Rocking Chairs

I was not the best brother growing up.

One of the regrets that I have is how much of a hard time I gave my younger sibling, Adam, when we were boys. I was pretty good at arguments and enjoyed getting into them, especially with Adam. I rode him relentlessly whenever he made a mistake.

At one point when we were teenagers, I nicknamed him "Money Boy," for whenever he did things that cost the family some cash. It could be anything from accidentally breaking a drinking glass, to another time when he backed the family car into some bricks at the entrance to our driveway and damaged them.

I would stay on him about these things for days and weeks and even months, saying stuff like, "That one's forever, man."

I could be a real jerk about it, and I remember I got him so mad one day that he threw a quarter at my head, which just narrowly missed my left eye. It put a divot in the sheet rock of our dining room. Naturally, I never let him forget about that, either.

It was wrong to be tearing him down all the time. I should have been building him up, instead.

Adam was a very good athlete growing up.

We played in a church basketball league as teenagers. After one game, he was a little amazed and irked when I told people that he and I combined for 40 points in the game. It was true. I had six, he had 34.

Baseball in particular, he was good at. We played on the same teams at various times growing up, and anyone who played at that age knows that the best players on the team either pitched or were put at shortstop. Adam did both. He threw pretty hard, and a lot of guys in practice did not want to hit against him. I had no fear of him at all, of course, but that did not mean I could hit the ball when he pitched. Like any good athlete, Adam had his own stories he could tell of feats on the field.

One that I remember in a junior high school game was when a pitcher threw three straight balls to him. Adam was thinking of becoming a switch hitter, so with the count 3-0, he turned around in the box to bat left handed, to give the pitcher a different look. The pitcher laughed at him, and then threw a called strike. Adam turned back around to bat right handed, and on the next pitch slammed a double into the left field alley.

Around this same time, though, he also began struggling with some shyness at school. We went to a rather large high school. It was 4A, which at that time was the largest classification that high schools received in North Carolina (1A was a very small school, for example).

This was when I should have been encouraging him and helping him out, rather than constantly looking for ways to tear him down.

One of Adam's regrets which he talks about every now and again is that he did not play baseball in high school. In all of the leagues that he and I played in growing up, it was him and another guy named Jimmy who were always the best players. Jimmy went on to play some minor league ball in the Montreal Expos organization, if I am not mistaken.

Who knows how far Adam could have gone? I don't know that he had the stuff to make it all the way to the big leagues, but he believes he could have played college ball. I have no doubts about that, either. He would not be the first from our family. Our Uncle Jerry was a pitcher and first baseman at N.C. State University, and our cousin Jon also played some college baseball. That would have been enough, to play ball at a small school like Western Carolina University where we both attended.

In our big high school, with lots of guys trying out and getting cut from the team, the head coach actually came to Adam and asked him to play. But Adam said no, and it was because he was not happy in school.

I could have tried to help him with this. I remember Dad getting frustrated when Adam told him the story. "The coach came to you and asked you to play!?"

Anyway, Adam is enjoying life now, successful in his job, raising his son and teaching him to play sports as well.

But to title of this blog entry. One of the crueler things that I confess I did to my brother was when we were both young boys and I caught him asleep in our wooden rocking chair.

He was small enough then that he could sleep in the chair on his knees, facing backwards, his nose tucked in between the wooden splats of the back of the chair.

The temptation was just too great as I walked by. Without thinking, I gripped the top of the chair, yanked it backward and then pushed it forward hard again. My brother's head whip lashed back and then slammed against the splats. To say that was a rude awakening for him was an understatement. I don't know what possessed me to do that, other than just plain meanness...

One of my first memories of a rocking chair was in Wilmington, North Carolina. I was probably about three years old, and I can remember mom sitting in the chair and holding me while she watched TV. She rocked us back and forth. I had my head on her shoulder, and I was trying to go to sleep.

Though I was not watching the TV, I can remember what was on. It was "The Jim and Tammy Show," with televangelists Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker.

Mom must have been nodding off and going to sleep herself, as I remember that when the rocking chair stopped moving, I kicked my leg into her side and she would start rocking the chair again. Eventually, the rocking would slow down and stop once more, and I had to keep kicking my leg to get her to keep rocking the chair.

So, I suppose two memories that I have of rocking chairs involves me being sort of abusive to members of my family. As for my mom, though, I think I was too small for the kicks to hurt. Eventually, she stopped responding to them and we both went to sleep.

Petey and Me

In my mid 20s, I lived in a condominium at Carolina Beach, North Carolina. My home was just one street back from the water.

