My Yin Hates My Yang

The Old Man is trying to not get caught in the emotional quicksand otherwise known as, "The race for the White House".  Oh, I confess, I like to toss an occasional stink-bomb into a political discussion on social media from time to time just to see who runs for cover, or who will begin to joust at the windmill, but beyond that, I'll pull the lever as I see fit when the time comes.  Forget the sumo wrestling known as "campaigning".
My inner workings, however, must not have gotten the memo.  There's plenty of conflict and contention there.  My back keeps playing and singing, "The Old Stenosis Blues".  Aleve is good, but it's often about as effective as rolled-up windows at a stoplight next to one of those cars that go, "WHOMP-WHUMP-WHAMP" with a bass speaker the size of Donald Trump's comb-over.

So my search for lasting relief has led me to investigate some alternatives to the familiar.  Acupuncture is my current experiment.
 Now, I'm a traditional, conservative type of person.  If it gets any further out than John Wayne and Audie Murphy, maybe with a little Clint Eastwood thrown in for good measure, my comfort level starts to nag at me like a three year old in the candy aisle.  Let me try to explain my understanding of what's going on in my body.
It seems that my life force is in a constant state of flux.  This is called my "chi".  Inside of that life force are two equal but polar opposites called "yin" and "yang".  I think I understand that my yin is pissed at my yang and chi is running around haphazardly wringing it's little hands going, "What to do, what to do?". 

Several thousand years ago, some Chinese folks figured out that it was possible to haul yin and yang to the woodshed for an attitude adjustment by sticking some needles in selected places on the body.  I do wonder how that idea took root.  In my more cynical moments, I envision a robed-up guy saying, "Ah.....Grasshopper.  We make back feel better by stick thorns in foot."

So, off we go......into the "puncture palace".   It's a pleasant enough room; an examining table and minimal furniture.  The acupuncture specialist listens as I describe my symptoms.  She then says, "Take off shoes and socks".  Uh......it's my back.  OK, I get it, this is the "grasshopper moment".  Then she instructs me to, "Undo belt and pants but keep on and lay on stomach".  Now, this is more like it.

She begins to insert the needles.  I lost count at 8 plus the one in each heel.  The big surprise was the absence of pain.  I anticipated little bee stings but instead got what felt like a little "thump".
She said, "Now I hook up electrodes".  SAY WHAT!  "Electrodes to make little tingle.....tell me when you feel".

I heard a "click" and my butt did the Boo-ga-loo, the Watusi, and the Bristol Stomp all at once.
"I dial back", she said.  Then she said, "Maybe take nap", turned off the light and left the room.  I was alone with my thoughts.  I could just envision a kid opening the door by mistake and saying, "Look Mommie,  it's a bald porcupine"!

An hour later, she was back, unhooked me from the open circuit, and removed the needles.  She gave me some stretching exercises and sent me on my way with a promise to return next week.

Is it helping?  A guarded "yes".  So I'll follow the plan to give it a fair chance until I'm better or until I spring a leak.

Just In Case You Were Wondering

The Old Man is gradually making his way back to the blog.  A hectic travel schedule, coupled with a reversal of sorts in the old back have occupied my time and energies.  If there are followers left out there, I promise a  hearty return!

Not All Fireworks Have To Be Lit

The Old Man is taking it a little easy today.  Between the heat and the gun battle going on in my back, it's an inside kind of day.  Productive output isn't on the schedule.  Retrospection is.  I've been visited by images of how the Fourth of July was when I was in my "Opie years".

The plant where my father worked closed down for the week of July 4th.  This ensured that all got a week of vacation in the summer time.  We did very little traveling when I was small; most trips were visits to family in other towns.  I think I recall going to the ocean only 2 times with my mom and dad.  Dad was happy to putter in his garden and Mom was happy just to have Dad and me.  But on the Fourth, patriotic adrenaline kicked in and our house rocked.

Unless we had rain, there was always a trip to The Lake.  Its official name was something like Bedford County Park & Lake, or such.  No one ever within my earshot ever called it that....it was simply, "The Lake".

Mom would pack a huge picnic basket with cheese sandwiches, potted meat sandwiches, deviled eggs, and pickles.  Dad would ice down some Pepsi Colas and maybe a Grapette or two in the old red metal cooler, and off we'd go.   We would set up camp over under the trees you can see at the far left end of the "beach".


As the afternoon slid by, we'd manage to empty both the basket and the cooler and it was time to head in, because in just a few hours the "piece de resistance" in a kid's summer life would begin.  Fireworks!
We'd walk up to the high school, go around to the back where the football field was, and find us a seat on the concrete bleachers.  The Chinese invented fireworks thousands of years ago and I can't recall the technology advancing much in all those years in Bedford.  It was pretty much the same show every year, ending with a pyrotechnic American flag  hissing and sizzling from the goal post at one end of the field.


