The McCollumn - 12/27: "Bah humbug for a reason"

   I often get accused of being a “Scrooge” this time of year, and I can’t say that reputation is undeserved.

  The Christmas season does tend to bring out my worst side, but, as a veteran of the War on Christmas, you’ll forgive me if I occasionally lapse into PTHSD (post traumatic holiday stress disorder).

I served my tour of duty during the War on Christmas right next door at Auburn University, a campus so rigidly conservative in its political and religious beliefs that calling it a “bastion of Christendom” seems insufficient.

The War began here back in 2005, when then Auburn University College Republicans president Laura Steele and her minions became incensed at a name change for Auburn’s annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony.

Due to some changes in the ceremony itself (including the addition of a menorah and other non-Christmas tree lighting fixtures), the SGA thought it wise to change the name of the ceremony to the “Holiday Tree Lighting Ceremony.”

Steele and her followers became incensed, declaring that Auburn was “trying to take the Christ out of Christmas” and even made it onto Fox News, where anchor Sean Hannity helped add further fuel to the fire.

Due to Steele’s impassioned response, the SGA later formed a student committee, the Holiday Tree Lighting Committee, to address the issue and try to form a “less provocative” name.

Because of my position in the student media at Auburn (and the fact that the sitting Plainsman editor made me), I was named to the committee but tried hard not to interfere with its workings.

The only suggestion I ever made was that the committee’s initial idea of renaming it the “Festival of Lights” might be problematic, as that nomenclature is already in use by the Jewish faith (Hanukkah) and Hindus (Diwali).

When my involvement with the committee became public, Steele’s replacement at the AUCR, Auburn’s own Kristi Cottrell, was angered and demanded my removal from the group, as she was certain I would be up to no good, what with my horrid political correctness and all.

What she had to fear from an Opelikan who was raised Southern Baptist at Opelika’s First Baptist Church is beyond my comprehension, but, due to my title as president of the College Democrats, I was, apparently, suspect and probably a pinko Commie, too.

Rather than cause more unnecessary fuss, I gladly accepted their forced resignation, but not before the story was picked up by the local daily paper, which ran the story on its front page.

Ever since then, I have always gotten at least two or three comments made to me about that debacle each Christmas season – people asking if I was going to rename it a “Kwanzaa bush” or a “Saturnalia Spruce” ... as if Douglas firs were a regular feature of first-century Judea.

Now, every time I hear of some new report or way that Christmas is being “persecuted” here in America, I can’t help but roll my eyes.

There is legitimate persecution in this world: Christians being jailed for publicly professing their faith in countries like China and North Korea, believers being targeted and killed in countries like Egypt and Syria simply for attending their churches. Someone saying “Happy Holidays” to you instead of your preferred “Merry Christmas” is not persecution, even though some of you try to stretch the definition of “persecution” to make it so.

The phrase “Happy Holidays” does not stop you from freely worshipping God in your chosen fashion. It does not oppress you or try to stifle you in any fashion.

Take a look at what other believers have to go through across the world, and then fall to your knees in contemplative prayer to thank God for the blessing of being born in this country.

We really ought to consider ourselves lucky that the idiotic “Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays” battle is apparently what passes for “persecution” here. Were that our friends in the Far East were so lucky.

I hope you all had a pleasant Christmas and I wish you all a pleasant New Year ... or, in other words: Happy Holidays.

A native Opelikan, Cliff McCollum is an amateur field herpetologist, news editor and chicken salad mogul. 

The McCollumn - 9/6: "Life lessons from a drive-thru window"

A few years ago, I was inadvertently introduced to a series of sentence fragments that would forever alter the course of my life.

I was going through the drive-thru at the Burger King in Opelika with my friend Bobby, eagerly awaiting our order of fries and Coke-flavored Icees.

As we pulled up to the window to pay for our purchases, we were met by a heavy-set woman with long DayGlo colored fingernails who mumbled the price incoherently and grabbed the $20 from my hand the minute I stuck it out of the window.

She quickly tapped several buttons on the register, eventually hitting the magic one that allowed the register to open to produce our change.

