UPDATE 2: Everything is better with Bacon

UPDATE 2: Rick's obit. HYSTERICAL. Read it here, or below.

NORTON!

The best boss I ever had, has died.
One of the best friends I ever had, has died.
A man who took to mentoring me and sometimes treated me like a stupid son, has died.
And one of the funniest human beings on the planet has died.
Rick Bacon.
A lot of time, people look around and say, "I owe him everything."
It's often just that. Something people say.
He plucked me out of one rural corner of South Carolina where I was just a reporter, asked me to come to his papers in Barnwell and Allendale and to do what I do best. Kick ass, in a journalistic sense.
He gave me generally free rein, and he always backed me up. Except for a couple of times, including the time he brought me into his office, told me to close the doors and then asked "Who the f--- I thought I was."
He was the last person to pay me a fair wage straight up, though not the last person to try to do so. So I have a toy or two, thanks to him.
But he had previously hired as an editor a woman named Patricia Larson. Transferred her to be a publisher in Winnsboro before I moved to Barnwell. But she came to Barnwell once a week for production work.
The guy who, inadvertantly, arranged for me to meet my wife, has died.
Without Rick, I guess I don't have Patricia. Without Rick, I guess I don't have our son as well.
He was always there for me, with a joke to cheer me up, with advice about a job that maybe wasn't going so well, to offer a reference for a new job, whatever kind I'd like. The truth, if that would help. A hedge, if it would not.
His lessons were very quick and deadly.
I don't remember when I talked to him after 9/11, but I was going on about the attack, about the Twin Towers, about how my cousins were nowhere near and of course safe.
Then he said, "Candy's sister and brother-in-law are OK."
Brought it quickly home. Candy's sister and brother-in-law lived in or around Washington DC. He was in the military and had, I think, a job at the Pentagon.
9/11 wasn't just about the attacks on New York, but being a native New Yorker, I see the attacks that way.
He would ask a question, you'd start talking and when he could get a word in edgewise, he'd say, "Let me ask that question in a different way." Then he'd ask that question the exact same way. to drive home the point. Listen.
I was remembering some of his stories. Many true. There was the radio host on the religious station in Burnsville, NC, where he worked, who, when reading the Bible and came across a word he did not know, would simply say, "Big word."
His BBQ hog call he used to do.
Sometimes he just got great moments out of pure luck. His last day on the job, when he left Barnwell to go to Lake City, Fla., he was just about to leave when a song came on the radio.
This song --

He came back for the first verse, than twirled and danced his way out the door. Even some of my co-workers who were cursing his name a month before were crying.
And laughing, at his timing and his little spin move.
Rick told me once that he sometimes stopped calling people who said they were friends, just to see how long it took for them to call with something other than a request for him to be a reference. It was a test.
I think that was part of the reason behind his abandonment of Facebook a while back. We have "friends" on Facebook. Friends we don't talk to in the real world anymore. It's too easy to count your friends and not be a friend you can count on.
I did my best to stay in touch. Usually we would have email exchanges, and that would prompt him to send me a message, in which he asked, always, for my wife's phone number.
I think he wanted to hear her voice.
In February, he asked me about my other favorite boss of all time, Mardy Jackson. Asked me if she had died of cancer. I am wondering now if that was a roundabout way of preparing me for what came in April.
April 14.
I have some work to do.

I received word a couple of weeks ago that I have lung cancer.

Met with the radiation oncologist Friday to decide on a regiment.
Meeting with chemo oncologist this Wednesday.

I’ve had several tests, but we are going to do another c/t scan, a pet scan, a brain scan and another biopsy to see if there has been any ‘spread.’

If not we have a curative plan. If so, it’s just a treatment plan.

I have a good attitude and am going to do everything they ask me to do to whoop it’s ass.

Fighting with cancer jokes of the week.

This weeks:

Why did the cancer patient cross the road?

So he could be hit by a truck.

Keep smiling.

You may call me:

Chemo-Sabe

I responded, rambling as a jerk, but trying to make him smile. I said we'd pray, of course, but I would do anything to help, particularly anything that would get me named his heir.

Little chance of that, though.

Ten more days passed, and he started a little column, for friends, that he would NOT post on the Internet as a blog, but just send to those he wanted to send it to. The title was based on a movie we both loved. From Miracle Max in the Princess Bride, he called it, "Have Fun Storming the Cancer."

There were to be multiple installments in which he detailed his attempts to kill cancer with humor.

There was just one more.

My sister was doing Relay for Life, because Dad died from his breast cancer returning last year. And we got a luminary for Rick. I emailed him a picture of it, and we talked back and forth via email a bit.

He sent me back a picture of that luminary posted above his desk at work. I also saw a picture of a county highway sign, that said, Yancey County, Shallow Gene Pool, No Diving.

He said someone made it up based on one of his jokes.

I sent him an email about a friend who got a job in the same building where he worked. As I expected he would, he told me to tell her to drop by.

But I also told him about these episodes of The People's Pharmacy on NPR devoted to cancer that he should probably check out.

He told me he had some unexpected pain.

"I think you are too worried about me," he wrote. That was July 21.

Not enough, apparently.

There was one more email, but it was totally nondescript.

Since he knew her first, it's only fitting that his last words to us went to Patricia, albeit to her voicemail.

"Mrs. Guilfoyle, this is Rick Bacon," he says, his voice sounding a little weak, a little shaky. "And I just wanted to tell you that's a heck of a Pope you've got now. He gives me faith that ... maybe all religion isn't all totally crap. Just wanted you to know that. Have a good day."

That was July 30. I get a kick out him calling her Mrs. Guilfoyle, for one thing. The pause after "He gives me faith that ..." makes me wonder. Was he, as normal, just going for the joke that followed? Or was he thinking about something else, but reverted to type because he wasn't quite ready to admit it to others.

Patricia told me she played phone tag trying to get back with him a bit.
That was, we learned, the day he learned that the treatment plan wasn't working. On Friday, Patricia got a few messages, one on Facebeook and one from Rick's son Jon, calling on Rick's cell phone, missing her, of course, but letting her know what happened the night of Aug. 7.
She called me, around 1:30, 2 on Aug. 8 to see if I had heard on my own. As I was just waking up to go to my night-time job, I had not.
Everything is better with Bacon. The afterlife, therefore, is better.

I was, and remain, stunned.

From the second linked story below. "A “Celebration to Remember” that Bacon planned before his death is scheduled from 1-3 p.m. Aug. 23 at Pier 41 Seafood in Lumberton. Bacon asked people not to waste money by sending flowers. Instead, he suggests those who want to remember him do a random act of kindness or donate to their favorite charity."

Story on Rick's death in the Richmond County Daily Journal.

County mourns the loss of Rick Bacon, from the Richmond County Daily Journal.

His obituary, in case the link doesn't work.

Richard Norton (Rick) Bacon 

  |   Visit Guest Book

LUMBERTON — Richard Norton Bacon (Rick) of Lumberton has left the building. His friends will tell you he's in a better place. The rest will say they can smell the Bacon burning. He is stress-free and at peace.

The curtain came down on Thursday night at Southeastern Regional Medical Center.

He is survived by his loving wife of 29 years, Candace Smith Bacon. He is also survived by his son Jonathan Bacon and wife Beth of High Point; daughter Melody Kearse of Rock Hill, S.C., and son Bryan Kearse and wife Liz of Raleigh. Five grandchildren made his life better with their visits.

Rick loved dogs. Trixie, Richie, James Brown Beans and Mr. Woo were the last in a long line of hairy hogs that shared his bed and his affection.

He was born in Auburn, N.Y., July 16, 1947, the son of the late Elizabeth Dunster Bacon and Frederick Neil Bacon. He was also predeceased by a brother, Ted.

