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“C’mon Everyone We Gotta Get Together Now”

“C’mon Everyone We Gotta Get Together Now”

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“Oh yeah, love’s the only thing that matters anyhow.”

Those lyrics are from the song Sweet Cherry Wine by Tommy James and the Shondells released in 1969.

I have been singing it over and over again lately, and with the help of my “Alexa,” listening as well.

 

I haven’t written anything to post on “Musings” in over three months.  I haven’t felt like it.  I have been in a funk since Christmas.  I don’t know why exactly.  Maybe it’s seasonal depression; maybe it’s the #PutinPriceHike on our gas costs; maybe it’s the massive losses in our retirement accounts at a time when I would like to retire; maybe it’s the Valentine’s Day card I bought for Kim that cost me eight bucks (8 bucks!); maybe it’s the threat of World War III and nuclear war looming over the futures of my grandsons; maybe it’s the weight gain I can’t blame on anybody but myself ushering in a new stage of my old age.

 

In 1969 I remember Sweet Cherry Wine as being a cool song that I liked.  At that point in my life, I wasn’t paying too much attention to lyrics in songs so I didn’t really get the message.

Having grown up on lyrics like “Makes my heart go run-run ditty”  or  “Down dooby doo down down, Comma, comma, down dooby doo down down,” what was the point of listening to lyrics.

Anyway, I just thought it was a song about drinking wine.

We had a lot of division in the country in the 60’s and 70’s.  In fact in Tommy James’ book “Me, the Mob, and the Music” he writes “Before the 1968 election, there was very little left-right, conservative-liberal dichotomy.  That election, that year, was when we lost our national unity and became a red and blue country.  Divided we fall.”

We had Vietnam, we had Watergate, and not long after we had our first oil crisis.

My daughter Hayley reminded me this past week about a photograph I had taken when I was in high school that got published on the front page of a local newspaper called The Advisor on February 3, 1974.  The photo was taken during the oil embargo of 1973 and 1974 and she wanted to use it as part of her lesson for one of her classes.

The oil embargo of 1973 had some similarities in origin to at least a part of our current oil and gas situation (the Putin part) in that during the Arab-Israeli War of 1973 the Arab nations imposed an embargo on the United States in retaliation for providing arms to Israel thus banning petroleum exports to the US and other nations supporting Israel.  Domestic oil production had declined and we had become dependent on importing foreign oil.

We had long lines at the gas stations and prices jumped.  It was common for gas stations to run out of gas.  I happened to have worked part-time at the Shell station in my hometown of Oceanport where the photo was taken and therefore I had a pretty easy time getting gas.  I had taken the photo as part of an assignment for my high school photography class.

“Divided we fall.”

That may be true.  I think September 11, 2001, would tamp that division down a little but it is raging back.

We have climate change, social media, fake news, Build Back Better, Make America Great Again, socialism versus capitalism, and on and on.

Heck, even the Senate’s attempt to cure my seasonal depression is pitting family member against family member.

 

Though often thought to be related to psychedelia and drugs, Sweet Cherry Wine was more a song protesting the Vietnam War and according to Tommy James in an interview in 2010 the song “was about the blood of Jesus.“

 

“…yesterday my friends were marching out to war
…listen, now, we ain’t a-marching anymore”

“No we ain’t gonna fight
Only God has the right
To decide who’s to live and die”

 

I have always said that writing is great therapy.

I guess I should start practicing what I preach.

Maybe practice what I preach in more ways than just writing.

 

“To save us He gave us sweet cherry wine”

 

This is my blood, drink it, in remembrance of Me.

 

Pray for peace.

The Christmas Letter 2021

The Christmas Letter 2021

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It’s coming on Christmas
They’re cutting down trees
They’re putting up reindeer
And singing songs of joy and peace
Oh, I wish I had a river I could skate away on

From “River” a song by Joni Mitchell

 

I heard this song recently.

It’s a beautiful song.

But it’s kind of sad.

I guess we have all had times in our lives when we wished we had a river we could skate away on.

As I write this on an early December evening, I was reminded by a social media post that on this day one year ago, just a few weeks before Christmas, a friend of mine from my hometown of Oceanport, New Jersey had succumbed to complications of the Covid 19 virus.

His daughter posted a photo a few days ago also on social media, of this year’s Christmas decorations on their house with the comment “We didn’t even have a Christmas tree last year….but we decided to make up for it this year.”

