The Monday that never came

Preface: This isn’t about the rock star. 

Before the rock star came into my life there was someone else. I was the rock star’s first love, but he was not mine. 

There were times during our early years together when our marriage was difficult. The first love came back into my life when I was ready to make some changes but tragedy struck before we could make them. 

Suddenly the rock star and I needed one another. We both went through a huge loss and helped each other through our hurt. We have made many happy memories since. But I still remember the one I loved when I was still just a kid. I always will. This time of year is tender for me. The rock star is truly a rock star about this. 

The Monday that Never Came 

Written Feb. 13, 2022

That Sunday morning he told me what he was planning to do Monday and Tuesday. But for him, Monday never came.

We sat in church that Sunday morning and listened to a sermon about Heaven, and two hours later he was there. For me, a season of hell on earth began that Sunday afternoon. Monday came for me, but my world was shaken, and changed forever. 

I have lived to see a lot of happiness and to love again. I learned how to dream - to hope - again even though it took faith I didn’t know I had. But on this day I remember - for I’ll never forget - that Sunday my dreams shattered, and the Monday that never came. 

“For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.

And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” (1 Cor. 13:12-13, NKJV)

I'm moving on...

In a way...

Starting on Wednesday, Sept. 26, I'll be doing most of my blogging at ClassicCountryMusicMemories. This is a branch of my Classic Country Memories page and I'll be talking about all kinds of memories, as well as today's news occasionally.

I kept my promise...

I really didn't keep my promise. I mean, I promised a second post today but I'm not really ready yet, and it's bedtime now.  But I'll be back sooner this time with some country music history!

Go on and roll the dice, you only live twice, do it or die.

A couple years ago, I subscribed to Newspapers.com, which is really entertaining and wonderful for a trivia and history buff such as myself.  Maybe we aren't supposed to remember all the people who died in the past, but there were lots of characters who have gotten lost in all the information out there these days. I wrote about some of them back in March and there are many others I could write about.

So, starting today (this is post 1 of 2 today), my blog is getting a new life.  It's slow time at work now, the time of year when I have to look for work to get enough to pay the bills.  Off the clock, my life is changing slowly, but changing none the less, and it may result in my having more time to devote to my already-existing side jobs of CPR instruction and writing non-fiction with a few fictional stories here and there.

Our 26-year-old daughter is moving home at some point in the next few months, and as I'm cleaning out our son's old bedroom to let her bring in her stuff, I'm moving things around and getting rid of things that mean nothing to me.  There's plenty of that. I'm a packrat, not really to hoarder status because I have paths through all the rooms (LOL) but... just getting rid of things that I'm not attached to is working pretty well for now.  A new storage unit business has been opened just down the road from us, and after the "bug man" comes, I'm going to rent one for her extra stuff and my CPR business storage.  Since it's right down the road, it'll be easy to grab things as I go, kind of like I do from my garage now.  But when the garage gets cleaned out... that'll give us more room too.

When we moved in here, we never dreamed we'd still be here 25 years later.  Heck, we only had one baby and she was a toddler! We didn't even know there'd be a boy joining us in about 18 months!  Things have changed a lot, mostly in the amount of crap we've managed to cram into this place. It became too small the day I moved the crib into the "storage room" so that boy would have a room of his own.  I was never a great housekeeper, but when we got a dog who destroyed carpet and furniture, I was overwhelmed. I got depressed.  Then we got computers that opened us up to all kinds of information and entertainment, so I became an even worse housekeeper.  The kids weren't much help. We got more animals, then gradually they died out.  By this time I wasn't working 40 hours a week or driving and working, I was teaching and driving so I never had any free time whatsoever to work on the house. When I went back to nucs and the kids were in college or on their own, I was physically just barely able to work and function, and I was scared of mice coming out of cabinets and closets that needed cleaning. I got two more cats, but physically I'm still not doing that great.  I'm gradually getting better by making some changes that I won't go into here, but I'm looking forward to having more energy and if I can get the house cleaned up a little more (and I am getting there), writing will be easier because I won't feel like I should be doing something else instead!

One of these nights...

One of these nights I'm gonna write something absolutely amazing and powerful and I'm really looking forward to it.

So far, I haven't figured out what that is, exactly... but I'm okay with that.  I'll keep on writing until I do.

I'd love to write more, and really, I DO write more than I post on this blog because I prefer not to just throw everything I think onto a blog like a diary for everyone in the universe to read.  I work a lot, and I love what I do 99.44% of the time but I would love to have more time to write.  I spend too much time trying to make money. Well, I might as well while I'm able and my kids aren't little anymore so that I can retire before I die.  I tell people I write every chance I get but it's really not true.  If it were true, I'd have a lot more material to read.  I have many, many stories in my head that I really should put into writing, because I know I'm not going to live forever (at least not in this realm, and I'm not sure how much of my brain will make it through the life I'm living now) and I don't want the stories and characters to die with me. After I'm gone my kids can pass this stuff on to other people, or just give them away, but hopefully, I'll get some of them out into the world and let the universe decide whether they're worth keeping.

There were also people who once walked this earth and not just through my brain whose stories shouldn't be forgotten either.  Those who passed after about 2005 will have more information about them on the Internet for future generations than those who passed before that, and there are stories in the old newspapers and databases for those who wish to look for those folks.  Still there are people who lived quiet and simple lives, whose stories weren't compelling Nicholas Sparks novel fodder (or even Lifetime movie fodder), who've left serious marks on the manuscript of my own life.  My grandmother was one... one of her father's seventeen children as well as one of her mother's eleven.  Her oldest sister Lorene was evidently unable to bear children of her own, but I never, ever heard her complain about that, or talk about it at all.  I never asked her why she didn't have children, maybe because I was afraid to bring it up.  Her husband had lost two children in the Christmas Eve crash that claimed his first wife and left him with only his son. Maybe she figured it might've been better to have had no children at all.  His son gave her four step-grandchildren that she dearly loved in her own quiet way.  She wasn't the kind of grandmother who took the kids to Opryland (actually they didn't have that on either side, but all their grandparents cared for them very much) but she baked them goodies and visited them and kept an eye on them and probably went to graduations and things like that, I don't remember.  She also kept a lot of other relatives, like me. 

