Hope

This Week's Song - I've Got a Wet Nose, How Bout You - by Robbie Pryor - It never hit the charts. You've never heard it. But it was number 1 with two little girls between 2007-2010. A pretty good run. 

I once rolled my eyes at people who talked about their dogs. That was until I got Hope. Roll your eyes if you must.

Sophie disgusted Hope is in her chair

Two years into my marriage to Nancy and our new life with four kids we decided “why not add to the chaos?!” We decided to get a dog. We had a couple of “trial runs,” trying both the puppy route and an older rescue dog. The most unforgettable was a Beagle mix named Peanut. She was the cutest puppy ever delivered upon this Earth but apparently a Beagle mated with Satan. It became increasingly clear there was a strain of Great Dane and schizophrenia in the lineage. That dog tore up the house, the landscaping, and, finally, Nancy’s leg. Shortly after our baby, Andy, turned 5, I looked out the front window to see Peanut dragging him from the front yard into the shrubbery like a lion would an antelope. Finally, in an attempt to save the situation, we hired a “dog whisperer.” She left our home in tears, a broken woman. Peanut went to a nice farm - really. Nancy and I had given up Hope. Then she arrived.

Nancy found her online at the East Tennessee Golden Retriever Rescue. We invited Hope for a visit. The people at the Rescue don’t mess around. They make home visits. There were many requirements. We were vetted and interviewed over the phone like potential Supreme Court Justices. We scurried around getting the house ready like we were getting a visit from the Queen. After some subtle but healable heartbreak with the previous attempts at canine addition, we decided to lie to our children. It is often the best policy. “A nice lady is coming to talk to Daddy about a case” Nancy said. “she might bring her dog with her.” We didn’t want them to think this dog was staying.

nap time

It was love at first sight…for all 6 of us. She answered to Hope and had recently been found with her litter mate, abandoned in a cold world. She was the deepest red I've ever seen in the breed. She changed our lives. She collapsed at the feet of my four kids, who proceeded to climb all over her. I don’t think the lady was there four minutes before I blew the cover and said, “We are keeping her!!!” Years of beautiful chaos ensued.

As my children came of age Hope pulled wagons, dressed up for Halloween and was a reindeer every Christmas. She was equal parts pet, confidante, friend and child. She played multiple roles in homemade stage presentations and plays. She healed broken hearts and warmed cold feet. As the red on her face turned white, Nancy decided we needed a puppy. I thought it was a terrible idea and, as a seasoned trial lawyer, argued my point with both logic and supporting facts. So, we got a puppy. Sophie blew into our lives like a tornado. As docile as Hope was, Sophie was "energetic." Hope, first annoyed by her, began to mother her, train her if you will. The two of them provided constant entertainment. Hope was scared of the fireplace, Sophie wasn’t. Hope loved tennis balls, Sophie didn’t. Sophie slept in an old chair, Hope on the floor. Neither could swim and both thought they were humans. Every night we adhered to ritual - I came into the girl’s shared room with a guitar and the two dogs for a “Hope Prayer.” It was a 30-minute (sometimes longer) goodnight. A play of sorts ensued where I spoke a prayer as though Hope was talking to God. The girls would giggle with their heads bowed and their eyes closed as Hope prayed for various things. "Please allow food to be dropped from the table" and "Please help Sophie sleep more." Songs were made up and performed with my poor guitar accompaniment (two favorites were “I Have a Wet Nose, How bout You” and “I Love Cinnamon Rolls”). It was my favorite time of the day. I think Hope and Sophie loved it. They anticipated it like it was a meal. Whenever I picked up my guitar, they were on the march to the girls' room, where they would jump up - one on each of the twin beds - and expect the love that was so eagerly given by the adoring children.

The crowd

In the final year of her life, Hope threw caution to the wind. Never a beggar and ever obedient, she ate an entire hickory sausage log off the coffee table without permission. She began climbing into Sophie’s chair. Sophie was okay with it. The two of them were inseparable - Sophie loving Hope, Hope tolerating Sophie - until that inevitable day came.“Something is wrong with Hope,” was the text. Pet owners understand. It is the day we all dread. After all, it is usually the biggest hurdle to owning a pet - you have to give your heart over knowing that one day it will be shattered. Isn't that what love is? Risk - Reward.

