Pets

  I have had a variety of pets over my life.  The first one was Brownie the Cocker Spaniel.  He was our dog, when I was 5.  Brownie was just a puppy, but he enjoyed biting me and chewing on my teddy bear.  He and I just didn't get along.  When we moved from our rental house to a real house, we gave Brownie to our next-door neighbors.  I saw Brownie a couple of years later, and he had grown to a monster dog.  He didn't recognize me.  It was just as well.  I am not a dog person, even though the golden Labrador retriever that was owned by the Dean of Students at PC adopted me.  That was different.

 I have also had turtles, fish, rabbits and chicks.  Most of the turtles were small, and we could keep them inside in a water dish.  We had a patio grill in our backyard.  We didn't use it except for a couple of times.  Daddy wasn't a good griller.  There was charcoal residue in the grill.  I kept one larger turtle in the grill.  He ate some charcoal and died.  I had a white rabbit, and he suffered the same fate.  The chicks were from Easter.  They didn't live long.  I also had a parakeet and kept him in a cage inside the house.  One day, my Mother told me that I needed to clean the cage.  I didn't know you could just slide out the bottom of the cage.  I took the cage outside and opened the door of the cage.  The parakeet flew away.

 I had goldfish.  I fed them every day.  For some reason, some committed suicide by jumping out of the bowl.  Maybe they didn't like the food.  When I was in college, my roommate and I went to a store and bought two goldfish.  We named them Pablo and Bernie.  The water at PC had some impurities in it.  The store had these drops that would clean the water.  The directions said one drop per gallon of water, but we figured that they could use two drops, since the water was bad.  Pablo and Bernie died overnight due to lack of oxygen or were poisoned.  We had a funeral for them and flushed them down the toilet.

 It wasn't until I worked at Rich's in the early 2000's that I received another pet.  The store bought a bunch of Beta fishes as a contest for each department to take care of them.  The fish that lived the longest won a prize.  We all got small fish bowls and one fish per department.  I fed my fish every morning, when I came to work.  He seemed a little lazy, so I found a small Winnie the Pooh stuffed bear that was about two inches high, and I put the bear next to the bowl.  The fish fell in love with Winnie.  It would just stare at Winnie all day.  If I moved Winnie away from the bowl, the fish would get really upset and swim around the bowl.  When I put Winnie back, the fish would calm down and just stare at the bear.  When the contest was over, I took the fish home with me, but I had to leave Winnie.  I did find a plastic version of Winnie as a substitute.  It wasn't really the same, so I thought maybe I could put Winnie in the bowl with the fish to keep him company.  I fashioned a paperclip to hang onto Winnie and hung him on the inside of the bowl.  The fish ate the metal off of the paperclip and died.  I went to the pet store to get a couple of other Betas.  They ate each other, so I gave up.

 Fast forward to 2018.  Being a HUD apartment, we aren't supposed to have pets inside.  Some feral cats started coming around the apartment.  My next-door neighbor and I began to feed them.  She named the black cat "Princess Charlotte" after a girl named Charlotte who lived at the complex.  I named the grey cat "Mittens", because he had white paws.  Charlotte died in her apartment, so the female cat just became "Princess".  The two cats were best friends.  Princess had been fixed by her previous owner.  Mittens was a tomcat.  He would get into fights but would never win.  He would come back with tears in his fur, but he was a good boy.  Princess adopted me, and I loved on her.  We would give them breakfast every morning and a treat in the afternoon.  We also had a third cat called "Little Bit", but she got sick and died.  One day, Mittens developed a respiratory infection.  He went into the woods and never returned.  Princess went through a grieving process with me over the loss of Mittens.  My neighbor let Princess come into her apartment to get warm.  Princess became confused and ran under my neighbor's bed.  She stayed under there for two days.  We finally got her out with some tuna, but she was really scared.   Then one day, some more cats showed up.  We named the orange tabby "Morris" who turned out to be a bully.  He and Princess didn't get along.  Morris liked to steal other cats' food.  We also had "Oreo" come around.  He liked to hiss at me.  And, there were some unnamed kittens from time to time.  A woman in our complex had a cat named "Mufasa".  He was a little shy, but would try to make friends with the others.  Princess became my number one cat.  It amazes me how much an animal can cheer me up, as I would do the same for her.  I finally figured out how to care for an animal in a good way, and how much they can sense love.

