8- So...WHAT IS LOVE? I.....

(MY VERY FIRST ORIGINAL "SO...WHAT IS LOVE?" ESSAYS! There have been eight (8) so far....#8/#15/#21/#39/#111/#115/#274/#335...and more to come)
This Sociology educator, and grandson, received a phone call late one Saturday evening. My grandmother was calling, sobbing. I had never seen or ever heard of her crying before. And drove out in the country, on Buttermilk Spring Road, up the hill to the homeplace my grandfather had built over sixty years ago for his bride. She was moving back and forth in her fave rocking chair, as I walked into her living room. The one rocking chair next to her was empty.
After struggling to maintain her composure, Willie confessed that Carl was ill, in the hospital for the first time in their married life. And eventually added that it was the first time, also, that they had ever been apart in those sixty years.
Sobbing even more, she revealed that Carl had never missed telling her that he loved her at the end of every day...no matter what.
Her grandson made a call to the hospital, late, and then handed the receiver over to his grandmother,
as she continued to rock in her rocking chair next to where her sweetheart, for over sixty years, always rocked, side by side. A smile slowly spread across her teared and aged face.
That's what, I believe, love is...(#1).

7- MEMORIAL DAY---2008

A) This educator and author continues to wipe a tiny tear or three away upon seeing or becoming a part of any Memorial Day celebration, since walking, as a little boy up the main street of my hometown in Virginia...with my father. When an older gentleman wearing a solder's cap, standing on the corner, turned to see my dad, he smiled an elderly smile and handed Bus a red Poppy. My father reached into his billfold and pulled out a dollor and gave it to the old soldier. Not a word was spoken between the two. My dad said not a word to me, but I seemed to understand.
B) I learned a few years later that my grandfather, Carl, a skilled tailor craftsman like my father, likewise had paused for a moment on the same street, for over 70 years, to buy a red Poppy. And I discovered that he, like my great-grandfather, John, had privately and quietly been pacifists. However, their respect for the bravery and duty and dedication of America's patriots on the fields of battle for centuries was foremost etched in their lives.
C) My own best memory came about on a visit to Arlington National Cemetery on a Memorial
Day....the changing of the Guard on the hillside at the Tomb of the Unknowns. As I moved later across the hallowed, sacred grounds, I paused. The wind changed, in my direction, and I heard it...echoing "Taps" from two dueling buglers. I will always BE a poud American, period....rss

6- The PEE-CHILL FACTOR!....GOT IT?....

a) Some of us have it, most don't!
b) And I just didn't understand the real significance of this unusual phenomonon, but now a science teacher in Montana has identified the very personal shiver experienced by over 27.7% of the population in America. I have given it, finally, a label: THE PEE-CHILL FACTOR!
c) It would be virtually impossible to check every American to compile a complete set of stats. And to check whether any other culture outside America experiences the brief 'quiver shiver', much less breaking the therory down into gender stats.
"Excuse me, ma'am, we're doing an exit poll here at the Garth Brooks Concert intermission. Did you, by an chance, experience quiver shiver when you urinated a minute or three ago?"
"Sir, don't take this the wrong way, but, while standing here in line with 11 other guys looking straight ahead, did you experience any degree of 'quiver shiver'?"
"You did?
d) See what I mean? This very scientific experiment tells me that the Pee-Chill Factor exists, also, because at least eleven to twenty-two others have confessed to a 'quiver shiver' at an exit poll at a county fair fish fry last summer using a porta-potty in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.
c) Oh, by the way, have you ever experienced a "qs" in your daily life? The scientist in Montana is still pondering on exactly what it all means. Does it mean that you partook of fresh asparagus for supper? Well, maybe it means that running water near you has that subtle effect of creeping into your mind, producing a sudden urge to 'guiver shiver'? Of course, if that is true, the next time you host a Niagara Falls boat trip under the Falls or play a highly competive game of miniature golf or dine on a CHOCOLATE ice cream 'wich, you just may have a nonstop, all consuming 'guiver shiver' when you privately urinate! And bless you!!

5- LYING...Once Is Enough!

A) An intentional falsehood....
When someone pulls it on you, it's time to switch brands of friendship. Trust is worth much more than twisting around what is considered the truth by a supposed friend. And truth is like the wind; we know it when we feel it!
B) As an educator, I could usually "feel" a lie right away when tossed my way in school. Trust, also like the wind, is sensed quickly. Occasionally, though, a trained liar will come along and stump you for a brief time, though, but only for a brief time.
C) We, you, need to concentrate our respect and friendship with sincere chums...right?
As one of the characters in my Town of BlueButtercups(tm) art series says, "For gosh sakes, just go ahead and tell the truth...it's much easier!"

4- SELL THOSE DRUGS on TV!...SCARING US IS HOW DRUG COMPANIES TRY IT, EVERDAY!.....

