Finally, An Answer!

Listen my children and you shall hear. Not about the midnight ride of Paul Revere, but instead, the answer to an age old question that’s been weighing heavy on the hearts and minds of us all. That’s right ladies and gentlemen, right here in River City, you’ll finally learn which came first, the chicken or the egg. Scientist, Biologist, and Evolutionist have been debating this question for eons. Finally, the debate will be solved and they will have to find something else to argue about.

Okay…….............

Are you ready???????????

Here it comes!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And the answer is……………………


THE CHICKEN.


I guess, for the sake of science, I should explain the answer, (since Scientist very rarely take your word for anything). You’d think that all Scientist came from Missouri because they have to be shown. (Sorry Mrs. Isler, no insult intended)

The very first three words of the very first chapter of the very first book in the compilation of books that make up the handbook of life we call ‘The Bible’ are “In the beginning”. Let me break that down for you. In, means, well, in, except in this case where it means “at”. The, means something specific. Beginning, means a point in time that something starts or, before this point in time, there is nothing. Put together it translates “At this specific point in time when there is nothing”. Pretty self explanitory, right?

Continue reading the whole first chapter and you’ll read in verse 25 that on the sixth day “God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.” Now if you really closely read all of the words between “In the beginning” (which I broke down for you) and verse 25 like I told you to do, you would realize that you didn’t read anything at all about an egg.

He does say in verse 28 for them to be fruitful and multiply so He instills the instinct in the hen to know what to do with the ability He gave her to lay eggs to accomplish this. Therefore, the scientist in us all must deduce that the chicken did indeed come first, at which point the hen started laying eggs to procreate, according to The Word of God.

Now, when you put it like that, who in their right mind can argue?

Next question please.

I Can't Mama, I'm A Linebacker!!!

This is Noah's first year playing flag football. He's playing Dist 5 ball instead of Upward. This league is sponsored through the school district and they start the kids out running similar plays to the high school program. This way, if a kid plays his entire elementary school years in the program, he should be able to slide right into middle school and high school football with few problems. That's probably one reason our high school team is nationally ranked now.

I have no problem with Upward Sports because the kids do get Christian teachings and devotions at the practices and games and I think that's wonderful. This is the only Gospel that some of these kids ever hear and that's great. However, I do have a hard time with the "everybody's a winner" philosophy. I understand that it builds self esteem but at the same time I wonder if it does more harm than good when it comes to 'real life' lessons. When a child gets out in the real world and finds out that there really are winners and losers and that you can't be the winner all the time, can that realization push them into depression? It can be a real shocker to find out life's not always fair.

Anyways, back to my topic. I never thought Noah would do very well on the gridiron because he's small for his age but boy was I wrong. He's really a go getter. He's playing on the defensive side of the ball and dead after the guy with the ball to grab his flag. There's some pretty big kids out there and he gets knocked down occasionally but instead of crying, like I expected, and running to his mama, he jumps up and is right back in there. Most of the time instead of getting knocked down, he zips right past the big guys because he's so small. It's fun to watch him in action.

I stand on the sidelines coaching him along, even though I'm not his coach. I'll bark an order out to him and he just looks at me like I'm stupid. The other kid's parents just kind of look at the old man and laugh. Sometimes he gets to go in on offense and he plays on the O line. Now you'd think that a kid his size wouldn't stand a chance in front of some of those big kids but he stands his ground pretty good. He got a flag thrown on him for holding one time because the kid was getting by him so he grabbed his shirt and threw him down on the ground. Never would have thunk it.

In last night's game, he wasn't hustling like he has in the past. I think the coach had had a talk with the team about blitzing because in this age group it's against the rules. When he came over to the sidelines after the game and Jessi and I were prodding him about why he wasn't going in after the flag he gave us that "DUH" look and said " I can't Mama, I'm a linebacker". Kids, what can you do with 'em?

