LESSONS FROM MY SON 4

Why Guns Won't Keep You Safe
 

"You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown!" was playing live and the kids were so excited to be going with Linda and me. Their fathers, Don and Tom, were at an attorneys' reception and Linda, with her two children, had picked us up at the law office on Lady Street. In those days before seat belt laws, Jeff, aged 5,  Jeny, 3, and Linda's oldest--Jeff's age--sat unrestrained together in the back. Linda's baby,  who was barely 2,  stood between us in the front.  

Not long after we pulled away from the curb, amidst the squeals and jabbering of the four young ones, a BOOM exploded throughout  the car--a sound I can hear every time I think about it exactly as it was that night. Chaos! What was it!  Had the engine blown? Louder than that--A bomb? Where?--So loud! Like it was inside the car! The kids were screaming! Linda yelling--"What was that!!!" "I don't know" as I turned to the back seat.

Jeff was holding a gun.

"A gun!" I shouted. I grabbed it and threw it into the glove compartment as Linda tried to keep the car straight,  screaming "Is anybody hurt?"

"I don't know!"  Her baby was hysterical. I grabbed her and held her close, hoping to calm her down. I felt something wet and sticky. Linda yelled, "Blood, it's blood!"

She stomped on the accelerator, headed for Baptist Hospital just around the corner--though I still don't know how she did it. As we pulled into the emergency entrance, she grabbed the baby and ran. I scooped up the children and headed inside to register, answer questions, search for answers and try to calm the children and myself while we waited.  The police appeared with questions about the  hand gun, which I could not answer, nor could Linda later, as to why her husband had a gun in the car.

 .....How long had he had it? I don't know! Why did he have it! I don't know! Why did he keep it in the car? I don't know! Why did he keep it loaded? I don't know! Why in a cigar box? I don't know! Was it registered? I don't know! Did you know he had it? No.....

We were all lucky.  When Jeff  saw the cigar box on the floor, opened it, found the gun and pulled the trigger, he pointed it straight ahead, instead of at himself or either of the girls beside him.The bullet went through the side of the head rest before it hit the child. No vital organ was damaged; it was only a rather deep flesh wound and the police found the spent cartridge on the floor of the car.  It had not lodged in her little body.

Don's explanation to us all for why he had the gun was "for protection." His area of concentration in the law was collections. When a debtor could not pay, Don assisted the debt holder in bringing suit against the debtor.  He said he had had threats from those who were desperate, who were losing their homes, and he needed protection.  As for the rest of the questions--he had no answers. Why he kept a loaded gun in a cigar box in the family car he could not say. He did apologize for not remembering to take it out; but chastised us for not being alert enough to hear the sound of the gun being cocked in time to stop the tragedy.

Jeff tells me he can remember every minute as clearly as I can, though he was only 5. Later that night, I read to him hoping to calm him down so he could go to sleep. When we heard Tom's car in the driveway, he turned to me with tears in his eyes and said, "Oh Momma, Daddy is going to be so mad at me."

You can believe me, that Jeff was not the one who felt Tom's anger.  It was the person who thought he could make himself safe by bringing more guns into play, who was willing to endanger his family and friends by the careless use of a weapon.

Don was governed by fear, as so many of us in this country are. We are afraid of young black men, of the homeless, of people who wear turbans, of innocent young people who come to our door to trick or treat, of hooded teenagers walking through our neighborhoods where they "don't belong", of  anybody different from ourselves. We turn away from them, run from them, shoot them, go to war with them--and the gun manufacturers profit.

When horrific events happen in Sandy Hook or Columbine and small children are killed, we don't know how to react.  Some think  the answer is to arm teachers because they can shoot first and make the school safe. Some say "when guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns."  Some of my very good friends, supporters of the NRA, believe that the Second Amendment guarantees the right for citizens to own almost any kind of weapon (though they do believe in background checks).

Here's some of what I believe. Yes, strict gun control, if not a total ban. Required gun safety courses for gun owners.  Sure, that.

