Helping my mom clean out some old stuff from her attic, we found some old newspapers. (One as old as 1918.) There are some interesting articles in these rags — interesting from the angle of “what was going on in the world and town way back then.”

The movie listing to the right is from August 20, 1981. (I was 14 at that time.) We had four movie theaters in our small town, but two of them wouldn’t last out of the 80s; one didn’t see ’85.

The Paramount and the Park Theater were old-style theaters — one screen, velvet red seats; the Paramount had a balcony, and the Park had mirrored foyer and restroom hall. Neither theater lasted out of the 80s.

The Mall and Plaza theaters were more contemporary for the 80s — dull and boring. They both lasted through the late 90s, but they’re both now churches.

Of the movies shown in the newspaper listing, I saw Zorro the Gay Blade and Heavy Metal in the theater. I saw History of the World on TV many years later. Weapons of Death, I’ve never seen. Of the others mentioned, I think I’ve seen at least part of The Blue Lagoon, on TV many years ago. Deadly Blessing and The Jade Claw don’t sound familiar.

I don’t remember anything about this version of Zorro other than I think I thought it was funny at the time. I remember parts of Heavy Metal and I remember those parts as interesting enough that I’m considering renting it to watch again. History of the World is a beautiful Mel Brooks classic that I remember many parts of.

I considered adding some quotes, here, from History, but the ones I can remember are slightly vulgar or rely on visual gags.

Although all these listed theaters are closed now, there is a new theater in my hometown — it opened this decade — but the couple times I’ve been to it have been disappointing. It looks all modern and good on the outside, but the inside is not as advertised, and the employees are slack at their duties. But then, I’ve been spoiled by the grand theaters in my current home city.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

While in my hometown, my mom and I stopped by the local grocery store to pick up a few items. You can’t find Piggly Wiggly stores everywhere in the country, but they’re scattered here and there at least in my home state.

We went to the store to pick up some steak and other items for a standard grill out, but while in the meat section I saw some items I haven’t seen in a few years.

I’ve known people who ate these things, some in my family, but I don’t know anyone who eats them now. (No, I’ve never eaten these things.) I would have thought this kind of fare was a lost taste, but finding them in the grocery, prominently displayed in a large selection tells me there’s still folks who like this stuff.

Pig feet. The only way to make these look and smell nastier is to pickle them.

Pig feet for the whole family.

Pig ears. The dropped blood on the package just shouts, “Come and get it!”

Pig skins. Okay, I’ll admit that I have eaten these — although not in at least 25 years.

I also took a picture of a package of chitlins (pig intestines), but the image was too bad to tell what they were.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

The boys and I saw part of a TV program showing a martial arts expert breaking bricks. Calfgrit7 asked me to stop on that channel to see what was going on. We’ve seen part of this show before, but I don’t know the name of it. They use science to check sports facts and myths (it’s not Mythbusters), and this particular episode was checking if shouting or grunting made any real difference in an athlete’s power.

We watched a guy break 10 concrete bricks with his forearms with and without a yell. He did better with the yell. In discussing what we were seeing, why he wanted to yell, I mentioned that I had broken concrete bricks, myself. Calfgrit7 was interested in this. I said, “I think we have a video of my black belt test.” I looked through our family videos, and sure enough, there was my Tae Kwon Do black belt test tape.

I took it off the shelf and pushed it into the VCR. I earned my black belt in TKD just a couple months before Calfgrit7 was born, and though I tried to keep up some self training at home for a couple years, I haven’t done any real training in the years that he can remember. So watching this video was a first for him seeing his dad doing “cool stuff” like fighting (sparring) and breaking things with punches and kicks.

He saw me defending against an attacker, and he was impressed when I knocked or twisted the guy down. I explained that this was just a test to show that I knew the moves for how to defend myself, and that we weren’t really hitting hard enough to hurt each other. But then the video came to the sparring — actual fighting, with padding on our heads, torsos, fists, and feet. I was fighting two guys at once, and we could hear the audience around the camera cheering me on. It was actually pretty exciting to watch. I mean, it’s no Ultimate Fighting Challenge in the Octagon, but it was me, Calfgrit7’s daddy in action.

And then he saw me fall down — hey, I was fighting two guys at one time, who both already had their black belts! — and he laughed. Okay, enough of the fighting . . . I fast forwarded the video to me getting ready to break two concrete bricks. At the time of the video, I had only broken one brick at a time before, twice. In the video, I approached the bricks, held up by two concrete cinder blocks, and got into position for a downward smash with my right hand. I took a couple of slow line up moves, and then stood up and back away.

