It's My Game and I'll Cry if I Want to

The following is a follow-up column to a recent one I wrote concerning my propensity to correctly identify song titles and artists while listening to the radio. The game is called Scanners and I invented it, with the eventual help of one of my assistant coaches on a long road trip.

You may remember that I am master of the Scanners domain. Undefeated. Perfecto.

Here’s how it works. Opponents shake hands, take an oath of honesty and integrity, then switch the radio button on. The first person to identify the name of the song gets a point; if you name the artist, you also get a point. If you name both, you get two points. If you’re not positive of your answer, you don’t take credit.

If you guess correctly, you control the scan button. You can leave the station where it is or scan onward. However, you may not stay tuned in to a station for more than two songs. If a commercial comes on, you’re done. First player to reach ten points wins a game. Just like the World Series, first one to four games is the winner. (There’s other minor rules but you get the gist.)

Anyway, as I was driving one of the team vans recently down in Florida, I mentioned the Scanners game to some of my players. Within moments, a full-scale war developed between myself and everyone else on the van. (10 versus 1.)

Since we were down to an hour or so of riding, I agreed to modify the rules and allow constant scanning to allow points to be achieved more rapidly. I took an early lead and cruised to victory in Game One by the score of 10-4.

The little rascals came back and beat me 10-8 in Game Two but I easily won Game Three and took an early 4-0 lead in Game Four. It was then that I made a critical mistake. I taunted my opponents. “I need some competition. See if you can call the guys on the other van and let’s make it 20 against 1,” I bragged.

Suddenly all the Christian radio stations went to talk shows. Then the oldies stations disappeared and artists with names like Snoop Dogg, Usher, Bow Wow, Amy Winehouse, Radiohead, and My Chemical Romance dominated the airwaves. Immediately I went into a slump the likes of which I hadn’t experienced since my junior year in high school when I went forty straight at-bats without a base hit.

Defeated and humiliated, I pouted about the unfair adjustment to the rules while the guys high-fived and savored the spoils of victory. I guess I was sorta proud that I had invented a game that could illicit so much emotion. Nevertheless, my first ever loss cut to the heart.

But not to fear. A few days later my teen-aged son challenged me to a match. “You’ll get your feelings hurt,” I boasted to cover the insecurity I felt concerning my losing streak.

I was impressed when the chap pounced on “ The Pina Colada Song” by Rupert Holmes from 1979-80, but in the end, Dad started a new streak of dominance. And little do my opponents know if I ever get too far behind again, I’ll switch the radio off and take my little game home with me.

Remove Your Shoes and Empty Your Pockets

This is not a picture of me going through airport security, but it might as well be.

The baseball team I coach went on a little trip recently. To avoid the 13-hour bus ride to Fort Myers, Florida, we snagged a great deal on an economy airline. Being in charge of a group of thirty is challenging, i.e. meal setups, equipment bags, van rentals, and security checks.

I don’t mind taking my shoes off at the security checkpoints. But we all look funny filing through in our socks. And nowadays they randomly pull one out of every ten people or so to the side to offer them a full body makeover. My team cackled and made fun of the freshman catcher who was selected for “verification.”

When I arrived at the checkpoint, I was immediately chastised for having my laptop in my carry-on briefcase. “You should know better,” frowned one of the workers, “You look old enough to be a coach, not a player.” (Gee, thanks.) Red-faced, I removed my laptop and placed it on the little conveyor next to my smelly shoes.

“Step this way,” ordered a stone-faced security agent. “You’re our next randomly selected contestant.” Slighty embarrassed, I reverted to my sense of humor and my incessant knowledge of the movie version of “The Grinch” to ease the tension. “It’s because I’m green, isn’t it?” I said with a straight face. The agent glared a hole through me while one of my assistant coaches held back his laughter for fear of being arrested.

Apparently only the agents are allowed to express a sense of humor.

The Good Humor Man then put me through the whole body pat down and scanned me with a hand held device that looked like a paddle my ninth grade science teacher used on me when I threw a wad of paper toward the trash can in class without permission.

