Bill Lee

Having a Fit!

A few days back, one of my friends and former students posted on one of the social media sites that she had had a fit with her family when she had become frustrated with a few things around the house which had resulted in some changes in behaviors of those who had witnessed the said fit.  According to her posting, in response to the fit, the offending family members had cleaned the kitchen, scrubbed the cook top, cleaned the counters and even folded and put up some clothes that had been washed. She then made the observation that it must have been a really good fit that she threw.  Well, upon reading this little humorous description of her fit, it put me to thinking about fits in general and some of the types of fits I have either witnessed or thrown myself over the years.

I suppose all of humanity has had a regular old fit at some time in our life. This probably starts when we are infants and we throw our first fit early in life because we are either hungry, have a dirty diaper or are just ill-tempered at a particular time.   Upon seeing this first fit of an infant, many young parents and even grandparents will smile and make some observation like, “Well, would you look at that little angel?  She is acting just like her mother acted when she was a baby! Or maybe, “He is acting just like his dad’s side of the family! We would never have a temper like that in our family!” They will all laugh and smile about the cute little baby having their first fit, knowing that it is just a short training session for times to come, especially when the baby turns about 2 and pitching a fit becomes a regular occurrence for most children.

Most of us grow out of having fits on a regular basis once we reach a certain level of maturity though I must say I have seen lots of adults who seem to live in a world where fit pitching is a common part of their existence. Thankfully, I do not have to interact with these types of people very often. But, it is pretty common for all of us to throw a fit every now and then when the stresses of just living life overcome us temporarily.

Most of these times, we will have just a small little fit.  These are best characterized as a short term outburst of anger that expresses our displeasure about some temporary irritant in our little corner of the world, usually directed at another person or maybe a couple of people.  Or it might be our response to a situation that comes about because of something going on at work or in the home or maybe just riding down the road and some idiot sharing the road with you will do something that gets on your last nerve. During times like these, we may have a short fit and respond with some verbal outburst about whomever or whatever caused us to be irritated, get it out of our system and move on with life.

Other times, we may have just a regular old fit in response to whatever has caused us to be in a state of stress.  A regular fit is sort of a step up from a small fit in that it usually last a little longer, may involve a more intense response and tends to be more focused, that is it usually aimed at a particular situation, event or person that has caused the fit.  I suppose that anyone who has had the blessing in this life to raise children will understand that these precious loved ones can cause the best of parents to have regular old fits every now and then.

I myself remember several times over the years when raising our girls they did things that threw me directly into the regular fit pitching mode. For example, when children have been told about 6 or 8 or 10 or 100 times to do something (or not do something) and they act like their ears can’t hear and their brains don’t comprehend what is being said, it will most likely cause a parent to throw a fit.  When this type of fit is coming on, you can feel your blood pressure start to rise, your voice goes up an octave or two, you may become more demonstrative in your attempt to get them to comply with directions and even might notice a little bit of slobber or spittle coming out as you speak to these lovely children.

Many times, once the fit has started, these lovely children will look at you like you have lost your mind and wonder, often times out loud, “What is wrong with you? Why are you getting so upset, Dad?” as if there is not a single reason in the world you are having a fit.   Once one of these fits has started though, most of the time a miracle happens in an instant. The hearing comes back and the ability to comprehend what has been being said returns.  Whatever was the source of the problem will be addressed in a timely manner and the fit will wind down, usually accompanied by the parent mumbling to themselves as they regain some amount of composure, thereby avoiding the desire to lay hands on the children.

Once in a while though, something will happen that will cause a fit to go beyond the range of a normal fit and evolve into a hissy fit. Now, a hissy fit is one in which the person has gone through the stages of a small fit and a regular fit and has moved into a higher order of fit pitching.  Hissy fits come complete with high pitched verbal outbursts, with outward and accompanying physical signs such as stomping of the feet and waving of the arms or crying. On occasion I must admit I have even used  profane and descriptive language to assist the person witnessing the hissy fit to understand exactly what is trying to be communicated.  I remember seeing and causing Quincy and Gertrude to have a couple of hissy fits when I was a child and to say the least, they were not pretty. Overall, I would have to say that Mom was more developed in the art of having a hissy fit than dad but he was a lot better in getting a quicker response before reaching this level.

