Honking for Freedom!

This was the scene in front of Qdoba Saturday.

Members of the Syrian community in Louisville were drawing attention to the plight of their homeland with a protest on Bardstown Road. This came as a crushing disappointment to me and four of my girlfriends. Don’t get me wrong. We have nothing but sympathy for people struggling under the boot of oppression. Our disappointment stemmed from a simple misunderstanding.

As we approached the protest, multiple cars honked their horns. Of course, we automatically assumed the horns were for us, five attractive women beginning our girls’ weekend with an afternoon of shopping. When we piled out of my car earlier, another car slowed down so the occupant could yell, “Woo Hoo! Ladies night!” at 1:00 in the afternoon. We obviously had it going on.

Imagine our chagrin when we got closer and heard the shouts, “Honk for Freedom!”

Truthfully, Freedom is pretty cool. My friend, Pam, took the pictures and even had a brief conversation with a couple of the women protesting. I hope their friends and family in Syria find Freedom and peace.

My girlfriends and I found our own brand of freedom (Note the lower case f. I do realize it’s not in the same universe as Syrian Freedom.) in our second annual escape from work and family responsibilities. We strolled up and down Bardstown Road all afternoon, wandering in and out of funky boutiques, consignment shops, artists’ studios, used book stores, and even an African bakery and craft store. We tried on hats, shoes, vintage dresses, and handmade jewelry.

I bought a pair of awesomely funky shoes. Here they are looking hot beside Tammy’s boots.

The day was gorgeous, partly sunny and mid to high forties. No sign of the “white death” the hostess at Cracker Barrel had warned us was coming. Tammy thought she was warning us about the 2012 apocalypse. We were momentarily confused since it’s only February. I’ve decided White Death will be my karaoke stage name…or the title of my next book.

We stopped for a late lunch/early dinner at Impellizzari’s Pizza. Linda ordered a beer and claimed it would probably fill her up too much to eat. After which, she proceeded to make a massive piece of the deep dish Sicilian sampler her bitch, along with two slices of the thin crust margharita pizza and several breadsticks.

The pizza was excellent, but the company was better.

We shopped a bit more after eating, but decided it was time to call it a day when a member of our party who shall remain nameless spent $20 on a bracelet made of string. In her defense, $20 for braided string seemed perfectly reasonable after a couple of beers, and it was cute.

When the shopping wound down, we geared up for an evening of music and dancing. On the way in to the tavern, a car honked. Pam declared that it was NOT a honk for Freedom.

We heard some great music. The band opened with Pink Floyd, and four teachers belted "we don't need no education" at the top of our lungs, but sadly the dancing did not come to pass.

We were ready. See? Don’t we look cute?

We had our dancing shoes on, but when we got there…

Linda, “This is like the Inferno. What fresh hell is this?” (You’ve gotta love a friend who combines Dante with Dorothy Parker.)

Pam, “This is enough to make me never drink again.”

Tammy, “Not enough alcohol in the world to get me out there.”

See Linda’s face?

Let me paint the picture she’s gazing upon in horror.

Three women dancing, all wasted, beyond wasted, probably didn’t leave the tavern under their own power wasted. Now, I’m not throwing stones at their degree of drunkenness. And Linda is no shrinking violet. A trio of trashed girls in and of themselves would not elicit this face.

One of the girls is overweight. So what, right? There's more. Her shirt is askew, and her bra is twisted. The only thing sort of covering her large breasts is the stack of Mardi Gras beads around her neck. She rips her shirt open again in front of the band’s lead singer. He hands her the beads, but turns his head. She is way too drunk to notice, but seriously, if the dude is turning away from your breasts, you should probably quit flashing them.

The second girl keeps her shirt on and would probably be cute sober and not grinding on everything with a pulse. Boys, girls, it really doesn’t matter. She grabs people and loops her beads around their necks, essentially trapping them in an obscene embrace. Some, like the bass player in the band, look slightly alarmed as he tries to keep the beat with a girl humping his leg. Others, like the chick with the boobs and the beads join in with gusto. At one point a guy squeezes in between me and Tammy to get a better look.

