Of all the physically “pretty people” I have laid eyes on in my life … if I were allowed to choose one person who best exemplified the maxim, “pretty is as pretty does”, I would have to think long and hard to find one better than Anna Grace Parlapiano.

Anna Grace has won numerous beauty pagaents over the last few years. She has been Miss Greene County. She has been Miss Tennessee Teen. Just this past November, she competed and won the title of Miss All American, a national pageant in Columbus GA.

Currently Anna Grace is serving as Miss Tennessee Collegiate America and will compete at their national pageant in June for the title of Miss Collegiate America.

These days, beauty pageant winners don’t just get honored for their good looks. This young lady has been awarded a total of $17,000 in scholarships for winning these various pageants … money which she has put directly toward her education at ETSU.

But I want to tell you more about the “good” that this young lady does, as a direct result of winning these various beauty pageants.

Anna Grace told me, “One of my favorite things I like to do is visit veterans at the VA Hospital in Johnson City."

Anna Grace has also volunteered to visit many local schools, reading to children.

(I should also note here that she does many of her good deeds “completely on her own accord”, and not as a “must do” for her winning beauty pageants.)

Anna Grace is currently working as a pediatric medical assistant at an urgent care in Johnson City, all while carrying a full load of advanced college classes. She will graduate from ETSU in December of this year with a Health Sciences degree, before applying for PA (Physician’s Assistant) School.

I have been privileged to personally observe some of Anna Grace’s good deeds “in action” firsthand.

She has served as a “nanny” to two of my own grandchildren (which is precisely how I came to know this wonderfully good young lady in the first place). Anna Grace has been deeply involved in the education and care of Lenna Kate Talley and James Benjamin Talley, both of whom are pictured with her below.

To directly quote Anna Grace, her experience with them “has been a dream come true and taught me a lot of things that I will use as a Physician’s Assistant and mom one day!”

I have no doubt what a wonderfully caring Pediatric Physician’s Assistant that Anna Grace will someday be.

And if she is ever blessed to be a mother, I also have no doubt Anna Grace Parlapiano will teach her own children (not by mere words - but directly by her own actions, as she does now) that “pretty is as pretty does.”

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While hiking one February day several years back, I happened upon a young lady by the trailside, perched on a rock outcrop, gazing out over the river far below.

Following is some information I garnered during my initial quick “read” of this young lady.

She was beautiful. This part of my read didn’t take long. Like about half a second.

She was intelligent. On her backpack, which she had laid down on the ground behind her, was written the following quote from Tolstoy, “It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness.”

In my long experience in this world, I have yet to find a soul who quotes Tolstoy unless they are smart. I mean really, really smart.

She was kind. As I passed her by on the high overlook, I spoke to her, giving her my chirpy but always authentically friendly “Hello!” that I strive to give to everyone who comes my way in life.

She turned ever-so-slightly to wave a hand toward me. The small smile she offered was ghostly, completely devoid of any joyful or happy emotion.

I read her body language; this young lady was feeling absolutely overwhelmed by another immensely powerful and directly competing emotion.

She was sad. Deeply and tragically sad.

So I asked her, “M’am, I don’t mean to intrude. But are you okay?”

She whispered, “Yes. Thank you.”

But her eyes and body language spoke a different story. They collectively screamed out, “No, I’m in great emotional pain. Please help me, if you can!”

I walked toward her, speaking softly, using my ever-present humor. “I was once an elementary schoolteacher, and I’m an old man now, so I’m about as safe as anybody you could ever meet out in the middle of nowhere. Hey, can I take a look down there, too?”

Her mouth smiled. But her eyes did not.

As I peered alongside her down the long steep cliff toward the river, I said, “You know, when I was young I thought about jumping off a place like this. In fact, I thought about it again just about four months ago.”

Her face lit up with fear, as if I had just taken off an invisible mask. Her eyes flashed with equal parts denial and anger. “I wasn’t thinking about jumping,” she lied.

Then just as quickly, her face softened again, as did her words. “I’m alright,” she said. “But thank you for caring.

Not looking directly at her, but toward the beautiful river below, I continued. “It was four months ago for me. A childhood friend and I were both in love. Well, so I thought. Anyway, we were going to get married. Then a bolt from the blue hit. She messaged me she was leaving. No real reason given. But in a few days I found out she had been seeing someone else for quite some time. I’ve had some bad things happen to me in life, but that betrayal broke my heart.”

When I turned to look at her again, tears had formed in her eyes. She asked me, “But how did you know what I was going through?”

I had apparently “read” her well, piecing all the small details I had observed together and making an educated guess that I should share with her what turned out to be a remarkably similar life experience.

While I stood tongue-tied, my new young friend spoke on. “Will the pain ever go away?” she asked me.

Her eyes now pierced my soul. She was now intensely “reading” me.

I slightly hesitated to answer her question, so she asked, “Do you really think I will make it?”

I had long ago learned not to “just make up some nice words” at a time like this. Our best advice always contains both honesty and kindness.

So I said, “I can’t really tell. But I really think you will. Somehow, I think you will rise above this, forgive everything, remember everything, and make something great happen because you survived it all.”

The young lady said nothing in return. There was a long and awkward pause. I had become at a loss for more words. So I thanked her for talking with me and turned to go.

After taking a few steps, I heard a surprisingly strong and clear young female voice call out from behind me, “And I think you will make it, too!”

I was not the only one who was “reading people” that day on a high ridge above a river.

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It is the weekend of the Masters Golf Tournament, a perfect time for this article.

As for the subtitle, I can name many qualified candidates. I will begin with three of the most “naturally talented” Bristol golfers I ever saw play.

Bob Zeiger was the golf coach at Bristol Tennessee High School for over half a century. The “Zeig” could hit it a country mile. And pretty doggone straight too. Most of Zeig’s best birdies, however, were not made on a golf course. They were made over a long career of unselfishly building character in young people through the game of golf and his teaching in a public school classroom.

Jay Vandeventer’s pre-adult golfing career was filled with win after win. He went on to a wonderful collegiate career at the University of Tennessee and even played professional golf. A remarkable survivor of brain surgery to remove a tumor, Jay now makes his birdies raising a beautiful family.

Sherrill Flick may be at the top of my list as far as “pure golfing talent”. But Sherrill basically never played competitive golf again after high school. Instead, he went on to make most of his birdies away from the golf course … giving back to his community and church in countless, humble ways over his lifetime. I know. Because I saw it firsthand. Both on and off the course.

Some may say I could even name myself as a possible candidate. I won five individual Tennessee state golf championships at various levels by age twenty-one. I was also a High School All-American. My career, however, was far too brief. And much like the three previously named candidates, my best scores were made off the golf course. I spent most of my life striving to inspire Bristol’s elementary school children and Bristol Jail inmates as a teacher.

Of course, there are many other great Bristol golfers I could rightly name here for consideration. Some are “old timers”, long laid in the grave - Bill Hunt and Ken “Doc” Messorole, to name just two. (I hope my golfing friends forgive me for not naming all the worthy candidates here, as space in this article is obviously limited.)

In the long pantheon of Bristol’s greatest golfers, however, there is one name that ultimately stands head and shoulders above all others.

And that would be none other than the name of Jay Baumgardner. I venture that very few Bristol natives who ever got to play golf with Jay will disagree with such a choice.

I could go on to list all the many tournaments won by Jay - and the reader would understand why he is most deserving of the crown. His list of wins is almost endless … at the local, state, and national level - over one hundred tournaments altogether.

But instead of throwing a lot of numbers toward the reader, I will share a personal story or two. Stories forever trump numbers in helping us see people “for who they really are”.

To say that Jay was an intensely tough competitor is an understatement. Some who played golf with him even went so far as to claim he played golf with too much “gamesmanship”. The accusation I heard most often regarding Jay was regarding his “intentional slow play”, supposedly as a prickly way as to disrupt and annoy his fellow competitors. All these accusations eventually accumulated to gain Jay somewhat of an unsavory reputation, particularly among those who never got to know “the man behind the game”, as did I.

Let me tell you about how I came to know a very “different” Jay Baumgardner … much kinder and much more caring than his sometimes infamous on-the-golf-course reputation belied.

I was only sixteen when Jay was thirty-nine. He and I were playing head to head against each other in a local summertime tournament, the old Steele Creek Open. We were standing on a tee box, both of us tied for the lead, way ahead of the rest of the field, with only a few holes left to play.

Jay leaned over, put his arm around me, and whispered into my ear, “Benjie, I am trying my darndest to beat you today. But I almost hate to do it. You are truly such a nice young man and I am so proud of you. I also love your dad too. I think the world of him. But don’t you dare tell anybody I ever said any of this. It’ll ruin my reputation.” Then he winked and walked away.

