Bully Pulpit

I used to live near Crockett Road in Williamson County, Tennessee.  Tennesseans lay rightful claim to Davey Crockett, the famous frontiersman for whom this little patch of asphalt was named.  Anyone who grew up in the ‘50s and ‘60s can still sing the Disney song “Davey, Davey Crockett, King of the wild frontier”.

A little known fact about Davey is that when he was a US Representative, he opposed Andrew Jackson’s resettling of Native Americans.  History remembers Jackson as a bully, moving the Cherokee and Seminole Nations and others down the trail of tears beyond the Mississippi.

Davey’s stand in Tennessee cost him an election, and he headed to Texas, where he died in San Antonio, defending the Alamo from Antonio López de Santa Anna, the dictatorial President of Mexico, who history also remembers as a bully.

~*~

 
I was driving home from The Perch one day, all jacked up on my free refills when traffic slowed down.   I noticed a policeman and several other folks walking briskly up the hill on the right side of the road.

What’s the fuss?  I wondered.

Slowing down, I caught a glimpse of a boy thrashing another boy, literally hurling him across the otherwise idyllic landscape.  It was clear that the boy doing the bullying was much bigger and apparently the one with the power.

I wanted to pull my car over and see how it all ended, but it didn’t seem like the right thing to do, just as one shouldn’t rubberneck at the scene of an accident.

The event got me thinking.

Watching the policeman and the vigilant adults hiking up the hill as the action didn’t cease made me wonder what the real situation was.  I supposed it might have been boys at play, roughhousing as many will do.  In a perfect world, the grownups would be greeted by two laughing rascals, who were surprised by the sudden interest.

It looked like serious business.

As the grownups moved closer, the bigger boys seemed intent on finishing the business of showing the smaller boy what for.

I wondered about the dominant boy, the one getting his licks in.  In wealthy Brentwood, TN, I imagined the boy’s banker father shrugging off his son’s violence with a pat answer.  Boys will be boys, he might say, smiling, and perhaps slightly proud that his son prevailed.

Odd phrases get tossed around.  The weaker boy had it coming, asked for it.  Perhaps his father was ashamed of his son for not taking it like a man, or for not winning.

Who knows what they were fighting about?  These days, I’m just happy to see a child out in a field doing anything.  Most children seem to be flexing their thumbs sending text messages or playing games on their phones.  So, maybe the sight of two boys playing outdoors was what all the fuss was about.
 
Everyone remembers the neighborhood bully of childhood.  My personal bully was several years older, solid as a brick, and equally dumb.  What he lacked in brains, he made up for in brute force, and no one liked seeing him riding down their street on his fat-tired Schwinn with its banana seat, and other Hell’s Angels in the making accessories.  I wasn’t a constant target, like some children become; I just happened to be in the way on one occasion.

I can remember standing in the middle of Roberta Drive, when he rode up, stopped his bike, smiled and slapped me so hard that I rode home bawling.  If I had begged my father to do something about it, I don’t think I would have found an advocate so much as a comforter.  Dad was simply not going to kick any one’s ass, although every boy hopes his dad is capable of it.

My preacher dad was a farm boy from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, who wrestled in high school and college.  Wrestling may have been fairly scandalous in his family, whose ancestors were peace loving Mennonites and River Brethren, traditionally known for being pacifists.

Dad was a killer softball player, swinging like Mickey Mantle, hitting line drives and home runs to his boys’ delight.  But competition wasn’t his deal, other than competing with himself.  He loved the experience of a game, whether it was Scrabble™ or softball, but his attitude was so beautiful and so sportsman-like, that one never felt like he was out for blood, even when he won.

I don’t recall my father teaching me to fight, although I would have appreciated it.  I guess he figured that two scrapping sons would teach each other how to survive, and didn’t want to encourage the idea of settling things with fisticuffs.

It’s not that he was disengaged; I remember him hovering behind me, teaching me to hold a Louisville Slugger, and I remember him pitching baseballs to my brother David and me.

But teaching us combative skills just didn’t square with his spiritual philosophy, or with my mother’s either.  We were never given toy guns for Christmas or birthdays, and I never received the Remco Johnny Reb Cannon I begged for one year (further proof of the South’s magnetic pull on my soul).

Nonetheless, the neighborhood was full of guns; it was a veritable arsenal.  I would borrow Dickie Schmitt’s tommy gun, or Butchie Allen’s Luger, and off to war we’d all go, in The Woods, a few acres of marshy woodlands at the end of our street.

The Woods was the perfect place for a boy to climb trees, chop down skunk cabbage, be the hero of his own war, defeating all comers while returning home with tennis shoes full of black mud from The Brook.

It was as if no other grouping of trees existed apart from The Woods, and seemed as if all rivers and seas flowed toward our neighborhood through The Brook.

We waged war across the span of time, as knights, revolutionaries, civil warriors, and GIs.  We were usually on the same side, shooting at imaginary foes with our plastic artillery.  As the sons of pacifists, we were failures, and we reveled in being armed.

Once, my father discovered the borrowed camouflage tommy gun I’d hidden in the garage between battles.  “What’s this?” he sternly asked.  I think his concern was less that I had a forbidden weapon, and more that I might have stolen it.  It’s an odd memory, and perhaps he really was disturbed about a Weapon of Destruction under his roof.

