On the South Side

Tonight I taught a guitar lesson for a young girl named Caitlin Robinson. She's the daughter of Kim and Libby Robinson, now divorced. Kim is the older brother of Dave and Dave is one of my oldest friends. I was introduced to Dave in 1973 by my cousin Russ. They were juniors at Cleveland High School that year and I was a freshman. I didn't get to know him to well until the following year when we had the same Creative Writing class. This is when I learned that Dave was a gifted writer. Our teacher, Mr. Tom Potthast, (now deceased) always had an assignment for us. Every single night. It was usually not required to be lengthy, and many times he would just make something up as the bell was ringing. As we're all standing up to get to our next class, he would yell out, "OK, 500 words on...(small pause)...A radio show; you're a script writer for a radio show. 500 words." I'd be saying to myself, "What the...?" But Dave, well he'd wait until...

OK, so I'm going to try a slice of life from yesteryear. I knew from a very early age that I wanted to play and perform music. I wasn't exactly a go-getter though, so many of my opportunities had to hit me head-on for me to take advantage of them. My older sister Becky had a guitar and I plucked around on that from about age eight and took some lessons at about age 12. But, I really wanted to play drums. My dad told me that if I took some lessons on the drum, he'd buy me one. (One drum?! To get started, I guess.) So, I got up enough nerve to approach the music director at Woodward Elementary and I asked him, "I'd like to play the drums. Can I play the drums?" He just looked at me. "I already know how to read music," I continued. Finally, he spoke, "I don't need a drummer. How about the trumpet?" I answered immediately, "OK!" So, I took my coronet home that day at lunchtime and learned to play my C scale....

You know, I was lamenting the other night that I just don't have anything to write about. Write about my day? No thanks. Of course, some days are busy and fulfilling and I've written about those. But then I have a couple of real boring days in a row and I feel like I got nothin'. Then I read Tim's entry from last night. It was great. Just a slice of life. Just a slice of his life from a while back, that is. Hey, great idea. I can do that. I'm going to try tonight. Be sure to read Tim's Blog .

You know, I tried. I've tried to keep politics out of this blog. Mainly because there are so many other blogs that do that. I'm not going to start ranting, but I have to write about something that happened today. I attended a Methodist seminar today. These things are by nature stupid and slow. Why do I go? Usually I would go to support a new Christian who may be exploring the idea of getting more involved in our church. Also, to support our pastor who many times is pressured to attend these things by his boss. So I go. There are two sessions today (Saturday; one was last night but I just couldn't do it). The first one was "The 21st Century Worship Experience." Well, if a laptop and a Powerpoint presentation is 21st Century, I think even my little church has got that one covered. It was lame, though the young people who presented it were, I thought, probably good vibrant church leaders in their element. The second one, though, wow. It was given by an ex-...

I don't think I have the nerve to write well. I got out my Rust Never Sleeps songbook and went through it. I sang Pocahontas and Powderfinger, the two really good ones from that album. Here's the fourth verse of Pocahontas: I wish I was a trapper I would give a thousand pelts To sleep with Pocahontas And find out how she felt In the morning on the fields of green In the homeland we've never seen C'mon! If I wrote that...I couldn't write that. Yet, it's a great song. And so is Powderfinger. It's so vivid: Daddy's rifle in my hand felt reassurin' He told me, "Red means run, son, and numbers add up to nothin' " Then the last verse starts: Shelter me from the powder and the finger Cover me with the thought that pulled the trigger That is great stuff. I'm just going to keep on pluggin' away here and see what happens. Here's a verse and a chorus of a song I wrote a lifetime ago: Evening turns o...