Hope and Sophie

The little girls, who’d been smitten when the nice lady walked Hope into our lives, were Seniors in High School when that day came. They held vigil with Nancy and Sophie until I got home. The boys disappeared into their rooms while decisions were being made. Women are stronger than men. I’ve always believed it. Nancy, Cori, Shelby, Sophie and I sat with her until Hope’s predicament made it obvious a trip to the vet was needed. We left Sophie with the boys, and in the middle of the night, in a room of a pet hospital, the four of us linked hands and sat on the floor surrounding our Hope. We put our hands on her. We laughed through tears as we shared our favorite stories and cried unrestrained tears in one last concert for our girl. It was a beautiful moment. We were all brokenhearted children in that room.

Hope Prayer went too long

Sophie was devastated, but recovered, perhaps sooner than the rest of us. She is now 8 and every bit the puppy she was when she came to us. We are convinced she kept Hope young during the years they shared. Sophie and I mope like babies when the girls leave for college and rejoice when we are all together. She sits at my feet when I’m writing and working in my home office. She listens to closing arguments and opening statements. She follows Nancy around the house. I take pictures of her and send them to the girls far away in their new worlds so they won't forget we are there, loving them. Hope opened a world to us we had not previously known, and the two of them together have brought so much joy and love into our family. My parents ended up getting one…and then two Golden Retrievers, all because of Hope. Shelby arrives home for Christmas today. Our family will be complete for the next few weeks. Sophie is going to the airport with us. I might have to dust off the old guitar tonight. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

My Gatlinburg

This Week's Song - In My Tennessee Mountain Home - by Dolly - Who needs her last name. This week my Tennessee Mountain Home emerged from the fire and smoke. You can't burn magic and you can't kill a spirit like ours.

The Smoky Mountains

Pigeon Forge ended at the water slide, the one made of concrete that left cuts and scrapes. Sitting with my siblings in the back seat of the family station wagon in 1978 with the attractions of the gateway to the Smokies in our rearview, the Pryor kids adjusted to focus on the scenery outside of our window. That stretch of 321 into Gatlinburg has always been my favorite part of the ride from Knoxville. As we disappeared into a canopy of trees covering mountain sides, my father playing Bill Monroe and Flatt & Scruggs on the stereo, I felt like I was being transported to my very own Neverland. The path was cut by a river that rolled over rocks seemingly placed by the hand of God. Twists and turns and a final climb opened to a wondrous little town, our East Tennessee Magic Kingdom, where the taste of a candied apples and freshly woven taffy waited to dance on our tongues - A place where pancake breakfasts in front of giant fireplaces started a day filled with believe-it-or-nots, wax museums and putt putt. Chair lifts and alpine slides, a babbling brook and an indoor pool - oh, the indoor pool - transformed every short trip into a vacation. We didn't have money, but we never knew. We had Gatlinburg.

Gatlinburg, Tennessee

My parents, like so many East Tennessee couples, honeymooned there. As a family, and with several other families, we rang in many a New Year in Cobbly Nob in the 1980's. Uncle John died there in his little house, his sacred last breath drawn on the mountain air he loved so much. I was too young to understand but old enough to never forget. It was, for me and my siblings, our first encounter with death.  My brother and I stood in the front yard listening to the wails of my sweet Aunt Lucy through the screened porch door, the one that slammed on rusty springs when we would run back and forth to the creek.  I was sad, but even at that age I knew it was a special place to live and a better place to die. I think Uncle John would agree.                  

