As compared to my generation, children today are much more prone to suffer from anxiety, stress, attention problems, and depression. They also tend to be more obese and less physically active.

Far too many kids today are literally “impoverished” by their lack of outside time, particularly during the summer.

So each summer I strive to help remedy all that.

We can each do our best to bring today’s children out of this type of poverty, and into the vast wealth to be found by playing and exploring in the outside world.

I estimate I have taken nearly ten thousand children hiking over the last thirty-five years. Invariably, these children (most of whom are now adults) have told me they remember these hikes more vividly than most anything that was ever taught them in a classroom.

Following are a few pics and descriptions from some of those hikes.

In this pic I am teaching history while hiking. I am gathered with children beneath the Resting Tree at Sugar Hollow Park in Bristol. Slaves are buried beneath this great old tree’s branches, on the site of what was once the old Preston Plantation. A former student of mine who became a botanist estimates the tree to be over 500 years old.

Here are some of those students posing proudly here, near their creation of a natural shelter.

I have found that the first hike many children take is the first hike they take with me. Please help me change that, my friends. Every child deserves the chance to be outside in nature.

How many children get to run wild across a meadow these days? The joy is impossible to describe. But with a pic you can almost feel it.

I will hand out these shirts to each of the nearly 500 children who will hike with me this summer.

Dear reader, if you’d like to help me get today’s children off inside electronics and outside into the wild, please read the following flyer. Thank you, friends!

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A few years back I became determined to find her.

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Love can (and often does) bond two individuals so unspeakably close together that they can both want to act as one, voluntarily giving up many of the individual freedoms they may have once possessed.

Yes, love can do that. And often does.

A couple of years back I drove to the countryside near Greeneville TN and attended the joyous wedding of two former students, Baylee Nave and Jordan Sewell - pictured below. Yes, you read that right. Baylee and Jordan both once sat in my classroom at Van Pelt Elementary. Who would have ever thought I’d be watching them marry each other someday? What an unusually joyous occassion this was for me!

Almost immediately after their wedding I attended an event for another former student. It was his funeral service. This young man had died by his own hand.

Most of us like to think of ourselves as being logical in our thinking. Yet, being human, we are ruled largely by our emotions, not by logic.

I realize some folks may initially beg to differ, but we have the entirety of human history to show us all otherwise. Collectively and individually, human emotion is (and long has been) both King and Queen to most of our behaviors in this world.

That being noted, I don’t view our all being extremely emotional creatures as a negative thing. Not at all. Quite the contrary, to feel emotion is to be fully alive and fully human to the fullest extent.

Like being in love.

Like feeling grief.

Like feeling gratitude.

To be fully human it matters little what emotion we may feel, as long as we feel.

I used to think (as most young people do) that having your heart broken in a romantic relationship was the most terrible tragedy of utmost proportions possible. Indeed, as I write these words I can count several students who have died at a young age by their own hand - universally due to the breakup of a romantic love relationship.

Romantic love is, as Shakespeare so wonderfully put it, the ultimate “sunshine” of our lives. I am a believer. Aren’t we all?

Age. Time. Wisdom. Eventually these three teach us that love is never lost, even when it seems to be. Love, when real, somehow, some way … lives on.

My favorite verse in all the Good Book is, “God is love.” (And the only one I’ve found that I really need.)

Indeed, love exhibits itself in all its myriad of flavors at weddings and funerals alike.

Gosh, I still love (at least a little) my first girlfriend. I always will (at least a little). And we do well to remember that even a little bit of love is a wondrous and powerful thing.

Without trying very hard at all, I can honestly still feel emotional for every gal I ever loved … even from long ago. Love is still there. This doesn’t make me a polygamist. It simply makes me honest about the joyous feelings I once had (however close to mere embers those feelings may have now faintly waned).

How much better might divorced or estranged couples ultimately feel about each other should they view themselves from this frame of reference, I wonder. Rancor, distrust, and anger are hard (if not impossible) to feel at the same time one is feeling the very powerful emotion of love.

Yes, it is easy for us to feel a sense of joy when we attend weddings. Hope is everywhere in the air.

But at funerals? By that point, isn’t any hope raised in vain?

