Author: J_Thad_Hankins

Christian, husband, father, libertarian

Don’t Let the Earbugs Bite! A Blast from the Past.

I thought I’d go back and repost some of my favorite blog entries over the last couple of years for those of you who might not have gotten to read them the first time around. This entry is one of my all time favorites because it happened to someone else rather than me.

Originally posted on May 28, 2009
The Facebook status update jumped out at me like…something that jumps out at someone. It said, “Courtney Barrett is taking Dale to the Emergency Room because he has a BUG in his ear !!!” Dale is my nephew. Being a good uncle, I called him to check on him. They were en route to the hospital. I said, “This will be written about on the blog.” He said, “I know. It should be.” He spoke with little joy or humor in his voice. He said, “It feels like a Cadillac is parked on my eardrum.” I stifled a laugh and spoke with as much sympathy as I could muster under the circumstances. I asked him to update me when he was done. The following email that he sent me this morning is his account of the events of last evening:
We are on the way home from my mom’s and we stop to get a drink at the store. I walk to the door and as I open it I am swarmed by about 700 million bugs. After dancing on the sidewalk to get the bugs off of me I go into the store and go about my business. We start heading home and about 2 miles down the road I feel something in my ear crawling, so I start freaking out because it is in all the way down and I can’t get it.

Once home, I get a baby suction bulb and start trying to get it that way with no luck. Next, I get Q-tips and go that way, still with no luck. So, I get in the shower and run about 200 gallons of scalding hot water into my ear. At that point, I thought it was gone, so I get out of the shower but while I’m drying off, it starts crawling again. I get another Q-tip and by this time I see that my ear is bleeding which causes me to get even more frantic because I think that it has bitten a chunk out of my ear. Then I think to myself, “How do I kill it and then flush it out?” Alcohol is the first thing that comes to mind. I pour it in and immediately realize I have to go to the ER and do two things: A) Get the bug out, and, B) Repair the eardrum I have demolished trying to do just that.

We head out to Baptist Medical Center East and Courtney is driving when at the end of the toll bridge we see…State Troopers doing a license check. It is right then that we realize Courtney had left her wallet at home and we have to play twenty questions with with the officer and watch him struggle as he tries not to laugh at the 6 foot 300-pound baby in the passenger side who is all broke down with a bug in his ear.

We get to the ER and it is appears as though there has been a war of some sort and all of the wounded are at this ER. I see a woman sleeping in the front door so we turn and head to Elmore Community Hospital. We get there about 20 minutes later, go right back to the treatment area and the festivities begin. The doctor looks into my ear and says, “What have you tried to get this thing out?” I did withhold the part about the q-tips and alcohol and only mentioned the bulb thingy and the water. He sort of chuckles and continues. He says he sees it way in the back, a tiny, little black speck. He flushes my ear with a saline solution several times and it doesn’t budge. He walks off and comes back a few minutes later with a nurse, a pair of angled tweezers, and a light to look into my ear. He still sees the speck and he reaches in and grabs it! Ahh…it is finally coming out. Hallelujah! It is at this point that I almost faint because he has it alright, my eardrum! If you have never had your eardrum clamped onto with a pair of tweezers and stretched out, I highly recommend you run out and have it done now! What an incredible rush! Anyway, he looks in again and nothing is there and he gives me some antibiotic drops and tells me to leave it alone. Turns out my self-treatment had done far more damage than the bug could ever have done. Go figure.

The lesson I learned here, and I hope you take heed of this, is that a bug will come out on its own, usually quite quickly, because there is nowhere for it to go in someone’s ear. Unless it is too big to turn around. I don’t even want to think about that possibility. I know that from now on if I have to go into a convenience store at night, I will wear earmuffs!

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The Republican Party is the Party of the Rich? Hot Dog! When Do I Get My Check?!?

