tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-49475334036348763332024-03-13T09:21:56.267-07:00SunshineSam Mortonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13308153445590454380noreply@blogger.comBlogger64125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4947533403634876333.post-24335571891400698482011-05-24T06:54:00.000-07:002011-05-24T07:02:39.852-07:00Tuesdays With Morrie? How 'bout Months With Menopause?<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7Kye03Oqgjs4O9VVV-SI3i6jcbfvmtZALqRAQLQEScIYP2W6oe6EiftT14DlISkZKtjY6JnDDFKbqCCWCZesQEKs-y_qAz0efSWx80vKjL0YCaAVYR7h0UZwA6Q-kcq9_M-Ww7DJMzbw/s1600/snow+shoes.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7Kye03Oqgjs4O9VVV-SI3i6jcbfvmtZALqRAQLQEScIYP2W6oe6EiftT14DlISkZKtjY6JnDDFKbqCCWCZesQEKs-y_qAz0efSWx80vKjL0YCaAVYR7h0UZwA6Q-kcq9_M-Ww7DJMzbw/s1600/snow+shoes.png" /></a>Every time I hear one of my friends from the north say they moved down here because they were tired of the harsh winters, I want to ask, "Have you ever been in South Carolina in August??" It's like Hell sends its left over heat here. As a matter of fact, wet T-shirt contests didn't originate in bars, they were just a natural progression from sweating through three sets of clothes in a day. I, therefore, love air conditioning.<br />
<br />
For years, I kept the thermostat somewhere between 65 and 68 degrees in the summer. Walk in my house from the hot, humid, oven-baked air outside and your glasses would immediately fog over. Walk out of my house into the heat and condensation would form on your body like a mini weather system in the tropics.<br />
<br />
But now that we're enduring "the change," my thermostatic antics seem like child's play. My temps now seem sauna like compared to those my lovely bride needs to battle hot flashes. I'm pretty sure they store corpses in a morgue at a higher temperature than we keep in our house. The kids walk around in sweats in July. I feel like I need a thermal suit and snowshoes just to reach the bed at night, and I've told Myra on several occasions that when the St. Bernard with the whiskey barrel around his neck comes looking for survivors, please point him to my side of the bed.<br />
<br />
Is there any wonder why I get whacked in the shoulder on a regular basis?<br />
<br />
Okay, here's today's recipe:<br />
<br />
Crab Dip (Easy peasy, but it looks gourmet; sure to impress your friends--especially the ladies!)<br />
<br />
1 block Creme Cheese (not the tub. Has to be the block)<br />
1 jar of seafood cocktail sauce<br />
1 small can of crab<br />
<br />
Take a fancy smancy glass plate and place the opened block of creme cheese in the middle.<br />
Cover the block with the cocktail sauce<br />
Spread the crab over the top of the sauce<br />
<br />
Serve with famcy smancy crackers and just wait for the compliments.Sam Mortonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13308153445590454380noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4947533403634876333.post-83624835656872577852010-11-23T13:34:00.000-08:002010-11-23T13:42:36.488-08:00The F Word (Which May Turn Out to Mean Food! Mind Outta the Gutter...Tsk, tsk)<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUiS_LWucuvCkwiMEmbhDo2tHFsz4f336ED_3z9Fr5onxZCaTCmdAjw3dBzEwgxChPiJuNtAtcn79zxJD05zJjyFeNnndoQhyphenhyphen5dzcDddP3jte71EwK5ojr-BXlnVHuSljnlKNUfGaQpGs/s1600/books.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUiS_LWucuvCkwiMEmbhDo2tHFsz4f336ED_3z9Fr5onxZCaTCmdAjw3dBzEwgxChPiJuNtAtcn79zxJD05zJjyFeNnndoQhyphenhyphen5dzcDddP3jte71EwK5ojr-BXlnVHuSljnlKNUfGaQpGs/s1600/books.jpg" /></a>I'm a fan of the Pioneer Woman, so today we're going to talk about her, young adult books, and food. First, the Pioneer Woman, a lady named Ree Drummond, was raised in Oklahoma, moved to L.A., had dreams of becoming a ballerina, and so on her way to relocating to Chicago (I think), she stopped in her hometown. While in a bar, she saw a handsome hunk of a cowboy and before she new it, she was married, gave up her grand jete' for a truck named Chevrolet, and moved out to the ranch. She began a blog and about eight months into it, she started including recipes. Now she has a NY Times bestselling cook book. So I decided to steal her idea and I'll do the same at the end of the blog. No, not fall in love with a cowboy. This ain't Brokeback Mountain. I mean include a recipe (which I see Michelle and Jessica have done, too. Pioneer Women, perhaps?)</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Young adult books...I'm in the midst of writing book two in the Austin Files series (<em>Betrayed</em> was book one). I'm struggling with the authenticity of the dialogue and with some of the situations my characters find themselves in. A person in my writers group is also writing a young adult book. She's a very strong writer and has decided on total realism, including having her characters use profanity--including the dreaded "F" word (gasp!) She realizes with that in there, she'll never get into school libraries, but she's wondering if it's worth the risk. Opinions anyone? Fellow authors? Parents?</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Finally the recipe. I'll include one with every blog now and include (if I remember) the person's name who originally gave it to me). Of course anyone can make these, but I intend them for men such as myself who are the chief cooks and bottle washers in their homes. As Myra told me on day two of our marriage, "If you wanna eat, you better learn how to cook."</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><strong>The Best Fruit Dip Ever</strong></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">From my friend Bill Mellin</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">1 tub small tub of soft creme cheese</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">1 cup powdered sugar</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Kahlua to taste</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2HpIXVBffov8kniv_jx4gR6N2xbBrjBnY8ipXagTaXBdqEUlq60RaQNF088T-7UGornu_XjBF0YbcTibXuNkkpEJrZWJTIiKrNV6_DujuNrPXFn9NJ8REHRGFltIHvQKsCX0sLZ1wpas/s1600/fruit+dip.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2HpIXVBffov8kniv_jx4gR6N2xbBrjBnY8ipXagTaXBdqEUlq60RaQNF088T-7UGornu_XjBF0YbcTibXuNkkpEJrZWJTIiKrNV6_DujuNrPXFn9NJ8REHRGFltIHvQKsCX0sLZ1wpas/s1600/fruit+dip.jpg" /></a>In a bowl, mix the creme cheese and sugar. When thoroughly mixed, add about a teaspoon of Kahlua and taste the mixture. Don't let the alcohol overpower the sweetness of the other ingredients. Stir until it has the consistency of cake frosting.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Put the mixture in a small serving bowl, set it in the middle of a tray, and surround it with hard fruits like apples and pears. You can dip strawberries or spoon some of the mixture over softer fruits. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Enjoy!</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div>Sam Mortonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13308153445590454380noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4947533403634876333.post-91681700648331167222010-11-16T08:17:00.000-08:002010-11-16T08:20:37.943-08:00The G Spot<div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0LCnwwO9klwA773O8k2DRd8mTZU08bpApcYmUYkgXRD_Clf4Unmgutrdu3FBp3f4ws6gY6q48vGMGaGl_jIDPtdIOW9ds12Plq1oLx5I1i5X6DLYXLQzM7DR8kHSl96O-9Zk9OINWtBQ/s1600/bits_android.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" px="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0LCnwwO9klwA773O8k2DRd8mTZU08bpApcYmUYkgXRD_Clf4Unmgutrdu3FBp3f4ws6gY6q48vGMGaGl_jIDPtdIOW9ds12Plq1oLx5I1i5X6DLYXLQzM7DR8kHSl96O-9Zk9OINWtBQ/s1600/bits_android.jpg" /></a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6QC6V715T2FE-OYwlmEA9y1_jI2QbU702JnRL6JZjVZ3mP3N1QERb0wPCSs7_bSMT_7gRh73pgfjLcgkOL8YP7dorAgqNCzFwYAa0dT-WKkPk2X3nji0F0P0UbHEmIfzY9E6S4cQSN_I/s1600/bits_android.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a>Two days ago, Alexey (my son) and I saw a commercial for T-Mobile's new 4G phone. With it, you can watch movies, television shows from the Web, send texts, check email, and have a video chat with someone who also has a 4G phone and thus video chatting capabilities (not to mention being able to annoy the crap out of everybody else in the restaurant, coffee shop, airport, bus, or train with you, your phone, and your loud mouth)</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Alexey proudly announced he was quite satisfied with his 3G iPhone.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">In response, I had some questions and one apparently boring soliloquy:</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">#1- What does the "G" stand for? Does it mean gigabyte or generation? I've never been quite clear on the concept.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">#2- (and here is where I think I lost Alexey)--what's with this video chat thing? I mean, Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone so we didn't have to be standing next to each other to talk. But with his invention we did have to stand next to the telephone waiting--sometimes endlessly--in order to to talk to the person to whom we did not want stand next to. When we could no longer stand sitting by the telephone waiting to talk to the person we no longer had to stand next to, somebody invented a cell phone. And now the cell pones have video chatting so we can "virtually' stand next to the guy we don't physically have to stand next to in order to talk to him.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">So my question is, if we've come to this, why not save the radiation exposure and just go find the guy and talk to him?? It's like the phones that do the voice-to-text thing where you can dictate a TEXT message. If you're going to all that trouble, just use the damn phone to CALL the person!</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">When I was 12 and out playing at Clay Neal's house, as it got dark, my mother would step out on to the screened porch, cup her hands over her mouth and yell my name across the half acre of woods that separated our houses until I answered. Today, my son sends me a text message when he's ready for me to pick him up from where ever he is.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div>For all this introspection and history, I got from Alexey a blank stare, a "Whatever," and a "Like I said...3G does everything I need."<br />
<br />
So much for parenting.Sam Mortonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13308153445590454380noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4947533403634876333.post-46844436294437967092010-11-12T08:37:00.000-08:002010-11-12T10:43:10.492-08:00A New Way to Blog (For me anyway!)<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9UYChUD6sUsiLNND46uf6iyr42QbO5lk0SX-I5N77jg9yQTTu-IYtRJaGTMkleu0QsTkMccXXCEAc_E-kRFjLniuaP2MOTsXSlatupjMqJqJeBG9UcryUY32MmdyFwULaDtJeD_-6buY/s1600/cash2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" px="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9UYChUD6sUsiLNND46uf6iyr42QbO5lk0SX-I5N77jg9yQTTu-IYtRJaGTMkleu0QsTkMccXXCEAc_E-kRFjLniuaP2MOTsXSlatupjMqJqJeBG9UcryUY32MmdyFwULaDtJeD_-6buY/s1600/cash2.jpg" /></a>My last post was three months ago at the end of August. It's tough to keep a blog audience when you're that unreliable. My apologies. I'm going to try to be more consistent, and I'm going to do that by trying a new way to blog.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div>A friend of mine has had great success and picked up a number of followers by sticking to three topics, so I thought I might travel down that road. I like politics (or rather making fun of politicians). I like writing about my kids. And I suppose I should do some stuff on writing and books since that's the impetus for having a blog in the first place. I promise to try to be funny (What did the girl from West Virginia say on her honeymoon? "Not so hard Daddy or you'll crush my Malboros!")--my friend, Shalee, says that's a sick joke, and she's not even from West Virginia--or at least poignant.<br />
<br />
So let's try politics first:<br />
<br />
"No nation ever taxed itself into prosperity." Ronald Reagan<br />
<br />
"We've demonized taxes. We've created almost the idea that they're a metaphysical evil. It's rank demagoguery. To stand before the public and rub raw this anti-tax sentiment, the Republican Party, as much as it pains me to say this, should be ashamed of themselves." Former Reagan budget director David Stockman.<br />
