Marshall Ramsey

Get on your butt. Then walk toward your feet with your hands and feet. It’s called Crab Walk. It looks more like a dog wiping his butt on the carpet. This morning we had to do that for 20 yards. First we ran 40 yards, then crab walked and then ran for another 40 yards. Sounds fun, doesn’t it?

Imagine doing this with your son kicking your butt the whole way. My child has recently discovered his super power is making his father look like an arthritic turtle. He put the old in “my old man.”

I’m going to take four days to bring you H.O.P.E. Hope is word that gets thrown around a bunch these days. But I think we live in a time when really need more of it. H.O.P.E. stands for the four pillars of my life that help me get through my biggest struggles. Each letter stands for something that reduces stress and propels me through my toughest moments.

Today, I bring you H. H stands for Humor. It shouldn’t shock you that I think that laughing at the things that drives you crazy is good medicine.

Immediately after my melanoma diagnosis, I nearly went crazy. When your own skin tries to kill you, it can and will stress you out. I think my parents realized that (they are both cancer survivors) and that may have had something to do with our family vacation that year. My sisters and their families joined my parents and my family in Destin, Florida. Of course, there is something inherently wrong with taking a skin cancer survivor to the beach, but I digress. While they were out on the beach, I was in watching Dr. Phil. I’m like a fork in microwave — I spark in the sun. So I avoid the direct sun during the middle part of the day.

About six that night, I decided to go for a swim. I took my shirt off and ran toward the surf. When I got there, there was a mom and two little girls swimming in the ocean. The mom noticed my six-inch scar on my back and stared right at it. It was big, red and ugly. Now, I’m not used to women staring at me (it doesn’t happen often) so I felt self-conscious. Actually, I felt annoyed.

I had a choice. I could be ticked off or I could make a joke. I made a joke and have been telling the joke for 14 years.

She noticed that I had noticed and felt embarrassed. I pointed at the scar and said, “Oh, this.” She nodded sheepishly. I then said, “It was a shark attack and it happened right where your girls are playing.”

She scooped up her girls and ran out of the water. My wife was over on the beach shaking her head.

That joke was an epiphany for me. I use the same techniques I use when I draw cartoons and apply them to my life. You will hear me making jokes. Sometimes they are inappropriate. But at the end of the day, they are my survival mechanism. H stand for Humor. Lord knows we could use a lot more of it in this world today.

In 1991, I graduated from the University of Tennessee and immediately put my degree to use cleaning Pope High School in Marietta, Georgia. One of my fellow custodians was a lady named Maggie. It took me a while to get to know her (because I was in the midst of a major pity party), but once I did, I really grew to like her. She was in her mid-40’s and funny. Like me, she didn’t want to necessarily be there.

Her husband Ron was an Eastern Airline pilot. Because of the pilot’s strike, Ron had lost his job. Maggie, who hadn’t had to work in years, got a job as a custodian to keep the family going. I knew her oldest son Kevin — he and I had worked in many of the same places growing up. She also had another son and a daughter.

One day Maggie came up to me and asked, “My daughter broke up with her boyfriend. How would you like to go out with her?” First of all, her standards for her daughter were remarkably low. Second, I’m not sure that her daughter was in on this deal. But in a few days, Maggie brought her daughter up to my second job at a local golf course — and promptly locked her keys in her car. I got plenty of time to get to know her daughter.

I used to think being a janitor was the worst thing that ever happened to me. I know now it is the best. If I had not had that bad moment, I would not have had the four best moments in my life — I got to see that daughter walk down the aisle and our three boys born with her blue eyes.

My wife is very close to her mother. I’ll admit Maggie and I have had a few arguments over the past quarter of a century. She’s tough, stubborn and opinionated. But I respect the hell out of her. I saw her work her butt off to keep her family together. Her work ethic is second to none and her loyalty is something we all should aspire to. Maggie is a great mother to my wife and grandmother to my sons. On this Mother’s Day, I’m glad she is part of our lives.

SHORT STORY: The Lucky Dime
Two crisp dollar bills went into the machine. Two quarters, a nickel, a soda and a tarnished dime came out.

John held the dime in his palm and adjusted his glasses.

