Author: John Shouse April 25, 2017

I love this watch. Lucien-Picard, moonphase, automatic. As watches go, it’s not super expensive, but it’s not a cheapo watch either. I just like the look of the face so much, with the little skeleton window onto the complication, and the moonphase window with it’s rotating dial with sun and moon.

It makes me feel good to wear it.   If that makes me shallow or vain, so be it.

I wore it every day for a long while when I first got it.

Then, sadly, it stopped working.

Looking through the window on the backside, what I saw was that the rotor had come loose and was flopping around in there.

What that ALSO meant was that there was a loose screw or pin inside that was in danger of falling into the delicate gears and permanently damaging the watch.

Damn.

An “Automatic” watch is what was marketed a number of decades ago as a “self winding” watch. The rotor is the spinning weight that winds the mainspring and keeps the complication humming along.

The rotor spins freely all day based just on the normal motion of your wrist as you go through your daily activities.

The problem, of course, is that the rotor (and therefore the entire winding mechanism) continues to spin even after the mainspring is fully wound. This leads to several potential problems. possibly breaking the mainspring. Causing the balance wheel to oscillate with excessive amplitude which leads to EITHER the watch running too fast, OR to breaking the tiny impulse pin.

Adrien Phillipe, one of the founders of Patek-Phillippe, invented an ingenious mechanical method, back in the mid 1800’s, of incorporating a slipping differential spring or “bridle” that prevents the mainspring from being over-wound. This allowed the advent of the first viable “automatic” watches. But they were very, very expensive for the average consumer.

Hence the iconic image of the railroad conductor pulling out his pocket watch, winding it by twisting the stem, and putting it back in his vest watch pocket.   MOST watches were, for a long, long while, watches that required you to wind them manually every day.  The more you kept it wound up full, the better time it kept.

I had a stem-winding watch back as a kid. A wrist watch. Timex.  You too? If you’re as old or older than me, I bet you did.  It became habit to wind them first thing in the morning, or at night before you turned in for the evening.

The self-winders though, started being very common (and relatively inexpensive) in the mid-1960s. Then not long afterward, the digital watches came along.  First with the red LED displays that ate batteries.  Later with the LCD’s that were more power efficient.  And also in that same time-frame, we saw the introduction of the electronic quartz watch with its internal battery.  (Seiko being the first to bring the quartz watches to the mass market.  With a quartz watch, you wear if for months and months until the battery dies, then take to any numbskull with a pry-tool who can replace the battery.)   If you’re not wearing a digital watch, a smart watch, or a nice automatic, you’re most likely wearing a quartz.   By far the most common mechanical movement watch today.

But the automatics have a mystique and a beauty that speaks to me …. and a design elegance that I find appealing.

So I mourned the “passing” of my Lucien-Picard, and I carefully laid the watch aside and started wearing other watches.

There are few, if any, good watch repair shops around. It’s a lost art, and those “old guys” who knew what they were doing with these tiny, delicate, mechanisms are dying off, retiring and closing up shop, or dedicating themselves ONLY to the repair of VERY expensive watches. (Rolex, Patek-Phillippe, IWC, etc.)   If you can afford a $10k watch, you’re likely willing to spend a hundred or a few hundred on a repair if it needs it.    Not so much with a far less expensive mechanical watch.

So my Lucien-Picard languished in a drawer.

However ….. I am my father’s son.

He never met anything he couldn’t fix. Or, at least TRY to fix

If something’s not working, take it apart, pay attention to how it went together, see how it works, and figure out WHY it’s NOT working!  Use some common sense and reasoning.   Then fix the damn thing.

As simple as that.  As complicated as that.

I sat at the kitchen table, or out in his workshop so often as a boy, watching him work on things that were either ours, some family members, or maybe just a friend who had dropped off a radio that didn’t play, a fan that didn’t oscillate, or whatever.  I asked a lot of questions.  He always patiently answered them.  Those are some of my best memories of times with him, among a lifetime of precious memories.

I have often felt a small sense of shame when I pitch something away that doesn’t work.  Because I know my dad would have tackled the repair.

But that’s not the culture we live in anymore, is it?    Your doo-dad gizmo gee-haw whimmy-diddle doesn’t work?   The landfill is filled to overflowing with those, man.  Pitch it!  Go buy a new one.   Walmart’s got them on sale this week.

So that non-functioning Lucien-Picard continued to sit in my drawer.   But it gnawed at my insides.   I could feel it taunting me.

Damn it … if there’s a screw or a pin or some combination thereof rattling around loose inside, below or beside the loose rotor, I should be able to find it, right?   With enough light, a magnifier, and tiny tweezers I *should* theoretically be able to find it, extract it, re-position the rotor, and re-affix the pivot point.

So, I bought a tool kit with an inexpensive watch case-back removal wrench …. I LOVE specialty tools!! …. I disassembled the watch, took out the rotor, found the culprit, and repaired the watch.

It works.

This “watch repairman” is proud of himself.  The watch repairman’s father would be even prouder.  I can feel it in my bones, and I am smiling along with him.

Its 1:37 pm on a Saturday, dad.  I know that because my watch works.

I wish I could give you a call.

Love,
John

In my dream I am younger. 

Maybe I am about college age or just a tiny bit older. Early to mid-twenties.  I wasn’t aware of being “single” per se, but later in the dream it becomes apparent that I am not yet married.   There are many parts of this dream that have a hook in the real world.  Of course there are.  For example, I did just buy the book I mentioned to the girl in the store.  I am reading the James P. Carse book.  I did know a man who shared a can of peas with me once.  There are other hooks, and some of you who read this may recognize some of them.  Because here is what I believe about dreams. They are just stories or narratives (often fanciful, sometimes fantastic) made up by our brains to help us make sense of “the real world”.  Whatever THAT is.  

This is a long piece. Comes in at over 6100 words. No apologies.  

When I awoke this morning, even I was surprised at the depth and detail with which I remember this very vivid dream.  I say “even I”, because I’m used to having dreams that are long and detailed.  And I’m used to often remembering dreams vividly.  But this one was unusual in its power and detail, even for me.   I’ve obviously fleshed out the dialogue a lot in the retelling, but the events of the dream as told here really are just as I remembered them upon waking. 

I was in a bookstore browsing.   I noticed that the front of the store was not dedicated to books, but rather to snacks and drinks … with rows of chips and candy and beef jerky and such, with coolers lining the walls, with beverages of all kinds.   A typical convenience store setup.  But the BACK of the store, where I was, was entirely comprised of a traditional bookstore.

While browsing, I noticed a girl about my age, over in the SciFi section.   She has reddish brown hair, the remnants of childhood freckles, and wire-frame glasses.  She had a backpack slung over her shoulder with buttons and pins on it.  I don’t know what the buttons all said, but the overall vibe was “hippie chick”, and the vibe worked very well.

She was gorgeous, and I was smitten without even having heard her voice.

I see she’s picked up a copy of “Nine Princes in Amber” by Roger Zelazny.  My heart almost skipped a beat.  I loved this book, so I just knew I had to say something to her.

“Have you read that?”

She looked at me with sort of a bemused expression.  “Um… no, of course not.  Why would I be browsing it if I’d already read it?”

“I’m sorry … Of course.  It’s just that, I really, really loved that book and the whole series that it’s part of.”  I explained.  “In fact, I just bought a hard-copy edition that contains all FIVE books in the first ‘Chronicles of Amber’ series.   There’s a second series of five books about the ‘Courts of Chaos’ that appends on and extends the story.   The first series is terrific.  The second series is more of an acquired taste.”

“I see.” She’s standing facing me now. A little closer than you might expect a complete stranger to stand.  But the slight invasion of my space felt good and warm and welcome.

“So, what’s this first one about … if you can tell me without any spoilers.”

“Imagine a cross between the Highlander character Connor MacLeod and a Raymond Chandler detective.  In search of his own lost memories, and seeking for order and meaning in the world.  That’s the main character, Corwin.  The ‘Nine Princes’ are he and his brothers. They’ve got some sisters too that are a very interesting bunch.  It’s all a very Machiavellian tale about the land created and ruled by their father, and their struggles to inhabit and understand it.  And it’s about the nature of the struggle of Good vs. Evil itself.”

She’s quiet for a moment.  I can see that she has the most amazing eyes.  Then she said, “Well Ok.  Wow. Now I’m interested.”

I confess, I wasn’t sure if she meant she was interested in the book or in me.   I liked the idea that it might be the latter.   I hoped it was the latter.

She thanked me, headed for the register, book in hand.

Part of me want to follow her.    Instead, I just I walked out of the bookstore.

At this point there’s a jump in the dream …..

It seems I’ve gone to a disability conference in a big city.  Maybe Chicago.  Maybe Detroit, I’m not sure.   There is a very large “campus” type setting where the conference is occurring.  I have a very, very long walk from my hotel to the buildings where the conference sessions are located.  I’m volunteering, and have been assigned to a location in the very back of the campus complex.  There are slippery paths beside streams, steep hills to walk over, and paved-paths twisting through dense and dark wooded areas.  I was making this trek one afternoon, and was quite winded.  I ran into a group of friends from Middle Tennessee who were also at the conference, and I remarked about the distance and difficult walk.

One of my friends says, “Well, I’ve been told you can cut through the area in front of the auto plant, then cut through the auto plant itself, and shave some considerable distance off the total walk.  But none of us have been willing to try it.”

Yes, there’s a huge auto plant in the middle of the campus.  I have no idea why.  Hey, it’s a dream.  I tell my friends that I’ll probably give that route a try tomorrow.

 

Next day, I’m still at the conference, but I’m walking in a very dirty city downtown, with noisy elevated trains, a lot of diesel exhaust from trucks and buses, and too much grime.   It was cold and rainy.  There are lots of homeless people and guys with jackets over hoodies, standing around burning barrels warming their hands.   Everywhere around, there are sketchy looking businesses.  I have no idea what most of them are selling.

Then, I spy one business …  a very, very NARROW store front.  Not much wider than the front door and a little display window.  The sign on the outside says, “Stetson Hats.   Largest selection anywhere.”    So I walk in and the walls on both sides are COVERED with a variety of Stetson hats.  I can just about reach out and touch EACH wall at the same time.  Like I said, it is NARROW.  Most of the hats are traditional “cowboy” variety.   But there are a few that aren’t.

An old man with a nice sharp suit vest over a dress white shirt, and with one of those tailor’s tape measures draped around his neck steps from behind a curtain in the back of the store.  “Can I help you young man?”

Something about him reminds me of Mr. Olivander from the first Harry Potter novel.

“I’m looking for an Open Road Royal Deluxe, in Fawn, size 7-1/4”

He sort of sizes me up.  “You sure that’s the size you need?”

I say, “Pretty sure.”

He asks if he can take a measurement just to be sure.

“Absolutely, go ahead”.

He steps in close, apologizes for the intrusion, and wraps the tape around my head.   “Hmmmm. Yes. Between 7-1/8, and 7-1/4.  We’ll try 7-1/4 and see how that works.”

“Ok”

“You know, I sell a lot more of those in Silverbelly than Fawn.”

“I want Fawn”

“Some guys like them Chocolate.”

“I want Fawn”

“Well then, Fawn it is. Let me see if we can fix you up.”

He rolls over a ladder with wheels on the bottom, and whose top is attached to a rail.   For the first time, I look up and I am absolutely astounded to see that the store just goes up and up and up, with literally THOUSANDS of hats on both walls.  I can’t see to the topmost part of the store.

The old gentleman starts to climb.   He climbs and climbs, for what seems a long while.  He’s up there maybe forty or fifty feet in the air, when he calls down to me ….

“I’ve got a 7/14 in Silverbelly!!  And I‘ve got one in Caribou!   Shall I bring those down?”

I reply, “No.  I want Fawn.”

He says, “Ok.”   Then a second later,  “Hey,  I’ve got something here that might work.”

He comes down with a hat box.   It’s an Open Road XXXXXX in 7- 1/4.  And it’s in Fawn.

He says, “I don’t have the Royal Deluxe. Only the 6X in Fawn.  That is, in your size.”

I try it on and look in the mirror.    It’s a perfect fit, and looks damn good.  But it’s too stiff. The 6X is a dress hat, and stiffer than the casual Royal Deluxe.

“It’s too stiff” I say.

“I was afraid you’d say that.   Can you come back tomorrow?  I can have you one by tomorrow.”

“Sure.  I’ll come back then.” I give him my name and phone number.  ”Call me if there’s a problem getting it.”

“There won’t be” he assures me.

I walk out and hear the little bell over the door ring.

(Aside:  It may seem weird that this episode is in the dream, because it doesn’t figure in the story-line again at all. But on the other hand, I’ve been thinking about buying a new hat.   And, that’s sort of how dreams work, right?  Random bits not always easily strung together, with some weird connection to the waking hours. It’s also another reason why I wondered if this was actually a series of shorter dreams.)

 

Across the street and under the elevated commuter train tracks I walk down through a swale and up the other side to a line of men in dirty work uniforms.  They’re waiting to clock in at the auto plant.   There’s a giant “Chevrolet” logo over the plant entrance.

When I get to the front of the line, I take a blank time-card from the rack, write my name across the top, and punch it into the time clock where it gets a stamp with the current time, and then I put it back in an empty slot.

Inside the auto plant, I start walking down cramped aisles between machines that are running and very noisy.  Some of them have molten metal flowing in them, and there are occasional sparks flying out into the aisles as I walk through.  Sometimes the sparks land on me, then skitter down on to the floor before self-extinguishing as they cool.   I’m thinking … good thing I’m not wearing a new hat!

With one twist and turn of the aisles after another, soon I’m totally lost.  I’m just trying to make my way towards the back of the plant by dead reckoning based on where I *think* I came in.

I realized I needed to pee.  I mean, I really REALLY needed to pee.

I hollered out to a guy wearing a hard-hat who was running a nearby machine.  “Where’s the bathroom???”

He points up some stairs to a mezzanine and I see the door labeled “MEN” just down from another one labeled “WOMEN”.

The guy with the hard hat says, “Just make sure you come back OUT of the same door you went IN”

“Yep!”, I chuckled because I thought he was making some joke I did not completely understand.

I went up the steps, and right by the door I see a little black dispenser with a knob on top and a slot on the bottom.  It’s labeled, “Salt Tablets”.

So I put my hand under the slot, and give the knob a twist.   Just one, tiny twist.   About forty salt tablets come tumbling out and fill my hand to overflowing.

Just then, a woman in a hard hat comes out of the Women’s room and sees me.  “HEY!!! Don’t waste those!!!   We have to take one every hour while we’re on the job!  You use them all up, we all get sent home!”

“I’m sorry.  I just wanted one.  I don’t know why they all came out.”

So I took one, bent over the water fountain to get a swallow, and put the other bunch in my pocket as the woman walked away shaking her head.

I went in the door marked MEN, and did my business.  As I was washing my hands, I noticed that just as there was a door on one end of the room that I had entered by, there was a door on the other end as well.    The man’s words came back to me…. “Just make sure you come back OUT of the same door you went IN”

I didn’t hesitate at all.   I went out the OTHER door.

 

Now, rather than being on the plant floor, I was in a much nicer section of the facility with offices, carpeted floors, a large room of cubicles, etc.

As I walked down a hallway, I saw a room labeled “Break Room”.

I went in and got myself a soft-drink out of a vending machine.    I sat down at a table.  The only other person in the room was a very large man in a shirt and tie, seated at an adjacent table.   He turned to look at me.

“Hello son, I don’t think we’ve met, have we?”

“No sir.”

This guy was very reminiscent of the Sydney Greenstreet character in Casablanca, but without the Fez and white suit.

“Have you had any lunch?”

“No sir, I haven’t” I replied.

“Then join me.”  He motioned me to come over to his table.

“Do you like peas?” he asked.

I thought that was an odd question, but I answered, “Sure.  I like most all vegetables.”

He threw back his head and laughed a big hearty laugh.  “Good!  Good!!!  Good for you!”

He got up and walked over to the counter where there was a row of microwave ovens lined up. I see that one of them has just finished its cycle and the bell was indicating that it was done.   He reached in and pulled out a bowl in which he had heated up a can of peas.   He got two Styrofoam bowls and emptied half the peas into each one.  He put a dollop of butter on top of each mound of peas and grabbed a couple of plastic forks and brought them over to our table.

“Eat up” he said.   So I did.

“Tell me, son, which department do you work in?”

I hesitated a second, thinking for the first time about the fact that I was an interloper here.  I didn’t work at the auto plant, and had no real business being there.   I decided to come clean.

“Well, sir … I don’t work here at all.  I was just trying to find a short-cut through the plant to get to the conference center on the other side.  I’m here for a disability conference, and I’m supposed to be working as a volunteer back there in a little while.”

He looked at me. “I see.  You know, that was a pretty bold move, just deciding to walk through a plant like this.  Most people would be too scared to try a stunt like that.  Kind of dangerous too.”

I said, “Yeah, probably so.  But I’ve been around industrial plants my whole life.  They don’t scare me. I’m an engineer. I work with machines like these all the time.   I’ve been in plants since I was a little boy, going with my daddy to the plant where he worked.”

The gentleman looked at me again, but seemed a bit more now as if he were sizing me up.  “Tell me about your daddy and that plant you went to as a little boy.”

I told him about my hometown of Mexico, and the A.P.Green refractories plant.   At the mention of A.P. Green, he threw back is head and roared with laughter again.   “No kidding!!!   I KNEW old Allen Green!  He was a good man.  So your father worked for him?”

“For the company, yes. His whole working life.  Dad always said that Mr. Green was the kind of man who really cared a lot about his employees, and about trying to make the company into the best possible place to work that it could be.”

Then, he said “That’s a great way to run a business, son.  I try to do that here too.  I’m the President of this car company.  Your business is only as good as your unhappiest employee.  Remember that when you’re in a position of leadership.”

“Thanks.  I will.”

“So tell me about your dad.  And about his taking you into the plant.”

I told him that story, and he asked a lot of questions.

Then completely out of the blue, he changed the subject.  “Tell me about something that you’ve been doing or thinking about lately that just lights you up inside?”

I loved this question.  I told him so.

“Well, sir, I’ve been reading this book by James P. Carse called ‘The Religious Case Against Belief’.  I know that title sounds odd, but Carse makes an interesting case that “beliefs” can all too easily get in the way of the practice of true religion. “Beliefs” can get in the way of embracing all that is important and wondrous, and all that causes us to seek for answers to big questions. He says that “beliefs” can easily turn into dogma, and we erroneously are tempted to use that dogma to create artificial boundaries between ourselves and all that we may perceive as “the other” … because THEIR beliefs are different than OURS.   A more important thing to consider is exactly WHAT is it that our professed beliefs motivate us to do?   How do we choose to BE in the world, as a result of what we profess to believe?  A belief system is NOT a religion. And a religion is far merely a set of beliefs.”

“Fascinating.  Go on.”

“Well, one of the most interesting ideas so far to me is that he talks about the fact that there are three different ways of being ignorant.”

He chuckled at that. “I’d say I’ve seen a lot more ways than that just in this plant alone!   Sorry … go on.”

I continued …

“There is what he calls ‘Ordinary ignorance’.  That stuff which can be known, but we just don’t know it yet.    I don’t know your phone number.  I don’t know what I’m going to eat for lunch tomorrow.  I don’t know how many cars your plant makes each week.  I don’t know what color underwear you’re wearing.  I don’t know who will win the Super-Bowl.

Then there is ‘Willful Ignorance’.  That’s what you often see in politics these days, or in religious conflicts. Those who hold to a set of “beliefs” find their identity in falsely erected boundaries and by fostering aggression between those who believe as they do, and the other. This is why belief systems choose, often with disastrous consequences, to remain locked in bloody conflict. When by engaging in dialogue, they could likely recognize the great deal they have in common.  They *could* choose to dispel that ignorance with knowledge … but don’t.”

“That is really good stuff, son.  Go on. What’s the third way of being ignorant?”

“The third ignorance is what he calls ‘Higher Ignorance’.  And it stands in contrast to the other two.  It’s the realization that there are things that are simply unknowable, and a recognition that the path to this ‘Higher Ignorance’ leads to endless ways to enrich and enhance the way we choose to be in the world.  The path to Higher Ignorance is the path that is walked by most of the mystics or the prophets that many choose to follow.  It’s the path chosen by great thinkers such as Aristotle, Plato, Newton, Galileo, and others.  Wasn’t it was Socrates that said “The only thing I know for certain is that I know nothing?”

“Son, you don’t talk like any other engineer I’ve ever met.”

“I’ll take that as high praise, sir.”

He laughed again.  He had a great laugh.  Then he asked, “What are you doing late tomorrow afternoon?”  I said that I had to be at the conference early but by late afternoon I could be free.

“I’m hosting a big picnic tomorrow for the plant after first shift, and I would love it if you could come.  There’s somebody I want you to meet.”

With that, I finished my peas, thanked him, and left.

 

Next day, after my shift a the conference, I showed up at the picnic.  Immediately I saw that I was under-dressed.   I was dressed in picnic clothes.  I was wearing a nice pair of shorts and a clean Hawaiian shirt.   But all the men I could see around had on old-timey suits, like from the 1910’s.  And the women all had on long dresses with long sleeves.  Many had on floppy hats.  Some of them were holding parasols.  Given my attire, and my age difference, I didn’t really feel like I fit in.

Then I did notice that there were some other folks about my age playing croquet nearby …  But also dressed up fancier than you would expect for a peaceful afternoon in the park.

I spied the heavy gentleman I had spoken to the day before, and he beckoned me come over to where he had a large blanket spread out on the ground.  There were a few people seated with him.  For some reason, they had chosen to spread their blanket in a place where there were a lot of tall weeds around, instead of on one of the more closely cropped and manicured bits of lawn where most of the other attendees had their own blankets.

He said, “I’d like you to meet my wife.  Honey, this is the young man I spoke to you about.”

She was beautiful. Reddish brown hair, and the most amazing eyes.  “A pleasure” she said, as she reached out her hand and I took it and introduced myself.   “You made quite an impression on him yesterday” she offered, in sort of a quiet aside to me.

Then he asked, “Would you like something to drink?  Let me go get you something.”

I said, “That’s alright, don’t get up.  I can go get it for myself.  Can I bring any of you anything?”   He indicated that they were fine.

I walked over towards the table where the food and drink were spread out and started to pour myself a glass of freshly-squeezed iced lemonade from a container with a spigot.

At the end of the table, fixing herself a plate with some light finger-foods was a girl in a white sun dress.  She had reddish brown hair.  It took me just the merest fraction to realize it was the girl from bookstore!!  She hadn’t seen me yet.

I walked up closer to where she was and asked, “So how do you like that book?”

She turned and looked at me with those eyes, and it took just a moment for her to place me in context.

“Oh hi!  It’s you.  What are you doing here?”

“Somebody I met yesterday invited me.    So, how’s the book coming?”

“I haven’t started it yet.  I’ve got a lot of unread books.  But I’ve put it at the top of my ‘Next to read’ pile.

“Cool.  I think you’ll like it.  I actually don’t read much fiction these days, but that’s one that I liked a lot a when I read it a long time ago.”

“Not much fiction, eh?   So what DO you read?”

“Oh, all kinds of stuff.  I read business and marketing books, but I read them from a different perspective than that for which they were originally written.  And I read essays on all different aspects of what it means to …. “  I laughed to myself about how incredibly nerdy and boring that sounded.   “… oh you know… just all kinds of stuff. Whatever catches my eye.”

“Hmmm.   Ok.”   She laughed little.  It wasn’t a big laugh. Barely even a laugh, really.  But at the sound, my breath caught in my throat, and I felt warm all over. Like stepping into a warm shower after coming in from being drenched in a cold rain.   I wanted to get to know her better.  In some way, I really felt like had to have this woman in my life.

I said, “Hey…. There’s a trail over there. Would you want to take a walk around the lake with me or something?  We can just talk.  I’d like to hear YOUR story.”

She looked at me. “You know what?  That sounds terrific.   But my daddy said he had somebody he wanted me to meet.  If I don’t show up, he’ll probably blow a gasket. Geez.  It’s probably going to be another one of his insufferable engineers.  Listen, wait here and I’ll go see if I can just meet this guy and make a hasty exit.”

It hit me.  The realization. The sudden force of it nearly knocked me down.  I was reeling, my mind going like a jet-ski on a glass lake at dusk. “Perchance, is your daddy the president of the car company?”

“Yes….” She had a quizzical look.