<br />
I used to say that if I could keep the Democrats out of my wallet and the Republicans out of my bedroom, I'd be a happy man. When Bill met Monica, Newt Gingrich dumped his cancer stricken wife while she was in the hospital, and Sanford trekked the Appalachian Trail all the way to Argentina, the "party of values" tag line died for both groups. So that leaves us to talk about taxes.<br />
<br />
The Republican mantra has been to limit government and to leave money in the taxpayers' pockets so they can decide how to best spend it. In South Carolina, we tried that with Act 388 that slashed property taxes for school funding and replaced it with a penny sales tax. The result? A massive loss of school dollars, teacher furloughs, staff layoffs, larger class sizes, and a moratorium on building depserately needed new schools.<br />
<br />
Mark Sanford limited our government all right, and his limits threw hundreds, if not thousands, of mentally ill people out of residential treatment and onto the streets. And it's only the legislature that has kept him from destroying public and higher education.<br />
<br />
We could easily cut all our taxes, but you might want to rethink that as your fat-cat ass is having a heart attack and no ambulance comes to take you to the ER because nobody funded emergency services--those damn evil taxes!<br />
<br />
Want some tax cuts? Here are a few suggestions: Let's not give a football coach a taxpayer-funded $100,000 bonus for doing what should be his job every season--winning the SEC East--while at the same time you're laying off adjunct faculty.<br />
<br />
When you're looking for a way to fund public transportation in the city, let's not pay a consulting firm $100,000 taxpayer dollars for suggestions any of your riders could have given you for free.<br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">When you're laying off city workers, increasing their insurance premiums, and stealing away their vacation, perhaps you could eliminate the job that has a person riding around in neighborhoods leveling fines for simply leaving trash roll carts out past 7:30 pm on the day of service. (We have an actual city ordinance prohibiting it).</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Tourism is the number one industry in this state, but the City of Columbia, in an effort to get tourist dollars, has a poor history of pouring bucket loads of taxpayer money into losing ventures and putting citizens in the position of making up the difference so that the entrepreneurs who should be taking the risks don't lose money. Do the Three Rivers Music Festival (never made a profit), Air South (bankrupt), MayFest (tanked), or the city-financed hotel (illegal) ring a bell?</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">And what about the $30 million in taxpayer funds S.C. State University got to build the Clyburn Transportation Center, which was supposed to be completed TWELVE years ago. The missing money is now under a state police investigation. Lovely.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div>Now please, my dear elected officials, tell me again how so very hard it is to find places to cut your budgets.Sam Mortonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13308153445590454380noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4947533403634876333.post-62313965550656412832010-08-25T14:46:00.000-07:002010-08-25T18:29:10.289-07:00Having a Right vs. Doing RightThe Mosque--or rather, Muslim Activity Center--at Ground Zero. I've decided to join in on the side of tolerance. This is the United States, after all, by God. All of us have First Amendment rights, so if Ms. Khan wants to build a mosque within a block of the worst terrorist attack in the history of this country, so be it.<br />
<br />
In fact, I have taken inspiration from Ms. Khan, Imam What's-his-name, and Mayor Bloomberg and would like to proudly announce my plans for a Ku Klux Klan Activity Center on some property I own adjacent to the Lorraine Motel in Memphis where Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King was gunned down.<br />
<br />
It will be a place of inclusion where all of our interactive demonstrations will be taught in a purely historical rather than social context. I mean, who wouldn't benefit from learning how to properly tie a noose--strictly for demonstration purposes, of course.<br />
<br />
Come on by for a burger and fries at our historically segregated lunch counter where you can pay with cash printed by Jews who control all the banks. In the fall, we'll have S'mores melted by the fire of a burning cross!<br />
<br />
So my snide comments aside, here's what confuses me. If a young girl is continually molested by a man and she grows distrustful of men, perhaps even unable to have an intimate relationship, people GET that. There are volumes upon volumes of literature in psychiatry journals that explain why she'll NEVER trust men.<br />
<br />
But if I distrust Ms. Khan and the Imam because I can't get out of my head the horrific image of those planes flying into the World Trade Center buildings--an attack done in the name of radical Islam, I might add--or the buildings themselves literally melting into dust, then <em>I</em> am being insensitive. Me? Right?<br />
<br />
I read some whiny letter the other day that said, "It's like distrusting all Christians because of what Timothy McVeigh did. YOU wouldn't do THAT, would you? Wah, wah, wah..."<br />
<br />
The hell I wouldn't. I distrust anybody who uses religion to justify something that otherwise CAN'T BE JUSTIFIED!<br />
<br />
But I guess we're back at square one...we'll just have to agree to disagree. Nah...I'm with you. I'm tolerant now. Say, if the KKK thing takes off, my next project is a Museum of American Bomb Making on a lot I just bought in Hiroshima...<br />
<br />
Whether it's right or not, it's my right.Sam Mortonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13308153445590454380noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4947533403634876333.post-86200186039772665102010-07-29T12:24:00.000-07:002010-07-29T12:24:04.951-07:00Just Sayin'<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt7lF4UG1GHqWH8IPBleTKu61mmXG8V00VbDXQ8iScMs9YGKQWoaSi70-IUUwSd9LLT7XkrmmC5PTDwhK_A2YKh6FXSIFBuB-_khnXZYGwhPMQFSXNVy2KQ4_Bt1USqkShRCqWbZm3nhU/s1600/spam.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" bx="true" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt7lF4UG1GHqWH8IPBleTKu61mmXG8V00VbDXQ8iScMs9YGKQWoaSi70-IUUwSd9LLT7XkrmmC5PTDwhK_A2YKh6FXSIFBuB-_khnXZYGwhPMQFSXNVy2KQ4_Bt1USqkShRCqWbZm3nhU/s200/spam.bmp" width="200" /></a></div><br />
I looked through my SPAM folder the other day...over 100 messages. The thought occurred to me that we could cut our spam in half if someone would come up with an organization that could offer me a HUGE PENIS and a degree in medical coding at the same time. Just sayin'...Sam Mortonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13308153445590454380noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4947533403634876333.post-16505200079416365762010-05-27T10:53:00.000-07:002010-05-27T12:28:47.759-07:00Patriots and Demigods<div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwIplShTvX0JCEIVVOe1PBBTOTuSUHwtk5K2tqm-nE7mWjdcrjEScPDXbkSlSB2CzC0HI5raHn0rQxVqXD7eANUfwEKqkOZ6SMpsPA15SFThv2CYmPvV3BOAKA2gxef4Dq52Br5_9pGEU/s1600/american-flag1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" gu="true" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwIplShTvX0JCEIVVOe1PBBTOTuSUHwtk5K2tqm-nE7mWjdcrjEScPDXbkSlSB2CzC0HI5raHn0rQxVqXD7eANUfwEKqkOZ6SMpsPA15SFThv2CYmPvV3BOAKA2gxef4Dq52Br5_9pGEU/s200/american-flag1.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><br />
I am a writer. I interview people. I write down what they say, throw in some twenty-five-dollar adjectives, and a magazine prints it. It can be a yeoman-like way to make a dollar, I admit, but every once in a while it provides a benefit beyond measure—I get to be in the presence of heroes.<br />
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There have been three times in my life that I have been around people when it dawned on me during the conversation that I had no right to be in the same room or breathe the same air.<br />
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The first time was when I interviewed Charles Murray, a WWII veteran and recipient of the United States of America’s highest award, the Medal of Honor. The second was when I spoke with Dr. Everett Dargan, an African-American cardiologist. Dr. Dargan is smarter than half the people in all of South Carolina, yet when he finished his medical training in the 60s, he couldn’t even walk in the back door of the “white hospital.” But he persevered, and despite an oppressive environment and monumental sacrifices, he established one of the finest cardiology practices in the state and has become a sought out mentor and medical school professor.<br />
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The third time occurred this past Saturday evening.<br />
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I attended the Palmetto Patriots Ball sponsored by the Midlands Chapter of the Blue Star Mothers; patriotic, upstanding, forthright women who also bear the unfathomable burden of having children in the military deployed on foreign soil. These soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen are the bravest South Carolina has to offer. Surrounded by their mothers who are rightfully proud of their children, but who, at the same time tread upon a precipice of fear for their safety, I quickly surmised where these men and women in uniform inherited their bravery. I’m a mama’s boy of the first magnitude. I can sense these things.<br />
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At the dinner I was flanked by Gold Star Mothers as well. These are members of the Blue Star group whose children have died in the service of our country, who, as Abraham Lincoln put it, gave “their last full measure of devotion” to make you and me free. The emcee, the gracious and classy local news anchor Hannah Horne, recognized the families and read aloud the names of their fallen loved ones. A staff sergeant at my table and a Marine captain at the table next to me, both in full, formal dress uniforms, broke down in tears. So did I.<br />
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I did not deserve to be in the company of these distinguished men and women—these heroes.<br />
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I’m often told that, because I have taken on the mantle of a writer of “young adult” fiction, my blog should reflect topics that address and capture issues meaningful to them. Not so much on the flip side of that coin, but perhaps on the periphery is a piece of advice my good friend and fellow author Shannon Greenland gave me once when I asked her about writing for young adults: Never underestimate the intelligence or sophistication of your audience.<br />
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I have taken Shannon’s advice, and each time I speak to a group of young people, I try my best to respect that advice and talk to them like fellow adults. So here it goes boys and girls, some hard lessons—my glass slipper—that I took from my night at the ball…my night among patriots and demigods. <br />
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• These fighting men and women don’t endure 105 degree heat so that we can drop out of school, lie around on our butts and let our parents or the government take care of us. They fight so we have economic justice, an opportunity to succeed.<br />
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• These men and women don’t live in the sand so that we can trade or use drugs, get high and not give a damn about ourselves or the lives we impact by stupid behavior. They volunteer to be away from home so that we have the freedom to pursue our American dreams. The average time of deployment, by the way, for WWII fighters was eight months out of four years of enlistment. For Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, it’s 45 months out of 48.<br />
