Michael Amos Cody's Blog, page 15

Brief Thoughts about . . .

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West by Dee Brown

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

When I was in the midst of reading Brown’s book, I was beginning a course in American Literature to 1865. The first pieces we read are American Indian creation stories and trickster tales. We follow these with a couple of letters Columbus wrote about his voyages. I wanted the students, when they finished reading Columbus, to consider the validity of our having a Columbus Day. Looking around Youtube, I ran across a video arguing against those who would do away with the holiday and against the idea that the American Indians were victims of genocide. The video basically builds its arguments on selected moments and actions–when Indians successfully fought back, when they did bad things to other Indians, and so on. The argument is that the American Indian wasn’t a helpless victim but just became a beaten opponent.

Certainly the American Indians were not helpless and certainly they were often skilled in brutality. Just as certainly they won many battles. But reading through Dee Brown’s 1971 Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, I couldn’t put aside, then couldn’t get out from under, the weight of hopelessness that metaphorically crushed the American Indians of the American West. The so-called winning of the West is a legacy of Euro-American greed for land and gold and silver, a litany of lies and broken promises and broken treaties that runs through tribe after tribe throughout the West, and a plague of racial prejudice. These are the dark and devastating elements that are the reality of Manifest Destiny.

Dee Brown’s book is indeed an American Indian history of the West. But what it implies as well is that Euro-America — white America — had already perpetrated the same crimes against the Wampanoag and others in New England, the Cherokee and others in the American South, the Ojibwe and Osage and others in the Midwest.

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is a brutal and beautiful book.



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Noisy World

This is a noisy world that clamors for my short attention,

Talking heads that blather on and on and on . . .

“The Bells of Vimperk”

It really is a noisy world. It’s noisy with talk shows and screaming matches, with tears and laughter, with machinery, with so-called reality TV and podcasts and the oral diarrhea of all politicians and too many of the politically engaged and the meaningless niceties on the insincere and the feckless reasoning of the pseudo-intellectual or the real intellectual and the bootless rage of the arrogant ignorant or the simply ignorant ignorant. The list could go on.

But as some elements in the list above suggest, the world is not only aurally noisy but also emotionally noisy and spiritually noisy. Our greed is noisy. Our joy is noisy, which can be beautiful, but our culture pushes the idea that to be truly celebratory, our celebrations must be over-the-top with senseless, pointless screaming and jumping up and down — witness any game show, any clot of people upon whom turn the cameras of The Today Show or Good Morning, America. The world grows nosier and noisier with silent people staring into their screens with headphone stuffed in their ears. (My telephone just lit up without making a sound or vibrating, but it pushed this at me: “Trump’s 2020 campaign team is in hot water after inviting people to ‘send a brick’ to Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer’s offices.” Behind my eyes as I read that, some voice like my own growls, “WTF?” Silent noise!)

The ringing in my ears is most probably from my days of making loud music in clubs and studios, but still I blame the noisy world for it. They’re with me all the time — the noisy world and the ringing ears. My quiet times are marred either by ringing or by the hum of a fan meant to mask the ringing. Maybe some deep meaning is somewhere in that.

My own noisy mind complains that I’m wasting time here and that I should get to work, even though it’s Saturday morning:

“The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab and my loitering.”

So, I’ll get to work, but I’ll leave the blog with this that I read this morning, sitting in my CRV (with over 355,000 miles on it) at Buc Deli Drive-Thru and waiting for my tenderloin biscuit with added tomato, mustard, and jalapeños, sided with cheddar rounds and an unsweet tea:

To be alone by being part of the universe–fitting in completely to an environment of woods and silence and peace. Everything you do becomes a unity and a prayer. Unity within and without. Unity with all living things–without effort or contention. My silence is part of the whole world’s silence and builds the temple of God without the noise of hammers.

Thomas Merton, from “January 18: An Ecology of Silence,” A Year with Thomas Merton: Daily Meditations from His Journal (this excerpt written in January 1953)

To the Nines

1959, 1969, 1979, 1989, 1999, 2009, 2019 — I’ve now lived through six of these ’9s. Looking at the list, I can tell you that I don’t know much — not off the top of my head — about what happened in most of them. Having been born late in an ‘8 (1958), I know that I’ve been in a zero year of age from 1 January to 25 November in these years; that is, I was ten years old for most of ’69, twenty for most of ’79, and so on.

