We're Still Here!

Many hours and days have have clicked by during the last 35 years since graduation. Through those many seasons, we've experienced love and loss, life and death, joy and sadness. But, we're still here.

We're still able to witness Fall sneaking its way into our yards and trees, casting long shadows and orange and brown tints over once bright green foliage.  We can still breathe in the aromatic mixture of wet sod, popcorn and hot coffee at a local Friday night football game. We can still enjoy the freckled-face laughter of our grandchildren, the beaming smiles of our own kids and the reassuring embraces of our spouses.

We're still here. We still gather at churches on Sunday mornings, sing hymns from frayed books, hear sermons repeated that still stir our souls, shake hands and hug wrinkled necks that have nurtured us from our youth. We still eat noisy Sunday lunches, then nap on cozy sofas or drive out the afternoons along the graveled roads that link us to our past.

Yes, we're still here 35 years later. But there's a whole life ahead of us, waiting to be lived and celebrated!


Peace, 
Ken

Name Brandishing

In the ‘70s, there was no Nike, no easily recognized “swoosh” that is so common in sports circles today. Instead, there were two monster companies that competed for our sports apparel dollars: Adidas and Puma. And like kids today, we were absolutely certain that in order to hang with our home boys, we needed to own the same brand of athletic shoes adorning the feet of John McEnroe or Joe Namath. So, the choice then was either Puma or Adidas. But, I chose something less. Then I lied about it.

It’s not that I was super materialistic. I just wanted to be cool and trendy, a common characteristic of teens both then and now. Some of our identities (unfortunately) came from the clothes we wore. We could only wear Levy-brand jeans, for example. And there was a certain brand of Navy jacket that was necessary (although I can’t remember the brand). I can only assume that that trend has continued, if not worsened. Thankfully, the anxiety about clothing dissipates with time, as we come to realize that it’s the person inside the clothes (and frankly, the heart inside the person) that matters most. But, that truth gets lost on a barefoot teenager who desperately wants to be cool.

The challenge I faced was the capital it required to sport a pair of these trendy ‘track shoes” that were so popular then. (Some actually wore their real track shoes - minus spikes - to school). And, as the saying goes, money didn’t grow on trees, or at least any tree in my orchard. So, my choices were to either wear Converse-brand shoes (less trendy, but acceptable), to steal a pair of the real things (which I seriously considered) or to buy knock-offs. The latter recourse won out.

So, the shoes that wound up on my feet didn’t come from one of the popular sporting goods stores - whatever those may have been in the ‘70s. My shoes came from a rack at nearby Pine Bluff’s K-Mart store, with the shoe laces tied together. And, though they appeared to be some form of leather, they were actually some form of plastic. I didn’t care, or at least I didn’t think so, because from a casual vantage point, as far as anyone knew, these shoes were the real McCoy.

I hadn’t owned my new plastic track shoes long before an interrogation began. It started in a first period class from a well meaning friend at the time. Unfortunately for me, I hadn’t prepared well for the cross examination.

“Where did you get those?” he asked blandly, staring at my feet. “Get what?” I feigned. “Those shoes - are they new? “Oh, these? I dunno. I don’t remember.” Suddenly, I didn’t like the undue attention I was getting. “But, they look brand new” he continued. Are those Adidas?” Others were now looking in our direction. “No... I mean, I don’t think so. I’m not sure,” I stammered, as I felt heat rising to my face. “What do you mean, you don’t know?” he insisted. “What kind of box did they come in?” My friend was relentless and I hadn’t anticipated the “box” question. “They didn’t come in a box. I mean...I didn’t see the box they came in...they were a gift. My cousin gave them to me.” I was hoping I wouldn’t have to name the cousin, because I couldn’t think of single one at that moment. “So, does your cousin wear Adidas?” “No,” I muttered, mostly to myself. “Now he doesn’t.” My cousins probably wore cowboy boots, I thought to myself, and they sure didn’t give a flip-flop about these goofy-looking plastic track shoes.

Mercifully, the questioning trailed off eventually. It wasn’t meant to be personal. My friend didn’t mean to embarrass me (or himself for that matter) even though he did. I really think it was more that, to my friend, the possibility that my shoes were anything but name-brand - and the reality that not everyone could afford the real thing - was outside his frame of reference. I’m not even sure if he knew that K-Mart existed, let alone imitation Adidas or Pumas, let alone budgets that didn’t always allow name-brand shoes.

So, that whole episode still bugs me. Why? Because I wish I’d been mature enough to have answered differently, more transparently, more matter-of-factly. And, because it gets repeated year after year, sometimes with tragic consequences. Kids have been mugged by their peers over designer sneakers. Sometimes worse happens. It’s serious.

