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77 on 11/13
Today my dad would have turned 77 years old. He passed away just over 8 years ago, but his birthday seems to always punctuate the end of my my favorite month of each year (Oct 15-Nov 15). It’s usually too hot to start October and can sometimes be too cold to finish November, so I’ve picked a favorite month that doesn’t exist except in my little world.
I don’t remember celebrating his birthday as a child. My only memory of it is when I was too young to be watching Friday the 13th, but I had seen it at my friend’s house on Friday, November 13th, 1981. I remember coming back home on Saturday after spending the night at my friend’s the night before, completely scared out of my mind after watching a slasher film as a 4th grader. (Parents, please refrain from allowing your 4th grader from watching slasher films – I’m forever scarred, and to this day can’t seem to shake my fascination with the Friday the 13th and Halloween movie franchises, but that’s an entirely different post).
That Saturday evening as I returned back home, my dad was home and had just been on one of his first dates with my soon to be stepmom. She was at our house, which was a weird feeling. My dad and I had been living alone in our home for several months. It was weird to have a woman in our home, especially one that wasn’t my mom.
I’m sure my dad was not overly concerned in that moment of the trauma I had just endured watching Jason Voorhees’ mom take out all the campers at Crystal Lake Camp with knives and arrows (poor Kevin Bacon), but I was excited to tell him about it, as well as this new woman that would be in my life for decades to come.
My next significant memory of my dad’s birthday came a few months after his death on November 13, 2016. My son and I went deer hunting together. My son slept through the first couple of hours of the hunt. When he woke up at 9:00AM, he was ready to hunt, and by then I was ready for a nap. I laid down in our box blind dosing off only minutes later to be jolted with a loud boom, with my son proclaiming he just shot a monster. I didn’t believe him until we walked over and found the old brute down just where he shot him. It felt like my dad had talked with God to let us know he was keeping an eye on us. I think about that memory fondly every November 13th since.
I’ve always had a thing with the number 77. Maybe it’s because one my favorite bands is the 77’s. Maybe it’s an old song I remember as a kid from the band Whiteheart called How Many Times (Seventy Times Seven). My lifelong friend and fellow music geek, Jason, had the Whiteheart casette. The casette was baby blue, which we thought was cool at the time, but the song (and band) was a bit too pop for our tastes circa 1986, but the lyrics did stick with me.
I’ll do something today to remember my dad’s 77th. So much has changed since he passed – some really hard and some full of blessing, which is how life goes for all of us.
Let those that you love hear it from you regularly. The world keeps us spinning a lot of plates and busy with “things,” but I would give up a lot to have another day with my dad, especially with the wisdom that I have today. He was a good man and the father I needed. I love you, dad.
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Weather matters to me
I have come to the realization that my desire to write blog posts coincides with the annual changing of the weather from the dog days of summer to fall. A renewed level of inspiration hits me, and I find a link on Youtube like “Cozy Coffee Shop” that plays light jazz with some sentimental autumn images and my fingers fly all over they keyboard.
I’ve got a couple of ideas in the works for this fall, as well as a Christmas post that I didn’t finish last year. Hopefully, I’ll successfully get through a few of these while the weather continues to inspire.
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The Onion Dip Decade
I’m not much for social media, but I do have a few guilty pleasures that I follow on Twitter. One of my fav’s is “Super 70s Sports” – especially their posts that have nothing to do with sports in the 70s. Although the creator is fluent in words not allowed in my home in the 70s and 80s, the content usually puts a smile or smirk on my face at least once a day.