“What the hell? Is she motor-boating that girl?”

“I’m trying not to watch.”

“It’s a f’n train wreck. How can you not rubberneck?”

Tammy turns and looks at him like he is a piece of toilet paper on her shoe. It's daunting, and he backs away.

Pam has this to say about the last girl in the dance floor triumvirate. “This is her night off. She’s way too good on those stilettos to be an amateur.”

She is over six feet tall in the heels, and she has a banging body. She drops to the floor and slides back up a person in one smooth motion, even blind drunk. We see that move a lot. When she gets up close and personal with the lead singer, her boyfriend pulls her off. Her boyfriend is a mountain of a man. If she is six feet, he’s six-five easily, broad shouldered with hair past his waist. I can’t tell you if he’s cute. I never see his face under the lion’s mane of blond hair. Together, they get into a head-banging, hair-slinging contest that clears the dance floor. Even boob girl and bitch-in-heat get out of their way.

Can you see it now? Just out of the frame?

So yeah, we didn’t dance. But the band, Stone the Crow, was very good. They mostly played classic rock covers, but they did it well. The lead guitarist was incredible. Watching him almost made me forget the train wreck on the dance floor.

The icing on the cake came when we left. The temperature had dropped, and our coats were in the car, so we sprinted from the exit. I dived into the front seat without looking right or left, so I didn’t initially see why Pam was screaming.

“OH MY GOD!!!”

OMG indeed. In the SUV right next to us, live in Technicolor, a woman was “taking care” of her man. Or a man. One wonders if it was actually her man since they didn’t wait to go to their house to do the deed. We backed out of the parking place and rolled down our windows.

“Look in that car!” Pam yelled to a group of people approaching. “Hurry! Right now! Look!”

Six people pressed their faces to the glass. They screamed and then laughed. We honked on the way out of the parking lot. For Freedom, baby!

We ended the night at Krispy Kreme followed by Steak and Shake. What? Life is short, eat dessert first, especially if dessert is hot and fresh Krispy Kremes.

Being Nice makes you Happier

Another flash fiction challenge offered up by Chuck Wendig enticed me to play. The game this time is to write an unlikable protagonist who remains compelling and readable, 1000 words or less. Mine comes in at 747. Enjoy.

Being Nice makes you Happier
Condoms? Yeah, good luck with that, buddy.

Out loud, “Big date, tonight?”

The teenager flushed underneath his zits. “No, but you can’t be too prepared, right?” He reached for a nonchalant smile and failed. “That’s what they taught me in boy scouts.”

Boy scouts don’t get laid.

Brody examined the box before bagging it. “Ribbed for her pleasure,” he read. “Very considerate. You are a boy scout.”

The boy laughed nervously, shifting his weight and clutching his wallet with white knuckles. The soccer mom unloading groceries on the belt behind him radiated disapproval.

Beautiful.

Brody grinned and totaled the order. “Okay, box of condoms, pack of gum. That’ll be $4.78 with tax.”

The kid threw his money at Brody, grabbed the bag like he stole it, and hurried out the exit.

“You embarrassed that boy on purpose.”

Brody fixed an impassive stare on the woman. She stared back.

He shrugged, “If you’re man enough to have sex, you ought to be man enough to buy a condom without turning five shades of red.”

“It was unkind.”

“So it was.”

And speaking of Trojans…

Brody typed a code into the register before he scanned the first item. The display screen dimmed slightly, indicating his program was running in the background. He swallowed another grin and scanned silently.

Vegetables, fruit, chicken. Damn, this chick needed some red meat in her diet or something. Whatever. Produce was easy to hide behind.

“Being nice would make you happier.”

Your money will make me happier.

He allowed the grin to show. “I couldn’t resist teasing him. He reminded me of my little brother. But you’re right. I should’ve been nicer.”

