Manifestation of Male Hysterphilia in American Football

Now American football, the most purely masculine of team sports, strikes a responsive chord in the male psyche and has been described by psychoanalysts as an oedipal drama in which the sacred mother earth (end zone) is defended from the aggressive father (the offense). Players’ uniforms exaggerate male characteristics: oversized head, broad shoulders, narrow waists, [...]

Spared Rods and Spoiled Children

By O. Victor Miller In memory of Dan Fowler “O ye! Who teach the ingenious youth of nations, Holland, France, England, Germany or Spain.  I pray ye flog them upon all occasions, It mends their morals, never mind the pain” – Byron, Don Juan  The other day young Michael Brooks, publisher of Albany Magazine asked [...]

The Outer Darkness

O.Victor Miller  “Put out the light and then put out the light”–Othello “On the eve of our dear savior’s birth The bird of dawning singeth all night long”-Hamlet   Approaching the final Christmas of the millennium, I’m headed for north Georgia to pinch hit for Mary Hood’s creative writing class at Berry College, houseguest of [...]

Comic Shorts from an Albany Upbringing

Mr. Slappey By O. Victor Miller   One personality epitomized Slappey Drive and a tourist‑eye view of Albany, Georgia, more than any other who frequented the sidewalks of the Good Life City– a singular old codger who wore a gray wool overcoat winter and summer. Mr. Slappey, a tall, crane‑like apparition presumably named for Slappey drive, [...]

Chinaberries

By O. Victor Miller When I’m away from home, musing about my childhood in Southwest Georgia, Chinaberry trees always occupy a spot in the peripheral vision of my mind’s eye. They grow along the fences that parallel fields beside red dirt roads. They stand in the corners of horse lots or shade the sides of [...]

Quail, Dogs & Grandmothers

  By O. Victor Miller It helps to know that grandmothers are still in charge in the Deep South, that hunting bobwhite quail is still a rite of passage, that future sons-in-law and trade associates still have their virtues weighed by dogs and guns before sober investments of cash or daughters. Our folk have been [...]

Our Fathers Had Fly Rods

By O.Victor Miller Inspired by idyllic covers of outdoor sports magazines, our fathers acquired fly rods thinking incorrectly they’d know how to cast them. How hard can it be? The covers depicted happily mature men, briar pipe clenched into sublime grins, hooked up to an equally blissful rainbow with bright wet flies in the corners [...]

Sunday School

  By O.Victor Miller In Memory of John T. Phillips, Jr.             Mother was what they called high-strung.  She’d press the heels of her hands into the temples of her hairdo – her permanent—look to heaven and declare, “I can’t stand another minute,” at which point Tillie, the black saint respon­sible for our care and [...]