It's Like Driving A Car At Night

Scouring the waiting room for a place to sit, it occurred to me that none of the men I started with were here anymore. After registering, I found a seat with a view that where I could see the service desk, people’s comings and goings, and the room where I was to have blood drawn. I used to come at 9AM and would be here until 2-3PM. It doesn’t take nearly as long as it used to, so it seems. Now I am finished by 11AM. I considered whether they had become that more efficient or have I just become institutionalized to their procedures.


In the exam room, I said to my nurse, “I don’t see any of the guys that were here when I started treatment.” She replied, “Some of them are in different treatment programs and some just aren’t here anymore.” That was the question I asked and the answer she gave but what I was really asking her was, “Are the guys I started with all dead?” If there is one thing that I’ve learned in treatment it’s not to compare my situation to the situation of others. Another person with the same diagnosis may have an entirely different treatment plan. But sometimes, like today, I couldn’t help asking the question.

Me and hospital waiting rooms have never been friends. Once I was left in one of the rooms for over an hour. So I came out and looked around and no one was there. In the midst of an emergency they forgot I was there and everyone went home. I don’t like the chemotherapy waiting area. It’s a heavy duty place. It was always over-crowded. The patients look sad. It feels hopeless and looks of death. They are always thirty to forty-five minutes behind. On one appointment after I had waited for more than forty minutes I said to the receptionist, “My appointment was at 10:30, it’s now 11:15. Do we need to reschedule?” The look the she gave me could have conquered Rome. It depresses me just to walk through to the appointment desk. Most of the time I wait in the area by the elevator. But today the waiting area wasn’t crowded and didn’t look so gloomy. So I took a seat to wait my turn. A man, who had just finished his treatment, asked me if the miniature poppy seed cupcake I was eating was any good. I said, “Yes it is, but there was only two left.” He said, “They used to have the best peanut butter cookies when I first started coming here for treatment.” I said, “I haven’t ever seen peanut butter cookies.” “How long have you been coming here?” I asked, “Seventeen years”, he replied. “That is a long time. I thought my coming for seven years was a long time, but not anymore”, I said. While I was fretful about whether all the men I started with had died, this man of eighty years has been in treatment ten years longer than me and wasn’t complaining. He had a great positive attitude. Just as soon as I start to feel sorry for myself life has a way of saying back to me, “Oh shut your mouth. Life for you isn’t that bad.”

When my nurse came for me I think she was surprised to find me sitting in the waiting area. She is use to finding me by the elevator. I got my hormone injection and was on my way; done for three more months. On my way out of the hospital I noticed a little boy sitting with his mother by the elevator. He looked like any other little boy sitting with his mother except he didn’t have much hair on his head. At first I thought he may be a chemotherapy patient. But he wasn’t bald. He had patches of hair here and there. I hadn’t planned to stop and talk to this little boy, but I couldn’t help it and I stopped to meddle this kid. So I stuck my nose. “What’s in the bag you are eating?” I asked. “Cheetos”, he said. “Are they any good” I asked. He replied “they are very good.” It was more than the fact that he was enjoying his bag of Cheetos. He had a look on his face that said, “Right now I don’t care about why I am here or my circumstances g, I have my bag of Cheetos and that’s what matters right now.”

Two women stopped to join my conversation to him. One of the women asked, “What are you here for?” The boy’s mother jumped in said, “He got burned in a January house fire.” I think the mother jumped in because she wanted to spare her son the pain of saying what happened. The woman said that she was burned in a fire house fire in Argyle. She said that she was burned on eighty percent of her body. The mom said that her son had gotten burns on thirty-eight percent of his body. I told the mother that he was in great spirits and looked remarkably well considering the tragedy happened just two months ago. I said goodbye and told the little boy I would be thinking about him.

Waiting for my car I couldn’t help but think that most adults I know would have been completely discombobulated after such a horrific tragedy. This little guy didn’t need much to make him happy. All he needed was a bag of Cheetos and his mom sitting next to him. If we allow ourselves to be driven by set-backs we fail to enjoy the things that really make us happy.

Seven years ago my urologist told me that I had BPH or an enlarged prostate. My PSA had climbed from 2.0 to 5.0 which prompted him to do a biopsy. I said to myself, it’s going to be okay while all the time I didn’t know who I was trying to convince. For the most part I was doing okay with the thought of having prostate cancer. I said it was, “An inconvenience.” I was concerned but not alarmed. However, in reality I was in serious anguish. I was thinking, “What’s going to happen to me?” “Will I see my kids get married?” “Will I see my grandchildren grow up?” “How will this affect my quality of life?” “How long do I have to live?” It was difficult to stay upbeat and positive. Over the years I developed strategies to keep hope alive and stay positive. I had two choices, die with cancer wallowing in my little mud puddle or live each day in harmony with my cancer. At some point and I don’t remember when but I decided that I didn’t want to die with cancer. I wanted to live with cancer. My treatment plan has included nineteen radiation treatments, four research studies, and Hormone Therapy.