Later on that summer, Jay called up my dad and asked if I could meet him at a local practice putting green. Jay asked that we be left alone, with no one else around, so he could teach me how to become an even better chipper of the golf ball.

This extremely selfless and sportsmanlike offer came from the most intensely competitive golfer I ever knew - a man who was always trying to beat me (and everybody else God ever allowed to breath) on the golf course.

Yet Jay sought to make me better, just out of kindness toward me. (I recently recounted this episode to Jay’s oldest son. He had never known a thing about it. His father had evidently long kept this good deed entirely to himself. As he likely did many such deeds. It was just Jay’s way.)

Of course, Jay refused to categorize his sincere and honorable effort to go out of his way to help me as a “good deed'“. When I thanked him for helping me, Jay looked at me and said, “Benjie, I’m only helping you because if you get better at golf, it means I have to get better to beat you - and I like getting better.” Then he winked.

Now there may have been a bit of truth to that statement, but I knew full well the main reason he helped me; Jay Baumgardner was not only Bristol’s best golfer, he was also one of our town’s best men. I know. Because I saw both of those attributes displayed in action firsthand.

Before Jay left me that day, he turned to me and said (along with a wink of course), “Now, Ben, don’t you dare tell anybody I was trying to help you. It’ll ruin my reputation.”

I went on to play head-to-head against Jay many times. I came to see that Jay actually seemed to somewhat relish his reputation on the golf course as sometimes “going too far with gamesmanship”. It seemed to me that he even thrived on it, ingeniously using it as a springboard to play his best golf.

Whatever was the reason for his seeming to “hang on” to his reputation as a gamesman, I am proud to write here and now that Jay Baumgardner was not only indisputably Bristol’s greatest golfer ever, he was also a wonderful father to his four children who loved him dearly, a true friend to many, and an honorable good man.

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If I burn a piece of paper, it “appears” as though the matter in the paper is completely destroyed; or at the very least, vanished into thin air, having at least somewhat less mass than it had before.

However, the exact same amount of matter exists before - and after - I burn a piece of paper. The matter only appears to be destroyed. It has simply “changed its form”.

That’s what resurrection is (whether we are talking physically or spiritually) - something which “appeared” to be destroyed that has simply “changed its form”.

Resurrection happens in nature. To everything. Everywhere. All the time. Whether we are talking about hilltops, hamburgers, or humans; nature endlessly re-uses the very same atoms - linked together in ever new and different forms - again and again and again, over vast eons of time.

Resurrection.

And if resurrection comes, again and again - one hundred percent of the time - to every atom of matter in our universe, then why not also to something so intricately and wonderfully made as are we?

As a child I taught once told me, “Mr. T., if everybody already knew that God was real and that there was a heaven, then nobody would need any faith at all. Because everybody would already know.”

Out of the mouths of babes …

Over the years, I found that children can often teach us much about life, about death, about faith, about resurrection.

The following are some more wonderful words that were voiced to me over the years - all from young children whom I once taught:

“Mr. Talley, if we already know we’re all going to die, then why don’t we all say we love each other more than we do?”

(To add to this little boy’s words would only detract from their beauty. What else need I say?)

Here is another …

“Mr. Talley, since I already know I’m going to die one day, I’m going to decide right this minute to be nice to everybody my whole entire life, even if they’re not nice to me.”

(The following words are from a little girl who was dying of leukemia, spoken when I entered her hospital room for a visit.)

“Look, Mr. Talley! Now I’m bald like you! But I’m glad I’m bald, because I always worried you felt bad about being bald. Now I know it’s not so bad. Like everybody says about dying. But I can tell them it’s not all that bad. I’m just glad I got to live. Not everybody gets to do that.”

(And just listen to the following words from a child who lost a beloved pet to death.)

“Mr. Talley, my kitten died. Everybody says I will see her again someday, but that doesn’t help at all. It only makes me sadder. So I’ve decided to keep her alive all the time even after I’m gone by teaching everyone to be so very, very, very kind to their pets.”

(The following words came from a child so wise that I dare say few adults could match her.)

“Mr. Talley, I love knowing that every atom in our bodies came from the Earth, and that the Earth came from the Sun, which probably came from an even bigger star that exploded very far away. It probably thought it had died, but part of it came alive in every atom that one day became me. I want to grow up and help people to not be afraid of dying … or of anything at all, Mr. Talley.”

(The following words are from a boy who lived a very “disadvantaged life” in many ways, to say the least. He was later murdered as a young adult, right here in Bristol, not too long ago.)

“Mr. Talley, I was thinking … dying can’t be bad. You taught us that nothing in nature is really bad. We just think it is, from where we stand. Volcanoes are good. And earthquakes. And germs. And all that stuff that seems bad to people right there that are close by when things happen. But if we were far away and in a different place, we could see that it’s all good.”

It all sounds to me like wonderful material for an Easter Sunday sermon on faith and resurrection.

On second thought … no need for the sermon.

The children have already preached it.

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I won’t shy away in this article from the tragedy Jason suffered. It is too much a part of who Jason became … and overcame. In fact, I hope to connect how his life’s worst tragedy became also his greatest triumph.

I taught Jason in elementary school. I taught him in third grade. Then I taught him again in fourth and fifth.

At Van Pelt Elementary School, we gave a Citizenship Award each year to our “best all-around” student in each grade. It was voted on by the teachers who taught that grade.

Jason had received the award in third grade. When we fifth grade teachers voted a couple of years later, Jason was voted for the award again.

Then one teacher spoke up. She said, “I really think we should choose someone other than Jason. He has already won this once.”

To which I spoke up, “You show me a better all-around kid than Jason Hearl, and I will change my vote.”

Jason received the award, yet again.

Jason spent the night at my house several times. He was great friends with my own son, David, who was Jason’s age. They played in the woods together. They played Little League All-Star games together. They played joyfully, at all times. “Joy” could well have been Jason’s middle name. Everything he did, Jason seemed to do it with a sense of joy.

Sometime after Jason’s tragic event, another former student of mine, Bristol’s Briana Morris Fillers (you can look her up on Facebook), rounded up a bunch of former classmates (and Jason’s former teacher, yours truly) to go visit him.

Jason was almost completely immobile. He could only lay in bed. He also could not speak to where we could understand a single word. Yet he smiled constantly, filled with joy that we came. It was also easy to tell that he understood much of what we were saying to him, by the look in his eyes each time we spoke.

Here is a pic I personally took of that event. My son is the second to Jason’s right. (We all actually visited him for several years running, each time near Christmas.)

Jason loved sports and had been a great athlete growing up. He had a very loving family who all loved him dearly. Yet now, here he lay, unable to speak and scarcely able to move.

Jason could have given up. He could have bemoaned his fate. He could have sunk into the depths of despair (which I’m sure he no doubt did, many times, again and again, as would any human being in his situation).

Yet no matter how often despair may have brought him down, Jason did not stay there.

Despite the dire circumstances Jason had been handed from life’s deck of cards, his spirit chose, instead, to always rise and return to joy.

I cannot write about Jason without feeling more joyful about life myself. Nor can I write about him without thinking of ways to turn my own life’s tragedies more into triumphs.

No matter the slings and arrows that life hurls toward us, Jason showed us (in fact, he lived it daily) that we can always choose to respond to tragedy and despair … by living life with joy.

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John was the long time CEO and President of Strongwell Corporation here in Bristol, personally building up the company for over half a century. He now currently serves as the company owner and Chairman of the Board of Directors.

Countless thousands of people have been employed locally over the years here in Bristol at Strongwell, due in large part to John’s expertise and guidance.

John is a true dichotomy of what is best about the human race, being that he is both very bright and very caring. He has the highly trained and uniquely mechanical mind of a brilliantly intelligent engineer, but he also has the deep empathy and huge heart of one of our region’s greatest philanthropists.

It’s nearly impossible to talk about John without also mentioning his good wife, Ann, and their two children, Spike and Jeff. All are bright, giving individuals themselves, in their own right. I personally know this to be a fact, because they have all given to any cause I ever asked them to give, regarding Bristol’s children. As in “always”. 100% of the time.

(By the way, Ann, a former educator like myself, also once upon a time played “Miss Ann” on the ‘60s syndicated television show, Romper Room.)

A few years back I stopped in to visit John at his office, and he promptly gave me a personal tour of Strongwell. I was absolutely in awe of all they do there.

Under Tickle’s leadership, Strongwell has long earned the reputation as the recognized world leader in pultrusion and pultruded fiber reinforced polymer composites.

I could fill this entire article with a list of all the accolades, accomplishments, and philanthropic achievements attained by John Tickle and his family. But I will not. I do better telling stories. And personal stories are actually what people like most. So … here is my favorite John Tickle story:

About ten years or so ago, I called John (just as a friend) and asked him if he would talk to my son. “Just spend a few minutes with him, please,” I asked. “Just talk. About anything. I want him to hear one-on-one from people like you.”