I saw a classic hissy fit one time when a dear aunt of mine and her children were on vacation in Panama City when I was a child. My aunt and her children had come to Panama City from their home in Jew Jersey for a vacation visit one summer. We were all staying together at another of my relative’s home, sharing the love as they say.  We had parts of 3 families at this vacation and it included about 12 people including children and adults who had been together for several days, all staying in a small house complete with pallets on the floor, one restroom, restless kids and tired mommas, a virtual recipe for a fit by someone. But, unheard of at the time and especially to us children, my dear aunt was also experiencing a severe case of PMS. After several (many) times of telling her son, my cousin, to engage in some type of obedience to her directions, she moved from a regular fit into a hissy fit in a New Jersey minute.  She started hollering, snorting, crying, cursing, all at the same time, instructing him to get his little ass into the car and do what she told him to do, using very descriptive and colorful language along the way.  Even though my own mom could on occasion use some colorful words to express her thoughts, my aunt had taken profanity to a whole new level.  Needless to say, my cousin’s response to the hissy fit was immediate. He got his little ass in the car right quick. Many years after this hissy fit, we were at a family reunion and the memory of this came up. My aunt, who had thrown the fit, remembered the event very well and we all had a good laugh.

I also witnessed my own mom have a hissy fit one time when my brother threw a small, green lizard on her on our back porch. He had picked the lizard up and was just joking around when he told her he was going to toss the lizard at her. Knowing that she hated lizards, he was making motions at her as if he was going to toss it toward her. All of a sudden, he turned it loose and it landed on her chest. The start of the hissy fit was immediate.  She started hollering, screaming, running around the porch, swatting at the little lizard, and making headway toward my brother. He cleared the area right quick and was not within her reach for some time.  Though I do not remember if he ever got any type of punishment for this little stunt, I do remember that he did not throw any lizards in the direction of my mom again. I guess the lesson being that hissy fits can lead to long term memory gains.

Though hissy fits are a step up from regular fits, they are not at the top of the fit pitching heap. I term the top tier of fits as hydraulic fits. These can happen either as a progression through the other fit pitching cycles from little fit to regular fit to hissy fit, finally culminating in a hydraulic fit or rarely going directly from calm to a hydraulic fit.  A hydraulic fit is one that is characterized by several easily recognized symptoms.  These are similar to when a hydraulic hose bursts on a piece of machinery or equipment during operation.

The heat and pressure starts to build up, fluid starts to leak from around the hose fittings or connections, the equipment starts to smoke, unfamiliar sounds start coming from the engine as it is about to go out of service and then the hose bursts, whipping back and forth and spraying all those around with grease and oil and then, if not shut down in time, full blown engine failure. Those who happen to be nearby when this happens scramble for cover, trying to avoid getting hit by the out of control hose, run from the eruption of the fluid leaks, and trying to figure out how to get the engine cut off and allow it to start cooling down.

Same thing with a hydraulic fit – the person starts feeling the pressure building up inside, their face turns red, breathing starts to sound like that of a snorting bull –fluid leaks start to happen – crying, snorting, slobbering as their voices go up a couple of pitches – verbal expressions change from full sentences to partial sentences to short phrases to shouts, high pitched screams, perhaps some profanity mixed in as the point of full blown engine failure approaches.  Arms and legs may begin to gyrate up and down.  The hose has burst – a complete hydraulic fit is now in progress. Though not necessarily proud of it, I confess that I have had a small number of hydraulic fits in my life, mostly caused by children or dealing with idiots.

I do not know at exactly what level of fit pitching my friend and former student had the other night at her home. I don’t know if it reached the level of a hydraulic fit or not but I am pretty sure it was way above a regular old, run of the mill fit. From her brief description, it sounded like at whatever level it was, the desired results were achieved.

Rooster Crowing in the Dawn’s Early Light

I heard a rooster crowing in the distance this morning when I stepped out onto the porch at my home to let the dog out to do her morning business. Not an unusual occurrence as I have heard roosters crowing early in the mornings on several occasions while living in my present home which is located fairly close to town in Bonifay, Florida.

Then I started to think about how long I have been hearing roosters crow in the mornings and I realized that I literally have been able to hear roosters crow from every place I have ever lived in my entire life so far of 64 years. Beginning when I was a baby and was first brought home to the Lee farm there were chickens and roosters on the place belonging to my Ma (paternal grandmother) and the roosters were crowing right close to daybreak each day.

Since that time including my college dormitory, a rental home just after we got married, the first everybody in the south owns one at one time or another trailer house, the trailer park in Pensacola while in college, our first bought home in Marianna, Florida, another trailer with an expandable living room, a rental home, our first bought home in Bonifay, another rental while waiting for our present home to be built and our home now, I have lived in 11 different places in my life. If you are counting, I did not include a couple of times we moved the trailer. Anyway, in every single one of these locations, I was close enough to the country that if I listened closely in the early morning, I could hear a rooster crowing somewhere.

