A great quote from Francis Schaeffer: “ Everyone matters or no one matters” I was at the big box, getting the usual things. One thing from the far Southwest end and another two from the far Northeast end. Special stuff with all the right names and contents. It went very well, a perfect match to the pictures on my cell phone.
The store was packed with bad drivers of a certain genre. Fast moving carts darting around with determined pilots at the helm handles. Dodging and weaving. A familiar looking woman called out my name and since the seizures, her name was unavailable to my memory. She filled me in when gently told why I didn’t recall and the memories came flooding back. This has happened many times. There is a pathway that was closed to this type of recall but a detour can be available. Patience. They chatted for some time, it was very good. I and the older friend began chatting and exchanging catch-up stories near the avocados and plums. No matter which way they parked, it seemed they were in the way but it was OK. People seemed always in a very big hurry somehow. A delightful conversation and it was time to check out in the under 20 items line.
Hustling the cart out to the car, I thought he recognized another old friend chatting with an older woman with swell round glasses and a classy blouse. I put the groceries in the trunk, carefully putting a wool blanket around the refrigerated items and then, patting his pockets, he realized he did not have his phone.
I hurried back in and went to the customer service desk. There was a woman with her boys ahead of him putting change into a large bowl to be counted. Rolls of coins. Many rolls of coins. I just waited until another friend behind the counter called him over. I was just blurting out “Has anyone found a cell phone?” Within a second, not longer, a woman walked up to the counter and declared she had found a phone in the meat section.
It was mine. I thanked her profusely and prayed for her and her boys. I Told her to keep listening to the small voice that directs us to serve one another. I was overjoyed at the timing.
Leaving the store for the second time, phone in hand, I went to the woman he recognized in the parking lot. She had the hatch open on her van and they smiled and said each other’s first name as a greeting. Another conversation that was a real catch up type and she began on the subject of pulling the bad things we harbor in our spirit by the root. I told her: “be right back!”. The newspaper he bought he grabbed and brought it back to her, pointing out my last column.
The exact phrasing, “pulling bad things we harbor out by the “root” It seemed appropriate. She was so pleased at reconnecting after ten years had gone by since they had been in a church fellowship together. I was pleased at the timing again. She prayed for me and for those weeds in my spirit to be pulled out for good. The weeds seemed to be a lack of trust in the Lord and, of course, trust in anyone else.
Some folks refer to that type of thing as faith. One of my mentors said he threw out the faith word in conversations and replaced it with trust. If it works for you, great. Otherwise bypass that direction. Trust me, it’s OK.
Driving home, somehow fulfilled to the brim, I realized that my best friend Jesus, had hit a perfect infield triple. Three people blessed me, three people interacted with perfect timing to get on base. Not really a game, of course. This was the first thing I imaged when I reflected on what had just happened. Doesn’t happen very often in baseball either. Timing is the key. The lord who created time (first three words of scripture: “In the Beginning”) It was incredible.
I have been digging at the root of not trusting for a long time. Too many disappointments in life. Too much trauma. Too many bad things let into my spirit that generated a lack of trust. Again, in the words of Mr. Beaver in ‘The lion, the witch and the wardrobe’ “Is he safe?” asked Peter in the story. “Of course He’s not safe. He’s a lion! But He’s good!” a The Lion of Judah. It’s pretty good.
It was an average late spring day and I was up in the birch trees in the middle of my land. The fairly new big Jonsered chain saw was running good. I had recently purchased the saw at a friends hardware store in the 40 acre musician neighborhood down in the cities.
I had washed dishes with him and we listened to incredible folk, jazz and bluegrass music with our hands in the sinks.
So, with the new saw, I was cutting light firewood for the new wood stove to go with the old farmhouse. City boy, railroad gandy dancer swinging that big saw around with muscles from the railroad track gangs.
Spotting the mail get delivered about a quarter mile away, I set the saw down and walked the hypotenuse of the field and got the mail. There was an official death notice of my father in California in the mail. I hadn’t heard from Dad since he and his third wife went to her home town in Tanzania.