Ms. Emily Moore wrote a letter to the Wetumpka Herald’s Elmore County Weekend this past weekend in which she chastised the Republican Party for being “the party of the rich.” She says that Republicans and conservatives in Alabama “go on about big government control and unsympathetically criticize anything that benefits the smallest amount of us.” She stuck to that theme throughout her letter and I encourage you to pick up a copy of the paper so that you may share in the joy of her incredibly well thought out prose. She also makes the assertion that Republicans and conservatives have never been a friend to much of anyone other than “their rich chums” and that it was the Democrats that “gave a voice to the blacks.” Note to Ms. Moore: Google Allen West, Alan Keys, Clarence Thomas, Lynn Swann, or J.C. Watts to name just to name a few. You might be surprised at what you find.

I registered as a Republican in 1987, my senior year in high school, and have spent the last almost 24 years honing my conservative worldview. I graduated from Holtville High School in the now booming metropolis of Slapout, Alabama. My father is an old-school, Southern Baptist preacher who grew up dirt-poor in Lamar County, Alabama. You haven’t seen rural until you’ve been to Lamar County. I loved the three years I lived there but it’s so far out in the country you actually have to drive back towards town just to go hunting. My mom is the youngest of fifteen children so, needless to say, she didn’t exactly grow up splitting time between her home in Montgomery and the family chalet in the hills of Coosa County. Both my parents were born in 1929 which, for those of you who know your history, was the year the Great Depression hit..

When I graduated from high school, after an ill-advised trip to Panama City Beach, Florida, I went to work. I intermittently spent some time here and there attending various institutions of higher learning but am no closer to having a college degree today than I was the day I started the first grade. I’ve worked at a cotton-gin, on a grass-cutting crew, at a hardware store, a grocery store, and two bookstores, one of which was at a small private college. I probably got more of an education by reading the Abnormal Psychology textbook than I would have had I been an actual student. I have worked at a miniature golf course, in a parts warehouse, and even spent a few hours pulling weeds, row by row, in a cotton field as a teenager. It was only a few hours because it didn’t take long for me to conclude that I hated working in a cotton field and so after about three hours, during a water break, I made my getaway. My father was not impressed by my great escape and I’ll spare you the gory details of what followed my dash to freedom. Suffice it to say that punishment was swift and severe. So much for my homage the Underground Railroad.

Anyway, my point, and I do have one, is that I am neither rich, nor powerful, nor highly educated. I am a conservative first and a Republican second. If the Republican Party ceases to represent the issues I feel most passionately about in a way that is not indicative of my own personal beliefs, then I will cease to be a Republican. I criticize President Obama because his beliefs and ideas are antithetical to my own. It has nothing to do with the color of his skin. The fact that Ms. Moore speaks in generalities and likely paints everyone who doesn’t share her views with an awfully broad brush would seem to make her the more narrow-minded, less tolerant person. Perhaps those on the left should be a little more dedicated to practicing what they preach. I am proudly pro-life, anti-big government, pro-gun rights, and I have a daughter whose first name is Reagan. Yes, she is named for that Reagan. I also have very close friends from various walks of life with views and beliefs that differ greatly from mine. Somehow, they are able to overlook my supposed narrow-minded conservatism and I am able to live with their be-tolerant-of-everyone-except-narrow-minded-conservatives mantra. It’s an arrangement that actually works out quite nicely.

As usual, that’s just my opinion. I could be wrong. I’m not, though. Rich and powerful Republicans never are. Now I’m off to the South of France for the weekend. Au revoir.

