Life's Choices, Wrong Decisions, God's Provisions...And All That Other Stuff That Could Be The Story Of Our Lives!

Due to some extenuating circumstances, I have not been able to post articles for several weeks, and now I am able to and am happy I am back.   We had a slight disruption in our communications due to changing services, and the fact it took so long for these people to set us up for the services (ugh!).  However, during that time I have had some time to regroup and consider new posts, and as I have done so, I want to begin to take a different approach.   It will take me a little bit to shift gears here, but bear with me as I do so, because it will be a good ride!

I have had some time to ponder things about my life, and although this may overlap slightly with my spiritual perspectives, it is still important.   I imagine that many of you reading this have from time to time wondered about if your life could have taken a different course, what would you have done differently?  As I have been researching my own roots and writing down my life's story over the past few years, I have likewise thought about that.  There are so many things I could have done differently, but due to youthful bliss (or stupidity, depending on perspective) I didn't, and in some ways I believe I am where I am today because of it, for better or for worse.   For instance, I recall the very place where I made some decisions that brought me to this place now, and I really wished I would have taken a different approach back then!  However, it is a fact of human existence that our choices do have consequences, and inevitably we will at some point "miss it," and make an incorrect decision.  I have thought about where I have done this - granted, it was nothing I would say was disastrous or anything mind you, but it significantly redefined my directions a little nonetheless - and as I have done so, a couple of things were revealed to me about that which I am going to share now here.  

The first lesson here is obviously we will occasionally make an incorrect decision, and with that we may lose out on something better.   In my own case, it was a decision about transferring to another school and not staying where I was mainly because I got a combination of bad counsel from some people I looked up to and also my own youthful stupidity.  Back 20 years ago, I was enrolled at a small college in a town called Graceville, FL, in the panhandle of the state.  The school was a small Baptist college, and for most of the time I was pretty secure there because it was where I needed to be.  However, in February of 1990, not long after I made the decision to leave the Baptists and affilliate with a Pentecostal church, I contemplated joining a Pentecostal denomination called the Foursquare Church and eventually did so due to the fact one of my ministry mentors, Dr. Jack Hayford, was a leading figure in that particular denomination.   I got myself involved with this small church in Alabama, and to make a long story short, it was a big mistake doing so!  Now, to this day I still keep in touch with a number of people who were at one time part of that particular congregation (including the pastor back then, who is now retired - the church has long since disbanded though) and I am close with a number of them.  That being said, my decision to go there cannot be blamed upon the church people or the pastoral leadership - it was totally my decision.   However, a few not-so-good experiences happened, I got some bad counsel, and upon acting on that counsel I made a fateful decision in 1991 to attend the Foursquare college in California, and therefore I dropped out of the school in Graceville and headed west, arriving there on New Years Day of 1992.   That plan ended up failing miserably, and within a month I was back in Dothan, AL, and for all intents not able to find a place to live or anything.   It also caused my then-fiancee and I to marry almost out of necessity and too soon (the marriage has been great though, as we have celebrated 20 years recently) and I had to find a way to continue my education fast - and, that is how I ended up graduating from Southeastern University.   And, it was a rough road, probably much rougher than it should have been, although everything eventually settled and my life found its groove.   However, upon looking back on the whole thing, I now know that the original plan I was supposed to have followeed would have been to finish school in Graceville, gotten married a couple of years later than we did, and then life would have been a little more stable for us - not without challenges obviously, but stable.  Also, my choice of church at the time should have been different - on occasion while in Graceville, I did attend services at the First Assembly of God there, which was back in the day an excellent church that I always felt at home visiting.   Ironically, it was their pastor who officiated at our wedding too!  And, although an incorrect decision may not totally derail you and you do find yourself back on the path you are supposed to be on, it is much better when you are more in tune with where you are supposed to be in the first place and stay on the original course.  It took a number of years to recuperate from those decisions, and recently we finally got the message as to where we are supposed to be and what we are supposed to do, and it is good to be back on track again!

Second, through all the above, another dimension was realized that it took me a while to learn but is a valuable lesson - if we are people of faith (Christians) we need to have a total dependance, surrender, and trust in God and His direction for us, as we are imperfect and can screw things up if we are not careful.   I know this is probably something more suitable for my Sacramental Present Truths page, but I am sharing it here for a reason too mainly because it is a part of my personal life story, which is what the articles on this site reflect as well.   I have learned some valuable lessons in the past few years in regard to that, and here are some of them:

1.   It takes good discernment to hear God's voice, and discernment may take time to develop when it comes to yourself.

2.  God wants us to surrender our will to his, and trust him to lead us in the right direction.

3.  Although we may make a wrong decision, God always prepares a detour for us to get back on course, and may use alternative things to get us there too.  

4.  We can learn from mistakes, and indeed should, but we should never wallow in regret over them.

These are important lessons that at times may seem like they come too late, but that enters another thing - God's timing.  I am the most impatient person in the world, and am not too proud to admit it.   And, that being the case, when I have gone through some issues in the past, I have often gotten very frustrated with God's timing (at one point, the mention of that phrase even became a cussword to me).  However, although things may seem to be caving in over our heads, God's timing is always perfect, but that is where the tough part is - it takes literally every fiber of our being sometimes to trust in God with a situation like that, and I am well aware of that, believe me!  Over the years, I have had fights with God, and at times have told him off (I always come back with my tail between my legs though) and the wait is at times worse than the actual situation!  This is especially true when you are waiting to get that right job, and you need it yesterday because things are past due and you are getting threats from the landlady, your car people, etc.  Yet, that call for the job doesn't come, day after day - the silence is deafening.  Then, to complicate the scenario, your phone gets disconnected and any job chance you may have had just got flushed down the crapper.  You stand on promises day and night, you rebuke and bind oppressing spirits...every trick in the book, you try, but the heavens seem too silent.  Then, one day, you get this peace - it is as if you know things will work out, although you haven't seen anything, and a couple of weeks later - voila! - that call for the best job you ever had comes out of the blue, and then it all comes together!  Lest you haven't guessed, I have been there before too - and, it isn't a place I want to revisit again, that is for sure!  Weathering the storm is often the hardest part of  the storm, but that is 90% of the battle.   Also, a lot of it is in our own heads too - there is a reason why in Ephesians 6 we are to have the helmet of salvation upon us, because a lot of the attack we face does come through the gates of the ears, eyes, and other senses and sets up shop in the courtyard (our minds) and can eventually invade the sanctuary (our hearts).  Although in recent years I don't really advocate anyone dealing with Joyce Meyer, many years back she did write an excellent book called Battlefield of the Mind (Tulsa, OK:  Harrison House, 1995) that I still rely on as a study aid today due to its solid content.  One thing she says in this book about that very issue that stood out to me was this:

   Thinking about what you're thinking about is very valuable because Satan usually deceives people into thinking that the source of our misery and trouble is something other than what it really is.   He wants them to think they are unhappy due to what is going on around them (their circumstances), but the misery is actually due to what is going on inside them (their thoughts).  (Meyer, 64)

Reading that, I realized that this has nothing to do with "claiming" anything, but rather taking the apparent "lemon" we are encountering and turning it into lemonade.  If we dwell on the levity of a situation, it can mess with our heads and make us worse off than what the situation actually is, and it is also where we risk doing something dumb because we want to do God's job and fix things ourselves, thus creating a bigger mess.  For instance, there are some people who, in their financial desperation, turn to things like these online cash advances (I never did, because to be honest reading those pages for those things gives me a headache) and then end up in a worse mess later than they were in before.  Some people I have heard have even taken out twenty of those things at once, creating thousands of dollars of unnecessary debt (they would be good candidates for President, based on the performance of our current leader in that regard!) and digging themselves a deeper hole than before.   All of this comes from putting unnecessary obsessive energy into the problem itself and more or less giving that problem more worship than we give God - that, people, is a sin, and that sin is idolatry!  Lest you differ, think about the priority you give your problems versus the time you spend in Bible study or prayers, and think about what gets neglected as well - your other responsibilities, your family, etc.  And, that leads to the next important life lesson I have learned.

If you are put in a situation where you are unemployed, incapacitated, or otherwise inhibited, it is a good idea to focus on some stuff to keep that obsession from controlling your life.  Of course, it should be taken as a time to maybe build upon your relationship with God - you have the time to spend in meaningful devotional practices, so take advantage of that!  Additionally, there are all those projects you have been unable to touch for maybe years, so channel some of that energy into those - things such as genealogy, cooking, a building project, etc., will make your life more meaningful when threats of unemployment or physical disability are there.   Granted, if your financial situation is affected, you may have limits, but that is where you use the brain God gave you for good - use what you have!  You will find that if you keep yourself busy and fulfilled, you are more at peace and God will have the freedom to work behind the scenes to help your situation better.  

There are two things also you need to seek for during a trial like that, as they are the root answer to your prayers for provision.  They are as follows:

1.  Restoration

2.  Stabilization

Maybe not necessarily in that order, but these two things are what we all strive for, and they are not usually going to be instantaneous.  However, they are in God's will - God is in the restoration business, as that is what salvation is all about remember!   And, through restoration comes stability in all areas of life.  You can, and should, pray for those things, and also for a season of protection against the enemy's attacks, especially if you are still healing up.   And, although they may not happen overnight, God's promises in His Book are true, and we need to definitely stand on those and believe for them - one promise is Phillipians 4:19 - God supplying our needs according to His riches in glory.   This is not "blab and grab" theology, but we definitely do need to trust in God's provision, and He will do what He said He would do, but that doesn't include "greeds!"  For instance, if you need transportation, God is not going to necessarily give you a Beemer in your driveway - instead, He may open the door for you, as He did for us a few years back, to get a reliable, affordable vehicle to get you where you need to go.  These TBN preachers really tick me off to that regard because they often spout such nonsense as "God wants us all to prosper," which of course He does, but the twist in their interpretation that makes this into a heresy is that apparently they feel it necessary to tell people that we are all meant to be millionaires or something - hogwash!!   First of all, if that were true, then why aren't the parking lots of their megachurches filled with BMW's and Rolls Royces??  Secondly, how many of us actually need a million bucks, seriously??  I know a lot of us would like a million or two in our bank accounts, but I think the majority of us could manage without it.  When God says He will supply our needs, He does that for us - sometimes it may take a little time to do it, but He will come through.  He knows, for instance, you need income to pay your bills, and that you need the roof over your head, food in your belly, clothes on your back, and other necessities, and He will take care of that.  I cannot tell you how many times in the past when, at the most vulnerable time, God has sent people into our path who have given us a little cash to meet a pressing need when we were lacking, and at one point in time I remember even getting a check from a church in California I didn't know from Adam that provided an electric bill payment when we were short back during my college years. 

That just goes to show that if you take into account what I have said, God then has the liberty to work in your situation. I have often found too that when pressed with a situation, once I stop obsessing over it and get on with life, God works it out somehow.   And, as Acts 10 says, He is no respector of persons, so we are all eligible for that grace and heir to those promises. 

So much more could be said on this subject, and believe me, I have many stories that shaped the words you have just read that I could share in detail if time permitted.  However, you have your own situations in life too that likewise you could relate, and who's to say some of you haven't already figured this out!  Any rate, this was not meant to be a Bible teaching or anything like that, but rather a testimonial of my own experience, although definitely it is the abridged version.   My hope is that it can help someone reading it to be encouraged that God is still sovereign, He does still provide, and His promises are meant for all who trust in them.   God bless until next time.

Mr. Beecher

There are those people you come across in life that just really stand out, and then the real joy is getting to know these individuals as your friends.   In many cases, people like this are often people who either share a common interest, or they are part of an area you are interested in.  Back in 1995, when I was still in college and working at Carpenter's Home Estates in Lakeland, FL, I met one of these individuals who still to this day is someone I will always remember.  So, today, I want to tell you a little about this person.