On the way home from work tonight, listening to NPR, I heard a bit of Johnny Cash singing "Pocahontas" (written by Neil Young). Wow. It sounded so...so...I don't know; real?, powerful? There are several really good songs on that Neil Young album, Rust Never Sleeps. My favorite is Powderfinger. When I heard Cash singing this song, I reminded myself that I don't have to sing in the same key as Neil. Johnny was probably two octaves below the original. I'm gonna get that music book out and try it. I've also got to go buy some Johnny Cash CDs. I've been meaning to, I just never get around to it. I can really appreciate a good writer. Lyrics, fiction, non-fiction, haiku; whatever. It's a lot of work. You really got to have something to say. (a little voice in my head just told me, "yeah, so why don't you shutup!") Damn!, now I just remembered I was supposed to go over to my mother's house sometime this week to set up her VCR. I forgot. ...

I was watching a morning news show last week with an interview with Prince, or whatever his name his now. You know, Prince. I'm assuming they asked him about the Janet Jackson thing at the Super Bowl and the conversation edged into artists "pushing the envelope." They were speaking specifically about sexuality on stage or in videos, something Prince used to be known for. As he was speaking they would show some short clips of videos from today's hit songs. This is when he was asked, "what would be pushing the envelope today?" He said, "today not pushing the envelope would be pushing the envelope." Wow. I guess I should be making videos. I could do that. That got me thinking about my new guitar amplifier. It has twelve digital "signatures" built in. They digitally mimic the "envelope pushing" sounds of the rock guitar. The distortion, phase-shifter, flange etc., they all started with artists pushing their equipment to places i...

Don't you just love technology? The banner ad at the top of this page is generated by Google Technology. The ad is there because I'm using this web space as a free service. I have nothing to do with what the ads say or advertise. In fact, no person has anything to do with what the ads say. It (the technology) reads the text of my blog and grabs keywords that are frequent search terms and displays them as links to articles and products related to these words. It just strange for some reason. I don't know why. I find myself clicking on the ad many times just to see what's out there. Click here for some news on Google. That's it, I just thought that was interesting.

After listening to a great sermon on Sunday morning, I used it to start conversation in Sunday school right afterwards. I started it out by asking everyone to give me and example of something that is either legal but immoral or illegal yet moral. Of course, the first thing I hear is abortion. I moved quickly, "OK, what else?" Then came capital punishment, the right to bear arms, free speech. It all came down on me fast. I wanted to focus on the concept of watching out for "the wrong question." In other words, being alert to the probable agenda of the person you're talking to. And don't just jump to conclusions about that word agenda either, cause everybody's got one. The question you have to ask yourself is, "do I want to have this conversation?" If the answer is no, then walk away or change the subject to baseball or the weather. But if the answer is yes you do want to have the conversation, then you'd better be prepared for the "wron...

Friday night is Bible study at church. But, most of the new sound system came in and it has to be up and running by tomorrow night in fellowship hall. We didn't get the speakers. Think we'll need them? The pastor says, "I know where we can get some." I don't ask, but I know they just bought some over at the other church he serves. Saturday morning we've got speakers. I spend all day at church setting up the hall with the new system, learning to work it etc. About noon Lee (the pastor) says, "So, you ready to do those labels?" I forgot, we're mailing five-thousand glossy postcards for Lent and I volunteered to do the addresses and labels. He stays up half the night formatting the postcard and I bring the label file home and ask Annette to do it for me. Saturday night was the big coffee house. It went OK. Lots of small technical problems that Annette says nobody but me noticed. I hope so. We did the Beatle sing-a-long at the end and everyb...

I love the onset of warmer weather. For me it means just one thing. Spending evenings sitting out front on the neighbor's porch doing nothing. Talking about anything and everything. And I don't feel bad about it at all. I cherish it, in fact. I paid my dues working twenty years in the freezing cold or hellishly hot kitchens around town. Working every evening and every weekend and every holiday. No more. I'm going to sit back with a cool Perrier, the sounds of cicadas chirping through the Sycamore trees and enjoy life. I'm reminded of the Andy Griffith Show episode called "Man in a Hurry", where Barney and Andy are sitting on the porch. Andy's strumming his guitar softly, and Barny says, "Yeah, I think I'll go home...take a nap...go over to Thelma Lou's and watch some TV... " Andy nods. Then he says it again. Andy says, "hmm." Then Barney says it again. The man who's in a hurry can't take it of course and yells, ...