The muscles in her face relaxed, but not enough to produce a smile. He slid a box of tampons across the scanner. Bitch must be on the rag. The bag of Oreos confirmed it.

“Those cookies were marked on sale. That’s not the sale price.”

“I’m sorry. Do you remember the price? I can send someone to check.”

“$2.99.”

He voided the cookies at $3.78 and punched in $2.99. He considered killing the worm. She didn’t fit the profile. She was paying attention and confident, and he had nullified his native charm dicking around with condom boy.

Would she go home and examine the receipt?

“Shouldn’t you tell someone those cookies are ringing up wrong? A manager or something?”

“Technically, the sale starts at midnight. The guys on the floor got a jump on the signage.” He pointed to the plastic pinned to his chest. “I am a manager.”

“Oh.”

She kept her voice neutral, but the raised eyebrow told Brody exactly what she thought of his managerial skills.

Game on.

He scanned her organic milk. The shit was expensive, and the worm left it alone. People paid attention to the pricier items on their ticket. Her eyes were glued to the display screen.

The block of cheddar cheese rang up .30 higher than the correct price.

She didn’t blink. Neither did he.

Cheerios, .20 higher. No reaction.

A loaf of fresh-baked bread, a nickel higher. She flicked her eyes from the display screen to his face. He smiled pleasantly.

Antiperspirant, a full dollar higher. I’ve got a Secret too.

Her eyes returned to the display as he scanned a two-pack of toothbrushes, .20 higher. Toothpaste, razors, and a bottle of Midol.

“Your total comes to $76.42.”

Her brows knitted together, and she stood frozen, debit card in hand.

Come on Mama. Scan your card for Snakebyte.

Deliberately, she returned the debit card to her wallet and pulled out her checkbook. Brody ran the check and handed over her receipt.

“You have a wonderful day, ma’am.”

She slid the receipt into her checkbook, eyed him suspiciously one last time, and walked away silently.

“Being nice makes you happier,” he called after her.

She kept walking and Brody chuckled. The cash drawer popped open of its own volition, and he removed $5.20 and slid it into his pocket. A grain of sand in his rapidly growing sand castle, and undoubtedly, the best $5.20 he would earn today.

His gleeful meditation was interrupted by the sound of screaming children. A woman in sweats threw her credit card at him and struggled to unload an overflowing cart. The toddler on her hip crushed a fistful of goldfish and reached for the opened bag on the belt. A red-faced infant screamed from its seat in the cart.

Snakebyte smiled sympathetically and punched in the code.

Beautiful.

Youth and Beauty

I’ve enjoyed the hell out of the last several weeks in my classroom reading To Kill a Mockingbird. The kids have enjoyed it too. Every day, we challenge a different stereotype. What does it mean to be black? White? Southern? A girl? Poor? Educated? Mentally healthy? Religious? Old? Young?

Our discussions have been rich, and the kids seemed to embrace Atticus’ philosophy. You never really know a person until you get inside his skin and walk around in it. I was energized. Attitudes were adjusting, including mine. One book really can change people’s lives.

Cut to today.

“Who were you rooting for yesterday, Ms. Owens?”

“The Giants.”

“Really? Why?”

“Well, normally I’m not a fan of either team, but we have a couple of connections to the Giants, and that seemed like a good reason to root for them. Plus, I’m over the Patriots, and yeah, that’s probably sour grapes from when they beat teams I like, but whatever.”

“But Tom Brady’s hot! You have to root for him.”

“So is David Beckham, but I’m not buying his underwear.”

I watch a girl’s eyes glaze over. “I totally would.”

I realize my eyes have glazed over, and I shake myself back to reality. “Come on people. You do not have inferior minds. Surely, you base decisions like which team to root for and what products to buy on more than just physical beauty?”

Beavis and Butthead in the back of the room, “huhuhuhuhuh…Go Daddy!”

