Category Archives: Night Writing

Rounding third, and heading for home, it’s a brown-eyed handsome man

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I loved Kirby Puckett the way most of us come to love anyone or anything: for what I saw, and for the way he made me feel. I loved the energy, the enthusiasm, the apparent happy-go-lucky, irrepressible bouncing Superball of a player, the way it seemed that he made everyone around him better, or at least happier.

I suppose by now I’ve learned there are a lot of things you shouldn’t trust. Politicians. The media. Hollywood. Agendas. Maybe even your eyes.

It’s been a long day with some lingering projects that have kept me from posting on Puck until now. I suspect there has been a lot said elsewhere already (yep – I didn’t have to look very far; a quick check and Doug has thoughtfully provided a list). Truth be told, part of the reason it has taken me awhile to get to this is I’ve been wondering what to write. Not if I should write, but what.

The first time I saw him in person was when he debuted at the Metrodome in ’84. He’d been called up from the minors and joined the team on a West Coast road trip and had been an immediate sensation. I was working as a scoreboard operator at the Dome then and it was my luck to draw the new kid’s first home game. As a kid I’d been at Busch stadium when Bake McBride made his debut as a late-season call-up with my Cards and always remembered the stadium announcer informing us of the fact as I watched McBride’s solid career go on. I remember thinking of that when Puck was introduced and went out to centerfield. Could he be something special, too?

It wasn’t long before a ball was lined into center and the unlikely looking kid, knees and elbows pumping, came charging in to field it on the hop. We all watched with interest as he snatched and threw … and saw the ball bounce eight times before it got to the cut-off man. Even at that, though, there was something likeable about seeing a guy so excited to be getting a chance. Of course, it soon became clear that he was the real deal. As he motored around the outfield and the basepaths as improbably as a turbo-charged bumblebee in flight he always seemed to be to be a size larger than life. I grieved the sudden glaucoma that ended his career not just because it robbed me of the chance to keep watching a once-in-a-generation player but because I knew it hurt him even more. Even then, going out, he was Puck; upbeat, smiling, saying don’t be sad for me, I’ve had the greatest opportunity a guy can have, be sad for the ones who never got a chance.

Next it was on to the Hall of Fame, and shortly after that it was the Hall of Funhouse Mirrors – twisted, distorted images at once familiar and bizarre. The stories, the allegations, the time when “touch ’em all” went from being a celebration to being an accusation, to the trial, to the acquittal and to the bitterness, and now he was larger and larger, and ultimately larger than life, or what life could sustain.

At the time of the trial, I wanted some assurances, some opportunity to say, “Say it ain’t so, Joe” to Puck. Strangely enough, the article that stuck with me, the one that touched me, was by Ralph Wiley, then writing for ESPN’s Page 2. Ironically R-Dub, too, would be another great talent taken too suddenly and too soon from us. Wiley didn’t even like Puck that much, but offered a piercing, bittersweet turn on the whole affair. I went to ESPN earlier this evening to search the archives so I could read it again and I didn’t have to dig; it had already been re-posted.

Another fair writer, William Shakespeare, had Julius Caesar say that a brave man dies only once, but a coward dies a thousand times. There’s got to be another category for superstars, though, where even the greatest leaves the field at an age where everyone else in the real world is still trying to prove themselves. For some of these there are more deaths to come: of reputation, of respect. I wasn’t quite sure of what to make of the things that happened and were said about Puck. I was sure of what I’d seen on the field but then I didn’t need a sportswriter to tell me what happened, or to create the drama. Later there was too much drama, and too many opinions, and apparently no arguing with the Umpire of Society when you get tossed.

If you sit still, however, and listen, you might be able to hear the echoes all the way from Baseball Heaven as the late Bob Casey leans into the mike and says, “Now entering, KIR-beeeeeeeeee PUCK-it!”