Clint

  Clint Bryson was a friend of mine.  We met at church back in 1980 in the Singles Sunday School Department.  He worked for ETV as a camerman. He also would be on one of our TV cameras during the service.  If you saw a pretty girl in the congregation, you knew Clint was on that camera.  Clint usually stood next to me in the choir, as we both sang bass.  We sort of looked alike, as we both were thin and wore glasses.  One day, he and I were standing around in a hallway, and a woman came up to me.  She pointed at Clint and asked what my brother did for a living.  I knew she meant Clint, but I told her of my real brother's occupation was working in public relations and on political campaigns.  Her eyes got big.  I could tell she was thinking that Clint had a lucrative career, but he didn't dress like it.  I told Clint about what I had said, and we had a good laugh over it.  We never told that woman any differently.

 He and I helped coach the First Baptist girls' softball team along with another guy.  He would handle one of the bases.  My job was to heckle the opposing team.  It worked out well, except for the times that the umpire would tell me to shut up.  We also went on mission trips for the church.  One of our trips to Philadelphia, he described the town as "Fithydelphia".  It kind of was, but he took us to a mall downtown, where I was exposed to some cool music by Philly Cream and other groups.  When he and I went on a mission trip to Puerto Rico, we stayed in the same hotel room.  Clint was very protective of his age.  He never said how old he was.  One night, I just asked him how old he was.  He asked me how old I was, and I told him.  He replied that he was ten years older than me.  I was shocked.  He made me promise not to tell anyone of his secret.  I never did.

 As time will do, we drifted apart.  He and I started going to other churches.  I would see him taking pictures at events for the Irmo newspaper from time to time, but that was about it.  In May of 2022, I was invited to go out to eat with some friends, and Clint was there.  He looked frail.  I went up to say hello.  He was cordial, but I wasn't sure that he remembered me.  A week later, Clint died from pneumonia.  I went to his memorial service at the church that he had joined many years before.  They talked about his love for baseball and softball.  The service was outside next to the ballfield.  They were talking about naming first base for Clint.  I suggested that they name the whole field for him, and they thought that was a great idea.  They were also talking about having him buried at the Fort Jackson National Cemetery, as Clint was a veteran, but there was a lot of red tape involved to do so.  He didn't have any family left.

 About a week later, I went to the James Taylor concert in Columbia.  He was very good, although he didn't sing "You've Got a Friend".  This was the second time I had seen JT.  It was his first show on his tour, and they said he had spent several days in Columbia rehearsing for the show.  I really wished that I had known that ahead of time.  A high school friend from years ago knew I was going, and she offered to take me home afterwards.  As we were heading home, she asked how I knew Clint.  She had seen my tribute to him on Facebook.  As it turned out, she knew him from working with him at ETV.  I told her about us wanting to have him buried at Ft. Jackson.  As it also turned out, she was involved in getting unclaimed veterans to be buried there.  She had no idea what the plan was.  It was fortuitous that the subject even came up in the car.  

 You just never know how a contact will lead to something else.  I believe God puts people in our paths, but we have to listen and be receptive.  I could have taken an Uber home from that show.  I didn't, and it worked out for the good.  Thanks, Jean.

Chats

  So, I thought I would do some more name-dropping in this story.  When I got my first computer in the late 90's, I was psyched.  I found that I could talk to people all over the world in real-time without having to pay long distance phone charges.  It was a blast.  I also found out that between email and chat rooms, I had a whole new group of friends that I didn't know I had.  Plus, celebrities were out there to talk to.

 I have already written about chatting with Hugh Hefner one night.  You can find that story further back called "Hef".  One thing I have learned about chatting with celebrities is don't tell them how great they are.  They are there for a reason, and that reason is to answer some concrete questions about their lives.  Treating them like people, and not like idols, makes for a better conversation.  To chat with Hef about Marilyn Monroe and old movies was much more interesting that asking him about how to get invited to the Playboy mansion.  One side note though, I was invited to the mansion in Los Angeles many moons ago.  I was a winner in a contest.  I couldn't go, because I had to pay for my own airfare.  Oh well.

