”I have great faith in fools — self-confidence my friends call it.” Edgar Allen Poe
,I’m still on speaking terms with the young man I once was. We’ve always nodded in passing but as the years advance, our conversations have become more frequent. They have become clearer and more concise even though at times they end in little more than nods and grunts of agreement or dissension – he with downturned mouth and mild disappointment and me, myself with a gleam of distant satisfaction that he can’t yet understand.
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It’s my job to let the dog out at inopportune times– at five thirty in the morning, seconds after I sit down in a chair or for a second time, late at night, after I crawl into bed. Despite that, I tell him he’s a good boy and in his own way, he tells me I’m a good boy and we get along splendidly. If I’m particularly froggy, I tell him he’s the best dog I’ve ever had. I’m ashamed to admit that I’ve said that to other dogs before but he doesn’t know that and seems to appreciate it so much that I don’t see the harm.
All my inadequacies that are so obvious to others don’t seem to bother him, or the fact that I occasionally lie to him. He is a good dog as far as I know, but I don’t know what he does when I’m not around. I suspect that he has a few disgusting habits, and if I had to guess, I would estimate that he would be a raging sexual predator if given the opportunity. People like to say that there are no bad dogs - only bad owners. Of course, now it’s no longer politically correct to present yourself as an owner, except when it comes to vet bills and local legal authorities. We must now refer to ourselves as pet parents. But I didn’t sign on to be a parent again. There is no coming of age, no level of maturity at which you send the dog off to make his own way in this world. There are no adoption papers, no birth certificate that lists me as the father. He just showed up as a starving young pup on my doorstep; a waif, if you will. Anyway, the idea that there are no bad dogs seems to be common. Some folks like to carry this idea over to people – that there are no bad people in the world. There are those that believe that people are just doing bad things because of bad parents or in the minds of a few - a bad god. I struggle with the whole thing. How can there be bad parents but not bad people or a bad god who wouldn’t delight in creating such creatures? Some folks need people to be bad so they can talk about them and feel better about their own badness that’s not quite as bad as the badness of the folks they talk about. And some folks need good people that do bad so they can justify their own badness without feeling bad. People are confounding. Dogs not so much. Bruce Cameron said: “You can usually tell a man is good if he has a dog that loves him.” Mark Twain had his own strong feelings about dogs: “Heaven goes by favor. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in.” I always watched to see if she was happy. The more I tried to make her happy, the more respect she lost for me. I told myself - if she was happy, I was happy. It wasn't true but I kept at it till we were both miserable. The only thing I learned from it; you can't make somebody happy if they don't know how to do such a thing.
When you're trying to lose weight, that bathroom scale becomes the most important device in your house, more important than the coffee maker, the refrigerator, the microwave and even the cellphone. It holds your self-esteem within its coiled springs and you try to find ways to softly lie to it.
I have discovered that there is no such thing as being too naked when you get on the bathroom scales. Each morning before I step on those scales, I strip off every stitch of clothing. I take off my glasses and make sure that I've been to the bathroom before the process begins. I’d take off my wedding band but weight gain in my fingers now make that impossible. On bad days, I trim my toenails and my fingernails and dig the lint out of my belly button. The struggle continues. Long ago, I laid aside the idea that life was supposed to be fair but I do carry a certain bitterness when I see that some people can eat anything they want and never gain weight throughout their lifetime. I have said it once before and I will say it again, losing weight should be like losing your virginity, once you lose it you should never get it back. There is a comfort in old things; things with wear and shine from use. A sort of permanence that escapes the tools and toys of the modern world. What is more reassuring than a ragged King James Bible held together by tape, faith and an old person’s hands? There is no such charm to be found in today's gadgets and culture - all designed for immediate obsolescence.
When I visit an antique store, flea market or old homestead, I look for what is broken; a tool with a cracked handle patched with tightly wound wire or metal plate, a chipped plate or cup, furniture with excessive wear and flaws produced by time and use. These things have a story to tell or at least one I can imagine. A few years back, I purchased a dough trough from an antique dealer in south Mississippi. It was rough, made of soft wood and unsealed, showing wear with cracks and gouges. It was not well formed by a craftsman, purely utilitarian in design. True or not, the story behind it led me to hand over a few dollars and carry it home. The dealer said, "That's not the type of dough trough that you would find in a plantation home. Those would be made of oak or walnut and of better form. This trough came from a slave kitchen where the cook would make bread for the field hands." My imagination took hold and visions of an old woman filled my mind; a woman with gnarled fingers from too many years in the fields, now too old for such work, kneading dough, stirring a pot, swatting flies and children who come too close before wiping the sweat from her brow with her apron. There may be no truth in any of it but I’m ok with that. I miss the old things...... I find myself using a Kindle more often these days. It serves a purpose and provides convenience. But there is no character in a Kindle; no dog-eared pages, no hurried handwritten notes in the margins, no folded pages of favorite passages; all the things that say that this book, this tool, belongs to someone with passion, practiced skill and their own story to tell. Our modern world is full of lies. Not that lies were not prevalent throughout human history, but it’s different now. We are bombarded with them in every aspect of our lives and we comfortably accept them. Not just lies of men with overturned lives who have done wrong and seek to escape the consequences or those who seek to do wrong with the best of intentions but lies of every degree, small and grand. Lies that fill every crevasse of modern existence, some with little intent or purpose interposed amongst the grandest of deceptions filling our airways.
