Jim Jones's Blog, page 6
July 8, 2014
AN IRISH TEXAN (WHERE’S JOE?)
The title is misleading. My friend, Joe Weisgerber, was Canadian of German and Russian extraction. In his hometown of Weyburn, Saskatchewan, he was a hockey player, a boxer, a wheat farmer and a musician. In a tale of twists and turns that only he could do justice to, Joe and his family wound up in the Dallas, Texas area where he worked for years as a psychiatric nurse. There was a thriving community of Irish, English, Scots, Welsh and Aussies who hung out first at a little pub known as the Quiet Man and eventually, at a pub called the NFL…nothing to do with football, it was Nick Farrelly’s Lounge. It was there that the band, the Irish Texans, took root.
I got suckered into joining…I mean, I was invited to join the band in 1975. For some inexplicable reason, we were one of the hottest bands in Dallas, playing to a packed house every Friday night. We played a mix of Irish pub and rebel songs along with the popular Waylon & Willie tunes of the day and a few of my originals tunes. Joe was not a great singer and he was a terrible guitar player. Once, he sang a song in the key of C while playing in the key of F, which in case you didn’t know, should be neurologically impossible. He was, however, one of the greatest entertainers I’ve ever seen. He enjoyed himself immensely and he was pretty sure you would enjoy him, too. More often than not, he was right. I’m not talking about ego; he just genuinely loved music and singing and couldn’t imagine that anyone felt differently.
This was back when the rest of the boys in the band, me included, were young, single and a bit wild. When we finished playing, we’d drink shots of tequila and flirt with the girls while he tore down and unloaded the stage. He never complained…but he always managed to find a way to “get” us back when we least expected it. When he did, he would cackle uproariously. He was one of the most good-natured individuals I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing, but he did have a little bit of a mean streak. That’s okay, we deserved it.
We toured Ireland on three occasions and Canada twice. Those are some of the most wonderful memories I have…I wish you could have been there. Joe made friends wherever he went and it would take him thirty minutes to walk through a crowded room. Everyone wanted to talk with him and he wanted to talk with everyone. In Ireland, this resulted in our losing him with great frequency. We’d head to the van to drive to the next gig and when we looked around, he was nowhere to be found. “Where’s Joe” became our mantra. It also became a signature song of mine for the Irish Texans. Funny enough, I’ve played it for his new friends down in the Rio GrandeValley where he was a “summer Texan” (sorry Jim Wilson) and they always got it immediately.
I was already passionate about writing and singing music by the time I met Joe but I learned from him how to be passionate about entertaining people and making sure they had as good a time as we did. As a band, we weren’t particularly good, but we were a LOT of fun. Our fans sang with us, laughed with us and on occasion, cried with us. Along the way, many of them became life-long friends. We played at wakes and weddings, debutante balls and honky-tonks. As I’ve recounted before, we played in Northern Ireland and we had guns pointed at us. Through it all, Joe was there leading the way (except for when we lost him, but that never lasted long). He was probably the most decent person I’ve ever known, generous, compassionate and loving.
Sometime during the night of June 30, Joe left us. No one saw it coming. His oldest son, Kenneth, told me his dad was “making plans right up to the end.” That was Joe. He was like the energizer bunny, except with a guitar instead of a drum. I am so thankful that I spent a week this past March with Joe and two other Irish Texan stalwarts playing our music one more time for the folks down in the Rio GrandeValley. I still can’t quite grasp that he’s gone. Nobody lives forever but if anyone was going to pull it off, it would have been Joe.
Joe was a devout Catholic and while he never preached at the rest of us, he was steadfast in his beliefs. If he could speak to me now, I know he would tell me that it’s okay, that he’s with his Father. There’s a lot I don’t know…but I believe that to be true. I expect about now Joe is setting up a sound system and organizing a jam session. We always said he would sing at the drop of a hat. I figure he’s looking around to see if any of the angels is wearing hat. If one doesn’t drop pretty soon, he’s not above knocking it off. I can hear him now…“If you’re Irish, come into the parlor, there’s a welcome there for you.” RIP Joe Weisgerber. We miss you more than we can say.
July 1, 2014
WESTERN WRITERS OF AMERICA
The paragraph above sounds like a blurb out of a promotional flyer. Let me tell you what it’s really like to be a member of WWA and to attend the annual convention. When you attend your first convention, you’ll find the friendliest, most supportive folks who go out of their way to make you feel welcome. This just continues every year and these people become your friends. Some of them have won Pulitzers, Emmys, Oscars, Grammys; some of them write for a Western travel magazine. Doesn’t matter…they write the West.
