I GOT A CAT TO SOLVE A MOUSE PROBLEM—and Found Something Else Entirely...

Bluebottles & Dustbunnies:

A Southern Gothic War Story

(Told by a Cat)

IN THE FALL OF 2012 my family and I moved from the suburbs into an antebellum home (c. 1801) in Franklin, Tennessee. Tall ceilings. Long hallways. Mantled fireplaces. Trapdoors. Wide-planked wood floors. It was beautiful and alive in ways I couldn’t quite explain. 

The antebellum "Sweet Home" in Franklin, TN

We were leasing it from an octogenarian named Livingfield More, a World War II veteran. He took kindly to me because he had served as an American guard at Dachau in 1945, and I had visited the Dachau Concentration Camp twice as a child. The house carried his history—its austerity, its discipline. It felt ordered but not entirely controlled. 

My brother & me in front of the ovens of Dachau (c.1979)

And then there were the mice. Not one or two (you never only have one mouse), but enough to make it clear this wasn’t just a nuisance—it was a system. Something was happening beneath the surface of what we could see. 

This photo goes without saying.

So, we did what people do. We adopted a cat from Music City Animal Rescue (MARS). His name was Wesson. He had green eyes that, strangely, reminded me of my own. From the beginning, Wesson didn’t feel like a pet. He felt like a presence—alert, observant, still in a way that suggested he was always listening to something we couldn’t hear. Well… like a cat, I suppose. 

Daughters Edith (left) and Jane (right) the day we adopted Wesson.

And then, within three months, he was gone. 

 No warning. No long illness. Just a sudden absence that didn’t make sense. We found him in his bed by the wood-burning fireplace in the kitchen. What we could piece together pointed to rat poison: likely residue left behind in the barn from years before. Something unseen. Something lingering. 

We buried him in the backyard. The house felt different after that. Quieter. But not in a peaceful way. 

Burying our cat outside the herb garden.

For a few days, I brooded over it. Over the feeling that something about it didn’t add up. Not logically. Not emotionally. The kind of rationalizing that follows grief. 

 And then a thought came to me that I couldn’t shake: What if he didn’t just find the poison… what if he was led to it? 

I know how bezerk that sounds, but that was the moment the idea of Bluebottles & Dustbunnies came to me.

Me at one of my writing spaces at Sweet Home.

• The mice were no longer just mice. 
• The flies were no longer just flies. 
• The house was no longer just a house. 

It became a system. A layered world operating just beneath perception. A quiet war where territory mattered. Where intelligence existed without language. Where introducing something innocent—like Wesson—into an old, established environment could be perceived as resistance, no matter how small or harmless he seemed. 

Though narrated by a cat, Bluebottles & Dustbunnies is a story about the systems we don’t see, the territories we assume are ours, and the quiet, often invisible forces that shape our lives without asking permission. But it took me thirteen years to realize that, from a storytelling perspective, it was Wesson who was the lens through which that world revealed itself. Because he was a cat, and, therefore, "closer to the ground" than I was. He was paying attention. 

The fields around Sweet Home

provide a never-ending supply of field mice.

We’ve had five cats since then. But what stayed with me about Wesson was the sense that a mysterious blend of Oligocene instinct, feline wisdom, and lethal capabilities was part of something much larger and ancient than human knowing. A precipice over a looming ravine up to which I stepped without realizing it. 

 And once you feel that, you can’t unfeel it so easily.

Robbie Grayson III is founder of Traitmarker Media, LLC, in Franklin, Tennessee, where he functions as Story Liaison, blending publisher, promoter, and publicist roles. 

"Wringing in the Sheaves" | A Student Tribute for Aubrey Bruce Wring (May 4, 1943-July 15, 2023)

Aubrey Bruce Wring | May 4, 1943-July 15, 2023

In July 2023, I learned that an old headmaster of mine had passed away. To my surprise, he had been living close enough for me to attend his memorial service in Olive Branch, Mississippi, so my wife and I made the drive. Bruce Wring founded a small American Christian school in Herforst, Germany, just a stone's throw from the gates of Spangdahlem Air Force Base back in the late 1970s. Having been born in 1972, my memories of that time are those of a child, mostly positive and probably a bit distorted. There was no diagnosis for ADHD back then, so the collective assumption was either that I was retarded or obnoxiously evil. I attended Bitburg Elementary School (a Department of Defense school) from 1977-1980 before my father transferred me to Eifel Christian Academy.

