I May Be Too Late………..

This is for the newly married Jackson County men who, throughout the past eleven months, chased their girlfriends until they were caught.

I could not find the exact data on the men that were married this year, but I have an idea of the appropriate proportions. Let’s work in groups of one hundred. I would think that, out of a cluster of one hundred men who succumbed to the promise of wedded bliss, twenty six had been married before and twelve woke up with hangovers and realized that the happening should not have happened, and immediately departed for some foreign seaport, or the deep woods, or the mountains.

This leaves sixty-two newly minted husbands. Mickey Gilmore’s advertisements at Wal-Mart have alerted five of these to the supposed desirability of the early purchase of a gift, and they fell for it, so we will be working with forty-seven grooms who have no idea of the perils they face.

These are the ones that I will instruct in the niceties of proper selection of that all-important first Christmas gift, and the snares that are subtly connected. Listen closely, gentlemen.

I was married for forty-two years to a woman who began Christmas shopping as we drove home from the Fourth of July parade. Her list was checked closer than Santa’s, and not just once or twice. Calls were made to ascertain that the aunts and uncles spread across this great nation of ours were yet alive. Once she checked a sonogram of a pregnant niece to make certain that there would be an appropriate gift if the baby (you recall the rule: blue for boy, pink for girl) arrived by Christmas. I watched, at first assuming that this would eliminate any last minute buying, but I was wrong. I would be putting together swing sets and tricycles on Christmas Eve and Theresa would be making one last gift run.

As an aside, I want you to know that I am an expert on last minute shopping. At least three times in the four decades that I was with Theresa, I stopped at a convenience store at 11:00 PM on the night before and bought her panty hose, in the incorrect size and of a shade that she did not use, and put them under the tree. That, my friends, is truly last minute!

That brings me to how you, the neophyte, should go about purchasing gifts. Be careful in your selections, not only for Christmas but throughout the year. Once I noticed a helium filled balloon that had in large print the beautiful thought “I LOVE YOU MORE TODAY THAN I DID YESTERDAY”. I had no special reason to buy this for my beloved, except that it expressed how I felt. I bought it and proudly carried it home. What could go wrong? I had read the large print; she read the small print underneath: “Yesterday you were a bitch”.. This is what the great patriot of the American Revolution Thomas Paine had in mind when he wrote “These are the times that try men’s souls”. It is also what your father meant when he told you to always read the small print. You thought he was talking about contracts, didn’t you?

Some thoughtful man, and it must have been a man, came up with the proper anniversary gift for each year of marriage. It begins with paper, goes to wood for the second year and progresses upward in cost and in desirability. Do not vary from this tradition. On our twenty fifth anniversary I made a quick trip to Tallahassee to purchase silver for Theresa. Being in a hurry, though, I stopped at the jewelry section of Gayfers and saw a diamond tennis bracelet and I purchased it. This was the ultimate bad choice.

Once you give a diamond, there is no going back. I recall Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell singing, in “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes”, a moving but true “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend”. I cry when I see reruns of this on TV. Bracelets lead to necklaces, necklaces to earrings, earrings to a diamond ring for each finger and then there are ankle bracelets. I am thankful that toe rings did not come into favor while we were still married. The DeBeers Company, the world’s largest diamond merchants, once advertised “Diamonds are Forever”. That is the understatement of the century.

Do not ask her what she would like to have for her birthday, Christmas or your true anniversary. You must guess, so that she can blame you for selecting the wrong gift, and pout for a week or so, and use this as an excuse for not cooking or bringing you a beer when you come in from work. I say “true” anniversary. If you have been married for any time at all she will come up with very strange dates that you should have recalled, like “today was the anniversary of the first time we ever watched submarine races together, and that was two months before we got married, and you didn’t bring me anything today!” You can’t win these battles, so don’t try. Just be kind to her. The moon and her mood will change.

You have to be observant and alert, and see what she would really like. She may have told you that she enjoys fishing, but Zebco does not make an appropriate gift for a woman. Rolex does, and ocean cruises are fine, but if you choose to take her on a cruise, be certain to have a gift that she can unwrap, or it won’t count.

