Category: Childhood

I think we can all agree that the single most fun day a family can celebrate together is Cleaning Day.

Just listen to the shouts of joy from the kids! (Teenagers shouts of joy sound strangely similar to whines and moans.)

Yes, we (and by “we” I mean my wife and I) decided we (and by “we” I mean “my wife and I and the kids even if they came kicking and screaming”) were all going to knock out some housekeeping. My wife and I dutifully informed the kids that they both had a few chores they were going to have to take care of. We informed them of this when we were in a moving car so they had no escape and would have to listen to what their tasks would be.

The chores were fairly simple. Granted, based on their reaction, I think it’s a pretty good thing my kids weren’t born into Little House on the Prairie.

My daughter is 16, and we let her have as much privacy as possible in her room. And as long as the door can shut, we don’t really care too much what her room looks like. But every so often, we are greeted with two options: Good ol’ cleaning overhaul or we cut that section out of the house, move it safely away, and burn it.

She set off on her room cleaning initiative with minimal grumbling. I clean at a rather frenzied pace, so I decided I would let my daughter clean without being near her as she cleans at the speed of a very tired sloth, and it probably wouldn’t be very productive if I kept saying, “CLEAN FASTER!!!”

I did offer to assist by taking down any cups she had in her room. Fun fact: A teenage girl’s room can house well over 1,000 half-full Tervis tumblers.

Our son’s assigned chore was very specifically geared toward him: Clean up the giant tackle box that our front porch had become.

He is an avid fisherman, and he spends as much time when he’s at home at the ponds near our house. He keeps a lot of his fishing gear right at the front door so he can grab his stuff on the go.

Unfortunately, over time the gear gets rather spread out, often occupying the table and chairs on our front porch. My son doesn’t quite get the need for organizing something such as fishing gear on your front porch. He also doesn’t get the need for shoes, showers, shirts or eating off a plate. (We do hope one day to fully domesticate him.)

His first attempt to get out of the chore was to tell me that his tackle box was broken. I pointed at the very much not broken tackle box sitting amidst the lures and hooks and such. He informed me that was his saltwater tackle box. Oh, silly me. How foolish not to know.

Then, in what can only be described as a brilliant Jedi mind trick, we soon found ourselves at the store, picking out a new tackle box for his freshwater stuff. And a new rod. And some bobbers.

Oh, wait it can be described as something else: I’m a sucker.

In short order, he had his new tackle box organized, and the front porch looked far more orderly. He was off fishing in no time. (For what it’s worth, I am sure the order will be maintained for, oh, let’s give it two hours.)

So their onerous workday complete, both kids were able to resume their life of leisure and get back to doing the thing they love most: Not having to clean. Ma and Pa Ingalls would be so proud of their efforts.

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.

 

We were bored on a recent Saturday night, and my kids were wanting to do something fun. We weighed our options.

Board game? Nah. Movie? Nah. Chase you sister around the house with a Nerf gun and shoot her all night? One yes, one no, one abstention.

My daughter said, “We should make slime!”

Now, keep in mind my kids are teenagers, and well past the age when they were first introduced with making slime in school. That said, it kinda sounded like something fun to do, so why not.

I sent the kids to the store to get the required ingredients, which are incredibly complicated (glue and Borax). For all the parents who dread their kids driving, trust me, there are perks. Wanna make slime on a Saturday night? Fine. Go get the stuff yourself while I sit in a quiet house for a few minutes.

They were back in no time with the ingredients and in short order we had slime. I posted a picture on Facebook with the kids making their concoctions, with the post “Never too old to make slime.”

A teacher friend of mine commented, “I’m sorry, but that stuff is the bane of every teacher’s existence.”

And teacher friend, I feel your pain. My mother was a teacher, and I know how hard it is to be a teacher, and not just because my mom had the unfortunate teaching experience of having me as a student.

There are quite a few annoying fads that teachers have to deal with, and more pop every year. I remember when I was a kid, and one fifth grade teacher had to put a moratorium on bee catchers, these little paper contraptions we concocted that made a fantastically annoying clacking noise when you smacked them back and forth. We found them delightful. The adult tasked with trying to teach us math? Not so much.