Bitburg Elementary School (circa 1977)

Bitburg Elementary School was drab and, at least to my recollection, impersonal. Though painted, from its boxy, Cold War structure to the cobblestoned area on which students would gather to enter the building where it sloped from the perimeter to its middle, creating a massive puddle on rainy days that could easily soak you if you splashed through. The playground was more construction dirt than grass, and the standard playground equipment we Gen-Xers were raised on dotted the torrid landscape: swings that could strangle you if you twisted, merry-go-rounds that gave concussions if you were spun off, and monkey bars on which you could climb punishing to your balls if you slipped. There were also plenty of hiding spots for fistfights and make-out sessions (among the middle schoolers). I used to hang out with kids behind the large dumpster. For what, I can’t rightly remember. I think we were some sort of club.

Initially, as a latchkey kid, I went home for lunch in the afternoons but rarely returned to school on time. I was too busy picking on younger student stragglers or rifling through lunchboxes in the fourth- and fifth-grade student stairwells. I was also naturally disruptive (probably because I was a middle child). The teacher putting me and my desk outside the room didn’t help, because I would wander the halls. Sending me to the principal didn’t work because I enjoyed answering his questions. Sending me to the counselor was great because he’d give me a jawbreaker from the glass jar.

One day, my first-grade teacher brought in a cardboard box the size of a refrigerator. I was intrigued until she put it over me and my desk (the top was open). I think that experiment lasted for two days. But as bored, none of it was curative. I think my parents came to the end of their rope when I would routinely wander the military base after school, would invite myself over to into people’s houses, or joined in the occasional football game, losing track of time, often coming home with holes in my pants and mud on my shirt.

Eifel Christian Academy (circa 1980)

Eifel Christian Academy was quaint and personal. Before we left the house in the morning, we followed a routine of putting on our school uniform, which included a white button-down shirt, belt, tie (my dad taught me to tie a tie), and spit-shined shoes. I learned to comb my hair every day. We even had hair checks (not that I needed them as my hair grew "out" and never "down"). Then we had a packed lunch (mine was in an orange Tupperware container that smelled revolting if I didn’t wash it out every week). Then, instead of walking across base housing to school, we drove a picturesque route from Bitburg through the beautiful German countryside to Herforst. 

Once we got to school everything was structured, from playing tag and kickball to lining up to enter the classroom, go to lunch, go to the bathroom, and be dismissed from school. The intellectual challenges were much greater than public school and more fun because it included grown-up level expectations like memorizing long sections of Scripture, learning lyrics to new songs (every verse), and learning quotes related to good character. And all of it was incentivized. There were certificates, plagues, and even trophies for reaching benchmarks in record time. Then there was the praying. There was a lot of praying: before school, at lunch, and at other times the teachers thought appropriate (the prayer I never quite understood was the prayer that came after being paddled for an infraction. chanting in unison, all incentivized with baby blue certificates. 

Bruce Wring at a School Awards Ceremony

And Bruce Wring, I learned, was the founder of it all. 

I remember his slight snaggle-toothed smile when he would appear in our classroom, hands deep in his pockets, jingling German Pfennigs. Most days, we would start the day with a character lesson from him in which the character trait correlated to the behavior of an animal. I had never heard of analogies like that and took to it eagerly and with intrigue. I once won a challenge Bruce Wring offered (I don’t remember what), and he took me out for ice cream. That was a big deal for me because it meant I did something really right for once. But most of my one-on-one time with Bruce Wring wasn’t for good reasons. From looking up girls' dresses to forging my parents’ signatures on detention slips to racking up an intolerable number of demerits, I often found myself upstairs in his office, over his knee, getting paddled, howling loud enough to frighten the other students.

But children are the best recorders and the worst interpreters. 

I remember it all fondly (even the “bad” times) because it lasted such a short period– barely two years. I’ve heard that others who knew Bruce Wring have different memories, likely having stayed beyond the "honeymoon phase" and experiencing the too-close-for-comfort cycles of a driven type-A personality, for being sucked into his vortex, and for being spit out at inopportune times. At his memorial service, it was clear from the tongue-in-cheek stories that Bruce Wring was a hard man to live with for any extended period: that God was less a factor in critical decisions he made, that he viewed humans often as obstacles to be overcome than to serve, and that he left more than a bad taste in people’s mouths at critical times in their lives.

Bruce Wring

But was Bruce’s success (in at least three countries), in which he took personal advantage and wrenched opportunity from persons and situations, because of or despite his hardboard determination?  Were all the "blessings" of which many were the recipients and others were not a result of Bruce wringing in the sheaves?

