Back to School 70's Style

Back to school. What can I blog about the annual pilgrimage? Coming up with zilch all last week. I have been so long removed from those days, that the well was dry.
Enter...Music.  I was browsing through Spotify looking for new stuff, realizing a few minutes in that this would be comparable to a whale picking out one fish for dinner in a sea of swarming krill.
I landed on the vast, but recognizable category of the 70's. For the next hour, I sang every word to every song.  Ahhh.. the 70's, that hangover decade following the 60's Hippie peace and love, sleep in and smoke out era.
It's all well and good that we were a decade behind because country girls didn't make very good hippies.
First, not enough people knew what it was to be a hippie in our little town, so you couldn't really rebel because no one knew what you were doing anyway.
Second, There were only two channels that came in through the ~antenna~ at my house, one for the news and the other for Gunsmoke or Hee Haw.  Happy Rain was the closest thing to a hippie around there.
Oh, we gave it a shot.  We colored peace signs on our book covers and wore bell bottoms, hip huggers and halter tops to the dismay of the church ladies.
We thought we were ~Far Out~ and knew it all, then a stray would move to town from Californi or somewhere off and show us something that we were missing. Maybe recite some Poe.
I started thinking about how stress free school clothes shopping was for our parents. The guys usually got two new pair of Levi's, which they scrubbed up as soon as they could to get the new blue out, a new pair of sneaks, no need for shirts, they wore their coveted concert shirts until they were threadbare.
Us girls were happy with some new clogs, earrings and belts to accessorize the embroidered jeans we had been working on all summer. If our jeans were beyond repair, we made blue jean pocketbooks out of them. Basically, the style was to not look like you were wearing anything new.
Maxi's, mini's, embroidered and painted jeans, chevron shirts and dresses, floppy hats, bell bottoms, hip huggers, sizzler dresses (oh my) and clogs rounded out the apparel.
We didn't need to re-hash our summer vacations or camps with friends because our summers were always spent together. I am going to guess that our generation coined the phrase ~Hanging Out~
And hang out we did...In parks, by the river banks, floating the Edisto, fishing in gator ponds until it got to hot to fish and then peeling off clothes and swimming when we could see the gator on the other side of pond.
We drowned ourselves in baby oil and iodine and lay on shiny aluminum blankets to tan...eeek!  For thrills we'd get hold of some Boone's Farm Strawberry Wine and play cow pattie bingo or cruise the town limit signs.
I crank the volume on the Spotify 70's radio station, Seals & Croft singing ~Summer Breeze~
No, I don't think I would go so far as to call the 70's ~The Good Ole Days~  but judging from the pinched faces of the parents I have seen in retail stores with grumpy kids and long list in hand. They weren't all that bad.

Excuse Me, Just What Are You Complaining About? | Charlestongrit.com | Bold. Smart. Local. Now. | Charleston, SC

Excuse Me, Just What Are You Complaining About? | Charlestongrit.com | Bold. Smart. Local. Now. | Charleston, SC

SCDMV The New Whinery

I walked into the DMV last week and looked in disbelief at the line that circled the two walls. Couldn't put my business off any longer so I took my place in the procession  #15.  
Several more people rounded the corner and filed in behind me. We exchanged the sympathetic ~What are you going to do smile and shrug ~ as they came in. The woman right behind me decided to use her time to phone a friend, oblivious to the large ~Please silence cell phones~  signs on the wall. And to boot, she is talking loudly. I tried to tune her out, but she was grating.
After listening to her whine session about her suffering for ten minutes,  I pulled out my phone to text Don. ~14 people in front of me, line's not moving, ugh~
I slip my phone back into purse. The lady is still going on and on. It started with DMV, then their employees, onto the state of SC, Immigration laws and then the Mexican people standing in line taking up her American space.
Just when I thought I couldn't take it anymore, her phone a friend bowed out of the convo. So...what does she do? Yup..dials another friend and starts the same garb over. I was considering trading places with people behind her just to get out of earshot.
Is complaining contagious?  Why did I send a text to Don?  To let him know I was suffering? Lord help me if my weak mind and body think standing in line is suffering.
I am alive, I am not standing in line in a third world country for a potato or handful of rice. I am standing in line to turn in tags on a vehicle that died..so that I could have another vehicle that wouldn't die and when I left this line, I was going to go to  Chick Fil A to get an ice cream cone.
What else have I complained about? Traffic, grocery store clerks, food at restaurant?  I looked around at the pinched faces in line. Does everyone feel the same. Is complaining pervasive?  Another lady has sympathized with the lady behind me and they are edging to the window to glare at the counter workers. Others are rolling their eyes. Are we all angry?
Can I find an oasis in the pity desert? Ahh..there's one. A mother with a son going to get his driving test. His face shows anticipation as he jingles car keys. Mom is nervously beaming.
Another lady is reading a book in line, yet another goes through her coupons.
I can go with that, make use of my time. Once it's gone it's gone, whether I am standing in a line at DMV or a concert. I know several people who would give a pinky finger to trade their real woes for my mundane suffering right now.
As if an answer to my resolve and dissipation of angst. A triage DMV employee came out to the front and started working the line. She takes my tag and tells me to leave. I heard a hmmphhh behind me from mad DMV #16,  too bitter to see that she is now #15.  
When I walked out of the door of the DMV, I felt somewhat lighter. Changing my outlook on the situation put a little spring in my step.
I climbed into the car, cut the A/C on, cranked the radio and picked up my list to cross off DMV.
Next on list... call cable company...Awww hell, that was short lived.  But, Rome wasn't built in a day.

