Goin’ Back

“That Was The Week That Was” is a television series that ran in the mid 1960s featuring satirical commentary and song about world events from the week before... The theme song was fluid with its intro lyrics changing each week to reflect current happenings in humorous tone... For example, “ That was the week that was, it’s over, let it go; that was the week that was, it started way above par, finished way below. That was the week that was,  it’s over let it slide; that was the week that was, I took him at his word, he took me for a ride...” I’m thinking those lyrics could be used as an introduction to the nightly “news” on any present day major network where the talking heads consistently take their listeners for a ride day in and day out, week in and week out, year in and year out... There is much to be said and appreciated about a good sense of humor... It’s time for me to be “goin’ back” to those days when satire could be accepted for what it was and it not be confused with the truth... You want to go with me???

I think I’m goin’ back

To the things I learned so well in my youth,

I think I’m returning to 

The days when I was young enough to know the truth

The much maligned year of 2020 has drawn to a close... Many “things” did not go as planned when the year first revealed itself to us twelve months ago. There is an old adage that states”hindsight is 20/20,” which means one can “see” most clearly looking back at a point in time than when in the midst of a particular happening requiring decisive action. That hindsight often opens the door to second guessing one’s decision well after the outcomes of said decision are known to the decision maker, but especially for some other observers desiring to “make a point” after the fact. Several “I told you so” moments are flashing in my mind as I glance back at life, yet I doubt any of my past actions taken would be altered since I didn’t have the benefit of hindsight when I did what I did... As a general rule, people make the best decisions they can with the information they have at the time they must reach that decision. To second guess yourself or anyone else is pure folly if you accept that axiom. That is not to say that we shouldn’t readily point out sound courses of action to those who may be ill informed. So, in the midst of this COVID-19 pandemic pandemonium, wear a mask!

In the days when “I was young enough to know the truth,” I was strongly opinionated and routinely outspoken.  Some may argue that I have not changed even though “the truth” is more difficult to sift from the shady agendas and emotional bias of the main stream media. I retired from the work a day world on August 31, 2019 after 43 years in the business of banking.  I never tired of counting other people’s money, I simply desired to discover “new” places and things while I still possessed a semblance of youth.  In the first few months of retirement, I realized I wasn’t very good at doing nothing and often found myself underfoot at home as Kathryn continued to pursue her established routines.  So, decision was reached to take a road trip... I have long held the thought of driving Route 67... Most everyone of my generation seems to want to get their “kicks” on Route 66  and drive that highway “from Chicago to LA...” After all, we grew up listening to Nat King Cole sing about “Route 66” and we had watched the television show “Route 66,” which aired in the early 1960s with its catchy theme music by the Nelson Riddle Orchestra. My craving to be different rippled into mapping a drive along the entirety of Route 67, that U. S. byway that ran directly through my hometown of Newport.

Now there are no games to only pass the time

No more electric trains, no more trees to climb

But thinking young and growing older is no sin

And I can play the game of life to win

From my perspective, you just have to play to win at the “game of life.” No real skill is needed, just surround yourself with family and friends and participate in the laughter... With a game plan focused on meeting “new” places in the company of smiling faces, we mapped out a trip in mid-December 2019 to the McDonald Observatory in Ft. Davis, Texas to attend a “Star Party” with friends Denise and Jim Clarke, Barbie Graham, and Dale Cody. The Observatory has a fascinating history. It was established as a research unit of the University of Texas system by endowment from an east Texas banker, William Johnson McDonald, with its first large telescope dedicated in 1939.  Its west Texas location in the Davis Mountains offers some of the darkest night skies in the continental United States for ultimate star gazing. We stayed in Marfa, approximately 20 miles from Ft. Davis, at the Hotel Paisano, which is where many in the cast and crew of the 1956 movie “Giant” stayed while filming. “Giant” starred Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, and James Dean and proved to be Dean’s final film due to his untimely death in an auto accident during production. Marfa, Texas just happens to sit on U. S. Highway 67, so Kat and I seized the opportunity to tour the southern section of this major north-south roadway on our way to the “Star Party” at the McDonald Observatory. 

We jumped on to Route 67 in Little Rock where it now runs concurrently with I-30 through Benton as you are driving south. From Benton to Texarkana, the Route runs parallel with I-30, so you can experience driving through the once vibrant small towns whose growth has been stunted by the interstate passing them by. We enjoyed several eye opening sights as we traveled through the hearts of familiar towns like Haskell, Malvern, Donaldson, Friendship, Caddo Valley, Arkadelphia, Gum Springs, Curtis, Gurdon, Prescott, Emmet, Hope, Fulton, and straight into the parking area of the U. S. Post Office that straddles the Arkansas-Texas state line in downtown Texarkana.  In Arkadelphia, Kat and I captured a snapshot in front of the First United Methodist Church where we were married in 1997. After crossing State Line Avenue and entering Texas, you run through small communities south of I-30 like Redwater, Maud, Simms, Naples, Omaha, and Mt. Pleasant where you cross to the north of I-30 to continue through Mt.Vernon and Weaver. At Weaver, today’s Route 67 joins back up to run concurrently with I-30 into Dallas where the roadway turns more south right through the middle of Oak Cliff where Kathryn spent some of the earliest days of her youth. From Oak Cliff, you drive through Duncanville, Cedar Hill, and Midlothian where you effectively exit the Dallas Metroplex and return to a more rural drive down to Stephenville where we stopped for a late lunch at Hard Eight, a mighty fine bar-b-q joint. Back on the road to Dublin, Brownwood, Bangs, Santa Anna, Ballinger, Rowena, Miles, San Angelo, McCamey, and Ft. Stockton where we stopped for an evening meal and a good night’s rest. The highlight of this part of the trip was a stop at the Miles, Texas Opera House and Heritage Museum and discovering that Bonnie Parker of Bonnie & Clyde fame was from nearby Rowena. The next morning we toured the historic area of Ft. Stockton before continuing on down U.S. 67 to Alpine, Marfa (where we checked into the Hotel Paisano), and Presidio marking the southern terminus of Route 67 before it crosses the Rio Grande into Mexico. Rather than retracing our steps, we chose a beautiful drive from Presidio to Lajitas along the Rio Grande and through the Big Bend Ranch State Park as a return route to Marfa. We grabbed a snack in Laquitas, then headed to Terlingua and into Big Bend National Park and back to the hotel. That evening we dined at LaVenture in the Hotel St. George in Marfa and met a delightful gentleman named Brit Webb. The next morning we bumped into Brit at Jett’s Grill in the Hotel Paisano and, over several cups of coffee, found out he had been a long time educator in the area and was the resident historian of Marfa. Brit provided us a smiling face and helpful hints for our visit and directed us to the Ryan Ranch where much of  “Giant” was filmed on location all those years ago as well as the John Cerney created “Giant” themed mural billboards featuring the film’s stars that are situated about five miles west of Marfa near another “Giant” filming location. We just learned that Mr. Britain Rice “Brit” Webb IV departed this life on December 15, 2020 at age 92. Such a fun loving soul!

Our friends met up with us in Marfa that evening and we enjoyed two days of visiting Marfa sites, fine southwest Texas dining, touring historic Ft. Davis, “drifting along with the tumbling tumble weeds,” and “Star Partying” at the McDonald Observatory. We watched the stars at night and stayed where the Stars of yesteryear stayed. I want to acknowledge our mighty fine friend and veteran of several visits to southwest Texas, Susan Elder, for assisting us in our planning for the trip to Marfa. It was a most memorable excursion. Next morning after the “Star Party,” Kat and I returned to Arkansas to ready ourselves for Christmas 2019...

After Christmas and ushering in the new year 2020, we set our sights on completing the grand Highway 67 tour with Sabula, Iowa as our destination at the northern terminus of this historic roadway... From our home, we hopped over to Walnut Ridge to intersect with U.S. 67 and to visit Beatles Park and the Guitar Walk in that fair city before setting out on the road to Sabula. These two sites in Walnut Ridge appropriately sit alongside that portion of Route 67 designated as Arkansas’s Rock ‘n Roll Highway commemorating the many honky-tonks and nightclubs that lined this roadway at the outset of the Rock ‘n Roll music surge in the 1950s. The Rock ‘n Roll Highway 67 was so proclaimed by the Arkansas General Assembly in 2009 with that stretch of the highway in Jackson, Lawrence, Randolph, and Clay counties in the northeast corner of the state and a short belt of the road in Miller County near Texarkana in the southwest corner receiving the designation. Being quite familiar with the honky-tonks up and down this byway, I think it a cool representation of our Rockin’ heritage!

