Tag Archive - Life

House Selling 101

June 25, 2011 in Miscellaneous with 0 Comments

When a university offered my lovely bride a teaching job in another state back in February, we should have put our house on the market. But that would have made too much sense.

Plumbing Repair 101

When I learned, a few months later, that the same university would be offering me a teaching position at the same college, we should have planted a for-sale sign in our front yard. But that would have been too practical.

As it is, we are now in day 321 of looking for a new house in Searcy, trying to sell our house in Mississippi, and caring for Coco, our sick Chihuahua with heartworms.

Coco starts his heartworm treatment tomorrow. He will be quarantined to his cage for a few months.

I’ve thought about the wisdom of putting our house for sale in a timely manner. There are, however, a few joys I would have missed out on if we had sold it too quickly:

First, I would have missed out on discovering the dried lizard after prying the panel off the front of the whirlpool bathtub because the faucet was broken and wouldn’t turn off. – A lizard frozen in time! (my sister would be sad because she has an affection for lizards)

Secondly, I would have missed the burn mark that the original plumber left on a 2×4 under the same bathtub where he came close to burning down the house. I suspect that he is the lizard killer, but I can’t prove it.

Coco is just glad to be anywhere.

 

 

Orange Beach

June 1, 2011 in Travelogue with 2 Comments

We spent a few days at Orange Beach on a mini vacation. White sand, loud tourists, free breakfast, relaxing waves.

Loud tourists.

Local Native

But it’s Orange Beach and I get to meet folks from all over: We ran into a group of kids on their senior trip from Missouri and in the last few years, I’ve also meet people from Russia and Ukraine.

This will likely be the last time at the beach for us for a long while. With both of us starting new teaching positions at Harding soon, we will likely do our vacationing somewhere close to central Arkansas.

Like Branson.

It is interesting to me where people chose to vacation. I grew up in South Alabama, so I naturally migrate to Gulf Shores and vicinity.

But I’m not against vacationing in, say, the Swiss Alps or the South of France, or even Alaska. South Alabama beaches are just convenient.

I cannot count how many times I’ve been here. This time we are staying at the Holiday Inn Orange Beach. I thought we’d never stayed here before, until we walked back to the swimming area and I remembered that we spent one night here about a year ago.

Breakfast is always a bonus with Holiday Inn. I didn’t have to stab too many of the loud tourists to get to the sausage this time either.

It wasn’t more than a mile or so to the east of here that I’d given my bride, Inna, the engagement ring. We were visiting Robin and Dana Dickerson at Innerarity Point church of Christ at the time at the same time when Hurricane Andrew was also beating down on the Florida panhandle.

Somehow I had managed to struggle onto the beach long enough to give her the ring. True to the Russian mindset, she didn’t want me to just give it to her without something special as a background (like fireworks, a Blue Angels flyover, or even a hurricane).

The hurricane sufficed. We stayed there about 11.5 seconds before realizing that these weren’t optimal conditions for giving away small items that could conceivably be carried by the wind and land in Tacoma.

We headed back to Robin and Dana’s and Inna shared the news with them.

It probably would have been smarter to give her the ring when I asked her to marry me, but I can’t say that planning was my forte back then.

Next month will mark 18 wonderful years of marriage, so I guess it didn’t matter anyway.

Pall Mall cigarettes, coffee, and waving

May 16, 2011 in Miscellaneous with 1 Comment

An old guy in a blue Chevrolet pick-up truck approaches me driving on a quiet street in Taylorsville, Mississippi. One hand is perched at 12:00 on the steering wheel. Extending his fingers without losing the grip on the wheel, he waves.

Dad (Cecil Swann) at South Padre Island, Texas (c. 1982)

I didn’t know him, but I thought, “That was nice.”

I waved back.

I’m pretty sure that waving at people is limited to small town life – usually south of Interstate 40. If it’s a reasonably small town you’re driving through, someone’s gonna wave at you. I’m also convinced that if you tried this in other places, you’d get shot or have an unfriendly gesture flashed back at you.

