Author: Mike Gibbons

Marvel(ous) memories

Comedian Bill Maher has made a career courting controversy with his politically-tinged comedy. That’s an arena I have never stepped foot in with this column, and don’t worry, I won’t today.

But he drew fire for a different reason last week, when he posted a blog entry about the passing of Stan Lee, the legendary Marvel mind behind such iconic comic book characters as Iron Man, Spider-Man, the Incredible Hulk, the Fantastic Four and many others firmly entrenched in our culture.

Maher made fun of fans who were expressing sadness for Lee’s passing, calling it “Deep, deep mourning for a man who inspired millions to, I don’t know, watch a movie, I guess.”

Um, yes, actually, 20 to date. I saw them with my kids, who were coming of movie age just as the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) was coming alive on the big screen. As Iron Man ushered in a new era of superhero movies, I saw my children stare at a movie with the same wild-eyed amazement that I did as a kid watching Superman soar across the screen.

As my kids started to get into the MCU, they started looking forward to each new film.

When new trailers would come out for upcoming movie, whichever one of us saw it first had to be the first to tell the others. And try as we might wait to watch it together, usually the first to find out about a new trailer would do a quick sneak-peek, just so when we were watching it together you could go, “Ooooh – watch this part!” Most trailers would be watched at least a few times in a row, to see what we might have missed. Then we have long discussions about what direction we thought the movie would go or what a certain thing in the trailer meant.

When the movies came out, we would always try to go opening weekend. It was there they learned the pro’s guide to movie maximization. Never sit middle. Sucker bet. View is just as good on the aisle. Also, free refills on the large popcorn. If you power though that bucket during the trailers, boom – get that bad boy filled up before the feature starts.

We love to stay for the stingers, those surprise scenes in the end credits. (There are always stingers in the MCU). We would wait through the credits, killing time before the scenes by seeing if we could find our names in the credits. Bonus point for an exact match.

When The Avengers first hit the big screen in 2012, they could not wait to see all the superheroes on screen at once. I remember my daughter seeing Agent Natasha Romonoff, aka Black Widow, kick the everlasting stuffing out of two bad guys while she was still tied to a chair, and watching my daughter stand up and pump her first in the air and scream, “YEAHHHH!!!!”

I remember watching my son as he saw The Incredible Hulk get his marching orders from Captain America: “Hulk – smash.” That was my son’s catchphrase for at least the rest of the day, every so often just randomly laughing loudly and hollering, “Hulk – smash.”

When we went and saw the latest Avengers movie, we sat in silence at the end. Some people may have gotten a tear or two in their eye. It doesn’t matter who.

Although my daughter is off at college now, my guess is that, when the final chapter of The Avengers comes out in 2019, I will do my level best to make sure we all see it together.

The day that Stan Lee died, I got two texts from my kids within three minutes. One read, “DAD! STAN LEE DIED. IT’S SO SAD!!!” The other: “Stan Lee died” followed by three crying emojis.

Stan Lee was 95 years old and had been reported to have been in declining health for a while, so his passing can hardly be called a shock. But it’s still OK to be sad. Stan Lee’s creations that eventually turned in the MCU that has brought joy to so many people. For my kids and me, Stan Lee gave us a part of their upbringing I wouldn’t trade for all the Infinity Gems in the universe. Thank you, Stan Lee. And, Bill Maher, yes, it’s because he did inspire millions to watch a movie. A lot of them. Together.

Mike Gibbons was born and raised in Aiken, S.C. A graduate of the University of Alabama, he now lives in Mt. Pleasant. You can e-mail him at scmgibbons@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter @StandardMike or at www.mikeslife.us.

It’s all about time

When it comes to punctuality, I have long subscribed to the old adage of “Early is on time, on time is late, and late is unacceptable.”

This is often a difficult trait to have, especially in my family. My daughter is always on time for school or work, but apparently uses all of that on-timeness there, as she is constantly the last one ready for any family social event. This is something we should have known would be commonplace when my wife was pregnant some 18 years ago and she went in to be induced in late July. Hey, you know how when women get induced they have a baby shortly thereafter? Yeah, not in this case. Our daughter arrived 11 days later, foreshadowing a lifetime of getting to family events on her time schedule.