The true meaning of Christmas specials

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Perhaps I was like Scrooge seeing Marley’s face on his door knocker, but I’m almost certain that when I watched the Charlie Brown Christmas special I heard Linus stand on stage and say:

And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree to render unto Caesar, and that all the world should shop and pay sales tax, and all went to be taxed, everyone into his own mall. And Joseph also went up from Shakopee, into Bloomington, unto the Mall of America, (which is called MOA) because he was an American, to shop with his wife Mary, they being great with debt. And so it was, that, while they were there, the items were purchased that needed to be delivered, and they brought forth their credit card, wrapped in promises to pay and laid it on the counter because there was no money in their checking account.

And there was in the same country stewards, abiding in their homes, keeping watch over their televisions by night. And lo, the commercials from Mammon came upon them and the glory of the goods shown round about them and they were sore afraid they would miss a good deal. And the commercial said unto them, “Fear not, for behold I bring you great tidings of a good economy, which shall be to all who do their part. For unto you is laid out this day, in a store near you, all manner of precious items, and this shall be a sign unto you: 40% off.” And suddenly there was within the commercial a multitude of friends and family praising their gifts and saying “Glory to the Giver with the highest credit card balance, and on earth peace, good will toward all, just $29.95.”

And it came to pass that I kept all these things and pondered them in my heart.

Fear not, for this is not going to be a complaint on how commercial Christmas has become. Frankly, those complaints have become as traditional and meaningless to most people as holly and ivy (if you don’t know what these represent, look it up). Complaining about how the true meaning of Christmas is being ignored, without actually dwelling on this meaning, is merely spiritual lip service; kind of like singing “Gloria In Excelsis Deo,” without knowing what it means. For me the issue is not that commercialism obscures the meaning of Christmas, but the cultural camouflage that diverts attention. As a case in point, let’s look at the Christmas specials we watch with our families.

Despite my parody of the Linus speech earlier, the Charlie Brown Christmas special is a classic and a true Christmas special because it is one of the few that deals specifically with the birth of Christ. “The Little Drummer Boy” is another old one and favorite of mine that also does this, while the Veggie Tales “The Toy That Saved Christmas” is the highlight of the new generation. Many so-called Christmas specials, however, purport to be about finding the true meaning of Christmas, but where is the Christ in “Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer,” “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” “It’s a Wonderful Life” or “A Christmas Story”? Watch these and most other shows and you’ll get the message that you can be what you want to be and you should do kind things for others, and that Bumbles bounce. Nice shows and nice sentiments all, but while Jesus would exhort us to be “nice” it isn’t why he came. Don’t forget that “for unto you is born this day in the city of Bethlehem a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”

Enjoy the shows with your family, but look for ways to highlight fundamental Christian concepts within the programs, even if these messages appear unintentional. Since everything will ultimately prove the word of God true, teachable moments are everywhere if we are alert to them. The classic movie “Miracle on 34th Street,” for example, really focuses on the importance of faith, at one point virtually reciting Hebrews 11:1 and 11:5-6. Don’t miss the opportunity to call this to your children’s’ attention. I once sat open-mouthed (but not slack-jawed) watching the SpongeBob Squarepants Christmas program for the first time. The story is that SpongeBob has never heard of Santa Claus until his friend Sandy fills him in. SpongeBob gets so excited that he stands on a street corner proclaiming the good news to everyone (no one else has heard of Santa either) about how kind Santa is and about all the gifts he will bring. Soon, everyone is shouting, “We love Santa!” I turned to my daughter and said, “SpongeBob is an evangelist!”

Of course, SpongeBob is focusing on all the benefits that Santa brings, which is also a failing of modern evangelism. People are exhorted to “try” Jesus for all the blessings that will be added to their lives but if these don’t show up right away (or don’t show up in the way people expect) they get disillusioned, even bitter. This, too, happens in the SpongeBob Christmas show. We lose sight of the fact that the first benefit of the salvation we receive from believing in Christ is not in getting what we deserve, but in avoiding what we deserve.

