The Ravages of Time

We visited my Dad recently. He lives about 250 or more miles away. He and my step mom, within the last year or so, moved into my grandparents' old house. My grandparents' house sits on some acreage in a small rural community on the Trinity River in southeast Texas. This community, this house and this property were the place that I spent many hours as a child and a youth. There are many fond memories associated with these places and very few unpleasant ones.

When I was born, I lived in this community. Upon my birth, we lived in a house in which my father had grown up. We lived there when my brother was born. About the time I was born, my grandparents had built a new house not far from this old one. This "new" house is the one in which my father and step mother now live.

Prior to my father's living here, my grandmother's house had been vacant for some 6 or 7 years. She, in her last years, had lived in an assisted living center, what we called an "old folks home." She had lived in this house alone for a number of years prior to this, as my grandfather had died in 1983. My contact with the old homestead(s) in the last quarter century has been occasional and sporadic, as most of those years I have been living quite a few miles away. With Dad's moving into Grandma's house, I have been given a new opportunity to visit the community of my youth. Things have changed.

The first house you see here is what we call the "old house." It is that house I lived in at birth. It is that house my father grew up in. Needless to say, no one lives here anymore, save an    occasional wild animal or two. This other house is my Aunt Maggie's old place. Aunt Maggie was my grandmother's sister and had been a widow from before my birth until her death. She was a fun-loving woman whom my brother and I loved very much. Memories of Aunt Maggie are filled with good times.

I spent some time wandering around these old places, talking with ghosts, and remembering these good old times. Very little about these places is as it was. Structures, with the exception of the property my Dad lives on, are in various states of falling down. Former residents have left this earth, never to return. Yet I remember. I remember walking this place, talking to those here before the ghosts moved in. I remember life being in what is now a dying husk. I remember an earlier day of vibrancy and potency that is long gone.

To stand in a place like this, I forget what has passed since then. Though my two sons sit off to the side, out of frame as I take pictures, I don't think of them. I don't remember my daughters, my wife. All I remember is me and here. All I remember is Aunt Maggie, Grandma and Grandpa. I remember Aunt Myrt, Grandma's other sister that lived across the street. I remember Lubie and Frances Nichols, Mr. and Mrs. Hudgins, and W. M. and Myra Hooper. I remember old Mrs. Roberts. I remember Uncle Bosie, my grandmother's batchelor brother. I remember hanging out at the railroad trestle over the Trinity. I remember mowing yards, working in gardens, and smoking corncob pipes full of cornsilks. I remember feeding the chickens and milking the cow. I remember climbing trees.

I put the lens cap back on my camera. The present floods to the fore. My sons sit there in the Mule, wondering what's going on with the old man.

I wander through a shed at my Dad's house and it begins again. I see a saw blade, hung on a rusty nail ages ago by my father's father. I see things that I know haven't been touched since he touched them. I find myself swishing back and forth in time. I wish my wife and children could have known him. I wish he could have known them. I wish I could hear him say, just once, how proud he is of me for doing such a good job with my family. I wish we could go squirrel hunting once again. I wish we could eat pears off his trees, juice running down our chins. I wish we could sit down and eat fresh corn on the cob and hot biscuits, smothered in butter than not long before was in a cow's bag.
 
I wish...I wish...

Self-Imposed Complexity

I have a complex e-mail situation these days. Let me explain:

My e-mail addresses:  Over the last 15 years of computing, I’ve amassed a few.