Gene Beecher was a skinny little fellow who talked a lot, had some radical ideas, and at times could shock some of the people with a more conventional outlook at Carpenter's Estates.  It was really odd how he ended up buying a home there anyway, as Carpenter's at that time was owned by the former Carpenter's Home Church, which back in the day (before its decline) was perhaps the biggest Pentecostal megachurch in central Florida.  At the time, I worked as a security officer there, as Carpenter's was fairly good about hiring students from our college to work, and although it paid hardly anything, it was a good gig for the time.  Although hired by the church, many of us worked at the adjacent property which was a large condominium community owned then by the church and staffed by us as far as security went.  And, a good part of the job was meeting a lot of fascinating people - I could name several I got to know, as it was fairly easy to become close with them as some were lonely and would just come down by the desk to chat or you would see them during rounds, etc.   We also had a few people from the parish Barb and I attended at the time - Christ the King, a charismatic Episcopalian church a short distance from where I worked - and we ran into them on occasion too.   But, few of them stood out as much as Gene Beecher, and as I begin to talk about him, you will see why.

Eugene Beecher, a man of many talents!

Anyone who knows me will attest to the fact that I have an avid interest in vintage big band recordings, and that being the case, it came as a bit of a pleasant surprise one night when this skinny, wizened, little old man dressed like a beatnik professsor came down to the desk and noticed I was reading George T. Simon's book The Big Bands.  He struck up a conversation about this book, and as I told him a little about my interest, he told me to look in the back of Simon's book.   For big band enthusiasts and collectors, this book is a virtual encyclopedia of practically every orchestra from the time period between the early 1900's and mid-1950's, and at the back of the book Simon has an extensive list of bands that he either didn't have the time to document in detail or had little information on.  So, when this fellow pointed me to the back of the book, I was directed to that section, and reading down the list, I found the name "Gene Beecher" among the orchestra leaders, and lo and behold, I was actually talking to this guy!  Turns out that Gene Beecher - known in his day as the leader of what was called a "Mickey Mouse" orchestra, meaning he played in a similar style to Lawrence Welk (Beecher claimed Welk stole the "Champagne Music" sound from him, as he claimed he was the first to use it, but that remained to be seen since another famous bandleader, Shep Fields, had a similar sound called "Rippling Rhythm" at around the same time) - was a territory band (meaning he was well-known in a certain geographical region, in his case Cleveland, OH) and he was also a childhood friend of a man who was probably one of the greatest legends of the era, Artie Shaw.   When Beecher had his orchestra, he played banjo and guitar, and his wife Lois (who at that time was still alive but suffering from serious dementia) was the "canary" (girl singer, in dance-band lingo) with the orchestra.   He also had a moniker - as did many orchestra leaders - as he billed himself as "Beecher the Music Teacher," and in that he had a similar gimmick with his orchestra as did the better-known Kay Kyser.  Although as far as I am aware no commercial recordings of his orchestra exist, a few years ago a friend of mine, Mark Caputo in Herculaneum, MO - who collects and reissues old big band broadcasts on CD (he has several hundred thousand of them!) happened to have one of Mr. Beecher's old broadcasts from 1939, and I was fortunate enough to get a copy of it from him.    Mr. Beecher was right in that he said his band sounded like Welk's or Field's, and on it he sings a little too, but what is ironic is his own taste in music - despite having what was called a "Sweet Band" in the day, Beecher was a solid fan of people like Duke Ellington and Stan Kenton, which I found paradoxical but interesting.   I suppose this came too from his close friendship with Artie Shaw, whom he chatted with once a week at least on the phone (I tried unsuccessfully to have him get me an autograph of Shaw, but it never happened as Shaw was noted for being a little moody at times with fans) up until he passed away in 2002.   Any rate, after that initial discussion with Simon's book, Mr. Beecher and I had a lot of nightly talks, and it made going to work a joy for a long time.

An advertisement for Mr. Beecher's orchestra from the 1930's - Gene is at the upper left of the page.

As I mentioned, Carpenter's Estates was a retirement condo, and that being said it is also worth mentioning that Mr. Beecher at the time was in his late 80's, although he was very sharp and vibrant.   Although he had never attended college, the man could be called a true intellectual due to the fact he was well-read, and he kept up with a lot of things.  Although I didn't see eye-to-eye with him on politics or religion (he was considered by many of his neighbors, many of whom were conservative Pentecostal Christians, to be an oddball because he called himself a "Zen master," although it was doubtful he actually practiced that - he did that to repel the more over-zealous religious people), he was a fascinating individual with a good heart and we discussed a lot of music.  As a matter of fact, many of us guys who were working security got to know him pretty well, and with a couple of the other guys he also discussed philosophy and art.  Speaking of art, I should mention that for a bit.  When Mr. Beecher retired to Florida I believe in the early 1980's, he took up painting as a hobby, and painted in a style known in the art community as "Naive Art," which was in a similar vein to the late artist Grandma Moses.  This type of art is impressionistic, Dali-esque in that it was a little odd-looking to the untrained eye, but it had a following.  After Mr. Beecher passed away in 2002, his paintings cornered an art market and they are today worth thousands.   Lucky for me, I was able to obtain one, as Mr. Beecher gave me one himself - it is a picture of a creature that looks like a yellow six-legged cat or something.  His son, whom he called "Inky," still manages the propagation of his art today, and I believe personally that was a good thing - if art with that type of value is to be managed, it should be by a family member, and "Inky" Beecher has done well in preserving his father's legacy from his base in New Jersey. 

Although I eventually left Carpenter's upon graduation from college, I still kept in touch with Mr. Beecher up until the time of his passing, although we mostly talked by phone.  In the last couple of years of his life, he had grown somewhat frail, and had to go to assisted living over in what was called the Villa, a part of the Carpenter's complex that provided assisted care for residents that couldn't care as well for themselves.   when he passed away, he was about 92 or 93 years of age if I recall, and he had lived a long, full, and satisfying life.  I still miss him to this day, but fortunately I have many good memories of him as well as even one of his paintings and recordings of his orchestra.   It was truly a blessing to get to know Eugene Beecher as a person as well as a veteran orchestra leader, and I count it as a blessing - few individuals impact me personally like that, and he was one of those definitely.  May he rest in peace, and may his legacy always continue to be celebrated.  