“Well, I’m pretty sure I’m the one he wants you to meet.   He’s the one who invited me to the picnic.”

She laughed out loud.

“Did you meet him over lunch at the plant yesterday?”

“Peas”, I said.

She was shaking with laughter.  “Him and his damn canned veggies.   Do you work there??? When he said he’d met a guy at the plant yesterday, I just assumed ….  Well, let’s say that he’s tried to introduce me to guys before, but it’s always been pretty much a flaming disaster.”

“Well, first, no… I don’t work there.   I’m in town for a disability conference.  I was just taking a short-cut through the plant and …..   Well, I got sidetracked into a break room and there he was.  I started telling him about this book I was reading about the nature of  …..”

She put her hand up with her fingers to my lips and said “Shut up.  Just shut up.  You can tell me all about it later.   For now, let’s go.”

“What about your dad?”

“Well, he wanted me to meet you.  Now I’ve met you.  And now I want to go for a drive with you and show you something.”

“I don’t have a car here.”

“I’ve got mine.  Come on.”   Then she took my by the hand and led me to the parking lot.

We got in an old 1950’s era Chevy pickup truck, with battered and beaten paint job and more than one deep dent on the fenders.  The upholstery on the seats was showing a lot of stuffing through the rips, tears and worn spots.  But when she turned the key, it turned over and began to hum like a fine Swiss watch.

“We need to make one stop first, then on to ….. well … .on to what I want you to see.”   She smiled that smile.

As she pulled out of the parking lot and then across and off of the campus, we were in an old suburban neighborhood, with weathered old houses built into the hill sides. There were no front yards.  Basically, all the houses just had steps that came down off the front porch and right to curbside.   Soon she pulled up in front of what appeared to be an old drugstore.

“Come inside with me.”

Inside I saw that the floor was wide board wooden floors, worn down smooth from years of the footsteps of neighborhood shoppers getting their salves and ointments and tonics and pills, kids getting their penny candy, old people buying fix-o-dent, teenage boys buying Bay Rum and Club Man and their first razor, and teenage girls buying bottles of Evening in Paris.  As we walked up to the counter I could see that there was indeed shelf after shelf of old apothecary jars back there.    An old man back there approached the counter with a big smile, but before he could speak she asked, “Is it ready?”

“Yes indeed.  Just as I said it would be.”, he reached into a cabinet and handed her a large purple candle.  “Be careful with that. Those ingredients aren’t easy to come by.”    Then the old man looked at me.  He almost looked like he was going to say something, but decided against it.

She asked, “Can I see the book?”

He reached under the counter and produced a large loose-leaf notebook, and opened it up to the last page or two.    She took hard look at it, then gave out a little squeal and gave him a great big smile.  “This is fantastic!”  Then she leaned across the counter and gave him a little peck on the cheek.  She said, ”I’m going upstairs to see them for a second.”  Then to me, “I’ll be right back.  Just wait here.”

She opened a side door I hadn’t noticed and headed up the stairs that were there behind it.  I think I saw just a glimpse of a couple of cats on the steps.

I looked at the notebook pages.   They were lined off in little square grids, and in each grid there was a cat’s paw-print.   But not just ANY paw print.  These had fancy swirls and curved lines of all sorts made by the cat’s claws.  I’d call it almost a mystical type of cat claw calligraphy.  Judging by the variation in sizes, the paw prints were made by a fairly large number of different cats.

“Her cats” The old man said, offering scant explanation.

I gave him a puzzled look.

“Her daddy won’t let her keep them at the house.  Says he’s allergic.  Me, I think he’s afraid of them.”

“What are all these lines around the paw prints?”

“Only she knows.  She’s teaching them to ‘talk’, after a fashion.   She can read these prints just like you or I would read a book.   Her daddy thinks she’s crazy.”   He closed the book and put it under the counter again.

Then, “Hell. She ain’t crazy.  She’s the sanest person I know.”  He looked at me.  “How well do you know her?”

“We’re old friends.”  I lied.

He looked at me, and I knew that he could tell I was lying.  “Right.”

Then he went on, “Listen fella. I don’t know you. I don’t know what you’re about.  But you treat her like the extra special young lady that she is, ok?  If you don’t, I’ll hear about it. ”   It wasn’t exactly a threat, but it wasn’t exactly kind advice from a wise old man either.

“Yes sir.  For what it’s worth, I’m quite taken with her.”

“Yeah, I know …” Something in the way he said it was unusual.  The way it sort of trailed off at the end.  Not like a declarative statement, but more like the resigned uttering of a universal truth.  An obvious truth that need not be spoken.

I could hear her coming back down the stairs.

The old man looked just a little desperate; like he had more he wanted to say to me.  Then leaning across the counter a bit, and whispering quietly just to me, “That candle’s powerful stuff. You’re in no danger. But keep your wits about you!”

I had no idea what he was talking about.

She shut the door to the upstairs behind her, then went behind the counter gave him a little hug and another peck on the cheek and a very warm smile and said, “Thanks”.

Then she led me back out to the truck.

I said ”He seems nice.”

“Yes. Very nice.”

“I saw the all the paw prints in the book.  I don’t understand it all, but I think it’s very, very cool what you’re doing.”

She looked at me and I could feel the happiness well up in her that was borne in her realization that I could be trusted with this part of her life.  “Please don’t say anything about it to anyone …. especially daddy.  I love them so much. My cats I mean. I just love them so much.”

“I won’t.   I’ll never mention it.”

“Daddy thinks I’m crazy.    I’m not crazy.”

“I know.”

We drove for what must have been an hour or more, and as the city faded behind us, the little road we were on became tree-lined.  There was no other traffic.    I had slid close to her on the truck’s bench seat.  Not so close as to interfere with her driving, but close enough that I could smell her, and when I looked at her in profile, I could see how clear and wet and alive her eyes were.

It was just past dusk when she slowed and turned the truck off of the blacktop road and onto what was barely a path through the trees that lined the road.  Had you not known it was there, you would likely have driven right past, without realizing it was a place you could drive a vehicle.  The truck’s headlights were the only light as the trees formed a solid canopy over the little path.   Less than 50 yards through the trees, and the road took a sudden upward turn over a berm and tree line fell away to reveal an astonishing sight.

On top of the berm what I saw out in front of me was unlike anything I’d ever seen.   Stretching out in a gentle curve away from us under the light of a full moon there was a solid black beach, and a wide cove opening out onto an ocean glistening in the moonlight.  No clouds.

I think I gasped, and she laughed again.   “Isn’t it beautiful?” she asked.

We got out of the truck.

“I’ve never seen a black beach” I said.

“This is the only one just like it in the world.  Obsidian and basalt and black granite and onyx.  Smashed into powder-fine sand by untold millennia of waves crashing down upon it.”

“But ….”  I started.

“Shhhhhhhh” She put those fingers back up to my lips.    “Daddy owns this beach. We’re the only ones here. Hardly anybody even knows about it.”

She took me by the hand and led me down onto the sand.  I only let go of her hand once as we walked along, to pick up a rock and throw it into the ocean.  We talked and talked and talked and I have no idea about what. But I do remember the way it made me feel.   It made me feel good.

Before long we got out onto the point at one of the ends of the cove, and the black sand was particularly fine under our feet.    “Let’s sit here and just soak it all in, ok?”

I nodded.

She produced the purple candle out of a shoulder bag I had not noticed she was carrying.   She found a place in the black sand somewhat sheltered from the small breezes blowing, and lit the candle.   Soon a scent that was unlike anything I’d ever smelled began to fill the night.   It wasn’t exactly floral, not exactly herbal, and not exactly woody.  But it was all of those and more.  My heart was beating so hard that I was surprised she couldn’t hear it.    We sat for a long time in silence, just breathing in the night. The ocean. The candle. … Each other.

I lost track of time.

All I could think about was how much I wanted to kiss her.

But I had the feeling like maybe I shouldn’t.  Not yet.

She was the first to break the silence.  “Do the stars fill you up as much as they do me?”

“Yeah.  Not *just* the stars though.   All of it.  The stars. The moonlight.  The ocean.  The black sand. The tiny flame and smell from that beguiling candle.”  I paused. “You.”

She laid back on the sand, and the contrast between her white sun dress and her hair and the black sand was magical.  I wanted to lay my head on her chest and stare up at the stars for the rest of my life.

She said, “Come lay beside me and tell me what it was that made daddy think I should meet you.”

I lay down and pulled in close, so our faces were just inches apart.

“There’s this book I’m reading about the nature of …”

“Shhhhhhhhhh.” Once again her fingers on my lips.   Only this time, when she took her fingers away, she pulled me down so that those few scant inches between us melted away.

That’s when I woke up.

 

“Those old dreams, they’re only in your head” – Bob Dylan 

love,
John

As my last post, “the factory worker” ended, I was back on the pavements looking for work.  If you haven’t read that piece, you really should go back and do that now before you read this one.   It was late Spring 1978, I was living in downtown Columbia, Missouri.   A couple months shy of my 21^st birthday.  Confused and feeling very alone.   I’ll just leave it there.

So I headed out early that morning, once again for Ernie’s breakfast counter with Tribune in hand and in search of direction and purpose.   Or at least a paycheck.

At the counter I was busy perusing the classifieds, Help Wanted, and with my trusty red pen I circled a few offerings.    A somewhat heavy older guy sat next to me sipping his coffee.   The waitress sat down his breakfast.

“Can you pass the salt and pepper?”

“Sure”

As I went back to the paper he asked, “Looking for a job?”

I wasn’t (at least not back then) in the habit of talking to strangers in diners, but I said yes, that was indeed what I was doing.

“What line of work are you in, young man?”

He was playing with me.  Any fool could see I was still more a kid than a “working man”.

“Honestly, I’m just seeing what ads catch my eye.”

“Hmph.  Seems like you oughta have a better plan than that.   You got any experience at anything?”

I told him I was a student at Mizzou, but was planning on taking some time off from school.

“Nothing wrong with that.  What are you studying?”  He continued to eat his breakfast, and just then mine arrived as well.

“I’m an Electrical Engineering major”, I said as I started to cut up my eggs.

He stopped looked at me, sizing me up.    “No kidding?  You any good at it?   By the way, my name’s Wayne.”   He offered me his hand.

I reached out and shook it.  “John”.

He pressed the question again.  “So really, do you know anything about electronics?   No offense but I’m guessing a lot of those kids over in that engineering school of yours aren’t worth a plug nickel when it comes to actually knowing anything useful.“  Then he laughed.

Now I was curious where he was going with this.  So I said, “Yeah, I think I know a thing or two.”

He asked if I like to “Mess around with electronics?” , and added, “You know …. as a hobby?”

I said, “Yeah.  I’ve always played around building stuff and doing electronics experiments.  My dad brought home an old tube-style photo-electric eye from the factory where he works, and I played around a lot with that.  You know, having it turn on lights and turn off things.   A few years ago I built my own stereo amp. It was from a kit, but I did some custom modifications to the preamp.”

He seemed interested.

I said, “When I was a Boy Scout I built an electric motor out of a 2×4, some spike nails and a spool of copper wire.”   That seemed to REALLY impress him.

He’d stopped eating.  “So you know how to solder?”

Now it was my turn to laugh.  “Yes, I can solder.”     I’d been soldering since I was in third grade, helping my dad with some of his kitchen-table repair projects.   One of my favorite memories of my dad was me sitting on his lap as a little kid, he taught me a visual trick to remember Ohm’s law. … “E over I R” , And I remember him teaching me the mnemonic device to remember the resistor color band values before I went off to junior High.  It’s how you figure out a resistor’s value.   “Bad Boys Race Our Young Girls, But Violet Generally Wins”.     (Black, Brown, Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Violet, Gray, White).

I was born to be a geek.

So, Wayne asked another question, “You know anything about TV’s?”

“Yes … a bit.”

Wayne was smiling.  “Well, I own a TV shop around the corner, and I’ve been looking for someone to help me in the shop with repairs, and help out on Service Calls.  You interested?  You look like you’re strong enough to help carry big TV’s”

“Yes sir, I’m interested.”

It was the easiest I’ve ever gone from introduction to job offer, before or since.

We finished our breakfast, and he paid for mine.   I thanked him.  Then I walked with him the two blocks to his shop.

On the way, he asked me to tell him about that “2×4 electric motor.”

“I’ve been told that I was the only kid in Boy Scouts  in my hometown to get both “Electricity” and “Electronics” merit badges.    I made the motor for the Electricity badge. The 2×4 was just the base. I bent nails and wrapped them with wire to be the rotor and windings.  Two more nails provided the supports that it all rotated on.   For the Electronics bade, I made a thing called “The impossible circuit”.   If you trace out the wiring it seems like there is no way it should work.  The “secret” that made it seem impossible was diodes hidden inside the insulation on  the wires.”

He laughed and said, “Well, Boy Scout, that sounds pretty neat.”   By the time we got to the shop, he’d told me the hourly rate he was willing to pay, and I took the job.

From then on, I think all ever called me was “Boy Scout”.

“Hey Boy Scout, take these old TV’s out to the dumpster and throw them away.”   Or “Come on Boy Scout, we have a service call to go on.”

Wayne’s shop was just a tiny little store-front with a counter and cash drawer, and shelves on either side with TV’s.  Some were for sale, some were waiting on someone to come pick them up and pay for the repair.  There were some few new ones, but mostly he sold used TV’s out of the storefront.   There was an old “His Master’s Voice” RCA sign, yellowed with age, hanging behind the counter.

In the back though, that was where the magic happened … if your idea of magic is taking old non-functioning TV’s and making them work like new again.  There was a work bench with three work-stations.  Each station was outfitted with tools and meters and such.  And yes, each one had a soldering station.  There was a big old console “tube tester” for vacuum tubes against one wall, and shelves with boxes of new RCA brand tubes.  Most TV’s that came into the shop for repair in those days still had vacuum tubes.

The opposite wall had filing cabinets FULL of “Sam’s Photofact” schematics of TV’s.  “Howard W. Sam’s” was a company that published aftermarket schematics and tech manuals on a variety of TV models and other electronics.

There was a clunky old oscilloscope on a cart that could be wheeled from one workstation to the next.   And there were dozens …. Dozens .. of old TV’s in various states of disrepair.  Each one had a tag on it with the name and phone number of the owner, and maybe a description of the problem.

A few times a day on a typical day, Wayne would call out … “Hey Boy Scout, run over to Phillips (the local electronics and electrical supply store), and bring me back three 6J6’s.”  6J6 was a common vacuum tube.  Or “Hey Boy Scout, go see if Philips has a Sams #1775 schematic.”    And whatever the chore, it was always.  “Have them put it on my tab.”

Phillips was only a couple of blocks away, so I just walked over there and back.  Behind the counter at Phillips, I always had the sense they were chuckling about “big Wayne” having found this snot-nosed kid to run his errands.

My job besides being a gopher, was to try to “fix TV’s”.     This wasn’t as big a challenge as you might think.   In those days TV’s were pretty simple animals.   There was the tuner section (where you manually changed channels) there were the Horizontal control/synch circuits and the separate Vertical control/synch circuits.  There was the high-voltage section and the flyback transformer, and the picture tube and electron gun control circuits.  There was the power supply.    Most brands of TV’s didn’t have too much difference in the basic design, though the actual circuits were all a little different.

Sort of contrary to what you might think, the TV’s that simply “did not work”….. that is, the ones where the customer would say “It just doesn’t come on at all!” … those were usually the simplest to fix.  Often a blown fuse or maybe a bad diode in the power rectifier, or a burnt out circuit breaker.

The more maddening ones were the newer “solid state” TV’s that didn’t utilize vacuum tubes at all.  Maddening because they were made of modular circuit boards that you unplugged, replaced, and voila … fixed.    I wanted to (and was ABLE to) fix many of those modules, but Wayne wasn’t interested in that.  He just wanted me to swap out the circuit boards, if it worked with the new boards, then call it “fixed”, charge the customer the price of the new board and move on to the next TV.    Assembly-line high-volume TV repair.   He made more money that way, and it was off the bench quicker.

Now let me say this about Wayne.  I learned really quickly that he was more interested in making a buck than he was in just being helpful to folks.    There were some things he did that were probably pretty shrewd, and evidence of a man who knew a thing or two about marketing and business and how to make a buck.     There were some things he did that fell in a real gray area, and I wasn’t sure if he was being smart, or a crook.   And then,  there were other things he did that were simply dishonest.

I’ll break some of them down for you so you can see what I mean.

The Shrewd (if more than a bit smarmy and creepy). 

One day just a week or so before the new school year began at the local colleges, Wayne gave me a stack of flyers and asked me to go over to Stephens College campus and put one up on every bulletin board I could find, including in the dormitories.  Stephen’s was a girl’s college and had a reputation for attracting rich young girls who were interested in the arts.   He also gave me instructions to go and put the same flyers on the bulletin boards in the GIRL’S dorms and any Sorority Houses that I wanted to venture into on the Mizzou campus.   Just the GIRL’S dorms, he said, not the guys.   The flyers were for Wayne’s shop and offered “FREE Rabbit Ears! with any TV sold.”  And “Free set-up in your dorm!”

Now listen up, boys and girls … “Rabbit Ears” were the antennas that sat on top of old TV’s and help you pull in better reception for the stations in range.  No cable in those days.  You HAD to have an antenna.   You could buy a new set of rabbit ears at Phillips for about $10, which is exactly we did, then Wayne would bundle them with a new portable TV, and mark the price of the TV’s in his shop up by $30 each.

Wayne, who was old enough to be dad or grandpa to any of those young women, and who was married to boot, was far more interested in having the “cute little co-eds” wander into the shop so he could flirt with them (he said as much), and never failed to make lewd comments about them to this “Boy Scout” after they left.   And, he got to sell them a TV.  Free Rabbit Ears!!!.   Yeah, It was creepy.

But I did get the benefit of being the “set up guy” for the new TV’s.    I must have been in over three dozen girl’s dorm rooms that Fall, adjusting their rabbit ears.  (No, that is NOT a euphemism for anything else.)

The Borderline

I can’t tell you how many times during the short time I worked there that there would be a repair that was going to be a little on the expensive side.     For example, maybe the set needed a new picture tube.  This is easily the most expensive thing to replace.  Expensive because the picture tubes themselves aren’t cheap, and because the labor is rather involved.    I got where I could swap out a picture tube, including doing the convergence, keystone adjustment, gun setup and alignment etc., within a couple hours.

By the time Wayne would figure out what his markup was going to be on the labor and parts, he would often call the customer and try to convince them to come in and buy a new set, rather than putting a “new engine in an old jalopy”.   He’d point out that it wasn’t good sense to spend around $200 to fix a set (which would still have old parts in it) when they could buy a brand new one for $250.    He was successful at that tactic a lot … and he had a good profit margin on the new sets.   But then he’d offer to “dispose” of the old set for them.   They almost always took him up on that.

We’d take it to the back of the shop and let it sit.   Then, a couple weeks later after he was satisfied he’d seen the last of them, we’d go ahead and fix the old TV.  He’d have maybe a max of $60 his cost in parts and two hours in the repair, and he’d put it out with his “Used DEALS!” and put a price tag of $135 on it.   If someone was interested, he’d mark it down by $15, making them think they’d gotten a steal, and he would still double his money.

Just business right?   I don’t know.   Especially in light of the following:

The Scoundrel

As I said before, often the simpler repairs are the ones that “seem” like they’re going to be a bigger deal.  This worked to Wayne’s advantage, because he could make a simple repair seem like a bigger deal.

One day, near the end of my short tenure there, I put a TV up on the bench.  Opened up the back of it, and I could smell that there had been something burned.   I found right away that a circuit breaker had failed.  I took the old one out, got a new one out of the parts cabinet and soldered it in.   Fifteen minutes tops.  Our cost on the circuit breaker back then was under a buck.    I fired up the set and adjusted the picture, and announced to Wayne it was fixed.   He came over and asked what the problem was, and I told him.

“Hmm.   I think it also needs a power output tube, Boy Scout.“

Obviously it didn’t, as the set was working just fine.    I just looked at him.   He reached over and unplugged the set.  Then he reached into the back of it and pulled out the power tube.   He smashed it on the side of the trashcan by my work station.

“See?   It needs a new power tube.   Run down to Phillips, Boy Scout and get a new one.”    Our cost on the power tube was about $8, and Wayne marked them up to $28.   He marked those 80 cent Circuit Breakers up to $12.

As I walked down there to Phillips, I thought about what had just happened.

What I knew, but what Wayne either had forgotten (or more likely just did not care) was that the TV belonged to an older woman at whose home we had picked up the set a few days before.   She lived in a somewhat poorer part of town, and likely on a fixed income.

Later, when I called to tell her we had “fixed” her TV and could deliver it any time that was convenient for her, she said, “Oh fantastic.  What was wrong with it?”

I looked at the ticket that Wayne had prepared.   Under the description it just said, “Repaired problems in power circuit.  Installed new power tube”.    I swallowed hard and told her what it said, and gave her the amount.

“Well, shoot.  Anyway, I’m glad you boys could fix it.  When can you bring it back?”

I told her I could have it over there later that day.  She asked if I could wait until Friday, as she would have gotten her Social Security check by then.

I was sick to my stomach.  Because, you know, I’m a Boy Scout.

I’d like to say that was the only time I saw Wayne do something like that.

But it wasn’t.

In the end, it was precisely those sorts of things that had me give him my notice.   I didn’t tell him that.  I just told him I had decided to go back to work at the Golf Course.      But I think he knew that those things bothered me a lot.

He said he didn’t need any notice.  He went into his office and cut me a check for hours worked, and handed it to me.

“You’re a good person Boy Scout.  Good luck. I hope you go back to school.”

As I walked out the front door, I glanced back and thanked him.  That was the last time I ever saw him.

I did go back to work on the Golf Course.  Worked for the pro, Al Chandler at the Columbia Country Club.  When the golf season was over, I went to another TV shop in town, an older long-established shop, and ended up getting a much better job.

This shop was located in the first “shopping center” in town, the Parkade Plaza.   It was owned by a man who was by then bored with the business and trying to make it as an oil man in Texas.   He was only in the shop once a month or so.   The shop was run by Wendell, who did double duty as a tech and doing front-of-store sales and in general just running things.   While Wendell was often interested in knocking off early sometimes and stopping to get a beer, and though he often invited me out on the town after work, he was honest as honest could be.  He had a heck of a work ethic too.  The phrase “Work Hard, Play Hard” could have been written about him.

I worked there off and on for the next several years, even after going back to engineering school. Wendell thought my stories of working for Wayne were a hoot.   He said he didn’t really know him, but he knew of his shop, and always figured him for a crook.

I never saw Wendell knowingly treat any customer badly.  Not once.

I saw him blow up at a salesman who worked in the front of the store, and then fire him for insubordination.   I was pretty sure I was going to see a fist-fight, but the salesman just cursed and spat and stormed out.

Overall we had a good crew there.   Eventually Wendell bought the shop and moved it out of the mall.   I got put in charge of out-call service and ended up going in and out of people’s homes to fix their televisions.    Larry, who just walked in off the street one day and asked for a job, claimed to be a full-blooded Choctaw Indian from Oklahoma (and I have no reason to doubt him) was hired on not long after we moved, and became my “helper”.   I probably never heard Larry string more than four words together at a time, but he was a damn good tech.  There was nothing electronic that he could not fix.  If I got stuck on something, Larry would come over from his workbench and take a look, grab a meter, take a measurement and point to the bad part.  It was a long time ago, but I don’t remember seeing any electronics failures that Larry couldn’t troubleshoot.

I worked with Larry for about six months before I realized that he had a twin brother and a cousin that lived with him.  He just didn’t offer up much information.   Then, one day that sort of changed.

I also found out more or less by accident that together the three of them … Larry, his brother, and their cousin … were responsible for perhaps half or more of the marijuana sold in mid-Missouri at the time.  Other stuff too.  Pills and such.

Larry would come in haggard on a Monday and I’d ask him if he’d had a hard weekend?   “Not really, just went down to South Texas with my brother”.  Or something.

I always thought that was odd.  In my world, you didn’t just “decide” one weekend to drive to El Paso and back.

One night after much cajoling from Wendell, Larry went out on the town with us.  We went and got a burger and a beer at The Stein Club, and the we walked down the block to a dance club on Broadway near “The Bakery”.  Can’t remember the name of the place.  Before long, Larry took off his jacket, and I saw he had a handgun tucked in his pants, under the blue and white shirt that he wore more days than not.   Wendell saw it too.

“Whoa dude!   What are you packing that thing for?”, Wendell asked.

