My LUCKY day

 

 A first-grade vocabulary is not much to brag about, but for the sake of WORDLE, please indulge me. And please hold your applause. 

 For more than two years, I used the same two seed-words, ABIDE and LOUSY. Abide is my favorite Bible verb, and Lousy is essentially the opposite of abiding in Christ. When played together they tell me all the possible vowels.
 On March 19, 2024, the winning word was ABIDE. So my WORDLE became flesh. John 15:4, y'all. 
 Since then, I've led off with LOUSY, knowing that it would eventually be a first-guess winner.

 August 16 turned out to be my lucky day. That afternoon in Albemarle, we Hall and Amber revealed the gender of our grandson, Robert Ruskin Layton. That night, I logged on to WORDLE and entered LOUSY.
 Bingo!

 The day after LOUSY won, this granddaddy needed new seed-words. So I looked up IDEAL and YOURS, and found that neither has been used by WORDLE. 

 On Oct. 19, IDEAL won.
 So now I start with AROSE and JUICY. Eventually those will be winners. At the very least, they tell me all the vowels. If the U is not in the second place, I can safely rule out Q. And E and Y narrow down the possibilities for the final letter.
 WORDLE says IDEAL was the seventh time I've gotten the first guess right. Other than ABIDE, I don't remember any of the others. Seventeen times I've needed only one or two guesses.
 Mary points out that solving WORDLE in one guess is pure luck, and that two guesses is the height of discernment. AI says the odds against a one-word guess are 1/2,315.

 The ones I remember are the ones I missed, or when WORDLE missed  me.
 On July 31, riding a streak of 666 consecutive games, I solved DAUNT. But a couple of days later, I noticed that the streak had reset after 666. Evidently, WORDLE never recorded that answer. If you miss a day, it's as if you missed a word. (Or maybe WORDLE halts streaks at the mark of the beast.) 
 So I had to start over.
 A few days later, I had _I_TY, and for my last guess I tried NIFTY, when it should have been MINTY. When the streak was intact, I was always careful about cross-checking my final guess. If you're a serious player, you're familiar with lists of all the words WORDLE has previously used, as well as lists of the unused words. If I had checked those, I could have ruled out NIFTY, and MINTY would have been self-evident. But without the streak, I was lazy.
 Honestly, I think the streak would have ended a few days later with KEFIR, a word I've never encountered. I'm told it's some sort of yogurt. Not sure I could have ferreted out that one.
 The streak of 666 began after I had _ADDY and guessed PADDY rather than DADDY.

 A more recent streak died when I had to choose between HOLLY and HOTLY. (Should have played the T earlier in the game.)
 The trick of keeping the streak alive is to never miss a day. I was able to play every day when I traveled to Romania earlier this year.

 Bless its heart, WORDLE avoids obscure and archaic words. The trickiest ones I remember: PSALM, POLYP, SPASM, ABHOR, FUGUE, and GIZMO.

 Thank you for your applause. I want to thank my Mrs. MacLean and Mrs. Shanklin, my teachers in first and second grade at Concord Elementary School in Anderson.

Anderson's Dr. Anne welcomed 10,509 of us

     Dr. Anne Young of Anderson, S.C., delivered 10,509 babies in her 71-year medical career.
     In the pre-dawn hours 62 years ago today, I became one of them.
     Reminiscing with my mama about the blessed event, she reminded me that I arrived later than expected (setting a lifelong pattern), that Daddy delayed checking into the hospital until after midnight (to avoid an extra day's charges) and that Grandmama Essie was so overwhelmed that she told everyone I was 21 feet (rather than inches).
     When I was born, Dr. Anne was 62 years old—the same age I am today. When she retired in 1983, she was 91—the same age as my mom today.
     On the occasion of Dr. Anne's final delivery, my friend Deb Richardson-Moore did a wonderful job putting her life into perspective: "A girl who will graduate from high school in the 21st century delivered by a woman pioneer of the 19th century."
     If you can't read the clipping below, try this link.

I'm proud of you, Daddy

Two days after I wrote this, my dear old Daddy died at the age of 88.

Son of a gun: My dad Robert Dwight Layton bequeaths his rifle to my son Robert Holcombe Layton. I'm Robert Thomas Layton, my granddaddy was Robert Dewey Layton, and his daddy was Robert Herman Layton. We're proud of our name.