One of my friends is Bill Groneman, whom I met for the first time in Knoxville in 2010. He is an expert on the Alamo and was on a panel discussing Davey Crockett (who MUCH preferred to be called David, by the way…who knew?). Paul Hutton, then executive director and renowned history professor, introduced Bill as a “hero of 9/11,” which Bill hates. You see, Bill is a retired Captain of the New York City Fire Department and was indeed in the thick of it when our country was attacked. Although he now lives in Kerrville, TX, just up the road from the Alamo, he was born and raised in NYC. I asked him how a guy from Brooklyn (or thereabouts…I get lost in all their little inter-neighborhood squabbles) came to be an expert on the most famous battle in Texas history. He said, “Walt Disney.” He got hooked on the Fess Parker/Davey Crocket story that aired back in the 1950s and has been fascinated with the Alamo ever since. Anyone who questions whether we need heroes as role models for our children to emulate need look no farther than Bill’s story.
Bill, our friend Carol Markstrom, and I have become responsible for the “Music Room” which happens every night during the convention. Anyone who plays an instrument is welcome to participate and we have a good old down-home jam session. We usually start around 9 PM and go until the musicians are too tired to continue. Inevitably, there are Western authors clamoring for more (since they usually put the music room close to the hotel bar, they tend to “clamor” quite loudly and insistently!). We play original material, cover songs, instrumentals and anything else we feel compelled to sing. Bill’s specialties are Irish songs and parody songs…last year when we met in Las Vegas, he wrote “I Wish They All Could Be Western Writers Girls.” Carol is a professor of Native American studies at West Virginia University who has developed into a fine singer/songwriter over the past four years. She now performs at a number of the Cowboy Gatherings throughout the West.
People grow when they participate in the Western Writers. As I mentioned, Carol was a successful academic with major non-fiction publications under her belt. Now she is a singer/songwriter with one album out and another in the works. She’s also written a children’s book which will be published soon. I’ve seen other folks who joined around the same time that I did go from being unknowns to winning their first and even second Spur awards. Since I joined with one book to my credit, I’ve published two more and have a fourth one nearing completion. I’ve signed with an agent who hopefully can be more persuasive than I am in getting this next one paired up with a good publisher. I’ve also had two songs win Spur Finalist awards and last year, my song, “Texas is Burnin’,” won a Spur for Western Song of the Year. The judging is rigorous and it’s great to be honored by your peers.
Like everyone else in the book business, Western Writers struggles with how to keep stories of the West alive and in front of the reading public. Some thought the advent of the e-book would kill publishing. Instead, more people than ever are reading. Western author Win Blevins, who was honored as a “living legend” at this convention had this to say about the subject. He said that humans have been telling each other stories for over two hundred fifty thousand years in whatever format was available (spoken word, papyrus, the printed word…thanks Mr. Gutenberg…and now e-books). He believes that the human race needs stories and therefore will always need story-tellers. I believe he’s right. Check out Western Writers of America and read the West.
WESTERN WRITERS OF AMERICA
I just got back Sunday night from five days in Sacramento at the Western Writers of America annual convention. This was my seventh time to attend and they just keep getting better. Over the years, this group has included the likes of Tony Hillerman, Max Evans, Larry McMurtry and Elmer Kelton. Although Tony left us a few years back, his daughter Anne Hillerman just won the Spur Award for Best First Novel, so the Hillerman tradition lives on. Historically a male-dominated organization, the WWA now has a female president and a female executive director, along with many wonderful female authors who write about the West. We have fiction writers, non-fiction writers, film-makers, poets and songwriters, all creating material highlighting the wonders of the West, past, present and future.
The paragraph above sounds like a blurb out of a promotional flyer. Let me tell you what it’s really like to be a member of WWA and to attend the annual convention. When you attend your first convention, you’ll find the friendliest, most supportive folks who go out of their way to make you feel welcome. This just continues every year and these people become your friends. Some of them have won Pulitzers, Emmys, Oscars, Grammys; some of them write for a Western travel magazine. Doesn’t matter…they write the West.
