Life with The Swell Guy!

New Music for Your Thursday

Great music crosses genres and boundaries. This is truly well made music. Enjoy.

I smile...

thinking about the weddings of both our girls last December. thinking of those special celebrations.

thinking of Denine going with me to work in Hawaii this past January. thinking of the things she has done to care for our family.

thinking of friends that have gathered around our table for great meals and conversation over the years. thinking of how much that looks like communion.

thinking of days like the one in this photo with my friend John as we rode our bikes out of Red Rock Canyon. thinking of sitting around the table in the evenings with a group of guys in Costa Rica.

thinking of how Denine says "Don't go" every time I leave the house for a road trip. thinking of things that make her laugh.

thinking of The Epic Man Trip on the Blues Trail in Mississippi. thinking of catching that amazing fish with Kevin.

thinking of the laughter that I heard last week when our girls were home and they were in the living room hanging out with their husbands while Denine and I cooked. thinking of all the good things our kids have in front of them.

thinking of sitting with good friends last night and talking about our lives together. thinking of the laughter when we are together.

thinking of all the good men and women placed in our lives over the years...good people who have loved us well.

thinking of how BIG Jesus is. thinking of how he invites us to join his work to bring his kingdom. now.

-

I am grateful. I am humbled. And I don't take it for granted. I am blessed.

A good way to ease in to a rainy Monday morning

Please enjoy Ella with Joe Pass. Have a nice day.

Lunchbox

When I was a kid we lived a distance from a town of any size. Most of our household provisions where purchased on the once-a-week visit to Pokomoke City, MD. We went on Saturday mornings because my sister and I took piano lessons with Mrs. Stevens. While my sister took her lesson I often wandered up to the Newberry's Department Store to check out stuff-of-interest. Afterwards we stopped at the A&P Supermarket on the edge of town to stock up on food and laundry detergent. The Eight O'clock coffee was ground right at the checkout and the air smelled great, but we only bought it when my grandfather came to visit.

Several times a year we took The Big Trip and went to The Mall and Other Big Stores in Salisbury, MD. As a kid I thought Salisbury was quite the metropolis until I heard of the mecca called Wilmington, DE which existed several hours north. I knew they had footballs teams and more in places like Baltimore and Washington, DC, but those places were in aonther universe that I had not yet seen.

One of those trips each year was the "Back To School" marathon when we purchased clothing and supplies for the new school year. They had a Real Sears Store instead of the Sears Catalog Store that was in Pocomoke. Between the two Sears my mom dressed me with selections from the "Boys Husky Department".

But the Apex of the Back-To-School trip was the Selection of The Lunch Box. We had a modest upbringing, but a new school year did involve a new lunch box. If there ever was a boy's second or third grade fashion statement it was the toting of a most awesome lunch box. Old lunch boxes were recycled to Hold Important Kid Stuff in the bedroom and that new vessel was hiked into the new school year.

I was a Hot Wheels, Evel Knievel, and Super Friends kind of boy. One year I went with a Gunsmoke pail because Matt Dillion played by James Arness was it. IT. Every Monday night we got dose of U.S. Marshall Dillon and Festus taking care of business and protecting the town where Miss Kitty ran the salon and Doc patched you up. Hey, even John Wayne was a fan of James Arness. Who needs The Smurfs?

Several weeks later school started and we packed off with 100 sheet wide rule black marble composition books, No. 2 pencils, and lunchboxes. Trapper Keepers would come a few years later. Most days I did not look inside the box until lunch period.

My lunchbox usually contained these basic staples: A bologna sandwich with American cheese & mustard or if I was lucky - a can of Vienna Sausage. Man did I love those Vienna Sausage! There was fruit or pudding cup along with a pack of crackers, bag of chips, or sweet snack courtesy of Little Debbie or one of her friends at Hostess. My Thermos usually had Tang, or Kool-Aid, or in the winter it might contain hot soup. So a epic day would be Vienna Sausage - Del Monte Fruit Cocktail - Ho Hos - and lime Kool-Aid. That was living large. And I'll add that these foods, my friends, represent the real basic four food groups.

By middle school we all became too cool for lunchboxes and convinced our parents that school lunch was the way to go. Years later I purchased a Fat Albert lunchbox at a local auction and I carried my grandfathers scuffed-up gray painted metal lunchbox to work for several years. It was usually packed dinner leftovers and fruit. I've not eaten a Vienna Sausage in a long time.

These days I don't think about my school lunch box very often, but when I do it serves as a bit of a metaphor. Whatever ever my mom managed to pack inside may have or may not have been my favorite, but it was something that took care of what I needed to get me through the day. That is a bit how trust works with God. It seems we so often get hung up on what we want, but if we can take a moment to think about it don't we get what we need? And if we stop worrying about what is there we find all that we need has already been done. So simple, but it can free us for other, perhaps bigger things.

That is it for today. Go in peace, Super Friend.

Zig

A Great Song. A really bad lip sync. AND maybe we should never show white people dancing again...

Journey - A Road Trip Essay

Us guys like lunch with the boys. And we like to laugh. Men getting together for a meal typically involves food, some hollering, and an overall good time. My crew - we call it Man Lunch.

The idea started during one of those lunch conversations. We were catching up, sharing life, and enjoying a bit of humor. During one of those moments, someone said something about The Boys going on a trip. Bang.

We all thought it was a grand idea. The possibilities were grander. The opportunities before us were insurmountable. For some that turned out to be true.

