I've been called conservative. I believe homosexuality is wrong. And I'm about to defend Will Byers on Stranger Things (buuuut...)

 On Christmas Night I started watching the newest three episodes, volume 2 it's being called, of the final season of Stranger Things.  I was as eager to see these next three chapters as I have been to watch anything else from the television/movies sphere of things in the past ten years or so.

I'll be honest: I felt like I'd "missed" something.  Volume 2 failed to stick the landing it seemed.  The previous four episodes were a high-balling rollickin' ball of high-grade hashish washed down with a bottle of pure awesomeness.  But these three episodes, well...

It seems that I wasn't alone in that sentiment.  Many people have said that these were the low point of the entire series.

Especially...

(SPOILER SPACE)

S

P

O

I

L

E

R

S

P

A

C

E

S

P

O

I

L

E

R

S

P

A

C

E

Let's talk about the scene in episode seven, "The Bridge", that got the most attention.

I actually don't have an issue with Will's situation.  Not anymore than I do regarding Albus Dumbledore in the Harry Potter books.  That does NOT mean that I can condone homosexuality at all though!  That is something that I am forever going to believe is wrong.  But I also understand that it is a temptation that some people face, for whatever reason.  God knows that I have my own temptations, some even that I wonder if anyone on earth will ever remotely understand.  Having a mental condition that inflames those temptations at times only makes things worse, but I digress.

Will's confession to the others was something that had been building up since the first season.  He has always been different, off-kilter, something of an outsider to "The Party" and their allies, no matter how much he has been a part of that group of close-knit friends.  His own father cruelly believed that Will wasn't normal.  His ordeals relating to the Upside-Down further severed that connection Will had to the human condition.  If nothing else, what he went through because of Vecna mutilated and disfigured Will in heart and soul.  There is no telling what he would have been like had the events of November 6th, 1983 not happened. That night forever marked Will Byers as being different, for the worst, in every possible way.

In some ways I find myself relating to Will.  I was quite an outsider also, growing up.  Always "looking in".  And as I've shared in my book, I did go quite a long time unable to allow myself to appreciate females.  I had been abducted also, and pulled into an "upside-down" too.  There was a Vecna figure who came into my life.  As I share in my book, I was thought of as being different - sometimes being called "fag" by other people - because of my reluctance to appreciate how girls look.  That stemmed from the abuse I experienced.

So, I can absolutely understand Will in ways that maybe most people can't.  I can empathize with Will.  It's almost like the Duffer Brothers were writing about me, when they wrote for the character.  I of all people am in a position to understand Will Byers more than many if not most other people can, and I'm glad that most people DON'T have to understand what Will has gone through.

For a lot of reasons, I am never going to be able to accept homosexuality as being something good.  But it is a temptation.  And I can understand Will if that's what he's been driven to.  If that makes sense.

So no, in all honesty, I don't have any problem with the scene in "The Bridge" where Will is "coming out" and saying "I don't like girls."  I can readily understand why he's telling the group that.  It's something he was ashamed of, and harbored deep resentment about.  He had to confront that, and make it into something that Vecna could not turn against him and consequently the group.  It was Will's biggest weakness and he negated it.  That is certainly something that I can appreciate, and even admire.  It could have been practically anything that Will had shame about.  But in the case of Will it was the most private thing that any young person in the years surrounding adolescence can wrestle with.  Vecna has become THE prototype of the child molester, in a fashion that no other fictional monster has ever been.  Will was his first and most tragic victim.  Of course there is going to be a secret shame from that.  But Will confronted that and came through with flying colors.

No, it's not what Will did that bothers me.  It's HOW that was handled is what bugs me.

Much of the entertainment industry has been accused of fronting an agenda.  It's not an unqualified accusation.  Stranger Things has been no different.  I've never found it any more so than most other series or movies though.  Indeed, other than the profanity (ehhhh Duffers, most kids did not talk like that in the Eighties, trust me, I was there) it's been pretty neutral so far as projected ideologies go.  Now, some are saying that Will's "coming out" is going to be a textbook example of leftist propaganda.

THAT is something that is certainly not an unfair accusation.

It was too "in your face".  Too blatant.  It was too much aimed at the audience more than it was a revelation meant for the group to absorb.  It was designed for shock effect, even if all the signs were there from the beginning that Will was headed for this moment.  I've never read Stephen King's It but when Will's time came, I imagined it would be something like Eddie's revelation in the It miniseries from 1990: his confession that he was still a virgin, that the only people he had ever really bonded with were the rest of the Losers.  That could have been the model for Will's confession.  It would have let down the burden of Will's secret shame and beautifully established his acceptance by the group, that no matter what Will was never going to be alone.  As it happened in the episode, it was too blunt, too "brusque".

That's the biggest problem I have with Will's coming to the group as he did.  It could have been written and executed and even acted better.  But the cast did the best they could with what they were given.  Maybe the Duffers will learn from this experience.  It certainly seems like I am not alone in my assessment about this episode.  Perhaps the Duffers will take it to heart.  Hey, we can't hit a home run every time.  And so far the creators and producers of Stranger Things have been doing pretty good.  I can forgive this one faux pas.

That's pretty much it.  That's everything of what's been bugging me since watching volume 2 about 96 hours ago.  But last night I rewatched these three chapters again, and found myself enjoying them much more than I had initially.  So much so that now I don't think they're bad at all.  They did what they were supposed to do at this stage in the same: set the board up for the final moves.  The pierces are now in place and war is coming.  Everything else has been cleared away.  The Duffer Brothers have been pulling rabbits out of their hat for the better part of a decade... and now they'd darn well better pull out an alligator.

Whatever else could be said about those three episodes, I'm expecting the grand finale, "The Rightside-Up", to wildly exceed them.  Maybe in hindsight we'll all these three episodes as being set-up for what is to come.  And then they will be better appreciated.  Perhaps so.

Read More

Why the Star Wars Holiday Special was so bad, in the words of the man who made it

It's become something of a tragic holiday tradition for me.  Every year about this time, I watch The Star Wars Holiday Special - considered by many to be the very worst two hours of television ever produced - and do a running commentary about it for my friends on Facebook.  Why do I torment myself like this?  I have no idea apart from the comedy (?) value.  I'll do most anything within reason (emphasis on "reason"!) to make my friends laugh.  And if it takes subjecting myself to this... thing... then it's a minor sacrifice to make each holiday season.

