Sterling Griggs

Using social media to post every facet of your life is not always the wisest of choices, but sometimes it is the best way to disseminate important information. Since I have neglected my blog for way too long, I have decided to use this as the medium to give everyone a life update. I hope all of my 13 followers get this information. Right before Christmas of this past year, my family doctor advised that I get the pneumonia vaccine since I have a heart history. Back in 1996 I had double valve replacement surgery and have been kind of on cruise control over since, but there is nothing like being a little extra careful. About a day after receiving the shot I was blessed enough to be one of the 1 in 1 bajillion to have a reaction to it, which was akin to being thrown in a freezer and then in an oven over a period of several days. I did survive it, but I was one sick dude and decided that I would pass the next time it was offered to me. A few days after Christmas, I found that I was sho...

Here in the south, mosquitoes are a part of every day life, especially in the warmer months, which last about 11 1/2 months out of the year. Google tells me that there are more than 3,500 species of mosquitoes, with about 175 of them found in the United States. That means that the southern states have approximately 183 species of mosquitoes because I am convinced that we have them all plus a few that have yet to be discovered. I live on the coast, which is a nice way of saying semi-swamp, and mosquitoes flock to this part of the state because, word is, that they can live a long and content life here. Fat and sassy, my grandmother would say. I can't prove this scientifically, but I've heard that 5 million mosquitoes can grow in a teaspoon-sized puddle of water. When the humidity is high like it is, I'm pretty sure we are cranking those suckers out by the truck load. When I was young, I can remember the mosquito truck that used to barrel through my neighborhood releasing...

Costco Wholesale Warehouse is an absolute gold mine around lunch time. Vendors set up  tables all over the mammoth store, hawking all sorts of samples ranging from vitamin juice  shots to mini crab cakes. I used to make sure that I would go there with the kids so that we  would have at least one day when we didn’t have to meal plan.      I don’t shop there all the time because we simply can’t afford to. Not that the prices are bad,  it’s just that I don’t know when to stop. Instead, I will go every month or so to stock up on bulk  supplies of juice boxes, salsa, pizza rolls, peanut butter, and whatever items I am convinced  that my family cannot live without.        Perhaps the biggest, if only, drawback to Costco is that it is always crowded. Every aisle is  clogged with shoppers pushing oversized carts full of their choice of essential goods and,  while no one is necessarily rude about...

Today is the first day of August, which means that there are still a few weeks before school begins and the real monotony of the schedule takes over. Summer is still in full swing and there are plenty more days at the beach and the pool to be had. It is still hot, so steamy hot that eyeglasses fog over once you leave the house and you begin to sweat just thinking about how hot it's going to be once you open the front door. Your legs instantly stick to the car seats and the grass in your yard gave up its fight for growth a long time ago. The humidity gauge reads 70%, but I think that's a lie. It probably succumbed to the heat, too. There are no school buses to dodge in the afternoons, no homework assignments to complete, and no lunches to pack in the wee hours of the morning. There is still plenty of time to binge watch Netflix shows for the third time and to sleep in after staying up late just because you can. Walmart has aisles of school supplies for sale at rock bottom pri...

They didn’t catch a thing. In fact, I’m not even so sure they got so much as a nibble on those hooks baited with artificial top water frogs, probably not the best choice for luring bass in this pond. Although there are plenty of manmade retention ponds all around, natural freshwater spots aren’t all that common this close to the coast. Yet these less than ideal circumstances did not - could not - deter my son and his friend, along with my tag along daughter, from attempting to catch “the big one.” Before we moved to the coast, we had unlimited access to a pond on the edge of our property that was swarming with fish, which included a giant elusive bass that we named Maximus. My brother, visiting from New York, purchased cheap rod and reel combos, effectively introducing fishing to my kids. The typical haul was a glob of algae covered grass or a tree limb on a wayward cast, yet every once in a blue moon one of them would hook a small brim or bass. Maximus, however, would remain ...

A couple of weeks ago my wife and I reached a milestone in our lives as parents. Our youngest child "graduated" from elementary school, placing us in an elite category of parenthood that we have waited over a decade to achieve – no more "little kids" in the house. For 13 years we have had a child walk (and at times terrorize) the halls of an elementary school somewhere in North Carolina – East Bend, Winston-Salem, Southport, and Wilmington. From Fall Creek to Bradley Creek, the Griggs' kids have maintained a steady presence in these sacred halls of public education. The recent graduation of my oldest daughter from high school was a moving experience, one that put us in a whole other stratosphere of higher education and the costs associated with it. Yet even that momentous occasion is in a different category than that of whisking your last child from the insular halls of elementary education. I know that my kids learned loads of bad habits and not a few unsa...

My son recently decided that he wants to be a fisherman. Living at the coast, this should not be a problem - it seems as if everyone fishes down here. But in reality, the fact that everyone fishes here IS a problem. Most of his friends who fish have fathers and uncles and brothers who have fished their entire lives. These kids have multiple fishing rods, tackle boxes filled with hooks and lures, and access to different boats that can take them in the marsh or forty miles offshore. For a thirteen year old who has just discovered the joy of fishing, this can create quite a conundrum. In short, my son wants it all and he wants it now! I am grateful for the friends we have that have taken him out fishing in their boats. You have probably gathered by now that I am not much of an angler. My family vacationed every summer at Long Beach, NC (now known as Oak Island) and my dad did teach my brothers and I how to surf fish. I can remember summers when the pompano were running and we couldn’...