Years later, the boy who exists down in my soul bought a real gun, a Remington Rolling Block Saddle Carbine from the 1800s, a relic to lean next to a rustic fireplace, hearkening back to days of conquest and trails of tears.  Eventually, I sold it; perhaps I’m more my old man’s son than I thought.

~*~

I have a friend who is built like a linebacker.  He can be a bit intimidating if he’s had a few drinks, because he gets surly and loud, argumentative and ungentlemanly.  Once in a while, he talks about “settling things like real men do” and teaching his son something about “how a real man deals with” adversity.

That kind of talk seems so Dark Ages to me, and I’m surprised when I hear these things come out of his mouth.  I wonder about the degree of pain present in a person’s life who wants to strike another human being.   I have a theory that bullies beget bullies, just as dictators beget dictators, and tyrants beget tyrants.

In my line of work, bullies are everywhere.  They usually have a lot of money and a badass lawyer.  The little guys like me usually have no recourse, but to take it on the chin, cut one’s losses, and hopefully avoid bawling while turning tail and heading home.  

Certainly, the temptation to be the Alpha Dog is out there for anyone, and I’ve seen the finest of Sunday churchgoers go ape on Monday, whether they’re taking the Alamo or taking back their promises.

When I think of “settling things like real men do”, I look at the best of men, my Dad.  I never heard him raise his voice to another person, never mind raise a fist.  Dad’s kindness and politeness were marked indelibly on his character, and he wasn’t about to give away his soul in the name of power, money, or property.  He talked about a spiritual inheritance whereas so many of our society speak of entitlement.

Dad’s life was a sermon.  I guess every one’s life is, to one end or another.

Getting Down With The Joneses

It was a miracle when E and I moved into our first house.  My parents gave us the $7500 down payment on what seemed like a lot of money at the time- $45,000 in 1984.  Our little log cabin on Nebraska Avenue in Nashville’s Sylvan Park was funky and warped, but cozy enough.  It was small, too, but we enjoyed it.

From Sylvan Park we followed several friends and families out to Bellevue, on the western edge of Nashville.  Wayne and Fran Kirkpatrick lived a street away, which led to a life-long friendship with them, as well as a musical relationship with Wayne.  A few hillsides away lived Bonnie Keen, who was and remains one of my dearest companion’s dearest companions. 

It was in that happy little Bellevue home that we received our two daughters, but we weren’t there long enough for them to have much memory of it.

Next came a move to Green Hills, a popular Nashville neighborhood, which gave us a fine elementary school, and a coffee shop I could walk to every morning.  The home was a large, brick cottage with an English appearance about it.  It had character, along with a damp basement, cracking plaster, and beautiful hardwood floors.

That house stood witness to a marriage that was starting to implode, and it was the site of our attempt to try and save “us”. 

Yet, the happy times outshined the sad moments, and if my children are sentimental about any place they’ve lived, it is that Green Hills house.

But greener hills, or so they seemed, called. 

I found a McMansion in boring Brentwood, with something as rare as a basement in Tennessee.  Its high ceilings would give me a perfect recording environment, and the housing division would provide E with a tennis court, and the kids with a community pool and good schools.

People were shocked and disappointed when we made the move.  One friend decried our situation, “You’re going to live among the Republicans!”

And so it came to pass.

The Land Rover and the Mercedes sat proudly in the driveway.  The piano teacher showed up on Tuesdays.  The pool key hung on the back of the laundry door.  The neighborhood association sent polite warnings about keeping things uniform, along with invitations to cocktail parties.  

Apart from Leon, the friendly neighbor behind us, we never met our neighbors, most of whom were nine-to-fives who drove through yawning garage doors at the end of the day, only to be seen on weekends, tending to lawns and gas grilles.

The neighborhood was called Raintree Forest, which didn’t sound so much like a real place as much as it did a feminine deodorant product.   The mirage of better schools and of a better life dissipated into a reality which included finding a private school to accommodate my daughters' needs which had been so well met in Nashville’s school system. 

The neighborhood was pleasant, but not vibrant.  The house was big and beautiful, but lacked character.  It had no history other than the sad story we would bequeath to these walls.

After the split, which I’ve written about elsewhere, E was smart enough to seek out humbler digs.  I felt like selling the house would bring one change too many for the kids’ already rollicking world.  I wound up staying in the big house, as it were, and indeed the sprawling 4,000 foot house was more of a prison than a home.  I went through seasons of indecision about staying or selling, and when I finally decided to let go, the property had lost an amazing amount of money.

My real estate agent gave me the bad news- “You’ll need to short sell”, she said.  Suddenly, the trajectory of an adulthood of buying, selling, and upward mobility brought me to the bottom.  Years ago, when we bought our first home, we had barely imagined being home owners.  27 years later, I hadn’t imagined a day coming when I would once again be a renter.

In the process of selling, I received a notice from a collections attorney whose name was so ridiculously close to the word cheater, I had to laugh.  This particular cheater was trying to saddle me with thousands of dollars in attorney fees that didn’t add up.   "Cheater" was well-known in the real estate and banking community, and no one was arguing with the uncanniness of his surname.  Somehow, I was led to a person who helped me to get out from under the shadow of a lawsuit, but I still shudder at the precariousness of the situation.   

A contract on my home finally materialized, and I started looking around for a new place to live.  The first place I looked at had its possibilities.  It was about 2/3 the size of my first house in Sylvan Park, and the rent was three times my old mortgage payment.