There are several other fads that are quite popular right now that I am sure teachers cannot wait to see them go the way of the bee catcher.

Among those:

• Bottle flipping. For those of you not familiar with this, bottle flipping involves a partially full bottle of water that is flipped, with the goal of landing it right side up. Or, you can really show your pro level and “cap it,” meaning you land it on the, surprise, cap. If you have never been around a bottle flipper before, do this: Have someone every so often come and just slap the table you are sitting at. Or the coffee table next to you. Or just any surface near you, in particular when you are sitting at your computer trying to compose an email.
• Your mom. Not, not yours. But apparently, responding, “Your mom” is the trendy way to respond to any and every question. Seeing as how this was a popular thing back when we were making bee catchers, I’m not sure this one will die any time soon.
• Fidget spinners. If you’re not familiar with these, they are these little spinner devices that kids love to constantly spin. And fidget. And there is a reason most every teacher on planet earth currently wants all fidget spinners to disappear forever.

I am sure there other annoyances teachers would love to see go away, and I’d love for you to share them with me. I’ll be happy to write a follow-up column. Until then, remember, summer is close. And you will soon be out of the bottle-flipping, fidget-spinning, your-mom nightmare. I just hope I haven’t inadvertently starting a resurgence in bee catchers.

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.

 

I’m no fan of cliches. I try to avoid them in my writing and in my everyday speech. In fact, I avoid them like the plague.

Ha! See what I did there?

Anywho, I recently rattled off a couple of cliches that, in retrospect, were two of the most true things I’ve ever said: “I’m just glad no one was hurt” and “We can replace a car. We can’t replace you.”

Yes, my daughter has had that unfortunate life experience to check off the list: a car wreck.

We got the call the other evening. My wife came darting to the porch where I was sitting. “Come on. Allie’s been in a wreck.”

She filled me in as we sprinted to my car. Allie had rear-ended someone a couple of blocks from our house. She was OK, my wife told me, but obviously a wreck emotionally as well.

When we pulled up, we saw the two cars in the middle of the road. Allie’s car was all kinds of smashed up, with the hood buckled and airbags deployed. The car she hit had much less damage, with just a bit of a mangled rear bumper.

This was one of those parenting moments where you realize that the cliche really is the only thing that’s accurate at that point. It’s like when your wife is pregnant and someone asks if you want a boy or a girl. Yeah, most of us just really are hoping for a healthy baby. Or when you are  a dad out with your kids and someone says, “Babysitting today?” and you respond, “No, I’m parenting.” While that last one might not be a cliche, I felt it needed to be said.

The officer came and gave us an accident report (yes, it was her fault), and car was soon on the back of a truck headed to a tow yard.

I started the insurance fun the next morning. The day after that, we got the news we kind of expected: the car was totaled.

Quick backstory on the car: The car was a Christmas gift to her a couple of years ago from my inlaws. It has been her great uncle’s car, who passed away at the age of 94. Her grandparents decided that it would be a good first car, and surprised her with it. We even had an elaborate reveal that involved a scavenger hunt and concluded with her grandfather, rocking a Santa shirt, pulling it out of the garage to surprise her. The look on her face was priceless, and she loved this car with all her heart. It was her baby.

So, needless to say, the news that it was totaled was devastating.

And while that news stunk, I prefer to look at it this way: The car took the brunt of the wreck so that my daughter didn’t. It was the K-2SO of cars that day. (If that makes no sense, ask a Star Wars fan to explain.) Thank you, Chevrolet, and the safety engineers who made this so. Thank you, Nana and Pop, for passing down a car that she would not only love, but that, far more importantly, would keep her safe.

Allie got back behind the wheel a couple of days after the wreck. The first time I offered the chance, she politely declined. I think she was considering just how bad it would be to ride a bike everywhere from now on. But alas (cliche alert) back on the horse.

We have definitely used the experience to be overbearing parents with copious amounts of lectures and lessons learned. Our daughter has dutifully endured them.

