I have noticed over the years that young men have reactionary thinking. What I mean by this is that we, the males, are not thinking about anything in particular until something strikes us, either visually or physically. I know I have always been looking for something to think about or something to write, but when I look at girls, women, or the female gender in particular, it seems that they are constantly thinking about how to manipulate, or how to get what they want. Young men, on the other hand, wait till they see something they want and then try to get it. It's not that we don't think in those terms, it's just that we have to have motivation to think. It's like going to the beach, a guy just makes sure he's got his swim trunks and the girls, they pack beach blankets, umbrellas and sunscreen because they thought about what they needed beforehand. Us, the guys, we either do without or get it once we get there.

When I was a young man, I was programmed in that very way. Didn't think much about anything until something struck me. I can remember to this day my mother asking me, “what are you thinking about young man” and I would reply truthfully, “nothing”. She would always ask again, “you have to be thinking about something, what are you thinking about”.  That's why mothers usually get some really stupid answer because we really were thinking about nothing. It's almost like we're saving our minds for something special, or maybe it's just it takes a lot of effort to think. When you get us going though we do relatively well. I know when I would go to bed at night, I would think of anything in the world to keep from sleeping, how many men actually live in the moon, if a train left Chicago at 1:00 and a train left New York at 2:00 would they meet, oh, and would they be on separate tracks.

Have you ever seen a couple of guys talking about something, nothing in particular, just anything? Take for instance one guy asks the other guy “what do you think of Kathleen?” The other guy replies “pretty” and the first guy goes, “yep”, and they sit there for hours saying nothing, just fishing and you want to know what they're thinking about. I will tell you the truth. You won't believe it, nothing!

Even take two scientists looking at a board full of mathematics on what it takes to make up a black hole. One scientist says to the other, “I think we're close”, the other one says “yep” and they stare at the board for two hours and you know what they’re thinking about, nothing!So girls, you remember back when the first guy took you to the movie theater and it was one of those movies that wasn't very interesting and you thought, “I wish he would kiss me” and he never did.

He just continually stared at the screen and you got so mad trying to figure out what in the world he was thinking, you guessed it, nothing.
Even taking you home from that date, and you're walking back home and a pretty girl walks in front of you and you notice his head turns to follow her and you slap him and you're thinking, what's he thinking about, he's with me. Yep, even this time he was thinking about nothing.

 I just want to clarify the situation. Now that I'm older and wiser, when I'm sitting for hours watching TV and my wife looks over at me and asks that dreaded question every man has to answer, “have you been listening to me, what were you thinking about all this time?” Even though my thinking has not slowed down much with old age, I have to tell her that “no, I wasn't listening to you”, and as far as what I was thinking about, even though I know I'm going to get in trouble, I tell her the truth, I tell her, “nothing at all”. And my wife looks at me with that look and says, “I know what you’re thinking about, it’s what you men think about all the time”, and she’s right, it’s nothing. 

Our founding fathers were smart enough to understand the fact that other religions have destroyed civilizations and that our religion would be under attack in a free nation were all beliefs must be tolerated. Most of them came from countries where, if they did not believe the same religion as their King did they were persecuted and they have seen the other great religions of the world almost destroy themselves trying to destroy democracies and that’s the reason that they put in our Constitution, separation of church and state, it is so that no other religion could take over our nation. When you see the Bible not being read in schools any more, just think about the fact that there are many schools today in our country that have a majority of other religions living in that community and if we were allowing religion to be taught in schools the minority of Christians would have to be learning their religion. I for one believe that our laws were set up with Christian values in mind and our founding fathers smarter than most of us, devise the most intricate way of protecting those Christian laws and that was to separate church and state, so that no other religious beliefs could take over our laws.

I also believe that changing these laws would weaken our ability to keep the laws that we have that were made up of Christian values. I am a tolerant man and my beliefs are my own and yes, I am prejudice for my religious beliefs, but freedom is not about my beliefs it is about allowing you, yours without sacrificing that freedom for both.

Many times I thank God for the intelligence and wisdom that he gave a group of man that never totally agreed on the Constitution the ability to write a way of keeping Christian laws into a Constitution that would allow everyone the freedom of their religious beliefs. You may not like the fact that atheists, Muslims and others have found ways to annoy us, for example, suing to remove nativity scenes at Christmas time in front of courthouses, but they can never attack our Christian laws unless we make it week by changing the laws that separate church and state. I have prayed and argued with myself for many years about how God has disappeared from our government but He hasn't. He is written into our Constitution with the very ink that makes the words of our Constitution visible. So instead of asking God to understand why our Constitution has forsaken him, I pray now to thank him for making it almost impossible to take him out of our Constitution.