Hey, It's Good To Be Back Home Again

Going home in my mind, sitting in the kitchen of a house located at #16 North Main Street in a small village called Startex. I look around and I see several things that people in this day and time won’t see in their kitchens. First of all, I’m sitting in a booth, long before Hardee’s or McDonald’s thought about having them. I’m not sure if Daddy built it or it was already in the house when he bought it back before I was born. I don’t recall any of my friend’s houses having a booth but we had one. That made me feel special, don’t know why, but it did.

Over there on the door frame to the right, hanging on a nail is a flyswatter or two. A very handy tool in those days before air conditioning. Not the plastic kind you see today, these were made of what looked like screen wire like you saw on porches and windows of the people’s houses that were fortunate enough to have them.

Moving on around, on the other side of the door is our stove. I don’t remember much about the first stove we had but I remember in the mid sixties Daddy got a bonus from work. He spent most all of it on Mama. He bought a new stove for her kitchen. This one came from the Duke Power store up in Lyman instead of the Company Store across the street, like most everything else in our house did. It was wider than the one we had because it had two doors on the front. One door was smaller than the oven door and it was for storing pots and pans. It still had the drawer on the bottom for large baking pans. The new stove was a dark brown color called Coppertone. I can remember Mama was real proud of her new stove. He also bought Mama a car with that bonus but that’s another story for another time.

Down on the right, past that stove and the indoor water heater, was what Mama and Daddy used to call the laundry heater. Can't figure out why because our laundry room, if you could call it that, (all we had was a washing machine), was out on the back porch. Anyway, this heater was in our kitchen. It was black and had the name “Siegler” written in red on the front of it. It stood there in the middle of the floor with a stovepipe coming out of the back of it going up the wall and into a chimney up next to the ceiling. It was a lot like the one we had in the den except it was a lot older and didn’t have a blower on it. It burned #1 fuel oil and really put out some good heat in the wintertime. I can still see the cast iron kettle with the wooden handle that always sat right up on top of it with water in it to keep some humidity in the air. I remember on cold mornings standing in front of it rubbing my hands together to get warm when Mama would call us down for breakfast.

There were two drawers behind the old heater that you really couldn’t open all the way because the heater was in the way. The one in the corner was the most inaccessible and was our junk drawer where we kept miscellaneous stuff like hammers and screwdrivers etc. I still have a junk drawer in my kitchen today. The other was where we kept cooking utensils like big spoons for stirring and spatulas for turning hamburgers and eggs and such and large knives for cutting vegetables. The upper and lower cabinets there beside the heater were also where we kept junk stuff that you didn’t use often because they weren’t very accessible either, because of the heater.

There on the right side of the sink, hanging on a nail on the side of the upper cabinet, was the “dipper”. I’m quite sure you won’t see one of these in a kitchen these days. Heck, I bet a lot of young people probably don’t even know what I’m talking about. This was a big ladle that was used back in the day when people were working in the fields and someone would come by with a bucket of water and a big dipper. Each person would take the dipper, dip it in the bucket and drink a dipper full of water to quench their thirst. Everybody drank from the same dipper dipped in the same bucket. For a family of six, to keep from dirtying up so many glasses every time one of us wanted a drink of water, we kept the dipper right there beside the sink and all of us would use it, even our friends too when we had them over.

Coming on around on the left side, I can still see the painted cabinets, upper and lower, and remember what was in each one. In the last one beside the Hotpoint refrigerator was where we kept food stuff like cereal and canned goods. Opening the cabinet, I can see a small glass cup with a handle like a coffee cup. I can’t remember if it was clear or had some color but I can see flowers or vines kind of like Depression glass. In it is a small spoon with a brown plastic handle stuck down in a mixture of cinnamon and sugar. There beside that is a glass butter dish with a stick of butter on it. We kept one stick out of the refrigerator, at room temperature, so it would be soft for spreading on toast or biscuits. When we used that stick up we’d replace it with a cold one.

Last, but not least, on the left side beside the door was the Hotpoint refrigerator. It’s the only refrigerator I remember being in the house up until my sister bought a new one after I had moved out in 1971. It was the kind with one big door from top to bottom and a little freezer door inside. I can remember on a Saturday, about once a month, Mama taking all of the food out of the top and bottom of the refrigerator, wrapping it in a quilt on the table, and defrosting the refrigerator. She would turn it off and put a dishpan full of steaming hot water in the bottom to melt the ice that had built up. She would have towels all over the floor to soak up the melted ice. Once it was defrosted she would mix up some type of cleaning liquid in a bucket and wash down the inside real good before she filled it back up with the food.