One of my friends is Bill Groneman, whom I met for the first time in Knoxville in 2010. He is an expert on the Alamo and was on a panel discussing Davey Crockett (who MUCH preferred to be called David, by the way…who knew?). Paul Hutton, then executive director and renowned history professor, introduced Bill as a “hero of 9/11,” which Bill hates. You see, Bill is a retired Captain of the New York City Fire Department and was indeed in the thick of it when our country was attacked. Although he now lives in Kerrville, TX, just up the road from the Alamo, he was born and raised in NYC. I asked him how a guy from Brooklyn (or thereabouts…I get lost in all their little inter-neighborhood squabbles) came to be an expert on the most famous battle in Texas history. He said, “Walt Disney.” He got hooked on the Fess Parker/Davey Crocket story that aired back in the 1950s and has been fascinated with the Alamo ever since. Anyone who questions whether we need heroes as role models for our children to emulate need look no farther than Bill’s story.
Bill, our friend Carol Markstrom, and I have become responsible for the “Music Room” which happens every night during the convention. Anyone who plays an instrument is welcome to participate and we have a good old down-home jam session. We usually start around 9 PM and go until the musicians are too tired to continue. Inevitably, there are Western authors clamoring for more (since they usually put the music room close to the hotel bar, they tend to “clamor” quite loudly and insistently!). We play original material, cover songs, instrumentals and anything else we feel compelled to sing. Bill’s specialties are Irish songs and parody songs…last year when we met in Las Vegas, he wrote “I Wish They All Could Be Western Writers Girls.” Carol is a professor of Native American studies at West VirginiaUniversity who has developed into a fine singer/songwriter over the past four years. She now performs at a number of the Cowboy Gatherings throughout the West.
People grow when they participate in the Western Writers. As I mentioned, Carol was a successful academic with major non-fiction publications under her belt. Now she is a singer/songwriter with one album out and another in the works. She’s also written a children’s book which will be published soon. I’ve seen other folks who joined around the same time that I did go from being unknowns to winning their first and even second Spur awards. Since I joined with one book to my credit, I’ve published two more and have a fourth one nearing completion. I’ve signed with an agent who hopefully can be more persuasive than I am in getting this next one paired up with a good publisher. I’ve also had two songs win Spur Finalist awards and last year, my song, “Texas is Burnin’,” won a Spur for Western Song of the Year. The judging is rigorous and it’s great to be honored by your peers.
Like everyone else in the book business, Western Writers struggles with how to keep stories of the West alive and in front of the reading public. Some thought the advent of the e-book would kill publishing. Instead, more people than ever are reading. Western author Win Blevins, who was honored as a “living legend” at this convention had this to say about the subject. He said that humans have been telling each other stories for over two hundred fifty thousand years in whatever format was available (spoken word, papyrus, the printed word…thanks Mr. Gutenberg…and now e-books). He believes that the human race needs stories and therefore will always need story-tellers. I believe he’s right. Check out Western Writers of America and read the West.
June 17, 2014
CLIMATE CHANGE: GLOBAL HOT FLASH??
The woman who may or may not have been my wife recounted how she starts out in the bed with the air conditioner set on “ARCTIC’ and the fan set on “TROPICAL STORM.” When her side of the mattress is about ready to spontaneously combust, she gets up and goes to the leather couch in the living room, leaving her husband (I can neither confirm nor deny if it’s actually me!) to shiver under mounds of blankets. Once on the couch, she sleeps until the leather is heated up beyond her tolerance, then flips around to the other end where it’s cooler. She repeats the process the rest of the night in an amazing display of somnambulistic athleticism. She’s really quite limber.
One of the women said that when it first started happening to her, her husband made the mistake one night as she was flopping around of thinking she wanted to “cuddle.” Rather than correct him verbally, she decided to let him engage in some “experiential learning.” He started to “spoon” with her. After about thirty seconds, he rolled back and said, “My God, you’re on fire!”…but not in the way he had anticipated. They then turned to me…I was doing my best to become invisible but apparently it hadn’t worked…and said, “What do you do, Jim?” Thinking that a little humor might lighten the moment, I said with a chuckle, “Oh, I just think of it as having my own little flame-less campfire in the bed with me.” Apparently, I wasn’t as funny as I thought. I once again received the hostile stare, not so thinly-veiled this time. I grinned even more sheepishly than before and quickly shut up.
Just because I shut up doesn’t mean I quit thinking though. Those mental cogs kept turning. I started pondering the possibility of all these Baby Boomer women out there going through this awful experience at the same time. I thought, “Wow, I wonder how that’s affecting the climate of the earth? Maybe this explains all that polar ice cap melting and stuff.” I was about to bring this up when the woman who may or may not have been my wife (and if she reads this, probably won’t be my wife for much longer!) said, “I need to get inside where there’s air conditioning.” I was thinking “I need to get inside where there’s alcohol!” It’s probably a good thing that she cut me off before I could share my theory. She may have saved my life.