Dad had sent me a a postcard when he remarried. That postcard had a picture of his “new family”. Most of them were working for Jacques Custou exploring the ocean or were involved with climbing Everest and getting their PHD’s in research of some kind. I felt a little out of it with Dad’s new family. Railroad Track worker on 30 acres seemed of at the other end of the success spectrum. I had no idea what had happened and did not get an invite to the funeral or the reading of the will for that matter. I went back and picked up the chain saw, walked or staggered back to the house and dialed the old black wall phone in the kitchen, I knew only one number in California, Dad’s,and got my uncle on the line!
The will had already been taken care of and my uncle now lived in Dad’s ritzy home in Rancho Bernardo, near San Diego. “He told me I was to be the executor of his will!”I shouted into the old Bakelite wall phone. I was puzzled until I realized my uncle has the exact same name as I do. “What did he leave me?” Was the somewhat broken question.”Nothing but we will send you some pictures he took and his camera too.”
Staggered by the theft, I could only say one thing, “I want his ashes, I know what he wanted me to do with them” Uncle and Cousin sent the ashes of my father and photos/camera and as a bonus, a metal box with fly fishing hand made flies. It was a small box in the mail box at the end of my driveway. Dad wanted his ashes put into a trout stream. They fished together back in the days before the family imploded when I was in high school
At a folk music gig way up the coast of Lake Superior, I noticed a small stream next to the lodge and in the morning, took Dad’s ashes down to the stream and tossed them in a hand full at a time. There was a surprising swirl of man sized ‘smoke’ over the waters each time! I took the identifying metal dog tag and skipped it out in the lake at the mouth of the river. Just like a flat stone would skip. I got a triple splash before the metal tag plunged into the water. It was a tough goodbye without knowing the story of the death and not even knowing he was ill. The tears fell into the small stream at the loss and shock of a ruined family coming home in yet another surprising way. Coming back to be burned down again.
I went back home after telling that pleasant man that owned the lodge the story. It was a nice place to stay and the owner was an acquaintance of my Berkeley house mate, Charley, who played with me the night before at the lodge. Good music to get lost in. Old country blues with a 12 string and my 6 string D28.
About a week later, got a call on the old black wall phone from the lodge owner. “Hey, just wanted to tell you I caught a really nice Rainbow just up stream from the lodge” The owner knew the story. It felt right, It was a trout stream, a good one and I still remember those man size swirls of ash from the ceremony beside that stream. I tossed the box, but not into the stream. It was a perfectly done task for my Father.
So, there was no inheritance from Dad’s money but my cousin did get to send his kids to college with the estate. I asked him when my boys were grown, decades later, if now he could help sponsor their expenses for college. “Nah, I’ll pass” was his response. My other cousin refers to him as ‘Rotten Rodney” Seems to fit.
The memory of that funeral by the river still lingers long afterwards.. It was the perfect and right thing to do. The stream’s name is the Cross River, way up shore of Superior, and later in my life, Jesus became the center of my life. I found the eternal truth about the Cross and the money I lost means nothing now. The honor that the Lord set forth for me is on that steam is the real treasure.
It’s good timing and it’s also a perfect time to expose the illogical rumors, rumors of rumors and downright lies that can circulate around the drain. Spinning around and around until they are hopefully, flushed down where they need to go. Let me clarify that: Just because these lies are being flushed does not make them good fertilizer for growth. They still smell bad.
There are many ways to lie, but the most effective way is to think you are speaking the truth. To believe the lie so well that you would pass most lie detectors. It’s the lie of non logical thought.
I have recently been studying logic and philosophy and this straw thing is huge in our society. Let’s start with an easy example. One starts with what is called a ‘premise’ An uncontested piece of information we can describe as a truth. Our first premise then will be: “Water is wet” Second premise “Everyone needs water” Both true statements. The intersecting straw man that tries to join these would be: “ Everybody likes to get wet” We do it a lot, most without thinking.