When I attend a funeral these days, I find myself thinking how honored and glad I was to have known this person, as my life could have been that I had never known them at all. Acknowledging this wondrous fact instills a strong sense of gratitude within me.

I find myself being grateful that the deceased had a chance at life - even if they may have ended their chance early, by their own hand. Who are we to “judge” those who have chemicals in their brain that go awry?

I grieve for them, yes. But I also celebrate the fact that they once lived - and were loved.

I know they were loved because if I am attending their funeral they would have been loved (in some form or fashion) by me. Else I wouldn’t be there, in celebration that they once lived.

While at this young man’s funeral I overheard someone speaking about him with a tone of disgust and disdain, “His life was wasted.” I felt the emotion of anger quickly well up within me. I wanted to look at this someone and ask them who made them God. (Thankfully I somehow restrained those emotions at the moment. But our emotions are healthiest when they can be released somewhere, in some way, so I will mention it here.)

We know so little. Especially when we think we know so much.

If we love with an open mind and heart, we will find that there is much to be grateful about any life. And, therefore, much to be celebrated.

At weddings.

And at funerals.

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Many who read these words will, on a very personal level, understand such types of addictions.

But there are other “bad” addictions we may have, as well. Many of these we may not even be aware of (or be afraid to face).

Back when I was a teenager, a lady at church began ranting and railing about how “stupid” it was for anyone to become addicted to drugs or alcohol.

Then she began to cast out a few names. “You know, I’ve heard,” she said, “that so-and-so is on the stuff at night, away from church. And so-and-so pops pills whenever she can. Addicts are all around us. When we know who they are, we should all stay clear of such people.”

My mother interrupted this dear lady to remind her that she was also addicted to something.

“And what, praytell, might that possibly be?” the lady asked my mother.

To which my mother replied, “You are a gossip addict. You are quick and eager to pass on any bad information about anyone under the sun. Drugs and alcohol may hurt the body, but none of them will destroy the soul like gossip does.”

The lady was open-mouthed, but speechless, so my mother continued on.

“You need to put a string around your finger. Every time you find yourself ready to say something bad about somebody, that string will remind you to say something good about them, instead.”

My mother sure could “tell it like it is”.

Yes, we all have our addicitions. Some are good. Some are bad. The thing is: so many of us absolutely refuse to face our "bad" ones.

Yesterday I was the keynote speaker at an event in Bristol. Brothers in Christ Community Response is a local nonprofit founded and headed up by my friend, the Rev. Steve Davis.

This nonprofit seeks to give local housing and guidance to addicts in recovery. Indeed, those served are certainly the more “generally thought of” type of addicts - the ones hooked on drugs and/or alcohol.

I first met Big Steve (as I call him) when he was in inmate at the Bristol Jail, many years ago.

At the Jail, I began to have an unusually high number of new students come to my class (which I taught two evenings a week in the jail library).

When I asked why, the new students answered almost word for word, “Big Steve came and told me I had to go. I didn’t want to tell that guy no. He’s pretty tough.”

Yes, I had an amiable heart to heart talk with Big Steve regarding his methods for “bringing in the sheaves” to me.

These days I am honored to say that Big Steve now uses the power of kind words as his main method of persuasion, not physical intimidation. Big Steve is a dedicated full-time professional addiction counselor and church minister here in Bristol.

It seems the best among us can (and often do) get hooked on drugs or alcohol.

Such physical addictions don’t seem to follow any particular socio-economic group, race, or religion. If you are human, you can become addicted to such things.

Never say, “But I have the willpower to overcome addiction.”

Don’t kid yourself. If you are in enough pain, you will seek to relieve it. If you don’t believe me, then you haven’t yet experienced enough pain in this life.

Trust me. I’ve been there. As so many of us have.

Many of us, indeed, seem to have “addictive” personalities (meaning we are more “prone” to succumb to addictive behaviors). I count myself among them.

Having taught nearly two thousand jail inmates (most of whom qualifed as “addicts”), here is the most important thing I’ve learned about addiction; everyone has at least a few "bad" addictions.

Few people may want to hear those words at first. But they ring true, nonetheless.

However, there is Good News - we can learn how to exchange (or trade) our “bad” addictions in for “good” ones.

Simply put, we can exchange our “bad” addictions in for “good” ones.