Fellas, we probably don’t appreciate how lucky we are. We don’t generally have hot flashes. I’m really not even sure exactly what it would be like, other than I can tell it ain’t no picnic! We definitely have the fun part of pregnancy (on the front end) without having to waddle around carrying the child or going through labor, which as best I can tell, is probably like getting kicked in the testicles every few minutes for roughly five to fifteen hours. Companies don’t generally tell us “since you have children, you’ll probably miss a lot of work so we’re going to pay you 30% less than that guy over there with the same degree and experience.” Women are clearly a LOT tougher than men. However, I also suspect they’re responsible, albeit unintentionally, for this global warming stuff. If someone would just speak up about it, maybe we could get it all under control. On second thought, I’m keeping my mouth shut. If you want to do something about it, YOU bring it up!
CLIMATE CHANGE: GLOBAL HOT FLASH??
Global warming is a real hot topic these days (get it?) but people are dramatically divided on the subject. I think I’ve discovered incontrovertible evidence that explains it and I wanted to share it with you. Recently, I went to a going-away party for a friend at someone’s lovely sprawling home in Corrales, NM. They had a huge yard and after awhile, I ventured outside to see what folks were doing out there. They were mostly visiting in the shade so I joined them. Not long after, a woman who might or might not have been my wife came out and stood beside me. We were soon joined by two other women whom I’ve known for many years. These are all mature, intelligent and beautiful women. The woman whom I can neither confirm nor deny was my wife said, “I’m burning up.” I started to mention that it seemed fairly cool in the shade, then thought better of it. Good call. One of the other women smiled knowingly and said “Hot flash.” The unidentified woman said, “Yes, they’re awful!” The other woman agreed and said she was glad she was past that life stage. The third woman said she seemed to by right in the middle of it. They all turned and stared at me with thinly-veiled hostility, as if it were somehow my fault. I grinned sheepishly but kept my mouth shut. This ain’t my first rodeo.
The woman who may or may not have been my wife recounted how she starts out in the bed with the air conditioner set on “ARCTIC’ and the fan set on “TROPICAL STORM.” When her side of the mattress is about ready to spontaneously combust, she gets up and goes to the leather couch in the living room, leaving her husband (I can neither confirm nor deny if it’s actually me!) to shiver under mounds of blankets. Once on the couch, she sleeps until the leather is heated up beyond her tolerance, then flips around to the other end where it’s cooler. She repeats the process the rest of the night in an amazing display of somnambulistic athleticism. She’s really quite limber.
One of the women said that when it first started happening to her, her husband made the mistake one night as she was flopping around of thinking she wanted to “cuddle.” Rather than correct him verbally, she decided to let him engage in some “experiential learning.” He started to “spoon” with her. After about thirty seconds, he rolled back and said, “My God, you’re on fire!”…but not in the way he had anticipated. They then turned to me…I was doing my best to become invisible but apparently it hadn’t worked…and said, “What do you do, Jim?” Thinking that a little humor might lighten the moment, I said with a chuckle, “Oh, I just think of it as having my own little flame-less campfire in the bed with me.” Apparently, I wasn’t as funny as I thought. I once again received the hostile stare, not so thinly-veiled this time. I grinned even more sheepishly than before and quickly shut up.
Just because I shut up doesn’t mean I quit thinking though. Those mental cogs kept turning. I started pondering the possibility of all these Baby Boomer women out there going through this awful experience at the same time. I thought, “Wow, I wonder how that’s affecting the climate of the earth? Maybe this explains all that polar ice cap melting and stuff.” I was about to bring this up when the woman who may or may not have been my wife (and if she reads this, probably won’t be my wife for much longer!) said, “I need to get inside where there’s air conditioning.” I was thinking “I need to get inside where there’s alcohol!” It’s probably a good thing that she cut me off before I could share my theory. She may have saved my life.
Fellas, we probably don’t appreciate how lucky we are. We don’t generally have hot flashes. I’m really not even sure exactly what it would be like, other than I can tell it ain’t no picnic! We definitely have the fun part of pregnancy (on the front end) without having to waddle around carrying the child or going through labor, which as best I can tell, is probably like getting kicked in the testicles every few minutes for roughly five to fifteen hours. Companies don’t generally tell us “since you have children, you’ll probably miss a lot of work so we’re going to pay you 30% less than that guy over there with the same degree and experience.” Women are clearly a LOT tougher than men. However, I also suspect they’re responsible, albeit unintentionally, for this global warming stuff. If someone would just speak up about it, maybe we could get it all under control. On second thought, I’m keeping my mouth shut. If you want to do something about it, YOU bring it up!