Probably yes. How unsatisfyingly ironic, right? Because for all his controversial efforts, I’m glad I was present for just a sliver of it. Enough to reap benefits but not enough to be cynical of the rewards.

Click the image above for my new book, Amerigrant.

"FIRST DO NO HARM" | Heal Yourself

 

As a Gen-Xer raised in a military family overseas, I was taught to be deflect any attention that came my way onto anything that was 1) close enough, 2) big enough, and 3) much more interesting. It first began as a matter of survival but then later dovetailed into a religious principle of devoted self-marginalization which lasted for the better part of four decades.

That notion of humility isn't anything to brag about either. It's humiliating, debilitating, and can also be lethal. I know this because it almost cost me my life. In all of my training

First, do no harm. 

Hippocrates penned those words. He was he Ancient Greek physician after whom the Hippocratic Oath is named. The idea is that saving life is the goal, and the practice is that every step contribute to the goal. The problem for people with a marginalized view of themselves, however, is that First, do no harm always applies to others and never to yourself. Realistically, First, do no harm should apply to yourself first if you are ever to First, do no harm to another.

Before you heal someone,

ask him if he's willing to give up the things

that make him sick.

Hippocrates also said that. And we should each apply this rule to ourselves first before we apply it to others. And here's the reason why. Because when you want others to be fixed more than you want it for yourself, it's not really healing that you want: it's distraction. And that distraction can last only as long as others never get well.

THE MARTIAN | "If You Solve Enough Problems, You Get to Come Home"

Several years ago, I watched THE MARTIAN with my wife. The movie follows the story of astronaut Mark Watney (Matt Damon), who is left stranded on Mars after his crew mistakenly believes he has been killed during a violent storm. The film showcases Watney's gradual, painful realization of just how bad his situation is. 

But then we're shown a series of tipping points that each drive Watney's relentless pursuit of survival as he uses his particular knowledge, outlier ingenuity, and frugal resourcefulness to overcome numerous challenges, find a way to communicate with Earth, and ultimately return home. 

After Watney returns home (spoiler alert), he attributes his survival to the following maxim:

"If you solve enough problems,

you get to come home."

I'm no Martian but have found this rule to be generally true in desperate times. I've modified Watney's rule to fit my own non-Martian experiences: 

"If you solve enough problems one at a time,

then you are likelier to come home (than not)."

Sometimes, my survival has depended on creating a detailed list and then working each item on the list as if it were the only item on the list. The Tao te Ching says something similar:

"Treat simple things

as if they are difficult."

If you treat simple things as if they are difficult, then you are doing the simple thing carefully. Although a fictional character, Watney survives because he wasn't dismissive of any one thing that linked to the next one thing until he found himself to be a survivor.

Amarin Trichanh: "I Am My Sister's Keeper" Second Edition to Release in September 2022

 

Amarin Trichanh, author of I Am My Sister's Keeper

Amarin Trichanh is no joke. An immigrant who barely made it alive to the United States at the age of eight and a three-time, combat-deployed Army combat veteran, Amarin is a master of transition.

Young Amarin.

Born in Bangkok, Thailand, the youngest of three girls, little could her family imagine they would immigrate to San Diego, California through a refugee program in 1984. Like most immigrant parents, their burning desire was to secure a better future for their family and that meant a better education for their children. And they did.

 Amarin | High School

After finishing her education, Amarin decided to give back to the United States by joining the military. For the first four years of her enlistment in the California Army National Guard, Amarin honorably served as a Patient Admin from April 9, 2002, to January 13, 2015.

Amarin |United States Army Veteran

For the next four years, she served as an active-duty Logistics Specialist and then as a Combat Medic Health Care Specialist for the last five years of her Army career. As already mentioned, Amarin has completed two combat tours in Iraq (Operation Iraqi Freedom) and one in Afghanistan (Operation Enduring Freedom). It was during her last year in the Army that Amarin began documenting the systemic sexual harassment and abuse of women in her unit at home and abroad in the combat zone.

That research and writing eventually became her autobiography I Am My Sister's Keeper: Confessions of an Army Combat Soldier & Her Quest to Expose Military Sexual Abuse which she published in 2020.

I Am My Sister's Keeper, 1st Version

In September, Amarin in will be releasing the second edition of her book which will be featured in a future documentary. 

Amarin has dedicated her life to advocating for and inspiring others to follow their dreams and help spread love, peace, and kindness. She is also an activist for victims of MSA (military sexual abuse) and an advocate for the Me Too movement.

In addition to Amarin's military service, her passion combines writing, poetry, learning new languages, and art. 