I continued looking, and while I felt good about the possibility of being debt-free, and tried to embrace the idea of starting over, the American Dream’s indelible thumbprint had pressed long and hard into my psyche.  I felt overwhelmed by what I didn’t know, and thought of how impressive my stock portfolio wasn’t.   

In the meantime, friends from Colorado had signed me up for a daily quote from a monk named Richard Rohr.  Every day, it seemed as if Richard were reminding me that ownership was a myth and that I might as well let go of everything.  I’d go to sleep at night and wonder if, like Jesus, I would wind up with a rock for a pillow.  This wasn’t what I’d signed up for, but in my heart I knew that the American Dream had never been my dream.

My Southern Born Woman was encouraging and sweet, affirming who I was, not what I’d accomplished, yet hopeful that my aspirations and efforts at rebuilding my material life would pay off.

One afternoon after leaving her place, I couldn’t find my prescription Ray Ban™ Wayfarers,  the nicest sunglasses I’ve ever owned.  Without flinching, I had sold vintage guitars that meant the world to me, rare old Ludwig drums that I’d never see the likes of again, and even the beautiful piano I’d written a few bona fide hit songs on, but somehow losing those replaceable Ray Bans was a sad thing to me.  They’d been around the world with me, and (let’s face it), gave me some needed cool factor in the face of my uncool circumstances.

I drove as the sun sank low, and I pulled the visor down and squinted.  I’m in the middle of a short sale, and I’m sad about my sunglasses!  What’s wrong with this picture? 

As is often the case with lost key rings and glasses, they turned up a few hours later under the passenger seat of my car.  I was overjoyed, frankly.  They’re prescription glasses, i.e., expensive; and they only work for me.  Anyone who finds them, assuming I lose them again, will just get a headache from wearing them.  (But they will look cool.)

A few days later, my Dearest Companion and I walked to the Belcourt Theater, a landmark in Nashville’s Hillsboro Village.   We watched “Of Gods and Men”, a beautiful film about the Martyrs of Atlas, 7 monks who were martyred in Algeria in 1996. 

Watching the portrayal of their life of simplicity, and the wholesome affection these brothers had for each other, was almost disturbing in its beauty.  In contrast to my downsizing from 4,000 square feet to 1600, here were men living in small cells, silently going about their menial tasks, and ministering to the small Muslim community with medical aid and other comforts. 

In one beautiful scene, one of the brothers walks into the kitchen where the others are waiting to eat.  He opens two bottles of red wine, and blasts Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake on a cassette player.  The joy of communion, of sharing a common cup, elicits laughter and beaming smiles from brother to brother, yet as the music gains intensity, tears of joy mingle with tears of loss, tears of the inevitable, ultimate Letting Go.

I’m writing these words midway through Lent, at which time I’ve chosen to let go of alcohol, fried food, and sugar.  I’ve never enjoyed the burn of club soda as much as in the last few weeks.  I’ve never enjoyed a “feast day” (Sundays or Holy Days) as much as in this particular Lent, when a taste of Bushmill’s isn’t taken for granted, but savored and sipped and contemplated.

There are times when I’ve flat out given up Lent for Lent.  Let’s face it; it’s a miracle that I have anything to do with “organized religion” after all the years of punching the clock in Sunday School, youth group, Wednesday night church, and a childhood of Sundays voiding out fun. 

This year, I’m embracing Lent like it’s a brother monk come to teach me something of the Spirit.  There’s a sensitivity that the self-imposed lacking has rewarded me with.  Tomorrow, I might be my brash, carpetbagger self, but today, I’m listening.  My Dearest Companion has spoken wisely of these days of letting go.  “Baby, you’re going through a death, and what better time than Lent?  Soon enough, Easter will be here”.  

I’m looking forward to Easter, at which time I am going to get sick on a few morsels of chocolate.   I’m going to take my Dearest Companion to the park before the sun comes up, and we will spread a Tennessee Titans blanket on the damp grass that overlooks a wide field, with a hilly backdrop, which will slowly glow blue to green to orange to yellow as we ponder the Resurrection of Jesus, and the power tangled up with letting go.

I’ll fire up the Coleman Stove (which I guess I won’t be letting go of) and I’ll cook bacon and eggs over its blue flame while she reads me The Times or Flannery O’Connor, or better yet, a poem of her own.   Who knows, maybe we’ll bring the Book of Common Prayer just to organize things a bit.   Maybe I’ll be done with letting go, for a season, and no doubt, we’ll lift a glass of Bushmill’s to our broken stories, while we’re thinking of Resurrection. 

And perhaps for a moment, we will bask in the joy of love and communion, and of not keeping up with the Joneses, while a tear falls, unseen behind my sunglasses.

The Times They Are A-Changin’

In Tennessee, a late February Sunday morning brings with it a number of certainties.

•            The weather will be uncertain.   It may fool Nashvillians into thinking Spring has arrived, or it might pelt us with furious and icy raindrops, and remind us that we shouldn’t really do any hoping until March.
• 
  
•       The New York Times will lay, wrapped in blue plastic, on my dearest companion’s front walk.  If I’m in the neighborhood, I’ll carry the Times into her house, separate its many sections, and read our favorite columns aloud in a particular order.
• 
  
•           Most of the South will be in church. 
• 
  
•           I will, in all likelihood, not be.

The Sunday Times is the newspaper, of course.   When I was a newspaper boy in Barrington, Rhode Island, I had one or two customers who wanted the Sunday Times, in addition to the heavy Providence Sunday Journal.   In those days, it was 50 cents.  The Sunday Journal was 35.   My brother and I each had a paper route, and if we’d gotten along better in those days, we might have realized that we had a monopoly in the neighborhood.  Who knows what possibilities that would have led to? 