Growing up in Memphis was a musical treat, you heard every single kind of popular music here in Memphis there was in existence. Most of the clubs in Memphis have live music, not just on the weekends like you'll find in most major cities. Memphis had several things going for it one of which was the Memphis music industry back in the day was very important for an up-and-coming artist that clawed their way from the Mississippi Delta to the big city of Memphis. I can remember as a teenager walking Overton Square and hearing blues, rock 'n roll and soul music from all the various clubs and when Memphis threw a party the big names would come out. I don't know if any of you remember the headliners for the Memphis cotton Carnival or the Midsouth fair, but we had the names everyone knew. Unfortunately one more of those voices that we all loved so dearly, has now gone silent on our earth and this one was one of the brightest and best sounds to come from this large backwater town.

Someone once said that these artists owed there beginnings to Memphis and I believe it should be the other way around Memphis owes its musical roots to these pioneers of both blues and rock 'n roll to these great voices and musicians that we will never see the likes of again. BB King was loved by all for his beautiful blues music it is not that we mourn the passing of a great musician it is that we are mourning the loss of a great human being and I know that the Angels in heaven are rejoicing at his latest and best concert ever. God bless you. BB King, because you have blessed us with a legacy of sound the likes of. We will never hear again.

A Freak

  By the time I was in the sixth grade, I was 6 foot tall and weighed 170 pounds. I felt like a freak because I was so much taller than anyone that I went to school with and my curly hair didn't help things either and everyone treated me differently, or at least that was my perception. I have thought a lot about that over the years and I have very good memories of instances that would prove that. I remember watching a movie called Frankenstein at a relatively young age

I did not understand the concept of man creating man, nor did I care. What I saw was a human being that was different than everyone else. I felt empathy with the monster as the towns people tried to kill him.
  Things changed for me in junior high school, I gained some respect and I gave respect back to everyone. Elementary school was a steady fight for me, I was either being picked on or protecting myself from one kind or another of prejudice against either my curly hair or my size. I don't necessarily have those fond memories of Charjean as I did Airways. When the coaches cut my sideburns, it was as if it had all started, all over again, because I was different. I was being treated differently, but I hold no grudges, everyone did what they thought was right at the time. I just wish that so many of my detractors had walked a mile in my shoes. Just because someone is different or thinks differently than you do is no reason to label them as a freak. Why I even embraced the connotation of freak when I became a Christian and the term Jesus freak was being bandied around and I thought it fit me because I both felt invigorated as a Christian and a freak as a person, it helped me to come to terms with how I felt about myself.

It's hard to put into words the feelings that I had as a young child and then into adolescence at Airways everything started to come together and I no longer felt freakish as a matter of fact I almost felt as if people like to me and wanted me to be their friend. We all have our own cross to bear, as we grew up and I know that a lot of you felt in your own way the same as I did. The changes in how we became who we were at Airways had hit a positive note for me and that's why I called my three years at Airways. The most magical time of my life, because I learned to like me and I thought a few of you did to

I get somewhat frustrated at people, our age and older, who come in to the store and ask questions about technology and preface those questions with “I know absolutely nothing about technology”. You know that is an oxymoron right, because we grew up in an era of technology that grew at a fascinating rate. They come to me and they say which one of these tablets would be the easiest to learn how to understand and I can't help but think that that in itself is a defeatist attitude, because it shouldn't be in your mind that you're not going to understand an operating system.

They are made to be user friendly, emphasizing the word user. I always ask these customers do you know why a six-year-old knows more about a tablet or laptop then we do and their answer is always wrong. they say because they grew up with it and that is wrong. The right answer is they have no fear. They have not learned fear as of yet. The question that they should be asking is which one of these tablets is going to bring me the most fun. I guess I'll have to explain myself because most of you are thinking this stuff is not fun. So, just calm down and try and understand a few little basic things of life.

Did you ever see one of those kids in school that just seemed to have a blast with everything the teacher put forth for us to do. Yes, I know they made me sick to, but that's not my point. My point is that they did the very best in school. They seemed to enjoy it the most and made the absolute best grades. Why are we so afraid of technology - because we're afraid of breaking something. The chances of breaking your computer by pushing the wrong key are probably astronomical, especially if you do certain steps to back up your computer before you ever do anything else to it and, every so often, make another backup so that anything that gets lost can be recovered.

Now, the thing that I want you to understand here is that when you were a child and the most fun thing you ever did, you understood backwards and forwards, did you not? The reason is because you approached it with the proper attitude. Attitude is not going change the frustrations that you will experience with the computer because you don't understand something at first, but that old adage, “if you don't succeed at first, try, try again” is absolutely the best mantra to have when you're dealing with a computer or, for that matter, any technology.