I’m sure I know almost nothing about 1959, although I feel certain that it was a big year for me personally — the world I knew was all about me. We lived in Sumter, South Carolina, that year. “We” were father Plumer Jean Cody, mother Dorothy Lee Reeves Cody, and brother — three years older — Robert Gerald “Jerry” Cody. I know this all to be true, but I I don’t know it through remembered experience. I’m sure I cooed and was cooed over. I’m sure I ate some stuff and stuffed some diapers — both coo-able actions in their own ways. I might have taken a few steps and said a few words, for which I was more loudly cooed over and perhaps even applauded. So, yeah, a big year for me, although I can’t really access any memories from it.

1969? War continued in Vietnam. Nixon was inaugurated. Apollo 11 took Armstrong and Aldrin out for a walk on the moon. Jethro Tull, Neil Diamond, The Beatles, The Band, The Rolling Stones. I was ten years old for most of the year, and we moved into the homeplace in Walnut with Mama Reeves. This is the house I will always think of with the phrase, “where I grew up.”

One of the most important events of my life took place in 1979. Like the proverbial prodigal son, I took something like an inheritance and spent the summer in Europe with 45+ other college students from around the US, mostly, with one I remember from South America (Argentina, I think) and one from Canada (Toronto, I think). For a twenty-year-old from the southern Appalachian mountains, it was a brilliant and life-changing trip. I’ll not try to go into much detail about this here. We journeyed together from the middle of June through the first week in August. Imagine: London, Paris, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, West Berlin in the days of the wall, Prague and Budapest and Belgrade behind the Iron Curtain, Vienna, Athens, Rome, Florence, Venice, Salzburg, Munich, Milan, Nice, Barcelona, and Madrid. Travel together formed strong friendships among several of us — lifetime friendships. In the middle of June 2019 a group from that group, some dozen of us will spend a week together in Sicily, celebrating our 40th anniversary.

My marriage to Leesa on 2 September 1989 made me, in one moment, both husband and father. I was thirty years old for most of the year. I’m just past sixty now. My life since then — almost half my life — has been defined by those roles, and it has been good to be so defined. I can’t say enough about Leesa and Lane and (later) Raleigh and (even later) those who have come into my life through our sons, so I won’t say more.

Okay, in 1999, I was teaching at Western Carolina University and working on my dissertation for my doctorate from the University of South Carolina. It was at the end of that year that I traveled to Chicago to interview for a position at Murray State University. Forty-one years old and just applying for my first real job. Again, a good life.

And 2009? I’m sure something momentous went on then, but I can’t recall the specifics. I was Associate Professor of English at ETSU and the Director of the University and Midway Honors Scholars Programs. My colleagues and I probably ate a lot at El Charolais, and I was beginning, I think, to plan a return to playing music live in Johnson City and Marshall. Let’s just say I was busy.

And 2019? As I type these words we’re forty-four minutes in and all’s well so far. The boys are with their significant others in North Carolina and Tennessee. Leesa and I are vacationing in Charleston, South Carolina, and she is in bed asleep. I don’t know what this year will bring to me, a sixty- year-old for the bigger part of it (until 25 November). And at this point, I’ll not try to think my way into and through it. Much better to join Leesa for now.

Happy New Year to you all!

To the ‘9s

1959, 1969, 1979, 1989, 1999, 2009, 2019 — I’ve now lived through six of these ‘9s. Looking at the list, I can tell you that I don’t know much — not off the top of my head — about what happened in most of them. Having been born late in an ‘8 (1958), I know that I’ve been in a zero year of age from 1 January to 25 November in these years; that is, I was ten years old for most of ’69, twenty for most of ’79, and so on.

I’m sure I know almost nothing about 1959, although I feel certain that it was a big year for me personally — the world I knew was all about me. We lived in Sumter, South Carolina, that year. “We” were father Plumer Jean Cody, mother Dorothy Lee Reeves Cody, and brother — three years older — Robert Gerald “Jerry” Cody. I know this all to be true, but I I don’t know it through remembered experience. I’m sure I cooed and was cooed over. I’m sure I ate some stuff and stuffed some diapers — both coo-able actions in their own ways. I might have taken a few steps and said a few words, for which I was more loudly cooed over and perhaps even applauded. So, yeah, a big year for me, although I can’t really access any memories from it.

