CINDERELLA

I am a church beside the highway where the ditches never drain
I'm a Baptist like my daddy, and Jesus knows my name
I am memory and stillness, I am lonely in old age
I am not your destination
I am clinging to my ways
I am a town

LET’S TALK ABOUT CINDERELLA. Not the girl, but a place. Actually an old hotel.

POSTCARD OF THE CINDERELLA HOTEL. SHAWNEE, OKLAHOMA.

I don't know the history of the Cinderella Hotel. I could probably have done some research, but I'm not writing a piece for posterity here. And, I want to recall the Cinderella as I encountered her over the years.

Let's start with why she is on my mind. She has sat abandoned, except for a few homeless folks looking for a night's rest. Now, the word is that she will be bulldozed. This is the merciful thing to do.

What was once a lovely place to stay with all the post-war promise of a young, abused stepchild who has just met her fairy godmother, to a seedy place where the best business plan was probably to rent rooms by the hour rather than for the duration of a family vacation with “refrigerated-air” and a lovely pool.

My first experience with the Cinderella was as a mildly rebellious, young preacher's boy with a small bag of wild oats to be sown. Those oats grew into straws, one of which, but not the camel's back breaking one, was a "function" (read: dance) for the students of the Baptist university a bison's chip's throw from the Cinderella, a function that I may have had a hand in planning, which may now live in infamy.

Years later, our family which was scattered around Oklahoma, gathered at the Cinderella for a family Christmas gathering. By this time the old girl was showing signs of giving up. Like her glass slipper didn't fit anymore and her prince had lost interest.

A year ago we moved to Shawnee to become a burden to our children. We drive by the Cinderella often on our way to the dance studio and a little restaurant called, "Shawnee Pho" which is a favorite of our Grand-Girls, and sits next door to the Cinderella. We ate there just last night. As I always do, I glanced over at the dilipated, fenced off mess and remembered better days. After eating I cracked open my fortune cookie to discover there was no fortune inside. See where I'm going?

This morning, I saw the headline that the old princess will be plowed under. I don't know what will take its place. Maybe they plan to "pave paradise and put up a parking lot."

Remember this lyric from John Lennon, "Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans." Maybe I'll write that on a piece of paper, carefully insert it into a fortune cookie and throw it into Cinderella's remains along with the memories of vacations, honeymoons, ashtrays, COLOR TV, and paper ribbons that stretched across toilet seats telling us that it had been “Sanitized For Our Protection”.

I kicked off this essay with a stanza, my favorite stanza, from the song "I Am A Town" by Mary Chapin Carpenter. I don't claim to understand what Mary had in mind when she wrote it, but I can imagine a town like Shawnee and so many others singing it, if a town could sing a song.

Speaking as a Shawneeite, I'm excited that we have a new Taco Casa and Dutch Bros Coffee, but these don't do anything for the shell that was once a vibrant downtown. I wish it could vibrate again. I'm not counting on a visit from a fairy godmother or a decision by Joanna and Chip Gaines to make Shawnee their new home, bringing a truckload of shiplap and promise of rebirth, so, I'll offer this verse, taken way out of context, as a step:

"Also work for the success of the city I have sent you to. Pray to the Lord for that city. If it succeeds, you too will enjoy success.” Jeremiah 29:7.

Here's to old Cinderella. Thanks for everything. Sorry you didn't live happily ever after.

Please take time to listen to Mary Chapin Carpenter's song. Here's a link and the lyrics.

I'm a town in Carolina
I'm a detour on a ride
For a phone call and a soda, I'm a blur from the driver's side
I'm the last gas for an hour if you're going twenty-five

I am Texaco and tobacco
I am dust you leave behind

I am peaches in September, and corn from a roadside stall
I'm the language of the natives, I'm a cadence and a drawl

I'm the pines behind the graveyard
And the cool beneath their shade

Where the boys have left their beer cans
I am weeds between the graves

My porches sag and lean with old black men and children
My sleep is filled with dreams, I never can fulfill them

I am a town

I am a church beside the highway where the ditches never drain
I'm a Baptist like my daddy, and Jesus knows my name
I am memory and stillness, I am lonely in old age

I am not your destination
I am clinging to my ways
I am a town

I'm a town in Carolina
I am billboards in the fields
I'm an old truck up on cinder blocks, missing all my wheels
I am Pabst Blue Ribbon, American, and 'Southern Serves the South'

I am tucked behind the Jaycees sign, on the rural route

I am a town

FOR MICHAEL

I just don’t understand. It’s happened again. A friend has passed, too soon, too painfully, too tragically. This one is particularly hard because we need all the good guys we have. We need the musicians, the problem-solvers, the-givers-of-unconditional-love. We need the great husbands, fathers, grandfathers, and friends, we need the eternal optimists and people of unrelenting courage and faith. We need Michael.