I come from a family and sub-group of men who didn’t talk about their physical ailments. I don’t think it was being macho as much as it was about the fact that they believed that they had no right to complain about their circumstances after being delivered from so much. Emancipated slaves and early sharecroppers alike identified themselves with the Old Testament’s Hebrew slaves who were liberated by God. To them, faith was a belief in and commitment to a God that helped the poor and sick, and judged the arrogant and the strong. Like the Hebrew slaves, they believe that they were God’s chosen people and believed that through faith, they would also be delivered from lives of persecution. So, smaller things (which lead to bigger things) went undiagnosed and untreated and in many cases led to their early death.

My day died in 1996. He died from cancer at the age of seventy-six. Afterwards I learned that he had been driving himself twenty miles to cancer treatment. In March I found out that he was sick and he died in September. I remember him saying to me, “Buddy this old cancer is about to get me.” And it did. He didn’t talk about it and it saddens me that he went through this by himself. I can’t begin to imagine going it alone and keeping all that to yourself. Especially after the doctor told him how long he had to live.

When I first started this journey seven years ago I had no idea how I was going to get through it. But I had the faith that I could. My thought was to deal with it one day at a time. I had to learn to live that day because I wasn’t guaranteed the next day. I read something by a famous writer who used an analogy of driving a car at night to describe writing. "It's like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way. You don't have to see where you’re going; you don't have to see your destination or everything you will pass along the way. You just have to see two or three feet ahead of you." Now as I look back, I see a parallel.

Grandmother MaMoe

She was a sharecropper, a cook, a fisherman, our family doctor, a mother, a grandmother, and a house servant and nanny at the plantation house. All of us cousins called her “MaMoe” but her given name was Willie Mae. To everybody in the country she was known as MaMoe. Story has it that Charles, the oldest cousin, and son of Aunt Sadie, use to call her “Mama’s Mother.” Over the years it got shorten to “MaMoe.” I don’t remember anyone calling her Willie. I thought MaMoe was her given name until I started researching our family’s history.

She was a kind, gentle, loving and caring woman. She wasn’t a tall woman and she wasn’t a short woman. She stood about 5’5” and weighed about 140 pounds as best as I can remember. Her hair was black, long, thick and sort of wavy. Not kinky and curly like other Black folks. Her skin wasn’t dark black or brown-black, but reddish-black. She had a prominent mole on the left side of her lower jaw. It was prominent because it was pointed instead of being flat. She always wore a sun dress with flowers on it. The kind that mama use to make Frankie and Bettye from flour sacks. On top of that she wore a half apron that had a pocket. The pocket is where she kept her handkerchief and snuff. In the handkerchief is where she kept her money. She always carried the money tied in the corner of that handkerchief. She would sometimes give us cousins a nickel, a dime or pennies to buy something when we went to the store with mama.

Her favorite seat was a wooden rocking chair. Sometimes she would sit in the living room in front of the pot belly stove if it was too cool to be outside. On nice days she would sit on the front porch watching people go by. She dipped sweet garret snuff and would have a pinch between her teeth and gum. Her rocking chair and snuff went together like grits and eggs. She was an expert at getting that brown colored stuff out her mouth. She could hit the same spot in the front yard with spit without trying. She had good follow through. She would rock back and forward and once she had the proper momentum, on the forward rock she would let one fly. “Plop”, it would fall to the ground, kicking up dust, in a cluster with all her other great efforts. If a little drool would hang up on her mouth, she would wipe it with the bottom of her apron. When she made a near perfect spit a peaceful look would come over her face as if to say, “Great shot MaMoe.” Later she became more sanitized and kept a can nearby to spit in.

She was the oldest person on the plantation. People were always coming by to see MaMoe. They brought her fish, wild game, fresh vegetables from their gardens, pecans, blackberries, pears and peaches. Some came to sit; talk, to eat, while others came by to see how she was doing. When you have been around as long as she had it was assumed that you knew all the answers. She was look upon with respect, admiration. There wasn’t much that she had not seen or heard about. She could not read or write. But what she lacked in formal education was more than compensated for by her wisdom. She wasn’t a big loud talker. She was quiet and unassuming, but she always had something to say when asked. She was a strong influence our family. All the son-in-laws treated her with respect, and kindness; like she was their mother.


MaMoe could cook anything, but she was especially good at cooking wild game. Venison was one of her best dishes. Not everyone can cook venison or other wild game. Most cooks think you have to cook it to a crisp for it to be done. But overcooked, it’s dry, tuff and tasteless. The venison that she cooked was tender, moist and flavorful. She made rabbit and squirrel stews that didn’t last long at the dinner table. In addition to wild game, she made fried chicken and fish that family stood in line for.