“196…,” he mumbled under his breath and then looked at the ridges. It wasn’t a 1960-1964 dime — the edge would be silver. Instead it was nickel plated onto copper. That change came in 1965.

It was a 1965 D. D standing for Denver. This particular dime had 1,652,140,000 brothers and sisters. In the battered condition it was in, it was worth a dime.

“I wonder what kind of stories you could tell?” John said as he slid the coin into his pocket.

In 1965, the newly minted dime was deposited at First Bank & Trust in Rahway, New Jersey. There is was given to a solider from Fort Dix, New Jersey. The solider pocketed the coin and used in the next week while making a phone call to his girlfriend in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He told her that he was being sent to Vietnam the very next week. The dime sat in the phone for a week until it was emptied. The phone company deposited it back in the bank where it was given to an elderly man who was cashing his retirement check. He took the dime and used it to buy a drink out of a soda machine.

1966 found the dime being given to a child as a gift by an uncle. The little boy dropped the dime in a offering plate at First Methodist Church of Richmond, Virginia. The pastor cashed a dollar out of the collection plate and used the dime to pay for lunch at the local diner. A waitress pocketed the dime and then gave it back as change to another man. That man was from San Diego, California. The coin rode first class on a Boeing 707.

1967 came and the dime was still sitting in a change jar. The man grabbed a handful of change and used the dime to make a wish in a public fountain. The coin, cold and wet, wondered if this would be the end for him. But he was soon scooped up and handed over to a local soup kitchen. The director used the dime to pay a local Marine for his help at the kitchen. The Marine packed it in his sack and soon was on his way to Vietnam.

The dime had never felt anything like the heat and humidity in Saigon. The Marine said it was his lucky dime. He’d use it to flip to make decisions about combat. One day, the odds went against the Marine. His buddies went through his personal effects and his best friend pocketed the dime at as his friend’s flag-draped coffin was loaded on the C-141 bound for home.

His friend carried the dime everyday until 1985. He was walking into a tall office building in Atlanta, Georgia when his left arm went numb. At the funeral, his son went through his pockets and found the dime. “Funny they forgot this, ” he said as he put it in his own pocket. He used it later that day (with a few more coins) to buy a beer.

The bartender looked at the beaten up dime and pulled it aside. “Bet you have a story to you.” Just then, two men in ski masks robbed the bar and shot the bartender. While he survived, the dime did not stay with him. The men grabbed all the money they could and ran out the door. The dime was later used in a parking meter off of Peachtree Street.

The man emptying that meter accidentally dropped the dime. It sat in the grass for five years until a sharp-eyed little boy noticed it. It was 1991. The dime was headed to Knoxville Tennessee.

In Knoxville, the little boy used the dime in a vending machine and got a pack of Peanut M&M’s. From there it went to the bank, to a blind customer, to a restaurant owner and then to a sock full of coins. There the dime sat for another decade until the man who owned the sock cashed his coins out to buy a bottle of Jack Daniels.

The dime left the liquor store into the hands of an elderly woman. She took the coin and used it to buy gas for her Buick Regal. The gas station attendant dropped it and it rolled under the counter. There it sat for three years.

A janitor noticed the coin and pocketed it. “Finally, a raise,” he thought. He spent the dime as part of his payment for a sno-cone in Gatlinburg. There it was given to a tourist from Jackson, Mississippi as a change. The dime was headed South. It ended up in another change drawer. And then, in 2015, was used to buy a Diet Mountain Dew in a vending machine. It dropped out of the slot, tired and beat up. And it fell right into John’s hands.

“Funny,” he said as he looked at it. “My grandmother said my grandfather had a lucky dime just like you in Vietnam. I think I’ll make you mine.” And with that, the lucky dime finally come home.

“So, you growing an eggplant on your hand?” I looked at my son’s thumb. I thought it could had been jammed but the discoloration was too bad. It was probably broken.

“Let’s go get an X-ray.”

Yes, it’s broken. His arm and my wallet are now in splints. We go see another doctor to see what we need to do next.

My family’s luck with hands continues to suck.