Pic I took of my TV screen while watching The Star Wars Holiday Special,
here depicting the lowest moment of Harvey Korman's career

For whatever reason, I didn't watch the Star Wars Holiday Special when I usually do between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I wound up setting it to play last night, after I came home from helping some friends catalog and inventory a bunch of Cabbage Patch Kids, Pound Puppies, and Care Bears (do kids still go for things like that?).  I think maybe I did it because I was reminded about lunch time yesterday that I still hadn't seen the special this year.  What jogged that thought was this interview that SlashFilm did with Steve Binder, the director of the special.  This interview was originally published in 2015 but it's so authoritative and enlightening that it should be required reading for anyone who during the holidays is curious enough about the Star Wars thingy to want to watch it.

Long story short: Star Wars, the epic space opera that had thus far only had one entry to establish itself and call its own, something that had already won millions of fans across the globe, was treated like a Seventies-era variety show.  It was two successful genres that enough people thought were compatible with each other as a combined product.  Instead it produced one of the biggest FUBARs in the modern history of all pop culture.  And that's how we got the Jefferson Starship, Harvey Korman (in three different roles!), Art Carney, Bea Arthur, and Diahann Carroll (what was that she was doing?) mushed together with ten minutes (?!?) of Wookiees growling at each other, an overly made-up Mark Hamill (I call him "Mannequin Skywalker"), Leia looking a little tipsy, and a cartoon short featuring Boba Fett (his first ever appearance).

So the holiday special is a collision of Star Wars and variety show.  I can see that.  I can even appreciate that.  It does make sense, in a perverse sort of way.  And now that we've got artificial intelligence wheedling its way into everything, maybe by next year some enterprising youngster will fix the Star Wars Holiday Special by inserting Jim Nabors or Sonny and Cher into it.

Jim Nabors as an Imperial officer?  Well gaw-aaahhh-lee!!

(I almost forgot to note that I did NOT finish watching the special last night.  I got as far as the animated short before deciding my heart just wasn't into this this time.  Maybe it's something better appreciated between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  So I guess there's always next year!)

Read More

The seventieth anniversary of Good Will to Men

It was on December 23rd, 1955 - seventy years ago tomorrow - that Metro-Golden-Mayer released Good Will to Men.  This is one of my all-time most favorite Christmas cartoons.  It's essentially a remake of the considerably darker Peace on Earth from 1939.  Although we may not live under the threat of war as much as those during the era did, the themes of this animated short are perhaps more timely than ever before.

"Love thy neighbor."

Directed by none other than William Hanna and Joseph Barbera (who went on to create The Flintstones, Scooby-Doo and many other animated favorites), here is Good Will to Men...

Read More

An Aviation First: Airplane touches down safely after deploying "autoland" system

This is something I wish Dad were still here to tell about it too.  As much as he disdained computers, he would no doubt find this to be very cool...

Two days ago a Beechcraft King Air became the very first aircraft to deploy an "autoland" system after the pilot became incapacitated.  It happened in Colorado.  The Garmin Autoland that had been installed on the plane kicked in and proceeded to automatically guide the aircraft down to a safe touchdown at Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport.  After it came to a halt, emergency crew arrived and took care of the pilot, who is reportedly doing fine.

We have entered a new age of air flight, folks.  When this kind of thing gets to be more widely installed, a lot of people are going to be having second thoughts about going up in an aircraft.  Especially in smaller planes that may not have a co-pilot in the cockpit if Lord forbid something goes wrong with the primary pilot.

Just when I think that we're getting too technologized, something like this comes along and demonstrates to me that there really are legitimate places for more involvement by computers.  I wouldn't call myself a Luddite, but I have been adopting more of how Dad saw computers.  Well, color me deeply impressed now.

Read More

Fallout presents: The Ghoul Log

The second season of Fallout premiered a few days ago on Amazon Prime.  I haven't seen it yet but I'll probably watch it later this evening.  Have had a few things on my plate lately.  Although at the recommendation of a friend last night I did watch Wake 

Up Dead Man, the latest of Rian Johnson's "Knives Out" series starring Daniel Craig.  I really liked it.

Anyhoo, the new season of Fallout is unfolding this holiday season.  And as part of the festivities Amazon has posted on YouTube a special lil' treat.  In the tradition of broadcast Yule logs that goes back many decades across the history of television, here is... the Ghoul Log!

Nothing says Christmas cheer quite like ninety minutes of Wayne Newton music and the fattened arm of some poor sap roasting over an open fire.

Read More

Ten years ago tonight, the Force awakened...

It was on this day ten years ago that Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens was released in theaters.

I caught the first show of it on opening night, at a theater in Raleigh, North Carolina.  Chad, my best friend since childhood, and his wife and I saw it together.  And it truly was a very special night.  It was the first time in all our history together that Chad and I had seen a new Star Wars movie with each other in the theater.  It was like God was winking at our shared childhood.  Made all the more poignant because a few months later Chad and his wife became parents to a beautiful little girl.

Yes, I'm aware of the reputation that the Star Wars sequel trilogy has come to have.  I would be a fool to not acknowledge that particular gundark in the room.  I have shared those sentiments also.  But alas, those have softened somewhat during the past decade since the first Star Wars movie produced by Disney was released.  I'm increasingly of the mind that the sequel trilogy - The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, and The Rise of Skywalker - does indeed work as a cycle unto itself and as components of the larger Skywalker family saga.  They may not be the most brilliant films of the series: those will forever be the original trilogy, especially The Empire Strikes Back.  But neither are they the irredeemable mess that many claim them to be.  I've had the opportunity to work with children in the past few months.  Something I've asked them a number of times is what do they think of Star Wars.  The almost unanimous answer is that they love it, so the saga is still producing fans.  Then I ask them what do they think of the newer movies.  And almost every young person I ask that of tells me that they like the sequel trilogy especially.  Rey has her fans, particularly among girls.  And that's not a bad thing at all.  It tells me that Star Wars is still at work doing what it was always meant to be: a multi-generational story to be enjoyed by people of all ages.  As a Generation X kid, I loved the original trilogy.  I came to better appreciate the prequels as I got older.  Now in my fifties, I am seeing people who are as young as I was come to enjoy Star Wars, too.  And that is good.

Well, anyway, it began in earnest ten years ago tonight, with the long-awaited arrival of the seventh episode of the Star Wars saga: something that I dare say most of us had given up on ever getting to see.  Lumps and all, it is a Star Wars movie as much as any movie can be.  And I certainly do appreciate that.

Read More

Nine years ago tonight in San Diego...

Nine years ago tonight I was in a movie theater in San Diego, California.  I was about to do something I'd never done before in my entire life: watch a Star Wars movie in the theater without anyone to share the experience with.

It was still Tammy the Pup and me, a boy and his dog across America, a very long way from where we had started six months before.  I was stuck between wanting to see a new Star Wars film so very much, but also having to face that there would be no friend or family to enjoy it with.  That's how I went in to see Rogue One.

