DAD’S LAST CHRISTMAS – 1980

By Mark Reed

Christmas 1980 is one of bittersweet memories. It was the last Christmas with dad.

I spent every Christmas of my life with him up until that time, except for my Army  Christmas in Bangkok 1970.

Christmas was always the most wonderful time of the year in the Reed house. The Christmas Eve parties with family and friends packing the house, eating Wallace BBQ and drinking your beverage of choice, were memorable. Putting up the Prettiest Tree We Ever had. Dad always said that every Christmas. Christmas morning, all of us in our sleep clothes, gathered around the tree, passing out gifts and everyone joyously opening their presents. There was a lot of love going on. Mom always prepared a wonderful Christmas Day dinner.

Let me back up a minute. In February of 1978 I was in my office at Reed Realty when the phone rang. It was dad. He said he wanted me to do something for him. I said sure. He wanted me to go home and pack him an overnight bag with his pajamas, robe, bedroom shoes, tooth brush and toothpaste, and bring it to him at Paces Ferry Hospital. I said something to the effect of, “What the hell?” He laughed and said that he had been getting his flight physical, which was required for keeping his pilots license current, when the doctor said he wanted to stick his finger somewhere. I think you can guess where. Dad said his heart sorta went crazy at that thought. He was told he was having a heart attack and was immediately admitted. He laughingly said he was fine, but he had no intention of sleeping in a split back gown…bring his PJ’s ASAP.

When I got to the hospital and delivered his bag to him, I grilled him about his condition. He told me the same story and said he was sticking to it. I searched out his doctor in the hospital. He told me that dad had a serious heart condition and had had a minor heart attack, as if minor is a word you use attached to the words heart attack. I told him to tell it to me straight. He said that dad was overweight, around two hundred and forty pounds and needed to drop twenty pounds. He said that he smoked five packs of Salem menthol cigarettes a day and needed to stop. He drank too much and needed to cut back. He needed to start exercising daily, and not his professed exercise of playing golf four times a week using a golf cart. He had to buy some tennis shoes and start walking on a daily basis. He said that if dad did not do these things, he would not last two years.

I went back to dad’s room and read him the riot act. He laughed and said, “Time for a second opinion.” That was dad – from all outward appearances, he never took things too seriously. He had told me that after his time in the skies over Germany during WWII, he never took “normal” life too seriously. I know that is not entirely true because of many private conversations with him over the years.

At the time, our Reed Realty office was in the Georgia International office building located off Windy Hill Road at the intersection of I-75 and I-285, shared with his nephew and my cousin Rufus Guthrie and Guthrie Realty. At that time I was running every day on the running track around the lake in the park. I took dad to buy some tennis shoes. He would join me and walk as I ran. I would slap him on the butt every time I would lap him. That lasted about thirty days. He said life was too short to not enjoy it. No matter how hard I tried to dissuade him, he fell back into his same ole same ole lifestyle. The thing I remember the most about the next two years was that dad and I spent more time together talking about everything, and not just our time spent as partners in Reed Realty. Time at the lake on his houseboat. Dinner together. Drinks together at his favorite bar. It was the best time of my life with my dad. Many of my stories from and about him were shared with me during that time. Read my Blog, Missing The Mark, where many are shared.

Dad was on heart medications that made him feel bad. He hated taking them, but that is the one accommodation he made to the doctors, he did take his pills. When he turned fifty-nine years old in 1980, I remember him telling me that up until this birthday, he had never felt old. This coming from the youngest fifty-nine year old man you could ever meet. I know he felt bad. It made me sad to hear him say this.

Then came Christmas 1980. You can tell from the photos, at least I can, that he did not feel well. In February of 1981, he experienced what he said he wanted if he had to go – the big one. He said he did not want to survive as an invalid. He got his wish.

