Tag Archives: Gratitude

The Helped

I find myself spending too much time thinking about the world I will leave to my 13 year-old, Rachel. There seems to be a whole lot of bad news some days. Recently, the attacks in Belgium just seem to be latest senseless act of a growing set of desperate people who feel they are not being heard. The mayhem always has the violence porn industry in tow. I wonder if there is an antidote to the hopelessness, fear and impending doom Rachel sees every day.

Then I remember Fred.

Fred Rogers, that’s Mister Rogers to you and me, seemed to be the world’s ambassador to children. He delicately explained the world to us in all it’s wonder and all it’s chaos. He seemed to instinctively know what we needed. That sweater and those sneakers were our symbols of certainty, sanity and safety before we even knew what those words meant. He spoke our language in a steady voice which never stooped to condescension. I guess Mister Rogers learned well the story of Job in seminary because his patience seemed to be unlimited.

Do you remember how he told us we could think about a disaster?

He told us the story of his mom’s advice about how he could think about disaster and violence porn. She told him simply, “look for the helpers.” In our language, he told us faith and hope would be found in the “helpers.” He felt so strongly about his mom’s helper concept that he urged the violence porn industry not to edit those helpers from their porn.

Did you watch Mister Roger’s Neighborhood as a child?

I look for the helpers today. I find great solace in them today. I think Jesus would have been a helper. In spite of personal danger, these people run toward the fire. Many have no skills to bring to bear once they make it to the breach. They might be bricklayers, garbage men and window washers but, they try to help anyway. Knowing their only contribution might be human kindness, they are willing to give it. Their split-second decision is to love.

Do you know people like this?

In my recent spiritual spring cleaning, I have made a decision to look for the helpers. I have made a conscious decision to reduce the influence in my life of people who seem to take pleasure in violence porn. I want to replace those people with helpers as influences in my life. This is an endeavor for me and not a transformation. I have however found peace in the journey. It is not my nature to run toward the fires of this life but, there is peace there. I have to be honest here. It is not my nature to serve those I don’t feel worthy. I feel that there are people in my life who build fires in their’s every day. My nature is not to run toward those self-made fires.

Have you had your feet washed in a figurative or literal sense lately.

I think back to all those who washed my feet. There were times I did not deserve it. There were times I would not have washed my own feet. Helpers have been everywhere in my life. Those helpers came exactly when I needed them. Fortunately for me, they didn’t ask questions. Perhaps some of them once had the same done for them. Perhaps they washed out of gratitude. Perhaps they washed out of a longing for peace. Regardless, the affect on my life has been profound and lasting. I am grateful for the helpers, the foot-washers. They are the perfect antidote for the darkness which visits all of us. I pray that there are lots of helpers in Brussels. I pray that the children of Belgium get to see plenty of those helpers in action.

Picture Credit

Anniversary Salute

2 Replies

I had a little anniversary a few days ago. It seems that 32 years ago, when I was 21, I raised my right hand to become a private in the US Army. An odd institution, the Army. Although I had signed a contract, the oath was the binding instrument:

“I Dal Ogle do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.”

I took that oath at a MEPS center in Nashville, Tennessee. MEPS was one of the first in a long line of acronyms I would learn and use every day in the Army. In this case it stood for Military Entrance Processing Station. Later I would learn the art and the joy of the backwards acronym. You know, Bag, Sleeping or Jeep, Personnel…Yup, the American military is its own subculture and they teach you everything you need to know about your new chosen culture in twelve weeks.

Do you know anyone shipping off to Basic Training?

Basic Training is probably the understatement of the millennia. The physical part of basic gets all the press but, the important part is unlearning everything you have learned in life to that point. Once you have properly forgotten you can then relearn the Army way. From rank identification, who to salute, to how to sign and date your signature, you have to learn it all. I still date some documents the Army way. The beautiful simplicity of the day, month, last two of the year, is a sort of secret handshake for all in the club. See, the numbers are separated, it avoids confusion, if you go to Europe you won’t be lost…

I guess you can take the man out of the Army…

After my basic at Fort McClellan, I went to advanced training at Fort Gordon, Georgia. In case you are unfamiliar, Fort Gordon, outside of Augusta, is the hottest place on earth. I drank more water out of a smelly canteen there than…well, I drank tons of water. I drank it mostly out of fear. They told me if I contracted heat stroke I would be Court-Martialed for insubordination and who needs that? I guess they would have gotten me well then sent me to stockade.