Dave was clearly the better paperboy.  He was organized, and competent, with his mind on the work at hand.  I doubt that he took more than an hour a day to get his papers delivered.

I, on the other hand, took my time, waylaid by a friend here or there, occasionally even paying a neighbor girl named Carole 25¢ to finish the job for me.  My mind was on music, drums in particular, and I marched to the cadence of a waking dream, mindless about the papers I delivered.

The paper route was the vehicle by which my parents assumed I would finally learn responsibility and organization. 

I might have learned something.  I just can’t remember what.

Sunday mornings, long before Dad was getting ready for church, Dave and I were out on our bikes, filling chrome baskets with fat newspapers, careful lest we tear them on the woven wire.  Once torn, a marred newspaper would be reserved for a non-tipping or generally grouchy customer. 

My least favorite customer was Mrs. Lewis over on Brook Street, whose side porch was a toxic container of cat stench and cigarette smoke.  Sometimes, the odor would be so completely overpowering that I couldn’t stand in her house long enough to wait for her to count out the 42 cents for her Monday through Friday subscription.  Her terrible lack of hygiene paid off, for her, I guess. I always saved the most ragged newspaper for her.

Another customer, whose name thankfully escapes me, had a small but dreadfully violent dog, probably named something innocuous – Fluffy or Bubbles.  Every time I would approach its house the dog would charge me.  Once, it bit me, tearing my pant leg and the skin on my thigh.   The owner came out and cheerily said, “Oh, he doesn’t mean anything.”  I yelled, “He BIT ME!,” to which she said melodiously, “Oh, of course he didn’t”. 

On winter days in Barrington, you could expect snow, and on snowy Sunday mornings, my father would wake with his sons, lower the tailgate of his Ford station wagon, and drive us through the deep and drifting snow.  We would ride on the tailgate with stacks of Sunday Journals, jumping off and back on, quite literally relaying the news.

Those were good days, which still bond me to my father and my brother.  Dad was delivering something of a message to his sons, as we delivered the news.

All those years ago, I never perceived myself as a messenger, carrying the Sunday Journal to sleeping customers.  Indeed, we are all messengers of one thing or another.

I don’t know if such a thing as a newspaper boy still exists.  Someone delivers The Times to my dearest companion, but I suspect it’s a grown person who needs the extra income, not a boy saving for a new set of drums.

Newspapers are shrinking in size and in circulation.  The smell of newsprint, the scanning for a favorite column, folding the pages in a particular way, the sound of a rustling paper- moments our senses take for granted- they are already from an age past, heaped upon the junk pile of yesterday with the scratching sound of a vinyl record, the static of a transistor radio, and the mechanical sound of a radio dial.

Damn, we are getting old.  I wonder if our grandparents came to mourn the absence of clippity clops on cobblestone streets?  I wonder if my mother misses the crackling sound of electric streetcars; (I can remember that sound, which I identify with the city Providence, but not enough for it to have made a real footprint on my aural landscape). 

I miss the sound of recording tape running off the spool, flapping wildly, wreaking havoc.  I miss the sound of tiny hammers whacking ink onto white paper as typewriter keys are being struck, the imperfect rhythm of a furious mind at work.

Things change.

Yet, some people don’t.  I think about Mrs. Lewis in her stagnant sty on Brook Street, cigarette butts piled high in receptacles on her closed in porch.  What a metaphor!  The Closed In Porch sounds like a Tennessee Williams title.   And the clueless dog owner, unwilling to see the evidence that her pooch had indeed bit me.   It’s odd to me that the recluses and the clueless even want a paper, although Mrs. Lewis’ cats certainly could have made use of it.

Roll over Beethoven and tell Tchaikovksy the news.  

On a recent Fat Tuesday morning, I was startled awake by an incessant knocking on my bedroom wall.  It was early, and I was groggy, but I recognized the haphazard rhythm of a woodpecker, insistently head-banging, something that I would, of course, take personally.

I pondered as he pounded.  I wondered about God’s creature visiting my home, and I decided to embrace this quite natural occurrence with a sense of spiritual openness.  No, the woodpecker wasn’t prophesying, but I took its knocking as a friendly wake-up call to seize the day, to expect a full measure of effort from myself and to listen to the world around me.  And what better timing than for Woody to be knocking away on the day before Lent, that season in which my senses would be heightened, and I might be at my most contemplative and receptive.

Just the fact, that I didn’t get out my pump-action Daisy air rifle and end the hammering signified that perhaps I was still in flux, still changing, shifting, and embracing another way to look at life. 

I sent a haiku about my morning visitor to my Southern Born Woman, who promptly researched the meaning of the species in mythology and folklore.  Among those who pay attention to the family of animals, woodpeckers symbolize the need to allow for a change of attitude, and the embracing of opportunity and creativity. 

It wouldn’t be the first time an animal has taught me something; you may have read other chapters in which I speak of the horse or the owl quietly reminding me that my journey is not over; there is more to learn and more to change.

So perhaps, I could learn from this tenacious, insistent creature, to keep knocking on doors, to continue to pursue dreams and excellence, to strive for those who depend on me, and to stay open-minded.

Good morning, Brother Woodpecker.  I’m listening.