A.  My Juno E-Mail – This is the first one I had. I got Juno when Juno was a direct-dial-up, no internet e-mail. I got it before I had internet at home. I don’t use it, but I check it every six months or so, just to keep it active.
B.  My ISP-Centric E-Mail – This has changed over the years as my ISPs have changed. Right now, I think I’m on my third ISP, therefore my third addy. Good thing about these is that they disappear when you close your account.
C.  My Second ISP-Centric E-mail – I set this one up because I could and I thought that setting up a business-themed e-mail address would cause my ideas of starting a media company would take off without a push. Didn’t happen yet.
D.  My G-Mail Account – When Google started their e-mail thing, I had to get on the bandwagon, so I did with this address and…
E.  My Second G-Mail Account – (see letter “c” above).
F.  My Yahoo Mail Account – I just logged into it and found it was in a state of “inactivation”. I reactivated it for reasons I don’t fully understand myself, except that I need it to access a Yahoo group our church set up.
G.  My Work E-Mail Accounts -  There are three:

1. My Primary Work Account – This is the one I get all my important e-mail through.
2. The “Info” Account – A generic work account to which certain generic things are mailed.
3. The “Admin” Account – Being the System Administrator for our e-mail system, I need this one for other reasons I don’t fully understand. I don’t remember getting any messages via this account yet.

H.  My BlackBerry Account – This is the newest of the brood. I created this to keep my more permanent (and more important) e-mail addresses off of any AT&T servers. I forward copies of my work e-mail to it.

I tell this only to illustrate how complicated I’ve made my life. I have to remember addresses and passwords. If you don’t know it already, you’ll soon find out that the older you get, the more you have to remember, and the harder the task becomes. I’ve employed the assistance of a password keeper to help me keep track of all the passwords I’ve collected. And if e-mail addresses weren’t bad enough, anything you do online requires you to login with a username and password, so you have to keep up with those, too.

Reflecting on all of this has shown me that complexity does not necessarily enrich one’s life. Some think that running to and fro, having your day scheduled to one notch past the hilt, and not having any margin in your life is desirable because it shows how important or how popular you are, as if those are related. That complexity doesn’t enrich seems simply obvious, however if it is as true as it is obvious, why do we disregard the notion and continue to complicate our lives? I suppose we feel it necessary to complicate our lives, since this is the most complicated, information saturated age ever. Each of our lives prove it to be untrue, though. Having more to do, being responsible for more things, and having more e-mail addresses than we need brings nothing into our lives except more stress and confusion. We need to lighten up.

To follow my own advice, I will start by deactivating one e-mail address. Address "C" will be the first to go.

Doug Burr

Friday night, there was a party for my friend, Adam. He's graduating with his PhD from seminary and his wife wanted to throw him quite the shindig. Well, the shindig was Saturday night, but Friday night, the family and a few friends were invited to a coffee shop in Fort Worth for some music and coffee.

Blake Hicks, a friend of Adam's and a budding musician, opened for Doug Burr. We had gone with Adam and Holly to see Doug Burr about a year and a half ago at the Modern in Fort Worth. It was a great evening. The Ron Mueck exhibit was closing and the museum was open until midnight. There was live music outside and inside. It was a cool October evening. Good times.

The Mueck exhibit was great. I'm not one to easily recognize the virtues of modern art, but Mueck is more than squares painted on canvas or pieces of wood glued in random sequences. At the time, Adam had already been a fan of Doug Burr for a bit. Doug was there with his band and they played a set of decent length. His CD, On Promenade, was new at the time and he performed a good bit of it that night.

Fast forward to present:  Seeing Doug in the intimate climes of a small town coffee shop was great. He, nor his music, were in any way constrained by the tight corner of the shop where he was perched. In fact, he seemed in his element, needing neither bass, drums nor keys to make his music sound as it should sound.

I must admit to being mesmerized at times with how natural it seemed for him to be doing what he was doing. I've never been a big fan of folk-type acoustic music. This is one place where Adam's musical tastes and mine have tended to differ, but I'm easily warming up to it, especially as it concerns Mr. Burr.

There are a number of songs from On Promenade that I just love. Slow Southern Home, Come to My Senses, Graniteville, Whiporwhill and How Can the Lark are the first five tracks from this CD, and they are just simply great. I've listened to his new disc, The Shawl, and find it great as well. The Shawl is nine songs that are basically Psalms set to music. It has a wonderful, ambient sound, probably the product of a little post-production reverb, but also due to the locus in which it was recorded. Production notes tell that it was recorded in Texas Hall in Tehuacana, Texas "in twenty-seven hours." Now that's an austere production schedule. I bought these two CDs from him that night, plus his first: The Sickle & the Sheaves. I have yet to delve into it, but I expect nothing less than I've discovered in the latter two.