But there's more to it than that.  I don't think that having fewer guns or no guns is the answer. I am an idealist. I believe that the attitude that gun control is the only answer because the horse is already out of the barn concerning guns is giving up, admitting defeat.  I want to go for more. I want to go for changing our way of thinking, doing, living, relating to each other--a culture change.  What if we stopped romanticizing violence? What if we learn to worship not the tough guys in Pulp Fiction or Fight Club, but instead the gentle, loving guys in To Kill a Mockingbird or Gandhi?   What if our movie heroes were not the ones who used violence to solve problems; our most sought after video games were not those where realistic killing was the point ? And we did the killing!!! What if  all our sports emphasized skill, endurance, cooperativeness, instead of violence where one of the purposes is to "take somebody out" with a head-on tackle and where the players are so damaged that their life expectancy is 55 years old? Oops, I know some Carolina/Clemson fans who will take exception to that one.

I believe in a world where we learn to honor God, not as an angry, vengeful God, a violent God who orders the Israelites to "not leave alive anything that breathes" or sends Joshua to destroy Jerico, or condemns sinners to hell, but as the loving New Testament God. I believe we can become a world where the mentally ill are not shunned, but are treated as any other person with an illness and we can commit the financial resources to truly help them. I believe in a world where we can learn to solve our problems without violence, but with respect, honoring one another. I believe in a world where we can overcome our selfishness, greed, lack of empathy and fear of one another. I believe in a world governed by compassion and respect for one another.

In that kind of world, Don won't need a gun.               

LESSONS FROM MY SON 3

 Finding Your Passion

Jeff is a typical male--he loves sports.  He likes watching it above all else on TV, especially our beloved Tar Heels, and especially while eating snacks and drinking beer. He loves to love UNC and hate Duke and Coach K, the weasel.
He tailgates at every USC home football game with his law school buddies. Because he played soccer as a child and teen, he also follows college and pro soccer and watches it relentlessly on TV while all those around him are bored to death and clueless about what is happening. He tivo-es every soccer, basketball and football game of his favorite teams and will not let anyone tell him the outcome until he has had the opportunity to watch them himself.

 Much of what I have learned from Jeff though, has come from his love of soccer. He chose soccer as his sport right off.  When he was old enough to begin on Y teams, he and a lot of his friends signed up for soccer, which their fathers had never played and knew nothing about. It was a new sport in the South and had just begun to challenge football. So the boys took their first step toward independence, though short lived. Irmo area fathers bought up all the Soccer for Dummies 

 books and began to learn about offside and corner kicks and yellow cards and soon were coaching the teams their sons were on or yelling at the coaches of the teams their sons were on.   

Jeff played classic league soccer in middle school, which gave him the opportunity to play teams from other states. He traveled to Alexandria, Virginia and Bethesda, Maryland, staying in the homes of professors, playing against Ambassadors’ sons.  The opportunity gave him much broader experiences than playing school soccer would have, traveling with Irmo Middle School to Spartanburg and Greenwood.

pick up soccer

Though he ended his organized team soccer career at that point, Jeff has a life long love of the sport and has participated in it almost daily since. Any sport is better played in person than viewed from the couch. Though going to a game with friends is more social, it does nothing for your cardiovascular health and your waistline.  Every day at lunch Jeff changes into his soccer clothes, rushes out from the law firm and heads to the USC intramural fields to play pick-up soccer. That is a term, for those of us who don’t do pickup sports, which means you show up at a soccer or baseball field or a basketball court (or at least a goal) and whoever else shows up divides into teams and plays a game.   

Many of the players he meets at lunch he plays with in an adult league of indoor soccer.  Playing pickup at lunch and team league indoor soccer are miles apart, let me tell you. Indoor soccer is fast and loud and echo-y and sweaty, with balls bouncing off the walls where there is no out of bounds.  We go as often as we can because it is soooo much fun to watch. It takes us back to the days when we cheered Jeff on as a teenager, only not exactly. His bracket is age over 40,  so this is a bunch of middle aged men. At 42 he is one of the youngest players, but that doesn’t mean he is the best.  Many are in better shape, since he has a bad back and knee and shouldn’t be playing at all. There are some that look to be mid-fifties and sixties who are great players. A couple of my favorites grew up in Brazil or other countries where soccer is the national sport and they are several notches above the other players. 