When I walked out on my balcony, I sometimes saw dolphins jumping out of the ocean. Once, I saw a whale, the water spewing from its spout and seagulls circling overhead, perhaps attempting to feed on the whale. Another time, I noted a fishing trawler that seemed to be way too close to shore. Surely enough, about two hours later, it hit a sand bar, broke apart and sank. Luckily, the crew was able to swim to the beach and no one was hurt. That story made the six o'clock news.

In one of the other condominiums lived a man and woman who owned a big Tennessee Walker hunting dog. I worked from home fairly often, and I could hear its foghorn bark during the day when I suppose it was alone. To me, the dog always sounded stressed out.

Sometimes, when I was walking on the street down below our units, I would look up and see the dog with its head stuck out between the railings. It always had a wild glare in its eyes, but it never would look directly at me. Though I am no veterinarian, I tend to understand dogs much better than I understand my fellow human beings, and I suspected it was suffering from anxiety due to being cooped up in that small space all day. A Tennessee Walker is bred to roam through the woods and run racoons up trees, after all.


The owners only let the dog out of the condo so that it could relieve itself. I happened to be outside on one of these occasions, and asked permission to pet the dog.

I learned the dog's name was Petey. The owner was a woman in her 40s or 50s with bleach blond hair, an unnaturally dark tan, manicured nails and careful makeup. She struck me as a woman who normally has a poodle, not a hunting hound dog. Her boyfriend or husband was the blue collar type with a hair style close to a mullet. He drove a van, and I believe he worked as a painter.

They were nice people, but it bothered me to see Petey so vexed all the time. I offered to take him on runs with me.

They agreed that it would be good for Petey to get some exercise.

My runs with Petey as the sun went down turned out to be some of the more enjoyable experiences of my life.

Petey was a very intelligent dog, and I could see a change in his attitude almost as soon as we hit the road together for the first time. The owners had a long but strong leash for him. He started out with a sprint, and it was all that I could do to keep up. He pulled hard at the leash and dragged me along.

After a mile or two, though, he slowed down and the leash went a little slack.

We went down streets that neither one of us had ever seen before. We came across a park with multiple baseball fields. I took Petey inside one of the empty fields and closed the gates. Then I took him off his leash.

At first, he did not know what to do and just stood there. I ran out into center field, and he loped along behind me. I turned and charged at him, to get him to play. To my surprise, though, for the very first time he looked me in the eyes. Petey snarled at me.

"It's okay, buddy!" I said as I laughed. "I'm just playing with you. I'm just trying to get you to run free a little bit."

The snarl immediately disappeared from his face and he began wagging his tail. I jumped at him again. This time, he understood. He jumped back and took off running on a sprint across the field.

Now, he felt his freedom, and he circled back to run at me. I sprinted at him like I was going to tackle him, and he peeled off at the last moment. The two of us played like this, running in circles on the baseball field, for about ten minutes.

This wore him out. I put the leash back on him, and took Petey over to another field where an actual midget league ball game was going on.

As we stood along the first base fence, watching the game, Petey leaned against my leg, exhausted.

Still, once we left the game, he jogged most of the way home with me. We went about six miles that day.

The owners would not let me take him out again for a while, as they said he was walking with a limp and was obviously sore. I had overdone it with him for the first day.

Very soon, though, I was out with him again. Petey got into shape fast and was able to tug at the leash during our entire run if he wanted to.

I found that people were scared of Petey when I went for runs. He was a big dog, carried himself like a beast, and he grunted when he ran. One lady who was out for a walk and heard Petey's grunts coming up behind her, turned and actually screamed in fear. Then she gave me a dirty look as we went by her.

One day, I took Petey for a run down the beach, and many more people we came across gave us disapproving looks. I later learned that it was against the law to have a dog on that beach, which explained their reactions.

Petey cracked me up on another occasion. We ran down Lake Park Boulevard, past a bar called "The Fat Pelican."

A woman who was quite the regular there stood outside the entrance smoking a cigarette and talking with a man who also fit into the scene well.

The woman held the cigarette down by her hip. Petey stopped dead in his tracks as we went by and put his nose about a half inch away from the end of the cigarette, smelling it. Then he pointed to the cigarette like a bird dog.

I could tell this made both the man and the woman uncomfortable, but for some reason neither one would look at us or acknowledge that we were there. Maybe they were scared of what Petey was going to do. Who knows? Like I said, he lumbered like a beast and grunted as he ran.

I began laughing. "Come on Petey, let's keep moving." I tugged at him, and with some difficulty pulled his nose away from the cigarette.