Moving Day: When 140% Humidity Was the Least of My Problems... | Charlestongrit.com | Bold. Smart. Local. Now. | Charleston, SC

Moving Day: When 140% Humidity Was the Least of My Problems... | Charlestongrit.com | Bold. Smart. Local. Now. | Charleston, SC

Moving Day and She/it Happens

There are always issues with moving aren't there?  I filled myself with coffee, encouragement and positive attitudes in the mornings, but between the torrential rain pours and forty minute calls to service technicians to cut this on or this off.. all my goodness and mercy oozed out by lunchtime.
 The clamor of the week had me leaving notes everywhere and I still missed two friends birthdays. I perpetually felt like I was forgetting to do something.
The data usage on our phones was almost over limit, so Don and I were conversing as speed talkers. We had no internet and limited phone service. The earliest install date for internet was 12 days out.
Then.... the car decided to die. There's a point in a cars' life when I feel they are not worthy of further servicing. Mine reached that a year ago. It was truly a fair weather car, moody as all get out. The wiper motor on the passenger side quit working months ago. It failed slowy causing the timing of the sweep to be off, which had the blades literally fighting in mid air during a torrential rain while I was crossing the Daniel Island bridge. Wiper motors $200.00!  So, I quit driving in the rain.
Shortly afterwards, it would only change gear speeds on cool days. Car menopause. Finally  at any given moment..it would max out in first gear at a top speed of 20 mph.
At this point, let's just say that I didn't affectionately call her the "Old girl" anymore. As if she/it sensed it, she gave up the ghost on the hottest day of the year, humidity levels were at 140%.  I have a carload of things to take to new place in the move. It was the beginning of evening traffic on 17 North.  She/it hiccupped... her way of saying she wasn't going to drive. I pulled into the Laser car wash and let it cool off. I decided to use the oval car wash drive as a speed test before pulling out, like a seasoned short tract driver I punched it and took a few left turns.  After a few laps, it caught second gear and I pulled out onto the highway and then with a slew of traffic behind me and in the middle lane of Hwy 17..nothing.  She/it and I limped into a retail parking lot. I waited for a tow truck with my leg stuck out the door, fanning myself with an unopened bill.
I kept feeling like I forgot to do something else.  I pondered my various list while I pulled the under wire out of my bra that has decided to poke through at this inopportune moment as well.
Don picked me up before the tow truck came.  I was just about ripe by this time. Hotter than Hannah, if you will.  I could hardly wait for a shower. When we walked in, Don cut on the faucet to rinse out something.  I heard the spit of air..and I remembered what I hadn't done! Transfer the water to our name when we moved.  I made a few desperate calls at 5 P.M. to see what I cold do..Nothing. Wait until tomorrow. Unless we have a plumbers tool. Hell we didn't know what that was , but we were outside on the ground removing a man hole cover to see if we had anything to resemble it. Nope.
Resolve settled in. I had two back tanks of clean toilet water that I could boil for a bird bath, and ice cubes for tomorrow mornings coffee. I was feeling a little cocky about my survival skills and learned a fast lesson on what not to do when your water is cut off....Don't eat a soft ripened SC peach. Another bird bath.
Up at the crack of dawn, I melted the ice cubes for coffee and watched the clock tick until the water utility office opened. I get Eric on the line, same guy from last night. What are the odds? "Eric, what's the ETA on the field worker this morning?"  Eric told me that it could be anytime between 8 and 5 today.  I called back at lunch and got Eric again. Really?????
“Mrs. Brabham, we will have someone there as soon as they are in the area."  he says kindly.  "Thanks Eric." I reply sheepishly.
2 o'clock I called back. Yes..that's right. Eric again!!  I tried to disguise my voice, obviously a fail because Eric says "Hello Mrs. Brabham."  while laughing.
"Eric, all of my ice has melted. I know..I know...but, I'm just saying.....don't you have a CB radio.. (Lord help me, CB radio? I can't take it back now) so you could call him?" I plead.
He laughs again. "It won't be long now. Hold on." he says. One hour later..all the faucets spit and hiss and I am counting minutes to a shower and ready to cook.  With a clean kitchen, shower and full stomach I pull the cork from a bottle of wine.
There are days when I allow the wine to breathe, and there are days that I consider the pop of the cork breath enough.