My dad always waved – right hand on the wheel, left hand holding a Pall Mall cigarette; ashes on the seat and floorboard.  If his hand was empty, then he’d be holding a cup of sugar and milk – with a touch of coffee.

My dad grew up in a small town. He was born in 1928 in Pensacola, but he and his Mom soon moved to what my wife would call the village of Silas, Alabama.

And it is.

I’m guessing they waved a lot in Choctaw County.

I grew up with the smell of these horrible smelling cigarettes and although I don’t mind the smell of some pipe tobacco and most cigars, I detest the smell of cigarettes.

He was the quintessential red-haired step-child.

At 16 or 17 he stretched reality (like many others) to join the Army – just in time for the end of World War II. I’m guessing he wanted to see the world and get out of Choctaw County.

The U.S. Army gave him a chance to do just that.

Once he told me, between commercial breaks watching Black Squad Squadron, that he was a driver for an Army general. He’d also been a mechanic and a drill instructor. The Army even taught him to jump out of perfectly good airplanes. (its a crazy world).

He waved goodbye to the Army after a few rambunctious years.

It has been more than 20 years since my father died.

But sometimes I can still see him clearly, driving that blue and white 1974 Chevrolet Pick-up work truck with white toolboxes on each side. He’s holding a cigarette and a large Styrofoam cup of coffee is precariously situated in front of him – sloshing occasionally all over the dashboard.

He takes a puff, stretches back against the seat, and waves at an approaching car.

dad

Baldwin Square

May 14, 2011 in Miscellaneous with 0 Comments

Before it was a park in the middle of the now heavily populated Satsuma, Alabama, under a canopy of oaks and home to a bazzion squirrels, there sat a small wood framed house with a detached garage, or as I liked to remember it – our horse barn.

Baldwin Square

We didn’t have horses.

But we did have a few dogs who could pass for horses any day – at least to a four year old boy with lots of imagination.

We had no asphalt or cement for the short driveway – only fine granulated Alabama top soil baked in the afternoon sun.

It was ideal for mud pies.

1966 might as well as have been 44 years ago or something.

OK, it was 44 years. Funny how that seems longer when I type it out like that.

Behind the house sat a diminutive one room barbershop and beyond that – train tracks.

I’m told that my dad actually caught rides on trains sometimes down to Chickasaw or Mobile for work. I’m hoping the train slowed to a manageable speed as there was no depot in Satsuma in the late 60s. I don’t know that there ever was one there.

Across the street from our little house sat the U. S. Post Office for Satsuma, Alabama. I think that the house is still there today, although the Postal Service relocated the mail office across Highway 43 to a sterile brick building besides what used to be a neighborhood store. I liked the old house better.

Once, as a three or four year old, I wandered away from the homestead and into the parking lot of the post office. I heard galloping. There weren’t many buggies left in circulation, but some still non-conformists chose to travel by horse.

I would call the horse Mr. Ed because Mr. Ed is whom I think of when I remember this scene, but that young rider now has a son with that name so I’ll call him Speedy.

I don’t know why I was there, but it was only 100 feet from our front door and I assumed that wandering the neighborhood was required for boys my age. I watched with amusement as this traveler dismounted his horse, looped the rope over a chain-linked fence, and walked inside.

Turns out, Speedy was not interested in checking the mail or for that mater waiting for its rider.

Speedy tilted his head a few times, un-looped the rope, backed away from the chain-linked fence, and smiled at me.

OK, maybe he just winked. Regardless, one second later he was galloping down 4th Street towards East Orange.

Soon thereafter, the rider exited the post office with his mail, but with no visible horse on which to return home.

For only a brief second, the horseless rider glanced at me.

Did he think that I had freed Speedy?

He didn’t wait around to ask. The last thing I remember about him was his own galloping after his horse on 4th street towards the high school.

The only way I know – or am reasonable sure – of the rider’s identity is that I recounted this story to a friend about a year ago.