No one knows this better than his family and those who worked with him: he could always be counted on to solve, to encourage, to see a better path forward; always forward.

Remember that “Mikey” from the LIFE cereal ad? No one wanted to risk dipping their spoon into that bowl of the unknown and untried. “Let Mikey try it. He’ll try anything!”

Our Mikey was like that. Whether it was trying to help someone start their car or facing a multi-million dollar deal at the office… Let Mikey try it. And he would.

But. What do we do now? If he were still here we would turn there for his sensible, reliable, sound and wise guidance.

I first met him when he was in high school. We had just moved from Tulsa to El Reno where I would be the youth minister of one of the churches in town. I kept hearing about this guy named Michael and I knew that I wanted to recruit him to our team, but alas he was a faithful and committed member at his own small church. It was early though when I figured out that this guy’s life was unique. I’m going to compare it to a musical, literally and metaphorically. Remember the movie “Mr. Holland’s Opus” about a dedicated high school band director who realized only late that his life’s story was an opus—a cumulative work, a musical composition?

If Mr. Holland’s life’s work was an opus, Micheal’s was a Broadway musical. Not because it was overly grand, but because it was so real, so relatable and loved by so many. He literally sang about everything in every scenario. Even before his first drink of coffee in the morning he was singing about having his first cup of “caffeine soup”.

So, if my comparison holds true, what would you call the last eight or so months of his life: the final verse? A last chorus?

NO. I don’t think so at all. I’m going to call it a bridge. If you’re not familiar with the bridge in musical composition—well check out this explanation:

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What Is a Bridge In a Song?

A bridge is a section of a song that’s intended to provide contrast to the rest of the composition. From The Beatles to Coldplay to Iron Maiden, songwriters use bridges to change moods and keep audiences on their toes. Typically, a bridge will follow a chorus section and present something different—whether it’s a different chord progression, a new key, a faster or slower tempo, or a meter change. A song doesn’t end on its bridge, so there will always be an opportunity to steer the composition back to its main themes once the bridge has concluded. —from Masterclass

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And there it is. At first, it appears as a different song, which would mean the first one ended, but it’s not that. It’s something different: a new key, a tempo or meter change.

“A song doesn’t end on its bridge!” We will have the familiar refrains of Michael’s musical with us for years to come. It will remind us, guide us, comfort and challenge.

Michael’s family is wonderfully musical. With each note sung or played, he will be remembered. Maybe that’s what he would sing today, “Remember Me”.

DON'T WORRY BABY

WE’VE GROWN WEARY of the news cycle: COVID-Trump-Insurrection-Repeat. We have also grown weary of regular TV—you know, endless ads for prescription drugs with happy old people risking it all on countless, awful side-effects, interspersed with bits of “Wheel of Fortune” and “Everybody Loves Raymond” reruns.

Let’s watch a movie! Netflix had a recommendation for us: “Runaway Bride” with Julia Roberts and Richard Gere. It was just the comfortable, predictable, escape we needed. The title says it all (spoiler alert) it’s about a bride that runs away. She’s made several trips to the marriage alter, but flees just before vow time. But, then along comes Gere…

It took me back. Forty-nine years. Just this time of the year in 1972, I was attempting to woo and wow a pretty young lady.

I was a student at the University of Tulsa, playing drums in a rock and roll band, and driving a school bus for Tulsa Public Schools. She was a senior in high school and had just been selected Miss December by the student body. Her life was fine and full. I hoped to make it Fuller (wink, wink).

The top five tunes on the radio for this same week back in 1972 were:

You're So Vain —Carly Simon
Superstition —Stevie Wonder
Me And Mrs. Jones —Billy Paul
Crocodile Rock —Elton John
Your Mama Don't Dance —Loggins & Messina

The political scandal du jour:

In January 1972, G. Gordon Liddy, Finance Counsel for the Committee for the Re-Election of the President and former aide to John Ehrlichman, presented a campaign intelligence plan to CRP's Acting Chairman Jeb Stuart Magruder, Attorney General John Mitchell, and Presidential Counsel John Dean that involved extensive illegal activities against the Democratic Party. According to Dean, this marked "the opening scene of the worst political scandal of the twentieth century and the beginning of the end of the Nixon presidency". —Wikipedia (Dean, John W. (2014). The Nixon Defense: What He Knew and When He Knew It).

