"If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change."

--Wayne Dyer

I've always been attached to "things."  

Wheeeeewww...that felt good to admit. 

But not in an envious, stingy, greedy way. Keep reading. 

I think it began when I was four and I learned through a string of deaths in my family that nothing lasts.  No one lasts.  My best armchair psychologist explanation is that over the years growing up, I began to place too much importance on things, hoping they would last and that the people the things reminded me of would last.  Or live.  Or stay.  Andy Stanley would argue that my love of things is rooted in envy--the idea being that I feel like I owe myself things.  Who knows...(Shoulder shrug).  

Things have a way of making you feel special.  Remember when you got your first car?  Remember when you got your first NEW car??  Or maybe--because I'm a musician--when you got your first instrument?  Remember when you got your class ring?  Or your diploma?  Remember when you got your first house?  Remember when you got your first paycheck?  Remember when you got your first spouse?  Remember when you got your first really nice pair of shoes?  Or jacket?  Or cell phone?  Or computer? 

Remember how special you treated it? How you protected it? Perhaps to the point of it being too much?? 

My first car is probably in a scrap pile somewhere.  I've never owned a new car.  My first instrument MIGHT be in my mom's attic??  My class ring?  I never wear it.  It's not even real gold, and the stone is fake.  My diploma?  I don't know where it is.  My first house is now owned by a student of mine.  My first paycheck?  Spent.  My marriage ended.  My first nice pair of shoes?? Am I kidding myself right now??? My first cell phone? It was in a bag and got stolen out of my car in the AHS stadium parking lot.  My first computer?  Thrown away years ago.  The damn thing only has 64MB of RAM and had a 128 MB hard drive.  

Though those things all have gone by the wayside, the memories attached to them haven't.  And I think it is in this desire to preserve things, or moments, or people, that we begin to place too much value in things.  

They basically become idols.  

Today, I was out riding my motorcycle.  Somehow, this whole concept entered my mind, and I've been stuck on it since.  

I think we hold on the past because it's really the only thing we have. It's all we can look to and say "that was real. That happened!" And that's why we take photos. And put up statues of people. And leave Christmas trees up til August. Hey...I'm definitely gonna the first to have his tree up this year, for sure! 

But anyway.

Things are so often labeled idols and maybe they are. But to me they are reminders. They remind me that,  in a world where EVERY. SINGLE. THING. seems to change at the speed of light, there are some things that last. That stay. That live. Forever. 

And those are our memories. 

"Life belongs to the living, and he who lives must be 

prepared for changes."

--Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Years ago when I was in college, a friend of mine formally introduced me to the music of Stevie Nicks.  I'm sure I'd heard her many times playing on the radio, but I suspect I never really payed much attention to her.  I was more into new wave music and rap.  

Fast forward a few years from then, and I'm a new father, and on one particular occasion I was riding in the car with Grant and I heard "Landslide" on the radio.  In that weird way that only overthinking OCD types like me understand, my mind jumped forward into the future about 20 years, and I'm sitting there looking at my son in the rear view mirror thinking about how "I've been afraid of changin', 'cause I built my life around you."  The changing hadn't even happened yet, but I was absolutely certain of how it would feel.  And here I sit, in 2024, with three grown kids, and would you look at that!!--I was right about how it feel.  I suspect I'm not the only who's at least somewhat scared of change.  

A couple days ago, I was sitting on my bed getting ready for the day, and the thought occurred to me that you cannot possibly be adequately prepared for the changed that come.  I started thinking about all the times I've been caught off-guard by change.  Buckle up!!

Things for which you cannot possibly be prepared for when they happen.

1.  What it feels like the first time a cashier gives you the senior discount, especially if you aren't that old yet.  

2.  How quiet your house is when it's just you there.  

3.  That feeling you get when you realize that your birth year is just as close to 2024 as it is to 1921.  

4.  Having a conversation with your son and in his voice you hear full-on manhood.  

5.  The draw drop that occurs when you see your daughter dressed up in her prom dress.

6.  Seeing you parents deal with health problems you never thought you'd see.

7.  The knowing that one day will be the last day your kid sleeps in your house.

8.  The total unexpectedness with which your kids' high school graduations arrive.

9.  When you think about how much older you are now that your mom was when she went to her 20th high school reunion.  (And you thought she was OLD then!)

10.  When you hear students call 90s rock "classic."

11.  That weird feeling you get nowadays when you are gone somewhere and you just wanna go home, and how welcome that is!

12.  The simple joy that comes from your son being in your house, because he's lived in another state for four years.

13.  That unneeded feeling you get when you see your kids and students do so many things in an accomplished way.  

14.  Waking up and you're like "oh I guess that part of me hurts now."  

15.  Things like "I need reading glasses for the office AND the house" come out of your mouth. 

16.  You actually consider buying a different motorcycle because the one you have is a bit too fast.  Where. The. Actual. Heck. Did. That. Come. From.  

17.  How you can now sit at a coffee shop with your sister and brother in law and feel absolutely NO NEED whatsoever to get up and leave, to go check a box, to accomplish something today.  So not me!

That's enough. 

If you feel attacked, you might be going through some of the same changes.  If you're like me, your first instinct is to go to war with those feelings.  Because we're all 10 feet tall and bulletproof, right?  You might be.  

Richard Rohr says that our lives are in two parts.  In the first part we are building our vessel, as he calls it, and in the second part we are figuring out what is worth putting in that vessel.  We live both these parts in very different ways, and you can't be successful in the second part if you don't finish the first part.  If you haven't read his book Falling Upward, I highly recommend it.  

