The Communists Have Won

     I grew up at the tail end of the Cold War Era. For my children the greatest enemy and threat to America is Al Qaeda, the Taliban or radical Islam, but for my generation it was the Soviet Union, Communist Russia. This fact was reinforced through our pop culture. When the United States was invaded in the 1984 movie "Red Dawn", the Patrick Swayze and Charlie Sheen led group of high schoolers, the Calumet High Wolverines, it was by the Russians. Who did Rocky have to face in a boxing ring in Moscow? Ivan "I Must Break You" Drago and a bloodthirsty crowd of Soviets. When President Regan declared, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall", the Berlin Wall was torn down, the Iron Curtain fell and perestroika and glasnost swept the U.S.S.R. The Russians could not buy Pepsi, Levi's, Nike and watch MTV. The 80's hair metal band Scorpion even commemorated these changes with their hit song "Winds Of Change." Even Mikhail Gorbachev (or at least an actor portraying him) applauded Rocky Balboa's victory as the crowd chanted, "U.S.A. U.S.A." All of this was proof we won, right? Wrong. Let me explain.
     I, along with most all self respecting, God fearing, Southern men of my generation, lamented and vocally opposed the expansion, acceptance and indoctrination of soccer into our country. When we grew up there were no school soccer teams, youth leagues or MLS. We played soccer one week a year during P.E. (along with kickball and square dancing). Even then we didn't even have rules beyond kick it in the goal and only the goalie can touch the ball with his hands. That was part of the problem. We were predisposed to be suspicious of any sport that didn't allow you to use your hands. To make matters worse, the only thing we really knew about soccer is that foreigners (not the cool ones that sang "Jukebox Hero" and "I Wanna Know What Love Is") blasphemously referred to it as "futbol." This wasn't football. The NFL had Walter Payton, Joe Montana, Ronnie Lott, Bo Jackson, rough, tough, rugged men's men. That was football. Soccer had weirdos with hippie hair and braided beards, with names like Alexi Lalas and Pele. To make matters worse they wore sissy clothes. Their cleats were skinny, neon colored, feminine looking, unlike my blue collar steel spikes for baseball. The jerseys had more sponsorships and logos on them than a Jeff Gordon car. And the icing on the cake? It was BORING!!! These guys would run around for an hour and a half and never even score!?! Are you kidding me? When I saw soccer on TV it was: kick it this way for a minute, now kick it the other way for a minute, now back the other way again. Rinse. Repeat. For two hours. Add it all up and we had no choice but to see soccer as a communist plot to infiltrate and overthrow us.
     Much to our chagrin, we saw youth leagues pop up. School teams began soon after that. Then came MLS (Major League Soccer) and ESPN Deportes started showing highlights, then games, then ESPN (not ESPN2 or ESPNU) started showing it. Once EA Sports released FIFA video games we knew it was just a matter of time until our sons and daughters were wanting to play. I watched begrudgingly, my first soccer game ever less than two months ago. I had no idea what was going on and it was boring, but I watched it because my freshman and senior sons were on their school team and both started. Since then I have watched many more soccer matches, some in blazing heat, some in freezing cold, some in the rain and some a four hour drive from our house. Monday night I drove three hours by myself to watch a soccer game (it was a state tournament playoff game and potentially, my senior's final game). That's when it happened. I waved the white flag and surrendered to the communist plot.
     The atmosphere in the stadium was as hostile as any I've ever been in (football, baseball, basketball). A sheriff deputy REQUIRED us to sit on the visitors side instead of the bleachers. The team my son played was as rough, tough, mean and vulgar as any KGB interrogators in Siberia. My son's team went down 1-0 in the first five minutes of the game and it remained the same score until the final two minutes, despite a dozen shots on the opponents goal. This is when it happened. Our boys tied the game with less than two minutes to go. The ten or so fans on our side of the field erupted in cheers far louder than the many more fans on the other side, who were now eerily silent, but fighting mad. But not me. I jumped up out of my chair, screamed at the top of my lungs, high fives and hugged everyone in sight and cheered until I was hoarse. To make a really long story just a long story, GCS won the game in overtime on a penalty kick and my hoarse voice screamed again and hugged my son. My senior. My soccer player. We always knew it would be through the kids that the communists would get us. The other team cussed, took cheap shots and tried to start fights, but we won. You read that right.....WE. The communist soccer plot has succeeded. I genuinely, truly, as much as any football game, got super excited and enjoyed a soccer game. In the words of Rocky, "What I'm trying to say is, if I can change, and you can change, everybody can change!" I am a soccer fan. For Mother Russia, comrade.