Our son is not so much late as indifferent to time. Early. Late. On time. Whatever. As long as there is some time for fishing prior.

My wife is rarely late for anything, but has that knack for getting places just in time, which for someone like me is sooooo much fun. There is a reason the most frequent phrase my wife says to me is “Relax. We’re fine.”

That said, I do understand that there are times when you are late for reasons beyond your control. I’ve had a flat tire on my way to work. I’ve been stopped by a train that, by my estimate, was 800 billion cars long and moving at one foot per hour. And, like everyone, I’ve been derailed by having to rescue a possum.

What, you haven’t?

It happened a few years ago, when I was taking my son to camp. I don’t remember how old he was, but I know he was still young enough to have been in the backseat. I know this because I remember having room in the front for a possum.

We were pulling out of our neighborhood when I saw a guy on the side of the road. He was standing next to a live mammal trap, which held an incredibly unhappy possum. Granted, that adjective is probably unnecessary, as I have met quite a few possums in my day, and I have yet to meet a happy one.

I pulled off on the side of the road, and engaged the gentleman. He and the possum were having a disagreement of sorts, and he did not want the possum to have the ability to return to his place. After a brief discussion, I convinced the man to give me custody of the possum, and I agreed to take it and release it far away so the two would never cross paths again.

I went back home and got a pet carrier and in short order had the possum secured and in the front seat. I am fairly certain the man who had trapped the possum has questions about me to this day.

My son and I drove to some remote woods and released the possum. It scampered off into the woods, and, most likely, used its possum-honing skills and made it way back to the nearest highway, as is the possum way.

We were about 30 minutes late to summer camp that day, and my son did get to share a great reason for his late entrance by bouncing in shouting, “WE RESCUED A POSSUM!!!” Granted, several folks did ask what in the world possessed me to pull over and haggle with a stranger over a possum.

And, yes, one of those people was my wife. Granted, she’d have done the same thing. But somehow, she’d have done it, released the possum, and still made it to camp on time.

Family

I ink, therefore I am (in a panic)

Post author By Mike Gibbons
Post date October 25, 2018
No Comments on I ink, therefore I am (in a panic)

I think most parents can relate to this emotion: It’s 9:30 on a school night. Your kid has finally finished that project that is due the next day. He hits the print button, knowing he is SOOOO very close to being done. Your kid heads to the printer to retrieve the work. And then you hear, “IT SAYS WE’RE OUT OF BLACK!”

At that point, you think to yourself many things. You think, “Can’t you print in magenta? We should have an ample supply of that?” You think, “Shouldn’t the printer give you some warning when it’s about to run dry?” And mostly you think, “Pretty sure this wasn’t assigned this afternoon, so I am just guessing you had time before THIS EVENING to finish it.”

Nonetheless, there are decisions to be made. Fortunately, when this hit our house recently, I made that decision easy. I had tried to print something earlier in the day and noticed that we were out of ink. So, I did the adult thing and went to the store and bought new ink cartridges. And I promptly left them sitting in a bag on the dining room table, when I probably could have installed them right then.

But I was still able to step in at 9:30 and be the hero. “Everyone calm down. I. HAVE. THE. INK!!!!”

And there was much rejoicing.

Fast forward about three minutes, and there was much of me, grumbling under my breath, trying to hold back words that should not be part of any student’s project work. I reached in the package of ink cartridges – a multi-pack, which costs about what the down payment on my first house was. Apparently, printer ink is made with unicorn tears and pixie sweat. I opened up the printer and saw the black cartridge blinking. I popped it out, ready to replace and win the day.

And then I noticed that the empty black cartridge was much thinner than the replacement black cartridge I was holding. I looked back into the printer. It apparently has two black cartridges, one big, one small. Fine. I’ll replace the small one then. I went back to my multi-pack. Cyan. Magenta. Yellow. Giant black. And that was all.

I have no idea why the multi-pack does not include the thin black, but I didn’t have time to waste. The store I got the ink from is across the street and was closing in about 25 minutes. In about 10 minutes, I was back home with the single black cartridge.

I opened it up and, of course, it was not the right one, but a second version of the thick black one. As I bolted down the stairs and out the door my wife said, “Where are you going?” and I merely hollered black something akin to, “BLARGGHHHEEHGHGHGLEEE!!!”

