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Don't say anything about "The Tackle"

In the 1990’s, I was still living in Huntsville, Alabama, enjoying life and coaching Little League Baseball. It was a fun time; I coached baseball because I enjoyed the game, the boys and the neighborhood.

Not having children playing is the best way to coach baseball or any other sport in my opinion. You couldn’t be accused of playing your child more or letting them play the best positions.

However, you could be suckered into things by other parents. For the most part, I don’t think I ever was. The young parents would pull my leg every once in a while because I was still young and pretty innocent.

It was the first day of a practice which was always fun getting to meet new players, their parents and their grandparents. Every little boy was going to be a baseball superstar – sometimes you had to invent ways of their being heroes, but that was something I also enjoyed.

Peas and Happiness

As I sat there separating the frozen peas from the frozen carrots, I wasn’t thinking about how religion and politics are similar or even how thankful we should be that Clarence Birdseye invented the flash freezing machine. I was thinking about how cold my fingers were and how there should be some easier way to separate the frozen green spheres from the frozen orange cubes. Maybe I could use some sort of colander that only lets the peas fall through?

This is what I was thinking. I was also thinking about how wonderful I was for volunteering to separate the peas and carrots. Okay, I said it, I admit it. I was looking for just a little more gratitude for performing this laborious task.

It’s something I have done before and something I will do again; perhaps I enjoy it. It seems that the recipe always calls for a cup of frozen English peas and there are no bags of English peas in the freezer – only frozen peas and carrots and sandwich bags of frozen carrots that will forever suffer from separation anxiety. So without pulling politics into the task, I do it.

Those Last Five Pounds

Numerous magazines, books and websites are always discussing and providing answers on “Losing those last five pounds.” They talk about focusing on fiber-rich foods and making your body expend more energy. You know foods like dark leafy greens supplemented with organic proteins such as chicken, turkey and wild-caught fish.

The experts say you should forget about “fat free” and “sugar free” and focus on organic and hormone-free two percent dairy products. They also note that you should substitute balsamic vinegar and lemon juice for your salad dressing. But I like blue cheese dressing and ranch and when I feel like it – “Thousand Island.”

You should also cut out the caffeine and alcohol… Do you still want to lose those last five pounds? In addition to drinking 12 to 16 glasses of water a day, they note right before bed, you should have a nice tea made with lemon juice, hot water, chopped parsley and a pinch of cayenne pepper. I don’t think so.

Holy Attire

Have you ever gone somewhere and felt you were not dressed appropriately? I’m not talking about forgetting your winter coat or rain boots, I’m talking about showing up to the office party dressed as Superman, expecting a costume party and finding out everyone else is wearing a coat and tie.

It has probably happened to us all, but not to the extreme of being dressed as Superman or Wonder Woman in the middle of a dinner party or event where no one else is dressed as a superhero and no one is in the need of rescue.

Making Women Scream and Beg for More (Math)

Honestly, I try to keep my mathematics education away from my writing, much in the same way I have always tried not to talk about work at home. As a result, I have children who do not necessarily want to be scientists or mathematicians. This is fine with me.

However, working as a mathematician, being able to teach college classes and enjoying writing about my thoughts sometimes get all tangled together. They get tangled together in a good way that makes me happy and throws me into a joy that involves excitement.  You know like a dog that gets to ride in the car and gets to stick his out of the window.  Think about it...

I was in my college classroom, waiting for my students to finish their first exam of the term. In an effort to give them immediate feedback, I was grading the exams as fast as I could and asking the students to wait for the results. It’s pretty easy until I get close to the end of class and have a group of students who want to push the time limit.

Playing Cards in the Airport

Airports are wonderful places to study people, shoes and languages. Most of the people in the Atlanta airport were in a hurry on this Sunday afternoon. It seemed there was no rhyme or reason to the shoes – how people walk in shoes with pointy toes or heels five or six inches in the air puzzles me, particularly when they are in such a hurry. I did not understand most of the languages.

I was waiting on a flight north and Delta Airlines seemed to have overbooked the flight by four passengers. People get frustrated, more in a hurry and start to panic.

It was looking like a fun experiment and I needed to be a part of it.

That thing they do...

Sitting in my beach chair on the beautiful white sands of the Florida Panhandle’s Gulf Coast, I was studying the fine art of women carrying babies on their hip.

You know, “That thing they do” when they put a hip out and carry a baby or toddler around. It is actually quite amazing. There is an art to it that no man could ever successfully emulate.

I will admit that many of these mamas were wearing two-piece bathing suits which did nothing but add to the beauty of the task.

Taking One for the Team and the Gnomes...

In the late 1800’s, the first garden gnomes were being produced in Germany. As one would expect, World War I and World War II took their toll on the production of these little fellows in Germany.

However, they began to start coming out from under rocks and popping their heads out of holes again in the 1960’s in a more cartoonish plastic form. Other countries got in on the gnome breeding and seemed to kind of ruin the bloodline with plastic version.

Why put a gnome in the garden or in a flower bed?

A Shower in the Baptism Pool

Noting it many times before, I love going to the Farmers’ Market, talking to folks, studying vegetables and getting my boiled peanuts. On this particular Saturday morning, our weather was not so good – it was starting to rain and I needed to pick up the things that I could not live without on this particular day.

To be specific, I wanted a patty pan squash, some green tomatoes and a couple of bags of boiled peanuts. As the rain started to drizzle down, I found three nice green tomatoes and one perfectly sized patty pan squash. Patty pan squash look a little like an inflated flower and they grill up real nice.

Live Performance in Washington DC for SpeakeasyDC's July Show

Thank you for your continued support of my writing. I have had the opportunity to tell some of my stories on stage this summer in Virginia and Washington, DC. Here is one I did for a SpeakeasyDC about my godmother Phyllis who dialed me by mistake almost four years ago. If you are interested in me telling stories or speaking for your event, conference, school or resort guests, just drop me an email at the address that can be found in the "About Me" area.