The recommendation from a medical facility in a city suburb. A chiropractor that knows his craft well and his front desk advised a nearby cafe’ for breakfast. Jack decided to make a go of it. After a year or two of ‘you gotta try it!, Jack decided to go. A delightful drive through a condo development of duplex and triplex, the restaurant’s parking lot hove into view. Still stunned by the actual beauty of the neighborhood, Jack walked up to the front door and an older couple held the door for him. They were as friendly as the wait staff and a brief chat gave Jack the hometown cafe’ feeling. They were from Hudson.

Triple stack of cakes, thick sliced bacon and sides of raspberry jam and real maple syrup. An elongated plate that promissed and delivered. After the astounding meal (how many big city restaraunts make their own maple syrup?), Jack asked for a shot of expresso with a bit of sugar. Mas certo (Italian for of course) The thought of a two dollar tip ramped up to a five dollar bill. Extraordinary. The predominant rendezvous’ of diners seemed to be older couples. Muted and delightful converstaions of wise seniors. Most of them were married Jack assumed.

“Five stars!” with a thumbs up to the front desk as Jack left. Jack had introduced himself at that entrance desk that he was ‘A columnist’ What paper was not asked and as the actor Jack is, with his leather bound journal, a reasonable assumption would be the Tribune or the Press. The service was exemplary as was the meal and it didn’t have anything to do with Jack’s supposed review. Ask Jack where it is and it’s name, and he will be glad to fill you in. It’s worth the drive. This is the review. 1 1/2 hour away, tops.

So, being in the big city, Jack decided to meet a friend that was at an assisted living facility about half an hour further into the metropolis. The friendly Google lady was blue toothed into the radio and the drive was freeway fast, but effortless. Jack drove yellow cab decades ago and those skills help him a little bit with traffic. His newer car with side cameras and warning beeps helps too. Arriving at his friends facility, Jack met security measures that reminded him of the Spanish jail in which he spent a lovely summer at hard labor. This facility was multi layered with passcodes to elevators up and down. Badges. Id’s and forms to submit. No stairs to be used without triggering an alarm.

After figuring out the code procedures in and out and getting past the doors that were labeled : Elopement area. At first glance it seemed an odd place to put future giggling spouses to be waiting for a ladder. Close description. In this case it means an area where someone should not leave due to medical conditions.

The visit with a fellow veteran was hard. He did not know who Jack was and so Jack listened a lot and responded in the military way of truth accompanied with a bit of call and response. “He was a real Jerk that CO” Yah, well so are you” sort of thing. Jack also told him he was getting fat. “The food is good” Yah, I can see that! Is that shrimp on top of the rice? Jack’s friend was talking of his father and other relatives as they had just passed away. Jack always managed to bring it back to the special forces and his friends Halo jumps. It worked a bit. Then the screaming began in the eating area and yelling from someone that his back hurt. A bit distracting. Finally, Jack had to leave and after patting his old friend on the back, it was time to go in reverse with the elevator codes and sign out protocols. Both the restaurant and the visit were highlights of the day. Different food adventures and both a rendezvous’. The drive home with the usual insane drivers passing on curves with double yellows and turning a half a mile ahead. No bother, Jack had his mind elsewhere. A good place. Digesting the adventures and focusing on the bright spots and the expressions of love given and received. It’s pretty good. Jack Gator

It was right there all along. It’s been right there since the beginning of time. An undeniable feeling that there is nothing to life and in the end, obliteration to the grave. A lot of atheists, even pantheists are trapped in that despair. But, despair can be engendered by many experiences, not just feeling hopeless and without a meaning. Betrayal is one of the worst as it gives a strong emotion of destruction and the end of a trust that turned out pretty bad. Often, a feeling of being considered worthless by a friend.

