The Saturday of Easter weekend in Myrtle Beach dawned warm and clear. I had spent the night at some friends’ home in a gated community, and I do mean gated. There were two. But early that morning, everyone was asleep, and I needed coffee. So off I went to find the nearest Starbucks which was near the beach off 76^th Avenue. I rode around, certain I was nearby, when I saw a nice lady walking two dogs, and so I rolled down my window to ask where the Starbucks was.

She looked at me in some amazement and looked up and there was the Starbucks sign. I was right under it. “You can park your car right there”, she said. Quietly but enthusiastically, I said “thanks”.

I had the code to get back into the neighborhood where I had just left, but of course only the first gate went up. The second one just sat there…doing nothing. It was like your computer that just hangs and there is no cursor, just a circle, going round and round. Finally, a kindly older man drove up behind me and said “why don’t you drive closer, and I will put in my card and then you can get in that way”. I agreed and went right inside as the gate rose as if there was no problem at all. So much for security.

The party started at 11:00 a.m. I was trying to be gracious and answered the door a couple of times but gave that up when everyone wanted to know if I was the host’s father. Not a good start. Standing by myself in the kitchen, my friend Elizabeth who was hosting the party with her husband, came up beside me and whispered, “Can you be the bunny rabbit in 30 minutes?”

You should know that a person inside a rabbit costume cannot speak and can hardly breathe. It is hot. But I had only one shot and was determined to make the most of it. I came outside where everyone was, threw up my arms like Richard Nixon leaving the White House for the last time, and nothing happened…Nothing…no children and no adults.

One good friend, who had helped me put on the rabbit costume walked quickly away into the house. She said she was only going to get her camera, but I know better. She was leaving a sinking ship. Finally one small soul came up to me, tugged at my leg and wanted me to pick him up. I did, and the rest was history. Everyone came…it was like being a pied piper.

And then, since I couldn’t talk, I tried to hop…holding onto one child at a time. And some wanted to be held more than once. Lots of pictures were taken. Children were high fiving me and a couple even said in quiet but firm voices, “I love you Easter Bunny.”

I don’t know whether it is possible to go home again, but I do know it is possible to be cool again.

Suntan in a bottle – what you need to know!

What would you do if you needed a tan within 24 hours? And the weather report said rain? That’s what I thought…you would go for something in a bottle or some dressed up plastic container made to look like Florida sunshine had just taken hold of you. But there are so many choices, and instant tan isn’t cheap. It isn’t like laying in the sun for a few miserable hours, getting hot and sweaty, trying to get darker, only to lay there too long and red is what you get.

My problem last week was that I had recently bought some shorts. First rule – if you are going to buy shorts and then wear them, do something about your legs first…or at least have a plan. White legs with tan shorts looks just like white legs with tan shorts…not very good. And good is what I wanted.

So I went shopping, and there were so many choices at the local Rite-Aid. At first I thought I was smart and when this young energetic shopping assistant with an appropriate name tag walked by, I struck and did my usual, “I have a dumb question” and asked where L’OREAL tanning lotions were. Now, I had never bought anything by L’OREAL before in my life, but a good friend who suggested I buy the shorts suggested this was the way to go. So I went to the shelf where they were located.

There were “sprays”, “instant tans”, “tans in two weeks”…all guaranteed. But guaranteed to do what? And most importantly could they do it in 24 hours? After taking pictures and texting them and asking for advice, I made my decision and got a L’OREAL product that was described with words like “New” “Sublime Bronze Self-Tanning Lotion”, “Streak Free” and most importantly a “Medium Natural Tan”. These words were printed in large, bold type across the front of the plastic container, which held the future to my tanning life. This could change everything!

But on the back, in very small print, so small that you would need 3.0 reading glasses to figure out what to do, were the words “Apply evenly all over body”.

How do you apply evenly all over your back which you can’t reach? And for some reason I didn’t think ankles were a part of my body so no need to apply there. But the rest of me was covered in my new lotion, and after a few hours, I was dark. But of course the perfection part of me took over, and I decided the next day, I needed more, so I went after my legs, but not my ankles, again. And by that evening, I looked like a two tone person, and not in a good way. And if you had seen my back, it looked pretty cool except for this large rectangle white space, sort of like a football field, that looked as if winter was still here.