One last little aside about one of our conversations near the end. We were talking at the office one afternoon after hanging up our work saddles, sipping our Jack Daniels. He said, “Mark, I want you to do two things for me when I die.” I said sure, what? He said, “When I die, I want you to make sure I’m dead and then get me in the ground quick, the next day if possible.” Now let me point out here that this was not really a morbid conversation, although it may seem so to many of you. Those who knew dad well, know what I’m talking about. I laughed and said sure, but pointed out that a quick burial might be a problem for some traveling from out of town to be there. He laughed and said, “They should have lived closer to me.” I agreed to do my best.

He then hit me with what is probably the best Bill Reedism I ever heard. He said, “Oh yeah, there is a third thing I want you to do. I want a closed casket. I asked him why in the world he wanted that. Are you ready? He said, “There are some sumbitches out there who have said they would see me dead, and I don’t want to give them the satisfaction.” That is classic. That is exactly the way it was done.

We were all blessed to have him with us for that one last Christmas in 1980.

SERVICE TO OTHERS

By Mark Reed

I was led to write this story when a friend asked me what advice I would give to my fifty-two year old self. My friend happened to be fifty-two, so he was actually asking me for advice. I was touched and honored that he would ask me to be a sort of life lesson coach.

I responded to him with a number of things that have served me well in my seventy-four years.

I started by telling him that all of us have doo doo hit us in our lives. We have to deal with it, clean it up as best we can, or otherwise we start to stink. Believe me, it’s true.

One of the most effective things I’ve built into my life is I realized that I’d rather laugh than cry, not that a good cry can’t be wonderfully cathartic and healing. Someone once told me that it takes more facial muscles to frown than smile, and being a semi-lazy person, I choose to smile rather than frown, at least I try. I don’t always succeed.

I always try to look for the good in people, situations, events, etc. I’m not a Pollyanna, but I try to give the benefit of the doubt. Even with seemingly proof of ill intent, I try to hold off on making judgment against someone. It’s sorta like waiting for all the evidence to come in before making a judgment. That being said, I will share a bit of wisdom my dad shared with me when we went into business together at Reed Realty many years ago. He said, “Screw me once, shame on you. Screw me twice, shame on me.” Think about it. Dad was saying you don’t give someone the chance to screw you again. There was a caveat to that, which I came up with and that was, “Do business with anyone, but govern yourself accordingly.” These tips were in the business arena, but it is applicable to life.

I also don’t take myself too seriously. A good sense of self-deprecating humor can go a long way. Also, having a pretty thick skin can help. I had a conversation recently with a lifelong friend. He said I took a joke better than anyone he knew. I told him that depended on whether the person making the joke on me was being friendly, or if it was an attack. There is a difference. It is important to be able to develop discernment in this regard.

I will avoid a fight if at all possible, both literally and figuratively. In my youth, I had my share of actual physical fights. Never lost one of those. In my senior years, while I am still in pretty good shape, my fights are of a different variety, having to do with wit and sarcasm in my retort, both offensively and defensively. My dad told me, and I told my sons, to avoid a fight at all cost, but if it was unavoidable, fight as if your life depended on it, because sometimes it does. And know when to stop. An example dad gave me is a tip I have never had to employ, but I would if necessary. He said if you bite a person’s ear off, they will scream like a little girl. It takes the fight right out of them. Enough of this.

Don’t be afraid to love. Most people will say they don’t have that problem, but there are those who do. Usually not their fault. Maybe they have been terribly hurt by someone they loved or by someone they thought loved them. It matters not. Believe me when I tell you that you must put that behind you or your life will be miserable.

This next part is what inspired me to write this Blog Story. One thing that has great importance in my life is identifying a passion in my life and pursuing it. That can be many different things for many people. For me it has been service to others. For some it can be service through some ministry. I have done this through different ministries through my church and also with faith based ministries not necessarily connected with a particular church.

I went to the Philippines as a business advisor with a ministry that focused on entrepreneurial small business start ups for destitute people. I took my sons to an Indian Reservation and re-built a one hundred year old house for an elderly Indian woman. But the ministry involvement that impacted me the most was in my numerous mission trips to Haiti.