A nice walk home would cap off the evening....Mom & Dad strolling and me bouncing around like the Road Runner.  
I do remember one particular year though that the strolling stopped and it became an every-man-for-himself dash. About half way home, the potted meat and the deviled eggs began to do the boogie-woogie in Mom's nether regions with predictable results.  Every step brought a report.  Then Mom got tickled and the reports increased in both frequency and volume.  What had started as sniper fire became an AK-47.  By this time, Dad was five yards ahead of her, saying under his breath to me, "Come on, come on".  That second round of "fireworks" entertained me far more than the first.   When we got to our front porch, Mom and Dad were hysterical.  Me....I was just happy that there wasn't a "Grand Finale".


I think I've got a couple of firecrackers around here somewhere.  I just might have to send up a tribute.

Hot Diggity Dog

The Old Man loves a good hot dog.    I've had golf course hot dogs, baseball game hot dogs, backyard cookout hot dogs, hot dogs you ordered through a little take-out window, so-called "gourmet" hot dogs, cheap hot dogs, and the king of them all, a hot dog from a local legendary joint in Roanoke, Va. called The Texas Tavern.  I've eaten at such hot dog emporiums as, Willie's Weenie Wagon, Yum Yum's, The Texas Inn, The Varsity Grill, The Roanoke Wiener Stand, The Lynchburg Wiener Stand, and nameless push carts. I've had them at Grant's Grocery, Tyler White's Store, and Moore's Store where the chili revisited you for several hours, and in a couple of days made you feel like you'd sat on a cactus.    I've even fantasized about a cross-country trip where we would sample as many regional favorite hot dogs as we could manage.  But, I've never had a "bowling alley" hot dog.  And therein lies my story.

Sometime back, a Facebook page dedicated to those of us from our little home town of Bedford, carried a thread of conversation about a long-forgotten bowling alley there.  On a trip back there a few years ago, we ended up in a little gift shop.  The owner was explaining that there was a bowling alley up on the second floor.  She let us go up for a look-about.  Amazingly, it was just as if time had not passed.  Although it hadn't been used in years, if you tried just a bit, you could hear again the voices and clatters in your head.  For some reason, during my growing up years, either that bowling alley was not in operation, or I just wasn't in tune, but yet, there it was.  It really set me to remembering a story my mother told me.  A story about when hot dogs first came to Bedford.

Mom said that a "feller" she was dating before she met my dad would take her bowling.  When she told me this, my attention wandered for a minute.  Hearing your mom talk about dating someone other than your dad is kind of like hearing that Fats Domino has recorded the Hallelujah Chorus....it just doesn't seem quite right.
They would go bowling and from what I could gather, Mom was pretty good.  I think I recall that she won a couple of tournaments or such.  After bowling, they would go and find a "bite to eat".

One night, he said he had something new for "you, Miss Alma".  It's called a hot dog.  Being a sport and, I'm sure, wanting to impress, he made the offer, "I'll buy you all you can eat". So, Mom had at it.
I asked her, "How many did you eat, Mom?"  She said, "I ate five".  Then she giggled and said, "I cost that boy a whole quarter that night".

Here's to you, Mom....on my best day I couldn't manage five hot dogs.

I don't know whether the hot dog feast was actually in the bowling alley or not, but one of these days I'm going back.  And I hope someone will let me in there, because I'll have a bag of hot dogs with me, and I'll need a quiet place to eat and remember.

The Magic Touch

The Old Man is still sort of in the "Deltaville mood".  You will recall my ramblings about the fishing trip to the Chesapeake Bay.  Even with Milburn's sunburn, and the dog-tiredness of a bunch of kids running on soda and junk food, with little sleep, there was time to sit out under the Spanish Moss draped live oaks, and listen to that radio wonder-of-wonders, WLAC in Nashville, Tenn.  Late at night, its 50,000 Watt signal drilled through the dark and found its way to even little Deltaville.  Disk jockeys, Gene Nobles, "Hoss" Allen, and John R. "spun the platters and laid down the patter" until dawn.  It was on that trip that I first heard, "In the Still of the Night", the seminal song that gave Doo-Wop its name.  Listen to it carefully and you'll hear during a bridge, "doo wop shu waa".  That late-night signal faded in and out just enough to enhance the magic.  To this day, that song, more than most others, causes in me an inner transport to the hood of that car, drawn up in the yard of that ramshackle old house, where I lay stretched out dreaming teen-age dreams.