Doesn’t the Army have curious ways of looking at things?

On a 90-degree day in October I left what I knew of the world in Charleston, South Carolina and my crying mom. When I landed in the alien land they called Germany, it was 45. It snowed two feet that night and stayed on the ground till July. The first order of business for me was to get a roll of what looked like play money, put that money in huge toy telephone and call mom. I reassured her that we were not lost somewhere in the Mid-Atlantic then asked her to do me a favor. I asked her to dig out all those catalogs we had received for years and find the largest coat she could buy. I asked her to ship it immediately.

Have you ever had long stretches where your bones were chilled?

After a time of self-pity, God spoke through Private Donald Sponcelor from Los Fresnos, Texas. We were not men of the world but, during a Dopplebock fog, he had a moment of clarity. “I heard you could go to Frankfort on a train for ten marks,” he said. I could even do the math on that one. With our exchange rate, that was about three bucks. We weren’t sure what waited in Frankfort but, it was better than a drunken pity party in the barracks of Bad Hersfeld. A month later we began our tour of 22 countries for train tickets which cost less than cab fare.

My work in Germany was spent on the East/West German Border. Someone called it the Frontier of Freedom. I was a Calvary Trooper. I must say, I still love the smell a Lycoming gas turbine makes when it warms up in the morning. I would love to report to you some heroic exploits but, it was mostly boredom. The only shots fired at me in anger were mostly from drunken East German and Russian conscripts trying to shoot defectors or something.

I don’t think I was ever in any real danger from the enemy.

Later in the Alabama National Guard, I would go to the other border in South Korea. The difference was stark. The East Germans and Russian conscripts acted as if they could shoot you if it was a necessity. The North Koreans acted like they would take great joy in killing you and eating you. No one ever seemed to escape over that border. Korea was also a cold place. At the time I was in South Korea, it was also very poor. They were very nice people who were desperately poor.

Have any of you been to those places lately?

They tell me goat herders have taken over the fences on the former German Border. I also have word that those South Korean rice fields I witnessed being fertilized with human feces have given way to huge car and TV manufacturing facilities. Being an old Cold Warrior, I am happy things turned out so well in Germany. I am sad however, when I hear that hundreds of thousands of people continue to starve under the thumb or Kim Jung-un or whoever is in charge North Korea these days.

I miss MY Army.

My experience has now, apparently, been relegated to history. All those countries and good times are a thing of the past. My new Army brothers and sisters have been in a real shooting war for over fifteen years now. They deploy, rest for a few months, deploy…Most of them have lost at least one of their brothers and sisters-in-arms. Many of them have been maimed. Most of them suffer deep mental scars few will ever have to feel. The scars that come from seeing things which should never be seen and doing things which no one should ever have to do. I think about my Army experience and how different it is from the 21 year-olds raising their right hand today. I am honored, humbled and grateful, beyond words, that someone would raise their hand for me. I feel so blessed everyday that they will.

Godspeed my brothers and sisters.

This will defend.

Picture Credits:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/11th-Armored-Cavalry-Regiment-ACR-Squadron-Mousepad-Vietnam-Ft-Irwin-Fulda-Gap-/191120212826

Pigpen is Blown Away

1 Reply

I seem to be in a little funk lately. My real job is not perfect. My daughter is beginning to be a teenager. I need an outbuilding for my yard tools and lawnmower. It will have to be a brick monstrosity worthy of my new subdivision. The Taj Mahal of garden sheds complete with bricks and windows. My cat uses plants instead of a litter box. I have a best friend I haven’t seen in six years. I need to see my sister more. I need to visit my mom and dad more. At some point, I become aware of my problem.

