. But we have to stop allowing ourselves and others to be manipulated with blind fear and ENCOURAGED to allow our fears to manifest as anger instead of solutions or it stand to reason that we will continue to see tragedy.

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Why Aren’t Liberals Blamed for Senseless Violence? A MUST READ!

This is absolutely a must read for anyone, conservative or liberal. Every time some wacko nut-job does something like this guy in Arizona did, the left-wing media wants to blame everyone from the Tea Party to Ronald Reagan. Check out Michelle Malkin’s The progressive “climate of hate:” An illustrated primer, 2000-2010 and see for yourself. You will be shocked!

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It’s Good to be the King

I have three older sisters, the youngest of which was 13 years old when I was born, and, for all intents and purposes, I grew up as an only child. Needless to say, as the only boy and the baby of the family I pretty much had run of the joint. Some might say I was spoiled. In my own defense…nah, what am I thinking? I was spoiled rotten. Even as an adult, I’m not very good at sharing my toys. Anyway, since I like to have things my way, I was thinking what I would do if I were president. Then, I realized that even though the office of president of the United States is a powerful position, I’d really rather just be the king. It’s good to be the king, after all. These are some of the things that I’d do if I became the king of the world.

  • Everyone would have maps. Google “Miss Teen South Carolina” if you need more info on this one.
  • The TV show Glee would have to dispense with all the hokey, political/social-statement story lines and just dance and sing. My wife was a member of the Auburn University Show Choir and the singing and dancing sort of remind me of when we were dating. That’s a good thing. The story lines remind me of the time Tullis Lanier punched me in the stomach at Michael Morgan’s house; I get a headache, feel kind of sick, have a hard time breathing, and want to go hide in a closet and cry. Stick with crisp choreography to Safety Dance and we can be friends again.
  • North Korean dictator, Kim Jong-il, would have to get a haircut. Immediately. There’s no reason a grown man should be running around firing off nuclear missiles and shooting -38 with 11 holes-in-one in a single round of golf with what appears to be the same hairstyle every girl I went to high school with in the 80’s had. Minus the tight-as-a-gnat’s-chuff perm around the edges, of course. Even if he is a big fan of 80’s new wave band, A Flock of Seagulls, that’s still no excuse.
  • Nancy Pelosi would never be able to be on TV, radio, YouTube or anywhere else where I would have to see or hear her speak. I’ve a feeling I would enforce this rule even if she weren’t a left-winger. Case in point, click here. She makes me want to stick an ice-pick in my ears.
  • Smoking sections in restaurants worldwide would no longer exist. A smoker may know that they are in the smoking section but their smoke doesn’t. I spent 10 years of my life being a smoker but quit 12 years ago. If I wanted to smell like the drapes in my 17 pack-a-day-habit Aunt Myrtle’s house then I’d move in with her. I’d like to enjoy my Rooty Tooty Fresh and Fruity Breakfast without having to don a post-apocalyptic gas mask.
  • Barry Manilow would be vice-king and his main responsibility would be to make sure that all radio stations spent no less than 8 hours daily playing nothing but Barry Manilow tunes. The employees of any station found to be in violation of this rule would be punished by being forced to memorize and perform Justin Bieber’s song Favorite Girl as the opening act for the band Gwar on their Bloody Pit of Horror tour.
  • The aforementioned Kim Jong-il would be forced to adopt Justin Bieber’s hairstyle.
  • Justin Bieber would be forced to adopt a hairstyle that doesn’t make me both laugh hysterically and feel great sorrow for him at the same time. Where is that boy’s daddy? Someone needs to tell him to spend  an afternoon at Supercuts on his next day off.
  • The ACLU would be outlawed as a terrorist organization. Hey, they can’t all be funny.
  • Julian Assange of Wikileaks fame, or infamy I should say, would be banished from anywhere people are. I’m a little tired of seeing his pasty, skinny, face smirking every time I turn on the telly as if he is some sort of pseudo-celebrity/hero. He’s a no account computer geek who probably spent too much time in his parents’ basement playing World of Warcraft or D&D. Get some semblance of a life or go away. Oh, and can someone buy this cat a month’s membership at Electric Sun? He’s gonna’ end up with rickets.
  • Being a celebrity would require that you have some sort of discernible talent. Are you listening Paris, Nicole, and all of the Kardashian chicks? Saying stupid things on TV is not a talent. Contrary to the beliefs of most men, neither is having a big butt. Perhaps Mr. Assange could benefit from meeting you.
  • I’d have my very own pimento cheese factory!
  • And, of course, MONKEYS RIDING DOGS!!! (Nod to Rick and Bubba)
There are plenty more edicts that I’d hand down with an iron fist but I want to become the king before I share them with the general public. I don’t need a revolt of the commoners before I even get to wear my crown. Whatever happens, though, I promise to never wear my hair like ol’ Kim Jong. Or Justin Bieber.
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