Television

  I have done a lot of television.  Some were filmed projects, and others were interviews. With the filmed projects, they were done similarly to films, only quicker.  The interviews were done much quicker, consisting of a few minutes to maybe a half hour.  When doing television, you kind of know who the target audience will be.  Movies could be seen by a wide range of people.  Television is more specific.

 When I did educational programs for 8th grade History classes, we knew who would see it.  The filming was professional but shot only in a couple of days.  There were some continuity issues, but we figured that 8th graders probably wouldn't see them.  If it has been a movie, those issues might have been fixed or maybe not.  Another educational show I was involved in was quite rigorous, because it was being filmed for a wider audience.  The continuity was grueling and meticulous, but it had to be that way for accuracy.  The filming also went on for a couple of weeks, because it was like a TV movie.  Had it been a movie, a couple of weeks would have turned into a couple of months.  The key to doing that kind of TV is to know to do the same thing in the same way, much like movies.  You don't want to show up on a blooper reel years later.

 Interviews are a lot harder.  If it is a short interview, you had better know the points you want to make and anticipate the questions posed to you.  A successful interview will work if there is some chemistry between the two parties. It also works, if the interview is edited by the interviewer before broadcast.  However, there are times when that is not possible.  Live interviews or live to tape are the hardest.  You still have points in your mind about what you want to say, but the interviewer might throw you a curveball and ask something you had not prepared for.  Thinking on your feet (or in a chair) is hard, but you can't panic.  You take a breath and then answer the question.  Hopefully, it will sound okay.  In one interview, they had told me the subjects that would be covered.  I had time to think about my answers.  Then, right before closing the interview, they asked me a question that I had not prepared for.  I couldn't just blow it off, so I came up with a profound answer.  At least, they thought so.  My relaxation techniques worked very well in that situation.

 Just as in film, you can't think about how many people would see you on TV.  Just do your job, and everything will fit into place.  I am ultra-critical about what I do or say on TV, films or plays.  That is how I get better.  No matter how many accolades I can get from an audience, I know I can always be better. I am a perfectionist.  That can be good or bad.  The key is to learn from the bad and accept the good.  And maybe, your ego won't be so big that you can't fit it in a room, like mine used to be.

Films

  "We deal in illusion".  A camera operator on the film "The Midnight Man" told me after removing a false wall to get a shot from a different direction in a scene.  Some movies are shot in less than a month.  You can usually tell, because the quality of the films isn't very good.  The ones I did took at least two months or more.

 A movie is obviously quite different from a play.  When doing a play, there is a lot of rehearsal time spread out over weeks.  The reasoning behind a long rehearsal is that you are going to do the play live, and you don't have the ability to stop a scene because somebody messed up.  In a film, the rehearsal time is much shorter.  Maybe even just before shooting the scene.  If someone messes up, like Halle Berry did in a scene for "The Program" (22 takes), the director can stop filming and reset the scene.  

 There is also a lot of waiting around while doing a movie.  The cameras and lighting have to be set just right.  They have to test the microphones before the actors arrive.  It is a very laborious process.  So, what do the actors do while waiting to film a scene?  Some study their lines. Some sit around and tell stories about previous films they had done.  Some take naps.  It can actually be quite boring in between shots.  "Hurry up and wait" is the mantra in film production.

 The movies I did were not reliant on special effects.  There were stunts that had to be choreographed so no one would get hurt, but realism was very important.  No computer-generated effects.  The only unusual special effect that was used in "The Program" was a camera mounted on the inside of a football helmet to have the audience see what the runner was seeing in a game.  They said that was the first time that had ever been done on film. 

 An actor has no control as to how a film will turn out.  That is the job of the editor.  You might think might have been in the best movie of your career, but then it comes out, and it stinks.  Some of your best work ends up on the cutting room floor.  I was in two good scenes in "Chattahoochee" that didn't make it into the film.  That's just the way it goes.  Sometimes, those scenes are put back in the "director's cut" on DVD but not always.  

 All in all, a good movie is a joy to work on with very professional people (for the most part).  There needs to be more independent films made without the big budgets.  Money often times do not produce quality films.  As an actor, I would much prefer to work with great actors and small budgets than terrible actors with huge budgets.  I have been fortunate to do the former than the latter.

Cars

  I loved everyone in our youth group at Kilbourne Park Baptist Church.  During the summer of 1970, we took a trip to Six Flags Over Georgia outside Atlanta.  Our youth leader wanted us to pair off so no one would get lost.  So, Craig and I paired off with Pam and Gail.  We were going to do everything together.  

 When we got to one ride, Craig and I thought we would get sick on it, so we told Pam and Gail that we would meet them at the exit.  We got over to that spot, but we missed them getting off of the ride.  We looked around for them, but they were nowhere to be seen.  A little panic set in.  Where were they?  We had waited for them.  

 So, Craig and I set out on a quest to find them.  We walked all around the park with no success.  We passed up on a lot of rides looking for them.  After we got lunch, we looked for them some more.  All of a sudden, we passed by a ride made up of cars on a track, and we saw them in one of those cars.  We yelled out to them, and they waved back.  We waited at the exit of that ride and reconnected with the girls.  

 As we were talking to them about where they had been, it turned out that they had been looking for us going around in circles in the park.  At one point, we had reversed our course to see if we would run into them.  They had done the same thing, so we were just following one another around the park.  They got tired of doing that and went on the ride.

 By the time we got back together, it was time to leave the park.  We didn't go on many rides, but our walking gave us a map in our brains where everything was.  If we had stayed in one place, we probably would have run into one another sooner.  Oh well.

Stage

  My first taste of working in a play was in kindergarten, where I played a wise man in a Christmas pageant.  I was very shy and really didn't like being in front of people.  As I got older, I learned to love the stage.  The applause was like taking a drug.  It made me feel incredibly high.  If I got a standing ovation, I was over the moon.  I have already written about my God-given talent for acting, so I wanted to write about the stage.

 I was trained to be an actor without a microphone.  I could project my voice to the last row of a theatre without seeming like I was shouting.  It was a lot easier in a more intimate setting like having the audience surround you and a theater with only a hundred seats, but the basic skills were the same.  When I started acting with a microphone, I found it to be a lot more difficult.  I had been using my voice in a broader way, and now it could be more subtle.  That was hard to get used to.

 One thing I was good at was developing a character.  You are given a script and some lines, but the rest of the development is up to you.  Who is the person you are portraying?  What are his likes and dislikes?  Where did he grow up?  Who were his parents?  Where did he go to school, if he went?  What part of the world did he grow up?  Is he married?  If so, to whom?  There are a lot of questions about a character that are not written in a script.  The job of the actor is to make the character believable to the audience.  Maybe that character is someone that the audience can identify with.  The main thing you have to do in character development is to find something in that person that the actor can identify with.  A memory or emotion from your past that can give depth to the character.  

 One thing I was not so good at was memorizing lines in the script.  If the character has been fleshed out, the words can come a little easier.  I found the best way for me to memorize lines was to repeat them over and over again until they came more natural for my character.  If I flubbed a line on stage, I learned to cover it.  I used to tell students not to freeze up, because then the audience would know you made a mistake.  Stay focused on the character and say something the character would say in the moment, until you found your way back to the script.  The key here is that the audience probably does not have a copy of the script in front of them, so the lines could briefly be your own.

 Now we come to nerves.  I admit that I have terrible stage fright.  I always have.  The anticipation of going on stage is incredibly scary for me.  It is all about my shyness.  Some people say that you are only as good as your last role.  What if the audience doesn't like me?  What if I forget my lines?  What if I hear crickets in the audience?  What if I have to throw up (which I have done) before going on stage? There are couple of things I have done before going on stage.  The first is to get the nervousness out of my body by doing exercises.  It could be yoga or jumping around or muscle relaxation. Whatever is needed at the time to get my energy in the right place.  The second thing I do is meditation.  I would find an empty room offstage and make it as dark as possible.  I would think about my first line that I needed to present.  I would clear my head of negative thoughts and say a prayer.  "Lord, give me the strength to do a good job.  Give me courage to go out onto the stage.  Give me clarity of thought and mind. Thank you for giving me this talent that I am about to use, and may someone receive a blessing from my work. Amen".  After saying that prayer, I know that I will do my best.  When I get out on stage, and say my first line, all of the nerves go away.  I turn nervousness into energy.

 Here are a couple tricks of the trade.  If you have a mirror onstage, put hair spray on the glass.  The spotlights won't reflect in the glass and blind the actors or the audience.  Another is to put a fine layer of water in an ashtray.  If someone is putting out a cigarette onstage, the water will keep it from having residual smoke rising from the ashtray and be distracting to the audience. 

 Stage work can be very hard.  You are in front of an audience without a net.  No second takes.  Not all actors can be good on the stage.  Just like not all stage actors can be good in other mediums like film or TV.  It just takes practice.  I have had a lot of practice.