I am so grateful to have a mom and dad to go see.

So what if I am not getting the respect I desire at work. I have a great job practicing civil engineering. A job, incidentally, I believe God made me to do. Otherwise why would he have planted the seed so early in the sand box? Why would I have been in such awe of a simple bulldozer? Now, I have a hobby I love as much.

By the way, thank you Mr. or Mrs. Reader!

I see people griping about cars parked in the road or trash cans left an extra day in my neighborhood. I see people griping about the Hispanics who mow their grass and build their houses. I see people griping about their taxes. I see people griping about their kids. I see people griping about their doctor or hospital. I see people go on for days about their spouse. I see people run down teachers. I see people who refuse to see anything good about our country. I see people who believe the world is an awful place.

Are you like me? do you find yourself joining the Pig Pens of the world occasionally?

You know those people. They drive a great car, live in a great neighborhood, have a great job, pretty good kids… They have had a big pile of breaks in their lives. They went to a great school. They got a chance to go to college. They had a great support structure with public roads, churches, bridges, parks, schools, families, friends…but, somehow, they did it all by themselves. Their work entitles them to a cloud of anger, fear and some kind of weird fantasy of a perfect life in the past. The cloud follows them around like Pig Pen. Sometimes people run the other way.

Do you feel like you have borrowed Pig Pen’s cloud sometimes? I know I do.

When I see a cloud forming I know how to blow it away. The question always becomes; how long will I indulge myself with the pity party. When I am done, it is as simple as dropping the Gratitude Bomb. A little gratitude will fix most delusions in my head. When I feel victimized at work…I get thankful I have a job. When I feel like someone is getting over on society…I remember the kind souls in my life who gave me something I probably didn’t deserve. When I feel, I know I should first feel thankful.

Do you know people who write gratitude lists?

It is not a bad practice but, I like to say my gratitude list. I think there is a great listener. I have also found gratitude a powerful teaching tool for a thirteen year-old. Sometimes gratitude even helps blow away the cloud for other Pig Pens in my life. After all, what does it cost to be grateful? What could it hurt for me to try? I am pretty sure my misery can always be refunded.

Pigpen picture courtesy: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/412783122075777259/

Our Better Angels

Leave a reply

Maybe I should change the Sunday Morning Sermon to the Late Sunday,,,err,,,Mondayish Sermon.

Antonin Gregory Scalia died yesterday. He leaves his wife, Maureen and nine children. He leaves many friends including Ruth Ginsburg and others. He was a man I can imagine wearing his house slippers and sitting in his recliner. I can imagine he was a granddad, doting and bouncing the grandbabies on his knee. With his rich intellect, I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall as he read or told stories to his grandbabies. Today, someone is explaining to those grandbabies how he won’t be around to read those stories anymore. I don’t know his pet name around the house but, I bet that name will be uttered with a tinge of pain today.

I bet you have memories of a jolly old grandpa.

I also bet you are hearing less about grandpa and more about “but” today. The but you have been hearing is the dehumanizing but. But, Senator McConnell won’t confirm the President’s appointee…But, liberals will now run the court…But, Citizens United will be surely struck down…But, this presidential candidate said this and that presidential candidate said that.

I am not sure if he was Jesus or a monster but, the way people are talking, he surely wasn’t a granddaddy who would be missed.

We seem to have reached a point where we won’t even wait till the body is cold. We especially can’t wait when it comes to politics. First, we dehumanize those who disagree with us. They are insane, unpatriotic, evil and my favorite, a Fascist. In case you have been sleeping for the last 60 years, Fascist is code for Nazis and Hitler. That code, I believe, is used today as nonchalantly as we empty the litter box. We compare those unspeakable acts 60 years ago to, well, anything we can’t like. I can tell you for sure, the people who are capable of that kind of unspeakable act do not have grandbabies and will never be missed.

Have you ever dehumanized someone you disagree with? I know I have.

