Tuesday, December 1, 2020

Roxy's loyalty salved and saved my soul simply by being my best friend as world rotted around me: 'Goodbye ... I love you. You are a good girl'

 

My bloodshot, blue eyes looked into her brown eyes as the light left for good, forever damaging the muscle in my chest, already torn from too much heartache and melancholy.

In the moments before, I told her it was OK as I stroked her head, placing my hands beneath both sides of her face and rubbing her neck in that way that had always left her wanting more.  “I love you so much,” I told her. “You are my best friend. I love you.”

I tried to be brave for her. I didn’t want her to see the tears that had been flowing for the last 12 hours or more, ever since her pain became too much, the crippling effects of the lymphoma that had spread from her lungs to her spine robbed her of her motion, even of her ability to go to the bathroom.

I thought of the times she sprinted back and forth across the back yard, speed, grace, joy. Maybe chasing a squirrel. Maybe her beloved purple ball that is now on my desk. Or maybe because Suzanne and I had simply hollered “Run! Roxy! Run!” and she happily responded.

And I thought of the time, in the early days of the COVID nightmare, or maybe a few weeks before, when her gallant lope suddenly stopped. She had run to the fence, then pulled up, winded, tired, and ambled back across the yard to us.  It was a signal of the beginning of the cruelty that found her on that table the other day, my hands rubbing circular motions of love into her neck as the doctor prepared for the end.

Roxy, who usually slept on a dog bed in our bedroom, had cried long and hard during the night, because she couldn’t get to me, she couldn’t get up to love me, to allow me to take care of her.  I was the one who always took her out, late at night, regularly, as the chemicals tore at her digestive system. I was the one who stroked her when she came in. And she was the one who always led me to bed when she knew it was time.

She couldn’t move the back half of her body at the very end. Her hind legs no longer worked. The limp she’d dealt with for a few weeks finally had turned crippling.

I had stopped her crying that night by lying down next to her on the living room floor. She was happy as I curled up next to her on the floor. Then I coaxed Roxy into the long, final journey to the bed she so loved against the wall and maybe two feet from where Suzanne sleeps. She settled in, happy to be in her bed, for sure. But I’m sure she knew her end was coming.

So that next morning, as she lay near death, awaiting the injections on the table in the quietly decorated room where the medication is delivered, I smiled at her. It wasn’t easy, but I knew I had to, because she expected it. She always made me smile, so I knew she’d expect me to be smiling even now, as she lay moments before death. There was love, not fear, in her eyes as the lights extinguished. Suzanne, who had spent many sleepless nights caring for our beloved Roxy, allowing me to get rested enough to work during the day, stroked her head and shoulders as the end came.

And then the doctor said her heart had stopped. She was gone. My most loyal friend, the one I spoke to most as I battled the constant depression that has colored my soul for 69 years, the last nine years with her by my side, was gone. By being with me, Roxy had lighted smiles on my face even on her worst nights during the deadly spring, summer and fall of COVID and Trump, of murderous police and senseless burning and looting. Of hate-filled rhetoric. Of 300,000 Americans dead from a virus whose imminent arrival was kept from us by our leaders until bodies began piling up in the city that never sleeps, portending what was to come even as far from Manhattan as Rochelle Drive. It was a spring, summer and fall when shared love with a dying dog reminded me there is goodness in this world. Unfortunately, to me, she was a big chunk of that goodness.

I would stand next to Roxy in my quiet back yard several times each night during her decline, as she had good days and bad for weeks before the last hours when the lymphoma finally stopped the back half of her body from working. “I hope I don’t get this virus, Roxy,” I’d say as I stared at the dippers, Mr. Big and Mr. Little, or the occasional meteor. Even the space station came round once or twice.  Roxy didn’t really pay attention to the stars, I don’t think. She generally was focused on the small deer herd that lives in the acre of woods I have allowed to flourish behind my house in the middle of a city. The occasional police or hospital helicopter chopping the skies overhead did draw her attention, though.

As she got weaker, she wouldn’t even want to go out into the yard at night, unless I was with her. She wouldn’t “do her business” unless the long-haired guy she knew as “Daddy,” stood between her and the fence that separates us from the creek and the woods. The deer often would gather at the brush pile built my yardwork labors – I’ve always been crazy but never been lazy – to nibble.  Roxy would watch them warily.

“It’s OK, Roxy, I’m standing right here. They can’t bother you.” Reassured, she’d do what she was out there to do, and we’d go inside to watch the news.  The deer would continue to nibble on the brush pile. An eight-point buck did stare at her and stomp a hoof a time or two from the other side of the fence. But as long as I was with her, Roxy was OK. She did her business and returned to the house, where I’d sneak her a double dose of her favorite soft, “Made with Real Chicken” Milk-Bone treats.  

Early on the morning after Thanksgiving, a day on which this year I did not find anything to give thanks for or about, the Siberian husky-German shepherd mix who had helped me through nine years of heartache and professional disappointment preceding this Armageddon-like 2020 suddenly was gone.

Oh, before the grammar cops step in, yes, I am using “who” and “her” and “she” here. To me, she was not an “it,” a term more appropriate for two-faced assholes who had used me and cast me off with their “I don’t give a shit about how you feed your family” arrogance.  Anthropomorphism? Hell, it actually better applies to some of those beasts in human skin who lack humanity and human traits but who are wizards of self-congratulation.  That’s a long story. Unfortunately, it is my life.

The spark -- that had showed how much she wanted to live even as the lymphoma spread to her spine, making it so she couldn’t walk, forcing her to drag-pull herself up and down the stairs with my help -- stayed in her eyes as the propofol first was injected into the catheter that was inserted in the same spot on her shaved back leg where so much medication had been injected in six or eight months. All four of her legs were shaved above her ankles. Another spot was shaved on her back. Her belly and sides were shaved to enable all of the scans she’d had, as doctors fought to stop the spread. I don’t know why they shaved a spot on her chest. I suppose to keep track of her heart rate during treatments.

The propofol glaze arrived in her eyes quickly, even as I kissed her on her mouth and nose, against the advice of the doctors who for months had been administering various types of chemotherapy as the disease advanced. “I love you, Roxy,” I said. “You are a good girl.”

The same words I’d used nightly for years, whenever she rested her head on my feet during the hour or two I watched the local and national news. 

Her doctor had told us that in most cases this chemotherapy would slow the disease, bring it to remission, extend the life of my best friend.  And sometimes it did give her a boost, a brief boost at best. But Roxy remained happy and even had come to love the doctor, nurses, techs and the staff who ladled her with love. “Roxy’s special,” we’d been told. “She is kind of snarky. A lot of personality.” I would guess that words of praise for the dying animal are part of the veterinarians’ idea of bedside manner. For that and for the months of love, I thank the vet and the clinic staff.

Roxy grew to love those people. And it wasn’t one-sided.

“We sure love her,” said the doctor, a lovely and loving young woman who was heading up the care that I prayed (and I don’t really pray much) would give me at least another summer with Roxy. If she could reach remission, the odds were great, the vet said. She could take a break from chemo for several months while we monitored her for cancer’s inevitable return.  

The day before Thanksgiving, Roxy had problems walking. I knew then that her time was short. So, we took her to see the doctor, who administered pain-killers and love and sent her home with us. The doctor fully expected to see Roxy the following week, when a new type of chemo could be tried.

“Call me Friday, though, regardless,” she said, or words to that effect. “I really need to see how she’s doing.”