Fortunately I was cleared for takeoff and enjoyed an event-free flight. The nice lady next to me was a retired school principal with many interesting stories to tell. I eventually told her about my little newspaper column and offered her my business card so that she could send me an email should she want to be added to my email recipient list. She smiled and said she’d love to receive my column by email. (Just FYI, her name has yet to appear in my inbox.)

“Don’t leave anything in the airport or on the plane,” I warned my players before we left. When we got to baggage claim, I reached in the pocket where my cellphone previously rested and came up empty. With the recession, pockets aren’t as deep as they used to be and cellphones fall out much more readily.

A nearby security guard offered to check the plane and returned a few minutes later holding my lifeline. “Was it in the seat?” I asked. “No, it was in a girl’s pocket,” he replied. So they do have a sense of humor after all.

Turns out the flight attendant discovered my phone and attempted to call my last contact. It was a friend of mine in Boiling Springs but he had trouble understanding her because she was from Australia and he was from, well, Boiling Springs.

But I got my phone back. And I departed with what little pride and dignity I had left. At least The Good Humor Man let me leave with my shoes on.

One of my idols is Lewis Grizzard. Until his death in 1994, he was a true Southern humorist who purposely butchered the Queen’s English and was brutally honest enough that half the country was mad at him at any given point in time. (That half usually consisted of non-Southerners.)

Lewis and I had our differences. He loved fried chicken and beer whereas I’m more of a livermush and skim milk person. His only weapon of choice was a manual typewriter but I’m a laptop guy myself. (Gotta have the spell check, which underlined the word “gotta” in red as soon as I typed it just now.)

On a recent trip to Alabama, my middle son and I happened upon a stretch of I-85 near Moreland, Georgia known as the Lewis Grizzard Highway. We were running late and it was pouring rain on that particular day, but I had to see Moreland.

I heard tale of a museum in Moreland once. I knew I could find it. I exited and pulled into the first parking lot I saw- a gravel, mud, and grass mix that probably kicked up a lot of dust on a dry day. Cal chose to sit it out while I ventured inside.

The building resembled an old deserted Mayberry gas station but it turned out to be the Moreland Post Office. A gentleman was turning the lock on the door when I greeted him. “You’re in luck,” he told me, “I was just about to lock up for lunch and the museum is actually inside here.”

He could tell I was disappointed when he led me into a simple unimpressive room they called the Lewis Grizzard Museum. “Folks don’t come around here much anymore,” he said while looking down. “I’m trying my best to keep Lewis alive here but his last wife moved most of the good stuff years ago.”

I skimmed the place for five minutes or so and announced that I had to get going. He needed to eat lunch and I needed to recover from the letdown, though it certainly wasn’t the postmaster’s fault. Before leaving I signed the guest register- largely a collection of blank pages.

What little I saw of it, Moreland was what I expected. It was truly a slice of small town Georgia, USA and I’m sure the people there love and appreciate their hometown hero. And I like the fact that the post office and the museum share space. But I guess I was expecting more of a shrine instead of a few old books. Maybe Lewis would have preferred it that way. No glitz or glamour. Just real. Like him.

On my desk next to the laptop lies a book about as thick as a dictionary. It is a collection of Lewis Grizzard’s greatest works. I’ve had it for several years but I’ve only read two-thirds of it. I digest little bits at a time. I’m scared to finish it. I don’t want it to end. If so, I’ll be done with Grizzard and I will have read everything he wrote.

Then the reality will sink in that there’s nothing left. Except a tiny room in Moreland, Georgia where, every once in a while, a lonely postmaster dusts off a few old books and signed pictures before he locks up for lunch.

Not so Trivial Pursuits

From time to time I will pick on one of my colleagues at Gardner-Webb, describing him as “a wealth of useless information.” He can produce nugget upon nuggets of trivia that are virtually meaningless to the majority of the population. Of course he deems his offerings as relevant, an assertion I often question. But I will admit his brain’s ability to store and his tongue’s propensity to spout off said information is impressive.

I, too, have digested and compartmentalized numerous slices of trivia pie in my lifetime. I can remember the batting averages of the 1972 Pittsburgh Pirates and almost every score of every football game I played in during my high school days. Useless. Trivial. Irrelevant. Boring.