“Protection”

“Protection from WHAT?” Wendell asked.

“From people who want this …. “  Larry, who already had pounded down a couple of drinks in rapid succession, reached in his pocket and produced a roll of bills about 4 inches in diameter   At least the bills on the outside of the roll were hundreds.

Suffice to say he did NOT make that kind of dough repairing TV’s for Wendell.

“DUDE!!!  Don’t flash that around” Wendell said.

Then, “Where’d you get that kind of dough?”

“Selling drugs”.

At least Larry was honest.

One Monday morning a couple months later Larry called in and told Wendell he wouldn’t be in that day.    Wendell asked why.

“I’m stuck in Las Cruces, New Mexico.”

“WHAT???   What happened?

“Um….. trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“My car got stole.  My brother’s in jail.”   **pause**   “I gotta figure shit out.   Well … bye.”

He hung up.  That was the most we’d ever heard him say, and coincidentally, that was the last we ever heard from Larry.

But one day a couple weeks later two very rough looking dudes came walking in the front door of the shop, which then was located in a strip mall on the Business Loop, next to a liquor store.

“You got an Indian named Larry working here?”

Wendell said, ”Used to.  He called a couple weeks ago, said he was stuck in New Mexico.  Last we heard of him.”

These guys stood there for a minute, and I promise I was scared to death they were gonna start shooting up the place or something.

But one of them said, “If he comes back in, tell him that Carl needs him to call.  He’ll know what it’s about.”   And they left.

Wendell looked at me and just said, “Holy shit.”

Despite all that weirdness, working there and going into people’s homes all over Columbia taught me a lot and there were there were many “life lessons” I learned on that  job.

One is that there are some truly amazing and wonderful people… the “salt of the earth”…. at ALL places on the social/economic spectrum.  On the other hand, there are mean, nasty, self-serving people everywhere too.     There are slovenly folks sometimes living in that million-dollar “mansion on the hill”, which ought to be condemned as a public health hazard.  And just as surely, there are people for whom you wonder where their next meal is coming from who keep such a clean house that no stray speck of dust or piece of clutter could find a place to land.

I’ve been in the homes of people with basically nothing, who would gladly share their last morsel with you or the shirt off their backs if you needed it.   The opposite is just as likely to be true … people with an air of entitlement who would never consider being spontaneously kind or giving, because to them that’s not the way their world works.    I’ve tried to never forget that lesson… those contrasts.

I’ve tried to make it a point to try get to know “ordinary people” wherever I go, and to always give the new people I meet the benefit of the doubt.   Maybe it’s because I’ve lived my entire life in either the Midwest or the South, but my personal experience is that “good plain folks” are more often the rule than the exception.

I wrote in one blog post, called “ne’er a Rose so sweet”, about a truly remarkable experience and friendship I made while working for Wendell at that TV shop.  If you haven’t seen it, it’s worth a read.  Leave a comment or let me know what you think.

As I said, I did go back to school, and my larger circle of friends grew to include a group of people far more likely to be uplifting to my soul than Larry and his brothers.

I never fancied myself a “TV repairman” for the long haul.  But it was something I was good at for the time I did it.   And I continued helping friends by repairing their malfunctioning equipment for beer or for home-cooked meals for the next several years.   Having a reputation as “Mr. Fix-It” brings with it its own set of rewards.

There was this girl I knew at the time, named Eileen.   She would call sometimes, and say that she or one of her roommates had a non-functioning TV, blow-drier, curling iron, car stereo, headphones, or …  something.    MY roommate would often answer the phone, then laugh and laugh and laugh as he handed the phone to me whilst doing a pantomime of me helping Eileen return to a fully functioning state of being.

But that’s another story.

love,

John

I needed a job.  

I was in Columbia, MO over the summer after my third-year of college and I  needed to find a job.  I had been working in the golf pro-shops at various Country-Clubs in the mid-state for the last four or five summers, but I needed a job now where I could make some “real money”.  Don’t get me wrong, the Pro Shops were a great place to work.  I met a lot of terrific folks, and there was a lot of opportunity for “free golf”.   Especially late in the evening, my favorite time to play.

But, the pay in the Pro Shops was lousy and I knew there was no chance I’d be making a career as a “Golf Pro”.   And I needed to make some money because it was likely that I was going to be taking some time off from school to “get my head straight” and “find myself”.   Long story.  It was the Spring of 1978 and I was 20 years old. There were lots of complicated reasons why “getting my head straight” had become necessary. I was old enough to know I needed to deal with a lot of internal mayhem.  But I was too young to know then that “finding myself” would be a lifelong process. 

What I did know all too well was that as far as I could tell, I was as close to “on my own” at that moment as I’d ever been, I was a little bit scared, and I needed a job.  With my mom and dad firmly in my corner in every possible way, it’s a bit of a stretch to say I was really “on my own”.  Unlike a lot of people I knew,  I always had the comfort of knowing I had the safety net of home and family.  What I did not yet know was that I would never again return to live in my little hometown. 

I had just moved out of the dorm at the end of the school year, and into a downtown apartment in Columbia, upstairs above a pinball and jukebox service center.  It was sort of a spur-of-the-moment decision.  The other guy who lived up there was also an engineering student, and he had told me there was an open place up there.  The building was an old historic firehouse, built of white stone.  The jukeboxes and pinball machines were serviced out of the bays where the firetrucks (and before that, horse-drawn fire wagons) had once parked.  My apartment was the quarters where the firemen had slept.    There was a round plug installed in the hardwood floor, where the old fire-pole had once been.  It was about 4 feet in diameter, and a perfect circle.  For some reason when it was put in, they put the boards on the circular plug running at 90 degrees to the other boards in the floor.   So it was a little jarring to look at, and I avoided stepping on it.   In the back of my mind, I think I was a little concerned that the plug would fail, and I might come crashing down on top of an old Wurlitzer jukebox in the shop below.  

It was an oddly noisy place in the daytime, with bells and buzzers from pinball machines, and the sounds of 1978’s finest disco music blaring from the jukeboxes as they worked on those machines downstairs.   Sometimes they’d take a bunch of the old ’45’s they were taking out of rotation from the jukeboxes and put them in a cardboard box and leave it at the base of the stairs for me and the guy who lived in the other apartment upstairs.  A lot of copies of hits of the day.  Things like KC and the Sunshine Band, and Donna Summer.   At one point I think I had literally several dozen copies of “You Light Up My Life”.   That was fine with me.  It was 1978, and I really had a “thing” for Debby Boone, and thought she could light up my life any time she wanted.   Don’t judge.

But it was a relatively quiet place in the evening and i liked having time to myself to read or walk downtown to the movies.  Best of all, I could climb out of my living room window and onto the roof of the law-office next door, climb a ladder up to the roof of my building, and sit there on a blanket under the stars with my guitar and make poor attempts to play James Taylor and John Denver and Jackson Browne and Gordon Lightfoot and Cat Stevens songs while watching the lights of downtown Columbia and traffic passing on the street below.   It was glorious.  I could also look down and into the windows of Zuppa’s, the Italian restaurant across the street, at the diners who apparently had far more disposable income than I did.

The apartment was also just around the corner from Ernie’s Cafe and Steakhouse.  Ernie’s was a true icon of downtown Columbia if ever there was one.  Ernie’s had been there since 1934, and by the time I moved downtown it was the sort of place where you might go in one morning for two eggs over-easy, toast and bacon, and a cup of coffee (for about two bucks), and find yourself sitting with a lawyer, a plumber, a college professor, a landscaper, the mayor. and a confused college student.  I was the confused college student.  

So on one of my early mornings within a week or so of moving in, I got up, showered, got dressed in my fines, and ventured out confusedly to make my fortune.

I stopped to get a Columbia Tribune out of the rack and seated myself on a stool at the counter of Ernie’s.  I ordered up a breakfast and started perusing the “Help Wanted” section of the classifieds.   

I spied an ad.  “Factory Workers Needed.   Good Pay.  No Experience Necessary”.    There you go.  I took out a red Flair pen, and circled the ad.  No kidding.  Circled it in red.  Just like in the movies.  I think it was the only ad I looked at, because my breakfast had arrived, so I put away the paper and I dived in to my eggs and bacon.  

After breakfast, I got into my 1972 Vega GT, silver with black “racing stripe”.   Right.     I drove out to the outskirts of town to the address given in the ad for the factory job. 

In the parking lot, I took a minute to question my decision.   Did I really want to do this?   No.   HELL no.   But I felt like I had to . 

So, I took a deep breath and walked into the front office.   I filled out an application, and the secretary took it, took a look at me with what I thought was a skeptical eye, and said “Wait here for a minute.”   Soon a man in a short-sleeve shirt and a bad necktie came out and asked me back to his desk to talk.   

Turns out, it was a plastics plant that made PVC pipe.   I did not know it yet, but it was back-breaking dirty, smelly work and I have no shame in admitting I wasn’t really cut out for it.    But, they were short-handed and had no problem offering me a job from the cursory “interview”.  It wasn’t my stellar personal impression.  It was that I was “fresh meat”.   The man asked me when I could start.  

I said, “Any time at all.” 

He asked, “You willing to do second-shift, and maybe some overnights?” 

“Sure.”    I mean, why not?   I could sleep in, eat a late breakfast at Ernie’s, and putz around town until I had to report in at 3pm.   Perfect right? 

So he said,  “Come back tomorrow.   Shift starts at 3.  Get here by 2 to fill out some more paperwork and for a new employee orientation.  Have you got steel-toed shoes?”  

I said no, so he told me I’d have to get some.    It was the last time I ever saw him.    

I went out that afternoon and bought some “work clothes” and the cheapest pair of steel-toed shoes I could find.  As if “cheap” was a good thing. 

One of the very first things they told me when I showed up early for my shift the next day was that I would essentially be pulling “double duty” on the job they were assigning me to.   That is to say, they had me running a continuous processing machine on a production line that *normally* would have TWO people splitting the tasks. 

But they said it was “really no problem” for one person, you’d just be a little busier than normal.

They gave me a blue Hard Hat and a pair of work gloves.  Then the supervisor, whose name I cannot recall, took me out and showed me the machine line I’d be running.  It was an extrusion line for PVC pipe, and then a process to put a “bell” or flange on one end of the pipe.  While doing this job, I would be known as a “Beller”.  One who puts bells on pipe.   Hell’s bells.  

I’m sure it must have been both sad and comical watching me trying to keep up with that line.  Sort of like Lucy at the chocolate factory.  Or worse.   

First, I had to take 12 foot lengths of 10 inch PVC pipes off of the extrusion machine and cut-to-length line.  The pipe was extruded from hot PVC, then a shear ripped it to length.   Then I had to manhandle the pipes over to a “belling machine” (for putting a “bell flange” in one end.)  I had to first put them in a pre-heater, and push a button to clamp and heat, to soften one end.  Then I would take it out of the pre-heater, and literally ram the soft end as hard as I could into a hot “bell”,  to set the flange one one end.  On the bell it would clamp and “set” the bell permanently into the soft PVC. Then I had to take a sponge-stick with adhesive, smear it around in the flange, inserting a rubber gasket.  Then taking the 12-foot lengths of 10″ pipe, flip every-other one around 180 degrees so as to alternate the directions for stacking them on a pallet, and then belt-strapping them with two metal-strips to the pallet when there were 16 stacked to a batch.   When the pallet was full, you had to signal for a fork-lift to come pick up the pallet in order to clear the way for the next batch.   All while more pipes were continuously extruded and cut to length. 

I had on work gloves, but where the saw had sheared the pipe to length, there were burrs and sharp edges on the pipes.  Where that rough part of the pipe hit my arms, even through the shirt-sleeves, it nicked and scraped me up pretty good.  Within about an hour my arms were bleeding with minor lacerations all up and down.  

If you worked fast and made zero mistakes at all, you could *almost* (but not quite) get the pipe you were working on over the pallet by the time the next one was ready for pre-heating and “belling”.      As I said, there would normally be TWO people working together as a team doing this, splitting up tasks …. but I was not afforded that luxury.  The supervisor said he was trying to call in someone to help me, but that for the time being, I’d have to do “both” jobs on the line.   Good shoes would have helped. 

Dear god in heaven.   Sisyphus never had it so good.     

Thankfully, the fork-lift operator took mercy on me and would occasionally jump off his fork-lift and help with strapping the pallets.  But he also did admonish me that I would need to “pick up the pace”.  

The only thing they had insisted on, was to NOT …. under ANY circumstances, do NOT hit the Emergency Stop button on the extrusion line.   That would be bad.  VERY bad.    Unless I had lost a limb and was spurting blood uncontrollably, or if the belling machine was on fire …(apparently that happened sometimes) …. I was NOT to press the Emergency Stop. 

Emergency Stops were a bad thing.   An Emergency Stop would bring people WAY over my pay-grade to the area to figure out what had happened, why some numbskull had stopped the line …  and then with great wailing and gnashing of teeth they would have to restart the extrusion machine, which apparently was a very big deal.  

After about four hours, around 7 in the evening, my supervisor came to check.  Was everything going ok?    I said it was hectic, but I was keeping up.   He said he’d run the machine for a bit while I went and ate my dinner.  “Be back in a half-hour or less”.  

I went out into the cool Missouri Spring evening, and for the first time realized how hot it was in that plant.  I sat in my Vega with the windows rolled down, ate my bologna and cheese sandwich and a bag of Fritos corn chips, and drank two Cokes. I listened to the Commodores on the 8-Track.  “She’s a BRICK …..House.  She’s mighty mighty, just lettin’ it ALL hang out.”    Coca Cola never tasted so good.  

As I went back in to take my place on the line, the supervisor said he was “still working” on finding someone to work with me. 

I really don’t remember how much per hour they were paying me.   It was probably 2 or 3 times what I made at the Pro Shop, but the number escapes my memory.   I do remember though, that as I worked I was continually doing two things.   Cursing the day I was born, and “doing the math” to figure out how much I would be taking home.  

It went on like that for several more hours. 

A little before 11pm, and the blessed END of my first ever shift at manual labor, the supervisor came back out.   I thought he was going to maybe give me a plaque or a trophy or at least a “Job Well Done”, young man.   We’ve never had a beller as good as you!”.   

No.  

What he SAID was, “I’ve still not found anyone to help, and the third shift guy called in sick.   I need you to stick around a while and keep things going until we can get somebody in here.” 

I’m sure I looked stricken.    I WAS stricken. 

He called out, “Hey Charlie!!!  Come over here!!”

A guy came walking over from where he was standing near the time clock and employee break-room.  

“This is Charlie.  Charlie, this is…… sorry, what was your name?” 

“I’m John”. 

“Charlie, this is John.    John, Charlie’s in charge on 3rd shift.  If you’ve got a problem, let him know.   I’m going home.  See you tomorrow”.   

Then he left. 

Charlie walked off to do whatever the hell it was that Charlie did overnight.    

The PVC pipes kept coming off the machine nonstop.    

I wanted to cry, I wanted to throw-up.   

Instead, I belled pipe.    I belled the HELL out of it.  

I’d like to say things got easier.  They didn’t.    My feet hurt, my arms were bleeding, I was wobbly-legged, and I was starting to get sick to my stomach from the smell of the hot and melting plastic.  

By around 2am I was really done.    Had not seen Charlie again.  

I spent the next hour cursing.   Not under my breath …. not metaphorically.   I mean, actually screaming every foul four-letter and eleven-letter and seventeen-letter invective I could think of.    There was never a sailor that had anything on me when it came to my language that night.    I said words, and made specific constructions and combinations of phrases expressing concepts that had never before (or likely since) been uttered by anyone.    Most of it was directed at the machine itself.  But some was for my 2nd-shift supervisor.  Some was for disappeared Charlie.  Some for the Fork-Lift operator.  Some was for the nameless son-of-a-bitch that had called in sick.   But some of it was directed at my own stupid self for being in there in the first place.  

Years later when I watched the movie Full Metal Jacket with R. Lee Ermey as the Drill Sargent, my mind went back to that night at the extrusion line, and I wondered how he had been listening in to the things I’d said and taking notes.  

By 3 am, I was worn out.  Physically worn-out for sure.  But mentally, emotionally, and spiritually as well.  Toast. Kaput.  Done    After 12 hours on the job with only one 30 minute break for disco and bologna, I was done.

I hit the Emergency Stop button. 

I wasn’t spurting actual blood, but somewhere from deep within it felt like something even more precious than blood was gushing out uncontrollably from my soul, and I needed to make it stop.   

There was only one thing I knew to make it stop.    So I did that one thing. 

I hit the forbidden Emergency Stop button.  Screw it.    A red light started flashing.  Screw it.  There *may* have been a siren going off.  Screw it.    

I never did see Charlie. Screw him too. 

The 3^rd shift fork-lift operator (who was nowhere near as helpful as the 2^nd shift guy had been), came screeching up and yelled, “What’s wrong?”   

I just said …. “I’m done”.   And walked off. 

I walked over past the break room, and right out the door to the parking lot without clocking out.  I got in my Vega, spun the tires on the gravel lot, and drove off.  

About a mile or two from the plant, I realized I was still wearing the gloves and the blue hard hat. 

I rolled down the window and flung them as far into the ditch I as could.  

Then I took off those cursed steel-toed shoes and did the same thing.  

I started laughing and couldn’t stop.  

I drove bare-footed back to my downtown apartment.  In the doorway, at the base of the stairs there was a box of ’45 records.  The first one on top of the stack was Gloria Gaynor, “I Will Survive”.   I laughed out loud.  

I climbed the stairs, stripped down to nothing at all, drew up a hot bath in the tub, as hot as I could stand … and lowered myself in.   Washed the cuts and scrapes on my arms, massaged my aching feet, and just sat in there and I soaked and soaked and soaked.   By the time the water was cold and dirty, the sun was starting to rise.  

I climbed out of the tub, dried myself off and went and crashed in bed.   I had a vague notion of the phone ringing at some point, but I didn’t answer it.    By the time I woke up it was very late in the afternoon.

I fixed myself some supper and ate by myself in silence.  I don’t know why I remember this, but what I made was a Polish sausage that I had cut into about 3-inch sections and heated under the broiler in the oven.  And box of Rice-a-Roni.  The San Francisco Treat.  And a PBR. Or two.    A feast fit for a king.  Or at least, for a failed “working man”.  

I read for a while, then I grabbed my guitar and went up on the roof.  

It was a clear Friday night, and with the lights of Columbia twinkling all around and the traffic passing below me on the street I played.  James Taylor was the first thing that came out.  

“You can play the game, you can act out the part …. though you know it wasn’t written for you.”     Full stop.  

Whoa.    Thanks James.   

I resolved right then and there to do whatever I needed to find the part that WAS “written for me”.     

I drove to Mexico the next morning to visit my folks.   Dad was keenly interested in my story about the factory job.  When I told him how it had played out, he seemed at once both upset and comforting.    Upset at the factory for throwing me into something with so little training or support, and just letting me sink or swim.  Ok, letting me sink.    He really tried to be comforting to me, because I think he could tell that I was being harder on myself for my “failure” than he himself would have ever been.   I remember him questioning me about it all enough so he could understand EXACTLY what had happened.   He was especially curious their expecting me to work an additional shift with no relief, and also about my leaving without clocking out.   

He himself had worked in a factory, the AP Green Firebrick Company, his whole life.   I’ve written about his work and his dedication to that job here before.   I know he took special pride in being a “working man”, even though he spent a good portion of the last part of his working life as a white-collar worker.  He had started out as a “Fireman”, one who stoked and tended the fires in the kilns in the brick plant. 

What I would not know until several weeks later was that he taken it upon himself to make a visit to that PVC pipe factory, to talk to them about my experience there, and to insist that they cut me a pay-check for the time I had worked.   After I walked off the job, the notion of getting paid was the furthest thing from my mind. But he made them cut me that paycheck.  A paycheck which he hand-delivered to me, telling me that there was no shame in quitting a shitty job with a shitty company, and that I should hold my head high in the knowledge that I had “earned” the money I got paid for that shift-and-a-half.     

I was not so sure. 

But what I did know for sure was that his going to bat for me was an expression of his love, and that it was important to him for me to learn some kind of lesson from the whole thing.   And though I was a little embarrassed about the whole thing I loved him and so greatly appreciated his effort in doing that for me.

Back in Columbia after my short trip home to Mexico to see my folks, I settled back in to the search for a job.  One early morning a few days later I was back on the street, copy of the Tribune in hand, and headed for Ernie’s. 

I met a man at the breakfast counter that day who, as it turned out, was a horrible and despicable excuse of a man.  He was a man who LITERALLY cheated little old ladies out of their money.  And against all odds, he changed my life for the better in ways that I could not have imagine that morning over runny eggs, white toast and hot coffee.  

But that’s another story.  

Love,

John

Note from John.  As most of you know, brevity is not one of my” long-suits”.  Especially when I get wound up.   I am wound up right now about the idea and value in creating more effective and more forward-thinking nonprofit organizations.  How do we intentionally craft organizations that can effectively and remarkably create positive impact for their communities in tangible ways?  What is the secret of organizations that inspire people to want to get involved?   

I have been engaged with and intimately involved with several different nonprofit organizations at the local, state, and national level in the disability arena now for over twenty years. In that time, one of the skills I’ve developed and am most proud of, is the ability to help the organizations I’ve been involved with to look at and focus on “the big picture”.  It is so important to be able to step back, and to consider broad implications of our work.

No false modesty …. I’m a pretty good storyteller, and telling stories is something that really lights me up inside.   I believe that I have a talent for telling stories from a place of authenticity. Many have told me through the years how much they have enjoyed or been impacted by stories I’ve told at a speaking engagement, or through a column or blog piece I’ve written.

The following long piece is something I started writing a long while back. My original motivation in writing it was to help myself think about the power of telling a better story, and to unpack (for myself) how doing so can benefit some of the organizations that are dear to me.  

At some point during the writing though, I thought that it might find resonance with some of my many friends and colleagues who also work or volunteer with nonprofits around the country.  A few years ago now, I sent a scaled-down version of this out to a group of friends I had connected with in “the work” in the autism and greater disability community.  I got some good feedback then.    But the piece got set aside and largely forgotten.  

Now, upon rediscovering and re-working this piece a bit, I find that I still believe in my heart in what I wrote back then.  Perhaps I believe it even more so here at the end 2018.  Maybe that’s because I talk about the extraordinary value of authenticity, and authenticity is so seldom found in the news out of Washington these days.

But the point is this:  If you give of yourself … your time, your passion, your energy … to a cause or an organization that matters to you, I hope this piece helps you think about your own stories and how effective you are at telling them.  Telling our stories and keeping knowledge of “the work” out there in the public view is important.   It is important, both for the sake of your own personal clarity and sense of purpose, and for the sake of the organizations and causes you love to serve.

I’m sending this out again relatively far and wide.  I’m going to publish it to my blog, “The Very Stuff”, and I’m going to link to it on Social Media.  I hope you find what I’ve written useful.  Or at least, I hope you find it mildly entertaining (if only at the expense of thinking me a bit odd for caring about such things.)

If not…. there’s always that delete key or the scroll wheel.      

Stay in touch. –   John

Your Service

If you’re receiving this missive from me via email, it’s because you have some connection to one or more non-profit organizations that I’ve encountered in my own advocacy journey.  I hope you know how greatly your contribution is needed and appreciated, no matter how it is that you serve.   In all likelihood, your service adds great value to those organizations with which you are affiliated.

Now more than ever, our non-profit communities need committed people who are effective at bringing their knowledge, talents, energies, time, connections, and resources to bear on the organizations they serve.   Not just effective … but passionate, driven, and on-fire for the cause.

Never doubt this: Your service, given in a spirit of generosity and love is priceless.

However, you owe it to yourself (and to the group or groups where you serve) to see that you are giving your service effectively.  Have you given much thought lately to how you view role in your organization?  How is it that YOU add value to your grassroots non-profit organization or agency?  What part do YOU personally play in helping to create and sustain an organization that is inspiring, challenging, and fulfilling in the hearts and lives of your stakeholders?   In our non-profit world, the BEST organizations are the ones that touch lives and compel others to want to get involved.  Are you part of THAT mission?