Instead, on that Friday, she, too, was saddened as she told us how much the hospital loved my baby, even as the medicine was lowering in the vials.

I’m not a holiday guy. The celebrations leave me numb. Mostly I think about the people who aren’t there rather than those who are across the table. With Roxy, well it was the 13th time in my life that I’ve held a pet while he or she went to sleep softly. Permanently.  Roxy, hard to admit it, was the animal I loved the most, though.

During this COVID Thanksgiving, though, I knew I was “celebrating” a good life that soon was going to end. Her hindquarters weakened even more during the night. And while she had strength enough to make it over to me for her turkey scraps – actually, they weren’t scraps, but rather were designated sections of bird that I pulled apart to offer her smaller pieces – it was becoming more difficult for her.

Still, she smiled and her eyes gleamed. She did her regular “husky talk” – if you’ve ever had a husky, you know that they are quite verbal, with moans and mutters rather than barks. Roxy could say “Out-out,” “food” and “feed me” … or sounds very similar. She could put three tones of her voice together for even an occasional “I love you” offered to me or, usually, Suzanne. I know this sounds crazy to anyone who hasn’t lived with a husky.  

Roxy actually had a great Thanksgiving, bothering me and Suzanne for turkey and sharing love with our son, Joe, and our cat Champ. Champ – who I should say is my other best friend -- and Roxy had come from shelters within days of each other nine years ago. Joe (and his sister, Emily, who lives on the West Coast) had come from human shelters in Romania back in the 1990s.

In fact, the day we rescued Roxy from Animal Control, we were told we were just in time. New animals were going to be coming in that day, the animals that had been there the longest were to be euthanized to make room. Roxy was one of those “Dead Dogs Walking” on the day I carried her from the dog pound out to the van and her ride home.

Her name, I should add, came from my son, Joe. He was at school at Overton High on the day Emily, Suzanne and I went to check out the dogs at the pound, not sure we would take one home (although I’m really sure we were sure). We called him during a class break and told him we had gotten a dog. We’d promised he’d be with us when we got one, but, we told him, it literally was life-or-death for this 6-month-old puppy.

“What do you want to name her?” we asked.  “I don’t know…. How about Roxy?” he answered.

Suited me fine because Roxy was the name of a movie theater in Clarksville where I’d enjoyed one of my happiest nights back in 1982. In fact, it may have been my tales of that night at the Roxy that put that name into my Romanian son’s head.  No need to go into that night here, as I’ve written about it plenty, but basically the Roxy was where friends, many of whom no longer are with me  – showed a movie we’d made, a sort of Super 8mm “Hard Day’s Night’’ done in the crude days before videotape and then digital technology took over. We raised tons of money for charity and we were drunk, of course.

Turned out our love for the old theater, that we lovingly cleaned before our movie premiere, saved it from demolition because the mayor came to our premiere and saw what a great art deco facility it was, much lovelier than the city’s proposed parking lot.

Enough on the movie theater. The word “Roxy” now forever will not remind me of a theater and friends loyal and otherwise, but it will recall, in my brain, the face of the beautiful dog with whom I shared the last nine years.

I am far from the first one to write about the unquestioning loyalty of dogs (and cats, for that matter). And that unquestioning loyalty runs both ways. I would have given up anything I had in the way of possessions if it would have meant Roxy would live for a few more years. Months even.

Unfortunately, I have learned of the tenuous nature of human loyalty in the last few months. In an earlier version of this blog, I pointed fingers, "fer-instances," but I have decided that this is the story of a dog who loved me, not people who did not.

I will note, however, the kind humans, dog lovers, who I did turn to for both counsel and console: musician-historian Peter Cooper, musician-genius Bobby Bare, restaurateur and writer Jim Myers, Chicago music patron Van DeLisle. Fellow Class of '69 Deerfield High outlaw Josh Hecht and long-time running buddy (when alcohol was king and smoke was plenty) Jerry Manley.

Roxy’s loyalty, of course, goes back to the day we brought her home. Well, actually to her time when the Animal Control guy brought her into the prospective family room, after we’d pointed her out in her pen. And she has been my business partner for nine years.  When Suzanne was out of the house, working, I was here, working in my basement, putting words together for dollars, sure, and also for own heart’s sake.

Roxy was my assistant. She stayed in the basement with me, sprawled on the couch outside my office door. Occasionally, she’d come in and lick me in the arm. Other times, if she needed to go out, she’d nibble on my elbow.

Sitting here today, the heater on in my basement office, I look out, past my bookshelves, Beatles paraphernalia and the wall of awards given me as a journalist … at the empty couch

I realize I’ll forever miss those licks and nibbles, the loving reassurance of my best friend.

Fortunately, Champ, the handsome and loving tabby who relishes climbing into my lap as I type, has just come into the office.

As has Suzanne.  We try to talk about practical things: The vet will dispose of the experimental chemo medicine that came four days after Roxy died if we get it to the clinic. And the crematorium told us we should be able to get her in a day or so. 

My stomach twists as tears reemerge from their shallow reserves on both of our faces.

“It will be good just to bring her home.”

I wish she could jump up and lick my face, even one more time.

 

        

    

Monday, November 16, 2020

"30" mark means ''end of the story" ... 39 years after keg drained, Jerry and I aren't dead yet

 It’s been almost 39 years since Tony Durr showed up at the party and ended up at Don’s Donuts, calling to beg Gwen – I think she was soon to be his fourth or fifth wife and ex-wife-in-waiting … he married one of them just so he could use his GI benefits to get her into a Cuckoo’s Nest somewhere (or so he bragged) – to drive him home.

But this really isn’t about Tony, among my favorite people ever until he died, alone, his body found with arm reaching for a telephone, an empty  bottle of pills by his side, in his room (or whatever you called it) at a Coast Guard Barracks in Alaska.

By that time, he’d washed out of at least a couple more marriages, and we talked about our own failures and successes often, over glasses of brandy while staring at the same star: Me from Clarksville or Nashville, him from God knows where, Alaska.

This little tale, though, is about the best friend I still have, one who is alive and who always has been there for me, if needed, who never turned his back on me ever.  I even was Jerry Manley’s boss for a while, and he still liked me. I was a good boss, though. And we shared passions for women, beverages, Mennonite pastries, sweet smoke, music, alcohol in its various forms … but mostly newspapering.

Newspapermen were all we’d ever wanted to be.  Bastards took that away from us eventually, but that’s not what this is about.




Thirty-nine years ago, Jerry and I were in a quandary. Or in quandaries? We worked at The Leaf-Chronicle newspaper in Clarksville, with the late Max Moss and Tony Durr as our supervisors.

But, the younger people, our peers – we were both closing in on our 30th birthdays – had moved on.  The late-night scotch and beer singalongs at Richard Worden’s house in Sango were things of the past. He’d moved on to Memphis, and seldom was heard from again until he died from a blood clot that broke off a wound he suffered as a Marine in Vietnam.  He always wore cowboy boots to cover up his scars. Even when I had him over at my apartment complex pool.

He sat and smoked and drank, but while others swam in the pool, Richard remained fully clothed, boots and all, looking on. So I never saw the mortal wound, the lingering injury that eventually got him one night as he lay next to his wife, Paula Casey Worden (who had been L-C features editor when they began stealthy courting) in their Memphis flat the day after they returned from a vacation at his favorite place: The  Outer Banks (they are, as you may know, just the other side of The Inner Banks.)  