We head north from Walnut Ridge through Pocahontas and Corning to cross into Missouri for a run through Poplar Bluff, Fredericktown (long time home to my cousin and Newport girl Ginny Gray), Farmington, Bonne Terre, Festus, Herculaneum, Arnold, and into St. Louis proper where the roadway becomes Lindbergh Boulevard (and where historic U.S. Highways 61, 66, and 67 all converge as one for a stretch) traversing the ‘burbs of Kirkwood, Frontenac, Creve Coeur, Maryland Heights, and Florissant before exiting the city. You cross the Mississippi River into Alton, Illinois just north of St. Louis.  From Alton, we travel rural western Illinois through picturesque towns like Godfrey, Jerseyville, Carrollton, Beardstown (where Abraham Lincoln was first recognized as an outstanding lawyer in a famous trial at the Beardstown Courthouse) and Macomb, home of Western Illinois University, where we stopped for the night. Next day we visited Wyatt Earp’s birthplace and home in Monmouth, Illinois before crossing the Mississippi River again in the Quad Cities area between Rock Island, Illinois, where we enjoyed a brief respite at the Black Hawk State Historic Site, and Davenport. Iowa, which is an eye catching river town. Route 67 winds beside the Great Mississippi through the towns of Bettendorf, Le Claire (Buffalo Bill Cody’s birthplace), Princeton, and Clinton, before it abruptly ends in Sabula, an interesting little island community in the Mississippi River. Just west of Sabula about seven miles is the little town of Miles, Iowa, so we just had to take a short side trip to say we had been there.  Literally, it is Miles from Nowhere!!! The road east out of Sabula continues on as U. S. Highway 52 to Dixon, Illinois (boyhood home of President Ronald Reagan), and from there to Chicago on I-88. We wrapped up our trip by driving the 160 miles from Sabula due east to our condo in “Sweet Home Chicago” for a three week stay before returning to Arkansas the first week of February 2020. 

After returning to Arkansas, I completed the 1,560 mile tour of historic Route 67 in late February by closing the gap from Little Rock to Walnut Ridge on a drive through North Little Rock, Sherwood, Jacksonville, Cabot, Austin, Ward, Beebe, McRae, Searcy, Judsonia, Bald Knob, Russell, Bradford, Possum Grape, Newport, Diaz, Campbell Station, Tuckerman, Swifton, Alicia, Minturn, and Hoxie. The stretch from Cabot to Walnut Ridge is now branded as Highway 367. Driving through Searcy, I passed directly in front of the First United Methodist Church where my parents were married in 1950. As a young fellow in high school some fifty years ago, I had read that U.S. Highway 67 was the most traveled two lane road in America and I had wanted to travel it ever since. Mission accomplished! Little did I know I would be able to visit two towns named Miles on the tour. 

On the quest, I truly recognized how strong the ties that bind one’s thoughts to the heart. When driving this single stretch of roadway, I grasped its importance in my life when it dawned on me that on this road I was born (in Newport), I was married (twice actually, in Arkadelphia and in Little Rock the first time), my children were born (in Little Rock and in Newport), my wife was born (in Dallas Oak Cliff), my parents were married (in Searcy)... I reckon “life is a highway...”

I can recall the time when I wasn’t ashamed to reach to a friend

Now I think I’ve got a lot more than just my toys to lend

Now there’s more to do than watch my sailboat glide

And every day can be a magic carpet ride

For me, the grand tour of Route 67 was a real “magic carpet ride,” but it wasn’t without its heavy dose of reality. During our time in Chicago at the end of the second leg of our journey, our precious pup, Jackson, bounded over life’s Rainbow Bridge on February 1, 2020. He had fallen gravely ill from canine idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, often called Westie lung disease. Our little Jackson received excellent care at Chicago’s MedVet Hospital before succumbing to his illness. Jackson was a “foundling” when he adopted us when he was about a year old. So he was 15 plus years young in age when he departed life’s playground. He will forever reside in our hearts and his spirit will always be by our side... 

I returned to Chicago alone on March 8, 2020 to take in a few Blackhawks and Bulls games, to experience the city’s St. Patrick’s Day parades and the greening of the Chicago River, and ready myself for the coming baseball season...  All was well until Friday the 13th when the Mayor of Chicago and the Governor of Illinois “postponed” the St. Patrick’s Day celebrations due to concerns about the spreading coronavirus (COVID-19) and subsequently shuttered the bars and limited food service to take-out only. On Monday, March 16, the world as I knew it stood still. With plans disrupted, I returned to Arkansas on St. Patrick’s Day and have not visited our “Sweet Home Chicago” since... The COVID-19 pandemic has cast an uncertainty upon the world at large over the past nine months and created havoc with my perception of retirement, but it has allowed an opportunity to properly assess life over the past 68 plus years... I recall hearing someone mutter, “Hindsight is 20/20...”

And I can play hide and seek with my fears

And live my life instead of counting my years

In the early stages of the COVD-19 pandemic and the associated cancellation of many major events, Kathryn dubbed 2020 as “the year that never was”... In retrospect, she was “spot on,” as usual. In commentary and in song, a review of the year 2020 might resemble an episode of the that 1960s satirical television show, “That Was The Week That Was.” In my final analysis,  an accurate portrayal of 2020 would be called “That Was The Year That Wasn’t.” Surely, so many of the “things” we witnessed in the past year didn’t really happen, did they!? Or at least, they couldn’t have happened the way they were portrayed by the major media outlets; nothing is that preposterous... Or, is it??? Possibly it is my warped sense of humor that created the collision of tragedy and comedy in my mind... Maybe my temperament is maladjusted... I am both dazed and confused by some happenings over 2020’s course of play... How does a presidential impeachment play out when parties affiliated with the accusing side appear equally guilty of similar infractions? (Wait, I reckon we’ve seen that one before in my lifetime)... How can justified peaceful protests over a multitude of social injustices devolve into uncontrolled, violent riots in the streets of cities across America in the midst of a global pandemic threatening the lives of all? What has happened to civility? Who stole my can of common sense? When did the art of debate evolve into a pursuit to avoid the question posed for debate? Whose turn is it to buy the next round of drinks because I desperately need one?!? Where are my car keys? “Where have all the flowers gone?”

Well, the answer to that last question is circuitous in its nature leading to more questions and more questions until the flowers end up in graveyards... I’m thinking the answers to all of my questions are dead ended with the possible exception of that one inquiring about the next round of drinks. If there are no volunteers needing a drink, I’ll get my own...

My vision of flowers in graveyards has been all too clear in 2020. It seems my only ventures away from home over the past nine months have been solemn treks to graveside services in remembrance of friends or family members of friends. Too many to recount, quite honestly... And many have died during the season of pandemic with their memorial services suspended or delayed. Simply know that each one’s signature is written on my heart and none will be forgotten.

I’m prayerfully hopeful that the recently released vaccines to combat the further spreading of COVID-19 are efficient and effective in their intent. I am tired of the separation required to keep the coronavirus at bay, but I respect the necessity of it. That respect does not suppress my yearning to be embraced by family members and life long friends and to share a bit of laughter in the moment. Both Kathryn and I witnessed the cancellation of our 50 year high school class reunions in the Fall of 2020. One of my classmates, Eva Wells, will not be able to wait until “things” are considered safe for large crowds to gather together again since she departed this life last month. My sadness is no where near the equivalent of the heartbreak being experienced by people around the globe who are being required to wait in the wings while loved ones lie in hospital beds and nursing home rooms alone to face the consequences of this unforgiving pandemic.  I also must remind myself that our generation is not the first to experience such hardship. We only have to look back a little way to the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1919.

Let everyone debate the true reality

I’d rather see the world the way it used to be

A little bit of courage is all we lack

So catch me if you can, I’m goin’ back

Most are aware that I’m a baseball fanatic. When the year 1919 is remembered from my readings of that tumultuous time period, I tend to block out all but two events... It was the year my dad was born and it was the year that my favorite baseball team, the Cincinnati Reds, won its first World Series championship under the cloud of the Black Sox scandal... While I enjoyed watching ball games on television this past Summer, it was simply not the same as being in a major league or minor league park with the crack of the bat and roar of the crowd as my soundtrack. As matter of fact, there were no fans in the stands at major league games in 2020 and no minor league ball games played at all. And the Major League All-Star game was cancelled for only the second time since its inception in Chicago during the 1933 World’s Fair; the first cancellation coming in 1945 due to World War II travel restrictions. Baseball witnessed the passing of several of the game’s former star players in 2020 including seven Hall of Famers. The Hall of Fame members who quietly strolled from life’s playing field in 2020 are Al Kaline, Whitey Ford, Tom Seaver, Joe Morgan, Bob Gibson, Lou Brock, and Phil Niekro. And one other ball player with Hall of Fame credentials can be counted in this group of stars; Charley Pride played professional baseball, yet it is his musical talent that is showcased in his induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame. I was most fortunate to see all except Whitey Ford play the game in person. I even got to see Charley Pride “play” his music back in the early ‘70s on a Memphis stage. We are 90 days away from Opening Day in the major leagues. I’m ready to go back... 

A little bit of courage is all we lack

So catch me if you can, I’m goin’ back

Just a few weeks ago, my friend David Black posted on Facebook a photo of “old” Memorial Field in Newport, Arkansas, where I and my childhood friends first played baseball. That photo stirred up a lot of memories of former players and fans who had witnessed games there. With other circumstances causing the absence of his regular cast of informed sports geeks, David invited me to have a baseball conversation with him on “Sports Unleashed,” his weekly on-line television sports talk show on Newport’s Cable 15 TV.  It was a two part “Zoom” conversation. “Zoom” has become our go to form of gathering in this pandemic environment; even our church services are held via “Zoom.” “Goin’ back” on “Zoom” TV, David and I talked about Newport’s rich baseball history from its Class D minor league “hey days” in the 1930s and 1940s with ball players like George Kell, Johnny Sain, Pete Reiser, and Chuck Connors through the very talented American Legion teams of the 1950s, ‘60s, ‘70s, and ‘80s. In addition to baseball, we had a lot of fun reminiscing about the Newport football Greyhounds winning ways and championship seasons and the lone Newport Greyhounds State Champion basketball team of 1965. That team was inducted into the Newport High School Hall of Fame in 2016. 

