“College football is approaching rather rapidly. And to many, it’s become a religion. It was a religion to me. At least once. Back in 1976. In Tampa.”
Those are the only five or six sentences I had written to post on The Lunar Report this week. It was supposed to be about a gathering of my family and their friends on the weekend of September 11 of that year. 
It was supposed to make fun of the Florida Gators who lost to my team after throwing the ball out of bounds on fourth down to stop the clock. It was supposed to be about my Aunt Edith who, on Sunday morning, had to put her bloody mary on top of the motel room television set so that she could hold her bible and hold prayer service. It was supposed to be funny.
Well, it’s not so funny anymore. I just learned that Bill Dooley, arguably the most successful football coach ever at The University Of North Carolina, passed away this morning. I remember Jim Hickey, the coach who took Carolina to the 1962 Gator Bowl game. But that’s my only memory of Coach Hickey. Most of my early memories of Carolina Football came from the man who took over for Hickey in 1967. From the man who died today.
Dooley brought us Don McCauley, Ron Rusnak, Ken Huff, Charles Waddell, Mike Voight, “Boom-Boom Betterson.” And Lawrence Taylor! He also brought his fans 69 wins in 11 seasons.
But to me, he mostly brought some wonderful memories. He was the only football coach we had when I was a student at Carolina. And I will admit my memories are a bit fuzzy. Even Bill Dooley couldn’t stop the flow of sweet bourbon on warm Saturday afternoons in Kenan Stadium. For me, my friends and a few times for my brother. He just couldn’t stop that.
In October of 1975, my senior year, my brother came from our home in Jacksonville, Florida to go with me to the Notre Dame game in Chapel Hill. My mom and dad sent a couple of things for my brother to give to me. One was a letter from my mom, telling us to enjoy ourselves and begging us not to drink at the game. The other was a twenty dollar bill from my dad with instructions to enjoy ourselves and to buy some bourbon. So what did I do? Well, my brother expected me to buy a pint and pocket the change. I bought a half gallon instead!
On the way into the stadium that day, I wrapped my sweater around the bottle. We were so excited about the game, I think, that we walked faster than we usually did. Somewhere near the entrance gate, I fumbled big time. That damned glass bottle of Jim Beam slipped from my sweater and hit the hard brick sidewalk we were walking on. I think I yelled, “Oh my God!” Then I looked down and saw the bottle just spinning on the brick. There were no breaks at all. I think I told my brother that, even though we were not the Irish, “we will be lucky today!”
And we were. For over three quarters. In the fourth quarter, Carolina led the always powerful and lucky Irish team, 14-0. That’s when Notre Dame put in their third string quarterback. That’s right. THIRD string guy! Joe-freakin’- Montana! That’s when the bottle broke! Figuratively. of course!
Well Bill Dooley didn’t win that game, but he gave my brother and me one of the best memories we have ever shared.
And, he gave us “Boom-Boom.” I’m not sure I appreciated that at the time. “Boom-Boom” and I shared a lecture class of some sort. I don’t remember the class, but I remember one day. I went to the bathroom or something, and when I returned, my text book was gone. After class, I looked everywhere for it. Nothing! So, I said, “What the hell?” and went to the student union to grab a bite to eat. And there he was. “Boom-Boom!” And he had my book. I could tell it was mine from the tattered spine I had tattered myself. So I approached him about it. When I got to his table, he flexed his arm muscles as he covered the book, and looked up at me. He was a strong man, and frankly, he scared the hell out of me. I read the look in his eyes. “So, what the hell do you want,” was what I read. I just held up my hands, backed away a bit and said something stupid, like, “Hey! Great class today, huh?” And then I got the hell out of there. What did I care anyway? I never read that damned book!
Coach. This is nonsense, but it’s nonsense that means the world to me. Thank you for the memories. The wins were great and fun.
But, damn it.
Thanks for the incredible memories!
The man was called away a while back. But I saw him again the other day. That happens often.
grandparents, living for a while among the aroma of gardenias wafting in from the side yard.
On that Monday of that week, I spent the day with my son, his daughter, her cousin, two of my son’s young sons and a few other folks at a Charlotte area amusement park. The day at the park began early. And early on and throughout the day, I kind of reconnected in some very special ways with my three grandchildren and their cousin. (“Cousin!” Listen to me. That cousin is my grandchild, too!) He and my granddaughter are older, though. Young teens. The two of them and the other older kids there went to the big rides.