“I bought M&Ms this morning, but I based that on humor. They had the best commercial. Plus, I like M&Ms.”

“OH! It’s that kind of party!" Everyone laughed amidst general agreement that M&Ms had the best commercial. (This was the first commercial mentioned by students in every class. Good job M&M/Mars! You reached your target audience.)

“What about that half-time show? How old is Madonna anyway. She’s like my grandma’s age or something?”

“Yeah, seriously. Why do they keep getting old people?”

Ouch. This one hit home, and my knee jerked.

“Madonna hit the charts when I was in high school. She has adapted for thirty years. How many of your favorite artists will still be relevant when you’re in your forties?”

“Justin Bieber.”

I’m not making that up. I might have thrown up a little in my mouth. I resisted the urge to make a snide remark and further pigeon-hole myself. I had already planted a flag in “old people” land.

“Who says Madonna is still relevant?”

“We’re talking about her aren’t we? She played to a billion people last night. A lot of them are talking about her too. Plus, that awful song she just put out is on the radio every five minutes.”

“SEE!! You don’t even like her anymore! She’s old!”

“I don’t like that song because it’s stupid. Let’s see if I can sum up this discussion…Only hot people are worthy of our attention and fandom, and old people need to get out of our faces because they aren’t relevant anymore. Is that about right?”

Beavis and Butthead, “hehehehehehe….yeah.”

Everyone else backpedals warily, smelling a trap.

“Betty White is old, and we like her. She’s funny.”

“So old people are good for a laugh in a commercial, but leave the half-time show to us young, relevant folks?”

“You are totally twisting our words, Ms. Owens!”

“Then, please, tell me what you really mean.”

Several false starts, then, “Nevermind.”

“Uh huh…get out your homework.”

I’d like to say victory was mine, but it was hollow at best. I’d like to blame it on the fact that these kids are 15 years old, but I saw the same discussion on Facebook and Twitter last night.

We are only willing to get inside someone else’s skin and walk around in it as long as we can go back to our own young, beautiful skin to live.

My favorite commercial? The Audi headlights that blew up those eternally young, eternally beautiful vampires.

Zen and the Art of Teaching

American Idol returned tonight, and while they highlight some good singers, the audition shows are all about the delusional. I'm not throwing stones. Sometimes, I think delusional might be a nice place to live. Think about it. To be blissfully unaware, clueless, secure in the profound belief that you are awesome would be liberating.

Don’t get me wrong. Some days I actually am awesome, but I know when I’m not. Today, a bit of delusion would have been useful, but I just couldn't muster any. So in lieu of delusion, I’m going to indulge in a little public therapy.

Over the years, I’ve invited a lot of visitors into my classroom: principals, other teachers, college kids, guests from foreign countries. I've had them all. As a general rule, visitors, announced or otherwise, don’t shake me. I learned I was hosting today’s visitors, teachers in my district in a leadership program, during class change, five minutes before they walked into my classroom. I knew most of them. One was a former student. Another was a close friend.

No worries. Right?

My colleagues would be observing an honors class with no real behavior issues. My lesson plan was a little loose, but when we’re discussing a reading assignment, it often is. I have five or six points I want to be sure to hit, but mostly, I let the discussion go where it goes. When kids work through their own questions about the text, pinging ideas off of each other, extending the text into their own experiences and drawing conclusions about culture and life and everything in the world that matters…that’s when the magic happens.

Except when it doesn’t.

The bell rang. I simultaneously tried to find seats for my guests and get my kids started on their journals, a bell ringer activity that keeps them busy while I’m dealing with housekeeping issues and gets them thinking about the discussion for the day. I usually go over it before they start writing, but teachers kept filing into the room. The original group of four guests turned into six, then seven, then ten. Okaaaay. Third hour was now standing room only.