We don’t often enough think about our individual role (or roles) as a board member, staffer, volunteer, or active supporter in these terms.  In terms of the “inner work” of being … as Thomas the Tank Engine says, “a really useful engine.”   We do what we do and give what we can of our time, energies, talents, etc., for many reasons.   Maybe it’s because it just feels good to “help” …. that is to say, in some way it satisfies our need to “contribute” or give back.  Perhaps it is because we feel we uniquely have a particular something to offer. Whatever the reasons, I hope the service you give is fulfilling to you in ways that are meaningful to you and your own sense of subjective well-being.  And if you’re a paid staffer, I STILL earnestly hope that you view what you do as an act of service.  Because, let’s face it, NOBODY enters the non-profit sector to get rich.   So the “inner” rewards are a real part of your compensation for the work.   The work.  Let’s talk about that for a minute …

“The Work”

Our organizations, if they are successful, will come to be known as a place of refuge and belonging and a source of community for those whom we serve.  If we have done our job well, those who find their way to us will have found a home that is at once inspiring, challenging, and fulfilling.  It’s a valid way to think about the work.

Said another way, we are in the business of changing lives.  Think about that for a minute: “The business of changing lives”.  Isn’t that really the most salient and valuable measure of our success?   I’d go a step further, and say that it may be the ONLY measure that truly counts.

Gut check time:  Is your organization changing lives?  Are YOU an integral part of that aspect of the work?    If your group were to cease to exist tomorrow, how deeply would it matter to your constituents or members?  How many people would truly mourn the loss of your presence?

Does your organization pass the “So what?” test?  You’re there and you stay busy.  Very busy.  So what?

Nobody strives for “average”.  Nobody aspires to be mediocre.   No, we want to be, we need to be remarkable.   We earnestly crave remarkable work.  Work we can be and are proud of.  Work that, yes, changes lives.

Hopefully, the answer is that your organization passes the “So what? “ test without question.  Hopefully a PART of that affirmative answer is that you yourself are a part of what “matters” most in your organization.   (If either of those things is not true, there are some immediate steps you can take to begin to address those challenges, and some of those steps will be the subject of a future message.)

Have you ever thought about this question before?  What IF your organization had to shut down and lock the doors?    What would that mean for your community?

In my very first board meeting with what was then known as the Autism Society of Middle Tennessee, back in 1998, the treasurer gave this gloomy report.

“We have just a little over $10,000 in the bank.  We have rent, we have our share of utilities here at the co-op, and we have paychecks to write for three part-time employees, printing and mailing of the bi-monthly newsletter, and some other miscellaneous expenses.  We have no outstanding grant applications that we’re hopeful of receiving soon, no major fund-raisers planned, and few prospects for any significant income in the very short-term future. We get a few spontaneous and unexpected donations, but not enough to sustain us. If something doesn’t change, we will burn through that bank account before we know what happened.  So, we need to start thinking about how we will “shut it all down” if it comes to that.  What are the essential parts of what we do?  What are the first things we should jettison, and what is the last thing we would hold on to?”

That was a sobering message, no?  Welcome to the Board of Directors!

But it did two things.  First, it forced us to think about our mission and our values.  To decide who we wanted to be, and how to get there and stay there.    Secondly, it served as a needed “kick in the pants” to get out there and refocus on doing “The Work”.

For the record, what we decided was the most important aspect of our work was the fact that our organization was a “lifeline” for families reeling from news of a new diagnosis of autism for their child.  We were the voice on the phone that provided a compassionate shoulder, and that knowledgeable friend with answers and information about resources (formal and informal) that those families needed.  We were there to BE their community, their newfound home-base.   And, no matter what it took, THAT aspect of our mission could NEVER go away.

I’m very proud to say that it never has.  Within a couple years, I was president of that organization, and functioned (somewhat inexpertly) as a de-facto Executive Director until such time as we could hire one.   By the time I left the board of that organization several years later, it was on firm footing financially, and that same business … the business of “Changing Lives” … was still our number one focus.  Today, Autism Tennessee (as the organization re-branded) is still thriving.   Not so much because of anything I did during my tenure there, but because as a group …even though the “players” changed quite a bit through the years … the organization never lost sight of the power of that core mission.   It was a collective work of love.

As for me personally, I got very good at telling that story, as did many of my fellow board members and our amazing staff.  The story of how and why we passed the “So What” test.  The story of changed lives.  The story of how we lived out our values for the good of the community and those we served.  We got good at it because we had to.

When I was asked to be on the Board of Directors of the Autism Society of America, it was my great privilege to work closely with chapters all around the country and to help the leadership of those local chapters learn to focus on their own mission, and to tell their own stories.  I made lifelong friends during my time there.  It was vital and thrilling work, and I was good at it.  I was really good at it.  There were parts of it that were difficult, but the important work of helping local leaders feel valued, feel empowered, and helping them to learn to be better at what they themselves needed to do in their own communities … that was important work and I loved it.  I was good at it precisely because of my experience and hard work in our own local organization.

I want to be really clear here:  I’d say that working diligently on reaching down within myself to excavate and to tell that story … and many of the other collateral stories about what it means to be a parent to a child with a significant disability, to find community, and to live a life of joy (or at least, more joy than heartache) for you and your family … THAT work is the best and most meaningful and most impactful journey I’ve ever been on.   I wrote a bi-monthly column for many years and always felt a bit wrung out like a limp dishrag after the writing.  I’ve been called on to speak at conferences and workshops and and retreats on everything from being the dad of a kid with autism to how to build and nurture a struggling nonprofit organization.  From what it means to be a leader to how to avoid burnout.  From how to effect change through the legislative process, to how difficult sometimes the journey for grandparents and extended family can be.

I love this work.  I mean, I really LOVE it.

At times,  I have told stories about things that were difficult for me, or for Janet or for the two of us.   I have told stories about monumental challenges that Evan has faced, or that his siblings have struggled with.  I have told stories about victories or joys that show the love that wraps all we do and brings us peace and comfort.

Laying these things bare into the world has at times been extraordinarily difficult.  But I have always done so with intention, eyes wide open. However, knowing that the authenticity I have always tried to bring to that work has been beneficial to others is extremely rewarding.

When I was named as one of the finalists for “Nashville Nonprofit Board Member of the Year” by the Center for Nonprofit Management several years ago it was truly an honor.  But it was also a bit of a shock, because truthfully, I didn’t feel like I’d done all that much of value. (I chalk it up to a dynamite nominating letter!   –  Thanks Lynnette and Amanda) 

Unlike the fellow who won the award that year, I hadn’t brought millions of dollars into the organization.  I hadn’t saved babies in Haiti and the jungles of Africa from certain death.  All I ever tried to do was tell my stories and connect authentically with people who I felt could glean some value from knowing that, yes, there are other people out here that feel the same way you do …. people who struggle sometimes just to see and experience the abundant joy around us.

I have zero regrets in the knowledge that I will be on this journey the rest of my life.  As any other parent of a child with a significant disability will tell you, we’re in it for the long haul.  Helping your loved-one with a disability find their sense of subjective well-being, and finding that sense for ourselves, is the journey of a lifetime … and the rewards are beyond anything I could hope to describe with words.

I have moved on to be a part of The Arc Tennessee family now, and am currently on that Board of Directors as Past President.   It is such a wonderful organization, and I am truly honored to be a part of the work.  I love my friends that I have made at each stop and each step along the way, and hope I can bring passion and energy and authenticity to bear for the good of the community.   For what it’s worth, I think it is the thing I do best.

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”  – Maya Angelou

I’ve rambled a little far from the path here … so let me get back to the implications of “story” and how we choose to serve the “organization” …. the struggle for sustainability never goes away.  Funding and running and growing a viable small nonprofit is a HUGE challenge.  Making that nonprofit organization truly relevant to the broader community is a bigger challenge still.

Resource Crunch

In these difficult economic times, the threat of “ceasing to exist” for many small non-profits is all too real.  There’s not a leadership team for any organization out there who, if they are honest, isn’t feeling the crunch of increased competition for a dwindling pool of available resources. Foundations and grant-making groups are cutting back on the size and number of available grants.  Corporate sponsors and partnerships are harder to find and maintain.  Attracting and maintaining high attendance and engagement at fundraising events is more difficult than ever.

Individuals of extraordinary means who have traditionally given generously and philanthropically are now more cautious than ever and more selective with their gifts and with which projects they choose to sponsor. Even if they are still giving generously, they exercise more care in making sure that their dollars go to those places where they can have maximum impact.   And the more common giver, those who have reliably given those $10, $20, $50, or $100 gifts are now giving at less than their previous levels.

Therefore our need is greater than ever to be not only convincing, but to also be truly compelling while pleading our case for support.  Do we “tell our story” in such a way as to move people’s hearts and minds, and to move or inspire them to action and support?

Certainly we need to “tell the story” through high quality collateral materials.  That is to say, yes, it is important that we tell our story well through our web sites, our literature, our marketing & PR materials, etc.    But to put too much focus on such things is to miss the point.   No, even more importantly, we each need to remember that every time we talk about our organizations, every time we mention it in casual conversation, or speak of “the work” …. we have an opportunity to tell the story.   And we must be telling the story effectively.  It is important for each of us to tell the story well, personally and authentically because few large gifts (if any) will ever come in to your organization unsolicited, based solely on the strength of your website or brochures.

Telling the Story

Becoming more comfortable and proficient at “telling our story” is a big part of creating the kinds of highly effective organizations we want and need.  Are you a good storyteller?  Well, are you?   Think about that question.

The great teachers and spiritual leaders throughout history were all storytellers. Every single one.  For many of them, their stories (or parables or fables or whatever they’re called) are the very thing that defines their presence among us.

Many of the public leaders we have elected … the ones we remember and revere … are the ones who could illustrate principles and inspire us with stories.  As a society, many of our most recognizable and powerful stories are those that have ancient roots and have passed down from generation to generation.  Stories are memorable.  Stories inspire. Stories move people to action. Stories generate buy-in.  When we tell a good story, it connects us personally and viscerally with our hearers. More importantly, it connects THEM with our cause. It causes them to identify powerfully with the things that are important to us.   In short, stories MATTER.  They matter a lot.

Some of you may be fans of the old Andy Griffith show.  If so, you probably remember one of the early episodes where a very young Opie and his friends come bursting into Andy’s sheriff’s office, complaining about their awful new teacher, “Old Lady Crump”.  It seems she has the audacity to want them to spend time doing homework in HISTORY!!!   Ick.     At first Andy says some things to Opie and boys that the kids twist around, mistakenly supposing he things learning history is useless.  This ends up fueling their fire to defy their new teacher.   Of course, Miss Crump comes to the sheriff’s office to meet this man who has undermined her authority.   After being confronted by Miss Crump, Andy makes amends in the most amazing way.  How?  He tells the boys an AMAZING story!!  A story about a bunch of farmers and shopkeepers and average folk, who when the British threatened their way of life, form a group.  The group is called …. The Minutemen!!!  Andy says they chose that name because they could be ready in a minute to defend their cause and their way of life.   And when the British decided their time was right to invade Lexington, old Paul Revere himself gets a signal by lantern from the tower of the Old North Church, and takes off on his ride, alerting the Minutemen with the cry, “The British is a comin’!!  The British is a comin’!!”    And they end up firing the “Shot Heard Round the World!!!”     Excited and engrossed in Andy’s story, Opie and his friends (and Barney too, of course!) can’t WAIT to hear what comes next.  They totally buy into and get excited about the idea of “studying history” by learning more of those stories.  Andy “closes the deal” and tells them casually that they’ll just have to read their textbooks to find out the rest of the story.   They even decide to form a club of their own, the “Mayberry Minutemen”, to learn more about this country.  All because Andy has made dry old “history facts” come alive with an amazing and personal story.    Oh yeah, Andy wins Miss Crump too.  But as they say, that’s another story.

Too simplistic??  Maybe. Maybe not.  I will maintain it’s a completely valid illustration.  Nobody is inspired when we tell our story in straight “Joe Friday” fashion … (remember Dragnet’s monotone detective? “Just the facts ma’am”)   If you want to inspire someone to learn, you DON’T toss them a textbook.  You tell them a story.  An authentic story, with enough “tug” in it to draw them in.

In the nonprofit arena, when we tell our AMAZING and MOVING stories … the stories of changed lives … we do so in part to generate buy-in. It may in all likelihood be that the MOST profoundly changed life is your own.  Through authenticity we prove that we ourselves are passionate about being part of our organizations. We build brand image, understanding, and loyalty.  And, oh yeah….  we can also change the world.  One life at a time.

In the book, “The Story Factor: Inspiration, Influence, and Persuasion Through the Art of Storytelling“,  author Annette Simmons (recommended reading) says that if you wish to truly connect with others and influence them, there are six stories you need to know how to tell.

1.   “Who I Am” Stories
2.   “Why I Am Here” Stories
3.   “The Vision” Story
4.   “Teaching” Stories
5.   “Values in Action” Stories
6.   “I Know What You’re Thinking” Stories

These six stories are appropriate for your organization.  And whether you can tell them well or not, they DO already exist.  This is an important point.  Don’t miss it.  The stories ALREADY exist.  You’re not making anything up.    It’s not only a good idea to spend some time discovering, connecting with, understanding, and learning to tell these stories and TELL THEM WELL, it truly is essential to do so.

Can you tell the story of your organization?  How did it come into being?  Why is it here in the first place? How long has it been around?  What are the stories behind your organizational vision, and how was that vision inspired originally, and how do you know that vision is true and appropriate?   What lessons have you personally learned (YOU personally!!) from your organization?  How have those lessons changed you?  What does the organization value most?  What are the stories of some of the activities that your organization’s primal values have led it to do?  How successful have those endeavors been?    What are the needs of your current (AND potential!!!) constituents, supporters, consumers, or members, and how can they have the confidence that YOU understand and are prepared to meet those needs?

If you can’t answer any of those questions with a story, it’s time to consider spending some time to formalize them.  Write them down.  Gather with other key leaders and make sure you all agree on the authenticity of the stories.  Then, when you know those stories and can tell them, consider:  How best to share those stories with your key “insiders”?  And how can you make sure all of those insiders have them ready at a moment’s notice to share with potential new stakeholders?

The idea of the “elevator speech” is a well-known tactic in sales.   You’re likely familiar with the basic idea. It goes something like this:  If you got on the elevator with a key decision-maker in the lobby, and had only the time it takes to get to the fifteenth floor to persuade them that your business was worth considering, what would you say?

Over 30 years ago, I went through IBM’s sales training boot camp in Boca Raton, a somewhat abbreviated version of the same intense training they give their “blue-suiters” … perhaps the most elite salesforce in the world.   It was brutal.  But it was invaluable in teaching about how to “read” people and how to connect with them.  There’s a reason why IBM is known as having one of the best salesforces in the business world.

In that training, they drove home the point that prospects will often make a judgement about you and your company within the first two minutes or less. We actually had to do an exercise … under the pressure of a stopwatch, and rated by our peers and the instructors … where, as trainees we had literally 90 seconds to make a compelling case to a “buyer” across the desk.   What we were selling was a highly technical manufacturing systems division product.  The challenge was to NOT try to “baffle them with bullshit”.  Rather, we had to find a compelling way to connect with them in a genuine, human, authentic way … in 90 seconds … with the goal that an invitation to a longer conversation would be offered.  To do that, you HAVE to know how to “keep it real.”

One of the most important lessons I learned from that training is that if you come in and are ready to spout “features and benefits” about your product or service, you’ve already lost.  People don’t remember that stuff.   But if you can engage them in a story, you win.   Because people don’t remember lists of “facts”, they remember narratives.  It’s just how we’re wired.   And if you can naturally weave some of those features/benefits into the narrative, they get to come along for the ride, free of charge.

Keeping it Real

IF you are telling YOUR story … that is, the story of how your organization has directly impacted your life, or why and how you personally became motivated to get involved … and IF you are telling that story from a place of authenticity, it WILL resonate with your listeners.  You must not only shoot for, but also you must achieve three things in your story:  It must be Authentic, Organic, and Real.    The average hearer has an extraordinarily well developed BS meter.   Organic means that the story is a narrative of how something unfolded naturally … it’s told in just the way the story actually happened.   Authentic means you’re not just spouting facts, you are speaking from the heart, with a mindset of wanting to connect with your hearers.  Real means…. just that.  It’s GOT to be true.  Truth matters.   How to do this?

Joseph Campbell and many others who have examined the role of storytelling as an integral part of our shared history have written about the structure of the prototypical mythic tale or “Hero’s Journey”.  It may seem a bit “over the top” to think about it this way.  However, in all likelihood, if you really work to get to the bottom of the larger story of your organization (and especially your place within that larger story), you will find it can be mapped almost perfectly onto the “Hero’s Journey”.

A worthy exercise right now is to set aside some time to think about your story, and how does it fit the outline?

• The Call.
• The Journey into the Unknown.
• The Challenge.
• Slaying the Dragon.
• The Homecoming.
• Sharing the Discovery.

Above all else, keep it real.  If it’s not, they’ll know.  More importantly, YOU’LL know.  Knowing that you had an opportunity for authenticity and failed is not fun.  Having lived though it more often than I care to admit, it’s not something I wish for you.

Visioneering

I want to talk specifically for a moment about “The Vision Story” and the “Values in Action” story.  All of the six types of stories mentioned above are important, but perhaps the Vision Story and the Values in Action Story are the ones we really need to focus on for our organizations.   Specifically, the Vision Story is the one that may give potential stakeholders the best “big picture” view of who you are and what you’re trying to do.  What is it that your organization is trying to do in a big way?   Not just the “Mission Statement” or your “Vision Statement”, though that is certainly a part of it.  The Values in Action Story gives those real-world examples … compelling, moving examples … of WHY you do what you do.

To say it another way, if you could look back in 3 or 7 or 14 years from now, and feel a sense of accomplishment for your organization having been successful, how would you explain that?  In what specific ways will the world have changed because of YOUR or your organization’s efforts?   What’s the Vision? How did you live out your professed Values?

Authors Jim Collins (Good to Great) and Jerry Porras first mentioned the idea of the BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) back in 1996.

A true BHAG is clear and compelling, serves as unifying focal point of effort, and acts as a clear catalyst for team spirit. It has a clear finish line, so the organization can know when it has achieved the goal; people like to shoot for finish lines.  – Collins and Porras, 1996

Some famous BHAGs from companies you know:

• Google: Organize the world’s information. Make it universally accessible and useful.
• Sony:  Change the worldwide image of Japanese products as poor quality; create a pocketable transistor radio, to have the most recognizable brand worldwide of any Japanese Company.
• Disney:  To be the best company in the world for all fields of family entertainment.
• Amazon:  Every book, ever printed, in any language, all available in less than 60 seconds.
• Facebook:  Everyone connected socially to anyone they wish, expanding and strengthening the scope and power of the personal network.
• Twitter:  To become “the pulse of the planet”
• Star Trek:  To seek out new life and new civilizations.  To boldly go where no man has gone before.   (ok, not a company, but you get the idea)

Talk about some BIG (and hairy and audacious) goals!!

How does this idea relate and translate into the Non-profit sector, and more specifically to YOUR organization?   In the non-profit world, as mentioned before, we are all working in SOME way to “change the world.”   We are working to change the world, even if it’s just OUR little corner of the world.

So, our BHAGs are not just “feel good” statements of where we’re headed.  They are an emotionally charged “position statement” about what kind of world we want to live in.  They are IMPORTANT statements about a shared vision of a better world created through effort and through community, and a bold declaration of our belief that we can create that better world.

Creating a better world.  That’s some pretty heady stuff, no?  When you tell the “Vision Story” or the “Values in Action” stories of your organization, you must learn to be fearlessly emotionally invested.  Emotionally invested authentically, because remember … it’s not something you can fake. You must believe in the call to action so deeply within yourself that it’s kind of hard to tell the story sometimes because of the lump in your throat.

Caring so passionately about something that it sometimes overwhelms you is not unnatural. It’s not unnatural at all.  Indeed, it may be the exact way we should express our feelings about what we are here to do.  Pour yourself abundantly into the stories that others need to hear about “the work”. Do it for them. Do it for those you serve.  Do it for you.

If you don’t occasionally get a bit choked up about the power and implications of what you’re trying to accomplish through your work with your organization, you’re probably not telling those stories right.  Maybe it’s time for a pulse check.

Who ARE These People and Where DO I Sign Up?? 

Are your stories compelling?  Are they so compelling that telling them or re-hearing them moves even YOU?   Are they so compelling that others will repeat them?   Are they SO compelling that those who hear them will be rooting for you and for the success of your organization?  Will they want to be a part of what you have going?    More importantly, will they tell others about you?   i.e., “I have some people I think you need to meet!!!”

Much has been written in the traditional business press about creating “customer evangelists”… that is,  “customers”  who will go out and in effect, BECOME your virtual “sales force”.  Think about Apple computer … they’ve done this more successfully (arguably) and for more years and with more different products and in more industries than anyone. They did it first with the Apple II. Then they did it again, and in a really huge way with the Mac computers.  Then they did it with the iPod, and in the course of that effort changed the very way people consume music.  They did it with the iTunes store. Pixar movies (ok, not technically “Apple”, but close enough … the Steve Jobs factor.)    Then they did it with the telephone itself, releasing the iPhone and by doing so changing the very way we communicate with each other.  Rarely (if ever) has one company dominated so many markets. Rarely (if ever) has one company completely re-defined so many activities that impact us each daily.  You want to be hip and ahead of the curve?  Get on board with Apple.  They’ve done it with superior design and an unmatched “cool factor” to be sure, but they’ve also done it with word-of-mouth marketing and customer evangelists.  They were also one of the first companies to formally put “Evangelists” on the payroll.  (With Guy Kawasaki being the most famous).   But more importantly, they’ve done it with millions (tens of millions) of consumers who “show and tell” their friends about the latest Apple cool gizmo. Don’t believe me?  Try to buy your favorite teenager a “generic” smart phone.  Not cool.  On the other hand, buy them an iPhone… and you are one rockin’ daddy-o.  Like I said…. You want to be hip and ahead of the curve?  Get on board with Apple. ……   Dang, did you see that?  They’ve got ME doing it now too!!!  (I promise, that was NOT intentional).

In OUR arena… the non-profit arena…. we need to figure out a way to create those “customer evangelists.”  In fact, we need them desperately and now more than ever.   In the book, “Forces for Good: The Six Practices of High-Impact Nonprofits“, authors Leslie Crutchfield and Heather McLeod Grant identify that one of the six critical practices that are essential for high-functioning nonprofits, is to “Inspire Evangelists”.  But that won’t happen unless first WE are passionate evangelists ourselves, and that starts more than anywhere else in becoming effective story tellers.  (Of course, we have to deliver on our promises as well, but that’s another topic…stay tuned.).

If you’re still reading, thanks for your time.  I hope this has moved you to think about connecting with your own stories, and to learn to tell them well.  Your organization deserves no less. I hope you reach out to others in leadership with your organization, and TALK about these things.  If you need help in getting to the core of your story and how to tell it, I’d love to help.

Send me an email or a private message or give me a call.  I’d love to hear your stories, and I’d love to tell you mine.

love,
John

The Southern Festival of Books is going on this weekend at Legislative Plaza in downtown Nashville.  The 30^th year of the Festival.  Wow.   I’m planning on being there, as I have for many of the years since its beginnings in 1989.    Some years I go with a mission in mind … to see a particular author speak, or to hear a particular musician, or find a particular book.   Other times I go just to browse and feel the good vibes from hanging with smart people who love, love, love to read.   And love “books” in general.

This year is one of the latter.  No mission in mind. Just hanging out and finding whatever joy I can latch onto.

I have many memories of past Festivals, including hearing some of my favorite authors and getting signed copies of their books, meeting new folks, hearing musicians with whom I had been previously unfamiliar.   Or just sitting on a bench at the plaza and watching others browse and enjoy themselves.

My all-time favorite Southern Festival of Books memory comes from 1990, when I saw on the schedule that Lidia Bastianich, the famed Italian chef and co-founder of Felidia restaurant in New York was going to be speaking, cooking, and signing copies of her (then) just-published book, La Cucina di Lidia.   (Lidia’s Kitchen).

Now, I have to say here that this was at a time when I was first getting seriously interested in all things about Italian food.   I was reading, watching cooking shows on PBS (way before “Food TV”), ordering specialty Italian ingredients …. Pastas, pasta flour, San Marzano tomatoes, etc … from importers and retailers in NYC.  Things that were NOT available in Middle Tennessee at the time.   I had bought a hand-crank pasta machine from Davis Cookware (There was no Bed Bath & Beyond, no local Williams-Sonoma, and no local Sur la Table shop).    I had even made a custom fold-up pasta-drying rack similar to one I’d seen in a catalog.    I’d already planned on purchasing a copy of Lidia’s book, and was excited about the chance to see her in person at the Festival and getting a signed copy.  I had seen Lidia as a guest on some of the PBS shows I watched.  At that time, she had not yet had a show of her own.

