Everyone Has a Role to Play

With Number One’s high school graduation drawing nigh, we’re going through a season of Last Things: last prom, last high school term paper due, last final exam and, most bittersweet, the last soccer match.

We had played the moment in our fast-forward minds many times. We would be gathered round the Lads in Orange on Saturday, May 12th, 2007 as they hoisted the Alabama 6A High School soccer trophy high above their sweaty heads, champions of the state on an expansive pitch of freshly-trimmed grass in front of an undulating sea of hometown orange and black.

But it did not end this way.… Read the rest

Evrathang is RAY-low-tif

The Explainer at Slate does it again. I commented on this the other day, but little did I know then that I was actually a “code shifter” when I’m hangin’ with the clan back in Vah-GIN-ya and talking mountainspeak.

Hillary’s not the only one trying to convince us of her Southern bona fides. In Full Professor Elrod’s case, the more hard-core secessionists among his rowdy and far-flung boiled peanut gallery may have finally disabused him of the notion. I think it was the part about lapsing into Delawarespeak that did him in.

Huntsville is about as cosmopolitan as you can get in Alabama with so many transplants from all over the country and world.… Read the rest

Cruising

route-66.gifMichael Winerip’s touching and elegant essay, “Young, Gifted, and Not Getting Into Harvard” is the most sensible piece of writing on today’s hypercompetitive college admissions game that I’ve read in a long time.

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If brains were transmissions, then mine would be a four-speed manual that I’ve red-lined and ground to bits in the quest for maximum performance. Number One Son, on the other hand, has a silky smooth six that he rarely shifts into overdrive. Instead, he cruises down the highway in fifth gear, the top down and the wind in his hair, making good time and covering a lot of ground, but not so fast and so far that he can’t take in the view and enjoy the glory days.… Read the rest

Go Phe!

“LeBron was the old phenom, maybe I’m the new one,” Okoye says. “We’re going to go from King James to Phe.”

Now that’s chutzpah. After all, folks from Huntsville don’t often go around wearing t-shirts proclaiming their “essence” (in this case, invictus, which means “unconquered”) or proudly claiming the moniker “Phe” (short for phenom). But then again, most of us aren’t 19-years-old, 6’2”, 302 lbs and can break 5 seconds in the 40.amobi-okoye.jpg

But Amobi Okoye is and can and that accounts for him being the 10th overall pick in the recent NFL draft and a future Dallas Texan. Okoye became the youngest player ever drafted in the NFL, and when he plays his first down this fall, he’ll become the youngest ever to play in the league.… Read the rest

On Speaking Southern

If this keeps up, I’m going to start feeling sorry for her.

Seriously, she may not be faking it. My accent is pretty neutral for the most part (comes from marrying a Missouri “Show Me”), but I’ve been told that when I’m around my uncles and cousins back home, that I lapse back into a Southwest Virginia lilt.

Yes Vah-GIN-ya, it is possible for an accent to change depending on the circumstances and it not be a campaign trick.… Read the rest

Oh My, Another Meme

Look out, here comes another meme.

More specifically ME has nominated me for a so-called “Thinking Blogger” Award which begs the question of what ME was possibly thinking (or smoking) when he did that.

But who am I to argue with His Lameness when a simple “thank you” should suffice? Of course, there are certain obligations to humanity which come with such heady accolades, and naming five more “Thinking Bloggers” is one of them, so here goes:

  1. Bill Gnade at Contratimes. Bill was one of my early acquaintances in the blogosphere and you’d be hard-pressed to find another wordsmith who paints such beautiful pictures with lyrical and soaring prose (and occasional poetry) like his.
… Read the rest

Vote for Boo–It’s the Right Thing To Doo

boo-ii.jpgWhen I was in high school, I had a teacher who made sure that we knew about the civil rights struggle in America. I’m thankful that I learned early in life about Medgar Evers, the Birmingham church bombing and the murders of civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner. I can remember chafing and squirming when I learned how the perpetrators of those crimes had escaped justice and were still free to live their lives as they pleased.

Little did I know that the goofy, red-haired guy wearing the suspenders and top hat who used to do the announcements in chapel at Harding would be the one to help bring those scoundrels to justice.… Read the rest

Shut Up and Grieve

Among the more curious reactions to the Virginia Tech killings that I’ve seen bandied about in various circles is one that goes something like this:

The tremendous outpouring of grief over the death of 33 Virginia Tech students and professors is proof positive that Americans are selfish and egocentric and care more about their own lives than lives lost around the world everyday from other far worse atrocities, civil wars, preventable diseases, etc. Why not more outrage and grief over innocent lives lost in Iraq and Darfur, or the thousands lost to AIDs on the African continent? Stupid, myopic Americans; so much grief over their own kids, so much blindness toward the suffering of others around the world whose lives are just as important.

… Read the rest

Think I’m “Hokey?” Deal With It

Saturday I ran another half-marathon. My time was 1:50:40, a full five minutes faster than February.

But it wasn’t easy. Whereas in February I felt I still had a little gas in the tank at the end, this time I was running on fumes. My calves were knotting up as I slouched toward the finish, but finish I did. Of course, this morning I can barely move, but that’s the price a 45-year-old must pay for such “glory.”

I can remember several times thinking about how hard it was and about how it would be nice just to stop and hang it up and start acting my age.… Read the rest

Two Degrees of Separation

It’s been said that there are no more than six degrees of separation between every person on earth. But when I heard that 32 innocents had died in Monday’s massacre at Virginia Tech, it hit me how large and complex that particular web of relationships would be and how far it would extend across the country and even the world. I grew up in Southwest Virginia and was a graduate student at Virginia Tech and a resident of Blacksburg for 2 years. One of my first thoughts when I heard the news was, that in this particular case, there would likely be no more than two degrees of separation between one of the victims and me.… Read the rest