1969? War continued in Vietnam. Nixon was inaugurated. Apollo 11 took Armstrong and Aldrin out for a walk on the moon. Jethro Tull, Neil Diamond, The Beatles, The Band, The Rolling Stones. I was ten years old for most of the year, and we moved into the homeplace in Walnut with Mama Reeves. This is the house I will always think of with the phrase, “where I grew up.”

One of the most important events of my life took place in 1979. Like the proverbial prodigal son, I took something like an inheritance and spent the summer in Europe with 45+ other college students from around the US, mostly, with one I remember from South America (Argentina, I think) and one from Canada (Toronto, I think). For a twenty-year-old from the southern Appalachian mountains, it was a brilliant and life-changing trip. I’ll not try to go into much detail about this here. We journeyed together from the middle of June through the first week in August. Imagine: London, Paris, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, West Berlin in the days of the wall, Prague and Budapest and Belgrade behind the Iron Curtain, Vienna, Athens, Rome, Florence, Venice, Salzburg, Munich, Milan, Nice, Barcelona, and Madrid. Travel together formed strong friendships among several of us — lifetime friendships. In the middle of June 2019 a group from that group, some dozen of us will spend a week together in Sicily, celebrating our 40th anniversary.

My marriage to Leesa on 2 September 1989 made me, in one moment, both husband and father. I was thirty years old for most of the year. I’m just past sixty now. My life since then — almost half my life — has been defined by those roles, and it has been good to be so defined. I can’t say enough about Leesa and Lane and (later) Raleigh and (even later) those who have come into my life through our sons, so I won’t say more.

Okay, in 1999, I was teaching at Western Carolina University and working on my dissertation for my doctorate from the University of South Carolina. It was at the end of that year that I traveled to Chicago to interview for a position at Murray State University. Forty-one years old and just applying for my first real job. Again, a good life.

And 2009? I’m sure something momentous went on then, but I can’t recall the specifics. I was Associate Professor of English at ETSU and the Director of the University and Midway Honors Scholars Programs. My colleagues and I probably ate a lot at El Charolais, and I was beginning, I think, bot return to playing music live in Johnson City and Marshall. Let’s just say I was busy.

And 2019? Well, as I type these words we’re forty-four minutes in and all’s well so far. The boys are with their significant others in North Carolina and Tennessee. Leesa and I are vacationing in Charleston, South Carolina, and she is in bed asleep. I don’t know what this year will bring to me, a sixty- year-old for the bigger part of it (until 25 November). And at this point, I’ll not try to think my way into and through it. Much better to join Leesa.

Yesterday & Tomorrow

My old journals are stacked on my desk at ETSU, and I’ve been looking through them the past couple of weeks and posting some entries for Throwback Thursdays. Maybe it’s having turned 60 on 25 November that pushes me through the pages of old handwriting and lived life. I don’t know. Anyway, what jumped out at me just now (as I should have been doing something else) were two different entries: one dated 21 December 1981, another dated 23 December 1989. The first is short and the second is long, but I’ll edit both a little bit here.

Captain’s Log / Stardate 8112.21 [December 21, 1981 — a Monday]

Well, it’s a little more than tomorrow for the news, almost a week I guess. [This refers to a short entry dated 8112.15 or December 15, 1981, which reads as follows: Today was the day of the signing! However, we had a long, hard ride back home, so I’ll get sleep first and give details tomorrow . . . Thy will be done] We hit Earl’s office around 10:30 AM and talked over some plans for the album. We then signed the papers and papers and picked up our money ($1500 for me!). Before leaving for home, we stopped at Red Lobster for a pig session. The ride home was a lot of fun and since then I’ve been here at the house trying to write some and in Asheville trying to get my Christmas shopping done . . . remember the real Christmas

In the above, “We” is Ron Weathers and I. He was my manager at the time. “Earl” is Earl Richards (aka Earl Sinks), who had been something of a jack-of-all-trades in the music business. He had some historical connection to Buddy Holly in Texas. He’d written and recorded some records (check out “Margie, Who’s Watching the Baby”). He’d starred in at least one music-based movie (That Tennessee Beat). The papers signed amounted to a publishing contract for my songs and songwriting and a production contract for recording; the latter led to, among other things, two albums recorded but never released. I don’t remember what the first one was to be called (maybe Fiesta), but the second one was Waiting for the Night.