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• These Gold Star Mothers didn’t sacrifice a child they raised from infancy so that we could feel free to engage in politically polarized infighting, to smear our opponents, to accuse another of being unpatriotic simply because we disagree with their ideology. Their children died in the desperate hope that their deaths would mean something, that we would come together as one nation...one nation of people with disparate beliefs and customs and cultures, but one nation whose people are, again quoting Lincoln, “dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” As I recall, someone once summed the concept up as “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”<br />
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• With so many in the world who despise the freedom of expression and economic opportunity that Western culture represents, our military service men and women have taken the fight to our enemies rather than having our enemies visit us here. In return, don’t you believe we should quit spilling each others’ blood in gang fights and drug wars, or because our egos won’t let us walk away from a meaningless fight?<br />
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• Our service members didn’t leave home in hopes that we would honor them. They left to fulfill a duty, to answer a higher calling, to defend our liberties. Saying thank you is not enough recompense, but I realize that there is no way in the world to repay the debt we owe these courageous men and women…and above all the mothers who unselfishly lent them to our service so that we might be free. Perhaps the best way to try to repay them is to live our lives in a way that honors, rather than defies, their sacrifice.<br />
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Beside my plate at the banquet table lay a medallion that read, “If you can’t stand behind our troops, feel free to stand in front of them.” <br />
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I stand behind them not only out of gratitude, but because to stand in front of them would require their kind of courage, a brand I’m not sure I have; and especially not the brand their mothers, who have given the best of themselves, possess.<br />
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So to my Citadel family Russ Mease, Allen Blume, Dave Eubanks, Marc Gould, Ken and Alison Sigmon, Ken Riddle, Dean Costas, Mike Sammons, Verne Prosser; to Stuart Epting and Andy Nesbit; to my brother Mike Morton; to all of you who have put on a uniform and served so valiantly so that I can live my life in peace…thank you. And especially to your mothers, thank you. God bless you. I do not deserve to breathe the same air.Sam Mortonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13308153445590454380noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4947533403634876333.post-37835842487850403062010-05-24T06:59:00.000-07:002010-05-24T07:00:53.751-07:00Recharging<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWkhcrMgKxSbo5aZewMaDufOrHy5A29bq92dfr16yFJv2RuKjQduwwBTK587aK7U8KsAHCndfFDCYf8_G3k9OgL4CIfzDQJziUq8isEl_NNFf_a1Q-ptibLRzPwAcLppsXS2bSGxfzDP4/s1600/Citadel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" gu="true" height="146" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWkhcrMgKxSbo5aZewMaDufOrHy5A29bq92dfr16yFJv2RuKjQduwwBTK587aK7U8KsAHCndfFDCYf8_G3k9OgL4CIfzDQJziUq8isEl_NNFf_a1Q-ptibLRzPwAcLppsXS2bSGxfzDP4/s200/Citadel.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><br />
The place of my eternal bliss is The Citadel campus. It may sound strange that I have chosen this piece of ground as a place of refuge, a place of contentment, a place to re-charge my batteries when life has sapped me of all my strength. This was the place where lean and tall young men—whose shoes were spit-shined and whose brass belt buckles could blind you if you stared straight at them—screamed at me, the “fat load” as I ran or did pushups. They swore I’d never finish, but I earned the ring. <br />
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I chose her because she chose me as one of her sons. Ghosts of thousands of my footsteps litter the parade ground. My sweat and tears watered its blades of grass. And in the end, I graduated a Citadel man. <br />
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I go there now and listen to the echoes of my past, the cadence called by our commanders, the cannons as they fired at Friday afternoon parades. I drink in the smell of the freshly mown grass on the parade ground crisp with the scent of wild onion. I even breathe in deeply the musky scent of the pluff mud off the marsh. It is here, in this place, that an overweight mama’s boy became a man, and it’s here I reaffirm my manhood every time I visit.Sam Mortonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13308153445590454380noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4947533403634876333.post-76523754930974515392010-05-10T07:59:00.000-07:002010-05-10T08:01:17.113-07:00A Mother's LoveEkaterina braced her frail body against the gusting flurry of wind and snow, holding her baby close to her bosom. Her head wrapped in a woolen scarf and bowed low, she stepped with caution, bracing her footfalls against the cragged, crumbling walks that lined either side of Malnikov Street in downtown Novosibirsk.<br />
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The sky was leaden and the clouds full, bursting with flakes that drifted earthward like goose feathers falling from a burst pillow. It was the first snowfall of the season. <br />
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The temperature, a freezing 26 degrees and made colder by the wind’s arctic fingers, penetrated all the layers of her clothes and gripped and shook her bones. Frozen droplets of snow pelted Ekaterina’s face but melted quickly, for her heart pounded and her cheeks burned with nervousness at what she knew she must do.<br />
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Baby Alexey snuffled and whimpered against her breast. She had wrapped him in napkins, the only insulation she could offer him against the icy chill. <br />
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She had no work. But they had survived the summer on tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, and cabbage stolen on moonlight raids in gardens of the old government collectives. Nursing provided the baby his sustenance. Now the Siberian winter was settling in and still she had no work. Soon Alexey would need nourishment she could not give. Men and women were starving. A baby stood no chance. She knew what she must do. <br />
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She stepped quickly off the sidewalk into a bustling department store. The tile floors were slick, streaked with soupy gray slush tracked in from the street. Powerful, roaring blowers pumped heated air into the dimly lit store. The dry heat combined with that of a hundred bodies wrapped in thick winter coats made the building stuffy and hot. It was Russia, the place of extremes. Ekaterina felt light-headed and constricted. Her breath came in labored puffs, her hands damp and pasty.<br />
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Her eyes focused on a dark-haired woman standing by the perfume counter. Lips pursed, the lady studied the gallon-sized containers of henna colored, fragrant liquid. She wore an expensive dress and a gray woolen overcoat with a black fur collar. <br />
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She seems kind, Ekaterina dared tell herself. So she stepped forward, approaching her.<br />
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“Hold my baby a moment, please?” she asked in a plaintive voice, her eyes downcast.<br />
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“Da,” was the polite, if somewhat bewildered reply.<br />
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Ekaterina gently laid the baby in the woman’s arms. She gave a sad smile and a solitary blink of her long eyelashes taking a loving look at the child she would never see again. Walking in quick steps around the perfume counter toward the back door of the department store, she dashed into the street, never turning to look behind her. She stumbled toward home wracked with indescribable anguish, her sobs echoing off the ice covered pavement in a wasteland of grief and sorrow.<br />
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***<br />
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I have been a mama’s boy since the beginning of time, my time anyway.<br />
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Love is too weak a word to describe my feeling for the woman who nurtured me from a prenatal recombination of genes and raised me to adulthood. Worship is closer, but lacking still the full measure of emotion.<br />
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I come from that peculiar brand of Southern boys who believe their mothers are saintly goddesses descended from on high. We convince ourselves that our mama’s exist untainted by the impurity of carnal passion. We do not pretend to have been conceived without benefit of original sin. Our births are not mysterious, but the realization that the secrets of our existence lay in the primal act of sex and involve the women who sang us sweet lullabies by the crib casts upon our psyche a pallor of numbing incredulity. We simply choose to believe that life begins for us at the innermost reaches of our memories of Mama, home, and family.<br />
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My mama was beautiful, always smiling and genuinely happy. I inherited her large, ruby cheeks, and all of us—my brother, my sister, and I—all share her sense of humor and her gift of compassion. Mama had brown hair and soft, silky skin. How I loved her tender hugs in arms that I knew would keep me safe and warm forever.<br />
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When I was fourteen and my father died, Mama held our family together. My sister was a new mother herself, establishing her own family. My brother was a U.S. Marine. So Mama had only me at home to raise, and I was a sheltered young man finding out for the first time the complexities and heartbreaks of being an adult. <br />
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In a time when dysfunction became the standard, I exulted in my family’s ordinariness. We went to school; we got jobs; we suffered failed romances; we dealt with them and we got married to those who loved us best. We were normal people living in a commonplace world. Heartache and ecstasy visited us with the same regularity. Life was good.<br />
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Then life kicked me hard in the stomach. Mama developed terminal cancer. <br />
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I’m not convinced that our brains are equipped to process such information. My stomach turned sour and the spit in my mouth tasted like vinegar. The cells of my skin ached and rational thought became impossible. I wanted to kill her doctor for his prognostic accuracy and, at the same time, beg him to save her. <br />
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For weeks I tried to balance the scales of cosmic justice. I voiced how unfair it was that a woman who not only had done no harm, but also who loved without measure or bias or judgment should have to die so young. I found not one apologist for fate or God. I found no one who could tell me why she must die, this woman who, reveling in vitality, danced each day with the angels of mirth and mercy.<br />
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We had many moments to say the things we always knew there would be time to say. In secret, my wife and I decided to adopt after many years of trying to start a family. For us the road to parenthood began in the same place it does for many couples the lonely abyss of infertility. That road was strewn with every pothole, sinkhole, and rut imaginable. But the obstacles only strengthened our resolve. God made me to be a father, of that I was certain. <br />
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Infertility is a thief that robs its victims of any joy. It is the unholiest of conditions bringing on a perpetual sadnessthe challenge being not just avoiding a frown, but trying to evade a permanent look of despair. <br />
