Saying Goodbye to the Mustang

Wilmington, North Carolina. January, 2004

I buy the 2003 Ford Mustang with $12,500 cash and my trade, a 1995 Nissan pickup.

It pleases me that I do not have to make payments. It also pleases me that I am driving such a nice car. As a kid, I never thought I would have a car like a Mustang or a Camaro, but here it is. I can immediately tell that this vehicle drives heavier than my little pickup that I traded in. I will also have to get used to the size of the Mustang. Though it is a sports car, to me it feels like I am driving a huge Cadillac.



I bought the car in part because I hope girls will be impressed by it. I do get a number of compliments, but so far not any dates. Maybe that will change…

Carolina Beach, North Carolina. September 2004.

My Mustang really looks beautiful, sitting in its assigned parking space below. I look down on it from the balcony of my condominium, one row back from the beach. The curves of the body, the shining white paint job, the sleek decals, all give me a good feeling. I own that car, I think to myself. That is what I drive. It is a cool car, no doubt.

Mom and Dad and are vacationing at Topsail Island, to the north of the beach where I live. I go up and have a good visit with them. When it is time for me to leave and return home, I roll down the windows and turn up the theme to the TV show, “Knight Rider” on my stereo as I drive away. Dad laughs and gives me a thumbs up.

America. January 2006.

Due to upheaval in my employment, on a whim I decide to move from North Carolina Las Vegas.

It is my brother, Adam, and me taking turns driving the Mustang on Interstate 40 almost all the way across the country. Dad and my Uncle Ken follow behind in the Penske rental truck.

The trip out there is one of the most memorable of my life. We stop and eat at a Cracker Barrel restaurant in Hermitage, Tennessee, take in the Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock, Arkansas, eat at a great Chinese Buffet in Van Buren, Arkansas, spend the night in Roland, Oklahoma, then Pizza and an overnight stay in Tucumcari, New Mexico, then the following night to Williams, Arizona and a little detour to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, then to the division between the Mountain and Pacific Time Zones at the Hoover Dam, and finally arriving at night at the Stratosphere Hotel and Casino on the Las Vegas Strip.



Once my family has left Vegas, flying back to North Carolina, it is just me and my Mustang out here in the Mojave Desert. I have come out here with no job, and eventually wind up as a salesman at a car dealership.

One morning as I am headed to work, one of the sales managers pulls up alongside me in his truck as we head down Sahara Avenue.
“Drive that Mustang!” he shouts at me. “Drive it!”

The apartments where I live have a really high crime rate. The zip code, 89109, is #2 in the country for stolen cars, according to my insurance company.

“Yeah, you’re not a real resident here until you’ve had a car stolen from you,” my neighbor tells me. “I’ve lived here for eight years, and I’ve had two stolen from me.”

I go to an auto parts store and by “The Club” to put on my steering wheel each night.



Almost every morning when I exit my apartment to start the day, somebody’s car has been damaged- a mirror or window smashed, tires slashed. My Mustang is just about the nicest car in the complex. To my amazement, no one messes with my car for the entire time I live in the apartments.

Alexandria, Virginia. October, 2006.

My Mustang rides me to work each morning at the Post Office- a miserable, stressful drive. I come home from work exhausted.

The weather is starting to turn cold, now, and I wonder if I am going to be able to keep doing this as I climb out of the Mustang around 10pm at the end of another long day.

I click the lock button twice on my key fob, to set the car alarm. The Mustang’s horn honks twice.

I have never known it to do that before. Normally, the horn just blows once to let me know the alarm is set.

I press the key fob twice again, and the horn blows twice in quick succession again.

Huh. That is puzzling, I think to myself. But I go on inside to my apartment.

Early the next morning when I go out to the car, ready to drive to the Post Office again, I see that I left the passenger side door wide open from where got out the Styrofoam to go boxes of buffet food.

To my surprise, no one has messed with the inside of my car. Now I know why the horn was blowing twice- to signal that a door was open.

Fayetteville, North Carolina. Spring 2007.

While I wait to start a graduate program in history at Western Carolina University in the fall, I work again as a car salesman, this time Fayetteville. It is a Chevy Dealership, though we sell a lot of used Fords as well. It amuses me that in Vegas, many of the salesman were professional poker players. They sold cars during the day and played in poker tournaments at night in the casinos.

At this dealership, no one is a professional gambler, but some of the salesmen are also ordained ministers. One salesman carries two cell phones on his belt- a phone for his customers at the dealership, and the other for the members of his church.

Cullowhee, North Carolina. Fall 2008

I have always done better in school than in the work world, which is a bit frustrating. If academic success does not translate so easily to success in the real world, then what is the point of academics? But the lack of a correlation is not true for most people. I am going to see if I can mix the two worlds by making a career in academics.

Anyway, here at Western Carolina University, I am in the midst of the happiest year of my life, and I fully realize it.



I am actually getting dates, now. Girls are riding in the passenger seat of my Mustang on an almost regular basis, which was the main goal when I bought the car.

Tallahassee, Florida. 2009

“You have that nice Mustang, and you take the bus to school?” One of my friends asks me.

