Mixed Messages?

This morning I was on my way to the office after running a couple of errands. As I drove across town I was behind a white Dodge Caravan through a handful of traffic lights and all-way stops. You know what we do in this situation—we read and reread everything that's on the back of vehicle in front of us. Sometimes the back is covered with interesting messages; sometimes we get nothing but the tag, the make and model and the dealer. My first thought this morning was that the van was rather sparse on what it offered. In the upper left-hand corner of the rear window was the image I've recreated here, with the message "God Keeps His Promises." In the upper right-hand corner of the window as another image, that of a young person kneeling with clasped hands before the cross. In the middle of the window, unnoticed at first behind the dark glass, was one of those yellow "Support Our Troops" ribbons. Beneath the window, in black letters on the van's white paint was a web address: makemoneynorisk.com.

And I began to think, irreverently perhaps, about what God's promises have to do with makemoneynorisk.com or what that web site has to do with our becoming like a child before the cross. Perhaps even more irreverently, what do God's promises and humbling ourselves before the teachings and sacrifice of Christ have to do with faithful troops and pointless war? And finally, if our troops are indeed fighting for our freedom in some bankrupt oil-rich country half way around the world, what is the relationship between that freedom "won" or "preserved" and makemoneynorisk.com?

I entertain myself with such thoughts as I drive across town.

Sunday Evening in the Park

The weather is good, and the gym is closed for the weekend. So, this evening at 6:45 I headed to Willow Springs Park for an hour of walking. As I walked my usual laps I looked at all the people around the park and was amazed at this glimpse of east Tennessee in 2008.

I saw

• a young man with a Great Dane
• two long-haired young guys on skateboards
• a white family on creaky, squeaky bicycles
• two older women walking together and smiling at the people they meet on the path
• two older men walking and nodding at the people they meet on the path
• young lovers sitting on one of the benches, their back to the sun
• two older lovers sitting on one of the benches down by the pond
• two young families descended from a country in the Middle East playing volleyball
• five young men on the basketball court, two black, three white
• an older white man walking alone
• a younger black woman walking alone
• three ETSU professors (one retired), including me
• young father (white) with a pacifier in his mouth, young mother (black) with braided hair, little boy
• lots of children of different ethnicity playing on the playground

The last two songs I heard on my mp3 player were U2's "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" and Steve Winwood's "Higher Love."

The sun fell lower and lower in the western sky, and my shadow grew longer and longer, stretching across the grass and now and then crossing the long shadows of strangers.

Nashville 1980 (Part III)

Remember that I got soaked and chilled working on the Opryland USA log ride one rainy Sunday in March 1980? And that I nearly ran over Willie Nelson at a traffic light near my apartment? As you might guess, one of the next things that happened was that I quit the Opryland gig and started looking for another job.

I found a flexible position as mailroom and errand boy for a publishing called Triune Music or Triune Publishing—something like that. Triune was a Christian publisher that focused largely on choir arrangements for churches, and I seem to remember that they had a special interest in cantatas or church musicals. At the time I was there, the company's biggest claim to fame, however, was its connection to singer Cynthia Clawson. I don't remember what that connection was, but I met her and thought that a step in the right direction. I also don't remember anything else about the company, except that perhaps I was interested in a receptionist there (with whom I never got further than a few laughs).

As the end of the semester approached that spring, the only friend I remember, Taylor Binkley, announced that he was joining the Navy—I think it was the Navy. I didn't like the idea of living where I was on 17th Avenue with the other fellow there and whoever else might show up to rent Taylor's place, so I started looking around for a new apartment. I found one across the river in east Nashville. I liked the place a lot, and sometime in May I packed up my little one-room joint and moved. As I recall my new place was half of a house, much like the downstairs arrangement at the 17th Avenue location. I don't remember the name of the street (Mansfield, just left of center on this map, seems familiar).

I moved to east Nashville but never lived there. Taylor's departure, the end of school and the prospect of a summer alone in Music City left me disenchanted with the place. As I recall, I went home for a weekend of mid spring in the North Carolina mountains, and for all intents and purposes, I retreated from Nashville. I recruited my young cousin Mark to ride return there with me, load up my stuff and drive back to my home in Walnut, NC, all in a single day.