On the Saturday Lidia was going to speak, I got down to the plaza plenty early and spent time browsing the various bookseller’s booths and soaking up the atmosphere until near time for Lidia’s late-morning talk.   At about time for her talk, I went to the place where the seats were arranged outdoors near a tent set up with a couple of tables spread with food and portable cooking gear.

As Lidia was introduced, I was thrilled to hear her say she was going to talk about her childhood growing up on the Istrian Peninsula, as she cooked a mushroom risotto. The Istrian Peninsula is the part of Italy with the closest overland access to Greece, on the north-eastern shore of the Adriatic Sea.  Lidia, as a young girl, went to a convent school in the city of Trieste.  Trieste is in the region of Friulia, right at the northern tip of that Istrian Peninsula.  It’s known for its distinctive food and wine.  The reason I was thrilled is that I love love LOVE hearing those kinds of stories.  Stories about learning to cook under nonna’s watchful eye.   I am not interested in typical “cookbooks” or in simply reading recipes.  I want to know the stories that go along with the food.   And this food is distinctive, and very different from the tomato-based cuisine of southern Italy, and different from the wines, meats, and cheeses that define the Piedmont region … what Americans typically think of as “Northern Italian”.  The food of Istria is truly rustic, peasant food.  Lidia says the food is based 50% upon Italian, 30% on Yugoslavian, and the rest a mixture of German and Hungarian.

Lida’s stories were truly wonderful, and she seemed such humble and genuine “nonna” herself, that I was just captivated.   More than that though, the way she spoke with such reverence about food, about family, and about the love that goes into cooking was remarkable.  I sat there and tried to soak up every bit of her wisdom and her technique, and made mental notes about how I needed to SLOW DOWN next time I made risotto.  She kept making the point that “You can NOT rush a risotto … The rice will release its goodness on its own timeframe.  Not on yours.”

From where I was sitting near the front I could HEAR the sizzle and see the steam each time she’d lovingly pour another small ladle of stock into the hot skillet, working the rice with her wooden spoon.  You cannot get that sound if you’re rushing things.   I was close enough to smell the goodness.  Wow.   A couple of times as she spoke, she made eye contact with me, and smiled.  I have to say, I am typically a rapt and enthusiastic listener for things that I am passionate about, so I’m sure she could sense my enthusiasm.

Many of you will know this, but some may not.   Risotto is NOT simply “rice”.   It is made with a very particular type of rice, typically Arborio.  That’s a short grain rice with an immensely higher starch content than the typical long-grain rice that Americans are more familiar with.   There are other starchy rice types that can make a good risotto, but Arborio, native to the Po valley in Northern Italy is the traditional choice.

When her talk was over, she invited the attendees … maybe about three dozen of us … down to taste a sample of the mushroom risotto.   One of her assistants took over spooning small amounts of risotto into little plastic sample cups, where we could grab one along with a small spoon and have a taste.  Lidia moved to a table to begin signing books.    As I tasted the risotto ….. WOW!!!!   The flavor, the texture, the smell, the … well, the DEPTH, was simply amazing.  The musty, earthy character of the mushrooms, the tanginess of the Pecorino Romano cheese …. But above all the unbelievable creaminess given up by the starchy rice and stock.

I lingered around and waited until I could be the last in line to purchase a book and get it signed.  (That also gave me a chance to snag a second sample of the risotto!!).   When it was my turn with Lidia and the stack of books, she asked who she should make it out to.  I said, “Make it out to John”.

She looked up and said, “Ah, John… I saw you smiling and nodding with approval as you were listening to my talk.  Are you a Chef?”

I laughed, “No ma’am, I just love good food, and I love to cook for family and friends”

She smiled deeply and said, “Then you already know the most important thing about cooking.  It must start with love, and finish with love.”

I smiled back and said, “Your risotto was amazing.   I have made risotto several times, and mine is not even HALF as creamy and rich as yours.”

She got a sly look in her eye and said, “Remember, take your time.  Making risotto is like making love!  Go slow!   Don’t rush. Never ever rush.  Coax the rice gently to give up its goodness.  Small steps, add one ladle at a time, let it incorporate completely before adding the next.”

She signed my book.  I thanked her again and left.

The inscription says

“10/90
Dear John,

It was a pleasure meeting you and may you enjoy my recipes with your family and friends.
– Lidia Bastianich”.    

I have a few other author-signed books in my collection, but none that I prize as highly.

 

Janet and I had already made plans to go to dinner that night with her parents.  We were celebrating our wedding anniversary and her mother’s birthday, both of which are in early October.  Her mom and dad dined out frequently at many of Nashville’s top restaurants.  One of their regular spots was Mario’s Italian restaurant, which at the time was one of the undisputed finest restaurants in town.  Mario Ferrari, the owner, was a friend of my in-laws.  In fact, when they ate at Mario’s they never actually paid the check.  My father-in-law just signed, left a cash tip for the staff based on the total, and then at the end of the month Mario would look at their cumulative bill, slash it by half (or often even far more depending on what mood he was in), and that’s what they paid.  Mario was born in and grew up in Trieste, Italy.

My in-laws considered many of the staff at Mario’s like family, including the maître‘d Peter, the headwaiter Patrick, and many of the wait-staff.   When my father-in-law died earlier this year Peter, Danny,  and Danny’s wife from Mario’s all came to his funeral. And Peter has been faithful in looking in regularly on my mother-in-law since then.  That’s pretty remarkable, because Mario’s burned and has been closed for over 10 years. Like I said …. family.

So we had made plans to go out for dinner that same Saturday night.  After I had been to Lidia’s demonstration and signing earlier in the day.   We chose Mario’s.   We arrived, said our greetings to staff, and were shown to our table.  We began to visit with each other and staff, think about dinner, had drinks delivered to the table, etc.   Just a normal night of fine-dining.

At some point I looked up from our table as there was a bit of hubbub near the front door.   Mario had come into his restaurant, accompanied by none other than Lidia Biastanich.   I smiled and watched as they exchanged pleasantries with the staff at the front of the restaurant.   Soon, Mario spied my in-laws and strode across the dining room with Lidia towards our table.

“I’d like to introduce you to great friends of mine, Lloyd and June”, Mario told Lidia.

Lidia smiled and extended a hand to each of them.   My Father-in-law said, “Pleased to meet you.  I’d like to introduce you to my daughter Janet and son-in-law John.”

“Oh, I know John” Lidia said.  “We are old friends.  He is soon to be one of the best risotto makers in all of Nashville!”

She hugged me and we shared a laugh that I will never ever forget as Mario, Janet, Lloyd, June and most of the rest of the restaurant looked on with priceless, puzzled expressions.

So, that’s my Southern Festival of Books story.

Wonder what tomorrow will bring?

Wishing you Love and the creamiest of risottos,

John

 

My father-in-law, Lloyd Esmon passed away in the early morning hours of April 27, 2018 at the age of 89.  He was ready. We are sad, of course, that he is no longer with us, but truly …. he was ready.  I believe that he had some time ago come to terms with the fact that his life was near its end.  While he certainly loved those of us he left behind, including June, his wife of 70 years, and his son Dwight and daughter Janet … and our entire family …. he was ready.  He would not have wanted us to mourn his passing for long, and he knew that his was a life well-lived.  Not only well-lived, but lived on his own terms.  That phrase “on his own terms” gets tossed about a lot.  For Lloyd, it was more than just a phrase.  In so many ways he was a force of nature.  You ALWAYS knew where you stood with Lloyd, and you knew how he felt about things.  Even when expressing those things got him in trouble.   I have never for one second had anything but respect and admiration for Lloyd, and count myself so very fortunate indeed to have been part of his family.  What follows are the remarks I made at his memorial service. 

In 2003, after my own father passed away I spoke at his funeral. Lloyd and June had of course gone to Missouri with us to attend his service. Afterward, Lloyd came up, and put his hand on my shoulder and said, “You did a fine job, son. Your dad would have been so proud to hear the things you said about him. I’m proud of you too. In fact, I want you to speak at MY funeral.”

I told him, “Well, I’d be honored to speak at your funeral. But just so you know. I’m not going to have a lot of nice things to say about you!”. He laughed and said, “Well, that’s good. If you did, anyone who knew me would know that was a bunch of horse-manure!”. Only he didn’t use the word “manure”.

Any of you who knew Lloyd can probably hear him saying that now, and you know that story is absolutely true. So, I guess my being up here now is a gig 15 years in the making.

Despite my ribbing him that day, you can also probably guess that I WILL have some nice things to say about Lloyd. I won’t even have to make most of them up.  But I don’t intend to sugar-coat it….. because Lloyd would NOT have wanted me to do so.

Lloyd was a complicated man. He could be kind and generous and extraordinarily thoughtful. But he could also be volatile and had a temper … particularly when he thought some injustice or disservice had been done.

As a high school principal, he was thrown out of basketball games on more than one occasion for protesting a ref’s call a little too vigorously. The students at that small high school in Southern Illinois loved “Mr. Esmon” though, and even dedicated the yearbook to him in 1959.

So yes, he was complicated. Looked at another way though, he was not so hard to figure out. Not hard to figure out, because above all he valued honesty, and integrity, and ethical behavior. He demanded it in himself, and he expected it from others. Acting honorably and being truthful was a big part of his Christian walk, and part of what he believed God expects from us. Much of Lloyd’s way of being in the world boiled down simply to his idea of doing the right thing as often as you can. Janet remembers one of his most important and most consistent pieces of advice to her was “As long as YOU are doing the right thing, don’t worry about what other people think.” As someone who knew him from his work days at The Tennessean and Banner said recently when talking about Lloyd, “He was truly one of the good guys”.

The first time I met Lloyd was not long after I’d started dating Janet at the University of Missouri. Lloyd and June had come to Columbia for her graduation, and they invited me out to dinner. The four of us went to probably the finest restaurant in town, Jack’s Gourmet Restaurant and Lounge. Jack’s was well known for one of their signature dishes, steak with green peppercorn sauce. Lloyd ordered the steak, medium rare, and I ordered the same. I’d never really been to a very fancy restaurant, and when they brought the meals out, it was one of the biggest, thickest steaks I’d ever seen. As we ate, I matched him bite for bite and we talked. He asked me about my family,  why I’d chosen engineering, what I hoped to do in the future. We talked about my small-town upbringing, and he told me about he and June having grown up in an even smaller hometown in Southern Illinois. By the time we finished, I felt like I had not only “passed muster” with “Janet’s father”, but also that I’d made a friend with a man who was genuinely interested in what I had to say.

Janet and I dated long distance for a time as she was in Nashville, and I was still living in Missouri. Whenever I would come to Nashville for a visit, Lloyd and June would eagerly welcome me into their home. When time came for me to move to Nashville, find a job, and begin preparing to start a life with their daughter, Lloyd and June opened up their home and let me move in with them until I got my feet on the ground, got a job, and was able to get settled into an apartment of my own. I lived with them for probably about 3 months.  And because Janet was working evenings, I ended up spending a great deal of time with Lloyd. Going out to eat, going to Nashville Sounds baseball games or church-league softball games, meeting their friends. I got to see first hand the kind of man he was, and how those who knew him best respected him and valued his friendship.

I mentioned softball. Back in those days, Lloyd pitched on the church-league softball team for the Bellevue Church of Christ where he and June were longtime members. He would have been in his mid-to-late 50’s. Most all of the young men on the team were about half his age. Yet, Lloyd was the pitcher, because he could sling that softball harder, faster, and more accurately than any of them. Always with a large wad of Levi Garrett in his jaw when he was on the mound. He had a pretty good bat too.

I remember the time several years later when one of those young men from that team approached me at a church golf tournament. He asked, “How’s your daddy-in-law?” I replied that he was doing great. He said, “Let me tell you something about Lloyd that you may not know. There was a time back when I was 18 or 19 years old and was pretty much living like a knucklehead. Really not in a good place. Lloyd called me and invited me out to Sperry’s for a steak, said he had some things he wanted to talk about. We went out to dinner just the two of us. He looked me in the eye, talked to me man-to-man, and told me I was really in danger of messing up my whole life. He told me about his life, and where he’d come from. Basically, told me it was time to ‘man-up’. He was really the one more than anybody who helped me get my act together.”

I thanked him for sharing that with me and walked away with a renewed appreciation for the man who was by then my father-in-law.

But here’s the thing. That’s not the only time that happened. It happened again, with other young men, at least a couple more times with similar versions of the same story. And for all I know there may be many others who never took the time to reach out and share their stories about the influence Lloyd had on their lives. That’s the kind of man he was, and the kind of feelings he brought about in those whose lives he touched.

As our wedding approached, Lloyd told Janet and I several times…. just figure out how much this thing is going to cost me and give me the number. I’ll cut you a check, and you can elope. Use the money as a nest egg or blow it all on a trip to Hawaii. I think he was serious. That was Lloyd. Of course, Janet would just look at him and say, “Pop!”    As for me, I kind of thought taking the cash wasn’t such a bad plan. But I can attest, and Emma will confirm, daughters have a way with their fathers, and we did indeed have a wedding ceremony.

On the day of our wedding, as my groomsmen and I were preparing for the service, getting our tuxes on, Lloyd came up and called me aside. He put his hand on my shoulder, gave it a little squeeze, and looked me in the eye. I was expecting him to give me a word of encouragement, or to impart some wisdom about marriage, or maybe even make a joke to ease the pre-ceremony jitters.  Instead, he said something completely unexpected. “Son, you seem like a very fine young man, and I can tell you love Janet. But I can promise you this. If you ever mistreat her, I will find you, and I will hurt you.” I am sure he was serious. That was Lloyd.

As I stood at the front of the front of the church a short while later and saw Janet and her dad begin to walk arm in arm down the aisle, I was filled with love and a sense of peace and calm about the path upon which Janet and I were embarking. What I did NOT know, however, was that as Janet and Lloyd walked towards the altar, he was talking quietly to her the entire way. “Are you sure he’s the one? Are you sure you want to do this? We can turn around and walk out if you want to. Don’t worry about disappointing these people or what they will think, we can just turn around and leave and call the whole thing off if you’re not 100% sure.“ That is vintage Lloyd.

But Janet was already by then a strong and very smart young woman …. And she was and IS her father’s daughter. So, she WAS 100% sure. To the best of my knowledge, Lloyd never again raised any question about our marriage. He and June have been the best in-laws I could ever imagine.

I like to think I measured up to his best expectations. Not long after my father died, Lloyd took me aside once again. He said “I know you and your dad were especially close. I know that I can never take his place, and I wouldn’t even try. But I want you to know that as far as I’m concerned, I have two sons that I love, you and Dwight. As long as I’m able, I will always be here for you.”    And he was.

When Emma came along in 1988, Lloyd and June’s life changed forever, and they became just the best grandparents. As we have gone through box after box of pictures the last few nights, reminiscing on the images of a life well lived, there were so many pictures of Lloyd and Emma together, first as a baby, then as a little girl, on family trips to the beach, to Disney World, to Alaska, to visit Dwight and Sandi in Florida, out to eat at some of Lloyd and June’s favorite restaurants, or just hanging around the house. When Emma became a big sister in 1995, Lloyd took such delight in our twin boys, Evan and Brendan.

Right from the start, Evan was always “Grandpa’s boy” … and as we began to face the challenges presented by Evan’s autism, Lloyd reached out to a trusted friend who he thought could give him some perspective on what it all meant, Dr. Bruce White. Bruce told him that “John and Janet don’t know it yet, but they will come to know that Evan is perhaps the greatest blessing in their lives.” Lloyd shared that with me then, and it simply didn’t resonate with me … yet. But, several years later, Lloyd came to a workshop that I was teaching for grandparents of children with autism, and I told that story. After I told the story, I looked at Lloyd and simply said, “Bruce was right”.  There were tears in both his eyes and mine. Of course, even up to the very end, Lloyd had only unconditional love for Evan, and needed to hear Janet and I  assure him that Evan is such a remarkable young man and that he is doing just fine. That is due in no small part to the love lavished upon him by his grandparents. The image of Lloyd reaching out and squeezing Evan’s hand on the evening before he passed away is one I will never, ever forget.

Likewise, Brendan and grandpa Lloyd have always had a very special relationship. Spending countless Friday nights with “Mimi and Grandpa”, they developed a particularly close and lasting bond of love. Knowing that Brendan has chosen to enter a helping profession, and has not only become a stellar student, but also just a remarkably interesting and engaging young man has been a huge source of pride and comfort to Lloyd.

In his later years, when Lloyd’s health began first to falter and then to fail, he handled it all with grace and dignity and peace. Even at the end, when we knew he simply did not feel good at all, he rarely complained about anything. He maintained his sense of humor right up until the very end. It’s hard to imagine that the time  would come when it seemed right to let Lloyd go. But of course, it did. The sadness that we feel at his passing is not a sadness borne out of “what might have been”, or out of a sense that there was anything left for him to accomplish, or for us to tell him. The sadness is because we know how much we will miss his laugh, his counsel, and his one-of-a-kind gift to cut right to the chase in every situation.

Being around Lloyd meant being in a perpetual “no BS” zone. It meant you better be ready to be authentic and honest and real. Maybe that is the greatest gift he gave us. The gift of making us want to be our best selves. Not only for him, but because it’s the right way to live. And for that (and for his daughter) I am eternally grateful.

I was recently asked to take part in a Nashville Storytellers event sponsored by The Tennessean, held on March 25th at the historic Woolworth’s on Fifth in Nashville.  This was the location back in 1961 of the “Lunch Counter Sit-Ins” by a group of TSU students here in Nashville.  The theme of the evening was “The Struggle for Civil Rights”.  I was so honored to be asked to be a small part of an incredibly moving and emotional evening. 

The organizers wanted a very personal and authentic story from the disability community that gave an example of how the lives of people with disabilities have changed and evolved through the years.  I have to be completely honest and say that I really felt completely inadequate to such a daunting task.   But I was encouraged by a couple of dear friends in our local disability community to accept the challenge, and just speak from the heart and trust the power of personal narrative. 

The story I chose is one I had written previously … quite a few years ago … about my experience with a neighborhood kid with an intellectual disability from back in the mid-1960’s, and then talking about some of the ways our son Evan’s experiences at about the same age differ …. and the ways my own life has been impacted.  I re-wrote the story to fit an oral narrative style, and I am posting that written version here for you.  I understand they *may* be putting the video of the stories from that night online at some point in the near future, and if they do, I’ll link to that as well.  For now, here’s the written version.  I hope you enjoy it. 

 

I saw Randy coming up the sidewalk to my house.

Great.

I didn’t want to play with Randy.  I didn’t want to even be around Randy.

So I hid.

I saw this kid coming up to my front door, and I hid.

Hard to believe, but that was over 50 years ago.   Mid 1960’s, small town Missouri.   I was maybe 8 or 9 years-old.

Randy’s parent’s lived on my block.

I hid from him.   Around the corner from our front door screen, just out of his field of view.   Randy put his face on the screen and hollered.   “John!  John!  Can John come out?   Where’s John?”

I just stood there saying to myself, “Dear God, just go away.  Go away.”

My mom came out from the kitchen and saw Randy, saw me hiding, and knew instantly what was going on.   She gave me a look.  A look that asked if I was going to answer him.   I just shook my head, “No”

She looked at him and said, “Hi Randy!”

“Can John come out?”

“I’m afraid John doesn’t feel like coming out just now. ”  Then because moms are much faster on their feet than nine-year-old boys, she said to Randy, but actually addressing me,  “In fact, John won’t be able to go out AT ALL today”.     I knew what she meant.

“Okay”

As he turned to leave, mom called after him…. “Randy, why don’t you try again tomorrow?  I’ll bet John will feel like playing with you then.”

“Okay”.

Mom watched him walk away.  She looked at me and said, “You know, I bet he doesn’t have many friends.”

I felt small.   Really small.

Randy wasn’t like the other kids.   His speech was hard to understand.  He had a strange galloping walk.  Sometimes he would get overly excited about something and I didn’t really know why.

Randy had an intellectual disability.  That’s what we call it now.  In those days they just said Randy was mentally retarded. That’s not a phrase we consider appropriate to use now.  Though even then, what *some* kids called Randy was far less kind than even that.

It was the mid-60’s … so my friends and I were starting to get into music.  The Beatles, The Dave Clark Five, Herman’s Hermits, the Monkees.    Randy didn’t care about any of that.  He wasn’t interested in listening to records.

He couldn’t run or throw a ball or ride a bike.   Didn’t understand “playing army”.

If I got out my Matchbox cars to drive them around on a pretend town on the front porch, Randy would just hold one (usually the firetruck) in his hand and spin the wheels.

As I said, Randy’s parents lived on my block.  But RANDY didn’t live on my block.   I’m sad to say I don’t know exactly where he lived, but I know it was in a town 50 or 60 miles away, at the “special school” he went to.

That’s what we did with kids like Randy in those days.

There were no kids like Randy in my school.  Because there didn’t HAVE to be kids like Randy in my school.    I think there might have been a Special Education classroom in my high school.  But those kids ….. “those kids”….. didn’t interact at all with the rest of us.

The law giving students with disabilities the right to a “Free and Appropriate Public Education”, the law that would become known as IDEA, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, one of the most ground-breaking pieces of disability legislation …. Civil rights legislation …. didn’t become law until  1975.  1975!    Doesn’t seem all that long ago.

1975 was the year I graduated high school.     So I went all through school without ever really interacting with kids with significant disabilities.

I graduated high school and went off to college.  Here’s the short version:   Met this girl.  Followed her home.  To Nashville.  We got married, started a family and have three amazing children, now all young adults, including twin boys who are now 22, Evan and Brendan.

Twins are a LOT of work.   The first year or so of the boy’s lives is just a blur in my memory.

You try not to compare your kids to one another, because every parent knows that all kids are different.  But maybe because we had a “built-in” comparison with twins, we noticed early on that Evan just wasn’t meeting the same developmental milestones as Brendan.  I’ll never forget the day that after a series of tests, observations and evaluations the psychologist pulled her chair up close to where Janet and I were sitting on her couch and asked, “Have you considered that Evan might have autism?”

With those words, our lives changed forever.

His life, our lives, the lives of our family and extended family.  Our very way of being in the world had just changed in ways we didn’t … couldn’t … realize yet.    Some of those ways are wondrous.  Joyful.  Amazing and uplifting and eye-opening.  Some of those ways make us better people than we were before.   And some of those ways are difficult and frustrating and painful and heartbreaking.   Some of those ways make it hard to face each new day.

It’s complicated.   Very, very complicated.

Autism.   We didn’t know anything at all about autism.  We’d seen the movie “Rainman”, but that wasn’t our son.

Unlike today, where “autism” is in the larger public consciousness to a greater degree than ever before, back twenty years ago ….. well, not so much.

To her credit, the psychologist that diagnosed Evan suggested we get “plugged in” with the parent community and learn from other families.    So, within a week or so, I found myself in the offices of the Autism Society of Middle Tennessee (now Autism Tennessee) one day at lunchtime.    I’d thought I’d pop in, grab a few brochures out of a rack, and sneak out.

I ended up spending over 2 hours with the Executive Director that day.  And by the time I left, I had two thoughts in mind.

1. We’re not alone. There are other kids like Evan out there, and other families dealing with the things we’re just starting to see.
2. Why in HELL did I volunteer to do their website?

So…. I got involved.   I was on their Board within a few months, and within a couple of years was President, a position I held for about 6 years.   I’m Past-President of The Arc Tennessee.    I was on the National board of the Autism Society of America, where I met and worked with families and individuals on the autism spectrum from all over the country.  I’ve spoken at conferences all over the nation about the joys and challenges of parenting a child with a significant disability.    Most of our closest friends in the world are the people we’ve met through the disability community.

As for Evan, he’s truly an incredible young man.    We learn so much from him, every single day.   About life, and about unconditional love.  How to give it and how to receive it.  He has the truest and most authentic way of being in the world I have ever encountered.   As I said, it’s complicated.

We have had good years in Evan’s school experience, and we’ve had some very challenging ones.   One of the best was the year he had Miss Boone as his home-room teacher, and she went out of her way almost every day to make sure Evan was included as “just another kid” in the class.   During that time it was so wonderful to see his face light up when we’d run into one of the kids from his class out in the community …. At the park, the grocery store or the pool … and they’d give him a fist-bump or a high-five and say, “Hey, Evan!  How’s it going?”    He would light up, and I would light up too.  I remember thinking, “It’s working.  He’s finding a place, learning to fit-in.  Finding his sense of belonging.”