A good story for illustrating this concept can be Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.” You may think you know the story of Ebenezer (there’s a Biblical name) Scrooge, but look at it as a parable. Scrooge is greedy and cruel and oblivious to his iniquity. He doesn’t heed warnings to change, but because of another’s desire for him to avoid his fate, he is visited by spirits that convince and convict him of his sins and show him what is in store for him. In horror he repents and asks for forgiveness, vowing to change. He’s not concerned about the benefits of a new way of life; he just wants to escape the fruit of the old way. Waking the next morning and realizing his opportunity he says “Thank you (Holy Spirit) Spirits!” and is ever after known as “a man who kept Christmas (Jesus) in his heart.” (By the way, I happen to think the George C. Scott “Christmas Carol” is the best, but I’ll always have a soft spot for Mr. Magoo as well).

I’m sure there are many more examples in Christmas programs that I’ve left out but that have occurred to you. I’d love to hear what message or blessing you and your family get out of different Christmas shows, so feel free to leave a comment. Just don’t shoot your eye out!

Merry Christmas, my friends, and to your families!

Update:

Rob’s touching tribute to Linus’s speech about the true meaning of Christmas is posted over on The Llama Butchers (originally posted last Christmas).

Getting ready

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Some Saturday reflections:

It has been a terrific fall season this year with fair weather extending well into October. This afternoon brings more bright sun and temperatures in the 50s, along with that distinctively crisp smell of autumn that quickens one’s awareness of needing to get ready for winter. I am circuiting my front yard on the riding tractor, the mulching deck doing it’s thing on the leaves. It’s a large front yard with four good-sized maples that drop soft, leathery leaves nearly the size of my face. There are also a couple of birches on the property that drop yellow, trowel-shaped leaves that are small and a real pain to rake. If I’m careful to act before the leaf fall gets too deep I can stay ahead of the leaves with the mulcher, even though I’ll need to repeat the route at least once more in the next few days to get what’s still hanging from the branches.

I spent the earlier part of the afternoon taking care of another important preparation for winter, that of buying my youngest a new winter coat. The selection of colors in the store wasn’t as vibrant as what I’m seeing now, but it was unmistakably autumn all the same and there was a certain warm satisfaction in being able to manage this assignment. When I got home the yard was calling and the late afternoon sun was perfect jeans and sweatshirt weather.

Now the sun is lower in the sky and the trees and the neighbors houses cast shadows. As I move back and forth through the patches of light and shade I alternately feel a little too warm and a little too cool. As the afternoon slips away the shadowed section gets larger but it still feels good being outdoors. The extended mild weather has given us extra time to prepare for winter: taking down awnings, putting up storm windows, caulking those suspect seams around the cupola over the music room window and on one of the roof vents, cleaning out the flower beds. No reason we couldn’t have gotten to these little projects sooner, but we just didn’t – there’s always so much else to do when the days are longer. When the first nip enters the air, however, you know time is short and you’ve got to pay attention.

I’ve got the tractor in a low gear with the blade speed set as high as it will go to mulch the leaves as thoroughly as I can. It’s slow going, but I figure it’s still better than raking and bagging. My methodical progress doesn’t take a lot of concentration so I think about how much I love this time of year, and then on to where I might be in that “May to December” continuum that Frank Sinatra sang about in “September Song.” I don’t think I’m that old, but I’ve had my “June” — and “July” and “August” seem kind of blurry to me. My mind naturally goes back a couple of weeks to my long-awaited examination at the heart clinic. The visit stemmed from a mysterious episode back in August when I had felt a strange pressure on one side of my chest, but with no other telltale symptoms. A visit to the ER turned up nothing but a hefty bill and the advice to get further testing done. Kind of like my fall chores, I had put off getting that testing done for one reason or another even though, like my fall chores, I knew I was eventually going to have to do it.

When I had finally gone in I was injected with a thallium tracer and put inside a machine that rotated an x-ray camera around my torso both before and after a treadmill stress test. When that was finished I’d then had an ultrasound where the technician let me watch my own heart and its valves beat and listen as the amplified sound of my blood swishing filled the room. It hadn’t happened that quickly, of course, as I spent nearly three hours at the clinic and moved from room to room. During that time I couldn’t help but notice that almost all my fellow patients were much older than I and moved with much greater deliberation.