We will figure out what we do from here. She made a mistake, but we all do. I had a wreck when I was her age, as did her mother, and we both became much better drivers as a result. You’re in charge of a one-ton rolling box that, while designed to protect you, is not perfect. Don’t make the same mistake twice.

So we move on. And in the interest of avoiding any more cliches, I will just remind my daughter that her future driving performance should be improved by this, if she learns the lessons it taught. I am confident she will be a better driver now. And she will she show us that is the case with safe driving from here on out, as actions speak louder than words. (See what I did again?)

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.

 

I think we can agree that, oftentimes, the internet is really just an awful place. If you are in doubt of that, just visit any YouTube comment section. I was going to give you an example of some, but pretty much every popular nice, sweet and innocent video I went to had comments so vile and hateful that I felt dirty after kicking around for about two minutes.

That said, the internet does have its redeeming qualities. For example, in the fall, when we are traveling on a Sunday, my son can give be a play-by-play commentary for football games, watching live feeds of NFL games. Or, you can use it to find virtually any recipe you want, which is fantastic, but I would like it known that no one — no one — wants to read an essay before you get to the recipe. Gimme the measurements and the oven settings.

Or, it can be when good folks come together to help out a 10-year-old on a school project.

My nephew Sam has to do a state project, and he chose Washington, as his teacher is from there. He sent a letter to the governor’s office to request information.

Now, I remember being his age and having a similar project. I chose Massachusetts, as my aunt and uncle lived there at the time. I wrote a similar letter (with no doubt awful handwriting), and a few weeks later received an awesome package in the mail with gobs of brochures and maps and such. It. Was. Awesome. I don’t remember what I got on my project, but I assume it was an A++++.

Well, imagine Sam’s disappointment when his package arrived. It was a single sheet of paper. Among the things in the letter, it said, “Due to budget constraints, we are no longer sending packets of information. However, a wide array of information is available on the Governor’s website and other state websites.”

What followed was a paragraph highlighting these websites, and included hyperlinks to various sites. Not sure when the last time you tried to click on a hyperlink on a printed piece of paper, but, yeah, you can’t. Because it’s on printed paper, and NOT THE INTERNET!

This bothered me. I get that budgets are tight. And I understand that we want our public officials to be good stewards of our money. But it’s a 10-year-old! Wanting to learn about your state! Is there that much demand for the Evergreen State info from elementary school kids? How big does the budget have to be to throw a few pamphlets in the mail?

So, with my sister’s OK, I went to a few Washington-centric message boards and posted a link to the letter he received and a plea to help out a 10-year-old. I said:

“My nephew is 10, and was really excited about his project on Washington, as his teacher is from there. Unfortunately, budget cuts have apparently nixed getting a cool package of Washington-specific stuff. If there is anyone out there who might be able to help him out, that would be awesome. Also, it would further cement my status as Uncle Awesome.”

And this is yet another time when the internet is not awful. About a week later, I had received several packages from folks who had gathered up brochures, guides, maps, etc. all about Washington. Those folks didn’t have to do that at all, but it’s a great reminder that awesome people do exist, and, yes, they exist on the internet.

I gave my nephew is Washington packet the other day, and I can’t wait to see his project. He’s got plenty of information, and, as I told my sister, the pamphlets that were sent make me want to go visit Washington.

I hope the Washington governor’s office will reconsider their stance on not sending out packets. Maybe they need to have some guidelines that can help keep the budget lean, such as, I don’t know, when it’s a 10-year-old in South Carolina trying to learn about your state, it’s OK to send some stuff.

Even if they don’t change their policy, I’m so glad some folks stepped up and helped out a kid trying to do a project. It’s what makes the internet not so awful.

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.

 

The door flung open, and I heard a cry I heard many times before. It was my son, screaming, “OW! OW! OW! OW!”

This time he was holding his hand close to his chest.

I get these calls from him a lot. Not that he’s a hypochondriac. But rather, because he is a boy, and is prone to put himself in situations to get hurt on a regular basis.

A few of them have required medical attention: A cut knee, a broken thumb, and, my personal favorite, a magnolia branch to the eye, just to name a few.