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God Came Near

God entered the world as a baby.
Yet, were someone to chance upon the sheep stable on the outskirts of Bethlehem that morning, what a peculiar scene they would behold.
The stable stinks like all stables do. The stench of urine, dung, and sheep reeks pungently in the air. The ground is hard, the hay scarce. Cobwebs cling to the ceiling and a mouse scurries across the dirt floor.
A more lowly place of birth could not exist.
Off to one side sit a group of shepherds. They sit silently on the floor, perhaps perplexed, perhaps in awe, no doubt in amazement. Their night watch had been interrupted by an explosion of light from heaven and a symphony of angels. God goes to those who have time to hear him — so on this cloudless night he went to simple shepherds.
Near the young mother sits the weary father. If anyone is dozing, he is. He can’t remember the last time he sat down. And now that the excitement has subsided a bit, now that Mary and the baby are comfortable, he leans against the wall of the stable and feels his eyes grow heavy. He still hasn’t figured it all out. The mystery event puzzles him. But he hasn’t the energy to wrestle with the questions. What’s important is that the baby is fine and that Mary is safe. As sleep comes he remembers the name the angel told him to use … Jesus. “We will call him Jesus.”
Wide awake is Mary. My, how young she looks! Her head rests on the soft leather of Joseph’s saddle. The pain has been eclipsed by wonder. She looks into the face of the baby. Her son. Her Lord. His Majesty. At this point in history, the human being who best understands who God is and what he is doing is a teenage girl in a smelly stable. She can’t take her eyes off him. Somehow Mary knows she is holding God. So this is he. She remembers the words of the angel. “His kingdom will never end.”
He looks like anything but a king. His face is prunish and red. His cry, though strong and healthy, is still the helpless and piercing cry of a baby. And he is absolutely dependent upon Mary for his well-being.
Majesty in the midst of the mundane. Holiness in the filth of sheep manure and sweat. Divinity entering the world on the floor of a stable, through the womb of a teenager and in the presence of a carpenter.
She touches the face of the infant-God. How long was your journey!
This baby had overlooked the universe. These rags keeping him warm were the robes of eternity. His golden throne room had been abandoned in favor of a dirty sheep pen. And the worshiping angels had been replaced with kind but bewildered shepherds.
Meanwhile, the city hums. The merchants are unaware that God has visited their planet. The innkeeper would never believe that he has just sent God into the cold. And the people would scoff at anyone who told them the Messiah lay in the arms of a teenager on the outskirts of their village. They were all too busy to consider the possibility.
Those who missed His Majesty’s arrival that night missed it not because of evil acts or malice; no, they missed it because they simply weren’t looking.
Little has changed in the last two thousand years, has it?
Excerpt from God Came Near by Max Lucado
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My Response to a Christian Friend Regarding Santa Claus

I realize not everyone agrees on this issue and I am convinced that this is a decision that is deeply personal and that there is not necessarily a right or wrong way to deal with it. It has to do with whether it is proper or not for a Christian family to teach their kids about Santa Claus. My parents raised me and my three older sisters to love Santa. They also taught us to love Jesus more. I was moved to respond after being pointed to this video by a friend. Watching the video first will give you the context of my response. What do you think? Be nice. After all…Santa Claus is coming to town!

“Hmm. And we wonder why a lost world shows little interest in Christ. I believe it is in no small part due to the fact that most of us Christians personify what most of them think God is. Some sort of supernatural nanny sitting up in a big, heavenly chair who just loves pointing out how bad people are. That all He does, and then we in turn do, is go around telling everyone what they can’t do instead of sharing the love of Christ with them. With all due respect, I am personally offended every time someone decides to look down from their ivory tower and yell at me because my kids love the idea of Santa Claus.

As a child, I loved the idea of Santa Claus. Still do. My father is an old-school, Bible believing, God-honoring, pastor, husband, father, grandfather, and great-grandfather who was somehow, miraculously able to allow all four of his children to love the idea of Santa and yet see all of us come to know Christ at an early age. As a matter of fact, when I accepted Jesus as my Savior in 1977, at eight years old, I had no problem reconciling Jesus and Santa. As I got older and wiser and came to know the things I do now as an adult, I was neither troubled nor confused by the way my parents raised me and the way that we celebrated Christmas at my house.