The ‘65 championship basketball team was a collection of unassuming talent and unselfish play. Led by four senior starters and a sharp shooting junior guard, those Hounds went 27-3 and ran past Mountain Home, Mabelvale, Green County Tech, and Harrison in the state tournament to bring home the trophy. The championship game drew 6,145 fans to Barton Coliseum in Little Rock, which was the largest crowd to ever witness a basketball game in the state of Arkansas at any level up until that time. Fascinating! Star senior forward Billy Osier, head coach Bernis Duke, and assistant coach Butch Duncan all took their final shot on life’s court in 2020. Senior forward Paul Massey and junior guard Mike Allen left life’s gym in years past leaving only senior big man Bill Holt and senior floor leader Donald Ray Smotherman of the starting five to hear the continual cheers from that championship season. As a seventh grader, I was lucky enough to witness every game in both the district and state tournaments in that memorable season 55 years ago. Looking back in life’s rear view mirror, that year appears closer than it is... I’m thinking hindsight has more to offer than second guesses...  

After that season, my neighbor, Coach Bernis Duke, was recruited to join the coaching staff at the newly chartered Oral Roberts University in Tulsa as the school’s first tennis coach. He was accompanied there by Paul Massey who played both basketball and tennis at ORU. Massey scored the first points in the history of the Oral Roberts basketball program in its initial season. Coach Duke coached tennis at ORU for 33 years and was inducted into the National Intercollegiate Tennis Hall of Fame. Coach Butch Duncan continued to coach at Newport another five years assisting the football Hounds to an undefeated 1968 season and a 10-1 state championship season in 1969 and leading the basketball Hounds to the semi-finals of the state tournament in my senior year of 1970 before departing Newport to further his coaching career at Texarkana, Magnet Cove, Paragould and Stuttgart. After coaching, he had an illustrious career with Farm Bureau Insurance in Stuttgart and Batesville. Plus, Coach Duncan is a charter member of my own personal Friendship Hall of Fame. No finer friend have I ever had! Billy Osier followed in the footsteps of both these fine coaches by playing basketball at Arkansas College and enjoying a successful coaching career at Tuckerman, Portland, and Newport. Donald Ray Smotherman and Mike Allen both had successful business careers in insurance and construction, respectively. Bill Holt enjoyed a notable career in the ministry. These former Greyhounds not only won on the basketball court, but they all are winners in the “game of life.”

I am confident that we all feel that COVID-19 has kept us on the sidelines long enough, but patience and “a little bit of courage” shown for the well being of others are needed to assure the safety of our teammates in this “game of life.” Being on the field with your friends and teammates at your side brings fun to the game. Until we can safely resume play, be kind to others, wear a mask, muster up “a little bit of courage,” and we’ll all be “goin’ back” in the game in no time... Sending virtual hugs from my spot on the field, miles from nowhere...

“Guess I’ll take my time.........”

 

The Color of Time

"And the beat goes on..."  Indeed it does...  "the beat" has virtually been uninterrupted since I last dribbled a few thoughts on to the pages of the Miles Files.  The busy-ness of life has kept me entertained throughout the past fifteen months similar to watching a pup chase his tail... 

One's perception of time is relative to circumstance, I think.  Seems as if I've been riding a virtual tilt-a-whirl of late, so time is somewhat blurred, much like the colors of a rainbow bleeding into each other... Music ignites my thinking and the lyrics I hear spark curious thought about the "color of time..."

Good sense, innocence cripplin' mankind

Dead kings, many things I can't define

Occasions, persuasions clutter your mind

Incense and peppermints, the color of time

I'm sure I first heard these lyrics on AM radio in 1967, but they were just popular noise to me then. Fifty years ago, in late April, 1968, just after my sixteenth birthday, I went with friends to see the Beach Boys, Buffalo Springfield, and the one-hit wonder Strawberry Alarm Clock at the Mid-South Coliseum in Memphis.  I was most interested in seeing Buffalo Springfield and I remain a captured fan of this illustrious folk rock group whose members split up to go separate ways only a few short weeks after this particular concert.  Strawberry Alarm Clock opened the show and I'm certain they played more than one song, but their "one hit," "Incense and Peppermints" is the only one I recall hearing that night.  Of course, it was... How could I forget it?  It is regularly heard on the airwaves still today... "the color of time..."

After several decades of this song running through my head, the words of "Incense and Peppermints" have taken on a brighter tone.  The mid to late '60s was a colorful time... My mind has been expanded a bit since those more innocent days.  The psychedelic rock era was in full swing...  My turntable was stacked with the vinyl sounds of groups like the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Vanilla Fudge, Jefferson Airplane, Traffic, The Electric Prunes, and Strawberry Alarm Clock.  Even the Beach Boys surfed the psychedelic waves with "Good Vibrations" during this musical revolution.  The fashion world was reflective of the loud, electric sounds that were in vogue in these "groovy" times. Girls in "pop art" mini-skirts and Bohemian style dresses caught my attention.  To get in step, I turned to paisley shirts and bell bottom jeans.  Such an interesting time to be young and impressionable...

At sixteen, "good sense" was not always at my beck and call.  Some of my actions in those days were not particularly representative of "innocence" either.  Yet, there are "many things I can't define" contributing to "cripplin' mankind" and I'm not so sure that "good sense" and "innocence" are among them.  In observation of today's world, I'm leaning more in the direction of nonsense and ignorance as primary suspects in the crippling of man's kindness toward others unlike themselves or those with different ideas.  The "talking heads" on the television screens clutter my mind with misrepresentations of facts pertinent to witnessed "occasions" in effort to persuade me to see things as they want me to see them as opposed to the way things have actually occurred.  Seems they're dressing up their opinions to look like news. Or at least that is what I think is happening...

Who cares what games we choose?

Little to win, but nothin' to lose

Incense and peppermints, 

Meaningless nouns

Turn on, tune in,

Turn your eyes around
Look at yourself, look at yourself

There are those certain board games and some low stakes games of chance where there is little, if "nothin' to lose," but some of life's "games" have real consequences when the rules aren't clear.  Risks can quickly override rewards when the message is muddy.  Sound decision making requires good information and I think I hear some "news" reporters playing games with "meaningless nouns" and verbs. Relevant facts are cast aside in favor of quasi-fictional accounts to peak our interest and to boil our blood.  I'm trying to remember the tipping point of the wrecking of civility.  Oh well, that is a topic of conversation for another time and place, but I will "turn my eyes around" and "tune in" to the voices that continue to guide me through the maze of day to day living.  Many of those voices could be heard on my proving ground even before I was born.  I reflect... 

2018 has been a controversial year on the national and international fronts.  As matter of fact, Oxford Dictionary's descriptive word of the year for 2018 is "toxic"...  But has it been any more contentious than any other point in the colorful history of our world?  I arbitrarily choose 1948 because it fits my personal timeline...  My destiny was somewhat jump-started that year when my mother moved from the northeast Arkansas hamlet of Manila shortly after her high school graduation to Newport, Arkansas to live with relatives and to work.  On a roll of the dice, my father had made his way to Newport shortly before.  They would marry in 1950 and I would arrive on scene in 1952...

Back to 1948 to glimpse at the news of the day... (1) Mahatma Gandhi, the Indian pacifist and leader of that country's independence movement, is assassinated; (2) the Winter Olympic games resumed in the neutral Switzerland for the first time since 1936 with the axis countries of Germany and Japan being refused invitation and the Soviet Union choosing not to participate; (3) Czechoslovakian government falls to the Communist Party; (4) U.S. Supreme Court rules religious instruction in public schools violates the Constitution; (5) the Cold War escalates with the Soviet blockade of West Berlin; (6) the movie "Gentlemen's Agreement," which is focused on anti-Semitism, wins the Academy Award for Best Picture; (7) the Marshall Plan was put into place to aid in the reconstruction of Western European economies following WWII; (8) Israel becomes an independent nation and one day later invasive forces from Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq kick-off the Arab-Israeli War; (9) the Soviet Union initiates the deportation of more than 100,000 Lithuanians to Siberia to repress resistance to Soviet policies; (10) the era of apartheid begins in South Africa when Jan Smuts becomes Prime Minister; (11) Albert I, the first U.S. monkey astronaut, is launched into space, but dies during the mission; (12) U.S. President Truman signs executive order ending racial segregation in U.S. Armed Forces; (13) Korea formally splits into two republics; (14) United Nations adopts the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and creates the World Health Organization; (15) the Long Playing Record (LP) is made of vinyl and played at 33 rpm and the transistor radio is invented; (16) Harry Truman defies all political expectations in defeating Thomas Dewey for the U.S. presidency...

Some of these events from seventy years ago are eerily similar to some goings on in present day... It is as if an artist is painting the same landscape from a slightly different vantage point.  The "color of time"???

Look at yourself, look at yourself

Yeah, yeah, yeah

To divide this cock-eyed world into two

Throw your pride to one side, it's the least you can do

Beatniks and politics, nothing is new

A yardstick for lunatics, one point of view

From my "one point of view," "nothing is new."  Yet the central themes of these select events from four short years before my birth and the people who taught me up about them, effectively have influenced the color pattern of my world.  In looking at those happenings, I see illustrations of debate over basic human rights, alienation of others when in disagreement, segregation of peoples unlike those in power, sacrifice to expand horizons, surprise on the political front, and invention to enhance entertainment.  Each of us can color these pictures as we wish and interpret their meaning accordingly...