John eagerly obliged my request.

My son came back from their meeting together all aglow. He told me, “Dad, I now know ‘the secret’ to Mr. Tickle. It’s all about having something to rise and shine and be excited about every day. Mr. Tickle compared your passion for teaching with his for building up businesses and people. Having passion for whatever you do and throwing your whole soul into it. That’s the secret.”

John Tickle has undoubtedly been one of the greatest treasures and public benefactors our twin city has ever known.

I know of no one who has helped more local people, in so many different ways, for so long, as has John Tickle. Thankfully, he is still going strong at 84. 🥳😍

The thing is, we can all be a lot like John Tickle. The secret is to find a great and worthy passion within our own lives … something we can rise and shine and be excited about every day.

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If the reader has ever seen me interact with a child, you will know that I immediately transform into a profoundly “playful” mode.

About six years ago now, when I announced my imminent retirement from teaching elementary school, a concerned and caring colleague came to see me.

“Ben,” she said, “I know you are retiring this year and I worry about you. I seriously worry about your mental health. You have ‘played’ with children all day long for most of your life. What will you do now?”

My colleague was right. I was sometimes verbally reprimanded (or whispered about) by adminstrators or other teachers for having "too much fun” while teaching my students.

“You need to grow up, Mr. Talley,” I even heard directly from one administrator.

(I should also interject here: for every colleague or administrator who didn’t understand my playful interaction with children, there were likely at least ten times as many who did. I am forever grateful for that fact.)

But there was “method” to my “madness.” I had done my research; children learn better when in a playful mode. These days the scientific research has become overwhelming: children better retain whatever it is you are trying to teach them when you reach them with a “sense of play and fun”.

“Make learning fun,” was my teaching mantra.

It actually doesn’t take a lot of formal research for any of us to know the value of making learning fun. Watch most any grandparent with their grandchild. Most all of us seem to instinctively know how to engage in fun play with children.

So why don’t all teachers/caregivers “play all day” with their students, especially in public schools?

There are likely two great factors. One is surely the “control” factor. Teachers and administrators are constantly, moment by moment, keenly aware of “losing control” of a classroom. It is perhaps a classroom teacher’s greatest fear when supervising a group of children.

The other great factor may be visual. If children are not seen sitting at their desks quietly (or these days - glued to a computer screen), then it can “appear” that they are not learning as much. And whether we admit it or not, in public education we are often very much about “looking good” to the public. After all, the public pays the taxes that keep us all in business.

However, I found that the public absolutely and overwhelmingly loves it when a teacher integrates a sense of play into their students’ learning.

Yes, it takes a bit of risk to play meaningfully and get silly with a group of children. But the rewards are so unfathomably great, both for the teacher and student alike.

Ask any former student of mine. I am confident they will be quick to tell you that my classroom was filled with intermittent bursts of laughter and a constant “sense of play”.

I should add here that I incorporated this same “philosophy of play” into my teaching at the Bristol Jail. It may have, in fact, worked even better there! The men often told me that they had hated school because it was so boring to them. I sought to make it “anything but” boring for them.

A sense of play makes us all feel young again. And we all know that feeling childlike is good for our minds and our bodies, regardless of the date stated on our birth certificates.

I hereby publicly declare that I fully intend to continue to “play all day”, for as long as my mind will let me.

And someday … when I grow old (I mean really, really old), no one will be able to rightly say that I have entered my second childhood.

Because I will have never left my first one.

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As I type these words, my stomach is beginning to churn. It’s almost as if I’m hearing about this heinous crime again for the first time. Such horror and heartbreak, once endured, never completely leaves our psyches.

Although it had been several years since I had taught Gabby at Van Pelt Elementary School, we had stayed in touch on Facebook. When I heard the tragic news of her death, I decided to look back at the last message she sent me. It nearly ripped my heart from my chest. “I love you, Mr. T.” she wrote. “I always will.”

Indeed, that was Gabby’s constant message to the world, my friends; a message of love and light.

Despite her unspeakable suffering (the abuse had been going on for a long period of time), Gabby maintained an uplifting spirit. She tried so hard to turn her darkness into light.

God only knows what depths of darkness Gabby hid behind her ever-present smile. God only knows what unspeakable horrors she endured during her young life, especially during her last moments in this world.

But knowing Gabby, I do know this; she would want us all to strive, as best we each can, to turn darkness into light.

To forgive what seems unforgiveable.

To go on loving people, no matter what.

To bring goodness and justice to this world, each in our own way.

As best we can.

If we can learn to turn darkness into light, my friends, then Gabby and her dear mother did not die in vain.

I am about to write down right now all the good reasons why we should be using violence as a primary method to solve problems in our homes: _____________________________

There. That didn’t take long.

I taught two nights a week at the Bristol Jail for nearly twenty-five years. During that entire time I never once accepted an excuse from a man for abusing a family member. I told them that I did not want to hear it. Plain and simple.

(I must be quick to add here that the vast majority of the inmates I taught at the jail would never molest or murder a child. These men were most often incarcerated due to the illegal use of drugs.)

At least three other former students of mine (who also all happen to be female) have been murdered.

At the tender age of fourteen, Jessica’s life was taken from her in the most brutal of ways.

Jessica was every bit as gentle and sweet as Gabby (seems the meanest among us often seek out our meekest angels).

I was teaching at the Bristol Jail when Jessica’s murderer was somehow allowed a one-on-one conference with me in the tiny jail library - regarding earning his GED degree, a test for which I helped the men study while they were inmates there.

The deputy who brought this man in to see me had just that very day begun working at the jail. He hadn’t yet been briefed on the “only” men I would not accept as students - those who had molested or harmed a child in some way. (I felt I could not bring myself to teach such men; due in part to my personal experience of having been molested by some older boys during my own childhood.)

But there this child molester/murderer sat. Right in front of me. At first, I didn’t know the depth of depravity of what he had done. As I always did with a new student, we chatted a bit. When I told him I taught elementary school during the day, he immediately became visibly anxious and uncomfortable.

“You know I’m in solitary, right?” he asked me.

My eyes turned into slits at that question. I knew what that might mean. The jail’s policy was to segregate those who were accused or convicted of child molestation, keeping them in a special cell away from the general population, therefore to protect them from the other inmates - many of whom had been victims of such terrible abuse during their own childhoods.

This man looked straight at me and said, “I reckon you’ve heard about what all they say I done to that girl.”

Then he quickly added, with a sneer, “If I did, she probably enjoyed it.”

Something in me snapped. Something deep and primal. I could not hold back, even if a loaded gun had been pointed at my head. Not only Jessica, but all the children I’d ever taught who had been abused and/or molested seemed to appear all at once in my mind.

Somehow, by a lot of luck and the grace of God - or both - this man only suffered some relatively minor bruises and contusions by the time a deputy heard the ruckus, unlocked the door, and leaped in to pull me off him. This man had not suffered any broken bones. Nor was he missing any teeth. Yet.

I am in no way “justifying” my actions toward that young man. In fact, I want to promote quite the opposite in this column - that violence is rarely the best answer to our problems. Any of our problems.

Even when confronting a child molester/murderer face-to-face

Yet another sweet and innocent child whom I once taught was murdered here in town. Jill was her name.

I also met Jill’s murderer while he was being held at the Bristol Jail. Luckily for him, there were bars between us at the time.

I attended high school with her murderer. Looking back now, I had always gotten a creepy feeling when around that man. Unfortunately, I eventually discovered why.

Then there was sweet Cassi, who was murdered in a big city far away. Her identical twin lives on … and I talk with her on Facebook from time to time.

Yes, the direct experience of such darkness can weigh like a boulder upon our souls. Indeed, such darkness can overwhelm us. Such darkness can even make us grow darker ourselves.

If we let it.

We must strive to find ways of fighting darkness with light.

My friends, if you or someone you know is currently experiencing domestic abuse of any kind, you can help shed some light. Call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-7233.

If a child you know may be suffering sexual, physical, or emotional abuse, you may call the Children’s Advocacy Center (Bristol, Tennessee or Sullivan County) at 423-279-1222. Or the Children’s Advocacy Center of Highlands Community Services (Bristol Virginia or Washington County) at 276-645-5867.

One of the best ways we can help fight unspeakable crimes toward children and families is to be vigilant of “warning signs” in the behavior of others. We need to trust our gut instincts.

No, we most definitely don’t need to go around spreading inuendo and half-truths. That would be committing a form of murder in and of itself. Gossip can and does destroy people’s lives. Too many readers have possibly been witness to such a thing.

We simply need to use common sense and have the courage to do what’s right.

We are each “called” (each and every one of us) to be a “real life” guardian angel to all children everywhere.