In today's technological world there are several operating systems. The major ones being Apple's IOS, Microsoft Windows, Google's android operating system and Linix and all of these operating systems require you to be in control. If you don't understand how to do something and you're getting slightly frustrated with trying to figure out how to make it work go to You Tube, type in a question about what it is that you're trying to do and, I'll assure you, someone has already made a video telling you step-by-step how to do it. I love building computers.

I love working with computers because I find them fun and engaging and I look at every new thing that I try and do as a mystery that I have to solve. Okay, yes, I can hear you back there, sighing, but you don't understand, you've been doing this for ever. That's not true! I'm right at 59 years old and, yes, I was fascinated with technology since the time I was a little boy.  I remember the first radio I had. It was a little transistor Channelmaster radio that, late at night, sometimes could pick up the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee, all the way from Memphis. It amazed me that a voice could be transmitted through the air without anyone ever seeing it, how could that be. Television, now there was a mystery. How in the world could “Happy Hal” bring me cartoons at 3:30 every day without fail. Where did he get them, where are they coming from. I looked up in the sky and I couldn't see anything coming to our house, how were they doing it? I figured out it didn't really matter,  I was enjoying it. I wondered why we couldn't get television stations like we did on my transistor radio late at night. Why couldn't I get a Nashville television station? I just chalked it up to the mysteries of the universe which made the universe pretty interesting.

My point is we don't have to understand everything about something to have fun with it. You do need to learn certain things. The first of which is, if you're still alive today, you grew up with technology. If you just don't want technology in your life, I feel sorry for you, you are missing out on so very, very much. If you have grand babies in some faraway state you could use Skype to talk to them, to see them, to enjoy having them in your life. And yes, it's not as good as being there with them, but it's better than nothing, isn't it. You moved away from your family and your mother and you’re missing them greatly. Wouldn't it be nice to have a hangout on Google and talk with the whole family all together.

 Of course, it's a virtual reality and they're not really there with you but you can have the conversations that you used to have at the dinner table with everybody, and how wonderful could that be. Instead of having your family send you pictures through the mail and getting lost or damaged, they could be e-mailed or texted to you right from the very spot, the very second the picture was taken. It's so amazing the technology that's before us today that could affect our lives for the good. I don't want you to think that I believe that every bit of technology is good because it's not. But let me ask you, is anything man has done ever been totally good. There are some security measures that you must learn to take and, yes, sometimes it costs money but there are a lot of free options out there as well so you don't have to let it break your bank. Not all tablets are ultra expensive. You can get a pretty nice tablet nowadays without breaking the bank. There are several under a hundred dollars, tablets that work okay. In saying that, the more expensive tablets definitely do work better but don't let anyone talk you into spending a lot of money on your first device because, first of all, you're not ready for it, and secondly, you may be one of the few that just does not like it.

There are so many options nowadays for television, one of which we've had around since television has been in existence, on an antenna. Yes, it works exactly the same way that it always has. If you have an old CRT type television, which is the great big picture tube type television, you will need a converter box (which you can get at any department store) and an antenna to receive your local television stations and some independent stations are available on the free antenna television. If you have a newer type flat screen, all you need is the antenna, you do not need a converter box to get free over the air antenna television. My goodness, even where I live in the rural area of Sevier County, Tennessee, I get as many as 25 television stations over free antenna television. My favorite is the channel called “meTV”, because it plays all of the old television shows that we all knew and loved when we were growing up. That's technology at its best. I can remember when we had our first television and there were only three television stations to be had in the Memphis area and shortly PBS came about and that was all until cable finally appeared on the horizon.

If you haven't heard of it by now I would like to tell you about “Roku” television streaming system. The first thing you have to have is a Wi-Fi Internet access with a relatively good speed and unlimited access, because streaming movies takes up a lot of bandwidth. So, unless you have unlimited Internet access this technology is not for you but if you do, boy, do I have a television system for you with over 2000+ Internet television channels. If you don't know what Internet television channels are let me preface this by saying that they are nothing like your cable channels and they have nothing to do with them.  It doesn't matter if you have cable, satellite, or whatever, you do not have access to these channels unless you are streaming from an Internet service like a smart TV, a Roku box, or something of that nature. If I have piqued your interest in technology, that is what I wanted to do. I am going to give you more on the ROKU BOX, but let me tell you just one little thing about it before I stop my little story and that is, I have exactly 337 channels and I pay for only one and that's Netflix and all the other channels are totally free. Oh, and that's just the ones that I'm interested in. There are so many more in the Roku channel store that are free but, okay, they're just not something I’m interested in. So do yourself a favor and go to YouTube or even to roku.com and check out a Roku. Remember, you will need a wi fi connection and you will need to pay for the Netflix subscription (cheaper than cable).  And as a point of interest, young people don’t even subscribe to cable, because they get most of their shows on their personal devices and don’t need to pay the high cost of crappy cable.