At about 9:55, after scouring the shelves, I found a multi-pack that had cyan, yellow, magenta and skinny black. Why the other multi-pack exists is beyond me.

Standing in line at the check-out, there was a guy behind me holding a multi-pack printer package. We nodded in solidarity.

I got home, installed the cartridge, and hit print. And the printer proceeded to tell me that magenta was out. I kid you not. I considered a lengthy rant about how I had most certainly NOT used up my magenta reserve, but instead just reached into one of my two multi-pack replacements and retrieved said magenta.

Once installed, the project printed quickly and we were in good shape. I now have an ample supply of printer ink. I am ready for the next student project. And I gladly await any surprise pitfalls. Bring it on, cyan.

Uncategorized

Time for an upgrade

I need a new phone.

I don’t want a new phone. I would be perfectly fine with my existing phone. But phone manufacturers are not fine with the status quo, and thus I am being ushered into new phone territory whether I like it or not.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not some anti-technology fuddy duddy who harrumphs kids today with their new fangled whiz-bang gadgets.

I love me some good tech. My iPhone is a remarkable achievement in technology. When I go through the list of phones I’ve had in my life – from the rotary wall mount to a flip phone to this bad boy – I am in awe and appreciation of the strides we have made. That old rotary wall mount? Not once did it give me play by play updates on a football game or show videos of people wrecking on skateboards.

But at some point, a phone for me reaches what I refer to as Babe level, as in Babe the movie pig: “That’ll do, phone. That’ll do.”

For the life of my, I cannot really think of anything my phone can do for me that would up the ante that much. I suppose it could add some sort of smell function, but that really seems like it would have far more downside that up. I don’t know that I want to smell my football highlights.

But my phone does not care how satisfied I am, as it has decided to chip away at two functional components which are kinda vital to a working device: memory and battery.

The memory is constantly full. While I do have plenty of photos and videos on my phone, the main way it keeps filling up is through my kids’ music downloads, which somehow end up on my phone. Now, before you inform me of the simple way I can stop that from happening, I’ve been there. As has an Apple tech, who informed me that it should not be doing that.

I found out that my storage is full periodically, usually when I have pulled out my phone to take a picture and it informs me, “Nah, no pictures until you delete some stuff. May I suggest the entire catalog of every Broadway song ever recorded that somehow appeared on your playlist overnight?” I am not sure if I delete these off of my phone if they also get deleted from my kids’ playlists, but I haven’t been contacted in a panic by either of them about missing music, so I am guessing not.

The battery is also on its last legs. I pretty much have to keep my phone plugged in at all times. It winds down quickly, and when it gets to 30 percent, it essentially turns into a timer. While this is normally not that big of a deal – I’m pretty habitual about plugging it in when I’m inside or in my car – this can present a problem when I am away from an outlet for a while. This can be especially problematic when I am at one sporting event while simultaneously trying to follow another sporting event on my phone. Just a reminder to how awesome technology is – that old rotary phone? Worthless in that capacity.

I contacted Apple support, and they ran a couple of tests for me and informed me that my battery is, in fact, hot garbage. I can replace it for about $30, or I can finally get the upgrade on my phone that I’ve been eligible for since about a year ago.

I could limp through with a new battery and keep trying to sidestep the memory issue. But in the end, it would probably make more sense to just get a new phone. I am sure it will have a handful of new functions that I will love that I didn’t even know I needed. I can almost smell them from here.

Family Food

Florence fudge

Hurricane Florence is now behind us, and at least we can all agree on this: the fudge was pretty tasty.

Now, lest you think I took a piece of storm-powered debris to the noggin, I’ll make sense of the fudge later.

In South Carolina, the coastline was ordered to evacuate on Monday morning. Plenty of people feel that order was issued a bit premature. However, I will withhold my opinion on that and let the real experts debate it at the 21st Century Algonquin Round Table that is a newspaper Facebook page comment section. Also a great place to shape your opinion on matters as broad as politics and as specific as whether a particular intersection needs a traffic light.

We did not evacuate Monday, as (a) we were not ready and (b) the storm was still a really good ways off. We did not evacuate Tuesday as (b) we were still not ready and (b) the storm was still a really good ways off and (c) “Hey, that place across the street with the awesome Happy Hour is still open! Let’s make our plans there!”