Mama died a little over 40 years ago when I was 13. She wasn’t one who liked to have her picture made very much. I only have two or three of her. As more time passes it gets harder and harder for me to remember her. But, when I sit down like this, close my eyes and let my mind go back home, I can see her standing there in that kitchen as plain as day, stirring something on the stove, humming ‘Jesus, Savior, Pilot Me’

As John Denver said in his song, “Hey, it’s good to be back home again.”

Yes, I Guess It Was!

As it turns out, I had some more pains and had to call to schedule the heart cath instead of the stress test. I had that done on September 30th. The news wasn't the best news that I could have received but at the same time it could have been a lot worse. When I called to schedule it they didn't have any available appointments until the 30th so I had about three weeks to think about it. It would have been a lot easier if they could have done it the next day so I didn't have that thinking time.

People, for the most part, mean well. There were several that tried to calm my nerves by telling stories of their experiences with the procedure. One said he had had it done 5 times and it was a walk in the park. Several had had it done once and said there was nothing to it. The best advise I got was from a friend, Dr. Marvin Woodson, who said he had been through the procedure 3 times. His take on the situation made the most sense to me. He says when it's someone else that's having it done, it's routine, but when it's you, it's serious. No matter how many times you've had it done.

I was told to report to the Heart Center at SRHS at 10 am. I was sent directly to the second floor and taken straight back to be prep'ed for the procedure. I was given a gown that opens in the back and told to strip everything off and put it on but not to tie it and to also not lay on it. Basically it was cover with armholes. Now, let me interject here that if you have the least bit of modesty in you, you will lose it at this point in the process. In comes 2 or 3 cute, young nurses messing with and shaving parts of me that no one else except my wife, and my Mama when I was a baby, had ever messed with. I instructed them to be careful and to pay attention to where they were shaving. Then they attached wires all over my body, inserted 2 IV's, one in each hand, wrapped a blood pressure cuff on my arm, and put a thing on my finger that measures blood oxygen levels.

Once all of that was done they let the family come back and wait with me until it was my turn. More thinking time was all I needed. The nurse that was assigned to me came in and said that there was one person ahead of me but I was next and it shouldn't be more than 30 to 45 minutes. One and a half hours later they came to get me. A nurse pushed me through a maze of hallways till we went through a set of double doors into what looked like an operating room. They called it a Cath Lab. I don't know the difference. In this room there was a whole different set of nurses, one of which proceeded to take my gown. Now, here I lay, nekkid as a jaybird, in front of God and a room full of women nurses and I'm thinking, just go ahead and knock me out already. Eventually they did, well, not all the way but enough that I didn't care if I was nekkid in front of a bunch of women nurses.

When I awoke enough to realize where I was, I looked up and there was a young blond mashing on my leg real close to where she ought not to be mashing. It was hurting real bad and when I raised my head to see what she was doing she raised her voice and told me to lay flat. I told her she was hurting and she said she had to do that for 15 minutes to keep me from bleeding to death. I told her to keep it up as long as she wanted to. After she finished they layed my gown back on me and pushed me back through the maze to the room I had left earlier. I guess while they were doing all of that, the doctor was out in the waiting room talking to the family because when they let them come back they told me what he had said.

I have had a heart attack sometime in the past. Could have been two months ago or it could have been two years ago. There's really no way to tell. But it was definitely an attack because there is tissue damage on the bottom right side of my heart. That's the sort of news you expect to hear about someone else, not yourself. Believe me, it's sobering to hear that news and know they're talking about you. The arteries leading to my heart are loaded with plaque. The one on the right side has several plaque deposits totaling a 95% blockage. However, no corrective action was required because it had already rerouted itself. In other words, God did a heart bypass on that one. The artery on the left also has several plaque deposits totaling a 50% blockage. He has decided to treat it with medication. The bottom line, as he put it to me, is that if I want to live I will have to start an exercise regimen, lose weight, stop smoking and take the meds. So, even though my bags are packed should God call me home, I'm hoping that He'll let me hang around a little longer to watch the grandkids grow up.