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The medical tests, shots, and infusions are cold and sterile and belie the devastation behind every failed attempt. Every month when we realized my wife wasn’t pregnant, it felt as if someone died. The feelings of inadequacy and failure overwhelmed us, and the weight of their impact tested the endurance of our marriage.<br />
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After trying for so many years to conceive a child, I cannot comprehend the emotion behind giving one up for adoption. But thankfully two women, whose names I will never know, whose faces I will never see, had the courage to give up their children for better lives than they could have given them. <br />
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In 1998, the effort seemed hardly worth it any longer. Financially drained and our nerves frayed and, we knew only that we still desperately wanted a family. <br />
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Time, we felt, was running short for us.<br />
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First we chose adoption. Then we chose Russia.<br />
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We had told no one. One day at Mama’s bedside, to give her a glimmer of hope, to cause her to hold on, I told her our news. She smiled and told me we would make remarkable parents. <br />
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Eyes blurred with tears, my chest heaving sobs, I cried, “Not as good as you. You can’t die. I’m too much of a Mama’s boy for you to leave me alone.”<br />
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She reached out and touched my hand. Her grip was weak, but reassuring; her skin soft and cold. “You’ll have to be strong,” she said. “I don’t think I can hold on much longer.” She closed her eyes and fell asleep, gently slipping away toward the inevitability of her condition. <br />
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I loved her more than anything, but love alone couldn’t fight the happenstance of nature. Mama died ten weeks after her diagnosis. I was devastated.<br />
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I was not there for her at the end. While my brother wiped her face clean of the black bile she vomited and stroked her hair, I stayed away. While my sister lovingly held her hand and whispered words of sweet comfort to soothe her fears in her final moments, I chose to be gone. I, the 6’4” ex-cop emotionally affected by little, lay shivering in my bed, covers pulled over my face, weeping because I could not bear to watch the woman I loved so much die.<br />
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In the weeks before her death, Mama told everyone who visited her about the grandchild she would never get to see. She gave me parenting advice and she told me to love my child with every breath in my body as she had done me. She told me that she “left me a little something” and maybe it would help with the adoption. <br />
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We only knew our child would come from Russia and only then after we completed mountains of paperwork and passed a myriad of background checks. We did not know if our baby had been born or if it would be a boy or girl, healthy or frail. Only God knew.<br />
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If I had ever lacked faith in a living God, that faith would have been renewed, oddly enough, at my mother’s passing. I expected to feel anger. But I somehow felt comforted, a strange, inexplicable calmness.<br />
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Three weeks after my mother’s death, the “little something” arrived, a check from her life insurance company for the exact amount of the cost of our adoption, though the policy had been taken out years ago. <br />
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Three months later, we waited breathlessly for the videotape of the baby selected for us. We plugged in the tape and waited wide-eyed until the images appeared. And then there he was. A beautiful blond baby boy named Alexey. I felt shivers creep from my back to the top of my head when I read from the form his birth date—Mother’s Day 1998. Somehow Mama was there guiding this process. Somehow she knew. God had brought us full circle and completed our family.<br />
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I do not know who Ekaterina is, nothing of her age or history. I know only that she is a courageous woman who gave up the most precious part of herself so her baby would have a life more abundant than she could provide.<br />
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I pray each day that my mother’s heart is glad and that the same angels who watch over her now reach out to Ekaterina. I pray that they touch her, embrace her with tender, encircling arms and give her peace in knowing that out of incredible sadness, goodness and mercy have overcome. Two sons lost their mothers, but in the loss, the sons found each other and live in peace and love and harmony.<br />
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But that’s not the end of the story. For more than two years we felt truly blessed by the addition of Alexey to our family. Today, he is a sensitive, caring little boy with a generous hug, a joy for life, and a laugh that melts my heart. So positive was our experience with him that we decided in 2002 to add to our family with another child. <br />
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Again we filled out reams of paperwork. <br />
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Again we waited anxiously. <br />
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Again we were rewarded.<br />
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In 2002, we traveled to Russia to meet our daughter. Siberia was everything one might imagine in the winter—below zero temperatures, several inches of permafrost covered by another foot or more of snow.<br />
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We drove up to “our” orphanage. The smells, the sights, the sounds—none of it different than it had been three years ago. In a room called the “Winter Garden” painted with scenes from Russian fairy tales, we met a little red-haired, rambunctious toddler who in fewer than four weeks would become our daughter, Nikki.<br />
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She hugged us. She played with the toys we brought. She bossed around the other toddlers in the room and redistributed their toys. She gave us no choice: we fell in love immediately. She has been in charge since that first meeting.<br />
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We have felt the hand of the Almighty in each of our adoptions. But we literally felt the chills run down our spines when we discovered that Nikki had been sleeping in the same room and crib as Alexey had been three years earlier. For all of us, her adoption was, without question, meant to be.<br />
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Today we are a family—my wife, a little boy, a little girl, and me. Yes, we have a house with a fence and a dog, and Alexey is pushing hard for a kitten. But the joy does not lie in being a typical American family. With two Russian children, that we certainly are not. No, joy comes from giving and receiving unconditional love, from feeling whole and content, and from finding each other across the miles.<br />
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At bath time in my house, amidst the trickle and splash of water, I sometimes kneel by the lip of the tub and reach into the water for a wash rag and bar of soap. As I scrub away the day’s dust, errant colored pen marks, and watercolor self-decoration from their tender skin, I look deeply into my children’s eyes. <br />
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Peering back at me I see the face of God. <br />
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I am awestruck by the faith and trust he has placed in me. Through their eyes, their soulful, soulful eyes, He seems to say, “These are my gifts to you. Love them well.” <br />
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Silently I answer, “I will.”Sam Mortonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13308153445590454380noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4947533403634876333.post-751703084206042272010-01-25T07:07:00.000-08:002010-01-26T06:51:40.518-08:00A Surefire Cure for Hypertension<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0NDRE-fgGDTNM7PLogig-VsORTDiRsdZa6aIa1B6y6gYuYXhteenRWTI7udj9elEAkEQrFMvWKUk7sRXY2f5TNeYoi98EC_A9KgJMa9bEKzS1IdNI8kczwM3Gof_UK-KkU31tCak3jtU/s1600-h/salt.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 130px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 90px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5430704179211080290" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0NDRE-fgGDTNM7PLogig-VsORTDiRsdZa6aIa1B6y6gYuYXhteenRWTI7udj9elEAkEQrFMvWKUk7sRXY2f5TNeYoi98EC_A9KgJMa9bEKzS1IdNI8kczwM3Gof_UK-KkU31tCak3jtU/s200/salt.jpg" /></a><br /><br />If there is a blood pressure medication manufactured, I'm on it. Ranexa, Tekturna, Lisinopril, Clonidine, you name it. But I've come to find out that the cure for hypertension was sitting right at my feet the whole time: children. Pre-teens to be exact.<br /><br /><br />No, it's not their charming nature or the fulfillment of life they inevitably bring or the high points of the philosophical considerations of mortality and legacy. It's simply this: they hide my salt shakers.<br /><br /><br />About every fifth time I go into the Publix, I buy the hermetically sealed plastic salt & pepper shakers. I've got so many pepper shakers on the shelves that the weight of them threaten to topple the pantry. If I were living in the time of the spice trade, between the pepper and three packets of saffron rice that have been sitting there for three years, I'd be freakin' Genghis Khan<br /><br /><br /><br />But guess how many salt shakers sit in the pantry waiting for me to add a pinch to my brussel spouts? Not a damn one.<br /><br /><br />In the south salting everything comes in second only to deep frying everything. Sure we put salt on beans and vegetables and in soups and stews like you'd expect. But I also use it on cantaloupe, honey dew, watermelon and apples. My dad even used to give a generous shake into his Pabst Blue Ribbon.<br /><br /><br />I can come home with a container of Morton's iodized and before I'm done unloading the groceries, it'll be gone. It's like David Copperfield has just zoomed through my kitchen. Sometimes I'm lucky enough to find a salt shaker. It's usually tucked into the seat cushions on the couch. I know the things exist because every time my son or daughter decide to eat in my bedroom while watching television, I have to rake out a handful of salt from my bed before I lay down. Why go to Myrtle Beach when I can get grains in my crack just by going upstairs?<br /><br /><br />I even found a salt shaker in a potted plant once. The kids swear it fell in there off the table above it. I think they lied. I think they're planning some survivalist exercise where they low crawl through the den, sip water out of the dehumidifier and eat the salt straight out the shaker in the plant to keep their muscles from cramping. It's really the only explanation.<br /><br /><br />It's gotten so bad that I have my own top shelf, private stock--a single salt shaker placed high up in the top of the cupboard where the kids can't reach. But my wife can, which is only a problem because I think she believes the dishwasher monster must have moved to the cabinets. That's the only reason I can think of that she won't put a damn thing in either one.<br /><br /><br />I know the origin of the word salt--that it was so valuable that soldiers got paid with it, hence the word "salary." But here's a note to my kids: it ain't the 14th century, you're not Marco Polo. Salt is in abundance now, so much so, that it's the reason the Morton girl logo has an umbrella--so she doesn't get hit by the salt raining down from the sky!