What’s interesting to me is that if that encounter were to happen again today, I’d be rather proud of the fact that I’d bought the items on the cheap. (In fact, I’ve bragged about the deals I’ve found at Target and Wal-Mart, haven’t you?) I suppose I can afford a pair of Adidas, Pumas, Nike or whatever the brand. In fact, I don’t discount the notion that good shoes are important (you only have to ask an Army recruit about the importance of quality footwear). But nowadays I’m more concerned with the roller coaster ride my 401k plan is taking, rather than whether I’m wearing the same shoes as the latest celebrity-of-the-month, or whether I’m fashionable or if I match the latest styles. I only wish I’d been more realistic then.

Besides, it’s not about the shoes you’re wearing; it’s more about the direction your feet are pointing. Funny, but nobody seems concerned about the style of shoes Lindsay Lohan or Mel Gibson is wearing these days.

Keep on truckin’!

-Ken

Brain Freeze

There's an ice cream place just down the street from my house. In the winter, they do a modest business, with a car or two in the postage-stamp-sized parking lot some of the time. In the summer however, business peaks. You might as well park in the adjacent lot because you can't get near this ice cream joint. Most summer evenings, you can easily find cars with kids' heads sticking out of every window encircling the lot. Summertime just says "ice cream" I guess.

When we were growing up in Rison, there were several ways we managed to get our ice cream fixes on hot summer days. One source was The Jennie Freeze (more formally known as Jennie's Freeze King). The Jennie Freeze was owned by Jennifer Bell Sipes' parents. If' I've got this right, the Bell's owned and ran the Freeze King from the 60's until the 80's (but email me if I'm wrong). It was certainly our claim to a little slice of Americana and a solid staple of Rison's culture. Everyone dined at the Freeze King. During those hot August football two-a-days, the Freeze King enjoyed intermittent carloads of sweaty, high school boys crashing at the King between practice sessions. And on Friday and Saturday nights, the Freeze King maintained our social lives, or what we described as such. Thank goodness we had the Freeze King as a cushion to soften the growing pains of adolescence.

Another source of a ice cream (and social miscues) was the Wildcat Dairy Dip. I guess the Dairy Dip came along in the early 70's and if memory serves, it was Frank Farrer that was the original owner and operator, although The Dip was bought and sold many times before it finally dried up. I'm pretty sure The Dip was the place where our class spent a lot of nocturnal hours, but I'm not so sure they saw any significant increase in revenues because of us. Most of what we spent there was "time" and not money; however, we we all enjoyed our share of Dairy Dip burgers, shakes and their ice cream.

And, lest we forget, our generation was one that enjoyed home-made (or is it "homemade?") ice cream. My family and yours would gather, sometimes in homes, sometimes at church "socials" (funny that we called them "socials") to laboriously hand-crank the thing-a-ma-jig until it produced a frozen, artery-clogging concoction that always made angels sing. My favorite was just plain vanilla. I figured anything less was just plain un-American. But there were always those for which plain vanilla was just too plain; their ice cream had to have an orchard's worth of fruits chopped up, ground down and poured into the frozen mix. There's a party-pooper in every crowd.

Obviously, part of the reason for dragging your kids along to these fellowships was to offer a ready source of labor to crank the darn ice cream makers. (That's the price we paid for not having our own transportation, remember?). And, inevitably, someone would forget to bring the required amounts of rock salt in order for the ice cream to become more "ice" and less "cream." (There's some science there, but I never gave two hoots about the chemistry; I only wanted the frozen results). I always seemed to be the one on duty when the slushy mess was determined to remain cream. I'm betting that in the early 1900s, people used to get together for their butter-churning shindigs, their sixteen children in tow, all the while with the intention of each sibling working for their keep. I can see it now: every kid handed a butter churn handle along with the stern admonishment to "get busy, or it'll be a long ride home in the back of the wagon." That, of course, was before the kids got their own wagon wheels.

Forget about butter churning and this blistering hot summer and go have yourself a plain-old vanilla-filled ice cream headache!

-Ken

Fisticuffs

It was Friday and one of those clear, crisp, autumn afternoons in Rison when the final bell rang at school. Normally, the clanging of that obnoxious cymbal would incite a riot, causing me to grab whatever books I had halfheartedly opened (at that hour of the day and on a Friday no less) and bolt for the door. This particular day however, I just sat stone-faced, dreading my next appointment. There was a fight after school and I had the starring role.

Only an evening earlier, things had been normal. At an “away” junior high football game, a group of us had gathered around the opposing team’s concession stand to indulge in Frito-Pies and hot chocolate - the scalding kind that always, always burns your tongue no matter how much you blow on it beforehand. We huddled for a while, ogling any females within shouting distance and letting our adolescence convince us us that our banter was actually witty. As we eventually made our way back toward the bleachers, we came across a fellow student, albeit younger, forcing a shoving match on an even younger and smaller rival. At that moment, I suppose whatever sense of justice I might have had at that age forced me to intervene, so I offered the following creative admonishment: “Hey, stupid! Knock it off! Pick on someone your own size.” Obviously, I had trouble coming up with something more original at that moment. Regardless, the response was just as cliched: “Make me, Dip Wad!.” (I’m not sure “Dip Wad” was the exact phrase he used, so fill in your own slanderous retort).