But a ministry can be something that is not necessarily connected with a church or religious organization or effort. It can be a lifestyle ministry – doing things for others.

I will give you two examples of the ministry I have been involved in for most of my life, even though I did not realize it was a ministry until later in my life.

I take a lot of photos. Over approximately twenty thousand a year for many years. An expensive hobby back before digital photography and I was buying rolls of 35mm film and having developed and also having double prints made. I would give one of the duplicate copies to a person who was in the photo. It was just a friendly gesture on my part, primarily done with family and friends.

It was not until a certain event happened, maybe twenty-five years ago, that I first became aware that what I was doing might be a ministry of sorts. Michelle and I were in a Sunday School class that had a Christmas party, and of course I took numerous photos. The next Sunday, I brought duplicate copies in envelopes for everyone. This one lady in our class, upon receiving her photos from me, told me that I had the same ministry as her grandfather. I told her I was confused as to what she meant by a ministry. She said he takes photos of people and gives them copies. It usually makes them feel good and lifts them up. I had never really given it much thought, it was just something I enjoyed doing.

It was not long after this that it all came home to me.

Our sons, Bill and Lew played soccer as little boys. I loved it, going so far as becoming an assistant coach on their teams, even though I had never played a day of soccer in my life. I learned, though. Guess what else I did. Yeah, I took a copious number of photos of the boys, their teammates and coaches (and girls in a couple of co-ed teams). Yeah, I made duplicate copies and gave them to the various kid’s parents.

What follows is one of those life tragedies many have had to deal with. One of Lew’s buddies was Jo Jo, a small dynamo on the teams they played on together. He was a scoring machine. Every time he and other teammates would score, I would scream “Gooooooaaaaalllllll!!!” like that famous Mexican soccer announcer does on televised games. Then I would take a photo of the kid with his finger or fingers raised to denote how many goals he or she had made. You can imagine I took hundreds of these photos. Jo Jo was by far my most often object of my aim, point and shoot photography.

I’ll never forget that terrible phone call informing me that Jo Jo had been killed in an automobile accident. No child should die before their parents. But it happens. The visitation at the funeral home the night before the funeral was unbelievably crowded. There was a line out the door waiting to go through and see the parents to deliver condolences. When we finally got in the door, I was completely blown away by the big poster prints on the walls of Jo Jo, many with Lew next to him. They were my photographs I had given them over the years. It was like a Mark Reed Gallery Showing of portraits. When we got up to the parents and hugged, I don’t remember specific words, but I do remember them pointing up at all my photos of Jo Jo all over the walls.

The next day, we went to the funeral and then to their house afterwards. As we were getting ready to leave, we went up to the parents to say goodbye, and I said, “I know y’all have a ton of family and friends surrounding you for support, but if there is anything at all I can ever do for y’all, please let me know.” I’ll never forget what the father said to me while pointing to the photo posters scattered around the room, “Oh Mark, you have already done so much for us, and you didn’t even know you were doing it.”

I then realized that I had a ministry.

Since that time, there have been many occasions where a friend passed away and I would prepare a CD of photos I had taken of the deceased over the years. I would give the CD to the family, and usually they were used at the funeral or memorial service as a slide show.

Anyway, find something you love to do and see if there is a way to use it to serve others.

MARK’S 1966 SIGMA PI CHRISTMAS TREE

By Mark Reed

We always had a beautiful Christmas tree at the Sigma Pi Fraternity house at UGA. We had fourteen-foot ceilings in a parlor room beside the entrance where we always put it up. Finding a tall enough tree was always a challenge. At an early Chapter Meeting in December of 1966, the topic of getting the tree came up. Everyone was lamenting the fact that there was no place to get one tall enough, aside from cutting down the tree in front of the Sigma Chi House.

I had made many the trips back and forth from Athens to Arcade, GA, a little town east of Athens that was famous for cheap beer, many times over my college career up to that point. I remember seeing what appeared to be a nursery on the side of the highway, just this side of Arcade. There were some huge evergreen trees bordering and inside the barbwire fence guarding the nursery. When I say huge, I mean twenty-feet tall or more. I raised my hand and volunteered to get our tree. Everyone wanted to know where I was going to get it, but I told them to trust me, I would get it. I told them it would be the prettiest tree we ever had.