She, like Granny, had a portrait of a handsome young man I never had the privilege to know, my uncle Olie.  His death at age 18 was one of those events you see in movies, where a local teenager gets really sick (or has an accident or gets shot or... you get the picture) and dies young and the whole town shuts down for the funeral.  But before I knew all that about the town's reaction, I knew that my grandmother and all her family lost a dear brother, son, grandson, and uncle.  I guess because he didn't live long enough to have children and grandchildren of his own, I felt sort of obligated to keep his memory alive.  I think others in my family might've felt that way too.  For example, my uncle Lanny put a new headstone on Olie's grave.  Lanny was just a little fella when Olie died; I think he was about 3.

These are just a few of the stories I'd like to share, as well as some of the fictional characters I've created over the years.  Some of my characters are loosely based on real people and real events, but in general most are purely made up.  Here's an example of that:  I used to wonder what it would've been like if Lorene and her first husband had adopted a child, or had a baby late in life. Everette was only in his early 40s when he died, so he would've died very early in this baby's life.  I came up with a lot of good stories and characters from that "what if" story. Many of my stories are "what ifs" or at least they start out that way.  I do a lot of research into the past to find details and ideas.  Like looking at Olie's death certificate and obituary. 

I need to be looking at the inside of my eyelids.  Gotta go make that money while it's there.

Let me tell ya that it... HURTS SO BAD

I've written about my health and constant, chronic pain before.  Today, it is reaching new heights.  I slept about 3 hours, then I woke up to go to the bathroom and then I was hitting that period of the morning where different alarms go off every so often, my attempt at keeping my body waking up at around 5 AM when I go back to work tomorrow.  So I was in serious pain when it was time to get ready for church, and I decided not to go.  I didn't really want to miss church, but I sure didn't want to stand in the choir loft (or in the congregation) or sit in the pews while my feet were aching like sore teeth.

If you want to think I'm Miss Cheerful and never complain about anything... stop reading now, because it's gonna get hateful in here.  I hate dealing with chronic pain.  When I was in 3rd grade, I got to know a girl who was diabetic and I wanted to learn all about her.  I was a little jealous because she had a mid-morning break when she went to the teachers' lounge and my suspicion was that she had a snack (I was usually hungry before lunch so this seemed positive) and had to test her sugar... which was all by urine at the time, no sticking.  I thought it was a built-in diet trick to always drink diet sodas, I thought that would keep her from being a fat adult. (It didn't. She's not huge, but has never been thin.)  That was very important to me at the time. She did have to get insulin shots, but they didn't seem to bother her like shots bothered me. I thought, the worst thing that can happen is that old people with diabetes sometimes lost toes, and I wasn't sure why that happened, but her 11-year-old toes seemed to be in decent shape.  I also thought if shots were the worst thing... well, let me assure you, they are not.

The neuropathy started sometime around November, 2008.  I'd been diabetic for at least 2 years before that, and it wasn't too long after my diagnosis.  I was insulin resistant for many years, since at least 1985 and probably a few years before.  I thought it was just a genetic thing, most of my mom's family dealt with it.  I didn't realize what that was doing to my body, and I didn't realize that the way I ate was making it worse.  I had gestational diabetes in my first pregnancy, and though I didn't the second time, I did have a nine pound baby that time - both risk factors for developing diabetes later in life.  Even that didn't scare me.  I thought because I had low blood sugar that I wouldn't become diabetic, just like I couldn't starve myself because my sugar would dip too low.  Honestly, if my blood sugars hadn't been so wild, I probably would've been anorexic because food was always the enemy.  But I'd let them drop too low and then stuff some carbs down to get me through.  Carbs couldn't be too bad, right?  After all, they were low in fat and fat was the problem, right?  I ate more complex carbs, like pasta and potatoes, because they weren't simple sugars like candy that would run through me quickly.  I began to realize that I could eat sugars IF i ate something with protein first, so I did.

When I was diagnosed, I thought if I took my meds, I could still eat what I wanted, within limits.  I didn't really want as much sweet stuff, but I did still like it.  I thought I would never be able to cut carbs out completely, and I was eating so much less sugar than I used to, but eventually, they had to stop one of my medicines because of the liver function tests going haywire, so I just gave up and threw all caution to the wind.  For a year or so I ate whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted it.  Eventually I did attempt to cut out carbs, and I'm still pretty good at that, but I do eat some.  Like I had a hot dog, and instead of carb-laden side dishes, I had - sit down - a BUN!  Oops. Flag on the play.  The touchdown will not count.

I've been thoroughly disappointed with the inability of modern medicine to cure my pain.  Doctors say, "You've got to have better control of your sugar."  I'm like, it's 3:00 pm and all I've had all day was a protein shake that says it contains 25 carbs.  How could my sugars be high because of that?  So why are they hurting? Well, lots of things can make them hurt... but only keeping my sugars low is the only relief I can get???

I would try medical marijuana, but I live in a non-legal state.  I'm told my state representatives share the Attorney General's belief that marijuana leads to harder drugs.  I went to college.  I tried "weed" back in the day.  I never did any stronger drugs, and I was offered cocaine more than once.  For the record, I didn't try marijuana the first few times it was offered either.  I guess I did do "harder" drugs at times... I had morphine after surgery.  Once in awhile I'd have a prescription for an opiate, when I had broken bones and migraines and toothaches.  The medicine would help with whatever pain I was in at the time, but that wasn't because I smoked pot in college.  I could understand how people got hooked on opiates, because after surgery, it was a little scary to think about the pain without the drugs, but I was able to go longer and longer without them and substitute Tylenol for doses during the day until I could easily wean off the "hard stuff."  Nowadays I can't even get the doctors to write me a prescription for pain medicine, because it's taboo to prescribe opioids.  Oh, and by the way, I live in the number one opiate-prescribing state according to this study.  Not surprising, considering we are a long way from a medically-legal marijuana state.  I think in a few years our neighbor Arkansas will have it.  That's only three hours from me... certainly not convenient for moving.  Oh, if Kentucky would allow it, I'd probably move the 13 miles due north for that.

So i am left to my own devices to drown out the pain.  I'm gonna try turmeric.  Hell, what do I have to lose?  I go to bed terrified of what the next day is going to bring.  I have no guarantee that a night's sleep will allow me to wake up feeling energetic and pain-free.  (Occasionally, it happens.)  If I have to work, will I be miserable all day?  Maybe I'll have a good day and it'll feel better.  But after I stand a lot, what will my night be like?  If I can't sleep, I'm guaranteed a day of intense pain.  I have to check all the boxes:  a good night of rest, all medications taken on time, all meals at the correct time (which doesn't happen often in my work), no carbs (even on Christmas! Diabetes doesn't take a holiday), a good balance of sitting and standing and walking (something else I can't always control in my job).  Now, who among us can check all those boxes every.single.day?  Maybe I am a loser because I screw up on that list on a pretty regular basis.  Then there are the matters none of us can control, such as weather.  Did we get a cold front?  Count on extra pain.  Rain?  Probably.  But it's the way I eat that's the problem.  RIGHT.  Too cold in the room?  Better cover those feet, but socks are usually too tight, exacerbating the pain.