     One thing I will never forget about my high school graduation is my daddy finding me in the crowd outside the new gym at old T.L. Hanna, shaking my hand, and telling me, “I’m proud of you, son.”
     Daddy has never been one to make speeches, so those words have resonated with me.
     Today I cling to every last word as I clutch his hand and sit by his bedside at Anderson's Hospice House, which is just a mile from that gym. It’s 5:30 a.m. and he is curled up in his bed, his breathing labored, and his aching knees numbed by morphine. Occasionally he raises his left hand to his gray eyes as if he could still see the wristwatch on his leathery arm.
     “Is it time to get up?” I hear him say. Most of his words the last few days have been indecipherable, hoarse, snippets of dreams. So these lucid moments are precious.
     “No, Daddy, you don’t have to get up today,” I tell him. “You can sleep in.”
     This is the first time I’ve ever sat through the night with someone who is—hard to say it about my Daddy—dying. A million thoughts and prayers and memories race through my mind. Above all, I have the comfort of knowing that Daddy is about to meet his Lord and Savior and hear that wonderful greeting, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
     Daddy wasn’t showy or preachy in his service, and none of us are perfect, but his heart is as good as gold, and his soul is in the hands of Jesus.
     About his heart: Daddy almost worked it to death back when he was raising our family. I had to stand in for him at my little sister’s graduation because he had suffered a heart attack at age 51. A few weeks later, he had a second heart attack and had to retire from Owens Corning Fiberglas.
     That was also when Daddy retired from smoking. It was important to him that none of his kids fall for that nasty habit, and we didn’t. When I was about 12, he promised that if I made it to 18 without smoking or drinking, he would give me a car. Those vices never tempted me, and I was so content and mobile on my Schwinn 10-speed that I didn’t even bother getting my driver’s license until I was 18. But Daddy was true to his word, and not long after my graduation day, we found a gold '68 Mustang at a used-car lot on South Main, and he gave me the down payment.
     The nurse has just come in to reposition Daddy so he doesn’t get bedsores. We remove the nest of pillows he has assembled and start to lift him, but he cries out, “No! Please don’t!” He dreads the stabbing pain that will come with the slightest movement of his knees. The nurses here are merciful, and repositioning can wait until morning.
     Even in his pain, in a moment most of us would cuss, Daddy still says Please and Thank You. He raised us to say Yes ma'am and no sir.
     Daddy showed us how to live, and now he's showing us how to die. Unselfishly. Humbly. Responsibly. His generation wasn't much for public displays of affection, yet in his later years we saw more and more glimpses of his love for Mama. He instilled in his children simple proverbs that we call Dwightisms, like "You learn more by listening than you do by talking," and "If you're not gonna finish it, don't start it."

     Daddy knew how to fly. He joined the Army Air Corps as World War II was ending and became a flight engineer on a B-25 bomber. For his 80th birthday, we gave him a ride on a T-6 Texan two-seater, the same plane he had trained on more than 60 years earlier. Daddy amazed the pilot with the details and secrets he knew about that aircraft.
     He built model airplanes that are works of mechanical art: shaped by his hands, prized by his friends, and brought to life by radio-controlled servos and glow-fueled engines with propellers that could lop off your finger.
     Daddy also got to experience the cockpit of one of the world’s largest planes, the Soviet-built Antonov 124. Samaritan’s Purse chartered these to deliver shoebox gifts from Operation Christmas Child to children around the world. Mama started the OCC collection center in Anderson, and Daddy gladly helped, so I took them to Atlanta one December to see the jet being loaded. The cockpit is on top of the massive cargo hold, and to get up there you have to climb a two-story ladder. Daddy went right up, bad knees and all, so he could hear the Ukranian crew explain to him how they flew it.
     Speaking of Atlanta, Daddy used to take us down there to see the Braves play, to camp at Stone Mountain, and to eat at The Varsity (but never at Lum’s, because their hot dogs were steamed in beer). One of the first games we saw around 1967 in the old Fulton County Stadium featured Hank Aaron against Willie Mays. The last Braves game we attended together was in 2007 at Turner Field, when Tom Glavine pitched for the Mets against John Smoltz.
     Daddy was never a ballplayer and didn’t push me to be one, which was okay. We enjoyed watching the games, and I was able to make a career out of that.
     Our last game together was just five nights ago, when he sat up way past his bedtime to listen to the Clemson bowl game on the radio. (He can’t see the TV.) As a surprise for Daddy, I asked the Clemson announcer, Don Munson, if he could send out a personal greeting during the game. Don made it happen, and Daddy’s face lit up in a proud grin. “Yeah, I heard it,” he said. Basking in the Tigers' victory, he went to bed that night and since then has not had the strength to get back up.
     Daddy went to Clemson for a couple of years but “turned pro” before he graduated. When Fiberglas opened its new factory in Anderson, he was among the first men they hired. They promised him a pension that he still gets today, 37 years after his last day in the shop. He made the platinum nozzles that produced the glass threads that keep houses insulated, fishing rods limber, and oil flowing through the Alaska pipeline.
     Now he’s resting and breathing a little easier. Dawn is breaking.
     I’m proud of you, Daddy. I love you. I'm going to miss you.