This attitude of despair is tragic and is a ‘constrained’ view. A viable example is a quote from Kant. “From the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made” This view is that we are hopelessly flawed. This is in direct contrast to an ‘unconstrained’ view. There are no limits to human achievement. With reason and will power we can manage war and poverty and solve them entirely. A quote from Rousseau: “man is born free but is in chains” We are in chains but are worthy to be loved by our rescuer that has loved us since we were formed in the womb. This is reality for all of us. All the flawed things of ours and all of our pride in our power can be healed by the only perfect man that ever lived and is alive within us. It’s perfect love. Talk to Him. Sing to Him.

Jack was reading his journal from a few years back and remembered when the Gator family had been betrayed. They lost a place of great import to them. A place where they put a huge amount of work rehabbing, building, painting and equipping a full house of prayer. A place where the whole family would sing and pray to the man, the one who is with God and is God. Jesus.

It was a place of no reputation and a gift from the owner. Then after a few years, a possible buyer of the building guaranteed Jack’s family that if God allowed the sale they could continue singing and worshipping there. Within a few weeks of owning the building, the new owner told them to pack up and leave. Despair and betrayal of a man’s word given. It was hard and it looked at from the constrained philosophical view an inevitable event. After all, it was too good to last as the saying goes. More crooked timber revealed. Fear for the new owners final encounter with the betrayal of God.

After a while the family learned that neither view of our world was correct. The loss was not unseen and a lesson for them to not hold anything too tight as their right. Neither hopelessness nor bootstrap lifting was any sort of answer. After all, trust in the creator and sustainer of all things was available right at hand. Crying out to Him and giving all their angst and disappointment to Him.

After the very last two hours of an incredible set of music and deep sung prayers, it was over. Time to leave and put it all away. The scrollwork on the walls. New walls too that they painted well. The drum cage and all the sound equipment, instruments and beauty created by them. Standing stunned by the intense worship and the finality, Jack looked at the clock they could see from their platform. It read twenty after seven. The same time they had started that last set. It had stopped and indeed, time stood still as they just stood there weeping in their saviors presence.

Another chapter and book of excitement and training for the whole family. What was next for them? Ministering to people. Writing and encouraging folks often never met. Speaking truth when it was asked of them and above all of that, still worshipping and also listening to others worship, occasionally involved in other places that they could use their steadied and visible faith. It’s pretty good. Jack Gator

A quote from John Bunyan to begin: “It came burning hot into my mind, whatever he said and however he flattered, when he got me home to his house, he would sell me as a slave.” a. Indeed, power over other men is one of, perhaps in our world, the only game in town. Played out on the world’s stage locally or world wide, it is always the same attempt. You will do as I say.

A local battle has many fronts, much akin to warfare as well. After all, the front line is where the action is. Often, dangerous action which may have unpleasant consequences for the combatants who win or perhaps loose together. Many such battles have resulted in the unpleasantness of destruction of peoples and lands they live upon. The conquest of nature (small N please and not mother nature either) has shown us how we can shrink the world with aircraft or cell phones but also how we can wound, or outright kill a generation to come by choosing to conquer our world with our desires for gain and power.

Several examples come to mind. The attempt of several world powers to change the name of a country to benefit them or their partners. Jack was in the six day war some 57 years ago. He saw those powers at work, killing, and in Jack’s case, the good guys won with help from above (not just the aircraft of our ‘side’). Liberating a whole nation.

Jack has been involved with a local bid for power. It comes from a powerful moneyed group of lobbyists and propagandists using us and our neighbors for their own ends. Always power and control as Bunyan’s quote.

The propaganda is craftily created and repeated to amplify the importance of the controllers and to disparage the opposition. The ‘playbook’ is carefully followed and on the surface, is made to intimidate and disarm any opponents. The subtlety of painting the power attempt is to make the aggressors the victims. An effective tactic. This goes back to childhood when a child declares ‘unfair’ and threatens to withhold the ball of play unless acquiescence. A bit of name calling and pouting goes with.