Not some unseen spirit from above. But WE, you and I, are the most important guardian angels that any child will ever have.

All children. Everywhere. At all times.

Let us each accept that calling.

As best we can, let us each strive to turn darkness into light.

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That’s where I was initially scheduled to travel this past Friday - to the Teachers of Promise Institute, in Richmond VA (a health issue ultimately prevented me, but that topic is not part of this article).

These very smart and capable young people represent the very top of their respective colleges and universities, spanning across the entire Commonwealth of Virginia. They are among the finest future teachers one could ever find gathered together at one setting anywhere. (I am sorry I could not personally be there with them all this weekend.)

For about fourteen years running now, I have been invited to the annual Teachers of Promise gathering - to serve as a personal “mentor” to these about-to-become-public-educators; to attempt to inspire them on their new journey.

The Teachers of Promise Institute (visit: teachersofpromiseinstitute.com) is the creative brainstorm of my dear friend and fellow native Bristolian, Wade Whitehead, who graduated from our local John Battle High School.

Wade went on to graduate from William and Mary, then spent most of his career teaching elementary school in Roanoke.

Wade and I are both past recipients of the McGlothlin Award for Teaching Excellence. Likewise, we are both inductees into the National Teachers Hall of Fame. I’m proud to state that there may well be no other place in all the world (other than Bristol) with two native citizens who have won both of these prestigious awards.

However, I am even more proud to say that Wade has gone on to do more than me. Much more.

But how did Wade’s exemplary career in education come to be?

As with so many of the great things achieved in this world, Wade’s bright mind and empathetic heart were first nourished at home.

Wade’s parents, Ed and Betty Whitehead, attained nearly 100 years (yes, as in a century) of public-school teaching between them - all here locally, in and near Bristol. Ed and Betty are each a monument to American education … and have perpetuated their penchant for pedagogy through both of their sons.

The Whiteheads have another son. His name is Scott.

Scott Whitehead has also dedicated his life to teaching. Whether or not he has received as many teaching accolades as has his more famous brother matters little in regards to his impact on his students and his community. Far more often than not, the greatest good done in this world is accomplished in complete and humble anonymity (which sounds like quite a timely topic for another edition). Not everyone who deserves public applause and recognition in this world receives it. There may not be a better living representative of such a fact than Scott Whitehead.

There are countless ways for your own child or grandchild to bring good to the world in which we live. However, it would be difficult to find something more meaningful and influential you could inspire your child to be … than to become a teacher.

We would all do well to follow the lead of Bristol’s Whitehead family; that whatever it is your children or grandchildren may wind up doing in this world … inspire them to do it well.

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A few summers back, I was sitting in the Bojangles restaurant on the Volunteer Parkway when none other than Shamas Dougherty walked in. Yes, the “one and only” Shamas, a true Bristol icon, who can often be seen riding his bike around on the Tennessee side of town.

Shamus immediately recognized me from what he knew of me decades ago. “You that golfer guy!” he said excitedly, smiling and pointing and shaking a finger directly at me. “That who you are!”

“That’s me, Shamas!” I gleefully replied. “Come sit with me.”

As he walked toward me, Shamas stopped suddenly and said, “You Amy’s cousin. She die. Make me sad. Very sad. Amy always nice to me. Always. Yes, she was.” (Shamas speaks with a beautifully simple and fervently passionate style of speech. Some may say in fractured grammar. I say it is a style that makes communication plain as pie.)

Then Shamas turned to banter a bit with one of the Bojangles’ workers, a very nice lady who bantered right along with him as an equal.

Shamas thrills at any chance for good-natured banter. Especially if the banter has anything to do with the THS Vikings. But fair warning; if you are rooting for any other team, you will come out on the losing end if you attempt to banter with Shamas about his beloved Vikings. No truer fan has THS ever known.

The great man sat down at the table with me and crossed his legs. “Are you tired?” I asked him.

Shamas got all excited and began flapping and waving his arms around a bit, two things he does more often than most people. He is truly an emotional soul. “No! I ain’t tired. I ride all day. Never get tired.” I certainly had no reason to doubt him. Shamas has likely got the cardiovascular fitness of many a 22-year-old. Everyone in Bristol would love to have a dime for every mile he’s put on a bike in this town over the years.

(As of this writing, Shamas sightings around Bristol are gradually becoming less commonplace these days. Even our heroes and heroines eventually must grow old. At my best recollection, I would say Shamas is now 76.)

Shamas has exemplified the best of Bristol’s people in such unique ways for well over half a century now. Everyone who knows him seems to have a favorite Shamas story or experience. And virtually all these stories and experiences are what one might call uplifting. One might very well describe them all as being “pure in heart”.

Shamas has what many would call a “servant’s heart.” He is constantly volunteering his time and endless energy to help people. Even while we were talking, I watched him walk over to pick up trash that someone had left behind on a table. Over the years Shamas has been known to pull many a neighborhood trash can down to the street. And for decades on end he has gone down before the crack of dawn to sweep floors at the YMCA - just because he wants to be helpful. Indeed, Shamas has always done anything and everything he can to be helpful and useful to his fellow citizens all around our town.

It was as a child that I first met Shamas; at an old Bristol Tigers game on the Virginia side of town. A couple of “bully” teenagers had apparently backed Shamas into a corner. One “teased” Shamus that he was going to burn his face with a cigarette butt. At 10 years old, I didn’t know what to do, so I froze, thinking about yelling for help from an adult.

Turns out I didn’t have to do anything. Shamas took one step toward the bullies and reached down to draw a line in the dirt with his finger. Then he stepped back and said, “Step across that line. I dare you!” Of course, the bullies did.

Shamas began flapping and waving his arms. Then he said, “We not fight now! Now you on my side! See?” He pointed toward the line he had drawn in the dirt. What could the bullies do then but laugh and leave?

Shamas is “smart” in all the ways I wish we could all be smart. I know of no one who can outsmart or outwork him at his given tasks and role in this life.

Like so many people with “special needs” (whether they be a child or an adult), Shamas is refreshingly authentic and direct in both his manner and speech. Therefore, he is practically incapable of plotting ill will.

In the Gospel according to Matthew, Jesus spoke of becoming “pure in heart” as being among humanity’s most noble of goals.

Bristol’s own Shamas Dougherty surely exemplifies what is “pure in heart” among us all.

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I thought my life had ended. I wanted to quit school. I didn’t want to see my friends or family. I suddenly lost all interest in sports. I didn’t even want to eat.

There exist few - if any - pains in this life sharper to the soul than a broken heart. “Love hurts”, wailed in truth the Seventies rock band, Nazareth.

I was a teenager. The first “love of my life” had broken up with me (yes, on good terms - in fact, we remain in touch to this day - but it was still “all over”).

(And like all young people in love everywhere, we had both once swore without a shred of doubt that our love would last forever.)

I may (or may not) be the exception, but I have been completely, totally, head-over-heels “in love” several times in my life since that first one.

Many of my friends apparently vouch for having had just “one true love” in their lives. I don’t begrudge them.

But I am far from envying them. I have had a wonderful life, exactly as it unfolded. Even counting all the breaks of the heart.

Perhaps even directly because of all those heartbreaks, I have learned to love everyone and everybody I have met in my life all the more.

Yes, we do well when we recognize that there are many “forms and flavors” of love. Perhaps as many as there are people on the planet.

It’s such a shame that the English language has but one word for love.

The ancient Greeks had at least four distinctly separate words for love. And I can immediately think of a need for many more than four myself.

No greater wordsmith has the world ever known than ol’ Billy Shakespeare. Yet even the Bard himself admittedly was at a loss to describe love.

Alas, we may not all agree on exactly what love is … but we all know it when we feel it.

Biologically, emotionally, and spiritually speaking, love is everything.

Without our experiencing at least one of love’s many forms and flavors, life can appear to grow completely dark and meaningless. After all, love is why we are here. Love is “who we are”.

Apparently the Almighty shares much the same sentiment and reasoning as we mere mortals. All of Earth’s major religions unanimously uplift love as the epitome of our existence. My favorite verse from all of religious scripture is, “God is love”.

Through the long lens of time I can now see that love is (and always was) good - in all love’s countless categories and mysterious ways.

Back to my “first”. She now lives far away in a big city, having been very happily married for years, with several wonderful children and even more grandchildren. Once every few years or so, we still chat a few words on Facebook.

Though we somehow always stop short of putting it into words, we both know that we will always (in some wondrous, miraculous way) have a type of love for one another.

My “original flame” and yours truly are not in any way being unfaithful to anyone else in our lives. We are simply being human. We know our love is now as far from the romance we once had as the east is from the west. Our love is now something much different, higher, and evermore indescribable. (Since I have become friends with so many people across my lifetime, about half of whom are female, I’ve come to see “true unconditional friendship love” as perhaps the most fulfilling love of all.)

