praiseage

2010-05-16T05:14:00.000-07:00

The river of dreams engulfed me and in its current my memories of Europe assembled piece by piece. With a rush of wind that was adrenalin, I was in the body of a young man once again.

I approached a cafe table where a petite young woman of my apparent age was having a continental breakfast. We were both dressed quite formally in clothing that enhanced our youthful vitality, but could as easily fed an idealized fantasy of the other should we decide to merely ride the current of this dream. This realization told me that my heart was still the middle aged man that lay sleeping somewhere, and that knowledge imposed itself enough to try to check the impulses of the young man I appeared to be.

The young woman was someone I vaguely remembered from my middle aged man's past. When I saw that her face lit up to see me, a young man's desire stirred in me as I sought to engage her in conversation. She was new to Europe and as in many dreams, the details of her being there were not explained and she seemed to not need a reason for me to have encountered her.

The current of dream bid us part after a pleasant interlude.

The slow current brought me around again on another day at the cafe where we shared another meal. Her story of a child she loved dearly and somehow lost, brought the sense of an infant in my arms and the brush of a silky smooth baby cheek against mine. Instantly I held the young woman instead. My arms were warm around her slim form with the curls of her brown hair tickling my cheek. My middle aged heart fought my young man's ardor, but when my blue eyes met her brown ones, I was lost.

I almost babbled of places I could show her around Europe and all we could share if she just let me take her away. She seemed taken with my proposal, but then my middle aged heart clenched. My sleeping form lay next to a wife of more than twenty years who I owed everything and dearly loved! In my dream, my young self bitterly protested.

My true self would not tolerate this any longer. I lay warm in my bed with my eyes remaining closed and the warmth of my wife next to me breathing deeply and evenly.

This is the life where I belong. Why did I go to such a place and situation in my dream? My heart berated me. I knew this waking life was set in motion for me by the Creator. I really didn't want any other.

I found that I could trust the life I have been given because I am in relationship with the Life Giver. Leaving control in His hands actually strengthens our relationship.

2009-04-05T15:10:00.000-07:00

I thought my music would cause me to be remembered after I was gone.
I thought my influence would live on in this way, but time forgets as it moves on.
I need my brothers and my brothers need me, and only together will there be a difference to see.
We sing one today, but tomorrow's a new song.
We keep looking up because we're already gone.

2009-01-09T20:00:00.000-08:00

I am a hollowed out acorn trying to compose like Mozart. I am a blade of grass between a pair of thumbs trying to sound like a symphony. Even as I am created in the image of God, I still need Him just to breathe.

2009-01-07T09:57:00.001-08:00

No war vet claims to be a hero. It is the honored dead who are heroes.

2008-09-11T10:57:00.000-07:00

In the darkness between the streetlights, I feel invisible. The lights from the coffee shops and convenient stores have little draw for me tonight. My thoughts are on something besides spending time in idle pleasure. Maybe I should say someone. My thoughts are on someone who was able to touch my heart in such a way as to leave me with the desire to not shut her out.

Now, I sit on a park bench in the dark as just another creature of the city at night. I am a vague threat to anyone who might walk by. Most people do not lightly walk by someone sitting in the dark, and I don't expect the two girls walking toward me on their way to the girls' dormitory to stay on my side of the street much longer.

It's their dorm I'm sitting across the street from, but if they really knew me, they would know I was no threat. As much as I sometimes hate to admit it, I do like people. It's when I get hurt that I want to become a hermit, and I don't want any detached sort of “counseling”. Once I've had time to recover, I'm ready to deal with my few friends and acquaintances and even meet new people again.

The fact that this person touched me so deeply so quickly has me starting to believe what one of my high school teachers told me several years ago. “Getting to know people is sometimes worth the risk of getting hurt.”

I count the windows on the third floor. Yes her light is on. More than likely, she's there. I glance at the phone booth some yards down the street. I want to call her but I don't want to hear that she needs to study and can't spend time with me.

Her lit window is a focus point in the shadows for my eyes while my mind replays those few times we were together. I liked how her eyes were the color of a lush grassy field and how the gold flecks made me think of flowers in a meadow. I suspect she has something magic about her when I see her smile and playful manner.

My hand is on the receiver of the pay phone before I realized I wanted to hear her voice. I don't begrudge her the last of the coins in my pocket as I prepare my words and my heart for the sound of her voice.

After five rings, I know no one will answer, so I hang up and retrieve my coins. My hopes for our friendship are fizzing like soda inside me. I have no choice but to live with not knowing where I stand with her.

Back From The Edge

2008-03-06T20:28:00.000-08:00

I watched Fern’s toes wiggle lazily as we sat under a shady willow that in combination with the breeze off of the river cooled our sweat-beaded brows. The languid branches acted as a curtain forming a natural tent for our relaxation.

Just visible out in the sun bobbed a red winged blackbird. In a blur of feathers that was becoming a common occurrence for me, the bird became a young woman with her blue-black hair streaked with two lines of yellow and red. She pushed through the branches and looked at me with unfocused eyes.

“You must go home now and bring him to me here,” stated the girl flatly and mysteriously.

“Bring who to you?” I frowned.

“Her boyfriend,” replied Fern when I looked at her for help.

Her boyfriend...? “Oh! You must be Tom's girl.”

“I had to come home. Here. He wouldn't come with me,” the bird girl tried to explain.

“I can bring him here? I don't even know how to get back,” I looked at Fern. “Which is something I've been meaning to ask you since we arrived here this afternoon.”

“I will show you,” said Fern.

“I must go now!” interjected the blackbird girl just before she changed back and flew away.

“Come,” beckoned Fern as she pulled on my arm. We walked across the stretch of grass back toward the sheer cliff of the bluff where we had first appeared near its unassailable surface.

“We don't try to climb and then jump the way we got here, do we?” I wasn't sure I could do that again, especially when Fern had to force me over the first time.

“No, no,” she said and pointed to an indiscernible spot on the cliffside, “we walk straight in here.”

We were standing about ten feet away, so I slowly held my hands out in front of me and walked toward the place she seemed to be pointing. Before I could get near enough to touch the rock, my hands blurred to almost invisibility.

“You can close your eyes if you want to,” prompted Fern.

“Let's just go,” I said.

We walked forward together into dizziness and a wind that pulled me up into a nauseated disorientation. I opened my eyes when I felt like we had arrived back and saw that we had in fact returned to Minnehaha Park. Fern was lying next to me in some grass well away from the park's cliff edge where we had entered Fern's world earlier.

Fern sat up and said, “You go get the boyfriend. I'll wait for you over there.” She pointed to the edge of the cliff. I nodded that I understood.

As I made my way to Tom's house, I wondered why I was going along with this idea of bringing Tom over into that other world I had only just discovered myself today. If anyone would believe me, it would be Tom. After all, his girlfriend is a red winged blackbird. How insane is this? How insane am I?

Thomas Mayfield answered his door on the third knock. He just stood in the doorway and looked at me blankly.

“I have a message from your girlfriend. I think you said her name was Jenny?” I was surprised her name even occurred to me.

Tom ushered me into his living room. “How have you heard from her?”

“She bobbed up to me and changed right before my eyes and told me to bring you to her.”

“That is strange. If anything, I’d expect her to come to me herself.”

I told him about Fern taking me to her home in another world, and that was where Jenny was. “I’m suppose to bring you to her there. Fern insisted I do so.”

“Look,” said Tom, “Jenny told me she had to go home for a while. I thought maybe she was trying to find a way to break up with me. I mean, how can someone humdrum like me last with someone magical? I thought that was it.”

“Tom, I don’t know the hows or whys. I am only doing this because Fern thinks I should. It sounds like Jenny still wants you. At least, I think so.”

“Is there some kind of time difference? I mean, what day do you think this is? How do you know you weren’t gone longer than you think?”

I was beginning to think he was making excuses. “It’s Sunday, right? The twenty-eighth? Just come with me and see.”

---

At the edge of the cliff, I held a tree branch out over the edge. The end was blurred into invisibility. “Now you do it and see it’s no trick.”

I handed him the branch and he gingerly extended it over the edge.

”You’re going to hate me for this,” I thought as I gave him a push…

2007-11-10T15:21:00.001-08:00

There's so much I would share with you
From experience, memory and dream

The soothing breeze on a summer's evening
The elation of catching the smile of a new-found love
To know you loved as true as your grief is deep
The dreams that came true were from the deepest part of you
And pleasure and pain are part of the same blessing

Over The Edge With Fern

2007-07-06T06:08:00.000-07:00

I fell in high grass as if I had merely been knocked down. Fern was still clutching me tight and I could feel her convulsing with chirping laughter.

I slid out from under her and sat up. Immediately, I was overwhelmed with a wave of nausea that started to ease. When I felt I could stand, I saw that we were in an open area near a river.

A hundred yards from the river was a familiar sandstone cliff. We weren't near Minnehaha Falls or the creek because there was nothing carved into the face of the cliff. This was a proper river in front of me as well.

Fern sat with her legs crossed watching me. “Where are we?” I asked.

“We are home. My home.” Her smile grew larger, and I let my questions go unasked. “We eat lunch now. Follow me.”

I was amused by her taking the lead and followed her to a huckleberry bush. She picked a couple of the darkest berries and held them out to me. I took them out of her little brown hand and ate them. They were very sweet because they were almost over ripe.

She flew into the interior of the bush in her usual flurry of feathers. I guessed she was eating more berries, so I continued to eat as well.

A small boy pulling on my shirt soon interrupted me. “Where did you come from?” I was surprised because the first thing I noticed about him was his blue hair and blue eyebrows and lashes. He couldn't have been more than five years old. Maybe I did fall over that cliff and was delirious somewhere at the bottom. I wasn't convinced this was heaven and I didn't want to think about being in the other place.

In a moment, I saw my sparrow girl pecking at a berry and pointed. “I came with Fern.”

“Fern?” the boy frowned. “Her?”

“Yes,” I replied.

“Oh-oh,” said the boy making his response one word with two syllables. “When are you going to get married?”

“What? She's just a little girl! Well... When she's not a little bird,” I said frowning. I must have slipped over the edge. It was either that cliff or my sense of reality.

“Fern is old-old,” said my blue-haired acquaintance waving at my words with contempt. “When girls get old-old like her they want to get married. They fly far away and get married and never come back.”

A brown ball of feathers seemed to bounce off of the boy's rust colored shirt, and Fern was standing before him in her girl's form. “I am not old-old!” she cried raising her fist to hit him.

There were two flurries of feathers and my sparrow girl was chasing a bluebird on the wing. All through the huckleberry bush they chased looking like a whirlwind of blue and brown feathers until the bluebird boy flew away.

Fern walked back to me with her arms folded and didn't smile until I started laughing. She smiled seeming pleased with herself.

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Bohemian Avenue #14

2007-06-29T17:05:00.000-07:00

I stood ankle deep in Minnehaha Creek along a sandy portion of the bank watching my sparrow girl splash water over herself. She had been delighted to be named Fern at my suggestion. I'm not sure why, but Fern seemed to occur to me automatically.

We had been walking the creek for at least an hour together. She would revert back to bird form once in a while to settle briefly in a tree or to poke around in some grass. At other moments she would gingerly take my hand and walk with me in her girl's form. Though neither of these changes seemed to last long, I thought perhaps she wanted to feel close to me. I confess I have become quite fond of her since our first meeting.

I heard her singing again this morning through the open windows. She doesn't visit me every day, but quite often, and hearing her this morning drew me to invite her to visit Minnehaha Falls and walk the creek to where it emptied into the Mississippi River. She smiled and told me she knew the place and said a little cryptically, “I'll show it to you, too.” I chalked up what she said as one of her cute little ways that made me smile, but I was in for a surprise!

As we walked toward where the creek emptied into the river, there were ledges of sandstone. Many people had carved their names and other words and images into the rock faces. At a point where the cliff seemed about forty feet up from the creek bank, there were wooden stairs to take you up into a more landscaped part of the park and within view of a Minneapolis residential area. It was here that Fern flew half way up the stairs and turned to urge me to follow.

At the top of the stairs, I found her standing at the edge of the cliff near the stairs. She held her hand over the expanse, turned to me and said, “Here is the way to another place--my home. Jump and come with me.”

“What? You know I can't fly.” I was standing next to her feeling my stomach clench as I considered the height.

Fern smiled and took my hand turning me away from the view. “Not fly, jump!”

“I could die jumping from here!” I suspected all my experiences with Fern had become a delusion and I was going to prove it by jumping to my death as soon as my delusion convinced what was left of my sanity.

She took several strides back from me “You won't die. Catch me!”

Before I realized, she had jumped into my arms. She was not heavy, but her momentum had pushed me back. I knew I was falling, but I couldn't believe how fast. It was taking too long and felt like the suspended rush of coming down the initial descent of a roller coaster. “I'll wake up in Heaven,” I thought, “if I don't crush this little girl in my arms from sheer terror…”

2007-06-18T20:12:00.000-07:00

The minute I first saw you
Your smile, your eyes
Your inner light like a sunrise
You brought me to life
I had things to show you
I wanted to get to know you
Only to let me fall
A picture could tell
After years, how hard I fell

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2007-06-08T13:02:00.000-07:00

Thought my heart would break in two
The day you went away
It's funny how you were the man and child
I needed most to stay

In a sea of days passing
I still see your smile
Lost, alone, in an inner heart's dreaming
I sit with you awhile

Pardon me,
I want to hold the child in my arms tonight
You helped me see
The face of God in a brand new light

Bohemian Avenue #13

2007-06-01T11:28:00.000-07:00

When I came to the door this morning to let in some fresh air, I was greeted with a lovely melody. A young girl's voice was humming and articulating the notes to something I hadn't heard before. My sparrow girl was already sitting in one of the lawn chairs I had set up with a TV tray between them. I watched her singing as she swung her legs.

I took the moment to take a good look at her, because it was hard to believe she was real at times. She was petite and well formed with straight brown hair that barely reached her shoulders. Her skin was tanned and almost blended with the cotton shorts she wore and made her t-shirt look very white. She was barefoot and picked at tufts of the grass with her toes. When she noticed me at the door, she stopped singing.

"I'll be right out with breakfast," I called.

She stood as I came out with a pot of tea and two teacups on a tray with a plate of toast with butter and other things.

"Hi," she said.

That was the first time I had heard her speak. I was a little surprised, but pleasantly so.

I poured her a cup of tea. She put her mouth to the lip of the cup and pulled back almost spilling.

"Yes, it's hot. I sometimes blow on my tea to cool it off a little," I offered.

She blew on her tea driving a few drops over the lip on the opposite side. I smiled and lightly laughed. She met my eyes and smiled.

I put peanut butter on a piece of toast and gave it to her. Putting her teacup down, she took it in both hands and took a tiny bite. She immediately took a bigger one.

Our breakfast tea was underway. We ate toast and drank our tea. She drank hers carefully even though it had cooled. She seemed to be thinking intently. When she sprang up, I didn't know what to think. I hoped she wasn't leaving, but she had gone to the bird feeder and was putting millet on her peanut butter toast. She seemed pleased with the result.

I laughed as she returned with her toast speckled with the seed. Her eyes were shining as she gave me a shy little smile. When she was seated again, I said, "I liked your singing."

She hummed a little in reply. After a moment when she had swallowed another sip of tea, she told me how she watched a little girl dress her cat in doll's clothes and received a scratch for her trouble.

I said I thought the girl was a little cruel to the cat, but she said the cat deserved the humiliation for all the trouble she gives the neighborhood birds.

Our conversation continued for almost an hour until she said, "Goodbye, sir" and was gone in the familiar flutter of feathers.

The sunlight seemed to fade somehow. The moment had a slight feel of loneliness, but we had shared a lovely breakfast together. That was my memory to savor.

My sparrow girl is real isn't she?

I need her to be.

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2007-05-28T04:53:00.000-07:00

It's an ache in my heart
A memory of your lips whispering my name
In a brief moment of caress
Doomed from the start and already cast adrift

2007-05-17T10:25:00.000-07:00

Mom gave me some of my brother’s cassette tapes. She had saved them for quite a while. Opening the box, I imagined the tapes without cases and the ones with cracks had been rescued from the mangled wreck of my brother’s car. How alike we were to keep a continuous selection of music at our fingertips.

With some trepidation, I began listening to them. My theory of music being the soundtrack of your life seemed to manifest as every song seemed to speak of many of the very things my brother had been going through in those last days. I had almost forgotten them.

I experienced laughter at the familiar favorites we had shared. I could have wept at the sad songs that seemed to match actual events he had confided to me. I felt the fondness of a mentor for his protégé at the start of each song I knew I had brought to his notice in our mutual love of music. Sometimes those songs are the hardest to listen to again.

I took being a big brother too seriously at times. I found that I blamed myself for his loss. I found it hard to forgive myself and in one sense to let my brother go, but I think I now have.

It doesn’t mean I won’t miss him anymore. I will until I see him again.

“I cried when I wrote this song. Sue me if I play too long.” --Steely Dan.

2007-05-06T04:07:00.000-07:00

Softly through the trees
Breathes a rainy breeze
Whispering through the air
The perfume in her hair

Bohemian Avenue #12

2007-05-03T20:10:00.000-07:00

I've been buying samples of every kind of birdseed and mixtures lately. I have little idea of what I'm doing, but I am trying to see if there is a way to attract certain birds into my yard.

I find myself waking up earlier to observe the results of my experiments. A farmer might say, “rising with the chickens,” but I say rising with the birds. I guess I have heard both said before.

I told you about my sparrow girl a little while back. I began to wonder if maybe I could attract some of those red winged blackbirds to my yard, too. My friend Tom has a friend who is supposed to be one of those.

I'm only trying because I haven't seen my sparrow girl after that first encounter. If I can befriend another bird person, maybe I'll learn more about them. That's why I'm trying the different kinds of birdseed.

Yesterday morning, I couldn't believe my luck. I looked out my front window; to see a red winged blackbird had landed in my little tree. She didn't stay long enough to try any of my gourmet seed. The chickadees were really chowing down on the spilled seed.

Groups and pairs of sparrows came and went as well. I tried to be outside looking as non-threatening as I could. I tried not to scare them off when they seemed to hop and bob closer to me, but no transformation into a girl or boy happened.

Boy, if the neighbors or the guys at work knew how I spent so much time trying to meet the little sparrow girl again, they would think I was crazy. Maybe they would be right. I won't ever bring up that subject just as Tom hasn't mentioned it ever again.

Last night, I was moving boxes around in my basement when something shiny on the floor caught my eye. It was a piece of tinsel that must have fell out of one of my Christmas boxes. I thought it might be just the thing to entice my sparrow girl to appear.

I was so excited at the thought of being successful; I wanted to try it right away before the sun was down. There wasn't a bird to be seen anywhere near my yard, so I had to wait until morning.

I felt a little sulky. I sat in the yard in a lawn chair and watched cars go by on the street. I watched people walk to and from the corner store. I laughed to myself as I watched the neighborhood squirrels stare longing at the birdfeeder hanging in the tree, but didn't dare to come any closer than the fence because I was on the grass.

It wasn't until the smell of the neighbor's barbecue started making me hungry that I gave up sitting and went to fix my supper.

This morning, I decided to re-enact all that had happened the day I first saw the sparrow girl. I sat on my front steps with the piece of tinsel on my knee and watched for sparrows. There were a few that came to the feeder, but none of them ventured near me.

When all the birds seemed to have flown away, I took a handful of seed and made a little pile three feet from my front steps. After refilling my tea mug, I returned to the steps to wait and enjoy the morning.

The thought occurred to me that maybe I should have brought out the saltshaker to put salt on her tail. No, that's just a fairy tale. But how are a fairy tale and the idea of a bird girl any different? No again. Even if salt on the tail would work, I didn't want to capture her. I wanted to gain her trust; to befriend her.

A single sparrow came to my feeder. She seemed to prefer eating the spilled seed. I watched her and she slowly made her way closer to me. My heart was pounding so hard; I thought my little sparrow would be frightened away.

I tried brushing the tinsel off of my knee so she might be tempted closer to me, but the silvery strand wouldn't brush off. It was stuck to my pants with static electricity. I took it between my thumb and index finger and looked up...and there she was.

Her big brown eyes looked at mine, and then at the tinsel. I had a closer look at her face this time, and I noticed she had brown pinprick freckles under her eyes and a few on her button nose. She didn't smile, but looked at me earnestly.

I spoke softly. “Would you like to have breakfast with me out here in the yard tomorrow? I will make you tea, and we could have buttered toast.”

I handed her the tinsel, which she took with her thumb and index finger in imitation of me. She stroked the metallic strand with a finger and looked up at me. She nodded and was gone in a flurry of feathers.

I sat there with the goofiest smile my face and a flood of joy in my heart.

Bohemian Avenue #11

2007-04-26T20:12:00.001-07:00

Mike led her into the basement of his friend's house to the recording studio there. All his work of writing, arranging the music, bringing in musicians, and laying all the music tracks was about to be completed. Denise had the perfect smoky alto voice to make his project the dream his mind had created.

He became very attentive that she would be as comfortable as possible during her time here. The bottle of water was cold from the refrigerator on the music stand. He took her coat and showed her where she could refresh herself.

Mike's friend Dan fit the headphones to her head and ran a sound check on her microphone. After some adjustment of its placement, it was time to get down to the actual laying of the vocal tracks.

It was Dan's studio, so he sat behind the big board and acted as engineer, but Mike was the producer and had the last word on what each recording contained. He sat next to Dan and observed and lent what advise he could keep the musicians and Dan in line with what his project was meant to be.

The recording was going as planned. Denise was in fine voice and understood all Mike's instructions, behaving as a good actress taking direction. Her voice was having the desired effect.

Music was something deeply meaningful to Mike. It penetrated to his spirit and engulfed, inspired, and lifted him. Each instrument was vital to the feeling of the whole piece of music, and the voice of the singer touched him in ways that convinced him of a deep connection between the two of them.

There seemed to be such a connection now. Watching her added another facet to the process. Her face was framed by a pageboy haircut that enriched the chestnut color of her hair and eyebrows. Her blue eyes seemed to envision all that she sang about as her voice caressed the listener's ears.

When all the vocals were laid and outside the afternoon had turned to evening, Denise gathered her things to leave. Mike felt he had experienced an intimate embrace and wished he could make it last.

“Thank you so much for all your hard work. I am very pleased with what we have accomplished,” said Mike handing her an envelope with her fee inside.

“Thank you. This will come in handy when I leave for New York tomorrow,” smiled Denise.

Mike's heartbeat thudded harder for a moment, but kept his face placid. “It's a shame you won't be able to work with us anymore, but I wish you all the best.” He held out his hand for her shake and showed her to the door.

As he watched her through the window, he couldn't believe he felt so let down with a strong sense of loss. He thought he could still smell a wisp of her perfume. A sense of mourning seemed to begin settling upon him as he returned to the soundboard.

“Hit the playback from the beginning, Dan, please?”

The music was rich and velvet in its texture carrying Denise's voice straight to Mike's heart. It was all there! The moments Mike had desired to last forever.

And for Mike they will.

Bohemian Avenue #10

2007-04-20T19:46:00.000-07:00

Three strips of bright green plastic had blown into my yard while I was taking in the sunshine and the cool breeze of a spring morning. I had been contemplating what yard work needed to be completed now that the snow was gone when the color caught my eye. I picked them up before sitting on my front step to finish my tea.

I have a bird feeder hanging from a tree that manages to hold up under the weight of chipmunks and squirrels who love the seed as much as the little sparrow pecking at some spilled seed in the grass at that moment. I noticed the sparrow fly off with a piece of twine, which reminded me of the plastic I had picked up.

I looked at the three pieces of shiny green. They had been looped as if they had held a rolled newspaper or magazine. I untied them and braided them together. It made me think of the bracelets the kids like to wear. I draped it over my knee and watched the little sparrow as she made off with various scraps of things from my yard.

She seemed a cute little thing, and I decided that I liked her especially since she seemed to be helping me with my yard work. I watched her as she gradually drew closer to me.

I glanced at my knee and saw that my braid had fallen to the pavement by the toe of my shoe. As I reached to pick it up, another small tanned hand was reaching for it as well. I looked up into a pair of big brown eyes in the head of a brown-haired girl of about twelve years old.

I drew back, and the child kept glancing between my face and the green braid at my feet.

“You can have it,” I said gently.