It's a vicious cycle.  Sleep late and take meds late?  Ouch.  Work to make money and, let's face it, to keep me on my feet... and pay for it later with sleepless nights.  It's driving me insane.  I've tried B-6, B-12, biotin, evening primrose oil, alpha-lipoic acid, multi-vitamins, Metanx, and using a TENS unit... ice, heating pad, more water, liquor, prayer (begging), and acupuncture.  While the latter can be helpful, it can also be useless. I've experienced more movement after a treatment, but also experienced more pain after one too.

If I get a lot of negative comments on today's post, I'll just shut down the comments on it.  So, if you have a suggestion (like the many who say, just eat less, just exercise more... ha, let me put you into my day and see how YOU do), let your words be nice and sweet, for later they may be words you'll have to eat.

Easy like Sunday morning

For awhile I've been considering some options for maintaining my websites in the short time I have available after working 40 hours a week and commuting another 10 plus hours. I have a lot to add to all my pages and it could be a great source of residual income for the dry spells I go through as a PRN healthcare employee.

In that spirit, I've decided to create a blog and a Facebook page for all my pages that don't yet have one. So bookmark classiccountrymusicmemories.blogspot.com, franksuttonpage.blogspot.com, and travelertheband.blogspot.com. I'll be  able to add information on the fly now, which should make it easier for me to keep things fresh. The blogs should also facilitate cataloging. 

Just remember I love you, more than I can say... maybe then your blues will fade away

And I almost titled this one "Your Love Has Lifted Me Higher," because it was out that year.  I was just tired of looking for a more appropriate title from the year in my mind. 

In 1977, I turned ten. My world was pretty small. I was born in Nashville but I lived just north of the county line in Ridgetop.  I thought Nashville was a pretty important place, like Chicago or New York.  I had no idea that there were bigger places in the world, though I had heard of far-away cities like New York and Atlanta.  I had been to the ocean in North Carolina, which made me a little different from my classmates who went to PCB every couple of years.

Two girls moved in up the road from my grandparents' house in the mid '70s.  They were from Seattle, which was way, way up in the return address corner of the United States.  Looking at it on the globe, it looked like it would be much colder, and I learned that sometimes it was, but they had a lot of weather similar to ours in Tennessee with sunshine and rain.  Humidity was something else.  It's still something else, let me tell you.

Looking back, I never began to comprehend what it must have been like to be a newcomer in a town like Ridgetop.  Having moved out of town a few times since then, I feel a little sorry about that. Everybody in Ridgetop must have seemed to be related. They moved to a house on a hill, a house built by my grandmother's family when she was a little girl and their old house on that same location burned.  From the front yard one could see eight houses.  I had relatives in two of those houses, my grandmother and her cousin Jerry.  Another neighbor was my aunt's sister-in-law.  She grew up there too.

That summer the neighbor girls' dad was transferred and they returned to Seattle.  Elvis died, Star Wars premiered, and other things happened that stamped the year in my memory. One happened to my brother.  Mom took him to day care, where he refused to drink the milk.  They thought he was just "faking" when he said he was allergic.  He obeyed.  He vomited.  Mom found another babysitter quick, cousin Jerry's wife Wanda.  Mom hadn't considered really thought of her earlier because she seemed to keep a lot of kids and had her hands full.  To my knowledge though, she never lost any!  At first I stayed by myself at my grandmother's house that summer, but there was some family trouble going on (other unforgettable events I don't want to write about tonight, and a few I didn't really understand) so I started going to Wanda's too.  I think she saw me as another big kid who could help with the little ones, like her younger brother and nephews who dropped in frequently.

Jerry was one of my favorite relatives.  He was one of those people who always had a smile.  Even in sad moments, he could muster up a grin.  He was funny and kind.  When I was a very little girl, long before 1977, I remember thinking he was cute.  Back then we called him "Jerry Lee."  I noticed a lot of my relatives calling him that today; I even found myself saying it.  When he was born he had a hole in his heart, and some of my earliest memories of him involved him being in the hospital in serious condition, having had a heart attack or something at a very early age (like 24 maybe?).  I remember being told his heart had stopped but he was brought back to life.  I knew what that meant.  It was very scary and I remember being very afraid that he would die.

I wish I could've seen him recently.  Most of the times I've seen him over the past 20 years were when he was working on cars out in the yard and the garage, and I was driving by on my way to Mom's and Granddaddy's.  I think I saw him at Mom's funeral; I know I saw him at Granddaddy's and talked to him for quite a while.

Today I went to his funeral.  I sure hated to see him go.  I pray for Wanda and his kids and grandkids.  Ridgetop is a sadder place without him for sure.

It's Only Make-Believe

So I'm watching CNN and I think, what if there was a parody character called "Kellyanne Conway Twitty"??? And of course, I am not the first to think of this... I'm not sure who was, but Seth MacFarlane, for one, beat me to the punch.



Ah, Seth MacFarlane... I have mixed feelings about him... he is drop-dead gorgeous and insanely talented, but his sense of humor is no smarter than a fifth-grader.  A precocious fifth-grader, but... anyway, great minds think alike, eh??? ;D

Seth either loves or loves to rag on ol' Conway.  Like all Southern white kids in the 70s, I was exposed to regular doses of Conway Twitty.  We watched all those GREAT country music TV shows every Saturday afternoon (as my Granny used to say about watching Andy Griffith) BECAUSE WE HAD TO.  Now, I really love to wax nostalgic about the old country shows and seriously, they played a YUGE part in making me the music lover I am today.  The TV alternatives were limited.  Today's youngsters can not begin to imagine three or four channels. Even the "big three" have local networks!

I don't remember just three channels. I don't remember a time before PBS. I'm not sure when public TV came to Nashville, but I do remember seeing "Sesame Street" mentioned on another show, before I had discovered the Muppets.  That was the first time I ever saw that my mom tried to hide things from me.  She did not want me to start watching "Sesame Street" because she foresaw exactly what happened. She knew I'd get hooked. She didn't want to have to watch silly puppets!

If she were here, I would ask her if she really thought Gilligan was any better.