 One night, I came upon Max Gail.  He had played on the TV show "Barney Miller".  We talked about acting and the joys of stage versus film.  We chatted on more than one occasion.  We swapped stories about people that we had worked with, and he gave me some tips on acting on television.  He was a nice guy.

 Another night, I ran across Fess Parker who played on the TV show "Daniel Boone".  He was great to talk to.  Fess wanted to talk about his winery in California, so I humored him with that.  Then, I moved the conversation to his acting.  I told him about something that my 8th grade Science teacher had said about seeing jet contrails in the sky during a Daniel Boone episode.  Fess said that the show was filmed fast, and they didn't have time to wait for jets flying by to do a scene.  We laughed about that.  His acting tip to me was to be real.  Well, yeah.  I told him that I was sad that his wine wasn't sold near me.  I didn't drink alcohol at that time, but I was trying to be nice.  He said that they sold it at Morganelli's off Forest Drive.  I thanked him, but I never bought a bottle.  I guess they would be worth something now.  Fess died in 2010.  

 April 2022 provided me with a shocking chat.  It was Bob Dylan.  I had been to his concert in Columbia a couple of weeks before.  I had seen him in concert four times, which ties the most with Paul McCartney of the number of concerts I had been to by a single artist.  Bob contacted me on Facebook.  He told me that he had seen a post of mine about the show and wanted to reach out to me as a fan.  He said he wasn't on tour and had some time to chat with the fans.  I checked his tour schedule, and he actually had time to talk with us.  Being skeptical, I asked him a couple of questions that only he would know, and he answered them correctly.  It WAS Bob Dylan.  I told him that I had seen him four times, but this last show was probably the most meaningful.  He sang a new song called "Crossing the Rubicon", and I just cried.  It was like he was saying goodbye.  It was quite emotional.  We chatted a few times that week about various things.  I told him about my songwriting, and we talked about the mechanics of writing a good song.  He was very approachable.  We still keep in touch.

 I have had a few other chats on the computer including my friend Ginger Lynn Allen and a few authors.  Incidentally, the authors generally want you to complement their work, more than getting into the weeds of their writing styles.  I guess everyone needs some praise once in a while.  

Yoko

  I have been accused over the years of name-dropping.  Maybe the reason was to impress people.  When I was living at Oliver Gospel Mission, it was a way to stay alive.  Guys didn't want to beat me up, because I met Halle Berry.  I told them a lot of stories about the famous people I had come in contact with.  Frankly, I have met or had contact with a lot of famous people from movies, TV, literature, music, sports, politics, and other areas of life.  I don't mean to brag here about this part of my life.  It is just a fact.

 Back in 1981, after John Lennon was killed, I wrote a one-man play on the night that John died.  The play consisted of several characters walking into a diner in NYC and hearing the news of that tragedy.  I had wanted to incorporate some music from Lennon in the play, but I needed to get approval from Yoko Ono to do it.  I got her private address from my friend Fred who knew her.  I got a message back from her representative that I couldn't use the music.  It was too soon after that night, and Yoko was in mourning.  I went ahead with the one-act play without the music and performed it a couple of times.  The play went on my shelf, and I never revived it.  

 A company called Eagle Eyewear was putting out three frames of the kind that John Lennon wore.  The frames were endorsed by Yoko.  When they were released to the general public, the waiting time was eight months because of the demand, and the retail cost was running up to almost $200 per frame.  There was no way I could pay that.  I wrote to Yoko and asked her if there was anything she could do.  She sent an order form for the frames to me, and I ordered two pair at cost ($30/each).  I got the frames within ten days of my order thanks to Yoko.  We began a relationship.

 I would send her Christmas cards, and she would send me signed cards back.  The first one was from Yoko and her son Sean.  Later, they would just be signed by Yoko.  I never got the goodie box of stuff that she would send Fred like calendars, cd's, tapes or unreleased music, and other stuff, but I would always get a card.  Fred told me that the next time he was going to NYC that he would take me to the Dakota, where Yoko lived and meet her.  She had what was called "the prize closet" in her apartment where visitors could pick anything out of there that they wanted.  That trip never happened.  Fred did give me some stuff that he had gotten from the closet from the time that John was still alive, and he had been with both of them.  One was a card that said "War is Over" that still had John's DNA on it.  I ended up selling it for big bucks, when I needed money to pay my rent back in the 2000's.  I even had her personal phone number, but I never called it.  The phone was later disconnected.

