“And in the last days,” God says, “I will pour out my spirit upon every sort of flesh, and your sons and your daughters will prophesy and your young men will see visions and your old men will dream dreams.” Acts 2:17
As an old man, my dream this Pentecost Sunday is for honest, humble, fearless, fearful, awe-full voices to speak clearly.
The Descent Of The Spirit by Gustave Dore
ONE OF THE THINGS I MISS MOST about being a schoolboy is getting out of school for the summer.
dragging main somewhere
To quote Mr. Alice Cooper (“Is he still alive?” you might be asking. Yes, yes he is. In fact you can catch him in concert August 19 in Oklahoma City.):
No more pencils
No more books
No more teacher’s dirty looks
Out for summer
Out till fall
We might not go back at all
School’s out forever
School’s out for summer
School’s out with fever
School’s out completely
The summer of 1969 was a long time ago, but still I remember the end of my senior year. I remember prom, baccalaureate, graduation and the summer. I remember feeling like the king of the world in a Donald Trump sort of arrogant way. I remember getting out of high school as having a certain finality to it, even though I would be starting college classes in the fall.
I’m a firm believer in the idea of the rhythms of life. Maybe it comes from marching miles and miles of parade routes playing in a drumline. The drumline plays what is called a cadence. It serves as the clock that keeps the band marching with order and as a unit. Without a cadence there would be chaos.
So it’s been a few decades now since I last walked out of a classroom for the summer. But still I seem to hear a distant drum signaling a change in the air. Just to restore the rhythm, maybe I’ll take a vacation day next Monday and sleep in. I won’t worry about homework or grades. I won’t diagram any sentences or dissect any frogs. I certainly won’t be wearing shoes or tucking in my shirttail. And I’ll chew gum anywhere and any time I want to.
In a few days, me and my Amazing-Missus will be going to a Beach Boys concert. Maybe they’ll do their happy little school’s out song, Dance Dance Dance:
After six hours of school I’ve had enough for the day
I hit the radio dial and turn it up all the way
I gotta dance (dance dance dance now the beat’s really hot) right on the spot
(Dance dance dance right there on the spot)
The beat’s really hot
When I feel put down I try to shake it off quick
With my chick by my side the radio does the trick
I gotta dance (dance dance dance now the beat’s really hot)
No question, if there is a soundtrack for summer fun it would be written by the Beach Boys. Maybe after the concert we’ll go out for a milkshake, maybe we’ll drag a Main street somewhere, maybe we’ll even go parking, and maybe we’ll stay out past midnight—probably not, but we could if we wanted to; because school’s out for summer.
THERE WAS A TIME when traveling evangelists would preach their “End Times” sermon at every revival meeting. Usually it was on Friday night, after serving up free hot dogs to all the kids they could round up. It was a surefire way to ensure strong stats for the evangelist’s marketing efforts; not that some of them actually needed real numbers to prove their pulpit power.
The problem became that we had all heard the End Times talk so many times that we had become desensitized to the alarm of it all.
“In psychology, desensitization is defined as the diminished emotional responsiveness to a negative or aversive stimulus after repeated exposure to it. It also occurs when an emotional response is repeatedly evoked in situations in which the action tendency that is associated with the emotion proves irrelevant or unnecessary.” —Wikipedia
I’m typing this on a Friday afternoon, the sky is dark and there is an eerie calmness outside. Forecasters are once again painting maps in hot colors spelling weather doom. Storm chasers are in position, dopplers are doppling, and we Okies are once again awaiting what could be the Big One, just as we did a few days ago. I hate to say I’ve become desensitized, but I’ve become desensitized.
We Okies joke about our homeland’s fickle weather and shifting tectonic plates. We tend to have fun poking fun at our weather-persons and their giddy anticipation over building storms.
Please, don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful that we have the technology we have and those who are enthusiastically dedidcated to keeping us “4-warned” “ahead of the storm” etc. Goodness knows we’ve seen enough storm destruction, mayhem, and worse to make us cherish all efforts to keep us “weather-aware” and safe.
It’s a love/hate thing—with the weather and the meteorologists. Now that we are seeking adventure in a tiny, shiny, aluminum house on wheels, hail and lightening are our archenemies. So while I love the spring rains, as long as there is a “chance” of severe weather, our little Bambi has to stay in her shelter. And as one of our local weather-prophets said on his TV weathercast just last night, “In Oklahoma, in May, there is always a chance…”
It’s been a few days now since I started composing this post. The storms blew through, the sun came up the next morning and the sky seemed more clear. The grass and trees seemed more green, and Oklahoma is still on the map. Now another weekend is approaching and with it the warning of impending severe weather, and we have weekend travel plans.
I feel like a fourteen year-old boy again. Do I go to the dance even though the evangelist warned that the “King Is Coming” any moment now, and he is bringing wrath for fourteen year-old boys dancing too close with fourteen year-old girls?
I can envision pulling our little hail-pelted Airstream home and the roads being lined with all the weathermen, weatherwomen, and old itinerate preachers saying, “We tried to warn you! Verily, verily, we tried to warn you.”
Last fall I wrote this: I HAD A DREAM, a post about why it seemed wiser to have money in the bank than experiences on the open road.
Today this is sitting in our driveway.
It seems wanderlust got the better of frugality. Or, in the words of John Muir, the naturalist, author, and environmental philosopher:
“The world is big and I want to have a good look at it before it gets dark.”
So we picked up our tiny, little Airstream in Springfield, Missouri, and set out on our maiden voyage. The event was marked with a custom poster our son designed for us and framed for our “kitchen” table.
We spent our first two nights alongside the Grand River below the Pensacola Dam in northeastern Oklahoma. .
Next stop, Shawnee, Oklahoma, home of the Grand-Girls. It took them less than a minute to make the Bambi their own.
These three are optional accessories.
Bambi? It’s not a moniker the girls gave her. “Bambi” is the model name. From the Airstream website:
Nimble. Agile. Some would even say adorable!
The Bambi trailer has always been a favorite among Airstreamers. First launched as a 16-foot single-axle trailer in 1961, the Bambi’s genesis was a proactive response to a nationwide trend. Americans were looking for shorter, lighter, more fuel-efficient automobiles that lacked the power to pull a heavy trailer.
Today, we apply the Bambi name to all single-axle Airstream travel trailers. Their immense popularity isn’t just because of how they look: they’re easy to tow and incredibly versatile, proving great things really do come in small packages.
Occasionally, I’ve had one of those “What the heck have we’ve done!?” moments. But mostly, we’re ready for the next weekend, the next adventure. So many have graciously, and I assume sincerely, offered their driveways as a road trip stopping over place. Be careful. We might just show up.