But back to Conway Twitty.  I DID discover him when I was young, like age four, but that's when he looked like this (from "Hee Haw," by the way, and also used by Seth MacFarlane on "Family Guy"):



If I'd discovered him when he looked like he did in this next clip, I probably would have thought he was hot, like my aunt Peggy and a lot of other women who were young in the 1960s and 70s did. OMG. When Conway died on June 5, 1993, Peggy and one of her friends stayed up late, drinking adult beverages, crying and listening to his music, probably on vinyl... possibly on cassette... maybe, but probably not, on 8-track... and maybe on a CD... not everyone had a player then but they were gaining popularity.  I understood that SHE liked him and I could understand, kind of, because I figured she was about 50 and he was probably about 50 and he sang all those sexy songs and had kind of a cool voice, but I didn't think he was HOT.  But in this clip below, he was kind of cute, and that song is freakin' amazing:



Here is another phenomenal clip of the same song... I did not know this show existed.  As performances go, it's not the best Conway ever did (although it might explain why he didn't dance much once color TV footage began), but it's a piece of broadcasting history for Dick Clark's intro alone. Conway looked very uncomfortable and staged, and had to be lip-synching (I just don't think there was any other way back then) but wow! What a lucky break for an Arkansas boy to share a TV audience with Fabian!



It's only make-believe... just like he's making believe he is singing...  I have a real-life, not make-believe, Conway Twitty story.  When I was 12, I ran into him - I mean, I literally ran.into.him - in a bowling alley in Hendersonville, TN.  He was polite, maybe a little annoyed, but polite.  Later I saw him playing in the 11th Frame Lounge, adjoining the bowling alley, just through the door.  I didn't go in.  That would've been a riot. I was there with my church youth group.  He didn't look it in black-and-white, but he was in his mid-20s by the time he made it to Dick Clark's Beech-Nut Show.  That makes me feel better.  I think it's kind of creepy for an old woman to think such a young man would be attractive!  But my daughter will be 25 this summer - NEXT MONTH! - so I guess that's why Conway looks like a kid in those video clips.

I have always had a great sense of imagination. I'm glad that it has grown up along with me, but I am really sorry that I haven't written everything I've dreamt up over the years.  I created characters based on people I knew but mostly based on "what if" scenarios I dreamed up about them.  I have a lot of these stories but now, I don't have nearly enough time to write about them. I'm trying, though. I'm busy in my "real job" but I have a lot more time than I let myself believe.  I like writing non-fiction as well as fiction.. or maybe I should say, real life as much as make-believe.  I'm blessed to have great memories and imagination for both.

How can people have no feelings? Easy to be hard... easy to say no

I don't go political too much, but I have been hearing so much about healthcare reform, etc. lately. I have a lot to say about it, not as an employee but as a wife, mother, and daughter... as a woman, as a human.

No, health care is not a "right" per se, but in a country that wants to be one of the greatest, people should be able to access the necessary healthcare no matter their income. We have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. If we have the right to life that means we have the right to do what's necessary to avoid death. Being ill can often feel like imprisonment, the opposite of liberty. One can be happy in poor health, but it's not easy. I have no problem with working to pay for my health insurance. The rock star and I always have. I also have no problem with my tax dollars helping people who truly cannot work to pay for their health insurance. For example, my mom had stage IV cancer and worked as a "cafeteria lady" far longer than most people in her condition would have because long-term disability wouldn't pay enough to maintain her coverage. She got a type of state-funded insurance, which she had previously when she was working in a job that did not provide insurance. Her doctor became angry when she changed coverage, but she had little choice if she wanted to buy food and have running water and electricity. Someone I knew years ago was paralyzed on a motorcycle. He has since passed, but he couldn't work. He was in his early 20s. Could you look him in the eye and tell him he didn't deserve healthcare???

http://www.salon.com/2017/05/02/alabama-congressman-people-who-lead-good-lives-dont-have-preexisting-conditions/

I read an article where a man said that people who lived right don't have pre-existing conditions. The writer specifically mentioned strokes, heart problems, and birth defects. The rock star had a stroke at age 4 (yes, four) because of a birth defect - a heart problem. Not only that, but my grandmother had a stroke at age six. I'm not kidding. Personally, I am INSULTED that I would be blamed for my child having a birth defect. Yes, I had one of those too. I still have him! I did not smoke or do drugs when I was pregnant. I had a cold and had to take some medicine early on, which was okayed by my doctor. I don't want to say I'm a victim, but I don't think it was my fault. Nor do I blame my father-in-law for becoming the father of the rock star ten months after coming home from Vietnam where he was often exposed to Agent Orange... he didn't get drafted, he enlisted... but no, it was not his fault that his son was born with a life-threatening heart defect. I read someone's comment that Jimmy Kimmel's child was born with a heart defect because it was "karma" because he made jokes about Donald Trump. I disagree. Besides, what did that tiny baby do to deserve that?

I have a pre-existing condition, though i wasn't born with it. I'll take responsibility for my Type 2 diabetes. I ate my way into it. I'm sure all those low-fat, high-carb foods I ate in attempts to lose weight and maintain it in my 20s and 30s didn't have anything to do with my body becoming insulin resistant. I had inherited a predisposition to blood sugar issues. And my mom's cancer? She didn't smoke, seldom drank, tried to eat right and maintain a healthy weight, and exercised regularly most of her adult life. So why did she get cancer? Oh, that was probably hereditary too. What do you think about people whose genetic profiles show predisposition to diseases? Should we deny coverage to those people because we know it's going to cost more to take care of them? You going to look me in the eye and tell me no? And the young but now deceased motorcyclist? What if I told you he was driving too fast and was at fault? Would you look him in the eye and deny him coverage after that?

I have a problem with people who think it's ok to deny coverage for pre-existing conditions. Even though our insurance pays for those, our dental insurance would NOT cover needed dental implants for our child who was born with a cleft palate, and had teeth that did not form enamel properly (a condition that also affected my brother, though his lip and palate were fine). He had two root canals that had broken in the growth and surgical process. He had one tooth I jokingly called a "bubba tooth" - he laughed at it too - but it really wasn't funny, it was only about half a tooth. This after nine years of braces, 12 years of dental appliances... in his (then) 18 years of life.

If my brothers, uncle, and I had not just sold my mother's house, I'd planned to refinance my car to borrow that money. We're talking five digits worth of money, and that's not counting the numbers on the right of the decimal. I felt like we were lucky. I'd rather have had my mom living in that house, but I felt she would have approved of the money being spent that way.

