Yeah, Yeah, Yeah

I had cool aunts and uncles, growing up, especially on my mom's side.

You've heard me say how Mom's sister, Aunt Ona, and her husband Uncle John got me back into playing music.

One of Mother's other sisters lived in Whitehaven, MS. Every summer, my sisters and I would visit for a week with Aunt Norma and Uncle Billy and their daughters, the two oldest of whom were about the same age as Brenda and Deb.

You have heard tell of the fabulous adventures of Jack and Susan, so you know that I was OK hanging out with the females, you know, pretending to be a monster and such like.

But guys, being guys, need to hang out with guys sometimes and this is where my Uncle Billy was so cool. He would sit and just talk sometimes or we would play chess (which he would nearly always win, but that was cool too).

I think my favorite thing was that he would let me sit up late and watch the Carson show with him, something I was not allowed to do at home.

Which brings me to my favorite Uncle Billy story, the one where we saw the Beatles before they came to America.

The summer before I turned 14, we were sitting in the Shelton's living room in Whitehaven, MS (a suburb of Memphis) watching The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.

John's first guest that night was Jack Paar, former host of the Tonight Show. After the usual pleasantries ("how ya doin?" "watcha been up to?"), Jack shared that he had been in jolly old England where he had seen a most unusual sight.

He then showed a Super 8 (the VHS of the 60's) film of this rock group playing in a large theater or something in London. He remarked on how the girls (or young women, if you prefer) would go absolutely insane at theses concerts, screaming their heads off, weeping, fainting, and other such hysterical carryings-on. Quite amazing really.

And so it was. You could barely hear the band over the noise, though the lads, a quartet of long-haired (for back in the day) young men neatly dressed were giving it their all. "She Loves You" I think was the song and if I had been on Bandstand, I would have scored it an 85, "cuz you can dance to it."

John cracked a few jokes about the whole scene and went to a commercial.

Uncle Bill turned to me and asked, "What did you think of them?"

"They're okay I guess but I like the Four Seasons better."

Thus music criticism in the early 60's.

Fall On Your Knees

O holy night, the stars are brightly shining....

I have told you before what a great singing voice my late brother-in-law had. One of the blessings of my life is the memory of singing with him and Deb, "I Should Have Been Crucified," in church one Sunday.

Another blessing was granted me, however, in the days before I came to know Christ as Savior.

It seems the choir at LBC was staging a cantata and one of the highlights would be a solo rendition of "O Holy Night."

Paul had been chosen to sing this part and was understandably nervous about having to sing this challenging piece alone.

Let me interrupt the narrative by stating that even as an infidel, I occasionally visited the church where I was raised. On Mother's Day, for the most part.

"I go to church once a year, whether I need to or not," was my irreligious comment upon this habit.

So Paul came to me and asked if I would sing "O Holy Night" with him in the cantata.

I agreed because it is my most favorite Christmas song ever, and because my brother-in-law asked me and because, though he had a wonderful voice, I understood his anxiety (as I have said) about having to sing this hymn alone.

And so we did, and so it was a beautiful experience.

I have told you all this, not because it is just a beautiful reminisce of the Christmas season, but because it continually astounds me; the goodness and mercy that have indeed followed me all the days of my life.

Truly I love Him because He first loved me.

The List

So they said I couldn't comment on any of the seven books I would post as most influential in my life.

When have I not commented on anything?!?

First, seven is not nearly enough. Looking at the lists posted by those people I know, I will bet each of you that you grumbled under your breath as you had to trim favorites just to make some arbitrary number like seven books that were your all-time favorites.

I thinking more like twenty maybe or thirty even. That said, here goes:

So the Bible was an easy first choice. Reading it saved my soul. Saved my life. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever.

Hemingway because he showed me early on what real writing looks like; exposition through dialog and this story; because no man is an island.

Huckleberry Finn. Mark Twain, need I say more?

Shelby Foote's Civil War Narrative. How can we know where we're going if we don't know where we've been.

Matthew Henry's Commentary. The first book I bought as a Christian. What a guide through Scripture for the beginning student.

Edgar Allan Poe. How do you set a mood in a story? Read Poe.