Indeed, love can morph and change over time. Given enough time, love can morph and change a lot.

Many of my friends, the ones who’ve had that “one true love” for a lifetime, have shared with me how the “romance” eventually dissipates - yet somehow grows into something indescribably “higher”, a friendship so deep and intimate that words yet again fail to decribe.

Let us celebrate the fact that - when we love - we have eternally become part of the most powerful emotional and spiritual force known to humanity. Love is much too omnipotent and divine for us to ever “lose” at it (even when, and maybe especially when, it seems to us that we surely have).

Indeed, love is such a many splendored and miraculous thing that we should feel eternally blessed and grateful that we’ve ever known it - even when our hearts appear to have been broken; whether by the abandonment of a partner, the death of a beloved pet, or the betrayal of a trusted friend.

We should never be afraid to love. Love can be life’s deepest pain, true, but it is also life’s highest joy. When we love (again, in any of love’s endless forms and flavors) is when we feel our most alive … doing exactly what we were made to do.

Love … is who we are.

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I had never seen racism firsthand before. Only read about it in books and newspapers. Only heard about it on the news.

But when I finally saw it, firsthand and in real life … “what racism actually is” became real to me. I finally understood it. And I vowed to “call it out” forevermore in my life, wherever I found it.

To the best of my knowledge, I have kept that promise.

Living in the mountains of Southern Highlands Appalachia as I most happily do, most of my friends are White. Some are of Asian ethnicity. Others, Latino. But a surprisingly large percentage of my friends are Black. Perhaps that fact can be traced back to my college days and my love of sports.

I was on the college golf team, but it seems I often hung out with football players. Perhaps it was because we shared the same wild streak. (Well, that’s not it because our golf team had quite a wild streak, too.) Anyway, my football friends and I were sitting around a table in the dorm playing cards one night. I had a Mountain Dew and offered a swig to my playing partner. He took one.

No need for us to worry about “spreading germs”. This was the ‘70s. We neither worried nor cared about spreading or catching germs (nor spreading or catching “anything under the sun” for that matter). Again, we were college kids in the ‘70s.

Another friend at the table, who went by the name of Billy, asked for a swig of my Mountain Dew. I teased Billy and told him I’d give the fellow beside him a drink instead. This friend happened to be Black.

My Black friend took a big swig, then offered Billy a drink. Billy (who, by the way, happened to be White like me) refused. He said nervously, “I’m not thirsty anymore.”

You could have heard a pin drop. Everybody there knew exactly why Billy didn’t want a swig from my Mountain Dew bottle anymore. And it wasn’t for the reason he stated. Billy was obviously plenty ready and eager to drink after me from a soda pop bottle, but not after a Black man.

Billy got up and left the table, but not before telling yet another lie. “I just remembered I’ve got to go study.”

Ever since that day, I’ve often noticed how people who commit racism always strive to make excuses for their blatant behavior, trying to cover up one lie with another. This is the standard modus operandi of racists - they blame others and make excuses, as a way of life. Who wants to be labeled a racist? Virtually no one.

So they deftly deflect.

They pass the buck.

They deny.

They blame someone else … therefore ever-so-cleverly managing to fool a lot of good people in the process.

If you know me personally, as do quite a large percentage of the people who read this column regularly, then you know the following two facts about me: 1 - I don’t like confrontation. 2 - I am not afraid of confronting someone when they are harming innocent people. Both of those facts are true at the same time.

If you are a good ol’ boy White hillbilly (like me) and you begin to tell a joke that even seems the wee tiniest bit racist (as if there is such a thing as a “tiny bit” of racism), then you will see this good ol’ boy White hillbilly bluntly tell you he doesn’t want to hear it. And if you continue anyway (as I’ve had some friends do over the years) I will simply leave.

By the way, I have found, from my many years of living in the Mountain South, that displaying a Confederate flag is not, in and of itself, to be deemed as racist behavior. I have many friends who display the Confederate flag. I can personally vouch that the majority of these friends are far from racist. They simply have a different view of Southern culture and heritage than do my Black friends.

I have yet to see any of my Black friends display a Confederate flag. I fully understand, and completely concur with, the reasoning behind why such friends do not. It is much the same reason I don’t ever display such a flag … although, again, I wholeheartedly respect my non-racist friends who do.

My friends who know me personally know that I am not in any way “political”. Like the majority of my fellow American citizens, I remain politically unaligned. Any reader who mistakes something I write as supporting any political party is either being unintentionally ignorant or willfully wrong, one of the two.

Once upon a time I was visiting a Sunday School class at the invitation of a friend. We had all just sat down and were small-talking with one another, when one fellow leaned toward me, grinned, and said (just out of the blue, for all I could tell), “Have you ever wondered why Black people look like apes?”

I learned long ago that there is no use in trying to reason with a racist. So I got up and left (yes, I later explained to my friend why … and he, thankfully, fully understood - and agreed that I had done the right thing).

I am proud and honored to be a member of the National Teachers Hall of Fame. I was inducted in 2015. As part of my induction, I was flown to our nation’s capitol meet the President in the Oval Office. (To give you an idea of how “special” the NTHF is, only five teachers are chosen from across the entire nation each year.)

I met President Obama. I shook his hand. I talked with him, face-to-face.

I can assure you this; President Obama did not look like an ape.

Indeed, ever since that late night card game back in the ‘70s, when I finally understood what racism was, I have kept my vow to call it out, wherever I find it.

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I met this good man sometime back in the late 1990’s. Seems like “public drunkeness” rings a bell. I do recall my aboriginal friend spending a a couple of nights at the local Crossbar Hotel, otherwise known as the Bristol Jail (a place where I taught two nights a week for a quarter century).

I don’t recall his given Native American name. I wish I could, but I cannot. I am at least a bit ashamed to say that I only called him “Chief”, same as the inmates did. (Chief seemed to like it. But looking back now, it was more like “acceptance” on his part, rather than a like.)

This Native man was a handy man/carpenter/brick mason, walking and working his way across America. While here in Bristol, he just happened to become momentarily filled with some very potent local alcohol, which then led him to stagger around downtown. Therefore, the brief jail sentence.

It was a cold January night at the Bristol Jail when I first made this man’s acquaintance. It had yet scarcely snowed a flake that winter. My inmate students (one of whom on that particular night was Chief) and I were gathered together in the tiny jail library, when someone mentioned I should gather up my elementary school students the next day and do a “snow dance” outside with them, so they could get out of school for snow.

Gleeful chortling ensued.

Then Chief began to speak.

“Mr. Talley,” began Chief, as all immediately grew quiet. The men may have poked a bit of fun at his name, but whenever Chief spoke, they all showed respect.

“Teach you snow dance, I will. My people did snow dance to get close to buffalo. Buffalo sink down in snow. Walk slow. Easily we walk across snow in snow shoes. Ask Great Spirit to send snow, we did. And Great Spirit did. Same for you if you ask with pure heart. Have little ones do snow dance. It not matter how they dance. It only matter they dance with pure heart and joy. Great Spirit have much love for little ones to send them snow.”

(It seems like Chief might have been of the Cheyenne tribe. But again, I can’t recall for sure. Anyway, it doesn’t much matter, I suppose. What matters is that he was the “real deal”.)

The next day, while back teaching in my elementary school classroom, I led my “little ones” (my students) in a snow dance.

That night it snowed so much we were out of school for two days.

From that point on, Chief Wild Turkey Talley (yours truly) led the children on a bonafide “snow dance” outside together whenever we decided we might want school to get called off for a snow day or two.

Somehow, every single time we “snow danced” together, it began to snow within twenty-four hours.

No, it didn’t always snow enough for us to get out of school all those times. Maybe half the time. But it did snow (at least a tiny bit) every single time. Sometimes just a flurry, but it always snowed. Any meteorologist would envy our record.

When the skies grew grey each wintertime, my teaching colleagues would often come up to me, uttering the heartfelt plea, “Mr. Talley, will you please take the kids outside and do the snow dance?” (Teachers love snow days as much as their students.)

Indeed, our snow dance worked like a charm. Every single time. Forty-eight dances we did. Forty-eight times the Great Spirit sent the little ones some snow as a reward for their pure-at-heart efforts.

I have included a video of once such dance here. You can even hear Chief Wild Turkey Talley chanting away in the background.

Fortunately, I have living witnesses - my many former students who did the snow dance with me - who could testify to the veracity of our claim of constant success.

Thank you, Chief, wherever you are now, my friend.

Thank you, Great Spirit, for your sense of humor and your love of pure-hearted, joyous little ones.

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“Mr. Talley, no one should go hungry in America.”

It is a somewhat common statement to which I always reply, “No, but millions do.”