SEEN THE LATEST BILLIONS OF $$$$ FINE BY A MAJOR U.S. DRUG COMPANY FOR SELLING THE AMERICAN PUBLIC BOGUS DRUGS THAT WE THOUGHT HELPED OUR CHILDREN and ELDERLY?????
A) How to scare the heck out of every American, with the constant battering of every known, and many more unknown diseases to mankind, are now constantly being thrown at us to buy. CANCER?...male impotency?...NO insurance?...and then the drug company ads cleverly hit us with scare tactics to get us TO BUY their drugs, with actors smiling and dancing to the tune of "we'll help you! and make it all go away IF you buy and take our drugs!"
B) It's all a ripoff, America, using clever scare tactics.
And it's time that we also consider switching to non-commercial networks for a much needed breather. Better yet, tune out and off of "regular" television as we know it, with the constant "illnesses" the drug companies claim that we have, describing them in detail. Listen to your stero instead...or XM radio.
C) I used a stopwatch recently and discovered the number of minutes and seconds used to bombard us with a myriad of illnesses and diseases during one hour of afternon soaps, making us think that we have the illness. Was a good 20 minutes.
Especially unnerving are the "new" meds with clever, catchy names developed to treat us, with describing their long list of possible side effects to make sure that if we sue them it was OUR fault! They tell us...TAKE A PILL, and "it's" better or even cured.
We don't want to hear about possible (?) running out of our ears or drooling from the corner of your elbow if we take their allergy med during lunch or during supper hours.
D) And what's even more disgusting and irritating? The drug companies consider us ignorant enough to air the same commercials over and over and over.
"CALL NOW!!!!" Ever heard that command at the conclusion of a pitch to sell you everything from pet insurance to sweeper mops to magic car wax?...and has the price ever been anything but $19.95?...and that they'll send you double, even triple your order of products if you call within the next 17 minutes? Shipping and handling, of course, will be EXTRA....how much extra?
E) Lowell "The Hammer" Stanley, too. If you've missed either on any TV station, you must be watching HBO or STARZ, if you have the set turned on. By the way, there's a NEW Lowell "The Hammer" Stanley! What suddenly happened to the "old" one?

3- MY VERY FIRST NOVEL!

The Serpentine Bond!: after writing over 110 essays for a local newspaper in Williamsburg, Va., dozens of State and national magazine articles and now research articles on "The Stone House Mystery" and the W&M student, Joseph Shelton Watson, who sent aloft Virginia's first hot-air balloon in 1801 (Toano-Norge Times), this educator has spent the last handful of months creating and composing, from boxes of notes over the past few years, my very first novel and I'm 'cited.
My last chapter, chapter thirty-four, has been ALMOST completed, with 600+ pages...WOW! Am in the process of putting all of it into WORD, rewriting ever so slowly as I go. That 34th chapter is a biggie, with lots of technology used to create a final "big BOOM" at the end. But the even bigger biggie is which one of the 7 bonded chums "done it!"
Seven students meet their first day of studies at a large, well-known Southern university. They form a bond of trust, with time and weekends, for four years of adventures that will influence millions of college readers, or those who did go to college and any reader looking for a book that they will not want to put down once begun.
They discover a "secret garden sanctuary" on the old campus, surrounded by a serpentine wall that is one-brick wide, and was uniquely and intelligently designed by the famous founder of the university. In this garden sanctuary, they often meet in the evenings to chat, debate and share their thoughts and lives...and bond even further over a span of four years.
This writer has discovered, like others, that the secrets to a great novel include telling a neat story!...real, relating characters!...adventures galore!...respecting of both coeds and collegians!...humor!...romantic thinking!...and a bit of mystery to close in on the seven after they graduate and go onward and upward in their careers. Oh, and plenty of ADVENTURES!
The late evening the night before they graduate has them coming together in their santuary garden for their very last time, with plenty of bubbly. As the friends talk and drink of the bubbly, no names are mentioned. And one keeps adding comments about their challenge and intent to show American society the error of its ways, with a hell of a "bang" to finalize the intent to prove a point all across America.
Ten years later, after each of the seven has earned distinctions in their related fields, one of them is actually putting that diabolical plan of action into use to make American society come to a halt! But which one? No one knows...one bonded friend is lying, and the race is on to stop the one doing it...but which one?
My first draft of SB has almost been completed. The final draft is being placed into WORD, polishing as I go. You WILL like the seven collegians, three guys and four coeds, their many ADVENTURES at the university and the intelligent, stimulating dialogue, confabs in their sanctuary garden and #37 room along the colonnade!! Fizz from New Hampshire...Rockwell from Virginia...Tabbi from Montana...Trent from sunny California...Butt from Texas...Rain from New Orleans...and Kaipo from Hawai'i.
A second novel, Meet Me at the Wild Cherry Tree! is being planned and plotted out in my sparetime, also, and is a bit shorter at 300 pages+)---it's a romantic "fairy tale"!, a L-O-V-E tale, with possibly a bit of intrigue.....squire