I find myself squarely in the second part of life, and if Richard Rohr is right, this is where life really and truly is found.  Instead of kicking against the pricks like Paul was doing in Acts, we have to submit to the change around us.  We can either swim upstream against a drowning exhausting current, or we can do with it.  It might even be better to say that we have to gently lean into it.  We have to brush up against the current without trying to completely stop it.  

I think the best way to look at it is like this.  

Look at that guy! He's OLD!!! Not really.  He's still 18.  Only his body is old.  

Live life, folks!! 

 "That event doesn't happen until tonight, so you must be very careful not to run into your other self."

--Dr. Emmett Brown, in Back to the Future

There is a reel going around Instagram and Facebook...in fact it has probably gone around multiple times.  I've seen it twice now, I think, the second time about 10 minutes before I started writing this blog post.  I don't know if it was the moment, or the mood I was in, or a combination of many other things (it was many other things), but I immediately felt like I needed to write this.  TL;DR....

The content of the reel is this:  the text says "your 18 year old self meets your 45 year old self, and asks if your life turned out the way you hoped."  It's edited to include a video graphic of some guy who's saying something like "awww man....kid, you don't wanna know." Or something to that effect. The whole thing is couched in the notion that no, life didn't turn out the way he'd hoped.  

First of all, can you imagine it even being possible to travel into the future??? I mean, O'Reilly Auto Parts does show a flux capacitor on their website, but that thing has been "out of stock" for year.  Losers.  Even if time travel were possible, which it isn't, but if it were, would you be willing to go into the future?  If you could meet your self 27 years into the future, would you want to know what your future self knows??  

When I was 18, I was a very balanced emerging adult--I had a chip on BOTH shoulders.  Life wasn't fair, I was fully aware of it, and I was damn sure gonna make sure I found out who was to blame for all that had "happened" to me.  I remember it well.  I was right.  Everyone else was wrong.  

I remember when I got the offer to be in the LBW Ensemble.  I felt like something has finally gone right in my life.  I still didn't have a clue what the future held, and I was scared to death of moving on past high school.  I didn't know what I wanted to major in.  I knew I was good at music.  I felt like I might like architecture.  As it turned out, music won out.  

This reel I mentioned got me thinking about how life "turns out."  I put that in quotes for a reason, which I'll try to get to in this post.  Wow, where to start.....?

How did life turn out?? Perhaps it's better to ask "how is it turning out?"  Here goes....

I never thought I'd be divorced more years now than how many years I was married.  

I never thought I'd become the successor to Jerry Padgett at LBWCC.  

I never thought I'd have the three amazing children that I have.  

I never thought I'd have a head full of gray hair.  

I never thought I'd have crossed the Pyrenees Mountains on foot, twice.  

I never thought I'd have formed the friendships that I formed by way of teaching the hornline at Southwind Drum and Bugle Corps for 6 years.  

I never thought I'd watch my son's high school years from a distance because he lives in another town with his mom and step dad.  

I never thought my kids would have a step dad.

I never thought I'd drop my son off to go to boot camp.  

I never thought I'd have thousands of photos of my kids and me doing fun things all over the country.

I never thought I'd lie awake nights wondering if my kids are OK when they aren't under the same roof as me.

I never thought I'd get to stand in the back of the room at watch my students light the place up as they perform music.

I never thought I would get to a point where I could look back and remember my favorite thing that ever came out of each of my kids' mouths.  

I never thought I'd get my stomach sliced open due to an inflamed gallbladder. 

I never thought I'd run a half-marathon or ride a century.  

I never thought I'd fly a helicopter.  

I never thought I'd have to take not one, but two blood pressure meds. 

I never thought I'd make it to 51.  Seriously.

This list could go on forever.  The truth is, life has turned out the way it turned out.  Whether it is good or bad is entirely my choice.  Victor Frankl's timeless book, Man's Search for Meaning, expounds on this concept--that we decide what is and isn't meaningful.  We decide what is good or bad.  We get to decide.  There are things in the list above that are "bad." There are also things that are pretty freaking epic!  But whether they are bad or good is entirely subjective, depending on who is looking at them.  

Is life perfect?  Nope.  Is it pretty darn amazing?  Yep.  So, to my 18 year old self, I say, "well, it all depends on what you thought life was gonna be."  But with the experience that only can come from having lived life, I'd say it's pretty grand!!  

 "Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild 

and precious life?"

--Mary Oliver, "The Summer Day"

On Stanley Avenue, just south of town, sits Andalusia Cemetery.  I haven't counted, but I suspect there are upwards of 2000 graves in the place.  My grandparents and my father are buried there.  Ben Bates is 50 feet away.  My aunt and uncle Hilry and Abbie Ryland are just across the way. There are, no doubt, a hundred or so other people there that I know.  But that leaves almost 2000 people that I never knew.  And there are people buried there that no one alive knows or remembers.  That makes me pause.

Recently, my brother-in-law, Frank Shaffer, and I were engaged in deep conversation, and as conversations always do when the participants are middle-aged fathers who are struck right between having grown children and aging parents, the convo turned philosophical.  Frank said something along the lines of "isn't is just crazy to think that we are here for a little while, and then not many years after we die, there will likely be NO ONE alive who even remembers us?!? While this might seem sad and depressing to think about (go for a walk--it'll boost serotonin), it's actually a very empowering thought, if you view it in the right perspective.

If we truly and strongly grasp on to this truth--that we will be gone one day--then we begin to live differently.  We begin to live with a different sense of purpose that we perhaps lived with before we crossed over into this knowledge. Or, as Richard Rohr put it, while we're still building our vessel.  Once we are in Rohr's second stage of life, and we begin to FILL OUR VESSEL, we see everything differently.  And this ultimately leads us to wonder what our legacy will be.  