When my father was pastor of New Home Baptist Church in Titus, Santa Claus was an annual visitor to our church every Christmas season. If we do our job as parents and teach our kids about Jesus, who He is, what He did, and why He did it, then we won’t have to worry about Santa or anyone else confusing them. Don’t tell me that it’s impossible or even difficult. My mom and dad did it four times! I’m trying my best to do it now with my children and had the blessed honor of baptizing my son a couple of years ago. If your personal feeling is to go a different route with Santa then that is certainly your prerogative. Don’t assume that your way is the only way it is possible to lead a child to Christ. Children possess an innocence that, once gone, will never return. Let them enjoy it while they can. The reality of life will meet them head-on soon enough.

My opinion is that Santa is a lot of fun. My belief is that Jesus was born of a virgin, lived a sinless life, died on a cross, and on the third day He kicked death in the teeth and lived again so that if I believe He did all these things and invite Him to be the Lord of my life, I can live with Him forever in Heaven. That’s a pretty good deal. A good deal I picked up from my parents while lying awake half the night every Christmas Eve in anticipation of gifts from Santa Claus in my living room on Christmas morning. I guess God still is in the miracle business.”

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An Opinion I’ve Heard Enough Of

Tragic. It’s the only word that can even come close to describing the events surrounding the death of Wetumpka High School Senior, Haley Wingard, last week at the hands of an obviously troubled ex-boyfriend. I have no inclination to delve into why this young man made such a terrible decision or engage in any rumors and/or hearsay. What I would like to address are some of the opinions I’ve heard since that terrible night regarding how law enforcement officers handled the situation.

I am unashamedly pro-law enforcement. I have the utmost respect for the men and women in our area, and everywhere else for that matter, who choose to put on the uniform every day and go to work to help keep our neighborhoods and communities safe. Sometimes that is something as relatively simple as slowing down drivers by stopping them and letting them know they need to slow down. Warning or ticket, usually those of us who tend to have a lead foot are guilty. We usually don’t like when that happens and we might gripe and complain about it but it’s necessary. Sometimes, as I saw two weeks ago, it is responding to the concerns of a local businesswoman who heard someone open the back door of her building when there should have been no one there except her. Sometimes it’s trudging through the woods in the middle of the night or in the rain looking for a missing person. Always, it is dangerous. With every traffic stop or response to a domestic dispute or robbery call or any number of countless other things law enforcement officers are called upon to do for us, the potential exists for that officer to be injured or worse. Such was the case last Thursday night as many of them responded to the hostage situation that was unfolding in Walsboro.

I know virtually none of the details of what transpired that evening, but what I do know is this: Every police officer, deputy, EMT, and first responder’s objective that night was to rescue Haley. Every action they took or didn’t take that night, every decision they made was made with the sole intention of getting her out safely and defusing the situation. Tragically, that didn’t happen. Perhaps, in hindsight, there are some things they would have done differently. Perhaps not. I’m nothing resembling any sort of expert or authority on negotiating hostage situations. I don’t know when negotiating should cease and use of force should commence. The men who were there that night do. They train regularly for situations just as this. Whoever made the call to go in did so based on that training and their own experience. Whoever fired the shots did so based on that training and their experience. If I had to hazard a guess I’d say they are more than a little distraught over the way the situation ended. Who wouldn’t be? They’re human just like you and I, after all. They risk their lives every time they go on duty for a public that seems to have less and less respect for them with every incident that doesn’t end well such as this one. Never mind that this particular team has been faced with at least 207 similar incidents which ended peacefully.

I will leave the discussion, debate, and second-guessing to others who feel the need to do so. Until someone teaches me all the ins and outs of hostage negotiation and rescue and until I’ve been involved in a few myself, I’ll leave it to the professionals. They are good at what they do even though things don’t always go the way they want them to. I’m sure they struggle and hurt and second guess themselves enough when things go wrong. They don’t need anyone to pile on. I can’t imagine how difficult it must be to make a split-second decision in the heat of such a stressful, tense, dangerous moment. Most of us will never have to do it because these guys decided they would. For that, what they deserve is respect and thanks from those of us whom they protect. Spare me the armchair quarterbacking. I really don’t want to hear it anymore.