So if you know someone that is in need of technology to give them more enjoyment of life, especially as we get older and it's necessary to have some sort of entertainment that doesn't cost very much, technology can provide that for us.  Not to mention all of the breakthroughs that technology has given us for medical purposes such as I heard today, doctors are saying that an MP3 player full of music that someone loved when they were growing up , in the era that they grew up in, will help them battle Alzheimer's. So please, the next time you go into a store to buy a tablet, a television, or yes, even one of those dreaded computers, find the most knowledgeable salesperson, and ask which one would be the most fun for you and make his or her day. 

"It was March 29, 1973, in Saigon. And Master Sgt. Max Beilke was officially designated as the last American combat soldier to leave Vietnam".

When they broke into the programs on television to announce that not only was the war over but the last American was out of harms way, I felt jubilant and extremely happy and I ran outside to blow the horn on my 63 Chevrolet Impala, but I noticed everything was quiet. People were not coming out of their houses. It seemed that no one wanted to celebrate the ending of the war that we quit without finishing.

When our boys went into a battle in Vietnam, no matter what the cost, they won it. It would be hard to find any action in Vietnam that was not appropriately dispatched by our servicemen and women. Anyone that thinks otherwise has been badly misinformed.
So when the war ended, I was not only happy about the fact that I would not have to worry about going to Vietnam and wondering if I would have what it took to be a soldier or not, but the biggest concern I had was that my friends, the people that I grew up with, would not have to go and die. I know that I was being selfish but I could not help it because I had seen the list of names grow every single day and when they started to be names that I knew it was both painful and scary. When it's just a story on a news program it doesn't mean as much as it does when it's Kelly, the young man up the street.

I celebrated the end of this war in Vietnam, then by myself and I celebrated it today because so many of my friends have families and are living wonderful lives because they didn't have to go to the rice paddies of Vietnam and they didn't have to give their lives, because of the brave men and women that served our country so valiantly and bravely, they did what had to be done and it saved so many.

I want to thank all of you who serve our country, whether it's the European countryside or it's in the rice paddies of Asia or the desert sands of the Middle East, from the bottom of my heart. I love you each and every one of you for what you do.

I also would especially like to thank the veterans from Vietnam for a job well done and take this opportunity to tell each and every one of you a heartfelt thank you and welcome home.

Just a River Rat

I grew up in an area where most people in our neighborhood had come from the farms and the mills of the upper Mississippi River Delta lands in Mississippi. They were all good, decent, hard-working people that loved their community, their children and they worked to make their communities a strong and loving place for their families. Because they came from the river deltas, they had these ethics instilled deep into their souls. I know this because I, too, am what I consider a “river rat”.

I want to take you back to the late 50’s, early 60’s, driving down Highway 78 to MS-15 to 64 South  to MS-346 West, in a ‘55 sky blue Plymouth, to a very small town called Hurricane, Mississippi, where my mother's family is from. I remember the first house I ever saw my grandparents in and, it may be strange to some of you, because it was built like a standard A-frame house with a roof over the bedrooms to the left and the kitchen and living room to the right, but there was no center part of the house. It was as if you put these rooms on the big huge deck and never built walls for the front and back. There was what we call in the South the breezeway right through the center. The bedrooms were fully enclosed and so were the kitchen and the living room and there was a big porch on the front and a similar porch on the rear of the house.

You have to understand that when these houses were built there wasn't any such thing as air conditioning and even if there was, they were sharecropper and they could not have afforded it anyway. The house was a stick frame house and the outside was sheeted with roofing material that looked like bricks, you know, just like a roofing shingle but all one big huge sheet that was made to look like bricks. The inside was sheet rocked, or at least stuccoed or some type of material that was paintable and wallpaperable.  The old potbelly stove sat in the middle of the living room and it was the only source of heat in the living room. None of the other rooms had heat other than propane standing space heaters with open flames. I don't even know if those type of heaters are allowed in today's society with all of the safety regulations that we have. I used to have a blast running all over that porch as a small boy with this old mangy Collie dog.

I remember family get-togethers that had all the men, brothers, brothers-in-law  and my grandfather sitting around the living room or out on the porch talking. All the sisters and sisters-in-law, my grandmother and all of the daughters and daughters-in-law were in the kitchen preparing some of the best food you could ever imagine. My grandmother made the best most moist pecan cake you could ever eat. It melted in your mouth and no one to this day makes frosting like she did. The women would start off fixing breakfast for all of us. The men would sit down at the table in the first setting and then all of us cousins would sit and eat after our fathers had eaten and lastly our mothers and our grandmother would sit and eat. This was the tradition for every meal that goes back to the days when men worked the fields and ate first, then the children came second and the women would eat last.