I agree that the ACA - "Obamacare," as it is so frequently called, is not really its name - needs work and maybe even replacement. I want to see pre-existing conditions left in. I say we do not need caps on coverage. My sweet rock star and son might have had to do without healthcare... and who knows when we'd have had to start doing without. My mom's insurance company re-analyzed several medicines over the years. I think they were surprised that someone who had been through all she had was still alive, so they didn't realize they had to keep paying for those drugs!

When I was a new nuclear medicine tech back in the early 90s, occasionally I would see kids who had been born with cystic fibrosis (CF). Back then, a kid born with CF had a life expectancy of maybe 20 years. Now, babies born with the disease have a much longer life expectancy as more and more patients are living into their 40s and even beyond. If you put a cap on their benefits, some of those kids would not survive that long because they sometimes spend a lot of time in the hospital. I care, and that's because one of my childhood friends has a child with the disease. I don't know for certain but I would be beyond shocked if I learned that they had done anything at all during pregnancy to "deserve" a child with such a condition. No, that, like so many other things, is a GENETIC issue.

If you are healthy and have lived a "good" lifestyle, you are LUCKY. You won the genetic lottery. You may be taking good care of yourself and for that, you should be proud, but you should not judge others, for you do not know their stories. Can you honestly say you've never overeaten, or had too much ice cream, or just once, slept instead of working out? Can you truly say you've never broken the speed limit? Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. As the saying goes, Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle. (source unknown; attributed to Plato)

How can people be so heartless
How can people be so cruel
Easy to be hard
Easy to be cold

How can people have no feelings
How can they ignore their friends
Easy to be proud
Easy to say no

And especially people
Who care about strangers
Who care about evil
And social injustice

Do you only
Care about the bleeding crowd?
How about a needing friend?
I need a friend

How can people be so heartless
You know I'm hung up on you
Easy to give in
Easy to help out

And especially people
Who care about strangers
Who say they care about social injustice

Do you only
Care about the bleeding crowd
How about a needing friend?
I need a friend

How can people have no feelings
How can they ignore their friends
Easy to be hard
Easy to be cold
Easy to be proud
Easy to say no

Songwriters
Ragni, Gerome / Rado, James / Mac Dermot, Galt

I can see clearly now

And so will you after you read this!

(Note: I actually wrote this on Friday, 4/14... not today, Easter Sunday! He is risen!!!)

I wanted to clarify something from my last post. I am beyond happy with the rockstar. I don't want to go back in time and change anything. 

Everybody has regrets. Lots of people say "no regrets," but we all know they're trying to convince themselves. When I look back on life, it's easy to see that sometimes I settled for less than I should have, not just in romance but in other ways too.  I regret letting people treat me badly, including Donnie and, at times, the rockstar (though I also regret some things I said and did to him, but you know, another story for another day). I'm no diva expecting the royal treatment, but I'm not a doormat and I've let a lot of people walk on me in the last 49.95 years. 

I'm thankful for the Donnie experience. It that taught me what not to do with a good relationship. I'm thankful I didn't throw myself at Robert. What if he had liked brunettes better? Or tall girls? Or men? He might've broken my heart too. More importantly, he might've kept me from marrying the rockstar, which was obviously meant to be. 

Clearly, it wasn't meant to be with Robert.

I'm glad I saw the picture back in 2015 because:

1) When Donnie contacted me that fall to tell me how he regretted being immature in 1985, I was going through a very rough patch in my marriage. That's over now, thank God, but if I hadn't had the reminder of my regret at not breaking up with Donnie earlier, I might've been easily swayed.  THEN, you wanna talk about some regrets... I'm sure I'd have a book full.

2) I had a great story to add to a sermon about not writing because of my unresolved feelings about John-Boy. Robert kind of looked like Richard Thomas back in the day.

3) I learned about what an inspiring woman Robert's mother was, and I got to meet the family!

It's all right now, Heaven should be proud

Nervous.

Just like when I was 18.

And it took about 45 minutes to get up the nerve to go up and talk to them. But I did, and now I’ll tell you about it.

Some stories develop a life all their own. Maybe it's a writer thing or an OCD thing, but some events in life turn into more than you expected. Sometimes one plus one equals more than two. Like when I sat watching CMT while Derek was in surgery, and saw a one-time promo video with Buck Owens and his “right-hand man,” and my mission became learning about this Don Rich guy, and… here I am 22 years later, still writing about Hee Haw.

So it is with today's blog entry.

While subbing at a high school in August 2015, I saw class composite pictures dating back to the 1960s. I recognized two brothers, Robert and Michael (not their real names) in the class of 1982 from their jobs in the college bookstore.  Robert frequented the Placement Office, my work-study job. I submitted his resume’ for every potentially fitting job, because even at age 18, I recognized that he was a good worker. I also thought he was gorgeous.

My first year of college, my boyfriend Donnie lived 35 miles away.  (Again, all names have been changed to protect the innocent… and the guilty.) Our romance the summer after graduation was fun and intense.  After college began and football season ended, things got weird.  This guy who’d proposed in my driveway and wanted me home every weekend suddenly stopped inviting me to family dinners. Donnie’s perfect date was semi-pro wrestling. That was fun at first, but got old quick. I wanted him to visit me, like other girls’ boyfriends.  My roommate left every weekend, so we would've had the dorm all to ourselves, but he didn't want to “make that drive.” He preferred my grandparents' house while they wintered in Florida, or his neighbor's shack, where we could hang out on their waterbed.

I was miserable, but I felt committed to Donnie.  In high school, I embarrassed myself by throwing myself at boys I liked. At least with Donnie, I didn’t have to be rejected by anyone else. I thought I should be satisfied. In general, he wasn’t a bad person. He went to church (but never mine, only his mama's), and didn’t drink or do drugs, but, as he even admitted to me years later, he was immature. Honestly, I wasn't much better.  I said all that to say that if I ever thought about taking a chance with Robert (and I did, quite often), I didn't act on it because I felt obligated to Donnie. 

Eventually, he got tired of pretending he wanted to be married, and decided we should take a break. I don’t think I ever cried. I was tired of playing the game too. It was a little too late for me to get to know Robert, as he was about to graduate.  My life got exponentially better though, and fast.  Within a year, I was dating "the rock star." Donnie wanted me back later, but I was done.

But enough about my history.

That day I subbed and saw the composite pic, I wondered what had happened to Robert, and to a lesser extent, Michael. Did they live close by? Did they have children at the school? So when I got home, I did what everybody does in 2017, or at the time, 2015, I Googled them. I saw Robert still had the job I almost kept him from getting.  But more on that later. Neither one married.