Is Freedom Really This Complicated? | Charlestongrit.com | Bold. Smart. Local. Now. | Charleston, SC

Is Freedom Really This Complicated? | Charlestongrit.com | Bold. Smart. Local. Now. | Charleston, SC

This Freedom Thing, It's Complicated

I think they just said we couldn't join the boy scouts.

It was Tuesday the week of July 4th, I was downtown on Cannon Street sitting under a brilliant unfurled USA flag. As I watched the stripes snapping in the southern breeze, I thought of the significance of Old Glory and all that was on it.  I imagined it with holes ripped from artillery fire, stained in blood.  Are we any closer to the freedom it represented when crafted over 300 years ago? The news headlines of the week suggest not. Travon trial, Paula Deen and a ruling on gay rights.
I realized I didn't know where our flag was. What if I don't find it? Am I perceived as unpatriotic?
Is silence an opinion? Quite possibly the loudest and most misunderstood. What do I personally feel about Paula, Travon, Gay marriage? I wave a freedom flag with a closed mouth. It's complicated, I'm  confused with the conflicting double speak of most issues.
I watch the world tilt slowy..uber crawling toward some embryonic beginning that I wouldn't classify as change yet.
Confused parents give "reveal" parties to let family and friends know what sex their unborn child is. 18 years later they may "reveal" they were wrong. Gay parents hurt when their sons and daughters are ostracized by society and subjected to hate, gay children hurt because they don't want to disappoint their family.
Families still wring their hands in angst at reunions and weddings knowing the contemptuous views of their matriarch and patriarchs concerning interracial marriages. Do we excuse their archaic views by claiming them to be pre-determined by their formulative years? Do we silently pray that our children choose the route of less pain? Did the slave mother hold her newborn baby girl and pray that would be so beautiful that the plantation owner would fall in love with her and move her to the big house or does she pray that her baby girl is so ugly that she won't be looked upon and taken from her?  And which is right? Who am i to say, a white southern girl? It's ludicrous for me to state that I understand the plight of the African American, the gay man or woman.
So, let's say that we could wipe the slate clean and start over. Could the remedy be as simple as teaching and practicing unprejudiced love to our children from the beginning. Emphatically.. Yes!  Simple?  No!  Complicated because another family will NOT teach their children those values and it will be their hate that kills goodness.  i.e,  Jesus, Martin Luther King, John F. Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, John Lennon, Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

 So, do I sit quietly on the porch and watch the parade go by? Is it safer to keep my opinion to myself, to silence the strike of these keys right now? Oh... Yes!   Ole black water keep on rolling, Mississippi moon wont you keep on shining on me.

But, the world doesn't change with safe. I think of John Mayer's song "Waiting on the world to change." Maybe we shouldn't wait, maybe the hope of change isn't in drawing lines in the sand, maybe it's by erasing them. Maybe it's by allowing each grain of sand to fall where it's creator destined it should be.
We will never be truly free until we unilaterally accept the rights of each other to choose our own freedoms without imposing them on others. I don't have to march in a parade, hold a protest sign or buy a bumper sticker. I simply treat you as I would any member of our human race. Silence is not weakness. Speeches, parades, concerts are all aftermath of what should begin in the quiet recesses of the heart. Usually beginning with truth.