Be careful of lingerie purchases. Skivvies are entirely appropriate for intimate times, but be cautious. I would suggest your handling it like this: Forget Fruit of the Loom and Hanes. Take the time to go to Victoria’s Secret, unless you are past sixty. If you are past sixty, as am I, you will only get strange looks from the sales clerks as you ease among the racks and sweat and look furtive. One of them is most certain to call security. But you can, with a nice saleslady’s assistance, pick out an appropriate ensemble. Buy the bra at least one cup size too large. If she wears an “A”, buy a “B”. She will be pleased that you seem to underestimate her endowments, and will kiss you and treat you very nicely, and then she will secretly exchange it for a Wonderbra at her first opportunity, and will not tell you. This is why they call the store “Victoria’s Secret”. And buy the panties one size too small. She will not exchange these, but will, when she is by herself, try them on and decide that it is really the size that she should wear. You have made big points.

On a serious note, and I can be serious, Christmas is an important time for us to express our true feelings about our mates. In 2004 Theresa found that she had terminal cancer, and her oncologist told her that she had only a few months to be with us. Christmas approached, and I was in a quandary. What could I give her that would have meaning at such a time? Christmas was always her season, and she had done her usual thing, buying gifts for everyone.

Then one day I heard a commercial on the radio about naming a star for someone. Up till then I thought that this was an entirely inane idea, but then I realized how appropriate it would be, just this one time. So, under the Christmas tree that year was a certificate and a star chart that says that the International Star Registry “doth hereby redesignate star number Ursa Major RA 11h 7m 55s D 42’ 26’ to the name + Theresa L. Hirt and that the star will henceforth be known by this name”.

Finally………… I got it right.

There Was Not Always a “Veterans’ Day”

Definition of a Veteran: A Veteran, whether Active Duty, Retired, National Guard or Reserve – is someone who, at one point in his or her life, wrote a check made payable to “The United States of America” for an amount of “up to and including my life”. That is Honor, and there are far too many people in this country who no longer understand it. (Author unknown)



I do not think that Veterans’ Day should be just another “Take The Day Off” holiday.

Veterans’ Day should be a day when all the old men and women who “wrote the check” go down to the local elementary school and sit as honored guests while children, dressed in red, white and blue, step forward and recite appropriate words, and sing the old songs to us. And one of us should then stand up and thank them and tell them a little something about a particular time in our lives that was a defining moment, a time that they will not understand but one that we hope a few of them will remember.

And we should then go and have refreshments in a room where the tables are decorated in bright colors, and the punch and cookies are served by well dressed and handsome young girls and boys who feign an interest in us, our jokes, and our times.

And there should be a parade for us, led by a band or two, maybe including a ROTC marching unit, and with an old restored Army jeep decorated with flags and bunting and, of course, a fire truck out in front of everything. The streets should be lined with people waving Old Glory and cheering as we attempt to walk down Main Street and look solemn, and as we recall the long passed memories of our youth.

November 11 was not always Veterans’ Day.

My father “went to France” in 1917 with the American Expeditionary Force, led by General John J. “Black Jack” Pershing. General Pershing was one of his two heroes. The other was Sergeant Alvin York. When our troops arrived on the continent, the French and English generals expected Pershing to turn our fresh young fighters over to them, to be pushed into the horrible, meat grinder battles being fought at Verdun and St. Mihael, battles where thousands of men were killed daily, where trench warfare was the rule, where those two new killing machines, the tank and the machine gun, were put to full use. Stalemate was a commonly used term to describe this kind of war. But General Pershing demanded and got his own sectors, and immediately the American soldiers and Marines began defeating the enemy. Chateau-Thierry and Belleau Woods became our own front and we advanced and won. And the war came to an end. No wonder “Black Jack” was his hero.

My father did not talk much about his time in France. He once described to me the mud that they walked in and slept in and how he considered himself lucky the day he acquired a couple of boards to stretch his blanket on so that he could lie down above the filth and the mire. But that was it, until just before his death.

He was eighty four, an invalid in body but not in mind, and I was driving him around “his” county. Suddenly he said: “Let me tell you about the first Armistice Day”. That was what they called the cessation of combat on the Continent. He described the scene as he and other soldiers rode in a truck from the front toward the port city of Brest. There had been several false alarms, but this time they saw searchlights sweeping the sky and heard the booming of artillery and the screech of sirens as they watched rockets arcing through the heavens. It was the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, and they knew that they would be going home soon. He then came back to Tallahassee with his uniform and a discharge paper, and the State of Florida gave him a $25 bonus.