The reality is that we love to be lied to. We seek lies like treasure. They give us comfort telling us we are successful, beautiful and noble creatures but only if we buy a product, donate our money, follow a cause or vote their vote. The politician, the actor lie to us. We know they lie to us. They know that we know that they lie to us yet we stand to applaud and cheer, seeking their approval and attention. The lies we tell others hold no comparison to the lies we tell ourselves. That is the one truth that spurs this world of lies. We lie to ourselves, constantly and with impunity …. about diet and health, integrity and intent. Truth is uncomfortable, creating conflict and separation and exposing our character. Truth is a messy affair. You can’t blame people for preferring lies. Well, I’m at it again…. In 2016, I published “Murder in Rural Hill” and was gratified by the interest shown in the tale of a century old murder case. We sold copies all over the United States and even in a few foreign countries. The book generated a lot of discussion and brought some additional information to light about the unsolved murders of Janie Sharp, Walton Permenter and Ben Walker. I put the story aside for awhile and worked on other material including “Bones of Mississippi,” which I just recently published, but the story of Janie Sharp continued to resurface. This classic and factual “who done it” leads the reader down one path only to diverge into a tangle of intrigue, suspicion and lies. “The Tragedy of Janie Sharp” is an expansion of the tale, providing more local history, more detail about the life and sad death of the family man, Walton Permenter, and the intriguing possibility of an eyewitness to the crime. Now available on Amazon in paperback and ebook form, the Book Mart in Starkville, Barbara’s Place and other local outlets soon. As always, signed copies of both books are available at our office, 875 S. Columbus (next to Louisville Utilities) and we will be at the Red Hills Festival on May 27th in downtown Louisville. We will also be in Ackerman at the Choctaw County Library on May 25th at 6:00 pm and in Carthage at the Leake County Library on May 26th at noon. If you have the opportunity, come by and visit with us for a lively discussion of Mississippi history and, of course, the case of Janie Sharp. As always, thank each and every one of you for your support. The marketing and publishing of a regional book is challenging in today’s world and is without doubt a labor of love. Make an effort to support all our local writers. Without them many tales would never be told. If you look for a way to be kind – you will inevitably find one
If you look for a way to be offended – you will, of course, find offense If you seek excuses, they will present themselves If you pursue anger, you will inevitably catch it If you look for a way to be productive, it will reward you Life is short – seek what is worthwhile. The reason I’m not a Democrat: Everyone has rights but only a few have responsibilities.
The reason I’m not a Republican: Everyone has responsibilities and everyone has rights but a few have more rights than others. The reason I’m not a Libertarian: Everyone has the right to do just about anything they want and their only responsibility lies with themselves. The reason I’m not a Socialist: Everyone has the right to what you have and you have the responsibility to accept that cheerfully. The reason I’m not a Communist: No one has any rights or responsibilities. The reason I’m not an Anarchist: Everybody has the right to do any damn thing they want and to hell with the responsibility. The reason I’m not a Fascist: Everyone’s rights and responsibilities are dictated by the needs and whims of those in charge and I’m pretty sure they won’t let me be in charge. Over the last generation, we have come to demand rights but recoil from responsibility, to value our humanness beyond reason. The childish belief that we have somehow overcome our human baseness and bodily urges; those primal thoughts that we push to the back of our brains in civil discourse but that surface in our actions and sins to generate short term pleasure and success at the expense of our value to ourselves and those around us. That if we speak well and shout our morality and empathy to the world, we are somehow noble creatures. And all the while failing to acknowledge a power greater than our own.
We’re just living to sin. God told us that from the beginning. We’re always looking for another way to sin. Nowadays, we just can’t face all those grand ideas and thoughts of the folks before us – folks who learned lessons from hardship and struggles and with the disposition to ponder them. As a result, all we can do is turn faith into religion, education into indoctrination, strength into guilt – just to have more excuses to sin. We don’t have the wherewithal anymore to think about much – souls as deep as a pinprick – hearts as weak as water- encapsulating our world into 280 characters and jiggling asses on a tv screen. All our great minds do now is seek to find ways to free our time so we can sin a little bit more. We’re about as weak now as we’ve ever been in human history. It ain’t gonna end well. Social media has brought it all to a head, making it all too easy to tell a lie, believe a lie and share a lie. We just skating across the surface of truth like a water bug… too damn scared to look below the surface – scared of what we might find lurking beneath the waters. Our leaders recognize this and revel in it; encasing their lies in half-truths that they know we want to believe; leading us to stand in the streets donned with vagina hats or childishly storm the halls of government; separating us by our lightly held ideologies to prevent reform that would end their power. Corporations - too cowardly and irresponsible to stand on principle; blurring the lines between business and politics. Charity has become a marketing tool instead of a virtue. Instead of making a good product at a fair price, we’re supposed to buy their junk because they are kind, noble and tolerant. All the while telling us that our lives will be diminished unless we take their pill, eat their food, drive their car or publicly acknowledge that women poop. Religious leaders who have turned from faith and worship the mighty dollar, social acceptance and a perverted concept of love of our fellow man. We’ve corrupted our language so that we don’t have to deal with the truth; celebrities and pseudo-intellectuals telling us that truth is in the eye of the beholder, that for some black is white, good is bad and science is the new God until its truths conflict with their agenda. All patronizing their base with soundbites full of half-truths, false empathy or masked hatred. A grand design to ensure that we can’t clearly see reality beyond the pile of manure accumulating on our doorsteps. Ralph Waldo Emerson said that the end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization. He might be right. |
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March 2024
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