In my first year of law school, I use the Tallahassee transit system to get to and from the campus. During all three years in Tallahassee, my Mustang gets a bit of a break. I do not drive it that much. The main trip I make is to the grocery store with my classmate and neighbor from New Zealand, who does not have a car or a license at this point.

Kissimmee, Florida. Fall 2011.

I park my Mustang under an oak tree at my residence and walk to work. The tree dumps a lot of dirt and leaves on it in the coming weeks and months. Dirt gets into crevasses and linings in the car which are difficult if not impossible to clean. It is beginning to become an old car, I understand, now.

On a trip to visit my family in North Carolina, my brother washes the car and peels off the decals of the horses on the doors.

“It makes it look like less of a girl’s car,” he says.

Miami, Florida. Summer 2012.

I almost get into a major car accident coming out of Miami International Airport. There is a lot of construction there. It is nightfall and raining heavily, and I miss seeing a Yield sign posted amongst the orange and white barrels.

A taxi cab traveling at a high rate of speed taps the front of my car, as I pull out into his lane. But he keeps on going and I do not try to catch up to him and flag him down. At first chance, I get out of my car and survey the damage. We traded paint. Black and yellow is scuffed into my bumper, and it will not buff out.

This year in Miami, I really grind the Mustang, driving all over the city in stop and go traffic. The trunk, back seat and passenger seat are all stacked with boxes of books and other supplies for my job. It is not what the car was designed for, and I apologize to it and tell it what a great job it is doing on a daily basis.



Live Oak, Florida. 2013.

The driver side automatic window has stopped working. It costs approximately $500 to have a new window motor installed to have the problem fixed. A short time after I spend that money, the “Service Engine Soon” light comes on. I find out what the problem is. Though it is not an urgently needed repair, it will be another $500 to have this fixed. At times, now, the Mustang is also not driving as smoothly as it once did.

It is time to get a new car, I know, though I keep putting it off. I like the Mustang. It has been with me for ten years, ten turbulent years.

Lake City, Florida. April 26, 2014.

Today I must say goodbye to the Mustang.

When I bought it ten years ago, I thought that it would help me with women, help me get into adventures.

I have been on plenty of adventures with this car, though the passenger seat has remained empty for them.

I could buy another, brand new Mustang if I wanted to. But what is the point? It is sort of like buying a nice large house with lots of rooms, and then living in it by myself.

Instead, I buy a new Ford Focus. It has a moon roof and a trunk that will easily accommodate a bike rack, two things I want that the Mustang did not have. The gas mileage will also be much better. Perhaps I will have this Focus for the next ten years. I will get into adventures with this car, too, though I hope the next ten years are not as rocky as the previous ten.

Just as I am about to drive off the lot in my new car, I see my Mustang parked in a visitor space at the dealership, the license plate removed.

I get out of my car, go up to the Mustang, and put my hand on it. The emotion that springs up inside me is genuine.

“Excellent job, Mustang,” I say to it. “You are the best car I’ve ever had. You have served me well. If there is a heaven, I would like to see you there with me. I will miss you.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I see someone walking toward me. It is the salesman who did the deal. I assume he is coming to move the Mustang to the back of the dealership and out of the visitor space, but he abruptly turns around and walks back inside when he sees me.

I am a little embarrassed. It probably looks like I am praying over my old car.

I tell the Mustang that I hope its new owner will treat it well. Then I hop back in my Focus and give the Mustang one last look before I head out on the highway back to Live Oak.

A History of Dog Bites

Lumberton, North Carolina. Fall 1998.

I drive my Nissan truck up the driveway of a home in the countryside of Robeson County. I know the house belongs to my old school principal. He is probably at work, now.

A white German Shepherd sits on the front porch of the house, quietly watching me, its ears perked up and alert.

I have no fear of dogs. I like dogs better than I like people, for the most part, and I certainly understand dogs better than I understand people. So I get out of my truck with no hesitation, I can see that the German Shepherd does not know what to make of me, its “fight or flight” instincts teetering back and forth.

“It’s all right, buddy,” I say.

The principal’s wife opens the door and steps out of the house as I get out of the truck. I hold up my identification card.

“Hello ma’am,” I say. “I’m working for the Census Bureau. I just need to verify the address of the house here.”

She comes down off the steps, and the dog follows her. He sits by her side looking up at me. I make a clicking noise at him, and his ears flatten for a moment in response. I assume he is satisfied that I am not a threat, now, because he casually walks off behind me.

The principal’s wife tells me the address to the home. I ask her a few more questions off my clipboard.

Suddenly, I feel a pinch on my Achilles tendon.

I turn and look down. The white German Shepherd has sneaked up behind me, very low to the ground.

“You bit me!” I say to the dog in disbelief.

The dog slinks away.



I look at the woman, and I am sure that the expression on my face shows her that I want an explanation. She looks back at me, her own expression a combination of shock at what her dog has done and concern over what I am going to do.

I decide not to make a big deal of it. Later that day, I look at my heel. There is redness and a small bruise, but it does not appear that he broke the skin.