Some readers might be inclined to think, “Ah, but the needy have SNAP (the government’s Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program). My tax dollars go for that, and that should be enough.”

To which I reply, “Have you ever tried to live on SNAP, to see how well that actually feeds your family?” (Hint: Try adequately feeding yourself on less than $10 a day. Your gut will tell you the answer.)

Every year, I see the hunger grow in our local community. I especially notice it each Christmastime, when I visit the needy dressed as Santa. This past year, I helped needy local families every bit as much (if not more) with food and rent as I did with gifts to their children. After all, how much of a joy are toys to a child when they are hungry and homeless?

(Exorbitant rent may well be a topic for another article in this newsletter. For now, I will deal with food. Families can exist and make do without a permanent place to live, as too many among us do. But families simply cannot live without enough food.)

The stark reality of all this hit the fan for me this past December when a little boy ran out the front door after me as I was leaving a home I had just visited. The child said to me, “Santa, can I trade my toys you brought me for some food?”

I have never, in all my twenty years of Santa deliveries to local families, had those words spoken to me by a child.

Which reminds me, I actually had a friend say to me, “Our church sends all our food relief efforts to overseas missions. Because we know that any family in America can get all the food they need, if they really want it.”

Hmmm…..maybe my friend should go visit this child and his family.

The harsh reality is this; too many families go hungry right here in America, the “land of plenty”.

As we know in this life, there is no easy solution to difficult problems.

I have personally taken to providing Food City gift cards to families and individuals in need. (In my visits around Bristol I’ve also discovered that the elderly living on fixed incomes too often go undernourished.)

But hungry people do not need food at Christmastime only. Families need to feed their children every day, all year long.

There actually already exists enough food in our region to adequately feed every hungry soul in our communities. Every local grocery store is filled with food. We just need to get it to those who are most direly in need.

Some may think the large economic “cost” to feed the hungry among us is too much. On the contrary, the cost (and I’m not even talking about “cost” in humanitarian terms here - but purely economic) is far greater.

For even if someone doesn’t personally care about the poor … and even if someone somehow thinks that for some reason the needy “deserve” their poverty, there yet remains an especially big “economic” reason we, as an entire community, would want to feed the needy: Because it costs us (again, speaking solely in economic terms), as a society, far more NOT to feed the hungry because of the following fact:

A hungry child cannot focus in school and is, therefore, much more unlikely to ever become an economically contributing member to our society (a taxpayer with meaningful employment). Therefore, in the “big picture”, the vast economic cost to society of ignoring child hunger is far more than the price of providing adequate food at present.

Of course, one cannot combat such a huge problem by oneself. It takes a village. Therefore, I’d like to highlight one local agency who is at the forefront of trying to provide enough food, every day of the year, for the hungry in our region.

That would be none other than Second Harvest Food Bank.

My cousin, Kristen Fields-Reedy, is a brilliant and good soul. A former public school teacher and principal, Kristen now works for Second Harvest Food Bank in Sullivan County.

Kristen recently took me on a personally guided tour of the local Second Harvest Food Bank facility. Below is a pic taken by yours truly during my tour.

Here is a link to local the Second Harvest Food Bank website: https://netfoodbank.org/

My friends, if you know of any family or individual who is food challenged, please feel free to call Second Harvest at 423-279-0430. These good people will find some way to help.

Meantime, if you come across a little child wanting to trade their toys for food … please feed them.

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“Ben, I love to read your stuff, but are you gonna write about MLK Day this Sunday? I suppose that’ll be nice if you do, but if I see that in your title I likely won’t read any further. That day is mainly for Black people. Most of the rest of America just doesn’t really celebrate it the way Black people do.”

Those words were spoken to me by a dear friend whom I came across while walking down State Street. I hadn’t specifically planned to write about MLK Jr. Day, but my friend’s words greatly inspired me to do so.

As I write my column each week, my two primary guides are kindness and truth. If I can stay loyal to those two pillars (otherwise known as “courage”) then I feel I have written well.

However, it’s a pretty obvious fact that when we try to tell the truth and do kind things in this world we often become a marked man or woman.

So instead of risking such a mark, many among us strive, instead, to do a “little” good as we pass through this life, all the while making sure we are not rubbing powerful people the wrong way, not taking any real chances, and not creating a big stir. That way many of us manage to do a “little” good.

And that’s exactly how much good we then do; a “little”.

But if you and I want to truly do a “lot” of good, we must take chances. We must, at times, risk our reputations. We might even sometimes risk our jobs. Ultimately, we may even go so far as to risk our lives … as did one Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Few of us go that far.

Ah, but those times in my life when I, like Dr. King, have risked my reputation to spread kindness and truth in this world … rarely have I felt more courageous, more whole, more alive.

I will share with you one of those times.

I was invited to speak at a church one Sunday eve. Filled with very nice people, it was. And as long as you looked like they did, lived like they did, and believed everything they did … they remained very nice people.

As the pastor introduced me, part of what he said was, “Ben is one of us. He wants America to be like it used to be, back in the good old days.”

Because of my life’s work as a public educator and community volunteer, I had been invited to talk about ways their church could help make America a better place.

My blood was part boiling, part ice. I knew if I stood and said what I felt to be kind and true that I would be ostracized by many in that church.

I can’t recall all that I said, but I ended my talk with something like this; “If you good folks really want to make America a better place, I would challenge each of you to reach out to others who are not so much like yourselves. Everyone in this sanctuary looks alike. I see an all-white, believe-exactly-as-I-do club. We could well be in a time capsule here, from the 1950’s, the way America used to be. You folks have been so wonderful to welcome me here, and I’m truly grateful for your hospitality, but if you really want to make the world a better place, then I’d go all-out to make sure that everyone in the community, regardless of their race or religion … or lifestyle … feels as welcome here as I do.”

At which point, I no longer felt quite as welcome there by everyone. I could feel it in the air. But … that was fine. I had followed kindness and truth.

Yes, I would have spoken the same words to any other “all-one-color” church, be it all-Black, all-Brown, or all-Purple.

Now I can assure the reader that the vast majority of my white friends are not racist. Not even close. I’m not even sure the people of that church really were, either. And I am absolutely certain that my friend who spoke to me about his not celebrating MLK Jr. Day is not.

To call people “racist” before we get to know their complete thought process surely does not serve to bring us all closer together. Such name-calling and labeling only serves to separate us all the more.

We must strive to come together. As best we can. White. Black. Latino. Asian. Native. Mixed. New Guinea Highlander. Whatever we may “superficially” appear to be.

Whenever we strive to come together as the Human Race, it is then we realize that we all have the same dream, the one Dr. King spoke of; that of all people living together with equal civil rights and showing real brotherly love toward one another. Who should not celebrate such a noble goal?

MLK Jr. Day is America at our best. We should celebrate it. Together. All of us.

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It was a New Year’s Eve many years ago. I thought about what I’d like to do, not just during the coming year, but with the rest of my life.

I thought about how most resolutions are doomed to be broken, so I wanted to “simplify” mine. Make them into “a way of life”, so to speak.

I had too often attempted a “bucket list” type of resolutions. Things to be checked off. But not things I had continuously strived to live by.

So I wrote down the following . . . and have strived to live by each of them every day, ever since. Each and all can be done by virtually anyone . . . and nary a one costs as much as a dime.

Live simply.

Give hope and warmth as you go.

Treat every soul as your own.

Live humbly.

Laugh a lot.

Write and visit often.

Treat both poor and rich the same - both need love.

Fight ignorance not with darkness, but with light.

Marvel at the stars.

Play with children.

Hold grudges against no one.

Think deeply.

Walk daily in the fields and woods.

Stay learned and well-read.

Above all, be compassionate and forgiving.

I hope others might consider striving to “live by” some of these maxims along with me. The reader may pick and choose as you wish. Or totally create your own.

In fact, totally creating your own might be a great idea. And what better time than right now?

Live simply.

This one I have done fairly well, I suppose. I don’t desire a lot in the way of materials things. And I seem to be happier with having less and less in the way of “things” as time goes on. But I can always get better at it.

Give hope and warmth as you go.

This one maxim has eased my occasionally recurring depression more than all the manmade medicine I’ve ever tried in this world. When depressed, no one “feels like” giving hope and warmth. But when I “make myself” go out and strive to give hope and warmth to others, I ultimately break free of depression’s icy cold hold.

Treat every soul as your own.

This has helped me - so very, very much - all throughout my teaching career. Particularly when teaching jail inmates, I found that one can sometimes lose hope and faith in one’s fellow man or woman. At such a time I strive to remind myself that each of my fellow beings has a soul, equal in worth to my own. And since I refuse to give up on myself, neither will I give up on anyone else - however misguided any fellow soul in this existence may presently be.

Live humbly.