The Full Monty

I sat in a Nashville coffee shop, the one across from the library, waiting for a meeting with someone who had apparently found better things to do.    I had secured a quiet table near the back, away from the ceiling speakers which were playing “Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands” as people my children’s age sipped sweet mocha drinks and laughed in sardonic tones, void of joy, evoking a dark, flatly cynical melody which curled through the shop like steam off a dragon’s tongue.

Waiting, I toyed with my Blackberry™, hoping for a positive sign from my wayward appointment.

I heard a low voice asking, “May I join you?” in a French accent.  I could hardly refuse; my table was large enough for several people and the one available seat was being held for my meeting.  I said, “Well, I have someone coming, but, sure, have a seat until he arrives.  By the way, I’m Phil”.

“Bon Soir, Phil.  I am Edmund.”

Interested, I said, “Nashville has many citizens of foreign blood, but I can’t say I have ever encountered a Frenchman here before.  Are you from Quebec?”

“Non, mon ami, I am from Marseilles, France.”

“Well, mon frère, I’ve done a lot of traveling, but as far as France goes, I’ve only been to Calais, and that was just a ferry stop on the way to Belgium.  I would love to see Paris someday.”

“Ah, yes, Paris.  Well, it has changed considerably since I was last there.  I hear I wouldn’t recognize it.”

Realizing my meeting was never going to happen, I asked if I could buy Edmund a coffee.

“Oh, no, thanks, it’s on me”, he said, summoning the  barista.  “Please, two caffe au laits”.

“Yes, Mr Dantès”.

Dantès?  “You must be named for the protagonist in The Count of Monte Cristo”, I said.

“Oh, no, my friend, I am The Count of Monte Cristo; I’m Edmund Dantès”.

What amazing luck to be drinking coffee with one of my favorite literary characters!

I told him that I had become aware of his story as a young boy, reading a Classics Illustrated comic book of Alexander Dumas’ wonderful book.  I had never forgotten the pictures of Edmund tunneling  through the prison rock, hoping to escape, only to meet another would-be escapee, the Abbé Faria, an old priest.  The comic tickled my fancy, swashbuckling and escapist, and centered on revenge.

I don’t know how old I was when I finally read the actual novel, but I have read it several times over the years.

Now, here I sat with the richest man of his time, the Bill Gates of the 19^th Century.   I wondered if he had any interest in making a record; he could solve all my financial problems, and if he had any semblance of talent, the technology of 21^st Century Nashville could make him a star, as it had plenty of mediocre singers.

“You know, Ed”, I said, “Your story is remarkable.  I mean, you were a very naïve sailor who trusted some very evil people.  Ironically, it was your naiveté  which got you into prison,  Prison, hardship, failure, and misfortune led you to becoming educated, and to your treasure, your fortune, and fame.”

“True.  No one learns much from comfort, my friend.  But isn’t it funny?  I went from being a man who believed in the goodness of humanity to a man who very nearly ruined myself by becoming obsessed with power and vengeance, the worst traits of humanity. 

I was given a choice between repaying evil with evil or taking the higher road of forgiveness.  I chose to repay evil in kind.  Despite my wealth and fame, I carry a burden of remorse."

“Okay, Ed”, I conceded, “Humanity is fallen, that’s a given.  None of us are perfect.  But it seems to me that you got lucky.   You didn’t have your moment of repentance until you’d avenged yourself against every one of those bastards who’d put you into prison.  I mean, you got richer than sin, killed all the bad guys off, and then had your ‘come to Jesus’ moment.  So, even though you’re one of my heroes of literature, it’s kind of hard to totally sympathize with how your story ended.”

“Sir, would you care to see the scars on my back?  Alas, what I wouldn’t give to have not gone to jail and been tortured for 14 years.  What I wouldn’t give to have just kept the girl in the beginning of my story, lived a simple, modest sailor’s life, and died an old man with loving grandchildren and children gathered around.  Instead, I had to lose my woman, my Mercédès, to my supposed best friend, who hated me all along.  You know, Philippe, betrayal leaves a deep gash in one’s soul.  Have you been betrayed?”

Hmm.  I didn’t know about that.  I guess everyone’s been betrayed, haven’t they?  Haven’t we all experienced the fallout of The Fall?  Sure, I’ve been stiffed, I’ve been sued, and I’ve been wrongly accused.  (I’ve been rightly accused, too, by the way.)  But I haven’t suffered, really suffered, and I don’t know many who have.  I spent a night in jail for hitchhiking one time, and the sheriff purposely left the window outside the cell open in the middle of January, just to be mean, but I’ve never suffered in the way Edmund Dantès had. 

Edmund ordered up two more decaf lattes, and some gluten free cookies as well. 

Now was as good a time as any.

“So, Ed.  How much of the treasure is left?   You were a sailor who found a lot of dough; I’m just wondering if you were good with money or if you were more like a trailer park guy winning the lottery?”

Turns out, Edmund Dantès had learned a thing or two in prison.  The Abbé had taught him several languages, mathematics, economics, and ethics, long before he revealed the secret treasure of Monte Cristo.   Edmund used this education to economically ruin his adversaries; there was suicide and murder involved.  I assume he got better grades in Calculus than in Ethics.  

It occurred to me that perhaps he was still living because he’d paid for the services of a magician, a witch, an alchemist, or wizard to keep him alive for a few hundred years.  Of course, I asked.