Her sweet potatoes got candied or baked in their skins on a bed of hot ashes in the fireplace or pot belly stove. She cooked a lot of savory pot foods that were simmered slowly all day. Black-eyed peas, crowder peas, butter beans; collard, mustard, cabbage and turnip greens with a piece of salt pork added all fell victim to her pot. And she always had corn bread on the side to soak up the pot liquor and small pieces that the fork couldn’t get. MaMoe’s foods looked, smelled and tasted good. Her daughters Sadie, Novella, and Jessie were all good cooks that put out good looking and good tasting foods. Now Mama’s food on the other hand was okay in a pinch but to me it didn’t have a personality. It was too bland and flavorless. I ate more at my aunts’ house than at Mamas. It wasn’t that Mama was a terrible cook, but more because she didn’t have the time to just cook. She got up early in the morning cooked breakfast, feed all of us and then went to work in the fields. At lunch time she came home early, made lunch and fed us again. And she did the same thing for supper at the end of the day. To her it was a job she had to do and she just got it done.

MaMoe was the family doctor who had an old fashion country cure for all of our common ailments. She was a specialist was root tea. Sassafras root tea with a little peppermint and honey cured a nasty cough. Vapor rub mixed with sardine oil rubbed on the chest took care of common colds. Cod liver oil cured an upset stomach. A taste of turpentine spirits did the job on a bad case of worms. We gargled salt water for a sore throat.

During hot summer months her skin would turn beet red instead of a darker shade of black from the sun. She wasn’t working in the fields but she walked from Aunt Sadie’s house to the plantation, working in the garden or fishing. I don’t remember her working in the fields with us but I am sure she did since she and Grandpa Frank moved from Mississippi to Louisiana to work as sharecroppers. At some point after they had been living on Islington Plantation, around 1928, she and Frank parted ways. After all the children were grown, she went to work at the plantation house as a servant and nanny.

When she stopped working at the plantation house she cared for Aunt Sadie’s children and all the rest of us cousins when my Mama and her sisters had to work in the fields. A kind, gentle, loving and caring grandmother, she had a sense of humor when it came to disciplining us. She had a bunch of us to keep in line. When it was time for one or a bunch of us to get a whipping, she would make you go to the willow tree for a switch. Being the smart kids that we were, naturally we brought back the smallest one we could find. It did matter because she wore that one out on your back side and made you go get two or three more before she was done with you.



MaMoe was born April 10, 1890 as daughter of Pete and Lizzie Jackson. She was raised by her grand parents Umphrey and Dicie (Dicy) Bowens. In 1870 Umphrey lived in Como, Mississippi on a plantation owned by M.F. Gilchrist. Living with Umphrey were Dysey, who was 27 years old, and three children: John, age 6, Lizzie, age 4 and William age 1. Lizzie was MaMoe’s mother.

The 1900 Panola County Census shows Dicey, 44 years old, born in April, 1856 in Kentucky as head of household. Living with her are Umphrey, 21 years, born August 1878, Lizzie, born October 1872, Mack , 18, born March 1882, grandson Harrisan Neil, born May 1886, a great grand daughter, Simathria, born October 1872 and a granddaughter, Willie (MaMoe) who was born April, 1891.

MaMoe was an avid fisherman. The whole family was fishermen; Mama, Sadie, Novella, Sammie and all the cousins Charles, James, Gabe, and me. When MaMoe wasn’t working at Islington Plantation House you could always find her on the bayou below Aunt Sadie’s house with her favorite fishing companion Annie Green or “Miss Nig" as we called her.

There wasn’t anyone who could out fish her with a cane pole. (Well, there was one person who could give her a run for her money. That was daddy). There was never a shortage of fish around our house. It seemed like she fished every day. But in reality, I think she only fished two or three times a week. When it rained and was too wet to work in fields the men would work on equipment at the plantation house. The ones who didn’t have to work fished. MaMoe, Aunt Sadie, Mama, Aunt Jessie went fishing. Sometime James, Gabe, Charles and I would go along.

MaMoe always had a fishing pole “set out” in the bayou in front of Aunt Sadie’s house. She would tie the end of the cane pole to a tree with wire or rope. This way when a fish got on and she wasn't there, it couldn't pull the pole into the water.

She baited a large single hook with salt pork or a worm when she could talk one of us into digging them for her. In the morning she would go down and take off any fish that got caught during the night. Most of the fish she caught were bottom feeders like catfish, carp, gasper goo, “grinter,” or buffalo. She would check her poles at noon and when we came home from school she would make one of us go check her poles again. If she had caught a fish we ran up to the house to tell her. She stopped whatever she was doing and hurried down to the bayou to take the fish off.

With all the overgrown trees about she didn't have a lot of room to rear back and set the hook on a fish. Instead, she grabbed the cane pole, jerk up as far as the tree limbs would allow her, and run up the hill, pulling the pole behind her. When the fish reached the bank she would run back down the hill, grab the line, with the fish flopping around in the mud. She was yelling at us to not let the fish get back in the water. But none of us wanted to touch it. Holding on to the fishing line, she stepped on the fish's head and took the hook out. She put the fish in a bucket with water that she kept in a shaded place on the bank.

MaMoe was particular and sometimes downright fussy about her cane poles. Charles cut bamboo or cane poles for her from a standing patch of bamboos down in the field behind the graveyard. Bamboo grew everywhere, but she wanted it from way down in the fields instead of from bayou someplace closer. She was partial to the ten footers. After it was cut, and she was satisfied with its look and feel, she would hang by tip next to the chimney to dry.