The kids couldn’t get settled because several of my guests were elementary and middle school teachers they knew and loved. Lots of excited waving and even some hugging ensued. In hindsight, always 20-20, I should have just stopped, acknowledged the unusual situation, and let the excitement play out before I moved on. Instead, I tried to play it cool. Why? Beats the hell out of me. Maybe because my class wouldn’t settle, and I was beginning to feel like a rat in a science experiment.

Just as I finally started talking, two boys who sit right in front of me began to gag and spit. Brown sludge coated their tongue and brown drool ran down their chins.

“ACK! UGH! Oh my GOD! You said this was chocolate!”

A girl two rows over replied, “It is. Dark chocolate.”

“YOU GAVE US DARK CHOCOLATE?!? I need a drink! Ms. Owens! I’m gonna die!”

The class erupted. Tweedledee and Tweedledum basked in the glow of the spotlight even as they spat chocolate into their hands and knocked over a chair trying to get to the door and the water fountain beyond.

I rolled my eyes and called for quiet, but my deep reservoir of zen had sprung a leak. I reminded myself that my guests were actual teachers who deal with craziness on a regular basis. Onward and upward. I threw out my first question and got a tepid response. This was the same question that had generated 30 minutes of rich discussion in my first hour class. Different class, different kids. I mixed it up and tried again. Instead of waiting for a volunteer, I called on specific students. Lukewarm. One word. No response. Flat out wrong. My reservoir was draining fast.

Like a bad American Idol contestant, when things went wrong, I just started singing louder and more off key. Instead of letting the kids make the connections, I started making them myself. Instead of facilitating discussion, I lectured.

Sigh.

Tweedledee was still wiping dark chocolate off his tongue with his sleeve, but he had his book open and seemed to be reading furiously.

Ah ha. The light dawned.

When I’m flummoxed, I’m slow on the uptake. A third of the class was either studiously avoiding eye contact with me or reading as fast as their little eyes could scan the page. I’m mean when I’m embarrassed and pissed off, so I targeted those kids with laser precision, forcing them to say it out loud in front of the company. “I don’t know. I didn’t do the reading.” And no, I’m not particularly proud of that either.

I had a conversation later with my friend. She assured me it wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it was, but she’s my friend, and I don’t think she would say anything to make me feel worse than I did. Turns out, the group was supposed to be making notes about rigor in the classroom. My friend told me I asked rigorous questions.

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at that.

My guests left after 20 inglorious minutes, and I had a come-to-Jesus meeting with the class. Tomorrow is a new day, and I’ll bet my next paycheck that the kids who didn’t read last night will be prepared tomorrow. They’re not bad kids. They’re just kids. And a wrench in the works (or dark chocolate streaming from a boy’s mouth) is not usually enough to turn me into a babbling Cruella DeVille, but I’m not delusional enough to make that claim today.

Margaritas, Snow, and Black Sludge

I've had an interesting week. It began with a margarita tour of San Antonio, included one day with freshman drunk on the prospect of the year's first snow day, and ended underneath my bathroom sink clearing that which shall not be named from my pipes.

Why a margarita tour? Why San Antonio? Bruce had to go to San Antonio for the AFCA convention, but since I'm not a football coach, I went for the margaritas. I was not disappointed.

Sunday: Patron Mango Mint Margarita at the Iron Cactus paired with lobster tacos and tortilla soup.

The Iron Cactus boasts the largest selection of tequila in San Antonio. The menu listed more than 80. My margarita had two different kinds of Patron, along with fresh-squeezed agave, mango, and a mint leaf. To say that this margarita was good would be like saying Michelangelo was a decent sculptor, Mount Everest is fairly tall, Eric Clapton doesn’t suck. I would order this margarita as part of my last meal. If I was stupidly rich, I would fill a swimming pool with this margarita and dive into it like Scrooge McDuck. Not being stupidly rich is the only thing that kept me from drinking them until I slid out of my chair and into the river. At $10 a pop, moderation was a given.

Monday: Prickly Pear Margarita at Boudro’s Texas Bistro paired with blackened prime rib.

