Commencement

Tomorrow is commencement here at Alluvial Flood Plain University... I enjoy it a great deal... I get to see students make/take that next step in their lives... I tell them that tomorrow after you receive your diploma... and make that next step, you are now one of US... you are no longer a college student... and things will change so...

A really intriguing part is getting to meet the Moms of the students I've been teaching...  needless to say, some are really sexy... should I say that about student's Moms?

If you watch the NFL, you know that coaches get to review certain calls made on the field... all they have to do is throw the red flag...

I tell my students that I am wanting to invoke some kind of a "diploma review" process... that each professor in attendance should get a red flag... and if they hear a student's name called... that in their opinion, should not graduate, the prof gets to hurl the flag high into the air... 

So... they are calling the names of the recipients... "Joe Blow"... and about that time, a flag is hurled... and the provost has to say... "One moment, please... this diploma has been challenged..." so that student has to step aside until the grievance has been resolved... and then the provost gets to say something like, "upon further review, this diploma has been denied..." or... well, you get it...

My students tell me that I am a difficult professor... that I make unreasonable demands... and I reply with... no... the unreasonable part comes into play when you get a real job... and that I am trying to get you ready to deal with that environment...

A few years ago, I went to watch a high school football game... we have a team here in MS that is just too good... they are a machine... at half time, they were beating the hell out of this other team, so I decided to go get something to eat, and head back home.  

I got seated at the grill... placed my order... and was waiting... and I noticed a couple at a table on the other side looking my way... and smiling...  I didn't know them... and figured that they must have been looking at  someone else...

He gets up and walks over to my table and asks me... "Don't you teach at Alluvial Flood Plain University?"  I told him that I did... and he says, "I thought that was you!  You cussed me out in class one day!!"  And I thought... "Oh fuck... I'm about to get shot, beaten, something..."

Being a rather quick thinker, I tell this guy that I have no memory of that happening... (and I really didnt) and asked him to tell me about it...

He goes on to say, "you really didnt cuss me out... I was notorious for coming to class late... and this one day I was really late..."  He said that I asked him to stay after class was dismissed... and that I told him that by continually being late, I was being disrespectful to his classmates... being disrespectful to me (teach), but most of all, that he was being disrespectful to himself...

He said, "it took a while for that to sink in... but I finally got it!"  He told me that he was a banker in Memphis now, and that the Memphis Business Journal recently did an article on him... and they were wanting to know if he had a professor from college that made a difference in his life...

And he said he did... and he told them of the teacher in red shoes that told him that he needed to respect himself...  That made my evening... that plus not getting shot... or stabbed... or something like that...

Tomorrow will be a new beginning for those "kids"... but Life is full of new beginnings...  We just have to be alert enough to know when they present themselves to us... and for us to know when to take advantage of them...

"My Little Girl"

This is my daughter... this is my favorite photo of the two of us...  I love her to death...  She was such a fun little girl... she grew up... She continued to have fun... and her fun caused my hair to turn gray...

She moved to New Orleans the year after Katrina... and all I could think of was...   "Why?????"  But she loves it...

She got married a year ago this Hallowe'en, 2008... when she first told me she was getting married, she said she and Bert were going to get married on top of an Aztec pyramid... "Daddy... isn't that romantic?"   I asked her if she remembered what the Aztec used those pyramids for... then reminded her of human sacrifice... she just shrugged her shoulders... and I remembered the ol' "Dad Rule"... what I should have said was... "Of course, baby... I think that's a great idea...

Bert is a good guy, I think... when she brought him home for me to meet him, he looked more like someone I would have picked from a police lineup... he has a sleeve tattoo on his left arm of what appears to be from "Dante's Inferno"... the one on his right arm appears to be 'Pickett's Charge" at Gettysburg... but I could be wrong... I was prepared to say that the tattoos were romantic had I been asked...

The neat thing about Bert is that he seems to really love my daughter... and that's a good thing...