As she handed me my change and our order, she uttered those life-changing and mystifying fragments: “ ’Preciate it. Have a day.”

Bobby and I thanked her and I rolled up my window as we started to speed out of the parking lot.

“What did she just say?” I asked Bobby. “Did she really just say...”

“‘Preciate it. Have a day,’” Bobby replied. “That’s what she said.”

I hardly knew where to begin.

As an undergraduate English major, I have to watch myself to keep my inner pedantic grammarian in check.

I’m a threat to take the trusty red pen and correct copy mistakes I see out in the world.

When presented with such a lovely example of authentic sentence fragments as a part of real world dialogue, my inner English teacher jumped for joy.

“Have a day,” I repeated, trailing off as I reached the end. “What kind of day am I supposed to have? There’s no adjective there.”

Was I supposed to have a good day filled with joy, happiness and gratuitous action scenes filled with explosions?

Was I fated to have a horrible day filled with enough angst and grief to make 19th-century German literature seem exuberant and buoyant by comparison?

Where was my adjective, that delightful, necessary word to give that noun “day” a sense of direction and purpose?

“Maybe that’s just it,” Bobby said. “Maybe she just means have a day. Make your own day, you know?”

When Bob’s right, he’s right. “‘Preciate it. Have a day,” has become a bit of a personal mantra, a way to bolster my spirits and prepare myself for whatever day may lie ahead of me.

Good or bad, I should “’preciate” the life I have, the living I’m allowed to continue.

There is no adjective there because we are empowered to adjectivize our own days.

We have to take power of our own lives and mold our actions to create the world in which we want to live.

If you want to have a happy day, choose to be happy. Make choices and decisions you think will make you happy.

If you are determined to have a bad day, go all out and wallow in self pity and sorrow until you’ve created your own Sylvia Plath scenario. Just don’t put your head in that oven – it’s not worth it.

You can’t be passive when it comes to you; you must be an advocate and lobbyist for your own best interests.

I don’t know what sort of life experiences led that noble Burger King employee to impart that wisdom to Bobby and me, but we will be forever indebted to her.

To this day, we generally end our phone conversations and meetings with those two simple sentence fragments, reminding ourselves we can have whatever kind of day we want to have.

In life, there will always be what I like to call “peripheral people,” the random background actors that will occasionally bless you with words of hope or wisdom.

These peripheral people can be anyone or everyone, so you must have constant vigilance in looking for them.

If you don’t wake up and pay attention, you may miss the unadorned brilliance of an error-laced non sequitur or throw-away factoid.

Keep an eye out and an ear open for your peripheral people. You’ll appreciate it and have a day.

A native Opelikan, Cliff McCollum is not someone who can easily be explained. Cliff tries to live his life rejecting the notion that we can all be summed up in a few simple sentences like these – and has resisted having one of these at the end of his column for years. But, since he must ... he enjoys amateur field herpetology and serving up chicken salad and caustic comments at downtown Opelika’s Cottage Cafe.

The McCollumn - 8/23: "Runaway ring: a tale of how wedded bliss almost wasn't"

Weddings are always exceedingly interesting affairs, especially from the standpoint of a dedicated people watcher like yours truly.

And, when given a prime vantage point for such viewing, say as the officiating minister, one could automatically expect some sort of hilarity to occur.

One would be right – except the unintentional comedy was primarily caused by ... me.

Rural Coosa County was the setting for the weekend’s festivities, the nuptials of friends Brent Massey and the-then Beth Bishop. I was there, with my reverend hat on, to help proceed over the ceremonies as best as I could muddle through, backed by passages from my trusty King James Version and a ceremony crafted by the bride herself.

Overall, the whole shindig went somewhat smoothly, despite my somewhat inborn affinity for rather mucking such things up.

I should have recognized the omen of what could be to come when the Google and Apple Map functions on my phone both tried to assure me that a private residence with large, unfriendly looking dogs was the wedding venue site.

As if worrying about being mauled by Cujo and Cujette wasn’t enough, the ... rural aesthetic ... of the home in question made me wonder if the residents possibly a) were kin to the Hatfields or the McCoys; b) were aware that indoor plumbing wasn’t a fad; c) were pointing an unseen weapon somewhere in my vicinity.

