Tag: memories

Sorry, wrong number

This morning I had a message from a business in Illinois. They were trying to reach someone who’d called them after hours and must have misspoken her phone number, giving them mine. It’s probably dorky, but I always return those calls to tell them they reached my number by mistake. At least it gives them a shot at trying again to connect with the right caller.

This morning I’m glad I did, because the person I talked to had the best Midwestern accent–she sounded a lot like Rose Nylund from “Golden Girls,” but she sounded even more like my late friend Steve R’s mother–super pleasant voice with a lilt, great phone etiquette. It made me happy just to talk to her.

Not a happy story

This story just broke my heart. Someone deliberately used lethal amounts of herbicide on Live Oak trees in Auburn, Alabama, that are estimated to be more than 130 years old. A person who called himself “Al” and a Crimson Tide fan claimed responsibility for the poisoning on a radio show. Whether or not this was really about a football rivalry, it’s a shameful and inexcusable act of eco terrorism.

If you read Three Fortunes in One Cookie, you may remember our nod to the wonderful heritage of the South’s Live Oaks. These majestic beauties have their own names and belong to their own society. There are rules and even laws governing how we treat them.

I hope whoever did this is found and punished. These trees aren’t just part of Auburn University’s football tradition. They are part of all Southerners’ hearts.


Tim in the Friendship Oak on the campus of the University of Southern Mississippi-Gulf Coast
in Long Beach in 2004.


Live Oak at the Menil Museum, Houston, Texas, 2007.


Live Oak at Becks on Westheimer, Houston, Texas, 2007.

Some found photos

For the longest time I’ve been sure I had a day of photos missing (from a 2008 trip). Last night I found them on the laptop and was able to copy them to my current desktop. (They may still be misfiled on my old PC as well. I’m an archivist’s nightmare.) That search and recovery was prompted by my wish for a specific Photo Friday shot.

All that reminded me of pulling photos from my old cell before I finalized my phone upgrade earlier this week. In doing so, I discovered a photo taken last August on a Craft Night. Margot had sequestered herself away from the rest of us in a crate (if she goes into Fort Emo under the bed, it’s not as effective, since then the rest of us don’t get to see how much she suffers). Tim reached into the crate to pet her (so she could pretend to hate the attention), and he fell asleep. I surreptitiously caught the moment with my cell phone. It always took the worst photos; the iPhone can only be an improvement.

Another beautiful day like this one…

It was a day this beautiful–clear and sunny in Tuscaloosa–on this date in 1986. I drove from That Other City where I’d been living, followed by Mr. Category 3 in his car. Both of our cars were full of my possessions because I was moving back to my favorite town–into the brownstone with the giant flying palmetto bugs where I was still living when I met Tom, so there were lots of good things in store for me, though it didn’t feel like it that day.

We got out of our cars behind ten Hoor Hall, where I was scheduled to teach, and Category 3 said, “Were you listening to the news?” I hadn’t been, and he told me about the Challenger breaking up after liftoff. I met with my students long enough to cancel classes that day, then he and I went to a barbecue place on the Strip–its name will come back to me in the middle of the night–because they had TVs there. That’s the day I fell in love with ABC’s Peter Jennings because he was so calming as he delivered information as it came in.

It was an awful day. I would eventually meet people who would tell me first-hand what it was like to be employed on January 28, 1986, by companies that helped build the shuttles, the SRBs, and the external fuel tank. I was working on a NASA team at Redstone Arsenal on September 29, 1988, when Discovery took the U.S. back into space. It was amazing to watch the launch with people who were so invested in its success.

Here’s my button from the Discovery launch:

A perhaps silly and random bit of happiness

You know how there are breakups, bad breakups, and then breakups that are so catastrophic to your nervous system that you wonder if you’ll actually survive?

I’ve had only one of those Category 3 breakups, and I remember a lot of being led around by other people in the aftermath. I made some dreadful decisions and choices and failed to do a lot of right things. But I did survive, and it was all so long ago that I rarely think about it anymore. I’ve had a lot of wonderful, intense life in the interim, and at some point everyone deserves to forgive herself for her stupidity and bad judgment.

Tuesday I discovered a certain TV show thanks to Netflix and while watching an episode or two of it, one of the actors kept tickling my memory banks. Then a name came to me, a name I hadn’t thought of in years and probably couldn’t have remembered if I’d tried. The actor in this show reminded me of a person I met during the post-Category 3 period.

One night friends took me to a bar–in Auburn, Alabama, of all places; boy, was I out of my territory–and I kept catching a tall, somewhat lanky guy watching me. He was cute and looked good leaning against the wall of the bar, beer in hand. Considering the breakup I’d just been through, however, my reaction was to ask my friends if we could leave. Immediately. Instead, they invited him to join us. And he was a super, super nice guy. Smart. In graduate school in one of the more mathematical/scientific fields. (I was a graduate student in English at the time–rival university, of course.) Anyway, we went out a few times, and there was no way he could avoid hearing some of my shell-shocked back story. And it was fine, because he was recently divorced. He hadn’t wanted the divorce. It was obvious he was still in love with her.

In time, he suggested that I might be getting too serious about him, and geography and where we both were in our lives made that not such a great idea. I could have laughed and told him there was no danger of that; I was still way too emotionally invested in the relationship I’d so recently lost. But sometimes it’s better just to go with grace; not all truths have to be told. So it ended gently, no hard feelings, not even a Category 1. I doubt that I’ve thought of him more than half a dozen times in the years since, and then always with gratitude that he was a gentleman who never said or did an unkind thing to me. He was a reminder that men of his caliber existed at a time when I needed to believe it.

When his name came to mind because of the TV show, on a whim, I googled him. It’s not an uncommon name, so I wasn’t too hopeful. But I found him almost instantly, including photos, because he’s part of a group of people drawn together by a somewhat adventurous, outdoorsy pastime, and one of those people blogs. And I was THRILLED when this blogger also mentioned Mr. Gentleman’s wife’s name–because hers IS an unusual name, and it lets me know that he and his ex got back together.

She must have realized he’s a keeper. I hope they’ve had years and years of happiness with each other.