Sitting on my lawn tractor it feels as if it’s moving at about the same pace as those older folks and I think about how much I’ve taken my own mobility and energy for granted. That’s not to say there aren’t mornings when I wake up feeling as if I’m 60 (or what I imagine 60 to feel like, since I’ve never been that old), and I use reading glasses (which I’m always forgetting to bring to restaurants where it seems I need them the most), and thanks to the knee surgeries I’ve reached an accommodation with my body on certain activities (I’m riding a mower instead of pushing one, after all), but I still pretty much do the things I want to do. Yet I remember the sensation this past summer when the realization sunk in that I’m probably never going to play in a softball league again. One hour of running aggravates my knee for a week, so I haven’t played for years. Somehow, however, I always had the thought in the back of my head that maybe next year it’ll be better. This summer I sat in the bleachers and watched that ship sail off across the outfield.

The results of my heart tests came back the other day and everything was normal. I’m relieved, of course, and a bit miffed at having taken the trouble and expense, but also happy that at least I know where I stand — or, in today’s activity — where I sit. In a way, the tests were for me like one of those fall chores; a chance to snug things up before winter gets here. Like the summer, I’ve taken my health for granted but the nip in the air, like the chill of the stethoscope, reminds me that there are things I need to do before it really gets cold.

The yard is almost finished and there’s only a few strips worth of leaves to pass over, and only a small corner still in the sun. My bare fingers are feeling a little cold on the wheel. If it were February and they felt this cold I’d probably complain, but for now the weather is good and the promise of hot coffee when I finish makes the sensation even pleasureable. I make the last pass and head for the shed. Winter is coming.

Oh, those three little words

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I mentioned the other day that my wife and I just celebrated our 18th wedding anniversary. Yay! Now, I might be biased but I think this has been a spectacularly successful collaboration and I hope that my wife would agree. I do know that one time she told me that she thought we were doing so well because “we say those three little words to one another.”

“Oh, you mean, ‘I love you,'” I replied, while my mental computer started frantically searching for the last time I had told her that (I knew her mental computer could spit out time, date, ambient temperature and what she was wearing).

“No,” she said, “not those three words. I mean the three words, ‘I was wrong.’ It’s because we’ve been, if not exactly willing, at least able to come to each other and say that when necessary.”

Now, it could be my wife gives me more credit — or grace — in this area than I deserve (I thought I was wrong once, but I was mistaken), but I have learned how important our words are to our marriage; especially the right words. I’m reminded of something that comedian Rob Becker said in his “Defending the Caveman” monologue: “It’s been reported that the typical woman speaks 5,000 words a day, but the average man speaks only about 2,000. So when a husband comes home and doesn’t have anything to say to his wife it doesn’t mean he doesn’t love her; it just means he’s out of words.”

I don’t know that I’ve ever quite run out of words, but they may come to me easier than for other men. As a public service to the guys, then, here are some more three-word sentences you can use to say important things our wives need to hear without going into verb debt. Starting with the basics:

  1. I love you.
  2. I was wrong.
  3. Please forgive me.
  4. You look great!
  5. Let me help.
  6. I’ll clean up.
  7. That was delicious!
  8. That was incredible!
  9. You deserve it.
  10. Don’t get up.
  11. Let’s eat out.

I’ve found it is also useful if I start as many sentences as possible with the three words, “I really appreciate…”

One thing about words, however, is that they can knock down just as easily as they can build up (sometimes even easier). Therefore, here’s a list of three word sentences you shouldn’t say:

  1. You did what?
  2. Not my job.
  3. I told you.
  4. What, meatloaf again?
  5. I give up.
  6. What’s wrong now?
  7. You ready yet?
  8. You blew it.
  9. Don’t wait up.
  10. Where’s my dinner?
  11. Where’s the remote?

I’d also advise that you try to eliminate any sentences from your life that begin with the three words: “If only you’d…” or “My mother always…”

It’s been my experience that working on the first list, while avoiding the second, is bound to have a positive effect on your marriage without blowing your word count. In fact, the more we can work the first list into our regular conversation, the more likely it is for us to hear our wives say three-word sentences such as, “What a guy!” and “Come her, Bubba!” and the less likely we are to hear, “Hit the road!”