Thankfully, the owners were sitting on their porch and were kind enough to point me in the correct direction. Allegedly, confused lay pastors have shown up quite often on their driveway.

Before the actual ceremony, I had taken the couple’s rings with me for safe keeping, slipping them into the pages of the chapter in Colossians I planned to use with the ring pledge.

Just before kickoff, I began to review my pages and make sure I had the lines, but when I flipped to the New Testament, I saw only the groom’s ring.

There are few moments of panic like when one has been entrusted with something like this and manages to make a mess of it, but I believe only the grandparents might have noticed the color slightly drain from my face and the grimace of exasperation and fear.

I immediately ran back to inform my date Lane of the predicament, who looked at me with the biggest “Oh, crap” look I’ve ever seen.

We began our scouring of the surrounding area, searching for the sheen from the tiny precious metals or shiny stones.

Thankfully, my hawk eye caught a glimpse of the jewelry and I perhaps too casually attempted the old “Silly me, I have to tie my shoe” bend and grab (despite the fact I was wearing loafers without laces).

However, in the upswing back to fully standing, I conked my head on a brick overhang, sending me reeling backward into an unused piece of patio furniture at the outdoor venue. Several wedding attendees were treated to the show. 

See – weddings don’t have to be boring affairs. A little surprise, a little physical comedy; what’s not to love?

Lane and I decided it would, perhaps, not be the best idea to inform the happy couple of this particular incident the day of their wedding. Words like “murder” and “horrible dismemberment” might have been used; one’s memory is fuzzy.

However, I feel the newly-minted Masseys are a fun-loving and, hopefully, forgiving couple, so I hope they won’t mind me sharing those stories.

Congratulations and wonderful well-wishes for your lovely life together, kids.

A native Opelikan, Cliff McCollum is an amateur field herpetologist and newspaper creator extraordinaire. When he’s not teaching a class at the high school, attending city council or writing this column, you might find him serving chicken salad plates at Cottage Cafe. His sense of humor is exceeded only by his love for the Opelika community.

The McCollumn - 8/2: "For the love of Farmville"

I love my e-farm.

Honestly, I’m only about two generations removed from an agrarian family history, so my interest in tilling online dirt on Farmville is some inborn trait manifesting itself because I can’t actually muster the ability to grow real plants.

Farmville makes me have psychological meltdowns. A game on a social networking site shouldn’t be allowed to do that to me.

Then, I see articles in the New York Times and other publications on how people are planning their lives around Farmville, and I think not “Wow, are those people nutjobs?” but “Huh, maybe I can find some tips.” This scares me.

I gladly wander onto neighboring farms to fertilize seedlings for them or to help feed their chickens or cows.

Considering the general public’s backlash about clogging up news feeds with adverts, I chose not to have the gaming app post to my newsfeed.

I like Farmville now, but I worry about what can happen to a game when it gets noteworthy popularity.

Will real world agribusiness problems start to pop up within that realm?

Will there be a push to allow users to grow medicinal marijuana in states that have legalized that practice?

Can users be allowed to have their farms go organic, being offered more coins for choosing to be safer?

Will there be a Farmville EPA to swoop in for possible contaminations for having too many animals in a pen or having cows too close to the soybean crop?

Where are all of these coins coming from? Are we selling them to some sort of invisible consumer or are we getting government subsidies?

Should I grow e-corn so I can get an online ethanol kickback to buy some Internet carbon credits from Al Gore’s Interweb?

For that matter, why are we being paid in coins? I thought that sort of thing went out with the freeing of the Serfs. I mean, I don’t want to throw around the word “sharecropping,” but … it makes you wonder.

If we’re allowed to join forces with other farmers, could we soon form large agribusiness conglomerates (or, hippy-dippy communes … I suppose)?

Could we lobby our Farmville designers to put higher tariffs on Farmville crops coming in from overseas?

Of course, if tariffs are raised, we could see a vast amount of e-migration to get IP addresses on this side of the border. Get ready for some angry letters, Facebook.

Now that Facebook is popping up with memorial pages, I’d like to have an e-will put on the record on how to divvy up my farm after the Farmville government takes out the estate tax.