Doug is a great guy as well. Very approachable, he was more than willing to talk about his music with us, yea, even eager.

Mr. Burr has a lot going for him that causes me to be envious. He's not a widely known musician, yet that doesn't bother him. He is completely content where he is, while at the same time he would gladly welcome being able to do what he loves--his music--full time. However, the part that always has escaped me as a musician (as well as many others) is genuineness. As a musician, I have always been grossly self-conscious. I have always over-worried about how I sound or how I look (cringe), and this has crippled me to the point that I do nothing. I don't think I'll ever grow beyond my self-consciousness enough to be a good musician. I'll keep trying though. Who knows; now that I'm old and not so much a looker, I may get over that crippling shallowness.

I've always liked the idea of local music and local musicians and wanting to support them. I'll be glad to support Doug Burr in whatever way I can. Keep up the good work, sir.

Laying My Soul Bare

I'm addicted to Altoids. Peppermint-flavored Altoids. 

I don't really feel bad about saying that. After all, how harmful an addiction is that? I'm not breaking into cars to buy my next tin or taking food out of my kids' mouths or hocking my wife's jewelry. I spend about $3-5 a week on two or three tins, depending on the intensity of my habit for that week.

Right now, I have an open tin, probably 75% consumed, with an unopened one waiting in my bag. Recently, I decided to start saving the empty tins. I've thrown away many more than this, but I decided to start saving them just to see how many I could amass. It also gives me a good look at just how my addiction is progressing. (See image of empty tins at right)

More than a month ago, I was out with the family for a birthday dinner. As we were on the way home, my wife mentioned that a friend had told her that Altoids were on sale at Kroger, 10 for $10. Even at the best everyday price I can get for singles ($1.50), that's a 33% savings. I swept into Kroger and picked up two boxes, six tins in each. I felt like I had won the lottery. Much like lottery winnings, the cache soon dwindled to zero.

The first time I remember experiencing Altoids was back in 1987. I was a security officer working a rotation in the Sid Richardson Museum in downtown Fort Worth. The attendant was a friendly lady, and we would chat when the museum was empty. One day she offered me an Altoid, which I specifically remember because of the "Curiously Strong Mints" terminology. Interesting, I thought, yet at that time I remained practically unimpressed. A few years back, Altoids became a regular part of my diet. Peppermint is the only flavor I buy, with maybe an occasional experiment with one of the others. I want to try Ginger flavor. Other Altoid-aholics have sang/sung their praises. Yes. There are others. Google "Altoid addiction" and you'll find quite a few folks out there, "battling" the same addiction.

The power of Altoids is in their recipie. Real oil of peppermint is used in their creation, and apparently a healthy dose of it. I think its this blast of peppermint power that I am addicted to. When I feel it surging up my nasal passages and cooling my throat, well, the world is just a better place than it was minutes ago. I find myself longing for that cool, minty explosion again and again. Sure signs of addiction. If it were crack instead of Altoids, I'd be laid up in a dilapidated building somewhere, my teeth all rotted out, having recently urinated on myself. As it is, however, I simply have minty fresh breath most of the time.

Another benefit which I regularly promote is the settling affect that peppermint has on the stomach. Feeling a little queasy? Pop an Altoid or two and you'll be as right as rain, whatever that means.

I'm developing quite a reputation as an Altoid-aholic. That is probably why our friend passed along that message concerning the sale at Kroger. I always have a tin or two handy, and if I don't then I'm either on the way to the store to remedy that or something is terribly wrong.

The manufacturers advertise that the recipe for Altoids is the same as it has been since its creation. around 1800. All I can say about that is when anyone at Callard and Bowser gets brave enough to change the recipe or to replace the oil of peppermint with an artificial flavor...well, it won't be pretty.