I'm going to jump into my time machine on this final day of 2018 and go back to some places I've been to cast my eye upon the "color of time"...

First stop, sixty years ago, 1958, Newport, Arkansas... I enter first grade at Walnut Street School totally oblivious to the world around me except for the friends in my class and the fun we have on the playground.  I go to church and play Little League baseball with some of these same friends and a few others my age who go to East Newport School on "the other side" of town.  The schools in Newport are segregated in the late '50s, so all the faces I see at school are white.  But to my good fortune, Elteaser Balentine, a young black woman only 19 years of age when she began working for my family, looks after me and my sister during this time.  I grew to love her and still do...  So, from my "Eltea experience," I get to see people for who they are.  Black and white are colors without hue and I see them in similar light... Sometimes too much light, sometimes not enough...  The "colors" of this early time in my life are basically associated with the Crayola crayon box that sits on my desk in Mrs. Shoffner's first grade class room... 1958 is darkened a bit by the traumatic experience of my baby sister, Ann Marie, dying shortly after birth due to complications from spina bifida.  Could she have overcome this health issue in today's advanced medical environs?  I can't know since my time machine is not capable of bringing her back to present day with me.  The color is changing on my watch; it must be time to move on...

I get back into my time machine, a bit anxious about my next stop.  I'm not sure I want my memories to get confused by facts.  Dagnabbit, I sound somewhat like a 2018 "news" reporter!  I touch down in 1968, I'm 16 years old and pretty smart.  When I dialed up 1968 as a destination, I was thinking that 2018 was tumultuous, but then again...  Fifty years ago... When it comes to color, think tie-dyed or a Jackson Pollock abstract!  The news is splattered with the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy, the racial turbulence surrounding the Democratic National Convention in Chicago and the riots in other major U.S. cities, the unpopular Vietnam conflict punctuated by the My lai incident, the Poor Peoples March on Washington, D.C., and the Black Power salute made in protest by Tommy Smith and John Carlos at the '68 Olympic Games in Mexico City.  Living in northeast Arkansas isolates me from much of this turmoil, but I still find myself perplexed and somewhat  shaken by these goings on.  More breaking "news"...  Apollo 8 orbits the moon as the first manned space mission to do so and the U.S. Supreme Court invalidates an Arkansas statute that prohibited the teaching of evolution in public schools.  As a personal aside, I achieve the rank of Eagle Scout alongside my friends Clay Wright and the Scoggins twins, Terry and Eddie.  I go to a concert in Memphis to see The Beach Boys, Buffalo Springfield, and Strawberry Alarm Clock...  But then you knew that!  And the Newport Greyhounds go undefeated in football in the Fall of '68... The color of this time is awash in Orange and Black!

Before returning to the cockpit of my time machine, I attempt to put some things together in my littered mind... Like a jig-saw puzzle, some pieces fit nicely, but there are some "things" that don't fit my way of thinking...

I quickly reflect on the assassinations of Gandhi, King, and Kennedy and wonder... Into the future, I have had opportunity to walk in places visited by these men and study their respective peaceful approaches to conflict resolution... In the aftermath of their deaths, I scratch my head...

My dad often urged me to invite any adversary over to my house "to play" if and when our disagreements got out of hand, yet the example set in the revival of the Olympic Games in '48 fails this test...

The progress made in the space program from '48 to '68 seems to have stalled after man stepped on the moon in 1969... I guess it is simply a matter of money like so many things are, but I don't like giving up in light of the sacrifices made to get to that point...

I ponder the gap in the U.S. Supreme Court rulings relative to ceasing religious teachings in public schools and invalidating the prohibition of teaching evolution in Arkansas public schools... What was being taught in Arkansas in the arena of human origin, if not creation and/or evolution?...

And why can't "we" get along?  "We" still have a lot of  work to do with respect to human relations in America...  This is not a "paint by numbers" world...  I'm thinking we need to color outside the lines in search of some common ground...

I'm certainly thankful for those 1948 inventions of the transistor radio and the 33 rpm record album! The music from these gadgets saturated my soul with psychedelic sounds in my youth keeping me in tune with the world around me while distracting me from the chaos...

I turn the music up real loud and point my time machine into the direction of 2018...  I had intended to make some additional stops in the past, but will save those trips for another day.  My plans for 2019 may allow more "free" time for such excursions...

I touch down back in present day just in time to tear the final page from the 2018 calendar...  In most respects, 2018 has not been much different from any of my previous 66 years... Not so much the same old carnival ride, but an opportunity to jump on a different roller coaster with a few new twists and turns...  A good number of passengers who have been riding life's roller coasters with me in the past got off over the past fifteen months to go "home..."  I'm already missing the laughter shared on these past "rides" with the likes of my classmate Susan Baker Houle; my younger cousin Robin Meacham; neighborhood mate Buddy Conner; college party pal Van "White Dog" Spence; the brothers Waddill, Robert and Ronnie; former co-worker Neil Ainley, and my fun friend, Jane Roberts Parnell.  I also miss the smiling faces and cautious voices of the parents of several childhood and high school playmates, especially those of Carolyn Wright, Patsy Forrester, John Brand, J. D. Smart, Ed Scoggins, Mary Schratz Balch, Madge Bullard, Anita Proffitt, and Jimmie Heard.  Other family friends who have recently exited the midway of life's carnival grounds include Kern Kennedy, Emogene Morris, Sally Molleston, Nadean Humphreys, Kathryn Ann Torian, Eloise Bell, John Burgin, Sheila Hammonds, Bill Holmes, Jack Hogan, Polly Sharp, J. C. McMinn, John Peel Johnston, Pam Wilmans, Kyle Sanders, Russell Stobaugh, and my young friend Hayley Evans Ozier.  As these faces fade from my vision, I hear the spelling of R-E-S-P-E-C-T artfully sung by the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin, who also left life's main stage earlier this year.  Each of them now absent from sight, but forever in my heart filled up with love and respect for their roles in my life...

Our existing world is a bit "cock-eyed" and the essential ingredient of "respect" necessary to realign relationships is missing from the dialogue amongst those we expect to be leading the way.  A "yardstick for lunatics" appears to be the proper tool for gauging distance in "politics," since the distance "across the aisle" in Congress is wider than the Grand Canyon.  To keep my head on straight during this topsy-turvy 2018, I took a few music oriented side trips to distract my attention away from political shenanigans...  I wandered over to City Winery in Nashville to see The Zombies alongside friends Tracy and Keith Croft and Martha Hatley Saino early in the year.  As a long time fan, it was nice to see The Zombies elected to the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame just a few weeks back.  I also darted down to Helena in early October to catch Dave Mason's and Steve Cropper's Rock 'n Soul Review at the King Biscuit Blues Festival with friends Floye and Rodger Hurt.  Kathryn and I attended both the Chicago Blues Festival and Chicago Jazz Festival this past Summer.  The highlight of these events was being a part of "the in-crowd" watching Ramsey Lewis in his announced final Jazz Festival appearance.  We caught Joan Armatrading at City Winery in Chicago and met new friends Kevin Bunten and Patrick Houlihan there.  Kat and I also saw the Bacon Brothers in a lively show at the Sheid in Mountain Home and we hosted the Legendary Pacers on their late Summer stop in our fair city in the Ozarks.  I am saddened by Kern Kennedy's passing from this life just a few days ago.  Kern was the last surviving member of the "original" Sonny Burgess and the Pacers group, the house band at the Silver Moon Club, Newport's iconic honky-tonk.  "We wanna boogie!... Man, you oughta see the lights when the sun goes down, just a poundin' and a boogyin' and a paintin' that town..."  The color of time...

I thoroughly enjoyed three "homecomings" of sorts during 2018...  In October, I attended the reunion of the undefeated 1968 Newport Greyhounds football team.  What a memorable night!  Hats off to David Black and John G. Pennington for organizing the get together of "old dogs" prior to the Hounds hosting the Manila Lions under the Friday Night Lights that shine so brightly on the Newport football tradition.  It was really cool watching Cash Forrester lead the Hounds to victory as the starting quarterback.  Cash is the son of classmate Bobby Forrester, who played quarterback on the '68 team.  The real fun was listening to "the stories" of games past and sharing in the laughter with old friends and coaches.  On the field at halftime, friends represented each of the '68 team members who have departed life's playing field since those glory days... Donny Appleton, Eddie Crawford, Billy Don Summers, Buddy Conner, Calvin James, Terry Scoggins, Jerry Winston, Glenn Gay...
Go Hounds!

Later in October, the Norfork United Methodist Church, celebrated 125 years of service to its congregants and the community.  It was a glorious day alongside our church family in recognition and remembrance of those who established the firm foundation of this little church in the Ozarks all those years ago.

In early November, Kathryn and I attended Homecoming events at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro and a reunion of my Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity brothers.  I raise my glass filled with fond memories and fun moments in honor of Steve Collar, Mike Dickson, Woody Harrelson, and Paul Gauriglia for organizing and hosting our time together.  My Big Brother Keith Croft and his make-shift band of Jimmy Little, Cindy Wiggins Paul, Mike Dickson, and Dave Pierce played some mighty fine tunes for our listening pleasure on Friday night at the Brickhouse Grill.  And Woody Harrelson hosted us in Tail Gate City prior to the game on Saturday.  Such an enjoyable weekend in the company of good friends...