Taffy and Candied Apples on the Parkway

Gatlinburg is our secret place, a land of magic and mystery unknown to the rest of the world. That's what we thought then and how I feel now. Children of the Valley share it with the world but it is ours. The images of it burning this week would not register, its streets and businesses, hotels and chalets, all a haven of childhood memories that simply cannot be erased. How can you burn that down? As I watched it burn on news coverage and social media, I thought of it all - the wedding chapels, the mom and pop motels, and the handcrafted pocket knife I got as a kid.  I thought of high School dates to The Burning Bush restaurant and the skating rink at Ober Gatlinburg, where grace escaped me, but not the girl. There were fraternity formals at Bent Creek Resort and day trips with my babies, when they were still babies, to see the great aquarium. Then there was a magical day with Nancy and all four kids in the river, skipping rocks and exploring the forest followed by a night in town exploring its beloved streets and sharing our childhood memories in order to carry out our obligation as children of the Valley - to sprinkle the pixie dust of the spirit of the mountain on the next generation. For those of us raised up in East Tennessee, Gatlinburg is both a right of passage and a an accessible bit of Heaven, a piece of our sugar-laden heritage and hickory-smoked birth right as "mountain people." It is, quite simply, happiness - East Tennessee style.

August 2007

This too shall pass, for in the realm of our world tucked firmly in the shadow of the Smoky Mountains, Gatlinburg's light can no more be suppressed than that of the stars or the memories of a child.

The Fire Stick

This week's song - You've Got a Friend in Me - Randy Newman - Toy Story is one of my favorites. So is Christopher Leach

The ground was still wet with dew. I looked down the fairway trying to envision my shot. The stakes were huge. When my new driver struck the ball, it rose against a late-summer sky and gently faded over the trees that stood at the corner of the dog-legged par 5, landing safely in the fairway. “Good one,” my competitor said. It was his common compliment - short, to the point. There would not be much conversation during the round. This wasn’t our first rodeo. The game was on. He teed his ball, and after he struck it, Chris Leach’s drive flew mine by 10 yards. We picked up our golf bags and walked stride for stride down the fairway. It was 1988. I was 19. He was 17. I was starting my sophomore year at UT. He was the star senior quarterback at Farragut High, bathed in the glow of all that befits the age and position.

Money Players

Because of my close relationship with my brother, John, his friends became my friends. My friends became his friends. Chris and my brother were in the same class. As kids, we all played golf, tennis, billiards, basketball - well, anything - together. Chris and I were usually pitted against one another, inevitably for money. I like to think I taught him how to gamble, but in hindsight, I think it was as much a genetic predisposition as hair or eye color.

We often played for large sums of money, despite the fact we didn’t have access to more than pocket change. But, on that day, we played for something more - The Fire Stick. The club, manufactured by Wilson, was the hottest driver of the day. The beautiful and intimidating red fiberglass shaft ran down into a titanium/metal head. Every golfer wanted a Fire Stick in their bag, and I was one of the fortunate few. My father had given it to me the week before as a gift. It was a good club, but it was also something else, something players like Leach and I couldn’t resist - flash and status. Bad golfers would look silly trying to play it. People paid attention when it was carried onto the driving range. Rumors flew around our club about which golfers were going to get one. A friend of my father’s approached me at my grandmother’s funeral, extended his hand and said, “Sorry about your grandmother,” then leaned in to whisper, “How do you like that Fire Stick, kid?” 

I’d lost to Leach the day before and he came up with the idea that, instead of having me pay, he wanted to play for the Fire Stick. “Absolutely,” I said without hesitation. Money players don't hesitate or turn down a challenge. It was a beautiful day. We strolled down the fairways of Fox Den Country Club with the confidence that tomorrow was promised and the world belonged to us. We were good. We knew it. Our bodies were lean. The inevitable tragedies and storms of life had never earned proximity to us.  We were boys playing a game we loved. It was a 9-hole match. We battled back and forth like it was the Ryder Cup. It is always serious between friends upon the field of battle. We pulled for each other, conceded the right putt, and made club suggestions. It came down to the last hole. When I tapped in for par, we shook hands and walked to the clubhouse, laughing and reliving the match that resulted in my retention of the desired Fire Stick.  