MaMoe and Frank moved to the Tallulah area during the 1920’s from Como, Mississippi. They lived on a plantation in Quebec, just North of Tallulah, with their first four children: Ester, Willie Mae, Hince and Fred. The other children: Novella, Sadie, Katie, Jessie, Sammie, Ophelia and Ollie were born in Louisiana. Ophelia and Ollie were twins who died early. She and Frank moved to Islington Plantation (Folk) around 1927.

When Aunt Sadie moved from the plantation during the late 50’s MaMoe continued to live with her in town. When her health started to fail and she got to the point where Aunt Sadie couldn’t take care of her at home anymore, she was reluctantly put in a nursing home. She died in the nursing home in January of 1982 at the age of 92. She and Aunt Novella were buried on the same day.

Good Old Days?

I hadn’t attended a reunion since graduating from McCall in 1963. The fact is I left high school before graduating to join the air force. Since then I just haven’t had any interest in going to a high school class reunion. I know class reunions are suppose to be about renewing friendships, sharing memories of the good old days when we were young and innocent. It may have been a young and innocent time of my life but it was hardly about "good." It was more about "hard" days; days about doing without, days about just getting by, and days about just making do.
It was fun to see some of my old friends after so many years. Some had changed while others looked the same. I seemed to have changed the most. Maybe it was because of lot them have stayed in touch over the years and I hadn’t. Seeing and talking to them made me realize that I had changed in ways I hadn’t thought of. I became bored of talk about the old days, and the "remember when" stories. I was anxious talk about what has happened since high school.

For me, high school conjures up mixed emotions; some good, some bad but mostly bad. After the air force I went to college and became a shop teacher. High school shop class was where I found my calling. Working with hand tools, making things out of wood fascinated me. I wanted to know how things worked. At Grambling, a shop professor took an interest in me, became my mentor and during the next four years I learned and lived in the industrial arts building.


In high school there were teachers didn’t have a clue about how kids learned or how to teach them so they woule learn. My algebra teacher was an extremely smart man. He would spew out formula, write them on the board but never checked to see who got it. Quizzes and exams were his answers. If you failed his tests, you obviously didn’t get it. His motto was "I got mine, you get yours."


A school where you rarely saw the principal talking socially to students unless, of course, he was berating them in the halls or whipping them in his office. A school more like a larger version of a plantation; but instead of a plantation owner, it was a principal. It was a school where the school calendar was designed around when the cotton needed to be picked. A school where books, band and athletic uniforms where was handed down from the white school. A school building that was dark, had broken windows and was rarely cleaned unless the white superintendent was coming for one of his "inspections" or one of his "public verbal beatings" of good teachers.


I moved to Wisconsin, taught junior high school shop for three years, finished a master’s degree in school administration and eventually became a high school assistant principal. The junior high school where I taught was better equipped than my labs at Grambling College. I had an abundance of materials, supplies, books and tools for every one of my students, and more.
As an assistant principal my eyes were opened as how poor my high school really was. At my high school where I was an AP, we recycled books that were better than those used every day by black or white schools in the south. So it’s extremely difficult for me to relish in what is called the "good old days." I can only get angry when I think about the pervasive racial caste system which operated in the south between 1877 and the 1960s. Jim Crow was a series of rigid anti-Black laws. It was a way of life. African Americans were relegated to the status of second class citizens.


Nontheless, I am comforted and thankful that my father who quit school in 4th grade to help his mother farm, and for my mother who finished 6th grade had enough foresight and wisdom to understand the value of being educated. They both knew that education was the one vehicle that would pave the way to opportunities unavailable to them. If our nation is to remain prosperous and committed to equality of opportunity, we must make sure that all of our children, especially those in poverty, receive an adequate education.


I will be forever indebted to my parents for their sacrifices and hardships to make my life better. For that I am thankful for the "old days."

An Absolute Testament to a Friend

This chapel and I are becoming too familiar with each other. I have been here four times in the last five years and all for the same reason; funerals. But that’s what this chapel does, have funerals.

By the time I made my way into the chapel, it was already bursting at the seams with more people than it has ever seen at one time. I should have known that since I had parked three blocks away. I expected Neil’s funeral to be emotional but didn’t expect that it would be so crowded. Crowded is putting it mildly. It was hard to find room to stand. It looked like some of the people had been there way before the noon starting time. As I made my way through the crowd, looking for a seat, I exchanged greetings with many former students, and now good friends from my graduating class of 1992. They were Neil’s classmates. Like me, they had come to say farewell to their friend. Some had come from as far away as California, Colorado and Florida. Others came from Chicago, Milwaukee, Madison and Verona. The Walmart group occupied the rear third of the chapel. It looked like the whole store showed up. I wondered to myself who was running the Janesville store. Walmart loved Neil, too. To see the hundreds and hundreds of people was a genuine and absolute testament to him.