Update:

On a related note, Joatmoaf at I Love Jet Noise promotes a series of helpful classes for men and a glossary of words that have different meanings depending on whether you are a man or a woman.

Me used to be angry young man

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18 years ago today I woke up alone. Even my dog, faithful companion of 11 years, was already encamped at someone else’s house and I had the misty, overcast morning entirely to myself. I took a few moments to listen to the familiar sounds of my house that I knew could never again sound quite the same. I knew there was activity already set in motion in homes and hotel rooms around the city as those near and dear to me took on their assigned tasks or chosen activities. I had a list of my own, but took the time to reflect on what was also being set in motion in the spirit. In a few more short hours I would be married.

The past 18 months had been a time of constant changes for me in almost every area; emotionally, occupationally, spiritually. Some of these steps I had (I thought) initiated myself in deciding how I wanted to live. My noble selfishness wouldn’t have taken me very far, however, and then this other person came into my life. I had a job where I could buy graphic design services. Unknown to me, a lovely woman was just getting started in her own graphic design business. Her pastor asked another member of their congregation, a man who sold high-end commercial printing, to give this young lady a list of names of prospective clients. Though I had never met this man, or even purchased printing from his company, my name was at the top of the list of ten people that he gave to the woman. Of those, I was the only person she called who agreed to meet with her. And my motive was more to pick the brain of someone starting a business since I was considering doing that myself. The rest, as they say, is history – and her story, too (which would make for some damn funny reading) – and the details of a very unlikely courtship which would take several postings to explain, but I’m not going to do that now.

That gray morning, however, I found it easy to imagine myself on a distant mountain top, standing under the interested eye of a watchful God, for the last time being scrutinized as an individual entity, my past packed lumpy and heavy into an ungainly backpack that constantly threatened my balance. By God’s grace I had made it that far, in that moment realizing that my position was only a vantage point and not the end of a climb.

I breathed deep of the rarefied air, heady with the scent of the unknown. Did something, perhaps, stir in that backpack as I slowly lowered it from my shoulders? Did a plaintive voice mew a last appeal? I cannot say, for my spirit leapt away like a balloon no longer tethered as the pack crunched into the dirt behind me.

My spirit free, and of my free will, I left that place to go to where the people who loved me, and whom I loved, waited. The long drive down from the north to the church put miles between me and what once was.

In the last 18 years I have lived in the bounty of a loving God, manifested in a loving wife and every miracle of life supplied in abundance. Never has an hour passed that I have wished for it to be any other way.

Happy anniversary, my love.

A Beast in the Night

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It’s two a.m. and the beast slides in under the bedroom door while I’m sleeping, a darkness deeper than the dark. I feel his weight as he sits on my chest and the tingling sensation of the tips of his talons as he takes my head and turns it slightly to face him. “Let’s talk,” he hisses.

This implies conversation, but it is one-sided. Doom seems to be the theme, oppression the objective, but I’m not paying too much attention to specifics as I sort through and catalog the degrees of my awareness. The house is quiet and still. No strange lights from outside, no smell of smoke through the screened windows. My wife rests peacefully beside me. There is just this…thing, hunkering down, pressing on my thorax. My breathing seems shallow; does it have to be? I fill my lungs several times, deeply. Breathing is good, the weight remains. I experimentally try shifting my position.

“Ah-ah,” says the beast, “does it hurt when I do this?”

Actually, no, nothing hurts. I easily move my arm and place my hand below my collarbone. The river courses deep and wide and steady beneath my fingertips in a familiar rhythm. My skin is cool and dry and yet I know the beast has found something, deep within. A tiny flame of fear, like a pilot light, and now he breathes on it and his very breath is combustible – the flame roars, seeking more fuel, wanting to consume me. In the light of day I hardly notice the steady but small flame; now in the dark every flicker seems to cast an ominous shadow. This is beyond reason, but reason I must: there is money in the bank, we are whole, the jobs are good, the basement will be dry again. I am fine and no weapon formed against us will prosper.