But maybe God provided.  I wound up sitting with some high school kids who were very excited about the movie, and we talked a little bit.  We'd become rather acquainted by the time the lights went down and the movie started.  I think we all enjoyed the movie in each other's company.  Something that was well reflected toward the end of Rogue One, when the movie comes to the scene of those Rebel soldiers trapped in the corridor.  We were ALL screaming, every one of us in that theater, as we watched Darth Vader mercilessly eviscerate every man in his path.  It was Darth Vader in a way we had always wanted to see but somehow never had the chance to before.  We truly shared a moment of collective horror... but in the right company, that can be a very fun thing.

The movie soon ended and as the credits began rolling my new friends and I talked about it and we agreed, that Rogue One was one of the best Star Wars movies yet made.

Doesn't seem like that was nine whole years ago.  I wonder what those kids are doing now.  They'd be in their mid to late twenties now.  I hope they are well, wherever they are.  They certainly were good company for one fine evening at the movies.

Read More

Regarding Rob Reiner: Not cool, Mister President

By now everyone knows what happened yesterday.  Actor and filmmaker Rob Reiner, and his wife Michele, were found stabbed to death in their mansion in California.  It seems that it was none other than Reiner's son who was the murderer.

It was a horrific thing by any measure.  And today President Donald Trump, who had long been a target of Reiner's ire, released a statement about the deaths of the couple.  I won't post it all here, Lord knows it's all over the place tonight.  But to put it short: Trump blamed Reiner's "Trump Derangement Syndrome" for causing his murder.

Rob Reiner and Donald Trump (photo credit: MSNBC)

The more I think about what President Trump said about Rob Reiner, the more it disgusts me.  I understand that Reiner hated Trump's guts but that's no excuse whatsoever for what the sitting President of the United States said.  Trump should have taken the high ground.  I'm thinking of what happened when Prince passed away.  "Weird Al" Yankovic paid him a very beautiful tribute, even though Prince had long dissed Weird Al at every turn.  Some things are much bigger than what are really very petty disagreements in the grander scheme of things.  Trump had a great opportunity to be a good man, the better man even, in this.  And he pissed it away with his childish immature statement.

Now, in large part I've been a supporter of Trump.  He is doing things that have been needed accomplishing for a very long time, like addressing the issue of America's porous border.  Nobody will ever spot me wearing a red "Make America Great Again" hat, I usually don't go for fads like that.  But I've liked him.

But this, what Trump posted earlier today?  Not cool.  Not cool at all.  It was crass, classless, and completely without redeeming value.

I didn't care for Reiner's politics either.  But he was a fellow human being, and what happened to him and his wife is an absolute tragedy.  I am willing to look past his beliefs and his weaknesses and appreciate the gifts he shared with the world.

Tonight I am going to watch Misery, probably my favorite Rob Reiner movie, in his memory.  I'll honor him if the President won't.

Read More

"It is time": Stranger Things Season 5 Volume 2 has a trailer!

Since Thanksgiving night I have watched the first volume of the final season of Stranger Things twice.  The shock still hasn't faded.  Dang it I want to talk openly about what's been streamed so far!!!  But there are still so many who haven't watched the latest episodes yet.  I'm going to be considerate of them.

But if you have seen the first four episodes of season five already, here is the new trailer that dropped earlier today:

I'll share an interesting theory I've heard, though.  It's being posited that Vecna, for all his malevolence and power, is not the ultimate villain of Stranger Things.  That there is some one or some thing over him that is the true monster behind everything that has happened.  I've heard it suggested that in keeping with the Dungeons & Dragons motif that's rife through this show, this final entity could be code-named Tiamat.  I kind of like that idea, though I don't know if there's going to be enough time to elaborate on that in the four final episodes.  Still a neat notion.

I'll go ahead and share my personal theory for the big finale.  Stranger Things's very last scene is going to be fifteen or twenty years later.  We get to see our heroes all grown up and happy and long past all the trauma and heartbreak that they went through together.  Among other things, Dustin and Suzie are married and have a son named Eddie.  That would be a happy ending for Dustin, who I've been cheering for since I first saw this show in a hotel room in Phoenix years ago.

Ten days to go.

Read More

Why churches using the Nativity to protest immigration enforcement are wrong.

I'm reading a number of stories regarding churches turning their nativity scenes into political statements about immigration agents enforcing the laws.  Namely, these churches are replacing Mary, Joseph and the infant Jesus with signs saying "ICE was here".  At least one church went all the way and has ICE agents surrounding the crèche with zip ties and weapons drawn.

Photo credit: Matthew McDonald

I would not want to visit these churches, because they are demonstrating that they have no grasp of scripture at all.

Here's the truth of the matter: Jesus and his parents were never refugees or immigrants.  Joseph took his wife to Bethlehem because that was their hometown, and they had to take part in a census that had been ordered by Caesar.  They may not have been fully citizens of Rome (few in Roman territory were) but they were certainly 100% legal residents of the empire.  There was nothing wrong about that at all.

So already, to depict Mary, Joseph and Jesus hauled off by immigration enforcement is ridiculous.  More  than that, it's blasphemous.

And so far as the holy family being in Egypt to escape from Herod goes, Egypt had fully been a part of the Roman Empire since the end of the Ptolemaic dynasty a few decades earlier.  Joseph brought his family there to escape from Herod, a puppet king ruling Judea on behalf of Rome.  The family of Joseph were escaping a wicked provincial ruler who Rome pretty much let do whatever he wanted so long as he kept the local Jews in line.  But Herod's jurisdiction went no further than that.  People were still free to travel within the empire, across provincial boundaries.  So it is that to go from Judea to Egypt was no more big a deal than if I were to drive a car from the upstate of South Carolina across the border and into Georgia.  To claim that Joseph and his family were going to a foreign land and that made them refugees is... well... dumb.

This hatred of all things Donald Trump is begetting some truly mad behavior.  It says more about the people hating, than it does about the man they are targeting with their spite and bitterness.  For a church to ignore basic scripture, as these places of worship are doing, absolutely reeks of ignorance.  And they need to be called out about it.

Read More

Happy Sixtieth Anniversary to A Charlie Brown Christmas!

 

Premiered on CBS on December 9th, 1965.

No matter how many times I've seen this, I always take time to watch it again every Christmas season.  A few years ago I bought the Blu-ray containing A Charlie Brown Christmas along with the Halloween and Thanksgiving specials.