June 10, 2014
FATHER’S DAY
My father died thirteen years ago so I have to send this blog article out to him in whatever part of cyberspace our souls go when they leave our bodies (Do they actually go somewhere in cyberspace? I don't know. That’s probably a discussion topic for a different time). He was the youngest of three boys who grew up in West Texas during the Great Depression. His father, whom I never met because he died of cirrhosis of the liver before I was born, was an alcoholic who divorced my grandmother and abandoned the family. From what I’ve heard, he probably wasn’t much of a role model when he was around. He sure didn’t stick around for anyone to find out.
My grandmother, bless her heart (that's what we Texans say before we make a judgmental comment about someone) was one of the coldest, non-nurturing human beings ever to walk the face of the planet. Given those circumstances, it's not surprising that my father had flaws as a parent. The surprise is what a fine job he did overall. In my youth, I tended to focus on his flaws as a parent. Today, I'm remembering all the wonderful, subtle things he did. For example, he coached my little league team even though he had no interest in or talent for baseball. He attended most of my junior high and high school basketball games as well. I’m sure he was bored stiff but he was there. He took me hunting and fishing on a frequent basis and taught me a good deal about both of those sports. Of course, one of the main things in which he gave me an inordinate number of lessons was the art of cleaning fish. I was in charge of that task. Lucky me…now I can clean fish with the best of’em. I got some good puns out of it, too. “Can you believe I worked for scale doing this crappie job?”
It occurs to me that we have this Father's Day thing backwards. It's nice for everyone to give fathers gifts and thank us for doing what we're supposed to do anyway. I certainly appreciate it. I maintain, however, that fathers everywhere should thank our children for allowing us to engage in what I believe is the highest calling available to humans...parenthood. Knowing that there are individuals for whom you would give your life in a heartbeat to protect is ennobling. I didn’t know that feeling until my son was born. I experienced it again when my daughter was born. I still feel that way.
No matter what else I might accomplish in my life, it will always pale in comparison to what I've experienced as a father. I have my children to thank for that gift. So I offer a heartfelt thank you to them. Thanks, in particular, for giving me so many opportunities to develop infinite patience. Chris- how many coats did you lose during your fourth grade year? We had some serious concerns about your mental functioning at the time. Obviously, this was not an accurate predictor of your future academic and professional success. Adrianne- remember when we drove all the way across town to your ballet performance only to find when we arrived that you'd left your costume at home...and I let you live!! Now, as an adult, you find your way all over New York City, a town that terrifies me. You seem to get where you need to go with what you need to have in order to function.
So to my children, thanks to both of you for motivating me to try to be the best person I could be so that I wasn't a total hypocrite when I expected that of you. The fact that I wasn't always successful in this endeavor helped me to be more compassionate and understanding...well, okay, most of the time. Most of all, thanks for giving me the opportunity to love another human being unconditionally. And thanks to my father...thanks for doing the best you could under some pretty tough circumstances. I wish you could see the roadrunners we have out here in New Mexico; I know you'd get a kick out of them. Happy Father's Day.
FATHER’S DAY
With Father’s Day coming up in a few days, I’ve been thinking quite a bit about my experience as both a son and father. I recently saw on the Today Show that Fathers get significantly fewer gifts than Mothers. I suppose I could give my opinion on whether or not that’s fair but as I think about the topic of Fathers, it just doesn’t seem all that relevant. I’d like to think Father’s Day was about something a lot more important than receiving presents.
My father died thirteen years ago so I have to send this blog article out to him in whatever part of cyberspace our souls go when they leave our bodies (Do they actually go somewhere in cyberspace? I don’t know. That’s probably a discussion topic for a different time). He was the youngest of three boys who grew up in West Texas during the Great Depression. His father, whom I never met because he died of cirrhosis of the liver before I was born, was an alcoholic who divorced my grandmother and abandoned the family. From what I’ve heard, he probably wasn’t much of a role model when he was around. He sure didn’t stick around for anyone to find out.
