FLASHBACK to April 2013 Turned Funny

By John Shivers

Georgia Mountain Laurel magazine has finally made it into double digits. “The best @*%# magazine west of the Mississippi,” as someone once labeled it, has turned ten years old. (And because I’m more than six times as old as the Laurel, I can’t remember which reader it was who gave the magazine that particular tag line!)

I do remember when I was ten, however. It was such a confusing and complicated time. Somehow, adding that second digit to my age seemed to bring with it much inherent and often negative baggage. But just as we can’t rush the clock hands forward, neither can we turn back time. All we get it the present, warts and all.

The big one-o tackled me on October 10, 1960. As I typed the last line, I couldn’t help but feel the grip of Father Time clamping harder on my shoulder. For an old man, his bony fingers exhibit a surprisingly strong grip. Way too strong for someone so ancient. But his reminder that the clock ticks on, regardless, was also a not-so-subtle nudge that time waits for no man.

So what else happened on that autumn day in 1960, when a youngster of nine years suddenly morphed into a much older young man of ten?

My birthday was on Monday that year. I would have been in the fifth grade. And since my birth date still had not been awarded nation al holiday status, no doubt I was slaving away at the old grammar school on College Street in Calhoun. That school year was the first time I ever earned a failing grade on my report card, thanks to boring geography lessons. I mean, what ten year-old Georgia boy gives a hoot that Des Moines is the capital of Iowa?

Try as I might, I cannot remember anything memorable that happened on that tenth birthday. There was no party. Evidently there was no gift major enough to stick in my brain, although I’m fairly certain that Mama would have baked my favorite chocolate cake. But nothing stands out. Elsewhere on the planet, the first Soviet Molniya rocket, bearing the first Earth probe of the planet Mars, was launched. However, control was lost five minutes into the flight. Another probe, launched four days later, failed as well. Probably because the people launching it hadn’t learned about Des Moines either!

Comedians George Carlin, 23 and Jack Burns, 27, made their national television debut that night, appearing as the team of Burns and Carlin, on The Tonight Show. Carlin is not deceased and one of Burns’ best known later roles was as bumbling Deputy Warren Ferguson on the Andy Griffith Show. Fergy boy proved less than popular as Barney Fife’s replacement and was dropped without explanation after eleven episodes. Boy do I ever understand how ignominious that must have been. I’ve been the drop-ee more times than I can count.

Then there was the Spanish actor and singer, Antonio Banderas, who was born in Malaga on my birthday in 1960. Right now, he’s still ten years younger and a heck of a lot richer than I am.

It would thrill me if I could report that my own tenth birthday was something to get excited about. Sadly, the fireworks fizzled, the gifts gave out before they ever got started and I turned another year older, but not necessarily even one second wiser. For all the perks that came with a double-digit age, I’d just as soon have stayed nine. In fact, given the chance, I’d still go back to nine. It would give me a heck of a chance to regroup, learn all those states AND their capitals and start over.

Who knows what lofty peaks Georgia Mountain Laurel will have scaled by the time it turns twenty? Who knows where I’ll be by the time I pack on ten more birthdays? In truth, I hope we’re both still around, because we each still have a lot to get done!

Publisher’s note: We are twenty years old this month, John Shivers is still writing for us, mostly from Calhoun and we are still close friends. He will celebrate another decade in October and he is still writing books! We are grateful for him and his humor and insight. We love you John Shivers and thanks for standing by us all these years!