<br /><br /><br />So take heed, kids. The next time one of you takes one of the 400 salt shakers we have and don't put it back where you got it, I'm gonna have Copperfield saw you in half.Sam Mortonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13308153445590454380noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4947533403634876333.post-44124246070315696832010-01-20T06:37:00.000-08:002010-01-20T12:20:22.208-08:00Cult of Personality--The Rise of the Bubble Gum, Rock & Roll Video Church<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY_UkR1qhah0l1ZIqXT8D1cgQZpi5qS3VItvZcM1Tm_vTwxm6qi0pl2awTKXOF9Q9LeWG7kS7phAUmqBxOmfFzRMnLhME8GpRDZ-iWAQpW3LFQBgAdUkRbs5OubCAUTZ186CndjK_AQZc/s1600-h/rick+warren.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 98px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 122px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5428916203700910770" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY_UkR1qhah0l1ZIqXT8D1cgQZpi5qS3VItvZcM1Tm_vTwxm6qi0pl2awTKXOF9Q9LeWG7kS7phAUmqBxOmfFzRMnLhME8GpRDZ-iWAQpW3LFQBgAdUkRbs5OubCAUTZ186CndjK_AQZc/s200/rick+warren.jpg" /></a><br /><div>I was at a minor league hockey game in Chicago once when a friend noted that the only guys to play hockey at that level or in college were Canadian boys who weren't good enough to go pro right out of high school. I think about that every now and then when my wife drags me to the new religious craze: video church.<br /></div><br /><div>Video church starts with head-banging rock & roll and screeching lyrics. It's deafening. It's earsplitting. It's what stodgy, WASPish people used to call devil music, but these, ahem, musicians throw in words like "king" and "savior," and capitalize the "H" in "He" and "Him" and suddenly you have a praise song. I've heard if you play their music backwards, though, you hear, "I'm not good enough to be in a real band..."<br /></div><br /><div>Perhaps I sound stodgy, too. I prefer "traditionalist," but who wants to split the numbered hairs on my head? I'm not new to video religion, though. My father religiously (pun intended) watched every Billy Graham Crusade that came on television, even if we had to watch it through a snowy TV screen and cipher his message through static. (This was pre-digital cable, for my young readers.) I was such a Graham devotee that I was 23 years old before I realized you didn't have to hum the third verse of "Just As I Am." But in video church, you're more likely to hear a grunge version of "Up on the Rooftop" than "Silent Night." I mean, would it kill them to sing "How Great Thou Art" every now and then?<br /></div><br /><div>This latest phenomenon is based on the Rick Warren mega-church concept, with a main "mother" church and several satellite congregations hyperlinked by computer video. It's like a conference call with God. The first video preacher I saw came across as an arrogant ass--kids who masturbate are going to hell; stay-at-home fathers (like me) don't seem to fall on the Godly side of his get-into-Heaven checklist; and if you disagreed with him, then you, in his words, "Had the right to be wrong."<br /></div><br /><div>The last video preacher I saw gave copious lip service to saving souls for Jesus, but his emphasis seemed to be on growing his church's membership to greater than the 15,000 it has now. In my opinion, that's not saving souls; it's putting butts in seats. It's what carnies and pro wrestling promoters do. He made four points during his sermon, one of which was that Jesus is not our "Snuggie." Jesus' purpose is not to comfort and provide succor, it is to agitate and irritate us into making changes in our lives. Hmm..."I am your rock and your salvation, a fortress that cannot be shaken" (Psalm 62:2). "My power will rest on you when you are weak," (2 Corinthians 12:9). I rather like Jesus being my Snuggie, my shield, my protection, my comfort but what do I know?<br /><br /></div><div>Video preacher 2 said he wanted sinners in his church--broken people with hurting souls, people who spit and cuss and drink and need a good dose of the Lord. And bless him for that, I wholeheartedly agree. But in the same sermon, he invited "religious, churchy people,"--those of us who prefer "Amazing Grace" to "Bongo Jed and the Jesus Freaks;" those of us who find more inspiration in the Apostles Creed than cutesy little sayings on the church's roadside digital billboard--to leave. Yes, to walk out. These people weren't welcome in flashing strobe light, heavy metal, simulcast church.</div><div></div><br /><div>He noted that people in "regular" churches walked around with a glassy-eyed, Stepford Wives demeanor. Maybe so, but it struck me as we walked in to the theater, er...church, I witnessed a young woman offer to take a young child to the youth center. She said it with all the sincerity of a "let's do lunch" invitation you say to a college friend you just bumped into after 15 years. In the South when you utter the phrase "How are you?" and make the last word in that phrase eight syllables long, you can tell it's not from the heart...really. When the couple replied their daughter wanted to go to the service with them, the young woman told her the church had a policy of not allowing kids younger than 6th grade age inside. "Suffer the little children to come unto me." Who was it who said that? I can't quite place it...oh, yeah...HIM. Besides, it's tradition in Southern churches for people to bring fussy babies into the sanctuary so the rest of us can talk bad about them later. It's true.<br /></div><br /><div>I've noticed a pattern in these video church preachers, Rick Warren included. Narcissism. Video preacher 2 summed it up nicely the other day when he told the congregation that he promised his church would be a one man show. He said, by that, he meant Jesus. Sometimes people reveal more about themselves than they realize. It appears to be a one man show all right.<br /></div><br /><div>It's important that we go to a church as a family; that we receive salvation and accept the grace we're offered, but I'll ask the question out loud I've asked myself a dozen times this year: If I've got to listen to a TV preacher, why can't I stay home on the couch in my boxer shorts and watch Jimmy Swaggart? </div><div><br /></div><div>Feel free to put someone else's butt in my seat. </div><div><br /></div><div>Amen.</div><br /><br /><div></div>Sam Mortonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13308153445590454380noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4947533403634876333.post-26587577717078184672009-12-16T12:41:00.000-08:002009-12-16T13:26:35.646-08:00No Good Deed Goes Unpunished<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2qfpEWN9hKnCxFjVGeufjcOOp-_-CirNy3IrFB28XvtzhyphenhyphenR0DXh-nRu81mNg1PWh9rkhd-M6HZnUgqv8p9IbE9HLQHiVv3yC23Rs53AX_qbwb-nayaV7OuN9yHlDpAaZ3w3kB9EqWZtg/s1600-h/Frustrated-Man.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 156px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 198px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5415946468050034754" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2qfpEWN9hKnCxFjVGeufjcOOp-_-CirNy3IrFB28XvtzhyphenhyphenR0DXh-nRu81mNg1PWh9rkhd-M6HZnUgqv8p9IbE9HLQHiVv3yC23Rs53AX_qbwb-nayaV7OuN9yHlDpAaZ3w3kB9EqWZtg/s200/Frustrated-Man.jpg" /></a><br /><div>Here are the facts:</div><ul><li>I wrote a book titled <em>Betrayed</em>. </li><br /><li>I dedicated it to a young man, Austin Whetsell, who drowned while on a church mission trip.</li><br /><li>I decided to dedicate 100 percent of the proceeds of book sales to Austin's memorial fund</li><br /><li>Austin's father is close friends with Katon Dawson, the former S.C. GOP chair and runner up for the national post</li><br /><li>I asked Katon, who I assumed had a large email list, to send out an email on my behalf in order to generate sales.</li><br /><li>He did.</li></ul><div>It rubbed some Republicans the wrong way, to say the least. It's almost like they're eating their own young. I'll let you read the posting at <a href="http://www.fitsnews.com/2009/12/11/dawson-email-irks-some-republicans/">www.fitsnews.com/2009/12/11/dawson-email-irks-some-republicans/</a>. But here's a sample: "Using someone else's personal tragedy for self promotion should be illegal." </div><div><br /> </div><div>As you read through, you may notice that some in the party of accountability and transparency (that's said tongue-in-cheek BTW since none of the Republicans quoted as being upset identify themselves) are more "irked" that Katon sent them an email versus the email''s content. I suppose it's much too difficult in this crazy, fast-paced world to scroll down to the link that says "Unsubscribe." </div><div><br /> </div><div>No, no. It's more democratic to let the voice of dissent be heard.<br /></div><div> </div><div>I have felt bad for Katon all week. He did me a huge favor for nothing more than the asking. To have petty little wimps who decline to identify themselves air their infighting in a public forum is simply pathetic. </div><div><br /> </div><div>My name, dammit, is Sam Morton. I have a book to sell. I'm right proud of it. Any money I raise goes directly to the Austin Whetsell Memorial Fund at Lexington Presbyterian Church in Lexington, S.C. The fund uses the money to continue and support its mission work around the globe. I really hope you buy it, but if the simple act of asking you offends, then for the sake of my friends, QUIETLY pass it on by. </div>Sam Mortonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13308153445590454380noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4947533403634876333.post-83510142172517006382009-12-02T17:23:00.000-08:002009-12-02T17:34:53.911-08:00Things That Make You Go Hmm...<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7awrq9mC4t8J5_31JotIJy1yb5n1btU-viJWaaxGw5u2PVczpmhHA-BruNPgZwAV230WysLSC-IWFGx6BF7UqfB8ceDT_mrFPTRs_GXzFPvvsqntwctRtm1RMFwFU1cjcAjgxTI8dcTY/s1600-h/thinker.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 124px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 87px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5410817136181637442" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7awrq9mC4t8J5_31JotIJy1yb5n1btU-viJWaaxGw5u2PVczpmhHA-BruNPgZwAV230WysLSC-IWFGx6BF7UqfB8ceDT_mrFPTRs_GXzFPvvsqntwctRtm1RMFwFU1cjcAjgxTI8dcTY/s200/thinker.jpg" /></a><br /><div>Things I wonder about:</div><br /><div></div><br /><div>1) I wonder why some people don't get my humor:</div><br /><div></div><br /><div>Me to the McAlister's Deli cashier: May I place a take out order?</div><br /><div>Cashier: May I get a name?</div><br /><div>Me: Why? Don't you have one already?</div><br /><div>Cashier: (Blank stare).</div><br /><div></div><br /><div>2) As I posted on FaceBook last night, I listened to the President's speech and wonder, if it's Pockeestahn (Pakistan) and Tallybahn (Taliban), why is it not Afghoneestahn?</div><br /><div></div><br /><div>3) If we want to win the wars in Afghoneestahn and Iraq and also, as the President promised, to deplete our nuclear arsenal, wouldn't it make sense just to dump all the nukes on these two countries? Kind of a "two-birds..." deal?</div><br /><div></div><br /><div>4) I wonder if Nike would consider changing its slogan to "Just Do Her" on all its Tiger Woods merchandise?</div><br /><div></div><br /><div>5) If Trey Cyrus was not Miley Cyrus's brother, I wonder if he would be working at a Sonic drive thru rather than opening for her in concert? (No, never mind...I don't wonder about that. It's pretty much a given).</div>Sam Mortonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13308153445590454380noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4947533403634876333.post-68470990200017108702009-10-30T19:51:00.001-07:002009-10-30T19:55:02.000-07:00Five Things That Piss Me Off<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjukKvCPGAzDC_-PO7at5u9CFCIwgu7M7UXEvFu4Sx7ylHD_ZdRGSUc5AxjI8lFDzOIw2lI501M5ZEdFCgAMPR-B1rEEnT3ULPhYpwe4-JrqCFInqp6fMDJLxBIarD5HN5hQI-5RHht4XI/s1600-h/Frustrated-Man.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5398591667491105410" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 156px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 198px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjukKvCPGAzDC_-PO7at5u9CFCIwgu7M7UXEvFu4Sx7ylHD_ZdRGSUc5AxjI8lFDzOIw2lI501M5ZEdFCgAMPR-B1rEEnT3ULPhYpwe4-JrqCFInqp6fMDJLxBIarD5HN5hQI-5RHht4XI/s200/Frustrated-Man.