There would be arguments, there would be laughter, there would be all kinds of commotion going on in the kitchen as they washed the dishes from breakfast and started to prepare lunch for all of us. I remember it so well because of the smells and the tastes and they would run all us kids outside and tell us to go play. Most of the kids were either older or younger than I was, so I would take my cap pistol and my transistor radio and that old Collie dog, and go big game hunting in the pastures that were next to my grandparent’s home.

As that Collie dog and I ran as hard as we could into the pasture, I could hear my mother screaming out off the back porch ”you watch what you step in young man” , after all it was a pasture full of cows, don't you know. But I made sure that I didn't wander so far that I couldn't hear my uncle Jimmy yell “dinnertime”. One thing this little boy was, was never late when my grandmother was cooking dinner. I guess I really didn’t have to listen for my uncle Jimmy because the smells would come wafting up the hill of that pasture and I would know it was getting close to dinner and so did that old Collie dog because he knew there would be some biscuits and bacon fat and his dog food waiting when we got back.

It seemed no sooner had we gotten out there and started hunting big game that it was time we turned around and went back just as hard as we could go. What I'm getting at is the whole social interaction of my mother's family was wrapped around the kitchen and the appreciation of good food. The women of her family never passed on to me the secrets of what it took to make that food so special, but after years of trying, I got the secret of those old biscuits and that ultra-moist pecan cake, as far as the ingredients go, down pat. The one thing that I wish I had the secret to, was hearing the joy and, yes, sometimes the anger that they put into making them the most loving meals a family could ever have.

The river was a lifeline to all of these families because they needed the moisture to grow their crops and  because they needed to get their crops to the big cities and the markets that would pay the best prices for what they grew along the river.

That's why they needed to live near the river. These wonderful folks that I call “river rats” raised wonderful children and they, in turn, raised wonderful grandchildren, but we were all “river rats” because we needed the river to exist. All of the communities that grew up around the Mississippi River Delta at one time looked after each other and made sure that they at least had food and a warm place to sleep. It was this kindness and the strength of community that the families that made up the community that I grew up in, in Memphis, Tennessee, a loving and wonderful place to have a family.

When my family and I started out in this community it was known as Charjean because of the elementary school that we all went to and the park nearby that we all played at. My father was a member of the Charjean Civics Club, along with many of the other fathers from this community. They kept a close eye on what the planning commission had in store for all of us and they fought hard against the things that they did not want in their community and, also, just as hard for the things that they wanted in their community. The Charjean Civics Club sponsored baseball teams during the summer and tried to make sure that school supplies and things were gathered for the coming year of school.

Our mothers ran the PTA and had bake sales and anything else they could to make sure that the educational needs of their children were met. This was the norm until ground was broken on a brand new junior high school that would not only service the Charjean area but two other major areas known as Bethel Grove and Cherokee. For those of us now in our late 50’s and early 60’s this would combine those neighborhoods into a homogenized group known as the Airways Jets. Yes, I obsess over those years because those years were the years that I met Nancy, Sheila, Debhora, Debbie, Ricky, Mike, Donnie, Sidney, Eddie and many others that would take too long to mention, but they were all some of the most important people in the world to me in those days.  These kids that I grew up with were absolutely like family to me, not just because of my family’s strong family ties, but because all of their parents were also so dedicated to making our neighborhoods like a huge family.

I told recently the Superintendent that is in charge of the school system today in Memphis that we came from blue and brown collared workers and that our parents had pulled themselves’ up out of the fields of the Mississippi Delta to a community that they had worked lovingly hard to build and to be proud of, even though most of Memphis looked down upon us and that this school that was built just for us was our chance to show the city of Memphis that we could be a beacon of cooperation in education, in a city that was struggling to find how to educate its children and I think we succeeded to make ourselves an example for students to come.

I believe that I am a proud “river rat” who has accomplished much in his life but, without the help and love of so many people that I grew up with and the help of my God and my parents, I would never have achieved any of what I have achieved.

My loving wife has been my guiding inspiration and my light of love throughout the latter half of my life. When I have been so angry at someone that I wanted to tear their head off, I could see myself looking into her loving green eyes and all of that anger and hate would just melt away.

When things would get hard and I didn't feel like I could take that next step or lift that next heavy load, I would remember a man that was adorned with a crown of thorns and carried a heavy cross as he was beaten along his path to his death and my burden became light. I can still hear the women of my family talking and laughing as they talked about their old men. It's that love of life that they brought from those old houses with the breeze way through the center to keep them cool on the most extremely hot, muggy Delta days that gives me strength to carry on today.