The need and desire “to belong” is one of our fundamental human needs.  There are a lot of dimensions to “belonging”, and one of the most important of those dimensions is “friendship”.   Having friends is a powerful force in anyone’s life.   Whether or not we can articulate it, having friends centers us, provides a sense of stability and purpose, and helps to create meaning.

Over half of parents of children with significant disabilities will tell you that their son or daughter has never once been invited to another child’s house for a sleepover… a birthday party … a play-date.   Nearly a third of adults with disabilities will tell you they simply do not have any friends at all, other than paid caregivers or family.

One day I was on the phone with my mom in Missouri, about 5 or 6 years into our journey with Evan’s autism.  Just catching up, sharing the latest news about family, etc.

Then she said, “I ran into Randy the other day.”

Randy.   I hadn’t really thought much about Randy in years.   Decades, really.

My mom went on. “He’s really doing great.  He has a job.  He asked about you.  He said you ‘Sure were a good friend’.”

I sure was a good friend.   Suddenly I was nine again.   And I felt small.  Really small.

Because I hid from Randy. I didn’t want to play with Randy.  I didn’t even want to be around Randy.

I wasn’t a friend to Randy.

I could have been his friend.   I *should* have been his friend.

I’m so glad he remembered it better than I do.    Who knows how different his life  … how different MY life … might have been had I truly been a friend to Randy?

Today, I count a number of people with disabilities among my friends.

Here’s what I know:  People with disabilities have hopes and dreams and fears and challenges.  They have things that make them laugh and bring them joy. They have things that make them sad, or make them cry.

At age 60, I think I can grant my 9 year-old self a measure of grace for being selfish … fearful … of a boy who was different, a boy who probably just really needed a friend.   I know now that it was MY shortcomings, not Randy’s that kept me from really finding out about his life.

Now, I challenge myself…. And I challenge all of you … that when you see or meet a person with a disability, please look BEYOND the label.  Know that they are likely far more competent than we might be tempted to presume.  Don’t focus solely on limitations or what you might easily perceive as shortcomings.   Instead, look to the person … the real human being … who is there beneath and through and despite whatever other things you see.

Make the effort to connect authentically, from the heart, and to be open to the fact that the kindness you should offer that person just might lead to a rewarding friendship.  It could very well be an incredibly important and potentially life-changing friendship for both of you.

I think Randy would like that.   And so would Evan.   And so would I.

love,
John

This one is weird.  If weird ain’t your thing, stop now.  You’ve been warned.

Very strange dream last night.  Vivid.  One of those dreams where when you wake up you kind of have to pause a minute, and are just a little shaken because it seemed so real.  I have a lot of dreams like that.

(In the interest of full disclosure, I filled in just “a few” gaps here and there.  But overall, this is very accurately my dream.  Not sure I should admit that.)

I was homeless, dirty, and living on the street.   I had long, greasy matted gray hair, and a very long, scraggly, bushy and out of control gray beard.   I was wearing a dirty sweatshirt, but had on no pants.   Yes…I had on no pants, but around my waist was wrapped a very dirty and ragged chenille blanket … the kind you used to see on grandma’s bed.  It was wrapped around me sort of like a diaper.

I was in a big city, skyscrapers all around.  There was a lot of vehicular traffic … cars, cabs, buses, etc. in the street.  And lots of pedestrian traffic on the sidewalks.  It was a gray blustery day.  It was cold and there was a sense of foreboding … as if the sky was about to break open at any moment.

I was lying in the dirt in a large planter, at the base of a tree that had been planted there as part of a project to “beautify” the city.  As such, I was up about 3 or 4 feet off the sidewalk.   I had a small dilapidated dirty foam pillow wadded under my head, and a filthy old sleeping bag pulled up around me.   I would occasionally call out to people passing by, but no one paid any attention.

Two women walked by, whom I recognized as girls from my high-school class.   I hollered out to them….. calling their names. “Sharon!  Ann!”  They turned and briefly looked at me but kept on going, apparently not recognizing me …. Even though I obviously knew their names.    I reached out towards them, but they paid no heed.    (In real life, these same two women were just back in my hometown for a visit at Thanksgiving, a visit that was documented by a photo, with a third friend, and posted to FB.  Bolstering my theory that dreams are basically the mind rehashing and reinterpreting events from waking life.  Although the rest of the dream sort of belies that theory.)

Before long, three of my (real-life) co-workers walked by.  I called out to them.  They came over to where I was laying.  One of them said, “Geez, man … what happened to you?”

I said to him, “Nothing happened to me. What do you mean?”

They shook their heads, turned and walked off.  I reached out towards them, and called out again … but they paid no heed.

People continued to walk by.

I felt so profoundly sad.

I looked up and noticed that a man in a nice dark gray overcoat and scarf was standing just inside the building near where my planter was. He was taring at me through the large plate glass window.    It was Peter Bogdanovitch.  It was then that I realized that the whole dream was in black & white.   (I usually dream in color).

Clouds were moving rapidly overhead.

I got up and walked over to the glass, just where he was standing, and stared back at him.   He said something to me, but I could not hear.  I motioned that I did not understand.   He opened up a clipboard with a notepad, took out a pen and wrote in big letters on the page….. holding it up for me to see.  “May I buy you a meal?”

I was hungry, so I nodded in the affirmative.   He motioned for me to come inside.

Once inside, he introduced himself.  “Hi.  I’m Peter. There’s a restaurant here in my building.  Is that ok?”   I said that it was.

I knew he was Peter Bogdanovitch, the famous director, but I did not let on that I recognized him.

As we walked into a fancy restaurant on the ground floor of the building, the maître ‘d  looked askance at me, and started to say something.   Peter cut him off and asked disdainfully, “Do you have a problem with my friend?”     The maître ‘d said that he did not, and showed us to a prime table in the center of the restaurant.

The waiter showed up, glanced hesitatingly at me, but focused on Mr. B.

Bogdanovitch ordered for us, I did not understand what it was he ordered.   I heard the words, they were just unfamiliar.

He asked if I minded if he took some notes.   I said that I did not.  He took out that same clipboard.

He asked my name, and where I was from.  I could read what he was jotting down on his notepad.  “Preliminary Production Notes:   Homeless man, named John.  Small town Missouri.   Dirty hair and clothes.  No possessions.  Hollow eyes.  Opening scene, John, sleeping in planter on city street on gray, gloomy day.  Invisible to passersby.  Kind man sees him, and offers to buy him some food.”

The “food” came out shortly. It consisted only of four small colored mounds of foam on a white plate. The small mounds were touching one another.  They were … well … foam. Hardly a filling meal.   I had a goblet of water as well.  The mounds of foam were the ONLY things of color in the whole scene.

I asked Peter, “What is this stuff?”

He said…. “It’s foamed food.  The very latest thing.   I’m sorry.   I should have warned you.  Many of the best restaurants in the city now foam their food”

I asked again…. “Ok, but what IS it?”

He said, “The red is roasted red foamed peppers.   The green is foamed spinach.  The grayish-brown is roasted duck breast, also foamed.  The blue is …… well, we don’t really know what the blue is.  But everybody eats the blue.  It’s delicious and good for you.   Just try it.”

He jotted down more notes on the clipboard.  “Homeless man is uncomfortable and unfamiliar with foam cuisine.  Especially the blue.”

I took a bite of the red.   It was just tasteless foam.  Sort of like eating soap suds, but without the soap suds taste.  I took a bite of the grayish-brown.   Again, like eating soap suds. But this tasted bad.  I made a face and spit it in my napkin and took a drink of water and swished it around to hopefully wash the foul tasted out of my mouth.  I said, “This tastes like crap.  Looks like it too.”

Peter Bogdanovitch jotted down more notes.  “Homeless man is ungrateful and rejects food. Becomes agitated.”

I said, perhaps a little too loud.  “I’m not agitated dammit.  Stop making your damn notes!”

Peter Bogdanovitch looked at me and apologized. “I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean to upset you.  I only wanted to get you a square meal.   I’m actually interested in perhaps making a movie, portraying your life as metaphor for the hopelessness of the age.”

“My LIFE is not a METAPHOR for anything you pompous windbag!!   You don’t know a damn thing about me!”

Then he jotted down in his clipboard….  “Homeless man is ungrateful, on verge of rage.”

“I’ll show YOU the verge…..”

At this point I stood up and angrily overturned the table, sending plates, food, water glasses, and silverware crashing to the floor. I was cursing like a sailor, calling Mr. Bogdanovitch every vile name I could think of.  I yelled that if he even TRIED to make a movie out of my life I would sue him and I would win.  Diners and staff scattered around the restaurant froze in shocked silence.  I strode out of the restaurant, with my last glimpse being of Peter Bogdanovitch scribbling away furiously on his notepad.    The maître ‘d is on the phone.  Probably to the cops.

Next thing I know I’m standing in front of an elevator.

The doors open and I get in.  I’m still seething from the Bogdanovitch episode.   There are a few other people in the elevator, and they can sense my anger, and they all scrunch to the edges to get away from me.  When the doors open, everyone but me gets out.   I’m pretty sure most of them had other floors in mind.

On a floor way up at the top of the building, I get out of the elevator.    It’s my old dorm floor from college at Mizzou.  Hudson Hall.  I walk down to my room, and go in.   It’s exactly my old dorm room, except that there’s a bathroom and shower in there.    (The dorms in real-life actually had a communal bathroom/shower for each wing).

I looked out the window at the building across the street, another dorm, and thought of my dear friend R. who lived over there.  I wondered how she was doing, and what she would think of the state I was in?

I felt ashamed and started to cry.  The hot tears made dirty salty tracks down my unwashed face.

I resolved to clean up.  Literally and figuratively.

I took off the sweatshirt and unwrapped the chenille blanket from my pasty, dirty body.   I stood there naked and looked at my bowed, gray legs and bad posture and ridiculous nest of hideously dirty hair in the full length mirror.  I was particularly appalled at the state of my toenails.  What a state.  I wondered how I’d gotten in such bad shape.

I walked to the bathroom, and opened the door to go in and take a shower.

Inside there was a middle-aged, slightly heavy-set African-American maid, cleaning.   In a uniform like the ones worn in the movie, “The Help”.    (What, your dorm didn’t have maid service?)

She turned around and took one look at my naked and bent body and started screaming in terror.  Threw her hands up in the air and ran out.   I called after her to wait. I think I wanted to apologize for scaring (or scarring?) her.   But she kept going on down the hall.

I turned on the hot water and stepped into the shower, which was made of brick-red tiles.  The maid had left all of her cleaning supplies.   Yellow bottles, blue bottles, etc.    (The dream was back in color apparently, as per usual).

The hot water felt really good as it streamed down through my dirty hair and over my body, and I started lathering up with the soap.

The foam felt good on my body.

That’s when I woke up.

I woke up this morning with a heavy heart, thinking about the current news of hatred, intolerance, and violence in the world.  The events that turned violent and deadly in Charlottesville last Saturday.  The news reports just yesterday from Barcelona of terrorists plowing through crowds, killing over a dozen innocent people. These are only the latest two heartbreaking examples. The list goes on and on and on, and continues to grow at an alarming pace.   It is overwhelming.  Literally, overwhelming.

We live in a broken world.

I had one thought on my mind as I showered and went about my morning routine:

What are you doing to spread peace and love in the world?
What are YOU doing to spread peace and love in YOUR world?

As I began my morning commute, that thought was still with me.   I wondered to myself… “Seriously, what AM I doing to make the world a kinder and more loving place?  Me, John.  What am I doing?”

Not enough, for sure.  But not nothing either.   I certainly don’t mean to suggest I’m some saint, and I do not want this piece to sound like I’m wanting to toot my own horn.  I’m really not.   But I have very consciously tried to do a few things.  These things don’t necessarily make a huge difference.  But I think… I hope… they do make at a least a small difference.

I’ve tried to keep a “mantra” of sorts in my mind.  “Do the Loving Thing”.   Sometimes I think I do an okay job of it.  Sometimes I fail miserably.  Truthfully, I probably don’t do a good enough job of it with those I love most. I am sure that I don’t.  And that’s something I can work on.    If I am going to be true to my own belief system … if I want to act intentionally upon my faith, I can and must be “working on it” every day.

I’ve written about this idea of “Do the Loving Thing” here before.   In each situation, with every decision, make a conscious choice to “Do the Loving Thing”.  And we each face literally hundreds or even thousands of decisions every single day.

Some decisions are tiny and relatively inconsequential (Do I smile at this store clerk who is not of my native culture? How much do I tip this waitress, who may be struggling just to put food on the table and to make ends meet?   Should I offer a kind and understanding word to this mom struggling through the grocery store parking lot with an unruly toddler?).    Others are huge and with enormous potential impact. (Should we encourage mom and dad that it really is past time for them to move to an assisted-living facility?  What is the next step in the transition of my son with a disability from his school years to adult life?)

When faced with the onslaught of daily decisions, we don’t always know the difference in what is a big thing, and what is small.  And we don’t always recognize the opportunities that come our way to make a difference.  And we don’t always overcome the inertia to seize upon those opportunities when we DO recognize them.

Sometimes “The Loving Thing” is immediately obvious and easy.  Sometimes it’s not clear at all and terribly, terribly difficult.   Just because it may be obvious, doesn’t mean it’s easy.  And just because it may not be clear doesn’t mean it’s difficult.

Still, “Do the Loving Thing”.

So, there I was this morning driving along on Franklin road, heading into Nashville, I wondered if I should I use that thought  (What are YOU doing to spread peace and love in YOUR world?) as my latest clever Facebook status message?   Then I felt a little chagrinned ….even ashamed … to have even “gone there” in my mind.

I mean, I really did NOT want to turn this thought … this question … into something about me.   “By golly, look there… another clever Facebook Post from John!   I love his stuff so much!”

I really don’t want to be that guy.   The question that was burning in my heart this morning is about how to get EACH of us asking ourselves what are WE doing?

What are YOU doing to spread peace and love in the world,  and what MORE can you do?

Yes, we live in a broken world.  We really do.

But WE don’t have to be broken.  WE are better than that, and we CAN be a small source of light and love to the world.

Do the Loving Thing.

I had listened last night to Malcolm Gladwell’s latest podcast, from earlier this week, in his “Revisionist History” series.   The specific topic doesn’t matter, but he ended it with these words:

“What is a child’s obligation to his parent? I took my father’s presence for granted while he was alive.  After he died, the first shocking realization was that I had to find a way to keep him alive in my heart … to honor his memory.  How do we do that?  Not by honoring our parent’s beliefs.  They are different people than we are, born in different eras, shaped by different forces. What we are obliged to honor in our parents is their principles.  The rules by which they lived their lives.”  – Malcolm Gladwell, The Basement Tapes    

I remember so clearly the example I was raised with.  The numerous examples of acts of kindness shown to others by my parents.   As I have written here before, I can remember so many times when mom & dad would stop and visit to brighten the day of elderly folks they knew.  I remember so many times when they would take a small basket of tomatoes or other vegetables from their garden to folks who were in some kind of need.  Just the fact that planted a garden with a yield far, far bigger than anything we ourselves could eat.  I remember  so many times when dad would go to a neighbor’s house and repair a furnace, or fix a plumbing problem.  (And if I had invested a dollar back then for ever radio, TV, or appliance he had repaired for folks, I’d be looking at early retirement now.)  There were so many times when they would give an elderly neighbor a ride to a doctor’s appointment, or offer to take them to the market.  I remember the times when mom would go to the hospital and sit and laugh and visit with Marge from across the street as she struggled through chemo treatments for her cancer.  One of the most touching things I ever read was after mom passed away, finding the note that Marge had penned, thanking mom for the love and friendship she had lavished upon her during her illness.

Do the Loving Thing.

So there I was this morning, driving along on my morning commute with these thoughts in my head. As I approached Brentwood, not having had anything for breakfast, I thought…. Bagel.    I want a bagel.

I pulled the car into the crowded strip-mall parking lot and pulled up near Bruegger’s Bagels.   I went in and got a fresh Pumpernickel bagel, toasted, with garden veggie cream cheese, sprouts and red onions, and a large black coffee.

Walking back out to my car, I looked down and saw that the SUV next to me had a front tire on the passenger side that was terribly, terribly worn.  I mean, the woven steel from the steel belts was exposed and frayed.  I looked at the back tire, and it was in relatively great shape, with plenty of tread.  I walked around and found the exact same situation on the driver’s side.  Front tire dangerously worn, and rear tire in good shape.

I looked into the car, and saw a few things there inside that led me to think the car belonged to a young woman.   I wondered if she realized the bad shape her tires were in, and how dangerous it is?  There was no way to know specifically who the car belonged to.  Maybe an employee of Bruegger’s or a customer?  Maybe some other business?   I looked again at the tires.

Do the Loving Thing.

This isn’t rocket surgery, John.   I asked myself, do you believe those words?

Do the Loving Thing.

If this car belonged to MY daughter, seen by some random stranger, how would I want that stranger to act?

Do the Loving Thing

I looked in my money clip.  I had exactly two twenties.  I found a piece of paper in my car and penned a note.

“You are dangerously in need of two new front tires!    Please get them replaced!   This won’t pay for them, but maybe it will help get you  part of the way there.    Be kind and do the loving thing.   (Pay it forward when you can.)” 

I tucked the note and the two twenty dollar bills in an envelope and wrote in big letters on the front:  “I hope this brightens your day.”   I placed the envelope under her driver’s side wiper, with the text on the front of the envelope down so it could be read from inside the vehicle.

In the face of events like Charlottesville, the decision to be kind, live peacefully in the world, and to “Do the Loving Thing”as often as we can may not seem like much.

On the other hand, maybe it’s everything.

I pulled away and drove on towards the office.  It’s Friday.  This new day is another gift that I was not promised, and it’s a good, good day.

And the pumpernickel bagel was so very delicious.

Love,
John

 

 

When I was a boy, like many other Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts, I had a subscription to “Boys’ Life” magazine.   It’s the official magazine of Scouting.   Lots of great adventure stories, history, educational articles about nature and wildlife, science, humor, and all sorts of things designed to show what the life of a young man of good character really looks like.  It also included reports of interesting things that Scouts around the country had done.   A fascinating and much anticipated monthly read.

Right.  I read it for the ads in back.

The last few pages were chock full of ads for anything that might grab the attention of a young Scout  and sucker him into parting with a few bucks.    Gilbert erector sets, chemistry sets, “Build your own Radio!” kits, etc.   Then there were also the ads for Bikes, pocketknives, orienteering supplies, camping equipment.  Lionel Electric Trains, money-making opportunities by learning to raise bees and sell honey, or to build a working Steam Engine.   And then there were plans.  Plans to build your own rowboat or tree-house or clubhouse in the woods … you name it. 

There were ads for all kinds of things.   If there was any off chance that some boy somewhere might salivate after it, there was an ad for it.

One of the ads that regularly caught MY eye was one where you could send in $1, along with a Self-Addressed-Stamped-Envelope, and get plans to “Build Your Own MOTORIZED Bike!”    The word “MOTORIZED” was in all caps so as to differentiate it from all OTHER bikes.   Not just a “bike”.   A MOTORIZED bike.

The ad showed an old Schwinn Cruiser, fitted with a small gas engine.  A boy with a slightly maniacal smile was astride it, looking like he owned the world.   There were “speed lines” added to the picture as well, indicating that any bike so equipped would veritably zip along at breakneck speed, providing not only rapid transportation, but a thrilling ride in the process.   In script below the “Build Your Own MOTORIZED Bike”, was the phrase, in a font designed to connote action:  “Ride Like the Wind!”

I had to have one.

I’m not kidding.   I HAD to have one.   I thought about that thing for weeks and weeks.

So, finally, unable to resist any longer, I took my $1, tucked it into an envelope along with a S.A.S.E., and waited for my plans.   Never mind that I did NOT have one of those Schwinns, or even anything remotely similar.  I had a typical “Sting Ray” bike, with raised handle bars, banana seat.  Like ALL the kids had in those days.   But that was a technicality.

It was weeks before I heard back.  Weeks.   Truthfully, life moved on and I pretty much had forgotten about it.

But on the day the envelope arrived, with MY OWN HANDWRITING on the outside, it thrilled me all over again to imagine that soon, very soon indeed, I would be smiling that maniacal smile, and would join the ranks of boys all over the world who could now, “Ride Like the Wind!“.

I eagerly tore open the envelope to find inside, one single solitary page.

It was a rough, primitive photocopy of a drawing with a bike with a steel plate welded just above the crankset, with a small gas engine mounted on the plate, with chain and sprockets to drive it.  I think there was an arrow pointing at the plate, with the words “weld plate here, and mount engine”.

There was not much that a typical 12 year-old Boy Scout could “build”, unless that 12-year old Boy Scout ALSO happened to own a machine shop and be an expert welder.  I didn’t know any Boy Scout welders.

But you COULD save up a what amounted to a small fortune for a 12-year old Boy Scout, and buy a gas engine from the supplier listed on the “plans”,  along with chain and sprockets, then take the picture to a machine shop and have THEM weld the plate on for you, etc.

My feeling of “being had” was palpable.   I looked and looked at those plans, and it just seemed unreachable. Needlessly complicated, and more than a little disappointing that I’d paid a whole DOLLAR for this sheet of paper.

But I never soured on the IDEA of a “Motorized Bike”.

Never.

So, no, I never actually got one.  But I always wished that I had.

Yesterday after work on my way to pick up Janet, I was running a bit early.   So I did something I do from time-to-time, and I stopped on the Vanderbilt University campus to walk the Labyrinth out beside the Scarritt-Bennett library.  It was just the thing I needed to center my mind and bring back a feeling of balance that I had allowed a hard-day to steal.

Heading back to my car, I heard the faint “putt-putt-putt” of a small engine, and wondered what it might be.

Imagine my delight when I looked up to see an older gentleman, with snowy white hair underneath his bicycle helmet, wire rim glasses, and a smile that said he owned the world … riding down 19th Avenue South on my “Motorized Bicycle”.

He had what appeared to be that EXACT Schwinn I had envisioned all those years ago, complete with leather panniers, whitewall fat tires, and yes … a puttering, sputtering gasoline engine.

There was only one phrase that could possibly have escaped my lips.

And it did.

“Ride like the wind!”

I smiled and waved. He smiled a giant, somewhat maniacal but knowing grin and waved back.    I laughed.  Honestly, I laughed out loud, and I even shed a couple of very, very happy tears.  He saw my laugh, threw his head back just a bit and laughed too.

I so, so , SO wish I could have had the opportunity to chat with him, to find out if he had been a Scout.   To see if he read Boys’ Life.  To see if rather than feeling like he had been duped, that when he saw those same rudimentary “plans” I had seen all those years ago, he had thought to himself:

“Hell.  I can build THAT!”

Beauty, they say, is “in the eye of the beholder”.  That is true, I guess.

But sometimes … sometimes … beauty is in the imagination of a boy.  A boy who then rises to the challenge of the chance to do something daring.  Something that nobody he knows has ever done before.

And brothers and sisters, I am here to attest, it is all the more beautiful when you can look at an old man having the time of his life, and see the wonder of the boy that still lives inside.

Love,

John.
“Ride Like the Wind!”

Except for the parts that aren’t, this story is almost entirely true.  I have lost touch in the ensuing years with everyone mentioned.  Except for myself.  I have not (as yet) lost touch with myself.  That will likely happen at some point.   

Unless you count Bello’s Pizza as an exotic Italian restaurant, my hometown of Mexico, Missouri back-in-the-day didn’t have much in the way of “foreign cuisine” that I remember.  Mexico people, am I wrong?

I do remember the time a few decades later when we got our first gen-u-wine Mexican restaurant on East Liberty.  A sweet older gentleman who lived nearby was among the first brave souls we knew who went there one night for dinner.  When he got home he was telling my mom and dad about it.  Mom asked him what he had eaten.  “I don’t really know. I just told the waitress to bring me whatever she thought I would like. It was something wrapped in a dishrag I think”.

So, in our family, it was pretty much the old “meat and three” at meal time, every single day.  We did on rare occasions bring home a pizza, or go to the A&W, or if we were out on the road, we might go to a truck stop (as I have written about here before), or a local restaurant in another town.  But at home it was mostly roast beef or fried pork chops or fried fish or fried chicken or fried “cube steak” or ham, etc. and always with vegetables that may have (or at least could have) come out of our garden. (Corn, green beans, potatoes, peas, tomatoes, cucumber salad, etc.)   Occasionally dad would BBQ ribs or cook steaks out on the grill.   My mom was truly a great cook, and to whatever extent I’m a decent cook today, I owe that all to her. But she didn’t venture much beyond the country cooking that she learned from her mom and sisters as a girl growing up on the farm in Callaway county.