Just for the record, I never set out to memorize these chunks of info. Honestly, there are thousands of data bits floating around in my head I wish I could flush out and dispose of. But any scientist will tell you that it’s rarely possible to decide what you will remember and what you will forget. In short, I can’t help it that I remember the scores to those games. I’m embarrassed to admit I do, but I shant be ridiculed for it.

Of course all that memorization comes with a price. I have been known to pull out of the driveway and turn the wrong direction on the main road. Occasionally my wife will blurt something like “How can you remember what socks you were wearing the day you played your first Little League baseball game and you can’t even remember where we’re going to eat supper?” Ouch.

I remind her that I can’t pick and choose what my brain recalls. Maybe I could but it would take more energy than I’m capable of expending if I intend to maintain my sanity. After all, I remember lots of relevant items such as the day, month, and year my wife and I first started dating and I never forget our anniversary. So I’m not all bad.

Recently my tendency to retain the largely meaningless came in handy. My wife and I squared off in a trivial-based Playstation game contest against a friend and her son. Our opponents were, shall I say, super intelligent. The kid is a high school genius and his mom is smarter than most of the professors at Harvard.

At first the contests were individual challenges, of which I was able to win my share. But it is the finale of which I am the most proud. My lovely wife and I defeated the two brainiacs in a head-to-head team matchup and with all the modesty I can muster, I can honestly say I was the MVP. The segment pertaining to “80s music” put me over the top.

Perhaps this is why you are forced to read so much about my past experiences in this column each week. Memories dance around in my head desperately searching for avenues of escape. And you, the readers, are way too accommodating. (Thanks.)

By the way, doubt me not. In 1972, Willie Stargell hit .293 with 33 homeruns and Roberto Clemente hit .312, garnering the 3000^th and final hit of his career on the last day of the season against the New York Mets. Just in case you were wondering.

Do-overs allowed for ice cream accidents

“Dad, you’ve got to write a column about that man over there,” one of my sons exclaimed as we dined at a local restaurant recently. I’ll be the first to tell you I don’t do requests. If something hits me, I write about it. In my twisted mind, I deem it unfair to expound the ideas of others.

But as I observed this gentleman in action, I realized my son had hatched a valid suggestion.

The scene began to unfold when this particular fella visited the help-yourself dessert bar, and to the amazement of all onlookers, constructed the perfect ice cream twist atop the cone he was clutching. The more he swirled, the taller the creation grew and the more impressed we all became.

When he finished, my friend had hand-crafted a soft-serve sculpture that would have made Michelangelo proud. He looked like the Statue of Liberty lifting the torch as he carefully negotiated a path back to his table. “No way that thing makes it all the way back to his seat without tipping over,” I predicted.

All too often I’ve witnessed ice cream creations fall from their waffle-flavored perches, ultimately plummeting to their deaths on a cold, hard floor.

I remember as a small child visiting a restaurant in my hometown called “The Burger Barn.” Though it did not survive the 1970s, it holds a special place in my heart due to the kindness showed me on one of my few visits to its premises.

I was extremely proud of the ice cream-filled cone when the young lady handed it to me that day. So much so that I began taunting my older brother concerning the monstrous size of my dessert compared to whatever undersized item he had ordered. Of course, the walls came tumbling down a few seconds later, leaving my brother giggling and me in tears.

The kind young lady not only cleaned up my mess, but prepared yet another gigantor-sized ice cream delight for me at no further cost to my parents. Had she been my age at the time, I would have asked her to marry me.

It seems to me that folks almost always get a free cone of ice cream when they drop their first one on the floor. Even adults. I’ve always been curious about such an arrangement. If you wreck a brand new car as you exit the parking lot, the dealer doesn’t hook you up with a free one. Stepping in a mud puddle won’t get you a new pair of shoes.

But ice cream is different, I guess. I started thinking that maybe God works the same way as my girlfriend at the Burger Barn. If we mess up on our first try, He is willing to give us another shot at it. And it’s free. Sometimes He’ll even clean up the mess for us once He knows we’ve learned a lesson. Not that we should ever drop it on purpose just to test Him or anything.

Oh, by the way, you’re probably wondering if my prediction came true for Mr. Liberty’s cone of ice cream that night at the restaurant. Nope, he made it safely to his seat and savored every bite of his flawless creation. (I suppose it would have made for a better column if he had dropped it.)