An out of state corporation has been using this playground tactic quite successfully in dividing people in our country. They propose the use of natural resources a right. Their army is given a convincing argument to augment this stance. Instead of neighborly discussions, there is created animosity. It moves things along with a sprinkle of bribery and legal obfuscation. Frustrating to those few who bother to find out what the problem is and try logic and research to provide clarity. One side believes the propaganda offered and the other side sees it for what it is. “Men of power have no time to read; yet the men who do not read are unfit for power” B

Divisive and destructive for both sides of the battle! Jack is referring to a local battle, now a legal battle among some farmers and their perceived enemy, neighbors. Jack is using the family prayer cabin to speak to the Lord on how he can love his neighbor when the neighbor sees Jack and his family as enemies. In this case, reading the scripture must be the time to read and not condemn. Rejecting anger and confusion. It’s pretty good. Jack Gator

a. Pilgrims progress John Bunyan b. Michael Foot

Decades ago, there was a connection and an area wide idea. House concerts with well known folk artists who played acoustically. Mostly these concerts were actually in homes of people who listen to those types of things. Many, if not most of these singer/songwriters were well known from the popular radio show, ‘The prairie Home Companion’. This radio show was hosted by local personality and writer, Garrison Keillor.

Jack knew these performers from his immersion in the folk music scene back in the early 70’s. Jack toured with a few of them and they all played at the New Riverside Café in Minneapolis. It was pretty good music and an outgrowth of the beat generation ( Jerry Garcia, Joan Baez, Carolyn Hester, Utah Phillips and Woody Guthrie to name a few) It was the musical time of the singer-songwriters and very popular when Jack was in the Navy overseas. He even ordered a classy Martin D12-20 to be mailed overseas to his ship. Never arrived. “Lost in transit” as so many of us were as well. Middle sixties, lots of war everywhere.

Jack went to Junior college and transferred to another after a short stint in his parents basement after discharge. A common experience for vets at that time. Focus is a common experience for vets. You miss all your buddies but you don’t miss the rest of it. Authority rebellion occurred with Jack as well. He tuned in and dropped out as the saying went. Long hair and the attitude of hippies and old beatniks.

After a year in basement, Jack moved into an upstairs apartment in a somewhat unfashionable part of town and met his lifelong friend, Bruce, at the yellow cab stand at the airport. They became roommates at the crummy apartment. It worked. Jack practiced his painting on the walls of the apartment doing reproductions of art work on the Beetles yellow submarine album.

After a short time with Bruce he and jack began playing country blues together. Advertised as 16 string blues, they went under the stage name of ‘Actual Mexicans’ Before Jack and Bruce met, Bruce spent half a year on China Beach after getting blown up in a PSY OPS truck. When he and Jack met, Jack thought he was a black man. After a month or so, Bruce’s skin got lighter. “I thought you were a black guy!” Bruce then replied, after his distinctive laugh, ” Heck no, I’m a dark Norwegian” It became the subject of many humorous conversations. He is gone now and Jack misses him a lot. You know how it is. We grieve.

The two vets got a bit antsy and Bruce knew some people who lived in Berkeley. Why not ditch this joint, get some cool English motorcycles, strap our guitars on the back of them, and go west? A long story in the archives here under ‘ motorcycle pilgrimage 1-6. Jack and Bruce came back to Minneapolis and Jack wound up on the west bank and got involved at the New Riverside Café. Music, Jack and Bruce’s real life focus’ became the catalyst for the next few years. Jack joined the Riverside staff and Bruce drove Yellow Cab for a while and married one of the café women and then moved north to Trade Lake.

It was glorious to be playing on the stage where famous musicians and poets came. Jack never got paid to perform and neither did any of the others either. Record contacts helped a bit and Jack had a good friend at KQRS radio that did some recording of Jack and Bruce. Alan Stone was his radio name by the way.

Remember records? They never made one although they did some reel to reel stuff at the radio station. Tony Glover worked there as a DJ at those times too. Tony was already well known from recordings of Koerner Ray and Glover. (Gator just had contact with John Koerner late last year for a funeral for one of Jack’s good friends, another 12 string folk artist, Charlie Jirousek. Charlie also had a distinctive laugh.) How many times friends and their laughs are remembered!