Legacy.  (I actually want to buy a Subaru Legacy, but that's a different story.)

How are going to be remembered?  What difference are we making with this "one wild and precious life?"  It reminds me of Lin-Manuel Miranda's "who tells our story?"  

Early this morning, my mother's cousin, Dwight Ryland, died.  He was 81.  He had two daughters, Anna and Stephanie, neither of whom I've seen in many years.  The significance of this death is that there are now only THREE male Rylands left in my family:  Dwight's older brother, Wayne, Wayne's son, Justin, and Justin's son, Caleb.  Unless Caleb has a son, the name ends there.  But does it really???  

I've been thinking about Andy Andrews' "Butterfly Effect."  As I am one who believes literally everything has significance, I loved that book.  I suggest you read it if you feel like you aren't making a difference in the world.  My great-grandparents Lon Ryland and Ida Martin Ryland had four kids:  my grandfather, Alton, two daughters, and another son, Hilry.  From that farm in rural Geneva County came so many amazing things. From them came my amazing mom, and her sister, my Aunt Laura.  From them came Thomas and Jeremie.  From them came my niece Lorren who sings like an angel and her brother Riley who loves music almost as much as me.  From them came my kids.  And from them came all the rest of my Ryland family.  From them came everything that all of us have ever done.  And will do in the future.  All because two people got married and had four children.  From them came Dwight's many drives from Thomasville, Georgia to Andalusia just so could feast on home-made biscuits.  My mom's really are the best on earth.  Just ask me--I'll tell you.  From Lon and Ida came more things than I can type today.  The point is that they do live on--after death--in the lives of those who came from them.  They are not forgotten.  And neither will I be forgotten.  And neither will you.  

It is not what you achieve that will make you be remembered--it is what you contribute to the world.  As Kevin Kline's character in The Emperor's Club said "conquest without contribution is without significance."  What a powerful thought.  Some of you will contribute art.  Or you might contribute compassionate children.  You might contribute a life of faith that affects those around you.  You might contribute to those who are alone.  You might be the cause of 6.02 x 10^23 smiles. You might contribute by making someone believe in him or herself.  You might contribute by easing the paths of those around you.  You might carry a burden that isn't really yours to bear.  And the real, capital-T truth is that you will likely not even know that you contributed to the world in the way you did.  

Your birthday has already been put on your headstone.  If you are reading this, your death date hasn't.  You're working on that little hyphen that goes between them.  "So, tell me, what is you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"

Today's the 1st day of the rest of your life.  What's on tap??

 "Time, time, time--see what's become of me."

--Simon and Garfunkel

When I was in high school, Chick Earle helped coach the Andalusia High School baseball team.  One of my best friends, Zane Johnson, played on the team.  I remember he would say that Chick was known to yell "Time him, time him!"  It became a running joke with Zane and me.  It's been about 32 years, 7 months and 7 days since we graduated--but who's counting, ya know??--but I guarantee you if I saw Zane today, and I yelled "Time him, time him" he would laugh.  Baseball is so much about timing.  Chick probably knew that better than anyone I ever knew.

If you put a quarter note triplet in front of the average high school drumline, I would bet you a lot of money that they would play it like dotted eighth/sixteenth tied to eighth/eighth.  It's close but it's wrong.  The timing is wrong.  God forbid they have to play half-note triplets.  Right, 2019 Southwind hornline?? Helloooooooo! But I digress.  In music timing is absolutely crucial.  I have a book of orchestral excerpts for auditions, and in the preface notes, the compiler of the book actually said that very thing:  that rhythmic inaccuracy is the number one contributing factor in being passed over in an audition.  Timing matters!!!

I used to have a book called How We Decide.  The first chapter was about Tom Brady and his rise to football fame, beginning with his career at Michigan.  It was fascinating to read about just how fast he could make the decision to throw the ball to this or that receiver or to run it, or to do whatever else he might have done with the football.  (I guess that could include deflating the ball also.). When you look at the size of a regulation football field, and take into consideration just how fast professional athletes are, on both sides of the ball, it is obvious that timing matters.  

Time and timing seem to dictate so much of human existence.  We are obsessed with time.  Back to the Future, and its two sequels point this out in cinematic beauty, complete with amazing music that had to be timed perfectly for it to make sense.  At exactly the time the flux capacitor (part 121G at O'Reilly Auto Parts, by the way) kicked off at 88mph, that music climaxed and BOOM! Back to 1985 we go!  But what if the music and the film aren't in time?  Well...then the effect is lost.  You might not know that when you watch the opening credits for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, the trumpet solo you hear Malcolm McNab play is actually take 17.  He played it 17 times perfectly, but the composer wasn't as a good a conductor as he was a composer, and on the first 16 tries he couldn't get the music to line up with the video on screen.  If you're Malcom McNab, it tends not matter, because he has never flubbed a note, ever.  

We've heard of being in the right place but the wrong time.  And we've also, unfortunately, known of instances of being in the wrong place and the wrong time. But what about when the timing of everything  is exactly right??  Well, that can produce some amazing results.  The thing about timing, though, is that you can't force it, and you can't always know that the right time is right.....now.  No, now!! Wait...now!!!! Dang it, I missed it!  NOW!!!  Now??  Uhh, ok...ok.....NOW!  Nah....that does't really work.  There are just some things you simply cannot know, until after the fact.  And perfect timing is one of them.  

My Favorite Things.

Remember that song in The Sound of Music?  The one where Maria lists off her favorite things in a cheesy bed-time display of ridiculous vocal and acting talent??  Yeah, that one...

I don't think this could be turned into a song, but I thought I'd write my own list.

These are a few of my favorite things....