With what happened next, I was sure I had to be dreaming. The green strands were swept up in a flurry of feathers and were gone. The girl was nowhere to be seen either.

All morning, I kept thinking about what had happened. Was the girl also a sparrow? As Tim Allen said in “The Santa Claus”: Tomorrow, I'm getting a CAT scan! I really didn't want to be crazy. To keep my mind from thinking further along this line, I decided to continue with my yard work.

As I was raking the backyard, I remembered someone from work who claimed he had a girlfriend that was also a crow or something.

It turned out he lived only three blocks from me. Since it was now after ten o'clock, I thought I'd go pay him a visit, and maybe ask about this crow for a girlfriend of his.

When I was standing in front of his house, I realized I couldn't remember his name. As brazen as you please, I looked at the mail in his mailbox. Thomas Mayfield was the name. 0k, I remembered we called him Tom at work.

I rang the doorbell and rapped three times on the door for good measure. It was a habit from being a paperboy as a kid. You had to be persistent in your collections or you would have to eat a hundred newspapers. No one on my route could claim they didn't hear me because the doorbell didn't work.

Tom came to the door in a t-shirt and athletic shorts. His hair was sticking up on one side, and I could actually see the sleep in his eyes. At least he recognized me right away.

“Tom, can I talk to you about something?”

With only a raised eyebrow and a more alert attitude, he asked me into his kitchen and offered me fresh coffee.

When I broached the subject of his having a crow for a girlfriend, he put his coffee cup down and looked at me. “She not a crow. She’s a red winged black bird. Crows are more unpredictable.”

“I think I believe you, now.” I said.

“What? About crows? You’ve seen a bird person?”

“I think so.” I replied. I proceeded to tell him what had happened to me that morning.

“So, what do you want from me?”

“You have a relationship with one of them. I thought you could tell me how to befriend my sparrow girl.”

“Whoa. First of all, they are very secretive and will disappear forever at the slightest chance of betrayal or unwanted discovery. My own friend would fly off and not speak to me for days if I even hinted she was anything but a normal girl. This secret is something magical and we are graciously trusted to keep that secret or never share in it again.”

“Your blackbird, or all bird people? How do I gain her trust?” Am I encroaching into Tom’s private fantasy world? Or am I really being drawn into some secret magical reality? Have I already lost it?

“Look,” said Tom, “if she’s really trusting her secret to you, you’ll see her again. Just let her come to you in her own time.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s all I can tell you. All I have said is really a theory based on my own experiences. I don’t know the sparrow people, and I couldn’t even ask Jenny about her own kind. Relax. If she appears again, enjoy what friendship you can make and don’t press for more than she’s willing to give.”

Walking home, I thought about all I knew about sparrows. It wasn’t much, but I figured if I saw a bit of bright green in a nest somewhere, I’d at least know where she lives.

2006-10-16T14:47:00.000-07:00

The thoughts I want to remember thinking today are these:

Something I've realized about my wife Tammy, is that being out away from the city must be one of the things that feeds her spirit. Things in nature seems to remind her of the peace the Lord gives us. I would like to give her more chances to feed her spirit.

I think that if and when I go back to writing and playing music, I want the songs to tell about the euphoric and overwhelming, yet peaceful and unchanging love between each person and the Lord. I want everyone to know they can actually feel that way.

2006-05-26T04:48:00.000-07:00

I smell the rain on my front porch steps
Mixed with the smell of fresh grass clippings.

I would that this rain could wash my heart of all the memories of her,
Of all the premature connections between us that tug on my heart so painfully,
So I may take in the fragrance of a summer afternoon without a twinge of regret.

2006-04-01T04:28:00.000-08:00

You ask such penetrating questions. They pierce me like arrows to expose what is inside of me. I don't want anyone to see inside, and I don't want to look for myself either.

I'm fine with myself as long as I don't have to see what is hidden inside my heart. If you persist with your questions, I will become angry to try to avoid feeling afraid. I may attack you and cut you like a knife.

I will keep my back turned to you until you come to me on my terms and act as I want you to.

I know your questions have pierced me and I still feel the pain.

I'll try not to think about it.

The Little Boy

2006-01-26T07:32:00.000-08:00

When I was three or four years old, I was the only son of a church intern on his way to becoming the pastor God called him to be.

For many reasons, I was put into daycare during this time. One of the daycares I was entrusted to was in a lady’s home where she took care of several children including her own son. I grew to hate being put in this daycare and told my mother I never wanted to go back. I was unable to express a good reason for my feelings.

Recently, I was in a prayer ministry class where part of the training is to go through the process of being counseled. One afternoon, I felt I needed to bring up the daycare issue. With God’s help, I was able to remember more details of that time without the mumbo jumbo of hypnotism or regression techniques.

I remembered an incident at this daycare where I was skipping around the house and babbling nonsense words. The lady in charge scolded me for using vulgar language. My words may have sounded like vulgar references to body parts, but I didn’t realize that. I also realized there were other similar incidents that happened.

As a result, I felt dirty inside and ashamed without fully understanding why. I was made to feel this way most of the times I was in that daycare. I believe this tainted my outlook on life somewhat.

Later in my life, if I pursued a relationship or anything that wasn’t 100% sanctioned by the church, I always doubted my true motives in pursuing it. I usually had some sort of inner struggle to try anything that seemed new or different. These pent up feelings were the result of that first event in my life and I later built on them. I began to feel that I would never be truly accepted by God or my parents.

In the counseling session, I was led in a prayer of forgiving the daycare lady for making me feel this way. Then I needed to ask for forgiveness for the resentment I held for this lady and even my parents. As in my past counseling sessions, which were concerning my pent up anger at my father, I trusted that God had and was continuing to heal me.

My group leader who counseled me in this, prayed for me also. He prayed for the hurt little boy inside of me to be healed and for the Lord to grow him up. In my heart, I wasn’t sure why he chose that approach until I was in church the following Sunday.

During worship, we sang an old song called Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus. It goes on to say, “Look full in His wonderful face.” As a child, I had always thought of sitting on Jesus’ lap and He would rest His forehead on mine, and we would look into each other’s eyes whenever that song was sung. Now I saw myself there on His lap once again feeling no shame and knowing nothing to interfere with feeling His love for me. I wept like that little boy.

As Huey Lewis sings: That’s the power of Love.

Bohemian Avenue #9

2006-01-06T07:17:00.000-08:00

I am a ghost.

Don’t let the movies or anyone fool you. Ghosts haunt people, not old empty houses, though location is an important factor. There has to be some kind of connection between the ghost and the place and the one he or she haunts.

I haunt a place from my childhood, a place that is strongly imprinted in my memory. It’s a lovely old building in the middle of a big city that houses many beautiful children with high ideals and faraway eyes that no longer seem to see the decay that is right outside the fence they and their guardians have put up.

I’ve wandered the street outside many times to see other ghosts—not unlike myself—with a toehold on life and the old bulldog Death’s jaws locked onto them. Those jaws shift from time to time to get a stronger grip.

Who do I haunt? It’s one of those beautiful children I told you about. In life, I was related by blood to her. That is the tie between us. I might not have been so bound if she hadn’t at one time perceived my existence, but she’s managed to shut me out of all her senses now.

I watch her without the power of helping or even hindering her activities. I can see her joys and pain, but I can’t give a word of encouragement or stop her from making a mistake. It is hard sometimes to have to watch the events of her life helplessly.

It’s too late now. I am caught and bound with my only hope of being free to wander again is in the day she no longer returns to our place of connection.

Christmas Stocking

2005-12-21T17:08:00.000-08:00

I’ve always enjoyed the Christmas season. The church had a program produced and directed by my mother, but even the rehearsals were fun. This would always jump start my sense of the Christmas spirit.

I began to buy my parents and siblings Christmas presents with my own money and found that there truly was more joy in giving than receiving. One year I left clues under the tree to where I had hidden my siblings’ gifts. That was an especially fun holiday.

In my own home, we let our kids hang up a stocking that they are allowed to get into Christmas morning while they wait for their parents to wake up. I think that is more merciful than when I was sitting up wide-awake at five in the morning waiting for the chance to get to the Christmas tree.

I remember one Christmas Eve when I was pretty young; my cousin wanted me to spend the night at his house. Once permission was granted, my cousin dug up an old woolen sock for me to hang up next to his for Saint Nicholas. I knew that meant Santa, but he insisted on calling him Saint Nicholas.

I was surprised when he was allowed to use a hammer and nail to hang my stocking on the wall. He was caught before he actually made a hole and was given some Scotch tape instead. After that little episode, we dressed in our pajamas because it was time for bed whether we thought so or not.

My aunt and uncle put us in a huge bedroom with a huge bed. It must have been a king-sized bed. It was the biggest bed I’d ever seen in my life. I’d only looked into this room from the doorway in the past, so it was a real treat to actually be allowed to use it.

We were in the dark talking for a long time that night with several interruptions from my aunt telling us to be quiet. We would eventually be loud again, until my aunt sharply told us to go to sleep. We tried very hard to be quiet after that, but the light from a passing car floated across the wall caused us to start a new game of hiding under the covers. It wasn’t long before we were shooting these lights using our fingers for guns.

Sometime in the night we did fall asleep, and before I knew it, morning had arrived. As it always happens when I’m in a strange house and bed, I was awake at that familiar hour of five o’clock Christmas morning. My cousin was in a coma at the other side of that ocean of a bed, and I was stuck in that situation I usually found myself every Christmas: I was wide-awake with no hope of seeing another waking soul for hours. It might as well have been years as far as I was concerned.

When my cousin finally resurrected, time seemed to start again, and it wasn’t long before I was dumping my stocking on the floor to see what Saint Nicholas had brought me.

I’ve heard it said that Santa stops his watch to stop time itself so he can deliver all the presents in one night. I am convinced he does it around five o’clock Christmas morning.

2005-11-11T11:45:00.000-08:00

Put up your sword
The battle is done
For brothers lost
The tears have begun

And life ahead
Won't be the same
For deeds you've done
With pride, and some with shame

There was a price
To vent your zeal
You've paid in years
The time to heal

Lakeside

2005-10-30T20:11:00.000-08:00

I stepped out onto the deck of my cabin wearing my pajama bottoms and a sweatshirt. Nothing seemed to be stirring in the middle of this autumn night. The light from the boathouse gave off a dim glow in the mist that rose off of the lake.

I was wide awake after sleeping soundly for only three hours, and I felt compelled to step outside. I was sure I wouldn’t stay long now that the temperature was dropping.

In the dim light over the lake, I noticed the mist began to swirl slowly. The flow began to resemble a dust devil of moisture that never seemed to pick up any speed. A gust of wind hit me bringing a concentrated cloud of the mist from the lake that obscured my entire backyard. I could no longer see the lake or anything beyond the wooden rail of my deck.

I began to smell the musty scent of wet leaves and mud I associated with the bottom of the lake. As the mist began to recede from my yard back to the water, I could hear sloshing as if someone were wading in the shallows. Something slightly whiter than the mist glimmered near the willow at the lake’s edge.

When the mist was no longer in my yard, I could still make out a light colored object among the willow’s drooping limbs. I watched for movement in vain, but the more I looked, the more I thought I saw a young woman’s figure in a nightgown. It had to be just my imagination. I could remember seeing trolls, elves, and all manner of grotesque creatures in the shadows of trees and bushes when I was a kid. I guess I was more tired than I had first realized.

The breezed picked up again and began to blow colder. I took this as my cue to return to bed. My hand was on the doorknob when I heard a splash in the lake behind me. I turned to see the lake free from every wisp of mist or fog and looking flat and still as a black mirror in the glow of the light of the boathouse. Nothing moved.

In bed, I dreamt of a smile dimpling a milky smooth cheek.

The next morning I walked down to the lake to find nothing out of the ordinary in the murky shallows. I walked to the willow and pushed through the streamers of leaves to view the cabin. I saw no evidence of the strangeness of the night before.

I started to push through the curtain of leaves to find some breakfast when a few gossamer strands brushed across my face and into my eyes. I quickly grabbed them and held them up in irritation for examination. I was holding several threads of long dark hair.

The Tape

2005-09-15T15:00:00.000-07:00

It was an old tape from the back of the cabinet. The writing on the label was so faded it was illegible. I put it in the machine to see what was on it.

The first image brought an unreasonable ache to my heart. Standing in front of the camera was a young freckle faced brunette with her once-long hair cut to above her shoulders. She was speaking, but the sound didn’t seem to be working on the tape.

Her facial expressions were so familiar to me I could almost guess the nature of what she was saying. The sparkle of her eyes and the way her lips formed each word told me of the mischievous tone in her voice that my ears longed to hear.

I was just about to remember her name when a snowy line slid down the screen changing the scene to the interior of a cabin that I recognized to be from Lost Lake.

On two of the bunks sprawled two blond girls talking to each other and seemed to be unaware of being taped. The sound was so sporadic I couldn’t make out what the girls were talking about. I should have known the names of those two as well. I was frustrated at not being able to hear enough of the conversation to give me any more clues to their identities.

The tape faded to snow and there didn’t seem to be anything more. I shut off the machine and the television and sat in my chair.

I should have known who these girls were. I knew the brunette used to have longer hair, but I had no idea how I knew. Something inside me told me I had been a friend with these people, but no details came to mind.

* * *

I knew I was waking up from a dream. I felt myself laughing in my sleep. My diaphragm convulsed with the laughter of a happy memory, and I knew I would awake at any moment. It would only be a matter of simply opening my eyes.

I knew I had laughed at a moment I had shared with someone from my dream. It was a memory I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

As my eyes were about to open, I felt a delicate hand squeeze mine, and then a pair of soft generous lips briefly met mine. They were the lips that had spoken of mischief and the joy of being alone together.

I opened my eyes and straightened in my chair.

“Anna?” The name tumbled from my lips with no reference or recognition.

I used the remote to rewind the tape and view it again, but there was only six hours of snow on it.

2005-09-04T11:49:00.000-07:00

I’m just your child sitting in the sand
The taste of salt on my lips and hands
You cannot find me now
I cannot fathom how
The sound of the waves fills the air
I look for you
I know you’re there

Darkness falls on sea and land
I’m still sitting in the sand
You cannot find me now
I cannot fathom how
The sound of the waves fills the air
I look for you
I know you’re there

A sandy hand wipes a salty tear
The balmy wind brings your words to my ear
The bitter past is gone
Your love for me lives on
The sound of the waves fills the air
I look for you
I know you’re there

Bohemian Avenue #8

2005-08-24T17:43:00.000-07:00

I am very happy in my new neighborhood. Highland Park has a unique feel to it. I think of it as a laid back version of Uptown over in Minneapolis. I’ve started to spend the spring out and about. With the change in season, the new neighborhood, and a couple of suspicions I have about the unseen things that happen around here, I have a new lease on life.

A guy from work suggested that I check out the teashop just up the street from the Highland Theater. I never knew there were so many kinds of tea. It will take quite a while for me to sample something from each jar that lines the back wall all the way to the ceiling.

I’ve started to prefer tea to coffee and spend a couple evenings a week on one of the shop’s sofas with a good book. Now you’ll find me there every Saturday morning as well.

Most of the time, there are two lovely young ladies behind the counter who brew the tea. I like to ask a question about tea to tap their knowledge. They seem to have a passion for tea. Once I get them talking, our conversations continue onto other topics and we have a pleasant time of banter and learning from one another. I am so glad that many people I have met are so friendly. It makes me glad I didn’t remain a hermit as I had during the winter. Next winter will be different.

I still go into the video store where my friend the bird girl always engages me in long pleasant chats. I want to take her to the teashop one day, but I haven’t gotten the nerve to ask her. Her smile seems to intoxicate me.

One morning in the teashop I heard about this park called Hidden Falls. I knew about Minnehaha Falls. That was just across the Ford Parkway Bridge into Minneapolis. This place was supposed to be on our side of the river. I decided to take a bottle of water and walk to Hidden Falls.

It didn’t take long to find the park. From what I had gathered from the overheard conversation, if I walked the natural lane far enough, I would find the hidden falls.

Along the way, I noticed many dressed in stereotypical “hippie” clothes. It looked like a Ragstock convention. I saw one man dressed as some sort of Scottish Highlander. These people were pouring lines of dirt or powder and stationing potted flowers around in several different places. I thought it was unusual to see occult practices so casually out in the open. It must be a special day on the Wicca calendar or something.

After my experiences of seeing the elven girl, my bird girl and now this, I was convinced there was something mysterious about the area around Highland Park. I wasn’t about to join a cult or swallow any witchcraft nonsense, but here was evidence of a superstitious acknowledgment of the mystery.

When I found the falls, it was actually anticlimactic. They were a few smelly trickles falling about six feet to form a stream that didn’t seem to go anywhere. It smelled of phosphorus much like the polluted river in my hometown where I grew up. Disappointed, I began to walk home.

A bird landed on the grass not too far from me as I headed out of the park. It was a red winged blackbird. I was sure it was my bird girl.

My friend the Goth video clerk and I never brought up the possibility of her being my bird girl, but I wanted to see some results of my efforts today, so I called out to the bird. “Hey, cutie, why don’t you meet me at the Tea Source at eight o’clock tonight?”

None of the “hippies” even looked up when I spoke, but there were a few others that gave me a strange look before going about their business.

The funniest thing about the whole day is that my bird girl showed up at the teashop that evening.

Bohemian Avenue #7

2005-08-20T20:51:00.000-07:00

It wasn’t just a video store. It was one of those buy, sell, trade places where you could sell the tired old videos you no longer watched or even had a desire to put in your VCR ever again. You wouldn’t get a whole lot for your trade, but it knocked a little off the price of your purchases at the cash register. This place really isn’t important to what I wanted to tell you, but it’s the first place I ever saw her.

When you first walk in the door, you are ambushed by the cloying smell of incense. If anyone still lived with me, they would know I had been there because I would smell like the incense of the day.

After the smell of the place sort of calms down, you see the CD bins, movie racks and many useless or otherwise unnecessary items such as the concert t-shirts and accessories to burn the incense.

In light of all this, I wasn’t surprised to see the Goth girl behind the glass counters full of toes rings, earrings and other piercing doodads. She was manning the cash register and called out a greeting to me as I entered.

I took a good look at her because she looked to be the most exotic young woman I’d seen in quite a while. She wasn’t a Goth in the strictest interpretation, but she had the blackened hair with the thick eye makeup, but without the white usually put on the face. She also had a streak of red through her hair.

She drew on her eye liner so that the outside corners of her eyes had two curly lines that one might call crow’s feet, but made me think of ancient Egypt. I’m too old and out of circulation to know what that is called.

On this particular day, I was out walking the neighborhood I had just moved into that winter. I spent the days of snow just getting to and from the bus stop and the grocery store. Saint Paul is one of the coldest places I’ve ever lived. The snow is piled so high; I couldn’t always see the cars going by on the street. When spring came, I thought, “So this is Highland Park. I should look around and see what’s here.”

Speaking of riding the bus, I ride the 16 to Minneapolis for work. I may have told you that I recently saw a girl in a red jacket and that I suspect her of being an elf of some kind. Now, this girl in the video place is another one that I’m sure is more than she appears.

I didn’t suspect anything until one day I noticed a red winged blackbird on the lawn of a house I was passing. The bird let me pass by, but after a few moments, I heard footsteps behind me. I turned to look and there was the girl from the video store. Right then, it struck me that the red in her hair matched the red on the wing of the bird.

I know, you may have found out about my girlfriend’s letter on my kitchen table telling me she had left me, and that I’m just a lonely middle aged man so desperate for companionship, I’m now having delusions. You may think I’m crazy, but a couple of other times after that I saw the bird and the girl soon after. That’s why I think it’s more than a coincident.

I think the reason she was a little careless around me is because she has taken a liking to me. I know, not only am I crazy, but I’m conceded too. Maybe living alone has gotten to me enough for me to start seeing fairy-folk or to be infatuated with a video store clerk, but I will be keeping my eyes open for more of the chance glimpses of a hidden world in and around the Twin Cities. I plan to enjoy this, delusion or not.

2005-08-14T18:04:00.000-07:00

I remember all your grace
Now I look around to try and see you face
I’ve been alone for quite a while
Now I’m looking just to see your smile

When you smiled at me it made my day seem bright
But I could sleep all of last night
So now I’m going on my way
Maybe I’ll be gone for the rest of the day

I’m walking at dawn
Singing my song
Wishing you would come along

There Can Be Only One #7

2005-08-10T19:40:00.000-07:00

While Daryl swept and mopped, Phil saw that the tanks, gaskets and fixtures of the ice cream machine were washed and reassembled. They were soon finished and were able to spend the remaining time before lights out as they pleased.

The night air cooled Phil’s neck and forehead as he watched for Debbie on the dimly lit campground. There were campers milling around and children running everywhere in the growing darkness.

He finally found her walking one of the main footpaths. They greeted each other at the same time. Phil matched his pace with hers as they walked together. Their hands occasionally brushed, and Phil took the opportunity to take her hand in his.

She immediately stopped walking and turned to him with a soft moan. She leaned into him and rested her temple against his chest. Her hair smelled faintly of strawberry shampoo.

Debbie lifted her face up to his and he met her lips with a kiss. He felt such a chemical surge in his body; he could have thought he had started to absorb another quickening. He didn’t begin to convulse, but it was a powerful feeling in a different sort of way. The feeling maintained itself as they stood together on the path. She ran her hands up the sleeves of his shirt caressing his arms.

About that time, camp leaders were calling out that curfew was now in effect as two young boys began pulling the rope to ring the camp’s bell.

Someone took it upon himself to try to separate Phil and Debbie, but Phil insisted that he would walk Debbie back to her campsite. It wasn’t very far away, and all too soon they had to say goodnight.

At his first opportunity the next day, Phil found Debbie. As soon as he took her hand, she began to cry. She told him of a boyfriend back home. She felt so guilty about wanting to be with Phil and what had happened last night that she was determined to call her boyfriend and tell him what had happened.

Since she had a boyfriend at home, Phil suspected that he should leave Debbie alone and not pursue a relationship with her, but he saw that she still wanted to spend her time at camp with him. His feelings for her were still strong, but he decided to try to just be her friend and find a romantic relationship with someone else.

It seemed funny that he would start a conversation with a pretty girl that afternoon and find that she was interested in him, too.

Camp employees were required to attend at least one of the chapel services a day during camp weeks. The one Phil had decided to attend was getting started, so he invited the girl to come with him.

The two of them occupied a place toward the back and while they sang in the service, Phil took sidelong looks at the girl singing beside him. She was brunette and lightly freckled. She smiled easily, especially with her wide blue eyes. Unfortunately, she could carry a tune in a bucket, and this grated a little on Phil’s nerves.

He was pretty sure his relationship with Debbie was about to fade, so this girl was a convenient possibility for easing his loneliness. After losing so much in his life; most of which he couldn’t distinctly remember, he was going to attempt keeping both relationships going for as longs as he could.

His sense of losing so much of his past was strong. He instinctively knew he had lost two precious parents and a rich family life that he didn’t know how to recreate. He realized that was exactly what he was trying to do.

There Can Be Only One (#6)

2005-07-27T13:52:00.000-07:00

The young man was surprised at how quickly it had become so automatic to turn the stream of ice cream into a neatly twirled work of art. His cones were the best if he thought so himself.

Phil and Daryl were now the two workers designated in charge of the snack stand at this campground where the inhabitants attended Bible camp for a good chunk of the summer.

He had gotten this job because of his interest in a girl. Her name was Andrea, and as Phil had worked to strengthen his friendship with her, she had tested him. Of course, she didn’t tell him it was a test, but that’s what he figured it was when she invited him to go to her church.

He had accepted the invitation with the idea that he would ride with her family to church. He had hoped this would be the chance to know her better, but she arranged for a slick-haired guy in cowboy boots to pick him up. He turned out to be the Sunday School teacher for the high school kids at the church. His name was Jack Turner, a well-meaning man who tried too hard to be Phil’s friend. That was how Phil saw it.

When he had been laid off from his job at the gas station, Jack Turner had gotten him this job at the campgrounds for the summer.

It wasn’t too bad a deal to be housed in a large storeroom with ten other male workers, take a place in the serving line at mealtimes, and then work for a couple hours in the snack stand after each chapel service. Break times were scattered throughout his day.

On the weekends, when there were no planned activities, almost everyone went home. Since Phil didn’t have a car, he was left to fill a lonely couple of days on the campgrounds as best as he could.