Then came eight years of living. . . .

Captain’s Log / Saturday December 23, 1989

It is my first Christmas as a family man. I don’t know if it is this or my age of 31, but I’ve thought little about what I might get for Christmas. I seem to be waiting for Leesa’s reaction to what I give her and Lane’s reaction to what Leesa and I give him. It’s a good feeling. Still it has all been so hectic, I’ve not had time enough to focus on the meaning of Christmas. No time enough to think on the wonder of the Christ child being born again into the world and my life.

But into this world, in this season, it is not a silent night. Christmas will hear celebration and mourning. There will be celebration in East Germany where the wall has come down! Communism has fallen there, in Poland, in Hungary, and in Czechoslovakia. In most of these places, a socialist/democratic society will replace the former government. This wonderful event in Eastern Europe was brought about by the Soviet’s opening up. Gorbachev is fighting the old line communist history and is trying to begin a new ear in that part of the world. It has been an amazing time of change since October and it continues. Celebration and mourning mix today in Romania [I actually wrote Rumania]. The people there have risen up against their Dracula-type leader and they have finally broken the government, although not without a great deal of bloodshed. Most of the other countries accomplished their victories without killing, but in [Romania] thousands have died, most of them killed by their former leader’s private police.

Closer to home, four days ago, President Bush sent several thousand of our armed forces to invade Panama. An American serviceman was killed last week and so Bush retaliated with this. The main objective was to capture dictator Noriega and place a democratic government in power. The latter was shakily accomplished but seems to be getting its legs under it. Noriega, however, was not captured and the Panamanians are not excited about what has happened and probably will not be until N. is captured. I know Bush’s idea was to take the American serviceman’s death as opportunity to kick Panama’s dictator out, but after all the uplifting progress in Eastern Europe, the Panamanian incident seems ill-times and a slap in the face of the world spirit.* [*Also, the world turned its eyes from the life and death struggle in Rumania to watch the fiasco in Panama, just at the time Rumanians needed world support. I admire those people for pushing their cause through in spite of P. Bush.] I realize there is little human-made peace her on earth but I can’t help wondering what is the harm in hope.

On the home front, uncle June, Amos Kenneth Reeves, died in Michigan on Thursday December 14. He had problems over the last couple of years but still, the death was sudden. Ernie spoke with him Monday 12/11 and all was well. Mom spoke with him Wednesday evening 12/13 and he sounded fine but for a little short of breath. He ate breakfast Thursday morning with Eileen and great-granddaughter, Lisa, then laid down on the couch and soon began gasping for breath. First Eileen, then the paramedics worked on him before he got to the hospital. He was mostly dead all day and had a very unconscious struggle. Mom and Dad, JD, Mac[k], and Ernie left midday Friday 12/15 and had bad weather and traffic all the way and didn’t arrive in Port Huron until mid-afternoon Sunday. Jerry and I left around 7am from Walnut and got to Ken’s house in Marysville around 8pm. Ken had been taking his father’s death pretty hard but Jerry’s presence seemed to calm him quite a bit. I didn’t want to make the trip at first, having a strong dislike for funerals, but I’m glad I went and I think the family was glad I was there. I will always remember June as laughing and singing and telling stories. I have a wonderful remembrance of him. A few months ago he sent me a tape of himself singing some old gospel and western and Appalachian tunes.

Mack had a prayer at the funeral but said some wonderful things before he prayed. It was a picture of the Reeves boys with June in the center, having the most likeness of character to Papa who begat them all. I sometimes wonder how Mack can do things like that without faltering. Is it strength? Distance? Practice? Showmanship? Sheer talent? I am hoping it is a combination of the first and last. Jerry and I could neither do such a chore, being emotional and choked-up almost to a fault. I cry easily at stupid things and find more strength for worthwhile things. I don’t know that Jerry falters at the stupid, but he chokes completely when the situation is intensely touching. Why are we like that, the both of us?