On Valentine’s Day 1972, I offered THE ring and asked that all important question: “So, do you think Nixon will go down in history as the worst…” NO, NO, NO! Not that question. THE question. The for-better-or-worse question.

She had so many reasons to say NO. She could have said, “You’re in school with high tuition hanging over you. You’re a drummer and a bus driver.” For-richer-or-poorer? “Ummm, No. I don’t think so.”

So how did it turn out?

I just told you about happily watching a Netflix movie together. Are you paying attention? My bride did not runaway. As Paul Harvey used to say: “And, now you know the rest of the story.” Was she ever tempted? Well, if I were married to me, I would have to say YES, I would have been tempted to run away from me on numerous occasions.

Maybe you've seen the movie “About Schmidt” with Jack Nicholson. The movie starts with his character, Warren Schmidt at his retirement dinner. It's the beginning of a road of dark comedy that many of us could relate to but none of us want to travel. The title of this blog--About Pops--is a respectful borrowing from the title and theme of the movie.

Shortly after retiring, Schmidt’s wife passes away. He slips deeper into a funk, believing his life has not counted for anything. He goes on a road trip, all alone, in a motorhome his wife purchased for their retirement years. One night he’s sitting in a park on top of the RV talking to his deceased wife:

“Helen, what did you really think of me, deep in your heart? Was I really the man you wanted to be with? Was I? Or were you disappointed and too nice to show it?”

That is one of the most tragic lines in any movie ever. I just wanted to shake him and say, “Warren; buddy, she didn’t run away did she? She bought the RV. She was looking down the road, the road with YOU. Sure maybe you’ve been a pain in the bumper, but apparently she was holding out hope for some bliss somehow somewhere.”

I remember January of 1972, I almost flunked out of a scuba diving class. (Had to get that pesky P.E. credit.) It was an evening class. On those winter evenings I wanted to be with her, not in a swimming tank learning how to decompress before surfacing from a deep dive. I skipped so many classes I almost failed my final test dive, but I had something more important going on.

Although certified, I’ve never been scuba diving. I’ve had something more important going on. Oh I don’t have the fervor that my 21 year-old self had, but I still hope to woo and wow her at 70 and beyond. Am I the man she really wanted to be with? Or is she disappointed and too nice to show it?

We’ve taken the whole quarantine thing really seriously. That is to say that we’ve had a lot of together-time. So far she hasn’t suggested that I enroll in a scuba diving class. I’m taking that as a good sign.

CUE THE BEACH BOYS—

Well it's been building up inside of me
For oh I don't know how long
I don't know why
But I keep thinking
Something's bound to go wrong

But she looks in my eyes
And makes me realize
And she says "don't worry, baby"

Don't worry, baby
Don't worry, baby
Everything will turn out alright

Don't worry, baby

DRUMS.HEARTS.WOMEN

I first met Danny, as he was known then, in the Fall of 1974. He was 15. I was 23. I had just moved to El Reno, Oklahoma, from Tulsa to be the youth director at the First Baptist Church, Dan’s church.

We connected right away. He was an aspiring drummer. I was a drummer. Drummers can talk for hours about paradiddles and snare tensions. Dan loved nuance and I did too. Every time he would buy a new album (that’s a vinyl record that plays music for those under 20) he would bring it to our house and we would listen. “He’s got to be playing double bass pedals on that!” he would say, or, “I wish I could tune my toms to sound like that.” All of that would serve him well. He became one of the best sound engineers around. Any band loved to have Dan mixing their sound. He would study a room for hours, moving mics just an inch or so, tweaking knobs and sliders, switching a cable trying to isolate a hum; all behind the scenes stuff to make the experience great for the band and the audience.

One of the very first of many memorable experiences with Dan came early in our friendship. His parents we’re going out of town over night. The lived just a few houses up the street from where we lived. His mother asked My Amazing Missus if we would sort of keep an eye out since Dan would be home alone. Early, on the morning after that night, I drove by their house and noticed his dad’s car in the driveway with the rear end up on a couple of wobbly jacks. I stopped by—just curious.