The Fire Stick

The years slid by faster than those infinite summers of my youth. Chris would become my little brother in the fraternity. He stood with me at my wedding to Cheryl. I toasted him at his. We have so many close friends. When a money game was being put together, it has to include Pryor and Leach. We’ve traveled to football games and multiple locations to play golf with my brother and other friends. And, then he and his wife gathered with many one fall afternoon, outside the emergency department of Park West Hospital, awaiting word about my wife’s condition after she’d been rushed there from our home. When I exited to deliver the news of her death, Leach was the first. The first face I saw. The first friend to rise. The first person I embraced. The first of many to come unglued with me, as the eye of the hurricane arrived in defiance of our presumed exemption from such things. Long before that terrible day, we had been dear friends and rivals in all manner of games.  The storm transformed us into brothers. A Storm turns a friendship into something greater, something deserving of its own temple. 

It has been 28 years since we first played for the Fire Stick. The club has long been obsolete. Driver technology has gone through the stratosphere, but the ole Fire Stick is still around. I looked over at Chris’s bag this past April to see its red shaft and gray titanium head protruding as we stepped onto the first tee in Destin, Florida. It has been our tradition, our temple if you will, for 21 years, that the first day of our big golf trip is the day we annually renew our competition for the relic. The Fire Stick Round. One round of golf. The club itself  hasn’t touched a golf ball for a quarter of a century. At the end of the tee box, away from the others, he approached me for the ceremonial conversation. “I see you brought it with you,” I said. He smiled. During the past year he’d had his picture taken with it on his travels, texting the image to me with very little if any caption, each photo serving as both a good-natured jab and a nod to the institution of our brotherhood.“We’ll play straight up as usual?” I asked. That is how it has always been, how it shall always be regardless of the fact his game is much better these days. The winner always keeps the Fire Stick for the next year. “Alrighty. Good luck,” he said, winking as he turned to walk away, still the cocky kid I taught to gamble on the golf course, the one who would roll out for a pass on fall Friday nights and then keep it just to run someone over. He is the same cocky kid that never gave up the ball on the basketball court and the same confident man who told me everything was going to be alright after he and five others carried my Cheryl to her place on the hill where the leaves still fall with a certain grace this time of year. 

I leaned over and placed my ball on the tee then struck a slow-rising shot that drew slightly around the fairway bunker and into the plush green fairway. “Good one,” he said. A Good One, indeed. 

The Bandits

This week's song - Lose Yourself - by Eminem. No particular meaning here, except for the fact that every time I hear it I'm transported to an SUV driving boys to basketball games. 

“Time-Out!” I yelled as I ran toward the referee at mid-court. The Shockers had just scored to take the lead. I needed to calm my team down and draw up a big play.  The Bandits were down three with only 6 seconds remaining in the Championship game. AAU travel basketball gets intense. My players gathered around me as they always had, each of their expectant faces looking up, trusting I would come up with something that would lead them to victory. No one in the Powell gym that night expected us to compete with The Shockers, much less lead the entire game. Their faster and more athletic players had annihilated the rest of the field on their march to the championship. We had played an incredible game. Everyone played. Everyone contributed. Now, we were seemingly yielding to our fate, relinquishing our hard-fought lead with seconds to go. I was so proud. I told them. We’d played a great tournament. We’d made it to the finals. The rosy cheeks and excited eyes of the 11-year-old boys gazed up at me. The gym was on fire with excitement and expectation. Connor, the tallest of the kids, circled the huddle nervously. “Connor! sit still! What are you doing?” I asked. “I’m just so excited, Coach! This is awesome!” It was awesome. I grabbed my dry-erase clipboard. There was still fight in this team. It was the spring of 2009.