“No, my friend.  I live across the street.  But it gets stuffy in there, and it’s so bloody quiet with all the shushing and four-eyed glaring, that I often come here and see if anyone will remember me.  Alas, it’s quite rare to find anyone who reads these days, never mind someone who’s read my story.”

“Yeah, well, there’s the movie, right?” I asked.

Edmund’s eyebrows raised, owl-ish, and he just whispered, “Please” in an exasperated tone.

“ Sorry, man.”

With that, he made his way back to the library, while I sat in disbelief.

Why has that story held me for so many years? 

I like this man, who fights against impossible odds and wins.  Who doesn’t like the idea of finding and having more money than God?  Likewise, I don’t mind that justice finds his old enemies and has its way with them, as justice isn’t altogether a bad thing. 

My own story is one of redemption, plain and simple.  It’s unfolding as I go, and I’m not writing it, but I am turning the pages, and I do have something to say about what the protagonist does. 

Does he find his treasure?  Indeed, he’s found it in the love he gives and the love he receives.

What about revenge?  Does he get revenge?  Well, I’ve thought about my “enemies” and the vengeance that might be fun to have on those who’ve burned me or mine, and to be honest, I like me better when I’m letting go of old foes.  The scars have a better chance of healing and disappearing if I don’t speak of them.  If I can come to a place of imaging they never existed, perhaps they’ll completely heal.

Does he win in the end?  Indeed, I can assure you, he does.  I’m not leaving without a fight. 

In the meantime, I’ll have another latte.

Maw-Tucket

I'm writing in a chilly hotel room in New England on a fine November day, after having just had a good walk with Rickie and Bryan, two of my bandmates in The Red Dirt Boys.  With Thanksgiving just around the corner, and with so much to be thankful for, holiday or not, I'm thinking about thankfulness.

This quote from GK Chesterton is something I might apply more heartily to my good life:

"You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing and grace before I dip the pen in the ink.”

Summer 1974, I was home in Rhode Island, trying to earn a little money before heading back to Taylor University for my junior year.  I got a job at Hasbro, the toy manufacturer  in Pawtucket, Rhode Island.  

It's pronounced Puh-tucket, by the way.  I remember when the Pawtucket Red Sox came to play the Nashville Sounds some years back, and a Sounds fan was jeering the boys from Rhode Island.

"Hey Paw-tucket!!  Where's Maw-tucket?"   I guess it could have been worse.

Pawtucket is an industrial city just north of Providence.  The Industrial Revolution in America started there with Samuel Slater's Mill.  

I was working the second shift, 4pm to 11pm, on an assembly line making accessories for the popular GI Joe dolls.  A vocal opponent of the Viet Nam War, it was an ironic job to have, making weapons of mass destruction for GI Joe, with his popular Kung Fu grip.  

Aware of the irony, I went home one night, and sat at my mother's grand piano, and wrote a Christmas Ballad called "GI Joe", about all the little children who'd be receiving him and his accessories on the birthday of the Prince of Peace.  It was a nod to two of my heroes, Jesus and Randy Newman.

Now, there's a pair.

My job was to drill a hole and insert a screw into a piece of plastic, the end product of which I can't remember.  It was the worst job on the assembly line, not quite enough work for two people, but a little too much for one, at least it seemed so to me.  The conveyor belt would bring gray pieces of plastic to me faster than I could send them along to the next person, and before I knew it, I was backed up and buried by these non-descript parts.

Most of the people on the line were speaking Portuguese, and only they and God Almighty knew what they were yelling at me.  Eventually, the line supervisor would come to my aid, inserting the screws while I vigorously drilled holes.  It was endless and futile.  Alas, I was not in the same echelon as Rosie the Riveter.  

After my first shift at the new job, I went home discouraged.  I couldn't imagine surviving a summer of being the slowest drone at Hasbro.  Here I was, a college educated, well-traveled and literate young man, being humbled by illiterate immigrants who had a way with plastic.  

I told my parents that I didn't think I could last for long; that either I'd give up on Hasbro or Hasbro would give up on me.  Either way, I'd be a Hasbro has-been.

My mother suggested that I read a book by a Pentecostal preacher named Merlin Carrothers.  I cringed, naturally.  I've been cringing for many years now, with the book suggestions from dear old Mom.   "Have you read the John Stott devotional I bawt you fuh Chrismiss yet?  I sent one to the President; I wunduh if he's read it."

It's hard enough finding time to read the books I want to read, never mind the ones she thinks I should read.  However, on this hot summer night, reflecting on a summer of futile hole-drilling, I was desperate enough to give some consideration to my mother's literary suggestions.

Reading a book by a Pentecostal would be a stretch, but the name Merlin must have softened me to the idea.  Maybe some deep magic was at work.  After all, a guy named Merlin can't be all bad.

The book was called "From Prison to Praise", just one of many "Praise" titles the good Merlin had written in his literary career.  Merlin's magic spell was really a scripture verse: In all things give thanks.  He believed one should literally thank God for everything in their lives, no matter how terrible those things were.

He would cite story after story of people whose difficult lives were transformed by thankfulness.   Torn-up lives would somehow be restored by the resolute speaking of the words "thank you"; practitioners of this rite would often move from the worst of circumstances to the best.

I'm sure Merlin was praising God Almighty all the way to the bank.

Nonetheless, it remains a radical idea, doesn't it?  