But normally these wounds heal up in due time. A little ice, maybe some Neosporin and a bandage, and he’s ready to go back out and injure himself again in no time.

He had been playing on his slackline in the front yard. For those of you not familiar with a slackline, it is a thin strip of fabric made out of trampoline material. You attach the line between two trees, and can then bounce along several feet off of the ground. The amount of time you can stay on the slackline is very much dependent on your balance and slackline skill.

Parker has been working on a fancy move in which he stands on the slackline, drops to his bottom, and then bounces back up to his feet. Pretty nifty trick, actually.

I asked him what happened. He told me he was working on his trick, and he somehow got his hand in the way of the bouncing slackline, which smacked his hand when it bounced back.

He held his hand out for me to examine. “Ah, you’ll be fine,” I said. I’m a GREAT doctor.

He reiterated to me that it hurt. Bad. I told him we would ice it down. After a good three seconds of having the ice on it, Parker established that ice was cold, and that now his hand was both hurting and cold. I tried to reason with him and explain that ice was necessary. He reminded me that. IT. WAS. COLD. We were at an impasse. “I wanna call Mom,” he said. My wife was out shopping, and I figured I had this under control, so I told him that wasn’t necessary. “Call Mom,” he said. I told him I was not going to call mom, but then realized he was not talking to me, but rather Siri, who was happy to make the call.

My wife was home in short order. Apparently, she is a way better parent than I am.

She came in and examined the hand. She walked over to me in the next room. “Yeah, I think it’s broken.” I was unaware that my wife had X-ray vision, an observation I am sure she appreciated. I told her he was fine, and it would be way better the next day. “Not so sure about that,” she said.

Hey, guess who had a swollen hand and was still in a whole bunch of pain the next morning?

We made our way to the doctor’s office that day. As the nurse was getting his vitals, I asked her if he could get a shot just for fun. “Oh, dad,” the nurse said in a manner that indicated she was used to dad humor.

The doctor checked him out and then sent him for x-rays. A few minutes later, the doctor came back in the room. My son was on his phone playing some game. “I’m impressed you can play on your phone with a broken hand,” he said, breaking the news to us. The doctor said that it was a “greenstick fracture,” and that had the break been in an adult, it would probably require surgery. We are heading to an orthopedist next, and hope that since he is young and still awaiting his final form that will not be necessary.

He is in a brace for now, but will probably be graduating to a cast very soon. Kids heal quickly, so hopefully it won’t be for too terribly long. My hope is that he will be back in action in no time, finding new and exciting ways to injure himself.

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.

 

I went to the grocery store recently, and I apparently went on rowdy toddler day.

Now, lest you assume I am going into a Harumph! rant about these kids today and how those dagblasted parents should bygum do something about those misbehavin’ younguns, I assure you I’m not.

Rather, as I strolled the aisles, basket in hand, picking up items for the evening’s dinner, I thought to myself, “I remember that!”

There were several packs of rowdy shoppers. Mostly there were moms, and they were handling the kids the way my wife would: With patience and that monotone approach that mothers innately have when they say those run-on sentences like, “No, we are not getting whipped cream and stop touching your brother, Sarah, and, Kyle, seriously, get your foot out from under the shopping cart before I run it over and hey, who put the whipped cream in the cart but one of you better put it back in the next five seconds.” Amazingly, the moms can do this while continuing to push the cart and check their grocery list.

Then there was the dad. He was there with his two young daughters. I passed him on one aisle, and he had that exasperated look of someone who could think of roughly 8 billion things he would rather be doing, and that includes getting his hand stuck in a garbage disposal.

His daughters were riding the side of the carts, which is really a dad way to travel. We are fine with that to start, mainly because we have not thought through the implications of having a small child on either side of the cart, both able to reach the items on their respective sides. Most moms, and certainly my wife, would have said no from the get-go, as she is smarter than I am.

A few aisles later, I passed them again. And that’s when Dad unleashed the Fury of the Dad in Public (and Publix) that I have known all too well: The hollow threat.