That first back thing happened when I was less than 40 years old. I was told by doctors that I may never be able to even mow my own lawn with a back like the one I had. For several years, I believed them. But at the age of 40, I joined the local YMCA in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. I lifted weights there. I shot basketball. Eventually I played ball again. With a group I fondly call “Geezer Ballers.” Because of that wonderful YMCA in the Hill, and because of the “geezers,” my back is now fine. So is my life. Both have been for some time.
Look, the whole point of what I am saying is that the YMCA means the world to me. The Chapel Hill Y and the geezer ball guys there saw me through the back stuff, deaths, a failed marriage, a failed business and so much more distressful stuff. Every day through all of that, the Chapel Hill YMCA was there for me.
I owe some dear friends an apology. Or, at least, an explanation. I owe most of my family the same. If you are reading this, you are one of those folks.
And forgive me, please forgive me, for not allowing, even for a brief time, the folks I love so much to simply love me back for a while.
In my life, and as recently as just a few years ago, I have been denied access to toilets in Circle K’s, Seven-Elevens, and many family owned convenience stores. “No public restrooms here!” I was always told by the honest ones. “Toilet out of order,” was the other excuse for denying me my right. And my favorite – “We have no toilet.” I always wondered what those workers did when they had bowel issues while at work.
Please bear with me while I tell you a few key bathroom rights stories from my life. It all began when I was very young and barely old enough to even use a toilet. Look, I had a dad, and I have an older brother. My dad traveled with his work. The brother was quite a bit older. So when I was a small child, I really never saw much of either of them. I hung out with my mom and slightly older sister. One night after my Dad returned home from work, he saw me sitting on the toilet to urinate. Sitting was something I learned from my sister.
Then it happened. One, then two, then all of us had to use a bathroom. We walked from establishment to establishment, begging the proprietors at each of them to allow our normal and natural bodily functions to do their normal and natural things. We were denied that process at every stop. We had to be their customers to pee on their porcelain. Our only recourse was to public-urinate in a downtown Miami alley. Thank God the local police were doing a Crockett and Tubbs thing on the waterfront or something somewhere else.
Probably it was a couple of years later when a dozen of us piled into two cars in Chapel Hill to drive to a lake near Chattanooga to visit a friend who had a house there. Now, we clearly broke the law on that trip. Beer cans were popping open even before the engines on the two vehicles properly fired. The last can was popped as we pulled into the lake house. So, you can see why, at some point on the trip, all twelve of us needed to exercise our bathroom rights.
The best we could find was an old family owned motel. It was kind of late at night, but the office lights were on and the “vacancy” sign was still flashing. So a few of us, I think all guys, went into the motel office and very politely explained our situation to the old woman behind the desk. And asked to use the motel restroom. The dear old lady pulled a Circle K on us. “No public restrooms here,” she declared. We begged her. We explained that the girls on the trip needed a place to go. Still – “No public restrooms here.”
Damn. The other guys and I returned to the cars, told everyone else what the old lady said, then did what we needed to do. We pulled the cars ahead about a hundred yards and everyone jumped out and ran to the safest and most private places they could to urinate. The girls all ran to huddle next to brick at the base of the motel cottages. The guys mostly just took a few steps away from the car to get somewhat closer to a tree, then let it fly.
Things like this never happened in Chapel Hill, one of the most progressive towns ever. That’s where I lived even after college and after my son was born and got old enough to watch “rastlin’” on TV. One of the most popular rastlers at the time was Ric Flair. They called him, “Nature Boy,” so you would likely figure that what he did was in complete alignment with his nickname. But one late weeknight, Nature Boy was arrested in our town. For urinating behind a bush.
And one time I actually chose to use a ladies restroom. I am sure that was against the law. It was in an office building in Lynchburg, Virginia. I saw where I needed to go, and I went for it. At first, I was a bit puzzled by the lack of urinals there, but I calmly entered a stall, curiously noticed the feminine hygiene machine on the inside wall of the stall, lifted the seat and did what I needed to do. About halfway through my biological function, I heard a woman’s voice. Man I was confused. I wanted the hell out of there! Once I left that bathroom, I realized the sign on the door had been changed. It was one of those sliding things that read “MEN.” instead of “WOMEN.” Some clown had switched the damned things.
Look, no government entity and almost no business ones these days deny anyone the right to use a restroom. But it happened often to me, to my guy friends, my girl friends, and to Ric Flair. Our problems were never sexual. They were never political. They weren’t even about big city law.
The road was clear. No traffic problems at all. But you have to understand that a road called “Providence” has a church or two on every other corner in a town like Charlotte, North Carolina. And I had to stop a few times while local off-duty police officers allowed church goers to park their cars wherever they could. It was at the very first Providence Road church traffic stop that I heard yet another song.
This is all about choices, I think. I really have no other direction to take here.