The good news is that it is all fake and temporary. If it is true that a bad haircut for guys can be fixed within ten days of growth, then a phony tan can go away as well, and you get to start all over again. But next time, experience will have counted, and there will be only one tan…spread evenly everywhere and dark as a summer day in July. For only ten dollars, you too can look this way!

 

 

Years ago, after writing my first book Flame-Out, I thought it would be no time before I wrote a second book. Indeed on the back side of the first jacket cover, I wrote that I looked forward to practicing criminal law again, though this time through the writing of books. It didn’t happen.

 

Over the years, I found myself not able to write much more than a few paragraphs of some random fiction or starting a new outline for a book for the umpteenth time. I had no focus on what I wanted to say, and so I said virtually nothing. Every few months, someone would ask me about my next book, and I generally said I was working on it. But not really.

 

For years I thought I wanted to write about the Jeffrey MacDonald case until several of my friends gently told me that was a long time ago. And…the case is still open, so go figure.

 

Slowly I have come to the realization that there is so much to write about, and it is so easy to do with online publishing, ebooks and digital printing for regular books. Anyone can do it if he or she just starts.

 

My friends, Ray and Carolyn Stone from Dunn, North Carolina, have given me a wealth of material to write about their daughter Tara. There are legal stories happening every week that are stranger than fiction. And then recently I gave a copy of my book to a good friend who read it and told me after reading it twice that she still did not like it. She thought it was depressing, ended too soon and told nothing of the last years of my life and public speaking. So she said I should write another and try again, telling a different story of starting over.

 

So I am about to sit down, turn on the computer, and hopefully some inspiration will come. But for those of you who have the same problem, I understand. I think the trick is not so much to write the entire book in a weekend or month, but perhaps a few pages and then keep at it. That is probably the way to do lots of things.

 

In the summer of 1956, Wake Forest College moved from its namesake town of Wake Forest 110 miles west to the hills of Forsyth County and more specifically the outer reaches of Winston-Salem where land and money had been given to build a new campus. In June of that year, my parents and two brothers moved there as well as many of my friends, as all of our parents were on the faculty of the school. Mine was the local pastor of the Baptist Church and the Chaplain of the college. And since Wake Forest had decided to start a new church, also to be called Wake Forest Baptist Church, we moved.

 

Growing up in a small town of 3,000, and a college town at that, is about as good as it gets. You get to go to all the football, basketball and baseball games, ride bikes, go to the only town swimming pool in the summer, walk to school and on the last day of class, go barefooted. Amazing.

So moving to a large and unknown city that was really a Carolina town wasn’t too appealing. But the school had built ten large faculty apartments (we were in 9A), and almost everyone who had moved, lived there for a time while homes were built on what came to be known as Faculty Drive.

We didn’t know anyone, and no one knew us. Oh sure, Winston-Salem hosted a large and somewhat formal Welcome to us at the Memorial Coliseum, not far away, and our pictures and articles about our families were in the local afternoon paper. But when you are in the sixth grade, that doesn’t mean too much.

I remember the summer was spent riding bikes on the campus, taking the new elevators that you could operate yourself up and down in Reynolda Hall so much that the President of the college finally had to call my father to ask that I and some of my friends simply stop. No one else had been able to use them. And an indoor swimming pool and four basketball courts and six ping pong tables in one gym!

And then the dreaded month of September came, and we all had to go to a new school. Because of where we lived, we went even further away from the city to an elementary school called Old Town. It was an imposing place with large white columns in the front and a cool gym of its own in the back. I had never ridden a school bus until then. I had always walked.

I was in Mr. Lloyd’s class. I don’t remember much from that year except Mr. Lloyd had played football at Miami and allowed me and another friend to leave class a lot to referee basketball games for younger kids in the gym. I even tried out for the basketball team, though I was too short and not very good. My only good moment was in the father –son game when I was to dribble the ball between the legs of Bones McKinney and then go in for a layup. It all worked great, except of course I missed the uncontested shot.