During one of these lonely weekends, he picked up a roommate’s guitar and found he remembered how to play. This brought back faint memories of playing guitar with a friend, but he couldn’t recall his name. As a result, the following Friday, he talked a co-worker into taking him into the nearest music store to purchase a guitar of his own.

The next week was for families to attend camp together. This was a little less regimented for the campers, but there were also plenty of activities. This required Phil to man the snack shop a little more often with Daryl. The following weekend would be a working weekend as well.

At the moment, the camp director had temporarily put Daryl on another job leaving Phil in the stand by himself. There were no customers at the moment and everything was stocked up and all he could do was wait for business.

Finally, a girl with large expressive eyes came up to the window. Phil smiled and asked for her order.

“I’m bored,” she said. “Just talk to me.”

Phil looked into her face and saw that she did have a bored expression. If he was right, she really didn’t want to be at camp at all.

He found out her name was Debbie and she lived in a suburb of Detroit. She and her parents hadn’t come to camp very often so she didn’t know anyone her own age here. The only reason they were here this year in her opinion was her father had just bought a camper trailer, and this was their first chance to try it out.

Later, when Phil was on a break, he went found her walking by the lake, and sat with her on the end of the dock. He thought she was pretty. She was pale-skinned and had mouse-brown hair. Though Phil had to work at it, when he made her smile, it was well worth the effort, because she lit up and became even prettier in his eyes.

Maybe this was his chance to have someone in his life to give it more meaning. He began to hope his relationship with her would ease the loneliness that never seemed to leave him alone for long. He had left an almost forgotten life at the bottom of a lake in Illinois. Being with her made him feel less like a ghost. He craved to spend more time with her.

Phil was very pleased when she agreed to meet him when he was done working that evening.

There Can Be Only One (#5)

2005-07-19T16:55:00.000-07:00

The room had a bed, a desk, a dresser and nightstand, and a small closet. The floor was hardwood with a brown rug next to the bed. Dave had mentioned that the bathroom across the hall would pretty much be his alone to use because his room, the master bedroom, had its own bathroom.

Phil had stashed his camping gear in the small closet and had hung up a denim jacket. The rest of his clothes fit in the top drawer of the dresser.

He had the door closed and was sprawled on the bed. It felt familiar and comfortable to live indoors again. It sure felt better, too.

At his side was a Samurai sword similar to Dave Palmer’s. It was beautiful to Phil. It was battle-ready and razor sharp. This weapon had a strange way of making him feel that fighting for his chance to continue living as an immortal was worth doing.

He had a new friend in Dave and had met some people his own age. Life was worth investigating. Trying to live now seemed sweeter than not trying at all.

He knew he also needed to keep an appointment.

…….

The last of the flashlights had gone out and their owners had driven, biked or walked home leaving one dark car parked in front of the Dwarf’s Playhouse. Phil crouched in the dark of the Playhouse watching the car that was parked almost directly under the only streetlight nearby. No one seemed to be around, and even the vehicle seemed empty. Was his opponent hiding out of site in the car or was he stealthily approaching him from another direction?

A figure appeared in the doorway standing motionless.

A whispering, chatter began to sound in Phil’s ears. Soft laughter, more like giggling repeatedly getting faster and louder as he came closer to the blond immortal. It was as if the painted figures had come alive on the walls and began to become hysterical at the prospect of a fight.

“Come out of there and let’s go into the open,” murmured the figure in the doorway.

When Phil was about one hundred yards from the Dwarf’s Playhouse, the blond immortal charged into him. It was all he could do to parry each sword blow. The young immortal was backed further into the field and away from the light of the streetlight.

In a moment after he knew he had gotten within the range of one of the blonde’s sword strokes, Phil whirled away only to feel wetness running down his belly. He knew he had a deep slash wound and could bleed out fast and pass out. He’d lose his head before he could heal.

He ran back toward the light and one particular house. The yard was fenced, but Phil hoped that what he had planned would work. Yes, the cement blocks were still arranged against the wooden privacy fence in a makeshift staircase. He ran up the blocks feeling them shift with his weight and vaulted the fence.

His feet hit the ground hard on the other side. Phil knew to roll to absorb some of the impact and to deflect his momentum, but he found he had rolled into a swimming pool. In a moment his head surfaced, but it had been as if his dream from the other night were coming true. Something inside of him screamed I want to live!

He stood ready, waist deep in the shallow end of the swimming pool.

His immortal opponent vaulted over the fence, but caught his foot on the top. He landed on his side in the yard. From the sound of his expelled breath, his landing must have been a painful one. He scrambled to his feet and gasped, “Come on!”

“If you want my head, come in and get it!”

In the pool, the battle continued. The water brought Phil’s dream to the front of his consciousness, and the idea of the water claiming his body began to interfere with his concentration. Again something inside him screamed I want to live!

As Phil began to fight harder, the blond immortal seemed to become more sluggish with fatigue. All the cloudy darkness in the water could have been their blood. Both of them had more wounds.

The house was dark and nothing seemed to stir or even be aware of the life and death struggle in the swimming pool. There was only the sound of metal striking metal when it wasn’t whistling through the air or severing flesh.

When the opening came, Phil took advantage and the blond head seemed to vanish from the shoulders.

There was a pressure building somewhere. Phil couldn’t tell where it was coming from, but he knew he was its destination. The water in the pool began to roil and boil. Lightning bolts shot form the floating headless body into him as if he were some kind of grounding rod. As he convulsed in the storm of his first absorption of a quickening, hysterical giggling was loud in his ears.

He didn’t know how much time had passed when he was finally able to drag himself out of the pool.

Now there was the horrible task of getting rid of the body. He would bury it in the field and clean the pool area as best he could, but he knew the police would know of this soon. There was no way he could completely hide what had taken place, so he needed to concentrate on hiding the evidence of his own involvement. No had ever told him about that part of being an immortal.

There Can Be Only One (#4)

2005-07-12T13:03:00.000-07:00

Phil ran up a sidewalk that led into the college campus. He had to hide in the trees next to a building to keep from being seen from the street.

Carefully, he looked out to see if he had been followed. In the streetlight, there was a man with almost frizzy blond hair wearing a trench coat. He was slowly walking toward him, but was not holding a weapon. Before he came close enough to see Phil, he stopped. In a voice that was just loud enough for Phil to hear the man said, “I know you’re here, but this is no place for our business. Tomorrow night I’ll be at the Dwarf’s Playhouse by two in the morning. If you don’t show, I don’t want to see you on the campus again.”

He began to back away toward the street. In a moment, he turned and headed for a car that was parked on the street nearby.

Phil guessed that the immortal worked at the college. Maybe he was a teacher or something. He was sure he had come from one of the faculty buildings.

When he was gone, Phil made his way back to his campsite.

…….

No man is an island.

…….

The next afternoon, Phil was on David Palmer’s porch sitting in one of the lawn chairs as his host handed him a Pepsi.

“So what is this Dwarf’s Playhouse?”

“Let’s go there now. You can see it for yourself,” suggested Dave. He reached inside the front door of his house and brought out a Japanese sword—a katana.

Dave placed his sword on the back seat of his black Honda Accord as the two strapped in.

The Dwarf’s Playhouse was a cement block structure at the end of a street that would have dead-ended in a large fallow field if it hadn’t been built. There didn’t seem to be anything special about the building until Phil ducked into the low opening that was its entrance.

At first, the interior walls seemed to be covered with graffiti, but after a closer look, these were fine lined painted drawings of funny looking humanoid figures, animals and landscapes. These were not the spray painted gang symbols, initials, and obscenities that Phil had expected to see.

“Kids come here with flashlights at night to walk through this maze of cement blocks and look at the strange drawings you see,” said Dave as he came in behind Phil.

“There doesn’t seem to be electricity in here. I guess it would be pretty eerie here at night,” responded Phil.

“When so many kids show up at the same time, it kind of spoils the effect,” laughed Dave. “It’s like a line to ride the roller coaster that runs through here on some nights.”

“I can’t see this as a place for a fight,” declared Phil.

“You don’t intend to meet that guy, do you?”

“I can’t run forever. I should face him.”

“You’ll die.”

“I’m supposed to be dead anyway. I’ve lost all that I used to have and even the memories of who I was.”

“You can make a new life for yourself,” said Dave. “I can help you.”

“How can I know who I am unless I remember something? How can I remember unless I am in familiar surroundings? I can’t go back home because I’m supposed to be dead.”

“You’re alone too much. Why don’t you move in with me? You’ll have a room and the freedom to come and go, as you like. It’s starting to get cold at night. At least spend the winter at my house.”

“Maybe I will move in.”

“Anytime you’re ready.”

“Do you think he wants to fight me here?” asked Phil changing the subject.

“Many immortals play the game their own way. Maybe he thinks he has an edge by fighting you here. You should always try to pick your own ground for a battle. Has your sword come yet?” asked Dave.

“My instructor has it, but he wants all the money first,” replied Phil.

“Let’s go get it. You can pay me back as soon as you can.”

…….

A quickening is supposed to be a violent transfer of an immortal’s strength to the immortal who takes his head. Doc had told Phil that the jangling, electric feeling an immortal gets when coming near another of his kind, is only the barest whisper of the feeling when receiving someone’s quickening.

Phil understood that if he took a head, he would be stronger and able to stand a better chance of survival in the deadly game all immortals sooner or later are compelled to play.

He had begun to think it wasn’t worth trying to live this way. When he had discovered the immortal at the college, the man had come right to the point and challenged him. Phil had some training now, but he felt very inadequate to hold his own in a fight to the death—which meant the taking of a head.

He had wanted to live when he had met that girl at her party—Andrea. If his life had someone like her in it, he knew he would want to live even with the strange immortal rules. Yet, she was just a new acquaintance. There was nothing more than friendship potential between them that she could easily cast aside. Her doing so would mean little to her and much more to him because he was so lonely.

Yesterday, Dave Palmer had offered to share his house with him after he had expressed his thought of just giving up his head. Maybe Dave just felt sorry for him, but a definite offer of friendship was made.

A flash of memory came to him. Someone had told him, “To make a friend, you have to be a friend.” It had been his Dad.

Phil decided he would be a friend to Dave. Trusting someone was so much easier than trusting no one.

More to come....

2005-07-10T13:03:00.000-07:00

When your eyes gaze at me
They tend to dim and glaze at me
But look at me long enough to view
That my heart is wide open to you

There Can Be Only One (3rd Installment)

2005-07-05T20:12:00.000-07:00

He was swimming, trying to get to the surface of a body of water. He needed to breathe, but the sunlit surface was still quite a distance above him. He lungs began to burn with his desperate need for a breath of air. It didn’t look like he would make it in time before his breathing reflex would flood his lungs with water.

He couldn’t resist any more and gasped hard.

He made a loud croaking sound as he took in—not water, but air. His eyes flew open to see he was in his tent with the sun shining on it in such a way that told him it was morning. It had been a dream.

That was too close to what had actually happened to him. Doc had told him that he had pulled him out of a car at the bottom of a lake that also contained the bodies of his parents.

It was strange that he didn’t remember very much of his life before opening his eyes to the sight of Doc dripping wet, bending over him. All he knew was he did remember having parents and had graduated from high school. Doc had promised that his memories would come back to him over time. It had been a little over a month since he found he had come back from the dead.

Now it was time to go to work. He now had a job at a gas station that David Palmer had helped him to get. He had been quick to learn how to run the cash register and stock the snack items that were sold to those who came to buy gas.

With a job, he was on his way to finding a place for himself in this town. It was just a new town, though to Phil it seemed a brand new world with rules that were not fully understood.

He needed to make some money to eat, buy a sword, and to be trained to use it for his survival. Those goals had to come first, but what about living forever—barring the loss of his head? What about remaining eighteen years old for all time? These two things were hard to grasp.

Why couldn’t he remember his old life? That frustration would come to the surface of his thoughts more times a day than he would have liked. It could be the source of his dream.

Phil had taken Dave’s advice and enrolled in a fencing class. He had even brought up the subject of buying a sword to the instructor Dave had recommended. Now it was a matter of getting the money to pay for it.

……….

I envy the sun every kiss upon your skin.

……….

It was Friday night and Phil had cashed his first paycheck from the gas station. He had pressed his boss to work as many hours as he could to earn money for the sword as well as to eat. He had worked two weeks for about 96 hours, and was ready to do something fun for a change.

One of his fellow workers, a guy named Steve who worked part time while attending the local college, invited him to a party for one of his friends still in high school. Steve thought that this girl would enjoy Phil’s sense of humor as much as he did.

Phil wasn’t so sure, but he wanted to make some friends and this party sounded like a good place to start. He had brought a change of clothes to work so he could shower at Dave’s and be picked up there in Steve’s car.

It was dark when the two pulled up near the house. The party was to be in the back yard, and as the two approached the driveway, they could see the light shining from the rear of the house.

Steve lifted the latch of the chain link gate and led Phil up to a brunette talking to several people on the deck attached to the house. She was petite with dark hair and eyes, but Phil couldn’t decided what color they were in the uncertain light from the string of lantern shaped lights attached to the rails of the deck. He could make out perfect teeth and a generous amount of freckles on her face, neck, and disappearing into the neckline of her shirt.

Phil thought she could easily be a fashion model.

She greeted Steve warmly as he began to introduce Phil. “Andrea, this is Phil. Phil, this is Andrea.” He smiled and looked at Phil expectantly.

Phil looked her in the eye and said, “Happy birthday.”

“Thank you,” said Andrea. “There’s all kinds of snacks and soda is in the cooler. Help yourself.”

When Andrea turned to reply to another girl’s hail, Steve murmured to Phil, “She’s kinda religious, so there won’t be any beer or reef here.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

He grabbed a soda and began to take in everything around him. Seeing all these people close to his own age caused him to remember having graduated from high school somewhere, probably in Illinois. A vague memory of his own open house party flashed through his mind, but without many details.

He also remembered the cliques and attitudes from high school and began to try to figure out what sort of group came to a party for a girl like Andrea.

Phil found himself keeping within earshot of Andrea and couldn’t help watching her. There didn’t seem to be a single thing he didn’t like about her. Her freckles even brought a memory of someone telling him that freckles were kisses from the sun. In that case, the sun sure loved her and didn’t detract from her beauty at all.

…….

The party had been pleasant, and Phil had felt that those that knew Steve had tacitly accepted him. He was glad that Andrea seemed to be one of them.

Phil took a route back to his tent that took him past the college. It was there that he felt that jangling, electric feeling that came with the presence of another immortal.

Check back later….

2005-07-02T07:42:00.000-07:00

I left you alone
When you turned your back on me
As if thinking for yourself,
One day would set you free

2005-06-30T17:23:00.000-07:00

I believe everything you tell me about yourself.
Maybe it's true or maybe you just want it to be true.

There Can Be Only One (2nd Installment)

2005-06-29T16:43:00.000-07:00

The young man walked out of the small grocery store with a full bag of his purchases. He planned to take the bag back to his tent and try to fathom how he was to establish a place for himself in this college town.

A familiar electric tingle sprang up inside of him at that moment filling him with a feeling of dread bordering on fear. There was another immortal nearby!

A voice from behind him coughed and said, “Are you hunting?”

The young man turned toward the voice and asked, “Who wants to know?”

“David Palmer.”

Doc had always told him to identify himself to another immortal in situations such as these, so the young man said, “I am Phil Castor.”

David Palmer offered his hand. “You seem new to being an immortal, but must have had someone teach you what that means.”

Phil shifted his grocery bag and shook hands with the immortal. He looked to be in his mid-thirties, large but not muscle bound, but still possessing strength. There was strength implied in the way he carried himself.

“Call me Dave. I live in that old gray house across the street there.” He pointed and shrugged. “I bought it for its large front porch where I can watch all the people come and go.”

Phil decided to trust him when he saw Dave’s openness about himself. “I’m new in town as well and I need to acquire a certain item that guys like us need.” Dave’s left eyebrow rose.

“Let’s go up onto my porch and I’ll get you a soda and we’ll talk about this.”

Sitting on a lawn chair, Phil sipped the Pepsi that Dave had given him as he gazed at the grocery’s parking lot across the street.

“You know about holy ground?” asked Dave.

“No fighting on holy ground and not in front of mortals.”

“So you need a sword?” asked Dave.

“Yes, but I haven’t seen Doc carry a sword around. His sword was always in his apartment for the time I knew him. You don’t seem to carry one either,” remarked Phil.

“There are laws about sharpened blades of a certain length and even if you could carry a sword, it would provoke trouble or just too many questions. I keep mine under a blanket in my car when I’m out and about. I take the chance of being caught separated from my blade, but it’s better than trouble or the questions. When I sense another immortal, I either stay in public or run for my car or holy ground.”

“How do I get a sword of my own?”

“I have a fencing instructor that knows where to get the best blades. I think he would be more likely to help you, if you enrolled in one of his classes.”

“Ok, sounds good,” said Phil.

“If you need a place to stay, you can stay here,” offered Dave. “It’s something to think about for when winter comes.”

Phil took his leave of Dave saying only that he would consider his offer. On the way back to his camp, he realized there many contingencies he needed to be prepared for. Getting training and a sword would take time and money. He needed to have a plan for the time between now and then.

Stay tuned....

There Can Be Only One

2005-06-24T13:03:00.000-07:00

After walking an hour along the two-lane highway, the young man stopped along the guardrail where the road crossed a small creek. He took off the backpack that contained a tent, a few clothes, a flashlight with spare batteries, several books and a journal.

His money was holding out pretty well. It wasn’t much, but it had brought him this far.

There was a wood just a stone’s throw from the bridge and the road where the creek flowed. He could just make out a carpet of old fallen leaves as the floor. It seemed to call to him as a place to explore. It may contain an ideal campsite that wouldn’t be visible to anyone passing by. He slipped into the trees and in a few moments the greenery muffled all traffic noise.

The ground was not flat in here. There were small hills and a gradual slope to the creek that ran through the center of the grove. It was dry for the most part if he stayed back from the water with his camp.

It wasn’t long until his tent was up and he was making sure his camp wouldn’t be easily spotted by anyone passing by. There were no walking paths or sidewalks here, so he was sure there would be few pedestrians.

It was September, but there was no sign of autumn yet. The young man drew off his t-shirt and used it for a towel for perspiration. He tossed it into the tent with his backpack and crawled in after it to take a nap.

As he lay there listening to the birds the events of the last couple of days came back to his mind. His friend had disappeared and had been missing for more than a day. This had been something his friend had tried to prepare him for. Money had been set a side in a coffee can in the kitchen for emergencies, and he had taken it as his friend had instructed, if he never returned home one day.

He never knew his friend by anything other than “Doc”. He could only assume it was short for “Doctor”, but Doc never told him how he earned the name. There had been too many other things that Doc wanted him to worry about.

The first thing was that Doc had pulled him out a car at the bottom of a lake out in the countryside of Illinois several weeks ago. His parents had been left for dead, and Doc had said he had died, too. So why was he not dead? Because he was immortal just as Doc had been.

The next thing was he wouldn’t die unless someone took off his head. There were other immortals out there seeking to do just that. Doc said there could be only one, and that one was destined to rule the earth. He needed to learn how to used a heavy sword to defend himself from any hunting him.

He and Doc had stayed in an apartment in the suburbs of Chicago those few weeks they had been together. His only task had been some beginning weight training and some very basic martial arts to hone his coordination.

The worst thing about the result of finding oneself an immortal was he couldn’t go back to any of his family because he was supposed to be missing, and there was no feasible story to give them or the authorities without his being perpetually 18 years old noticed over time. Another trait that hadn’t quite sunk in yet was the fact that he could never father children, but being young, that wasn’t the priority it could have become later in life.

Now that Doc was gone so soon from his life, he hadn’t even acquired a sword, not to mention beginning his training so he had a chance to survive. His sword may have been on the way from the Asian sword forger who provided the finest in sharpened blades for those who offered the right price, and the way Doc understood it, this Asian was an immortal himself. Now that he was supposed to disappear again, he would never see that sword.

His bus ticket had gotten him from Chicago into the state of Michigan. Now he found himself on the outskirts of some college town. He could possibly blend in here somewhere for a time posing as a high school student or even a first or second year college student.

Doc had been good for thinking of ways for him to have an identity without having to establish himself too extensively into public records. He could always keep the status of a minor and not have much in the way of public records at all except for maybe some high school or other. He did manage to have an Illinois driver’s license, but his social security card number wasn’t good anymore, so Doc had those documents altered for him.

The shadows of tree branches swayed back and forth on the walls of his tent. He wasn’t sleepy, but the rest had done him some good. It was time to go into town to find supplies and some sort of life for himself.

To be continued….

2005-06-16T07:12:00.000-07:00

The graceful way you speak compliments your shy smile, and the sound of your voice is a carress upon my skin.

Bohemian Avenue #6

2005-06-14T18:20:00.000-07:00

I looked up from my book while the bus was stopped somewhere along Hiawatha Avenue. It hadn’t held my attention very well anyway, because I could still hear the gangbangers at the back of the bus commenting on my short haircut. They made comments such as I could be “5-O”, which is code for “cop” taken from reruns of “Hawaii 5-O”. I guess this had replaced calling white people “honkey” or something.

I looked out my window as the bus pulled up to the stoplight, and right next to me was a man on a motorcycle. He wasn’t the stereotypical “biker”, but just a regular guy out for a ride. He wasn’t wearing a helmet, because helmets were optional in Minnesota.

Our eyes met and I thought he looked a bit tired. It was after ten and I was on the way to work my midnight shift, and I guess he was going home.

The light turned green and since he was faster than the bus, he pulled out into the intersection just ahead of the bus, but in his own lane.

Just then, an oncoming car decided to run the left turn light and slammed right into the motorcycle sending the biker sliding along the street. The motorcycle was wedged under the offending car.

Everything was still. The biker didn’t move.

My bus turned to detour around the block and go on its way.

I’m sure that was the first time I ever looked into the eyes of someone about to die.

2005-06-07T13:00:00.000-07:00

I have missed you for a long time now. I leave my window open as often as I can on the chance that I might hear the sound of your voice or catch a glimpse of your face.

I pass by your neighborhood everyday, and I think of you. My heart aches each time I do. Sometimes I wish I could shut you out of my mind, but you are in my heart. I banish all bitterness by choosing not to blame you for seeming to stay away. With this choice, I know that it would be all the sweeter to see you again.

Little Encouragement And Thrown Out Of Bed

2005-05-26T15:42:00.000-07:00

When I was in the U. S. Air Force, I spent two wonderful years stationed near Frankfurt, Germany at a base called Rhein Main. I loved Germany and would have extended my time there as long as I could, if I hadn’t felt led by God to marry my wife.

I would visit a hospitality home for military singles on every free weekend I had. It was the gathering place of my family overseas. The house near the Taunus Mountains contained the perfect environment for a lot of my spiritual growth.

I learned to start being more open about myself and to cultivate my interest in other people. I learned to offer and even risk more of myself to try to deepen my established friendships and to make new ones. It was a life-changing time influenced by the couple that was in charge of the home.

I say all this to tell you of a surprising discovery I made about myself.

I came back to Germany from leave to the United States with the newfound knowledge that I had found the girl God wanted me to marry. I joyfully announced this to everyone at the hospitality home only to be met with stony silence. Um, hello? This is supposed to be good news here!

Their lack of enthusiasm came from the experience of many guys foolishly thinking they had found their soul mates when in fact these turned out to be unhealthy relationships. Casually, my friends began to ask an occasional question about my girl, but no real fuss was made. It wasn’t until my future wife came to visit me in Germany, and I brought her to the home to meet everyone that some credence was given to my claim.

Years later, I met with that wonderful couple after the home was no longer in existence. They had a huge extended family of over a decade of young soldiers and airmen that had passed through their care. Many are still in contact with them--so many, in fact, it’s hard for them to remember who was attending the home at the same time.

They mentioned to me that at the time I had announced I had found my future wife, they saw an immediate change in me. I stopped flirting with the girls and kept my relationships with them in proper perspective. This had surprised the couple, and the memory stayed with them over the years.

This caused me to realize that hearing from God on this important decision of who I was to marry, turned out to be one of the first permanent pieces of my life to fall into place. I became more focused on who God wanted me to be.

Without that knowledge and my obediently following through and marrying my wife, I never would have been so blessed as a husband and father. This was one of the deepest desires of my heart that God brought to the best possible reality.

