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Hey Joe, Where You Going With That Gun In Your Hand

Hey Joe, Where You Going With That Gun In Your Hand

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I left the house this morning with a song stuck in my head. Hey Joe, a song made popular by the Jimi Hendrix Experience and one of my favorite Hendrix tunes.

It’s not a very happy song however.

Hey Joe, where you goin’ with that gun of yours?
Hey Joe, I said where you goin’ with that gun in your hand,

I don’t know why I had this song in my head this morning but maybe all the recent violence and these lyrics had something to do with it.

I spend a lot of Sunday mornings in church, don’t hold that against me.  I guess one doesn’t expect to go to church and be confronted by a shooter, but as we all know, that happened this past Sunday.  But then again one doesn’t expect to go to school, a concert, a nightclub, or a softball game and have that happen there either; have their wife or husband killed; their kids killed; their mother, father, sister, brother killed; their friends killed.  The venue doesn’t matter, it’s all horrific.

And it’s final, they are gone…they’re just gone.

 

I read on Facebook last night that the recent rash of killings and violence was on account of the Republicans.

Well I don’t know if all that’s true

Cause’ you got me and baby I got you…

Wow sorry, there I go again, I just launched into a Sonny and Cher song…my wife says I do that a lot; hum, or sing mostly when I am nervous or uncomfortable.

But seriously, I don’t know whether all these bad things that are happening are really because of the Republicans.

But still, I am being vigilant.  Especially when I am around my Republican friends.

 

It is true though, I do hum a lot and sing a lot because I do love music… and I like to sing. And not just when I am nervous, I like to sing just as long as no one else can really hear me.  I can sing in a crowd, not to a crowd.

I was in church Sunday morning in Western Pennsylvania.  Since the pastors were on vacation, the sermon was delivered by a lay speaker.  A guy who is maybe a little younger than me; a guy who if I had to guess might be dealing with some health issues; a guy who just lost his job.  But in spite of all that, a guy who delivered a message that was positive, inspiring, and one that hit home to me.  It was awesome.

But that’s an essay for another day.

Something else happened at church Sunday.  My mother-in-law’s birthday was Monday, so my father-in- law was the special music at church that morning.  He got up, stood at that microphone, and in front of everyone introduced the song as being for his wife in honor of her birthday.  He then proceeded to sing a solo for his wife, in front of me and my wife, and everybody else in that church.

It was awesome too.

It was very moving, it was the ultimate act of expression of love for his wife in my opinion.

I sat there thinking, wow… I am not worthy.

 

Some years ago a friend of mine who was also friends with a few guys who worked for my wife at the time told me one day;

“Dude, those guys would jump on a grenade for your wife.”

I got that.

I understand falling on a grenade for my wife. I can do that.

But singing…alone…in front of other people?

Sorry Kim, if given the choice between singing to you in front of large crowd of people and falling on a grenade?

I will take the grenade.

 

 

 

 

Ethan, Christian, and Irma

Ethan, Christian, and Irma

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Ethan, my littlest guy, safe and asleep somewhere in north Florida

Just five days ago I was joining many others and praying for the survivors and the first responders in Texas and Louisiana after Hurricane Harvey made landfall and continued to rain and flood for days.   For me, mostly faceless and nameless people, known to me only by images on my TV.

But to many others these folks most certainly had names and faces, some were family like my friend Drew whose brother lives in Houston; others friends and colleagues.  For them their prayers were more specific, their anxiety more real, their concern hitting home beyond CNN or The Weather Channel.

This week I understand.

Yesterday, in the early hours of the morning, members of my immediate family; my daughter, son-in-law, and their two sons fled Broward County and began to head north.  Their sons, two of my three grandchildren, are just babies.  One is two years old, the other less than two months old.  Yesterday morning they became part of the Irma refugee movement north.

Later in the day they found shelter in northern Florida; far enough north where, though they may not avoid a hurricane, they should be safe to ride out a much lesser storm.

Though I find some comfort in a weaker threat, I am not comfortable.

As I sit now and watch CNN, detail after detail, listening to the interview of the mayor of Hollywood Florida, the town where my kids live; watching the storm track and those spinning 5’s and 4’s go up the Florida peninsula I am relieved my daughter, my son-in-law, and those babies are not in south Florida.

