Ode to a Friend - Tony McGee

Abigail and Dolley readers it is with great sadness that I learned the news of the passing of my friend, Anthony William McGee I.  Tony, as we all called him, was 48 years old and died unexpectedly of natural causes on 08/28/12.  Tony was the beloved brother of Pam and Donna, the son of Peggy and Junior from Pineville NC.  Tony is survived by his wife Lyn, his two daughters, Ashlyn and Amber, and his granddaughter, Layla.  Today he is reunited in Heaven with his cherished son, Will.  Tony will be missed greatly by all who loved him.

My story with Tony is an old one and a simple one, he was my first love.  It was the Summer of 1984, Tina Turner and Springsteen played on the radio, we wore parachute pants, and drove American muscle cars with racing stripes.  Older than I by four and a half years, we had never seen each other until that party at Kenneth Moore's.  Shortly after my Sweet 16, I was on a date with one of his friends.  Tony met me in a darkened hallway, I don't know if it was an accident or if he'd seen me go the restroom and was waiting for me.  It's more fun to think he was waiting on me....  He backed me up against the wall with his arms braced on either side of me, leaned down and asked me, "What's your name?"  I nearly kissed him in that moment.  The chemistry between us was amazing, not merely a spark, more like a lightening storm, beautiful, wild, and dangerous in its intensity.  I broke up with his friend that night on our ride home.

It was a classic summer romance, full of longing, passion, and fire.  I was giddy and spent every waking minute thinking of him, talking to him, or trying to figure out how I was going to get to him.  I wanted to crawl inside his skin.  He was funny and playful, full of life and love.  He laughed easy and loved to tease and tickle.  The only time he ever got mad at me was when I had a friend drop me off at Pineville Park to wait for him to get off work.  He was angry at me for being there at night, alone and made me promise I would never do that again.  Neither of us had a car, and come to think of it, Tony did not even have a license... he worked second shift and our time together was hard earned!

It was doomed from the start and in retrospect, he knew that long before me.  We came from two different worlds and our future paths did not run in parallel but our lives briefly intersected.  Love doesn't always make sense, it doesn't see the obstacles, and it believes it can defeat all. First love is powerful magic full of promise and a level of invincibility that is absent from any that should follow it. Alas, it is also a wicked double edged sword, I did not escape without scars.  In the weeks, months, and years that followed, I often wondered if it was worth it, the answer is most definitely, yes.  To have loved such a sweet soul is one of the greatest blessings of my life.

By late August, we were over and I found myself surrounded by dozens of partying friends at Myrtle Beach.  The boy I had broke up to go out with Tony was there and chased me around all weekend.  I was heart sick and simply wanted him to leave me alone.  After three days of forced revelry, I took a solitary walk down the beach.  I sat on a piece of driftwood and wept bitterly.  It is perhaps the hardest I have ever cried in my life.  An older lady came over, put her hand on my shoulder, and asked kindly, "Are you okay, Honey?" I looked up from my sobbing and told her, "I've lost someone that I love."

As the years went by, I would think of him and hope he was doing well. When he joined Facebook, I broke my "No Former Lovers as Friends" Rule and accepted his friend request.  I did it mainly because I had learned of his son's tragic death and I wanted to offer him my sincere sympathy.  I thought of him often and each time I would say a prayer for he and his family.  I was very careful not to open the Pandora's box of first love, I am a happily married woman, after all.  He respected that, but periodically would send me a short note or comment on a status with such sweetness that I realized that perhaps he too still felt a tenderness for me.

I have always been a writer and was working on my first novel the Summer we dated.  It is Tony who I use in my mind to bring that first love to the page.  It's his warm embrace and soft lips that I recall in the passages about young love.  That Summer of 1984, when we were separated by thousands of miles, we would walk outside and look at the stars.  We took comfort that we were at least looking into the same night sky and we talked to the wee hours of the morning.  I had forgotten that until he sent me a note last year and reminded me of it.  So tonight when I look at the stars, I will remember you, my friend, my dear first love - rest in peace Tony McGee, I'll see you soon enough.

Even before he died, I would hear these songs and think of him.  I'd like to think he did the same.

French Soldier's Take on the American Soldier

Abigail and Dolley readers this was written by a French Infantryman who served with our forces in Afghanistan.."We have shared our daily life with two US units for quite a while -they are the first and fourth companies of a prestigious infantry battalion whose name I will withhold for the sake of military secrecy. To the common man it is a unit just like any other. But we live with

them and got to know them, and we henceforth know that we have the honor to live with one of the most renowned units of the US Army - one that the movies brought to the public as series showing "ordinary soldiers thrust into extraordinary events". Who are they, those soldiers from abroad, how is their daily life, and what support do they bring to the men of our OMLT every day? Few of them belong to the Easy Company, the one the TV series focuses on. This one nowadays is named Echo Company, and it has become the support company.