It seems like I was sitting under that fake plastic tree in the photo above when my Dad informed me that we weren’t going to be able to afford tickets for our family to see Journey in the summer of ’83 on their Frontiers tour at the Mid-South Coliseum in Memphis because tickets were out of this world expensive at $17.50 each ($51.05 in 2022 dollars), which was an unobtainable luxury for a delta farmer in the early 80s. (I never got to see Steve Perry and my first CD ever purchased was Journey – Escape in ’86)
I was crushed over Journey, as I had just attended my first concert in March ’83 – Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band at Mid-South Coliseum. Tickets sold out in less than an hour for Bob’s March 8 show at the Coliseum, so my dad and step-mom spent the night in the parking lot of Hot Dog Records in Jonesboro (this may not be true, but it’s how I remember it) to get us tickets for a second night at the Coliseum on March 9th. I remember it spit snow that night in the parking lot; Seger played “Turn the Page,” which he didn’t on the first night in Memphis; my brother got kicked out of school for wearing his Bob Seger t-shirt to school the next day (they didn’t like the naked ladies riding the bullet – I guess I understand that for a first grade classroom); and I experienced the aroma of weed for the first time in my life. I was scared to death, but hooked on live concerts. One of these days I will try to list them all.
I think all of us in Gen X and older can look back and pine for what felt like simpler times when our choices were limited and information took patience and effort to obtain. It was a time when salsa and queso had not been exported out of Texas and our snack choices in Arkansas consisted of Ruffles with a side of Onion Dip or Ding Dongs.
It’s easy to wallow in sentimentality, which I have a tendency to do at times, as obvious from the few posts I’ve made so far. What I’m wrestling with is how to cherish and enjoy those memories in my life that have made it worth living, but not long for a reality that is only in my rearview mirror. How can I utilize my experiences to make today better? What actions can I take or words can I say that will positively impact those around me? It’s just so much easier to waste time pondering how it was or what it’s going to be like. I believe Jesus provided us some wisdom on this matter in the book of Matthew, “do not be anxious about your life . . . do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself.”
In these days of an ever increasing pace of change and a cultural and political landscape seemingly on unsteady ground, I can find solace in my appreciation for the simpler times of Ruffles and Onion Dip, but I must focus my energy and efforts on making today a day worth living, especially for those around me.
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Where Corn Don’t Grow
In my previous post I referenced my disdain for what passes as country music these days. I thought I would let that zinger settle for a while, as I know it’s not wise to alienate and/or anger a fledgling audience, especially one that can be counted on two hands. However, I woke up with a song in my head referenced in the title of this post, so I decided to tackle the subject head on.
When I can’t find anything interesting to listen to on the radio, I’ll sometimes play a little game. I dial up the modern country station on Sirius XM and force myself to listen to it until I hear at least three of the following four motifs – trucks, dirt roads, drinking or tan legs. I don’t think I’ve had to listen for more than 5 minutes – then thankfully back to Lithium or Hair Nation.
One of the last great country songs was Travis Tritt’s 1996 recording of Waylon Jennings 1990 song penned by Roger Murrah and Mark Allen Springer, “Where Corn Don’t Grow.” I had become a fan of Mr. Tritt after his 1991 classic “Drift Off to Dream” perfectly described the hope I had in finding the love of my life. Although we never shared a front porch swing, I guess those swings around the Baylor campus should count. Man, did I ever out kick my coverage with the fulfillment of this song.
“Where Corn Don’t Grow” hit me hard in my mid-20’s one year into my marriage as I was set to conquering life and career in the city where “the weeds are high.” In hearing this song, I was suddenly struck with empathy towards my dad and a better understanding of him. I had grown up longing for a “better” life beyond the dusty fields as a farmer’s son. The song hit me at a pivotal time when I began to appreciate my dad’s wisdom and experience. I recognized and was becoming more comfortable with the idea that longing for my father’s affection was a need in me even as an adult.
As I’ve considered the concept of a child’s longing for their father’s affection, I believe it’s an innate emotion we all share. Sadly, what is lacking in our world today is not the child’s longing, but rather the father’s affection for his child. I believe this lack of affection across generations is at the core of most of our society’s current ills.
To me it speaks to a deeper longing that we all have that Pascal touched on . . .
“What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace? This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God himself.”
– Blaise Pascal, Pensées VII(425)I never suspected to find my way to a better understanding of the need for Abba Father through a corn field, but He does work in mysterious ways. More on this subject later as well.