 Several players are ferociously competitive—they scream at the referees and get yellow carded and get kicked out of games. Jeff is not one of those. He is pretty laid back, but nobody loves the game more than he does.

So I have watched my son learn to be independent; broaden his horizons and meet people very different from himself; find a passion, a way to have fun and relieve the daily pressure the comes with working with clients in pain and who are victims of an unresponsive system.

But there’s more.  In addition to playing, he is a coach—of Sam’s soccer team—-The Bobcats.  He has been the coach since Sam, who is almost 9, was 4. We go to every game we can and I watch Jeff as much as I watch Sam.    This is what I have learned.

He loves to watch soccer, to play soccer, but more than anything, he loves to coach soccer. On that soccer field he combines his two passions, soccer and fathering. He is a great coach. A natural mentor, he communicates his love for the game to his boys and girls. He instills in them respect for each other and for the other team—and expects all of us, even the fanatic parent fans, to show respect for the other kids, parents and even the referees--wellllll maybe not so much.  There are father coaches on the field who scream at their kids and the referees, who don’t rotate their players, who favor their own kids, who deny the girls equal opportunities on the mixed teams. Unless those players have a chance to play for another coach soon, their love for soccer will die.

These are the other things Jeff teaches his players:

 

Have fun.  This is a game. You are here to learn to love the game and learn how to play it.

Show up for practice. You can’t get better if you don’t learn and practice the basics. You don’t have to be at practice to practice. You can practice anywhere.

Each of you will rotate in two quarters and out two quarters.  Even if you are not the best, you will play as much as the rest.  Even if you know you are stronger than others, you will play no more than the rest. It is your job to learn to play with everybody and to help your teammates while you learn the game.

Winning is important, but not the most important thing. Even if we need one goal to win and everybody on the team thinks we should keep the most advanced players in, we will put in those who have not yet had their turn.

Each player will play each position on the field, even if you are better right now at some positions than others. You are here to learn and are too young to be locked into one position yet.

It is just as important to pass and help set up a teammate to score as it is to score yourself.

When a player makes a goal, he/she will be moved into a defense position to give one of the other team members a chance to score.

Stand your ground, but don't try to take the other team's players out.

No trash talk or gloating.  Don't respond to gloating, trash talk, or unnecessary roughness. If it gets too dangerous, report it to me as the coach and I will handle it with the other coach.

 

If we are way ahead, don't slack up--but toward the end of the game we will suggest that we let them play with more players or we will play without a goalie. We will hope they will do the same for us in similar circumstances.

If it is a very early morning game, do not make fun of the coach because he shows up with bed head.

The soccer parents have a lot of respect for Jeff and they tell me that their children love their coach. 

  Oh, and this season they went undefeated.

How Does Your Garden Grow? The Harvest

Containing more  Lessons from my Daughter and From My Son

The End for 2010

The last of the harvest has been eaten.  Tom cut four lone pieces of okra from the garden the end of  November and ate them raw, cut up into our mixed salad.  It was not enough for a mess and some folks would have just tossed them, or put them in the compost pile.

 But Tom is a  WWII baby, whose mother’s  voice still echoes in his head.  “Waste not, want not.....   You must belong to the Clean Plate Club..... Eat your food—just think about all those starving children in Africa.”

I hear a similar voice.  I could never understand, though,  about that starving children thing.  Why in the world couldn’t we send the food—which I DID NOT WANT---to the hungry children who so needed it?

First Harvest of the Season 2010

This year we planted a limited number of crops, unlike in past years.  The tomatoes and okra were givens, though not quite as much okra as in the past.   Peppers and fields peas rounded out the garden. My three favorite summer foods are tomatoes, okra and field peas.  I could eat them every meal. 