I will put a few sarcastic comments in now but they also apply to him, the not thinking statement. You make a straw man argument out of that as well. Try it on someone and see if they get the illogical. “ Most people read about a lot of things” “Reading is a good thing” “ Not reading is a bad thing” A little more subtle. That’s the way it sneaks in.
A common but false etymology is that it refers to men who stood outside courthouses with a straw in their shoe to signal their willingness to be a false witness. The Online Etymology Dictionary states thattheterm “man of straw” can be traced back to 1620 as “an easily refuted imaginary opponent in an argument.”
These days the straw men are lining our roads with signs. They tell each other tales of struggle and hatred perceived in their minds. It sounds logical until you draw three interlocking circles. You draw one circle with a true precept naming it. Same thing for the second precept. These are two things that are known truths. Then you interlock a third circle encompassing one and two. Call it what you want to come forth as you think your logic is correct. We do it a lot, more than we remember.
So…here is the straw man that is tumbling our area like a berserk raccoon trapped in a washing machine.
Precept 1. Farmers own a lot of land which they use to support their families.
Precept 2. Huge factories of animal production want to use this land to build factories upon.
Conclusion: Neighbors who don’t want the factories hate farmers. Another Straw Man argument.
Precept 1.I have lived in this area a long time and so has my family. We own a lot of land
Precept 2.You have lived in this area for a short time and do not have a lot of land.
Conclusion: I am more important than you because of my wealth.
We do these things without even thinking about them. We think we know truth. These things can be seen and heard and avoided if you listen. It’s pretty good. Jack Gator Scribe
There is a saying that in these times your young men will have dreams and your old men will have visions. What are these things really? Why do I remember some dreams vividly and others barely at all, or even if a dream came to mind upon yawning awakening? Some dreams we have never forgotten as well as some ‘visions’. First things. Looking up the definition between the two reveals this: Dreams actually occur 3 to 6 times a night and last from 5 to 20 minutes. Visions usually are contained within a dream and can be somewhat translated by ‘The Word’ Scripture, the Bible.
After all, there is a great mystery about these things and many highly educated people have completely declared great and lofty dissertations upon these things. Rem sleep (rapid eye movement) Psychological triggers for actions or action to be taken stuff. The experts will fill us in on something they have dabbled in and graphed oscilloscope tracks, written long and indecipherable dissertations read by other long winded professors that pontificate lengthily on their dreams and their contents. Education is often a great thing, no question there. Often the high brow attitude can be a trap for us when we are ‘rightly lauded’ for some theory that sounds good.
I have had visions and dreams as most of us have. I remember some of them still after decades of ruminating on his strange and yet, rewarding life. Thankfully, my dreams are made clearer when I write them down. Writing is a version of the two-edged sword. It gives others a story that they have not heard before and it gives the writer an outlet and sounding board for that writing. I welcome critique or praise of my writing. It means someone actually read what I wrote besides the editor and proof reader! It’s quite easily done, at the bottom of every column there is a choice to ‘like’ or comment. I assure you, every of these options, I see and reply to.
What makes a reader of books do so with alacrity? Re-reading old favorites is an indicator of a reader, even beloved children’s tales of Mr Toad and Badger. One of my dreams is my favorite: I was running towards a tall man with one eye. I had a stone in my hand and I was going to stone the man as he was ‘unclean’ Obviously a dream set a some time ago when that was popular behavior. (people still stone, but with letters to the editor and on Facebook with words.) Sticks and stones rhyme has a somewhat unpleasant origin per-Se.
So, I ran to the one eyed man that kept smiling at me and there was no fear on the man’s face. As I drew near the man said; “Look behind you” There were scores of men, running down a hill coming near, also with stones in their hands. When they were on the other side of a fence quite near, the one eyed man declared: “In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is King.” Astonished and deeply convicted, they, along with me, dropped our stones. End of dream. You can sort that one out, I have an interpretation. Dreams are more direct and can be within a dream or heard or seen while awake. I have had several of those kind as well. They have saved my life. They have led me to impossible, simple tasks that have affected strangers. One was punctual and healed a hip problem while I was sitting in a large room delightfully listening to a team of musicians and singers praying to the Risen Lord.
