I'll be home for Christmas

My Dad died at home on December 24, 2006 shortly after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Mom carried on with cheerful determination for a little over eight years until her passing on January 12 of this year. Naturally, I miss Mom and Dad greatly, as many of you miss your parents this Christmas, and I will remember mine today with a true Christmas story Mom told us when I was a child.

My Dad was drafted into the US Army after Pearl Harbor. He thought his flat feet would disqualify him medically but he was pleased when he passed the physical. Dad, who was a math whiz, had dreamt of being a West Point grad but he narrowly missed winning an academic competition for the places allotted to one of Alabama’s US Senators. Instead, Dad attended Auburn and earned his degree in Education, the least expensive course of studies offered, as his family couldn’t afford to pay the tuition for the School of Engineering. It all worked out, however, as he got a job teaching math at Coffee High in Florence, Alabama and met my Mom who was teaching Home Ec. They were married at the end of his first year at Coffee on June 15, 1941. The Japanese surprise attack came less than six months later on December 7.

Dad’s military career was rather complicated. Leaving out myriad details irrelevant to this story, Dad was sent to Officer Candidate School (OCS) and came out a Second Lieutenant, though not without a few misadventures. He opted to join the Quartermaster division of the Army Air Corp (later the US Air Force), which trained him and sent him around the country to a series of posts ranging from Atlanta, Georgia to Russell, Kansas and points in between. Military policy allowed my Mom to accompany him on his travels and live in the officers’ quarters of the various bases. However, after a number of false alarms, Dad finally received orders in late 1943 for an assignment that was remote, obscure and safe (as long as the troop ship he sailed on didn’t get sunk by a submarine) in, of all places, India. (I must mention here that my Uncle Alfred Scott, his only sibling, by complete coincidence, also was sent to India, where he and my Dad were occasionally able to get together and play tennis).

It was getting close to Christmas when the wives of the officers who were shipping out packed up to return to their homes for the duration of the war. All of them were worried, and justifiably so, about their husbands getting back alive and whole. My Mom and a group of her friends met at a café to share a meal prior to departing. As Mom described it to me, someone went over to the jukebox and the song that came up was Bing Crosby’s “I’ll be home for Christmas.” As you can imagine, every one of the officers’ wives burst into tears. Mom told this with a smile, which would not have been the case, I’m sure, had my Dad not been one of the fortunate ones who came home unscathed.

Of course, without Dad’s safe return, I wouldn’t be here to tell Mom’s story and all the ones that followed, a host of small, personal events of little significance to anyone but our family. Children grow up and leave the nest but the imprint of home on the heart is indelible. The meaning of Christmas changes with the pitiless advance of time but in the deepest reaches of the psyche something pure and simple remains, even when all that’s left are two surviving siblings and a modest house rich in stories whose days in the family are surely numbered. It’s December 25 and as long as memory holds steadfast,

“I’ll be home for Christmas, if only in my dreams.”

Another dream about my mother

I went back to sleep around 6am and had another dream where my mother was very old and weakened and I was trying to take care of her. We were at the house in Athens getting ready to have breakfast. She was eating something like cold soup or cereal with berries in a bowl. It seemed she wasn't eating much, causing me mild concern, so I added more from a jar into her bowl. Then, I thought about how we used to have orange juice in the morning. I commented she didn't have it regularly like she used to. I was thinking about seeing if there was some in the refrigerator we could have. Then I noticed my mother had painted strange designs on her face and the back of her head with yellow paint (perhaps tempera), the outline of a heart all around her face and painted over facial features, eyes, mouth and lines elsewhere. It reminded me of something a remote tribe living in the Amazon might create. Perhaps it was more like a child's crude art work. I thought this was odd but I accepted it as a manifestation of her confused and frail state.

I've had similar dreams periodically over my adult years with my father and Grandpapa Scott after their deaths. The recurring theme is the old parent or grandparent is in very precarious physical and mental condition but I'm acting as if this is just the normal state of things.

The feeling of these dreams is the old person will go on forever despite the toll the years take on body and mind.  It's as if everything will continue like an integral approaching infinity but never reaching it.

Darth Cheney

What should we make of the fact Dick Cheney identifies with Darth Vader?