I can barely remember it, but when I was two or three years old CBS had scheduled the Christmas special for broadcast.  But a football game went over long and completely pre-empted A Charlie Brown Christmas.  I was furious!  Mom said I was really crying about not getting to see Charlie Brown.  It bothered Mom too.  Enough so that she called CBS affiliate WFMY in neighboring Greensboro to complain about it.  I don't know what she said to them but they gave her the home phone number of the station's general manager!  Mom let him have it, telling him it was wrong to advertise Charlie Brown and then yank it away from all the children because of a football game.  The way Mom put it, I get the feeling that she wasn't the only irate parent calling the station that night.  And parents across America were probably calling their own local CBS affiliates too.  In the end the network rescheduled A Charlie Brown Christmas to an airdate ideal for viewers of all ages and the kiddies got to see it after all.

I treasure knowing that.  For all that happened between my mother and I (something I explore at length in my book Keeping the Tryst), there are anecdotes scattered here and there which prove that Mom wasn't the bad person I went so long believing that she was.  A parent doesn't do something like that if there wasn't love for his or her child.  I very much appreciate that.

Well, happy anniversary Charlie Brown.  Someone said during your special's production that they'll be watching this for a hundred years.  You're well on your way to reaching that goal.  I hope to be around to see it when it comes :-) 

Read More

Pennrose Mall will live again! Worst shopping center in North Carolina is getting an extreme makeover (Plus: Reidsville is getting a new bookstore!)

I first heard about this about a week ago and it didn't seem possible.  There were photos though that proved it was true: Pennrose Mall, what might be the worst shopping establishment in the southeastern United States - it's definitely the worst in the state of North Carolina - is getting some much-needed cosmetic attention.

Here is a pic of what Pennrose Mall has looked like for the past few decades:

The blog Sky City: Retail History has many other photos of Pennrose.  Those are from circa 2011 though.  I paid a brief visit inside the mall in 2017 and it was MUCH worse by that point.

Pennrose Mall used to be a happenin' place.  It had many good retailers, some big-name anchors but also quite a few small businesses that brought real local charm to the downtown area.  But the last time it was anything like that was perhaps thirty years ago.  I think the town's economic downturn when American Tobacco Company was sold in 1994 was one hammer that hit Pennrose.  And then Walmart came in 2005 and that wrought a lot of devastation to the business scene in Reidsville.

Like I noted above, I went into Pennrose Mall in 2017.  There were only three stores that were still there: Belk, Rose's, and Strader's Shoe Store.  There was only one other "business" there: a fly by night Internet sweepstakes place that looked like it had gone completely under the radar of local law enforcement.  Strader's closed this past spring, leaving only Belk and Rose's to dominate an empty shell of a shopping center.  There was extensive water damage from leaky ceilings.  Trash throughout the complex.  Weeds growing throughout the empty parking lot.  I'm sure vagrants have been hanging around.  No doubt some drug deals have happened there too.

Put succinctly, Pennrose Mall has been the blight of Reidsville, North Carolina.  But its owner never cared about fixing up the place.  The interests owning Pennrose, apparently up in New York State, found the mall to be more profitable if it was just sitting there derelict.

Well folks, apparently things are finally going to be looking up for Pennrose Mall.

On the podcast today at Mike Moore Media, the plans for Pennrose Mall were finally revealed.  Here's what was posted on the podcast's Facebook page earlier...

Pennrose Mall in Reidsville has been bought by local developer Tom Holderby, a Reidsville native.  Renovations have started, a dozen new businesses have already signed leases, including retail, restaurants, trampoline park, coffee shop, and Peanut Shack is returning.  Holderby is also building 168 apartments on the property.  Plans will be announced for the old Hardee’s and China Grill.  Winn-Dixie will be torn down.  Pennrose, one of the first malls in the state was built in 1968.

WOW!!  All of that, and the return of Peanut Shack, too!  New businesses set to fill the empty spaces.  Restaurants coming.  A coffee shop and a trampoline park, which sounds like a lot of fun.

This really could be the thing that revitalizes downtown Reidsville.  Something that it has needed for a full generation now.

I have high hopes for this and I wish Mr. Holderby all the best.

But that's not all!

When I commented on the original post on Facebook, I lamented that Reidsville needs a bookstore.  Pennrose Mall used to have News & Novels, an awesome bookstore that I bought many a volume (and quite a few comic books) from.  News & Novels closed down in 1988.  Richard Moore (who I've written about a few times on this blog) had KC Books and then The Bookstore and that lasted for awhile until it closed in 2008.  There hasn't been a single bookstore in Rockingham County since then.

Well friends, I have been informed by trusted associates that a new bookstore is coming to Reidsville!  Coming spring of 2026 is Ink & Ivy Bookshop and it sounds like it's going to be the perfect lil' addition to the city of Reidsville.  I'm definitely looking forward to visiting Reidsville again soon, just to check Ink & Ivy out.  Hey who knows, maybe we'll have a signing for my book there.

Seriously though, this news warms the cockles of my heart and I'm very glad to hear that my old hometown is getting some good things after too long a time in the wilderness.

Read More

The ORIGINAL Star Wars: A New Hope is coming to theaters in February 2027!

This is something that a LOT of us have waited almost thirty years for!  It was reported a few days ago that the original cut of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope is coming back to theaters in February 2027!  This is going to be the first Star Wars movie as it existed before the "Special Editions" came out in 1997.  From an age when the special effects of the saga were done without benefit of computer-generated imagery.   This is the movie that shattered the bar for what practical effects could do and it set the platinum standard for every blockbuster since.  And now in time for the film's fiftieth anniversary we're going to behold it again in its original glory.

(I'm going to assume that "original 1977 Star Wars" actually means the print that was released prior to the premiere of The Empire Strikes Back.  That version was the 1977 cut but with the "Episode IV: A New Hope" added to the opening crawl.  That is how it was most widely known as in the years after its original release.  That's my assumption anyway.  It's still going to be the material circa 1977.)

It's a real wonder that it is coming out though!  Ever since 1997 the official line from Lucasfilm is that the footage that was cleaned up and restored prior to getting enhanced effects for the Special Editions, had been irreparably damaged during that process.  George Lucas insisted that A New Hope as had first come out in theaters no longer existed.  He further stated that the Special Editions were in his mind the definitive Star Wars trilogy and that there was no real need or perhaps even desire for the original cuts.

Disney many have done a few things wrong since taking over the franchise in 2012, but this is not one off those.  Because many of us have been wanting the classic A New Hope - the version that won awards out the wazoo and was one of the very first movies inducted into the National Film Registry - to be made available to us.  The A New Hope cut that many if not most of us still remember from between 1977 and 1996 is, I prefer to believe anyway, a priceless historical artifact of its time.  It deserves to be forever honored and esteemed.  And the people who have come after deserve to see it for themselves: a cut of the first Star Wars movie that really does have Han shooting first.