Field of Blood. Two of the above-mentioned books are on the list not only because I love to read them, but because they present such lessons in writing style. Props to Ms. Jenna Wright, my writing professor at UT Martin. She read my three page short story and encouraged me to further explore the lives of the three main characters. A novel, she said.

After three long years of research and Lord knows how many re-writes, there it is, for better or worse. I done the best I could, Ms. Wright.

BTW, do not propose any such foolish list for movies.

I know where you live.

There Are No Gorillas in the Caribbean, Captain Ron

For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. -Romans 7:19

You must be killing sin or sin will be killing you.-John Owen

Spiritual warfare: I am saved but still in the flesh. The description of this condition presented  in Romans 7 resonates in each of our hearts.

I don't have it down(this Christian walk). It is part and parcel of Scripture's continual warning and instruction that I must not grow complacent or over-confident (1 Corinthians 10:12).

And I am reflecting on Mao's instruction manual, "On Guerilla Warfare," and am reminded of the insidious nature of sin.

Oh sure, the devil comes at us sometimes with cannons blazing, seeking to overwhelm us.

Have you noticed, though,  that as your faith grows and you begin to gain victory over sin, it's the little stuff, lots of times, that trips you up?

Like Mao's guerilla, the sin that once controlled us fades into the background as we grow in grace. To the point, it seems, of going away altogether.

In Genesis 3, God describes sin as "crouching at the door" of Cain's heart.

Have you considered that the "fiery darts" of Satan warned against by Paul are weapons of stealth?

We think of ourselves then as Christian warriors out on patrol, with God's Word and the Holy Spirit walking point, ever alert for ambush, for sin "desires to have us."

We might do well also to remember James Cagney's last words in "Public Enemy":

"I ain't so hot."

Why Are You Running Away??

And I can feel... one of my turns coming on.-Pink Floyd





Like all children of our era, we had prodigious imaginations.

All we needed was a stage to act out our wild imaginings.

The picnic table, for example, became a life raft out on the empty sea whereon two piteous shipwreck survivors (my sisters) forlornly awaited rescue when suddenly a hideous many-armed sea creature (me, under the table) attempted to grab them and drag them under the murky waters.

Result: much screaming and dancing about on top of the table for them and much maniacal thrashing about and gleeful arm waving for the sea monster.

Or there was a game, "Ghost," always played on moonlit summer nights where the best hiding place could often be inside a shadow, and victims might stroll haplessly by.

Let me say, at this point, that our parents did not help by sticking a tiny black and white t.v. in my bedroom and leaving us to watch Fantastic Features in said darkened room on a Saturday night.

We didn't need that kind of encouragement.

Not all our playlets were horror-oriented but many (lots) were.

Hammer Films' Dracula movies throughout the sixties were the icing on the cake. Admiring Christopher Lee, I thought I would make a pretty good vampire.

My oldest daughter tells this part of the story better than I do:

https://wordpress.com/read/blogs/68594809/posts/699


Not sure what life lessons there are here: facing your fears maybe, how to scar your children irreparably more likely, fun and games and other distractions perhaps.

Or, in the words of a great philosopher: "We coulda had fun sometimes...ummmhmmmm."

Come to think of it, we did.

How I Met Your Father

For Tambrey Ringer Kinley

I never told you about my good friend, Danny "Boone" Patton.

Our parents were friends; hangin' out, card playin' buddies.

Boone was the same age as my sister Brenda and from a young age, after he got his first guitar, it was quite apparent that this boy could play.

And so he would play and I (not yet being the guitar prodigy that I am now) would sing. In fact if it was on the radio, we could probably perform it.

Anyway, years passed and we got to be plumb-growed boys in our twenties with families of our own when we began to get together again and play (I had a guitar by this time and could second  my friend).

Sometimes we gathered together with family. but lots of times it would just be us two.

We would pop by one another's house with a "Have you heard this one?" or a "This is a cool song."

And so we were sitting in my bedroom one afternoon playing an Eagles song, "Peaceful Easy Feelin'" maybe or one of those.

And my sister Deb appears in the doorway with a strange fella in tow. She introduces him and leaves him with us while she wanders off to hang with my wife and kids.

Paul, his name was, sat on the bed with us and asked if we minded his singing along with the Eagles tune, we had been playing.

Sure, we said, not having heard this guy sing or even knowing if he could sing.