Perhaps the most joyous occasion we attended in 2018 was the January wedding of daughter Evelyn to David Morris.  Evelyn and her daughter, Claire, join David and his daughter, Cameron, in making their home in El Dorado.  A beautiful union on a beautiful day!  Sometimes the pieces to life's puzzle just come together perfectly...

And to add a bit more fun to our everyday living, Kat and I welcomed a new puppy to our household in late 2017.  We celebrated Addison's first birthday in August of this year.  She is keeping our 14 year old Jackson in line...  Both are West Highland Terriers with sparkling personalities...

Incense and peppermints

The color of time

The recording of "Incense and Peppermints" has an interesting back story...  While Mark Weitz, the band's keyboard player, and Ed King, lead guitarist, collaborated on the writing of "Incense and Peppermints," neither are credited as its songwriters due to some political infighting between the band's manager and record producer. Prior to the record's release, the song was sent to John Carter of the band Rainy Daze, who conjured up the lyrics, and Tim Gilbert, who tweaked the melody. At release, Carter and Gilbert were solely credited with the song.  Another quirky twist surrounds the lead singer on the record.  Greg Munford, a 16 year old singer with The Shapes was only in the studio to sing back-up vocals, but after several takes with different members of Strawberry Alarm Clock taking turns at singing lead with no good results, they turned to Munford to sing lead.  Munford never joined Strawberry Alarm Clock, but his voice took "Incense and Peppermints" to number one on the charts for Strawberry Alarm Clock...  Ed King, who would later join Lynyrd Skynyrd, died in August of this year at the age of 68...

Having grown up in Arkansas, I can pretty well tell time by the colors around me...  The light pastels of the wild flowers in Spring time; the sharp blue skies and green pastures of Summer; the vibrant red, yellow, and orange Autumn leaves adorning the trees before they Fall; the dull brown and pale gray shades of  bleak mid-Winter...  The color of time...  My forever friend, Clay Wright, has taken up paint brush and palette to become quite the water-colorist in this retirement.  The coloring of his landscapes is magnificent!

In wrapping up the 2018 Christmas season, my life long pal, Freeman Travis, took me for a brief ride in his time machine.  What a treat!  We visited downtown Newport at the 1954 Christmas parade on Front Street...  Santa' sleigh was pulled by real reindeer; a sight one doesn't normally see in northeast Arkansas.  I had no memory of this event, but there I was at two years old, in my daddy's arms, watching the parade as part of an extremely large crowd.  Freeman's time machine has a video of this parade taken by his dad, Mr. Buddy Travis, playing on a display screen for all to see.  You may view it as posted on my page in Facebookland...  Thanks for sharing and thanks for the "new" memory, Freeman!!!

Well, the hour is getting late...  It is time to set my Strawberry Alarm Clock for early morning, 2019 and the color of a new day...  I don't want to miss anything!

I'm Miles from Nowhere...  guess I'll take my time...
joe









 

     

        

  

 

The Beat Goes On

"The beat goes on...  the beat goes on..."  Life's "beat" is really nice, but it has been "hard to dance to" in the past fifteen months or so.  The fast pace of living and working has thrown off my rhythm.  I simply haven't been able to coordinate my thoughts with my fingertips, so I haven't spilled any of those thoughts on to paper in quite a while.

The beat goes on, the beat goes on

Drums keep pounding a rhythm to the brain

La de da de de, la de da de da 

Most everyone I know and hold dear marches to the beat of their own drum.  I'm drawn to these independent thinkers and free spirits by the "beat" of their souls.  Each person unique.  Each with their own story to tell.  I am truly grateful for their influence on my story.  Drum beats, heart beats, toe taps, finger snaps, hand claps, knee slaps, keeping time, "and the beat goes on..."

Charleston was once the rage, uh huh

History has turned the page, uh huh

The mini skirts, the current thing, uh huh

Teenybopper is the newborn king, uh huh

I have been reflecting on the pages of history in recent months, especially the faces, places, and events that have influenced my 65 years.  Sonny and Cher's single "The Beat Goes On" hit the charts fifty years ago in 1967.  I was fifteen, one of those "newborn king" teenyboppers on the scene.  Much of the time during the "Summer of Love" I could be found on the baseball field in Newport.  Sonny was one of my baseball coaches; not Sonny Bono, but Sonny Burgess.  

Unlike some of the other young ballplayers, I had awareness that Sonny Burgess played music since my father spent a good deal of time at the Silver Moon where Sonny and his band, the Pacers, often performed in the mid to late '50s.  His success as a recording artist at Sun Records alongside Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis, Billy Lee Riley, and others was known to me, but I knew him best on the baseball diamond as a volunteer coach and salesman in the local sporting goods stores.  After time away from the music scene, the Pacers regrouped and have played all around the world in the past few decades on their way to induction in the Rockabilly Hall of Fame.  Sonny also hosted "We Wanna Boogie," a music show on KASU-FM, for more than a decade and was instrumental in having U.S. Highway 67 through Newport designated as Arkansas' Rock 'n Roll Highway.  He was dedicated to keeping the music and northeast Arkansas relevant to today's "teenyboppers" and future generations. I have been fortunate to see Sonny and the Legendary Pacers play many gigs.  Just in the past year, Kathryn and I have danced to the music of the Pacers at Billy Bennett's 90th birthday party at the Newport Country Club, at Freda Steenburgen Nichols' 92nd birthday party at South on Main in Little Rock, and at Depot Days in downtown Newport.  But then Sonny laid down his six string last month for the final time on life's stage.  No encore...  Sonny's life came full circle at a memorial gathering on August 24, 2017 at the Silver Moon hosted by his son, John.  As usual, Sonny played to a full house.

The 'baseball connection' kept us close in spirit through the years.  Sonny and my dad were mighty fine friends.  My mother worked for Sonny's wife, JoAnne, and Sue Ellen Burton at B and B, a first class women's apparel store, establishing a lasting friendship.  These personal relationships nourished a family friendship shared throughout my life that will carry on in my heart...  Kern Kennedy and Bobby Crofford, two of the Pacers who played with Sonny for well over fifty years, assure me they will keep "the beat..."

And the beat goes on, the beat goes on

Drums keep pounding a rhythm to the brain

La de da de de, la de da de da

The studio musicians who backed Sonny and Cher on "The Beat Goes On" were a group known as "The Wrecking Crew" with one of its more famous members being an Arkansas lad by name of Glen Campbell.  I am confident that Glen was not in the studio with "The Wrecking Crew" at the time Sonny and Cher recorded this tune since 1967 was the break out year in his solo career, but I could be wrong.  In any event, I am a Glen Campbell fan drawn in by his brilliant guitar pickin' and boosted by his Arkansas roots.  I didn't know Glen personally, but I did get to meet him once and came to know some of his family when I lived in Arkadelphia during the 1990s.  I attended the premier of "True Grit" in Little Rock in 1969 where Glen was present.  My sister, Lana, negotiated an autograph from him on her premier program, which I hold in safekeeping, boxed up with other mementoes from our youth.  The music of Glen Campbell and Sonny Burgess will forever be playing on my life's soundtrack.  "And the beat goes on..."

The same month of January, 1967 when Sonny and Cher hit the charts with "The Beat Goes On," Winthrop Rockefeller stepped into the Arkansas Governor's office as the first Republican elected to play that role since Reconstruction.  My thoughts seldom center on politics, but this event generated interesting conversation in my family circle at the time.  Rockefeller won the 1966 gubernatorial election over the Democratic nominee, "Justice Jim" Johnson.  Johnson had prevailed in the Democratic primary as a segregationist in a seven "horse" race that included Newport's Sam Boyce, my uncle Max Bowie's law partner.

Upon taking office, Rockefeller named a former FBI agent, Lynn Davis, to lead the Arkansas State Police.  Davis set out to eliminate illegal gambling in the state using high profile raids of well known "open" operations in Hot Springs and other towns, Newport being one of these.  Did I mention that my father spent a great deal of time at the Silver Moon where friendly, illicit games were known to frequently occur?  Anyway, Davis was in his position with the state police only a short three months getting ushered out on a residency technicality and by political pressure from the majority Democratic party, but his raids left a mark and "open" gambling in Arkansas began to slowly fade from the scene.

A decade before Sam Boyce chose to throw his hat into the Arkansas Governor's race in 1966, he was on campus at the University of Arkansas and invited a fledgling Rock 'n Roll band to play a fraternity party in Fayetteville.  Those band members were friends of Sam's from Jackson County... Sonny Burgess and the Pacers.  Folklore contends that The Pacers were the first Rock 'n Rollers to play at the University of Arkansas.  Sam's son, Henry Boyce, is now the Prosecuting Attorney in Newport and the curator of the Rock 'n Roll Highway 67 Museum.  "And the beat goes on..."

January, 1967 was also the setting for an ill-fated "test launch" of Apollo 1, the first manned mission of the Apollo space program with the goal of getting man to the moon.  At initiation of the "test," a cabin fire raced through the command module killing all in the three member crew of Apollo 1, Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee.  Manned Apollo flights were suspended during investigation of the incident.  Eventually, the backup crew for Apollo 1 comprised of Wally Schirra, Donn Eisele, and Walter Cunningham completed the first manned mission in the program aboard Apollo 7 in October, 1968.  The program's goal was fulfilled in July, 1969 when the lunar module of Apollo 11, manned by Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins, touched down on the moon and Armstrong took that "one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind" onto its surface.  My "teenybopper" friends and I watched the historic landing on television.   

