Second Chances: Morning Exercise

Most of my research pointed me to a 100,000 word writing goal for a Memoir.

I wrote 103,000 words.

The editors - sifters - were kind, but would not let it slide. They pulled things back to 95,000.

During rewrites, I was able to ease back toward 100,000 words.

It's a struggle: What to keep and what to take out.

My son William said, "Look, dad, every writer I know understands that you might have to lose some of your babies." Don't wig out. It's a metaphor. Some stories, some tangents and some anecdotes just need to be left on the sifting table. It was painful.

But, I kept everything that I cut in a separate file. So, we'll call these periodic posts - Second Chances. They won't be presented in full chapter form, but as simple little tangents.

Morning Exercise

My Papa R.C. used to laugh and say, "We are genetically lazy people. And, we are really good at what we do." That was his way of saying, "Work smart and don't work hard," which you've probably heard from more reputable sources.

As boys, I can tell you that we weren't lazy. We had a huge yard to mow - one that took three little boys all day to cut working in shifts. We also had household chores to do. As we got older, we were asked to help out around the family meat house.

I don't know what caused my daddy to think that we three boys were becoming slothful, lazy bums. I think he was manipulated by the media (that's our go-to excuse for everything, right?) into believing - in 1968ish - that all young people were becoming drug-crazed hippies. We were in Atlanta one Saturday, at the Fox Theatre, and driving down Peachtree Street, daddy slowed and said, "Look at those damn worthless hippies."

I think he probably decided then and there that we were not going to become hippies. Not under his watch. Mind you - none of us had even reached puberty much less considered running off to California with Jefferson Airplane. I was in third grade before he let me have anything but a buzzed haircut. He buzzed it himself. (More about this in the 2016 sequel to Brookwood Road).

"We are going to start getting up every morning at 6 a.m. and running down the road," he announced one night. "I think it will be good for you to exercise and stay healthy." We thought he was crazy. I actually thought he was trying to run some pre-adolescent weight off me, and disguising his motive by forcing my brothers to run, too.

So, the next morning, no kidding, he rousted us out of bed, marched us out in the cold and dark to Brookwood Road. We began a forced jog up the road toward our grandparents' house and back. Daddy ran with us.

The next morning, he overslept and forgot to get us up.

The morning after that, he said we would just run in the late afternoon. I remember that it rained. We wanted to run in the rain. He said no. Dang.

And, I don't remember ever running more than that one morning.

In fact, honestly, the word exercise never came up again.

"Are we going to run anymore?" I asked him.

"Don't you have recess in school?" he shot back.

- Scott