In the late 1970’s and early 1980’s I was living in Columbia with a roommate from the exotic environs of Wentzville.  A real man-of-the-world.  He had met a girl that he was interested in named Kate.  She was a sweetie.  One night sitting around talking, the subject of our favorite foods came up.  Kate got excited, and suggested we get a group up and go out on a Friday night to a “real” restaurant.  One with menus and waitresses who came to your table, and everything.  Kate and her family from Kansas City loved to eat Chinese, and since I’d never ever even THOUGHT about eating Chinese, she insisted that was what we had to do.  So that was that.

Along with the other guy we shared a house with, and a couple of Kate’s friends we headed downtown to an upstairs place on 9th street, maybe called Kai Min?  Not sure.  In any case, it was just north of campus, on Ninth, near Booches.  Club La Booche.

Booches was (and is) the home of one of the best cheeseburgers on the planet. And a bunch of pool tables.  And a long, saloon-style bar that had been there (even then) for just shy of a hundred years. It is almost always packed with a cast of characters that ranges from silly frat-boys to blue-collar workers to accountants to University Professors, to City Fathers, journalists, lawyers, politicians …. and even wannabe hippies like me.  You get the picture. And they’ve got the coldest long-neck Budweiser bottles on the planet.  If you say you’ve found a better cheeseburger, I will not believe you.  You are mistaken.   But this has nothing to do with my story.

So, anyway ….

We climbed the dark stairs to the Chinese place on the second floor.  It also had the feel of having been there a while, and it may still be there for all I know.  It was, of course, all red and gold décor, with plants around a fountain at the entrance, full of big spotted goldfish (I’d never heard of “koi”).   There were little paper lanterns on the table, chopsticks wrapped in paper, hot tea (unsweet… ack) served in little tiny cups with no handles, and the whole nine yards.  The faint tinkling of Chinese music playing from tinny sounding speakers in the ornate ceiling.    We were shown to a big round table.

I took one look at the menu and had NO clue what to get.   Kate was sitting next to me, and was helping me with the menu and saying, “Oh, THIS is good right here, and you’d like THAT…”    A couple of the others were just as clueless.  So finally Kate did what Kate always did and just took charge, and suggested to everyone that we let her order a bunch of stuff for the table, and all share.

You know, the way God intended Chinese food be eaten.

Our exotic meal started with soup, not bad.  Pretty much like chicken noodle, but they forgot the veggies.    Then a bunch of appetizers. Something called “egg rolls”.   Hmmm.  Ok, they were a bit odd, …. but again, not bad. To me it sort of seemed like weeds rolled up in dough and fried.  Also, little flowery, crispy fried things with crab meat and cream cheese inside.  Kate said it was “fried wonton”, and told me it was the “best stuff in the whole world”.  I did not agree.  I’d never had crab, OR cream cheese.  Not a lot of crab and cream cheese recipes are learned on the farm in Callaway county.   And “pot-stickers”.   We were college students, so of course there were jokes about whether they ACTUALLY contained any real “pot”.     They did not.

Then the entrees.  Egg Foo Yung… once again with the fried weeds, but this time flattened into pancakes, and served with gravy.  ack.   Moo Goo Gai Pan.  Seemed like leftovers, all mixed together and once again, that sticky gravy.  ack.  Sweet and Sour Chicken.  Even though the world was still several years away from discovery of the McNugget, this was certainly its precursor.  Basically just fried chicken.  But with a creepy blood-red sauce. I tasted the sauce and didn’t like it much. Too sweet, too sour … and in my opinion just a weird thing with which to ruin fried chicken chunks.   “Sweet” and “Sour” are two flavors that do NOT belong with meat.  Much of the rest of it was just as strange to me.

Some of it just seemed wrong.  Some of it wasn’t bad.  A little of it I thought I would gladly eat again.

After dinner, we all went back to the house to hang out and listen to some music, and Kate sat on the couch next to me and made fun of my reactions to the food.  She laughed and put her hand on my arm. My roommate kept looking at me with a weird and somewhat perturbed look in his eyes.  I was stupid and clueless.  Still am.

A few days later, I was back in Mexico visiting my folks.  I mentioned that I’d eaten Chinese food. From their reaction, I might as well have said, “Hey folks, guess what? I just got a great deal on a hairless dog with three heads”. They weren’t exactly horrified, but they were obviously confused. You could hear a pin drop.

Neither my mom or dad said anything for an uncomfortably long moment, unsure how to react.  Then dad pretty much summed it up.  He looked at me and just asked, “Why?”

Within a few months, my roommate graduated and moved to Wisconsin for grad school, where he went on to get a PhD in Cheese Studies. (I’m not making that up).   His relationship with Kate never really got off the ground.

But mine did.

She was wicked smart, funny, and pretty much the right person at the right moment in my life, and for all the right reasons.

One night, sitting out on the deck of a bar in Westport in Kansas City, quite late and under a full moon, we began to talk about “Space, the Final Frontier.”   Not Star Trek.  Rather, just speculating on whether or not we were alone in the universe.  As you do.

We ended up arguing about whether, if aliens were to visit earth they’d be advanced so far above us in intelligence that humans would appear to them as nothing more than “cognitive plankton”.

She took the affirmative, “cognitive plankton” viewpoint.   I can remember exactly how I felt sitting in the moonlight, watching the sparkle in her eyes and the smile on her lips when she uttered the phrase, “cognitive plankton”.   It was pretty swell, and I am not making that up.

Conversely, I argued from the position that we would *at least* be as interesting to our other-worldly visitors as a Life Insurance salesman.  I felt like at a bare minimum, we would get that classic “Take Me to Your Leader” question from our interplanetary visitors.

But she was adamant about plankton, just as I was adamant about being interesting to our new alien friends. I realized right then that as much as I dug her, we really had very different ways of looking at what it means to be in the world.  It was never the same between us after that, and we eventually just lost touch.

But at least before we split, she taught me to love Chinese food.  I occasionally still think about her when I bite into an egg roll.

But she never got me to like Egg Foo Yung.

I will never like Egg Foo Yung.

Ack.

John

May 17, 2017.  Strange dream last night.

I can unravel some of these threads.  Others, I won’t even try.    I’m not a huge believer in subtle messages being communicated in dreams. 

On the other hand, this dream wasn’t particularly subtle.   

I flew into a big airport somewhere, not sure what city, but I was there to make a “sales call” on an automotive plant.   I met my company’s local sales rep at the baggage claim, and told him we’d need to wait for Mr. Browne, who would be joining us on the sales call.   He looked puzzled.

Soon, departing from another flight and there to meet us, who should come strolling up but none other than Jackson Browne.   He was wearing jeans, sneakers, a dark jacket over a black T-shirt, sunglasses, and with his guitar case in hand.

He took off his shades and put them in his jacket pocket, as we exchanged pleasantries. Then we went outside and got into a waiting Lincoln Town Car.   Jackson and I were in the back seat, my local sales guy in the front, driving.

I realized we were very early for our appointment, and I asked Jackson if he’d had a chance to have breakfast.   He said that he hadn’t, but he was hungry.  I confirmed that was my condition as well.

So we went to a local pancake house on the highway, with a big sign out by the road that said, “Pancake House”. My sales guy found a parking spot, we all went in and found a booth.

Jackson ordered a tall stack of pancakes and “coffee, hot and black”.    I ordered the same, but also ordered fried eggs.   I asked Jackson if he didn’t want to order some eggs too, and he just looked at me a little concerned and said, “Nah, man…. eggs will kill you!”   I told him that the notion that eggs would kill you had been completely debunked, and that eggs in moderation were an important part of a healthy diet.   He declined.

No eggs for Jackson Browne.  I had two, over easy.

We sat there and ate our pancakes.  Jackson and I talked about guitars and music and life and such. It was a far-ranging discussion, and I have to say that my sense (in the dream) was that I really, really liked this guy.

We talked about the environment, and being a responsible citizen on the planet, and about how important it is to “get involved” in social issues, with worthy organizations, and to give back to your community.   I told him about my volunteer advocacy work.  He seemed genuinely interested in my “causes”.

(Side note:  Jackson Browne LOVES him some maple syrup.   His pancakes were soaked, and his plate was fairly brimming with it.)

Jackson found out in our talking that I play guitar a little, and he was very interested in the details of my guitars, including how they were set-up.  He wondered how I liked the LR Baggs Lyric pickup I have installed in my Martin D28, and wanted me to describe in detail how I EQ’d it, and how did I think it compared to other pickups I had used.  I told him I would gladly make a call and hook him up with Lloyd Baggs.  (this is John, back in “real life” here.  While I DO have a Lyric pickup in my Martin, I do NOT know Lloyd Baggs personally.) 

After we finished, we left the Pancake House, and headed for the automotive plant.   I do not know what brand of car it was supposed to be.  But like ALL automotive plants, it was absolutely HUGE.

But unlike  “real-life” automotive plants, from the outside the building  was utterly featureless.  Just a giant gray monolith .  The three of us went into the main lobby and waited.   It was very ultra-modern and futuristic inside.   Smooth surfaces everywhere, more curves than straight-lines.  The walls, floors, and ceilings … all of the same neutral gray material.  There was sort of a glow everywhere from indirect light of an indeterminate origin.

Soon a small Asian woman, very professionally dressed in a dark grey business suit, with wire-frame glasses, hair pulled tightly back and holding the new large iPad came out to greet us.  She escorted Jackson, my local sales rep and myself back to “The Engineering Department”.    It was a very large room that was in many ways similar to the lobby.   Except for the fact that literally EVERYWHERE there were these featureless cubes and oddly-shaped rectangular solids scattered around the room.  Some were shaped like desks or conference tables, but they WEREN’T desks and conference tables.  Just featureless rectangles.

At each one, someone (or in some cases, several people) stood gazing at their cubes, seeming to write on it with a stylus, or even just rubbing their hands over it.   Apparently they were “working”.  Though it was impossible to say what in heck they were doing.  Most were Asian.  But not all.  Most of them completely ignored us.

There was, however one tall blonde American woman who kept looking over at Jackson with sideways glances, trying to be discreet about it, but she was obviously intrigued, and wondering why in the world he was there.  The Asian woman we’d met in the lobby led us to one of these large rectangles, which was a little over waist high, and indicated that we should proceed with our presentation.

I began to talk.  I took out my own large iPad tablet and began showing her something.  Not sure what.   I was going on and on about …..*something*.   Honestly, I have no idea at all what I was selling, what I was talking about, or what the words coming out of my mouth even meant.  I know it was very “high-tech” stuff, and whatever it was I was trying to get them interested in, it was going to cost a fortune.   My sales rep just nodded in agreement with all that I said with a rather vacuous smile.  The woman was stoic and showed no reaction at all.   Jackson, for his part, just stood there uninterested and looking around the room, with his guitar case in hand.  Just looking, looking, looking around, taking everything all in.   He saw the tall woman eyeing him, and he nodded and smiled and said “hi”.    The woman, embarrassed at having been found out, snapped her attention back to her cube.

When I was through with my rather lengthy spiel, having elicited essentially zero response from the Asian woman, she nodded, and said that they had arranged lunch for us.   Suddenly, we were outside, in some kind of smallish courtyard outside the factory, just next to a little nook in one of the walls.  It was a sunny day, but there were spots of shade under a few scattered trees. There were folding chairs everywhere.  We were seated, and had a box lunch.  A bento box.   There were factory workers spread out everywhere in the courtyard, just a few dozen at most, and all were busily eating their own lunches, and talking with the people near them.

Jackson was seated next to me, and we resumed our conversation from breakfast.

At one point he sort of just stopped and paused and looked at me and asked me a question.

“So tell me man, are you happy doing what you do?  I’m not talking the community stuff.  I get that.  I mean, the stuff that you were doing inside the plant there a while ago. Does it really make you happy?”

I had this sinking feeling, and realized I didn’t know how in the world I was going to answer in a way that made sense to him.   Or maybe not even in a way so that it made sense to me.

I started to open my mouth, not sure what was I going to say …..

Suddenly, the Asian woman was there again and just said, “It’s time for you to play.”

Jackson, though he HAD his guitar with him (and there was no apparent OTHER reason for him to be there in the first place) was obviously a little surprised and maybe even perturbed.   “Really?” he asked in a questioning manner.

Out of nowhere, there was a little raised stage with a stool and a microphone that appeared right there in the front of the courtyard area.  Jackson went to the stage, and I went along as well.   I stepped to the mic as he got his guitar out and tuned up.   I looked out on the assembled and said, “Ladies and Gentleman, this is a treat.  Trust me; this stuff doesn’t happen every day … not even in Nashville where I live.  It is my honor to present for you, my great friend, Jackson Browne!”    I took a seat out of the way at the edge of the stage, and Jackson sat down on the stool at the mic.

He looked out over the crowd, and then looked at me.  Then back at the crowd.

He randomly plucked a few notes, and said, “I’m glad to be here with John today and to have the privilege of playing for you all.   I’m going to start with a song that I wrote just for you.”  A bit more random playing. “I guess I should add that at the time I wrote it, I didn’t KNOW I was writing it for you.  …. But apparently I was.”    Then he looked back at me.

It was bright out.  He pulled his sunglasses out of his jacket pocket and put them on and smiled.

Then Jackson Browne, seated in a courtyard outside a nameless monolithic automobile plant, for a crowd totaling maybe 50 or 60 people at most, launched into the most astounding and heartfelt version of “The Pretender” that I’ve ever heard.

He played a number of his other wonderful and amazing songs as well, though that’s the only one I “heard” in my dream.  He told stories and anecdotes between the songs.  He was personable, funny, totally engaged in what he was doing, and just, well …. in his “element”.

After one song, he stopped and handed me his guitar and said, “Let’s hear one from John, shall we?”

I was REALLY taken aback, and more than a little panicked.   But I pulled another stool up to the microphone as the “audience” politely applauded.

I asked Jackson for a capo, and he handed me one.  I put it on backwards at the second fret, so it only covered the bottom five strings.   Jackson looked skeptical.

Then I said, “Ok.  Here’s one that is pretty much a never-ending work in progress.”  I looked over at Jackson.  “Sort of like me I guess.”

He smiled.

I went on:  “I call it ‘Coolsville Lunch’.  I play it when I think about how nice it would be, just hanging out and chilling with absent friends.”

Somehow I made it through the tune without embarrassing myself.

Next thing I knew we were back at the airport, and Jackson was getting ready to board his flight.

“It’s been real” he said.  (No, the irony of that statement is not lost on me now that I’m awake).

I said, “Hey.  Thanks man.  Listen, I’ve got this dear friend Cathy.  She has GOT to be one of your biggest fans. Seriously.  For years.  I remember her listening to your music almost obsessively back when we were neighbors in college.   Would you mind signing an autograph or something for her?”

“I can do better than that.” he said. And he opened up his guitar case and took out a really nice hand-tooled leather guitar strap that said “Jackson Browne” on it.  I recognized it was from Long Hollow Leather in Franklin, TN.  Very nice.  (I’ve got one too, but mine doesn’t say “Jackson Browne”)

“Think she’d like this?” he asked as he handed it to me.

“She’ll love it.”

He also reached in his jacket pocket, and pulled out a note-card with some abstract art on the front from a young woman who is an artist with autism.  He penned a quick note, and handed it to me.

I looked at it and read:   “For Cathy.  Kind thanks for listening. – always, Jackson Browne”

Then he picked up his guitar, and headed down the jet way.

I called after him….. “What about me??”

He laughed back over his shoulder.   “C’mon man! I already gave you your gift!”

That’s when I woke up.

Craving pancakes.

 – John

 

 

I remember the day of my Senior Prom in the Spring of 1975 very well, and not ONLY because of my fabulous date and how much fun the evening was.  I’ve got other reasons to remember the day.

I had arranged to borrow my mom & dad’s ’72 Pontiac Bonneville for the evening.  Now THAT was a car.  Dark Forest Green.  Huge.   455 cubic inches, four-barrel V8.   250 HP.   A family of four could live in the back seat.   It oozed power and class.  Worthy of a special girl on a special occasion.

And it WAS a special occasion.  Though I had known this girl since we were toddlers in Sunday School together, and we had actually been very good friends and “lunch buddies” through the last couple of years, I had only been out on exactly one other date with her.  The weekend before.  At her insistence.  Because when I asked her to prom, she said,  “Yes!  But only if we can go out on at least one other date first.  I don’t really want “prom” to be our first date.”    Well, ok.  So this was going to be our second-date, and  I wanted to make a good impression, especially since it was Senior Prom night!

I wanted to make a good impression, and I drove a ’72 Vega.

No matter how you spin it, the Vega was one of the worst cars ever put out by Detroit.  Now, don’t get me wrong.  I loved that little silver car.  I was glad I had it, felt LUCKY to have it, and I had plenty of good times in it … and some great memories.  I even gave it a name.  Rudy.  Rudy Vega.    Drove it through my first several years of college. right up until the engine blew up.   As they do.

But I definitely needed a much spiffier ride for my big date on Prom Night.   Mom and Dad were happy to oblige with letting me borrow the Pontiac.

So after spending time early in the day thoroughly washing and waxing the Bonneville until it shone, and vacuuming it out, I had a few important errands to run ahead of the big dinner party being hosted by my date at her house for us and several other couples.     I had to go by the florist to pick up her corsage.  I had to go by Hagan’s to get the powder blue tux with ruffled shirt I’d rented for the evening.   And I needed to go by the bank to get some cash for the evening just in case we found ourselves somewhere needing folding money.

As I headed out the door to run those errands, my dad handed me the keys to his old work car.  A lime-green with white vinyl top 1967 Ford Galaxy 500.  His “work car” that he drove the half-mile to work each morning and back again, and that was just about it.

“Take the Ford,” he said, “and if you don’t mind, put a little gas in it for me while you’re out, it’s just about empty.”

So I went to florist first, picked up the orchid corsage, then by Hagan’s for the tux, then by the bank.  Last stop before heading home, I went to the discount gas station on the corner of Monroe Street and Western, catty-corner from Westlake’s Plaza   As I pulled in, I hit the curb with the right rear tire, and heard a “clunk”.   I didn’t think anything about it.     I pulled up to the pump, got out and put some gas in.   Went in to pay, then came back out to the car.

When I put the car in gear and started to pull off, there was a horrible noise, a hesitation, then the car lurched.   It mostly just didn’t seem to want to “go”.   I tried again.  Same thing.  It really seemed like something bad was wrong with the car.  Engine?  Drive train?  I wasn’t sure.    Hmm.   I was out near the street by then.    Instinctively, I put it in reverse to pull back closer to the station.   It went just FINE in reverse.   Hmmm.

I looked at my watch.    I needed to be getting home so I could shower, get in my tux, and get out to my date’s house on time.

I put the car back in drive ….. Lurch, THUMP, lurch, THUMP!!     Crap!

I put it in Park, got out, laid down on the pavement and looked under the car.   Nothing.   Not sure what I was looking for, it just seemed like the right thing to do.   I raised the hood and looked and listened.  It was idling just fine.    I got back in, put it in reverse and moved backwards some more.  No problem.

I looked at my watch.   Crap.

So I did what ANY logically minded teenage driver in a small town on prom-night with a looming deadline would do.    I decided to BACK all the way home in REVERSE.

Hey.  It’s a small town.

So, with the big Green Galaxy in Reverse, I backed across Monroe Street and into the parking lot of the liquor store across the street. Through their parking lot, through the alley and another parking lot to Jackson Street.  Looked both ways, and backed across Jackson to the “new” Post Office.  Through their parking lot, around the curve where the drive-up mailboxes are,  all the way back (IN REVERSE) past where the mail jeeps were parked, and onto Promenade Street.  I backed up Promenade to the appliance parts store and into their parking lot, behind their store, and then behind the old jail.

Now I had a problem, and was faced with my first real decision.  Where to go from here?    This was my first place where I knew I would deal with significant traffic.

I sat until there wasn’t any traffic at the stoplights, and backed out onto Clark Street and up onto the “Overhead Bridge”, over the railroad tracks.   This was the bridge that, before they put in “Green Boulevard” (sort of a downtown bypass) was actually US Highway 54.   Regardless, this was STILL the major route into downtown Mexico for anyone coming into town from the South.   Nevertheless, I navigated it just fine.  In reverse.  Yes there was traffic on the bridge.   But I was in the correct lane for the direction my vehicle was moving, if not for the direction it was FACING.  So I ignored the honking, and went BACKWARD across the bridge    Then turned east (backwards) on High Street on the north side of Hardin Park.   Backed down to the corner of High and Washington Street.

At this point, I sat there for a minute and thought.  I put it in drive and tried it again.  Lurch, THUMP, lurch, THUMP.    Crap!.

So I put it back in reverse, and proceeded to go IN REVERSE down Washington Street the four blocks or so to Central.  Backed down Central to Jefferson, and across to the old Hardin campus.   I’m not sure why I didn’t just back up Jefferson Street at this point, but in my “logic” the Hardin loop seemed right.  Maybe just for good measure.

So I backed up the Hardin “out” driveway.   Around the circle drive in front of Richardson Hall and the old Gym.  Then I backed down the “in” driveway past the tennis courts.   Across Jefferson again, and up Seminary Street.   My street.   Finally, I pulled up IN REVERSE in front of our house.

Dad was standing in the garage.  He had looked up just in time to see me pull up to the house IN REVERSE.

There are times in my life when someone whom I respected has looked at me with such a look of utter confusion and puzzlement.  Today we know this look as “WTF??”   Back then we did not have such a succinct label.  I know exactly how I have felt in those moments.

This was one of those moments.

I shut off the engine, and stepped out of the car.   Dad walked across the lawn to where I was and asked, “Why were you backing up the street?”

“It won’t go in Forward”

“Oh.  Why not?”

“I don’t know.  It just won’t. “

He looked at me.

“Maybe the transmission has gone out?” I offered weakly.

“Hmmm.  Ok.  Let’s have a look.”

He got in, started the engine, put it in drive and stepped on the gas.    Lurch, THUMP, lurch, THUMP.   He put it in reverse and backed up a few feet.  No lurching, no thumping.   “Hmmmm.”

I said, “I gotta take the corsage and tux inside.”

I went inside, put the corsage in the fridge, the tux on my bed, and came back out.  Dad was laying on the street looking under the car.   (At least that was comforting.  I knew my instincts about laying on the ground and looking underneath had been right.)

“Ahhhh….. here it is!”    He rolled out, and got up.    “What is it?” I asked.

“Looks like a bracket broke and the exhaust pipe has dropped down so it’s digging into the tire when you’re in drive.  It doesn’t dig in when tire’s turning backwards.”    (I remembered hitting the curb as I pulled into the station, but I did not think this was something to mention).

He thought for a second.   “So, exactly how far did you go in Reverse?”

“All the way from down by Westlake’s Plaza.   Clear across town.”

Another of those looks.

“Seriously??”

“Uh huh.”

And that’s about all there was to say about that.    He just looked at me.   “Why didn’t you try to call?”

“I don’t know.  Didn’t have time.  In fact, I need to go in now and shower.”

And I walked into the house, with him just standing there looking at me.    I’d like to think it was with pride at my resourcefulness and ingenuity.    More likely (and I can say this in total confidence now as a father who has had teenage boys) … it was with bewilderment.

So.  I wore my powder-blue tux on prom night.

As you can also see from the picture, I did indeed take the Bonneville out on Prom Night.  The car is a beast.  It filled me with pride and confidence.  In a way that the Vega could never have done.

And what a night.  The amazing dinner party with a good, fun group of friends.  (We had brisket, twice-baked potatoes, and green beans.  Ice tea in stemmed glasses.   Cherries Jubilee for dessert.)  It felt so “grown up”.    I’d never had  “twice baked potatoes”.   I may have never had brisket. We were more of a roast beef family.  I remember that when my date told me the menu ahead of time, I asked, “Why TWICE baked?   Once isn’t good enough?”  She laughed, but explained it to me.  I was worried.  Being a picky eater, I thought they might be yucky.   They weren’t.  Quite delicious actually.

Then to the big dance.  (“Stairway to Heaven”).   She wore a peach-print formal dress.  I wore powder blue and ruffles.  We were a lovely couple.  You know, for 1975 anyway.   My hair was longer than hers.  Significantly longer, actually.