One of the funny things to happen to me at the hospitality home was during one overnight weekend. The guys slept in the basement of the house where there were a half dozen bunks. About twelve guys could sleep there and about six girls were given a bed on the second floor.

This particular night, I was in the bed above one of my best friends in Germany. He and I were stationed at the same base.

As I was sleeping, I felt my bed rise off the supports and I started to wake up. The next thing I knew, I was tipped over and pressed against the wall by the bed I had been sleeping in. I managed to stand up as the light came on to see my friend looking around groggily. He and I immediately put my bed back on top of his and went back to sleep.

In the morning, I asked him what had happened that night. He told me he had dreamt of being in an underground cave-in and tried to push all the rocks and boulders off of himself with great effort. That’s how I was thrown out of my bed in the middle of the night. We really like to tease my friend, and this was just more ammunition.

In later years, my friend became one of a new wave of missionaries to go into the Soviet Union after their economic collapse. He had worked hard to complete his education and ordination to do this. I admire him very much.

Bohemian Avenue #5

2005-05-13T10:10:00.000-07:00

Reese sat over his sandwich and coffee in the Saint Clair Diner in Highland Park. It was in the afternoon, and he saw that some of the “suits” from downtown Saint Paul were coming in for an evening meal before getting an early start on their weekend. Once the surrounding tables were occupied, he could take his pick of conversations to listen in on. He thought himself more of an observer of human nature than an eavesdropper.

He became interested in the couple across the aisle. There was a young man sitting with an older woman. Reese guessed that there was about ten years’ difference in their ages.

She seemed to have established a mentoring relationship with the young man, but it seemed obvious to Reese she was interested in him romantically as well.

Memories of when Reese was younger came to his mind. He had been a buyer in an office supply business in a town far from his home and away from all his friends and family.

He had joined the community choir to meet people and pursue his love of music in his spare time. There he had met among others, an older woman who worked near his apartment building. They became friends when he accepted her offer to start picking him up for choir practices.

The first time had set the tone for all the other choir evenings. She hadn’t had dinner and proposed the idea of going to a nice restaurant before practice started. They fell into the habit of having dinner together every choir night after that.

Her name was Elizabeth, though everyone in choir seemed to call her Betsie. She hated to be called by that name and insisted Reese call her by her proper name. She was a school psychologist and each night she came directly from work dressed in an elegant woman’s suit. He had always preferred seeing her in the suit as opposed to the dresses she wore for choir performances.

Over many weeks, the two of them had gotten to know each other and enjoyed each other’s company. They started taking drives through the nearby mountains after choir rehearsals and they listened to Reese’s Fleetwood Mac tapes in her tape deck. They especially liked singing along with the song “Dreams”.

“Thunder only happens when it’s raining

Players only love you when they’re playing

Women, they will come and they will go

When the rain washes you clean, you’ll know.”

As time went on, Reese felt that Elizabeth was showing signs of being attracted to him. Maybe she wanted more than just a friendship between them.

One night, when they had stopped at Elizabeth’s apartment for something, Reese took what he thought was the right moment to kiss her and see what came of it. She didn’t resist, but there wasn’t much in the way of electricity at first until Reese kissed her again.

Choir nights took a new romantic turn after that night. It was exciting to be with an older woman. He felt more like a man able to accomplish any goal he set for himself. That was a potent drink to imbibe.

She began to ask him questions about himself seeming to try to understand him. She had asked why he had kissed her that night and other questions, like what he wanted from their relationship. Reese was bewildered that he could answer very few of her questions. It began to occur to him that maybe he wasn’t really sure of what he wanted or even who he was.

Maybe this relationship wasn’t such a good idea after all. He thought of the possibility of his identity being lost behind hers if he stayed with her. He didn’t want to be known just as her husband or boyfriend.

Now with these new thoughts, he was sure he was making a mistake, but he didn’t express his feelings on the matter, because he also felt guilty for starting something he now felt he couldn’t or wouldn’t commit to.

Elizabeth seemed to sense his conclusions, but was also infatuated enough with Reese to want to cling to the relationship. This aggravated his feelings of guilt and frustration with his inability to know his own mind. He felt rubbed raw emotionally at times.

It all came to a conclusion the night Elizabeth showed up at his apartment door unexpectedly. He noticed that she was a little teary-eyed and more quiet than usual. When he asked her what was wrong, she replied that it was just her time of the month.

As they sat together on the couch, the thought struck Reese that it had been almost a month ago when things had gotten out of hand one night in Elizabeth’s apartment. Though she had never let on, he realized that maybe she had thought she could be pregnant. Now the evidence proved otherwise. Was she disappointed or relieved?

Here was a situation that could have forced him to make definite decisions about his life before he even knew what he wanted. His desires would have had to take a back seat to the reality of being a father and husband. That would have been the only answer Reese could have lived with had she indeed been pregnant.

Reese had told Elizabeth that from then on, they shouldn’t see each other outside of choir anymore. There had been anger and mostly tears on her part, but the decision to discontinue a romantic relationship became mutual.

It was hard to believe that it had happened ten years ago.

Now he watched and listened to the couple at the table across the aisle from him and saw his own story reflected there.

He had been the player Fleetwood Mac sang about. His ego had led him to hurt the woman he hadn’t really loved, but had actually used. Reese never wanted to be the “player” again.

Stepping outside of the Saint Clair Diner, Reese got into his car and started the engine. Fleetwood Mac was on the radio ending their song with the words:

“When the rain washes you clean, you’ll know. You’ll know….”

2005-04-22T18:10:00.000-07:00

It must have been the red jacket she was wearing that first caught my eye. It would have passed for an overcoat if it had been a little longer. It looked to be made of wool and had plain black buttons down the front in the manner of a dress coat possibly made for a child.

Indeed, she looked young wearing such a color and cut of jacket below a face with the complexion of milk on a head adorn with light blond hair that hung to her shoulders out of a gray knit cap.

Her eyes, though I couldn’t quite see their color from where I was standing, looked as though she had seen far more than any child would have had a chance to see. This caused me to wonder if this waif-like creature was an elven maid walking among mortals in this busy city on this winter morning.

I began to notice her more often while waiting for the number sixteen bus from Minneapolis to Saint Paul. I found myself watching for her all winter, and each time I would see her walking, I would congratulate myself for being able to see the magical world that existed in the midst of the mundane one most people see.

As spring drew closer, I noticed one day that she had changed her red jacket for a gray woolen coat that was more of a match for her knit cap. At first, I felt a twinge of disappointment that she would seek a better disguise for her true form, but then I realized I was still able to spot her quite easily. She was as lovely a child-like creature as ever.

Now that the snow is gone and the people of the city have discarded their coats and hats, I saw her again. She seemed transformed into a lovely young woman. I recognized her milky complexion, her corn silk hair, and her eyes.

I felt as though I had watched an elven maid grow up in such a short time, or perhaps this is the transformation they make every spring.

Living In Grandma's Basement

2005-04-18T09:41:00.000-07:00

I can remember a time before Baby Brother was born when Dad had finished up at church and decided to come back to his home state. Our lives were a bit up in the air, and it seems we landed in Grandma and Grandpa’s basement. These were my dad’s parents.

I was due to go into kindergarten in the fall, so one of the first things to happen was I was registered at the local elementary school near my grandparents’ house. I had made friends with the boy next door who introduced me to a boy down the street where we played most of our contact sports. These boys were named Mark and Todd.

Since I was the oldest child, my mom decided to give herself some peace of mind about my walking to school by asking Todd’s older sister to walk with us everyday. She was a nice girl but didn’t interact with us boys enough for me to even remember her name to this day.

Kindergarten was new and fun, so I began to like school as a general rule up until graduation from high school, but the most fun was running around with the kids on that city block where we lived in a basement.

A lot of city blocks where I come from are all subdivided by chain link fences, but this block at this point in time wasn’t. Once you got to the end of the backyard, there was no fence, but about a football field size chunk of unused land overgrown with grass and a few trees. This was a fine way to access anyone’s yard as long as it hadn’t rained in a while.

People had wonderful apple trees in their yards that we used to eat the green apples from. We learned just how many we could eat before getting a stomach ache. Apple fights were the logical choice in the fall, and I can remember Todd’s brother holding me hostage with a rotten apple over my head making his demands.

I remember how helpless I felt not being able to escape and not wanting rotten apple in my hair. I also didn’t want my grandparents or my parents to know that I was involved in apple fights either. I think that event helped me form the opinion that I would rather someone take a shot at my captor with me as his shield, because the immediate release at the risk of my life seemed worth it to me. I couldn’t stand the idea of not knowing when I would be released and being at the mercy of someone who’s motivations I didn’t know.

So like in Lethal Weapon, if a guy has a gun to my head, I would be saying to the police, “Shoot him! Shoot him!”

Every morning before walking to kindergarten, I would eat breakfast with my grandpa. I either had toast or cereal, and I would always ask him to tell a story about the Indian hunting the rabbit. Grandpa could tell that one to me every morning because I loved the way he told it.

With Bold One as well as myself, Grandpa would hold his index finger like a gun at his side and have us drawn down on him at odd unexpected moments during the day. Bold One seemed to be especially good at beating him to the draw. It seemed like I was forever surprised by Bold One shouting, “Bang!” Grandpa always took the imaginary bullet and died in a most satisfying manner. It didn’t matter if it was dinner time or bed time, but never during church. I think Bold One learned that very quickly.

Aunt Amy Soup was in high school and living there too. I always liked to be nearby when she talked with her friends. I already sensed that teenagers were a unique group of people, and if they were half as nice as my aunt, they had to be the most interesting people there were. I loved the way my aunt always treated her friends as if they were the most important people she knew.

Grandma as I’ve said before, was always interested in every person that came into her life. She wasn’t afraid to ask questions. She would always ask if someone went to church.

Grandma also taught Bold One and myself to shuck corn on the cob. She was very meticulous about having all the strings and brown hair out from between the kernels of corn. To this day, I am one of the best corn shuckers if I do say so myself.

I have to say that Grandpa had a big garden in the back yard on the way out to that open field I mentioned. At one point or another, every grandchild had to doing some weeding in that garden. He grew everything back there. He even had an apple, pear and a peach tree. I can remember he would always crush a mint leaf under my nose so I could smell where mint flavoring came from. I think that made a big impression on me, because at this moment in my own yard, are several mint plants that I use in my iced tea. That is the only thing planted in the yard except for my wife’s flowers. Don’t ask me about the lawn!

Across the street in a big house one day, a girl about my age came out and asked me to come over. With permission, I visited and we became friends. This little girl wanted a little more than mere friendship, because she always complained that I never kissed her. I insisted that there were more fun things to do than to play those sissy girl games. She never stopped trying, and I never avoided going over to her house. I don’t know what that means.

Even after we moved into an apartment, we came back to my grandparents house a lot. It was nice to have those friends to come back to, and the fun picked up right where we left off from the last visit.

Dog On A Chain

2005-03-31T17:34:00.000-08:00

Before I write what I wanted to write, I want to plug my cousin’s blog. She is actually my cousin's wife and writes about the books she’s read. http://www.jcbookblog.blogspot.com/

I visited my family during my kids’ spring break, and as I was talking to my siblings, Baby Sister brought up the subject of the dog that lived in the yard beyond our back fence. That was when we had moved to the small town from Suburbia.

The kids who lived in the house back there, were named Chip and Harvey, and being the consummate cartoon lovers we were, we started calling them Chip and Dale. When they had a dog, they kept it chained with a small-link chain in the back yard. What was eventually to happen, strained our relationship with Chip and Dale for a long time afterward.

Everyday, when any of us would come out of our back door, Chip and Dale’s dog would bark and bark at us for as long as he could see us from his yard. One day, I was out in the back with my siblings when this irritating barking began. I went to the fence and the dog increased his barking and strained at the limit of his chain.

I ran to one end of the fence and the dog followed as far as his chain would allow. Then I ran to the other end of the fence and he moved toward me. I began to run back and forth to each end of the fence while the dog frantically barked and followed me. This process began to wind his chain shorter around the post so that his reach was shortened as he ran.

This amused me as the dog threw himself bodily against the restriction of his chain trying to get closer to me. What I didn’t realize at first, was his chain was also winding around this neck.

By now, he was throwing himself as hard as he could against the limit of his chain and began strangling himself, and his barks came more hoarsely. I walked away and even went into the house thinking the dog would calm down and unwind himself. After all, I never touched him or entered his yard.

A little while later, I had to come out again and as soon as the dog saw me, he began his barking and lunging again. He hadn’t even unwound himself. After a few lunges without my conscious provocation, he began making strangling sounds.

This time, one of the Chip and Dale duo was in the yard and began trying to help the dog. I became concerned as he began crying and the dog was making more pitiful sounds.

I think it was Harvey. He knew enough that I had probably provoked the dog and was becoming angry with in his frustration to not be able to help the dog.

I jumped the fence and came up to the dog. I slowly reached out to the animal and caught him and held his muzzle in case he thought to bite me. He was beyond the ability to do me much damage and I took a look at the chain wound around his neck.

I was horrified to see that the chain was imbedded in the dog’s neck. I tentatively tried to unwind the chain, but there was skin pinched between the links of chain and I was not willing to rip the skin of the dog’s throat. I said to Harvey, “You better get your mom or dad.”

I hopped back over the fence as Harvey’s mom came outside. She was understandably angry with me and began to deal the with dog’s dilemma.

Baby Sister remembers seeing the blood on the towel after the dog was freed from the chain. He was kept inside for a few days, and I’m pretty sure they didn’t use a chain to tie up the dog anymore after that.

We weren’t in that family’s good graces for the longest time after that. They had a tally of our offenses including the dog incident and all the BB gun dents in their siding.

So, not only do I have the blood of a chicken on my hands, but I am a dog tormentor as well. I really did feel bad about the whole thing, but some things can only be given time to heal.

I have a beautiful shepherd/black lab that I know I wouldn’t want anything like that to happen to. I am more kind to animals now and I stay away from live chickens.

Here's One For Easter

2005-03-21T17:34:00.000-08:00

I have recently had the privilege of leading a young boy to accepting Jesus Christ as his Savior. He had asked me why they had killed God, and I knew that I had to help him to understand what Jesus had done for us when He gave up His life for us.

This brings to mind a time in my life when I lived in a part of the Midwest where my dad had his first church. We lived in an apartment that was built in the upper story of Dad’s church. I was five but not yet in kindergarten, and Bold One was a monkey-faced toddler bouncing up and down in his crib.

Bold One usually rattled this cage of his and grunted and squealed until he woke me up. His face would light up when I opened my blue eyes to meet his big brown ones. I used to laugh every morning at his smiling face. He used to smile with his mouth wide open, and I have pictures to prove it. He charmed me into lowering the rail to the crib and use all my strength and balance to get him down and out onto the floor.

Mom would put him into his walker with his first bottle of the day, and he would follow me everywhere he could. I found out why Mom wanted me to close the door to the staircase going to the ground floor when Bold One decided to follow me down the steps in that walker. I caught him just as the first wheel went over the top step and he was smiling the whole time I was straining to get him back up the stairs. That was the first time I’d saved his life. Another time is written in “Fish And Occasional Torture.”

Our lives were totally wrapped up in the doings of the church. I remember helping Mom mop the basement floor where all the Sunday school rooms seem to be in any older church building. We were getting ready for a Halloween party.

Another time, I remember my first experience with chemical agents. Mom had the old meat grinder out and I was helping her grind ham, pickles and onions for ham salad sandwiches for another church function. The onions were so strong that our eyes started to water. I had never experienced that before and became quite frightened and irritated. I wondered why it got worse when I kept rubbing my eyes! Finally Mom made me wash my hands and go outside for some fresh air. The only time I have ever felt that overwhelmed since was in the tear gas chamber when I was in the Air Force.

The fun part of living there was there was a huge sand box way out in back of the church where I spent most of the warm days playing in the sand. I met all of the neighbor kids in that sand box including one older boy who tried to convince me that he ate all the worms. Dad later showed me he had dropped them in the grass without me catching him.

An older girl would come by once in a while and play with all the kids. She did “Ring Around The Rosie” with us. She also taught us one called “Speedboat”. We would join hands and walk in a circle chanting, “Speedboat, speedboat go so slow. Speedboat, speedboat go so fast.” Then we would run in a circle. Then we’d chant, “Speedboat, speedboat step on the gas!” and we’d all let go of our hands and fall to the ground. We thought that was the best game.

That winter, there was a huge pile of snow from the snow removal equipment in the yard. I climbed the hill of snow at my mother’s suggestion. When I slid down the hill, my snow pants left a smooth streak in the hill, so I told my mother I had made a slide in the snow. My mom came out and tried my slide and we laughed and laughed when I told her she had made it longer. It wasn’t often I saw my mom covered with snow.

This boy that gave his heart to Jesus reminded me of this time in my life. That Easter, I was in my Sunday school class listening for the first time of how mean people had been to Jesus. They whipped him and made him bleed, and punched him. Then they nailed him to a cross where he died. I cried and cried blubbering, “Why? Why?”

The teacher kept saying, “For our sins.” That meant nothing to me. My buddy Jesus was getting clobbered! Finally, the teacher asked me if I had asked Jesus into my heart, but I didn’t answer. She could see that I loved Jesus and so she asked me if I wanted to ask Him into my heart and helped me say the sinner’s prayer.

That was the day I asked Jesus to come into my heart, and He became my Savior and friend. As time went on, I came to understand more and more what Jesus had done for all who believe.

Chicken And Fire

2005-03-15T15:44:00.000-08:00

Living down south when I was eight was my first experience with culture shock as I may have mentioned in “Fish And Occasional Torture”. My uncle and his family were the touchstone of familiarity with the life we were used to, so we showed up on their farm quite a bit in the year we lived down there.

One day I was in the chicken coop with my cousin Patrick. He showed me this scrawny young chicken that he tossed up in the air to make it flap its wings for a smooth landing. He told me he was “making it fly”. Having no idea of our cruelty, I joined him in helping the chicken to “fly”.

So, two unthinking boys took turns throwing this poor chicken up in the air to see him flutter back to earth. Wouldn’t you know it? On my turn, this chicken keels over and dies.

I may have feared the instability of my cousin Billy, but now that I had done wrong, I was in fear of my muscular Uncle Bill. After all, his anger would be justified.

As an aside, let me tell you that Uncle Bill was wild in his own way. He had traveled with my Mom and me on one occasion where some guys in a car dogged us. It was night time and my uncle was dozing in the passenger’s seat and Mom was getting scared as this car of men kept even with us and were probably checking her out.

Uncle Bill woke up and found out what was happening and asked, “Where’s my gun?”

It was packed under a bunch of stuff in the back of the station wagon we were in, so Uncle Bill waited for the men to come even with his side of the car. He had told her to stay in the left lane for this purpose.

Now, I was wide-awake and watching this event unfold as the car pulled even with us. Uncle Bill leaned out the window so far that his belt buckle could have scraped the paint on our station wagon. He extended his arm and pointed his finger like a gun directly at the driver in the offending car. They dropped back, and we never saw them again.

Now, I had killed one of my uncle’s chickens, and for some reason, I could only hear my uncle in my mind say, “Where’s my gun?”

Naturally Patrick and I were scared, so like the two lame brained boys we were, we left the chicken where it was and left the chicken coup.

I was shaking with fear as we were interrogated and Patrick confessed we had been playing with the chicken. Uncle Bill made us bury the chicken in his cornfield while my family and his watched. I never felt so low before in my life.

For years afterward, I lived with such statements as, “Remember when you killed the chicken?” and “Did you kill the chicken or did Patrick?” Now, thirty-two years later, I think I can talk about it without too much difficulty. Just don’t bring it up first.

In the summer, my cousin Debbie led our little brothers Patrick and Bold One and me into the woods of their property. There, she taught us about watching for cotton mouth snakes and showed us what poison oak looked like as we followed a rippling creek in our bathing suits. It was very enjoyable to walk in the creek and be cool in the water, because usually I was sweating all the time in the Tennessee summer.

I expressed really liking that jaunt in the woods to my uncle and aunt. They thought I would like to spend the night out in the tent back there with my cousin Billy. It was the weekend and I was willing and so were my parents.

Billy was also in agreement. He was serenely discussing setting up the tent and a couple of cots. I was thinking this could be a pleasant outing with Billy.

That night, he led me out to the tent in the dark with a flashlight. He had the tent and cots all arranged and even had a small kerosene lamp on some sort of box with a radio. We settled in and talked.

At one point the lamp went out and he dug out some matches in the dark to light it. After it was lit, he began flicking lighted matches across the tent. They would go out on the tent floor, but I asked him if the tent could catch on fire. He said no as he continued to flick the lighted matches and I grew more tense.

The next match managed to set the whole book on fire and Billy flung it from himself. It landed on the floor and set it on fire. I was by the door of the tent and watched Billy laugh evilly in the light of the lamp and the new fire. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he would have turned into the Devil himself because he creeped me out so bad. I was out of the tent and several yards away before I saw him calmly putting the fire out.

It took him ten minutes to convince me to come back into the tent. For the rest of the night, I wouldn’t let him light anything and made him use the flashlight.

The next morning, I got up and saw a four-inch hole burned into the floor of the old canvas tent, but there were other holes in the floor as well. At least those didn’t seem to be burnt.

When Billy got up, we walked back to the house. He showed me Uncle Bill’s gun range on the way and bragged about his own ability. My uncle would put twigs in the holes of his old shots so he could see where the new ones were. I thought that was pretty clever.

When we got to the farmyard, he led me into that dreaded chicken coup to gather eggs. Then he fixed me breakfast.

Sometimes Billy could scare me to death, but I think I sensed he had some good deep down in his heart. He just seemed to have a devious streak that made me doubt his sanity at times.

Baby Brother

2005-03-06T18:23:00.000-08:00

I was watching a three-year-old sing to her mother this week while waiting for my daughter’s vanilla smoothie at the church coffee shop. She sat on her mother’s lap singing a cute children’s song that had hand motions to it. She had her mother’s undivided attention and was as pleased with herself as she could be. When I laughed, she smiled and waved to me. I’m sure she recognized me because I used to teach her big brother when he was in my second grade boys’ class.

Her mom turned and greeted me, and I asked how old the little girl was now. I sighed and said I remembered being three and how I was the center attraction as my mother’s first child. I dominated the attention of both mom and grandmother while my dad was overseas in the U.S. Air Force.

She asked me if I had trouble adjusting when my siblings came along. I truthfully told her that I was really too fascinated with my siblings to ever be jealous of them. If you remember “Chocolate Milk”, you’ll know that I was handed an orange little baby that came to be known as Bold One. I was convinced he was the cutest baby I had ever seen until Baby Brother came along.

Now Bold One will always have a special place in my heart. In fact, I remember having an imaginary friend named “Bongo” of all things, and had a definite picture in my mind of what Bongo looked like. I still remember. Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that looking at my brother’s picture when he was about three, he looked exactly the way I had always pictured Bongo! Is that freaky or what?

So Baby Brother came along. This was a little blond ball of a baby with huge brown eyes that will always be one of his most remembered features. I used to look into those eyes while I had my mouth on the bottom end of his bottle as he ate. I would mimic his sucking as if I were helping him finish his bottle. I could have sworn he would begin to suck faster as his eyes would widen with astonishment at the thought of me taking his milk. I used to always put my forehead on his and look into his eyes until the vision became just a single eye. (Try that sometime.) I would say, “You only have one eye!” I later did that with Baby Sister too.

As I’ve mentioned in another entry, Baby Brother learned to walk and broke his falls by banging his head on the furniture, and when he was proficient and got his equilibrium back, he followed me around the house. When he was able to talk, he said the most gut-wrenching thing he ever said to me considering he’s in heaven with Dad now. He said, “You’re my bestest buddy!” That statement set the tone for the rest of our relationship.

“West Side Story” came on television one time when we lived in Suburbia. Bold One and I were so inspired by the fight scene under the overpass, that we took butter knives out of the kitchen drawer on a regular basis and had mock knife fights. Mom and Dad were never there when we did this of course! One of those times, three-year-old Baby Brother was so inspired by our antics that he poked me in the leg with a steak knife! It didn’t break the skin, though.

Another time a few years later, he actually stabbed me in the wrist with a jack-knife. I lay on the bed with my self-bandaged wound until the nausea went away. That took the glamour out of knife fighting.