I don't know how they did it but apparently there was a pristine print of that first version of Episode IV out there and now it's been restored and being made ready for its golden anniversary.  I hope this does a zillion dollars at the box office.  Maybe then Disney and Lucasfilm will not only release the original versions of The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi also, but make them on sale for home release.  I would certainly love to have the first trilogy as originally enjoyed in my personal library.

Think I'm going to wear my lucky Star Wars cap, that I've had since being at Elon, when I go see this in the theater.

Read More

Just saw this Christmas-themed Publix commercial and I love it!

Whoever came up with this ad deserves an award.  This spot is brilliant, tragicomic, heart-tugging, funny, and beautiful.  Publix has a long history of having great commercials and this is one of their best.

Growing up I thought that people whose birthdays fell on Christmas must be so lucky, because it meant that they got more toys.  Watching poor Isabelle suffer from being a Christmas baby makes me greatly regret having that notion.  May all who were born on Christmas have a birthday just as wonderful as this young lady's :-) 

Read More

Detroit finally gets its statue of RoboCop

Way, waaaaay back in 2011, I posted about how a bunch of good-hearted geeks pitched in more than $50,000 to crowdfund a statue of RoboCop for the city of Detroit.  I've wondered about this project at various times over the years (mostly whenever I've watched RoboCop, which hasn't been too many occasions) and I certainly did wish them well.  But it still seemed like one of those great ideas that linger around but ultimately get nowhere.

Leave it to nerd-dom to prove this cynic wrong.

Behold the brand new $60,000 bronze statue of electric fuzz in stainless steel:

Click to enlarge.  Photo credit: Lee DeVito

Detroit Metro Times has more here about the RoboCop statue.  Maybe they should invite Paul Verhoeven and Peter Weller for the official dedication?  I'd buy that for a dollar!

Read More

Hair-raising true story of Yours Truly and manic depression

So, TWO people have asked me the same question in private message on Facebook.  Having seen my new photo, they're wondering if I've colored my hair.

Okay, sure, why not?  It might be a little fun to answer this...

NO!  I am not currently coloring my hair.  What you see is all natural brown, honest.

HOWEVER, for awhile I did color my hair.

I was afraid that I was going gray prematurely.  So I turned to Just For Men...  with tragicomic results.  One more thing that I did while deep in the throes of mania.

The complete story - which really is pretty hilarious - is in chapter 56 of my book Keeping the Tryst.  Along with what I did when I thought my hair was falling out.  Not one of my prouder moments, but the tale is there if anyone wants to be a little entertained 😮

Read More

Haven't posted a selfie in a long time...

The other week I got a haircut.  I tend to like how these things look after they've grown out a bit.  And I've lost some weight lately.  Been trying to take better care of myself than I had been, so among other things I'm eating a lot more fresh veggies.  I definitely think that working on the book took a stressful toll.  There were a lot of things in that which were a real struggle to write.  But I did it and I think I picked up the visage of a real author in the process.

Anyhow, this is how I'm looking lately:

Not bad for a guy in his early fifties!  Every so often I get asked how old am I.  It's become a lot of fun making people guess.  I've been told that I look everything from 45 to 23!

Well, we'll see how long it lasts.  Maybe when I hit 70 I'll be getting mistaken for a person in his forties :-) 

Read More

Forsaking one happiness for another, or: "Why don't you have a girlfriend Chris?"

Every so often someone asks me the question: "Chris, why don't you have someone special in your life?"

It's not a bad question, not really.  There are a lot of reasons why I don't have a woman to love.  One of the biggest is that I just haven't found her yet.  It seems that the prospects of that happening are dim.  But my expectations are high. The woman who God might bring into my life has to love and serve Him first, more than she would me.  That is not easy to find in any person, it seems.

She also has to be able to love me for who I am, lumps and all.  That means accepting that I have a condition that will at times make life difficult for both of us, and I'm speaking of my having bipolar disorder.  Now, that is something which has become MUCH more controlled in the past few years.  It's not the monster looming over me like it has been for most of my life.  But even so, it's there, and though I'm better at knowing when it's about to strike the symptoms still come.

I also know what kind of person she needs to be outwardly.  I desire someone who cares about the impression she makes. And by that I mean I do NOT care for someone with tattoos and metal in inappropriate places on her body, especially on her face.  I want a girl who looks natural.  With symmetry.  Sorry, not sorry, but tattoos on a woman are a major turn-off for me.  I don't find that appealing, at all.  It seems that many if not most people, including the females, are getting inked these days.  That is something I'm not interested in a woman having.

My standards are high.  Maybe unapproachably so.  But I know what I'm looking for.  A real diamond in the rough.  If and when I find her, I'm going to be very thankful for her.

But even so, all of those things don't zero in on the real reason why I'm unattached.  There are others. And one of then is something that I am actually very joyful about.

Something that struck me a few days ago.  I told this to my friends yesterday during our belated Thanksgiving dinner together, and they thought I was right, too...

A lot of people know that one of the things I've most wanted in life is someone to share it with.  I've longed for God to bring a woman into my world, who I can cherish and honor and love.  Someone who can truly love me, imperfections and all, and never abandon me because of my frailties.

What's happened to that?  I talk about that desire a bit in my book Keeping the Tryst.  It's important enough to merit mentioning.  But I haven't lamented not having a lady in my life as I used to, in quite awhile now.  Though time has seen that desire magnify, not diminish.

So, what's happened?

In a word, Tammy.  My dog happened.

It hit me right between the eyes this past week, the discovery that I've been so focused on giving Tammy a good life, I've been ignoring the desires I have had for my own.

I do not believe at all that that's been a bad thing.

I promised Dad, on the night before he passed away, that I would look after Tammy and take care of her.  As best that I possibly could.  Dad and I had gotten Tammy together but I never harbored anything more than the sense that Tammy was his dog first and foremost.  He was "Daddy " to her.  He was her person.  The one she most followed and looked to for comfort and attention.  I was just... well, I guess I was "the other guy" in the house.  The spare.  The one to get attention from when Daddy was too busy making dinner or something.

Tammy was Dad's dog and on his next-to-final night with us he came to enough to ask about her.  And I told him that he didn't have to worry.  I told Dad that I would watch over her and see to it that she was taken care of.

That was eleven years ago.  Quite a while.

My promise to my father, to look after someone we both loved, has been the central mission of my life all this time.  It's been the most important aspect of my being, second only to my relationship with God.

Tammy is more than a dog to me.  She is family.  She is the last living connection I have to my father.  I cherish her especially because of that.

And she has absolutely been worth setting aside my desires for my own happiness for.

She IS happiness for me.  Every day that ends with the two of us together, is something I am thankful for.  It's that much more time that I can feel like I've made Dad proud of me, for taking care of his dog.

I don't count having my own desires set aside for her sake as a loss.  Not at all.

