One Saturday morning in 1965, mom dragged us to the Western Auto Store on the Lewisburg square. I was 10 and Glenn was 12, so we were really too old to be taken shopping, but make a single mistake with a bottle rocket inside the kitchen, and suddenly you can’t be trusted.

“Why are we going to Western Auto?” asked Glenn.

“To see something,” said mom.

“What?” I asked.

“The future,” she replied. Full story »

I’ve always admired the works of Damon Runyon. Drawing on the people he observed every day in Brooklyn, he created fictional characters that seemed more real than people I really know. There’s even an adjective to describe people who look like the characters in a Damon Runyon story: Runyonesque. I always wanted to be Runyonesque. And when I worked as a newspaper reporter, just as Damon Runyon did, I would have given anything to have heard someone say: “That Hargrove, he’s almost Runyonesque.” I told my wife about this.

“Why do you want to be onionesque?” she asked.

“Not onionesque, Runyonesque. You know, Damon Runyon? The writer?” Full story »

All day long, I waited for doom to fall upon my brother’s head. He had skipped church that morning, hooked up with his friend Eastep, and spent his collection plate money at Talley’s Market, so if ever anybody deserved a Divine Smite, it was Glenn. But that Smite, never Smote. At 5:45pm, we left our house and began the long walk to choir practice and Sunday evening services. At 5:51, Eastep appeared beside us, and he and Glenn turned left on Water Street, leaving me to go to choir practice and evening services alone.

After two eternal hours in church, I began planning my sojourn to Talley’s market when church next beckoned on Wednesday night. In my mind, I was explaining all this to God, how I was going to be His emissary to the Tallyites, and by my example, bring the lost sheep back to the fold. And if that holy work took 8-10 years, I was willing to make the sacrifice. Full story »

My parents were big on church attendance. Not theirs, ours. I went to Sunday School and church services on Sunday mornings, choir practice and more services on Sunday night, Bible study and still more services on Wednesday evenings, and Vacation Bible School for most of June. Then there was the occasional revival, a week of night services where we were warned of the eternal consequences of dancing, women, rock and roll music, and the Communist Party. To all this, add after-school Bible readings held in Mrs. Holloway’s house whenever she returned from Memphis. Whatever sins Mrs. Holloway enjoyed in Memphis that required such absolution, I never discovered, but it was a source of much giggling and speculation among my sisters and their friends. I think it involved Elvis. Full story »

The Dad went to work at age 12, and he made a vow that his sons would never have to choose between work and education. Never. The Dad would choose for us.

June 3, 1971. My older brother and I were lounging in the yard enjoying a perfect late spring day. The Dad had promised us a surprise, and all our friends came by to help us ponder what the surprise might be. Fishing rods, perhaps, or a car of our own. So many possibilities. Glenn had just graduated from high school and I had completed my sophomore year. By 4:00, there were about 30 kids in our yard when we heard a rumbling, like distant thunder. There was dust, smoke, a wheezing diesel cough, the grinding of old gears. Our neighbor Ray looked down the length of Fourth Avenue and said:

“Hey, look. That’s a hay truck. You haul hay in a long flatbed like that. Man, that is the worst job in the world, hauling hay. Running to keep up with the truck, throwing 100-pound hay bales up, and sometimes there’s a snake or skunk caught in the twine. You get blisters on your hands that don’t heal, and when the bales are next to a creek, they can weigh up to 250 pounds. I feel sorry for whoever has to work that truck. Look at the size of it! That truck will hold 400 bales at least and… and… say, isn’t that Mr. Hargrove driving?” Full story »

When I was young, summer always began with Memorial Day. Since I have a few moments between filling out applications, I thought I would enlighten the world with this sad but true tale of chickens and summer madness.

When we were kids, my brother and I had to sacrifice one week each summer to visit dad’s folks. That’s what we called them: dad’s folks. We did not look forward to the trip, because things are different out in the country.

