As I mentioned earlier, my 40th High School Reunion is this weekend, and I’m very, very excited about it.

I don’t know why I’m so pumped, I usually don’t look forward to things like this, but this time, I am.

I suppose it’s because (A.) It’s been 40 years, and( B.) I look so darn good!  You know, the gym, the diet, the tan!

Can’t wait!

But in preparing and thinking and planning, I’ve thought of a few people along the way.

There are some that won’t be there.

Some old friends are gone, taken too early, and many of our teachers are gone as well.

Several had a tremendous impact on me.  One doesn’t realize until later in life that the teachers you had in school do make a difference.

I may do more of this, but today  – It’s Mrs. Carson.

Like I said, it was later in life when I realized that this tiny Texan had a serious impact on my life, and the way I looked at life as well.

She seemed to be a hundred years old when were in school, but not so.  She was only in her late 50s.  Just like we are guys and gals, and she seemed to have been teaching since Shakespeare wrote the first sonnet, but again, not so.

Some things I remember: 

She loved Shakespeare and she loved Richard Burton.  She took her Senior English classes to see Anne of A Thousand Days as a field trip…because she loved the Tudors, English Lit, English History, and she looooooooooved Richard Burton.

She taught me that reading wasn’t just a past-time, but could be a vocation, a vacation, an escape, and a reality.  She taught me to read for fun.

She told me who Alexander Pope, Tennyson, and Oscar Wilde were and introduced me to wit, humor, and good taste in literature.

She pushed me to write, told me I could, and let me know in no uncertain terms when I was off base.

About 15 or 20 years after I graduated from high school, I was in a meeting with several co-workers.  It was “facilitated’ (80s word) by some seriously expensive speakers and trainers.  One of them quoted Oscar Wilde.  The quote, which I no longer remember, was not one of Oscar’s best, and he had some great ones.  During the course of the meeting, the trainer said, “I don’t know who Oscar Wilde is, but I think this quote says it all.” 

I was speechless!

After discussing the quote for a few minutes, I realized that out of 30 or 40 people in the room, I was the only one who knew squat about Oscar. 

And that was because of Mildred Carson. 

How all those college-educated-high-dollar sales people missed out is beyond me.  But Oscar, Will Shakespeare, and Lytton Stratchey were not beyond Mrs. Carson.  She made sure we knew who they were.

I found her address, sat down, and wrote her a letter thanking her for what she had taught me.  It started a correspondence that lasted until her son called me to tell me she had died;  at the age of 88.  He told me she had given him, and his sister each a list of people to call when her time came.   I was honored to be on it.   Her daughter read a “passage” (her words) from one of my letters at Mrs. Carson’s memorial service.  Ever the friend of mankind, she donated her body to science.

We wrote each other about once a month.  I always expected my letters to come back with red marks all over them, and labored over each word, sentence, phrase, and punctuation mark. 

But they never did. 

We shared books, sent birthday gifts, recipes, and rememberances.

One of my most prized possessions is a Roseville Pine Cone pottery nut dish she sent me when she knew she was dying.  It has a special place in the curio, and a special place in my heart.

So, thanks Mrs. Carson, for what you taught me, and for the fact that you cared if we learned, and cared what we learned.  You were a teacher who had a great impact!

I recently read an article called “8 Things Your House Guest Won’t Tell You.”

It was pretty tame, and I must say, incomplete.

It included, My water glass left a ring on your table.  After I turned out the light, I hit my knee on the bed. I’m hungry. I woke UP at the crack of dawn.  I hate the giant boquet in my room. I worry about waking you UP.  I’m really cold at night, or really hot.  and I can’t find a place to charge my phone. 

Seriously, YAWNIER than Yanni!

And they went on to sell you things, to make your guest feel more comfortable.

So, I’ve come UP with a few more…just to make it interesting.

• You have no taste what so ever, and that thrift store decor in the guest room gave me a headache!
• You may think your sheets are 600 thread count, but they feel like sandpaper!
• I (or my spouse as the case may be) peed all over the bathroom mat in the middle of the night because I (or he as the case may be) was too lazy to turn on the light. 
• Your Grandmother’s recipe for Tuna Casserole sucks – out loud!
• You need to UPdate your magazines in the crapper!
• And buy better toilet paper!
• You don’t walk, you stomp around your house!  Who can sleep with that going on?
• I thought someone had brought an earthmover into the yard, but then I realized it was your snoring!
• Your neighbors are running a meth-lab in their garage.
• You have bed-bugs, now!

Just so you’ll know.

Having grown UP in the dark ages, when we all ate dinner together at the same time at the same table in a room without a television, I’m sure I’m often considered a dinosaur.