It was a cold freezing night when I recruited two pledges, Steve Vaughn and Charles Woodlief, to be my assistant Christmas Tree Elves. We pulled out from the Sigma Pi House in my 1965 GTO convertible and made the drive toward Arcade. In fact, we drove by the nursery and on to Arcade where we picked up a case of beer and started drinking on our way back to the nursery.

I pulled off the highway in front of the nursery and we sat there scoping out the likely candidates. That was easy. We chose the tallest one, well over twenty feet. I had commandeered a cross cut saw and a hatchet from a brother. Over the fence we scrambled. It probably took us thirty minutes to saw and chop that sucker down, taking turns sawing and chopping. The beer probably extended our time doing the deed.

Finally we yelled timber as the tree crashed down. It took all the effort we had left to get the tree over the fence and up beside my car. The tree was longer than my car. I had forgotten to get any rope. Oops! I made the command decision to put the top down on the GTO and we manhandled the tree onto my car with the trunk of the tree up against the rear view mirror. The tree hung about 10’ off the back of the car and drug the ground, but it couldn’t be helped.

I pushed myself into the drivers seat and grabbed the base with my right hand. Steve sat in the passenger seat with both his hands and arms wrapped around the base of the tree. Charles was buried in the back seat, completely out of sight, but with his arms thrust up into the body of the massive tree, holding on for dear life.

Did I mention that we were on the side of a public highway? Big trucks and autos whizzed by all through our petty theft and honked at us as they went by. Thank goodness the Arcade Police were not out prowling around for lawbreakers.

The drive back to the fraternity house was frozen misery for the three of us. Steve and I had warm feet from my heater going full blast, but Charles ended up an icicle.

As we drove into the parking lot at the house, I honked the car horn until the house emptied of everyone there at that late hour. They helped lean the tree up against The Shack, our rear annex. I lined everyone up in front of the tree, well everyone except Steve and Charles – they were thawing out inside. I then took the famous photo attached hereto.

We had to cut several feet off the bottom and the top of the tree to get it to fit inside the parlor. Everyone agreed that it was The Prettiest Tree We Ever Had.

LAST TIME I SAW RONNIE

By Mark Reed

We all probably have a best friend. Some of us are blessed to have more than one. Ronnie Puckett was mine. We grew up together. Grade School. High School. College. The Army. The stories I could tell. Maybe I will.

His mom and dad and my mom and dad were close friends. Mr. and Mrs. Puckett, Harold and Lovella, were like a second set of parents for me.

Ronnie and me had all sorts of plans for after we graduated from college. We planned to canoe down the Mississippi River to the Gulf. We planned to drive cross country back and forth seeing America. We planned to go to Europe and see the places our fathers had fought during WWII.

Ronnie and I as Freshmen at CHS – 1960

Life had different plans for us. There was a little thing called Vietnam going on. After we graduated from College, I was drafted into the Army and Ronnie went in and became a Green Beret. We wrote each other making plans for when we got out of the Army. It was just a delay of a few years, that’s all.

In December of 1969, Ronnie was stationed at Fort Bragg Special Forces Command continuing his training. I had just finished my training as a Medical Administration Specialist at Fort Sam Houston in Texas. We both got Christmas leave to come home. I had received my orders to ship out to S.E. Asia on January 3^rd.

Christmas Eve, December 24^th, 1969, Ronnie had a party at his house in Smyrna for all us buddies and our dates. I remember that Christmas Eve as one of my favorites. I didn’t know it would be the last time I ever saw Ronnie. The only photo I have of that party was taken by Ronnie’s mom, Lovella. It was a picture of me sitting on the floor laughing and looking up at Ronnie as he told some funny story. He was out of frame in the photo. Wish both of us were in the photo. We are, as far as I’m concerned.