Newberry

  In my effort to find a teaching position after graduating from seminary, I was sending out a lot of letters to colleges asking to teach Speech or Drama.  I had a master's degree, and a lot of experience in both subjects.  I would get the same letter back from the colleges.  It would say:  "Thank you for your interest. We don't have any openings right now, but we will keep your letter on file for six months in case something opens up."

 After the fiasco with Blue Mountain College in Mississippi, which you can read about in a previous story, I was getting the idea that no one wanted me.  I had found out that the seminary wouldn't recommend me for a job, so I had moved on to other things.  One day, I got a phone call from Newberry College in Newberry, SC.  I had sent them one of my letters but had forgotten all about it.  They wanted me to come to Newberry to teach a night class on Public Speaking.  They told me I would be an adjunct professor.  

 I was flattered by their offer.  It would be a good way to get my feet in the door, and maybe they would give me a full-time position at some point.  There was a problem, though.  Newberry was 45 miles from Columbia, and I would be going and coming in the dark to that college.  I thought about wildlife maybe hitting my car, and the cost of gas, so I thanked them and declined.  Surely, there would be another college that would ask me to come teach, which would be closer to where I lived.  No one else called.  Outside of the work I did at Columbia College judging high school speech and drama students, I haven't taught in a college.  It is what I was trained to do, and why I got my M.A. degree.  

 In looking at it in the moment, I failed at my objective to teach in a college or university.  However, I realized later on that could have been a stagnant place for me to be.  My experiences in life of doing theatre, movies, television, retail, and other jobs gave me more variety without the boredom of doing the same thing every day.  They say that variety is the spice of life.  I guess that's true.

Parking

  This story is not about my failure to achieve parallel parking.  I wrote about that earlier regarding getting my driver's license.  This is about a humid Sunday night, when I was in high school.

 My friends at Kilbourne Park Baptist Church were my world.  I had never experienced acceptance from my peers.  These people embraced me in a way I really can't describe fully.  Just to say we were a very close Youth Group.

 One night, I was driving my Mother's Plymouth Valiant.  Two of my friends were with me--Pam and Craig.  The car had a bench front seat, so we were all on the front seat together.  I really wasn't a fan driving at night, but I made the best of it.  We were just having fun riding around the neighborhoods.  

 Pam suggested that we go down a street near to where she lived.  I wasn't familiar with the street, but we proceeded down the road which turned out to be very narrow.  Because of our talking and laughing, the windows started to fog up.  I couldn't see where I was going, so I stopped the car to clean off the glass.  It turned out that we had stopped in the middle of the road. Rather than clearing the foggy glass, I got distracted by us talking.  

 A few minutes later, a police car pulled up behind us.  The officer got out and saw the windows fogged up.  He asked us what we were doing in the middle of the road, and we said just talking.  I don't think he believed us, but it was the truth.  No hanky panky was going on inside the car, unfortunately.  The officer said that someone in a house had called the police about a car in the middle of the road.  He asked if we were having car trouble.  No sir.  He suggested rather forcibly that we needed to move along.  

 We cleared off the windows, and I drove us back to the church laughing all the way.  As for the policeman, he just had a dirty mind, and he was probably laughing too.

Horse

  I loved watching westerns on TV.  Almost all of them involved riding horses.  The actors looked like they knew how to ride.  One secret about actors is that if the director asks you if you can ride a horse, you tell them that you can, even if you have never seen a horse before.  I expect that some of the actors in the westerns had no clue how to ride a horse before getting on one.

 When I was in high school, our church's youth group went to a horse farm outside of Columbia.  I don't think anybody in our group had ever ridden a horse.  The closest I had come was riding a mule down the Grand Canyon, when I was five.  Mules and horses are not the same thing.  Each of us was assigned a horse to ride.  There was a path that the owners said the horses would follow.  They had done this before.  We were given a quick lesson on how to ride a horse.  If you wanted the horse to slow down, you pulled back on the reins.  If you wanted the horse to go, you hit its sides with your feet.  If you wanted the horse to turn, you pulled the reins in the direction you wanted to go.  It seemed fairly simple.

 I got on my horse and off we went.  At first, everything went according to plan.  My horse sauntered along the path.  Then, it happened.  For some reason, my horse decided to walk a little faster.  He also decided to get off of the path and into some woods.  I was pulling back on the reins, but he didn't seem fazed by what I wanted him to do.  He was trying to knock me off by running under some limbs really fast.  It was getting a little dark, and I was having trouble ducking under the limbs.  He also enjoyed running through bushes.  I didn't share his enjoyment.  

 Eventually, one of the trainers saw my predicament and rode out to get my horse back on the trail.  He accused me of getting off of the trail on purpose.  I'm sure I heard my horse laugh under his breath.  When we got to the end of the trail, I dismounted and gave the horse a dirty look.  My butt was sore.  My legs were sore.  My head was sore.  I haven't ridden a horse since.  Years later, I had a girlfriend who loved horses.  She taught me a lot about them and what to look for in a horse.  If only she had been there the day I rode the horse with no name.

Telegram

  When I was a senior at A. C. Flora High School, I wrote a letter to the editor for our school newspaper questioning if there was such a thing as one's permanent record.  They had used those two words to threaten us from first grade.  Anything that we did wrong would go on our "permanent record".  I wanted to see mine.  My guidance counselor called me into her office and briefly showed me that there was such a thing.  My letter caused a stir at the school.

 When I got to college, I wrote some letters to the editor of our school newspaper concerning issues on campus.  I also wrote one to the local Anderson newspaper regarding water pollution at a park.  At PC, my letter writing got more intense.  In fact, it was like having a weekly column in our school's newspaper.  I caused a lot of trouble with some of my letters, especially with the administration and the football team.  The latter threatened to kill me, because of what I said, and I had to leave campus for a week or so.  Consequently, I failed two classes for missing the mid-term exams.

 As I was leaving to go to seminary, my father told me not to write anymore letters to the editor. I told him I would just concentrate on school and not write any letters.  I broke my promise to him after an incident in the news.  There was a story about a man who was holding some people hostage in his home.  He had a shotgun.  The police had negotiated with the man to let the hostages go.  They told him that he wouldn't be harmed.  He did what they said.  He gave up and came outside to be immediately arrested.  He was manhandled by the police and thrown in jail.  When I heard that story, I was appalled.  The police had broken their word to the man.  They had lied to him to get him to give up.  I had to write a letter.

 I wrote a letter to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram newspaper.  It was primarily about trusting the police.  It was about honesty and fairness.  Those are two things that I have tried to live my life by.  I was disgusted at what had happened to the man.  Today, he would have been treated as mentally ill.  In the 1970's, he was just a criminal.  The newspaper printed my letter.

 A few days later, I got an angry call from my father.  He was mad, because I had written a letter to the editor.  One of his friends in Fort Worth had seen my letter and had told him about it.  Despite the fact that my father was well-known by professors at the seminary, I was naive to think that 1000 miles between my father and me would keep the letter from being discovered by him.  No more letters.  Okay, no more letters, I said.  I kept my word, while I lived in Fort Worth.  Even with all of the persecution I suffered during my last semester at seminary, the only letters I wrote were to my parents.  Probably a good thing. 

Subscriptions

  When I was in 8th grade, my homeroom teacher was Mrs. Brown.  She taught chorus.  I remember that she was short and had very frizzy hair.  Our class competed with other classes on how many magazine subscriptions a student could sell.  The students with the most subscriptions could win prizes.  The class that sold the most won a big prize and the bragging rights that our class was better than the rest.

 Mrs. Brown selected me as the keeper of the records.  I had everyone's name on a tally sheet, and I had to notate the subscriptions sold.  It seemed like an easy task, but I just couldn't get it right.  Kids were screaming at me, saying that I cheated them out of prizes.  Mrs. Brown scolded me for doing a bad job.  I was very embarrassed.  

 During this time, I was getting beat up every day by the boys in our school.  This screw-up by me just made things worse.  Most of the girls in our class stopped speaking to me.  They had been the only support for me, as the boys beat me up.  Now, everyone hated me.  I had been a standout in chorus, but Mrs. Brown didn't seem to like me anymore.  It was a huge scandal.  I tried to rectify the tallies, but the assignment was just too overwhelming.  I realized that I would never grow up to be an accountant.  

 There was one girl who stood up for me, when all of my world was crumbling around me.  Her name was Gayle Anderson.  She recognized that I had talents in other areas besides accounting.  She suggested I go into English and the Arts.  Writing was my escape from all of this trouble.  It still is.

Lenny

  I had a suitemate at Anderson College named Lenny Farmer. His real first name was "Walter", which may be why we became friends originally.  He was a year older than me, but we were in the same Freshman class.  He was into music, as I was, so we would compare songs that we liked.  I played "The Pusher" by Steppenwolf for him.  He liked the message of the song but not the profanity.  He told me he wouldn't listen to it in the car.  He gave me an album by The Mothers of Invention called "Absolutely Free", and I fell in love with it.  I had never heard Frank Zappa before, but I really got into it.