In their middle years, dad’s folks were baked by the Great Depression, and they came out of that furnace overcooked, tough and hard. They used an outhouse, a decrepit structure I refused to enter. When people ask me why I’m so anal, I assure them there’s a reason. They drank well water that smelled like sulfur. They didn’t have a television, a car, a book, or anything else that could provide escape. Full story »

I brought home another load of my stuff from school yesterday. I now have nine boxes of teaching materials that I won’t need anymore crowded around the computer in my room. Tests, reading skills workbooks, young adult literature, it‘s all here, and looking at it has made me slightly ill. When I wasn‘t paying attention, I became a hoarder. What am I going to do with this stuff? Peering up at it, I feel like I‘m a doomed gladiator in a stadium constructed of cardboard and copies of Romeo and Juliet and The Outsiders are screaming for my blood. It has made me sick.

So I stayed home today, but I’m not getting any better. This morning as she was throwing bags over each shoulder and stumbling toward the door, my wife-mate gave me quite the stare, I can tell you.

“I started the car for you,” I said. “To take the chill off.”

“Thanks,” she mumbled. “Because there’s nothing as uncomfortable as a car when the nighttime temp falls into the mid-50s.” Full story »

I can’t believe I am so self-centered that I would post something all about me on Mother’s Day. Talk about a selfish baby boomer! It’s much better to talk about me in the context of my mom. She would understand, since I was, for a short while, the favorite. If you’re not your mom’s favorite, I’m sorry, because I was and it was great! But to better understand why my mom loved me best of all, you only need to contemplate her options.

My older brother Glenn, the first born son, arrived 14 months before I did. He was small, sullen, and he liked to break things. I was large, stupid, and the owner of most of the broken things just mentioned. We weighed the same from the time I was 2. For me, Darwin’s Theory was survival of the fattest. My older brother loathed me from birth, so the only way to protect myself was by eating a lot and eating often. The fact that he couldn’t easily intimidate me unbalanced him. As we grew older, I passed him in height and weight. Only in raw hostility was he the master, so when we broke into open conflict, he almost always won. The only way I could assert any authority at all was by stating, after every battle between us, that I let him win. This would, inevitably, bring on another thrashing. It was worth it. Full story »

Monday is the 149^th day of the school year, leaving me with 31 days of work before the long, cold night of unemployment settles in. My wife and I spent much of last month looking at other possible teaching destinations. We’d whittled our list down to two, one in Mississippi and the other in Wyoming. Then the tornado came, and the list went to one. Go cowboys. I’m happy about the prospect of living on Wyoming. Really, I am. Stop laughing. It’s a great state.

But tonight, I’m struggling again. What I need is inspiration. I have to find someone who has overcome hardship on a grand scale, who has, through his own effort, fought back through adversity and risen, yeah, risen brother, to new heights. Someone who has been so far down that he would have to stretch his neck to see the bottom magma chambers in an unpronounceable Icelandic volcano. Someone like…someone like…

Dan Uggla. Amen. Full story »

• Days remaining in spring break: 1
• Days of meaningful employment left: 41
• Paychecks remaining: 10
• Unused sick days: 20
• Number of three-day weekends coming up: I see a couple at least.

No normal adventurer would head out to sea without some reflection on what he has, what he needs, and what real and imagined dragons are out there waiting for him. Now is a good time to take stock of things, while I still have a job and some security and don’t believe in dragons. Let’s see, where to start? Ah, the old blue car is paid for! That’s good. Since I changed the transmission fluid, my car, like the Viking longboat, can go forwards and backwards. Of course, the car is eight years old, so that’s bad. I didn’t renew the lease on our rental house yet and the lease is good until September. That’s good. But I will have to move in September. That’s bad. My college transcripts are on the way! That’s good. So far as I can see, there isn’t a lot of money on adventuring, so I have to start interviewing for jobs again. That’s really bad.
Full story »

It is three weeks later.