***

Rochester, New York. June 2004.

The company that I work for is behind on its security clearance investigations in Rochester. As I am one of the few investigators who is single and without kids, I volunteer for these month long “details” in other parts of the country.

Part of my job as investigator is to go out to the places where the subject lives or has lived and find neighbors who will talk to me about them.

I knock on the screen door of a middle class home in a neat little Rochester community. A cute girl walks up from inside the house. I show her my badge and explain who I am.

She smiles at me and pushes open the door, holding it open with her hand.

I hear a dog barking inside the house. Suddenly, it comes flying out from inside, launching into the air, and biting me square on the left quad muscle above the knee. He bounces of and lands on his feet on the concrete.

“Oh my gosh!” the girl exclaims.

I am too surprised to react much. The dog and I exchange looks with each other, me looking down at him, him looking up at me. Then the dog simply turns and casually walks off, as if to say, “That’s right, I did it.” He disappears back into the house.

I am more amused by the whole situation than anything else, and I have to crack a smile. The young girl is too cute and friendly for me to get irritated.

Still, when I get back to the Strathallen Hotel, I look at my leg and see a neat circle of teeth marks. He broke the skin in a couple of places. I call my boss about a worker’s comp claim.

“I doubt anything will happen,” I say, “but I want to put you on notice, just in case I start foaming at the mouth.”

***

Western Carolina University. Spring 2008.

“Your legs are so skinny. Is that why you never where shorts?” asks a girl whom I’ve taken out on a date a few times.

She has a talent for making these off-hand comments that cut me down. It is strange for her to say this in front of everyone. She has seen my legs before.

“Well, you should know that my legs are not my best feature,” I answer.

She blushes.

It is a beautiful day, sunny and warm. It is also one of the last events of the school year for the Graduate Student Association. I have made a number friends and had some of the best times of my life with the people in this group.

We have a cookout going in the picnic area at the lower end of campus.

I toss a Frisbee with my insult prone girl friend and a couple of other guys.

One of her tosses goes wide, up under the picnic pavilion. I sprint to catch it and stop short on the concrete.
A young dog, not much more than a puppy, is tied up on a leash to one of the picnic tables. I can tell immediately that I have frightened it, and I can see the fight instinct welling up in its face.

This dog is going to attack me, I think to myself. But I cannot back up fast enough out of the range of the leash length.

A split second later, it snarls and lunges at me. Just like the dog in Rochester, it bites me on the quad above my left knee. I step off the pavilion.

“Wow!” one of the guys exclaims. “Did he bite you?”

“Yeah, he sure did,” I respond.

A different girl, the one who owns the dog, comes running up, a shocked expression on her face from what her pet just did.

This bite has broken the skin as well, and I have to wash it out in the picnic area restrooms.

It does not ruin the day or my mood, however.

The day is one of the best of my life, actually, and I am aware of that fact at that time.

***

Miami, Florida. Early 2013.

I walk between the buildings of my apartment complex, on my way to the Dadeland Mall next door and the food court to buy some dinner.

A young woman has a miniature Doberman Pinscher out for a walk. It must be a female dog, as it is in a cute little pink harness. They both have their back to me, and it is getting dark quickly in these winter shortened days.

“Don’t let me scare you,” I say as I get close.

The girl turns and smiles at me.

The little dog, though, snaps around and snarls. It runs at me, pulling hard at the harness and the leash.

“Trixie!” the girl scolds.

Then the dog manages to wiggle and slip free of the harness.

Uh-oh.

“Trixie!” the girl gasps.

I could punt Trixie over a nearby fence if I wanted, but I decide not to. Instead, I attempt to hop over the dog as she rushes up to me, but it is no good.

Determined to get me, the dog keeps jumping until she bites me hard on the left thigh right below my buttocks. Then she runs over into the grass a few yards away and hunkers down.



“Trixie! Bad dog!” the girl says as she goes over to the MinPin.

Trixie cowers in front of her as she pops the dog on the behind. Then she picks up the dog. I see one of its eyes is blue with no pupil.

“Ah, it’s blind in one eye,” I say.

“Yeah…I am so sorry,” the girl says.

I reach out my hand part way as I consider trying to pet the dog, but then I think better of it.

The girl wants to get away, and I let her. She goes back to her ground level apartment, quickly shutting the door behind her.

I continue on to the mall and get a to-go plate. Once I get back to my apartment, I examine the injury. Yep, this one broke the skin in several places through my blue jeans. Over the next few days, a nasty bruise develops as well.

I tell my parents the story, and they keep telling me to go see a doctor. I never do, though, and it eventually heals up with no problems.

***

Live Oak, Florida. December 2013.

One of the best places to eat in town is the Brown Lantern Restaurant.

My coworkers and I arrive there for lunch, not long before the Christmas holiday. Lots of trucks are parked outside, far more trucks than cars.

In the back of a white truck is a black Labrador Retriever. I can tell when the five of us get out of the car that this is not a friendly dog. It wants to be left alone. This is rare. The breed is normally very friendly.