My grandmother, bless her heart (that’s what we Texans say before we make a judgmental comment about someone) was one of the coldest, non-nurturing human beings ever to walk the face of the planet. Given those circumstances, it’s not surprising that my father had flaws as a parent. The surprise is what a fine job he did overall. In my youth, I tended to focus on his flaws as a parent. Today, I’m remembering all the wonderful, subtle things he did. For example, he coached my little league team even though he had no interest in or talent for baseball. He attended most of my junior high and high school basketball games as well. I’m sure he was bored stiff but he was there. He took me hunting and fishing on a frequent basis and taught me a good deal about both of those sports. Of course, one of the main things in which he gave me an inordinate number of lessons was the art of cleaning fish. I was in charge of that task. Lucky me…now I can clean fish with the best of’em. I got some good puns out of it, too. “Can you believe I worked for scale doing this crappie job?”
It occurs to me that we have this Father’s Day thing backwards. It’s nice for everyone to give fathers gifts and thank us for doing what we’re supposed to do anyway. I certainly appreciate it. I maintain, however, that fathers everywhere should thank our children for allowing us to engage in what I believe is the highest calling available to humans…parenthood. Knowing that there are individuals for whom you would give your life in a heartbeat to protect is ennobling. I didn’t know that feeling until my son was born. I experienced it again when my daughter was born. I still feel that way.
No matter what else I might accomplish in my life, it will always pale in comparison to what I’ve experienced as a father. I have my children to thank for that gift. So I offer a heartfelt thank you to them. Thanks, in particular, for giving me so many opportunities to develop infinite patience. Chris- how many coats did you lose during your fourth grade year? We had some serious concerns about your mental functioning at the time. Obviously, this was not an accurate predictor of your future academic and professional success. Adrianne- remember when we drove all the way across town to your ballet performance only to find when we arrived that you’d left your costume at home…and I let you live!! Now, as an adult, you find your way all over New York City, a town that terrifies me. You seem to get where you need to go with what you need to have in order to function.
So to my children, thanks to both of you for motivating me to try to be the best person I could be so that I wasn’t a total hypocrite when I expected that of you. The fact that I wasn’t always successful in this endeavor helped me to be more compassionate and understanding…well, okay, most of the time. Most of all, thanks for giving me the opportunity to love another human being unconditionally. And thanks to my father…thanks for doing the best you could under some pretty tough circumstances. I wish you could see the roadrunners we have out here in New Mexico; I know you’d get a kick out of them. Happy Father’s Day.
June 3, 2014
MONUMENTS, MUSINGS & MESCAL
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” This quote is attributed to George Santayana. As I see the bile and vitriol that comes across my computer screen on a daily basis from a variety of sources, it occurs to me that we really need to heed Mr. Santayana. The answer to the question above is that when we allow ourselves to dehumanize others, we give ourselves permission to treat them in an inhumane fashion. We attach derogatory labels to groups, lump people into the cluster, and deny and denigrate anything they say or believe. We lose all compassion and empathy for them. Hitler did it to the Jewish people and he sucked far too many of the German citizenry into this horrible atrocity.
We do it on a daily basis to each other on a smaller scale. When we categorize others as “liberals” or “conservatives,” implying we’ve summed up who they are, what they believe and have dismissed it without ever exploring and considering the facts, we’re doing it. When a man speaks dismissively of “women drivers” as if they are all the same, he’s doing it. When feminists assume that all men are misogynists, they are doing it. Radical Muslims who see us all as “infidels” not worthy of living are doing it to us. When we respond in kind, viewing anyone from the Middle East, particularly if they are of the Islamic faith, as a “terrorist,” we are doing it back. Are we condemned to repeat the past? If not, what is the solution?
In the 70s and 80s, I was a member of a band called the Irish Texans. We played Irish music, and country and western songs. We didn’t play them especially well but we played them with a great deal of gusto and enthusiasm. The band included an Irishman, a Canadian, an Arizonan, a Coloradan and two proud Texans. In 1981, we made our second tour of Ireland. We wound up the tour in Northern Ireland, which was experiencing extreme unrest at the time. Bobby Sands and the other IRA hunger strikers were getting world-wide attention from the press. It felt dangerous to be there.
We stayed at the home of our Irishman, Terry O’Reilly’s, aunt and uncle, Neal and Maeve O’Reilly in the little town of Newry, Northern Ireland. Neal was a physician and although he was Catholic, he was highly respected and welcome anywhere in the North because he’d long demonstrated that he took care of any and all people regardless of their religious beliefs. His wife Maeve (the fairy queen) was a wonderful lady with a wicked sense of humor, a tongue as sharp as a razor and a heart as big as the moon. Their next door neighbors and best friends were Protestants. It didn’t seem to matter.