Jack, finally tiring of the poverty of the café, started track labor with the railroad. Upon urging from Bruce, Jack moved up to Trade Lake too. That was in 1976. Bruce lived just down the road from Jack’s 30 acre home. It was a good introduction to the rural life. Frozen pipes, racoons, gigs with country western bands and lots of new friends. Wood heat. Chain saws and splitting mauls. The railroad work got Jack fit enough to endure the northern life. It felt right and the air was clean and the noise of the freeways gone.

Through Bruce and Jack’s music connections, they continued to visit the West Bank. It was grand times and upon meeting Garrison Keillor at a party, Jack and Gary got loaded on some of Jack’s homemade wine. First and last time they ever got together. Jack dropped the name of his good friend, Mary Dushane to get in the door. She was the fiddler for the Powder Milk Biscuit Band.

Jack was still friends with a lot of the West Bank performers from the café days. They were pretty broke and Jack offered ‘House Concerts’ up north of Highway 8 in Wisconsin for them. Actual money was made, not much, but gas and housing guaranteed. Advertising of those concerts found it’s way into the St.Paul Pioneer Press. Turn outs were large enough to get a scramble for usable chairs, baked treats and rug cleaner. It was grand for a time and Jack and his friends became a rumor and a quaint source of amusement for the locals. Most of them were Home Companion fans. Old hippies that had graduated to organic gardeners and old ford 8N tractors. Those times are gone now. Radio shows are passé with U tube, CD,s Television and the internet. Television is actually now supplanted with Netflix and other streaming computer web sites.

We are not the better for this transition. It is not nostalgia but the loss of good fellowship and neighborly entertainment. Except for a very occasional pricey large venue concert, there is little to replace this loss.

There is one platform where some of these musicians still play however. It is not billed as entertainment however. Some of these ‘old timers’ can still be seen and heard locally too. It’s in the churches and it abounds. Old hymns, gospel and up tempo current worship songs can be heard and felt. The music just starts getting in the groove of a team vouting off one another and it’s over. Older pickers, strummers and such lament the shortness of the playing but it is still very worthy to play there. It’s called worship music.

One of the greatest fiddlers Jack heard, quit the stage and it’s acclimation and applause. We all thought it was a tragedy for us. At the time, it did not make sense. Later, much later, Jack discovered why that man went on to play for Jesus. The applause from Jack’s new Friend moves more than Jack’s ego, it moves his spirit and the joy is stunning. It often causes the band to stop playing and just stand, overwhelmed with the Joy from Jesus. Jesus loves the worship. After all, the man after God’s own heart was a musician. He loved to dance for Him too. It’s pretty good. Jack Gator

C’mon all you big strong men,

Uncle Joe needs your help again

Fauci’s in a terrible jam,

Way down yonder in old Wuhan

So put on your mask, your business is done

We’re gonna’ have a whole lot of fun.

And it’s one two three

What are we Hording for?

Don’t ask , I don’t give a damn

Next stop is old Wuhan

And it’s five six seven eight, open up those pearly gates

Get all your shots and don’t try to fly

Whoopie, we’re all going to die!

Many thanks to Country Joe and the fish

How many times have I asked friends and new acquaintances the common question we all ask, “How are you doing!” Mostly as a conversation opener when we don’t really care and perhaps don’t even remember their name. It’s clean fill talking and we all do it. The answer is usually just as insipid and often, depression on a deeper level. “Doing fine” or just “fine” The answer lately I have heard really started him thinking: “better than I deserve!” Instantly, I shudder and recently have the thought; You have no idea what you deserve. These four words are a double edged sword in our lives. Everything we have ever done is not a novel or a movie that moves on a timeline to a usual glorious and ‘deserved’ end of the epic story we all have. ‘Finally, I have attained an understanding that God loves me and everything I do now and have done badly is forgiven and I am a new man!’ Really? What does the word ‘new’ mean? New and improved like toothpaste? Or is it death of self and re-birth?