All of us were down for a Big Trip. Yea, down. We agreed it would be a road trip. You can fly or float quite a few places, but we had an urge for the open road.

But life kept getting in the way. Our splendid possibilities were delayed with the usual stuff of life. Steve-O took a job in another town that takes up all his weekends. We are happy for him. He loves his new life. But that put him out. Other guys eventually said they wanted to do a trip, but it would be a while for a variety of reasons. They all were good reasons. Sometimes you can go and sometimes you can't go. That is just how life works.

But two of us, me and Paul, could go. In fact, we had to go. It was time. When it is time to roll the details come easy. It all fits together. We cobbled an agenda that contained a good plan, but left plenty of time to explore and relax and just be wherever the road led. As the details emerged we gave it a name. On the agreed date we left for the Epic Man Trip.

Epic Man Trip. Road Trip. Pilgrimage. Whatever you name it, why do we feel the call to go wander? Is it we need downtime? Is it in our DNA to go explore? Do we find something new in us when we go look at what happened before?

Carl Jung identified the road trip as a "persistent element of human culture." Some historians say the first recorded road trim was Ramesses II who was noted for taking long chariot rides around Egypt and into the middle east. That was not exactly day tripping more than 1000 years before Christ. Me? I think sometimes we just need to get out there and bump around a little.

We headed out on "Leap Day" 2012. The end of February in The South captures that bite between the end of winter and just where spring is still trying to get its legs moving. Over the next five days we saw some of that which had ended as well as the hope of things new.

Our departure was early morning and we headed out the road packed with cloths, cameras, musical gear, and yes, road music. We turned south. Going Deep South. Day one covered the width of Georgia. Then across Alabama where Paul commented "Alabama makes South Carolina look good" and then on into Mississippi. Our plan was to go down through the hill country in into the delta chasing the blues music trail. Paulie planned on documenting parts of the journey on video and I was happy to note what caught my eye with a camera.

We ended the first day in Starkville, MS where we had Communion Pizza at Dave's Dark Horse Tavern with our friend Bert Montgomery who led us right into an encounter with Johnny Cash (it's true) or at the very least the local legend of Johnny Cash. Later on that evening we managed a few moments jamming to the blues. It was a fitting start to our journey. We had found friends, heard stories, and discovered part of the past in a fresh new way. Already we had begun finding what we needed.

The coming days did not disappoint. We saw the connections that molded slave music into gospel, blues, & country and then eventually rock & roll. Folks continued to tell us their stories of times lost and history redeemed, as well as about the here and now. And in quiet moments the car just hummed along, or we reflected on a porch, or we just stood at the edge of the Delta fields and watched large tractors turning over the spring dirt while we wondered how many men it took to do that by hand in previous times.

Our adventure took us to delta towns like Greenwood, and Sunflower, and Cleveland, and on up HIghway 61 to Clarksdale. We visited Robert Johnson's grave, and The Crossroads of Highway 61 & 49, and Dockery Farms Plantation, and Red's Juke Joint. We ate local, we heard local music and we even lived a bit local by spending a few nights in an old farm shack. By the weekend we rolled to our final stop in Memphis to see Graceland, Sun Studio, The Stax Records Museum, and then that last night down to Beale Street where on that Saturday night more Top 40 bands than blues bands played on stages. Many folks down in Mississippi have found Memphis the headwater to a larger life, but crossing that last river is a world apart.

That final afternoon in Memphis we realized we had seen and heard about as much as we could handle on a short road trip. We made one more brief stop on the way to the our hotel. On April 4, 1968 Martin Luther King, Jr. was gunned down on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel at 450 Mulberry Street. At this place hate ended a life, but the national journey towards civil rights did not stop moving forward. On this cool clear afternoon we just stood and looked at that old motel. I'm not sure if either of us said a word. I do remember thinking this place was far more powerful than I imagined.

We fired the engine for home early Sunday morning. A study selection of road tunes poured out of the speakers and we talked about heading home to our wives. The trip had been Epic, but it was time to get on back to our girls. We reminded each other that we are two of the luckiest men on the planet to have these women who love us, tolerate us, and laugh with us.

Both of us agreed that the beginning, middle, and end of every story and every journey has importance. It can be so easy to get distracted or anxious with the process. We become obsessed with the beginning or end and overlook the good parts in between. Perhaps some days it is best to know we are just somewhere between the beginning and the end of the journey and that is good enough. Yes, it is better than good enough with me. A lot of what is best in life can happen when we are satisfied and excited and some days mystified with just being somewhere in the middle of this story called life. That journey ended, but the bigger one continues. What a trip. It was Epic.

---

All I'm saying is simply this, that all life is interrelated, that somehow we're caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. For some strange reason, I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. You can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality. —Dr. Martin Luther King Jr

--- 

On the last day of February 2012 two guys cashed in trip passes with their wives and headed off to the open road to chase the blues trail through rural Mississippi. They found what they were looking for and remembered they had more then they deserved in life and back at home. This is one of their stories.

But there can be no art without pain. - Tim Joe Comstock

The Trailer Park Cyclist is the best writer that I know. I beg the forgiveness of several writer friends that I have had the opportunity to meet and know. I'm just stating what I know.

So long, Levon Helm. We'll see you in Nazareth.

Fresh Sushi Made Daily @The Piggly Wiggly?

I love The Pig. I really do, but this does not seem quite right. Perhaps The Apocalypse IS upon us.

Friday night. Green Egg Pizza with My Girl. Yeah, Man!