 As I wrote about earlier, Lenny was in the school choir.  He asked me one afternoon if I would help him move a piano onto the stage of the auditorium for chapel the next morning.  When we got there, a play rehearsal was going on.  We sat in the back of the auditorium to wait until they got finished.  A student came up to us and asked if we wanted to be in the play.  Lenny said no, but I said yes.  Even though I had done some acting before I got to college, I was planning to major in English and become the next great writer.  My life changed that day, and I changed my major to Speech and Drama.  

 Lenny and I were nominated for Who's Who in American Junior Colleges our sophomore year.  They took our pictures to be in the college's yearbook.  Everyone knew he and I were best friends, so they positioned the single pictures so that we were next to one another.  By now, Lenny was the president of the choir, and I was "Joe College" in Theatre.  He had an apartment off campus, and I spent a lot of time there.  When we graduated from Anderson, we were both named to the prestigious "Denmark Society", and we stood next to one another for that group picture.

 After graduation, we sort of split up due to our change in venues, but we kept in touch.  As I was planning to be a famous actor, he went into the ministry.  Lenny graduated from Southern Seminary and later Southwestern Seminary, where I went.  As time went on, he was pastoring a church in Saluda, SC.  I was working at Belk in Columbia Mall, and he came by to take me to lunch.  He told me that he wanted to start a television ministry in Saluda, and he wanted me to help him.  I told him that I really wasn't qualified, as I had taken only one course in Radio and Televison at Southwestern.  I did give him some suggestions on people he could contact.  I don't think that ministry ever happened in Saluda.

 He served several churches ending up in Tennessee with his wife and family. He became a die-hard sports fan of the University of Tennessee, and he would rib me about liking the University of South Carolina.  If one team won over the other, we would send each other emails laughing about the game.  He had a great sense of humor.  Lenny was like a brother to me.  He died on June 1st, 2025 of heart problems.  I couldn't believe it, when I heard the news.   He had tried to retire from the ministry, but you can really never retire.  I will miss our laughs.  He loved the Lord and served Him to his last breath.  

 God puts people in our paths all the time.  Some change the course of your life.  Lenny was that person for me.  

Mentors

  What is a mentor?  In my mind, a mentor is someone who is an influence on your life and makes you better in whatever field you are in.  He or she catapults you into a place where you didn't think you could go and helps you along the way to achieve a desired goal.  They are your counselor and your motivator.  They teach you things from their own experiences and using those to get better at something you are trying to accomplish.  I have had several mentors who took the time to show me a new approach to an old concept.  Here are a few:

 John Brusack was the merchandise manager at Belk, when I became a buyer.  He showed me how to be creative in my buying items for our store.  He taught me about time management, because I was feeling overwhelmed by the work.  He taught me about how to supervise my employees in my departments and treat them as human beings.  He taught me how to manage my inventories and to fight for advertising space.  He also taught me how to sway customers toward our products subliminally.  Even though I had been in retail for about ten years before meeting him, and I thought I knew a lot of that, he was the guiding force to make me the best buyer in the store.

 Skelly Warren was my drama director during my senior year at Presbyterian College.  At the time, I didn't care for him very much.  He was filling in for Dr. Rains who was on sabbatical.  Skelly was much more of a disciplinarian which was hard for a bunch of free-spirited drama students.  The one thing I learned from him was concentrating on a role and not being distracted by what was going on around you.  During rehearsals, he would stand next to me and shout random things into my ear to try and make me break my character.  At first, he just would make me laugh at what he was saying.  It was almost like a drill sergeant yelling at me.  As time went on, I saw what he was doing.  He made me a better actor.

 Grady Nutt was a Christian comedian, who you might have seen on "Hee Haw".  I met him, when I was in high school at Ridgecrest Baptist Assembly in North Carolina.  He was there to speak to the youth on prayer.  I had been taught to always bow your head and shut your eyes, when you pray.  He spoke about praying everywhere like in your car or walking down the street.  He said that you didn't have to close your eyes to talk to God.  He really changed my life in the way I looked at prayer and worship.  

 James Dickey was a well-known poet and novelist.  I first met him, when I was in high school.  My senior English teacher was a good friend of his, and she took us to meet him at the University of South Carolina, where he taught.  One of our mutual friends was a high school classmate of mine named David Havird.  He had seen some of my poetry and told me not to "force my rhymes".  Jim taught me to write poetry with imagery and word pictures.  He changed my outlook on my writing.  I would still rhyme, if I was writing a song, but it would make sense to do so.  My mother was a poet and writer, so it was in my blood. Jim encouraged me to write what I felt and tell a story along the way.

 There have been other mentors in my life like Catherine Eaker, Burt Lancaster, J. D. Grey, Phil Barrett, Tom Bolton, Everett Vivian, Paula Brooks, Paul Talmadge, Baxter Wynn, Nezza Howard, and others who have played a part in where I am now.  The two lessons I have learned from all of my mentors are:

 1.  You can't do things by yourself.  You need help.

 2.  You don't know everything.  Others know more than you. 

Health

   My mother recorded some health issues I had growing up in my Baby Book.  It ended with the 4th grade.  Here is what she wrote:

 Walter is allergic.  Had rash until special sugar was put in formula.  Has always had rash from eating chocolate.  Has had asthma attacks.  Is allergic to cold, damp air.

 Walter is high-strung.  Is afraid of something.  Bites fingernails, and in the fourth grade grew afraid to sleep in the dark.  Had not been so before, to our knowledge.

 Had is tonsils removed when he was just a baby--about 2.

 Had hernia operation about 3--Dr. R. M. Willoughby in New Orleans.

 Had severe case of measles with much hard coughing just before hernia was found.

 Had chicken pox.  Still has scars.

 Had Pneumonia--age 8--was in hospital.  Dr. says he is allergic to penicillin and must not have it anymore--it broke him out in a rash all over his body.  Had high fever.

 Neighbor boy stepped on his right thumb and broke it.  Dr. David Holler fixed it.  Slipped out of place.  Hospital again.  Surgery.  This time it stayed and healed.

 Had hair-line break in bone of elbow--left arm, at age 8.  Abscess developed.  Had to be lanced by doctor in Lynchburg, VA, as we were at Eagle Eyrie, Baptist encampment. (it was actually my right elbow)

 Is nearsighted.  Had to put on glasses in the 4th grade, age 9.  Could not see the board.

 Will need his teeth straightened.

 Tires easily--needs sleep--and has a poor appetite.  

Sayings (part two)

  As I wrote earlier, my mother kept a baby book for me.  In it, there are some pictures of me from day one, as well as letters, articles, and memorabilia.  One of the things she kept was a group of funny or inspired words I said from early on.  Here is another group:

 Just after I started talking, my mother took me to Heflin, Alabama to visit my grandparents.  En route, I looked at my mother's wrist and said sadly, "Daddy--tick-tock; Mommy--tick-tock; Johnny--tick-tock; Baby--no tick-tock!"  My mother bought a 10-cent watch in Heflin for me.

 On my 6th birthday, I went to Sunday School in Columbia, where my birthday was recognized with singing and a prayer for me by a teacher.  I came out of Sunday School angry and burst out:  "Mother, that teacher prayed I'd grow up to be a good Christian! She ought to know we're not Christians--we're Baptists!"

 Shortly after my hernia surgery and post-operative check-up, my father and I were at the New Orleans airport.  While we were waiting there, an announcement boomed out on the loudspeakers:  "Come to Flight Deck to check operations!"  I looked at my father, dismayed, and said, "But, Dr. Willoughby just checked my operation!"

 My Aunt Frankie died the same year as my grandfather.  I said, "Isn't it nice that Granddaddy can take care of Aunt Frankie now that they are together again?"  I was 6.

Sayings (part one)

  My mother kept a baby book for me.  It has pictures and announcements from when I was born.  There are also letters and memories of our time together.  I cherish this book, and sometimes it brings tears to my eyes.  One thing she wrote down were some wise or funny things I said as a child.  For the next couple of stories, I will impart my wisdom on you.

 After watching the family celebrate Mother's Day, and hearing a Mother's Day sermon at church, I asked, "When is it going to be Boy's Day?"  I was three.

 When asked by my mother to tell her what his Sunday School lesson was about, I said, "It was about Zacchaeus.  Jesus told him, "Come down out of that tree and let's go to your house and drink some beer."  I was four.

 At Glorieta, New Mexico, I asked my mother the name of a tree.  She said, "Aspen".  I said, "Bayer or St. Joseph's?"  I was five.

 My mother asked my daddy to paint the porch furniture.  I looked dismayed.  I said, "Now I'll have to tell all my friends that my daddy is a preacher and a teacher and a painter!"  I was five.

 At my grandfather's funeral, I looked at the figure in the casket and asked, "Mother, is that the REAL granddaddy?" I was 4.

 More to come next week.