There is a very common club that we many have joined up,( like a Holy Rotisserie club) that meets once a week at a convenient building and has a speaker that tells us again about our salvation from sin and the promise of meeting all our loved ones after our earth death. Comforting like a really good Lazy-Boy that sits awaiting us when we are weary and needing rest from ourselves. The concept of being reunited with people we have loved really appeals to me. However, what are we to do for eternity with those relatives and their friends? All speculations given seem absurd to me. Visiting the interior of a giant red star sounds good for a starter. Moving through eternity with a focus on the creation would be nice, Or being at the rocky shore of Malta while Paul gets shipwrecked. An action packed vacation that lasts…forever. Snacks available at the Kings table.

My problem is that still seeing in the temporal sight doesn’t add up to vision in the eternal. In concept it feels like examining a collectible postage stamp for decades or sitting in a lawn chair forever watching a tree grow. An image that speaks boredom, buried alive in that Lazy-boy for an eternity with nothing to do. “Rest in Peace” Right. Sleeping forever, encased in a steel box inside of a cement box. Similar to Egyptian rulers we have found after centuries ‘sleeping’ inside of huge pyramids. They look a little worse for wear and not really sleeping or peaceful. Temporal. As a squirrel hit on the township road is resting in peace as the eagle flaps away when we draw near.

Boot hill with chiseled granite for an address with no mail slot and sort of tipping a bit after a while from frost heaves. I am trespassing on strong memories of loved ones and that is not the intent at all. I just have a strange mind that challenges concepts and precepts taken as reality seen by the world. The reality of the invention of a way to kill many men quicker with a machine gun or the casual acceptance of a shop that sells photos of other people unclothed. Akin to a country that is so fascinated with food that has strip tease shows of cuts of steaks on a platter on a stage that are completely unclothed just as the curtain is closed. 1.

Obsessions. Facebook (ourselves featured as the main event) selfies and selfie sticks.”Hey, could you take my picture!” Or Mini mansions on lakes, visible near the shore to generate awe and lust. “Nice house! Too bad it’s not closer to the road so everyone can see it” This was Said to me by a friendly new neighbor visiting for the first time.

We are fascinated with ourselves from baby photos to death masks. Leave something behind, show something now too, validate and elevate ourselves to overcome inevitable death. Eternity which makes quantum physics two plus two. I welcoe ideas. I like to visualize music that never stops building crescendos with stunning beauty as I gaze upon our Lord. It’s pretty good. Jack Gator , Scribe

1. C.S .Lewis

The same word, turned into a world view when seen as what it really means. Jack realized, not very long ago that he was, indeed, a bad man and still is in many ways. As though he had changed from what he was, into a nicer and more pleasant reptile. He was now not so inclined to slither around and gaze upon his neighbors, often good friends, with a sly thought that someday a tasty morsel would be available to him. And so, Jack’s recent change in personality was really shallow and as we say, ‘skin deep’. He was really trying to be nice and pleasant but when pushed by his real nature, he would then become what he always was. A fearsome and unpleasant creature. The real Jack deep down and capable of bad words and action. Pleasant enough most times but more interested in his own recreation.

Jack was not at all interested in being re-created into what he really could and should be. There were, lucid moments when Jacks’ family would remind him of his true nature. Irritated by this, usually Jack would dismiss these accusations as another family member being insensitive to his needs.

It usually did not work and Jack’s immediate thoughts were to get away from these unpleasant relatives and sulk and say to himself how unfair it all was. After a shorter time than usual, Jack would come to his ‘senses’ and slither back home and actually be humble and repentant of his bad behavior. What was going on with him? How could he, a bit later, realize a bit of truth and see himself as a bad person and reluctantly, afraid of everyone? The Gator family was used to Jack’s outbursts. Somehow they were also encouraged by the way he would turn and actually see, deep within himself, he was changing. but slowly getting ‘healed’. Jack was actually becoming a bit gentler and saddened by his bad behavior.