He drifted south from upstate New York in 1962 to the mountains of North Carolina, where he graduated without honors in the class of '65 at East Yancey High School. After one undistinguished year at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Rick enlisted in the United States Air Force. He became a Morse intercept operator and spent two and a half years overseas in Turkey and Italy.

After another failed college attempt at Mars Hill College, Rick got his start in media at WKYK radio in Burnsville, N.C. From radio it was on to newspaper, where Rick spent 26 years publishing newspapers, moving from state-to-state looking for a town that would keep him. From Spruce Pine, N.C. to Barnwell, S.C. to Lake City, Fla., he survived buying a Buick LeSabre (the official car of geezers) and a heart attack that convinced him it was time to leave Florida unless he wanted to die young. He headed back to North Carolina to live and work in Rockingham and Lumberton, where he had a good life.

Rick was a Rotarian for over 25 years. He served as president of the Rockingham Rotary Club in 2012-13 and was proud of the work that Rotary did in the community and around the world. He was a two-time Paul Harris Fellow.

In March of 2014, Rick was diagnosed with lung cancer. He celebrated with yet another trip to a Cincinnati Reds game. If you knew Rick, you knew that he was a loyal Reds fan since the late '50s without ever living a day in Ohio. He often said, "There's no explaining taste."

Cremation will take place at the family's convenience and his ashes will be kept in an urn, passed from family member to family member until no one can remember what's in the jar.

Everyone who remembers Rick is asked to celebrate his life in their own way; telling a 'He wasn't so bad' or 'What an ass' story of their choosing. Boiled shrimp and a beverage of your choice should be part of any celebration.

Instead of flowers, Rick would hope that you will do an unexpected act of kindness for some less fortunate soul. Rick liked to buy food for the car behind him in the drive-thru lane, or a meal for a military couple (if he could do it without them knowing who paid). That's a lot cheaper than flowers.

A memorial luncheon in Rick's honor will be held at Pier 41 in Lumberton on Saturday, Aug. 23, 2014 from 1 to 3 p.m. at Pier 41 Seafood. Adult beverages will follow at widow Candy's house on Camellia Lane. To the crooks reading this: We left an armed guard and the four killer dogs home from the luncheon. If you come to steal, they will hurt you.​

Blast from the past: Flashing back to my baby's birth

I thought I was going to have Internet access at the hospital when my baby was born, but the maternity ward wasn't wired. I started a little log of what was going on -- while Patricia slept -- and played CDs on my laptop to give her something to listen to. But I never had time to follow up and finish. I don't know how long I intended to keep doing this. But it was a one-shot deal.

My lovely bride is, again, snoring. She’s always snored, but it’s gotten heavy with the pregnancy.
Eating for two – ha ha. Good joke. Everyone gets it, and laughs.
She’s been breathing for two for months now. It has put her respiratory system to the test.
We have spent a night of some pain, a bit of unease, and she reached the point of asking for “something” to take the edge off her pain. It was supposed to make her a little woozy, a little drowsy. But she’s out cold.
It is almost 9 a.m. on Friday, Sept. 22.
I have called my family, her family. I have to call her office and get a number to call her boss, let her know.
But our baby is coming. On the way. There’s been no backing out for months now. Never was any backing out, really.
But there’s REALLY no backing out now.

So this wonderful day started with a bit of a bad night. I expected her to be home when I was on my way home, but when I called, she was was still at work. I knew she had thought about going to see the doctor, so I asked if she had. She wanted to wait to tell me later, but I got it out of her.
Her blood pressure was a bit high, and she was cramping a bit more uncomfortably. She was not dilated, so the doctor was afraid of pre-eclampsya. He took some blood and told her to come back Friday.
She went back to the office and got down to finishing up the conversion of her templates from the 25-inch web templates to the 24-inch. Just an inch, but it takes a lot of effort.
I told her to come home, but she wasn’t home until like 9:30 or 10.
She was afraid she was having contractions. She also wanted to eat a bit. I made her an egg salad sandwich, because that requires all of 10 seconds of effort.
When we started timing her contractions, they were around a minute to a minute and half long, and about five to seven minutes apart. The “key” time is to be a minute long, five minutes apart, for an hour.
She'd had a few in the car just like the ones she was having now. And they were at the same level. I started running the watch.
We called the doctor, and he said if she wanted to go to the hospital, it was up to her. She wanted to sleep, and be with the dogs for a little longer. So we watched the Colbert Report, got a few laughs, and tried to sleep.
We went to bed about 1:30 p.m., She woke me about 4. She was ready. She had slept good for a while, but two good contractions had woken her.
It was hard leaving the dogs behind.
We were talking, going along at a good clip for a bit, but when a contraction hit, she said, “Are you at least going the speed limit?”
We triaged, and to both our surprise, Patricia was dilated between 3 and 4 centimeters. Wow.
On the way. The nurse who checked us in, Tia, said it was possible the doctor would send us home, but mostly likely, we’d be here and we’d be having the baby.
Tia got us into the room, but she actually got to helping another woman coming in whose water had broken. She got the woman into the room and the baby just came there. So Manuela came.
Tia had us walking the halls, which is supposed to help the dilation progress. We needed to get to at least 8 centimeters.
We had little progress during the night. At the 7 p.m. shift change, Tia came in and told us goodbye, and what had happened elsewhere in the ward that kept her away for a bit.
During one of our walks, we saw Dean, the guy who runs Fort Mil Automotive, who repaired Patricia’s A/C cheaper than the dealership. His wife was having a C-section.
Funny to meet someone you know.
By about 8 a.m., Patricia had had all the pain she could stand, so she wanted to get a narc. It ended up knocking her out. I made a few calls to Patricia’s work and her family, Tom and Susan.
I had called Catherine, then Anne, getting neither. Catherine called back, talked to me, then Patricia, then me again.
“Whee, we’re having a baby,” she said before hanging up.
(Captain's Log, supplemental, on June 9, 2007: WE?)
She said she was working but could get off by noon. Mom would come with her, it was decided. She called Mom. I expected Mom to call, but she didn’t.
Anne called. I’d left a message. She sang. I can’t even remember what, but it wasn’t one of my favorite songs. But to Anne, it will be the baby’s song for a while. Probably until he/she gets married.
Talked to Mom. She was praying.
Talked to John. He had the day off, and was going to come, do a couple of errands for us that we just didn’t get to. The bases for the baby's car seat needed installing. The dogs needed to be handled, either walked or taken to the Dirty Dog Depot. Probably the latter. And we need Patricia's work key taken to the office. Debbie either had the day off or got off, and is coming with him.
There is no internet access here, and I had promised a bunch of people they’d get an e-mail during the event. Sucks.
It’s almost noon. I need sleep. She will wake up soon, and we’ll see what we see.

Except for the spell check to correct, and the supplemental note in there, that's all that I wrote that night.
I didn't even make a note of what the doctor said when he came. The first one.
Or the bit about the actual doctor who came in and helped Patricia deliver. Her cellphone went off and started playing the Tiger Rag. The doctor didn't understand the horrified, murderous look on my face at first, but when she saw my USC Gamecocks shirt AND hat, she said, "Uh oh, I'm in trouble."
Patricia laughed pretty hard. I had to take my cell phone out, play the USC fight song and remove/exorcise the demon sounds. But I let her proceed.
Other than being a graduate of Clemson at some point in her career, it was actually a pretty good decision.
We had a few other funny bits, but I can't remember them right now, almost nine month later.
(Captain's Log, supplemental -- Here it is, the boy is 3 and a half, and I do remember a good bit. Once the baby was born, they held "it" up, and the doctor, the two nurses and my wife, the ladies, all, just kind of waited. Patricia said, "Well?"
(They had a written plan for what everyone is supposed to do, and one of my few meager tasks was to "announce" the sex of the child. They didn't explain that to me. I thought it meant, tell the world, later on. I thought it was a stupid job, because I didn't imagine Patricia would be making many calls, and I thought I sure would be.
(But that meant, announce in the delivery room. They were waiting on me to say what it was. And for a second, I blanked. There was some, you know, goo, in the area, so I couldn't actually tell.
("A boy?" I said, hesitantly.
(And it was.)