“Are you going to break them, Daddy,” Calfgrit7 asked.

“Yes,” I said. “I’m just getting ready.”

I was intently watching my face on the video. This was the first time I’ve watched this since right after the test, but I could remember what was going on in my head and body at that time. For one thing, I was very tired, exhausted. Before the bricks were set up, I had already been doing calisthenics, maneuvers, defenses, and sparring for half an hour, in front of an audience (the part I hated the most). I knew I couldn’t let the tiredness make me sloppy or else I’d just smack the top brick and hurt myself.

In the video, I stepped up to the bricks again, and got into position. Watching the video, I was getting excited again. I glanced over at Calfgrit7 and saw him watching intently. I noticed even Calfgrit3 was watching now.

My video self struck down and smashed through the two blocks with a strong yell. Hearing the applause on the video made me feel proud. (I don’t remember hearing the applause live. I was very much in a zone.)

“Wow,” Calfgrit7 said.

I beamed at him.

“Have you ever broken as many as that guy on the sports show?” he asked.

“Uh, no.” I said, hearing some of the hot air hissing out of my ego balloon. “I only broke two.”

And then everyone’s attention went elsewhere.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

I was at work and my cell phone buzzed. It was Cowgrit calling me from home. “Hello,” I answered. I could hear the Calvesgrit in the background, and it sounded like the littlest was crying.

Cowgrit said, “Calfgrit3 is hurt. I need you to come home and help me.”

“OK,” I said, “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.” (It’s a 15 minute drive from the office to home.)

I saved my computer work and hustled out of my office to my car. I wasn’t worried because my wife didn’t sound upset.

Cowgrit is a nurse (RN). She was a full-time pediatric nurse for several years, and she’s been a part-time (four days a month) maternity ward nurse since Calfgrit7 was born. I’m thankful for her knowledge and experience in pediatrics almost daily, and especially with incidents like what she called me for. No matter how bad something with the boys looks to me, if she’s not worried about it, I can stay calm. I knew, whatever this problem was, she sounded calm on the phone. If the hurt was really bad, she would have told me to meet them at the hospital — so probably nothing broken or bleeding a lot.

But before I got home, she called my cell phone again. She was taking him to the doctor’s office, and I should go to meet them there. She said Calfgrit3 had fallen and hit his head, beside his eye, on a table. The area was swelling faster than she could stop it with an ice pack, so she wanted the doctor to see him. She said she didn’t think there was any serious damage, but it was bad enough to get a doctor’s opinion.

She was still calm, but I could tell the concern in her voice. Calfgrit3 had stopped crying in the background. (He was eating some crackers; Goldfish can soothe any crying child.)

I arrived at the doctor’s office just a few minutes after my family. When I stepped into the examining room and saw Calfgrit3, I said, “Whoa!” He had a big ole goose egg on the corner of his eye. It looked like he had half a golf ball under his skin. He was playing happily with Calfgrit7, apparently unbothered by the injury.

Cowgrit told me some of the swelling had gone down — good lord, how bad was it before I saw it? She told me the story of the incident: They had gone across the street to visit a neighbor. Within moments of them getting in the house, Calfgrit3 tripped and fell, hitting the corner of his eye on a table. The bump had started growing immediately, so she rushed him back across the street to put ice on it. She also gave him some pain med. She checked to see if it looked like his eye was damaged, but she thought it just a bump. But when the bump just kept getting bigger, to the point of closing his eye, she decided the doctor was needed.

Eventually the doctor came in and examined Calfgrit3. The doc checked his eye, ears, nose, and the goose egg. She felt around his eye socket to determine if anything was broken. She said everything looked fine, and that this was just a bump. “Keep putting cold on it till it goes down completely. It’ll look real bad for the next couple of days,” she said. But there was apparently no real damage to his skull or eye. Whew.

A day later, sure enough, it looks real bad. The swelling is mostly gone, but all around his eye is various shades of black and blue, and green and yellow. His eye lid is all black. Calfgrit3 acts perfectly normal, like he has no discomfort. It’s kind of funny, in a disturbing way, to see a cute, smiling little boy looking up at you with that big, ugly shiner around his eye. In a few more days, there’ll be no sign of this injury. Kids heal so fast.

Cowgrit is great at moments like that incident. Had I been the only parent with him when his eye swole up like that, I would have freaked out. I’d have probably gone directly to the hospital emergency room fearing a concussion or lost eye.

And if a degree and experience in pediatric nursing was not great enough for a mother, she also has a degree in elementary education. I am so lucky to have Cowgrit as the mother of my children.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com