Amarin | Today

WELCOME BACK LAZARUS: Coming Back from the Brink Is Hard Work

Two years ago, I had a surreal experience. I thought that I had died. 

That statement is suspiciously ambiguous, I know, but it's true. I suffered sudden anaphylaxis in the wee hours of one Saturday morning alone in my bathroom, struggled to stay alive, blacked out, was conscious for a few more minutes, and then, in the words of my wife and daughter (who had awakened by this time), collapsed lifeless onto the bathroom floor. 

From the time that I blacked out, I didn't come to any conscious sense until almost 30 hours later when I awoke in ICU.

When I awoke mid-morning on Sunday, I couldn't remember anything. 

• I didn't know where I was 
• I didn't know why there were people around me
• I couldn't make out what they were saying
• I couldn't communicate to them in a satisfactory way

It was as if I had just been born, and all of the happy faces (a few serious ones) and all of the busy activity surrounding me seemed to be a collective, Welcome to the world, Robbie!

Where I awoke

(Williamson Medical Center: Franklin, TN)

Hey, my experience isn't unique by any means. Thousands of people, I imagine, are saved from peril everyday. But next is where my story derailed me for a good month initially, and then for the better part of a year. It came back to me in little, unwanted memory-seizures, but I slowly realized that something happened to me while I was under. And it involved my consent.

I can't tell you the story here, or there's no reason for you to download this little book.

IT'S FREE here from Sunday, June 3, 2018 to June 7, 2018. You don't have to have a Kindle Reader to be able to download and read this little book! Amazon will convert it for you in whatever format your device requires.

My experience can help the friends and loved ones of those who return from a close call with what can seem to be a total lack of appreciation for all the efforts to bring them back.

So, please, SHARE.

Me thinking about you reading this book...

It's a short book. Please, leave a short review here!

JACKSON THOMAS: "I'm Not Sure How He Made It, But He Did"

Last Thursday morning, the world turned upside down for Jackson Thomas – literally.

Jackson, a recent high school graduate with a passion for photography, video, and travel, has filled his Instagram and YouTube feeds with images and short films of his adventures camping, hanging around Franklin with friends, touring Israel, living in Greece, and exploring Turkey. Jackson invited his viewers along as he jumped into oceans, walked railroad tracks, climbed rooftops, and rode foreign highways, often with his trademark left hand extended with an open palm.

Jackson wasn't planning to attend college. He was going to chase his passion for film, travel, and photography and eventually support himself with his own business. His parents were 100% supportive of his plans. Besides the social media posts, Jackson also took senior portraits and interned with Compass Cinema. And a multitude of other things like working part-time at McCreary's in his hometown of Franklin, Tennessee.

As a kind of graduation celebration, Jackson traveled with "The Roadshow," which hired him as a photographer for three shows of its tour. Jackson and his dad, Dwane, left for California on March 1 and hung with the band for the first 5 days. The last show was in Colorado Springs.

Afterwards, Dwane and Jackson attended a Brendan Brechard conference on the 8th. Dwane and his son both had read and discussed a lot of Brendan's books, and they both functioned with his goal-oriented, positive, how-can-I-serve-others mentality. Jackson was the youngest person there, and he loved the conference. After the conference, Jackson’s friend Mitchell flew out to meet him. They were driving around, living in the van and taking pictures. They stayed with a friend in LA for a week or so.

Meanwhile Jackson’s family, his mom and dad and four younger sisters, traveled to Greece for the second year in a row to work with Syrian refugees through a local ministry, Servant Group International. Servant Group, a local non-profit with twenty years of dedication to reaching and serving Muslim communities through schools in Iraq, has more recently sponsored short-term service trips and local ministry here in Nashville to support refugees. The family planned to stay through July 25. The girls and Gretchen loved being with the Syrian and Afghan people and were excited to be there.

Besides helping with refugee work, Dwane was there to study and learn Greek. A Latin teacher for nearly twenty years at various schools in Franklin, Dwane shifted his Latin teaching online to create Visual Latin. The Greek trips afforded Dwane the opportunity to learn Greek by immersion and expand his online education platform.

Last Thursday morning, Jackson and Mitchell were headed home. Jackson slept well Wednesday night, had coffee, and crossed the mountains. A natural morning person, Jackson was driving the first shift while Mitchell slept in the back. Around 8:30 am (as best as people can figure out) a tire blew out on the van. Mitchell woke to a violent shaking followed by a heavy sway to one side and then two huge swerves before the van started to roll. It rolled six times, landing upright. Mitchell, who was unhurt, immediately got out of the side door and checked on Jackson.