And he told me that he was most likely the rider who failed to properly secure his horse when he went into the post office.

Years later after we’d moved to the slightly larger city of Saraland, Mr. Baldwin (for whom the park is named) demolished (or moved) that old house. In 1982, the Baldwin family gave the land to the city of Satsuma and it now serves as a public park – although they call it a square.

In 1992, I brought a young Russian Princess to this place where I had a kind-of “beginning” (i.e., my parents had moved from Louisiana to Alabama when I was four – so this was my beginning in Alabama. I know it’s a stretch but work with me!).

I kneeled and asked her to begin a new journey with me.

She said yes.

My children don’t care too much for this story – especially after the 100th time.

But I like it.

It reminds me of home.

 

 

 

 

Putt-Putt Golf and Bambi

May 13, 2011 in Humor with 0 Comments

I approached the Celeste Road overpass spanning Interstate 65 in my mother’s sky-blue 1977 Pontiac Bonneville station wagon following a particularly gruesome round of Putt-Putt Golf on Government Blvd.

Deer in Pencil

I was exhausted.

All 17-year-old boys should be so blessed to have their mother’s station wagon with bonus room for friends.

And teenager wouldn’t mind being seen riding in such a smooth ride?

Anyway, the point is that the floodlights from the newly constructed 7-11 convenience store were working – well. I turned left and adjusted the Pontiac, pointing it into the vicinity of the right lane.

Did I mention the darkness and rain?

I didn’t mind the lights. It had taken years for the good and thoughtful people at 7-11 headquarters to see the wisdom in placing a new convenient store in our quaint neighborhood. So, a little squinting at a billion watt light bulb wasn’t a big deal.

After all, our little corner of Saraland was nearing the 20th century and change was a coming…

It wasn’t that we had far to travel to find groceries. There was a full service grocery less than three miles away. But the (now closed) Delchamps Foods didn’t have the selection of merchandise that mattered most to teenagers in the late 1970s: gas and pinball.

For the uneducated and socially deprived, pinball is an arcade game with a stainless steel ball that bounces around the playing surface hitting objects (and occasionally the protective glass) adding coveted points to your score (sometimes in triplicate). No video screen or really much computer circuitry for that matter.

With my attention drawn to the floodlights – much like a moth in a fatal attraction plunge (or ascent) to outdoor sports lighting, I did not see or have reason to see a somewhat large creature in the middle of the road.

There are few things in life that get your attention like an unexpected something in the middle of the road on a dark and rainy night.

In the nanoseconds that followed, I realized what it was – lying there in the road…

Bambi.

Or as most of my northern relatives would say, “dinner.”

On cue, her eyes froze as the approaching Pontiac illuminated her face; I expected no less.

Instinctively, she bolted. And although I use the word “instinctively” loosely I don’t know why her instincts didn’t keep her out of the road in the first place.

Regardless, with a 50/50 chance of avoiding disaster, I swerved to my left where, not coincidentally, the Pontiac and the deer met.

The Pontiac almost slid off the south embankment, but stopped just short of the edge, coming to rest on or near the aforementioned Bambi.

Fortunately, for the Pontiac, the damage was minimal; but for the Bambi, umm, life would not be quite the same.

When Bambi and the Pontiac met, an unpleasant thud carried through the humid and sweltering South Alabama summer air 300 yards away to the 7-11.

The scared 17-year-old driver, shaking from the trauma, but better off than the Bambi, sped home – all of two blocks.

As I passed the 7-11 and its nuclear powered lights, I saw two local gentlemen discussing the day’s events while standing besides a pick-up truck. It looked like it might be their lucky day.

The resourceful 7-11 men watched the Pontiac disappear to the west and peered back up the street at the scene of the incident, not knowing what or who might have been struck.

The Pontiac had some unfortunate cosmetic adjustments to its outer shell, which, when later noticed in the light of day, (and for reasons I didn’t understand – I mean I could have died or been scratched or something) displeased my father greatly.