I do not eat peppers.  To be in the same room while Tom is cutting them up makes my eyes water.  Tom puts them in everything he eats and if,  by accident,  it is something I also am eating,  my mouth burns for hours.  Taking a hint from Jeff's cheese stuffed peppers dish, Tom also makes his own unique stuffed hot peppers, stuffing them with all kinds of cheeses, smoked oysters, crab meat, chopped shrimp, smoked salmon, tuna, minced clams and other interesting and unusual things.  The two tricks to this dish are to wear gloves during preparation (the more important of the two) and to roast them well  so that the intense heat is under control.  He freezes these individually on cookie sheets so that he can pull out one or two at a time to roast for his dinner.  

The only disappointment were the field peas.  They were heavenly tasting, but almost nonexistence. We planted four rows of them, two on one side of the garden and two on the other.  The rows on the right side yielded some every now and then, so that every few days we had gathered enough to cook a mini pot full.  Tom let me eat them all each time(about 3 spoonfuls), because I was the one who had begged to plant them this year.  The other two rows yielded nothing—not one pea.  The plants looked healthy and were heavy  with dark lush leaves.  That was it.  No peas. We are going to be more careful about the exact kind of field pea we try next year.  I think we will try two different kinds, maybe crowder  and pink eye peas, and keep track to see if either does better than this year.  If anybody had a recommendation, please let us know. I don't know if I can go another summer without fresh field peas.  On the other hand, Tom may be over it and have no interest in trying them again.  If you have read my previous gardening posts, you know that Tom is the master gardener and I am the sometimes helper—except for the summer of his hip replacement, when I was the worker bee under his rigorous oversight.  So if he says it’s a no-go, then we will be pealess next year.   

The tomatoes were .......... Wow!!

Sam & Madeline pick our tomatoes

We planted many heirlooms this year, harder to grow, but so worth it.  The whole experience is an affirmation that beauty is only skin deep.  Heirlooms  are open pollinated, not hybrids,  that look like they've grown wild. They're all different lumpy shapes and sizes, with scarred splits in the delicate skin and the flesh is firm, sweet, rich, lush, and smoky tasting. I love to eat them straight out of the garden, like apples, hanging over the sink with the juice dribbling down my chin. I have been excited to learn that, besides being funny looking

Davis & Tom

and tasting scrumptious,  they are  more nutritious, packed full of vitamins and antioxidants, than are  the more common hybrid varieties. Hybrids, on the other hand,  are cross pollinated, developed for commercial purposes--a uniform size to make them easy to pack,  with thick skins to be bug resistant, and to stand up under rough handling and for travel. Hybrids look uniformly, perfectly attractive, but are mealy, juiceless and drip free, manipulated for the sake of economics, taste be damned.

Our earliest harvest is always green tomatoes, picked  to thin the plants so that they will yield more. I have searched all my cookbooks and the internet for the best green tomato recipe to be had.  I am glad to share it with you.  The secret is the mustard mixture that you spread on the tomato before you fry it.  It is messy, but the spread adds a tang that makes this dish special.

Fried Green Tomatoes

This recipe is from Robert Lorino of The Irondale Café in Irondale, Alabama.This restaurant is the inspiration for Fannie Flag’s Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café.  The recipe is world famous.

2          Medium hard  green tomatoes, chilled

1          Tablespoon Dijon mustard

1          teaspoon sugar

½         teaspoon salt

¼         teaspoon paprika

1/8       teaspoon ground red pepper

 1 ½     teaspoons Worcestershire sauce

½         cup yellow cornmeal

¼         cup hot bacon drippings or vegetable oil

Cut tomatoes into ½ inch slices

Stir together mustard and next 5 ingredients.  Spread on both sides of tomato slices.  Coat with cornmeal.

Fry tomatoes in hot drippings (or oil) in skillet over medium heat 3 minutes on each side or until browned.  Drain.

Yummmm!!!

  We planted less of everything this year, so we only froze a few of our tomatoes and gave away those we couldn’t eat at three meals a day sliced, diced,  minced and roasted, in sandwiches, sauces, and stews.  The office attorneys and staff got lots and we had enough get ripe at once during the summer to serve them on Sunday in Finlay Park at Food Not Bombs.