I am sure there are people out there somewhere who have never lived close to where the roosters crow. I know there are many people who have never gathered eggs from under a hen, have never poured laying mash into a chicken trough and have never seen a bunch of biddies scrambling around to eat scratch feed out in front of a barn. They have also never reached into a dark hen nest to get the eggs only to feel the slimy skin of a white oak snake making himself at home and enjoying a freshly laid egg. Still makes my skin crawl to just think about this.

I have never lived in a large metropolitan area with the hustle and bustle that brings with it. I have never had to sit through many traffic jams where I have lived to get to work unless you count getting stuck behind a John Deere tractor, a load of hay or a combine with several cars behind it counts.

As a remembrance of hearing roosters crow, I remember many times when young roosters would begin to learn how to crow, often standing right outside my bedroom window  while growing up on the farm. This is some type of awful racket to wake to in the morning with each of the young birds trying their best to imitate the grand sounds of the adult roosters crowing.  This is a sound way worse than hearing a teen-age boy’s voice crackle when he is in the rages of puberty working on his vocal chords.

I don’t know if there is any deep meaning from this other than I guess I have been close to my roots my whole life. But, I can tell you what it does mean. It means that I have been within a short distance to my kind of folks most all my life. Folks who understand what living in the country means. Folks who know that to hear a rooster crow in the morning means that somebody is tending to and feeding that rooster and the chickens that go with him every day. Folks that can gather up some yard eggs, fry them along with some bacon or ham, make a little red-eye gravy and cook some cat-head biscuits with a bowl of grits in the mornings for breakfast about the same time the sun is breaking the horizon.  For a fine finish to a breakfast like this, add in a little homemade syrup and some real butter that was churned at home.

Anyway, just a realization I have been close to where roosters crow in every place I have ever lived. Proud to still live close to my roots.

One of the age old questions of life is how in the world do children with the same mom and dad for parents turn out to be a different as night and day or as different as the Amazon jungle in South America is from the Sahara Desert in Africa.  Say in a family of 4 children, how does one of these young’uns have no temper at all while another one is a living, breathing fire ball waiting to explode? Maybe one of the others is a naturally sweet person while a brother or sister is meaner than a junk yard dog. Is it in the genes or is it in the raising?

Probably a little of both but I believe a whole lot of it is determined by the genes that decide to gather together for each individual and “poof’, out you come, wired with a personality all your own and with this comes your interests, your views on life, your way of interacting with others and many, many more traits.

Sort of what got me to thinking about and pondering on this subject is my brother and me and cows. Cows you might say? What in the world do cows have to do with the subject of people and their personalities? Well, let me take a stab at explaining.

There are three of us Lee children, all born to the same parents Quincy and Gertrude Lee. Janis, being the oldest and only girl has no part in this discussion other than to note that she definitely has her own personality and ways of viewing the world that are hers and hers alone. Yeah, we all have some similarities but also lots of differences. We all have been accused of being like both mom and dad at times with the most common theme among all of us being that we inherited a rather large dose of stubbornness and hardheadedness from our dad. That subject alone may be the topic for a future essay but not the focus tonight.

So, going back to the cows. One of the constants when we were growing up on the farm was we always had cattle. These herds were used to provide meat for the family and milk on a daily basis. Part of our chores as boys was to help with the tending of the cattle herd by feeding the cows, helping to bale and load hay, and milking the cows every morning before school.

My brother has always been a cowboy at heart and has always loved being around cows. It has even been reported that as a little boy, he would fall dead asleep while riding on his bouncy horse while chasing imaginary cattle across the range of the living room. He had such a love for being around cows that when he was a teenager, my dad told him one time (and I quote), “Boy, you are the only teenage boy I know who would rather smell cow sh** than perfume.”

He loved rodeo growing up, spent a lot of time in rodeos as a young man riding bulls and steer wrestling only quitting after a bull almost killed him one night in Pensacola. Even after his riding days and steer wrestling days were over, he continued fooling with the rodeo circuits in other ways  doing a little stock contracting by providing steers for some rodeos to use in the steer wrestling event. Today, he earns a large portion of his living as a cattle hauler, driving a semi-tractor and trailer all over the southeastern United States taking cows from one location to another for cattle buyers and sellers.