Antonin did everything society asked of him and when called to serve, he obliged. To be sure, I disagreed with him on almost everything. Instead of hating his sin however, I should hate my own. I should hate the sin which allows me to justify any means to his marginalized end. At his end, he was a public servant who did the best job he could. His decisions were informed by a life experience which is not mine to validate. His character, family or legacy should never have to suffer assassination for his supposed transgressions. This good man, grandpa and public servant’s memory should only be met with my gratitude.

How many people wont serve us because we can’t agreeably disagree?

It is long past time we quit listening to those drunk with power who appeal to our lesser angels. We know when the ends justify the means, we only really lose ourselves. The man or woman demonized, dehumanized in this political parlor game is in the mirror. I should deny those lesser angels because they are mine. When I subscribe to the us and them culture it may be immediately gratifying but, it is not working. Good people with a heart for public service are suffering. In my silence, they suffer at my hands. I, we, are better than that.

By Supreme_Court_US_2009.jpg: Steve Petteway, 
Staff Photographer of the Supreme Court 
(evidence that he took it is here 
(LinkedIn profile here U.S. Federal Government. 
Supreme Court archivist's office confirms 
that this is photo number 2009-03882 and that a 
permanent catalog number will be assigned.derivative work: 
Wehwalt (talk) - Supreme_Court_US_2009.jpg, 
Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9771037

An Afternoon at the Dealership

Leave a reply

My apologies as SMS turns into the Sunday Evening Sermon.

The day before yesterday Jennifer’s car had a flat. I dutifully checked the tire like my father had taught me touching and caressing the tread looking for metal invader to no avail. I came to the realization that I needed professional help diagnosing the tire’s specific ailment.

Where did you carry your last flat?

Well, for me, I guess I have fully subscribed to the one-stop world of the car dealer. Yup, you can buy a car, get an oil change, fix a flat, buy running boards, get a car wash and while you are doing all those things you can even get a hamburger at the café. The hamburgers are to die for by the way. They grill them on a real grill with Dale’s sauce…

If you are into guilty pleasures, I would highly recommend the car wash and a hamburger.

I swapped cars with my wife in her work parking lot. Well, I swapped her a truck for a car but, that is another story. Soon I was in the queue at the Quick Lube at the dealership. A modern invention, the Quick Lube, allows you to get many services while minimizing human interaction. Instead of a waiting room you get to… no, you are required to sit in your car. You know, there are insurance regulations.

Have you ever seen the insurance inspector shewing people out of a shop?

It was a normal winter day in the south. Our winters could usually pass for spring anywhere else. It was funny though, you would have thought we were on Mars and there were precious life-sustaining atmospheres in each vehicle which might escape. People were only cracking their windows long enough to tell the attendant their malfunction. Once closed, they went about looking at their lap again. I reached the front of the line and when the attendant arrived with his clipboard, I asked him how his day was going. The attendants are called “service advisors” and you can tell them apart because they dress like Tiger Woods and have a conspicuous lack of oil staining. He was a young guy whose grimace turned into a half-smile to say, “man I am great.” His mouth said great and his face said… well, not great. I wanted to chat some more but, he quickly barked, “sir, can you give me your mileage.” After a few minutes, you guessed it, nothing wrong was found with the tire.

Is there some kind of force field around mechanics which temporarily fixes the brokenness in cars?

I decided to reverse my bad tire Karma by getting Jennifer’s car cleaned for her. The people in that line also had had something important going on in their lap. After my turn in the tunnel, I was greeted by the interior washer. I asked the young man how he was doing too. Unlike the service advisor, he apparently actually did the dirty work of cleaning cars. He was a little shocked by actual conversation but, quickly recovered. “I love pretty days, we are so busy, the day goes by really fast,” he said adjusting his toboggan with his blue hands. The day was pretty but, cool. I chatted with the nice young man for a few minutes then left the car for the waiting room. As I walked down the hall to the waiting room it sounded like a lively place. I could hear a conversation about college football and other little side conversations. I picked a chair next to a man in a suit and began to assess my surroundings for the best weather or football small talk. Sadly, the football conversation was on the Paul Finebalm show on TV. I was really looking foreword to discussing the finer points of the Clemson defense with an Alabama Fan. Then I noticed the all the chit-chat I heard down the hall was with people not in the room.