So as we enjoyed a lovely charcuterie plate at Happy Hour, my wife and I strategized. She and our son would leave on Wednesday and head west to stay with family. I would stay back and prep the house and play it by ear.

On Wednesday, they were safe and sound a few hours away, and I had brought most of the the stuff inside that could become projectiles should a storm hit. Our dog took on the very important role of walking outside on occasion and barking at the sky, which he never does. I took this to mean that he felt a storm coming, or he was keeping aliens at bay.

On Thursday, I awoke bright and early to check the storm status. Initial reports had Florence hitting some time as early as Thursday. However, as the week progressed, Florence decided she apparently had some tasks to tend to or something and began taking her sweet time.

It soon became clear that the storm, if it did arrive, would not be here until probably late Friday night. And it was becoming more and more evident that it would hardly even graze where I lived. That said, I was becoming incredibly bored. The house was long-since cleaned. The laundry was long-since done. Netflix queue all caught up. I had googled everything I could possibly want to just to kill time. And that included “How to make fudge.” Why, you ask. Because I was sitting here and thought to myself, “I wonder how you make fudge…”

And then a short while later, I received word that our nearby grocery store would be open until 7 that night. Thus, hurricane fudge time.

I went to the store, and there were only a few people there, mostly buying a few basic essentials. I was hardly buying essentials.

That night, as I enjoyed my evening round of Jeopardy!, I successfully made fudge for the first time. And I was really surprised to learn that it costs about $5 and takes all of about 10 minutes. The next day, with my fudge solidly cooled and ready for sharing, I packed up the dog and the fudge and headed west. I was not so much fleeing a hurricane as I was fleeing the sheer boredom of the week, with maybe a smidge of desiring human interaction other than the grocery clerk and Alex Trebek.

Florence pretty much avoided where I live, although it did pack a nasty wallop north of here. There are a couple of more hurricanes brewing in the Atlantic as I write this, so who knows what will happen next. We’ll just keep an eye on the storm and make sure we are ready to act on a moment’s notice. Or, about 10 minutes notice, as I’ll need to make my hurricane fudge first.

Uncategorized

Go with the Flo

As I write this, Hurricane Florence is sitting out in the Atlantic Ocean deciding what she wants to do.

She’s still a few days away from landfall, so there is really no telling, although I sit well in the middle of the possible cone. Granted, there are thousands of models that have it going miles north and south of me. Of course, there are also models that have Florence driving into my neighborhood, taking a left, parking in my driveway, walking up my sidewalk and ringing the doorbell.

So I’m nothing if not on alert.

My family has lived on the coast for more than four years, so we definitely look at storms differently than we did prior to moving here. Previously, I followed them as an avid weather watcher. Now, I follow them as an avid insurance keeper-up-to-dater.

We have evacuated twice since we have lived here. The first time doesn’t really count, as we were planning to go out of town that weekend anyways. The second time the governor ordered an evacuation, and we politely complied. In South Carolina, evacuations are not classified as “volunteer” or “mandatory.” They are just “evacuations.” It’s the emergency responders’ way of saying, “Yeah, if y’all could not be here creating additional, unnecessary headaches while we work to solve actual problems, that would be super.”

Last year, a storm came a callin’ and my wife and daughter headed out of town prior to it hitting land. There wasn’t an evacuation in order, but they decided it was a good time for a girls’ weekend, so good on them.

My son and I stayed behind and endured some rain and a bit of wind, and our WiFi did flicker on and off a couple of times, so we don’t exactly qualify for survivor awards.

We are going to be sensible, regardless of what Florence does. (And not just because there are a bunch of storms lining up behind her just for sport.)

But sensibility is key. We did not make a run on the grocery store, as plenty of folks have done. Quick question, folks who have raided the milk and bread aisles: What are you going to do with all of that stuff? Unless the answer is “Impenetrable Bread Fort,” I think you may overbought.

The bottled water aisle has also been ransacked, as my wife and I noticed while at the grocery store earlier today. For what it’s worth, during such weather preparation times, those doing their usual grocery shopping should get a special flag for their carts that reads, “Not panicking. Just weekly shopping.” Also, we should get our own check-out line.