Final note to the current country music fan – I know there is probably a lot of good country music out there today. Heck, some young guy named Riley Green covered “Where Corn Don’t Grow” back in ’21. I remember my grandfather railing on the country of the 90’s saying that “this ain’t country music.” I’m sure I’m just trying to continue his legacy to some degree. Enjoy your cliches – I sure enjoyed mine and still do on Hair Nation every day.
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The genius of Terry Redlin
If you’ve always lived within a Metropolitan Statistical Area (those areas in green below), I expect this post to have limited resonance with your soul as it does mine.
While I recognize that I fit squarely into the inerudite redneck stereotype in regards to my lack of appreciation for the finer “arts,” I do find inspiration when I encounter man’s attempt to copy God’s work on a canvas or with a piece of stone. I have toured some of the world’s most renowned museums and gazed upon the beauty of the Sistine Chapel and the Bascilla i Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Familia, but nothing tugs at my soul like a Terry Redlin painting. Some of you Metro Statistical Area types either just spewed your mocha latte across your iPhone 14 Pro screen or threw up in in the back of your mouth, but it’s a badge I proudly wear.
As I make this proclamation, I do struggle with the perceived oxymoron of my appreciation of Terry Redlin, while despising any country music made after 1994. I’ll save my diatribe towards what passes as country music these days for a later post and focus today’s post on how Terry warms my soul.
Take a minute and just gaze upon “A Bountiful Harvest”
I can’t critique this on its artistic merits, but I can explain how it makes me feel. I remember driving a grain truck like this when I was only 12 years old, afraid that the brakes were going to go out at any second or the engine would backfire and start a fire in the grain field below (this actually happened). I remember my grandfather, my dad and their hands gathering on the edge of the field at dusk, grain dust filling the air, discussing the yields and moisture levels of the beans from the day. A dog was always near by, ducks and geese headed south was a consistent view above, maybe even a faint sound of the play call announcer on the PA from your home team’s football game traveled through the chilly air – the beauty of harvest at dusk is difficult to put into words, but Mr. Terry did a fine job with it here.
There is nothing real about this painting, it’s an imagined reality – what our memories become when we forget the details and sweeten it in with the ideal rather than truly how it was. Almost every Terry Redlin painting does this for me in some way. Most include wildlife, especially waterfowl, which is near and dear to me. They usually are set at sunrise and sunset, which are the two best times of the day if we’re willing to stop and appreciate them. Dogs seems to always be around. Is there anything we remember more fondly than dogs, when the majority of the time we owned them, they were nothing but a money pit.
Redlin is the Bob Seger of modern American art. Seger’s modus operandi was his nostalgia trope. His lyrics always have had me longing for my youth and those moments when I was free from the heavy burdens of my adult life. In the same way, Redlin’s paintings give me a window into my idealized memory banks of the days gone by.
I recognize I lack some sophistication in my appreciation for these more common visual and auditory elements, but I sure hope some day when I get to heaven it looks like a Terry Redlin painting and I hear “Against the Wind” on the radio.
By the way, Mr. Redlin isn’t the only artist that has given me such memorable paintings. Another favorite of mine is Brett James Smith. His waterfowl paintings are some of the best. My favorite “A Good Morning” is below. Jessica, if you’re reading – this would be an awesome gift for my office wall.
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What Gene Simmons and the Wicked Witch of the West do to a 5 year old mind.
Fear – an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat
For those of us old enough to remember, Walmart was a key outlet for music in the late 70’s in middle America. It was always in the back of Walmart where teenagers would congregate – the younger ones peeling away from their moms that were busy strolling down the sewing and knitting aisle and the older ones coming in pairs with frizzy long hair, pimpled faces carrying an inaugural, sweet, smoky scent to my 5 year old nose. I can’t remember if my mom was overly interested in sewing and knitting, or if she was just naive enough to let me venture to the back of Walmart, but I was always excited to see the new album releases dangling from near invisible strings from the tiled ceilings. (Of course, I always made sure to walk by the poster aisle to hopefully catch a glimpse of the Farah Fawcett poster whispered about amongst the boys during our kindergarten recess time)
There it was – dangling just behind the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack album – KISS Alive II – Gene Simmons drenched in sweat with his chin covered and mouth full of bright red corn syrup serving as fake blood. It was quite the shock to my young eyes. Now I was no Kiss neophyte – I already owned a sweet orange KISS t-shirt with the Destroyer album cover on the front, but this was spectacularly scary.