Yet, the belief that God is involved with the details of our lives raises more questions than it does answers.   Something good happens to me and I say "Thank God"; maybe I just missed getting broad-sided by a drunk driver, or maybe I just made a killing in song-writing royalties.   "Glory to God in the highest!."  But then the person who did get broad-sided comes to mind, and, on the one hand, "Thank God it was him not me", but on the other... Is the victim's family saying "Thank God"?   If I could understand the ways of God, I suppose I'd be God.

Dreadful things can happen in this world of ours, things which make us feel so far from God Almighty's care, things which make Existentialism seem palatable.  The idea that God is involved in the details has always been with me; I was raised with it.  As a bald man, I chuckle at the scripture verse which says, "He numbers the hairs on my head".   No big deal, Lord.

Thinking about a summer on the assembly line, I had few options.

So, there I sat reading story after story about miserable circumstances shifting in the light of the words "Thank you".  And I was miserable enough at my Hasbro workbench to begin meditating on the praise of God Almighty.  I started my second day on the second shift with a will to thank God for my job.  For the next 7 hours, I kept my mind busy with  the words "Thank you, Jesus".  It is an odd remembrance, the willful occupation of my thoughts with the goodness of God, because, frankly, I've GD'd unpleasant situations more than not.   I say this not with pride, but as a matter of fact.  I'm not some stellar Christian with a Sola Gloria attitude.

Back at the drill press, with the praise of God repeating silently in my mind, nothing seemed to change.  The concrete floor didn't get any more comfortable under my Converse All Stars.  I didn't get any faster and the conveyor belt didn't slow down.  The gray plastic pieces would start crowding up as workers down the line tapped their fingers.  In my mind, I thought, well, this is ridiculous, but thank you, Lord, that I'm in a job I'm unsuited for, and that it's not going great.  

Whether it was Providence or just Industry watching out for itself, my little Portuguese supervisor would come to my aid, and catch me up with the assembly line.  It must be working, I thought, and I'd keep on thanking.

Friday morning came with a new job offer from a man at Dad's church- Bob Glover.  I was offered the job of a laborer for the construction firm that Bob was a foreman for.  God be praised, I could kiss Hasbro good bye, and I did.  I can't remember, but I probably didn't even bother showing up for the second shift to say "You can't fire me, I quit!".  I was happy to move on, and of course, I thanked God, and decided that Merlin's spell worked.

I enjoyed working construction so much that it never occurred to me to continue my newfound rite of thankfulness.  It was as if annunciating the words "Thank you" were a spell which I no longer needed.   (It would seem that we learn little from good outcomes, although I would hope that's not really true.  Perhaps with some reflection, my lesson has become clear after three decades of cloudiness on the subject.)

I recently read, and unfortunately can't remember where, that God is well-suited to receive praise.  It isn't neediness which causes the Almighty to desire our thanks; but perhaps it's just as simple as God's deservedness.  When we narrowly escape from the speeding car, to whom else do we give our gratitude, whether an Almighty Hand was involved or not?   The life which God gives us continues for another sunrise, another day of enjoying the beauty of the earth, of enjoying the companionship of friends, and another day to bask in the delirium of love.

Back on the assembly line, where nothing seemed any different, perhaps the most unlikely of changes was indeed occurring, the slight smoothing over of the rocky terrain of my own heart.  

And if that's the case, may wonders never cease.

Horse Sense

Phil Bailey must have been one hell of a guy, because my parents gave their third born child his name.  That's all I know about him; I've got his name.  Nothing else.  He faded away with the state of Maine in Dad's rear view mirror on my parents' move to New Hampshire, and all that I remember are some vague stories about pranks and outhouses from days long before my time.

I had a baby sitter named Pricilla Ferrin who called me "Flip", much to my chagrin.  "Philip!" I would retort to no avail.  Pricilla was a character- very funny and witty and sweet, and I'm sure if I saw her all these years later, she would still call me "Flip", but now I'd take it a little better.  She married a mortician named Karl, and I've no doubt that she nicknames every cadaver that rolls through their doors.

I'm "Phil" to about 99 percent of those who know me.  Those who call me “Philip” are either related or are truly intimate friends, except for one guy named Daniel, who calls everyone their Christian name in a condescending fashion.  I call him “Dan”.

I have grown into my name, but as a young boy, I was jealous of my brother David, who was named for my father.  To make me feel better about the situation, my father told me that my name was a great name, and that it was fitting for a boy who liked horses as much as I did.  Philip, you see, is Greek for "lover of horses". 

Indeed, the horse has always been my favorite animal.  As a boy, along with pictures of Sherman tanks, pirate ships, guns, and airplanes, I was constantly illustrating my schoolwork with horses.   Somewhere in a box of boyhood treasures I have a small plastic white horse, a keepsake from a large set of Revolutionary War soldiers that Dave and I played with.  It's scratched up and imbedded with dirt from the constant handling of a red-blooded American boy's hands.

Our father grew up on a farm in Pennsylvania, and shared a horse named Tony with his brother Gene.  I used to think what a marvelous thing it was that my Dad grew up riding horses.  Sometimes, armed with a bunch of carrots, he'd pull his car up beside a horse in a random pasture, and feed it with his bare hand, which seemed brave at the time, but Dad knew horses.  He loved all animals, but like me, had a soft spot for Brother Horse.

In 1964, our family took a cross-country trip from Rhode Island to Los Angeles and back.  It took 5 weeks, and it was the greatest trip of my boyhood. 

Riding in Dad's brand new, metallic blue Chevy Bel Air wagon, we saw America's wonders- the Grand Canyon, the Grand Tetons, the Mississippi River, and Disneyland.  I have many wonderful memories of our odyssey, but the one that involves a horse is from Utah's Zion National Park.