This was the only frozen margarita I sampled. I’m a rocks girl as a general rule, but sometimes decadence trumps the rules. The real star of this meal, though, was the steak, spicy and crunchy on the outside, tender and juicy on the inside. I ate everything on my plate. If I hadn’t been in a fancy restaurant with the entire Vanderbilt coaching staff at the next table, I would have picked up my plate and licked it clean. Being full of prime rib and prickly pear margarita made me all warm and fuzzy, and I actually dozed off at the BCS Championship party we went to afterwards. In my defense, it wasn’t a very exciting game.

Tuesday: Traditional margarita rocks at the Lone Star Café paired with a thinly sliced brisket sandwich slathered in barbecue sauce. No picture on this one, but it was good, reasonably priced, and within walking distance of our hotel. I ordered the second (and third) guilt-free.

Lest you think all I did in San Antonio was eat and drink margaritas, here is some photographic evidence to the contrary.

We explored the Riverwalk…

Visited the Alamo….

Stayed at the historic and beautiful Menger Hotel (OMG, their breakfast buffet!)…

Hung out at the Menger Bar where Teddy Roosevelt recruited the Rough Riders…

And even did some actual AFCA convention things like pose with the Heismann…

…and study current marketing trends. This is how they sell shoulder pads.

Wednesday was a travel day. We returned home to find that the boys had not trashed the house in Risky Business fashion (if you don’t count the pile of dishes in the sink and laundry on their respective floors). The dog wasn‘t languishing. The cat had food in his bowl. The neighbors hadn’t left nasty notes in the mailbox.

Being able to trust your kids -- priceless.

Thursday: I realized I need to leave for three straight days more often, so I can hear this when I return. “Ms. Owens! You’re back! We missed you!” The kids were genuinely happy to see me which was nice and completely manic because of the snow predicted for that afternoon which wasn't as nice. I have no windows in my classroom, and they invented every excuse in the book to walk down the hall and see if it was snowing. Talk of snow seemed to bleed into everything.

Consider this: At the end of chapter 17 in To Kill a Mockingbird, Jem is pleased with Atticus’ questioning of Bob Ewell, but Scout thinks Jem is counting his chickens.

“What does Scout mean by Jem counting his chickens?”

Crickets.

“The whole idiom is ‘Don’t count your chickens before they hatch.’ Think it through. What does that mean?

Crickets.

“Okay, it’s like this. Snow is predicted, but it’s not here yet. You decide not to do your math homework because you just know we’re getting a snow day. See? That’s counting your chickens before they hatch. You might get a snow day, but you might end up in Ms. Bleuel’s class tomorrow with no math homework. Don’t count your chickens before they hatch.”

“Ms. Owens, I don’t know anything about chickens, but I’m definitely not doing my math homework tonight CAUSE WE‘RE GETTING A SNOW DAY TOMORROW!”

Friday: We get a snow day. The snow day coincides nicely with the exact moment my frustration with the slow-draining sinks in my bathroom reaches critical mass. Armed only with rubber gloves, I remove the curvy pipe underneath and clear a foul mass of methane-infused, hair-clotted, slimy, black sludge from each. Eldest son came looking for a roll of toilet paper and ran screaming from the room. Youngest son squatted down next to me, fascinated, and asked me where it came from.

Happy thought for the day: All the lotions, potions, unguents, and sprays I use become black, hair-clotted sludge in my drain.

So there you have it. The week that started with a Patron Mango Mint Margarita ended with black sludge, apparently run-off from my face. I’m pretty sure there’s a profound metaphor in there somewhere, or maybe it was just a really weird week.

When Just Right is Just Wrong

If Chuck Wendig's TerribleMinds is not already on your daily blog roll, it should be. Among other interesting tidbits, he hosts regular flash fiction contests on his blog. Each week a specific set of parameters is given and everyone is invited to play. You post your story of no more than 1000 words on your blog and link to it in the comment section of his.