I'm doing what I said that I would do.  I'm fulfilling a promise.  I'm being honorable.  I'm doing the right thing, no matter how it looks to the world.  If you've read or are reading Keeping the Tryst then you know how much my honor means to me and this, is in keeping with that.

I cannot do otherwise.

Some day, it will sadly end.  I'm a realist.  I know that Tammy isn't as young as she used to be.  But she's still here.  She's still with me.  And every day that we have together is a victory to celebrate and be thankful for.  Every day that we have is a gift from God.  And that is never something to be regretful about.

I don't count the decade and more I've had without a woman in my life as being lost.  Not at all.  When you love someone enough you can very easily set aside your own needs and wants for sake of that person.  And that is what Tammy is to me: a person.  Dear family, and family looks after each other no matter the cost.  Just one of many things that my little dog has taught me.

It may not be as big a deal as having a spouse and kids.  But this is the hand that God dealt me.  And I am absolutely making the very most of it.  I can be grateful for that.

And who knows?  Maybe someday, sooner than later, God will bring a woman into my life.  I think Tammy has enough love in her for another person, too 🙂

Read More

Just finished watching Stranger Things season five, volume one. Aaaaaand...

Good GOOGLY MOOOGLY!!  Holy HECK!!  Good LORD!!  Jeebus cripes crispies with milk!!!

I mean, did I just watch that?  I watched that.  That just happened.  That was much better television than we possibly deserve to have.  This is at least the greatest show since Lost.

And the kids do not too terribly old either considering it's been over three years since season four.  They all appear pretty consistent with their characters's on-screen ages.  Even Erica - who I was concerned about most, because I love that character - looks great!  The crew did an amazing job with makeup.  I totally bought that these were still teenagers.

I totally called it on the title of episode two, which was being called "The Vanishing Of..." ever since the titles reveal last year.  The foreshadowing was there all the way back in season one.  Can't believe I nailed that one :-)

It was a real delight to see that the copy of A Wrinkle in Time that Holly is reading is the very same edition of my own copy, that I got as fourth grader in 1984.  That became one of my favorite books from childhood and it was really something seeing how that classic tale got referenced in these episodes.

I'm just... wow.  The past five hours were amazing.  Definitely time well spent away from real world concerns.  That can be a good thing, in moderation.  I've neglected having some leisure time for my own enjoyment for much too long.  Tonight I got to have that again.

Today is officially Thanksgiving.  I'm going to be joining some friends for a late celebration tomorrow, so I have today pretty much to myself.  I'm going to spend it playing with my dog, for fun I'm going to make the dinner that Snoopy cooked in A Charlie  Brown Thanksgiving (complete with toast and pretzels), and I might watch these first four episodes again.  I'll certainly watch them again before volume two comes out on Christmas Day.

Okay well, go watch the new Stranger Things.  It gets my highest recommendation.  And if you've never watched it before, what are you waiting for??  You're missing a heck of a story, with an amazing cast of characters.  I hope this comes to Blu-ray eventually, because I would be very happy to have the series in my collection.  But you don't have to wait.  Get Netflix now, just for Stranger Things.  Trust me it's worth it.

Read More

Thanksgiving 2025: What I am thankful for

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving here in the United States.  And though it has been adopted by a few other countries, the American observation of the holiday remains a unique one.  Thanksgiving has been part of America's identity since the early seventeenth century, most notably by the Pilgrims of the Plymouth colony in 1621.  The notion of the American people giving thanks to God for the blessings He had bestowed was further ingrained by the Continental Congress in 1777.

And then in 1789 President George Washington famously proclaimed a day of national thanksgiving.  That pretty much sealed the deal.  Thanksgiving would forever be a sacred time for the American people.

My experiences with Thanksgiving have been varied.  Some of them have been good.  Others, not so much.  I don't want to dwell on the latter though.  I like to believe that recent years, months actually, have brought deliverance from much of that pain.  Yet Thanksgiving will forever be something that I approach with trepidation.  It's the entire month of November, actually.  While writing my book it struck me how so much has happened in my life during the various months of November... and not all of that very good.  There has been a lot of family heartbreak during November and now that I realize it, that has cast a pall on this month, maybe from now on.

But in spite of that, there are enough good things that have been in my life that I cannot but have a grateful heart about.  And I can definitely honor God by remarking upon those.

So here, as part of what has at various times been a holiday tradition (though it's been five years since the last time I did this), are what I am thankful for right now...

I am thankful for my relationship with God, that has grown so much over the course of the past few years.  I think part of that is because I have made it a prerogative to choose to be thankful, in spite of how circumstances have sometimes gone.

I am thankful for the work that I have right now.  That was definitely an answered prayer.

I am thankful for the many wonderful people who are in my life, who have been there for me when I needed that most.

I am especially thankful for my "inner circle", my closest friends who really are precious family.

I am thankful that I have a roof over my head and a working vehicle.

I am very thankful for my dog Tammy.  I thank God for her each morning and evening, and I pray that He might let us have many more wonderful years together.

I am thankful that this year I got to see my book Keeping the Tryst published after a decade of on and off work upon it.  And it seems that others are enjoying reading it.  I am very happy about that.  Maybe the new year will see it discovered by even more people, too.

I am thankful for some opportunities that have opened up, and I am looking forward to seeing what happens with them.

I am thankful for my overall health.  And especially my mental health.  After half a lifetime of dealing with bipolar disorder, I can truthfully testify that my mind is at last my own.  Are there moments where things could be better?  Yes, there are.  Those will always be a threat to live with.  But manic depression no longer looms over me like a monster.  That is a beast that has in greatest part been brought to ground.

I am thankful that I have lately begun reading for pleasure again, more than I had been.  I suppose I've been so fixated on my own book, that I'd forgotten how much fun it is to read the classics.  In the past month or so I've been re-reading the Harry Potter series.  It's almost like a spark of childhood has been re-ignited in me and I want to nurture that.

I am thankful for my iPad Pro: my most indispensable tool.  Although I'm now on the second keyboard for it (cranking out 142,023 words of my book took a toll on the first keyboard, especially the "t" key).

I am thankful that I did not require surgery in September (long story)!

That's what comes pretty much comes most to mind for this occasion.  And I shall pray that YOU, Dear Reader, will have even more things to list that you are grateful for this Thanksgiving :-)

Read More

Weird News: Man disguises himself as dead mother to get her government pension checks

Y'know, I really need to post more crazy stuff.  I used to do it all the time.  It adds some variety to this place.  But I don't want to over do it.  In the past few years The Knight Shift has become more an intimate thing for me.  Although I need to post more "from the heart and mind" pieces too.  Just something I've noticed.

But back to weird stuff...