Was that a chest pain or not?

Before the rumor gets around from mis-interpretation of comments being made on FaceBook that I've got one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel let me expand on the title a little bit. Yes, I went to a Cardiologist yesterday because of some chest discomfort ( it wasn't really bad enough to call it chest pain). I have been experiencing this the last few weeks. The events leading up to the visit started a couple of weeks ago on a Saturday when I was outside in the 95+ degree heat building a workbench that I had been wanting to build for quite some time. Those who know me know that when I build something I tend to overbuild. Just ask Ron T. about the drum major stand we built for the Rebel Regiment in the late 70's. It could have been used in the circus for the elephants to stand on and do tricks. Anyway, as I was building this well built workbench I experienced the discomfort I spoke of earlier. Even though I had been experiencing some discomfort for several weeks prior to this, it was a little more intense this time, something I contributed to the extreme heat I was working in. Even though it was more intense I still wouldn't classify it in the pain category. When it would kick in I would just sit down in a folding chair I had close by, drink a little ice water, and it would go away in a couple of minutes and I would continue my work. This continued until I finished the workbench, which turned out real nice, and did I mention, well built.

During the couple of weeks since there have been other episodes of discomfort when I would be doing anything slightly physical though not of the same intensity. The mistake I made on that Saturday (which probably turned out not being a mistake) was to mention to Mel that I had experienced the discomfort. Given her experience with an emergency heart cath and the insertion of 2 stents a couple of years ago the conversation for the last two weeks has gone something like this:

Mel: How are you feeling?
Me: Fine.
Mel: Having any pain?
Me: Maybe a little discomfort, not pain.
Mel: Want to go to the Emergency Room?
Me: No.
Mel: Why not?
Me: Just cause.

Fifteen minutes passes then:

Mel: Feeling okay?
Me: Yep.
Mel: Are you sure?
Me: Yep.
Mel: Having any pain?
Me: No more than the last time you asked.
Mel: Want to go to the Emergency Room?
Me: NO!
Mel: Are you sure?
Me: YES!!!

This has continued for the last two weeks even after I received a call from her last Tuesday to say that she had made an appointment with our family doctor. This angered me a little and she said that I could call and cancel it if I wanted to. I told her that since she made it she could cancel it. Those who know me also know that I absolutely hate to waste money on doctor visits for no reason. The only thing our family doctor could have done was to refer me to a cardiologist and charge me $100 to do so. Those who know her know that she doesn't give up that easy so I told her if she felt she had to make a doctor's appointment to make it with her cardiologist and skip the family doctor, which she did. I figured that since those guys are real busy it'd be six or seven months before the first available appointment and that would be the end of that. That brings us to the visit to the doctor yesterday. Lesson learned: Don't mess with a determined woman!

First thing I had to do was to fill out the usual one hundred forms that all "new" patients have to fill out. You know the type, What was your grandmothers maiden name, was she blond, brunette, or redheaded, did she graduate or was she a dropout, have you ever had....... (a list of deseases that you pray to God you never get) etc, etc, etc, etc. Then I was called back and had to stop to step up on the scales on the way to the exam room. The scales kind of grunted and in the display window it said "One at a time, please". After a few minutes a nurse came in and said to lie down on the table and lift my shirt. She proceeded to stick these little pads all over my chest. I said, "You know that's gonna hurt when you pull those off, right?" she replied, "Yep." and kept sticking until she had about fifty of them stuck on me. Then this other lady came in with a laptop computer with a bunch of wires coming out of it. She started hooking these wires to the pads on me. I looked like the Six Million Dollar Man in for a tune up. She pressed a few buttons on the computer and then unhooked me at which point the first nurse started ripping the pads off, hair and all.