(For that matter, in the event of my untimely demise, anyone who attempts to create a memorial page on Facebook and anyone who would write on the wall of said page will be haunted by me for the rest of their natural days. You’ve been warned, readers.)

Are these legitimate concerns? No, probably not at all.

I’m well-established in the community for being slightly insane, so take that into account.

But, all of this is what comes into my head every time my online flannel-clad self harvests soybeans.

Well, that and how to taint those virtual soybeans to further my hatred for all things vegan. (Vegans, you’ve been warned, too.)

The McCollumn - 7/26: "Finding 'love' between pages"

One of the many joys of working here at the “Double O” usually happens a few times during each school year, when Editor Fred Woods will pop his head into my office and say those wonderful words:

“You wanna go read at Darden with us tomorrow?”

For years now, Fred and other members of the Opelika Kiwanis Club have joined with Jean Dean Reading is Fundamental and the indomitable Cathy Gafford to read books and give out copies to the children at the Darden Head Start Program.

Gafford always warms the kids up when we get there by telling them why all these strange looking adults are barely fitting in the kids’ tiny chairs.

She lets them come to us to pick out their book, the one we’ll put their name in and that they can then call their very own from then on. For some, sadly, it might be the first book they own, or one of the only ones in their home.

Then, we’ll split into groups and read the books with the kids, asking them to help us along as we read.

Young though these tykes may be, they have a wisdom and humor about them that is beyond their years.

Cases in point:

Case I: Cliff is reading “Hattie and the Fox” one morning at Darden Head Start with three kids

Cliff: What noise does a goose make?

Little girl: Mooooooooooo.

Cliff: Uh huh. And where did you meet this mooing goose?

Little girl: My grandmama got one.

(Well, that showed me, didn’t it?)

Case II: Cliff notices an interesting name inside of a kid's book (Michael Jackson) as he’s attempting to read with him

Cliff: Michael, do you know that there’s a famous singer who was named Michael Jackson?

Michael: Yeah, I’m named after him. He was the King of Thrillers!

Cliff: ... Yes. Yes, he was, son.

I probably goof around with the kids more than I should, but Ms. Cathy is kind enough to tolerate my insanity, as she has for decades now.

She then calls the kids back together and asks them if they know why we’ve all come there to be with them today.

Many say “to bring us books,” and Gafford will tell them “Well, that’s true, too.”

However, she’ll eventually find her central thesis, the one that may or may not have this columnist’s eyes mist up from time to time.

“We’re here because we love you,” Gafford always says. “We love each and every one of you, and that’s why we’re here to read to you, to give you books, and to have fun with you. It’s because we love all of you.”

She always sells the line because she genuinely means it, and always has. It’s rare to come into contact with truly kind, no ulterior motives people, but Cathy Gafford is such a person.

She’s just here to show love to kids, one copy of “Hats for Sale,” “Hattie and the Fox,” or “Who Sank the Boat?” at a time.

Thank goodness for that.

The McCollumn - 6/21: "Eligible, but not ready"

I checked my mail the other morning, and had my interest piqued by a letter from the First Baptist Church of Opelika.

Inside, a letter addressed “Dear Friend” informed me I was allegedly now eligible to serve as a member of the church’s deacon board, should I choose to stand for election.

I in no way wish to sound disrespectful when I say this, but receiving that letter made me laugh for a solid three to four minutes.

---

According to church bylaws, I may, in fact, be “eligible” to serve, but I certainly am not “qualified.”

When I think of the men qualified to be deacons at that church, my name does not appear among the ranks, even in my own mind.

Men like my father spring to mind, temperate, seasoned veterans of the church - the calm, cool considerate set. Maybe this letter was meant for him - the reigning Cliff McCollum - and was only sent to me by accident.

I state my lack of qualifications not to be vicious or mischievous, but to show how wrong I am as a candidate, demonstrating absurdity perhaps by being absurd.

I am not “the husband of one wife,” “sensible,” or “dignified”; I don’t think I fit the quality of “not quarrelsome,” either (1 Tim. 3:2-3).