If I Should Die Before I Wake....(Part 3)

     Now I lay me down to sleep.
     Kase, the world is a better place for your being in it. I have known a lot of people from a lot of places and I can honestly say you are the most pure and tenderhearted I have known. Your innocence is refreshing in a world of corruption. I have always loved that you had your entire life mapped out. I'm still not sure what I want to be when I grow up and yet you have it planned till retirement. That is what makes you amazing. You are going to do such great things in your lifetime. The world will be a little better place for you having been in it. You have always been one who likes to cuddle and snuggle and for a parent there is nothing greater. Strangers meet you and fall in love with you right away. Don't ever change. I admire the fact that you do not allow the world around you to influence you or dictate your decisions. You do what you know is right and pay no attention to what the world thinks. You will be an old man before you realize how rare that is. Seeing your personality blossom these last few years has been a joy to witness. One of my greatest sources of pride and joy in life is having two sons that I look at and think, "Even if you weren't my child, I would want to hang out with you." So many times I have been discouraged and frustrated and scared and thought I couldn't do it anymore, and then I would look at you and think to myself, "I cannot let this child down." I have wanted to be a better person because I lived with you and saw what an amazing person you are. You are a good influence on me. Don't ever change. I can't even put into words the joy you have brought to my life. If you did nothing else in life, know that there was at least one person on this earth who got out of bed everyday and was content to just be near you. Son I love you more than I can tell you and more than I can explain. You have been the source of so much joy in my life. You are going to fit in perfectly whenever you get to heaven and I imagine you will be bringing a lot of people with you. That is all I want in my life is to know that I will get to spend eternity with you. I love you.

If I Should Die Before I Wake... (Part 2)

     Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I want my family to know these things.......
     Reese, son, you just don't realize how much like your dad you really are. That is both a good and bad thing for both of us. I have always felt a special bond with you because we look alike, sound alike, act alike and certainly think alike. The moment they put you in my arms in the hospital you stole my heart and you've never given it back. When I look at you all I can see is how proud I am of you. Although you have made some of the same mistakes as me, I am constantly humbled by how much better of a person you are than me. I treasure the times we have spent together singing at the top of our lungs. I am amazed at how naturally talented you are in so many areas and how quickly you pick up new things. I have seen your heart and I know how tender it is. I love that you are always trying to be a better person and that if you fail it does not discourage you from trying again. In my mind I can still hear your voice when you were three years old and preaching or telling me a joke or reciting the Greek alphabet. I remember thinking, "How did I make something so smart and so amazing." I have told you a thousand times that I love you, but I know that you will never truly understand how much until you hold your own child. I have always been proud that you would hug me, kiss my cheek and say you love me in public, even in front of your friends. I'm glad to know that you aren't ashamed to show the people you love affection and not worry what anyone else thinks. I know you will do great things in your life. I don't mean rich or famous necessarily, but things that really matter. You will impact peoples lives in a positive way. You will make them glad to have known you. You will be a great father who is adored by his children. Know this, it has hurt to see you fail or make mistakes, but I have never, not even for a moment, been ashamed of you or anything you've done. I've only grieved at seeing your hurting. I am proud of you. I always have been. Thank you for making me a father because it is truly the greatest joy I've known in my life. I regret that I did not do as good of a job as I should have at raising you up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. I am sorry for my failures as a father. When you were born I was so young and knew nothing of raising a child and you paid the price for that. The only thing I want in life is to know that you hold faith in Christ in your own heart and that you are committed to serving Him. Be your own man, do what brings your joy, but do all in the name of the Lord. I can handle you growing up and moving out as long as I know in the end we will all be reunited again. I love you.

If I Should Die Before I Wake...