Yeah, buddy.

I remember Christmases like that. The Christmas of 2002 when we had to have Christmas somewhere, anywhere but not at our home.  Too many memories for that, so we ended up in a house in Deep Creek, Maryland.  And the Christmas of 2018 when we didn’t put up a Christmas tree either for the first time in my life because we just weren’t feeling it.

But then in 2019, with the kids coming up from Florida we tried to regroup and be festive. And we had a nice Christmas.

Then just a few months later, the virus shut us down.

Christmas 2020 was spent spread out with Kim’s mom on Christmas Eve, my parents on Christmas Day, and the local kids a couple of days after Christmas.

Holiday distancing to allow for social distancing.

I am sure for Christmas 2020 there were probably many who wished they “had a river to skate away on. “

But this year, though not everything has returned to the way it was back in 2019, we are trying once again.

And like my friend’s daughter Michelle and her mom Linda and their family, again with the Florida kids coming up to Virginia for Christmas, we decided to try to make up for it this year too.

Kim and I were already a little ahead of the game preparing for this Christmas in that we had never taken our Christmas tree down from last year.

Yeah, I know that sounds weird, but it kind of fit in with all the other plants, even though it was artificial.

We decided we would enjoy it all year long.

So we decorated the tree for the Kentucky Derby, then the Preakness, and the Belmont. Then in July for the Haskell. Those Haskell hats remained on the tree until I finally took them down the weekend before Thanksgiving.

In fact, over the weekend in October when Savannah and Leon got married, Christian happened to find the one lone ornament from the Christmas before, that we overlooked taking down.

Appropriately so, it was an angel.

So, on the Sunday before Thanksgiving, with the angel continuing to watch over us, all those hats were replaced with Christmas ornaments.  And the decorating continued in the weeks that followed, inside and outside the house.

Joni, in her song “River,” goes on to explain she lives in a part of the world where everything is always green:

But it don’t snow here
It stays pretty green

Though the desire to escape is real, the hope of having a frozen river to skate away on, is just that, just a hope. A sad one maybe, we can’t always skate away from the unexpected.

Because the truth is:

It’s coming on Christmas
They’re cutting down trees
They’re putting up reindeer
And singing songs of joy and peace

Christmas is coming.

And the Christmas season is a time of hope, a time of renewal, a time of anticipation of what is to come as we prepare to celebrate the birth of Jesus on Christmas Day.  As well as to anticipate what that will mean for us in the coming New Year.

A time of joy and a time of peace.

And maybe… that hope, and that joy, and that peace is our “river.”

So put your skates on.

 

Postscript:

Kim and I would like to wish all our friends and family a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!  And a special Christmas blessing to all our new friends at the Laurel View Village in Davidsville, Pennsylvania, and Signature HealthCARE at Mallard Bay in Cambridge, Maryland.

It’s a Thursday evening and as I sit here writing wearing my vintage Troy Polamalu Bumblebee Pittsburgh Steelers jersey, I will soon need to put down my pen to prepare to watch the Steelers play the Vikings on Thursday Night Football, in hopes that by the time I rest my head on my pillow tonight I will not be wishing there will be a river, or maybe three rivers that I and all other Steelers fans could skate away on.

Lastly, I will leave you with another thought from another post I saw on social media today from our friends at Christ Church in Easton, Maryland that I thought was fitting:

Life requires many responsibilities of us each day, and so many of them don’t go according to how we had planned or expected. Joseph was required to go with Mary, his wife, back to his hometown of Bethlehem. We can wonder about his thoughts as he was navigating this tedious trek home. But what we know of is the miracle that took place there, after they arrive!

Heavenly Father, help us to keep our eyes on you as we respond to the many responsibilities that we face each day so that we don’t miss the blessings that you pour out. Amen.

 

Amen.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from all of us.

Namaan, Alexa, Cameron, Savannah, Leon, Christian, Ethan, Kim, Curt, Hayley, Malcolm, and Donny too.

 

Post Postscript (added for this post December 21, 2021)

Shortly after finishing this letter, my aunt, Joan Christiansen passed away.  I have referred to my Aunt Joan a couple of times before in these musings in You Are My Sunshine and Hello In There.  She was special.  We are all familiar with the proverb “it takes a village to raise a family.”  But more often, it takes family to raise a family.  When my sister, my brothers, and I and my cousins were kids, aunts and uncles were more like deputized parents.  They stepped up as they needed to cover one another and keep us all safe.  We shared our Christmases and Easters and other holidays too.  We shed some tears and lots of laughs.  We have many memories and on December 11 we had a little more of that sunshine taken away.