Passersby called 911 and came to help. A nurse heard the call on her emergency radio while going to work, and she turned around to go to the scene. She held Jackson's head to apply pressure to a large laceration until EMT arrived forty-five minutes later.

A life flight took Jackson to the hospital in Aurora, right outside Denver. Mitchell did not have to be medically transported. At the hospital, a team of doctors treated Jackson for the head laceration (which now has forty staples), brain trauma and bleeding, two mildly fractured ribs, a punctured lung, and some mildly fractured vertebrae. (Doctors have not been able to assess as much about those injuries because Jackson cannot sit up or stand yet. Jackson also suffered a humerus bone broken by the elbow into three pieces and a left hand with four fingers broken, some in more than one place. During a Monday surgery, Jackson had plates, pins, and wires installed to hold the arm and hand bones in place for healing).

That left hand was shattered.

But the boy lived.

• He suffered no internal injuries. 
• His face was left whole and uncut. 
• His feet and legs were not broken. 
• Mitchell was conscious as well and able to help him
• He received immediate help from a skilled professional sooner than expected

Miracles, miracles, and more miracles.

In Greece, Dwane and Gretchen and their daughters heard of the accident and rushed to sever plans, cancel reservations, and hurry home. Though they had travel insurance to cover some expenses, their return flights cost €12,000.

Back home, Gretchen’s sister and Jackson’s old boss at Compass Cinema flew to Denver before the day was out to support Mitchell and Jackson. More friends prayed, called relatives and friends in the area to visit the hospital and pray, set up a GoFundMe account, and filled it with over twenty thousand dollars so far. Friends plastered Jackson’s story across social media and sent words of love and support to the family. Friends even had coffee and snacks delivered to the hospital.

Gretchen arrived Friday, and Dwane and the girls arrived soon after. Doctors have told the family that Jackson is looking at a two-to-three-week minimum stay in the hospital, which means that the Thomas family will be staying in Colorado for the time being.

Jackson’s physical therapy will be long and painful. He will not be taking pictures any time soon. And the family needs help, too.

***THERE ARE A NUMBER OF WAYS THAT YOU CAN HELP THE FAMILY...***

(and this is where this blogpost counts).

Here are their needs:

____________________________________________

• The MEDICAL BILLS the Thomas family incurs will supercede their insurance

• Once Jackson leaves the hospital, he can get a total of 40 OUTPATIENT THERAPIES of any combination, but he will require extensive therapy.

• Add to that the change in TRAVEL PLANS and the new expense of a hotel near the hospital for six people and travel. 

• They have household obligations in Greece FOR THE NEXT THREE MONTHS (like rent on their apartment to which they are currently committed to pay through May 13).

• The Thomas FAMILY VAN WILL NEED TO BE REPLACED, something they are likely to do while in Colorado instead of incurring the added cost of a rental for three weeks.

• JACKSON'S CAMERA IS SHATTERED AS WELL AS HIS IPHONE, Not sure if his computer is functional yet. Those technologies are the tools of his trade.

____________________________________________

The goal is to raise $150,000 BEFORE JACKSON TRANSFERS TO HOSPITAL IN TENNESSEE. We're talking about two more weeks. Over $20,000 has been donated through GoFundMe in less than a week. So we need to SHARE, SHARE, SHARE the family's needs.

The Thomas family (both Dwane and Gretchen) have taught, loved, and cared for children in Franklin, Tennessee for twenty years. Now it’s time for Franklin to show up for them. And beyond. Franklin and beyond. What can you do to help? Currently, here are 3 portals:

• Pray. Share his story with other people who will give and pray.
• Give to Jackson’s GoFundMe to cover family expenses and medical bills.
• Follow Jackson’s Caring Bridge site to send messages of support.
• Supply activities for family members who are not in the hospital (Friends suggest that sketch pads, journals, face paints and brushes, colored pencils, books, movie passes, and outings like horseback riding would all help the family, especially the four girls, to cope with the long days of sitting at a hospital or hotel).

Right now, Dwane and Gretchen aren't counting costs. They are counting blessings.

When asked about Jackson, Gretchen says, All in all [Jackson’s injuries are] mild compared to what it could have been… More friends continue to support us through prayer, financial giving, showing up, having coffee delivered ;) providing snacks and emailing or messaging their encouragement... Thank you thank you thank you!

Let’s put the world right side up for a really great family.

(If you want to help beyond the opportunities listed, please, contact Robbie Grayson at stonetableschool@gmail.com).