Duel.mov

The Cleveland Park train tragedy

Stephen Christopher at the helm of the Cleveland Park train. He was 2 years old at the time.

The train.

According to the Associated Press, the person who was supposed to have inspected the train last week falsified a report.

Agency says SC train ride inspector faked report
MEG KINNARD,Associated Press

COLUMBIA, S.C. — A state inspector falsified a safety report and admitted he never tested a children's train ride that derailed over the weekend, killing a 6-year-old boy and injuring dozens of others, officials said Monday.
Meanwhile, new details of the moments before the crash emerged, with witnesses saying it felt like the small train was increasing its speed just before it went off the tracks near a bridge. Officials have not said what caused the train to derail Saturday at Cleveland Park in Spartanburg, the northwestern part of the state. It was the train's first day of operation for the spring season.
Six-year-old Benji Easler died in the wreck, and his parents and siblings were also injured, along with 25 other children and adults onboard. The injuries ranged from bumps and bruises to broken bones. Some of the children were taken away on stretchers.
Many of those onboard the train were members of Corinth Baptist Church, where Easler's father is pastor. A youth minister who is acting as spokesman for the crash victims said church members told him they felt the small train speeding up.
"All of my people said the train got faster and faster," the Rev. Nathan Ellis said. "They felt like it was increasing in speed and something was wrong."
The ride was supposedly tested last Wednesday by state inspector Donnie Carrigan, but he came forward after the accident to admit falsifying a report in which he marked the train's operation at proper speed as "satisfactory," according to Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation chief Catherine Templeton.
Carrigan, a 20-year agency employee who has been fired, said he didn't test the ride March 16 because its battery was dead, making it inoperable, according to Templeton.
"Unfortunately the inspector did not complete his job," Templeton said.
Templeton also said Carrigan's national certification had lapsed, and he would have been required to attend a retraining session in late April with six other LLR employees.
As soon as agency officials learned of the crash, Templeton said Carrigan came forward and admitted he had filed a complete report but had not done a thorough inspection.
"We are very sorry for the tragedy," Templeton said. "I don't have any reason to doubt this man's character."
A working phone listing for Carrigan could not immediately be found.
The Easlers are both natives of Spartanburg and are still setting funeral arrangements for Benji.
"They're just grieving the loss of their son," Ellis said. "They're healing from their injuries. The physical wounds will heal."
Ellis said church members were praying for everyone involved.
"It doesn't matter what happened. The details of what happened are not going to change the outcome and the results we're facing now," Ellis said. "Benji's life is going to change other people's lives. ... I hope lessons can be learned, but we don't hold any ill feelings or ill will toward any of those people."
Earlier Monday, hospital officials said the train's driver had been released from a hospital.
Also at the news conference, Gov. Nikki Haley pledged her support for the crash investigation, which is being handled by the Spartanburg Public Safety Department and the South Carolina Highway Patrol.
Public Safety Capt. Art Littlejohn said authorities were still reviewing witness statements and 911 calls.
___
Associated Press writer Seanna Adcox contributed to this report.

Some thoughts. My son has had wonderful fun on this train. I don't think the inspector caused this tragedy, but he might have prevented it.
I don't want this tragedy to take away something that brings joy to children. Heck, I rode on it and had a good time.
But I also don't know if I can take my son to the park again. Not soon.
My heart goes out to the families.

It's on

The Gamecocks are fighting the Auburn Tigers today at the Georgia Dome for the SEC Championship. Some days, never thought this day would come.
Awesome, baby. Awesome.
4 p.m. on CBS if you want to watch what might be history.

1984 Fulton Call USC vs. Notre Dame

1984 Fulton Call USC vs. Notre Dame

COLUMBIA, S.C. | No. 1 Crimson Tide falls 35-21 to South Carolina | The Herald - Rock Hill, SC

COLUMBIA, S.C. | No. 1 Crimson Tide falls 35-21 to South Carolina | The Herald - Rock Hill, SC

Some history of The Horseshoe, site of Gameday this weekend

SOUTH CAROLINA GAMECOCKS Blog - SOUTH CAROLINA GAMECOCKS University Official Athletic Site


The Gamecocks will be hosting No. 1 Alabama on Saturday on CBS. Gameday will be coming to The Horseshoe to originate its broadcast. Gameday is the biggest thing in college football news these days, some say unfortunately.
It will be a big day, but not the biggest day on the 'Shoe.
On Sept. 11, 1987, Pope John Paul II stood on a stand outside the President's House and told the jammed assemblage of students packed into the sealed-off Horseshoe, "It is good to be young. It is good to be young and be a student. It is good to be young and a student at the University of South Carolina."
I remember good times on the 'Shoe.

What she saw on Good Friday

My wife just pasted this on Facebook:
Patricia Larson Guilfoyle: Just saw someone playing Jesus walking down Hwy. 160 in Fort Mill. it's Good Friday, all right!
I, being a smart ass, had a reply at the ready: How do you know it was someone playing Jesus? Could it have been ... Himself?

Remember what happened when the Irish priest got through to the Vatican, told the Pope, "I'm not crazy, but the Lord Jesus himself has returned and he's walking down the main street. Tell me what to DO!"
And the Pope says, "Look busy."

By the way. I like Jesus' sneakers.

My wife's new job

I'm going to have to update the home page of my old website, that this blog is someday to replace.
It has the Fort Mill Times on it.
Anyway, Patricia is now editor of The Catholic News & Herald, the newspaper of the diocese of Charlotte.
She sent me an e-mail about a "daunting" aspect of her new job.
She had to edit a piece from 1750 words to 450. So you ask, "So?"
The writer is the Pope. 
I e-mailed her back, saying, "What's so daunting about editing the Bishop of Rome, the Vicar of Jesus Christ, the Successor of the Prince of the Apostles, the Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church, the Primate of Italy, the Archbishop and the Metropolitan of the Roman Province, the Sovereign of the State of Vatican City, the Servant of the Servants of God?"
Everybody needs an editor, my old senior editor Phil Hudgins used to write. 
I mean, the pope doesn't write his column while sitting on the Holy See, see?
(That would denote he is speaking, or writing, ex cathedra, or infallibly.)

Anyway, it was tough for her to leave her old gig behind.

Patricia's passion was the paper

It was with a lot of soul-searching that my wife, Patricia Larson Guilfoyle, decided to take another job.
She will probably add this letter to the things for which she wants to kill me, but she’s also, to a fault, someone who will keep things inside way too much, not wanting a fuss.
More than 11 years ago, she came to Fort Mill to take on the position of as publisher-editor of the Fort Mill Times. She thought it a good job, a step up from where she’d been. She thought the paper needed some help, and she had the skills to do what needed to be done. It was within her professional reach.
One of the things she thought the paper needed was a restored sense of presence in the community. To do that, she threw herself into several different activities and groups, including the Fort Mill Rotary Club, the chamber, the downtown association. She kept herself pretty busy.
She brought the paper around financially, and advanced it to where it was profitable, and also again one of the most awarded, respected large weeklies in the state of South Carolina. She ended up in more than one leadership role in those clubs, and also worked her way up to becoming the president of the S.C. Press Association. All at a very young age, I might add.
If one simply looks at her resume, she is one hell of a journalist and one hell of a businesswoman.
But her job in Fort Mill, from the earliest stages, became more than just a job.
She took on other assignments from her company because her company needed her skills. She did all those other jobs to the best of her abilities, and she did them well.
But it was always the Times and Fort Mill Township that had her heart.
Over the years she would introduce me to several people. Old guys, mostly. They all flirted with her; she tried her best to flirt back. Never anything serious in the conversation as I watched, but once they left, she’d tell me of the respect she held for those men. They are of that Greatest Generation and they are the men who built Fort Mill into something. Many are forgetting those men. But she never did, and always made a point to get them in the paper, to point them out to me.
It’s without a doubt, if she could have remained simply as the publisher of the Fort Mill Times, and been able to do her job the way she wanted it done, the difficult decision she made to leave would probably have been impossible. But her decision also has a lot to do with our family and her desire to find more time to spend with our son.
So, she made a hard choice. She worked about 60 hours her last week with the Times and parent company McClatchy, finishing up Jan. 29. She started her new job Feb. 1.
Because she won’t, I would like to let you know, on her behalf, how much she loved her time with the paper, how important all the readers were to her, and how much she loves Fort Mill. She’ll miss it, greatly.
Her new position is in North Carolina, but that doesn’t mean we’re leaving.
We’re staying right here, because she loves it, and she’s taught me to love it as well. This is a place that gets under your skin, in a good way.
On her behalf, I’d like to thank the readers of the Times for 11great years.
Stephen Guilfoyle