All of this instilled in me a love of history that always made me want to have a piece of my history that goes back in these United States to the 1620’s. So, when I moved back to Tennessee, I decided that the perfect house for us would be a log house in the hills of the Great Smoky Mountains. This house was dedicated with the love and the blood of all my ancestors that came before me to make their house loving family homes.

That is what I want to have, the love of all those that made themselves a part of my family to make this Appalachian style log house our home.

Believe me, it is the memories of the love of my family and friends that has influenced me to do the right thing my entire life.

Who are You

I once heard a story about a young lady working on an assembly line at a plant in Memphis,Tn. building supplies for the war effort in 1943. When from behind her there were two Army Honor Guards carrying a letter framed in black.

One soldier reached out and tapped her on the shoulder because the assembly line was so loud that they could not be heard, she turned around and knew immediately what they were there for, and she grasped the letter and held it to her heart. The soldiers saluted her and grasped her hand and told her they were sorry for her loss.

The assembly line stopped all of the young ladies working on that assembly line gathered around her and once she had composed herself, she said to all of her companions we have to get back to work so that this never happens to any of you. Some 50 years later the young woman had grown old and had died, when one of her granddaughters was going through her things she found an unopened letter framed in black. The letter that was framed in black was addressed to her grandmother with the last name she had never known.

 I have no idea if that story is true, but there are so many of the greatest generation we have ever known are passing away without telling their stories for future generations to know, what they went through and who they were.

It's not that we want to pry into their private lives, it's that their families, there granddaughter needs to know why that letter framed in black was never opened.

Years from now when you are gone and your great granddaughter looks into your granddaughters eyes and ask who were your grandmother and grandfather? What will she be able to tell them? Have you told your story to your children or grandchildren? Do they know you played football or you were a cheerleader? Do they know in your younger life you were a member of the Allstate band? What, I ask you again what will they know to tell your great granddaughter? If you are not here to answer the question she asked and you never wrote it down or told anyone.

Memories keep us alive and happy, so I ask you to keep you with us for generations to come, share your precious memories of who you are with those you love.

Memories are the greatest gift we can give to those we love and future generations of those that will love us.

As a small boy I always wanted to know how things work, or what made them tick. I would take apart just about anything I could get my hands on and, I must admit, the first few things probably never went back together or if they did, they didn't go back together right.  After each thing I took apart I learned how things worked, how they were put together, so that I could put them back together and they would work. I remember my favorite toys were building toys such as girders and panels, where you had little replicas of steel girders that you could put together and square semi-square could be put together to make buildings such as skyscrapers. The panels would resemble windows and brick-and-mortar and various façades of buildings. They would snap onto the exterior of the girders to make the outside of the buildings. I had an uncle who was a mechanic that could fix just about anything. He inspired me to be something greater than what I was because I didn't get the encouragement from the people around me as I did from him.  Watching him fix cars was magical to me. How did he know how to fix them, what wizard powers did he have?

I figured out that I had a talent that few people had. I could read instructions and make things. I finally got to where I could look at something and either make a replica or fix it. It was kind of a connection between my brain and my hands, if I could feel it, I could understand it. It was almost like I could think with my hands better than I could think with my head. I grew patience for mechanical things and technology. The downside of this was that I grew impatient with people and things that I found frustrating, about what most people call normal life. I was always happiest when I could tear something apart and put it back together and it would work better. I remember I had three or four bicycles that were no longer working for one reason or another and I had a little bike that we called Stingrays back in my day. They had big slick rear tire with the normal size tire in the front. I looked at the parts of some of the older bicycles that I had that were 16 inch bikes and the tires were much bigger than those of the Stingray. I had always liked the fancy choppers that the motorcyclists had back in that day, so I thought I could use the front spoke of the bigger bike if it was interchangeable and if it fit in the front collar of the yoke of the smaller bike.

Without another thought I took both of the front yokes off of both bikes, taking the handlebars out, taking the handlebar shaft out and then undoing the collar, sliding it out and taking the bearings from one to the other and seeing if they fit, seeing if the bearings fit the shaft of the front spoke and they did. That made the front stand about 8 inches higher than it did before, even though it would accommodate a much larger circumference tire and rim, I left the smaller rim from the Stingray on it, which gave it more of a chopper look.