It took another war for “The War to End all Wars” to be labeled World War I. And it took the end of that war to change the name of Armistice Day to Veterans’ Day, honoring all veterans of all of our wars.

But to Homer Hirt, Sr. it always remained “Armistice Day”, the day he knew he would be coming home.

D DAY, THE SIXTH OF……NOVEMBER?

The year 1964 was an exciting and eventful one for Americans.

The year before our country had lost its president, John F. Kennedy, to an assassin’s bullet (or bullets) and he had been succeeded by Lyndon Baines Johnson, who was still missing a ballot box from his first election to Congress from the Perdenales River Valley of Texas.

The Vietnam War was escalating, with the White House calling the shots, and missing the target most of the time. Folks back home watched the commentators on nightly newscasts and pronounced Walter Cronkite as the most trusted man in the country.

And in the little town of Chattahoochee the fourth grade of the school was assigned a task. Each child was to bring a topic that was of world significance.

The next morning the teacher learned from one student that Red China had exploded an atomic device. From another it was apparent that the greatest news was the escalating war in the Far East. But there was one child that seemed hesitant. It was apparent that she was uncertain that she understood the assignment. Then her face lit up. “I know, I know! Homer Hirt, Jr. is getting married!”

So there it was: the almost thirty-five year old Navy man, who drove a 1957 Thunderbird and avoided commitment to the opposite sex as firmly as George Washington had railed against “entangling foreign alliances” in his Farewell Address to the Nation, was about to become a wedded husband.

I had met Theresa in the office of the Ford Motor Credit Company in Tallahassee, and we dated for some time. I even sold her a new 1965 Ford, just as my father had sold my mother a Model T. The difference was that he had to teach her how to drive the automobile.

Since it was Leap Year, Theresa proposed to me. She proposed a total of three times, though in later years she said it was only once, but who was counting? The date was set for the sixth day of November, hence the title of “D Day”. We both referred to our anniversary that way, with a little humor tempered by fact. We were married in the Presbyterian Church in Quincy by the Methodist pastor from Chattahoochee. Seated in the expectant audience, which was a near full house, were at least two of the other women that I had dated. Thankfully they kept quiet through the “Speak now” part.

We settled in to a marriage of compromises. Since I was active in several organizations, even President of Rotary, she would attend appropriate events with me. I would often be called on to speak, and what better humor with which to leaven the speech than newlywed jokes. On the way home one night she said: “Holmes, I will offer you a deal. You will never have to go shopping with me if I never have to attend another meeting where you are allowed to speak”. I quickly accepted, and this held for forty-two years.

There should have been one other agreement.

Theresa was an Elvis Presley fan. No, a correction here. She was the ultimate fan. As a young single woman she had been to his concerts. She owned 45’s, 33’s, eight tracks and cassettes of his music. She had an Elvis decanter filled with bourbon and ash trays that she dared anyone to use. Post cards, books and movie tapes completed the collection. I had watched Elvis once, and that was on the Ed Sullivan show, when Ed filmed him only from the waist up. I would have preferred that he filmed him from the waist down, so that I would not have had to look at his famous upturned lip that drove the women wild.

For forty two years I had to listen to “Long Legged Girl”, “That’s All Right” and “Blue Moon of Kentucky”. I was forbidden to step on his “Blue Suede Shoes” or to answer the question “Are You Lonesome Tonight”. I was assured that I was “Nothing but a Hound Dog”. Elvis asked, nay, begged “Let Me Be Your Teddy Bear”, and then sung “Don’t be Cruel”, as if being called a hound dog was not cruelty enough to get the Partners for Pets down on me.

But I persevered. I did not step on any “Blue Suede Shoes” or have any “Blue Christmas” celebrations.

I have decided though, that I cannot go through this again.

If and when I take my children’s suggestion that I acquire a person to take care of my home, or if the lure of a live-in becomes too strong, the questionnaire that I will use to select the candidate, immediately after the query “Do you mind wearing a French maid costume from Frederick’s of Hollywood”, will ask “do you care for Elvis Presley?”. If the answer to this is “yes”, she will be rejected for cause, with no appeal.

After all, I really do not believe that I can tolerate another four decades of Elvis!

Lift Up Your Voices and HOWL!