Banquet

  Back in 2015, the Midlands Transit Riders Association (MTRA) was getting some notoriety.  As president of the association, I was interviewed for TV and newspapers.  We were the voice for the bus riders in Columbia.  We were also recognized by government bodies both locally and nationally.  Our Board of Directors made most of the decisions pertaining to the MTRA, except for some route designs that I did.  Some of our directors didn't like that I was making autonomous decisions, but it had to be done if there was a time constraint.

 Word got to me that one of our members, who was not on our Board, had reached out to the Secretary of the United States Department of Transportation inviting him to speak at a banquet honoring the MTRA and the Comet for their work to make better bus service for Columbia.  I saw the letter, which stated that there would be a banquet at the Columbia Convention Center.  The attendees would be from the Comet, the MTRA, mayors of the affected communities and other political figures.  There was just one problem.  The writer had not consulted with us or anyone else about this banquet.  I called the Convention Center and asked them if they had a banquet on their calendar.  They said no.  I talked to the public relations person at the Comet, and she said she didn't know anything about it.  So, I wrote to the Department of Transportation in Washington to ask Secretary Anthony Foxx not to come to the banquet.  He had been the Mayor of Charlotte before going to DC, so he would have known about Columbia.  

 The letter was an embarrassment to me and to the MTRA.  When I called around to places asking if there was going to be a banquet, I felt stupid for myself and for our association.  There was never going to be a banquet.  We were a non-profit and couldn't afford such a thing, even if we wanted to.  To this day, I don't know why the man wrote the letter and concocted a story about a banquet.  I guess he wanted to be important, like the rest of us were, in the community.  It hurt our credibility for a couple of weeks.  We passed it off as a joke, but it wasn't.  

Hall

  As I have written before, I have gotten several awards for stuff during my life.  There have been awards for drama, writing, leadership, advocacy, and even sexy legs.  However, there is one award that has eluded me.  An induction into a Hall of Fame.

 Back in the 2000's, I saw an ad for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  You could send in some money, and they would send you a t-shirt.  I could also get 10% off in their giftshop, if I was ever in Cleveland, Ohio. I really just wanted the shirt.  On the front, it said, "Rock Your World", and on the back it said, "Member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum".  There was a key word on the back--"Museum".  I was a member of the museum, but not the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  I could get into the museum at a discounted rate to see memorabilia from inductees.  

 One day, I was wearing the shirt.  A guy saw the back and misread it.  He got very excited and asked me what band I was in.  At the time, I was writing songs for a band called The Cobbwebs.  We had a very popular cd in Europe called "Magic Boat" in 2002.  The guy had never heard of the band but figured that I was in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  I should have corrected him, but there was no need.  He went away happy that he had met a famous person.  I'm glad he didn't ask me for my autograph.  I probably would have signed it with a real inductee's name just for a laugh.  Sometimes, you just have to have fun with people.  I'm still waiting for the call from a Hall of Fame.  Maybe one day.

Sin

  As I have said before, I loved to go to the movies.  I had gotten my driver's license, so my parents trusted me with the car.  I was a safe driver at first.  Years later, I discovered the need for speed.  In the early days of my driving, I just wanted to get from Point A to Point B without having a wreck or a ticket.  I got a ticket but no wrecks early on.

 One place my parents trusted me to go by myself was the Sunday night service at my church.  The church was downtown, so they could check the mileage and find I had been there.  The thing was that I didn't go to church.  I went to the movies.  There were several movie theaters downtown.  Some might show movies I wasn't supposed to see at that age, but I had a fake ID.  I would time it out so that I would get back home after the approximate time that the church service would have been over.  That meant that I might not see the entire movie, if it ran longer than 90 minutes.

 When I would get home, my parents would ask me what the preacher's sermon was about.  I would just make up something and go to bed.  My parents were getting a little suspicious of my nightly activities every Sunday.  They had asked some people at church if they had seen me.  Their answers were either no or not sure.  One night, I told my parents that the sermon was on Sin.  I thought that was a safe answer, since almost all sermons had to do with sin.  Except this one.  The next day, they called our pastor and asked him what the sermon on Sunday night was about.  It wasn't Sin.  BUSTED!!

 After that revelation, my parents started looking for a church to join that was closer to our house and nowhere near a movie theater.  As far as they were concerned, 1969 couldn't end soon enough, because the first Sunday of 1970 was a change.  We joined Kilbourne Park Baptist Church, and my life changed for the better.

Seating

  There was an Applebee's restaurant near Columbia Mall.  Some co-workers and I decided to go there for lunch during our lunch hour.  We had heard the food was really good.  It was only a couple of blocks from work, so we thought we could go there and get back easily.

 When we got there, we saw only a few cars in the parking lot.  This was going to be good.  The fewer cars meant faster service.  As we walked into the door of the restaurant, I saw several tables unoccupied.  The waitress informed us that they didn't have any tables open.  I asked her about all of the empty tables, and she said that there wasn't a server for those.  I guess I raised my voice, because she told us to leave.  Now, I was wondering if it was because we were white, and everyone in the restaurant was black.  It sure seemed that way.

 When I got home, I wrote a letter to the corporate headquarters of Applebee's explaining my concerns.  I suppose they were saving those empty tables for a large group that might have been eating there that day, but she could have told us that instead of the story about no server for those tables.  I felt it was a situation of discrimination.  By the way, I abhor discrimination by any means.  I was taught at an early age that we are all equal under God, and that it is wrong to think one race is better than another.  A couple of weeks later, I got a letter from the corporate headquarters apologizing for the lack of service and included a $25 gift certificate.  

 I gave the certificate to another coworker who hadn't been with our group.  I figured that somebody working there would know it was me from the time before, and my food could be compromised.  My friend told me later that the food was delicious.  I'm glad.  That restaurant closed a year or two later.  

KFC

  There was a restaurant in Orangeburg, SC that I loved to go to.  It was KFC.  For some reason, their chicken was better than others I had been to.  I always ordered the two-piece meal all dark.  I like the dark meat, because it seems to be juicier than the white meat.  Also, I would get a leg in the meal.  And, it would be cheaper than the white meat, because of the demand for white meat.  

 One Saturday, I was in Orangeburg to look around.  It was getting on toward lunchtime, so I headed for the KFC.  They didn't have the regular employees that I had seen in there before.  When I gave my order to the cashier, she told me that they were all out of chicken.  How could this be?  I saw chicken made in the back, but she told me again that they were all out of chicken.  I went away sad.

 As I was getting into my car to leave, I saw a man come in behind me.  He got chicken.  The guy behind him got chicken.  I got a little mad.  Was I being discriminated against because I was white and everybody else was black?  That's what I thought.  South Carolina State had a home football game that day.  Maybe these people had reserved chicken to be picked up.  If that was the case, they needed to put a sign on the door saying that only chicken for the game would be available.  

 I wrote their corporate headquarters, when I got back home.  It was the troublemaker in me.  I never heard back from them, and I never went to that KFC again.  They should have changed their name to KFNC (Kentucky Fried No Chicken).  That would have made more sense.

Bowman

  After I moved back to South Carolina from Texas, I got a provisional teaching license for high schools.  Unfortunately, I got it in April and expired in June, so it wasn't worth it.  I also was licensed for a year in North Carolina, but I didn't want to move.  I did find a private school that was looking for a Speech teacher.  It was in Bowman, SC and was called Bowman Academy.

 I knew about Bowman, because a good friend from college was from there.  Talula had told me all about her hometown and the cows that were on the street signs.  It was a small town in Orangeburg County, and around an hour from Columbia.  I made an appointment to go to see the school and talk to the principal.  When I got there, I found a two-story wooden structure that looked pretty old.  All of the windows were open, and they had big fans creating circulating air inside the building.  The doors of the classrooms were opened to create a kind of coolness.  No air conditioning.  I asked the principal what they did in the winter to keep warm, and he said they used space heaters.  Strike one.

 The principal seemed interested in me and my qualifications.  I didn't need a state teaching license, since this was a private school.  They had grades kindergarten through 12th grade in this one building.  Strike two.  But, I continued to seem interested.  Then came Strike three.  The principal informed me that I would have to live in Bowman, or at least Orangeburg County.  Why?  Because the teachers would have to be on call for the students, if they needed help in a project or counseling.  I really didn't think that a Speech teacher was as needy as a Science teacher.  As it turned out, the principal lived in Summerville, SC which was in Dorchester County which was a 45-minute drive to Bowman.  I probably shouldn't have said anything, but I asked him how he could live about the same distance from Bowman as I did.  He said he had an Assistant Principal who lived closer that he did.  I thought if a school was going to have that rule, everyone should follow it.  I declined their offer.

 I also heard about a drug counselor position that was open at South Carolina State University.  I had courses in counseling in seminary, and I was quite familiar with drugs.  They didn't hire me.  Probably because I might ask the students where I could find good drugs.  During the interview, they asked me if I had ever done drugs.  I was honest and said yes.  Strikes one, two AND three.  