     I'm going to do something that I imagine most people will find morbid at worst, and unsettling at least. I also figure my wife and mother WILL NOT like that I raised this topic (as if speaking of it will bring it to pass). Granted, it is an unpleasant topic to raise, but I have a very pragmatic view of death. At present, I have conducted nearly 200 funerals. I have stood at the head of the casket, as families took their last earthly look at someone they loved, so, so many times. Those caskets have held mothers, fathers, husbands, wives, grandchildren, grandparents, siblings, children and any other relation you can imagine. They were old, young, midlife, teens, children, infants, healthy, sick, every demographic. They were natural causes, self inflicted, accidental, criminal, all manner of causes. This front row view of the brevity and frailty of life forced me to look it in the eye, contemplate it, and realize it on a regular basis.
     There have been periods in my life where I performed a funeral on an average of once a week and in one particular week I performed 8 in 7 days. At every funeral I performed there came a moment, usually when they were lowering the casket into the ground, when I thought to myself, "Someday, someone will be performing my funeral, comforting my family and watching them lower my body into the ground." To this day, if my phone rings very early in the morning or very late at night, I hold my breath in fear that I am about to be told that someone has died or is dying.
     I know I will die. I have accepted that fact, but that doesn't mean I'm not afraid. It's not death itself I fear, I know I will live eternally after Jesus raises me, but I have an, at times, overwhelming fear of leaving those I love. I know they will be fine and that the Lord will take care of them, but I fear leaving them on a bad day, after an argument or a period of time when we haven't had time for one another. I fear dying without them knowing things I want them to know, so I decided to make sure that can't happen.
     Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I want my family to know these things.......
     Jade, Whenever I watched romantic movies I always wondered to myself what did happily ever after look like beyond the kiss and music played and the closing credits rolled. I now know the answer to that question. It looks like our life together. Whenever I heard Ephesians 5 preached in the past (husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church....love your wife as yourself) I couldn't understand it until you. As long as you are with me I have everything I want and need. As long as you are happy I am happy and when you aren't, nothing can make me happy. You have made me a better person in every area of my life (friend, spouse, child, parent, preacher). You bring the best out of me because you make me want to be better for you, to be my best for you. You inspire me with your creativity, your sensitivity to the hurts and needs of others. When you walk up to me, put your arms around me and kiss me, there is nothing greater in this life. I admire you and your strength, your accomplishments, your dreams, your talents, your resiliency. You amaze me with your ability to recognize the needs of others, to be able to sense their pain, and then to have the desire to reach out to them and lift them up. Everything you do you succeed at. Your talents are many and diverse. I have been madly in love with you since I was a teenager and continue to be amazed at the fact that year after year I continue to find more and more things about you that I love so much. My greatest desire for you is that you learn to see yourself through my eyes....the perfect combination of inner and physical beauty. You are the greatest thing to ever happen to my life. You saved me, and, "even when I was flat broke, you made me feel like a million bucks, it's true, I was made for you."Thank you for giving yourself to me and for sharing your life with me. All I ask of you is that you promise me you will live your life faithful to Christ and make sure our boys do to, so that I can leave this world with the comfort and assurance I will see you again and I will be with you all forever. A love like ours is too great to just exist for a brief lifetime, it deserves to be eternal. I love you.

There are a few things you should learn to do before you leave on a trip away from home.

1) Take your wife out to dinner. She LOVES Steel Magnolias.

2) You CAN buy her chocolates. Not too many bc she will have to work too hard at the gym.

3) ESSIE nail polish may be a good alternative, she is kind of into that right now........

4) DON'T buy her flowers, they die. Nobody likes that!!!!!! Pick her some. Still as romantic.

5) Make sure that when you leave, you kiss her good-bye.

6) Tell her you love her everyday that you are gone.

7) ALWAYS make her laugh!

8) Remember the time difference!!!!!!

9) Love her forever.

10) And NEVER,  I MEAN NEVER LEAVE YOUR BLOGSPOT OPEN FOR HER TO HACK.

Luvs to you.

Be Kind, Please Rewind

     The digital age has stripped us of an acquired skill that once was a very respected talent. I'm speaking of the lost art of stopping a fast forwarded tape at precisely the right moment. It could be an audio cassette or a VCR tape, but not everyone could master the technique of stopping it at just the right moment. Of course you could always use the counter, but that's about as much fun as doing math, and it took the feel and instinct out of it. Not to brag, but I was pretty good at stopping the fast forward. In those days when you popped in your copy of Poison's "Open Up And Say Ahh...." but you didn't want to listen to "Look But You Can't Touch" and "Fallen Angel", just "Every Rose Has It's Thorn", you didn't have a "skip to the next track button", you had to use the fast forward. After untold hours listening to tapes with songs I didn't like, I learned to listen to the sound of the unspooling tape to tell when a new song was qued up. Growing up I never dreamed this skill would be put to use (beyond a never a achieved dream of being a radio DJ), but it has.