One may ask, if being nasty and bad tempered was his nature, how could he see this and want to be rid of that flaw? There really was only one explanation and that was that Jack was being changed. After counseling and firm but somewhat gentle reminders from his family it still didn’t seem possible. Someone, a person respected and absolutely perfect, was talking to Jack. Powerful and gentle talking convincingly to him. A person that Jack recently had become friends with, and Jack accepted what that person said to him. This new friend had been with Jack all of his life and even had saved Jack’s life!

Astonishingly, Jack did not see him nor even let Him into his home when He would come calling. Jack’s new friend was unbelievably persistent and would not leave him alone. finally Jack opened his door and shook hands with his old/new friend. Jack’s door was always closed and could have easily been opened by his friend. Amazing. But Jack’s friend would only cross the doorway if invited in. All of Jack’s life, this wonderful friend was eager to get closer, but even though powerful, He waited patiently until Jack finally opened his door and welcomed this man into his life. It was a good idea.

Slowly, but with obvious progress, Jack began listening to his friend. That was the biggest and best decision Jack ever made. A change had been started deep within Jack and he began desiring better and good things instead of what he usually wanted. Jack thought before he was really a good Gator. Deep down Jack knew he was not however. Now his new friend told him what was really in him all along. His new friend actually knew Jack before he was born and began telling him what he was made for and began helping him to do this. Jack’s friend is Jesus. It now is clear to Jack there was no way he could change without his best Friend’s help. It’s pretty good. Jack Gator

The 30^th President of the United States would stay there on occasions of relaxation. There was a ticker tape machine in the lodge that would announce the local train arrival time at the nearby town. Back in the days before the tracks got torn up. The roadbed is still there, traffic on it is a bit lighter. It’s a bicycle/snowmobile trail now.

A very small, ‘jerkwater’ town is still there too. The pronoun was used in the old steam days when a town did not have a water tower to feed the steam locomotives. The water had to be passed up to the engine with buckets and thus the term Jerkwater was used to describe a small town. This one is really small, but back in the days of the steam locomotives, it was a special place. It’s still small but has the prerequisite of a Wisconsin town. Two bars.

Jack’s band used to play there and it was a pretty lively place. Country western music. Jack played fiddle and the band did quite a few Bob Wills tunes. Friendly small town folks, out on Saturday night. Still is that way,

Jack and Julie used to work at the lodge as hosts. A classy place. The evening meal was fried fresh caught trout, braised carrots and a side of hot baked bread. It was cooked by the resident manager/fly fisherman, Ed. He caught the trout in the stream that was close by. (It was the only meal he knew how to cook.) It was cheating a bit as a big trout hatchery was Just down stream. Escapees headed up stream.

Filled with precious antiques, the lodge was an expensive destination. The Gators got married there 30 years ago and it was quite the deal. Big name fiddlers joined Jack to play a waltz as they surrounded Julie. The fiddler from the Powder Milk Biscuit band was one of them. Four fiddlers playing an old Swedish waltz. The wedding registry was a Santana tandem bicycle and all the food was pot luck. There was a wedding dance about seven miles away and Jack played with his square dance band. He should have danced but you know musicians, loyalty to the band and their ego.

The wedding night was in the old ‘stream house’ that straddled the trout stream. Jack remembers the gurgling water all night enticing him to make several trips downstairs. Alas, that special cabin burned down later, never to be replaced. Most likely an issue of antique building techniques or zoning. It was a beauty of a house.

It all was one of a kind and the Gator’s strongly remember it. It has now been ‘developed’ as was the Methodist camp that Julie worked at when Jack and her met. Another glorious landmark succumbs to classy homes. Nice homes and nice people, but still felt as a loss. History bought and sold as it is done to this day. It was an incredible treasure and an honor to work and marry there. It’s pretty good. Jack Gator