Earlier in my life I thought death was a punishment. My uncles didn’t do much to chase away that notion. Instead they always told my cousins and me stories about ghost and “hants” that scared the wits out of us. To them, it was a “rite of passage” to manhood. I can still remember when my family moved next to the church when I was a young boy. The days when there was a funeral at the church, I was always home before dark because I didn’t want the dead person’s “hant” to get me. Now I have come to understand that it was never about the dead, it is about the people left behind. Death just doesn’t happen. Everything, including death, happens for a reason. Sometime the reason is easy to understand and other times we spend a lifetime trying to understand the “why.” Two nights before the funeral I confessed to a friend that I was having a problem reconciling Neil’s death. But when I looked into the eyes of his one month old son his death was reconciled. In his eyes I saw Neil.

I go to funerals when I have to, but I would rather not. They are emotionally draining, they make my stomach cramp, and by the time it is over, you are left physically exhausted. I grew up in a southern Baptist church where respect was shown to the dead by shouting in the aisles, lots of emotional crying and outburst. Some of which scared the life out of me.

I like the uniqueness of New Orleans jazz funerals. They are also called second lines. The deceased family is the “first line” of mourners along with the jazz band. The “Second Line” is non-family members who came to pay their respect and to help celebrate the life of the deceased. What makes a jazz funeral unique is that on the way to the grave site, the mourners quietly walk to slow, somber songs played by the band. Once the deceased had been buried, a trumpet call rallies everyone to celebrate the life of the deceased and help release his or her soul. The Second Liners step and dance in the street to music from the jazz band. There is some crying on the way to the grave site but afterwards it is a celebration of life. Neil’s funeral wasn’t quite as jubilant, but while sitting there I couldn't help but think about how much he would have liked a jazz funerals.

There was some crying for Neil but people were happy just to have been a part of his life. What was hard was for his friends and family was to say goodbye to him because he was only 36 years old. One friend told me that she was holding his hand when he died. She said that it was easier to watch her mother die than it was for her to let go of Neil. When a young person dies, we ask “Why God?” And leaving a fiancee and two boys under the age of eighteen months makes it even more difficult to understand. When someone old dies, their death is seen as a normal part of the human life cycle.

So many friends took the time to leave messages on is facebook page their feelings:

“I've never felt as human and vulnerable as the day our superman passed over us in the sky a final time. I never thought you could be taken down, but there is a purpose to all this. Carry on your good work my friend; your legacy will always be alive in us. It's our responsibility to you to shine on as you did each ...day. I wish I could've told you, I guess I just did. :)”

“If tears could build a stairway and memories a lane, I'd walk right up to heaven, and bring you home again. Rest in peace my dear friend.”

“….. Thank you Neil for loving my grandsons as your own. My heart aches that your own sons won't have you in their lives. I pray that Beth, your boys and your mother find peace and solace knowing how much you loved them and how you would have stayed if you could. You were too young, my dear. Rest in peace.”

“Neil, you could always make people smile. Your great sense of humor and charm will be missed dearly. I will see you on the other side someday my friend. RIP Neil”

“Rest in peace Neil, You will never be forgotten, Go fly with the Angels...”

“Neil you truly were a wonderful, outgoing person whom everyone cherished all the different reason they had you in their lives and today’s service showed it. It hurts to think about how I’m not gonna get ANOTHER nickname from you or let alone be able to have any conversation with you but I am honored to have had the chance to have a wonderful friend not only in my life but my family’s life also. I am soooo gonna miss you but will see you again someday…Sleep with the angels Neil.”

“We may not see each other anymore, but we'll talk every day. It was a definite honor to have known you and there will never be anyone like you again. Rest Peacefully, Neil.”

“Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, love leaves a memory no one can steal. Although it's difficult today to see beyond the sorrow, May looking back in memory help comfort you tomorrow. "Those we love don't go away; they walk beside us every day. Unseen, unheard, but always near. Still loved, still missed and very dear. Rest in peace Neil.”

“I think the saddest thing is that he has two beautiful baby boys that will only know their daddy thru other people’s memories shared with them. One is 18 months and the other newborn. He was in a coma when the baby was born so never got to see his youngest son.”

“Oh Neil, how we will miss the flying rubber bands, that sometimes didn't quite make it where they were supposed to. The bright red light from the deli gun, from out of nowhere, that told us if we were "hot" or not, or if we needed to go home because we were "sick". Your crazy nicknames for us and yourself, the silly jokes either shared or exchanged over the walkie. Your smile, your laugh, the proud swagger in your step as you walked the floor in your “manager” attire. We will never be able to ring up bananas without thinking of you! There’s also going to be a lot more hairnets in the garbage, instead of other places. I could go on and on and that’s what you will do through us and your family! We thank you for all you shared with us and we are thankful for knowing you! We miss you and we love you and will NEVER forget you!”
“We may not see each other anymore, but we'll talk every day. It was a definite honor to have known you and there will never be anyone like you again. Rest Peacefully, Neil.”