So I steal away from work for about an hour each day to get away from the pressure. I'm sitting in my car when my cell phone rings. It's the boss. "Rich," he says, "are you at lunch?" "I am," I replied. He continued, "Rich, we've got a situation here." "OK," I said expectantly. "Rich, we need some glue sticks, about 5 of them." "Glue sticks?, like regular gluesticks?" "Yes, glue sticks." "About 5 of them?" "Yeah, 5. No...make it 6" "6 glue sticks?" "Yeah." "I'm on it." Just a glimpse into the high-pressure world that is mine.

So after finally getting out of the restaurant business, I worked at home for two years with Annette. She runs a Secretarial Service with mostly medical transcription, but a few regular word processing jobs. During this time I became proficient in MS Office and Web Page construction. I taught night school for a while which I really loved. At the peak I was teaching two Intro to Computers classes and one class each on Word, Excel, Access and Web Page construction. I was busy. I call this period the summer of my life. I think I knew it couldn't last because I wasn't making much money, but boy was I having fun. I went to my first Science Camp that year and my first Annual Conference (the Methodists' big organizational meeting). It was such a freeing experience. Like years of stress and oppression lifting gradually off my shoulders. So I finally had to consider getting a real job. But, what kind of job? Did I have enough skills to get a web-site job? No, probably not. What ...

You know, when people ask me what I do for a living, I say "nothing much." Even I admit that it's more exciting to talk about my former career that my present one. My former career was in the restaurant business. I was a cook for ten years at little pub and then after my daughter was born and my wife informed me that I ought to get a real job, I worked my way up to Chef at a couple of the big catering companies here in St. Louis. So, ten years as a cook and ten years as a Chef. The last year of this life (1999) found us praying for a job change. A real job change. Then one day the owner of the place I was working called me in on my day off to "talk." Very strange. Picture this now. I worked in a refurbished old church building that they had turned into a restaurant. So we're sitting in the "dining room" which was the sanctuary. There's a giant stained glass window in front of Jesus praying in the Garden. I can't tell you how many times ...

My sister asked me after a recent blog entry, "What's up with you Christians and Evolution anyway? What, God can't do Evolution if he wants to?" (I paraphrased) I don't know. I have talked to all kinds of Christians about this and there are many, many different viewpoints. I'd have to say that most folks that I know are not "bothered" by evolution. That means they don't think about it much or it doesn't collide with their faith or something along those lines. However, I do tend to hang with a few fundamentalists here and there and run across my fair share of Darwin as the Devil stuff. As I stated in an earlier blog entry, I think that I've been prepared to talk to people about this subject. So many times I don't actually offer an opinion of my own. During a discussion one night, a friend was becoming agitated at my line of reasoning and Annette jumped in to say, "He's just playing devil's advocate." The friend respon...

We spent Friday/Saturday at a Drury Inn in beautiful Fenton MO. It sits across the interstate from the Chrysler Plant. Could you ask for a more picturesque scene? Each year we gather a group of about 15 to 20 people from church for a Leadership Retreat. It's a chance to get away from the phones and chores for a day to sit and have long conversations about what the heck we do. My main focus remains bringing the message of Christ to Secularists. I believe there are a sub-group of these folks who desire to be close to the sacred and are left with no method to get there. There are people who will respond to the Christian traditions and will find meaning in the words, rituals and actions of Jesus and those who follow him. Then, Sunday morning was simply a great worship service. I choked backed tears several times as did Annette (for different reasons of course). Our little church has enjoyed a bit of growth recently. Three or four new families have joined us for worship regularly an...