“Girls, seriously! Stop taking things off the shelf. Or. I. Will. Cancel. The. Vacation.”

Been there, brother. Been there.

I do not know where their vacation was planned for, but I do not believe for a second he was planning on canceling it. Why? Because if I had canceled every vacation I had threatened to, we would have traveled a grand total of zero miles in our life.

I have threatened to cancel Disney, the Keys, Washington, D.C. and many others. Now I know some of you old school hardliners are saying, “Well then why didn’t you cancel? Teach them a lesson!” Because those trips were paid for. And I wanted to go, too.

Truth of the matter is that threats of this nature are our last ditch effort to salvage a simple shopping trip. And you also have the fallback of letting the kids “earn” the trip back. When they’re little, they have no concept of, well, anything. So you sometimes throw a Hail Mary hoping to make them stop grabbing bags of Cheeto’s off the shelf.

I didn’t see the dad for the rest of the shopping trip, but I certainly hope that his daughters took the threat seriously, even if we all know there was no teeth to it. For one thing, I can only imagine what it would be like if he got home and told his wife, “Sorry, honey. Disney trip is canceled. Mallory wouldn’t stop grabbing Little Debbie snack cakes.” Her response would contain the phrases, “Do you know how much we paid for that?” and “Seriously?” and possibly, “The nuclear option was your choice?”

I have decided that the girls got their acts together and the rest of the shopping trip was a delight. And their vacation was salvaged. And, if not, I am also hopeful that they “earned” it back with good bedtimes or clean rooms or the like. And I hope Dad was just having one of those bad days where he is doing his level best, but isn’t quite wired for one of those even-handed Mom addresses. At the end of the day, most of us parents are just doing our level best to get through the day with some peace and harmony. And in defense of dads, sometimes we come heavy handed with the threats hoping to put an end to the madness. One day our kids will look back on this and remember that we were just doing our best, and we never did cancel those vacations. They will probably really remember it when they are parents and threaten the exact same thing.

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.

 

As a parent, there is really no more terrifying feeling than answering a call from one of your children and hearing wailing on the other end of the line.

I received one of these calls the other day from my 16-year-old daughter. I answered the call and heard what sounded like, “WARBLE GLOBBLE FRAMBLE!!!” followed by sobs.

“ALLIE!” I said, trying to get her to calm down. “WHAT IS GOING ON?”

She took a few deep breaths, and eventually translated “WARBLE GLOBBLE FRAMBLE!!!” into “I think I broke my foot.”

Well that’s not good.

She had been at school rehearsing for a play. During one of the dance scenes, she did a little jump move and came down weird. “I heard a pop,” she said. Also not good.

We got her home and I began to inspect the damage. My wife was out of town, and she is the in-house health care provider for most things. It’s not that I am against helping out my kids when they are hurt. It’s just that she is WAY better at it than I am. But I was going to have step up and fill that role, meaning I could not give my usual medical advice, which is, “Wow, that stinks. Hope it feels better soon!”

My daughter’s ankle and foot were starting to swell. I put some ice on it and told her to elevate it. This doctorin’ stuff ain’t so tough! She’d be on the mend in no time.

Yeah, not so much.

She couldn’t put any pressure on it, and she was in intense pain. By the next morning, her foot was turning a gnarly purple. Time for a real doctor.

I took her to get an x-ray. This was where it became REALLY fun to have dad at the doctor’s office with a teen daughter. As they were getting ready to take her back to x-ray her foot, the nurse began asking her a series of questions. She looked over at me and said, “OK, Dad, I now need to ask some, uh, personal questions.”

“I’ll step out of the room,” I said.

After a few minutes, the nurse poked her head out and said we were ready to have her foot looked at. I went over to help my daughter into the examination room. When it was just the two of us, we had this conversation:

ALLIE: Dad! They asked me if I was pregnant!

ME: Well, you better have said no.

ALLIE: DAD!

They x-rayed her foot, and fortunately found no break. The doctor said it was probably a sprain, but that if it continued hurting after a week or so, we may need to get an MRI on it to see if there was ligament damage.