I have read articles that explained how many people who lost their jobs experienced a period of great excitement. The world is open and awash in possibilities. They can go anywhere and do anything! What a great opportunity, the chance to start over. Back to school, change careers, become the cowboy you always wanted to be!

The people who wrote those articles were lying. Except maybe for the cowboy part. Full story »

As I write this I am six days removed from the worst day of my professional life. On March 25, after a classroom/lesson evaluation, I was informed by my supervisor, who I always held in high regard until she told me how useless I was, that I would not be rehired to my position as language arts teacher at a charter school in Norwich, Connecticut.

Dang. Full story »

This is a tale of a parent’s love, a lucky cup, a new pick-up truck, and the first ever Take Your Daughter To Work Day. This year, that day fell on April 21, and it’s no longer just for daughters. I should point out that this year also has 364 Leave Your Child At Home Days, and there are good reasons for that. Full story »

The Boy Scouts. I know that’s a fragment, but sentence fragments remind me of a rope that needs tying, and everything I learned about rope tying I learned in the Boy Scouts. I have a son of my own now, and there’s no place I’d rather see him suffer through life’s mysteries than in the Boy Scouts. Full story »

In 1990, I was a language arts teacher at Whitthorne Middle School in Columbia, Tennessee. One fine April morning, I strolled into the office and found our principal heavily engaged with an irate mother. She screamed, she spat, she cursed, she took a swing at both of us before slamming the office door and taking her fury out into the parking lot and beyond.

“What was that all about?” I asked.

“Well,” said the principal, wearily, “She’s still upset about that house that fell on her sister.”

And that remains the greatest insult I have ever heard. Full story »

When we were kids, one of the things we looked forward to every Easter was the chicken wire pen in the basement of Kuhn’s Five and Dime. For a quarter, you could buy a blue, red or purple baby chicken. Easter Chicks was stenciled above the cage, and we were suckers for them every year. My older sisters would give the Easter Chicks grandiose names pulled from great literature they were supposed to be reading in high school, and we’d sneak them into the house after supper. Those were happy times. Not for us or the Easter Chicks, but for the neighborhood cats. Full story »

This week, something happened that changed everything. Life is like that. Just when we get comfortable, there’s a phone call or a letter or a chance meeting and the ground shifts, the sky changes, and the world is different and can never go back to the way it once was. On Saturday, my wife sent in the card to subscribe to Yankee magazine, and we dropped our subscription to Southern Living. We have officially become northerners. Full story »

I own the most aggravating, and therefore effective, alarm clock ever invented. It moves around the bedroom while I sleep, then shrieks like a jet engine every morning at 4:55. My wife has thrown it away three times, but it always crawls out of the dumpster and makes it way back to the table beside my bed. Yes, I hate it too, but it keeps me and my neighbors from being late to work.

But I can’t shake the feeling that I’m always late for other more important things. I didn’t learn the alphabet until I was 6, didn’t get my driver’s license until I was 20, didn’t graduate from college until I was 26, and didn’t find the girl of my dreams until I was almost 40. I fathered a son at 48, moved to Connecticut at 50, and became a reporter and columnist at 51. Full story »

I love libraries, especially the old, creepy ones. However, most people don’t realize that libraries weren’t built to hold books. That was a function they picked up somewhere along the way, because they‘re hollow, have lots of shelves and are mostly waterproof. Libraries were built to house librarians, because librarians are the smartest, wisest people on earth, and who wants to be bothered by that? So we need a place to keep them away from the rest of us, and nothing does that so well as a library. Full story »

Not long ago, a reader (not my therapist) asked me why I am the way I am.

“What do you mean?“ I asked back. “Because like everyone, there are two of me: the good me and the evil me. Which one are you interested in?”

“The evil you first,” he replied.

“That’s easy,“ I said. “The evil me is the way I am because I have an older brother.” Full story »