Getting too complicated here as I look back on my life before I become 69 sometime in the soon-to-be.

Jerry turned 69 a week or so ago, and we celebrated our 30th birthdays together.

As we stared down, with bloodshot eyes or dilated pupils, our 30th birthdays, we not only had at that point a brand new boss in Tony Durr (a kind-hearted, half-pint Cajun asshole with a beard, we concluded when he was foisted upon us as editor), but we had no close friends with whom to celebrate our big birthdays.

There were new, younger people in the newsroom, replacing Worden, Paula, Greg Kuhl, Steve Jones and others who had left, but we really didn’t know or trust them.

So, we’d just taken to drinking with each other, something that actually carried on for decades until I dried up a couple of decades ago.  Oh, I’ll still have an occasional beverage, but not in the quantities nor frequencies of those, really the good old days for me.   

We felt a little melancholy because our old friends were gone. 

I was known then as now for doing a good Joe Cocker impression at parties and also could be Elvis with a batch of Jordanaires (Jerry, Worden, McFalls,  Ron Taylor and even jerk “newspaperman” W. Wendell Wilson) singing behind me, all wearing hardhats. I can’t remember why they wore hardhats, but I can remember most of those parties had been at Worden’s house and we’d all bring our albums and beverages and laugh.

But those folks had gone and Jerry and I were turning 30 and no one was around to help us celebrate or even really care. Certainly no one would bother to buy us a drink or anything on this occasion. And it was important. Bob Dylan said “don’t trust anyone over 30.” Or maybe it was The Lone Ranger who said that and Dylan said “Hi-Yo Silver.” In any case, the days when we could be trusted were vanishing.

So, we chose a date, Friday the 13th it turned out to be (39 years ago last Friday), and told the newsroom and any other friends (we really didn’t have friends outside the newsroom, though). That Friday was basically halfway between our birthdays.

“Let’s invite the whole town,” I suggested to Jerry. We figured we’d pass the word. I don't think Mayor Ted Crozier was interested in that party. But, as I found out later, he sure could down his vodka and lemonade. I really liked him and spoke with him frequently way into his retirement years, right up until he no longer picked up the phone. I had been one of the editors/reporters who uncovered some  unseemly drunken behavior by the retired colonel/mayor, but he never held it against me. "You were just doing your job, Tim."  And really, most of the time he was doing his very well.

Jerry and I generally started work around 5 a.m. and worked until 2 or 3, at least, but on this Friday, we left a little early. We’d already recorded 8-track soundtracks of our favorite party songs, many about birthdays and others about death, to play in the clubhouse of the apartment complex where Jerry lived and first hung up his old aviator’s hat.

By the way, we’d spent a few very sober evenings putting together those 8-track recordings, as you can imagine. “I love the dead before they’re cold, their bluing flesh for me to hold,” “What a drag it is getting old,” “If you’re over 30, you better forget it, cause if you’re gettin’ older you’ll live to regret it.” And, of course, Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream.  

But before we could set up the sound system, part of it my stuff, part his, we had to pick up our refreshments.

We’d ordered a full 15-plus gallon keg of Budweiser (remember, light beers were then as now for only the weak and elite).  We picked it up at 11 a.m. over at the beer store next to Pal’s Package and we carted it out to the clubhouse.

Always worried about our guests’ happiness, in the late morning, we decided that we should tap the keg and “drink off the foam.” We were nothing if not concerned about the happiness of these young people, most of whom we didn’t know that well or really give a shit about.  Billy Fields, who later gave up honest labor to become one of Metro Nashville's good-ol'-boy enforcers of sorts, was one of the younger and larger of the attendees, he reminded me the other day. I think he's in charge of scooter and skateboard regulations for the city.

The drinking off of the foam by Jerry and me began an afternoon-long marathon in which we set up the sound system and vacuumed the clubhouse while making sure the beer still retained its full body. We did many delicate tasks similarly fueled over the years.

By the time the guests arrived at 5 or 6, Jerry and I had fully determined the keg to be in good shape, and we were jolly hosts. Heck we’d even had time to take naps on the clubhouse couches in preparation for what we were sure was going to be a long and happy night.

The guests only needed to bring chips or some such item worthy of eating. There wasn’t as much variety in crackers and the like back then. And Jerry and I already had some bags tossed here and there for munching. Course we’d eaten some of them, too.

Even Tony, who had told us he couldn’t attend because it wouldn’t be proper for an editor to see what we might or might not be doing, showed up at about 8. He did stay upstairs, as there were reports of illicit activity going on in the basement. We deduced this from the clouds of smoke coming up the stairwell.

Former L-C staffer Greg Kuhl, perhaps fresh from witnessing an execution in Mississippi —for his reporting job, not for fun—even showed up. Greg, who retired early and moved to Calgary, Alberta, Canada, to be a “semi-pro” distance runner, died a year or so ago. 

He’s one of several (see Tony and Richard Worden above) who were dear newspaper friends who have died.

 Harold “The Stranger” Lynch showed up for a bit. We had to make sure he didn’t drink the whole keg. God, I loved Harold, one of the kindest men and finest journalists I’ve known.

 The party itself was a dance-a-thon, most memorable for the line-dancing sing-along to Edwin Starr’s “War” and The Beatles’ “Happy Birthday” and the Stones’ “Gimme Shelter” mixed in with a little roots, rock and reggae.          

That dancing and frivolity provided a perfectly relaxed atmosphere in which the two old codgers of the night got to mingle with the younger members of the staff. Most of them left by 11 or midnight.

 Jerry and I noted that one of the young single guys stayed in there, step for step, beer for beer, shout for shout and song for song, well into the night.

That was the new police reporter, Rob Dollar. He and I were friends for a long time after that party and this celebration even is included, in part, in a book we wrote together called “When Newspapers Mattered: The News Brothers & their Shades of Glory.”

Some friendships, like mine with Jerry, are forever, as we are brothers.

Speaking of which, old buddy, I bought the keg for that night, Jerry, and you were going to cover your half later. 

Maybe you can take care of the keg, or buttermilk or whatever we consume on our 70th. It’s only a year away. If we’re interested in making it that far.

I’ve not decided.

A lot of things can happen in a year. Perhaps Donald Trump, for example, will realize he’s no longer wanted. If not, there’ll be a revolution, of course. And then there’s COVID to worry about. Always a believer in personal protection, I wear a mask whenever I leave my house.

You see, the day after the party—I’ll get back to its conclusion in a minute—was spent at the newspaper. Bleary-eyed and cotton-mouthed, to be sure, washing down vending machine Honey Buns and M&Ms with black coffee while chain-smoking exploding cigarettes and laughing.

 That night, as they say, was a time for a bite of the hair of the dog at a place called Camelot.  It really couldn’t get much better or happier, really. Ignorance is bliss.

 Damn, here I was 30 years old and I had life by the throat. What a wonderful world, indeed, as Satchmo said.

I think it was that night (or one similar), at the newspaper, I even nicknamed a horrible person who was stalking women, particularly military wives in North Clarksville.

“We need a nickname for this rapist,” said Tony, as he started thinking about the similarities between the rapes.  

All of them—at least those that were reported—occurred when the moon was full.

 Being a sports editor on deadline with scores and stories to work, I looked up and offered: “Let’s call him ‘The Full Moon Rapist.’”

From that point on, every time the moon is full, I think of that beastly criminal.  And I smile in amusement that a sports editor gave the moniker to a savage who had a town traumatized.