Thoughts on the firing of Coach Mark Richt

To begin with, my opinion on this subject doesn’t matter. I’m not a donor to the UGA Athletic Department, much less a big one. I have no ambition to, nor delusion that I could, influence the decisions made by the movers and shakers who call the shots in an athletic department with an annual budget of $99,850,000, some $24M (yes, that’s million) of which was allocated to the football program for the last fiscal year. I am, however, a lifelong fan of Georgia Bulldog athletics, especially football. I started attending University of Georgia football games when I was around five years old. My Dad was a UGA prof and he bought season tickets for himself, my Mom and me. I have pleasant memories of the smell of cigar smoke in the autumn air and the bright colors of certain uniforms, our red jerseys and silver helmets, Kentucky’s blue and white and a game against the Citadel where Georgia pretty much ran them off the field. I’m a pretty good web searcher but it took a few minutes to look up the specifics. The game took place November 22, 1958 and Georgia won 76-0. I vaguely remember the great Fran Tarkenton playing when Wallace Butts was the coach. Fran, a successful businessman and former NFL quarterback who played in several Super Bowls (but never managed to win any) recently called for Coach Richt to be fired for failing to win the big ones.

I clearly recall Johnny Griffeth’s years as head coach. They were not memorable years from the standpoint of winning. At some point Mom stopped going to games and later, Dad did, too. But, I never stopped, even later on when I was a high school hippie who would rather play guitar in a band than worry about grades. We still had two season tickets for a number of years, I can’t say how many. Back in those days you could go to all the basketball and baseball games on the same season tickets. Talk about being an old timer.

I do remember being excited that Georgia AD Joel Eaves had hired an up-and-coming young coach from his old school, Auburn. I saw Vince Dooley for the first time at a 1964 UGA basketball game with my best friend, Ben Anderson. I attended those, too, at “The Barn,” decrepit old Woodruff Hall located down around Stegeman Hall, I believe. Neither one of those venerable buildings is around any more, of course, replaced long ago by newer and more beautiful ones.

We also went to baseball games, played right next door to our elementary school, David C. Barrow. Ben and I went over after school and sold Cokes to the few people in the stands. It seemed like a bit of a racket, getting paid to go to a ball game. When Coach Dooley arrived, the football team improved right away, although it took a while for Georgia to gain real respectability like Alabama, Oklahoma, Texas and Notre Dame always had. But they were my Dawgs, win or lose.

A favorite memory along the way is listening to the Georgia-Miami game at night on WSB radio when our Larry Rakestraw outdueled their much more illustrious George Mira in an aerial shootout. But there were lots of other great moments. I must certainly mention being at Sanford Stadium to witness the immortal flea-flicker, Moore to Hodgson to Taylor, that set up a 2-point conversion to beat Bear Bryant and Alabama in 1965. I mean, we actually beat Bama straight up! Ah, yes.

My first trip ever to New Orleans was to see Georgia get humiliated by Pitt in the 1977 Sugar Bowl. Pitt ended up national champs that year (the last time for them, by the way), with a team featuring quarterback Matt Cavanaugh and Heisman Trophy-winning running back Anthony Dorsett as well as an outstanding defensive unit. Georgia gave the ball away 6 times- our guy went 3-22 with 4 interceptions! No wonder Vince hated to throw passes. My best friend from college and I went down to Bourbon Street to console ourselves and spotted Mr. Dorsett signing autographs in a floor length fur coat. Fortunately, Coach Dooley didn’t get fired afterwards, as he would have been today, long before making it 24 years as head coach.

I was in grad school in West Virginia when Georgia finally won his first and our last national football championship, the only one during the Dooley era. Having Herschel Walker running the ball helped immensely in reaching this high point. The friend I went to the Sugar Bowl with later named his dog Herschel and his first daughter Lindsay, as in “Run, Lindsay, run!” I got to see that play on TV, watching with a grad school pal who had attended UF, haha! I even got to see Herschel live-and-in-person once while I was on internship in Jackson, MS. Another intern who was in the UGA psychology doctoral program and I decided to drive up to Oxford for the 1981 Ole Miss game. The god-like Herschel ran 41 times for 265 yards that day. Go Dawgs!