Camping there for a day or two, my parents sent Dave and I on a horseback riding adventure- a trail ride up the walls of Zion Canyon.  We zig-zagged our way up the side of a sheer cliff on sturdy horses, sure-footed and reliable.  At one point, high above our starting point, David's horse reared, spooked by a snake.  He was all of 14, and hung on for dear life.  He was shaken, but he lived to tell about it, and it made our shared adventure a much more interesting story.  Such are the moments that make big brothers heroic.

Two years later, I was 14, and my parents had sent me to Camp Brookwoods in New Hampshire.  At the time, going to camp for a month was my reward for getting passing grades in 8th grade.  Now, I realize that my parents were the ones being rewarded by the absence of their beloved black sheep.  It was a well-deserved break.

Brookwoods was full of upper class boys in Izod shirts, boys with more money in their savings accounts than my dad made in a year.  Like many well-to-do camps, there were stables there, and horseback riding was an available activity.  Western style was beneath Brookwoods; we learned the proper "English" method, on saddles with no horns to hold on to.

I was assigned a large palomino, 16 hands high, named Butternut.  He was quiet and easy, and the tallest horse I've ever been on.  Every day of that long, hot July, I would amble from some sleepy activity- making lanyards or wallets- and find my way to the stable to see my old friend Butternut. 

To say I had a way with horses would be an enormous lie.  I believe Butternut had a way with me, patient and bemused, much like Bree in CS Lewis' The Horse and His Boy.  He never threw me, reared, or acted up.  Maybe he was too old to care; one hoof on a banana peel and the other in the glue factory, but if a horse can be kind and forgiving of a slow learning boy, Butternut certainly was.  We had a riding instructor, but Butternut was the real teacher.

When I was in college, I took a semester of horseback riding for phys ed.  It was fun saddling my horse, and galloping through the open fields of Nowhere, Indiana, the wind blowing through my hair- yes, I had hair then.  These critters had some life in them, and it was a thrill to feel the horse beneath me, surging forward with a gentle nudge of my heels, and riding like the wind.

It's been a long time since I hoisted myself onto the strong back of a horse.  I can't even remember when that might have been.  But horses will always catch my eye, perhaps knowing my name, Lover of Horses.

It's that affection for Horse that makes one shameful story all the more ironic and sad.

We'd been snowed in for a few days, a rare event in Nashville.  On the first day of the snow, my friend Tom Howard passed away, but that is a story I've told elsewhere in this collection of tales.  After a day or two, Nashville dug itself out, as it always does.  My Southern Born Woman and I decided to drive out to one of the many parks that dot Nashville's borders. 

We made our way slowly up and down the single lane drive, and rounded the bend finding ourselves grille to grille with a large pickup truck towing a horse trailer going the wrong way on a one-way road.

I was annoyed.  A woman got out of the passenger side, and was hoping to wave me past the truck, but I wasn't going anywhere; I had no idea what lay under the leaves and snow on the side of the road, and didn't feel like scraping the belly of my car on some hidden sharp rock.  Besides, I thought, what is with these self-entitled people thinking they can drag their asses and their horse the wrong way up this narrow road? 

I was too annoyed to care about the woman's story of rescuing their horse, and of having to drive the wrong way for whatever reason.  Hey, for all I know, it was just a story, right?

Of course, my genteel, properly raised passenger was aghast that my first thought wasn't to help them.  I sat, not moving, for what seemed like minutes, because of the inconvenience to me, and then finally, half-arriving at my senses (not fully, mind you), proceeded over the road's shoulder with no damage to my car, but plenty to my soul.

It was an event that she and I thankfully didn't speak of for quite some time.  I didn't wish to remember it; I had enough self-awareness to know I'd been an ass, and just wanted to move on.

Some months passed, and we found ourselves discussing why I would be so inordinately put out with these people and their horse.  It was a moment of utter shame for me, bitter and poignant and embarrassing, yet potentially pivotal and life-changing.  I was repentant and remorseful.  

A week doesn't go by in which I don't think about the horse incident.  The impact of my own selfishness on that winter afternoon continues to be real, and continues to reveal truth to me about the human heart, and about the ways nature can speak to the human condition.

Of note is that, in this unfortunate episode, I never laid eyes on Brother Horse or Sister Horse.  For all I know, perhaps that trailer carried the progeny of my old friend Butternut, who'd been such a gracious teacher to me as a young boy.  Whatever the case, once again, Horse was teaching me a lesson.

As I now think on that noble beast of burden, I wonder of my own burdens, and which of them would weigh enough to make such a beastly man of me on that cold Sunday afternoon.  Meditating on Brother Horse, I think of the dignity with which every horse carries itself, even under the greatest of loads.  And again, I wonder, what burden do I carry whose size leaves no room for me to walk with dignity? 

It's said that a tamed horse, returning to the wild, quickly sheds the habits of domestication.  With freedom, The Wild returns to the horse, who remembers its true nature.  No longer a beast of burden, Brother Horse runs free and noble, spirited and joyous.

I wonder what happened to the horse in that trailer.  Sometimes I fantasize that it was set free in some beautiful meadow, never again to feel the weight of so much as a saddle blanket or the cold steel shock of a bridle's bit.   And I pray, Love, free me of the burdens of selfishness and pride, let me run with dignity and beauty, but keep the bridle close at hand.