   Of course, you have to remember sports reporters gave names to guys like “Slammin’ Sammy” Snead,  “Hammerin’ Henry” Aaron, Ed “Too Tall” Jones and Joe “The Brown Bomber” Louis, to name a few.   Broadway Joe. Jefferson Street Joe.  Ringo Starr. Sammy “The Bull..”

 So, who knows who dreamed up the name for “The Boston Strangler”? It might have been an intern or an obituary writer in his first week on the job or a bored sports editor, looking up for a moment while proofing “The Agate Page.” (Now generally just called “The Scoreboard Page,” since no one really knows what agate is any more.) 

 Anyway, back to Tony and his inebriated exit—though he claimed otherwise—from the big “30” party for Jerry and me.

 We reminded our boss we were staying there at the clubhouse. Course most of us really had no better place to be at that time of the day and really didn’t want to die on the highways. We’d already begun to be inundated with those kinds of stories ... and it was going to get worse very soon.

 Tony said he was fine. He was a pipsqueak, 5-5 or so, but he said he could handle his liquor.  So he went out into what had turned into a cold, rainy night.  I kept watching out the window as he got in his car, a black Ford sedan.

He kept on revving his engine, but the car would go nowhere.

So, I went out to help. Rob and Jerry may have as well.

Anyway, Tony was sitting behind the wheel of his car, repeatedly pulling on the lever to control his windshield wipers.  “I can’t get this thing in gear,” he said. “Transmission messed up.”

 He kept working that lever and the windshield wipers kept on going on and off.  Finally I pointed out that he needed to use the lever on the other side of the wheel, the gear shifter, and he’d be OK.

 I told him to put it on the “little R” and back up carefully. Instead, he jammed it into drive and jumped the concrete curb, bottoming out his car and shooting sparks into the night.

“The R, Tony, the R,” I said. “But maybe you should stay here with us.” 

“Nah, I’m OK,” he said. “Sober.” 

He finally got the car into reverse and drove away backward for perhaps 100 feet before pulling down on the lever, without braking, and driving into the cold and rainy night.

 We didn’t know it at the time, but he made it as far as Don’s Donuts, maybe a half-mile away, before pulling in and parking, calling his current wife-to-be and soon-to-be ex-wife to come pick him up. He didn’t admit that to me until a long-distance phone call from Kodiak, Alaska, where he’d just lost another newspaper job years later.

Anyway, as we stood there smoking in the rain, Jerry shook his head and his belly. “He says he’s sober, see I told you he was a liar,” said Jerry, as we watched the car disappear into the mist. 

 There even was worry in Jerry’s voice, although I think he also was drooling at that point. 

The above is a true story, and it’s littered with dead friends from the newspaper business. Tony Durr, Richard Worden, Greg Kuhl, Harold Lynch, Max Moss …. 

If they could gather around, I’d throw another party. Hell, maybe they’re having one, if you believe the pamphlets.

Tuesday, November 3, 2020

Election day 2020: Advice from a guy who literally was knocked silly and bled just to vote for hope


I have voted on election day ever since I got knocked silly and bloody when I turned to wave at Blondie in the cafeteria back in 1972.

That was at Iowa State University, where I was an 'A' student, despite my interests and diversions. Anyway, I'll get back to a bit on that in a moment.

I do want to encourage you to get out and vote today -- November 3 -- if you have not. Don't be afraid of crowds.

 I had expected long lines today at my precinct, but I got through the whole process in 10 minutes.

I was going to wear my "Obama Hope" T-shirt, but thought that might offend or even be judged "political." So, I thought long and hard before making my choice: John Lennon "Working Class Hero" seemed to fit my mood and my ballot.

As I walked down the ramp into the church gym where I vote, I thought again of Professor Mary Kirkham, my English and creative writing teacher back in the fall of 1972.


Back then, there was no such thing as early voting, so on election eve in my 2 p.m. class, she said: "Many of you are voting for the first time tomorrow. My advice: 'Vote your hopes, not your fears.'"
I offer similar advice today, if you've note voted yet. Be optimistic. Think of what our country can be, but that it's not. And don't be an asshole. Oh, if you don't know how to vote: Don't do it. This is no time for ignorance or assholes.
And, finally, let me tell the story of that first vote in 1972, when Richard Nixon faced George McGovern.
I was excited about voting in the Commons, the shared space where the men's dorm (I was in Larch Hall, last room on the left of the north end, where smoke and beer cans often escaped from the window at all hours of day or night.).
There were two women's dorms, and that was fine, as I always have liked women better than men, unless they are in a rock band.
I finished my meal in the cafeteria, with Jocko (who didn't and probably doesn't vote), Carpy, Nardholm, Titzy, Captain Kirk and maybe Dog Shit or Benjie. I finished my food, put the tray on the conveyor and hastily went to the right, going toward the door toward the commons. I heard my name. A girl's voice.
Maybe it was Blondie. I can't remember, but she was a great young woman. Blondie, if you are out there, I still miss you.
So I turned while walking full-speed ahead and ran into a concrete pillar. The corner of the pillar gashed me on my left eyebrow and I also went down. Likely a concussion. Mind-altering, to say the least, but I generally enjoyed such mental adventures. Blood flowed on my face and to my hands, so my friends and I got some paper towels and I held them there so I could vote, even as the blood flowed.
When the vote was concluded, Jocko took me in his brown muscle car -- a Dodge of some sort, I think ... I only drove it once when Jocko got stopped for DUI and the cops told me to drive it back to the dorm while they hauled him in. I expected them to stop me and give me a DUI as well. But somehow, they let me drive it to the lot while they took Jocko to the place I'd scouted out myself thanks to the Beach Boys. That's another story.
Jocko took me to the campus hospital, where my nicks, scrapes and bruises often raised smiles among the doctors. 'Old Champo, at it again.... Can you believe this guy is an 'A' student?'
That's another story.
Anyway, they stitched me up at the hospital.
I think Jocko and I decided that we had time for a quick stop at Tork's Pub and before I knew it election day was over by the time we got back to the dorm.
And that's my story.
The moral: Even if you get knocked out by a concrete pillar and blood flows down your face like you are in a Scorsese film, it is worth putting a paper towel on your eyebrow, and go on to vote. But please, don't be an asshole.
And if you have a friend like Jocko, see if you can find Tork's Pub afterward.
Happy election day 2020.
To finish the story, I should add that just as I did today, I voted in 1972 for hope, not fear. Fear won out ... at least until the Watergate break-in.
And both Nixon and McGovern now are dead.

Friday, October 23, 2020

Stop the Presses!!! Max Moss, dear friend, mentor, best newspaperman I ever knew, grabs his pica pole and wax pencil and puts out his final edition

 Max Moss, the best newspaperman I ever knew, died at 11:30 a.m. Thursday at his home in Pleasant View, Tennessee.

He had been fighting cancer for a long time, and he knew for the last few months that he was going to lose the battle. 

After his first diagnosis more than a year ago, he underwent treatment, and the cancer subsided and it seemed like he may be out of the woods. But, as it usually does, the cancer returned with a vengeance a few months ago, and the doctors gave him at the most six months to live. 


I think, because he was a tough but kind gentleman, Max made it through four of those months in pretty good style, and he really didn’t need to be on pain medicine for much of that time. I believe he was as determined as possible to keep his head clear.