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div>Mitch Albom may have his five people he’ll meet in Heaven, but I’ve got five things that are pissing me off in the here and now. I realize from a macro point of view that none of this means anything. All these complaints are confined right here to my little house, but I believe they are rather universal concerns so here it goes:<br /><br />Volume: This term may take on an alternate meaning when I have teenagers, but for the moment, I’m talking about how much trash one garbage container can hold. Nobody in my house, including me, is a physicist, but even I know that when the trash can is spewing trash, it won’t hold any more. Several times I’ve had to dig my hands through thrown away food because everybody pushes so much garbage in the thing that the liner gets crammed two-thirds the way down the can. No more. We’ll all die from mold spores before I do that again.<br /><br />Spills: To my son—when you splash spaghetti sauce on the trashcan lid, it’s easier to wipe it away while it’s still moist. Daddy’s tired of chiseling dried tomato sauce.<br /><br />Lights: The light at the top of the stairs doesn’t go off by magic and even if it did, the Light Fairy don’t live here. Need I say more?<br /><br />Laundry: When there’s no laundry basket in the bathroom…GO GET ONE! I mean unless you’re going to grow up to be a serial killing dry cleaner and plan to hide bodies under stacks of shirts and towels, four-foot tall piles of clothes aren’t really that useful.<br /><br />Laundry (Part II): I don’t mind washing, drying, folding, or even putting away, but the least you can do is BRING ME YOUR DIRTY CLOTHES! Put ‘em right here in my grubby little hands and I’ll do the rest. Want to go to school stinky or even naked? Test me on this.<br /><br />Have a nice day.</div>Sam Mortonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13308153445590454380noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4947533403634876333.post-8412750168190433942009-10-26T06:54:00.000-07:002009-10-26T07:07:32.776-07:00Of Steampunks and Hanukkah<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBAnY07dJDU5xuVXDZqclah_P6WN4Eddz_H83H6BhDzJ_R-OJh0wk9cCHFKxz5EhVphXQ7tSw6YMV7Z5EHSPK0W-Cx6GL1721wp25Jxj0yQHUkguaiAUTsd86dQrypHaGiB5oo2qe_lLE/s1600-h/ThomasRiley-lg.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 134px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 200px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5396908411080501058" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBAnY07dJDU5xuVXDZqclah_P6WN4Eddz_H83H6BhDzJ_R-OJh0wk9cCHFKxz5EhVphXQ7tSw6YMV7Z5EHSPK0W-Cx6GL1721wp25Jxj0yQHUkguaiAUTsd86dQrypHaGiB5oo2qe_lLE/s200/ThomasRiley-lg.jpg" /></a><br /><div>When famed archeologist Howard Carter first peered through a small hole into King Tut’s tomb, Lord Carnarvon asked him if he saw anything. He replied, “Yes, wonderful things!” This is how I felt this past weekend when Nick Valentino introduced me to his brand new novel, <em>Thomas Riley</em>, and a genre of fiction called “Steampunk."<br /><br />Nick and I were staffing the Echelon Press booth at the South Carolina Writers Conference. He’s an extremely nice guy, very approachable, and passionate about his book. He should be. I began reading it and didn’t want to stop. Now bear in mind, one’s job at a book festival or writers conference is to greet your patrons warmly, answer questions, and try to sell them books from the table. If I seemed a bit grumpy to any of the folks who stopped by the booth, my apologies. I was simply irritated because I had to put <em>Thomas Riley</em> aside in order to serve you. That’s how good this book is.<br /><br />For those of you who, like me, haven’t a clue about what steampunk fiction is, Nick describes it as alternative history, Victorian era characters who invent and use some very forward technologies—think James West and Artemus Gordon in the old <em>Wild West</em> television series. It is appprently the new rage among teen readers. Nick’s book has air pirates, dirigibles, fancy inventions that his characters use deftly, action, and lots of adventure. As I read it, I kept hearing the Indiana Jones music playing in my head!<br /><br />Though he didn’t write it specifically for teens, Nick is marketing the book as a young adult title. It would make a nice stocking stuffer for Christmas for anyone in your family who loves high adventure. You can buy it at Amazon.com or directly from the publisher at <a href="http://www.echelonpress.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=202">http://www.echelonpress.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=202</a>.<br /><br />After getting home from the conference, I took my kids to Halloween Express to buy some accessories for their costumes. On the way, Alexey said Halloween was his second favorite holiday, coming in behind Christmas.. Nikki said she really didn’t like Halloween and it didn’t even make her top three. I asked her what her favorite holidays were.<br /><br />She considered it a moment, index finger over her lips, before she said, “I celebrate Christmas, Easter, and Hanukkah.”<br /><br />Shalom, y’all.</div>Sam Mortonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13308153445590454380noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4947533403634876333.post-25342847639142533962009-10-20T06:29:00.000-07:002009-10-20T06:35:45.516-07:00Stimulus Cash and Research<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs42d_PyrWRHIT3KJagNnCFpZn5qz4xAGeZDzTFc5Es0wRL8Ym1IK2H1E0G5rSvUqHpW20oJhCYsNKURqofGOogu3fnSb7R5ydRtpg_IcggsITzS1xVebD3vrRvQahA7OWvec8wZtA-ek/s1600-h/cash.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 200px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 200px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5394674422274971554" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs42d_PyrWRHIT3KJagNnCFpZn5qz4xAGeZDzTFc5Es0wRL8Ym1IK2H1E0G5rSvUqHpW20oJhCYsNKURqofGOogu3fnSb7R5ydRtpg_IcggsITzS1xVebD3vrRvQahA7OWvec8wZtA-ek/s200/cash.jpg" /></a><br /><div>Myra’s injured foot and the care she requires have renewed my interest in a subject matter that first appeared when our children were toddlers. I want to research a scientific phenomenon. I’m not certain what branch of science my investigation would fall under, but I’m leaning toward theoretical physics.<br /><br />What I have observed, both today with Myra’s injury and years ago as a parent of pre-school children is this: there is a wedge of space ranging from three inches to six inches at its highest. It is the space created just before your butt hits the seat of the chair you’re about to sit down onto. At that very moment the person dependant on your care determines that they have to have something “before you sit down.”<br /><br />This urgent matter of life and death did not occur to them 20 seconds ago when you were in the kitchen, nor can it wait until the next time you’re up. Oh, no, no , no…if you don’t get up right then to retrieve the Diet Coke, Kleenex, cell phone, computer power cord, whatever, then the world will simply stop on its axis and mountains will crash into the sea. Sure the person might back pedal a bit and say, “Well, next time you’re up would you get…” But you can hear the cosmic implications in the passive/aggressive tone of voice. “Well, next time you’re up…” readily translates into “I guess I could strain and struggle and hobble my crippled self over to get it.” The guilt becomes overwhelming and you pop up off the chair like it is a trampoline.<br /><br />The wedge of space must have a name, and I want to know what it is. President Obama, may I have some money please?</div>Sam Mortonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13308153445590454380noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4947533403634876333.post-6441558460482251392009-10-12T08:19:00.000-07:002009-10-12T17:05:01.568-07:00"...A DOUBLE CHEEEEESE BURGERRRR!!!<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAOR3wXrUr-yqA5BKiHDIq3kyyHCEdgREBr7r4kn5f_9L6TyS5esh897OUtQN2zSMUz9bKSviXVLECe2NUJWV_QmSIfMCbEgLkrNz54cA7OfJCKpr8pgDilHnTHINETH1QNcG6bq-kC8w/s1600-h/mcdonalds.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5391734291184891058" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 85px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 137px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAOR3wXrUr-yqA5BKiHDIq3kyyHCEdgREBr7r4kn5f_9L6TyS5esh897OUtQN2zSMUz9bKSviXVLECe2NUJWV_QmSIfMCbEgLkrNz54cA7OfJCKpr8pgDilHnTHINETH1QNcG6bq-kC8w/s200/mcdonalds.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div>I’m waging an economic war against McDonalds, and not for the reasons you might think. Sure they serve unhealthy food, deep fried and slathered in sauces that flow with death rivers of trans fats. But I declare my war for another reason—the company’s insidious plot to bring America to its knees.<br /><br />The McDonalds (or MACK-Donalds, as my father and grandmother used to call it) near my home used to be my barometer for the national economy. When times were bad, smart people got laid off from real jobs and in desperation sought employment with Mickey D’s. As a happy result, though, other patrons and I got superior customer service.<br /><br />When economic times were brighter, the company hired whatever riff-raff that dragged through the door and could make a pencil mark or two on an application.<br /><br />Obviously, I am neither an expert in economic liberalism nor the works of Adam Smith. My economic theory has failed, and in its desperate crumbling, I have undergone an epiphany of sorts: McDonalds is not out to serve us, but to destroy us.<br /><br />How are they doing this you might ask? By giving stupid people—truly stupid people—a way to make money without requiring even a smidgeon of intelligence. McDonalds is the bastion of ignorance.<br /><br />What other conclusion is there when you order two snack wraps, a double cheese burger and a tea—repeating the order not once, but twice, and then repeating it a third time while arguing over the check—and wind up driving away with three snack wraps and four chicken McNuggets? It borders on the surreal.<br /><br />They don’t even require their employees to read. They put PICTURES of the different menu items on the register keys, for God’s sake.<br /><br />McDonalds not only contributes to the overall educational malaise of our already intellectually deficient state, it contributes to the rise in drug distribution—anecdotally speaking, of course. The question often cited by the do-gooders of our fair country when trying to curb drug use is this: “Kids say all the time, ‘Why should I work at McDonalds for minimum wage when I can sell drugs and make more money?’”<br /><br />Why indeed? Why would a kid with even a modicum of reasoning ability even walk into a McDonalds? Faced with such a quandary, who wouldn’t choose to sell a “McDarvocet” versus a McDouble?<br /><br />I have eaten at the McDonalds in the Atlanta airport where every employee is Jamaican. I’ve eaten at a McD’s in London. I’ve even eaten at one in Moscow where nobody spoke English, and in all received great service. But walk into a McDonalds in America (or perhaps just any one in South Carolina) and you can feel the IQ level in the room drop by 30 points, and your order will be wrong 70 percent of the time—guaranteed.<br /><br />Encourage your children to study and study hard. Education is the key to restoring America to its prominence. Unfortunately, education and intelligence are the two things you will find lacking at the nation’s favorite fast food restaurant.<br /><br />Join me in my rant and boycott of the Golden Arches. We walk through them at our own peril and toward our own doom.</div>Sam Mortonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13308153445590454380noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4947533403634876333.post-91777630472918207802009-10-07T08:20:00.000-07:002009-10-07T08:25:36.347-07:00Toes Can Be Tasty<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJyiJ8CIdyeA28kcO7jprQqM37nOx6rJwls7jDXonAq4uxx-1eQf7xCP9qpeUQXLJzRpeBLTiOEI_3XfCa7aEJABRK3v-ikaeDsTH4QmGOnhvN2Vr4P9dNk-oIw797Hzo2CKdhmbQPllw/s1600-h/foot+in+mouth.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 137px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 103px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5389878676863129234" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJyiJ8CIdyeA28kcO7jprQqM37nOx6rJwls7jDXonAq4uxx-1eQf7xCP9qpeUQXLJzRpeBLTiOEI_3XfCa7aEJABRK3v-ikaeDsTH4QmGOnhvN2Vr4P9dNk-oIw797Hzo2CKdhmbQPllw/s200/foot+in+mouth.jpg" /></a><br /><div>So Myra’s foot surgery was a success, though to look at her appendage in all its purple, swollen glory, only the surgeon himself would dare say, “It looks good!”