I find it intriguing that the two Apollo flights most important in bringing to realization President John F. Kennedy's dream of  "landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth" before the end of the decade of the '60s bore the numbers 7 and 11, the "winners" on the come-out roll in a craps game.  President Kennedy gambled with the public pronouncement of his "dream" in 1961... NASA rolled the dice...  Apollo 11 came up a winner...  I recall hearing someone mutter, "Life is nothin' but a crap shoot."  "And the beat goes on..." 

My dad was a craps dealer at the Southern Club in Hot Springs in the late 1940s when he befriended Don Washam, Bob Fortune, and Joe Tarkington, three fellows from Newport.  Those friendships led to my father moving to Newport after being convinced that he would always "have a game" to play there.  A couple of days before Neil Armstrong stepped onto the moon in July, 1969, Don Washam passed the dice and exited this life and "the Moon."  Don Washam, the father of my life long friend,  Donnie, was the principal owner of the Silver Moon where my dad "worked" at the gambling tables.  Donnie had just finished high school a couple of month's before his dad's death.  It was the summer before my senior year at Newport High School.  In the months that followed, ownership in the Silver Moon would change hands and I would leave the Newport of my youth.  Wide "open" gambling, as I had known it, moved 'underground.'  After the summer of '69, I no longer viewed "the Moon" in the same light as I had before.  "And the beat goes on..."

The grocery store's the super mart, uh huh

Little girls still break their hearts, uh huh

And the men keep on marching off to war

Electrically they keep a baseball score

Sam Walton's discount retail concept with roots in Newport was at the forefront of merging groceries and general merchandise.  Over time, small grocery stores have morphed into today's "supercenters."  Wal-Mart Stores was officially incorporated in 1969 and went "public" in 1970.  I don't recall the exact date of Walton's return to Newport to open a Wal-Mart store, but I'm fairly certain it was near summertime of ' 69 since I do remember my pal John Pennington and I were lucky winners of a helicopter ride at the store's grand opening.  I had never been in a helicopter before then, so I'm pretty sure my heart skipped a few beats that day.  Of course, the beat of my heart was prone to skipping in the summer of '69 since a "little girl" in a "mini skirt, the current thing, uh huh," had caught my eye and captured my attention earlier that year.   Love can cause a heart to skip a beat...  "Uh huh..."

And while the setting may have moved from the jungles of Southeast Asia to the deserts of the Middle East, young men "keep marching off to war" today just as they were in the late '60s.  The echoes of protest are resounding...  Loving and embracing the subject of history, Kathryn and I visited the National World War II Museum in New Orleans earlier in the year.  Just this past week, youngest daughter, Elizabeth, and I visited the National World War I Museum in Kansas City.  While in the KC area, we also took in the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum in nearby Independence, Missouri, which cast added light on the events of World War II as well as the Korean conflict.  I have been yearning to visit the Truman Library for years since he was our president when I was born.  He visited Newport in July, 1952, on his way to dedicate the dams in Norfork and Bulls Shoals.  So glad Elizabeth and I finally returned the favor of his visit to Arkansas so many moons ago...  

The tours of the WWI and WWII museums are heart wrenching reminders of the sacrifices rendered by many in defense of the freedoms enjoyed by all in our country.  War has challenged most every generation since the birth of our nation.  Pleas for peace and protest songs serve as background noise.  Causes of war are often varied and vague...  The introductory film at the National World War I Museum begins with these words, "No one can say precisely why it happened, which may be, in the end, the best explanation for why it did."  "And the beat goes on..."

There are no scoreboards on the battlefields of life like those that can be found at baseball parks.  And baseball scoreboards have certainly changed over the years.  I love the old manual scoreboards at Fenway Park in Boston and Wrigley Field in Chicago, but even those iconic parks have ramped up their electronic presence in recent years.  The introduction of video boards in left and right fields at Wrigley altered the atmosphere a bit and coincided with the Cubs first World Series championship in 108 years in 2016.  Fans are now watching to see if the magic continues in Chicagoland...  Just a few weeks ago, granddaughter Claire and daughter Evelyn accompanied me to a Cubs versus Cardinals game at Wrigley.  A couple of days later, Kathryn and I attended a Cubs versus White Sox game at Wrigley.  Nothing like "rivals week" at the "friendly confines" of Wrigley Field.  Batter up!

And the beat goes on, the beat goes on

Drums keep pounding a rhythm to the brain

La de da de de, la de da de da

My obsessions with baseball and music were born from interests shared with my parents.  Music was always playing on the radio or the record player at our house.  Pick up baseball games were played year round in the neighborhood.  And I could see the lights at "old" Memorial Field from my house on South Main, so I always knew when a game was happening at the park.  Each time I drive into the parking lot at the Newport Country Club, I reflect on the many baseball games I watched and played in at Newport since the outfield of the old ball park is adjacent.  Just recently I found myself in that very spot, the same day as the memorial for Sonny Burgess. 

As I walked to the entrance of the Newport Country Club, I glanced over my shoulder to the field area where Sonny had often given me tips about baseball and about life.  I was in Newport to attend the service for Sonny as well as that evening's Newport Alumni Hall of Fame Banquet.  I am fortunate to have personal relationship with each of this year's Hall of Fame inductees.  Dr. Patti Mullins (NHS '75), a passionate Dallas Cowboys fan, has been a long time friend whose father, John Mullins, himself a Newport Alumni Hall of Famer (2010) was Superintendent of Newport schools during most of my student days.  Dr. Austin Grimes (NHS '46) has been a longer time friend and is a renowned orthopedic surgeon and artist.  John Purdy (NHS '58) was inducted posthumously as one of Newport's finest ambassadors.  He and his wife, Rosanna, were leaders of our United Methodist Youth Fellowship group when I was in junior high school.  Joe Black (NHS '70) is one of my littermates who I had the pleasure of working alongside in the 1990s doing economic and community development work for Southern Development Bancorporation.  The 2017 Excellence in Education award was presented to teacher Iris Diann Clark.  Pal John Pennington kept "the beat" as the evening's emcee.  I had the good fortune of sitting with Greyhounds football coach Mark Hindsley and his wife, Mallory, as well as Oshae Pruitt and Luke Samaniego, two exceptional young men playing for the 2017 Hounds.  Visiting with these present day Greyhounds while witnessing my classmate Joe Black's Hall of Fame induction, I could not help but reflect on Newport's winning tradition in team sports.  The 10-1 1969 Greyhounds of my senior year were led by quarterback Bobby Joe Forrester.  Forty-eight years later, Bobby Joe's son, Cash, is the Greyhounds quarterback.   In the evening's conversation, I discovered that Mallory Hindsley and my daughter, Emily, are friends and sorority sisters.  I love connecting the dots on life's game board...

A "tip of the cap" to the board of directors of the Newport School District Charitable Foundation for establishing the Hall of Fame and keeping "the beat." Melissa Washam Keiffner is the Foundation's director.  She and Julie Allen are to be commended for coordinating the annual banquet.  I was privileged to pinch-hit for my good friend, John Pennington, at the 2016 Hall of Fame induction ceremonies when he assumed a different role in accepting membership into the Hall of Fame on behalf of his father, Wardell Pennington (NHS '43).  Other inductees last year were Bobby Huey (NHS '52), Mark "Redbird" Ramsey (NHS '77), and the 1965 AA State Champion Greyhounds basketball team.  It was so nice to reconnect with Coach Bernis Duke, the head coach of that '65  championship team, who was my family's neighbor in his final season at NHS.  Hearty congratulations to the 2016 and 2017 Newport Alumni Hall of Fame honorees!  "And the beat goes on..."

 

Grandmas sit in chairs and reminisce

Boys keep chasing girls to get a kiss

The cars keep going faster all the time

Bums still cry, "Hey buddy, have you got a dime?"

And the beat goes on, yes, the beat goes on

In 1967, the "grandmas" and grandpas who were "rockin'" and reminiscin' would have included my grandparents.  Fifty years later, I find myself in reminiscent thought of those days gone by and thankful for the faces, places, and events that enlightened my path.  Much has changed over the years.  Yet, the mind sometimes wanders to "chasing girls" and driving fast cars in those days of yore.  The landscape of my hometown is different as is its "smilescape."  Many of the "smiles" that once lit up my life still shine today, but only in my heart.  Among the smiles forever nestled within my heart are those of cousins Bob "Doc" Meacham and Artemis Gray Fallert Brykala, better known as "Little Art."  Since I last tipped over a glass filled with thoughts, so many funerals for family and friends have simply happened.  After each, "the beat goes on..."  I remember...

Over the past fifteen months, two of my 1970 NHS littermates have gone missing from the kennel, Scott Baker and Linda Johnson.  Others who roamed the campus of Newport High School during the '60s and '70s who have scampered off life's playing field in recent months include Buddy Black, Jimmy Jowers, Denny Treadway, Elizabeth Fellows Lewis, Harry Mack Adams, Marcus Nelson, Mary Jackson Elrod, Melva Babb Davis, Jetta Young Consono, Belinda Howard Baker, Anna Catterlin Walls, Connie McGaughey Stuart, Kathy Ellis Cook, Norine Richolson Tribbey, Pat Dallas, Sam Harvey Boyce, and Pam Hout Wallace. The parents of several classmates and friends who have departed this life include Matilda Brownd, Nancy Sink, Norma Wooldridge, Dorothy Rogers, Betty Matthews, Frances Dobson, Ila Lacy, Sue Pratt, Virginia Holmes, Betty Graham Penix, Harold Rutledge, and Bill Fortune.  I also remember mentors whose guiding principals can only be revisited in my mental notes... school administrator Steve Castleberry, ministers Herschel McClurkin and Dan McKee, bankers Albert Rusher and Robert P. Taylor, and the aforementioned Newport ambassadors John Purdy and Sonny Burgess. 