Mama Fazool

There are those people in your life that you encounter that leave an impression, and in some cases it is a mixed impression - you love them and want to strangle them at the same time.  Such is the case with someone we know from years ago, a 92-year-old lady by the name of Frances Williams, whom we affectionately nicknamed "Mama Fazool." (more on that momentarily)

In 2004, we attended a small independent church in Dunedin, FL, called Holy Apostles Catholic Charismatic Church.  It was not a Roman Catholic parish, but was part of a small independent jurisdiction called the Catholic Charismatic Church of Canada, which is made up of former Roman Catholics who wanted to also exercise a Pentecostal spirituality.  The group has a handful of parishes in the US, and one of those was about 30 minutes from where we lived at the time.  Their bishop, Bill (Bishop Angelo) Nicolaro, was a former Italian-American Roman Catholic deacon and New Jersey native who had graduated from the Cursillo program back when the charismatic movement was strong in the Roman Church, and feeling a calling to shepherd, he was spurned by the powers-that-be in the local Roman Church (something many of us know something about!) and therefore sought Holy Orders from Patriarch Andre Barbeau, who was the spiritual head of the Catholic Charismatic Church at that time.  Being the CCC believed in the Ignatian model of ministry, it allowed its clergy to be married, and thus Bishop Angelo was able to eventually be consecrated a bishop, and in true fashion as an Ignatian-model bishop, he remained pastor of the parish as well.   "Father Bill," as we called him, was also assisted by another priest, Fr. Larry Upham (a former Episcopalian) and Deacon Mark Bryan, a practicing attorney by trade, and Deacon Donald Staley, who like myself was from a Pentecostal background.  A spiritually-expressive group, Holy Apostles Parish would be a church home for us for a couple of years, and it was there we met an eccentric octegenarian Italian lady by the name of Frances Williams, and this is now her story.

The one and only "Mama Fazool," Frances Williams.

Although "Williams" was not a very Italian-sounding name, Frances was widowed, and her late husband was a non-Italian.   A native of Binghamton, NY, she was very vocal and proud about her Italian heritage, which she expressed mostly in her cooking, and in particular her homemade pasta e fagioli, which she considered her signature dish.  And, that is how she got her nickname, Mama Fazool.    In reality, any stereotypes about Italian ladies all being great cooks though was shattered by Mama Fazool - in reality, she was not that great a cook, but we humored her a lot as she was an old lady.   For a "foodie" like myself, she was a little too sloppy with her cooking for my taste (canned beans in the pasta e fagioli, for one), and oftentimes she could cook some downright nasty stuff - she bragged, for instance, about putting pigs' feet, beef tripe, and chicken lips, among other things, into her pasta sauce.  She also suggested, on one occasion, that we could get creative with our Thanksgiving leftovers - including the turkey trimmings, stuffing, and even the cranberry sauce! - by dumping it all into a pot and making a soup out of it (we graciously declined that suggestion by the way - yuck!).   To her credit though, she actually did have a gift for baking, and she created some really delicious cookies, most notably her homemade pizzelles (a type of light waffle-like cookie, usually flavored with vanilla, chocolate, lemon, or aniseseed, that was prepared on a special type of iron heating appliance).   I personally wouldn't mind having the recipe for those for my food blog, to be honest!  You can buy pizzelles in the store, and while they are good, the homemade ones are much more tasty.  Anyway, her cooking was part of the story, as there are so many more things to tell about her.

Let's see - where do we begin??  Ah yes - Mama Fazool was the consummate opportunist, and if she could take advantage of a free car trip, she would.   A typical outing with her usually involved hitting practically every thrift store, yard sale, and garbage pile on the side of the road she would encounter, and that led to a couple of amusing situations with her.  One day - I think we were coming back from church, and we took her that day as her usual ride, her neighbor Pat Savage, was out of town - we were passing on Alternate 19 in downtown Dunedin, FL, when Mama Fazool just happened to see a yard sale that got her attention.   Mind you, if you saw this woman's small apartment, it would be easy to conclude that the last thing she needed was more junk, as she had bric-a-brac all over the place in her house.   So, like a little kid seeing the  entrance to the Chuckie Cheese, she started hollering "OOH! OOH! OOH!" and of course my dear wife Barb, who is a sucker for this stuff, had to stop.   We get out, and Mama Fazool is flitting from table to table of this thing as fast as her walker could take her, until she happens upon this metal container.  She is picking this thing up, looking at it, and this look comes in her eyes and then she says it - "This would store a lot of cookies!"  However, upon looking at it, I asked her, "You do know what that is, right?"  "Well yes - it's a cookie jar!"  "Um no..." I respond.  "That is an urn for someone's cremains."   Being a superstitious old guinea (this is a woman who performs a spell every New Years Eve to exorcise the "evil eye" out of her house, as well as religiously reading horoscopes, etc.) the urn went back on the table and nothing more was pursued concerning it.   I don't think the idea of snicker-doodles coated with someone's charred spleen appealed to her either, thank goodness!

Her exploits at Mass were also legendary.  Fr. Bill loved to razz her, as she often set herself up for some friendly banter, and he like most of us loved the crazy old bitty.   Some of the other church folk though didn't take her exploits as lightly though, including her neighbor and weekly ride, Pat Savage.  Pat was a very devout lady, former charismatic Baptist, who was also a retired school teacher and thus she could be pretty straight-laced.   However, Pat was also one of the most sincere people I had ever met, and she lived her faith, although if people didn't understand or know here they could easily get the impression she was uppity.  Pat was also very intelligent, and she taught a ladies' Bible study that later expanded to include all the adults who wanted to participate, and she did a capable job of it.  On one occasion, she wanted the class members to say a few words about some Biblical prophets she assigned to each person.  Mama Fazool was assigned Jonah, and of course to "help" her out she came over to our house and we showed her that VeggieTales movie Jonah, which although cute (who doesn't love talking vegetables after all, right?) was not exactly the version Pat was looking for.  So, when it came time for Mama to give her little presentation, she told people about how God punished the people of Nineveh by slapping them upside the head with mackerels, and that Jonah was cursed for his disobedience by being turned into an asparagus and getting eaten by a vegan whale.  If only my Old Testament professor, Dr. Jerry Lee, were alive, he would be rolling over in his grave over that one!  And, Pat almost went to her grave over it, as Mama Fazool almost gave the poor woman a stroke!  It was obvious her Bible knowledge was minimal, for although she knew there was somebody named Jonah in the Bible, she didn't know where he was in there or much else beyond that.  But, it was a funny story regardless.   Plus, I think on the trip home that day she learned a little something, as Pat gave her a talking-to.

