Just to show you what kind of marriage Eyegal and I have, when it came to planning our 25th anniversary trip to New Orleans, one of the most discussed points on our itinerary was where we would watch the US v. Slovenia match on Friday morning.

The answer is our room at the Park View Guest House in the Garden District over a traditional Southern breakfast. Not exactly fish and chips at Wembley, but it’ll have to do.

I jest of course (slightly), but you know you’re made for each other when you can sort through your priorities like that and still stay married. Twenty-five years ago today, we both said “I do” at the Creve Coeur Church of Christ, promised to stay with each other, walked back down the aisle to a grainy recording of Ronnie Milsap’s “What a Difference You’ve Made In My Life” (apparently all the chamber music quartets were already booked that weekend) and then went out and “Just Did It.”

You know, stayed together. And produced three soccer players. And bought enough Nikes to insure that Phil Knight’s great-great grandchildren get a college education.

But despite the rather inauspicious start of getting married in a second-ring suburb of St. Louis whose name is derived from the French for “heartbreak” (which is what Les Bleus seem determined to do to their partisans in the 2010 World Cup) we’ve stuck it out. Oh sure, we’ve both made our share of “howlers” (thanks to Robert Green and the Brits for bringing that little gem back into the lexicon), but when the preacher said “for better or for worse,” we were young and dumb enough to believe the man actually meant what he said.

So this week, we’ll be leaving the Zeta Theta Theta (ZΘΘ) House unattended for a few days (May God have mercy) and starting our 25th anniversary tour which will take us first through Oxford, Mississippi to satisfy our inner literary geek at Square Books, on to Greenwood for some blues, fine food and dear friends, and finally to “N’awlins” where it will reach its zenith on Friday morning when the Stars and Stripes take on Slovenia, a country so small that its national soccer team doesn’t even have a nickname.

I’m kidding. Sort of. About the zenith. But not about the nickname.

Soccer in New Orleans? It could happen. And maybe even a little more. But since “what happens in N’awlins stays in N’awlins,” don’t be expecting to read about it here.

School’s out for summer, and that means fraternity life at the Zeta Theta Theta (ZΘΘ) House is in full swing. Personally, I have no problem believing we humans share 99% of our DNA with the apes.

Rush Week in the primate cage is what you get when you throw together 17, 19 and 21 year-old territorial, testosterone-saturated brothers who aren’t used to sharing the same living space. They screech, pound their chests, burp, practice various olfactory assault techniques on innocent passersby, trash the kitchen and endlessly debate the age-old question, “Who da man?”

So far, they haven’t flung any dung at each other, but it’s only early June.

Eyegal thinks this is all wonderful, that her boys are still “cute” and “adorable,” just like those early 90s urchins in the VHS tapes that’s she’s been busy transferring to DVD the past few weeks. Oh sure, I was right in there with her  back then, holding each of them up to the heavens “Lion King” style like they were God’s gift to the savanna and dishing out more corny first birthday party banter than Iowa has silos, but that was then and this is now.

I love Eyegal to pieces, and I’m really looking forward to celebrating our 25th anniversary in a couple of weeks, but honestly, I think the old girl is starting to lose it.

It is not the early 90s, and they are no longer cute. We are a full decade into the 21st century, and they are smelly, farty thieves. There is nothing of mine they won’t pilfer and “borrow”: clothes (including my new US National Soccer Team jersey), shampoo, razors, nail clippers, the candy I have hidden in my sock drawer (not well enough, apparently), and Mexican leftovers clearly marked “DAD!!”

You’ve heard of The Rule of Benedict that they use to keep order and harmony in monasteries? Well, this is sort of like its evil, antithetical twin. Instead of ora et labora (“pray and work”) it’s more like holla et sonora (“yell and sleep”).

Oh sure, they have a few redeeming qualities. Numbers Two and Three Sons can actually cook a little (although they have yet to master the art of kitchen cleanup), and when Eyegal skipped town last week and R-U-N-N-O-F-T on one of her Ya Ya Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants trips, I didn’t starve. And if my iPhone ever needs jail-broken or I need to know the aerodynamic specs on the latest Frisbee golf disc, then Number One Son is most definitely “da man.”

Yeah, yeah, I know, I’ll miss the “pitter patter of little feet” when they’re gone for good, yada yada. But what exactly does “gone for good” really mean these days? Should I be concerned that they’ve taken to throwing boomerangs in the backyard and that they’re actually getting quite good at it?