As long as my life is filled with helping my fellow man, woman, child, and creatures with whom I share this world, I have found that my most “harmful” addictions do not so easily rear their ugly heads to entice me.

Serving others serves as “the string around my finger” for me.

I am hopeful that my sharing this particular approach might help the reader with whatever harmful addictions one may be having. (That is, if one is not afraid to own up to one’s own “bad” addictions in the first place.)

I have personally found this “string around my finger” method to be the Way, the Truth, and the Light regarding how to overcome most any harmful addiction under the sun.

No, you can't see the string wrapped around my own finger. But it is there. Indeed, I am mindful (and forever grateful) that is is always there.

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Politicians are apparently very fond of giving wonderful sounding names to their public school education programs. Names like "No Child Left Behind" and "Every Student Succeeds". Much like the word Communism itself, such ideas can initially “look pretty good” … at least on paper.

But in “real life” action? As we all know, such high sounding programs have often actually achieved the exact opposite of what they proposed to do.

I know. I was there. For a lifetime. Teaching in public schools.

I cannot begin to count how many times I heard teachers and principals say similar words to the following:

“Oh, don’t pay so much attention to ______. He is bright. He will pass the year end test easily already. To get our school’s scores up, we need to be paying most of our attention to the others. Let’s utilize our smart students to help us teach the other students the basics, enough to get them to pass the year end test.”

Now. Now. Don’t blame these teachers or their principals. They are all profoundly “judged” on how well their students (as a class whole) score on these year end tests. (If you have never been a teacher in public schools, it is difficult to describe the constant and intense pressure we daily face to “maintain” adequate classroom student scores on the Almighty Year End Tests.)

Blame governmental intrusion. Blame people in ivory towers far away who set the standards. Blame people who never taught a day in public schools in their lives, but who still make such laws.

But don’t blame your child’s teacher or school principal. They already know full well the ultimate stupidity of the Almighty Testing System in which public education in America has for too long been held hostgage.

An unintended paradox of all this political posturing to supposedly improve national test scores has been the very obvious result that American students (as a whole) have only grown ever further and further behind on both basic reading and math achievement levels. We are not gaining. We are falling collectively further and further behind. Every single year. More and more.

The reasons?

Well, we must admit there are many. Therefore, there is no silver bullet solution to this tremendous danger to the ongoing future of our republic … and to our form of democracy itself.

The premise of any strong republic is that the better educated its general poplulace is, the more wisely they will vote for those who govern them. Ignorance only breeds more and more bad choices at the political polls, as Thomas Jefferson so wisely predicted.

The answers?

Yes, there are answers. But the answers are not found in a year end test score.

Answers can be found by meeting the needs of our brightest students every bit as much as we currently strive to meet the needs of those students on the “other end” of the bell curve (something I found that public education actually does quite well).

Answers can be found if you put a dedicated, competent teacher in charge of their classroom of students - while removing the constantly looming specter of strict governmental intrusion. It's the method we used for a long time - and we built a pretty darn strong, smart country out of it.

One answer can certainly be found by realizing that something as wonderful and multi-factored as human learning can never be truly “measured” by a number. Therefore, no child should ever be equated with a test score.

If the Ancient Greeks (those marvels who first founded democracy) kept any record of their students’ test scores, we have yet to discover a shred of evidence of it.

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People sometimes ask me if my teaching at the Bristol Jail ever got dangerous.

I tell them not nearly as dangerous as umpiring behind home plate in a Little League game.

I coached and umpired Little League games in Bristol VA for eight years. I was made to feel extremely welcome as a coach, primarily I suppose because of my teaching so many children of the exact age that played in Bristol VA Little League.

I was asked to umpire games when I was not coaching. One fellow coach (who was also the parent of a child I taught) told me, “Mr. Talley, you’ll be a great umpire. All the parents respect you. You won’t have any trouble from anyone at all back there behind the plate.”

Well, not only did I have trouble, I sometimes caught more verbal flack than the average ump. Perhaps it was because I knew so many parents of the players and they felt more comfortable in “letting go” with me.

During my very first game behind home plate, the mother of one child I had taught began to holler out things from the stands … things like, “Mr. Talley, it’s a good thing you can teach, ‘cause you’re a terrible ump!”