I have a view of cows that is slightly different than Silas. I don’t like working with cows. I don’t like fooling with cows. I don’t like to be around them or help to pen them up to take to a sale or to worm them. And, just to be clear, I dang sure would lots rather smell perfume than cow sh** any day.  The value that I see in cattle is I do love steak, hamburgers and milk and like a good rump roast with potatoes and carrots on occasion.  I also like to wear a nice pair of shoes made of quality leather, played a lot of baseball and softball using leather gloves and have had several nice leather coats over the years.

My thoughts when having to work a bunch of cows is they will make you curse in about nine different languages. When you are working around a bunch of cows, about the time you think everything is going good and they are doing what you want them to do, a crazy old lead cow or some young bull yearling will break out of the herd and just wreak havoc on the whole operation. Within just a couple of minutes the whole herd will be stirred up and running through gates, jumping fences, or breaking out of the holding pens.

Several years ago, while we were trying to separate a bunch of half-grown yearlings from the herd to take to a sale, we experienced one of these times. Those involved included Silas, my two nephews Brad and Chris, my son-in-law Dave, a cousin or two and me. About the time we were making a little progress, a muscled-up young bull decided to make things interesting. He broke out of a pen, ran through a gate one of us was holding, knocking the gate into the person and got back out into the main corral.

Once there, he decided to make his stand. He started pawing at the ground in classic bull style, daring one of us to come close to him. If we got within 30 or so feet, he would charge. During this standoff, he encouraged several of us to seek higher ground on a nearby fence, chased Brad around a pecan tree a time or two, chased Brad and me over a trough trying to get away from him before he caught us, and tore down some fencing. His last great act of defiance was catching Chris some distance from any type of protection (fence, trough or tree) and giving him a little unsolicited help scaling a fence by hitting him in the butt with his head just as Chris got to the fence and started to climb. He literally knocked Chris over the fence right before crashing into it headlong, snorting and bellowing.

All in all, it was a sight to see. Even as aggravating as it was at the time, it was pretty funny watching this bull play “Here Kitty, Kitty!” with all of us grown men trying to get him back into the pen. After a short while of the show, it was decided to just turn him back into the pasture and fight this battle another day. Final outcome – Bull Wins! Bull Wins! Bull Wins!

So, going back to the beginning, how do two boys with the same parents supplying the gene pool end up with totally different views and interest? How does one brother love everything about cows and cattle and the other one like them for only a couple of reasons – food and clothes.

I don’t know that I have the answer other than this. In God’s magnificent creation of us and the world, he made us all to be individuals with no two alike and with each of us having our own personalities, likes, dislikes, interests, strengths and weaknesses. By creating us in this manner, we can all use our individual talents to help the world be a better place.

Though I don’t like cows except for the reasons stated above, I am glad my brother loves to work with and around them. His talent helps me to enjoy a good steak or hamburger and to have some shoes to wear.

By the way, anyone up for taking a trip to the Conestoga Steak House in Dothan?  I hear they have some mighty fine ribeye steaks up there.

As the title states, 50 years is not very long. In fact, at the age of 64 it seems like it took about 2 weeks to go from being a teenager to now. An event last weekend was just another reminder of how quickly time passes.

The event which caused this reflection on time was the 50th wedding anniversary of my sister Janis Lee Johnson and her husband Wayne Johnson. The event was celebrated at a reception and dinner at their home last Saturday with many family members and friends in attendance. It was a great evening with lots of laughs, memories shared and great food.

Of the many in attendance, a number of us were there who had been at the wedding including several of us who were even in the wedding. The wedding took place in the home of my dad and mom with the ceremony itself taking place in the living room. I was in the wedding party and was the ripe old age of 14 when it happened. Frankie George Henslee was also at the anniversary celebration and was also in the wedding. In fact, she sang a song at the wedding those 50 years ago and sang the first verse of the song again last Saturday evening. She recalled that she had sort of messed the song up during the actual wedding but last Saturday, she sang it without missing a beat and with no music. It was beautiful as she has always had a great voice and can sing with the angels.

During the celebration, we shared many stories about their years together as a family and in our family including funny incidents about raising their 2 sons Brad and Chris, family trips, lots of good times, and a few mentions of some of the challenges faced and overcome. It was also mentioned that it seemed like yesterday we were all celebrating the 50th anniversary of mom and dad though that has been 20 years ago now. Wow, does time fly!

So, like many have said before me, the longer you live, the faster time seems to slide by. In just a few days, I will be starting my 41st year in the business of education. Seems like about 2 months ago I was graduating from high school and about a month ago I was teaching in my first position at Pace High School in Santa Rosa County when it had 400 students. It now has close to 1800 students.