Mama Fazool in front of the sanctuary at Holy Apostles in Dunedin, FL.

A third story took place on the weekend of my 35th birthday in November 2004.  Anyone who knows me knows that I love Persian and other Middle Eastern food, and Clearwater has a restaurant called the Mirage Grill that serves some of the best.  When Barb asked me where I wanted to have my birthday dinner, of course I said the Mirage, and I wanted Mama Fazool to come with me.   That turned out to be an experience in more ways than one!  For one thing, I got put on the spot by the live entertainment, a belly dancer, and I was a little embarrassed (although I can laugh at it now though!).  But, then there was Mama Fazool - she really got into the spirit of things when she was doing a sort of convalescent conga/bunny hop with her walker and the belly dancer, tooting the horn on the walker as she went.   That is one of those occasions when a video camera would have come in handy.  Then she started waving around her hanky to the beat of the music, which caught the attention of a seventy-something-year-old Coptic man at the next table - I explained to her that by waving that hanky in some Middle Eastern cultures, she was saying she was open for marrying.  Upon telling Fr. Bill about it the next day, he asked how many camels we could have traded her for, as he got a big kick out of it too.  

All-in-all, I have a lot of fond memories of this old crazy Italian, as she was a lot of fun and also had a giving nature.  However, she could also drive you crazy, as she was as mentioned earlier the consummate opportunist.   One night at an Albertson's - mind you, this was at 10 at night too! - she spent 45 minutes haggling over a pack of wieners with a bag boy, and she would also make odd requests like asking someone to take her to pick up underdrawers for her son, who was in his 50's, disabled, and lived fairly close to her.   However, she was definitely never dull to be around, and she loved life.  In time, we lost touch with her, although I learned that she had moved up to North Carolina with her daughter.  She is now 92, very much alive, and probably driving her daughter as crazy as she drove everyone else, yet she was someone you couldn't help but love either.   May she live to be a hundred and cook enough pasta e fagioli and pizzelles to feed all of North Carolina.

What the Week Holds

I regret that I may not be able to write as much, being I am starting back to graduate school and in a month and a half I will be focusing on learning theological Greek, which should keep me busy for a while.  Therefore, I am writing more now to take up the slack that will be happening in due time, so hope you don't mind a few more frequent posts.

Graduate school - that was something that was long in coming.  It is hard to believe it has been 16 years since I got my Bachelor's, and I really wanted to by this point have my graduate work out of the way.  However, over the past several years I had gotten seriously sidetracked, and it wasn't the greatest thing to happen honestly.   Talk about feeling like a proverbial "fish out of water," I surely did!  As I have been looking back on it recently, I have had to ask myself, "what on earth happened??"  I have to be honest now as I write this - 46 jobs in 20 years is not a great track record, yet unfortunately that has been mine.  Of course, objectively many of those have been limited contract positions for me, but still - I often have the feeling that I have not accomplished a lot, and I do get bothered by that on occasion.   And, also quite honestly, I hate the corporate world, especially the larger companies who often treat their employees like commodities to be terminated and traded at will.   This happened fairly recently when a large corporation I was contracted with just cut me loose without as much as a chance - they encouraged us, of course, to ask questions, but when you do ask about something, the management sees it as a sign of weakness and that you are a "weak link" in their chain or something - I mean, seriously, God forbid the CEO loses a few stock points because you had the audacity to ask a question so you could perform your duties more effectively!!  I have said it for years, and continue to say it - corporate executives are from an entirely different universe in many cases than the rest of us, and they cannot face the possibility that people have limitations and may need a little help on occasion.  Of course, these are the same people that also would sell their own mother to increase their accounts, as it seems as if their only motivating factor is greed.   Greed has many temples these days, and its Vatican is Wall Street.   Corporate America is a petri dish for the "grand experiment" of social Darwinism, and has been for at least two centuries.  Of course, I have bellyached about this before, so I won't belabor the point, except to say that if I had my way, there would be no Fortune 500 corporations - I would disband them all and encourage small business instead, as the quality of both the service and the product is so much better.  However, we will save that for another discussion.

I guess a disclaimor is in order here too - my comments above, lest they be misconstrued, in no way advocate support for the "Occupy Wall Street" movement, and here is why.  While I can appreciate one aspect of OWS fighting against corporate greed, the problem with them is that they are just a rehashed hippie movement and they want to demand to get something for nothing - in other words, they want to exchange Corporate America for Big Brother (ie: big centralized government), and that is going from bad to worse.   Small government and small business are the way to go, and NO ONE should inhibit anyone from the pursuit of legitimate wealth, nor should the government tax people to death to steal their wealth either.   OK, NOW we are done with the subject!

Anyway, back to graduate school.  I feel like I am in for an adjustment concerning that, but it is an adjustment I am ready to take because it is long overdue.   And, I definitely have my work cut out - this is the first of two Masters degrees I will be working on.   I love research, and am one of those people that just has to keep my mind active.  Over the past several years, a part of me has felt incomplete as a result, but once I got that acceptance letter from my school it brought so much back into focus.  I haven't quite figured out the direction I need to go yet with all of this, but I am sure at the right times things will begin to unfold. 

That being said, I will go for now and leave you with these thoughts for the week, but I will surely return later.  Have a good week all.