But I am not without great concern.

I have a lot of extended family and some very good friends in Florida.

If you are from Jersey, you have family and friends in Florida.

I am concerned for all of them.

I am safe many miles away.

My biggest weather related concern this summer has been how the rain has forced me to have to cut my grass every six days and still my mower sputters and stalls. What an inconvenience.

There are people in Texas and in the Caribbean tonight who don’t have lawns to cut anymore, some don’t have houses, some worse than that.

I am safe far away from the chaos, but I am also helpless to those that I love who may be close to danger.

All I can do now is pray.

And like last Sunday I will pray for the safety of all those in harm’s way as residents, visitors, and those responding to the call for help.

But in addition to that, for me this week I will pray in greater detail.  This week I have names, and faces, and memories, and futures to prayer for.

So for now I will watch the storm projections and listen to the countless interviews. I will act cool and supportive on the phone and in the text messages.

But I will continue to worry about my littlest Irma refugees and my family and friends.

And I will pray.

Ten o’clock update.  A little more shift to the west.  I think it’s working…

The Houston Kid

The Houston Kid

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The Houston Kid, album by Rodney Crowell

“I pray that the benevolent God from whom I draw strength brings, with ever increasing speed, the peace, comfort, healing and resource so badly needed by our brothers and sisters whose lives have been so drastically altered by Hurricane Harvey. Since Friday, in my mind’s eye and heart, the streets, houses, alleys, bayous, gulleys (sic), plant life (elephant ears, and chinaberry trees) and people of my youth have been vividly alive. These are the souls and images I’ve mined in search of song for forty-plus years. In childhood I knew floods, Audrey’s and Carla’s, intimately. Today, their memory seems tame compared to the images on my current living room screen. If there’s a silver lining—and I believe there will be—may it find us fast. We are all in this together.”

Yours as ever,

Rodney

It’s National Day of Prayer.

This prayer was posted on Facebook by my friend Rodney Crowell the other day.  Well, he is not really my friend, I like him on Facebook.  I mean I don’t only just like him on Facebook, I like him.  Actually I don’t really know him so I don’t really know if I would like him or not.  I guess I like his music.

If you don’t know who Rodney Crowell is, he is an American musician, singer, and songwriter mostly known for country music but you may recognize one of his more successful popular songs  “Shame on the Moon” which was recorded on the 1982 album “The Distance” by Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band.

In September of 1961 Hurricane Carla, mentioned in Rodney’s prayer, hit the Texas coast. Harvey is said to be the worst storm to hit Texas since Carla.  In his memoir, Chinaberry Sidewalks, Crowell remembers Hurricane Carla and how it affected his family.  The $6,000 “cracker-box palace…essentially a tarpaper shack,” steadily became a wreck when Hurricane Carla thundered through in 1961.  This home was located in Jacinto City a town a few miles east of Houston.

Also in his song Telephone Road from the album The Houston Kid:

Rain came down in endless sheets of thunder
Lightnin’ bolts split pine trees down to the roots
In the shadow of the Astrodome with a hurricane comin’ on strong
We used to hit the streets and go swimming in our birthday suits

 

NOW, THEREFORE, I, DONALD J. TRUMP, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim September 3, 2017, as a National Day of Prayer for the Victims of Hurricane Harvey and for our National Response and Recovery Efforts.  We give thanks for the generosity and goodness of all those who have responded to the needs of their fellow Americans.  I urge Americans of all faiths and religious traditions and backgrounds to offer prayers today for all those harmed by Hurricane Harvey, including people who have lost family members or been injured, those who have lost homes or other property, and our first responders, law enforcement officers, military personnel, and medical professionals leading the response and recovery efforts.

(From the President’s Proclamation to make September 3, 2017 National Day of Prayer as a result of Hurricane Harvey)

 

I am not President Donald Trump’s friend.  I don’t like him on Facebook. But I don’t know President Donald Trump either, so I don’t know if I would like him or not.

But I do know, those folks in Texas need some prayers.

Barbecue and beer on ice
A salty watermelon slice at the Little Taste of Paradise
On Telephone Road (from Telephone Road, The Houston Kid).

Better days in Houston, let’s pray for that.