They put a hard splint on her leg and wrapped it tightly. They then gave her some crutches. Have you have ever seen those videos of a baby horse trying to take its first steps, wobbling around all unsteady? Yeah, that’s how she looked trying to use the crutches.

I took her to school and checked her in, and the school assured her she had extra time to get between classes.

About an hour after dropping her off, I got a text from her: “It’s really hard to get around…” Having been on crutches a few times, I concur.

I went to a medical supply place and rented one of those scooter things where you rest your knee on it and roll around. When I picked her up from school, she agreed immediately that the knee scooter was vastly superior to crutches.

Her little brother, of course, found it remarkably unfair that she got something to ride on. “I wanna hurt my foot!” he said. No, you don’t.

Fortunately, my daughter only needed the scooter for about five days. (Which was enough time for my son to take plenty of laps around the downstairs on it.)

She is pretty much back to normal, so it appears we will not have to get an MRI. I’m glad it was just a sprain, as it could have been much worse. She could have warble globbled her framble.

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.

The weather is getting cold, which means it’s time for getting the fireplace into the action.

In case you are wondering what I think is cold, it is currently 55 degrees outside, and I consider this almost too cold for humans to venture out in.

Those of you who love colder temperatures, good on you. You are a hardy, robust people and the reason our lands were settled. Were it up to me, we as a nation would probably be concentrated somewhere around Tampa.

Anywho, it’s fire season, so of course it is time to stock up on firewood. I don’t have a set firewood acquisition strategy. It varies from year to year. Last year, it was grab a bundle at the grocery store every few days. Previous years I’ve headed into the woods with my dad and some friends, armed with chainsaws and axes and filled up truckloads of firewood, and then drove said trucks home fueled solely by the near record amounts of testosterone produced.

This year, I opted for a middle of the road approach. There’s a guy near my house who has a front yard full of firewood for sale. There is a large board out front with his phone number spray painted on it. Personally, I find things advertised for sale on giant signs with spray paint to be a part of our treasured Americana.

So I called the number on the sign. No answer. Recording began. At the beep, I said, “Hi, I was calling about the firewood. Whenever you get this message, if you could…”

“Hello?” I heard.

“Oh, hi, are you there?” I said.

“I’m here. You were calling about the firewood?”

We chatted for a few minutes about price and pickup, and I told him I’d be back at his house in about a half hour.

I hung up the phone and looked at my son, who had a puzzled look on his face.

I was pretty sure he wasn’t confused about the firewood acquisition, since we had just had this conversation:

ME: We should call that guy and get some firewood from him.

HIM: Yep.

So I said to him, “What’s the matter?”

My son shook his head. “How … how did he answer while you were leaving a message?”

It was at that point it dawned on me that my son has always lived in a world with electronic voicemails, rather than answering machines.

I explained to him how answering machines worked, and how back in my day we had to actually dial a big wheel to make a call, and you didn’t even know who was calling, and even if you did want it to go straight to voicemail, you had to wait for it to ring a whole four times, not just push a magical “decline” button. Kids today.

Once we came back from our trip down Memory Lane, we were poised to load up the back seat of my car with firewood. Normally, I would use my wife’s SUV, but she was going to be gone for, like, two hours. And I have, well, no patience. I got it in my head that we were getting firewood, so by goodness we are loading up the back seat of a Honda Civic with it.
I covered the back seat with a tarp and we headed to the gentleman’s house. I parked my car and gave the man some money. I grabbed a few logs from our section of purchased wood and walked it about 15 feet to my car. I then said out loud, “Yeah, that was dumb. I should move my car up to the pile of wood.” My son and the firewood man both nodded.

In no time, my son and I had the wood unloaded at our house and covered with a tarp. We have had our first fire of the year, and it was glorious. Tonight’s weather will dip even lower, to a practically unsurvivable 48. But it will be toasty inside, with a fire roaring. And I can spend the evening regaling my kids with other foreign ways of life from my childhood, such as when we didn’t have cable, and when we had to write letters by hand, and worst of all, that awful time it got into the 30s.

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.