Jesus appeared as we were swimming (one of my favorite physical things of course) The Lord and I were both doing the side stroke facing each other and Jesus said “Do you want to go down? You can breathe down there!” I asked him, “how deep is it?” Jesus answered, ”How deep do you want to go?” The vision abruptly ended and I was healed. How deep do you want to go? I got out of my chair in that room and began to dance around. It’s pretty good. Jack Gatorscribe
It occurred to Norm one afternoon while he was cruising about in the family sedan. It’s the V6 model and when pressed, shifts down a few gears and moves along. Sometimes it is useful to accelerate strongly. Usually the time comes when a merge occurs, often during ‘stop and go hour’ on the freeway. Suddenly, a tractor trailer is coming down the ramp and there is no room for it in the slow lane (slow meaning under 75) and down it comes towards you and your road companions. Norm used to drive a Yellow cab and he knows what to do. Flash brakes and make a hole for the big rig. It makes it and often gives a little blink of the tail-lights to give a luminous thanks. Courtesy that costs nothing and is a flash of civilization that even surprises him. “Why would I do that?” It was inconvenient for me and it added at least a minute or more onto my ETA at the chiropractor!
Back to the Yellow cab: There seemed to be two types of people that Norm ferried about. People that cared about him and people that didn’t. Why would someone be interested in a 20 something cab driver? Why would the driver be interested in his fare? Maybe to generate camaraderie and get good scale? (cab lingo for tips). Perhaps a desire to get a new insight into life? Perhaps because Norm was sort of a ‘good person’ that liked to put people at ease? Who can tell, It’s known that it’s a bad thing to judge people and there are some we can tell that do that! (Putting aside that joke) there is awareness.
It is pretty easy for us to discern if someone, perhaps a very new someone is on board with us and they are easy to be with because they ask you questions and then listen to your answers. (Usually I can’t wait to talk about my favorite subject, me.) Sometimes though, there is a patience in another that is refreshing and calming to our jangled nerve endings. Too often our lives are filled with sparks of disconnect, as though we are on the subway platform seeing the power from the third rail come and go.
The endless chatter from the crowd, the drone of “how are you?’ “I’m good” It leaves Norm again famished for reality. How pleasant it is to even have someone say anything that shows the Light, a time of real interest. As though you both were sitting on Mars hill in Athens centuries ago, hungry for new ideas and connection with another persons life. The hunger for connections with another.
Calming our own chatter and constant glances in any mirror to see if our face showed the isolation and fear within. It takes a new heart, a resurrection of our internal gyroscope to stand steady and willing to look, see and listen to that fast moving thought train. People are crossing our path for a reason, always the unknown reason to be there and we can wait for it to go by or really look and listen. When we can see and be seen, that’s when things happen. The world stands still and two lives are then never the same. We can actually remember a name and a story. Brief and timeless as it was always meant to be. Always if we desire it.
Walking in the garden, taking in the beauty of the flowers nearby and hearing another book unfolding as the petals do in the dawn. Maybe even a field of sunflowers all facing you and drinking in what we all need. Light and warmth from outside of ourselves. The giver and the listener, dancing together with the incredible and irresistible but gentle power of the Son. A Monarch flits by and lands nearby,fluttering and flapping and dancing aboutl. Beauty given and when asked about it, He usually says: “I thought you would like it” It’s pretty good. Jack Gator
It was a long drive to the first big city. It was so big, people just refer to it as ‘The City’ If you had been there before, you knew the code word. Massive bridges, incredible hills and subculture ‘to die for’ as the saying goes. Good description. Best food, ethnic food. Best everything. A bridge to another big city that has six lanes in each direction. Fifty cent toll. I loved it there, it was exciting and at the cutting edge of what passed for civilization then.
One time I crossed the bay bridge on a hotted up Triumph and feeling the shocks open up and the front wheel begin to lift. Short handle bars and no oil in the transmission. Rather a short and thrilling ride. Oh well, it was a loaner from a man that was ‘away for a while’.