I don't want you to think that I had finished my alterations of this bicycle yet because I had not. I noticed that the sprocket was bigger on the 16 inch bicycle and the length of the rods from the pedal sprocket to the peddles was a few inches longer as well. This meant that it would change the gear ratio from the output of the chain to the smaller sprocket on the rear tire giving it more speed and torque. That's right, you've got it. I took it apart to see if it would fit and it did. I spent probably about the next 10 years of my life working on cars, in one form of another, helping my buddy Rick with any project he had with his racecar until I moved to Canada and married my Ursula. I had decided that even though I loved doing automotive electrical work, probably more than anything else I had ever done, when I worked for Tom Bell Chevrolet and Tim Fuss Chevrolet in Memphis. I decided to give it up and I went into auto parts and being a service writer, which I was also good at both of those jobs as well.

When I moved back to the US in the Smoky Mountains, my wife and I both changed professions again. I went into retail and she went into managing a hotel. I longed to have that creative sense that I had lost. I couldn't help myself. I wanted to be creative. It was a need-it was something that I had to do. I loved working on my computer and touching up photographs and working on videos. The computers that I was working with were commercially bought.  My first was a Sony back in 1999, but it just didn't have the power or speed or memory to do what I wanted to do. So my next one was an HP which was much faster and quite a bit better, but it too lacked what I needed. You guessed it,  I decided to build my own computer. It was the best decision I have ever made. I now have a six core, 3.7 GHz, 16 GB of DDR3 RAM, an Asus motherboard and an HD eyenfinity AMD 6770 graphics card. By the way, the graphics card is the weakest link, but for what I'm doing that graphics card is more than enough at this point. I also have 12.5 TB of storage for movies, pictures, stories or whatever I want.

As with everything that I do in my life, I find I have a fear of failing, so it takes me a long time to build up the courage to get started on any project I start. The only thing I think that I ever went head over heels deep into as far as a project was concerned with the building of our log house. I did have a contractor, but I worked on every single aspect of this house. I did 100% of the plumbing and electrical and they passed inspection and are still working some 27 years later. I put in all the windows and doors. I helped set the logs and even helped pour the foundation. So, to all the naysayers, including my father, to my abilities and intelligence, I have to tell you that it may have taken me years to find out, but I am as intelligent as anyone else. I tell you this with the frustrations of failure at times but I never gave up because I know this now, if a man built it, I can build it myself, if any man can do it, I sure as heck can do it myself. I now sell electronics and I guess they keep me around there because I know more about computers than they do, but the thing I love the most about what I do right now is I help people.

Entertainment is important to people that don't have a whole lot in this world and I can show them things that can get them entertainment for very little money. I can sell them computers that will do the things that they need to make themselves happy. I have helped people with computer problems fix their computers. It's not that I'm a computer genius, because I'm not. I can't write code and I don't want to. I can't reprogram their computer any more than they can, but if the worst scenario is true, I can still show them how to get their computer back to the point that it was when it was brand-new. I've taught people how to get viruses off of their computer, how to keep their computers clean and running smoothly.

It's not fixing the machine that makes me happy. It's the grandmother that can look at the picture she has stored on her computer of her grandchildren that she thought she had lost, thanking me with a smile. It was the lady at Christmas time that wanted somehow for her husband to be able to see the old Western movies that he once had enjoyed as a child and wanted to see now, but because of their bills with cancer and his surgeries, they didn't have the money to pay these ridiculously high cable bills. I showed her how, if they kept their Internet access, she could access at least five or more old Western channels on the Roku box and we both cried, her with the joy of being able to give her husband, in his remaining years, something he loves and me because it was a blessing from God.

I see so many people every day that are so angry and hateful and rude because they are miserable. I refuse to live that way. When I was brought into this world I had nothing and when I leave it I will have nothing.

So, I no longer am going to worry about it, what I have no control over, because I got my abilities in my brain and the knowledge through my hands from He who can fix anything. I am so grateful for the people and the things that pass through my life giving me wisdom and keeping my spirit true and clear because it is He that gives me the courage every day through the pain and the fear to carry on.

I have always said that our lives are the sum of the experiences, places and people we have met. They may not always be to our liking, but they make up a part of us. If any one of those experiences places or people would have been removed from our life we would not be exactly who we are. We were a product of the 60s. We grew up and went to school in the area that became Airways. The people we met in our life were both good and bad, I would like to believe the majority of them were good. This is not to say that family, faith and inspiration. Don't make up a part of who you are, because they do. It's not just one thing that determines who you become. it is the sum of everything that makes you who you are. I would not remove even my worst experiences or places that I would not return to. I especially would not remove any one that I ever met from my memory good or bad. I have loved and I have hated, but most of all, I have tolerated differences that annoyed me or made me sad, because I believe things happen for a reason. The experiences, places and people were different than I was as I confronted them, they made me a much better person and I'm sure that they had to tolerate me because I was different than they were. My point is that I never gave up and I kept moving forward and those annoyances have become some of my most favorite memories of all time. If you look for the best in people, you'll find it. If you ask for the worst in people, you will receive it. I tried to ask nothing of anyone else as much as humanly possible, because I expect nothing and when I get something in return, I am overjoyed and I am overjoyed with all of you that called me friend. I do not use the term friend lightly, so when I call you my friend,that puts you in a special place in my heart.

