the very stuff you've been looking for … like finding a purple rock in a world of plain gravel

December 19, 2012
by John Shouse
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all that once was good, and could be again

Yep… nothing like a ‘dog at the the ballpark.  In Nashville we have “The Sounds” , our minor league team (currently affiliated with the Milwaukee Brewers).  It’s hard to beat going out to the park on “Dollar Dog” night, getting about 3 of ’em and a “hand cramper”  (beer so cold it does just that), and then head on down for a prime seat on the first base line.   One of the great things about minor-league baseball at this level, it’s usually possible to make the decision late in the afternoon on game day that you want to go that night, and still get GREAT seats.   Sometimes I just go by myself. Sometimes I take my boys.    Either way, it’s special.

Back a little over four decades ago, like many kids my age, I had a baseball card collection.   I’m sure at least SOME of them came from the Woolworth “5 and 10”.   For you youngsters, that means they sell things for a nickel or a dime.   In fact, we CALLED it “the dime store”.  Some of them may have come from the drugstore too.  Or the gas station.  We didn’t HAVE “convenience stores”, presumably because there was no need.  People were seldom inconvenienced in those days. Continue Reading →

December 14, 2012
by John Shouse
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ne’er a rose so sweet

I took a part time job working as a TV Repairman when I was still an Electrical Engineering  student in college.   I worked for one of the older and more established “TV shops” in town, and did out-call service and repair in people’s homes.

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 its 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 want to share a story from that TV repair job.   This is a true story,  but I’ve not shared this with very many people.  I’ve always felt it to be sort of a “private” memory.   I can’t say exactly why I’m doing so now, but somehow here in this place it seems like a good time to tell the story…. Continue Reading →

December 9, 2012
by John Shouse
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an astonishing and humbling act of love

In the early days of May, 2010, many parts of Nashville were devastated by major flooding, such as had never been seen in this area.  The rivers were so backed up and the ground so saturated, that even tiny drainage ditches sometimes became raging torrents.  Rivers like the Harpeth, Mill Creek, and of course the Cumberland were further out of their banks than anyone could possibly imagine.  So many lives were touched, thousands lost homes, places of business, etc.  Many areas of downtown, especially those nearest the river were underwater for days.   Because the area is so hilly, the flooding was unpredictable and frankly, a little strange.  There would be a neighborhood where dozens or hundreds of homes would be a total loss, then a street or two over, no high water at all.  This “random” nature led to (I think) a spirit where thousands upon thousands of folks just rolled up their sleeves and pitched in to help.   I wrote the following piece on Thursday, May 6th.  

In the aftermath of the Nashville floods, stories abound of people offering extraordinary service to others.  I want to share one simple act that I encountered that just took me completely by surprise and moved me quite deeply because of its profound generosity.

Like most everyone in the Nashville area, we know numerous folks who were affected by the floods. Yesterday, my 14 year-old son Brendan and I went to help in the cleanup for some friends whose home was destroyed.  As the Harpeth River swelled beyond its banks, Mark & Cindy’s house had begun to fill with water, and like so many others they lost essentially everything.  They made it out with many of their family photographs, a few cherished mementos, and some of their clothing, but everything else …  EVERYTHING else … was a complete loss, including the house itself. Continue Reading →

December 6, 2012
by John Shouse
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snippets and stories

It’s funny how sometimes the least little thing can trigger a distant memory.   Maybe it’s brought on by some piece of insignificant trivia from years ago,  or a casual reference to a time and place you’ve lived through, or a taste, or even a smell.    Whatever the trigger,  suddenly  it’s story time and from wherever it is they’ve been lurking, the memories and stories come pouring in like a flood.

Stories.   I love to tell ’em, and I love to hear ’em.   So here are a few random memories of mine.

I remember when I was probably about 8 or 9 years old, going down to the railroad depot in my hometown, watching the passenger trains roll through, Continue Reading →

December 5, 2012
by John Shouse
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the still point

Introduction:  I wrote the following piece about a dozen years ago, sometime in the summer of the year 2000, after a trip to my hometown in Missouri to attend a high school reunion.  My two sons, Evan and Brendan, went with me, as they were always eager for a trip to visit their grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins.   The story below is one of the most powerful memories I have of my son Evan (who has autism) and my dad together.   This story has been reprinted several times in various publications, including Breaking Ground, the magazine of the Tennessee Council on Developmental Disabilities, and in Autism Spectrum Quarterly.