Romney - The Lesser of Two Evils

The 2012 elections are a pivotal event this year, as much is at stake.  Many of us of a more conservative persuasion are wanting Obama out, and the thrust of the election this year seems to be more on getting Obama out than picking the right alternative candidate.   And, to the reluctance of many of us - Republicans and independents alike - it looks like Romney is going to be our man.

Mitt Romney is not my first choice of candidate, but being we have a two-party system it seems like in this country, he is the best option mainly because he is the proverbial "lesser of two evils."   Although he is too centrist to be conservative unfortunately, nonetheless he does have conservative backing and it is hoped that the backing he is getting will exert some influence on the way he does things if he is elected.   Some of my fellow conservatives have tried to oppose him because he is Mormon, but I do not think this is a valid reason.  We are, after all, electing a President, and not nominating the pastor of our local church, so that makes little difference.  

I additionally would give my support to Romney because despite any issues, he is at least native-born - no one can be all that sure about Obama at this point, being he lied about his last birth certificate.   And, contrary to a lot of accusations flying around from the Left out there, our opposition to Obama has nothing to do with his skin color - it must be understood that it is politics and not pigmentation that we have issue with.  Personally, I voted for Alan Keyes in the last election, who is also Black.   That being said,  let me summarize why we need to rally around someone who has a chance to get Obama out of office for good. 

We do need a change, but not the "change" Obama proposed as that has been for the worst.  Rather, we need positive change, a return of someone like Ronald Reagan who can restore this nation's greatness.  Whether Romney is up to the task or not remains to be seen, but for now he may be all we have.  Therefore, vote for change in the White House first, and then change in the nation will follow. 


by YourLocalSecurity.com

Of Roots, Place, and Making Do

Being laid off has given me some time recently to catch up on my reading, and subsequentially it has afforded me time to read some books I haven't been able to read for some time due to busy schedules.   I have been reading more recently, thanks in part to some challenging debates from some friends and also due to the mess the Martin/Zimmerman case has stirred up recently, about some facts on Southern history that I found interesting, and as I do so I am starting to realize that maybe the "official" version of history is not the correct one, as often facts are left out in favor of "political correctness" to appease the powers-that-be.   However, I am not going to talk about that today (although I do think it a worthy subject for later) but rather about being put back in touch with some of my own roots.

Many of you who know my story know I am half-Southern - the Thrower side of my family is originally from Crenshaw and Butler Counties in Alabama, although their deeper roots take them back to South Carolina.   For many years, I had bought into the stereotype of White Southerners and for a long time in my younger days I was even ashamed of those roots.  As I got older though, I realized some things as I read more a grew up a little.  I regret that shame I felt, as it was a slap in the face to many of my ancestors, who were noble people with a rich history behind them that I have been able to trace back many generations.  And, to my Southern side of the family, I hope you will accept my humble apologies, for after getting to know many of them, I have come to see them as godly, patriotic, and loving folks who share a lot in common with me in conviction and outlook.  I have also come to appreciate small-town Southern culture better as well, as there is something comforting and enchanting about it that many who slam it miss out on.   Being half-Southern is not something I am ashamed of any longer, but I am actually proud of it now - it is truly a great heritage to have!

At one point too, I was actually ashamed of my Appalachian roots as well, until I moved away from home.   Regrettably, I have even told some people in the past I was from western Maryland rather than West Virginia, and as I look back on that too, I realize that was very stupid of me - I mean, I loved my hometown and where I grew up, and have nothing to be ashamed of!  So, in a change of heart over the past several years, I am proud to also call myself a West Virginian, and don't care who knows it.   And, God help the citified idiot that calls me or any other fellow Appalachian-American a "hillbilly" or any other stereotypes!  I honestly am getting sick and tired of being made to feel like I am less than human or something because I come from a small West Virginia town, or that my father's family is from south Alabama.   As the old axiom goes, you can take the boy out of the mountains, but you will never take the mountains out of the boy!  It is just too bad that it takes many years for some of us to fully appreciate it. 

A lot of my earlier shame about having Southern roots came from my dad, with whom I have never gotten along.  My father does tend to be a little short-sighted on things, and he does have prejudices and other hang-ups - I have to be honest - that put me off a lot.  Plus, he and I have never really gotten along all that well:  I mean, he is my dad and I love him, but he also can be a bit closed-minded about some things.  My mistake though over the years was making the rest of his side of the family somehow responsible for that when in reality all of the ones I have finally gotten to know are not even close to being like Dad in that aspect.  As a matter of fact, I regret not being around to get to know many of them until I was almost college-age, and I felt a little cheated in that regard too.   The Thrower side of the family has turned out to be a fine group of people, and I am proud to call them my blood - they really are the best now that I have gotten to know them, and I look forward to getting closer to that side of my family now.  They also deserve a great deal of respect, as many of them have remarkable lives and stories.  Take my cousin Donnie Myrick for instance, who is my great-aunt Olene's son - I have gotten to know him over the past couple of years, and he is really a gem of a human being.  And, then there is my aunt, Dorothy Pitts - she is the baby sister of my grandfather, Melvin Thrower, and I talk to her online almost every day - she is a very sweet lady and I love her dearly.   There are other relatives too, and getting to know them is something I have looked forward to for a long time, and now it has happened.   Donnie and Aunt Dot in particular have both been telling me some interesting stories about the family, some I have never known about, and it makes me appreciate those roots more.   Even Dad, despite some major issues, has provided me some great memories - Dad does have a good side, and if only he would let his better attributes shine more, as he has the potential of doing a lot of great things still despite the fact he is in his 60's.   In short, getting to know the other half of my family has been quite a blessing, and I am grateful for that opportunity now.

If there is a moral to this whole story, it would be this - some of the best things we can have in this life are strong familial ties, and we need to foster those as early as possible in life.   Also, as a secondary moral, never be ashamed of your roots or where you come from.  Sure, the "political correct police" may try to discredit some aspects of our heritage, but the truth and facts are always there despite any type of liberal whitewashing that goes on.   As I get older, I grow sicker and less tolerant of the revisionism and whitewashing that goes on in much of what the public gets in the name of "history," as oftentimes it serves an agenda rather than telling people the whole story.   And, I am going to be speaking out more about it too, because someone has to before a bunch of rabble-rousers and bureacrats try to steal something precious from our future generations.  So, today, for those of you with Southern, Appalachian, or other roots, don't be ashamed of who you are but rather get the real story from your loved ones rather than some corrupt President in Washington or a bunch of biased media moguls out to get a fast buck from sensationalized revisionism passing off as "responsible journalism."   God bless you all until next time.