Halloween

  When I was at Anderson College my sophomore year, our president invited the students to do trick or treat at his house for Halloween.  They gave out candy.  Our group of guys got as much as we could, and then we set out to go to other houses in the neighborhood.

 We weren't dressed up in scary clothes.  We just went as ourselves, which worked out to be "college students".  We knocked on the doors of all the houses in the neighborhood.  The people were surprised to see older people at their doors.  There weren't very many children that we could see, so we loaded up on candy.  I guess that the folks were glad to get rid of their candy, and we were very happy to help them out.  

 When we got back to our dorm, we emptied our bags on a bed and separated the candy by what we liked.  We all got our favorites and went back to our rooms.  Our haul was so great that we had enough candy to last us until the end of the semester.  That was the last time I ever did trick or treat on Halloween by going to others' houses.  It might be too dangerous now.

 We also found a way to get free food on weekends.  We would look for someone getting married and go to the reception. If anyone asked, were we friends of the bride or groom, we would usually say the groom.  We were in school with him or we worked with him.  No one would know the difference, and it was free.

Furman

  During my freshman year at Anderson College, I was torn between being in a play and declaring myself as someone going into a church related vocation.  I was a member of a group on campus that had several students aspiring to the ministry.  My father was a minister, so it was only right to follow in his footsteps.  I was also a member of the Baptist Student Union on campus.  It was a Christian organization, and the group was pretty large, since Anderson was a Baptist college.

 One of the sub-groups in the BSU was the Deputation Team.  We would go out to churches in the area on Sundays and do a service.  We had preachers, singers, other musicians, and people who gave their testimonies.  I was in the last group.  One place we were sent to was the First Baptist Church of Honea Path, SC.  I was to give my testimony about how I was a preacher's kid who did a lot of bad things growing up, and then I found a group of kids in a church youth group who changed my life to being better.  In my testimony, I said that preachers' kids are notoriously bad, because the pressure of representing that family caused them to rebel.  I always hated these words coming out of my father's mouth:  "Remember who you are."  Those words caused me to rebel.  Almost all of the kids I knew, who came from those homes, had rebelled.  It really was a rite of passage.  In my case, I had smoked, shoplifted, watched dirty movies, and dabbled in drugs.  

 After the service was over, the members of the church thanked us for coming.  They were most gracious except for one little old lady who approached me.  She told me that her preacher's kids were fine people.  Then she said, "They go to Furman."  She was very proud of that fact.  I told her that was nice while chuckling inside.  I hoped she was right, but I knew there were probably some skeletons in that family, too.  When one is a preacher's kid, you kind of live more than one life.  The goody two shoes that the church sees, and the other one that your friends see.  The other thing I heard a lot from my father was:  "Straighten up and fly right."  I flew a lot.

Frankfurt

  We had left Israel in 1973 with our lives.  It had been a scary few days with threats from terrorists, who we originally thought were our friends.  After we left Tel Aviv, we could relax on the plane as we flew onto Germany.  Our college History tour had already been too eventful, but we didn't know what was to come.  Our next stop was Frankfurt Airport for a layover before going onto Berlin.  

 When one has a lengthy wait in an airport, there are some things one can do to pass the time.  Sleep, eat, play games, stare at others, shop at overpriced stores, walk around, or just sit.  We got to Frankfurt just before lunch and looked for the food court.  We hadn't had hamburgers, since we left the States, we found a restaurant that made them.  They were a little expensive for 1973 food, but it really didn't matter.  Hamburgers, French Fries and Cokes were like heaven for the five of us students.  

 As we were hanging around in the food court, our tour director Mr. Vivian suggested that Talula, Sandra and I recreate a scene from our college play "Blithe Spirit" to entertain the others in our group and the passengers around us, so we did.  It was a little weird without ghost makeup on Sandra and Talula, but we did it.  When it was over, everyone clapped.  I wasn't sure if the other passengers around us understood our language, but we drew a crowd.  The airport police came around and dispersed everyone.  We were just trying to relieve the boredom of waiting in a strange airport for several hours.

 Eventually, the plane for Berlin was waiting to leave.  We found out why the delay was so long.  They were waiting for East German pilots to fly us into Berlin due to the security around the airport.  I guess I can say that I have acted in Germany, at least for a few minutes.  

Toilet

  When Ted Turner was visiting the Soviet Union, he was staying at a hotel in Moscow.  He was very worried about listening devices in his room.  Upon checking in, he found a bump under the rug in his room and figured it was a device, so he raised up the rug to find a metal plate screwed to the floor.  He got a knife and unscrewed it.  He heard a crash from the room below.  It turned out that the metal plate held the light fixture to the ceiling of the other room.

 I told that story, because of something that happened to me while staying at Ravenwood Apartments in Forest Acres.  One night, my toilet overflowed in the bathroom.  I was trying to sop up the water with towels, when I heard a knock on my door.  It was the apartment manager.  She had gotten a call from the people who lived below me.  The light fixture in their bathroom was filling up with water and was about to burst.  I had no idea that the water from my toilet had seeped through the tiles of my bathroom and into their light fixture.  I learned that night that my tiles shared a ceiling with their apartment.  I apologized profusely to my neighbors, and we got everything fixed.  

 I can't say they were as gracious as me.  I had to pay for a new bulb for them.  I suppose it could have been much worse, like my toilet crashing through the tile into their bathroom.  Watch The Three Stooges episode about them being plumbers.  You will get the idea.  Thankfully, my apartment now only has one floor, and the tile doesn't leak.

Diamonds

   After I was caught shoplifting at J. B. White's at Richland Mall, and I told my parents it was the first time I had stolen something (which it wasn't), I told them I would never do it again.  I lied.

 Soon after that, I saw the Ian Fleming book "Diamonds Are Forever" in the store, and I wanted it.  For some reason, the paperback cover was sticky.  I took it anyway.  When I got home, my mother asked me how did I get it, if I didn't have any money?  I told her that I had found $3 in an envelope in the mall's parking lot.  I said that it was outside of a bank.  She asked why I didn't return it to the bank, and I said that it was finders keepers.  I told her that I used that money to pay for the book.  She didn't believe me, so she asked me again.  I told her the same story more than once.  Since it had a sticky cover, it stuck to some of my other books and damaged some.  I guess that was meant to be.  

 That still wasn't my last time stealing books.  Mother's Day was coming up, and I needed a present to give to her.  I found a Zip Code Directory at the store and took it for her.  When I gave it to her, she asked why I thought she would like it?  I told her that she wrote a lot of letters, and maybe it would come in handy.  She thanked me and gave it to me saying I needed it more than her.  I still have it.  I stopped shoplifting after that.

Stalking

  Another story where I hope the statute of limitations has run out.  When one looks at the core of my being, you will see that I am painfully shy.  It is one reason why I have never married.  I have loved girls from afar.  Some of the time, they may have an inkling of my feelings, but not to the extent that I have for them.  That is except for the 1st and 2nd grade.  Those two girlfriends don't really count.  In fact, when I left my 1st grade girlfriend for my 2nd grade one, my 1st grade girlfriend didn't speak to me anymore.

 Moving on to high school, I met this girl who didn't go to my school.  She was nice to me, which was something I lacked to have with other girls.  She was also very pretty.  I couldn't tell her how much I liked her because of my shyness, but I had butterflies in my stomach every time I thought about her.  So, in order to get close to her, I would call her house on the phone.  She would pick up and say hello.  I would hang up without saying anything, but I heard her voice.  It was nice.  I would drive by her house many times with hopes I would see her.  As time went on, we actually did go out a couple of times and still remain friends.  

 In college, I met this girl, and we became great friends.  In the beginning of our friendship, she was dating someone else.  She worked after school in Anderson, but she lived several miles out of town with her parents.  I knew what her work schedule was, so I would run the few miles to catch a glimpse of her car, as he was driving home.  It was very helpful to do this, because the run got me in great shape physically.  Later, we became very good friends.  Some might say lovers.  If a couple of things hadn't happened, I could have married her.  It wasn't meant to be.  I did gain confidence with her, mainly thanks to my acting experience.  I found I could be someone else with her despite my shyness.

 Then came Fort Worth.  I started liking this girl.  She lived a few blocks from the seminary.  Rather than walking the straight path to the mall, I would walk by her house.  Sometimes she would see me, and I would make up an excuse that it was a quieter walk to the mall that way.  She was kind of shy, too.  We hit it off and became drinking buddies.  We also worked together.  I stayed out in Fort Worth an extra year after graduation, because I was in love.  It was a love triangle.  She also liked another guy at the same time who was kind of abusive to her.  Life goes on, so I had to move back to South Carolina.  One of the saddest days of my life.

 In Columbia, there were two girls that had two things in common.  They both were very creative, and they both lived several miles from me.  I met them about ten years apart.  During each relationship, I would drive by their houses a lot.  I used up a lot of gas, but just to be close to them was enough for me.  One of those two actually worked for me, and I would change her schedule so that she and I would work the same shifts.