Does it strike you as strange that of a dozen or so people, none of them were talking to each other?

I sat there watching Paul next to the tall guy in the suit. I learned that he believed gas would be less than a dollar a gallon unless there was a war. From the attractive lady in scrubs, I learned what Kim really needed was a reality check. From the lady with big hair, I learned that dogs wouldn’t walk themselves. Others were feverishly taping out texts. I tried to read what the young boy with the oversized North Face jacket in the black four-wheel drive was texting but, he turned his phone away when he saw me watching him. After ten or so minutes of being alone in a sea of people, I gave up and went outside. Some guy was griping to the nice blue-handed toboggan guy about unclean cup holders, crappy service and something about hard-earned money. I stood in another cluster of waiters and complemented a young man on his white Mustang. Before he could reply he had to take a call. Blue-hands waved me over. I complemented him on his thorough interior cleaning abilities and we chatted for a minute. Before I drove away he handed me a card to go online and fill out a survey. He said he got a bonus for each good survey. I took his card and drove away.

How many texters do you pass in the slow lane?

On the way home I passed quite a few. Somehow, I think texters feel safer in the passing lane. I guess they don’t have to worry as much about rear-ending other slower cars. For the life of me, I have no idea what text would be so important to risk something soooooo dangerous. Believe me, I have seen the accidents and they are my least favorite part of being a transportation engineer.

Does the world seem a little more self-centered and alone to you?

I admit, I have been a little self-involved this week. It was a pretty tough week at work but, my outlook always changes when I can do or say something nice. Service for me is the antidote for the blues. Sometimes, in this world we have made, it seems a kind word can’t be shoved in edgewise. A wave or smile at a traffic signal is well, out of the question. We have made a world where it is easier to talk to your old friend in that town in Egypt than a new one at the car wash. My spiritual medicine for the blues seems to be in short supply. I can’t like that one bit.

Making My Mark

Leave a reply

Just as you cross into Alabama from Mississippi on US-72 after the welcome sign, brought to you by the governor, there is an interesting monument. It, too, was brought to you by former Governor Dixon and, of course, Director Shaddock. Apparently, in the early forties, the Highway Director and the Governor decided to commemorate Alabama statehood, whose centennial had arrived back in 1919, with a monument. Since you can’t sling a dead cat in most places without hitting a monument of some kind, they didn’t exactly hit on an original idea. Did I really write that thing about the cats?

If you are a cat lover, I want to formally apologize right now.

It is actually a pretty stretch of road and a nice place for a Sunday drive. If you are ever around these parts I would highly recommend the side trip. A little over four miles into Alabama, just before the Buzzard’s Roost Bridges, on the same road, is our locally famous “Shoe Tree.” For a reason I can’t exactly describe, I find the Shoe Tree, well, creepy. The Shoe Tree is a converted Sycamore tree in an impressive limestone rock cut. Some people write messages on their shoes before they tie the laces and fling them on the tree. I am sure this is also, not an original idea.

Can you tell where this column is heading?

We were never sure when a shoe had done its job and become litter at the Tuscumbia District. We also really never knew what to do with the granite monument. Is pressure washing enough? Should we honor, err, statehood with Daisies or is Creeping Juniper ok? How many people, exactly, stop and look at it anyway? It would take a very good set of binoculars and real talent to read it at cruising speed.

I have a few pairs of old shoes. Should I write a note and fling them at the Shoe Tree? Will the monument my family buys to plant me under suffice or should I make arrangements for something else?

How will I make my mark?

When I read the obits in the paper, I usually look for someone I know. Age is a dead giveaway…let me rephrase, in finding people I know, age is a very good place to start. In the south we must then sort by funeral attendance, or not, by funeral visitation, or not, by flower arrangements, or not…I usually make my determination using the niceness quotient. Was he nice to me? Was someone in her family who was nice to me taking the death pretty hard? Like any good engineer, I have data and a test for most of life’s mysteries.