The beast is unimpressed, and answers each thought with a “But…” of his own, his own butt and haunches squeezing against my ribs. The debate goes on quietly for an hour. I should get up. I should get some water. I should change the scenery, but I feel trapped. “Yes…trapped,” the beast says, “trapped, trapped, trapped.” This is going nowhere. Reason is not sufficient, and argument is ineffective. If he won’t listen to me, then I won’t listen to him. I deliberately turn my mind to the old songs, the songs of deliverance and praise, I repeat them to myself, sometimes running verses together or in different order, simply using what comes to mind, from another pilot light, a garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, replacing fear with power, strength and a sound mind.

The darkness in the room changes perceptibly. It’s nowhere near dawn, but it seems lighter somehow. Peace returns, if sleep does not. At 4:00 a.m. I’m aware that my wife is awake, lying quietly in the dark. I speak softly, “Are you awake?”

“Yes. Why are you?”

I tell her what happened. She draws closer, hooks one of her legs over one of mine, her arm brushes the last traces of the beast from my chest.

“I’m feeling better,” I say.

A thought, embedded in a dream, wrapped in a fantasy

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One of the most interesting parts of home educating my oldest daughter was when we worked on creative writing and composition. The textbook I used was Alan Lightman’s Einstein’s Dreams. It’s a mind-bending book that imagines that Albert Einstein had a series of dreams leading up to the publishing of his theory of relativity, with each dream a view of a world where time operated in a different way, such as a world where the higher above sea level you went, the slower time moved; or a world where time moved like currents of water and where a person could be accidentally caught up and deposited in his or her past.



The way we approached it was for her to read a dream (they were generally only a few hundred words each) and then answer three or four essay questions I’d ask based on that dream, usually along the lines of how she’d cope with certain situations in that kind of a world. One of our favorites was the dream dated April 19 where a man tries to decide what he should do about pursuing a woman he has just met. Three possible futures are described, and the kicker is:



These three chains of events all indeed happen, simultaneously. For in this world, time has three dimensions, like space. Just as an object may move in three perpendicular directions, corresponding to horizontal, vertical and longitudinal, so an object may participate in three perpendicular futures. Each future moves in a different direction of time. Each future is real. At every point of decision, whether to visit a woman in Fribourg or to buy a new coat, the world splits into three worlds, each with the same people but with different fates for those people. In time, there is an infinity of worlds.



Some make light of decisions, arguing that all possible decisions will occur. In such a world, how could one be responsible for his actions? Others hold that each decision must be considered and committed to, that without commitment there is chaos. Such people are content to live in contradictory worlds, so long as they know the reason for each.



Inspired by Lightman’s imagination and my daughter’s answers, I offered a composition of my own in the same style as the original essay. I reproduce it here as an example of the objectives and pay-offs of home educating. And because it was fun to let the horses run.




It is a cold morning in a Minnesota winter, and a man sits in his basement wearing a loud rugby shirt colored as if attitude alone can defy the chill. He is staring at the white eye of a computer monitor, at the blank page in the screen that is ready to receive his typing. He knows that the blankness is an illusion, that what he sees is only the smooth representation of a myriad series of complex miracles that harness electricity, electrons, protons and light waves and leave them ready to be directed by his fingertips. He is not sure exactly how it all works, he only knows that with the knowledge he has he can put words and thoughts on the page and generally make them do what he wants.



In a way, the whole thing reminds him of his daughter. Fresh and unlined on the surface while beneath miracles even more complex and astounding than those that went into the creation of the machine course through her; here combining, there splitting, following a program he barely has wit enough to understand, let alone predict. He is pondering a series of assignments for her in the hopes of adding a catalyst to the program that may somehow improve or tune the instrument she is becoming. Should he do it? Should he do it?




You’re a great audience, and don’t forget to tip your waitresses!

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I’ve always wanted to say that! Here’s why:

Today I’m up to the fifth month of the six-month trial blogging period I set for myself when I started this blog. During this time I’ve had people ask me why I blog and I think this is a great question – a question I was asking myself before I even started and for which I still don’t have a firm answer.