I guess the circle of life keeps going as Anna got her first job teaching in Santa Rosa County  where she will be starting her 3rd year and Abby’s husband Thomas is a head basketball coach, which was what I did for 7 years early in my career and of course, Ashley is now a nurse, following in the footsteps of my mom who was a nurse for over 35 years.

Ashley is now 34 and the twins Abby and Anna are 26. About a week ago, all of them were babies. Our oldest granddaughter Kayleigh enters high school this year. Yesterday or so it seems was the day she was born. Our other 7 grands are growing up way to fast.

I recall vividly the first man landing on the moon, on July 20,1969, which just happened to have been on my wife Mike’s 16th birthday. I remember thinking that I would be an old man of 46 when the year 2000 came around. And I bet like many of you, I recall the major hoopla of Y2K when many thought doomsday would come in the form of all computers crashing and bringing an end to the civilized world as we knew it then. But, we somehow survived.

Anyway, as I stated in the beginning, 50 years is not very long and it passes way too quickly. Best advice is to enjoy every minute you have with your loved ones, family members and friends. Time passes quickly and when all is said and done, the memories of those good times is what makes life worth living.

I do not know if picking and putting up a wide variety of fruits and vegetables is something done more in the south than in other parts of the country or not though I suppose it is common in many places where produce is grown. However, I do know the practice of putting up vegetables and fruits by either canning them or freezing them was something done at the Lee farm regularly during my growing up days. I can vividly remember my Ma’s little storage room out behind her house where there would be rows and rows on multiple shelves of home canned beans, tomatoes, pickles, and other types of vegetables. She continued to do home canning of vegetables even though the practice of putting vegetables up by freezing them was becoming very common by the time I was born.

The reason for this being on my mind was because of a picture I saw a day or so ago of someone cooking figs to make fig preserves. This immediately caused me to think of fig time at the Lee farm when I was a child.

As with most crops, you have to gather figs and process them when they are ripe and ready.  The window of time for this is just a few days and you have to gather (pick) them then or lose the opportunity. My job as a boy was to help pick the figs, a job that I did not enjoy at all. Because I was the youngest and smallest, I was the designated tree climber with the task of going up the limbs of the larger fig trees and picking the figs that could not be reached by my Uncle Homer, Aunt Anne or any of the other adults who were the supervisors of the fig picking.  As we had trees at our home place right beside my grandparents house and also at the home of Uncle Homer and Aunt Anne, picking the figs was a task that would take the better part of a morning. As the figs had to be picked every other day while they were in season, I did not have to wonder about what I would be doing every other day for a period of about two weeks each summer. I was going to be picking figs.

In addition to just not wanting to be working instead of playing, picking figs could also on occasion result in the picker getting a case of “fig poisoning” which is similar to contracting poison ivy.  Fig poisoning is caused by either the leaves or fig juices irritating the skin on the arms or hands, itches like the dickens and lasts for a few days once you get it. I was not really susceptible to fig poisoning much but that meant I was going to be helping to pick the figs. My brother was prone to contract fig poisoning so he got out of the picking most of the time. Not sure that he did not find some way to “come down” with fig poisoning more than most to get out of the picking.

Anyway, though I hated to pick the figs, I must confess that I loved to help eat them once they had been cooked and turned into those sweet preserves. Just cooked, still warm fig preserves, a pan of home-made buttermilk biscuits, a few links of daddy’s sausage,  and a couple of fried eggs with a tall glass of cold milk  made a mighty fine meal for supper or breakfast for a farm boy back then.

I still love to eat fig preserves and even though I still do not like to pick them, I do so with anticipation of the taste of them when they are cooked and ready to eat.

Learning how to gather and process fruits and vegetables like figs is just another of the many reasons for which I am thankful for having been raised on the farm.

The picture above is an image of the old corn crib and behind it is the stall where we housed our old horse “Bob” and mule “Daisy” when I was a child and living on the farm. The stall shown behind the crib had 2 separate stalls, one for Bob and the other for Daisy.

We used the crib to store a portion of our corn harvest each year and would use it to feed the animals including the horse, mule, my Ma’s chickens and biddies, and hogs  each day. It was in this crib where my Pa taught me to shuck corn when I was maybe 5 years old for the horse and mule each afternoon. I do not really know why he felt it was necessary to shuck the corn before feeding it to the animals but it was just something we did. I know they could have eaten it with the shucks on as our neighbors never shucked their corn for their horse and he still ate it. I guess it was just something Pa wanted to do to be nice to the old horse and mule.