There was a crowd of Jaguar owners that met at a local coffee shop in Berkeley. Peets coffee. Mr Peet’s first shop on the Northside. That bunch of young men had an older mentor that showed them tuning tricks. He would put a crayon in his pocket and get in the right hand seat and tell the driver to head out to the Bayshore freeway. This man, ( Mister Denny), would tell the driver to stop on the edge of the pavement. He would get out and wait a few minutes while he slid under the rear bumper. Then the crayon would be dragged down the tailpipe a few feet to the end. “Take her out and hit it. Swing around and come back here” When the Jag came back Mr. Denny would slide under the rear again and note where the crayon line had melted. “Cut ‘er right there, that’s your exhaust extraction pulse”. Cool trick.
My new friend, crazy Micheal, played excellent boogie on a piano in his second floor apartment. It was great music for rowdy know it all mechanics. Late one night there was a visit from the local police. “Nice music, shut it down at 10 pm!” We were stupid young vets but we knew a bit about authority. So, the next night Mike stopped playing and picked up a battery powered megaphone (left over from the usual riots) He then opened a window and blasted out..”You will notice I have stopped playing at 10!”
Boy, he rocked it. There are many such stories, a lot of you have them from big cities too. Trolley cars, ethnic food, and artistic enclaves. I had a brief job at an art movie theater as a projectionist. Old style with the carbon arc and two projector switch-overs. The little dancing dot on the upper right of the film indicated the switch to the other projector. The idle projector was then available for extracting any smoke with it’s powerful exhaust fan. I would light up right next to the projector and the smoke wound up in the courtyard of the pretentious grape vine lattice décor below the film booth.
The smell attracted a bit of attention but no one found the source.
One night the movie I was presenting was about a sniper. One of the scenes was the shooting of a movie projectionist in a drive in movie. The cross hairs fixed on the little window Projectionists watch out of was the scene. The killer was waiting for the right time to shoot and the dancing dots were exactly in sync with the movies and my changeover! I started to crouch down and made the changeover just as the movie projectionist was shot. Humorous film editors, what a joke.
There were so many characters in The City that you needed a tour guide or one of ‘Humbeads maps of the world’ made by Earl Crabb that had all the names and places. I looked, but my name never made the press. Too late on the scene (motorcycle diaries at this website)
Isn’t that our way of looking for our photo in the yearbook, on a Facebook page or even in a live production where perchance the camera caught you there?
So in the bay area, everyone’s gear box was in neutral headed down Lombard Street. Risky business’ abounded. Musicians from high profile rock bands began to have a funeral now and then. The music at the funerals was sought after. life was fast and loose and somewhat deadly which was very attractive to Norm and his new friends. Youth no future. The war did that to a lot of us. We learned how to get by and how to expect miracles offering life.
“stumbling around that lonesome town in a fifty three black ford, lookin’ for the kind of woman that a laborer could afford“ Bob Frank It was pretty good. Jack Gator
It was only by a random act of kindness that I wound up at a old whore house in the middle of the city. I was living in my truck at this time. In the bed of the old International was a wood frame camper. I had built it a year ago with a saw, screwdriver and a Swiss army knife. It even had skylights of Plexiglas that were now covering up with snow. I was sleeping in the camper and was very ill with Hepatitis and with no heat in the truck, shivering a bit. The renter of record at the apartment had pity on me and let me in the upstairs shotgun apartments to sleep on the couch. After all, I had eaten there a few days before and the chef had Hepatitis.
That kind man who welcomed me in was William Teska (Bill) an Episcopal priest whose Diocese funded the New Riverside Cafe as a neighborhood ministry.
The neighborhood was mostly tie dyed with a few bpm motorcycle club members hanging out at the Triangle bar a block away from our apartment on 605 1/2 / Cedar Avenue. Second floor, above the free store.