Turns out he and a couple of buddies had taken the car for a drive the night before. He knew Ralph would have taken note of the odometer reading. Their hope was that by running the car in reverse, those miles would come off the odometer. FYI, it doesn’t work.

“Oh man, we shouldn’t have done that!” is a close approximation of what he said, revealing the fact that you can’t turn back time either. Or can you?

Yesterday, Dan’s wife Peggy held a beautiful memorial service for him. These are the hardest, when a beautiful life ends way too soon. Can’t we please just run this thing back a few miles, a few months, a few years? At this memorial service was a number of Dan and Peggy’s friends from those days when I got to be their youth director. I stood at the back and looked at them and remembered. Rewound the tape so to speak and in my mind watched those times again. Times that for me and My Amazing Missus shaped so much of who we are today.

One evening years ago, Dan called and wanted to come by to talk. As I’ve said this wasn’t unusual. I remember it like it was yesterday. We sat on our back porch and he anxiously told me that he had decided to ask Peggy to marry him.

I assumed he was telling me this so I could share in the celebration, but he was really seeking advice, some guidance. At first I assumed that maybe it was because I was his wise spiritual mentor. No. It wasn’t that. Basically he was concerned that he would be asking for the hand of a girl he probably didn’t deserve (as least in his mind). He wanted to marry a girl that he considered out of his league. He was asking me for my adivce because he understood that was exactly what I had done.

He was concerned with messing things up. He was worried about how her parents would react. He was afraid she would say, “Sorry, you’re nice and all, but…” Anyway, not too many months later, I had the privilege of marrying them to each other. I’m proud to say it is one of the many, many marriages I’ve officiated that actually worked out.

I got to do youth ministry for many years. I still have wonderful relationships with some of the “kids” that were in our youth groups. In fact, one of those kids is now my daughter-in-law!!! Dan is one that I’ve stayed connected with all of these years. We used to work in downtown Oklahoma City. We would often meet for lunch at a Chinese restaurant on the mezzanine level of the Sherton Hotel, where he unsuccessfully tried to open my taste buds to the wonders of egg foo yung.

I made a career change to a company that was in the beginning stages of building a new computer network. Dan had become an expert in that area, again a testimony to his relentless pursuit of nuance and perfection. He built our network that is essentially still the core we depend on. Later on our CEO mentioned that the company was needing a new member for the board of directors. I reminded him that Dan had experience in bank auditing, he knew a thing or two about our company by this time and he was a CPA. Dan joined our board and served masterfully until just months ago.

Funny thing about that CPA thing. Maybe you’ve heard the horror stories about people trying and trying to pass those exams. Best I rememember, Dan just sort of decided to sit for the exams, approaching it with the same nonchalance, but not the arrogance, of Donald Trump taking that cognitive test they give the elderly to see if they should still be feeding themselves with a fork. Dan, like Donald, passed with flying colors.

Dan was the kind of guy who would find that funny without offense. He and I could talk about anything: something we heard on NPR, which is better—cover bands or tribute bands; and lately, matters of the heart.

Just a short time ago, Dan told me he had something he wanted to talk about. Maybe he has a new album, or maybe he’s discovered a new trick for how to mic a drum set. He wanted to talk hearts.

He was facing heart surgery and he knew that I had been through that. It was kind of like the talk we had about the marriage proposal. He wanted to talk to someone who had been there. Dan and I learned long ago that we could not BS one another. He could always see through me.

Here’s the thing. He and I both had good hearts. We both love our wives and our kids and grandkids deeply. We both are tolerant of the life choices of others. Today that is called liberal, but for us we just considered it grace-full.

But while we have good hearts, we have flawed hearts—the physical ones. When we talked, I told him he would be fine. I meant it. I mean they sawed me open, borrowed some vein from my legs, wired me shut, sewed me up and a few weeks later I was back to some level of normal. That was my experience. It was not his.

In Dan’s final months, I was a lousy friend. If I were saying this to him I would use the word shitty and he would appreciate the honesty of that.

The fact is my heart was selfish. I couldn’t bear to see him so frail, not Danny. I didn’t have magic words for him or for Peggy. I was inadequate and so I became negligent.

How I wish now I could jack up the back of the car and run the odometer, and time, back. I am so grateful for the few moments yesterday at Dan’s memorial with the people who hold Dan and Peggy dear—old friends, family, musician buddies and those who were touched by Dan. We wore our masks and our Hawaiian shirts. It was the most colorful memorial I’ve ever been too. Just the way he would have wanted it.

Good bye buddy.