I won’t revisit all the intervening years except to mention that living away from Athens, I occasionally managed to see a game when I was visiting my parents in Athens. And I was always glad when there was a night game; because, anywhere in the Southeast, I could listen to the Voice of the Bulldogs, Larry Munson, doing the play-by-play in his unforgettable and inimitable doomsday style. “Get the picture… Dawgs moving from left to right… the clock is ticking down on Georgia’s hopes… We need a miracle now… Dawgs win! Dawgs win… See the Sugar falling from the sky…We just stepped on their face with a hobnail boot and broke their nose!” I would listen to Larry for day games, too, when WSB was in range, turning the sound down on the TV if the game was being carried. This was back before cable- now every game, no matter how insignificant, is televised. Munson grew old calling the Dawgs’ games and had to retire at age 85 following the brilliant 2007 season.

After Dooley retired from coaching following the 1988 season to become AD, things never fell into place for any length of time. His most successful successor through the 2000 season was Mark Richt’s immediate predecessor, Jim Donnan, who won two-thirds of his games including 4 straight bowls but couldn’t beat Tech or win the SEC. There may have been other reasons- Donnan was later indicted for allegedly running a Ponzi scheme although he was acquitted at trial. Dooley finally hired a winner in not quite 41-year old Mark Richt, offensive coordinator under the ultrasuccessful Bobby Bowden at Florida State University.

Coach Richt, or CMR as he came to be known, brought success quickly. In his second year, we defeated Arkansas to take the SEC championship, beat Mark’s old boss Bowden and the Seminoles in the Sugar Bowl, and finished 13-1 with a #3 ranking. During the Richt years, I was able to see a few games against LSU in Baton Rouge where I’ve lived since 1982 and others when I was home in Athens. One was that devastating loss at Tiger Stadium where Georgia came into town favored over an LSU squad coached by Nick Saban (whom LSU fans sometimes refer to wistfully as Nick Satan). My youngest daughter, who later graduated from UGA, shared the heartbreak with me that day.

Our quarterback that day was David Greene, the first of a series of outstanding passers (later ones including D. J. Shockley, Matthew Stafford and Aaron Murray) who led the Dawgs to SEC Championship games, major bowls and final rankings as high as #2 in 2007, the year of the black jerseys and the infamous endzone celebration against Florida. That one resulted in a big win over Tim Tebow and hostile officiating against us for the next couple of years, as well as the undying hatred of Urban Meyer. Oh, well. My oldest daughter was my date to the Sugar Bowl that year where we enjoyed the dismantling of previously undefeated Hawaii. In retrospect, that was the apex of the Richt era as, unfortunately, the loaded 2008 unit underperformed and two offensive stars. Stafford and Knowshon Moreno, left early as first round NFL draft choices.

This was the start of a negative trend Richt’s teams never quite broke out of. Things were up and down from there with the most recent trend (19 wins the past two years pending a bowl game but no SEC East championships and a losing record against ranked teams) resulting in CMR being unceremoniously fired this morning, the day after we soundly beat our in-state arch-rival, Georgia Tech once more. As the Bulldog’s head coach, CMR was widely respected for being a gracious person and authentic Christian man who ran a clean program and sent numerous players on to successful NFL careers. Many ex-players have expressed gratitude for his influence and dismay at his firing and many fans were surprised, given four straight wins at the end to bring the Dawgs to 9-3.

But when the current AD made Richt fly commercial on a cross-continental surprise visit to the next prospective star quarterback commitment after that painful loss to the hated Gators, it should have been obvious what was coming. I have to think the coach got the message. I mean, can you imagine an AD telling that to Nick Saban or even Les Miles (who almost got fired yesterday, too)? I strongly recommend the next Bulldog coach get it in writing that all visits to prospects will be by private jet.

But big time football is a business. We all get that. In truth, CMR underperformed given the talent he recruited from the rich annual crop homegrown in the state of Georgia and studs we picked up elsewhere. A tipped pass at the end of the 2011 SEC Championship game probably kept him from getting that big crystal football every big time program covets and CRM never won. Failure to win the SEC East in three more tries drove the nails into the coffin.

So, we, the Bulldog Nation, move on and try to land the dream coach who will take us to the next level, all the way to the top of the pile. And keep repeating the process at least every 3 years or so. I recently expressed scorn to some Georgia ‘fans’ on fellow Barrow alumnus Bill King’s most excellent Junkyard Blawg, people who admitted openly they had “pulled for the opposition” this year in hopes we would lose enough games to get Richt fired. What kind of fan are you to want the other team to win? I asked. You can fire a coach with a very high winning percentage, I added, just ask Philip Fulmer. Turned out I was right, so there.