Even though his young age of 35 was on the minds of many, if not all, in the chapel, it was never openly talked about during the service. Instead the funeral service was upbeat; a low key celebration of his life. The talk was about how full he lived life and how much enjoyed his family and fishing. All the speakers had a “Neil story” to share. One classmate said that Neil was always the life of the party and always wanted to make sure that everyone was having a good time. That he would have been proud of the turnout of people that was there, and he would have also been angry that he couldn’t be there. Another student told the story when Neil brought him home to live him when he didn’t have a place to live. And another student told a story about him and Neil leaving a downtown bar after closing one night and Neil stopped to give a homeless group of men twenty dollars. That was the way Neil lived.

He always called me “T” when were alone and “Mr. T” others were around. I met him during student registration in 1988, he was an incoming freshman. He had a cocky demeanor and swagger that were more befitting of a senior. Freshmen were required to come to registration with a parent, but he was sitting alone. He was trying to fill out the registration form when I walked over and said, “I want to meet your parents, and did they come with you?” He looked at me from toe to head. I thought, “He’s sizing me up.” When our eyes did meet, he hesitated for a little, stared at me and said, “My mom’s working, she couldn’t afford to take off. I haven’t seen my dad in years.” I helped finish the form and walked him through the remainder of registration. He had already done his homework on East’s football team. He knew who they had beaten and who they lost to last season. He knew who coach was and wanted to know if he could talk to him. I told him how to get to the boys locker room. When he was leaving, he came to find me to say good bye. I asked him what he and the coach had talked about. He said, “I told him I was going to be the team’s quarterback my junior and senior year.” And he was.

Two years after he graduated high school he went off to college in Minnesota. Before he left, he brought his sister, Samantha to school to meet me. She was a handful; make that two hands full. She was going to be a freshman that fall. He sat her down in my office and told her she was to behave or she would be in big trouble with me. He wanted me to look after her as I did him for four years. He was Sam’s big brother, guardian and father. But Sam was her own woman and pretty much didn’t have any use for school. She was there and then she wasn’t. I later learned that he had come and took her to live with him in Minnesota.

Neil had lupus. It has been known as a “woman’s disease.” Lupus is an autoimmune disease where your immune system tries to destroy the organs in your body. Our body’s immune system is like a security system. It contains several different types of cells which are constantly on patrol looking for foreign invaders. When one is spotted, they try to destroy the invader. With lupus, for some unknown reason, the immune system loses its ability to tell the difference between an invader and our own normal body organs, tissues and cells. In essence, the "Security Guards" identify our good cells as invaders and then try to destroy them. More than 16,000 Americans develop lupus each year. It is estimated that 500,000 to 1.5 million Americans have been diagnosed with lupus. For most people, lupus is a mild disease affecting only a few organs. For others, it may cause serious and even life-threatening problems. For Neil, his immune system affected his kidneys and lungs.

Toward the end of the ceremony it was announced that the family would have a repast at the Eagle Crest Bar and Grill others went to Pooley’s. Putting on my coat I overheard a conversation between a couple students. One student asked the other, “So, what’s a repast?” The other responded, “I think it’s a southern thing.” I butted in and said, “It’s a meal served after a funeral." That it was more common in the south.

Many of us went to the Eagle Crest to be with his family after the funeral. The conversation over beer and food was that this was an evening that he would have been totally into. Everybody did one of his favorite shots as a salute and farewell to him. By the time we arrived at Pooley’s everyone was in a good mood. Some people hadn’t seen each other since graduation and we had a lot of catching up to do since 1992. This class has so much talent and these young 35 year olds are making their mark on the world. I was blown away by some of the things they were doing.
Everyone wanted to know how I was spending my time and if was having fun. I spent four years taking care of this class and tonight this class took care of me.

The Reverend David Hart ended the service with a quote from an unknown author that said:
“The dead don’t die unless we forget them.”

I end with this poem:
You can shed tears that he is gone,

or you can smile because he has lived.

You can close your eyes and pray that he'll come back,

or you can open your eyes and see all he's left.

Your heart can be empty because you can't see him,

or you can be full of the love you shared.

You can turn your back on tomorrow and live yesterday,

or you can be happy for tomorrow because of yesterday.

You can remember him only that he is gone,

or you can cherish his memory and let it live on.

You can cry and close your mind,

be empty and turn your back.

Or you can do what he'd want,

smile, open your eyes, love and go on.

--David Harkins--

Pheasant Hunting With My Bud

It’s pheasant hunting season in Wisconsin and Iowa. For the next three months upland hunters will adorn their twenty percent orange attire and chase the colorful and gaudy ring neck pheasant to the end of the earth and back. It is now that I am reminiscent of my good times shooting and hunting with my buddy Milt McPike.

During our twenty- five year friendship we go teased about how much skeet and hunting stuff we had. The guys would say, “Did you two leave anything at Gander Mountain for the rest of us?” The first hunting trip we could fit the gear we owned, not including the dog, into the hatch of my ‘93 Blazer and still have room. I didn’t own a gun and when I did buy one, I kept it at Milt’s house. That was years ago. The last year we hunted together, Milt’s extended Suburban was busting at the seams from all of our hunting stuff.