Recently I heard someone ask a group of parents of mostly elementary and middle school children: Which is more important, “nature” or “nurture?” A large majority raised their hands for “nurture.” I leaned over to Eyegal and said, “They’re still suffering from the illusion of control.”

You see, one thing I have noticed from watching some of those old videos is that the die was cast pretty early on. The same personality quirks and charms that were evident in all that footage of first steps and first birthday parties are still pretty much in place, just like the dimples and hair color. You can try to trim the edges and shape things as much as you can, but you’re still stuck with the same bolt of cloth that you started out with.

Which, relatively speaking, isn’t all that bad. As I’ve often been told, “Dad, you don’t know how good you got it.”

I try to repeat that phrase over and over every morning when I have to move their fleet of cars from the driveway so I can get to work.

My earliest memory is of waking up around 3:00 AM demanding my bottle. My mother, desperate for sleep, stumbled into my room, leaned over the edge of the crib with half-closed eyes staring down at me, and handed me one.

It was full of Coke, not milk. I grabbed the bottle and eagerly started to suck its sugary teat. Minutes later, I was back to sleep, and so was she.

I’m pretty sure my mother didn’t read about that little trick anywhere in Dr. Spock. She was “winging it,” as they say. What would I want if I awoke crying at 3:00 AM?, she asked herself, and Voila! just like that she got a few more hours of precious snooze time, and our dentist, Dr. Fitzgerald, was able to send his kids to college.

Down in Atlanta, a board room full of Coca-Cola executives smiled broadly.

My Mom did things her way, regardless of what the book said. The book says that when you’re born with a rare genetic disorder and develop a brain tumor at age 19, or bacterial meningitis in your forties, or ovarian cancer in your fifties, or necrotizing fasciitis (“flesh-eating bacteria”) in your sixties, you generally just lay down and die.

But my mother never cared much for being told what to do. She was proud, independent Scots-Irish, daughter of Clyde McGuire, a man who worked for the Civilian Conservation Corps building the Blue Ridge Parkway during the week and ran a little moonshine on the weekends when he came home to Elsie. Knowing what I do of her, it wouldn’t surprise me to learn she was in the car with him, riding–literally–shotgun.

They say 3:00 AM is “The Devil’s Hour.” It’s around that hour and the two following that the blood enters a hypercoagulable state, thickening up and moving slowly like red sludge through the tiny vessels of our bodies. More people have heart attacks and strokes and die in those two hours than at any other time of the day.

And even if you do survive The Devil’s Hour, you can still pass through hell. If you’re world-weary and a little depressed, you can find yourself in that no-man’s netherworld between sleep and consciousness and suddenly realize with stark clarity that you’re going to die. The full force of your own mortality slaps you awake, and you lie there, or sometimes sit up, covered in tiny beads of sweat, realizing it was just a dream–for now. [...]

I’ve received quite a few compliments on my “old-timey” eye exam header at the top of my blog. Glad y’all like it. I think it symbolizes what I’ve been trying to do here at Ocular Fusion over the years (“Just looking around and trying to put it all together”).

That, plus I like black and white, old school pictures. We’ve had a blast going through Mom’s pictures since she died and found some real gems. It’s always good to be remember your roots.

Of course, any eye-savvy folks out there can immediately spot the irony: Old Timey Eyeguy is not really “fusing.” He’s doing what’s called “monocular indirect ophthalmoscopy” (MIO) as opposed to “binocular indirect ophthalmoscopy” (BIO) which is what we modern eye docs typically do. That’s the preferred method because if you use those eye drops that blow your pupils wide open for several days and make your life miserable (it’s really only a few hours, just seems like days) you get a nice 3D image with BIO. Like they always say, “two eyes are better than one.”

Two eyes are better than one because when they work together you get your money’s worth after plopping down $15 for James Cameron’s Avatar at the movie theater with the leather seats and the wine bar. I feel sorry for the poor saps with one functioning eye who handed over their hard-earned cash and eagerly put on their 3D glasses for what was billed as “alternate reality, complete immersion experience” only to discover that Pandora is flatter than one of those 14th century maps of planet Earth.

The problem for us eye doctors is that it’s not always possible to do BIO. There are some situations where only MIO will do. Like this Saturday when I do that eye screening at the health fair. I won’t have the luxury of dilating pupils, and I’d like to do at least a little something to let the patient know what is going in their retina beyond donning a turban and trying to channel Carnac the Magnificent. [...]

Number One Son and I had just been discussing what could possibly be on the palms of Alabama’s new Nike Pro Combat player gloves, and it didn’t take us long to find out.