Daddy has been a Clemson man for nearly 70 years. We took this last photo at the end of the Ohio State game on New Year's Eve. The night before his funeral, Mama and the children gathered in the same room to watch Clemson beat Alabama for the national championship, just as he predicted.

Turning 60 and claiming my consecration discount

Celebrating January birthdays in the Samaritan's Purse communications department: Ron Pettit, Randy Bishop, blinking me, and Nora Gaylord.

     As of Sunday, January 18, Kevin Costner and I became consecration bargains. It's our 60th birthday. 

     The Bible says in Leviticus 27 that a man's consecration vow costs 50 shekels from age 20 to 60, but only 15 shekels after he turns 60. More on that in a moment. 
     When I reach milestones in my life, I like to look for corresponding landmarks in the Bible. 
     When Jesus was about thirty, he began his public ministry by turning water into wine at a wedding in Cana. On my 30th birthday, my family treated me like an old man and made me ride a wheelchair into a McDonald's birthday party in Greenville.
     Forty years was the time Israel wandered in the wilderness before entering the Promised Land. Later, "the country was quiet for forty years in the days of Gideon"—a refreshing thought on godly leadership from Judges 8:28. I spent my 40th birthday reporting from Clemson's Littlejohn Coliseum, where Bob Sura of Florida State hit a last-second three-pointer to beat Rick Barnes' "Slab Five," the upstarts who had won at Duke the week before and driven 47-year-old Coach K into a sabbatical. 
       I turned 50 in Sri Lanka, on assignment with Samaritan's Purse following the terrible Indian Ocean tsunami. During that trip I found this nugget in Numbers 8:25: "and at the age of fifty years they must cease performing this work, and they shall work no more." That verse refers specifically to Levites, not journalists, but it does challenge anyone who says retirement is not in the Bible.
     Now I'm 60 and thinking more about consecration than celebration. I'm not even sure what a consecration vow involves, and I'm sure I've never paid for it. I'm not wrapped up in the old-covenant laws of Leviticus, which forbid barbecue and bacon, among other things. I believe that's covered in the new covenant of Jesus, who has fulfilled the law and pre-paid for my consecration, among other things.
     Consecrated means set apart, or made pure. It doesn't come cheap—under either covenant. Assuming the shekel of the sanctuary equaled a typical month's wages, my consecration vow at 59 would cost over four years of earnings. Since turning 60, I get a 35-month senior citizen discount.
     One other Bible passage mentions sixty years. 1 Timothy 5:9 says, "Do not let a widow under sixty years old be taken into the number, and not unless she has been the wife of one man."
     It's good to know Mary will need me around for at least a little while longer. 

Remembering my one and only Coach

Coach Brown with Melinda Hall and Angela Crosby. All three are in the Hanna Hall of Fame.

 Before there was a trophy named for him, before his plaque was hung in the T.L. Hanna High School Hall of Fame, before he won four state championships in two sports, Ed Brown cut his coaching teeth on a scraggly bunch of teenagers wearing the peach-orange polyester jerseys of Concord Baptist Church.

Ed and Sheila Brown on their 25th anniversary in 1984.