We commenced and when he opened his mouth to sing, we nearly fell off our guitars. Paul could sing.

Anyhow we now had us a lead singer so to speak, and when Deb and Boone and I would blend our voices with his, the harmonies were amazing.

And I'm not bragging, you can ask anybody who ever heard us.

Matter of fact, even if nobody had ever heard us play, it was just a blast to play together.

Boone was already an honorary Tolar. He was "make you laugh your drink through your nose" funny.

Paul was adopted immediately and we built quite a repertoire of songs, though we never performed publicly per se, just with friends, and at family gatherings.

And I think each of us felt it, the joy of making music together, the sheer fun and silliness of it.

Fine times. After I moved away, the times weren't nearly so frequent but no matter the length of time gone by, there was never a time when we got back together and it was as though we had stepped out of the room ("a pause for the cause," you might say)for a moment and simply returned to pick up our guitars to play some more. 

The last time I went to visit Paul, we played. Or I played, on his Charvel acoustic-electric with the cherry sunburst finish, and he sang, every one of the old songs we could remember, our voices still blending in as sweet  a sound as always.

Not a lot of precise detail in the Bible about heaven. But I can't help thinking, God having given us the gift of music, that along with the new songs we are promised there will be time enough throughout eternity to break out the guitars and sing some of the old ones as well.

Ruining It For Everyone

Our parents (especially our mom) were never ones to "spare the rod."

Nonetheless, we got away (my sisters, brother and I) with a whole metric ton of crap we should have received a switching for.

Deb reminded me of this, when she read of the tree-climbing incident. She remembers that we took a beating when all Mom really did was scold us very hard about the dangers of tree climbing.

But since my Lil Sis was always (no really, I mean always) into something, she remembers a lot of butt-whippings. The wicked flee where no one pursues, or something like that.

I mean let's be honest. Mother was a stay-at-home mom but do you really believe that she could have been on top of everything four rowdies like us were into?

Not at all likely, so many of my childhood memories consist of us getting away with some pretty epic stuff.

It was a wonderful time.

I will say, looking back, that there may have been the occasional miscarriage of justice.

Take the Cowboy Incident.

By way of background let me explain that polio was a devastating and much feared childhood disease at the time. Everyone knew of families that suffered the heart-rending results of polio.

I don't recall much at all about it except that it always occurred (I believe) with the onset of a high fever, so that logically (or perhaps not) overheating was to be avoided at all costs.

And so it was that one warm (it's the South, so that that term is relative) summer evening, I was riding my imaginary horse across the high plains of the American West. Tracking down bad guys, as nearly as I can recall. Like Buchanan ( background singing: Randolph Scott), I rode alone.

Suddenly there was this shrill shrieking in the distance. Thinking myself ambushed by murderous Native Americans, I dove for cover, pulling my trusty six-shooter.

Something much more to be feared than native hostiles met my sight as I looked around for the source of the caterwauling: Mom striding across the yard with a determined look on her face.

"What are you doing, hot as it is, with all those clothes on?"

I was dressed as I imagined any cowboy might be, in jeans, t-shirt, a flannel shirt and a denim jacket. Indeed Randolph Scott himself never looked so spiffy or decked out to deal with whatever despicable villains I might encounter.

"I'm PLAYIN,'" I whined.

"Get all that stuff off right now!" she insisted.

"But I'm a COWBOY!" I defended myself.

She replied with a swat to the behind and a firm admonition to remove the excess clothing at  once lest I become a victim of polio.

This was very serious stuff, as I pointed out, though I will admit that my thoughts were not focused at all  on her watchcare over her child (me) but instead how she had ruined my perfectly good time and how I (at the time) hated her.

Not like you haven't been there at some point in your younger years so stop looking down your nose as though you haven't.

It was all quite unfair to my way of thinking.

You know my dad put it all into perspective some time later.

Mom was the main enforcer in our family, so Daddy would only intervene when he perhaps thought we weren't getting the point.

So maybe once a year or so, he would round up us three oldest and apply his belt a lick or two to the appropriate area. When my sister Brenda complained once that she hadn't been doing anything, he replied:

"Then this is for the things I didn't catch you doing."

You know there's a kind of rough frontier justice to that statement that I think even Randolph Scott could appreciate.