There is one analogy, however, that I think fits: this blog is my garage band. You see, ever since I was a kid I’ve wanted to be a singer in a hot band. The problem is, I can’t sing a lick (or play one for that matter) and my sense of rhythm is such that no band would ever let me shake a tambourine (more cowbell!). For that matter, my dancing is even worse than my singing, and I have little artistic ability. But, oh, to be in a band! It wouldn’t even have to be a great band, or even a band with a recording contract. Just to be good enough to be in a garage band would be so cool.

Why do people play in garage bands? Obviously, I can’t say. Some perhaps hope to be “discovered” but I’d hazard to say that few see it as a way to fame and fortune. Some musicians may just like collaborating with others to create something. Others see it as a fun way to make some money doing something they enjoy, and perhaps for others it is just because they love to make music – whether anyone else likes it or not. Perhaps if you asked them, they’d have as hard a time finding a single answer as I have in answering people who ask me why I blog.

The only skill I have is in observation and stringing words together. I don’t think I’m a bad public speaker when the opportunity arises, but my “stage” is likely to always be obscure. Blogging gives me the opportunity to use the gift, such as it is, that has been given to me, to stretch out the boundaries of my comfort zone and appreciate whatever satisfaction I get from doing so.

Perhaps musicians of every ability also yearn for those moments when they get that perfect mix of time and place where the music transcends the mere notes themselves and touch a soul. Me too! Somewhere out there is the perfect line waiting to be written; the perfect note of irony in response to the day’s events; the sparest description that illuminates completely; the spark of inspiration that starts a brushfire in someone’s mind – the shock of recognition that causes someone to say, “Yes, yes! That is exactly what it is like to be me, and now I see myself in a slightly different light!”

Umm..okay, getting a little carried away there. I think, however, that this is at the heart of why I blog. I don’t do it to become rich and famous (though that would be nice). I don’t do it to change the world (though that would be nice, too). I certainly hope people enjoy the experience, but, essentially, it’s about my enjoyment first.

Earlier this week Joe Carter at the Evangelical Outpost wrote about the addiction he sometimes feels toward his Site Meter count and Technorati and TTLB rankings. To which I have to say, “Preach it, brother.” I check my own counts at least a couple of times a day, and I’m fascinated by the “referrals” page that shows from where people are coming to my blog. Some of the Google references have been very interesting. I suppose this is displays a weakness of character on my part, but as Joe himself has said, “If you don’t care if anyone reads you then you don’t have a blog, you have a diary.”

Like others who have gazed at their own blogging navel recently, the things I appreciate about the last few months are the many new friends I’ve met (some in person, some only electronically), the comments and trackbacks I get that show I’ve made at least a small ripple somewhere. Here’s to you, Leo, Kelley G, Emily, Muzzy, Sandy and the rest of the Squad, Bruce, Derek, the NARN, Kevin, the Saint and Roller Pauls, Doug and all the other MOBsters. Without this contact this blog wouldn’t have lasted a month.

One month – or six months – from now, who knows? I still haven’t come up with a satisfactory answer to the first question I posed to myself when I considered starting this blog: How will I tell if this is successful or not? One thing I am learning – and that I wouldn’t have expected when I started – is that success may be measured, but not defined, by Site Meter or NZ Bear. I think a large part of it has to do with the people I mentioned above, and the ones I’ve yet to “meet.”

Thank you, and good night! Rock on!

In my father’s house

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Here’s one from the vaults: I originally wrote this some 20 years ago, before I was married, before I became a father myself. It’s aged well and I print it again here in remembrance of Father’s Day, but there’s also some more to the story which I’ll share at the end.

The Knowing

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I unexpectedly found myself in a hospital emergency room last Wednesday. Of course, just about everyone who finds themselves in an emergency room does so unexpectedly since it’s not the type of event that typically makes it into your dayrunner. (“You want to get together at 10:00? Sorry, that’s no good for me – I’m down for cardiac arrest then. What does the following week look like for you?”)