In the past eighteen years we became very good friends with a few farmers in Malcolm, a small Iowa town east of Grinnell. They know us and our vehicles. One year we showed up Friday night wearing the same athletic outfit. It wasn’t planned; it just happened. That night at dinner, Ron said, “Are you guys, Me and Mini Me?” His brother Larry chimed in with, “Ronnie, maybe they didn’t come to hunt this year. They’re probably on their way to a modeling job.” The teasing was relentless, as our hunting gear multiplied over the years.

If was made for pheasant hunting or skeet shooting we had it or it was on the list of stuff to be had. One year at a skeet shoot in Waukesha, while waiting for the next event, a shooter from Illinois strolled up and commented, “I just came by to say hello and to see what new stuff you guys had.” Milt was often asked “So Milt how many guns you have now?” His answer was always the same, “I don’t know.” He knew how many he had, but he didn’t want to say how many. After a while, he had so many guns that he honestly couldn’t remember how many guns he had.

But our love for shooting accessories didn’t start with skeet shooting. It began years earlier. Milt was then the principal at East High School. When I took an assistant principal position at East, our friendship took off like a bang. In 1990 several teacher friends invited us on a pheasant hunting trip to Iowa. These guys had hunted pheasants before, but this was our first time at hunting any kind of upland bird.

Sitting in the Longhorn Café in Grinnell at breakfast I could tell from looking at the other hunters that we were different. We looked like two city slickers. Our hunting uniform consisted of blue jeans, Sears’ leather work boots, flannel shirt, baseball cap, down jacket and no gloves. We looked more ready for yard work than pheasant hunting. I turned to Milt and said, “Do you think we should have worn something different?” He looked around the café at the other hunters, shrugged his shoulders and without much thought said, “Too late now”, and continued eating his breakfast. Nobody said anything about our attire.

Our morning hunt started with overcast skies, and by midday it was wet, windy and cold. Our feet were soaked and we were cold to the bone. No one else complained about being wet and cold, and at the expense of sounding wimpy, we didn’t say anything either. We assumed that being wet and cold was an integral part of the pheasant hunting experience. Back to the hotel, as we put our wet boots and clothing on top of the radiator to dry, we learned the rest of the story. The other guys really weren’t wet and cold at all. They were wearing Gortex and thermal underwear. We didn’t know what Gortex was, let alone having it to wear.

In misery, we looked at each other and said we wouldn’t be at the mercy of Mother Nature ever again. That weekend of dew and rain soaked pants, and leaky boots made us appreciate having quality hunting clothes. After that trip, we discovered Cabela’s, Gander Mountain and became good friends with all the salesmen at Gerhard’s. Brush and briar pants replaced blue jeans; game vest and upland shooting jackets replaced putting shells in our pockets and carrying pheasants in our hands. Gortex lined leather boots replaced leather work boots; hunting hats, shooting glasses, gloves and thermal underwear, and wool socks with nylon sock liners also became part of our uniform.

We looked good in our upland clothes, but we were horrible wing shooters. Now well into our second year of pheasant hunting, we hadn’t brought a rooster home for the pot that was shot by one of us. Someone recommended that we go to a gun club and do some clay target shooting. We shot trap at Oregon for a while and eventually moved to Middleton. It was at Middleton, and later at Sauk Prairie, that our love affair with skeet began.

Since that Iowa trip, Milt and I have had many adventures hunting pheasants, ducks and geese during our twenty-five year friendship. We logged many hours tramping the public grounds at Mud Lake and Deansville on weekends searching for pheasants.

On one particular opening day we were hunting a friend’s farm in Marshall. Neither one of us were any good with directions. The field we were hunting was bordered on the east side by a drainage ditch and on the west side by impassable brush. Four of us were hunting the field from south to north. Milt was on the outside edge next to the drainage ditch. I said, “Milt don’t cross any ditches or fence lines, we will all meet up at the end this grass field” The job of a high school principal is serious work and requires serious qualifications. Unfortunately for the both of us, having a keen sense of direction in the field was not one of them.

We lined up and started our push toward the north end of the field. We hadn’t gone more then ten yards when two pheasants flushed ahead of us, banking to our left. Even though they were hens we were all rattled. Fifteen yards into resuming our methodical march, a rooster flushed between Milt and I. We both had walked by this smart rooster that chose to sit rather than fly. The noise and suddenness of a close sitting rooster’s flush, cackling, and beating its wings trying to gain altitude, was enough to wake a comatose hunter in the next county. The rooster flew right over Milt’s head. Regaining my composure, I yell “Milt, rooster coming at you.” By the time the rooster cleared Milt it was forty yards out. I made two “hope and a prayer” long shots. Milt now had a bead on the rooster but now it was out about fifty yards and picking up speed. Milt made two shots, more desperate than mine, as the rooster continued its eastward flight unscathed. By all accounts that rooster should have been on the ground. We all had a good laugh about Milt and my poor shooting.