I found out that back on June 4th Herb Reed died.  Herb was a founding member of the '50's vocal group, The Platters.  If you can find a picture of the original group, Herb is the short fellow on the left end....he sang bass.  Along with Paul Robi, David Lynch, Zola Taylor, and the soaring tenor of lead singer, Tony Williams, The Platters created some of the most enduring and beautiful music of the era.  While many other artists of the day "rocked the house", The Platters sang love songs.  Their first hit was "Only You"....find it, and you'll see what I mean.  And I challenge you to ignore your feelings when you hear, "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes".

In Bedford, the Battalion had very limited access to hit music.  Our radio station, like most small town stations of that time had a wide variety of programming.  Everything from hog prices, to the location of the fire when the town siren went off, left precious little time for "our music".  Couple this with the general attitude of those pesky adults toward rock-n-roll, and we were a pretty deprived bunch.
There was, however, an island in the maelstrom for us.  A little radio/TV shop down on south Bridge St. sold 45 RPM records.  They had a couple of turntables and some headphones so we could actually preview the record we were considering.  That's how I found The Platters second hit, "The Great Pretender".

For nearly 400 records, Herb's booming and pure bass voice brought The Platters signature blend to life.  They're all gone now.....Paul, David, Zola, and Tony.  Life after The Platters took many turns for them, some good and some not so much.  But they left behind a legacy of pure beauty.  They indeed did bring to the music, "The Magic Touch".

Spanish Moss Aint

The Old Man has been banging around the Georgia and South Carolina coast for a couple of weeks.  We went goofing around Savannah, Jekyll Island, Charleston, and Myrtle Beach.  For the better part of my life, the coast has sucked me in like a 500 pound Electrolux.  My first trip to see the ocean was with Mom & Dad to Virginia Beach.   Fascinated me to no end, and since then I've been intrigued by anything having to do with the whole low-country thing.  Take Spanish Moss for example;  it didn't come from Spain, it isn't a moss, and it doesn't breed chiggers.  It's actually a relative of the pineapple family, and takes its name from the days when the French and Spanish were dueling over possession of the New World.  The French called it "Spanish Beard" as an insult to the Spanish soldiers.
See what I mean?
 Over the years, I've collected all sorts of interesting chunks of lore, obscure and bizarre facts, and lots of people just being people. I sometimes think I collect "characters" like  Lady Gaga collects 'strange'.
One old pal of mine loved beach trips.  Haven't figured out why....he seldom went out on the beach and preferred to stay in his room and sleep.  Another always longed for the beach, but when he was there, he complained about the sand, whined about the heat, and if he was lying on the sand, wanted to be in his chair.  Yep, you guessed it; when in the chair, he started getting restless to lay on the sand.  Dr. Phil would be in "shrink heaven" if he could have been a fly on the wall on some of these trips.

But one of my all-time favorite collectible characters was Milburn.  During the summer between 7th and 8th grade, a youth organization from our church took all of us boys on a fishing trip down to the Chesapeake Bay.  As I recall, we were around a little village called Deltaville.  I don't know what Deltaville is like now, but back then, it was pretty primitive.  We were staying in an old house that looked like a Norman Bates reject.  Spooky doesn't begin to describe the place.  Back in the woods....no electricity, grey clapboard and a porch that listed like Titanic at midnight.
Now, you have to understand, fishing to a kid in Bedford meant cane poles and dug-up worms.  Add a sinker and a bobber and we were in business.  All we needed was a pond.

The Chesapeake Bay gives new meaning to "pond".

Our little fishing boat (should have been named "The Minnow") pulled out at sunrise.  We learned a whole new technique of fishing.  Hand lines are a witch spelled with a capital "B".  Handled improperly, they can quickly make your fingers resemble pulled pork.  I learned some other valuable lessons that are with me still, but old Milburn will never forget the equation of "sun + salt water + bare feet = misery".  When he wasn't throwing cherry bombs overboard, he was happily splashing his feet.....all day long.  What could happen with all that nice cool water keeping the heat down, right?

Milburn finally got shoes on two days later.  That night you could hear him hopping through the yard toward the outhouse, yelping with each step.  I know he wanted to cuss, but it was a church group, remember?

I don't know what ever happened to Milburn, but my love for the coast has been a deep part of me ever since those few days in Deltaville.  Whenever we go, and I begin to see the occasional grey clapboard house, looking like one who has stayed too long at the prom, I know at a deep level, I'm home.

Thank You

The Old Man thanks the "Bedford Boys", and all who came before and after them who paid for my freedom.