Month: November 2010

This story first appeared in the November 25, 2010, issue of The Trussville Tribune.

A book review is not generally the kind of thing I write, but I’m making somewhat of an exception here. I say “somewhat” because this isn’t totally a review. It’s partly a tribute to a friend.

I just finished reading Clyde Bolton’s memoir, Hadacol Days, A Southern Boyhood, and loved it. With each page, he drew me into the world of his youth, and I figuratively strolled along with him through the 1940s and 50s streets of Statham, Georgia. I didn’t just read Clyde’s book; I experienced it, and it gave me a different perspective on someone I greatly admire.

I first met Clyde over three-and-a-half decades ago when I was a high school junior and briefly dated the eldest of his three sons, Mike. The Boltons had just moved to Trussville into the beautiful custom-built house they still live in today, and Mike wanted to show it off. His mom, Sandra, rightfully excited about her new home, happily gave me a tour.

An aspiring writer even then, I was in awe of Clyde. I had seen his picture and read his articles on the sports pages of The Birmingham News ever since I could remember. I couldn’t have been more tongue-tied if Mike had introduced me to yet-to-be-impeached President Nixon.

I clearly recall standing in the Boltons’ den as Mike pointed upward at the loft where his dad wrote (and still writes), but I don’t recall climbing the stairs to it. Since I was feeling a little jittery in the presence of an individual I considered newspaper royalty, it probably would have been too much for me anyway.

But that connection ended abruptly when Mike stood me up for another girl after a high school playoff game in the Fall of ‘73, a move I’m tickled to say his dad now gives him grief for. When Mike visited me at college a couple of years later and told me “the other woman” had broken up with him, I couldn’t help but be pleased in a semi-vengeful sort of way… But I digress.

Even though I’ve known who Clyde is for decades, an actual friendship between us has evolved only over the past four or five years, since he and I have been serving on the city’s library board together. Not only do I feel fortunate to have a friend who is an encourager and an example to me as a writer, I also know that Clyde is one of those friend-to-the-end kind of guys who’s always willing to lend a hand when needed. I can only hope I’m half the friend to him that he is to me.

Now don’t take this wrong, but Clyde’s latest memoir is one of those books I kept putting down because I didn’t want to finish it. I wanted to savor it. I read it slowly over the course of a couple of weeks, even re-reading passages in order to squeeze every possible drop of goodness from Clyde’s descriptive prose. Since I’m the product of a small-town upbringing in many ways similar to the one he described, his “Hadacol Days” tales charmed me.

If any of my other author friends had written such a delightful book, I’d log onto e-mail and send a congratulatory note. But I can’t do that with Clyde. He doesn’t have e-mail. Heck, he doesn’t even have a computer, much less a cell phone or any other of those newfangled gadgets with which most of my friends communicate these days. He still uses a vintage Underwood typewriter (yes, the manual kind) to do his writing, and when he talks on the telephone, he uses an old-fashioned landline.

Clyde calls it being practical; I call it being a stubborn old goat that refuses to join the rest of us in the 21st Century. But between you and me, I think he’s probably got the right idea. And truth be told, I’d take a hundred more old goats just like him.

This story first appeared in the November 4, 2010, issue of The Trussville Tribune.

Are Jimmie and I the only people foolish enough to purchase not one, but two, of those converter boxes for our extra TV? When the television world converted to high definition digital format last year, we still had an old analog TV with rabbit ears in the bedroom. The only reason we ever turned it on was to listen to, more than watch, the morning news while getting ready for work. It helped keep us on schedule, and the weather and traffic reports often came in handy.

So wishing to retain the option of a TV in the bedroom but not wishing to pay an extra charge on the monthly cable bill for so little usage, we sent off for one of those government discount coupons that allowed us to purchase a converter box for twenty-five bucks. We came home from the electronics store believing we’d made a smart and thrifty purchase. Humph.

We quickly learned the darn thing was temperamental at best. Its ability to receive a signal was marginal, and we found it horribly choosy as to which signals it would receive at all. We might get Channel 13 one day and Channel 42 the next, but hardly ever both on the same day. It would also pick up an odd assortment of channels in between (the exact lineup seemed to change every few days), affording us the ability to watch half-hour infomercials twenty-four hours a day if we so desired.

The closest thing to a constant was Channel 6, so that’s usually the channel we tuned in to, whether we liked the programming or not. But even then, the reception was good only if it didn’t rain, the temperature didn’t drop below 40 or rise above 92, and the wind didn’t blow hard enough to stir dry leaves. In any of those instances, the picture disintegrated into a fuzz of color, and the sound became spotty. Try getting accurate weather and traffic information when all you can hear is every other word. It ain’t easy, let me tell you.

When things got really bad, the screen went black, and a bouncing blue “No Signal” box appeared. Sometimes the problem would correct itself; sometimes not. But that’s usually when I’d get frustrated enough to turn off the TV and flip on the radio.

As if all that weren’t aggravating enough, the irritating little device conked out completely in just over a year – a short lifespan, but plenty long enough to outlast the one-year warranty. Of course.

But from the ashes came hope. “We just had a bad box,” I naively told Jimmie. “Let’s go buy another one. I’m sure we’ll get a good one this time.”

So off we go to the electronics store again, where a salesperson finally located a lone converter box in crinkled packaging on the back of a stockroom shelf. That should have been a clue. But feeling fortunate to find what we were shopping for, we snatched it up, headed to the checkout – and paid fifty bucks for what we’d previously paid twenty-five.

“It’s still cheaper than cable in the long run,” I doggedly told myself. “And this box is going to work better than the old one.” I wasn’t ready to give up yet.

I optimistically watched Jimmie hook the new box up, and lo and behold it did work better. For about two days. When the same old stuff started again, I was disappointed but not really surprised. Somewhere deep in my heart, I knew we were fighting a losing battle the FCC and the cable company would eventually win.

For now, though, we’re hanging in there with the second converter box, even though we’re certain that about a month after the warranty expires, the box will, too. Then we’ll have to make a decision as to whether we’ll hook the bedroom TV up to cable or use it as a plant stand.

I’m betting Jimmie will lobby for cable. He wouldn’t mind spending the money as much as I would.

I say stick a philodendron on that thing and turn up the radio.