Saving pennies, losing customers

So my mother is a subscriber to the Herald-Journal in Spartanburg, S.C.
Like any newspaper in the country right now, it's having to face some tough financial times as advertising revenues dwindle.
There is a lot of navel contemplating in the news industry, even back in the good ole days. And I don't want to add to it. But there's something that hasn't gotten a lot of attention lately.
The big chains are having to make a lot of difficult choices. Some have filed for bankruptcy. Others have gone to web-only models, or web during the week, with a strong weekend edition, a Sunday. That's an interesting one.
But it seems like the bigger they are, the harder they are falling.
They are also doing things that other businesses have tried.
And so here comes Mom.
She would be described as a loyal newspaper reader. She wants to get her paper and have it be a PAPER. She wants something she can hold in her hand.
Apparently the paper switched the carrier on her route, however. Because when she gets her paper, more often than not, it's a mess.
She has a newspaper tube. She's had it for years.
But the carrier most of the time drops the paper at the end of the driveway. The tube is old, and there's a bush. But it's not invisible. After the first complaint about the paper being dropped in the driveway, it should have started going in the tube.
Sometimes it is in the tube. But we've had some heavy rain off and on over these past few months. The paper she gets, too often, is not in a bag. Even a couple that have been bagged have not been tied. So with unbagged or untied bagged papers in the rain, what does she get?
She gets a wet paper. Sometimes it's just a little damp. But sometimes it's a soggy mess.
One time, it was dumped, unbagged and came apart. My mom's paper scattered all over the neighborhood. The neighbors weren't too mad, the ones with subscriptions. That happened to them at other times.
The person running the newspaper route doesn't care.
Someone once said the very basic thing a newspaper can do is deliver a clean dry paper on time that's full of interesting things to read.
I won't speak for whether the Herald-Journal has anything interesting to read in it. As I said, my Mom wants the paper.
But she's getting fed up. The real problem isn't just a carrier who doesn't give a damn.
The Herald-Journal doesn't value her as a customer. It made a decision to put in a phone system that makes it hard to talk to a human being. When she finally got a human being on the line, she was able to get the person to admit where my mother's call went to.
Manila. As in, the Philippines. As in overseas.
The person had an accent, and it raised her curiosity.
With all the navel-contemplating that the news industry does, I don't recall a story about the New York Times Group of newspapers outsourcing a vital function like it's circulation department. The Herald-Journal is a New York Times newspaper. I used to be a stringer for them while I was in college, by the way. Full disclosure. Always liked them.
My mom called me last week, since I'm out on leave, and was telling me of her struggles to get a clean dry paper delivered to her home. I suggested she go to the phone book itself and see what numbers are listed there.
There are just two. One was the same number listed in the paper for redelivery issues. What would be the point of calling that number.
She tried the other number and finally got through to someone at the Herald-Journal office in downtown Spartanburg. That person was apologetic.
She suspected that the person actually running the route was not the assigned carrier but someone else helping that carrier out.
My mother was gratified to talk to someone who was sympathetic. But my take on the situation was that the person who took the call couldn't do anything to fix it. Despite having a file filled with complaints from other subscribers.
The person who took the call was frustrated as well. She said she urges everyone who has a complaint to write a letter to the editor.
Now, that might bring some notice to the problem in the public's eyes, if anyone actually takes her up. But the editor has nothing to do with the delivery of the paper.
The editor should be mad as hell about it. But a complaint like this has to be resolved by the publisher. But in the case, the publisher's hands are probably tied as well. because the corporate overseers made a decision to outsource most of their circulation work.
Many newspapers, when overseas outsourcing started ramping up, editorialized against the practice. Many realize that some kinds of outsourcing is the necessary end-product of free trade. We lose some jobs here in the hopes that the savings realized lead to development of other jobs, possibly better paying jobs, later.
But many of the companies that were outsourcing customer service functions have started coming back here. It is completely a short term savings issue.
My mother has reached the final straw. If she has to call Manila again, it will be to cancel her subscription. This is a person who wants a clean, dry paper, delivered on time, filled with interesitng things to read.
How can the newspaper industry attract new readers in different medium when it can't serve the people who, right now, want the product they are producing?
This isn't about my mother's complaints, per se. Her situation is absolutely representative of what is going on in this industry however.
The New York Times Newspaper Group isn't the only big company that has outsourced.
Some companies are using overseas companies to design and lay out their products. That doens't directly impact local customers. But others have onerous phone systems that don't allow you to speak to a human being. Press "1" for this person who won't help you, then press 2 for this person who will forward your call to a voice mail that won't get answered.
The sitaution is wearing on people at newspapers. As I said, the local human being that my mother finally got to said she tells EVERYONE who complains to write a letter to the editor, even though that won't do much good, logistically.
(A former publisher of mine noted the probable reason for this. Everyone knows that Perry White was the editor-in-chief of The Daily Planet and Superman's boss. Nobody knows who the publisher is.) The editor is the identifiable "authority" figure at most papers, to the public.
I know of one paper that has its circulation clerk out on the days when the paper is delivered. It frustrates everyone who calls when they they are told a message will be taken.
Another company has a person who has fielded so many calls from people frustrated by the automated call system, pressing this number than that number than this number, ad infinitum, that they should just press "Zero."
Zero gets you through to an operator at the local office. But the automated message was changed so that callers are never told that.
Automated calling systems. An outsourced to the Philippines circulation department.
These are done because accountants know they will save pennies.
But when you lose customers, LOYAL customers, customers who want your product, than it's a long-term disaster.
I hate to resort to it, but it seems, most days, that newspapers are taking their customer service cues from Dogbert.

Dogbert: There are two essential rules to management. One, the customer is always right; and two, they must be punished for their arrogance.

Still learning about son

In many ways, we know nothing about my son. He’s almost 11 months old.

We see him do something new and think, is that what he will be?

Yet we still aren’t sure what color his hair will be, permanently. It seems blond right now. But I was blond as a child, they say. His mother is blond, but my son doesn’t use any such products on his hair. (That line might have been a suicide attempt. Not sure.)

I watch him throw things around, with his left arm more than his right arm lately. And they are tossed with such force.

He will be a major league pitcher, I think. A quarterback. I’m sure of it.

His little donut ring toy — he rolls it around, so he might could be a bowler. Or maybe a mechanic or a tire changer on a NASCAR race team.

His favorite toy right now is a little wooden biplane with big wheels. It’s meant to be ridden somewhat like a tricycle, but his feet don’t reach the ground when he’s on it. But he leans on it and it’s helping him learn to walk.

He can roll along so good with it — he loves it.

Will he be a pilot?

Or a runner? That would be certainly falling far from the vine, as his daddy isn’t a runner. I’m not even a brisk walker.