It Jennifer's fault, I tell ya. It's her fault. I must apologize for the long blog entries. I don't know what's really appropriate for a blog. Ah, who cares. I know I like reading short entries; snapshots of life. But it could be whatever you wanted to be. Another question: if someone that I know comments on my remarks, does that mean I should email them back? Or just comment on the comment? I know, I think too much. I'm preparing for a coffee house that we're (Annette and I) hosting at church. We always do a pop-sing-a-long at the end of the evening. Last month we did Disney for kids young and old. This time we're doing Beatles. I want to come up with the list so I can print out the lyric sheets for everyone. So here's my challenge: Songs that most everyone will know, but have cool electric guitar riffs. You know, Day Tripper, Ticket to Ride etc. I've got this cool new guitar amp that has pre-built sounds on a dial. Ain't technology great?!

Though Annette was becoming very active in our church during these years, I was always working. This was a time when I was truly adrift. One of these years I'd officially labeled, "the year in hell." At one point after having opened a new restaurant and working 100 hours a week, I was close to a nervous breakdown. One night I simply walked away from the restaurant, got in the car and started driving. As I approached the interstate, home was to my left and I turned right. I drove for a long time. Eventually, I turned around and headed towards home. But as I entered the neighborhood, instead of going home, I stopped at the Pastor's house which was around the corner. He was home and gave me some of his time. We just talked. He parted with some heavy philosophy like, "it just a job." But, more importantly, he shared that he'd felt like this before too. And, he wondered if I might be willing to "talk to somebody." You know the euphemism. Turns out t...

A long journey, it was. About thirty-five years of age I'd guess when I had my first intimate words with Christ. It was a joke, those first words. I made some remark about my "boss" at the restaurant I was working at when He looked at me for just a second, then burst out laughing, "Your boss! That's a good one!" Such closeness, it's hard to describe. Of course the preparation for that day was long in coming. I was raised as a Secular humanist like so many others in the world today. I still have a great fondness for the heroes of that religion. Men like Carl Sagan, Isaac Asimov and Gene Rodenberry. These are great men with great intellects. I still love to read and/or watch their works. Humanist believe in a moral code. It's based on Humanism of course, but they do believe in them, and I thank my Dad for at least giving me this system to grow up in. My Mother is a good old fashion Methodist and I'm very proud of her. She gave me an extra helpi...

The Concert for George, a tribute to George Harrison, was on PBS the other night and we all sat down to watch it. It brought me to tears several times. What exactly brought on the tears? Well, it's like this: Eric Clapton was of course a close friend of George's for many years. So he was the producer of the show. Jeff Lynn was there too. Jeff Lynn is one of the premiere rock producers ever. So the show was just plain good. But what really did it was the authenticity of the guitar work. George Harrison was "just the guitar" player of the Beatles. So they happen to be the biggest rock act ever, he's still just the guitar player. You don't hear the extended solos from Harrison that we've become used to in the rock n roll world. Typically, just 8 bars - sometimes 16. When he took the solo, it counted. It had melody. It meant something. So Clapton was smart enough to get two great guitarists to back up the sound for this concert. And man were they good. The...

We had a great Bible study tonight. We discussed at length something Jesus told us about in several parables. And that is seeing this life from an eternal perspective. You know the story: the rich old man is dying and he has nothing but regrets. He realizes now that all his money is worth nothing. If only he would have talked to this person. If only he would have said that to someone else. The idea is to look at your life from the future. Look back on the present. What things in your life have eternal qualities. Two things: your relationship with God and your relationships with other people. That's why when Jesus was asked what is the greatest commandment he said, "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the first and great commandment. A second likewise is this, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments." Jesus tri...

In an email to my sister where I complained about how busy I was, she responded, "It sounds like you're doing what you want to do." She's right. I have no right to complain. I have been blessed beyond measure in my life. I have a happy, healthy family and a large circle of friends centered on my little church and just love them all. Through my service to them I am filled.