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Thankfulness

This is a rehash of some things I posted on my Facebook page a few weeks ago when I was in a particularly foul mood. There are lots of things I’m thankful for, big and small. This certainly isn’t an exhaustive list but it reminds me of how good my life really is and how blessed I am…far beyond what I deserve. In no particular order, I am thankful for…

  • Cheese
  • Pizza
  • Jambalaya
  • Football
  • Christmas
  • The beach
  • The mountains
  • The satisfying feeling of clicking my daughter’s barrette in my fingers
  • Lunch on Sundays at the Mexican restaurant
  • Cornbread and black-eyed peas
  • Riding my bike
  • Sisters
  • My fabulous family
  • T-shirts that are long enough
  • T-shirts on which the neck is not stretched out of shape
  • New shoes that make me run fast
  • My Power Balance wristband which allows me to jump flat-footed from the sidewalk in front of Wal-Mart onto the top of the building
  • A good salad slathered in Italian dressing with so many bacon bits that I can’t even see the lettuce
  • The smell of cinnamon
  • Big cities
  • Creeks
  • Really hot showers on cold days
  • Singing Barry Manilow songs loudly while driving
  • The song Send in the Clowns as performed by Mandy Patinkin
  • Jim Brickman
  • Tacky Christmas lights
  • Waking up in the middle of the night when you don’t have to work the next day and getting caught up in some show or a replay of an Alabama football game
  • Reese’s Puffs cereal
  • Cool autumn nights
  • Pizza nights on Sunday nights after church
  • Watching someone who is really good play the guitar
  • The feeling I get every time I walk through Liberty Square at Disney World
  • Pretty much everything about Disney World
  • Hearing my dad pray
  • My mom’s beef stew
  • Remembering how much fun it used to be to hang out at Steve and Joy’s on Sunday nights 
  • Grit pie at Steve and Joy’s
  • WWII movies and documentaries
  • Deadliest Catch on Discovery Channel
  • Going to places I’ve never been before
  • The way Mrs. Ward used to pronounce the word “again”
  • The way a good baseball cap fits
  • The beauty of words
  • Anything Rick Bragg writes
  • Anything Lewis Grizzard wrote
  • Trying to keep up with Gigi on runs
  • Listening to Gabe’s remarkably imaginative stories
  • Watching Gracie dance
  • Marveling at some of the words Gabe uses even though he is only in the 4th grade
  • That video that someone made and put on You Tube with all the pictures of Slapout and the song Boondocks
  • The fact that Jesus wept even though he He knew He was about to knock everyone’s socks off by raising Lazarus from the dead
  • A good Sunday School lesson
  • Hearing Gigi sing the Sandi Patty version of How Great Thou Art
  • Guy Penrod singing You Steal My Heart Away
  • When I call Gigi and she answers with her “I’m happy” voice
  • The way new tires make my car feel so grippy and tall
  • Getting encouragement from unexpected and even unlikely sources
  • Members of the military who know how to shoot guns and blow stuff up and yet they still find the time and compassion to be kind to a child in whatever God-forsaken place which they happen to be serving
  • Winning an arm wrestling match
  • Talking about the fun stuff we used to do
  • Clouds at sunset that look like the side of the glass that my dad just drank buttermilk and cornbread out of
  • Funny people
  • Listening to really smart people talk about things I have no hope of understanding
  • Christmas commercials that start way too early even though there’s no such thing as Christmas commercials that start way too early
  • People who make a lot of money but you’d never know because they are so humble
  • Those same people who share their wealth with those less fortunate than themselves
  • Listening to soft jazz music outside by the firepit
  • My firepit
  • People who can pop a wheelie and ride on the back tire for a really long time
  • Playing miniature golf at the beach
  • Remembering Dave, the cat we used to have who used to sleep on his back, legs stretched out, on the bed between Gigi and me
  • Watching a cat bathe itself, especially the part where it licks its paws and then rubs them on its ears and face
  • The way raccoons have tiny little hands
  • The Montgomery Zoo
  • Rice-A-Roni
  • NPR when they aren’t talking politics
  • Garrison Keillor’s radio show, A Prairie Home Companion
  • The way people in the south pull their cars to the side of the road and stop when a funeral procession goes by
  • A Savior in Jesus Christ who, no matter how much I turn my back on Him, still loves me not because of who I am, but in spite of who I am
Happy Thanksgiving!
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How About a Little Good News?!?