The Bandits

Those little boys are now young men, most of them Seniors in high school. Connor Arnold is 6 feet 7 inches tall and an All-State forward at Grace Christian Academy. Caden Harbin is Mr. Everything at Halls High - an All-District and All-State football player. Isaiah Sulack broke the Arby’s Classic (a nationally recognized tournament) three-point record earlier this year, scoring 39 points in a single game for CAK High School. The kids, most of whom played for me for the better part of a decade (more than half of their lives) are scattered across the city. Griffin Hicks and Ryan Lee are at Webb. Tyler Parker is a talented golfer at Catholic. Haydn Tanner is a two-sport star at CAK, and Tyler Young, aka Big Mac, is also a Senior at CAK. Alex Majoras, the quietest kid I’ve ever known, is at Bearden. Shawn McKay, who I held as a newborn, will graduate from Farragut in May. Then there is my baby boy, Andy Pryor, who is a Junior at CAK and my all-time favorite Bandit. Most still play basketball, but not all. Dozens of other boys have played for me at one time or another over the years - too many to list here. All of them are great kids with wonderful, loving parents. Several have earned athletic honors, but very few, if any, will go on to play basketball in college. The core group has been with me since they were eight years old. 

Coaching

We’ve burned up the roads of this state, singing rap and pop songs and talking about the finer things in life - video games, Krispy Kreme donuts, and girls. We’ve eaten a lot of pizza in hotels, where boys with boundless energy took over indoor pools while parents washed uniforms in bathroom sinks and dried socks on hotel-room air conditioners. The Bandits have spent many a night at my house and my son has been welcomed in each of their homes. When I started coaching them, I thought I was simply coaching a game I loved and bonding with my son. When I hung it up, I realized that I’d made my own friends for life. I am the beneficiary of a gift I inadvertently gave myself. Coaching these kids has been one of the great privileges and honors of my life. One of my players wrote a school essay about how I influenced his life. Another said I would be one of his 8 invitees on NBA draft night when he would be taken in the first round. I text them after their wonderful high school performances and, more importantly, after the poor ones. They text me to give me a hard time when they see my commercial on television or an appearance on Legal Lowdown. I sometimes just text to check in. Andy and I go to their high school games. They often come to his. They tell me they love me. They hug me whenever I see them in public. Even though it has been over a year since I put down the clipboard, they still call me “Coach” or “Pryor.” 

On that night in March of 2009, the Shockers thought they had us. They didn’t know what a good play I had drawn up. I knew the shot was good before it left Parker’s hands. He was a great shooter. They all were. When the three-pointer passed through the net as the buzzer rang out, the gym erupted. Tie game. We were going to overtime. A few minutes later, after Connor slid down the baseline and drained a three pointer two minutes into overtime, the game was over. We were the Champions. As Connor said, “It was awesome.” There are few better things in life than watching 11-year-old boys celebrate an unexpected and hard fought championship. I became one of those 11-year-old boys. 

My boys

All good things come to an end. Boys turn into men and seasons conclude despite our begging. I miss it all, but more than anything I miss the sideline huddle with the excitement of a game hanging in the balance. Should I one day be granted the gift of reflection during my final hours on this planet, I shall consider the many blessings in my life. Included among them will be my years with the Bandits. I will reach for memories of my precious time in the company of such fine boys and smile gratefully for our days together. I shall immerse myself in the echoes of shoes squeaking on gym floors beneath the hum of fluorescent lights and intermittent whistles, and desperately grasp for the vision of their youthful faces encircling me on sidelines. And, should anyone ask who I would like to carry me to my final resting place, I will without hesitation say “The Bandits.”

Dance Like Nobody is Watching

I've taken some time off from the blog. I've been writing other things and living life. Here is something I submitted to a periodical I write for. Hope you enjoy.

This Week's Song - Mambo No. 5 - Lou Bega's dance hit from 1999 gets the heart pounding, the feet moving, and for some of us, the tears flowing. Turn it up! 

Shelby

“Play it again, Daddy!” she implores. At four years of age, she is my little rosy-cheeked-head-strong first born. I push the button on the CD player that returns the electronic thump to its starting point. Shelby’s feet begin to shuffle across the hardwood floor while I do my best imitation of John Travolta in Pulp Fiction. I take her hand and swing her wide. The giggles float skyward. We both dance like nobody’s watching. I’ve taught all of my kids there is no other way to dance. Find your beat and turn it loose. Then, suddenly, someone is watching. Her mother, Cheryl, summoned by the familiar words of a song we cannot remove from our heads, bounces down the stairs to join in, the three of us effortlessly falling into the throws of what has become our small tribal ritual. We are at the mercy and direction of a four-year-old child. “Do this, Daddy!” she implores as she waves her arms. We move around the coffee table in familiar rhythm, singing along with Lou Bega - A little bit of Monica in my life, A little bit of Erica by my side… There is laughter in abundance as our little creation laughs at, mimics, and directs her parent’s moves. It is the spring of 2000.