He’s a good boy. I’ve heard people say that about their kids and seen evidence, quickly, that it isn’t exactly so.

He’s got a little bit of mischief in him, but he does it in plain sight, that little smile on his face letting all know he knows he’s pushing a button.

But he’s 99 percent good and happy, and only unhappy when he bumps his head or has got a cold bigger than the usual baby sniffles.

Whatever happens, I think he will be a gentle man and a gentleman, like his grandfather, for whom he is named.

He got the biplane from my wife’s parents. The maternal grandparents also got him a huge fluffy ball of a toy, a duck. When you squeeze it, it makes a noise, a ducky, coughy kind of noise. That’s his second favorite toy, I think.

He doesn’t squeeze it with a hand or an arm. He attacks it, attacks it like he’s a paramedic doing CPR.

“I … won’t … let you die!” he seems to be saying as he fiercely pushes onto the duck’s “heart.” Is he the next Johnny Gage/Roy DeSoto? (Does anyone remember the guys from “Emergency.”)

We have baby gates at the top and bottom of the stairs. He crawls over to them, stands up, rattles them.

“Let me out, ya screws!” I say everytime I see him do it. He’s like Jimmy Cagney in “White Heat.”

Whatever he becomes, he won’t make a good jail bird, I think.

The way he swished about in the bathtub, we knew he was going to be a great swimmer. I love to swim, but his mother, she used to competitive swim as a girl.

Is he the next Mark Spitz?

So when he got into the pool at my sister’s development, we were surprised he didn’t want to stay in as long as we thought he might. But it was a relief, a bit, to me. I’m not too sure I like the idea of any progeny of mine going about in a Speedo.

He just stares at things at times, and I think he’s going to be a scientist. Deep, deep thoughts.

He pushes a box along, opens things up, tries to take a few things and I think he might be like his Uncle John or his Grandpa Tom. A handy man, good with tools.

We don’t know anything, really. But we look at all he does, simple, silly things, all of it new to him and made new to us.

I don’t want to find out too soon, but I am also dying to find out what this little man might someday become.

Then I change one of his diapers, one of THOSE diapers, and I know.

He’s going to be a politician.

Blind man's bluff

I knew it would catch up with us, and I'm surprised it took as long as it did.
But on Friday, it finally did.
For the past four weeks, I've been operating the editorial department kind of with a handicap.
I have an odd eye condition most people don't know about called keratoconus.
I've known about it since I was a senior in high school. Twice, while in college, I had surgery.
The National Keratoconus Foundation describes it thusly — "(Ker-a-to-co-nus) Keratoconus, often abbreviated to "KC", is a non-inflammatory eye condition in which the normally round dome-shaped cornea progressively thins causing a cone-like bulge to develop. This results in significant visual impairment. The cornea is the clear window of the eye and is responsible for refracting most of the light coming into the eye. Therefore, abnormalities of the cornea severely affect the way we see the world making simple tasks, like driving, watching TV or reading a book difficult."
If you could see what I see.
The most extreme treatment for this condition is a cornea transplant. In college, I twice had a slightly less severe version of this, in which a part of my cornea was removed, and a graft of healthy cornea put in that place. It shores up the weakened areas while not being as severe as a transplant. There is some risk of rejection with a complete transplant.
Don't know why it happens, why I was picked out of our family to be the one to get it.
Earlier this year, I had a little procedure done on my left eye, because the vision had gotten very bad.
The doctor who did my eye surgery when I was in college isn't doing surgery anymore, so he switched me to another doctor in the practice. That doctor did something called a "debrisment," in which I sat dutifully in a chair while he poked me in the eye.
It wasn't actual poking, but he took a little tool and scraped my left cornea. I had some pain meds for after. The tool he used is no bigger than a Q-Tip, but when you have it actually touching your eye, it looks like you are getting scrapped with a log.
Before that procedure, Dr. Holland Croswell had listed the vision in my left eye as 20/200.
It was an odd number, I thought. So I did a web search for "legal blindness."
Hmm. The search I found was interesting. If you are worse than 20/200, you are legally blind, that's what I found out.
I wondered about that. Did I really pull the exact vision needed to avoid that classification? Or did he pull one over on me, knowing we'd have a fix soon enough?
It took about six weeks for the eye to heal. But I went from that 20/200 to 20/100 about two weeks later. When I came in for my last check, he got my vision to 20/50. I think that's with the glasses. But wow. What an improvement.
My left eye is the problem one, right?
I didn't know how bad it still was until the week of the Fourth of July.
I had an "epithelial erosion."
On my right eye.
I didn't know what it was at the time. I just knew my right eye was tearing. It started to feel like there was a cut or scratch on it. We were driving to visit my folks in Spartanburg, and I insisted my wife drive because it was bothering me so much.
I honestly thought I was having some kind of allergic reaction, but it also got painful. I'd turn my eye, and it would hurt. I would go out into my sister's backyard and the sunlight would be painful. Just for a few seconds.
A combination of a Benadryl and some ibuprofen seemed to get it under control. When I went to bed, it seemed fine. It was just as bad the next day, which should have, in hindsight, should have clued me in:
a) that it was a physical thing (irritated overnight), and
b) that I probably should go to to some doctor.
But I wasn't clued in. We finished our holiday weekend, I stopped doing any unnecessary reading at home, and tried to go to work.
A week later, I drove to work, sat down at my computer. There had been no pain or irritation for a week. But I couldn't read my computer screen. I looked down at the mail I had to go through, the faxes.
Nothing. Nada. Nil. Zip. Zilch.
Like so much in my life, I'd let it slide.
I got on my cell, called my eye doctor in Columbia, and forced my way into an appointment with my former eye doctor. I had a bit of time to kill.
When I got to his office, I couldn't read a magazine in the waiting room, etc.
So he told me, after I saw him, about the epithelial erosion. It's like a cut or scratch on my eye. It was right where my graft had been. He gave me a prescription for an ointment to put in at night, and gave me antibiotic drops, to make sure the eye didn't get infected. That's what really clued me in to what had happened. The outermost layer of tissue on my eye had been blinked away, just a bit. but the clear covering of the eye, the cornea, is what does most of the work refracting light. Focusing it.
My right eye was my good eye, but I lost a big part of the focusing power.
I've been back, to my new doctor. He said it is healed over, so I can stop the drops. It hasn't healed over regularly, evenly, smoothly. But for now, we agreed to try a new prescription for both eyes, and I'm going back in September. If it really isn't working good, then my next step is a cornea transplant.
Given that the grafts I had in college lasted almost 20 year, I'm not afraid of that. Not much.
I don't know what to call it. It's not blind, because I can see well enough to drive, recognize the smile on my son's face. I wasn't illiterate, but I couldn't read because of my vision.
But to boil it down, I've been basically blind for three weeks. Yet we've still been able to get a paper out. And we've got some good ones too.
I was able to assign a couple of stories I heard about to those students who were here in June.
But it was sure to catch up with us.
There are a couple of other stories that I have seen in other places, but those seemed to be updates of older stories, for the most part. We've had a dozen or so other stories that no one else has touched yet, including the story of a soldier home from war, another story of a soldier injured in the a war. We continue to be the first media to report on a two-time rapist and the Attorney General's attempts to commit him to a hospital for "treatment."
Those are just a couple of exclusives we've done.
But I knew it would catch up to us. Last week, Sports Editor Travis Jenkins was on honeymoon. Another key staffer was on vacation My boss was out for a day. An ad sales rep was out many days.
We have been limited, as most papers are in the summer. But our absences seem to have fallen all in the same week, a week when the editor was blind as a bat.
We might not have missed what we missed Friday, except I was out, and our newest reporter was on his way to New York State for a wedding. I was working from home in the morning, but I was going to the eye doctor's for that checkup. So I wasn't in Chester to hear about the bank robbery. The ladies, the few ladies, at the office, didn't call me at home thinking I was already at the eye doctor's. I might have been able to do something from home had they called.
But I basically was told when I was in my car on my way to Columbia. I was ticked. At myself.
Still, when I got a chance to see what others had, I was kind of surprised.
My story had just about what everyone else had, but one or two nuggets others didn't. We had pictures from the "scene" taken by the publisher. Unless you are somehow in the bank, nobody gets good still pictures of a bank robbery. It's cop cars outside a building.
But this one also had a cordon, and cordon pictures are generally good. I've been doing this long enough to know that much. A cordon has guys in reflective vests, usually, sometimes police lights. Occasionally, like this time, you get to see drawn weapons.
I put what I had up by 8:54 p.m. Friday. I sent out a breaking news alert before that, but not much.
That didn't break the story but did have a fuller story than any other media that I came across. It had details of the search, that the dog team had come across evidence the dye packs deployed, etc.
A fuller story than many done by people who can actually, you know, see.
I had a thought at one point after I heard about the bank robbery and before I got to the eye doctor's office.
"Why'd he pick today?"
A little anger directed at the robber. But I snapped back into normal mode. I was born a Bronx Irish Catholic. Altar boy. Choir boy. All that.
We know guilt. Retail it.
I let my readers down here. I think the new glasses are going to work fine.
But I'll try not to go blind again when there's a big story brewing.