One day, Petey got a bunch of sand spurs on his leg. I tried to take one off. He gave a little yelp of pain and bit my arm. But it was not really a bite. He just put his teeth on my arm and did not clamp down. It was a gut defensive reaction to pain from him, and I was impressed that he was smart enough to know that I was not trying to hurt him. Still, it was his warning to me and I left them alone. His mouth was much bigger than my forearm.

The owners later told me that he removed the spurs himself by chewing on them.

It got to be where Petey would recognize the sound of my footsteps coming up to his door. He would begin howling and jumping against the door like he was going to knock it down.

His reaction to me surprised his female owner. "Petey doesn't get that excited even when I get home," she said.

I'd put his leash on, and down the stairs we would charge.

I think Petey's favorite part was when I let him go down into the ditches along the road. The leash was long enough for that, and he leaped through water that sometimes came up to his neck.

Of course, he got filthy doing this, and I did my best to hose him down when we got back to the condominiums. I remember the man's reaction when I brought him back after one run, though:

"God bless, Petey! You got dirt on top of your head, even!" (Petey just looked at him, panting and wagging his tail.)

The man mentioned that his wife was getting a little put out over the dirt that Petey tracked into the house.

Not long after that run, they moved to a house further inland from the beach, taking Petey with them.

I gave them a call, leaving a message on their voice mail and offering to continue to take Petey out for runs. They never returned my call, though.

I missed Petey for a while after that. I hope that the house where they moved had a fenced in yard where he could run around. Otherwise, I'm sure that wild eyed look would have returned, along with the strained fog horn howls.

Petey was a good friend.

The Flaming Azaleas of Gregory Bald

After graduating from Western Carolina University in May 2000, I packed up all of my belongings into my 1995 Nissan pickup. I left my home in Sylva, NC and drove through the Great Smoky Mountains into the National Park, crossing the border between North Carolina and Tennessee, until I came to the site of my new job and home for the next six months- Cades Cove.

Hired for the season as a Park Ranger by the National Park Service (officially, my title was "Visitor Use Assistant"), the job was a challenge for me.

My duties included leasing camping spaces to visitors of the park, along with assisting the law enforcement rangers with "carry outs," when someone got hurt and stranded in the mountains.

I had trouble getting enough to eat during those six months. I was not a very good cook to begin with, and the nearest convenience store or restaurant or anything was about 10 miles away in a very small Tennessee town called Townsend. There was no grocery store in Townsend as I recall. That was in Maryville, an approximate 45 minute drive one way from Cades Cove. This may not sound far, but the road up and down the mountain was very winding and slow going, especially after I had a long day at work. I remember boiling a lot of noodles and microwaving whole potatoes for my meals, but it was not enough to keep the weight on or my energy up. To my embarrassment and the irritation of my coworkers, I completely gave out on one trip into the mountains where we had to carry out a rather heavy woman with a broken her ankle.

Truthfully, I was relieved when November came and my job ended.

The location was absolutely incredible, though.

In May, the pollen was so thick in the air at times that it looked like yellow rain in a downpour.

Until I finally learned to carry a flash light with me, night was so dark when I got off work that I had to drag my feet to know that I was still walking on the paved road from the campground office hut back to the cabin where I lived. On one of those night time walks, I got charged by a grunting deer. The buck stopped just a few feet in front of me. We stared at each other for a moment before it went galloping off into the woods.

I also came across several black bears during my bike rides and hikes through the park during those six months, and I saw a flying squirrel one night.

When the leaves changed in October, the mountains were beautiful shades of orange, red and yellow. The leaves took on a silvery tint as well that I had never seen before and which only lasted a couple of days.

In June, I remember being given a full day to go on a hike while on the clock with the Park Service. I chose to make this a 12 mile hike to Gregory Bald (called a bald because hardly any trees grew at the top of the mountain), six miles up in elevation, and six miles back down. My colleagues had told me that Gregory Bald was covered with flaming azalea bushes, which were in full bloom at that time.

The only catch was that I had to wear my Park Service uniform and carry a radio with me, which I put in a holster on my belt.

For most of the hike up into the mountains, I was alone. I came across a black bear that paid me no mind. It was eating blueberries, I think. Toward the top, I caught up to a husband and wife who I assumed to both be in their 40s. The husband was agitated that his wife could not keep up with him, and in his frustration at how quickly I was able to pass them, he mocked my walking style and said something sarcastic to me.

During the hike up to the top, I noticed increasing pain in my hip on the side where the radio was holstered. When I got to the the actual mountain top, I had to sit down and give my hip a rest (The next day it would be even more painful, and I realized that it was the weight of the radio on one side during the 12 mile hike that had caused it).

