Office Decor

Here are a couple of things that I have in my office in Honors House.

I don't know where I got either of these pieces. The mirror is one of those two-sided jobs, one side of which is regular while the other is triple magnification. The little Lego man is from some set for building scenes from the ancient world, although he could be a character from a Star Wars or Raiders of the Lost Ark Lego set. Come to think of it, that's probably more likely. Anyway, it's funny that when the little man is set on the mirror these two pieces are transformed into a single recognizable scene. You know what it is.

A few years ago, my mom began falling at home a lot. An obvious and serious problem. The house that she lives in is the house that she grew up in. It began as a two-room cabin and grew as my grandparents' family grew—and grew and grew. He and his first wife had two children in this house. When she died after the second child was born, he eventually married my grandmother and with her had nine more. I don't know how many of them lived in the house at the same time. Anyway, all this building on led to floors that were uneven. When we moved into the house in 1968, after my grandfather died, my dad tore up the floors and leveled them, which left lots of little unavoidable step-ups and step-downs between rooms. My brother and I realized that we needed to restrict Mom's circuit through the house to those areas that had the fewest and the smallest steps. This required moving her to a different bedroom and adding on a bathroom. This addition required taking part of the near-wrap-around porch, and one window looking from the living room onto the porch was a necessary casualty. For my 50^th birthday, my aunt Ernie (Ernestine) blew up one of my favorite pictures of the old homeplace and framed it with one of the porch windows that was removed. My wife found the tripod stand at a thrift store somewhere here in Johnson City.

Turbulent Cleric

Sometime back of this, I was doing some Internet research for a Sunday School class I was teaching, and I ran across the blog of Paul Martin, a Methodist minister in the UK. I've returned to his blog now and then and always found it interesting. The latest post was just too good to keep to myself, so check it out.

http://turbulentcleric.blogspot.com/2009/07/just-other-day-i-was-visiting-my-local.html

A Lovely Picture

This is the cover of the last hardcopy diary I tried to keep. Leesa gave it to me on 26 October 1995, and I filled it up over the next 9 years. Although it records a large portion of my life, my favorite thing about it is the picture.

1979 & 1988

Another travel entry from 30 years ago today. We'd left the Greek island and sailed on an overnight ship to the boot heel of Italy. From there we traveled to Sorrento, which is near Naples. Our AESU groups were named by date—either of departure from the States or arrival in London. My group was 616, so, obviously the 617 group was a day behind us. We met them sometimes, here and there, but not as often as I might have expected. The Pasquale referenced in the entry was our Italian bus driver through the first half of the trip. He got a couple of speeding tickets in our Mercedes us and, eventually, burned up the motor. We saw him again—in Rome, I think—but he was eventually taken off our trip and possibly fired.

17 July (Tuesday): Day 31

Vico Equense, Italy

Left this morning for Capri, a very beautiful island. We rode on a small boat with another group: ISE [?]. Met a girl named Kate who travels with them—nice girl. We sailed straight to the cave entrance of the Blue Grotto. It's so eerie because light comes up from the extended cave opening which is under water and the whole place is blue. Then we went to beach for about 3 hrs., where I bought some wooden sandals. We had lunch on the top of the mountain at a beautiful outdoor restaurant under palm trees and grape vines. Later back for shopping then on boat back to Sorrento. Back but still no Pasquale. 617 picked us up. Back to hotel. Played Edith's flute and met girls from 617 until supper. Went shopping and partying until bed. Went to bed while everyone partied. Jack came in 1 hr later and bummed out again by blond girl from 617 (Janet). Saw young Italian getting his first haircut.

The following is from my regular diary. In the summer of 1988, when I was working as a songwriter for Gary Morris's publishing company, I decided to join Gary's western tour as a truck driver. Mostly I traveled alone, which was just what I was after in such an adventure. Sorry, but the second paragraph is severely edited.

Captain's Log . . . Sunday, July 17, 1988

It is morning here at the Parkway Motel in Pincher Creek, Alberta, Canada. I am here en route to Vancouver, British Columbia. Pincher Creek lies right on the plains at the foot of a set of the Canadian Rockies and directly north of the Butte section of Montana. I pulled in here last night around 10:30 pm with the afterglow of sunset still in the western skies. My room here, #121, is actually a little apartment. The main door leads into a small kitchen and through a double-sized doorway is the living room with couch, TV, and desk. There is a closet in here and a back door leading outside. In one corner is the doorway to the bathroom and in the other, to the bedroom. There is some smell in here which reminds me of Mama Reeves though it must be an unpleasant memory as I refuse to think about it. Maybe it is just the smell of being too old in general or more specifically it may remind me of the morning she found out she had to leave her house and go to live with Ernie. She had been crying and sweating and breathing hard, snuffy breaths. It was a painful morning for all of us.