They have a terribly strong American accent - from our point of view the language they speak is not even English. How many times did I have to write down what I wanted to say rather than waste precious minutes trying various pronunciations of a seemingly common word? Whatever state they are from, no two accents are alike and they even admit that in some crisis situations they have difficulties understanding each other.

Heavily built, fed at the earliest age with Gatorade, proteins and creatine (Heh. More like Waffle House and McDonalds) - they are all heads and shoulders taller than us and their muscles remind us of Rambo.  Our frames are amusingly skinny to them - we are wimps, even the strongest of us - and because of that they often mistake us for Afghans.

Here we discover America as it is often depicted: their values are taken to their paroxysm, often amplified by promiscuity and the loneliness of this outpost in the middle of that Afghan valley. Honor, motherland - everything here reminds of that: the American flag floating in the wind above the outpost, just like the one on the post parcels. Even if recruits often originate from the hearth of American cities and gang territory, no one here has any goal other than to hold high and proud the star spangled banner. Each man knows he can count on the support of a whole people who provides them through the mail all that an American could miss in such a remote front-line location: books, chewing gums, razorblades, Gatorade, toothpaste etc. in such way that every man is aware of how much the American people backs him in his difficult mission. And that is a first shock to our preconceptions: the American soldier is no individualist. The team, the group, the combat team are the focus of all his attention.  

Sacrifices

Abigail and Dolley readers I have been thinking a lot about my career lately.  Where I want to go from here and what I want to do.  I rose to the highest local position in my industry a scant eight years into my career and I never wanted much more than that, until now.  I realize that I have been somewhat stunted in my career because I have refused to relocate, I have refused to travel;  I have put my family above my career aspirations.

I meet others in my field who have risen well above me in positions of power and they have a couple of things in common - mainly, they have been in the vicinity of power throughout their careers AND they have been willing to move.  They have been willing to uproot and go from one assignment to the next, I have not.

I have begun to question whether this was indeed the right move and perhaps second guessing something I have been committed to my whole life.  Tonight, though, I hung out with my Mom and one of my Sisters and then came home to see my Son off to a Middle School Madness Kick off.  There he stood with his buddies, the same buddies he has had his whole life, his life long companions, these boys that have become part of our family, and I thought, "Money, Power, and Position can't buy this, you've made the right choice, Dolley."

Middle School Madness

The Exasperating Student



Hermione with her hand up



Abigail and Dolley readers patience is not something I was born with.... In the First Grade, my teacher sent home a note that read, "Dolley needs to learn patience with others."  This impatience is not accompanied by anger or malice but born of the fact that I am a quick study.  All of my teachers, after Mrs. Bowman, will attest to the fact that I can be an exasperating student, I ask questions well before the teacher has reached that point in the lesson.  Usually three steps ahead of the instruction and impatient to grasp the full concept and move on, I get bored waiting for others to catch up.

 

It has been many years since I was in a classroom but recently spent three weeks in intensive training.  To my surprise, I had more patience with others but was still three steps ahead of the teacher and still asked all the questions needed to fully understand the material.  I don't memorize, I learn and in that process probe and prod more information than a lesson plan calls for.  Alas, I'm not terribly popular with teachers.

I have to restrain myself from answering all of the questions that the teacher asks.  I try to be quiet and will always gauge my fellow students to insure that I have not become grating.  The majority of the time, my fellow students don't mind and some are even thankful for my questions.  I am sure others wish I would just be quiet.  A kindred spirit in the class is always a relief and I am more than willing to sit back and let them ask all the questions.

As I sat in my classroom recently, a scene from Harry Potter kept flashing through my mind and I endeavored to do my best, not to be Herminone.  I'm am relatively certain that I did not succeed in that regard but equally certain five years from now I will still remember the material.  In the weeks ahead, I hope MY students will appreciate the time, effort, and work I put into learning the material even if my teachers would have rather me sat quietly.

Throwing Us a Bone

Abigail and Dolley readers I have to say, I have never been a fan of Mitt Romney.  During the primary and debate season, I developed a distaste form him that was substantial.  The smarmy and dirty tactics he used to bury my candidate enraged me and I often proclaimed that I would never vote for the man, ever.  Alas, perhaps time heals all wounds and the specter of a Romney Presidency seems far less disastrous than four more years of Obama.  Add in the Tea Party favorite, Paul Ryan and all of a sudden pulling the lever for Romney in November seems a bit more palatable.  It is eerily like McCain/Palin... I voted for her, not him.