He wanted to be able to talk with his wife of 59 years, Merrily – more on her in a bit – and with his kids and grandchildren. Perhaps spin a fishing yarn or two. Maybe talk about his old friend, Bobby Knight, the legendary coach of Max’s beloved Indiana University Hoosiers, whose antics made the old alum chuckle. I’m not sure he liked it when Bob threw the chair across the court, but other than that, the eccentricities of the coach pretty much delighted Max.  

I ran into Knight a few times, and I told Max the coach was an asshole. Max just laughed. “That’s just Bob,” he’d say. Max didn’t swear – I took care of more than the whole newsroom’s share – but I think to Max, Coach Knight perhaps was an asshole, but a lovable one.

Until recent days, I was able to call him, and he was never one to complain. In fact, the last time we spoke, which was just before this last descent toward death, I asked him how he was doing.

“Can’t complain,” he said, one of his regular expressions. “Don’t really have all that nasty stuff yet.” Or maybe he called it “icky stuff.” Like I said, he didn’t swear.

He didn’t dwell on it, but I could tell he was having a hard time talking, and he needed to get off the phone in 15 minutes or so. Most of our calls lasted at least a half-hour. But my friend was running out of fire.

I also knew that I wasn’t going to interfere with his pride by forcing him to talk when it really was becoming almost impossible, because of the drain on his lungs.  Of course, the cancer wasn’t just in his lungs. It had spread to the liver as well. 

It never got to his spirit.

Here’s a note I got from him on June 11:

The news is not good.

 Monday, I learned the latest scan I had shows I have cancer in my liver and my lung.  Nothing can be done to stop/slow its spread.

"Maybe six months" is what Max Jr., Karen and I learned when we met with the specialist who helps folks dealing with such situations.

For now, while I'm still feeling OK, Merrily and I, with the kids' help, are getting our financial and other such details in order.

Max 

Perfect news writing. Who, What, When, Where, Why and How in the lead. Inverted pyramid. Solid ending adding final information.  

Because of the COVID thing, I could not go up to see him in the last few months. I am fortunate enough that I went up there just before the shutdown.  It was before the final diagnosis, but he knew that time was coming.

I really needed to see him then.  I knew he was failing, not from complaints from him but because his son, Max Jr., kept me informed.

Max Jr. was there the last time I was up there and Max and Merrily were in good spirits, sharing donuts that their son had picked up fresh that morning.  I knew he was getting tired then, too, so I left after an hour or two and rolled back downhill to Nashville.

Besides that, the two Maxes were bound for yet another doc’s visit in Nashville.  Max Jr. took the donuts along when he and his dad climbed into the young man’s fire-engine-red pickup with Oklahoma tags.

The last three times when I have called up there, Max was sleeping.  I spoke with Merrily and Karen while he rested.

 But, like I said, the last time I spoke with him, maybe three weeks ago, he was the same loving old friend who pretty much taught me all I ever needed to know about being a newspaperman.

We talked about our lives in newspapers. We spoke of pica poles and souping film, printing it wet and sizing it for reproduction in the camera room.  Cigarettes tossed to the floor of the composing room while Glover Williams put the waxed copy on the pages.   

I reminded him again of my “Whitey Ford/Fuchs Winner” headline when we spoke of the art of getting headlines to fit, back before the computer took that task, basically all of the layout and design tasks, over.

We spoke of the first time I met him. It was on the second day I worked at The Leaf-Chronicle in Clarksville.  Monday, I reported to work with sports editor Gene Washer, who had hired me the week before for $125 a week, just enough that I could afford an efficiency apartment in a rundown section of town on the other side of Crossland and near the Cumberland River.

Monday was Max’s day off. Seeing as that was September 12, 1974 or thereabouts and it was sunny, I’m sure Max was out at Lake Barkley, fishing. 

I did go out with him once when he fished Barkley. He wanted to see if I’d become interested. Or maybe he just wanted to spend some time with me – we loved each other as friends and colleagues – so he bought me a one-day license. I think he lacked faith that I’d take up the hobby. He was right. My only passion back then was in the newsroom. Or maybe in a bar.

Anyway, I enjoyed being with him when we launched at Bumpus Mills Marina, in Stewart County, but I believe I only caught one crappie. And I avoided a snake hanging from one of the branches.  

We stopped on the way back at another spot near Barkley where he wanted to show me a beaver dam. No, we didn’t kill any beaver and eat them.

Hell, we’d barely gotten crappie, but thanks to Max, we did carry enough back to the Moss’ North Clarksville home for that evening’s meal. Merrily cleaned and cooked them.

It wasn’t too long after that Max asked me to come out to his house and help him get a pool table down in the basement. It was a tough job. And I know when he moved, he left the pool table in the basement.

Oh, Max and I did take many more drives out to Bumpus Mills Marina, because he and Merrily had purchased land there. They later gave up plans of building a home there.  But he did like to go look at that land and also down at the water. He was good company. We several times paced out his lot, and he continued to dream of walking from his house and dropping a crappie line in off the dock.

Before I go on much farther, I need to mention more about Merrily. She is a wonderful woman, always welcoming me into their home. In fact, on Saturdays, Max and I generally would get into the newsroom at around 10 a.m. or so.  We had about 16 broadsheet pages to fill for Sunday. We’d work until at least 1 a.m.

We’d spend the first couple hours talking to football and basketball coaches to get the results of games we hadn’t covered. Back then, The Leaf-Chronicle, the oldest newspaper in the state, covered something like seven or eight counties, including all of the ones in the immediate area of Tennessee as well as two counties in Kentucky.

Oh, and we also covered the sports at Fort Campbell, the military post near where Max lived and the place where he had served much of his own infantry stint.  He did go to Vietnam once, delivering some top-secret papers from honchos at Fort Campbell to others in Saigon.  He told me he was scared (he didn’t say, “shitless,” but he didn’t need to), and was glad to uncuff that briefcase and leave it in Nam and get the hell … or “the heck” … back to Clarksville and Fort Campbell.   

Anyway, I was talking about Merrily.  In recent weeks, when I have called up to the comfortable house she and her husband shared in Pleasant View, Tennessee – halfway between Clarksville and Nashville – she answered the phone. “Your buddy’s sitting right here,” she’d say. Or “your buddy’s sleeping, so if you can call back later.”

The last time I spoke with her, though, her words were a little scrambled. I figured she was a little tired.  Max Jr. told me, a few days later, that she had suffered a stroke, likely brought on by the stress of caring for her husband. And, of course, knowing all the while that it was a losing cause.

Merrily, it should be mentioned, is brave in her own right.  Long ago, she worked for the city of Clarksville, with her workspace being in the City Garage.  That apparently was before people realized how caustic a workplace can be, and her lungs were permanently scarred by the fumes created when cars and trucks were being painted.

She is down to something like 10 percent lung capacity. But she doesn’t complain, either.  In fact, she joked with me that as Max’s disease got worse, he was even having to use more oxygen than her.

Max told me, with a laugh, that the problem with being on oxygen was that he and Merrily got their hoses – those thin, clear plastic things attached to the oxygen tanks – tangled up.

Since my last call to Merrily – her husband was resting and morphine was taking its toll – I have spoken with their beloved children, Max Jr. and Karen.  I’ve known them since they were children, of course.

Both of them would be in their family room on Saturday nights when Max and I took our dinner break. We’d been in early, and we would close out late. So we usually took about an hour and a half, picked up some Whoppers with cheese at the Burger King by the Red River and we’d go out to the Moss home to watch Archie Bunker. Max provided the beer, although we limited ourselves to one or two, because we still had hours of work to go.