They had a party for us and we wound up staying up all night, singing songs, telling jokes and talking about topics both light and heavy. We connected on a personal, human level. We had an Englishman, Ron Tristram, in our party, just to make the politics even more interesting. On top of that, one of Maeve and Neal’s daughters was married to an Iranian. The wounds from the Iran hostage crisis were still raw as it had been resolved only a short time before we made our trip. Did I mention that we had a number of Texans (and adopted Texans) in our bunch?
For those of you who know me today as a stable, mature individual, it may come as a surprise that I was a bit wilder in those days. Along with all the other alcoholic beverages we imbibed over the course of the night, someone had brought a bottle of mescal. Of course, we drank that, too. As the sun was coming up, the bottle was passed around one last time and it came to me with one swallow…and a worm…left. The myth is that if you eat the worm at the bottom of the mescal bottle, you’ll “see God.” I considered it and decided, “What the hell?” Some swallow it whole; I chewed…tastes like chicken. NOT!! After a few minutes, someone asked rather sarcastically if I’d “seen God yet?” I looked around Maeve’s kitchen in Northern Ireland at the Catholics, the Protestants, the Englishman, the Iranian, the Texans, all of us feeling the tired glow from an all-night Irish ceili. The warmth and companionship among our new and old friends was so real you could almost reach out and touch it. And I said, “Yep, I believe I see God.” I believe that human connection is the solution. Mescal is optional. You really don’t need to eat the worm.
MONUMENTS, MUSINGS & MESCAL
I recently watched the George Clooney film, “Monuments Men” about the small army unit in World War II that took responsibility for recovering great works of art in Europe. The Germans, on Hitler’s orders, stole these treasures and as the war wound down, were systematically destroying them. Excellent story, good movie. As I re-visited the history of WWII, I was again struck by how the German people allowed themselves to be manipulated into behaving in such a malevolent manner. Hitler was a monster…I get that. Many of the German citizens, though, were probably just regular folks, yet they went along with this hellish scheme. How does that happen?
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” This quote is attributed to George Santayana. As I see the bile and vitriol that comes across my computer screen on a daily basis from a variety of sources, it occurs to me that we really need to heed Mr. Santayana. The answer to the question above is that when we allow ourselves to dehumanize others, we give ourselves permission to treat them in an inhumane fashion. We attach derogatory labels to groups, lump people into the cluster, and deny and denigrate anything they say or believe. We lose all compassion and empathy for them. Hitler did it to the Jewish people and he sucked far too many of the German citizenry into this horrible atrocity.
We do it on a daily basis to each other on a smaller scale. When we categorize others as “liberals” or “conservatives,” implying we’ve summed up who they are, what they believe and have dismissed it without ever exploring and considering the facts, we’re doing it. When a man speaks dismissively of “women drivers” as if they are all the same, he’s doing it. When feminists assume that all men are misogynists, they are doing it. Radical Muslims who see us all as “infidels” not worthy of living are doing it to us. When we respond in kind, viewing anyone from the Middle East, particularly if they are of the Islamic faith, as a “terrorist,” we are doing it back. Are we condemned to repeat the past? If not, what is the solution?
In the 70s and 80s, I was a member of a band called the Irish Texans. We played Irish music, and country and western songs. We didn’t play them especially well but we played them with a great deal of gusto and enthusiasm. The band included an Irishman, a Canadian, an Arizonan, a Coloradan and two proud Texans. In 1981, we made our second tour of Ireland. We wound up the tour in Northern Ireland, which was experiencing extreme unrest at the time. Bobby Sands and the other IRA hunger strikers were getting world-wide attention from the press. It felt dangerous to be there.
We stayed at the home of our Irishman, Terry O’Reilly’s, aunt and uncle, Neal and Maeve O’Reilly in the little town of Newry, Northern Ireland. Neal was a physician and although he was Catholic, he was highly respected and welcome anywhere in the North because he’d long demonstrated that he took care of any and all people regardless of their religious beliefs. His wife Maeve (the fairy queen) was a wonderful lady with a wicked sense of humor, a tongue as sharp as a razor and a heart as big as the moon. Their next door neighbors and best friends were Protestants. It didn’t seem to matter.
They had a party for us and we wound up staying up all night, singing songs, telling jokes and talking about topics both light and heavy. We connected on a personal, human level. We had an Englishman, Ron Tristram, in our party, just to make the politics even more interesting. On top of that, one of Maeve and Neal’s daughters was married to an Iranian. The wounds from the Iran hostage crisis were still raw as it had been resolved only a short time before we made our trip. Did I mention that we had a number of Texans (and adopted Texans) in our bunch?