. . . My biggest dread was not so much arriving in Michigan to the sorrow caused by June’s death, but rather knowing I could not leave without going to see Rod, my older cousin with MS. He’s had the disease for eight years and it has progressed rapidly. He has no use of his legs, vision is bad, speech slurred, head, arm, and hands shake uncontrollably at times. My fears of seeing him was not so much in the disease as in the difference. I last saw him when he was whole and had his family in Walnut. His wife, Diane, sat on the porch with Rod and me until very late. We talked of so many things and established a bond that was never formed when he used to chase and catch and torture me. Still, seeing him was not what I had figured it to be. Beyond all the disease has done to him, he is still the same personality and it wasn’t very long before we laughed and I felt more at ease. I will see him again without so much dread.

Married life is great. The career has its moments. I will write of these tomorrow perhaps, or at least within the next week. It is 2:28am on a busy Christmas Eve and I need to get some sleep. . . .

Half a lifetime ago! Leesa and I are on the verge of spending our 29th Christmas together as married folk. Lane is 42 and Raleigh, less than two years from being born when the later entry above was written, is 27. Gone since December 1989 are my uncles JD and Mack, their Michigan brothers and sisters not mentioned above (Doc, Evoline, and Harold), and cousin Rod, whom I never saw again.

It is Christmas time again, but it’s a lot different. Maybe more on that in a few days.

Throwback Thursday, Dec. 13

Here’s another excerpt from my Captain’s Log for December 13. This time it’s again from 1977, so I was toward the end of my first semester as a music major (flute) at Mars Hill College.

Captain’s Log: Stardate 121.377 [December 13, 1977]

I’m at home, in bed, with a cold Mountain Dew. This is the life! I took my theory test today and just come on home. Unless I was carless [sic] in what I was doing, I think I did OK., I can recall only two places where she may count me wrong. Anyway I came home, unloaded the car and went to Joe’s ballgame. They played well and won 80-64, it was great.

I’m really not out of school yet. Thursday [December 13 in 1977 fell on a Tuesday] I’ll have to take some critiques to George, pay a bill at the bookstore, and get the rest of my clothes. We’re going to do our cantata tomorrow night for the Presbyterian Church in Marshall. Lord willing it will bless us and the congregation and lift up the name of God as much as it did last Sunday. Jobie’s gonna come record the ceremony if it’s all right with everyone. Well it’s been a long day . . . . I thank God for every minute of it.

In November 1977, I turned 19 years old, so I was just three weeks or so into that age. I don’t really remember what classes I took, but I’m guessing that the George mentioned was George Peery, iconic political science professor at Mars Hill College for more than 30 years. I remember that some of my dorm mates and I spent many of our lunchtimes watching The Gong Show. I’m sure that I had flute lessons and band and, as suggested above, a music theory class. I think my previous post from that year mentioned a math class. I probably had English as well — freshman composition. I remember having Dr. Pat Verhulst for one of my composition classes. Sometime early in the semester I had her for an instructor, maybe when I turned in my second essay, she took me aside and said, “You don’t have to come back anymore.” That was cool for a young writer like myself.

Hurricane Help

Purchase @ Amazon.com

I bought a copy of  Whose Boat Is This Boat? and contributed to helping people and areas hit hard by Hurricanes Florence and Michael. The creators and publisher of the book are donating 100% of the proceeds via the various organizations working with hurricane victims and devastated areas: Foundation for the Carolinas, One SC Relief Fund, North Carolina Disaster Relief Fund, World Central Kitchen, and Florida Disaster Relief Fund.

This week, Stephen Colbert made a big announcement about how much purchasers of the book have contributed to the relief cause in this fun way:

Throwback Thursday

I thought I’d wander back through diaries that I kept on and off for several years and see what I could find with today’s date, 6 December. I found a couple: one from 1977 and one from 1981. Both are back in my Trekkie days, which were, admittedly, not fanatically so. I liked the show but didn’t let it take over my life. I called my diary Captain’s Log and used a few different dating systems, both of which are translated with the transcriptions below. I’m going to try not to edit the writing, so that my mistakes in spelling and grammar stand.

Captain’s Log: 120.677 [December 6, 1977]

It’s 8:00 AM and snowing. It really looks good. I told Phil on Saturday that it was gonna snow today. I hope to pass all of my tests and go to ballgame tonight. At the ballgame I hope to see Madison beat Reynolds and Leesa. . . . Lord, be my guide this day

Captain’s Log: Supplimental

Today has ended rather boring, but well. I made 84 on my Math 110 test so I’m out of there with an 87.