Dad passed away in the summer of 2003.   I think of him every day and look back and smile.  The pain of his passing has subsided of course, but the emptiness of not having him here still occasionally rises up within me.   The lessons he taught me by the way that he lived his life are stronger now than ever.   I feel like I best honor his memory as I try to live my own life in such a way as to have a similar impact on my own children.    –John Shouse  

I didn’t back get home to my parents house from my high-school reunion until well after midnight.  In the early morning hours, just before 5:00 AM, after only a few hours sleep, I was awakened by Evan’s terrified, high-pitched scream.  The boys were sleeping on a pallet of blankets and sleeping bags and pillows on the floor at the foot of my bed.  Evan had either been having a bad dream, or had awakened not knowing where he was  and went into a panic. Probably both. Continue Reading →

December 4, 2012
by John Shouse
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little helper

I was asked not long ago to name the one person who was most influential in my choosing the career that I have.

This was a simple question that didn’t really require any contemplation.    It was definitely my dad.

dad3

Dorsey Shouse

For many years, dad headed up the “Electric Shop” at AP Green, the largest employer in my small hometown of Mexico Missouri.  AP Green was a manufacturer of “Fire Bricks”, which are a refractories product.  This means that the bricks, etc., that were made by “Green’s”, were able to withstand extraordinarily high heat, and still maintain their physical properties and integrity.  So these bricks were used to line kilns, industrial ovens, iron ore blast furnaces (the steel industry was the single biggest driver of sales of these bricks), reactors, etc.   Perhaps the coolest thing of all though …. and every school kid in Mexico Missouri knew this tidbit …. was that the launch pads at Cape Canaveral (later Cape Kennedy) were made from AP Green Firebrick.   Yep.   Every time we watched those great big rockets on TV launch into space… from Alan Shepard to John Glenn to Neil Armstrong and beyond, they all took off on a little piece of our hometown.   And just as cool, we all knew that we lived in the “Firebrick and Saddle Horse Capital of the World”.   But that’s another story.  Several more stories actually. Continue Reading →

December 4, 2012
by John Shouse
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LA Story part II – the intruder

I was looking through some  old emails to find something else, and stumbled across this piece I wrote in another life.  1999 or 2000 …. or somewhere about then.   It says LA. Story – Part II.   I liked this piece when I wrote it, and am glad to have found it. I was in LA on a business trip, but took a couple of extra days of personal time just to explore since I’d never been there before. 

LA Story – Part I dealt with a Friday late night drive up the PCH to Malibu, I was in a white Mustang convertible with tunes blaring and the top down, and it was a glorious trip  Then a spur-of-the-moment decision to drive up north out of L.A.early the next morning, Saturday, through Bakersfield and the San Joaquin Valley, all the way up to Sequoia National Forest and back.     But I think that story, as written, may be lost forever.   It was a great day from start to finish.

So Part II, here, deals with my experience at the LAX airport Sunday morning, waiting for my return flight to Nashville.   Every one of these vignettes to follow is true… either entirely or mostly…. based on observations as I was just killing time very early that morning on a bench, curbside, at the airport waiting for a later flight.  Hope you enjoy ….


I’m sitting at the airport in Los Angeles, LAX, waiting for my flight back to Nashville.  For reasons unnecessary to explain, I ended up getting up at 4:30 LA time after a whopping 1 hour of sleep.  I needed to get to the airport, turn in my rental car…. a white Mustang convertible …  and get checked in for a 7:00 AM flight.  HOWEVER, I ended up not being able to get on that flight (I was on stand-by, and would have had to pay an upgrade anyway), so I sat waiting for the next non-stop to Nashville at 11:35.  Since the airport policy is that you can’t check your bags more than four hours prior to flight time, and since there was no really good inviting place to sit INSIDE, I ended up sitting outside on a bench at the curb, experiencing early morning LA.

I watched the sun come up over the smog, definitely a weird sight for a small-town boy.  It was interesting that when I got to LAX a couple of days ago, I was dressed for a business meeting in suit and tie, and I was walking through the airport like a man on a mission.  Today however, I was in jeans and hiking boots and comfortable Hawaiian shirt, and was in no particular hurry to get anyplace in particular.  The other day in the suit I was pretty left much alone.  Today, taking my time and dressed casually, I was approached by three separate people looking for a handout.

Where I was sitting outside passing the time, I had a ringside seat as a variety of travelers showed up (many seemingly in a stressed out rush), and dealt with their own minutiae of arrival and preparing for air travel.  As a confirmed “people watcher” this was not a wholly odious task.  It was rather enjoyable actually, if admittedly somewhat voyeuristic.   Here is my version of their stories. Continue Reading →