It turned out that my recent friend, Charley Jirousek, from the Berkeley adventures lived there and sort of reluctantly, had room for me and my guitar. After all, the two of us shared a love for country blues on our guitars and we both ate a lot of peanut butter to survive. Charley still had his massive black and white Malamute and the dog was always delightful and took up about as much room as I did.
It was not long after I showed up that there opened up a job at the local restaurant/coffee house down the block. The New Riverside Cafe.The job’s wages were: Rent, food and an occasional pitcher of beer at the 400 bar, kiddy corner from the Cafe’.
There was a stage and seating at the Cafe’ and nights brought in an audience from all over the city. The big light of talent attracted as lights usually do to flying life forms. We served organic vegetarian food and it was pretty good stuff, especially the soups. For a while, we had no prices for the food. People would come in for the incredible music and ask how much for the menu items. ” Pay what you can.” I would lean over the counter and comment, “Nice shoes! Where did you get them?” People did pay well as they could afford. A few locals a bit up against it would ask for the soup and a grilled cheese sandwich. We gave them the soup and the grilled cheese was a paying proposition. Free coffee too. Working in the kitchen was a ballet and it was a good dance. I was a swamper (dish washer) and I liked it. After all, the only things I knew how to prepare were PBJ’s and Dinty Moore beef stew.
The music was also excellent and it was a mix of blues, folk and bluegrass mostly by the musicians in the small neighborhood. It was not, however, a usual neighborhood in a big city. It was Hemmed in by several freeways, a river and the downtown tall buildings along with the state university. Approximately 40 acres with small business’ that reflected the times. The West Bank of Minneapolis.
It was obvious that the population of that neighborhood consisted of a majority of eager and talented professional musicians. Singer-songwriters, Guitarists, fiddlers, banjo players, bass players and so forth. It was stunningly thick with them. I remember five world-class fiddle/violin players alone. One of them turned out to be a roommate, Bill Hinkley with his wife Judy Larsen along with a harmonica player and stand up bass player. I was invited to tour with a handful of them to the east coast.
We played college campus’ and coffee houses throughout the Midwest and east coast. This was heady stuff. A bit of a learning curve of the professional circuit sorts of things. A few of the locals were a bit puzzled by my being included in that tour. Most of the local pickers played and sang well, but the overwhelming number of them all wore cowboy hats and had rodeo buckles. Horses and corrals were never seen nearby. Their outfits were the folk music image of that time.
My new friends were the remnants of the beat generation. Tough and a bit rough around the edges, I got to play with Jerry Garcia when the Grateful Dead came to town and I was asked to join them! A good friend who was the hip radio stations night time DJ, Alan Stone, was at that music party. KQRS radio and he began recording me and my fellow veteran, Bruce Berglund of the motorcycle diary series at this web site.
The cowboy folks did not care for us. Nor did the locals who had made it to vinyl records that sold pretty well. Koerner, Ray and Glover. It was the usual musician fear and ego. We all were competitive for the stages in the area and most of the music was pretty swell really. The local guitar shop sold lots of D’Addario stirng sets for sure.
By the way, I declined the invitation to join the Grateful Dead. I knew the band name was very prophetic as all those musicians are gone now, most with heroin OD’s. Living in Berkeley and being involved with a heroin smuggling outfit, I got addicted. It takes all the pain away, physical and mental. I liked it. I remember those times vividly as we sold most of it to Sly and the Family Stone across the bay.
Another story of God’s deliverance when a voice in my private room said: “Live or death, choose now” I obviously chose life, it seemed a pretty serious event. The addiction was gone immediately and there was no withdrawal. A miracle from the Lord. It was one of ‘those events’ that are life saving and we don’t know who to thank.
The whole Cedar-Riverside scene ended when a developer (Heller and Segal) bought the entire neighborhood and began building high rises. I then quit the Riverside cafe and began a career as a railroad worker but still lived on the west bank. I eventually moved to the country, hours north. A small farm on the GI bill, about the same acreage as the old neighborhood. Rural Nothwest Wisconsin where I and my family still live.