From Italy comes this story of a "youthful whippersnapper" who did a bad bad thing.  A man in Italy, 56 and an unemployed nurse, has been found to have been dressing up as his three-years dead mother in order to impersonate her and get her pension checks.  It's as bizarre a story as has come about lately.

From the article at Daily Mail:

An Italian son has been accused of dressing up as his dead mother in an effort to claim her pension while her body was hidden at home.

The 56-year-old man, an unemployed nurse from Mantua, reportedly managed to claim thousands of euros before his act was exposed.

He had also allegedly hidden the dead body of his mother, Graziella Dall'Oglio, at the family home until it had become mummified.

  The 56-year-old man, an unemployed nurse from Mantua, reportedly managed to claim thousands of euros before his act was exposed.

He had also allegedly hidden the dead body of his mother, Graziella Dall'Oglio, at the family home until it had become mummified.

Ms Dall'Oglio passed away around three years ago at the age of 82, according to Italy's Corriere della Sera newspaper.

But her son failed to officially report her death and instead wrapped her body in a sheet, stuffed it into a sleeping bag and hid it in the house.

He then allegedly dressed up as his mother, complete with lipstick, foundation and a pearl necklace, before setting out to renew her identity card in a government office in the suburb of Borgo Virgilio.

The son had reportedly cut his hair so it would fall in a similar style to his late mother's. 

He underwent a 'Mrs Doubtfire-style transformation', the paper said, referring to the 1993 movie starring Robin Williams.

The man arrived at the government office on the outskirts of Mantua earlier this month, where he presented himself as Ms Dall'Oglio.

But his blatant deception raised the suspicions of one employee, who realised there was something peculiar about the 'woman' - including their thick neck and deep voice.

The member of staff quickly reported the incident to police and even alerted the local mayor.

Authorities compared official photographs of the real Ms Dall'Oglio to those of her son and realised they had been duped.

The son had been reeling in an annual income of around €53,000 (£47,000) thanks to his mother's pension as well as a property portfolio of three houses, as per the paper.

As for what gave this poor sap away...

'He came into the council offices wearing a long skirt, he was wearing lipstick and nail varnish, a necklace and old-style earrings,' Francesco Aporti, the mayor of Borgo Virgilio, told the newspaper.

'But up close his neck was too thick and his wrinkles were strange, the skin on his hands did not seem to be that of an 85-year-old woman. 

'His voice was feminine but every so often it dipped and sounded masculine. But I might not have noticed these strange features had they not been pointed out.'

Here is a photo of the late Miss Dall'Oglio:

And here is the photo of her son in his devious disguise:

This doesn't remind me of Mrs. Doubtfire nearly as much as it does of Norman Bates...

And now I'm suddenly tempted to watch Psycho.

 

Read More

It's five days until Thanksgiving 2025

 Remember...

A bit of classic humor from good friend of this blog Lee Shelton who first created this pic in 2009 :-) 

(In case anyone's wondering, I will sadly not be deep frying a Thanksgiving turkey this year.  Maybe for Christmas though...)

Read More

A new question about Keeping the Tryst: What happened in the cafeteria at Elon

My book Keeping the Tryst has been out for a little over a month and a half now.  It's been doing pretty well sales-wise.  Okay it's NOT a bestseller by any stretch.  But enough people have been buying and reading it to make me pretty happy so far.  Maybe there will come to be some word of mouth and knowledge about it will spread around.

People are reading it.  And their comments have been rather kind.  One of my friends said that it's a real page-turner that he's barely been able to put down.  A number of people have praised its readability, saying that it doesn't come across as a 500-some page volume.  I've also gotten good word about the design: it's page color, the font size... so it's something comfortable on the eyes.  Considering that I had to design everything about this book, hearing those things makes me smile.

There have been a number of questions from those who have been reading Keeping the Tryst.  I've been doing my best to answer them as well as is possible.  Here's the latest question that's been asked.  I suppose it's a good one, because I didn't expound on it very much in the book...

"What happened in the cafeteria in chapter 19?"

Harden Cafeteria, Elon College, circa 2000

The answer is: I don't know.

I have vivid and troubling memories about what happened a few hours earlier, then a week and a half following my salvation experience in November of 1996.  I remember being in my bedroom at our apartment, sometime after midnight.  There is the memory of calling someone.  What took place between going to the cafeteria and winding up back home, that's gone.  Just... gone.

When dawn came, I didn't get ready to go to class.  I was too torn to pieces, too wiped out.  My mind was a wreck.  I skipped school that day.  And the next.  Friends called me, wanting to come over.  But I turned them down.  I wasn't ready to see anyone.

My friend Gary was the one who suggested that something very horrible had happened that evening in the cafeteria.  And over the course of the next few days, a number of friends from what was a close-knit community of Christian students intimated also that a terrible occurrence had transpired and that I had been at the center of it.

There are some mysteries in my life.  Things that I can't explain or have ever fully grasped.  What happened that night in Harden Cafeteria at Elon College is one of those.  It's among the biggest enigmas that have come about in my time on this earth.

What  I wrote about in chapter 19 of Keeping the Tryst is whatever it is.  Something terrible, that I've never had a solid answer about.  But I believe that God has brought me a long way from that.  It doesn't cast a shadow over my life as it had.  In fact, in the grander scheme of things it's really something pretty minor.  I came through it, God is good, and that's all that matters.

But maybe someday, though it's already been almost thirty years, there will come to be a clear understanding of what happened.  And who knows, but maybe I'll write about it.

Read More

On friendship, family, and difference of opinion

In the wake of some recent events I'm feeling the need to say something lately, that I've reiterated a number of times before...

I hold to certain principles.  They are more than just beliefs.  They are certainly more than mere opinions.  Mine are CONVICTIONS.  Not one of them was arrived at without a great amount of meditation and ponderance about the matter.  I know where I stand on these issues.  I know what I believe but much more than that, I know *why* I believe.

I'm not a man of ideologies.  I loathe the notion that I of all people must have an ideology.  I prefer to be known as a man of ideas.  I realize that more often than not I've been called a conservative.  That's the world's appellation for me.  But I've never cared what the world thinks of me.

I know that where I stand on some things isn't the most popular.  Just as where some people stand on their own issues, are not popular with me.  To be honest, what some people believe in strike me as pretty horrifying.

But even so, where friendship and family are involved, I am not going to necessarily think any less of such a person.

It takes a LOT for me to be led to dissolve a relationship with someone on the basis of differences of belief.  I'm not interested in that.  To me, to come to that kind of an impasse is a great failure.  It suggests that the friendship was less important than "must be right".