Nevertheless, one of my coworkers, an avid hunter, goes up to the animal.

“Hey, what nice looking dog you are,” he says.

He too, can sense the dog. “You’re not very sociable, are you?” he asks it.

He reaches out and lightly touches the dog on the back of the head. When that is okay, he begins petting the dog on the ears.
The Lab enjoys this immensely, closing it eyes and leaning into the man’s hand.

After a few moments, my coworker lets go and everyone continues walking toward the restaurant entrance.

Well, I want to pet the dog, too.

“Hey, buddy,” I say to it.

I stick my left hand into the bed of the truck for the dog to smell my scent. It does not sniff it, but stands with its head askance, which should have been another warning.

Keeping my hand low, I move to pet him in his side. Suddenly the dog snaps at my hand, putting a puncture wound in the top and an even larger puncture wound into my palm.

Two of my coworkers see this happen. One grimaces, the other bursts out laughing.

I have to laugh, too, at my own stupidity.

My hand is bleeding pretty well. The dog just stares at me, now, a determined “Take that” look on its face.



What else is there to do? We go inside and I wash my hand in the restroom sink. I can tell this is the worst dog bite that I have had. It is hard to get it to stop bleeding, and it hurts to move my fingers.

I go out and ask one of the waitresses if they have a bandage. She believes that they do.

I go and sit down with my coworkers, holding my hand in some napkins, trying not to ruin their appetite. My own appetite is gone.

One of the waitresses comes to our table with some band aids.

“I was told there is a guy in a suit who is bleeding,” she says.

“That’s me,” I say.

She gives me the band aids.

The Brown Lantern is my usual Friday night hangout, and I have settled into the bar numerous times since moving to Live Oak in June.

After the waitress leaves, I remark, “As many times as I’ve been here and as many conversations as I’ve had with these waitresses, I’m still just ‘a guy in a suit.’”

This draws a laugh from my coworkers.

“You know, dogs are supposed to be pretty good judges of character,” one of them says.

Back at the office after lunch, the secretaries hook me up with hydrogen peroxide and Neosporin.

The wounds heal with no problems and I can move my digits like normal, though the scars are still present as I type this blog entry.

Sky Toys and the Global Positioning System

Lumberton, North Carolina. 1986.

Today is a field trip for my third grade class to the Robeson County Planetarium.

The planetarium is one of the most fascinating buildings that I have ever been inside in my young life. As we sit in our theater styled chairs, the lights go out and the domed ceiling becomes the night sky. A narrator tells stories behind the history of the constellations. The Egyptian Pyramids, Greek and Roman gods appear overhead as we hear what the ancients thought about the heavens. I crane my neck, looking all around the ceiling and trying to take in everything that is going on. But it is too much.



When the program ends, the lights come back up and the man who runs the planetarium gives us a talk about Halley’s comet. It only comes by Earth once every 75 years, and this is the year. I really would like to see the comet. The lights dim slightly and he explains to us how to find it in the night sky, using a flashlight and pointing to certain grouping of stars that appear on the ceiling. He has lost me, though, and I feel the frustration welling in the back of my throat.

“So now, this may very well be a once in a lifetime chance for you to see the comet,” the man says. “Does everyone understand how to find it in the sky?”

All of my classmates shout, “Yeeeessss!”

I alone say, “Noooooo!”

“Does everyone promise me that they will go out on the first night it is clear and take a look at Halley’s comet?” the man asks.

“Yeeeesss!” the class responds.

“Nooooo!” I say at the same time.

The man either does not hear me or chooses to ignore my response.

In looking up at the night sky, I never do see what I know to be Halley’s comet. I later learn that 1986 was the worst viewing of the comet in thousands of years for people in the northern hemisphere, due to its positioning with the sun. It is difficult to spot with the naked eye in 1986. The next time it comes around, if I am still alive, will be in the year 2061, when I am 84 years old.

Western Carolina University. Spring Semester, 1996.

My favorite college course that I ever take at Western Carolina University is Astronomy 101. I enroll for honors credit, and I also take the night lab, which means it is a four credit course.

As part of the honors extra assignment, I have to write a research paper. The professor lets me compose a short story on an asteroid striking the earth. After I submit it, he tells me it is a “good read” and gives me an “A” for the course.

During the night lab, we set up enormous and expensive telescopes, and I see some pretty amazing stuff- the moon up close, Venus, the Orion star nebula, and the remnants of a supernova to name a few things. I also learn some constellations. As part of our assignments, we have to track the setting sun on the horizon each week throughout the semester. I go to a hill just above Graham Infirmary and watch some beautiful sunsets against the Great Smoky Mountains. My drawings of those mountains and where the sun disappears behind them each week is not the greatest work of art, however.

Unlike the fascination but then frustration that I felt at the planetarium, the class ignites a curiosity in me about the stars and the universe. If I could major in astronomy , I would. There is no such degree, however. What is more, after the basic 101 course, astronomy becomes the study of physics. The astronomy professor has a Ph.D. in physics, and his graduate student assistant, Ben, is a nice guy pursuing a degree in physics. I do not have the mind to comprehend the mathematical concepts of that subject.