1.  The sound of my children when they say "hey, dad."

2.  Salted caramel lattes made with heavy cream.

3.  Posting final grades at the end of the semester.

4.  Firewood that is cured perfectly.

5.  Honda motorcycles.

6.  The first day of fall semester.

7.  How the Chicago Symphony brass section sounded when Bud was still alive.

8.  Building things with my hands and my tools.

9.  Flagg Mountain.

10.  Homemade vanilla ice cream.

11.  Boat parades. Even if it's foggy.

12.  Jeep Wranglers.

13.  Watching The Ensemble shred.

14.  Being tacet on a piece of music so I can listen to my friends play amazing music.

15.  Spontaneous trips.

16.  Maverick and Ellie and Josie and Zeus and Beau and Dodger and Tucker and Oakley and all the dogs.

17.  Smartwool sock.

18.  LaSportiva shoes.

19.  Yamaha trumpets.

20.  My mom's homemade biscuits.

21.  Voces8.

22.  How my yard looks after I mow it.

23.  Robert Frost poetry.

24.  The look on a student's face when they finally get it.

25.  #BrassStaff

26.  Liriodendron tulipfera.

27.  Sunsets

28.  Liturgical music.

29.  November.

30.  Tritone suspensions.

31.  Having my kids all under one roof.

32.  Comfortable chairs.

33.  Hennessy hammocks.

34.  Barq's root beer

35.  Sunshine on a brisk fall day.

36.  Hiking.

37.  Road trips.

39.  St. George Island

40.  Duran Duran

There are a million other things.  I don't even know how I listed 40 things because I love so many things.  There is so much in the world to love if you see it properly.  

I was recently encouraged to resumer blogging, and so here I am.  And I love that, too.  

Have a great day!  

I used to….

"Things aren't what they used to be, and probably never were."

    --Will Rogers

Past tense verbs are dangerous.  (How's that for random??)

You know the kind I’m talking about…

I had.....

I went.....

I used to....

Quantum physics seems to suggest that we can go backwards and forwards in time, and that we can even be at multiple points in space-time simultaneously.  But I don't need quantum physics for that, as I am quite good at living in the already-happened past, or in the future that I have planned out in my wild, sleep-deprived imagination.  It's easy to get lost in thinking about the past--to go down the rabbit hole--and while it isn't necessarily bad to think about the past, I have to be careful.  It's not so much the thinking about the past that is problematic, as is HOW we think about it.  What we think about it.  The significance we give it.  

For most of my adult life, or at least the portion of my adult life in which I was conscious of such things, I have believed that people think about the past so much because we know it's the only thing we really "have."  It's the only "proof" that any of this life that we've created actually happened in the first place.  In the present moment, which alway seems to fly by at the speed of light right before our eyes, we are so pulled for attention that the "present" isn't even a real thing.  Your daughter is trying to show you what she made at school while your son is chasing the dog through the house while you are attempting to cook spaghetti before rushing off to Wednesday night Bible study, and you're already mentally exhausted from a long day at work.  It's like you're standing on the banks of a river watching the water flow by, non-stop, all day long for eternity.  All a parent wants to do in these situations is press pause on life and just stop time from passing.  Ask any parent whose last kid(s) is/are seniors in high school--they'll tell you this true.  

As for the future...well, the flux capacitor is still just a movie gimmick...a joke that is "currently out of stock" on the O'Reilly Auto Parts website.  (Part #121G, if you wanna check that out.) We can't go to the future yet.  Not sure I'd want to....I mean, have you seen Back tot he Future, Part 2????  No thanks.  We can dream about the future.  We even think we can plan for it, but even this is false because the future never really arrives because once it does, it immediately passes into the past.  

I taught my kids, and my students also, that you can't plan for the future--you can only plan a past to look back on. Make it a good past, because you are going to look back on it for years, and years, and years, and years.  No action taken taken is without consequence, and it just might be that the only consequence is you having to look back and wonder what would have happened if you'd decided differently, but there is always a consequence.

So, about this past of mine/yours....

We romanticize the crap out of it don't we??? 

"When I was in school..."

"Back when I was in the military..."

"Back when I was a priest..."

"Back when I was a teacher..."

We are absolutely convinced that the best days of our lives are BEHIND US.  And it is this mentality that scares the absolute living daylights out of me.  I mean, am I to believe that I've already done all the good that I'm ever going to do?? God forbid. Sadly, I must admit I'm the world champion of this kind of thinking, and I must change it.  I hate that I ever wasted time and energy being upset [read: "completely wrecked"] that this or that thing or time or place ended and is no more.  I hate that I ever got to a place in life where I'd been "taken out" by the enemy with such a sly, simple tactic--making me think the best days of my life are behind me.  

Remember in that movie A Night at the Museum, right before Robin Williams/Teddy Roosevelt turned back into a statue, and he was talking to Ben Stiller's character?  Ben said "I have no idea what I'm gonna do tomorrow." And Robin Williams said "how exciting!"  Do you feel truly excited about knowing that you have absolutely no idea what is going to happen tomorrow?  I bet if you're honest, that notion scares you. It does me.  But I'm learning to enjoy the not knowing.  And with that comes less emphasis on the importance of what I've already done.  At least I hope so.  Into the light!  

Have a good day.  

 "How old are you, buddy?"  

 

A life....in magnets....

Seems to me that most folks like to collect things.  Stamps. Baseball cards.  Fine chinaware.  I always said I would like to collect watches.  I have a few, maybe 4 or 5--yeah, I know, not much of a collection, but it's a start.  One is from my dad and is a Bulova Computron.  Another is a Wyler Dynawind Incaflex.  