Am I right about what I believe?  I am convicted that I am, just as I have to trust that others are convicted, too.  My perspective about that is something that I had always known but it was while reading Atlas Shrugged that it gained clarity.  That perspective being: I know what I believe and I have to trust that another knows what he or she believes.  Let reality judge who is right.  If I am right, and convince the other that I am, I count it as no victory for myself.  If I am proven wrong, I count it as no loss.

I believe that some people in my life are wrong in what they believe.  But I will NOT think any less of them for that.  Not unless they come to adhere to something truly evil.  And that hasn't happened much in my life, if at all.

I believe in God.  I believe in God, Who among many other things is the author of reality.  I would be a very poor adherent of that concept if I did not have faith that harsh though it may come, reality prevails in the end.  I am an evangelist of reality.  So who knows, I might be one who encourages others to consider some things that they might not have before.  If I abandoned them, I will have abandoned the mission.  And I can't do that.

I guess that all of this is a roundabout way of saying this: I can't diminish a friendship or put away family because of a difference of belief about something.  That's not my nature.

And I would hope that no friend or family thinks any less of me for my own convictions.

Thank you.

Read More

The film One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is fifty years old today!

 Released on November 19th, 1975.

Coach W.A. Wall, our health teacher during my sophomore year of high school, told us about this movie one morning in class.  The subject at hand was mental health.  He said that One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was a movie we would do well to watch sometime.  Coach Wall said that it would make us laugh, it would make us cry, and that it would downright disturb us at times.

About ten years later I got my first DVD player for Christmas.  As I was starting to build up a personal movie library I spotted this film's DVD.  Remembering what Coach Wall had said about it, I decided it was worth taking a chance on and so I bought the disc.

Wall was right.  One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was all of those things and more.  And it very quickly became one of the best movies I've ever seen.

Sometimes I've been asked, given my many experiences in the realm of mental health, if real life is anything like it is in this movie.  I can happily report that we have come a very long way from the treatment methods depicted in Cuckoo's Nest.  I've certainly never had anything like that kind of experience.  Even the most seemingly hopeless of patients are now treated with dignity and compassion.  I do believe that there are some cases which are going to forever seen as impossible.  But I've never met a mental health professional - either in my capacity as having a mental health care career or in being treated myself as someone with bipolar disorder - who did not cling to at least some semblance of a belief that there can be hope for anyone.

I think that One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest might have played a part in altering the perception of mental health treatment.  By the mid-Seventies the field was already on its way toward its modern form.  The movie's considerable audience, critical acclaim and  that it swept up so many prizes (it won the Academy Award for Best Picture among many other honors) cast a new light upon psychiatric medicine.  It came at the perfect time for the field.  That alone if nothing else merits noting this anniversary.

I've got nothing else to do this afternoon.  And I'm saving continuing my rewatch of Stranger Things season four for this evening.  Think I'll celebrate the occasion and watch One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest again.

Read More

Short Sugar's Barbecue Sauce has hit store shelves!!

For the past ten months the number-one question that has been asked of this blogger has been: "Do you know when the Short Sugar's barbecue sauce is going to be for sale?"

It was back in January that Short Sugar's Barbecue in Reidsville, North Carolina closed after almost eighty years of business.  It was news that shocked a lot of people.  I know.  For weeks it was THE item that spun the most traffic to this blog.  Folks as far away as Ireland, Australia and Brazil were coming to this site.  But that was nothing compared to the reactions that I saw on Facebook, among the people who for most if not all their lives had Short Sugar's in the town they grew up in.  It was an institution, not just of Reidsville but of the entire state of North Carolina.

I could go on all night about that.  It's been talked about by people more eloquent than I.  But a few days after the closing was announced, Short Sugar's owner David Wilson told us that the restaurant's classic barbecue sauce would be going on sale sooner than later.  I know the notion of selling it on Amazon had come up, and that venue might still come about.  That's all I knew about it though.  And at least once or twice a week since then there's been e-mail coming in asking if I had heard anything about Short Sugar's sauce hitting the market.  And all I could do was throw my hands up in the air and tell everyone "beats me."

But let there be rejoicing!  A few hours ago Wilson broke the news on Facebook that Short Sugar's Barbecue Sauce is now on sale!

You can find it at Richard's Meats & Things on Scales Street in Reidsville.  Which is practically straight across the street from where Short Sugar's was located.  Richard's is a great store that has a lot of good stuff, I can't praise their Delicious Seasoning nearly enough.  I have no idea if they ship.  If they don't they had perhaps better start thinking about setting up logistics for that, because I have a feeling that there is going to be a honking huge demand for this sauce.  A great friend back in Reidsville has already offered to send me a few bottles and I am soooooo eager to have that succulent sauce drenching my chopped barbecue before too long.

Okay well, there ya go.  Short Sugar's Barbecue Sauce is now being sold by the bottle.  It's what you all wanted.  When there's a demand for a product, eventually someone will fill it.  It will make the public very happy and it makes the producer rich.  And that's what America's all about, by gum!

So go get your bottle of Short Sugar's!  Or perish in flames.  It's your choice.  But not really.

UPDATE November 17th 2025: I asked the fine staff at Richard's Meats & Things about shipping.  Here is what Hannah told me...

Hi Chris! 

Yes, we have gotten a lot of requests for this. Unfortunately, we don't ship at this time, so it is something I have to look into and figure out how to do! With the holiday season, I am unsure if I will be able to do this before the New Year (though I'd like to). Hopefully in January we can get a system up and running. 

Best, 

Hannah

Thanks Hannah!  Well, if you guys get something figured out I'll not only order a few bottles of Short Sugars's sauce but also some of your seasoning.  I feel like a bad expatriate of Reidsville for not having some handy already.

Read More

In honor of today being Veterans Day...

Here is my father, Robert Knight, circa 1958.  He was nineteen years old at the time, serving in the United States Navy aboard the U.S.S. Northampton (at that time the flagship of the Seventh Fleet).

I've sometimes wondered about what it must have been like for him then, at that age, leaving the family farm to serve in the armed forces.  It couldn't have been easy for him.  Dad volunteered for the Navy because he knew there was going to be a great chance he would be drafted anyway, and he wanted a measure of control over his life.  I think Dad also saw the Navy as being more "hands-on" technically than other branches, in terms of maintaining machinery, as that's what much of his life experience had already entailed.  Much of his time in the Navy was spent in the engineering area of the Northampton.  And he must have impressed the right people because he was offered a chance to get involved in computers just as that technology was coming to really develop.  But Dad was really happiest when he worked with his hands as well as his mind, and coming up with punch-code would have been too stifling for him.  So he wound up honorably discharged and came back to North Carolina and got into dairy farming as his family had long been involved with.

But for a few years, Dad was a sailor.  And he saw more of the world than a lot of people likely get to see, all while serving his country.

So here's a hearty tip o' the hat to all who have served in America's military.

Read More