But that year stands out in another real way for me. Old Town really welcomed me and my friends and made us feel at home. I have never forgotten that, and although I only went there one year, I readily accepted and was very excited a few weeks ago when a lady from Winston called and asked if I could come to an elementary school reunion on May 4. How quickly can you say yes? Going back in time to when we were young, small and full of promise, even for a night, is magical.

The best diet I ever went on in my life was the time I worked at the 42^nd Street Oyster Bar. It was completely involuntary. I had to be at work before 5:00 p.m., which meant I missed dinner. I was around food most of the night and soon saw so much of it, I didn’t want it. But then before things got so strict, another waiter and myself would often have a salad about 8:00 p.m. or so, whenever there was a break.

I guarantee if you walk around, and sometimes run, every night for about six hours, from 5:00 p.m. until 11:00 p.m., you will lose weight. And you will even be able to have a glass of wine at the end of the evening.

The problem though is that most people my age don’t work in a restaurant, or if they do, they don’t wait tables. But lots of folks have, though most often when they were young, working their way through school. What waiting tables is…is walking and exercise, and because of the time schedule, eating less.

I have recently lost some weight, though not unfortunately by exercise, but by eating less. I have read no books or followed any strict regimen, unless you call giving up fast food, bread and pasta a regimen…and ice cream. All the basic and necessary foods.

How many times have you told someone at a clothing store, or told yourself, when you were going to buy something, that it was okay to get the smaller size because you were going to lose five pounds or an inch off your waist? And it never happened.

But now it has! The tough times though are only beginning. How to keep the pounds off? I will tell you how. Three years ago, my kids, Jeff and Stacy, gave me a green sweater for Christmas. It was my size, but I never wore it because it was a little tight…actually very tight. A month ago, before this last Christmas, I put it on and what do you know, but it fit…very nicely. They thought I had bought it myself.

Now, the only problem is that several years ago, Jeff had given me this great sweater, and I couldn’t wear it so I gave it back to him, and now he wears it. I need to figure out how to get it back.

The best diet I ever went on in my life was the time I worked at the 42^nd Street Oyster Bar. It was completely involuntary. I had to be at work before 5:00 p.m., which meant I missed dinner. I was around food most of the night and soon saw so much of it, I didn’t want it. But then before things got so strict, another waiter and myself would often have a salad about 8:00 p.m. or so, whenever there was a break. I guarantee if you walk around, and sometimes run, every night for about six hours, from 5:00 p.m. until 11:00 p.m., you will lose weight. And you will even be able to have a glass of wine at the end of the evening.

The problem though is that most people my age don’t work in a restaurant, or if they do, they don’t wait tables. But lots of folks have, though most often when they were young, working their way through school. What waiting tables is…is walking and exercise, and because of the time schedule, eating less.

I have recently lost some weight, though not unfortunately by exercise, but by eating less. I have read no books or followed any strict regimen, unless you call giving up fast food, bread and pasta a regimen…and ice cream. All the basic and necessary foods.

How many times have you told someone at a clothing store, or told yourself, when you were going to buy something, that it was okay to get the smaller size because you were going to lose five pounds or an inch off your waist? And it never happened.

But now it has! The tough times though are only beginning. How to keep the pounds off? I will tell you how. Three years ago, my kids, Jeff and Stacy, gave me a green sweater for Christmas. It was my size, but I never wore it because it was a little tight…actually very tight. A month ago, before this last Christmas, I put it on and what do you know, but it fit…very nicely. They thought I had bought it myself.

Now, the only problem is that several years ago, Jeff had given me this great sweater, and I couldn’t wear it so I gave it back to him, and now he wears it. I need to figure out how to get it back.

Hello and Goodbye

The Cycle of Life

In the mid 1960’s, Hugh Sidey, a longtime reporter and columnist for Time magazine, wrote a book about the life and times of President Kennedy. I have always remembered a line he wrote about the President’s assassination… “The man who controlled so much and so many was, in the end, not the master of the length of his own line”. In essence, that is true of all of us.