 Back around 2007, I was running out of money.  I had not gotten a raise from Macy's for four years despite selling an average of a million dollars per year.  I was begging for money from friends.  One was Yoko.  I had always wanted to open up a record and music memorabilia store, and I thought I could live there as well as work there.  So, I asked Yoko for $50,000 to get that off of the ground.  She could afford it.  After all, she had helped Fred with his store back in the day.  Fred had a stroke and had to give up his store.  Instead of getting the money, Yoko cut me off completely.  I was told that I could no longer write to her.  She didn't send me any more cards.  I was persona non grata to her.  

 In 2015, Fred was hit by a car and killed in Little Rock, Arkansas.  He and I had planned to open a store in Columbia together.  I would supply the merchandise, and he would get the financing from Yoko.  She just couldn't know that I was partnering with Fred, because of my being cut-off from her.  After he died, I had to write a letter to Yoko about what had happened.  It was one of the hardest letters I had to write.  Yoko and Fred were very close.  I got a letter back from her attorney asking about the things that she had sent to Fred, especially the tape of the unreleased music.  I wrote back and told him about Fred's storage locker, but I didn't know where it was in Little Rock.  They made some inquiries and found that the owner of the place where it was had destroyed the contents.  Problem solved.

 In the Spring of 2022, I was on Facebook and got a message from Yoko.  I was skeptical at first, but I asked her a couple of questions that only she would know the answers.  They were right.  We had a nice conversation online.  We chatted about Fred and how sad she was still that he was gone.  I then apologized to her about my asking for money from her.  That was the one thing you weren't supposed to do.  She apologized for cutting me off from her life.  We agreed that life was too short to hold grudges. She and I have been corresponding some since then.  Maybe, I'll send her a Christmas card this year.

Arboretum

  Back in 2020, the First Baptist Seniors were supposed to go to the North Carolina Arboretum in Asheville for the day.  Then, the pandemic hit, and we had to put it off until May 2022.  The date was set.  Unfortunately, a big rainstorm was headed for that way, so we planned to have a one-hour window to visit it before the rains came.  We boarded our church bus and headed up towards Asheville.

 As is often the case with so many women on the bus, we had to stop for a rest break.  We pulled into a gas station and convenience store out in the middle of nowhere.  It was just off of the interstate with a church across the street and a graveyard next to the store.  The store had two restrooms, and the women used both of them to speed up the line.  The employee at the store remarked that she was so glad to see us, because she was very bored.  I wanted to buy some candy, but the prices were outrageous.  Because we had to stop, we lost the window before the storm.

 We got up to the Arboretum, and it was pouring down rain.  I had brought an umbrella, but many people didn't.  I walked around some of the gardens under the umbrella and took a couple of pictures.  However, one could not experience the full expanse of the area because of the rain.  We went to a restaurant on site that sold mostly sandwiches.  They didn't take cash.  Only credit cards.  The manager told us thar he believed the rain would be over with by 12:30, but we had another place to go and couldn't wait.  We boarded the bus at 12:30, and the rain stopped.

 Our next place to go was the Asheville Outlet Mall which was near the Arboretum.  By now, the sun was out, and the humidity was dreadful.  Steam rose from the cement.  The mall was full of name brand stores, but no bargain prices.  I was looking for a pair of shoes at the Nike store.  The prices were just like a regular store.  They had a bookstore with some good prices, but the books were titles you never heard of.  As we were leaving, some people had been to the Sporting Goods and Hardware store and gotten a grab bag costing $5 of miscellaneous stuff.  I wished I had gone in there.  

 We left there and headed home.  Just outside of Asheville, the traffic stopped on the interstate.  We could see flashing lights off in the distance that indicated police, fire and ambulances were there.  The cars in our three lanes just creeped along.  As we got closer, we saw it was a pretty bad car wreck.  But, much to our surprise, the wreck was in the opposite lanes heading the other way toward Asheville.  All of the cars in our three lanes were rubberneckers.  I felt bad for the injured, as I felt they thought they were in a zoo.  Too many gawkers.