 Including me, No. 33.
 Coach Brown was the only real coach I ever had, and as far as I know we may have been the first basketball team he ever coached. 
 He was also my 11th-grade teacher in Western civilization, and his wife Sheila was my Sunday School teacher.
 History confirms that Coach Brown knew plenty about basketball, but we didn't offer him much to work with. Concord didn't even have a gym to practice in. We played our games at Gluck Mill, Orr-Lyons Mill, and the First Baptist Church. 
 We had only one decent player, and his eight-year-old sister could dribble circles around the rest of us. I don't know that we ever successfully executed the pick-and-rolls Coach tried to teach us, but it was not for a lack of patient coaching on his part. 
 We didn't win very often, and I didn't score very much, but over two years we improved. We learned how to represent our church. Coach Brown set the example. 
 Kids often don't fully appreciate our coaches and teachers until years later. I dealt with Coach Brown throughout my 26 years as a sportswriter but didn't pause to reflect on the scope of his accomplishments until I got the call on Christmas Eve that Coach had died. 
 I remembered that he coached the girls' basketball program at Hanna and won a state championship in 1981 with Melinda Hall, the kid sister I mentioned previously. Google reminded me that he had also won three state championships in boys' golf and was instrumental in organizing girls' golf on a statewide level—to the extent that the state champion receives the Ed Brown trophy.
 I knew he was a deacon, but I had forgotten he was also a football referee, and until now I never realized he was Korean War veteran. His Facebook page is a hall of family.
 Coach Brown was a fixture at T.L. Hanna for 30 years, and he was a pillar of our church for even longer. Half of Anderson knew him, and I don't think he forgot any of us. 
 Thanks, Coach, for having the faith to put me into the game, and and for setting a lifelong example of how to live triumphantly.

Goodnight, Skitty

     Our sweet old cat died in her sleep Tuesday morning, just two weeks short of her 19th birthday. In people years, that would be close to 100. If you can trust Google, she was just four years behind the world’s oldest living cat.
     What were the secrets of her long life?

     1. Eighteen years of naps. 
     2. On-demand breakfasts at 4 a.m. 
     3. A name that made her tough as you-know-what.
     My generation will remember “A Boy Named Sue,” written by Shel Silverstein and sung by Johnny Cash, about a runaway dad who gave his boy a girly name so he would have to “get tough or die.” Another song by another John helped cast our cat's fate.

My name is Scat.
 You got a problem with that?

     Marta was just 13 when she got this kitten for Christmas and named her Skitty Skat with a nod toward jazzy "scat singing" made popular at the time by Scatman John. Then Katy went on her fourth-grade field trip and discovered an earthier meaning for scat. They had sisterly disagreements over how to interpret or spell the name—and they are both spelling zealots. 

     Not until we were arranging for Skitty's burial did I realize that the vet's records—evidently filled out by Katy—listed her official name as “Scat.”
     Wonder what the vets privately thought of us?
     I don't think Skitty held it against us, though with cats you never really know. 

     Back when we were still living in Greenville, Skitty was the inspiration for Hall’s “Scat-Net,” a clever litterbox-cleaning device he contrived for the Invention Convention at League Academy. 
     By the time we moved to Boone, Skitty exuded seniority. She knew how to get her way. Long ago, probably during one of her insistent 4 a.m. feedings, I vowed to outlive her—which I think she took as a challenge. We grew old together. 
     For half of my adult life, she's been alongside. Now, our tortoise-haired matron has finally finished her race.
     She helped us raise three great kids (not to mention a couple of fine dogs), tolerated our scatological humor, and occasionally blessed us with a contented purr. What more could you ask from a cat than that? Goodnight, Skitty. 

Dwight and the golden Mustang

     Thursday, April 17, marked two milestone birthdays. My father Dwight turned 86, and the Ford Mustang hit 50.
     One of them is officially an antique.
     In my life, their paths crossed in the late 1960s, when Daddy promised me a Mustang … IF I made it through high school without smoking or drinking.
     Well, I made it—not because of great self-discipline or incentive but more likely because the Lord spared me from temptation. After all, I didn't get my driver's license until I was 18. The fact that I spent almost half my life as a sportswriter tells you I was in no hurry to grow up. 
     Honestly, I wasn't even thinking of a Mustang the day I graduated from T.L. Hanna High School. No reward is greater than hearing your Daddy say he's proud of you. 

Who could resist? 