We sang “You Are My Sunshine” at her gravesite.

Prayers go out to my cousins and their kids and their kids too.

Here is “You Are My Sunshine” featuring my Aunt Joan.

Enjoy

My aunt, Joan Christiansen

 

The Haskell tree in July

Happy Thanksgiving Pop!

Happy Thanksgiving Pop!

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Thanks, Pop

Thanks for giving.

Thanks for giving me life, a home, and safety.

Thanks for giving me a family and holding it together to this day.

Thanks for loving my mother and for giving me a sister and a brother, and another brother too.

And thanks for giving us Jesus by making us go to Sunday school.

 

Thanks for giving me a life where everything wasn’t just given to me.

Thanks for giving me a chance to make up my mind,

And for giving me the freedom to learn and make mistakes.

Thanks for not giving me everything I wanted and for teaching me to appreciate what I have earned.

Thanks for teaching me to respect work and those I work for, and that all work is important.

 

Thanks for giving me your blue eyes but not your hairline.

Thanks for giving me Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and Weary Willie on Halloween too.

And for making all those holidays memorable as a child.

Thanks for giving your time in service to our country and me the advice to join the Army even though I didn’t listen.

And thanks for not giving me shit when I knocked the lights off the top of the firetruck with the overhead door of the firehouse…and when I did it the second time too.

 

Thanks for giving me your attention when I required it.

And thanks for giving others your time even though there were times I may have felt I needed it more.

Thanks for giving me your hand and your strength when mine wasn’t enough.

Thanks for giving me patience…patience I can now give back to you.

And thanks for whatever you felt you did for me, even though I might not have realized it at the time.

 

And especially thanks for giving me another Thanksgiving when we can share some time together and make another one of those holiday memories.

And for being a good sport once again when I make you wear goofy stuff like Turkey Sunglasses.

Thanks, Pop.

Thanks for giving.

Happy Thanksgiving!

My dad’s Weary Willie act. It was a rite of passage for Carl, Gary, and I to share one Halloween as his sidekick.
A Thanksgiving from the past. Maybe 1965 or 66?
The Joy of My Life

The Joy of My Life

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“… First time that I saw you
Mmm, you took my breath away
I might not get to Heaven
But I walked with the angels that day”

 

I will admit, I wasn’t always a big country music fan.

When Kim and I first started hanging out together I knew one thing for sure, Kim was going to have to begin to like the music I liked.

Well, at least some of it.

So while I was introducing her to Lowen & Navarro, the Cowboy Junkies, the Bodeans, Don Dixon, and Joe Jackson; she was working on me with her country music.

And gradually we had some success on both sides.

Except maybe for the Cowboy Junkies.

Kim didn’t like the Cowboy Junkies.

That resulted in one very memorable and very funny evening at the Barns of Wolf Trap sitting seven rows back from the stage when she blurted out “You’ve got to be kidding, just shoot me!” after Margo Timmins finished singing a song.  We had to make a hasty exit, laughing all the way to the parking lot.

But in fairness, I allowed myself to be exposed to Kim’s country music and began to listen and like it more and more.

In fact, Kenny Chesney’s “Me and You” became very special to us and we even had it sung at our wedding.

 

But it seemed lately I hadn’t been paying too much attention to country music’s current direction.

So one evening recently when Kim was running late and I was preparing dinner I said “Alexa,  play some country music” and for the next hour or so I listened.

Then a few nights later we were watching TV and flipping channels and happened upon the last hour of the CMA Awards, and it was evident that country music wasn’t what it was twenty years ago.

So over the weekend on another Eastern Shore road trip with Kim, I decided to make a point to listen to what was cutting edge country music in 2021 hoping to find another “Me and You” and caught the better part of the country top 30 countdown on Sirius XM.

It was interesting.

Back in the 70’s Steve Goodman wrote “You Never Even Called Me By My Name,” a song made popular by David Allan Coe, touting that the ingredients to the perfect country song were: “Mama, trains, trucks, prison, and getting drunk.”

Well, I learned that in the perfect country song now fifty years later you still have to be getting drunk.

Yeah, drinking is still a requirement.

And beer songs are real big.