I also was tested for Strep. Have been sick all week and still pushed through my schedule. But I can’t seem to shake my sore throat. Let’s just say that the nurse is lucky I didn’t projectile vomit all over the room after she shoved the Q-tip down my throat.

Good news. Not Strep.

I sat in the car this morning feeling beat. I was making up a to-do list for today and looking for the energy to plow through that list. The bad news was starting to get me down.

Then I started looking for the silver lining.

I get to emcee Pepsi Pops. My family will have a fun evening and I will help host an event that I absolutely love. My son will have fun with friends and eventually will get a cool cast. It will all work out. It always does.

Life’s good. It’s uneven sometimes and will even punch you in the mouth. But you learn to roll with those punches. And then you punch back with the good.

When my oldest son was 10, I took him with me on a speech as a reward for straight A’s. This was during the BP oil spill, and the casino where I was speaking was nearly deserted. Heck, the whole coast was nearly deserted.

So we’re walking through the barren gaming floor on the way to the convention center. There’s one lady on oxygen who’s smoking. And another man who had apparently died while playing a slot machine. My son looked around and said, “Dad this place smells like cigarettes and despair.”

I was trying to think of what the boys and I could get Amy for Mother’s Day. Here are a few things that rattled from my brain:

1. A George Foreman Grill.
2. A Cup of Nightcrawlers and a Zebco 202.
3. A book of McDonaldland Gift Certificates.
4. Dipping Dots — the Ice Cream of the Future.
5. An ant farm.
6. Sea Monkeys
7. A Mr. Microphone.
8. A gift card to my favorite restaurant.
9. A Soccer Ball
10. An Apple Watch.

Hmmm. No, I don’t think she would appreciate any of those. Especially things that could be considered an “appliance.”

Amy is a rock star mom. She irons clothes that have been thrown under the bed. She bandages knees and consoles broken hearts. She helps with homework for hours. She watches bad TV with the boys and has good food on the table for them when they get home from school. She jokes with them and can still lay them flat with her special wrestling move. She’s a boy mom. And a damn good one.

But she’s also like most moms — exhausted and stressed out.

So we need to show her that we care. Sure, a trip to the spa would be very welcomed. But she also needs us to step it up around the house. And it needs to happen not just on Mother’s Day — it needs to happen EVERYDAY. She needs for love to be a verb, not just a noun.

She gives and gives and gives and gives. And it’s all from her heart. Now it is up to us to make sure she knows exactly how special we think she really is. Why? For no other reason than she is my kids’ mom.

And I may get her an Apple Watch with my name on it just in case.

You’re crossing a street. Traffic is coming. You stop and panic. Do you blame the cars for coming at you? Do you complain how far it is to the other side? Do you lie down and feel sorry for yourself? Do you become oblivious to your situation? No. You get the heck across the street before you become road pizza.

Was thinking about some problems I have. About all of them can be solved with action. Not a pity party. Not complaining. Not blaming other people for my problem.

I need to get moving. I need to get busy. I need to get my butt across the street before I become road pizza.

May is Skin Cancer Awareness month. Thanks to being diagnosed with Malignant Melanoma, I’m aware of if every single day.

You should be, too.

Melanoma (cancer of the melanocyte — what gives you pigment) is deadly and difficult to treat if not detected in time. The good news is that it’s easy to detect — all you have to do is check your skin. Look for the ABCDs. Asymmetry: Is the mole irregularly shaped? Border: Is the mole’s border ragged? Color: Is it black or two-toned? Diameter: Is the mole growing or larger than a pencil eraser? Does the mole bleed or itch? Has it grown or appeared rapidly? Those are all signs that you need to get a doctor to check it. Don’t hesitate. It’s a decision that could save your life.

I know. It saved mine.

I looked around at the parents. Many of them I recognized — we have been together as a group for a decade now. We’re grayer, bigger, balder and of course, older. So are out kids. The kindergarten munchkins now are pre-adults. They will soon be 10th graders.

Time doesn’t fly. It travels at the speed of light.

My son’s class is an exceptional class. The honors handed out today meant that we sat for over two hours hearing their names called. Yes, my son did well today, also. His name was called a few times — He’s a very good kid. His mama and I are proud.