At my next game umpiring home plate, she began to ride me again. To her credit, she’d often end her ranting and raving vocalizations with, “But we still love you, Mr. Talley!”

(I found that most people who yell derogatory things at umpires during Little League ballgames rarely know a hill of beans about the sport themselves. I can assure you that this dear lady ranked high in such a category. She did well to properly differentiate a baseball from a football.)

So the teacher in me got an idea. I asked a friend to secretly video this particular lady while she was in the midst of one of her verbal assaults toward the home plate umpire (yours truly).

I then mailed the video to this lady, along with a note asking that she sit down and watch it with her children. I added in the note that I knew she was a good person, and that all good people (including me) were allowed to make mistakes now and then.

The next game that I umpired behind home plate, she came down and leaned against the fence … directly behind home plate. There she stood, ready to hoot and holler, which she continued to do . . . with all the more unabated gusto than ever.

But this time her well-endowed vocal cords expounded forth different words. “Come on, boys, tonight’s a great night! We got a good man behind the plate. He’ll call everything as fair as he can! We love you, Mr. Talley!”

Then I heard her mumble from up against the fence behind me, just barely loud enough so that only I could hear … “Even if he can’t see a lick.”

I turned to look at her. She whispered a very sincere “Thank you” through the fence.

We both grinned ear to ear.

No, not every heckler listens to common sense. But there is apparently something strongly convincing about seeing exactly how one appears to others on a video highlighting one’s questionable behavior captured in real life action.

Another thing I did a time or two, whenever someone heckled this umpire loudly and incessantly from the stands, was to stop the game, take off my mask, go out to the stands, and promptly hand the mask to the verbal perpetrator. Then I’d say something like, “Sir, why don’t you put this on and take my place right now?” (Yes, with a smile. Always with a smile. My dad taught me long ago that you can say almost anything with a genuine smile and people will take it a lot better.)

But that took too long. And if I did it for every fan who yelled derogatory insults toward umpires, I’d be going to the stands all day.

I found out that Little League umpires take a lot of heat. And I do mean “a lot”. It takes a thick skin to do the job.

(I should add here that my friend, Fred Bowman, who was involved with Bristol Little League for 50 years, told me to just hang in there and become immune to whatever anybody yelled from the stands. I strived to heed his advice, but I was just not thick-skinned enough to shrug it off every time. Words can hurt.)

The teacher in me eventually came up with another great idea.

Whenever umpiring behind the plate, I began to call both teams out of the dugout before the game and tell them, “I am going to miss some calls during this game. I just wanted you to know ahead of time, so you won’t be surprised.

Sometimes a kid would ask, “Why?”

To which I replied with something like, “Because I’m human. And part of being human is making mistakes. That’s what makes a real umpire better than a robot. Because we’re not as good, you never know when a mistake is coming. It keeps the game a lot more exciting.”

Sometimes a really bright kid with his thinking cap on would retort, “But the game’s not fair, if you make mistakes.”

Boy, did I have a good comeback for that line.

I’d bend over, look them straight in the eye and reply, “Little man, whoever in this world told you that life was going to be fair?”

Yet another thing I did as an umpire, especially during my first few games, was to ask the catcher if a pitch thrown low was a strike. (I found that low pitches were the hardest to call.) So if I had taught the catcher and knew him to be an honest soul, and I was in doubt about a pitch thrown low, I would sometimes just ask the catcher what he thought it was.

The father of a player I had taught caught me doing this and became infuriated. He said, “You can’t ask another player to umpire. If you can’t see a low ball, then you don’t need to be back there behind the plate.”

To which I replied, “Watch a group of kids play sandlot baseball on their own sometime, without a single adult anywhere around. They do a remarkable job of calling their own games honestly. We need to reinforce such honesty when we can.”

Over time, I came to the somewhat regrettable conclusion that ranting and raving at umpires was just part of baseball Americana. I would bet all my days left on the planet that some fans would scream and yell if Jesus Christ donned an umpire mask and called a game behind home plate.

If you ever attend a Little League game (or any youth sports event under the sun) my friends, please be patient with the officials, even when they make bad calls (which they will do … because they are human).

Remember that others are being greatly influenced by your behavior.

Little ears are listening to every word you say.