Do you have a rule for funeral attendance?

So, I guess part of my mark will be constantly working on my niceness quotient. As for the other things, I think they will take care of themselves if my niceness quotient is sufficiently high. Truth is, most of the things we do for our legacy are fleeting. Shoes rot and monuments fall down. Our actions are what make people show up to help plant us. If someone misses me, I am pretty sure my mark will be made.

Arrowhead Convention

1 Reply

I met my friend Paul when I did a little spiritual spring cleaning on my life about three years back. Paul and I have very little in common. Oil and water aside, we humor each other and do things from time to time which we would not have done otherwise. I did one of those things recently when I accompanied him to a Native American artifact show in Leoma. For those of you not familiar with southern Tennessee, Leoma is just north of St. Joseph. Or explained in the local tongue, Leomer is right up 43 from Saint Joe. Since we are oil and water, I might have referred to the event as an arrowhead convention.

Paul usually ignores my smartellicy remarks. I think that is why we remain good friends.

We met in a parking lot in Florence because Paul gets impatient sometimes. It was a good ride north lined with short, light green winter wheat. We arrived at a little park in Leoma with a beige metal building in the middle. We knew it was a park because it was circled by the requisite round, log, park fence. It was also evident by a scattering of concrete picnic tables. Men and women were gathered around the door smoking in their Carhartt coats and overalls. As we walked in, neighborly howdies were exchanged.

I wish you could have seen Paul’s quick pace. I think he was a little excited.

It was a pretty big crowd and I think we lost each other pretty quickly. There were lines of plastic family reunion tables filled with wooden display cases. I remember being more impressed with the wooden cases than the millions of arrowheads they protected. Paleo, Mississippian…Yada Yada…I was not impressed. I overheard stories at every table about finding this one here and that one there. I overheard experts assessing someone’s artifact. I was working pretty hard at being unimpressed.

Have you ever gotten the feeling God was trying to get your attention?

Seeing the ocean of arrowheads, I decided to find something different. A few minutes later, I found a large dark stone in the shape of an exclamation point. It was without the dot, of course. It was about the length of a hubcap and the width of a bar of soap. The plaque on the case said it was a Celt. The woman behind the table smiled to the point of a grin and said, “I like that artifact too. It’s Jerry’s favorite piece.” I wasn’t sure who this Jerry was but, I had to agree with him. I asked her for what the item was used. “I could tell you but, I will mess it up. Hey can you talk to him,” she asked another short, fat, baldheaded man like myself who was over at the next table and I’m sure talking about finding this one here and that one there. When he arrived I found myself still pointing at the Celt.

Have you ever wondered if excitement was a disease you could catch like a Cold Virus?

The way Jerry demonstrated using his hand as a visual aid and his ear to ear grin invited me to catch his excitement. He explained how people would cut a tree and fashion a sort of hoe to hollow trees and shape things like canoes. He explained with sweeping hand gestures how with transportation, a whole new world was opened. He talked about how societies who spent less time traveling were able to work on things like a common language, the arts… I love cause and effect. Jerry then delivered what I am sure God’s message for me was that day. The Celt was eight to ten-thousand years old. He continued to explain how artifacts like the Celt helped disprove some historical theories but, my mind had ground to a halt.

Is there anything more complex than perspective?

That line is from a movie, I think, but, it is really true. Just as transportation changed the lives of the Paleo-Americans so, couldn’t the Celt change my life. Shouldn’t any real spiritual spring cleaning begin with a change of perspective? I know my problems were suddenly reduced to their proper place when I held that Celt in my hand. The same tool that some poor sap used to build a leaky canoe ten millennia ago is a tool I could use. A tool to cut away what does not work in my spiritual canoe. Once shaped, there is really no limit to where God can take me.