We knew that the Crimson Tide was among several teams that would be receiving the new gear, which featured a particular avatar representing the “spirit” of each team, but Bama’s was missing from Nike’s preview website.

But when Heisman Trophy-winning tailback Mark Ingram scored his first touchdown in the BCS Title Game against Texas, he flashed the new gloves toward the camera for all the world to see.

Frankly, Scarlett,  they took my breath away.

The background consisted of a subtle, houndstooth-like plaid, symbolic of legendary Alabama football coach Paul “Bear” Bryant. But it was the bold, crimson script “A” emblazoned over the houndstooth that stood out the most. It’s the preferred brand symbol of a more progressive, “new Alabama,” a distinct wordmark that increasingly adorns everything from license plates, to lanyards, to university shuttle buses, to the top of the school’s official stationery.

To me, the message was clear: Honor your roots and remember those on whose shoulders you stand. But at the same time, keep your eyes up and looking forward. Don’t become so mired in the past that you can’t move ahead toward bigger and better things. [...]

The first time I saw Cameron Indoor Stadium, I walked right past it without even trying to go in. I figured anything that storied and sacred was probably locked. I was seventeen years old and too wet behind the ears to realize that in order to gain entry to the places you wanted to go in life, sometimes all you have to do is walk up to the door and knock.

Instead, I walked over to the tennis courts and watched the men’s team practice. It was September 1979, and my father was having coronary bypass surgery at Duke Medical Center on the other end of the quad.  My mind was a jumble of thoughts and emotions, so I had decided to spend some time alone praying and walking off my worry. I also couldn’t help but ponder my future and wonder where I would be and what I would be doing come next year.

I played for my high school tennis team at the time, but it took less than a minute to figure out that my future would not include playing at Duke. These guys not only fired off wicked topspin groundstrokes in seemingly endless rallies, but they also called out calculus questions to each other in preparation for the next day’s quiz. Such multitasking seemed the province of young gods, not a country boy from the sticks of Virginia.

All the while, I kept glancing over my shoulder at the Gothic, gray-stoned walls of Cameron, wondering if someday I might finally get the chance to go inside. [...]

If I had a shred of innocence left in me by the summer of 1968, it was all gone by the time Mom gave me “The Talk.” No, not that talk. The one about Santa Claus.

Martin Luther King, Jr was gone and now Bobby Kennedy was dead too, and the world seem to be spinning out of control. I watched Memphis burn on TV and remember seeing the thousands of grieving onlookers who lined the tracks and payed their respects as Kennedy’s funeral train traveled from New York City to Washington, D.C.  I was a mere preschooler, but it didn’t take some preternatural sixth sense to tell that most folks thought the world was going to hell in a handbasket.

The men at church seemed especially bothered by it all. They would form a tight circle in the parking lot after services and fidget nervously as they fired up their tobacco of choice and discussed world events.  They stood there in their skinny black ties, summer sweat soaking through their white, short-sleeve dress shirts, and talked about the assassinations, war, and perhaps most distressing of all, the protesters and riots. The more they talked, the more agitated they became; the more agitated they became, the more they smoked.

“I always said that man was gonna go and get hisself killed,” one man said, speaking of King. “I guess that makes me a prophet.”

As if all that wasn’t enough, there was the whole matter of first grade, which loomed over me like a radioactive mushroom cloud. It was late June, far too early to be talking about Santa Claus, but maybe Mom wanted to break the news to her baby before some loud-mouth, know-it-all third grader on Bus #18 did.

She poked her head in the living room and stood there for a few moments trying to work up her nerve. I was watching “Petticoat Junction.”  Uncle Joe and his nieces, Betty Jo, Bobbie Jo and Billie Jo, were up to their usual antics down at the Shady Rest Hotel in Hooterville.  I was far too preoccupied with the idea of petticoats and the question of what exactly those girls were doing down there in that wooden water tank to notice her standing at the door clearing her throat. [...]

Forty-eight years ago today, I made my debut at Jefferson Memorial Hospital in Roanoke, Virginia. My arms may be too short and my back a little stiffer these days, but that building was torn down in the late 70s to make room for a new medical office complex, and I’m still standing. So I guess that’s saying something.

There was a time earlier this year when I wasn’t sure I would be by now, though. You see, I became quite obsessed with the idea of whether or not I was going to make it past 47 years, 118 days because that’s exactly how long Dad lived. So on the day in mid-March when I turned one day older than him, I took some sick leave and skipped down to the local heart center to have a cardiac CT for a mere $99, cash on the barrel head. I really didn’t need a whole day to do that, but mental health counts too, you know.