It continued snowing and freezing the rest of the day so the games were called (I didn’t get to see Leesa). We all sat around tonight listening to music then watching “Houston, We’ve Got a Problem” . . . . God be praised!!!

My Mars Hill College ID Card

Okay, so I was a first-semester freshman music major (flute) at Mars Hill College when I wrote this. I was living on campus in Spilman Hall. My roommate was Johnny Sawyer, with whom I’d grown up in Walnut. He was hardly ever there, so it was like having a private room. The Phil mentioned is Phil Shuford, who lived across the hall with his roommate Yogi Something. I don’t know where Yogi is, but Phil lives in Ozark, Missouri. We’re friends on Facebook. The math course I reference was an early computer course, in which we learned to create those punched cards that were the apps of 1977. And in those MHC days, Leesa was in my heart and mind but not with me. She’d begun her career at Creative Hair Design in Asheville and was working hard to build a clientele and support herself and Lane, who was seventeen months old at the time.

Captain’s Log          Stardate 8112.06 [December 6, 1981]

As seems almost usual for me on Sunday morning, I woke up ill at the world. The Lord knows how hard it is for me to get up before 11 AM. I almost decided not to go to church, like every Sunday, thinking that I got nothing from the small, country service. Then I realised, as always, that they are my people and, even though I may get nothing from the service but seeing them and feeling their friendship, that is enough. Then I also come face-to-face with the fact that the singing I dread with such passion is for them and not for me, and that, being graciously given the gift from God, it is my duty to sing for them. It should also be my desire to do so. Well, Allen met me at the door asking if what he heard about me signing with Capitol was true and he was followed closely by Butch asking the same. I quickly gave them my practiced explanation about Townhouse but they were still pleased. When time for me to sing came around, as I was getting my guitar, Raymond spoke up about my struggles with my music and my witness for the church and my hopefully impending record deal. Then totally unexpectedly he suggested a standing ovation for me and I was overwhelmed. If it is not the Lord’s will for me that this all go through all right, He sure is planning to teach me a great lesson in disappointment. Even at that, though, this morning was a great blessing, and I am very thankful for all those people there.

As far as my music and my career go, I am constantly trying to ask with a sincere heart that the Father’s Will be done and not my own. I could live with losing this deal but not with going against His plans for me.

Oh, in church I sang “A SONG FOR CAROLINA” and “DEAR MOTHER”.

The rest of the day was the usual big chicken dinner and lazy Sunday afternoon. I did, however, add music to and edit some lyrics I wrote last night called “DO YOU EVER MISS ME”

We practiced for the Christmas program this evening then I returned home to watch “YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN” on the tube.

As always it is quite late as I write this so I’ll sign off for now…MC…”Dear Mother, I know He’ll come again”

I’d left Mars Hill College two years before, December 1979, in the middle of my junior year, and transferred to Belmont College in Nashville for the spring semester of 1980, to study music business. But it was too much business and not enough music, so I stayed only one semester before transferring to UNC-Asheville–as an English major–for half the fall semester of that year before quitting altogether. I lived at home in Walnut, writing songs and playing solo at different events and venues around the area. I had a manager named Ron Weathers, who worked out of Asheville, and we’d spent some time in Nashville, where Earl Richards recorded my songs for his publishing and production companies. Earl had cut a deal with Townhouse Records, which was distributed by Capitol Records, and my first album was in the works.

The Townhouse/Capitol thing eventually fell through. Although I probably still have the lyric somewhere, I don’t remember anything about “Do You Ever Miss Me”; most likely it was a Leesa lyric. I remember singing “A Song for Carolina” at a couple of big events, one of which was the ceremony in Raleigh, North Carolina, celebrating Liston B. Ramsey’s ascension to Speaker of the state’s House of Representatives, but again, I remember little about it. “Dear Mother” I still perform now and then.

“Thixty!?!”