 I really don't think I was stalking these girls.  I was obsessed with them.  They made my life worth living.  Except for the last two, we are still friends.  I cherish that friendship.  

Frames

  One thing I have found out about myself is that I have a dry sense of humor.  I have also found that some people are gullible.  They don't understand when I am joking about something.  

 Case in point was a girl who worked for me at Belk, when I was a buyer.  I honestly don't know why she was hired for a job.  We had an HR person who hired a lot of pretty girls, so maybe he hired her.  At any rate, they put her to work nights and weekends in the Stationery Dept.  She was a senior in high school, and she told me that the only way she passed her courses was doing personal favors for her teachers, especially the male teachers.  I didn't doubt her claim for an instant.  

 One day, we got a bunch of picture frames for sale.  Most frames come with a stock photo of either people or places to make the frames attractive to the customers.  As we were unpacking a box one evening, she saw the pictures and remarked about the photos.  I told her that the people were my relatives, and the places in the photos were where they lived.  I then proceeded to make up stories about the people.  Because many of the pictures looked like they were taken in New England, the supposed relatives lived in Maine.  There were nice pictures of lighthouses and the coast.  I thought she would laugh about my stories, but she took it all in with amazement.  How could she be so gullible?  As it turned out, she was just not very smart.  I have to say that she was nice to look at, but I had to fire her for not being very bright.

 A couple of years later, I found out that she had gone on to Midlands Technical College to study to be a dental hygienist.  I pity whatever dentist hired her.  And especially, the patients she worked on.  I also wonder if she ever found herself in Maine to look up my relatives who were in the pictures.  

Dentist

  I don't like dentists.  I never have.  Thanks to my dislike of dentists, I have very few teeth left in my mouth.  I suppose I should get dentures, but I think I will die first before having to go to a dentist.

 When I was younger, my parents made me go to the dentist.  From all my visits, I should have had enough fillings to bring in BBC World Service on my teeth.  Thanks to my sweet tooth I always had cavities.  There was one visit in particular that was uneventful.

 My teenage dentist had an office at Trenholm Plaza.  He was also a deacon in his local Baptist church.  It seemed logical for me to go to him.  During one appointment with him he declared that I didn't have any cavities.  I was sure that he had a sudden loss of vision, but I went away happy.  When I got home, I told my parents what he said, and they were shocked and pleased at the same time.  A few days later, my parents got a bill in the mail from my dentist for $150.  What for?  I didn't have any cavities.  They called my dentist, and he said that I had to have a lot of dental work done while I was there, and that I cried when told how much the work had cost.

 So, my parents asked me about what the dentist had said.  Even though I used to lie to my parents a lot about my comings and goings, this time I had to tell the truth that the dentist was mistaken.  I didn't cry, and in fact had been thrilled that I didn't have any cavities.  My parents had a dilemma.  Do they trust their teenaged son who was a bit sketchy, or do they trust the dentist who was a Baptist deacon who had a fine reputation?  They went with me.  My parents told the dentist that they weren't going to pay the $150, and the dentist threatened to sue them in court.  

 As it turned out, his office people sent the wrong bill to my parents, and apparently this wasn't the first time this had happened to a patient of his.  The mistake was rectified, but my dentist didn't apologize, so my parents sent me to a different dentist after that fiasco.  My father, who was a bigwig in the Baptist denomination, told the pastor of the dentist's church what had happened.  Mysteriously, the dentist stopped being a deacon.  I imagine it wasn't the dentist's decision.  We all thought he was a good man.  He had a good reputation.  He smiled a lot.  

Chips

  Have you ever looked at an ant and wondered what it would taste like?  When I watch my cat eat outside, she won't come close to eating an ant.  She will eat a lizard or a mouse but not an ant.  People say that some bugs are good to eat, but ants are not one of them.  

 Back in the sixth grade, a kid came to school with some chocolate covered ants.  It just grossed us out.  He said they tasted pretty good.  We told him to prove it, so he ate one.  He didn't throw up, so on a dare I decided to give it a try.  One bite?  Just chocolate.  Two bites?  Just chocolate.  Then, I put the rest of the piece of chocolate in my mouth and bit down.  I felt a "crunch".  That was the ant.  It sort of felt like I was biting into a piece of potato chip covered in chocolate.  I swallowed it pretty quickly.  The other kids laughed, but I didn't throw up.  

 Years later, I lived in a bug-infested apartment.  I would wake up in the middle of the night with a moth in my mouth.  I don't think I ever ate a moth during the night, but I am pretty sure it would have been crunchy too.  

Aquarius

  When I moved back to Columbia from Fort Worth, it was a sad time.  I had left my love named Kare.  I was still drinking and doing mild drugs.  I was also trying to find work in my field without compromising my principles.  I had found part-time work in a department store, and I was sending out letters to over 200 colleges and universities looking for a teaching job.  Things looked kind of bleak.  I was living with my parents, because I couldn't afford a place of my own, and I was also becoming their caregiver.  

 I saw that the musical "Hair" was coming to Columbia for a one-time performance at the Township Auditorium.  I really wanted to go, since I still considered myself a hippie, even though my hair was a little shorter than those days.  I knew the music well, because I had bought the theatrical soundtrack album a few years earlier.  It was going to be a fun night.

 When I got to the auditorium for the show, there were people outside picketing it.  They said it was lewd and dirty.  I knew why they were protesting, because it was going to contain some bad language and nudity, but that didn't deter me.  There was really only one brief scene of nudity.  If you blinked, you missed it.  I just enjoyed being transported back in time to a place where there was love in our world, and it was free.  It was the dawning of Aquarius for one night.

Quarterback

  Back in the late 1980's, I went to Hardee's to have supper which was next to the University of South Carolina.  It was my Monday-night ritual to eat there before going to play volleyball with my friends at church.  The food was good, and the restaurant was not too busy.

 One night, as I was eating, a student came into the restaurant wearing a Gamecocks football jersey.  I didn't recognize him at first.  He ordered a whole bunch of food which at that time came to $10.  When the cashier told him how much it was, he announced that he was the star quarterback for the Carolina football team, and he didn't think he should pay.  I was watching in amazement at this guy saying that.  For the next few minutes, the cashier would repeat how much it was, and the customer would repeat his declaration.  After this back and forth, the customer demanded to speak to the manager.  

 It became something of a shouting match between the customer and the manager.  The manager insisted that the customer pay for his food, and the football player insisted that the food should be free for him.  I sided with the manager, because I had seen these demanding customers before in my retail job.  Eventually, the manager took the food back from the counter and put it in the trash.  The horrified customer said some choice words and stormed out of the restaurant.  I applauded the employees, and they offered me a free dessert.  

 Every time I see that player now, who has since retired, I think about how egotistical he was just because he was a football player.  I could also identify with him, because my ego was pretty big as an actor.  People tell you how great you are, so you think they should bow down to you.  The thing is though that there is always someone bigger and more important than you.  That's life. 

Drugs

  When living in my dorm at PC, there were two bedrooms connected by one bathroom.  During my senior year, I was assigned a room on the top floor of the dorm with a freshman roommate.  He seemed okay, but he really wanted to join a fraternity and live in one of their houses.  He got his wish, so I ended up with a private room.  The guy in the room adjacent to mine had a roommate that also got his wish, so he had the room to himself.  It was a good arrangement.  

 One afternoon, he was leaving a class on the second floor and saw two policemen standing at the bottom of the classroom stairs.  He knew why they were there, and he jumped over the railing to try and get away from them. When he landed on the bottom floor, he broke his leg.  They arrested him.  As it turned out, he was a big-time drug dealer.  I had no idea.  When I got back to my dorm room that afternoon, I heard a lot of commotion coming from his room.  I tried to open the door to his room from the bathroom, but it was locked.  It sounded like some people were destroying his room.  I finally found out what was happening.  It was the police tearing apart his room.  From the ceiling to the mattresses to the furniture.  They found a lot of drugs mostly stashed in the ceiling.

 The police came to my room and questioned me about his drug dealing.  I told them that I had no idea what was happening.  They asked me if I had bought any drugs from him.  I told them no, but thankfully they didn't ask me if I had done any drugs.  I would have had to lie to them about that.  I saw the inside of his room, after the police left.  It was trashed beyond belief.

 He was in the Clinton City Jail, and I went to visit him.  It was the first time I had ever been in a real jail.  It was pretty scary.  He was in a cell by himself and was very glad to see me.  He apologized to me for what had happened and said he had learned his lesson.  His father was from North Carolina and pretty wealthy, so he paid a fine and was ordered not to come back into the state of South Carolina.  He had a motorcycle, and he came back secretly a couple of times for a visit and a deal or two.  I hope he got his life straightened out.  His dorm room was unoccupied for the rest of the year.  I imagine that the school had to pay a bunch of money to get the room reconstructed.  It needed new mattresses and furniture, as well as a new ceiling.  They weren't playing. 