 We stopped again at another gas station and store heading back.  This one was outside of Clinton, where I spent two glorious years going to Presbyterian College.  Once again, the women lined up for the restrooms.  Once again, the candy prices were too much to pay.  We saw a fish restaurant nearby that looked pretty good, but we had to get home.  Despite the rain, it was a good trip.  Sometimes, it is just good to get away.  Next time, I'll take my own candy. 

Tom

  When God calls, you need to listen.  I did, when He called me to help other people who couldn't help themselves.  I do this not for my own glory, but to serve the Lord.  That was my calling, when I took on the Midlands Transit Riders Association.  One day, I saw that a friend needed help.  I answered the call.

 I knew Tom Worrell from high school.  We were in the same graduating class.  Granted, there were literally hundreds of people in my class, but Tom kind of stood out.  He was a good guy.  After we graduated, I had lost touch with him.  Then came Facebook.  We reconnected along with others in my high school class.  We followed Tom, as he lost his wife.  He moved to the Philippines to help others.  His children were grown, and he wanted to do good.  He settled in a town on the island of Cebu.  The island had a great tourist reputation much like Acapulco in Mexico, but once you got away from the hotels and tourists, it was a third world place.  He made friends easily with the locals and used his talents for good.

 One day, Tom got sick.  He developed serious circulatory problems in his legs.  He lost the ability to walk, and he had to have his neighbors help him to get up.  Most of the time, Tom stayed in bed.  He lost a lot of weight.  His neighbors cooked and cleaned for him.  Tom posted on Facebook that he needed some medical care.  The nearest decent hospital was four hours away by ambulance.  He had been there a few times.  They gave him some antibiotics and sent him home.  Many people were praying that he would get better.  As an answer to prayer, he found a retired doctor in his town who had been vascular surgeon.  Even though the doctor couldn't operate anymore, he helped Tom.  He posted that he wanted to go to Guam and be treated by American doctors.  He was too ill and weak to travel to the States by airplane.  He needed money and help to get to Guam by a medical transport plane.

 My high school class raised the money for the flight, but he needed the necessary paperwork and transport to get to Manila for the flight to Guam.  I knew some people and knew how government worked.  Even though Tom had his legal residence in North Carolina, he grew up in South Carolina and had family there.  I first contacted Senator Lindsey Graham's office in Washington.  He had enormous power and could call the US Embassy in Manila to cut through the red tape and get Tom out.  His office in Columbia called me, and I talked to an aide to the Senator.  He referred me to the State Department.  I contacted State, and they told me that Tom would have to fill out some forms.  I explained to them that Tom barely had Wi-Fi and didn't have a printer.  They kept telling me that he needed to fill out some forms.  I asked if they could contact their embassy in Manila.  They said no, not without Tom filling out the forms.  I then contacted Senator Tim Scott's office, but they didn't respond.  Next was Representative Jim Clyburn.  He was the third highest ranking member of the House.  I got a call back from an aide of his who asked if Tom lived in Clyburn's district.  I told him not now, but he grew up there.  His aide referred me to the State Department.  

 Frustration set in.  I was getting nowhere.  I contacted the White House.  I got an email back from them thanking me for contacting them and suggested I get a Covid booster shot (no lie).  Since Tom was a NC resident, I contacted both Senators and his House representative.  The only one who got back to me was Senator Burr's office.  They told me that they would have the Senator contact the Embassy and see if they could cut through the red tape and get Tom to Guam.  A few days later, I got an email from Tom thanking me for contacting the Senator.  He told me that somebody from the embassy called him.  It was someone that a private citizen would never get to speak to.  I assumed it was the Ambassador or their aide.

 I also knew that Tom needed help in other ways like transportation.  I emailed Samaritan's Purse and Franklin Graham to see if they could help.  They told me that they didn't help individuals just groups.  I also contacted the International Red Cross and got the same answer.  I then thought of the Southern Baptist International Mission Board.  I knew they had missionaries on Tom's island.  I gave them Tom's address, and the headquarters sent two of their people to see Tom.  