We always were joined by Fluffy, the wonderful black dog with the imaginative name, who was glad for hamburger scraps.  I was very sad when Fluffy died.

Oh, and the smoking.  I had smoked since I was about 16. In high school it was mostly cigars and pipes that I would puff on while walking along nearby Lake Michigan (we lived in the barely-northern suburbs of Chicago).  In college, during my first set of finals, I ran out of cigars in the middle of the night and went down to the commons room below the dorm to put two quarters in the machine for a pack of Camels or maybe Marlboros or Winstons. Not Luckys though, even though LSMFT was their slogan (Lucky Strike Means Fine Tobacco).

My smoking of tobacco and otherwise became a big part of my being as I made it through college.  I liked to roll my own, but Camels probably were my preferred tobacco cigarette.

When I got out of college in 1973, and after I toured the country in my 1965 Ford Falcon, I gave up smoking. Not a big deal. Oh, the occasional “pipe” or cigar, but no cigarettes.

When I first stepped in that Leaf-Chronicle newsroom on September 12, 1974, I quickly learned that quitting smoking for health reasons was fruitless. Everybody, even copy desk chief and religion columnist, Big Jim Monday, smoked cigarettes.  Max was one of the worst offenders. I sat between him and Gene Washer and puffing machine Richard Worden, the city editor who eventually died of leg injuries from his stint as a Marine in Vietnam, was a few feet behind me.

The first day or so, I bummed cigarettes. But then I figured “what the hell,” and went back to the break room and slid in two or three quarters for my own pack.  Before I quit smoking, 20 years later, I sometimes reached three packs a day. That went well with my 40 cups of coffee a day average.    

I’m kind of wandering around here. Even though I knew he was dying, any day, it is hard to grasp fully. He wouldn’t approve of all this wandering around, either. Get to the (fucking) point.

I think about the first ballgame he worked with me. It was Thursday night at Municipal Stadium in Clarksville, where Erin (Now Houston County High School) was taking on The Clarksville Academy. I guess that would have been Sept. 15, 1974.

I can’t remember who won. Doesn’t really matter. All I can remember is Max’s steady reassurance as he taught me how to properly fill out a scorebook and take pictures and notes all at the same time. I must have done OK, since that was my only training session. I went back to the newsroom to write the story. Max went home, apparently satisfied that I’d do OK.

The next night I was on my own, probably at Fort Campbell, while Max went to either Clarksville or Northwest, the only high schools in the city back then.

He’s the guy who taught me the disciplines of newspapering: use of the pica pole, sizing wheel, layout and design, developing film, printing pictures, editing wire and other copy.

I pretty much already knew how to write, but I felt assured when it was Max who was the guy with the wax pencil going through my copy. I knew that whatever changes he made were warranted. He told me I was the best writer he knew. That meant a lot.

He really liked my stories from New Orleans, when I covered the Muhammad Ali-Leon Spinks fight for the Chronicle. Max was managing editor by then and I was sports editor.

He was as much a friend as a boss (he was assistant sports editor when I began there). And he also was a professor, who valued what he saw from his pupils. I was the main pupil for a few years.

I eventually became sports editor after Max had a heart attack or some such, and it was decided he needed to keep more regular hours and stay off the road.

It’s funny now, seeing as how things change, that when I went to the hospital to visit Max after that heart problem, we both sat there smoking and laughing.  As far as I know that behavior is not acceptable in today’s society.

When Max became managing editor, he named me  his associate editor, and that pretty much had me tending to the paper while it was being put together.

There’s a lot more I could say about Max and the lessons I learned. The laughs we shared. The trifecta bets we made weekly during the season at the track in Evansville, Indiana. Ellis Park? I think. Max would go and place the bet as Gene Washer and I chipped in $2 apiece. I don’t think we ever won.

It was like the football cards we played weekly in those days when gambling was illegal. The horizontal pink pieces of paper were available at Poor Man’s Country Club or other purveyors of beer and bait. We’d all go in for $2 apiece. And we’d generally lose.

Max and I went on to work together at the Nashville Banner (he went there a few years ahead of me), where he was wire editor and did some outdoors writing.

When the Banner closed, Max didn't get a job at The Tennessean, which bought us out. I don't know why they didn't hire him. His age or their ignorance? Or maybe he wanted a change. So he took his fishing pole and knowledge and was writer-producer of the outdoors module of country.com, a web site operated by Turner Broadcasting and CBS.

 When that job played out, he pretty much went home to Pleasant View, where he could more easily take care of his bride as her health diminished, while he set up shop as a freelance writer, covering outdoors topics, fishing in particular. His “research” for that was tough: He had to take his boat out and fish for crappie or whatever. And shoot pictures of dawn at Lake Barkley. He didn’t hunt, though. One Christmas his family gave him a deer rifle. I don’t think he ever used it. “I couldn’t go out there and kill Bambi,” he said.

He edited a national bass fisherman's magazine, The Lunker Hole, for awhile. And he was  head of the Tennessee Outdoor Writers Association and other organizations involving hunting and fishing. He also was active in his church and on the local planning commission. 

Max quit smoking long ago, so his cancer came as a shock to me. To him, too. But he was stoic. He sat in his chair, next to the chair where Merrily sat, and watched cowboy movies during the many months leading up to his death.

The last time we talked, before he began his long descent into sleep and death, we were hankering for the days of real film, typewriters, the pneumatic tube that carried stories and art (photos is what they call them now) to be typeset, the art of counting spaces and writing the perfect headline. Carrying pages to the camera room to be shot before they were turned into plates. Standing by the presses with the foreman, checking the pages, making sure they were just right, before we let them go. Neither the pressmen nor the newspapermen wanted smeared pages. Nowadays, there is no such stopgap of running a few hundred, allowing for the good ones to finally begin spitting off the press.  Of course, there aren’t many newspapers anyway.

We talked of our many friends in the business who are gone. And we wondered how many of the coaches we worked with still were alive.

“I’d do anything to go back to those days when we worked together back in the ‘70s,” I told him. I meant it.

“Me too,” he said. “You know, we sound like a couple of old movie gunfighters who are being pushed out by progress.”

I thought of Butch and Sundance, The Wild Bunch, even The Shootist.  The stories really weren’t about the fact they died. But how they lived. And didn’t back down. Time just ran out on them.

Then he said: “You know, Tim, you always were a free-spirit.  You had fun while we worked together.”

Yeah, I did rebel a lot during my life, but only against authority figures I didn’t respect.  Still do, really. My soul hasn’t changed.

I never swore at Max nor showed him disrespect.  Other bosses, the ones who specialized in back-stabbing and lying and age discrimination, well, they didn’t earn that degree of respect.

I always respected … nah, I always will respect Max Moss, a classy gentleman, kind soul, fair fisherman, my mentor, a great boss and fine family man.

The story isn’t that he’s dead, of course. But that such a man lived and will forever inhabit a spot in my life.

Max, Rest In Peace.    

I love you, old friend.  And I’m sure they have pica poles in heaven.  You might see if Glover is there to help you paste up the pages. Hell, Max, now you can even fire up a Winston and see if Glover has the whiskey bottle he always kept in his desk. Sounds reasonable to me.

Max Moss was the best newspaperman I ever met. 

Stop the presses.