As we were checking out, we were chatting with the manager about the run on essentials. We asked him if they had another water shipment planned. He said, “Nope. We’re just directing people to the beer from now on.” I hope he was not kidding, as that’s awesome.

So now we wait. We will keep an eye on social media and follow the updates from our various officials. Odds are more likely that not that the storm will not be a direct hit, but that option is still certainly in the cards.

Should Florence decide to be a massive beast that wants to come and visit my home personally, we will most likely not be here to greet her. If she goes elsewhere and just sends some side effects our way, we will probably be here and will ride it out as we have in the past. Either way, we know we’ve got a few days to decide what we do. And that gives us plenty of time to get to the store. For beer.

Uncategorized

Sick daze

Fortunately, I can report that I am now better. Much better, in particular compared to last week, when I can tell you I was not, in fact, better.

I started being not better on Monday morning. It was a Monday, so I at first wondered if it was just a Monday being a Monday.

I sat in my chair, assessing the situation. Then my body decided to take charge and let me know what the deal was for the rest of the day when it whispered to me, “I am about to ruin your day.”

It started with shivers down my back. Uncomfortable waves rippled down my back and sides. Then the fluctuations in temperature. One minute, I was freezing cold. The next minute, I felt like I was in a sauna. And then for fun let’s throw in coughing. And these were those super fun nonproductive coughs that are really just barking loudly over and over, and when you stop and try and take a breath your body says, “Uh, what are you doing? We’re coughing for the time being.” And then you go back to coughing.

I came home and made it to my bed. I went to my go-to method of stopping an impending illness: NyQuil time. I do not know if NyQuil has actual redeeming medical value other than knocking you out long enough for most illnesses to have run their course. I hoped this was the case this time: (1) Take NyQuil (2) Go unconscious for extended period of time (3) awake miraculously cured.

Alas, this was no match even for NyQuil. When I awoke a few hours later, I was soaking wet. I’m not sure about your sleep habits, but there is no version of mine in which waking up soaking wet is a good thing.

I put my hand to my forehead, and it felt like a cool, moist salmon. Fever broke, I figured. Good sign, right? Apparently, this was only the sign that I was at the very beginning of the Fever Roller Coaster. About an hour later, as I was simultaneously burning up and freezing. I took my temperature. 100.1. I texted my wife. About 10 minutes later I took it again. 100.7. I texted my wife. Ten more minutes. 101. Text. Ten more. 101.7. Text. She finally responded. “Stop taking your temperature over and over.”

By the time the evening had rolled around, I had taken several fun turns on the Fever Roller Coaster as well as several exciting coughing fits that lasted, by my estimate, 457 hours.

I took my evening dose of NyQuil and went to bed. That lasted for about 10 minutes, as the fever and the cough got together and reminded me that we were not sleeping tonight. We were having fever come and go and coughing non stop.

I decided I would go to the doctor in the morning if I was still running a fever. Fast forward to next morning, and I had about doubled up the train wreck I was the day before. To the doctor. After a series of tests and pokes and prods, I received my official diagnosis: “You’ve got the funk.”

I was given some antibiotics and a cough syrup that thinks NyQuil is simply adorable. I went home and, to be honest, the next day or so is kind of a blur, as I spent most of my time in and out of fever dreams and in a prescription cough syrup Wonderland that pretty much morphed reality and said fever dreams into one big crazy Twilight Zone.

So I’m back to being human, which is a vast improvement. Hopefully, it will be a long time until I am sick like this again. But, when it does happen, I know what to do. I’ll text my wife every 10 minutes with updates.

Childhood Family

Back to school

Well, this was certainly a different start to the school year.

Fifteen years ago, my wife and I took our daughter to her first day of 3K. I don’t remember what she wore that day, but I can guarantee you it was not overalls, as her mom was there. If you see any school pictures of my daughter in overalls, you can pretty much bet that her mom was not in charge that morning. I, on the other hand, had overalls as the go-to because (a) she looked really cute in them and (b) I’m not really great at coordinating cute outfits for tiny girl humans.

A few years later, her brother started 3K. Fifty-fifty chance on overalls on that day.

For the next 12 years, the two of them started school on the same day. We would always do the requisite first day of school picture, as is required by federal law. (Side note: To anyone who gets grouchy about people posting first-day pictures on Facebook, you should really just take that day off from social media. To me, first day pics are kinda the best part about social media. You get to see your friends and family and their kids growing up, and you get to see who’s wearing overalls and thus had dad in charge of first day outfits.)