My pipes were cleaner than a dinner plate full of rib sauce after Amazing Gracie the Wonderdog is done with it (hold it down with both paws, don’t let that sucker run away). I told the cardiac nurse about the history of early death from heart attacks in my family and about how that weighed on my mind a little and he laughed and told me I had a greater chance of dying from getting hit by a Mack truck at the corner of Governors and Whitesburg.

I celebrated with a heart-attacking meal of fries and a double cheeseburger at Sonic. It felt great going down, but hours later when the acid started rising in my esophagus like scalding steam from Old Faithful, I suddenly remembered why I don’t eat meals like that much anymore. [...]

If you want to know what the inside of my mother’s 1959 brick rancher looked like, all you have to do is take time out on a typical Sunday night and ogle Betty Draper’s well-endowed kitchen.

The first time I saw it on an episode of AMC’s hit series Mad Men, its authenticity took my breath away. Of course, Betty’s is much bigger than Mom’s; Don Draper is a rakish, well compensated creative director for Madison Avenue ad agency Sterling Cooper, after all, not a balding, low-on-the-totem-pole postal clerk at the South Roanoke Substation like my Dad was. But many of the details are the same: knotty pine cabinets with wrought iron hardware, laminate counter tops with shiny metal edging, dated wallpaper (flowers and stripes) and the utter and complete absence of an automatic dishwasher.

I took in all this Camelot-era kitchen kitsch as I stood in Mom’s house after she died in April and realized that unless I could find a buyer who dug a Mad Men vibe and wanted to go full-bore retro, that we heirs were basically screwed. Strike one was the kitchen. Strike two, the absence of central heating and air. Strike three was the electrical wiring. It was designed to handle the 1960s basics such as a few space-age pole lamps, a Stack-o-Matic hi-fi or two and maybe a Motorola console TV, but was woefully inadequate for 21st century wattage demands. [...]

In July, 1970, my father loaded all of us into a blue, 1968 Chevy Impala sedan with newly-mounted, under-the-dash AC and headed west to Cal-ee-forn-i-a; swimming pools, movie stars, and the American Postal Workers Union Annual Convention at the Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles.

He decided that since this was a once-in-a-lifetime trip, we should hit all the highlights. On the itinerary were The Painted Desert, Grand Canyon, Disneyland, Yosemite, Sequoia, Vegas, Salt Lake City, Yellowstone, Mt. Rushmore and the St. Louis Arch. We even ventured off the beaten path and got a few kicks on Route 66 at some kitschy attractions like the Fort Courage Trading Post in Houck, Arizona.

But first, to get to all those iconic, picture postcard destinations, we had to pass through Arkansas.

That would have been Day Two of the trip. I remember because the first night we stayed on the Memphis side of the I-55 bridge in what was then a brand-spanking new Best Western but is now an abandoned, burned-out shell that you can stare straight through, front to back. The Brady Bunch was on TV that night, and Marcia, as usual, was reaping some praise or award while combing her flowing, golden locks and Jan, in a fit of jealous pique, had collapsed on the floor in one of her patented meltdowns.

The next day, we crossed the bridge into The (a la) Natural State and continued toward Little Rock. Accustomed to the towering Blue Ridge Mountains, I remember being appalled at the profound flatness of it all and watching out the window, slack-jawed, as I saw nothing but miles and miles of water, soybeans, alfalfa, rice, cotton, and for the first time in my life, houses on stilts.

But finally we reached Little Rock and civilization–such as it was. And I remember stopping for gas and a snack, and that’s when I saw the strange, exotic creature for the very first time.

It was a red pig on a postcard. I picked it up and stared at it and slowly read the caption–Arkansas R-a-z-o-r-b-a-c-k-s, Fayetteville, Arkansas. [...]

I remember that 1973 butt-whoopin’ like it was yesterday. What I didn’t remember were all the rest that went along with it.

No, I’m not referring to the time I was playing in my mother’s sacrosanct living room and broke her prized vase. The scalding that followed burned bright and hot. She regretted that one, as I recall, checking me later in the afternoon for “marks” and apologizing profusely, probably worried that Dad would get on her for being a little too rough.