     Soon afterwards, we visited White Motors, a used-car lot on South Main Street that had a Bible on the office table and two gold sports cars out front: a 1967 Camaro for $1500 and a 1968 Mustang for $1600. I paid the difference and never regretted it. 
     As far as I'm concerned, the 1967 and 1968 models were the best-looking Mustangs ever. Those were the years Ford rounded and sculpted the original slab-sided bodies but before they really bulked up into muscle cars. Mine was a twin with the one in this Ford promotional photo, featuring a classy white vinyl roof, chrome rocker panels, and amber turn-signal indicators mounted in little scoops out on the hood. Cool!
      Underneath, the Mustang was really just a dressed-up Ford Falcon—hardly a high-performance car. But I didn't know any better. Late one night on Canterbury Road, I decided to see how fast I could drive around a corner. I wound up in somebody's front yard with the passenger door crinkled against the trunk of an oak. I was able to drive it home, dreading what my daddy would say the next morning when he discovered what I had done. He must have sensed that I had already learned my lesson, because he let me off easy. Once I came up with $360 for Shirley Huitt's body shop, my Mustang was almost as good as new. 
     That Mustang carried me through five years of college and eight trips between South Carolina and Missouri. When Daddy turned 50, I hardly noticed, since I was just a couple of weeks from graduation at Mizzou.
     On the way home from college, my faithful Mustang broke down in Newport, Tennessee. I soon handed it down to my brothers and bought another Mustang, a big 1971 coupe, from my uncle. It lost its charm after I bent a fender in a collision that could have been much worse. 
     Meanwhile, Daddy was driving a station wagon and working long shifts in the metallurgy shop at Owens-Corning Fiberglas to put five kids through college. At 51, he had two heart attacks and had to retire.
     That was also when he quit smoking—which gave me a newfound appreciation for the deal he made with me years before. As usual, Daddy was doing whatever he could to take care of his family. 
     The day he got out of the hospital following his second heart attack, I bought a green 1979 Triumph Spitfire convertible that rivaled my first Mustang in style if not dependability. That night, Mary and I went for a ride up to Whitewater Falls. Right there in front of God and everybody, I asked her to marry me. 
     As we've raised our family, my cars have gotten more practical, of course. Today I'm driving a fine 16-year-old Accord that carried my daughter Katy through college and has nearly a quarter million miles. 

When we asked my Daddy what kind of cake he wanted, he answered with
characteristic whimsy: "Green!" So my sisters made it his way, and brother
John drove all the way up from Orlando to share the occasion with us.

     Daddy also has gone way past his warranty, living 35 years after his heart attacks. We celebrated his 86th birthday in a rehab hospital, where he is recovering from a stroke. 
     Macular degeneration and arthritis have slowed him down, but his mind is still sharp. He remains a student of the news, the Braves, and audio books. When his insatiable curiosity gets the best of him, he will ask my sister, "Look it up on your Google machine."
     In the rehab gym, he laps the field. He's always worked hard, and he is still determined to take care of Mama and our family. Undaunted by his years, father Dwight is doing the right thing, the best that he can, preparing for whatever comes next.
     If he could still drive, I'd get him a Mustang. Happy birthday, Daddy. 

Happy 80th, Hank Aaron

When this 1958 Topps card came out,

Aaron was just 24 and the reigning MVP.

I was just 3 and not yet a card-bagger.

     I listened to hundreds of Henry Aaron's home runs on the radio when I was growing up but never really got to know him until I read a friend's book.
     Lonnie Wheeler was among a crop of Missouri journalism graduates hired by my hometown newspaper in 1974, the same year that the 40-year-old Aaron broke Babe Ruth's 39-year-old home-run record.
     Wheeler was to the Anderson Independent what Aaron once was to the Eau Claire Bears—paying his dues in a minor-league town but destined for big-league headlines. 
     Working with Lonnie when I was fresh out of high school was the kind of opportunity that you enjoy in the moment and appreciate in hindsight. He wrote sports like nobody I had ever read. 
     Once we took a spring-break trip up to New England, where Lonnie interviewed for a job or two along the way. We broke down the road atlas to figure out the most common town name in America (Springfield or Franklin, as I recall) and stopped at the Blue Ball Bowl near Intercourse, Pennsylvania, to watch Willie Smith and Missouri play an NCAA basketball playoff. Meanwhile, I embarrassed myself by trying to order sweet ice tea in frost-heaven New Hampshire. I was just along for the ride. 
     Lonnie and Mickey Spagnola were the main reasons I went from Anderson to Mizzou, sight unseen.
     Anderson being two hours from Atlanta, we considered ourselves Braves Country. Lonnie went down to Atlanta one weekend and came back with a three-part series on Hank Aaron that was way above the reading level of most of us in Anderson. Soon after that, Lonnie was on his way to becoming a star columnist in Cincinnati and an acclaimed author. 

Is this the best Christmas present ever?!?!?!?! Thanks, Mama.

     I was reminded of Lonnie this week when I heard that Hank Aaron, my boyhood hero, has turned 80.
     In 1991, fifteen years after Lonnie left Anderson, he collaborated with Aaron to write "I Had A Hammer." One of my prized possessions is a copy that my mom gave me for Christmas, signed by Lonnie and Hank. 
     Gifted writer that he is, Lonnie taps into Hank's eloquence even as he lets him tell his own story. Here is a passage from Wheeler's introduction as Aaron, then 57, pondered his legacy:

He commented that he envied musicians because musicians never die--their music is preserved and played for eternity. Aaron is immortal in the baseball sense, but none of his 755 home runs will ever happen again, and the question of his legacy is one that he has not subdued. He has no self-doubts about his enduring qualifications as a ballplayer, but wonders where ballplaying fits in the greater scheme--in effect, where he fits in the greater scheme.