     I've always heard the older generation talk about how fast life goes by, but I never could have imagined how fast. I can remember being young and feeling like life was in slow motion. A single hour (especially if it was spent in Mr. Hamlett's Geometry class) could seemingly last for days. My 12 hour shift at the Highway Department before a date that night with Her, seemed like it would never end. Not. Any. More. Eventually (I have a theory that it is when children are born) life switches from pause to fast forward. Looking at some pictures and postings on Facebook recently I realized my life is in fast forward.

     Here are a few examples from the past few months: She recently spent two weeks in Wisconsin with her little sister Amber, who was having her first baby. This is the same Amber who, it seems like just yesterday, snarled her 8 year old nose up at me when we met, giving me a "you aren't worthy of my big sister" look. The next thing I know she's a teenager, then a wife and now a mom!

     I feel like just yesterday Colby Webb was a bucktoothed, skinny little kid and then one night he shows up to my high school Bible class wearing baggy hip hop clothes and cement stiff six inch blonde spiked hair. Dozens of youth trips went by in a blur and now he's married.

     Then there's Clay & Mary Lauren Doggett. I can still see them sitting together for the first time in my VBS high school class. They were just beginning to "date." I don't remember their age, but they are early teenagers, and summer after summer I watched as they grew closer and closer at VBS and Bible camp, until a few years pass and I'm performing their wedding. Today she is a nurse, he is a sheriff deputy (two very grown up jobs) and their son just celebrated his 2nd birthday.

     From the same family there is also Leslie and Jake Hamby. I vividly remember the day she came into my Summer Bible school class, ran up to me and enthusiastically shouted, "Look Mr. Brandon I'm wearing makeup" (likely for the first time). Again, I have no idea how old she was, but I know she was young enough that the makeup didn't make her look older, but like a cute little girl playing dress up. Jake was a scrawny little boy that I've known his entire life and taught for many years. We have an album filled with Christmas cards of Jake and his brother and sister from the cradle till college. Last summer I stood in front of the now big strong engineer that Jake has become, as he exchanged vows with Leslie the nurse. Sometime this summer they will welcome their own baby girl.

     Even in my own family I can look at a picture of a ten year old me with all of my cousins, as I hold my newborn cousin Erica. When she was in high school she was the first person I baptized. Today she is a school teacher, married, with two children who are older than she was when that picture was taken.

     Most recently, I rode back from a soccer game with my old friend and fellow preacher, Keith. Sixteen years ago we began preaching school together. On Monday nights when our wives had class, Keith and I would get together to "study" (watch Monday Night Football) and tag team babysit our three sons. Reese and Benjamin were the same age at the time (two years old) and kept each other occupied, leaving me with just my newborn son Kase (who slept most of the time anyway). Riding back from this soccer game last week, Keith and I sat in the front seat, while our now senior sons, Reese and Benjamin, rode in the back. And that newborn Kase is now a freshman on the same soccer team. 

     Thankfully, I have a well honed skill of knowing just the right time to hit the button to stop the fast forward and just let it play. If you will excuse me, I need to slow my life down for a few minutes and just enjoy it.