   

 

 

 

 

Monday, April 13, 2020

The Thanksgiving Eve that me and Freddy Wyatt used an aluminum baseball bat on a punk and other tales of friendship with a great family


Slowly, I backed myself from the area where the unkempt and threatening young man was talking to my beloved friend Freddy Wyatt.

My slow backward “gait’’ was with purpose. I was going into the “bait room” of the Sack ‘n’ Pack market on Riverside Drive with one purpose: To grab an aluminum Louisville Slugger (it may have been a different brand, as this was the day before Thanksgiving 1976, so there is that blur. Oh, that blur. It only gets worse.)

The Slugger was on the right side of the back wall in the bait room, along with a couple of ball gloves, a badminton-for-beginners set or two, a few basketballs and footballs.  Thank God, no soccer balls, as this was 44 years ago and soccer had not yet infected our American sports world, other than high school intramurals. Oh, I should mention here that one of my three broken noses came playing soccer in high school. I may not be a tough guy, but I played sports for keeps. I kept playing as blood flowed. No Magic Johnson rules back then.

That’s another story, maybe for my obit or something. Broke the nose twice more playing football along with a few “stingers” as they euphemistically refer to concussions on the gridiron. 

Anyway, back to the day before Thanksgiving in 1976. At the Sack ‘n’ Pack. It may have been spelled “Sak ‘n’ Pak,” but I like it better with the “c” in both words.

By the way, also in the bait room was this huge plywood and plastic bin filled with crickets – you’d lift the metal screen door and scoop up some to use in your crappie-fishing expeditions – as well as nightcrawlers in little cartons of dirt. Different kinds of worms for the fisherman. Probably even “Red Wigglers, the Cadillac of Worms.”

Then there was the standard fishing gear, poles, rods, reels, scaling knives, hand grenades to throw in the water so you could kill a batch and scoop them off the top of the water, shotguns and more. I’m lying about the hand grenades and shotguns. If Freddy had those in his Sack ‘n’ Pack bait room stock, I may have used those to try to kill this thug who seemed so threatening.

The guy, probably was my age, which was 25 back then. I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now. Not really, of course.

Most people already were on their way to see their families on this Wednesday, back when the world shut down for holidays and viruses generally didn’t kill whole floors of nursing homes and nice people in general. I had a basketball game to cover that night and would go see my folks the next morning.

Carefree days, with me holding onto a metal baseball bat, preparing to whack the brains out of a guy if he attempted to rob or otherwise harm this guy who I thought of as a best friend. I still keep him among those ranks of best friends, as I love him now, 40-very-odd years after we did our hanging around, drinking beer and playing pinball for quarters in the store.

Love his family, too. Mary Coleman Wyatt remains the kindest friend’s wife in my memory.  And their baby, Diana, was a beautiful and warm little girl then. Baby Freddy T, now a preacher of some renown, came later, though I did get a chance to know him, too. Praise be to God, etc.

Back in those days, I ate at their house at least once a week. I was a single guy working in a town where I knew no one.

I met Freddy one night when I walked from the apartment that I rented in a rat-infested house near the railroad tracks – actually the train went right through my back yard, a sound I came to relish. The Last Train to Clarksville? Shit, trains ran day and night, hauling coal and gasoline and Malt-o-Meal or whatever within 20 feet of my kitchen. The landlord got rid of the rats, after I complained. Her name was Mrs. Blackwood and she always wore a neck brace. Her daughter, paralyzed, always was sprawled out in the back of the station wagon when her mom came to collect rent. I’d go talk to her. Name was Birdie, or maybe not. Nice young woman.

Anyway, when I moved to Clarksville in September of 1974 – went to work September 12 for The Leaf-Chronicle newspaper, the oldest paper in the state of Tennessee; Founded 1808; I think the phone number was 552-1808, but I may be wrong on the prefix – I had no friends in the Queen City of the Cumberland.

The AP Bureau chief in Nashville had – when I inquired about jobs there, fresh from my Easy Rider ramblings in a 1965 Ford Falcon Futura and a short and uninspiring stint at a PR/Ad Agency – told me Sports Editor Gene Washer at The Leaf-Chronicle was looking for a high school sports reporter.

The chief called Washer, who then told me to come on up, which I did, and I got a job. The long version of this story has James “Fly” Williams, a great basketball player with an undisciplined life, now in jail and labeled a “heroin kingpin” in the Bronx, involved. For that you should read the book “When Newspapers Mattered: The News Brothers & their Shades of Glory” that I wrote with my running buddy for decades Rob Dollar.  I’ve been told it would make a helluva movie about murders, alcohol, Tennessee Williams, dead monkeys and friendship, but mostly about how newspapers WERE before Korporate Fukkers gutted them. That happened long ago. Buy the book. You’ll laugh, cry and be amazed. And I think I get $2 for every sale.

Anyway, enough on that. I got the job, mostly working with Max Moss, the assistant sports editor/prep editor, who taught me the veteran’s tricks to covering high school sports. Max – the best newspaperman ever to be my boss – also taught me the fine points of shooting sports events.

 And, with the help of photo chief W.J. Souza, a tank driver during World War II, I learned how to develop film and print pictures. Sometimes if we were in a hurry, the printing was done from wet film and we didn’t let the photo paper dry, we just ran it to Ronnie Kendrick in the camera room. Ah, but that’s another story. About newspapers.

This one’s about Freddy. And it won’t  capture everything I love about the guy because I wrote one before and while I waited to finish it, my computer malfunctioned, the guts needed to be purged and the tale of Freddy Wyatt became so much formerly digital air.

What I really am illustrating above is that while I was working sports, I was working a lot of odd hours. Early mornings until about 1 or 2 p.m. and then again at night. I was not on the same work schedule as the rest of the people in the newsroom, who worked 5-5 or so and then went drinking or to a movie or out to eat.

So for a long time I had no friends there. Only nodding acquaintances … other than with Washer and Max and W.J., and I have to admit I loved all of them, Max best, but they all were good men and were kind to me.

The problem was I had big holes in my day. And after ballgames got done at night or if I had a night off. No friends, not enough money ($125 per week) to have a phone, I’d make my own entertainment or stay in my apartment watching “Gunsmoke” reruns and the news on a TV with a 7-inch diagonal, black-and-white screen.

I hate being stuck inside, so often I sat out on a bench on the porch and smoked. Yeah, I smoked two or even three packs of cigarettes a day for many years as a newsman, but I never liked to smoke inside my apartment.

I had seen the bright Sack ‘n’ Pack sign down on Riverside Drive, about a half-mile downhill from my house (and a block south), so one lonely evening, I decided to walk down there. Buy some ice cream maybe. Some smokes. At that point in my life I wasn’t yet into drinking alone, all by myself, so usually I wasn’t buying the Natural Light that later would become my life’s blood (along with 12-year-old, low-end Scots whisky.)

There was just one person in the store that first night, and he was a little bored. Clarksville is not New York. Hell, back then it wasn’t much more exciting than Mayberry, except for the soldiers at Fort Campbell who kept running off the road and dying after nights on the town.  Liquor store owner Johnny Maddox was kidnapped during a robbery and murdered and his whole family became my friends later, but that was an unusual big-city type of violence.  Different for Clarksville.

The guy at the counter – and I can’t remember now if he was smoking Winstons or Marlboro – was so friendly. He asked me to go ahead and plop up on the second counter, facing him, and we visited for a few hours.