As an aside, we siblings learned to cut down on a lot of the tattling that goes on between siblings. One of the younger ones would say, “I’m telling!” and then the threatened one would say, “If you tell on me for that, I’ll tell Mom you ate the chocolate chips cookies from Grandma!” “Oh, yeah, I’ll tell Mom that you went sledding off the roof!” An upgraded threat would then be countered only to result in a Mexican standoff. I always dreaded the day when one was mad enough to tell anyway and the whole pack of offenses be known at once. But there were a lot of things Mom didn’t know until years later.

For a while, it was Baby Brother and I that got along the best and Baby Sister and Bold One that seemed to get along together.

When I came home on leave while in the Air Force, I remember Baby Brother came up to greet me. He had grown so much, and he picked me up off the ground when he hugged me. I told him I thought he’d been replaced by a bear.

By the time Baby Sister was about to be married, he and I began sharing aspects of our personal lives with each other that we told no one else. He knew the Bible like I knew lyrics to songs, and he knew a lot of the songs, too. When I left the Air Force and lived with him for a few months that relationship continued until I moved out.

If I had been fascinated with my siblings growing up, Baby Brother took to my children likewise. My kids sure loved their uncle.

As time went on, we laughed and talked and had such interaction when we did get together that sometimes it was hard to feel included in our antics. Mom would have to yell at us to get our attention.

Everyone always remarked how alike Baby Brother and Dad were. Dad called him his clone. When Dad passed away, all my hopes were unspokenly placed on Baby Brother as the next vessel of Dad’s ministry and prophetic ability. I encouraged him every chance I could with stories Dad had told me that seemed to match Baby Brother’s situation. It was as if my relationship with Baby Brother never had the broken piece in it that seemed to exist between Dad and me.

It broke and bewildered me when he was killed by a drunk driver at just the point in his life when he would have been fully immersed in becoming a minister himself. I was without a clue of what to think of God or myself at this point of having lost my Dad and now my “bestest buddy”.

I thought, “That’s it, I’m done. I’m not sure who I am anymore. God, I’m sitting right here, and you’re going to have to carry me where I’m suppose to go because I don’t know or care anymore.”

As I allowed Him to carry me as a toddler gone beyond himself, I began to see more of who He wanted me to be.

He also gave me a task. I was to write a story that Baby Brother had outlined, but had no time to flesh out. I couldn’t write with the knowledge of what he had intended to put down on paper, but the Lord helped to see the story lines that I could write and needed to make accessible.

One Sunday morning, I woke up with a melody in my head. I quickly got up in the early dawn and grabbed my guitar and worked out some chords and notated the melody before I could forget. In my heart, the Lord said, “This song is “The Hinterlands.” The name of Baby Brother’s intended book.

As the days passed with writing on paper, I was filled with music from God that became the CD project “The Hinterlands.” I had never felt such collaboration with God before in my life. I felt like I had done my life’s work and there was no more. Not true really, but that’s the way I felt.

I had dedicated my first CD to my dad. Now I dedicated “The Hinterlands” to the “Gene Roddenberry” of “The McClaron Chronicles”, my baby brother.

My life has been changed forever.

Just One Of Dad's Churches

2005-02-28T00:17:00.000-08:00

When I lived in Suburbia, my dad found a church to pastor in another part of the metropolitan area. It turned out to be a more rundown area and we traveled forty-five minutes one-way to get there each Wednesday and twice on Sunday. As I became old enough, I was later left at home to watch my two brothers and baby sister on Sunday nights. That was nice because then we were able to watch “The Wonderful World Of Disney” that only came on television on Sunday nights.

This church was a small church. Dad usually ended up with small churches that could barely pay the light and heat bill much less Dad’s salary, so he usually had a job to support us during the week.

I remember several things about this particular church. When you walked in, the little lobby was carpeted and there was a drinking fountain in a corner next to one of the doors that led to the sanctuary. I remember these because when my mirror cousins came to visit us at this church, they taught us to all hold hands, and shuffle our feet across the carpet. The guy on one end of the line would then touch the drinking fountain giving us all a chain-reaction shock that caused us to hold or shake our hands in pain. Then we’d do it again!

All the Sunday School classrooms were in the basement. On Sunday, that was fine to go into the basement, but on a Wednesday or Sunday night, that was one of the scariest basements a kid would ever venture into. When we first started at this church, we spent one Saturday night in sleeping bags in the basement to save us having to get up so early on Sunday. That night we found out that all the mice in the neighborhood came there for ballet and rugby practice. Mom took one look at that, and decided we’d just get up early on Sunday.

That basement held some memories. It was in the kitchen unit of that basement where Bold One and I learned to fill the little communion cups with Dad’s funny squirt bottle of grape juice. After church on Communion Sunday, my siblings and I drank any leftover cups of grape juice.

In the large center area was where chairs were set up for all the kids to hear my mom give the children’s church lessons. My siblings and I seemed to be the only kids who knew the answers to the questions. Mom would give prizes to the kids who answered correctly. She would try to call on the other kids first, but half the time it was just our four hands in the air. There was a lot of “Does anyone know the answer? Anyone? Anyone besides my kids?” That went on for years. Baby Sister has more stories than I do about that.

The baby nursery was in a corner room of that basement. All the kids killed time in that nursery waiting for parents to stop talking and take them home. I remember this girl who always tried to hang around my brother and I, but I didn’t want her around because she beat me in arm wrestling all the time.

The sanctuary was an ordinary one except for one thing. There was a painted picture of Jesus Resurrected on the wall. You know, with the nail prints and the white robe? Jesus’ eyes would follow you all over the sanctuary. That tended to intensify our religious experience. One of us kids was always going forward to the altar with tears in our eyes.

Occasionally, a few of us would come with Dad on a Saturday to the church. Either we had to do yard work, or we’d watch Dad run the mimeograph machine. Hey, this was before computers and affordable copy machines! We’d watch Dad put ink in the cylinder and wrap it with the blue sheet that he’d spend quite some time typing on to make the holes to allow the ink to bleed through to print on the paper. We’d sometimes get to pick which bulletin blanks to use for that Sunday. The best part was when Dad would start turning the crank and the paper would feed through under the cylinder and be printed on. If the first couple turned out good, then Dad would let us turn the crank to print them.

There came a time when Mom and Dad were tired of us running around the church after service. Mom didn’t appreciate the fact that Bold One would crawl around under the pews and end up wearing the dust bunnies on his church clothes. Dad wanted the kids to stop running around the sanctuary and learn some reverence for God’s house.

One day, Dad told us if we didn’t sit in the back pew after church until it was time to go home, we’d get a spanking. Dad liked to refer to it as “a board meeting”. I think that is pretty self-explanatory. I ended up sitting by myself watching my siblings have a wonderful time playing tag up and down the aisles, yelling into the microphone on the platform, and splashing in the baptismal. Then later, I would hear the fallout from the “board meeting.”

This church was not much different from the other churches I grew up in. I learned to ride my bike in the parking lot of one church. Bold One used to take his nap under Dad’s desk when he was a toddler. I learned to operate a lawn mower while mowing church lawns. Sometimes as a preacher’s kid, you just lived at church.

Soylent Green

2005-02-24T15:28:00.000-08:00

I found a movie in a book clearance store in the mall. It was called “Westworld”, starring Yul Brynner. As my son and I watched this Sci-Fi classic, we laughed at the 70s’ fashion influences that were projected for the future.

The 70s had a rash of science fiction movies that I remember all the kids in school talking about. I usually had to wait for them to come to television before I could see them.

The big one was “The Planet Of The Apes”. There was merchandising from that movie that was only eclipsed by “Star Wars” at the end of the decade. I was also a faithful viewer of the TV series as well.

I had introduced my son to the movie “Soylent Green” starring Charleton Heston some time ago, so he enjoys watching old science fiction movies with me. When “Westworld” was finished, he was a little disappointed with it, especially with the technology in use in movies now.

After suggesting that we try to find “Soylent Green” again, my son told me what had happened in science class at school one day.

One of my son’s classmates had gotten the science teacher talking about the world’s alledged overpopulation problem. As he was wearing down, my son loudly proclaims, “Soylent Green is people!” It was the startling punch line of “Soylent Green”. No one understood what that meant, not even the teacher, and it died as soon as he said it.

The teacher is twenty five years old. You’d think that if they were going to teach him all that old stuff of evolution, global warming, and overpopulation, that he’d at least be exposed to a little culture like “Soylent Green” and the original “Planet Of The Apes” movies.

Don’t forget “Logan’s Run”.

Juvenile Hymnal Theology

2005-02-14T15:09:00.000-08:00

As a preacher’s kid I (or anyone who grew up in the kind of Pentecostal church I did), was exposed to some wonderful hymns. These were the kind of songs that you couldn’t help but learn if you paid any kind of attention in church.

It is written in my baby book by my mother, that I used to love to sing a hymn called “He Took My Sins Away”. Well, I actually sang: “He took my THINGS away.”

“He took my THINGS away and keeps me singing every day. (Hallelujah)
I’m so glad He took my THINGS away. He took my THINGS away!”

Mom and Dad got a few good chuckles out of that. I heard that story until Bold One took over the comedic role in the family.

When I think of that, I have to admit I may have been on to something. We may have to allow the Lord to take some of our THINGS away to grow closer to Him. Then as we have grown, we can truly sing: “I’m so glad He took my THINGS away.”

I’m sure Dad used that in many sermons. It had to be too good to pass up.

When I lived down south, my cousin Patrick and I would brave sitting next to his brother Billy and hear him sing: “I’ve a mansion over there, and it’s free from TOILET CARE.” It was supposed to be “toil and care”, but his way was more colorful, and yet, theologically sound.

That had to be the hardest time of holding in a belly laugh in the middle of church until I told Baby Sister that the grape juice in communion was supposed to be Jesus’ Blood. She wrinkled her little nose and said, “That’s Jesus’ blood?”

I tried to share the “toilet care” version with one of my “mirror” cousins during another church service, but he tried to slug me right there in the pew. Some preachers’ kids have no sense of humor.

The one I really smile at even now is not even a hymn, but is known as a chorus. It talks about declaring your faith and acknowledging Christ as the center of your life. It has a line that goes: “And in Him I live and I move and I have my being.”

I pointed these lyrics out to Bold One at one time and said, “See, that guy only eats one bean a day!” I changed “being” to “bean” just to mess with my little brother. It’s something any self-respecting big brother does.

These little jokes have a way of backfiring sometimes. He had absorbed what I said and was quiet until one day while the family was singing together in the car. He piped up and said, “Let’s sing the ‘one bean a day’ song.” The “one bean a day” song? That’s when I had to explain my little joke to Dad.

At least I had pulled the wool over my brother’s eyes for a little while. He wasn’t usually easy to fool. I think that trait has benefited him well to this day.

Mirror Cousins

2005-02-08T14:42:00.000-08:00

I have a set of cousins I like to think of as my “mirror” cousins. As I’ve said before, I am the oldest of four children with two younger brothers and a baby sister. My cousins are three brothers and a baby sister also. They are also preacher’s kids. This fact has its good and not so good points.

It’s very easy to drawn comparisons between the cousins. I will start with the youngest. This baby sister is my age. Her brothers are about a year apart in age and she is about a year younger than the youngest brother. (The actual ages are not mentioned to protect any age hang-ups known or unknown.) This cousin in my mind is the mirror of my baby sister. She was sheltered and protected in the same manner by both parents and brothers. For some reason, she and I didn’t play together very often as you might expect, but I have one pleasant memory of interaction with her.

This was at our grandparents’ house, which was the setting for most of the events between the cousins. She and I were in the back yard alone together. I remember we began a game of pretend where she called the shots. I was the prince and she was Sleeping Beauty. I was a little uneasy with this, because I knew that the prince had to kiss Sleeping Beauty to wake her. I asked her if I was supposed to kiss her.

Looking in her eyes, I could almost see the gears turning. Did I detect some uneasiness in her as well? I also sensed that she knew I was nervous. The haziness of thought seemed to clear from her eyes and she spoke to me.

I was ready for the worst. I think we were ten or eleven, but I can’t be sure, but I was willing to kiss her if she insisted. She was my cousin after all, and in my family this kind of thing wasn’t that uncommon.

To my relief, (and maybe some slight disappointment) she told me I should kiss her hand to wake her.

We ran through the game, and I found she was quite a good actress.

Now I will talk about the youngest boy. This cousin, I usually interacted with along with his brothers. I have one strong memory of just the two of us.

It was at his Bible camp. I was put in his cabin as I was allowed to attend for free because my mom was teaching the younger kids. Here I was, thrust into my cousin’s world like the new kid at school. He was the defacto leader of his group of friends, and he introduced me with an aside that I would be good for the Bible quiz when the cabins competed throughout the week.

I felt that he thought I was some kind of sissy liability he had to tolerate. I was determined to make my own mark at his camp and show them all I was more than the geeky Bible wiz kid. Oh, I’ll hand them the Bible quiz victory, but I was determined to do a bit more.

In the middle of that week, I had read the chapters to be covered in the Bible quiz and came into the chapel ready. We were supposed to discuss each question given to our cabin before standing up to answer, but whenever our cabin received a question, I was standing while the rest of the cabin were still discussing. I knew the answers and won the Bible quiz for my cabin.

At the end of the week, there was a relay race. There were all kinds of wacky tasks to do with the baton run between each one. I begged the counselor to allow me to be the baton runner. I knew I could do a good job because another cousin of mine had started me into running a mile a day. I found I enjoyed running. Because I was persistent, I was made the baton runner although everyone in my cabin had doubts about me.

My cousin was always the model of cool for his friends, so I was curious to see what part of the relay he would claim for his own. He picked the task of chugging a whole can of soda and burping before the baton could be carried to the next task. I wasn’t impressed.

I brought the baton to the finish line to capture first place for my cabin. I was elated. I tried to tell my cousin that maybe I was good for something besides just the Bible quiz, but he didn’t get it.

I had accomplished something I had set out to do and was glad to have done it for myself at least.

The second oldest cousin can easily be compared to Bold One, my brother. He was the bold one of that immediate family. He tended to treat me like a little brother with all that entails. I felt a little condescended to and when I objected, I was knocked down. I didn’t have as much interaction with him as the rest, but I don’t remember ever breaking my “little brother” role with him.

Now the oldest cousin I identify with because he’s the oldest of four and I am too. He and I have successfully maintained a good relationship through the years. He has given me a timely word of wisdom on more than one occasion, and I hope I can do the same for him. He has influenced me in many ways, but the fact that I am writing at all, I attribute to his input.

I had the chance to see him again when he brought one of his daughters to the city where I live for college. I was so glad to see him and feel we can pick up right where we left off whenever we see each other again. I gave him such a hard time when he was tripping over sending his first daughter to live away from home at college. I began to feel bad when his wife told me this, but the visit renewed our relationship.

Now we seem to keep more in touch with each other. I haven’t talked to the other three cousins since my father’s funeral. I’m sure we all pray it won’t take another funeral to get together again.

Christie, Debbie, David and Mel

2005-01-31T13:39:00.000-08:00

I used to work in a little restaurant making pizzas when I was a teenager. In the short time I worked there, I got to know kids from school in a different environment. I began to learn what real friendships were made of.

The girl I had a crush on worked there. She was a flute player in band and was two years ahead of me in high school. I was able to talk to her and get to know her more than I would have staring at her from across the band room in school. I remember she would always take time to talk to me on breaks. She was so down to earth and accepting of me that the fact that she didn’t consider me as boyfriend material didn’t seem to hurt. At least not in her presence, but that just might be the symptoms of a crush. That was one relationship that I treasure because I realize I had friendship with her.

Another girl left the impression with me of being a bit stuck up. She seemed rather snippy with me on a regular basis. I thought she was beautiful, but when she spoke to me, it totally ruined any pleasant effect.

That began to change one day when we were working the same shift one hot summer day. We had so many pizza orders that the manager asked this supposedly stuck up girl, Debbie, to help me put the pizzas together. The radio was playing and everyone was so bogged down with the business, that we turned the station to listen to “our” music instead of “elevator music”.

Debbie and I made pizzas and began singing with the radio. She turned to me and asked me if I liked all of REO Speedwagon’s songs. I told her I did.

The most beautiful smile broke out on her face as she began to tell me how REO always seemed to cheer her up. We talked about the band and she showed me in one of their songs some obscure lyrics that were only heard by real REO fans. I reciprocated by telling her of the Rolling Stones’ song “You Make A Grown Man Cry”.

It seems that Debbie was a bit of a partier, which was something I hadn’t begun to dabble in at that time, because I hadn’t had my heart broken by a certain cute brunette yet. (See “Marrwage, Marrwage Is the Weason We Are Gathered Here Today” October 5, 2004) After that, Debbie was a lot nicer to me. We had found some common ground.

In this small town I lived in, I found that liking and knowing about certain rock bands was a ticket into an inner circle of many partier groups. There were Rush fans, Styx fans, Kiss fans, Led Zeppelin fans, and Black Sabbath fans. I also discovered that playing “Stairway To Heaven” was a good icebreaker with any party girl…but I digress.

David was my friend even before I worked at the restaurant. He was the owner’s son. His dad later became the mayor of the town, but David was always the same. He was one of the first computer geeks, but I don’t think he became rich from it.

When the girl I had a crush on (Christie) quit, another girl took her place that I had been introduced to by a good friend who was also a preacher’s kid in the same denomination as mine. This girl’s name was Melanie. I used to call her Mel.

Mel was drop dead gorgeous and a Christian girl that every Christian mom prays for to be set aside for her son. I was a friend with her right off, but I never was as gone on her as I was on Christie. She and I did more things together. She played bass in her daddy’s southern gospel band, and she used to like to jam with me. One time she even invited me to go see Hall And Oates at the Lansing Civic Center.

Another thing, she drove a 1967 Mustang. It was maroon and a ragtop. I think I was as taken by her car in some respects as her. I’ve always wanted one since.

One time, Mel’s family band played at our church, and they let me play one of my own songs with Mel and the drummer. That whet my desire to be a performing musician. I think I even surprised my parents a little bit.

So whatever happened to those people?

I saw Christie once or twice after her graduation. She was married not long after that. The one time I remember best was when I helped her push the stroller with her new baby in it as we talked. She was always nice to me. I will always remember her fondly.

Debbie died in an auto accident not long after I graduated from high school. Mom sent me the clipping and I’m sure I still have it in my school stuff. My last and best memory of her was making the pizzas with her and singing with the radio.

David kind of faded out of my life and I’m not sure what he’s doing now.

Mel married while I was in the Air Force and had several children, but I never actually saw her again. Mel, if you’re out there, drop me a line, e-mail or something.

These people are a special part of me because I allowed them to be. I didn’t let the initial irritation of Debbie stop me from knowing her. I’m glad. If ever I were to see these people again, I’m sure I could pick up as if I’d never been away, and fairly easily. I would hope so.

Thank you, Christie, Debbie, David, and Mel!

Fish and Occasional Torture

2005-01-27T06:36:00.000-08:00

I lived down south for a year when I was in second grade. Dad was pastor of a little country church. The church was set back about a hundred yards from the two-lane highway that ran through the small town. We lived in a doublewide mobile home behind the church.

Our stay was from summer to summer that school year. It was my first experience with culture shock since I was a northern boy. I enjoyed listening to people speak with a southern accent. I can remember being asked if I was from up north. I said “yes.” They told me they could tell from my accent. Funny, I was sure all the people in town were the ones with the accent.

This was the time when baby sister was not expected until the final summer of our living down there. That summer was more eventful in several ways than the whole year up to that time. My brother the bold one was my constant shadow and baby brother was learning to walk with the bruises on his head from falling against the furniture to show for it. Baby brother was probably seven years old before he took a formal picture without sporting a head wound.

Well, this last summer, Mom and Dad bought us a membership at the public swimming pool where we could go swimming every day and all we had to do was tell the teenager at the desk our membership number. My bold brother and I were allowed to go together without adult supervision to the pool. I was to keep an eye on him, but they had a couple lifeguards on duty at all times, so I didn’t think anything of it.

I was eight years old and my brother was four. He would go back and forth between the warm wading pool and the big pool where I always played. On this day, he had a friend who brought an air mattress to play with in the pool. This friend would let him float on the mattress from time to time.

When this friend was called by his mother to go home, he called to my brother to get off the mattress and give it back. Bold brother didn’t (or wouldn’t) hear him. In desperation, he jumped in the pool and chased after the mattress as it was heading toward me and deeper water. This kid caught the mattress and flipped my brother off into water that was over his head.

I could have sworn my brother sunk like a stone. Instantly my life and my brother’s passed before my eyes including newspaper headlines reading, “Northern Boy Lets Brother Drown!” I reached down into the water in that same instant and lifted my brother up into the air.

He and I both gasped and our eyes met. He was alive!

Alive? He wasn’t even fazed! I hadn’t even set him on the edge of the pool yet when he said, “I saw fish!”

***

Also when we lived down south, we had cousins that lived nearby. At least we got in the car from time to time and visited them on their farm.

There were three cousins: Billy, Debbie and Patrick. Patrick and I mostly hung around with Debbie, the middle child. Patrick was the youngest and was younger than me but older than Bold One.

We didn’t hang around Billy much because he was a teenager and was unpredictable. Sometimes he had a mean streak and other times he would nearly tease us to death. It was hard to tell which mood he was in sometimes and even harder know when he’d switch. He would tease poor Debbie cruelly and regularly.

One day, Patrick and I braved some time with Billy in his room. He would let me look at the model cars he’d put together and Patrick was as much my shadow as Bold One. This time, Patrick had done or said something to tick Billy off and was grabbed and held down on Billy’s bed. I just stood there helplessly.

Billy said something like he was going to kill Patrick this time, and as he held Patrick he said, “Where’s my knife!”

Patrick and I believed him, but before I could do anything, Billy pulled his comb out of his pocket and showed it to me. He had a devilish grin on his face, and I couldn’t help smirking once I caught on to what Billy was going to do.

Billy began sawing his comb on Patrick’s leg without allowing Patrick to see, and Patrick began screaming bloody murder thinking his leg was being cut off.

I was laughing both at how funny it was and with relief that Patrick wasn’t truly going to die. (This time.)

Patrick was sure glad when Billy showed him he was just using the comb on him.

I always wondered how Patrick survived while Billy still lived at home!

Pearl's Eye: War's Haunting

2005-01-18T06:14:00.000-08:00

You could see several states from the top of the bluff. Grand Dad Bluff allows one to see the Black River and the mighty Mississippi coming together in the distance. The grid of streets that was La Crosse is nestled between those rivers. You may be able to see the trolley cars if you have sharp eyes.

As you bring your sight closer to the bluff itself, the grid of streets fades into prairie until you see the foot of the old Grand Dad itself. A few houses have dared to sprout up on the prairie, which is a sign of the future of the town.

To the left, there’s even an airfield for the biplanes that have earned their place in the modern world by their contribution to the Great War and their use by the United States Postal Service.

As the sun sets, our view floats down as if we were in one of those wonderful flying machines across the town toward the evening colors to the western end of Jackson Street. The sun disappears as we drift down to Fourth Street and quiet of evening.

Pearl herself is very likely at this moment playing her grandfather’s Victrola or helping her grandmother clean up after supper, but the neighborhood has several family members nearby. Her uncles haven’t moved very far away since coming home from the Great War twelve years ago.

Bill Hatke sat in his yard on Fourth Street after supper that evening, with a couple of bottles of his home-brewed beer. Prohibition, what a nuisance. When a fellow came home from the war everyone was buying plenty of drinks for you. Now you have to make it yourself and in secret to stay out of jail.

He leaned back and closed his eyes in the dimness of the streetlight, letting the crickets sing their song to him. In his mind, he found himself back in France during the war, hearing the same cricket sounds as he stood guard...

Camp was barely within earshot, and a breeze was picking up that Bill could start to feel through his khaki uniform. "I must be soaked through with sweat," he thought, "but the breeze sure feels good."

The young soldier only half consciously noticed the crickets gradually falling silent.

He was staring out into the darkness, when he began to be sure he heard rustling noises somewhere ahead. Bill padded as quietly as his boots would let him toward the rustling with his bayonet fixed onto his rifle.

Someone was out there! He could just make out a figure crawling toward camp. With his bayonet ready, he was determined to impale his intense fear as well as any enemy soldier.

Now, he was close enough. He knew he must put everything he had into killing a man at close quarters. He had to leap into such an act despite all fear or hesitation as if diving from a swimming pool's high dive for the first time.