I have a pet peeve about arrogance. I don’t like it in others. I don’t like it in myself, either. Although, Lordamighty, it is often so hard to “see” our own arrogance. But I do try hard to live humbly. Very hard. I’m just not there yet. It seems my writing may even appear to be a “humble brag”, especially at those times when I am trying to inspire others to do certain things. I don’t mean it that way, but sometimes when I read it - there it is. However, it is often worth the risk to me in the interest of promoting a universally peaceable idea. I realize I may never be as humble as I want to be. But that won’t stop me from seeking.

Laugh a lot.

All the children I ever taught will vouch for me on this one. It’s hard for me to go long without “stirring up some fun” of some kind. I love laughter (the full belly kind). Good for the heart. Good for the soul.

Write and visit often.

I do well on the first. I write a minimum of three letters (not just on Facebook, or by text - but a real “snail mail” letter) every day. But I’ve slacked on visiting. I’m going to have to pick up again. I enjoy visiting so very much. Old friends. Family. Former students. Each and all. And I never stay long - which is a big key toward getting invited back.

Treat both poor and rich the same - both need love.

I’m honored to have friends who are millionaires and friends who are homeless. I do love them all. I respect them all. Just for who they are as human beings. Not for what material things they may or may not have. Indeed, I have found that millionaires are good people, too, and often are not driven solely by “things” - at least the ones I know - for the most part. And, oh, how I do love sitting up nights beneath a bridge with my homeless friends. Especially when I go dressed as Santa.

Fight ignorance not with darkness, but with light.

I am a believer. All the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the tiniest light. And the Light is within us all. If only we would realize it.

Marvel at the stars.

Most night, more often than not - the good Lord willin’ and the clouds be behavin’ - I go outside and gaze upward toward the stars. I often cannot cast my eyes upward long before an overwhelming aura of humility and gratitude envelopes my soul. It is not at all uncommon for me to feel literally “at one” with the entire universe at such times.

Play with children.

Gosh, I miss this one. So very much. When I taught school, I basically “played” the day away with children. Yes, they learned. We all did. A lot. Engaging in a “constant sense of play” with young children may be the greatest teaching method ever devised. Watch most any grandparent play with their grandchildren … and you will also become a believer.

Hold grudges against no one.

I can honestly say this is one of the few things I feel I am actually “kinda good at” in life. My father gave me the most remarkable advice I have possibly ever heard when I was about fourteen. He said, “Benny, if you want to live a peaceable life, then go ahead and forgive everybody who is ever gonna do you wrong. Do it right now. Forgive ‘em all in your heart. You don’t even know who most of ‘em are yet, but still forgive ‘em. Even way before they do you wrong.”

Now think about the power in that statement, my friends. Most people say forgive, “after the fact”. But Dad said to forgive everyone of everything ahead of time. Before we ever even meet the people who are going to do us wrong. Priceless.

Think deeply.

Some of my friends may say I think too much. However, I don’t think one can do that - generally speaking. (Of course there are always exceptions to every broad rule.) I cherish thinking deeply. I mean. Really. Deeply. Especially when out beneath those stars at night.

Walk daily in the fields and woods.

I’m blessed to be able to still do this. I take a hike most days. Sometimes a long trek. Sometimes a brief stroll. I go in the snow (joyfully). I go in the rain (with equal zeal). I just go. The endorphins are my Prozac. Nature is my counselor.

Stay learned and well-read.

Big slacker I am here. I do read a lot of messages and posts from my friends on Facebook - and that can be a good thing - but it is not the same as “old timey style reading”. I dearly love to read (the inner workings of quantum physics and new discoveries in cosmology and/or anthropology are two of my favorite topics). But I don’t read daily nearly as reliably as I once did. It seems I’m now doing more “important” things.

(Excuses. Excuses. I just made such a big one that I feel I should go find a mirror and bow to myself. Ha!)

Above all, be compassionate and forgiving.

I feel I am “fairly good” at this one. But as in so many of the “to live by” goals I’ve listed here, I realize I can always get better. Backsliding does occur. Backsliding will occur. We are human. Therefore, we must be forever mindful of matching our actions with our beliefs. Thankfully, there are no limits as to how compassionate and forgiving we may each become. Heck, I suspect even the good Lord may find new ways now and then.

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No, I’m not gay. But if I were, would the reader think any less of me as a human being? When it comes to treating me equally, honorably, and decently, I would hope you would be the same toward me, regardless of my sexual orientation.

Our children and grandchildren are much the same way. They just want to be loved … exactly for who they are.

We now know a tremendous amount more about the scientific, sociological, and psychological underpinnings of human sexuality than we knew when I was a teenager growing up, when it was almost a “rite of cultural passage” among us so-called “normal” heterosexual boys - back in the ‘60s and ‘70s - to “make fun” of people who were “queer”.

I am, of course, now ashamed that I joined “the cultural bandwagon” of the time. Not everything was better, kinder, and gentler back in the Good Old Days, you know. (I think it also important to note here that I can remember sensing, even as a child, that it was “wrong” to ridicule and condemn people whose expression of sexuality was somewhat different than my own.)

Thankfully, I have since learned to openly love and accept everyone exactly for who they are - regardless of their sexual orientation, religion, politics, disability, ethnicity, race, or lifestyle.

Over my career as a teacher, I discussed with more than a few concerned parents regarding their child’s apparent tendency toward a “different than the norm” orientation of sexuality.

Nope, I’ve never (not even once) abided by the wishes of a parent who wanted me to “help correct” the sexual orientation of their child. That was not my place. Neither as a teacher, nor as an intelligent and caring human being.

One of my former students - a student who happened to be gay - put it to me this way when he became a young adult, “Mr. T., when you were my age you looked at women and just naturally felt a certain way. Well, I just naturally feel that same way toward men.”

No, I don’t understand every bit of what he was talking about. Not completely. But I don’t have to fully understand people to accept them for who they are.

(At this point in my column, my friends, if you are finding yourself disgusted, disagreeable, or defensive, you might want to do a personal bigotry check on your own soul.)

But don’t feel too badly, as I’ve known many a parent to feel at least somewhat the same way … at least, at first.

The father of a student whom I taught (a student who identified as lesbian) had been a respected elder at his church for many years. One evening a prayer circle was held at the church. Everyone knelt down and bowed low, with the purpose of “praying the tendencies out” of his now young adult daughter.

This man suddenly stood up and shouted, “Wait just a minute! I love my daughter. You all can keep praying all you want. But I’m going to go find her and hug her. I love her just like she is, no matter what!”

Where are the Medals of Valor for such a parent?

The mother of a gay student whom I taught asked me, “Mr. Talley, please help talk my boy out of marrying another man.” She said to me, weeping sincerely, “I know my husband and I raised him as best we could. We just don’t know where we went wrong.”

I said, “Dear lady, you are both wonderful parents. Your job was to raise a loving, kind, hard-working, thoughtful child. And that’s exactly what you’ve done. I know of no better parents anywhere … and I know of no finer child I ever taught than your son. Be proud of him, very proud.”

And, in time, they both were.

Other gay or lesbian students of mine have not had it so lucky. At least one such student eventually took his own life in despair, undoubtedly in a big way due to his parents who adamantly refused to accept him for who he was. His parents told me, “Unless he changes his lifestyle, we can no longer accept him as our own.”

The tragic death of this young man still haunts me to this day. What different words could I have said to his parents to persuade them to love their child “unconditionally” - as all good parents do, no matter the lifestyle of their children - without judgment or condemnation?

I realize now that nothing I said or did would have made any difference with them. These parents were much more dead-set on doling out legalistic judgment than they were about giving unconditional love.

Dear reader, if your own child or grandchild is not gay or lesbian (or otherwise different-than-the-norm in their sexual orientation), then imagine for a moment that they actually are.

Would you love your child any less?

Would you be embarrassed or disgusted by who they are?

Or would you love them with everything in you and accept them exactly for who they are?

How you answer such questions tells us lot about you as a parent.

And even more about you as a human being.

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My friends with money are not greedy. They want very much to give to those in economic need.

Instead of just giving indiscrimately, however, my friends with money tell me they want to be assured primarily of two things:

1 - That the money goes toward those truly in need.

2 - That the money they give stays “local”.

I have a unique situtation involving both the rich and the poor in Bristol. Over my teaching career, I taught nearly two thousand inmates at the Bristol Jail … and at least that number of children in local elementary schools. I have stayed in touch with most of both populations, as best I have been able. All this has led me to have a keen eye for finding and serving the local poor and needy among us.

Bristol’s rich, generally speaking, I have found to be anything but greedy. I cannot tell you how many friends with more than adequate financial means (the so-called “rich” among us) go out of their way to write me a check each year to help my sojourns as Santa, personally delivering much-needed goods, gifts, food, and services to many local residents in need.