Little eyes are watching every move you make.

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And if you don’t know what I’m talking about, then you likely ain’t from these here parts.

While hiking our local hills a few years back, my son and I purposely wandered off into a somewhat secluded local Appalachian holler (no, I did not misspell that last word).

As we sauntered up the holler, we were first met by a veritable slew of “No Trespassing” signs. I surmise that these signs probably held about the same amount of print as had been read in books during the previous month by the entirety of the local resident population. (See there … we even poke fun at ourselves, we Appalachian folk do.)

As my son and I walked on (yes, it was a public road) we soon came upon a sign nailed to a telephone pole that read “Beware of Mean Dog.” It was nailed right alongside about half a dozen other “No Trespassing” signs. And they were all nailed facing us, in the direction we were headed.

Public road or not, we had a decision to make.

We faced three choices:

1. Walk six miles back the way we came in.

2. Continue straight on up the narrow mountain road and risk getting chewed on by a dog.

3. Creep across a wobbly, recently washed-out bridge … meander through the woods a bit … then return to the road a little further up.

We chose number three.

Along our way we proceeded to meet a few of the local residents.

The first soul we came upon was working on a rototiller in his garden by the road. We sized him up as we strode by. He seemed to size us up even more quickly. He gave us one glance, then silently offered us the ever-so-subtle-but-socially-powerful “friendly backward tilt of the head” (a sign of universal acknowledgement and acceptance among us local Appalachain folk).

I should also note here that, whether or not they have college diplomas hanging on their walls, the people of Appalachia are every bit as smart as any Harvard graduate.

(If you doubt me … try asking a Harvard graduate to grow their own food, repair their own car, wire their own electricity, and scour the woods for plants and herbs to cure whatever ails them.)

The next soul we set eyes on offered us a ride on up the holler. Appalachian folk are known far and wide for friendliness, even to “outsiders” (long as we don’t think you are “lookin’ down” on us).

My son and I politely declined the kind offer of aid (which is something you’ve got to be careful about around real Appalachian folk, for declining an offer of help can be taken as an “I’m better than you” type slight).

So my son and I offered the honest excuse that we had “already set our minds to just foller the creek on up the holler.”

Honesty is appreciated everywhere, but perhaps nowhere more than in Appalachia. These folk don’t take well to bein’ “taken” or “lied to”.

At one point, we passed two elementary school-aged boys wrestling on a cliff above the road. Yes, I need to type the last part of that last sentence again; “two boys were wrestling on a cliff above the road”.

One boy yelled down, “Where y’all goin’?”

I yelled back up, “To find us a big ol’ bear to wrestle!”

With that one statement, the boys surmised full well that we were “one of them”. We had plainly acknowledged our exuberant acceptance of their rowdy lifestyle, all while throwing in a humorous reference regarding a favorite local critter.

We Appalachian natives love humor. Especially the kind you “gotta think on lightin’ fast” to get. We mountain folk maintain a quick-witted culture … contrary to what outsiders may have heard tell about us.

The final soul we came across in this particular holler happened to be mowing a lawn. She appeared quite surprised to see us moseying along the road, so she promptly ceased her mowing to walk over and jaw with us a bit.

My son and I bragged plum to the hilltops to this good lady regarding her lawn.

No, not a fake brag. Appalachian people can smell fake quicker than you can wink an eye.

It really was as nicely kept as any country club lawn I’ve ever gazed upon … and perhaps even more proudly and tenderly tended.

The last home in the holler displayed in plain sight for God and everybody to see a life-sized replica of a self-carved Bigfoot grinning buck naked on their front lawn. I had to take a good long gander to differentiate the shaggy primate from some of the locals who stood nearby. (Dang it! There I go again … poking fun at my own people.)

And as long as it’s ourselves we’re pokin’ fun at, we actually kinda like and respect it. It’s kind of an unwritten brand of friendship.

We just don’t much like “outsiders” pokin’ fun at us.

Because they get it wrong.

Every. Single. Time.

Much like they do when they try to say the name of this beautifully wild region of authentically true and independent people.

So … just for the record … if you want to feel right at home with us, don’t mispronounce our homeland.

Don’t say “Appa-LAY-shuh.”

Say … “Appa-LATCH-uh”.

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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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