This week, I couldn't resist. He linked to a set of 50 Unexplainable black and white photos on Buzzfeed. Many of the photos were disturbing. They were all weird. Perfect story material, right? Here's mine, along with the photo that inspired it.

Just Right

Onyx had never found Papa B’s bed too hard, but when her subversive sister, Goldie, uploaded her first self-produced video to YouTube, it had inexplicably gone viral. Papa may have been cast as a lumbering oaf who slept on an iron mattress, but he was no fool. He turned the den into a B&B and charged extra for Baby B’s room.

Mama B left when Papa sold the movie rights to Hollywood. No one was surprised. After all, they slept in separate beds. While Papa had laughed off the caricature Goldie made of him, Mama hated being seen as a frumpy housewife eating cold porridge and driving Papa off to his hard, lonely bed. The prospect of a nationwide movie release sent her over the edge. She took her share of the advance and hit the road.

Secretly, Onyx was glad. Other than the separate beds, she couldn’t speak to Mama’s relationship with Papa, but she had been best friends with Baby since the third grade. Baby was sad when Mama left, but truth be told, she had been motherless for years. Her real mom had died in childbirth, and a desperate, broken-hearted Papa had remarried, hoping to give Baby a mother.

Desperate and broken-hearted is no way to begin a relationship. Everything about Mama B had been wrong. She was bi-polar, and while Onyx would never fault a person for having an illness, she could fault them for refusing to treat it. Mama only took her meds about half the time which made her highs and lows even worse.

She was too happy or too sad, too mellow or too angry, too trusting or too paranoid. Goldie’s video had, in fact, been an homage to Mama’s earth-moving shifts. Unfortunately, one character trait was constant. She was too freaking critical, and it was all aimed at Baby.

Baby was beautiful, but you wouldn’t have known it if you heard Mama talk. She told Baby one day, that she was too fat to fit in the den and the next, that she was too skinny to survive the winter. Mama railed over Baby’s lush, perfect hair. It was too long, too short, too thick, too thin, too dull, too shiny, too, too, too…it was Mama’s favorite word.

Everyone knew Baby B was just right. Onyx knew it better than most, and she reminded Baby at every possible opportunity. She spent a lot of time in the B’s den working the desk, cleaning, cooking for the guests, and anything else Papa needed done. Goldie was off at film school on Papa’s dime, so her own house felt cold and empty.

Baby had gone into the new family business as well, giving tours and having her picture made with the guests. At night the two of them would curl up on Papa B’s big, very comfortable bed (Papa had taken to sleeping outside) and whisper their dreams for the future.

Onyx’s dreams had not included getting pregnant, but Brad had been so handsome when he checked in late on a cold February afternoon. The fire had roared cheerfully, warm porridge steamed on the stove, and Onyx had been alone. Reservations were light in the winter. People came to B’s B&B to see big Papa and just right Baby, not Goldie’s homely sister.

Brad had been different. He didn’t seem to care that he was in a celebrity’s den. He had eyes only for her. They had shared a bottle of wine over a bowl of just-right porridge, and before she could say, “My what big teeth you have,” Onyx found herself wrapped in Brad’s arms.

The magic of the night had been washed away the next morning when she woke alone in Baby’s bed to the sound of Papa B’s booming voice.

“Onyx! Where are you?”

Wearing her disheveled clothing from the night before, she had slunk out of Baby’s room. Brad sat grinning in front of the fire, and Papa caught on immediately.

“Oh Onyx, I thought you had more sense than this.”

Brad fist-pumped like the frat boy he was. “Big Brad Wolfe strikes again!”

“Get out and don’t come back!”

When Papa B roared, one ignored it at his own peril. Brad made a quick exit, but the damage had been done. When the stick turned pink, Onyx’s shame was complete.

Good friends make all things bear-able and no matter how low Onyx sank, Baby B was there with a kind word and gentle touch which of course was just right.

We were There!