Ronnie headed back to Ft Bragg a few days later and I shipped out a week later. We wrote each other faithfully. I still have his letters, which I pull out and read sometimes.

It was June 1970. I walked into my ready room at the U.S. Embassy Diplomatic Medical Mission in Bangkok. One of my men was reading the English language version of The Bangkok Post. He commented out loud that some Green Berets at Fort Bragg had been killed in an explosion during a training exercise. My blood ran cold. I knew immediately Ronnie was one of them. I grabbed the paper and scanned the article and saw his name. I almost threw up.

I received a letter from another best friend, Tim Huggins, who attended Ronnie’s funeral. He said it was one of the biggest funerals ever in Cobb County. Ronnie had a lot of friends. Tim said he was standing next to Ronnie’s dad, Harold, who turned to him and said, “Mark is going to blow his brains out when he finds out.” He knew I wouldn’t kill myself, but he knew how badly it would affect me. Ronnie’s mom, Lovella, told me later that if it had not been for my mom, Jennie, staying with her over the next weeks and months, she would have killed herself.

When I got my discharge and came home in March of 1971, after my welcome home meal with my family, I hopped in the car and drove to Ronnie’s house. We all sat around hugging on each other and crying. As I was leaving, Harold said for me to wait a minute, he had something for me. He came out of his bedroom and handed me his .380 Italian Beretta pistol he took off a German officer during WWII. He said it was supposed to be Ronnie’s, but now I was his son and he wanted me to have it. Yeah, we all hugged and cried again. Then Lovella gave me Ronnie’s Green Beret. Yeah, we all hugged and cried again.

Last photo of Ronnie, June 6, 1970 at Fort Bragg

I will always remember the last time I saw Ronnie, that Christmas Eve of 1969.

TIGER LAND – A Memoir

By Mark Reed

I saw a photo this morning posted on a Vietnam Veterans Facebook group I am a member of. The photo was of the sign at the entrance to Fort Polk, LA – Tiger Land.

Tiger Land was Advanced Infantry Training for all soldiers headed to Vietnam as grunts. The photo actually gave me a visceral stomach churn, remembering when I saw it riding in on a bus full of us GI’s on our way to Tiger Land. This was for real. This was no joke. We were all going to Vietnam where we might die. There is no way to accurately explain the feeling one has unless they have experienced it themselves. I’m trying.

When I graduated from Basic Training in D-19-5 at Fort Knox, KY in August of 1969, like every soldier, I waited anxiously as we formed up and waited for our Drill SGT to read out our name and give us our orders. SSG Reed was my Drill SGT, and he did not like me. He saved my name for last, and then called out my name and laughed loud and long, finally saying, “Reed, you are going to Tiger Land, Advanced Infantry Training and then Vietnam. You are going to die.” He was a real asshole.

For those of you who did not live through that time, just let me say that Vietnam cast a pall over us all. The uncertainty. The disruption to your life. The possibility of death. My best friend, Ronnie Puckett and I had planned to travel Europe together after graduation from college. It was not to be. We both went in the Army. He became a Green Beret and died in 1970, but that is another story.

Back to Fort Polk and Tiger Land. Without going into all the details, I became the luckiest soldier at Tiger Land. I was pulled from the Infantry and given the job of Company Clerk in a Training Company of guys just like me, except they were all headed to Vietnam as Infantrymen…I got a reprieve for a while. Totally because I knew how to type. Thank you Mrs. Little at CHS.

For those stationed at Tiger land, it had an oppressive cloud hanging over it. It was almost a tangible atmosphere pressing in on you. It was depressing. You woke up every morning listening to training Platoons running and marching to cadence singing one of many marching cadence chants. The one I hated the most was the one set to the song “Poison Ivy.” It started like this, “Viet Naaaammm, Viet Naaaammm, at night while you’re sleeping, Charlie Cong will come a creeping, all around, round, round…” You get the drift.

