Basketball as the light fades....

I just went outside on our back porch and realized that the kids in the house next door were out in the driveway playing basketball.

Memory flooded back of playing basketball in our yard as a kid as the light faded.

My father found someone to put up a basket in our yard (he wasn't 'handy' and could have never done it himself--by the way, I found someone to put up a basket for my son, since I'm not 'handy' either) and my friends and I played for hours and hours every day there wasn't any snow on the ground--and sometimes when there was, with a heavy, cold basketball.

Danny Taylor, Billy Bridgeman, Kyle Parks, Bobby LaFon, Jo-Jo Tagnesi, Bennie Graham, others too, wore out the grass on our lawn and played basketball for hours and hours in the summer--nothing else to do in Anawalt.

Who didn't play with us were any Black kids. Though McDowell County, West Virginia was the only county in the US, outside the deep, deep South, to have a 50/50 Black/White population, we were segregated to the extreme.

I only knew two black people by name: Gene and Nora--Gene worked in my uncle Russel's grocery store and Nora was his housekeeper. Amazing how you don't know the names of half the people around you....Oh, I did know the names of a couple of Black guys who hung around my Uncle Del's Esso station. Russel and Del seemed unfazed by the segregation.

And as the light faded, Danny and Billy and Kyle and Bobby and Jo-Jo and Bennie and I would play basketball.

And in other places Black boys would play basketball as the light faded.

Ted Cruz for President

Donald Trump and Ted Cruz are the first two to start a campaign.

This couldn't get any better.

Bring in the clowns.

This is going to be so much fun.....

OK, OK...

WVU  just beat Maryland to advance to the Sweet Sixteen in the NCAA basketball tournament. They won by 10.

Now they get to play Kentucky--undefeated and supposedly unbeatable.

Let's try out the power of prayer, alright?

Pray for Bob Huggins and his team as hard as you can and if they beat Kentucky we'll know for sure that there is a God.

That's worth trying, right?

You'd never know it from what I write

You'd never know it from what I write in this space but I grew up being a potential Republican.

My father never, to my knowledge, voted for a Democrat in a time when West Virginia was a solidlyl 'Blue' state (though that terminology wasn't around back then). And, for a time, as a teen, I was a big Barry Goldwater fan. I even spray painted a building in Anawalt--my only foray into graffiti--with "AU H2O". I should have gotten in trouble but my father and his two brothers were all significant people in our little (500 people) town, so I got away with it.

Then, in a debate, Goldwater (who to me at the time seemed to represent a quasi -libertarian point of view that was attractive to my high school brain) said he would privatize the Tennessee Valley Authority and he lost me. Southern West Virginia got their electricity from the TVA and I suddenly realized I was a socialist leaning, left-wing Democrat.

After that, my father and I had heated discussions about politics. It was my adolescent rebellion to declare myself a Democrat.

And like him, from the other side, I've never voted for a Republican.

And, at this point in history, I'm proud of that.

Republicans want to take healthcare from 11,000,000 people, many of them children.

Republicans want to cut back drastically on Food Stamps.

Republicans (many of them) are Climate Change deniers.

Republicans seek to block the right to vote for millions of Americans.

Republicans want to block a treaty with Iran over nuclear power and weapons (even as Iran is one of the countries most involved in opposing Isis.)

Republicans want the tax code to favor the rich.

Republicans are opposed to raising the minimum raise, a woman's right to choose and equal rights for GLBTQ folks.

Republicans would put boots on the ground again in the Mid-East.

Republicans would back Israel no matter what (refusal to stop settlements and opposition to the Two State Solution not withstanding).

And I come from a Republican family.

My father wouldn't recognize the current Republican/Tea Party group as "Republican" at all. He was an Eisenhower, Rockefeller, Brooke Republican.

"Who are these people?" he would ask, if he could.

I ask the same thing. Is this really one of the two American parties or something else altogether?

Goldwater wouldn't recognize this fiasco as his party. I'm sure of that.

God help us....

Appalachian 'food group'

I've eaten a 12 ounce tub of Pimento Cheese in the last 4 days. Probably more than is healthy since the tub tells me it is 12 servings and each serving has 20% of a day's fat intake and 140 calories (120 from fat). So, I've had 3 servings a day for four days. Not good....

But I was so excited when I found Pimento Cheese in the cooler next to row upon row of hummus (a much healthier choice!) that I couldn't resist.

Pimento cheese, along with gravy, was a food group where I come from. When we go to the beach in September, Sherry Ellis (who's from South Carolina) always stocks up on Pimento cheese and she and I (out of the 6 people in the house) eat it all.

Pimento Cheese is basically mild cheddar cheese, shredded, and mayo with whole eggs and some sugar and pimentos as an afterthought.

I've justified my binging on it by having eaten most of it with either gluten free, no wheat crackers or Pecan nut-thin crackers. The last bit I added some Pecante sauce to make it a tad healthier.

Pimento Cheese in New England--what an unexpected respite from the chill....

(Someday I'll write about gravy....)

Yes! Yes!

One reason I think people love March Madness is how close the games are. With a quarter of the first round games yet to be played, 9 have already been decided by 3 points or less. Exciting.

Which makes WVU's 6 point win over Buffalo a blow out.

WVU plays Maryland for the dubious opportunity to play Kentucky.

I think West Virginia's odd full court pressure all the time might weird out Kentucky, the overwhelming favorite to win it all.

I'll keep my fingers crossed for Sunday's game.

Where's Calvin's grave? I bet you could hear him spinning....

The Presbyterian Church USA (God bless them!) changed their Constitution to define 'marriage' as a lifetime union between 'two committed people'.

The church of Calvin has endorsed gay marriage!

The Roman Catholics embracing birth control would have been less shocking.

Now here is something to ponder: why have the rights of GLBTQ folks (they insist on "Queer", a way of making something insulting honorific--a brilliant strategy in 'branding') so quickly taken hold when Blacks and Hispanics and Women are still fighting for full equality?

Examples of rampant racism and sexism still abound and gay folks are becoming, every day, more mainstream. Presbyterians, for goodness sake!

What is up with that?

Why are women, more than half the population, still struggling while gays (10% at most--probably less) are earning rights left and right?

And our racial minorities--soon to be the 'majority' in this country...by 2020 or so...--are still seeking total inclusion.

I'm not sure what it's all about. Something about how we all 'know' or are 'related to' someone who is GLBTQ while we're not related to racial minorities.

But what about women? We all know and are intimately related to women. So why do they still get paid less and have to endure sexual harassment and feel 'second class'?

Because Men are still in charge?

Something there to ponder long and deep.

Men.