Regardless, after an appropriate time of reflection and an abatement of an accelerated heart rate, I drove back to the 7-11 for pinball and gas, surveyed the area near the overpass, and spotted the gentlemen sizing up what would be a gratuitous windfall.

As they lifted Bambi into the back of their pick up truck, I realized how satisfied I was to have assisted these fine men in providing food for their hungry families – without the need of them trampling into the sometimes unpleasant woods necessitating violent bloodshed.

Not really.

Stupid deer.

The damage was not that bad to the Pontiac chick magnet, but as life would have it; I would later be blessed with more opportunities to contribute to its growing collection of dents and scratches.

(Note: I re-posted this here because I am trying to consolidate all my articles into just one site – paulswann.com)

Sweet Tea

May 9, 2011 in Home with 0 Comments

Absolute Zero is a Russian mythical creature that, after breathing on any given substance, will cause all molecular activity to cease and – a millisecond later – disappear.

Russian Grandmothers in Syktyvkar

 Really!

OK, I may have some of the facts turned around but I remember Mr. Sawyer, my favorite high school teacher, instructing us future air conditioning mechanical geniuses on the theory of absolute zero, somewhere south of -459 F.

Which is like – really cold.

And when things are that cold, material starts to act differently, like a teenager learning to drive.

The cold stuff can be dangerous also. I saw it on a recent episode of NCIS where this guy dies after ingesting liquid nitrogen – or something like that.

For the record, liquid nitrogen boils at -320 degrees F, which is still a long was from the mythical absolute zero.

When I went to Russia on a mission trip a few years ago the “leaders” thought it was a good idea to venture north – close to the Arctic Circle. Apparently there were people who lived there despite the obvious warning God gave in the form of absolute zero weather to settle elsewhere – like Florida or Jamaica.

But no. They came – eastward across northern Europe – which I am sure wasn’t that much better. These folks settled in what is now called the Komi Republic. They speak Komi and Russian; the two languages having little in common with each other.

We settled into dormitory-like facilities in Syktyvkar, the capital of Komi and home to a university full of Russian and Komi girls studying foreign languages. There was one Princess in the whole lot. Could things be any better?

But that is another story.

Being from South Alabama, the snow was exotic.

For a little while.

What I wanted at that moment was iced tea – sweet tea.

I plundered through the communal kitchen and found a gallon sized glass jar. (Being in Russia I am sure they didn’t use ENglish measurements, but it was close enough to a gallon). I boiled water and drowned some Lipton tea bags that I had brought (for emergency purposes). I needed a cool place to complete the whole sweet tea cycle. The refrigerator in the kitchen was either too small or too crowded to house my newly created sweet tea machine. I topped off the jar with two cups of sugar and was ready for a delightful glass of Southern sweet tea in Northern Russia. Yes, that would make it feel like home.

There was one window in the room; a double window. You open one window and there’s another window to open, if you dare. the only slight problem was that your skin would freeze and fall off your face when you smacked it on the window framing on your quick retreat.

But don’t get ahead of me.

The concept of having two windows – that is – double windows that actually opened did not register in my warm-weathered brain. (I left Mobile, Alabama a few days earlier where the temperature was 65 degrees F). Not at any time did I stop and think, “Why Paul would the Russians have double windows near the north pole?”

Maybe it was to protect against charging polar bears? If one did wander by, at least he would have some sweet tea.

Right!

The jar of delicious sweet tea sat on the outer window ledge for less than an hour waiting for me to bring her in from the cold and enjoy sweetness.

Ignoring the absolute zero (I apparently love saying “absolute zero”) just inches from my double window turned out to be a tactical error. Obeying the laws of science (which happens in Russia too – who knew), the glass jar failed to adequately contain the quickly expanding tea, water, and sugar mixture. When I retrieved the jar, it – surprisingly – had a beautiful crinkly cellophane pattern that bore the likeness of a happy Vladimir Lenin.