Anyway, I hated it there. Being “permanent” cadre as a Company Clerk, I could actually leave the Fort. I had been able to go home and pick up my car, my wonderful 1965 Gold GTO convertible. Leaving the Fort, your local options were minimal. The local town was Leesville, about ten miles west. We called it “Diseaseville.” The locals did not particularly like us soldiers. So, it was not exactly an uplifting and pleasant atmosphere. Of course there was the NCO Club on the base where you could go drink a beer and listen to music. I was a PFC, but my best buddy was a SGT and took me to the NCO Club. Not exactly like doing it with my fraternity brothers at the fraternity house.

Since it looked like I was going to be there for a while, in order to keep my sanity, I decided to see if there was a nearby college where I might enroll and take a night course a couple of nights a week. Natchitoches, LA was about sixty miles north of Fort Polk. It was the home of Northwestern State University. I contacted the registrar and the only course available was a graduate level English Literature class. I jumped on it. It met twice a week from 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm. The topic was Walden Pond by Henry David Thoreau. So, for a couple of nights a week I was able to escape the oppressive atmosphere of Tiger Land and be around college students. There were girls there that did not hate you because you were a soldier. It was obvious I was a soldier because of my haircut. Very short. All the guys had longer hair.

When I think back on my time at Tiger Land, there is one single moment that is ingrained and burnt into my memory. I was headed out in my GTO with the top down one evening on my way to class. I came up behind a deuce and a half, a two and a half ton open back truck that carted soldiers around. I’ll never forget looking up into the faces of maybe a dozen troops, all with their M-16’s and helmets on. They all looked down on me riding in my convertible, and I guarantee every damn one wished they were me. They all smiled huge smiles and every one held up their hand with the “Peace Sign.” I gave it back. For that moment we all connected on a level that is hard to explain. They were on their way to Vietnam, not knowing if they would make it back, and I had somehow dodged that bullet for the moment. I did not know a single man on that truck, but they were each my brother. I hope they made it.

A little back story:  The previous Company Clerk I replaced hated Tiger Land so much that he volunteered for Vietnam as an infantryman. Just to escape Tiger Land! Now that may sound crazy, but after two months there, I started to understand why he did it. I even started to contemplate it also. Hard to believe, right? You had to be there.

On October 25^th, 1969, my First SGT called me into his office. I had just been named the Fort Polk Command Soldier of the Quarter, after the competition he had sent me to. I figured he was going to give me a pat on the back. Instead, he informed me that orders for me had just come in transferring me to Fort Sam Houston, TX to attend Medical Administration training as a 71G40. One hell of a lot better than an 11 Bravo Infantryman. I think I let out a squeal. Sarge said to me, “Reed, you ain’t going nowhere. You are the best Company Clerk I’ve ever had. I’m calling the Command SGT Major at HQ and getting these orders cancelled. You have found a home, Reed.”

I pleaded with him to let me go, to no avail.

You may have heard that Sergeants run the Army. Particularly on the SGT E-5 level. My best buddy on Fort was SGT E-5 Manuel Gonzales. He particularly enjoyed riding around with me with the top down after we had consumed a six-pack of beer. Manuel worked for the Command SGT Major at HQ. I called him, told him what was going on and asked if he could help. He said, “Leave it to me.”

Five days later on October 30, 1969, my First SGT called me into his office. He said, “Reed, I don’t know who you know, but I did everything in my power, all the way up the chain of command, to kill your orders. For some reason, the Command SGT Major and me hit a stonewall at every turn. Here are your orders. Get your ass packed and out of here tomorrow.”

On October 31, 1969, Halloween, I drove out of Tiger Land and Fort Polk forever, headed west to San Antonio, TX. The top was down and the wind was blowing in my hair, the radio was playing, of all things, “Poison Ivy” by The Coasters. I had grown to hate the song, but now I loved it. I was one happy PFC.

There are still moments I still see those smiling guys in the back of the deuce and a half flashing me the peace sign. It is a bittersweet memory.

The only photograph from my time at Tiger Land – August to October, 1969