On the upside, I went to sleep last night and woke up this morning thinking about. . . . I thought of two women, not at one time, mind you, and was surprised at which two they were. It was K**** S**** and S**** G****. No A*****. No J**. No H*****. No L****. K**** and S****. The two who at one time would have held the least attraction for me are the ones I woke up thinking about.

Well, I best get a shower and hit the road. I still have a good distance to travel and it may be slow through the mountains.

1978 & 1979

Here are a couple of entries from the diary I kept—sporadically—for years. The first is from 1978 and sums up the time between 7 June and 14 July. I was 19. The second is my entry from 30 years ago today, when I was 20 and spending the summer in Europe with AESU tours.

 

Captain's Log: Stardates 060.778 – 071.478

Ain't life grand? Most of the time I think so, though sometimes the devil throws some pretty mean stuff at you. Thanks to my Lord I can still get by.

There are strong possibilities of the Youth Group recording an album in January; I have sung at Terry D's and Jim's weddings; I finished one summer session and started another.

I just can't find a girl. As far as that category goes, life's pretty dry. I love Leesa and I think she loves me but between her work and Lane, and my school and music, we simply never have time for each other, ya know? I wrote her a book about how I feel and she really liked it.

I finally met that girl at the Family Record and Tape Center. Her name is Pam Club and she is really nice.

I was a hero the other night when I stopped a rolling car on a hill near the Plaza Theatre. Three cheers for me. . . . Live Long and Prosper

 

14 July (Saturday): Day 28

Athens, Greece – Island of Poros, Greece

JOURNAL: This morning we departed Athens early for the Greek island, Poros. The ship was really crowded but I found a really nice place on the edge behind the life boats. We arrived at the dock and were assigned to our rooms. We are staying in more or less private homes (almost a hostel) and I'm with Joe, Jack, Mike, Eddie: #8. After an hour for lunch we sailed in our private 65-foot boat to an inlet where we spent 1½ hrs. swimming. The water here is beautiful blue and clear as the springs at home. When depths get 30 feet or below, you can see almost every stone on the bottom, and the Greek worker on board caught 2 octopi (strange). Nearly everyone got at least a small sunburn. Mine is not too bad because I didn't swim much. The water was about 20 feet deep so Cary gave me lessons in treading water. I slept on the trip back to harbor. . . . We had a beautiful evening. Only problem not enough food for party on boat and everyone bitching. Later though thousands of stars out. Took on nude Londoners, and came back to sit under trees with Joe, Tina, Vallory, Cary.

NOTES: The heat here is incredible. The air is dry, but temps this afternoon have been 100+ and now at 7:00, the sun is still well up and at least 95. (We learned that yesterday when we were playing basketball in Athens the temp was 111!)

Water and mountainous islands are very beautiful

Another WWB Reunion

Yesterday the White Water Band gathered again in Spruce Pine for our third meeting in a little over a year. We spent the afternoon making music, laughing, sharing some pizza and hot wings. Thinking that we would like to do a gig together again, we had picked a group of five songs to work on—"Thunder & Lightning," "Jamboree," "The Jaws of Modern Romance," "She's a Wild One" and "Best I've Ever Seen." We started around 2:00 and worked pretty hard for the next four hours, and by the time we had to stop, the songs sounded darn good. I was so pleased that I celebrated by pouring water all over myself (like a Gatorade shower at the end of a football game).

We're thinking that a gig or two in the fall might be possible. Before then, we'll have at least a couple more of these gatherings. The plan is to have, by the time we're done, a set list that includes the songs above plus "Genesis Road," "Homecoming," "Fresh Horses," "Dizzy from the Distance," "None but the Lonely Heart" and "Landscapes."

Pictured above (l-r): me, Jobie (light & sound); Terry (guitar & vocals); Kirk (drums & vocals); Ben (sound); Jim (guitar); Harlon (bass & vocals).