I had the thought this morning Les Miles and Vince Dooley might have made calls of condolence when the news broke. They certainly know how it feels to be viewed as yesterday’s news. In any case, I will still pull for the Dawgs to win no matter whom they sign up as the next head coach and no matter what his record is at game time.

But my enthusiasm is suffering right now and I wonder if it will ever recover fully. Personally, I would have given Coach Richt another year with strict expectations made known to all; and, even if it was somehow necessary to do what was done today, I believe the change could have been made in a manner that showed considerably more respect for a person who served the university and the Bulldog Nation admirably for the past 15 years.

OK, to be honest, true confession, I decided several years back I would not live or die depending on how the Dawgs come out on Saturdays in the Fall. I love to win and hate to lose but it’s really not all that important in the big picture, is it? To me, an old guy now, it’s more about enjoying the game, savoring the competition where young men in crisp red and black channel their aggression into a contact sport rather than fighting a rival gang on the street or engaging in other acts of violence and frustration, where kids get opportunities they would not otherwise have to shine and maybe even get a college education at a fine academic institution, where my Dad taught and I graduated prior to moving on in life. To me, it’s more about striving to achieve excellence with the guidance of a moral compass, about the community of Bulldog fans who appreciate the memories I alluded to here, it’s about an Athens tradition I grew up with, one that cuts across races and social niches, one that a lot of my old hippie friends don’t necessarily relate to but I do.

Enough, then. Good luck, Coach Richt, and thanks for making our football program one I was proud to support, win or lose. I for one will miss you. And, I don’t feel badly for you because I know you’ll be fine. But, today, I do feel badly for my school and my team.

Response to Rudy's article on dysfunctional use of social media

I have an Instagram account but I seldom look at it and haven't posted any photos. I'm already scattered enough! As in "real life," what we show the world on social media is a "persona," a performance of the role of ones social identity. I engage with Facebook to serve 3 major functions- giving and receiving social support, sharing stimulating items (e.g., music, humor, news, art) and sustaining an audience (my "fan base" haha) for my creative projects. I police my pages for stupidity and don't allow people to get ugly on them. My goal is for people to get something positive (a good feeling, laughter, encouragement, validation, a little wisdom) from my posts, to make a small contribution to a better world. I view "likes" as indicators of success in my posts, not as measures of my value as a person.  At times, I find myself habitually going to Facebook for no particular reason when I might be doing something else more meaningful or productive. When I catch myself doing this to avoid the stress of real life (which is one of the pitfalls), I try to step back and ask myself, "What do you really need to be doing right now, Owen?" 

At bottom

we want to be cared about. If we don't believe that's possible, we become sad and angry. If we don't believe we deserve to be cared about, we're ashamed.  We may become withdrawn and demoralized, resentful and passive-aggressive or we may seek vengeance in attacking others. If we believe we matter and significant others care about us, we're contented and happy. Isn't that simple?

Wanting to be cared about makes others important. Others wanting us to care makes us important.

Too much freedom?

I'm struggling with the fact I've entered a period of my life where I have few obligations and a wealth of options. When we feel forced to do things necessary for survival, we don't perseverate about whether to do this or that. Now I ask myself repeatedly each day, "What do I want to do with myself? What's the best way to use my time and resources given that the clock is ticking and it all counts?"

So, this morning, I am going to work on two psychological reports.

Thoughts in the night

I take 100mg of trazadone at bedtime, usually around 10pm. I become very drowsy lying in bed compulsively looking at stamp auctions on Delcampe and Ebay, trying to fill those elusive spaces in my used French colonial black Africa collection. Around 10:30, I finally close the Macbook, slip it under my bed so I don't step on it getting up, pull a leopard print sleep mask over my eyes and fall asleep. Around 2:30am I awaken with the need to urinate. Sometimes I return to bed and fall asleep quickly. Other times I lie awake practicing meditation with varying degrees of success. Although I've developed pretty fair mindfulness skills, I still have episodes of being awake for hours with seemingly random thoughts popping into my mind. Sometimes I can shift back to focusing on breathing and being in the moments and sometimes I forget I'm meditating until I've traveled through long chains of association. This happened to me last night and several other nights recently. A vast range of people, places, times, items of experience from books and TV and movies and internet articles has passed through my consciousness during sleeping hours in the past week. What are some of them? It's now 3:45 in the afternoon and I will have to think hard to see if I can remember exactly what I've been thinking about. I know in general I've thought about God and history and human civilization and sports, music, art, war, life and death. Ah, yes, I woke up at 230am thinking about the song "Anna" which the Beatles recorded for one of their earliest LPs. Was it a song written by John Lennon or a cover? I don't know that I ever knew. So, while I was awake I looked it up and learned the Beatles version is a cover of a minor hit by Arthur Alexander, a black R&B singer I've never heard of.