“There’s a cold beer calling my name….”

“The Beer’s on Me…”,

And sometimes it’s just “Wishful Drinking,” which I guess just happens when you run out of beer money.

 

But it doesn’t have to be beer, it can still be bourbon, or “three shots of whiskey,” or tequila, or even “me and you time with a little bit of red wine.”

I liked that one.

But trains aren’t cool anymore.

Nope, nowadays you gotta have a boat in a country song.

And it’s better too if you are drinking that beer on that boat, or “tequila on a boat” works too.

Yeah, boats are big.

But there is a limit to the number of drunk songs you can hear and after yet another “drunk as a skunk” on a boat song we had to take a break and turn the radio off.

That was my “Just shoot me” moment.

 

The next day on the way home I continued my research.

Of course breaking up, cheating, and pickup trucks are still big stuff too.

Shoot I guess you have to have a pickup truck to pull the boat right?

But not so much singing about your Mama, or being in prison.

The other big progression in country music is integrating Rap music into songs.

But I suppose you have to do what you have to do to be commercially successful with the younger fans.

Needless to say, though I still am a fan, I wasn’t too impressed with the current sampling of songs I listened to.

Ah, but then I found it.

Country music redeemed for me.

Because just like “Me and You” was the perfect country song for the beginning of my marriage, Chris Stapleton went and recorded the perfect one for my marriage today.

“The Joy of My Life.”

 

“…Some may have their riches
Some may have their worldly things
As long as I have you
I’ll treasure each and every day

… Just take me by the hand
I am the luckiest man alive
Did I tell you, baby
You are the joy of my life
Did I tell you, baby
You are the joy of my life”

 

Yes, you are.

And you still take my breath away.

Now when can we get to that “me and you time with a little bit of red wine” part?

 

 

Postscript:

The song “The Joy of My Life” was written by John Fogerty of Creedence Clearwater Revival fame.

 

And here is a little bit of that perfect country song from fifty years ago written by Steve Goodman:

“I was drunk the day my mama got out of prison
And I went to pick her up in the rain
But before I could get to the station in the pickup truck
She got ran over by a damned old train”

 

The photo above is one of my favorites from that “Me and You” era not too much before we got married.

Hearing With Our Hearts

Hearing With Our Hearts

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Kim shared a message she received from Greg Laurie, a pastor,  this morning that kind of hit home to me of late.

“So many of us tend to run around in our self-made circles of activity instead of wisely and calmly sitting at His feet” and that “We need to be ready to hear what God has to say.”

The author goes on to use the parable of the sower from Matthew 13 where Jesus describes four reactions to hearing the truth.

First, there is the hard heart and the seed on the path or the roadside. The hard heart doesn’t receive the Word and therefore doesn’t produce any fruit.

Next is the shallow heart, which is the seed that fell on the ground filled with rocks and with shallow roots, the emotional who have no depth in their lives, thus bearing no fruit.

Then there is the crowded heart, the seed that goes into the soil embedded with weeds. This seed may take root and bear fruit initially, but the worries of life choke it out.

And of course, lastly, there is the seed that bears fruit, one that sows deep and therefore those will hear the truth in their hearts.

And it is up to us to decide whether we will have a hard heart, a shallow heart, a crowded heart, or a fruitful heart. We determine how we will allow God will affect our lives.  It’s up to us.

We decide if we want to hear with our ears, but not with our hearts.

 

Yeah, I get it.

 

I haven’t written in a while because I have been busy.  I guess I have been running around in my self-made circle of activity again.

 

That is not to say everything has been bad, not at all in fact.

 

Covid cases popping up in the Rehab facility my dad is in and at the Assisted Living where Kim’s mom resides has restricted our ability to visit our parents in the last month.

Though that has been hard we took advantage of our time off from worry and used one free weekend to bottle our newest vintage of Little Chickens Winery called  “Wedding Blend.”

Little Chickens Winery “Wedding Blend”

Then I had to accompany Kim on a trip to Orlando sponsored by her company. I will admit that was hard, but I got through it.

 

Once home from Florida, we had the main event, which you might guess from the “Wedding Blend” was, a wedding.

Yup, Savannah and Leon finally tied the knot.

 

Now, you have to understand in my family, weddings haven’t historically been events to celebrate over the years, and typically when we have a wedding in my family, that means there is a divorce coming.