Each of these individuals crossed my life's path at one time or another.  I ran alongside some of them; I followed in the steps of some of them; I admired all of them.  Every one of them has a story... 

My cousin, "Little Art" Brykala was nine years older than I, lived nearby in the South Walnut Street/South Main Street neighborhood, and often was asked to "take me along" with her when I was a youngster.  She and her friends, Pat Battles, Sue White Grady, and Pam Decker, would occasionally allow me to tag along on their jaunts to the Farm Drive-In and other points of interests to teenagers in the late '50s and early '60s.  I stood by her three dearest friends and her sons at her grave site not long ago in reunion remembering times together and Little Art's wicked sense of humor. "The beat goes on..."

Pat Dallas was three years younger than I, but we had become friends through scouting in our younger days.  We enjoyed shared interests in music and writing.  Pat's parents, Becky and Ray Dallas, were my earliest employers at their OTASCO store in Newport and his older brother, Mike, is a fine friend.  I was fortunate to have opportunity to sit and reminisce with Pat several times in his final days in Fayetteville and joined life long Newport pals, David Gray, Gib Ponder, and Phil Madison, in reunion to commit Pat back to the White River of our youth in keeping with his expressed desire.  "The beat goes on..."

I visited often with Buddy Black, the "Voice of the Greyhounds," in recent years.  Last October, Buddy organized a four class reunion of the NHS Classes of 1967 through 1970 in Newport that proved to be a memorable return to the kennel for many aging Greyhounds.  It was at this reunion that I last saw life long friend, Elizabeth Fellows Lewis.  I am so appreciative of Buddy's efforts to bring us together.  He was a friend to all.  I will miss him bringing me the play by play from life's game.  Newport has known many top flight ambassadors, none finer than Buddy Black.  "And the beat goes on..."

Reflections of Newport past and present brings to heart and mind a "young pup" from the NHS Class of 1994.  Newport Police Lieutenant Patrick Weatherford was killed in the line of duty on June 12, 2017.  From present day remembrances, it is apparent Patrick was a "well respected man about town" and an outstanding law enforcement officer.  I remember Patrick as a courteous and kind student at Newport Junior High School during my time on the school board in the late 1980s and early 1990s.  I wish the healing power of abundant love for Patrick's family and all of Newport.  "And the beat goes on..."

Yes, "the beat goes on..."  Just weeks following the last time I dropped rambling thoughts on paper, we welcomed our newest grandson to life's stage.  Owen Thomas Richardson was born to daughter Emily and son-in-law Josh on June 24, 2016.  He arrived some distance away from us in north Africa, so it was not until November 11, 2016 that we first met in person, which just happened to be his older brother Miles's third birthday.  Such a happy day for us!  All six of our grandchildren, Oliver, Claire, Julian, Annabel, Miles, and Owen, bring us immense joy...  "Grandmas (and grandpas) sit in chairs and reminisce..."  That would be us these days... 

"And the beat goes on..."  Until it don't...

I'm Miles from Nowhere...  Think I'll take my time.......

joe







   

   





       

 

 





On a Clear Day...

Have any of you given much thought to reincarnation?  Me neither.  And I have little interest in getting into a philosophical conversation on the transmigration of the soul, but I must admit there have been instances when I 'felt' I had been in a certain place before when I knew for certain I had not been there in this lifetime.  When younger I was much more vulnerable to such thought.  Possibly my imagination was a bit more keen or wilder then.  I recall my initial visit to Cincinnati's old Crosley Field to see a baseball game in the late '60s and I was overcome with the 'feeling' that I had been to that fine city before knowing full well that it was not so.  My surroundings seemed so familiar yet they weren't.  I imagined myself a former ballplayer at the advent of professional baseball in Cincinnati a hundred years before the time I was first there.  I almost convinced myself that I had lived such a life in a time other than now.  Imagination?  Reincarnation?  I think I will have another drink and figure it out or not.

On a clear day

Rise and look around you

And you see who you are

"On a Clear Day You Can See Forever" is a 1965 Broadway musical with its central character being a woman who has been reincarnated and who also has extrasensory perception.  In a sense, she could 'see' both backward and forward in time.  Now wouldn't that be cool?!?   Or not?!?  This production was adapted for film and released to theaters in 1970.  The movie version starred Barbra Streisand and I saw it the summer after graduating from high school.  It was a time when I was on mission to "rise" up, to "look around," and to "see" who I am.  It was not a "clear day."  My mission remains  uninterrupted.  To clearly "see who you are" can be humbling.  But the quest enlightens my heart.

I have my moments when I am certain of my being and my values.  Then arrives an event or a 'voice' that shakes me up and causes me to rethink who I am.  I have come to accept such moments as those 'things' that make life an experience rather than a simple existence.  I welcome different views to assist in the shaping of me with emphasis on becoming someone better than I am today.  I am open to resetting my path for tomorrow.  I recognize that life's plans are subject to change without notice.

Some have accused me of "living in the past."  I really enjoy jumping into my personal time machine and revisiting fun moments from the past in the company of family and friends.  For me, it is no different than traveling to a neighboring state or a foreign country.  Such experiences broaden my horizons and my connections.  I have not yet mastered 'time travel' to the future, but I do let my imagination take me on jaunts in that direction.  And I recall an old cliché reminding me that "you can't know where you're going unless you know where you've been."  Remembering where I've been has brought me much joy even if it has yet to prove an aid in my making a map for life's future, or one for that possible 'next life.'

Living in the present and embracing the past yields the best of both worlds.  In early January I attended a mighty fine party celebrating the 91st birthday of Freda Steenburgen Nichols.  This fun get together was hosted by Freda's daughters (Amy, Theresa, and Becky), and her nieces, Mary and Nancy Steenburgen, at South on Main in Little Rock.  Sonny Burgess and the Pacers brought rock 'n roll music to the event.  By now, the 'Newport Connection' is obvious.  The 'forever young' Austin Grimes was also present.  Friendship circles overlapped with pals from my college days, Susan Elder, Susan Eschenbrenner, Richard Cook, and John Unger, joining in the toast to "Aunt Freda."  My ASU 'running buddy' Susan Elder attended high school in North Little Rock with the Steenburgen girls.

On a clear day

How it will astound you

That the glow of your being

Outshines every star
 

On this occasion, "the glow" of Freda Steenburgen Nichols outshined "every star" in the night's sky.  She was the first to the dance floor and the last to leave when Sonny and the boys turned down the volume.  And seldom was the dance floor not full with the Pacers playing such tunes as "Red Headed Woman," "My Buckets Got a Hole in It," "Sweet Home Chicago," and the Jack Nance/Conway Twitty hit, "It's Only Make Believe."  Sonny exclaimed that he remembered Freda from dances long ago at the Silver Moon.  One would swear Freda is closer to 19 than she is to 91.

I had reconnected with "Aunt Freda" in May, 2015 when Kathryn and I attended a fundraising event for the Oxford American Society in support of the publication, "Oxford American" magazine.  The "Mary and Friends" event was coordinated by Newport native Mary Steenburgen and brought together six distinguished singer/songwriters, all friends of Mary and her husband, Ted Danson.  Mary was joined on stage by Matraca Berg, Kim Carnes, Greg Barnhill, Shawn Camp, Shelly Colvin, and Jeremy Spillman.  Kathryn and I were joined in the audience by college pals Susan Elder and John Unger, Susan Eschenbrenner and Richard Cook, Delia and Stan James, Nellie and Billy Mosley, and my life long friend and Newport littermate Kristine Artymowski.  All of us had a big time!  And Mary and Ted raised a good bit of money for Oxford American.

During the "Mary and Friends" get together, I had opportunity to reminisce about Newport past with Mary and showed her a digital photo from the First United Methodist Church in Newport taken on Easter Sunday, 1957, when both of us were pre-school age.  Our conversation caught the ear of Mary's Aunt Freda who proceeded to tell me of the close, genuine friendship shared by my father with Maurice Steenburgen, her brother and the father of Mary and Nancy.  Freda even recalled visiting my parents on several occasions at our family's apartment at 412 Hazel "back in the day."  Her loving nature and her recollections brought to my heart a "clear day."  I feel extremely fortunate that my life's path crossed that of Freda Steenburgen Nichols once again.

The morning after Freda's birthday party, Kathryn and I ran into Mary Steenburgen and Ted Danson at the airport giving us opportunity to continue conversation from the night before.  We visited at length about Mary's mother and her aunt Lillian Grimes, who was my grade school principal at Gibbs-Albright Elementary and who had significant influence on my life's direction.  We all revisited our growing up years and present day circumstances.  It was a delightful time together.  In reflecting on their vocations as actors, that song co-written by Newport's Jack Nance, "It's Only Make Believe," popped to mind, but the conversation enjoyed made "clear" that these two are grounded in reality.  Our common bonds are the overlapping friendship circles and memories shared of fine Newport folk.  I look forward to further conversation with Mary and Ted.

On a clear day...

You'll feel part of every mountain, sea and shore

You can hear

From far and near

A word you've never, never heard before...