Graveyard

  When I was a student at PC, I loved to go to the movies in downtown Clinton.  It started out being 25 cents to get in, and then they caused some consternation when they went up to 35 cents.  Even so, I went to almost every movie that came to town.  We were starved for entertainment, and going to the movies was about it.  The theater would usually only show the movies at night.

 After the movie, I would walk back to the dorm.  It wasn't very far, maybe a couple of miles.  Along the way back, I would get the urge that I had to pee.  So, I would walk by the First Presbyterian Church's graveyard and find a dark spot to relieve myself.  I suppose some would take offense of me going in a graveyard, but it was pretty much the only option.  On one occasion, there was a woman in her kitchen who saw me from her window.  She looked pretty angry and called the police.  I heard the sirens, so I quickly zipped up and ran away.  

 I learned two lessons that night.  One was to look out for a woman looking through a window at me.  The second was important later in life, when I became homeless, and that was to hide when going.  Going behind dumpsters were especially good.  If only I could find a dumpster in Clinton at night...

Acrostic

  At Anderson College, I had a reputation on campus for being a writer.  I had written a poem, which was published locally and nationally.  That story was covered earlier.  I had written a lot of the copy for the 1973 yearbook, especially as it related to Speech and Drama.  So, I was approached by the Academic Dean to write something that would entice high school students to come to Anderson.  This was a big honor for me, and I gave it a lot of thought.

 I had been writing poems in recent days using an acrostic.  I spelled a word going down a page and then using the first letter of that word to form a line.  The second line started with the second letter down and so on.  The Dean had told me that my creation would be printed on a poster and distributed to churches and schools around the state.  It would also be used on the campus to build morale amongst the current students.  

 I worked on it for a week or two, going through several drafts.  I spelled out "Anderson College" down the page and used the first letter of each word to write something about the school based on each letter.  It wasn't really a poem but more like a description on what AC was like.  Each line, in my mind, was perfect.  I loved Anderson College.  It had done a lot for me in getting me out of my shell.  I had received awards for Theatre and Speech.  Our debate team was undefeated and were ranked one of the best in the country.  I was awarded a spot in Who's Who in American Junior Colleges.  A lot of other accolades came my way, and I also found love there.  The best thing I could do was to carry on my legacy for future students.

 After going over it again with a fine-tooth comb, I turned it into the Dean.  He read it and liked it except for one line.  The "G" in College read:  "Giving all you have to give".  He said that could be interpreted as sexual, and I should rewrite it.  I didn't see that interpretation at all.  I saw it as a call for students to do everything they could possibly do to succeed.  He said that it could be interpreted at a girl losing her virginity.  Granted, Anderson College was a Baptist school and very religious, but I just didn't write that line in that way.  I showed it to my father who was a Baptist minister, and he said the same thing. It could be interpreted as sexual.

 Due to my incredibly big ego, I couldn't deal with criticism like this.  I had worked on this project much longer than anything I had done before.  I told the Dean that I wasn't going to change the line, so he got someone else to write some words for the poster.  To this day, I think they should have used my acrostic.  Why?  Because I was a creative genius in my mind, and that is what other people told me, too.  I hoped students were inspired to come to Anderson by whatever that other person wrote.  In looking back on their history since, they did, because now it is a university. 

Meditation

  When I was a sophomore at Anderson College, I had a private room.  I just kind of lucked out with it, because the guy that had it was graduating, and he recommended me to get it.  It was great.  The window overlooked the woods behind the dorm, so I didn't have to listen to traffic noise or yelling students.  During this time, I had adopted a hippie lifestyle.  I was into some antiwar activities and was on a lot of mailing lists from companies wanting to sell me buttons and posters.

 One of the catalogs I got was what looked to be an incense company.  They wanted to send me free incense and a magazine, if I said okay.   The people were with the Hare Krishna movement.  I was familiar with them, since George Harrison had endorsed them, so I said okay.  I got the literature, and they were promoting peace, so I signed up.  The incense was a little smelly, and some in my suite thought my room was on fire, so I had to stop using it.  I didn't have to shave my head to adopt their beliefs.  They did want me to pass out literature and flowers, which I did some in the community.  I didn't get a positive response from the residents of Anderson, SC, so I stopped doing that.  

 There was one thing that the movement taught me and that was Transcendental Meditation.  I was under a lot of stress at school, so I would take time to meditate and focus on an object.  I also learned how to relax by tensing and releasing the muscles in my body from my feet to my head.  All while concentrating on my breathing. I also had a mantra that I chanted while doing this:  "Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare.  Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare".  I found that the mantra would focus my attention on calming down and putting my mind in the right place.

 One day, a call was put out to have everyone meditate on a Saturday morning at the same time to keep an underground nuclear test from happening in Alaska.  The goal was to have our brainwaves to cause the test to fail.  I did that at the appointed time, but the test went on without a hitch.  I became a little disillusioned about the power of meditation in that form, so I didn't do it as much after that.  However, I did find that my mantra continued to relax me.  It still does to this day, if I am feeling very stressed.  I also have a prayer that I pray to God before any performance I have to do.  I get a calmness over me from that prayer, which I have been doing since I was thrust into the male lead of a play my freshman year at Anderson College. 

 When I got to seminary, I took a class on Comparative Religions.  I wrote a paper on the Krishna Movement.  The first line of my paper was:  "When I was involved in the Krishna Movement...".  I turned it in, and the teacher called me into his office.  He said that I wasn't a Christian, because I was involved in an Eastern Religion.  I asked him if he had read my paper, and he said he had.  I asked him to read the first line of my paper.  He did and then apologized.  He gave me an A.

 I believe there is only one true God.  God the Father.  God the Son. And, God the Holy Spirit.  Three in one.  Jesus was sent to Earth to save people from their sins and to give us eternal life through Him.  That's really all you need to know.  Praying is our way to talk directly with God.  No need for chants or incense. I respect other religions for their beliefs, but in the end, I will be going to Heaven one day.    

Valentine

  Back at Crayton Elementary School, there was a tradition that every Valentine's Day we would pass out cards to students we liked.  Some kids also gave them to our teachers, but that didn't happen often.  This exercise was supposed to be fun.  The teachers would pass out those wretched candy hearts with sayings on them.  It was supposed to be candy, but they tasted more like chalk.

 Every kid had a small box on their desk with a slot to put the cards into the box.  The girls would come around and put their cards in the boys' boxes, and then the boys would put their cards in the girls' boxes.  The key to both of these groups doing this was that the boys had to close their eyes, when the girls passed out their cards and vice versa.  You weren't supposed to see who had put a card in your box until you opened it.

 When it came time to open the boxes, some kids had a lot of cards, while other kids might have had only a few or maybe just one.  That is what happened to me.  I wasn't one of the studly boys in class that all of the girls liked. Some girls weren't the prettiest in the class, so they might have gotten a few or maybe one.  It was basically a popularity contest.  The other kids saw me as not being very athletic or handsome, so I guess that's why my box wasn't brimming over with cards like some other kids.  They also saw me as being the smart kid in class, since I wore glasses.  

 So, one year, it was obvious that the teachers had talked to one another about the disproportionate way that some kids got more than others, because the teachers required that the girls would give one card to each boy, and the boys would give one card to each girl.  We all knew why.  At least, it made those of us that didn't get many cards to feel good.  The teachers took the status kids out of the equation.  It didn't mean that the popular kids liked us any better by giving us cards.  It just meant that the teachers made them do it.  No love lost between us and them.  The teachers took pity on us unpopular kids.  Even though we all got cards, we were still picked last for games by the other kids.  They wanted to make sure we knew our place.  We did. 

April

  My mother had a great sense of humor.  She loved Monty Python and George Carlin, until he started getting dirty.  Much of her humor was imparted on me.  It was our way of getting through our days.  I would sit in my highchair and read funny books to her, while she was cooking.  I should point out that they kept my highchair after I had outgrown it, but I could still fit into it. 

 People, who knew my mother, didn't know that she liked to play practical jokes on us for April Fool's Day.  For me, it was always the same thing...she would wake me up announcing that it was snowing outside.  I would get excited and look outside to see it was a bright sunny day.  So, I would have school that day.  She would laugh, but I would be disappointed.  As time went on, that day would come, and she would say it was snowing.  I would humor her by looking outside to see a sunny day.  She and I would laugh, and I would go to school.

 When I got to high school, her waking me up on April 1st to say it was snowing was getting rather tedious.  When I was young, it was funny, but now not so much.  That day came, and she woke me up to say it was snowing.  I didn't want to play along anymore, so I said "Yeah, right" and tried to go back to sleep.  "No, really, it's snowing", she said.  After a little back and forth, I finally broke and looked out the window just to get this over with.  To my shock, it really was snowing.  There would be no school.  She laughed at my doubting her.  Never doubt what your mother says, even though you think there is no way it could snow on April 1st.  It did.

 

Shop

  I wasn't a very good student in junior high (middle school).  I couldn't really concentrate, since I was getting beat up all the time.  At least, that was my excuse.  I've already written about how much I hated gym class, but there is another one I hated almost as much:  Shop Class.