However, I don’t really believe that will be true of this family wedding or ever again.  And in fact, I said in my father of the bride toast, that finally on this day, I feel like all my girls are in a good place, they are all safe, and they are all happy.

And that makes me happy.

Mr. and Mrs. Boone

Of course, the side benefit of having a wedding is having all my kids and all my grandchildren together at the same time which generally doesn’t happen but maybe every other Christmas, in fact, Christmas of 2019 was the last time we were all together.

And that made me happy too.

Me and my little guys

Normally this past Saturday, November 6th being both Alexa’s birthday and Kim’s mom Faye’s birthday, one or both of us would be traveling maybe in the same direction, maybe not.  Though we had planned to be with Faye on her birthday, the covid restrictions wouldn’t allow that and since Alexa was having to endure her own trip to Orlando and in her case, Disney World this past weekend, Kim and I stayed home.

Instead, we used that time to perform the annual felling of the banana trees.  With Harry Belafonte, playing “De-O The Banana Boat Song” in the background on YouTube, I felled the bananas…trees that is and stacked them in my truck for a trip to the landfill.

Then to end the weekend on a nice note we spent the late afternoon bowling with Cameron, Savannah, and Leon.

Cameron bowling in 2016

In February of 2016, I wrote about bowling in an essay entitled Bowling for Cameron. Being around all my grandchildren on the days surrounding the wedding and also with Cameron on Sunday and my bowling reflection, I realized how much time does not wait for you to find your way out of the weeds. You can miss a lot.

Cameron bowling in 2021

So this morning on my way to work I thought about where my heart has been the last couple of years, and maybe the last many years.

Somewhere between being on ground filled with rocks, and being embedded in the weeds is my guess.

 

But this morning I felt different.

Our parents are in safe places.

My girls are in safe and happy places.

My family shared some way overdue time together as a family (and will do it again this Christmas.)

 

And I am happy.

And best of all, I am calm.

And I am not used to calm.

It is very strange.

 

But maybe that will allow me to pay attention more.

Maybe that will allow me to hear better now.

And not just with my ears.

 

 

Banana trees before the felling
Feet Faddish Two

Feet Faddish Two

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It’s a Saturday morning and I am in a strange place.

I am not in a McDonald’s drive-thru, or waiting for my eggs and bacon at “The Café” in Laurel View Village where Kim’s mom lives, or sitting at the table watching the tide come in, while my mother is in the kitchen making me a pork roll and egg sandwich.

What is this place?

It’s your house, you moron…

It is?

It is my house.

Yes it is!

It is a Saturday morning and I am home?

It feels so strange.

Kim is out walking.

But before she left I asked her, “is this maybe the third time this summer we have been home on a weekend?”

But wait, it’s not even summer anymore.

It’s the fall.

Where did summer go?

The last time I sat under the palm tree, the first Feet Faddish, it was July 13, 2019, and I had just opened up the pool.

Today is September 25, 2021, and the pool I bought in the spring is still in the box in the shed.

 

But here I am having coffee under the palm tree that has grown a bit since I last sat under it.

For the first time since we have lived here, we didn’t buy any new plants for the gardens this year.

The banana trees grew big again, and Kim harvested some lemon balm and elderberries for her potions.

But other than cutting the grass, we did nothing.

We haven’t been here.

But not today!

“Oh but anyway, Toto, we’re home! Home! And this is my palm tree, and this is my backyard, and I am not going to leave here ever again!”

Well, let’s not get too carried away.

I am just going to enjoy the day.

Banana trees
the back yard
my palm tree
You Are My Sunshine

You Are My Sunshine

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This has really been an emotional day.

My cousin Debbie has a daughter named Mallory who is very talented and sings for a living.  Earlier this summer Mallory posted a video of her singing with my Aunt Joan, Mallory’s grandmother while visiting with her at her assisted living facility in Florida.

The song they sang was “You Are My Sunshine.”

“You are my sunshine, my only sunshine
You make me happy when skies are gray
You’ll never know dear, how much I love you
Please don’t take my sunshine away”

It was special.

At the very end of that video, my aunt says something I didn’t hear the first time I watched it.

“Unfortunately He did, He did. Yup.”

Take her sunshine away.

Likely she was referring to the loss of her husband, my Uncle Theodore, in 1982 at the young age of forty-nine.

Kim and I finally got around to sharing that video with my mother just recently.  I have mentioned this before, but my Aunt Joan, my mother, and my father are the last of that generation of my family.