This memory plays in my head like a movie reel as I look out on the landscapes of the Lolo Pass in Idaho this week, the last miles of our journey passing beneath the Michelins. I usually bring it on myself, conjuring the scene from another life and planet. It generally makes me smile. For a father of a little girl, she is always four years old, dancing in a living room, the envied and unknowing possessor of pure innocence and joy. The emotion of the memory is amplified today, cutting and exact, hitting its mark as we make our way to her new school, her new town, her new life so far away. She is 20 years old.

Shelby, the author, and Sophie The Dog

The living room from the memory no longer exists, our first house having been leveled years after our move to make room for a church parking lot. The adoring mother, who was born to be her mother and who executed the complexities of the privilege with overwhelming love and skill, suddenly and shockingly departed life on a sad fall day before the melody of laughter and song faded into the doomed hardwood floors. Cheryl will always be 31, dancing to Lou Bega on Belleaire Drive. The music-laden memory is immortal as long as one, or in this case two people remain. And though I know Shelby has little if any memory of the moment or the mother she lost, here is Lou Bega’s hit emanating from the speakers of my little girl’s car from a CD she made. She’s heard the story. As I write this from the back seat, occasionally glancing at the beautiful Snake River to wipe hidden tears from beneath my sunglasses, I’m struck by the cruelty and beauty of parenthood and the power of music. Over the past four days, we have seen things we’ve never seen - the grandeur of the Rocky Mountains, the majesty of Grand Tetons and Yellowstone National Park, the wide open skies of Kansas and the glorious majesty of Montana. Nancy, the courageous and loving woman who married me and who has expertly and lovingly mothered Shelby since she was five, the woman who not only inherited but earned the vaunted title of “mommy,” rides along next to Shelby, gaping at the brilliance of our country. I am a blessed man, no doubt. Yet, while they are taking in the scenery, I’m in the back seat trying to figure out how I can somehow speed up this damn song or, in the very least, find, kill and dismember Lou Bega.

This child who provided a reason to dance, a reason to rejoice, and for a period of time, a reason to breathe, sings along with Lou just like she did when she was four while I shore myself against the storm of emotion brought on by the most upbeat song I’ve ever heard. The practical and seasoned lawyer in me has fled and is hiding somewhere in the mountains just beyond the horizon. I feel like the dad in the recent McDonald's commercial, the one crying in the shower about the son who has gone to college. Perhaps it is the journey of all parents. We go to soccer, basketball, and football games. We go to recitals and plays, followed by dinners with siblings and grandparents. We shop for Christmas presents and work harder to buy the perfect birthday gift while the clock ticks. We pay the orthodontist and give driving lessons while the sound of the ticking of the ever-present clock escapes us. We rarely heed the call or soak up the song. The next thing is always “about” to happen. How can we not see it coming? Those of you with adult children know of the moment you realize it. Those of you with young children should heed the call, pay just a little attention to the ticking of the clock and turn the music up. Way up. And, put on your dancing shoes.

On the road to Idaho

She completed two years at Tennessee as an honors student, but needed something else. She was led to serve as a counselor at a Christian camp in Washington last summer and now to a new chapter with a new set of friends on what feels like the other side of the world to a father who has done everything to keep her close. I’m once again reminded of my lack of control over life. I’ve ostensibly supported her quest since she told me her plan several months ago. During that time I've lived in constant fear of the airport goodbye, the blow of separation from this joyous and beautiful creature. Silly Daddy. While the selfish side of me is dying inside, the practical side of me is so proud and knows she is doing exactly as I directed - She is dancing like nobody is watching. She has found her beat and is turning it loose. She is happy. What more could a father ask for?