Xs and Os for Daddy's Day

By Stephen Guilfoyle
Editor

There was a touch of sadness in my dad's voice a few years back.

He had gone up to New York City, I think for a funeral.

My cousins had given him a hug and a kiss.

"I can get my nephews to give me a little kiss, but not my sons," he said.

So I gave him a pat on the back.

I'm no one's definition of a macho man, but I have taken on, over the years, some decidedly macho mannerisms.

I prefer always to go to a barber shop. I want to go in and grunt. If there is to be conversation, let it be about football, baseball and nothing in between. Or the latest political goings-on with them "idiots" up in Washington or down in Columbia.

I do not want to talk about what I want done to my hair.

I want to say, "Regular cut" nine months of the year and "Trim" in the summer and get the exact same hair cut for my $5 bucks. But that hasn't happened, really, since I moved from New York. Just can't find a good old fashioned enough barber, most of the time. Or can't go to the few I've found regularly enough, given my commute.

That's just one thing. I do eat quiche, and they have a fantastic quiche at the Olde English Creamery, but I haven't been back to get it since that first time.

But I resisted quiche as a youngster. But break it down. You say quiche, I say cheese and bacon pie. What could be more dude-ish than cheese and bacon? Than pie?

Not much.

But along the line, I had stopped giving my dad a hug giving him a goodbye kiss or just saying, "Love you" when I left his home or on the phone.

He said what he said, and I've done a better job, since, but I still don't do it all the time. But he deserves them all. He's a great guy, and the best father.

I bring this up, because I get it now. I understand.

It was Father's Day Sunday. My first Father's Day

Just coincidentally, my son kissed me, on Sunday. Or maybe not coincidentally.

His mother my lovely bride goes into work most Sunday afternoons, so my boy and I have a lot of "daddy time" as my wife calls it.

I get to play with him, get to feed him, get to change him, get to give him his bath and get to put him to bed almost every Sunday.

He had this thing he did with his mother and me, where he'd come at us, mouth wide open. I called it a kiss, but he could just as easily been trying to chew my chin off. Gnaw a little, dribble a little drool down our chins.

Is that saying I love you? Or is that just sharing the saliva? Spreading the spit?

On Sunday, he wasn't feeling great. He's normally a great eater - my son, after all - but he didn't have a great appetite. I took him out of his high chair and fed him these little "puffs" they have now, no calories, one by one.

After a while, he wouldn't eat them off his high chair tabletop, but he took them from me, one by one.

He just liked them, so he ate them. But after about the third he ate from my hand, sitting on my lap, he smiled and leaned in, all the way in.

He didn't open up his mouth for the "bite" he usually takes. Nope, he just smooshed his mouth against mine. And did it two more times, smiling all the while.

To some people, fathers are a joke, a punchline. Many times, fathers aren't there, and we are bearing the price as a society.

We hear a lot about children cast rudderless because they don't have a father or enough positive male role models. To me, that bodes not well for the future. But the problem with absent fathers isn't just the effect it will have down the road.

This little man is changing me every single day, making me be better every single day, and making me want to be better, every single day.

The men who are absent from their children are both fools and they are missing out on the best thing possible. They are paying a price now that they have no idea about.

I'm told I dote on my son and my family has been good enough to let me know they think I'm doing a good job, so far.

"All you need is love," John, Paul, George and Ringo sang a long time ago. If only that were true.

My son has been sick a couple of times, stumbled and landed bad - sometimes on his head, and cried, more than a couple of times. I love him, but that doesn't make the sick go away, doesn't make the hurt stop hurting. I wrap him up in a hug, but he still, sometimes, whimpers or cries.

All you need is love. I wish that were true.

But love does give and does solve some things.

When I married, I said my wife was making me into the man I was supposed to be. Funny how a good woman can do that.

My son is filling in the gaps, making me into a man I never thought I could be.

It's a shame that it seems that fatherhood sounds like I'm doing a lot more taking than giving. But my son is giving so much to me.

We had a special day, and I know why my father wants a hug and a kiss from his sons, because I know how good it makes you feel, now, to have your son kiss you. And he won't get any guff from me about it any more.

So it was a very special day. We ended it like any other, doing that pre-sleep ritual. I, of course, gave him his bath, and he played and he splashed and he played and he laughed.

And then he pooped in the tub.

All you need is love? Love doesn't scoop a floater out of the tub.

Story posted at OnlineChester.com Jun 19, 2007 - 23:24:55 EDT

Flashing back to my baby's birth

I thought I was going to have Internet access at the hospital when my baby was born, but the maternity ward wasn't wired. I started a little log of what was going on -- while Patricia slept -- and played CDs on my laptop to give her something to listen to. But I never had time to follow up and finish. I don't know how long I intended to keep doing this. But it was a one-shot deal.

My lovely bride is, again, snoring. She’s always snored, but it’s gotten heavy with the pregnancy.
Eating for two – ha ha. Good joke. Everyone gets it, and laughs.
She’s been breathing for two for months now. It has put her respiratory system to the test.
We have spent a night of some pain, a bit of unease, and she reached the point of asking for “something” to take the edge off her pain. It was supposed to make her a little woozy, a little drowsy. But she’s out cold.
It is almost 9 a.m. on Friday, Sept. 22.
I have called my family, her family. I have to call her office and get a number to call her boss, let her know.
But our baby is coming. On the way. There’s been no backing out for months now. Never was any backing out, really.
But there’s REALLY no backing out now.