 The boys would take Shop, while the girls took Home Economics.  The first semester of Shop required the boys to plane and smooth a block of wood and then take it to the lathe to turn the block of wood into something useful.  Some would make baseball bats, while others would make legs for a small chair.  So, to start off, you put your block of wood in a vise and started planing.  The plane was pretty heavy, and the wood had bark all over it.  I just couldn't get the plane to smooth the wood.  When I would get to the end of the block, the plane would go down instead of up.  It was the plane's fault.  The end of the block had to have square corners.  Mine were round.  I went through several blocks.  Once someone had squared off the ends, they were to saw off the edges to make them straight.  I never got to sawing.  Mr. Sease was an ex-military man, who may have had high blood pressure.  I know that I would see his face get beet-red, when he saw me just planing away.  By the end of the semester, I hadn't sawed much less lathed.  The school lost a lot of money from blocks they bought, and I had planed.  

 The second semester was Mechanical Drawing.  I thought this would be easier than Shop.  It involved sitting at a desk and using instruments to figure out degrees and measurements to create a house on paper.  Since my father had studied architecture at Clemson, I thought this would be easy for me.  For some reason, I was always 1/16th of an inch off in my drawings.  Our teacher wasn't pleased.  My lines were straight.  My angles were good, but I was always 1/16th of an inch off.  I'm sure it was the ruler's fault.  

 I failed both semesters. My father wasn't pleased, because he knew I would never follow in his footsteps with architecture. I can say that I have never used a plane to smooth wood since, nor have I had to measure something within 1/16th of an inch.  I have built stuff, including stage scenery, but nothing that precise.  Almost but not quite.  The story of my life.  I guess that is why I am a perfectionist today.  A teachable moment from school.

Covenant

  When I graduated from seminary, I was the first person to basically have a major in Religious Drama.  At that time, there were only four of us in the Southern Baptist Convention that did religious drama as monologists exclusively.  We were all very good at what we did.  That is not an ego thing.  That is just the truth.  The word was out around the convention that we were marketable.  People wanted us.

 One day, I got a call from a drama group called the Covenant Players.  They were a travelling Christian drama group, and they wanted me to join.  They did their own scripts, and I had been writing scripts for some time.  The problem was how would one get paid?  Their answer was that the group would take up an offering in a church to pay for their motel and food.  However, if they didn't get enough money for the essentials, they would sleep in their van.  That didn't sound very appealing to me.  After all, I was this great religious dramatist.  It sounded to me like a hippie commune sort of thing.  I knew about hippie communes, because I used to be a hippie.  If there wasn't going to be a guaranteed salary, I didn't want to do it.

 I was nice and thanked them for thinking of me.  The Covenant Players are still around, although their main work is on the West Coast.  If you get a chance to see them, you should.  And, give them a couple of dollars to buy food and maybe a motel room or two.  

 

Tumbling

  I used to hate my physical education class in junior high.  For starters, my teacher was a sadist.  I don't mean that in a funny way.  He loved to punish people for not following his direction.  I have already written about the time he told me to bend over and grab my ankles for him to use a fraternity-style paddle on me, after he caught me spitting on a bully.  Even though, the bully started spitting on me first.  

 He would demand that all of the guys take showers after gym class.  I didn't want to take community showers with other boys, so when he would walk around the locker room and see me, I would start taking off my clothes and then put them back on after he left. I wasn't the only boy who did that.  Since most of the boys taking showers were the bullies, I felt I didn't need to get more abuse there.  

 One week, we were to do tumbling in the gym.  The boys were on one side of the gym, and the girls were on the other side.  Due to some unknown reason, I just couldn't do a summersault. I would end up on my head but not able to go all the way over.  I tried, but it just wasn't happening.  Our teacher wasn't very helpful, and all the boys laughed at me.  After several tries, he gave up on me and sent me over to the girls' side. He just wanted to embarrass me further.  Thankfully, their teacher was more empathetic towards me.  She took her time and showed me how to do it.  However, the girls weren't as sympathetic either.  Being made fun of by both sexes just wasn't nice.  Their teacher was the only one who seemed to care.

 So, I began to get sick every Tuesday and Thursday right before gym class.  I would go to the school nurse, and she would call my mother to get me.  After the second week of getting sick on these two days, my mother asked me why it was at the same time.  I told her that it was gym class.  She called the principal, and I got an excuse not to do gym class anymore.  I would come to class but just sit in the bleachers and watch the others.  Of course, this made the bullies want to beat me up more, because I was getting preferential treatment from the school.  I got hurt more after school from them.  

 If that was today, the boys' gym teacher would have been fired.  It was a different time.  

Dark

 After Dr. King was assassinated in Memphis in 1968, there were riots in the streets across our nation.  The city of Columbia was no exception.  Back then, segregation was still rampant in the South.  As I wrote about earlier, I was attacked by three boys in Five Points for being responsible for Dr. King's death.  They threw rocks at me, while I screamed that I had nothing to do with it.  I didn't get to tell them that one of my cousins was a Freedom Rider with Dr. King.  It probably wouldn't have mattered to them.  

 So, the Sunday night after the assassination, I was driving home from church.  I had just gotten my driver's license.  The city had turned off the electricity around Benedict College and Allen University, where there had been some unrest.  Both were historically black schools.  The police thought that if they cut off the electricity that the students would go back inside of the buildings around the schools.  By cutting off the electricity, the traffic lights and streetlamps were off, as well.  To say it was dark as night was an understatement.

 On the corner of Taylor Street and Two Notch Road, there was a policeman directing traffic.  He had a flashlight for drivers to see him.  He was standing on the line separating the lanes.  It was his fault for standing too close to my car, because I felt a bump under a tire and then another one.  I had run over his foot.  I saw him jumping up and down in my rear-view mirror, but I wasn't about to stop to see if he was okay.  I thought that I could lose my newly gotten license that I had worked so hard to get.  

 When I got home that night, my parents asked me if I had run into any trouble.  I told them no, other than it was really dark around Allen and Benedict.  I hope the officer recovered okay from probably a broken foot.  I hope the statute of limitations has run out after 57 years.  If not, it would be a strange conversation in jail, when they ask me what I am in for, and I tell them that I ran over a policeman's foot in 1968.

Bike

  The first bike I ever had was a red Schwinn.  It was big, heavy and not much fun.  So, I asked my parents for a lighter bike.  They got me a rust orange color with a banana seat.  The handlebars were in a "U" shape, and it had a 3-speed gear shift that sat between the seat and the handlebars.  It was cool.  

 I rode it everywhere.  The handlebars got loose sometimes.  Once, I was riding along a sidewalk, and the handlebars gave way.  I fell over the top of the bike onto the pavement.  I have a scar on my shoulder from that. It still got me where I wanted to go.

 One of those places was about five miles from my house, which was a movie theater.  I loved going to the movies there, because they showed a lot of foreign films.  I would park my bike in an alley between the theater and a drug store.  I had a bike lock, so no one would steal my bike, but it would always be there, when I left the movies.  Except once.

 I came out of the theater, and my bike was gone.  I walked back home not knowing where it was.  I was around 15.  When I got home, I told my father what had happened.  He suggested that we contact the police.  We went down to the police station to file a report.  I gave them a really good description of my bike.  It also had a name plate on the back with my first name on it.  They took the report and said that they would be on the lookout for it.  

 My father drove me around the neighborhood near the theater.  We saw my bike in the front yard of a house about two blocks from the theater.  My father called the police to report what we had found.  They told us that it could be anybody's bike, despite the fact that mine was unique, so they didn't do anything about it.  They said it would be my word against theirs.  So, I didn't have a bicycle after that.  Fortunately, I got my driver's license soon after that.  I hope the thief enjoyed the loose handlebars.

 

Snowman

 The first house I ever knew was on Seminary Place in New Orleans.  It was a modest home built in brick, and it had a carport next to the house.  My brother would use the adjacent roof of the carport to sneak out of the house.  I was too young to do that.  

 Although, I have just a few memories of that house like having to learn how to walk again after my hernia surgery and my highchair at the kitchen table, I do remember one very strange moment, when I was around 3 years old.  I saw my first snowfall.  Yes, it snowed in New Orleans.  My parents took me outside to experience this strange stuff on the ground.  They bundled me up with a heavy coat and hat.   I was pretty warm in this cold environment.  New Orleans was usually rather warm year-round, and we had a lot of rain but not snow.  

 It wasn't very deep, maybe 2 inches, but I was encouraged to build a snowman.  I really had nothing to go on how to do this.  I had seen pictures in books, but we didn't have enough snow to build one of those.  Fortunately, my best friend Paul had some experience in doing this, so we built it together.  When we finished, it was pretty short.   However, there was one problem.  We didn't have enough snow to make it in sections, so it was just short and thin.  I realized later that the reason my parents wanted me to make a snowman was to clear the yard of the snow.  They were clever that way. I have a picture of me standing next to the snowman.  I glad I do, because it melted the next day.