I quickly scurried back to the sewing aisle looking for my mom. This kind of fear was a new sensation, especially since I had this longing to head back there and sneak a peek at the album cover again and again over the next several months. It all reminded me of an experience earlier in ’77 when I talked my dad into letting the two of us skip church on Sunday night, so I could get home to watch The Wizard of Oz. Not darkening the door of our church when they were open was darn near sacrilegious in our corner of the world, but my dad was kind enough to be a rebel with me and stay home to watch the beautiful Dorothy. While I was aware of her, I was not prepared for the unwelcome visitor to Munchkinland, the Wicked Witch of the West. When she surprisingly appeared from a plume of red smoke on the grainy TV screen, I quickly scurried behind my dad’s chair, afraid to look at the screen directly. Fear rattled me in that moment and my dad was somewhat perturbed that he risked religious blackballing for me to hide behind his chair. However, I realized that I could see a reflection of the TV in our porch glass door behind my dad’s chair. Somehow watching the witch’s reflection didn’t seem as scary in the moment. It was always worth another look.
The witch and demon literally scared the hell out of me, but what was this unexpected sensation that I wanted to look at them anyway? Heck, by the summer of ’78 I owned all the KISS trading cards and my obvious favorite was Gene spewing blood from his mouth.
Although the initial adrenaline inducing fear subsided, Gene continued to haunt me. I was walking through the corridors of the Pine Bluff Convention Center alone in ’84 knowing that KISS had performed there a year earlier. I kept getting freaked out that Gene was about to come around the corner in his full demon regalia standing 7 foot tall – the fear was still there and The Wizard of Oz became one of my all time favorite movies. My daughter and I can quote every word.
While I have plenty more story stories on fear that include Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees and my youth pastor, I’ll stop here with the realization that fear can make for a heavy load on our psyche. It seems to never fully leave us and when left unchecked, it can overwhelm us. I was taught early on that “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” That was difficult to understand when Gene, Michael and Jason were lurking in all the dark corners, and I still don’t fully understand that statement, but I do know that being fearful of what tomorrow brings rarely leads to a fulfilling life.
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What do Jesus, Eddie Trunk, Morrisey, Matt Labash, and the Meateater have in common?
I would suspect any erudite reader would quickly see the link between these cast of characters. All fit within the six degrees of Kevin Bacon theory based on my best math, and all hold a special place in my heart. Of utmost importance to me is Jesus. I actually believe He is who He said He is. As crazy as that sounds to some, it’s the only thing that makes sense to me in this world. (More on that later).
Eddie Trunk, maybe the most important current day, card-carrying rock and roll personality on the planet – well, actually it’s Dave Grohl and Tom Morello, but Eddie is my sentimental favorite.
Morrisey – the tortured, poet soul for the outcasts of the mid 80’s – although we have little in common, I could eerily relate to his awkwardness and angst – why are The Smiths not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame – based on Johnny Marr’s guitar playing alone?
Matt Labash is the inspiration for this little blogging adventure – a gifted writer that creates content way more entertaining and interesting than this.
https://mattlabash.substack.com/
Meateater, well I could have probably better put Shawn Luchtel in this spot, but Meateater seems to be better known by the masses. Both of these are stalwarts of the modern day outdoorsman scene. While I don’t use face paint when I hunt or tout myself as a card-carrying member of the NRA, I do love hunting, fishing and I have too many guns.
I have no great reason to start this site. However, we just passed the sixth anniversary of my father’s passing, and there is something cathartic about documenting the weirdness that is me. We are all weird in our own ways. Most of us have societal pressure to keep it between the ditches, so most of it goes unnoticed. Only those with wealth and/or surrounded by sycophants do we actually get a glimpse into the eccentricities we all possess.
I suspect if any of you actually read these posts, you’ll get a window into my weird world, and hopefully find some similarities to your journey along the way.
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