Still, I always think back with fondness on that time in my life, the professor, the assistant, and a girl whom I knew in the class, Amy.

“Stop referring to what you are talking about as those three stars that form a triangle!” Ben tells Amy during the night lab. “Any three stars form a triangle!”

Amy and I laugh.

Wilmington, North Carolina. 2004.

I have just rented a place at Carolina Beach, one row back from the ocean. On the balcony outside, I can see many stars out over the water as I listen to the sound of the waves… I think I want to buy a telescope to get a better look at the celestial objects just outside my door.

After a trip to a hobby store and a $350 payment, I am the proud owner of an Orion refractor telescope with a German equatorial mount.

The scope is strong enough for me to see the color bands of Jupiter, along with four of that planet’s moons. I can also clearly see the rings of Saturn. The Orion nebula is a beautiful sight in my scope as well.



***

“Aaaahhhh!”

I hear the woman’s shriek and look up from my eyepiece. One of my neighbors in the beachfront condominium across the street sees me as she climbs the exterior stairs.

It takes me a moment to realize that she is shrieking at me. I am on the balcony in the complete darkness, and evidently, she believes that I am spying on her with my telescope.

I have been able to observe some ships out on the horizon with my instrument, but even if I wanted to be a “Peeping Tom,” her place is way too close for the telescope to be useful. From hers and other’s reactions, I learn that people are often leery of a single fellow, living alone, when they see that I own a telescope.

August 2005.

Some things have happened with my job that are beyond my control, and I have to move away from the beach. Unknown to me, I will not live in a place conducive to setting up a telescope for another eight years. I disassemble it, along with the equatorial mount, and pack it away at my parents’ house.

Tallahassee, Florida. November 2010.

I am winded and sweaty from having just run a 5k about as hard as I can go. One of my friends ran the race with me. She has recently become interested in the sport and trains for marathons. She crossed the finish line well ahead of me.

3.1 miles is not enough exercise for her, though, and she asks if I am interested in running longer.

“Sure,” I respond. She is cute and smarter than me, and I enjoy her company.

We proceed to run another five miles after the race is over and everyone has cleared out. Eight miles is the most that I have run since high school when I was on the cross country team, and I am pleased that I keep up with her pretty well.
During the run, she seems to know precisely how far we have gone and where to stop for the total of eight miles.

I ask her about that.

On her wrist, no larger than a watch, is a Global Positioning System device. Designed specifically for runners, I suppose, it lets her know exactly where she is on the planet and keeps track of the mileage she covers.



It is a rather amazing device. I have seen the Christmas television commercials for the “Garmin,” a GPS system for cars, and GPS navigators were built into some of the vehicles at the dealerships where I worked, but this is the first one I have come across for individuals to wear on their wrists.

She looks at me a little strangely. Perhaps the wristwatch GPS has been around for a while and I am behind the times.

Miami, Florida. June 2012.

I just bought a Garmin GPS to help me locate some apartment complexes in Miami, where I will move later this month to start a new job. My cell phone rings, and I see it is the lady I am replacing here in Miami calling me. I need to talk with her and set up place to meet. Sitting at a stop sign at a busy intersection is not where I should take her call, though. I glance behind me. There are no cars, so I will simply back off the road onto the grass. I answer the phone.

“Hey April, can you hold on a minute? I’m going to back off the road so we can talk.”

As I move the car in reverse, I hear an awful crunching sound. My Garmin guided me to this street, but it could not warn me about a low concrete pole protecting a fire hydrant.

Sure enough, I get out of my car to find the rear tail light is busted and the bumper is crushed inward. The pole was below my line of sight, which irritates me. I had no chance. It was just bad luck that I got the call right at that moment.

As much as I do not want to acknowledge it, this incident feels like an omen of what is to come in Miami.

The GPS will prove very valuable too me in navigating this city, though printed maps give me a better feel for exactly where I am and where other things are in relation to me.

Live Oak, Florida. Present Day.

The anxiety and stresses of my experience in Miami are behind me, now.

I rent a house with a fairly large backyard here in Suwannee County. For the first time in eight years, I can use my telescope again. Mom and Dad bring it from North Carolina, and to my pleasant surprise, no parts are missing when I assemble it.

The Orion nebula, along with the colorful bands of Jupiter, are back for me to view. I use a red lens flashlight to study my star charts in the backyard.

***

Browsing the internet, looking for some possible new eyepieces for the scope, I stumble across something called “The Celestron Personal Planetarium Sky Scout.” After watching a video on how the device works, I am sold. I order it immediately.

When it arrives a few days later, it is even better than what I hoped for. The Sky Scout uses a GPS system to identify my location on the globe. Once that is locked, I can point it at any object in the sky and it will tell me what I am looking at, often through audio narration. What is more, I can punch in the object that I want to observe, and arrows will light up on the device to guide me to where the object is in the sky.



It has made my backyard astronomy experience much more enjoyable. Often I do not use the telescope at all, as the Sky Scout can educate me about plenty of things in the night sky visible to the naked eye.