This photos above are of my mother's refrigerator.  She loves to collect magnets, specifically magnets from places to which my brother and sister and I have travelled.  When we go somewhere, mom always tells us "bring me a magnet!" And she means it.  Like, we best not even cross the borders back into Covington County without a magnet.  It's serious business.  I was late to Christmas parade once because I was trying to find  her magnet, and didn't have the stones to face her without it!  LOL. 

A little bit about my mom....

She's an amazing warrior of a woman who raised her kids to be able to go and do whatever our hearts and minds led us to do.  With hardly the funding to do so, she took us places: the bayous of southern Lousiana, the beach, New York City, Disney World just to name a few.  She wanted us to see the world, and she wanted us to know that we could spread our wings and fly!  In many of our travels, mom has been able to go with us, which has been a blessing for me.  Nowadays, she chooses to stay home.  But she's always with us in spirit wherever we go, and she asks that we honor her in a simple way--to just bring a magnet for her refrigerator.  

To me, her refrigerator is far more than just that.   It's a work of art that tells a story of a family of three generations all influenced by one woman.  And what a story it is!!!

I think the oldest one is from the Cayman Islands.  1999.  A whole life ago.  I both am and am not that person anymore.  I remember Cayman being really expensive and that the cruise ship couldn't stay there more than 5 hours due to port charges.  The Firm had been partially filmed there and I scuba dived in the same place where the diving scene was in that movie.  

There's one from the Colosseum in Rome.  I have no idea how that got there as I have never been to Italy.  Thomas? Jeremie?? Mom, do you have another child???? 

There's one from Sequoyah Caverns.  I understand those caverns were recently closed permanently.  I need to verify if that's true.  If you've ever been to Sequoyah before you know it's incredibly beautiful, and full of Indian and Alabama history.  That part of Alabama has always been a favorite location of mine.  Mentone, the Little River Canyon, DeSoto State Park...all great places to be in the fall or spring.  Or any time.

Near that one is one from Cheaha State Park.  I used to spend a good bit of time at Cheaha with the Alabama Hiking Trail Society.  Rick Guhse', Eric Douglass, Joe Cujah, Mike Kennedy, Marie Arnott and I were the driving force of AHTS for a good portion of the early 2000s.  I am very proud of our connecting the Pinhoti to the Appalachian Trail in 2008, and I often camp near the monument when I go backpacking there.  

There's one from the Tuskegee Institute.  When Grant was in the fourth grade, he had to do a project on Booker T. Washington, so one Sunday, we drove up to the campus of Tuskegee University and learned more about BTW and George Washington Carver than I had ever learned in school.  Both of those men were brilliant, and Tuskegee stands as a monument to them and their vision.

And right near that one is one from the US Marine Corps Memorial, better known as the Iwo Jima Monument.  Having a son who is a Marine makes this doubly special.  If you have never scene Iwo in person, I encourage you to go.  If possible, see it at night!  Wow. 

There's one from Busch Gardens.  There is no telling how many times we have been to Orlando/Tampa with the AHS Band.  I know I have been three times myself.  Jeremie has probably been 11 or 26 times. We grew up in the band, and our kids grew up in the band.  There ya go.

There's one from Quebec.  Ahhh, the Quetico park.  Canoe fishing for days.  Grant and I paddled for 6 days catching more fish than we could count with 5 other canoes of father/son pairs.  It was really cool to do that trip with Mark Craig, whom I've know since I was 5.  

Right near that one is one from Alaska.  Amazing and gigantic Alaska.  One day I hope to ride the Dalton Highway on a motorcycle.  Now THAT will be a great magnet.

I see one from Highlands, NC.  This was a trip that mom actually went on.  My brother may or may not have gotten a speeding ticket trying to keep up with me.....I plead the 5th.  

Grand Lake, Colorado!  Wow!! Now that is one of my top five favorite places in the entire world.  A summer night sitting on the dock of Grand Lake at sunset is almost impossible to beat.  Can you say ZERO humidity and 65 degrees?????

There's one from Wisconsin.  Wisconsin.....I was in the airport in Milwaukee when I learned that Ashlyn was going to require reconstructive surgery.  I had just purchased the magnet and was holding the bag when I got the call. (Yes I remember that--it rather makes a mark on you when you learn your baby girl is going to have that kind of surgery.)  

And of course, there are several from the Camino.  Two trips there, in 2018 and 2019, and it still calls me every day.  I'll go back one day.  

There are so many other magnets on that refrigerator.  Each one, a memory, and each one a place my mom went, at least in spirit.  My mom leaves a legacy in her three children and her 5 grandchildren.  She sent us out into the great big world with fierceness and assuredness.  She sent us out as explorers.....and all she ever wanted for it was a magnet.  I love you, mom.  

"We must find the time to stop and thank the people who have 

made a difference in our lives."

--John F. Kennedy

It's Thanksgiving week.  

This is a week that I always look forward to for a variety of reasons.  As a middle school band director, I would have the entire week off from work, which was great.  For the past 18 years, working at the college, I have worked a few day during the week, but classes don't meet, so it's always a nice break from instruction and rehearsal.  Plus, I like to take some time and look back over the semester and look at what I've accomplished, what the Ensemble has accomplished, what my kids have accomplished. It's a time of reflection.  

This week is also a time of family.  The kids are out of school and are at home.  This year is somewhat unusual as Grant is at Camp Geiger completing infantry school and Jack has lived in Pensacola since August, but he's home as of this writing, and it's really nice to have him at home for a few days. 

Of course, there is also the Thanksgiving meal.  I mean, who doesn't love turkey and dressing?? Well, Frank Shaffer doesn't like dressing, so Jeremie makes stuffing for him.  But other than him!! LOL.  Oh, and cranberry sauce.  And dumplings.  And sweet potatoes.  And everything else!  It's just grand!