Moving north to a farm was scary. I played fiddle in the barn before walking into the house while the rental van with everything I owned in it sat parked. It was raining on April fools day. The walk into the house was very strange. Alone and I had Never owned a house before. It smelled funny and the first challenge was to find all the light switches and figure out where to sleep. My orange cat didn’t come out of the van for a day. The house was heated with a fuel oil furnace and the previous owner left a note that mentioned the fuel oil tank was over 1/2 full and figured “It was a pretty good deal”. Of course, the new home smelled a new smell to me.
My old friend, Bruce, lived about 3/4 of a mile away, just down the road. That helped a lot. Bruce is the other motorcyclist in ‘Motorcycle diaries’ He introduced me to some of the locals and one young man became a good friend and was my roommate for a while. He taught me how to cut firewood and built a new chimney for the house and then proceeded to hook up and run a wood stove. It was a ‘step stove’ made locally and it worked quite well until it later developed a hole in it’s side. my new friend was a good man known for his kindness and smile. His nickname is Smiley, of course.
I started playing my fiddle on the back of a bunk car, feet up on the brakeman’s wheel when I worked the steel gangs on derailments down in southern Minnesota. The other men never complained. It felt like I was sitting around a campfire playing a harmonica after a long day on the trail. Folksy along with the missed notes and scratchy bowing.
At first when I began section work, I worked with the section gang at Dinkytown, just over the Missisippi from the west bank. More stories of a great foreman, Big Leroy, and all the trauma and injuries when men work around trains.
A visit to an old Cafe friends hardware store in Cedar-Riverside after work brought forth a sturdy chain saw and really swell touring bicycle. Still have both of them although the Jensrud 80 doesn’t start very well and pulling the starter cord almost breaks my wrist. My youngest son won’t even use it. Why bother when his Farm Boss Stihl weighs half as much and also starts pretty good.
I was injured at a section yard just across the St.Croix and I could not do the 12 pound hammer swinging anymore. I first began playing in a local country western band. Bars within driving distance with three other guys. Dandelion Wine was our name. . Mandatory cowboy hats for the band. No horses or rodeo buckles but nice vests and boots. I guess the lesson was to look the part as it made it easier for the audiences. We played the classics; Bob Wills and Johnny Cash sort of things. A touch of fiddle tunes and a hint of bluegrass. One of the local bars we were regulars at is about 30 miles away, Louis’, became a nice church called New Life. Appropriate.
The house business of repairing foreign cars came to life and I ran it for 40 years. It was a good income and the commute was a breeze.
Much later, I met my wife Julie, riding bicycles together (another column, (Bicycle built for Two).They built a real home together. Men build houses, women build homes. I then started playing with a square dance band as an upgrade. No cowboy hats, but Julie made me a really nice vest with ducks on it. The band was called Duck for the Oyster it is the title of a a square dance.
Bill Teska wound up marrying Julie and I about 30 years after I met him. A few of those 40 acre musicians played with me in the wedding. Bill Hinkley, Mary Dushane, Kevin McMullin and myself played a Swedish waltz surrounding Julie in her wedding gown right after the processional . It was pretty swell.
A decade or so later, I became aware of Jesus during a choir presentation up the hill from our home. Good move. It was a Christmas Cantata conducted by Hellmuth Bycoski at Zion Lutheran church. The holy Spirit got through to me during the song ‘Mary Did you Know’ and I have never been the same since. I love the changes even if they are very painful. It takes time to surrender. Julie is patient with me. I got better and continue to do so.
Our family got good at playing and singing worship music It was a big change from seeking admiration and money to the fresh air of a calling that began when I was 10. I now had discovered worship is the best music on and off the planet. Our family built and staffed a small house of prayer about seven miles away in Frederic. We were there about four years until the building was sold.
Now I write these columns about the transformational life and love that comes from Jesus, our Creator.
I still have the instruments and occasionally take them out and I play at home with recordings of some worship leaders I have met. It’s a world of growth in many ways, and the spirit within me and my family keeps growing stronger every day.
Jack gators grace notes 