The Fast Train to the Meaning of Life

Leave a reply

I have become friends with someone at work. I think his title has something to do with communications. I think a more appropriate title might be Area Omniscient. Jonathan knows anything you want to know about most anything. Sure, his primary duty is making sure the right people get together and, pardon me, the trains get there on time but, he has apparently decided not to be defined by any old title. Among a host of other talents, his natural curiosity has allowed him to speak Scannerese. Its my blog and I reserve the right to make up words from time to time. Scannerese is the language firemen, state troopers, DOT crews… use when they communicate on the radio. I’m sure you have heard it before on one of those crime dramas on TV. “Base this is 2600, 10-41 er, at subject, 10-55, corpus delicti, 1523, maux nix, on scene, 2600.” Everything said on a two-way radio also has to be said under the breath and indecipherably fast. He actually knows the lingo, he is able to understand it under the breath and is able to respond in kind.

I hope you can meet him one day.

Jonathan has a bunch of hobbies and one of those is trains. He loves them. He and his fellow train enthusiasts have a sort of

underground network. They take great joy in seeing a neat, vintage or otherwise rare train. This is where Jonathan shines. His ability to speak Scannerese allows him to listen to a scanner and determine if such a sighting is coming his way. We have a local train yard and when Dodo Bird of trains is on its way, he knows. He dutifully reports the potential sighting to the network and at the first opportunity, a break or lunch, he dons his hat and walking stick and walks the short way from the office to the tracks. Sometimes he meets his fellow enthusiasts and they oooh and ahhh together. Sometimes he might take a

Jonathan Melton

picture to later post on a social network but, many times watching trains is a solitary tribute known only to Jonathan and the train engineer who, I am sure, provides a neighborly wave.

I wish you could see the joy in Jonathan’s face when he is getting ready for his stroll.

I wondered for some time why Jonathan made his romps across the cornfield between the office and the tracks. I must admit, when I saw the unmitigated joy in his face I thought he had a special audience with Elvis or he had found the Indian treasure in Redbone Cave. Redbone Cave and a Cherokee treasure is a long story for another article. Anyway, that day, when he was getting his walking stick, he granted me rare access to his top secret train intelligence. I don’t remember the specimen he showed me in the picture but, I remember how he beamed when he showed it to me.

Jonathan Melton

I wish you could have been there.

I guess Jonathan chooses to put himself in joy’s way. He, we, have to work at it. Many times, joy requires our most precious commodity, time. Jonathan could easily busy himself with all manner of distraction. There are auditoriums to book, motor pool cars to check out, accidents to report…sometimes it is hard to focus. Sometimes we have to wait next to the tracks all day to see joy. Joy can be a very personal experience or sometimes we get to oooh and ahhh together. Joy is there, we just need to keep our hat and walking stick ready. The scanners, phones and demands of those who travel with us are loud but, if we focus, we might hear the train coming. Then we just have to choose to be at the track.

Ode to Bright Stars

1 Reply

We found out Monday that Glenn Frey had died. It will be impossible write about Glenn without superlatives so I won’t resist. To a person, everyone I knew was genuinely shocked. I guess we expected the reaper to first visit the other less sane members of the Eagles. In the end however, I guess the brightest stars are destined to burn out first…and bright his star was.

Quick, do you have a memory associated with an Eagles song?

There were so many. One of These Nights will forever be an 8-Track song. If you have no idea what I am talking about, ask your folks. It will be an 8-Track song cruising on Woodward Avenue in a beige seventies vintage Chevrolet Impala forever. If you are not sure what I am talking about ask Ronald or Roger. Desperado will be the slow dance song which defies the cute sitters at Patrick’s in perpetuity. Ask Tammy or Kim or… if you don’t believe me. Life in the Fast Lane is the song that makes you take your top off, Spitfire convertible top, that is. Already Gone has broken up more couples than Jerry Springer. If you don’t believe me, ask…

You thought I would blog about her? Nope, sorry.

Anyone with a pulse in the seventies or eighties can name at least one association with an Eagles song. In those decades those songs were prevalent, pervasive and some would say pungent comments about our time. Their lyrics and melodies rang true for another generation fourteen years later.