I learned all about Clarksville, golf and running a market from Freddy. I think he just adopted me because I was lonely and was pretty much a foreigner. Back then, Clarksville had only 63,000 people. Lots more now, but from what I can tell from my occasional visits, quantity seldom equals quality in this life.

Basically, what began that night was my new routine. If I had an afternoon off, I’d go down to the store and help Freddy. Sometimes I’d run the register. Occasionally I would do other things, like help him with the sandbags for the storefront when the Cumberland River across the street flooded.

When the Sack ‘n’ Pack empire expanded, with two more stores, I went wherever Freddy was working. In his second store, just across the river in Southside, he had a deli counter. I’d try to get there for the lunch rush so I could make sandwiches.

Half-inch slice of bologna on white bread, all soaked red with hot sauce, was the $1.25 house special. But we sold ham, salami, head cheese, whatever someone might want. And it was busy. The same at the store that was opened in St. Bethlehem.

Again, I’d try to make the lunch rush. And by then, his store was selling beer from a keg -- $3 a gallon or whatever – and we’d do our best to drink what wasn’t sold. No use letting the beer go to waste.

And we’d play the quarter bingo pinball machine.  Put a lot of quarters in, back in the days when such machines were legal. Made $100 one night. The payout, of course, came from the cash register, so the thrill was in the playing, with the winnings going back to the store.

I met most of Clarksville, it seems like, in those stores.  Guys like Peter Primm, an old man from the Trenton, Kentucky, area who liked to go for afternoon drives in the country and who wouldn’t mind a by-then well-known local journalist coming along.

Or the golf partners who met up with Freddy at the store. I didn’t play golf. Still don’t. But he tried to teach me, unsuccessfully, so I became the golf cart driver and beer distributor as we worked the Swan Lake Golf Course perhaps an afternoon per week.

And perhaps the best thing about being Freddy’s friend was the fact he was married to one of the world’s most-wonderful women.  Freddy often would drag me home with him for dinner after a hard afternoon of beer and sandwich-making and pinball.

Or if he didn’t, Mary Coleman would either drop in at the store or call and ask if I wanted to go to dinner at their house.

For a guy who had no friends in Clarksville, they became my family. Diana, too, as she grew.

My only bad experience at store in St. Bethlehem was that one day I entered during a blizzard. I’d just come from Nashville, where my parents lived, and I had an armload of albums to take to my apartment. Because it was so cold outside, I took them all into the store. I forgot to get them before I left that night and they were gone the next day.  One of the workers had likely taken them home. Ralph? Freddy? If you have a vinyl copy of “Wheels of Fire” and more from my collection, give me a call. I still want them back. Still, I don’t suspect anything nefarious. It’s a world of finders-keepers, after all.

I need to wrap back around and get to the end of the story soon, as I’ve got paperwork to do this afternoon.

But I do have to mention that all good things really do come to an end. Freddy and his partner Ralph Mickle (also a nice guy) were slowly backing out of the weird hours of the quick shop world and they’d become grocery wholesalers.

At first, I treated it like I had Sack ‘n’ Pack. Their warehouse was over behind the plaza where Pedigo Hardware was and not far from Camelot, which later became my all-night drinking place, where cops bought me scotch, Jimmy in the Morning also, if he could raise his head from the table. A good night included drunken soldiers fighting over women or football. Bodies flying, tables breaking.

I would walk over to the warehouse after work and hang out with the guys in their office at the new warehouse.

As expected, Freddy and even Ralph, welcomed my visits.  But it was a more-formal atmosphere. More serious business, I suppose. More at stake, I’m sure.

And they had partners. One of them was a former high school tennis coach and I'll bite my tongue before expanding on my description. He was from the “right” side of the tracks in Clarksville. We got along fine, especially when I covered his team’s matches.

But one day, as I was sitting there in the warehouse office, enjoying a Merit 100 or two, Freddy was back in the warehouse, working.

He had told me to hang around, but I was worried I was getting in the way.

That’s when the one-time coach decided it was time, I guess, to claim his territory. “What are you doing here?” he asked, cold and cruel.  “Why are you here every day? We really don’t want you here.”

Actually, I felt like crying. But then I figured that maybe I really was in the way. And I certainly wasn’t welcome by at least one of the partners, so I left the warehouse, essentially ending my daily contacts with my friend.

He was busy anyway, but he’d always have made room for me. But I didn’t want to tell him what his former tennis coach partner had said. Stirring up trouble between partners was something only an asshole would do, and generally I'm not perceived in that way.

So I moved on. Finding friends, good and bad, and living life that eventually ended with great relationships and a love of that town that I probably would have left long before if it hadn’t been for the friendship of Freddy Wyatt. And Mary Coleman. And Diana.

Eventually, I left Clarksville for Nashville, and it became my home. I love it in Nashville. I have a good family, dog and cat, nice little post-War house, decent life (except for the fact I was put out to pasture by the morning newspaper when I was 56. That’s another long story, and, again, check out the “When Newspapers Mattered” book by my friend Rob Dollar and me.)

And I haven’t done a real good job of keeping track of Freddy and his family. There had been years between when the former coach threw me out of the warehouse and I left Clarksville, so I hadn’t seen him much in the last almost 10 years I lived in Clarksville. I always missed our Sack 'n' Pack days and nights, though. Still do, actually.

And I still love Freddy -- and Mary Coleman and Diana -- and I think of them often.

Squashing out cigarettes on the floor in the late-night hours as Freddy and I talked at his store remains one of my great memories of warmth and friendship.

Which brings me back to Thanksgiving Eve in 1976.

It was cold outside. Boy was it cold. And this guy had come in from the highway (Riverside Drive) not making any sense, talking about having no way to get home to see his family, just generally blathering. His eyes darted like a madman or a drug-dazed guy. Either way, it was frightening.

He was pretty big too. And there weren’t any other people in the store besides me and Freddy.  The guy kept pushing himself closer and closer to Freddy and the cash register. He would pat against his upper chest, as if there may be a firearm there.

I looked at Freddy and nodded my head backward, toward the bait room, where the bats were.  Freddy nodded, softly, fear in his eyes.

We both knew this guy was planning on sticking up the store. At least we thought we knew that.

Which is why I stepped into the bait room and came back into the store, swinging the aluminum bat, blood spurting from his head, splattering on the door onto the highway. Fear strikes out.

Naah. Not really, though that might have been fun and make for a better tale. Really I was just holding the bat.. Pounding the barrel into my fist, making intimidating sound of aluminum on flesh, while we told the guy he’d better get going." Happy Thanksgiving, mother fucker."

He looked from me to Freddy and disappeared into the cold. Freddy locked the doors for a few minutes while we caught our breath.

That’s pretty much the end of the story, except for the fact I put the bat away in the bait room and we drove out to his house, near the Swan Lake course, for an early dinner.

I had a basketball game to cover that evening.

I guess I’m glad I didn’t have to use that bat, but I have no doubt I would have killed that punk if he had tried to rob or harm my friend Freddy Wyatt. I always loved a good Peckinpah film, and have little doubt, this would have led to slow-motion bloodshed as my bat cracked punk skull.



AUTHOR’S NOTE:  I have had many friends in life and too often I am writing about them after they are dead. That’s a good thing, as it helps the families and I know it helps me heal.  Today I decided to write this because, as far as I know, Freddy is fine. He can read this and know I’ll always love him and his family.   Then when he does die, I won’t have to spit something out in regret.