I am with my mother again this weekend and I watched this video again this morning.

It was even more special today I think.

 

This is such an emotional day for all of us on many levels.

If you are of any age to be able to remember the events of 20 years ago, you remember the detail of that day and the days following and how it played out in your own life.

I was walking up the back stairs of our Rockville, Maryland office that morning when Alexa called from her University of Maryland dorm room to say a plane had struck one of the Twin Towers.  While on the phone and discussing the probable unfortunate aviation accident the other tower was hit while Alexa was watching live.

No unfortunate aviation accident.

I remember in the days that followed, watching the TV as the aftermath unfolded with Donny, and how he was all fired up to join the military and go off to fight terrorists at the age of fourteen.

I can remember a time of national time of prayer that occurred in the days following when all houses of worship opened their doors in the middle of a weekday for a time of prayer.  I dipped into a very large mostly African American church in the Landover, Maryland area where I was working that day and prayed with many others in a packed sanctuary as a nation united and grieved together.

I can remember not being able to buy an American flag anywhere in the large territory I covered at the time. The American flags were all sold out.

Now twenty years later I watch the ceremonies, hear the names read, listen to the personal stories, watch the video of the attacks, and I am reminded just how much sunshine was taken away in a literal and spiritual sense

 

This September 11, 2021, will be memorable for me because I got to see my dad for the first time in a couple of weeks.  After a week or so in the hospital with no visitors, my dad was finally admitted to a short-term rehab facility in Easton yesterday.  So today my mother got some clothes together for him and she and I went up to visit.  We were advised that due to Covid, we would only be able to speak to him through the glass, okay we thought, they have a room with a glass partition.  Once we got there however we were unable to even enter the building, handing off my dad’s clothes to a worker, as we received our instructions on how we could find his room and wave at him from outside the window of his room, standing out in the grass.

It was very sad.

It’s not going to be a good memory for me.

 

But I guess this day in these times is just going to be sad any way you turn it around.

 

It’s sad, that only twenty years after this tragic day in history that united our country, we maybe stand to be the most divided in 150 years or so.

We are divided by a virus.

We are divided by masks and vaccines.

In some cases, we are divided by miles, and in other cases just feet.

We are divided from our loved ones by the window we get to wave at them through from outside. Like visiting your human at the zoo.

We are divided by race.

We are divided by politics.

We are divided by the cable news station we choose to watch or not watch.

Divided, by the Godly and the un-Godly.

We have those who display the flag, those that would never, and those who are afraid to.

 

Yet in spite of this division, we all share the reality that in life there will be death, and with death grief.

 

We all have had or will have our sunshine taken away at some points along the journey.

 

Maybe we need another national day of prayer to unite.

Maybe some resolution of this virus to at least allow loved ones to know we are there.

Maybe we need…I don’t know…

God maybe.

 

I do know we have enough sadness.

 

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine
You make me happy when skies are gray
You’ll never know dear, how much I love you
Please don’t take my sunshine away

 

He did, and He does, and that is reason enough to believe and to be united.

Because we need each other.

To restore our sunshine when it’s needed.

 

Postscript:

The song You Are My Sunshine according to what I could find on the internet was released in 1939 by songwriter Paul Rice.  Apparently, Rice sold the lyrics to Jimmie Davis and Charles Mitchell for $35 and in 1940, Davis recorded the song and it became an instant country music hit.

Check out Mallory Moyer at https://www.facebook.com/TheMalloryMoyer

The photo above is of the sunshine being taken away on the eve of 9/11/2021.

My sunshine fading away on 9/11/2021
Are You My Mother?

Are You My Mother?

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It was probably the summer of ’97.

There was this girl I liked.

She had red hair, blue eyes, and she was beautiful.

And she was different.

Not like anyone I had ever met before.

 

I remember we were at a bar.

She was sitting on the barstool, I was standing.

We were talking.

At some point in our exchange of nervously structured sentences, I must have told her that I really liked her.

Then she must have said something back to the effect of “I really like you too.”

Because then I remember laughing awkwardly and saying out loud back to her, “someday you may not like me, someday you may change your mind.”

Why would I say such a thing?

Why didn’t I just go on and accept the moment we were having?

Because I knew.

I knew the truth.

The truth about me no one ever talks about.

I am just like my mother.

 

Fast forward twenty-four years.

It’s the summer of ’21.