In this instance, however, the element of surprise was not as great since the ER staff was focusing on my father, who was already scheduled for heart surgery later in the week. I had arrived at my parents’ home the night before in anticipation of the surgery, so I was there in the morning when my dad woke up feeling very weak and couldn’t catch his breath – the result of what would turn out to be fluid building up in his chest due to his failing aortic valve. My mother had called the EMTs and he was taken to the regional hospital nearby where his immediate symptoms were quickly brought under control by the ER team and we all began breathing easier.

The shock was greater for two other families who were also gathering in the ER that morning. One was the family of an older man brought in as a result of a stroke, and the second was the family of a teenaged young man who’s truck had crashed into a tree.

The “children” of the stroke victim were all adults and I imagined that their expressions suggested they knew something like this was going to happen eventually but they would have been happy for it not to have been today. Having been through strokes in our own family I knew what was still in store for them and wondered if they had an inkling yet of the nature of the life changing experience that had just introduced itself to their family.

For the family of the young man the shock was even greater and ultimately more complete as he was soon pronounced dead.

From the relative comfort of my family’s situation I still had cause to ponder the seeming randomness of three lives and three families coming together at that time – all within 50 feet of each other but each in our own world as three destinies were parceled out: you live, you die, you limp.

The doctors decided to move my dad a day early to Barnes Hospital in St. Louis where his surgery was to take place. My mother and I went back to the house to get my things and pack what she’d need. My folks live in the same small rural Missouri town where they grew up and where they are still surrounded by family and many older friends with whom they have many shared experiences. On the way to the hospital we stopped to top off the gas tank and while at the gas station my mom saw some friends, one of whom had already had the same surgery my dad was having. Mom filled them in on the change in plans and as the group was standing together I saw what I took as a look of knowing pass between them that I chalked up to the shared procedure.

On the day of the surgery I saw the same look of knowing on the faces of my dad’s older brothers, his sister and sister-in-law as they arrived in the waiting room and greeted my mother. The words they used were appropriate, but the looks they gave her – and the look she returned – were so meaningful and even tangible that I knew that was were the real communication was taking place. Since his brothers had had heart attacks and by-pass operations I at first attributed the look to that experience, yet I couldn’t get it out of my mind.

I thought about it as we waited and then a deeper understanding came to me. The knowing did come from shared experience, but it wasn’t the experience of the surgery itself. It was the bond of a generation that had been young together, raised their families at the same time (often in what must have looked like a large, rolling pile of kids), sent the kids off and simply went on getting older. It was a knowing that acknowledged this wasn’t the first hospital waiting room they had gathered in, and that it wasn’t going to be the last. Only today’s outcome was unknown.

They and their friends have gone on to a time in their lives still largely alien to me and my generation. As I’ve grown older I’ve lived the things they’ve lived and come to understand the things I didn’t grasp when I was younger, but perhaps I thought that as an adult I had come to know it all. They each, however, have buried at least one parent, have marked the illnesses and passing of friends and family, felt the stiffness in their own bones. They move slower now, but what was the point of hurrying in the first place?

I suppose it is my own self-centeredness that causes me to think my parents belong to me, overlooking that they had their own brothers and sisters before I was born, and see more of their siblings now than they do their own kids, with two-thirds of us scattered across the country. Theirs is a shared history before and after my generation, with all the hopes and fears, ups and downs, affection and annoyances common to us all, and a shared experience of aging who’s only consolation may be that you don’t have to do it alone.

We waited, prompting our uncles for the old stories from their growing up that we in turn had grown up hearing, listening again to the tales of the tricks played on their little brother and the times where they probably should have died many times over.

On schedule the surgeon came out and called my mother, brother, sister, sister-in-law and I to one side and gave us the news that the operation had gone perfectly. I turned to give the thumbs up to the rest of the family when the relief crashed over us like a wave, making me weak in the knees. Our small group huddled together, shaking, almost as if we had received the worst possible news instead of the best. The rest of the family gathered around, touching us and offering congratulations and then withdrawing, knowing we’d need some time to ourselves – and now that I think about it, probably needing some time themselves. They, too, had survived and were moving on, still ahead.

But I know things now that I didn’t know before.