He lunged...

"Bill!" It was his brother Bob. All in a moment he saw that Bob was weak and wounded, just managing to drag himself back from contact with the actual enemy. His brother's hand was already clutching a wound just inches from the tip of the bayonet that could have finished him. Bill's recognition of his brother had stopped him just in time...

Bill jerked his head up. The crickets still chirped in his yard. A policeman, walking his beat, had just passed the house and was disappearing up Jackson Street. France was just a memory; just a story that his sister Elsie had thrilled to when he lived on Johnson Street with his parents.

Pearl's Eye: A Boyish Bob

2005-01-10T18:27:00.000-08:00

Young Pearl stood in her front walk; actually Grandpa Hatke's front walk, absently staring across Johnson Street. Her Grandma had just put her little brother Rowland down for a nap, and she didn't expect her mother to come home from work for several hours, yet.

They had come to live here after Pearl's parents got a divorce. Her Dad was in the Army and was living somewhere else, which was all she had known for half of her young life.

Her life was not lonely by any means. The house was also residence for two uncles, Bob and Bill, and a spinster cousin Annie Neuman. All the men in the house seemed to be firemen, and the two younger women worked at different factory jobs, like the candy factory at the moment.

Grandma Hatke came out the front door. "Be sure to pick up the yard before Opa comes home, Pearl."

Pearl ignored her Grandma, intent on looking out for the boy who lived in the house next door. Maybe an ambush would be fun, since facing him in a fight seemed a simple victory.

Before Pearl knew it, Opa was coming down the street on his bicycle at the end of his work day.

"Pearl, you must pick up all these things laying about!"

Seeing her Grandfather straddling his bike, she calculated that he would be too encumbered to enforce his wishes. "I don't have to!" she cried.

She almost forgot to run when she saw how quick Opa was off the bike and after her. That was the only spanking she had ever received from him.

After supper, in the livingroom, Pearl sidled up to her Opa in his chair. "Could I play the Victrola?"

With a pat of her hand and a smile, he nodded. Before she could rush to the phonograph, he admonished, "You shouldn't bully the boy next door so much. They are renting from us, but some day that house will belong to my 'Dandy Girl'."

Old Wilhelm listened contentedly as his granddaughter played every record in the cabinet. What a joy to watch his grandchildren grow up in his house.

Elsie, Pearl's mother, entered the livingroom. "You should take dancing lessons, Pearl." Then sitting and becoming serious, she said, "You are going to see your father tomorrow. You need to take your brother down to the barber's for a haircut. You could use a trim, too. I'd like to see those ragged ends gone."

It promised to be a sunny day as Pearl and her brother, Rowland walked down to the barber shop.

After watching her brother's hair being cut, she informed the barber that she needed a haircut also.

"Well, hop on the chair and tell me what you would like done," replied the barber.

"I want a boyish bob," declared Pearl.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes," said Pearl, "Give me a boyish bob."

Elsie Selbo was surprised to see how identical her children looked with practically the same hair cut. Pearl's dress was the only thing that kept her children from looking like a pair of boys instead of one child of each gender.

Perhaps it was to document her daughter's deed as well as to keep a momento, when she decided to go ahead and take the picture she wanted for the occasion.

2005-01-07T02:48:00.000-08:00

At my feet is the broken body of my dear brother
Gazing into Heaven, he will no longer walk my dreams or my waking hours
A part of me would gladly trade places with him so that the world wouldn't lose such a noble man so soon
It is now up to me to carry what he brought
To teach what he presented
To live on with his banner a permanent part of mine

"Touch your lips with a magic kiss, and you'll be a bluebird too."
Paul McCartney

2004-12-28T23:42:00.000-08:00

Play me a song young man
One that comes right from the heart
Show me what’s inside if you can
Staying true from the start

Bohemian Avenue #4

2004-12-28T06:48:00.000-08:00

It was a slow day in the carwash at the bottom of the glass tower. John turned in his dirty towels to be laundered and walked to the single metal and glass booth for the parking company’s cashier.

Today, the cashier was Margaret. She was the petite and rather buxom girl who got her auburn hair from a bottle. John liked her cheerful disposition and the ready way she joked and bantered with him.

The more John talked with her the more he found out about her. She was very open about herself when given a chance. She had been a skater with the Sesame Street On Ice show when it had come to the Target Center one year. She had dressed as Grover the blue monster from the kids’ show.

As John asked her more about her skating, she revealed that she was an aspiring dancer. In their silliness, John convinced her to show him some dance steps, and she immediately stepped out of the booth and executed a series of provocative fan kicks. John was speechless.

About that time, there was a call for a car wash, so John went to pick up the car. It turned out to be one of the cars with a wiper on the back window. He would have to take extra care when drying the back window. At least the seat had programmed positions to instantly restore the short driver’s seat to the proper distance from the pedals.

As John passed the booth to put the car back after the wash, he saw that the new guy was giving Margaret her lunch break. He had met him yesterday. He was a bible school student named Nathan. He was a freshman and obviously needed this job to help him through school. He was a nice guy from the conversations John had with him.

After parking the car, he had to go up into the tower to collect the fee, and as he was on his way back, he walked past the building security desk. One of the security guards called him over to the desk. It was Diane, a short blond that he had several conversations with recently when she had found out he had been in the Army as she had.

“Hey,” said Diane. “Is that cute guy working today in the booth downstairs?”

“Do you mean Nathan?” asked John.

“Gosh, is he ever cute!” she gushed. “I’ve got to go out with him! Better yet, take this note to him for me. Will you?”

John took the note and looked at her with interest. The idea of Nathan paired with this worldly-wise Army veteran amused him very much.

“That’s to invite him roller blading. You’ll put in a good word for me. Please?”

John looked her in the eye and affirmed it with a straight face. “I think you guys would be good together.”

John went down to find Nathan still sitting in the booth and gave him Diane’s note.

After he read it, John explained whom the author was. “She’s really gone on you. I think you should consider going out with her.”

At Nathan’s look of doubt, John said, “It’s up to you.”

He walked away thinking that the encounter could broaden his horizons a bit. At least, Nathan could experience someone from another side of life. She had reminded him of a girl he had met in the Army that he’d had a temporary crush on. He had met her daughter and if things had gone differently, he might have taken a chance with her. But he’d met his future wife a few months later, and nothing came of his crush.

Later on, Margaret was back in the booth. As they were talking, the phone rang and John was ready for another carwash order, but it was for Margaret. It turned out that Margaret wasn’t going to be picked up from work that evening, and she needed a ride home.

“I know,” she said. “I’ll treat you at Annie’s for supper if you drive me home.”

“I’ll driver you home, but you don’t have to buy me supper,” protested John.

“Oh, but I wanted to eat at Annie’s anyway,” she insisted.

“Okay, we’ll eat at Annie’s Dutch treat, and then I’ll drive you home. Is that acceptable?”

“Good,” she said smiling.

When John had pulled up to the booth that evening when work was finished, Margaret had gone through a small transformation. She had changed into a dress that put her legs in a good light, and had even applied some make up. He smelled her freshly applied perfume when she got into the car with him. She looked very attractive.

By the time they were in the parking lot of Annie’s hamburger restaurant, Margaret was in the middle of tell him about a guy she had over to the house and how he had stolen some money from a jar in her parents’ kitchen. She was now upset and John had the funny feeling she was going to ask for a hug.

Sure enough, she did and John let her hug him. She held onto him a few seconds longer than he was comfortable with as he looked out the window at the gathering dusk. There was warning flag in his mind.

Their time over their burgers was back to the comfortable friendship they had known as fellow employees of the parking ramp. She began telling how she had stalked the drummer for AC/DC and showed up at his house in New Zealand while John listened wide-eyed.

The drummer, Phil Rudd and his wife had allowed her to stay with them for more than a week. She had the chance to meet more of the band and his other friends as well. They had been very kind and tolerant of her.

When John pulled up in front of her house in the Highland Park area that night, Margaret wanted to show him her souvenirs of the trip to New Zealand. He protested that he should get going, but she insisted that her parents were home by now and it would only be a few minutes.

She used her key to get into the house, and went immediately to a wooden display with a glass cover. Her parents were obviously not home, but she pointed to the display and waved him over.

Inside the case were various items from AC/DC concerts, and when Margaret opened the case, she picked up a stone to show him. “Phil and his wife gave me this rare piece of yellow jade. They said it was kind of valuable.”

John looked at the stone. It was the size of a goose egg, and off-white in color with veins of tan all through it.

“Do you want to touch it?” asked Margaret with an intent look in her eyes.

“Um, not really,” said John uncomfortably. They both immediately began to laugh.

She then asked him to stay for a while and even overnight, but John was firm in answering no. He had no intention of ruining his marriage over this girl. Even if his wife never found out, he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he gave in to temptation.

He drove away breathing a sigh of relief. He would have to not put himself into this kind of situation again.

The Never Ending Story

2004-12-27T13:58:00.000-08:00

My family and I bought the extended DVD set of “The Return Of The King” that has now come out. It was a Christmas gift to ourselves.

I had watched the first release with my brother and brother-in-law over the Thanksgiving weekend. We used a projector to show the movie on my brother’s living room wall. Very cool!

The ladies of the family were taking advantage of the holiday shopping deals while we set the little kids up in the basement with a television and VCR to watch the box of Christmas videos I had brought along.

When the ladies returned, of course, the movie wasn’t finished yet.

My mother remarked my misty eyes at the end, and I found it difficult to explain what I saw in the movie that would bring tears to my eyes.

I’ve thought about it on and off since then and decided to write out some of it here for you.

First, I remember reading of Tolkien telling C. S. Lewis that all stories are reflections of the greatest story: our history with God, the highlight being Jesus providing our salvation. Then there’s the concept of “The Never Ending Story”. The story never really stops. As one character leaves or dies, the torch of the story is passed to those who carry on.

In the “Return Of The King” and the entire saga of “The Lord Of The Rings” you see good versus evil, but what strikes me is all the sacrifices the friends made for one another. That is a reflection of what Jesus has done for us. Gandalf even comes back from a hellish place more glorified, as did Christ.

The ring, the physical symbol of evil, has taken its toll from all who’ve come in contact with it. We see Bilbo Baggins coming to look his proper age very quickly after his role in the war of the ring is done. It can be easily accepted that Bilbo leaves with the elves from Middle Earth on a ship that I am compelled to think of as departing for heaven.

Gandalf’s words to Pippin during the battle at Mina Tirith leads me to think that way as well. He speaks of death. He says this world’s gray cover is peeled back and all becomes silver glass. He then speaks of seeing white shores and a green land beyond. That sounds like heaven to me, and a place to look forward to.

Now four hobbits at the end of the story are at the harbor to see off Bilbo, Gandalf, and the elves when it turns out that Frodo Baggins is departing also, much to the other hobbits’ surprise. The ring has worn Frodo down so much more in his own role to destroy it, and he desires to go to what he views as his rest beyond Middle Earth.

I am reminded of many loved ones I expected to pass on very much like Bilbo, who were old and weary. I can also think of one or two that have departed as unexpectedly as Frodo’s departure.

We all live a story, and we are left to carry on with what was given to us by those who’ve gone before. It will someday be my turn to leave, and I want to leave good and helpful gifts behind.

2004-12-21T13:55:00.000-08:00

My heart weeps
For a child that hadn't a chance to be
Or be placed upon a grandparent's knee
For the parent who cannot place him there
For the grandparent who hadn't a chance to care

My heart is grateful
For a chance to say hello or goodbye
For a chance to laugh and a chance to cry
For a day of sun and a day of rain
For a wave of pleasure and a stab of pain

Bohemian Avenue (conclusion)

2004-12-19T13:29:00.000-08:00

Gloomy white light filtered through the bedroom window onto the mattress. It was still occupied by the sleeper who had placed it on the floor for his bed.

John raised his head and saw that it was just daylight and no one stirred in the apartment. Stephen was asleep in his bed across the room.

It was Saturday morning, and he was glad he didn’t have to go to work today. Then he remembered the events of last night. All the thoughts that had been pushed aside for sleep now began to run through his brain. He was done with sleep; so he put on some clothes.

He opened the bedroom door and looked out into the living room. Jeanie was not sleeping on the couch anymore. She must have gone upstairs to Susan’s apartment.

John grabbed his coffee mug and made himself some instant coffee with the help of the microwave and sat on the couch where he had last seen Jeanie before going to bed. He looked at the TV. This was no time for television. The murky shadows of the unlit living room allowed his thoughts to become clearer in his mind.

He felt that he was partly to blame for Jeanie’s overindulgence last night. Maybe these kids looked to him more than he realized. He admired their way of stating their individuality and never thought about the possibility of underlying insecurities and even heartaches.

Why had he wanted to drink? Why with these kids? Couldn’t he have just had Coke as his brother had? It brought to mind the first time he had ever taken a drink.

John remembered from his high school days the misunderstandings between his parents and himself and the ache that he had carried from the rejection he perceived from them. When a relationship with a girl had not gone the way he had hoped, but in fact caused him to face more rejection, he had decided that drugs and alcohol couldn’t hurt him any worse and might be a temporary painkiller.

He knew in his head that numbing the pain didn’t solve anything, but he didn’t see any solution at all. If his preacher father and his mother made him feel unconditionally unworthy, couldn’t that have been true of God also? But that very church training and something else inside of him wrestled against that assumption.

He had left home to join the Army just to escape his parents. He had quit drugs because he didn’t like the side effects and the Army kept drug testing as a deterrent and a way to rid the ranks of drug abusers. Drinking was practically encouraged in some respects, and John had learned the hard lessons of drinking too much.

Now, he had tried to keep his drinking moderate and was successful, but here he was unintentionally leading others astray. It could have been worse, but he didn’t want to excuse himself that easily.

Why did he drink now? His parents had taught him not to drink at all.

The fact was he had turned to alcohol during a painful time in his life. The temporary numbing had actually scarred him to the point that when he felt God wasn’t acting quickly enough in his favor, he turned to drinking.

The drinking, he thought, wasn’t the whole picture. The drinking was a substitute for…?

The answer had to do with acceptance. It was feeling connected to other people in friendship, in intimacy, and of romantic love.

When he was married he hadn’t wanted to drink, and when he craved a drink, it was when he felt lonely and abandoned. He had managed to go for several years without having a drink by resisting with all his strength the urges and finding others to be with who did not drink.

Here in Minneapolis, he had given in and found that he had put so many things ahead of his dependence on God. He had put acceptance by others ahead of God. When he felt down, instead of turning to God, he drank.

The concept came back to him of how one views God as one views his own father. Somewhere deep down, he no longer trusted his dad, and that seemed to be applied to God, too.

In light of all he had seen in Minneapolis, the underlying issues of everyone’s life are not that many in number. The heartaches we all carry help to shape and form us to who we are and who we are going to be.

The girls from Loring Park may have equated the desire for love and intimacy solely with sexual intimacy. Those who are wounded by someone of the opposite sex, may even turn to a homosexual lifestyle to continue in their concept of intimacy.

There is some unknown heartache in the sisters upstairs that have lead them to this particular place in their lives. He had a suspicion he was about to find out Stephen’s heartache in time.

He didn’t know how to be healed of his own heartaches. All John knew was that God offered him more than he could find in drinking or finding his own way. It was time to quit drinking and come to that place that his dad had told him about when he was much younger.

He needed to go to God with everything. When he was much younger, his dad had told him he could cry and pour out all that he felt to God. He hadn’t tried that for a long time. In his mind, he looked up into the face of God, and immediately sobs wracked his body.

After a time, he heard stirrings in the bedrooms. He had recovered for the most part and had resolved to do two things. The first one was to quit drinking, and the second one was to find a life in this new place that was truer to his heart and God’s plan.

Bohemian Avenue #2

2004-12-15T02:37:00.000-08:00

John walked up one flight of stairs in his brother’s apartment building. The floor was clear, but it wasn’t even dark outside yet.

He thought of the day he moved into the apartment with Stephen and his roommate.

---

The master bedroom was for them to share along with the bathroom in the corner. Instead of setting up a bed, John had just taken the extra mattress and thrown it on the floor and threw some blankets on it. “That’s good enough for me,” he’d said.

There hadn’t been much for John to unpack, so John was ready to do something fun in the city. As they were leaving the apartment, they saw a man lying on the floor not too far from their door.

Stephen being a security guard had put on his work persona. “Hey, get up! Get up!” He nudged him with his foot hard enough to begin to roll him over.

The man mumbled and began to get up.

“You get out right now!” commanded Stephen. He proceeded to haul him downstairs and out the front door in the typical “bum’s rush” style.

John hadn’t seen his brother in that light before. It had left an impression.

---

Now, he entered the apartment to find he was the only one there. He turned on the television in the master bedroom and changed his clothes.

It wasn’t long before George; Stephen’s roommate came home from school. Since it was Friday, John knew his brother would be home pretty soon.

Next to come into the apartment were Susan and her sister Jeanie. They took over the living room while George was changing in his room.

Susan, it seemed was George’s regular visitor. Though George called her his girlfriend, she seemed to try to dodge that moniker. She was practically an apartment fixture in John’s eyes.

Jeanie was brunette where Susan was blond, and a Grunger unlike Susan. She sported a fresh hairstyle that seemed to John a form of bowl haircut. Everything below the top of the ear was clipped or shaved to the skin leaving the rest to hang almost like a Beatle haircut. He had no idea what that was called, but it had to do with the Grunge look he guessed. He appreciated the gloss of her dark brunette hair that was long enough to see and how it outlined her pale delicate face with the scant and naturally shaped eyebrows over brown eyes.

Her lips were generous without being pouty or overlarge. They called John’s attention to her words whenever she spoke in a slightly ethereal voice.

Jeanie seemed more aware of her surroundings than Susan and easily dominated a room with conversation. It was hard to know anything at all about Susan as Jeanie effortlessly eclipsed her by merely being there.

John had heard from other friends that Jeanie and Stephen had been an item at one time. That seemed to pique his interest in her even more. He wanted to know what had attracted his brother to her.

When Stephen came home, Jeanie suggested they all go to Loring Park and pick up two old friends from their school days and go to the bowling alley on Lake Street.

Everyone seemed in agreement and decided to use George’s car and the sisters would come in Jeanie’s car to have room for everyone.

John was happy to watch and learn more of his brother’s world. He didn’t think anything of what George had said about Loring Park being an area famous for being part of the gay community. He was enjoying the company of all these younger people and their way of talking about their lives.

When they finally found the apartment of the two they were to pick up, John saw two somewhat large girls get into the backseat with Stephen. He turned around in his seat to greet the two new passengers and saw that one of the girls wore her face as if she had a sweet disposition and the other was more Grunge with many studs in her left ear, mostly in the stiff cartilage at the top. There were fewer in the right ear. She seemed the more masculine of the two. Now, George’s remarks about Loring Park began to sink in.

The girl with all the studs in her ears had a short haircut. John’s grandmother would have called it a “boyish bob”. John asked her if getting all the piercings had hurt.

She seemed pretty casual about answering his question and claimed that none had especially hurt except maybe the ones in the cartilage at the top of her ears.

When George’s carload arrived at the bowling alley, Stephen, John, and the two girls slid into a booth near the bar while George went to watch for Susan and Jeanie at the entrance.

John bought everyone at the table a drink. He and the girls had beer while Stephen ordered a Coke. He brought the drinks back to the table where he saw that Stephen had moved over to the wall, leaving him to sit across from the more feminine of the two girls.

He had already forgotten their names and was hesitant to ask again, so he proceeded to engage the girl in front of him in conversation. He was successful in drawing her out and was pleased at his ability to get her to smile and even laugh once.

Stephen leaned into John’s ear and said, “What are you doing? You’re married.”

John frowned and mumbled, “I’m not hitting on her.”

The thought occurred to him that the girl with the studded ears might resent his attention to her friend, so he kept glancing in her direction to see if she showed any signs of jealousy. There was no reaction to confirm his suspicions of the two girls’ relationship.

When someone offered to buy the next round of drinks, George, Susan and the girl with the studded ears went to the pool table and Jeanie slid into the booth next to the other girl from Loring Park.

Jeanie saw that John had finished his second beer and said she wanted to have a rum and Coke if he would have one too. He didn’t know what to think of that, but agreed.

A man with a guitar stepped onto the small stage and the other end of the barroom, and began to play songs from the 1980s. John was pleased to hear some music he had grown up with and really began to enjoy himself.

As the four in the booth talked, he discovered that all these friends of Stephen had gone to the same Bible College with him more than a year ago. John couldn’t help but feel they had strayed quite a way from where they used to be in life, and he wasn’t such a good influence. At least Stephen hadn’t had any alcohol.

Jeanie had another drink and wanted John to match her drink for drink when Susan came to the table to express her disapproval. When Jeanie downed her drink in one swallow, the sisters began to argue.

At that point, George came over and suggested that he and Susan take the girls from Loring Park back home and that Jeanie and the brothers go back to Stephen’s apartment in her car.

As John, Stephen, and Jeanie approached her car, Jeanie began to stagger. Stephen caught her and asked John to drive them back to the apartment. When they arrived, Stephen carried her upstairs and placed her on the couch in the living room.

John sat at the kitchen table and looked at Jeanie lying on the couch. She had faded into sleep from the alcohol. He knew she’d be fine except for a slight headache in the morning. She must have been tired to fade so fast from just three drinks, but everyone’s tolerance is different.

He pondered how all these friends had been in Bible school together. The two from Loring Park had obviously dropped out and pursued a gay lifestyle. Jeanie worked at a video store and lived about block from them in “Gangland” and wasn’t currently in school. Stephen had a school bill that was too high for him to continue full time, so he had dropped out for a while. George was in vocational school, but Susan didn’t seem to have a reason for not being in school. There had been a vague reference to her having a job somewhere, but no one had said what it was.

If he wasn’t careful, he could be judgmental and say he’d fallen in with the castoffs of the Bible school. How had all these kids fallen through the cracks? Was it just lack of funds or something more?

To be continued…….eventually

Bohemian Avenue

2004-12-14T06:21:00.000-08:00

The underground parking ramp was a dim cement cavern that spiraled into the ground under a tower of glass. John had washed about ten cars today ranging from a modest Honda Accord to a Lexus with tan leather interior and power everything, from brakes to the seat that had several programmable positions designed for more than one driver.

He’d had to go up to the fortieth floor to deliver the keys and collect the fee on that last one. The ten-dollar tip was more than worth it to get out of the dungeon and to snatch a glance out over Minneapolis from the big window behind the receptionist.

The day was done as far as he was concerned. It was after four o’clock and John was sick of the cars and oblivious corporate suits that either ignored him or deigned to say hello from their lofty perch of success and productivity. He was tired of walking through the ramp and giving complimentary window washes to cars leaving a business card for the car wash that was a feature of the parking ramp. He had gotten so bored with the wait between washes that he had started to remember all the cars that had pretty and well-dressed women at the wheel and would exclusively reserve the complimentary window washes for them. After all, women were usually not as attentive to their vehicles as men were.

He grabbed his coat and headed for the ramp’s cashier booth. Since this was rather a modest and exclusive parking ramp, there was only one booth. The girl that was on duty now, was no longer the impish, aspiring dancer with her red hair from a bottle, but the quiet silky dark Ethiopian girl that was a University student.

John pushed in behind her chair and reaching over her shoulder, grabbed his time card and punched out for the day. She simply smiled as he said goodbye. He left with the scent of her pleasantly spicy perfume in his nostrils. He remembered from his days in the Army, an occasional black draped lady in Saudi Arabia would wear the same sort of perfume, but it probably wouldn’t be the same on his wife.

He thought he had seen a lot in his travels in England, Germany, the Middle East and Panama, but since coming to the Twin Cities, he realized he missed the changes of styles in his own country. The unnatural colored hair and many piercings weren’t all that much of a surprise to him, after all the punkers were all over Europe. It seemed that Americans traded some of their chains and spiked collars for the ugliest colors in clothes. His brother, who was temporarily his roommate until he could establish himself in “The Cities”, told him it was called Grunge. Retro and Grunge were in, and preppies, and stoners were extinct. The nerds were making the money while everyone rode on the shirttails of their success.

All of that was living side by side and mixed in with the Hippies who were now teaching at the University or running their coffee houses and New Age shops. The Bohemians began where the skyscrapers ended and interspersed with residential areas all the way to Saint Paul, which had to be the ugly twin of the “Cities”.