But above all this, Thanksgiving always makes me think of my Aunt Doris and Uncle Lloyd Langham.   

Always! 

My mom had four aunts: Mary, Doris, Abbie, and Ruby.  There were actually five, but the oldest (after my granny) died when she was 12.  Mom was closest to Doris, and so every year, when the invitation came to drive down to Bay Minette, we always went.  I still remember counting train cars as the trains would pass by between Atmore and Bay Minette.  One time we counted over 150 cars in one train. 

I can still remember the house where they lived.  It was a grayish-blue, on the right side of the road as we approached it, and it had a carport on the back.  You always entered the house from the carport and immediately in front of you when you walked in was a white freezer, over which were a couple of Lloyd's guns--a rifle and a shotgun, I seem to recall.  Two steps up from that level, and you were at the dining room/kitchen.  To your left was a small den which also was a step up.  

In that den, there were two recliners, on either side of the door, as well as a couch and a television, and on that television, on Thanksgiving day, was the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.  Uncle Lloyd was usually in the chair on the left, if my memory serves me correctly, and he was always smiling.  Always.  

Doris and Lloyd had one son, John.  John and his wife Jamie, and their daughters Janet and Kathryn, and later on Susan and Mary would be there also.  I remember Janet was enough older than me that we didn't really play together, and Kathryn was way too fast for any of us to catch her playing hide and seek. John was a math teacher and like most of the men descended from Oscar Brown (my great-grandfather), he was very tall.  Mom always admired how smart he and Jamie both were.  She also taught math.  They would later go on to work for Faulkner Community College, now Coastal Alabama, part of the system I work for now.  Small world, huh?  

Lloyd had been a butcher and always had an awesome garden and he'd send things back with us.  He had a genuine heart and was a giver. Aunt Doris had owned a salon and I remember her reminding me of my mom's sister Laura: full of sass.  I guess Laura got it from her.  LOL.  I also remember my mom sitting at the table talking with Doris and laughing for what seemed like forever.  I think mom saw her as a mother figure.  

The food was always delicious and it seems like we'd stay til shortly after lunch, and then we'd drive 31/29 back to Andalusia.  Back to the house where the four of us lived.  Back to my small, little world on Perry Street.  Back to reality.  

Several years later, in 2019 to be specific, I was driving my motorcycle home from Gulf Shores.  For whatever reason, I decided to try to find that house where I spent so many Thanksgivings.  I messaged Kathryn and she gave me the address, and a few minutes later, there it was.  It's no longer in the family, but it's still there.  I parked my bike in the street and just looked at it.  And remembered.  I remembered faces.  I remembered memories.  And I was thankful.  

I was thankful that someone included us.  Standing there, 47 years old, having lived through enough stuff to understand what life is really about, I was mature enough to appreciate family.  I was old enough to appreciate inclusivity.  I was mature enough to see what REALLY happened each time they invited us down for lunch.  Lloyd and Doris were showing compassion.  They were sharing what they had with us.  They were being FAMILY.  It is only now that I'm a parent myself, that I can truly appreciate someone looking out for a single mom and three small children they way they did.   I never got to thank them for their kindness, but I do thank them.  I appreciate it more than I can say.  

When we share what he have with others, we are sharing more than things.  We are sharing more than food.  We are sharing more than clothes.  We are sharing ourselves.  We are making a connection.  We are drawing closer.  We form community by sharing, and if there is anything this world needs more of, it is community.  

I hope you all have a great Thanksgiving.  Share something with someone if you get a chance.  Invite someone into your home, even if Covid restrictions suggest you shouldn't.  You never know when someone will be blogging about you 40 years later, thanking you for having done so.  

God Bless. 

 "It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you 

don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to."

--J.R.R. Tolkien

This is the story of a shutdown.  

Thursday, March 12, 2020.  At 9:00 AM, the LBW Ensemble performed at Andalusia Elementary School for over 1000 screaming kids.  They made us this sign, which still hangs in our practice room.  It would be our last show of the year.  

Little did we know that the administration at Red Level School had already begun thinking about heading off the possibility of coronavirus contamination.  It was already in my mind that we should probably cancel the show, so I called out to the school and Principal Randy McGlaun agreed that we needed to cancel our show on the 13th. 

At this point in the story, there were still MANY unknowns.  Looking back, there was no way I'd have guessed that all that transpired over the next seven months was even remotely possible.

It wasn't long before toilet paper started flying off the shelf as well as anything that had Clorox or lysol in it.  My friend Dell Trotter posted this hilarious picture. 

If you know Dell, you know this is perfectly typical of his humor:  truth with a side of laughs.  It's about how we all felt at this time:  just sanitize EVERYTHING and let's be done with it!!  But we were far from done with it.

We quickly realized what was truly the hot commodity....hand sanitizer.  This bottle could probably have been sold on Amazon for billions and billions and billions and billions.....

Social distancing became the "thing."  It'll probably be the Time Magazine "Word of the Year," although it's two words.  We had to find ways to be apart from each other.  Several of my friends and I would meet for lunch in a local park with take-out food because we could't sit down in a restaurant for what felt like would be FOREVER.  On my own, I usually did a lot of social distancing on two wheels, often through the woods of the Conecuh National Forest or by kayaking either the Conecuh River or the Sepulga River. 

Bear in mind, that all this time, all I really wanted to be doing was performing with the Ensemble. But alas....

April rolled around and by now, we were usually found at the house, hanging out all day, learning how to "Zoom" or just chilling.  I have to admit that the time we spent at home, while trying, was also incredibly wonderful in another way: I got to spend more time with my kids than I have ever had the chance to during the school year prior to this.  It really was great!