Just this past weekend, I learned of the death of two people, one a former neighbor and English professor at Wake Forest University who lived till the age of 101. Indeed, in June, she would have turned 102. She lived a full and rich life, interacting with scores of young people for literally decades of time. And then, on Sunday, with other friends, I went to Dunn, North Carolina to see the family of the father of one of my great friends. He had died suddenly last week at the age of 82.

It was all rather depressing, making one open more quickly the back pages of the newspaper to see who was no longer with us.

And then, the newspaper was full this weekend with the all too common story of a young teenager in Raleigh, who lost her life at the age of 18, when she was the passenger in a car, that was being driven much too fast, late at night. Someone was alive, full of life and promise, and then in a moment, it was no more.

Life can be unfair. But life is all we have and so why not make the most of it while it is ours. I thought about that a couple of days ago, when a good friend of mine, came over to my place, with another, to sit and wait while her grandson was about to be born at Rex Hospital. The young mother, her daughter-in-law, had started her contractions and had been admitted to the hospital earlier in the evening. Surely, it would not be long before young Mason would open his eyes and take his first look at the world and say hello. And it wasn’t.

It is the cycle of life. It is a wonderful thing to see and experience. And it can be fleeting for any and all of us. So enjoy each day you have and live it completely. Don’t cut yourself any slack. Just go for it.

Still, isn’t it pretty nice and comforting that whenever we have to say goodbye, we also often get the chance to say hello.

                “My friend Wade Smith used to tell me that “if no one has died, everything can be fixed”.   I am not sure of the context in which he spoke…he might have been talking about me. He went on to say that things might not be fixed perfectly or put back the way it was, but a life could be improved.

 

                Just this Thursday morning, WRAL.com has a posting telling the tragic story of a ten year old girl from Columbus County who hanged herself Monday night after being bullied and bullied at school in part for the clothes and shoes she wore. On the week before Thanksgiving, or really anytime, it is incredible that this has happened. But it has, and it is likely to happen again.

 

                I have read a couple of stories similar to this in recent months with very different results. A Winston-Salem student also killed herself for similar reasons while a young boy, according to CBS News, while being bullied, did not. The difference in the outcome was due in part to the fact that one told about the personal situation while the other did not.

 

                Openness can save someone, and not telling can kill. Life is stressful enough for many adults. Imagine what it can be like for young people. So, if you have young children, or children of any age, or friends or family, talk with them. See how they are doing. Reach out to them. And…if it is you…do the same with others. If they or you are still here, it is never too late.

                If you haven’t read the column by Charles Blow of the New York Times recently posted on October 14, please do so on an online edition of the Times. It is under the title “The Bleakness of the Bullied”.   Mr. Blow is a well respected columnist, regularly appearing on national television shows with comments on the daily life of this country’s politics and well being. It wasn’t always so.

 

                Mr. Blow recounts a time when he was very young, depressed, bullied by other young people around him and thinking of suicide. He was at a skating ring where the music was loud and people were moving fast around him, and he was just trying to hold on. He thought how unhappy he was, that he didn’t want to live and considered taking too many pills. Then, he remembered a song his mother had taught him, and he began to sing it to himself and pulled away from darkness.

 

                And now Mr. Blow writes about this time in his life. What a wonderful thing to do! In recent months, I have seen two news stories, one in the Winston-Salem Journal, and the other on the CBS Evening News. Both stories told of young people who were unhappy at school and bullied by their peers. One, a young girl from Forsyth County told no one, not even her closest friends how she felt. They didn’t know until her parents found her body in an upstairs bedroom one morning before school. The other national story was of a young boy who told his parents what was going on in his life, and he got help, and now is a happier well adjusted person.

 

                The difference in these two stories, at least to me, is that the openness, or lack thereof in each case. I think openness usually wins. What you can do, if you have children, is ask how they are doing and be mindful of their behavior. What you can do, if you have older friends, is the same.

 

                I believe that one of the best ways to find out about how someone is doing is to open up to that person your-self. That makes it easier for everyone to be honest. But this can be hard. Admitting our weaknesses isn’t for sissies. But the rewards can be priceless.