<br /><br />Alas, it appears I am the one who now needs foot surgery of my own—to remove mine from my mouth.<br /><br />Myra’s taken care of me numerous times over the course of my many ailments, so I am gratified to be able to help. I can’t seem to relieve her pain, but at least I can get her water and her medication, get her food, and help her move tenuously from the couch to the lavatory and back.<br /><br />So I was truly only joking yesterday when I ran to the bank to make a deposit. A teller in the bank knows Myra and asked about her. I gave my report. Then the <em>coup de grâce</em> came when she asked, “And how are you doing as the caretaker?”<br /><br />I said, rather jokingly I thought, “I’m just glad to have a few moments to spend around people who can walk!”<br /><br />Just then, as the last four words of that sentence came out of my mouth, emerged from around a corner the only permanently disabled employee the bank has—a woman who uses a walker. And I wonder sometimes why Nikki has no brain-to-mouth filter. Go figure.</div>Sam Mortonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13308153445590454380noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4947533403634876333.post-12426812332607387762009-09-28T17:04:00.000-07:002009-09-28T17:10:42.376-07:00Nikki, The Caretaker<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEOByagcm2FD5OoZqtrAciiSZytfDHSGGJ2A_I6SYWLOWr1wub0PeDgYM-gPglZvftZYEyBptahE-eVlgDyA8D5pzFtXDwGX3jkEJOa6JAx59DWB1oPKY5GefR1sOlmLt1ejf1CTFlpxU/s1600-h/nikki.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 122px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 200px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5386674751052502674" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEOByagcm2FD5OoZqtrAciiSZytfDHSGGJ2A_I6SYWLOWr1wub0PeDgYM-gPglZvftZYEyBptahE-eVlgDyA8D5pzFtXDwGX3jkEJOa6JAx59DWB1oPKY5GefR1sOlmLt1ejf1CTFlpxU/s200/nikki.jpg" /></a><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguJCU7ngQb2R0IFDNyiWXUWJ7Ew5pDmkxhi-E82Bn7ePJVDbIEJSTZeZ6nlqHgnJ6xU0JAO7jtzV8v6QsGMdfzt_FcV0O-g7bnSsBKTRB_vMGaiR4qwcoJZWnooCA1PALSDZ_Q6UhK3yI/s1600-h/storyteller.JPG"></a><br /><br /><div>So tomorrow is the big day. We, or better said, Myra goes in for surgery on her ankle. There may be screws involved. She will definitely have a device called an external fixator hooked on her foot. Ouch.<br /><br />In the four weeks leading up to the surgery, she’s been in a cast of some sort or other. Her movement has been restricted and slow. The kids and I have done our best to wait on mommy hand and ah…foot.<br /><br />We went in for our pre-op visit with the surgeon today. I think Myra’s a little nervous, but leave it too Nikki to solve that problem. We were on the way to dinner tonight—Myra can’t eat after midnight and the surgery is not until 5:00 tomorrow afternoon—when Myra said to me, “Thank you for taking such good care of me.”<br /><br />I said, “You’re welcome.”<br /><br />Nikki piped up from the back seat, “And me too?????”<br /><br />“Yes, Nikki, you too.”<br /><br />Then Myra said to me, “You’re a good caretaker.”<br /><br />I said thanks again and Nikki asked, “Me too???”<br /><br />“Yes, Nikki. You too.”<br /><br />Nikki replied skeptically, “Really? ‘Cause I don’t hear you sayin’ me too!”<br /><br />Woe be to the poor emasculated sap who becomes her boyfriend.</div></div>Sam Mortonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13308153445590454380noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4947533403634876333.post-54263549110441969372009-09-11T12:10:00.000-07:002009-09-11T12:18:22.432-07:00Playing Footsie<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq8Lkq_FTPIk4kQdt3Fr27ce2ChwAeVv6RR7KoYT5wxGGuTHVMpCsDqby1BHZao_w3XdksbKupwScZqqHPkiz3eASKEPAkKvqNm5Y9GT3DcnJFS_th5J4GNdn76d8We_50znVt3JukDdA/s1600-h/myras+foot.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5380291115595562210" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 150px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq8Lkq_FTPIk4kQdt3Fr27ce2ChwAeVv6RR7KoYT5wxGGuTHVMpCsDqby1BHZao_w3XdksbKupwScZqqHPkiz3eASKEPAkKvqNm5Y9GT3DcnJFS_th5J4GNdn76d8We_50znVt3JukDdA/s200/myras+foot.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div>When our kids were small and just beginning to walk, we’d have them “sit & scoot” up and down the stairs, afraid they might fall had they tried maneuvering on toddler legs. It’s been a throwback to the past this week, as my wife, in a cast up to her knee, has had to sit and scoot her way up and down between the two floors.</div><br /><div><br />She says we have to come up with a better story, but truly her injury involved no alcohol of any kind. She simply missed a step walking from the higher level of a deck to the lower at Myrtle Beach. She’s always had weak ankles, but she was doomed this time from the first forward motion. Her heel caught the edge of the step, her toes caught air, and gravity did the rest, bending, twisting, and turning her ankle inward. She fell completely to the ground. Even Snap, Crackle, and Pop would’ve winced. </div><br /><div><br />I’ve noticed something about my wife in the past 23 years: when she’s in severe pain, she rocks back and forth like an Orthodox Jew. She also cusses like a sailor. This particular injury had her doing both and dropping an “F” bomb here and there. All in all it was like watching a Hassidic porno flick, except she still had her clothes on.</div><br /><div><br />I pulled our van up and off we went to the Grand Strand Emergency Room. It’s quite obviously the place to be whether you are suffering from severe sunburn or a heart attack. The waiting room even smells like coco butter. </div><br /><div><br />They were indeed efficient, taking us right back and packing ice around Myra’s ankle. We had to fill out the typical admissions paperwork, but oddly enough, Myra’s answer to every question the admissions lady asked was, “Can you give me something for the pain?”</div><br /><div><br />Lady: “In the last six months have you been outside the country or been in contact with anyone who has been outside the country particularly to Canada or Mexico?”<br />Myra: “Can I have some drugs, please?!”<br />Lady: “Would you like me to get you a rabbi or a perhaps dreidel?”<br />Myra: “Dreidel, schmeidel! How about some valium, *&^%$#-er?” </div><br /><div><br />After four tries with two nurses and three IV needles, they find a vein, in goes the liquid Percocet, and Baptist Myra returns. We were confident we’d receive good care, though I did overhear a conversation between two nurses that gave me pause to question the competency of one:<br />Nurse 1: “I got to bring my grandbaby back with me after my visit with my daughter.”<br />Nurse 2: “Ahhh, isn’t that nice. How old is he?”<br />Nurse 1: “He’ll be four-and-a-half in February!”<br />Me (to myself): “WTF?”</div><br /><div><br />Myra’s x-ray showed no fractures. But her foot was swollen up like a baking potato and her toes looked like little sausages (Did I mention this fall took place just as we were about to eat dinner?). Kind of made me hungry for wiener schnitzel. Myra didn’t care. She was counting the imaginary butterflies on the ceiling.</div><br /><div><br />So now we’re home. We’ve been to see the good looking orthopedic doc and we’re in a cast. We’ve had cat scans and MRIs. Ligaments are torn and it looks like some bones have shifted, but she insists on doing the “Butt Scootin’ Boogie” up and down the stairs.</div><br /><div><br />Yesterday I stopped her just before she began her descent. I looked her deep in the eyes and said to my wife whom I love dearly, “Wait! Let me spray some Pledge on your ass and you can polish the stairs on the way down.”</div><br /><div><br />Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus, and yes dear friends, I am still limber enough to duck a flying crutch while being told to go to hell by my Hassidic Baptist bride.</div>Sam Mortonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13308153445590454380noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4947533403634876333.post-33263008217062088032009-09-07T12:30:00.000-07:002009-09-07T12:38:34.527-07:00Joke of the Day<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCbd0F3U8xnkey4pGO-4tG-JGoAg56nzbId2yprcMBwpwg4xUenOn_Ja4Xl24MaEn90qqXsnfkzNu5Qs1cW00yNrsifRVGF7Lu61O5RKBjXaHB74buhrloIM1Ec8eATwc8zyN0415W0n4/s1600-h/devil.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 94px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 132px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5378812048754972658" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCbd0F3U8xnkey4pGO-4tG-JGoAg56nzbId2yprcMBwpwg4xUenOn_Ja4Xl24MaEn90qqXsnfkzNu5Qs1cW00yNrsifRVGF7Lu61O5RKBjXaHB74buhrloIM1Ec8eATwc8zyN0415W0n4/s200/devil.jpg" /></a><br /><div>One Sunday during the middle of church services, the devil walked into the sanctuary and up to the pulpit. Everybody, including the preacher ran screaming from the building, except for one man who sat in the third row, arms crossed, leaned back and relaxed.</div><br /><div></div><br /><div>"DON'T YOU KNOW WHO I AM?" the devil shouted.</div><br /><div></div><br /><div>"Sure, I do," the man said. "You're Satan."</div><br /><div></div><br /><div>"AND YOU"RE NOT AFRAID OF ME?"</div><br /><div></div><br /><div>"No," the man said. "I'm not."</div><br /><div></div><br /><div>"WHY?"</div><br /><div></div><br /><div>"Because I've been married to your sister for 30 years."</div>Sam Mortonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13308153445590454380noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4947533403634876333.post-16418686392380125382009-08-31T13:39:00.000-07:002009-08-31T13:58:37.226-07:00Jenny, Jenny. Who Can I Turn To?<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJPp1sIr_EaaTM5f3sUGfnx_p4rbmS5C-H7Zuyl2kl60hNnMoDNrBgQU4E8et4l4oSnI_wSSBXbMoP_lE6DFZLSXeyLX3hr4eq-sHV-4dlnAJLB0RppRM3l2CGoZIrdZKe5EtU1Jp71JQ/s1600-h/Jenny+S.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 117px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 78px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5376233470157335698" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJPp1sIr_EaaTM5f3sUGfnx_p4rbmS5C-H7Zuyl2kl60hNnMoDNrBgQU4E8et4l4oSnI_wSSBXbMoP_lE6DFZLSXeyLX3hr4eq-sHV-4dlnAJLB0RppRM3l2CGoZIrdZKe5EtU1Jp71JQ/s200/Jenny+S.jpg" /></a><br /><div>My wife sent me an email the other day informing me she had signed us up for the First Ladies’ Walk for Life to benefit breast cancer research. This is at least the 10th year we’ve signed up—I’ve got the XXL t-shirts with the pink ribbon logo to prove it. But since heartbroken Jenny barreled out of the Governor’s Mansion last month, I’ve noticed something a little hinky in the advertising.<br /><br />The commercials airing now no longer call it the First Ladies’ Walk. They have pulled a little switch and are calling it the Palmetto Health Walk for Life. Jenny said she was going to maintain her responsibilities as first lady of the state. Perhaps, though, she has another <em>Vogue</em> cover to pose for. Or maybe she’s planning her next “spontaneous” news conferences in the driveway of her beach home so she can tell us again how committed she is to saving her marriage, yada, yada, yada…<br /><br />So I say we trash this whole “First Ladies’” thing—City of Columbia First Lady Beth Coble has been noticeably absent from the commercials, too—and go in an entirely different direction. I propose we rename the event the <strong>First Mistress’s Weenie Walk for Cancer</strong>.<br /><br />Think about it. It would be a PR person’s dream. For the first five days of advertising, we could swear up and down we were going to have the walk on the Appalachian Trail. Then we’d confess to having it in downtown Columbia after all. If we could possibly persuade Governor Sanford to participate, he could step out bold and strong and say he’d take no donations to the event unless he could fire and replace the committee who planned it (if that’s too local a reference, Google Sanford and the SC Employment Security Commission). Then he could file a lawsuit threatening not to take any donations unless the planning committee agreed to cut its budget by that same amount of money. </div><br /><div></div><br /><div>We’d enforce a rule that you have to walk with a partner called a “sole” mate. Whoever could elude security and pop back up at the mansion unannounced would be declared the winners.