I’m talking about the 77-6 smackdown that Bear Bryant’s boys, with their high-octane wishbone offense, laid on Charlie Coffey’s hapless crew of Virginia Tech Fighting Gobblers (aka, “The Hokies”) in October of that year down in Tuscaloosa. The Alabama record book still glows like Three Mile Island from that one: 833 yards of total offense, 53 runs for 748 yards, 4 runners over the 100 yard mark.

Afterward, The Bear knew how that one would be received. He offered up a mea culpa of sorts,  hemming and hawing in that gravelly baritone of his.  “The last thing I wanted to do was embarrass young Charlie Coffey,” he said. “The first team only played 12 minutes, and we were shoving in the reserves as fast as we could…I couldn’t do anything to stop it. We played 74 men.”

I couldn’t do anything to stop it. But what about the band, Bear, what about the band?

Alabama finished that year 11-1 and won the National Championship. As for “young Charlie Coffey?” All he got was a pink slip and a one-way bus ticket out of Blacksburg.

But as I rediscovered this week, the 1973 Beatdown in T-town was no isolated incident during that era. [...]

By the sweat of your brow
you will eat your food
until you return to the ground,
since from it you were taken;
for dust you are
and to dust you will return.”

–Genesis 3:19

and the dust returns to the ground it came from,
and the spirit returns to God who gave it.

Ecclesiastes 12:7

The first time I remember hearing the phrase “ashes to ashes, dust to dust” was when Princess died.

Princess was a pet cat, circa 1968-approx. 1971. I don’t remember that much about her other than she was gray, and I don’t recall having a particular fondness for her, although I’m sure I liked her well enough. That, in spite of the fact that she made me sneeze and my eyes water.

One day my mother was picking up my older sister and me from school. When we got in the car, we knew something was wrong. “Princess is dead,” Mom said, never one to pussyfoot around when it came to hitting you between the eyes with The Bad News of the Day.

“What?” we exclaimed. Princess had been fine when we left for school that morning, so the report hit us hard. I don’t remember Mom’s explanation, if she had one at all. [...]

I’ve been watching some Youtube clips of Monty Python and the Holy Grail this morning in order to jog the memory banks for tomorrow’s trip down to The Von Braun Center (that’s pronounced BROWN for the uninitiated) to see the Broadway production of Spamalot.

If you were a geeky nerd like me in the late 1970s, chances are you made several trips to the theater to see that irreverant parody of the Arthurian Legend and that it was probably the first movie that you watched on VHS. Eyegal was more partial to The Rocky Horror Picture Show, but what do you expect from a girl who waved a Bic lighter while riding some dude’s shoulders at a Boston concert?

I was steeped in this stuff and spent many hours memorizing the lines and parroting them back and forth with other nerdy friends of mine. That started a life-long affair with dry, British wit and probably goes a long way in explaining some of my more obvious mental tics.

My parents drew the line at Bo Derek and 10 (they didn’t know about the posters in Spencer’s Gifts), but they tolerated this one, although I think they were a little worried that I would turn into some kind of sacred institution-bashing anarchist. Silly them.

My favorite scene? Oh please, don’t make me pick. Alright, if you absolutely insist.

I’m betting PETA wouldn’t approve of that one if they tried to do it today. Now gew away, or I shall taunt you a secund time-uh!

In the past, I always swore that Ocular Fusion would never devolve into one of those TMI “OMG, my big toe aches and I want everybody in the universe to know about it and sympathize with me” kind of blogs.

But that was then, and this is now.

That was before I happily ventured out into the sunny, 65 degree Alabama weather this past Saturday and down to McGucken Park to fling the Frisbee disc with Number One Son and Uncle T. who was visiting from Colorado Springs.

And now my right gluteus maximus is tied-up tighter than King Tut and a tombful of his Egyptian cousins and concubines.

I just thought you needed to know that. Can I get a witness? [...]

Arrrrgh!

Why am I resorting to pirate talk so early in the morning? Because I’ve been tagged about a gazillion times in yet another internet meme, this time on Facebook: 25 Random Things About Me.

Not that I mind that much, it’s just that it has that whole cheesy, chain-letter feel. When I was a kid, my mother would always make a big production about ripping those up and throwing them in the trashcan whenever we received one, so it’s probably just one of those weird Baby Boomer childhood psychological baggage flashback things. Don’t sweat it if you tagged me; I’ll deal with it like I always do.

So, I’ll post these for both Fusioneers and Facebook friends. And these days, there is less and less difference between the two. Let the weirdness begin:

1. I’m a native Virginian, and that’s something that I often throw into a conversation because, you have to admit, it does have a certain historical and intellectual cachet. [...]