Everyone Has a Story

So, I was sitting at lunch the other day with five women I'd never met before this week. Each one was accomplished in her field and that was only side of them I'd seen until lunch.

I sat there on the end and took in the conversation. One woman has been married for 16 years and is raising two small children. Another has been divorced for eight. Her husband made a series of bad choices and she had to pick up the pieces and start over without him. The woman at the end of the table was a cancer survivor. The woman next to me has been in her second marriage for two years and may not choose to have kids. The other woman talked about how she and her husband opened their home to an exchange student, who as it turned out, really needed a 'second' family.

I couldn't help but think that if we could all see each other's scars and know each other's stories, we might be kinder to each other.

-b

Repercussions

Someone made fun of me for having a slinky today.

You know who you are.

You are dead to me.

-b

Worth Day

My friend Rory told me today that they don't call them birthdays in their family. They call them "Worth Days." He said that he always wanted his children to know they were worth something.

I like that.

Today is my Worth Day. And, when I look at the volume of friends and acquaintances who took a second to send a good wish, I have to assume that I'm worth something to a few people (outside my family), at least.

That's a nice feeling.
Being worth something to somebody.

-b

Hint

My mother makes the best pumpkin bread.
I'll be home in a few weeks.

Hi, Mom.

-b

Jane Doe

Jim took Bernice for a walk around the block tonight. He came back with Bernice AND Jane Doe:


Looks like Dave's getting a dog!!!!! WooHoo!!!

-b

Elk and Dad and Jim

My Dad is a serious and avid bowhunter. He hunts with a longbow. A lifelong passion, Dad has many animals on the wall at home, all of which he got with a bow and arrow. There's a kudu, a wildebeest, a caribou. A couple of gemsbok and a really ugly wild boar, amongst a plethora of other things. There's even an antelope. Antelopes can run 40-50 miles per hour, and Dad got one with a bow and arrow.

He can't seem to get an elk, though.

Dad went to Colorado three weeks ago for another elk hunt and came back empty handed. He said it was a good hunt, but still, no elk.

Jim went to Colorado last week. Unlike Dad who has been unable to get one elk, Jim shot two. Here are the shots he got.

Shots #1 and #2:


-b

Elvis and Me and Springsteen and Jackson Browne and Tony and Gold City

When I was little, I thought my Mother knew Elvis. My Mom told me that my brother was named after Elvis because she had an affair with Elvis, but she loved my Dad more. So, she broke Elvis' heart but told him she would name her first-born son after him.

As a four year old, this made complete sense to me. As a five year old, I told it to my kindergarten class during show-and-tell. As a grown up, well, let's just say that whatever Mom needs to tell herself is just fine with me.


I got an invitation to a house concert by Jackson Browne. Do you know what I would pay to go to something like that????? Apparently, not $750. But, goodness, how amazing would that be?!?!?! I'm salivating just thinking about it. I shall use the, "Oh, I'll be out of town," excuse for the official record. Since I will be.


Tony and I were talking about the house concert today. And, then we starting talking about Springsteen who Tony will be seeing in the near future. And then about the crazy things people do to meet celebrities (should we pretend to be caterer's at the Browne concert? Is it worth a night in jail? Maybe. Aren't I too old to worry about a record?) And then he told me about Springsteen jumping the wall at Graceland to meet Elvis. And, then I Googled that story and here it is:

[Perhaps] the most famous incident of wall jumping occurred one night in 1976. Bruce Springsteen, who was enjoying the first rush of great fame and had just played Memphis on his Born to Run tour, decided to catch a cab to Graceland. Noticing a light on up at the house, he climbed the wall and ran to the front door. As he was about to knock, Security interceded. He recalls asking, “Is Elvis home?.” Answer: “No, Elvis isn’t home, he’s in Lake Tahoe.” (It was true.) Springsteen attempted to impress the guards by telling all about his being a recording star and his having recently made the covers of Time and Newsweek, as he was politely escorted to the street. (Perhaps they didn’t believe him or hadn’t heard of him yet.) Years later in a concert, he told the story and commented:

"Later on, I used to wonder what I would have said if I had knocked on the door and if Elvis had come to the door. Because it really wasn’t Elvis I was goin’ to see, but it was like he came along and whispered some dream in everybody’s ear and somehow we all dreamed it. And maybe that’s why we’re here tonight, I don’t know. I remember later when a friend of mine called to tell me that he’d died. It was so hard to understand how somebody whose music came in and took away so many people’s loneliness and gave so many people a reason and a sense of all the possibilities of living could have in the end died so tragically. And I guess when you’re alone, you ain’t nothin’ but alone. So anyway, I’d like to do this song for yous [sic] tonight, wishing you all the longest life with best of absolutely everything."

I did something adventurous once, too. My first cut after I moved to Nashville was in the late 90's with a southern gospel group called Gold City. They were singing at a concert at the Municipal Auditorium in Nashville. My brother was visiting and we wanted to hear them do the song live (I'd not heard their version yet.) We were too poor to pay the concert ticket fee (what? $15?), so we went down, found the freight entrance to the Auditorium, and walked in with the stage deliveries. We were so rebellious.

Because I'm Just.That.Cool.
Sigh...

-b