“Are you the Wolfman?” came the inquiry over my cell phone. I paused, somewhat stunned by this question. Thoughts raced through my mind.

The term “wolfman” has several connotations. First, of course, is the somewhat antiquated one that was once used to classify a man as an incurable woman chaser. I always recall the cartoon character that, upon seeing a good looking pair of legs on a passing female, began salivating and had eyes that bugged out.

The next thought was that I was suspected of being supernatural and able to change, on the dark of the moon, into a half-man half-wild beast and run around killing folks until the sun came up and he had to go to his regular nine-to-five job.

Then the caller identified herself. “This is Mary Wester at Golson Elementary. Someone told us that you know a lot about wolves and Mary Dungan needs someone to talk to her second grade class”. Mrs. Wester’s husband was once my banker, and you don’t turn down anyone that has that kind of connection. I quickly accepted.

My knowledge of wolves is that of an enthusiastic amateur. It began some time ago when I, trying to kill time surfing television, landed on Royce Reagan’s “Chipola Speaks”. Royce had gone down to a place unknown to me, the Seacrest Wolf Preserve near Wausau, and had interviewed Sylvia Watkins and had actually filmed a wad of wolves inside a large enclosure. I knew that they were live and active, since Royce’s voice was getting higher and higher as the animals got closer and closer. He could have easily sung the soprano’s part in Verdi’s Aida. This impressed me, and the Seacrest preserve impressed me even more.

Seacrest is privately owned, and is part of a 400 acre farm operated by Cynthia Watkins and her husband. In large enclosures they house individual wolf packs, composed of the traditional alpha male and alpha female and all of the other alphabetic designees. It is one of only four such preserves in the lower forty eight states, and the only one where a human can enter and see these fine fellows up close and personal. Cynthia or one of the other guides takes you through and you find out a lot of wolf knowledge, after she purges your mind of all of the scare folklore about werewolves, Little Red Riding Hood and her grandma and Dracula (real name: Vlad the Impaler).

You come away filled with admiration for the animals and even more for Cynthia and her ideals. I left and then returned, volunteering whenever I could, to work there. She has a lot of volunteer workers, many from nearby Hurlburt Air Force Base. I went there once on a cold, blustery wet day, and tried to keep up with these young service men and women. About one o’clock, cold, wet and miserable, I got them together and asked if any outranked me. None did, so I declared that the Navy’s part was accomplished for the day, and I left.

But I have gone back, sometimes to do shovel work, on some occasions to help erect new fences, and on once just to sit on the front porch at the store and rock. I have carried all of my grandsons, each of my children and even some casual acquaintances to take the tour, and each person has left impressed.

So perhaps I was qualified, but I had reservations. After all, Golson is a “government” school, as the shouting heads on television and radio refer to our public schools. Would I be subjected to a gaggle of undisciplined offspring, under little control by a teacher that was working only for retirement, and counting the days until that great “gittin’ up” day? Then I recalled Mary Dungan, and what my wife Theresa always told me about her, so I went.

I was met at the office by a young fellow who escorted me to the classroom, and actually engaged me in conversation. Mary met me at the door with a hug. Any time a man my age gets hugged by a woman the trip is worthwhile. There were fifteen second graders seated in two semi circles at their desks, with name tags printed big enough so that even a seventy nine year old man could read them. The front wall had been made ready to study wolves, with a pull down map of the United States so that I could show off places that were important, and a chart of what they knew about the animals, and what they wanted to know.

I began by telling about Seacrest and Cynthia and what I had done there. I talked. They listened. Then I was seated in the “Visitor’s Chair” and the students sat down on the floor and held up their hands to ask questions of me, the expert of the hour. They were cautioned to “ask questions, not make statements” and they did. Afterwards they stood, approached me and shook my hand, looked me in the eye and thanked me.

I left Golson Elementary School, one of our “government schools”, feeling good about myself and its teachers, for I knew that there were others like Mary Dungan there. I recalled that John S. McCain, when asked what he would do about public education, replied that we should pay our good teachers a lot more money, and should find the poor and mediocre ones different jobs that are not so critical to the wellbeing of our children and thus to our country.

And I say Amen to that!



(Note: The Wolf Preserve is less than 50 miles from Jackson County. Go on line to “Seacrest Wolf Preserve”. Tours are on Saturdays only.)