It was also the place where we would gather up ears of corn to be shucked and run through the hand powered corn sheller shown in the picture below to feed to the chickens each morning and afternoon during feeding time. Scattering this shelled corn on the ground and watching the chickens and biddies come running from under the barns, from out in the garden, from behind the old chicken coop and where ever else they had been to start pecking the corn kernels up is a picture in my mind that is always there.

I wish I had pictures of Bob and Daisy to insert but could not find any at this time. But, Bob was a large black horse that was on the farm before I was born and lived over 20 years. Daisy was a light brown mule that had also been on the farm from before I was born and was still there when I left home at the age of 20.  They came to my mind this week for a particular habit both of them had if they had been out of their stall for a period of time. This habit was that if they were given the opportunity and many times even when not necessarily given the opportunity, these two animals would head to the stall. I can recall several times when my brother Silas and me would be riding Bob out around the farm land and he (Bob) would look toward the barn, put his ears back and head that way whether we wanted to go or not. The closer he got, the faster he would go steadily moving from a walk to a trot to a gallop and to a full run with us hanging on for dear life.  Once at the barn, he would stop and just stand there, waiting for us to dismount and put him in the stall.

Likewise, with Daisy. If we were out in the garden doing a little plowing with her and she took the notion to head to the stall, her plowing for the day was over. I have seen her head down, ears back and my Uncle Homer holding up the plow while she went to the stall. He would be hollering “Whoa! Whoa! Gee up here! Haw here mule!” and her moving on toward the stall paying him no mind at all. Thought it was pretty funny sometimes to witness this event though I don’t think it was funny to him.

Anyway, the reason this came to my mind this week was I was away from home for several days at a business meeting. The longer the week went, the more I was beginning to feel like Bob and Daisy. I was ready to head to the barn of Bonifay , my home and my bed. Finally, when Thursday got here and the meeting ended, I was forevermore ready to go to the barn. When the old truck cranked up and headed north first toward Jacksonville and then turned west on I-10 headed toward Bonifay, I was like Bob – the closer I got to home the faster I wanted to go to get there.  Finally arriving at home at about 5:00 in the afternoon, I got out of the truck, took a deep breath of air and gave thanks to the Lord for letting me get home.

I guess Bob and Daisy were a lot like me and others – That being there is no place like home.

My wife and I were in Dothan, AL today about supper time, (that is during the dinner hour for you more sophisticated folks) and we stopped in to eat a steak at the Conestoga Steak House. This has been one of my favorite restaurants for a long time for a number of reasons.  Among these are you always get a good steak with their super secret seasoning sauce on the side, the best home made rolls to be found, fresh salad, hot and freshly cooked baked potato or french fries, and an unending supply of sweet tea or other drink if preferred at a very reasonable price.

Also, the atmosphere suits my personality pretty well. You go in there to eat a steak  – not to be seen or heard, not for the fancy furnishings or lengthy wine list or to be seated by some maitre d with a white towel hung over his arm. More likely , you will be greeted and seated by a nice lady who sounds a whole lot like me and makes sure your cracker bowl has lots of Captain’s Wafers and Whole Wheat crackers in it with another bowl of butter packets (not margarine) waiting to be spread on the crackers while you wait for your salad to arrive.

On this reasonable price matter, I have had the opportunity to eat at many fine dining establishments over the years that specialized in steaks including Bern’s Steak House in Tampa, a couple of Ruth’s Chris Steak Houses, a couple of Charlie’s Steak Houses and one memorable evening a few years back at a Morton’s Steak House in New Orleans where I paid more for one meal by about a multiple of 4  than my monthly house payment was in the first house I bought.  When I got the bill at this Morton’s, Mike and Anna dang near had to do CPR on me at the table to help me catch my breath. I believe I can recall them hollering “Breath! Breath! Breath!” just after the bill was handed to me by one of those maitre d’s with the little towel hung over his arm. But, none of the steaks at these fancy steak houses were much better, if any, than the ones I get at Conestoga every time I eat there.

Now getting back to the atmosphere, I observed something tonight that is just the way things are in the world today.  If you have ever eaten at Conestoga, you know on certain nights, you are likely to have to wait a few minutes in either the foyer area of the restaurant or in the small vestibule just outside the restaurant door to be seated because of the number of people who also happen to like to eat steaks there.  Tonight was one of those nights. My wife and I were sitting in the small waiting area on the benches and seated across from us was a man and his wife also waiting. She stepped into the foyer to give the staff their name and came back and assumed a seat by her husband.