Keep it simple

My goal is to create simplicity and routine in my world. I want the objects I have to be organized and the structure of my days to be predictable. I don't want to continue enabling my adult children. I want to eliminate unnecessary spending and travel. I want to be where I am.

Nationalism trumps socialist solidarity

Idealistic socialist leaders in Europe hoped international solidarity among workers would prevent the Great Powers from going to war with one another. But when tensions came to a head, the overwhelming majority of socialists were caught up in war hysteria and signed on to the fight. Identification with a national group proved far more powerful than commitment to an abstract ideal.

Benito Mussolini was a mainstream socialist prior to the Great War. After gaining power, he gravitated toward nationalism and decided the masses were not intelligent enough to make democracy a viable model. Hitler formed the National Socialist Workers Party.

Generations of success

Looking back at my ancestors, John Scott (b. Jan 6, 1773), Alfred Vernon Scott (b. 1803), W. O. N. Scott (b. 1850), Frank K. Scott (b. Feb 13, 1888), WON Scott, II (b. April 22, 1917), and myself (b. July 13, 1952) have enjoyed peace and prosperity in the USA from before 1800 to the present. We were given favorable circumstances to work with and we took advantage of them.

Human success is about finding a niche.

I've been remarkably successful. I've lived safely and comfortably, avoided violence and other trouble with society, authorities and criminals, enjoyed health, prosperity and the respect of others, had the opportunity to express myself creatively as a therapist, musician and writer and ended up wealthy. Despite which I still struggle with frustration and a sense that life is unmanageable.

Limitation

The world is beautiful today and I'm free to enjoy it. And yet I'm so aware of the limits of my freedom and power. This is my dilemma.

ACTUAL SETS Sept 11, 2015 Pre-Party

Dr. Morpheus band (Owen Scott, III, guitar; Dave Herndon, guitar; Richard Burgess, guitar; Dave Stammer, bass; Terry Freeze, harmonic; Cal Hale, drums)

SET ONE (Golden oldies of the late 50s/early 60s, Jerry Hotard, vocalist)

Blue Suede Shoes/Honey Don’t/Matchbox (Carl Perkins) A (including Honey Don’t)

Let the Good Times Roll (BB King) G

Bring it on home to me (Sam Cooke/Sam & Dave)  C

Wipe Out (instrumental)/409/Barbara Ann (Beach Boys) Key of A

Chain Gang (Sam Cooke) C

Shake a Tail Feather (The 5 Du-Tones/Tina Turner/etc) G (Owen Scott, III, vocalist)

The magic moment (The Drifters) C

Don’t think twice, it’s all right (Bob Dylan)  D (Owen Scott, III, vocalist)

Stand by me (Ben E King) D

The Hippy, Hippy Shake (Swingin’ Blue Jeans/Georgia Satellites) A         

Cryin’ (Roy Orbison) D

Secret Agent Man (Johnny Rivers) E minor

https://youtu.be/wD-YR-3KmyE

SET TWO (mostly British Invasion set)

Zambo Flirts (Conner Tribble, vocalist)

            Around and around (Chuck/Stones) A

            Satisfaction (Stones) E

            I saw her standing there (Beatles) E

            Gimme Shelter (Rolling Stones) C# (with Jaclyn Steele, vocalist)

            Wagon Wheel (Bob Dylan/Darius Rucker) A

Dana Downs (vocalist)

            Superstition (Stevie Wonder) E

            Rock and Roll (Led Zeppelin) A

The Thrill is Gone (BB King) Bm

Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood (Animals) Bm (Owen Scott, III, vocalist)

All Right Now

Dana Downs

            Fire (Jimi Hendrix) (drum solo) D

The Winettes (Mimi DuBose, Peggy Corey, Penny Hodgson, Ann Segrest Freeze)

            Be my baby (The Ronettes) E

            The Locomotion (Little Eva) E

Encore (surely they will want more)

Back in the USA (Chuck Berry/Linda Ronstadt) G (Jerry Hotard, Owen Scott, III, the Winettes vocalists)

Postlude

The Star Spangled Banner