Then there were people like the Ethiopian girl who came to the University or just to settle in the United States. Now there were more kinds of Asians, Middle Easterners and so on. That didn’t bother John at all. That was rather interesting. He never thought he’d come close to culture shock in his own country though.

The wind picked up enough to mist his face with the drizzle that was coming down as he stepped out onto the street. He could have taken the skyway a little farther and gotten closer to home before hitting the street, but he wanted some weather instead of the continuous parade of business after business all through the skyways. He’d wait until January to use the warm passages a story above ground.

The Bohemian parts of the Twin Cities appealed to him. He enjoyed the specialty shops. He had a better chance of finding any book, comic book, coffee, tea, incense or anything else one looked for in these shops than anyplace he had been in his past. His brother had immediately gotten him hooked on the Science Fiction bookstore in “Gangland”. That was his own tag for the neighborhood. He had a right to call it that. He and his brother lived there in an apartment with another vocational student aspiring to break into radio broadcasting.

As soon as he found a decent paying job, John would bring his wife and kids from the In-Laws’ to live here.

The drizzle let up and the air wasn’t so cold that walking the whole way back to “Gangland” would be rather pleasant. The groups standing on the corner didn’t bother him. He was used to that. He had embarked on his Army career from Detroit and had seen such urban scenes before.

He’d never been approached by staggering Native Americans before. They would hold out their hands and ask, “Have you got a penny?” He supposed they kept it up until they had gotten a penny from three hundred people to get something from the liquor store. He was sure someone just gave them money to be rid of him or her. What he found disgusting, was the thought of them drinking Listerine to get their buzz. His brother had told him that, too.

John must have missed quite a bit in the last nine years to be so naïve in the city now. He was curious to learn more about people here.

To be continued…….

On December Five and Twenty....

2004-12-11T10:09:00.000-08:00

When I was in the fourth grade, I was still living in Suburbia. At Christmas time, the choir had a big concert with all the older grades combined to sing wonderful Christmas songs from other countries as well as America.

This particular music teacher that year was new. I think she was trying to impress everyone with the quality and quantity of the Christmas program, because many of us were taken out of our regular classrooms to assemble in the gym that doubled as our lunchroom to practice for the program.

We began to work on a last minute song from Spain, I think. It was called “Fum Fum Fum.” It was a catchy tune and we caught on to it easily enough, but the teacher wanted us to enunciate the “Fum Fum Fum” properly.

She began to slowly enunciate for us. She emphasized the “m” sound. I guess we sounded like we were contemptuous of “December five and twenty.” Foo Foo Foo!

While she was enunciating for us, you could almost see literal question marks hanging over our heads. We kids looked at each other. Boy, we’ve been pronouncing it wrong.

So our music teacher said, “Let’s try it from the beginning.”

And we sang, “On December five and twenty, Foomah Foomah Foomah!”

The teacher threw down her baton and took a break.

From The Artist To The Muse

2004-12-10T10:08:00.000-08:00

I know you never asked to be what you are to me
I will bear it when you stretch, tug and try to rip out all the ties between us
I stand fast because I cannot take my heart back if I wanted to
Run far and wide, but please run free
I will treasure what you couldn’t help giving to me
There’s no changing this

2004-12-09T14:47:00.000-08:00

We write our lives on a foggy window
Where the sun soon burns it away
Have we written our choicest messages
In the short time we’re given?

Christmas Card #2

2004-12-08T14:56:00.000-08:00

Last night’s snowfall collected on the path. The snow merely frosted where the leaves were scattered, but the path was a luminescent ribbon in the predawn light.

The woods was misted with a fog that hung in the air; though I had no problem seeing ahead as far as the trees would allow.

The effect of snow and fog brought to mind an account of the faery folk written by an ancient king named Simon in his youth. I imagined that this place contained some of their magic from long ago, and I was transported to that time and place.

Darkness retreated from the path and every hill and hollow promised a possible site for a faery cottage or garden if it weren’t for the snow, leaves, and fallen trees.

My faithful dog who led the way, turned back to check on my progress from time to time, but I didn’t try to keep her pace. After receiving my pleasant assurances, she loped ahead again toward home.

The enticing aroma of wood burning in the fireplace of the cottage floated on the breeze. One of the children must have put more wood on the fire in my absence.

As I approached, I saw a candle burning in the window, thought it wouldn’t be necessary as soon as the rising sun peeked over the treetops. The glow was all the more inviting because my son and his family had set it there to welcome me back from my morning walk.

I hung my somewhat pine-scented woolen cloak and hat on the peg and saw that my son had filled the wood box. The kettle on the fire was beginning to hiss, and I knew that my lovely, petite daughter-in-law had put the water on for tea. My slippers were waiting by my favorite chair. I sniffed at the idea of being treated like a doddering old man. The children knew better than to call me old, but actions can speak louder than words.

My son and his wife appeared together, and I embraced them both at once. “I am so glad you came to stay with me for Christmas.”

“Papa,” scolded my daughter-in-law. “I thought we were to accompany you on your walk.”

“We’ll have a lovely Christmas Eve walk on the way home from church this evening,” I replied. “You and Thomas go now, and I’ll stay here with the baby.”

“Oh, but your tea,” she objected.

“Emily, I have poured my own tea in the field and at my hearth long before you came along. I can manage,” I declared, waving her toward the door.

When the couple had closed the door behind them, I went to my room across from the guestroom and lifted the chest lid at the foot of my bed. There were the three packages wrapped in paper just as I had left them. I stacked them on my bed to be handy after the tree trimming tonight.

Before the fire, I poured my tea, switched my boots for the slippers, and sat in my favorite chair to gaze into the embers.

Black fur scampered into view pursued by my tousled-hair; newly awakened granddaughter who appeared convinced that a tail was the proper grip to take to walk the dog. Her large blue eyes were alight with the smile on her face.

I stretched out my arms and said, “Come see your Grandfather!”

She climbed up into my lap and snuggled for a moment into my chest. Her little fingers ruffled my mustache and explored my nose a little too thoroughly. She giggled as she pulled my lip down to see my teeth.

After she had wiggled off my lap to search for the dog again, I gazed into the fire and remembered another Christmas Eve.

I had been a young officer in Her Majesty’s army, and after being recognized for remaining on some God-forsaken hill in the heat of an obscure battle, I had found myself among Queen Dora’s favorites at the court. I remembered Sir Antonio, who was thought to be the Queen’s first choice for a consort; Sir James, a scholar and historian; and Ladies Pearl and Ruby, affectionately named so by Her Majesty.

The Queen was young and not yet wearied from matters of state. Her moments of high spirits were never undignified, but were often frowned upon by the elder statesmen and her advisors. She had come of age to rule in her own right, and little could be said as all her younger subjects adored her.

Sir Antonio was allowed an unheard of liberty by Her Majesty. He would utter barely audible suggestions that Her Majesty should slip away alone with him. He never seemed to mind when those of us among her favorites overheard, but never allowed the Queen’s advisors or guardians to suspect his words.

Poor Sir James was in love with Her Majesty for the longest time. No one would have ever known, if it hadn’t been for me urging him to match me goblet for goblet from a cask of wine that was given to me as a present from one of the best sergeants to ever serve under me.

It had been the New Year’s Eve party the year before. Sir James tried to kiss the Queen when he was flush with all he had drunk. His opportune moment was witnessed by only Lady Pearl and was sworn and threatened to secrecy by Her Majesty. That was why Sir James chose not to unmask that New Year’s Eve.

The only reason I knew about it, was Lady Pearl had confided it to me to lure me into a partitioned room where I had the devil of a time extracting myself with honor intact.

On this particular Christmas Eve, Ladies Pearl and Ruby had insisted I ask Her Majesty to dance. After realizing the Queen had put them up to it, I overcame my shyness and asked her to dance.

We took up positions to dance one of the beautiful dances recently taught the court by a highly reputable theater company. As we circled with hands barely touching in the air, I was totally enchanted by her and couldn’t help wishing I were qualified to be considered a possible consort. But a slip of a girl named Abigail was soon to capture my heart and become my wife.

* * *

This evening we had a lovely walk home from the church in the falling snow. Emily put the baby to bed, while Thomas and I cut down the Christmas tree I had picked out this morning. I surprised the children with decorations made by Abigail the Christmas before she passed away. They were so touched; I thought I saw a tear in Thomas’ eye.

The tree was lit with the all the remaining pieces of candle carefully waxed onto each branch. I sat in my chair and gazed into the blazing glory of the decorated pine. The scene seemed to shift somewhat and I beheld the night sky ablaze with more stars than I remember seeing before.

Music became audible. There appeared a heavenly choir and among them my Abigail as young and alive as the day I fell in love with her. She seemed to hold her hand out to me, beckoning.

The sky became as bright as day as I seemed to rise to meet a white-robed figure shining brighter than the sun. My arms were raised as I beheld my Lord and my God!

* * *

She gently placed his hand back on the arm of the chair and turned to her husband. “Oh, Thomas! He’s gone!”

2004-12-04T06:26:00.000-08:00

In my mind
At an unexpected hour
A vision of the maid
With eyes of field and flower

Christmas Card

2004-12-01T06:37:00.000-08:00

Brickman Hall seemed quiet with the snow coming down. The sky was dropping a clean coating of white on the sidewalk and bushes as Jerry entered the main door of the dormitory. The paper snowman on the glass rattled slightly as the door completely closed.

The crispness of the December evening became the dusty warmth of the hallway on his face as he unzipped his jacket coming into the lobby. Where the carpet began, the room was furnished as a cozy living room complete with Christmas tree and electric fireplace. Sitting on one of the couches was a couple. A dark and mildly handsome boy was speaking with a studious looking girl with glasses and a red knitted sweater with snowflakes all over it.

One of the resident advisor’s was sitting behind a counter with a textbook taking advantage of the brighter light there. She was completely engrossed.

Jerry turned left down the hall where his friends lived on the first floor. First came George’s room. If he were home, Jerry would be distracted from his boredom. George was good for a long, rambling, good-natured conversation that left him uplifted, but his knock brought no answer at all.

The young man turned from the door to face down the off-white hallway. At this time of evening, Susan was usually in one of the piano practice rooms across the campus, so he passed her door without a pause.

Three more doors down, Jerry knocked again. His friend John answered the door.

“Is David around?” asked Jerry.

“I’m not sure where he is,” replied John yawning. “I’ve been asleep.”

“I’ll find him,” said Jerry. “Thanks.”

Jerry strode to the nearest stairwell and went into the basement where there were more couches, more Christmas decorations and another Christmas tree. It hadn’t taken very long for the decorations to go up after Thanksgiving break.

On the nearest couch was a luxurious blonde nestled into the cushions in a soft-looking sweat suit. She cradled a textbook, but had looked up at his entrance. “Hi,” she said softly, almost shyly.

In a flash, Jerry took in the sight of her. Her form was not flaunted before him, but he could see her elegant proportions. Her clear, unmade up complexion looked as smooth as butter. She was as perfect as any golden girl in his dreams. There was no touch of adolescence about her, but was a vision of youthful womanhood. His arms ached to hold her.

As if half expected, butterflies came alive in his stomach. He couldn’t think of a better moment to ask her to come to the play that was being put on by the fine arts department that weekend. He had used his birthday money sent from home, and bought two tickets hoping against hope to ask her to see it with him.

She cheerfully agreed to go. Then she surprised him. She opened a notebook and handed him an envelope with his name on it. “I’ve wanted to give this to you after the other night.” She then gathered her books and stood up to leave. “I’ll see you Friday, Jerry.”

“Yes,” he said meeting her blue eyes. “Goodbye, Carrie. I’ll see you then.”

He thought of her parting smile, and how it reached up into her eyes to brighten an already shining face. Those eyes revealed a touch of girlish mischievousness that only made her seem lovelier. She was the golden girl who had walked out of his dreams and into his life, and he was becoming a part of her world, too.

He absently walked up the stairs after she had gone and sat in the lobby of the first floor. The couple that had been sitting on the couch by the Christmas tree was gone, so Jerry took that seat closest to the tree.

This was a real tree. The sultry aroma of the pine needles wafted around him reminding him of a Christmas with his Grandmother where he had pilfered pieces of the ribbon candy from the dish on the living room coffee table. He could almost smell the candy; it was such an acute memory. Christmas always seemed to have a wonderful happy smell.

Seeing the envelope still unopened in his hands, Jerry broke the seal. Inside was a handmade card made from typing paper that any student would have. There was a beautifully drawn guitar on the front and inside was a quotation from a popular song. It was a thank you card.

A night or so ago, Jerry had played his guitar for Carrie. He had wanted her to hear the songs he had written. As his friends had joined them, the intimate gathering had become almost a private concert. It had been such a merry evening. Now he was glad that Carrie had obviously enjoyed it very much.

* * *

He held her hand during the play. Even her hand was perfect. Her skin was just as smooth as he had thought; her fingers supple and the pads like silk. Each nail on each finger was perfectly shaped though unpolished. His thumb gently and slowly caressed back and forth as his fingers were entwined with hers.

After the play, he walked along the sidewalk with her; their gloved and mittened hands clasped once again. The Christmas lights and the sight of a decorated tree in each of the windows of the lit up houses across the street provided a romantic glow. They drank hot chocolate together at the student union before he walked her back to Brickman Hall.

She smiled and thanked him for a wonderful evening and went inside.

Jerry walked across the campus to his own bed with such a warmth inside that he would have been surprised to feel his wind-chilled cheeks.

It was the next afternoon that found him walking hand in hand with Carrie once again. She had never been overly chatty, but today she was quiet. When they were several blocks from the campus, she turned to him. Her eyes told him to listen closely.

She gently told him she didn’t want them to be known as a couple. She didn’t want to be his girlfriend.

All of his hopes and dreams of her collapsed inside him, leaving nothing but a heavy ache. He knew that he wouldn’t be able to convince her otherwise, so he said, “I guess I will let you go.”

Jerry didn’t know how he ended up back on campus. All he could think of was the line from the movie where Humphrey Bogart talked about having a comical look on his face because his guts had been kicked out.

On The Bus

2004-11-28T13:31:00.000-08:00

Everyone was bowling. The church youth group had swarmed off the bus and into Greenwood Lanes and began donning bowling shoes and selecting their bowling balls. The youth pastor had just ordered the pizzas. This was the youth Christmas party.

Robert was home from the Air Force on leave and had come with his brother to this event. He remembered a few of the kids from when he still lived at home. He hadn’t been away for much more than a year, but he no longer felt a part of this group. He knew he was practically a stranger now.

His brother’s friends accepted him readily enough. He found himself on a bowling team, but not with his brother. This team was still looking for someone to play. Robert saw a girl from the bus already bowling alone.

“Why don’t we get her to play?” asked Robert.

“Her? No,” said one of the guys, “She’s a slut.”

Robert looked at the girl again. She seemed so young. She did have a little too much eye make up on as the so called “sluts” from his high school days would wear, but something didn’t ring true with that blanket assessment in his mind.

He took it upon himself to invite her to play on the team. No one objected, but no one talked to her except Robert.

He found out she was only twelve years old, and after more conversation, he found that she had run away from home more than once. Not wanting to make her uncomfortable by coming off as a counselor of some sort, he continued to talk with her about her likes and dislikes and she seemed to enjoy the bowling.

After that, she stayed close to Robert, and he included her in everything he did.

When the night was concluded and the bus was being loaded, Robert allowed the girl to sit with him in his seat. As he sat with her, he realized that this girl was nothing like “those” kind of girls he knew in school. She had to be lonely and could be trying to reach out for any kind of relationship.

Robert remembered his own lonely moments and took her hand in his. They sat together that way in silence as the bus took them home in the night.

At one point on the return trip, the girl turned to Robert and asked, “Where do you live?”

Immediately, Robert had a picture in his mind of this sweet girl turning up on his doorstep in the middle of the night. “Why do you want to know?”

She didn’t say anything and looked down into her lap.

“It’s okay,” said Robert. “I am in the Air Force, and I’ll be going to Italy in a few days that’s all.”

They continued to sit together until the bus arrived at the church and everyone went their separate ways. It was a brief and shy goodbye, and she was gone.

Robert breathed a small prayer. “Lord, I feel for that girl.”

Chocolate Milk

2004-11-23T16:13:00.000-08:00

I remember when my first brother was born. Mom and Dad prepared me for being a big brother. Mom sometimes would tease me about getting a baby sister who would give me slobbery kisses.

There was a plan for when the big day came. I would go home with my grandmother while Mom and Dad went to the hospital.

When the day came, we all took Mom to the hospital including Grandma. When Mom and Dad were getting out of the car to go into the building, I was having serious doubts about the whole thing. I jumped out of the car behind Mom and Dad and cried, “I don’t want a baby sister!”

Well, Grandma took charge of me. I was to go home with her on a train. Grandma was sure that would hold my attention long enough to forget about Mom and Dad and wishing for a baby brother. It did.

It was very early in the morning when we boarded the train. I was so excited that there was no way on God’s green earth I was going to go to sleep. I guess everyone hated me on that train because Grandma always shushed me and the other passengers seemed to be giving me dirty looks.

When the dining car finally opened for breakfast, my Grandma thought at last this was something to occupy her four-year-old grandson. Grandma took me to get some breakfast.

Now the dining car looked just like a restaurant. In fact it looked a lot like the places my parents used to take me when we went out to eat. I used to get A-fries or American fries just like my dad, and have a nice cold glass of chocolate milk.

The waiter came and took our orders and I ordered chocolate milk with my breakfast. The man looked at me and said they didn’t have chocolate milk. I said, “Yes you do have chocolate milk!” For every denial, I insisted there was chocolate milk until the waiter walked away.

My grandma looked at me and gently told me to expect white milk because there was no chocolate milk. I just couldn’t conceive of any restaurant not having chocolate milk. I got chocolate milk at every restaurant I’d ever been, but now I was a little worried.

When the waiter came back with our food, he plunked down a glass in front of me. Low and behold, a glass of chocolate milk! I said, “See, I told you, you had chocolate milk!”

Grandma just smiled because I didn’t know that the waiter had told her that he had gone to the ice cream toppings and mixed some chocolate syrup into my milk to make it chocolate.

After breakfast, we went back to our seats where I immediately became restless again. Grandma sent me to the observation car, which was just up a set of stairs right in front of me. It was fine for a little while, but the sun made me hot shining through the windows. I began to feel a little car sick, so I wandered back to my Grandma.

When we arrived at my Grandmother’s house, I was told that I had a baby brother. Hallelujah!
It wasn’t long before Mom and Dad came to Grandma’s house to show me my little brother. When I saw him, I said, “He’s orange!”

Amy Soup And Troll

2004-11-22T06:24:00.000-08:00

I remember when I first got to know my Aunt Amy. It was when she stayed with me during one of many moves my dad made as a minister.

The first day she came, I showed her my room, which contained the rollaway bed I slept in, my clothes and toys, and most precious of all, a record player that I was allowed to operate at four years of age.

I played a record for her called “Do Lord, Do Remember Me” and asked her if it reminded her of Grandpa. (It never occurred to me that it was her dad I was talking about.) I was disappointed when she said no.

After we had been lying on my bed for a few minutes, I turned to her with a grin and told her I would call her Amy Soup. (Now everyone in the family called her Amy Sue because her mother was also named Amy.)

She objected to my name for her and tried to make me feel bad for teasing her, but I insisted her name was now Amy Soup.

“Then I’ll call you Troll!” she declared.

I was both horrified and delighted at the name she had picked for me, which was a play on my name as well. (Troy) I just smiled and said, “Nope, you’re Amy Soup.”

I guess Aunt Amy didn’t know what to think of such a bold kid as myself, but I loved her, and she knew it.

After we had moved, she was still staying with us. I guess she stayed the whole summer.

One day she was watching me as my parents were at work. I grew bored of playing in the yard and told my Aunt I was going to the park. Thinking I was pretending, she smiled and said, “Okay.” I can just see myself balling up my little fist and breathing, “Yes!”

I actually went to the park. My dad had taken me one day, and I remembered how to get there. I even told myself everything my dad had said as we had looked both ways before crossing the street, and I found the park without a hitch.

The park had a variety of puddles. All were in strategic spots, like under the swings and at the bottom of the slide, but I went down the slide and used the swings anyway.

When my mother found me, I was wet from playing, but as we walked back home, she threatened to spank me for wetting my pants. “I didn’t wet my pants!” I cried. Who could tell?

I used to think of that when my son was little. He used to say to me, “I want to go to a nudder one playground!” The puddles under the swings and slide never meant anything to him either.

Secret Agent Man

2004-11-19T08:21:00.000-08:00

I have to tell you about one boy in my class at church. As you might remember, I teach second grade boys in a military style.

Well, this one boy in particular seemed to hate coming to my class. He would duck out of the choir class that came first to avoid my class altogether. He would tell me, “I’m not a soldier. I’m playful!” I would ask him to try to do his best with what seemed hard, because we did do fun things too.

One day when this boy didn’t show up for class, I didn’t think much of it because I was by myself that night. Fifteen minutes into class time, an intern brought this boy to my class claiming to have found him hiding in the bookstore. Here he was with a dark jacket and sunglasses on.

To keep from busting out laughing, I smiled and said, “Come on in, 007.” He wanted to know what I meant. I told him he was my secret agent and I named him 007. That appealed to his heart. He began to participate more in class, now that I had recognized him as special. He never ducked out of class again and even brought a friend one night.

I don’t think that boy gets to spend much time with his dad. I’m so glad I handled the situation the way I did.

Men, the boys in your church need you. If their dad doesn’t show them how to be a man, who will?

2004-11-18T18:57:00.000-08:00

When the Spirit draws you
It's within reach
When the Spirit calls you
It's not a speech
It's a heart to heart

Truth Or Lie

2004-11-14T06:48:00.000-08:00

Don’t agree with the devil’s lie
When no one has spoken
Don’t doubt yourself or reason why
When your heart is broken

You have to know what’s in your heart
To see the true desire
God put it there right from the start
He’s all that you require

A Secret Place

2004-11-13T13:24:00.000-08:00

You may be shocked to hear that I have a lover. This morning, I was enticed into the woods near my house. When we were alone, I was told all that I have written below.

Shhh. Listen to the wind and trees sing together. (I stood very still and very near to hear the song.)

I show you my beauty, so you’ll come to me. I want you to take joy and nourishment from the sight of me and desire me.

Embrace me, admire me, and worship me. My beauty will bring you life and healing.

Come away and be with me alone that I might embrace and satisfy you. My spirit is the wind and the song in the trees. We will laugh and play, love and be satisfied.

I will cling to you when you turn to go, because I could hold you close to me for as long as you wished. I will make with you such a memory as to capture your heart and forever draw you back to me.

I am haunted by the memory. Those words are in my heart. Jesus, lover of my soul.

It was the Lord. I am sorry for you if you feel tricked into believing something tawdry, but I had to try and make you understand the basis of a relationship with Jesus.

Oh, that’s not scriptural! Oh yeah? Read Song of Solomon 2:13 and 14.

He doesn’t just have affection for your heart. He is and wants to be your spiritual lover. After all, you’re engaged! You are the bride of Christ. What do you think that party in heaven’s going to be about? It’s your wedding reception, baby!

When was the last time you slipped off with the Lover of your soul? Has your heart turned cold and lost sight of the beauty and mystery of God? Your heart can die and leave you with merely a compulsion to follow the rules. You could be much like what Jesus accused the Pharisees of being.

Look into your heart. Revive its youth and remember the joy and excitement of Love. The Lover of your soul may have been trying to get your attention for a long time, but he is patience and his love for you is as intense as youth itself.

A Veteran's Good Memories

2004-11-11T10:40:00.000-08:00

Veteran’s Day brings mostly good memories for me. I went to the Gulf War in 1991. You know, the cool desert war. We freed Kuwait and were gone relatively quickly without many doubts.

I was a decorated war veteran and was qualified for the Postal job I hold now. I’m basically a janitor to provide for my wife, son and daughter. Now you know.

Anyway, my good memories are seeing Denver and the Rocky Mountains in the early spring. Spending two wonderful years in Germany with a couple trips into Austria. There is too much to say about Germany right now.

I was engaged and married and had two children. Those three people are dreams come true for me.

I had the chance to see Panama for a few days, and went to England for a few months where I saw old friends from Germany and a couple castles that impressed me almost as much as Heidelberg.