They left and said the doctor would be in soon. We had several minutes to just sit there and contemplate what had happened so far and get more nervous about what was coming next. The doctor finally came in and had me get back on the table and take my shirt off. Out comes the ice cold stethoscope which he put in fifty or sixty different places, including my legs, and saying, "Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out, etc, etc, etc, etc". Then came the mashing and poking and tapping here and there and everwhere. Then he said to put my shirt on and have a seat in the chair and he'd be back in a minute.

After a few more minutes of contemplation and wondering how bad it was he came back in. He sat down on the exam table and said, "I'm pretty confident you've had an incident. Don't know when or how much, if any, tissue dammage has occured but I'm sure you've had an incident." He never mentioned the words "HEART ATTACK" even though we assumed that's what he meant, but I'm not a doctor so who knows. He wrote two prescriptions, one for nitro tablets to keep with me at all times and one for a med that he said would keep my heart happy (his exact words) even though the blood flow may possibly be less than normal. He said to take it easy for the first week until the meds had time to get into my system and after that to gradually increase my physical activity, as long as there was no pain, until I reached normal levels of activity. If I experience any pain I am to call his assistant to schedule a heart cath immediately, otherwise come back in a month to do a nuclear stress test and we'd go from there.

To sum up let me say that this is the same doctor that did Mel's emergency heart cath and saved her life because her heart stopped during the procedure and she had to be shocked back. The only stipulation that I gave her in making the appointment was that it had to be her doctor and no other in the group because I have total confidence and trust in him. I think God made sure he was on call that day she had her procedure and I want him to do what ever has to be done for me. His bedside manner is like doctors of long ago. He treats you like you're his only patient and will stay and talk as long as you have questions. I've never, in all of our dealings with him, seen him check his watch like he had to be somewhere else.

Bottom line is that I feel fine and don't think Jesus is calling me home right away, despite the tone of the comments on FaceBook. However, if he does call me, just know that I'm packed and ready to go. Are you?

Another Mill Hill Story

I've reminisced on several occasions about life on a "Mill Hill" and, for the most part, with favorable remarks. In the beginning the company owned the houses and to live in one of their houses you had to work at the mill. My recollections of life on the mill hill was after the company had sold the houses to the employees. Therefore, I didn't have to worry about our family being kicked out of our house (not that I was old enough to have ANY worries) nor do I remember any of my friends being kicked out of theirs. I'm not sure how it was decided who bought each house but I think that the family that lived in the house had first choice to purchase it. If they declined then I would assume it went out to the bid process and seniority within the company probably played a role in who was awarded the house. I do know that my brother and sisters were born before the houses were sold and lived in at least one other house besides the one we lived in when I came along.

Now, to be fair, let me relate a not so favorable story about mill hill living that happened in another mill village to a member of my family. My mother's family lived in Lyman which was newer than Tucapau (Startex) by 25 or 30 years. It was set up the same in that the mill owned the houses, and everything else in the community. The houses were rented to employees and the rent was taken out of their pay as was the case in Tucapau (Startex). So, my mama and her siblings grew up in the mill hill way of life as did my daddy, only a different mill hill. I'm not sure what year the houses were sold in Lyman but I know it was after 1949, which brings me to my story.

Pacific Mills in Lyman was opened somewhere around 1923 or 1924 and my Grandaddy Gresham was hired to help start up production at the mill. Up until then, I've been told, he worked in a textile mill in the Piedmont area between Greenville and Anderson. My Uncle Larry was the baby of five children and, since I'm not sure of his birth year, was either a very small baby or born right after their move to Lyman. So, when they moved to Lyman they had five kids or did soon after the move. Since the mill village was brand new I'm sure the move was made for better living conditions and better wages. I don't know if they lived in more than one house during their time in Lyman but I do know that the last house they lived in was on Ridge Road, which is the street where the department supervisors lived.