After the formal dance, we headed back to her house so she could change into casual clothes.    Then to my house so I could do the same.   Then, still in the Bonneville, out to the Empire Club for the big “After-Prom” party.   We danced the night away, and laughed and talked and laughed and danced some more.  Then afterward, we did some wee-hours cruising around Mexico and environs in the Bonneville, and talking and solving the problems of the world (as you do at seventeen), and other stuff.  …. then, at the appointed hour, off to the home of one of the other dinner-party guests where his mom had made a big breakfast for several couples.  Then finally, not long after sunrise, I took my date back home to her house, walked her to the door, held her tight and kissed her good night…. Or more accurately, good morning.

I drove pretty slowly back into town from Melody Lane, savoring the special memories of the evening.  I remember exactly how I felt.

I drove past the Country Club, and deliberately took the long way back to my house.   And never once did I ever think about putting the Bonneville in Reverse.

It was the right time for going Forward.

So I did.

John

 

Nobody succeeds beyond their wildest dreams unless they START with some pretty wild dreams.

I keep a journal, or a little Moleskine pocket-sized book, or at least a handy notepad with me pretty much at all times. I try to cultivate a habit of whenever I hear a quote that tweaks my thinking….or have an idea that seems interesting … I write it down, with attribution if needed, and with enough “context” to re-frame it in my thinking if I come back to it days or weeks or even months later.

Sometimes I’m really good at doing this, sometimes not so much.

Regardless of how diligent I am at any given moment at recording these things though, I do have ideas come through my mind all the time.  Or maybe just interesting quotes I hear at a conference or seminar.  Or an “aha moment”.    You know what I mean….  “Hey wouldn’t it be great if …..”   or “You know what I wish we had?  I wish there was a ……”   or “Holy Cow! Why had I never thought of THAT before?”.    That sort of thing.

You too?   Sure you do.

I *think* many of us come up with ideas, or encounter interesting possibilities, or come across things that challenge our thinking every single day.  Right?

What if you had the habit of recording them so they didn’t get lost?

That’s what I’m trying to cultivate the habit of doing. I flag some of the things that get recorded with the heading: “IDEA!” I put down some details, a date, and even a thought or two of what a “next step” might be. Then later, after it’s percolated for at least a day or so, or even longer, I like to flip back through and note whether it still seems like a “Great Idea”, or a “Big Idea” or “Interesting Challenge”, or “Not so much”.   Sometimes I write:  “Action Plan???” or  “Now What??”  I look at those “next steps” I jotted down and see if it seems like something that I should spend some more time on myself, or try to get some shared energy around.

I’m convinced that most of us are far more creative and innovative than we give ourselves credit for.  That’s not an original thought.  Others have said this, in many varied ways.

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?  …  As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

– Maryianne Williamson

“When I am ….. completely myself, entirely alone… or during the night when I cannot sleep, it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly. Whence and how these ideas come I know not nor can I force them.”

– Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

“Always carry a notebook. And I mean always. The short-term memory only retains information for three minutes; unless it is committed to paper you can lose an idea for ever.”

– Will Self

Here’s an example.  I’m not sharing this story to make any statement about how great or how smart or visionary I am.  It’s just an illustration of the notion that ideas have value.

I remember very specifically thinking about something back in the early 1980’s when I was working as a young Sales Engineer.  My job was to be out and traveling around Tennessee every single day, calling on industrial plants all around Middle and East TN.  I was in Nashville, Knoxville, Chattanooga, the Tri-Cities, and all the small cities and rural areas in between.  There are very few industrial plants in this part of the state that I have not been in, walking the factory floor and seeing how their systems and processes work…meeting with their manufacturing engineers or their senior management to talk about ways to enhance productivity.   Often I had a lot of “windshield time” between sales calls.   And I also had many, many times when I would try to find some place to stop, grab a coffee or a sandwich, make some notes about the sales call I’d just made or take a moment to prepare for the one I was heading to.

Around then, I was also just getting interested in food and cooking … and in all things “coffee”.  The idea of opening a restaurant sort of appealed to me. But it was a pretty daunting fact that (at that time) the anecdotal evidence said that something like 95% of all non-franchise restaurants that open would fail within the first 3 years.   It’s a hard business to break into with any success.  That, and the fact when you open a business of that sort, you had better be damned-well prepared for it to become your life.  It’s not something you can just do and then “leave it at the office” at the end of the day. Restaurants, if they are to be successful, take a huge commitment of time and energy and passion and, well … belief… on the part of the owner.

So, there were a lot of reasons that I didn’t *actually* pursue the idea of opening a restaurant.  At least, I didn’t pursue it to the point where I had any realistic idea of making it happen.   But let me tell you about my idea and how much I *did* pursue it …

The notion I had of a restaurant was a place that opened very early each day, had a few types of good coffee available, and had some simple breakfast fare like a variety pastries or bagels or breakfast sandwiches. Then at lunch there would always be 4 or 5 different soups available, a few well-chosen deli sandwiches, and a few different types of salads. Then by the time mid- to late-afternoon rolled around, it would basically be done for the day. Not a “dinner” place at all. But here’s the thing….. the restaurant would be specifically marketed to the community to become well-known as a place where you might come in the morning for a breakfast meeting with clients or friends. Maybe a place where a small-group might meet before work for a bible-study over coffee and a sweet roll, or where moms might go to meet up after dropping the kids at school. It would be a casual spot very welcoming to a sales professional such as I was at the time who just wanted a place to sit, grab something to eat and make a phone call or two or do some paperwork.

I didn’t know it at the time, but I had basically envisioned the concept for “Panera Bread Company“

There were essentially zero places like that back in 1983/84. But somehow I knew in my gut that there was a “need” for one…. or at least there was an opportunity to create such a place and see if one could make it a success.  I even made a few notes about what a menu might look like, and tried to investigate how much the commercial kitchen equipment and fixtures might cost. Because I can tend to be something of an obsessive nerd about stuff like this, and because I had a drafting table in our apartment, I even sketched up a floor-plan of the “front of house” part of the restaurant, with counter, “coffee bar”, booths and tables.   I even remember stopping at a couple of commercial restaurant supply houses and looking at ovens, flat-tops, and other equipment and cooking gear.  I tried to estimate how many dollars per day of food I would have to sell to break even or turn a profit.   I stopped short of creating a formal “business plan”.  But I did talk about the idea just a bit to my father-in-law.  I was interested in his take on this idea.  As a business man, and somebody who was very-well plugged in with the “restaurant scene” in Nashville at the time, how did he think such a place might succeed?  (For the record, he liked the idea.)  But “fear”, lack of “gumption”, and all the barriers to entry into such a venture kept me from giving it more than a little conceptual spin through my head and a couple of weeks of my attention.

The rest, as they say, is history. I’m still an engineer, and there are any number of places you could point to out there in the “real world” that at least “sort of” fit that model I was envisioning.

Now, I’m certainly not claiming to be any kind of a visionary. What I’m saying is just this:  Your ideas have value.   Not just potential monetary value, though certainly that *might* be true.   But well beyond that, your ideas have value in and of themselves.  Every time you think “Hey, we should be doing ……”   there is a kernel of *something* in that thought.  You may have hit on something that can change lives.  You may have hit on something that at the very least can change the trajectory of YOUR life, or the life of your family.

Right now, I am VERY excited that one of those ideas I had a while back has re-surfaced.  And by sharing it with others, in the right context, it’s starting to get some traction.    Something that I envisioned with literally an initial thought of:  “Hey, wouldn’t it be cool if….”, is starting to look like it will actually come to fruition.  Nobody will get rich from this idea.  But I do believe a significant number of lives here in Middle TN and maybe even well beyond *may* be changed.   There’s still a lot of work to do to bring the idea to fruition.

But I’m in.   I’m WHOLEHEARTEDLY in.

And I have high, high hopes that the reality will be every bit as big and as cool and as important and as potentially life-changing as it was in my head when I envisioned it.

I believe it will be as awesomely amazing as it was when I originally jotted it down.   In that journal right up there at the top of this post.

Stay tuned.

Love,

John

In the era in which I grew up, most high schools had an annual “Sadie Hawkins” day dance.  Yours too?   This was the one dance in the school year in which the GIRL asked the BOY for the date.   A recipe for mayhem and merriment all wrapped in one. These days, of course, I think anyone asks anyone else out.  All good.   Back then it was different.

The dance was named after a character and event in the comic strip Lil’ Abner, which was about a bunch of hillbillies living in a fictional town called Dogpatch.

So my Senior year in High School, and I’m sitting at home one evening and the phone rings.  The one phone (most all of us ONLY had one phone) that sat on the little built-in shelf in the hallway. So that when you stand there and talk, everyone else in the house can hear.   I picked it up, and after just a moment’s hesitation, heard a voice on the other end of the line.  A GIRL’S voice.

“Hello, is this John?”
“Yes”
“Hi John, this is  ——“  (her name is redacted to protect the innocent).
“Hi.”
“I was wondering if you don’t already have a date, would you go to Sadie Hawkins with me?”
“Uh….. sure!  Sounds like fun.”

I hung up the phone and thought … “Whoa.  What just happened?”

Now…. This was not a girl I had ever thought of dating.  Not because there was anything “wrong” with her.  Truthfully, it was probably because there was something wrong with me!   I was too blind to see what a terrific person she was.   We had a number of classes together, and I knew she was smart ….. even VERY smart.  She was cute.  And although she was mighty quiet, I knew from being in a group with her and hearing her laugh that she had a great sense of humor.   So … even though I probably SHOULD have noticed her in that way, I just simply hadn’t.   I had my eye on someone else.  You know, high school.

So on the big night, we doubled with her best friend (who happened to be a very, very good friend of mine) and HER date.   The four of us, decked out in our finest overalls, ragged flannels, rope belts, bandanas, work boots, etc….  (Hillbillies, remember?).  We joined the crowd of other similarly dressed teenagers at the National Guard Armory next to the school.   The big floor at “The Armory” was the scene of the many of our dances.

There was the usual live band, playing the radio hits of the day, and together we entered the throng on the floor and jumped and swayed, writhed and wiggled our way through the songs, pretending that we knew how to “dance”.   It was all just a pretense to wait for the (too seldom played) “slow song”.    With the playing of the “slow song”, you had license to wrap your arms around each other and sway in place to the music.  Turning in circles whilst swaying was also encouraged.  You know…. “dancing”.

Part of the annual ritual of Sadie Hawkins, was the appearance of “Marryin’ Sam” (also lifted from the comics).    An itinerant preacher …. Or possibly Justice of the Peace …. Who could, (for a small donation to charity), assist any of the young couples who just HAD to seize the moment to “get hitched”.    Tbe “marriage” was entirely legal and binding ….. for the duration of the dance anyway.

When in Rome…..

So this very sweet young lady and I joined the line to have Marryin’ Sam  (aka Mr. Green….. Coach Green … one of our teachers, who EVERYONE called “Bucky”), all decked out in his finest hitching attire, perform the deed.

When it was our turn, Bucky said the obligatory words… “Do you take this woman……”   and “Do you take this man …..”

We said our “I do’s”.

Bucky said, “I now pronounce you man and wife”.

Then….. something completely unforeseen by me …… Marryin’ Sam gave a little hand-wave of a gesture that clearly meant: “You may now kiss the bride”.   Or whatever it is that you are going to do.

It was the mid 70’s.  We were kids.  This was high school.   Awkward, socially inept, clumsy while trying to look cool High School.

I’d been on dates before.  I was not a stranger to dating norms.  I knew that kissing is not a big deal.  But on the other hand, I ALSO knew that it was not an INSIGNIFICANT deal either.   A kiss means something.  At least, it did back then.  To me anyway.  And probably to her too.

There are girls who kiss on the first date.   There are girls who do NOT kiss on the first date.  Nothing wrong with either stance.  But in the moment, full of indecision and teen angst, and the desire to not be a dork, this seemed like a pivotal moment in time…… what to do?

Had I THOUGHT about it, I would have known beyond any doubt that my fabulous date was NOT a “kiss on the first date” kind of girl.  Not by any measure.

And yet here we were.

A more experienced me, a cooler, much more suave me, a “wish I knew then what I know now” me would have simply taken her and given her a warm hug … maybe a hint of peck on the cheek …. Taken her by the hand and said, “Come on Mrs. Shouse, let’s go dance!”     And who knows what might have ensued from there?   We may have become even closer friends.  Lifelong friends.

But Bucky had gestured, and there we were.

I leaned in to give her an antiseptic and relatively chaste buss on the lips.    There was a look in her eyes.  Not exactly terror, but certainly not enthusiasm.  Let’s call it her own version of WTF??   Even well over four decades later, I can see that look.  I know (now) that the same sorts of thoughts that had raced through MY mind in the last few milliseconds had likely also raced through hers.  What to do??

As I got closer to my target, she apparently decided (possibly in a panic) at the very last moment to turn her head quickly to the side.  Because such behavior ….. this “kiss”, even in this cartoon “ceremony”….. amounted to kissing on the first date, which was unacceptable.

So rather than her lips, I landed somewhere in the vicinity of her ear.

Ok …. Actually, it WAS her ear.

So I kissed her ear.

I kissed her ear.  Not exactly passionately.   But perhaps not as antiseptic and chaste as I had hoped, either.  Let’s call it a 6 on a scale of 10.   If “1” is how you would kiss your grandma because you HAD to, and if “10” is one of those life altering, foundation shaking, toe-curling, I-think-I’m-going-to-pass-out kisses that take a full minute or more to recover from ….. this was a solid 6. A warm kiss.  A slightly … um…. WET kiss.

I have to admit, I’ve been an ear man ever since.

We walked back to the dance floor in silence.  An awkward, somewhat stunned, silence.

Shortly, she excused herself to go to the bathroom with the other girl, my good friend with whom we had doubled.   I can just imagine their conversation in there.   My date, still in shock.  My friend, aghast.    “And then, OH MY GOD, and I’m not even kidding, he kissed my EAR!!”   “He WHAT???”   When they came out, I think they were both looking at me just a little funny.

The rest of the night was fun.  More dancing, punch, a couple more “grip and sway” slow dances.   But I seem to remember it ended rather quickly after the dance.  No extended hanging out, no telling stories and laughing, no going to “the Hut” for pizza, no cruising the square.   No slow drives on dark country roads with music playing and wondering if the moment was “right” for whatever.

And, well, the marriage didn’t last anyway.

Of course, she and I saw each other a lot the rest of our senior year of high school. She even went to college at Mizzou, same as me, and I saw her on campus a lot.  We probably even had some classes together there, having similar majors.   We always exchanged a pleasant word, but I always had the feeling that somewhere deep inside, she was thinking …. “There’s the guy who kissed my ear.”

Here we are in 2017, I’m going on 60 years old, and I awoke this morning thinking about that night and that date, and that awkward kiss on the ear.    Don’t know why.  It just sorta spilled into my consciousness.

In this day of social media and enhanced connectedness, I know that “Marryin’ Sam” …. Bucky….. very well might read this.  If so, Buck, I will just say, “No worries, man.  It all worked out fine.”

My short-lived “bride” might even read this.   If so, I just want to say this:   I wish I’d been a better date.  I really do.  I had fun that night, and I’m glad you asked me.  It was high school, it was a very weird time for all of us.  I wish I wasn’t so awkward.  I wish we’d been closer friends. I’m sure I missed out on a whole lot by not taking time to get to know you better.  I truly mean that.

If I see you at a future class reunion, I may give you that peck on the cheek.

But I promise to steer clear of your ear.

Love,
John

This story is almost entirely true.  The parts that aren’t literal are, well, close enough …..

Unless you’ve been in a Turkish prison or a hermit’s cave, you know that cigar smoking as a (primarily male)  “fad-du-jour” has come and pretty much gone once again. Like wearing a hat, donning a bow tie, or sipping a well-mixed cocktail, the practice of firing up a fine hand-rolled Corona, Churchill, or Rothschild occasionally rises up to the forefront for certain guys as an outward sign that one is not just a man, but also well-practiced in the manful arts. In fact, there was a time just a few short years ago that the “cigar boom” was king.  Much of it was fueled (at least initially) by Marvin Shanken’s very slick publication “Cigar Aficionado”.  Catering not only to all things “cigar”, but also to all things that a well-heeled gent might engage in whilst enjoying said smoke.  Fine drinks, fine clothes, fine watches, fine golf destinations, racing, gambling, …. well, if it is considered “gentlemanly”, the magazine touched on it in at least some sort of way.    Even so, that most recent popularity of placing a rolled wad of leaves in your mouth and setting fire to it seems to be going away again, to lie dormant until some new generation of manly men decides … “it’s time”.

Just for some perspective though, all you recent cigar aficionados take note: I had you ALL beat by almost five decades. ……

As I pulled my bike into Larry’s yard that crisp autumn day back in the late 60’s, I saw him sitting on the steps of the side porch with one of those “cat-that-ate-the-canary” looks on his face.  I knew something must be up.   “So, what’s up with you?” I asked. Without a word he reached into his jacket pocket and produced the biggest, meanest, GREENEST cigar I had ever seen.

Well, that’s not exactly true.

I mean, I actually HAD seen them before…I’d seen them nearly every time I went to Larry’s house. Larry’s dad almost always had one of these babies, half burned down, dangling from a corner of his mouth. Reading the paper, mowing the yard, washing the cars…. now that I think about it, I actually have a hard time visualizing Larry’s dad without a cigar.

This baby was was typical of the stogies that Larry’s dad smoked.  One of those “double tapered” torpedoes that are pointed on both ends. Larry had no doubt pilfered this one out of the cigar box while his old man wasn’t looking.

“Cool.” I said. “Let’s smoke it NOW!”

Not to put too fine a point on it, but this wasn’t *just* a cigar. It was a CEE-GAR, and it was GREEN.

Pearlescent Green.

Glowing green.

Other-worldly green.

If it had been a Crayola crayon, the label would have said  “Creature-from-the-Black-Lagoon Green”.

Cigar wrappers have names.  From Oscuro (so dark it’s nearly black), to Maduro (a rich chocolately brown), to Colorado (a medium reddish brown) and so forth.    The official cigar term for Larry’s dad’s color of cigar wrapper is “Double Claro”, or “Candela”.

It probably came from a dirty machine in a back alley in Tampa that churned out a thousand or more an hour.  But to our young minds,  it was easy to imagine instead that a sultry, dark-skinned, raven-haired Cuban beauty in a low cut blouse in a sweaty Havana emporium had been just so, so  busy putting the finishing loving touches on this work of art after having rolled it with skilled, powerful hands.  Then she would offer it up with an inquisitive and sexy, thick accented voice to an unwary stranger, “Candela??”

Whatever.

In my memory, this baby was CHARTREUSE, and it looked DANGEROUS.

Now, it would have been easy to hop on our bikes and ride the half-mile to a vacant lot down by the railroad depot to fire up this prize in relative seclusion, as we had done with a pack of Pall Malls or Lucky Strikes or Camels from time to time.

However…. and I can’t even begin to explain it now … there is a logic that is an innate part of being a young boy who is up to no good. And that logic, on that day, with the prospect of smoking that cigar, led us to down into Larry’s basement, and straight to his mom’s closet-sized laundry room to accomplish the dirty deed.

Go figure.

Larry produced a box of wooden matches and began to slather up this chartreuse torpedo with saliva the way he’d seen his dad do it a hundred times before.  He pulled out a match to light the other end…  I stopped him.

“WHOA!!! Wait a minute,” I said, “I’m not sticking that thing in MY mouth after you’ve slobbered all over it!”

Ever being the resourceful one, and with that same flawless 12-year old logic, Larry produced a pocket knife with a sharp blade, and proceeded to surgically bisect the stogie into relatively equal parts.

“There. One for you, one for me” he said.

“Cool”, I said.

So we each slathered our individual green pointed half-stogie, lit up,  and began to puff away there in the confined space of the laundry room.

An hour or so later, …… (ok, so maybe it was more like 5 minutes) ….. we were both standing there in a fog so dense we could barely see one another.

“Larry, I’m not feeling all that great” I said.

“It’s OK, it’ll be fine,” he said bravely, “don’t worry. Just smoke.”

Nevertheless, through the smoke and my own tears, I could see that Larry’s own eyes were beginning to look a bit watery too. I wasn’t completely sure, but he may have been swaying back and forth a bit, like a willow in the wind.  Not at all steady on his feet.

As for me, my world was beginning to spin like a circus merry-go-round, and the painted pony … the CHARTREUSE pony … obviously had no intention of stopping to let me off. I was only vaguely aware of it just then, but there was something reminiscent of a volcano starting to gurgle and bubble down in my little tummy.

Just then, Larry’s mom, an unusually chipper and joy-filled woman, came strolling down the stairs with a load of laundry.  She may have been singing, “On the sunny side of the street! … ”   But at the bottom of the stairs as she turned and took in the scene….  the soon to be TRAGIC scene….. she stopped short.  No singing. No chipper. No joy.

There was nothing at all we could do. We were caught red-handed. CHARTREUESE –handed. With a look of utter shock and horror on her face she peered through the dense clouds and yelled “What in the HELL is going on down here?” Almost simultaneously with her (obviously rhetorical) question, and perhaps BECAUSE of it, the volcano in my stomach reached a Vesuvius-like point of no return. I felt the lava beginning to rise … ERUPTION!!!!

I puked all over a basket load of freshly washed sheets and towels sitting on the floor beside me.

Did I say “all over it”?   Splattering on it, around it, dripping off of it, off the walls, slicking the floor and I can’t be certain but *maybe* even the exposed beam ceiling …..   THAT kind of “all over it”.

Projectile hurling. The folks of Pompeii could not have been more surprised in their own moment of horror than I was, than Larry’s mom was, and as you will soon see… as Larry himself was.

Now, I’m sure that Larry would have LIKED to respond to his mom’s question with a reasonable VERBAL explanation.

Responded with maybe something out of the Official Eddie Haskell playbook.

Something such as “Well, hello there mother! Young John and I, well we’re just down here trying to see what all the fuss about this *smoking* thing is.   Guess what mom?  Funny thing is, as it turns out, (and Mom, I think you’ll enjoy this realization on our part), you’ve got nothing to worry about mom!  Because…well … mom, this smoking…. we’ve decided it’s just not for us!!!”

That soliloquy didn’t happen.

Instead, the sight (and perhaps the sound and smell) of me puking ….. combined with his own inexperience with cee-gars …. was just too much for the lad.

So, in a remarkable show of solidarity which sealed the bonds of our manful friendship forever, HE puked right on his own new sneakers. The ones on his feet.

And, not coincidentally… he puked on mine too.   Not just ON them, but somehow INTO them.  He puked INTO my shoes.  With my feet still in them.   Ruined a perfectly good pair of socks.

If you don’t want to call it “puke” or “vomit”, try one of the alternative and more colorful names or phrases for the very normal biological process known in medical texts as “reverse peristalsis”.  For example, “blow your cookies”, “stomach overflow error”, “looking for Ralph”, “sell the Buick”, or my personal favorite and the one that actually seems to fit best here … to “shout at your shoes”.

I had not known this before, but Larry’s mom, bless her soul, was a very, very wise woman.

She made the two of us clean up the mess, air out the space with fans and air-freshener, and re-wash the whole load of soiled laundry. We scrubbed floors and walls with a very fresh-smelling green cleaner.  A cleaner that only marginally masked the terrible smells.

But here’s the thing.  Bless her heart, she never told my mom.   I was sure when I got home, I’d get a lecture.  Or worse.  But it never came.

When I finally told my mom about the incident, over 30 years later, sitting around after dinner one night with coffee and pie,  I thought she was going to bust a seam she laughed so hard.

Motherly love is an amazing thing to see in action, you know.

Now, I’ll admit that these days I’ve been known to indulge in a fine, dark chocolate-brown Maduro cigar from time to time.  In fact, being a manly man myself, I was a charter subscriber to the aforementioned Cigar Aficionado magazine.   But on those relatively rare occasions when I light one up,  no, it’s not in a downstairs closet,  but rather out in the wide open spaces of the golf-course, or kicked back while fishing, or out on the back porch just gazing at the glory of the firmament.

Still, that early experience with the green torpedo, and the wisdom of Larry’s mom in making two adolescent boys clean up that horrific bio-hazard of a mess means that even today, all I have to do is LOOK at green cigar, and my stomach starts to churn anew….

later …  gotta run.   The tobacconist is closing in a bit.
John