Our wonderful preacher,  Neal, got the lion’s share though.  In fact, he called every Saturday night to remind us to bring him some. “You know my favorite food is a BLT sandwich,” he would say. He even wanted us to bring a bag of them and hang them on his office door on the Sundays he was not preaching.  There was a little catch in his voice the Saturday night we had to tell him the yield was  over and there would be no more tomatoes in the morning. He is a tomato glutton and I threatened to tell the Board to reduce his salary,  as we were paying part of it in produce, the old fashioned way. LOL.

He did not LOL.

Okra was our most prolific crop this year.  Originally from Africa, okra is a hot weather plant.  We put the seeds in the ground later than any of our other crops and it is the last to stop yielding—when the weather is below freezing for several nights in a row, usually in late November.  We use it in stews and gumbos and soups, but primarily we coat it with corn meal and deep fry it.  Fried okra is as Southern as fried catfish, fried chicken, fried pork chops, fried squash, and….fried green tomatoes.  Good as it tastes,  Tom and I have stopped eating fried food of any kind, switching to broiled or baked, for the sake of our health.  But fried okra--we just have not been able to give it up. Until this year.  In yet another of the Lessons From My Daughter, Jeny introduced us to a new way to cook okra.  It is healthy, less messy than fried,  and so tasty that we are never looking back. Sauteed okra is simple.

Sauteed Okra

Cut okra in slices as for frying. (If you have just washed it, pat it dry with paper towels, or wait for it to air dry).   Coat the sauté pan well with oil. On medium high heat, sauté the okra in pan  until brown on edges and slightly crisp, 4-6 minutes, stirring constantly so as not to burn. Lightly salt if desired.

There are more elaborate recipes with onion and various spices, but we all like it so well  plain we’ve not tried to fancy it up yet.  Maybe next year.

  Both of our children have turned into master gardeners and master chefs and their gardens include a wide variety of herbs to use in their cooking. Our garden in no way rivals theirs.   Jeny grows a wider variety of crops than we do, including a fall garden.

 Jeff plants cucumbers, and pumpkins, in addition to most of the same things we do. He plants  pumpkins and such for fun for the kids. Sam loves cucumber cookies. The Lessons from my Son in this blog post involve his turning his garden produce into highly sought-after gifts. His cucumber and okra pickles and  fresh salsa, made with his own tomatoes and peppers, are to die for and he makes many of us happy with his homemade Christmas and birthday gifts. The marvel of this is that he manages it at all, in a teeny plot on the side yard, raided frequently by their two large, rowdy family dogs.

Winter is here, the temperature is in the 20’s and  the garden is only a memory, except for a few frozen quarts of tomatoes in the freezer and some of Jeff’s pickles in the cupboard. We are already looking forward to next summer and so, I am told, is Neal.  He misses his BLT sandwiches. 

LESSONS FROM MY SON 2

My Mother died a little over 3 years ago. Jeff wrote a piece about her and gave me permission to post it here.  

 You're never too old......

 Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Popmommy's Funeral

My last remaining grandparent, Popmommy, died last week at the age of 93 and we went to the funeral this past weekend.

Popmommy's eyesight and general health had declined in the past few years, but her mind had not. Everyone saw the end coming and all family and friends had been to visit her in the weeks before she died. Because everyone had already said their goodbyes and knew that Popmommy was ready to leave us, the entire weekend became a celebration of her life.

Here is Popmommy's obituary.

NEWNAN, Ga. — Elizabeth Cherry Davis, of Peachtree City/Newnan, passed away Wednesday, October 18, 2006, at home surrounded by family, three days after her 93rd birthday. Mrs. Davis, known to her many friends and family as “Lib” or “GG” or “Pop Mommy” was a Renaissance woman. She was born and raised in Estill Springs, Tenn., lived a large part of 