Thoughts on Struggles, Learning from the Past, and Other Related Things

Over the past month the wife and I have been through a lot of challenges - we both lost our jobs in a relatively close proximity of time, and we have had to refocus a lot of priorities and other things in order to make some sense out of what happened.   In doing so, however, I have thought about a number of things and wanted to just talk about those a little.

We are at the crossroads of a new chapter of our personal lives - I am about to start graduate school finally, and we will soon be starting new jobs and beginning the process of getting things back on course again.  The whole point of starting a new chapter, whether we think about it or not, is learning from our shortcomings from previous chapters of our lives and building upon our past successes.  No one can continue "resting on their laurels," and moving on is a necessary aspect of our life's pilgrimage.   However, it can be an intimidating prospect to face, and stepping into something new is always something that takes some adjustment.  Consider, for a moment, if you buy a goldfish from a pet store.  You don't just dump the fish out of a bag into a bowl, do you?   If you did, the fish would go into shock and possibly die.  What you do instead is you set the bag in a bowl of water, and let the water inside the fish's bag acclamate to the temperature of the water in the bowl.   We need to do the same thing - baby steps are often safer to take than huge leaps, and we adjust better with baby steps.   For those of you facing some challenges now - perhaps some of you reading this have either lost a job or started a new one, you have gotten a major purchase such as a house or a car, or you may have a baby on the way, just for a few scenarios - I encourage you to just take baby steps.  Don't try to leap ahead, but proceed at a pace that will help your adjustment to the new paradigm shift in your life be a smoother transition.  These are words of wisdom I have come to appreciate, and they do help.  That being said, I have a few reflections now I will share with you.

I have for several years now been engaged in writing down a lot of my life story, as some of you may know already, and it has been a daunting task.   It is something I will print and make a bound copy of, but many of you will never see it because it isn't meant for publication.  However, much of the material I put into these articles is drawn from that story, which I call the "master book" of my life, and although I have not shared a lot of the negative aspects, I like any other human being have had my share of upsets and unfortunate circumstances.    After some pondering, I have decided to share some of this with you today in large part due to some recent political developments, as there are some segments of our society who think everybody owes them something because of physical differences - they play the "victim" and are assaulting innocent people in the name of "justice," and what I am about to share shows that in many cases some of us have been a lot worse off than these fools, yet we don't resort to beating up innocent people and Balkanizing our nation over it.    So, it is time for you to hear a part of my story that is hard to write about, but it has a good ending - I have overcome a lot, and with the grace of God I am a better person today because of some of this stuff and perhaps there is a reason why some of it happened - my spiritual mentor, Fr. Eusebius Stephanou, has a great quote that I feel applies to my situation which goes something like this - man's disappointments are God's appointments.   And, I have had my fair share of disappointments - growing up for me was not easy, and at a certain part of my life I have had to grow up fast and may have missed out on being a kid when I was younger.  And, that is what I want to talk about now.

I mentioned I am a native of West Virginia, where I was born and raised.   I come from a pretty decent family, although they are not perfect, and my earliest years were pretty stable.  However, my parents - both Vietnam war veterans who met and married on the island of Okinawa - were not really that compatible with each other, and at an early age they divorced and I was largely raised by my mother.   My dad had very little interaction in my life - over the course of my childhood, I had seen him three times after my parents split - and as a result he and I never really got along as father and son (unfortunately, we are not on the best of terms even as I write this, due to a disagreement we had six years prior to this writing).  As for my mother, well, she did her best but she wasn't perfect either - a bad childhood for her, a bad marriage to Dad, and some other factors led her to develop a bad drinking habit when I was a kid, and for much of my childhood up until around my high school years we spent much of the time migrating between relatives - we stayed with all of my grandparents, my great-grandmother, and a couple of aunts over those years.  Most of the time, we didn't have a lot of money either, as from a period beginning in 1979 all the way up until 1986, my mother was never even employed at a regular job (she did some housecleaning and a few odd jobs for people, but that was the extent of it) and by and large we lived off food stamps and my dad's monthly child support check of $100 when I was growing up.   It was a rough existence, and oftentimes I do remember having to use safety pins to patch up holes in my clothes as well as stuffing plastic baggies into my shoes because they would often wear holes or the soles would come off.   And, we lived on a lot of food that was not the most nutritionally valuable - a lot of canned roast beef, boxed macaroni and cheese dinners, canned ravioli and soup, and in some instances I didn't get a dinner at night and had to resort to butter and saltine crackers or potato chips.   Summers were better, as fresh vegetables were readily available and people would often give us the excess in their gardens.   And, the food stamp rations at the beginning of the month helped too, as then we could eat such luxuries as chicken and cube steaks for a week or two.   My grandparents had a little more of a stable household where they lived outside of Augusta, WV, at the foot of Short Mountain, but they were not rich either - my grandmother and step-grandfather didn't have running water in their house for many years, and the "facilities" consisted of an outhouse while a woodstove provided both heat and cooking appliance provision.  They were also a little more resourceful in that my step-grandfather hunted for a lot of their meat - venison, groundhogs, squirrels, and other things that could be readily hunted in the woods were part of the fare at my grandparents' house, usually served with sides of things like wild mushrooms, poke greens, and ramps, among other things.  And, we also ate a lot of potatoes - potatoes were cheap, readily available, and in large quantities, and on some occasions a boiled potato with butter would be a full dinner of a night too.   That was essentially how I grew up.  