But, alas, I often long for the days of yore when we all sat down to dinner, had a conversation, talked about our day, and Daddy read the Bible after we ate.

Things just aren’t that way any longer.

Simply because times change and the acceptance of bad-ish behavior increases, wrong doesn’t stop being wrong, and proper doesn’t stop being proper.

I’m not saying to use the right fork for the salad, and quite frankly, using one fork for salad and dinner does not bother me at all.

But there are some things that do.

Harking back to the dark ages of my youth, hats came off the heads of men the second they crossed the threshold.  Not so any more.  Men rarely remove their ball caps to eat in public, and it isn’t just at the Waffle House, it’s everywhere.

Here are some tips that will make MY dining experience more pleasant in the event you have the good fortune to dine with me or in the same restaurant.

• Don’t blow on your food, let it cool on it’s own.
• Never, never, never, never, never talk with your mouth full.
• Please don’t point at me with your knife.
• Don’t polish your teeth after dinner with a napkin, it’s to protect your jeans, and wipe that bar-b-que sauce from the corners of your mouth.
• Break your bread, don’t cut it, unless it’s toast…that’s OK according to Miss Manners.  And don’t slather butter on an entire piece of bread, butter each piece as you eat it.
• If you’re dining at someone’s home, don’t salt your food until you’ve tasted it.  A. It’s insulting to the cook, and B. they may like more salt than you do, and you don’t want to over do it.
• Don’t get drunk, it’s just tacky.
• Don’t spit food out into your napkin or onto your plate.  Miss Manners says to “remove it with what ever you used to put it in your mouth”.   If it’s finger food, take it out with your fingers.  And be careful with that fork!

Oh, yes, take your hat off!

Born August 12, 1939, George Hamilton is my tanning hero!

He is the eldest son of bandleader Spike Hamilton and his first wife, Ann Stevens.  He was born in Memphis, Tennessee, and lived in Blytheville, Arkansas. A mama’s boy, the 2009 film My One and Only is loosely based on Hamilton’s early life and relationship with his mother.

After moving to California, where he got a tan, he was put under contract by MGM, who stuck him in films like Home From The Hill, All The Fine Young Canibals, and Two Weeks In Another Town.  

Don’t feel badly, I’d never heard of them either!

 His stepfathers were Carleton Hunt and Jesse Spalding; his stepmother was June Howard, with whom Hamilton has said he had an affair when he was 12, shortly after she married his father

Ewwwww!

Hamilton began his film career in 1952, the year UP was born!

Although he has a substantial body of work in film and television, he is perhaps most famous for his debonair style and his perfect and perpetual suntan.

Which is what this is alllllllll about!

With his matinee-idol looks, it was sometimes noted that he physically resembled Warren Beatty.  I don’t see it!  But, Beatty’s political satire Bulworth contained a running gag about this, with Hamilton appearing as himself in a brief cameo, so maybe it’s just me.

One of his best-known MGM films was the 1960s’ Where The Boys Are,  “the” Spring Break movie of all time.  

This was the beginning of his serious tanning.  This was where he really reved it UP.

He starred in lots of movies and television shows.  He was pretty big in Hollywood until the advent of the “anti-hero” with men like Dustin Hoffman.

He was really pretty good in the Hank Williams story,  Your Cheatin’ Heart.

His real forte was comedy, He gave an excellent comic portrayal of the swordsman in 1981’s Zorro, The Gay Blade.  And he was nominated for a Golden Globe awards for both Love at First Bite and Zorro.

Starring roles went the way of all flesh for George and he landed on TV.  Saying a big Thank Goodness for Aaron Spelling.  Dynasty was his big TV break. 

He later became a regular on TV’s The Match Game.

But, he was still tan! 

He landed back in the movies tanner than ever in The Godfather, III.  But then, everyone was in that movie.  And I’m sure most regretted it.

He was in the second season of DWTS.  He was booted in the sixth round, doing better than his son would a few years later, and better than Hate Kate Gosselin.

He dated LBJ’s daughter, Lynda Bird Johnson.  She was pasty white, he was tan.

He also married Rod Stewart’s ex, Alana.  They had a TV show together.   She was pasty white, he was tan!

In the late 1980s Hamilton launched a line of skin-care products and tanning salons. 

He was still tan!

He had some famous friends, Elizabeth Taylor

and Imelda Marcos.

He was still more tan than they were!

Back in 1966, George told Sheila Graham, “I have never confused breeding with money. My mother and I and my two brothers have had hard times – never exactly poor, but never rich. But we have always had good taste and good manners. It’s not what you do, but how you do it.” 

George is my Tanning Hero!