Grandaddy worked in the mill for some twenty five years. All of his children had grown, married and moved out of the home place on Ridge Road by the begining of WWII. My grandmother, we called her Bama, like most women of that era, was a housewife that had never worked outside of the home. With five small children and no day care centers in those days what else could women do? In 1949, both of my grandfathers died within two weeks of each other. Since Bama didn't work for Pacific Mills the company evicted her from the house she had lived in, and reared her family in, for twenty five +/- years. She had no where to go or no means of income to provide a roof over her head or to put food on the table. She lived with her children who supported her. I don't know which ones she stayed with or how long she stayed with each. I do know that she lived with us for a while and my brother and sister have vivid memories of her during this time period. She died in 1957 when I was might near (that's mill hill for "close to") two years old. I have no recollection of her, which is sad, because from the stories that I've heard, she was a pistol and very fun to be around. All of the Greshams must have taken after her because that's how I remember my mother, her sister and all of her brothers. Fun people. This is one case where the company took care of their employees but didn't have much compassion for the families of the people who gave many years of service to it or, in some cases, died for it.

On a good note, Uncle TB, Mama's oldest brother, was able to purchase the home place on Ridge Road in the mid sixties when it came on the market from the original owner who purchased it from the company. It was nice to have the family Christmas get togethers every year in the house where my Mama and her brothers and sister grew up. My Aunt Plennie still lives there today.

As I mentioned above, both of my grandfathers died in 1949. Since my other grandmother, Mama West, was the Post Mistress at the Startex Post Office and it was, at that time, owned by the company, she was considered an employee and was allowed to stay in her house. At least that's the way I figure it worked out. I don't know for sure since I was still six years away from breathing at the time.

This is just a little bit more trivia from the WestHouse. Thanks for listening to me ramble.

Bring Back The Simple Life!

What ever happened to porch sittin in the South? Not to be confused with pole sittin which is something totally different that used to happen in the South and we won't get into in this post. When I was a kid porch sittin was the thing to do on the mill hill. Maybe because there was no air conditioning, video games, cable or satellite television (we did have three channels that you had to get up to change), malls, or fast food burger joints on every corner. Sometimes, on rare occasions, your parents treated you to a McDonalds or Hardee's hamburger but you had to go all the way to Spartanburg to get it. Highway 290 was loaded with peach orchards from Byrnes High School all the way to Highway 221 in Moore, fifteen miles away. Now from Byrnes to Reidville Road (about six miles) is restaurant row, along with a high class golf course, and from Reidville Road to Highway 221 there are about a hundred housing developments.

Back to my original thought. I can remember when I was a kid, my brother's and sister's friends coming over and all of them would be sitting on the porch with Mama while I was out in the front yard playing in the dirt with my matchbox cars. Daddy wasn't much on hanging out on the porch with the teenagers. He would usually go up to Joe Barkers service station after supper and hang out with the guys until it closed. He did build us a hockey game, much like the air hockey games you see now days, only without the air. It was made out of wood including wooden sticks and a wooden puck. He had several coats of polyurethane and then several coats of paste wax so the puck would really fly when you hit it. That game was the hit of the town and we had tournaments and everything. Even Paul Styles, a deaf mute that everyone in town looked after, would play the game and get really upset when he'd lose a game. My sister still has that game in her basement but everybody is always too busy to play it. Besides, it's not fun to the younger generation who have the X-Box or PS3 or both.

Most evenings we would play out under the street light while the adults would sit on the porch. Games like "Mother May I", "Red Light" "Simon Says" and a lot of others. In the afternoons we would play paper ball. That's where you use a rolled up newspaper as the ball and your hand as the bat. When you hit the "ball" who ever caught it or picked it up could throw it at you and if they hit you it was an out. The adults on the porch would have to settle arguments when they arose, and they always did, Kids today would go crazy if that's all they had to do for fun.

We are sometimes just as guilty as most others by taking the easy way out and running to Wendy's, McDonalds, KFC, Cracker Barrel, or one of a plethora of other places close to home instead of going to the kitchen and cooking something for supper. And then run to Target, Walmart, or the Westgate Mall to buy something we could probably do without. But, it's much nicer to just eat supper at home and retire to the porch with a cool glass of sweet tea or Pepsi and watch the birds on the bird feeder and wave to the people driving by.

We spend a lot of time on our porch but if you ride through the town you'll see we are the among the minority. People just don't have time, or maybe just don't take time, to just sit in the porch rocker or porch swing and enjoy the simple life anymore.