To "feel part of every mountain, sea and shore" requires relationship.  Physical relationships with nature, spiritual relationships with God, emotional relationships with loved ones generate the 'feelings' that nourishes the heart.

Seldom do people climb mountains, sail the seas, or walk the shores alone, especially when on mission to discover new 'things' and to lay groundwork for the future.  Thoughts of "forever" typically include the faces of those you want by your side in the time that is yet to be.  Such thoughts, hopeful thoughts, are clouded by the uncertainties of tomorrow.  Thus the yearning for "clear" days...  Yet the veracity of looking back into the past can be as questionable as those efforts to peer into the future in search of "forever." 

I am most fortunate to have dependable friendship circles.  Chief among them is that gang of childhood pals with whom I 'grew up' in Newport, my littermates.  This week marks the 46th anniversary of our 'escape' from the kennel at Remmel Park that some may refer to as Newport High School.  The NHS Class of 1970 is an amiable pack of Hounds on incessant hunt for a good time.  In the past nine months, the 'seniors' of 1970 (we are more worthy of the 'senior' tag these days than we were then) have enjoyed four different opportunities to gather in the same play pen for sake of reunion.  In August 2015, a good number of Pups met to celebrate 45 years of separation from NHS at Trio's in Little Rock, an excellent venue for those wandering in from a myriad of Arkansas outposts as well as for wayward Pups from Hawaii, Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Alabama, North Carolina, Ohio, and Tennessee.  In October 2015, Buddy Black (NHS '68) coordinated a four class (1967-1970) reunion of aging Hounds with events at the Iron Mountain Depot and the Silver Moon in Newport headlined by good eats from Larry Cordell's (NHS '68) Brothers' Bar-B-Q in Heber Springs.  It was a reunion for the ages with plenty of bones to gnaw on and 'tall tales' to chase.  And then in November 2015 and May 2016, the gracious Billie Jean Nelson Rice and her husband, Keith, hosted Class of '70 shindigs at their home east of Auvergne where love and laughter are served up in big doses.

Particularly, the four class reunion generated many fond memories of school days since it brought together expanded relationship circles shared in that time in Newport.  My classmates represented the youngest of those present who all would have been students on the NHS campus in the 1966-67 school year.  As ninth graders that year, we were the 'kingpins' of junior high, yet the majority of our classrooms were in the senior high building where we were underlings.  That situation often played with my mind and created my own identity crisis.  The many present from the three classes just ahead of our class included those 'upper class' boys and girls I admired and often looked to for advice.  I was in the midst of Greyhound teammates as well as fellow members of the Latin Club, the Key Club, the Art Club, and my Boy Scout troops.  Some of us toured today's school facilities and recalled times past in the same hallways and classrooms.  I heard the echoes of the laughter shared from days gone by...  I offer many thanks to Buddy Black and his host of helpers in coordinating this multi-class reunion.  A good time was had by all!

Whenever I gather with groups of 'old' friends and family members, we tend to reminisce.  Such reminiscent banter is infused with inconsistencies.  "You can hear from far and near a word you've never, never heard before..."

There was a childhood game I knew as the "telephone game" where the first person whispers a phrase to the next person in a circle, who then passes the whisper to the next, and so on, until the whisper reaches the final person who states aloud the phrase, which by then has typically changed a bit since its inception.  Similarly, reminiscent stories told by others often differ from my remembrance of the same event.  Yes, some of us (that would include me) exaggerate for emphasis or to enliven a certain happening.  But then some simply remember a particular life event differently from others.  These differences can be due to vantage point.  Or the passage of time might have clouded the memory.  Regardless of reason, looking into the past can be just as confusing as gazing into the future.  But I submit that the journey back in time through story telling among friends is more fun than the 'factual' destination...

When I "sit right down and write myself a letter" about times then and now, I often lean on my own custom kaleidoscope to add some color to my notions.  It is a simple tool comprised of a crystal tumbler, four cubes of ice, and three fingers of single malt scotch.  Drink slowly between thoughts...  The fluid, amber lens of my 'kaleidoscope' renders a 'clear' view of past happenings and, at same time, provides a catalyst for future plans.  After all, isn't the journey to 'forever' mapped out in our personal 'plans?'  I'm thinkin' plans are just dreams in forever time...  And where is that "clear day" when needed to 'cure' those concrete plans for tomorrow?

More often than not, when I swirl the tumbler of my kaleidoscope, images of treasured relationships can be conjured up.  Colorful characters I have known appear at the centerpoint of my gaze...  And I remember...

My littermate and high school running buddy, Billy Don Summers, wandered off life's path on January 11 of this year at 64.  Forever young, Billy Don was a creative spirit, a musician, an artist, a genuine friend.  Oh, the stories we lived.  His crooked smile is forever etched upon my heart...

Walter Allbright, father of my friends Eddie, Lee, Marsha, and Nancy, sailed beyond life's horizon on May 11, 2016 at a youthful 87 years of age.  He was "Popeye" to his children and grandchildren.  Walter and Peg Allbright were dear friends of my parents and we enjoyed many 'get togethers' with the Allbright family in my younger days.  Life was lived to its fullest in the presence of Walter and Peg.  I particularly loved watching my parents and Walter and Peg on the dance floor.  There may have been better 'hoofers,' but none had more fun than they did at a dance party.  Walter's fun loving spirit will always play upon my heart...

Betty Ann Hurley Gardner gracefully strolled from life's view on May 21, 2016.  She was 88 years young and the mother of my childhood pals, Ann, Lee, and Walter.  The Gardner 'kids,' my sister, Lana, and I were surrounded in our neighborhood by a bunch of fun seekers around our same ages.  My relationship with this family was further enriched by my friendships with Betty Ann's sisters, Bobbie Hurley Harper and Sissy Hurley Sanborn, and her parents, Gladys and Buck Hurley.  Bobbie was my dance teacher and her children, David and Robin Sibley, are fast, life long friends.  Aunt Sissy is indeed my surrogate aunt in Newport. And their mother, Gladys "Mama Hurley" treated me as family.  Betty Ann and Bob Gardner were welcoming hosts to spontaneous gatherings of kids, especially on cold, wintry days when many of us would be sledding on the levee.  Betty Ann's warmhearted presence took the chill off in a hurry.  Her sweet, caring soul fills my heart...

My eyes seem a bit misty, I think it may be time to freshen up my kaleidoscope...  And to turn up the music...

Music fuels my time machine...  It sets the course for my short returns to the past.  And it is an assist to my flight plans into the future because I know music lives forever.  Tearfully, I realize that musicians do not...

The early days of 2016 have witnessed several iconic musicians leaving life's stage...  I will miss the creative genius of Prince and David Bowie.  I will miss the driving influence of Glenn Frey.  I will miss the songwriting skills of balladeers Merle Haggard and Guy Clark.  I will miss the soulfulness of Maurice White and Billy Paul.  I will miss the stage antics of Keith Emerson.  I will miss the crooner's legacy of Frank Sinatra, Jr.  Yet I can continue to live in their music...

Sometimes the view through my kaleidoscope lightens life's picture and music can liven up a place.  Some months back, littermate John Sink experienced a serious heart attack while on stage playing with his bandmates at a Dallas night spot.  A quick response to his situation and an extended hospital stay has enabled John to get back to kickin' up his heels and to ticklin' the ivories.  Hoping to see John on stage soon myself...

This past Saturday night, May 28, 2016, Kathryn and I discovered a "clear" path to the past and to the bar at the Newport Country Club where they have a variety of kaleidoscopes on tap...  Unlike my visit to Crosley Field in the late '60s that seemed strangely familiar, I knew darned well I had been in this place before.  The grand occasion was to celebrate the 87th birthday of Sonny Burgess, Newport's favorite Rock 'n Roll legend and my life long friend.  And wouldn't you know that Sonny would play his own birthday gig alongside his bandmates, the Pacers.  The 'party' was a homecoming for many folks from Newport and the club was bursting at the seams with stories from days of yore.  Sonny acknowledged friends, young and old, and recalled the beginnings of his career playing at the Silver Moon, Porky's Roof Top, Bob King's, and other famous honky tonks up and down Arkansas' Rock 'n Roll Highway before he became a Sun Records recording star.  Hats off to Henry Boyce, curator of the Rock 'n Roll Highway museum and local prosecuting attorney, and to Mike Doyle, station manager at KASU, for pulling the party together for Sonny's friends and fans.  Sonny hosts "We Wanna Boogie With You" on KASU on Sunday evenings from 5:00-7:00pm when he can send you on a 'blast to the past' by 'spinning' some aging rockabilly tunes.

Sonny Burgess is not only a mighty fine musician, but he was a remarkable baseball player who was my coach in days long ago.  I cherish the friendship I share with Sonny and wish him many more magical moments on life's road trip.  Mike Doyle pointed out Saturday night that Jerry Lee Lewis is 80, Willie Nelson is 83, Loretta Lynn is 84, and Sonny Burgess is still rockin' at 87!  He and the Pacers just returned from a gig at Hemsby, England in the United Kingdom and they are booked into next year...  Rock 'n Roll is here to stay!  And so is the music of Sonny Burgess and the Pacers!  I am already counting the days 'til the next time we get to see them rock on...

And on a clear day... On a clear day...

You can see forever...

And ever...

And ever...

And ever more...

I believe that 'forever' lies within the heart...  My plans are wrapped up in my dreams...  My kaleidoscope is refreshed...  "And on a clear day..."

I remain Miles from Nowhere... Wandering and wondering...think I'll take my time........
joe