It was too bad that I was in discomfort, as I am sure that I did not represent the Park Service very well. People who were already on the mountain top saw me in my uniform and came up to have a conversation, but I really wanted to be left alone to rest my hip and enjoy the tranquility of the moment. I remember the look of disappointment on one woman's face in particular when I was probably a bit abrupt with her.

But the sights at the top were worth the trip. The azalea bushes were some of the most incredible things that I have ever seen in nature. To my surprise, in the wild these bushes grow much taller than me. The various colors also amazed me. They weren't just orange and red, but white and pink and purple as well. Each bush had its own color. To have seen these bushes from the air would also have been impressive.

Photographs that I have looked at on the internet do not do Gregory Bald justice, because they fail to give you the panoramic sweep of the scene and the many, many bushes and colors of the flowers that you can take in at the same time.

Still, here is a link to a good description of the hike:

http://www.hikinginthesmokys.com/gregory.htm

My hike up to see the flaming azaleas on Gregory Bald is one of my favorite experiences in the Great Smoky Mountains.

Port and Acka-Dacka-Ooh

I lived in Wilmington, North Carolina for the first five years of my life. From there, the family moved to Augusta, Georgia. We lived in Augusta for only six months before returning to North Carolina, this time Wake Forest- just north of Raleigh. Most people think of Wake Forest University when they hear that name, and the school was in fact founded in that town. However, in 1956 the school moved to the city of Winston-Salem, NC and the old Wake Forest campus became Southeastern Seminary.

When I was a child living in Wilmington, I can remember the first time that I became fascinated with a word.

The word was "Port." I had heard it on the TV, and the way the person said it sort of tickled my eardrums. I went running to mom in my excitement, who was in the kitchen of our apartment. I can't remember what I said to her, but it probably wasn't very coherent. I was trying to explain to her that I knew a word, but I don't think she understood.

In my head, the mental image that came to mind with the word "port" as the person on TV had said it was actually a microphone, the larger type of metal microphone, used at radio stations and which had holes in it. The tickling sensation that the sound of the word made in my ears was sort of synonymous with being able to touch the metal microphone and feel all the holes on it. I'm not sure why I made the association between "port" and a microphone. Perhaps the person on TV had said something like, "Plug the microphone into the port." But I really don't know.

This all might seem a little "out there." My memories from Wilmington are my first memories, though, when I was able to make even less sense of the world than I can now as an adult.

The more that I write about these early memories, the more that come back to me, which is what I wanted to happen when I started this blog.

The same tickling sensation in my ear drums returned when we lived in Wake Forest. Mom was a school teacher by trade, and she taught me at home for the first year or so. I never went to pre-school or kindergarten, but started my formal education in the first grade.

This was at Millbrook, a kindergarten through 12th grade school. Mom worked as a teacher's aide at the school, and it was a tough start to each day when she took me to my classroom and then had to leave me there. I remember one anxiety filled morning in particular when I was there in the classroom, waiting. Mom had to leave me there before anyone else had arrived. I sat there all alone on a bean bag with the lights turned off.

Anyway, mom always made me lunch, which I kept in my metal lunch box. She often included seedless grapes for me to snack on later in the afternoon.

One of my friends at Millbrook was an African-American boy. I can't remember his name, now, but I do recall that he spoke with a bit of a lisp.

At the end of each day, we would all be sitting at our desks, waiting for the intercom to call students to their buses. He rode the bus, but I waited for mom to come and get me.

The boy, who sat at his desk across from me while we waited, saw me eating my grapes. He said that we could play a game with them.

I was interested, so we began the game. It consisted of the boy mimicking the rhyme of "eeny, meeny, miny, moe," except he used words and phrases that I had never heard before. I can't remember them all, but one phrase he used a lot was "acka-dacka-ooh."

He would tap my desk and then his own, back and forth as he chanted the phrases. Whenever he stopped the phrase, that's how we would know who got a grape.

Of course, he ended up getting most of the grapes, but I did not mind. Listening to him speak those strange words with his lisp while he tapped our wooden desks with his fingers tickled my ear drums. It was comforting to me to listen to him, and I was disappointed when the intercom called his bus number and he ran out of the class.

There have been other times when I hear something that tickles my ear drums, but it is very rare.

I can give you a first hand example of one, though. I enjoyed watching the late painter, Bob Ross, on the Public Broadcasting System.

Here is a link to one of the episodes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPPOpWBMFx4

When he talks, that is often enough. But especially when Ross talks and at the same time knocks the knife against the palette, those are pleasing sounds.

Perhaps I am the only person who gets this. What tickles my ear drums may seem weird to everyone else, but this blog is about my experiences. I hope that reading about it is enjoyable for at least some people.