I found their names in the obit for their father, who left several siblings, his wife, Edith, 10 sons, and four daughters. That’s right, 14 kids.  I looked for an obituary for Edith. There wasn’t one, but I found the 1975 Tennessean article spotlighting this amazing family who built a beautiful home on a farm and made it work. My imagination whirled: what a life story! I wanted to interview this woman who grew up in Indiana during the Depression, became a “WAC” when it wasn’t all that common for a woman to do so, married someone she met at the end of the war, moved to his home state and contributed to the baby boom - in a big way. But these days, if someone walked up to my door and wanted to talk about my life story and maybe publish an article about me, I'd probably leave them on the porch, so I never approached any of them. 

The 1975 article grazed over the deaths of two additional children; being a morbidly curious nut, I learned that the first, a girl, died shortly after birth, and the third, a boy, at around age 6. Another died in his 40s, leaving nine sons and four daughters to survive Edith, who died this past Sunday of pneumonia.  I have a morbid habit of looking at funeral home websites and newspaper obituaries. I don’t do it every day, but several times a week.  I’ve said before that good Southerners look at the obituaries to find out who they need to visit and bring a casserole.

Today I got to meet several of them.  I sat in the back of the chapel for a long time, observing. Nervous, like I was still 18.  Finally, I got up and walked to the front, where I told Robert my story about wanting to meet his mother. I conveniently left out the part about often wishing I had taken a chance and flirted with him back in the day.  That, too, is a story for another time. I believe I've shared enough of it today.

I also shared my story with Michael, two sisters, and another brother. I told them all my regrets at not getting to meet her. I don’t think I sounded too creepy. If you’re honest, and sincerely show interest in people, they realize you aren't out to hurt them.  I try to be charming too. Hahaha… I realize not everyone has honest motives, and some people use their charm with very impure motives, but that’s not me.  I met two more brothers before I left.  Sweet folks. I may tell more of this woman's story in another blog entry. She lived a long, full life. She was a veteran. She was a super mom – didn’t have a job outside the home but successfully raising all those children and running a farm with her husband - she was an inspiration to me, and I didn't even know her.

I don’t know if this is a nationwide thing, but in the South, funeral homes hand out little folded papers with a picture of the deceased, dates and places of birth and death, surviving family members, etc.  Inside Edith’s, Proverbs 31:10-31 was printed.  I believe it described her well.  You should look it up, but here are a few verses:

^10 [b]A wife of noble character who can find?  She is worth far more than rubies.
¹¹ Her husband has full confidence in her and lacks nothing of value.

¹⁷ She sets about her work vigorously; her arms are strong for her tasks.
¹⁸ She sees that her trading is profitable, and her lamp does not go out at night.

²⁵ She is clothed with strength and dignity; she can laugh at the days to come.
²⁶ She speaks with wisdom, and faithful instruction is on her tongue.
²⁷ She watches over the affairs of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness.
²⁸ Her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her:
²⁹ “Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all.”
³⁰ Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.
³¹ Honor her for all that her hands have done, and let her works bring her praise at the city gate.

What a day that will be

That's an old gospel standard, written by Jim Hill and part of the Speer family catalog. Today is a beautiful day and it's been good for me, because I got the results from the ARRT. I'm now a "real" MRI tech!  However, it's a sad day in southern gospel music, because Ben Speer slipped the surly bonds of earth less than an hour into this day.

I've written before about how southern gospel made me who I am today (among other genres) and in the last couple of days I've thought a lot about the "Old Time Singing Convention."  It was a simpler time, and even then I'm sure people thought we were headed to Hell in a hand basket compared to "old times."  I'll be 50 in a month, and I don't like thinking that my childhood was in the "good ole days," but things really HAVE changed! Like this blog. I'm sitting in the passenger side of Randy's truck on I-40 between Lebanon and Carthage, typing on a PHONE I hold in my hand and though the coverage here probably isn't great, I will be able to publish this online, worldwide, in a few minutes, for almost free, just the cost of my service plan. We're listening to a podcast from Randy's iPod.  I made this trip many times in the 1970s in the back seat of a Monte Carlo with an AM radio. Maybe we had an 8-track player. This band featured on the podcast was around in the 70s but we didn't know it yet (Big Star - that was a grocery store chain back then).

What a day, indeed.

When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school, it's a wonder I can think at all.

Watching Soundbreaking, one of my favorite PBS shows... tonight it's about the early days of music video... when I was in high school. It was a great time to be alive!!! :D  I was into videos for sure. My dad hated MTV and called it "Hell Music." Did that stop me from watching it, oh, hell, no! I loved it. It was a great turning point in music history. Video may have killed the radio star, but it sure opened up a lot of doors for a lot of people.

Today I took the MRI ARRT registry exam and... well, I think it went all right, but I'll know for sure in a week or two. After all the studying, it's a wonder I can think at all. But now, at least until I know how I did, I can start focusing on the next challenge... which will be writing and web development.  I do have to do my taxes (yuck) and work on bill-paying (double yuck). I have plenty of work to keep me busy this upcoming week, and lots coming up in the next few months, which is a good problem to have.

Loving a music man ain't always what it's supposed to be...

Well, you can say that again.  I'm still waiting for my tour bus and swimming pool. Hahaha!  I can't really complain, though.  He's a good husband and he's bringing home dinner!!!  Also, our band is playing this weekend... but more about that later.

So I have a lot of big plans for my writing and webpages. I know, I say that about once a year, but maybe God is trying to tell me something. 

For one thing, I'm not getting a lot of work hours right now, and this was supposed to be one of my busy times.  In February, I had 21.5 weekdays scheduled to work in March. By March 1, two days had already been canceled. On March 3, a tech called about her upcoming some surgery, which will put her out 8 weeks. She works 4 days a week. Of course, I have some days I'm scheduled to go other places. I can only be one place at a time, but the lead tech knows this, and I'm sure they'll work out the details when it gets a little closer.

On March 6, I learned that I wouldn't be needed on the 7th as well as the 12th through the 15th.  They also cancelled 4 more weeks scattered through the rest of the year at that location. On the 7th, I learned they could not use me on the 8th.  I called the CPR office and was able to pick up a few days there. That day, the surgery date was set for the above-mentioned tech, so I was able to make some plans, which included two days of teaching CPR, including the 13th and 14th. Naturally, as soon as I did that, a coworker asked if I could work on the 14th, so I canceled that day too.  A few hours later, the lead tech asked if I could work on the 13th. I told her that I had just canceled 3 CPR days and I need CPR to keep the wolf from the door during the slow times, but I'd work in the morning if she needed me to, and she took me up on that.  So, I ended up working a half a day on the 13th, then rushing over to teach CPR. On my way home, I got a text message saying that they did not need me on the 14th after all. Unfortunately, they didn't need me to teach CPR by then either.  Last night they called me in to work today, where I learned that I am no longer needed Wednesday through Friday. So I was planning to work 21.5 days and I'll end up with 13.5, unless something changes.