Two thousand twenty-one.

She is blonde now.

And of course, her eyes are still blue.

She is still very beautiful.

She is still not like anyone I have ever met before.

And we are married now.

 

I am standing far out on the dock fishing.

She is kneeling down digging in the garden up closer to the house.

My mother is standing behind her as works on her knees digging with the hand tool.

And my mother is questioning what and how she is doing it.

After a time of this, she stands up.

“UUUUGGGGHHHHH,” she yells out loud so I can hear her from the dock.

“CURT! YOU ARE JUST LIKE YOUR MOTHERRRRR!”…holding the “ER” sound for a while.

“WOOOOGGGGHHH!”

 

There on the dock, I turned towards the loud voice.

I managed a faint smile as in my mind I returned to that barroom twenty-four years ago.

Out loud I said to myself.

“I told you.”

“I tried to warn you.”

 

I still really like her.

I think she still really likes me though sometimes I am not so sure why.

I am, just like my mother.

And the nice thing is…

She is just like her mother too.

And she loves my mother.

And I love her mother too.

And since I am just like my mother,

She must love me too.

 

 

Postscript:

For my birthday, my kids got me a subscription to this writing prompt called Storyworth that on a weekly basis sends me a topic to write about and I think at the end of the year compiles the writings in a book, but they also thought it might provide me some “Musings” material.  The topics are questions like “Have you ever won anything,” “did you have a favorite teacher in middle school,” or “what is your idea of perfect happiness.”  Last week the challenge was “Are you more like your father or your mother? In what ways.”  This is my first public post from those weekly writings.

Barn Shoes

Barn Shoes

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For the first time since her dad passed away last October, Kim and I stayed on the farm this past weekend.

I remember the first time I went up to the farm.  I had driven up the Pennsylvania Turnpike to the city of Somerset to surprise Kim and run in a 10 K race that was sponsored by the local newspaper, the Daily American. Though still kind of early in our relationship I think we originally had plans to make this trip together that got messed up somehow. And after some regret, I got directions from a guy I worked with who used to frequent Seven Springs Ski Resort, and off I went.

The race start and finish were at the Somerset High School football field.   I got a hotel room just off the Turnpike exit for Somerset, went over to the Daily American office to register, then I had dinner at the Pizza Hut.  The next day I rolled on up to the race and surprised Kim as she was walking up to the field with other members of her family and Donny and Savannah.

Out of 270 runners, Kim’s brother Kerry finished 32nd, her sister Kate 136th, and Kim finished 151st.  Donny and I ran together and he finished 199th and I crossed the finish line as the 200th runner.  Of course, Donny beat me as he always did. Our times with 1:02:08 and 1:02:09 respectively.   Donny was eleven at the time.

After the race, Kim brought me back to the farm to meet her parents. Kim’s family owned a fairly large dairy farm in the village of Kingwood which is about twenty miles southwest of the city of Somerset on the Laurel Highlands.  At the time her parents lived in the farmhouse directly across from the barn where they kept the dairy cows and where the milking parlor was located.  A couple of years later they would build the house we stayed in this past weekend on another part of the farm adjacent to the house where Royal, Kim’s father, was born in and on land his father had farmed.

 

I don’t know whether it was me surprising her at that race that sealed the deal or just being my charming good looking self but as a result, I would go on to take many more trips up to the farm after that because of course we got married and I now had lots of in-laws.  I learned how to milk cows, fed pigs, and rode in a combine.

 

If you are like me and grew up near the ocean in New Jersey, you might not know that the black and white dairy cows are called Holsteins.

On one of those visits, I came around the corner of the barn to find out it was Holstein toenail trimming day.  There, working behind the barn were Kim’s brothers Keith and Kerry, the veterinarian, and a cow.  The vet had this hydraulic table on the back of his truck that would come out and stand upright next to the cow.  Then the cow was secured to the table while standing there on her four legs. Once secured, the table thing would lift up and flip sideways.  Now with the cow laying down on its side and its legs sticking out, the vet busted out a circular saw proceeded to zing off the unwanted part of the cow hooves.  Once the trimming was done, Kim’s brother pulled out a hypodermic needle the size of a turkey baster and injected some antibiotics into the pads of the hooves to keep the cow from getting an infection.  Once all that was done, the cow was flipped back right side up again and unattached and back in the barn she went.

It was an experience I will never forget, but it made me appreciate toenail clippers much more.