“Have the knowledge of a professional astronomer in the palm of your hand,” is one of the advertising slogans. It is true. The device brings back memories of some of the things that I learned in Astronomy 101.

I am a bit of a Luddite. I admit that. But I also have to acknowledge that GPS systems can be pretty cool. The Sky Scout in particular has given me access to a lot of information that I never would have been able to figure out on my own.

$15 Magic

Las Vegas. January 2006.

“Yes, Mr. Marshburn. I am calling you back in regard to your application for health insurance with our company.”

“Yes, sir?” I respond over my cell phone. I am standing in the break room of the car dealership.

“You listed that you presently take Accutane?”

“That is correct.”

“You also listed that you were diagnosed with colitis one year ago?”

“Yes, that is true.”

“Because of these medical issues, I am sorry, but you do not qualify to be insured by our company,” the man on the other end of the line says.

***

Eventually, after being turned down by a few other health insurance companies, I find one that will insure me for certain things, with a $5000 deductible. So, at least I do not have to worry about going bankrupt if I get into a car accident out here in Las Vegas. My job with the car dealership does not offer health insurance benefits.

***

Cullowhee, North Carolina. 2008.

While in graduate school, I write a blog entry encouraging our political leaders to reform health care. I write that the public will thank them for it and even build statues in their honor because of it.

***

Live Oak, Florida. Present Day.

The hunched over lady limps up to the receptionist window of the doctor’s office. I watch as she fumbles around in her pocket book. Her shoes are worn and dirty, her clothes simple. I was here in the waiting room when she was called back to see the doctor. Now, she has come out, and it is time to pay the bill.

“How much is it going to be?” she asks the receptionist.

“$175, Ms. Graham.”

The lady looks down.

The door between the waiting room and the treatment rooms opens. A nurse calls out, “Nathan!”

I stand up. The others, old and sickly for the most part, look at me, a healthy young man wearing a suit and tie.

I walk back, see the doctor, and within 15 minutes am again standing in front of the receptionist counter. She gives me back my Blue Cross/ Blue Shield health insurance card that I have by virtue of being a state employee.

“That will be $15,” she says.

***

Over the past couple of weeks, through conversations on Friday night at the Brown Lantern Bar, through lunch conversations at the Downtown Café or other restaurants in Live Oak, I have learned that I am perhaps the only person in Suwannee County who supports Obama care.

One of the attractive waitresses at the Brown Lantern asked me last week what everyone was arguing with me about. They had all ganged up on me.

“I’m defending Obama care,” I tell her.

A shocked look comes over her face. “Boo!” she says to me.

The restaurant most likely does not give her health insurance. She is married to a cop, though, so she would have benefits through his job.

Across the country, it seems that I have misjudged the way many Americans would react to health care reform. It is still early, though. Obama care has not had time to work, yet.

The most vociferous detractors of health care reform strike me to be people who have had government or company provided health insurance almost their entire lives. A lot of them are military veterans.

Perhaps I am wrong, but I think those that argue with me believe they deserve the benefit of health insurance because of the hard work they have done and the position they have achieved in life. Others in society who have not worked as hard do not deserve the same benefit.

If that is their position, then I come from a simply different moral philosophy. Health care should not be a reward for hard work. Everyone should have it, regardless of what has happened to them or where they are in life. Sure, those who disagree with Obama care have worked hard, but there is an element of luck involved in this, too. Not everyone can have a government job. Not everyone can make a career with a good company that provides benefits. There are winners and losers in life. But the losers should still have something as basic as affordable health care.

Almost everyone who has argued with me on Obama care also claims to be a Christian and attends church, so far as I know. I will admit that, despite the best efforts of my parents to raise me as a Southern Baptist, I do not consider myself a Christian and have not been to a church service since 1998. Still, this opposing stance (to me) does not seem to be in line with what Jesus would do. The disregard for their fellow humans appears to be a contradiction to his teachings.

“We can’t afford it bro!” One guy said to me at the bar. “We can’t afford to take care of everyone in society. If people think it is bad here, they should go to the Dominican Republic and see how people live there. My church did a mission trip there.”

“We have to try,” I answered him. “And if we can’t afford it, then we need to reprioritize our spending. The old health care system was broken. We have to try something different. Also, you shouldn’t hold up the Dominican Republic as a model. America should be the model for the rest of the world.”

Perhaps there is something genetic, or engrained in our DNA about this argument.

One of my friends from law school sends me a weekly write up that he does for his investment firm. He is a nice guy and has always been very successful. He played football for an ACC school and still stays in tremendous shape.

He posted an article on his social media page and called it “Spot Me Some Entitlements, Bro!” The article was a dagger of a piece, basically saying that men with more upper body strength tend to be conservative in their political thinking, while men with less upper body strength tend to be liberal and favoring wealth redistribution. The idea is that strong men do not need the help. Going back to prehistoric times, they can go out and hunt whatever they need. Weaker guys need more help from the community to provide for them and their families.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2325414/Men-physically-strong-likely-right-wing-political-views.html

Maybe he has a point, or maybe it is all nonsense. I do not know. I acknowledge that part of what shapes my thinking on this is from selfish personal experience- I have had some health issues, and it startled me when I could not get health insurance. All my savings could be wiped out in an instant through no fault of my own. Also, being successful is not so easy, at least for me. Keeping a job and building wealth has proven to be a continuing challenge.