Exciting Weekend for Wetumpka’s Youth Indians!


Michelle Davidson
Saturday, November 13, 2010 was the grand finale for the River Region Youth Football & Cheerleading League’s 2010 season. Saturday morning the River Region held their 2010 Cheer Competition. Saturday evening they held their championship round of the 2010 Playoffs.
The Wetumpka Youth Football & Cheerleading League is a part of the River Region Youth Football and Cheerleading League. The RRYFCL is made up of 8 leagues from the tri-county area; East Montgomery, Eclectic, Holtville, Marbury, Millbrook, Prattville, Tallassee, and Wetumpka.
The Youth Indian Cheerleaders brought home a first place win in the Cricket and Termite division in the 2010 River Region Cheer Competition which was held in Millbrook this year. But lets go back a little further, the cheerleaders’ season starts in August just like the football players. They not only have to start practicing for competition but they also have their duties as sideline cheerleaders. The girls practice 2-4 times a week and only get one chance to bring it all together on Competition Day. At competition they must compete against the 7 other squads from the River Region in their division.
The crickets had 14 girls competing this year with Michelle Shaw as their head coach. Coach Michelle said, “I am so proud of these girls for going out and putting their best performance on the field.  They put in a lot of hard work, tears and dedication to reach this point.  These girls did an awesome job!”
Chaseley Rambo was head coach of the Termite squad and took 25 talented young ladies to competition this year. “I am so thankful to have been given the honor and privilege of working with this group of young ladies. They absolutely accomplished the one goal that we set at the beginning of the season. I told them that no matter what as long we learned to work together as a team the results in the end would be great! Through lots of team work, positive attitudes and great sportsmanship they accomplished the end result. The girls were able to form new relationships, make lasting memories, and build new ones. I can honestly say this was definitely an experience that I will cherish!! The first place trophy at competition was just a BIG bonus to their great season!”, said Coach Chaseley.
Debbie Carswell, WYFCL Cheer President said, “This is the first time in 4 years WYFCL has placed first. This is an awesome group of girls and they all truly exhibit what true teamwork is about.  They have worked very hard for the past 3 1/2 months. These wins were well deserved!  I could not be any prouder of all of the WYFCL cheerleaders.”
Donnie Adams, Crickets Head Coach said, “All my boys set goals at the start of the year. Our last goal was to win the championship. And through hard work and much dedication we accomplished goals.” The Wetumpka Cricket football team is made up of 8 and 9 yr old boys. They start the season in August and they played 7 regular season games. This year the Crickets went undefeated during the regular season where they out scored their opponents 274-65. Five of those games were shutout victories.  Then they had to make it through two rounds of playoff games to get a chance at the Championship round.  Saturday night all their hard work and dedication paid off, they brought home a Championship to Wetumpka by beating their opponent, East Montgomery Seminoles, 26 – 0. This is the first ever Wetumpka Crickets team to go undefeated and win the championship.
It has been a great season for the Youth Indians. There were over 225 boys and girls in the WYFCL this year. Over 30 football and cheer coaches took time out of their schedules to help with 9 teams. Not to mention the hundreds of parents who make sure their children are at practices and games. They are also there to cheer them on every step of the way. Great volunteers, parents and children is what makes a league like this be successful. “All of the league board members and I are so very proud of the kids and all of their dedication and hard work. And I want to invite boys and girls to come out next season and join the Indian Nation.”, said WYFCL League President, Adrian Thrasher.
For more information about the Wetumpka Youth Football & Cheerleading League you can visit their website at www.wyfcl.net.
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How Being a 5th Grade Loser Made Me a Better Person