 

As you might expect with cows, and manure pits, and muddy fields and such, trips up to the farm and especially the barn were hard on my Northern Virginia shoes and boots.  So early on I got smart and went out to some discount shoe store in Somerset (maybe Walmart) and bought the cheapest pair of shoes I could find and deemed them forever to be my “barn shoes.” They were kind of funny looking but I didn’t care, they were just barn shoes. They would live in one of the cabinets in the garage and be there whenever I needed to make the trip to the barn.

Over the years the cows got sold and the dairy farm got converted to crop farming.  Without the cows, my barn shoes got a little less important, and spent more time in the cabinet, though I think I did wear them once last October to feed the pigs.

This weekend I decided to bring my barn shoes home.  With Kim’s dad gone and her mom now living up in Davidsville, closer to Johnstown, in a nice assisted living, I probably won’t be spending too much time at the barn.

 

I will keep them though.

Just in case the manure ever gets a little too deep around here.

And as a nice reminder of past times together with Kim’s family up on the mountain.

I don’t who any of these folks are but this is at the beginning of the race at Somerset High School.
Meet the Holsteins! Donny and I meeting with cows. Donny holding a barn cat.
Me showing my future mother-in-law how to cook in the kitchen of the old farmhouse. That is Kim’s sister Kate to the left
That was my vehicle at the time parked near the area of the barn with the milking parlor. The farmhouse is to the left of my vehicle.
MWWK17 and Other Stuff

MWWK17 and Other Stuff

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I saw this license plate while driving this week.

It read MWWK17.

I took it to mean Mark 17.

Curious, I went to my Bible and found that the license plate couldn’t have meant Mark 17 because there is no Mark 17.

Mark ends at Chapter 16.

So then I decided it had to be Mark 1:7.

“And this was his message: After me will come one more powerful than I, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie.”

“Not worthy.”

That was John the Baptist who wasn’t worthy, prophesizing in this early Chapter of Mark about the coming of Jesus.

 

A week or so ago I got one of my daily devotionals through my email that I must admit I don’t read much anymore.   It was titled the Angel of Strength.  Thinking I could maybe use a little of that right now I quickly skimmed the message.

 

First, it mentioned Paul, imprisoned in Rome, and his letter to the Philippians.  In spite of being imprisoned Paul maintained a positive perspective, ”I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

Then the writer mentioned Gideon and refers to him as a “nobody” in Israel, yet Gideon was called on by the “Angel of the Lord” to save Israel from the Midianites.

The writer goes on to say that even in the Old Testament, these theophanies, these visible appearances of God were in fact, Jesus.

.

John the Baptist, “not worthy.”

Paul, down on his luck.

Gideon, a “nobody.”

 

Man, I thought, this stuff is right up my alley.

 

 

I have had a good week.

Sunday was my grandson Ethan’s birthday.

He turned four years old.

Kim, who had to work over the weekend, encouraged me at the last minute to book a flight to Florida and attend Ethan’s party.

So Friday I flew to Florida spent the weekend and returned on Monday.

It was awesome.

For the first time ever, this year I was able to attend the birthday parties of all three of my grandkids, Christian and Cameron’s in June, and Ethan’s on Sunday.

God is good.

 

I don’t ask for much.

I am not a messenger preparing the way for Jesus’ return.

I am not the most influential leader of the early or modern Christian church.

And I am not a mighty man of valor whose mission is to save a country.

And to my knowledge, I have never been visited by an Angel.

 

But I have been blessed.

I have the strength to get up every day and do the best I can.

And most importantly, I know where that strength comes from.

 

Not a sermon, just a blog.

 

Postscript:

After saving Israel Gideon lived a long and happy life.

Not so for Paul and John the Baptist who were both beheaded.

 

And the Angel of the Lord appeared to [Gideon], and said to him, “The Lord is with you, you mighty man of valor!”
(Judges 6:12) 

It is written in Isaiah the prophet:  “I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way. A voice of one calling in the desert “prepare a way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.”  (Mark 1:2-3)

 

…as it happened to Gideon who was called to deliver Israel from the Midianites (Judges 6). Gideon was a “nobody” in Israel, but he learned, like Paul, he could do all things through Christ (the Angel of the Lord) who strengthened him.  (David Jeremiah)

Ethan, who turned four on Sunday.
Christian
Cameron, who is on vacation in the mountains this week, eating ice cream.