I also acknowledge that I am no expert on how Obama care will work or how it is supposed to work. The old system was a wreck for many Americans, though, and we can do better. The reaction of many of my friends and colleagues to Obama care has surprised and puzzled me. But I find that the older I am getting, the less certain I am of many things.

The Gap

My favorite place on the planet is Cullowhee, North Carolina.

That small town is home to Western Carolina University, where I spent five of the most important years of my life. I attended WCU from August 1995 through May of 1998, or three academic years. Then I dropped out of college for a year, before returning in August of 1999 and earning my degree in May of 2000.

In August of 2007, I came back to WCU as a student in the Master of Arts History program. After assessing the job market for people with history degrees, however, I decided to leave after a year and enroll in law school. That appears to have been a wise decision, though I had a blast in Cullowhee.

Western Carolina University and the surrounding towns- Cullowhee, Sylva and Dillsboro have a wonderful, magical place in my mind. My undergraduate years at WCU were the most important in forming who I am as an adult. A decade after that, the lone year in graduate school is still the happiest year I have had in my life so far.

Even now as I type these words, though, I do not want to write about my experiences at Western. The memories are too intense, and I think that frankly I have suppressed most of them just so that I can focus on getting through my days in the present.

I would not do the memories or the magic justice, sitting here at a desk in Florida. If I ever get the chance to spend a significant amount of time in Cullowhee again, then I am sure the old emotions will come flooding back and I will want to record them.

But for now the memories are just too happy, too sad... too "raw" for me to put myself through such an exercise. I said August 2007 through the summer 2008 was the happiest span of my life. I lived life like I wish I had done as an undergraduate. So I do not want to try and revisit that extreme high. It would be too painful to come back down.

In turn, September 1997 through the spring 1998 in Cullowhee was the most painful year of my life. I grew my hair out, got an ear ring and tried to grow a beard. One of my best friends from WCU refers to it as the year that I decided to be a pirate. It was the year before I dropped out. I remember going to a hockey game in Fayetteville over the Christmas break in 1997 with my dad, brother, and my uncle. I overheard my uncle comment to dad about me, "He looks wiped out."

That was the year I lost faith in a god that loved us, and I truly began to understand what loneliness meant. I do not care to revisit my discovery of those dark places, either.

So there is a gap in this blog about my experiences- a very significant gap. The first blog I ever wrote was for the Graduate Student Association at WCU, when I was there in 2007 and 2008. That captures some of what the happiest year was like for me, but only a small portion.

I could spend an eternity exploring that time. The smell of the buildings at Western, the way the trees and plants looked in different seasons of the year, the heat of the summer and the cold of the winter there, the extreme beauty of how young we all were then, how I changed in that place, and so much more. And so much more. But there is no going back, unless a heaven exists. It makes my chest feel like it is going to explode as I type this draft on a Saturday evening.

I have to stop. There will just be a gap. It was a total of five years of my life. Five years now, in the present, will pass by very quickly, I believe, without nearly the significance. Those five years at Western, though, were the most important and most treasured years of my life. It is too hard to write about them.

Tennis

As a boy, I was not the greatest of athletes. I lettered for the cross country team in high school, but that was the height of my accomplishments in organized sports.

My two favorite sports have always been baseball and tennis. Dad taught me baseball as soon as I was old enough to swing a bat and throw a ball.

It was Mom, though, who taught the game of tennis to both my brother and me during the summer vacations in between school years.

My brother, Adam, learned the game fast, but it took me a while. When I first started playing, I literally could not keep the ball inside the court. Almost every time I swung, I launched the ball over the fence. Mom was very patient with me, though. We actually learned to play using her and Dad's old wooden rackets. Eventually, I was able to keep the ball inside the fence and inside the lines, but it was a couple of years before I began putting topspin into my swings.

Adam, after Mom bought us our own metal rackets, used Mom's wooden racket to hit rocks from our driveway out into the corn fields surrounding our house. He played whole imaginary baseball games hitting those rocks, the New York Mets versus the Baltimore Orioles in the World Series, sometimes. The rocks gradually busted the strings and chewed up the wood. He later said that he hated he messed up Mom's racket, as it really was a nice vintage wooden piece.

Adam and I played a lot against each other while growing up. He beat me most of the time, but my peak came when I was 19 years old. That was my freshman year of college, and I was in perhaps the best shape of my whole life. I took tennis as an elective course at Western Carolina University. The instructor was one of the football coaches, an old man.

He really did not teach us that much. I remember him telling jokes to the class like, "Do you know what the students cheer at Furman University games?...FU!"

Or "Do you know what the students cheer at Austin Peay University?... Let's go Peay!"

He gave us written instructions on how the game is played and how to keep score, but the only teaching of how to play was when he told us and demonstrated, "Remember, bend your knees when you swing, bend your knees."