She then proceeded to whisper to him (sort of like in a saw mill, maybe a little lower) about the nature of the folks who were waiting in the inside waiting area. She said something to the effect of he should see the type of people who were waiting with a “holier than thou” and “better than thee” tone dripping off her words as if she was the epitome of some high class chick. I hate to tell her, but looking at her and her husband, they looked just like the rest of us sitting in there. I could not tell a bit of difference other than his eyes being bloodshot and looking like he may have had a snort or two prior to his arrival. We all looked a whole lot like a bunch of southern rednecks sitting on wooden benches outside of a restaurant waiting to get in to eat. Nothing more, nothing less.

But, people who act like she was make me want to puke. Last time I checked, every single one of us humans put our britches on one leg at the time and pretty much use the restroom in the same manner.  Have no patience for people who look down their noses at others when they are in the exact same place and time as those whom they are putting down.

I hope her steak was the only one served tonight that had a big ol’ piece of fat on it or maybe a streak of gristle running through it.

Hope you all have a great 4th of July celebration. Get the family or friends together and  cook a bunch of home made hamburgers with all of the fixings to go with them and add a churn of home made ice cream. Think about going on a diet on July 5th.

Going on a short trip down memory lane tonight about the old Bonifay Elementary School that I attended there in the middle of town and the teachers I had during my years as a student. I started first grade there in the 1959-60 school year and had Ms. Marie Kates for a teacher. In that class of probably 25 or more students were several of us that went all 12 years together, graduating in 1971. Then my teachers after that were: Ms. Betty King – 2nd grade; Ms. Annabelle Dowling – 3rd grade; Ms. Annie Belle Pitts – 4th grade; Ms. Toi Jackson – 5th grade and Ms.Jane Swindle – 6th grade.  Can still remember, even at my advanced age of 64 many of the students in these classes with me. I can also remember many, many things about the old school and the school grounds. The auditorium seemed like it could hold a thousand folks, though it probably could hold maybe 400 or so. I can recall seeing many events in the old auditorium including visits by “Strong Man”, the man who would do Bible stories on the felt boards, magicians and hypnotists, and the annual rendition of schools plays performed by the classes. I remember being in one of those plays and the theme of the play was “The Circus” in which I was one of the strongmen in the circus complete with a set of barbells that consisted on a pair of beach balls attached to the end of a broom handle that had  been cut off.  A real feat of strength that was to press that heavy barbell over my head.  HA, HA, HA.

The play ground area around the school seemed huge while going there but was really pretty small as compared to the play areas at the soon to be abandoned elementary school. I recall many baseball games, games of chase, red rover, dodge ball and playing marbles for keeps on the playgrounds. Some of those games of marbles could be pretty intense with the older kids drawing circles so large the younger kids could barely shoot a marble across them, much less knock another marble out of the ring. Also saw more than a couple of fights erupt over these marble games for keeps, especially if someone happened to win the other players main taw or shooting marble. And, let me say that  big old marbles known as log rollers could break up a game in a hurry.

I bet I am not the only one to also remember rainy days and having to sit on the bleachers in the old dungeon of a gym waiting for the time to go back to class. Also, being in that same old gym for the annual Halloween Carnival complete with cake walks, fishing games, apple bobbing and other games scattered around the floor.

Oh the memories of those days at the big brick building in the middle of town.  Know many of you have your own recollections of these days of years ago. Share some of these on the blog just for fun with other readers.

I have been promising to do a few excerpts from my next book about schools and school life in the blog and so I decided to do the first of these tonight.

The story below is an absolute true remembrance about a graduation a long time ago when I was a teacher and coach at a small school in the Florida panhandle. The names used in the story have been changed except for mine and another teacher friend who was involved with the story.  I am going to include only a portion of the story in this blog but I hope readers will enjoy this memory about a graduation ceremony. Just be sure to understand you never know what you will see or hear at school events or activities.

A Graduation to Remember

I know some of you who have been reading these stories are asking yourself, “Did that really happen like he is telling it?”  To this I will say again, the stories shared in this book are absolutely true to the best of my ability to remember with very few, if any, embellishments and then only to more fully explain the event in understandable terms. For any and all of these, I guarantee I can produce witnesses that will stand up and testify like revival time in a southern Baptist church as to the authenticity of the stories.

With that, this one is one of the funnier and more shocking remembrances I have about any graduation ceremony in which I was a participant or witness. This happened when I was working as a teacher and coach at a very small K-12 school located in Calhoun county Florida that at the time of the event had about 360 students in the entire school.