That run has ended, however, as we dropped our daughter off at college this year. So a few thoughts on this year’s first day(s):

Move-in went surprisingly smooth. We loaded up two cars with Allie’s stuff and headed off to the University of South Carolina. When we arrived, we were instructed to park and unload all of her stuff on the curb. We were told we had 30 minutes to get stuff into the dorm, which was about three blocks away. Yeah, not happening.
It only took us about three trips, but we finally got everything into her room. Maybe an hour. Fortunately, those in charge of monitoring the unloading were understanding.
On the second day of her being there, she attended the Beyonce/Jay-Z concert, which students got for a mere $25. Before you think that’s an amazing deal, please remember the tuition cost required to be eligible for said deal.
My daughter’s first day of class was on Thursday at 4:30. It was weird not being there for her first day, but I did not allow myself to get too sentimental. After all, this was what we worked for over the last 18 years. This was the best possible outcome of our parenting. I did send her a text that read, “Don’t mess this up. We’ve invested too much in you to be a family shame.” Ha! I kid A little bad parenting humor. I texted, “Go with the overalls.”
While adjusting to our daughter not being at home has been weird, we have noticed that she had one particular utilitarian trait that we hadn’t truly appreciated: She got the mail, every single day. When it finally occurred to my wife four days after dropping her off, we had a mailbox stuffed with mail. Note to selves: The mail fetcher is gone.
Our son’s start to school was uneventful, fortunately. He is a high school sophomore, so preparing him for school is a relatively easy exercise. “You need anything for school?” “Nah.” “Clothes?” “Nah.” “Supplies?” “Nah.” “Nothing?” “Pop-Tarts, maybe?” Pop-Tarts it is.
His first day of school picture was a quick shot of him in the passenger seat in front of school, giving the look that only a 15-year-old can give, one that says, “Make it quick, Dad, before my friends see this.”

So I guess this is the new norm, and it will all change up again in a couple of years when our son heads off to college. But that’s life. It’s what we’ve worked for. It’s what we’ve been aiming for the whole time. No reason to wallow in self-pity because kids are moving on. I simply won’t do that. Now it you’ll excuse me, I think I want to go put on some overalls.

Family

Roll Gamecocks!

I graduated from the University of Alabama. I met my wife there, who is also a graduate. My parents went there. My sister went there. And, like, 85 percent of my family went there.

For those of you who are not familiar with college football loyalty, it is one of the higher loyalties in life.

So you can imagine it felt very strange for me recently when I found myself in a sports pub, wearing a South Carolina Gamecocks shirt.

I found myself in this unfamiliar territory thanks to my daughter and 1980 Heisman Trophy winner George Rogers.

You see, my daughter is starting as a freshman at South Carolina in the fall. When she told me of her decision on school, I immediately kicked her out of the house and told her she had betrayed us all.

Ha! Little bad parenting humor there. When she went and visited the campus, she was immediately smitten and knew she had found her home. And that was enough for me. I certainly don’t ever want her to choose a college based on who her dad roots for on Saturdays.

So imagine my inner-conundrum when my daughter came home from her visit and presented me with a Gamecocks T-shirt. She played a little bit of dirty pool, however. She got a Gamecocks T-shirt with Han Solo on the front, knowing (a) I’m a diehard Star Wars and fan (b) if your daughter gives you a T-shirt, you’re gonna wear the T-shirt. (My daughter gave me a Superman T-shirt a few years back, and I can tell you that I not only wear the heck out of that shirt, but also got her to change my picture on her phone when I call to me pulling back my jacket to reveal the Superman logo.)

Fast forward a few months, and word came out that Gamecock legend George Rogers was going to be doing an autograph session (free, no less) at a sports pub a few blocks from our house. I told my daughter that, as a new Gamecock, she had to go and meet George Rogers. She said, “Who?”

Sigh. In fairness to my daughter, she is (a) relatively new at being a Gamecock and (b) really not that into sports. I explained who he was and how he was kind of the face of USC football. “Cool,” she said. Teens are expressive that way.