her life with her husband, Jack, in Birmingham, Ala., and spent her post-retirement years in the Peachtree City/Newnan area. She was a prolific reader who collected, over her lifetime, a wide spectrum of books that numbered in the many thousands. She was an exceptional bridge player for decades, having earned various masters points. Her reputation as a linguist, a crossword aficionado and a Scrabble player was well known. It was claimed by Scrabble opponents that she knew every word in the English dictionary. She could discuss at great length subjects as diverse as politics, sports, music, religion, classical and modern literature, history or the latest computer game. She was a successful businesswoman who held a number of management positions in the Birmingham area. In addition, she was the president of several service clubs and charities. She was a member of New Hope Baptist Church South in Senoia. However, her greatest joy came in seeing her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren grow and prosper. She was the matriarch of a large family that lives throughout the southern states. She is survived by son, Jim (Evelyn) Davis, of Newnan; daughter, Judy (Tom) Turnipseed of Columbia, S.C.; grandchildren, Dodd Davis of Greenville, S.C., Paige Mathis of Chattanooga, Tenn., Jeff Turnipseed of Columbia, S.C., Jeny Mathis of Atlanta, Matt West of Sharpsburg, and Melisse Fetherston of Sharpsburg; beloved niece, Libby (Tommy) Blair of Chattanooga, Tenn.; nephew, Mike Powers of Savannah; sister-in-law and brother-in law, Dorothy and Earl Brooks, of Hilton Head Island, S.C.; and 15 great-grandchildren, Haley, Zack, McCay, Zack, Jackson, Sarah, Madeline, Davis, Brooks, Elliot, Sam, Lauryn, Gunner, Tate and Philip.  

Friday, Cyndy and I drove 3 and 1/2 hours
to Peachtree City, an Atlanta 

Suburb for the Visitation. During the visitation, I asked my cousins if they remembered the scary puppet that had been at Popmommy's house when we used to visit in Birmingham growing up. The puppet was green with a black cape and top hat and one giant tooth. My cousin Paige replied, "Oh Mr. Sweet Tooth" and told me that she has Mr. Sweet Tooth now at her home in Chattanooga, Tenn.

Friday night we drove 45 minutes to my sister's house in Atlanta and spent the night.

Saturday morning we drove 45 minutes back to Peachtree City for the funeral. All 4 grandchildren were asked to speak about Popmommy.

I talked about how I had named Popmommy as a small child (She lived with my grandfather, "Pop", so the name seemed logical).

I talked about how fun it was to travel to Birmingham as a child because TV shows came on an hour earlier there and I described Mr. Sweet Tooth.

Popmommy loved to tell stories and she loved to tell me about some little frog toy that creeped me out as a child. Apparently the frog felt wierd and toddler Jeff would shiver when he touched it. Popmommy loved to tell me how they used to make me touch the frog, repeatedly, and laugh at me when I shivered. Popmommy told me the story, again, the last time I talked to her and she, again, laughed at the memory of creeping out her grandson and watching him shiver.

When I finished speaking and was walking back to my seat, my Uncle Jim, announced,

"I will give $1,000 for Mr. Sweet Tooth!"

My cousin Paige's husband, Michael, raised his hand and shouted "Sold!"

The funeral ended at noon and we had 4 hours to make it to the interment at the cemetary in Birmingham, AL, where my grandfather, Pop, is buried.

Cyndy and I rode with my sister Jeny and her husband, Gil. Gil and I were pallbearers. There was much discussion about where to eat on the way to Birmingham and how much time we had. Gil was craving fried Okra and insisted that we had time to eat at Cracker Barrel and that Popmommy would have wanted us to cut it close on the time and have an adventure.

After stuffing myself with country fried steak and fried okra, I fell asleep in the car.

When I woke, the adventure was in progress, as we had just reached Birmingham and had about 15 minutes to make it to the cemetary. We made it with 5 minutes to spare.

When it was all over, someone said that they had heard that Bear Bryant was buried in the same cemetary. I walked up to the three guys in the truck that was parked in the distance waiting for us to leave so that they could bury Popmommy. They confirmed that Bear Bryant was indeed buried in block 30, but we never went to look.

We drove 3 hours back to Atlanta and then 3 1/2 hours back to Columbia, arriving just before midnight.

Popmommy always told me "You are never too old/big to love your grandmother."

These were my last words to her.

LESSONS FROM MY SON 1

You're never too old to play with your kids

Oops! 

  Edisto Beach 2005