Recovering Baptist

For a while during my very Baptist college days I subscribed to the Wall Street Journal. I wasn’t so much interested in the financial part of the paper, but it was the best “conservative” paper at the time and it gave discounts to students. My favorite parts were the editorials (I’ve always been a political geek) and the human interest story in the center column of the front page. It was there that I first learned about Michael Jackson. No, not the black-white musician-pervert. The other one. The guy who introduced the masses to good beer.
The article described his passion for good beer and the tours he would make, almost daily, of breweries. Brewers knew that they wanted him to visit late in the day after he’d already enjoyed a few rounds, as he generally more favorable then. I don’t know why I was so interested in him then - I’d never had an interest in holding a beer, much less tasting one. It must have been the same sort of force that made that witch that I sat next to in class so attractive (in my defense, she was very cute and not bitchy, and very few girls at GT fit that description).
It’s fitting that tonight I was headed to the beer fridge when I decided to check the news one last time and saw that Michael Jackson has had his last beer. I’ve been wondering why I haven’t heard much from him now that I’m a certified beer snob, and the article shed some light. He’s been suffering from Parkinson’s Disease for 10 years. So, in his honor, I’m cracking a bottle of New Belgium 1554 Enlightened Black Ale.

Just over eleven years ago I was in Florida running away from the Olympics. By the time the opening ceremonies arrived I’d already had enough - living in the Olympic village in the years leading up to the arrival of the athletes meant that one day you’d wake up and find your normal path blocked by a fence that appeared to be either electrified or linked to a security center; either way, it was frustrating and spoiled my excitement for what should have been a shining moment for my city.

I woke up in my cousin’s house to the news that a bomb had gone off in the park. I was driving home that morning and had the entire drive from Tallahassee to Atlanta to contemplate the previous evening’s events. Little did I know that a girl who would later become my wife was at the Budweiser stage at the time and got hit by a rock thrown from that blast. I don’t think Richard Jewel saved her life, but he certainly saved a few lives that night. It’s easy to see why the media treated him the way they did; he wasn’t very photogenic, and he didn’t seem to be a lovable person. After the dust settled and the real culprit was caught, the Governor made things right, but the damage was done. The shame of it all is that anyone who’s ever professionally run a camera knows how to take an image of a hero and how to take an image of a suspect. Despite knowing that he was a hero, my mental image of the man will always be of him as a suspect.

Some people are beach people, and others are mountain people. My wife and I have figured out that we’re definitely mountain people. I don’t think we’ve chosen on our own to take a vacation to the beach in the nearly nine years we’ve been married. But if someone’s going to offer us a free place to stay on the beach for a week, well, who are we to turn that down? In the case of last week, calling the place “on the beach” couldn’t be any more correct. When we arrived on Tuesday night the water was against the sea wall which formed the foundation of the house as a result of hurricane Dean. And one of the cool things about Cape San Blas is that you can see water on both sides of the condo - the Gulf of Mexico to our west and the St. Joe Bay to the east.

The catch to this trip is that it was with my parents. Friends and readers of my blog know that they’re Baptists, and I’m not, which means there’s plenty of tension between us. There are a couple of highlights which I’ll probably write about later. But right now I’m still enjoying the mental images of the pelicans flying in a line and the school of dolphins we watched from our balcony.

I can understand the local fascination with Michael Vick. After all, he’s the face of our franchise and once represented hope for our beleaguered Falcons. His fall from grace probably means that we’re facing another 4 years of sub-mediocre performance. Those of us who aren’t pulling for his downfall keep wishing for another reality, but that’s not to be. And now that he’s pleaded guilty, it’s time for him to be punished. Like I said, I can understand our fascination.

Could someone please explain to me, though, why Kornheiser and the gang couldn’t talk about the game for even 10 minutes last night? Because of ESPN’s enthrallment with Vick we missed a large part of a decent pre-season game. The highlight was the sideline interview with a damned legal analyst right after Rossum’s kickoff return took the ball past the 50. There are times when the producer should cancel the next scheduled interview, but apparently the game (including a nice sideline catch and run for a touchdown) did nothing more than provide a few hours for them to fill with talking heads. You know, I think ESPN should create a show outside of the game where so called experts could talk about sports without ruining the game itself. The show could feature highlights from a bunch of different games from different sports, and there could be entire segments devoted to the special story of the day. Hmmm, intriguing…

I was warned. I knew better. My friend told me not to do it, but I did it anyway. Rather than continue to tweak my server, I decided to just start over and install Ubuntu Feisty Fawn. Most of my data was in a safe place, but I forgot to back up one little thing - my database. Since everything in WordPress is stored in the database, that means I’ve pretty much lost all of my posts.

If you’re really interested in what I’ve said in the past 20 months that I’ve been blogging, a lot of it can be found at atlbloggers.net. The shame is that some of my more personal work, such as my thoughts on my mom, seem to be lost forever. I’ve also lost all of my comments, which means that a few really good exchanges are gone. I’m looking forward to starting a few new ones. So now that I’ve finally got the server working again, hopefully I can focus on actually writing again.

We’re all recovering from something. Some of us are alcoholics, others are narcissists, and others have had horrible relationships. Me? Well, I’m recovering from twenty-plus years of being an arrogant, legalistic, self-righteous Southern Baptist. As I’m slowly unwinding exactly what that means I’m experiencing the world in a whole new way. I’m free to feel emotions, and I can enjoy spending time with other people without worrying that their “sins” will somehow rub off on me.