Again, my friends only want to know - and quite fairly so - that their giving stays local and goes directly to those who truly need it … the two big stipulations I can most assuredly and verifiably meet as well as anyone I know.

Bristol’s poor, generally speaking, I have found to be anything but lazy. Not all have one “full-time” job, as do most folks with greater prosperity. Many work two or three, or even four, jobs to help meet rent and food. Such jobs are not “lifetime” careers, such as the one I was blessed to enjoy as a teacher. Their jobs tend to be much more transient.

By the way, do you know how high of a percentage of their take-home-pay goes specifically toward rent alone for the poor among us? It is a virtual crime. No wonder the poor so rarely are able to escape poverty, no matter how hard they try. There exist so few realistic paths of upward mobility toward a more viable economic life for these people.

While there may be virtually no economic “way out” for most adults living in property, there exists, all across America, a Great Equalizer for every child. It is called Education.

The working poor may not have a visible path to prosperity …. alas, but their children do.

Which is precisely why, on my visits as Santa, I don’t ask if the children in any family have been “good”. Instead, I ask if they are doing well in school and working hard, because I know those two things are their best ladder to climb up and out of poverty. As Santa, I practically beg the parents to put great emphasis on their children’s education.

“I know you love your children. The better they do in school, the better their chances of doing well in life will be. And I know you want them to have a good life, right?”

Some do listen. I know because I keep up with these families from year to year.

In visiting literally thousands of homes in Bristol over the years, I can count on one hand the number of families I would label as lazy.

One year as Santa, while visiting a family who lived in a place so poor they had a dirt floor (yes, we have those here in Bristol), a little girl heard her father graciously thank me, but tell me that he wished I’d go to someone more needy, that they were fine. (Her father didn’t say this with a mean spirit at all, but with an honest and giving heart.)

The little girl had disappeared while I was talking to her father. Upon her return, she smashed a tiny piggy bank on the floor. Stooping down, she then raised up with not a coin missing from her two little hands. Walking toward me, she said, “Will you please give this to the poor, Mr. Talley?”

Dear Lord, why do we not build monuments to honor such selfless souls among us?

As for the rich, in my twenty-plus years of delivering goods, gifts, and food as Santa to the needy among us, I can count on one hand the number of friends “with money” who have ever refused when I’ve asked them for funding help.

Bristol has its economic problems, yes. But, as the sign spanning State Street proudly proclaims, it is still “a good place to live”. Thanks to its people … rich, poor, and in between.

In the words of Tiny Tim, “God bless us, every one.”

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Before reading another word, I must hereby state that I do not believe in ghosts. (The reader will shortly discover why such an adamant declaration is integral to the understanding of this particular story.)

When you’re dead, you’re dead. You don’t get a special ticket to wander around as a ghost, whatever the heck that is.

Now on with this (possible) ghost story:

It was a briskly cold and clear - and quite windy - Christmas Day that year.

Christmas Day, with all its joy and celebration, had come and gone.

It was now almost midnight. I found myself standing in a Bristol cemetery, visiting the graves of my dearly beloved parents.

To say I was feeling “down” may be the ultimate understatement. As my friends know, I suffer from intermittent severe depression (which seems to be a common fate for many of us deep thinking-introspective-empathetic personality types).

No, I wasn’t going to commit suicide. Not really. But I must admit it was on my mind. As I looked up from the graves and toward the stars, I was thinking about how tiny and insignificant we all are compared to the incomprehensible vastness of the universe. Such moments can sometimes be somewhat precarious to our further existence. But they can also prove to be immensely humbling and eternally enriching, should we survive them.

Then out of the cold darkness … and above the wind (which managed to swirl up a few leftover crinkly brown autumn leaves - I could scarcely see them, but I could clearly hear them) … I suddenly heard the distinctly unmistakable sound of human footsteps behind me.

I turned around to see the origin of those footsteps come stumbling past me in the moonlight. At maybe twenty paces away, I saw Old Joe.

I hadn’t laid eyes on this dear soul in at least ten years, since I had last taught him at the Bristol Jail. Old Joe appeared to be stumbling stone drunk - as was his normal natural state when not incarcerated.

“Old Joe!” I called out, and immediately walked swiftly toward him. “Are you okay?”

But as I walked toward him, Old Joe was nowhere to be seen nor heard. At all.

Yet I’d have sworn on a truckload of Mountain Dew that I’d both seen and heard him.

Six months passed. I was visiting with another ex-inmate/student of mine, Jeffrey Vineyard. As we sat side-by-side on a bench in downtown Bristol, I asked Jeffrey if he knew whatever had happened to Old Joe.

“Mr. T.,” he replied, “Old Joe’s been dead nearly 10 years now.”

Jeffrey saw how much his words startled me. “But that can’t be true, my man.” I insisted. “I saw Old Joe in a graveyard late one night, stumbling around drunk. It was just last Christmas.”

Jeffrey didn’t reply. He just stared off into the distance, blankly. An uncomfortable moment passed.

“Jeffrey, how did Old Joe die?” I asked.

My friend let his head fall toward his lap. He whispered one word. He whispered it in a voice so low that I could scarcely hear him. But he didn’t need to repeat what he said. “Suicide.”

Perhaps it really was Old Joe’s ghost that I saw, visiting from the Great Beyond - as did Marley’s ghost to Scrooge in the Charles Dickens classic, ‘A Christmas Carol’.

Perhaps I saw an angel, traveling on a similarly honorable mission of mercy as might have Old Joe’s ghost.

Perhaps I saw someone who strongly resembled Old Joe. Old drunks do stumble around a lot alike, you know. That is perhaps the most likely explanation. Whenever we apply “Occam’s razor”, the name given for the time-honored and not-really-hard-for-anyone-to-do method of deductive reasoning, we find that the simplest explanation of any event is, more often than not, the truth.

Whatever happened in that graveyard, I choose to call it a miracle. I may not believe in ghosts, but I do believe in miracles.

And what is Christmas, if not a miracle?

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It is the season of giving. But do any of us truly realize how blessed and lucky we are to have a brain that allows us to be “a giver”? (As the reader will soon see, there are those among us who are sadly not endowed in such a way.)

Most of us think that when we do good deeds toward others, we are being totally unselfish. Noble. Altruistic. Generous. And … maybe we are. To an extent.

Put simply; we do good because it feels good.

And we thought all along that we were doing good because we were noble, altruistic, and generous beings. Thank you, modern science, for the much-needed dose of humility.

Our ability to “do good” and “be a giver” is, indeed, the foundation of much of what makes us who we are.

Many of those who “give to others” often describe distinct feelings of euphoria (much akin to “getting high”, but with more lasting contentment).

From a purely scientific viewpoint, doing good toward others releases a flood of “getting high” chemicals within our brains (which leads many scientists to believe that we humans might even be genetically hard-wired and pre-programmed to be givers and do-gooders, if only we would realize it).

Dopamine, serotonin, endorphins, and oxytocin; these are the feel-good chemicals that we can naturally create within our brains, simply by being “good and giving” toward our fellow beings.

Do we really know just how blessed we are to have a brain that lets us “feel good” just for “doing good”?

Not everyone has a brain that is wired like that, you know. In a relatively small percentage of us, our psychological wiring goes destructively askew.

Not all the inmates I taught at the Bristol Jail could be portrayed as the good-ol’-boy “O’ Brother Where Art Thou” types I often write about here (though most truly were.)

Some were bonafide psychopaths.

I had a most interesting conversation with one such psychopathic inmate. This man had an extremely high IQ, combining with his deranged mind to create a particularly dangerous fate for most anyone who ever crossed his path in this life.

This man told me, “Mr. Talley, when I do good things for people, I feel bad. That is unless I do good things to set people up for something bad, then I feel good. But to do good just for the sake of doing good? It actually makes me physically sick and nauseous to even think about doing that. Neither fear nor guilt for using a person in a bad way ever happens in my brain. Yet when I pretend to do good to set somebody up for a bad fall, I feel high and happy. It’s like a drug. I’d cut off my left arm if it would change my brain to be more like yours. But it’s just who I am. I want to feel good, just like you do. There’s no difference in us on that goal. My brain just has a different way of getting me there.”

Spooky? Bone chilling? You better believe it. This man spoke his words to me in the most charming and gentle voice you can imagine. Yes, a few shivers went down my spine. But I honestly felt deep empathy for him. (Imagine, if you can, being having his brain. Be grateful, ever so grateful, that you do not.)

The reason I interjected his story is to highlight for the rest of us how lucky and blessed we really are. We should be ashamed for frittering away the chances we have every day to give to others and do good things in this world.

Remember, my friends, there are those among us who would cut off their left arms to have a brain like yours and mine. Let’s not waste the blessing of perhaps the greatest gift we’ve been given - the gift of being a giver.

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