So ended my first sojourn in Nashville. That fall of 1980 I enrolled at the University of North Carolina, Asheville (UNCA), as a Literature and Language major, but I made it through only half the semester before I quit. Even though I'd left Nashville, my heart was in the music, not in school. I got a job at a sports store owned by a good friend from those days. I sang a lot in churches—wrote "Dear Mother" that fall, I think, and "Daisy"—and began to play a little bit in local restaurants. Home still had its loneliness and world its sadness—my cousin Joe was away at UT-Knoxville; that December, John Lennon was murdered—but I felt myself better off than in Nashville.

But it wouldn't be long—April 1981—before notions of returning to Nashville began to creep back into my mind.

May This / May That

After the semester of teaching, advising, administrating and the like, I've taken a few days here to settle and rest my mind. I'm writing, getting back to a work of fiction begun not too long ago. I'm playing my guitar and watching movies. So, this is just an easy-going entry about this and that happening around me and in me these past few May days. . . .

• No blog entry has been written about this week's monthly meeting of the 4 O'Clock Club. Nobody brought a camera, so we got no photo of the handsome gents to post; maybe that's why no post this time. Anyway, we met on a beautiful afternoon (the 13th) and enjoyed our usual good time. All members were present--Dennis, John, Joe, Sam and yours truly. Unlike during the spring semester, when I had to leave to teach a class on those second Tuesdays, I was able to stay and stay, and so I was the last one to leave, hanging out with a colleague from the English department even after all the other 4 O'Clockers went home.


• The novel I seem to be settling in to work on this summer is tentatively titled A Summer Abroad. It will be based on my experiences traveling Europe in 1979, when I was 20 years old, but it will be told by a narrator looking back from, say, 50 years of age (like me) and thinking about those experiences in light of the changes that have taken place in the world since '79. Originally I conceived of this as a novella (a short novel) that with two other novellas would be collected in one book. I'd still like to consider that, but at this point I don't know how "short" A Summer Abroad will be.


• I have some "group" projects going on right now--besides the 4 O'Clock Club. I'm in a three-man writing group that got started back in January or February but struggled to get going through the busy spring semester. It's currently made up of my friends Reg, most recently from here in Johnson City, and Mike, most recently from Pigeon Forge.


• As for the other group, planning continues to move forward for the reunion of the White Water Band, band I was in during high school. We seem to be zeroing in on 21 June, but that's not for certain yet.


• To continue with the band thing, it's been--amazingly--at least 15 years since the Cody band was together. I think that also merits a reunion! Maybe when Mark has this NBTA move complete we can think about that for the fall of this year.


• The Praise band at Cherokee continues to do well in spite of its particular struggles.


• My wife has been in England since 7 May, having a great time. Right now she's somewhere over the western half of the Atlantic Ocean, and she'll be back home tonight!


• I ate at Buck's Pizza for the first time today. A little 6" pizza was my introducation, and it was good as I've heard it was.

We're smack in the middle of May. More to come!

Washington, DC

This past week, from Monday morning to Thursday evening, I traveled with a couple of colleagues and 14 sophomores in the University Honors Scholars Program on the annual pilgrimage to Washington, DC. The weather was great and most of the people friendly. The widespread wickedness of the place remained largely hidden behind and beneath its beautiful monuments to peace and truth and justice.


This year we stayed at the Inn of Rosslyn, and I think we liked it fairly well. Here's a picture. My room is #2, first floor, the doorway of which is just above the blue car farthest to the right. The folks there were nice, and the rooms were clean and adequate. The Rosslyn Metro station was just a couple of blocks away. We could go there and travel most anywhere we wanted to go in the city. We were also within walking distance of Georgetown (via a walk across the Key Bridge). As Joe pointed out, staying at the Inn of Rosslyn--instead of right downtown at the Hotel Harrington--forced the students to use the subway more, to stay out and about once they were out and about. With the Harrington, they didn't have to use the subway--the use of which is a good experience, I think--and they could come back and "rest" anytime they wanted to.