      The greater scheme was the American civil-rights era that harmonized with Aaron's baseball career. For a southerner who admired Aaron but blithely tolerated too much of the sweet-tea status quo, the book was eye-opening and soul-wrenching. Here's Lonnie:

It's a delicate book, because it attempts to deal with a man's complaint without complaining. Aaron is compelled to file his grievances against baseball but has no urge to lash out at the game he loves and owes. He wishes to get his message across without the graceless effect of a soapbox or sandwich board. What he wishes, really, is to speak his piece and think out loud about where he's been that others haven't, what he's seen that others couldn't, and how it all adds up. 

     It's interesting how the "N" word has become an issue today, just as it was 40 years ago when Aaron was closing in on Ruth. Back then, it was associated with death threats. Today, it's a 15-yard penalty or a technical foul. 
     "Hammer" helps me to appreciate how far America has come—and see how far we still have to go. Thanks, Lonnie. 

Confession is good for the soul

     I remember way back a week or two ago when Facebook friends challenged each other to tell things that nobody else might know.
     Confession is good for the soul, and I had so much fun with my first seven secrets on Facebook that I decided to divulge more here as my memory is prodded, my soul is convicted, or the statute of limitations runs out.
     Not that anyone else should care. Eavesdropping on my confession could be bad for your soul. But spies, gossips, and biographers may be interested to know:

• I took the sunrise photo at the top of this blog—took it without permission but with gratitude from Peter Larkins' now-extinct Amphibolite website. That's the dawn of Sept. 25, 2004, viewed past Elk Knob from Snake Mountain. Sometimes it's just better to ask forgiveness.
• I had the same banjo teacher as two of the world’s best pickers, Charles Wood and Kristin Scott Benson. RIP, Al Osteen.
• I forgot to get a haircut for my wedding. Mary kept me anyway. She's my good'n.
• Awards include the coveted Jabba trophy as a lifetime non-winner of the Greenville News alumni golf tournament (thanks, Mike Hembree), a game ball from Byrnes’ 1986 state champion team (thanks, Bo Corne), and my picture on the wall at Skin’s Hot Dogs (thanks, Matt Thrasher).
• Most influential words I’ve heard: “It’s Easter Sunday, for goodness’ sake—what kind of Christian are you?” –Rick Barnes, when I knocked on his front door in Clemson in 1998 and interrupted a phone call from Texas. It was a good question, even if he didn't mean it that way. I mulled that for a while and decided I would no longer be the kind of Christian who chased coaches and recruits for a living. By next Easter, I was in Boone and safely out of the newspaper business.
• Speaking of bad career moves, I met the president of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir, on the same day he was indicted for war crimes.
• My cars: 1968 Mustang, 1970 Mustang, 1979 Triumph Spitfire, 1986 Hyundai Excel, 1995 Saturn, and now a 1998 Honda Accord. Still waiting for my odometer to roll over to the 21st century.
• Never had a headache.
• Never had a heartache, not even in 2003 on the day of my heart attack. 
• Unable to wink.
• I don't eat anything that looks like the animal it came from.
• My greatest athletic moment? Goaltending in a pickup basketball game at Mizzou about 1978. The Flying Pig half-marathon in 2010 (thanks, Mark Speir). Climbing Mount Guyot to complete the 100 county highpoints of North Carolina. 
• My worst athletic moment? Getting fired as the official scorekeeper for an American Legion baseball tournament in Anderson in the mid-1970s. I was a know-it-all after keeping the scorebook for Jim Rice's senior season at T.L. Hanna High.
• My first and maybe last autograph: Coach Frank Howard.
• Blessed Assurance, No. 269, and Just As I Am, No. 240, were the songs sung from the Baptist Hymnal on November 15, 1972—the night that I walked the aisle of Concord Church, confessed my teenage sins, and began my walk with Christ. Come walk with me. Confession is good for the soul.
• I've held the throttle of a locomotive in Pelzer, the yoke of a DC-3 plane over Darfur, and the reins of a camel in Timbuktu.
• I like to hide puns in my prose. Sometimes, I intentionally leave them unhidden.

Darfur has no laws against scribes at the yoke of a Gooneybird.