And so it goes.

Besides that, I've been inspired to do a lot more writing. A few months ago, I started subscribing to a website called newspapers.com.  I'd heard of it before, when I was teaching, but I didn't subscribe because I didn't think I could get my money's worth out of it.  In one of my "fact-finding missions" I do researching sometimes, I discovered an article on the site and it suddenly dawned on me... I could use it to help me with Hee Haw, country music history, Frank Sutton history, Ridgetop history, and the list goes on.  We're playing this coming Saturday night, the 25th, in Dickson, TN, at the VFW.  I don't know the time, I would guess 8:00 pm, but I will try to get that updated ASAP.  I also want to get the Brewer's Chapel page updated. In the next few months we will be getting a new pastor. This is pretty standard procedure, Methodists switch out pastors every few years and our pastor's getting ready to retire. He has had some health issues in the past, but this past year has been particularly hard on him. I am not sure what to expect from our new pastor, but we have had this website for a long time that I haven't been updating, and I think if we want more younger people involved in the church, a strong web presence would be a good thing... and that includes getting control of the Brewer's Chapel Facebook page.  A former pastor started it, which is cool, but since he's somewhere else, we need to get that.  I don't mind updating it, either, as long as I don't have to tweet!

Those two things alone would be plenty of writing, but the Hee Haw page needs some serious updating too.  One of those days off this week I will go to Springfield, to the library to do some research, and to take some pictures of the Royal Inn before it gets torn down. Now, it may be years before they tear the place down, but it could be tomorrow!  There is a man named James Lileks, a writer and reporter in Minneapolis who has a website with motel postcards, etc. Really, he has a veritable treasure trove of modern American history.  I need to send him a picture of the Royal Inn if I can get one before they tear it down, since he has one from there.  Maybe I can send him a link to that pic on the FB "You Know You're From Springfield, TN if..." page, too.  I'm sure Bill Jones would enjoy Lileks' webpage.  It'd also be good if I can get it on my Royalty page too. 

So I have a lot of exciting ideas for my webpages. Another idea I'm considering is oral history type stuff, or interviews with older folks.  I think there are organizations like libraries that have organized programs for this, so I'll have to check into it.  Another oral history idea I have is doing people's memories it Brewers Chapel in a online type thing, maybe on the web page.

But if you will, bear with me a couple of weeks because I'm scheduled to take the MRI registry exam on Friday, March 31. I will be doing a lot of studying for that in the next couple weeks. After that, I plan to be writing a lot.  Of course, if I'm working in MRI a lot at that time, then I won't really have a lot of time to work on writing then either, but I'm pretty motivated right now. I've discovered that I can dictate while I'm driving.  I can set up the phone and the iPad both to record my dictation, and I can also use the voice recognition to record on the other one so I can put them together when I get home.  That's what I've done today. It's taken me some time, but I still have several hours before I have to go to bed, so I can study after dinner.

I'm only human... of flesh and blood I'm made...

I don't know why I've had this song on my mind today, but I looked it up and it was released in August 1986.  I associated it with college, and I guess that's why... that was right before my 2nd year at APSU.  I think if I ever write my Rhonda/Tony/Steve/Robbie story, and I'm sure I will, that song would be really good because the way it happened was that Rhonda and Tony were separated in the summer of 1985, and that was when Steve (or Allen Sinclair, or something) came to the house and Robbie came along about 7 or 8 months later, in the winter of 1986, after Rhonda and Tony had gotten back together.  That was, of course, before Rhonda and Sonny Stevens hooked up - what a weird match that was - and then she and Tony got back together again.

Reconciliation was a theme in several of my stories. My parents didn't get divorced until I was well into my 20s. Actually, I think I was closer to 30, but I try not to remember. I have always had a really good memory, but I'm starting to lose whole pieces, entire chunks of my past.  I need to start writing more, and yet, I feel like I write all the time.  I have many, many, many old fictional stories as well as true history to tell, and I feel like I'm running out of time to tell my tales.  Will I die before I get all my stories out there?  SHOULD I get all my stories out there???

I'm not sure I should try and publish all my stories (haha, really, I probably shouldn't publish any of them), but I definitely want to put them all down.  Maybe someone will enjoy them someday.  At least all my characters.  I don't write too many more characters but the two I've developed in the past year or so, in the time since I saw a certain picture at a certain school where I used to substitute, are some of my very favorites and in my opinion, two really good characters.  I'm ready to do more work in that area. I'd always hoped that someday I would be able to write and garden and do more fun stuff than work all the time.  Now I don't have much choice.  I need to work for the money, while I'm still mostly able to do so, but full-time nuc med work is hard to find these days in Nashville. Every job I apply for gets taken by some fresh-out-of-school kid who doesn't require as much money, but though I make more hourly, I don't make more overall. Subbing is terribly hard on me, mentally and physically, for the small amount that I make. I need to do more nucs but I really can't create more demand for that.  I knew what I was getting into when I went there, and I thought I could make enough on the side to make it work out.  But subbing doesn't really give me the amount of joy I thought it would. I just don't have the stamina to keep up with the little ones and the bigger ones give me headaches.

Honestly, I think the time has come for me to spend my days off working on the house and creating a balance between home and health and working and writing, something that will be sort of an investment for the years to come mentally, physically, and financially.  I wish I could go back and start all over in a lot of ways and financially probably most of all.  I don't regret some of the foolishness in which I've "invested" - Avon was a lesson and really should've been the lesson to end all lessons, but I had to get "robbed" one more time before that lesson sunk in - but I do wish I'd wasted less and invested more.  All the money I've spent on cell phone coverage and packages and gas for cruising and fast food and ice cream and interest on credit cards and late payments and Lord only knows what other fees... just because I have had no balance in my life.  All things in moderation, it's in the Bible and also something I believe to be the "gospel" truth, and yet I am so human.  I screw up every day.  Why does "bad" food taste so good?  Why does the grass look greener on the other side?  Why do we abuse our bodies so?  Why does alcohol feel so good when it's destroying our livers?  Why does sugar taste so good when it's destroying our entire bodies?  Why do we want what we can't have?  Because we're only human. 

me and my drum

Have I written about this song?  It's on TV right now.  It was playing in the room when my grandfather passed away... in a few days that will have been seven years.  Or as he would say it, seb'm years.  I miss him all the time.