I know, I went to one of the reunion concerts at Clemson’s Death Valley in the late nineties.

That concert’s attendance was just weird. There were people my age who loved the Eagles but, didn’t really have a chance to see them in concert before the spectacular breakup. There were old people who had probably seen the Eagles numerous times and then there were the kids. Don Henley seems to want to attribute their kid appeal to the rise of classic rock stations. I think he is just too humble to admit the music is timeless.

Whatever the secret sauce, the Eagles doled it out in buckets.

Henley was quoted in a statement a few days ago that Glenn Fry “was the one who started it all…the sparkplug…” I think that is the kind of thing a partner says about his fallen friend. Truth is, the Fry, Henley partnership will go down in the history of American music. To be sure, there were others, Meisner, Walsh, Felder… But, Fry and Henley had the vision. Sometimes by sheer force of will they kept the dream alive.

Until they couldn’t.

In 1980 a couple of years before I graduated high school, it was over. Some of us actually grieved. We always believed and in 94 we were given one more small dose of melodic genius. The Eagles were granted what a precious few will receive in this life, a curtain call. This time, it’s gutwrenchingly final. I think we are sad that another generation will never get the gift of 94. Maybe we are sad the group who wrote the score to our youth is now gone forever. We are sad for Don and the others. We are just shocked and sad. Rest in peace, Glenn.

I Guess My Affair is Over

Leave a reply

We have been together for some time. Jennifer, my wife, introduced me to her a few years back. That might be a little strange but, Jen could see we had so much in common. Her brother Joe is a big Clemson fan like me. Like me, she over-visits the upstate of South Carolina. Recharging her batteries involves a cabin on a lake somewhere up there. I can see myself doing the same thing. I have an idea which lake but, I will keep her secret. Our affair is based on mutual admiration, respect and similar history. We are similar in all the things that really matter. Well, mutual to the extent she wouldn’t know me from Adam’s housecat at the grocery store.

Do you think it is kinda weird that I think my wife loves her too? I guess it doesn’t matter. It is over anyway.

I was introduced one morning when Jennifer and I were reading the paper. With my supernatural powers of intuition, I noticed she was sniffling. “I will never read Sharon Randall again. Just read it,” she said sticking a rolled up section of paper in my face like I hadn’t gone outside to do my business. I don’t really read the “Life” section of the Times Daily but, I humored her. I don’t remember the story but, I remember the lump in my throat. It was big as a softball. It was probably a column about her first husband. I remember how Sharon would stop with a sort of literary device to ask me a question. That’s exactly how it felt. She wanted to stop her story a minute to see if I was ok… you know, paying attention.

I have stolen Sharon’s device and I am not giving it back. You can’t make me.

Reading her columns, I always feel like I am listening to a story over her breakfast table. I know the characters of her stories. Joe, her brother, is blind and is a BIG Clemson fan. I know her boss turned second husband. I have heard all of the grand babies’, Wiley, Randy and Henry…

I wish you could have been there the day Jennifer learned I was reading Sharon’s columns on-line, ON THURSDAY.

Jennifer is black-fingered newspaper reader from way back. Without Dead trees and Diet Mountain Dews, I don’t think we would ever make it to church. That morning I grinned, handed her the paper and told her she would probably like Sharon that morning. “How do you know?” I surprised even myself by keeping that secret until Sunday. “Because, I read it online Thursday,” I said without even the slightest hint of guilt.

Ok, maybe I felt a little guilty.

We both have a connection to Sharon’s work that is hard to describe. She seems to have been there. Her accounts of her first husband were a huge solace after my daddy-in-law died. I have no idea why. If someday in my writing I can connect in some small way as she has, it will have been a good day.

I guess you have read by now that Sharon won’t be in the paper Sunday.

I will miss our visits. I will miss our little chats. I will miss her family. Now they like the cousins we never see. I don’t know about syndication. I am not sure Sharon will ever grace the pages of the Times Daily again. If it turns out Sharon isn’t coming back, I know more than a few people will be sad.