So this wonderful day started with a bit of a bad night. I expected her to be home when I was on my way home, but when I called, she was was still at work. I knew she had thought about going to see the doctor, so I asked if she had. She wanted to wait to tell me later, but I got it out of her.
Her blood pressure was a bit high, and she was cramping a bit more uncomfortably. She was not dilated, so the doctor was afraid of pre-eclampsya. He took some blood and told her to come back Friday.
She went back to the office and got down to finishing up the conversion of her templates from the 25-inch web templates to the 24-inch. Just an inch, but it takes a lot of effort.
I told her to come home, but she wasn’t home until like 9:30 or 10.
She was afraid she was having contractions. She also wanted to eat a bit. I made her an egg salad sandwich, because that requires all of 10 seconds of effort.
When we started timing her contractions, they were around a minute to a minute and half long, and about five to seven minutes apart. The “key” time is to be a minute long, five minutes apart, for an hour.
She'd had a few in the car just like the ones she was having now. And they were at the same level. I started running the watch.
We called the doctor, and he said if she wanted to go to the hospital, it was up to her. She wanted to sleep, and be with the dogs for a little longer. So we watched the Colbert Report, got a few laughs, and tried to sleep.
We went to bed about 1:30 p.m., She woke me about 4. She was ready. She had slept good for a while, but two good contractions had woken her.
It was hard leaving the dogs behind.
We were talking, going along at a good clip for a bit, but when a contraction hit, she said, “Are you at least going the speed limit?”
We triaged, and to both our surprise, Patricia was dilated between 3 and 4 centimeters. Wow.
On the way. The nurse who checked us in, Tia, said it was possible the doctor would send us home, but mostly likely, we’d be here and we’d be having the baby.
Tia got us into the room, but she actually got to helping another woman coming in whose water had broken. She got the woman into the room and the baby just came there. So Manuela came.
Tia had us walking the halls, which is supposed to help the dilation progress. We needed to get to at least 8 centimeters.
We had little progress during the night. At the 7 p.m. shift change, Tia came in and told us goodbye, and what had happened elsewhere in the ward that kept her away for a bit.
During one of our walks, we saw Dean, the guy who runs Fort Mil Automotive, who repaired Patricia’s A/C cheaper than the dealership. His wife was having a C-section.
Funny to meet someone you know.
By about 8 a.m., Patricia had had all the pain she could stand, so she wanted to get a narc. It ended up knocking her out. I made a few calls to Patricia’s work and her family, Tom and Susan.
I had called Catherine, then Anne, getting neither. Catherine called back, talked to me, then Patricia, then me again.
“Whee, we’re having a baby,” she said before hanging up.
(Captain's Log, supplemental, on June 9, 2007: WE?)
She said she was working but could get off by noon. Mom would come with her, it was decided. She called Mom. I expected Mom to call, but she didn’t.
Anne called. I’d left a message. She sang. I can’t even remember what, but it wasn’t one of my favorite songs. But to Anne, it will be the baby’s song for a while. Probably until he/she gets married.
Talked to Mom. She was praying.
Talked to John. He had the day off, and was going to come, do a couple of errands for us that we just didn’t get to. The bases for the baby's car seat needed installing. The dogs needed to be handled, either walked or taken to the Dirty Dog Depot. Probably the latter. And we need Patricia's work key taken to the office. Debbie either had the day off or got off, and is coming with him.
There is no internet access here, and I had promised a bunch of people they’d get an e-mail during the event. Sucks.
It’s almost noon. I need sleep. She will wake up soon, and we’ll see what we see.

Except for the spell check to correct, and the supplemental note in there, that's all that I wrote that night.
I didn't even make a note of what the doctor said when he came. The first one.
Or the bit about the actual doctor who came in and helped Patricia deliver. Her cellphone went off and started playing the Tiger Rag. The doctor didn't understand the horrified, murderous look on my face at first, but when she saw my USC Gamecocks shirt AND hat, she said, "Uh oh, I'm in trouble."
Patricia laughed pretty hard. I had to take my cell phone out, play the USC fight song and remove/exorcise the demon sounds. But I let her proceed.
Other than being a graduate of Clemson at some point in her career, it was actually a pretty good decision.
We had a few other funny bits, but I can't remember them right now, almost nine month later.
(Captain's Log, supplemental -- Here it is, the boy is 3 and a half, and I do remember a good bit. Once the baby was born, they held "it" up, and the doctor, the two nurses and my wife, the ladies, all, just kind of waited. Patricia said, "Well?"
(They had a written plan for what everyone is supposed to do, and one of my few meager tasks was to "announce" the sex of the child. They didn't explain that to me. I thought it meant, tell the world, later on. I thought it was a stupid job, because I didn't imagine Patricia would be making many calls, and I thought I sure would be.
(But that meant, announce in the delivery room. They were waiting on me to say what it was. And for a second, I blanked. There was some, you know, goo, in the area, so I couldn't actually tell.
("A boy?" I said, hesitantly.
(And it was.)

My Hootie Story

(Everything in here is mostly true except the bit about the bandana.)

There was a major fuss down in Columbia last month. A guy with whom I used to occasionally drink and some of his buddies were causing the fuss, first at The Horseshoe, then a few days later at Finlay Park.
Why was it such a big deal, I wonder, since anybody can get a CD cut these days -- cheap.
What's all the fuss about Hootie and The Blowfish?
I mean, why were they a significant subplot, the subject of two to three jokes, on a very special episode of "Friends" last year? Or actually BE on Letterman, more than once?
Wait a minute. I know these guys.
Or, I knew those guys.
OK, I knew one of those guys and one of the others (the one everyone thinks is Hootie) used to date a friend for a while while I was in college.
They are my age, people. My age. In fact, older. Yet I have to go around pretending to be an adult, listening to the constant refrain of "man you're getting GRAY" from friends and family, yet they do videos and interviews where people talk about their youthful enthusiasm and fratboy charm.
Sure they're a kickin' band, and always have been. But people in South Carolina are taking undue pride in Hootie and The Blowfish.
Remember when they were being considered for the Order of the Palmetto, but that was canned because Darius Rucker, the lead singer, actually had the nerve to have a thought that DIDN'T agree with the governor's position on the Confederate Flag atop the State House?
Though it fell apart, that was the state of South Carolina trying to cash in on the group's sudden fame.
Last fall, for Homecoming activities at the USC College of Journalism and Mass Communications, a luncheon was held to honor several outstanding graduates in the journalism field. High on the list to be honored were Rucker and Mark Bryan, who both attended the broadcasting program at the J-School.
They aren't exactly in the "biz," as journalism graduates (such as me and Darius and Mark) like to call it, but they communicated volumes by saying from the get-go they wouldn't go and then didn't.
They knew the college was trying to cash in on the group's sudden fame.
It continues apace, with VH-1 recasting it's "History of Hootie" on Sunday, as well as all Hootie videos in a "rock block."
So, not to be outdone, here's my Hootie story. (A local bartender says everyone's got a Hootie story.)
I met Mark Bryan more than once. I'm pretty sure he was at a party where I was also. Details are sketchy, but quite possibly one of us was and most probably both of us were, drunk. Hey, it was college and neither of us were driving.
We were introduced by a mutual friend, who said he was "Mark of Hootie and The Blowfish.
I said "Is that the terrible band that just does cover tunes?"
Nope, my friend said, that was Tootie and the Joneses, or another of the many OOTY bands that were so popular in Columbia during the '80s.
"So this is the one that does all the frat parties?"
I was getting warmer.
Who knew?
Anyway, I saw him all the time after that, mostly waiting for the ShutleCock at the J-School.
Said "Hi. " Occasionally talked.
I now tell people that not only am I "buds" with the band, but that, heck, my mother also met them.
True story.
For some reason, I was taking my parents to eat at Yesterday's in Columbia. Looking for a parking space in Five Points is like doing open heart surgery on Pat Buchanan -- just impossible to find one.
Down the block from Yesterday's is Monterray Jack's, a great bar. The band was playing there that night, and they were unloading their gear. I recognized my drinking bud, Mark Bryan, and introduced him to my mother, because he waved at me first, so I had to.
"This is, uh, Mark, uh," I said, "He's in this band ... uh. ..."
Mark said hello, was very polite, which my mother commented on, and he let us have the space the band's van was in once it was unloaded.
He left and my mother asked "How did he hurt his head?"
(It was the bandana on his head. He's the one who always wears the bandana, which looks like ... Anyway.)
So now, with this background, I go around telling people I'm real tight with the band. At a ribbon cutting a few months back, I met a girl from Bennettsville. We were at USC at the same time. She remembered attending many Hootie concerts at "Greene Street's" a bar that was neither on Greene Street nor in existance anymore.
"I guess anyone who went to USC in the '80s can say they know Hootie and the Blowfish," she said. I nodded. But neither she nor they knows them like I know them.
That's what I meant about undue pride. It's not that the band itself shouldn't be proud of what it's done. While they won't admit it, those cashing in on it are also trying to steal a bit of the credit for Hootie's success for themselves.
I'll admit that's what I'm doing, but only after.
After I tell people I know which one is Hootie, after I tell them that I once told Mark Bryan that "the porpoises make me cry," and I want my cut.
Honest.
But it's just me trying to cash in on the sudden fame of Hootie and the Blowfish.
Everybody's doing it nowadays.