 The embassy cut through some red tape and got Tom to the airport, where a medical transport plane was waiting.  At the departure gate, the Filipino officials asked to see his Covid vaccination card.  It wasn't complete.  Tom had gotten only one shot, before he got sick. His work Visa had expired, too.  He was in a wheelchair and in obvious physical distress.  The officials wouldn't let him get past their checkpoint to get to the plane.  The embassy folks tried to talk to the locals, but they were adamant.  Without the proper paperwork, Tom couldn't board the plane.  He was turned away and sent home to get the paperwork he needed.  

 Time was running out for Tom.  He had wanted to get to Guam to be treated.  He was even resigned to the fact that the doctors might have to amputate one or both of his legs.  Another high school friend named Ray was also trying to get Tom out.  We felt the more people to impress upon others that he needed to leave, the better.  I had a couple of others lined up to plead Tom's case, including a friend who won a Nobel Peace Prize.  After a couple of weeks, I got a message that Tom had died.  His neighbors and the two missionaries were there for him.  The infection and the red tape killed Tom.  He was cremated.

Cove

  There was a place in the mountains of North Carolina that I had always wanted to see.  The Cove.  It was right outside of Asheville, and very close to a place where I spent most of my summers--Ridgecrest Baptist Conference Center.  The Cove was envisioned by Billy Graham to be a place to train and uplift people.  I had heard that it was beautiful up there, so I jumped at the chance to go for an overnight stay with my church group of Seniors.  They had motel rooms on the property in the midst of the mountains.  There were signs around the property to beware of bears.  It was right before Christmas, and the area was beautifully decorated.

 We checked in and had some time to relax before dinner.  We were there to see a concert by a Christian group called Selah. They didn't have TVs in the rooms, but they had free WIFI, so I could keep up with things on my phone.  I went over to the conference building and looked at the Billy Graham memorabilia.  I also went into the gift shop but didn't buy anything.  The line waiting to get into the dining hall was long.  We weren't the only church group for the concert.  They had a roaring fire in the fireplace which made the waiting area pretty warm.  I had not brought my water bottle along, because I didn't think I needed it.

 I was talking to some friends about my record collection, when I felt faint.  All of the benches had other people sitting on them, so I tried to sit on a trashcan.  I collapsed on my knees next to the can and outside the restrooms.  The next thing I knew, there was a woman standing over me along with some from my group.  I didn't know this woman, but it turned out that she was from Hickory, NC and was an EMT.  She was with her church group and had been summoned out of the restroom by a friend of hers.  She was very nice and knew what to do.  A nurse was called from The Cove, and the two of them worked on me to bring me back from fainting.  They eventually got me to sit in a chair and then to stand.  They asked me when the last time was I had eaten anything.  I said around 4pm and a pack of crackers.  The Cove called 911, and two EMTs showed up.  They took me to a corner of the room away from everyone else.  My BP was normal.  I explained that I had these events sometimes, when I get overheated.  They wanted to take me to the hospital, but I declined.  I didn't know how I would get back to The Cove.

 They gave some water to me, and I felt strong enough to get something to eat in the dining room, but I didn't have much appetite.  Some friends convinced me that I should go back to my room and skip the concert.  They tried to get a staff member from The Cove to escort me back to my room which was about 1/4 mile away.  There was a shuttle bus that I could ride, but no one from The Cove would accept to take me.  A friend from my group volunteered instead.  He and I rode the shuttle back and made sure I got to my room okay.  I collapsed in the bed and slept.  There was a pillow on the bed that was very comfortable and made it easy for me to sleep.

 The next morning, I felt so much better.  I walked over in the cool air to get breakfast.  My appetite was back.  I asked a couple of staff people who made the pillow.  No one knew.  In my younger days, I would have stolen it but not now.  After we checked out, we went to a chapel on the grounds.  I told one of the volunteers about the time in 1963, when Billy Graham had invited my parents and me for dinner at his home in Montreat, and my father declining because of leading a conference at Ridgecrest.  And then, my father introducing me to Billy Graham the next summer at the Southern Baptist Convention in Atlantic City, NJ by saying that this introduction got him "out of the doghouse".  They laughed.  I was looking up at a giant.  The Cove's volunteer thought that was a neat story.  

 We headed back to Columbia on our tour bus.   Two friends invited me to lunch at a restaurant in Columbia, and I ate some salty food.  I felt so much better.  I was talking to a neighbor after getting back home.  He suggested I try Liquid IV for dehydration.  It really works.  Thanks, Jim.