Last night my son played in the Kentucky 6A Championship game. They played #1 in the nation Trinity High School. I wish I could report that we rose up in feel-good sports movie fashion and knocked off the giant, but as we all know, in real life, sometimes Goliath wins.

You might think that my son and his teammates are crushed. Certainly, they are disappointed, but crushed? Not even a little bit.

We lost and the score was ugly. I'm not even going to post it. You can look it up on the KHSAA website if you want to know. They were bigger and stronger than we were, and their speed? Holy cow...we're talking SEC speed. I say without exaggeration, at least three of their players could start for Kentucky right now. Watching them was a sight to behold.

A bigger sight to behold? Us.

I heard some talk around school last week from both freshmen and upper classmen. "Why would I want to go all the way to Bowling Green (it's a 3 hour drive) and watch us get killed?" "Half of Trinity's roster has already committed to D1 schools." "We have no chance."

You know what I heard from my son? "They're ranked #1, so if we win, we can call ourselves National Champions." That was the last thing he said to me before he went to school yesterday morning. He wasn't being ironic.

Our kids took the field with that attitude. Trinity has this whole gladiator-like routine they run through before the game. They walk out on the field two-by-two like an army. They have twice as many kids on their roster, so it's impressive. They do this call and response thing as they go through stretches like something out of 300.

Our kids didn't even know Trinity was on the field.


I took some pics of my son and his good friend during snap warm-ups. My son is the short snapper, and his friend is the long snapper. They were doing what they always do, getting loose, smiling, taking care of business. When they did look around, it wasn't at Trinity, but at the stadium. I could almost read their minds.

"Man, we are here!"

Our kids played with joy, recognizing that the moment they were in was huge. Those kind of moments come very few times in a person's life. Some of those kids will never again run out of a college tunnel in a big university stadium, but they did last night. The coach pulled a rabbit out of his hat on the first drive and sprung something on Trinity they hadn't seen in our film. Our David may have been ultimately defeated, but we drew first blood on Goliath. We showed them we wouldn't fall on our sword, and the kids were on top of the moon when we took it into the end zone. Whatever the final score, no one on our side of the stadium would have traded that moment for anything.

Our kids played hard. They went up against those mammoth linemen and kept their feet moving and strained with all of their might to make the block or the tackle. I was close enough to see our biggest offensive lineman's muscles straining with the effort on every single play.

Our kids played with heart. Several of our senior leaders went above and beyond the call, playing after they were hurt and inspiring their teammates to play hard. Our quarterback played after he was spitting up blood, and eventually had to be forced off the field by the coach. A senior defensive lineman and our best senior running back played on old injuries that should have kept them on the sidelines, but didn't. Trinity scored, and they went back out and played the next play hard.

When it was over, and I picked up my son and his friend at the school in the middle of the night, I didn't know what mood to expect. What I got was exuberance. Both of them had made blocks on kick returns that took a kid who has already committed to Alabama out of the play. (They had a lot of chances, because we had a lot of kick returns...lol.) They got to measure themselves against the best of the best, and they won the play a couple of times.

They even gloried in some of the ugly moments, in the way that only a true lover of the game can.

"Did you see that punt where I got laid out? Damn!" And they high fived. "Dude, that one d-tackle shooting the A gap..." They both shook their heads and grinned. It's like getting to go one on one with Michael Jordan. You take your licks, but man you're there!

They were there. They were on the field, and even when face down, staring at turf, they were having fun. And no matter how many times they were face down on the turf, they never quit. Not once. They. Never. Quit.

Through the first four games of the playoffs, Trinity had a total of 12 points scored on them. We scored 21.

There are two kinds of people in the world. The kind that say, "Why bother? We can't win." And the kind that say, "We have a chance to knock off the #1 team in the nation."

I'm inspired by my son and his team. You can't win if you don't show up and play. If these kids take that attitude into the rest of their lives, they will win more than they lose. Their lives will be rich with experiences that take them places other folks fear to go, and that, my friends, is a game worth playing.