Watching a squadron of F-16s take off in full afterburner at night in the Oman desert as the heat disappeared from the air was a beautiful site. It helped me to forget the heat and the ever-insinuating sand of that place during the day.

Good friends were with me during dull and happy times. I can’t recall too many sad ones. These friends were there to mourn our departure from North Carolina after six years of being married and becoming parents.

I served my country in the U. S. Air Force for nine years. I did a lot of growing up in that time. It’s a decent life in the military and would be at peace with the idea of my son serving. As for my daughter, on the other hand, I would hope she wouldn’t have to face some of the things that the girls I knew in the military faced.

Remember the fallen on this day. Remember the fallen in the battle we face for eternity. There is a battle going on. It’s fierce and brings many wounds. Catch a stumbling comrade. Get back to back with your brothers-in-arms.

Wyatt Earp And Doc Holiday

2004-11-07T07:11:00.000-08:00

My cousin and I were talking about the movie "Tombstone" one day. We both enjoy the movie, but my cousin must get something especially satisfying from it, because he claims to watch it on a regular basis.

He identifies with Wyatt Earp and told me he thought of me as Doc Holiday. I agree with him.

Doc was ready to lay everything on the line to stand with Wyatt. I feel that way about my cousin. He honored me by claiming a spiritual connection between us.

Another story character I relate to is Boromir from the movie "The Fellowship Of The Ring". His desire to rescue his people was so strong, but he could only see his own way of accomplishing it. His desire to use the One Ring, caused him to renounce his rightful king and inadvertently aid the Uruk Hai in coming upon the ring bearer. Once he saw things as they really were after recovering from the thrall of the One Ring, he gave his life to defend the Hobbits from capture. The devil tried to tell me that all I'd ever accomplish with my life was to be like Boromir, but in my heart, I wanted to be Aragorn.

I still do. I want to reforge the sword in my life that was broken. I want to use the kingsfoil to bring healing to my brothers-in-arms. I want to come into the fullness of what God has made me to be.

God promises to bring you completely into who you were born to be. We will be exactly that in eternity. Our desire won't be completely fulfilled in this life, but we will know some measure of it if we allow God to heal the wounds of our heart.

Prayers Of A Dog

2004-10-22T13:28:00.000-07:00

When I observe my dog, I notice she comes to certain members of the family for certain things that she wants.

When I come home from work in the morning, she wants me to take her for a walk. She’s been inside all night. She needs a walk. As I come in the door, she begins with the soft whining. She becomes my shadow and with that continuous little whine. She’ll lie next to me if I get on the computer. If I take too long, the whining gets gradually louder. “Oh, great walk giver, I fawn at your feet to receive the chance to do my doggy thing and sniff the great sniffs of life!”

My son is the playmate. “Come on, boy! Let’s play ball! I want to get the stick! I just love to sink my teeth into those!”

My daughter comes home. “Hi, girl.” She gives the dog a hug. The dog is acting out her thoughts, “You’re next! Let’s play ball! I want to get the stick! I just love to sink my teeth into those!” My daughter goes to the computer and signs on. The dog moves on.

Now for the next few hours she goes from my son to my daughter to me trying to satisfy her desires. We love her, but there are other things we want to do besides play fetch all the time.

When my wife comes home, she is the “treat giver”. “Oh, gracious treat giver, I bow and extent my paw in fellowship and adore your very presence for you to bestow upon me a yummy treat!”

That sounds like the way some people pray to God! He is the “treat giver” or the problem solver. With that mentality, it’s hard to remember that we are meant for much more than being God’s pet. He is trying to mold and train us to eventually be at His side.

Christians are the bride of Christ. That suggests a relationship more intimate and more demanding than that of being a house pet.

You'll Shoot Your Eye Out!

2004-10-20T06:15:00.000-07:00

I remember another time when Mom and Dad were gone and I was bored. I found those little beads of sugar in the cupboard. They were the ones that look like little silver BBs. I decided to try and shoot some out of my BB gun.

I had the ultimate BB gun. It wasn’t one of those pump BB guns that could almost have the power of a .22 rifle, but it was a wonderful gun. It was a Red Ryder BB gun. Yes, like the one in “Christmas Story”. By the way, I love that movie.

I figured out that you had to cock the lever and then drop one of the sugar BBs down the barrel to be able to shoot it without it becoming powder inside the gun. When I shot something outside, the sugar would stick to whatever I had shot.

I went into the living room where my bold brother was watching TV. I’m not sure if it was an accident or on purpose, but I shot the TV. I almost had a heart attack, because there on the screen was a spidery circle. I had seen such a spidery circle before on any window or piece of glass that had ever been shot by a BB gun. My life passed before my eyes so fast, that I forgot every moment. I knew my life much less my party was over!

I moaned as I approached the TV set. I slowly reached out my hand to touch the circle that would be seen by my parents and bring about my death. I was gingerly going to touch it, because I just couldn’t believe my eyes.

Sugar fell to the floor. I rubbed at the circle, and it all rubbed off leaving an undamaged TV screen. I about howled with relief, and then I laughed. I put the sugar BBs away, but I began to think of useful ways to use my newfound knowledge.

The Pitcher And Anxieties

2004-10-18T21:47:00.000-07:00

Here’s more from Suburbia.

My bold brother and I were home alone. I was old enough for my mom and dad to be able to leave me in charge for a while.

My brother grabbed an apple out of the refrigerator. Coming into the living room, he got this idea of practicing his baseball pitching by throwing his apple at the couch. If it stuck between two of the back cushions, he had thrown a strike. If he didn’t get it to stick, it was a ball.

I was kind of bored myself, so I watched him do this. He gleefully explained all he was doing while throwing his apple.

As always seems to happen with every young pitcher, my brother threw a wild pitch. The apple hit Baby Sister’s picture shattering the glass in the frame.

I went to the picture and picked out all the glass and threw it away. I put the picture back in the frame without the glass and set it back on the end table. We then went on our merry way and played outside for the rest of the day.

It took Mom a week, but she found what I had done with the picture. When she asked me about it, I came clean and told her, but by that time enough time had gone by, that no one was punished for it.

The little kids in the neighborhood were pretty cute including my youngest siblings. Though the elementary age kids were the unspoken rulers of the neighborhood, including myself, the little kids added subtle ingredients to our lives.

My mom set me to watch the little kids swim in our blow up pool in the back yard. Actually, it was on the cement slab I mentioned in an earlier entry. There was usually Baby Brother, Baby Sister, Jojo and Ling Ling (the Phillippino kids), and an occasional little brother or sister from my friends.

This particular time, it was my little siblings and Jojo and Ling Ling.

At first, Jojo and Ling Ling wouldn’t go anywhere near the pool. Ling Ling would just throw herself down and cry. Jojo helped us figure out what was wrong. When I tried to help him into the pool, he cried and said, “Jaws is coming!”

Apparently their parents had taken them to see the movie “Jaws” at a drive in. It was funny to see them so afraid of the water, but maybe it wasn’t.

Jojo got over his fear eventually. I would ask him from time to time if Jaws was in our pool. He would get a cute smile on his face and say, “Jaws is coming!”

About that same time, Baby Brother would start running into the house in sheer terror. He would usually run to Mom, but sometimes he came to me.

Every time an airplane or helicopter flew over the yard, he would be gripped with fear and start yelping and heading for the house. Sometimes my bold brother and I would laugh, but usually I was the one to calm him down.

How in the world did he become afraid of these? I thought maybe it had something to do with my friends and I shooting at the planes in the sky with our toy guns. We would always pretend to be shot and fall down dead.

As with Jojo and Jaws, Baby Brother eventually got over being afraid of airplanes and helicopters.

Smilin' Gordon

2004-10-18T06:16:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite school chums from Suburbia was named Gordon. He was probably of Puerto Rican descent. I only say that because his mother didn’t always speak English and she looked like what I thought a Puerto Rican lady would look like. He could have been Italian. Hey, I was still getting over meeting the Philippinos across the street. I was so white bread, I had “Wonder” written on my forehead.

Gordon was a genius in my eyes. He was my age, and he was working on building and fixing television sets as a hobby. I had him look at my old three inch portable reel to reel tape recorder, and he fixed it in a couple of days. I didn’t mind paying the couple dollars he asked for either. I considered him a good friend.

Anyway, I got in the habit of calling Gordon, “Smilin’ Gordon.” It didn’t matter what would happen to the guy. He always had a smile on his face. I used to tease him by saying, “I’m Gordon, and I’m failing school and my house burned down,” while wearing an exaggerated grin. He just grinned along with me.

The only time I saw his smile slip a little bit, was when his mother would get after him for something or other. Every time I heard her, she was always yelling at Gordon or his siblings. When she’d see me at the door, she would change to Spanish or something and continue her tirade.

I remember one day not long before I moved away for good, I went to the door to see Gordon, and his mother answered the door. My heart dropped to my knees, and I must have looked like I wet my pants.

Gordon’s mother answered the door and smiled at me. She told me Gordon would be back in a little while. The woman smiled at me and spoke to me in a friendly tone. You could have knocked me over with a dandelion.

Dads And Sons

2004-10-09T07:15:00.000-07:00

A boy looks to his dad for clues of what it is to be a man.

My identical nephews are a classic case. They are about 3 years old, and they found their dad’s razor in the bathroom. After some quiet moments, they came running to their mother (my Baby Sister) with blood seeping from their lips.

After trying to keep from freaking out for a moment, Baby Sister took them in hand. The boys wore band-aids on their lips for the rest of the day.

Baby Sister Instant Messaged me later, to tell me about it. Our banter went something like this:

ME: I guess they will grow up to have full beards now.
BABY SIS: Or scabby lips.

This hasn’t even phased their quest to be like dad.

They are preacher’s kids like mom and their uncle. Bless their little hearts. They insist on wearing neckties during every waking moment, and one of them always wants to wear his “pretty shoes.” Those are his black dress shoes. He gets very upset if they are even dusty.

Every boy still seeks to be like dad. They are looking to him to know what it is to be a man, and they want to know if they have what it takes to be a real man. Every boy’s heart is ultimately vulnerable to his father. One thoughtful or thoughtless word can change a boy’s direction for life.

He came to my emotional rescue

2004-10-07T07:10:00.000-07:00

Mike And The Mechanics sang a song called "The Living Years". It talks about every generation blaming the one before for whatever problems faults they see in their present lives. The chorus goes on to say that it's too late when we die to admit we don't see eye to eye. I can't remember all the lyrics or I would just post the whole thing. You can even look the lyrics up online, but I'll let anyone who wants to, do that on their own.

I can see that song ring true in my own family. Grandpa worked so much, my dad told me, that he never came outside to even play catch with his sons when he was home. Admittedly, he was probably pretty beat.

Dad made a point of playing ball with us. He would get on the floor and wrestle with his kids. Even Baby Sister loved that. We boys treasure those memories.

When I was in the second grade, my dad signed me up for little league. I'm sure I was in agreement, but I ended up hating every moment of it. That was the first indication of the differences between us.

Dad loved westerns as he grew up watching black and white television as new technology. He and I used to watch John Wayne movies together to our mutual enjoyment. I still watch and enjoy them now.

The Lord Of The Rings somehow didn't reach him. The books fascinated me, and now I won't settle for anything but the extended versions of the most recent movies made of them.

The Hobbit captured me so well; I began to write in the runes that were used on the map of Lonely Mountain. My preacher dad thought for sure that I was getting into the occult.

Then he discovered I was getting into the Beatles! These were obviously Satan's favorite servants. What would he have done if I had liked Black Sabbath?

By now, my dad was filled with fear and making wilder and wilder assumptions of my spiritual condition. Things were said and done to drive me into thinking that no matter what I wanted was wrong and taking me to Hell.

I felt God wanted me to pursue my music. I taught myself to play guitar chords and practiced more than with the clarinet I played in high school band, but it didn’t seem of any value with my parents. I say parents because Mom seemed to be in on this too.

I felt persecuted. It made me feel like Jack Black in "School Of Rock". I'm going to play rock and roll and "stick it to the man." I felt rejected by my parents, which is something I heard a pastor say recently is the most painful kind of rejection.

Pile the experience from yesterday’s entry on top of this, and you can see that I was tripping hard well before my first hit from a joint or my first drink.

I told myself that Jesus Christ is not coming back in my lifetime, so I’m going to numb this pain with any and every kind of thing I could find.

Before I could get the nerve up to do myself in more quickly, the Lord came to my rescue. He came in the form of a guy who used to bully me a few years ago. He had just gotten saved, and he found me in the local video arcade.

He told me he was looking for “a spiritualist church”. As I listened to him, I realized he was looking for a church that believed in the working of the Holy Spirit. I told him my church believed this way.

All in a flash, I knew I could at least help him by inviting him to my church. I realized that I had a purpose with God and this time Mom and Dad would approve. I repented and decided I would go back to serving God. I also took this guy home with me.

I never sunk quite so low again, but that didn’t mean my problems were solved. I had started some bad habits that took a while to come out of, but God had rescued me all the same.

When Dad passed away a few years ago, I realized with the help of my cousin who is also a pastor, that I had all this unexplained anger that would boil up from time to time. It all stemmed from the despair of these years. My cousin also helped me to see that my dad had not felt self-confident about raising me because he missed the first 18 months of my life when he was stationed in Germany in the Air Force.

I went to counseling at my current church. I found that I needed to forgive him for all that had happened between us and ask for forgiveness for judging him for supposedly condemning me to Hell. I prayed this in a prayer with the counselor and felt freed from a burden.

My only regret is I couldn’t sit down with Dad to talk about this because he had gone to Heaven.

Now, my approach to my own son is different. I even shared what had happened between my dad and me with him.

My dad did lots of things right and nobly. His dad did lots of things right and even nobly, but we are all trying to pass on improvement to the next generation.

Southern Battle

2004-10-05T01:21:00.000-07:00

I was a preacher’s kid for most of my growing up years. I was a PK before Promise Keepers stole the acronym. (No resentment there.)

When my parents befriended a family that had begun to attend our church, my siblings and I naturally were thrown together with these new kids. I remember the two boys’ names, but can’t quite put my finger on the oldest daughter’s name. Anyway, the boys were Robert and Bradley. I was older than Bradley but younger than Robert.

When my family went to visit them at their rather small apartment, my brother (boy #2), Robert, Bradley and I were sent outside to play. All the space available to us on the apartment grounds was mostly the filled parking lot for the building.

Robert got the great idea to have us all climb the six foot privacy fence and go into the almost empty lot where some contractors had dug up the dirt a bit and left a “porta potty” standing grandly in all it’s aromatic glory.

The hot southern sun had baked the once wet dirt beautifully. It left us with an endless supply of the most perfect dirt clods a boy ever threw with all his might at his little brother. Yes, we had a dirt clod fight.

Since Robert had started the thing, he found himself all alone facing the rest of us. We naturally had him ducking and dodging. He was getting dirty twice as fast as we were, and I was thankful I would only have to answer for getting him dirty instead of being so dirty myself. It would have been hell to pay if mom saw us as dirty as Robert was becoming. Thankfully, too, it was Saturday, and we weren’t wearing church clothes.

Needless to say, Robert was feeling pretty overwhelmed by dirt clod impacts and began to focus on his own brother. He charged Bradley and flushed him from behind a small ridge of dirt, forcing him to take cover in the “porta potty”.

Bradley slammed the door and put the hook in the eye to secure it. My brother and I stood up to watch what would happen next.

Robert had accidentally or on purpose, gotten a rock and threw it with all his might at the “porta potty”. We saw a gaping hole in the thing, and the only sound heard was the whining of the bugs in the trees. There was no other sound.

Bradley’s hand appeared from the hole waving a foot of toilet paper, and he cried, “I surrender!”

The Magical Land Of Suburbia

2004-10-04T06:22:00.000-07:00

Joe Cocker begins to sing and the 8mm film is rolling. On the screen is a family and two brothers with bikes are mugging for the camera. It’s “The Wonder Years” TV show.

I grew up within a couple years of that time in history. That could have been my neighborhood at one point in my life. I spent my third through sixth grade years in a suburb of a large city. The houses in my immediate neighborhood all resembled each other with the same color bricks and maybe three or four different styles. Ok, now I remember there were exceptions.

I think I will write occasionally about this neighborhood and its inhabitants because I plan to eventually get up the nerve to write down the story I made up about all the kids I knew in this magical place at such a magical time in my life. I call the story “The Magic Song.” This is only the ground work here.

We moved into a corner house with a detached double garage that was big enough to hold the car and eventually all our bikes and “big wheels”, and other treasures of kids in Suburbia.

I remember my black and yellow bike with the black banana seat with a sickly yellow stripe running down it. If I sat back far enough on the seat, I could easily “pop a wheelie” and then try to ride as long as I could just on the back tire. All you kids reading this may have to go to a museum to see this bike.

Since we had a corner house, we had lots of yard. We had a nice fenced in back yard with a cement slab six inches thick that was our patio or deck as you might say now. The side yard was between the fence and the sidewalk. We used this for football. The fenced in back yard had the swing set, but we still used it for baseball. The front yard had a plum tree or something like one in it and so us kids generally just lounged around out there. All this yard made it easier for the kids to want to come to our house to play.

The first day, across the street from the side door, I met my first girlfriend. She and her friend became regular visitors to the yard. Shortly, after that, I met the boy my age across the street from the front door that also came over quite a bit and educated me about the city’s professional baseball players and demonstrated their particular styles in our own games in the back yard.

Now I am the oldest of four siblings. There are three boys and a baby girl. I will refer to them this way: The brother younger than me but older than the youngest boy, I will usually call my brother. I’ll the youngest boy, baby brother, and baby sister is baby sister. Ok, you get the picture.

My brother, (boy #2), met his first friend two doors over from my baseball loving friend. I’ll call him Tattletale, and you can guess how I came up with that name. He was so anxious to tell on someone that even if he were involved in a particular incident himself, he would tell on himself as well as the others in the party. He’d be in just as much trouble, but it never stopped him from being Tattletale.

Tattletale was one of the kids that helped us out at Christmas time. We didn’t need to look at the Sears catalog so much as to look at the toys and vehicles in the driveway of his garage. They were the first ones to have cable TV. High tech toy of the rich in our minds back then.

These kids were our core group. Others came and went as time went on, but this was the first year.

My brother was four years younger than me. Baby brother was not quite two when we first moved to Suburbia, and Baby Sister wasn’t born until late that summer before I started school in that neighborhood.

They called my brother “the bold one”. He wasn’t afraid to ask for money from any of our adult relatives, which embarrassed me a bit. He was also to become some of the source of my frustration, but at the same time, we shared a room and a double bed. It could be either love or hate at any given moment.

One of his bold moments was the next year. My girlfriend moved away and some people moved in that looked of the Asian persuasion. In their house were two cute little Asian looking kids, and their first glimpse of us brought them running outside and pointing their fingers and shouting, “Bang bang!”

We played along and dropped like we were dead, and then got up and shot back. We were having such a wonderful time, that the little boy was walked across the street to play with us, but the little girl was taken into the house. That’s when my brother asked the little boy, “Are you Chinese?”

A frown appeared on the little boy’s face and he said, “I’m Pilipeeno and you die! Bang, bang!”

Our first cultural exchange.

Spare change?

2004-10-02T08:22:00.000-07:00

I was walking in a park a couple of weeks ago when a woman came up to me from a small group of friends who were obviously camped on a picnic table for an unknown amount of time. She asked me for a couple dollars for a bus ride.

Now all kinds of thoughts run through your head. Is she scamming me for money for some sort of illicit habit? Does she not want to work for a living, but rely on the kindness of people she puts “the touch” on?

I felt I should give her the money. In my head there were these imaginary people scolding me for just wanting to give her the money. I have a couple of dollars that I knew wouldn’t break me or rob my own family of their basic needs. Why not?

Then the “moral missionary” and “pastor” from my upbringing speak up. I should make this some noble gesture as a “witness” for Christ. I could impart some life changing gospel message to her as I give her this money. Is that so important to justify giving money to someone that might actually be scamming me?

This “moral missionary” and “pastor” persona in my head is a legalistic, judgmental jerk in the eyes of someone who finds themselves in a tight enough spot to ask someone for money on the street.

I can remember spending my cash foolishly then coming up short and feeling the need to ask for money to cover my shortage for something I thought was more urgent than the foolishness I had put money into.

Real need or not, why all this turmoil?

I had to go back to the initial response. I felt I should give the money. It was God’s still, small voice speaking to me. I truly believed that.

The “moral missionary” and “pastor” persona could just as easily been the voice of someone other that God, as is the case with fellow believers more often than you would think or hope.

Maybe I compromised a bit. With the money, I gave her a “God bless” to pacify the “moral missionary” and went on my way.

I walk this road.

2004-10-01T15:41:00.000-07:00

I've spent quite a bit of time working on my family's genealogy. I find it very interesting to discover the details of how my ancestors lived, moved and settled from place to place. I find I can estimate quite a bit from just a few facts recorded in public records.

My favorite thing to look at from time to time is my grandmother's diary dating from 1929 to 1934. She went from high school graduate to wife and expecting mother in those five years. When I read of her outlook on life in those years, I realize she hadn't changed all that much to the time when I knew her as my grandmother.

She wasn't a great author, but I can draw strength and life lessons from this valuable family document. Because she was open enough to write her thoughts down as honestly as she could, I feel I know her so much better than others in the family. I am richer for it, and feel I love her more fully than a lot of my family members outside of my wife and two children.

That was my father's mother. My other grandmother one-upped her. She spoke to me of quite a bit of her past as well as her hopes for me. I enjoyed the fact that though she didn't have it easy, she didn't give the uphill to school story. She told me how she faced things head on without trying to make me feel guilty about my own present life. She didn't write a diary, but spoke to me over coffee on Saturday mornings when I would leave my family sleeping at my mother in law's house to visit with her when I was in the town she lived in.

I was successful to some extent with my father and mother in drawing them out.

The oral history is rich. The stories should be treasured, good or bad. Time has a way of putting perspective on the high emotional and colorful stories. We can draw from these experiences.

I say all that to say this. I want to be open with my family, especially the ones that come after me. Sure, everyone has a desire to leave something behind in an attempt at an immortality that can be pointed to in a book or a song or family heirloom. The lessons and knowledge of the past experiences can be valuable.

I have recently come to know someone in my family that is in school near where I live. A strong desire welled up within me to want to get to know this person and share anything I have. I have come to realize that the openness I was willing to show was well received, but a bit uncomfortable for the recipient. It has to be a two way street. I woke up to this and found I could adjust. Not everyone feels as I do, so I could smother someone.

The machismo in me then kicks in and I think...I don't need to feel rejected or silly, I'll just turn away.

A couple I knew when I was overseas in the military had taught me about being open with people. You take a risk when you reveal yourself to others. You leave yourself open to possible hurt. They also taught me and I was soon to find out that the rewards of that lifestyle far outweighed the hurt.

The times I felt hurt or as I said above rejected or foolish, I realize tell me I am living more fully than if I were so careful of what others thought of me. This openness is who I want to be. To live this way is a gradual change and never overnight, but so far I can walk this road.

First Entry

2004-09-30T14:12:00.000-07:00

I'm a musician by advocation. Music is such a part of me, it's what I want to be remembered for.

I'm not exactly what people would want to look at on TV. So being famous isn't necessarily part of my motivation. Musicians and composers are best remembered by their music. Here's some of mine: http://praiseage0.tripod.com

I've written a little. A couple short novellas. (Also at the posted address.)

It would be nice if these items lived on after I was gone. But as long as Jesus Christ doesn't appear at the second coming, time will plod on and all things in this life fade.

I guess I resist change and mourn the past too much. I am willing to make new history, though. With whoever I meet I seek a close friendship. I try to get beyond my own and others' prejudices in an attempt to be the loving person my Savior wants me to be.

I believe in the power of the Holy Spirit working in everyone's life, but the Holy Spirit is a gentleman. He doesn't force anything on you, but waits for you. In this manner, how God uses you is filtered through you. You can even put so much of yourself in the way that the Holy Spirit can't function through you until you yield to His desires.

Between God and mankind is a friendship that should be developed as with any friend. Jesus healed the rift between God our Heavenly Father and every person. This ongoing friendship is not always easy, just as in our earthly friendships. Maybe we need to realize our own habit of causing the disharmony in our friendships first before we seek to blame others. It's definately true of us with God.