Life is tough. Always has been, always will be. Sure some folks seem to have runs of good luck that last practically a lifetime. Then, there are folks like me. I’m not complaining. My life has been and continues to be quite good. I’m just saying that I’ve had some difficult times in my life. All of us have. The fact that this will always be the case, at least this side of Heaven, makes what I think is a disturbing and dangerous trend that much more serious. The “let’s make sure nobody has to suffer or get their feelings hurt” trend. I believe that this trend is a major contributing factor to many of the problems we have in America today.

May I offer up my fifth grade year as evidence that the normal, inevitable difficulties of life, even for children, will not irreparably damage us. In fact, when dealt with properly they probably make us better people. The year was 1979. My father, a pastor, had just moved my mom and I to Rockford, Alabama where he had accepted a call to to a local church. We were moving from a little town where we had lived in for three years. I had started the second grade there three years prior and had lots of friends. I attended a tiny school where I was quite content. It was literally like living in a real-life version of Mayberry. Suffice it to say that I had a much harder time making friends as a fifth grader at a new school than I had had as a second grader at a new school. I honestly can’t tell you why this was the case. All I know is that I was picked on mercilessly from day one. Maybe it’s because I was the epitome of a mama’s boy and remain such. It’s really irrelevant today why I stepped into the role of whipping boy. What matters is that I did. What else matters is how that experience went a long way in shaping who I am today as an adult and how I am hopefully teaching my children to live now and in the future when they become adults.

Remember how so many bad teen movies always found the popular kids voting for the kid nobody liked to be homecoming queen or something along those lines? That was me. I was elected to be the class president because everyone thought it would be funny. The worst part is that my teacher didn’t allow me be the president because she knew they were just mocking me and made the class vote again. Needless to say, I lost my second election. A double-whammy of sorts. Class president was a powerful position and might have afforded me the opportunity to exact revenge on my classmates. Or not. Anyway, I won’t give you all the gory details other than to say that I was so miserable that year that I literally tried to break my own ankle on the bus one day so that I could go home. I sat in the seat over the rear wheel and jammed my foot sideways into the corner of where the wheel-well jutted up and put the weight of each of my sixty pounds(if that) fully on it. It only got a little swollen so I was only allowed to go to the lunchroom for a few minutes and sit with some ice on it. I got along much better with the lunchroom ladies than my classmates. It was bad. But as bad as it was, my parents didn’t yank me out of school and send me off to a relative who lived in a better school district. They didn’t go to school with me and cast evil glances at anyone who happened to look at me in a threatening manner. They comforted me and encouraged me and somehow I made it through that year. They taught me the importance perseverance and other lessons I likely wouldn’t have been receptive to learning under different circumstances. Teachable moments, I think they’re called. 1979 was chock full of them.

These days we’ve got school officials who want to, and have in some cases, remove games like dodgeball from P.E. because the bigger, more athletic kids have an advantage over the smaller or less-coordinated kids(read this story for an example) who might lose or have their self-esteem damaged. You know what? They just might! You know what else? It won’t kill them and they’ll recover. I can’t imagine, short of literally getting beaten up or some other terrible physical treatment, that there are many kids who have had as tough a school year as I did in fifth grade. How did it help me? I think it helped me have a heart for the underdog. It taught me to have compassion for those who are struggling while at the same time teaching me that struggling is as much a part of life as breathing. I don’t think we do our children, or anyone else for that matter, any good when our prime objective is to shield them from every hardship or difficulty they might encounter.