With the leader of communist Russia smiling at me, I determined that then would be a good time to start learning to love hot tea.

 

Best Day Ever!

April 29, 2011 in Humor, Miscellaneous with 0 Comments

The Friday before Tax Day was not good. I spent a large part of the day plugging numbers into Turbo Tax Online. By 6:00 p.m., I had managed to overcome my inclination to disregard the whole thing and escape to Jamaica.

Lumber Lost
Lumber Lost
I’ve never been to Jamaica. It would be a blast – for a little while.
I could have used the money that I was going to pour down the bottomless pit (i.e., government) very nicely on my trip to the Caribbean Ocean.
But I thought about my poor family, having to receive post cards from me from afar. And of course, the bottomless pit would not have cared about my little family and would have attached a lien on my home – creating marital disharmony.
So, I filed: federal and two states. I had fought with TurboTax for most of the day as it insisted that I pay a large sum of money to the Feds and lesser amounts to Arkansas and Mississippi.
I insisted that this was not in my family’s best interest and that our children needed that money for things like food, clothing, and continued high-speed Internet service.
TurboTax disagreed and pointed to our taxable income amounts.
“That’s just a suggestion” I insisted. We didn’t really make that amount. At the conclusion of the whole affair, TurboTax won and my family lost – a lot!
As I pondered the coasts of Jamaica and the inequity of our progressive tax system, I drove home. As I approached Highway 98 (which at that point is basically an interstate highway), I saw someone who had a worst day than I.
At least the load his truck was carrying wasn’t something explosive nor did the wood land atop an unsuspecting Toyota Prius.

Saturday at Roger’s Part One

April 28, 2011 in Miscellaneous with 0 Comments

The City Barber Shop has been in business for as long as I can remember; it is owned and operated by a guy named Roger. It is the place where I remember getting my hair cut for the first time. I must have been around 4 or 5. My dad took me and Roger put a booster seat type of board on the barber chair so I would sit up high enough. I always asked for a “GI,” which was the easiest hair cut possible. I doubt that was the first place where I received my first haircut, it is just the first memory I have. I am pretty sure that my elderly sister used to cut my hair before then.

Shelton Beach Pharmacy Wildcats
This morning I got up early and was at his place at 7:30. Because Roger takes a little longer than others, I knew I had to be first in line to go on to other things I had planed. However, the wait is worth it for a really good hair cut.
What I like about visiting Roger’s is that I get to meet people who reconnect me with forgotten memories, and sometimes correct faulty memories. I met a guy today who’d graduated from Satsuma 12 years before I did. As we spoke we learned we had some connections; he worked in the A/C business (I once sort-of worked in this business) and we both went to Satsuma High School. But what was most interesting to me was his last name.
I played baseball for the Shelton Beach Pharmacy Wildcats for three years. This was my first time to play organized baseball; I was 10. Coach Byrd was, well, the coach. I have memories of going over to his house on McKeough Street to try on uniforms, of riding in the back of his green pick-up truck to practice, and of his love of coaching.
As I spoke with the guy at Roger’s I learned that he and  Coach Byrd were brothers. I had thought about my coach many times in my life. Once, he allowed me to pitch during practice – a mistake that Ernie Carlisle regretted as I threw a wild pitch right into Ernie’s back. Thankfully, he didn’t charge the mound. I also remember the confidence that I gained by playing for Coach Byrd.
Sadly, Coach Byrd had passed away several years ago. Mr. Byrd said that Coach Byrd’s wife sold her house and moved away after that. I need to make it over to Roger’s more often.

Home Again

January 22, 2008 in Miscellaneous with 0 Comments

This is what greeted me at the edge of my driveway upon my arrival home after being away in the employ of the government for a while. If you’re having trouble reading the message, it says that “my daddy is the greatest dad in the whole universe and he should be the president”. OK, that part is just outside the picture. What is visible is, “I miss my daddy” and “I love my daddy.” I didn’t particularly enjoy being away – but the return sure was worth the trip back home.