My friends and I joked that, during this time of staying home from work, we'd all have the best lawns we'd ever had because what else were we gonna do???  Jack and I got quite a bit of stuff done around the house.  Every day, it seemed like we figured out something else to check off the list.  

By mid April we were already pretty damn sick of COVID19....we had no idea what lay ahead of us, but we found ways to laugh.

That's just funny.  

2020....what a year you had been already.  But wait...there's MORE!!!

On Sunday, April 19, a tornado passed directly over my house, but we were fortunate that it didn't touch down there.  Many in Andalusia/Covington County were not so lucky.  You can stop, 2020.  

I don't even have good photos of the destruction that County Road 70 sustained.  But it was BAD.  Ashlyn and I tried to drive there to see if we could help, and nearly ran into a spider web of power lines in the process.  We decided it was best if we head on back to the house.  All in all, I lost 3 shingles.  My next door neighbor, Donald Knox, lost about 15 trees.  He'd later lose his precious wife, Judy.  It seemed that the farther we went into 2020, the worse it got.  I guess that depending on your perception, that's probably true.  I know I sure felt like I was ready to see 2020 hit the road.  But in all the struggle and mess and cleanup, there were also things like this. 

The guy who carved this in what's left of a giant oak tree and I, along with about 10 other guys cut trees out of Antioch Road for over an hour that night just so fire trucks and ambulances could pass.  Ashlyn would later tell me she was scared that night.  I was too.  They say tornadoes sound like freight trains.  Wrong.  They sound like the engines of F22 fighter jets.  LOUD!!

April came and went.  May brought Mothers Day, and there was no way on God's green earth that COVID19 was shutting down Mothers Day!! My sister, Jeremie, had us all over, and it was a great day!

We were finding out what living in a pandemic was like.  We didn't like it.  We adjusted to it, but we didn't like it.  No one liked it.  And no, we didn't wear masks.  

One of the biggest challenges for me was watching Grant's senior year end in complete dissolution.  No senior parties.  No baccalaureate.  No commencement, at least we thought.  But the city of Andalusia, and parents of the senior class did a really remarkable thing, and I'll never forget it.  They created banners which hung along East Three Notch Street.  I still remember seeing Grant's for the first time.  

29 years prior, I wore the same cardinal robe.  My mother wore it in 1965.  Grant was a third generation graduate, and there were even a couple of fifth gens as well.  Andalusia has a long-standing tradition of traditionalism, and our commencement ceremony is on par with the Ivy League.  If you've seen it, you know.  I was slated to perform the prelude, Trumpet Voluntary.  I had been looking forward to this for MONTHS.  But...nope.  Or so I thought.  

The administration at AHS was brilliant.  They figured out how to give the class of 2020 a commencement that adhered to all social distancing (groan) protocols.  To my knowledge, Andalusia had never held commencement on the football field, but we didn't care! We wanted to see our seniors receive their diplomas.  They even got Skip Enzor to record all the music ahead of time and had it blasted over the Jumbotron in the stadium.  

I didn't want to intrude on my son's event, as I tend to despise the idea of living vicariously through my kids.  But...I couldn't help myself.  I snapped this photo during the rehearsal the night before.  

And then this one, the day of....

I was, and still am, so proud of you Grant Brewer.  I'll see you soon, son.

The next week, Nann took the kids to Texas on a trip, so I hit the road on the bike.  I intended to drive to Key West, but made it to Orlando.  It was then I realized that while I love my bike, 400 miles is all it's really comfortable for in one day.  

 It is now hilarious to me, but wasn't at the time, that I somehow, in heavy traffic in Tallahassee, inadvertently hit the kill switch with my right thumb, and the bike DIED! LOL.  Cars were beeping their horns.  I had no idea what was wrong.  I never use the kill switch...always the key.  I pushed it under an overpass and called Jackson Honda. The guy said "uhhhh...did you hit the kill switch without realizing it??"  Why yes. Yes, I did.  Did I also mention that it was storming????

It was on this trip that I learned of the George Floyd incident.  I called my brother and we talked about it.  I was in Perry, Florida.  I told him that I thought the US was about to be in a MESS.  I was right, it turned out.  So...COVID....tornado...mass hysteria...churches closed....and now we're on the brink of civil war.  Good times. 

June arrived.  LBW employees were largely still at home.  Grant was now an alumni of AHS.  My twins were now HS students.  This is where it got challenging for real.  Jack was moving to Pensacola to live with his mom, and was going to attend Pensacola HS.  2020....the gift that keeps on giving.  For full disclosure, I am OK with his being there.  I also miss him.  All is well.

June means beach trips.  Thankfully, we were able to make that happen!  

There's a diner in Gulf Shores that is straight out of the 1950s.  The food is great, and it you're lucky, you can sit in the booth that looks like an old Cadillac....and play on a cell phone whilst doing so.  LOL.

We knew Grant's ship date for the Marine Corps was getting close, and I wanted to do something special as a send-off.  I gathered together about 15 of the men who had been a part of his life, and we had a cookout for him at Frank's house.  I also gave him this rifle. 

"This is my rifle.  There are many like it, but this one is mine." Now, it's his.  I love you, son.

We spend the rest of June planning a vacation that I wasn't exactly sure would happen....a road trip to Colorado.  A few things...

1.  I40 across Arkansas sucks.  

2.  Oklahoma didn't give a rip about covid! LOL.

3.  Kansas is FLAT FLAT FLAT.

4.  Denver was all boarded up from riots.

5.  It was 40 degrees in Grand Lake!

6.  Nebraska is just as flat as Kansas.

7.  It's a LONG WAY FROM COLORADO TO ANDALUSIA.

8.  This was one amazing trip!  

July arrived and for me, this meant two things.  One was going back to work.  I joked that I was almost certain I remembered how to do this.  The other thing was  that Grant was leaving for the Marine Corps.  He'd been waiting for this for a year.  The day before he left, we rode motorcycles to Huggin' Molly's in Abbeville.  They have a hamburger that's so large that if you eat the whole thing, your whole table eats for free.  