Originally published in The Cheraw Chronicle June 6, 1996.)

The Forrest Gump of S.C. Music Scene?

"When you were at USC," my brother asked, "did you know Darius Rucker?"
No. I worked with his girlfriend, I said. I didn't elaborate, but she was at The Gamecock. She was in production, I was in editorial.
I could further elaborate that I did talk many times with Mark Bryan, guitarist for Hootie and the Blowfish. My mom even met Mark once, a long time. I could further further elaborate that back then, H & the B was just a bar band, popular with the frat boys.
Why do you ask, I asked back.
Rucker, lead singer of the Blowfish, commonly, mistakenly believed to be Hootie, was on some special about South Carolina.
Oh.
They had also talked about Dizzie Gillespie on the special, John said. That he was from Cheraw, and Cheraw had a jazz music scene going on.
"And you used to live in Cheraw, right?" John asked.
Yeah. I still couldn't tell where this was going. Again, I didn't elaborate, but I didn't get to know many people who knew Dizzy Gillespie. I did go to Dizzy Gillespie Apartments many times. It's a housing project. Many times it was for drug busts. Once for a murder. Many times also I went there for "Take back the community" type events, because most residents didn't buy into the crime that seemed to be rampant in that community. Cheraw has since dedicated a statue in memory of Gillespie, and is honoring his tie to the community.
However, in January of 1995, the old Holly Inn burned to the ground. The inn had apartments out back in which Dizzy's band members used to stay when he came back to town. It was a decrepit structure. There was still enough to restore at the time of the fire, but not enough after the fire. I walked to that fire and beat the fire department there. It was a block from my own apartment building.
Dizzy used to come over to the inn and have jam sessions with his band.
Anyway, back to my brother. He said the show also talked about James Brown, the Godfather of Soul.
"Said he was from Barnwell," my brother said.
I knew where this was going.
"You used to work in Barnwell, right?"
Yeah. My Godfather of Soul story/
I interviewed him once, but that's business. Doesn't count in Six Degrees of Stephen Guilfoyle.
But I met him. We all knew, at the paper, that Brown was from Barnwell, and being just down the highway living in Beech Island, he sometimes dropped by. So we always thought it was a possibility.
Barnwell is not a nowhere town, and a stretch limo can make the rounds. But when a black stretch limo passed through town with a license tag that said GDFTHR or some such variation, we knew we could find him. I sent my reporters out to find James Brown.
They came back, none successful. So I went out myself.
I found the limo parked on a street behind our building, in front of a law firm. James Brown was meeting Miles Loadholt, a local attorney. They were of a generation, and I think their families knew each other growing up. James Brown called Miles "Mr. Miles."
They stood outside, I took a picture of them shaking hands, a friend of Miles had it framed for him a while later. It was a good picture.
That was the first time I met the Godfather of Soul.
I could hear the wheels churning in my brother's brain.
Hootie, Dizzy and Brown, oh my.
I'm the Forrest Gump of South Carolina's Music scene. I'm always there, in the backdrop.
Or at least that's the impression my brother has.
Mama says, "Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're going to get."
Unless you buy a box of plain chocolates. Then, you pretty much know what you're going to get.

FIRE AT TONY'S II: Softball team backers punt their barbecue

It’s not a football term, but the Carolina Angels softball team and their backers had to punt Saturday.
They were to hold a barbecue fund-raiser at Fest-i-Fun. They had the backing of the Bare Bones Barbecue team. They had about 500 pounds of Boston butts to be smoked up for hungry festival-goers and a prime spot, just next to the big white main tent, from which to sell.
Like in softball and many sports, the threat of rain wasn’t a sure bet to call the game.
But Tony’s Pizza caught fire early Saturday morning, and Fest-i-Fun was cancelled by city organizers.. Fire trucks remained on Tom Hall Street, downtown Fort Mill’s main drag, late into the afternoon, and much of the downtown was blocked off by police cars and yellow tape.
So the Carolina Angels punted.
Michael Kidd, who coaches the Angels and is also on Bare Bones arranged to set up at the Presbyterian chuch a couple of blocks down S.C. Hwy. 160 across from the walking park.
The girls on the team made a couple of signs, got at least one white balloon — just circular — and took to the sidewalk hawking ’cue.
Kidd said he “grew up” in the church, so it wasn’t a problem getting the location.
This is the second year Bare Bones has cooked ‘cue for the Angels. They raised about $2,000 at Fest-i-Fun last year, and had hoped to raise at least that much this year, selling, by the plate, barbecue that has won awards in the Greenway Barbecue and Bluegrass festival in the fall.
The barbecue is smoked in a cooker after being prepped with a ketchup/vinegar mix sauce. Brian Kidd worked the smoker Saturday.
About five or six of the girls on the team were working the signs, one for the softball team, another for the barbecue team. They were working hard but laughing.
They seemed to be having a good time despite learning that sometimes, in life, sometimes even in softball, you have to punt.

Extra Meatball Please: Fire At Tony's

Tony's Pizza in downtown Fort Mill burned Saturday morning.
Owner Joseph Randazzo says he thinks he is going to build back, but it's too early to tell.
I understand it being too soon. The fire started around 3 a.m., and it's just about 1 p.m. now.
But he needs to build it back. Not for his own business plan or for its historical value.
No, it's just that I think Tony's Pizza is tied inextricably both to my life in Fort Mill and my marriage.
When I was a' courtin' my wife, many is the time I would drive up to Fort Mill. The first place she took me to lunch in Fort Mill, when I came up on a Friday afternoon, was Tony's Pizza.
She said I had to have the lunch special.
Yumola.
The lunch special. Spaghetti and meatballs and garlic knots.
It might have been that first lunch there, but it was there I met Jeff Updike.
He was having the lunch special. I think, for some odd reason, he did not have the meatballs. There certainly weren't any meatballs on his plate when he invited Patricia to come on over to his table and sit. They were Rotary buddies.
He looked me up and down kind of like he was a big brother checking me out, knowing that Patricia had a new "beau."
I guess he found me worthy enough. At Patricia's prompting, he told me all about about his work with the Nation's Ford Land Trust, a conservancy to protect land in York County. Despite his unredeemable character flaw of being a Clemson fan, I made a friend that day.
That was just the first time I had lunch there, just the first of many fine Fort Mill Township people I met and befriended.
And the special was always so good, I took to ordering an extra meatball.
I branched out just once, and tried the lasagna.
With an extra meatball on the side. I just had to have it.
Yumola.
There are other restaurants in the Township. But Tony's Pizza is just a piece of downtown Fort Mill that needs to be there. Since I ate there with my fiancée who has since become and remains my wife, the two are linked in the back of my mind in some weird way. It is not logical, I admit. But it is what it is in my mind.
If Joe Randazzo and building owner Bayles Mack do not build it back, who knows what will happen to my marriage?
It's not just me. When my brother and sisters came to Fort Mill to meet Patricia, they went downtown. It was lunchtime, late in the week. So they went to Tony's.
They know it too, though they rarely get to downtown Fort Mill when they get here.
So Saturday, May 5, 2007, might end up bring a real sad morning, if the fire marks the end.
It has to come back. I need my lunch special.
And an extra meatball.

Check out the Fort Mill Times breaking news coverage of the fire here.

USC 31- Clemmons 28, Team Good Luck Charm

No comment, other than, "Ain't he cute?"