When I got into high school things got a little easier when Mom took a job when I was 16 taking care of a dear lady in her late 90's out on Salt Lick near Terra Alta, WV.   It was one of the best places I had ever lived to that point, and my high school years were relatively good and stable as a result.   Despite these circumstances, I managed to work hard to get a good education, went to college, married a good woman (we will soon be celebrating 20 years together), and many other great things happened over the course of the past 20 years I have been a self-supporting adult.  Adulthood has had its challenges too, but a need to survive has kept my head above water and I have always managed to overcome, with God's help, a lot of adversity even in my adult years.   And, that leads me to a point where I need to soapbox a little.

There are evil men, like Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and our current President (to name a few), who are exploiting the myth of certain people being "oppressed" when in reality they are out to stroke their own egos and cause division among people of different ethnic backgrounds in this nation.    I know what I may say here is not "politically correct," and it may be misunderstood and may even cost me some friends, but it needs to be said.   The people that the "plantation pimps" such as Jackson and Sharpton are stirring up and inciting to commit acts of violence against innocent citizens are people who by and large grew up better than I did, but they call themselves "oppressed."   Let me tell you something - these "gangstas" with their $500 shoes, thousands of dollars of expensive stereo equipment, and their expensive drug habits in many cases don't know what "oppressed" is.   Some of those idiots, with their buttcracks showing and their stupid outfits, would not know what to do if they had to use an outhouse or cook on a woodstove - I had to do both, and not out of choice either.   I had to fight my way to get jobs, a good education, and to honestly get what I have today, and didn't have to gang up on people, beating them up and causing violence, under the delusion it was "owed" to me.   As a matter of fact, it gave me the resolve to rise above it, advocate for change by making it happen in my own life, and thus I achieved many things that circumstance otherwise would not have afforded me.   Unfortunately, there are some I grew up around that didn't pursue that, and one of them is now in prison on a serious charge.  I was thinking about this particular individual one day, whose name is Randall, and realized first of all how blessed I was, and secondly my heart broke knowing that someone ended up like this.   I knew Randall's family well - they were not particularly close to us, but they lived in the same town and they were poor like us then.  Randall came from a family of five kids, and his parents were both alcoholics and very abusive to him and his siblings.  His one sister, who was developmentally handicapped, was even exploited by her own father to give sexual favors to old horny local men for money when she was a young age - it was a shame, as she was actually a pretty girl and otherwise had a sweet personality that had gotten hidden among all the crap she had in her life.   My mother was poor and drank too, but she never abused me - on the contrary, she made sure (to a degree) that I did my best in school, and that I even had some religious convictions.  Unfortunately, she was also aloof from many of my activities in school too - for instance, although I was in the high school marching band and lettered, she never came to one of my parades or concerts.   It is not for me to say what her reasoning was behind that, as she just never got involved for some reason.   That does bother me sometimes, honestly, but on the other hand she let me develop my own interests and felt that I had the freedom to do that, so I could appreciate that too as I got older.   And, although she didn't show it a lot, I know she was proud of me - the little things she did to show it said that, and on occasion (usually when she had a couple of drinks) she would actually say she was proud of me, and that encouraged me as well.  Her greatest compliment to me though was in recent years, when she told me that I reminded her a lot of my dear great-grandmother, Ottie Stevens Turner - she said I had her convictions and that I also thought and acted a lot like her.  That spoke volumes, as Granny was one of the great influences of my life and I do love and miss her a lot.   I only wish Randall and his siblings had that blessing in their lives at times, because today Randall would not be in prison.   With all the big hoo-hah over this Trayvon Martin stuff recently, I find it sickening that the color of one's skin is what gets people noticed.   There are many of us who came from poor Appalachian backgrounds that were not as blessed as Trayvon Martin was in his life, yet when something tragic happens to one of our people, it is largely ignored by the news media, as it always has been.   Some people have debated about Appalachian people being an ethnic entity within the American "melting pot," and as I get older I realize we are actually an entity - the signs of an ethnic group are a distinct culture, a body of literature, and a language - we people in the Appalachians have all that.   And, although we come from diverse origins - some are Scots-Irish, some Cherokee, some French, some German (as were my folks) and also a huge number of African-Americans and people who came over at the turn of the century to work the mines, lumber yards and railroads - we have become one people.  We in Appalachia are a microcosm of what America is supposed to be; we forged our identity as a people when others like Jesse Jackson, Jeremiah Wright, Al Sharpton, and Barack Obama are trying to divide the US over race now.   People get along in mountain communities - we know the "Code" and follow it, something wider society has forgotten for some reason.   And, although we have our Randalls, we also have our Homer Hickhams and Dolly Partons who make us proud, and we love and respect all of our people the same.  That is why Barack Obama, Jackson, Sharpton, and all these other rabble-rousers are people I cannot get - they seek to divide the nation rather than fostering unity among our people, which is what we need so desperately right now.  And, it is something I can no longer be silent about.  It is time Washington, DC, cleans up its act and maybe follows the example of the small hamlets tucked away in our mountains where I grew up - thing is though, Obama would not survive a day in someplace like Thomas, WV, or Morristown, TN, because many people would find his attitude repulsive and not indicative of the way a decent human being acts.  Even many Appalachian Blacks are put off by these hucksters, as the bureaucrats don't represent their interests either and they know - Washington needs to know that moutain people are not as dumb as they think we are!! 

I have spoken my piece about many of the issues I have been thinking about over the past several weeks as I have seen race riots fomenting due to stupid stuff, and also I have learned over the past several years more about who I am.   Yes, I grew up in a way that some might say is "disadvantaged," and it was not easy, but God used it to give me a character and standards.  Therefore, if the people committing so many acts of violence now, all "in memory of Trayvon," would actually get some character and learn to move past it and try to use something like that to bring people together rather than divide them, this nation would be a better place to live in.   Blacks and Whites, as well as other people of other backgrounds, need to mutually respect each other and appreciate the common humanity we share - however, that respect goes both ways too.  Whites are often treated as if we are the cause of the Blacks' plights, but in reality some of that plight is self-inflicted and it is time some of those people rise above it.   I did, and you have just read about my history, and if I can do it, they can too.  Question is though, although they can do it, will they??   And, that is the question I leave you with today.