I’m fairly certain I don’t “manage [my] own household well” and I have no children to keep “submissive” or “respectful in every way” (and having met kids these days, I’m not sure I want that unenviable task. I’m still at that point in life where children seem to be an incurable form of STD.)

I concede I do fit the qualities about not being a “recent convert,” and I imagine I’m “well thought of by outsiders” (honestly, it’s the insiders I’d really be more worried about).

I admit freely that my attendance has been ... lax ... and I’ve always felt deacons, like the Lord, should be omnipresent (at least within the church).

I have been known to, on occasion, write in women on my deacon ballot, a decided Southern Baptist faux pas. I maintain I only submitted the names of people I knew to be serious, well-thought of candidates, but it was not meant to be.

---

Also included inside of the envelope from the church was a small postcard with some writing on it.

I, the potential deacon candidate, was supposed to check my intention to run in a pre-printed box. 

If I can offer no better proof that I do not belong on such an august body, may I point to this: I seem to have misplaced the card.

Church office, please consider this my official notice that I do not wish to be a candidate for deacon.

Thank you kindly for the offer, but we both know it wouldn’t be the best idea.

I’m eligible, but I’m far from ready.

Author’s note: Since history has shown me my words have an odd way of being misinterpreted, let me state here and now that this column was meant to be seen as a light-hearted, jovial column.

In no way do I wish to demean or attack First Baptist Church Opelika or its deacon board filled with compassionate, caring Christian men - many of whom I’ve known and looked up to for most of my life.

My purpose with this piece was more an act of self-deprecation, or, to paraphrase an old Groucho Marx line - I just don’t want to belong to any club that would have someone like me as a member.

The McCollumn - 5/3: "Ed Williams, -30-"

A chapter of the history of Alabama journalism comes to a close this week, as longtime journalism professor and former Auburn Plainsman adviser Ed Williams’ retirement became official this week.

For 30 years, Williams has been the gatekeeper of the Auburn journalism department, through his JRNL 1100 class (Journalism Fundamentals) where students made their way through AP style spelling tests and other copy editing conundrums.

Those who passed moved on to bigger and better things within the department; those who didn’t found themselves searching for other, less strenuous majors.

Through his work as adviser at The Auburn Plainsman, Williams left indelible marks on the souls of hundreds of budding journalists, impressing upon them some of the basic tenets of journalism that he had honed working at community newspapers across the state.

Every bit of marked-up copy taught you a lesson.

Every “Who he?” or “Who they?” in a photo caption taught us that names matter, and we must be constantly vigilant in making sure we find out our subjects’ names (and be certain we spell them correctly.)

Williams taught us, through his words and actions, that one of the journalist’s highest callings is to take on the role of a storyteller.

Like his dear friend Kathryn Tucker Windham before him, Williams could spin a good yarn, and, regardless of where you might be from, Williams would likely have a tale or two from your hometown - one that you may have never even heard before.

In his simple, quiet way, Williams reached out and offered a hand of friendship to countless numbers of students. A visit to his Foy basement office back during his Plainsman days might have netted you a glass bottle Coke, some Lance peanut butter crackers and, most importantly, some excellent story-swapping time.

The Williams legacy can be seen on the pages of papers and in newsrooms across the nation, from here in small town Alabama to the halls of 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York City.

No matter where we are or what we may do in our lives, we Williamsian disciples carry with us the lessons we so dutifully learned from that wonderful man.

While we find ourselves saddened that future generations will be deprived the gold standard that was the “Ed Williams experience,” we know that the man and his legend will continue on.

I’m proud to call Ed Williams a friend and mentor, and I know I am not alone in wishing him an enjoyable and restful retirement, even if I firmly believe that he won’t be at rest terribly long.

Professor Williams, you have brought joy and wisdom to the lives of thousands of Auburn students over the course of your career, and your actions and kindnesses will forever change the face of journalism in the state of Alabama.

Wherever there’s an Ed Williams’ student, there will be a journalist who takes pride in their work, who safely guards their subjects’ stories, and who attempts the cleanest, most vigorous writing they can.

We thank you for your time and efforts in helping to make us better people. Congratulations, my friend.