We found a fine restaurant over in Georgetown and ate there more than once. It's called "The Guards," and it's been there on M Street since 1966. I recommend it to anybody going to the area. I had a swordfish steak one night and a filet mignon sandwich another night. And several Sam Adams from the tap on both nights.


All in all, it was a successful trip. I go back in June to catch a train to Brunswick, Maine. And then next year at the beginning of May, just after ETSU's graduation, I'll take another group of honors sophomores. We'll probably stay at the Inn of Rosslyn, and I'll probably eat at least once at the Guards.

For Sale: Another American Dream

WASHINGTON (AP) — A campaign aide says Hillary Rodham Clinton lent herself $6.4 million in the past month.

Politically wounded and financially strapped, Clinton plunged back into the presidential campaign Wednesday even as Barack Obama declared that Tuesday's primary results left him with a "clear path to victory."

Obama beat Clinton soundly in North Carolina and fell just short in an Indiana cliffhanger, a rebound for the Illinois senator that presented Clinton with fast-dwindling chances to deny him the Democratic presidential nomination.

The loan more than doubles Clinton's personal investment in her bid for the Democratic nomination. She gave her campaign $5 million earlier this year.

Clinton has been struggling financially behind the record fundraising of her Democratic rival, Barack Obama.

Obama has routinely outspent her in primary after primary. Clinton's campaign reported raising $10 million online after her victory April 22 in Pennsylvania. But Obama has shown little difficulty tapping his vast network of donors. He spent more than $7 million on advertising head of Tuesday's primaries in North Carolina and Indiana to her nearly $4 million. . . .

http://www.embarqmail.com/news/news_reader.php?storyid=16036743&feedid=14

Death of HDT

From today's Writer's Almanac:

On this day in 1862, Henry David Thoreau died of tuberculosis. He was 44. His aunt asked him if he was at peace with God. Thoreau said, "I was not aware that we had quarreled." The last clear thing he said was, "Now comes good sailing," and then two words: "moose" and "Indian."

Graduation Day

Three weeks have passed since I last sat down to write in this space. That's way too much time. But I've been "in the midst of perpetual fetes": celebrating the end of the academic year, the students who are graduating, the new students who are coming in to get ready for fall, friends who are leaving to work elsewhere, friends who are retiring, my younger granddaughter's first birthday. Party after party after party.


One of my favorite parties of the last few weeks didn't take place on campus or at home or at church. It took place in Philips Arena in Atlanta on the night of Friday, 25 April, when my wife and I and good friends Sam and Sharon did an overnighter to see Bruce Springsteen perform a show on his Magic tour. I've gone over 20 years without seeing The Boss. He'll be turning 60 later this year (23 September--my younger son's birthday also), but he seems to have slowed little in the years since I saw him a handful of times back in the mid '80s. Back then, I was younger as well--I'll be 50 this year--and slept on a sidewalk during a chill December night to buy tickets for my first time to see Springsteen. This was maybe December 1984; he was on his Born in the USA tour and coming to Murfreesboro in January. If I remember correctly, he came out and played for about two hours, took a break for a few minutes and then returned to play another hour and a half. I saw Springsteen two more times in the mid '80s--once in Lexington, KY, and once in Greensboro, NC. I think both shows might have been on the Tunnel of Love tour and both were structured about the same as the first time I saw him.

As I said, however, he's turning 60 this year. The show was understandably shorter--just under two and a half hours long, including maybe a five-minute break that took us from the main show to the multi-song encore. Great show. Great time with great friends.


I meant to do more tonight, but I'm tired and will only await Raleigh's return home before going to bed. But at least I'm back. I have one more entry for the "Nashville 1980" sequence, and then I'll move that story forward. But first, church tomorrow; then I take the University Honors Scholars sophomores to Washington, DC, for basically four days (Monday morning through Thursday afternoon round-trip). If our fleabag hotel has Internet, I'll blog from there. If not, I'll be back at the end of the week.


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