Realigning ourselves, we continued our push toward the end. We were standing around talking after we got there and someone said, “Where is Milt? We waited for thirty minutes but no Milt. Then I remembered that I hadn’t heard him or the dog since we shot at that rooster over an hour ago. I wondered to myself if he had gone chasing after that rooster. After waiting fifteen minutes more we decided to go back to look for him. We walked back to where we started and he wasn’t there. We thought he may have gone back to the house to use the bathroom or get something, like more shells. When we got back to the house, he wasn’t there either. We had a bowl of chili for lunch and waited some more. Its been two hours now since he’s been missing. It had started to rain and now we were starting to worry that something had happen. We were getting ready to call out the Calvary when we heard a vehicle pull into the driveway. We heard a knock at the kitchen door. There stood Milt with his dog, Alex. A farmer, who lived four miles east of where we were hunting, had picked him up walking along a road near Marshall.

He had crossed the drainage ditch, two fence lines, and a gravel road. Not much was said except thanking the farmer for giving him a ride. Years later the story became one of my favorite. I often wonder how far he would have wandered if the farmer hadn’t picked him up. He had already walked from Berlin Road through Deansville and almost to Marshall, five miles away. The next town was Waterloo, eleven miles from where we were hunting. Since that day, whenever we hunted with a group, I didn’t let him out of my sight. That meant that he didn’t go into grass taller than him, timbers or standing corn. In Malcolm he was our official “blocker.”

Pheasant hunting was never more fun than with Milt. I still hunt and it’s still a good time, but it can never be any better than when you share it someone else. Sharing it with your best buddy make(s) it even better.

My skeet shooting and pheasant hunting buddy is in heaven now. He made his way to there on March 29, 2008.

Good hunting, my buddy!

No Mud Hole For Me

Hello Family and Friends:

I hope this blog finds all of you in good health and spirits.
We had our every other year family reunion at my house this past father's day weekend. It was the first time we have been together since mama died three years ago. We had the greatest time. Good food, good conversations, good stories and good bonding. I really appreciated having them at our house.


Health wise, I am doing good. I don't have any symptoms of prostate cancer. But the amount of psa in my blood continues to rise. I go to the clinic every three months for blood test, an examination and consultation. Every six months I get an MRI of my bones and tissue to see if the cancer has become attached. So far it hasn't and for now examinations and a watchful eye is the plan. There is no treatment until the cancer becomes attached.

I continue to be positive and not "wallow" in what will come or may not come. The only time I get a depressed is when I am at the clinic. At the clinic it is obvious that people who are there are sick. It's a hospital, and hospitals are for sick people. Then I am okay for three months, or my next appointment. I have two choices. Wallow in my mud hole and get on with dying, or stay out of the mud hole and get on with living. Three years ago the mud hole was drained.

I know that eventually cancer will have to be dealt with and it will when that time comes. But in the meantime no mud hole for me.

Life is good!

What Really Counts?

I go to my polling place and take care of my civic duty every election day. But to be honest, I’ve never had much interest in politics. At least not since the early 60’s during the Kennedy era. This year’s election is exciting to many people thanks to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. While I’m being honest, I have say that this election is also a big deal.

A few weeks ago I was sitting on the bench in front of my locker at the YMCA when two men started talking about the presidential primaries. Both said they were happy that senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were in a position to become the Democratic Party’s nomination. Both said that it was a good opportunity to vote for a woman or an African-American for president. The older man said he didn’t think the country was ready for a woman president. The younger man looking over at me, said, “I don’t know which one I’m going to vote for.” “It’s important that we be politically correct.” The older man said that if we elected a black president that would send a message to the world that we are “politically correct”.

I couldn’t help but wonder how that conversation would have played out if I hadn’t been sitting there. The younger man obviously felt that Hillary was a better choice than Obama but wasn’t going to say that in front of me in the name of being “politically correct.” Walking to my car I asked myself how many other voters are looking at Race and Gender when they decide who to vote for in this year’s Democratic Primary.

The purpose of a presidential election should not be to send a message to the world about how politically correct we are, but rather to select the person who is best qualified to address the host of issues they will face in the Oval Office. And it’s like I said before, this election is a big deal. It’s bigger than Race or Gender. It’s a race for the president of the United States, not the Downtown Kiwanis Club.

It is just as wrong to vote for one of them because of their race or gender as it is to vote against one of them because of their race or gender. This election should not be just about gender or race. The election should be about war and peace, the economy, health care, education, Medicare and social security. Their ability to be president should not be enhanced or hindered by their race or gender. Their ability to be president should be based on how they intend to deal with whatever is on their plate in the Oval Office.

Now on the other hand, if Race and Gender is such an issue, then it needs to be talked about rather than being reduced to what is “politically correct.” That is to say, we need to be able to talk about race and gender without forcing whoever brings it up to shut up, resign or be called a racist. I’m not debating whether what Geraldine Ferraro or Rev. Wright said was right or wrong. The point is nobody asked either of them what they meant. Instead they were denounced and we really didn’t learn anything. Maybe they were right, maybe they were wrong. Calling them a racist most always terminates a conversation instead of beginning one. Letting people actually discuss what they mean, what it means to them will serve to help us move forward to where race and gender matter less. Our obsessive sensitivity to race and gender will only improve when we acknowledge that ability and character are what really counts, and that race and gender really don’t.