I shouldn’t begin with the punchline to this story, but it’s popped into my mind more than once in the past few months as this perceived-to-be-significant birthday has been on the horizon. I was in Nashville, hanging out at Bullet Recording Studio with Earl Richards, jb, and a band called Dreamer. Earl was stripping my vocals and some of the instrumentation from my “Thunder and Lightning” and adding steel guitar and a couple of other countrified additions to go with Dreamer’s vocals, remaking the song into a country record. It was the wee hours, maybe two o’clock in the morning, and Dreamer was hungry. Earl thought up an order and asked me to go down to Krystal on West End for some cheap eats.

So, I made the short trip and walked up to the counter, where a short woman, probably in her 30s awaited my order. She wore the company headgear of those days (which might not be the same as pictured here). Her black hair was escaping whatever means she was using to try and contain it. And when she smiled her welcome, she was missing her two top front teeth.

“Can I help you?” she asked, at the ready to take my order.

“Yeah, I’d like sixty Krystals, ple–“

“Thixty!?!” she exclaimed, squinting up at me.

It’s a funny memory, and I’ve often shared it with friends over the years. Her expression has faded somewhat now, but I can still hear the way she said — or sprayed — sixty. And as I’ve been approaching my 60th birthday, I’ve heard that funny exclamation often, and I find myself thinking it–not only in relation to that number of the little gut bombs but also to my years on Earth–with something of the same surprise and shock she must’ve felt when I started my order.

November 25, 1958, 1:57 AM, the hospital at Shaw Air Force Base in Sumter, South Carolina.

We lived in Sumter for a couple of years, I think, before moving to Fayetteville, North Carolina, for a couple more and then “home” to Walnut.

From zero to sixty in ever accelerating years . . .

November is a problematic month for me. I lost both my father and father-in-law in separate Novembers. But at least it has Thanksgiving, perhaps the best and least commercialized of the major holidays in these United States of America. And November has my birthday, although I’m finding that increasingly problematic as well.

As my computer counts down to 1:57 AM on November 25, 2918, I’m in South Carolina again. In Charleston this time, the Holy City, with Leesa. Nothing could be finer.

I’m sure I thought I would write a lot more than this on such a momentous occasion, but it’s practically two o’clock in the morning, for crying out loud! And I’m now sixty years old!

Dad, Veteran’s Day, & Thomas Merton

So, it’s late on Sunday, 11 November 2018, Veteran’s Day in the United States of America. The most important veteran that I celebrate today is my father, Plumer Jean Cody, who served in the Air Force from early in the 1950s — maybe even from ’48 or ’49 — into the early 1960s. His service was probably the most significant individual experience in his life, and before he, at sixty-five years old, walked on into the next world on 7 November 1996, twenty-two years ago, he and Mom had begun attending reunions of the 602nd Aircraft Control and Warning Squadron, Birkenfeld, Germany. He was really enjoying those reunions.

On the twenty-second anniversary of his leaving us, I was reading the 7 November entry from A Year with Thomas Merton: Daily Meditations from His Journals. That day’s reading is titled “Working for Peace.” Here’s what Merton wrote on 12 November 1961, less than two weeks before I turned three years old and sometime near the period when Dad retired from the Air Force and we moved our mobile home from Trailer Town in Fayetteville, North Carolina, to the end of the long yard at the Reeves homeplace in Walnut:

I must pray more and more for courage, as I certainly have neither the courage nor the strength to follow the path that is certainly my duty now.

With the fears and rages that possess so many confused people, if I say things that seem to threaten their interests or conflict with obsessions, then I will surely get it.

It is shocking that so many are convinced that the Communists are about to invade or destroy America: “Christians” who think the only remedy is to destroy them first. Who thinks seriously of disarming? For whom is it more than a pious wish, beyond the bounds of practicality?

I need patience to listen, to learn, to try to understand, and courage to take all the consequences and be really faithful. This alone is a full-time job. I dread it, but it must be done, and I don’t quite know how. To save my soul by trying to be one of those who spoke and worked for peace, not for madness and destruction.

November 12, 1961, IV.179

Although I didn’t write in Gabriel’s Songbook about a military man like my dad, I’ve begun to adapt rumors, legends, and stories heard about Dad’s time in the Air Force into other pieces I’m writing. Although I’m not a poet, here are the closing lines from a poem I wrote about him:

That night he shed his life like Wednesday’s dirty clothes

and would have been surprised by all who braved

early snows to see him laid down

in a proud soldier’s grave.

Southern Poetry Anthology, VI: Tennessee