She nixed the idea of the Aztec pyramid wedding in favor of a Hallowe'en Night Costume Wedding... what fun!!    She is a different kid... as a little one, Hallowe'en was always her most favorite holiday... I remember the time she went 'Trick-Or-Treating' as an Egyptian princess named 'NoFairFartn'... or something like that... I do imagine I came up with that name... it sounds like something I would have done...  This is her most favorite Wedding Photo... like I said, she's different...

She wanted me to dress up in costume, but I told her that some day she might look at her wedding photos after I'm long gone... and I could imagine her saying...'well..I think this is my Dad...'  So I did my own thing, but I am easily identified in the Wedding photos...  I went as the "Bitchy Dad"... I imagine that I do that quite well...

She and Bert dressed as New Orleans murder victims... obviously that was a bit too realistic... but it was fun for them... and I'm sure they found it to be romantic...

I love my kids...

"Nighty-night, Little People..." Part II

So... 

My then-wife filed for divorce in July, '96...  "Irreconcilable Differences" ... Hell... aren't they always??

At some point, the divorce changed from "Irreconcilable Differences" to "Adultery"... another long story (Hell... aren't they always??)

It went from Bad to Mean...  I took a beating... all on technicality...

Anyway... After the judge made his ruling... he had to because since they wouldn't settle... or more correctly, I wouldn't settle, because I wouldn't have had anything on which to live... We actually went through a hearing...  and I thought... I can do what the judge has ordered... I can do all of this...

And my lawyer said... "Shoes... that's not all of it..." The rest of it had to do with the monies she had won from me being garnished from my salary... Now, in Mississippi, they don't do this until the reprobate has shown that he won't pay what's been ordered by the court... I took this as an extra knife in the back... with a little extra twisting going on...


I had been on paxil to help with the depression that had been mounting since the death of my Dad, the screwing over of the second litter by the sister, and other assorted shiznit...  but it wasn't enough...

"The Today Show" ran a segment on "Painless Suicide"... and they told the viewers what they needed to have... and how to take it... and all of that informative stuff...

And I was sitting there watching... and thinking... "That's it..."

Secretia had something on her blog about suicide... I think it's easier to think about... and to do... than many people will ever realize...

Everything was screwed in my Life... My Dad had died and I was in that mindset of being an orphan... my marriage had ended...  I had siblings with whom I would never talk to again...  Everything... EVERYTHING... was bad...

So... I bought the materials that the segment on TV told me I needed...  I went to my office out at the school, and packed my office up... boxed my text books... emptied my desk contents into some cardboard boxes... all they would have to do is just throw the boxes into the trash...

Then I went to my apartment... and did the same thing... boxed everything I had left up... I boxed things that I thought the  Shoe kids might want separately from the stuff that could be thrown away...

I just didn't think that anyone should have to clean up that much after me...  And it was about 2AM that morning... when I finished... and I remember sitting at my kitchen table... thinking... "Well... it's time..."

And all I can remember... was getting SO tired... SO sleepy... and I kept hearing this voice...  "tomorrow's going to be another day..." 

So I decided to go to bed.. I was so tired... and I would do it tomorrow... of course, that makes absolutely no sense... no sense... None at all!!!

But the next morning, when I woke up... and saw everything boxed... the reality of what I almost did hit me so hard... I called my counselor... and was able to get in to see her...

She wanted to know who all I had told about what I was planning to do... and I hadn't told anyone... no one... it was just something I decided to do... I didn't go out and tell a host of people about how I was going to kill myself...

She ran some statistics past me... about when people tell others about what their plans are... that they really don't intend to follow through... and how those who do follow through... it tends to be a surprise...

I guess the one thing that I carried away from it all... was the thoughts that was going through my head when I became so tired....  "tomorrow's going to be another day..."

I think my Dad was there...  I think my Dad kept me from making a very bad mistake...
 
The effect on my kids would have been horrific...
 
I can tell you... each and everyday... is a wonderful day...

Go, Kermit, GO!!!

 

I honestly don't have anything else to add...

Really... I don't...

"Guess What I Want For Christmas!?!?!?"

No...Not her... I want her now...

But instead...

Yep... I need another guitar like I need a hole in my head...

A Rickenbacker 12-string...