Life can be brutally tough sometimes. The concept of social justice, while noble, is unattainable. At least it is in my estimation. The world will forever be populated by the “haves” and the “have-nots” on some level. We don’t have to like it but we have to learn to accept it. We must learn how to lose and then move on so that our failures don’t define us. In fact, maybe our failures can actually motivate us; spur us on to bigger and better things. Getting smashed in the face with one of those big, red balls, both literally and figuratively, while being laughed at by your friends can have that effect sometimes. Just ask these people.

2

What do Robin Hood and Milton McGregor Have In Common? Nothing.

As I have perused the web looking for more information on the arrests of those arrested this morning for allegedly taking part in legislative vote-buying/selling, bribery and a litany of other charges, I’ve already come across several comments such as this one, gleaned from the comments section on a Birmingham News story:


Unedited and uncorrected: “The public officials who have stood up for whats right and provided jobs to thousands are the ones being arrested? I never thought Id see such a sad day in Alabamas history. I really cant believe my eyes when I read some of the names of the people who are being arrested. These are the only politicians left in the state who tried to stand up against Bob Riley and look whats happening to them. This is a real travesty whats happening today and once these people are found innocent we can all breath easier.”


There were many other comments, far more than I cared to read, expressing outrage and disappointment and sadness that these eleven people, including four state legislators, were arrested for looking out for the interests of the people of Alabama. Really? Seriously? These legislators were allegedly offered exorbitant amounts of cash, some in the form of campaign contributions, some to use at their own discretion, in exchange for their vote in favor of a bill that would have given the two gambling magnates involved in this case practically exclusive rights to run casinos in the state of Alabama. The legislators were also to try and influence their colleagues to support the measure.  Each of the eleven people indicted is alleged to have acted illegally in various ways. Extortion, bribery, money laundering, obstruction of justice, and making a false statement among other charges. This isn’t an episode of The Sopranos, this is real life right here in Alabama. I defy anyone to explain to me, reasonably and logically, how these people were acting in the best interest of the citizens of the state of Alabama. Each of them stood to make an awful lot of money for themselves and I’m quite certain that they didn’t plan on sharing that money with their constituents. For the sake of discussion, though, even if they did plan to send us all a check for our share, what they are accused of doing is ILLEGAL! Therein lies the rub.

It doesn’t matter how honorable their intentions might have been(I say this while trying to suppress a chuckle), if they did what they are accused of doing then they broke the law. Just because they are politicians, lobbyists, or gambling bosses with deep, deep pockets doesn’t give them a get out of jail free card. Just because the casinos they wanted to build might have created jobs doesn’t make the fact that they subverted laws regarding such activity okay. In our country, at least for the time being, we all are subject to the laws which govern us. If we break the law, we must face the consequences. Laws exist so that anarchy doesn’t rule the day and the rich and powerful don’t become the rich and ALL-powerful; above the law.

Let’s be honest, though. This alleged misconduct was born out of raw greed and nothing more. These individuals saw an opportunity to line their own pockets with, as my father calls it, ill-gotten-gain and they jumped at the chance. They sacrificed their supposed morals and values at the alter of the almighty dollar and they got caught. The thing I find hardest to believe is that anyone finds any of this hard to believe. One of the most misquoted verses in scripture is 1 Timothy 6:10. Many mistakenly say it as, “money is the root of all evil.” It actually says “the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.” There is a difference. There are people who have a lot of money who do things the right way. Plenty of them. Then, there are the lovers of money. These folks’ love of money overwhelmed them to the point that they risked much to get as much of it as they could from Mr. McGregor and Mr. Gilley. These two gentlemen and their intermediaries were more than happy to oblige. This is what money can do to people. This is what greed does to people. This is the kind of havoc that gambling stands to wreak on our state should it ever become even more widespread than it already is. I, for one, want no part of it. We should be celebrating that these so-called public servants were caught rather than lauding them as some sort modern day Robin Hood and his band of merry thieves who only were trying to take care of the less fortunate. Bunk. Well, the thieves part may just be right on the money. No pun intended.

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