For our final grade, he started a tournament pitting everyone in the class against each other. I easily won my first two matches. The coach stopped the tournament after that, as it was pretty clear that I was the best player in the class. I'm not sure that he liked me that much, as I think I acted pretty cocky on the court. He challenged me to game of ping pong, and it was closely contested. The old ball coach eventually won, though, and he seemed to take a good deal of satisfaction in that.

My freshman year, I met a guy named Thomas who was also a very good tennis player for someone who never played it in an organized setting. We spent many evenings competing against each other. It was about 50/50, who would win. My strength, he said, was that I could run everything down and get every shot back across the net.

Thomas was a nice guy. He and I were both from the eastern part of the state, and he gave me a ride home during the Christmas break of my freshman year- over six hours of driving. I was pretty naive during college, and it took me all year to realize that Thomas was gay. This sort of blew my mind, given my conservative Christian upbringing. I immediately cut off all contact with him. It is one of the regrets that I have from my life that I was such a homophobe in those years and that I cruelly abandoned a friend who had done nothing wrong.

My brother joined me at Western during my sophomore year, and we continued our matches against each other on the courts beside Reid Gym (courts that now no longer exist due to building expansion on campus). I remember that these courts played slower, and the ball bounced higher than on the courts beside the high school where Adam and I attended. The slower court helped my game against him, and I went on a long winning streak. Eventually, he stopped playing against me because I was trash talking too much.

One night we were playing against each other and got into a heated argument over whether a ball was in or out. Some guys playing on the court beside us stopped to watch in awkward silence.

Finally, I yelled at Adam, "I'm going to beat your butt! I'm going to beat your butt tonight!"

At that exact instant, the lights went out.

I think it was probably someone from campus security who was watching and was able to shut the lights down before things escalated even further. I never knew the lights to just suddenly cut off like that at any time before or after when I played tennis at night.

When Adam stopped playing against me, I would go to those same courts and hit a ball against a brick wall until I got blisters on my hand.

During my sophomore year, I took racquetball as an elective course. The course was fun and was taught by the quarterbacks coach of the football team. He would later become the head coach. He also started a tournament in the class matching the students against each other. I finished second.

Taking the course was a mistake, though, as it completely ruined my tennis swing. In racquetball, you break your wrist when you swing. In tennis, you should keep the wrist stiff.

Adam eventually started playing tennis with me again, but it was a pathetic show. I began launching the ball over the fence once more. It was like I had forgotten how to play, like I was picking up a racket for the first time. It was not enjoyable for either of us, and he could not understand what had happened to me.

In college, I had a pretty strong crush on a girl, and I remember her walking by the court one night and seeing me play. I hated that I looked so pitiful out there as she went by- if only she could have seen me before I took that darn racquetball course, maybe things would things would have turned out differently between us. But probably not. In my head, it was a very important thing at that time, though.

I never did get my swing back. Instead, I developed a method of basically just punching the ball flatly back across the net, without topspin, and using the other player's velocity. Adam said it was very frustrating to play against me and that he could not get better himself with me playing in that style. I never was able to get back to the level when I was 19 and playing almost every day against Thomas, taking full swings and hitting with topspin.

Now, in my 30s, I have not played in years.

On the professional level, tennis has arguably changed more than any other major sport in the past 30 years. This is due to the rapid increase in racquet technology, the change from wooden racquets to graphite composites to whatever material is used today.

It is really a power game, now. No one serves and volleys any more, and you do not see the strategy in building points like you used to. I quit keeping up with all the changes, but I remember when Goran Ivanisevic won Wimbledon in 2001, that was a turning point. Ivanisevic, 6'4", had a big serve, but that was about it. Since his win, tennis has increased the size of the ball by 6% and changed the type of grass grown at Wimbledon to try and slow the game down. The real solution is to just go back to wooden rackets, but that will probably never happen.

Now, the men's game is two guys standing at the baseline and just hitting the ball as hard as they can. The best players are over six feet tall, whereas before shorter guys had a chance. To me, the game is not that interesting to watch anymore.

Enough about how things used to be, though.

Tennis, like baseball, has given me a lot of joy. I can write more blog entries about individual matches that I watched or played. I can write about specific shots, even. Perhaps in the future I will do so.

The Happiest Year of My Life

My job has been especially exhausting in recent days. I also have to work quite a bit this weekend to get ready for a slate of activities in the upcoming week.

I really do not have the energy to write a new entry just now. In the future, I hope to write about my many great experiences when I was a student at Western Carolina University.

For today, though, I will just briefly note what has been the happiest year of my life so far.

It was the summer of 2007 through the summer of 2008. During this time, I returned to Western Carolina as a graduate student.

My friend, Melissa, who was also President of the Graduate Student Association at WCU, asked me to take over writing a blog for them. She is the one who first showed me to how to do that on the internet, and it has been an enjoyable exercise ever since.

Here is a link to the blog that I wrote during that year:

http://wcugradstudentblog.blogspot.com/

I hope next weekend to feel rested and relaxed enough to write something original.