The guitar of choice of George Harrison... Tom Petty... Roger McGuinn

WTF?!?

Man... poor ol' Tiger Woods... 

Anyway... I was listening to the news... about the multitude of women who have supposedly banged his stripes off of him... and then you hear... that some of the women are coming out because they had promised Tiger that they would be hush-hush about what they were doing... but once they learned that they... a "cheater"... were being "cheated" ON... got pissed...

I know first hand that Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned... YIKES!!!!!

Sooo....  I get in my Sherman-and-Peabody "Way Back Machine"... and I travel back in time a few years ago... to this day where I received a phone call from my daughter, Girl Redshoes...

"Dad... Boy Redshoes and I need to come and talk to you about something..."

I told em "sure... come on over..."

So the lil Redshoes get to the house... and Girl Redshoes says... "Mom's seeing a married man..."... well... Mom and Dad are divorced at this point in Life... and I guess Mom can do what she wants to... of course, I still wonder from time to time about the 4+ years of sexless existence we had... but some married guy is putting it to her...  Go figure...

Anyway... Girl Redshoes says... "oh.. and get this... Mom is mad at him right now because he is also sharing it with yet another woman!!!"  

"YIKES!!!", says Dad...

So... I wonder... Where does the self righteousness of people... who are having sex with a married person... (i.e., cheating on that person's spouse) get angry because that person is cheating with yet ANOTHER person???  IS there a pecker.. er.. pecking order as to who gets first dibs???  Please understand that I am not bashing people who have affairs... but more of less the indignation that some experience when they discover that they are not alone...

Girl Redshoes has a good friend... a professional musician... who is married, but they do a lot of things together... go a lot of places together... and I believe that they are really good friends... I don't suspect anything is going on between them...

But Girl Redshoes told me a while back that her Mom sat her down and warned her that she shouldn't be having sex with a married man...  and GRS said that she asked her Mom if she wasn't being two-faced with that type of warning...???

Anyway.. I dunno...

"Nighty-Night, Little People..." Part I

That was the phrase that Dad would say to us (me and my two brothers) when he would put us to bed at night...

"nighty-night little people... nighty-night... tomorrow's going to be another day..."

I never knew the source of that, but I wonder if that wasn't something his Mom or Dad used when he and his sister were tucked into bed at night...  It was reassuring...

Dad was not an affectionate man...  I read on someone's blog about what the definition of a "man" was... and my thoughts were... if Dad was  what a man was supposed to be, then I didn't want to be one... I used the term, "guy" to describe myself for the longest...  I can only recall Dad telling me one time that he loved me... and that was during a health crisis he had years before... when it was thought he could die...

Anyway...

Dad had his stroke... and eventually worsened until Barry told me that Dad had minimal brain stem activity... that it was just a matter of time...  and that we should  consider going ahead and saying our "good-byes" to him...

Mom and Dad had six kids... they had three... took a break... and then had three more... I remember hearing Mom tell a friend one day that they had three for them to take care of... and then three more to take care of them... and that is really how it worked...

Of course, I tell my friends that Mom and Dad had two litters of kids... its always good for a laugh...  I am the middle child in the second litter...

We decided that we would meet at Dad's hospital room on the next day... at 10AM... and we would tell Dad "good-bye"...  We got there... and in a very awkward way was trying to decide how to start... what to do... Dad was in his bed... with his eyes closed...

And suddenly, Dad says...

"Nighty-night, little people...  nighty night... tomorrow's going to be another day..."
"Nighty-night, little people... nighty night... tomorrow's going to be another day..."
"Nighty-night, little people... "

And then he stopped... and I asked, "How many times did he say that?"  And a brother said... "Six times..."

There we were... trying to come up with a way to tell our Dad... who was dying... Good-bye... and Dad decides to tell US... who were being left behind... Good Bye...and he told each one of us...

There were eight days between the time Dad had his stroke... and when he died... but during those eight days, I forgave him for the perception that he had hurt my Mom...  I didn't know what kind of life he and Mom had...  but during those eight days, I forgave my Dad... and began to see him in a different light...