Fast Times At Giles County High

     She only spoke one word, "Brandon", but it was enough for me to know that something was wrong. Although she was 500 miles away, I could instantly hear the sadness in her voice through the phone. Her next sentence confirmed what I feared. My mother had called to give me the bad news, my cousin, Greg Hood, had died a few hours earlier. The first thought that raced through my mind was how long it had been since I last saw Greg. To the best of my recollection, I last saw him outside of Home Depot. I was walking out and he was walking in and we stopped for a few minutes to catch up. That was it. Just a moment. My next thought was how sad it was that this was our last moment, and it had been so brief, and a few years ago.
     Our first moment (that I have evidence of) was around October of 1976. Greg was born in October 1975 and I was born two months later. It was around our 1st birthday and we sat in Big Mama's (our grandmother) floor in diapers and shared a cake. Over the next decade and a half we had few moments, mostly playing, along with a dozen or more other cousins and kids at Big Mama's during summer break. Truth is, we weren't all that close when we were little because we didn't get to see each other much. But man did we ever get excited when we knew Greg and Johnny (his little brother) were coming to Big Mama's. All of that would change when we got to high school.
     My greatest memory of Greg begins the summer before my senior year. We worked together at the Highway Department on a 12 hour shift so we spent a lot of time together. The funny thing is, after work we hung out too. It was on one of those nights at the end of summer that he, along with about a dozen other friends, went to watch a meteor shower. That night was the first date I went on with the girl would become my wife. A few nights later he would again join us, and a group of friends, to tell ghost stories in an old Civil War era cemetery in the woods behind my grandmother's house. That was the night I first held Her hand. A few nights later this group gathered again at Greg's grandmother's house. This would be the night She and I would have our first kiss. Then there was the time, up on the hill of Dr. Fitts farm, behind my grandmother's house, when Greg caught himself on fire and burned off his eyebrows (my grandmother probably just read that and learned that I was there that night). Then there was the time at his grandmother's on Anthony Hill when, well, never mind (what you put on the internet stays there forever). As far as I can remember, he never called me by my actual name, but "Goaty", which was a nickname I got working at the highway department.
     It is strange, I had forgotten almost all of those memories until a few days ago when I was walking into Winn Dixie and saw a guy walking in who looked just like Greg. I literally stopped in my tracks as the floodgate of memories burst, filling my mind with funny, crazy stories. When Greg's funeral was conducted I was 500 miles away. It made me sad that I couldn't be there to say goodbye to my cousin and friend, with whom I shared some of my best memories in life. So, I decided to write this tribute to him as my own personal memorial service.
     I always felt like Greg was born in the wrong generation and I wonder if he felt that way too. Greg didn't exactly identify himself with the jocks (although he did play football) or the preps as much as he did with Elvis, James Dean and Jim Morrison. I can still remember, and have the yearbook pictures to prove it, that he practically channeled those icons of the fifties and sixties. I don't know if there was a social circle that identified Greg in high school, yet he seemed to move among all of them, having friends of all kinds. Greg embodied the personality of the Sean Penn character "Jeff Spicoli" from Fast Times At Ridgemont High. He always had a big smile on his face, was always looking to have a good time, never wanted to hurt anyone and never took like or himself too seriously.

Toddlers & Tiaras Vs. Lads To Leaders

     I recently learned that I live within two hours of Honey Boo Boo Child. If you haven't heard of her, she is the breakout "reality star" from TLC's "Toddlers & Tiaras." Before I go any further there is a bit of backstory that you need to know.
     For seven years I was the M.C. of the Fairest of the Fair/Miss Giles County beauty pageant. The behind the scenes experience created a bizarre fascination with pageants. Any time I come across Toddlers & Tiaras I have to watch for at least a couple of minutes. It has a rubbernecking at a car crash kind of effect on me. Sadly, this show is a snapshot of pretty much everything that is wrong in America. Spoiled children raised to believe they are royalty, the objectification of women when they are still little girls, materialism unchecked ($5,000 for a six year olds pageant dress), spray tans, color contacts, fake teeth, disrespect to parents, screaming, crying, kicking fits when a child doesn't get her way, parents who scream and cuss when kids don't perform well or win. When I catch five minutes of this show, which is all I can stomach, I am so disturbed at the current state and future of our country. But then I attend a Lads To Leaders convention (for more information on LTL, visit http://www.lads-to-leaders.org) and hope returns.
     In contrast with Toddlers & Tiaras, at L2L I saw: kids who lost competitions hug, shake hands and congratulate their competition for winning; total strangers cheer and scream like crazy for children they don't even know; congregations chanting the name of kids who finished in 3rd place; girls winning competitions, not because of their beauty, but because they delivered a speech from the Bible, led a group in song, created a church website or wrote a spiritual song; guys who didn't get a trophy because of athletic ability, but because they memorized 100 Bible verses, participated in a debate or scored high on a Scripture test. I saw boys and girls who showed poise, grace, courage, confidence, discipline, intelligence, commitment and hard work. And it wasn't just a few. All told it was 20,000 spread over 6 cities. Can you imagine the potential good this many young people can bring to our country? An entire generation of future leaders is being cultivated and it has restored my faith and hope in what can be in our nation. From 5 to 18, these boys and girls did their best and that was something to behold and something to be celebrated......just not with tiaras.