For those of you who know me today as a stable, mature individual, it may come as a surprise that I was a bit wilder in those days. Along with all the other alcoholic beverages we imbibed over the course of the night, someone had brought a bottle of mescal. Of course, we drank that, too. As the sun was coming up, the bottle was passed around one last time and it came to me with one swallow…and a worm…left. The myth is that if you eat the worm at the bottom of the mescal bottle, you’ll “see God.” I considered it and decided, “What the hell?” Some swallow it whole; I chewed…tastes like chicken. NOT!! After a few minutes, someone asked rather sarcastically if I’d “seen God yet?” I looked around Maeve’s kitchen in Northern Ireland at the Catholics, the Protestants, the Englishman, the Iranian, the Texans, all of us feeling the tired glow from an all-night Irish ceili. The warmth and companionship among our new and old friends was so real you could almost reach out and touch it. And I said, “Yep, I believe I see God.” I believe that human connection is the solution. Mescal is optional. You really don’t need to eat the worm.
May 27, 2014
MAN PLANS, GOD LAUGHS
Last Tuesday as I was buying supplies for the trip, I received a call from my sister who said, “Mother’s having chest pains, they think she’s having a heart attack. They’re taking her by ambulance to the hospital.” Well, they put her in the hospital and proceeded to run every test known to man on her, none of which indicated a problem with her heart. They did find evidence in her lungs of pneumonia and she had a cracked rib, apparently from coughing. This appeared to have been the source of the chest pains. She’s not a big complainer, tending to wait until her pain is at an 8 on a scale of 10 before she speaks up. Admirable but not particularly helpful. They had to wait on results from some of the lab tests and weren’t going to have them until Wednesday morning, when I was scheduled to leave. Things were still “iffy” the next morning and since I didn’t want to be out of cell phone range, I canceled the ride. The good news is that they pumped her full of antibiotics and by late Wednesday afternoon, she was back at her assisted living place. By Friday morning, she seemed to be out of the woods so I headed on up to Utah for my performances over the weekend.
As I was getting to Torrey on Friday afternoon, I received a phone message from Mike Moutoux saying he’d been in a horse wreck and sustained a broken rib. He was in a lot of pain and didn’t think he could do his full performance Saturday. In fact, he couldn’t perform at all since, as it turned out, he hadn’t broken A rib, he had broken SIX ribs, some in several places. As you read this, he’s in the hospital in Provo, UT. In the true cowboy spirit, we’re waiting until he gets out before we start giving him a hard time. He and our guide, West Taylor, never made it to Robber’s Roost. More about Mike in a minute.
So Mike is out of commission but West, whom I’d never met, came to my performance Saturday afternoon and afterwards, we went out to dinner. West is about a sixth generation Utah native who grew up working with horses on his grandfather’s ranch. After college, however, he got married and went into the IT/Computer field, moving away to the big city to pursue his dreams of financial rewards. Four years ago, with the economy still floundering, they re-evaluated their plans. West and his wife made the huge decision to completely change their lives. They moved back to the beautiful red rocks area there close to Torrey where West now works full-time with his first love- wild mustangs. He takes young wild mustangs, helps them learn to trust and become working partners with humans. He’s very good at what he does.
West first met Mike Moutoux last May at this same event, the Torrey Cowboy Gathering. A couple of months after that West was involved in a bad horse wreck which left him with the left side of his face crushed. It was touch and go for awhile and during the time he was healing up, West seriously pondered how quickly life can slip away. Last October, Mike, whom you’ll recall West had only met once, and our friend and wonderful Western entertainer, Mary Kaye, did a benefit performance for West to help out with medical expenses. West told me he was overwhelmed by this generosity. He couldn’t believe how Mike and so many other people whom he hardly knew were willing to step up and help out. Now, he tends to believe that most people are basically good; if a fellow human is having trouble, they’ll do what they can to ease the burden. As he’s thought about it, he’s decided he wants to give back as well. His focus now is looking for opportunities to use horses to help humans heal…wounded veterans, troubled adolescents. He realizes that people can learn a whole lot more from horses than horses can learn from us. As my buddy Juni Fisher said so eloquently, “listen to the horse.” We spent several hours talking about his plans and I’m looking for ways I can help him along the way.
I guess I’ll have to get back to you on that Butch Cassidy thing. It was clear to me that this was the story I needed to tell this week. With the intricacies of horses, history, buck-offs, and amazing Utah scenery, this is a narrative that could only come out of the West. What does it all mean and where is it headed? Heck, I don’t know. I’m just along for the ride.