My idea of “making him” was to berate him, loudly, in front of my buddies and anyone else that would listen. And, it worked, or at least I thought it did, when he stormed off. I turned to my pals with a wink as if to say, “See there? Stick with me and I’ll show you real conflict resolution.” (Okay, what I was really thinking was that my tirade had obviously worked and that I was about to come off looking very smart and daring). When I turned back around, I not only found myself face to face with the same snarling kid, but his snarling older brother and his father to boot!

What ensued seems surreal now. The Dad insisted that, given that I posed as a “tough guy,” I should be willing to fight not only one son, but in fact, both his boys. He actually demanded that I take on both his kids, right then, right there, and with everyone watching. And when I offered yet another poorly timed bit of snarky advice to Redneck Daddy, his reply was that he would “slap that silly smile” right off my face. My buddies were as appalled as I was. A forty-something year old man had just threatened a 16 year-old me - and in front of witnesses.

I’d like to report that I did one of those Keanu Reeves’ matrix-like moves and whipped all three of the clan. It would make a great story if, say, a scene out of one of those Rambo movies unfolded, with Frito-Pies and hot-chocolate erupting in the air, Daddy and sons flying like rag dolls, helpless against my rage, with me pummeling them into the soggy sideline turf.

What really happened is that I stood there, hoping against hope that I could keep the smirking routine going without wetting my pants and getting my jaws slapped by a crazy old man.

As I remember it, I just glared at the boys’ Dad, still not believing what he’d said, but not dumb enough to test him. For all I knew, he was nutty enough to really smack me. And after a few agonizingly long seconds, the whole scene dissolved, with Crazy Dad looking over his shoulder as he trudged off with his kids - and me standing there with my cocoa-breath making little clouds around my face.

The first part of the next school day was mercifully uneventful. But that didn’t last long. Shortly after the first couple of class periods, word got back to me that the oldest son had thrown down a challenge: if I wasn’t a “chicken” I would meet him behind the band building after school, where he’d “kick my butt” or something similarly unoriginal. And, not wanting to look like a chicken, a turkey (or any other fowl for that matter), I laughed it off, all the while hoping for a sudden case of stomach virus that would force me home early. As the day wore on, it seemed that every student at RHS had heard of the challenge, each in turn asking me what I was going to do and each insisting that they would be there to “support me.” I felt like I was running for political office. Everyone, girls and boys alike wanted to see the “the fight after school.”

Finally, the moment arrived and the showdown began. (Someone should have whistled the tune to “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly”). My rival trotted around the corner of the building and skidded to stop as if he were surprised to see me there. (I was surprised that he was trotting! Was he in a hurry? Did he have another fight to make?). We stared at each other like two toad frogs, each bug-eyed and blinking and licking our lips. Neither of us opted for the first move. “Here I am” I taunted, my voice sounding far more squeaky than I preferred. My foe didn’t reply, which at the time I found particularly unnerving. “So!” I continued, “You want to kick my butt?” Bring it on!” (I remember feeling like Richie from Happy Days and simultaneously thinking that we used the word “butt” way too often). No one moved on either front, which was lucky for me, because I was fresh out of taunts and my mouth had gone powder-dry. We stared at each other for what seemed like an eternity.

God has mercy on children and idiots and those in both categories, for which I’m still very grateful. As the moment was reaching a point-of-no-return, someone yelled “Mr. Cash is coming!” and just as quickly as the crowd of onlookers had assembled, they scattered like startled quail. For a moment, my assailant and I stood transfixed, neither of us wanting to appear ready to bail out. I’m not sure who blinked first, but luckily someone did, and the two of use exited unscathed at either end of a dreadful moment in our young lives.

Boys will be boys, they say. And, boys tend to fight. It’s in their DNA. Unfortunately, there aren’t enough safe ways for adolescent boys to “test their manhood” these days. There certainly weren’t enough outlets in the 1970s. At one time in junior high, one of our coaches used to make anyone caught fighting box with 16-ounce gloves until they were too tired to move. That still seems fairly safe, if closely monitored, and certainly any pent up aggression is clearly spent by the time the gloves are put away.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. To be sure, if you have sons, you’ve seen this trait surface over time. It’s important to allow it to surface. It’s part of being a boy. But, it’s even more important to supervise it. Certainly, the back side of a cinder-block building isn’t a choice location to blow off steam, especially without adult supervision. But with a little creativity and a lot of Godly people surrounding your kids, perhaps your boys too will learn to manage their angst and begin to understand that walking away from an altercation (whether by choice or circumstance) is often the trait of a much bigger man.