My blog hasn't been very active lately.  My focus of late has been set on preparing for the ARRT MRI registry. I still have about 90 procedures to log before I can take the test, and it isn't something you just walk in and do before you've seen 10 of them.  It's not like what I do in nucs, which is so repetitive and so ingrained into my brain that I can actually focus more on taking care of my patients and doing the many other things that are part of the job.  I do hope I can work at least part-time hours in MRI for my current employer, because I've been a part of that environment and I really, really like the pace and the interaction with the emergency room there.

I want to write about so much more.  I want to write about medicine, and education, and places and people and fiction and non-fiction.  I want to keep teaching CPR and doing nucs and MRI and hopefully some TEE too, although I think they're more likely to get one of the heart station techs for that.  I like being there.  I like what I do for a living.  I like doing it there and in the capacity I do because it is a good pace for me.  I'm getting old and I need all the help I can get.

So tonight I'm writing about writing.  I have been journaling as I usually do, documenting everything from my desire to drink a whole quart of boiled custard (not something I would recommend for a diabetic) to details of Randy's eye disease.  For me writing is not just something I do to document history or to tell stories, it's something that helps me sort through the insanity that runs through my brain. 

My brain has caused me a lot of trouble, which I'm trying to turn into something a little more constructive.  Depression, or bipolar disorder if you believe the most current diagnosis (and I do), has taken its toll on me and this house.  Chronic pain hasn't helped either.  Diabetic neuropathy has been horrible to me.  I'm not quite as heavy as I was, but I'm more crippled by it along with the degenerative changes I've had, like plantar fasciitis, arthritis, avascular necrosis, and other issues.  And somehow during the years of constant lesson planning and grading and exhaustion, I totally lost control of this house and my finances.  I've been working on the house, not just to create a more writing-conducive environment but because I need to organize the budget and paperwork.  It's really not that we can't pay the bills anymore, because we do a pretty good job of it.  I just need to get ready for the day when I can't drive to Nashville anymore, when it's time to move to assisted living or what have you.  Hopefully, that day is a long ways off.

Today I cleaned under my son's old bed and then moved the queen mattress and box springs into his old room.  I have a place for the twin mattress and frame and the old box spring is ready for the dump.  I have a box spring for the twin where it's going.  I moved my old recliner and took a TV into the kitchen/office and I am set up to get this room and all its paperwork under control so I can get out of debt.  I do see that as a possibility someday and it excites me.  Getting in there and working was exciting for me too.  So hopefully, in a few days, I'll be ready to start on some of the projects I think about all the time... like updating all my websites.  The Hee Haw almanac and website need a lot of work and I have some real goals to work on.  I need to get my ads up to date on all my sites and try to make them pay off a little.  I want to sell some of the collectible stuff I have and thin out my collections.  I want to write a lot more about country music history because there is a whole lot of it to share.  I want to write about not just the health issues I have but also those that are in the news and on the medical TV shows... about health education for health science teachers and college students who are interested in medicine.  And music... I want to market myself as well as our band.  I want to have information about my health and wellness business.  And lest I forget, this is where I sometimes do a little preaching.  So watch this space for more...

Don't waste a moment wondering why...

Well, I can't be a Cheatham Countian and not mention the most famous person who ever came from here, the late and definitely great Pat Summitt.  She died this week (in case you have been in a coma and somehow missed that).  Honestly, I don't have much more to say tonight, God rest her soul.

I do think tonight's song lyric sounds like something a coach would say... lyrics from "Do It or Die" by Atlanta Rhythm Section...

Don't let your troubles make you cry
Don't waste a moment wondering why
When everything goes wrong
You have to go on
And do it or die

Do it or die now
Stand your ground
Don't let your bad breaks go gettin' you down
Even when times get rough
And you've had enough
You still gotta try

Do it no matter what the people say
They don't even know you
Die before you let them stand in your way (Don't you know that)
You should know that... life is a gamble all along
Winners or losers you keep rollin' on
So go on and roll the dice
You only live twice
So do it or die

Happy, happy birthday, blog!

TEN years ago today this blog moved from MSN Spaces to Blogger.  TEN years.  A chronicle of my life... 20% or so of my life... documented on the 'Net for all the world to see.  Yes, there were times there were gaps of up to 11 months.  Two different years that I posted only 5 times.  But, I can look back and smile, remembering things like my little girl putting the wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier when she was 13.  Now she is 23... and almost 24.

I can't believe it's been 10 years since I started this blog.  Time flies, whether you're having fun or not!

I updated my health blog this morning and will update the Brewer's Chapel blog in the near future... maybe tonight.

Life is good and keep looking for more updates!

There's a church in the valley by the wildwood...

So today some of my friends posted a picture of themselves in front of a little country church with the caption, "The church in the wildwood."  Our church isn't exactly in the wilderness, but it's in the country and a sweet little place you'd hear that song. In fact, we sang it Sunday. 

It's appropriate because today, I'm gonna preach!  No, seriously I'm not "preaching" but I have prepared a "sermon" of sorts based on last week's lectionary passages. It was Pentecost Sunday and with that in mind, let me refer you to the biblical passages of the lectionary: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts%202:1-21; https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ps%20104:24-104:35; and https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Jn%2014:8-14:27. 

When I read these three passages I looked for a common theme and here is what I find:  glorify God. We are His creation and He rejoices in His creation. Our job is to bring Him glory. How do we do that? That's in the passages too:  we praise Him and obey His commandments. Jesus said in the passage from John that those who love Him will keep His commandments. I didn't really understand this until I had children. Then I realized that my rules for my kids were for their protection. And so were many of God's rules for us. One example is "Thou shalt not covet."  Yeah. I know. We ALL covet. Maybe we don't covet our neighbor's wife... Maybe instead we covet his Corvette or his bass boat or his lake frontage or something else, but coveting is part of our nature. But God said not to covet. Isn't life easier when we don't spend our time worrying about keeping up with the Joneses?  God had our best interest in mind when He made that commandment, and the others too. 

Jesus said that for those He loved, who loved Him, He would send the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, to dwell within us. And the  power of the Holy Spirit is great. We can't do a lot on our own but Jesus said if we ask in His name we can do all the things He could do. Remember some of those things, like healing lepers and blind people and crippled people??? He said all we have to do is ask. In His name. Now if we ask in Jesus' name we need to be asking for something Jesus would approve of, don't you think? Like healing or something else to - you guessed it, to glorify God.  So remember that. We have the power, He gets the glory. Amen!