<br /><br />Then the guv could apologize over and over and over for whatever.<br /><br />After the walk, we could all meet back at the mansion to eat some crow, roasted weenies, and “Im- peach” cobbler. It’s making me giddy just thinking about it.<br /><br />When the actual walk happens, Jenny, I don’t know where you’ll be. In your individual news conferences, you and the guv both have begun sentences with “The Bible says…” I get the feeling that both of you believe you’re closer to God than the rest of us. I’m pretty sure the Bible says, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Maybe you could put aside your pathetic marital difficulties, and your obtuse pontifications on them, for two hours to help save some people who are DYING.<br /><br />Just a thought.</div>Sam Mortonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13308153445590454380noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4947533403634876333.post-15911756916644190152009-08-28T05:35:00.000-07:002009-08-28T05:47:10.930-07:00The Dog Ate My Homework...Or Something Like That<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiltXNKNLKbVq2xurO6oR3klujrGoy8i7apT1QMfTSfpjoOg-H0oZ9hyT54S0X1M9MLUc5Im1Y5GBXrHxHR_nXSo3GjEsg0pTPSIq02L4b9l5jKMTlXsa9hjyFkhQSylytjk4MO2z-LqUk/s1600-h/dog.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 110px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 110px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5374993848858891650" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiltXNKNLKbVq2xurO6oR3klujrGoy8i7apT1QMfTSfpjoOg-H0oZ9hyT54S0X1M9MLUc5Im1Y5GBXrHxHR_nXSo3GjEsg0pTPSIq02L4b9l5jKMTlXsa9hjyFkhQSylytjk4MO2z-LqUk/s200/dog.jpg" /></a><br /><div><br /><br /><div>I knew I was in trouble the first day of school this year. On the way, both kids were excited, and a little bit nervous. You can tell Nikki’s excited because she talks—constantly. She talks constantly anyway, but Monday, she was talking like a squirrel on helium—a sort of high-pitched chatter. When she gets this way, I always think about lending her out to the CIA to help break high-level al Qaeda operatives.<br /><br />I would do it, too, but they probably couldn’t have her back by bedtime, unless they have one of their secret prisons in West Columbia. Which they very well may. There are a lot of inexplicable things over in West Columbia people don’t know about like a knick-knack place that also sells fresh peaches and tomatoes. No other produce—no okra, or green beans, nothing, but I digress.<br /><br />As a lawyer friend of mine from Memphis says when he meanders from his main thought, “So, anyway…” Nikki brings home her math homework. She does it. I check it. Now granted, I ain’t exactly Pythagoras, but I seem to remember that 14 minus 9 does not equal 15. I’m thinking she may be the next Bernie Madoff or perhaps the next Cash for Clunkers Czar.<br /><br />We erased. And erased. We put 9 in our heads and counted up to 14. We got it right.<br /><br />Then today there was a note from her math teacher in her agenda (that’s what my kids’ school calls its assignments book): “Nikki needs to turn in her summer work.”<br /><br />I cringed. I had thrown it away when we were done!<br /><br />When the report cards come out for the last day of school, they come with a packet of summer assignments: reading and math. The reading comes with specific instructions on whether or not book reports are required, and if so, they are due on day one the following year. Ironically enough, the instructions for the more specific of the two disciplines, math, are more ambiguous.<br /><br />The kids get one math problem per day to complete over the summer. Our general “M.O.” is to do a week’s worth in one sitting. I distinctly remember asking my son, Alexey, on the first day of school <em>last</em> year whether the teacher had collected his summer math work. No, was his answer. I remember it because I felt rather bitter—not at having them take the time to complete it—but at having held onto all summer for the purpose of turning it in.<br /><br />I moved it from one pile to the next, mixed it in with my papers, and unmixed it again. I attached it to the fridge with a magnet, only to have it fly halfway across the kitchen every time I opened the door in search of the queso dip—all just to by “psyched” by the math teacher in some great game of “arithmetic” chicken.<br /><br />Only it appears this year, I am the one who flinched. Like the final scene of “Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark,” I can hear the ominous dirge in my head. I can envision zooming in on the wind-blown, sun bleached, missing math papers in some large anonymous landfill. Scribbled in No. 2 pencil in the answer block for June 26 is the equation, “16 + 21= 8.” The papers are covered with caramel candy apple goo, crumpled, and anchored to the dump by a large clod of dirt. Never to be seen again. </div></div>Sam Mortonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13308153445590454380noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4947533403634876333.post-79087282304393328802009-08-24T12:28:00.000-07:002009-08-24T12:48:05.617-07:00What I Did on My Summer Vacation by Sam Morton<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRVTMJoFiMCCXoX8iO6ZQBN_WNXD6CwBVOuMlABeXWSStin7tZUhcczgyUVELaragE9yXuu3WhcbE9hPP4iYG9KjIftBHCuGmz-2PxReCoFotcK2OTCn27yPnQhhqtEwO4eUNd-1TF-OQ/s1600-h/wash+monument.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 136px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 109px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5373614886333574050" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRVTMJoFiMCCXoX8iO6ZQBN_WNXD6CwBVOuMlABeXWSStin7tZUhcczgyUVELaragE9yXuu3WhcbE9hPP4iYG9KjIftBHCuGmz-2PxReCoFotcK2OTCn27yPnQhhqtEwO4eUNd-1TF-OQ/s200/wash+monument.jpg" /></a><br /><div>My wife and I like to watch <em>Criminal Minds.</em> She records it and we settle onto our plush little corner of the couch, remote in hand, to watch it after the kids go to bed. Each episode begins and ends with some obscure quote by Yeats or Coleridge or some other literary figure we avoided studying in college. It sets the philosophical tone of the episode.<br /><br />Here’s an example: “The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary. Men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.” Joseph Conrad said that.<br /><br />I’d like to offer my own quote to set the tone for today’s blog: “Any man who does not embrace death has never been on vacation with his in-laws.”<br /><br />I’m not talking about my wife’s immediate family: mom, dad, sister, two brothers and their wives and kids. I’m talking about all them plus close to 50 more relatives. As people all over the world have said, “There ought to be a law.”<br /><br />My wife and I have had this discussion a number of times. Granted neither one of us is a trained sociologist, but here’s the point I’ve made to her repeatedly (usually during or right after a family vacation): You spend the first 18 years of your life trying to get away from these people. Why then, do you spend the next 40 trying to “get the family together?” It’s like a forced marriage.<br /><br />Her counter is that I’m male, and therefore stupid, and should just shut up. “It destroys one’s nerves to be amiable every day to the same human being.”—Benjamin Disraeli.<br /><br />The vacation rules were, as I understood them, that we (since Myra set up and administered the Yahoo group site for the trip) would say, “Tuesday at 10 a.m., we’re going to the Washington Monument.” Or to paraphrase Ronald Reagan, the “shining phallus on the hill.” Then others could join us or not. The choice is theirs.<br /><br />Now, I’m not a trained sociologist, but it seems to me if you’ve thrown the plan out there and all 50 billion of your relatives have traveled from their home galaxy to be with family, ah...we most likely gonna have a crowd. So here, my friends, is the salient question:<br /><br />How do you get 50 trillion Fraileys (yes, they’re like bunnies. Every time you turn around, there’s more of them) to move at the same time, in the same direction, toward the same destination?<br /><br />The answer: The same way you divide any number by zero: It is a mathematical impossibility. IT CAN’T BE DONE!<br /><br />My family gatherings are much simpler. First off, as my daughter summed up one day, “So, Daddy, let me get this straight. Other than you, Uncle Mike, and Aunt Cathy, pretty much everybody in your family is dead?” Bingo, kid. It’s called heart disease. Other than about a dozen aunts, uncles, and cousins, she hit the nail on the head.<br /><br />I have one cousin who “don’t take to people.” The last family reunion we had, he climbed up a tree and “throwed up.” That’s why we don’t have family reunions anymore.<br /><br />When I was a kid, they were fun because we had this older relative who had Tourette’s. In the middle of a sentence, he’d throw his head back and let out a sound like a whooping crane. Everybody called him “Whoop.” The reunions were simple affairs—Big K Cola, big bags of generic Kroger cookies, potato salad, and ham and cheese roll-ups (“the hardest part is takin’ the plastic off the cheese!”).<br /><br />Even Whoop probably wouldn’t come to a reunion with people throwing up from the trees. And he damn sure wouldn’t come to one with 50 gazillion people trying to be at the same place at the same time. Just an observation.<br /><br />“The family. We were a strange little band of characters trudging through life sharing diseases and toothpaste, coveting one another’s desserts, hiding shampoo, borrowing money, locking each other out of our rooms, inflicting pain and kissing to heal it in the same instant, loving, laughing, defending, and trying to figure out the common thread that bound us all together.” ~Erma Bombeck </div>Sam Mortonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13308153445590454380noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4947533403634876333.post-758646536847214122009-07-23T07:30:00.001-07:002009-07-23T07:33:15.180-07:00Hamster Wars--The Final Chapter<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6fPJnby3xU1K1wg9pIZoOMH9ICsI9oZ2gSPsU3hbDAnN-gByQ40Zq-KBEuIvZ8GVPsZMi0oGhoCHDfkx4Tn0l5lpd6buqUUBRGuWjDq9wfECws1pUcVvjxpxJkAhPwh61MsZmH4Y0fm8/s1600-h/HAmster.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 199px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 200px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5361663224042774690" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6fPJnby3xU1K1wg9pIZoOMH9ICsI9oZ2gSPsU3hbDAnN-gByQ40Zq-KBEuIvZ8GVPsZMi0oGhoCHDfkx4Tn0l5lpd6buqUUBRGuWjDq9wfECws1pUcVvjxpxJkAhPwh61MsZmH4Y0fm8/s200/HAmster.jpg" /></a><br /><div>In all the sound and fury in the saga of my daughter’s hamster(s), a good story got lost. My son got a hamster on the same day. His hamster, Gibbes, never got out, never got away, and never bit. He played on his wheel. He would let you pet him. He was great. My son cleaned his cage, played with him, and bought him little hamster toys.<br /><br />Sadly, our faithful servant, Gibbes, bit the dust last week. I guess the ceremony we’ve gone through in the last few months with grandparent funerals has had some sort of effect. Alexey, 11 years old, planned and executed a grand funeral for his furry friend.<br /><br />Last Thursday, Gibbes was interred at, ahem…”Harlington” National Cemetery on a hill overlooking Gran and Pop Pop’s house. His flag draped coffin (a wooden cigar box. The flags were the kind you wave at parades. Alexey removed the sticks) was borne to the graveside by a remote control tank. He was awarded the honor of a “flyover” by an Air Hog remote control helicopter, a 21-firecracker salute, and the firing of four skyrockets from Pop Pop’s barbecue pit. Alexey eulogized his friend, placed him in the grave and covered him with dirt.<br /><br />Aside from the humor, I’m truly proud of the way my son reacted to losing his first pet. It’s not an easy thing. There were some tears, but almost immediately, he began formulating a way to honor his fallen friend. That’s respect, and that’s a good thing.<br /><br />Because Gibbes was so small a creature, I suppose the mourning period is as proportionately short. Yesterday we went (at my peril) back to PetSmart to look at guinea pigs. Yikes!</div>Sam Mortonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13308153445590454380noreply@blogger.com1