Grant would later tell me in a letter from boot camp that he thought he could eat that entire burger in about 10 minutes!  

On July 12, 2020, we took Grant to Dothan, Alabama to his recruiter's office.  This was the last time I saw Grant (as of this writing). 

He went to MEPS at Gunter Air Station in Montgomery, and then on to The Citadel where he'd quarantine for two weeks before shipping to Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island and begin his journey by standing on one of these footprints.  

Since Grant's departure for boot camp, I have gotten about a dozen letters from him.  Each one paints a picture of a young man changing into a new type of man.  It's been joy to witness.  We have no idea exactly when we will see him, but we will eventually.  

Did I forget murder hornets?  I think I did.  How in the world did I forget murder hornets??? Hornets? That murder??  Far out, man.

Also, this meme appeared in my news media, and it sums up 2020 pretty nicely, I think.

  

Yeehaw!!!

Stephen Pearce and I joked about how the black helicopters were going to soon be swirling around our houses, so I wanted to make sure he knew how to identify them when they show up, so I shared this handy little chart.  

Personally, I hope it's the Blackhawk or the Chinook that shows up at my house. You hear me, NSA??? A Blackhawk, I say!!!  Jed Blackwell hasn't been any help at all in getting me a ride in one.  Jerk. Kidding, man.

School actually opened up, to my surprise, and Ashlyn joined the marching band.  I used to teach that band and then instructed the drumline several years after that.  It's nice to just sit in the stands and be just dad.  Yeah, like that's ever gonna be possible.  LOLOLOL.

Adjusting to wearing a mask every day at work has been....well....

The eyes are the window to the disgust, right?? I mean the soul!! The soul!!!!!

Hurricane Marco decided to come ashore right over Cameron, Louisiana.  My father died in Cameron on February 23, 1977.  I haven't been to Cameron in a number of years, but I'd like to go visit again.  After landfall, it passed directly over Lake Charles.  My dad's best friend and his wife, Monroe and Tina Wicke lived in Lake Charles for years.  I last saw them in the fall of 1996 when the Sound of the South travelled to Texas for a football game and we stopped in Lake Charles to eat at a Ryan's Buffet.  In the wake of Marco, I was able to reconnect with their son, Greg, and his family.  To quote Greg, "God truly works in mysterious ways."  Hopefully, I can see them soon, and catch up.  

2020 was far from finished....Hurricane Sally was up next.  It has been a long time since a hurricane or tropical storm passed directly over Andalusia, but here she came.  We got about 15 inches of rain but not much wind.  Other places weren't so lucky.  Gulf Shores and Pensacola and that whole area was a wreck.  The 3-Mile Bridge over Pensacola Bay, which was nearly $600,0000,000 is now in at least three pieces and Skanska is taking HEAT over their being barges being literally all over the bay.  

And then October arrived, and with it, Homecoming, at Andalusia High School.  Aaaaaand....my 30th high school reunion.  Wow.  30 years.  Kinda surprised I'm even still alive.  Some of my classmates aren't. May they rest in eternal peace.  This was Ashlyn's first homecoming at AHS as a high school students.  The theme was fairy tales.  Ashlyn's freshman class float was based on Cinderella.  Watching them build the float was like a medicine to the soul.  A little bit of normalcy has finally returned.  

Normalcy.  What exactly does that mean?  I mean, sure, it's weird to me that the two choices.....TWO....for president are a man who is in the early stages of dementia and a blowhard.  And yes, we had a tornado and a hurricane pass over our place in the same year.  And yes, my son graduated under weird circumstances and left for the Marine Corps.  And yes, 6-feet-apart has become a mantra for some.  And toilet paper disappeared off our shelves.  And we burned our country in places.  And things got cancelled.  And looking back, I can't believe we shut the whole country down over a virus.  Now, granted, I don't know much about pandemics, and I'm not arguing whether or not we should have shut the country down.  The point to all of this is simply this:  GOOD GOD WHAT A YEAR!!!  

There is no doubt in my mind that our mental health has suffered through this.  I recently told someone that I would be totally content with it if we shut down again.  I then explained why.  But that's insane!!  We are meant to be social.  We are supposed to interact with others, face to face.  And to think that I could feel OK with being isolated again tells me that something is off, and I suspect something is off for most of us.  

I think one of the biggest challenges we face is the constant attempt we make at having "normal."  What even is that?  Do we really mean "privilege?" And I don't mean "white privilege," so don't assume that.  What I mean is do we just.....expect.....things to go our way simply because we want them to? Isn't that called entitlement?  And isn't entitlement exactly the thing that so many of us (Hey! how ya doing? I'm Johnny) preach against??? And if so, isn't that hypocrisy?   Woe unto you, scribes, and Americans.  Or something like that.

I struggle with this so much, but isn't it enough that we woke up today??  I mean, yes, I am thankful that I can go get a cup of coffee without even having to make it myself...but won't it be OK if a day comes when I can't?? And I mean really OK! Not this "oh it's OK" crap...I'm talking "water off a duck's back" OK!!!

So we had to stay at home for a few months.  So.  

So one of my kids moved to another town.  So.  I miss him, yes, but so.  I ain't dead yet.  

I think that if 2020 has taught us anything, it is that we should NEVER say or think "oh, it won't happen here."  Because it can, and it will, and it did....to each of us, in some way or another.  

God bless you all.  

Have a great day.