If you do the math, you will see this means there was an average of about 27 students per class. However, as in most schools, the lower grades tended to have more students in them with the upper classes somewhat smaller. Most years, we would graduate between 20-25 students but we also had some years with as few as 17 graduates. Because of the small size, the entire faculty consisted of about 25 teachers for all grades K-12.

Graduation was held in the gym each year as the school did not have a stadium since it was too small to have a football team. On top of that, the gym was so small only one side of the gym had bleachers on it. During the graduation ceremony, it was the custom for the graduating seniors to sit in a single line of chairs lined up right down the middle of the gym floor facing the bleachers with all of the teachers seated behind them also sitting in a single row of chairs.

When it was time for the ceremony to begin, the teachers would all file out onto the floor and take their places standing in front of their chairs. Then one of the senior sponsors would play “Pomp and Circumstance” from a record or tape on a portable sound system set up for the evening as the school also had no music program or band other than a little chorus taught only in the elementary grades.

As the music would begin, the graduating seniors would enter the gym from a side door that led into the gym from the main building. They would have gathered there prior to entering the gym to put on their caps and gowns and make last minute adjustments to their shirts, ties, hairdos. As the seniors would enter the gym, cameras would flash and the oohs and aahs of proud moms, dads, grandparents and community members could be heard over the music as the soon to be graduates would proudly take their places in the neatly aligned chairs.

On this particular graduation night, the teachers had entered the gym, the music had begun to play and the seniors in all of their glory and anticipation of the evening’s events began to enter the gym. The parents, grandparents, other kin folks, students and visitors were all standing as the seniors entered the gym and assumed their places. When all of the seniors were standing in their appointed places, the music stopped and the senior who had been chosen to give the evenings invocation began to make their way to the podium.

All of sudden with the crowd still very quiet and waiting attentively for the prayer to begin, one of the senior boys, in a loud, clearly understood and with little emotion in his voice said, “Momma, Lucille’s out there and she pulled a knife on me.”  Suddenly, you could hear an audible gasp in the crowd though no one moved.

Now, I happened to be standing by my good friend and fellow teacher Greg Jones almost directly behind the young man who had made the announcement. I turned to Greg and said, “Did he just say what I think he said?’  Greg nodded in the affirmative and said, “Yep, I believe he did.” With that we both started to move down the line of teachers, headed towards the door through which the seniors had just entered.

To be continued in the book – when it is completed hope many will order one to read the rest of the story. However, I will reveal that no one was injured in the events that followed though they easily could have been.

Definitely a graduation ceremony that I will remember!

I have been blessed to read many comments on Facebook and other social media sites about Father’s Day today with many, many people giving thanks for their fathers, grand fathers and other father figures in their lives. I did not post anything today but certainly could have (maybe should have) for both my father Quincy Lee and father-in-law Francis Hays. These two men were both of great influence and the leaders of their respective families who did their best every day to live good, honorable, lives before their fellowman and in their communities. I was blessed to have one as a dad and the other as a father-in-law for over 40 years. Loved both of them and miss them and their wisdom and guidance often.  Hope that I have been and can be the same type of father and grandfather as these two were for my family.

A few other thoughts  – Have not posted anything on the blog in a few days due to my crazy and hectic schedule at work. Was out of town most of last 2 weeks in Okeechobee and Orlando at work related meetings. I am glad to be back home and in my bed for the next few weeks with no travel required. My old body really likes the feeling of my own bed and my own easy chair at the end of a day.

Went to the annual Brock Family reunion yesterday (Saturday) and saw many kin folks from multiple generations of the Brock family including 3 cousins in attendance who are in their 90s. Mary Elle Brock Anderson – 97, Ruth Bush – 94 and Jim Wells – 91. Hope my memory of ages is correct. As always, ate too much and way too many delicious desserts.

Then made a trip to Navarre to a “gender reveal” party for daughter Anna and her husband Garrett Bagley who are getting ready to be the parents of …………..  another pretty little girl baby for the Lee family. Date of expected arrival is in early December.  This will make number 9 for us with 7 girls and 2 boys. Still outnumbered after all these years.

Last but not least, worked a good bit on the new book this afternoon that is nearing completion. Working on some editing for content and then getting ready to send to publisher maybe by the end of the summer or early fall. Going to be a great read about schools, education, teachers I had and worked with, funny stories, sad stories of tough days. Also some really great remembrances of those days that touched my life in unexpected ways from students, teachers and people with whom I came into contact during more than 40 years in the education profession.

Hope to be posting excerpts from some of these in the next few days for those who may want a little preview of the book.