On the night of the event, we headed up to the pub. We were seated at a booth right by the door when Rogers arrived, so I took the opportunity to hold the door for him and the gentleman carrying his Heisman Trophy. I also took the opportunity to be the first to shake his hand and welcome him, because why not.

This was my first time meeting George Rogers, and he absolutely lived up to the hype I had heard about him. He has an infectious happiness, paired with a booming voice and a hearty laugh. He treated every person who came up for an autograph as his new best friend.

As my diehard Carolina brother-in-law said, “It should be a requirement in South Carolina that if you’re feeling a little down, go hang out with George for 15 minutes.”

When it was our turn, we approached the table Rogers was sitting at. My son, wife and daughter’s boyfriend were also with us, but I told Allie I wanted her to go first. We approached the table and I said, “My daughter will be a freshman at Carolina next year, but her mom and I are both Bama grads. So, Roll Gamecocks!”

Rogers boomed a laugh and said, “I like that! Roll Gamecocks!” He signed memorabilia for us, and insisted that each of us get a picture with him while we were holding his Heisman.

While I received some understandable ribbing from college buddies for sporting a Gamecock shirt, I have no regrets. I’m a Bama grad, but a Gamecock dad. And my daughter got to meet one of the all-time Gamecock greats, which is a great way to start off your time in Columbia.

If you ever get the opportunity to meet George Rogers, I highly recommend you do it. I guarantee your happiness level will go up. And, if you do, tell him I said, “Roll Gamecocks!”

Adventures Family

The Magic Cowboy

And the silent cowboy rode off into the distance, knowing the town would be just fine. “Who was that cowboy?” someone asked. “We’ll never know. We’ll never know,” I said.

– Ending to a Western novel I just made up.

So my wife and I were having a leisurely stroll on a South Carolina back highway the other day. We were chatting about matters of great import, as folks are wont to do on backcountry roads. I think the particular matter was what to do for dinner.

And then up ahead we saw movement. Green movement. Big movement. Because a big ol’ tree decided that was the perfect time to uproot and come across the road.

I am not sure what either of us said, but let’s go with, “Wow!” or “Golly gee willikers!” or something else g-rated.

I hit the brakes and pulled off to the side of the road. There was a house and driveway right there, which was fortunate as driveways on this stretch of road are often miles apart.

I called highway patrol on my phone (*HP for you folks in South Carolina!), and went to assess the situation. The tree was blocking the westbound lane and then some. It had turned this 55-mph stretch of highway into a one-lane road.

Realizing we were about to have some serious traffic issues, I handed the phone to my wife so she could finish giving details to highway patrol. I went to the road and saw a line of cars approaching. I began frantically waving my arms, and doing kind of a bowing motion with my arms to get folks to slow down. My wife finished up the call giving our location and took a spot slowing the eastbound traffic. Another motorist saw what was going on and pulled over to help with traffic control.

We were waving one lane through at a time, hoping highway patrol would get there soon. And then The Cowboy appeared.

He pulled his big black pickup truck past the tree and then crossed over into the oncoming lane. He put his truck in reverse and backed right up to the fallen tree.

He stepped out of his truck, and didn’t say a word. Because The Cowboy wasn’t here to chat. He was here to get things done. He was an older gentleman who looked like Richard Petty, complete with a perfect mustache. He wore a black cowboy hat, a big shiny belt buckle, and black boots. The mudflaps on his truck said, “Cowboy life.” I kid you not. I am not positive, but the theme from “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly” may have started playing (at least in my head).

As we continued to get the cars past the tree one lane at a time, The Cowboy grabbed a strap out of his truck, hooked it around the tree, and then attached it to his truck. He got back in his truck and hit the gas. The tree moved a smidge. One more try. A little more. A third try, the tree came free. But when the third try dislodged the tree, it also skidded his truck into a ditch. The Cowboy got out, cleared the remaining debris off the road, packed up his strap and headed back to his truck. I walked over and shook his hand and told him thanks. I asked him if he thought he could get his truck out of the ditch. He responded the only way The Cowboy would: “I reckon.”
He gunned his engine, climbed right out of the ditch, gave us a thumbs up and headed off into the distance.

Highway patrol did not show up by the time we left. I am sure that when they arrived, they wondered just where that tree blocking the road was. But it was gone. As The Cowboy had arrived and taken care of business, as is The Cowboy way.