                   Airways Junior High School Passes In to History

I just learned that my junior high school in Memphis, Tennessee is closing and it will be taken over by a charter school. That means it will never carry the name Airways Junior High School ever again. It gives one pause when things that you loved are disappearing. People, places and things change constantly and we lose those that we love, but I never thought that the places that I loved as I grew up would disappear.

The little house that I grew up in and the streets all around my home were bought by the Memphis Airport Authority and all the homes were demolished. Absolutely nothing of the home that I grew up in exists and I have come to terms with that. The school that we went to in our neighborhood is no longer Airways Junior High School but was changed to Airways Middle School many years ago. I could live with that.  Now it's going to be a charter school and will no longer carry the name Airways. Now that is just inconceivable to me.

The first day that all of us entered our brand new school in 1969 for the first time to start the journey of the next three years of our lives was a challenge, to say the least. It was something different we had never experienced before. We were all the biggest bunch of misfits you had ever seen in your life. We were uncoordinated, uncouth, and a bunch of children without a clue of what awaited us in this new school of ours. Most of our teachers were young and it was their first permanent assignments. I'd be willing to bet that they had no idea what was in store for them either.

I think I was much like all of the students that went to this brand-new school that was built for us. I was bound and determined to be a major part of its history. I just never knew that I would outlast the history of our school. I knew that I didn't have the talent on the baseball field to be a star player, but I was 6 foot tall and 175 pounds in the seventh grade, so I knew that I could be a top football player in junior high school. No one, absolutely no one was ever going to cheat me out of being a starting player on that first football team at Airways. I never worked so hard in my entire life. I did everything that was asked of me by my coaches and their staff and I always tried to give them even more than what they asked for. We butted heads sometimes about some of the stupidest things but I respected and loved these men that I called coaches, Coach Winters, Coach Ramsey and Coach Bacon I would have walked across hot coals for these men and I still would. God bless them and keep them and give them the highest rewards in heaven because they deserved it for making men from little boys.

Every teacher that I had and even those I didn't have seemed to care about us. I truly don't think that they were there just for a paycheck. None of them ever gave me that impression. I even had some teachers that took extra time with me when I needed it. I never had teachers after I left Airways that ever did that. It's not that I think the teachers today don't care as much as they did. It's just that I think they were just as bound and determined to make something of this school just as we were bound and determined to make something of it ourselves. It takes both the students and the faculty with the backing of the parents to make a school work and without these three elements working side-by-side any school is bound to fail. We had the three elements, we had a great group of teachers and an eager student body and parents that were determined to make Airways Junior High School a great school for their children.

I started a Facebook page so that we, the alumni, of Airways Junior High School could reunite and talk amongst each other about the days when we were young and beautiful, back when the teachers were just as eager to learn as they were to teach us the wonders of the world, life, math and sciences. I dedicated the Facebook page to those of us, both students and faculty, that are no longer with us because we love them and miss them.

I found out that it's not the places that make the difference and is not necessarily that the people that you loved are still by your side, it is that the memories and love are embedded in your soul. If I only do one thing in my life, I wish it would be that I impress upon people that it is the memories of some of the most important things in life and that the people that made those memories made us who we are. The history that we made is only as great as the friends that walked beside us through our journey of growth and understanding. It is actually amazing that we all became friends because we were all so different, our loves and our passions were as different as night and day. I honestly think that that made us stronger and bound us together as a group.

Our school had all kinds of backgrounds, all kinds of races and we didn't care. We were taught not to care about what we were. We were taught to care about who we were. For that I am thankful.

So when I tell you that I loved the group of kids that I went to school with at Airways Junior High School I mean it. They were not only my friends, I grew up with them as if they were my family. Their parents were my parents and we all respected each other and each other's parents as if they were our own family. We did things for each other. Our parents did things for us and all of the kids in our neighborhood. My parents and my friends parents all worked hard to make money so that our junior high school would have things that we needed that were not going to be supplied by the Board of Education.

They even continued working for Airways Junior High School after we had left so that the kids in our neighborhood would still be able to have the things that they never had when they went to school. That's what made Airways Junior High School in our neighborhood work back in the days when we were growing up in the Charjean, Bethel Grove and Cherokee neighborhoods that united into one group when we all walked through that door for the first time at Airways Junior High School. I always felt like our neighborhoods had become one under the flag of Airways Junior High School.